This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Don't Blame Capitalism for Wall Street's Corruption and Lawlessness
When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought about Western civilization, he answered:
I think it would be a good idea.
I feel the same way about free market capitalism.
It would be a good idea, but it is not what we have now. Instead, we have either socialism, fascism or a type of looting.
If people want to criticize capitalism and propose an alternative, that is fine . . . but only if they understand what free market capitalism is and acknowledge that America has not practiced free market capitalism for some time.
I'm not talking about Michael Moore's latest movie. I'm talking about worldwide opinion.
Specifically, a poll conducted by the BBC shows that the vast majority of people worldwide say that capitalism is not working.
The poll shows that:
Nearly a quarter -- 23 percent -- said the system is "fatally flawed."
RawStory describes the poll by saying:
Worldwide poll: Vast majority say capitalism not working...
Dissatisfaction
with capitalism is widespread around the globe 20 years after the fall
of the Berlin Wall that heralded the demise of European communism, a
poll released Monday showed...
A bare majority, 51 percent, believed its problems can be solved with more regulation and reform, the poll said.
People
pointing to the Western economies and saying that capitalism doesn't
work is as incorrect as pointing to Stalin's murder of millions of
innocent people and blaming it on socialism. Without the government's creation of the too big to fail banks, Fed's intervention in interest rates and the markets, government-created moral hazard emboldening casino-style speculation, corruption of government officials, creation of a system of government-sponsored rating agencies which had at its core a model of bribery, and other government-induced distortions of the free market, things wouldn't have gotten nearly as bad.
As Justice Louis Brandeis said:
In
a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled
if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the
potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole
people by its example. If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds
contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It
invites anarchy.
If there has been lawlessness and
corruption among Wall Street players, it was partially simply modeling
the lawlessness and corruption of the Executive Branch and Congress
members. I've written elsewhere about how the government lied by saying
Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was behind 9/11 (when he
didn't and wasn't), that we don't torture (when we did), that we don't
spy on Americans (when we did), etc. Just like kids model what their
parents do as well as what they say, Wall Street modeled the unlawful and corrupt actions of our government employees.
Being
against capitalism because of the mess we've gotten in would be like
Gandhi saying that he is against Western civilization because of the
way the British behaved towards India.
Note 1: I am not
anti-regulation. I believe we need laws like Glass-Steagall, antitrust
laws, fraud laws and other laws to ensure a level playing field. You
can't have a football game without rules designed to keep the game
fair. Same with capitalism.
Note 2: Maybe somebody can convince me that something else is a better system. I am open to listening to alternatives. But - to date - I have never heard of a better economic system than free market capitalism ... but if and only if it is truly free.
- advertisements -
"Let it be."
Seems benign, unobtrusive, almost harmless. According to historical folklore, the phrase stems from a meeting c. 1680 between the powerful French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a group of French businessmen led by a certain M. Le Gendre. When the eager mercantilist minister asked how the French state could be of service to the merchants, Le Gendre replied simply "Laissez-nous faire" ('Leave us be,' lit. 'Let us do').
Yet when such blasphemies dare be uttered by French minister René de Voyer, Marquis d'Argenson, a champion of free trade, in his famous outburst:
"Laissez faire, telle devrait être la devise de toute puissance publique, depuis que le monde est civilisé.... Détestable principe que celui de ne vouloir grandir que par l'abaissement de nos voisins! Il n'y a que la méchanceté et la malignité du coeur de satisfaites dans ce principe, et l’intérêt y est opposé. Laissez faire, morbleu! Laissez faire!!
(Let it be, such should be the motto of every public power, ever since the world is civilized..... A detestable principle that we cannot grow but by the lowering of our neighbors! There is nothing but mischief and malignity of heart that are satisfied with that principle, and interest is opposed to it. Let it be, damn it! Let it be!!)"
Yes, let it be, indeed. Let it be touched off the most colossal struggle between men in the history of mankind for while "Let it be" sets man free the state sets man against man! "Let it be" which tames and governs one's soul by the rectitude of one's own choice against the alternative virtue to tame and govern the animal man by the rectitude of the hammer of force. Was it Stalin's capitalism which forcefully confiscated all the people's private property and prosperity? Was it Stalin's capitalism which callously murdered and butchered millions of the "People" in the name of Progress? Was it Mussolini's capitalism who slaughtered millions of his countrymen in the name of Progress? Did they decry "Let it be" in the gas chambers of Hitler's Third Reich? Are 70 million dead Chinamen enough to justify the religion of progress to Mao? Was it the virtues of capitalism which collapsed at Jamestown in 1620 and resulted in the "Starving Time." There was death almost every day. When they ate all the animals, including horses, cats and dogs, then mice were eaten. They crawled through the woods in search of roots and berries. After that, men, women and children became cannibals eating their own dead! [REPEAT THAT: After that, men, women and children became cannibals eating their own dead.] Some men and women who were starving crept into the woods in their last hours, dug shallow holes, covered themselves with leaves, and died. Out of 500 only 60 people survived that winter.
Socialism fails
Jamestown (and therefore, America) experimented with communist economics, but as it proved a complete failure (as it always does) after a while, as it prompted laziness and inefficiency. One-fifth of the colony did all the work (sound familiar) while the rest were drones. Finally, each member was given three acres of his own to cultivate. Industry and thrift (Let it be) then replaced idleness (Marx) and there were no more famines.
http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Publications/1620/part2.html
The vast Atlantean utopia society propagated throughout the ages by European Marxist revolutionary socialists of the 19th and 20th centuries cannot be framed by 21st century American progressive secular humanists but they have succeeded in murdering another victim and stealing his identity.
Capitalism's true identity is "Let it be." It can be known by no other name. The United States of America has never "Let it be." Capitalism require free trade whereas its rivals require force. Capitalism offers choice whereas its rivals reduce or eliminate choice from public discourse. How many countless innocent lives must be offered on the altar of Communism? The answer will frighten you. Whatever it takes. For the means justify the ends.
+^x
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/who_lied_about_iraq.html
I am not sure that is the question to ask. Capitalism happens, like evolution happens. The strong eat the weak, there is a churn, some succeed and some fail. Happens everywhere and always.
The difference is how much the government takes as taxes. There is a low number for taxes, perhaps the tax level the US had before the Great Depression. There was enough money for roads, schools, police departments, and the military, and that was it. At some point later on, the top government tax rate was greatly increased. For example, India had a top rate of 98%, we had, what, 70% in the fifties, most of Europe has the same. In these social welfare states, capitalism exists, but the fruits of capitalism are distributed in equal share or nearly so.
This is the essential question. Not just whether Goldman Sachs should have more regulation (it should be illegal to sell a financial product that is dishonestly marketed) but whether the employees of GS should have 98% tax, and their salaries handed out. That is the question people are asking.
there has never been a free-market.
The free market and capitalism will occur whenever the government will only act to enforce (esp. contract) law. This will never happen because it always has the second job of having the monopoly on legitimate violence in order to accomplish this objective as well as the other job of ensuring the security of the populace.
We will never leave the state of anarchy no matter how many words we throw around. People are self interested and some of those people are in government. Look how easily the constitutional republic was corrupted; on the surface it was an excellent system, with the check and balances to ward off any aspirations of the above mentioned self interested people from permeating into the private world. All it took was four tries and we got a lasting central bank, along with a huge government expansion. How did it happen, even though the constitution prohibited most of these things? Because we live in anarchy. Because the rules and the law only matter insofar as what people do regarding them, break them enforce them and just altogether ignore them. Sorry people, but we have free will and because of that we can never leave anarchy. We can try to control it the best we can for the societal and individual good, with some preferring to stress one over the other, but in the end both means (individual or societal) will be used by people to get theirs.
PS Of course, now we have a few people using the societal setup of our system in order to exploit society (in this case anyone holding dollars) for personal gain, while before the set up was more towards individual plunder, which in my opinion is a bit more just in that the individual has a bit more choice in the matter, so it could be better to more more towards that system.
I have this theory that popular culture bubbles up from the bottom, and ethical culture trickles down from the top.
I think that's the Don Trickles Theory - where both trend lines flatten out like a hockey puck
GW - I am looking for the current application for the terms "Free market" and "Capitalism" and I would appreciate your input.. Would you care to provide yours?
George Will (blathering) on a Sunday morning show several years ago spit out the following:
A properly functioning free market system does not spring spontaneously from society's soil as crabgrass springs from suburban lawns. Rather, it is a complex creation of laws and mores... Capitalism is a government program.
It seems to be working as well as most other government programs.
