This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Is Capitalism a Rationalization for Rape, Robbery and Pillage?
Is Capitalism a Rationalization for Rape, Robbery and Pillage?
While scanning foreign newspaper headlines the other day (to get up to speed with the non-USA propaganda view of the world) I read a blurb about the 2010 elections in England. All three candidates agreed that England should remain engaged in Afghanistan. Venturing further, the Guardian presented a two paragraph synopsis of the differences between the candidates. As far as I could tell, the differences were for the most part superficial. That in turn got me thinking about choices, or more accurately, the illusion of choice.
One of the tricks of the control system is to promote the illusion of choice, be it between careers or between candidates. Two months before the 2008 USA presidential election, I visited the Republican and Democrat party web sites to view their so-called “platform” issues and laid them side by side. Talk about the discomfort of watching the sausage making process. I suspect no one actually reads these things because contradictions and absurdities abounded. But then again, sausage making is all about combining many different components into one moldable product, isn’t it?
After repressing the gag reflex long enough to read further, aside from some minor “hot button issue” window dressing, there were very few differences between political sausages. Still, both parties assured me that their particular brand was extremely tasty and healthy to boot. Just ignore the stray hairs, the crunchy bits and mystery meat, cook to 180 degrees to kill the E-Coli and then swallow…….hard. Looking at a list of political donations for the 2008 elections I would say American special interests felt the same way. Make mine with sauerkraut and some spicy brown mustard.
While I’m continuously assured by the keepers of the myth that Capitalism (with a capital “C” since Capitalism has been turned into a religious icon) is the next best thing to come our way since Thumbscrews and the Inquisition (also capitalized) shouldn’t one gaze into the sausage making machine for a closer examination? Or would that be blasphemy? If an unexamined life isn’t worth living (as Socrates proffered) is an unexamined economic system also not worth living?
While the comment section below is where the rubber will meet the road on this subject, I’d like to add my two cents worth. If history is to be my guide, there appears to be one constant throughout the ages. Be it the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, the Roman Emperors, the Kings and the Catholic Crusades of the Middle Ages and now Capitalism and its Corporations, one thing seems abundantly clear to me. Society doesn’t self organize for the benefit of the many but rather society is organized for the benefit of the few as the most effective way to rape, rob and pillage the many. Who needs war when the process of abuse can be institutionalized and glorified?
Now excuse me while I induce some projectile vomiting and indulge in a healthy purge. Maybe it’s time for a change of diet; how about some Green Eggs and Ham? It can’t be any worse than what I’ve been eating lately.
- advertisements -
You forgot to list the only group that matters. The money. The money sure as hell isn't a labor union, ngo or some Bangladeshi farmer. It is the money! The rest of the groups you listed are only fighting over the crumbs that you still cling to as being of importance. The redistribution and socialist game is a formulation of the money itself to keep you under control and to keep you busy taking aim at your neighbors rather than your owners. The money. The money controls state power. Completely. GM wasn't bailed out for the union workers or their pensions. It was bailed out so GS & JPM wouldn't have to pay their swaps! Especially on GMAC/ALLY/POS whatever. WAKE UP or apply to be a bike rider/horse trader on a future Ally commercial!
"WAKE UP or apply to be a bike rider/horse trader on a future Ally commercial!"
Me, me, pick me. Over here, I had my hand up first. I'll work for nothing as long as I get my 15 minutes of fame riding my bicycle around in a 2x5 foot box.
Me, me, pick me, pretty please.
Your box might start small, but it doesn't stay that way. After all, as some run for the pure joy, you write for it. Your pony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4f6wiQJh4
On the other hand, Democracy is self-destructing once the have-nots use the government's monopoly of force to take what it desires rather than work for it. The politicians love such power grabs as it increases the amount of graft available to enrichen themselves.
