Greetings Thomas & all,
Thomas Lunde wrote:
> There are but three social arrangements which can replace capitalism;
> slavery, socialism, and property.
>
> I may imagine a mixture of any two of these three or of all the three, but
> each is a dominant type, and from the very nature of the problem, no fourth
> arrngement can be devised.
>
> The problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means of production.
> Capitalism means that this control is vested in the hands of few, while
> political freedom is the appanage of all. It this anomaly cannot endure,
> from its insecurity and from its own contradiction with its presumed moral
> basis, you must either have a transformation of one or of the other of the
> two elements which combined have been found unworkable. These two factors
> are (1) The ownership of the means of production by a few; (2) The freedom
> of all. To solve capitalism you must get rid of restricted ownership, or of
> freedom, or of both.
A few of you might have followed the recent on-line seminar/forum with
author Jeff Gates
which focused on his book _The Ownership Solution_. Although I'm not a
supporter of claims that this espoused form of 'democratic capitalism'
(worker & customer ownership of increasing % of profitable businesses)
is *the key* to solving the human predicament, supporters include George
Soros, Stephen Schmidheiny, & M. Gorbachev. I do think it can be a part
of the 'resolutique'. There is nothing quite like ownership to stimulate
stewardship (in my experience).
> Thomas:
>
> The following article is an example of a State moving slowly towards
> slavery. And as the article mentions, it is the very business class, those
> who, as Belloc identifies as the small minority who control the means of
> production, who find the concepts of Socialism or Welfare state so abhorrent
> to their goals of personal wealth creation who are supporting the political
> moves that are leading the poor into slavery. First, we can see that the
> plight of the poor has to increase in misery and finally as a sop, the
> authorities will bring forth as a panacea to the cruelty they have created,
> "under workable regulations, sufficiency and security for the dispossessed."
>
> Convince me that I am wrong?
Only the future can inform us of that. One element that you might be
discounting is the requirement of a large middle class of consumers to
support the profit system. Another perception is that rational
self-interest, even by the superrich, requires a sustainable future for
their extended families, tribes...in a healthy, safe, aesthetically
pleasing habitat. A world with a vast majority of humans as slaves seems
likely to contradict both of those contingencies. My 2c (now Canadian,
so worth 1ess?) :-)
Steve
