On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, JoeHill wrote:

...

The problem really isn't that Capitalism is a totally free market, as you seem to be hinting at, it's that it is in fact *not* a free market. It concentrates power around those who *have* capital, and therefore works against the free flow of trade, and also against innovation.

100% agree.

IMHO, ideally economy should based on effort, not capital. This will work well with free market. In fact, I think a economy based on effort will be an utopia. Unfortunately, effort is hard to measure.

It is true that there is small correlation between effort and gaining capital. That's why controlled capitalism can work, albeit just Ok.

The _grand_ problem around the world that keeps coming back, over and over, is that of "land reform." Communism shows off two notable approaches; when land is held by the state, it is either _essentially_ owned by the top politicians, or, instead, by _nobody_. In the former case, we observe _spectacular_ corruption; in the latter, we observe the "tragedy of the commons" problem, where the land is likely to essentially get "raped" because it is in everyone's interests to get as much personal benefit out of it as possible. The recent situation in Zimbabwe showed off that it is really problematic to try to implement reforms. It seems reasonable that there ought to be _some_ way for the common people of that country to somehow participate in owning parts of their country. But seizing capital from one group and trying to redistribute it tends to turn out badly. (And attracts politicians with sticky fingers that will redistribute to their cronies.) The situation since Perestroika, in the former USSR, was similarly troublesome. What would have been RIGHT would have been to somehow try to divide up the land and the state-owned businesses, and for each citizen to get a share in that. What happened instead was that cronies of the former rulers got control of it all, arguably worsening things. Capitalism occasionally gets it somewhat right. I saw a _fascinating_ case when working at Sabre, a former subsidiary of AMR (American Airlines). AMR owned 80% of Sabre, and decided to spin it all off. They did a _fascinating_ thing, corresponding to what I just suggested about the USSR. They issued shares amounting to that 80%, and distributed it evenly to all AMR shareholders. "For free." In effect, a couple billion dollars worth of stock suddenly appeared on the market, without a single penny of cash changing hands. I had expected some attempt at 'deal-making' that would look bizarre. For them to "give the company away" was quite surprising, but, at close look, very much the right answer. I think that is the sort of thing that should have happened in the ex-USSR; that each citizen get 10 shares in each of the state-run firms, to do with as they wish, and perhaps something analagous concerning land holdings. Since something like that did not happen, the country was essentially given to the "mafia" sorts that own and run the companies. One of the more interesting alternative points of view on the Vietnam "war" was that what went desperately wrong there was _not_ a US military defeat, but rather the fact that the government they were trying to work with was stupendously corrupt. At some point, it's not worth trying. That was yet another "land reform" situation which hardly went well... Looking back to the "good 'ol days" of North America, it was the 'land of milk and honey' back when they were doing "land reform" where the policy was that anyone [passing appropriate "racial profiles"...] could claim a section of farm land. Once they stop "making land," ownership has a tendancy to congregate, and it is not nearly so simple for later generations... -- select 'cbbrowne' || '@' || 'ntlug.org'; http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/sap.html There are two kinds of fool; One who says "This is old and therefore bad," and one who says "This is new and therefore better." -- John Brunner -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml