The Logical Extreme of the ‘American System’
Some time back I penned an article for these pages on the Occupy Wall Street movement which found a fair bit of popular appeal with conservatives. The reason for the convivial attitude among many of our readers was that it criticized the protesters’ lack of focus and their poor target selection for their complaints. Unfortunately, some observers took this as a de facto endorsement of Herman Cain’s oft cited admonition to the hippies in the streets in which he suggested they take their protest to the White House. This is also an incorrect course of action.
It is true, at least to a limited extent, that problems involving perceived abusive — yet legal — behavior by financial institutions can be connected to questions of regulatory policy in Washington. But even if there were some magical panacea to be found, one would certainly need to be protesting Congress every bit as much as the president. Yet such thinking leads us to falsely conclude that we could cure these perceived ills though the simple act of replacing one person in the federal government — or 535 of them for that matter.
The point I had tried — and failed — to make in the original essay was that the litany of complaints brought forth by the self-identified 99% are not being caused by some enigmatic Star Chamber of Wall Street barons, nor even by the obvious and rampant incompetence of our elected representatives. The conditions they are observing and railing against are the larger, long-term results of a system which is operating precisely the way it was designed, but taken to its illogical extreme, helpfully aided by the fundamental ambitions and nature of mankind.
I was reminded of this when I read an article by Doug Mataconis detailing the sins of Jon Corzine and the recent collapse of the MF Global investment firm. It serves as a perfect, microcosmic example of precisely what I’m driving at. He writes:
If nothing else, a story like this demonstrates one area where there’s possible unity between the Occupy Wall Street crowd and their critics. The kind of incestuous relationship between business and government that Corzine’s lobbying, indeed his entire career, represents is something the left and right ought to be able to agree is bad for the country, and for the economy. Corzine also stands as proof that crony capitalism is not solely a Republican phenomenon (although one would have thought that the case of Chris Dodd would have established that definitively), it’s a universal problem related to businessmen who see the ever expanding government as a tool to advance their business interests, and politicians willing to sell themselves.
What Mataconis identifies is, yet again, not the genesis of the problem, but rather a very high profile symptom of it. Corzine is a man who shifted fluidly between the two pillars of our American system — free market capitalism and a representative democratic republic — eventually infecting the government side from the private sector.
To see an example of the opposite side of that coin, we need look no further than the recent breaking news suggesting that members of Congress — including former Speaker Pelosi — may have profited from insider trading opportunities in the stock market. You might well tell yourself that, if true, Ms. Pelosi is in deep trouble and may wind up spending some time at the Crowbar Motel, right? Well, that’s not going to be the ending to this particular fairy tale, because members of Congress are protected from prosecution for insider trading.
Are you beginning to see the larger picture?
The crisis we’re dealing with was actually identified back in the 1920s by H.L. Mencken in the fourth of his six-part series, Prejudices. In it, he identified the two sides of the great American experiment – our representative democratic republic and the free market capitalist system — as “the conjoined twins.” Each is wonderful and praiseworthy in its own right, but they are locked together in a way which eventually becomes toxic to both.
We have, over the course of more than two centuries, fashioned for ourselves a society where, as I previously noted, the citizens are set loose to go forth and gather in all the wealth and power they are able to accumulate, and a few of them wind up being spectacularly successful at this. On the other side of the fence you have a representative form of government composed of elected officials who are ostensibly in a position to keep an eye on the store. But the aforementioned wealthy and powerful citizens not only take part in selecting those representatives — and with a vastly enhanced proportional influence than the unwashed masses, to boot — but they can actually become the government themselves for a time. (Case in point: Corzine.)
You can’t remove the “problem” from a convoluted, intertwined construction such as that because it’s behaving precisely the way one would expect it to while operating under the rules which we ourselves established.
I know precisely what this sort of hang-dog, defeatist attitude and general condemnation of the American way sounds like. It’s a revival — or perhaps an evolution — of the nihilist movement of the 19th century. I may not be the father of American neonihilism, but I may still add to the eventual manifesto of this version without falling into some deep pit of Nietzsche worship.
We’re engaged in a tug of war. On one side are those who would let the free market capitalist system run wild, trusting in “the invisible hand” to keep everything on an even keel. On the other, we find the forces that would see government shackle that system’s actions and redistribute the wealth of the winners among the populace. But unlike a normal game of this sort where the opposing teams seek to pull the enemy into the central ditch, this game places a bottomless pit behind each group and nobody can let go of the rope. No matter who wins, they fall into the abyss and pull the opponents down with them.
A person much smarter than I once defined all of humanity as being divided into alpha and beta types. He posited that if you enacted one fell swoop to seize and redistribute all of the wealth in the nation equally among everyone, the same set of Alpha types (with a few variances for those who smartened up) would quickly rise back to the top. The system is not dissimilar to a casino in Vegas. It’s all winners and losers, but the Alpha types will be the ones who are smart enough to run the casinos and the Beta types will be the suckers who travel to bet in them. The house always wins, eventually grinding all the wealth from the pawns until there’s nothing left to bleed out.
But how do we go about fixing this? The short answer, I’m sorry to say, is that you can’t. Letting the free market system run wild eventually runs you out of suckers, to continue the previous analogy. You see a greater and greater gap between the wealthy elite and the masses until they begin to take to the streets. (For the record, I am not implying that this is happening now or that the current “occupy” movement participants are the vanguard of an imminent, violent renaissance. Only that we’re observing a long-term trend in one direction for the flow of wealth.)
But moving in the other direction — shifting ever increasing regulatory power to the central government (should the suckers ever find a way to elect representatives who would “fight the power”) — will eventually result in such a disincentive to succeed that nobody would even bother trying. Each pull on the rope shoves you further towards one of the two chasms.
I would love to propose some bold, political solution which produces a salable course of action, but both of these general approaches are essentially impossible to begin with. To manage that level of control over the interaction between the conjoined twins would effectively amount to dismantling the entire constitution and setting up some hybrid of communism and socialism. At that point, the shining light on the hill is effectively extinguished and the game ends.
Jon Corzine — and if the charges bear fruit, Nancy Pelosi — at the end of all things, are neither heroes nor villains. They are not the disease you seek to cure, but rather the symptoms of a disease. And the cure is as far beyond the political-medical technology of our society as space travel would be to Neanderthals. They are an end product. They represent what finally drips out of the fetid, cracked glassware of the apparatus long after the scientist has left the experiment to run on its own for too long.
“You can’t remove the “problem” from a convoluted, intertwined construction such as that because it’s behaving precisely the way one would expect it to while operating under the rules which we ourselves established.” Are the rules “we” established considered by you to be the Constitution? Do you actually think American history of the last hundred or so years has seen regard for the premises of that document? It has been violated in every way by politicians and judges. If you have read Atlas Shrugged I would think this to be obvious.
Recently on Patriot update, a reference was made about Obama’s friend and White house visitor, George Soros, met with Obama’s top economics advisers, at the old executive office building, to aid in crafting the stimulus bill.The meetings, took place in February and March of 2009. Soros,also attended and participated in the discussion on financial reform. A short time later he bought stock in four of the companies, who received stimulus money. Call it what you will, but if this isn’t blatant insider trading, then what is???
The proper function of government is to enforce laws that allow competition to operate. That is what is missing, the deck has been stacked against small start-ups, and we can call that crony capitalism. Companies, composed of humans, hate competition because it makes them have to continuously improve their products and services.
