Confidence in Market Principles

Why are some Republicans turning their backs on the free market principles we’ve advocated for generations?

Ronald Reagan wisely observed in his first inaugural address, "Government is not the solution to our problem—government is the problem." Yet today, some conservatives are losing confidence in themselves, our movement, and our fellow Americans and are instead looking to government to be the solution to problems in the free market. 

This stunning about-face is of great concern to traditional conservatives like me who remain unabashed advocates of the free market, the greatest engine for prosperity in human history. Free markets have done more than any other system to raise standards of living, generate broad-based wealth, spur technological innovation, cure debilitating illness, and improve quality of life for billions of people around the globe. The entirety of American history proves that the free market, not government, has the ultimate power to shape society for the better.

So why are some Republicans turning their backs on the free market principles we've advocated for generations?

To be sure, very real problems have emerged within contemporary corporate culture in America. Boardrooms have been co-opted by the radical left. Wall Street has sold out to progressive extremists by pushing for environmental, social, and governance policies that advance left-wing goals to the detriment of shareholders and workers. Fortune 500 companies are spending millions to fill our airwaves with ads that promote gender ideology and climate alarmism as much as their products. Not even America's pastime has been spared from this cultural crusade as Major League Baseball enables the most radical elements of the left while ostracizing generations of fans.

But the answer to such challenges is not to demand government intervention—it is to use free market principles to fix the free market itself.

That is exactly what is happening around the country. After Bud Light drew controversy for embracing progressive gender politics, sales plummeted nationwide. In recent weeks, the same thing has happened to Target for similar reasons. Shares of both companies have suffered substantial losses. Without government lifting a finger, woke companies are being called to account for their ideological excesses.

Another prominent example is Disney, a company that trumpeted its left-wing values by condemning conservative education and parental rights reforms in Florida. Governors around the country are right to pursue these policies and protect our kids. But when the governor of Florida decided to launch a full-scale campaign of governmental retribution against Disney, he wasn't taking a page out of the conservative playbook—he was following in the footsteps of the radical left. In doing so, he not only risked billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs for the state, but even more importantly, he turned his back on the principles that make our country great.

None of this was necessary. The best way to change businesses' behavior is to hit them where it hurts—the pocketbook. The American people seemingly understand this truth, as evidenced by their grassroots boycotts and changes in purchasing habits.

The bottom line is this: Conservatives can either be for politically motivated government intervention in the private sector, or we can be against it.

The left has long abused the reins of power and the constitutional order to serve its goals and punish its enemies. From President Barack Obama's weaponization of the IRS against conservative groups to California Gov. Gavin Newsom's attacks on Walgreens for putting the law and women's safety above abortion politics, to Colorado bureaucrats forcing Christians like Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop to choose between their businesses and their beliefs, the progressive left has wreaked havoc on our country and our timeless principles. Some Republicans would have us all emulate them and become progressive conservatives. We shouldn't listen to them.

We do not need to abandon our principles in order to win. We simply need leaders with the courage to speak hard truths, and faith that the American people will rally to our cause. Now as always, the physicians of the American soul must resist the temptation to put what is popular over what is wise.

Comments

[Ska]

To be sure, very real problems have emerged within contemporary corporate culture in America.

Has anyone ever seen Mike Pence and Robby Soave in the same room together?

OK, OK, I'll RTFA.

[Fats of Fury]

Well no, they're both so white they're practically invisible.

[Rob Misek]

The free market is a casino, and like a casino there are winners and losers.

Is that really how we want to define our civilization?

Money is merely work that is transferable, nothing more. Work neither grows or declines exponentially like interest or debt does.

Why should the rich and their clans sit atop obscenely growing piles of money not lifting a finger while the poor work hard living in poverty?

Because like a casino, the house always wins.

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[P. Henry]

“The free market is like a casino, and like casinos there are winners and losers.” Nothing says economic ignorance like thinking voluntary exchanges create losers.

[Rob Misek]

Is it really a voluntary exchange when the alternative to participating in the economy is poverty?

I’m sure not many people with empty pockets feel like winners as they leave the casino.

[Zeb]

The alternative to participating in the economy is being dead. And by that I mean that if you are a living human being in contact with other human beings, you are part of the economy by definition.

[Rob Misek]

Not much of a voluntary choice eh?

[Old Engineer]

The alternative to voluntary is theft. You should move to San Francisco where theft works! $950 per day in goods, money, whatever. Only problem is the thief whose bigger and stronger than you.

[Rob Misek]

Not much of a voluntary choice then eh?

[5.56]

Being born is not a voluntary choice under that narrow definition. Grow up.

You do not have an alternative that gives anyone a valuable voluntary choice, especially when considering its costs.

[Rob Misek]

Many things aren’t voluntary choices. That’s my point.

Before the details of any proposed model are discussed what does and doesn’t work about existing ones needs to be.

That’s what I’m doing.

[Sevo]

Before the details of any proposed model are discussed what does and doesn’t work about existing ones needs to be."

Misek is a steaming pile of Nazi shit, eniterly too stupid to tie his own shoes

[Rob Misek]

You’re a proven liar, continually abasing yourself, a grovelling waste of skin.

[Will Sowell]

And the “poor” have proven to do infinitely better under socialist and communist rule.
Those empires have less poor because the tyrannists execute the non-productive and non-believers.
That’s equality and opportunity!!

[Libertariantranslator]

God’s Own Prohibitionists do exactly the same thing in Christian National Socialist Amerikkka. Trade and production are absolutely banned unless you buy licenses, pay bribes, dish out protection, kowtow to collectives and looters… And Ghawd help you if the trade and production you want to engage in has to do with any right or fun thing banned by Republican Comstock laws in 1873! Or 1906 Drug laws enforceable in 1907, The Harrison Act, Volstead Act, Opium Convention, “Narcotics” Limitation, XYZ treaties. Bottom line is Houston cops burst in and kill you instead of Slav or Hun Gestapo. Big Fat Hairy Difference!

[freedomwriter]

Great comment.

[Truthfulness]

Where are the millions of individuals that were killed in the hands of a supposed American Christian government compared to what Stalin's government did? What a load of fiction you believe.

I will refute more of libertariantranslator's post in a future time.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Ah, but they are both Statist and Socialist and if Christiqn Holy-Rollers had the mass-murdering technology of Communist regimes, they'd play catch-up very quickly.

[psmoot]

Superficially one could say a casino and the free market are similar.

You're missing the big difference: a free market generates _enormous_ net benefits while a casino is a net loss to everyone but the house.

[Rob Misek]

It’s only a relative difference. The “house” is bigger.

How did the Great Depression work out for those who starved and lost everything they had worked for?

[Zeb]

The fact that bad things happen to some people sometimes doesn't mean it's random or rigged. And you think the Great Depression had anything to do with free markets?

[Rob Misek]

Bad things happening to good people is bad, especially when it results directly from our actions.

The markets crashed.

[5.56]

Free markets crash too, occasionally. Unfree markets crash much more frequently and harder.

[Rob Misek]

A free market is a mythical unicorn.

When people are free to amass great wealth they use it as power and leverage against everyone and everything.

That unicorn never existed.

[5.56]

The most massive unicorn that everyone seems to chase is known as ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’.

They’re dead. And have always been.

[Rob Misek]

People have exhibited both justice and fairness.
.
With a regulation that criminalizes lying, more will.

What logical evidence do you have that they don’t exist?

[5.56]

Don't stop believing.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Your "Third Way" of Nazism and Fascism ended in ruin, destruction, poverty, and death wherever tried. Your Unicorn is a rabid rhinoceros.

At least a Free-Market Capitalist economy could mobilize the capital of investment and the innovation of Genetic Engineering to actually breed a living Unicorn if that is what people in the marketplace really want.

And unlike your "Third Way," no unwilling human lives are required.

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[freedomwriter]

Where the fuck is there a free market on this Earth?

[Old Engineer]

The Great Depression was not caused by freedom, it was caused by a fascistic government through the Federal Reserves system and two awful presidents. The one-two punch of Hoover (massive tax increases, public works projects, jawboning employers to keep wages higher than the market) and Roosevelt (everything Hoover did wrong but much more of it plus cartelizing agriculture and manufacturing).

[Rob Misek]

The markets crashed.

[The Last American Hero]

Please tell us about the Great Depression of 1919. It didn’t happen. Because government largely let the market correct itself.

[Old Engineer]

Harding wanted to return to "normalcy" so when revenues went down, he laid off government employees, cut expenses and cut taxes. He also de-cartelized the businesses that the fascistic Wilson had put under government management.

Harding was so reviled for undoing Wilsonian tyranny that he is still listed by historians as one of America's worst presidents. Wilson is still supposedly among the best.

[charliehall]

Harding actually signed a massive tax increase into law, on imports. The agricultural sector of the economy immediately went into a depression a decade before the rest of the country and didn't come out until WW2. Hoover's even bigger tariff increase made things worse. Interesting that tariffs are the central theme of Trump's economic policy. There are a lot of parallels between Trump and Hoover.

[Rob Misek]

In other words,

The market crashed

[NOYB2]

Harding actually signed a massive tax increase into law, on imports.

Given that federal government spending as percentage of GDP was about 3% at the time, it can't have been very "massive". Furthermore, at the same time, other taxes were lowered.

Interesting that tariffs are the central theme of Trump’s economic policy.

The US government currently raises most of its revenue by taxing productive activities. That is bad. Tariffs are a tax on consumption that results in favoring domestic production. That makes tariffs one of the best ways of financing the federal government.

[Rob Misek]

Do you have any evidence to refute the story of the Great Depression?

[Old Engineer]

Murray Rothbard "The Great Depression"
Amity Schlaes "The Forgotten Man"

You have not and will never read either, the cases that they make have never been challenged successfully.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

OE, you’re arguing with an unrepentant neo Nazi Holocaust denying anti semite who is obsessed with criminalizing lying.

[Rob Misek]

Those books don’t refute the Great Depression, they just blame the government for interference. Pining for a free market.

The free market is a unicorn. It never did and can’t exist.

As soon as people are free to amass great wealth they will use it as power and leverage to control everyone and everything.

[Libertariantranslator]

A lie. Prohibionist asset-forfeiture looting caused the Crash and Depression. Any honest citizen able to differentiate a constant can find this out with little effort. The Fed is to Republican brainwashees as Jews were to the National Socialists grown in Germany--something to deflect scrutiny of facts. If I were a Trump-believer I'd doubtless believe and repeat the same lies. (http://bit.ly/3mvSelh)

[Rob Misek]

The market crashed.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Oh look - The national socialist is a socialist.

[Zeb]

Nazi Bernie Sanders.

[Rob Misek]

Yours is the meme of a cartoon.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

You’re basically cartoon character. A bad one. And yes, I appreciate how ironic it is that I’m the one pointing that out.

[Rob Misek]

Elmer Fudd the CHUD

“Blah blah blah… A coward like you always has to hide.”

Rob Misek

“Says “Elmer Fudd”.”

[Rob Misek]

I didn’t say that.

Your perspective is that of a cartoon, two dimensional. Either capitalism or socialism.

In reality we have infinite choices to create the form of our economy.

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[5.56]

Infinite choices only if you say there’s percentages of socialism/capitalism and then there’s, of course, an infinite set of values between 100:0 and 0:100. This, of course, is flawed.

There is definitely a very finite number of effective choices of forms of economy, even if you don’t only think in socialism vs laissez-faire. Oh shit, im wasting my time, one sec, gonna go do something meaningful, just a moment.

[Rob Misek]

There are far more choices than simply percentages of two models.

There’s imagination, new technology, science, bold ideas, logic, justice and fairness applied in varying ways to every situation in an economy.

For practice purposes, infinite.

[5.56]

Severly bottlenecked by the constraints of reality and not at all infinite. Don't stop believing though.

[TheReEncogitationer]

We know all about your "Third Way!"

That is a way that really does deprive the Individual of any kind of economic choice or upward mobility! All in the name of "The Common Good Over The Individual Good," as stated in the NSDAP 25-Point Plan.

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Libertariantranslator]

Yep. Just add Jesus, stir in some girl-bullying racial collectivism and simmer over meddlesome foreign prohibitionist intervention. Next thing ya know illiterate mobs vandalize the capital, screech and defecate like... like... well... Maga Trumpanzees! It happened again, this time in Brazil 08JAN2023. Monkey see, monkey doo-doo.

[Rob Misek]

And the market crashed.

[freedomwriter]

Another great on. How do I subscribe to your writing?

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

Hank does have a website.

https://libertariantranslator.wordpress.com/who-is-hank-phillips/

[TheReEncogitationer]

While all of life, including activity in a marketplace, involves risk, it is not all a risk in the hands of "the house" in a casino where you have no hand in things.

For the rational, participation in the market involves calculated risk. It involves matching the goods and services you have to offer to others willing to pay what you offer.

If the match isn't right, you either offer to someone else or expand your offerings via new suppliers of goods and/or by formal or informal education to expand the skill-set of your services.

And the mechanism by which the wealthy get there and stay there--work, thrift, smart investment in dividend earners, and compound interest--is available to regular laborers too and is used by millions of those laborers every day.

And, no, work to achieve specific goals has both exponentially declined in amount and increased in productivity over time.

For instance, the labor to get a pound of sugar in the early 1900s can now get 277 pounds of sugar because of labor-saving mechanized agriculture and scientific selective breeding of crops.

Of course, though, someone who supports slave labor and selective breeding of human beings to get what he wants never thinks about such "degenerate" things as Economics, right, Herr Misek?

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[CE]

But one of them has much better hair.

[SRG]

After his necessary and inevitable dig at the radical left/woke etc - after all, he is stumping, at least he gets this right:

The best way to change businesses' behavior is to hit them where it hurts—the pocketbook.

though he may not always like the consequences.

[Truthfulness]

What do you think we've been doing this whole time? Surely you can't be this deluded.

[SRG]

What do you think we’ve been doing this whole time?

Who is "we"? And do you realise that Pence's point is that you shouldn't use the power of government in such cases - and that some Republicans are doing that?

[Alla Backenstose]

I think he was referring to things like the Target and Bud Light boycotts that you were shitting your pants, er, excuse me, knickers over, guv'nah shreek.

[SRG]

That you, R_Mac? And why would I care - particularly about "Budweiser"? AFAIC companies can campaign for pretty much whatever social program they think will in the long run expand revenues. If they're wrong, that's life. As I actually agreed with Pence's point, your response is evidently stupid.

[BigT]

Politicians have only one tool - government policy backed by your money - so everything is subject to using that tool. They use that tool to buy votes and signal their virtue to the unwashed asses to get re-elected. Of course, they first propagandize their favorite government giveaways as virtuous so they can support two of their self-aggrandizing desires with one policy.
Virtue is the rarest commodity in DC.

[RealFreeMarket]

Probably the supply reflects the demand.

[sarcasmic]

But when the governor of Florida decided to launch a full-scale campaign of governmental retribution against Disney, he wasn't taking a page out of the conservative playbook—he was following in the footsteps of the radical left. In doing so, he not only risked billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs for the state, but even more importantly, he turned his back on the principles that make our country great.

That's what Reason said, but according to the comments DeSantis is a true conservative while Reason is leftist for criticizing him.

Does that mean free markets are leftist now?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The Reason-style conservatism workflow is:

1. Check the polls to see who has the best chance to "stop the Left".
2. Fluff up that person and demand that all good libertarians must put aside their supposedly trivial objections and hop on the Team Train to support this candidate to "stop the Left".
3. Conservatism is then defined as whatever this candidate espouses, because that is where the movement must go to "stop the Left".

[Dillinger]

>>Check the polls

(R) believes polls are biased.

[Mike Laursen]

Really? Just yesterday, Nobartium was referring (vaguely) to polls that show "at least a few percentages would have changed" if voters had known about the Hunter Biden story:

https://reason.com/2023/06/25/gadgets-and-gizmos-that-inspired-adam-smith/?comments=true#comment-10125559

And Trump quotes polls all the time to gloat about being ahead of DeSantis or Biden (depending on the poll he is quoting).

Seems like Republicans/conservatives are fine with polls, as long as they give the results they like. (Same with Democrats, of course.)

[Alla Backenstose]

Conservative activists have been telling people not to trust the polls because they are conducted by lefty outlets for, oh, just about 20 years now. Remember how "everybody knew" Clinton was ahead by 20+ points and you then had to spend the next 5 years wailing like a histrionic bitch and falling for every pathetic lefty narrative from the pee pee tape to the "insurrection" Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq.? If you ever consumed any media content outside of CNN, MSNBC and Mother Jones you might have a better handle on what those evil conservatives actually think. Or more likely not. If you like polls, they have found that:

Conservatives may not like liberals, but they seem to understand them. In contrast, many liberals find conservative voters not just wrong but also bewildering.

One academic study asked 2,000 Americans to fill out questionnaires about moral questions. In some cases, they were asked to fill them out as they thought a “typical liberal” or a “typical conservative” would respond.

Moderates and conservatives were adept at guessing how liberals would answer questions. Liberals, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal,” were least able to put themselves in the minds of their adversaries and guess how conservatives would answer.

[Mike Laursen]

Maybe true in general, but the poll Nobartium seemed to be referencing, as one example, was done by a right-leaning polling firm.

Also, my point still stands that Trump has a habit of quoting any poll that makes him look good.

[DesigNate]

Quelle surprise, a politician citing a poll that makes them look good.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

Goddamn, what a novel concept. Especially since no politician has ever done that before.

[freedomwriter]

They are only biased when they don't validate their delusions.

[Alla Backenstose]

Yeah that's why Trump is facing no internal opposition and the entire party rallied behind him during his entire presidency to implement his agenda, cytotoxic.

[Mike Laursen]

I thought I was supposed to be cyto, Tulpa.

[BigT]

All candidates are flawed. Some are terminally flawed - Biden. Some have flaws that can be overlooked since on balance they are excellent administrators - DeSantis.

[Alla Backenstose]

A big part of it is that Reason, like you and this neocon boomer faggot whose heterosexual Christian cock you seem weirdly eager to suck on, are lying sacks of shit and removing obscene carveouts and special privileges for corporations isn't anything even a tiny little bit like "government retribution" against Disney. Once upon a time the radical left of which you are a flag-waving member used to oppose corporate welfare.

[Illocust]

I think the budlight thing is reinforcing the feeling that the free market doesn't have a solution. Bud Light has suffered unprecedented losses. Losses they could reversed by firing the marketing exec who made the call and publicly calling the promotion that started all this a mistake that alienated customers and shouldn't have been done.

That's all they have to do, but they won't. Which gets people to start looking into why, and start learning about things like ESG scores and how they relate to credit scores. Which starts to make people think that the free market has a thousand government thumbs on the scale in a Gordian knot of influences that can't be easily overturned. Which pushes Pele to think the only realistic solution is to balance out the influences the government is already doing.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Even if you assume the correctness of the conclusion that the market losses at Bud Light are due entirely to their transgender marketing campaign – the result here IS the free market in action. You are pissed off and you chose a different brand of beer. Okay, there you go. No government coercion was necessary to force Bud Light to change their ways or to force their competitors to do anything different.

[sarcasmic]

Didn't you read his post?

Losses they could reversed by firing the marketing exec who made the call and publicly calling the promotion that started all this a mistake that alienated customers and shouldn’t have been done.

The market didn't punish them enough, which means government should finish the job.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

That's right. Illocust is entitled to drink *his* Bud Light from *his* company that reflects *his* values.

[Zeb]

Where does she say anything about government finishing the job? The suggestion appears to be that Bud could win back customers by firing the exec and acknowledging they made a mistake. Now, that may or may not be true, but it's not a call for any government action.

[sarcasmic]

Then what does "Which pushes Pele to think the only realistic solution is to balance out the influences the government is already doing" mean?

[Zeb]

Assuming "Pele" means "Pence", it probably means that that is what Pence thinks. If you are criticizing that position, then I agree. Don't fix bad regulations with more regulations, just get rid of the bad ones. But I don't think Illocust was promoting that view, just attempting to explain it.

[sarcasmic]

Fair enough.

[Illocust]

Yep, I'm trying to explain the situation and thought processes to the people that claim to want to convince others.

If you want conservatives to support free markets, then you have to point to the areas where they can remove government distortions of free markets. Which means you have to admit they exist and highlight them, and give realistic options for removing them.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think the general idea is that the free market has been broken somehow, by some combination of monopolistic behavior, government coercion, and ideological conditioning of too many of the managerial class.

Adam Smith famously said, "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”

But, what if the butcher, the brewer, and the baker suddenly became obsessed with your good, not their bottom line, and they had a very different idea of what was good for you than you did? And not only wouldn't sell you your bacon, but wouldn't provide banking services to the butcher who would? Addressing yourself to their self-love and talking to them of their advantages, would stop working, and the logic behind the free market would break down.

That's where we are, I think, with all this "ESG" crap, and platform censorship, and relentless trans promotion. The managerial class now think they have more important things to devote themselves to than the bottom line. So what the customer wants to buy doesn't matter so much now.

Disney, for instance, specializes in movies for children, almost all of whom are for very understandable reasons being raised by heterosexuals of conventional views; That's who have children! So, why are they relentlessly painting everything with a rainbow, to the detriment of their bottom line? Putting out one movie after another that tanks?

Because the guys in charge don't care about the bottom line anymore, and what does Adam Smith have to say about what to do when THAT happens? Nothing.

[sarcasmic]

And not only wouldn’t sell you your bacon, but wouldn’t provide banking services to the butcher who would?

In a free market, absent the government forcing banks to exclude the butcher, someone would see an opportunity and fill the void.

Jim Crow required government force for that very reason.

