From:  "Wayne Morrow" <wayne.morrow@yahoo.com>
Subject:  FYI
Date:  Sat, December 4, 2010 9:34 am
To:  "Kevin Craig" <KevinCraig@KevinCraig.us>
 

Kevin,

 

You seem to agree with the material on this website and it's utopian vision of laissez faire capitalism.

Like John Adams, I am a utopian:

http://vftonline.org/Patriarchy/definitions/utopia.htm 

Capitalism.org is the website for the moral social system: laissez-faire capitalism.

1. What is capitalism? 

Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. The term capitalism is used here in the broader philosophical political sense, and not in the narrower economic sense, i.e. a free-market.

2. What is a capitalist?

An advocate of laissez-faire is known as a capitalist, i.e., novelist Ayn Rand is a capitalist; i.e., though economically Engels came from a wealthy background, politically he is recognized as a socialist/communist because of his ideas.

3. What should I do first?

Visit the Capitalism Visual Tour first. The Tour is the most popular feature of this site. The rest of The Capitalism Site assumes you are familiar with the material provided in the tour.

Capitalism.org is a fan of Ayn Rand, so the website is way too hostile to religion to suit me. But otherwise it's OK. 

"Zero Aggression Principle":
A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.
Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.
— L. Neil Smith, "Who is a libertarian?"

"Although the Zero Aggression Principle seems to have a number of historical sources, it's unclear who first thought of this extremely simple yet revolutionary formula. Thomas Jefferson got it right—"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him"— consistent with the concept that rights are negative, and making the all-important distinction between initiated and defensive force. I first heard of it in an Ayn Rand essay"
"once the Zero Aggression Principle has been brought into the ethical discussion, nothing can ever be the same again. Anyone who is aware of the Zero Aggression Principle and refuses to live by it, or promise to, is giving himself away. He is the bad-guy, at least potentially, reserving to himself a right that he mistakenly believes he has, to beat you up or even kill you, should he deem it necessary or simply convenient sometime in the future. What he's saying is that he cannot be trusted, not as a friend, not as a neighbor, not as a colleague, not as a comrade.
-- The Zero Aggression Principle

True capitalism has not failed because it has never been fully implemented.

It can be argued that the Declaration of Independence has never been fully implemented. I still support it.

but the same can be said of every socio-politico-economic system because there never are any pure examples in the real world.

But throughout history, the closer we have move toward Freedom, and the farther we have moved from fascism and government power over economic activity, the more prosperous we have become. Conversely, the stronger the government, the greater the poverty.

You claim that capitalism, which doesn't exist in it's pure laissez faire form, produces the highest standard of living; not that it could or would, but that it has,. However;

There are several organizations that measure freedom, such as http://www.heritage.org/index/  The conclusion is consistent: the freer the nation, the higher the standard of living. It's a measurable and obvious correlation. Conversely, the more the government initiates force to prevent people from making the economic decisions they would voluntarily make, the more the trend is toward poverty.

The 2010 report by UNDP was released on November 4, 2010, and calculates HDIs based on estimates for 2010. Below is the list of the "Very High Development" countries:[7]

 
 Norway 0.938 ()  
 Australia 0.937 ()  
 New Zealand 0.907 ( 17)  
 United States 0.902 ( 9)  
 Ireland 0.895 ()  
 Liechtenstein 0.891 ( 13)  
 Netherlands 0.890 ( 1)  
 Canada 0.888 ( 4)  
 Sweden 0.885 ( 2)  
 Germany 0.885 ( 12)  
 Japan 0.884 ( 1)  
 South Korea 0.877 ( 14)  
 Switzerland 0.874 ( 4)  
 France 0.872 ( 6)  

Norwegians enjoy the second highest GDP per-capita (after Luxembourg) and third highest GDP (PPP) per-capita in the world. Norway maintained first place in the world in the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) for six consecutive years (2001–2006),[3] and then reclaimed this position in 2009 and 2010.[16]

GDP is criticized on both the left

http://dieoff.org/page11.htm 

and the right

http://mises.org/daily/3843 

The Norwegian economy is an example of a mixed economy, a prosperous capitalist welfare state featuring a combination of free market activity and large state ownership in certain key sectors. The state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, such as the strategic petroleum sector (Statoil), hydroelectric energy production (Statkraft), aluminium production (Norsk Hydro), the largest Norwegian bank (DnB NOR), and telecommunication provider (Telenor). Through these big companies, the government controls approximately 30% of the stock values at the Oslo Stock Exchange. When non-listed companies are included, the state has even higher share in ownership (mainly from direct oil license ownership). Norway is a major shipping nation and has the world's 6th largest merchant fleet, with 1,412 Norwegian-owned merchant vessels.

I have criticized the Scandinavian model here:

http://KevinCraig.us/scandinavia.htm 

This article seems to describe your philosophy; 

Yes, I would describe myself as a Christian anarcho-capitalist.

Anarcho-Capitalism

My anarcho-capitalism bibliography is here. Somewhat dated, I'm afraid.

Anarcho-Capitalism is a system devised to promote liberty without the need of a government. In the place of an agency designed to protect individual rights, Anarcho-Capitalism involves the competition of several such agencies. The belief that this will promote liberty and efficiency stems from economics, where competition of companies produce better products at a lower price.

There is "government" in every family, in every school, in every business, in every non-profit organization or voluntary association. But there is no initiation of force, no threats of violence, no "taxes," no incarceration, no waterboarding, no armed invasions. All those are the province of "the State."
http://kevincraig.info/government-rjr.htm  

Anarcho-Capitalism misunderstands one of the most essential goals of government. Any particular use of force must be judged by others in society as either an initiation of force or retaliatory force. Any initiation of force is a threat to everyone, not just the particular victim. Anarcho-capitalism assumes that only the two agencies (criminal's and victim's) would be involved. In reality, the primarily role of government is to judge this use of force. In practice, whichever force is dominant in the region will make their judgments stick. This is called government. It is not only necessary, but unavoidable.

The "essential goal of government" -- especially as it has evolved in the modern world -- is not retaliation of force against individuals who have violated the rights of another individual. As a percentage of a government budget, this is a tiny, tiny fraction. This tiny fraction can be taken care of by a Free Market. Call it "government" if you wish. The term is unimportant. but a world without everything the government does (minus the tiny fraction of the budget directed toward retaliation against aggression against individuals)  is a different world.

In a democracy, the people ("society") decides what kind of force is legitimate, either by voting for those who would use a certain kind of force, or, in a free market, by hiring them. Voting destroys accountability.

Anarcho-capitalism rests on the several flawed notions. First, that putting force on the marketplace will produce positive results. Since markets only produce positive results when the use of force is banned, it is a non-sequitor to say that competition will produce better government. Also, the results of the market are good by the standard of the value-judgments of individuals. It is impossible to say that liberty is what they value.

If there is a demand for the services of a retaliatory force-user, markets can provide them. People can hire retaliatory force-users just like they hire the provision of any other service. 

Anarcho-capitalism (the abolition of the State) will only come about when the market values liberty more than government-"guaranteed" security.

A second flaw is that it requires a single rule to be followed by all the protection agencies. That they do no bar competition through the use of force. But this is absurd. Today we have governments that do not allow competition. Why do anarcho-capitalists think they can count on this?

The only rule is the zero-aggression policy. All other "rules" are administrations of this one rule, and consumers can choose which agency administers this rule in the best manner.

No "entity" can be counted on: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." We must continually teach, promote and reinforce the zero-aggression policy.

Another basic assumption is that if people don't like a particular agency, they can give their money to another instead. Well, if this were true, why don't they do it today? The fact is, an agency, since it deals in force, can force people to be its "customers". Anarcho-capitalists evade this fact.

Government forcibly exercises a monopoly on retaliation. No agency is allowed to enter the market to compete with the government. Private arbitration relies on boycotting, not retaliatory force.

Anarcho-capitalism is an imaginary construct that cannot exist in reality. It is based on flawed understanding of government, society, and economics.

None of these conclusions were proven above.

