Re: Economics

Don Geddis wrote:
"Duncan Rose" <duncan.rose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 28 Jul 2006 15:4:
government interference like this in free capitalist markets, whilst often
disguised as well-intentioned almost always results in high short-term
returns for companies associated with members of the government.

Yes, I agree with you. The majority of government subsidies to industries
are basically an indirect form of corruption.

There are reasons for it. For example, without tech subsidies, we
wouldn't have Lisp and the net. Pres. Bush even recently explained that
subsidized federal research keeps the US economy competitive. [1]

In fact, Bill Gates Sr. made the finest deconstruction of all the tech
world's "egregious myths", that I'm aware of in the mainstream. [2]

Other uses for gov't subsidy is a form of Keynesianism. So the huge
"wartime economy" does do something in this regard, though perhaps it's
"lunatic Keynesianism." For those interested in dissident voices, the
best introduction I've found is Chomsky's very readable _Understanding
Power_. [3]

Nothing within markets makes guarantees that they will act in the
interests of the society. There are post-capitalist economies which
feature freedom from government interference, but they go a step
further and remove state enforcement of making means of production
(like natural resources) someone's "private property." Parecon is the
most serious example I know, but I expect there are others. [4]


I also think that many things that are scarce currently are things we
either think we need or want, such as diamonds (perhaps artifically scarce)
or gold (actually scarce))

You're right that diamonds have an artificially heightened scarcity, but you're
wrong to conclude that without the manipulation they wouldn't be scarce at all.
Diamonds have been items of value for millennia. Market manipulation is only
in modern times.

Didn't Aristotle tell the story of a philosopher who monopolized the
olive presses, when astrology indicated there should be a boom in olive
production, and thereby make a fortune?

This philosopher told his critics:

"... that it was easy for philosophers to be rich if they chose it, but
that that was not what they aimed at; in this manner is Thales said to
have shown his wisdom. It indeed is, as we have said, generally gainful
for a person to contrive to make a monopoly of anything; for which
reason some cities also take this method when they want money, and
monopolise their commodities." [5]

Or did you mean that market manipulation of /diamonds/ is a modern
affair?



[1] The famous "iPod remark"
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-19-2006/0004343272&EDATE=

[2]
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/template.cfm?PubID=900584

[3] There's so many footnotes, they're only available online, because
they'd more than double the book, from what I hear. You can check all
the evidence and decide for yourself.
http://understandingpower.com/

[4] http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm

[5] http://pge.rastko.net/dirs/etext04/tgovt10.txt


Tayssir

.

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