Ludlow Massacre and the Freemarket

[Tony]

I saw a show about this on the History Channel yesterday:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

Labor unrest in the United States in the years preceding World War I was particularly tense in the West. When a union activist was killed in the fall of 1913, workers at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation's (CF&I) coal operations and other Colorado coal mines went on strike. The miners evacuated the coal mining camps on September 23 to protest low wages ($1.68 a day) and poor working conditions.

Contrary to state law, miners were paid in scrip, which was redeemable only at the company store, where prices were high. Miners were cheated at the scales where the coal they dug was weighed. Many mines maintained two separate systems of weights: one for the miners' transactions, and another for the coal buyers.

In Colorado mines, "dead work" was not paid. Dead work included timbering the mine for safety. The death rate of Colorado miners was approximately twice the national average.

Miners frequently complained that company mules were treated far better than their human counterparts. Years after cave-ins or mine explosions, miners' anecdotes recount the first words of the coal operators when a mine collapsed: did the mules get out?

Colorado miners had attempted to unionize periodically since the first strike in 1883. First it was with the Western Federation of Miners. Later (in 1927) they would join the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1913 they were attempting to organize into the United Mine Workers of America.

The UMWA had demanded:

"...recognition of the United Mine Workers of America as the bargaining agent for workers in coal mines throughout Colorado and northern New Mexico; an effective system of checkweighmen in all mines; compensation for digging coal at a ton-rate based on 2,000 pounds; semi-monthly payment of wages in lawful money; the abolition of scrip and the truck system; an end to discrimination against union members; and strict enforcement of state laws pertaining to operators' obligations in supplying miners with timbers, rails, and other materials in underground working places."
The strike provoked a harsh response from the Rockefeller family, which controlled Colorado Fuel & Iron and effectively ruled the region. Since the companies owned the towns where the workers lived, they were able to evict strikers from their homes, leaving women and children, mostly from immigrant families, without shelter as the harsh Rocky Mountain winter approached. Helped by UMWA groups across the country, the strikers were able to organize tent cities and carried on their strike. The union selected locations near the mouths of the canyons which led to the coal camps. Their purpose was monitoring traffic to the coal camps and discouraging replacement workers from breaking the strike.

The company hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to harass strikers and union organizers. Baldwin-Felts had a reputation for aggressive strike breaking. They supplied armed guards, gunmen, spies, and agents provocateur to intimidate the miners.

CF&I built an armored car mounted with a machine gun. The company guards called it the "Death Special." Because of occasional sniping on the tent colonies, miners dug protective pits beneath the tents where they and their families could seek shelter.

On October 17 Baldwin-Felts agents used the armored car to attack the Forbes tent colony. One miner was killed. A young girl was shot in the face, and a boy was hit in the legs by nine machine gun bullets.

Confrontations between striking miners and "scab" replacement workers often got out of control, resulting in additional deaths.

Despite widespread violence, the workers refused to give in. On October 28 Colorado governor Elias M. Ammons called in the National Guard. Even though the campaign of harassment increased and many of the organizers were beaten and arrested, the miners persevered and through the winter.

It had been a difficult time for the strikers. Harassing rifle shots were randomly fired into the camps. Union organizers were kidnapped and intimidated. One tactic was telling the union men that they were about to be executed and forcing them to "dig their own graves" before beating them and, finally, ordering them out of the territory.

After months of stalemate, Governor Ammons was growing concerned about the cost of keeping the National Guard in the field. He accepted an offer by the coal companies to put their men into National Guard uniforms.

Under the leadership of Lieutenant Karl Linderfelt, Company B of the Colorado National Guard stuffed barbed wire into the water wells of the tent colonies. They threatened miners and their families. Linderfelt told one immigrant miner that he was "Jesus Christ on horseback" and he must be obeyed.

On March 10, 1914, the body of a strike breaker was found on the railroad tracks near Forbes. The National Guard's General Chase ordered the Forbes tent colony destroyed in retaliation. Tension was growing, and the stage was set for all-out war.

