I always seem to jump in threads that i've got no interest in
participating. but in any case:
* Michael S. Lorrey <retroman@turbont.net> [000617 13:14]:
> can provide the means'. What is it you don't understand about the fact
> that more people live at a much higher standard of living where
> capitalism is king than in any other nation? Capitalism is obviously
> doing a much better job than your Marxism.
where do you get your data from? if you mean capitalism as in free
market, there isn't any country in the world that fits the description,
and the same goes for Marxism if you mean communism.
If you go by approximations, you would have to define some sort of
scale. I suggest the following crude measurement which i have only
toyed with, but which seems to serve the purpose (getting quick
simplistic comparisons) quite well which is the ratio of government
expenditure to national GDP (i like it because they are the same units,
seems to distill any kind of political system from the answer (it
doesn't matter if its dictatorial or democratic) and it feels like it's
measuring the right things).
i happen to only know the numbers for two countries: Australia (25-28%)
and Argentina (15-16%). By feel (coincidentally, i've lived for more
than 10 years in each of those countries), Argentina feels much more
free market (lack of government handouts, much lower, flatter taxes,
much less hassling with council standards, etc). I'm almost sure i
don't have to explain which one is economically better off. I couldn't
find a list of this ratio for other countries in a quick search through
the web but if anyone's got numbers for other countries i'd like to hear
what they are (especially for the US, sweden, japan and a sprinkle of
'third-worlders').
Personally i'm undecided. Instictively, it feels like the free market
types should win, but i don't have enough data (and the only data i do
have doesn't fit the hypothesis).
Alejandro Dubrovsky
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:13:39 MDT