Alan: There are many reasons why "laissez faire" doesn't work - at least not in the context of The Common Good and a functioning Social Contract. One huge reason is that corporations -- whatever their Official Story -- do not want laissez faire economics to work. The existing "System" is so skewed in favor of corporate America that the nation's "economic handlers" dare not jeopardize the advantages of existing bias. So, "Skew you!"
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"Politics, Economics And The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"
"Pope Francis Links"
G.K. Chesterton - The Anarchy of the Rich
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"Behind every current right-wing invocation of corporatism is the assumption that the market would work perfectly fine if the government simply just got out of the way. Corporatism goes beyond invocations of corruptions. Whatever problems exist, it must exist as a result of the government existing and trying to do something. This vision of laissez-faire assumes a free-floating market system, one whose logic is dangerous to challenge. Sadly, markets don’t always work, nor will they always solve society-level problems. That’s why conservatives who call cap-and-trade, for instance, corporatist, are missing the entire picture—which is how do we best deal with the onset of global warming? To point out that correcting market failures benefit some parties versus other parties is self-evidently true. The question is how do we choose to correct the problems markets can generate, rather than assuming they are entirely the fault of those trying to address them. This critique turns a blind eye to the actual problems we are trying to solve."
The rest of the story: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115932/corporatism-latest-right-wing-obama-smear?wpisrc=nl_wonk