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Socialists, Central Banks & Credit Is Not Capital

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

It may just be fitting that it is May Day weekend, the old remembrance of the once “great” destructive force of international communism. Of course, it still resonates largely because its proponents view it from the standpoint of actual purity. Stalin, you see, never really practiced it; as such it has supposedly never really been tried. Repeating that lie long enough has left generations susceptible to the same cowing interpretations.

Normally, these fascinations with Marx and Marxism are left to the ivory towers of academia, who have apparently taken heart to the KGB’s “liberation ideology” and brought it to America’s college youth. I don’t mean for this to be such a political discussion, but it is somewhat unavoidable. After all, one of the most trending topics on Twitter earlier this week, just in time for May Day itself, was #ResistCapitalism.

The open spaces for this backlash are provided neatly by the recovery that doesn’t exist outside of various DSGE and GARCH models central banks employ to tell us how well they have done. Today’s youth are being inundated with Marxism that once appeared ridiculous in obviousness, but now contains, seemingly, some righteous prescription. This is not just “inequality” but it isn’t apart from it either, as stock bubbles and the very real lack of wage opportunity sharpen this great sense of divide.

From the perspective of anyone who appreciates actual freedom and free markets, there is an easy answer to the problem – that all these neo-socialists that don’t appreciated the irony of being “afforded” the opportunity to resist and renounce capitalism by all its very successful fruits. They are confused over the nature of capitalism itself, as maybe should not be so unappreciated or unexpected since it has been buried for some decades now. The smartphone technology and the internet fabric that draws it all together, the very means with which the Marxists gather each other for more comforting online serenades about how much better the world would be under more “equal” terms, is actually more ancient. The capitalism revolution of the information age was birthed and came of age long before Alan Greenspan started directing key economic variables from his computer.

The last two generations have seen nothing but the financial version and have heard it proclaimed and embraced as the true avatar of capitalism. If you were to ask anyone at Occupy Wall Street (if they could be resurrected out of their own anarchical self-destruction) the target of capitalism’s most dire edges, the name of the movement itself gives off the very answer – they view JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs as the true leading lights of capitalism.

That was never the case before in our history. Banking has always played a special role, and a vital one, but that was because of true money and not so much the dedication that modern pretenders have for debt and credit. The financial domination that came about starting in the 1980’s was unique to the capitalist tradition even though central bankers have claimed to be fully compatible. It is somehow taken as such because the Fed can intrude massively – but only up to a self-determined point. A point, by the way, that keeps getting moved further and further into what was once free asset markets.

And that is largely the unappreciated factor of the “recovery” such that it actually exists in the real world that is abhorred about it, that central banks do not represent capitalism at all in the 2010’s, if they had at all prior to 2007. They have absconded with the label and betrayed everything about it. The attempts to kill each and every currency, including the modern “dollar”, are not at all consistent with actual capital. Capitalism itself produces and describes a stable currency not one that is manipulated at the whims and will of a central elite authority.

The purpose of all this intrusive nature through finance is actually to dethrone the defining quality that makes capitalism so useful in society’s advance – dynamic destruction. The central bank, as any central government, abhors discord and disorder, and thus appeals of all its tools to deny dynamic processes in favor of what it thinks amounts to stability. And, indeed, that is exactly what they have produced and exactly what the young Marxists are railing about.

The fires in Baltimore right now are certainly caused by decades of progressive policies being carried out, that the “investments” of government are the only ones to be made. But what Baltimore has become on a smaller scale, like that of Detroit, has been leaking into the wider system for some time too. The results are exactly the same – if you analyze the major problems of these large inner cities where disturbance is so sharply turning up the common feature is stability; in other words, these places don’t ever change despite the untold promises and unimaginable millions (maybe billions) spent on that direction.

 

If you are to describe the US (and global economy) right now, stability is exactly the problem. The socialization of money has taken place for exactly that reason, discounting the role of variability in fostering actual economic growth and sustainable advance. Monetary policy is dedicated to a “smooth” existence, one without too much peaks and valleys – and we have certainly attained that if only after an impossibly deep valley. That is the “deflationary vortex.”

Socialism’s essential appeal is “order”, including the idea of “equality” (of result) within that order. Central banks have been agents with which to attain it, especially that while they heighten the divisions among the supposed rich and poor, they have also guided a massive increase into that latter category. The equality of result has been, through heavy and repeated monetarism, to make more Americans impoverished and thus fulfilling at least parts of the expectations of socialism’s effects.

