Re: Don't blame the doctor-- (also knownas"Don't Shoot the Messenger.")

md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu wrote:
> 
> >It is not the profit motive that is the enemy, Tom, it is the dictators
> >and power mongers. If people want bread, capitalists and entrepreneurs
> >will supply it; if people want drugs, capitalists and entrepreneurs will
> >supply them; if people want guns, capitalists and entrepreneurs will
> >supply them.
> 
> i am trying to follow the logic of your reasoning, pat. you seem to
> suggest that people who supply guns, drugs or whatever are
> "dictators" and "power mongers". right? then how can you seperate the
> "profit motive" from the intentions of these actors? isn't it so obvious
> that "capitalists" make profit by already supplying these fishy things? i
> do not understand what kind of profit ordinary people gain by buying guns
> except for contributing to the profit of capitalists, who then make
> guns "available" and "accessible" to people.

Aysen, I am making a distinction between demand and supply.
Entrepreneurs and capitalists are suppliers. Perhaps the following is
the best answer to your question. I am assuming that people want bread
in order to survive. People want drugs for their pleasure. And people
want guns in order to rob others or to protect themselves from robbery.
Absent the opportunities for robbery, there will be no demand for guns,
in the sense that I am using the term "guns" here. If there is no
demand, there will be no supply.


> the problem under capitalism is that some people satisfy their needs at
> the expense of others.

This is not a problem of capitalism. It is a problem that occurs under
capitalism when private property rights either are not or cannot be
fully articulated and enforced. It occurs when the conditions are ripe
for a "tragedy of the commons," such as when common grazing land is used
by many shepherds. Or when clean air is used as a waste dump by too many
factors, automobile drivers, and living animals and plants. It is also a
problem due to anarchy -- the absence of government and, therefore, of
legal rights.

It is possible, of course, to look at private property rights as a
system in which some people satisfy their wants at the expense of
others. When I consume the apple that I bought with my earnings as a
farmer, we can say that my want satisfaction comes at the expense of a
starving North Korean. But such a viewpoint doesn't help us understand
private property rights and capitalism. If you take away my right to eat
the apple, you also take away my incentive to produce it. This is one
lesson from the failure of socialism. It is highly unlikely that any
North Koreans would starve if it was a capitalist country.

-- 
Pat Gunning, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Web pages on Subjectivism, Democracy, Taiwan, Ludwig von Mises,
Austrian Economics, and my University Classes
http://www2.cybercities.com/g/gunning/welcome.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/barclay/212/welcome.htm