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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!josh
From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is "capitalism"?
Message-ID: <1973@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 13-May-85 21:46:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.1973
Posted: Mon May 13 21:46:34 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 11:38:31 EDT
References: <441@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <1831@topaz.ARPA>
Reply-To: josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall)
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 27

In article <531@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
>In article <1906@topaz.ARPA> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes:
>> ...  If capitalism were allowed to flourish, everyone
>> in the world would soon be rich;  under the socialist regime of squabbling
>> over the pieces of an ever-shrinking pie, we will all soon be utterly equal
>> in wretched poverty.
>
>Why do you imply that socialists are incapable of increasing productivity
>this way?  Why do you imply capitalists are incapable of squabbling over
>dividing the pie, shrinking or otherwise?
>Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh

Squabbling over dividing the pie goes with the concept that the pie should
be divided in the first place;  in a free market such behavior is known
as "theft" and is not allowed.  It is a free market that allows capitalism
to flourish;  a socialist order, though in some sense capable of being
capitalist, generally supresses it.  

Say we start a society off with everyone equally rich.  We secretly mark
ahead of time those who tend to save and invest, "a"; and those who do not,
"b".   We run the society for a while under the rules that a person's income
corresponds to his productivity.  We note, strangely enough, that the people
marked "a" tend to be wealthier than those marked "b".  Thus any egalitarian
redistribution would have to take money away from those who were more likely
to have invested it, and given it to those who were less likely to.

--JoSH