[Alla Backenstose]

Good job drunky! You almost got the point! Now let's see if you can bring it home:

Since people in America actually are being excluded from banking services based on the moral judgments of oligopolistic banking cartels and the central bank who gives them preferential access to credit, does that mean that the market is not free, and perhaps we should remove those institutional barriers to competition legislatively, or does it mean that the market has no answer to oligopolistic collusion? Those are your only choices, so pick carefully. You may need to read past those first 4 pages of Economics in One Lesson that you couldn't finish to get it figured out.

[Libertariantranslator]

Quoth the Elders of Zion parrot...

[Truthfulness]

Where were the Jews mentioned in Alla's post? You're deflecting and can't provide a proper rebuttal. Sad!

[DesigNate]

What Brett and Illocust are saying is that we don’t operate in a free market.

[Libertariantranslator]

Like Riffraff said to Brad and Janet? "You're wet!"

[DesigNate]

The spaghetti flies thrice in the oven.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

++

[freedomwriter]

There was never a "free" market to break.

[Nelson]

"I think the general idea is that the free market has been broken somehow, by some combination of monopolistic behavior, government coercion, and ideological conditioning of too many of the managerial class."

Monopolistic behavior is addressed by anti-trust laws. If by government coercion you mean laws, c'mon. If you mean direct coercion, the Twitter stuff isn't coercion. When you can refuse the government and not suffer any consequences, that's not coercion. And Twitter said no a lot. "Ideological conditioning of the manegerial class" is just polemic. People are increasingly rejecting "traditional values". That's a change in culture, not some nefarious plot to brainwash Americans.

"But, what if the butcher, the brewer, and the baker suddenly became obsessed with your good, not their bottom line, and they had a very different idea of what was good for you than you did?"

Then don't buy from them. Your distaste for their beliefs means you have that choice.

"And not only wouldn’t sell you your bacon, but wouldn’t provide banking services to the butcher who would? Addressing yourself to their self-love and talking to them of their advantages, would stop working".

Is this some bizarre hypothetical or are you trying to reference a specific event and make a point?

"That’s where we are, I think, with all this “ESG” crap, and platform censorship, and relentless trans promotion."

Aaaaaand we have left the free market and entered the culture wars. If you don't like those things, don't buy from companies who use ESG principles. BlackRock is proof that the anti-ESG nonsense is baseless from a market perspective, since they are kicking everyone's ass and consistently give a superior return to their investors.

The free market means that companies can position themselves in whatever way they think will benefit them. They support trans people and you don't? OK. If it's that important to you, don't buy from them.

But you want more. You want your cultural beliefs to have a market impact and, by and large, they don't. Apparently cultural conservatives like shitty beer, so Bud Light was vulnerable to their boycott. But as a Disney stockholder, I can tell you that they are still doing great. Probably because their clientele just don't care about (or actially approve of) their pushback on Florida's authoritarianism.

"So what the customer wants to buy doesn’t matter so much now."

If that's true, then there is an opportunity in the market for a new seller. That's what capitalism is all about.

"almost all of whom are ... being raised by heterosexuals of conventional views; That’s who have children! So, why are they relentlessly painting everything with a rainbow, to the detriment of their bottom line?"

Their bottom line is doing just fine. Trust me, I own their stock. They've made me a lot of money over the years.

Your confusion probably comes from the fact that you erroneously believe that heterosexual parents with heterosexual kids disagree with Disney's position and are choosing not to buy Disney products because of it. That isn't the case. Disney's position is the "conventional view" and even most who disagree don't care enough to boycott Disney.

"Because the guys in charge don’t care about the bottom line anymore, and what does Adam Smith have to say about what to do when THAT happens? Nothing."

That's just foolishness. There are always repercussions for poor earnings. Your complaint serms to be that cultural conservative displeasure doesn't actually make a difference to the bottom line of most companies. Or that most people aren't outraged by the things cultural conservatives are enraged by. Probably both.

[Illocust]

Read the second paragraph again. Why BudLight is choosing to destroy their business, when they can fix things so easily, is a question raised by this situation that results in people looking into the myriad ways that the government is already subverting market forces, and start to realize that the ways are so myriad that there is no realistic way to overturn them all.

We don't exist in a free market system, and that is a real problem. Unless Reason can start admitting that the government has it's thumb on the scale, and start focusing on how that thumb can be removed, the conservatives they are trying to convince are going to conclude the only real solution is to turn to their own congress critters to balance the scales.

[Brett Bellmore]

But it's not just the government, is the problem. The left took over academia, and academia is the transmission belt for culture, and churns out the people who run the private sector, too.

So, how do you hire a professional manager who hasn't been indoctrinated already? You can't, because you hired HR people who were indoctrinated several years ago, and they'll only hire fellow pod people.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Fire the HR dinks. Preferably out of a cannon.

[freedomwriter]

What a crock of right wing narrative. Where all these R voters?!? They all working fast food?

[Truthfulness]

The demographics of academia overwhelmingly vote Democrat. How are you so ignorant of this truth?

You did not provide a well-thought-out rebuttal to Brett’s post. Try harder.

[VacantStairs]

Nobody mentions the interview that dingbat marketing lady did where she shit all over their entire customer base. She said it was a dying brand too attached to dated fratty type offensive humor and she was there to save the day. I really have no idea how someone that stupid was put in a position to destroy a billion dollar business? Insulting your existing customers to chase after .001% of the population is crazy and I can't believe nobody stopped her. The people she was pandering to aren't exactly the beer drinking crowd so it makes no sense on any level. It's bizarre. People saying it's a backlash to the tranny mascot, but that way oversimplifies it and lets that marketing lady off the hook. It's not prejudice that hurt bud light. It's incompetence.

[Illocust]

Yeah, not enough emphasis is put on the how or if touch the marketing lady was, when reporters talk about this situation, and how this all wouldn't have kicked off, if her terrible interview didn't come to light.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

Exactly. It wasn't until the interview that the boycott not only took off, but grew legs and ran a marathon. Had she shut up and not done the interview, the boycott might have been there, but nowhere near as big as it became.

[BYODB]

I literally have a degree in this exact field, and she is perhaps the dumbest marketing/PR shill I've ever seen.

She might have gone to an ivy league school, but that just makes me question what the hell they're teaching their graduates because if she is an example to go by they're teaching them to actually destroy the businesses they work for.

You don't even need to be educated in the field to realize that pissing off even 50% of your traditional market in favor of a barely measurable demographic is beyond the pale. There was never any chance at all that the trans demographic would balance out the entirely of the southern United States.

[Libertariantranslator]

Was this the genius who added the legalize child molesting planks to the LP platform in the 1980s while deleting protection of individual rights for pregnant women?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I really have no idea how someone that stupid was put in a position to destroy a billion dollar business?

The answer is really simple--because these corporations think hiring a woman with a fluffed-up resume will get them access to the unlimited credit lines that Blackrock and that demonic piece of shit Larry Fink gatekeeps.

[Alla Backenstose]

Lol, cytotoxic the brilliant economic analyst believes it is pure and simple bad luck that AB Inbev lost 30 billion dollars in market cap in the couple of weeks following a marketing campaign targeted at trannies that drew national media attention because of the backlash and organized boycott against it. Yep, just a coincidence, lardass.

[Fats of Fury]

Budlight was replaced by Modelo in the market place. Both are owned by AB in Bev along with 400 other breweries,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AB_InBev_brands

Arbeit Macht Frei Markets.

[Illocust]

So I’m the US Modelo is actually owned by another company thanks to the US justice department: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-settlement-anheuser-busch-inbev-and-grupo-modelo-beer-case

It appears the us company has its own brewery, and they got sued two years ago for coming out with new beers that AB in Bev didn't approve of, so they have true independence.

But I don't have much motivation to do further research as I'm not a beer drinker and thus precluded from being involved with any boycotts or boycotts involving beer.

[Fats of Fury]

According to AB in Bev's website Grupo Modelo is one of their brands.

https://www.ab-inbev.com/our-brands/

What kind of hinky dink shit are they pulling?
Also according to their website they own over 500 brands. How long before all those brands start using the same processes and all tasting like Bud Light?

[Nelson]

InBev is the largest beer company in the world. It’s also not an American company, they’re Belgian. Most of the anti-trans people punished Bud by shifting to … another shitty beer that is also owned by InBev.

Culture war rage is a flash in the pan, shallow, ignorant, and incapable of effective long-term action.

I’ll be interested to see if the decrease in revenue for Bud Light is mirrored by InBev as a whole. If it isn’t, why would they care? If they get their money from Bud Light or another brand, it spends the same.

[the]

Wrong.

Modelo is owned by Constellation brands.

AB InBev owns distribution rights for Modelo in Europe. They don't get a penny from US Sales.

[charliehall]

Bud Light isn't a company. It is a brand. The brand is owned by a huge Belgian company. It has 630 beer brands in 150 countries.

Interestingly these "patriots" are now drinking a beer imported from Mexico. (The Modelo sold in the US isn't available in Mexico; the brand there is still owned by ABI.) AMLO is smiling.

[freedomwriter]

I don't know the logistics in this case, but many corporations just buy other companies/corporations and those companies/corporations continue to operate as their own entity under the huge corporate umbrella.

[Truthfulness]

And yet you ignore the fact that AB in Bev isn't getting a penny out of the Modelo purchases, because they're not distributing the brand here. It doesn't matter if the brand is originally from Mexico, don't you dare tell us what we can and cannot buy.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

This is pretty much my take on the article. Motherfucker is about 50 years late lamenting free market principles being lost. The government, often with the help of supposed "conservatives", has been dog fucking the free market for longer than I've been alive, just for different reasons. Don't come to me crying now that most people are going, "Well, fuck that, apparently we just gotta jump on and push the scale the other way even harder."

[freedomwriter]

There was never a free market and never will be.

[Truthfulness]

Not true. You can freely buy and sell goods without the need for government intervention. That's what makes your statement false.

[Libertariantranslator]

Now that that worked, expect Thud Blight cans to picture Spike Cohen, Vermin Boothead, Thomas Knapp, Dave Smif, Lootveeg Fon Mises and Tokyo Pink to _really_ do away with the LP as a leverager of law-repealing spoiler votes and uppity feminism.

[tracerv]

Fuck Brandon AND Mike Pence.

[sarcasmic]

The bottom line is this: Conservatives can either be for politically motivated government intervention in the private sector, or we can be against it.

It's pretty obvious where conservatives stand on this. And it isn't with conservatives of the past.

[Brandybuck]

1950s conservatives had their own culture war going on, and it was against the Global Communist Conspiracy. But at least they were free market. They were FOR Free Enterprise. Against the Military Industrial Complex. And surprisingly enough, against Farm Subsidies.

That's right. The heart of American Conservatism was not the John Birch Society, but the American Farm Bureau. Which was explicitly against farm subsidies and for free enterprise.

This attitude lasted through much of the 70s. To the point that when the Nolan Chart was made, conservatives were indeed in the right corner, bad on personal freedoms but excellent in economic freedoms.

