Defining Socialism and Capitalism

Wednesday evening Glenn Beck did a special called “Capitalism: A Warning from the Dead.” I don’t know how long it will be available without a subscription, but it’s worth seeing. Plenty of history and comparisons to our day.

Glenn Beck, during "Capitalism: A Warning from the Dead"
screenshot from here

Somewhere in there he reports on a recent poll:

In 2010, 68% of 18-29-year-olds had a "favorable" view of capitalism. By 2016, that had dropped to 57%. Two years later, the exact same poll indicated that only 45% viewed capitalism as "favorable." This is a death spiral! Younger people are completely abandoning capitalism because they don't really know what it is!

At the same time—the exact same decade in question—if you ask millennials about the free market, "being your own boss," and entrepreneurship, it has a 90%+ favorability rating.

So capitalism is at 45%, but free market entrepreneurship is at 90%? This shows that no one knows what they're talking about. This proves that no one knows what socialism is, what its goals represent, where it aims to take us, and the difference between socialism and capitalism.

That’s puzzling. They disapprove of the very thing they overwhelmingly approve of.

We need to define terms and do some teaching, which will involve some questions that use the concepts without the words, to see if that will get us better clarity on what people really want. It might turn out we have more agreement when we do that.

Socialism

What my old dictionary says:

1.    Any of various theories or systems of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community rather than by private individuals, with all members in society or the community sharing in the work and the products.

2.    a) political movement for establishing such a system; b) the doctrines, methods, etc. of the Socialist parties.

3.       The stage of society, in Marxist doctrine, coming between the capitalist stage and the communist stage, in which private ownership of the means of production and distribution has been eliminated.

What young people think it means:

To be like Sweden or Denmark or places like that, where they get free healthcare, free schooling, guaranteed jobs, and stuff like that.

What I think it means:

A government interference with the free market. This can be a single socialist policy, or a wide array of such policies in an attempt to replace the free market with centralized economic control.

This means that I differ somewhat from many commentators who rightly point out that Sweden and other “socialist” economies are not actually socialist economies. They have certain segments of society, such as healthcare, that the government has taken over—and for which they charge very high taxes. But, beyond these specific segments, they still respect private property ownership. And they tend to move away from government control, toward free market, when the capital they were using for their projects becomes depleted. Some of these countries rate equally on the Heritage Foundation Freedom Index as the United States.

Just to be clear, socialism doesn’t have anything to do with being sociable. It claims to be “fair,” but it ignores individual input, such as work, preparation, cleverness, risk of personal assets, and instead looks mainly at equal outcomes regardless of inputs. Most people wouldn’t find that fair.

It comes from Marxist ideology. As I’ve said before, is an attempt to replace capitalism, along with the governmental systems that support capitalism. Instead of individuals making individual market choices, central planners—elite power wielders—make decisions, such as the price of goods, the choices of jobs, the products produced.

And I’ll add that the Marxist experiment always ends badly. If a country doesn’t do an about face and stop heading in the direction of more government control, and instead returns control to the people, the result is mass poverty, loss of freedom, and death. Take a look at the news from Venezuela this week.

Capitalism

What the dictionary says:

1.    The economic system in which all or most of the means of production and distribution, as land, factories, railroad, etc. are privately owned and operated for profit, originally under fully competitive conditions: It has been generally characterized by a tendency toward concentration of wealth, and, in its later phase, by the growth of great corporations, increased governmental control, etc.

2.    The principles, methods, interests, power, influence, etc. of capitalists, especially of those with large holdings.

Let’s add how the dictionary defines capitalist:

1.    A person who has capital; owner of wealth used in business.

2.    An upholder of capitalism.

3.       Loosely, a wealthy person.

What young people think it means:

Greedy corporations, in bed with corrupt politicians, taking advantage of the working class. So, it’s evil.

What I think it means:

Capital is the accumulation of work above and beyond what is essential, followed by careful use of it toward a good idea intended to result in even more surplus. Capitalism is a system for using capital (accumulated surplus wealth) to invest it in more wealth creation.

Capital comes from surplus work. So, capital is a representation of surplus work that is invested to find ways to produce more wealth. And wealth is defined simply as the accumulated results of labor.

Capitalism, in this sense, is never evil. It is, simply, the free market allowed to work its miracles at lifting people out of poverty.

However, what young people think it is, really is what we could call “crony capitalism,” or more accurately just cronyism. And that is a bad thing.

