>
> Adam Smith wrote TWO books- one of these is infamous Wealth of Nations
> and the other, neglected child is the Theory of Moral Sentiments. In
> other words, smith saw the need for capitalism to be tempered by
> responsibility.
>
Surely the less responsible capitalist makes more profit,
thus puts out of business the others. They are in it
to survive in the chaos of the markets, human considerations
antagonise the basic essence of capitalism.
> And therein lies the problem. At both ends of this arbitrary spectrum
> between fre market and common ownership is the intervention of the
> State, not as a regulator, but as a parent taking responsibility for
> errant children who want to play but not pay. Eva has resurected two
> staw beings, both of which can be knocked down by either side in order
> to avoid the difficult issues of responsibility.
>
Marxist economics relies on english classical political
economy, perhaps you should read some first hand
before you form your opinion. I have to assume you have not
yet done this, as you misrepresent marxist theory
- and me - here. Where did I pass responsibilities?
Marx did not look at the state as a "responsible
parent". He new that the state represent the
status quo of the ruling economic order,
thus he knew that full democracy in both the social
and economical sense means a society without the
state, that would be deemed to "whither away".
> This, of course, is why Jeffereson wanted a republic and NOT a
> democracy. He, of course, believed that only a certain class of persons
> would have sufficient interest and willingness to absorb the
> responbility. The common ownership, as Orwell showed, in his novels is
> frought with the same dangers as the Genral Bull Moose model of rampant
> corporate control.
>
Orwell had written good novels describing the
system of the USSR. However it was not his job to
make a rational analysis of the economic/social construct
there. Luckily this was done by marxist analysts
in a very consistent and convincing manner.
In the USSR et al though there was common ownership,
the economic control was in the hand of a
burocratic elite and the state represented this
elite. There are obvious and well demonstrated
conditions that caused this lack of democracy
to occure, such as the backward state of
development in Tsarist Russia, including
the illiteracy rates and no experience in democracy
whatsoever, also, the conditions of
the afternath of an immensly destructive war,
and there are quite a few more such coincidental
missing of the economic/social initial conditions
Marx prescribed for a successful socialist democracy
to develop. Luckily, at present, these conditions
are, if anything, over-ripe for the next stage
of social development which is the conscious
democratic control to replace chaos and destruction.
> The penduluum is not operating in a plane carving a path between two
> alternatives. It is a chaotic system operating in several diminesions
> which have been ignored by the political flat landers.
>
Capitalism and the markets are a chaotic system.
So is a lot of the physical/biological systems we learned to
manipulate in our favour. The only way we can
manipulate the economy to serve human
sustainable survival rather than short-term
destruction to go on, if we have full collectively
responsible democratic control over it.
It sounds boring and axiomatic perhaps,
but that is not a rational argument against it...
I'd love to have a rational/objective argument.
It's so much more comfy (at the moment)
to be an apologist for capitalism,
give me a good argument and I pack in marxism.
Eva
> cheers
>
> tom abeles
>
>
>
