The morality of the free market

[Bubbler]

I'm know I'm opening an industrial-sized can of worms, but lost in our own political process, bad domestic economy, the war, people's obsession with meaningless bull****, etc., is the worldwide food crisis that is being exacerbated by rising energy costs, a shortage of food due to its use for renewable energy, and many other factors.

There have been food riots in several third world nations and it's going to get worse. Basics like school lunch programs, etc., are in jeopardy in many poor nations. And while that might not sound like much, that's sustenance for many children worldwide.

Of course the world economy and free market drives all of this, as it does when our own prices rise domestically.

I know the free market doesn't suffer moral concerns ... it never has. But at what point are some of the market-driven problems the world is going through get looked at through the prism of morality instead of the prism of what it means to the world economy?

Personally, I think the world's slavery to economic forces is well past the point of being immoral. If basics like getting people fed are at the mercy of the free market, it's well past time for a rethink. An economic system should never be more important than the people it serves, or, doesn't serve.

Any ideas? I'm all ears.

 

[pallister]

Good post, Karl Marx.

 

[amraeder]

Thing is, the free market isn't driving part of it anyway. Yeh, if there's a drought, prices are going to go up.
But the big cluster**** that is biofules? That's not the free market, the free market would have been perfectly fine with oil. It's the government a) going green when it's not really that green, b) pandering to the farmers.

This is one of those unintended consequences we're getting from messing with the free market. At least in part.

 

[wickedwritah]

Was listening to the BBC on the way home last night ... rice -- a food staple for most of the world's most poor -- apparently is up 75 percent in less than a year. Some in South America are pissed that Brazil is turning over what they feel is too much land for growing ethanol products.

And Bubbler's thoughts are far from Marx. What an asinine comment.

 

[pallister]

Well, if you don't like asinine comments, you should spend more time working the collective than surfing sj.

 

[wickedwritah]

Tell me why Bubbler is Marxian here. I'd really like to hear this one. He argued for corporations and governments to have some sense of social responsibility. Is that too much to ask?

 

[DemoChristian]

Marx wasn't the only one who saw problems with the free market.
I mean, who is really going to take it the whole way? Only the libertarians, I guess. If you're not one of them, then your post is just bull**** posturing.

 

[pallister]

You guys are ****ing whiny idiots. And you take yourselves way too seriously. It's 3:15 in the morning. Either have a sense of humor or STFU.

 

[DemoChristian]

The humor part I can get, but what's whiny about asking you to back up what appears to be a very poor joke or a stupid comment you're now trying to pass off as a very poor joke?

 

[wickedwritah]

You guys are ****ing whiny idiots. And you take yourselves way too seriously. It's 3:15 in the morning. Either have a sense of humor or STFU.

I really don't get the joke. Really was hoping you could enlighten me, though; I'm always up for being educated. (And that's said without a hint of snark.) So the floor is yours.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Well, if you don't like asinine comments, you should spend more time working the collective than surfing sj.

I wonder sometimes, why am I here?

Life was much simpler on the Ust-Ordynski Collective . . . yet I would not give up friends like these for . . . .

(thought cut short by alien attack).

And Bubbler, sorry, but I don't know. Abuses of the free market are why we're where we are as a world. And even Barack Obama and his uninhibited Hope will find fixing this a daunting task.

I think pallister was joking, for what it's worth.

 

[pallister]

Either Bubbler went to sleep or he didn't respond to my post because he knows I'm just ****ing with him. Take the sticks out of your asses and lighten up.

 

[DemoChristian]

But if I take the stick out of my ass, I won't be able to stand up right, and that's important for working my factory-line job in a Communist system.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Up with the proletariat!

 

[amraeder]

Nice work Piotr

 

[The Big Ragu]

I'm know I'm opening an industrial-sized can of worms, but lost in our own political process, bad domestic economy, the war, people's obsession with meaningless bull****, etc., is the worldwide food crisis that is being exacerbated by rising energy costs, a shortage of food due to its use for renewable energy, and many other factors.

There have been food riots in several third world nations and it's going to get worse. Basics like school lunch programs, etc., are in jeopardy in many poor nations. And while that might not sound like much, that's sustenance for many children worldwide.

Of course the world economy and free market drives all of this, as it does when our own prices rise domestically.

I know the free market doesn't suffer moral concerns ... it never has. But at what point are some of the market-driven problems the world is going through get looked at through the prism of morality instead of the prism of what it means to the world economy?

Personally, I think the world's slavery to economic forces is well past the point of being immoral. If basics like getting people fed are at the mercy of the free market, it's well past time for a rethink. An economic system should never be more important than the people it serves, or, doesn't serve.

Any ideas? I'm all ears.

You are generalizing, so the best I can do is generalize too. Those are not "free market" problems. Show me a country with the level of poverty and starvation you are talking about, and I can almost without exception show you massive government corruption of some sort. Nigeria comes immediately to mind. A country sitting on large oil reserves should not be a third world country--it should be one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Yet, the people have been robbed of hundreds of billions of dollars and still don't have an electricity grid--despite the billions of dollars that have been allocated and subsequently stolen--or enough food to go around.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-22-voa65.cfm

That isn't a "free market" problem. It's a robbery and corruption problem.

 

[Twoback]

Bravo, Ragu.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Negroes stole his free market.

 

[PeteyPirate]

I read "Supercapitalism" by Robert Reich last week, and he made a lot of interesting arguments related to how we got here. Too many to try to condense here, but it is definitely worth the read.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Negroes stole his free market.

Is that supposed to be witty?