At 10:13 AM 4/17/02 -0700, you wrote: > Selma, "It is a mystery to me, given what is constantly being revealed about the attempts of various corporations to strangle competition, how anyone can argue that laissez-faire can work for the public good".
I think that the problem is that in the attempts of various corporations to strangle competition and create monopolies with the ultimate goal of unchallenged profits, we move into an ever faster world because we shouldn't just single out corporations to blame - everybody is doing the same thing. You are quite right Selma. Unfettered competition or laissez-faire cannot possibly work for the common good. I would define laissez-faire not so much as the absence of competition, as Harry Pollard seems to imply, but more to mean too much competition. To quote one or two of the facts to support that assertion. A litle while ago, Karoshi, or working yourself to death was thought to be a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, but now the Americans have taken over that distinction as Matthew Reiss explains in a recent article. Under relentless pressure to be better than everybody else because of the consequences of too much competition, Americans are now world leaders in overwork which of course takes its toll on family life and reduces the general quality of life. As Matthew Reiss shows, Americans now work an average of 1979 hours a year, about three and a half weeks more than the Japanese, six and a half weeks more than the British and about twelve and a half weeks more than the Germans. Now how anyone can argue that all this can work for the benefit of all is a complete mystery to me. Sure, it is all a matter of trade-offs. What sort of world do we want? Do we want profits or do we want quality of life? We cannot have both because there is a conflict of values so for my money and since I put quality of life above material gain I am prepared to sacrifice certain things to gain what I see as a better world. Well that's all for now Ross >
