im kind of in agreement with you - but my sense is that theres a bit of romanticism in your position - which is fine, but it doesnt tell the full story (and ftr it didnt purport to). it seems to be true that our elders lived with lots of successful businesses and happy consumers, that may or may not be true - and there are some obvious problems with historical (revisionist?) utopianism - but as far as i can tell, there are two separate issues with respect to corporatism - mathematics and corruption. wrt to the first, unfortunately (?)economics/mathematics necessarily drives to a certain level of market concentration. by defintion there must be some optimal point, and it turns out that given the pure math, many industries are more profitable in large scale - whether because of r&d costs or because of advertising amortisation or whatever. i dont have much of a problem with that - i basically believe in markets - im somewhat concerned about cultural imperialism - the idea of walking down a street in prague or beijing and being surrounded by starbucks and maccas isnt very appealing - but i dont know whether its a good idea to forbid it on a market basis. if thats what consumers want to buy, at that price, then i find it difficult to argue against - in pure market terms. i do however have a problem with corporatism to the extent that it can give rise to corruption - and i dont know how to balance the two. of course, there will be corruption regardless - so it depends on how one confronts the problem - is it smart to propose the best system assuming that there isnt any corruption and then try to minimise corruption, or to assume that corruption is everpresent and then provide the best framework to deal with that reality.

when you consider the recent egregious crimes of say boeing and enron and halliburton and fox and merck and ge and others then its near impossible to even pretend that the old idea of people starting up retail shops on the local corner is even a viable. the math (and thats what business is) simply doesnt agree with small business.

but i think the problem is even deeper than that - people are simply selfish. the latest boeing episode is a classic example - some DOD woman added $100m to a contract so that she and her daughter and soninlaw got a job with the boeing (details from memory) - in a perfect market, prices meet an equilibrioum between supply and demand - if boeing can spend just a few hundred thousand dollars to get $100m then the market has a long way to go to get to equilibrium. if they are willing to kill people for dollars, as theyve apparently demonstrated, then where will they draw the line? 100k vs 100m - theres a lot of space for some moral ambiguity in between.

and just one last word in defense of capitalism - its true that there were "hundreds of places to get a hamburger" in the old days - that isnt necessarily an optimal situation. it might be that the 'correct' solution is that there are only 20 of places. or two. it might be cool to have hundreds of providers - but if that means that you are more likely to get old meat, or that burgers were 50% more expensive, then that would probably be a public bad. its simply true that you cant have hundreds of outlets providing the same fresh burgers at the same price.

but when the system allows that u can buy off these mega-industries in return for a job for a soninlaw, then its difficult to imagine any limit to the integrity of the system. think about how little they have spent so far - a few dinners with judy miller - to corrupt the system. thats the problem - corruption is cheap, and the payoff is enormous.

grrrrrr



----- Original Message -----
From: "Unknown News"
To: luke@lukeryland.com
Subject: RE: unk sighting
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:24:07 -0500 (EST)

>
>
> Having joined a few co-ops, lived in a commune, and read bits and pieces about socialism, we do see the attraction of more a shared than an owned economy. But we're basiclly capitalists, libertarians from way back when you had to explain what the heck "libertarian" meant.
>
> We're for a regulated free economy, because all powers, not just governmental powers, need checks and balances.

And chain stores and franchise fast food are among the most tedious examples.
>
> When my parents were kids, and to a lesser extent even when I was a kid, there were "stores" and "diners" and other small businesses owned by the people who worked there. People could start their own businesses by "going into retail." In a few square miles of any city, there were dozens of places to buy a new jacket, hundreds of places to get a hamburger. Now there are a few department stores, and you get your choice of McDonald's or Wendy's or Burger King.
>
> It's an obvious observation, even trite, but it annoys me no less for being perpetual. Corporate chains have made it much, much more difficult to go into business for yourself. It's a style of capitalism that sucks -- all the rules are geared for giant corporations, and against real people ...
>
>
> ===
> Unknown News
> http://www.unknownnews.org/
> Helen & Harry Highwater, proprietors
>
>
> --- On Sun 11/07, < luke@lukeryland.com > wrote:
> From: [mailto: luke@lukeryland.com]
> To: unknownnews@myway.com
> Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 15:46:11 +1000
> Subject: RE: unk sighting
>
> how bout we all go down to popeyes right now. with extra spices. and extra servings.

i went into town the other day and i saw kfc building literally next to kfc. they promise itll be bigger that the one next door... and with more parking.

i have a masters degree in business - and im very friendly to free market ideology - and i used to love 'maccas' - but i just got to the point a few years ago where i couldnt support that system any more. i am still totally into markets and all that, but it seems that markets and corruption is a bad mix. not surprisingly. and i assume that corruption will exist regardless of the economic system - so i dont automatically throw out the baby with the bathwater - but i struggle with the concept of the invisible hand - theres an invisible hand to be sure - but it seems that said hand is more 'corruption' than 'market' than we dare admit.

blah

im depressed. with a taint of optimism about the evidence of voterfraud - and
> the hope of a revolution. somethings gotta save us.



----- Original Message ________________________________________________________________________________
Four more years. Seriously.
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