Cronyism has been around a long time—long enough to show up as a definition for capitalism in my 1980 dictionary. Long enough to be represented by the character Mouch in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. 

Back in 1980 economist Milton Friedman spoke at a graduation ceremony at Brigham Young University (not mine, but I was there). He talked about the dangerous influence of big businessmen. “They aren’t promoting free enterprise when they ask for handouts and regulations and controls to avoid competition,” he said. And he added,

The two greatest enemies of free society are intellectuals and businessmen—for opposite reasons. Intellectuals want freedom for themselves but no one else. Businessmen want free enterprise for everyone else, but special consideration for themselves.

So, the millennials and I, we agree that cronyism is not a good thing. The problem is, referring to this bad sort of business/government collusion as capitalism leads people to believe actual capitalism—a synonym for free market economy—is bad. Still, that doesn’t exactly explain why those who misunderstand these words would then think a great solution is a whole lot more interference by government.

Moving forward, maybe we can just use more accurate words, like free-market and entrepreneurship. Or avoid the words they don’t understand and just get on with the concepts using concrete examples.

With that in mind, let’s try these questions:

·         When you earn money at work, who should decide how you spend it? You, or a distant central controller?

·         Who should decide how much you earn? You along with your employer, or a distant central controller?

·         Who should decide how you pay for your healthcare—whether out-of-pocket, with a health savings account, or with help of insurance that you’ve chosen for your needs—or a distant central controller?

·         Who should decide whether you want to try a particular medical method or therapy? You, or a distant central controller?

·         Who should decide what kind of car is best for you and your family? You, or a distant central controller?

·         Who should decide whether you can use your skills and efforts to start a business? You, or a distant central controller?

And then, let’s add these additional questions:

·         Who should pay for your housing? You, or your heavily taxed neighbor, who is coerced by government to pay it?

·         Who should pay for your healthcare? You, or your heavily taxed neighbor, who is coerced by government to pay it?

·         Who should pay for your childcare? You, possibly along with voluntary help from an employer, or your heavily taxed neighbor, who is coerced by government to pay it?

·         Who should pay for your advanced education? You, or your heavily taxed neighbor, who is coerced by government to pay it?

·         Who should pay charitable donations to those unable to sustain themselves? You, along with your church or other organizations in touch with those in need, or your heavily taxed neighbor, who is coerced by government to pay it?

We could go on, but you get the idea. Socialism means decisions normally made by free people are instead made by some distant controller. And whenever you get something “free” or “low cost” because of socialism, that means government is heavily taxing your neighbors—not just the rich—to make those payments.

Government doesn’t “give” you “free” anything. Government produces no wealth from which to draw those funds. Government is simply power. And any government powerful enough to coerce you to pay for your neighbor’s wants is powerful enough to take away your choices about what you produce, what you earn from work, and how you spend those earnings.

And if they’re powerful enough to control your life, maybe they’re powerful enough to take your life. At least that’s how it has turned out every time it’s been tried.

The Demise of the Constitutional Republic

Since the world essentially crashed last Tuesday, I guess I should respond to that.

I’m referring to Ted Cruz suspending his campaign after the Indiana primary.

Ted Cruz suspends his campaign
image from here

Yes, I’m in mourning. As a lover of the US Constitution—and its purpose in getting us to freedom, prosperity, and civilization—Tuesday was the end of hope. There’s still the convention to come, technically, but….

I had hoped that the American people would have the opportunity to have a day-and-night clear choice between freedom, prosperity, and civilization versus tyranny, poverty, and savagery. That’s what the presidential election would have looked like with Ted Cruz on our side. He is the most consistently constitutional conservative candidate in my lifetime. The hope was for some recovery of the country we have been missing for at least a decade.

My realization, last week, was that my faith in the American people was misplaced. We hadn’t even moved toward the work of convincing Democrats that the Constitution was the way to get to prosperity and freedom. We got stuck at convincing some 40% of Republicans that the Constitution—and human decency—mattered enough to care about.

We didn’t win that debate. A plurality of Republicans joined with the totality of Democrats to choose some authoritarian, bullying, lying, pushy tyrant.

The choice has already been made. It doesn’t much matter who wins in November; the option of returning to the Constitution and getting out of the mire is now off the table.

