Caspar Davis
>I am actually a great admirer of the market system, but two
>prerequisites for its effective function are perfect competitition
>(practically non-existent) and perfect information- almost as rare in
>the world of ubiquitous advertising and the corporate media. Like
>Marxism, the free market has never been tried.
Somehow I seem to have come out as the champion of markets and capitalism.
I'm not sure of how that happened. Perhaps I can set matters straight by
including part of an off line posting to Thomas Lunde:
I've never pretended that market meant equal benefits for all. In fact, I
believe that in a recent posting to the FW list, I pointed out that the
distribution of income among rich nations and poor was terribly unequal,
with 80% of global GDP accruing to 20% of the global population. And I'm
fully aware of the destructive impact of modern industrial development on
poor countries. I've seen some of it myself. However, I'm not inclined to
blame abstractions, like markets. Rather, I would go after governments,
which out of greed and stupidity, allow terrible things to happen to their
populations. I will not blame Shell oil for what happened to the oil rich
regions of Nigeria, for example. I will place the blame squarely on the
government of Nigeria and wealthy Nigerians who benefited enormously from
the destruction of their of their country and the execution of Nigerians who
tried to get the government to take a more responsible stand.
PS: I do blame Shell to the extent of boycotting its products.
PPS:
>In most chattel slave societies, there is an incentive to keep
>the slaves in good physical condition, and there is often a moral
>imperative to take care of them when they are too sick or too old work
>to work.
Well, then, perhaps that's the solution.
Ed Weick
