What the USA needs is for a new type of entity stucture to be created, one which is a hybrid of a for-profit corportation and a not-profit corporation. Publically traded for-profit corporations are generally dominated by excessive greed, in part because of the short term focus of many of their shareholders and because they are legally required to try to constantly increase profits.
Non-profit corporations are legally prevented from manufacturing goods (such as environmentally friendly renewable energy products) and they have the shortcoming of being allowed to pay huge salaries to those running the organization (Goodwill Industries comes to mind). What we are for individuals to voluntarily create entities that have the purpose of manufacturing environmentally friendly products that are very low maintanence and that made to last years, without excessive salaries to those running the organization. We also need legislation that recognizes this type of entity. Such a hybrid entity (a for-semiprofit corporation) could create serious competion for the for-profit corporations because the hybrid entity would better meet the needs of consumers, while doing a better job of conserving the world's resources. Our current capitalist system has too many excesses, however state run entities also have problems. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip S Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, 22 June, 2005 12:38 Subject: [USMA:33344] RE: A kilo of Socialism > >I didn't say 'people'. I said people worked for the state and produced > >material for the state. They then rely on the state. Excuse the pun but > >it's a "state" of being. You must have remembered the "job for life" > >mentality accompanied with union power, 2 workers for one job, and the > >idea of "if a company becomes big then the government should own and run > >it" ? > > I don't see much evidence that the policies of the "new Labour" government > fits the model of socialism you describe. > > > I could go down the communism, marxism, trotskyite, anarcho-syndicalism, > > anarcho-communism, nazism route - which are extremes of socialism with and > > without state - but I'm sure that would be getting more and more > > off-topic. > > Speaking for myself, I can see the value of free enterprise and the > entreprenurial spirit in most areas of society but there has to be an > element of social responsibility as well. There is also the question of how > much a large corporate industry can be allowed to grow and diversify before > it becomes a monopoly and starts to develop into what amounts to a privately > owned "state" in its own right. > > I think there are areas of society, such as transport and communications, > where it makes sense to have a common infrastructure which really ought to > be in public ownership. Otherwise you get a lot of wasteful duplication and > fake competition. > > I don't know how you'd classify that. > > Phil Hall > -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.17 - Release Date: 2005-05-25
