<DIV>As someone part of whose business is white collar criminal defense I am highly aware of the degree of chicanary and plain crookedness in buiness. And politics. I also give in Chicago. But the point is just that if there is abolsutely no honor among thieves, if you can trust no at all, they you really are in a Hobbeasean War of All Against All, and life is poor, nasty, brutish and short, without commodious living, etc. Because we do manage cooperation even in the midst of this competition, even despite the immoral amd selfish behavior the market encourages, it can't be the norm. </DIV>
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<DIV>The things that make capitalism bad are not mainly that makes people into crooks, liars, and bandits, but that even in its normal operations, when there is no crookedness, it involves exploitation and oppression and injustice. Sorrt tos ound like an old-fashioned Marxist here, but the old fella got this one right: He painted the capitalist in no sense coleur de rose, but the real problem is that the capitalist is the bearer of certain social relationships, not that he's a bad guy or even that the relationshios encourage some capitalists to become bad guys.</DIV>
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<DIV>jks<BR><BR><B><I>Bill Bartlett <billbartlett@dodo.com.au></I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">andie nachgeborenen wrote:<BR><BR>>Actually, this is cheap cynicism that shows a mistaken grap of the <BR>>nature of markets and business activities. Business runs mainly on <BR>>trust and requires an fairly robust ethical standard. If it's all a <BR>>cheat and and sham, then any market system would collapse in very <BR>>short order.<BR><BR>This must be a sign that the building products market is on the verge <BR>of collapse:<BR><BR>http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2004/s1171396.htm<BR><BR>"...Three years ago, James Hardie redomiciled in the Netherlands, <BR>leaving behind the shell of its Australian holding company - James <BR>Hardie Industries Limited. It won court approval for the move after <BR>assuring that partly paid shares in the old holding company would <BR>provide a financial lifeline worth nearly $2 billion to asbestos <BR>victims. Then it
cancelled the partly paid shares, leaving the <BR>foundation it established to pay claims facing possible insolvency. "<BR><BR>Bill Bartlett<BR>Bracknell Tas<BR>___________________________________<BR>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><p>
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