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

[Ian Murray <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "k hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



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

=====================

Maybe I've read to much legal theory, but I can't for the life of me get a
handle on the public/private distinction when it comes to how the State
delegates property and control rights over productive assets. What is
private about a grocery store, or a traffic jam or a lawsuit or a
credit/debt contract or a hospital emergency room, the list goes on and
on...........


Ian