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List:       freenet-philosophy
Subject:    Re: [Freenet-philosophy] Control and Policy
From:       James Ashley <jimrthy () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2000-07-28 19:57:18
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>>From: "James Ashley" <jimrthy@yahoo.com>

>>>[Mark] I thought this way, too. Then I got smart :)
>
>> So what happened to change that? :)

> I read about *real* economics. 

You'll have a hard time convincing me that there's any
such thing.  Well, the economics of pleasure/pain
probably exist, but those aren't really something
quantifiable.  We can expand on those as
generalizations over the collective of humanity, and
probably come up with decent predictors of how things
will work.  But that winds up being based on even more
false assumptions than most science.

> [Economics was always a hobby of mine - at least 
> since I was 15, that is. But in the last 4 years I 
> started to read about economics that made sense.
<g>]

So now you're using that for your definition of
"real"?

>> That's part of what I'm saying.  The big 
>> corporations focus on the aspects of the situation 
>> which are "profitable."  They do enhance those.  
>> The other pieces might form a vital ecological 
>> niche, or they might drive a species to extinction 
>> (not necessarily a bad thing, but that's really 
>> hard to say).

> But the solution is clearly obvious in the above 
> paragraph: make it PROFITABLE for owners (whether 
> people or corporations) to preserve those species. 

But you're introducing false regulations into the
system now. Who's going to make it profitable?  The
government?  That's just a way to increase money
circulation.  Private organizations?  It would be an
amazing accomplishment, but most of them couldn't
raise the money to really pull it off.

(Personally, I don't think there's a reasonable answer
at all).

> Give a 0.05% tax reduction for every ant a company 
> owns. :) 

Go with that method, and it's either totally open to
abuse, or it won't be enough money to make a
difference.  I forget the specifics, but there's
supposedly at least one oil company in the U.S. which
pays several million dollars a day in penalties
because it violates environmental regulations.  It's
cheaper for the company to do this than to fix their
system.  This company won't be shut down, because they
own the politicians.

> In most, if not all, of Africa, elephants 
> are owned by the state - and as a consequence they 
> are almost extinct. In India, elephants are private
> property - and their number is huge. 

There are a lot of other factors that are part of that
situation.  I'm not denying that private ownership can
be used to emphasize the value of the goods...in this
case, take care of the elephants.

> Latest 
> Hollywood movie notwithstanding, chickens are 
> nowhere near extinction - because having chickens is
> profitable.

Of course, chickens (in general...like everything
else, there are exceptions) in the U.S. live horrible,
miserable lives.  They're fed all kinds of terrible
things to make them more "valuable."  I'm sure the
U.S. government has approved those substances and
decided the risks to the people eating that chicken
are acceptable.

>> And, in the process, if they destroy a species of 
>> ant that cures cancer, oh well.

> If there were a species of ant that cures cancer, 
> Sean Connery could have saved a few, 

It takes a lot more than a "few" for an ant colony to
survive.

> and sold them 
> to the highest bidding company. 

Or been nullified by goons working for some company
that's raking in money off of cancer.  Or maybe that
company building the road.

> He would have saved 
> the world, and made a huge profit at the same time. 

You're following the movie plot, of course.  It's
fairly contrived.  The point was, species like that
are wiped out quite frequently (or so I'm told), and
we have no idea what we're destroying.  All because
we're making something else more profitable.

> But socialists 

Who mentioned socialism?

> don't think about profits, which is 
> exactly why socialism can only worsen the economical

> situation... 

I don't think socialism has a very good track record,
but Marxism's still doing a decent job here.  Of
course, we have a lot of people totally obsessed with
profits.  So maybe that's what holds it together. 

> [the political situation is worsened by default].

Why is that?  Either way, you eventually wind up with
an elite group running everyone else's lives.

> Mark



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