[mdlug-discuss] Ethanol vs gasoline economy [Was: [mdlug] Automotive technical info ...]

[allen]

Dr. Robert J. Meier wrote:
> Allen,
>
>   
>> Greed and ruthlessness don't go away in a workers paradise, they get 
>> driven underground there to rot out the foundations of the society.
>>     
>
>   
>> Capitalism takes those lemons and makes lemonade out of them and in so 
>> doing achieves what socialists claim but never demonstrate: a classless 
>> society.
>>     
>
> Capitalism turns lemons to lemonade only by enforcement of just (and
> classless) laws.  (See "Wealth of Nations").
>   
It might even be that capitalism springs from the legal prerequisites - 
rule of law, equality before the law and enforceable property rights - 
regardless of the governmental form. A monarchy with those legal 
characteristics would, I think, inevitably give rise to a vigorous and 
successful capitalist economy. Probably because in those important 
regards it presents a legal system that's more likely to be found in a 
democratic nation but not exclusively.

Still, a monarchy isn't the most comfortable fit for a capitalist 
economy. Too much likelihood of the legal landscape changing 
dramatically with a succession or revolution.
> Unbridled (i.e. unencumbered by enforced law) greed was the cause of the
> Great Depression of the 1930s, and will no doubt be named by the historians
> of the future as the cause of our troubles since the '87 stock crash.
>   
 From what I've read, the Great Depression was, in part, a result of 
unbridled greed at the national level.

Tariff wars and competitive devaluations disordered international trade 
to the point that it almost ground to a halt with the attendant domestic 
repercussions. I understand that monetary policy, at least in the U.S., 
had a hand in deepening the depression and social policies in prolonging 
the depression.

One of the few good things to come out of the Great Depression was a 
lesson that's compelling to this day. The desire to use trade policy to 
support domestic politics, i.e. farm subsidies, manufactured goods 
tariffs, etc., is counterbalanced to an extent by the lesson of the 
Great Depression.

Allen