For all the supposed divisions with the economics apparatus, it remains highly restrictive to anything but a financial-led recovery. And that is precisely the problem as it relates to socialism. That isn’t capitalism, at all, and the continued reverence for all things banking and interbank are killing whatever chances there are to break free of this malaise before the socialist impulse turns rapidly more intense. The true disappointment of 2008 was that the same framework was left in place, and thus another true crisis might well be necessary to finally get beyond it. However, the longer this goes on, and the tighter Marxists twist capitalism toward the Fed, ECB and BoJ, the greater the possibility that free markets do not come out the other side – at all.

As all good socialists, central banks have locked the global economy onto but a single path without any possibility of choice. And to do so they have, ironically, taken cues from today’s communists. The lack of recovery is, they say, that pure Keynesianism has never been tried, as even all that Keynes-type stimulus done throughout the years was “not the right” amount or type. And so it is being prepared that we go all through it again, with updated formulas, regressions and theories that don’t amount to the slightest bit of “science” as they are never permitted to be countermanded by actual observation.

That is, I think, the true appeal of the entire endeavor to begin with, as socialism in all these forms promises not only order and equality but a scientific, and thus objective, means to describe and deliver it. None of those characteristics are true, of course, as even the most complicated and elegant econometrics is essentially a prevarication and twisting of inescapable subjectivity into what can only look like science to those that don’t understand the mathematical limitations – and they are numerous. If there were truly science at the end of all this socialization of money, they wouldn’t be repeating, to all exclusions, the same thing over and over.

Bernanke argues against the Journal, and Krugman is associated in both and against both, but in reality their disagreements are truly superficial amounting only in the degree to which the same thing has or hasn’t happened; there is no difference between any of them in the formal processes they wish to see.

 

The Fed has been saying, all along, that the recovery must either be financial in character or nothing at all. If it isn’t driven by credit and debt then they don’t want it. And so they haven’t got it.

Despite the radical alteration as to what is taught in “business” schools, credit is not capital and it will never be. No amount of math will make it so, but the longer it remains operative the greater the potential we all end up with something even worse.

Happy May Day Weekend...

ABOOK March 2015 Bernanke Money y and T Bubbles2ABOOK May 2015 Economy GDP v HoursABOOK March 2015 Long Run PotentialABOOK May 2015 Labor ImbalanceABOOK May 2015 Int Rate Targeting

 

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Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:02 | 6057146 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Shut up and buy your ObamaCare comrade so the insurance company CEO's can get their bonuses, its all for the Common Good! 

Look at the happy, smiling faces of the college grads prattling on about the menu choices at Applebees while serving the apparatchiks, why, its pure socialist nirvana! ;-)

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:08 | 6057160 g'kar
g'kar's picture

Now get back out to the collective and grow those GMO peas. You know we don't eat enough peas.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:10 | 6057164 kaiserhoff
kaiserhoff's picture

Yes, saving the jobs of the banksters hasn't helped anyone else.

Tough time to be young, and getting worse.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:14 | 6057169 Oracle of Kypseli
Oracle of Kypseli's picture

Hey, old friend use the /s there has been an influx of newbies

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:21 | 6057184 nmewn
nmewn's picture

lol...its up to them to separate the wheat from the chaff, I'm gonna have to assume they are tired of being lied to and are smart enough to recognize it ;-)

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:45 | 6057365 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Hey comrade can I interest you in a politburo approved P2P CDO?

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 06:28 | 6057760 nmewn
nmewn's picture

lol...image of a banker standing at the entrance to a dark alley, wearing a ushanka and a trench coat, opening one side of the coat to reveal bundles of paper for us to sign ;-) 

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 08:05 | 6057904 HowdyDoody
HowdyDoody's picture

Acting on behalf of the 0.01% is Socialism? Only in America.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:18 | 6057173 crazytechnician
crazytechnician's picture

Fuck Off. It's all for the Socialist Common Good. You know , armies of useless dumb fuckers who could not create value if all they had to do was take a nice big shiny fresh shit on the pavement (sidewalk in US btw). Instead they get these dumb-ass jobs (the lucky fuckers that is) or just get on the dole which still just involves ponsing value from some other fucker who actually creates value / wealth , you know one of those Capitalist Cunts,

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:35 | 6057222 nmewn
nmewn's picture

You do know I refuse to use the sarc tag right?

