| Total Government The Middle No governments Statism A civic/civil person individualism Economic Control parameters to use zoning laws, etc. Economic Freedom Thought Control Civil Discourse, tolerance of thought freedom differences & groups |
There are certain economic facts that are inescapable -- among them that work is
necessary. Someone must work. Different cultures have different work
requirements. No one can survive without work, even if the work they use to survive
is the work of others. Work is necessary on different levels to complete all tasks.
Not all work is necessary to survive in the literal sense -- music and art, are
obviously such a part of human make up that to speak of society without them is
ludicrous. In a broader definition of survival then this work, too, is necessary.
In the most literal extreme, each must labor personally to survive. The individual
has to take care of all his personal food, shelter and clothing needs. In practical
reality people join together -- both reproduction, i.e., kids, and economic
convenience -- the easier way to survive, leads people to cooperate. There is
some compelling urge with humans to cooperate -- it is instinctual animalistically.
In the literal sense -- if one was on the proverbial desert island, one must labor to
produce all that one needs to survive -- the food, shelter and clothing.
In primitive conditions this is possible, in modern times it is impossible. We can
not make everything we need. Indeed, we usually can only make one or two things,
or are involved in an organization functioning to make the things. We labor, or
work, at one thing. Commerce is born as we trade the things we make to others for
the thing that they make. In our complex world trading system we do not even trade
specific products for others. Barter has long been bypassed. Instead we labor for
money. We transfer our work into a portable element, with savings, like a battery.
We trade our work for money, which we then trade to someone else for an object.
Money is a way to store our labor so we can use it in another time and place. So
money is work.
This central fact is the building block -- individuals must work with others to survive,
using money to make it easier to get a wider range of goods than if we had
labored for all of them individually.
When coupled with the right to be left alone it is clear that we have a human right to
work. We have the right to work at anything, alone or in tandem, that others may
utilize individually. Or in tandem while respecting everyone else's right to operate
similarly. I can labor at what I want to -- so long as I do not interfere with what you
want to labor at. That leaves open a whole lot of options -- and the diversity of
human endeavor surely shows people will exercise this complex right: to be left
alone to labor at what one wants to work for.
It is a wonder such diversity exists given the enormous control exercised by
different paradigms in an installation of conformity upon the individual, which is
after all, easier to control.
Interference in your right to labor, or to even spend the money, which is your labor,
as you see fit is interference in your ability to survive as you see fit. Interference in
your right to labor is an interference in your right to be left alone, and vice versa.
These two rights are complex, a joint right. You can not have one without the other.
It cannot be that you can labor as you see fit, but cannot have the right to be left
alone -- both are mutually dependent on each other.
A third right that is a complex right in itself, is necessary to the exercise of both the
right to labor and the right to be left alone.
This is the right of property -- both to own and not to own. The property right arises
in that tools are necessary of work. Work is necessary for survival. Any movable
thing or buildable thing is a tool. A car factory is only a specialized complex tool.
Land is a tool, for survival is a right supported by the right to work. Food is
necessary for survival, and land is necessary to obtain food. SO ownership of land
is necessary, and this a right. To survive one needs food, to get food one needs
property, land, hence land is a right. Property, though, is a complex right. Because
land by be used by others as a tool, they grow food and sell it. A person may labor
for food without actually owning the land. It is only necessary that land itself be
available to someone to farm and own.
It is possible for land to be owned in tandem, even in a large collective. It is also
possible to be a nonowner while the majority do own. It is being forced to be an
owner that violates a person's right to be left alone. Being forced into the collective
ownership is against your right to be left alone. All these rights together are the
foundation of libertarian thought. And seem obvious.
Everyone has the right to survive
Everyone has the right to do whatever they want so long as what they want does
not interfere with the rights similarly of others.
Everyone has the right to labor and enjoy the fruits of that labor
Everyone has the right to own the tools of whatever kind to use in their labor
including land.
"I need to eat, so I work with my land and tools to get food, while joining others in
merriment and learning to make life enjoyable and give as I see fit to those I want,
and not join still others in their pursuits which I chose to join." That is pretty much
the way people see their personal existence.
After that, they can catalog where they are interfered with. A political system that
interferes in these rights as part of its central theory has no legitimacy and can not
survive and be put into effect except by the means of force and violence.
These few rights are overlapping in some regards, and both simple and complex.
But they fulfill the certain proposition that individuals must live and procreate in
order for the human race to survive and continue.
They are based on the extreme of one individual alone. Because humans
congregate these rights are called into question and new rights are proposed.
Marx recognized the need for everyone to survive. It is only that his theory of labor
and than of society organization were wrong.
The basic fault with socialist ownership lies in a contradiction: every one owns
everything, collectively, yet no one owns anything individually. Even labor is owned
by society -- your labor is owned by everyone to be used with the tools owned by
everyone to produce what society needs. At the same time you do not own your
labor nor your tools, for individual effort is against what society needs. The conflict
is how you can both own your labor and not own it at the same time.
This conundrum was finally answered within socialist societies through the maxim:
"we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
The natural situation of individuals working for themselves will always exist. It will
surface in any circumstance where in which people find themselves. The forced
attempts at collective ownership will ride rough shod over individualism only
through the use of force.
This use of force is obvious the world over. Americans particularly are baffled at
the violence that accompanies government action in so many countries. This
violence is either physical or economic. The prevention of economic activity by
governments is anti-individual, and against the essential human desire to work and
create, and then sell and trade, for what others create through work.
Trade is such an obvious given; the history of the world is replete with examples of
trade. No period of human history is without it. Likewise, in history, when humans
are denied this right to trade they will smuggle, do "black market" and in any way
imaginable, circumvent the prohibitions on trade.
The prohibitions on trade, which after all, impede survival as an individual sees it,
can be seen in many ways: Through law or police activity, culminating in violent
suppression. Through taxes that make it seemingly negative to produce or create
goods. Through regulations that inhibit production or render it impossible with our
superhuman efforts of work. Still, in the face of inordinate adversity people will try
to work, create, and trade. If they cannot, they will move to somewhere where they
can do this. Until they do move, they engage in a sullen quiet revolution.
A theory of labor, besides being based in the right to do so , also is based in a
positive and negative sense. There is an economic rationale to the labor. And
there is an economic rationale to the product of that labor. Marxism says these are
the same: labor, as a right, labor as a thing, and the product of that labor. All must
be for the benefit of society, which shall decide the value of the three. This is
absurd.
First, the right to labor is not owned by society. Nor subject to its demands and
whims, nor to its prohibitions, except that you harm no one in so laboring. The right
to labor is a necessary condition of living. The individual alone can determine the
degree to which he shall labor, as long as he is willing to accept responsibility of
his level of labor. If a man chooses to labor minimally, and provide just the bare
minimum, that is his prerogative. The level of his skills, or society's need for such
skills is irrelevant. Despite the fact that a person is capable of more does not
mean he must do more. The fact that he is not capable of more does not mean he
shall be restricted from trying. The sole determinant of the level and direction of
labor is by he who does it.
At the same time there is an intrinsic value to labor, separate from the laborer's
view of it. Because certain things are necessary for survival, things like food shelter
and clothing, water, etc. Certain things that in the extreme are not, such as books
and music, there is an intrinsic difference in the value of labor put into such activity.
Working to grow food is, in the individualistic extreme, more important, it has
greater value, than working to produce music. The individual in a desert island
situation who avoids work for food in order to labor for music will quickly find
himself in an untenable position. It is imperative that labor for food comes first.
Human cohabitation mitigates this to some degree, but essentially it remains true.
This disparity in the intrinsic value of labor produces a risk value of labor. A person
who labors at music in the hope of getting food from some other laborer who wants
music assumes a risk. He is giving up the certainty of laboring for his food and not
ignoring his music -- in the hope that he can find someone who appreciates his
music and will trade some food for it. Modern society mitigates this subsistence
level of risk, but there is still a risk. A musician spends hours each day perfecting
his task, eschewing other activity. He calculates that he can make the trade -- if he
has labored and failed to be a good musician and cannot sell his work -- that is a
risk of trying and not being sufficiently skilled. He also calculates that others can
make the trade because the person who grown the food wants music -- that is a
guess as to what other people want.
In a more modern way, a manufacturer takes two risks. One is that he makes
something well enough to sell and Two is that he finds someone who wants what
he has regardless of its quality.
These are two risks because of the third view of labor -- that is the value of the
product of labor. Marxism holds that the value of a thing equals the labor that went
into it. Which is why Marx said the worker should own the means of production.
Marx ignores the risk value of labor, and he ignores the "value of the product of the
labor." This value is simple, a product is only worth what the person who wants it
thinks it's worth, and nothing more. It is irrelevant the amount of labor by an
individual in it. It is irrelevant the risk that someone went through to produce the
thing. It is irrelevant the intrinsic value of the labor or secondary products that went
into the thing. If a person views the thing as worth only an amount A, then that's
what he is willing to give for it. The fact that the producer put A + 1 into producing it
is irrelevant to the purchaser of the thing. The producer took the risk and failed in
this instance.
On the other hand the respective value put into a thing may be A but the purchaser
believes the thing to be A + 1 -- and the producer profits.
It might also be that a value of labor, A, is put into a thing, and the wanter gives A +
10 resulting in a larger gain to the producer. It is irrelevant to the producer of a
thing what the wanter of thing is willing to pay. It is the wanters right to do so. The
sole concern of the producer is obtaining at least the amount he labored to put into
it.
In strict dollar terms if a man makes a thing that costs him $100 to produce in time,
materials, know how and the effort to sell, and he finds a buyer, he must accept
$100 if he is to obtain an equal trade. $101 or more if he is to profit. The buyer can
offer any price. Say he offers only $90, the producer need not accept the price
offers. He can find someone who believes the value of his thing is $100 or more
For this product value is different for every object for every person. No two people
regard a product in the same light. Even though they may willingly pay the same
price for a thing such as is done routinely million of times daily at department
stores, the current situation will make that value different for different people.
Convenience alone prevents the individualistic revaluing approach of each time
purchased.
As an example, to a man with 10 pairs of shoes and $100 to spend a $25 pair of
shoes has different value than to a man with a pair of shoes falling apart and only
$30 to spend. Clearly the labor that went into the shoe's production is irrelevant to
both men. The value is not in the labor, nor in the shoe itself. The value is in the
eyes of the beholder. This value is predicated on two things. The immediate need
for such a product -- which is greater with the second man. The shoes have far
more value to him then the first man. The value is also in the risk with which the
second parts with his $25.
For instance, suppose there are two men, both with shoes falling apart, both have
$30. But one has food at home, the second does not. The value of the shoes is
different again to both men. The risk in buying the shoes is different. Food being
the more necessary element. The calculation of value is made accordingly.
This differentiation in the theory of labor, and its concurrent elements of value and
risk, will alter the calculations for each individual.
In each and every of the billions upon billions of economic decisions made around
the globe these simple precepts occur and reoccur. It is difficult for the mind to
grasp this concept in all its details, and it is unnecessary that it does so.
But it remains simply true that these myriad of individuals believe, even know,
certain things -- despite the lack of adequate terminology or the knowledge of the
philosophical underpinnings, all people follow certain ideas and they do so with a
quickness unknown in other natural phenomena except the speed of light; the brain
makes these calculations in infinitesimal speed.
People know that they must survive, they know they must labor to do so. They know
they must be free from hindrance to labor. They know there is a priority to labor.
They know there is risk in labor. They know they cant labor for everything. They
know that each trade their labor for other's labor. They know that others must, can
and will act similarly. They know that the value of each element is only theirs to
hold. Differently from each other, they perceive a value.
Even the value of survival is different to different individuals, hence some commit
suicide, some commit murder.
All of this knowing adds up to an economic system. The system will always be a
natural set of circumstances. It will be organic -- as the instinct to survive and do so
cooperatively drives human society. Labor will create supply, and desire and need
will drive demand. This will never be in "equilibrium" And yet this concept has been
the driving force behind the theory of government; that somehow the natural
disallocation of resources, desires, needs and abilities is unfair -- and thus needs
to be corrected.
The shelves of libraries are filled with the comments of idealists who do not want to
accept the crude hard reality. Whether the writers come from a philosophical
perfectionism, some Eastern unity concept of one for all and all for one, Christian
morality, socialism, feudalism -- you name the system and it'll be there. All are one
man's or group of men's conceptualization of how better to serve the system, to
serve society.
The ancient superstitions of old societies are not much different that the "managed
competition" proposed by Clinton's advisors. They all purport to rectify an
"inequality." Unfortunately, all this alleged scholarship really flows from the socialist
paradigm that itself coalesced centuries of similar musings into a modern
framework.
Before we delve too deeply into any philosophical ideas, one further look at
economics is needed. We already have people acting within their rights to
produce and sell. It is theoretically possible for people to produce exactly what is
needed for basic survival; to store up no more labor, as money, than needed. And
to trade thing for thing in something approximating value for value trade. This zero
extra economy is a subsistence economy. Nothing is left for the accouterments of
finer living; for better made things, finer materials. And nothing is provided for the
natural increase in population.