[Alla Backenstose]

You'd almost think that literally nothing had changed and the Global Communist Conspiracy simply took the form of government-protected oligopolies that have fuck all to do with the free market and you're just seething like a malding bitch because you got caught with your Marxist dick in the punch bowl.

[CE]

Except you can't stop a Global Communist Conspiracy without a large Military Industrial Complex. Which is how we got here, where conservatives spend just as much as liberals, but on different stuff.

[charliehall]

The dominance of the Military Industrial Complex is largely due to Robert McNamara. The US government used to own armories and shipyards; McNamara, a Republican corporate exec hired by a Democratic President, closed the government owned facilities. Eisenhower and every previous Republican President had had no problem with socialist shipyards and rifle manufacturers.

[Libertariantranslator]

Riiiight. Conservatives had their prohibitionist asses handed to them in 1932, then licked Hitler's boots till 1945, banning weed and anything else but the dope and booze that trampled them. Then reverted to Comstockism until the votes were counted in January 1973. And now they're baaack. Ignorant, superstitious baleful bigots that make even the other looters look not so bad by comparison--at least to teevee-watching voters.

[Truthfulness]

1) Many conservatives fought in the war against Hitler and his regime.
2) The marijuana ban was bipartisan, and administrations from both sides contributed to the War on Drugs. It remains an unsafe drug to this day.
3) Most citizens approved of the Comstock laws at the time and some argue it’s responsible for saving thousands of lives to this day.
4) The “ignorant, superstitious baleful bigots” are not the ones heeding to pseudoscience like gender identity that’s promoted and celebrated in TV. As a matter of fact, they have lower theft rates than the Democrat-run cities like San Francisco and Chicago. They certainly aren’t the ones stealing through the government’s welfare programs. You are simply lying.

If anyone else wants to refute this guy’s other posts, feel free to do so.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

He’s elderly, and suffering from some form of dementia. Although he was always a kook to some extent. Just repeating the same dated references over and over, peppered wit lot of antichrist bigoted bullshit.

It’s best to just dehumanize him and treat him like the shitbag he is. Jeffy too.

[Alla Backenstose]

Yeah, doesn't it suck that conservatives woke up and realized that the yellow liquid running down their back and forming a waist-deep puddle all around them wasn't actually rain and that the chamber of commerce corporate cocksuckers not only weren't for free markets but also hate them with a genocidal, psychopathic fervor and want to use their privileged positions of oligopoly to annihilate them?

Shorter drunky: "Whycome conservatives won't just gargle Chuckie Kochs balls like I do!"

[Libertariantranslator]

Conservatives in 1856 were proslavery, slave-hunting Democrats to whom Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 was THE Constitution just as 1920s conservatives swore the 18th Amendment was THE Constitution.

[Truthfulness]

That is false history. Many conservatives then and now adhere to the Republican Party's anti-slavery platform. It's disingenuous of you to refer to the southern Democrats as "conservative" as they would despise the present-day Republican party and it's fight against the woke elite.

You cannot seem to get any facts straight.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

(wrong spot)

[InsaneTrollLogic]

That could describe 99% of your posts.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

The ramblings of a delusional pedophile with severely damaged frontal lobes and poor hygiene?

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

He’s also a morbidly obese fatfuck. By his own admission.

[Libertariantranslator]

That's what Anheuser/Ambev said

[ravenshrike]

Well let's go through the two greatest reasons shall we?
1)Stakeholder capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with the free market because the market cannot correct in a timely fashion the errors it creates. The larger and more diversified the company the worse this effect grows.
2) Any and all pension investments should be forced to be indexed to whichever market they're invested in because allowing targeted investment by a third party invariably grossly distorts and delays any signals the free market would make, greatly compounding the issues with stakeholder capitalism and the free market.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think you've identified a large part of the problem, yes. Not all of it, but a big piece.

[ravenshrike]

Without the money from the pensions, Blackrock et al wouldn't have the gas for ESG credit scores. Without stakeholder cap, CEOs and high level managers making publicly visible stupid decisions would be shitcanned much quicker.

[virat4]

Earn over $1000 a day easily from your own time sharing home. I made $28,781 from this job in my spare time after graduating from college. “r111 years of easy work and steady income is amazing. No skills required for this position. All you need to know is how to copy and paste anything online.Sign up today by following the details on this page.

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[Alla Backenstose]

Yeah but Reason and it's Koch-suckers support government-created oligopolistic corporatism and are throwing a malding faggot bitch temper tantrum because the ignorant hayseeds they thought would continue swallowing their jizz in perpetuity have finally realized that New Koch doesn't take so great.

[Old Engineer]

Stakeholder capitalism is entirely dependent upon who's holding the stake, who's holding the mallet and who's heart is under the stake.

The answers are: Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates and you.

[charliehall]

Few highly paid fund managers are able to match the market average. Rarely as incompetence been so well rewarded.

[Guy]

Thank you Mike Pence. Hopefully you are willing to stand against your former boss for weaponizing the government. I agree with Douglas Murray on this issue. Companies use politics/principles to mask what they are lacking in marketability of their actual products. If you sell chicken sandwiches or beer, just do that and try to sell to as many people as possible. It's probably not a good idea to hitch your trailer to one tribe or the other. I don't need a "Team Red" pillow, just a comfortable one.

[Alla Backenstose]

Which corporations did Trump weaponize the government against, shreek? Think hard now.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Do you consider his Twitter ramblings to have been his private ramblings or government ramblings?

[CapitalistRunningDog]

Let me just say the cognitive dissonance of seeing an editorial by Mark Pence in Reason almost gave me mental whiplash.

[psmoot]

Gotta say, I never actually paid attention to Pence's opinions and proposed policies.

If this is more than just talk, I'm glad to hear it. _Finally_ someone in politics saying free markets are a good thing.

[Me, Myself and I]

This comment has been deleted.

[Alla Backenstose]

If you'd read even 5 Reason articles from the last 7 years it shouldn't surprise you at all. Reason embraced the neocon warmongering chamber of commerce corporatism wing of the Republican party as soon as Trump was elected and they all moved to the D column.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

But isn't Trump known for choosing the "best people"?

[Truthfulness]

As long as it retards the Democrats' agenda, the answer is "yes".

[Bill Dalasio]

Mike Pence? That is supposed to convince anybody? What's next, you're going to bring in Chris Christie and Ben Shapiro to tell us all that everything is going just swimmingly?

What Mr. Pence studiously evades is the fact that the technocratic-managerial regime is largely insulated from the market by the state. I didn't hear him say much about abandoning fiat currency. Or reforming patent and IP law. Or abolishing the FDA. Or walking back the tangle of bureaucratic privileges that enshrine the corporate establishment (coughcoughSection230coughcough). Instead, he exhorts us to pin our hopes on the "free market", ignoring all these interventions and many more.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the interventions he's arguing against. But, ignoring the context in which they're being proposed is dishonest.

[P. Henry]

What reforms would you like in patent and IP law?

[ravenshrike]

For starters drop back copyright to 28 years.

[Minadin]

14, originally, wasn't it?

[ravenshrike]

Two 14 year terms. You could renew for a fee(nominal I believe).

[RealFreeMarket]

For starters, reduce the duration of patent protection to no more than five years. (Technology is exponentially speeding up the pace of research and development, while sharply reducing its cost.) Replace government-granted patent monopolies with reasonable royalty arrangements.

[BigT]

This will kill innovation in all heavy industries. It takes a couple of years to get a patent and a couple of years to build a plant at the very least. So this idea would destroy IP protection and the industry would revert to spy-vs-spy industrial espionage and little or no investment in new things.

Way to go hasbro.

[RealFreeMarket]

It’s patent monopolies themselves that stifle innovation. By its very nature, the patent process creates risk and uncertainty for inventors: they can never know for sure whether the inventions they are developing are infringing other patents, especially since new patents in their area of research may be granted while they are working on their inventions.

Patent laws promote increased government intervention in the economy, requiring a government that is bigger, more complex, more expensive and more intrusive than one without patent laws. Government bureaucrats must review patent applications, grant patents, resolve patent disputes and enforce patent “rights”. This process is time-consuming and requires a significant investment of taxpayer-funded resources.

The patent system changes the nature of competition for the worse, as companies must divert significant resources to obtain and defend their patent monopolies, leaving fewer resources available to improve the goods and services they produce.

Patents violate the libertarian principle regarding ownership of the products of one’s own mind, whenever a person independently creates a device or process that someone else has patented.

It's true that patents do not cause technological progress to grind to a halt – such progress can continue and even accelerate, as is happening now. But strewing 20-year monopolies across the economic landscape causes the engines of such progress to become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This slows down technological progress in a manner that is real but invisible to nearly everyone. As long as patents are enforced, the only way to prevent such monopolies from taking over the entire economy is through intrusive government regulations such as antitrust laws and price controls. By granting and enforcing patents, government creates both the disease and the alleged cure, at the expense of everyone’s liberty.

[Alla Backenstose]

You'd almost think that when Koch-sucking neocon warmongering fascists bleat about their love for the "free market" what they really mean is that they want to continue to have their oligopolistic corporatism without a bunch of lip from the plebes.

[Libertariantranslator]

Finally, a blinkered Jacobin commie Marxist infiltrator amid the sea of unwelcome Trumpanzees. Or did Tony change socks?

[Truthfulness]

What the hell are you talking about? The ones running the “oligopolistic corporatism” are the likes of Blackrock and Vanguard, which hold left-wing positions and values and with the aid of government will spread such. It doesn’t take a “Jacobin commie” to recognize that.

You are not a libertarian, considering you’re fine with government suppression of your enemies.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

He’s just another dirty hippie from the 60’s.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

What Mr. Pence studiously evades is the fact that the technocratic-managerial regime is largely insulated from the market by the state.

Not to mention the fact that they're ideologically captured by the left now.

Pence and lot of old-time Reagan conservatives and neocons have been laboring under the delusion for years that culture and mass media has no bearing on economic policies, ignoring the fact that academia's been pumping out rad-left ideologues into these spaces for over 20 years now, to the point that a long-time moderate like Joe Biden now sounds like a bog-standard college professor or Salon columnist. They stupidly think that if they just focus on economic issues and let the left have the culture, they can convince relatively social conservative, but hard-economic left immigrant populations that a 5% cut in their tax rate and fewer government programs is the way to go.

They still don't understand that Bush getting TARP passed, followed by Romney rolling over and exposing his belly in the 2012 election, were the final straws that broke the party's base from 1990s neocon conservatism into full-blown populism, which is far more concerned with fighting the culture war issues that the neocons mostly gave up on.

[Dillinger]

>>So why are some Republicans turning their backs on the free market principles we've advocated for generations?

who are the "some Republicans"? most of the elected ones start Potomac Shuffle lessons at orientation and never look back.

[Brandybuck]

Mike Pence is both a conservative and an evangelical. A recent trend in both groups is to abandon principals in favors of expediency.

"God is not getting rid of immorality in our nation, therefore let's use the power of the state to get rid of immorality." Several variations on this. God is not doing his job so we have to do it for him.

