> (EW) > <<<< > I would suggest that there are three broad sets of interests at play in the > modern economy. Business interests, which own the productive capital, > represent one set. Workers represent another, and consumers represent a > third. There is a continuous game going on among these three. Business > works to manipulate consumers into buying its product in amounts well > beyond those needed for comforable survival (an expensive gas guzzling SUV > instead of a small car). Workers strive to maintain their income by > collective bargaining and, increasingly, because collective bargaining no > longer works very well, by becoming specialized and thus raising their > scarcity value. And consumers? I would guess their function is to carry the > whole thing along on the paychecks they earn as workers and the dividends > they get as shareholders. The circular flow remains, but it's not like it > was 150 years ago. > >>>> > > I'm surprised that government itself wasn't mentioned as a fourth big > player. Officialdom has big economic interests of its own in maintaining > its size and career structure. (I've mentioned before that, in his memoirs, > one government minister complained that his senior officials never did > explain to him adequately what a particularly large unit of several > thousand civil servants did in his Ministry -- Department of Trade and > Industry -- and he suspected that, in fact, they had very little to do > except to devise new wheezes off their own bat without ministerial > knowledge or approval some of which he only found out about accidentally > from the press or from friends.)
I thought of working government into the picture, but decided not to. You are right, government does have a major interest and plays a major role. I was also going to work in the fact that a considerable part of production occurrs abroad, consumption occurs at home, and business ties it all together. However, I didn't want to write a book. Naomi Klein (No Logo) has already done that. Ed
