Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site oberon.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!oliveb!hplabs!sdcrdcf!oberon!walker From: walker@oberon.UUCP (Mike Walker) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Health Care, Wonderful Market for Message-ID: <149@oberon.UUCP> Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 02:21:50 EST Article-I.D.: oberon.149 Posted: Mon Oct 28 02:21:50 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 19:13:12 EST References: <204@gargoyle.UUCP> <10516@ucbvax.ARPA> <787@psivax.UUCP> <10659@ucbvax.ARPA> Reply-To: walker@oberon.UUCP (Mike Walker) Organization: U. of So. Calif., Los Angeles Lines: 28 Summary: A socialist economy must be a command economy. Saying the community owns something solves nothing. Everything is scarce. Things must be allocated. There must be a decision making process. The market uses individual ownership and decision making. A socialist economy uses collective ownership and collective decision making. The decision making power must be vested in a few if the population involved is of any size. Once they have this power (the power of ownership) then they turn around and pursue their own ends. Why should they care about the ends of the weak? With individual ownership and decision making the little guy has a chance of his own ends being persued since he has some decision making power that comes with ownership (or for the poor, the hope of gaining such power). Even if we assume that the power elite care about the ends of the people (ignoring all of history, a vast testament of man's callousness toward his fellow man) they could not know or pursue them as well the individual himself. Imagine a small group of men trying to make *ALL* of the economic decisions of daily life for a population of just thousands (let alone billions). How are they to know if I want to snack on jelly beans, run off to this or that movie, or buy some jeans. Even if you break the population down into small groups so that the decision makers are closer to the people, you are only approaching the ideal of giving each individual this power for himself (an ideal that requires private property). -- Michael D. Walker (Mike) Arpa: walker@oberon.ARPA Uucp: {the (mostly unknown) world}!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!oberon!walker {several select chunks}!sdcrdcf!oberon!walker