Post 2000 American Conservatives: "We had to destroy capitalism in order to save it." That was Bush's quote, but the same thinking still applies in the movement. New conservatism is not longer fiscal conservatism. It's about using the power of the state to get their way. Back in my dad's day, hell I'm old enough it was sort of my day too, the big thing among conservatives was "free enterprise", to the point that the American Right actually opposed farm subsidies. Today farm subsidies are a Sacred Right. Sigh. Have there been ANY significant calls for spending cuts by a leading Republican in the past quarter century? Tax cuts sure, but no spending cuts.

The only thing I can see is some movement on the education front, promoting school choice and backpack funding, but that was led by libertarians and conservatives joined in seriously only when it became a culture war issue.

So in the end, evangelicals need to get back to trusting in God, and conservatives need to get back to not trusting in government.

[Zeb]

A recent trend in both groups is to abandon principals in favors of expediency.

Isn't that sort of inherent in politics? One might even say that that is what politics is.

[Brandybuck]

And it's one reason that pre-Moral Majority, fundamentalist Christians did not involve themselves in movement politics. Voting, sure. Even running for office. Not to drag their religion into the contentious public square. Not to declare with a straight face that God was on their party's side and Jesus was a Republican and if you don't vote for Trump you will go to hell.

[Alla Backenstose]

Not to declare with a straight face that God was on their party’s side and Jesus was a Republican and if you don’t vote for Trump you will go to hell.

Literally not a single elected Republican has said or done any of these things you histrionic lying faggot bitch.

[Alla Backenstose]

That was Bush’s quote

No, it wasn't. What he actually said was:

I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system

Don't pass of paraphrases as quotations, it makes you look as stupid as you are dishonest.

Have there been ANY significant calls for spending cuts by a leading Republican in the past quarter century?

Yes. How about a week and a half ago you lying piece of shit? That work? Remember how you were shitting your panties about defaulting on our debt when the MAGA terrorist Republicans wouldn't sign off on Biden's spending spree?

The only thing I can see is some movement on the education front, promoting school choice and backpack funding, but that was led by libertarians

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, it was libertarians who were pulling their kids out of school and using religious homeschooling during the '80s and '90s and being called psychotic fundamentalist terrorists for it.

Anything else you want to lie about that I can shove up your lying faggot ass while I'm here, you lying sack of shit?

[charliehall]

Yeah and then they exempted farm subsidies from their cuts. And the military industrial complex. This isn't about spending this is about pork. Hypocrites.

[Truthfulness]

That's a lie, those proposals had bipartisan support. Very dishonest of you to single out Republicans on this.

Even then, Brandybuck's post remains refuted as you haven't defended his points.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD]

Charlie is a very dishonest guy.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Have there been ANY significant calls for spending cuts by a leading Republican in the past quarter century? Tax cuts sure, but no spending cuts.

Seriously? They not only remained a keystone of the party's platform up through Trump taking it over, they actually crowbarred sequestration into law in 2011 and shut the government down several times over spending cuts.

[DesigNate]

Is Mike Pence going to be the next warmed over Republican that gets a chance to ride the Libertarian Party ticket to nowheresville?

Also, why is it that the LP can seem to pull candidates for higher office from one party disproportionate to the other? The world may never know…

[Brandybuck]

> Also, why is it that the LP can seem to pull candidates for higher office from one party disproportionate to the other?

Because for half a century one party actually had the rhetoric of liberty. NOT the policies of liberty, but at least the rhetoric. So sometimes they wake up and realize that their party affiliation doesn't actually do what they say.

But that doesn't really explain the two Bobs (Barr and Weld). Gary made sense despite not being able to name which country he would bomb first. And Ron was the original paleo. So it's 50/50.

Back in the 70s there were those who fled the Democrats for the LP. But when the Reaganism idea that government was the problme and not the solution was forgotten, that was when you saw an uptick in conservatives switching over to libertarianism.

[Alla Backenstose]

There is no such person as Bob Weld you retarded sack of shit. You're thinking of Bill Weld. Who left the Republican party to endorse Hillary Clinton.

[Libertariantranslator]

Bill Weld, whatever his faults, saved the LP from anarcho-whackjob idiotism and landed us 4 million pro-choice spoiler votes re-throwing the electoral college dice in 13 states. Small wonder socialisti of both stripes hate and fear him, and rushed to vandalize the LP into an unrecognizable hash of anarcho-idiots and mystics.

[Fats of Fury]

JPMorgan Chase(a government approved member of the banking cartel) , who's CEO was a long standing member of the Federal Reserve and scarfed up 12 billion in taxpayer bailout money recently tried to cancel customer accounts based on their religious and political beliefs. Arbeit Macht Frei Market.

[Bill Dalasio]

Well those customers can just go over to Citibank or Bank of America! Well, except for the fact that they're instituting similar policies. And all of them have access to the financing from the Fed. And an implicit government guarantee. But, other than that, it's a totally free market that conservatives should embrace!

[Brandybuck]

I'm with Wells Fargo precisely because they never went to the Feds asking for a handout during the mortgage crises, and were the first to pay it back when it was forced on them. Not saying they are epitome of banking, but at least their noses are slightly less brown than the others.

[Alla Backenstose]

Cool blog bro.

[charliehall]

There are thousands of banks in the US. In fact the financial sector is probably the one with the most competition today. There are also thousands of insurance companies. If you don't like Chase or Citi or BofA there are still thousands of other banks you can lend your money to.

[Illocust]

Goddammit, this shit should not be possible.

[P. Henry]

They cancelled one account, and denied it was for religious or political reasons. Other than that your post is completely accurate.

[Fats of Fury]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/republican-states-accuse-jpmorgan-of-freezing-customers-bank-accounts-and-discriminating-against-beliefs/ar-AA1brFC4

Yes they closed that one account in 19 different states.

[Sevo]

"JPMorgan Chase [...] recently tried to cancel customer accounts based on their religious and political beliefs."

How did they determine the beliefs?

[Fats of Fury]

"In May 2022, Chase abruptly closed the National Committee for Religious Freedom's (NCRF) checking account. NCRF is a 'nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the right of everyone in America to live one's faith freely.' NCRF's National Advisory Board includes Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim members,"

According to the complaint, a JPMorgan employee told the group that the bank would restore the NCRF's account if it provided a list of its donors, the political candidates it intended to support, and details of the criteria used to determine its support and endorsements.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Although it is hard to tell from the paraphrasing offered as evidence, the bank may have been trying to determine if the NCRF was a lobbying group, rather than a "nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit organization". Without sufficient evidence to back up claims made in an application, a bank would usually err on the side of caution and close a newly-opened account.

By forgoing profit, the bank is perhaps not capitalistic enough, but we all know what happens when a bank ignores risk, don't we?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

"The bottom line is this: Conservatives can either be for politically motivated government intervention in the private sector, or we can be against it."

Does this include crony capitalism? Asking for some CEO friends.

[MWAocdoc]

I wonder if "Mike" had to chuckle over the irony of this line as he wrote it?

[Alla Backenstose]

Conservatives have to reject politically motivated government interventions in our precious free market, like removing specially-granted exemptions from generally applicable laws to donor-class corporations!

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Are you claiming DeSanctimonious was acting upon principle?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

None of this was necessary. The best way to change businesses' behavior is to hit them where it hurts—the pocketbook. The American people seemingly understand this truth, as evidenced by their grassroots boycotts and changes in purchasing habits.

The best way to not get into these kerfuffles in the first place is to not award megacorporations special taxing districts that you don't offer the bowling alley down the street. Free market principles indeed.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

This whole Disney thing is root and branch of what's wrong with blinkered libertarianism which masquerades as free-markets thinking. The system is thrown way out of balance with a truckload of perks, special tax districts, favorable regulations, kickbacks and other sundry lopsided deals and treatment. Florida (for better or worse) took its thumb off one part of the scale and so-called libertarians lose their shit over "interference in the markets".

Newsflash, the market done been interfered with already... so let's just admit what everyone in this equation is and maybe we can get back to negotiating price instead of definitions of terms.

[Social Justice is neither]

The problem is the libertarians writing here and supporting them are at least left leaning so they're fine with consolidating the gains of the authoritarian left as the status quo while freaking out over anything at all from the right.

[Brandybuck]

The Disney thing about about Disney and only Disney. All those other corporations with similar perks were unaffected. The correct libertarian response would be to change the law, not to target one particular corporation the state once gave some perks to. Get rid of the perks for ALL the corporations. Rule of Law not Rule of Whim.

[Alla Backenstose]

Actually, lying faggot cocksucker, the law passed was universal. It affected about a dozen different special districts, all of whom complied with the new law with the sole exception of Disney.

Keep lying, faggot cocksucker, I can keep shoving them up your asshole for as long as you need that prostate tickled.

[Libertariantranslator]

Ah, another Trumpanzee shows its colors. Prepare Muton torpedoes... Moot Loser!

[Truthfulness]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

[Old Engineer]

DeSantis' mistake was not in getting rid of Disney's special perks, it was doing it because of Disney's political activity. Would DeSantis have done the same had Disney supported the rules barring children from certain kinds of explicit books? Highly unlikely.

What DeSantis accomplished was to convince people that using the state to restrict certain viewpoints was legitimate, thereby giving the left the victory it wanted - making all things subject to "cancellation" by the state.

[Truthfulness]

If the Disney incident was the catalyst to reverse the special treatment the government was giving to certain businesses other other ones, then so be it. It was the right thing to do.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You really think he was just acting "to reverse the special treatment the government was giving to certain businesses", Troof?

Despite his claims to the contrary?

“Disney and other woke corporations won’t get away with peddling their unchecked pressure campaigns any longer. If we want to keep the Democrat machine and their corporate lapdogs accountable, we have to stand together now.”

"When corporations try to use their economic power to advance a woke agenda, they become political, and not merely economic, actors."

"Leaders must stand up and fight back when big corporations make the mistake, as Disney did, of using their economic might to advance a political agenda."

Not too much about reversing "special treatment" on grounds of equality and fairness, and quite a lot about punishing corporations who dare to speak out.

In the words of Rod Dreher, "Hallelujah! Finally, a senior American Republican politician has learned what Viktor Orban figured out a long time ago: that in a political environment in which the Left exercises political power through supposedly non-political institutions, the Right has no choice but to fight back hard, and take scalps."

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

All the other special districts that had their privileges removed at the same time as Disney immediately complied with what they were supposed to do. Disney tried that stupid 11th-hour shit to retain control, then Iger fucked up by claiming that Disney and Reedy Creek are the exact same thing (which is a BIG legal no-no), and their IPs are bleeding money now because they pissed off at least 25% of the population into outright rejection of their brand. All because Iger and Latondra Newton were hell-bent on "injecting queerness" into everything.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

And yeah, if Disney wants to act like a political entity, they can get treated like one. No special privileges for global megacorps who think it's okay to encourage kids to cut their genitals off.

