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Dear David F.,

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I have it from the horse's mouth that it was not George (dubya) Bush who decided all that. It was God:

George (dubya), was quoted as having confided to the Texas evangelist, James Robinson: “I feel like God wants me to run for President … I know it won’t be easy for me or my family, but God wants me to do it”. He subsequently declared to Abu Mazen, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister: “God told me to strike at Al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East”.

So who said the United States had a secular government ?

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Dear Squeers and George F.,

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Marx is dead. His ideas do not live on. They have turned to stone for eternity.

We are the ones who live on, at least for a little while. If we like, we can make Marx's ideas ours and do with them as we wish. It is our ideas that live on, not his.

Like just about all our other ideas, we will have inherited them, adopted them, copied them, or stolen them from someone else. In this case, Marx.

But whatever we do with the ideas we will have received from Marx, it has absolutely no effect on his ideas.

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Dear Banjo,

From the information I have the Scandinavian capitalist societies are the most decent societies on earth. They combine freedom with economic security and are great places to live.

A hundred years ago they were not great places to live, and people left those countries to come to the US and Australia. Since then there have been changes in those countries, and they are attracting people from other places who want to live there.

There is not one capitalism. There are many different capitalist societies, and some are horribly exploitive. However, some are wonderful.

It seems more sensible to me to try to emulate the capitalist societies that are good places to live rather than get rid of capitalism - the good with the bad.

David f: <There is not one capitalism. There are many different capitalist societies, and some are horribly exploitive. However, some are wonderful.>

Daer david F,
if only that were true:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/510

Capitalist welfare is unsustainable, it's as simple as that, unless the source of wealth that pays for it is inexhaustible. Australia's mining industry is likely to keep us lucky for a while yet, for instance, but it will run out, or demand will dry up, probably because of the cost (in energy) of extraction. But then our "glut" (let's not bandy words by calling it prosperity) is paid for by the forced ascetics of the future. We are "the future eaters" after all, economically as much as ecologically.
Neither is it true that there is more than one capitalism, at least not in the long run. To begin with, the fact that capitalism's dynamic is endless growth (in a closed system! It blows my mind that the scientists, mathematicians and other serious thinkers I communicate with don't object to this startling equation!), it follows that the system must go global, as of course it has, with no respect for national borders or western hubris (our 'glorious' culture will be as infamous for its 'achievements' as Ancient Rome's one day---look at what they achieved, but at what cost!
We treat capitalism like a deity that mustn't be questioned; the least equivocation makes one a Greenie, lefty, communist, collectivist bludger. Pure unthinking hegemonic ideology! And the PH's and AGIR's of the world think they're so deep! lol.

Those (short term) "wonderful" capitalisms you mention still exploit foreign labour, not to mention an increasingly wretched planet!
..And I haven't mentioned the "human" cost.

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Dear David and Squeers,

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The financial crisis hurricane that swept through Europe on its way from America blew most of that November 2005 Brussels Journal economic data out the window.

In terms of economic freedom, according to the most recent Heritage Foundation index published by the Wall Street Journal, their ratings were as follows:

Year 2008:

Denmark 11
Finland 16
Sweden 27
Norway 34

As regards individual freedoms, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2008, their ratings were as follows:

Sweden 1
Norway 2
Denmark 5
Finland 6

The average of the two rating values produces the following results:

Denmark 8
Finland 11
Sweden 14
Norway 18

It is interesting to compare these averages to the averages for:

New Zealand 6.5
Australia 7
USA 11.5
UK 15.5

For memory, there are roughly 200 sovereign states in the world.

All this, of course, must be taken with a pinch of salt.

I, personally, have a soft spot for the Netherlands (average rank 8.5). It is a great place to live, centrally located, nice open people, nice weather, more "practical" freedom than any other country in Europe (abortions, euthanasia, drugs, quality judicial system, etc.).

Nothing is perfect, of course. It is a "capitalist" country. But the day we find something better, you can bet your boots the Dutch will be the first to implement it. Holland, or the Netherlands if you like, must surely rank as one of the most maturely civilised countries in the world.

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Dear Squeers,

I agree. We must live sustainably on our finite planet. However, many things are blamed on capitalism which have nothing to do with capitalism. The Marxist countries have had a horrible environmental record. The United States had a dust bowl in the thirties which they got rid of by such methods as taking fragile areas out of agricultural production and planting vetch to stabilize the soil. Khruschchev later put areas of the USSR into agricultural production and caused dust bowls. I have seen our local Trotskyites wear badges saying "Capitalism Pollutes". They can be talked to, and I mentioned some of the environmental disasters of the communist countries such as the Three Gorges Dam. They had never really questioned. Alienation in our society is another thing blamed on capitalism which Marx wrote about. It is a consequence of modern industrial organisation regardless of the ownership of the means of production.

I think it is quite possible to live sustainably under capitalism of the Scandinavian type - not of the Australian or US type.

Democratic capitalist countries with a concern for human rights and a good welfare system are the best societies we have. They are not the be-all and end-all, and better societies may be developed. However, the Marxist societies have been massive failures in many regards. They have been great successes in corpse production.

I share Banjo's feeling for the Netherlands. I have spent much time there as I worked for Philips in the US and used to go to the Netherlands to work out new designs and test systems and devices. One time I got sick, and the hotel called a doctor. He came to the hotel and treated me. The bill was about three American dollars since he was subsidised by the government. He told me he had an American girl friend who wanted him to come live in the United States. Even though doctors could make much more money in the US and had more status he preferred to stay where he was because he thought Dutch society was a very decent one.

After Indonesia became independent many Indonesians chose to live in the country of their former colonial master. It is a very good place to live.

My uncle was a Bolshevik in czarist Russia and was arrested by the police for revolutionary activity. My father brought him and other members of the family to the United States in 1921. After four years of Lenin he was no longer a Bolshevik and lived until he was 98.

It is a characteristic of some humans to go at it with redoubled effort when something doesn't work. I have no reason to think that the Marxist societies would be any better if Marx's recipes were tried with a different cast of characters.