But the pressure hasn’t ended. It’s coming at us Ted Cruz supporters from those who ought to be on our team, from our party. They’re saying if we don’t join them in voting for a progressive, lying, narcissistic tyrant, it will be our fault if we get a progressive, lying, narcissistic tyrant as our president. Ironic.

Here is what hasn’t happened: Donald Trump has not reached out to say he would welcome people like me. Instead, he has said there are some people he’d just as soon did not unite with his Republican Party:

I am confident that I can unite much of it. Some of it, I don't want. There were statements made about me that those people can go away and maybe come back in eight years after we serve two terms….

Honestly, there are some people I really don't want. I don't think it's necessary. People would be voting for me, they're not voting for the party.

So, if you didn’t fawn over him, you’re not welcome in the party of Reagan and Lincoln. Or whatever party it is now that he has made it anew.

Clearly it is not on me to forego my morals and join such a person. Unless I’m the kind of person who enjoys subjecting myself to abuse.

There are arguments from fellow Republicans, who suggest we must vote for Trump to avoid Hillary. Too late. But, let’s hear their arguments, out of respect. Because I really do respect many of these people, and keep looking to see if I’ve missed something.

Supreme Court: You have to vote for Trump, because the next president will get several chances to appoint Supreme Court justices, and we could lose the court for a generation or longer. This was a very good argument for voting for Cruz in our primary; he knows how to select a constitutional originalist. Trump does not; he seems unaware of the concept. Will his appointees be as anti-law as Hillary’s? I don’t know. But I expect there is zero possibility of getting any justices more law-abiding than Justice Kennedy. In other words, a vote for Trump guarantees we will lose the court for a generation or longer.

It’s done. We warned you. You didn’t think it was important enough to vote for Cruz instead of Trump. So, don’t blame us.

The Border: Hillary is going to continue the open-borders, invite-illegals-in status quo policy. Trump claims he will build a wall. And make Mexico pay for it. Which may be necessary, because he does nothing to work with Congress to provide him funding for whatever he wants to do. But his policy for illegals has been a temporarily-deport-and-invite-back policy that is more of a PR stunt than a solution. It's a lot of tough bully talk, but it isn’t an actual policy or plan.

Here in Texas we have been defending our own border for a while. Ted Cruz, a Texan, had a real plan. But we weren’t given that option. Because of Trump voters. It’s not on me. I’ll continue to work toward Texans protecting ourselves regardless of continued failure of the federal government to meet its obligations.

Foreign Policy: Hillary is a disaster in foreign policy: Benghazi. Russia. Arab Spring. No one in their right mind ought to trust her anywhere near foreign policy. Her cavalier failure to protect government secret documents is the final nail in that coffin. But Trump approves of Putin, likes his style. Thinks the deal with Iran might be OK, but he would have made a “better deal,” though without giving details. In other words, he doesn’t understand what principles to talk about related to the deal, but we should trust him because he knows about real estate. He threatens to annihilate ISIS members—and their families and children. Targeting noncombatants isn’t what we do, nor is torture, but he’s in favor of that, and he says the military will do whatever he orders them to do, “Believe me,” he says.

Hillary will be bad; but she will try to claim she’s doing good. Trump will be bad; and he’s telling you how bad. Is it all bravado? Maybe. But voting for someone because you don’t think they’ll do what they say is not wisdom. That’s not on me. Can he convince me otherwise? Not if he’s unwilling to try, because gaining the goodwill of people like me doesn’t matter to him.

The Economy: Hillary is a socialist. Hardcore in favor of controlling the economy. Get rid of capitalism. Let government decide who gets government’s favor or disapproval based on support of the administration’s preferences. Trump is a cronyist. Sometimes that’s called “crony capitalism,” but that confuses things. Crony capitalism isn’t free market capitalism; it’s government deciding who gets government’s favor or disapproval based on who supports the administration’s preferences. Sounds familiar.

Please don’t insult my intelligence by saying I should vote for Trump, because otherwise it’s a vote for Hillary, and that would be disastrous. Yes, I agree she would be disastrous; she’s clearly the worst candidate the Democrats have put forward in my life memory. Almost anyone the Republicans put forward should theoretically be able to beat her. 

But the Republicans didn’t choose a Republican; they chose Trump. I don’t believe Trump can beat her (she got about three times as many votes in his home state as he got in the primaries). And in a hypothetical world in which he actually won, I believe that would also be a disaster for America.

