Harry Pollard wrote:
Brad,
Glad you are back.
How do markets fail?
Well, that's a question, isn't it?
I would say that markets can fail people.
In a social-Darwinean sense (social relations
appearing as external "nature"/fate), markets
simply are (Heidegger's "Es gibt", yet again),
and they can no more fail than they can succeed.
Failure and success are always in terms of some
humanly posited goal. I posit the goal of
persons being safe and secure. In terms of
that goal, markets can easily fail.
What goal would you posit in terms of which
to judge markets as failing or succeeding?
For surely you want persons to create
and sustain markets as products of social
action, yes? What are the goals of that action,
or, at least, what do you think those goals should be?
"I'm back" -- yes, I am feeling *a bit* less
threatened the past couple of weeks in
the security of the satisfaction of my basic
needs (those at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy).
As this weekend showed, if one is
going to get shot, hope it is by Dick Cheney, because
he always has an ambulance in his
entourage. (Is that why it
is so fortunate, mutatis mutandis, that
the US invaded Iraq instead of some
other country?)
\brad mccormick
Harry
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Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
818 352-4141
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-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad
McCormick, Ed.D.
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 8:12 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] A way out
I just came across an interesting article on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4700430.stm
"Is it time to let internet companies provide premium access to
paying
websites and services? No, says technology commentator Bill
Thompson.
....
Even those who remember that the net emerged from a
publicly-funded
attempt to build a high-speed data network choose to claim that
the days
of subsidy are now over and that only deregulation can offer real
benefits, both to companies and to the wider society.
For them, any attempt to restrict the telephone companies'
freedom to
offer preferential service is tantamount to state socialism and
one step
away from a communist revolution.
Of course they are wrong, and badly so.
I'm a market socialist, and I believe that regulated markets are
the
best way to create social value. I have also been using the net
since
1985 and I have seen it evolve and grow thanks to the balance
between
regulation and market forces. That balance has to be maintained.
Social justice is best served by ensuring that public utilities,
of
which the network is surely one, are regulated in the public
interest.
Markets fail, and they do so in ways that any humane society must
address. Ensuring that network access is available to all and
that the
network itself carries all lawful traffic is the only way
forward.
We must just hope that the US government recognises that this is
the
case, and sets a good example to the rest of the world."
I think that sounds right: "market socialism". It is analogous,
on the
adult level,
to what D.W. Winnicott argued for at the child-developmental
level ("The
Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment"), in his
essay
"The Capacity to be Alone", where he described the environment
which
facilitates the maturation of the individual: Free space to do
what one
wants, but knowing that, if things go badly, mother is nearby to
help,
as opposed to either: (1) The stultifying mother who intrudes
[AKA
bureaucratic socialism], or (2) Abandonment [AKA unregulated free
enterprise].
Let those whose aspirations are to make money be free to make it
within the limits of their not being able to hurt those who
either
have disabilities which prevent them from competing, or whose
value system motivates them to do things other than compete
(e.g.,
do basic research, etc.).
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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