The NDP has to appear anti business in order to suck up to their masters, i.e. Jim Sinclair etc.. I wonder where their members would be without business...
And even with all those cuts we still haven't matched Alberta's business tax rate, but at least we're moving in the right direction. Hopefully the NDP will never get another chance to take us in the wrong one.

Such is the way that reelections are bought and how Joe and Jill Sixpack finance their own wage-slavery.

This country desperately needs a tax revolt but I doubt that Canadians are up to it.

Nem the NDP is not anti business that is a lie encouraged by the Media. They are for normal people everywhere not just the one with 6 figure incomes.I would hate to see a province where the business people run the way they see best we would all be working for base rate with no benefits renting homes from landlords that are not accountable.

If one wishes to observe, in person, the sinister benefactors of new-era voodoo economics/economic apatheid one needs only stroll the rarified plaza's of whistler village and the west-side of vancouver.
They display, in a manner most vulgar, all of the trappings of unearned wealth and priveledge, so they are easy to spot.
But be wary, for they are in the process of constructing an unbreachable wall between you and them, manned by private police and an invisible fist.

Fiat Lux say's " wealth cannot be created, or earned, only taken from other sectors and the enviroment " Tell that to Bill Gates.

Fiat Lux,

Absolutely! You might enjoy the book "The Collapse of Globalism" by John Ralston Saul (if you have not read it already).

The standard of living in Canada has dropped substantially since the 50's. Also, the word "competitive" is misleading, in that it sounds like a sport played on level ground. Historically, the most "competitive" of masters stole natural resources on a global scale, murdered their competition, and used slavery for labour. Whether the usurpers are royalty, or corporate giants, makes little difference to the undercompensated serf worker.

Instead of "attracting" foreign investors, B.C. should consider incentives to encourage already resident Canadians to develop businesses which EXPORT a finished product. This produces jobs and returns profit for further development.

Realizing that I'm am starting my day by rising to the bait of a troller, I must say
regarding:

Fiat Lux say's " wealth cannot be created, or earned, only taken from other sectors and the enviroment " Tell that to Bill Gates.

Bill Gates didn't violate Fiat Lux's statement, he just redirected a whole lot of the wealth in his direction. Bill Gates is/was
neither visionary programmer nor technological innovator, but the grandmaster of business and marketing.

I think the key point in the article however is that by changing the way the accounting is done the Libs can run deficits because the costs are spread over a longer period.

I think I'll use the same thinking and go buy 5 houses tomorrow. I wouldn't be 2 million in debt, only my mortgage of this year would count as debt. However, it does mean those costs keep showing up on the books for many decades ahead.

Interesting also about the Libs running a deficit in spite of all those raised fees, federal money and rising commodities.

rkewen' I disagree with Fiat's premise that there is only some much wealth to go around.
When I was young there was only one television station available, the CBC. Now we have many choices. Thousands of jobs have been created and wealth has come to all these people.
Now, who lost out on this ? Nobody did. Wealth was created out of thin air.
If one pie isn't enough, simply bake another one.
Be like Americans who when they see an opportunity they look at ways of making money out of it.
Canadians look at an opportunity and try to regulate it.
This sums up the difference between Fiat's point of view and mine.

Fiat Lux makes an excellent point. What Will is assuming is that being against big business tax cuts is anti-business. ( I hate the phrases "anti- business", "anti-labour".) They set up a false linear tug of war....in reality we are a circle, we are all inter-linked irrevocably. The survival of one and all hinges on that interdependence, even if corporations refuse to acknowledge the fact.

Anyway, what is forgotten in Will's assumption is that businesses do not exist in a vacuam (though many certainly prefer to see themselves that way). They depend on people to buy their products...who have the means to buy their products. So, a healthy system, is about equitable and fair distribution...so that all can participate.

Our current economic system is a cruelly dysfunctional one, that will eventually collapse, sooner than later, because of the inequities, the lack of foresight and the basic lack of intelligence now embedded in it.

So the Opposition is not decrying the tax cuts in a so-called anti-business stance but rather the fact that once again the BC Liberal government has placed the interests of corporations above those of the people...and have thus once more introduced more dysfunction, more imbalance into the system... instead of taking steps to restore equilibrium to an economic teeter-totter that is presently completely out-of-whack.

