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“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.” Ayn Rand ("Atlas Shrugged")
“If you want to know who rules over you, just look for who you are not allowed to criticize.”
― Voltaire
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Organized crime is the last bastion of true free enterprise. Trade unencumbered by laws and regulations I guess "graft" is a product.
I may have to try and read that book again.
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Laissez-faire does not produce graft.
Congress, legislators, lobbyists, think tanks Joe and Hunter Biden, Clintons, et al are the face of graft and producing nothing.
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10-01-2019, 07:45 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-01-2019, 07:47 AM by j.p..)
Theoretically, there would be no need for "graft" under a pure laissez-faire economy. The evil perpetuated through graft would be done legally under pure laissez-faire.
Think tanks produce, unfortunately.
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The second largest economy in the world is the 'underground economy'. It is purely voluntary transactions like a laissez-faire system. There can be no graft if all transactions are voluntary.
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Indeed. As I said earlier. "Organized crime is the last bastion of true free enterprise"
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The 'underground economy' has nothing to do with organized crime, it is as simple as that guy on the streets of New York selling loose cigarettes or underground chefs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...efs/38090/
“If you want to know who rules over you, just look for who you are not allowed to criticize.”
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What ! Organized crime is most definitely a big part of the underground economy.
underground economy
NOUN
NORTH AMERICAN
the part of a country's economic activity that is unrecorded and untaxed by its government; the black market.
You don't think the drug and human trafficking trades fall under this umbrella ?
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First of all, the underground economy is a worldwide economy, every country has it. Second, human trafficking is not an entirely voluntary exchange, in particular on the part of those being sold.
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The "Human" is a "good" and not part of the free market transaction. The transaction has a willing buyer and seller and is unfettered by regulation, records or taxes. The essence of a purely laissez faire economy.
