: Since Lark's post was mostly empty rhetoric and unsupported assertions, I won't bother to comment on most of it, but one thing sticks in my craw...I'm not the free marketeer here Buddy...
: There's nothing profitable, either in the short-term or the long-term, in poisoning a water hole IN a free market.
Que the this isnt the free market business because companies are never done poisoning the water holes, now that is on record, if you wish to ignore that because your political prejudice and quasi-religious trust of businesses and market forces mysticism is too strong then that's alright but it isnt fact.
:A publicly-owned water-hole, on the other hand, since it belongs to everybody, belongs to nobody and therefore can often be poisoned without recriminations.
Hold on I'd have thought you'd have said the state was the proprietor.
:If the market in water-holes were free, rather than constrained by social government ownership of the water-holes,
Right cut the shite, what do you mean by free? How is the ownership of the waterhole by the state and the ownership of the waterhole by a company or an individual any different what so ever? You just cant grasp the lack of difference between the public and private command economy can you?
:they would be privately owned and better taken care of.
Evidence? The water system in Britain was far better when it was a national utility and service and efficiency took priority over amassing profits and the interests of shareholders didnt over ride the interests of consumers.
: I understand you meant the whole "water-hole" thing metaphorically, but my critique of it stands whether literal or metaphorical.
What critique? You have offer no critique just political dogma, your trust and naivity about the market is akin to the simple socialists who think that nationalisation solves everything.
The market and the state are imperfect alternatives. There is a perfectable alternative but let me guess your not on for that, the market ideology means more to you right?
None.
