> O'Regan, Emlyn wrote:
> > I'm not suggesting war. I'm suggesting cooperative, cartel situations
> used
> > to economically crush states who earn the ire of groups of others. This
> can
> > be used exactly as warfare, with similar results!
>
Billy Brown wrote:
> In the absence of force it is virtually impossible to make this kind of
> tactic work. In a free market, all the traditional 'control the market'
> gambits simply impoverish the would-be monopilist and benifit his
> competitors.
I'd really like to see a justification of this statement!
> The only exceptions I can see would be in the case of rare natural
> resources. Since we need large-scale space colonization to get this
> project
> off the ground (sorry, couldn't resist), and we aren't going to have that
> until around the time nanotech becomes feasible, there isn't likely to be
> any such thing. Therefore, problems with monopolists are highly unlikely.
There's some kind of logical flaw here. Capitalism is about distribution of
scarce resources to maximum effect, true? If so, you are saying that a true
free market can't work until scarcity goes away. Why would we need an
economic system at all if we have magic nano tech?
Emlyn