. . Subject: Re: FREE MARKETS ! . . . . . . > ... Correct, they do. But you have to outlaw theft. And that's more involved then you understand, isn't it ? > ... Partially correct. You can trade over borders no problem, but you have to be careful with nations that use slave labor and do economic warfare. > ... > ... Well ... indeed ! > ... Agreed, why ? Can you show the strand of logic unto which that issue is latched ? It's the problem of competition, the whole essential point about markets is that free new initiative would drive an unfair price to a reasonable level again. Therefore a monopoly, for example when it is kept is place through backstabbing, murder & blackmail: you can end up with a bad price. In theory, a monopoly as such doesn't have to be bad yet, but it tends to go bad (imho). > ... > ... Yes, but how do you 'keep them adequate,' that is the whole problem. What is 'adequate' ? The answer: destroy all abuses of power that are not connected to labor, to work. Because power abuse means unfair price increase. You may buy a loaf of bread for 1,50 and call that fair. With a knife on your arm, you'd agree to 500,- wouldn't you. But not to 500.000,- perhaps. If the knife moves to the throat, you might accept that also. It is so subtle, it can probably only be properly understood by smart people :(. How can you be made to understand that a business owner has more power then an employee ? And although that's not a problem if the company is small and the starter rules, in general it is an abuse of power. Or the same problem with land or capital. It is subtle as a principle, while it is major in its effects. > ... > ... Indeed. Always ask: who made this ? Who made the land for example ? If nobody made it, nobody should be selling it, basically. In that sense, perhaps there can be an adaptation to the law for companies as I've proposed it: the original starter can sell it, but the next owner can only sell it to the employees, because he didn't manufacture the company itself. -> Capital must be socialized. -> Companies must by & large be in employee group ownership. -> Land must be distributed. -> Government power must be distributed. You can also say it differently: -> Capital must be distributed, investment capital. All issues of 'power' must be 'distributed.' Because that takes power-difference out of the markets as a factor defining prices. Thus, if prices conform to the trade principle and not to power difference, then all get what they work for, and then it works. > ... > ... > ... Only if there is a price/slavery-production war going on imho, such as with China who basically use slave labor, or India same story. If you're faced with such economic cross border economic warfare, you need to fight power-abuse with power: tarrifs on thex border, even close th eborder, quotas, etc. If you don't you better know what you're doing. Your economy may end up gutted in the long run, can't compete. You better be ready to rebuild that once the production influx of goods is cut off when that slave-abuse country implodes (or whatever may happen.) > ... You appreciate free markets, along with the power abuses in them. It's usualy called 'capitalism,' although there is another variety of the same thing that centers not on money-power-abuse but on soil-ownership-abuse, called feudalism. Feudalism & capitalism are two evil twins. Both destroy the function and purpose of free markets, even if they use many of the free markets rituals and mechanisms too. > ... > ... It has been horrid, and very destructive for you. You just don't look at the social cost, and that too can be seen as a cost of capitalism: the inhumanity of it all. > ... > ... You allowed your capitalists to do economic warfare on your people using offshoring and whatever else they did: an investment war against the people which is the predictable result if you allow a free market for investment capital (most profitable with tiranical businesses and where labor is CHEAPEST - do note the cycle effect of that, which is now eating you up). > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... You still understand nothing yet. Look into: effort versus power, that's the key to understand economics. -- http://www.socialism.nl