Is This The End Of Laissez-Faire Capitalism?

Posted on September 29, 2008 by | 3 Comments

The American financial crisis is raising issues about the future of capitalism, at least the version currently on display in the United States under the anti-regulation regime of George Bush. French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated bluntly the under-regulated system we once knew is now “finished” and the world must explore other versions of capitalism. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck said the crisis also marks the end of America as the world’s economic superpower. Sarkozy told a crowd of supporters, “the idea of the all-powerful market that must not be constrained by any rules, by any political intervention, was mad. the idea that markets were always right was mad.” He raise the issue as to whether capitalism must now be reconstituted so that ethics and government have important roles in modern economics.

The French president said we need a “market economy (that ) is a regulated market… in the service of all. It is not the law of the jungle, it is not exorbitant profits for a few, and sacrifices for all others.” Hopefully, the future will look back at 2008 as the time when those who believed in free enterprise began the process of creating a new version of capitalism.

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  • journeyer58

    If this is not the end of Laissez-Faire Capitalism then it should be. A free and unregulated market as envisioned by the neo-conservative branch of the Republican Party, has finally imploded and will continue to do so.
    The outlook for the future is very bleak on the speculative markets, for now they have to bear their own losses and not have the government bail them out as planned by the administration.
    The shrub and Darth Vader are now so lame duck that they cannot get a bill passed in the House of Representatives. Today marks the beginning of the end of the administration of the shrub. Hallelujah!!@!!!!!!
    Even the speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, with all of her arm bending could not get this abomination of a bill passed. To which I say, thank the Lord. For the bill as constituted, had no checks and balances on the administration’s ability to hand out money, no requirement that this money, $700 Billion be accounted for and neither was there any oversight built into this bill, so that the People could find out who was getting this money.
    The Sec. of the Treasury, the former head of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies most affected by the crisis, and one of the most culpable in causing this crisis, would have received preferential treatment by the Sec. of the Treasury, because he has quite a bit of his own money in that company. To quote the old adage, it is something like the fox guarding the henhouse.
    There was more than a hint of conspiracy in that the shrub and the leadership of the Congress were pushing this forward without so much as a committee hearing on the alternatives to this problem. I see much that can be left to the imagination. But enough for now, I am rejoicing at the fact that cooler heads prevailed and won the day for the people and not the corporate shills and thieves that have taken so much and given so little back into this country.

  • http://1776solution.blogspot.com Republicae

    journeyer58…if you actually think, in your wildest dreams, that this country has had anything that approaches Laissez-Faire Capitalism since the 1860′s then think again. In particular, since the 20′s we have suffered from a mixed economy and has been increasingly biased toward government intervention. We haven’t seen the free market in decades, what you are seeing is not the results of free market Laissez-Faire Capitalism, but the result of a highly managed monetary and economic system. This is the natural results from an economic system that is planned in the halls of government and the banks, not the free market. Guess what? It is only going to get worse, the more the government seeks to countermand market forces the more strain we will experience.

    It should also be obvious that Obama is doing nothing that can implement substantial change. He has appointed the very men, many of whom served under the Bush Administration and others, to solve the very problems that their policies caused in the first place. It is illogical to beleive that Obama can appoint people who helped cause these problems to now solve the very problems they helped create.

    If you actually think cooler head have prevailed, get back in touch with me in about two years. The audacity of hope will quickly fade since Obama is doing nothing but recycling the same policies of the past 12 Presidents and the outcome will be equally disappointing.

  • http://www.theimpudentobserver.com Fred Stopsky

    I suspect like a good believer in the free market you have never studied American history. Alexander Hamilton created the Bank of the US in the 1790s, road and canal construction was government supported, high tariffs were there to protect business men make money, the railroads were funded by the government, the government invented the Internet, the government subsidized the airline industry, etc… Until the 20th century, local police and the state militia protected the business community against unions. Dream on about a world that never existed.