Free Corzine! ;-)

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:40 | 6057231 crazytechnician
crazytechnician's picture

fuck the s/ tag ,

s/ .......

Free Madoff !!!!!!!

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:11 | 6057292 nmewn
nmewn's picture

lol...they always go looking for a unconnected patsy don't they?

"Oh look, heres one now, throw him in jail! Justice is done peeps, carry on as you were!"

Meanwhile, Buffet can move his piece around the monopoly board aquiring the Reading Railroad to transport oil while the peeps grouse among themselves about cheaper transport like pipelines, just sheer fortuitous coincidence that a pipeline is held up by someone he supported.

And of course execs being told they will accept Fed loans un-asked for (or what, be jailed?) and the destruction of the age old concept of fiduciary duty and long held law of secured bonds by a known charlatan (Rattner, Mr.Pension Fund-Car Czar his own damned self) walk away smiling like cats having reached into the bird cage.

My list is as long as my memory and by no means is it complete just yet ;-)

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:18 | 6057177 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

"Got-dammit I ordered fries!"

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:44 | 6057241 j reuter
j reuter's picture

I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.jobs-review.com

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 08:40 | 6057999 doctor10
doctor10's picture

"the purpose" of banking, finance, and government is to serve society's needs.  It has become totally inverted-where those running those institutions believe the peons and peasants exist for their pleasure.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:05 | 6057155 Sockeye
Sockeye's picture

Whatever it takes...for the greater good.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:16 | 6057174 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

Usually around 9mm comrade.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:18 | 6057179 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Bah, a couple stingers in the head and they'll stay down.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:16 | 6057167 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

This is not capitalism indeed. It is in fact a rigged game.

 

In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood: the principal way is through commercial banks making loans. Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money. The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks: • Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits. • In normal times, the central bank does not fix the amount of money in circulation, nor is central bank money ‘multiplied up’ into more loans and deposits.

 

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/...

Read it and weep... because sooner or later we are all going to weep.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:31 | 6057205 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Its a small club and we ain't in it.

But ya gotta admit, some of the domestic & foreign policies being pursued are the bankers/financiers wet dream.

Theres a whole lotta borrowin goin on up deah! ;-)

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:45 | 6057245 crazytechnician
crazytechnician's picture

"Its a small club and we ain't in it"

You really think so ?

Think again , Einstein.......

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:21 | 6057318 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

I think you may wish to reconsider the letters t-e-c-h-n-i-c-i-a and n

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:40 | 6057350 crazytechnician
crazytechnician's picture

??

Do you really know what "head" actually means ?

Get some and you won't be so pissed off ....

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:06 | 6057217 crazytechnician
crazytechnician's picture

Not necessarily. Debt Based Money Supply It is a classic Ponzi Scheme. In any and all Ponzi Schemes there are "Winners" and there are "Losers". Foretold is Forearmed, therefore , ergo:

All you need to do is position yourself to be a winner.

Bitcoin , BTChez..........

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:18 | 6057307 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

Bitcoin > EMPcoin (as in electromagnetic pulse coin) > OBITcoin (as in obituary coin)

"And it's gone..."

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:36 | 6057334 crazytechnician
crazytechnician's picture

I congratulatute you for being at the top of the fucking idiot class.

Well Done , Bravo.

First of all bitcoin is resistant to multiple global EMP because it is a globally enabled , totally de-centralised system (that may fly well above your level of understanding , in that case, sorry)

If there were global EMP sufficient to take out bitcoin , bitcoin would be the last of your worries. First of all the internet and power grid would be down , then the cellphone network would be down , all banking , ATM , Air Traffic Control , GPS , etc would also  be down. The last thing you would then be worrying about would be the bitoin network.

 

 

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 00:58 | 6057651 PrettySkulls
PrettySkulls's picture

all he is really saying is:

if the power goes off the value of a bitcoin is zero.

This is true because one of the properties of "money" (or currency, since the only difference between the two is that money is a store of value) is tranferability. No power = no abilty to transfer = no value as money/currency

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 03:55 | 6057713 JustUsChickensHere
JustUsChickensHere's picture

When the power goes off, the Dollars in your bank account are worth zero as well.

The major currencies in the world are now just as vulnerable to an EMP event as Bitcoin...

The advantages Bitcoin has over national currencies exist while the power is on.