Here is a biography of a classmate of mine at the University of Missouri, class of 1964. Perhaps you have heard of him.  Lay, who was considered the epitome of American capitalistic entrepreneurism, was a pal of G W Bush.

Considered? By whom? Not by anyone who calls himself a capitalist and defends capitalism.

I'm no friend of G.W. Bush.

This is the kind of person you are defending from slander. 

Nonsense. It's not slander if it's true.

Kenneth Lee "Ken" Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman, best known for his role in the widely reported corruption scandal that led to the downfall of Enron Corporation. Lay and Enron became synonymous with corporate abuse and accounting fraud when the scandal broke in 2001. Lay was the CEO and chairman of Enron from 1985 until his resignation on January 23, 2002, except for a few months in 2000 when he was chairman and Jeffrey Skilling was CEO.

Fraud is not defended by a single person who calls himself a capitalist and defends capitalism 

http://www.cato.org/research/articles/taylor-020121.html 

Enron was a creature of socialist government policies.

http://KevinCraig.us/enron.htm 

On July 7, 2004, Lay was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of securities fraud and related charges.[1] On January 31, 2006, following four and a half years of preparation by government prosecutors, Lay's and Skilling's trial began in Houston. Lay was found guilty on May 25, 2006, of 10 counts against him; the judge dismissed the 11th. Because each count carried a maximum 5- to 10-year sentence, legal experts said Lay could have faced 20 to 30 years in prison.[2] However, he died while vacationing in Snowmass, Colorado on July 5, 2006, about three and a half months before his scheduled October 23 sentencing.[3] Preliminary autopsy reports state that he died of a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease. As a result of his death, on October 17, 2006, the federal district court judge who presided over the case vacated Lay's conviction.[4] There have been conspiracy theories surrounding his death

 

Lay was born in Tyrone, Missouri, the son of Ruth (née Rees) and Omer Lay.[6] His father was a Baptist preacher and some-time tractor salesman. When Lay was a child, he delivered newspapers and mowed lawns. Early on, he moved to Columbia, Missouri and attended David H. Hickman High School and the University of Missouri where he studied economics, receiving a B.A. in 1964 and an M.A. in 1965. He served as president of the Zeta Phi chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the University of Missouri. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Houston in 1970 and went to work at Exxon Mobil Corp. successor of Humble Oil & Refining soon after.

 
Historical examples:  

Rockefeller and Carnegie: why were they called robber barons?

 

Though a century has passed since the heyday of the great industrialists and financiers, debate continues: were these men captains of industry, without whom this country could not have taken its place as a great industrial power, 
or 
were they robber barons, limiting healthy competition and robbing from the poor to benefit the rich? 

Rockefeller and other rich folk know that the best way to get rich and stay rich is not to take food stamps from the poor, but to get hundreds of millions of middle class consumers to buy your stuff.

To the extent they limited healthy competition, they did so using the government. There is no other way.

Where do we draw the line between unfair business practices and competition that leads to innovation, investment, and improvement in the standard of living for everyone? Would the industrial economy have succeeded without entrepreneurs willing to take competition to its extremes?

Did you read the link I sent concerning the robber barons?

http://mises.org/daily/2317 

It has been argued that we are now in a comparable economic period, the formative years of the Information Age. Certainly we continue to struggle with similar kinds of questions about fair and unfair business practices and the benefits and costs of competition. Does the industrialization of America at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century hold any lessons for us today? Can market forces exert sufficient influence to rein in potentially harmful practices or does government have to intervene?

This question cannot be answered without specifying the "harmful practices" in question.

 Glen Beck is not a reliable source of information on anything, let alone Fabian Socialism.

I don't watch Beck -- or any other TV show -- regularly. I don't think Beck claims to be a "source," but rather a reporter or popularizer of sources such as Jonah Goldberg, who I think are generally reliable as far as facts go, though I might disagree with their pro-war opinions.

The first Fabian Society pamphlets advocating tenets of social justice coincided with the zeitgeist of Liberal reforms during the early 1900s. The Fabian proposals however were considerably more progressive than those that were enacted in the Liberal reform legislation. The Fabians lobbied for the introduction of a minimum wage in 1906, for the creation of a universal health care system in 1911 and for the abolition of hereditary peerages in 1917[3].