The destructive force is not from the have-not's, it is from those who wish to pervert the social structure to promise false philanthropy in an effort to have private banks control "Democracy" so it can take what they want via lawful and unlawful plunder. If our society and its institutions were controlled by the have-nots then why is all the focus of government on saving those that plunder from suffering loss? Or, why isn't the present circumstance commonly referred to as a bail out for the ghetto dwellers ranther than the C-Suite dwellers?
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
True. We'll see if forced government austerity (soon coming to a shore near you) will help to reverse this trend at all.
I think that the number of people who "don't want to work for it" is overestimated in the average conservative imagination. It's alarming that 47% of households paid no federal income taxes this year, but that number has to include a large swathe of the middle class. Do I believe that 47% of American households "don't want to work" and that they think they shouldn't contribute any federal taxes? Not for a minute.
Current welfare laws are restricted to five years over a lifetime and generally restricted to families with children. Now one could argue that any years of welfare assistance is a bad thing, but there is no argument that an individual can somehow turn five years of assistance into a lifetime of not working.
Public sector unions are the real problem. They're working, but their compensation all out of whack. Then on the private sector side you have all income gains going to the top. Combustible combination.
Ya Chet. Sure. As a section leader in the 82d we always knew we were grossly overpaid when we compared our compensation package to the mercs so favored by the outsourcing crowd. I also appreciated how, when I supervised convicted terrorists in federal custody that being underpaid by 30% when compared to the local county jail and more than 500% less than the contractors that run our overseas facilities housing the same types of offenders sure showed me how over the top my package was. Now I am a 100% disabled war veteran getting blasted by many here, in my community and most definitely by the MSM because my meager pension does not rise to the level of being taxable. Ya, living large on my 8,500.00 per year pension from the DOJ you piece of shit! FUCK THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU! If you think the public sector is such a fine place to be, get a job there or shut the fuck up you clueless bitches!
Be Well
PS My apologies to our hosts and to CD for the context of my message. boot me if ya wanna. peace
Cannot speak for CD, but it seems that as much as anyone, Miles, you have earned the right to speak your mind as well as set any of us straight who need straightening. There's an awful lot of things on a wide range of subjects that many or most of us do not know. Those with the knowledge should, I hope, always feel free to educate. Keep it up, please. You've got an audience.
Without the "for profit motive" most people are unmotivated to get out of their beds and go to work. If they do go to work, they work as little as possible. What's the point? There is no "getting ahead."
With capitalism the people who don't or can't succeed in making or managing money have less stuff than those who are better at it. But as time has gone on the welfare safety net has continued to expand such that people are not starving in the streets. Indeed, there is an epidemic of obesity in the poorer classes. Too much food.
However, now that the consumers have taken over the government from the producers, the producers are being disincentivized to work too hard, especially the upper middle class.
If you make like 500K and up, you're Federal Taxes don't go up that much from those in the middle class, you max out your Social Security at about 120K, and you're golden. Plus, you pay the same sales tax as someone making 50K a year.
The trick is to get from 50K to 500K where all the after tax income is yours.
And its after tax income that is becoming more and more precious. The only way to keep it is not to spend it, which is not good for an economy 70% dependent on domestic spending.
I'm doing my part to cripple the economy by not spending. I drive a 10 year old car (runs like a top), I don't eat out as much (but I tip well), I don't consume content hardly at all (CDs, DVDs, etc), I milk old computers as long as possible, etc.
This has left an excess of digits in my bank accounts with which I have been purchasing collectable and non collectable precious metal coinage. Call me crazy.
I'm with you. You're not crazy.
Capitalism is the worst...except all the rest.
I would argue that what we have is not really capitalism, but rather corporatism. As long as our present system of government is designed to enrich corporations at the expense of the citizens, it will continue to deteriorate.
Entropy is a fact of nature and only vigilance and energy can combat entropy, but free porn, $1 burgers and X-Box are great entropy enablers.
All this is very well known and very well documented but never discussed.
Please see:
The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems
by none other than Thomas Ferguson
as well as
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Messrs. Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky.
