Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
The market corrals business into acting decently far more effectively than government, and it has nothing to do with laws. We all experience this first hand every day of our lives in uncountable different ways. The market principles that organize businesses are no different than the principles that organize any other type of social interaction.
I think herein lies the key point. Can other social interactions outside of market activities be expected to function "fairly" without regulatory intervention (=laws)? Should it be legal for people to for example extort or steal from each other? No? Then why should businesses be 1) expected 2) allowed to do the equivalent to each other or their customers? Both cases have humans as actors, behaving according to the same principles.

If yes, well, we're quite far apart with our views. I view individual rights from a fairly libertarian perspective, that is, everyone should be allowed to be free to do what they please with their lives, as long as their actions don't trample on anyone else's right to do the same. Even still, I see it as compulsory to have regulations to guarantee those rights. I think you could make a pretty strong case on the global level of violence going down so drastically in the recent history being based on social organization and increased regulatory capacity.

http://www.hsrgroup.org/docs/Publica...ss_Release.pdf

Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
It all boils down to choice. Is it better to have a reasonable amount of choice over the things that affect you, or is it better to have no choice on a bunch of different things that affect you? The state is a far more powerful idea that God ever was. To Christians, we're all children who need God to tell us what to do. The state is no different yet is more widely accepted, ironically by most professed atheists and free-thinkers.
You're appealing to emotions here, we're talking about business regulations, not individual's right to choose. Companies are not people and money isn't free speech, no matter what some retarded supreme court says. For the last part, one is a made up campfire legend and the other a collectively organized set of principles based on either theory or empirical evidence. False equivalence.