Re: True faiths ( was Re: The true faith )

["James A. Robertson" <jarober@mail.com>]

As much as I enjoy a good political discussion, and as much as I've been 
sucked into them in this and other forums, I'm going to ask that you 
take this to email or an appropriate forum.

Thanks,


Thomas F. Burdick wrote:

> Nils Goesche <cartan@t-online.de> writes:
> 
> 
>>There /is/ something wrong with your idea of `capitalism' being
>>`optimizing' for anything like `short-term gains'.  /People/ are
>>`optimizing'.  Maybe some managers and politicians are `optimizing
>>for short-term gains'.  But that is nothing to worry about:  If you
>>think you know better how to win in the long run, by any means, do it!
>>Those stupid short-term-thinkers that apparently worry you so much
>>will lose and you'll take them over when they're broke ;-)
>>
> 
> To say the above you need to completely ignore property relations.
> 
> 
>>But yes, I know what you're up to.
>>
> 
> No, you don't.  Just because you've met a whole lot of Stalinists and
> holier-than-thou Social Democrats doesn't mean you understand the
> views of everyone in the class struggle.  In particular, even if it
> were reasonable to have that attitude with Europeans, projecting your
> political understanding across the Atlantic is a recipe for disaster.
> 
> 
> 
>   You are, like everybody else
> 
>>on the `leftist' side,
>>convinced that you can do better than the market; that you know what
>>people /really/ want, or at least should want to do or to buy because
>>you are, because of your superior intelligence, able to predict
>>the future and are the only one who can tell what has to be done instead
>>in order to save us all.  So, we need a strong government, ownership
>>of companies and anything else has to be transferred to the government
>>which must be led by yourself, of course, not by some ordinary,
>>mortal short-term-thinker.  Then, elections are no longer necessary
>>and in fact dangerous, because the stupid public might not recognize,
>>because of their lack of intelligence, how everything the government
>>does will be good for them, in the long run, of course, and some
>>`right-wing' evildoers might convince them to elect somebody else and
>>we can't have that, can we?
>>
>>
> 
>>Pretty close?  I hope you are not offended by this too much, but I
>>wanted to show you how all this `leftist' talk sounds to people not
>>sharing your views.
>>
> 
> Oh, I know how I sound to others.  I can't do much about the fact that
> some people listen to one thing and hear another.  The only way to get
> past that is to have a real conversation with someone.  On that note,
> if you want to continue this over e-mail, I'm down.  But I'd rather
> not continue this in comp.*, for reasons I hope are obvious :)
> 
> 
>>  by Milton and Rose D. Friedman,
>>
> 
> Oh dear god, Milton Friedman???  I don't know about your politicl
> views, but this man's are frighteningly right-wing.  If you want to
> know what his politics means for the 2nd and 3rd world, look at what
> he helped do in Latin America.  BTW, this is a very mainstream view to
> be frightened of / hateful towards him.
> 
>