Socialism (the real-life version) collapsed nearly twenty years ago—vicious regimes founded on the principles of Marxism, overthrown by the will of the people. Following that event we’ve seen these once decrepit societies come back to life and become a major source for the world’s prosperity. Trade has expanded. The technological revolution is achieving miracles by the day right under our noses. Millions have been made far better off, in ever-widening circles. The credit is wholly due to the free market, which possesses a creative power that has been underestimated by even its most passionate proponents.
And yet, even now, after all this, professors stand in front of their students and decry the evil of capitalism. Bestselling books make anticapitalism the theme. Politicians parade around telling us about the glorious things that the government will accomplish when they are in charge. And every evil of the day, even those directly caused by the government (airline delays, the housing crisis, the never-ending crisis in public schooling, the lack of health care for everyone) are blamed on the market economy. FULL ARTICLE
{ 82 comments }
← Previous Comments
Ah, I see. No need to send it, I just thought it was particularly well-written and gets an important point across that many seem to miss. You should try get it published at someplace like Strike at the Root.
HenleyT makes an excellent point about our being conditioned by the family social structure, which point I had made to Gary North some years ago, after he had engaged me in mental combat over the question of whether or not libertarianism can be functionally, successfully applied to at-large society.
Here’s a copy of my note to him:
“How do you, sir, run your family household as a parent/provider? Various operations of the family household are the models for every form of government, or lack thereof: Either your children are family members – citizens, so to speak – or merely consumers residing in your household. Do your children hold a particular status in relation to your and your wife’s authority? Do your children view you as a tyrant by your authority or as a democratic arbiter, or some combination? Such must be the nature of any State–an expression of some particular form of family dynamic within the household, as someone must be in charge – either autocratically or democratically – because there exist inherently bright adults and dumb adults, inherently bright children and dumb children. Ergo, some kind of organization – some degree of combination of cooperation and authoritarian control – is necessary for people to live in peace in family, community or nation-state, as nature has dealt unequal abilities to adults and children alike. Or do you decide who is in charge in your family by the one with the most money? Does the money flow in an elitist sort of way, with you as provider and taxpayer and, ergo, decision-maker? Or does it flow willy-nilly for purposes of maximum consumption? Is your family a dictatorship, kingship, democracy, oligarchy of two, or libertarian commune? All political affiliations are understood by examining family dynamics–by examining the various psychological dynamics of how members within the nuclear family may relate to one another, according to the abilities nature has dealt to you and yours.”
Profit generates money which generates power and who has power rules. For a very free market society you should reset the current world and start from scratch. Unfortunately you cannot reset a system without a revolution (and any revolution has his victims). The very enemies of your free market paradigm are not the socialists, the communists and the like but the very wealthy today’s capitalists. Look how it is difficult for the software market to compete with a monopolist like Bill Gates. There are lots of monopolies out there which you will never be able to revert without using force (i.e. the oil industry). Any freaking good is made in the “communist” China. Soon they will be so powerful that they will be able to buy the most of the USA (and for profit your lovely American capitalists would not have any problem to sell it).
Money directly does not translate to power – but with an institution like the State available, it might be able to. Using force against corporations/individuals who themselves have advantaged themselves of the State is not immoral, as far as I am concerned.
Two excellent questions are posed in the below link: “Where Do You Stand? Where Do You Fall?”–regarding the impact of UNETHICAL CAPITALISM on the West ((there are a number of links in there to eye-opening articles, about what we Americans are about to face–and IT AIN’T PRETTY!)):
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index88138.htm
Day by day I become more and more disillusioned. Yes, the government is the root cause of all social and economic problems today. Yes, the solution is the free market; it is almost trivially obvious; in fact, I would venture to say that a free market society would be (near) Utopian. However, the crux of the issue here is not lack of education or imagination, it is psychological manipulation. So long as the vast majority of humanity has been indoctrinated into a false morality, they will stubbornly hold onto their collectivist belief, regardless of the evidence against it, or the evidence of its exploitative and depraved nature. To do otherwise causes immense cognitive dissonance that the average human being is incapable of handling, let alone surmounting.