Also if you want to sound like you are familiar with the control doctrine always refer to the respective candidates as "A" and "A prime." That's the way it's done by those skilled in the art as it were. It's an apauling read as it is so true and well documented. Virtually irrefutible.
Chomsky sures knows his words, no doubt, but a lot of his diatribes are Exhibit A in diverting attention and blaming the victim for our sins.
Bingo.
"All this is very well known and very well documented but never discussed."
That's part of the control system. You can talk all you want about the economic/social system but ultimately you must not question the basic premise of the system.
BTW, I have already consumed both your suggestions and more. Now for a controversial opinion. The very fact the Chomsky will talk about some aspects of the control system but not others leads me to believe he is a willing puppet of the control system. The illusion that there is someone speaking opening and frankly about many (but not all or the most important) aspects of the system comforts people and helps them to believe we are conducting an open and enlightened discussion.
I'm not saying Chomsky has not done a great deal to move this subject forward, only that sometimes where someone doesn't go speaks louder than where they do go.
Most prescient example? Goldman parading a top trader and his intimate relationship out for all to see.
You cannot always stand in direct contrast to prevailing forces, but you can serve your interests by directing them down a sympathetic path.
We would be wise to remember our Sun Tzu.
i am not as well read as you, what does he fail to discuss?
Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Capitalism, like politics and religion, in the wrong hands will be warped and do as much harm as good.
As such, it's more about Character, Integrity, and good Ethics.
There is so much wrong in this thread, I don't even know where to begin.
Capitalism is NEVER bad. It is based on choice, and free association.
Politics is NEVER good. What it boils down to is how to apply force to innocent people.
Religion is rarely good. It tells people how to think, and most of the time it gets it wrong. As a result, people have a warped perception of the world. Often, this feeds into politics.
When capitalism is combined with religion, it is not a problem. You are free to not buy bibles or invest in churches, or whatever else. The religion can threaten people with hell if they don't buy certain things, but that is 100% from religion, and not from capitalism.
Combine capitalism and politics, however, and you get utter destruction. Those who wield force can make you buy things like health insurance, and forbid you from buying other things like drugs or navigable waterways. They can take from anyone they want to give to whomever they like.
The extent to which politics is kept separate from capitalism is the extent to which a nation is prosperous. A small amount of interference can be absorbed, even if it is harmful. Too much, and it will die.
Your brief is only probable in a theoretical world. Mankind has thoroughly proven that it can fuck up any great idea in the real world. And the real world is where all of the consequences are endured, in a very real sense.
Capitalism
Politics
Religion
All can be great without man's intervention. But, that's impossible.
I'm becoming a nihilist.
You're basically on the right track. You really need to read this book though:
http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com/
It will tie many things together into essentially a "Eureka!" moment for you. Or at least it did for me.
I have no ties of any kind to its author/publisher.
There is a basic structural problem here that doesn't get enough attention. We have a debt based monetary system for the very simple reason that originally there was no economic information to determine how much money was necessary. Now money is drawing rights to productivity and debt grows roughly proportional to productivity in a basic economy, so it was reasonable effective for a long time, but in our ever more dissected understanding of the process, the financial industry has decided that only the growth of debt matters and any actual productivity becomes a vehicle for creating as much debt as possible. Yes, it is going to all blow up and we are going to have to use some of these computers and economic statistics to formulate a production based currency.
how this might evolve is an open question, but it is apparent the current model is about to go nuclear.
I get sick when I hear that capitalism is dead, the market moves on now matter how much the control freak politicians try. We are lucky that technology allows us to continue the disinter-mediation process in breaking down the large institutions benefiting the powerful and the few in favor of the individual. To compare capitalism in modern times to the ancient agrarian world is misleading as change in our world happens in a matter of years versus the stagnant agrarian power structures that would take an investment of treasure a very long time too pay off versus the immediate return of pillage and war.
Free markets have been corrupted, the opposite of what capatilism is supposed to mean. The good thing is that people are starting to wake up to the motives of our politic betters and are starting to fight back. The looters will be run out wether through the people or through the collapse of their corrupt thinking.
