Re: Imprisoned Capital

[Bart Croughs <bart.croughs@tip.nl>]

Duncan Frissell wrote:

>There is no straightforward link between amount of capital invested and
>productivity or wages.  If there were, some steel plants in the Soviet Union
>would have had the best paid and most productive workers on earth.

It's not a coincidence that you mention the Soviet Union. As I said in a previous post, Austrian economists like Murray Rothbard, Hans Hermann Hoppe, etc. don't consider government expenditures to be *investments* of capital; they consider all government expenditures to be *consumption*. 

>Additionally, countries which prevent capital outflows don't receive capital
>inflows and thus become poorer.

>DCF

This is a good point when you talk about governments that will prevent *all* capital from flowing out. But a government could prevent the outflow of capital of it's own citizens, and still allow capital of foreigners to leave the country. As long as foreign capital isn't imprisoned, foreign capital could be attracted.

Bart Croughs