capitalism and free markets

Posted Oct 26, 2004 2:22 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

> free markets ... lessen the scope for unfair profits

Posit a truly free market and yes, for the first generation, unfair
profits will have a limited scope.

But markets *by their nature* engender inequality. They allocate scarce
goods to those with the ability to pay, not to the needy. Even if all
market players are supposed to have precisely equal abilities to profit,
the moment someone accumulates enough capital to invest -- not very much
is required -- he or she has an advantage over people who have less. A
few generations down the track and free markets will bring you back to
the present -- capitalist -- situation.

Posted Oct 26, 2004 18:46 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

" The engineering of monopolies is all about the _prevention_ of free and competitive markets. The problem monopolists have with free markets is that these lessen the scope for unfair profits "

I belive, and with a stricking clear logic, at least to me, that monopolies are not engineered, that is, they are not a different approach from the general 'free, wild and deregulated pursuit of profit' but simply a consequence of it... being so 'free markets' never realy existed(only in concept), and could never exist in this model, because the model tends to cannibalize itself,... and equilibrium is always temporary and distorted...
so markets tend to be manipulated(look at the price of oil!).

I'm not advocating any political theory, only a racional, unpassionated and logic analysis... economics is *NOT A TRUE SCIENCE*, only a theory based on some rather simple mathematics... a benchmark tool mostly, with some previsability presumptions... (urgh!... and we live, die and kill based on it... how unsanely stupid the earth must look like to an E.T.)

Evidence is everywhere... of how cannabilizing the model can be... of how much injustice and poverty it can produce... and it is not because of any political regime by itself(China is a capitalist nation), but because the model tends to a null system, that is, money has more value than the people, so people tend to be marginalized or cast out of the model, but it is *generaly* people that are the *buyers* the *consumers*, the essencial element to the sustainability of the system...

... so a system that tend to 'cast out' what is essencial to itself (it even kills its potencial costumers/consumers if need, for a quicker profit), can only tend to the nullity...

... actual Western Economic model could only be 'forever' sustainable if production is made on a complete automatic fashion, with never ending resources and power supply, and the consumers *Robots* with always incrising needs, and with an infinite credit so they could take the eternity paying for it !!... ( that is the anatomy of *financial* profit )