From: frog@no.spam   
      
   joshb@xs4all.nl wrote:   
   > Money can be lend to buy goods or a home: consumption credit.   
   > Money can be lend to use in a business: investment loan.   
   > For being allowed the privilege to use someone's excess money,   
   > the receiver may be agreed to pay more money back then received.   
   >   
   > This seems to have the same formalities as a trade. A trade is where   
   > two people exchange something they have or can do for something someone   
   > else has or can do. When it concerns a service and not a product,   
   > the service involves spending time doing work, "effort".   
   >   
   > Not everything that follows trade formalities is understood to be   
   > trade. If someone points a gun at you and barters your right to   
   > live for your money, that also has the same formalities as a trade.   
   > But it isn't trade, even though the robber is "working." When it   
   > comes to money, the curious thing is no effort is displaced either,   
   > the creditor only enters a state of "risk taking," which is neither   
   > work or product.   
   >   
   > Capitalism pretends that buying/selling money is an inherent part of   
   > trade. But trade can exist without Capitalism. Capitalism has to be   
   > identified as precisely as possible, and then neatly cut out. Like   
   > a tumor.  An incompetent surgeon would simply rip out all organs in   
   > sight, assuming to catch the tumor, and hope the patient will live.   
   > Since this is such an invasive operation, it is only done when   
   > the outlook is bleakest. Capitalism simply makes sure the outlook   
   > won't get so bad as to warrant just any procedure, and they are set   
   > for eternity. Because the radical left has not solved the economic   
   > question, it is unknown how long this situation is going to last. The   
   > ideas the radical left seems to come up with seem to be on a slogan   
   > level, either involving regime-change, a pervasive plan economy, or   
   > the abolishment of all organized culture (anarchism). These ideas   
   > are so preposterously unworkable, that few people would even bother to   
   > consider them, and hence they don't happen. We're stuck. The plan   
   > economy was actually a good idea when the feudal system still worked   
   > that way, but that time is long gone. Unfortunately the radical left   
   > has not resolved to come up with new/better solutions (the plan economy   
   > wasn't that great in the first place, but it could have evolved into   
   > a nice trade economy without capitalism). When there are no options,   
   > it is probably better to stick with Capitalism, now even mutated into a   
   > less deadly strain (for people in the lucky areas at least).   
   >   
   > Narrowing the definition of Capitalism, means analyzing what it   
   > does and where that goes wrong. In the money "trade", there seem   
   > to be roughly two types of loans: 1) gambling with companies and   
   > 2) consumption credit.   
   >   
   > The worst problem lies in long term application of 1) gambling   
   > with companies in a large group. The gamblers continuously   
   > bet on companies with the best performance, and that need   
   > invariably be the companies who are most dictatorial in their   
   > organization in order for the profits to concentrate under one   
   > person or small group of directors/owners so that the money can   
   > be negotiated out of these people on the basis of more betting   
   > money; and it needs to be invariably be the companies who behave   
   > worst to "their" employees in order to extract more money from   
   > their labor. In the long run, this investment practice chokes   
   > all more enlightened modes of production that have creatively   
   > been attempted. In the end this system strives to make companies   
   > ever larger, so that higher profits can be concentrated into   
   > fewer hands for extraction. The large capital groups formed are   
   > better able to shape the world to their vision of more profit,   
   > and to crush the small capital and small businesses. This eventually   
   > degenerates into an economy that has only one monopoly business.   
   > The economy would have become a dictatorship, a feudal system once   
   > again. Only when that has happened does it become progressive again to   
   > talk about a democratically led feudal system, since that is an   
   > improvement over a dictatorially led one.   
   >   
   > The future that "gambling with money on companies" has for trade,   
   > is the practical end of business freedom, the end of the trade   
   > economy. It is however doubtful that it will ever be allowed to go   
   > all the way, because the people have rebelled against feudalism once   
   > before. The Capitalist virus mutates for longevity; it seeks life and   
   > pleasure. It does this by "concentrating power into tighter, righter   
   > and higher hands", as someone put it once (paraphrased). But it has   
   > learned not to go too far.   
   >   
   > The "investment gambling" is small groups is not that big a problem,   
   > because a smaller group can always come together and set practical   
   > problems right quickly. There isn't a vast body of culture and people   
   > that "goes wrong" over time, where individual people are being crushed   
   > by the weight and size of the diseased community (diseased by Capitalism   
   > in this case).   
   >   
   > When it comes to consumption credit, they money goes into a product,   
   > and the debtor himself is expected to work for the return. It is   
   > as if it is lending to a business that will only ever employ one   
   > person. Such companies can not degenerate into abusive dictatorships,   
   > there is only one person. Therefore consumption credit in a narrow   
   > sense (ignoring the build up of liquidity in a successful lending   
   > business which might then be used for economic gambling), does not   
   > appear to be problematic in the long run.   
   >   
   > Is trade itself problematic, swapping services and goods between   
   > productive people ? In the long run, only people who work are able   
   > to continue to swap, the people who don't do something that someone   
   > else wants, get into problems. This is a good thing, it protects the   
   > people who work. It also provides a direct application of a reward   
   > and punishment for doing something productive or not, which affords   
   > a meaningful sense of living. It is a system that is both natural   
   > and will run on its own. Because trade runs on its own, attention only   
   > has to be applied to where the trade system goes wrong (such as   
   > we're doing now with removing Capitalism from the trade economy).   
   > The trade system isn't perfect, there may be a market for hired   
   > killings for instance, and concentrations of power become abusive of   
   > the markets. This power can be concentration of legislative power,   
   > money, or ownership. Concentrations of power are problematic because   
   > they alter the price from just to unfair, thereby undermining the   
   > essence of trade. Capitalism (gambling in the economy with businesses   
   > like horses on a race track) creates concentrations of power, and   
   > in turn make that the powerless have to swap their goods/services   
   > at an increasingly unfairly low price against ever more inflated   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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