The acting National Guard troops decided to evict the tent cities that sprang up around the mines, even though the camps had been established on private property leased by the union.

Ludlow was the largest of the tent cities, located 18 miles north of Trinidad. On the morning of April 20, the Greek Easter celebrated by many Greek immigrants in the Ludlow camp, the troops opened fire with machine guns. They fired across the railroad tracks into the tents. Anyone who moved through the camp was targeted. The miners fired back, and the fighting raged for hours.

In the afternoon, a passing freight train stopped on the tracks, allowing many of the miners and their families to escape to the east to an outcrop of hills called the "Black Hills." Louis Tikas, the camp's main union organizer went to the National Guardsmen to arrange a truce. Lieutenant Linderfelt assaulted him with the butt of his rifle, and the soldiers fired three shots into Tikas's back as he lay on the ground.

As night approached, the militia descended on the tent camp and set fire to it, apparently oblivious to the fact that two women and eleven children had been hiding in the pit beneath one tent and did not escape with the other strikers. When their charred bodies were found the next day, their deaths became a rallying cry for the UMWA, who called the incident the "Ludlow Massacre." In addition to the fire victims, thirteen people were shot dead during that day.

Is this the fruit of the freemarket? It appears that it is. These workers made a voluntary agreement. They agreed to low wages and miserable living and working conditions. They didn’t like it? They had the freedom to get a new job. Did they merely get what was coming to them by initiating force against the coal company? How does the freemarket account for such atrocities?

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Tony
I saw a show about this on the History Channel yesterday:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre



Is this the fruit of the freemarket? It appears that it is. These workers made a voluntary agreement. They agreed to low wages and miserable living and working conditions. They didn’t like it? They had the freedom to get a new job. Did they merely get what was coming to them by initiating force against the coal company? How does the freemarket account for such atrocities?

Well since you are starting off with some imrpobable premise I'll reply accordingly: If it was a true free market the company would not be able to use government forces against the workers and if the company would use its own forces against the workers the government would defend the workers. The end.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Grammatron
Well since you are starting off with some imrpobable premise I'll reply accordingly: If it was a true free market the company would not be able to use government forces against the workers and if the company would use its own forces against the workers the government would defend the workers. The end.

In a freemarket, a property owner doesn't have the right to appeal to the state when someone trespasses on their land?

[corplinx]

I don't see much value in corner cases obsoleted by their own antiquity.

[Tony]

Originally posted by corplinx
I don't see much value in corner cases obsoleted by their own antiquity.

Of course you don't, cases like this belie your freemarket beliefs.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Tony
Of course you don't, cases like this belie your freemarket beliefs.

Tell me what my free market beliefs are oh psychic one. Hint: I may not believe in free markets.

For that matter, tell me how government intrusion like in the article you cited was a hands-off market. What you describe in the article was more like anarchy where a business was running roughshod over people but the basic civil norms and laws weren't enforced by the government.

[Drooper]

I like this sentence:

Confrontations between striking miners and "scab" replacement workers often got out of control, resulting in additional deaths.

Socialist atrocities maybe? Or perhaps the "scabs" (!) attacked and murdered the strikers. Wikipedia is the worst source for just about anything I find.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Drooper
I like this sentence:


Socialist atrocities maybe? Or perhaps the "scabs" (!) attacked and murdered the strikers. Wikipedia is the worst source for just about anything I find.

Socialists? What? There is nothing in there about socialists. I notice that, instead of addressing the meat of the issue, you nit-pick about a peripheral happening.

[Tony]

Originally posted by corplinx

For that matter, tell me how government intrusion like in the article you cited was a hands-off market.

There was no government intrusion. Unless you consider the protection of property rights government intrusion?

[Drooper]

Originally posted by Tony
Socialists? What? There is nothing in there about socialists. I notice that, instead of addressing the meat of the issue, you nit-pick about a peripheral happening.

Unionised workers - socialists. As in this:
Later (in 1927) they would join the Industrial Workers of the World
A Socialist political movement.

But you chose to ignore my main point. Deaths of the strikers - not something I would ever think acceptable, but I have no real knowledge of the circumstances and nor do you - is classed by you as a massacre and, in your words:
the fruit of the freemarket
But you and the author of this piece blithely brush aside the role of the strikers in the deaths of others who did think the work and conditions were worthy of the pay - the "scabs".

[Drooper]

In a preemptive mood I'd better explain some more. You claim this as the "fruit of free market". However, this is a logical flaw.

This could hardly be the "fruit of the free market" because if it was a free market, the mining companies would have been free to pay whomever was willing to work, whatever they were willing to accept to do the job.

Instead, this was a militant organised group refusing to work for the conditions on offer and refusing to allow anybody else to do it.

Just leaving aside all political beliefs or emotion, this is just the logical conclusion. This was clearly not a free market at work, so the results could hardly be the "fruits of the free market".

[Beerina]

Originally posted by Tony
The acting National Guard troops decided to evict the tent cities that sprang up around the mines, even though the camps had been established on private property leased by the union.


This is not "free market". This is powerful people using the government to take over private property. Assuming the people on the private property aren't making incursions into company property when they shouldn't be. There's always another side to stories like this.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Beerina


This is not "free market". This is powerful people using the government to take over private property. Assuming the people on the private property aren't making incursions into company property when they shouldn't be. There's always another side to stories like this.

Which I (and others) would argue is the natural result of the “free"market. In the same way that murder, tyranny and suppression of opposition are the natural results of a dictatorship where power is vested in one person.

How does the free market account for these kinds of atrocities? How does the freemarket prevent powerful people from using their power via the government to oppress the less powerful?

[Art Vandelay]

You have presented absolutely no reason to think that this is the result of the free market. First of all, merely pointing out that the workers at one time made a voluntary agreement does not establish that there was a free market; a free market means voluntary agreements, but voluntary agreements do not necessarily mean a free market. Secondly, even if there were a free market, you have presented no casual relationship. You might as well say that there was coal, there was violence, therefore the presence of coal always leads to violence.

[corplinx]

For some reason when I think of the fruits of free markets I think of Apple, Amazon, et al and not a corner case of coal miners from a century or more back.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by Tony
Is this the fruit of the freemarket? It appears that it is. These workers made a voluntary agreement. They agreed to low wages and miserable living and working conditions. They didn’t like it? They had the freedom to get a new job. Did they merely get what was coming to them by initiating force against the coal company? How does the freemarket account for such atrocities? A few thoughts. FWIW, I stopped thinking that a pure free market was a great idea while reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

I don't think the merits of any political, economical or even combination of the two systems can be judged by an anecdotal story such as this one. Further I don't think you can judge the merits of any system in a vacuum which is what you are asking us to do in this case. What were the other variables in the system?

In any event, in this case it looks like the supply of jobs was low and the demand for them high. Conversely the supply of labor was high and the demand for labor was low. If we assume that the entire system was a free market then we could conclude that these events were the direct result of a free market.

If we assume that this was the result of a free market what conclusions should we draw? Do you see this as proof that a free market can never be fair to the worker? Do you think that it is possible for a free market to evolve and adapt to needs to the point that such atrocities do not happen? Would you accept that free markets with some level of regulation can ward of such atrocities?

[Tony]

Originally posted by corplinx
For some reason when I think of the fruits of free markets I think of Apple, Amazon, et al and not a corner case of coal miners from a century or more back.

And for some reason, when christians think of the fruits of Christianity they think of love, forgiveness and righteousness and not murder, religious persecution and torture. Funny innit?

[Tony]

Originally posted by RandFan
I don't think the merits of any political, economical or even combination of the two systems can be judged by an anecdotal story such as this one.

How is this anecdotal? These atrocities really did happen because of the backlash caused by the conditions these people were forced to endure. In past threads, others have posited scenarios similar to this and the typical response from the freemarket fundy has been "that is FUD, that NEVER happens in the freemarket, and if it did, the market would correct itself". Well here is a case of it happening, the market didn't correct itself and innocent women and children were murdered.

I want the freemarketeers to explain this, so far I’ve only recieved weak versions of “No True Scotsman�.

Further I don't think you can judge the merits of any system in a vacuum which is what you are asking us to do in this case. What were the other variables in the system?

What do you mean?

A few thoughts. FWIW, I stopped thinking that a pure free market was a great idea while reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

I agree, and let me just say that I am not completely against the idea of the freemarket either. My main beef with it is in the area of worker's rights.

In any event, in this case it looks like the supply of jobs was low and the demand for them high. Conversely the supply of labor was high and the demand for labor was low. If we assume that the entire system was a free market then we could conclude that these events were the direct result of a free market.

Aiight, I agree.

Do you see this as proof that a free market can never be fair to the worker?

Never? Of course not. The freemarket can provide fairness, but whatever fairness may exist is a mere byproduct and is still at the mercy of market forces.

Do you think that it is possible for a free market to evolve and adapt to needs to the point that such atrocities do not happen?

It's possible sure.

Would you accept that free markets with some level of regulation can ward of such atrocities?

Absolutely. Regulations like limited work hours, work days, and work conditions have improved things. However, you should be aware that some freemarketeers think such regulations are anathema.

[Luke T.]

Sounds like somebody's upset about the breakup of the AFL-CIO.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Luke T.
Sounds like somebody's upset about the breakup of the AFL-CIO.

The what?

[RandFan]

Originally posted by Tony
How is this anecdotal? Because by definition it is.

These atrocities really did happen because of the backlash caused by the conditions these people were forced to endure. Anecdotal does not mean "never happened". It just means that it is too small a data set to come to a conclusion to judge the entire system. There are no absolutes. We should always expect exceptions to any rule in a complex system and most certainly this is a complex system.

...the typical response from the freemarket fundy has been "that is FUD, that NEVER happens in the freemarket... Assuming this is an example of the freemarket this would falsify the assumption that it "never" happens in the freemarket. The problem is that I personally don't know anyone making that argument. If you do then fine and you are right and they are wrong regardless of whether or not this is an example of a free market.

Well here is a case of it happening, the market didn't correct itself and innocent women and children were murdered. The statement is far too broad to come to a conclusion. Are the miners still working in these conditions? What happened to stop the conditions? Did someone argue that a free market would correct itself over night?

I want the freemarketeers to explain this, so far I’ve only recieved weak versions of “No True Scotsman�. If the results were not due to a free market then they were not. I lack sufficient data to come to a conclusion one way or another.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Tony
The what?

You're kidding, right?

[Tony]

Originally posted by Luke T.
You're kidding, right?

Sure I've heard of it and I know it has something to do with unions. Other than that, I don't know anything about it.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Tony
I want the freemarketeers to explain this, so far I’ve only recieved weak versions of “No True Scotsman�.You've got some nerve accusing your opponents of engaging in a fallacy, considering all the one's you've committed. You've said this is a result of the free market, but you have utterly failed to prove that position, and now you're using calling it "No True Scotsman" when people point this out. You clearly have no understanding of what "No True Scotsman" means, and I don't think you really care; you're willing to use any argument to advance your position, regardless of how silly it is.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Tony
Sure I've heard of it and I know it has something to do with unions. Other than that, I don't know anything about it.

*shakes head violently in astonishment*

You are lecturing us about one of the seminal moments in labor union history and the evils of the free market system and don't know anything about the AFL-CIO? The AFL-CIO!?! Not even the shattering events of the past week?!?!

My God. You are shooting with blanks into the dark.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay
You've said this is a result of the free market, but you have utterly failed to prove that position, and now you're using calling it "No True Scotsman" when people point this out.

It has all the criterion of the freemarket.

Lack of government regulation? Check.
Defense of property rights? Check.
Voluntary arrangement? Check.
Market forces and laws of supply and demand determining the wages, working conditions and hours? Check.

Tell me how it isn’t the freemarket.

If you go back and look, my initial query was half question half assertion.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Luke T.
*shakes head violently in astonishment*

You are lecturing us about one of the seminal moments in labor union history and the evils of the free market system and don't know anything about the AFL-CIO? The AFL-CIO!?! Not even the shattering events of the past week?!?!

My God. You are shooting with blanks into the dark.

Huh? How is it relevant to the issue at hand? Did the AFL-CIO play a role in the Ludlow Massacre? How is the break-up of it relevant?

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Tony
Huh? How is it relevant to the issue at hand? Did the AFL-CIO play a role in the Ludlow Massacre? How is the break-up of it relevant?

If you had just provided us with that very intesting historical account of the Ludlow Massacre, that would have been great. I love history. But to follow it up with an attack on the free market based merely on that single event, with no depth of knowledge on the subject of the labor union movement or the free market, is foolhardy. It's an anecdote painted wide.

The AFL-CIO is going through one of the biggest union breakups in 70 years this week. This has more historical significance right now than the Ludlow Massacre. It will have a profound impact on the politics of this country for many years to come. Some of the organizations leaving the AFL-CIO are seriously considering courting (or defecting to, depending on your bias) the Republican Party!

The AFL-CIO is a huge Democratic power base and it starting to erode. Has been eroding actually. I believe the unions have gone from a high of 1 in 3 Americans down to 1 in 8 Americans in the last couple decades.

So there is a lot more interesting union history out there if you like that kind of thing.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by Luke T.
You are lecturing us about one of the seminal moments in labor union history and the evils of the free market system and don't know anything about the AFL-CIO? Interesting bit of trivia that I just learned. The May Day holiday so celebrated in the Former Soviet Union and Communist China has its roots in the AFL-CIO.

May Day (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_043.html)

May Day, an international celebration of worker solidarity observed principally in socialist countries, traces its origins back to the eight-hour-day movement in the U.S., and specifically commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago, of all places. (We learn this, incidentally, from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.)

At an October 1884 convention in Chicago, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, later to be reorganized as the American Federation of Labor, declared May 1, 1886, to be the date from which "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work," as opposed to the nine- or ten-hour days then prevalent.

Why May 1 is chosen is not clear. Among other things, it happened to be the date of the traditional May Day spring festival, celebrated in Europe (and parts of the U.S.) since medieval times. But other American labor groups had earlier suggested other days, such as the Fourth of July.

In any event, the federation, which at the time was neither very powerful nor very radical, had no particular plans for May 1, 1886. As the day drew nearer, though, radical labor organizations began to agitate for a general strike.

Sentiment for the strike was especially pronounced in Chicago, home of many leftist German immigrants and the leading center of the radical labor movement in the U.S. The strike and accompanying demonstrations in Chicago went off peacefully enough on May 1, but on May 4, at a workers' demonstration in Haymarket Square, someone threw a bomb into a crowd of policemen, killing seven. In the ensuing melee the cops killed two workers, and four radicals were later hanged for their roles on the basis of flimsy evidence.

The Haymarket affair cemented the importance of May Day in the radical calendar. In Paris in 1889 the Second International, a federation of socialist organizations, called for demonstrations of labor solidarity on May 1, 1890, and May Day has been observed one way or another ever since--although not, ironically, in the U.S.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Tony

Market forces and laws of supply and demand determining the wages, working conditions and hours? Check.


Are you asserting that collective bargaining is mutually exclusive with the free market?

[Tony]

Originally posted by corplinx
Are you asserting that collective bargaining is mutually exclusive with the free market?

Interesting question. Before I answer, can you state your reasoning behind asking it?

[Luke T.]

