Planet JH Weekly interview (2005)
Context: I'm a free-marketeer. I believe in free markets, but... sometimes you have things that look like free markets but aren't because of artificial reasons. I'm not very happy with the current state of what calls itself free market economy in the world because you've got all these grotesque monopolies that are able to game the system in a way that's to their advantage by virtue of their power, and that's not a free market. A real free market has some kind of countervailing influence from the government to keep a monopoly in check, but this government... it's not about free marketing principles, it's about greed pure and simple. And this government wants to assure that the other people that they went to college with get just as rich as they do. This country is going to make Mexico look like Sweden inside of ten years in terms of wealth distribution, because there are no countervailing forces. They've eliminated tax basically for the ultra-rich, they've eliminated any control over monopolies, the greedy have free reign and its just going to be the super rich and the peasants.
“Without civil intervention the free market tends to monopoly. What we should do is try to restore a truly free market, try to restore a market where there are no barriers to access and people have something other than their labour which they can trade or exchange..”
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Phillip Blond 7
British philosopher 1966Related quotes
Speech at the Conservative Party conference of 1954, quoted in Ralph Harris, Politics Without Prejudice. A Political Appreciation of The Rt. Hon. Richard Austen Butler C.H., M.P. (London: Staples Press, 1956), p. 159.
“Free Software in Ethics and Practice” talk at CMC MSU, Moscow, Russia, (3 March 2008) Text http://phobos.cs.msu.su/FTP/Stallman/rms-cmc.txt · ogg file http://sbos.in/RMS_Lection.ogg · YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=GrJpXJY4Oow
2000s
Context: Isn't it ironic that the proprietary software developers call us communists? We are the ones who have provided for a free market, where they allow only monopoly. … if the users chooses this proprietary software package, he then falls into this monopoly for support … the only way to escape from monopoly is to escape from proprietary software, and that is what the free software movement is all about. We want you to escape and our work is to help you escape. We hope you will escape to the free world. The free world is the new continent in cyberspace that we have built so we can live here in freedom. It's impossible to live in freedom in the old world of cyberspace, where every program has its feudal lord that bullies and mistreats the users. So, to live in freedom we have to build a new continent. Because this is a virtual continent, it has room for everyone, and there are no immigration restrictions. And because there were never indigenous peoples in cyberspace, there is also no issue of taking away their land. So everyone is welcome in the free world, come to the free world, live with us in freedom. The free software movement aims for the liberation of cyberspace and everyone in it.
How free is the market http://fora.tv/2010/01/06/Raj_Patel_The_Value_of_Nothing#Raj_Patel_How_Free_Is_the_Free_Market FORA.tv
Context: We are all familiar with the idea: Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime. That sounds reasonable enough. … But think of the model that rests on. It constructs people in developing countries that sort of people sitting by the rivers and eating fish and then they look at the river and said: "- So what's that? - It looks like a fish. - Well, how do we get it out? - Well I have no idea, we would have to wait for white man to come and tell us." It's important to remember that actually there are systems of governance that already exist. There are models of development that already exist in developing countries that actually are much more sustainable than the model of free markets that we have been trying to export.
Source: The Tragedy of the Commons https://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3893247&page=1, ABC News (21 November 2007)
“Technological advance often thrives in sheltered and subsidized markets, which defy free trade.”
Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 3, Trade, p. 97
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 2, Learning the right lessons from history, p. 61
Context: Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past.
"The West Should Fear the Growth of State Capitalism," http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7883061/The-West-should-fear-the-growth-of-state-capitalism-Ian-Bremmer.html The Daily Telegraph (July 10, 2010).