This is why it is so frustrating to stay with this list;
seeing continuously hopes for the future based on
totally false assumptions.
The state and it's institutions are there
to defend the economic and thus social/cultural
power of the ruling class. I know it sounds like
a dogma - nontheless it happens to be amply
demonstrated through human history.
You expect "fairness" and marxists are called
"naive" and "utopist"!
And at the moment the ruling class is still the
capitalist class that owns our economy.
For it to survive, it needs to operate in a
capitalist fashion (whether it likes it or not!),
which means making profits
and not satisfying human survival/sustainability
and other needs.
Without changing the economic structure you are wasting
your time. You may ignore this to have a comfortable
time in the short term, but it will get you at the
end. If you don't consider it, it will be a rather violent
end; if more of you give it a thought, it could be
a channelled, planned and democratic proccess and
a slim hope to survive.
Eva
>
>
> My other point is, where is government in all of this? Surely one of the
>outstanding functions of government is to ensure responsible business behaviour. It
>is the business of business to grow and be profitable. It is government's
>responsibility to ensure that business does not grow at the expense of the
>environment or consumers. All too often, it fails to meet that responsibility, and
>in fact abandons it. I worked for a very large oil company years ago. It hired some
>very good environmental scientists and had a much broader understanding of
>environmental issues than the government agencies it had to deal with. The
>government agencies had little data of their own and were in fact relying on the
>industry to provide information which would then form the basis for regulating the
>industry -- a little like trusting the fox to guard the henhouse. Currently, at
>least in Canada, the capacity of government agencies to ensure responsible business
>behaviour is pretty cl!
ose to zero -- witness the mess in the Health Protection Branch.
>
>
> Victor Milne
