Monday, October 02, 2006

Smith and Marx Never Had it So Good

So I'm flying back from the Florida Keys. And within 2 hours I had gone from driving a convertible in 85 degree weather to sitting behind the demon spawn of two parents that somehow thought that if they bred, their children would not become the loud, obnoxious, noise-making retards that they were.

To escape this hell and prevent me from committing man-slaughter, I decided to crack open a book about the Nobel laureates in economics which I had been looking forward to reading. And the reason I was looking forward to it was because, truth be known, I am an economist only by trade and experience, not by training. My degree is in finance and although intricately related to economics, I lack the traditional educational background in economics which addresses things like "egoism versus altruism," "rationality versus irrationality" and other fundamental theories that govern and lay the foundation for modern day economic thought.

However, while I was hoping to learn more about the contributions made to economics by the various laureates over the past 40 years, the book served only to raise my ire about a particular pet peeve I have about my profession;

That economists practice economics as a bona fide science.

Much in the same way we use math, physics and engineering to calculate the orbits of planets, speeds of trains and temperatures of furnaces, so too do economists (particularly Academian economists) think that we can somehow predict or forecast social phenomena such as unemployment, economic growth, crime and inflation. However, the reason that NASA aerospace engineers can program the Cassini spacecraft to travel the 904 million miles to Saturn and enter an orbit around the celestial body within a margin of error of less than half a mile is because space travel is grounded in a set of succinct and precise rules known as Newtonian physics (specifically Kepler's Laws). Economics enjoys no such luxury since the study is grounded in the random and forever changing behavior of humanity.

But that certainly doesn't seem to stop economists from treating economics as a mathematical science. Attend any modern day economics seminar (a surefire way to impress a date) and it's not about theory or philosophy as much as it is explaining an insanely complex mathematical model or formula that is seemingly hell-bent on using all the letters in the Greek alphabet. And after all the methodologies are grilled, all the ones are carried, and all the formulas double checked, in the end, you at best are left with a model with mediocre predictability.

The reason for such rare and mediocre success is that all of modern day economic research is focused on trying to do what is frankly, impossible; predict the future. And not only predict the future, but predict the future behavior of humans which are inherently dynamic. And worse still is predict the future behavior of dynamic beings in a world that is ultimately chaotic.

Leave it to economists, who are arguably the least attractive people in all of society, to think they can mathematically calculate a scientific or formulaic way to attract members of the opposite sex.

But that statement is more profound than it seems. For within that statement lays the trick, they key to solving the problem of economics. If you can figure out how to attract members of the opposite sex, or for that matter, predict any sort of human behavior, then you most certainly can figure out economics.

In this sense we are all economists. What man hasn't spent literally years of his life, not to mention untold sums of money, energy and effort in "trying to figure out girls?" And how much time, energy, effort and money have women expended on therapists, psychologists, "Mars & Venus" books, daytime talk shows, or those stupid women's magazines and their "10 Billion Ways to Tell if He's a Jerk, and 3 to Tell if He's OK" type surveys?

Sadly, despite such efforts, nobody has been able to "figure out" the opposite sex.

Or have they?

For I contest there are a few people that actually have "figured out girls." Not in the sense that they know what to say at what time, and what flowers to buy who. But in the sense that they realize there's no way to "figure out girls" since they are "unfigure-outable." Every woman is a different being and will be a different being the next day. One girl one day will respond to the Cary Grantish chivalry, kindness and courtesy. Another girl will only respond to heroin and an abusive boyfriend whilst practicing the fine art of bulimia. And to think that applying some sort of strategy or approach to something so chaotic and irrational will result in consistent and positive results is wishful thinking on the order of thinking France is capable of defending itself.

Thus, the only option a guy has is to not even think, not even contemplate about trying to begin to make an initial attempt at figuring them out. To not spend one calorie of energy, not one iota of effort on the task. To realize that the best use of his time is to live life however he sees fit, and if it just so happens a girl somehow falls into that mix, so be it.

Or in the words of the W.H.O.P.P.E.R. computer,

"The way to win the game is not to play."

This is the man (or woman) that has "figured them out." (And coincidentally, this is also the guy you see with the most girls, because he ignores them and couldn't care less about them).

But how would this strategy play out in economics? The "don't play to win" strategy?

