The Libertarian & I

Concider poker. Just like the free market, players exchange chips by taking risks. As the game continues however, there will be certain players who accumulate more chips than other players. The end result is just a single player who has all the chips. The game then ends unless the winner's chips are re-distributed to the other players. If poker isn't quite the right anology, concider "monopoly". Same game really, and quite the same ending. If this still seems irrevelant, concider Micro$oft. What's the real difference between a politician holding all the chips and a businessman holding all the chips?

The only libertarian counter arguement I can think of is that in a completly free market, monopolies are impossible. The only place I've ever seen this happen is amoungst the bushmen of the Khalarhi desert in Africa. These people own absolutly nothing. Left completly to its own devices, the market behaves like matter under the influence of gravity. Its only a matter of time before a black hole forms.

Is capitalism "progressive"? If so, what are we progressing twoards in a universe with no edge nor any center? All I can imagine is a day when American children are 50% plastic and eat electricity for breakfast. Will they stand out in the rain and catch lightening on their tongues? Is the sterilized, standardized mechanized American menu really superior to what bushmen eat? Frankly, dirt is tastier than styrofoam. As reguards starving foreigners, they don't have any food because the king decreed they all eat cake. The king got to be the king because some dirt farmer had a bumper crop and turned his plow into a swoard. Those he didn't kill then starved. Then the King starved when he found his Gold was about as edible as dirt.

Again, how exactly does a completly free market discourage the accumulation of wealth? Quite a paradoxical oxymoron, non?

Returning to our bushmen friends - these people regurarly live into their 80's without an HMO. It seems to me modern medicine is just a means of keeping people alive in what is essentially a toxic waste dump. Ah, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even if the beholder is blind. "Progressive medicine" reminds me of one of Gulliver's travels. He meets a race of people who never die. Unfortunately their oldest citizens are little more than animated, rotting corpses. Hopefully we will become 100% plastic before this happens. Then Europeans can not only refer to Americans as children, they can call us children's toys!

In the final analysis, I think the Chineese might just be evolving a system more suited to the shrinking resources of a very finite planet. Small businesses are free to compete with little governmental regulation. Past a certain size however, the government either treats mega-business as a public utility as the Russians did or smash it to bits with anti-trust laws as the Americans do. Anarchy can only benefit the people if the people themselves are perfect. Unless we all evolve into robot insects, nobody will be perfect. Until then, everybody needs big brother.

A Wild Idea!

I think I'll take a web cam into work tomorrow and present:

////////// The Wild World of State employment /////////////////////

G'day Mate! We're here in the outback of the State Health Department and are waiting
for something interesting to visit the office printer. Careful, mate - there's an office trouble maker over there in the corner playing "gotcha". Just look at those teeth! Wouldn't want to wander into those jaws... Wait, a report is coming out of the printer. Sure to attract something and yes, it's a deputy assistant comissioner (Assinus Maximus)! Sorry luv, can only see his fat behind at the moment, but woah - he's spreading manure!! What a mess. Not to worry ducky, here comes a dung eating ass kisser. Oops! Something just knocked the printer over. Oh, it's an office secretary. These creatures are perfectly adapted to their habitat - toally blind, deaf and dumb. Well, that's enough excitement for now, but tune in tomorrow and every day after that for the rest of your career for another episode of:

/////////////// The Wild World of State Employment //////////////////