Concerning Capitalism
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 8 months ago
Social Security was America’s foray into socialism and it has done a great deal of good for people who are unable to work, but that was never its purpose. Social Security was a bribe to elder citizens so they would quit work and give those jobs to the younger generation, why? Because the United States, at the time, during the depression, was afraid that too many unemployed twenty and thirty-year-olds might do what they are afraid of in Middle Eastern countries now, foment rebellion and revolution.
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Capitalism works, because it is not managed, directed or focused. It does not require a government directorate to decide for everyone what they will want or need. It is unwieldy, chaotic and funds flow to that which is needed, or captures the imagination. People want to be entertained, want to do things that interest them and the money flows to those things. But, what has happened to literature is that the big five publishers have decided to do exactly that, direct and decide for all of us what we want to read, thereby deciding what we will think, pushing their socialist ideas into our brains, or cause us to stop reading all together to escape it.
I’m not sure how many people, human beings, must be sacrificed on the alter of communism to prove that it doesn’t work, so far more than 100 million have not been enough. The nation of Venezuela’s utter fall from the wealthiest Lain American nation to the poorest hasn’t even caused a speed bump on the way to the Democratic nomination. It is no coincidence that it started in a democratic nation, communism focuses on nations they can vote themselves into, then slam the door on elections by making voting for anyone besides the ruler a crime of treason.
That’s an interesting take on social security, and I’d never heard that before. Thanks to TL for the insight.
I do have something else to say about capitalism. There is a difference between capitalism (as we see it in America today) and the free market. The Biblical notion is the free market.
In today’s society, we see corporations who lay off older workers (with age discrimination made impossible to prove in court), share and rotate membership on boards of directors, with those members never having had a hand in building the company they now rule, use earnings to create PACs and lobbying to ensure that the laws and regulations are friendly to them and what they want to do while foisting the real long term cost onto someone else (I could supply a thousand examples here, not the least of which is the massive government-sponsored investments in solar power, which is a scam of mammoth proportions, producing massive amounts of toxic waste and which will cause massive problems for disposal). Do you think fracking is pollution free? Google the words “Fracking Tails Pennsylvania Roads” to see just what is being put into the earth and groundwater around you. But there is money to be made, so the .gov is complicit as long as it’s what the corporations want.
There is nothing “free” about this market. It isn’t free market. It’s corporatism. I don’t claim to know the solution to these problems, but a massive reduction in the size of the FedGov is in order, along with a set of laws and regulations that force corporations to pony-up for the costs of their technology so that others don’t have to bear the costs.
I’ll also say that the most Biblical model I can find has companies with public stock majority-owned by their workers, and we could add to this that it might be a good idea to have members of boards of directors made entirely of employees, not all of whom can be senior or management level.
One final thought is that the stock market is a gigantic gambling casino. Investment is a Biblical notion, viz. The parable of the talents. But short term speculation on stock prices is gambling. Never say that the government doesn’t like gambling. We are all controlled by professional gamblers. Of course, gambling is immoral, and so is short term, minute-by-minute speculation in the stock market.
These and other reasons are why America is not blessed by God.
On March 2, 2020 at 12:09 am, BRVTVS said:
The major problem with corporations is that there is a separation of ownership and control. This creates a class of of managers with very different group interests from the rest of us who see traditional principles such as private property rights as a hindrance to what they want to do.
On March 2, 2020 at 10:26 am, Fred said:
In order to know the actual definition of Capitalism, we must know what is Capital.
Capital – is private property. Full Stop.
Free Market – is the trading of goods and services unimpeded, or not purposefully impeded under threat of law, would be a better definition.
Capital Market – A mechanism by which trade in Capital is facilitated.
Notional Capital – The value of a company (for our purposes here, but be other things) based upon future earnings.
Debt – is Slavery, not owning the output of your labor, the bible defines this.
Stock – in a company is a cut of the company based mostly upon Future Earnings, making it not the same as employee ownership (can’t think of one off the top of my head) or a privately held company (such as Chik-fil-A).
Publicly Traded Company – one that sells, or has sold, Stock to “raise Capital” usually to enable rapid growth expansion or to pay down debt(s).
Ok?
It’s a pity that American’s aren’t taught this, and yes, it’s a full on conspiracy to make your children and grandchildren ignorant debt slaves.
So, you can have Capital and not be allowed by law to trade it, i.e.; make and sell a gun.
So, you can have wide open Free Trade among men, this is what the Holy Bible prescribes except that the traders do so with a Just Balance, i.e., don’t rip each other off.
So, you can have Free Trade, but only of Capital that is approved by law, making it not free at all.
So, you can have a market(s) that trades, freely or mostly freely or restricted or limited, in Capital, and/or Notional Capital.
These things ARE NOT required one of another, or for one or the other to exist, and these definitions have been purposely conflated to your nation’s ruination; I’m imagining your Shocked Face, heh.
So, a free market that trades in (notional) Capital on an exchange with bylaws and/or regulatory rules is what Americans have been led to “Believe” is capitalism. Capitalism, rightly, is Private Property traded, the existence of which does NOT require a Capital Market that trades in Future Earnings i.e. stocks and bonds and futures and etc.
As to the Bible, I don’t see any such thing as a Capital Market, but NOWHERE in God’s Law are individuals and individual property restricted in trade. So, according to God’s Holy Law; Free Market Trade is wide open and unhindered between individuals and/or groups of individuals, again, a Just Balance notwithstanding.
Every individual’s potential future well-being having been tied up in Notional Capital on an exchange IS THE PROBLEM with America’s system. It was never supposed to be this way, although it would have been easy to see it coming in the late 1800’s (?) not firm on the dates) when Capital Markets started, in America.
The Existence of Capital (private property) is NOT the problem.
The Existence of Free Trade (freely traded private Capital (personal property) is NOT the problem.
The problem IS that your future well-being is tied to Notional Capital, which becomes vaporware the moment future earning are threatened, usually by an external event, like say, I don’t know; Covid 19.
The existence of the Federal Reserve, Notional Money, at fractional or zero real worth, is an unjust balance by requiring injection of unnecessary Inflation in prices of goods and services, a Tax, for no reason other debt to facilitate debt which the Holy Bible calls Slavery, that doesn’t help matters here at all, and is wicked sin against Holy God.
PS, employee ownership ALWAYS devolves into the democracy mob rule to the ruination of the company. All companies should be owner operated, not by law, I’m simply saying; if you have a company and want to involve your employees give them bonuses, not a cut of the earnings. YMMV as to this last point.
PS, Selling Stock on an exchange to raise capital is not the same as, and I would firmly tell anybody not to “Go Public” (sell stock) do this. Organic growth based upon the value of your goods and services to THOSE WHO BUY THEM, and not to those who trade your stock, is what makes a company good, because its worth is real, and it must remain nimble, responsive to customer demands, in the Free Market. This makes both the buyer of products and seller of products as close as you can get to a handshake agreement with a Just Balance every time a product or good is traded, and thus, making the Market Free.
The problem is not a lack of centralized control, the problem IS centralized control. America is already a classically fascist economy, run by corporations at the behest of the state, at gunpoint.
Got it?
Now go explain all of this to a commie or nazi retard. God be with you, because they won’t hear it.
On March 2, 2020 at 10:33 am, Fred said:
Selling Stock on an exchange to raise capital is not the same as [edit Organic Growth,] and I would firmly tell anybody not to “Go Public” (sell stock) do this.
On March 2, 2020 at 10:55 am, Fred said:
I might have missed my whole point, or an important point.
Free Market Capitalism – what they mean is, freely or mostly freely exchanged Notional Capital on a (stock) market mechanism.
What you are told to hear is; yay, I can buy any piece of junk made in China that I don’t actually need, from Walmart, I’m free (to be a retard).
But you can’t buy anything in the millions of lines of codes and regs that your masters prescribe because they will jail or kill you. Only the master overseers can have divine knowledge and power to know what is a just balance. You are a slave.
On March 2, 2020 at 2:03 pm, penses said:
If it were a Christian country and not a universal Empire there would be a Jubilee based on God’s Law with the erasure of debt and a new beginning every fifty years, “a year of emancipation and restoration provided by ancient Hebrew law to be kept every 50 years by the emancipation of Hebrew slaves, restoration of alienated lands to their former owners, and omission of all cultivation of the land.”
“And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission* to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family…” Lev 25 verse 10.
*Remission was a release and discharge from debts and bondage, and a reinstating of every man in his former possessions giving everyone a new chance at life.
The Empire acts just the opposite. The underclass is under the boot of their oppressors. Bankers are relieved of their debts and crimes and paid enormous amounts of money with golden parachutes by the government they screwed over. The underclass are dispossessed of their money, property and sometimes their children, some of whom are sold into slavery.
On March 2, 2020 at 9:20 pm, Ned said:
10/10 what penses said.
When some sort of debt forgiveness is proposed – such as student loan forgiveness – the debt is still paid to the bankers. It’s just that the debt is paid by other people – many who never go the benefit of attending college.
The bankers always get paid, and the government insures that they do.
On March 3, 2020 at 11:01 pm, penses said:
Free Trade Doesn’t Work by Ian Fletcher.
NAFTA and GATT are the epitome of “free trade” and the nemesis of the American economy. The ruling elite gutted the economy and made wage earners wage slaves.
On March 22, 2020 at 1:12 pm, penses said:
The high price of free trade in the light of recent events.
“Thanks to “globalism”—i.e., cheap goods from China—we’ve gotten many wondrous things, for example:
Toothpaste on American shelves made with a poison found in antifreeze.
Toxic Chinese drywall installed in about 100,000 U.S. homes, emitting noxious fumes that destroyed electrical wiring and metal fixtures and sickened homeowners. Replacement of the drywall, pipes and wiring cost Americans billions of dollars.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of American dogs killed by melamine-laced Chinese dog food in 2007.
The loss of about 200,000 beautiful maple trees lining the streets of small New England towns, eaten by Asian long-horned beetles that arrived on Chinese cargo ships in 1996.
The U.S. taxpayer spends hundreds of millions of dollars to eradicate the repeated outbreaks that continue to this day, despite promises from the Chinese to do better.
Viral pandemics—H1N1 (from China), bird flu (from China), SARS (from China) and now the Wuhan virus (from China).” Ann Coulter