First look at what all of economics and econometrics focuses on; predicting the future. It's forward thinking. It's the exact same mental disorder people have when they think they can "solve the riddle" of the opposite sex.

But in focusing on the future we ignore something very important;

The past.

We disregard years and years of history. Countless case studies of different countries implementing different economic systems and the different results that follow. And terabytes of data that have been collected by various agencies throughout the world. The FRED II Database and the OECD alone would be enough to make Marx and Smith cry. But no, we ignore all that, and act as if we haven't figured out which economic policies and which economic system are the best either because we're overcautious, we're trying to be politically correct, trying to adjust for extenuating circumstances, or perhaps our funding would be cut from our public sector paymasters.

Which is sad, for about the only people that can legitimately claim the excuse, "Well, we don't know" would be the original founders of the two main economic systems, Karl Marx and Adam Smith, simply because "capitalism" and "communism" didn't exist in their their articulated forms then. Marx and Smith were truly forming theories, looking into the future. They were postulating if there was a system that didn't exist before which would be better than the one they had now. They had no choice but to theorize because they did not have the luxury of the wealth of information that we have today.

Yet we still sit here and argue about whether socialism or capitalism is the optimal economic system as if nothing has been learned in the past 225 years. As if the lives of 100 million people killed and the 1 billion people held in dismal poverty by communism over the past century are all in vain since we refuse to learn anything from it. And how retarded do you have to be to not see the stark difference between North Korea and South Korea? (Answer - You have to be so retarded that you were under the tutelage of the Minneapolis Public Schools for all of K-12).

So let me spell it out VERY clearly to you.

Capitalism is the optimal and best economic system in the world. Period.

This is not opinion. This is not rhetoric. And this is not propaganda. It is fact. Though you will certainly run into democrats, communists, liberals and other varied sorts of of socialists that will argue till George Soros' money runs out that I am wrong, sadly for them, the truth is not on their side. And the truth comes from that historical data that would instill envy in Smith and change the mind of Marx.

But before we give you the proof of capitalism being the ultimate economic system we need to go over a simple economics lesson so you can fully understand and appreciate it;

Government revenue as a percent of GDP.

Consider the problem you'd face if I asked you to calculate your overall tax rate. Now, most people would say, "Well, I'll just compare my net versus gross pay on my paycheck and boom, there it is."

Unfortunately, this does not account for a whole slew of taxes that you pay. Taxes such as sales tax, property tax, gas tax, your fishing license, telephone tax, breathing tax, heart pumping tax, thinking tax and a million other taxes. Thus it is quite literally impossible for you to calculate your overall effective tax rate.


However, the same does not apply to entire countries. The reason why is that you can find total taxes paid by just looking at the government budget(state, federal or local). And the total revenue the government collected is the total amount of taxes (whatever form they took) paid into the government.

The only thing you need now is a "gross salary" for the nation to divide total government revenues by to calculate an effective tax rate for that country.

This is actually not as hard to find as you might think. Matter of fact this "gross salary of a nation" is right under your nose. It's mentioned everyday and is measured every quarter;

GDP - Gross Domestic Product.

The reason GDP is the entire salary of a nation is because not only is GDP "all the goods and services produced within a nation's border within one year," but for every dollar's worth of production, there is a dollar's worth of income. For example, if Chrysler sells a $40,000 PT Cruiser, that $40,000 is then used to pay for the salaries of the auto workers, salesmen, the interest on Chrysler's debts, the suppliers of the sheet metal, etc., so that all $40,000 turns into income for somebody else.

Thus, by dividing total government revenue by GDP, we get a very accurate measure of a country's overall tax rate.

However, not only does this provide a good measure of an overall tax rate, it also serves as a good barometer as to just how "capitalistic" or "communistic" a country is. North Korea is estimated to have nearly 95% of its economy under government control, whereas with George Bush's drastic tax cuts the US tax rate has fallen to 25%. But with this measure we can do something quite extraordinary; correlate countries' overall tax rate against their economic growth and finally, once and for all see which economic system is more successful.




(I should note that these are the OECD countries, which, at the time were the only ones with enough data to run, 5, 10 and 15 year correlations. Furthermore, this was done when I was 24, so no doubt the data has changed since. I will inevitably get around to updating these figures and hopefully will find consistent datasets for additional countries as well)
And surprise, surprise, what do you know? Not only is the correlation negative, it is also strong (anything above a +/-.3 is pretty strong for the social sciences). And not only is it strong, it gets stronger the further back you go, thus proving that the higher the taxes, the lower the economic growth tends to be. The more a country leans towards the left, the more its economy fails.

But, no doubt the consortium of democrats, liberals, communists and other varied socialists will critique my data. "Why only the OECD? Why not 20 years? Why not take out the outliers? Why this? Why that?"

Which of course are legitimate questions anytime something like this is purported. But rather than spend the next 6 pages defending my methodologies here, how 'bout I just tell you, "It ain't biased, there's been no hanky panky, because I'm not concerned about getting a certain result, I legitimately wanted to know what the real result was."

Furthermore you don't have to believe me. Try the
joint house committee study on the effects of taxes on economic growth.

And even if that doesn't convince you, how about a social scientist's dream come true? A perfectly controlled experiment where an identical population is divided and each half then implements completely contradictory economic systems? Would that be enough to satisfy you?


Sadly, I could go on and on with empirical, anecdotal, but above all irrefutable evidence that capitalism is hands down the best economic system, but for some people it wouldn't matter. Some people, frankly know socialism doesn't work, but know it's the
best way for them to get money for doing nothing and thus will advocate it regardless of the data. Some people, hold dearer to them a sort of "noble crusade" to promote socialism and fight "evil corporate capitalism" even if the truth doesn't warrant such a crusade because their egos are more important to them than the advancement of society. And some people are just plain brainwashed to the point of no return where they will deny everything and subscribe to conspiracy theories about black helicopters and Haliburton before they entertain the possibility that maybe capitalist countries do better than their socialist counterparts.

But economists, free-marketers, Republicans, Libertarians and other varied sorts of capitalists need not be such hypocrites. For unlike the left, our ideology is not based in wishful thinking. Our ideology is not based in theory or hope. Nor is our ideology based in falsehoods, misinformation and outright lies. No, our ideology is based in truth. What makes us capitalists, true economists, Republicans, Libertarians and other varied sorts of free-marketers is the fact that our belief in capitalism is not a belief at all, but rather a knowledge, a knowing that capitalism is the best system. And it is because the truth forms our ideology, while the left's ideology forms their truths that capitalism will always surpass socialism and communism as economic systems.



27 comments:

Captain Capitalism said...

Thanks, Bucktown. I have the dream some day that one of my charts will be quoted on some radio talk show which will then convince 50 million Americans to switch to the Republican side of the force. Then, women will call in saying, "my gosh, what insanely handsome and goodlooking devil came up with that insightful chart?" And then I will have a fan club of chicks who dig economists.

Merry Christmas. And I will have the Ode to the Baby Boomers Part 2 coming up soon. But it is LOADED with data. Taking a while to piece it all together.

Cpt. C

Peter Thurley said...

Firstly, I agree with the above commenter, nice style.

Secondly, you're wrong. I'm not an economist. I'm not a Financier. But I do have minimal training in philosophy, and happen to have read both Smith and Marx carefully, especially Marx.

By claiming North Korea as communit, you are wrong. They are 'communist' in name, if only to provoke the ire of the dirty capitalists around the world. The Soviet Union were never communist. Castro's Cuba was not communist. Nor was Red China. Quite frankly, Communism has never really been tried. Why? Because Marx was largely right. The workers have been sedated by the ruling class. Your data doesn't exactly approach things from an unbiased point of view. You claim it does. But its already slanted towards the capitalist vision because it measures in the only currency that capitalists know: Money. It measures worth in terms of dollars and cents, in terms of the bottom line. It fails to take into account the worth of humanity. It seems to be sort of peeking out In the graph showing the electricity per person in NK vs SK. and the life expectancy. But i'm sorry, but a tyranical dictatorship does not quality as communism. If you want to a more accurate picture of the quality of life in a country, taking into account everything, take one of the most socialist countries in the world, Sweden, and look at it. Compare it with the United States. I dare you. I'm Canadian. I love it here. Why? I may pay taxes for it, but I have access to healthcare when I need it, and whoever I need it. Maybe we don't have the up-and-coming technology that the United States does. But only a select few ever get to see that technology, because only a select few can afford it.

Your capitalism kills. The bottom line, it takes over, and it transforms people who make good products into greedy theives, who are only concerned with lining their pockets with money that they will likely never use. Perversions of communism have been tried, and have failed. Capitalism has survived, but only because it discovered a subtler way to kill. Congradulations Adam Smith, thank you for giving us commercialism, consumerism, increased outlets for greed, and a way to kill ourselves slowly so that when we finally die, we don't even realize that we are dead.

You may agree or disagree, thats fine. I enjoy what I have read of your blog. I'm just saddened by your enthusiastic 'facts' which support your claim that capitalism rules, while forgetting that human beings actually exist...

Captain Capitalism said...

You're right, communism has never been implemented the way Marx proposed it or the way it was "supposed" to be implemented. The problem with communism isn't so much its economics as it is that it is very prone to being taken over by dictatorships. Complain all you want about how corporations own this country or control the world through cartels and oligopolies, but when all the wealth and means of production are controlled under one entity (albeit, so noblely for the people), you will have a dictatorship.

Either way, I'm not going to risk trying to experiment with communism in some idealistic hopes that maybe it might work. It's track record is just too poor to be experimenting on humans. All I can do is take a look at what has happened, which systems have done the most to eliminate poverty and increase standards of living lower famine and disease, etc. etc., and it's hands down capitalism.

Cpt Capitalism

Captain Capitalism said...

Well now go easy on him Bucktown. If you look up his profile he's only 23 and we were all like him one time, brainwashed in college, gee wouldn't it be great if everything was free. Give him enough credit for at least thinking about it on a certain level, and also the fact he hasn't been cursing up a storm like this other fellow making posts around here. Truth be known Peter Thurley's namesake will be in the title of one of my future posts because he reminded me of something I've wanted to write about.

Cpt. Capitalism

Captain Capitalism said...

Well now go easy on him Bucktown. If you look up his profile he's only 23 and we were all like him one time, brainwashed in college, gee wouldn't it be great if everything was free. Give him enough credit for at least thinking about it on a certain level, and also the fact he hasn't been cursing up a storm like this other fellow making posts around here. Truth be known Peter Thurley's namesake will be in the title of one of my future posts because he reminded me of something I've wanted to write about.

Cpt. Capitalism

Captain Capitalism said...

Peter, forgot to mention something, I think you're thinking about NOrway, not Sweden. Sweden doesn't compare well against the US. Norway does, but for reasons other than socialism. See if you can check it out at the World Fact Book at www.cia.gov

Cpt. Capitalism

Captain Capitalism said...

Quid, review your history dude. REally, you are better than this knee-jerk reaction stuff, don't just regurgitate the talking points your professors fed you at school. Think for yourself, don't get so laxed and enjoy letting other people do the thinking for you.

Think, what economic system was in place during the imperial days of BRitain, SPain and France? Imperialism! Mercantilism! Not capitalism. Some elements were the same, but they were not capitalism.

And if you want to attribute all the wealth of the US to slaves, you run into a big gapping problem with that theory. What if the economy that was based on slavery was destroyed? I don't know, say, in a Civil War?

Yes, up till that time, the south's economy was built up on the backs of slaves (more or less). But when the Civil War came in and destroyed the means of production, you were left with a blank slate.

Any increases in the standards of living from 1865 on, are on the backs of everyday people, working harder, working smarter, and above all working for themselves. Welcome to capitalism my son.

Cpt. Capitalism

Captain Capitalism said...

No, you're right, I'm not denying that there wasn't racism after 1865, nor that there wasn't things like the KKK or Jim Crow laws, but these are all social ailments. This has nothing to do with the economic system in place. Whereas with slavery, slaves certainly did have an effect on the economy as wealth was produced by them for free.

Plus, I really don't think you realize just how "blank slate-ing" a war can be. Take WWII, especially Germany and Japan, quite literally wiped out. No means of production left. Since that time you can literally attribute all wealth creation since that time solely to the hard working people of Japan and Germany POST-1945. There wasn't anything left from Pre-1945. The same applies to the wealth/capital produced by slaves before the Civil War. It was wiped out. It had no affect on the future production of wealth since it didn't exist post 1865.

