gregjohn wrote:
> The key point here is nagging. "Capitalists" are tired of nagging about what
> they do in the marketplace and, to echo Scrooge, say, "I wish to be left alone."

I think capitalism works if you can impose the costs of externalities and 
distribute them to those it costs. If you could actually charge companies 
making Freon with the costs of the damage caused by the ozone hole, you 
could make that work.

It just so happens that government regulations on stuff like that (say, 
"carbon tax") is how that gets implemented. Of course the people making 
money would rather not pay that cost.

And capitalism really only works perfectly in a perfect-knowledge world. I 
would rather have building inspectors making sure buildings are safe than to 
have to do that myself with every building I go into. There are some 
"tragedy of the commons" type problems where it really is more efficient to 
have something like that enforced by force rather than the market, because 
it's much cheaper overall.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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