Was this written by Glenn Beck? 

Are you saying it's inaccurate, or that it corrects Beck?

Fabian socialists were in favour of reforming Britain's imperialist foreign policy as a conduit for internationalist reform and a welfare state modelled on the Bismarckian German model; they criticised Gladstonian liberalism both for its individualism at home and its imperialism abroad. They favoured a national minimum wage in order to stop British industries compensating for their inefficiency by lowering wages instead of investing in capital equipment; slum clearances and a health service in order for "the breeding of even a moderately Imperial race" which would be more productive and better militarily than the "stunted, anaemic, demoralised denizens...of our great cities"; and a national education system because "it is in the class-rooms that the future battles of the Empire for commercial prosperity are already being lost"[4].

I oppose imperialism.
I oppose the impersonal socialist welfare state.

I oppose the minimum wage.

I oppose taxes on capital.

I oppose government "slum clearances" (whatever THAT is!).

I oppose American students being #31 in a recent international math competition, with China, Singapore, and Hong Kong taking the first three slots, a result of fabian socialist "national education system."

The Fabians also favored the nationalisation of land, believing that rents collected by landowners were unearned, an idea which drew heavily from the work of American economist Henry George.

I can understand a criticism of rent, but then moving toward a national landlord seems like curing the common cold with a good stiff case of bubonic plague.

Beck is unable to see that this clip he says is from G B Shaw is a representation of the thinking he was opposed to. Shaw gives an examp;le of what he is against and Beck thinks it is what Shaw promotes.

Are you saying Shaw was not a Fabian Socialist?

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, PLAYWRIGHT: Just put them there and say Sir or Madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence?

 

If you can't justify your existence, if you're not pulling your weight in the social boat, if you're not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us. And it can be of very much use to yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw 

This is a good example of what capitalists believe in and what socialists are opposed to.

 

Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of Libertarian Marxism, known as Left Communism,[1] emerged in opposition to Marxism-Leninism[2] and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism, and Trotskyism.[3] Libertarian Marxism is also critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats.[4] Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France;[5] emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation.[6] Along with anarchism, Libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.[7]

http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/2126_47e.htm 

Criticism of capitalism

 

Marx believed that the capitalist bourgeois and their economists were promoting what he saw as the lie that "The interests of the capitalist and those of the worker are… one and the same"; he believed that they did this by purporting the concept that "the fastest possible growth of productive capital" was best not only for the wealthy capitalists but also for the workers because it provided them with employment.[12]

I believe in a harmony of interests.

Socialism: Class Warfare vs. Harmony of Interests

A person is exploited if he or she performs more labour than necessary to produce the goods that he consumes; likewise, a person is an exploiter if he or she performs less labour than is necessary to produce the goods that he consumes.[13] Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour — the amount of labour one performs beyond what one receives in goods. Exploitation has been a socio-economic feature of every class society, and is one of the principal features distinguishing the social classes. The power of one social class to control the means of production enables its exploitation of the other classes.

The Fallacy of "Intrinsic Value" - labor theory of value

In capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern; the value of a commodity equals the total labour time required to produce it. Under that condition, surplus value (the difference between the value produced and the value received by a labourer) is synonymous with the term “surplus labour”; thus, capitalist exploitation is realised as deriving surplus value from the worker.

 

In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion. In the capitalist mode of production, that result is more subtly achieved; because the worker does not own the means of production, he or she must voluntarily enter into an exploitive work relationship with a capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary in that he or she chooses which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve. Thus, exploitation is inevitable, and that the "voluntary" nature of a worker participating in a capitalist society is illusory.

 

Alienation denotes the estrangement of people from their humanity (German: Gattungswesen, “species-essence”, “species-being”), which is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others, and so generate alienated labourers.[14] Alienation objectively describes the worker’s situation in capitalism — his or her self-awareness of this condition is unnecessary.[clarification needed]

Marx's Religion of Revolution -- good refutation of "surplus value" theory

 

The identity of a social class derives from its relationship to the means of production;

 

Class consciousness denotes the awareness — of itself and the social world — that a social class possesses, and its capacity to rationally act in their best interests; hence, class consciousness is required before they can effect a successful revolution.