It’s already too late to bother about the presidency. There’s no silver lining. It is as bad and depressing as it sounds.

The principle should be to vote for the strongest anti-tyranny candidate you can. In this case, you get certain tyranny either way. So stop calling us “treasonous” for not jumping on the Trump train. 

I’m not giving up the quest for freedom, prosperity, and civilization. We vetted a lot of good people on our primary ballot in Texas, and we need to support those state and local candidates.

This past week I’ve begun looking at the level where it’s possible to make a difference. I’m fortunate to live in Texas. We’re big enough and strong enough to resist federal tyranny—if we can maintain the will.

As one fellow Cruz supporter said,

Real Cruz supporters can't possibly support Trump. What we can do, however, is continue to stand for Cruz's (and our) principles: the conservative principles that have made America and every other Western country great.

Those principles work at any level. The higher the level where those principles are at work, the more freedom there is for the lower levels to work, without interference. Our founding fathers set that in motion for the nation, and we had a good long run. I mourn the loss of our constitutional republic. But maybe strengthening the lower levels will lead others to follow suit, leading to some future rebuilding and returning to the Constitution. So we may have lost, but we haven’t succumbed.

I expect to write very little about the presidential election after this, since it has become a moot point. I don’t intend to try to persuade people to my view. People are free to differ with me on what to do in November. I think I’ll look into procedures for write-ins, and take a look at third party candidates, just in case there’s an option better than leaving the presidential race blank. But I won’t stay home; I’ll vote, because the rest of my ballot was vetted by people who voted mostly for Cruz. The rest of the Republicans on the ballot will be far better choices than the Democrats, and they’ll deserve my vote.

I don't know what life looks like going forward. I wake up thinking, "So this is what people in other countries feel like." But there's still good that can be effected by continuing to work toward the northern hemisphere goal of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. And so far we're not prevented from speaking out and persuading others to join us in our efforts.

So, it's a time to mourn. But it's not a time to stop living.

Bigness

Big Government. Big Business. Big Media. Big Law.

Tom Hanks movie Big,
which other than bigness, has nothing
to do with today's post

The bigness of it sounds ominous. Probably for good reason. Without the “big” adjective, they’re just things. Segments of society. Elements that carry out certain duties and practices, purportedly for the good of society. But the bigness means there’s an overabundance of power that they yield, whether real or simply perceived.

What happens when two bigs get together? Scary amounts of power. Making it much harder for smalls, like the rest of us, to get heard, to influence, to be free to pursue what we want to do. The collusion of the bigs, the elite powerful, is called cronyism.

When Big Government and Big Business collude, that’s crony capitalism—which is very different from free market economics. When Big Media colludes with Big Government, that’s propaganda and disinformation.

Of the various bigs, I hadn’t really thought about Big Law before. But earlier this week I read apiece by Ryan Anderson, the brilliant crusader for real marriage with the Heritage Foundation, in which he discussed the effects of Big Law on the current culture. He began by referring to a New York Times piece. This is quoting NYT reporter Adam Liptak: “In dozens of interviews, lawyers and law professors said the imbalance in legal firepower in the same-sex marriage cases resulted from a conviction among many lawyers that opposition to such unions is bigotry akin to racism.”

Liptak says he found that no major law firms—that’s zero—offered amicus briefs defending marriage. As he puts it,

Leading law firms are willing to represent tobacco companies accused of lying about their deadly products, factories that spew pollution, and corporations said to be complicit in torture and murder abroad. But standing up for traditional marriage has turned out to be too much for the elite bar.

There are equal stacks of briefs, as many pro-traditional-marriage as pro-same-sex-“marriage.” So there are good lawyers out there. But the elites—the ones in the big firms, commanding the big money, and wielding influence galore—have the mistaken and narrow belief, relatively new in culture and certainly without evidence—that to support traditional marriage is equivalent to hating a segment of society because of accident of birth. And, as  Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge who teaches law at Stanford, said, “The level of sheer desire to crush dissent is pretty unprecedented.”

Ryan Anderson’s piece conveniently links to yet another piece, “7 Reasons Why the Current Marriage Debate Is Nothing Like the Debate on Interracial Marriage,” which he wrote in August 2014. So, I’m interrupting the discussion of the elites for a moment to recount the list:

1.      Support for marriage as the union of man and woman has been a near human universal.

2.      Bans on interracial marriage and Jim Crow laws, by contrast, were historical anomalies.

3.      Great thinkers—including champions of human rights—knew that gender matters for marriage, and none thought that race does.