The success of our economic system relies on that recognition... that this is a symbiotic relationship, like nature itself, but the greed of corporations apparently comes with a large pair of blinders to this fact, that is really, in the end quite suicidal.

Eventually, as people of this province, country, and world, our only alternative to survival, in a very real sense, will be to take back the control that has been wrested and stolen from our hands.

Lynn' have a piece of my pie.

I agree with RE that wealth is not strictly tied to a finite amount of resources, intellectual property and labour plus often unaccounted factors like the environment, etc. play a large role and they all can't be said to be finite. A good playwrite might be able to continually earn wealth without undue exploitation.

But at the same time, RE is definitely wrong. Wealth did not appear out of thin air, the amount of money transferred from the third world to the first, in terms of resources and profits taken by foreign ownership is staggering. So while we may not see (although there are signs everywhere) of the desecration of our own country for profit, the examples are far more clear if one takes a look at our neighbours.

This sort of provincial outlook on economics is part of the problem. Without seeing how our economics affects others, we might think its a (not perfect) but pretty darn good system. If we factor in the environment and third world excesses, it starts to pale pretty quick.

The ironic thing is, the 3rd world owes us money! We charge for highway robbery and the penalties are stiff!

Nothing can either be created, or destroyed, only resources turned into the forms. As a tradesman, farmer and artist I've been doing it all my life with excellent results.

The difference is that I also tried to learn to think independently and not accepting and repeating time worn cliches and platitudes like some programmed puppets.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Ron, it's all in how you perceive the pie...you know what your hero GW said about the pie, don't you?

GW Bush on the campaign trail:

"You know, I really don't have the slightest idea what I was talking about there. (Laughter and applause.) You know, a lot of times on the campaign, they asked me about economics and I actually said this. "More and more of our imports come from overseas." (Laughter.) Now, most people would say this when they're talking about the economy. We ought to make the pie bigger. (Laughter.) However, I said this. (Laughter.) "We ought to make the pie higher." (Laughter.) It is a very complicated economic point I was making then. (Laughter.) But believe me -- believe me, what this country needs is taller pie. (Laughter and applause)"

Yup, make the pie taller and taller, higher and higher...more precarious...until the whole thing topples.

Like I said, Ron, a definite suicidal streak reigns in this neo-con philosophy of GREED...much more dangerous than any terrorist.

Correction.....should read, "resources turned into other forms" Ed.

Yes, I agree with Albert Einstien that matter cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transformed however, and I hope Lynn's mind can be transformed from the bleak, pessimistic neo-lib vessel of hopelesness.

Good grief erwin! What's a neo-lib[eral]?

Whoa. What is with that picture?

It's a Lib PR edict: No Cabinet Minister wrinkles allowed. Must appear young, vibrant and blurry.

C.I.R.E. now more than ever.

BC's economy is a non-zero sum game.

We like to think that we live in a zero-sum society.

We constantly conflate the two terms, in error, and then we wonder why there is such an imbalance.

So I see that some economic moronism is still being perpetuated here-- the Marketplace Idiotology-- that wealth can be created out of thin air,yet! That TV sets magically appeared from nowhere--DUH? No copper? No plastic? No electricity? No work being done?Do dams? No lives being lost? Thousands of jobs created again out of nowhere? What? Like nobody worked in the Stone Age? How did people live from the beginning of time without these new magically created jobs? And wealth out of nowhere? As if there wasn't wealth in the ground, fish in the oceans, trees in the forest, etc., long before the first humanoid dropped out of trees! If there's not a big enough pie, whip out a magic wand and create another one. Without flour? Grain? Sunlight or soil to grow it in? Sugar beets? Nobody's arduous labour behind it all? So Christ should have been like Americans and charged for those loaves and fishes? Like we should pay for the air we breath and water we drink? Some people have not a blessed clue! But lots of time to write here--ergo, probably doesn't have to work for a living and has no concept of real work, anyway. Wouldn't know how to do any! What a waste of DNA!

Yammer, I think that picture comes right from The Ministry of Smoke and Mirrors, the umbrella ministry under which all BC government ministries now fall.

