Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Does Capitalism contribute to global warming? Australian Green Party Candidate Jim Casey wants to revive the debate – so lets start by agreeing with him, that increasing the efficiency of Capitalist systems increases anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Thanks Daily Telegraph, I welcome a debate about the overthrow of capitalism
In an old tweet, I framed capitalism as an idea that could be overthrown. On reflection, it is something that is more likely to collapse under its own weight.
The Daily Telegraph published an old tweet of mine on Wednesday (as part of its front-page endorsement of my opponent, Labor’s Anthony Albanese, for the seat of Grayndler) that said: “Overthrow of capitalism – you don’t hear this often enough”
Who knew an old tweet could spark such a necessary debate but as a Greens candidate taking on Labor member Anthony Albanese at this election, I guess I can expect greater scrutiny. I appreciate the reminder and welcome the debate. Frankly, we don’t have this discussion often enough and what better time to have it than when political parties are selling their stories in the marketplace of ideas?
As a union leader used to speaking shorthand to comrades, I framed capitalism as an idea that could be overthrown. On reflection, it is something that is more likely to collapse under its own weight – we cannot adhere to a belief that is so obviously unable to make the transition into the future that awaits many of us and all of our children.
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We must challenge the durability of capitalism in the face of three overriding realities: climate change, growing inequality and resource depletion.
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Competition drives business to continually increase its profitability. How does it do that? By driving down costs of production. The main cost of production for most businesses is labour.
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While the smart kids in Silicon Valley may claim that data, artificial intelligence and new technologies like block chain will turbo charge technology and solve that old problem of resource depletion – I argue it won’t. The robots won’t save us from water scarcity, the loss of arable land or indeed the loss of fish stocks as the oceans become more acidic.
Why do I think Capitalism increases CO2 emissions? After all, the vast Soviet industrial estates produced CO2 and toxic waste on a heroic scale. But I would argue that the Soviets were an exception. Most socialist economies, places like Cuba, Venezuela, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, don’t produce a lot of economic activity. Starving wretches picking at stubble for a few grains of wheat, don’t emit CO2 on anything like the same scale as a freeway commuter working in an air conditioned office.
So I guess it really comes down to choosing what kind of future we want – a value judgement.
If we embrace socialist economic stagnation, or more dramatically, a shift back to a primitive subsistence economy, there is no doubt we would substantially cut global anthropogenic CO2 emissions – especially when famine slashes world population. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides, utterly essential for modern levels of food production, are the products of a highly industrialised, CO2 intensive economy.
If we embrace a future of robots, artificial intelligence, endless exponential economic growth, we really might run out of a resource we can’t replace. I don’t think it likely, but the whole house of cards actually could come tumbling down. But is the possibility technological civilisation might fall down really a justification for giving it a hard shove? The bleak end result of such a collapse – survivors clinging to life through primitive subsistence farming – doesn’t sound all that different to the future greens seem to think we should all embrace as our first choice.
Personally I like my modern lifestyle – air conditioning, downloadable movies and TV, a fridge to keep the food fresh. So I’ll cling on to the “evil” conveniences of Capitalism, as long as the Earth can sustain my way of life. And when this planet can no longer produce everything needed to keep the economy running, I hope my descendants have the simple common sense to look beyond our planet for the resources they need, to keep those modern conveniences flowing. Because there is no doubt we already have the technology to affordably reach beyond our planet on an industrial scale, when the need arises to do so.
Undoubtedly, that was the point with the entire green movement, to overthrow capitalism. That is all we need to know. Finally, we have reached the endgame.
The be a socialist is to ignore 100 years of failed socialist experiments and repeat the mistakes of the socialist many have done before.
“On reflection, it is something that is more likely to collapse under its own weight”. This quote is a classic. Communists have believed this for as long as there has been communism and yet, only communist countries have collapsed while capitalist countries have thrived. It is only when capitalist countries can no longer hold back socialist demands (such as the welfare state) that capitalism starts to show problems. We have many examples of this such as Germany and the USA.
In fact, it is only free market capitalism that has any chance of thriving in a resource depleted future world. This cannot be very difficult to realize. To begin with, all socialist economies have failed in the current resource abundant world. Hence, they will fail even if world population is reduced to match the current per capita resource availability. We have enough empirical data to support this statement.
Actually, in a resource depleted world, really advanced free market capitalist economies are the only one having any chance of success because scarcity of resources will value even more the millions and perhaps billions of people trying find solutions for everyday problems, unless of course they are punished for trying, which they always are in socialist states. Then more than ever before will the world see the benefit of Adam Smith “invisible hand”.
…In fact, it is only free market capitalism that has any chance of thriving in a resource depleted future world…
There’s NOT GOING TO BE a ‘resource-depleted’ world!
I’m getting tired of making this point. Go and read Julian Simon. And then note that, although we have MANY more people than Malthus dreamed of, and they all consume MUCH MORE than he calculated, we also have MUCH GREATER riches than he anticipated, and MUCH GREATHER reserves of wealth.
Our children will be much wealthier than we are, and will use far more energy than we will. And none of it will run out. Because, contrary to what the Greens would have you believe, the world/universe is not static, but can be moulded by human ingenuity.
I surely haven’t read enough Simon but nothing he says seems to contradict what I was writing, and if I cannot get people at this forum to think, how the h..l can I get socialists to think?
The whole point that Ehrlich and other seem to be willfully ignore is how a developing economy is making ever more diluted resources recoverable thus increasing the recoverable reserves. Perhaps the word “depleted” was a bad choice of words, perhaps diluted would be better. Case in point are tar sands and fracking. We are recovering more diluted oil reserves thus increasing recoverable reserves. The ingenuity that gave us horizontal drilling and fracking is part part of the invisible hand. The socialists will never understand that.
Dodgy, in a socialist world, there can and will be depleted resources.
Socialism prevents the ingenuity that Simon speaks of from operating.
I like the picture at the top not a grey hair or a wrinkle anywhere to be seen, we all remember what socialist communism does to society and don’t want it back.
“What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no’. The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong, Interview 1992, concerning the plot of a book he would like to write (Wikipedia)
If anyone doubt that he was influential on the creation of IPCC – here are more information about Maurice Strong: Environmental Pioneer Maurice Strong Mourned at COP21
“He shepherd global environmental governance processes – from the original Rio Earth Summit, Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration to the launch of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity.”
Maybe it is about time that United Nations is put under scrutiny.
Science of fiction:
Maybe it is about time that United Nations is put under scrutiny.
Maybe it is time to shut it down, it is one of the most corrupt organizations on this planet. At every level.
I think the word corrupt may lead many to dismiss your statement. However, I think it is worth considering a few questions about United Nations.
– The bureaucrats of United Nations seem to be very powerful, they are not elected – how are they appointed?
– United Nations have an enormous budget, we are paying for it – is it open and available for anyone who would like to have a closer look?
– To which degree are the internal processes in United Nations – including decision processes and memorandum of meetings open for public scrutiny?
– To which degree are the United Nations bureaucrats influenced by the Club of Rome?
And most importantly. Are United Nations operating within their charter?
“The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”
— Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General from 1953 to 1961
«The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best superfluous.»
— Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
“Aestheticism and radicalism must lead us to jettison reason, and to replace it by a desperate hope for political miracles. This irrational attitude which springs from intoxication with dreams of a beautiful world is what I call Romanticism. It may seek its heavenly city in the past or in the future; it may preach ‘back to nature’ or ‘forward to a world of love and beauty’; but its appeal is always to our emotions rather than to reason. Even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it a hell – that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men.”
― Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies
Its a shame that the science gets politicised – by all accounts I would be a green – vegetarian, cycling, recycling, grow my own, veg source my own firewood etc but I’m staunchly skeptic – I know lots of “greens” who aren’t particularly socialist and lots of business people who are a more than a little bit green. Steve Goddard describes himself as a bike riding environmentalist but is also Republican and as we know a skeptic.
I’ve met a number of people from ex communist countries traveling here in Ireland who say life was better under the old regime….that was a surprise to me.
For me stuff like “Starving wretches picking at stubble for a few grains of wheat” and “If we embrace socialist economic stagnation, or more dramatically, a shift back to a primitive subsistence economy, there is no doubt we would substantially cut global anthropogenic CO2 emissions – especially when famine slashes world population.” is no better than the doom and gloom predictions of the alarmists.
Not everything from the greens/liberals/communists is bad and not everything from the capitalist world is good and vice versa…..both could learn a little from the other.
I think in general we all just want to be happy – things tend to go wrong and get confused when we hang on to hard on to one particular view of the world.
“I’ve met a number of people from ex communist countries traveling here in Ireland who say life was better under the old regime….”
That is because they do not understand capitalism. Capitalism is not a guarantee of success or a better life, it is the opportunity to achieve the things that you have determined you want. Whether you seize the opportunity and put in the effort to achieve what is best for you or just sit on your hands and bitch is the choice each of us has to make. But at least there is a choice.
The so called excesses of capitalism are either temporary or caused by socialistic elements within capitalism.
Capitalism doesn’t produce pollution, not when everyone’s property rights are being protected.
Capitalism doesn’t produce poverty, on the contrary it generates wealth that results in everyone’s living condition being improved. Sure, some advance faster than others, but only those who are consumed with greed and jealousy care.
I think China is enjoying watching us melt down.
China has been there done that and are embracing capitalism with a gusto.
We have not learnt the hard lesson – yet!
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
The sad thing is that it’s becoming hard to tell whether China or the US is more capitalistic.
Mark,
Believe me, China is leading the world in Capitalism. I have an insight about this from certain contacts I have in China. AND they have only just got started!
Cheers
Roger
If you’re going to discuss climate science, it’s not a good idea to associate it with a political stance, because people are much more resistant to evidence and reason if they go against their identified political position.
There’s lots of pollutants that are controlled in capitalist systems. It’s not counter to capitalism.
..CO2 is not a pollutant, it is a NATURAL gas that is vital to all life on Earth !
“If you’re going to discuss climate science, it’s not a good idea to associate it with a political stance, ”
Since Limits To Growth, UN-controlled organisations have pushed environmentalism and warmunism to bring about the UN world government and the end of the souvereign nation state.
It would be absolutely POINTLESS to debate “climate science” without pointing to the commanders and paymasters.
Seth says:
If you’re going to discuss climate science, it’s not a good idea to associate it with a political stance…
The problem is that the alarmist faction lost the science debate. Now all they have is a political argument.
i beg to differ.
the purpose of the ‘science debate’ was to distract opponents while they were outflanked and neutralized.
so the ‘science debate’ tactic worked and is working wonderfully well to the advantage of the predators.
like i keep saying – tyranny is not susceptible to reason.
and if you imagine this is anything but a bid for domination, you’ve lost just the same as the bull chasing the cape.
Pollution only becomes a problem when the govt decides that economic development is more important than the property rights of it’s citizens.
The people who think socialism is the way to go are the controlling elite and poor losers who were too lazy to get an education and better themselves. As more jobs bleed away to Mexico and China, the more people here in the U.S. who are going to want socialism to have the government (the hard working middle class, what is left of us) pay their way through life. Everyone are capitalists including those who want to capitalize on social welfare. As usual, liberals and leftists are the biggest group of hypocritical people there are.
Human are designed to work 40 hours per week as long as the rewards are high enough.
In our modern capitalist society, that means enough rewards to afford a bigger house, cover the costs of two kids, two cars and lots of enjoyable toys. We are not willing or capable of working 60 hours per week so that we can have 3 cars.
In our Stone Age past, those 40 hours provided for enough food to eat, raising 3 or 4 children and a good fire and stories with the rest of the tribe at night. We weren’t willing to work 60 hours per week so that we had too much food and were giving it away to people who weren’t pulling their weight or had too big of a tribal fire at night.
In communist countries, the rewards are so low or not directly related to working hours so that people put in about 10 hours of actual work per week and get drunk the rest of the time. It’s not worth being more productive than that because the personal or family resources rewards just don’t come from that. The economy slowly declines or collapses because everyone is less productive than they can be.
Humans are not sheep.
We are fully capable of deciding to work hard or not. We can put in a good 40 hours per week if the rewards are high enough. We make a choice be a carpenter and trade 40 hours of hard carpentry work for money which buys lots of goods produced efficiently by other specialists building cars etc. working a productive 40 hours per week.
That is the essence of capitalism. It is tapping into the nature of humans in the most efficient and productive way possible.
People like socialism because it makes them feel good to believe in it. Not because it works. Let them have their feelings. But they do not understand what people are about.
We are not sheep. We are a rational thinking species capable of producing valuable things when it is worth to do so. We are also rational enough to make choices about hurting the environment or not.
We are rational thinking people who have organized ourselves by trial and error over time to have governments with laws where we pool 40% of our 40 hour work week resources so that we can have water, highways, police, streets, education and social programs. So it not like we are fully capitalist anyway. It is only 75%, 65% or 55%. It is rational way to do so, unlike the sheep.
“People like socialism because it makes them feel good to believe in it. Not because it works.”
I would add that socialism allows many people to receive the benefits of working for something without actually having to work for it.
“Human are designed to work 40 hours per week as long as the rewards are high enough.”
======================
What ??,
Jesus Christ I can run all day, and another half if you push me.
Wanna try ????
You have a really weird idea of what it took to survive in a stone age culture.
Everyone, from youngest to oldest worked all day long, and even then there often wasn’t enough food to stave off hunger.
There’s a reason why people abandoned the hunter gatherer life for agriculture, and it wasn’t because it was more work.
Capitalism does make a convenient scapegoat for society’s ills, for the mentally deficient, irrational hysterics who enjoy a good bandwagon, all the while enjoying the benefits of capitalism. Climate change Belief fits very neatly into their doctrine.
My god, Resource depletion? Let’s talk oil.
View https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu_R3gp84TY
I say this over and over: Capitalism was never “invented.” Just like a tree was never “invented.” Capitalism appears organically in free societies. As far as I can tell, capitalism is the only economic system that’s compatible with human nature and doesn’t require the imposition and force of a central authority.
and you just got a new fan, Eustace.
viva the Cranching!
I´m joining the fan club.
Keep saying it – there are still many who need to hear that – and more are born every minute.
+1000
The photo is almost an obscenity: “socialism is the cure”, my a..e! How short the memory of these dimwits is. When the Berlin wall came down the benefits of socialism were there for all to see. The Eastblock countries were the most polluted on the planet and we Europeans are still paying for the cleanup bill. The city of Leipzig was deemed to be the dirtiest and unhealthiest place to live in the whole of Europe.
But the dimwits in the picture have never heard of it, of course.
The solution to many problems, environmental ones included, is the ingenuity and enterprise that thrive in the capitalist system and is stifled by socialism.
A lot of really great comments on this tread.
There are so many transactions between human beings everyday, that no one even comes close to be able to guess how many there are. Thinking that government can actually monitor, predict and enforce all the transactions to improve the environment is naive. Government(s) have notoriously been one of the prime polluters of our environment and the Judicial system has often times been the protector of big business that also pollutes. The Army Corp of Engineers, the Florida Department of Agriculture and the South Florida Water management District have done so much irreparable harm to the environment here is so Florida, the list cannot be posted in a thread but rather needs a book to examine and articulate. It is not to say that big business has not also contributed to the environmental damage but it has been in cooperation with the various government agencies.
Socialists are so naive that it amazes me. Why do they seldom look at the negative ramifications of the social policies they endorse and instead, drink the Kool Aide/accept the lies, they are being told to drink.
