Harry, Some examples of when and where you have observed free markets please.
arthur -----Original Message----- From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 4, 2004 4:02 PM To: 'Robert E. Bowd'; 'Ray Evans Harrell'; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade Bob, Still catching up with interesting posts I marked. You say: " The marketplace has no morality except the survival (that word!) and self-aggrandizement of the few who own it, and manipulate it in their own interests. Period." Absolutely! However, you are not describing the free market which is where people freely come together to exchange goods. And there is the problem. Hardly anyone on this list describes the free market. They describe something that is manipulated by the unholy alliance of protectionist business, protectionist unions, and the politicians who are in their pay. But, somehow, if we don't have a free market, we have an economy in which all these grossly corrupt characters disappear. An amazing blindness! Of course the free market has no morality. Neither does your car. It's simply a mechanism to do your wishes, as is a market. The free market improves the efficiency of production. It doesn't create a just society. It just allows people to make their own choices. This I prefer to the controlling and manipulative fascist, or communist, society that is its alternative. What's that? We have capitalistic or socialist societies instead of those nasty regimes? Look at them. Almost inevitably, present "moderate" societies drift toward the extremes, getting into more trouble as they do. The free market produces a bigger cake. It doesn't ensure a just division of the cake. The attack on unfair distribution of the proceeds of the free market must take a different tack. But the so-called social reformers who lead the attack on free trade and the free market mostly haven't an inkling of the real problems. So, it is unlikely that they will solve them. But, they can have a lot of fun reducing competition for the big monopolies (and the small ones) so their profits can be bigger. Harry ******************************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242 http://haledward.home.comcast.net ******************************************** -----Original Message----- From: Robert E. Bowd [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Harry, The marketplace has no morality except the survival (that word!) and self-aggrandizement of the few who own it, and manipulate it in their own interests. Period. I have been thinking about Ed's defensive apology for being a 'moralist.' Why would one be defensive about that basic human quality? What is going on that we even have to question ourselves on that front? Society is badly in need of renewal to fill that gaping hole in our personae. The fundamentalists seem to realize this (and we know what a pig in a poke that is), but that is only one narrow, self-interested fragment of a broader urge for a more hopeful, better world that is in all of us. Give me a moralist, to a marketeer, any day. BB --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.558 / Virus Database: 350 - Release Date: 1/2/2004 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
