This one's to read with lunch. I saved it for after breakfast so's capnfun wouldn't get pizza stains on his printout. Btw, some of you may be wondering if I'll ever quit giving capnfun a hard time about his breakfast. Just to show y'all I respect your concerns about this, I'll now seriously consider it. Deliberations follow:

Well...um...no.

Anyway, this is from Essay

The Moral Basis of Capitalism

Capitalism is the only moral social system because it is the only system that respects the freedom of the producers to think and the right of the individual to set his own goals and pursue his own happiness.

by Robert W. Tracinski

Chairman; The Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism

With the fall of communism and the alleged end of the "era of big government," many commentators and politicians grudgingly acknowledge the practical value of capitalism. The free market, they concede, is the best system for producing wealth and promoting prosperity; the private economy, in Bill Clinton's words, is the "primary engine of growth."

But this has not led to the triumph of capitalism. Quite the opposite: Federal taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product are at their highest rate since the Second World War; antitrust assaults on the market's winners are growing; the regulations on the federal register continue to expand by 60,000 pages per year; even the Republicans' recent tax cut proposal would only mandate a minor decrease in the projected growth of government revenues. By practically every measure, government interference in the free market is growing.

If capitalism is recognized as the only practical economic systemthen why is it losing out to state control? The reason is that no one, neither on the left nor the right, is willing to defend capitalism as moral. Thus, both sides agree, whatever the practical value of capitalism, morality requires that the free market be reigned in by government regulations. The only disagreement between the two sides is over the number of regulations and the rate of their growth.

What no one has grasped yet is that capitalism is not just practical but also moral. Capitalism is the only system that fully allows and encourages the virtues necessary for human life. It is the only system that safeguards the freedom of the independent mind and recognizes the sanctity of the individual.

Every product that sustains and improves human life is made possible by the thinking of the world's creators and producers. We enjoy an abundance of food because scientists have discovered more efficient methods of agriculture, such as fertilization and crop rotation. We enjoy a lifespan double that of the pre-industrial era thanks to advances in medical technology, from antibiotics to X-rays to biotechnology, discovered by doctors and medical researchers. We enjoy the comfort of air conditioning, the speed of airline transportation, the easy access to information made possible by the World Wide Webbecause scientists and inventors have made the crucial mental connections necessary to create these products.

Most people recognize the right of scientists and engineers to be free to ask questions, to pursue new ideas, and to create new innovations. But at the same time, most people ignore the third man who is essential to human progress: the businessman. The businessman is the one who takes the achievements of the scientists and engineers out of the realm of theory and turns them into reality; he takes their ideas off the chalkboards and out of the laboratories and puts them onto the store shelves.

Behind the activities of the businessman there is a process of rational inquiry every bit as important as that of the scientist or inventor. The businessman has to figure out how to find and train workers who will produce a quality product; he has to discover how to cut costs to make the product affordable; he has to determine how best to market and distribute his product so that it reaches its potential buyers; and he has to figure out how to finance his venture in a way that will best feed future growth. All of these issuesand many othersdepend on the mind of the businessman. If he is not left free to think, the venture loses money and its product goes out of existence.

The businessman has to have an unwavering dedication to thinking, not only in solving these problems, but also in dealing with others. He has to use reason to persuade investors, employees, and suppliers that his venture is a profitable one. If he cannot, the investors take their money elsewhere, the best employees leave for better opportunities, and the suppliers will give preference to more credit-worthy customers.

The businessman's dedication to thought, persuasion, and reason is a virtuea virtue that our lives and prosperity depend on. The only way to respect this virtue is to leave the businessman free to act on his own judgment. That is precisely what capitalism does. The essence of capitalism is that it bans the use of physical force and fraud in men's economic relationships. All decisions are to be left to the "free market"that is, to the un-coerced decisions of buyers and sellers, manufacturers and distributors, employers and employees. The first rule of capitalism is that everyone has a right to dispose of his own life and property according to his own judgment.

Government regulation, by contrast, operates by thwarting the businessman's thinking, subordinating his judgment to the decrees of government officials. These officials do not have to consider the long-term resultsonly what is politically expedient. They do not have to back their decisions with their own money or effortthey dispose of the lives and property of others. And most important, they do not have to persuade their victimsthey impose their will, not by reason, but by physical force.

The government regulator does not merely show contempt for the minds of his victims; he also shows contempt for their personal goals and values.

In a free-market economy, everyone is driven by his own ambitions for wealth and success. That's what "free trade" means: that no one may demand the work, effort, or money of another without offering to trade something of value in return. If both partners to the trade don't expect to gain, they are free to go elsewhere. In Adam Smith's famous formulation, the rule of capitalism is that every trade occurs "by mutual consent and to mutual advantage."

It is common to condemn this approach as selfishyet to say that people are acting selfishly is to say that they take their own lives seriously, that they are exercising their right to pursue their own happiness. By contrast, project what it would mean to exterminate self-interest and force everyone to work for goals mandated by the state. It would mean, for example, that a young student's goal to have a career as a neurosurgeon must be sacrificed because some bureaucrat decrees that there are "too many" specialists in that field. Such a system is based on the premise that no one owns his own life, that the individual is merely a tool to be exploited for the ends of "society." And since "society" consists of nothing more than a group of individuals, this means that some men are to be sacrificed for the sake of othersthose who claim to be "society's" representatives. For examples, see the history of the Soviet Union.

A system that sacrifices the self to "society" is a system of slaveryand a system that sacrifices thinking to coercion is a system of brutality. This is the essence of any anti-capitalist system, whether communist or fascist. And "mixed" systems, such as today's regulatory and welfare state, merely unleash the same evils on a smaller scale. Only capitalism renounces these evils entirely. Only capitalism is fully true to the moral ideal stated in the Declaration of Independence: the individual's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Only capitalism protects the individual's freedom of thought and his right to his own life.

Only when these ideals are once again taken seriously will we be able to recognize capitalism, not as a "necessary evil," but as a moral ideal.

http://www.moraldefense.com/Campaigns/Microsoft/Essays/Production_vs_Force.htm Production vs. Force The Difference Between Microsoft's Power and the Government's Power: One Wields the Power of Production, the Other the Power of the Gun by Robert W. Tracinski Chairman The Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism

On March 3, 1998, Bill Gates was summoned before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing to determine whether his Microsoft Corporation constitutes a dangerous concentration of power that threatens the American consumer. The irony is that the inquisitors examining him were politicians who wield a power far beyond Gatess reach: the authority of a bloated, omnipotent governmentan authority backed, not by the production of a useful product, but by armies of regulators and tax collectors wielding the threat of physical force. To grasp this contrast fully, consider the source of Gatess alleged control over the software industry. This power consists of Microsofts production of Windows, the operating system used in more than 80% of the worlds personal computers. But Microsoft cannot force anyone to buy its products. Its only power comes from its ability to sell its operating system to computer manufacturers, who pre-install Windows on their machines. These manufacturers, in turn, cannot foist their Windows-equipped products onto a defenseless public. Computer buyers can decide whether to accept or reject Windowsas many still do when they opt for Unix or Linux, or for the Macintosh operating system. Why cant Microsoft force itself on clients and consumers? Microsoft does not wield the power of physical force; it has no ability to punish or compel. All it can offer a customer is the opportunity to buy its productsor to go on his way unmolested. A computer manufacturer, for example, may be required to include Microsofts Internet Explorer with Windows, but what is his punishment for refusing? He will be left free to install another operating system. And what if other operating systems wont sell? Then Microsofts power is earnedearned by producing a more useful product. Without the backing of physical force, Microsofts dominance in the market for operating systems must be continually earned. Far from being immune from competition, Microsoft lives under constant competitive pressure, whether from Netscape and its Web browser, or from some other company with the next revolutionary innovation. Microsofts success in this competition is an extraordinary boon to the rest of ussince it can only be achieved by offering new, better, cheaper products. The competition between Microsoft and Netscape, for example, is now bringing us all free, pre-installed Web browsers, fully integrated into Windows. Now let us consider the very different kind of power wielded by the government. The legislators who grilled Gates at last year's hearing routinely vote to spend sums greater than Microsofts annual revenuesto fund one of the federal governments smaller programs. These politicians dont produce the wealth they spend; they tax it from those who do. And what if they want businessmen to comply with their policies? They dont have to enter into complex business negotiations; they merely pass a law, and the businessmen are forced to obeyor else. If you dont want to deal with Microsoft, you can seek out competing products or simply do without. But what if you dont want to deal with Uncle Sam? If you choose not to pay your taxes, will the IRS allow you to go freely on your way? If you decide to drain a protected swamp, will the EPA adopt the motto live and let live? Of course not: These agencies will send armed police to seize your property and throw you in jail. The contrast between Microsoft's power and the governments power couldnt be clearer. The one is a power conferred by production, by offering customers a useful product. The other is the power conferred by force, by threatening citizens with fines and imprisonment. It is, in the words of philosopher Ayn Rand, the contrast between the power of the dollar and the power of the gun. In regard to the fast-growing field of software and computer technology, the difference between these two forms of power was starkly suggested in a comment made by Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch shortly before the Microsoft hearings. Hatch threatened that if Microsoft did not settle the Justice Departments suit, Congress might choose to create an Internet Commerce Commission to regulate the computer industry. This, then, is the alternative: the power of an innovative private company that knows it must constantly improve its product if it wants to succeedor the power of a stultifying federal bureaucracy that imposes its dictates by force. Which of these represents a dangerous concentration of power? Which of these threatens to use coercion to crush innovation? The answer is obvious: The real "concentration of power" that threatens us is not wielded by a businessman in Redmond, Washington; it is wielded by the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, DC. Robert W. Tracinski is co-founder and Chairman of the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism and is editor of The Intellectual Activist.

http://www.moraldefense.com/Philosophy/FAQ/default.htm Question: If capitalism rewards only ability, what will happen to those who can't compete? What will happen, for example, to people with physical or mental disabilities, who can't work as hard or as fast as others? Answer: The first question in evaluating any social system cannot be: What happens to those who are helpless and incapable of supporting themselves? Such people, by definition, are dependent for their survival on otherson those who are capable of working and who can produce wealth. Thus, the first question must be: What happens to the thinkers and producers? What conditions make it possible for them to think and produce? The fundamental answer to that question is: freedomthe freedom to direct their own actions and to keep the property the have produced. Thus, to advocate taxes and regulations on the producers in the name of helping the disabled is a hopeless contradictionit means helping the non-producers by throttling the producers on whom they depend. It should also be pointed out that, under capitalism, those who are incapable of supporting themselves are a tiny and ever-shrinking minority. The trend today is to inflate the ranks of the allegedly helpless by defining everything to be a disabilityincluding such vague and non-debilitating conditions as chronic fatigue, allergies, and depression. But the reality under capitalism is that fewer and fewer conditions are disabling. In a pre-industrial society, where most people lived by heavy physical labor, an injury to a hand or leg could make a worker destitute. Today, a quadriplegic can make a living simply from the power of his mind to solve problemsand the power of computers (produced by capitalism) to help him communicate his thoughts. Under capitalism, therefore, the genuinely helpless are a very small minority who could easily be supported by private charitiescharities made possible by a capitalist societys extraordinary wealth. But the condition that makes this charity possible is that those who cannot support themselves respect the rights and freedom of those who do.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000

Answers

Whoops...sorry about the mess. I had copied two essays and a Q and A to Word, and only meant to transfer the first essay here for now. So the others aren't formatted. But if you can cope with the eye strain, they're interesting, too. The first essay ends with the one- sentence paragraph, ending with , "...as a moral ideal."

Maybe to help straighten all this out, I'll just format the rest and post them in this thread.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

Here's the rest.

from Essay

Production vs. Force

The Difference Between Microsoft's Power and the Government's Power: One Wields the Power of Production, the Other the Power of the Gun

by Robert W. Tracinski

Chairman; The Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism

On March 3, 1998, Bill Gates was summoned before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing to determine whether his Microsoft Corporation constitutes a dangerous concentration of power that threatens the American consumer. The irony is that the inquisitors examining him were politicians who wield a power far beyond Gatess reach: the authority of a bloated, omnipotent governmentan authority backed, not by the production of a useful product, but by armies of regulators and tax collectors wielding the threat of physical force. To grasp this contrast fully, consider the source of Gatess alleged control over the software industry. This power consists of Microsofts production of Windows, the operating system used in more than 80% of the worlds personal computers. But Microsoft cannot force anyone to buy its products. Its only power comes from its ability to sell its operating system to computer manufacturers, who pre-install Windows on their machines. These manufacturers, in turn, cannot foist their Windows-equipped products onto a defenseless public. Computer buyers can decide whether to accept or reject Windowsas many still do when they opt for Unix or Linux, or for the Macintosh operating system.

Why cant Microsoft force itself on clients and consumers? Microsoft does not wield the power of physical force; it has no ability to punish or compel. All it can offer a customer is the opportunity to buy its productsor to go on his way unmolested. A computer manufacturer, for example, may be required to include Microsofts Internet Explorer with Windows, but what is his punishment for refusing? He will be left free to install another operating system. And what if other operating systems wont sell? Then Microsofts power is earnedearned by producing a more useful product.

Without the backing of physical force, Microsofts dominance in the market for operating systems must be continually earned. Far from being immune from competition, Microsoft lives under constant competitive pressure, whether from Netscape and its Web browser, or from some other company with the next revolutionary innovation. Microsofts success in this competition is an extraordinary boon to the rest of ussince it can only be achieved by offering new, better, cheaper products. The competition between Microsoft and Netscape, for example, is now bringing us all free, pre-installed Web browsers, fully integrated into Windows.

Now let us consider the very different kind of power wielded by the government. The legislators who grilled Gates at last year's hearing routinely vote to spend sums greater than Microsofts annual revenues to fund one of the federal governments smaller programs. These politicians dont produce the wealth they spend; they tax it from those who do. And what if they want businessmen to comply with their policies? They dont have to enter into complex business negotiations; they merely pass a law, and the businessmen are forced to obeyor else.

If you dont want to deal with Microsoft, you can seek out competing products or simply do without. But what if you dont want to deal with Uncle Sam? If you choose not to pay your taxes, will the IRS allow you to go freely on your way? If you decide to drain a protected swamp, will the EPA adopt the motto live and let live? Of course not: These agencies will send armed police to seize your property and throw you in jail.

The contrast between Microsoft's power and the governments power couldnt be clearer. The one is a power conferred by production, by offering customers a useful product. The other is the power conferred by force, by threatening citizens with fines and imprisonment. It is, in the words of philosopher Ayn Rand, the contrast between the power of the dollar and the power of the gun.

In regard to the fast-growing field of software and computer technology, the difference between these two forms of power was starkly suggested in a comment made by Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch shortly before the Microsoft hearings. Hatch threatened that if Microsoft did not settle the Justice Departments suit, Congress might choose to create an Internet Commerce Commission to regulate the computer industry. This, then, is the alternative: the power of an innovative private company that knows it must constantly improve its product if it wants to succeedor the power of a stultifying federal bureaucracy that imposes its dictates by force. Which of these represents a dangerous concentration of power? Which of these threatens to use coercion to crush innovation?

The answer is obvious: The real "concentration of power" that threatens us is not wielded by a businessman in Redmond, Washington; it is wielded by the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, DC. Robert W. Tracinski is co-founder and Chairman of the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism and is editor of The Intellectual Activist.

(I don't yet agree completely with the following; I'm still struggling with the issue. The two essays above I agree with, though.- - eve)

from Q and A

Question: If capitalism rewards only ability, what will happen to those who can't compete? What will happen, for example, to people with physical or mental disabilities, who can't work as hard or as fast as others?

Answer: The first question in evaluating any social system cannot be: What happens to those who are helpless and incapable of supporting themselves? Such people, by definition, are dependent for their survival on otherson those who are capable of working and who can produce wealth. Thus, the first question must be: What happens to the thinkers and producers? What conditions make it possible for them to think and produce? The fundamental answer to that question is: freedomthe freedom to direct their own actions and to keep the property the have produced. Thus, to advocate taxes and regulations on the producers in the name of helping the disabled is a hopeless contradictionit means helping the non-producers by throttling the producers on whom they depend.

It should also be pointed out that, under capitalism, those who are incapable of supporting themselves are a tiny and ever-shrinking minority. The trend today is to inflate the ranks of the allegedly helpless by defining everything to be a disabilityincluding such vague and non-debilitating conditions as chronic fatigue, allergies, and depression. But the reality under capitalism is that fewer and fewer conditions are disabling. In a pre-industrial society, where most people lived by heavy physical labor, an injury to a hand or leg could make a worker destitute. Today, a quadriplegic can make a living simply from the power of his mind to solve problems and the power of computers (produced by capitalism) to help him communicate his thoughts.

Under capitalism, therefore, the genuinely helpless are a very small minority who could easily be supported by private charitiescharities made possible by a capitalist societys extraordinary wealth. But the condition that makes this charity possible is that those who cannot support themselves respect the rights and freedom of those who do.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

"All decisions are to be left to the 'free market'-that is, to the un- coerced decisions of buyers and sellers, manufacturers and distributors, employers, and employees"

There is a problem with this point of view-it seems to argue for zero regulation by the government, and by this I mean the author would advocate a complete overthrow of anti-trust violations.

How can a consumer's decision be "un-coerced" if there is a monopoly? Would anyone argue that the Bell break up was bad for consumers? Does anyone want to sacrifice there 5 cents a minute long distance calls? I remember what the prices were like before the break up-the break up did increase competition and the consumer benefited. I can hardly feel sorry for the prosecution of Microsoft. In no way would I support the gutting of anti-trust laws. Without them we would not, as consumers, be "..free to go elsewhere".

"If you decide to drain a protected swamp...these agencies will send armed police to seize your property and throw you in jail".

Really? The author advocated the dismantling of the EPA. Is there a superfund site in his backyard? I live in New Jersey, Superfund hell. Whose happiness are we talking about? We should produce products at any cost to society as a whole? Do you want to breath the air that would be a result of no clean air act? This philosophy is anti- utilitarian. Whose right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is most important? Do we gut all the national forest of timber, taking away vacation haunts from tens of millions of people? It may look good on paper, but this moral philosophy fails when we consider the rights of everyone.

I could say more about this, but this will have to suffice for now.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), July 11, 2000.

[The essence of capitalism is that it bans the use of physical force and fraud in men's economic relationships.]

This dumbfoundingly false assertion lies at the heart of this simpleminded essay, and all else follows quite naturally. IF this statement held any truth at all, neither morality nor government "intervention" would arise as an issue.

Let's say you invent widgets, and manufacture and sell them at a very tidy profit. You are raking in the big money, when along comes a competetitor. His widgets are both higher quality and lower price than yours. Needless to say, you must respond to this threat.

As a businessman, you must do a cost/benefit analysis. In the long run, is it more profitable to produce a more competitive widget than his (permanently slashing your profits bigtime), or is it more profitable to hire some thugs to assassinate your competitor and torch his factory? Experience has shown that this second approach is *orders of magnitude* cheaper. It is a good, sound business decision because (1) It's *much* cheaper; (2) It eliminates your immediate threat; and (3) It inhibits any further threats most wonderfully. A win-win-win strategy! And it worked very effectively for the likes of the railroads, and for Standard Oil.

Free market competition is great for customers. They get higher quality, lower prices, constant innovation. It's not so hot for profits, though -- it in fact operates to keep profits to an absolute minimum (*see footnote). Few people (and businessmen are people) are so altruistic as to be willing to suffer immediate personal deprivation for the abstract goal of everyone else somehow being better off in the long run. We all live in the short run (economically speaking), and in the short run both physical force and fraud work very well, thank you.

If we agree that policing the free market against physical force and fraud is a legitimate role of government, we have serious issues to contend with. At the level of the particular, we must define just which behaviors are fraudulent, just how much information should the prudent consumer be expected to have, and just which remedies are appropriate. At a more general level, we must consider what recourse is open to the public if the public considers available remedies either inadequate or excessive. In other words, we must address both the remedies themselves, and the procedures for creating, eliminating, or modifying these remedies. This means we must consider the nature of the political process.

Tracinski prefers to pretend there IS NO political process in this sense. "The government" comes across as bullies with guns, accountable to nobody. This surely comes as a great surprise to every politician who was defeated at the polls, or who could not find supporters for his positions to finance his election campaign. Tracinski's "no feedback" model is absurd.

His definition of "force" is equally simpleminded. He writes "Microsoft cannot force anyone to buy its products". Say again? The penalty for Microsoft defying what the government considers the long term public interest is, at worst, being broken up. The penalty for the computer manufacturers defying Microsoft's bundling edicts is, at worst, going out of business. Tracinski has confused the *method* of applying power with the *results* of applying power. Microsoft isn't applying the "power of production", they are applying the power to *prevent competition*. Very successfully, we've noticed.

So it is NOT capitalism or free markets that are considered immoral, it's the attempt to thwart or undermine the free market process that's considered immoral. What's immoral is monopoly practices, restraint of trade, fraud, and all other attempts by businesses to maximize profits at the *expense* of innovation and competition. And it's the "evil" government that prevents this. Tracinski's dogma has blinded him to the self-evident.

Of course, there are legitimate differences of opinion, often strong opinion, as to the proper type, methods, and degree of government regulation. Nearly every activity engaged in by everyone, including government, that's to someone's advantage is to someone else's disadvantage. Weighing (and experimenting with) relative advantage, searching for the (impossible) perfect balance, is a never-ending process.

Making the preposterously one-sided claim that "The government regulator does not merely show contempt for the minds of his victims; he also shows contempt for their personal goals and values" at best contributes nothing but noise to this dialogue. If I make money by cheating Tracinski, does anyone really suppose he'll defind my right to do so against the "contemptuous" regulators with their anti- cheating rules? Give me a break.

Footnote: Yes, free-market competition maximizes TOTAL profit economy- wide. It minimizes profit for each individual economic actor, but this is more than made up for by the health and growth of the economy itself.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 11, 2000.

FS,

First, I'm assuming the author isn't an anarchist, and that there are some underlying assumptions here. Although I'm a free-market advocate, I'd rather be under a communist government than under general anarchy, which I think is about anti-life and philosophically absurd as you can get. If he would be against any form of government and/or against regulation of pollution then I would seriously disagree with him. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have said I agreed with him, as I tend to read between the lines with essays like this.

My position is that some government is absolutely necessary. How much? Enough to preserve and protect our individual rights, first and foremost being our right to life. So you'd at least have to have the armed forces, the police and the courts.

And I'm all for regulation of pollution, as long as the rules and penalties are clear, rational, and easily understood in advance.

I am, however, for the complete abolition of anti-trust laws. I could go into it in depth, but for now, please note that the only permanent monopolies are ones created by the government; e.g., the post office and the public schools. Have you seen a New York City or Chicago public school lately? Of all the others, most are temporary and the ones that aren't deserve to have as big a chunk of the market as they can get - - e.g., Microsoft -- ASSUMING that they haven't committed other crimes, fraud, torts, etc.

Regarding timber: First off, to discuss the "gutting" of forests without considering the benefits of timber (more housing, including housing for the poor, to go around; less homeless as one result; other wood products that improve our lives) is out of context. Secondly, I don't know enough about the timber industry, or to what extent, if any, it should be regulated and why -- to comment on it further.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

Flint,

I think what the author meant -- or should have at least implied -- regarding capitalism and force, is something along the following lines:

That the sole purpose of government is to preserve and protect the individual rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.

That to accomplish this, the people assign their right to self- defense (except for personal emergencies) to the government; thus, the government essentially has a "monopoly" (oh, there's that word again) on the use of force in human relationships.

That the government would be reduced to essential functions -- the ones that act to preserve and protect man's rights: The armed services, the police and the courts. Personally, I would add some basic regulatory functions, such as the EPA for pollution regulation, which is consistent, philosophically, to the extent that this acts to protect us from certain hazards of production.

The only social/economic system that would survive and flourish under such a government would be capitalism. Capitalism, in this context, means a socio-economic system based on the recognition of individual rights, in which all property (except that property which would support the essential government services) is privately owned.

So, indirectly you see the connection between capitalism and the barring of force. Although there's much explanation and elaboration I could add here, this should take care of your points with respect to businesses committing crimes, which would not be a legal option.

Although I don't have much more time to write now, the main purpose of capitalism is NOT to foster competition and innovation, although those are two things that happily frequently occur under capitalism.

No, Flint, the essential purpose of capitalism (in the sense that I use it, anyway) is that is allows man FREEDOM to rationally pursue his goals. And under such a system, man, by his nature, will use his mind to increase the standard of living for himself and, indirectly, for us all.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

To even use Capitalism and Morals in the same sentence is immoral. Captialists have raped, pillaged, burned, stolen, and polluted every country in the world where they can set up their greedy corporations. Why do you think foreigners are constantly attacking MacDonald's and Disnet. Not everyone loves the corporate crap.

Bill Gates is a money-mad jerk. I hate Microsuck. Flaws in the software are as common as dirt.

Small businesses can't begin to compete with corporations.

eve, you are a very credulous person.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), July 11, 2000.

The only Thing this World got from unregulated Greed and Capitalism is Millionaires,Billionaires,Wars,Hitler and the third Reich.

-- Poor Prolet (nickels@dimes.gov), July 11, 2000.

>> Bill Gates was summoned before the Senate Judiciary Committee [...] The irony is that the inquisitors examining him were politicians who wield a power far beyond Gates's reach: the authority of a bloated, omnipotent government - an authority backed, not by the production of a useful product, but by armies of regulators and tax collectors wielding the threat of physical force. <<

So, let us imagine Bill Gates in a world where there is no government, or else the government is disbarred from taxation and the use of physical force (which is effectively the same thing).

The first thing one notices is that, in such a world, absolutely nothing stops Bill Gates from hiring his own army, using physical force against whomever he wants and wielding powers far beyond those of the present government, because there is no means or method of stopping him, apart from a still bigger and more powerful warlord. Even if he didn't want to, BG would probably hire the army out of self-defense.

Hell, at least those inquisitorial politicians require our votes every few years. And the whole point is that our government's "omnipotence" is scattered and fragmented among hundreds of thousands of petty moguls who need us and each other just to cling to their small porton of power.

I like the fact that our government as a whole is far more powerful than any one man, either in or out of government. Because to have individuals who are more powerful than government is to have individuals who obey no law but those they make themselves. That's a sure recipe for bloody anarchy combined with local tyranny.

Saddam Hussein is just a rich, powerful man who doesn't have to answer to inquisitorial politicians.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), July 11, 2000.

gilda,

Any capitalist -- as with anyone else -- who commits the crimes against humanity that you're describing should be punished to the full extent of the law. So I'm not sure why you said these things, except that I think you're misunderstanding my position.

In fact, I recall you indicating that you were a Libertarian -- so, being such, you could be expected to be in agreement with a lot of this.

Poor Prolet,

Hitler was pretty much the opposite of a capitalist. He was a Socialist. In fact the Nazi party was the National Socialist Party. Actually, I forget the precise title, but socialist was part of the title. So your comment doesn't make sense.

Brian,

Your scenario assumes anarchy. But I described above that I think anarchy is worse than communism. So I'm not sure whom you're addressing here. I don't know...maybe the way the author presents his case, he seems to you to be an advocate of anarchy. But I didn't see it that way. In any case, I'm all for a limited government.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

Brian,

To expand a bit...

In the limited government I'm trying to describe -- or even the present one -- how would Bill Gates, or any one man -- become more powerful? Economically very powerful, perhaps, in terms of his money -- but how would that lead to something disastrous? Further, in a limited government, there would be few regulations and few handouts, so even with his money, what would he stand to gain as far as Washington is concerned? Finally, don't forget that he could only remain in "power" as long as he continues to produce products that we buy -- that tend to increase our standard of living.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

eve:

What people have been raising are genuine, substantive, real-world issues that must be addressed. You are systematically ignoring them, misrepresenting them, and dodging them by claiming you, yourself, don't really *believe* what you write when faced with a real issue. Unfortunately, as soon as you leave your airy fantasyland, your notions collapse immediately.

Perhaps, rather than speak in fatuous generalities, you should concern yourself with what your free businessmen actually DO (whenever they can get away with it). Politics, at bottom, is concerned with how people actually act in reality, NOT with how we WISH they would act. You might start by *reading* what any one of us says. Just a suggestion.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 11, 2000.

Eve,

I have to side with Flint on this one. Capitalism is an amoral economic system. Cocoa beans or crack cocaine, a market does not differentiate. Morality deals with virtues, vices and the commonweal. Capitalism is an economic system that cares nothing save profit. Personally, I enjoy the fruits of the free market, but I'm worldly enough to see it's ugly side. Are you familiar with the tragedy of the commons? externalities? market failures? oligopolies? corporate purchasing of political influence?

Capitalism has some deep structural problems... not the least of which are capitalists. No sane business person wants a free market. They want a cartel, a monopoly, an oligopoly, an inside track to a lucrative government contract. Best of all, they want the government to protect them from other firms. (laughter)

The real world doesn't work like an Ayn Rand novel.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), July 11, 2000.

