Has anyone read David Korten's Agenda For a New Economy? A progressive over on Thom Hartmann's forum keeps saying that we need to implement Korten's agenda to save our country. So I decided to check out Korten's book, and so far all he has done is talk about how Wall Street serves no legitimate purpose and "Market fundamentalists" are not really following Adam Smith's advice. It sounds to me like he's going to advocate some sort of decentralized social democracy. He says we have to "tear down Wall St." - I have to assume that at some point his "solution" will involve statist aggression.
Murray Rothbard once asked Ludwig von Mises at what point on the spectrum of statism is the point that designates a country as "socialist." To his surprise, Mises said that there was, indeed, a clear-cut delineation: The Stock Market.
Mises said, "A stock market is crucial to the existence of capitalism and private property. For it means that there is a functioning market in the exchange of private titles to the means of production. There can be no genuine private ownership of capital without a stock market: there can be no true socialism if such a market is allowed to exist."
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring