Liberty or Tyranny?
In other words, the individual is understood as defined by the agency of choice and native ability and by the inherent right to follow his inclinations and ambitions — to choose his friends, the groups and collegialities he wishes to belong to, the trade or profession he decides to follow — provided he remains within the boundaries of communal mutuality and respects the rights of others. A corollary of this conservative principle is that the individual is entitled, not to entitlements, but to the right to enjoy the fruits of his labor, which is to say, his property, diligently earned in the pursuit of his goals. Not is it only a question of material acquisition. “The main issue in the new American culture war,” writes Arthur Brooks in his just-published The Battle, is not merely “material riches — it is human flourishing. … People flourish when they earn their own success.” Such rights — freedom of enterprise, personal autonomy, and the legitimate possession of a significant portion of what has been earned — exemplify not “just an economic alternative but a moral imperative,” and constitute the individual citizen’s liberty.
The Statist, however, as has been often pointed out, most recently by Levin, is preoccupied not with liberty but with equality. “In his war against the individual, the free market and ultimately the civil society,” Levin writes, the “Statist must claim the power to make that which is unequal equal and that which is imperfect perfect.” The problem is that the Statist is interested not only in equality of opportunity, to which no reasonable person could object (assuming that opportunity is not manipulated to favor one class of persons over another, as, for example, affirmative action), but in equality of outcome, which sanctions the massive interventions of the state into the private domain.
This is what Levin’s immediate predecessor Brian Anderson in Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents calls “egalitarian overbidding” and the welfare state’s “tutelary despotism.” Allowed free rein, Anderson continues, “the passion for equality … undermines democracy itself,” leading to a soft despotism “under which liberty is lost and a bloated central power administers to the needs of an infantilized population.” In this way liberty subsides into tyranny as the Statist strives to “restore some mythic national community or to forge a future radical utopia.”
The Statist refuses to accept that imperfection is rooted in human nature, that some people are born brighter than others just as some people are born more beautiful or taller or more athletic than others, that individual talents and characteristics and dispositions cannot be legislated, and that hard work, unlike what is claimed for virtue, brings more than its own reward. “Whether or not we succeed,” says Arthur Brooks, “should depend on our abilities and efforts”; conversely, people should be allowed to “fail on their own merits.” Brooks appropriately cites James Madison from Federalist No. 10: the “first object of government is the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property.”
We might put it this way. Economic programs should not seek to reward someone’s failure with another’s success, but to stimulate prosperity for all. The effort to establish a level playing field is certainly commendable and is the sign of a fair and compassionate society. The attempt to determine in advance and to impose the score of whatever game may be played on that field, or to hand the victor’s trophy to the loser, is destructive of human liberty and is the infallible sign of the totalitarian mindset.
The consummation of the tyrannical dream, or rather nightmare, is not equality in any meaningful sense of the term but an absence of distinguishing features, a lack of personal initiative, an attitude of submission, a renunciation of self, in short, a drab and languid sameness, a generic shabbiness. This condition was liltingly ridiculed by Gilbert & Sullivan in The Gondoliers, whose protagonists wish to turn the kingdom of Barataria into a workingman’s paradise: “The Chancellor in his peruke,/The Earl, the Marquis, and the Dook,/ The Groom, the Butler, and the cook,/They all shall equal be.”
The point is, obviously, that equality cannot be imposed from above or created by fiat. Promoting everyone “to the top of every tree,” as the operetta’s Grand Inquisitor sings — an ironic description of the redistributionist ethic — means in practice that we can all be poor, live in dismal concrete blocks, and spend our energy waiting in lines for shoes and meat — except for whoever passes for philosopher-kings and their favorites. The program which envisages so distorted an intention, whether by advancing theoretical impossibilities, entertaining romantic assumptions, applying military compulsion, or devising economic innovations, leads inevitably to personal and social calamity. “Measures to establish social equality,” warns Isaiah Berlin in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, “crush self-determination and stifle individual genius.” And Berlin was no right-wing ideologue; fiercely anti-communist, to be sure, and a proponent of pluralism, but also deeply suspicious of laissez-faire capitalism.
As the Serbian writer Milovan Djilas clearly understood, invasive state control, ostensibly devoted to improving the human lot, is always counter-productive, subject to an intrinsic flaw in its theoretical analysis of the human condition. “Men must hold both ideas and ideals,” he writes in The Unperfect Society, “but they should not regard these as wholly realizable.” The trouble with the radical sensibility that wishes to construct an ideal state on the detritus of a customary society is that it is governed by an unrealizable utopianism. This is finally why communism was bound to fail. “The communists were chiefly to blame for their own misfortunes,” which were the “result of their obstinacy in pursuing an imaginary society, the belief that they could change human nature.” Utopia, or revolutionary despotism, always fails “to bring itself into harmony … with unidealized, natural desires.”
The quest for perfection, for the comprehensive whole in which all our conflicting desires and values turn out to be somehow compatible with one another, can prove, and has proven, literally fatal. Human nature, which is not as postmodernists believe a social, intellectual, or linguistic construct, does not allow for eschatological harmonies. The slightest acquaintance with contemporary history should put us, so to speak, on red alert.
The presentiment or conviction, as Oscar Wilde sets it out in “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” that Utopia is “the one country at which Humanity is always landing” and validates the “map of the world,” is always with us, of course, but it needs to be rigorously monitored. We recall that even as Tocqueville lavished praise upon the democratic experiment in the United States, he remarked upon the disturbing American inclination to exalt “the scope of human perfectibility,” an imminent danger to its well-being. As Levin and others recognize, the main battleground between the competing philosophies of conservatism and statism is now the United States. Europe seems already lost.
What the Statist has not understood, is simply incapable of acknowledging, or is prone to discounting out of an insatiable greed for power, is that the conservative principle, when it is not subverted, does not purport to flash-freeze the past and preserve it intact, as if it were a museum exhibit. It does not worship a graven image or try to resurrect a fossil. Quite the contrary. Conservatism’s mandate is to conserve what is best in the history of a people or a nation, to maintain the force of tradition that provides for cultural continuity and social stability. “If a nation does not show and teach respect for its own identity, principles, and institutions,” Levin writes, “the nation will ultimately cease to exist.”
The commitment to social cohesion, a common set of values, and broadly accepted norms of behavior, however, by no means rules out beneficial progress — a charge often levied against the conservative principle by its liberal rivals and antagonists. As Karl Popper noted in The Open Society and Its Enemies, in which he took on Plato and Hegel, “piecemeal social engineering” is a mainstay of the democratic polity. The word “engineering” may have unfortunate connotations in today’s frame of political reference, but Popper was writing at an earlier time and the emphasis is meant to fall on “piecemeal,” the gradual and considered amelioration of inequities inherent in all human societies, as opposed to the revolutionary and utopian slash-and-burn method of operation.
Snazzy Aristotle and shabby Plato are still banging heads. But the outcome of the conflict remains undecided although the shabby guys, it must be admitted, appear to have the upper hand, at least for the time being. The sorry fact is that in the actual world, befitting sequels are reversed and Snazzy Guy finds himself rather more often on the floor than his shabby opponent, both in the current scrimmage and the larger historical context. But his native resilience should not be underestimated as he picks himself up once again for yet another round in the brawl of ideologies.
I wish to thank Mr. Solway for reminding me of an encounter years ago in Washington, D.C. I had with a hawker of Communist Party U.S.A. wares, “What good is freedom, if it includes the freedom to starve?” he asked rhetorically.
Such is the last resort of all who promote tyranny of any label: discredit the ownership of freedom’s successes as greed, discredit the ownership of freedom’s failures as proof of its illegitimacy. Of course, they always seem to leave out the individual’s powerlessness which necessarily accompanies State ownership/control.
