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Just Can't Win

Entry 321, on 2006-05-06 at 15:40:39 (Rating 3, News)

This morning I heard an interview concerning the recent death of JK Galbraith, the well known American (born Canadian) economist. I'm not an expert on his ideas, but they seemed to be contrary to those of the more pure ideologists like Ayn Rand, and in my opinion they were closer to reality.

Why should economics be as simple as just letting the market operate unhindered? Why should maximising profit be the sole aim of a commercial organisation? Clearly the real world is more complicated than that, and government intervention and social factors should be considered too. Economists have a reputation for being out of touch with reality. If they just realised that the world is more complex than just a place where an artificially created monetary system can work then we might make some progress as a civilisation.

A quote I heard which sums things up well is "capitalism is where one person exploits another, and communism is the opposite." I guess the majority just can't win either way.

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