Of COURSE you have to blame capitalism... along with democracy; socialism; banana republics; Abercromie & Fitch; the Red Stripe Beer guy (and the guy who can't dance without a Red Stripe beer); lies, damn lies and statistics; your mother for always asking you if you wanted to eat your veggies, then made you eat them after you said 'no'; your Dad for wooping your ass after you said 'yes' when he said 'just be honest, did you do it?'; Adam and Eve for eating that fucking apple; God for making us human; that stupid broad at the club last weekend in Cabo who only sucked you off because of your $80K sports car; that stupid broad at the club 5 years back in college who wouldn't suck you off because of your piece of shit $500 Dodge Neon; Saddam Hussein for burning 500 oil wells on his way out of Kuwait; the Exxon Valdez for decorating a perfectly good coastline; religious fanatics who can't take a joke; Kurt Cobain for ending the last decent musical revolution; Courtney Love for making him do it; Nike for just doing it; nuns for not doing it; Catholic priests for inappropriately doing it; and ah, who else can we come up with...
you forgot guys (like you and me) who prefer virtual wit to actual protest
+100
If there is any redeeming value the latter, it would be that it lends itself very nicely to the former.
In a true laissez-faire capitalistic society, greed is swiftly punished and other systemic distortions to the busness cycle are similarly purged by painfull, but short recessions..
Unfortunately what we have now (as we did in the '20's-30's is extreme interference by government actions that inject public and corporate socialism into the equation, which neither punishes (actually rewards) greed, or cures the systemic imbalances... it only prolongs the misery.. until the next bubble
Capitalism was on trial in the '30's as it is today..
Read Marx, and i mean READ HIM, not spit on him, and you will find out why capitalism can never be a long term economic solution. The same goes for any other form of economic superstructure. But of course, that would be against the dogmas being served in the last 100 years to the general population. Oh, don't mind me, I'm just being euro-trash and a moron.
Right again, Cheeky. It's the consolidations by the capitalists that ultimately poisons the pool and all who drink from it. Exactly what has happened today. And consolidation is taking another shot of growth steroids as the weak are absorbed or eliminated. This is the outward evidence of the third eye of capitalism.......looking at it, the damn thing just doesn't seem right.....yet the sheeple believe it's just a benign tumor .
I disagree that capitalism begets capital consolidation. Marx understood very well what he was seeing, but what he was seeing could not justifiably be called capitalism by anybody who understands what the term really means. The free market ceases to be free the minute the economic actions of people are coerced or curbed.
With a healthy respect of property rights (something that doesn't exist today) it is impossible to have capital consolidation under laissez-faire unless a business is able to out-compete everybody else, it's called an efficiency monopoly and it stops being a monopoly as soon as somebody else does it the same or more efficiently. Monopolies are unassailable if and ONLY if a threat of force (the State) protects its position.
Hanz Herman Hoppe says it way better than I ever could:
http://mises.org/books/Socialismcapitalism.pdf
And for an understanding of the nature of true free market capitalism none can do better than Ludwig von Mises:
http://mises.org/resources/3250
Well, I have previously written:
No Wonder the Poker Game is Ending: The Wealthiest Have Taken All of the ChipsBut that's not Marx - that's you can't play football if somebody walks off the field with the ball.
Isn't it?
Excellent.....thanx GW. Especially like the segment on the scrubbed up myth regarding small business.
I believe the grossly unbalanced wealth distribution is a SYMPTOM of the consolidated capitalist structure in the U.S. By God, the whole TBTF discussion we have everyday is rooted in it, but lasered more into the financials and bonuses. Si or no ?? If no, what else could cause such an inbalance ?? International trading pressures on U.S.wages is a strong suspect, but even THAT is subject to the consolidation dogma.
Today, even a small farmer buying patented soybean seeds from Monsanto can be sued for daring to hoard them for the next crop.
For the sake of intellectual honesty, I will admit that I've never read Marx.
What does the word "capital" imply? Money. When we have a publicly guaranteed monopoly currency that is managed by a private banking system, which feels fully entitled to siphon off as much value as possible, that might be "Capitalism," but it has nothing to do with a free and fair economic model.
George,
Why do you support free market capitalism? If you favor the regulatory process, you can't use any of those three words: "free", "market", or capitalism".
Freedom is the first thing that is lost during agency rulemaking. It substitutes independent thought and judgement with the edict of a bureaucrat. It's as if we need him to tell us how to live within the law. If that's the case, adults are reduced to the state of children; they simply are not able to distinguish between right and wrong (or legal and illegal). Is there any wonder why the theme of Wall Street is "what can I get away with today"?
The concepts of individual honesty and equitable trade have been almost erased from our business leadership. We are, in fact, judging the biggest banks like juvenile offenders. Since they have been wards of their regulators for generations, their guardians (and our federal Treasury) have taken responsibility for their horrible acts - despite everyone's demand that they be held accountable.
We should return to enforcing the fraud laws... and bankruptcy law. Capitalism, in my understanding, requires of the people at the very least: honesty and productivity. Until we repair those two, not all the regulators on Earth can save capitalism.
Capitalism is okay.
Capitalists are okay.
Killing the goose is not okay.
What does the word "capital" imply?
Money.
When we have a publicly guaranteed monopoly currency that is managed by a private banking system, which feels fully entitled to siphon off as much value as possible, that might be "Capitalism," but it has nothing to do with a free and fair economic model.
Wrong. Capital implies assets. Fiat Money is NOT an asset. What we have is theft, not capitalism.
Capitalism attempts to harness the hunter-gatherer instinct of the alpha male to take risk and be the great survivor and thriver. It is up to the rest of society to keep Atlas tamed and incentivized to be moral without losing the juice. What we have today is elected representatives selling entitlement schemes to a gullible public who think they can get something for nothing, and in trade we get fascism instead of a republic. Public servants need to be a volunteer operation, not career climbers or feather-bedders. Giving is living; lying is worse than dying.
I've said for a long time that being an elected representative shouldn't come with real pay, or if it does they shouldn't be allowed to vote themselves raises. Perhaps publicly voted pay rates. And anyway its another reason to repeal the 17th Amendment, to my mind. There used to be those who were grudgingly sent to the national congress by their state legislatures because they'd rather stay in their home districts. Long travel times and pay that wasn't so great were other reasons, but they'd go for principle, not principal.
Now the bling is a built in feature.
"is capitalism to blame?"
Get serious and use some common sense. You don't need charts and numbers and all this mental masturbation to to come to your senses. Capitalism is licensed Greed! Everything for the strongest. I pick my teeth with the bones of Ayn Rand.
Throw it out! wash! baby! the whole thing!
And what of its counterpoints? Socialism is license for the majority to plunder the minority. Fascism is a license to force the host to come to the parasite. Greed factors in both of those systems; annointed croneys rule.
Throw it out and replace it with what exactly? And why that one exactly (whichever one you propose)?
Same can be said to you. Emotional sloganeering is as unproductive as a FED printing spree; it makes you feel good for a while but the hangover is worse than the original problem, and thus can be said to be a form of masturbation.
At least physical masturbation tends to have a happy ending. Our policies (and your non-solutions) leave us flaccid.
I'm going to be ok. I don't need this system any longer.
"Emotional sloganeering is as unproductive as a FED printing spree"
Pointing at a naked emporer and exclaiming it has no clothes is far more rational than posturing a cool and unaffected sensible viewpoint that continues it's implicit support of the dominant paradigm. I would rather risk being called a fool by every person I hold dear to me than go along with this charade any longer. I am risking it. I will stand and fall alone. I alone am responsible for my life, my choices. I have taken my life back.
My greatest wish is that any person who has suffered the mental anguish, the fear of isolation from his/her peers and community for pointing out that a lie is a lie, will be emboldend to go alone into the dark night of freedom from the herd. Even if it is all for naught, at least one can rest knowing in their gut, real courage for themselves. They will be forever changed.
Then, and only then, one man and woman at a time, will humanity be taken back from the jaws of this awful beast called capitalism. It has become a Religion, the foulest of all Religions, because it's basis is not the salvation of the many, but of the few, the strongest, the oppressors. The best of humanity has strived against and vanquished this cancer time and time again. It has, again, gone out of remission.
I do not advocate for capitalism, socialism or any ism. Just treat your neighbor as you would wish to be treated, or better yet, in case you're a masochist or sadist, as you would've wished to been treated before the wound that rended your soul broken.
If it wasn't for the sentance prior to this one, I could've sworn you were describing socialism.
You mean, "Do whatever you want to do, so long as you not interfere with equal right of your neighbor to pursue his own interests. Live in a soceity where the wants and needs of my neighbor do not imprison me toward fulfilling those wants and needs" ??
no, do whatever you wish but do not violate another individual's freedom to exist as they choose either. the moment you decide that your freedom includes the exploitation or oppression of other beings, sentient or non-sentient, then you have given up your right to exist within the community. in the end, you'll have to know your neighbor, and in the very least, find some common ground in which you may both live your lives in a spirit of co-operation, in its grandest manifestation - you just might create heaven on earth.
