I'm so glad you brought up Father (in the
patriarchal, not the clerical sense) Adam Smith, the
PC ideologue of the capitalist movement. No one ever
was able to pin down economics as well as he, until
Marx came on the scene. Capitalism was the perfect
plan (!) for moving from feudalism to industrial
capitalism by way of mercantilism. As a matter of
fact, the failure of the Soviet system might be
attributed to their attempt to industrialize Russia's
economic system through a socialist political system,
rather than passing through the capitalist
wage-slavery first. Capitalism industrializes, and
the devil takes the hind-most. There is a legend that
the young Georgian activist, Stalin, toyed with the
idea that the Bosheviks should not oppose the
establishment of the capitalist republic envisioned by
the liberal leaders of the February revolt, but the
temptation of holding state power proved too much for
the Bolsheviki, and they took it all. When the New
Economic Policy of Lenin --to permit free-lance
capitalists under tight rein to industrialize at their
price, much as China is doing today -- failed, due to
his death, the stricture of Father Adam, which you
quoted today, came into play. As many have
delightedly noted, the result ofthe arms race plus the
Soviet Constitution's guaranteeing a job for everyone,
whether they worked coscientiously or not, brought
about the collapse of the Soviet system. The
delighted opponents of the USSR joked that some Soviet
workers pretended to work and the Soviet industries
pretended to pay them, and this caused the collapse of
the USSR. The people, now too old to work, who have
no pensions, and the women who are forced to be
prostitutes rather than ballerinas, do not find this
witty.
The ironic thing is that people who are suited to
working in this sort of capacity ("entrepreneurs"
organizing industrial production, expansion,
development) will still have respectable employment
--they just won't be able to keep all the output from
others' labor. Their monetary power will result from
the respect they earn from their work, not from
"ownership" of the tools of production.
"...conspiracy against the public...contrivance
to raise prices...." indeed!
Thanks, Ray.
Warren
--- Ray D <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> From: "warren greer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >>The main truth we're thinking about - when people
> with the same
> >>profit-source get together they will inevitably
> conspire to increase that profit...."
>
> >My only cavil with your formulation is that I would
> substitute
> >'income' for 'profit'. 'Income' includes wages as
> well as
> >'profits'.
>
> <snip>
>
> Hi Warren, there's a lot of truth in that <snipped>
> message of
> yours; the inspiring of my short post was something
> you've just
> made me go look-up - here it is -
>
> "People of the same trade seldom meet together,
> even for
> merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends
> in a
> conspiracy against the public, or in some
> contrivance to raise
> prices." - Adam Smith (1723-1790). (The Wealth of
> Nations, vol.
> I, bk. I, ch. 10.)
>
> Ray
>
>
