Detroit is the result of collectivism?
Well, here goes. I tried to explain that we've never actually "tried" my ideology, since everything we've ever done has been a hybrid (the reference to 1789---an important historical marker---was that was the moment of the least amount of American government possible, as it was in its infancy when everyone remembered that we just fought a war to liberate us from unresponsive, distant oppressive government. If there was any possible answer to that question, that was it as a matter of fact. To you guys, this apparently meant another weary venture down the path of historical self-flagellation).
Since the question is impossible to answer, any answer would be ripe for dissent. One could argue 1789, one could argue 2015 (how much freer a market can we have when I can go online and buy Chinese goods wholesaled in Washington State and delivered by North Carolinians in brown and white trucks? One could argue any cross section market in between).
If we take the question with all of its defects, I would be glad to put the "results" of the free market against the results of collectivism. But again, it was always a silly question.
Broken Detroit clearly is. The industry didn't stop making cars in America, they stopped making cars in Detroit. The manufacturing component moved to places that have the ability to differentiate what belongs to producers and what belongs to local government.
eta: Wait, are we honestly debating that industry doesn't cast its vote against irresponsible local government (which is to say, not a free market approach) with its feet? Behold the grand migration from California to Texas, as one example among many (e.g. Toyota...of all things, an auto manufacturer).
Manufacturing in Detroit got burdened with pension and legacy costs, which were a standard free market benefit at the time, as well as aging infrastructure. Is the US collectivist because some jobs are done cheaper by Chinese or Indonesians? I can show you a bunch of mothballed textile and furniture plants in small towns in NC which have become ghost towns. Collectivism too?
So how does the free market benefit the worker?
So how does the free market benefit the worker?
Public sector pensions---the ones that drove Detroit into bankruptcy---are hopefully not your idea of the free market at work. If so, we need to work on our definitions.
The free market is the individual's best chance to demonstrate their autonomy: it's the one vote left that actually counts. If people---people like you and me---wanted to pay for Detroit public sector employees to have above-market, unsustainable pensions, cars would still be made in Detroit. Where was the car you drive made? If we want bloated public sector pensions siphoning off of the private sector, we would have them. We don't. The market said enough is enough. Significantly, the plague our political system created and was unable to cure (bloated, unsustainable public sector pensions) was ultimately cured by the free market. I say Huzzah and good riddance.
"The free market" is not a get-out-of-real-life-and-economics-free card. No one ever said that it was. When a factory closes in North Carolina and moves to China, it's because labor prices make it more efficient. I believe that in many ways that is a good thing, because North Carolinians can leverage their higher quality of life to invest in the future and innovate. People stuck behind a machine making $3 and hour with no bathroom breaks belongs in the past in this State. We can and will do better.
Well, here goes. I tried to explain that we've never actually "tried" my ideology
The government interfered with the free market with that 13th Amendment. Did that disrupt corrective forces?
Really? Why not? Why does your super smart ideology not get a go to see how it works? Ronnie Alzheimer's did try something somewhat similar... How'd that work out anyway? (Answer: Not well.)
Follow up. I think Kansas under Brownback just tried your bizarre and deluded utopia and it has failed miserably. Maybe I'm wrong and you differ in hard ons with Brownback's ideas for an economy. If so, please let me know how you differ from Governor Brownback. Thanks, e-friend!
Sounds like you're saying Detroit is s result of modern free markets. It's not we only get wine from California or France either.
Production has become decentralized in different industries. Detroit isn't the only one.