Mason Clark asks:>>If there were no government, no organization of any kind, whatkind of market would there be? Would it not be a free market? So is not a free market natural? Is not this anarchic market the starting point for discussion of what the economic system should be, namely a controlled market? Where control is something between zero and infinite.<< A fellow named Thomas Hobbes addressed this issue a few years ago. He started with the assumption that individuals are the greedy sorts that tend to dominate in market settings and are rewarded so well under capitalism (the Donald Trumps of the world) and then examined what kind of society resulted (a classic case of deductive reasoning, by the way, with the same emphasis on "natural" as a central concept). The society was one of a war of each against all, in which life was "nasty, brutish, and short." It's almost impossible to have a "free mareket" under these conditions: people will tend to rob each other rather than trading with each other. Obviously this was not an apology for capitalism and hardly a substitute for the old ideologies that had been used to legitimate the system but had become obsolete with the rise of captialism, so something had to be done. John Locke comes along to save the day. What he did was _assume_ that individual ownership of property (of the sort that dominates under capitalism) is "natural" and that there's a consensus that such property rights should be maintained. Given this assumption, then we can almost see capitalism and the market as "natural." Of course, the property-owners need a state to enforce this consensus, but as far as I know, Locke never addressed the contradiction. In modern terms, if you start with a stateless world, property rights won't be protected, contracts won't be enforced, debts won't be paid, etc. Strangely, the big advocates of free markets are all in favor of the state: to defend their homes and productive property, to suppress strikes and unions, evict tenants who don't pay the rent, etc. >>Surely a computer-controlled market socialism (wow - ouch!) is notnatural.<< It's "natural" for people to want to control their lives. It's "natural" for them to want to do so as groups, since so many aspects of our lives affect us as members of groups (while we also seem to be "naturally" herd animals). It's "natural" for people to develop technology such as computers. So it's "natural" for people to try to control their lives as groups using computers. To prevent people from controlling their lives as groups using computers goes against nature! I bet one can construct an argument for almost anything based on appeals to "nature." So let's drop the whole "natural" argument, just as we've stopped respecting Granola for being "natural." As some old German fellow said once, the nature that humankind encountered no longer exists, having been totally transformed; the same can be said for "human nature." >>And I didn't say "natural is good" so go flame someone else.<< I don't think you can avoid the "natural is good" assumption. The usual "natural" argument says that if you go "against nature" it causes problems (hey! don't fool with mother nature). The market is "natural" so if the government or a monopoly fixes prices it causes inefficiency. If "natural" is in no way associated with "good," why bring it up at all? >>Stop corruption. Eliminate campaign financing bribery<< good idea. Let's totally get rid of campaign contributions as a way of financing elections. Instead, each political candidate who gets enough signatures on petitions gets a fixed amount of television time. But then we might see politicians going against "natural" capitalism and the market... in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
