Posted on 01/13/2002 8:05:27 AM PST by tonyinv
George Will just uttered the most absurd statement I've ever heard. He said (paraphrasing)
"Rebpublicans need to understand that capitalism is complex web of laws and regulations" and further "that capitalism is a government program"
I knew George Will wasn't exactly a conservative, but this is unbelievable.
With the advent of legislation and statutory law, business started being manipulated to suit the whims of the Congress. Now we see bail-outs for business, subsidy of agriculture, health care, and welfare.
We used to make fun of the Soviets and their five year plans. Now we have ten year plans in our budget projections and everybody sees nothing unusual.
Environmental groups are subsidized to sue to violate property rights and give the government authority to by-pass the Constitution. The President is given the powers granted to Congress to make agreements to regulate the flow of trade by business interests, both foreign and domestic.
In summary, we have what capitalism we have in a hybrid system of socialism and capitalism which is controlled by the government. Our capitalism, if we wish to call it capitalism, is a government program all the way. I was not privy to the program that George Will was quoted in, but I can see where this statement was made.
State-to-state transactions are examples of capitalistic trade The fact that the trade occurred "between states" says nothing about it being capitalistic or otherwise.
In spite of everything, I still like Will--though I take what he says these days with a grain of salt. The problem with George Will is that he has been inside the beltway for far too long. He needs to buy a ranch in Texas where he can go from time to time to de-toxify.
Or perhaps explains why the Beloved Homeland needs all those charitable institutions?
Obviously, the government is failing to spread the good news about capital.
We must redouble our efforts comrades!!! NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND!! Oh excuse me. Really and truly, I am off to re-educationland. I'm going to re-read Locke's Second Treatise wherein he admits that the whole government program....errrrr, I mean--"the whole ethical/social construct" can only work as long as there is "enough, and as good" left.
(Luckily, the earth keeps geting bigger and flatter every day....)
But, as I said, I shall not upset you all any more. I am no party crasher--that's for sure....
Business floods into Red China, not because their judicial system works, but because their government insists that some capitalism must work for Red China's financial benefit --- i.e. the Red Chinese government is (within strict limits) willing to acquiesce, bow to a concept of a "fair playing field" in order to get by; but that "playing field" is actually set by decree, rather than by a working justice system.
In Russia, business of the scope and size building in Red China, is not getting very far --- at the moment --- because there is enough warring political power to interfere with the decreeing of a "fair playing field," while at the same time there is still too much timidity of the people, for them to insist (and enforce THAT) working of a judicial system wherein contests can be resolved ... and thus keep the "playing field" fair.
It's the judicial system portion of government --- yet especially the peoples' insistance and enforcement --- which are required to service notice that there are rules of engagement.
If we had zero government and therefore no central money creation we would form our own small governments - I suppose similar to at the birth of this nation - with promisary notes from banks, and other "money" sources.
We'd probably create some sort of law to govern contracts.
Then we'd have Al Gore and butterfly ballots!!! [I'm tired now]
What's this "we" business, white man?
This propensity you have toward collective thought and fascist "outing" of anyone who's not goose-stepping alongside you is unsettling to say the least.
The governments job is to protect the market from fraud and coercive forces. It's not the governments job to direct operations and redistribute wealth and services according to whatever popular and arbitrary scheme they operate with at the time.
The governments existed in Neanderthal times --- the tribal elders.
Whatever it is that is a government progarm practised in the United States is not capitalism. George Will should know that.
Similarly, capitalism did not cause the Great Depression. It was government interference, e.g. trade restrictions, that caused it.
Socialists would have us think that free enterprise causes a host of negatives, government programs being a perverse example from a purported free marketer. The truth is that that government meddling causes economic disruptions.
I cannot see a defence for Will's comment.
No, it's importance is irrelevant to my statement. My experience simply shows that government regulation isn't necessary for capitalism to exist.
"Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand:
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
To those of us who do not regard the writings of Ayn Rand as a religion, this is nothing more than an unsupported definitional statement and contributes nothings on it's own to this discussion.
And how do free people go about organizing and implementing this social system? By creating representative governments to enforce individual rights and property ownership.
Again, this is dependent upon your unsupported assertion that democracy is a social system rather than a form of economy.
I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do believe in capitalism. As it is practiced in the United States it is the perfect system for people who believe that the tooth fairy will give them a quarter for every tooth. So they yank out all their teeth in order to compile $8.00--of which five of those hard-earned dollars goes to the government bureacracy in thankgiving for presiding over the whole splendid apparatus and assuring that --one way or another--people all over the planet will be allowed to yank out all their teeth and contribute to the self-same bureacracy that liberated them.
Now, in exceptionally progressive places like Southern California they have advanced far beyond mere teeth. Almost eveyone wears replacement teeth due to massive hygiene improvements in dentistry.
You'd be amazed at what the tooth fairy finds in those glasses of water. Breasts..eyeballs...all sorts of contributions--all easily replaceable over and over...
The difference, in essense, is that under communism all goods are deemed private, whereas here we let the government produce public goods and leave private ones in private hands. Most people do not realize that a purely market economy is incapable of producing public goods such as roads, street lighting, police, army.
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