They have yet to realized that democracy is an illusion created by the ruling oligarchy to deceive the majority into believing government has a valid purpose and that they can have influence over it if they get enough support, when simple government is a confiscatory cartel controlled by wealth and power that will throw them a few bones now and then to keep up the ruse. They want our tax dollars and the ruling oligarchy will say and do anything to make the majority believe they are getting a good deal. Not only will they lie and deceive the majority, they will put you in jail for any dissension to their rules and actions. The Constitution was supposed to protect our property rights. We now have a long history of the usurpations by the government enforcers as empirical evidence, that government, even when meticulously detailed by our constitutional foundation of law, will transform the words of liberty into the actions of centralized power.
The socialists in affect, have gotten what they have asked for, still don’t like it, want more and don’t understand why it keeps getting worse. Government simple bankrupts the society, both intellectually and ethically with their lies and corruption, but also financially with their over 115 different taxes and regulatory fees. How hard can it really be to understand this? Thinking that the majority can beat the supper wealthy at the game they own and control (government), is more than just naive.
The comments about Capitalism vs Socialism are perhaps misplaced. What works is a competitive marketplace. Over time this increases efficiency as the most efficient production minimizes waste. The economics are inescapable. one man’s garbage is another treasure.
The problem with competition is that it is brutal. Those that cannot complete fall by the wayside, which leads to monopolies and problems for the society as a whole. This leads to the call for governments to “do something”, which in the end means limiting competition and increasing waste.
Ultimately the global marketplace is a race to the bottom. Economies of scale dictate survival of the biggest, not necessarily the fastest. Companies follow the evolutionary path of dinosaurs, until some unexpected event wipes them out. From the ashes arise the survivors, hopefully more competitive.
Vested interest work to prevent the extinction of the dinosaurs, to put off the day of reckoning. The result is stagnation, the big survive simply because of their size, not because of their merits, until the structure rots from within and collapses due to its weight.
In a free market, the only way for a monopoly to form is when government creates one.
Efficiencies of scale only go so far. Past a certain point, bigger companies become less effective and are more easily picked off by their more nimble competitors.
Technology has gone a long way to reduce this most efficient size. Over the last 30 years, companies have been divesting and dividing themselves by the 10’s of thousands because they recognized they had become too big. In my work years, I’ve gone through 3 such splits.
That vested interests can work to preserve dinosaurs is a problem with govt, not the market. Don’t give the govt the power to pick winners and losers and the problem goes away.
Capitalism has never been a race to the bottom. That’s a myth perpetrated by the communists and those who know nothing about capitalism.
The government did not create the Microsoft PC-OS monopoly.
Eric
I think it’s wrong to concede that if we reject the misanthropy of the greens, we are forced to rely on future space travel to address an inevitable resource crunch. This is just the greens argument. As economies mature, population growth levels of and even declines. Economic / technological growth, especially if unconstrained by false idealism from lazy armchair misanthropes, will also – together with population stabilisation – cause resource use to level off. Resources dont run out overnight. The freely operating market economy, not a green dictatorship, is the best way for society and economies to adapt to resource depletion where and if/when this actually happens. This can be called the “Sweden horizon”. Eventually, with the blocks to normal human and societal development removed, all countries in the world will / would end up looking something like Sweden. Population will level off then decline, and standard of living rise to a high Sweden-like level. (I’m not Swedish BTW.) All the misanthropes’ hysterical dystopias will prove false.
There is no such thing as capitalism. No-one sat down and invented it, as for instance Marx invented Marxism and Lenin et al invented Russian style communism, or Pol Pot invented the Khmer Vert, the ultimate in green environmentalism. No – “capitalism” is just what naturally happens when humans are free to realise their potential. Lazy, envious, bilious, resentful and violent people hate that – hate the possibility of others doing better than them. So invention and use of words like capitalism only identify the user of such words as a genocidal misanthrope. They hate and reject natural development in economies and technology. They also reject the idea that climate, or climate change, can be natural – climate change has to be as false and artificial and they themselves are. Climate and “climate change” have identical meaning, the term “climate change” is a vacuous tautology. So these people are not that bright either. But they are good at subverting human power structures, and this makes them dangerous.
