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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (5501)	2/12/2001 8:52:51 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

without a government with the will and authority to pass - and enforce - laws protecting the rights of the weak... capitalism very quickly devolves into good old-fashioned feudalism. Feudalism was in some ways preferable to the forms of exploitation seen under sweat-shop style unbridled capitalism... it at least had obligations and customs going both ways. But IMO capitalism, unlike communism in particular, is not based on a 'moral' case. Pure capitalism deals with efficiency, the assignment of resources, pricing mechanisms... it has no viewpoint on whether it is 'right' or 'wrong'. That's probably why its variants are now so widespread, because it can be workable under most political systems to some degree. The nearest it gets to a political case is that it is 'wasteful of resources' to subsidise or aid where there is no profit. Capitalist economic theory doesn't say that the elderly should be denied medicine once they stop work; but it might point out that such does not provide an economic return. Which, strictly speaking, is true. And, thankfully, doesn't mean we have to act in such fashion. We're free to add a moral code, and adapt capitalism away from economic Darwinism (is that a new phrase?), at whatever cost we choose.