You think I am referring to socialists. Perhaps, but not exclusively. I am also referring to Christians. Hoppe makes the argument about the need for statist intellectuals. What makes you think the the most powerful institution in the world, the religious institution, has not been commandeered by the state? The reality is that if you follow the history of Christianity, you will find that it is a blind rip off of previous religions and was institutionalized by Constantine for a decidedly political purpose (Watch me! (26 mins)). It is a sham.
Jews, Mulsims, Hindus, you are all in the same boat. Even skeptics and so-called “freethinkers” are guilty for having turned science into a religion (you blindly repeat anything that the scientific community or the cool skeptics tell you is true).
If you can’t stop worshiping your false God’s, how can you expect the statists to stop worshipping theirs? After years of debating these (and other) ideas with believers or all stripes, I am firmly of the opinion that the answer is not to Mises, Rothbard, or Hoppe, but Carl Gustav Jung.
Sorry, the link doesn’t work.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5216975979627863972
John,
“However, the crux of the issue here is not lack of education or imagination, it is psychological manipulation.”
If I read you correctly, then you believe as I do that the problem lies with what is being taught and the way it is being presented. Unfortunately, whenever I try to discuss solutions to this problem, the home schoolers and private school advocates go on the attack, saying that I’m some sort of statist who’s advocating the theft of their tax dollars, when all I’m trying to do is to focus attention on a problem that’s not going away.
By the time these kids graduate high school and college, they’re so completely immersed in ideas of political correctness and entitlement (not to mention misinformation), that it’s almost too late to do anything about it.
I’ve said before that in getting from Point “A” to Point “B” there’s got to be a transitional period. If you don’t talk about a strategy for the transitional period, then you’ll never reach Point “B”.
This book is not an attack on capitalism, rather a critique of the excesses of capitalism (after last year, wouldn’t we all agree that there are some excesses?)
Bob: “…a critique of the excesses of capitalism…”
It’s difficult for people to distinguish between the failure of a system and the failures of people within the system. The concepts are very clear in quality control statistics. The mean of measures over time represent the system whereas the invidivual data points are random variations around the mean. Of course, if enough of the data points stay on one side of the mean long enough, the mean will shift and the quality guy will know that he has experienced a systematic change.
I’m not sure how to relate that to economic systems, but here goes. If you look at the excesses of a system, are they exceptions or the rule? Corporate malfeasance is big news in the US because it is rare. If it were common, like car wrecks, no one would pay attention. In socialism, on the other hand, corruption of officials and poverty are so wide spread that it should be clear that they’re systematic, part of the system.
No capitalist ever claimed that the system would make men perfect. Only God can do that.
If by excesses of the past year you refer to the mortgage loan fiasco, you should understand that the Austrian Business Cycle Theory places the blame for it on the government. Real capitalism does not have government intervention in the economy. You should distinguish between the current economic system of the US, which is quasi-socialist, and real capitalism, which is laissez-faire.
“This book is not an attack on capitalism, rather a critique of the excesses of capitalism (after last year, wouldn’t we all agree that there are some excesses?)”
The “excesses” you refer to are the reults of government interference with capitalism. The recent problems, and most of them before, have been caused by a LACK of capitalism.
This is a common misconception throughout history, purposely distorted by all manner of collectivists: The government interferes with the free market, it causes problems, and the problems are blamed on capitalism itself, not the government interference that caused the problems in the first place. Then, the ultimate irony is that more government interference is always the “cure” that is proposed and implemented, starting the cyle all over.
Just to be clear: what we have in the United States is NOT free market capitalism. It is a mixed economy with a signficant degree of government iterference. Taxes at the federal, state and local level consuming over 1/3 of the nation’s output. Significant industries are government protected monopolies – banking, electric utilities, all basic infrastructure, telephone, TV and Radio, etc. Government subsidies and welfare distort the market even further. Not to mention the Federal Reserve which continually destabilizes the economy by trying to fix every short term economic problem (most caused by previous Fed actions) with the same prescription: more fiat money.
This is NOT free market, laissez-faire capitalism. Not even close.
If I read you correctly, then you believe as I do that the problem lies with what is being taught and the way it is being presented.
Partly, yes, but I am afraid that my conclusions are far more ominous for the human species. What many people fail to realize is that it is very easy to psychologically manipulate human beings. If this manipulation takes the form of indoctrinating a false morality, then no amount of education can ever bring the victim back. The cognitive dissonance is simply too much for the human mind to cope with. We see this repeatedly with God and the state.
