TRINITY (part 1-William A. Whittle's perspective on Capitalism)

Now I have thought about this one long and hard, and no matter how I look at it, I come to the same striking, awe-inspiring conclusion, and that is this:

Where you stand on the political spectrum, what you think of rich and poor people, and what you think about rich and poor nations and how they should act in the world, comes down, in my mind, to one single issue, and one only: Can wealth be created, or can it only be redistributed?

If you believe, as I do, that wealth can be manufactured out of thin air, then there is no limit to the amount of wealth you can amass. And since you are creating it out of thin air, there is no moral onus on making money – you work hard to create it and have stolen from no one. There is an expression for this: you earned it.

Indeed, since charity depends on excess wealth, excess capacity, the more you make for yourself the better off everyone else is. You can even throw charity out the window if you are so hard-hearted; the fact remains that you will spend that money to get the things you want, and the more you have the more you can spend. That money goes to other people. This interchange is called “the economy,” and rich societies are rich because they understand in their bones the centerpiece of Capitalist thinking: Wealth can be created from thin air by human ingenuity and hard work.

Now people on the left have, in their guts, a revulsion towards the rich and the wealthy, because when ever they see wealth they naturally assume that it was stolen from people without any – the poor. That rich man in the private jet has taken the wealth from all the poor people and is therefore a criminal.

If you think about all of the protestors you see on TV, whether they be against US “imperialism”, or globalization, or corporations, or claim to be champions of the Poor, both here at home and for poor nations in the world – all of this anger and seething resentment, all of this bitterness and invective, can be attributed, when all is said and done, to having chosen to believe that there is only so much wealth in the world, and that rich people and rich nations gain and maintain wealth by stealing prosperity from the weak.

This is so idiotic, so demonstrably false, that you really have to wonder why we are having this discussion. All of the money owed to rich nations by the poor – money that was lent to them to lift them from poverty, and then squandered on palaces for dictators and Socialist prestige projects like International Airports in the middle of nowhere -- all this money totaled together, is a small percentage of the wealth generated by rich countries in a single year. The idea that the United States can steal 10 trillion dollars a year from dirt-poor nations that don’t produce anything of value is absolutely insane, and yet, and yet, we hear it again and again and again from the professionally outraged who must be dim and obtuse beyond human imagining to keep making such an absurd and ludicrous lie the basis of their entire philosophy.

If we can prove that our core tenet is correct, that wealth is limited only by imagination and the desire to work hard, then not only does the left’s economic theory come crashing down like a Statue of Lenin…their entire view of US power has to be fatally flawed, as well. Because if we make enough wealth to be able to buy our oil at prices set by the seller – consult reality for conformation of this annoying fact – then perhaps we not in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to steal oil from poor Arabs. There must be some other reason for it. Something completely unintelligible and unknowable: national security, perhaps, or simple disgust with torture and repression and terrorism. Things like that.

Get this through your heads, you socialist ninnies! There is not a big, limited pot of wealth that is filled with the Magic Sweat of Authentic Third World Laborers, that America uses its military to steal from when we run out of wealth here at home.

Here’s something even the dimmest hippy protester / poet should be able to wrap his mind around:

You buy a legal pad: $1.29
You steal a Bic pen from the counter at Kinko’s: free.
You write the script for Weekend at Bernies 3: Bernie’s Revenge!: free.
You hire someone to type it: $30.00
You have Kinko’s print 5 copies: $62.20
You mail the 5 copies: $7.82
5 idiots in Hollywood love the idea: free
They enter a bidding war: free

So let’s see…that $1,000,000, minus the $101.30 in expenses…uh…that means…You, the village idiot, have just raised the Gross Domestic Product by, uh, one million freaking dollars, and have made a personal profit of $999,898 dollars and 69 cents.

Where did the $999,898.69 come from? It came from thin air! You created it, out of nothing. You added value to the stock of paper and ink you started with. From the monumental talent you posses, the gift of intellect, the pen that made Shakespeare weep with envy, you have created WB3. You’ve given millions of people two hours of side-splitting hilarity, for which they will part with $8.00…and you have created wealth. What’s more, when you go and blow it all on the pointless material crap that makes life so much fun, you’ll be bringing in a little extra for the Sea-Doo distributor, the BMW dealer, the girls at Cheetahs in Las Vegas, and all the others. Not to mention putting – I dunno – maybe half a million freaking dollars into welfare, Social Security, Medicare, the National Endowment for the Arts and the world’s first fusion-powered, laser-armed, flying stealth submarine, the USS George W. Bush. (more...)

Can wealth be created, or can it only be redistributed?

This question follows from another, more basic.

Belief in God, or not.

The believers presume that it is God, not society, that is responsible for the great diversity in the circumstances of our lives, and that we are each individually responsible for making the best of our lot in life.

The secularists presume that we, us humans, are responsible for any disparity in the human condition. They seek to eliminate the "unfairness" of inequality. If Bill Gates has more money than me, that is unfair. If the percentage of blacks in Law school, or of whites in professional basketball, is underrepresentative, that is unfair. And in each case it is our responsibility to fix it.

The hubris of secularists poses a grave danger to civilization.

>>So let’s see…that $1,000,000, minus the $101.30 in expenses…uh…that means…You, the village idiot, have just raised the Gross Domestic Product by, uh, one million freaking dollars, and have made a personal profit of $999,898 dollars and 69 cents.

LOL. Simplistic thinking. Most people work their tails off and end up just being able to pay the bills. Only a very few can achieve such amounts of money with such a small investment (Hilliary Klinton and her cattle futures is another "success" story.)

And the word "economy" really means management of a household. Only in modern times has it gained a broader definition which includes broad trading.

Capitalism is not perfect and it's not a religion. It's 10x better than any other system but it's flawed, as are all HUMANISTIC systems. This is one thing that ultra right wing Conservatives just don't get.

Social programs are an simply an attempt at band aiding the weakenesses of Capitalism.

Don't even get me started on Socialism or Communism. Those systems get a much sterner response from me.

You, the village idiot, have just raised the Gross Domestic Product by, uh, one million freaking dollars

I agree with everything except that last example. When you've been paid $1 million for the screenplay, you've been paid out of the accumulated wealth of others. There is simply a transfer of $1 million from one to the other (although I would certainly like to be the one being transferred to).

Entertainers, writers, doctors, priests, and gov't workers don't create wealth -- they attract it from those who do (i.e. manufacturers, farmers, miners, truckers, and all the others who directly contribute in the making and marketing of stuff that comes from the air or the ground).

Uhh, sorry, but I don't believe in god. However, I sure do believe in wealth creation. Life is unfair--so what? It is up to each person to do the best one can under the circumstances. Once you start drifting toward some concept of 'fate', I suppose, you stray into religious heresy (and intellectual bankruptcy)...funny, but 'fate' is core to Muslim belief...except for the oil sheiks, look how bankrupt they are!

That's fine (that you don't believe in God). Neither do I. Though, to be fair to myself, I do believe in a Higher Moral Order, not that it matters to my primary point what you, or I, believe.

Neither of us are what I'd call the typical secularist - the leftist, Utopian, socialist, heaven on earth, globalist, environmentalist, feminazie secularist.

See the last few paragraphs of Coulter's "Treason" for a better explanation than I can offer, of the difference between those who seek higher truths, and those with the hubris to think they can create the perfect society here on Earth.

My point was that secularists confuse different outcomes with prejudgement, and conclude that inequalities are a sign of evil, that should be and can be abolished. This leads them to their anti-wealth positions.

>>Where, sir, is the weakness of Capitalism?

"Where Sir, are the trees in the forest?"

One weakness of capitalism is the treatment of humans as mere resources of the corporation. Hence the term "Human Resources" People are treated on the same level as other assets, such as a paper clip. Layoffs are often motivated by the desire to raise the stock price.

Several companies I worked for in the past had laid people off while at the same time the particular section I worked in spent tens of thousands of dollars in after hours parties.

Another area which pops up is outsourcing. Since the human condition and dignity of the individual has no meaning to the corporation, jobs are shifted to places where labor is cheaper. Right now, there are people who cannot find jobs in IT and middle management. The jobs are there -- they are just being filled in India, Ireland, and other places. Companies are not looking to move the jobs out of "humanitarian" motives -- it's all about money. This is another weakness of capitalism, the valuation of money over human dignity.

Usary is another weakness of capitalism. Credit card interest is outrageous. The real beneficiaries of usary are the banks. Usary is in direct contradiction with Judeo Christian values.

>>"..the poor you shall always have with you." NASB (unfortunately, I cannot remember if this is from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John)

This is true, but do you think Jesus would lay off workers to raise the price of His Company's stock? ;-)

Wealth comes from labor and ingenuity. Capitalism, with its emphasis on private property, simply allows for better compensation for working with one's hands or one's brain.

Simple, more work, more wealth.

Countries that are poor have large, idle work forces.

Capitalism doesn't eliminate laziness, and this is how I explain the existence of socialists in America.

How do impersonal, non-sentient sources create morals?

Ah - since neither you nor I can explain how this all came to be, it must have been created by someone a whole lot smarter than us.

"God", as the all knowing, all powerful, sentient creator of the Universe, is in my idiosyncratic (some would say idiotic ;) view the supreme example of an anthromorphic fallacy.

Whenever I see layer upon layer of self-organizing order, my tendency is not to look for one being who conceived, designed and created the entire thing out of whole cloth, but rather to look for the layers, and the stable rules of order on each layer, that tend over time to expand.

No - I cannot, nor want to, replace the notion of a God that is so valuable to the civilization I live in, and worshipped by most Freepers. I expect my answer to the question "What's your religion?" to remain a statistical oddity.