That is precisely the definition of Capitalism.
That is the 'system' we have currently. A quick example: Taxing society to back-stop FNM, AIG, and GM is NOT capitalism. Yet, that's precisely what goes on in our society.
Perhaps the source of confusion here is not the underlying idea but the underlying definitions. Correct me if I'm being presumptuous, but it appears to me that you think our current system is capitalist. Whereas I think that it is not.
OK, if that's what you think, then we agree way more than we disagree. Especially about the looking like a fool part. I've been telling people what was coming (I'm no soothsayer, more like a weatherman) for two decades now, and as kooky as I looked, current events continue making me look prescient. I still get the eau de kookery look from people, but I no longer care. They proved to me a long time ago how willing they were to kneel and place the shackles on their own ankles.
read "Voices of the first Day". I know you will appreciaite it.
"At least physical masturbation tends to have a happy ending"
and as far as overpopulation's concerned, it's better than buckets
Capitalism works fine...as long as the entire system is not rigged by uber criminals.
Also, it is best to remember that greed is not actually good.
Corporate titans that actually have a conscience that is not seared helps too.
It seems obvious to me the FED should be dismantled, and most of the TBTF upper management need some serious prison time(GS especially).
Perhaps a financial apocalypse is the only way this can occur, due to the ridiculous capture of everything that even gets close to the financial system.And that is frankly a shame, since so many will get hurt....for years to come.
Socialism has a proven track record.Of total failure.The promise it holds is illusory, as it cannot be implemented in a way that will work.Blaming the system of capitalism for the actions of a group of scumbag criminals is hardly helpful, and is likely a feint for these same scumbags to steal even more.The recent health care bill is an example of this.
'Also, it is best to remember that greed is not actually good."
No kidding! Is this some kind of epiphany?
No, it is a response to an idiot that infamously said"greed is good".
peace
We are going to have a financial apocalypse, but a contrived one. One that will lead to the germ of the solution--already planted in the public record by such croney organs as the G20--to the resurrection under a global guise, one where the already hard-to-touch squidheads of Wall Street and central banking can relocate to their untouchable mountain redoubt of global central management.
The global plantation workers will toil for their global currency to the enjoyment of the global bankster class.
I think you are right.And that idea disturbs me greatly.The concentration of power it would produce will be truly evil, and so will the fruit.But just you watch...people will end up begging for it to come to pass.They will herald it as the beginning of a new age.Of course it will be.A new age of global slavery and savagery that beggars the imagination.
I agree.
But don't you think the biggest problem is the Fed that exploits
Capitalism and its unlimited power for the benefit of a tiny, tiny minority
(i.e. their own 'people')? Fed is, has been, and will continue to be the
centripetal force of all these big-scale financial collapses, and therefore of
the US economy. I'd put more weight on it than the money medium itself.
This is a useless debate, because there never has been free-market capitalism and there never will be. Just like socialism and communism were "fronts" for dictatoships, capitalism is a front for the kind of government/corporate cronyism and fraud that we have now. That we have always had.
Any kind of meaningful reform has to take into account the fact that people who love power and money will do anything to aquire more.
Bingo!
The Moral Basis for Capitalism – Man’s Mind
Genesis 30:41 And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous and had large flocks, female and male servants, camels and donkeys.
…and did Jacob not place the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters so that he may grow exceedingly prosperous and his flocks grow stronger than his brother Laban?
"large flocks, female and male servants, camels and donkeys."
I think that about sums things up,
especially the part about all the asses
As Foreclosure Nightmares Increase, Will More Homeowners Pay Off Their Bankers in Violence?
According to a series of brilliant exposes, McClatchy newspapers found that Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs peddled billions of securitized mortgages that it knew were toxic, and then capitalized on inevitable foreclosures through murky subsidiaries tasked with kicking distressed homeowners onto the street.
The callous practice was good for Goldman's bottom line: According to a recent report from the National Consumer Law Center, there's more money for mortgage companies in foreclosures than in loan modification. To reward itself for its purportedly legal duplicity for the holidays, when economic stress is at its peak, Goldman is giving its employees billions in bonuses, all while claiming to do "God's work."
http://tinyurl.com/ydb324z
Capitalism is the worst economic/social system, besides all the others.
You had me til Iraq.