4.      Even cultures that embraced same-sex relationships did not treat them as marriages. [I think he may be referring to the Roman and Greek empires during their decaying years, when homoeroticism was acceptable, but calling it marriage would have been laughable.]

5.      Marriage must be color-blind, but it cannot be gender-blind.… Men and women regardless of their race can unite in marriage, and children regardless of their race deserve moms and dads. To acknowledge such facts requires an understanding of what marriage is.

6.      Jim Crow laws were meant to divide the races, but marriage law unites men to women and children to their parents. Marriage has everything to do with uniting the two halves of humanity—men and women, as husbands and wives and as fathers and mothers—so that any children born of their union will know and be loved by the man and woman who gave them life.

7.      The Supreme Court was correct in striking down bans on interracial marriage but it should not redefine marriage…. [Earlier in the summer of 2014, in regard to the Loving v. Virginia case] Judge Paul Niemeyer of the 4th Circuit Court explained that “Loving simply held that race, which is completely unrelated to the institution of marriage, could not be the basis of marital restrictions.” But this does not require redefining marriage.

Anderson didn’t include, but there are amicus briefs making the point,[i] that, while race is innate and immutable, sexual orientation is not. The homosexual lobby claims that sexual orientation is the way they’re born and unchangeable—which is why they ignore (or attack) significant and growing evidence that there is no significant genetic component, and many, even thousands, have left the lifestyle, and some have entered into heterosexual marriage and find it satisfying. Sexual orientation simply isn’t like race.

The point is, to anyone who knows the definition of marriage, it’s clear that a male and a female are required. Whatever same-sex couples have (even if they were to be loving, committed, exclusive, and permanent—which is almost without example), it cannot be marriage. Homosexuals are not banned from marrying a person of the opposite sex who is eligible according to law to marry. Nor is there a ban on homosexuals living with the person of their choice.

They aren’t asking for “fairness”; they are insisting loudly on throwing out the purpose of marriage, its relationship to procreation, the terms mother and father, the worldwide religious belief that real marriage is a moral good ordained of God. Throw out what family is, and you throw out civilization and bring on savagery. That’s not just speculation; it’s what we’re watching wherever same-sex marriage has been embraced.

But Big Law, the elites—not necessarily the first we’d turn to for morality lessons—are certain it is immoral to keep the longstanding definition of marriage. And they claim morality requires that we accept same-sex relationships as if they were marriage. Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, made the claim: “It’s so clear that there are no good arguments against marriage equality. Lawyers can see the truth.”

What do ordinary, non-elite Americans think? Probably a wide variety of things, in both directions on the marriage issue—thanks to confusing help from Big Media. But mainly the smalls don’t think that everyone must be forced to believe some specific thing passed down from the elites above. As Anderson describes it:

Ordinary Americans—whether they are in favor of same-sex marriage or opposed—agree that the government shouldn’t penalize their neighbors. Ordinary Americans—even those in favor of same-sex marriage—do not view their neighbors as bigots.

But our governing elites do. So people who believe the truth about marriage need to equip ourselves, because our opponents want to see the law treat all citizens who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife as if they are racists.

If Big Law, in collusion with Big Government and Big Media (and lately with support from Big Business[ii]), holds a particular belief, what is the likelihood they will defend the rights of those whose beliefs they consider on par with racial bigotry?

Anderson asks some important questions:

Will the right to dissent be protected? Will the right of Americans to speak and act in accord with what the United States had always believed about marriage—that it’s a union of husband and wife—be tolerated?

When people ask how same-sex “marriage” can harm me, they are apparently ignorant of the onslaught of religious freedom attacks, and the “gay mafia” tactics to put ordinary minding-their-own-business believers in marriage out of work, out of business, and silenced.

If you were uncertain about which side was right, or which was more moral, consider which is tolerant and which is coercive.

No matter the smallness of our non-elite voices, we need to speak. While we can.

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[i] This is one example: Brief of Texas Values as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondents, http://www.jaredwoodfill.net/files/DeBoer_Amicus_Brief_3.31.15.pdf.

[ii] Tim Cook, Apple CEO, stopped short of boycotting the state, but declaimed the law; other CEOs boycotted: http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/apple-indiana-gay-law/.