Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> And there isn't any "pure" communism, either. Even in the depths of the 
> "communist" part of China's history, you still had to pay for food and pay 
> to use the subway. You'd think something like the subway, where carrying an 
> additional rider is practically free given you've already invested in the 
> capital of building the thing, would be free under communism.  Show me a 
> communism that doesn't have a currency before you tell me it's "pure 
> communism". :-)

  Curiously, there are many capitalist countries (ok, those countries
probably don't call themselves "capitalist" because of the negative
connotations, but as said, that doesn't change the fact) where there
*are* lots of public services which don't cost anything (well, not in
cash at least; of course they are funded by taxes). And I'm not talking
just about public libraries and such, but in some cities eg. public
transporation is free. (This actually makes a lot of sense especially
nowadays because free public transportation induces reduction of car
driving, which reduces pollution.)

  Of course there's also an opposing view to that, which also has its
merits. It's a well-known fact that the economy of a country prospers
when there's a lot of money traffic. The more people consume, the more
they get and spend money, the better the economy. High taxes and free or
low-cost services, however, stagnate the economy because money doesn't move.
If a large quantity of money goes directly from employers to the government
in the form of taxes, never going through the hands of employees, that doesn't
help economy much.

  Of course it makes sense that there is no silver bullet to economy either.
No extreme form of economy can work, and one has to always find a good
balance.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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