Posted on 10/29/2016 12:07:08 PM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March
Communism, socialism, progessivism -- it's really just 'cronyism'.
And so is Keynesian economics -- just the same trick with a different name.
Famines are the most brutal kind of math and nearly impossible to hide. And the mathematics of famines proves something time and again:
If you don't have a merit-based economy then your natural resources rarely mean anything.
If you don't know about the Pilgrims' communism-induced famine just tune into Rush Limbaugh before Thanksgiving.
Venezuela is the most recent example. Up until very recently its farms were privately owned. Not anymore.
Recent headlines [*a*]
1. Venezuela Is Collapsing and the Left Is Afraid to Admit Why
2. Venezuelans flood Brazil border in 36-hour grocery run...
3. Socialist Dream Under Threat in Venezuela's 'Chavez City'...
4. Prisoners starve to death in Venezuela's jails
Venezuela is starving, and so are African nations that also 'nationalized' their farms. 'Nationalizing' sounds wonderfully patriotic, but it is actually legalized theft -- the seizure of property that is redistributed to others.
A little economics lesson to neophites: are rented homes pleasant to look at? Normally not. The tenant has no invested interest in keeping up the home. Nor does some jack-in-the-box 'owner' of a seized farm. A natural farm owner takes pride in it and more than that -- a true owner has spent decades dreaming of how to make his farm thrive.
Unnatural 'ownership' is like a poorly replanted tree. Uprooted and away from its familiar soil and sunlight, the tree will most likely wither and die.
And if a government is willing to steal property from the natural owner then what of the newcomer? He will be taxed, regulated, and be under threat of also losing the farm. If the local bigwig so much as frowns at him, the farm 'owner' spends days scheming up ways to be a better 'suck up' when he should be thinking about his farm.
In a free land the natural owner can frown back at anyone and feel no fear whatsoever. His mind is on future harvests and how to spend all the money he made from the last one. Like Trump would say, "It's a beautiful thing."
~
Jamestown is another example. [*b*]
I was blessed as a student to learn from a patriotic teacher of US history.
Do you know how great it feels to hear a patriotic American history teacher?
Riveting.
And the school was in south Virginia, just a few hours away from Jamestown.
He treated us to lively adventure accounts, such as Captain John Smith strapping a screaming savage to his arm to use as a shield and fighting it out during an expedition. [All real history -- amazing how boring un-patriotic teachers make themselves.]
And he taught us about Jamestown's original economics system. They attempted communism just like the Pilgrims.
I might have been the first one on the internet to bring up Jamestown's communist experiment. I just wrote from memory of my elementary school lesson [back during the pioneering days of online political discussion]. Then low and behold someone did a proper job of it in 2005:
When US tried Communism [History of Jamestown: 1607 to 1611] [footnote *b*]
The Himalayan Times, 24 Jan 2005
[That's right. In a sane world I would have found a swarm of US professors and history teachers pointing this out. But no, it had to be a writer for the The Himalayan Times on the far side of the globe {near occupied Tibet}. Well-written too.]
~~~
[By Rakesh Wadhwa]
I write this especially for our Maoist brothers. While the US is commonly vilified as the bastion of capitalism, it is little known that the US too has tried communism. It was only when communism failed that property rights and capitalism took hold.
Let us go back into history and see what lessons America learned from its relatively short dalliance with Maoism much before the ‘great leader' himself was born.
The year was 1607. The first 104 settlers had arrived from Europe in Jamestown in the Virginia Tidewater region of the US in May. They found soil which was fertile beyond what they had seen in the lands which they had left. Fruits were abundant. Wild game such as deer and turkey were everywhere. There was no shortage of fish and other seafood. And yet within six months 66 of the original Jamestown, Virginia settlers had died. Only 38 survived.
Another 500 settlers were again sent to settle in Virginia in 1609 and within six months 440 of these too died by starvation and disease. This was called ‘starving time' and one eyewitness described it in English of those times ...
[... note that spelling and grammar were 'creative' back then, not exactly uniform ...]
‘So great was our famine, that a Savage we slew and buried, the poorer sorte took him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs.'
How could this be? How could there be such death and starvation amidst so much plenty of meat, fruits, and fish. The fault as the witness said lay not in the ‘barrenness and defect of the Countrie' but in the ‘want of providence, industry and government'.
What caused this lack of ‘industrie'? Were the Virginian settlers lazy and indolent? It could not be. People who were sent there were the chosen ones – the very best of men.
The problem was that all the men who were sent were bonded labourers. They had no stake in what they produced. They were bound by contract to put all they produced into a common pool to be used to support their colony as a whole. This was communism in its purest form. Everyone was supposed to work according to ability and take according to need.
As so frequently happens with present day government policies, the results were the opposite of what was intended. Since hard work was not personally beneficial for the settlers they responded by stopping work.
Phillip A. Bruce, a late 19th century US historian, wrote of the Jamestown immigrants, “The settlers did not have even a modified interest in the soil … . Everything produced by them went into the store, in which they had no proprietorship.” The result as Bruce wrote would be what anyone who has any knowledge of human nature would expect, men, even the most energetic, refused to work.
This is what happened in Mao's China and in Soviet Russia on a grand scale. In America a few hundred deaths stopped the communist experiment, in China and Russia, millions had to die before these nations abandoned the principles of Marx, Lenin, and Mao.
Jamestown changed course just two years later in 1611 with arrival of the ‘high marshall' Sir Thomas Dale from the UK. He understood the problem, freed the settlers by abrogating communal ownership. Each man received three acres of land and, other than a lump sum tax of 2 ½ barrels of corn, did not have to contribute anything to the common pool. The colony immediately began to prosper. [snip]
~~~
Emphasis: "This is what happened in Mao's China and in Soviet Russia on a grand scale." -- Rakesh Wadhwa
~~~~
Recap
So there you have it. Those who learn from history reject 'nationalism' of farms, they reject 'redistribution of wealth', and they seek the free market [aka 'capitalist imperialism'].
The free market is a system of *natural* property rights and business leaders are just like farmers who can frown back at anyone and devote their minds to higher profits in the future.
~~~~
Sin Clouds Judgment
It gets this basic -- sin clouds judgment.
Class warfare is 'coveting thy neighbor's wealth'. Any nation that gives in to that sin for too long risks famine and poverty. Make no mistake -- legalized theft is just as sinful as illegal theft.
In the name of 'hurting the rich' or making them 'pay their fair share' we now tax inventories in the USA.
How insane is that?
Could you imagine? Suppose Wal*Mart keeps extra rice, shovels, and medicine in its inventory. The business would be punished with higher taxes.
Why? There is no money to be made in taxing inventories: businesses play 'hot potato' with inventories, dumping their goods as quickly as possible to keep their levels down. A slight counting error and guess what? Inventory runs out on that product. I should know, having been in charge of inventories and truck orders. A buffer reserve prevents such artificial problems.
You would be surprised how many restaurant employees drive up and down the roads to get swizzle sticks, paper food wraps, you-name-it. They not only waste man-hours, but they also clog the roads and spew that 'evil' carbon dioxide wasting gas. It's a needless strain on refineries and everything else.
~~~
Little Merit in Paychecks
The US legal system also punishes merit-based pay through a variety of means, but especially through lawsuit threats. That is why salaries and highly wages seem largely separated from merit. If a business does suffer from nepotism or bigotry it loses out in talent and good workers. The free market already punishes foolish abuse of labor.
The result: trouble-making sue-happy employees ruin it for the hard workers and water down merit-based pay. Supervisors are discouraged from thinking of merit.
~~~
Our work ethic is wrecked
Unions no longer exist in the the free market, but they poisoned our work ethic so badly that the venom remains. Coworkers belittle and discourage hard-working employees.
And what caused this union 'work ethic'?
Union history dates back to ancient times, but leftists don't want you to know that the ancient and traitorous Rowers' Union of Athens was key in causing a Dark Age in Greece. Look at union-loving Greece today. It's a mess all over again. If they don't get their way they riot.
Union "ethics" are simple, "Bite the hand that feeds you until it is bled dry," the same hand that feeds the economy and the government. Unions teach people "thou shalt covet" [such as judging how money would be spent with 'superior priorities' if it were theirs], "thou shalt steal" [such as holding profits hostage and not allowing non-working people (strikers) to be replaced until a theft is "agreed" to]. Worst of all? "Thou shalt be lazy in order to stick it to the Man." [Another form of theft -- stealing productivity from the employer, from the economy, and from tax revenue, proven by the "Broken Windows Fallacy".]
These "modern ways" are at war with the functional and ancient virtues. If you want to find an upwardly mobile labor pool on the verge of growing prosperity, you see a good old fashioned work ethic founded on honor and/or the Ten Commandments -- a work ethic that respects the employer.
