Dear Poirot,

I traded with India in the 70s. At the end of it all I walked away,
shaking my head, more aware as to why they were poor.

Getting anything passed by their many officials, with their many
stamps of approval, was virtually impossible. Any logic or reason
was thrown out the window. The whole thing could only be described
as constant chaos. The Indian companies who were trying to export
products to Europe, could only cringe in embarrasment at their
own officialdom.

If you think that the average bureaucrat in Dehli cares greatly
about starvation in other parts of India, think again.

Politics in India has always been the problem. How much it impedes
good economics, is the question.

> I traded with India in the 70s. At the end of it all I walked
> away, shaking my head, more aware as to why they were poor.

Given the slant of your posts here, I highly doubt you learned anything other than the 'wogs' certainly weren't 'up to snuff'...

> Getting anything passed by their many officials, with their
> many stamps of approval, was virtually impossible.

The pathology of colonialism and post-/neo-colonialism is well understood. Except by "Free Market" ideologs, of course.

> If you think that the average bureaucrat in Dehli cares greatly
> about starvation in other parts of India, think again.

Like that's somehow a revelation. The alienation of people from one another, psychologically and morally -- due in the first instance to their alienation from each other by means of their estrangement in their various associations to the common means of production -- is a well-known fact. Except to "Free Market" ideologs, of course, of course.

> Politics in India has always been the problem. How much it impedes
> good economics, is the question.

'Politics', as they say, is "concentrated economics". So true. But its amazing how your entire line of thinking not once reaches back to the British Raj... which is "politics" indeed. And in India, no less. Especially before the Partition.

People who talk about different possible “economic systems” are merely displaying their ignorance of economics. It’s like saying why don’t we have a different physics, or a different chemistry, because we don’t like the old one?

Underlying the idea of different economic systems is the idea that there is really no such thing as universally true propositions of human action, no such thing as reason, or economic science. Everything is just a matter of opinion, of “ideology”, and no-one has any more claim on the truth than anyone else.

Of course if this were true:
a) socialists would have no more claim to truth or right than anyone else and there’d be no reason to have socialism rather than capitalism; and
b) the different attempts to implement socialism would have worked; or at least some, or even just *one* of them would have worked.

Dear Peter Hume,
you raise fascinating considerations here. Economy is indeed a part of human life, but what is ostensibly economics today is a gross distortion of what it was to Plato and Aristotle and philosophy in general prior to the capitalist era. Economics, according to Aristotle, is properly only the art of acquisition in the sense of procuring those items useful to a household or a state; "true wealth consists of such use-values, for the amount of property which is needed for a good life is not unlimited". True economy then is a "rich" life complemented with the satisfaction of all its needs. What we have under capitalism is analogous to what Aristotle called "chrematistics", or acquisition for its own sake. "Economics, unlike chrematistics, has a limit ... for the object of the former is something different from money, of the latter the augmentation of money. By confusing these two forms, which overlap each other, some people have been led to look upon the preservation and increase of money ad infinitum as the final goal of economics" (Aristotle).
What we have today is chrematistics, not economy!

Your suggestion that there are "universally true propositions of human action", including "economic science" is, imo, true, but you seem to be saddling human nature with an ignoble chrematistics rather than a virtuous spirit of "economy". Indeed it is today uncontested in vulgar circles that Man is "by nature" insatiably acquisitive. This is arguably not so; Man's nature is distorted by capitalism; s/he is to be pitied for an addiction that has attained the status (indeed the stature!) of a norm. Rather than true human economy, arguably innate, capitalism, or 'political economy', is an abstraction, a virus.

Interesting posts today everyone!

David f, "You don't justify atrocities to produce eventual pie in the sky." Personally I think that you should say sorry for this smudge on my character. You were upset when I said you were ignorant, while you are inferring that I am some kind of closet war criminal. If I can spell it out for you again; I do not support any reforms that are not popularly supported.

Squeers, Sienna etc, This idea of a necessary drop in living standards in order for us to become more sustainable does not take into account the current massive inefficiencies in the economic system. By this I am referring especially to the efficiencies that can be gained through cooperation and sharing, most particularly at the local levels of society. My previous article on OLO was of course on this subject, criticizing Adam Smith for describing competition as the sole engine of a healthy economy. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10904

Squeers, "I was pointing out to GH that what he is advocating is, essentially, communism."

Thankyou for trying to include me, but I am definitely not advocating communism. I do not believe that it is possible to rescue socialism/communism from it's doomed position as the dialectical opposite of capitalism.

But actually I think that we can see a melting away of the negative polarity between those two enemies. Instead we are moving forward in a new way that has taken something good from either extreme. I would suggest, therefore that both moderate socialists and moderate capitalists are much better defined as being in neither of the opposing categories but in the middle. The child from the two parents, the third part of the dialectical triad. This us and them debate is not only negative, it is also way behind the times. Here's to the new paradigm. Enjoy your taco

*I highly doubt you learned anything other than the 'wogs' certainly weren't 'up to snuff'...*

I expected nothing less from a self opinionated poster such as yourself
Grok, then to try and create a strawman argument. It won't work,
sorry.

But as a matter of interest, rather then rely on pencil pushers
such as yourself to find out what was wrong with India, I asked
the Indians who lived there. Their overwhelming reply was nearly
always the same. "Too many people!"

But what I have gleaned from your posts, is that you know diddly
squat about business. Its really quite straightforward, but clearly
beyond you. Produce win-win outcomes, where everyone benefits
and everyone is happy.

*What we have today is chrematistics, not economy!*

That depends on the indivdual, Squeers. Plenty of free market
believers get to a point where they accept that they have enough to
see them out, so retire early to follow their passions. Others
such as Murdoch, do it out of pure passion, as they would find
say playing golf, rather boring. Others, such as Gates and Buffett,
see it all as a huge game, then see the challenge in giving it all
away, to the benefit of humanity. Not everyone is thrilled by the
thought of tending the roses in their old age, or even pondering
about Aristotle for that matter.