Leftists do this with elan and verve. One would wish they would first live under a Social Market system (e.g. Western Europe) a few years to experience the Verarschung and Rechthaberei which arise naturally in such a culture, before they ever again espouse such contempt for American freedom.
I will always choose ownership of my own failures and successes over the monstrous alternative of the Left.
The essay and the comments are all interesting, but it is important to distinguish between the “Left” statisms facing us now, as well as looking at political divisions within “the Right” especially as the Fascist label is frequently applied to each side by the embattled others. I tried to do it here: http://clarespark.com/2009/12/16/perceptions-of-the-enemy-the-left-looks-at-the-right-and-vice-versa/. We are in such terrible trouble economically, that appeals to an invariable human nature are not helpful.
This is really important PLEASE call NRA 800 392 8683 and press #3 (don’t pay any attention to the recorded message) talk to a rep. Tell the representative that you STRONGLY oppose the NRA’s support of harry reid, and to PLEASE support SHARRON ANGLE. thanks, Dave
“What good is freedom, if it includes the freedom to starve?” he asked rhetorically.”
I’d rather be free to starve, than be forced to starve. But that’s just me.
In the beginning God made the Heavens and Earth.
Then he created man and formed woman from one of his bones.
He placed them in the Garden of Eden with only one rule never to be broken.
Do Not Eat The Forbidden Fruit..
Then God went off to rest.
Seeing that God was not in the Garden..
And what a beautiful creature Eve was..
The Serpent; an ugly, creepy crawling thing now commonly known as a snake; or liberal Democrat often named Bill, tempted Eve as follows:
“Phsstt.. Eat this and it will make you equal to the man in all respects..!”
Seeing what was about to happen, Adam; a decent Conservative Republican shouted out, “Don’t do it Eve, the snake is a damn Democrat. Don’t eat the fruit..!!”
But, it was too late.
Eve had already taken a big bite of the fruit..
Thus began the eternal struggle of good versus bad, liberty or tyranny known as politics..
Indeed. Historian Will Durant said liberty and equality are likes buckets in a well…when one goes up the other goes down.
In response to Dave’s comment: Indeed. Historian Will Durant said liberty and equality are likes buckets in a well…when one goes up the other goes down.
.. but as one comes up full, the other is moving to the position in which it can be filled.. ever think of that?
Helen, an analogy is useful only insofar as the thing being compared to the analogous thing have in common, (and even then not all such common things may be relevant to the point being made. ) Your pointing out that bucket coming up is full while that going down is ready to be filled … what is the analog of *water* in your extended appreciation of Durant’s analogy? If *water* represents good things happening to indiivduals, then your analogy does not hold water.
Because when tyranny is rising, it is EMPTY of any good, and higher it rises, more empty it becomes. On the other hand, when Liberty is rising, it starts out with nothing, and brings more and more good to an individual as it rises. Similar invalidity of your extension you will see if you consider the *water* to be something bad …
Of course, you could be just being playfully naughty and just pointed out the obvious about buckets in wells, without actually ascribing it any meaning. I wouldn’t know.
and so it goes with picking apart the analogy – in much the same way conservatives and liberals have become so polarized neither sees the forest because the trees are getting all the attention – each must drive home her point – can’t we just try to understand each other – opposites can make for very exciting bedfellows!
In Book II of the Politics, Aristotle took direct aim on the Republic, especially on what we would today call its communism (proposed for the Guardian class), its elitism (raising a cadre of philosopher-kings to govern the republic) and on its underlying premise that the state must be as little differentiated as possible. “Excessive unification is a bad thing in a state,” writes Aristotle. And again, “There comes a point when the effect of unification is that the state, if it does not cease to be a state, will certainly be a very worse one; it is as if one were to reduce harmony to unison or rhythm to a single beat.” He concludes, “a city must be a plurality.”
Hmmm, sounds as if he is promoting “diversity.” Most of these truths are two-edged. Just think how many conservatives mourn the loss of the WASP, religious core American, who, being greatly in the majority, defined who we were.
There is no question that socialism run amok is a terrible thing, but when you look at the gap between rich and poor in this country, it seems that our, er, diversity is thriving. It is one thing to say that Stalin and Pol Pot were monsters, and their systems tyrannical, and quite something else to invoke this bogey man, every time some communal agenda is advanced. The scale of everything, but especially corporations and conglomerates has gotten so huge, that the idea of individual freedom in such a world simpley seems different to us than it would have to Aristotle or the Founders.
It seems that the only way that we can have “full” employment is for there to be growth, and with growth all the corporations (and the government) get bigger and bigger. That is the ultimate Catch-22 here. There is also something about our financial system in which larger corporations buy out smaller businesses and streamline them, often closing them down, which is supposed to promote efficiency, but also seems to be taking us apart, piece by piece. I don’t have the genius to propose a better alternative, but until that problem is addressed, the bigger will always swallow/buy out the smaller, with the owner of the smaller taking his profit and running. The smaller/older business gets dismantled and most of the jobs end up overseas.
Whoever can address this issue the best will win the day.
A good point, and the reason for why one side seldom wins the upper hand for long. On the whole, however, socialist state tyrannies are far worse then diverse Aristotelian societies. Yes there is a large gap between “rich” and “poor” in the latter (although there is always a similar gap between the elite and the masses in the former as well!), but at least in a open society there is the possibility for upward mobility and the betterment of one’s self.
The ultimate problem, of course, is human nature. Utopias, whether Platonic or Aristotelian, are simply not possible and we must always fight to keep things at a tolerable level.
I love the way people who consider themselves intellectuals, actually manage to convince themselves that they know anything about anything.
Dwight actually believes that the core identifying ideology of conservatism is WASP with a religious core. Don’t bother him by quoting reality, he already knows it all.
As to his notion that left alone, all companies will grow ever bigger. That too is a belief common amongst those who believe they know much more than they actually do.
Out here in reality, we have discovered that bigness is as much a burden as it is a benefit. Big companies are always slow and inefficient. That’s why big companies often fail, their markets stolen away by smaller companies that figure out what the consumers want, and get it to the market faster.
Dwight, someday, when you actually know half as much as you think you do now, just maybe you will be educated.
The only reason any small companies exist is that we have antitrust laws and break up monopolies. If the free market worked perfectly we would have no need for those laws. However, capitalism is not perfect and only survives because we constantly tweak it. Walmart, inbev (proud owners of bud), McDonalds, Starbucks, Coke, Nestle, halliburton ect…
Man, you love to display your ignorance, don’t you. If the only reason why small businesses exist is because of anti-trust laws, then please explain the existence of small companies prior to the anti-trust laws being passed.
Monopolies are impossible without the explicit protection of govt.
MTG wrote, “Big companies are always slow and inefficient. That’s why big companies often fail, their markets stolen away by smaller companies that figure out what the consumers want, and get it to the market faster.”
I don’t question that at all, but are you trying to tell me that once the small company becomes successful that pressure/possibility, define it as you like, does not immediately come from the bigger fish? And how about going public?
You and I both know that the American economy is in some trouble. Or maybe you say it’s not? Fill me in here, please. Do we have some product which the Chinese need?
Small companies grow, eat small companies, get huge, slow inefficient, unresponsive, and die, and small companies eat the assets and grow, and continue the cycle. It is a brutal dog eat dog Darwinian world, until Socialists come along and start bailing out and protecting the large companies about to die, “because they are too big to fail”.
Allow failing companies to die, and while losing a job is stressful, the individuals have renewed opportunity in the growing companies. Unless Socialists snatch the carcass away, starving the young companies.
Yes our economy is in trouble, but every single one of those troubles can be directly attributed to some action by govt.
Do we have products the Chinese need. Obviously. High tech ones for example. There are also products that were invented here and haven’t been licensed anywhere else.
The real world is a lot more complicated than your college classroom.
“MarkTheGreat”, gosh what handle! “MarkTheGreat”, what a pleasant sound! rolling off the tongue.
Only, we all wish that, “MarkTheGreat” were of such elevation to apprehend and understand that, ad hominim invective can be inapposite and overdone.
The adults are talking here. If you want to add something intelligent to the conversation, we will attend to you shortly.
You forgot to give him a push pop and tell him to take it in the other room.
I’m sorry, I just finished the last push-pop. Yum.
Again, the reason why both Leftism and Libertarianism both fail is that both attempt to make people live where no Homo sapiens has ever lived or ever could live — either in a large state, with behavioral controls established by some ruling groups. or as individuals, acting on individual whims. Men live in social groups. Normally from 7 – 40 individuals, related by birth (but with inbreeding avoided by exogomy). The size and scope of these groups can be expandable to the size of the ‘nation’, a large group of related people living in the same area. Membership in all social groups is established by relationship, but governed by cultural and traditional ‘rules’. These rules are broadly determined by Human Nature, but the specifics are variable according to group characteristics. Failure to abide by group rules is punished by expulsion from membership in the group. In more primitive times, this was effectively a death sentence. Libertarians want to abolish these rules, and therefore, the group. Leftists want to abolish the group and substitute their own rules to govern behavior. Humans do not naturally live as individuals or in groups of unrelated individuals. Human beings not living naturally struggle mightily to establish a natural group. This is why aliens are eliminated from any group; and why individualists (who refuse to abide by group rules) will be eliminated in functioning natural groups. Religion, tradition, language, and genetic relationship are the defining characteristics of human social groups. Other living arrangements will only be tolerated until the opportunity arises to destroy them.
Our Founding Fathers did not understand these things, as they were largely deluded by the Enlightenment. Although Enlightenment theory was logical and reasonable, it was pure theory — easily refuted by a cold-blooded study of human history. As someone once said: “In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice; in practice there usually is.” Practice is what Leftists and Libertarians refuse to acknowledge.
Why do the terminally clueless insist on believing that all libertarians are anarchists? Why do they also insist believe that anarchism means no social coordination?
Assuming that, despite the snarky stink that seems to waft from its last sentence, you intend your comment to be taken seriously, I think the word you are seeking is “pluralism.” (Hegel’s “articulated universality.”) The hallowed-in-blood, boldly explicit E pluribus unum printed on a patriot’s flag must wave much more vigorously than the limp, sensation-bound, special-pleading flaccidity of Jessie Jackson’s rainbow banner, no?
Dear David:
Superb analysis!
I joyously walk away from your piece reaffirmed in my belief in the sanctity of my fellow man as both an empowered individual and a member of a bigger and “good” fraternity.
The Statist, once past the rhetoric of their attempt to deliver general benevolence, is about centralizing power into his/her egocentric hands.
I remain on the side of the Founding Fathers which makes me a FOREVER conservative in the realm of modern day politics and governance.
Thanks for not “leaving me alone.”
GREAT PIECE!
Sincerely,
Tony Lorizio
Isn’t it odd that statists have never appealed to guilt on any truly large, coordinated scale in order to dupe the ‘haves’ into surrendering their fruits to the ‘have nots’? As far as I’m aware they’ve never really tried to run a guilt trip on the middle class producers, or if they have, it wasn’t for very long. Seems to me that acknowledging innate human inequalities – and parlaying that into guilt – would be there first, best shot at getting everyone on board with the utopia they want (though it would still be impossible to attain, much less maintain, cf. USSR).
I guess it’s just been easier to steal from the haves by stealth, deception or outright force.
This is one of the best articles yet, thanks for it!
At this point in our political devolution, the “haves” are overwhelmingly on the Left. They cannot be guilt-chivvied into anything, as they consider themselves intellectually and morally superior to the rest of us, and therefore entitled to all they desire, including absolute and unretractable power.
In Orwell’s formulation, the High are our leftist elite: our criminal-governing class. We are the Middle and the Low.
There a thin line between the two whether it on the right Nazi or socialism on the left; it’s better to stay in the middle
arnold, the reason it appears so “thin” is that – in practical reality – there IS no line between Nazism and socialism; it doesn’t exist.
For the individual citizen, there is no practical difference between national socialism (e.g., fascism, islamism or nazism) and international socialism (e.g., marxism, communism or so-called ‘democratic’ socialism). The former focuses on cultural, nationalist tropes and propaganda, intended to divide a nation or ethnic group from those that surround it, in order to whip the masses into submission under a totalitarian State – see Nazi Germany under Hitler and Fascist Italy under Mussolini. The latter pursues the same ultimate goal, using class-baiting and/or race-baiting tactics intended to divide a nation against itself, allowing the rise to power of a pseudo-populist elite cadre – see Russia under the Bolsheviks and the United States under today’s Pelosi-Obama-Reid junta.
For decades we’ve been deluded through leftist propaganda to believe that fascism is somehow to the political “right”. Any candid examination of the reality reveals that this is nonsense and any candid examination of this concept’s history (see Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism) demonstrates how this popular misconception came to be, as Marxists sought to distance themselves from the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in Germany in the aftermath of WWII.
Irrespective of the French political structures from which this delusion emanates, the only meaningful political spectrum is one that measures liberty relative to tyranny. On such a spectrum, the far left end would represent Omnipotent Government and the far right would represent Anarchy. The real middle represents government by consent of the governed: republican democracy.
More here if you’re interested.
Send this man a copy of “The Arms of Krupp.”
No, the difference between Leftism and Rightist movements lies in their ultimate goals.
Rightists (Louis 14th, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet) fight to preserve their societies. Leftists (Mao, Lenin, Pol Pot, Gramsci, the ACLU) want to destroy their societies. You might notice the black-and-white differences in the Left’s and the Right’s attitudes toward religion, culture, tradition, language, social mores, and any other support of group cohesion.
Wrong on both counts, I’m afraid. And always, the confusion is caused by an assessment of political ‘left’ and ‘right’ that is obsolete (and was never internally consistent anyway).
The ultimate goal of both national and international socialism is to reorder society by creating an omnipotent – totalitarian – State. As noted above, the means by which they seek to do this is the only thing that distinguishes one from the other. Fascists like Mussolini or Woodrow Wilson pursue a new order through amplification of national, cultural and ethnic differences; communists do so by amplifying and leveraging the differences between class, race, gender, age… whatever provides a social group that can be isolated and convinced that it is the ‘victim’ of some other group. For the common citizen in all this, it’s a distinction without a difference.
Fascism was never a “rightist” movement. Mussolini, for instance, began as a devout Socialist and remained one ideologically to the very end. His rhetorical opposition the international socialists of his time (i.e., the communists) doesn’t change that any more than Hitler’s rhetoric changed his true nature, or his party’s. Both were creatures of the Left.
- You might notice the black-and-white differences in the Left’s and the Right’s attitudes toward religion, etc., …
No, actually. Especially since there is no “Right” component in our society that has any real influence today. Libertarians are perhaps the closest we see to a faction that leans toward Anarchy, but they clearly don’t influence public policy to any great degree.
Perhaps you think of conservatives as “the Right” simply because they oppose the totalitarian aims of the hard-core collectivist Left. That would be an error of relativity. Conservatives – classical liberals who support a limited government through a constitutional republic using democratic institutions – represent the middle ground between totalitarianism on the far left and anarchy on the far right.