Free markets have been corrupted? When?
When did they go untainted?
Huh... When I look around, all I see is Socialism... True Capitalism only exists in the distant realms of Craigslist and the World of Warcraft auction house.
Socialism? Where? Here?
No. Not here. Then where? There?
No. Not there either.
There must be some socialism somewhere...
LOL!
Tax free, baybee!
In elections they always seem to give us what we want.
After Bush we wanted change and hope, negotiations instead of war, somebody that was for the people instead of siding with big business. Then comes Obama out of nowhere while Ron Paul had significant support, but was ignored in mainstream media.
Go back to each election cycle and see the pattern, one thing is consistent nothing changed in the background while having the appearance of change on the surface.
George McGovern
It's not capitalism though. It's has been branded capitalism but it's the power of changing the definition of a word. What we have is crony capitalism, more akin to fascism. So what we are really asking is "Can fascism work?" when we ask if capitalism can work.
This is not new. Words are redefined all their time to steal their meaning and power. Look at the word "liberal". It has nothing to do with classic liberalism, the word itself was hijacked. By controlling words and language it is possible to deceive people. This is not a problem of capitalism, for the word itself has been hi-jacked.
Hell look at America in the New Deal era.
As to the illusion of choice that was an awakening for me. People often times do not desire a real choice just the appearance of a choice. I learned it as a sales trick then when presented with pre-set option the sucker will usually pick one rather then breaking out and making their own 3rd choice.
Our current system is more akin to inverted totalitarianism.
Like Jack Welch said...the corporations must win.
+1 Shameful, Our political two party 'choice' under a democracy rather than a republic, is a glaring example example.
When the vacuum salesman says you can pay for it right now or you can make payments, the correct choice is NO.
Why the likes of some here continue to disregard the true nature of capitalism and how it has been corrupted as you clearly demonstrate is beyond me.
The deconstruction of words and the ignorance of the masses that foster it, is our undoing.
Yeah, it would be great to attempt capitalism for once and to call out those who would redefine it out of some agenda or ignorance.
Not trying to pick a fight, and please correct me if I am mistaken, but my impression is that capitalism was tried and what we got was child labor chimney sweeps and coal smoke blotting out the sun, railroad robber barons and pinkerton private armies. I always thought it was the manifest excess of the "golden age" of capitalism that led directly to the rise of unionism.
Capitalism as the monetary approximation of survival of the fittest works only when one of two conditions are satisfied - the moral competitive environment is judiciously monitored, or the population is educated enough to make their own decisions. Today we have neither.
Child labor chimney sweeps were required during industrialization because there wasn't enough capital to allow the parents to provide for the children without the aid of their labor. Understand that prior to industrialization, the vast majority of children had to do backbreaking labor on farms, and more than half died as a result prior to turning 15. Work as a chimney sweep or in a "sweatshop" was a big step up.
The "work farms" that are so universally reviled were inventions of the state, who took orphans and farmed their labor (literally slave labor, they didn't care about the children), ensuring even shorter more miserable lives than those in the fields. This was the STATE that did this. When children went to work, but lived with their parents, the situation was quite different.
Coal smoke blotted out the sun only until the neighbors sued the factories, forcing them to erect higher smokestacks. This happened under free market conditions.
Railroad robber barons came about as a result of government intervention into the railroad business. This also created the railroad bubble.
Pinkerton's private armies certainly existed, but they are portrayed in a light much worse than they deserve. They were indeed called out to fight the unions, but the unions STARTED the fight through sabotage, and assault of those crossing the picket lines. There may be instances where they exceeded the law, but police officers are much MUCH worse in this regard, and are rarely prosecuted for their crimes, where as the Pinkertons had to operate as private citizens with no special protections.