Flint,

You said that I'm dodging issues. I'm sorry, I may not have answered everything in the prior posts, but it wasn't intentional as some sort of "dodge." For now, if you would be so kind as to repeat the most important issues you feel I've "dodged" I'll try to answer them.

But do you mean, for example, that I didn't respond to Poor Prolet's comment that capitalists start wars? Well, I thought that one was obvious. Capitalists don't start wars; governments do.

When did I say that I didn't believe what I wrote?

What you refer to as "fatuous generalities" I call "principles."

Some businessmen commit crimes. That's wrong, and they should be punished. Others manipulate legislators with their money. That can be reduced or eliminated through fewer regulations and a near (if not complete) separation of state and economics, just as with a separation of church and state.

I guess I shouldnt be surprised that you and others are ridiculing my positions, though. After all, they probably come across as very different from what youre used to seeing. Maybe after I elaborate on them youll see that actually theyre not very different from a Libertarian type of position.

Hi Ken,

Im getting tired right now; Ill respond to your post as soon as I can; hopefully tomorrow.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 11, 2000.

"Capitalists don't start wars; governments do."

And why do governments start wars? Would you argue that it is not economics? Who elects the government? People, sure. But who backs the campaigns? Who do our politicians cowtow to? Why are there pork barrel projects? Do you really mean to say that governments start wars in a fashion unrelated to the economic losses that may be incurred by not acting?

I do not understand your point here. I am not a conspiracy theorist, and I do not believe a few families are running the world, BUT one cannot seperate the influence that big business has on our politicians. To do so would be to completely revise history.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), July 11, 2000.

Congrats all. Absolutely super thread. Would like to start one tomorrow on HMOs and hope you'd all join.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), July 12, 2000.

Eve,

You have a tendency to make sweeping statements and treat them like immutable laws of physics. In a democracy (or republic) the "purpose" of government is what the electorate chooses... not what some dead libertarian philosophers thinks it ought to be. The libertarians have had every opportunity to sell their philosophy in the marketplace of ideas. They have failed. Why?

Moving on, to blithely say that "governments" start wars is silly. This is to ignore the obvious linkage between conflict and economic interests. Why did we mobilize for Desert Storm while ignoring other hostilities throughout the world? We were there to protect our economic interests. The private sector does not care about intercine warfare in Africa or ethnic violence in Albania. Corporate America thinks much differently about the supply of petroleum. As a fossil- fuel based economy, America depends on political stability in the Middle East. The influence of the private sector on public policy (including defense) has been proven time and again.

To your interesting theory on campaign finance reform... fewer rules will reduce coruption? (laughter) So, let's not have any limit on campaign finance.... What do you think will happen? The most powerful economic actors will dominate electoral politics. Without disclosure laws, we really won't know who bought a particular candidate. Once the most powerful economic interests have purchased enough political influence, they will use this influence to maximize profits. After all, profit is the raison d'etre of business.

How does one use government influence to maximize profits? Protectionist legislation. Favorable contracts. Elimination of labor and safety laws. Elimination of workers rights and protections. Investigations and tax audits of opposing firms. Special subsidies and tax breaks. Legal immunity from liability. Oh, other powerful interests like trade unions can use the same tactics. Capitalists do not want "less" government... they want government tailored to maximizing their profits.

As for "ridiculing" your position... not hardly. I simply find your articulation of libertarian philosphy simplistic and naive. You cannot make blanket statements and expect serious thinkers like Flint simply to swallow them whole.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), July 12, 2000.

Ken,

You've presented several issues in your posts, including loads of unsupported assertions, and I only have time to take up at most one issue at a time -- maybe not even that. So, I'll start with something you devoted a relatively large amount of space to: the campaign financing issue -- with a little bit on influence peddling in general.

Political contributions are really a type of speech, because they explicitly entail the expression of ideas. Your contribution to a candidate is --indirectly -- the publication of your ideas. Giving money to a campaign is no different from hiring a speaker or commissioning an author. You're simply using your money to have your viewpoints presented. The only limits that make sense are those set by your willingness to employ your money for this purpose. But a legislated limit restricts in principle what you can say by restricting how much you can say.

A candidate uses campaign contributions to buy television airtime, meet with voters, advertise in newspapers, and so forth--which means: to bring his message to the public. This right to political speech cannot be severed from the material means that make it possible. A newspaper's freedom to publish requires the right to purchase a printing press and paper and to collect money from subscribers. Similarly, freedom of speech in political campaigns requires the right to raise funds from supporters and to spend that money to bring the candidate's name and message to the voters' attention.

And take the production of a movie with a political theme, for example, such as anti-communism or anti-capitalism. Do you think the funding for these movies -- really, all movies -- should legally be subject to government restriction, since a viewpoint is being disseminated by means of money?

This right is vitally important. It ensures the candidate's accountability to his constituents, since he must not only seek their votes, but also their financial support. It also ensures that a candidate who challenges the political establishment, such as Steve Forbes or Ross Perot, can fund his campaign and be heard by the voters.

Now this issue is trickier in our mixed economy. The special interests contribute to candidates (often on both sides of an election) in order to escape some new controls or to appeal for legislative favors. But the corruption lies in the arbitrary power we give to our politicians, not in the fact that the victims or beneficiaries of that power try to influence its exercise. Drastically reducing governments power will simultaneously reduce the attempts to make use of that power.

Ken I'm sure you've heard that politics abhors a vacuum. Well, when there aren't any coherent principles to guide action the void is filled by -- guess what? Pressure-group warfare. And the winner of any given battle is decided by such arbitrary factors as which group is bigger, richer, and/or better connected to a White House and Congress with terrific political power. In practice, the principle of the public interest leads to a political war of all against all in which some individuals are sacrificed for the benefit of others. And this whole mess is known as the mixed economy. Now, having said this, we should all keep in mind that there are, of course, some principled lobbyists who seek, not special privileges, but simply the right to be left alone  but, alas -- their pleas usually fall on unprincipled ears.

Let's see how this premise of the public interest operates in practice. Imagine that you're an honest, idealistic congressman just elected to office. And on your first day, you're accosted by four lobbyists. The first demands a tariff increase on certain imports to protect his group's industry  which, he claims, serves the public. The second lobbyist says that it will benefit the public if his group gets a subsidy to help its members survive in a brutally competitive market. The third insists that it'll help the public if members of her group are given license to be the exclusive providers of a certain service. The fourth says the public will be better off if unions are made illegal in his industry. The next day, a new group of lobbyists asks you for favors. These often conflict with those demanded by the first group, but are just as fervently presented as being in the public interest.

How then do you decide what to do? If an auto-industry spokesman argues for import tariffs on cars to protect the jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers, and an auto-dealer association argues for no tariffs in order to give hundreds of thousands of buyers lower prices, which group, in this case, is the public? Both and neither. You realize that the public is not an actual entity but only a collection of individuals. So which individuals, in any given case, should get what they want and at whose expense? There is no way to tell  anyone can claim to be the public on any issue. As you throw up your hands in frustration, you finally see that the public interest has no objective meaning. It's just empty rhetoric.

Even before we try to reduce the size of government, we can get a healthy start up front, by eliminating this notion of the public interest and replacing it with the proper principle: individual rights, which means the freedom of each individual to pursue his own interests as long as he does not coerce, defraud or otherwise harm others. And this ultimately translates to replacing the mixed economy with real capitalism (as I use the term) --which envisions no tariffs, no subsidies, no protection from competition, and no favors.