Where did the idea come from that Hitler was to the right of Stalin because he was interested in socialism for “nationalistic” purposes rather than internationalistic reasons? It came from Stalin. Everything that man said is and was a lie, if judged by American republican values, and I don’t mean those of the current party, but those of the founding fathers, who knew the difference between a republic and a democracy. So why in God’s name would anyone believe Stalin? If you understand that the only useful political spectrum has complete (hopefully Christian-valued) anarchy on the right with no central government control (because it is not necessary) and total control on the left (because there is no freedom and the Supreme Leader is comfortable with total control) then clearly Stalin and Hitler and Mao were all on the hellish left, and not on the heavenly right (where everyone loves everyone else as if they were themselves — Christ’s message where gov’t no longer has any reason to exist) then there should be no confusion. If you want then to argue if Hitler was to the right of Stalin, good luck, but I would say from 2010, who cares?
I do not like this Uncle Sam, I do not like his health care scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks, or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker Nan ,
I do not like this ‘YES WE CAN’.
I do not like this spending spree,
I’m smart, I know that nothing’s free,
I do not like your smug replies, when I complain
about your lies.
I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it you BIG Dope.
I do not like it NOPE NOPE NOPE!
Excellent, bravo K]]\\\\
Are we to be part of a house of cards or a Lego building? As much as statists hope and work for the latter, the former prevails. Why is that? While we love for others to know their place, no one actually wants to be a freakin’ Lego block.
The only fair compromise between Liberty and Tyranny that does not deliver us into the tyranny of either the bankrupting bureaucratic coils of an unrestrained public sector or to the wealth concentrating oligarchy of an unrestrained private sector, can be found in Quantum Economics which for the first time tells us where new money comes from. We can’t figure out where new life comes from, that has no pre-existing parent, but we now know where new money comes from, and this more or less creates a self-correcting and balanced power-check off-setting public power against the private. Quantum Economics, similar to its cousin that explains the physical world, also provides the synthesis that Marx promised which, once understood, can meld the thesis of Adam Smith into the antithesis of Das Kapital, to create a truly new paradigm.
The question to answer, with looming public and private debts, is where new money comes from that will not be dissipated in inflation. And the answer is not the gold and silver that Smith showed only created massive inflation when Spain flooded Europe with the bullion from its American treasure fleets which sailed, without much interruption, from 1550 to 1700. Yet throughout the 18th century and before the bureacrat-ridden Spanish empire was bankrupt, and easy pickings for France, on the continent at least, in 1704 and again in 1804. (And France had no treasure fleets, just plenty of arable land).
The answer that QE gives is that new money is generated by new PROFIT. Money is nothing but congealed profit and new money, that never existed before, comes from new profit. (And the anti-money and anti-profit crowd certainly now don’t understand this). The reason is that the main source of money value is not the money itself, but the intrinsic worth of the valuable goods and services within the Market (the “Wealth of Nations” in Smith’s phrase)that money can buy. Money can only claim value derivatively from this market wealth, so paper that is not misused can be just as valuable and useful as money as gold or silver could be, and more so if it is the gold and silver that is misused in Silas Marner-type dead-end transactions.
The flip side of this is to realize that it is the one way transactions, carried out without any two-way exchange or trade in the free market of value, that are the main engine for destroying money value, mostly by inflationary pressure and exile to the money hoards. The main causes for destroying or exiling money (by export) are theft, charity, and gov’t taxation and waste, and excessivley paying people for producing no market wealth, or “wealth” that is declared so to be by bureaucratic say-s0.
This means that the proper pressure valve needed within government, to blow off the potential boil of tyranny, is simply to require government to make a profit, through capital production with the assistance of the poor, for the benefit of the poor as the owners of the newly-produced capital and income it generates (where capital is defined as wealth, e.g. tools and factories, used to create needed market wealth worth more in the market than the cost of producing it, i.e., for a profit). The profit so produced will raise the lowest boats with newly created money and will benefit everyone in a Keynesian trickle up effect. The capitalist poor will now be safely trained and rising Republicans ready to join the QE crowd in the new Mantra “NO TAXATION WITH REPRESENTATION” since we will finally realize, that with a government producing vast amounts of profit for the benefit of the productive poor, to fnally begin competing with and restrain the private oligarchs (within the regulation mostly of the market which no one needs to write down on reams of papers that only the secretly powerful bureacrats read) we just don’t need taxation anymore, at least for anything other than defense and police enforcement of our limited laws. With the new money growth, from government profits (owned like government capital by the poor, not by the fictional government)the circle of economic checks and balances can be closed, and the acceptable limits on concentrated power can be recognized. Redistribution of new capital to rebalance the maldistribution of wealth can be acheived as well, with no one being deprived of anything they currently have (so less war). Economic science can then defeat politics and political art. This is the answer. This is who and what we are waiting for. (And the state, indistinguishable now from General Electric, fades away, in one share one vote, where everyone now owns one share, just as Marx and Milo Minderbinder predicted).
Criminy, another moron who actually believes that he has discovered a secret that has eluded millions before him.
No, money does not come from profit.
Money comes from the mint. Wealth is entirely different. It comes from human effort alone.
Jean Baptiste Say and Maynard Keynes would disagree with you. Say said Supply (wealth) creates its own demand (money) as the increased flow of credits (paper money generated by the multiplication of bank reserves, not the mint)is created and promulgated to service the new supply of wealth. So increased production of desired wealth does increase the money supply, as well as the frequency of its use, and its unitary value. Keynes from the other direction said the introduction of new demand (money created out of thin air by govenment deficits) will create its own supply of wealth, i.e., the production of new market wealth through the agency of the multiplier. Except for nickels dimes quarters, etc. money today does not come from the mint, but from the ability of commercial banks to lend out more money than the take in due to fractional reserves, and from the ability of governments to spend more than they take in by writing bonds and by the central bank doing the same as the commercial banks, and by running the printing presses, somewhat but just to service what the wealth economy is otherwise doing. Printing money, what you call the mint, may of course not create new money if the value of the new supply, through inflation, only reverts back to the old value, but now with a higher number of units. Thus if there is not enough production then the value of the money sinks to the value of the stock in the market place through inflation. If some genius can make a profit by producing a million dollars of clean energy by the expenditure of half a million dollars, then he or she has just increased the value of money by that amount, which is the real reason why capitalist countries with free markets and rewards for entrepreneurs will always have more money than those countries who try to do it the old-fashioned command way. They create more money by profit. You can say I’m wrong but if derivative money value does not come from profit and exchange through the market place, then where does it come from?
I’ll give you some credit. I’ve never had to work so hard to identify nonsense. We can only collectively consume what we collectively create. Those who work for or are tightly aligned with government, due to its many self-created exemptions from any reasonable standards of productivity and efficiency, will always deliver Yugos and badly fitting shoes. And in addition they will provide ever escalating amounts of whatever passes for money to public employees who then rush into competition to purchase the meager “wealth” being created. So you not only have to drive a Yugo with the ill-fitting shoes but you have to pay a lot for them.
The motivational forces engendered by freedom and free markets gives you the once and hopefully future United States.
@Mike G: - I’ve never had to work so hard to identify nonsense.
So THAT’s what I was experiencing!
Excellent synopsis. I was too weary to put my finger on it after the first read.
“Keynes from the other direction said the introduction of new demand”
Keynes has been disproven, over and over and over again.
“Wealth is entirely different. It comes from human effort alone.”
