Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!microsof!uw-beaver!tektronix!ucbcad!ucbesvax.turner From: ucbesvax.turner@ucbcad.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: A Response to Jeff Myers Note - (nf) Message-ID: <616@ucbcad.UUCP> Date: Sat, 28-May-83 19:04:23 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbcad.616 Posted: Sat May 28 19:04:23 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jun-83 06:06:02 EDT Lines: 57 #R:trw-unix:-20700:ucbesvax:7500016:000:2877 ucbesvax!turner May 28 17:12:00 1983 In all, I think Prudence's examples (hackneyed as they may be) are fair examples of how government bureaucracy and efficient business operation are inimical. This is not to register total agreement, however. Prudence needs some correction, or we need some clarification from her, when she says: > While it is true that the USSR suffered during WWII, Germany and > Japan both suffered more, yet the free market has allowed entrepeneurs to > rebuild the countries. The stifling Soviet bureaucracy has prevented this > mechanism from working. Let us also dispell the notion that the Soviet > Union was some sort of primitive backwater at the time of the Revolution. > In 1910, the USSR was the fifth largest industrial nation in the world > and a net exporter of food. Communism has had such a crippling effect > on a naturally productive nation that countries as devoid of resources > as Switzerland have long surpassed them. Umm...is she forgetting the Marshall Plan, in the case of Germany? I don't think you can say, outright, that they could have done it without significant government intervention on the part of the U.S. In Japan, it's even less a case of "entrepreneurial" capitalism--industrialization was a very explicit GOVERNMENT policy--and key industries were parcelled out to old (formerly feudal) ruling families, not to the most competitive--who didn't exist yet. MacArthur didn't do much to change this, but it is notable that he oversaw one the world's more successful land-reform programs. (And, as matters stand now, the Japanese use the market economy as a testing ground for new industries; the ones that survive get to benefit by government support. This is a sight better than the U.S. "bailout" policy for the Good Ol' Boy industrialists.) As for Russia being the fifth largest industrial nation in the world before the revolution--what does this mean? Lithium is the THIRD lightest element in the table but you couldn't fill a balloon with it and expect it to float. Perhaps industrial-output-per-capita would be a better measure. And I think THAT figure would put Russia well behind most of Europe at the time. Prudence, again: > Let me end with a lesson from history. Laissez-faire capitalism is the > only form of economy in history that has coincided with freedom and > prosperity. The unending cycle of stagflation and recession that we > have been suffering for nearly 20 years is a direct result of having > abandoned such an economy. Not a very good historical lesson. When and where has laissez-faire existed? She gives no examples. In any case, freedom and prosperity are relative terms in this unfree and still rather impoverished world. For me, it suffices to point out that Milton Friedman's economic god- child, General Pinochet of Chile, will never stand among the world's great libertarians. Michael Turner