: Companies arent looking for an excuse to sack people. if a 'protective' law is introduced which creates levels of expense that threaten the company's existence they must respond by cutting costs. Either by using inefficient machiens (ie ones whihc would *not* have been selected had labor costs not been artificially raised) or by changing direction/shrinking into a less labor intensive market. The govt, with its 'caring' labor laws continually shoots the worker in the foot then requests his vote (and usually gets it, bizarrely). Incidently when you hear a CEO boast about savings in labor you'll get good odds that the 'saving' was actually an exercise in avoiding artificial costs and did the company no good at all.Precisely- so, in whose interest is society run- always in the interests of them as wn production. If not, we all suffer, as they enforce their self interest.
: I never said it was easy, but if a small bus company can (and some do) 'raid' routes causing temporary price drops until the small company has to pull out - -they then go for another route and the same happens.
If they're not allready bankrupt- you've just seen a lot of invested capital go down the drain. Scare factor, make it not *worth* their while to try it on.
: Structured to protect individual activity from other peoples false claims (eg muggers)
Structured to enable them to own their factories.
: Not *lucky*. Bill Gates is an example of someone who perceived an emerging market before other people did (not luck) and had the ability to develop that market which others did not (not luck).
But the emergence of the Market had nothing to do with him- he just managed to see it, well worth all that money then.
:Britains Richard Branson entered the music retail business - hardly emerging, anf made innovations in the way the business was run which others had neither perceived nor developed the ability to do. There are only 'less' opportunities now because people believe there are. Remember how many early 1900s folk said the car was a passing fad?
There are a finite number of opportunities, there is only room for one Richard Branson, otherwise we have constant and pointless inovation, and no room for consolidation.
: What about them? Ability is gauged by results, there can be no reward seperate from reality. No reward for a man who works *very* hard to plant seed at the wrong time in the wrong field. For such reqrd to exist it would have to be taken from those who were able, reality wont offer it.
What about a man who does accounts really really well, teh Einstein of the Accounts world, very efficienty, but never going to become a millionaire as long as he sticks to accounts. What about teh best tea lady? The system only reward one kind of attainment- making money, by any means necesary.
: Except that I was speaking in terms of interference by outside parties.
And I was talking about a wide social economic problem.
: Why cant they open businesses? because doing so results in a heap of red tape and taxes which make being a self employed plumber a nightmare when it should be starightforward.
Because someone has to be the worker, because they don't have the capital to invest, because the market can only bear so many businesses. To blame bureaucracy is a fantastical response to a flaw in teh systems structure.
:The latter suggestion you made is that welfare statism is a protection racket - paying off the potential rebels to stay calm, anf then gaining power on the back of increasing the pay offs. Morally wrong on both sides.
Precisely, its poverty management, although I wouldn't pass a morality claim, but since I understand that it is structurally necessary, all I can suggest is ending the structure that necessitates it.
: Yes, that is what made him smarter that a contemporary who didnt think of it. That sentence really surprised me Red, I cant believe you discount ability so readily.
I don't discount ability, but, as I say, teh only ability in capitalism that counts, is the ability to make money, as you just said, smarter and better people do not prosper, unless their goal is to make money.
: Youre assuming the money spent on rover would at best achieve the same resultsin pvte hands. What my argument was that if the money was left to private invstment - ie motivating by mkt potential not by politics it would be 10,000 jobs lost and 13,000 gained.
But even still, the 13,000 gained might not include some of those lost from rover, since they are too old and unemployable (say fifty), or lack the necessary skills. And the disruptiopn to the cpommunity in the meanwhile between the old and new jobs...
: If wages are down but std of living is up then how do you explain it?
Its not up for some people, for many in fact.
:Its increased wealth in the form of labor savinbg technologies, medicies, communications etc. Think about what you can do with the same money as you could so then. decisions are still in pvte hands, except where a coercive force restricts them.
Those labour saving tech's have lead to lower wages for workers, and higher structural unemployement, as some workers become surplus to requirements, and since the economy cannot grow because of over production...
: They are precisely because they represent the interaction with society. It is these individuals who progress the society more (relative) than others. Where a society (even a subsociety) is open and learning more such individuals develop and create opportunities for more such individuals. The indidivual elelment is the 'vital ingredient' in a society, which can only be the result of interaction between individuals.
Indeed, but we cannot then say 'it was all him' when it wasn't, nor can we make one a billionaire, and hyper wealthy, because he was at the end of the dialectic. This is, Incidentally, Shelley's model of the poet (by poet he means people like Gandhi or Einstein), but this model led him to...a socialist conseption of society...
: Collectivity is only valid where interests are shared by individuals and co operation is by free association (and doesnt deny others their choice to associate either).
Correct. This is mind-numbingly obvious. Capital denies us free association, because property belongs only to them as own it, and non owners may not touch.
: Once it may have been held as a fact the the sun went round the earth, but it was *never* true. The above example is simply a question of ownership of you body and mind - 2/3rds of indiduvual rights.
: If the 1000 think it might poison them theyd better have some really superb evidence that it does. If so then they can 'vote' privately (1000 people, youre assuming commonality of purpose) can easily develop a strong legal case. It doesnt require the 'direct democratic' ownership of property. If a few people can so successfully take on McDs then 1000 can easily raise a case against a farmer,. even in todays corrupt legal environment.
Not really, because the 1,000 may not have been informed, in fact, why should they have to have a really good case, why not the suspicion, the farmer wouldn't need a good case, just suspicion. What if the farmer were a big Agri-corp? Why have court cases where we can have direct control over our own lives?
I really think the onus is on the farmer to proove safety, not the otherway around.
