Long Live Pure Capitalism- rant!

[HappySqurriel]

mai said:

HappySqurriel said:

The government has a role in a capitalistic economy, but that role is mostly to act as a referee to ensure that abusive and dangerous practices are limited/eliminated and that all individuals have equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, the vast expansion of the government into the economy actually increases the abusive and dangerous practices, and often creates artificial and arbitrary barriers that limits some groups opportunity.

State-driven and more or less free market economic measures are merely tools that might or might not help is certain situations (e.g. F.D.Roosevelt's New Deal), while you seem to describe them as absolutely 'good' or 'bad' in any given situation. Shovel is good for digging, pickaxe for mining.

In reality, the vast majority of state intervention in the economy is like hooking up generators to the wheels of a car to create energy to power the car. In other words, they are not "tools" that could ever work because you have to make several incorrect assumptions in your model to argue their viability.