If
the hand that rules the marketplace is attached to a "visible" human being
exercising political governance or corporate governance, then the free market
cannot function. Austrians and
libertarians decry market interference by the visible hand of political
governments, but they are blind to the equally powerful and equally "interfering"
hands of corporate government.
If
"economic management" is the problem and "market forces" are the solution, then
human governance is a problem whether the manager calls himself a "politician"
or a "CEO". Hank Paulson manages
Goldman Sachs as "CEO", then he manages the US Treasury Department as
"Secretary". Is Hank a virtuous
free market actor at GS, and he suddenly morphs into an evil distorter of
markets at Treasury? It's the same
guy in both roles, all you "free market" folks out there. Get real. NEITHER GS nor the US
Treasury Department are "free market" actors. They are both large scale corporate managed economies.
Jeff
Rock correctly points out that allowing these monolithic corporate enterprises "free
rein" in a free market populated by nation-size giants, is the death of
free markets and economic survival for us non-corporate people and our small independent
enterprises. Should Hank Paulson as Treasury Secretary be "freed" from
democratic government oversight and control? Should Hank Paulson as CEO of Goldman be freed from the laws
and regulations of the representative government of the US of A? Removing government
"interference" does not open up a free market. It merely
replaces democratic government with government by giant corporations and their
political enablers, which is plutocracy, not liberty.
Small
businesses absolutely lack the resources to operate in a "global
economy", so a globalized economy is populated by nation size
transnational corporations rather than by free market actors, and these
companies (and their political allies) effectively make their own rules in the
nations in which they operate.
Citizens United recognized that corporations have become the "people"
who populate the modern plutocratic world. Us human beings and our independent businesses are the ants
that get carelessly squashed when giant predators roam the Earth.
So
global free trade means rule by these corporations, which is plutocracy. Plutocrats
dismantled America's manufacturing economy and shipped it to Asia, which is
good for short term corporate profits and manager bonuses, and good for Asians,
and good for rich Western consumers who have money to buy cheap Asian goods,
but is catastrophic for American workers who no longer have any jobs to earn
incomes to buy the cheap goods.
It
is true that unregulated capitalism tends inevitably toward monopoly, and
monopoly is market "control", which is the opposite of competitive
free markets in which no player is dominant enough to exercise control. A free market would not have, COULD not
have, offshored the US economy.
Economic gargantuanism and market control made that possible. Small business owner-operators do not
"offshore" their own livelihoods.
So
in order to preserve the free market economy, we NEED government regulation of
large scale corporate enterprises. Or, we simply need to eliminate the
whole idea of "limited liability" corporations, which are creations of
government legislation and can be uncreated by legislation, so that when a big business,
inevitably, suffers a big loss, the owners of that company are personally
ruined and stripped of all their personal wealth to cover their business losses
and/or to pay for the damages their business has done. Meanwhile numerous
other local businesses rise up to grab their piece of the dead giant's market,
most likely hiring the giant's experienced workers to bolster their productive
capacity.
This
is what happens to human beings and our failed businesses in a free
market. We are "personally"
responsible for ALL of the consequences of our actions, because it is
recognized that as the human agent and owner we "are" our "business". And 100% of our personal wealth is at
risk at all times, if we take large risks in the hope of large rewards. We are rewarded when our risk taking
pays off.
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