Here's the opposite end of the spectrum, a work ethic that spirals downward:
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, pioneers of U.S. unions, led a union in a battle [1892 Steel Homestead "strike"]. Ten people were killed [and 60 wounded] over their godless re-definition of property rights. Goldman also incited the assassination of President McKinley. Berkman tried to assassinate Carnegie's business partner and nearly killed him. Some unions are systematically violent against their courageous competitors who are belittled as 'scabs'.
And guess what? That strike occurred in 1892. That's right before the US economy began to lose its dominance. We were close to 50% of the world's GDP at the time. Teddy R's progressives caused an economic panic, followed by a calm period during constitutionalist Taft's administration, followed by Wilson's failed economic policy, followed by the Harding/Coolidge Recovery [mocked as the Roaring Twenties], followed by progressives Hoover and FDR.
The only times after Coolidge when our economy rebounded dramatically was World War II [when the rest of the industrialized world was bombed into rubble], JFK [tax cutter], and Ronald Reagan [tax cutter].
Truman and Ike inherited the WWII lottery. Nixon was a price-fixing progressive meddler the same as Hoover. Carter was an even worse disaster who fear-mongered an artificial oil shortage [and who also orchestrated the housing bubble through forcing banks to make bad loans].
Bush Senior raised taxes, Clinton's economy had a dot-com bubble, and GW's economy suffered from the FAnnie-FReddie bad loan policy bubble. Lastly, Obama's economy -- not a ringing moment for progressives either.
~~~
Low Resource Success
The more merit-based an economy is, the more it thrives even where natural resources are scarce.
Look at Singapore. And Hong Kong used to be the same.
[*a*]
Venezuela headlines
Venezuela Is Collapsing and the Left Is Afraid to Admit Why
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3461187/posts
Venezuelans flood Brazil border in 36-hour grocery run...
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-brazil-idUKKCN10L1KE
Socialist Dream Under Threat in Venezuela’s ‘Chavez City’...
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/85618a072237458884023e91a66148f7/socialist-dream-under-threat-venezuelas-chavez-city
Prisoners STARVE to death in Venezuela’s jails
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3478705/posts
~~~~~
[*b*]
When US tried Communism [ History of Jamestown: 1607 to 1611 ]
http://www.ccsindia.org/article/people_rw_when_us_tried_communism.asp
The Himalayan Times, 24 Jan 2005
Rakesh Wadhwa
~~~~~
Home Depot Co-founder: Attacking Businesses Doesn’t Make Sense (Video)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3486474/posts
A superb read.
I also recommend Thomas DiLorenzo’s book, “The Problem with Socialism”
I remember years ago working into the night with an entire crew of people counting inventory for tax purposes. What a waste of effort.
Didn't California eliminate the inventory tax? Where is it still used?
In Iowa corn fields, Chinese national’s seed theft exposes vulnerability :
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-seeds-idUSKCN0X80D6
ChemChina Clinches U.S. Security Nod for Syngenta Purchase
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-22/chemchina-clinches-u-s-security-nod-for-syngenta-purchase
It’s an American conspiracy! It’s a drought that only affects socialist countries! It’s um... bad luck or something.
We have so many Bernie and Hillary voters who don’t have a clue.
I checked up on the book you recommended and found this page:
The Problem With Socialism
https://mises.org/blog/problem-socialism
Tags Education Taxes and Spending Political Theory
07/19/2016
Thomas J. DiLorenzo
A quarter of a century after the spectacular collapse of socialism in the Soviet empire, a large segment of the “millennial” generation (those born between 1982 and 2004) thinks socialism should be the wave of their future. A 2016 Pew Foundation poll found that 69 percent of voters under the age of 30 expressed “a willingness to vote for a socialist president,” and a 2015 “YouGov.com” poll revealed that 43 percent of young Americans between 18 had 29 had a “favorable” opinion of socialism” and prefer it to capitalism. Who says the public schools aren’t teaching the kids anything these days?
A very large segment of the younger generation obviously finds promises of “free” education, health care, and groceries promised by socialist political demagogues like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to be quite appealing. Just as obvious is that they are oblivious to the fact that socialism would destroy their economic future, and their children’s future, and strip them of their freedom, just as it has done wherever else it has been imposed.
This is why I have written my latest book, released today, entitled The Problem with Socialism. My hope is that it will be viewed as a companion to Henry Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson, and I have tried my best to write it in a similar style (although no one can really match the great Hazlitt).
