Fozz - couldn't agree more, and I'd hate to see such a system come to pass. I made the comment to indicate that while capitalism may appear to be reaching its zenith, who's to say where it will end?

Bushbred – me young?

Thankyou BB – I do feel younger than I am, but am dealing with my 6th decade as if it were my third.

The first rule is the playing field will always out last the players.

The game remains the same.

Some folk try to get and edge by getting a rules change but nature does know best and the balance eventually returns. A few individuals, sadly, might be penalized unfairly along the way but no one promised us a rose garden – except the socialists – and they would promise anything for power, even their immortal souls.

It has been the owners of GM seeds and the moment it is “big pharm”. Those players will always be there but they will always end up being challenged.

As for the Middle East, values change with generations. The point is, you and I are not responsible for the wrongs of our grandparents, only for the wrongs we do ourselves. (For some reason the Celts think differently, they still go on about the Battle of the Boyne as if it happened yesterday).

We can only do and be responsible for what we personally have done and what we will do now. Good luck with it.

Fozz

Ultimately the best we can get is a government which leaves us to make our own mistakes because, when politicians make them for us, they make bigger / worse mistakes, it takes longer to realize and change course and what we lose is not only what it costs the individual but the opportunity to have got it right for ourselves.

Some around here and come to accuse me of being a “libertarian”. Maybe that is right but at least I am not trying to deny anyone their sovereign right to err.

TurnRightThenLeft,

Sorry mate, I did realise the flavour of your comment, I didn't mean to indicate that you were in favour of such a society.

Col Rouge,

I don't totally disagree with what you say Col, but I must stress that balance is the key. If I had to call myself anything I would probably describe myself a a socialist, but that doesn't mean that I want economic and social policy dictated straight out of the communist manifesto or Mao's little red book.

The individualism you speak of is a natural part of who we are as human beings(that's where communism had it wrong), but collective interest is just as important. There is incredible power in many millions of people striving toward a set of common goals together. Elected national governments, when they put their minds to it, have the ability to shape(and finance) the common good in ways that private enterprise, motivated as it is, by individual self interest, simply cannot. While they can be and are corrupted like anything else, they can be dismissed from office. Private enterprise cannot be voted out since they were never voted in. Thus, when they comandeer vital public services and infrastructure that hold our civilization together, they pretty much end up with power without responsability.

Business for profit is not fit to have complete over things such as health, education, power generation or natural monopolies such as water supply. Indeed, it's natural winner takes all tendency to monopolize ensures that at least some public ownership and, shock horror, government regulations are needed to maintain fair prices and fair supply. Living through my area water boards(now a privately owned company) attempt to "economically rationalise" water to the tune of a 600% price increase brought this fact home to me in a big way. I wonder what would have happened if the very embarrased state government had not still been the majority shareholder?

There will never be a perfect system but public ownership must always remain a big part of that system, or we will surely degrade into a bleak Orwellian world.

I wouldn't bother Fozz, I was trying to explain this to Col in another thread. Col ducked and weaved, threw cheap insults, purposely ignored my points.

Fozz “Business for profit is not fit to have complete over things such as health, education, power generation or natural monopolies such as water supply.”

Why not?

Private Schools deliver value – why should someone not be allowed to improve their educational opportunities (or those of their children) by spending their discretionary income on it?

Private Hospitals deliver value – and having suffered the rigours of the UK Nationalised Health system, I can assure you nationalised health monopolies offer poor service to a captive client base, they have all the worst attributers of a monopoly resulting in no accountability and no performance standards.

Power generation and telecommunications are services which can be readily privatised and should be accountable for their performance.

Telecom’s being an example of the consumer benefits of private ownership. The politicians do not get to decide “commercial viability” based on “political expediency”. Because when they do it ends up costing the consumer / user more and denies consumers access to other competitive options.

Water, because of its particular qualities and necessity for life, is the only resource which should be and remain in public ownership.

As for “government regulations are needed to maintain fair prices and fair supply”

I have no criticism of the ACCC. I am a fervent supporter of such institutions. I was appalled that the socialists allowed the Coles–Myer and the Woolworth-Safeway mergers to proceed, such a concentration of purchasing power significantly distorted and destroyed the balance in the retail supply chain to the detriment of both producers and consumers.

Orwell wrote his prophetic tragedy as one where the government owned and controlled everything and decided what we would learn, through controlled schooling, how we would live through nationalised services, such as health and what we would think, through such socialist apparatchiki such as the Stasis.
The great advantage with the free-enterprise model is, no one has sufficient power and control to instigate an organisation such as the Stasis, only governments can possibly do that and only governments have ever sustained such horrors over time.

Boo hoo bobalot

ColRouge,

As usual, you are half right about a lot of things.

Private schools do indeed deliver value - to those who can afford to pay. Most people are in favour of quality public education.

Private hospitals deliver value, again to those with the dollars in their pockets. My experience with our local public hospital is that for years the standard of care was lacking, in some cases apalling, but after voter anger reached boiling point, the standard has much improved although it still has some way to go.

Power generation: what makes privately owned power stations accountable for their prices? The Queensland governments refusal to allow the power transmission lines to be sold. The ability to restrict access to the grid for those who misbehave through public ownership of the lines is a fairly effective form of regulation, though I'm sure there are other kinds in use.

Telecom: it's purpose was never to provide attractive share options but to provide affordable, reliable communications for twenty million people across a vast continent. With the three amigos in charge, pocketing huge sums of our money and slshing 12 000 jobs, it could well be argued that it's net value to Australia as a whole has actually diminished.

And once everthing else is privatised, what's to stop water suffering the same fate? Just ask the Bolivians about Bechtel purchasing their water supply and immediatly driving prices through the roof, then after being booted from the country, attempting to sue 8 million of the worlds poorest people for damages. No wonder they put the socialists right back in power.

An on socialists col, explain to me how the allowed this supermarket chain merger. I'm sure you're just dying to.

As for free enterprise, a multi-national company owning millions of peoples drinking water suggests rather a lot of abused power to me.