Eva wrote:
>(Harry Pollard:)
>> I don't advocate capitalism. I want a free market.
>
>Beg your pardon? How can you have any market without capitalism?
You mean there would be no market in your socialist scheme?
>> >EVA: You name it, it has been tried. Free market, keynesian market,
>> >monetarist market, all end up in failure sooner or later.
>>
>> HARRY: Add socialism - then ask why?
>I answered it, I hope you do listen, because that's the only way to
>meaningful discussion. Socialism could not succeed in the climate of
>not only
>underdeveloped economy and technology, but also undeveloped literacy
>and undeveloped democracy.
The UK had all these things well developed - and a glorious majority in the
Commons for the first Labor government. Unfortunately for them (and us)
their idealistic socialism didn't work out in practice.
>>HARRY: As you know, there is no such thing as free health care and free
education.
>
>Actually, there was quite a decent one here in the UK, until Thatcher
>happened.
It's a miracle! A National Health Service that cost nothing!
When I tell English friends how little I pay for first-class service from
my private HMO - they are envious. Why is Blair trying hard to find money
to improve the NHS? After all, it's free.
>>HARRY: But. look at your previous paragraph. The 'socialism' has to be
adopted by
>> the "free will of the people". That knocks out practically all of its
>> attempts. So, when they fail - even if they try all the policies that
>> socialism suggests - its because it wasn't free will.
>I agree - it was defeated, because it was not free will. There was
>no democratic control or democratic collective planning.
The UK's attempt at socialism - supported by the enthusiastic 'free will of
the people' - was a dismal failure.
In fact, that 'free will' brought the Tories back - eventually for more
than a decade - because of the socialist failure. (Both Blair and Clinton
are very good at adopting rightist policies. Could that be because of the
rejection of socialism by the 'free will of the people'.)
>Why couldn't it be
>different now with so much more resources, experience in some
>democracy and with i.t. that is cheap enough now to be
>available for every human?
There's a reason but, as yet I don't see you approaching it.
>>HARRY: One of the attitudes seen often in socialists is "the tightly
>>pursed lip"
>> at the ignorance of ordinary people. The socialist knows what is good for
>> them, but they don't. This leads to threats and coercion to make people do
>> what is good for them.
>I am not a pacifist, if I'd think, that force would work, I would go for
it. But it evidently doesn't work.
I wouldn't.
>> Education was already free when they came to power.
>
>upto the age of 14, run by the church, 60 kids per classroom for the
>poor, not being taught anything that the rich were allowed to learn
>in the "public" (private) schools.
Read your history. My education through technical college was free in the
thirties. I - along with my contemporaries - could read at the age of 6.
(We sat on our front door step - swapping the Champion, Hotspur, Wizard,
etc. They were full of reading material - adventure, sports, science
fiction, school, stories.
They're still on the shelves of W.H. Smith - but now they are comic books,
with lots of drawings - but little reading material. What does that tell
you about the changes in British education?. After 50 years, no less!
>By the way, Thatcher and most government is voted in by 40+ percent
>of the 60+/- percent of the people who bother to vote, is this the
>democratic parliament you are refering to?
Is democracy a system where one MUST vote whether she wants to, or not?
>>HARRY: The market makes a profit when it satisfies the desires
>>of the consumer,
>> which is all of us. People like cars. The market supplies their likes. You
>> should understand that the market is simply the message carrier. You may
>> not like the people's choices - but the choices are theirs.
>If the consumer is a power hungry dictator? (Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
>Iran, Indonasia, etc etc???) Not to mention Hitlers Germany so well
>supplied for the market of killing.
It's very difficult to discuss anything, when you introduce such nonsense.
Try to keep your mind on real life, like Mrs, Smith going to Tesco to buy
some sausages.
>>HARRY: Human endeavor from it's very nature is "cooperative" -
>>and the market is
>> the place where their cooperation is complete.
>
>People cooperated very well for thousands of years before the
>capitalist free or not free market, and hopefully they survive to
>live and prosper without it, if they don't get crushed by it (again).
The only way we can make progress is for you to tell me what you mean by
Capitalism, Socialism, and the Market.
Harry
*****************************
Harry Pollard (818) 352-4141
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
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