I leave you with a great quote from Tolstoy:
Most men can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, have proudly taught to others, and have woven thread by thread into the fabric of their lives.
well said John, that quote from Tolstoy is a keeper.
I try (not always successfully) to live by a maxim that is calculated to immunise myself from just this failing:
‘The moment you think you’re right, you’ve stopped thinking at all’.
Inquisitor, how about this? Name the authors who aren’t guilty of vulgar libertarianism so that I may come to read and understand the more pragmatic/mainstream ideology.
One further question, do you see any negatives/weaknesses in capitalism?
“If this manipulation takes the form of indoctrinating a false morality, then no amount of education can ever bring the victim back.”
DEFINITION OF EPIPHANY: As a feeling, an epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something. The term is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has “found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the whole picture,” or has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)
People have epiphanies all the time…the result of incongruities between what has been taught and what is actually being experienced. They frequently occur during times of crisis, but can also occur as the result of day-to-day events.
You do not give sufficient credit to the resiliency of the human mind/spirit. I believe a great example of this would be the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. On a less sensational level, one can also experience an epiphany during the so-called “mid-life crisis”.
Bill, I do not pander to evasive trolls. Either name then, or be gone.
“One further question, do you see any negatives/weaknesses in capitalism?”
In my opinion the human race is not evolutionarily set up for capitalism. The human mind, among other serious flaws, is much better at measuring relative quantities than absolutes. Because of pecking order behaviors evolutionarily ingrained in most animals, humans are geared to be satisfied with their relative position in society much more than their absolute material position. For example, the current lower half of the economic ladder in the U.S. contains some of the richest people not only in the world today, but who have ever lived. These are also some of the most miserable (psychologically, not materially) people on the planet. That is because the human mind cannot live with the fact that others have more, regardless of how much they have.
There is no known cure for this.
By the way, none of the socialistic or totalitarian government forms have ever fixed this problem, they have simply captialized on it and exploited it, ironically in order to create even more uneven societies, like the Soviet Union or Castro’s Cuba (Fidel Castro is one of the richest people on the planet).
Unfortunately, I believe only human evolution has the opportunity to fix this shortcoming – or make it worse.
The opposite is either true. The human mind cannot live with the fact that others have less. As an individual you interact with others all the time and misery is contagious. If in your home you are the only one being happy and your kids and wife are unhappy that happiness won’t last too long. Individuality is an illusion (it would be real only if you were the only one on earth).
You do not give sufficient credit to the resiliency of the human mind/spirit.
Perhaps. After all, the freedom movement seems to be gaining tremendous momentum in the last few years. However, and this goes back to my original point, the fundamental problem, the crux of the issue, is not lack of education, it is not lack of imagination, it is, and always will be, the frailty of the human psyche.
How many times have you attempted to educate a friend or family member only for them to refuse to accept reason and logic? Think about it. God, the state, everyone has his vice. Some have “epiphanies” about religion, some have it about the state. It is very rare to meet someone who has had it about both.
But wait, there is one more… turns out that large elements of modern “science” are also a sham. http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller23.html
How many have had “epiphanies” about this?
Did I say one more, I meant two more: what about the NWO? How many have had “epiphanies” about that?
When I meet another individual who has the intellectual integrity to recognize all of these is when I begin to have hope.
The issues shouldn’t be whether or not capitalism is purely ethical, or whether capitalism can save everyone from everything. Clearly it cannot.
Rather, the questions should revolve around how resources are most efficiently allocated, and by whom? And utlimately what method of economic allocation is going to cause the most benefit and the least amount of harm? Under which system will the fewest people starve? Under which system will the most diseases be cured? Under which system does technology improve the standard of living while lowering the most commodity costs?
Can we eliminate pain and suffering? No. Can we minimize it? Yes. And clearly the minimization comes from the practical application and implementation of free markets.
Mises’ ECONOMIC CALCULATION ARGUMENT is mathematically, philosophically, and even ethically indisputable, and as long as we’re on the subject of ethics, ponder this: who is more unethical — one who profits from his or her innovation, or one who advocates a system that perpetuates the inefficient allocation of resources to the detriment (and deaths) of millions?
The question should be rhetorical.
