Saturday, March 27, 2004

A FREE MARKET IS A FAIR MARKET

Oliver Willis ("Like Kryptonite to Stupid") and Rob "BusinessPundit" have a discussion on how the market economy should be regulated.

I know a great place for further studies of the ideas of capitalism... A few days ago, I received an interesting news alert on how the University of South Carolina [Editor's note: Registration required. Hat tip to Betsy Speicher's CyberNet.] has received a donation of $1 million from the company BB&T to study the ethics and moral foundations of capitalism. Here is an excerpt from the article by Emma Ritch:

"USC will get the funds over the next couple years, said business school dean Joel Smith III, and will use the money to create a capitalism ethics class, a capitalism-focused professorship, a lecture series and a room in the business library dedicated to the works of authors that support free enterprise such as Ayn Rand." (Mercury News / AP, 03/24/04.)

As a radical capitalist and an American in spirit, I have a hard time to cope with the mixed economy in the socialist "paradise" of Sweden. Here are the rights of the workers controlled and micro-managed by strong unions. The ruling Social Democratic Party is giving moral support to the unions in exchange of an endorsement by the unions leaders and a huge share of votes by the working class in the next election. It's hard to find any form of "basic human decency" (using Mr. Willis' words) here in the welfare state. It's all about party politics, pressure groups, and an inefficient public sector.

I recommend Oliver Willis to read the following books, after he has finished Reefer Madness:

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand.
Andrew Bernstein's forthcoming book, The Capitalist Manifesto.

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