On Illusory Capitalism and Unreal Religion

Sun Jun 10 07:25:56 2012

Earnest H.

Vic,

You seem to be intellectually mixed up; perhaps you have too many unrelated irons in the same fire. You mix economic systems with political systems, you mix religion into everything, you have a fuzzy self-defined definition of wealth, of work, of jobs, how to create jobs, how to create wealth, etc., etc., etc. You attack applied Communism as "impossible" and applied Socialism as "failed" in many short-term examples. What you fail to note is that the product of applied Capitalism is illusory, and that Capitalism, based on illusion, must fail in the long run.

Seeing wealth as the collection of material possessions, you demonstrate how people seeking to increase wealth organize into groups for that sole purpose, but you don't recognize the monster this organization evolves into. Eventually the whole thing must fail, because it is all an illusion; nothing in Capitalism is real.

At some point people and their activities must be controlled by a reasonable system for the benefit of all, else, all will be doomed by eventual catastrophic breakdown of the whole thing.

The only reason you can demonstrate isolated failures of Socialist systems is that they are isolated systems, when they should be incorporated into one global system.

If you would wastefully expend less of your thinking on religion and productively apply more of it to pure economics and reality you would no doubt see these things more clearly.

Regards,

Earnest

Well, one of us is certainly lost in space here.

It is my contention and unshakable position that God is at the center of all truth, and is indeed the Truth. You disagree with that position. I talked about where divorce from religion leads Western man in the On Evil and Nonsense page, where people and cultures who ignore God lose the ability to even recognize evil, and thereby lose any sense of right vs. wrong, i.e., common sense, thereby becoming susceptible to nonsense.

And, we talked about the danger involved in accepting any sort of Compromise, gentlemanly or otherwise, with positions based on untruth and/or nonsense. There we said that compromise with evil begins the ultimate death spiral, and that compromise on any Vital Principle leads to death, for individual souls and for whole cultures.

That being said, let me try to nutshell Capitalism, which I champion, and Marxism, which you champion

Capitalism, unlike any variant of Marxism – Social Democracy; Democratic Socialist Republic; Socialism; Dictatorship of the Proletariat; Communism; Fascism; Nazism; Pure Dictatorship masquerading as a Socialism or a Communism; etc. - is not a planned or controlled system. The government has nothing to do with it, other than to cause it harm.

When man enjoys the legal and legitimate and protected rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which our Declaration declares to be authored by God, then, Capitalism = The Free Market just naturally springs into being. It is natural. It is not controlled. To whatever degree any government limits or controls it, to that same degree does it cease to be Capitalism = The Free Market.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness means that a man is free to work in his own self-interest and to profit by the work of his own hands. “By the sweat of your brow shall you earn your bread” (Gen. 3:19) said the Lord to man. Since the dawn of Specialization, man has sought to produce more of whatever he produces than he needs to merely survive. More than he needs for food, shelter, clothing – more than just getting by. The excess produced – whether it be extra product of some kind to sell, extra food produced, extra time put in for extra pay, or whatever – the excess over what is needed for mere survival is what we call Profit = Wealth = Private Property. Producing this Profit = Wealth = Private Property is what we call trying to get ahead.

Only people produce Profit = Wealth = Private Property. Governments only consume it. Here in America, we limit government authority to tax Profit = Wealth = Private Property only to the extent that is needed to support the government itself in fulfilling its extremely limited Constitutional responsibilities of governing. The business of producing Profit = Wealth = Private Property is not the business of government; it is the business of the people, endowed by their Creator with the rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Marxism – the opposite of Capitalism – that which you champion – is a rigidly planned and controlled economy and a rigidly planned and controlled society. It is a radical mixture of politics and economics, because it controls the people first, and all property second. Control of the people must come first; property may not be confiscated and redistributed until the people are under strict control of the government. If you read Marx’s Manifesto carefully, you will see that he speaks not only of the distribution of property, but also the “equitable” distribution of the people. (Shut up and get on the cattle car?) Thus it is you, not I, who “mix economic systems with political systems,” for Marxism is just such a forced mixture.

As for the “monster” that organizations aimed at producing Profit = Wealth = Private Property, i.e., corporations and other business entities, they operate competitively, just like individuals, and they always seek competitive advantage. When they get too big and move toward monopolistic control of segments of the free market, they need to be reigned in by government. However, when government is corrupt, and when business is also corrupt, another avenue is open to them by which to gain advantage or even to crush opposition – it is called Crony Capitalism. That is what morphed into Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany. Today we see the same relationships between the Obama regime and our biggest banks, GE, GM, Chrysler and other major corporations, at the same time as similar relationships grow with Big Labor, including SEIU, UAW, AFL/CIO, NEA and a host of others.

These “monster” organizations are not Capitalist; they are more akin to Fascist. Comrade Obama, peace be upon him, holds them all on a tight leash, just as did Mussolini in his day, and just as did Hitler in his day.

Your error is in seeing opposition to Capitalism = The Free Market in corporate and government entities that are simply not Capitalist, and that restrict and seek to control Capitalism = The Free Market. That moves them to the Marxist (Nazi-Fascist branch) side of the street.

With the extreme Regulations on business today, and with the punitive and confiscatory taxes, what we have in America may no longer be called Capitalism = The Free Market. We, too, have become more Socialist than Constitutional.

That’s what this site is all about. It is worse now, under this regime, than ever; however, our government has been moving out from under the legitimate constraints of our Constitution for over a hundred years.

This has got to stop, and it must be turned around.

Regarding what might be real and what illusory, all of American history proves that Capitalism = The Free Market is real, and that people are quite capable of producing Profit = Wealth = Private Property. Even in spite of the efforts of such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR and others, people still were able to excel. Even today, in spite of Comrade Obama (peace be upon him) there are people who still manage to excel. So we see physical examples of the success of Capitalism = The Free Market, and we see physical examples of the failure of various Socialisms, and yet you insist that “in the long run” Socialism will succeed and Capitalism will fail.

Based on what? Some illusory theory?

In the God and Nature page we talked about the author of nature and about man’s perversions of nature, often done with the best of intentions. You do not believe nature has an author; that’s fine, and your free will choice to make. But if you cannot see how Marxism seeks to take control of a natural thing and turn it into a rigidly controlled thing, and how that is bad for the very nature of the thing being changed, then perhaps you are beyond hope.

It is never good to mess with Mother Nature.

Regards,

Vic.

Do not reply to this automatic email.

Respond to this article at the link below :
Fixed Pegs Versus Variable Reality.

This article and comments may be found on the web site at the link below:
http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

Visit Vic Biorseth on FaceBook at the link below:
Vic on FaceBook