> Today workers largely own the means of production ...
Maybe own, but not control. Voting and non-voting shares, which is how the CEOs and Board members get their massive rake-offs even when the company's going to the dogs.

> The more profits those evil corporations make, the more workers have in their super funds
This has been the cleverest move of all, to get the poor sods to put their savings into legal entities that, sooner or later, will be revealed as purely paper constructs. By the time they retire, the company's assets will have been moved to a different legal entity, the company loaded up with debt (the borrowed money sitting in the Board's off-shore accounts), and all they'll 'enjoy' in their retirement is a mess of legal fees. Ask the 'beneficiaries' of James Hardy's asbestos 'compensation plan' how this works, or the 'investors' in Storm.

> What capitalism does is maximise opportunity and innovation ...
In theory this is correct. In practice it works rather differently ...

> beelzebub, do you deliberately do things to make your actions less efficient?
Hmm, I may have been too subtle. Efficient actions and efficient economies are very different things. My point is that the word has different implications and consequences in different contexts.

> In this scenario, who would be available to purchase the goods?
Quite right. This is one of the flaws of the present system, that it requires unceasing expansion to survive. So long as there's another China, India, or Africa to exploit it can keep doing so, but the mess it leaves behind in exploited countries is devastating. Hasn't happened in Oz yet, but is now in the US, which is a failed state, socially and financially.

> But the population in the picture you paint appears to be either out of work, or poorly paid.
Yep, that's the case in the US today.

> Neither condition would lead to the market that is a prerequisite to your scenario.
So long as ongoing expansion can be maintained, the system will survive.

< continued ...

... continued >

> If these companies are able ... away their market share.
yep, the big boys eat up the smaller ones until only two or three monopolies remain; then they slug it out to see who'll get the lot. Presently happening in the US car market (all failed companies surviving on government handouts) and the international steel market.

> I suggest that you read (or re-read) Dickens. His era took us closest to this scenario
And, in the inevitable cycle of events, we're now heading back there.

> One, .. a small number of suppliers to dominate and extract excess rents.
And we're now seeing the plethora of smaller companies born last century being eaten up by TNCs.

> Two, the labour force was not yet organized.
Union membership is now at historic lows and declining.

> And three, allowed the industrialists to control input costs in a way that would not be possible today.
Today they have off-shore manufacturing, free trade, and immediate international cash flows.

> It is economic efficiency that allowed us to leave those "Hard Times" behind.
... and is now returning us to them. Thanks for proving my point.

> Our Western economies are not effficient because we have no money for infrastructure
The billions of dollars haven't disappeared, they've been used to create umpteen new millionaires across the globe.

> .. to a private group of banks who are screwing us into abject poverty.
Quite right, and IMO this is the key to constructive change. Nature uses multiple redundancy to ensure survival. An economic system with multiple autonomous currencies would easily survive corruption and collapse in a few of them, and would prevent a greedy elite from controlling everything. The LAST thing we want is a single international currency, which exactly what the international bankers are after.

> Because as far as I've ever known, our generation has never experienced a true capitalist free market.
No generation has - it's a theory and ideal incapable of practical realization, and would collapse overnight were it achieved.

No amount of verbal tap-dancing can conceal the fact that you haven't actually answered a single point that I raised, Beelzebub. Talking in trite soundbites seems to be about the best you can do.

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

You responded:

>>Quite right. This is one of the flaws of the present system, that it requires unceasing expansion to survive.<<

Having admitted that it cannot work the way you had proposed, you proceed to call upon some kind of mythical "unceasing expansion" to explain it away.

If there are no customers with the means to purchase your goods - which is the scenario you want us to believe - there can be no expansion, only contraction.

You contradict yourself everywhere.

"But the population in the picture you paint appears to be either out of work, or poorly paid."

>>Yep, that's the case in the US today.<<

Ahem. In case you hadn't noticed, the US is still a substantial, viable, if not particularly vibrant, component of the world economy. Have you been there recently? Or do you just read magazines?

I'd have to draw the conclusion that you haven't the slightest clue about the topic, and are simply trying your hand at sloganeering.

Sorry, I can't help myself sometimes.

When I said you contradict yourself, Beelzebub, I meant that what you write is one long self-contradiction.

>>So long as ongoing expansion can be maintained, the system will survive.<<

How does ongoing expansion occur if everyone is out of work or poorly paid? You cannot have it both ways. In logic, anyway.

>>And we're now seeing the plethora of smaller companies born last century being eaten up by TNCs<<

But these tend to be in dying industries, do they not? Your example of the rationalization of the car industry illustrates this perfectly. Meanwhile, new businesses are starting up every day.

>>Union membership is now at historic lows and declining.<<

Wouldn't you think, that if things are as bad as you say they are, union membership would be at record highs and climbing? Just another contradiction.

>>Today they have off-shore manufacturing, free trade, and immediate international cash flows.<<

My point, exactly. Where once the evil industrialists were able to monopolize the supply chain, today it is impossible, thanks to - as you so rightly say - "off-shore manufacturing, free trade, and immediate international cash flows". Yet another contradiction.

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

>>... and is now returning us to them. Thanks for proving my point.<<

I would be fascinated to hear your rationale that this proves your point.

If economic efficiency allowed for the introduction of fair work practices, competitive industries and a more affluent population, what exactly is it that you believe can reverse this effect?

Beelzebub,

What is clear is that what you think is economics is far from reality.

What is clear to most that actually follow economics is:

The share of the economic pie going small business has grown continuously over the past few decades, and the real wages of the man in the street has also grown continuously over the past few decades, and I would prefer to rely on the bureau of statistics than your anecdotal experience.

Perhaps your next post will be about something of which you know more, such as nuclear physics.

*Maybe own, but not control*

Not so Beelz, for of course every worker can choose which super fund
they entrust with their money. If they don't like the fund's policies,
they can move their assets elsewhere. But yes, they haven't yet
appointed you personally as CEO, so that you have the control that
you seem to want. Perhaps you simply don't have the intellect or
the talent.

*By the time they retire, the company's assets will have been moved to a different legal entity, the company loaded up with debt (the borrowed money sitting in the Board's off-shore accounts)*

Not as far as I am aware Beelz. Just to rattle off a few of our
larger companies, where super funds invest. BHP, Westpac, CBA,
NAB, Woolies, Woodside, Coles, any of the top 200 really. Can
you name any of them doing what you claim? Do you think Woolies
is going to vanish sometime soon?

*In theory this is correct. In practice it works rather differently*

Its happening every day Beelz, wether you are aware of it or not.