economic freedom

Capitalism and Imperialism are *not* the same thing

Voluntary trade between market participants at negotiated prices is not even close to the same thing as forced trade at forced prices where one person has a major power advantage (usually military dominance). In other words, capitalism is NOT imperialism.

Check out this video:

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wy4Sigqd3A&feature=player_embedded]

Some of my favorite lines from Dr. Stephen Davies:

Are capitalism and imperialism variations of the same thing?

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Competition is good for everyone else but I need special privileges – The difference between pro-free enterprise and pro-business

There is a dramatic difference between saying you are pro-business and saying you are pro-free enterprise or pro-capitalism. Do you want lots of competition for yourself or do you want special treatment while everyone else faces competition?

Milton Friedman explains the difference:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kB2gBgsqPac#t=20s]

 

A few of my favorite comments: (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Surveillance society – A very bad week for privacy.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Outrun Change.)

Joke of the week – if my computer or website crashes, can I get a backup copy from NSA?

Lots of publicity this week on extensive federal monitoring of citizens and non citizens. No time to write a full post, so just a quick note to put some dots on the page. Hopefully will have time to connect them later

Four massive stories this week:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Free market capitalism or crony capitalism – where you stand depends on where you sit

Small startup organizations favor free and open competition.

A change in attitude can hit when the startup becomes the industry standard. Maybe at that point, it would be better to put roadblocks in the path of your new competitors. Might even be worth calling on the government to do some blocking for you.

We are used to seeing the really big companies asking governments to look at some practice of their big competitors. Won’t provide any examples, but you can think of many headlines over the last few years of one tech company or another tattling on someone else, hoping the regulators will slow down their competitors.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Why the difference between the excitement and opportunities in technology news and the horrible, terrible, depressing everything-falling-apart news in the political realm?

I challenge you to this experiment: Spend a few days reading nothing but technology news. Then spend a few days reading nothing but political news. For the first few days [you will] see an exciting world of innovation and creativity where everything is getting better all the time. In the Read more…

By Jim Ulvog, ago