Re: capitalism, market, redistribution (fwd)

>Perhaps "extreme" is a poor choice of words, but I meant it in terms of
very
>high rates of savings and investment and therefore very low rates of growth
>for consumers goods.

>But this is not precisely "capitalism".  A Hungarian economist, Kornai,
made
a fine analysis of this "anti-equilibrium growth" typical of centrally
planned economies
Francisco Gutiérrez

Thank you.  I've not read that.  However, I would suggest that where one
group (or really class) of people, whether via the market or the planning
system, has complete control over capital (and the masses have none) the
situation is one of de facto ownership and capitalism.  (If it walks like a
duck, and quacks like a duck, it could just be a duck.)  I recognize that
the Soviet strategy was one of first building up an industrial base and then
making life easier for the workers and peasants, but it simply wasn't
happening that way.  The nomeklatura of the Soviet Union were very much like
the monopoly capitalists of the west.  They had everything their way and
were not subject to the discipline of competitive markets.  Gross
misallocations of resources resulted, and great hardship for ordinary
working people who were forever being told that if they but queued and
waited in line, good things would come their way eventually.  However, I do
recognize that wars (War Communism, the Great Patriotic War, Afghanistan)
did not help.


Ed Weick