What’s called the capitalist system is very far from any model of capitalism or market. Take the fossil fuels industries: there was a recent study by the IMF which tried to estimate the subsidy that energy corporations get from governments. The total was colossal. I think it was around $5 trillion annually. That’s got nothing to do with markets and capitalism.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/noam-chomsky-bernie-sande...
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The problem is that capitalists use the language of free markets, but are not actually proponents of its wide application, just where it benefits them. Or to put it more pithily: capitalists don't like capitalism. So you get localized deregulations and strong regulations (example [1]) where it benefits them. But we should distinguish the cases.
[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/trade-groups-for-chemical-firms-...
So yes, it's not capitalism, but idealized capitalism is a ridiculous impossible goal that doesn't really exist because the market incentivizes people with power to subvert and destroy functioning markets.
The question is... has he been a strong proponent of extra licensing requirements for government contractors. Licensing requirements that his family is able to easily handle, but will push out smaller competitors. That would be hypocrisy.
Has he supported legislation against subcontracting or legislation that artificially limits who the government (or private industry) can hire?
It's not hypocritical to offer services to the government. You're confusing neoliberals with anarchists.
Free markets tend to produce the most wealth. Some regulations are necessary to prevent market failures like monopolies, information asymmetry, etc. But otherwise they are just getting in the way and causing more damage than good.
Regulations are not going to create a middle class or create economic equality. They can only prevent certain abuses from happening, but you can't regulate "equality".
The reality is some portion of the population doesn't have very much economic value. It's crazy and inefficient to try to artificially increase their value by protecting their jobs from competition. Instead we should tax the wealth that capitalism creates, and redistribute it more fairly.
Didn't expect to see that come up on a thread about neoliberalism...
If the wealthy make a figurative "killing" abusing the poor, the poor turn around and make a literal killing. An unethical executive would have to hole up in a fortified compound and surround it with hired guns, just like a Mexican drug lord. That places limits on how much money you can make from antisocial behavior, simply because people stop voluntarily doing business with you.
All big business ends up being a variant of the Mafia, but there has to be some honor among thieves, otherwise gang wars break out and ruin the regular revenue streams for everyone.
Few people would actually be comfortable with a completely free market.
Although some free marketers (and many others) argue that things like prostitution should be "liberated" from prohibition, that's generally tangential to the arguments.
Usually, legal arguments about what can be bought or sold are settled in social/political terms, economics isn't really all that relevant.
> Usually, legal arguments about what can be bought or sold are settled in social/political terms, economics isn't really all that relevant.
The difference between "social/political" and "economic" is superficial.
If you're including all issues that have economic effects, perhaps I'd agree with you. But I'm talking about the decision-making process.
We don't decide whether global warming needs to be addressed using a profit-maximization algorithm. It's a moral question.
The same is true of slavery from the North's perspective in the US civil war. (You can make an economic argument for the south, but it's still a stretch) Fundamentally it's a moral/social/political question, that has tremendous economic effects.
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I'd actually argue the contrary. There are almost no "economic" arguments when it comes to regulation. Any argument worth having is fundamentally moral or social.
* How much taxation is "fair"
* What level of economic inequality violates "justice"
So am I. The decision making process that goes into "social/political" things is pretty much economic.
> We don't decide whether global warming needs to be addressed using a profit-maximization algorithm.
Social/political decision making is aggregating individual efforts to maximize the world's alignment with each individual's own preferences.
There's no difference between this and economic decision making.
> It's a moral question.
"Morality" is just one subset of personal preferences against which people act to optimize. The distinction between it and other subsets of preferences (like "aesthetics", etc.) is arbitrary.
If you hire the Morag Tong to murder your business rival--who has no friends or partners ready to avenge his untimely death--who will be the one to hire Sam and Max to play freelance police long enough to bring you to justice?
Of course, the classic rabid libertarian answer -- any time any economic failure happens, blame regulations. When we free the markets, and the markets fail to provide anything we want (income equality, fairness, a middle class, a healthy society) -- the obvious conclusion? The markets aren't free enough. Deregulate, so the wealthy can make a killing abusing the poor more than they already do.