So when people were making and
improving on their stone-tools,
who were they competing exactly?
How come the chinese managed all
those inventions of theirs?
I think in capitalism the aim is to make profit,
and for that it not as necessary as in the
old times when
you just had to beat
competitors with a cheaper (more mass
produced) product.
You can be very productive with
a large turnover and still not managing
to keep your share prices up,
or your market crumbles etc.
The motivation to innovate - and to do
that in a humanly useful fashion
is questionable even without mentioning
multinational monopolies.
Finding someone who invest in your
however useful invention demands more
inventiveness, than the invention itself.
Eva
>
> I enter this fray with some trepitation, but I have a point to make. One of
> the myth's of capitalism is stated by Chris above. The implication is that
> there would be no or limited innovation without the goad of competition and
> there is truth in that statement. However, what may be good in moderation
> may not be good in excess and I would opine that improvements are in the
> excessive stage, creating a lack of durability as a design feature, vast
> misuse of resources, complications caused by obsolence and host of other
> negative features such as the great variety of parts and technical skills
> needed to keep up with the constant innovation. Y2K may be one example of
> the effects of what might in one circumstance be a positive but because of
> the efficiencies of capitalism, a simple error in structure was never
> corrected and we may now pay the costs for all that neglect in the constant
> drive to build a new and better computer or software program.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Thomas Lunde
>
>
>
