: But not for whom should do what - see my response to RD
:
: : "it" [capitalism] does NOT produce for "mutual gain", it produces for PROFIT. "Mutual gain may, or may not be a derivative.
: Mutual gain is the profit. You dont sell you spade unless what you get in return is worth more to you than the spade. The fellow wont buy your spade unless getting the spade is worth more to him than not buying it. Both parties 'profit' from the other in *free* trade.
Perhaps for the two parties involved, but that is certainly not the case for everyone else external to the transaction. A good example would be air pollution; I may or may not purchase goods from a factroy and I do not won it, but I still have to breathe the poisoned fumes spewed forth from the aforementioned factory.
Furthermore, the trade is NOT always beneficial between two parties. Another simple illustration would be usury. When a fellow has to borrow just to stay alive and the rate he pays, interest, will simply drag him further into debt.
If he forgoes borrowing his situation deteriorates abruptly, while if he borrows he will be screwed eventually. Surely this is not a transaction that benfits both parties?
: : The clearest example of this is the U.S. Managed Health Care System designed to enrich insurance companies.
: I wonder if it was intended to help the needy and protect the patients, or whether the intent was always to extract more money via medicine and to control people who need medical help, and those who are able to give it, and in consequence install more government controls and jobs to 'cure' the self made problem.
So in this case I guess Gee believes the government is a mere tool of private interests, business, at the expense of the populace at large. So I wonmder, should things be this way? No, of course not. is it the intrinsic nature of government at fault? No, of course not. Do not mistake the corruptors and the corrupted; business, BIG business, is responsible for the shabby state of medicine in the USA.