[MWAocdoc]

Historically the only justification for government-chartered corporations was to encourage capital formation by protecting individual investors from personal liability during the start-up phase of the new American republic after the Revolution so the American people would not be at the mercy of foreign nations and could compete commercially with them. I think that excuse evaporated over one hundred and fifty years ago! There is NO remaining excuse for special corporate legal status and hasn't been for over a hundred years. The best way not to get into these kerfuffles in the first place is to stop government chartering of corporations and let investors evaluate their risk-benefit situations accordingly. After that I could not care less whether the stock price and market share of corporations rises or falls or what happens to their investors.

[creech]

Given today's litigious climate, why would anyone invest when they could be sued for every cent they have? Absent government chartering, I still have a right to form a corporation with others and state that we are only liable for what we have invested. Our limited liability is part of the contract you accept when you do business with us.

[Alla Backenstose]

MWAocdoc is a Marxist retard with literally no idea what a corporation is as a legal entity or what liability it limits. Ignore the fucking moron.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

What about people who don't "contract" with your business? Third party victims of your company's negligence, for example. If they're not in contract with your business, they wouldn't be precluded from suing you down to your last cent.

Corporations are state-chartered. Let's see which "principled" (R) state abolishes its corporate code first!

[MWAocdoc]

Wait, let me check … yes, I believe that I accidentally stepped through the looking glass into an alternate universe. Has “Mike” Pence EVER written an opinion piece for Reason before?! But taking this seriously for a moment: asserting that a free market is “the solution” to ANYTHING is just as bad as asserting that government can fix “problems” caused by the free market by regulating it. Free markets never solve any alleged social problems. Although I agree that government should not interfere in the private transactions between consenting adults; and that the people and the economy are better off in almost every way when the market is free from government interference; the question remains: what has Mike Pence done personally and politically to roll back government? I suspect that “Mike” is making a cynical bid for support from his Tea Party wing here, but it’s likely to backfire on him in a similar way to what happened to California grape growers at the hands of socialist boycotts and to Budweiser by the anti-woke social warriors. Meanwhile the Rs and Ds pretend that the world would be a better place if only their side had the overwhelming majority in the District of Columbia.

[sarcasmic]

But taking this seriously for a moment: asserting that a free market is “the solution” to ANYTHING is just as bad as asserting that government can fix “problems” caused by the free market by regulating it.

The difference between markets and government is that when people in markets make mistakes they lose money and do something different, while when government makes mistakes they do the same thing harder with more money.

That’s why market solutions are almost always better than government. They change and adapt, while government doubles-down.

[MWAocdoc]

I don't disagree, but what "social" problems did market responses correct? By definition all of these social problems are someone's personal opinion. Regardless of how many people share those opinions, it doesn't constitute and excuse for government action and, usually, a completely different set of opinions arises after the proposed solution has been applied, whether governmental or market-based.

[sarcasmic]

You need to define “social problems” before I can give a response.

Edit: For example if you mean racism, you must remember that government created and enforced Jim Crow. Government force was required because the only color the market cares about is green.

[creech]

True, but there were plenty of small businesses that were happy to enforce Jim Crow because, in their locale, all the white green would disappear if they started accepting black green.

[creech]

"government doubles-down."
See Atlanta trolley car story for confirmation.

[BYODB]

I hate trolly problems. There's never a right answer!

/sarc

[Bill Dalasio]

The difference between markets and government is that when people in markets make mistakes they lose money and do something different, while when government makes mistakes they do the same thing harder with more money.

That's true in a genuinely free market. Of course, what happens when the market is already interfered with to insulate some players from the consequences of their bad decisions? Then the change and adaptation you mention is no longer incentivized, especially when it runs counter to what is demanded for that insulation. In that case, unless "leave it to the market to sort out" means taking away that insulation, it's nothing more than an endorsement of the existing crony relationships.

[Alla Backenstose]

That’s why market solutions are almost always better than government. They change and adapt, while government doubles-down.

And that's why Target is no longer selling "tuck friendly" tranny swimsuits for 7 year olds and Budweiser fired the Millennial MBA who spearheaded the marketing campaign to alienate their entire customer base, right drunky?

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

"Target is no longer selling “tuck friendly” tranny swimsuits for 7 year olds "

Target never sold those for seven-year-olds, you reich-wing dumbass.

Try the truth next time.

[ravenshrike]

Right, they just sold the same cut with a different label attached.

[Fats of Fury]

Talk about corporate fascism Disney is a private company AND was a Florida political entity running it's own town. The Pullman company of Illinois did the same thing in 1880 and was ordered by a court to sell it in 1904, so there is precedent for dissolving company owned towns.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

They don't have courts in Florida?

[sarcasmic]

wrong spot

[Alla Backenstose]

Literally the most intelligent thing you’ve ever posted, drunky. Keep this up.

[Fats of Fury]

BTW Reagan instituted tariffs on semiconductors and to protect Harley Davidson.
But those were different because he wasn't Trump.
Reagan's policies are the reason we have foreign auto assembly plants in the US.
I think Pence's main concern is the loss of campaign contributions from big business.

[Alla Backenstose]

I think Pence’s main concern is the loss of campaign contributions from big business.

Give this man 64 silver dollars.

[Social Justice is neither]

So Pence is the R Uniparty candidate. I guess this is his payout for ignoring unconstitutional voting rule changes and certifying a sham of an election.

To Pence, fuck off you corrupt hack. You offer nothing but more consolidation of power to the state and more money to the corrupt players in congress, state beauracrats and corporate interests you report to instead of the American people.

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Where was the part about the government being too big to fail and it's failing already?

What about the part where in order to balance the budget you're first going to freeze government spending and stop government growth?

How about firing useless government employees and getting their union abolished at the same time? Returning power back to the people and weeding out the administrative state?

I must have missed those parts.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

"The Lord Taketh and the Lord Giveth away..."

[Liberty Yeti]

Hey, we'd all love a free market, but we're laughably far away from one.

- Investment firms control boards of directors, and the same firm might own up controlling several supposed "competitors."

- Because they're all in on it together, no "unapproved" voices can even RUN for board of directors seats. They likely won't win, and even if they somehow do, they'll be harassed, pushed out, and ultimately blacklisted. The ultimate effect is that nobody actually worth having a seat runs, because they won't have a career or income otherwise. Same for any CEO/executive who doesn't regurgitate woke D.I.E. garbage.

- On top of that, just controlling enough to be able to dump massive piles of shares at once is a threat they can use to extract politicized concessions.

- Government regulation puts its thumb on the scales of the market - usually favoring giant crony donor corporations, or using control via subsidies and/or threats of regulatory harm.

- These things all go hand in hand so that no matter how much everyone hates a company, it never changes. Thanks to consolidation, you barely have any choices to begin with (Coke, Pepsi, or some off-brand soda that's likely also in the wokefolio), so unless you've got your own factory or can make your own soap in the wilderness, it's impossible for you to boycott anything effectively. The same people own and control it ALL.

Even if you want your own factory... OK, where are you getting the parts and the raw materials? Yeah, guess who controls that... the same f***ing handful of people.

There is no "free market." It's all the land of f***ing make-believe right now; a pretend economy, to go along with our pretend "democracy" and senile pretend president. Any upstart needs web hosting, raw materials, and processing. And all of those things are under an oligopoly that colludes with government to exclude virtually any competition that doesn't do things their way. They certainly crush anything that might become popular with the masses that is not completely aligned with the deranged values of far-left oppression; Parler is just one example.

Anti-trust enforcement went away right around the same time the companies starting toeing the totalitarian line at the government's behest. A free pass for the corporate brownshirts, and fire and brimstone enforcement from the DOJ for even the most tepid of dissenters.

The system is rotten, and deserves condemnation.

[Libertariantranslator]

Paid for by Defeatists Against Libertarian Spoiler Votes, a collectivist corporation.

[Truthfulness]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

[Liberty Yeti]

My camp "Libertarians Who Can't Have Free Markets So They Settle for Payback as the Next Best Thing."

Also for the record I voted LP for president in 2000, 2004, 2012, and 2016. I wrote in Ron Paul in 2008, objecting to everyone on the ballot. I voted Trump in 2020 as a PROTEST vote because the LP did not come out against the lockdowns and mandates (how is it that DONALD f***ing TRUMP was the sanest voice of 2020?). It was in a blue state, so it was a rather meaningless protest, but a protest nonetheless.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

The solution to the problem of the market not "really" being free, is to stop trying to make it free. That would solve the problem, right?

The same could be said about voting, of course. And by the same people.

[mad.casual]

Wow! Former President Mike Pence!. A man with all the charisma of Spiro T. Agnew and the heady brilliance of Dan Quayle! What. An. Honor!

[Brandybuck]

And all the marksmanship of Dick Cheney.

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[Foo_dd]

a big part of the reason some conservatives are abandoning the free market is because some of them are learning the free market does not support their desires.

movies with gay characters are not getting boycotted. people still go to disneyland. state governments are not overturning their election results for them. abortion providers were not put out of business through their teen abstinence programs. yelling racial slurs at someone can get you fired.

the extreme wings of republicans and democrats share the trait that they only like freedom, of any kind, when it gives them what they want. otherwise, it is all about controlling those who don't agree with them. (think of all the liberals who were mad when chick-filet sales didn't crash.) when the larger part of the market, who thinks they are both nuts, does not deliver the punishments they want.... they both hate freedom.

[sarcasmic]

Nobody set out to ban things that they do. Only things that others do. So in their minds they're not infringing on freedom. At least not the freedom of anyone who matters to them.

[Foo_dd]

pretty much. the end result of dehumanizing the "other" in our climate of toxic tribalism.

[Alla Backenstose]

You're pretty easy to dehumanize, shreek. You could have made it a little more difficult for your opponents by not posting dark web links to hardcore child pornography and getting your original Sarah Palin's Buttplug handle banned.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

And you downloaded it, didn't you?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Speaking from experience?

[Sevo]

Fuck off and die, asshole.

[ravenshrike]

*looks at the arc of Disney returns over the past 6 years and the record low turnout so far this year at Disneyworld*

You sure about that bub?

[Alla Backenstose]

shreek is a lying piece of shit, but he makes up for it by being incredibly fucking stupid as well.

[Alla Backenstose]

Yep, it's totally about gay characters in movies and abortion mills, shreek. Not showing 5 year old kids cartoon illustrations of a child giving a blowjob to a grown man and people whose only crime is having personal opinions that were completely normal 5 years ago being completely and totally barred from the financial system or the ability to use internet services like domain registrars and web hosting. Spot on as usual.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

LOL, Disney has been bleeding cash ever since they decided to pick a fight with DeSantis.

I suspect your real complaint is that conservatives actually decided to fight back and not spend money on Disney's wokel yokel bullshit.

[Flaco]

This story has been up for five hours (based on the oldest comments). I googled some of the text, and I see it nowhere else but reason.com, which is at least some evidence that Pence, or someone on his team, specifically chose this outlet. I know it isn't much, but how many other major party candidates have submitted articles to a (mostly) libertarian publication?

