Sorry, in a hurry, slip in the editing; should read 'I never mentioned government intervention or regulation.'

*A nice thought, but just a drop in an ocean of problems, Yabby.*

Well its around 20 billion $ a year Beez, so not to be sneezes at.
Today workers largely own the means of production, ie industry and
those "evil" corporations, through their super funds. Thats another
1.3 trillion or so. The more profits those evil corporations make,
the more workers have in their super funds, to enjoy retirement.

What capitalism does is maximise opportunity and innovation for
those who can be bothered, unlike say Mikk. Those who just
want to complain, well IMHO they are happiest complaining, that
is just their nature. Nothing is their fault, its always everybody
else. Its a human foible, I know.

beelzebub, do you deliberately do things to make your actions less efficient?

Your description of "economic efficiency" is quite simply 'way off target, Beelzebub.

>>Consider what a maximally efficient society would be like. It would have the smallest number of the largest possible companies producing the maximum amount of goods for the lowest possible cost, to be sold at the highest possible price and return the largest possible profit. This would be done by retaining the smallest number of employees working the longest possible hours at the lowest possible wages and conditions.<<

In this scenario, who would be available to purchase the goods?

For "maximum amount of goods" to work, you would require a sizeable market. In order for a population to be in a position to buy in bulk at the prices that would give the supplier high profit margins, it would need to be both numerous, and affluent.

But the population in the picture you paint appears to be either out of work, or poorly paid. Neither condition would lead to the market that is a prerequisite to your scenario.

There is another problem.

If these companies are able to make "the largest possible profit", you would quickly find less greedy entrants to the market, who would sell more cheaply and quickly take away their market share.

"In other words, it would be a society of slave labourers with no civil rights or personal lives working full-time for a small, wealthy elite who were free to do as they pleased."

I suggest that you read (or re-read) Dickens. His era took us closest to this scenario, for three reasons.

One, the markets were still in their infancy, allowing a small number of suppliers to dominate and extract excess rents.

Two, the labour force was not yet organized. This didn't come until the twentieth century.

And three, the supply chains (and communications) were primitive, which allowed the industrialists to control input costs in a way that would not be possible today.

It is economic efficiency that allowed us to leave those "Hard Times" behind.

Our Western economies are not effficient because we have no money for infrastructure,hence our living standards are falling.

We are being crushed by the burden of too much debt.We have given away the right of creating new money for GDP + inflation to a private group of banks who are screwing us into abject poverty.

http://secretofoz.com/

""" The belief that economic efficiency is "the purpose of human society itself" is undoubtedly the most crippled understanding of humankind I've heard. """

Wow! You're either an OHS officer, or one of those greeny people that want to ban the wheel so everyone can have a job carting stuff by hand.

But lets not miss quote people, shall we?

Beelzebub wrote:
<<In other words, it would be a society of slave labourers with no civil rights or personal lives working full-time for a small, wealthy elite who were free to do as they pleased.>>

mikk wrote:
""" We dont have far to go do we? """

No we don't! The lefties who have been running us for the past two hundred years have got us right where they want us and it's getting worse!

Now I'm confused. I always thought Communism was having the plebs do all the work while the plutocrats ate lobster and caviar all day!

mikk wrote:
"Capitalism knows the price of everything but the value of NOTHING!"

And you know this how?

Because as far as I've ever known, our generation has never experienced a true capitalist free market.
You must be like 6000 years old?