I should have reread my last rant. I meant grain needs sunshine and soil to grow. Water, too. But it sort of looked like I meant I could grow sunshine in the soil:)) And I got the tense wrong in the last few lines---should have used the plural. There's more than one of the Marketplace Faithful cheerleading scribes here. Sorry about that. Hi Ed:) Hope to be up your way in the winter....Brrrrrr!

You know what's funny? It is possible to hide wrinkles in photoshop with out blurring the entire photo. Wonder what they're paying that hack...

I don't know about that Lynn. Wally Awful excepted, my observations of Cabinet Ministers indicate that being a Minister in Gordo's tent actually does a person's face justice. Perhaps being a Minister is not the demanding, stressful, possition that it once was.

...thought from another thread....
You would think that given enough rope, the corrupt would eventually hang themselves. But they are the exceptions, Ebbers et al.... If profit drives the bus and growth = progress, how does one change that course when the whole world only points a finger when someone gets caught? Even ancient cultures operated this way. Sure you loose face when caught but that's just the nature of the game. Dinner with an Albertan on the weekend, and the course for them is crystal clear. Sell now pay later. Innovation the child of profit and free enterprise. Yes they have concerns, but believe that it's mainly a distribution problem. More food grown now than we can use. But it's grown with chemicals and is likely unsustainable I says.... Hog wash he says, GMO and science will take care of these issues.... Profit will drive innovation. When asked why the Amazon is being slashed and burned, he says for crops. I says Rainforest soil as I understand it is no good for crops...never heard that before he says.... Yeah I believe they can suppport some crops for a while, or cattle grazing for Burger King I says......but the point is loss of diversity. Aren't you worried about the loss of "keystone" species... (or is it corner stone, whatever)

We agreed it's an education problem. That and the fact that we have gone from a rural society to an urban one. That should be a concern for everyone. We also agreed that those who make fortunes must take responsibility to share there bounty.

Dinner was free range chicken and organic produce. Desert was Okanagan port.

I believe the Amazon rainforest soils if denuded of the forest cover will quickly become infertile; so crops may grow but not sustainably.

Pathetic how the photo is airbrushed, I guess she refuses to face fact she is on her way to becoming a Senior!

I see where you're going with this, Eddie Haskell...though I think where you're reading "unstressed", I'm reading "anaesthetized". :-) My hunch is there is a lot of stress in being part of Gordon Campbell's cabinet.

Though I agree, there is a definite corporate makeover look the BC Liberals go for... since they are there after all to represent capital and not constituents.

It all depends I guess if you find the Stepford look attractive or not.

Gee, I hope next time I have a publicity photo done, they'll make me look my worst.

This is your biggest criticism of Carole Taylor? Give me a break.

FWIW, I'm guessing it's lighting and lenses, not photoshop.

Stump, you gotta read the whole thread, there is lots of criticism here about the economic policies of this government but Taylor is the poster gal of this government and poster gals do as they are told ...if they want to continue to be poster gals.

I am under no illusions that Taylor is actually creating economic policy. She is doing what she is told...as her big corporate tax break in the budget revealed.

She is the glossy corporate image that represents the interests of capital and not the interests of the citizens of this province... so this glossy picture comes to symbolize the glossy manufacturing of image over the past four years. The attempt by an arrogant government to advertise its way out of the truth... through the creation of slick, glossy lies.

I enjoyed Will McMartins' article. It showcases how backward government is. We should be speaking of global cost accounting, rather than arguing about how dishonest the current method of 'transparent' government is.

The article serves to underscore the difficulties the BC Liberals will have in the future with a leader who (wrongly) believes that if you give business all of the levers, every other aspect of society will benefit as well.

"This is your biggest criticism of Carole Taylor? Give me a break."

Actually, it was a criticism of whom ever altered the photo (PR flacks, probably). I'm not against a little Photoshop magic (I use it myself at work) or lighting effects, but come on, the picture is blurry and a strain on the eyes. It doesn't look natural at all.

Besides, where are the ultra soft-focused pictures of Campbell and the boys... never mind that really would be a nightmare.

Meh, I thought y'all were sounding catty IMO. And I'm as catty as they come, so I'm hard to offend, but the senior comment made earlier was, I thought, a bit much.

can someone tell carole taylor that her glasses suck?