[Jen Brooks]

It's interesting to see a shift in attitudes among some Republicans away from their traditional advocacy for free market principles. With regards to this development, it's worth noting that many individuals, regardless of political affiliation, are increasingly diversifying their investment portfolios to include assets that aren't directly tied to the volatility of the stock market, such as gold. This has led to a rise in popularity of gold IRA companies (for those who don't know about gold IRAs I'll leave a link https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-au/news-and-trends/best-gold-ira-companies-of-2023-reviews-of-top-precious/454777), which allow investors to add precious metals to their retirement savings. While this could be viewed as a move away from pure free-market principles, it's also indicative of a pragmatic approach to financial planning in uncertain times.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sure, Jen, but if it doesn't allow you to make $90 an hour working from home, how good can it be?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Not mindlessly consooooooooooooooming product from woke corporations that hate them is hardly an abandonment for free market principles.

[Honest Economics]

For sound economic perspective please go to https://honesteconomics.substack.com/

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sure, Tom, but if it doesn’t allow you to make $90 an hour working from home, how good can it be?

[justme]

"We do not need to abandon our principles in order to win. We simply need leaders with the courage to speak hard truths"

really? how's that working? it's time we take the gloves off with the tards. what politicians like desantis are doing is necessary in today's time.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Thanks, I'll put you into the "abandon principles in order to win" column. You'll find the company quite comforting.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

LOL, as if "speaking hard truths" ever convinced anyone. It doesn't mean anything, it's just a platitude that 90s-era conservatives are using as a coping mechanism to continue deluding themselves that "ideas," and not actual political power and who wields it, will convince most people that the only thing that matters is tax cuts and "government is the problem."

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

I am furious at Reason providing space to Mike Pence. He has no end of ways to get time and space in the MSM. Reason is our little corner of the libertarian free-market world to air the views of those of our ilk who can't get time and space anywhere else.

[Alla Backenstose]

Notice that shreek didn't melt down when they had the guys from Jacobin on here.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Oh? You aren't one of those here who incessantly complain about Reason's articles?

[Jerryskids]

"Hitting them in the pocketbook" doesn't work when you've got a managerial class running things, they don't give a shit about profits when the alternative is virtue signalling. It's not their money they're risking, why should they care? They'll just run a company into the ground and then go get a job somewhere else. BlackRock and Vanguard and their ESG bullshit are the worst examples of this currently. Why they aren't facing shareholder lawsuits over neglecting their fiduciary duties is beyond me.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Maybe because their shareholders aren't you?

[Chip D]

This article is crap. The reason that so many are becoming dissatisfied with our current system is because it is no longer a free market capitalist system. Our government has been corrupted by corporate and special interests. This is basically a rigged game. That is not the system that brought millions out of poverty. Acting as if woke politics and progressive ideas are the problem is absurd. They are a distraction put forth by those in power to keep the masses from revolting. The media is complicit.

[Spock]

If conservatives like Pence really supported free markets they would have proposed and supported a complete ban on government involvement in the economic rights necessary for free markets to exist. As it is, they are as bad or worse than the explicit opponents to such things...they are _Pragmtists._

[Libertariantranslator]

Christian National Socialists did indeed invade Prague, so not an absolute total misspelling of facts...

[Truthfulness]

On the contrary, the Catholic Church was persecuted by the Nazis when they invaded Prague and took full control of the buildings while arresting many Catholic leaders, which included Cardinal Karel Kašpar.

I suggest you read Hitler’s Table Talk, there were multiple disparaging comments on Christianity from the Nazis. You are not telling the truth.

[Bill Falcon]

The whole Pandemic protection racket paid by trillions of printed money which devalued our savings is something old Mike Pence needs to fess up to. Mike you were VP..and Trump was easily manipulated..why not end the Fed, modify the CRA as it should have been to stop govt from disciminating and forcing others to and stop at that? Or free trade being based on both parties having NO tariffs or subsidizes and currencies pegged to gold like the old days? and I'm not even getting into the neocon globalist bolshies who control our foreign policy (no I don't care that Trotsky lost to Stalin or what the Czar did 150 years ago)....conservatives need to dump the neocons and expose them as the anti Catholic bigots and degenerates they are..

[NOYB2]

conservatives need to dump the neocons and expose them as the anti Catholic bigots and degenerates they are..

That’s funny, given that a lot of neocons ARE Catholics, and that a lot of Catholics are "degenerates", from Nancy Pelosi all the way to child molesting bishops.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

No, most neocons are atheist former Trotskyites that split with the New Left over the latter's desire to have detente with the Soviet Union. And a kid's more likely to be molested by a public school teacher than they are by a Catholic bishop, particularly when one takes church attendance rates over the last 25 years into account.

[NOYB2]

No, most neocons are atheist former Trotskyites that split with the New Left over the latter’s desire to have detente with the Soviet Union.

What a coincidence: so are many Catholics.

And a kid’s more likely to be molested by a public school teacher than they are by a Catholic bishop

"No worse that public school teachers" isn't a strong argument.

Seriously, though: many war-mongering conservatives are indeed Catholics.

[NOYB2]

Why are some Republicans turning their backs on the free market principles we’ve advocated for generations?

Sadly, a lot of what Reason advocates is special privileges for small, selected groups of people/corporations and rent seeking regulation.

No, lowering taxes for people with political power, or flooding the country with welfare recipients, or no-tariff imports from communist nations are not “free market principles”.

Sorry, Reason, you are not a “free market” magazine.

[TJJ2000]

But the answer to such challenges is not to demand government intervention—it is to use free market principles to fix the free market itself.

Please do let us know when/if the Leftards *ALLOWS* the free-market.

The author seems blind to the oncoming Civil War this Nazi-Invaded Nation is headed for. As what has become with countless other Nazi-Invaded nations. Hut hum; Russia. War is always the ends of Communist and Socialist nations because they believe in their greedy criminalistic hearts that Gov-Guns makes sh*t. And when it turns out they don't they're still so convinced they start killing and stealing more until either a monarchy of slaves exist or complete ruin.

This is/was so predictable. Many knew this would came about from the 'what about the poor' cries of [Na]tional So[zi]alists. Sadly; You can't have a free-market conquer the Nazi's when the Nazi's won't allow a free-market. You have to conquer the Nazi's in order to allow a free-market.

[n00bdragon]

Yo, Mr. Pence. If you can solemnly swear that, upon taking the oath of office, you will disappear into the White House and not be seen or heard about in public for four years, I will vote for you.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

So you're looking for a viable presidential candidate motivated by neither money nor power...

Good luck with that.

[n00bdragon]

A man has to have dreams.

[TJJ2000]

It wasn't that long ago men dreamed of Liberty and Justice for all.
Then the Nazi-Indoctrination started.

[Sevo]

And we are to believe that the PR release issued by Pence's staff is somehow representative of Pence's opinion?
Bitch all you please about Trump's comments, but they were never filtered through a staff.
What a sad, sad result.
Fuck all you TDS-addled shits with a running rusty chainsaw; you own what we have.

[Sevo is my bitch]

Pence wants to be the problem. That is what he is saying.

Of course, Kochsucking reason gives him a platform.

[NOYB2]

Mike Pence will never be president.

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[Fist of Etiquette]

Well, well, well. The first reply to an article penned by a capitalist veep is spam. What better example of MARKET FAIL.

[RealFreeMarket]

The problem isn’t capitalism, the problem is corporate capitalism. Corporations are not expressions of free-market principles. They are creatures of the state, not the privately owned engines of prosperity and abundance that most of us believe to be the case. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly said so. In Cort v. Ash (1975), the Supreme Court unanimously declared:

“Corporations are creatures of state law, and investors commit their funds to corporate directors on the understanding that, except where federal law expressly requires certain responsibilities of directors with respect to stockholders, state law will govern the internal affairs of the corporation.”

Corporations function in the economy as if they were free, self-directed individuals, when in reality they are not free at all. Unless created by a government body, a corporation cannot even exist. As creatures of government, they can act only within the government's rules. When participating in the marketplace, their incentives are very different from the incentives of real people. Corporations must remain in the good graces of bureaucrats employed by the government that created them, and they must do the government’s bidding even when it's against their own interests and those of their customers, employees and suppliers.

Many conservatives and libertarians continue to insist, against all the evidence, that a corporation is merely a convenient shorthand or an expression of the right of free association. But in doing so we are flying in the face of political, social, and legal reality, and as a consequence we continually lose ground to our ideological opponents.

[Femposh]

Please explain what exactly you are doing. I have been working on digital marketing for the last few months and not getting success with it. I started LLC as well as started a few more sites to earn with them, but no luck

[Use the Schwartz]

My very small company is an LLC – a corporation. Creating a corporation legally protects business owners and is something that is voluntary.

So, what exactly are you going on about?

[freedomwriter]

The problem with EVERYTHING is HUMAN BEINGS. Inherently deeply flawed human beings. On paper almost no economic or political system is bad...humans make them bad. There is no system humans can create that will not be corrupted and abused.

[NOYB2]

The problem isn’t capitalism, the problem is corporate capitalism.

These are not well-defined terms.

Corporations function in the economy as if they were free, self-directed individuals, when in reality they are not free at all.

Corporations function simply as the collective actions of their owners.

Corporations must remain in the good graces of bureaucrats employed by the government that created them, and they must do the government’s bidding even when it’s against their own interests and those of their customers, employees and suppliers.

So must every business. Generally, different legal forms of businesses are still regulated the same way.

But in doing so we are flying in the face of political, social, and legal reality

I don't know who this "we" is referring to. You are not a libertarian.

[public-name]

Spot on, Schwartz! (I own an LLC and previously owned another one.)

I'll guess that RealFree has done a lot more reading than doing business.

[RealFreeMarket]

I have owned several small businesses myself, including at one time an LLC.

“Limited liability” is a government-granted privilege that shields stockholders of corporations from financial risk relating to corporate negligence or misbehavior. This risk is instead transferred to other parties, often injured ones. Legal liability usually falls upon the corporation itself rather than its shareholders, on the grounds that shareholders do not participate in the company's management and therefore cannot be held accountable. From the shareholders’ point of view, they have the right to participate in a company’s growth and profits, but assume no risk beyond the amount of their investment for any wrongful acts a corporation’s agents or employees might commit. This completely severs the link between rights and responsibilities, which is a foundational principle of the free market.

Libertarians disagree about the extent to which individual shareholders should be held responsible for corporate misconduct, but that is not the issue here. The issue instead is that by granting limited liability to owners of corporations and denying it to unincorporated firms, the government creates a double standard in the marketplace, one that clearly favors corporations over individuals.

There is no need or justification for "corporation" as a legal concept at all. In a free economy with a single standard of justice, an unincorporated business should have exactly the same standing under the law as an incorporated business in matters such as taxation, liability, reporting requirements, and recognition of contracts. Aside from protecting the rights of third parties, governments should have no say regarding any firm's form of organization, purpose, or method of operation.