The change from serfdom and indentured servitude to 401(k)'s with a dental plan and free cookies in the lunchroom did not occur with the flip of a switch.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Tony
Interesting question. Before I answer, can you state your reasoning behind asking it?

I'm trying to ascertain if you understand what the "free market" means.

[Tony]

Originally posted by corplinx
I'm trying to ascertain if you understand what the "free market" means.

Then why don't you tell me what you think it means? For the purposes of this thread, I'm operating under the definition established by our resident lassie-faire freemarketeers.

Do I, personally, think collective bargaining is mutually exclusive with the free market? No, I'd say collective bargaining makes the market freer and gives the individual more rights. But others have said it is mutually exclusive, or at least that, collective bargaining infringes on an employer's right to bargain with whom he chooses.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Luke T.
The change from serfdom and indentured servitude to 401(k)'s with a dental plan and free cookies in the lunchroom did not occur with the flip of a switch.

I never asserted that it did. You seem to be having a completely different dicussion. How fast it happened isn't relevant to my question or thesis. I'm talking about market forces vs. the rights of workers.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Luke T.
The change from serfdom and indentured servitude to 401(k)'s with a dental plan and free cookies in the lunchroom did not occur with the flip of a switch.

Nor was it in any way caused by the forces of the free market.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Tony
I never asserted that it did. You seem to be having a completely different dicussion. How fast it happened isn't relevant to my question or thesis. I'm talking about market forces vs. the rights of workers.

You set a historical tone to the topic and yet asked a present tense question. "How does the freemarket account for such atrocities?" My comment is a response to that question.

It's like asking how democracy accounts for the atrocity of the Dred Scott decision.

With blood. Lots of it. Evolution ain't pretty. The Ludlow incident is a snapshot of mitochondrial mutation.

But the spark of life that begins the process of evolution from one way of life to a better one is itself a testament to the greatness or power of that idea.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Luke T.
You set a historical tone to the topic and yet asked a present tense question. "How does the freemarket account for such atrocities?" My comment is a response to that question.


No it doesn't. You're confusing market forces with government regulation and union intervention.

It's like asking how democracy accounts for the atrocity of the Dred Scott decision.

With blood. Lots of it.

That doesn't make sense. By your own account, democracy failed to account for the decision. It was war that ultimately had to correct the Dred Scott decision.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Tony
No it doesn't. You're confusing market forces with government regulation and union intervention.

That doesn't make sense. By your own account, democracy failed to account for the decision. It was war that ultimately had to correct the Dred Scott decision.

These are all part of the learning curve. If an idea has a disadvantage (no system is perfect, see my sig) that is nourished, or if it is improperly implemented, there are consequences which must and will be paid. If the idea was never that good to begin with, it will perish when it ignores its flaws and does nothing, or is unable, to shore them up.

The free market did not respond to worker's rights the way it should have. And a price was paid and learned from.

Democracy did not respond to its professed respect for human rights the way it should have and it paid a price and learned from it. Actually, by the time democracy was put into motion, the cancer of slavery had metastasized and violent chemotherapy was inevitable. Market forces were already at work to abolish slavery, but they weren't ever going to be strong enough to overcome the prejudicial tumors. It was either civil war or race war down the road sooner or later.

[Art Vandelay]

RandFanThe Haymarket affair cemented the importance of May Day in the radical calendar. In Paris in 1889 the Second International, a federation of socialist organizations, called for demonstrations of labor solidarity on May 1, 1890, and May Day has been observed one way or another ever since--although not, ironically, in the U.S.Well, we do celebrate May Day, just not as a labor holiday. Our labor holiday is called, appropriately, "Labor Day".

Originally posted by Tony
It has all the criterion of the freemarket.

Lack of government regulation? Check.
Defense of property rights? Check.
Voluntary arrangement? Check.
Market forces and laws of supply and demand determining the wages, working conditions and hours? Check.

Tell me how it isn’t the freemarket.

If you go back and look, my initial query was half question half assertion.

