Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : William
Date : Sun Sep 04 2005 12:29 pm

"Scott Moore" <samiamsansspam@Sun.COM> wrote in message
news:df26md$son$1@news1nwk.SFbay.Sun.COM...
>
> Interesting take on history. Between Stallin and Mao, the tally
> for communisim may well exceed 60 million people. That's residents
> of the countries that practiced it. I suspect to get your
> "slaughter" for captialisim, you are defining wars as part of it.

Just interjecting, for the fun of it, the point that "capitalism"
isn't really an ideology - it existed in the USSR and other
communist countries. (Someone once pointed out that capitalism
just happens, it's rarely planned.)

The difference is, if the state sanctions it, it operates above
ground (mostly), and if the state suppresses it, it is expressed
as an underground, or black, market. (Actually trying to
eliminate it is impossible, and trying hard enough may even
destroy the economy.)

I think the real problems arise when a state tries to raise
capitalism to the level of a real "ism" and begins making all
decisions to benefit a market, or markets, that not all citizens
participate in. (One former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant said,
with regret, he'd spent his career making the world safe for
certain large U.S. firms and, in doing so, could have given
lessons to Al Capone.) -Wm

.