[pzuraq]

If government were not as influential as you claim, there is absolutely no reason the wealthy would use the resources they buy power with to provide goods and services, especially to the poor and needy who cannot afford them as is. In fact, you completely ignore the robber barons and a time when less regulation DID exist, and society was even less free and equal.

There is NO such thing as a truly free market. Free markets are an ideal simplification, like calculations done in a frictionless vacuum. The role of government in the economy is to regulate in such a way that a sort of free market is created. That competition exists and everyone benefits.

Unfortunately that power is not always used correctly. Regulation is difficult, oftentimes it doesn't work as expected. But that does not mean the problem is regulation itself. The problem is specifically the regulations that exist today. That makes sense, when you realize that half the government is trying to prove that the government is terrible. I really wouldn't trust them with regulating anything.

The greatest time in recent American history was created by socialistic, big government programs and regulations. Period. The massive amounts of wealth generated during that time went to every American, not just the few, because of those policies. Removing government is not the answer, we need to fix it.

[patrickmay]

The problem is that too many people reach for government power as a first response instead of the last resort it should be.

Government force is always going to result in unintended, negative consequences. Those socialistic programs you laud, with the high taxes, intrusive regulations, and government debt, are a net drag on the economy.

Working together voluntarily is vastly superior to being compelled by force, however well intentioned.

[pzuraq]

> The problem is that too many people reach for government power as a first response instead of the last resort it should be.

If we are reaching for government power, then we have encountered a problem which has not or cannot be solved by the free market as is. I have not seen many people saying "hey, we should socialize the software industry, Google just isn't doing well enough." It already is a last resort.

> Government force is always going to result in unintended, negative consequences.

I rarely use the word always because all it takes is a single counterexample to disprove the point, and I can name a few: Firefighters, police, military, are all "markets" that would not be easily regulated by the free market and the government has done instead (and done so quite well, in most cases.)

> Those socialistic programs you laud, with the high taxes, intrusive regulations, and government debt, are a net drag on the economy.

Lumping ALL those programs together (again) invalidates your point. There are some programs that work very well and have more benefits than costs. I agree that this is not true for all programs/regulations, thus my point: Fix what's broken.

> Working together voluntarily is vastly superior to being compelled by force, however well intentioned.

This argument could be used to support ANY form of government. Communism would work wonderfully if we all worked together voluntarily! Fact is we live in a world of game theory. Sometimes people work together, sometimes they don't. Capitalism works because in theory, even if you are working only for yourself, you are working for society as well. But that is not always true, and so we need to pull together to make sure that those who would abuse the system can't. We need to pull together so that everyone, or at least the majority, benefits from our society.

[nickff]

You should read more about the "robber barons", as they did a lot of good, by increasing competition, decreasing costs to consumers, and breaking state monopolies.