What happens with Southern jungle soils, Freebear, is that in the jungle, 5 miilion yrs + of unbroken evolution has created a situation wherein virtually all hydrocarbons are recycled by one or another organism almost immediately once they are shed to the forest floor. Hence, the loam layer rarely exceedone inch in depth.

OTOH, in much of the Northern Hemisphere this evolutionary process has been interrupted by perhaps a half-dozen glacial advances, with the result being the accumulation of loam layers many feet deep, such as in our Coastal and Prarie soils.

Once the jungle's protective cover is removed, exposing its thin soil to the air, the loam oxidizes to its basic onstituents, "offgassing" CO2 and H2O. Underlying that is the reddish lateritic "soil", basically Iron Oxide, one of the most indestructible compounds known, which cannot yield the minerals etc required for a healthy soil.

Thus when jungles are cleared for agriculture, often for cattle raising, the soil is commercially productive for only a few years at most, excepting for very specialised plants and expensive inputs.

This syndrome is an excellent example of the short-term viewpoint of resource capitalism in which the quick, short-term gain is seen as preferable to the lower, but larger over the long-term, environmental orientation of sustainable practices.

nemesis:

Please explain why you hate Jim Sinclair.

Thank you for this excellent explanation on how the self preservation system of the ecology works.

We have lived in the bush now for 26 years and have been able to observe that the claim of the "survival of the fittest" is a total nonsense, because in an ecological system there's no fittest, only species the local system needs for its own survival to slow down the resource conversion process. When certain species overstay their welcome and the uninterrupted system doesn't need them anymore for its own survival, they're eliminated.

Which could easily happen to the human race under capitalist market economy , where efficiency is measured by profitability by wasteful production methods, plus the collectivization of resources into the hands of aristocracies so they can waste more for more profits.

We have enough examples in past history on the small scale, when civilizations destroyed themselves by overstepping the ecological limits and potentials for their own survival, but now our ruling economic economic theories are endangering the whole human race.

The destruction of the jungles is prime example of the market economy theory based on the profits of the next quarter.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Interesting article. Interesting posts. It made me think of the bigger picture. What is the economy anyway? Is it a "real" thing? What happens if people lose faith in it?

good point karl marx! i mean ed deak. Sorry it was hard to differentiate between a Marx Reader Book and your point.

One thing i think you don't quite get: capitalism is an evolutionary predator. If capitalism finds that it is destroying the very thing that keeps it alive, then it will adapt. why do you think this system has lasted for so long?

Name another civilization that has destroyed itself by overstepping ecological limits (completely, as what you are saying). Help me out because I don't buy what you are saying.

I don't know why, but i have this faith that if capitalism wants to survive, it will find a way - it's more powerful than your hyperbole suggests.

Benisjammin:
Yes capitalism is a predator. It preys on other cultures and populations that are inferior in number and/or military technology (i.e. the British Empire that overpowered indigenous populations in the Americas, India and other countries to take their resources away forcibly so they could expand there capitalist economies.)
You ask 'Name another civilization that has destroyed itself by overstepping limits.' Imperialist and colonial nation states usually destroy other civilizations in their quest to supply their own popuations with cheap or free labour and natural resouces.
Their are others on here, like Ed Deak, who can probably articulate what I'm trying to say better than I can, however, what I'm trying to say is that our present economic system encourages and spurs some of the worst emotional characteristics in human beings - like greed, envy, etc. because it serves to create demand for a seemingly endless amount of consumer crap that we in the West don't need - but end up only distracting us from being better human beings - while the devoloping world gets trashed and exploited.

I won't go into any explanations to people hopelessly brainwashed with the srewball theories of Milton Friedman and Julian Simon. Anybody with eyes and the intelligence of 10 year olds can see the results in our daily lives and reading what's happening all over the world, provided they're looking and want to learn, instead of repeating silly slogans.

There are literally hundreds of empires in history that self destructed by ideologies similar to present day capitalism. The Roman is one example, and the state capitalism of the USSR another, even the semi literate must have heard about.

What I find most amusing is that the minute we start questioning the actions of self destructive theories and ideologies, we're accused of being nazis, communists, capitalists, etc. etc. For the record, I have been sentenced to death by the nazis and to the gulags by the communists and have a 45 year paper trail on fighting the idiocies of Karl Marx and a 20 year trail fighting the idiocies of Milton Friedman.

In other words, in spite of claims by the braindead, with millions of others, I must be on the right track and hope the world will come to its senses before it is too late.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.

You see! Capitalism is alive and well!! Ok maybe it's a little under the weather right now, but just as soon as it "adapts" we're right back on track! What's that flat line on the monitor mean?

"OTOH, in much of the Northern Hemisphere this evolutionary process has been interrupted by perhaps a half-dozen glacial advances, with the result being the accumulation of loam layers many feet deep, such as in our Coastal and Prarie soils."

On the one hand, I feel like an idiot for not knowing that already. OTOH, thanx for such a clear and concise explanation. I feel a little smarter this morning.

thanx again

Will McMartin's article reveals that even the so-called new and approved accounting method is more about how the method allowed the government to account than true accountability. No surprise to a number of us that "the real figures" are held hostage by the accounting system used.

Under GAAP's accrual system, we have the budget as a 220 million dollar surplus.

Under the DBRS system, we have an adjusted deficit of 856 million.

So Will asks a good question as to the effect of those two different realities on the voters of BC. Would knowledge of an almost one billion dollar deficit have resulted in a different election outcome?

Will adds: "The Liberals boast of budget surpluses but the provincial debt is projected to continue climbing in the foreseeable future."

So I think in that regard Chris H. asks a good question above. What happens when we all lose faith in an economy that is just not at all what it appears to be?

There have been many comments re Carole Taylor's photo used in Will McMartin's article. I would first suggest that the Tyee start posting the source of the uncredited photos used on this site. All publications must find ways to save money and it is most expensive to dispatch a photographer to take a new photo when a handout can be used. So using handout art makes sense. Was Ms Taylor's photo sent by her ministry? Or was the photo lifted from some web site? The second method might explain the lack of detail in the photograph.

I am a photographer who shoots with film but my film becomes digital quite soon as I scan my slides, negatives and prints. It doesn't take too much skill before all the correction tools of Photoshop CS (the premium heavy duty program used by professionals and art directors) or the sometimes more intuitive alternate program like Paint Shop Pro become user-friendly.

I can assure you that most portraits in this day and age are manipulated to make the subjects look their best. I am not completely in favour but I can assure you that every time you correct bags under a male politician's eyes (correction is not exclusive to women) it's just like eating a potato chip. It becomes easier and easier; you cannot stop and before you know it you don't even think of the ethics involved.

Few here seem to be aware that countries with the highest levels of social services are also the ones with the lowest corporate tax rates. Yes - that's right - countries like Sweden and Norway have some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the developed world. They have learned that overtaxing corporations is counter productive.

Corporations are not 'people', so tax cuts do not make them 'wealthy'. Every dollar not paid in tax is funnelled back into the business. This may be hiring more employees or otherwise expanding their business. When this money is spent, either in purchases or salaries, it is TAXED against those who receive it.

On the other side of the equation, if you can reduce provincial unemployment by helping business expand, the burden on social services is reduced, thus reducing government costs. Plus, newly employed people then become tax PAYORS, further adding to the tax coffers.

It is for these and similar reasons that Sweden and much of Europe prefer to tax individuals more and corporations less. These policies have proven to be successful over the years.

The topic of stategic tax credits and incentives is slightly different. This article indicates that many of the so-called 'tax cuts' are really smart long-term investments in BC technologies and sectors with good growth potential. Any government that didn't implement some type of incentives in these areas would be incompetent!

There may be some Liberal cuts or incentives that are not well thought-out, but this article offers no information useful to such a discussion. Instead it relies on the outdated and simplistic premise that tax reductions for "corporations" is automatically 'a handout' and bad for BC. But in reality, there is no economic basis for such blanket claims.

I wish this article had been written by an economist instead of a political consultant. Then perhaps it would have offered an informed economic review of Liberal cuts, instead of being simply 'political'.

Chris H : "What happens when we all lose faith in an economy that is just not at all what it appears to be?"

The system would collapse. We invented capitalism, it wasn't handed to us by a god. What keeps it going is us. The day we start rejecting for payment those coins with the loon on it the system folds its tent.

benjammin : "If capitalism finds that it is destroying the very thing that keeps it alive, then it will adapt. why do you think this system has lasted for so long?"