Used properly, Bitcoin can protect against asset freezes/siezure ... and marauding ex-wives.

 

However, as usual diversify ....Gold and Silver, and some local currency in notes under the mattress too.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:26 | 6057198 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

Central banks deal in debt, IOU's and promises that will never be kept, because it's perfectly ok to rape the schmucks.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:37 | 6057226 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

FM...comedy gold. From Jesse's

 

"This appears to be reaching a criminal dimension,"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/03/us-germany-spying-nsa-idUSKBN0NO0G820150503

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 22:19 | 6057436 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

Zion giving the DC US a nice view and taste of the undercarriage of the bus.

Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.

 

Zion as they take up domicile once again in Europe, "Wasn't me."

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:42 | 6057232 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

somebody call 9-1-1. i didn't get supersized fries with my crony crapitalism.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:59 | 6057268 Weaponized Innocense
Weaponized Innocense's picture

Oh I see u ain't crippled enough as it is...

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:13 | 6057289 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

not crippled at all. i'm a cave dwelling midget mutant and i want some god damn fries! besides, gmo spuds fried in gmo veggie oil is good for my complexion. it helps me maintain my natural greasy glow.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 20:55 | 6057265 Weaponized Innocense
Weaponized Innocense's picture

Death for the unneeded competition. But they don't calculate so rationally.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:22 | 6057290 atlasRocked
atlasRocked's picture

Tell your liberal friend that proclaims Obama not prosecuting the banks was being an ally of the bankers "you're pushing a fraud story." Why? 

1. Obama not prosecuting the banks and being anti-corporate are aligned behaviors, not in conflict at all. The last pro-corporate administration with a banking crisis put 1000 bankers in jail after the S&L crisis. Bankers all know you have to jail co-workers that commit crimes because if you fine them, the fines simply get passed to the customers or whoever is subsidizing the banks (US govt future tax payers), and you remove the incentive to adhere to the rules. 

2. All lawyers are trained in control fraud and know full well a monetary credit system fails without jail sentences. If you want to destroy fractional reserve banking - don't jail the perps, fine them. The system will destroy itself because the incentive not to commit crime will be eliminated. Obama went to Harvard law school right? He learned in full that jail sentences are ESSENTIAL to fractional reserve banking.

3. Yep, Obama doesn't say too much nice about rich folks either, right? He is anti-corporate and anti-rich, and not prosecuting the banks is aligned with both ideologies, He punishes savers and bankers - creates embedded, lifetime criminals out of them. Perfect alignment of liberal philosophy, Obama's dialogue, his behavior and abuse.

 

 

Printing money and anti-capitalist behavior/talk align as well, not in conflict at all. Keynes said printing money destroys a society. Again - alignment of democrat anti-capitalist philosophy and behavior.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 22:44 | 6057491 mvsjcl
mvsjcl's picture

Huh?

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 21:54 | 6057384 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

Thing is, capital can be borrowed, but only real capital from real savings.

Real saving are production not consumed, but saved. The original idea behind banks was to match real savings with businesses that desired to increase production with investments in additional capital equipment, and/or new technologies. The expectation was that the loans would be self liquidating from the increased production of the business.

Loans of "printed" fiat money to bushiness is not based on real savings, but on grift and fraud. As a result, this fiat-capital misallocates capital to production that will ultimately be shown not to be in demand. As such, the misallocated capital will be wasted, and the economy worse off than before.

I.e. prosperity cannot be "printed."

Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.

 

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Malinvestment

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 22:01 | 6057394 Billy Shears
Billy Shears's picture

I'm guessing that English isn't the native tongue of the economists/writers at Alhambra; the piece could use some serious proofreading and editing. Holy smoke!

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 22:04 | 6057397 Weaponized Innocense
Weaponized Innocense's picture

I'm sure for those who profit off empty promises to those living in the socialist system voting for u just to take money from targeted individuals who believe in capitalism not voting for u then alsheimers policy repeating itself makes sense until all the other peoples money is gone due to sanctioning ambition.

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 22:11 | 6057412 Goldilocks
Goldilocks's picture

Simon says: Arms up. Simon says: Arms down. Simon says: Arms up. Arms down.

~//~

"Gamer" - Official Trailer [HQ HD]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g94xQmtHw (2:31)

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 22:24 | 6057450 scatha
scatha's picture

It seems to me that author is completely confused about socialism, capitalism, role of power elites and their banking system. Yes. It’s their banking system and has always been.