Another thing missing from your analysis is wealth creation. You seem to regard “wealth” as a fixed thing, like just one pie that we all need to share. New methods and technologies can make over entire economies, witness the internal combustion engine.
With only a few behemoths producing goods, and squeezing small companies out, quality of goods and services will start to approach DMV and Soviet levels. In the absence of competition, there is no motive to improve and technological innovation stagnates. Visiting any communist country is like going decades back in time, however many decades since the conjoining of business and the state took hold there.
The stagnation of innovation makes it look like there is just one pie that we all have to share, but it is really crony capitalism that has strangled the competition that would have created more wealth.
You are soo right, ElisaPardo. What Jazz Shaw has done is create a strawman, blaming the problems on free-market capitalism “run wild”. In reality, there is no free-market capitalism in the USA anymore. It is all about crony capitalism, getting competitive advantage by influencing corrupt politicians.
Go back to the Constitution, get rid of the big-government crony capitalist structure (which is supported by Democrats even more than Republicans), get people off the dole and you might save the country yet.
unbridled individual liberty and unfettered capitalism? we have neither. our individual liberty has been systematically destroyed and individual responsibility along with it, everything is for the “good of society” and everyone is a victim who bears no responsibility for their lot in life and must look to the government to save them from themselves. and our capitalism is far from unfettered. if we had a free market capitalist system banks would not have been bailed out. if we had a free market capitalist system we would not have lost so many jobs to out sourcing due to government/epa regulation. and the lost of our manufacturing base (sanctioned by our government and helped along by the epa) and the influx of illegals (sanctioned by our government) contribute more to wage disparity then the evil greedy rich
ows are a small group of anarchist, nothing more, who’s goal is to destroy democracy and capitalism and the majority of the so called 99% protesting are their useful idiots
Pre-Occupied
The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/28/111128fa_fact_schwartz#ixzz1euROqpZ9
“Like most of Occupy Wall Street’s core organizers, P. is an anarchist”
“They are not the disease you seek to cure, but rather the symptoms of a disease. And the cure is as far beyond the political-medical technology of our society as space travel would be to Neanderthals. They are an end product. They represent what finally drips out of the fetid, cracked glassware of the apparatus long after the scientist has left the experiment to run on its own for too long.”
One suggestion as to how the experiment went off the rails is made in
http://www.garynorth.com/philadelphia.pdf .
It has its charms, but doesn’t quite make its case in the end, although it accumulates a lot of illuminating evidence along the way through recalling the many cogent arguments that the anti-Federalists made at the time.
Evaluating similar evidence, and as much contrary or supplementary evidence as you care to accumulate, your thesis based on that evidence would be interesting to read. Perhaps we are simply experiencing the second episode of corrosive internal failures leading to a “loss of heaven’s mandate” by the current crop of cohesive social arrangements and institutions (the first would be the late unpleasantness of 1861-65), as the Chinese have experienced over several thousand years of their history. If so, while we work through the consequences of catastrophic failure of the current arrangement, we can begin to regroup and recover the best of what was lost, and at least aim to avoid repeating the old mistakes, eventually running another round of ‘the experiment’, sadder but wiser for what we’ve learned from the experiences of the latest failed round.
A quick skim of the first half indicates that North is grinding the axe that the Constitution SECULARIZED American government, as in “There is no escape from this conclusion: the United States Constitution is an atheistic, humanistic covenant.” but in his own way, I think, re-inforces the points I was making a few months ago, after reading Maier’s “Ratification: The People Discuss the Constitution,” which was essentially that the strand of society that today says that we have to get “Back to the Constitution” was essentially the same anti-Federalist strand OPPOSING its ratification back then.
“…..the same anti-Federalist strand OPPOSING its ratification back then.”
The “anti-Federalists, the same ones who were so afraid of a strong central government that they demanded and finally got the Bill of Rights amended to the Constitution. Many 13-colony anti-Federalists originally opposed the Constitution because of the lack of a Bill of Rights. Your implication that they opposed the Constitution at all costs, in favor of a monarchy, or such, is typically misleading.
I never said nor implied monarchy. Probably half of the anti-Federalists were happy with a Bill of Rights, the other half still didn’t want the Constitution as they just feared a big central government which would favor the educated and the wealthy.
You misled by omission. And your “probably” is just a guess disguised as fact.
Read the Maier book; it quotes hundreds of pages of actual statements made at various state conventions. I believe that I have done a fair job restating their positions. It is difficult to say what the most negative of the anti-Federalists would have liked, staying with something like the Articles of Confederation, maybe. Certainly, once the Ten Amendments passed, they did fall into place and did not foment another Shay’s rebellion, I’ll grant you that.
Gee! Ya think?
The present system continues to exist because, as you say, each of the extremes believes that when they are in power, they can use it to achieve their own ends.
The extreme right believes they can use the power of the “free market” to crush the forces of totalitarianism they see on the left.
The extreme left believe they can use the power of “the government” to seize all assets of the private sector, declare a People’s Republic, and create a perfect ecologically-benign socialist state.
What both sides have in common is that each would like to have their opposite numbers ‘dobe-walled on general principles. Plus anyone else who disagrees with them, the left being a bit less tolerant of differences of opinion than the right, generally speaking. (It is very difficult to speak civilly enough to a doctrinaire’ leftist today to avoid them looking at you like they’re measuring you for a cheap wooden coffin.)
It’s not that (as Carl Sagan might say) the two are locked in a “deadly mutual embrace”; it’s that each side’s dreamed-of goals are fundamentally incompatible with a Constitutional Republic. In fact, the Constitution was written as it was precisely to thwart, or at least sharply limit the amount of, this sort of Draconian damfoolery that any “ruling class” might try to get away with.
The left realizes this, and seeks to undermine the Constitution at every opportunity for that exact reason. The right, as yet, either does not seem to have grasped this fact, or else believes that somehow they can find loopholes in the existing document that they can work through.
So far, the Constitution, backed up by the Supreme Court, public opinion, etc., has won. That does not guarantee that it will always be so. Opinion can be shaped by propaganda (i.e., the MSM), and the Supreme Court can be changed by a President’s appointments, confirmed by the Senate.
In the final analysis, it all comes down to who the average voter supports, and believes is telling the truth. Which, oddly enough, is more-or-less the point of the Constitution.
clear ether
eon
I guess you learned your straw-dogging from Obama, Jazz:
“On one side are those who would let the free market capitalist system run wild, trusting in “the invisible hand” to keep everything on an even keel. On the other, we find the forces that would see government shackle that system’s actions and redistribute the wealth of the winners among the populace.”
Obama:
On one side are the greedy millionaires and billionaires who are defended by the Republicans. On the other side are the starving, sickly, and needy who need to be better protected by the Democrats. So we need to raise taxes.
No. The fact is the poor as a class disappeared quite a while ago. They have been replaced by the government-subsidized and government-dependent. The unfettered free market likewise has become the over-regulated and heavy-leaden market. What is needed are some rather simple adjustments to the personnel now running things. (Just for example, new people need to be elected to Congress who will vow to make congress-persons subject to the same laws all other Americans must obey.) This should be doable in this democratic republic. The government-dependent need more freedom to fend for themselves and the highly-fettered market needs to have fewer crooks like Corzine operating within it.
Swing and a miss. You ignore the same thing that everyone else seems to when they try to analyse what has gone wrong. Almost invariably if you start out with the question, “How did government interference and power bitch this thing up?” you will be starting down the right path to the answer. As others have noted, a small group have exceeded the authority granted to them by the enabling document of the federal government and have then exercised force against the grantors of that power, that is, the citizens of the United States. The place that you inevitably miss is that government is force and that is why it cannot be allowed to grow. Capitalism is VOLUNTARY interactions and, thusly, people can choose to ignore the bad players. When government steps in to force consumers to interact with bad players, or guarantee successful outcomes for bad players the natural laws that make up “Capitalism” get distorted. Without government intervention on their behalf The worse the bad players get the more they will marginalize themselves and enable competitors to come along and challenge them. Which brings about the real utility of government. Governments purpose is to keep the bad players from using force against the citizen, whether the force takes the form of guns, extortion, fraud, monopoly of critical resources or some other way to cause interactions with customers to be something other than voluntary.
All one needs to accept your analysis is a large measure of cynicism. You have expressed our fear, but you have failed to prove your dark vision. It could be true if, in the end, most humans turn out to lack any conscience at all.
I note that it is very easy to be a naysayer, which is what you are. Your gloomy essay is not a work of brilliance. It is the work of one who takes and preaches the easy way out.
It started with the Federal Reserve because we lost control of our currency. Then they added the Income Tax and we lost control of our incomes. With Death Taxes, we lost control of our wealth. Along come FDR and he stayed long enough to replace the Supremes with corrupt judges who would approve just about anything he wanted to do. The government is so large and so oppressive that I don’t think things will change until the whole thing crashes. See the elevation of John Boehner has changed virtually nothing, but a little tinkering around the edges. So down the drain we go and into the ash heap of history.
Sorry, not buying it.
ACORN/SEIU are prominently behind the Crockuppy facade, Zombie has done her usual wonderful work exposing who is writing the newsletter, what pamphlets are being handed out and there is nothing fundamentally “wrong” with free market democracy…other than the intentional attempt to overthrow it, undermine it, sabotage it by the radical left.
The crash of European socialism and the crash of communism can’t be pinned on “greedy bankers” (often the coded sub rosa slur hurled at “those dirty Jews”), these systems failed because they suck.
There are criminals in every walk of life, including finance. But that doesn’t define an entire system and it is foolish and myopic to suggest that it does.
The housing bubble burst because of communistry orgainzers assaulting the banks on “behalf of” …name your favorite class warfare “victim”. To suggest that the Cooper Union, Midwest Academy, Soros-minion, crowd is not INTENTIONALLY tearing at the fabric of the free market …and trying to covertly “transform” (read, overthrow) the system…is to be deaf, dumb and blind. Mostly dumb.
The reason that otherwise rational people “agree” with the assault on “the bankers”…is that they have suckered into believing that “greedy Jew bankers” and “crony capitalists” are at the root of today’s problems.
It’s a crock.
It’s a sucker’s play. It plays to the Pat Buchanan wing on the right and the easily misled independents who get their news from the propaganda machine.
The attempted overthrow of capitalism, while ginning up a good class warfare hatred against “the rich” is a hand in hand blueprint for “transforming” America. Taking a cheap shot at Israel and the Jews is all in a nice day’s work. I wrote a comment at VDH’s essay today that has links to explain in more detail.
There is one born every minute. We should try not to join them.
“Letting the free market system run wild eventually runs you out of suckers . . .. You see a greater and greater gap between the wealthy elite and the masses until they begin to take to the streets.” There are no publishable words for this level of “scholarship.”
It’s amazing how little many in our pundit class know of markets and wealth creation. After observing Marx’s legacy destroy everything it has ever brushed up against for more than 100 years, I’m stunned anytime I find it approvingly referenced anywhere this side of the intellectual death spiral of the Daily Kos.
Supporting the free exchange of ideas is a fundamental distinction between conservatives and Statists. That does not require, however, that one give airtime to every mindless example of deficient scholarship that seeks a public airing. Please don’t dumb down this marvelous forum.
A 1453 word thumbsucker: Quite impressive.
Goodness. A 1453 word thumbsucker: Quite impressive.
This is undoubtedly the worst article I’ve yet to read on PJ Media. I’d address it point by point if I could figure out precisely what message the author was trying to convey, but other than a disjointed regurgitation of adolescent assumptions (e.g., unbridled capitalism is bad, m’kay) and the conclusion that, given those assumptions, the author doesn’t know what to do … really, what’s the point of this and the time we’re wasting to read it?
And I think it’s one of the BEST I’ve ever written — near perfect except for two things.
1. No discussion of innate virtue — didn’t some founding father say something like “If America’s people cease to be good, etcetera?”
I hate to go biblical and I’m not even a church-going person but it does come down to the 10 comandments–greed on the part of one and sloth on the part of the other when TOO protected by a humongous government. People get easily SPOILED–powerful get greedier and morer evil, their opponents likewise.
People may have to be near-saints to live with untrammeled capitalism and individual freedom without going off the rails. Or perhaps punishments for abusing that freedom must be swift and terrible??
2. To be fair those two examples of Corzine and Pesosi should have been Corzine and John Boehner–just to illustrate the obvious truth of greed in both camps.
Precisely my take on the article. Mish mash of unfinished theme. I usually finish what I start to read but not this one, way too tedious.
This essay posits nothing except a type of bland moral equivalance between ostensibly flawed systems, and thus never gets to the underlying heart of it all, which is Leftism. The evil that is Leftism has removed both choice and consequences from the individual in Western society. Individual achievement means nothing, only a collective has any significance. Optimality is a concept that cannot even begin to be understood by the populace, and thus “maximality” (for lack of a better contrasting word) is perceived as the only available solution for any problem. Language has been subverted so that meanings, definitions, and structure are totally unreliable as tools by which individuals can successfully interact with one other. The ability to make useful distinctions both in thought and in reality is vilified as “hate”. Western traditions and unifying culture are gleefully made war upon. The Constitution as a way to set up an optimized minimalist balance of inherently untrustworthy power centers has been completely trashed. Government that should act as the fulcrum of a scale between segments of private society, instead has morphed into ever-increasing weights placed upon the balance pan itself. An objective Creation and its Creator are vilified as hateful constraints, to be killed or ignored so that an amorphous mankind can be subjectively force-marched by its betters to perfection. Unwilling individuals are crushed along the way as necessary sacrifices to the State’s communal narratives. “Desperate times call for desperate measures”, but there is no Washington or Jefferson waiting in the wings, and those segments of the populace that are not already willing pawns, are too complacent or afraid to offer meaningful resistance.
In the face of all this, only a few will have the courage to confront evil, and they will meet their noble fate when inevitably punished by the State. The rest of us will squirm a little but ultimately allow ourselves to be further subjugated. In short, time has run out… it is too late to save our country. The only hope is that, far in the future, a great re-awakening will ultimately take place. However, neither those of us now nor our children nor grandchildren will live to see it.
While it is true that all humans are born suckers (think about that).
Knowledge and the ability to act upon the information presented to the individual are what creates the winners and losers in society.
IF it were so, that the playing field was level and the referees were virtuous. Then our society could be assured that the game of life was worth playing by the rules.
But it is not and has not been so since the dawn of the Republic. Despite the best efforts of a group of men more virtuous, honorable and forward thinking than had ever gathered before, our game has been gamed.
So, we get what we see today. The private sector KNOWS that it has to pay to play and it knows that winners will be decided based upon the whim of Philip Dru Administrator. So the private sector plays the only game in town and in the process becomes the hated winner. We do not have unfettered Capitalism nor anything like it. We have Fascism with a smiley face just as Jonah Goldberg wrote.
The answer or cure will not be bubble gum flavored. It will be bitter, nasty and may just kill us off before we are cured.
And the really sad part is that it all could have been avoided by adhering to the original constitution as it was originally ratified. By preventing the judges being captured and perverted by the political process. And by insuring that every person that was eligible to vote was properly educated so that we would benefit from a populace capable of making sound decisions.
Washington weeps in heaven today. Then again, maybe he doesn’t. It may be that he sees that we have brought this upon ourselves and is ambivalent about the survival of the Republic that he risked his life, wealth and personal honor to create.
So rise above the level of sucker, will ya!?
Control the language and you control the discourse (or words to that effect). You’ve got the Marxist dialectic down pat. I suggest you read Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind” and Ludwig von Mises’ “Human Action.” These tell the real story, i.e., that individual liberty and private property are the bedrock principles of free market capitalism and indeed “modern conservatism”. The balance has been tipped toward much less of each by government (which is only every about force) over the last 100 years. The “Progressives” have been undermining these principles at every opportunity. Show me a blue state, county or municipality that isn’t in dire straights because of diminishing liberties and onerous tax-and-spend policies. Finally, the planks of the CPUSA and Democrat Party are indistinguishable. It all didn’t “just happen.”
You speak of “letting the free market system run wild” as if there has ever been a point where it was allowed to operate that way. In a truly free market system the bad actors would be allowed to behave in a corrupt fashion, true; however, all the other actors in the system would be free to see that the bad actors suffered for their hubris.
The free market is not plunder. In fact plunder is the antithesis of the free market, because the free market assumes a single key moral law:
No exchange by force or deceit is legitimate.
A totally free market system would necessitate a government strictly limited to the enforcement of that one pivotal law. In all other matters, legitimate governance keeps its hands to itself.
No “suckers” in a system like that.
We’ve seen what socialism run amok is like. We’ve seen anarchy, and rule-by-plunder. It would be nice if we could see what capitalism— REAL capitalism, not the bad parody thereof— could accomplish if it had its chains and hobbles removed.
Those itching for a “third way” have already teamed up with Soros, Stiglitch and Sachs, the SSS for the overthrow of capitalism through statism.
Soros and his minions want to knock America off its pedestal. “lead from behind” is simply code wording for knocking America off her perch, and giving all the benefits to Brazil, China, India…while stomping on America, Israel and Western Europe.
This is by design.
And the “moral equivalence” game of fools…between the Tea Party and the Crockuppy movement…is a cosmic joke.
The best kind of traitor is one who will do anything, say anything, pretend to be anything…in order to achieve the downfall of “his” country in favor of another. We are surrounded by the best kind of traitors.
And the fools and suckers who parrot their distortions and lies as if they were truth.
http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2011/10/13/soros1another-soros-tie-to-occupy-wall-street-envisions-%E2%80%98new-economic-world-order%E2%80%99-no-longer-dominated-by-1-superpower/
You are like a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.
Personally, I talk about three groups: those interested in power, those interested in money, those interested in power and money.
Of the three groups, I would say those interested in money cause the least concern. Oh, they bear watching but in many cases money is just the by-product of people buying their business product. It enables them to continue doing what they, in many cases, love doing. If they are not doing it well, they get less money and do less of it. Ditto if people no longer want done what they are doing. Sometimes this seems unfair but they have little power and go out of business and then, with a little luck, find something else to do that they love doing. People who are interested in money will often say they are not interested in money and beyond a certain point that is perhaps true. Often people who don’t have much money are more interested in it than people who have a lot of it (especially if they inherited it).
People who want to acquire power don’t say they want to acquire power because if they say they want to acquire power they are less likely to acquire it. So they demonize those who want to acquire money while making alliances with other people who want to acquire power and are willing to demonize those who want to acquire money. It is like the magicians slight of hand. “We need to do something about these people hoarding all their cash in a big stash. Give me power and I will do that something!” OK, I’m not much of a speech writer.
Those interested in acquiring money and power don’t mind the demonizing of those interested in money as long as it helps them acquire more power. They know if you acquire enough power you will have enough money. At that point it is the acquisition of more power that is important.
Right now those interested in power and money have formed a close alliance with those interested in power to gang up on those interested in money by turning everyone else against them. Right now, as a pure matter of self defense, I would suggest the rest of us not join in — no matter how tempting it might be. This is why I am more of a Tea Party guy than an OWS guy. I think most of OWS consists of people who want some sort of government job (a tenured position would be nice). If government expands there will be more positions. They favor the regulatory state not for the nation’s benefit but for their own. In this they are quite short sighted but as one of their gurus said, “In the long run we are all dead.”
Which is to say, at the end, that there is a fourth group, those interested in an easy life and immediate gratification. Basically permanent children, for whatever reason, they are easily led if supplied with bread and circuses, and
easily angered if deprived or forced to fend for themselves. At that point they are easily led by promises of bread, circuses and revenge on the mean people who didn’t give them what they want (or in today’s lunacy, what they “deserve”).
What Mr. Shaw calls alphas are all too often in society actually sociopaths. Conscience must be assiduously trained into individuals. It is hard work as obviously cheating and lying is the short path to power and control over others. Our ‘problem’ is what John Adams warned us about. This constitution of ours was created for a moral and religious people. It has been shredded because we are no longer largely a moral people.
What a waste of band-width.
What the left doesn’t understand and what the right can explain: What part of free market capitalism has birthed all sorts of barriers to entry in so many economic markets? What part of free market capitalism allowed dangerous things like pollution, devalued currencies through inflation, recessions and depressions, capitalism for profits, socialism for losses? What part of free market capitalism is unable to find more than a few unfortunate scapegoats for every massive economic failure and how the punishments are so light that they don’t act as effective deterrents to future acts?
I know the answer in the main is that these distortions are brought about by market interference. However, where the right comes to the table with a weak hand is that the language and narrative of free markets is ofted wedded by and co-opted by the very people and champions of free markets.
The left thinks the model we have IS the design of free markets since its strongest adherents say it is. Not some disguised wolf in sheeps clothing. So when banks collapse, currencies tumble, governments teeter, corporations are bankrupted by swindle and public nuisances go on without punishment to persons who ought to be responsible that the left says the system sucks.
We have very, very similar complaints. We differ on the source of the problem and the fix. They think we want more of the same. They also see the government as the only safety net from the Excesses of the free market. So they gravitate to government.
The right has failed because it hesitates to being aggressive punishment to the very exact things we know are wrong but are coming from high powers that hide in our own midst.
If the world is ever saved, it will be by someone too young to know it can’t be done.
–Matt Helm
If you think what we have now is capitalism you need to think again. What we have now is fascism. Government and business are one and the same – need I mention Solyndra, the GM bailout, stimulus for banks, and debt for the rest of us? And by fascism, I mean precisely what I say, not some pejorative, but rather the political system whereby large interests in the private sector (like businesses, capital markets and banks, labor unions, and charities/not-for-profits) are co-opted by the political parties. Think Italian fascism under Mussolini, not National Socialism under Hitler. Corporatism in a word – the worst of both worlds, crony capitalism AND the suppression of liberty. If you don’t understand the cause you will never get the cure.
The simple answer is to return to a limited federal government – that is, to return to a government that is true to the original Constitution – with power returned to the states and the people. With limited power the federal government will have nothing to sell and the game described in this article stops.
Here’s a bold solution:
1. Be faithful to the Constitution – if it doesn’t speak to what a legislator wants – then make them have the courage to propose a law and quit making stuff up about what the Constitution supposedly says
2. Stop illegal immigration -no other country on the planet (as far as I know) is expected to open their borders and subsidize all who enter…and let them vote for government benefits ?!?
3. Enact term limits on all government service — whether elected office or EPA bureaucrat – service should be temporary not permanent self-enrichment
The military has mandatory retirement that varies by rank, and promotions (except for the most junior of personnel) are awarded based on merit (time in grade is obviously a factor, but once you’ve been in a couple of years, you don’t get promoted automatically based on seniority). Perhaps we should expand this to all government service. You either move up or move out, and you have to earn the right to move up.
Perhaps term limits in Washington would at least help (but not entirely solve) the problem. At least if you reduce the amount of time people can actually stay in Washington, the fewer kickbacks and insider deals they can get. But with members of Congress being able to stay there for as long as they want to (because once you get there, it’s hard to get defeated in an election), anything can happen, and usually does. Two terms for Senators and six terms for members of the House. Twelve years should be enough for any thief, I mean person, in Washington. Well, that’s being a little mean. I’m sure there are a few honest members of Congress. But they ARE the exception, NOT the norm.
Very good article. Sets forth a dichotomy of capitalism requiring attention.
As in systems past, “man’s” insatiable quest to equitably govern a people with: justice, morality, honesty, and “invisible hand” has had ever new attempts at new philosophical/economic systems. Examples are: Socialism (Fabian, Marxian, Lenin, etc.), and Capitalist (Keynesian, Friedman, Laffer,etc.).
Land, Labor and capital are always a basis for any attempt at equitably organizing a society. It begins with a altruistic view of “man,” ending up with a political argument for its implementation. Example: Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, etc.
A unique “experiment” occured in 1776 with the formation from a top down, command parliamntary economic model of societal organization to a bottom up, disseminated, individualistic economic model of American colonial society.
This experiment was viable in societies having Malthusian sized societies, allowing for their equitable governance. In 2011′s philosophical/economic American sized country, distortions to this unique capitalistic organization, began to stretch beyond Founding Father’s dream, i.e., numerically superior, diverse People populating pockets of Americana.
For example:1913 US Census = 122million citizens. 2010 Census = 300million citizens. Answers to America’s pressing 1900′s financial crises, begged solutions,i.e., a Flat tax, a Progressive tax or some form of funding government was urgently needed.
Enter the 16th amendment, Federal Reserve and other distortions to American Capitalism.
Today, this quest for “equity” has bred “inequity” in the form of We The People vs. We The Elite People.
We The People = main street. We The Elite People = upper tier Wall Street and Washington DC political class.
We The Elite People have successfully taken a 1913, 16th Amendment and distorted it into a tome of some 80,000 pages of ununtelligible vernacular defying average citizen’s understanding…enter an income tax cottage industry.
So, A grand experiment, envisioned by our Founding Fathers, has been successively distorted to America’s We The Elite People Washington DC’s advantages, benefitting one ruling class = We the Elite People of Washington DC.
Solution: Repeal the 16th Amendment. Immdiately. Cut all Congressional salaries to 1913 levels. Reduce all departments and related staffing to 1913 levels. Senators should be elected at State levels, not national.
A tough slog…but are reforms to existing capitalistic dogma, having been distorted into progressive philosophical law creating present day dilemma cited in this article. God Bless America. Vote Massively.
VIRTUE among the people is the effective answer to your described tensions that lead to a predictable abyss: Without it (as we are now tending as a culture) no Republic can be sustained; with it, both the free-market economic system and our Constitutional Republic can not only survive, but thrive.
The problem Mr. Jazz is that we abandoned laissez faire capitalism many moons ago. Left alone markets make the necessary corrections. Those who make mistakes or take unsustainable risks in the market place fail. The wise and frugal prosper. Collusion between the corporations/banks/unions and politicians came about because DC became the arbitrator of what could be bought & sold. Once that happened the first thing to be bought & sold was the political process. Soon the market place will push back as governments run out of other peoples’ money to spend. Witness the sovereign bond markets in the EU zone. This will come to pass here too. A state like Illinois or California will be the first to fail. Eventually DC will go belly up. That’s when the ‘fun’ starts.
You leave out the element of ethics.
Our system, as many have said, only works well if people are good. People are good if they are properly religious.
You assume people are like machines. They operate this way or that way depending on the external forces operating on them, as if they had no choices and no real freedom. So government pulls us one way and capitalism pulls us another way – like two powerful daemons against which we are less than helpless. We are determined by them.
You leave out human freedom and goodness or non-goodness. And isn’t human freedom the important issue here? Isn’t liberty the defining feature of “America”? Are we or are we not the Land of the free and the Home of the Brave, and is not courage the one virtue that is necessary for all of the other virtues?
So, we need first bravery. Then we’ll have our freedom. The rest after that is easy. Bravery and freedom together and the Pelosi’s and Corzine’s of the world have no chance. They only oppress us because we let them and because we hate the hard work of true freedom.
Bill Wittle on cue and on virtue:
http://www.therightscoop.com/bill-whittle-on-why-we-must-restore-virtue/
Jazz Shaw? Anyone whose name is Jazz probably thinks cool people don’t pay attention to Aristotle and the entire tradition of virtue and character and habit, etc.
It is sad. A smart man who thinks in two narrow dimensions because the third dimension was either never taught him or he just rejected. There is a whole culture of people named Jazz out there and that is why we are screwed as much as anything. They don’t know any better. The name Jazz is like a tattoo. It looks cool to a certain eye, but it isn’t cool at all.
Sorry. Post-modern pseudo-intelligence ticks me off.
You’re describing institutionalized corruption. Uninstitutionalize it.
OWS should be aimed at the Supreme Court.
Shaw is missing the mark. No ideology exists outside of human creation, and none functions autonomously in idea-land. Idea-land exists in the human mind, with human judgement as to what comprises a good idea, or bad, advised by the moral precepts held by each human as the ultimate points of orientation. If the moral GPS breaks down across the culture, so does the capacity for effective and just self-rule.
Democratic republics fail when the majority become immoral and uneducated. Capitalism simply reflects the nature of those engaged in its freedom.
Much like the wolf pack living in the harsh Northern climate, where a strict pack morality ensures survival, humans need to hew to a moral code or die with the consequences of ignoring the truth that morality is the human survival code.
When immoral voters elect corrupt politicians who ply them with promises of entitlements and special benefits, the system distorts and decays. When people trade their freedom for indolence and self-indulgence, the nation begins to fail. It isn’t a flaw in capitalism or democracy, it is a flaw in human beings who have lost their moral bearings. If the majority of people in a communist country were of exemplary moral character, Communism would actually work…at least a lot longer that it has been able to up till now. It could never happen, however, because Communism needs the rotting corpses of a decaying nation to feed its parasitic nature. Nations run by a moral people are healthy and full of life, thus immune to parasitic ideology. Also, a moral populace doesn’t need exo-morality to enforce egalitarianism. People who are functioning in a morally enlightened manner will voluntarily help those who are legitimately in need, while allowing the ambitious citizen the freedom to create prosperity, which benefits everyone.
Marxism, in all of its derivations, feeds off the carrion of human moral failure. That is why Marxists work feverishly to destroy a potential host nation’s moral character. It is ironic that the amoral, immoral Marxists provide such a strong endorsement for the efficacy and essentiality of morality for a nation’s survival when that is the first thing they endeavor to destroy.
