From [Marc Abrams (2005.10.18.1031)]
In a message dated 10/18/2005 10:08:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, powers_w@FRONTIER.NET writes:
I see free enterprise and free markets as the best economic system for a society. It empowers consumers the most. You can't sell what someone won't buy. There is always the fear of an unholy monopoly. But I think this is a rare bird and can't be sustained over the long term and is less likely in a global economy.
[From Bill Powers (2005.10.18.0712 MDT)]
Kenny Kitzke (2005.10.17) –
This faith is widespread, but I see no justification for calling it the best economic system.
Ok, which system do you view as currently being the ‘best’? And how did you come to this decision?
It works better than some others have worked, but only because the others, like communism, have gone beyond economics and social progress to become dictatorships that repress human freedoms.
Ok, again I ask, what do you propose is a better system and how do you come to this inference?
It seems to me that those capitalists who moan the loudest about regulations and taxes are the very ones who want to get away with polluting our air, water, and food, who want to be able to cheat and lie and steal without regulators watching them, who want a contract to be good only as long as it’s convenient for them, and who see nothing wrong with paying people subsistence wages and accumulating obscene amounts of wealth and power for themselves.
This is a very long statement and sentence. I’m not sure what you are attempting to say here, and maybe you can explain this to me, but why do you feel what you said above could not be said of any economic or political system? After all we are talking about people here are we not, or does the Empire State Building actually get to vote and spend money?
The above statement is more an indictment of how people treat one another than anything else. What am I missing here that I’m not seeing?
If it weren’t for those small drawbacks, capitalism would be a great system. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to the theory.
Unfortunately you like any others misunderstand ‘capitalism’. First of all capitalism was given its name by one Karl Marx for the purpose of denigrating it, and apparently he was successful.
Second, capitalism as written about by Adam Smith was written as a descriptive, not a prescriptive theory. Along the lines of evolution. Adam Smith hoped to explain how he saw people actually conduct business between among themselves.
Economics is not, in my view a prescriptive theory, it is descriptive, but that has not stopped anyone from trying to make it normative.
Free enterprise is fine as long as it’s his own freedom that the entrepreneur is thinking about.
What makes an ‘entrepreneur’ any different from any other control system?
Taking risks is fine as long as you mean risking other people’s money.
Do you mean like government spending? Why single out the entrepreneurs?Did you buy your home for cash? If so, good for you, if not, do you have a mortgage? Why do you think borrowing money for a home so you can enjoy life a bit more is any different then borrowing money to start a business for the same purpose.
Isn’t this simply a value judgement on the part of the control system?
The level playing field is great as long as the entrepreneur can make the rules:
The entrepreneur doesn’t make the rules. The consumer does. The playing field is determined by the consumer not the producer.
As much as I might like for my idea to make a lot of money, only the consumer will decide if that is so. Unfortunately we have government often trying to tell us what is best for us.
the main rule is, Me First.
Sounds like a controlling system to me. Where do you see the differences in an entrepreneur and a politician?
If your neighbors had the morals of corporations, you wouldn’t want your children to live next to them.
Corporations have no morals any more than they have intelligence per se. Corporations like any other organization is comprised of people who have or lack morals. Why do you think a politician has any higher set of morals than any other person? As a controller how would you expect PCT to answer this?
Just read the articles of incorporation of any corporation. If an individual announced similar statements of purpose, he’d be called sociopathic. Corporations do not exist for the benefit of anyone but the corporation, and they have no responsibility to anyone or anything else – not even the nation in which they exist, and most definitely not to the people who operate them and use their services. Which is weird, since without those people these fictional entities wouldn’t even exist.
Again, this all sounds very much what you might expect from a control system. How and where does PCT show this to be coming from something else?
I see government as poison to free enterprise. I see government as the problem and not a solution.
Kenny, you’re forgetting something. The government is us.
Bill, your forgetting corporations are us as well.
You and me, and everyone else who lives here. It is a product of free enterprise.
What does free enterprise have to do with the government?
Have you seen Red China lately? A capitalistic communistic country. Who woulda thunk this? 
We elect people to serve us, and generally we get the leaders we deserve.
What does this mean?
It’s not some foreign invader that says we want sellers to be honest, it’s those very consumers you think are so well taken care of who vote for people who will devise and enforce the regulations which are the only thing that keep the most aggressive and successful businessmen halfway honest and enforce at least the appearance of a social conscience.
And who keeps the government ‘honest’? Or more precisely, the career unelected government bureaucrat who makes and enforces those wonderful regulations you speak of.
Second, at least I know the business man has an incentive for being honest; wanting my business. A government official does not answer to any individual. Ever go to a government office and ask for help?.
They don’t trust businesses, and for very good reasons:
Such as? And why would you trust a government official any more?
without regulation, there are always businesses that run wild with greed and threaten to wreck everything.
Yes, and that is also the very reason we have laws, and it seems our prisons are full of non-business people as well, although you may want to call some of these folks entrepreneurs.
People don’t feel empowered when they see businesses corrupting the very government the consumers have elected to protect themselves.
How do businesses ‘corrupt’ government? Do you really believe politicians are out there to ‘protect’ you? Why and how again, is a politician controller different from an entrepreneur controller?
They don’t feel empowered when they see the big corporations doing away with all restraints, and getting continuously larger and more powerful.
Can you give an example of a corporation or two you feel fits this description and why?
Just the opposite! What businesses are complaining about when they reject government is the attempt of their own customers to retain control of their own lives instead of turning everything over to the benevolence of entrepreneurs, those soft-hearted cuddly friends of the downtrodden.
I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure how, but I’m curious as hell as to how and why you seem to mix the behavior of people in big corporations and the behavior of entrepreneurs in the same bucket. I would think they might have different agenda’s. I could see large corporations trying to get close to government in order to enlist their help in getting anti-competitive legislation, tariffs, and regulations enacted. But an entrepreneur would want just the opposite. An entrepreneur wants the most competitive conditions to exist so he has a chance against the big boys.
I think you are placing entrepreneurs in the same category as con men and I just don’t see the evidence to back that up.
Sure there are ‘corrupt’ entrepreneurs, just as there are corrupt politicians, doctors, social workers, and UN officials. We are all controllers, so what does PCT and control have to say about all this?
This is the only sensible position I can see using PCT glasses. Businesses can't make consumers buy. They can't put you into prison if you don't. Governments do both. They are coercive at the core. They are as bad for citizens as any business monoply.
I trust the government a whole lot more than I trust any corporation, and I am very glad that corporations are a little afraid of government.
Why? What can one do to you that another can’t?
At least I know that the government I vote for is supposed to live up to certain ideals about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, equality under the law, freedom of speech and thought.
Why do you assume this and why do you assume others want to take this away from you?
Corporations don’t give a damn if I die as long as they can sell the casket,
Did you get a condolence card from your local politician when Mary passed away?
and their “ideals” have nothing to do with my liberty or my pursuit of happiness, or anything else I value more than money.
And your local politician?
They fire people who say anything bad about their employers.
Should they give them a raise? You seemed to take much offense when I said bad things about you. How do you see yourself different from them?
All they understand is money and power. more money and more power.
Are you talking about politicians, business people, or just all people (controllers) in general here? If we are all controllers, than why are you any different than the rest of us?
If they were really people, as the law says they are, most of us would find them loathsome. That is not how the people I want to live around behave.
You can choose to live where ever you want, and under any economic or political system you find to your liking.
Somehow I can’t help thinking we can do better than that.
Maybe, but I don’t get any clues from this post how your understanding of control and PCT might help facilitate that.
I hear a very angry individual here and I don’t think it wears well on you Bill. Am I wrong in my assumption here about your anger?
I’m much more interested in some of the solutions you may have up your sleeve. Seems like a much better way of spending your time, but of course you have your reasons for controlling for the things you do, as well as we all do, politicians, entrepreneurs, and everyone else.
Regards,
Marc
