How about all those guys who got big bonuses for driving the US economy off a cliff? They weren’t rewarded by a government bureacracy. They were lavishly overpaid by a private one. How is that reconciled with your free market philosophy?

It doesn’t take much to get your goat, TB, or cook your goose, for that matter. It’s no longer a question of arguing socialism vs capitalism, the issue now is whether your political views are even consistent with capitalism. That’s what scares you about the essayists I’ve been quoting: not that they are attacking your ideology, but that they are showing those you defend have no respect for it.

You aren’t defending a political or economic position, you’re trying to obscure the fact you no longer have either. All you can do is wave the flag, quote the Founders, daydream about Heinlein and Rand, and mine Cato and Heritage for intimidating and irrelevant statistics.

Your philosophy is degenerate, in the Marxist sense, not the moralistic one. Not only does it adhere to questionable principles, it is no longer even capable of following its own principles.

Get serious, TB. Simplistic answers that may have worked 200 years ago won’t do any more than shoving hay into a car’s gas tank will work.

You can do a thought experiment with a “mutualist” grocery store if you like.

Look, you stuck your hand on a hot stove in the “Corporate Libertarianism” thread because you were trying to get my goat, and you burned it. Now you’re stuck defending ideological lunacy, waving pictures of Chomsky at me instead of ducks. Let it go.

How many corporations and businesses are there in this country? Think about it.

Or do Charles Manson and Jack the Ripper prove all men are murderers?

I doubt Constitutions and corporate bylaws are consistent with what Carson and Chomsky are talking about.

I’m not saying those are all good, or bad, I’m just saying that they have solved that problem for themselves.

Now go away with the “who decides” nonsense. It sounds good, and has been solved.

(I started out by saying “Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral imperative. I have a vested interest here which I’ll present as a moral imperative.” The entire committee roared.)

Anyway, I asked for money for another enforcement officer. I said it’s not to punish the employers who do not follow the standards. Another enforcement officer is needed to allow those employers who do live up to the laws you pass to compete fairly against those who don’t.

That was the only budget increase for the Bureau of Labor they approved that year.

A “free market” needs a level playing field. And there will always be people who chisel. That means some regulation.

Would have worked even 200 years ago, not now I’m afraid. Great idea whose time has passed.

There already is a “centralized control system”. It’s called the Marketing Department. You do know what marketing is, don’t you? The art of getting people to buy things they don’t need and can’t afford, preferably with money they haven’t earned yet.