You know, Ken, I think the real scandal here is not the selling of influence, but the SCOPE of the influence that politicians have to sell. With its fantastic maze of taxes, subsidies, and arbitrary regulations, the government holds the power to make or break private companies in the name of the "public interest." And the result is a war among various factions and pressure groups to determine which will be allowed to present itself as the "public." In this type of environment, is it really any wonder that contributors attempt to buy political influence? The dishonest businessperson will do it to gain an unfair advantage over his competitors. The honest businessperson will do it out of self-defense. And corrupt politicians will be eager to collect these bribes, holding out the promise of influence to every potential con artist and the threat of the loss of their influence to every potential victim.

But, you know what? The source of this vicious circle of bribery and blackmail is NOT money, but POLITICAL POWER. The solution to this corruption, then, is to reduce the power government has over our lives. Only in a world where when Congressmen have no special favors to sell will lobbyists stop trying to buy their votes  and their souls.

Ken, you and Flint can continue to say that I'm in Fantasyland, call me naive and all the other names you wish. Your sarcasm, "laughter" and other ad hominem, and that of others, however, will never come close to stopping me from thinking "outside the box," wondering how things could be, hoping for a better world, and sharing my visions.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 12, 2000.

eve,

Just a thought, but like many you do not understand there is a real difference between FREE ENTERPRISE and CAPITALISM.

You are supporting a system which you think is the other. WHY? gee maybe cause many in the Capitalist boat want you do make this Oh so common mistake?

Problem is Capitalism gives Capital RIGHTS. This IS the problem, end of story. Done largely thru the tax code.

-- passerby (amazed@gainatthis.place), July 12, 2000.

eve:

So long as you equate "thinking outside the box" with parroting the same tired and unrealistic propaganda over and over, we'll get nowhere useful. We are having conversations as follows:

Eve - Only government uses force.

Flint - Microsoft successfully exercised very real force to stifle any competition.

Eve - Only government uses force. (you wrote that government has a "monopoly" on force. HEEE-haw!)

Now, WHY would you pretend Microsoft exercised no force, and continue to hew to a party line *clearly* contrary to observation, that just *happens* to be the official position of some feckless organization? Because you're "thinking outside the box" by repeating what they've trained you to say? You wonder why we laugh?

Just to address this one subject in a bit more detail. *Someone* will always hold power. Power doesn't just "go away" because you want it to, no matter how strong your desire. In real life, we must recognize this. In practice, we've found it best to distribute power among multiple actors with conflicting goals, and allow each actor to use their power as a check on all the others.

We don't need to read a whole lot of history to find instances of governments holding too much power, without checks. The US government was designed to prevent exactly this problem. Nor do we have much trouble finding times in US history where the government exercised too LITTLE power, with the result that the robber barons ran roughshod over the rights of everyone else. Your glorious monopolists chained children to machines because it increased *profit*! Nor was this illegal, because these same barons made sure they controlled the lawmakers. That's what sane businessmen DO in the real world when there's an imbalance of power such as you recommend.

I spoke in an earlier post about the search for the perfect balance. Your response has been that if only we took nearly all power away from government, that *nobody* would hold it - it would vanish away somehow. In real life, this never happens. In real life, this simply transfers power to people we can't vote out of office, who in turn use the power to make rules favorable to themselves. Your response has been to ignore real life. And you wonder why we laugh?

When externalities like pollution get mentioned, you allow as to how government should have the power to regulate "hazards". But you carefully omit any mention of who gets to define what constitutes a "hazard" and what does not, and you carefully "forget" that for such regulation to be effective, the regulator must be more powerful than the polluter! If government is reduced as per the prescription you keep parroting, it will be up to the polluters to define "pollution", and up to the polluters to "prevent themselves" from polluting. I guess the "free man" *chooses* to live upwind and upstream of everyone else, right? And you wonder why we laugh?

In your world, huge campaign contributions are simply free speech, used to get the message across. In real life (you seem to have a lot of problem with real life), the politicians pocket most, use the rest to attack their opponents (because experience shows attack ads are FAR more effective than "getting the message across"), and once in office, do whatever the big contributor asks.

And your response? Why, government wouldn't be corrupt if they had no power! No, the monopolies would be corrupt instead. And historically FAR more cruel. And without ANY checks on their abuses. But you seem to believe that this won't happen, even though this is what has ALWAYS happened, because that's not how some characters in some novel acted! And you wonder why we laugh?

You say the government should provide a court system. Fine. Now, either the government has the power to enforce the decisions of the courts, or it does not. If it does not, the court system is silly and nobody will bother with it. If it DOES, then clearly the judges are well worth buying (if they're elected directly), or else the politicians who appoint the judges are worth buying. For any court system to be meaningful, its decisions must be enforceable. Enforcement requires power. Power inevitably corrupts, and must be checked by opposing power. I can only pray you're starting to grasp issues the real world must deal with.

We'd all like a better world. We ought to recognize that power must be distributed, because too much in one place always turns out badly. Ken stated a truism you need to address -- that NO sane businessman wants a free market! Until you understand this (both what it means and why it's true), you are living in a dream world.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 12, 2000.

source:AmosWEB

FREE ENTERPRISE: A term that's often used, erroneously, in reference to capitalism. In principle, free enterprise is an economy in which businesses and consumers are "free" to engage their resources in any desired production, consumption, or exchange without government restriction, regulation, or control. "It's my stuff, I'll do what I please with it." This notion of free enterprise is often championed by second-estate businesses and capital owners who do not want the government to limit their market control. Of course, this market control can be used to take unfair advantage of workers and consumers in the third estate, by charging exorbitantly high prices, collecting obscene amounts of economic profit, and thus perpetuating second-estate wealth, market control, and political influence. Contrary to what some proponents would have you believe, free enterprise has never existed in the good old U. S. of A. at any time, nor has it ever existed in any other society or economy. Government has always played a central, and necessary role, in an economy's attempt to reduce the problems of scarcity.

CAPITALISM: A type of economy based on -- (1) private ownership of most resources, goods, and other stuff (private property); (2) freedom to generally use the privately-owned resources, goods, and other stuff to get the most wages, rent, interest, and profit possible; and (3) a system of relatively competitive markets. While government establishes the legal "rules of the game" for capitalism and provides assorted public goods, like national defense, education, and infrastructure, most production, consumption, and resource allocation decisions are left up to individual businesses and consumers. The term capitalism is derived from the notion that capital goods are under private, rather than government, ownership (compare communism, socialism).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I think must be understood is the fact most Capitalists' LOVE government. As long as it serves them as it does in the United States just about completely. The noise over smaller government is largely BS "designed" to pacify, and divert attention away from the fact big business lives as a result of the government they have taken control of using your tax dollars and misunderstanding of what is actually the value adding function of society==labor and innovation.

Capitalist owe their allegiance to capital(money). The rest is mere marketing. They could give a rats ass if the Redwoods are saved, not their focus unless a profit angle can be established. Whatever the issue, rest assured if the big boys are involved they are so, not because they give a crap about the issue, but because they smell easy ducats.

To the extent decent folks are left alone to do what they do best, our society benefits.

Love of money is the root of evil. Power equals money(capital). Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Bill Gates is not worth what he is. The average CEO is not worth 10,20,30 times what the frontline worker is. Network Solutions is not worth $33 billion dollars no matter how terrific their database is, they are afterall, nothing but a pile of papers with a special OK. Internic produces NOTHING. Is a Blue Mountain Arts(online greeting card folks) worth a million, let alone the 775 million they were bought for?