Let's see, according to your own account:
Lack of government interference? Nope. The government was clearly in league with the mine owners.
Defense of property rights? Nope. The tent cities were located on private property, yet they were invaded anyway.
Voluntary arrangement? Nope. Unless the workers volunteered to have people shoot at them.
Market forces determining working conditions? Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like there was an atmosphere of intimidation.

PS: the plural of "criterion" is "criteria".

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Luke T.
You set a historical tone to the topic and yet asked a present tense question. "How does the freemarket account for such atrocities?" My comment is a response to that question.

Some people on this board has pushed the free market as a general mechanism that, if not a cure for cancer, is at least inherently better at creating a "good world" than the mechanisms of government and economics that are in place today.

Since the nature of the free market as a general mechanism doesn't depend on the historical setting, I don't think it's in error to use a historical example and ask how the people who are in favor of a free market system about how that incident fits with their theories.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Originally posted by Leif Roar
Some people on this board has pushed the free market as a general mechanism that, if not a cure for cancer, is at least inherently better at creating a "good world" than the mechanisms of government and economics that are in place today.

Since the nature of the free market as a general mechanism doesn't depend on the historical setting, I don't think it's in error to use a historical example and ask how the people who are in favor of a free market system about how that incident fits with their theories.

Fine. But surely first you have to establish that what you are looking it is a free market, or any conclusions you draw are worthless?

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Jaggy Bunnet
Fine. But surely first you have to establish that what you are looking it is a free market, or any conclusions you draw are worthless?

Only if you actually are drawing conclusions directly from the historical incident itself as in "X shows us that the free market doesn't work." In this case, I read the original post more along the lines of "This was X. In which ways was this not a result of the free market, and by what mechanisms of the free market do you believe a free market would have prevented this?"

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Leif Roar
Only if you actually are drawing conclusions directly from the historical incident itself as in "X shows us that the free market doesn't work." In this case, I read the original post more along the lines of "This was X. In which ways was this not a result of the free market, and by what mechanisms of the free market do you believe a free market would have prevented this?" The OP was rather vague as to what exactly the point of presenting of this incident was, and if it is to argue against the proposition that the free market completely eliminates the possibility of bad things happening, then that strikes me as a strawman.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tony
Is this the fruit of the freemarket?

The fact that they had to enforce it by getting the National Guard to violate private property rights should make the answer here an obvious "no."

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tony
In a freemarket, a property owner doesn't have the right to appeal to the state when someone trespasses on their land?

Yes, they do, but: "The acting National Guard troops decided to evict the tent cities that sprang up around the mines, even though the camps had been established on private property leased by the union." The government should have been fighting for the workers, not the company.

Gee, government acting on behalf of big business rather than securing the rights of the people? That's never happened before![/sarcasm]

[shanek]

Originally posted by RandFan
A few thoughts. FWIW, I stopped thinking that a pure free market was a great idea while reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

Odd; I keep wondering how anyone with an awareness of logical fallacies can hold any credence at all to that hunk of woo-wooism.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by shanek
Odd; I keep wondering how anyone with an awareness of logical fallacies can hold any credence at all to that hunk of woo-wooism. I didn't find it woo-woo but it has been 20 years since I read it. Hopefully we are going to discuss it in the The Political Book Club. You know I would entertain any arguments you have with an open mind. I certainly don't expect you to go over the entire book but an element here or there would be apreciated.

Thanks Shane,

RandFan

[shanek]

Originally posted by RandFan
I didn't find it woo-woo but it has been 20 years since I read it. Hopefully we are going to discuss it in the The Political Book Club. You know I would entertain any arguments you have with an open mind. I certainly don't expect you to go over the entire book but an element here or there would be apreciated.

No problem. But let's not derail the thread by getting into it now.

[Tony]

Originally posted by shanek
The government should have been fighting for the workers, not the company.

Why?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tony
Why?

Because it was their property, or at least, they leased it from the property owners. If the company had tried to storm their property, the police absolutely should have been there to stop them.