Re: "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????

[k hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L] "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????

But usually the elite do not regard state ownership of the means of production as in the elite interest. The elite

are capitalists and require capitalist institutions ,Production is privatised even to the point of privatising prisons,   school management, water supplies, other utilities.. Even in Iraq the schools will be run by a crisis management US firm and certainly reconstruction is not to be by publicly owned firms but by contract out to crony private capitalists who will then be responsible for trickle  down sub=contracts to other private firms in countries who were part of the coalition of the willing law breakers. No doubt the US will also privatise ownership of Iraqi oil if they can as well as having Shell executives run the present firm

and all the Baath executives will probably be fired for the reason Chris Burford gave.

   While free markets in capitalist countries are not the ideal markets of libertarians but markets tailor made to help those capitalists with most clout or groups such as farmers who are politically significant, the economies are primarily market economies and only a few sectors such as the military have large command aspects. And inputs are almost uniformly from private firms. The problem with state ownership of means of production is there is no direct link between ownership and sharing of profit by capitalists on the basis of invested capital. Public ownership will typically occur as hospitalisation to invest public money in failed private enterprise later returned to private ownership. Or it can socialise the costs of expensive infrastructure as happened with railways in some cases and public utilities, hospitals, roads...but more recently even this type of role of public ownership is being downgraded. We are returning to turnpikes with fees, private prisons,  and subsidies to private firms rather than public ownership. More and more areas are being opened to for profit investment.

 

Cheers, Ken Hanly

 

Cheers, Ken Hanly

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Devine, James

To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 10:16 AM

Subject: Re: "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????

One thing this discussion misses is that the US elite isn't really against state ownership of the means of production and control of the economy. It's against state ownership of the means of production and control of the economy that don't help the elite's own power and the greater glory of US capital. Thus, they're in favor of US control of Iraq, at least for now.

"Free markets" are convenient slogans -- attractive to many people -- but _in practice_ the US government has constantly violated the official principles that go with that slogan.

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Burford [mailto:cburford@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:01 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????
>
>
> At 2003-05-30 00:17 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >In Iraq oil resources are nationalised and although it
> certainly was not
> >socialist there was certainly considerable public ownership
> and planning not
> >based upon market considerations but upon political policy
> command type
> >features. The US will privatise all of this and make
> everything open to
> >private investment and "competition"
> >among crony capitalists. That is what I meant by remnants of
> a socialist
> >command type economy. Perhaps publicly owned and non-market,
> non-capitalist
> >elements would be less provocative. I didnt mean to suggest
> that Iraq was
> >ever basically socialist.
> >
> >Cheers, Ken Hanly....
>
> I agree with this argument.
>
> One of the telling points is how the occupiers confirmed a policy of
> deBaathification of perhaps some 30,000 people, immediately
> after the UN
> resolution was passed. From a liberal imperialist point of view the
> quickest way to stabilise the country would be to leave the
> previous regime
> state structures and officials in place, most of whom would have had
> nothing to do with brutal interrogation methods, public shocking
> punishments, or summary execution of thousands of people in the mass
> uprisings of 1991. But these people would have the attitudes
> of mind of a
> centralised command economy and would not run an agressive competitive
> style economy held together by the sort of finance capitalism
> favoured by
> the neoconservatives.
>
> It is similar to how East Germany was colonised with a whole
> stratum of the
> intelligentsia  thrown to one side, with consequences that
> continue to this
> day.
>
> Chris Burford
>