I saw some research about how much various wars have consumed as a percent of GDP (estimates of course) but the Civil War consumed 164% of GDP. Sadly, the majority of that GDP was used to obliterate the enemy's GDP and vice versa. When it was all sad and done, there was nothing of significant remnants of production from the slaves. Alas, since that time the vast majority of the wealth we've achieved here in the US (and elsewhere) is literally due to the hard working people under a (more or less) capitalist system.

Like I said, I'm more than willing to see it another way, I just need something that would contradict this.

Cpt. Capitalism

Anonymous said...

I'll add this much to Peter's theorem on Communism having never been tried: the early history of communist experiments in the Soviet Union and China were undoubtedly sincere in their attempt to create true communal societies. Unfortunately communism is economically unsound – the incentive for the average Jane and Joe to produce and innovate starts a nose-dive toward 0 when the average Jane and Joe has the fruits of his/her labor taken away and a pittance of rationed necessities given in return. It is the 'tragedy of the commons' writ large. Totalitarian dictatorships are an absolutely inevitability when the true believers have total control and refuse to accept that their system is theoretically faulty and rotten to the core. The result was (and always will be) poverty, misery, and death - google 'five year plans', 'forced collectivization', 'great leap forward', 'cultural revolution' for a primer. Hayek's a good read for this too (The Road to Serfdom).

And Peter – thanks for keeping it civil. It’s nice to read a counter-point free of insult for once – makes it so much easier to take seriously.

Anonymous said...

Neither communism or capitalism is inherently good or evil. They are economic systems that deal with human beings.

Alfred T. Mahan said...

A couple of points, if I may?

First, I believe it was Alfred Marshall who made some cogent points about the use of mathematics in economics, to wit: "1) Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than an engine of inquiry. (2) Keep to them till you have done. (3) Translate into English. (4) Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life. (5) Burn the mathematics. (6) If you can't succeed in (4), burn (3)." (Source: Here).

Second, as regards the American Civil War (War of the Rebellion, whatever), the root of the problem is this, as argued powerfully by noted historian *ahem* James McPherson: "The ascension to power of the Republican Party, with its ideology of competitive, egalitarian free-labor capitalism (my italics), was a signal to the South that the Northern majority had turned irrevocably towards this frightening, revolutionary future."

By adopting a form of capitalism, albeit modified (protective tariffs were in, after all), the North allowed an industrial infrastructure to develop that was simply nonexistent in the South. Moreover, the financial centers of tha nation were located in the Northern cities, which gave the North a staggering advantage during the conflict.

A servile, agrarian economy cannot compete with an industrial economy based on free labor. All one needs to do (Captain, I'm looking at you AGAIN!) is read a decent economic history of the nation during this time period...even if it lacks pretty pictures.

Incidentally, we'll have to have a little "chat" about just where the money went during the ACW; I can see you're due for another history lecture.

Anonymous said...

Capt: I agree with you 100%, but let me raise an objection that leftists would raise, if they knew how to articulate it.

Your statistics do indeed show that economic growth is faster under capitalism. But what good is GDP growth if so much of it is captured by the rich? Wouldn't it be better for poor people to have somewhat less growth if the poor at least got a decent share of it?

Capitalists throw around concepts like economic growth and GDP and efficiency as if that will convince people. But the very essence of leftism is to be mistrustful of these terms.

Zabrina said...

Please add me to your fan club of chicks who dig economists. Sorry I am married and probably old enough to be your mother, but I am also definitely a fan. Great piece. So true. And funny. I linked it. Keep 'em coming!

Anonymous said...

I come from a long line of government-dependant, welfare sucklers. I could see that it only encouraged laziness in the recipients (why work hard when you get the money anyway?). I worked very hard from the time I was 14, put myself through college, am well on the way to a good retirement, have raised two children, .... All without a dime from the government. It is done all the time. Remove the incentive to be lazy and it will be done more often. This would NOT have happened under any other economic system. If you want to help the poor, give them "a hand up, not a hand out." To quote Austin Powers "yeah capitalism".

Anonymous said...

Peter: read The Road To Serfdom.

Quid: Read anything by Thomas Sowell.

rebarbarian: Read some Ayn Rand.

Cap'n: You're becoming a student of the Austrian School and you don't even realize it. Nice!

Captain Capitalism said...

Oh PUH LEEZE Josh!

I attended the Ludwig Von Mises Institute back in 1994, probably before you had pubes!

Anonymous said...

Not all attempts at communism failed b/c of large populations run by evil despots. I thought I remebered an article last Thanksgiving about the pilgrims attempting communism, and after a winter of near starvation, switching to a free market which saved their puriten butts. Quick Google search returned the article I was thinking about. Must read if you think only evil dictators ruin communism. It is the system itself that is inherenlty evil.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112205b.cfm

As far as I know, one of the best examples of communism taking a group of highly motivated (for God's sake they crossed the Atlantic with no idea what they'd find) people and turned them into a bunch of beggars with no self esteem. Let these same people cultivate their own land, and wow, they thrive. Imagine that!

Anonymous said...

Wanted to try posting link to see if this site would take something more readable. If this doesn't work...then please ignore.


Pilgrim and Communism Article

Anonymous said...

Pardon my ignorance but here is a question about GDP, If you pay me $10 to wash your car and I take that $10 and pay the babysitter, is the GDP $10 or $20.

total income seems to be $20 (me and the babysitter), so should the GDP be $20?

Captain Capitalism said...

$20 of GDP.

Anonymous said...

Allow me to interject a comment about the nonsense posted by the people who claim that capitalism would have preserved slavery in the South.

These people apparently don't understand that the South was agrarian, while the North was rapidly becoming industrialised. In time, the South would have become industrialised too, and guess what that would result in? Yes...

...industrial machinery making negro slaves unrentable, because, as we know, one man behind a machine can produce one hundred times as much as a single laborer without a machine.

Capitalism and free markets would have abolished slavery by its own. The only question is how long it would have taken. 20 years... 50 years... who knows.

Lastly, slavery wasn't exclusive to the South. Go google "slavery of the North".

SocialistMan said...

Just call me SocialistMan, fearlessly challenging evil Capitalism wherever it raises its lying, thieving head.

Capitalism isn't an economic 'system' any more than totalitarianism or 'kings 'n' peasants' are. Capitalism is simply a big scam, a big propaganda system, designed to keep the people of whatever area calls itself 'capitalist' working away producing as much as they can, with the elite 'capitalists' skimming off as much of the 'fruits of the labor' of the people, to use a pretty accurate Marxian term, as possible. If the capitalists are a bit smart, as they learned to be through necessity after various popular and very bloody revolutions through the last few centuries quite painfully and bloodily deposed various of their antecedents who called themselves different things but believed in the same sort of system whereby most people worked to produce wealth and the elite skimmed (i.e. stole) as much of that wealth as they could get away with, they allow the people who produce the wealth to keep enough of it to make them believe they are a bit happy consuming the largely worthless consumables they produce, and combine that with massive amounts of propaganda through the elite/capitalist-controlled media to convince them that what they are living in is the best of all possible worlds - when this media control is combined with control of the government and education system (as it is in most of the modern western capitalist world), the whole 'many work few skim' system, under its present guise of 'capitalism', functions very well, as we see in America and other 'capitalist' countries. At least, it functions well for the elite who do the skimming - I think you paint a far, far rosier picture about how happy and content people are in, for instance, America, the center of modern capitalism, than reality actually suggests - it's the endless propaganda emanating from the capitalist media that suggests this very untrue state of affairs. Just one for instance of a long list I could easily assemble, poll after poll after poll shows that most of your countrymen/women would vastly prefer a single-payer state-operated health care system (such as every other modern western country has) to the hodge-podge of HMOs etc you have now, as a great majority of your families are either under-insured medically or have no insurance at all, and most are only a serious medical illness away from bankruptcy - unpayable medical bills are one of, if not the, greatest cause of bankruptcy in your capitalist haven. Oh happy citizens!! (point being, if you are missing it, that such people are not really very happy, with that kind of axe hanging over their heads - they might put on a happy face at the mall, but you know it's a mask... Or yes, people are happy enough to have computers and the internet - but they would be a whole hell of a lot happier if they had a lot less stress in their lives - stress caused by the capitalists skimming so much of the wealth they produce that they are forced to live on a treadmill that seems to be spinning faster every day, running faster and faster just to stay in one place.)

You credit 'capitalists' with producing this great wealth that much of the modern world enjoys - in truth, as you seem to vaguely recognize, it is the people who produce the wealth - the capitalists are simply stealing as much of it as they can, and justifying this theft through progaganda and scam games.

You are mistaking systems of 'economics' with systems of 'ruling the masses' here, which is a common problem, but encouraged by the rulers for obvious reasons - it is quite enlightening, in a framing sort of way, that when some of the original thinkers were dissecting this stuff and writing about it, the whole thing was called 'political economics', but has now been separated, to make linkages more difficult, one must assume. Evidently the capitalists didn't care to encourage people to think about such things together (actually, capitalists prefer the average people to think as little as possible, as we see everywhere - thinking leads to looking under slimy rocks (curious people, that is to say people who think, like to look everywhere), and that's where capitalists hide when the lights are turned off and they return to their true homes). (If you need that metaphor opened up a bit, think about the people who make drugs illegal and then make billions from selling them, and billions from running police forces and jails to chase them, and related things such as prostitution and the mafia - don't go shouting out 'the government does this!!!!' - the capitalists own the government (their first great act of 'privatisation'), and thus are responsible for all of this; this pointing out of an unpleasant truth will probably draw great indignation and denial, but think about the source of many modern 'respectable' capitalists' fortunes; or think, then, of the arms industries and wars and the huge amount of death and suffering caused by such things - it's pretty hard to deny that Boeing is not a great capitalist?? - or think about your current great capitalist-loving president, and his grandfather Preston, and various others such as Henry Ford who fully supported Hitler during the 30s and even into the WWII - fascism itself was the brainchild of Mussolini, as you must know, and means simply the marriage of Big Business and the State - and do you want to tell me that Big Business isn't Capitalism in the office towers and the modern US isn't a union of corporation and state, fascism incarnate, and not in any way a pretty sight to behold when held up to the bright light of day? - and etc. Wherever slimy things grow, you find people who want to rule over others and force others to work so they can live lives of ease, and the modern version of those who succeed in these dreams are the ones called Capitalists. Yes they have been wildly successful in the modern age, and control the propaganda machinery very effectively to make many people such as yourself and those who are yelling 'rah rah!!' on this discussion pretend to believe they live in a great happy free society - but as the old saying goes, to paraphrase, put some pretty face paint on a capitalist and call him Beauty if you want - but you still have a slug underneath.

Well, I could go on at length, but we both know you're not going to change your tune as Captain Capitalist. I just wanted to let you know that some of us - a growing number, actually, thanks to the de-indoctrination enabled by the internet - are able to see through what you are doing. If you actually want to try to debate these things, I'd be more than happy to accomodate you - I've been looking for someone to talk about these things for awhile, but nobody wants to, for some reason. Or if you just want some more explanation of how your 'road more travelled' has been a deceptive and false path and my words have helped your 'Saulian epiphany' - I'm open to helping you find your way back to the true path of social democracy.

More news from The Land that Banned Capitalism - Green Island - at http://www.rudemacedon.ca/lgi/ogi-home.html .

Anonymous said...

Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich

by Kevin Phillips

give a chance. just...consider.

Anonymous said...

This is in regard to SocialistMan,

You make very persuasive arguments to allow communism. However, you are not looking at the economic standpoint as much as you are the political. It is true that most people take the high or enlighten road when they vote for elections but the dollar and cents of the issue is that capitalism works best because it pits everyone against everyone, may the best win. In politics you are right and I will even admit that the US has implemented 7 out of 10 of the communist guidelines for a perfect state, some only being half implemented. It's true read the manifesto. I do think that capitalism is the best economic system but it needs to have a restart every couple of years, just as the game of monopoly does. Any suggestions on how to implement this in a fair way would be most helpful.

Newbunkle said...

Well done Captain Capitalism! The Communist/Socialist propaganda posted in response to your great article is nothing more than pathetic lies. As we all know, the true evil is Communism. Communism by its very nature violates numerous human rights. Commies, read the universal declaration of human rights and weep before posting any nonsense claiming I'm lying.

Matt said...

Great post Capt. You took an entirely different approach to prove the same point I tackled in my latest post - Why Capitalism is the Best Economics System. I am looking forward to reading more of your posts. I applaud your scholarliness ;)

Anonymous said...

hahahahahahaha xD