It is this natural increase in the numbers of people that gives rise to the
accumulation of wealth.
A man who labors does so not only for his own being. But generally, for his wife
and children, also. In modern times it may be the woman who is laboring to feed
the family. But the necessity to get more money is still there. People recognize that
natural events befall them: Death -- birth -- sickness -- weather -- disaster, etc. To
have extra when labor is not possible or insufficient to meet immediate needs is
necessary. Gaining more than what on puts into laboring for a thing is necessary to
accrete this extra portion of things.
This is: money is stored labor, we put so much labor into a thing and trade or sell it
-- this labor is our survival -- if we put a certain amount, A, of labor into a thing and
sell it for A - 1 then we are in effect losing labor. By logical extension, we can not
continually put more labor into a thing than we can get out of it. Or our resources
shall be consumed and we can survive.
One may choose to do this for a specific time, or for a specific product, but overall
we must get the same among we put in to a thing, minimally.
Risk, having a certain value, though not definite, leads people to expect a return of
value from their labor or trade with others in excess of a direct value trade for the
things produced.
By example, a table made from wood from a flatland forest requires less risk than
wood from a steep forested slope. The table made from the second tree is
expected to have more value (it might not, for the value is still in the eyes of the
purchaser, not the producer). It is a happenstance of nature that finer materials
come form more difficult beginnings. A redwood table, from a steep slope, will last
longer, is prettier, more durable, and generally worth more than a flatland pine
table, which wears out, are plainer and thus, worth less. This appreciation that
arises naturally, (or is so imbedded in our brains through the millennia that here in
modern times, appears to arise naturally) helps a purchaser determine the value.
The producer of the redwood table knows that the risk is worth it for he can charge
more for it. Even if it took the same amount of real time and labor and materials.
His risk of his health, even his survival, is enough to justify his extra earnings.
In all economic activity the producer always tries to get, but does not always do so,
more in return than he puts in. The purchaser acceding to his needs, and with
imperfect knowledge of the real costs, and not really caring anyway, will pay the
asked price. At the same time he is getting more for his goods he producers from
other purchasers. The fact that there are a multitude of different purchasers and
sellers trading to different people, and not just one of each to each other, allows for
the tacking on of this risk value -- this something extra, commonly called profit.
Profits, then, are the value derived from one producer risking his survival so that
others might get what is needed while he neglects procurement of his own needs
until he can store his labor through getting money he earns and then going to get
what he needs from others.
If there were no profits, nothing extra to cover the risk, people would not engage in
risk behavior. This elemental fact is ignored by socialism that replace profits that it
calls evil, with an alleged duty to society to produce what one can, hoping others
cooperate too, in one big altruistic society. By telling people that their survival
depends on the cooperation of others and that he is forbidden to seek profits for
his own survival socialism is directly contravening a central element of what it is to
be human. In a grasp at a theory of perfection it ignores the reality of human
behavior. And that's why socialism is a failure everywhere. That's why smuggling,
illegal trade, corruption, sloth, escaping and a black-market exist wherever
socialism is practiced. The more socialism the more people try to avoid it.
In modern times, as new technology is created, an enormous risk is presented -- to
spend millions of dollars and hundreds of hours, all to produce a thing that may or
may not be accepted by consumers. This risk is offset by the ultimate huge profits
possible. There is a near direct proportional relationship between risk and profit --
the greater the risk, the greater the profit. Conversely, the lesser the risk, the lesser
the profit.
In a sports analogy, when a football team is trailing by three points in the last
minute of the 4th quarter, a long pass -- the risk -- must be tried. What is the profit?
-- being the winner!
In all economic activity, and most other human endeavors, people always try to do
the least, or invest the least, to get the most. Given the chance to invest a dollar
and make either $1.50 or $10, people will opt for the $10. It is this human trait,
evident the world over, driven by survival and natural population growth, that
creates economic activity and invention. Even the most primitive stone age people
still found engage in economic activity and invention. Immediately upon contact
with others they begin to trade.
When they do labor they try to do the least for the most, even such a simple thing
as taking fruit from the lower hanging branches is less labor for the same product
then reaching higher up through climbing or the use of a tool. The amount of labor
he put into the product is less, so there for his "profit" could be said to be higher.
Short of the use of law or force, people will trade because it is essential to the
survival of a person and his family.
The idea of pure altruism is an ideal never met. Take for example Mother Theresa.
She is investing her time in caring for the poor, and her profit, her reward as she
might style it, is joy, communing with God, even sanctification. This altruistic ideal
is a good one, that needs to be approached, but it must still be recognized that the
doer of the acts receives a "profit," somehow.
Profit is not always money, but only the benefit one receives from a level of labor
and risk.
The ignoring of these basic economic realities is the mainstay of the left. This idea
that we should work for the benefit of others while not working for ourselves; the
elimination of risk as a consideration in economic valuation makes people not
work. Forgetting that the value of a thing is not in the thing, or in its labor input, but
in the eyes of the beholder, makes for the production of useless, shoddy goods
that no one wants.
The adherence to the leftist economic theory, which rules most of the world leads
to a grinding poverty. The disallowing land ownership means no one has an
incentive to care for it, to create new products; it leaves people just not caring. In
South America, Africa and Asia -- and Eastern Europe -- the call by the people is
always for land. The people want land. Not cooperatively, not controlled by others,
but their own rights to land. Which they rightly see as survival itself. They have
known for centuries that he who controls or owns the land controls survival itself.
The Marxist paradigm has seen huge amounts of land controlled by the state. And
all economic activity controlled by the state as the way to organize society.
As mentioned previously, what Marx described as capitalism was the
monarchist/mercantilist system; and socialism was not that. But what he tried to
define as socialism was the exact same thing as monarchist/mercantilism. Only
the terminology was changed -- one set for capitalism, one set for
monarchist/mercantilism and one set for socialism. He went further in laying out a
historical timeline.
Primitivism Ancient Religion Feudalism Mercantilism Capitalism Socialism
Communism
BC 500+ BC 500 - 500 AD 500-1500 1500-1700 1700-1850 1850 onward to the
future
And he ascribed the change from one system to another to the changing in the
means of production. That is, he said the way in which people labored determined
the way in which they organized politically. As the laboring changed, so did the
politics. He said this change was inevitable -- that it was irrelevant what anyone did
or tried -- the changes would occur. The historical development was inevitable and
those in power in one system tried to prevent the advent of the next, leading to the
build up of alienation by the masses who will then create the coalition of forces to
change to the new system.