A couple hundred years? Capitalism hasn't even survived longer than feudalism yet. What capitalism requires is constant expansion which has been provided as technology has opened up the world. But last time I checked the world wasn't getting any bigger. The population certainly is and if population growth could continue indefiniteley then there's a chance capitalism could survive. But that's not the case, or at least its my belief that's not the case.

Kevin Dalman : "They have learned that overtaxing corporations is counter productive."

Kevin, Yes, but as you point out yourself they (socially successful states) tax individuals at a much higher rate. In BC, however, there has been no corresponding rise in personal income taxes except on the low income groups who are hit hardest by rising fees and MSP premiums.

"if you can reduce provincial unemployment the burden on social services is reduced, thus reducing government costs. Plus, newly employed people then become tax PAYORS, further adding to the tax coffers."

This has been a left-wing argument since the depression of the 30's.

As for Will, he has as good a grasp of the provincial books than anyone I can name. We don't elect economists to be the finance minister so I don't believe Will has to be lecturing anywhere to provide informed comment on the books. Besides, his politics have always slanted to the right. When he stood for election after all it was against the NDP.

Frank - so then you've defined what capitalism is? I always figured that feudalism was part of a capitalist society.

says fiat lux:

Long after the "idiocies" of Friedman et al will have been considered just historical postmarks, the study of Marxism will be required reading for it's insights re "class struggle". This term has since fallen into disfavour because we don't want to recognise the "struggle" remains essentially the same, with essentially the same players.

I was fifty before I read the Communist Manifesto, and having long believed the propaganda I'd been fed, was really surprised to find that reading it hadn't caused me to grow horns and a tail :-]

benisjammin, defined? I have several economic texts behind me on the shelf as well as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Hume etc. I myself choose the year Smith published his text, 1776 I believe. After all, he's considered the father of capitalism. Its not exact, clearly its just a rough approximation on my part. I know others use different dates such as Italian merchants creating a rudimentary banking system.

Feudalism, however, can certainly not be considered capitalist. None of the same conditions apply. Being forced to work X days a month for your lord and barely squeaking out a subsistence living the rest of the time does not allow for anything in the way of capital accumulation. You also won't find much, if anything, in the way of stock and bond markets or banks or even national currencies. Wealth was land.

what is the difference between barely squeaking out a subsistence back then and now? that's what i'm trying to say. Capitalism was still there - whatever the word you want to use - you said : "Being forced to work X days a month for your lord and barely squeaking out a subsistence living the rest of the time does not allow for anything in the way of capital accumulation" - yes, wow, this sure sounds like capitalism to me

superficially, it may sound alike to the guy on the bottom but the systems couldn't be more different.

Under feudalism there was no labour market. The peasant did not get paid in cash, he did not deposit that cash in a bank and collect interest. He could not get a loan and start a business. He couldn't invest in companies. He couldn't sell either his crops or his labour to the highest bidder.

Capitalism does not mean poverty. Yes, poverty can occur under many different systems, but that doesn't mean all the systems are capitalist. People have worked and traded under many different systems including socialism, capitalism, feudalism, theocracies, slave-based systems, tribal and warrior systems but they are quite different from each other. Otherwise why not say feudalism will continue to adapt as it has for a thousand years.

I would direct you to wikipedia.org where you should type in "capitalism". There you will find the tip of the iceberg as regards the arguments that swirl around that word.

George W. Bush’s comments about the taller pie, brought to us by Lynn, (thank you Lynn) and Ron Erwin’s comment that “Wealth was created out of thin air” are made by those that understand economics equally well.

In reference to there being more TV stations, and more jobs, Ron asks, “Now who lost out of this?” If there is a loser, it is Ron, and all the rest of us who are bearing the costs every time we make a purchase, whether it is toothpaste or toilet paper, automobiles or ant-acids, Viagra or Vaseline: we all pay the price every day! The jobs didn’t happen out of thin air, so that theory can be placed along side Ronald Regan’s “trickle down, Voodoo economics”.

I am impressed by Ed’s and Lynn’s comments, and feel a compassion in their philosophies. Thank you.

Yes, Frank, the Wiki definition indicates the "tip of the iceberg" in trying to define what Capitalism is. But mislabelling it as a political philosophy merely allows its putative proponents to morph themselves and it at will.