Or inheritance:-)
“Keynes has been proven wrong over and over again.” Keynes has never been tried where the leakages from the multiplier were deciseively closed: namely the leakages caused by theft, charity, transfer payments without reciprocation or trade, taxation and gov’t waste. What Keynes forgot to mention when he asked gov’t to go out and create and spend fiat money in a depression to get the economy moving again (which did work with WWII — just check out what happened when the GI’s came home) was that such fiat money should only be spent on real capital investment to produce real market wealth, the only type of wealth that, in the exchange economy, will give that new money real value when it is spent for that wealth. The profit could pay back the public debt that resulted from the creation of the fiat money, and then the process could be done again, for the benefit of the poor of course first (who would then own the new capital so created) but now at higher levels of GDP. This would work, and by using government fiat money to create the profit that gives the new money value (since all money value is congealed profit — don’t doubt me on this) the worst aspects of gov’t and tyranny would be mitigated by the iron laws of the market. Market competition would also bring the Oligopolists to heel — more so than now, and crony capitalism will be mitigated by competition in the market for the new money. The only reason Keynes has never worked is because Keynes book has never been properly understood, nor has the true nature and meaning of the multiplier (which multiplies money by creating money value by reducing price) ever been understood. Read what Ford accomplished in 1914 by increasing his workers pay to $5 a day over the screaming objections of his shareholders. This act created alot of new money, and you’ve got to understand the nature of the multiplier to know why. (Did Keynes learn from Ford?) Once new Keynesian money is limited to capital creating profit motivated enterprises pursued in the public sector for the benefit of the “other” then Keynes will be found to really, really work. Trust me on this. Of course this has never been done, since the profit-haters are now in control of Keynes, and the profit lovers hate and don’t understand Keynes. Quantum Economics synthesizes their differences.
As to your comment that governments who own capital plants with no competition from a free and unrestrained private sector will only produce Yugos and ill fitting shoes, I agree. But I do not believe the government exists outside of people’s minds and consent, so I do not propose that public profit centers be owned by the fictional government (they just finance them) or that the free market is controlled by the government by anything other than public competion. Don’t like ill fitting shoes? Then buy em from the existing producers. There are plenty of them. When the public workers whose profits and earnings are dependent on their production of things people want that will generate a real profit in a hotly competitive market, they as human beings will produce the best fitting shoes and the best and cheapest automobiles that human creativity is capable of. Competition is the key. The bad stuff that Yugoslavia produced was because of government monopoly without competition. With that there is no profit motive, people get paid no matter what they do, and there is no money. You obviously have alot of delusions in your heads, but listening is an important art. I am an American following a great thinker from 1789 and I believe in free markets, competition and real profits from free competitive enterprise which I want my government, as an equal and not superior enterprise among a maximum number of competitors, to pursue the same as General Electric or Microsoft. A tall order I know but misunderstanding and corruptin what I say by confusing it with monopolistic capitalism (of the Stalin/Mao type) is not helpful. Under my system if any enterprise created by the government is failing and going out of business because their materials are shoddy they should just create three more competitive private enterprises that can make a profit. (i.e., all enterprises created by the government have to privately owned by those engaged in the production for that outfit, paid at levels that depend on the profit they generate).
Great post David.
Now, please take it to the next logical step.
There’s one question few (if any) writers on this topic ever ask as they meticulously analyze the zombie-like resilience of the leftist mindset – a mindset which refuses to die, despite its universal, perennial failure and the hundreds of millions murdered in its various names. It’s not clear to me whether outside-the-box thinking is required or whether we need to further free our discourse from the bonds of faux decorum and political correctness. But the question must be asked.
That question is: what intellectual or moral defect makes a person susceptible to the socially suicidal cancer embodied in the internally inconsistent premises and tenets of statism? Specifically, what is the common denominator – extant across history and varying cultures – that allows a given individual to be deluded into believing that equality of outcome can ever be legislated?
Surely this question is something we can study scientifically, since there are vast numbers of individual human beings – in every culture – who, at varying points along the continuum of their own human development, either buy into or reject the addled notions peddled by the likes of Obama, Marx, and Mao.
Well, as it turns out, this question has been studied both directly and indirectly. Dr. Helen referenced research on this topic some time ago, and I’ve written extensively on this question myself.
The next logical step in decapitating, cremating and scattering the ashes of Mr. Shabby for all time requires one simple commitment: we – as a species – must come to grips with the glaringly obvious answer to this long-standing question. Continued refusal to even ask the question will guarantee further cycles of mayhem and social decline as the cancer of statism continues to devour host civilizations in search of an unreachable Utopia.
Great Britten has been pretty socialist as you would define it since world war II. Yet they have managed to not massacre millions of people in the last 40 years. Perhaps you could shed some light on the catastrophe that is Great Brittan. After reading your post must be some kind of Fing miracle that they have not slaughtered millions of their own citizens. I bet they are somehow hiding the atrocities. Clearly no socialist state can exist without killing people. Oh no, I just realized that a few countries in Europe are socialist. It must be some kind of conspiracy. I cannot really understand your fear, but we survived 8 years of Bush. I have great faith in our country unlike you.
I would say that their health care system is well on it’s way to killing millions.
“Great Britten…”
Is that a city in northern California?
“… has been pretty socialist …”
That’s kind of like being “pretty pregnant”, don’t you think? I mean… a woman can be pregnant AND pretty, don’t get me wrong, but…
“…as you would define…”
I haven’t provided a definition for socialism, so you’re just leaping to straw-man-like conclusions here.
“Clearly no socialist state can exist without killing people.”
Is that what you think? Where’s the evidence?
“… we survived 8 years of Bush.”
Ah… the inevitable deflection to Evil W. Bush. We also “survived” Reagan, GHWB, Clinton and even Jimmy Carter. And yes, we survived the nominally left-leaning domestic policies of GWB, as well as 6 straight years of lies and propaganda broadcast by the Left Wing Media as they tried to hold him and conservatives in general accountable for Al Gore’s pathetic failure to carry his own home State in 2000.
But here’s the thing – you can add up all the transgressions both sides have attributed to those five and the total doesn’t even come close to the intentional damage that’s been done to this country since January of 2007 by the current cast of criminals in Congress and, now, the White House. Without drastic changes to those policies enacted during the last 3 years, the U.S. will not survive, irrespective of how much blind faith you claim to have.
Apparently you live in some kind of fantasy land where nothing exists on a continuum. Socialism as well as capitalism exist on a continuum. So yes a country can be pretty socialist. The factors I would look at are health care, taxation, government benefits ect… You completely fail to address my main point. That point being that there are plenty of leftist counties that have not imploded or led to “hundreds of millions murdered” as you so eloquently put it. I am sorry that my sarcasm went over your head. Let me slow this down for you. You claim that the leftest agenda has and always will fail. Further you state that there is “scientific” evidence of such. For the record I do not think you understand science. I put forth the fact that clearly there are countries, including Great Britain, which have had leftist policies on the books for a while(over 60 years). Yet the pound is valued higher than the dollar. I therefore say your fears are merit-less and you are full of S**t. The U.S. will survive and will be better off. You of course will cry and whine, and claim the end is near for the entire 8 years of Obama. My point is that you are as bad as the whiny left. The left made the same statements during the Bush years, and we all survived somehow. Even though he created a giant deficit. Please explain to me how Britain with much higher taxes and universal health coverage has prospered, and yet we are somehow doomed.
-Apparently you live in some kind of fantasy land …
No, but it’s clear that YOU do – at least until you can find “Great Britten” on a map.
- You completely fail to address my main point.
You never actually made a point. And you still haven’t made one that holds any water. Those societies – like Japan and the EU – that have chosen to pursue collectivism are slowly proving the rule that was epitomized by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Realize that you could have made this same silly “point” about the U.S.S.R. in 1984, i.e., that they were “doing fine”. Realize also that your “assessment” would have been… how did you put it…? Oh yes – full of sh!t.
Stop exaggerating what I’ve stated in order to attack it. That’s known as a straw man. Look it up.
You apparently live in a fantasy world in which implosion doesn’t exist in a continuum.
The more overtly socialist a country is, the faster it implodes. Every socialist country is currently in the process of imploding. The truth of this statement can be shown by examining the economic well being of the more socialist vs. less socialist countries in the world. The more socialist the country, the worse it is doing and the closer to bankruptcy it is.
Well, a mere twenty years removed from Mrs. Thatcher’s leadership, GB is not exactly a communist country now, is it? However, it reeks and rots of renewed socialism. The government fears and coddles muslim terrorists in their midst, protects the foxes and tells you what to pack in your lunch. Perfect!
By the way, I hope you didn’t learn spelling and grammar in Britich skools. Because that would be really perfect.
Mr. Solway shares the common misconception that Hegel was a statist authoritarian. If he will (re)read the Philosophy of Right, he will find, for example, that Hegel criticized Plato’s Republic for having the guardians assign each citizen his task. Hegel stated that every individual enjoys the “subjective right” of pursuing his own occupation, as well as of choosing his own spouse in marriage.
Hegel’s state was an articulated universal, not a monolithic entity. Citizens participated by serving on juries. The legislature, although not democratic as we understand it, was conceived as being selected by the guilds to which citizens belonged and so was to represent their interests. Hegel did not actually advocate going to war, but he recognized its necessity; a state that cannot or will not defend itself will be conquered. This is not authoritarianism. It is patriotism; and, yes, sometimes citizens must put aside their private pursuits for the defense of all. Our fathers and grandfathers recognized this back in the 1940s. What we see today (although more so in Europe than in America) is what Hegel described: a populace so complacent in its pursuit of riches (or entitlements) that many refuse to acknowledge the enemy gathering at the gates. Thus we have Obama refusing to recognize the character and ambitions of Islamic jihadism, as well as the conspiracy of multicultural leftists with free-market absolutists to allow the encroachment of illegal aliens on our own sovereign territory, this with its attendant offense against the rule of law.
Space does not permit a full explication of Hegel’s distinction from authoritarianism, but any who dispute this should first read The Philosophy of Right before waxing indignant in rebuke. (Thom Brooks’s Hegel’s Political Philosophy will serve as an introduction for those who find the rigors of reading Hegel more than their intellects can relish.)
Incidentally, Brooks argues that Popper misunderstood Hegel. Stephen Houlgate in An Introduction of Hegel: Freedom, Truth, and History argues likewise. An acquaintance with these two authors should dissuade the objective reader from viewing Hegel through Popper’s spectacles.
“It is patriotism; and, yes, sometimes citizens must put aside their private pursuits for the defense of all.”
I think this is what the current argument is really about. When, and to what degree, should we citizens put aside our private pursuits for the…let’s not say “defense, but rather “welfare” of all? If we don’t want to do so, is it ok for the government to force us to? Most reasonable people agree that taxes and laws represent a sacrifice of personal wealth and liberty for the general welfare. What we can’t agree on – and what theorizers like Hegel can’t tell us – is how to achieve a fair and livable balance between individual deprivation and public enrichment.
I think the main issue for conservatives is simply, where does the “general welfare” end? I think we think the liberal’s answer is, “Never.”
No, Hegel couldn’t tell you precisely where the balance between subjective freedom and the general welfare must lie, and he was the first to say as much. Philosophy explicates the Logos, but the world, although grounded in logic, also is burdened with contingencies. (This is because, Hegel would say, the “concept” of nature is external to its existence and the arbitrariness of subjective spirit [self-consciousness] is inadequate to its universality.)
What Hegel would insist, however, is that through its laws and customs, each state strives to formulate its own approach to this balance. He would recognize also that the point of balance must shift over time. Where he would remain adamant, however, is that the balance should be sought according to the rule of law. In the United States, this means according to the Constitution. Need I add that wherever the balance might most “logically” be struck, the constitutional abridgements that progressives historically and now under Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have employed to assert it must fall wide of the mark?
There have been a handful of philosopher kings, who despite (sometimes spectacular) flaws, reigned with the general welfare in mind. From Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to Louis X of France, none of these absolute monarchs thought it wise to dictate what their subjects ate, or otherwise micromanage their lives. They directed public works financed by tax revenue. An Absolute Monarch was at least capable of ruling for the good of the governed, although many were tyrants, and most were merely adequate administrators.
The elite bureaucracies brought upon us by Socialism seems to not even hold the possibility of a good king. Their rule is uniformly inefficient and tyrannical. It seems that the tyrants in the ruling class rise to the top and end up calling the shots. (And you see the sense in the hereditary monarchy, which preserves an honest chance of a good ruler.)
Only too true. “Absolute” monarchs, the Pharaohs and Priest-Kings of the ancient world, and the worst historical tyrants are nothing compared to the tyranny of socialism. It’s the pettiness, really; old-style rulers had an inflated sense of self, maybe, but that kept them thinking about big things. The million petty tyrants of a socialist state have to justify their existence by paying attention the littlest things possible. I reckon it’s Adam Smith’s fault. He’s the one that made economic thinking spread, and made us think of the staggering complexity of human interactions. Statists of every stripe learned the wrong lesson, however, and figure that the complexity of society just means they get to order people around in new and exciting ways, everything from the amount of water flushed in a toilet to the number of tissues proles can use to wipe their bums. Adam Smith is my hero, but knowledge is DANGEROUS.
Are you aware of who Hegel worked for? You can look it up.
Would I be incorrect to say that Plato was referring to the Philosophy of the Logos, and Aristotle was referring to the diversity of life on terra firma?
For there is timeless good to be found in both, and frankly Aristotle’s golden mean is prudent.
Plato’s Forms were otherworldly, completely abstract. The Logos is concrete, immanent, and active in the world. But its full actualization depends on the intelligent comprehension and will of rational beings, us humans.
Today is the 9th of Av. The day which is marked by sadness in all who know enough to miss what was lost when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. The most inner part of of that Temple was closed to all but the High Priest, yet he did not even enter it put once a year, and then he was held to the strictest of accounts by G0d.
The High Priest was a sought after position, as the times of the second Temple showed. The Imperial Romans appointed the High Priests, or allowed the rich and connected to buy in, yet even then G0d held those who entered the inner chamber to strict account. It was rare, so it is said, for the High Priest to survive long after that one day service of Yom Kippur.
Rather than tolerate G0d’s interference with their Imperially Chosen, the Roman’s destroyed the Temple.
We are not Israel. Washington is our greatest of Founding Fathers, yet the Capital that bears his honored name is no Holy Jerusalem. Still … how like we are in our time that our own self-styled Ruling Elite, most of whom today operate out of Washington, the District of Columbia, are today in the process of destroying the Republic as founded by our ideals of Liberty ‘under G0d’, destroying our Laws that are founded upon the G0dly wisdoms passed down to us in scripture and tradition.
There is nothing more awful in all cultural memories that have survived milliennia than that of the loss of that direct connection with the Divine that the Temple provided. The lewd and cruel savagery and acts committed in those most Holy Places, the wholesale murder and worse committed upon those who tried to stay by their faith.
