I hate this thread [more simplistic statements about very complex realities per page than almost anything conceivable]. I am hoping that no one here is taking their stated viewpoints too seriously in their real lives nor when they have to interact with other members of our society. That said: a few more "turds for this punchbowl">
1). One of the most dangerously simplistic terms in modern times, used in wide-swinging swaths to condemn people of differing views, is "moral relativism". There is, doubtless, the possibility of defining this term so as to make discussion fruitful, but I believe it would take a monograph.
We all engage in something which COULD be called "moral relativism" constantly in our real world lives. This is because life is not able to be comprehensively described in all its complexities before moral choices are even made. There is no "catechism" big enough to cover the business of right living. And in fact GOD doesn't even want there to be.
How could one make such a bold statement? IF THERE WERE a Catechism of all right living, then the process of personal decision-making [willed right choices] loses a gigantic dimension of its free-will nature. All choice then becomes "black" and "white" and life becomes a much more robotic performance wherein actual thought/ meditation/ "soul-searching" is eliminated in any true personal-growth-oriented way.
This is something that not only all of us know about the complexity of our lives and decisions already, but that the legal system itself is based upon. From the beginning, from the Constitution to the latest small court ruling, law-makers of any intellectual stature have realized that any law written is likely to have honestly good reasons to be violated in its literal wording, any two laws are likely to someday conflict, and that unforeseen circumstances may even make some elements of law completely irrelevant, either in a given case or en toto.
I believe that all of these "situations" can be encompassed under a sloppy discussion of "moral relativism". Swatting anyone upside the head with a moral relativism charge without examining not only what one means exactly by the condemnation, but also examining the complexities faced by the condemned individual in real life, seems recklessly judgmental. A certain very Big Person once said about such complexities: Judge not, lest you be judged.
The basis for morality is not LAW but law. Laws set strong reminders and guidelines which should require the churchgoer or the citizen to take the existence and the thought behind those laws into account before acting. But actual moral choice occurs within the context of the whole reality within which the chooser finds oneself. { the most obvious extremes are those which seem to require killing somebody. Both Church and State allow that violation of literal law due to --- "moral relativism"? } We have judges and juries for a reason. They might themselves not function properly, but the concept is sound. Even Plato could not fully comprehend The Good, The True, and The Beautiful [the alleged Archons of a basis for Right Living]. Rather than every culture agreeing to a universal ground of perfection, none do. The closest we come is that Love is Good, and The Golden Rule a good idea.
2). On capitalism and monopoly: Buster is basically correct here. The counterargument that if local entrepreneurs abuse their capitalistic power, others will rise up to thwart them via competition might apply to a very limited set of commercial enterprises, but not the majority. Any "industry" which requires a large infrastructure to create whatever it sells is invulnerable to the grassroots guys suddenly getting fired up and outcompeting them. AND most of the systems within which we citizens find ourselves embedded are of these gigantic superstructures and highly invested technological types. Joe-in-the-garage is not going to oust Exxon; even one hundred Joes are not.
The only areas wherein the "oh competitors will rise up" concept might work are those operating at small, community-sized scale. One could imagine a local community food plan kicking out the monstersized foodchains/ groceries, but, even there, not if the community insisted on bananas, coffee, everybody's-got-a-burger, etc. The "hated" government knows this well, and that is why the monstersized organizations which control necessities like power and water are tightly constrained. If food availability began to go too strongly that way, and if localities refused to shrink their menus to more localized foods, the government will have to constrain these giants too --- in anti-monopolistic anti-price-fixing ways.
Arguments that everything can be fixed by "market-forces" is a delusion now only held by certain business schools and persons working in wealth-accumulation fields. That is a world as they want it to be but is not. An example: this theory only works if consumers know enough about the choices that they make and that the commodity that the decision rests upon is renewable or precisely replaceable. In our modern economy none of that is true.
As to knowledge: the theory looks at only the moment of customer choice. Can I get what I want at the value that I must pay now? In the extremely fast high-heat global economy, the natural resource base of many consumables is "harvested" and "in the production pipeline" in vast quantities, and impacts, far beyond the ken of the customer as far as future consequences [even to himself], and often out of control of the companies selling the product. Example: certain food harvesting has so many semi-independent operating pieces in the system that something at the grassroots can permanently damage the whole pipeline later due to overuse [think biology].
As to overharvesting: we know that even minerals let alone things like shrimp, swordfish, passenger pigeons etc can be exploited to the point of extirpation if not utter elimination. The point of this is: bigness tends to have big momentum. Big momentum resting on a limited resource forces, at a minimum, monopoly of the dwindling resource, and at worst the extinction of it. When "rare earths" run out, there are no handy equivalents "out there" to replace them with. When passenger pigeons are shot down to micro-numbers, there are no other things just like them. A carp is not a swordfish. Iron is not Cerium.
The market-forces fantasy depends by its own admission that the consumers will make at least statistically wise choices as to the consequences for their own lives. That possibly might have worked at the 1800s village cornerstore level but we're so far out of those community-scale controls that the maintenance of the fallacy is a form of insanity.
............. books have been written on these things. IE will be inadequate to even intelligently discuss them.