We have what we have because most have bought the pile, the lie, that one day maybe me-too will be a rich-f%ck so what the hell.

-- passerby (amazed@this.place), July 12, 2000.

(laughter)

Eve, you have yet to support any of your core assumptions. And by the way, concepts like the tragedy of the commons are not unproven assertions. They are general statements of economic principle. So are external costs. So are most of the other concepts I addressed.

Political contribution are NOT speech. If I take a brown paper bag, fill it with $100 bills and hand it to a political candidate, it is not an expression of ideas... is an economic transaction. My money is spent with the express purpose of acheiving a given political outcome. The vast majority of contributions are not made to forward a philosophy... but to influence a policy. Hiring a speaker or commissioning an author will not get me a sweetheart deal on a road contract or a special tax exemption. (laughter)

Have you ever worked around politics, Eve? It's about making deals. No one (except the ideologically pure libertarians) care about "viewpoints." Hey, the speech changes for every interest group.

Political action is a commodity that is bought and sold like potatoes. The more money you have, the more you can shape political power to your own ends.

Your solution is to neuter government. Well, Eve, I agree that nature abhors a vacuum. Do you think capitalists will behave themselves in the absence of regulations? If government is helpless what is the contervailing force? Remember the robber barons? In the absence of a strong government and judicial system, we simply open the door for new age of feudal lords.

I find it ironic you mention Forbes and Perot. These ultra-wealthy individuals fund their own campaigns. They don't have to "answer" to anyone. If anything, they enjoy the "right" of political speech due to their wealth while the average Joe (or Jane) does not.

Once again, capitalists do NOT want to reduce governments' power over anyone but them. The capitalists LOVE government power when it works in their favor. How do you think we got in this predicament anyway? You think the capitalists were simply overwhelmed by masses of misguided Marxists? This system of goverment is the product of capitalism... the fruition of Marx' prediction that the superstructure will mirror the means of production. In a capitalistic economy, government will be marketplace where influence and favor is bought and sold.

Your rhetoric has been bandied about by the libertarians for decades. You have the same opportunity as every other political philosophy. Why are you getting 1% of the popular vote?

Deep down, most Americans think about issues like exploding Ford Pintos. Deep down, most Americans know the John Galts of industry will cut their wages, eliminate benefits, raid pension funds, discrimminate against older workers, engage in unsafe practices, pollute, lie, steal and do basically anything to maximize profits. The problem is not the "government," it is the collusion of government and industry.

Flint is right. The best we can hope for is some balance between the powers that minimizes the harm to individuals and the general public. By the way, Eve, Flint is right. If you were addressing our points, we'd be much more courteous. As it is, you simply are repeating the libertarian party line.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), July 12, 2000.

Flint, et al...

I'm sorry, but I haven't been able to get my response posted. This is the message I keep getting:

We're going to try the insert now...

Ouch!! Here was the bad news from the database:

ora8.c:2882:ora_tcl_command: error in `OCILobWrite ()': ORA-19502: write error on file "/ora8/m02/oradata/eightk/greenspun01.dbf", blockno 206529 (blocksize=8192) ORA-27063: skgfospo: number of bytes read/written is incorrect SVR4 Error: 28: No space left on device Additional information: -1 Additional information: 524288

Does anyone know what's going on?

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 13, 2000.

Perhaps try posting it in two (or more) parts.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), July 13, 2000.

Thanks, hmmm, I'll give it a shot.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 13, 2000.

passerby and FS,

Thanks for your posts. I might want to eventually respond to your posts, but my time is limited and I'm kinda tied up with Flint and Ken (and spread thin with too much other stuff) for now.

Ken,

I'll try to get in a response to you as soon as I can. If it's not by tomorrow, though, it'll need to wait until Monday, as I'll be off line this weekend. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, feel free to add anything you'd like (well, within the topic, anyway), either based on my post(s) to Flint or on anything else.

Flint,

My post to you is (hopefully) coming up next.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 13, 2000.

Flint,

"...and you wonder why we laugh?"

I don't wonder why you laugh. I'm pretty sure I know why you guys do (regardless of what you'll tell me), but there's no point in getting into this, as this isn't a psychology thread. For now, just know that I do think it's kinda cute, though. In fact, I loved your "HEEE-haw" and when Ken does his "laughter" thing I start to break up myself, because the thing that's starting to come to mind is a canned laugh track.

You said,

"Now, WHY would you pretend Microsoft exercised no force..."

To the extent Microsoft seized others' property,committed breach of contract, fraud, extortion, etc. then I'd agree that the company and/or its officers should be punished.

You then go into a long talk about power. Before I comment on that, I'd like to know if you see any essential difference between economic power and political power. What significant differences, if any, do you see? Does this help to clarify your thinking on this, or does it confuse you?

"Chaining children to machines": Tell me, Flint...can you distinguish between someone abducting a twelve-year-old from his parents and physically chaining him to a machine for twelve hours a day, and the same child working voluntarily (and encouraged by his parents) for, say, a few hours a day milking cows to help prevent himself and his family from starving? Or are these two situations essentially the same to you? If you recognize them as essentially different, please tell me your reasons.

"Robber barons": Can you distinguish (i.e., name essential differences) between the likes of J.J. Hill of the Great Northern and, say, the "Big Four" of the Central Pacific? Or are they all the same to you? If you're not familiar with them, let me know and I'll fill you in.

More to come...

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 13, 2000.

Flint,

You said,

"I spoke in an earlier post about the search for the perfect balance. Your response has been that if only we took nearly all power away from government, that *nobody* would hold it - it would vanish away somehow. In real life, this never happens. In real life, this simply transfers power to people we can't vote out of office, who in turn use the power to make rules favorable to themselves. Your response has been to ignore real life."

Some of my post was about corruption, for example. That's real life, isn't it? Some of my writing projects and contemplates things that could be possible. I thought I'd made that clear. Even then, I never meant to imply that all corruption would vanish. It would very likely be drastically reduced, though; my reasons were given in my last post. I don't want to comment yet on the concept of "power," as I mentioned above. We should distinguish between the types of power first.

You said,

"When externalities like pollution get mentioned, you allow as to how government should have the power to regulate "hazards". But you carefully omit any mention of who gets to define what constitutes a "hazard" and what does not, and you carefully "forget" that for such regulation to be effective, the regulator must be more powerful than the polluter! If government is reduced as per the prescription you keep parroting, it will be up to the polluters to define "pollution", and up to the polluters to "prevent themselves" from polluting. I guess the "free man" *chooses* to live upwind and upstream of everyone else, right?"

Why do you assume the rest of the populace, the legislature, the EPA and the White House would have no say in this?

You said,

"...the monopolies would be corrupt instead. And historically FAR more cruel. And without ANY checks on their abuses. But you seem to believe that this won't happen, even though this is what has ALWAYS happened..."

If you clarify what you mean by "corrupt," "cruel" and "abuses" I might agree with you here. Give me some examples.

"You say the government should provide a court system. Fine. Now, either the government has the power to enforce the decisions of the courts, or it does not. If it does not, the court system is silly and nobody will bother with it. If it DOES, then clearly the judges are well worth buying (if they're elected directly), or else the politicians who appoint the judges are worth buying. For any court system to be meaningful, its decisions must be enforceable. Enforcement requires power. Power inevitably corrupts, and must be checked by opposing power."

