>It's hard to answer anything but "maybe" to these questions, which doesn't
>really satisfy me. "Ownership" is quite an abstract concept, and for all
>that Marxists talked about materialism they sure attached a lot of
>importance to something so abstract.
Back to some rudeness. I'm really beginning to wonder about this! There is
a very direct connection between ownership and monopoly power. The more
concentrated the ownership of productive resources, the more monopoly power
that can be exercised. The greater the monopoly power, the greater the
concetration of income and wealth in a relatively few hands, and the more
impoverished and powerless the population in general. I've tried my
damndest to take your proposal to simulate the world economy seriously, but
now question whether you can even begin to this without some understanding
of basic economics. Without such understanding, I'm afraid that all you
will produce is another CIA Factbook. Why bother?
Ed Weick