If we had free markets, we would have flying cars and a cure for cancer RIGHT NOW, but government agencies stand in the way. The size of government dictates that for every productive employee in the private workforce, there is one government employee, and one non-productive private employee whos job it is to deal with and ensure compliance with laws and regulations. This means that if these people were employed productively, our goods would cost a third of what they do now. Our standard of living has been cut by at least 66% as a result of government bloat. The real effect is much greater due to the missed chances and delayed rollout of new technologies.
That would be "unfettered" capitalism.
Capitalism within reason (think for the betterment of everyone as a saily mantra...) would not employ child chimney sweeps.
Capitalism has no definition or at best, capitalism is anything that works.
But still, I cant but ask: some people seem to refer to a past.
If a change of definition has been introduced, when?
As to me, it seems that the vast land transfer operated by the US in the nineteenth century fits the bill of the OP.
So once you removed the nineteenth century, when did that true capitalism happen in the US?
You mean the land transfer from the Indians, who had n concept of private property, and therefore never actually owned the land they lived on?
Any being that does not recognize natural rights (including property rights) is destined to become chattel, or to go extinct. Sadly, Indian tribes to this day are largely communist, and their people suffer for it. If they had recognized property rights, both those of settlers, and of their own people, they not only could have withstood the expansion of the whites, they would still be around today. This happened to a much greater extent in Mexico. Their civilization had at least SOME respect for natural rights (even though their religion didn't), and they developed a civilization because of it. It was destroyed only because their lack of respect for natural rights (ie their barbaric religion based on human sacrifice) created tensions with their neighbors, which were exploited by Cortez and others to destroy them. There never would have been any cities to conquer in the first place had they shown the same disrespect for property that the American Indians did.
So typical of a certain way of thinking.
I am not even sure that you are aware of your bias leading to such a waste.
The Indians are irrelevant in the equation. Your long comment on how they deserve to fail is a waste.
I just observed as the simple-minded I am that the US organized a large land transfer. Full stop.
Independent of any conception on private property. Independent.
Now if you are the type pushing for capitalism being based on private property and stuff, the Indians' conception is irrelevant: they did not organize the land transfer.
All you do is shifting the issue of land to grab to people who have land to grab and do not believe in private property. Good luck in finding them.
You might have better luck trying to find people who have land to grab.
squat this empty condo
Hi tmosley,
Here's one of my favorite quotes, it immediately jumped to mind when I read your post.
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." - Mark Twain
I guess if they understood property rights better, they could have negotiated for a few more smallpox blankets to keep them warm at night.
A very unique way of blaming the Indians for their own destruction by the invading white man. I don't think I've ever seen the terms "natural rights" and "property rights" used essentially interchangeably. If only they had respected property rights. Damn!
When my wife asks me what I learned today at the office, I will direct her to your posting.
And exactly what has changed? Besides location of the coal blotting factories and the pinkerton private armies have gotten a LOT bigger and a LOT more lethal.
The average American has the caloric intake of a Roman emperor, can expect to live into his/her late 70's on average, is generally free of physical danger, is free to pick up and move somewhere else and can, with a modicum of effort, work the system for all manner of goodies and handouts. By landing a government job he/she can essentially turn this into a profession.
Who's raping, robbing and pillaging whom here? and to what chapter of the history of the human condition is the recent plight of the common man in capitalist America being negatively compared to exactly?
Obama isn't going to ruin the country with too much love for capitalism (a term that I think means whatever Marx or anyone else wants it to mean) and certainly not with too much love for free enterprise.
The average American is free to stay in line. As CD has noted before, violence in our society is as close as telling the wrong person "no". If you don't believe me tell the next cop who wants to see your papers that you would rather not, and when they tell you to get out of the car say no. See what happens.
You mean "stay in the lines."
Drive more carefully and I think you'll find that the fuzz will stop hassling you so much.
You are either naive or a pirate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knv6nDZX1mc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DxG4a5r4PQ
I'm sorry I just assumed we were talking about American citizens in this discussion. Funny you should bring up Arizona, I believe voters there just overwhelmingly expressed their concerns about what exactly citizenship means these days: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/elect...