egalitarianism and free markets

Friend, thanks for the call. You were clear. The tension between the need to [protect against excesses of free enterprise and the desire not to stifle creativity is clear and important. That's quite an admission for a liberal to make. I've been struggling with how to express that tension in my own thinking.

I didn't this morning state the main reason why I like Denmark. [I freely admit that I might think differently about Denmark if I lived there. I don't want to bike to work in the rain.] The reason is not encompassed by the dynamics you described: it is that when markets are regulated only to protect against excesses which destroy market efficiency, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That seemed to happen here and all over the world, when markets are regulated minimally. That is an easily proven fact.

I've been reading stuff on the internet about the meaning of Bush's "Democratic Capitalism". There's quite a literature on it.

One f the themes that runs through the discussion of Democratic Capitalism is that egalitarianism should not be part of public policy, because it necessarily stifles the efficient operation of the market, to everyone's detriment.

I think egalitarianism should be a part of public policy and I believe that increasing the buying power of poor people helps rather than hurts productivity. I believe Hussein believes so too.

The end result of unrestrained capitalism is a feudal society -- as I predict will be the likely but not inevitable end result of current international trends.

I would pose the tension this way: how do we regulate markets so as to foster creativity and innovation and provide for a more even distribution of the world's goods? That is an empirical, not a moral, question, though it has a moral base.

Both the socialist model at it's most controlling and the capitalist model at it's most unconstrained are like Goya's "The sleep of reason produces monsters."

[I don't know a good pic of reason awake and run amok; perhaps Picasso's Guernica will do:


Must our lives always be dualistic?]

Denmark, it seems to me, strikes a reasonable balance, but Denmark is a small, homogenous country. We are a mage, heterogeneous country, seemingly intent of fracturing even more. I welcome suggestions on how to achieve a balance here.

A world balance, with no international government, is even harder to imaging; and, in my view, even more desirable -- but you will, I suppose, dismiss this as yet another Utopian fantasy of Liberal fuzzy-headeaddedness.

Yours in Anarchy,

Durell

Top-down or bottom-up ecionomics

Robert Reich is one of Hussein's economic advisors.  Reich's blog is a short course on the differences between Hussein's approach to the economy and the Grouchy Old Man's approach. Kindergarten stuff, but a good, clear, refresher.  Needless to say, Bushco and McCain's advisors disagree.  Violently.

Go to

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/07/reich-mccainomi.html 

to read Reich's blog.

NOTE TO JP:  I FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT!!! sorta.