Paco Ahlgren
http://www.disciplinenovel.com
I have to say that your ideas are fascinating but unfortunately they lack of reality.
“Mises’ ECONOMIC CALCULATION ARGUMENT is mathematically, philosophically, and even ethically indisputable” is indeed very disputable. Philosophy and ethic are for their very nature relatives and subject to any kind of relativism and personal interpretation thus cannot be used to affirm anything. My favorite philosophical line is that if there was an absolute true we where all fallowing it instead of not agreeing on anything. Nowadays also mathematic cannot be used anymore as a standing point. In quantum physic for example mathematic cannot be applied since phenomena are probable but never sure.
It has yet to be successfully disputed, though. It is, of course, a logical-praxeological argument; labeling it ‘philosophical’ is bound to lead to confusion.
Paco, what do you mean ‘mathematically’? I have no knowledge of mathematical expressions of Mises’ proof.
DS, I agree. Free markets face the “problem” that they are complex, dynamic entities that are in many ways bigger than the sum of their constituent parts. This makes their workings all the more difficult for Joe Average to comprehend.
You’re preaching to the choir regarding disputability — or more appropriately, falsifiability. And you will find no bigger proponent of that philsophical precept, in the Popperian sense, than me.
So while Mises Economic Calculation Argument is certainly subject to falsifiability, it has not, to my knowledge, been falsified with any convincing evidenciary basis. I’ve looked for years, challenging leftists at every opportunity, but no one has ever procured anything even approaching a strong counterargument. And this is why, I think, most free market advocates who truly understand Mises’s argument, are so confused and appalled that socialism even still exists as a viable proposal, much less thrives in so many hearts and minds.
For my part, I don’t find it so surprising; socialism is convenient, shallow, and easy to adopt. Markets are much more complex, and unless one is willing to step back and take a more Taoistic perspective, they can be daunting.
Mathematically, Mises’s argument relies on the scarcity of resources, and an inability to calculate such scarcity without price structures. Clearly, the more those structures are manipulated, the more mathematically distorted scarcity becomes.
Paco Ahlgren
http://WWW.DISCIPLINENOVEL.COM
While a great many folks think that economic education is the reason “why people don’t get it”, I would submit that the reason is more tragic. The reason people continue to support Marx’s bankrupt morality is greed. The lack of concern about taking money from others by government decree for redistribution among the needy is the real problem. Redistribution no matter how altruistic in appearance is still stealing. Most people would not think of walking into their neighbors house and taking the food and money they find there. But that same morality doesn’t apply if the government is doing the appropriation.
Never mind the lack of concern of the odd 200 million deaths that Marxism has facilitated in China and Russia.
The problem is apathy and greed. The failure to connect the dots is not ignorance. It is thevoluntary abandonment of ethics that hopes to create a political system that will repay the sellout for their treachery against those that only want to earn their own way.
Thomas is correct IMO. I believe this is also the reason Rand was very careful in how she fleshed out her moral system of rational egoism.
Thomas Puckett: “While a great many folks think that economic education is the reason “why people don’t get it”, I would submit that the reason is more tragic.”
Some don’t think about it. Some don’t want to think about it. Some don’t care to think about it. Some don’t care anyway.
People are drawn to socialism out of fear — not greed or jealousy. It’s the security in belief that they will be fed when they have no food, it’s the security in belief, they will be cared for when they are sick, it’s the security in belief they will be housed when they fallen on hard times. Fear is the greatest motivator of all species. When people are jeolous and greedy, they steal. They don’t need the state to do it for them.
Inquisitor, just as I thought. There aren’t any exemplary authors.
Bill, just as I thought. You can’t name a single one. You couldn’t respond to Nemo either.
inquisitor, i don’t wish to call these authors out in such a way in public forum. Provide your email and I’ll be happy to carry the conversation with you offline with names and actual conversations. I don’t wish to bring negative attention to people in a forum who didn’t ask for it — even if i find their work inimical. It’s that simple.
oh, and as for nemo, I don’t wish to get into a fools debate. He obviously doesn’t believe there are any flaws in capitalism as you don’t either. Your minds are inaccessible. Really, what’s the point of sharing an opinion with either of you when I know your conclusion?
Ho hum, so be it then.
← Previous Comments
Comments on this entry are closed.