Yet in an troubling echo of those dark days, a shadow upon our American nation’s ideals based in that same religious tradition and wisdom, are those perversions of our Founding ideals when our Judges say that our Constitution DEMANDS that we permit and even celebrate homosexuality and “homosexual marriage,” or that there is a ‘right to die,” or other abominations of morality proclaimed as great modern goods.
This is a good article, but it’s been only a few days since Ed Driscoll, on this very site, equated the Democrats with the Ancien Regime; so it is not a very good idea to mention with approval the Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was … a defense of the Ancien Regime!
Please don’t misunderstand me: I know that Burke was not a Statist. He was in favor of the American Revolution, the free market, and the abolition of slavery: in short, he was in favor of liberty [as opposed to "liberalism"].
But the Reflections was not a defense of liberty: in the Reflections, what Burke said to the French was: woah! you’re going way too fast!
He did not say that the French were going in the wrong direction: he said that they were going too fast.
In fact, the Reflections could be taken as a defense of Statism, and it HAS been taken as a defense of Statism by European conservatives.
Again, don’t misunderstand me: the French revolutionaries did go too fast; and saying that you’re going too fast IS conservative; but it is NOT an attack on Statism.
NB: I did not read the whole of the Reflections; if there is a part where Burke explicitly attacks Statism, please tell me where.
NB[2]: I think that Popper and Hayek were more compelling than the Reflections in arguing that one should not go too fast.
WRT the list of anti-statist thinkers in this article:
Aristotle, Locke, Tocqueville, Burke, Hayek, Kekes.
It’s pretty good, but may I suggest a few additions:
* Pericles: “remember that happiness is the fruit of freedom, and freedom the fruit of valor.”
* Thomas Aquinas: Aristotle was what you Americans call a social conservative: he thought that the State should promote virtue. Thomas, writing in the “dark” ages, was more of a libertarian conservative: he thought that the State should enforce justice, or in other words guarantee freedom.
* Montesquieu and Adam Smith: names that stand by themselves.
* Milton Friedman: not as original a thinker as some of the others, but very influential, and just seeing a picture of him smiling cheers me up.
I am less familiar with statist thinkers, but maybe Hegel should be replaced by Fichte in the statist list.
Don’t forget Karl Popper.
Oh, I’ll never forget Karl Popper: he is my greatest intellectual hero, a True Prophet … but not my greatest intellectual hero **in politics**.
Though not far from the top: his definition of democracy and his defense of Burkean conservatism would by themselves place him near the top.
And of course Popper’s values are much closer to ours than Aristotle’s; but what we are talking about here is original contributions, rather than values.
Fichte would make more sense. It’s tempting to lump all German Idealists into the authoritarian camp, but this was not the case. Hegel, for example, severely criticized Romanticism, which in Germany led to the mystical regard which Nazi “thinkers” would later hold for Blut und Boden. The objectivity of the rule of law and its equal application to all citizens were for him an indispensible aspect of the just State. For instance, he was one of the first in the German kingdoms to insist that Jews enjoyed the same legal rights as Christians, precisely because they are men and thus rational beings.
Yes, Snorri, there is something sublime about Milton Friedman’s smile. He was a serene man, completely at home with his truth. And his unity with Rose[1]: there was a couple who actualized Anerkennung (mutual recognition) as Hegel described its substantiality between man and wife.
Unlike real authoritarians who hate the family and want to distort or to destroy it (think of some of the more radical feminists and “gay-rights” advocates of today, along with other groups of leftists in their coalition[2]), Hegel venerated its position in the state as the home of love, the sphere in which individuals first learn to will the good of others.
—–
1. I think the C-Span archives has a video of the two of them together when Milton received the Medal of Freedom(?) from Bush.
2. Here they reincarntate Plato’s guardians.
It appears that David Solway has been reading Karl Popper. Popper was a great thinker who had a great animosity towards ‘historicist’ thought, as he called it. Very true that the battle between collectivism and individualism has been going on every since the first attempts by the people at self government. I suspect it will go on until hell freezes over.
Jean Baptiste Say and Maynard Keynes would disagree with you. Say said Supply (wealth) creates its own demand (money) as the increased flow of credits (paper money generated by the multiplication of bank reserves, not the mint). So increased production of desired wealth does increase the money supply. Keynes from the other direction said supply new demand (money created out of thin air by govenment deficits) will create its own supply, i.e., new production of market wealth through the multiplier. Except for nickels dimes quarters, etc. money today does not come from the mint, but from the ability of commercial banks to lend out more money than the take in due to fractional reserves, and the ability of governments to spend more than they take in by writing bonds and by the central bank doing the same as the commercial banks, and by running the printing presses, somewhat. But if there is not enough production then the value of the money sinks to the value of the stock in the market place through inflation. If some genius can make a profit by producing a million dollars of clean energy by the expenditure of half a million, then he or she has just increased the value of money by that amount, which is the real reason why capitalist countries with free markets and reward for entrepreneurs will always have more money than those countries who do it the traditional command way. They create more money by profit. You can say I’m wrong but if derivative money value does not come from profit and exchange through the market place, where does it come from?
Edmund Burke, I find your handle confusing, in that there is a real Edmund Burke, and he had his own ideas, and those are not yours for you to use his name to speak or write. It is not just you, for many ‘borrow’ such aliases of real men and women, and my objection to that practice is general.
Still your idea of ‘quantum money’ has some heft. Just as a photon has no ‘rest mass’, yet no photon ever rests, and every photon does indeed have a mass by the mass-equals-energy view, such as that formula E=MC2 elaborated by Einstein. Photons too distort the curve of space-time.
Just has you picked, I think, a confused handle to post under, so too you may have picked a confusing label for your theory.
“Money equals profit.” Just as a physicist can say “mass equals energy”, yes I think you are right. In a real sense there is no money without profit. Only profit measures money. There’s more to it, and probably others have said the same or similar thing, but hey, you’re right when you’re right.
-In a real sense there is no money without profit. Only profit measures money.
Oh don’t be silly. “Edmund” is utterly confused.
Money is nothing more than an arbitrary medium of exchange, and simply stands in as a proxy for value. A society creates money to facilitate enterprise and commerce between individuals and the amount of money in an economy at any given time must reflect the aggregate value of that economy’s goods and services. When it doesn’t there’s either inflation or deflation.
Profit doesn’t “measure” money at all. Profit measures value; specifically, it measures the value that someone else places on the goods and/or services offered by the enterprise I choose to undertake, minus whatever that enterprise costs me, personally. The market – that is, those who find value (or not) in the goods and/or services my enterprise offers – determines that value. This is the fundamental flaw in “Edmund’s” rather irrational-sounding thesis. That is, government can never participate in a profit-generating enterprise AND at the same time fairly legislate and regulate the market(s) associated with that enterprise. Look how poorly this works when the government produces and sells nothing at all!
Ditto that, goy.
@18 Edmund Burke – “If some genius can make a profit by producing a million dollars of clean energy by the expenditure of half a million, then he or she has just increased the value of money by that amount”
Again, this sounds clever but what the heck does it mean? As Goy mentioned, money is just an exchange medium and it is needed because I cannot pay you 1/32nd of a refrigerator that I made in exchange for you cutting my lawn.
Profit on the other hand represents repayment of the money (with interest) that was required to obtain or create the assets that an enterprise needs to function. Theoretically this should be equal to a reasonable rate of return for a risky investment. If profit is too little for a given enterprise, then such businesses will not form or persist. If it is very high as in your green energy example, then it will attract other players until price competition causes profitability to snap back to the norm. Monopolies and government regulations interfere with this natural dynamic – as do other barriers to entry like patents, complexity or the difficulty in forming large pools of capital needed to go after established players in established markets. But trying to establish a direct relationship between profit and the value of money or to wealth creation is just wrong headed.
So many economic “theories” are just tortured attempts to justify more government because it is often the government who is elevating those economists in society. But the laws of economics are there to be understood, not manipulated. The proper role of government is to 1) protect our liberty and property rights, 2) enforce basic laws, 3) minimize any true monopolies or other restraints on trade and 4) stop contributing so little while claiming so much of the real wealth that the rest of us produce.
The “State” that Dear Leader, Pelosi, Reid, etc, envision brings to mind a horrible combination of “The Blob” and “Night of the Living Dead.”
I have in mind the final scene from “Fatal Attraction.” Only after the most laborious rejections of his flirtation can the husband finally demonstrate his love for his wife. The temptation has arisen in so many forms, both alluring and repulsive, like the transmutations of Proteus; but at last he comes home, because his ethical commitment supersedes his lapse. This is the triumphant excesis of Sittlichkeit.
…“Fatal Attraction.”
Refresh my memory. This is the one where the insane antagonist – the one who’s been terrorizing and trying to ruin everyone else’s lives – winds up dead in a bathtub, right?
If so, I’m down with that.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Yes, after the second time she was pushed in. The first time, when the man held her under, she resurfaced, rather like Freud’s “return of the repressed.” The second time, IIRC, the man’s wife helped to drown her, and so she finally succumbed.
IIRC, she was shot two or three times in the chest, point-blank.
As I say – I’m down with that, metaphorically speaking, of course.
Glad Tidings!
Positive, uplifting, encouraging, i.e., good, news rarely makes the wires mainly because most of the public seems to prefer to read and hear about mayhem, upheaval, and violence.
As they used to say, it sells newspapers.
Maybe such news renders the problems and turmoils in people’s private lives less oppressive and burdensome. As Tennessee Williams wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desparation” and perhaps he was right and negative news tends to cheer them up because it makes their lives less desparate.
Nevertheless, positive news events do occur even if the MSM isn’t much interested in publicizing them and even if positive and upbeat are often in the eyes of the beholder.
The revelation that 74 year old Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has no intention of leaving the Court any time soon may not have gladdened the hearts of Obama supporters or of people in the administration but has to be considered a very positive piece of news to most Republicans, conservatives, and those who cherish American tradition and values.
With 24 years on the job, Kennedy may be no John Roberts or Sam Alito or Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas and is often a swing vote on the Court rather than an unvarying, staunch conservative. However, more importantly, he also is no Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, or Associate Justice-to be, Elena Kagan.
As such, occasional swing voter or not, Justice Kennedy is a proven asset to conservatives on SCOTUS.
A prime reason the public won’t hear much from the mainstream media about Kennedy’s decision to hang on is Kennedy’s thinking behind that decision. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1796)
It was Thoreau who wrote in Walden, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
News is negative because it’s unusual. Nobody will read about ‘dog bites man.’ All the positive, happy stories are boring because most people are reasonably happy and know from the inside what it’s like to have a 3-year-old’s birthday party. It’s only news when one of the kids drowns or something horrible happens unlike the 20,000 parties the same day that did nothing more than make the furniture a little more shabby. News is the exception to the rule, that’s why it interests people. If somebody published a story about a kid who drowned at a birthday party and then closed with ‘on a happier note, statistically speaking, today 21,375 other birthday parties went off without a hitch,’ they’d get fired in an instant. Everybody would shun him for his terrible insensitivity. Point being, news is always going to be negative until society is so bad that terrible things are too common for comment. For example, 50 years ago if two men held a non-legal marriage ceremony with a pastor of even a tiny religion it would’ve been big news and there would’ve been massive commentary. At the time it would certainly have been considered terrible. Now it doesn’t rate a blip on the radar. It’s no longer news. The same thing has happened to many different things that once were considered terrible. If a woman appeared at a store wearing shorts and a t-shirt in 1900 she would’ve been arrested and it would’ve been news all across the country, and every ankle length dress wearing woman would’ve been shocked, horrified and titillated. And every man would’ve dreamed of a time when that would be both legal and morally normal. Makes you wonder how exactly feminist figure they’re winning the long war when it’s men’s dreams they’re fulfilling.
And BTW, Thoreau’s little saying is a load of tripe. How exactly does a hermit come to understand how ‘most men’ live? Like the rest of his work, it’s balderdash. He’s as overrated as Plato.
BTW, the thing about every man dreaming of women in shorts and t-shirts is a joke. I don’t claim to speak for every man. And I would personally pay good money to prevent a lot of women from wearing shorts and a t-shirt and especially (shudder) halter tops. As Emmanuel Goldstein (Matthew Lillard) in ‘Hackers’ said, “Spandex: it’s a privilege, not a right.”
Not all of them, Mr. Solway. Never neglect to account for the Commissar Complex.
Conservatives are such bummers! Plato was a beautiful dreamer. So what if hundreds of millions died in the noble attempt to create the perfect State and utopian paradise? At least they are trying!!The planet is overcrowded anyway, even with 50 million abortions a year. I say all the experiments were worth it. Maybe Obama and the current crop of dreamers who desire to create a one world state will finally get it right! Then we wil show all you arrogant doubters!!
The Mighty State is this era’s idol, every bit as dead and deadening as the old ones.
Excellent article!
It is disingenuous for statists to claim that conservatives have no compassion, or do not concede the need for a limited safety net for those who are unable to care for themselves. That is simply not true, but compulsory contributions are contrary to liberty. Folks are actually more inclined to help unfortunates when it is voluntary, rather than forced.
Left to their own devices, Americans have demonstrated their profound generosity toward those who are unable to fend for themselves, whether from natural disaster, a handicap, or simply old age. This is most effectively accomplished as a result of a sense of community on a local scale. Compulsory contributions create a sense of “I have already given my share”, or worse yet, a resentment at having been forced, rather than given freely.
It is unquestionable that to allow folks to pursue their own ambitions without government guidance will be less organized and predictable than the statist model, however, history has clearly shown that such freedom has resulted in the greatest technological and cultural advances in human history. This, in itself, is a strong argument for individual freedom.
I will insist on being a distinct individual, with my own choice, for the remainder of my life on earth. I will also dedicate the rest of my life to preserving the view of Aristotle, that it is by the freedom of the individual, that we advance, and our people prosper.
Statists beware; I will not only stubbornly fight for my freedom, but the right of all Americans to remain free, as our founding fathers intended. We will not submit to your tyranny. Ever.
‘You completely fail to address my main point. That point being that there are plenty of leftist counties that have not imploded or led to “hundreds of millions murdered”’
Wow, there are some leftist states out there that haven’t murdered tens of millions of people (yet)?
You must be so proud. That’s quite an accomplishment.
6 corporations control the worlds media; just about everything read, seen or heard are managed by these corporations.
IG Farben controlled Nazi Germany, and today its subsidiaries continue managing huge parts of the worlds chemical, medical and manufacturing industries Through hundreds of corporate entities.
Big Pharma controls the distribution of medicine, its research, and cost.
The banking industry is controlled by a few European Families, although Asia is about to give them a run for their money. It will be an interesting battle to watch played out in the markets. My money is on the Asian Banking families eventually forcing a stalemate.
I highly doubt any of the officers in these industries debate statism, the Nazi Party, democracy, liberty Vs. Tyranny, or other labels, frankly they really dont care what its called. The sole focus is market share and power.
we can debate till blue in the face, nothing will be resolved. What is not debatable is the concentration of power increasingly being placed in the hands of unaccountable individuals and entities while we debate if they prefer socialist or democratic politics.
can’t disagree – the rich get richer as most of the rest “live in quiet desperation”