Legal protections extended to corporations should be equally available to all other groups. Any activities that are legally and morally legitimate for corporations should be equally legitimate for all private, voluntary groups of people. Conversely, activities that violate the rights of others should be prohibited to all such groups. When it comes to legal rights and responsibilities, a free society should not treat corporations any differently from the way it treats any other privately organized groups.

[freedomwriter]

You HAVE an LLC because government ALLOWS you to have one, with all the protections it provides. THAT was the initial point. Creating one is not a choice if one has half a brain.
Whether you agree with the rest of the diatribe about the relationship between corporations and politics is another matter.

[charliehall]

Alexander Hamilton was a big proponent of corporations. Without the limited liability that they provide, people with cash to invest would be keeping it in matresses. It seems that the nutty far left has been joined by the stupid far right in corporation bashing. And VP Pence is one of them. These corporate executives he blasts aren't woke, they just see market openings to make their stockholder owners more money. In Trump America making money is a bad thing unless you are a member of the Trump family.

[RealFreeMarket]

If limited liability is so great, why don't governments provide it to ALL businesses? Why the double standard?

[RealFreeMarket]

No, the initial point (and title of Pence's article) is about free market principles. Just because the government ALLOWS you to participate in its double standard does not make it a legitimate part of the free market. What part of the "diatribe" do you disagree with?

[RealFreeMarket]

On paper EVERY economic or political system is bad except for those that recognize human rights and promote freedom. The worst human flaw is the desire for power over others, and by no means do all humans share that flaw.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Those legal protections are available to other groups: they can all choose to incorporate.

[RealFreeMarket]

So what? That doesn't make it a proper government function within a free market system. What the government “protects” corporate stockholders from is enforcement of the legitimate claims of creditors or injured parties. In exchange, stockholders are required to pay corporate taxes and fees, and to submit to government reporting requirements and considerable government control over the manner in which their business is organized. This clearly creates a double standard of justice, along with numerous other violations of free market principles. If a business owner desires limited liability, numerous free market alternatives exist, such as insurance and royalty arrangements, to protect one’s personal assets from one's business and investment liabilities.

[Nelson]

Anyone can create an LLC. It is available to all businesses. You don't know what you're talking about.

[Nelson]

"That doesn’t make it a proper government function within a free market system."

Absolutism is never a good argument. Markets need rules to allow investors to have confidence. A completely unregulated market isn't what "free market" means. Government will always have a role because an unregulated system is just a fraud machine. The choice isn't between two extremes (no regulation or a state-owned, command economy). The choice is "how much regulation is best?".

There are a multitude of corporate structures available to companies. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Which one a company chooses is dependent on how they want to do business. That's a free market, where there isn't just one option.

The same goes for ESG, or political positioning, or corporate policies. Saying, "Fortune 500 companies are spending millions to fill our airwaves with ads that promote gender ideology and climate alarmism as much as their products." as if it's not the free market in action is rhetoric and polemic. How a company chooses to position itself is pure free market. If you don't like their position, don't buy from them.

"This clearly creates a double standard of justice"

How? The decision to sell or lend to a company is the creditor's choice. They go in knowing the rules and assess their risk based upon those rules. That it sometimes doesn't work out is the essence of capitalism. Failure is always an option.

"If a business owner desires limited liability, numerous free market alternatives exist, such as insurance and royalty arrangements, to protect one’s personal assets from one’s business and investment liabilities."

It isn't the business owner who is protected, it is the investors. The implication of your argument is that each investor would have to get insurance before investing, since without limited liability any creditor could go after any investor's personal assets for the debt of the company. That would make the cost of entry too high for most people, severely reducing investment and hampering innovation and growth.

[Wizard4169]

So what would you prefer, "joint and several" liability, where any investor in a business could potentially find themselves on the hook for all harms allegedly done by that business? Then no one with any significant assets would want to invest.

[Freeperson]

So what? That doesn’t make it a proper government function within a free market system. What the government “protects” corporate stockholders from is enforcement of the legitimate claims of creditors or injured parties. In exchange, stockholders are required to pay corporate taxes and fees, and to submit to government reporting requirements and considerable government control over the manner in which their business is organized. This clearly creates a double standard of justice, along with numerous other violations of free market principles. If a business owner desires limited liability, numerous free market alternatives exist, such as insurance and royalty arrangements, to protect one’s personal assets from one’s business and investment liabilities.

[Freeperson]

“Markets need rules to allow investors to have confidence.”

Yes, but the rules need to be uniform, regardless of how a business is internally organized. Making businesses pay for the privilege of incorporation, and dictating a business’s internal structure, are not in any sense proper functions of government within a free market.

“A completely unregulated market isn’t what ‘free market’ means.”

I never said it was.

The choice isn’t between two extremes (no regulation or a state-owned, command economy).”

I never said it was.

“The choice is ‘how much regulation is best?’”

No, the choice is “what regulations best protect the rights of all parties involved?”

“There are a multitude of corporate structures available to companies. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Which one a company chooses is dependent on how they want to do business. That’s a free market, where there isn’t just one option.”

There are a multitude of donuts available in a donut shop too. That doesn’t mean the government should be dictating or limiting the foods you are allowed to eat. A free market is not simply the ability to choose from a multitude of options. A free market means that people can create any type of business structure they choose, as long as it does not violate the rights of others.

“How a company chooses to position itself is pure free market.”

Not unless that company exists in a free market economy. In most Western economies, corporations are creatures of the state, not the privately owned engines of prosperity and abundance that most of us believe to be the case. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly said so. In Cort v. Ash (1975), the Supreme Court unanimously declared:

“Corporations are creatures of state law, and investors commit their funds to corporate directors on the understanding that, except where federal law expressly requires certain responsibilities of directors with respect to stockholders, state law will govern the internal affairs of the corporation.”

Does this sound like a free economy to you? It doesn’t to me.

Corporations function as if they were free, self-directed individuals, when in reality they are not free at all. As creatures of government, they can act only within the government's rules. When participating in the marketplace, their incentives are very different from the incentives of real people. Corporations must remain in the good graces of bureaucrats employed by the government that created them, and they must do the government’s bidding even when it's against their own interests and those of their customers and suppliers.

“The decision to sell or lend to a company is the creditor’s choice.”

This is true whether a business is incorporated or unincorporated. It has no bearing on whether corporations should exist in a free market economy. The decision to be harmed by a company, however, is not the injured party’s choice. Government’s “protection” of limited liability comes at the expense of injured parties. Suing a corporation is a difficult, expensive and time-consuming process — much more so than suing another person. A corporation can easily dissolve or go bankrupt, even as its owners continue to prosper. A judge’s approval is usually needed to “pierce the corporate veil” and sue the owners directly. Such approval can be difficult or impossible to obtain, especially in jurisdictions that advertise themselves as friendly to corporations.

“The implication of your argument is that each investor would have to get insurance before investing, since without limited liability any creditor could go after any investor’s personal assets for the debt of the company. That would make the cost of entry too high for most people, severely reducing investment and hampering innovation and growth.”

No it wouldn’t. An investor would be free to buy a company's bonds or enter into a royalty arrangement rather than having a direct ownership interest in the company. In today’s economy, shareholders participate in a company’s growth and profits, but assume no risk beyond the amount of their investment for any wrongful acts a corporation’s agents or employees might commit. This completely severs the link between rights and responsibilities, which is a foundational principle of the free market.

[Truthfulness]

Well said.

[Nelson]

"Yes, but the rules need to be uniform, regardless of how a business is internally organized."

So only one way to incorporate? When the governemnt dictates one, and only one, way to structure your company, that is a less-free market than having multiple options to choose from with different advantages and disadvantages.

"I never said it was."

You basically did. For both times you said this.

"No, the choice is “what regulations best protect the rights of all parties involved?”"

So you're restating what I said. If I added "and what type of" to the statement “The choice is ‘how much regulation is best?", vould you recognize that we are saying the same thing?

"There are a multitude of donuts available in a donut shop too. That doesn’t mean the government should be dictating or limiting the foods you are allowed to eat."

Again you make the argument that government doesn't have a legitimate role in the free market, which is an absolutist (and specious) argument.

"A free market means that people can create any type of business structure they choose, as long as it does not violate the rights of others."

Like I said. An absolutist argument that has no limit except the NAP. The instability of a market like that, with no regulation and no rules except for a vague "don't violate the rights of others", is too risky for most people. That would decrease investment due to the unacceptable risk/reward equation, even if you didn't strip liability protections for investors.

"Not unless that company exists in a free market economy."

Of course you can. You don't need a pure free market to choose how to position your company.

"In most Western economies, corporations are creatures of the state"

That's a patently ridiculous statement. Government involvement in the market doesn't make companies "creatures of the state". “Corporations are creatures of state law" is a much different thing. That's just an acknowledgement that the rules of the market are set by laws. You are making a much larger claim that isn't supported.

"Does this sound like a free economy to you? It doesn’t to me."

It sounds like a free market. You seem to be incapable of understanding that regulations, rules, and laws are present in a free market. You seem to think they are mutually exclusive.

"Corporations must remain in the good graces of bureaucrats employed by the government that created them"

No, they must follow the law. A bureaucrat disliking a company is irrelevant to that company. Thinking otherwise is to assume every bureaucrat is corrupt.

"they must do the government’s bidding even when it’s against their own interests and those of their customers and suppliers."

Claiming that having to follow the rules and the law means they "must do the government's bidding" is paranoid conspiracy stuff. Laws are appropriate for a free market. And assuming the interestes of a company, their suppliers, and their customers are all aligned and that the company speaks for all three is ridiculous.

"In today’s economy, shareholders participate in a company’s growth and profits, but assume no risk beyond the amount of their investment for any wrongful acts a corporation’s agents or employees might commit."

Yes. Because they are investors, with no direct knowledge of internal corporate decisions and no influence on those decisions. I'm not sure why you think that's not a valid reason to shoeld them from liability.

Are you a sovereign citizen? Your absolutist, government-has-no-right, anarchist-level belief in the sovereign right of people to do almost anything they want and, if they are prevented by law, that they are being oppressed sounds like their rhetoric.

A free market is regulated. It's not an oxymoron.

[Free Person]

“So only one way to incorporate? When the governemnt dictates one, and only one, way to structure your company, that is a less-free market than having multiple options to choose from with different advantages and disadvantages.”

Only one way to incorporate? I said precisely the opposite: “A free market means that people can create any type of business structure they choose, as long as it does not violate the rights of others.” This means that there are countless ways to organize a business, none of which require a state-created and state-sanctioned corporation.

As I said earlier, there is no need or justification for “corporation” as a legal concept at all. In a free economy with a single standard of justice, an unincorporated business should have exactly the same standing under the law as an incorporated business in matters such as taxation, liability, reporting requirements, and recognition of contracts. Aside from protecting the rights of third parties, governments should have no say regarding any firm’s form of organization, purpose, or method of operation.

As for the other issues, I'll leave it to other readers to decide which of us is right.

[Nelson]

See below for my response to the exact same post from your "RealFreeMarket" account.