He said his system was different -- and that through scientifically examining the
past we can create the future. That by devising a labor system we can create a
political system that takes into account the workers. Marx's reason for this study
was to help the worker become the master of his own fate. Marx said all the past
systems misused the labor of the people to create power structures benefiting only
the few. Each did it supposedly in its own way, but each did it.
Which brings us to the rather startling conclusion that socialism might not have
been a new paradigm after all, but rather was just a recasting in new terminology of
the same system(s) that had been in effect for most of human history. The trade off
between state power & individual power was always lost to the state -- and
individuals suffered.
The ever increasing technological sophistication led to new and more horrific
forms of government -- though the barbarity of some Celtic tribes or Ghegis Khan
is perhaps no different from China's Cultural Revolution or the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia.
That thousands were slaughtered in the name of communism, thousands more in
the name of Islam and still thousands more for Christianity, does not alter the
central truth that the paradigm in existence was one of the "collective rules and the
individual does not matter."
Because humans naturally collectivize their endeavors with like-thinking people,
the case has been made that the collective is expandable. That everything should
be owned and operated together, whether for God, King or Scientific Socialism.
The model of bee hives is used. They are social animals like us. But while the bee
hive will never slaughter its own fellow bees, its members, humans will definitely
slaughter their own members of society.
Most nations before and currently operate under the idea that the collective knows
best and can, perhaps must, hinder the individual. Even eliminate them.
The pre-Marx idea was that God ordained a monarch that ruled over the "sheep" in
the name of the lord. The Royalty were the guardians, the shepherds. There, truth
dwelt in a religious belief. And not just in Christianity, but all religions. The King
System has been the most wide spread government system. The king is the guide,
guardian, protector "steward" and as such can prohibit or hinder anything that
might trouble, or worse, shatter the collective society.
This stewardship concept was taken to great extremes where the individual, the
people, were remorse enough, or pushy enough, to say that the stewardees has
some say, which could take two routes.
The first into Marx's ultimate analysis that the stewardees should be the stewards
and go on living in happy harmony.
Second, the stewardees have certain inalienable rights, but recognize some need
for collective action, and hence choose stewards.
The first theory abounds: it is the socialist paradigm. The second theory is in the
founding documents of America.
Marx took the idea of the collective embodied in the King and created two new
word games. One is that Capitalism is the Collective run by a few rich people. And
that socialism is the collective run by everyone.
As much as Marx did not grasp economic reality, neither did the Kings, nor other
potentates. The rather open mercantilist system of the 1700's and 1800's England
was still centralized control of the economy -- as much as Caesar trying to control
his economy, the King of Nepal tries to control his.
This idea that Marx had that the economy needs to be controlled, only he got to
designate to controllers, is no different from feudal kings trying to stop the spread
of Guilds. (Guilds, in fact, are a perfect example of a group of individuals freely
joining in tandem to accomplish a goal. To the degree in which they prevented
others from establishing similar guilds they were "socialistic." The king who tried to
stop one or two guilds was also socialistic.) How fast we can become bogged
down in details, the historical facts as examples, that we lose sight of the
discussion -- which is the trade off between left and right, lots of government or
none. The similarity of ancient, pre-modern and modern systems, lead them all to
be considered on the left of the spectrum.
All of these are statist systems. Though, each individually has certain
characteristics that has led to these systems being spread over the spectrum, as
newly redefined, and them not all being clustered at one end.
Because all the words mean what the speaker wants them to, by getting into
historical facts and labels, endless pointless discussion ensues, and a drift away
from the central point becomes certain.
Once again, after considerable wandering and some statements seeming to be ad
absurdams we can get back to this paradigm shift. The slow stepping away from
the socialism, or statism, we now confront.
There can be no doubt, though, that a redoing of the political spectrum puts many
things which socialism explains as opposites, and not socialism, are in fact, all the
same and on the same side -- and nearly identical to socialism.
In just a few concrete examples we can see similarities.
The kings owns all the forests in the name of the country and decides who should
run different parts of it and who should receive the economic benefit of the forest,
who shall use it for the benefit of the Kingdom and its subjects;
The central committee owns all the forests in the name of the country and decides
who should run different parts of it and who should receive the economic benefit of
the forest, who shall use it for the benefit of the Peoples Republic and it subjects.
In even the case of a more fractured 1900's democratic republic, where only a
ministry owns most of the forests, and decides who should run different parts of it,
and on the parts of the forest, the ministry doesn't own, gets to regulate, and who
should receive the economic benefit of the forest, and who shall use it for the
benefit of the Democratic Republic and its subjects (citizens).
Whether Peron in Argentina, Samora or Sandanistas in Nicaragua, Castro in
Cuba or Duvalier in Haiti, or the state committees of Eastern Europe, or the body
of laws and regulations and quasi-public ownership, all are a small group using a
theory, or belief system, to control a resource from the top. One controlling a lot,
and dictating to certain individuals it may like or not, to enjoy or not, the resources
and in what fashion, all in the name of the Greater Good for Society.
In all, force is the base of power. All use violence. Whether after a certain amount
of paper work or just summarily. All is in degree only. And it is to that degree that
they can then be put onto the political spectrum newly defined.
In all these systems the presumption is that the economic situation creates the
political situation. That the best efforts of man is to use the political system to
correct the mistakes of the economic situation -- and to make a better man.
Whether for the Glory of God in 15th Century France or the Glory of scientific
socialism in 1989 Poland is irrelevant -- they are the same thing. Neither time nor
place distinguishes them.
The view is that politics and economics are different -- are possible to extricate
from each other. The two ideas are viewed this way by the left. The Evil of the world
is in economic relations, and that politics can bring the better human emotions out
to counter the evil of economics.
Such is the Christian Doctrine that the "love of money is the root of evil;" thus the
sharing and giving which is called for.
Such is the king trying to control the guilds to protect his subjects from their
"secrets and rapaciousness"
Such is the Russian Republic going after "profiteers"
Such is the talk of Franklin Roosevelt "saving capitalism" ...
All these are the same: "evil is in the economy"
The Marxian paradigm defined "economy" as a capitalistic one, and set
communism as the political force to fix it and have it work for the benefit of all. That
King Henri II of France had no word "capitalism" his reining in of merchants is
exactly the same as state committees rein in business enterprises.
All these come to the position expressed here before: we have an economic
system that works, but is evil, and political systems that do not work (certainly not in
terms of individual welfare) that have to save the economic situation from itself.
I shall get into the sameness of politics and economics later. First we must look at
other areas of human endeavor -- things other than politics and economics.
necessary. Someone must work. Different cultures have different work
requirements. No one can survive without work, even if the work they use to survive
is the work of others. Work is necessary on different levels to complete all tasks.
Not all work is necessary to survive in the literal sense -- music and art, are
obviously such a part of human make up that to speak of society without them is
ludicrous. In a broader definition of survival then this work, too, is necessary.
In the most literal extreme, each must labor personally to survive. The individual
has to take care of all his personal food, shelter and clothing needs. In practical
reality people join together -- both reproduction, i.e., kids, and economic
convenience -- the easier way to survive, leads people to cooperate. There is
some compelling urge with humans to cooperate -- it is instinctual animalistically.
In the literal sense -- if one was on the proverbial desert island, one must labor to
produce all that one needs to survive -- the food, shelter and clothing.
In primitive conditions this is possible, in modern times it is impossible. We can
not make everything we need. Indeed, we usually can only make one or two things,
or are involved in an organization functioning to make the things. We labor, or
work, at one thing. Commerce is born as we trade the things we make to others for
the thing that they make. In our complex world trading system we do not even trade
specific products for others. Barter has long been bypassed. Instead we labor for
money. We transfer our work into a portable element, with savings, like a battery.
We trade our work for money, which we then trade to someone else for an object.
Money is a way to store our labor so we can use it in another time and place. So
money is work.
This central fact is the building block -- individuals must work with others to survive,
using money to make it easier to get a wider range of goods than if we had
labored for all of them individually.
When coupled with the right to be left alone it is clear that we have a human right to
work. We have the right to work at anything, alone or in tandem, that others may
utilize individually. Or in tandem while respecting everyone else's right to operate
similarly. I can labor at what I want to -- so long as I do not interfere with what you
want to labor at. That leaves open a whole lot of options -- and the diversity of
human endeavor surely shows people will exercise this complex right: to be left
alone to labor at what one wants to work for.
It is a wonder such diversity exists given the enormous control exercised by
different paradigms in an installation of conformity upon the individual, which is
after all, easier to control.
Interference in your right to labor, or to even spend the money, which is your labor,
as you see fit is interference in your ability to survive as you see fit. Interference in
your right to labor is an interference in your right to be left alone, and vice versa.
These two rights are complex, a joint right. You can not have one without the other.
It cannot be that you can labor as you see fit, but cannot have the right to be left
alone -- both are mutually dependent on each other.
A third right that is a complex right in itself, is necessary to the exercise of both the
right to labor and the right to be left alone.
This is the right of property -- both to own and not to own. The property right arises
in that tools are necessary of work. Work is necessary for survival. Any movable
thing or buildable thing is a tool. A car factory is only a specialized complex tool.
Land is a tool, for survival is a right supported by the right to work. Food is
necessary for survival, and land is necessary to obtain food. SO ownership of land
is necessary, and this a right. To survive one needs food, to get food one needs
property, land, hence land is a right. Property, though, is a complex right. Because
land by be used by others as a tool, they grow food and sell it. A person may labor
for food without actually owning the land. It is only necessary that land itself be
available to someone to farm and own.
It is possible for land to be owned in tandem, even in a large collective. It is also
possible to be a nonowner while the majority do own. It is being forced to be an
owner that violates a person's right to be left alone. Being forced into the collective
ownership is against your right to be left alone. All these rights together are the
foundation of libertarian thought. And seem obvious.
Everyone has the right to survive
Everyone has the right to do whatever they want so long as what they want does
not interfere with the rights similarly of others.
Everyone has the right to labor and enjoy the fruits of that labor
Everyone has the right to own the tools of whatever kind to use in their labor
including land.
"I need to eat, so I work with my land and tools to get food, while joining others in
merriment and learning to make life enjoyable and give as I see fit to those I want,
and not join still others in their pursuits which I chose to join." That is pretty much
the way people see their personal existence.
After that, they can catalog where they are interfered with. A political system that
interferes in these rights as part of its central theory has no legitimacy and can not
survive and be put into effect except by the means of force and violence.
These few rights are overlapping in some regards, and both simple and complex.
But they fulfill the certain proposition that individuals must live and procreate in
order for the human race to survive and continue.
They are based on the extreme of one individual alone. Because humans
congregate these rights are called into question and new rights are proposed.
Marx recognized the need for everyone to survive. It is only that his theory of labor
and than of society organization were wrong.
The basic fault with socialist ownership lies in a contradiction: every one owns
everything, collectively, yet no one owns anything individually. Even labor is owned
by society -- your labor is owned by everyone to be used with the tools owned by
everyone to produce what society needs. At the same time you do not own your
labor nor your tools, for individual effort is against what society needs. The conflict
is how you can both own your labor and not own it at the same time.
This conundrum was finally answered within socialist societies through the maxim:
"we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
The natural situation of individuals working for themselves will always exist. It will
surface in any circumstance where in which people find themselves. The forced
attempts at collective ownership will ride rough shod over individualism only
through the use of force.
This use of force is obvious the world over. Americans particularly are baffled at
the violence that accompanies government action in so many countries. This
violence is either physical or economic. The prevention of economic activity by
governments is anti-individual, and against the essential human desire to work and
create, and then sell and trade, for what others create through work.
Trade is such an obvious given; the history of the world is replete with examples of
trade. No period of human history is without it. Likewise, in history, when humans
are denied this right to trade they will smuggle, do "black market" and in any way
imaginable, circumvent the prohibitions on trade.
The prohibitions on trade, which after all, impede survival as an individual sees it,
can be seen in many ways: Through law or police activity, culminating in violent
suppression. Through taxes that make it seemingly negative to produce or create
goods. Through regulations that inhibit production or render it impossible with our
superhuman efforts of work. Still, in the face of inordinate adversity people will try
to work, create, and trade. If they cannot, they will move to somewhere where they
can do this. Until they do move, they engage in a sullen quiet revolution.
A theory of labor, besides being based in the right to do so , also is based in a
positive and negative sense. There is an economic rationale to the labor. And
there is an economic rationale to the product of that labor. Marxism says these are
the same: labor, as a right, labor as a thing, and the product of that labor. All must
be for the benefit of society, which shall decide the value of the three. This is
absurd.
First, the right to labor is not owned by society. Nor subject to its demands and
whims, nor to its prohibitions, except that you harm no one in so laboring. The right
to labor is a necessary condition of living. The individual alone can determine the
degree to which he shall labor, as long as he is willing to accept responsibility of
his level of labor. If a man chooses to labor minimally, and provide just the bare
minimum, that is his prerogative. The level of his skills, or society's need for such
skills is irrelevant. Despite the fact that a person is capable of more does not
mean he must do more. The fact that he is not capable of more does not mean he
shall be restricted from trying. The sole determinant of the level and direction of
labor is by he who does it.
