How so? My employer has no power over me. The same goes for everyone else. Employment is voluntary.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

So Child Labor laws are interfering with the free market, so are workplace safety laws, and those pesky requirements about medicines being safe.

Would we be better off with six year olds working in coal mines, workers getting mutilated by machinery while breathing toxic fumes, and cherry flavored anti-freeze being marketed as children's medicine.

Is that why the economy is collapsing?

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

The less the government regulates the shittier American lives tend to be. Like goober already pointed out many people feel thusly: mercenaries paid for by corporations to attack citizens to be abhorrent, children dying in our mines to be abhorrent, and manure being dumped into our drinking water to be just plain icky.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

Only sort of. One has no control over the terms offered for one's type of employment, which are dictated by the labor market, and the conditions affecting that are in turn dictated in part by the U.S. government under influence of corporations.

It's true that one is free to quit one job and go to another, but the differences between one employer and another in the same type of employment are marginal. One is certainly NOT free to quit one job and NOT go to another, unless one somehow achieves financial independence. Since one does not have the choice, realistically speaking, to leave the whole deal on the table and walk away, one is not truly making a free choice.

While one remains employed, one's liberty is restricted by the rules imposed by one's employer, which exercises far more power over one's life (directly, anyway) than the government does, unless of course one is convicted of a felony, or unless the government IS one's employer.

Everything you say goes against the simple reality that employment is mutual and voluntary. I really dont have any more complex and long winded way to say it. We are basically arguing whether the sky is blue here.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Yes people are free to starve and it is vitally important to preserve that liberty by preventing any regulation of business.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Yes, people are free to starve. And yes, it is vitally important to preserve freedom. I really think that the people who dont accept the ideals of the constitution that this country was founded upon should move somewhere else where they feel more at home. I am quite uspet that the socialists feel they have to come into this country and change it.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

It's apparent some posters have little, if any knowledge of how the business world actually functions. Government regulation of business is achieved through business lobbying efforts to eliminate competition, no other reason. If my workers are offered regulated safe working conditions through capital investment derived from profits or increased ownership scope, your company has to meet that cap investment for compliance, relocate their existing capital to a country without those regulations or disengage from that industry. The government could care less about regulation unless prompted to do so by an interested party or parties with adequate political influence.

That's because that ISN'T reality. Employment is quite one-sided, with all the power on the side of the employer usually (there are a few highly-skilled exceptions), and it is not truly voluntary.

If so, then we are doing so on a cloudy day.

Oh, and by the way, the Constitution in no way, shape or form denies the idea that business should be regulated.

I must have missed the part where the fantasy of a "free market" or the reality of corporate ownership of government was included in the "ideals of the constitution"I was born here. As were many of my ancestors. At least one fought in the revolution and family tradition says another was an american indian. But your knee jerk xenophobia is noted.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

' Freedom '

I can't believe it is actually being used in an economic argument. Your definition of the word 'freedom' is not a point for economic discussion ! get a dictionary if you're having trouble understanding what it means.

Economics is the study of scarcity, how to allocate that scarcity with the assumed goal of providing the most amount of benefit to the most number of people.

The free market is not the idea that business owners are 'free' to take everything because they've 'earned' it or that governments should not regulate business because regulation is inherently wrong, it was founded with the idea that certain market mechanisms will adjust naturally to create the most benefit to society.

If it is not doing that, if 1% of the population is taking 85% of the gain, and the remaining 99% are worse off than if the government just took 5% from the richest 1 % and gave it to them, then something has gone wrong. We need to get back to the drawing board.

Or rather you have likewise been corrupted by the socialist influx that has existed for many years. Your assumption is that I was referring to you specifically, which is incorrect. I was referrring to the socialist thought from primarily Europe.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Sorry, there is no middle ground here. Anyone who works is doing so of their own free will. There is no legal slavery in the United States. That many employees have a weak negotiating position is not the fault of the business they choose to work for.

And of course the constituion does not deny regulation of business. I simply dont beleive that regulation such as exists today is in line with the individual freedom that is the point of this country. All decisions made in this country should be weighed in light of what promotes the physical protection of life and liberty.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

When anyone says "there is no middle ground here" I know for a fact there is a middle ground here. If there weren't, there wouldn't be a need to deny it.

Anyone who works and is also financially independent is doing so of their own free will. Anyone who works in order to pay the bills and feed his family is not. Either that, or you are defining the words "free will" so as to deprive them of all customary meaning.

Well, of course not! When you're running a market-driven business, you need to be able to expand or contract the work force rapidly to meet market demands. It makes much better sense in that case to rent your labor by the hour rather than buying it by the lifetime.

And that, by the way, is the ONLY reason why there is no longer legal slavery in the U.S.

Whose fault it is or isn't is utterly irrelevant to the entire question.

W/r/t freedom: You are making the classic libertarian mistake of supposing that the government is the only threat to freedom that exists. The government is potential the BIGGEST threat to freedom, but there are many other such threats; if not, we wouldn't need government at all.

Anyone with power is a potential threat to freedom. Anyone with wealth has power. The rich are a threat to freedom, and a part of the government's job is to restrain them.

Oh Europe. You mean the Europe that brought us capitalist thought? That Europe? Yes now your statement makes much more sense. It's great to bring the ridiculous fantasy of a "free market" from europe. But it's terrible to bring possible solutions from europe to address real problems that actually exist. And of course anyone who believes in the mythical free market is pure but anyone who wants to talk about things that can actually exist in this world is "corrupted."

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon