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From: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is "capitalism"?
Message-ID: <470@qantel.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Jun-85 22:01:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: qantel.470
Posted: Wed Jun 19 22:01:55 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 01:33:12 EDT
Reply-To: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Organization: MDS Qantel, Hayward, CA
Lines: 25

In <194@ubvax.UUCP> Tony Wuersch writes:
> Yes, socialism is a system where intellectuals gain relative to capitalism.
> So what?  Consider this: intellectuals would gain under ANY EXTENSION OF
> DEMOCRACY.  Simply because intellectuals have the communicative skills needed
> to be more persuasive, and the value of persuasiveness increases as DEMOCRACY
> increases. 

Intellectuals gain with every move toward an administered society. The question
of democracy is orthogonal to whether businessmen or intellectuals make the
decisions. In fact, businessmen and intellectuals-turned-administrators are
not radically different animals. It is the incentives and penalties they
face that makes them different.

Compare a businessman misjudging, say, the demand for laptop computers 
to an intellectual predicting that MIRVs will improve U.S. national 
security or that TVA will end poverty in Appalachia. Retribution is much
swifter and harsher in the first case than in the second. This gives us
a low-cost utilitarian argument for leaving economic decisionmaking in the
hands of cutthroat shortsighted businessmen who often would have a hard 
time articulating what the hell they are trying to accomplish. Note that
such a pro-capitalist argument does not need libertarian-style assumptions
about the magic of the marketplace or lack of coercion in market transactions.

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Gabor Fencsik               {dual,nsc,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor