David Johnston wrote:
> People have been trying "democratic economic projects" for a very long
> time, and while I don't expect them to go away, they haven't show any
> signs of revolutionising the economy either.
Correct. The hunger for power seems to be a caracteristic of human race.
This is why always when you have unsupervised political power (democracy
suppressed) they hijack the economic power and always when you have no
control over economic power (to few regulations and supervision) the
economic power will hijack (corruption, lobby, campain contribution,
control over media) the political power in their own interest.
At least from French Revolution, when the very good intentioned
Robespierre
ended up becoming a horrifying tyrant, we should know that ANY FORM OF
unsupervised power will end up in making good people going mad.
That is. Power it is destructive and addictive like a drug. It should be
given only with prescription, for short periods of time under close
supervision. And the economic power is included here too.
This is the reason that any experiment of a non privately owned economy
until now ended in failure, and this is the reason we really may want to
stay away from the classical socialism (no private property of any
productive asset) at least until we figure a way to have a 100% control
over the power. Well, in internet age this may not be a very hard goal and
as mater of fact I strongly believe that we have all the technology
required to implement 100% transparency and 100% democratic control over
power. The only thing preventing us are old mentalities, passions,
individualist mythologies, greed, obsolete conservatives ideology
fighting
to preserve the unworthy position they already have and hunger for power.
The fact that I said the socialism it is not a valid option today does not
mean that we must be idiots enough to run onto the other direction.
The reason why US progressed so much in last half of century is .....
communism. Exactly, the specter of communism scared the political and
business leaders to death and in order to fight it, they agreed to make
the
capitalism popular. Remember than in the period when USSR was a menace
that
overcompeted US (Sputnik, Gagarin etc) was exactly the period where US
invested enormously in research and development, the workers got the
biggest share from industrial output ever. The CEO/average worker
compensation rate has been less that 20 and the CEO/top engineers
compensation rate has often been less that 5 or some time even at parity.
That was the period where the middle class grew in America and it was the
period where the average middle class family has been there with a single
working parent. That was the period that made US a superpower.
Once the structural issues within the Soviet economy become obvious and
they
started to represent a less and less menace to US. Once the pro communist
movement in US cooled down due to the obvious superiority of US
socio-economy compared with USSR, and US overcompete them, the popular
capitalism started to vanish away. Just to reach today disastrous
situation
where the polarization betwen poor and rich is a close match to the
polarization before Great Depression. Population saving rate is negative
from the first time since Great Depression. All good jobs are leaving
offshore and we artificially hide the truth by re****ting as unemployed
only
people that receive the time limited unemployment compensation then stop
counting them when desperate they drop out. The percent people that can
not
afford any form of health coverage is at an all times high. The poverty
rate skyrocket. The national debt is at an all times high. The trade
deficit is at an all times high. The population debt is at an all times
high. Middle class families lose their status despite 2 working parents.
University education is unaffordable for poor. However, the percent of
industrial output going as cor****ate profits it at highest level from
Great
Depression, and as a result the polarization betwen poor and rich it back
at the same levels.
Any smart people will notice the trend. The specter of communism used to
be
the strong controller that kept the business elite decent and interested
to
provide people with a decent living to avoid being thrown away as happend
in Russia in 1917.
In the absence of communist menace, the business elite got back too much
unchecked power. There is nothing they are afraid of to keep them cool.
They are back like the drug addict alone into the pharmacy at midnight.
They will overdose our society with greed until it will collapse again
into
a new Great Depression. The only force that may be able to prevent that to
happen, the government, it is already sold out to them, infected by the
parasitic libertarian and neoconservatives ideologies of greed and evil.
US is suffering now of exactly the same disease of unchecked power that
brought down USSR. Only the sick actors changed, they are not a gang of
communist oligarchy but a gang of business elite. But the disease it is
EXACTLY THE SAME. Too much unchecked power.
The same as the single cure for totalian political regimes it is the
democracy, the single cure for totalitarian economic regimes it is social
democracy. That is. We should keep most of our economy in private hands to
avoid the big issues that will arise from a void of power. But some
sectors
where it is proven that free market failed (like health care, pensions
etc)
must be taken care of by nonproffit institutions under democratic control.
And yes, businesses must be strongly regulated to prevent them to harm our
society and destroy our children future for a quick proffit today (RIP &
RUN economics, libertarian style).
> Capitalist businesses have a major advantage in that they are far
> easier to run and to raise money for, particularly once you hit the
> major leagues.
They are easier to run because it is easier to them to hurt others.
WalMart thrived by destroying tens of thousands of small retailers,
destroying local communities by taking out their economic soul.
They are also responsible for practically forcing domestic businesses to
offshore jobs and close domestic plants putting millions out of job or
into
jobs that pays less, with no benefits and so on.
Private health insurance companies are responsible for over 18000
preventable deaths each year by denying coverage to people with
preconditions or pricing many out of coverage (and that was 2003
statistics, today it may be much bigger). We have over 46M uninsured
today,
while the same drug in U cost double than in Canada. But since the health
insurance it is a private, for proffit contract based business in US,
there
is NOBODY responsible for all these deaths not for all these supperings
and
pain. And BTW, over 50% of all the bankruptcies in US are filled by middle
class INSURED people brought there due to collateral expenses (caps,
deductible, copayment, uncovered expenses etc). But of course, since it
is
a private business, nobody else but the victims is to blame.
And I could continue with many other examples but I hope you got the idea:
One of the reason why large capitalist cor****ations are so efficient is
because they make a profit even if somebody else pays by losing everything
they own sometimes life included.
Into a system where these services are provided by government, you get the
people in streets for failures less than 1 percent of the lamentable US
failures. We see people striking in France for better health service
despite the fact that the Word Health Organization prize France with the
best health care system in the world. But when a failure happen there,
people strike and get the mess fixed.
In US, health care it is a private issue. If something fail it is a
private
business matter betwen you and the company. The best you can do it is to
hire a lawyer and sue them. Then the company hire 5 better lawyers and the
one having the better lawyer power wins. So, the sick people gets a court
order to pay up. Legal fees included and keep his mouth shut and die in
pains, quietly not to disturb the market image of the company.
Then the ****ed idiotic hypocrites sup****ters of "free market health care"
says:
"""
You see, US system is superior than what the "socialist system" in
France.
They have "poor people" in streets striking for health care while in US
nobody is doing that because they are happy with that we have.
This is a proof that the free market is better than socialized medicine.
"""
So, we reach the final truth:
The best advantage "free market" have is the ability to always blame the
victim and hide the failure under the cover.
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