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Wtf? Switzerland is more free market than the US. The people still hold most of the power, there aren't many mega corps that own everything. There are lots o

Wtf? Switzerland is more free market than the US. The people still hold most of the power, there aren't many mega corps that own everything. There are lots of "mom and pop" businesses around. Switzerland is a wonderful coctail of free market capitalism and social responsibility toward it's citizens. Would you think it were more "capitalist" if there were a Walmart every thousand meters and all small businesses were dead?

bertil 16y ago
You are confusing two distinct things: socialism is a type of capital accumulation (capitalism, therefore) that considers that essential assets of productions should be government owned, or controlled. Anti-trust is a classic, albeit minimal socialist law; it is also coherent with populism. Anti-trust is necessary as the last control in a free capitalist market, but is rather contradictory with private property being absolute. Other notable economic system around property include Saint-Marc doctrine (a man can steal to feed his family if its his last resort, that has been extended to land expropriation after peasant revolts), financial capitalism, or Rhine capitalism, where the means of production are family-owned, but social ties between owners offer a conventional control and can be used to enforce standards (like paternalism). The last one is the system described in Karl Marx's The Capital It's also slightly incoherent with free market, because properties can't be exchanged freely: the community of owners have a say, albeit implicit. The best current example of that is Silicon Valley, where Arrington can sell TechCrunch to AOL, but still has to pull up a couple of stunts to prove his editorial independence; or where the value of your start-up is dependent on PG's impression of you being a nice guy. It's usually a very efficient system, especially with innovation, but it is quite “unfair”: winners are not always the absolute best (well, they tend to) but generally make orders of magnitude more money. It's acceptable in SV because most people have enough money to eat, and those who own redistribute it, but it wasn't so acceptable when the children of Rothshild's workers starved. Free market, vs. planned economy are system that consider production. You can have a planed economy with private ownership (France in the 70s) or free market with very strong control over workers benefits, like Switzerland. Because large corporation have far more responsibility (thanks to heavy State controls on the job market) Switzerland indeed has a lot of SMEs. I have no idea why you asked you last question: it goes well beyond the usual straw-man.

bertil 16y ago

You are confusing two distinct things: socialism is a type of capital accumulation (capitalism, therefore) that considers that essential assets of productions should be government owned, or controlled. Anti-trust is a classic, albeit minimal socialist law; it is also coherent with populism. Anti-trust is necessary as the last control in a free capitalist market, but is rather contradictory with private property being absolute. Other notable economic system around property include Saint-Marc doctrine (a man can steal to feed his family if its his last resort, that has been extended to land expropriation after peasant revolts), financial capitalism, or Rhine capitalism, where the means of production are family-owned, but social ties between owners offer a conventional control and can be used to enforce standards (like paternalism). The last one is the system described in Karl Marx's The Capital It's also slightly incoherent with free market, because properties can't be exchanged freely: the community of owners have a say, albeit implicit. The best current example of that is Silicon Valley, where Arrington can sell TechCrunch to AOL, but still has to pull up a couple of stunts to prove his editorial independence; or where the value of your start-up is dependent on PG's impression of you being a nice guy. It's usually a very efficient system, especially with innovation, but it is quite “unfair”: winners are not always the absolute best (well, they tend to) but generally make orders of magnitude more money. It's acceptable in SV because most people have enough money to eat, and those who own redistribute it, but it wasn't so acceptable when the children of Rothshild's workers starved. Free market, vs. planned economy are system that consider production. You can have a planed economy with private ownership (France in the 70s) or free market with very strong control over workers benefits, like Switzerland. Because large corporation have far more responsibility (thanks to heavy State controls on the job market) Switzerland indeed has a lot of SMEs. I have no idea why you asked you last question: it goes well beyond the usual straw-man.