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Should We Be "Scared" Of Capitalism?
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
Physicists Should Stick to Physics
We know already since Einstein that renowned physicists would do better to avoid straying into the field of economics. In 1949 Einstein published an essay on economics and education that is brimming with ignorance. According to Einstein, “The economic anarchy of capitalist society [is] the real source of evil”. Any old Marxist could have written that of course – the “capitalist anarchy of production” was routinely mentioned as an alleged drawback by Marxists, one that their “scientific” central economic planning would overcome.
Albert Einstein: great physicist, terrible economist.
Photo credit: Steffen Kugler / Getty Images
This conviction eventually cost the lives of hundreds of millions of people and utterly bankrupted half of the world for good measure. A representative quote from Einstein’s article:
“I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child.”
We have no idea what possessed Einstein to write this clap-trap. Was he not aware, in 1949, of the evils perpetrated by Stalin and the planners of the Soviet Union? Had he not heard of the purges, the famines and the Gulag?
There should be no need to mention that Ludwig von Mises already showed in 1920 that economic calculation is literally impossible in a society in which the State is the sole owner of the means of production. Moreover, a vigorous debate between F.A. Hayek and Lionel Robbins on the one side, and assorted supporters of central economic planning such as Oskar Lange and Henry Dickinson on the other side had been raging between the mid 1930s and early 1940s (previously Marxist writers had proscribed such debates on the basis of polylogism).
Possibly Einstein wasn’t aware of this debate, but a salient feature of it was that the socialist planners had been forced to retreat step by step, until in the end, the only proposal they were left with was that the central planning agency should try to “imitate a market”. As Mises remarked on this later (in Human Action, which incidentally was also published in 1949):
“What these neo-socialists suggest is really paradoxical. They want to abolish private control of the means of production, market exchange, market prices, and competition. But at the same time they want to organize the socialist utopia in such a way that people could act as if these things were still present.
They want people to play market as children play war, railroad, or school. They do not comprehend how such childish play differs from the real thing it tries to imitate.”
(italics in original)
If the socialists had succeeded in establishing socialism globally after the Russian revolution, the world would have been back in something resembling the stone age within a few short years. Society would have fallen apart, people would have been forced to lead a hand-to-mouth existence, barely subsiding. The only reason why the communists held on for as long as they did was that socialism was not implemented on a global scale. The planners were therefore able to observe prices in the capitalist societies, allowing them to engage in a rudimentary form of economic calculation.
Polish economist and “Market socialist” Oskar Lange: he lost the socialist calculation debate and didn’t even realize it, as he simply failed to grasp the essence of the argument. Poland’s economy was duly run into the ground by his fellow socialists.
Photo credit: W?adys?aw Miernicki
It is truly remarkable how deeply embedded socialist thought remains in society to this day, in spite of the downfall of the socialist Prison State in the late 1980s/early 1990s, after its utter bankruptcy could no longer be concealed (as an aside, we plan to soon post another article on the enduring popularity of collectivism, a phenomenon that strikes us as more than passing strange). Thus yet another popular and renowned physicist, namely Stephen Hawkins, has jumped into the debate, seemingly attacking capitalism. According to the Huffington Post, “Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots”.
To paraphrase Albert Jay Nock, it is downright absurd that socialist ideas are still so unquestioningly accepted that one is actually forced to discuss and defend capitalism, as if there were any other type of economy! An economy cannot be anything but capitalistic; without economic calculation, there is simply no rational economy to discuss. It makes no sense to call any other system an “economy”.
It follows that the only people who have reason to discuss the viability of the capitalist system are those who want to return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. But they can do that without trying to enforce their nonsense on anyone else. Surely there is enough room in the Amazon forest. If a handful of morons eager to shun civilization want to ship themselves there, we imagine no-one would object (such as e.g. the insane eco death-cult of Paul Kingsnorth in the UK; they probably wouldn’t do it though, due to the lack of wall plugs needed to recharge the batteries of their iPhones).
Production and Distribution are not Separate Activities
We are not sure why Mr. Hawking would object to capitalism. Does he not realize that without the free market economy (hampered as it is nowadays), there would be no modern physics as we know it? That the radio telescopes and the particle accelerators used by experimenters to check the validity of his theories wouldn’t exist?
Stephen Hawking, world-renowned theoretical physicist. He has inter alia published books on physics even laymen can enjoy, and which we highly recommend.
Photo credit: NASA
Here is what the Huffington Post writes about Hawking’s remarks (perhaps not surprisingly, French Marxist economist Thomas Piketty is mentioned as well in the commentary proved by the HuffPo’s author. In spite of the – in our opinion artificially blown out of all proportions – popularity of Pikkety’s tome, it is a book that is absolute garbage both in terms of theory and and its misrepresentation of empirical data).
“Machines won’t bring about the economic robot apocalypse — but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.
“If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”
Essentially, machine owners will become the bourgeoisie of a new era, in which the corporations they own won’t provide jobs to actual human workers.
As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital — such as stocks or property — accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up. But if Hawking is right, the problem won’t be about catching up. It’ll be a struggle to even inch past the starting line.”
(the emphasized part are Hawking’s own words)
First of all, as we have discussed in these pages on many occasions, inequality cannot possibly be a problem as such (here is an example from 2011: “Wealth and Income Inequality in the US”). It may produce envy, but that doesn’t mean inequality is a problem – envy is.
