On 13/10/2013, at 12:07 PM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
>>> Has there ever been such a thing as a 'stable economic system'?
>>
>> I stand corrected. "Viable" economic system then.
>
> Not to quibble even more, but I have no idea what
> 'viable' even means in this context. 'Stable', at least,
> I understand.
I intended to substitute "viable" for "stable" in the context of the theoretical variation of capitalist discussed in anti-Star Trek. That is, I am suggesting that such a variation would not be viable. In fact, I said that such a variation of capitalism would not be stable, but taking your quibble on board amended that to viable.
> I don't intend all this by way of picking nits, but
> I sense unexamined assumptions hovering in the wings.
Well you get no prizes for that. The unexamined assumption, the premise on which my conclusion was based, was stated quite explicitly, as being Marx's theory that capitalist profit is entirely derived from the exploitation of labour.
Perhaps you still find this ambiguous? Very well, I shall elaborate further. It seems to me that capitalism sustained entirely by unproductive rent-seeking from enforced monopolies would by unviable/unstable in the same sense that the dinosaurs would not have been viable/stable as a species after an asteroid blacked out the sun and most plant life died off. Certain capitalists may and already are turning to this method of extracting a profit, just as many dinosaurs would have turned to cannibalising the bodied of other dead dinosaurs.
But obviously it is not viable/stable for the dinosaurs to survive as a species for very long by cannibalising the bodies of other dinosaurs which have perished from the catastrophe. Do you grasp my meaning now?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas