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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Economic and political systems
Message-ID: <3087@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Aug-84 14:32:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.3087
Posted: Thu Aug  9 14:32:32 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Aug-84 00:48:20 EDT
References: dataio.167
Lines: 31

<>
A couple of quick points:  capitalism (individual ownership and control
of the means of production) and the free market (the right of firms and
individuals to compete for business) are not synonyms, although they are
often used as if they were.  It is obvious that capitalism can exist without
a free market (and often has).

The trouble with laissez-faire capitalism (as I see it) is that it commits
a common and serious error that is popular to some degree with every branch
of the political tree: the idea that the government is the sole oppressor.
I am not anti-union, but it is certainly true that we don't have a free market
for jobs in the film industry thanks to the talent and crafts unions, and
back in the heyday of capitalistic filmmaking only a limited number of
studios and theater owners existed, because the theaters and studios were
owned by the same outfits and nobody else could break in.

These things are changing, thanks to (not in spite of) government interference.
For example, in the so-called "right to work" states unions cannot
contract with employers to keep out nonunion people.  And since a Federal
action several decades back, no single entity can produce, distribute,
and exhibit films (although they can do any two).  Consequently you or
I could produce a film or open a theater without going to work for a
big studio.  That's a freedom the wholly free market did not provide.

By the way, we're now casting The Horror of Computer Beach...

Best,
D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-4146
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