[Skybird]

@ Lance, 2 of 2

The key to the free-market is harnessing man's flaws through competition to provide the best result for everyone.

For me, the market format, including "free market", is not the goal, but only a tool to acchieve other goals. And that competition alone does not harnass man'S flaws, we just have seen. 2008 alone it costed us 38 trillion dollars that got burned - and that are just the known numbers. In capitalism, you have the never disapperaring trend towards monopolism, because the less competition there is, the more power you have, and the more you can enforce conditions that increase your profits. Capitalism leads to monopolism - and the destruction of "free markets".

I think you ignore, and I should have mentioned earlier, one major quality: scale, size. much of what you say, as well as the basic idea of democratic participation, works nice and well - as long as the community does not exceed a certain size. basic democracy is a thing for small villages, but not for metropoles and nations with hundreds of millions of people. When you live in an environment where the one knows the other and both have grown up together, you see good will and lacking regulation working easier, than in communities of such a size that their structure cannot be overwatched anymore. Here, the principle of voluntariness must be replaced with that of legally binding, obligatory nature. This I think is true for what has been said so far, and is true as well for what you said later regarding "security". Seen that way, I think you argue with an archaic world in mind - that of the founding phase of america, with limited population, small communities and neighbourship that was both limited in availability and vital in mutual support. but the world has changed, and is no more like that. If it has changed for the better, can be argued. Regarding the injection at the dentist, it certainly has.

Once again, you too easily discount the effectiveness of private interests in security roles. One must employ the selfish nature of man to create security without the sacrifice of freedom. An armed populace, and the freedom of private interests to manage their own security affairs will create a superior system that harms neither liberty nor safety and is regulated only by the direct choice of the people.

maybe that is with regard to the thieve in your house. but leave anti-terror-strategies and military planning to your population and private people, and you are screwed. Local militias, both of policing or paramilitary nature, worked fine in the wild west with Indians and the British empirial army still being a threat, and the often debated freedom to carry firearms must be seen in that context, and only makes sense in that historical context. but the world has changed. Neighbours patrolling the street at night will not do anything against terrorism. The militia of northern virgina will help nothing to impress the Chinese over resource fields in the Chinese sea. Even more helplessness you discover when considering this enormous white consumer's demand for drugs - which lets both official and private efforts to wage a "war on drugs" (hahaha) running straight into nirvana. Some days ago I saw this very good movie, "Traffic". At the end, Michael Douglas says something like "for many of us americans, fighting the war on drugs means to fight a war against one or more members of our own family (he thought of his addictive daughter, while he himself ran for the nation's top job as anti drug official). But how do you do that - how do you wage war within your family?". The DEA already fights a lost war here, and is outclassed in ressources and capabilities. How much more security do you hope to achieve by the freedom to carry arms? Or consider Islamic terrorism. A possible military threat - that currently there is none does not mean there enver will be any again. organised crime. Corruption of authorities. Lobbyism in legislation, damaging community interests for the sake of corporation interests.

This is not high Noon on Main Street and you do not establish law and order in Dodge City by walking down to the saloon with a colt in your hand and making a grim face.

I can't see all that being solved - or even adressed - by your remarks. i also see my claimed antagonism and polarity of freedom and security being present in all these examples. In the end it does not matter whether security is pushed by the state, or the private man. you want more security - you limit your freedoms and that of others. Want to raise these freedoms: not without going at the cost of reduced security. security always goes towards greater restriction, and freedom always goes towards lesser restriction. That's how it is.

Unlike the state, private industry is directly accountable for any failures.

In the ideal case of the textbook democracy, the state and it'S representative is being held accountable, too - at the next elections at the latest.

Take the example of 9/11. Airlines suffered for years, through no fault of their own, because the state was entrusted with administering and regulating security protocols, and failed.

Take the example of the economic crisis. national communities (tax-payers, employees), and national economies suffer severly, through no fault of their own, because the banking sector and financial market was entrusted with adminstering itself and regulating security protocols, and failed.

However, the state ballooned after its' failure, to the tune of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,
so does the boni and the incomes of top level managers and top bankers - also to the tune of billions of taxpayer'S dollars.

I have a principal issue with such insane payments in general. Let the span between the wages for the lowest w0rker and the top boss be something in the range of a factor of let's say 20. fine. But 800 bucks compared to 1 million bucks and more, and success boni when failing? sorry, the logic and reason that I use to use has no category to calculate this madness. I honestly thinks it cripples people's character. For whom enough is not enough, it will never be enou8gh, and he wants always more, and more, and more.

To give or fail to strictly limit power to the state will always yield similar results in due time and always has. I think we agree on some basic principles, but until you provide some superior system of keeping the state in check and avoiding the occasional harms of the market, I can't say whether or not I can agree with you.

For the x-th time, i am not about the state running private business. This can only be an option in cases of banks that are so-called "system-relevant", whose fall would cause a whole rat-tail of collapses following in their wake, with the survival of the functioning of the state and the nation being at risk as a final result of that. This can be a nation-crushing chain reaction, the meltdown of the core, the absolute and total worst case event - and it must be prevented, no matter how, no matter the costs. Examples are the German HRE, the greatest mess we have over here, or the american AIG, as I see it. Opel and GM are not such cases, to give a counter-example. The state is not in the business of managing private economy companies. But although our states and governments are seriously messed up and are rotting from within due to corruption, lobbyism and politicians no longer separating themselves from accepting payed jobs in the private economy and vice versa (which is the classical conflict of interests: comnpany versus public community), I see no alternative to the state running the executive and defining the legislative. Courts do not leave the assessing of a penalty and the interpretation of the law to the accused offender, and for good reason. Leaving the market to itself, and legislation influenced by lobby-interests by private economy, is not a reasonable alternative.

It is about establishing new, tighter rules for greater safeguarding against the unintended failing or the intended egoism of the few, against fraud, and against prevention ofas much transparency as possible. And it is about the tools and offices to see these rules through and monitor that players play by these rules, and violators get identified as soon as possible and being held responsible - hopefully before they have spelled global desaster again.


And last but not least: it is about america learning to reasonably manage the balance between what it consumes - and what it can afford to consume and produce itself. This endless leasing of money and living on tick must end. It has been one of the most major reasons for the mess the global economy now is in. I repeatedly compared to the money-cheat in Sim City. Early versions had one cheat-code to enter, that gave you a certain ammount of money, but not more, it was no infinite (let'S ignore hex-editioing and such). You used the cheat, to be used once only, and started to build and to construct, and what a wonderful city you built! And then came the time when the money was gone, and no more reserve to pay for the running costs. Soon you realised that it all was just unsolid facade, not able to maintain itself, for your econonomy was not build on healthy principles, but was ignored, since oyu had money to pay with and thoiught you do not need to shape a healthy economy. You build more and established more city service than your economy could support. And now: things start to rot. Streets do not get repaired. Crime rate climbs, buildings turn into ruins, people move away, increasing the trend of the general fall. your match is ruoined, your nice city - was unable to last. Currently, and in the past, Obama and his predecessors just entered another of their money cheats. Still no reasonable managing of the economy, still spending more on construction than the economy could support for financial maintenance, still consuming more than one could afford. Now consider you have used up all available money cheats, there is no more.

Go figure.

As one biologist once said to me: organisms and ecosystems growing slowly usually do not do much harm, often not any harm at all, but too fast growth - that does a lot of damage indeed, and sooner or later can kill the organism or ecosystem.