But what about those billions of bodies rotting in the streets producing that powerful greenhouse gas methane.
” we really might run out of a resource we can’t replace”.
It is a disheartening fact that no matter how much you challenge such an assertion with the facts and logic, it keeps having fresh traction. I have commented a large number of times here on this subject, apparently to no avail and apparently finding very few interested in the debunking of this central idea of the civilization destroying Neo Marxbrothers. We will never run out of resources! .
1) we don’t demand zinc, we demand rustproofing of barn rooves, culverts, etc.
2) miniaturization: a computer with the power of a cell phone used to take up a large air conditioned room.
3) Substitution makes the world go around. We even substitute soccer, hockey and other players to give them a rest!
4) Every pound of copper we have ever produced is still on the surface of the earth – maybe we sent a kg or two to Mars and other unearthly places.
5) we’ve recycled metals for several millennia but now we are doing that with glass, building products, etc. etc.
5) The USGS, in a recent report, (google it) estimates 3.5 billion tonnes of copper in conventional resources remains to be found and developed. We currently use 20million tonnes a year and a lot of that is recycled! Copper Facts estimates that we have produced 500 million tonnes in human history.
This is one of those things we should be teaching kids in school along with about half a dozen real core subjects.
..Socialism works great….until they run out of “Other Peoples Money” !
“Liberals feel a great debt to their fellowman and are determined to pay that debt using other people’s money.”
I don’t know who first said that. I first heard it on G.Gordon Liddy’s radio program.
(WUWT has an international audience. “Liberal” refers to a US political philosophy that crosses our party lines.)
Capitalism will not collapse under its own weight, it can only collapse under the weight of government interference with the natural flow of capitalism. When the government starts requiring people to be given money that is above the value of any product that person has created, the system is pushed toward collapse. People who don’t like capitalism don’t like it because it requires that you produce something before you can capitalize on it.
But don’t worry about the world running out of things to produce. Humans can always invent new sellable things from nothing. Carbon credits anyone?
As if predestined, Socialism and environmentalism seem always historically locked in an embrace capable of crushing any people or institution they engulf. One might say environmentalism’s defining attribute is its profoundly anti-humanistic zeal, veiled with “innocent” egalitarianism and “pure” love of nature. Face to face, you may have noticed, the combination is cold, authoritarian and remorseless.
A professor, Mark Bassin, wrote a book, How Green Were the Nazis? (2005.) When the Nazis took over in 1934 they launched a “new era of environmental stewardship,” favoring (get this) “long-term sustainability over short-term profitability.” They praised conservation, forests, organic agriculture, vegetarianism, and homeopathic medicine. The next year they set up the Reichsnaturschutzgesetz (Reich Nature Protection Law). Herrmann Goering was made Reichforstmeister (Reich master of forestry) to promote waldgesinnubg (forest-mindedness) head us back to nature in the dauerwald (eternal forest). His Reichforstamt (Reich Forest Office) ran the Reichstelle fur Naturschutz (Reich Nature Protection Office). Walter Darré, head of the SS, was Reichsbauerfuhrer, the Reich peasant leader, who got to re-impose the joys of feudalism on the “peasants.” And it wasn’t long before hundreds of thousands of Poles had been reduced to serfdom, and six million men, women, and children of the Jewish faith were murdered. So what? They were human beings. Nasty.
The current Green frenzy is only a sideshow to the Left’s gluttonous sit-down meal of the American market economy, with the suppression of dissent an hors d’oeuvre. I recommend Martin Durkin’s 25-page posts exposing the movement’s systemic cruelty at:
http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/greens-warning-history-volume-one
http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/greens-warning-history-volume-two
http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/nazi-greens-inconvenient-history
Dear all
Here is a link to the current deficit in our current international life style, over 60 trillion and rapidly rising. http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/
There is barely a single country that has money in the bank. Almost every economy is false, capitalist or socialist, it is simply propped up by printing money and loans, confirming that capitalism has peaked and is on life support. There is not a single country that is capable of repaying any debt, it is fantasyland. Only three countries own their reserve banks. If you check, you will find that within the past two years you will find that they have quietly passed the “haircut provision” which legally allows the bank that you have accounts with to take any cash or investments and transfer it to its balance sheet in the event of a run on the bank or other hardship reasons, and in time issue you with shares at a price of their choice.