At the opposite end of the political spectrum from collectivist statism is Libertarianism. As an ideology of extreme personal liberty, it requires the utmost in personal moral character to succeed. Without citizens who self-govern their urges, control their behaviors, and conduct themselves with the highest level of consideration of their fellow man, Libertarianism fails…almost before it gets started. In fact, one has to wonder how a morally compromised populace could even hope to transition to a form of government that has little if any external morality applied by police. Clearly that hasn’t been worked out by those advocating this ideological utopia.
The bottom line is that no ideology can function properly, much less two different ones together, when the people need excessive external control applied to maintain order and when those same people want to evolve into parasitic organisms.
You will often hear people say Christianity isn’t a political religion, which is true. It is a politically transcendant religion. Jesus taught people to focus on their own moral behavior, and if all people did that, any number of ideologies could be made to work quite well. I believe that a truly moral people, like our nation’s founders, would choose a system very similar to ours, but realize that our system requires us to acknowledge greed and resist the corruption that goes with it. When will we recognize the real cause of our nation’s decline?
Shaw forgets that Christianity has been the greatest ideological force in this country’s history, and to ignore that fact is to relegate one’s polemic to speculative maundering. The correlation between the decline of Christianity and the decline of this nation is unmistakable, and the same can be said of Europe. Political ideology supplanted Christianity in Europe, and we see the grand results. The same thing is happening here.
Searching for solutions in political ideology is like putting new tires on a car because the engine is belching smoke.
It was so wonderful to see so many commenters zero-in on the moral element. Bravo.
Another flaw is that Mr. Shaw neglects empirical evidence. In America, the overwhelming majority of fortunes are acquired by self-made men in the marketplace. These are the brilliant men who are allowed to achieve their potential. Or at least, this used to be the case.
Look at so many of the new rich, today. Look at how many are mediocrities. They have talent, but not skill. They offer merely the show-trappings of greatness, but it is a mere false front, a Potemkin village.
I offer an example. The runner-up of American Idol botched the National Anthem. She is not the only one recently to do so. This is happening more and more. There is an old saying, “An amateur works until he can get it right. A professional works until he cannot get it wrong.” It used to be such a thing would just never happen. The standards were high, and people would have been truly mortified if they had botched the National Anthem. They’d hide their heads in shame for a lifetime. It would be truly, deeply painful.
Another example: Look at Obama and company in the White House. No breeding. A mere pretense of manners. Truly boorish. Barbarians squatting in splendor. Not a true gentleman or lady in the bunch. No one with any dignity nor any sense of majesty. There is no sense of cultural taboos. 1/20/09, the day America fell.
Where on earth do you come up with this stuff? Barbarians? No sense of majesty? Lol! Are you sick? I am not the biggest fan of Obama by any means, but this is just nonsense. It’s these comments that make people wonder if people like you are racist. Not saying you are personally, but as a black person I just wonder because I have never seen such irreverence for one man who is president of the US. The man deserves criticism, but be fair and get to the substantive issues. No sense of majesty? What does that even mean? And why as Americans, who presumably founded this country in direct opposition to “majesty”, should we accept it as a good thing? Obama pretty much pursued bush’s foreign policy. Bush spent money out the wazoo and I hear no such pronouncements against Bush, so what gives?
Majesty – Stately splendor; magnificence, as of style or character: the Parthenon in all its majesty.
Please learn what words mean. While monarchs appropriate the term ‘majesty’, it pre-dated them. Majesty does not mean monarch.
All previous Presidents honored the office of the President. They all wore coat and tie whenever in the Oval Office. Obama does not. He doffs his coat, removes his tie, and puts his damned feet up on the desk.
Obama consistently commits gaffes in the foreign arena, not just political ones, but social ones. I can think of no other President who has been like this.
Then there are the insults to the Supreme Court and to Congress members, the co-equal branches of government. There is no grace, no humility, in this President. He is a boor.
No previous First Lady ever deplaned from AF1 wearing ratty clothes like Michelle Obama has. It is appalling.
The President and First Lady are always on duty. They represent not just themselves, but also their offices and America. They are the faces of our nation. They need to remember this at all times, but they do not, because they have no sense of the majesty of their positions as our highest representatives. They do not consider themselves subordinate to their offices. Indeed, they consider themselves above their offices. The offices are just trophies they have earned. They do not understand that the offices endure, while they are merely the latest caretakers of that responsibility. The offices are permanent, significant things, while the occupants of that office are merely transitory.
In the end, Obama will be just a footnote in the history of Presidents, significant only in that they were such poor representatives of the office. They will leave no great mark upon history. No one will study Obama’s Presidency seeking inspiration, wisdom, and guidance. There will be no quoted wisdom from this sorry President.
Yeah, you just sound racist and delusional, sorry. It’s just my opinion.
Thanks for that nauseating, delusional drivel. I about threw up. I think you are racist, sorry to say.
Large contributions from private companies to political parties are legal. Thanks mainly to conservatives. Conservatives put this on themselves by vigorously opposing any attempt at campaign reform.
Conservatives are so stupid that they think that freedom and capitalism means that private companies should have the freedom to corrupt government with their capital.
Conservatives has no right to complain about crony capitalism. Suck it up. It’s mainly your fault. And now you pay the price for your stupidity.
The problem with them is they somehow believe a group that calls itself private business is inherently ethical or more immune to corruption.
I’ve seen a lot of broadbrush, partisan nonsense in my day, but yours is one of the worst. While there certainly have been conservative businessmen who have taken advantage of cronyism, it is the politicians who believe in big government that have ushered in the corruption by inserting the government into every facet of the affairs of business. By creating more and more regulations, more contact points, and more “benefits” for cooperative decision makers trying to succeed in an increasingly complicated and competitive environment, the left encouraged crony capitalism, and it was intentional. Fascism is a statist ideology and part of a transition strategy toward full blown socialism. The Left encourages crony capitalism, as Obama has so thoroughly proven.
As opposed to what? The previous system where a bundler from a corporation gathered the funds and thus secured himself a sweet position as the guy who approved the massive loan guarantees to shell “green-energy companies”, giving away billions to all his cronies.
If the amount you can give is limited by government, then we are required to join large associations in order to be able to have a voice. We are thus divided into multitudinous special-interest-groups. We are thus divided against ourselves. The heads of those groups then have the voice, not you. The larger, the more national, such a group becomes, the less it represents you.
A good example is the unions. They never, ever support Republicans. Do you think every union member is a Democrat? Of course not.
You also suffer the fallacious thinking that companies have unlimited amounts of money to donate. They do not. And they are countered by other companies who hold different views. All this angst about unlimited money is just propaganda. Politicians would rather have afar fewer people to have to answer, like union reps, than have to answer to the multitudes. It is far easier to assuage (buy off) a few than the many. More is better, not less.
The toxic mix of unbridled individual liberty and unfettered capitalism.
It is not unfettered individual liberty or unbridled capitalism that have failed. Where in the hell do you see those things? On the contrary, it is the society of bridles and fetters that has been ascendant for well over a century now.
I would love to propose some bold, political solution which produces a salable course of action, but both of these general approaches are essentially impossible to begin with. To manage that level of control over the interaction between the conjoined twins would effectively amount to dismantling the entire constitution and setting up some hybrid of communism and socialism.
Of course. That’s what bridles and fetters MEAN IN PRACTICE. Was the over 100 million dead in the last century not enough for you to get it? How many more must arrive at the logical end of your road, Shaw?
At that point, the shining light on the hill is effectively extinguished and the game ends.
What in the HELL do you think first ignited that light, and fueled it, if not the LIBERTY of men free of the bridles and fetters of others?
You plainly aren’t qualified to be dealing with these issues, Shaw. If that light goes out, you will be one of the ones smothering it.
I suggest you should quit while you are ahead and stop running that unbridled and unfettered mouth of yours.
Once again Shaw has posted an article in which the comments under it are more interesting and enlightening than the article itself. Why this intellectual lightweight has a forum here and at other conservative outlets is a mystery to me.
In this case the idiocy of his premise is obvious early on. We have never had either unbridled individual liberty or unfettered capitalism. That glaring error renders the rest of the piece inoperable. Shaw is obviously using the Michael Moore definition of capitalism here.
So you want to play a semantical word game in order to make a silly point, which is really no different when communists say: well real communism never had a chance to work. If crony capitalism isn’t unfettered capitalism, Ken, then what the hell is?
Maybe you need to buy a dictionary, or study up on political ideology. You make no sense whatsoever.
Crony capitalism is essentially Fascist corporatism, where the government controls business but allows private ownership. Read about Obama’s takeover of GM for a current example. Crony capitalism is the definition of fettered, my obtuse little friend. For every business that enjoys being favored by government officials, there are dozens that are damaged or destroyed by allowing the government to choose winners and losers.
True bearer, maybe you need some class and a little less pomposity… Lol. Wow. What’s up with the Ad hominem attacks? “Obtuse little friend?” Calm down. I know it’s hard for your head not to explode when one little person doesn’t validate your silly opinions, but take a breather! My post was a bit sloppy, I’ll admit. I suppose that will not serve as an appropriate excuse for the likes of you. Not that I care– this is a reactionary conservative blog and watching the blood pressures skyrocket is hysterical. Anyway, you could have chosen to engage, or, dare I say, enlighten me with a thoughtful post but you showed your a&& instead. So let’s get to the main point. We disagree on what unfettered capitalism is, I know what unfettered means, perhaps you should look at it in another way. My thinking is that unfettered is a pejorative term, so looking at it from that angle I would actually think you would agree with me. Why? Because I assume you would admit that government exists to protect the people from malfeasance. So if you have big players gaining too much power and influence, that’s a bad thing because small players don’t have a fair shot. It’s seems to me unfettered would mean free reign. I think we have already seen this. Think about robber barons at the turn of the 20th century. They are a perfect example of alphas. They created monopolies , steel, rail, banking, etc etc. The monopolies were bad and were broken up by govt, which I assume you would see as a good thing in this instance( the breaking up of monopolies, that is). They were bad because they limited competition. Unfettered capitalism limits competition because you “unfetter” all players involved, including the alphas. So if the alphas go unrestrained they will act in their amoral best interest which is not necessarily good for everyone else. Government would therefore want to put limits or fetters on certain players. If we follow that government’s role is to allow competition to flourish then fetters are necessary. If you disagree with my entire premise about govt’s role then my point is moot,but thanks for giving me something to argue about! And dont be such an a;; next time.
I love it when a liberal objects to ad hominim attacks- it is always part of an ad hominim attack of his own.
Meanwhile you have missed the main thrust of the article and the man’s argument which is: there are always a few–which were referred to as alphas (dont necessarily agree with that term)– that ruin it for everyone; people who will game the system from the get go to have an advantage over everyone else. He is also saying that to simply call this behavior evil is simple minded and misses a perhaps more terrifying point: the behavior is amoral and many people are susceptible to it. Finally he is saying if we simply acquiesce to the indulgences of corporatism, or unfettered capitalism, or crony capitalism, what have you, it thrives.
Again with the confusion between crony capitalism and unfettered capitalism, which doesn’t exist, and never has. I recommend you stop posting and start learning, though it appears you need this self-inflicted embarrassment.
The irony is that you think you agree with Shaw, but don’t understand what he is actually saying. Your confusion knows no boundaries. Shaw isn’t using “alpha” as a pejorative. That’s your ignorant bias. He isn’t defining alphas as inherently dishonest, ruthless, or corrupt. That is your stupidity being projected into his polemic. Alphas are people with more ambition, drive, discipline, intelligence, organisational skills, etc. They are producers and they rise to the top of any economic system, even including idiotic ones like Communism. They are simply better at achieving, in any environment.
Clearly you are a beta. Would you like me to characterize all betas as lazy, indolent, disorganized, dependent, undisciplined, unmotivated, stupid, etc? Well I won’t because this bifurcation of human types is too general to warrant such generalizations and many people aren’t interested in being in business to begin with, but your ridiculous generalization about alphas is equally inaccurate and bigoted.
Face it: you don’t know a damn thing about capitalism, crony capitalism, alpha or omega.
Boy oh boy true, your pomposity knows no bounds. Ad hominem assault after another. It really makes your argument (which was what again?) seem weak. Why don’t you address the point I made? Stop showing off. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations because there is quite a bit of talent on here, but a lot of what is being said in the posts can be summed up by that crass old saying: you can put sugar on s&@! But it still tastes like s$&!. You guys go off into these non sequitur tirades where you rattle off as many big words as you can, drowning in your own pseudo-intellectual psycho babble in the process. I’m glad you are the finally authority on betas and alphas. The point you made was completely irrelevant btw, but nice try. As I mentioned in my post above, my original post was a bit sloppy. I’m not knocking alphas, which is why I inserted the comment ” i don’t necessarily agree” parenthetically. But you were too busy vomitting vitriolic words onto the screen to catch that I suppose. Let’s once again get back on track; since you skipped over the substantive message of my post to excoriate me for demonizing alphas when I did no such thing.I was simply interpreting what I thought jazz was getting it at. I even mentioned that it was not as simple as saying it’s “evil” people. Jazz is basically saying people will outperform others and they will try to stay on top. How they get there and how they stay there is what the issue is. Do you unfetter such individuals, allowing them to exploit to their hearts content, or do you establish a government that protects citizens and allows competition to thrive? I just don’t see how you can have competition thrive in an unfettered system. I would love to hear you out, that is if you can form cogent thoughts and actually address my main point without your head exploding. – peace
Boy oh boy true, your pomposity knows no bounds. Ad hominem assault after another. It really makes your argument (which was what again?) seem weak. Why don’t you address the point I made? Stop showing off. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations because there is quite a bit of talent on here, but a lot of what is being said in the posts can be summed up by that crass old saying: you can put sugar on s&@! But it still tastes like s$&!. You guys go off into these non sequitur tirades where you rattle off as many big words as you can, drowning in your own pseudo-intellectual psycho babble in the process. I’m glad you are the final authority on betas and alphas. The point you made was completely irrelevant btw, but nice try. As I mentioned in my post above, my original post was a bit sloppy. I’m not knocking alphas, which is why I inserted the comment ” i don’t necessarily agree” parenthetically. But you were too busy vomiting vitriolic words onto the screen to catch that I suppose. Let’s once again get back on track since you skipped over the substantive message of my post to excoriate me for demonizing alphas when I did no such thing.I was simply interpreting what I thought jazz was getting it at. I even mentioned that it was not as simple as saying it’s “evil” people. Jazz is basically saying people will outperform others and they will try to stay on top. How they get there and how they stay there is what the issue is. Do you unfetter such individuals, allowing them to exploit to their hearts content, or do you establish a government that protects citizens and allows competition to thrive? I just don’t see how you can have competition thrive in an unfettered system. I would love to hear you out, that is if you can form cogent thoughts and actually address my main point without your head exploding. – peace
Once again, Jon Jon, please learn what words mean.
To fetter – to confine; chain; shackle.
Does this sound like a good thing to do to capitalism? I bet your answer is yes, because you have been indoctrinated to think capitalism is evil. The fact, is capitalism releases people from poverty. It is meritocratic. You are allowed to achieve your full potential.
In societies where the economics are controlled by the politically powerful few, poverty abounds. Magnificent wealth and abysmal squalor exist side-by-side. That is what happens when capitalism, the free exchange of goods and services, is chained by government. It is not meritocratic. It is whom you know, not what you know.
Do you think the powerful railing against capitalism actually have your interests at heart, or rather, are they just seeking to increase their own personal power by increasing the chains on capitalism? By definition, more freedom means less power for them.
You believe their lies, because you do not know what words mean.
You come to this site, thinking it is just another blog site. It is not. Many of the readers who post here are highly intelligent/educated and experienced. You post here, and you can expect to get your mental hat handed to you. You are out of your depth in this conversation. You should just read and learn. Keep an open mind. Look up words in online dictionaries as you read. Learn what words mean, and free your mind from the ability of others to cloud it.
I know what unfettered means, Marc. Nevertheless, I appreciate your unwarranted condescension. Where to begin with this one? Oh boy. Let’s start with your bombastic, overly charged, factually inaccurate assumptions. Such as, and I quote–albeit holding back hysterical laughter– “I bet your answer is yes, because you have been indoctrinated to think capitalism is evil.” Why “bet”, Marc? You already “know” that I have been indoctrinated to think capitalism is evil, so why not put more words in my mouth? Lol. Elementary my dear Malone. Perhaps you should formulate actual arguments rather than react as if you just had an anxiety attack. I think you need to find some self-esteem; not everyone is going to agree with your frivolous little opinions all the time so don’t get your panties in such a bunch. As I was telling true bearer, it’s as if guys like you need others to validate your beliefs by agreeing with you. If someone so much as puts a semblance of contention in their phrasing, you guys have verbal seizures and hissy-fits. It’s like your world falls apart if someone disagrees. Grow up! You are just wrong. Now on to the actual argument. Do I think fettered capitalism is a good idea? Yes, and so do you if you believe government should break monopolies and foster competition. It’s funny because I could also ask you to look up what unfettered means. Why should any system be unrestrained or unlimited? That’s the epitome of stupid. So you want a bunch of “alphas” to prevent everyone else from competing so they can establish a monopoly and you can languish? Of course you don’t mark! That’s why it’s illogical to be for unfettered capitalism. Think about what you are saying. I Marc Malone, want all of those better than Marc Malone–numerous they undoubtedly are– to do whatever they please. Sounds like a great plan bud. I think you might be an anarchist. But I don’t really even need to entertain your premise to begin with because capitalism has been unfettered before. That’s partly how we got here, along with the collusion of government. What we need to do is stop cronyism. You can’t equate government regulation with anti-capitalism and then claim to be for unfettered capitalism, all the while asking govt to protect you from malfeasance (asking govt to regulate).
Great responses to Jazz Shaw’s confused piece on economic systems. I’ve watched as Jazz as progressed from the typical metro/lefty into a somewhat better blogger. Given some encouragement and a few Hazzlet/Mise/sowell books and he may just become a good writer of free markets.
“The kind of incestuous relationship between business and government that Corzine’s lobbying, indeed his entire career, represents is something the left and right ought to be able to agree is bad for the country”
The left is totally in favor of such an incestuous relationship, and points to John Corzine’s MF Global as evidence that the relationship is not close enough.
Where did the money that MF Global pissed away go? It went to supporting Greek bonds, which is to say, supporting Greek Rioters who have the kind of virtue jobs that Occupiers demand as their right.
The finance system is in collapse because our ruling elite is buying up an underclass with finance system money, and it is running out.
Was Jon Corzine ordered to help out the Greeks at the expense of himself and his depositors?
Unlikely: But the elite of which he is part has a consensus, a quite delusive consensus, and he would not have been placed in charge of other people’s money had he not shared or plausibly appeared to share those delusions in full.
That he gambled with his depositors money, intending to keep the profits if he won, but they would take the losses if he lost was evil. That he gambled on Greece is insane. No one bets on Greece with their own money. Thus John Corzine personally exemplifies the fact that consensus winds up dominated by evil and madness, which evil and madness is 100% shared by and results from the Occupiers twinkle up and twinkle down consensus.
We have neither unbridled individual liberty nor unfettered capitalism.
What we have is crony capitalism. Mega donors such as billionaires Kaiser, Perelman, Soros, and Buffett could claim a mega share of our tax money to feather their capitalist beds and have the laws twisted in such a way to gain unfair advantages over competitors; while the rest of us are fettered with laws and regulations. Some of the regulations are so obscure and arbitrary that anyone of us, like Gibbson Guitar, could violate. It’s up to the regulator to prosecute or not. If the great man decided to prosecute, the small business could lose a big bundle, if not the whole business, to defend itself.
I cannot follow all that Jazz’s hand wringing about the impossibility of the American way of Government. It appears that some of the most important factors in operation today have been ignored in his Jazzed-up version of Hell, and none of his despair affects my optimism for at least being able to recognize the answer.
Consider two major factors left unspoken: 1) the FED, its unfettered creation of the theft of inflation, and its ability in secret to pick, reward and receive self-benefit for the winners and losers it makes in the financial community; and 2) the blatant disregard for the law of the land by both parties, but where one party out-blatants the other by a considerable margin. This especially includes the non-war wars waged for some unstated reasons, but revealed in the Terms of Engagements made to keep us from winning (from the Korean “Conflict” on).
There is nothing in the Constitution that provides for unbridling or unfettering anything, including the Government. But the Government and its creations like the FED and various unconstitutional Departments is an unfettered breaking of the law of the land, the Constitution. By returning to the Constitution in its original meaning we can return to the real American “way”.
So one who wants to return to the real American way, will support the ideas of the man who understands the current problems. That person understands economic principles that allowed him to predict the dotcom and the house“con” busts after booms plus all the current resulting problems of deficit spending, and constant war for constant peace. Of course you know this person as Representative Ron Paul, dubbed Dr. No because he only votes for Constitutional legislation, His plan is to put the Government back within its Constitutional fettering, and to return us to a sustainable economy. This will also return us to our original freedom, only fettered by State criminal law, and the obligation to not perform any acts that infringe on another persons identical rights.
While you may not like Dr. Paul’s persona, and even though he is a good father you may wish a more paternal President for the 98% children that have appeared lately, if you ignore the very real problems that Dr. Paul has identified, then you have assigned us all to the Hell you have already imagined.
” Jon Corzine — and if the charges bear fruit, Nancy Pelosi — at the end of all things, are neither heroes nor villains. ”
What nonsense. Of course they are villains. Stealing other peoples money and abuse of power are crimes. No system is perfect and as long as there is any system at all the black-hearted will seek to abuse it. We need better people in government. Hopefully in 2012 we can start at the top.
Looks like this essay has pissed off various Pharisees and moneylenders, and their cheerleaders.
Good.
Since everyone’s telling Jazz what to read, I’d suggest he check out the ideas of distributism, the moral alternative to socialism and capitalism, and then educate his readers. Many will be interested after President Romney and the Wall Street party that controls Congress ships their jobs off to China and the only help wanted ad in town is for the local Godfather’s Pizza joint.
http://distributistreview.com/mag/