In the Beginning was the Command Line

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 10:24:36AM -0500, JoeHill wrote:
> Your "humble opinion" is in fact backed up by some pretty big guns. Read
> anything from Adam Smith, all the way up to giants like Keynes or Galbraith, and
> you will find that you are on some pretty solid ground there.
> 
> 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. Once a corporation has obtained a
> position of power, there is very little incentive to compete or innovate, more
> to keep pushing the same obsolete product at higher and higher profit.
> 
> This is what has allowed Microsoft, a business doing what anyone would expect a
> business to do in a Capitalist environment, to use the power of concentrated
> wealth to make it more difficult for others to compete, so as to further enrich
> their shareholders and other beneficiaries.
> 
> Of course, having the State take over the reigns of the economy is no better, as
> Galbraith's famous quote humourously implies:
> 
> "In Capitalism, man exploits man. In Communism it is exactly the opposite."
> 
> Money is not the root of all evil, it's the way we *use* money that is so
> harmful. Someone on this list, a ways back, pointed out that there are far more
> viable economic models insofar as trade and commerce, one of which, IIRC, was
> based on the idea that money does not increase in value over time
> (incentive to hoard, stagnate), but actually loses value over time (incentive to
> spend, build, expand).

I wonder what some south american countries would think of your idea.  I
don't think their devaluation of money has helped their economy at all.

Incentive to spend rather than horde may be an OK idea, but money that
looses value isn't necesarily such a good thing, although I guess at the
moment basic interest rate isn't doing much better than inflation.  Of
course encouraging people to spend money they don't have is a really bad
idea and I think that too happens sometimes when spending is encouraged
too much.

Lennart Sorensen
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