Many years ago, in 1961, I listened to the first of the Massey Lectures, given by economist Barbara Ward Jackson entitled The Rich Nations and The Poor Nations. A major point she wanted to make was that Capitalism is an economic device, not a political one.

She noted that regardless of politics, all States have to employ capitalism, such the then USSR's "State Capitalism" to the US preference for "Free Enterprise (private) Capitalism". And even then, there's no clear line of demarcation, with the US having on occasion to resort to the use of public money to finance business, and the USSR having had to turn a blind eye to free enterprising Farmer's Markets.

As a long-standing Lefty. I've had to wrestle with very obvious point that this monetary system, coupled with Democracy, has allowed the ordinary person economic freedoms they've never before seen.

Thus, we Lefties have been put in the totally untenable philosophical position of railing against the very thing key for us to seek "power", since change is rarely - if ever - initiated by the economically deprived, but rather by restive middle classes. Meanwhile the Capitalists sit back and smirk, knowing they've boxed us in - with us unawares of how!

The answer, of course, is found in politics. In our times the preferred choice is Democracy with subsets of Fascism and Socialism.

We've almost totally lost control of our Democratic process, resulting in the Fascist methods of employing capital in the clear ascendancy.

Thus, instead of shooting ourselves in the foot and lambasting Capitalism, we should instead oppose Fascism and the Corporate Capitalists who are promoting it.

"We've almost totally lost control of our Democratic process, resulting in the Fascist methods of employing capital in the clear ascendancy."

I couldn't agree more.

I have no problem with free enterprise. People should have the freedom to open a corner store or a restaurant or any other business. But I do believe capitalism distorts the value of pretty much everything. The methods of accounting that are accepted under this system don't take all factors into account and ignored factors are assumed to be free inputs. That causes a distortion.

The stock market, a very important part of our capitalist economic system is, I stress, in my opinion, a waste of time. It does not achieve the goals its proponents say it does. The provision of capital to create businesses tends to be done by credit unions, friends, families and banks. By the time a company is ready to go public its simply payoff time for the principals involved.

"Thus, instead of shooting ourselves in the foot and lambasting Capitalism, we should instead oppose Fascism and the Corporate Capitalists who are promoting it."

I don't really fight capitalism, only the idea that this system is flawless, is based on natural laws and has been with us always and will be with us always. Not one of those assertions is correct.

As long as the political system says our hands are tied by our economic system it will be necessary to point out the flaws in that system that unnecessarily constrain us. Reducing the effect of capitalism's excesses will, I believe, promote the interests of society. Because real freedom is not measured by what stocks and bonds are available to purchase, its whether the people of a society control that society or whether they allow those that hold financial power to dictate how that society will function.

Frank, as you note, Capitalists promote the "dog eat dog" version of natural law. and hence the idea of "Free Enterprise". Some 25(?,I can't find a reference) years back, one of the biannual Couchiching conferences was cancelled because a list of credible speakers prepared to argue that free enterprise was then a full reality, and not essentially a myth, could not be found.

The "natural" reality is that "dog eat dog" is also a myth, in for nature species have found that limiting within-species aggression, while still allowing some aggression/competition for natural selection, promotes the success of the species as a whole.

And so we seen have the corner-store competing with the Department store, and society (Democratic Gov't) setting the laws governing that relationship, just as Nature does with her creatures.

But in recent times Capital has usurped the role of law-giver, allowing the uncontrolled self-interest of Capitalists to promote parasitism on their own kind, destroying competion, and producing mutant giants with only one single-minded desire, feeding an every-growuing appetite.

Capitalist Christians ascribe this to "human nature" and perhaps this true, but I prefer to think that most of us prefer to follow the natural laws I described above, of limited aggression/competition.

Unlike other species which cannot escape those natural laws which bind them, we can and do. We are perforce required to use our intelligence to make our own laws. But when we abuse nature, as we are doing now, we have failed to learn the lessons from past societies that Ronald Wright describes in A Short History of Progress.

The other, and perhaps more important, thing we have failed to learn is how to control self-interest. It befouls our approach to the management of our resources, just as it does with our relationship with our fellow humans.

The cure? Marx identified the cause as "Class Warfare", and that works for me, since it is our power elites who define the morals and write the laws, and what works better for them than self-interest? Think on it.