Rush: 'Under capitalism the rich become powerful, & under socialism the powerful become rich?

Flopping Aces ^ | 01-14-14 | Vince

[Starman417]

Love him or hate him, there is no debate about the fact that Rush Limbaugh is a genius. Last week he said the following:

”Have you ever noticed how under capitalism the rich become powerful, and under socialism the powerful become rich? It's amazing when you look at it that way. Under capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under socialism, the powerful get rich. They exploit others. They get rich by taking from others, by using their power. In capitalism, the rich become powerful. It's a minor little distinction. It's one of those little pithy bullet points that is just shy of a profundity.”

I have to disagree with Rush slightly… that statement is indeed profound. Although he characterizes it as a minor little distinction for rhetorical purposes, his context demonstrates exactly how significant it really is.

When you think about it, on the most basic level, it makes perfect sense. In socialist, communist and fascist countries, despite the egalitarian rhetoric, invariably it is the people who control the infrastructure of the state who end up with the biggest bank accounts and grandest (relative) lifesyles. They decide who can do what jobs, who can get what permits, who can open up what businesses. Given that the state controls the avenues through which so much of life runs, is it any wonder that corruption is often rampant? Is it any wonder that while Muscovites were looking for food on barren supermarket shelves Brezhnev gorged himself at his Jurmala dacha? Or is it much of a surprise that while Mugabe has turned Zimbabwe into one of the poorest countries in the world he has accumulated billions of dollars in personal wealth? It comes as no shock that to get anything done in Mexico takes the greasing of palms of government officials all along the way. The reality is, when government controls most aspects of life, from the major to minutiae, they get to decide who is successful and who is not, and often they choose themselves their friends and their families.

Of course everyone wants success, but the difference between state control and free markets is who gets to decide what constitutes success and who gets to enjoy its fruits. With state control it’s the bureaucrats who get to decide while in free markets it is the citizens. One can quickly guess which produced "green" cars no one wants, a healthcare system that doesn’t work or a tax code so complex even its authors can't understand it. 

You may hate Wal-Mart, but no one ever forced you to shop there. Wal-Mart became a half a trillion dollar behemoth not by forcing customers to come into their stores, but rather by advertising what they were willing to sell and for how much. People willingly walk into their stores and voluntarily exchange their hard earned dollars for Wal-Mart’s goods. You may have heard that JD Rockefeller was a “son of a bitch” businessman, and you’d be right. But he earned his money by standardizing the industry and lowering prices on kerosene, gasoline, and a wide variety of other petroleum products as well. Although competitors were sometimes mad, consumers and the economy benefited dramatically. The success of Standard Oil was based on selling products to willing consumers, not on government redistribution. The same holds true today for Intel, Apple and Frito Lay, just as it did for others like Sears and Roebuck, Gillette and Howard Johnson a century ago.

In the United States numerous rich businessmen have converted their success into power. The Koch brothers come to mind. So too does George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. But the difference is, what those guys are selling, we don’t have to buy.

[Uncle Chip]

So then the right hand washes the left and vice versa.

The rich become powerful and once they become powerful they become richer.

[MrB]

When the gov’t oversteps its constitutional chains,
the elected officials have power for sale,

and you end up with fascism.

It’s not the fault of businessmen for either trying to get an edge or to regulate away competition -

the problem is that the gov’t has the power to be able to do this.

[T-Bird45]

Power has always followed money, it’s almost a law of physics but it’s really just a fact of human dynamics.

[Misterioso]

You missed the point.

[I want the USA back]

I’ll say it better than Rush:

Under capitalism hard-working intelligent successful business founders become rich.

Under statism well-connected unscrupulous individuals use their power over others to become rich.

[SeeSharp]

Capitalism is not a political system. If the rich are becoming powerful it is because of the nature of the government.

[Da Coyote]

Rush, with no college “eddikashion” far, far exceeds the Obamadork in every measure of intellect.

And libs, the thing that really p*sses you off is that you KNOW it’s true.

Oh, by the way, I’m one of those “eddikated” ones who managed to complete a course set that the DORK couldn’t even think of going through.

[mjp]

The rulers of socialism can and do assert that they and their favorites have “special needs.” Plus, socialism, as a matter pr practice, cannot adopt a system of economic equality, because such a system is tantamount to the destruction of causality in production. So, socialist rulers have to and are free to adopt any arbitrary system of distribution it pleases, which means the rulers have the power and ability to enrich themselves in order to gratify their special needs.

[Secret Agent Man]

This is old russian joke.

An American reporter is interviewing an old soviet and asks him what he thinks the difference between capitalism and communism is.

The soviet, with a little contempt and ‘harumpf’ in the language, says in a thick russian accent:

“In America under capitalism, man exploits man. In Soviet Union, it’s other way ‘round.”

[T-Bird45]

If I missed your point, which I took to be that power following money is an unstoppable evil that is self-reinforcing, then you also missed mine which was that it has always been so and trying to make it less so is a fool’s errand.

[Misterioso]

I disagree that the ‘power’ associated with wealth production is evil. It is government interference that is evil. If that is your understanding, I apologize.

[ballplayer]

Was Bill Clinton rich before he became President? How about Obama?

[T-Bird45]

Agreed on the government interference evil factor.