[extropy-chat] Futurist priorities was ex-tropical

[The Avantguardian]

Brian Lee <brian_a_lee at hotmail.com> wrote:

The beauty of markets is that they don't need goals or
anyone trying to "do 
the right thing". 

*So what? I am not saying that markets need goals or
altruistic people in order to function. I am asking if
people need free unregulated markets. The beauty of
fish is that they don't need mascara does not qualify
fish as the best of all possible life forms. 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

* Ok, let's asume that this is true. What then is the
road to heaven paved with? Evil intentions? What if
you don't believe in either heaven or hell? I would
say that the road to oblivion is paved with
negligence.

They decrease overall costs and provide more benefit
than any benevolent guiding counsel could provide.
Look at the economic planning committees of the old
USSR and China to see how planning fails where an open
market succeeds.


You speak of the USSR and China as failures. Perhaps
the Soviet Union was a failure but was it due solely
to their economic model? Or was it because it had the
most powerful country in the world as it's chief rival
undermining its efforts for 50 years? I cannot analyze
the USSR because it no longer exists. But I can
solidly conclude from analysis of the following data
that China is definately NOT a failure.

   Population: US = 290 million, China = 1.29 billion,
Winner = China
   GDP: US = $10.45 trillion, China = $5.99 trillion,
Winner = US
   GDP per capita: US = $36,300, China = $4,700,
Winner = US
   GDP real growth rate: US = 2.4%, China = 8.0%,
Winner = China
   % below poverty: US = 12.7%, China = 10.0%, Winner
= China
   %GDP held by poorest 10%: US = 1.8%, China = 2.4%,
Winner = China
   %GDP held by richest 10%: US =30.5%, China = 30.4%,
Winner = US?
   Inflation rate: US = 1.6%, China = -0.8%, Winner =
China
   Unemployment: US = 5.8%, China = 10.0%, Winner = US

data source:

 http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html 

>From these 9 economic indicators, I have to conclude
that China is beating us 5 to 4. I therefore would not
by any means call China a failure. I find some of the
more interesting results of my analysis to be that
despite a higher percentage of unemployment in China,
a smaller fraction of their population is
impoverished. There seems to be less of a discrepancy
between richest rich and the poorest poor in China.
Moreover by my calculations, assuming that growth
rates remain unchanged, China's GDP will exceed ours
in 10.4 years.

Brian Lee <brian_a_lee at hotmail.com> wrote:

Markets contribute to the survival of the species by
providing lowest cost resources.

* In a perfect hypothetical free market (a
mathematical abstraction that no longer even
approximates reality) this would be the case. In
reality markets contribute to the wealth of
distributors by providing them with the lowest cost
resources in order to manufacture goods of
questionable value to be sold to the consumer at the
highest price that he can be convinced to pay.   

The goal of the market doesn't have to be "benefit
humanity" for the market to provide benefit.

* True but the goal of the market most certainly
should not be to make the wealthy wealthier at the
expense of the middle and lower classes. Price fixing,
insider trading, false advertising, corporate fraud,
mergers and aquistions, and other unsavory business
practices completely abrogate any benefit the market
has to offer the species. 
     Under the unethical way that so called "free
enterprise" is allowed to flourish in this day and
age, Adam Smith's proverbial invisible hand has become
a sinister tool of the ruling class that
surreptitously picks the pockets of the middle class,
squeezes the life blood from the poor and pummels its
dissenters.

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