I agree that corruption of judges will always be possible. Since judges interpret laws and regulations, and since laws and regulations would be substantially reduced with a smaller government, I think this type of problem would shrink substantially as well. Btw, I think the government certainly should have the power to enforce the decisions of judges.

Your "power inevitably corrupts" remark is really silly, though. If I get a substantial pay raise, my purchasing power increases. And that means sooner or later I'll become more corrupt? You're kidding, right?

"... NO sane businessman wants a free market!"

Flint, really, you can't be serious here -- in fact, I could just see you cracking up as you were trying to type it in. Since you and Ken don't happen to like free markets, of course it naturally follows that that's the only "sane" position -- right? (Mona Lisa smile)

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 13, 2000.

Good afternoon Ken,

As you may have noted in my response to FutureShock earlier today on another thread, I'm sorry for the delay; personal issues took me offline for longer than I'd expected.

You've raised many issues in your posts; I'll try to tackle a few for now; I can't take them all on at once. So that my not mentioning certain points doesn't continue to upset you, if you'd like to focus on things I haven't noted in this post, please let me know, be specific, and I'll be more than happy to discuss them with you. Otherwise, I'll address them as I have the time, or I may assume you've lost interest.

Since you raised "the tragedy of the commons" and "externalities" twice, I assume you're very familiar with them, and they're important to you.

Regarding "the tragedy of the commons":

I assume you're referring to Garrett Hardin's 1968 essay where he concludes that since the resources of the earth are "finite" the government should institute regulations against human breeding.

You know, Ken, the potential for economic progress is actually in no way limited by any fundamental lack of natural resources. I mean, the world is MADE out of natural resources, extending from the upper limits of its atmosphere to its very center, about four thousand miles down. Know why? Because the whole mass of the earth is made of nothing but chemical elements -- ALL of which are natural resources.

And with respect to energy -- well, If I recall correctly, more energy is discharged in a single thunderstorm than mankind produces in an entire year. Then there's the renewable energy -- solar, wind, tidal, hydroelectric, even eventually tapping the earth's core for heat. If you'd like, I'll give you many other examples.

Really, what I'm getting at is that the problem of natural resources is in no way one of intrinsic scarcity. From a purely physical- chemical point of view, natural resources are one and the same with the supply of matter and energy that exists in the world -- actually in the universe. Yes, technically you can describe this supply as finite, but for all practical purposes it's infinite.

The problem of natural resources is instead strictly one of USEABILITY, AVAILABILITY and ECONOMY. In other words, man needs to know what the different elements and combinations of elements nature provides are good for, and then to be able to get at them and direct them to the satisfaction of his needs without having to spend an inordinate amount of labor to do so. What this implies is that the only effective limit on the supply of such economically useable natural resources -- you know, natural resources in the sense in which they constitute wealth -- is the state of scientific and technical knowledge and the quantity and quality of capital equipment available.

Ken, I assume you understand wealth in the context of economics as material goods made by man, as well as land and natural resources in the ground that man has made useable and accessible. If you see wealth as something different, we should work out this difference prior to plunging in further.

Anyway, because the supply of resources provided by nature is one and the same with the supply of matter and energy, the supply of economically useable natural resources is capable of practically limitless increase. It increases as man expands his knowledge of and physical power over the world and universe.

As someone interested in economics, I assume you're familiar with the law of diminishing returns, but if you're interested, I can show you how the practically limitless potential of natural resources in no way contradicts this. If you're not familiar with this law, let me know and I'll explain it to you.

Re the population issue -- don't forget that the effect of population growth in a division-of-labor society is radically different than in a non-division-of-labor society. In a division-of-labor society it means a greater, more intensive division of labor, including the larger absolute size of the various specializations and subspecializations concerned with making new discoveries and implementing them in the form of new products and better methods of production -- in essence it means a greater absolute munber of productive geniuses, whose work operates to raise the standard of living of everyone. These advantages enable a division-of-labor society easily to overcome any problems that would otherwise be associated with the need to produce more food and minerals for a larger population.

Regarding the issue of "externalities":

By this I assume you're referring to the theory that the individual should be able to lay claim to compensation for all the benefits his action causes to the rest of mankind and should be liable for all the costs it imposes on the rest of mankind, even though the benefits and costs in question are not subjects of purchase and sale in the normal context of the individuals concerned. From this perspective, it's a flaw of capitalism whenever the individual's action provides any kind of benefits to others for which he is not compensated, or imposes any kind of costs on others for which he does not compensate them. It calls on the government to enter the scene and set matters right by deciding who owes what to whom, and then effecting the necessary redistribution of wealth and income.

So, Ken, by this may I assume you mean, for example, that:

The owners of beautiful homes and gardens should demand compensation for the pleasure of the appearance their property brings to others without charge?

The senders of unsolicited merchandise through the mail should also be able to demand compensation if their merchandise confers any benefit on the recipients?

People should be liable for payment for all the benefits that now come to them freely in the form of the work of all the inventors and authors whose discoveries or creations are not eligible for patent or copyright protection, e.g., fire and the wheel?

If you can tell me whether or not you agree with my understanding of this, and answer these examples for starters, I'll be happy to discuss this at length with you.

Regarding campaign finance reform:

Your points here, except for one major unspoken premise, were pretty much on target, given the mixed economy of today. You simply buttressed my position to eliminate much of the regulatory arm of government, so we wouldn't have the problems you speak of. Thank you.

One point you miss is that I'm not just speaking of regulations. I want to emphasize that the MEANS to promulgate new laws and regulations would be eliminated as well, e.g. by eliminating most of the alphabet agencies (some of this would be done gradually, over a long period of time). A few of the things I would not want to eliminate are workplace safety, product safety and anti-pollution rules. This should render moot many of the points you raised here. If not, let me know.

You seem to speak of profits in a pejorative way. If so, could you elaborate? What's wrong with maximizing profits, as long as no one is harmed? So if a farmer maximizes profits without harming anyone, and as a result, the sandwich you're eating now comes cheaper -- that's a bad thing, right?

With respect to the speech issue,

You said that political contributions are not speech; that if you give some money to a political candidate it's not an expression of ideas -- it's just "an economic transaction."; not to forward a philosophy, just to "influence a policy."

If you like a political candidate because he/she espouses your philosophy and because of this you give money to support that candidate, that's not an (indirect) expression of your ideas? If not, just what is it an expression of? You know, "economic transactions" don't take place in a vacuum; they're done for reasons. Btw, for the reasons I gave above (i.e., no mixed economy; capitalism instead), there would be far less "policy" to influence anyway, wouldn't there?

Re your questions: "Do you think capitalists will behave themselves in the absence of regulations? If government is helpless what is the contervailing force?"

A government with a strong police, military and court system would obviously not be helpless. And with such a government (reduced in other areas), please explain to me precisely who the modern-day robber baron would "rob" and how he would accomplish this? Oh yes, he'd be one of those nasty profit-maximizers (therefore "robbing" his employees) without a bureaucrat around whose whim would tell him that someone's making too much so it's time for another round of taxes and redistribution. And he'd probably be one of those disgusting monopolists who had the unmitigated gall to dump a fantastic product at low prices on an innocent, unsuspecting public (therefore "robbing" them of competitive products). Forgive me, Ken, I almost forgot. But I'm learnin'.:)

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), July 19, 2000.