Are there any purely free-market or socialist industries?

[Ron Burgundy]

Reading the debates about universal health care got me thinking: Are there any industries (in industrialized countries with democratic forms of govt) that are either purely free-market with no govt regulation, or purely govt operated?

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
Reading the debates about universal health care got me thinking: Are there any industries (in industrialized countries with democratic forms of govt) that are either purely free-market with no govt regulation, or purely govt operated?

[/ QUOTE ]

The trouble is in defining 'industry'.

Also: why do you ask?

[Ron Burgundy]

My curiosity was sparked when someone from Europe assumed that the US health care system was a free-market system just because it wasn't socialized. I think it's a common misconception that most industries are either one extreme or the other.

I don't know if industry is the right word, but what I mean is just a certain product or service. Like cable TV or internet service, cigarrettes, guns, cars, etc.

[HeavilyArmed]

The street drug trade is free for regulation and taxation.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
My curiosity was sparked when someone from Europe assumed that the US health care system was a free-market system just because it wasn't socialized. I think it's a common misconception that most industries are either one extreme or the other.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. It's all varying degrees of state intervention.


[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if industry is the right word, but what I mean is just a certain product or service. Like cable TV or internet service, cigarrettes, guns, cars, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's the thing: products and services can have regulation on the end-products. But in order to provide anything there are so many things that are also regulated. Machines, jobs, environment-codes, taxation, inspection, imports, exports, money, rent, housing, transportation, etc, etc, etc.



I think one way of thinking about this, and I think it's a valid way, is the following:
The purpose of the state is to take money wherever it can find and take.


So anything that is lucrative or is above par is something that the state wants a share in.

Online poker is a typical example of this. The state agents don't get their share, so they intervene. They make up a bunch of laws and regulations, and unless the industry starts buckling over money to the state, they won't be allowed.

I think Dilorenzo describes this well.
http://one.revver.com/find/video/dilorenzo
http://www.mises.org/media.aspx?acti...ame&ID=425
(probably under the protectionism lectures)

[Ron Burgundy]

[ QUOTE ]
The street drug trade is free for regulation and taxation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well duh. If you're willing to break the law, then everything is free of regulation. For the purposes of this discussion, a free-market industry is one in which the govt is aware of the activities of the buyer and seller, and chooses to not get involved in any way.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
The street drug trade is free for regulation and taxation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right.



No regulation there.