Let us simply consider two hypothetical societies. In one of them, every inhabitant makes the equivalent of $1,000 per month. Perfect equality! In another, three people make $6,000 per month each, while the rest make $2,000 each. Bad, bad, bad….there are three rich people! Rhetorical question: which one do you think people would prefer to live in?
The reason why inequality is seen as a problem nowadays, is that the incomes of the middle class and the poor have stagnated or even declined since the adoption of the full-fledged fiat money system in the 1970s, while already rich owners of assets have seen their wealth and income soar. Had everybody’s wealth increased, even if at unequal rates, there would be precisely zero reason to complain.
What is the reason for this deplorable development? It certainly isn’t the fact that the “machine-owners” (read: capitalists) have successfully lobbied against wealth redistribution” as Mr. Hawking avers. As a matter of fact, in the US a tiny minority of the population pays the vast bulk of the taxes the State then redistributes. As of 2015, the top 20% of income earners pay 84% of all income tax. It seems their “lobbying against wealth redistribution” hasn’t been all that successful so far.
The bottom 20% (up to annual earnings of $47,300) pay no income tax at all – on the contrary, they receive a net income tax benefit. The slightly dated chart below shows the situation as of 2012 (it shows the bottom 50% as a single group, so one doesn’t see the tax beneficiaries, but it also shows a more finely grained overview of the top earners and how much they are paying).
Wealth redistribution hardly seems to be a “problem” (chart by Erik Soderstrom) – click to enlarge.
As Murray Rothbard notes in Man, Economy and State, in a free market there is no such thing as “distribution” that is separate from production:
“The theory of the market determines the prices and incomes accruing to productive factors, thereby also determining the “functional distribution” of the factors. “Personal distribution”— how much money each person receives from the productive system—is determined, in turn, by the functions that he or his property performs in that system. There is no separation between production and distribution, and it is completely erroneous for writers to treat the productive system as if producers dump their product onto some stockpile, to be later “distributed” in some way to the people in the society. “Distribution” is only the other side of the coin of production on the market.
Many people criticize the free market as follows: Yes, we agree that production and prices will be allocated on the free market in a way best fitted to serve the needs of the consumers. But this law is necessarily based on a given initial distribution of income among the consumers; some consumers begin with only a little money, others with a great deal. The market system of production can be commended only if the original distribution of income meets with our approval.
This initial distribution of income (or rather of money assets) did not originate in thin air, however. It, too, was the necessary consequence of a market allocation of prices and production. It was the consequence of serving the needs of previous consumers. It was not an arbitrarily given distribution, but one that itself emerged from satisfying consumer needs. It too was inextricably bound up with production.”
(italics in original)
Murray Rothbard: production and distribution are not separate activities
Photo credit: Ludwig von Mises Institute
This leaves the question why the real incomes of the middle class and the poor have stagnated and declined – and the answer was already implicit in what we wrote further above. It is the unfettered fiat money inflation that has been in train since Nixon’s gold default that is to blame. Newly printed money always enters the economy at discrete points, and there will be earlier and later receivers of this money. Wealth will be redistributed from the latter to the former. The rich are in a better position than the poor, as asset prices tend to rise earlier and disproportionately relative to other prices. However, the central bank and its fiat money system are not capitalist free market institutions – they are socialist central planning agencies and tools.
It seems to us Mr. Hawking should be worried about socialism, not about capitalism. To be fair, we cannot really see as strong an indictment of capitalism in Mr. Hawking’s words as insinuated by the HuffPo’s author and the title of his article. Hawking definitely sounds a lot more harmless than Einstein did. However, he still seems to be advocating some sort of forcible wealth redistribution – plenty of which is already occurring.
Fear of Robots and the Problem of Scarcity
Hawking also seems to some extent express the fear of modern-day Luddites, that “robots will take all our jobs”. First of all, economic activity is primarily about producing more with less. It is about “economizing” – to relieve us of the drudgery of the pre-capitalistic order is its very object. It is absurd to complain and worry about its success in this department. The assertion that machines will “steal jobs” is of course as old as the first machines.
And yet, in spite of ever greater progress and ever more work being done by machines, human prosperity has continued to increase (by any measure one can possibly apply). Instead of jobs simply “disappearing”, different and better ones have taken their place. No-one can as of yet know what industries there will be in the future. No-one knew in 1990 that one day, a “social media company” would employ 10s of thousands of people and earn $10 billion per year.
Simply put, as long as there is more land (in the widest sense) than there are people on the planet, labor will always remain a scarce resource. What unemployment there is, is in part catallactic (voluntary), while the rest consists of “institutional” unemployment. The latter is to 100% the result of government intervention in the economy and specifically the labor market – it is not a result of capitalism or technological progress.
We also want to briefly address the belief that “robots will do all the work and produce everything”, the implied assertion that these production processes will somehow come for free, and that therefore only the “distribution question” remains. It is in a sense true that we are no longer constrained by a scarcity framework as long as we have a capitalist system. As Israel Kirzner wrote in this context in Discovery and the Capitalist Process – encapsulating both what we said above regarding the as of yet unknown future and the fact that capitalism is not confined by the problem of scarcity:
“We are not able to chart the future of capitalism in any specificity. Our reason for this incapability is precisely that which assures us . . . the economic future of capitalism will be one of progress and advance. The circumstance that precludes our viewing the future of capitalism as a determinate one is the very circumstance in which, with entrepreneurship at work, we are no longer confined by any scarcity framework. It is therefore the very absence of this element of determinacy and predictability that, paradoxically, permits us to feel confidence in the long-run vitality and progress of the economy under capitalism.”
However, “not confined” doesn’t mean that scarcity has all of a sudden ceased to exist. If not for scarcity, there would be no need to allocate resources properly. In fact, there would be no economic goods and no prices. We may not be confined by scarcity under capitalism, but we still have to deal with it; it is a fact of life.
A stern looking Israel Kirzner. Kirzner’s has produced highly interesting works on the entrepreneurial process, partly based on Hayek’s ideas about the role of knowledge in society
What many of the “robot worriers” overlook is that while we have enormous knowledge, and in theory could probably automate a great many production processes that are as of yet not automated, we are still faced with the fact that capital is scarce. The main reason why e.g. the Central African Republic is not at the level of development of an industrialized nation is precisely that it lacks capital. In other words, it is not “technology” or know-how that is the obstacle to the Utopia Hawking imagines to come into being – it is scarcity.
Caution, job thief!
Image credit: DARPA
However, if the problem of scarcity were licked once and for all, why should there still be a problem of distribution? As we noted above: scarcity is why there are economic goods that have prices. The air we breathe is an example of a non-scarce good. Has anyone ever worried about its “distribution”? If there is no longer any scarcity, i.e. once Utopia or the Land of Cockaigne has been achieved, everything will indeed come for free. There will no longer be anything worth stealing and redistributing.
Conclusion
Stephen Hawking is undoubtedly a nice man and a genius in his field. This is probably also the field he should stick with. Anyway, we can lay his worries to rest: once there is no longer scarcity in the world, nobody will have reason to worry about wealth redistribution. Of course, it’s also not going to happen anytime soon and probably never will. There is also no reason to worry about employment while at least vestiges of a free market exist: as long as there remain unsatisfied human wants and as long as there are more resources than people, everybody will find work. The only real problem is government intervention in the market process.
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Of course not
But we shouldn't be surprised when 'Diminishing Returns' set in
My hair brained theory is that capitalism works (better than any other system at least) provided it is carefully, continously, and impartially refereed, as there is a fine line between exploitation of workers vs the snuffing out of hard work, risk taking, and sacrifice. The problem is we can't referee. There is no rule of law, the corporatocracy takes over and collides with the aging democracy, which in my view, is destined to devolve into socialism as it approaches the end of its life span.
Democracy, like a person, gets old, gets debilitated, corrupted and needs to die so a new one can take over.
Since we can't really govern ourselves in the long run, not much hope for ever keeping capitalism on a level playing field.
I would point out a couple of things.
First, both Einstein and Hawking relied on socialist handouts and grants for their salaries and funding.
Secondly, Hawkings has been famously wrong about the major issues of his generation including entropy of black holes (his own pet subject) and he took so many years to accept String Theory that he has been left behind on that entire branch of physics. Steve is still not up to speed and lost a famous public bet to rival Leonard Susskind who has gone on to change our entire view of how our universe works. Hawkings is now the heliocentric dogma eating old man.
Third, as physicists and mathemeticians it is not surprising Einstein and Hawkings don't like capitalism because it is a constantly evolving complex process of human behavior and activity which defies elegant mathematical answers to be found. It's a process defined by it's activity, like an ecosystem, not a machine defined by it's parts.
".........as Physicists and Mathematicians it is not surprising Einstein and Hawkings don't like capitalism because it is a constantly evolving Complex Process of Human Behavior and activity which Defies Elegant Mathematical Answers to be found....."
Superb Commentary and ABSOLUTELY Correct......
There is indeed an "Answer" to Markets, but it is "Relative" NOT Mathematical; it is "The Gravity of Capital".
This is why all attempts at a Mathematical Formula will Ultimately Fail, and ALL "Black Boxes" in every manifestation, are inherently Fraudulent.
Jim Simons and others will once again be taught there is No Mathematical "Answer".
And parenthetically, I figured out the Universe has no Beginning or End when I was a little boy, sans the Ph.d.....
Capitalism is "two years". That's all it takes for one blessed with the privilege to double their investment and remove it, leaving their equal gain to ride and give them the title "capitalist". After the two years they have none of their own skin in the game at all!
Why in the world do we let them control traders and claim a piece of every transaction?
Vera Lynn-I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qTqm42bCW4 (3:37)
i'm forever blowing bubble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvuOtlpSAeY (2:56)
"Intellectuals and Society", by Thomas Sowell.
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/10/congress-declares-martial-law-as-dol...
Ironically, you can add Isaac Newton.
Ref: TD guest post 'sovereign man' 12/10/2013
Newton went broke during stock bubble
wow
these capitalism trolls make us anti-Russian, anti-US trolls look like Girl Scout Brownies.
Means of production in the modern age is social production. Factories where multitude of workers collaborate together to turn raw materials into something useful.
How can the fruits of social production of many become the private property of the few?
The private ownership of the means of production (social production) is one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism.
This fallacy in capitalism also leads to the rampant inequality in modern capitalist societies.
It is interesting that the author brands any kind of central 'planning' as socialist, where as the centrally planned giant reserved banks of today's capitalist systems have nothing to do with marxist socialism.
This fallacy in capitalism also leads to the rampant inequality in modern capitalist societies.
Capitalism is not an ideology. It's a spontaneous process. That argument is about as silly as blaming the inequality in human genes.
The article above appeared to me as kinds of head-on collisions of bullshit trains.
I believe that physical science and political science should be reconciled. However, actually doing that results in demonstrating that civilization necessarily operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime, while all of the various "isms" end up primarily becoming bullshit to bury that essential social fact under.
Although "free market capitalism" abstractly appears to most closely approach how natural selection systems have operated, it can not be fully understood until after one adds fraud and murder into that "free market capitalism," after which that "ism" looks nothing like what it theoretically is supposed to be, but rather, becomes more like what actually exists now, namely that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
Nothing has ever existed in human history that was ever remotely close to the dictionary definitions of socialism or communism. Furthermore, the existing social facts about how governments ENFORCE FRAUDS by privately controlled banks, around which public "money" supply have grown up various corporations, also have almost no relationship to the dictionary definitions of how "free market capitalism" is supposed to work. Banks making "money" out of nothing as debts is like making "capital" out of nothing, which effectively destroys the idealized concept of "capital."
The essential stupidity in the conclusion of the article above was:
Governments were developed through the history of warfare, as the outcome of the de facto "free market in murder." Upon that basis, the best organized gangsters, the banksters, were able to capture control over the public powers of governments, through persistent and prolonged applications of the principles and methods of organized crime to the political processes. The notions of producing and/or saving, in order to produce more, are eroded and undermined by the defrauding, whereby the public "money" supplies are made out of nothing, as debts, in order to pay for strip-mining the planet's natural resources. The triumphant, runaway, government ENFORCED FRAUDS by privately controlled banks, are systematically destroying the producers and/or savers, since the "money" which was supposed to represent "capital" is more and more being made out of nothing as debts.
That monetary system has become like parasites killing their host, or like a metastasized cancer which became untreatable and inoperable, due to society becoming terminally sick and insane, due to the social successfulness of organized crime, driving runaway criminal insanities, within a political economy which still pretends that it operates as "free market capitalism" in which production and saving to produce more is the basis of "wealth," while "wealth" for the oligarchical plutocracy is being able to dominate POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS.
Most physical scientists are astonishingly naive when it comes to politics. They tend to fail to recognize the degree to which the dominate philosophy of science was forced to compromise with the biggest bullies' bullshit world views. While it is theoretically possible to better reconcile physical science with political science, doing that necessarily results in developing the theories that explain the empirical social facts, that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. Therefore, progress in political science results in a head-on collisions with how and why civilization is controlled by systems of backing up lies with violence, which are socially successful to the degree that those facts are not faced and admitted.
The article above was another typically goofy example of a reactionary revolutionary, engaged in superficial analysis, based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, which were expressed using nonsensical labels, as contradictory "isms," none of which ever come remotely close to reconciling their dictionary definitions with the social facts. There is only one energy, and hence there is only one political system, and that necessarily most closely matches the principles and methods of organized crime. That social situation get buried under bullshit due to the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals being able to dominate society, so that their bullshit social stories about themselves get promoted, by the vast majority of people being taught to believe in those kinds of bullshit state religions.
I recently repeated the philosophical basis for my approach under this:
The Deep State: Source Of All NegativityNothing exists but the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. ALL "ISMS" tend to be the bullshit that endeavours to conceal that. On more abstract levels, human artificial selection systems were made and maintained by natural selection systems. After life exists, then the death controls are central to the natural selection pressures, which surrounded and shaped the artificial selection systems.
All political economy existed inside of human ecology. The core of the human ecology was the death control systems, with the most extreme forms of that being the murder systems. What exists now are combined money/murder systems, whereby the debt controls are backed by the death controls, through the banksters effectively controlling governments, via POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS. The history of warfare made civilization, and that was done by the death control systems developing to become the most socially successful through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries. Upon that basis was constructed the political economy, wherein financial success became based upon ENFORCING FRAUDS (despite that such a series of short-term successes drives society as whole in the longer term to become psychotically insane, because being able to back up lies with violence never stops those lies from still being false.)
The essential nature of the political problems we face are that the death controls, backing up the debt controls, are central to everything else, but that those developed to become best done through the maximum possible deceits and frauds. All public discussions about political economy tend to become utter bullshit, because everyone was proportionately successful within the established ENFORCED FRAUDS by becoming the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. The intense paradoxes are that what human being should debate are their death control systems, that back up their debt control systems, however, since the existing systems became most socially successful by becoming the most deceitful and fraudulent, it is politically impossible to have any relatively rational public debates about those issues. Rather, what is typical is the kind of article above, which drowns under the bullshit that it takes for granted, (which was also the same kind of bullshit that those physicists were also continuing to take for granted.)
I am totally in favour of endeavours to better reconcile physical science with political science, however, when actually doing that we discover that our death/debt controls are central to everything else, and that natural selection pressures have driven those artificial selection systems to become based upon the maximum possible bullshit "isms." Therefore, what WE SHOULD BE SCARED OF is the prodigious progress in physical science, which has NOT be surpassed by progress in political science. WE SHOULD be developing better dynamic equilibria between better systems of organized lies, operating robberies. However, all of the most dominate sociopolitical systems have become based on the maximum possible bullshit, both with respect to how they understand themselves, as well as with respect to how they present themselves to others.
Human beings and civilization operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, which manifest as ENFORCED FRAUDS, which have become based on the maximum possible attitudes of deliberate ignorance towards the principle of the conservation of energy, and the maximum possible deliberate misunderstanding of the concept of entropy, so that we are now living inside of Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds, where everything is as absurdly backwards as possible, since governments are necessarily the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, while their social successfulness is based upon them being able to get away with their denials of that.
On Zero Hedge, the typical articles and comments somewhat present the social facts that reveal how governments ENFORCE FRAUDS by privately controlled banks, which became the systems upon which the rest of the political economy, dominated by corporations, developed. However, mostly the content on Zero Hedge then continues to collapse back to the same old-fashioned bullshit, based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and therefore, proposes bogus "solutions" based upon impossible ideals.
To reconcile physical science with political science requires recognizing that there is only one energy, and therefore, only one political system, which manifests as fractal patterns of the principles and methods of organized crime, where the death controls are always necessarily central to everything else. People who promote "free market capitalism" tend to deliberately ignore the history of warfare, being the de facto "free market in murder." Furthermore, they also tend to not address what sort of alternative death control systems would work through their so-called "free market capitalism," given that all private property is based upon backing up claims with coercions, while money is measurement backed by murder.
The BIG PROBLEM is how to operate the human murder systems after the development of weapons of mass destruction. So far, there are no good answers to that PROBLEM, but only runaway social psychoses. Prodigious progress in physical science, which has enabled the mathematical physics in areas like quantum mechanics and the special theory of relativity, have been channeled through social pyramid systems based upon backing up lies with violence, to become ENFORCED FRAUDS, that now take the form of globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs.
The physicists who enabled those technologies to be developed tended to continue to be incompetent political idiots, outside of their specialized fields of study. It would take series of intellectual scientific revolutions, whereby there were profound paradigm shifts in political science, that integrated and surpassed those paradigm shifts already achieved in physical science, in order for political science to advance. However, we are running out of time for such processes of paradigm shifts to occur, since those used to take several generations to happen in the past. At the present time, the human artificial selection systems, based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, are being pumped up and UP at an exponential rate by progress in physical science and technology, while nothing remotely like that is allowed to happen within political science. Rather, politics continues being dominated by various old-fashioned religions and ideologies, that are nothing more than the various layers of controlled opposition that surrounded the core of organized crime.
Progress in political science would necessarily have to become progress in understanding and applying the principles and methods of organized crime, because progress in politics would necessarily have to become better death control systems, to back up better debt control control systems. All of that should be done by better understanding of how human artificial selection system fit inside of natural selection systems. However, at the present time, all of that is politically impossible. Instead, the established systems of debt slavery have generated numbers which have become debt insanities, which are going to provoke death insanities ... while the vast majority of people do not understand that, because they have been successfully conditioned to feel like they do not want to understand that ...
Here's an example of what can happen when business is allowed to operate unfettered: http://tinyurl.com/qhvt89h
At 16 minutes and 10 seconds in the the most recent Keiser Report (E821) Ian Fraser, author of “Shredded: Inside RBS, the Bank that Broke Britain” Fraser nails precisely what the problem is : Integrity.
People come in all sorts of different shades, from highly moral and self-restraining to the down right psychopathic. Sadly it's for that reason murder, rape, mugging, theft and fraud - all manner of crime - occur everyday.
Civiziled societies have laws in place to deter individuals from committing crime and have the means in place to punish those who do. It's because people come in all sorts of different shades, including in the world of business, capitalism should not unfettered any more than society.
Without rules you quickly get a break down in society. Thankfully our societies haven't broken down (yet) because laws are still in place and people (by and large) obey them. The same cannot be said of business - banking and finance especially - and that is why a crash occured in 2008 and we have continued to lurch from one financial crisis to the next ever since.
Rattle those chains a little louder, slave.
Can you elaborate on what you mean?
Your belief that the State is the source of order from chaos is a quaint religious belief caused by indoctrination.
Does he not realize that without the free market economy (hampered as it is nowadays), there would be no modern physics as we know it?
---Only a imbecile cocksucker would write this. Why did Tyler post this moron's article?
My thoughts exactly.
You have to be epically dimwitted and stunningly scientifically illiterate to get a basic truth ass-backwards like that...
I FIND THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE OFFENSIVE IN ITS COMPARISON OF EINSTEIN TO HAWKINGS.
HAWKING IS A MENTAL MIDGET WITH A ONE TRICK PONY. EINSTEIN WAS A GREAT THINKER THAT WON THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR THE PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT AND INVENTED A REFRIGERATOR STILL USED FOR COOLING IN MODERN DIESEL TRUCKS. OH YEA---------HE INVENTED FUCKING GENERAL RELATIVITY.
HAWKING IS A MIDGET.
THIS IS LIKE COMPARING FUCKING POLITICALLY COMParingh Stevie Wonder to Johannes Bach. are you fucking for real? fuck hawkings.
I want to downvote you for all ALL CAPS use.
But I didn't.
Your point is not made better by yelling.
If solcialism is so great an economic system as Einstein believed , why did he flee Germany and come to the U.S. why not go to the Sovet Union or any other non capitalist country?
Talk is cheap.
You seem to be implying that stalinism was socialism...yet I bet you have no trouble admitting that what we have now is not capitalism...
Rule #1: Truth doesn't require a fucking "brand".
Socialism versus capitalism is a battle for power and control.
Capitalists despise socialism as it represesents the monopoly of power for public good, which, they say, without capitalist drive is used inefficiently.
Soclialists despise capitalism as it represesents the monopoly of power for private good, which, they say, without a moral compass is used corruptly.
Ultimately both are about putting power in the hands of a small elite and that is what is at the core of every problem we face. Perhaps its time we stopped putting power in the hands of an elite once every four or five years and learned to trust ourselves, The People, by making great improvements to and making more frequent use of democracy.
How did the argument go from class struggle in the 19th and early 20th centuries to this argument of ideologies today? Seems the disinformation campaign has divided and conquered and made people forget that its always been about getting rid of the oligarchs and the aristos.
"The bottom 20% (up to annual earnings of $47,300) pay no income tax at all..."
This is one of those disingenuous points that keep coming up, and it really turns off a potential audience who may be looking for a new paradigm. The poorest of the poor in this country (the US) are taxed to death. Your minimum wage check is hit by social security and medicaid, you pay sales tax, you pay property tax if you rent. You pay any local taxes and fees and fines. But the specific category of "Federal Income Tax" doesn't start for most until after 7k or so for a single person, a little more for those with dependents.
Does it sound reasonable to say that 7k is a good place to start taxing the poor? These people who are championing the Free Market should educate themselves a little better on the other side of the story, the one they don't deal with very often. It immediately turns the new crowd off the messagel, because all they hear is another pointy headed rich asshole telling them how great they have it because they are broke ass poor.
The poor in the US have no "safety net" to speak of. There are no jobs for 94 million people. There is no affordable rent for those who get the part time low wage jobs. And you can't move out to the woods and eat fucking squirrels because the cops will come and ruin your day.
There is nowhere to turn. There is no hope in the system. And there is no leading figure on the horizon to unite the people and give them hope.
The atmosphere is ripe for disaster or opportunity.
Every point you make is a problem created by government. Alll of those regressive taxes, property, sales and SS and Medicare are, of course, government mandated. And the only reason there is unemployment is government taxes, laws and regulations.
Didn't Einstein flee Germany, a socialist country, to live in America, a capitalist country?
modern economy's know they value work
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largess eliminates thieves with new names, titles, and social tools that they value highly
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everyone can live with modern "change" as long as it it brought up to their face
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hell they are trained to love it
I use to feel bad that Steven Hawking repulsed me. Some lingering sense of Christian charity. But since he turned out to be a nasty atheist socialist progressive as well as a repulsive cripple I don't feel so bad.
I'm fed up with getting ripped-off for everything wherever you go shopping.None of the cheaper prices of products that are made in China are passed on to the consumer.It's corporations and their networks of middlemen that make all the money.Even when you go to the grocery store everybody knows produce is triple profit just for the store alone.Furniture is at least double wherever you go.I used to know a furniture salesman and the prices to the public are absurd.I spoke with a fellow who used to work at WalMart and even there they double and triple their money on everything,it's shown to them right on the electronic guns they use for inventory.This is everywhere in our society.It's true about wages compared to gold from 1965 up until today.It's all crooked today,that's why nobody is buying because wages aren't keeping up with how far everybody is in debt,It's from all this endless gouging.People have to wake up.I myself for a long time now have stopped being a consumer.Only buy the bare minimim of what you need in a store.Cut down for instance on the amount of red meat that you eat.You only have it once a week.I can buy really good second hand furniture from people advertising that they are moving overseas,etc.There's no need to go into debt because a lot of these prices at the stores are based on corporate greed and their stock price on the Stock Market.Piss on all of them.If it's on sale and you don't need it,it's not a sale.Be thrifty and stop supporting crooks,become more self-sufficient.
The existence of corporations is government interference in the free market.
Those who complain about the "middle men" have no idea what they are talking about. And, I am not inclined to inform them at this time.
Both Einstein and Hawkings relied on government handouts and grants for their salaries and funding so of course they like socialism?
Hawkings is overrated. He was famously wrong about the entropy of black holes (his pet subject) and he took years to accept String Theory and has been left behind on that entire branch of physics. He also lost a famous public bet to rival Leonard Susskind who proved Hawkings wrong and went on to change our view how the universe really works. Hawkings didn't do that. Hawkings is the irrelevant dogma eating old man in this story.
But it is surprising that Einstein and Hawkings don't like capitalism because it is not dissimiliar process to the scientific method that constantly seeks to come up with better and better ideas and ways to do things.
There is no incorruptible system that can be made by corruptible man. Sorry about that.
Only the weak, the fearful fear Capitalism and liberty. They fear it because they are afraid to fail and fall behind. True Free Market Capitalism and liberty are life, they are natural selection. The people who put in the greatest amount of effort, discover new improved ways of doing things, and possess the largest amount of experience prosper in a free and true capitalist society. In life it is the same. Tigers can hunt well because of their fangs and claws and their spots for hiding. Zebras can survive by running quickly for long distances and by blending in with their stripes. Of course there are unpredictable or un-equal outcomes in Capitalism and freedom but there are also un-equal and unpredictable outcomes in life as well.
But the weak are afraid. They are afraid to live in a society where each person is held accountable for their individual actions and the possible outcomes of such. They fear standing down the barrel of a gun held by a criminal. They fear the truth that perhaps the lie they have created about everyone being completely equal in all aspects is not true. They fear having to make businesses honest themselves through investigation and organized boycotts.
They forget what was responsible for the rise of their own countries and what allows them to succumb to their fear without being swallowed up by reality. But the time is coming where this "facade" of "equality", multiculturalism, and government economic control will come crashing down on its head. Then reality will set back in. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Vae Victis.
["Only the weak, the fearful fear Capitalism and liberty."]
Albert Einstein "the weak" ? -- Settle down Beavis.
["Of course there are unpredictable or un-equal outcomes in Capitalism and freedom"]
A socially and financially unequal starting line has always had a statistically predictable outcome and will always will.
["The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."]
Until the galley slave hold their oars still, you are right on that one...
If you think the disabled man in that chair is actually the one speaking through that computer i have a bridge to sell you lol.
His handlers are speaking through it and every public appearance he makes is staged and scripted and prepared well ahead of time. Of course they are using this tool to push the same agenda the pope and every other regime puppet is pushing at the moment, if you cant see the agenda here your not paying attention.
Both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking are absolutely right.
“I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child.”
In Iceland this system Einstein proposes is already in use.
One of the main industries that support Icelandic society is the fishing industry. The natural resource itself, the fishing stocks, belong to the people of Iceland, but quotas for use of the stocks are issued by the state in accordance with recommendation by the state owned independent Marine Research Institute. http://www.hafro.is/index_eng.php
The privately owned fishing companies have acquired the the quotas by investing in politics and have their own political party to push their interest, the Independence party.
The Marine Research institute monitors the conditions in the sea, the condition of the fishing stocks and the Eco system as a whole. Then quotas are issued in concordance to make sure the Eco system is not harmed by over fishing and proper balance is kept within the system.
If the Independence party, who is a right wing capitalist party, would be in control, all state owned assets would be privatized, overhead like the Marine Research Institute would be cut, the Coast guard who patrols Icelandic waters would share that fate.
The fishing companies would see record breaking tax free quarters for a year or two, and then they would share the death and destruction they inflicted on the sea.
This is pretty obvious, only simpletons and people blinded with greed fail to see this.
It seems that there are some people who want to revive old illusions like the Free Market Capitalist idea. There has never been a market that is not "managed" by special interest groups.
The old world is dead, and nothing will ever bring it back. The new system that was supposed to take over has been as successful as previous ideas coming from this pit of idiocy it spews from.
Ideas like free market capitalism morphing into Neoliberalism for the benefits of deregulation and privatization etc.
If you look at the system as a whole, the trend is that large companies and the super rich, those who control large sums of money and have invested in politics, are trying to simplify the system by getting rid of democracy and getting a more direct control for themselves.
They don't care about capitalist or socialist politics, they use what ever works to get the results needed.
A future world view for them could be a United states of Europe, a entity that has full control of Europe and is not democratic. This entity could be influenced by special interest groups trough lobbying and trade agreements.
This setup can be used to create a machine that eats up all civil liberties and freedoms, seen as benefits by twisted minds.
This machine could in the future control a large part of the worlds markets and products, it could even design and produce its own consumers.
God, Glory and Government... mans 3 worst ideas... EVER.
This is all rationalizations generated from believing in "free markets" that never existed and the financial oligarchy that has always controlled every major division of "The Market", including the value of money, both metal, oil or paper. "The Market" isn't going to ride in on a White Horse and save us from Socialism, which has also always been controlled by oligarchies, political.
Both of these Geniuses are giving us good advice and you should take it.
Our nation wasn't built upon the concept of either of the two elite groups. A Republic is a state that acts on behalf of The People. Neither Capitalism, nor Socialism work. This has recently been proven. The two together work better than either by itself. But, still, there will be discoveries that will better serve The People so, we shouldn't be dogmatic.
The main Founders were not Dogmatists. They were open to whatever worked "For the General Welfare". They were like Yevgeni Primakov's disciple, V. Putin or Franklin/Hamilton's disciple, A. Lincoln. Certainly, they didn't believe in useless terms, yet to be created, that described myths, around which dogmas would soon be promoted by British Empire Corporate think tanks, ("Capitalism" or "Socialism" or "Communism" or "Fascism") to short circuit some American style Revolution showing its face in other "colonies" of that Empire.
"an essay on economics and education that is brimming with ignorance"
Yes! I noted the overwhelming stench of ignorance throughout this entire essay! It is so distinctly American to have these sorts of useless binary arguments about tangential issues. It is so definably conservative to label any critique of our current economic and political system as "socialist." According to you, if you don't embrace, wholeheartedly, our failed crony capitalist system, then you must, by default, be a pinko-commie.
It's sophistry and you're not fooling anyone.
"We have no idea what possessed Einstein to write this clap-trap. Was he not aware, in 1949, of the evils perpetrated by Stalin..."
Yep. If you don't like capitalism and the obscene theft of wealth from the poor by the rich, then the only other possibility is that you are a Stalinist. There is not, nor can there ever be, any middle ground, any incremental reform.
Give me a break.
"one is actually forced to discuss and defend capitalism, as if there were any other type of economy!"
You're right! The only economic system that ever existed was capitalism. Oh wait, except for feudalism, which directly pre-dated it and was so vastly different that it required observers to coin a new term ("capitalism") to differentiate the new system from the old. And barter never existed, apparently. Or collectivism, practiced by Occupy Wall Street, the early Christian church and Reformation communities like the Mennonites. And remember to ignore fascism (defined by Mussolini as the fusion of state and corporate power), where giant corporations take over the government and use it to further their own economic interests while running competitors out of business. That never existed as an economic model. It certainly doesn't exist now. Except that it did and does. And let's not forget Empire, which is an economic system of military take-over of foreign nations, followed by the systematic looting of the conquered populace so that spoiled domestic populations can be pacified with wealth stolen from enslaved people. We certainly don't see that one being practiced anywhere today. No. You're right. The only two economic models are crony capitalism or Stalinism. You have to choose. One or the other. There is no other way.
Idiot.
"The reason why inequality is seen as a problem nowadays, is that the incomes of the middle class and the poor have stagnated or even declined since the adoption of the full-fledged fiat money system in the 1970s"
You're kidding. Right? Because this is a colossally ignorant statement. You seriously can't find any other causes of inequality? Like tax policy which allows giant corporations, like BofA and GE, to avoid paying any taxes, while the middle class gets audited and locked away? Or crony capitalism which awards handsome, no-bid, cost-plus contracts to Halliburton while everyone else gets food stamps? And regulatory capture, which allows favored companies, like McDonald's, to get exemptions from regulations, like Obamacare, that bankrupt other businesses? I hope you are just being facetious.
Yet I fear that you aren't. Sorry, but the stench of ignorance is so great, I can't even finish this disgusting screed.
Here's the bottom line. "Capitalism," as a word in popular parlance, did not exist until the 1800s, at a time when the Industrial Revolution was really taking off in Europe. The word arose to denote an economic system divided between the bourgoisie, those who owned the factors of production (factories and machinery) and those who had nothing and were forced to work for the bourgoisie. Many thinkers and analysts wrote tomes describing the drivers of this process. Adam Smith theorized that it was an "invisible hand" magically causing this to happen. Those who were worthy became wealthy while the rest deserved the horrific work conditions in the factories and the deplorable living conditions in the tenement apartments. The children with rickets and missing limbs also deserved it.
For those of us who don't believe in magic, Karl Marx had a much more accurate description. The bourgoisie stole the factors of production from the poor and then forced the poor into such desperation that they had to work in the factories. This true history, which Marx called "primitive accumulation," and which David Graeber chronicles in his book, Debt, The First 5000 Years, is how the rich became rich and how they remain rich today.
Those who live in the real world understand that capitalism devolves inevitably toward monopoly, crony capitalism and ultimately, slavery. Everyone but you figured that out in the late-1800s/early-1900s and again in the 1930s. That's why every capitalist nation has strong regulations to prevent abuse and to provide a minimal safety net for those being preyed upon by the rich. When you read some real history, you will understand this.
Should we "be scared" of capitalism? Not necessarily, but we should be afraid of willful ignorance masquerading as Truth. We should be scared of preposterous straw man arguments and revisionist historians claiming to be experts. We should beware of propagandizers and defenders of the status quo. In short, we should be scared of you.
An astonishing claim. Can we claim that the Roman Empire or bronze age civilization had a capitalist economy? If we do, the term has no meaning any more. They did have markets and progress though, but very different ideas about property rights.
Is it about property rights then? Well no. All the land in America would revert back to the native Indians if property rights were sacred. Moreover, we could easily kill the 85 people who own as much as the bottom 3.5 billion on this planet and give their property to somebody else. This would not create even a ripple: capitalism would continue as it had before.
The arguments about the real problem being that we are not pure in our capitalism is like those of religious people: the problem is not the ideas in the Islamic faith or in Christianity, but the problem is that there are not enough people actually living in accordance with the faith.
Does the author not know that income tax is not even half of all government revenue (incl. states and municipalities)? Or that the proportion of revenue owing to income tax has steadily risen while revenue from wealth taxes has steadily decreased the past 100 yers?
The whole piece is befuddlement from beginning to end.
Einstein was lucky he was not killed by American govt. (& west) similar to John Lennon
And mabbe lets see Hawkins fate
Crony cabal capitalists & banksters call the shots
NO!
This could not have been even a little more wrong!
It is so wrong that almost visually distorts the world around the very monitor I am viewing it on.
Shoo-shoo CIA-century-old-propagandist-bulshit, shoo-shoo responsible-for-the-misery-of-all-and-the-massacre-of-billions agent Smits.
and sincerely fuck off in hell where you belong