Economic Survival of the Fittest is Barbaric Too

‎"If we have been able to create social environments that free us from living a life of survival of the fittest, why is it such a problem for so many people to accept the need to create economic environments that allow us to do the same regarding our financial well-being?"

-Me

Don't get me wrong. I do not advocate communism, nor do I trust our government in its current incarnation to enact legislation that will accomplish anything of significance for the good of the nation. We obviously need major electoral reform, but that doesn't change the need to protect our citizens from the greed of others.

An objectivist once told me the reason that we don't need regulation is because if we don't like what companies are doing, we can vote with our money and and put them out of business. This is an oversimplification of the issue. If the majority of companies that employ our citizens decide to pay their employees wages that are far below the cost of living, yet produce things that are too important not to buy and have cornered the market, how will enough people decide to stop buying their products to the point where it actually makes a difference, especially when they have attacked the worker's ability to stand up to them by eliminating unions and threatening to take their jobs if they strike or stand up for their rights in any way? For all the company cares, the employee can take a hike because there are thousands more desperate people out there begging for work.

What is to stop a company from destroying our environment? They often chose to forgo safety or pollution controls for the sake of profit. Even with the minimal fines and regulations that are currently in place, it is still more profitable to operate this way. Just look at BP. What about the companies that have exported their manufacturing and even technical and customer support jobs? Had we done away with all regulations, maybe they would have kept the jobs here, but would have treated their employees far worse than they already do!

Without regulations, there potentially could be one company that owned every industry. It probably would treat it's employees worse than slaves, and our environment would likely end up obliterated. Sounds great, eh?