[Community-Discuss] Unaddressed queries by AFRINIC during AGMM

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <CAEqgTWb1Hr9qdSaefy+GM35aoxvbeK3kqFt++aRhJYjJd3UNng at mail.gmail.com>
Noah <noah at neo.co.tz>wrote:


>This is why I do not understand what my brother Paul is going on about and

>I am trying to understand his view point because it does not make sense.


I tried, in my usual long-winded way (which probably nobody bothered to
read) to explain what I think is the basic underlying viewpoint.

Capitalism has, in general, and over a long period of time, shown itself
to be a more efficient basis for the allocation of scarce resources.
And when I say "more efficient" I mean relative to the alternative,
which is to have some bureucratic "governmental" or "regulatory" authority
deciding who should get what, based on some criteria *other than* who
is willing to pay the highest price.

This is NOT a small point.  After 70 years, the old Soviet system which
was based on a so-called "command economy" which was run from the top
down, fell apart under its own weight, largely because it was so grossly
inefficient in the way it allocated resources.  And there are many other
and similar examples in history of "command economies" failing due to
the mis-allocation of resources, where that mis-allocation itself was
a product of nepotism, fraud, or just plain inept planning on the part
of the state bureaucrats who were doing the allocating.

So there is something to be said for just allowing what the economist
Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" of the free marketplace to guide
how scarce resources are allocated.

Pure capitalism may not work well in all circumstances, and it may fail
to produce just and equitable outcomes that make allowances for widely
endorsed social priorities (like keeping assests within some local region
or assuring that non-profit organizations are not starved to death),
but it is still usually preferable to having some uninvolved (and
possibly uninformed, and possibly crooked) bureacrat doing all of the
allocating of resources.


Regards,
rfg