I have found the discussion of "freedom' and property rights to be quite informative. So far I have only lurked. But Justin wrote: Moreover there is the much-remarked upon and quite valid correlation between capitalism and liberal democracy. The latter is the historical condition for political freedom. (We may be able to supersede it with a socialist democracy: so far it hasn't been done.) The correlation is imperfect, as Terry remarks. There was slavery and there are the ambiguities of wage labor on which Marx remarks. But nonetheless the correlation is real and important. I think we have to conclude that private property had had a great deal to do with political freedom. We may reasonbaly conclude that its contribution to freedom is past. But that is not reason to deny that its past contribution is real. --------------------------------------- This comment fails to take into account the specifics of history and present day realities. Democracy was associated with modern forms of property rights that were concretized into law with the rise of capitalism because democracy served to undermine the power of the existing feudal structure, and only for that reason. Now that capitalism is totally established and the only existing alternative seems to be is disrepute, the sham of democracy is being discarded. Looking at the world today there IS a correlation between democracy and economic growth. The only problem for Justin's argument is that the correlation is negative! Dollars and sense had an article summarizing the recent research on this issue, but I can't find it right at the moment. I'll keep looking, but maybe Marc Beslow can help us out with the cite. Doug Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
