On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 2:03 PM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote:
> My point was that the free-reigning economics of the marketplace or the > dictatorial economics of the state produce the same human misery without > reasonable and pragmatic built-in change or accommodations. Even today the > Chinese seem to be dictatorial in spite of their so-called free-market > experimentation. They allow people a free length of rope for a while and > then > yank it in arbitrarily. It's the arbitrary crackdowns that scare the > hell out > of the populace and keep it under the boot heel, unfree. This will > ultimately > ruin the Chinese brand of communist society because people need to feel > free > even if they willingly submit to power. But arbitrary and brutal > unexplained > repression is the tried and true methodology of totalitarian states. > However, > so-called open markets, free-commerce and trade, etc., is what the U.S.A. > accidentally had for a few years after the Revolution --- until the smart > leaders could see it tilting toward anarchistic self-interest. It is to > George > Washington's great credit that he worked for the establishment of a strong > Federal Government, at least to offset the natural tendency for a free > economy > to become a despotic rule of selfish greed and concentrated wealth, such as > Debord rails against. Supposedly, that's the secret of the American > contradictory government, balancing self-interest against the common good > (or, > as the post-revolutionary leaders saw it, virtue).... But doesn't self-interest eventually evolve into special interests who try to influence the decision-maker with money?
