[PEN-L:33280] RE: Re: The Economist considers Karl Marx

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:33279] Re: The Economist considers Karl Marx

> Aren't governments unownable by definition? Sure some factions/classes
> may think the government their personal property, but don't we deride
> that as delusional?

officially, the Absolutist kings owned their states (l'état c'est moi!) and appointed the boards of directors (i.e., governments). The equivalents of today's left existing at the time might have seen this claim as delusional, but it was backed by the force of arms. Might may not make right in the moral sense of the word, but it often does so in practice.

> Non-interference in "the market" is a legal
> impossibility, no?

Markets couldn't exist without the state, but common mythology (shared by many econo-dunderheads) has it that markets are "natural."

Jim