Greens have more in common with free marketeers than socialists.
A couple of weeks ago, I walked past a couple of activists at a stand. They were getting signatures to legalise gay marriage, and once at the table I saw they were also giving away leaflets on behalf of the Socialist Alliance and Green Left about a handful of social justice and environmental issues.…
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26 - M ark
(Blast...potentially interesting conversations. Work can be most inconvenient. Later.)
27 - Cindy
#24 Dave what sort of 'history' teacher are you? I think in one of your classes, the blindness of history might give that of justice a run for the money.
"Lincoln's speech was given just as one of the greatest speculative bubbles in US history was bursting. This was followed by the Panic of 1837, which led to a six-year contraction described by Milton Friedman as 'the only depression on record comparable in severity and scope to the Great Depression.' "
These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
from: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol I, p 64.
28 - Cindy
Dave,
hmmm, you'll probably use what I posted as a defense. Okay. So, what about Tulip Mania?
Market Crashes:
When: 1634-1637
Where: Holland
The amount the market declined from peak to bottom: This number is difficult to calculate, but, we can tell you that at the peak of the market, a person could trade a single tulip for an entire estate, and, at the bottom, one tulip was the price of a common onion.
29 - Bliffle
Dan's point (#17) about the lack of anti-trust prosecution is very pertinent. For example, during the Bush administration there were NO anti-trust prosecutions. In fact, they had a policy against it.
But the free enterprise system NEEDS strong anti-trust activity to keep markets vital and energetic. Nevertheless, many misguided people, proclaiming themselves pro-business, inveighed against anti-trust activities.
30 - roger nowosielski
Antitrust should be one of the first items on Obama's agenda. But as Dan has so aptly pointed out, it's much easier to control a few multi-nationals than a vast array of mid-size business. So they're just taking the easy way out, the path of least resistance, rather than considering what's best for the country.
31 - Cannonshop
Roger, the word you're looking for is "Expedient"-which was the same word under Bush, Clinton, and Bush 1- it's "Expedient" to nick a nod and wink to merger-mania and easy credit terms (same as Cash) and hope the down-hill doesn't hit while you're still in office to take the blame.
"Too big to Fail" is very expedient, Bailouts are VERY expedient-it shows you're "Doing something about the problem" without having to DO something. Enforcement of Antitrust, on the other hand (Serious enforcement, not the happy-slappy BS that was the Microsoft suits) is NOT expedient-you can't collect huge bribes through PACs when you're tearing their money-sluices away or letting their investors go broke (or putting those 'investors' in the poorhouse or jail for breaking the law).
Obama promised to do the difficult thing, but he's doing the Expedient thing instead-just like his predecessors, and for the same reasons.
32 - M a rk
Dave, Our system was not one of 'boom and bust' for many years.
To clarify, what period of time are you focusing on?
Rog, Should economic stability and efficiency be the top priority if it tends to turn people into automatons?
Is this relationship necessary, or is it a correlation/causation problem? Maybe there's some other quality of capitalist production (including State capitalism) that leads to the 'automaton phenomenon'.
33 - roger nowosielski
Correct, Cannon.
34 - roger nowosielski
At this point, it'd say it's empirical, and it has to do with freedom. Freedom is of course double-edged; it turns some into automatons and others precisely the opposite. But it is the necessary condition for the latter outcome.