Ed wrote:
> I don't think capitalism is exploitive.
Not intrinsically. I borrowed money from a friend to buy my first big
studio. She made a few bucks on money she didn't need for anything
else just then. A friend put several years of sweat equity into an
alternate energy company, taking less than market salary. The company
failed but he's not angry as he knew all the principals worked in good
faith.
I just spotted this squib (take a little out of context here):
This undoing of democracy to which Roy refers, and the dystopian
society that is being created in its place, can be grasped in the
current subordination of public values to commercial values and
the collapse of democracy into the logic and values of what might
called a predatory casino capitalism where life is cheap and
everything is for sale. [1]
> However, what we've found time and again is that, no matter how
> nicely a system can be explained theoretically, it doesn't really
> work that way. Why? Invariably, the system gets taken over by
> people who make it work to their advantage.
But one of the axioms of capitalism is that if everyone with capital
tries to make the system "work for their advantage", then such nice
certainties such as the guiding hand, unique equilibria and convexity
will guarantee the best of all possible worlds. At least we can agree
that the Soviet apparatchiki who turned the (putative) communist
system into state capitalism for their own benefit were acting
contrary to communist principles. The capitalists who are exploitive
or predatory are just following the rules.
Or maybe I just have a jaded view of capitalism as it has been
embodied in my lifetime.
- Mike
[1]
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13998-the-new-extremism-and-politics-of-distraction-in-the-age-of-austerity
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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