Baygon:"capitalism is unstable - something that we are witnessing now."

Capitalism is unstable because it is reliant on the enlightened self-interest of individuals making decisions for themselves. Command economies are stable because they remove the uncertainty created by individuals acting in their own interest. Of course, they might be stably heading off the nearest cliff, such as in the Soviet example, or the Fascist ones. Zimbabwe is a command economy, ditto North Korea.

Personally, I know what I prefer

If people have any wealth it's in their houses, but house prices don't always increase. When credit is tight as it is now, they can be stagnant for years. A dwindling minority can count on a pension on which they could comfortably live, and not many have significant savings.
More and more people live from day to day, with little idea of what the future may bring. Middle-class people used to think their lives unfolded in an orderly progression. But it's no longer possible to look at life as a succession of stages in which each is a step up from the last.
In the process of creative destruction the ladder has been kicked away and for increasing numbers of people a middle-class existence is no longer even an aspiration.

As capitalism has advanced it has returned most people to a new version of the precarious existence of Marx's proles. Our incomes are far higher and in some degree we're cushioned against shocks by what remains of the post-war welfare state.
But we have very little effective control over the course of our lives, and the uncertainty in which we must live is being worsened by policies devised to deal with the financial crisis. Zero interest rates alongside rising prices means you're getting a negative return on your money and over time your capital is being eroded.
The situation of many younger people is even worse. In order to acquire the skills you need, you'll have to go into debt. Since at some point you'll have to retrain you should try to save, but if you're indebted from the start that's the last thing you'll be able to do. Whatever their age, the prospect facing most people today is a lifetime of insecurity.

Risk takers

At the same time as it has stripped people of the security of bourgeois life, capitalism has made the type of person that lived the bourgeois life obsolete.

When savings are melting away being thrifty can be the road to ruin. It's the person who borrows heavily and isn't afraid to declare bankruptcy that survives and goes on to prosper.When the labour market is highly mobile it's not those who stick dutifully to their task that succeed, it's people who are always ready to try something new that looks more promising.
In a society that is being continuously transformed by market forces, traditional values are dysfunctional and anyone who tries to live by them risks ending up on the scrapheap.We find ourselves in the world Marx anticipated, where everyone's life is experimental and provisional, and sudden ruin can happen at any timeA tiny few have accumulated vast wealth but even that has an evanescent, almost ghostly quality.
Today there is no haven of security. The gyrations of the market are such that no-one can know what will have value even a few years ahead.

This state of perpetual unrest is the permanent revolution of capitalism We're only part of the way through a financial crisis that will turn many more things upside down
Currencies and governments are likely to go under, along with parts of the financial system we believed had been made safe. The risks that threatened to freeze the world economy only three years ago haven't been dealt with. They've simply been shifted to states.
Whatever politicians may tell us about the need to curb the deficit, debts on the scale that have been run up can't be repaid. Almost certainly they will be inflated away - a process that is bound to painful and impoverishing for many.
The result can only be further upheaval, on an even bigger scale. But it won't be the end of the world, or even of capitalism. Whatever happens, we're still going to have to learn to live with the mercurial energy that the market has released.

Jesus! it was a article about public value for public money!
And most of the problems mentioned in the article do come back to too much 'state planning/regulation' but not to too much state funding.

Peter Hume Perhaps you mistake me for someone who has an ideology to support. Do you always assume that anyone who disagrees with you is 'the enemy'? Is this a characteristic of yours in your real life?

I'm not a socialist or a capitalist - just a sad old welfare bludger looking for an explanation of what I would do in your world when Hayek simply rejects me.

That was where this all started; me asking you about the meaning of that passage in Road To Serfdom. You are a very prolific writer. Quite impressive, or do you cut, paste and adapt from the Cato website?

My dad back in the 60's told me that neither capitalism or socialism will be the answer - in the long term - because neither is a 'proper' ideology. They are just systems of dividing up property and income and neither addresses the 'problem' of human nature.

Based on my understanding of psychology it seems to me that there are a number of different types of human nature and an ideology that will work will need to take this into account.

What do you think about that? Really that's all I want from you, not attempting to coerce you or say you are a bad person. But perhaps you don't do thinking about new ideas all that well? Are you a real libertarian?

Poirot There was a very intersting interview on RN the other morning with John Elder Robison, a man who was diagnosed with Aspergers when he was 40. He was the bloke who did all the tech stuff for Pink Floyd.

He talks about how he was able to help his son cope with the real world and a technique TMS Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, that provided him with a few minutes of understanding what it is like to be neuro-typical and understand how other people think. I would like to try that.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2011/3305306.htm