I particularly like the idea of people fleeing Europe because there was too damn much economic freedom over there.

Want to try for a hat trick?

There was revolution throughout Europe in 1849, and they weren’t revolting against any shortages of capitalists, read up on the Paris Commune. There was the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870s and widespread conscription was in place. Europe was a cesspool of poverty and depression and war, due precisely to the stresses of rapid industrialization, urban crowding, colonial rivalry and the excesses of its capitalists.

America was at peace except for the Civil War, and expanding into the Western Frontier. That’s why people came during the 19th century. The country was exploding industrially and geographically, and it was underpopulated. There was free land, and soon, a railroad to take you there. That’s why we were hiring here. Look at the chart. When did the Frontier close, the 1890s? Just about the time immigration started to naturally decline.

BTW, the word you wanted was “zenith”, not “nadir”, of unrestraint. The robber barons essentially had a license to steal.

You are also neglecting to factor in the effects of two world wars, the depression, and most important, the anti-immigrant legislation of the 1920s. That is why immigration falls “under control” after those years and settles down to a steady growth on a per capita basis. The New Deal had nothing to do with it, and I never claimed it did. THe social reforms I mentioned followed the Gilded Age, and were made necessary because of it.

Go back and reread that Teddy Roosevelt Square Deal speech again. You might believe him, he was a Republican. The term “Gilded Age” is deliberately ironic. For most immigrants and industrial workers, it was hell. I know, my grandparents came here in the early years of the 20th century. Cuba was recovering from its revolutionary war, it was devastated. It’s the only reason they came.

It’s instructive that this period of time in the U.S. is considered the absolute nadir of unrestrained private enterprise.

Compare to the nadirs of unrestrained government power.

Take note of the immigration rates.

Tell me again what brought them here. Doesn’t seem to have been the New Deal.

You want to take us back before that time. Every single reform that has made us prosperous and secure has been bitterly opposed, sometimes violently, by the so-called entrepreneurial class and their pathetic misguided wannabees.

I don’t want to go back to the Gilded Age. I don’t trust those people. It’s that simple.

The Dictatorship of the CEO, something that has never really existed outside of science fiction.

Dictatorships of government? A bit more common, aren’t they?

Amazing how much history you have to skip over to maintain your worldview. You basically stop at the mid-1800s. Kind of reminds me of my kids’ history classes in school. I suspect the Twentieth Century raises too damn many questions about the ideologies so popular with our educational establishment.

Ironically, successful centralized control of a complex economy is much harder than it is for a primitive one.

I can see what kind of societies work, and I can see what kind of societies don’t. So can anyone who bothers to look. The hard truth is that liberty is not divisible.

It’s also obvious that there’s no upper limit to the amount of state control a “progressive” will find sufficient. I’ve asked many times, where’s the middle ground? Where is it enough? Where is that middle line, that “moderate” space?

It never will be enough. Even Soviet-style states think that everything will improve if they just squeeze the iron fist a little bit tighter.

Nobody can name one single major Democratic Party idea or policy that does NOT involve more power and wealth accruing to a central authority, and less power, wealth, and choice for individuals.

Not one.

I found it ironic that Bowser was nostalgic about the 1960s, back when the government was a quarter the size it is now, and economic controls far less. Wonder if that occurred to him.

I remember the thread discussing that guy’s article about how everything was going to hell nowadays because we didn’t have as much government as we had back in the halcyon days. I pointed out that in every case he mentioned, there actually was more government involvement, spending, and control now than there was back then. Correcting for inflation, even. “More government equals better living” was false.

That observation didn’t go over well here, either.

Maybe my “ideal society” hasn’t existed yet. Hint: It isn’t a “zero government” society. But sure as hell a lot of totalitarian regimes have existed. All of them justifying themselves by saying you just can’t make things work unless the rulers have more power.

I know which direction I’d like to be moving on your “multidimensional manifold,” and which places I’d like to avoid. How about you?

You cannot have a system based on decentralization that financially rewards consolidation. You cannot expect there to be no political power, only economic power, and realistically expect that economic power will not be used to subvert the smaller, weaker, competitor; even if he is more efficient. Without a counterweight, economic power will concentrate at the top, it always has, it always will. It leads either to monopoly, or an oscillation between boom and bust. Free markets are inherently unstable, like a cone balanced on its point.

Even in a situation like our founders faced, with vast empty stretches of wilderness unclaimed and empty, ready-made for the freeholder, the large plantation or farm dominated for all market driven commodities like tobacco. Only where there was no major cash crop involved because the land was unsuitable could the small, self-contained family farm actually be a money making proposition. Even in Europe, mercantilism ruled, their world was all carved up and the freeholder was no longer in charge. He never was, actually. In agriculture we went directly from feudal baronies and serfs to great family estates with sharecroppers. And when industry came pretty much the same thing happened. Remember, your ideal society has never existed, anywhere, any time.

North America was very lucky, geographically and demographically. In South America it was family corporate power (feudalism) from day one, the latifundias, great plantations, a term borrowed not from Spanish, but from Latin. It was how Ancient Rome ran her agricultural economy. If slavery had been profitable in 1600s New England we would all live in Brazil.

We don’t live in a rural eighteenth century environment any more, as you love to point out to our enginneering Luddites here. But neither do we live in an economic pastoral garden either. The world is different, it is complex, and if we really want to enjoy the benefits of capitalism, we can’t afford to be social and economic Luddites either.

The world of Jefferson and Heinlein no longer exists, it can’t exist. In fact, it never really existed, as I have pointed out to you before. Even our post-colonial democratic entrepreneurial community was based on slavery, low populations, vast lands stolen from the aborigines, and a local, self-contained economy based primarily on muscle, wind and water power. The railroad and the telegraph made that impossible, right about the time the frontier closed forever.

Capitalism works, we need it. But we can’t let it run wild. As soon as the power starts to titrate, to precipitate out of solution into isolated crytals of domination, the small firms will get swallowed up and the big ones will consolidate. If we want the benefits of a free market we must make sure it can’t be taken over by the monopolies and the oligarchs.

This won’t be easy, and it may not even be fully possible. But you are going to have to get used to the idea that even those who agree with you in principle may not share your ideas on how its going to work out in practice.

For starters, you’re going to have to understand that the opposite of Libertarianism is not Statism, the opposite of Capitalism is not Socialism, and the opposite of slavery is not the free market. These are only three dimensions in a multidimensional manifold, and navigating it to a point (or line, or surface, or volume) that is best for as many of us as possible is not going to an easy, or a perfect process. And you will be faced by many who are just as smart and just as conscientious and patriotic as you are who simply will not agree with how you have decided we should go about it.

That’s politics. You can’t tell me how it should be, your’re going to have to persuade me, or you’re just going to have to meet me half way.

It is critical to understand that a free and competitive society is not about creating perfect people or eliminating crime and corruption. It’s about keeping things decentralized, and using self-interest to stabilize the system instead of destabilize it. To limit the damage that can be done.

There are damn few private monopolies in our history that were not enforced, or even created, by government influence and government restraint of trade. The previous examples of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stand out here. Monopolies created by the government with powers and privileges unavailable to others. The results speak for themselves.

Maybe there aren’t guns pointed at people’s heads, but that’s not the right metaphor. If you don’t want ants, stop pouring honey all over the ground.

Another prevailing philosophy seems to be that if we just give enough raw political power to the people we like, they’ll keep the people we don’t like from doing bad things, and everything will be great. The list of “good guys” and “bad guys” varies, of course, with the person, which is only one of the many flaws of that idea.

I think, given the record of history, my view is more realistic.

You can’t blame the regulators for not having enough regulation at the same time you’re complaining that there is too much regulation.

It is the very nature of politics and business that they attract criminal types, and they generate an environment conducive to criminal activity. This, in turn attracts lawyers.

I respect the political arts, the noble entrepreneur, and the institution of the law, but I’m a grown-up about it. I don’t wax poetically about the ideology, that’s a lie for middle school civics class.

But what does that say about that noble entrepreneurial ethic the Right is always mooning about? They all have the morality of arms merchants, even if they aen’t selling weapons at all.