If Karl Marx (1818-1883) could see how those under the federal poverty level live in 2010, he would say they are part of the extreme upper class, considering the extraordinary wealth they possess (automobiles, TV, refrigeration, hot/cold running water, central heating, access to antibiotics, etc. etc.). Access to a personal computer is access to more powerful means of production than Marx could have imagined. That the poor generally use computers for video games and chat rather than as a means of production is not a class problem, but a moral problem. If the poor rose up and seized more of the means of production, they still would not produce anything with those means.

Government schools have destroyed morality and productivity among the poor. The poor in America are not in pursuit of Happiness. They are in pursuit of escape. They are in pursuit of secular death (Proverbs 8:36).

Without defining ideology,[15] Marx used the term to denote the production of images of social reality; according to Engels, “ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces”.[16] Because the ruling class controls the society’s means of production, the superstructure of society, the ruling social ideas are determined by the best interests of said ruling class. In The German Ideology, “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force”.[17] Therefore, the ideology of a society is of most importance, because it confuses the alienated classes and so might create a false consciousness, such as commodity fetishism.[citation needed]

As a defender of capitalism, I am a defender of every human being enjoying freedom from the initiation of force by others, particularly by the government. I oppose politicians initiating force against some to provide "corporate welfare" for their campaign contributors. The "ruling class" in the paragraph at left are those who initiate force. They are indistinguishable from the "nomenklatura" and other socialist party members. Nobody who calls himself a "capitalist" and defends "capitalism" supports such a "ruling class," yet socialist and communist nations always and inevitably have their ruling classes, who rule by engaging in collective economic planning for the entire subjugated nation.

The term political economy originally denoted the study of the conditions under which economic production was organised in the capitalist system. In Marxism, political economy studies the means of production, specifically of capital, and how that is manifest as economic activity.

 

Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.[1][2] It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations.[3] Anarchists may widely disagree on what additional criteria are required in anarchism. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy says, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance."[4]

I am not an archist. I guess that means I'm an "anarchist."

There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive.[5] Strains of anarchism have been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications.[6][7] Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,[8][9] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain [10] supporting a market economy and private property, or morally unrestrained egoism.[11][12] Some individualist anarchists are also socialists.[13][14]

 

Anarchist schools of thought had been generally grouped in two main historical traditions, individualist anarchism and social anarchism, which have some different origins, values and evolution.[2][6][86] The individualist wing of anarchism emphasises negative liberty, i.e. opposition to state or social control over the individual, while those in the social wing emphasise positive liberty to achieve one's potential and argue that humans have needs that society ought to fulfill, "recognizing equality of entitlement".[87] In chronological and theoretical sense there are classical — those created throughout the 19th century — and post-classical anarchist schools — those created since the mid-20th century and after.

 

Beyond the specific factions of anarchist thought is philosophical anarchism, which embodies the theoretical stance that the state lacks moral legitimacy without accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it. A component especially of individualist anarchism[88][89] philosophical anarchism may accept the existence of a minimal state as unfortunate, and usually temporary, "necessary evil" but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy.[90] One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was "anarchism without adjectives", a call for toleration first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the "bitter debates" of anarchist theory at the time.[91] In abandoning the hyphenated anarchisms (i.e. collectivist-, communist-, mutualist- and individualist-anarchism), it sought to emphasise the anti-authoritarian beliefs common to all anarchist schools of thought.[92]

As the link above shows, I am not influenced by any of these "anarchist" thinkers or schools of thought. I am simply a Bible-believing Christian, who believes God prohibits theft, murder, kidnapping, and other instruments of government social policy. I oppose the initiation of force against others.

 You use the slogan "Liberty Under God"

 

Which god are you referring to?

The God of Samuel Adams and John Hancock, of course. The God of the Bible. But you knew that.

Do you expect everyone to accept your concept of god?

I don't, but God does. I can only hope and be faithful.