>If you were right, most contracts would be breached and there would
>be lot more business for me that there already is. Contracts are
>promises enforceable by courts, but mostly buisness people follow
>them, in their understanding of the agreeement, because they agreed
>and they expect mutual benefits, not because they fear they would
>have to litigate if they broke the promise.
Most people who abide by contracts do so because of their calculation of the certain costs and the risks in doing otherwise. Business has nothing to do with ethics, only the balance between profit and risk carries any weight. The greater potential profit, the greater the risks that will be taken.
> "Trust" doesn't mean blind trust, and even with your family and
>friends you don't have that; it means expecting to be able to rely
>on a good faith effort to perform the agreement as they parties
>understood it. Generally the point of the contract is to make sure
>that the parties understand the agreement and know what they are
>supposed to do, and to keep them out of court.
>
>I really don't understand the need many people on this list to
>represent capitalism as an arena of mere criminality and chicanary.
>I don't expect more from the aanarchsits, but the Marxists or those
>in their neighborhood should understand that in the real of
>exchnage, all is freedom, equality, proprty and Bentham. Equivalent
>is exchanged for equivalent. The normal case is not where the
>capitalist steals, but where he keeps his promises. Marx;s great
>discovery was tro show that capitalist ptofit was nonetheless
>possible because of exploitation.
>
>Domeone, maybe Chuck, actually took this totally orthodoc Marxist
>statement to be an apologia for capitalsim. That is realluy puzzling
>to me.
It is hardly an orthodox Marxist statement. Marx himself quoted the following in Capital:
"Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent certain will produce eagerness; 50 percent, positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 percent and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave trade have amply proved all that is stated here."
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas