>In a message dated 97-09-10 12:21:43 EDT, you write:
><< What one person calls a free-market economy, others will call facism. >>
>
>Then the others haven't studied even the barest smidgin of economics.
Or maybe there are a lot of working definitions of 'Facism' around.
Facism does not mean Nazism, it's about putting the interests of the group
(fasci - Italian word) ahead of the individual. Also in such an arangement
stronger individuals often have more rights than weaker ones.
Thing are further complicated by the fact that there's no 'manual' on
facism as there is on communism (you know, the one by Marx)
But I'm not even saying these persons would be right, that's not the point.
The point I was trying to make (but maybe not vey clearly) is that there is
no clear border of criminal behaviour and acting as a free entity in a free
market.
(This in reply to your discussion with somebody about the accountability of
the tobacco-industry for the health-effect of smoking)
There's just the effect of culture, situation and upbringing. We all draw
al arbritrary line in the sand and then one side represents the rights of
an individual and the other side is labeled as criminal behaviour.
There is *no* fundamental good or evil, just a lot of cultural conventions.
Example: euthanasia is illegal in most country's, but is becoming accepted
in some and has been practised by the Eskimo's for thousands of years.
>I think you're sitting up a straw man...naming it "Free Market
>Economy"...ascribing all kinds of terrible things to it...and saying it
won't
>work.
With a Darwinian Economy I meant an economy without any ethical rules or
law-enforcing organisation (like a state). I'm not saying it won't work, I
think it would work very well (that was what the post was all about). But I
find the side-effect of such a system much too high.
This week has been most interesting, funny to see how my (in retrospect
rather naive) post about the kidney-nappers exploded into a whole series of
political threads ;-)
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Arjen Kamphuis | Learn as if you will live forever.
mountain@knoware.nl | Live as though you will die tomorrow.