Enjoy the life style.
Ptolemy2 and fredberple are on the right track. Let me state it as a hypothesis:
– Capitalism (free markets, whatever) is the inherent form of social organization for all human societies, since they began trading beads and shells many interglacials ago.
– Socialism is an imposed structure dependent on a class of people called “government” who assume control of the direction and operation of societies.
Things to think about:
– Capitalism requires nothing more than two people (families, tribes, etc.) who have things to exchange. It is light weight, scalable and resilient.
– Socialism requires that the “controllers” know everything that is going on and nothing can occur without their explicit consent.
Discussion:
It’s not surprising that the socialists are the ones promoting climate control. They live in the fantasy that coupled, semi-chaotic systems, whether they be human societies or nature itself, can be controlled by government fiat. This is generally at the point of a gun precisely because it is contrary to instinctive human nature. In any socialist society people automatically establish black markets. In fact, any time any government attempts to control any substance, process or behavior, it automatically creates black markets, which seek efficiency in the chaotic, uncontrollable nature of humanity.
Free market systems can run with minimal supervision. Panama, for example, is a Ron Paul kind of country – minimum government, maximum personal responsibility. There is literally no traffic enforcement anywhere in the country, barring a few radar cops on the Interamericana.* There is no police pursuit and yet traffic flows nicely, right of ways negotiated on a case by case basis and with a high tolerance for non-standard driving maneuvers. The same principle works on every level. You are supposed to pay taxes, but there is no IRS to come looking for you. Despite all this “freedom” the country is growing at 5% or more per year, the middle class is thriving and major infrastructure improvements are being made.
By contrast, Venezuela and Brazil have gone down socialist roads and ended up in pretty much the same place – the corrupt 1% getting it all, stores empty and the people be damned. Many of the rich people in Venezuela and Brazil (and many in the US, Canada and Europe) have moved their assets to Panama, a stable democratic country with respect for private property and “capitalism.” A one-way street powered by human nature.
It’s easy to get caught up in debate about the fractional capitalist/socialist composures of large modern countries. Both capitalism and socialism are subject to corruption in many ways.
The point is, that left to themselves, humans instinctively gravitate to capitalism as the fundamental and basic form of social commerce.
*After a year or two living in Panama, you realize to what extent the entire edifice of “traffic enforcement” is a case of creating a coal mine to fuel a generating plant, which powers the coal mine. Many other institutions come to mind as well…
Capitalism is not in any danger of collapse. It’s supposed inevitable decline and fall is an old but evergreen Marxist myth.
There is no economic determinism of this kind. It Is the giant bureacracies
of statism that are doomed to slow collapse from atherosclerois, nepotism, and debilitating corruption.
I’ve always found it odd that those who vote for socialist type of policies always assume that the benefits of a capitalists type of policy will always be there to keep it going.
“Greed” is an evil…but so is “Envy”.
The worst of both is based on one or the other.
The worst of “Greed” is to take what someone else has under false pretenses. Because you want more.
The worst of “Envy” is to decide that you have a “right” to what someone else has earned. Because you want more.
Those who lust for power and control push whichever ‘button” maintains their authority.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,…..”
(I’d suggest reading more. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html )
The US Constitution is a fine form of “Government”. But it has been usurped for decades.
We currently have a head of “The Executive Branch” that seems to think it is “The Ruling Branch”.
There is nothing, nothing wrong with those who have choosing to give to those who have a need.
The “wrong” is when Government forces them to do so….for votes.
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
George Bernard Shaw