At the same time there is an intrinsic value to labor, separate from the laborer's
view of it. Because certain things are necessary for survival, things like food shelter
and clothing, water, etc. Certain things that in the extreme are not, such as books
and music, there is an intrinsic difference in the value of labor put into such activity.
Working to grow food is, in the individualistic extreme, more important, it has
greater value, than working to produce music. The individual in a desert island
situation who avoids work for food in order to labor for music will quickly find
himself in an untenable position. It is imperative that labor for food comes first.
Human cohabitation mitigates this to some degree, but essentially it remains true.
This disparity in the intrinsic value of labor produces a risk value of labor. A person
who labors at music in the hope of getting food from some other laborer who wants
music assumes a risk. He is giving up the certainty of laboring for his food and not
ignoring his music -- in the hope that he can find someone who appreciates his
music and will trade some food for it. Modern society mitigates this subsistence
level of risk, but there is still a risk. A musician spends hours each day perfecting
his task, eschewing other activity. He calculates that he can make the trade -- if he
has labored and failed to be a good musician and cannot sell his work -- that is a
risk of trying and not being sufficiently skilled. He also calculates that others can
make the trade because the person who grown the food wants music -- that is a
guess as to what other people want.
In a more modern way, a manufacturer takes two risks. One is that he makes
something well enough to sell and Two is that he finds someone who wants what
he has regardless of its quality.
These are two risks because of the third view of labor -- that is the value of the
product of labor. Marxism holds that the value of a thing equals the labor that went
into it. Which is why Marx said the worker should own the means of production.
Marx ignores the risk value of labor, and he ignores the "value of the product of the
labor." This value is simple, a product is only worth what the person who wants it
thinks it's worth, and nothing more. It is irrelevant the amount of labor by an
individual in it. It is irrelevant the risk that someone went through to produce the
thing. It is irrelevant the intrinsic value of the labor or secondary products that went
into the thing. If a person views the thing as worth only an amount A, then that's
what he is willing to give for it. The fact that the producer put A + 1 into producing it
is irrelevant to the purchaser of the thing. The producer took the risk and failed in
this instance.
On the other hand the respective value put into a thing may be A but the purchaser
believes the thing to be A + 1 -- and the producer profits.
It might also be that a value of labor, A, is put into a thing, and the wanter gives A +
10 resulting in a larger gain to the producer. It is irrelevant to the producer of a
thing what the wanter of thing is willing to pay. It is the wanters right to do so. The
sole concern of the producer is obtaining at least the amount he labored to put into
it.
In strict dollar terms if a man makes a thing that costs him $100 to produce in time,
materials, know how and the effort to sell, and he finds a buyer, he must accept
$100 if he is to obtain an equal trade. $101 or more if he is to profit. The buyer can
offer any price. Say he offers only $90, the producer need not accept the price
offers. He can find someone who believes the value of his thing is $100 or more
For this product value is different for every object for every person. No two people
regard a product in the same light. Even though they may willingly pay the same
price for a thing such as is done routinely million of times daily at department
stores, the current situation will make that value different for different people.
Convenience alone prevents the individualistic revaluing approach of each time
purchased.
As an example, to a man with 10 pairs of shoes and $100 to spend a $25 pair of
shoes has different value than to a man with a pair of shoes falling apart and only
$30 to spend. Clearly the labor that went into the shoe's production is irrelevant to
both men. The value is not in the labor, nor in the shoe itself. The value is in the
eyes of the beholder. This value is predicated on two things. The immediate need
for such a product -- which is greater with the second man. The shoes have far
more value to him then the first man. The value is also in the risk with which the
second parts with his $25.
For instance, suppose there are two men, both with shoes falling apart, both have
$30. But one has food at home, the second does not. The value of the shoes is
different again to both men. The risk in buying the shoes is different. Food being
the more necessary element. The calculation of value is made accordingly.
This differentiation in the theory of labor, and its concurrent elements of value and
risk, will alter the calculations for each individual.
In each and every of the billions upon billions of economic decisions made around
the globe these simple precepts occur and reoccur. It is difficult for the mind to
grasp this concept in all its details, and it is unnecessary that it does so.
But it remains simply true that these myriad of individuals believe, even know,
certain things -- despite the lack of adequate terminology or the knowledge of the
philosophical underpinnings, all people follow certain ideas and they do so with a
quickness unknown in other natural phenomena except the speed of light; the brain
makes these calculations in infinitesimal speed.
People know that they must survive, they know they must labor to do so. They know
they must be free from hindrance to labor. They know there is a priority to labor.
They know there is risk in labor. They know they cant labor for everything. They
know that each trade their labor for other's labor. They know that others must, can
and will act similarly. They know that the value of each element is only theirs to
hold. Differently from each other, they perceive a value.
Even the value of survival is different to different individuals, hence some commit
suicide, some commit murder.
All of this knowing adds up to an economic system. The system will always be a
natural set of circumstances. It will be organic -- as the instinct to survive and do so
cooperatively drives human society. Labor will create supply, and desire and need
will drive demand. This will never be in "equilibrium" And yet this concept has been
the driving force behind the theory of government; that somehow the natural
disallocation of resources, desires, needs and abilities is unfair -- and thus needs
to be corrected.
The shelves of libraries are filled with the comments of idealists who do not want to
accept the crude hard reality. Whether the writers come from a philosophical
perfectionism, some Eastern unity concept of one for all and all for one, Christian
morality, socialism, feudalism -- you name the system and it'll be there. All are one
man's or group of men's conceptualization of how better to serve the system, to
serve society.
The ancient superstitions of old societies are not much different that the "managed
competition" proposed by Clinton's advisors. They all purport to rectify an
"inequality." Unfortunately, all this alleged scholarship really flows from the socialist
paradigm that itself coalesced centuries of similar musings into a modern
framework.
Before we delve too deeply into any philosophical ideas, one further look at
economics is needed. We already have people acting within their rights to
produce and sell. It is theoretically possible for people to produce exactly what is
needed for basic survival; to store up no more labor, as money, than needed. And
to trade thing for thing in something approximating value for value trade. This zero
extra economy is a subsistence economy. Nothing is left for the accouterments of
finer living; for better made things, finer materials. And nothing is provided for the
natural increase in population.
It is this natural increase in the numbers of people that gives rise to the
accumulation of wealth.
A man who labors does so not only for his own being. But generally, for his wife
and children, also. In modern times it may be the woman who is laboring to feed
the family. But the necessity to get more money is still there. People recognize that
natural events befall them: Death -- birth -- sickness -- weather -- disaster, etc. To
have extra when labor is not possible or insufficient to meet immediate needs is
necessary. Gaining more than what on puts into laboring for a thing is necessary to
accrete this extra portion of things.
This is: money is stored labor, we put so much labor into a thing and trade or sell it
-- this labor is our survival -- if we put a certain amount, A, of labor into a thing and
sell it for A - 1 then we are in effect losing labor. By logical extension, we can not
continually put more labor into a thing than we can get out of it. Or our resources
shall be consumed and we can survive.
One may choose to do this for a specific time, or for a specific product, but overall
we must get the same among we put in to a thing, minimally.
Risk, having a certain value, though not definite, leads people to expect a return of
value from their labor or trade with others in excess of a direct value trade for the
things produced.
By example, a table made from wood from a flatland forest requires less risk than
wood from a steep forested slope. The table made from the second tree is
expected to have more value (it might not, for the value is still in the eyes of the
purchaser, not the producer). It is a happenstance of nature that finer materials
come form more difficult beginnings. A redwood table, from a steep slope, will last
longer, is prettier, more durable, and generally worth more than a flatland pine
table, which wears out, are plainer and thus, worth less. This appreciation that
arises naturally, (or is so imbedded in our brains through the millennia that here in
modern times, appears to arise naturally) helps a purchaser determine the value.
The producer of the redwood table knows that the risk is worth it for he can charge
more for it. Even if it took the same amount of real time and labor and materials.
His risk of his health, even his survival, is enough to justify his extra earnings.
In all economic activity the producer always tries to get, but does not always do so,
more in return than he puts in. The purchaser acceding to his needs, and with
imperfect knowledge of the real costs, and not really caring anyway, will pay the
asked price. At the same time he is getting more for his goods he producers from
other purchasers. The fact that there are a multitude of different purchasers and
sellers trading to different people, and not just one of each to each other, allows for
the tacking on of this risk value -- this something extra, commonly called profit.
Profits, then, are the value derived from one producer risking his survival so that
others might get what is needed while he neglects procurement of his own needs
until he can store his labor through getting money he earns and then going to get
what he needs from others.
If there were no profits, nothing extra to cover the risk, people would not engage in
risk behavior. This elemental fact is ignored by socialism that replace profits that it
calls evil, with an alleged duty to society to produce what one can, hoping others
cooperate too, in one big altruistic society. By telling people that their survival
depends on the cooperation of others and that he is forbidden to seek profits for
his own survival socialism is directly contravening a central element of what it is to
be human. In a grasp at a theory of perfection it ignores the reality of human
behavior. And that's why socialism is a failure everywhere. That's why smuggling,
illegal trade, corruption, sloth, escaping and a black-market exist wherever
socialism is practiced. The more socialism the more people try to avoid it.
In modern times, as new technology is created, an enormous risk is presented -- to
spend millions of dollars and hundreds of hours, all to produce a thing that may or
may not be accepted by consumers. This risk is offset by the ultimate huge profits
possible. There is a near direct proportional relationship between risk and profit --
the greater the risk, the greater the profit. Conversely, the lesser the risk, the lesser
the profit.
In a sports analogy, when a football team is trailing by three points in the last
minute of the 4th quarter, a long pass -- the risk -- must be tried. What is the profit?
-- being the winner!
In all economic activity, and most other human endeavors, people always try to do
the least, or invest the least, to get the most. Given the chance to invest a dollar
and make either $1.50 or $10, people will opt for the $10. It is this human trait,
evident the world over, driven by survival and natural population growth, that
creates economic activity and invention. Even the most primitive stone age people
still found engage in economic activity and invention. Immediately upon contact
with others they begin to trade.
When they do labor they try to do the least for the most, even such a simple thing
as taking fruit from the lower hanging branches is less labor for the same product
then reaching higher up through climbing or the use of a tool. The amount of labor
he put into the product is less, so there for his "profit" could be said to be higher.
Short of the use of law or force, people will trade because it is essential to the
survival of a person and his family.
The idea of pure altruism is an ideal never met. Take for example Mother Theresa.
She is investing her time in caring for the poor, and her profit, her reward as she
might style it, is joy, communing with God, even sanctification. This altruistic ideal
is a good one, that needs to be approached, but it must still be recognized that the
doer of the acts receives a "profit," somehow.
Profit is not always money, but only the benefit one receives from a level of labor
and risk.
The ignoring of these basic economic realities is the mainstay of the left. This idea
that we should work for the benefit of others while not working for ourselves; the
elimination of risk as a consideration in economic valuation makes people not
work. Forgetting that the value of a thing is not in the thing, or in its labor input, but
in the eyes of the beholder, makes for the production of useless, shoddy goods
that no one wants.
The adherence to the leftist economic theory, which rules most of the world leads
to a grinding poverty. The disallowing land ownership means no one has an
incentive to care for it, to create new products; it leaves people just not caring. In
South America, Africa and Asia -- and Eastern Europe -- the call by the people is
always for land. The people want land. Not cooperatively, not controlled by others,
but their own rights to land. Which they rightly see as survival itself. They have
known for centuries that he who controls or owns the land controls survival itself.
The Marxist paradigm has seen huge amounts of land controlled by the state. And
all economic activity controlled by the state as the way to organize society.
As mentioned previously, what Marx described as capitalism was the
monarchist/mercantilist system; and socialism was not that. But what he tried to
define as socialism was the exact same thing as monarchist/mercantilism. Only
the terminology was changed -- one set for capitalism, one set for
monarchist/mercantilism and one set for socialism. He went further in laying out a
historical timeline.
Primitivism Ancient Religion Feudalism Mercantilism Capitalism Socialism
Communism
BC 500+ BC 500 - 500 AD 500-1500 1500-1700 1700-1850 1850 onward to the
future
And he ascribed the change from one system to another to the changing in the
means of production. That is, he said the way in which people labored determined
the way in which they organized politically. As the laboring changed, so did the
politics. He said this change was inevitable -- that it was irrelevant what anyone did
or tried -- the changes would occur. The historical development was inevitable and
those in power in one system tried to prevent the advent of the next, leading to the
build up of alienation by the masses who will then create the coalition of forces to
change to the new system.