For brief but unique comparative analysis of “real” socialism and “real” capitalism i.e. system that actually was implemented under the name regardless of it’s academic definition I suggest:

https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/pools-and-propaganda-...

An honest and interesting discussion on origin of money within human society and its derivative namely financial system and its “products” can be found at:

https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/plutus-and-the-myth-o...

For those still infatuated with “free” markets I suggest fresh look at financial propaganda of deceit at:

https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/invisible-hand-and-other-paranoid-delusions/

For those believing that economy is rational science and economic condition are result of laws or rules of economy I suggest interesting read on wage economy at:

https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/slaves-of-wage/

And for those who after years of being bombarded by propaganda about Marxism and K. Marx from both sides of political divide I found very interesting and comprehensive read on politically motivated myths and misconception about Marx and his writings.

https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/subversive-ideas-of-karl-marx-lessons-unlearned/

 

Sun, 05/03/2015 - 23:27 | 6057558 Wait What
Wait What's picture

"After all, one of the most trending topics on Twitter earlier this week, just in time for May Day itself, was #ResistCapitalism."

one of the things you ol' timers don't get is that the current version of anti-capitalism is not the same as the old Cold War anti-capitalism. It's more of a Fight Club anti-capitalism, which is a very different animal.

It doesn't take long to figure out that whatever version of 'capitalism' is being employed now is a parasitic, more-is-always-better, we-want-every-dollar-you've-got kind of system that is hell bent on driving us into debt to force us to do the bidding of TPTB. it's the same reason you see so much in the media abt sex+alcohol, and kids these days.

debt and children are the 2 primary ways you keep people from revolting, force them to toe the line. even if they've got principles about nothing else, most people feel compelled to keep their promises & protect their children from harm. eliminate those 2 variables and you've got what Thomas Huxley once descibed "One of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to go about unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled dog, not under proper control."

"God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 10:28 | 6057741 falak pema
falak pema's picture

What a world, when the demise of US style bubble-o-nomics fed on FIRE asset hyperinflation juiced up on perennial debt and slave labour arb globalization mantras meets its Nemesis in Statist plays to right the boat of nation states and people's democracy.

The two headed Janus is on both sides of that divide in the name of civilization! Gog and Magog.

Charybdis meets Scylla and we are in the jaws of that awesome Odyssey in the making! 

You can hear the Sirens scream and the harpies screech : Its not US it's THEM ! 

Play on Pax Americana's hegemony to an age that has no legacy to leave behind except the dollar is not what we thought it was! As for the rest...its a question of who controls the energy pipeline.

This whole morph has been about OIL and energy; the rest is all hyped games of thrones hidden behind a tinsel curtain of ideological/religious sectarian sleight of hand rolled into a package of clash of civilization.

When civilization spells out its lies like God given truth it dies in front of our eyes. 

Btw : for a poster to proclaim Credit is not capital is like saying water is never hot, always cold. Anybody who has ever looked at a balance sheet of a company or state KNOWS that Owned Capital is the SUM of assets and LIABILITIES.

To say Credit is not capital is confusing Capital and Equities. Credit is not Equity, agreed, but it is CAPITAL! 

Otherwise we would never have need for banks !

Can someone answer me on this ! Tyler how come you have such weak posters!  ???

The whole PURPOSE of Capitalistic entrepreneurship is to use capital resources, owned or borrowed, to achieve a ROI thru your venture which is greater than the risk-assessed cost of credit, aka gives a better return than the market for a similar level of risk.

Today, in bubble-o-nomics that cycle is now dead. Doesn't mean credit is a bad thing, just too much credit, in a Oligarchy planned, manipulated and steroid pumped, bat-shit blind market !

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 06:15 | 6057747 Dajd45
Dajd45's picture

" As all good socialists.." Oxymoron, and moronic in more ways than one.

Mon, 05/04/2015 - 07:45 | 6057843 Billy Bob101
Billy Bob101's picture

So true!  We no longer have capitalism, we have financialism - the reduction of everything to fiat dollars and cents, which make central control simple and inevitable.  The power to tax is the power to destroy.  I don't think we still have a viable private sector in the economy, at least one with any  independence from the public sector.  Without independence it is actually part of the public sector.  In other words, we no longer live in a free society, or a free country.  We have the illusion of freedom, just as we have the illusion of capitalism. 

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