bitmap@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (04/07/84)
<....> Timothy Kerwin writes: >This results ... in the lowering of wages toward the minimum >necessary to maintain the life of the worker... > >The point is that if you want to find solutions to the problems of >recession, unemployment, inflation, etc., you have to look beyond >the capitalist system. Well, looking beyond, to, say, the communist system, we see (i) almost full employment--however, this means that you might have 4 or 5 clerks working in a bakery shop that has goods only part of the day, and could be sufficiently staffed part-time by one person. The wages, I suspect, are less (in terms of buying power) than one might receive in the U.S. in welfare. (ii) no recessions?--it could be argued that the average state of the economy is one long recession, measured in terms of output. Clearly, I think, the poor production in the farm sector in the U.S.S.R. has not been due to every year since 1917 being a bad winter. (iii)no inflation--rationing is a method of controlling legal prices, but a side-effect is that there are often shortages. Also, black markets may be affected by inflation. Inflation is not an implied defect of the capitalistic system. Throughout most of the history of the U.S., at least, inflation has been mild. Moreover, the systems with the least economic freedom often are the ones with the least political freedom. Sam Hall decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!bitmap