That's fine ...

"...of self-organizing order..."

Moral order, which is what you alluded to, is concerned with questions of right and wrong, questions of ethical conduct, of behavioral ideals. Do you believe that matter and energy, all by themselves, can account for lofty ideals of right conduct? If not, then what does account for a "higher moral order" embodying such sentiments?

matter and energy, all by themselves, can account for lofty ideals of right conduct?

The Universe is more than matter and energy - it is the layering of orderings of these over time. This accounts for all in my view.

For a more accessible example - even though computers are "just so many 1's and 0's", and even though I have a degree in Mathematical Logic (making me something of an expert in 1's and 0's), that study is worthless to me in my current job of system programmer. Rather there are higher (such as the Linux kernel) and lower (transistor fabrication) studies that are likely more relevant to my current labors.

The highest orderings are beyond the reach of my math and science background - they are more accessible to from a posture of faith and awe.

To respond in the narrow sense, I worked briefly with American Express, and was amazed out how many middle managers involved themselves with a decision, in order to justify their existence. So, if such people get laid off, not a huge loss.

You are also looking at our economic system from "the middle of the problem" which is actually typical of the left. (pardon, I'm not accusing you of being leftwing, just caught in a leftwing trap) For some reason, you accuse the system, Capitalism, rather than the people who work in the economic system. The great thing about Capitalism is freedom of choise. If one does not like being a "resource," then one is free to go elsewhere. However, I like being a "resource" because it means I have value. Without the "human resource" there would not be the standard of living we now currently enjoy. Remember, all natural resources used by man are useless without human resourcefulness.

Outsourcing, foreigners, no jobs, oh my! Yes, keep those jobs here, and also pass a law protecting the manufacture of buggy whips, because all of those workers employed in the U.S. will lose their jobs. Truth be told, and I know you are well aware of it, a lot of jobs are litigated, benefited, or regulated away. Why should a company keep jobs here when so much of government is anti-business?

As for credit card debt being usury, this I dismiss, because no one is forced to get a credit card.

>>To respond in the narrow sense, I worked briefly with American Express, and was amazed out how many middle managers involved themselves with a decision, in order to justify their existence. So, if such people get laid off, not a huge loss.

Why were they hired in the first place? If money is the bottom line, then yea, it's not a huge loss. This is one of the problems with capitalism (and other economic systems). Money is more important than people. If these people were hired then there was a need for them. They may have overreached in their effort to secure their job, but I doubt they were hired to twiddle their thumb.

>>You are also looking at our economic system from "the middle of the problem" which is actually typical of the left. For some reason, you accuse the system, Capitalism, rather than the people who work in the economic system.

The people only exercise the mechanisms of Capitalism. Capitalism lowers the human to a mere resource. You can't fully blame the people who work within the rules of Capitalism. After all, they are just working the gears of the Mechanism. It is the Mechanism itself which permits the devaluation of a person.

>>The great thing about Capitalism is freedom of choise.

I do not argue with that. In fact I do not argue that Capitalism is bad. My argument is that it's not perfect but it's 10x better than any other economic system.

>>However, I like being a "resource" because it means I have value.

Since you are relegated to a mere resource then your value is transitory.

For example, if your spouse values you as a person, it lasts a lifetime. Your spouse won't fire you because they want to increase their net worth. That is *real* value.

The "value" you get from being a "human resource" is merely a facade and a one way street. Your value won't stop you from being laid off -- just ask anyone who has been.

The value for being a mere "human resource" is the same value that a "strawberry" has to a drug dealer. (A "Strawberry" is one who performs tricks for drugs.)

"The Universe is more than matter and energy - it is the layering of orderings of these over time. This accounts for all in my view."

Then let me rephrase...

Do you believe that there is some organization or structure of matter and energy alone that can account for the existence and operation of "higher moral order"?

If so, and if you view these "orderings" from a "posture of faith and awe," does this mean that you worship these "orderings" of matter and energy?

Do you believe that there is some organization or structure of matter and energy alone that can account for the existence and operation of "higher moral order"?

Yes - though not one organization - layers of them.

If so, and if you view these "orderings" from a "posture of faith and awe," does this mean that you worship these "orderings" of matter and energy?

I cannot claim to be in much of a posture of faith and awe. The people whom I most admire for appreciating the higher moral orders of the universe do better than I at that. Just because I can observe that the best basketball players can jump high, doesn't mean I can or do jump well, regardless of my unfulfilled fantasies for NBA stardom.

The word "worship" suggests to me the practice of particular ceremonies, prayers or other religious activities. That doesn't fit my day to day life very well at all. I appreciate the value that worship has for those of more conventional religious habits, as a means of tuning into the higher orderings.

However, I deny the existance of the object of typical worship, which I understand to be some God (or Gods, for the polytheists) who is an all knowing, all powerful, sentient being, creator of the Universe and all it contains.

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