From: Razer <ray...@riseup.net> On 08/28/2016 09:50 AM, jim bell wrote: >> Anyway, I think using the term, "free market" is more enlightening than >> "capitalism". >> The need to raise and employ 'capital' is one part of a free market, but >> it could also >> be argued that even in a non-free-market, some form of capital must be >> used, somehow. >> Thus, "free market" and "capitalism" overlap, but are not the same thing. > Jim Bell
>Regarding her motivations... From wikipedia >"Le Guin, as Elizabeth McDowell states in her 1992 master's thesis, >"identif[ies] the present dominant socio-political American system as >problematic and destructive to the health and life of the natural world, >humanity, and their interrelations." Well, I'm a free-market libertarian, an anarchist even. And I agree that the current system is "problematic and destructive to the health and life of the natural world, >humanity, and their interrelations." But presumably, in entirely a >differentway than Le Guin thinks. >Regarding so-called 'free markets'. The way I see it personally there is >no such thing as "kinder and gentler capitalism". The people who would >foist that off on us utilize people's ingrained, indoctrinated >self-interest and narcissism to have us believe it's possible because >it's 'better for me', no one else gets screwed in the exchange. Imo That >screwing would still happen in a 'real' free markets. Well, currently people with life-threatening allergies are being "screwed" by afactor-of-6 increase in the cost of Epi-pens. "How outrageous", I hear the fevered shouts! Problem is, while the decision to make that price increase wasmade by Mylan Labs, the organization that made such a decision possible isthe FDA, the Federal Food and Drug Administration: By denying the entry intothe ostensibly "free" market of a generic alternative, Mylan did what was in theirseeming "self-interest". So, we really don't have a "free market", do we? We certainly have one that employs "capital", making it "capitalism", but when pricing decisions can be made by one company when other companies are denied access to the marketby the GOVERNMENT, that is far from a "free market". In short, "capitalism" or "free market" ISN'T the problem. The problem is thatgovernment makes the market UN-free. Jim Bell