Following Mises and Hayek, I define “socialism” not just as “government ownership of the means of production.” As Hayek wrote in the 1976 edition of The Road to Serfdom, “socialism” evolved by that time to also mean government-enforced redistribution of income through the welfare state and the progressive income tax, primarily. The ostensible end of socialism — income equality — remains the same, but the means have evolved.
In addition, as Mises wrote in his own classic on Socialism, socialists have always employed a dual strategy:
1) nationalize as much private property as possible; and 2) “destruction” or the destruction of as much of the private property/free enterprise society as possible with taxes, regulation, inflation — whatever will work.
Consequently, my sixteen-chapter book covers a lot more topics than just the economic arguments against socialism as pioneered by Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, and others, as seen in the following list of chapters:
1.The Problem with Socialism
2. Why Socialism is Always and Everywhere an Economic Disaster
3. Egalitarianism versus Human Reality
4. Islands of Socialism: The Follies of Government Enterprise
5. Why “The Worst” Rise to the Top Under Socialism
6. The Socialist Roots of Fascism
7. The Myth of Successful Scandinavian Socialism
8. How Welfare Harms the Poor
9. How Socialized Medicine Kills the Patient and Robs the Taxpayer
10. How Socialism Causes Pollution
11. Karl Marx’s “Progressive” Income Tax
12. Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
13. How Socialist Regulation Makes Monopolies
14. Destroying Capitalism by Socializing Capital
15. Is Socialism Really the Best Way to Organize Schools?
16. Socialist Myths and Superstitions about Capitalism.
Parents with college-age children who are concerned about the pervasive, politically correct brainwashing that their children are about to be exposed to should consider having them read The Problem with Socialism along with Economics in One Lesson. At that point, they will be prepared to become daily readers of mises.org and LewRockwell.com and will at least have a chance of becoming economically-educated citizens and not another generation of dupes and pawns of the state.
I checked up on the book you recommended and found this page:
The Problem With Socialism
https://mises.org/blog/problem-socialism
Tags Education Taxes and Spending Political Theory
07/19/2016
Thomas J. DiLorenzo
...I bought 4 copies so far and keep one for discussion purposes and correcting my kids and gave 3 away. It is on Amazon, too.
My local Wal*Mart had been audited this year in Virginia.
Imagine them being discouraged from stockpiling essential medicine, emergency gear, and nonperishable food.
I used ‘famines’ as an example because it’s the most difficult economic failure to hide. But all markets should be viewed in the same light.
Russia, for example, was a food exporter during World War I until the Turks cut off their Black Sea trade route. But [and I bet DiLorenzo establishes this with clear documentation] the USSR ended up with deadly famines.
Thank you for helping enrich this thread.
We just let foreign interests roll in and exploit key weaknesses. Selling out to foreign powers is SOP with progressives.
Thanks...his book is small physically and concise...a great stocking stuffer.
I’m afraid I’ll just be sending out cards for Christmas this year.
FRegards ....
I can see that purchased assets which have not yet become part of a sold product shouldn't be counted as expenses to deduct from income when computing profits.
My understanding of the inventory tax, as it existed years ago, is that the value of the assets themselves was the basis for computing the inventory tax.
If, for example, a machine was in the process of being manufactured and was estimated to be half-completed, then the company had to include half the value of the machine as part of their inventory. Every individual part which might someday become part of a product sale had to be accounted for.
I seem to recall that there were businesses in Nevada which consisted of warehouses that would be filled with manufacturing inventory at tax time to reduce the inventory within California. The tax on the inventory was completely independent of whether the company made a profit at all.
Such assets as described above were not included in the inventory for the purposes of valuing the inventory in order to compute the tax.
‘Such assets as described above were not included in the inventory for the purposes of valuing the inventory in order to compute the tax.’
You mean to say that if Wal*Mart keeps a million dollars worth of medicine and/or food on stock that is not tallied as ‘assets’?
People are so intimidated by the US tax code that when I posted opinions earlier no one offered an opinion regarding the taxation of assets/inventory.
No, that's not what I am saying.
"Inventory" is a subset of "assets".
Under California's inventory tax law, which I believe no longer exists, businesses would have to periodically count their entire inventory and pay a tax based on the value of the inventory. Other types of assets would not be included for the purposes of calculating the inventory tax.
For all other purposes, inventory would simply be treated as other assets would.
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