He said his system was different -- and that through scientifically examining the
past we can create the future. That by devising a labor system we can create a
political system that takes into account the workers. Marx's reason for this study
was to help the worker become the master of his own fate. Marx said all the past
systems misused the labor of the people to create power structures benefiting only
the few. Each did it supposedly in its own way, but each did it.
Which brings us to the rather startling conclusion that socialism might not have
been a new paradigm after all, but rather was just a recasting in new terminology of
the same system(s) that had been in effect for most of human history. The trade off
between state power & individual power was always lost to the state -- and
individuals suffered.
The ever increasing technological sophistication led to new and more horrific
forms of government -- though the barbarity of some Celtic tribes or Ghegis Khan
is perhaps no different from China's Cultural Revolution or the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia.
That thousands were slaughtered in the name of communism, thousands more in
the name of Islam and still thousands more for Christianity, does not alter the
central truth that the paradigm in existence was one of the "collective rules and the
individual does not matter."
Because humans naturally collectivize their endeavors with like-thinking people,
the case has been made that the collective is expandable. That everything should
be owned and operated together, whether for God, King or Scientific Socialism.
The model of bee hives is used. They are social animals like us. But while the bee
hive will never slaughter its own fellow bees, its members, humans will definitely
slaughter their own members of society.
Most nations before and currently operate under the idea that the collective knows
best and can, perhaps must, hinder the individual. Even eliminate them.
The pre-Marx idea was that God ordained a monarch that ruled over the "sheep" in
the name of the lord. The Royalty were the guardians, the shepherds. There, truth
dwelt in a religious belief. And not just in Christianity, but all religions. The King
System has been the most wide spread government system. The king is the guide,
guardian, protector "steward" and as such can prohibit or hinder anything that
might trouble, or worse, shatter the collective society.
This stewardship concept was taken to great extremes where the individual, the
people, were remorse enough, or pushy enough, to say that the stewardees has
some say, which could take two routes.
The first into Marx's ultimate analysis that the stewardees should be the stewards
and go on living in happy harmony.
Second, the stewardees have certain inalienable rights, but recognize some need
for collective action, and hence choose stewards.
The first theory abounds: it is the socialist paradigm. The second theory is in the
founding documents of America.
Marx took the idea of the collective embodied in the King and created two new
word games. One is that Capitalism is the Collective run by a few rich people. And
that socialism is the collective run by everyone.
As much as Marx did not grasp economic reality, neither did the Kings, nor other
potentates. The rather open mercantilist system of the 1700's and 1800's England
was still centralized control of the economy -- as much as Caesar trying to control
his economy, the King of Nepal tries to control his.
This idea that Marx had that the economy needs to be controlled, only he got to
designate to controllers, is no different from feudal kings trying to stop the spread
of Guilds. (Guilds, in fact, are a perfect example of a group of individuals freely
joining in tandem to accomplish a goal. To the degree in which they prevented
others from establishing similar guilds they were "socialistic." The king who tried to
stop one or two guilds was also socialistic.) How fast we can become bogged
down in details, the historical facts as examples, that we lose sight of the
discussion -- which is the trade off between left and right, lots of government or
none. The similarity of ancient, pre-modern and modern systems, lead them all to
be considered on the left of the spectrum.
All of these are statist systems. Though, each individually has certain
characteristics that has led to these systems being spread over the spectrum, as
newly redefined, and them not all being clustered at one end.
Because all the words mean what the speaker wants them to, by getting into
historical facts and labels, endless pointless discussion ensues, and a drift away
from the central point becomes certain.
Once again, after considerable wandering and some statements seeming to be ad
absurdams we can get back to this paradigm shift. The slow stepping away from
the socialism, or statism, we now confront.
There can be no doubt, though, that a redoing of the political spectrum puts many
things which socialism explains as opposites, and not socialism, are in fact, all the
same and on the same side -- and nearly identical to socialism.
In just a few concrete examples we can see similarities.
The kings owns all the forests in the name of the country and decides who should
run different parts of it and who should receive the economic benefit of the forest,
who shall use it for the benefit of the Kingdom and its subjects;
The central committee owns all the forests in the name of the country and decides
who should run different parts of it and who should receive the economic benefit of
the forest, who shall use it for the benefit of the Peoples Republic and it subjects.
In even the case of a more fractured 1900's democratic republic, where only a
ministry owns most of the forests, and decides who should run different parts of it,
and on the parts of the forest, the ministry doesn't own, gets to regulate, and who
should receive the economic benefit of the forest, and who shall use it for the
benefit of the Democratic Republic and its subjects (citizens).
Whether Peron in Argentina, Samora or Sandanistas in Nicaragua, Castro in
Cuba or Duvalier in Haiti, or the state committees of Eastern Europe, or the body
of laws and regulations and quasi-public ownership, all are a small group using a
theory, or belief system, to control a resource from the top. One controlling a lot,
and dictating to certain individuals it may like or not, to enjoy or not, the resources
and in what fashion, all in the name of the Greater Good for Society.
In all, force is the base of power. All use violence. Whether after a certain amount
of paper work or just summarily. All is in degree only. And it is to that degree that
they can then be put onto the political spectrum newly defined.
In all these systems the presumption is that the economic situation creates the
political situation. That the best efforts of man is to use the political system to
correct the mistakes of the economic situation -- and to make a better man.
Whether for the Glory of God in 15th Century France or the Glory of scientific
socialism in 1989 Poland is irrelevant -- they are the same thing. Neither time nor
place distinguishes them.
The view is that politics and economics are different -- are possible to extricate
from each other. The two ideas are viewed this way by the left. The Evil of the world
is in economic relations, and that politics can bring the better human emotions out
to counter the evil of economics.
Such is the Christian Doctrine that the "love of money is the root of evil;" thus the
sharing and giving which is called for.
Such is the king trying to control the guilds to protect his subjects from their
"secrets and rapaciousness"
Such is the Russian Republic going after "profiteers"
Such is the talk of Franklin Roosevelt "saving capitalism" ...
All these are the same: "evil is in the economy"
The Marxian paradigm defined "economy" as a capitalistic one, and set
communism as the political force to fix it and have it work for the benefit of all. That
King Henri II of France had no word "capitalism" his reining in of merchants is
exactly the same as state committees rein in business enterprises.
All these come to the position expressed here before: we have an economic
system that works, but is evil, and political systems that do not work (certainly not in
terms of individual welfare) that have to save the economic situation from itself.
I shall get into the sameness of politics and economics later. First we must look at
other areas of human endeavor -- things other than politics and economics.
| CHAPTER 5 |
| Jim Hlavac |
The Socialist Era
| Poltics, Theory & Economics |
