Where capitalism came from
Robert Shepherd
Marx predicted that Capitalism would created greater and ever-greater
inequalities of wealth.
Those in power would never be able to share power, or reach a helping
hand to lift up those in poverty.
Marx said that it was a simple scientific fact that people in the
middle class would be throwwn out of the middle class into poverty.
The oscillation between gluts and depressions would swing with greater
and ever greater harshness till ultimately a world-historical
revolution would usher in a golden age of Pure Communism (and world
peace).
MARX WAS WRONG.
The reason he was wrong was that the faulty doctrines of laissez faire
were modified by both England (and later the USA). Far from the
determinist selfishness predicated by Marx, western market capitalism,
combined with an electoral republican form of government, has proved
to be RESPONSIVE, and (in a limited way) to be compassionate, caring,
and concerned about those "at the bottom."
In economic terms, the result of the social gospel (Rerum Novarum,
etc) has meant that instead of the classical capitalism obsession with
production to the exclusion of all else, economicsts discovered the
importance of flow.
Classical laissez faire politicians like Herbert Hoover saw the
economy in static terms. Like a firm or a tycoon. If the rich have a
pile of money, the economy must be fine. WRONG!!
Those who do the most purchasing are middle class, the consumers who
spend the largest proportion of the paycheck. (As opposed to sitting
on their wealth, burying their talent.)
What both Marx and the classical capitalists ignored was the essential
importance of aggregate demand. So what if you produce huge quanties
of goods (and services) if no one has any money to buy?
The middle class is absolutely indispensible to the continued flow of
economy energy. It is not a fixed pie to be fought over in some sort
of world-historical class war.
The economy is a dynamic, "living" macro-economic FLOW of energy.
You bring more people into the middle class by a variety of "programs"
both public and private. Political liberals have historically sought
to maximize opportunities and thus to grow the middle class.
Obviously, this is the very thing that Marx said could never, would
never happen.
But it has been happening all through history, whether or not Marx
paid much mind. Tocquevill came to New England in the 1820s and
enthused to Europeans on the Yankees huge middle class, the schools
for everyone, even the poor, even girls. In New England he saw few
very rich, but not much dire poverty either. But he was impressed with
the bustle, the hustle, the ambition, the middle class values of
thrift and honest and hard work.
When he went South of course, he was reminded of the conservatism of
Europe. Aristocrat males (often Highly educated), a loathing for work,
very ignorant poor, a negligible middle class, no schools for the
poor. A
prevailing lethargy. Civic participation by the poor (including
voting) was discouraged.
After Reconstruction (through Republican instigation), wealthy
southerners began to tax themselves so that the poor could learn to
read and write.
Now, in the South, the middle class is as large and important as that
of the north. In fact, in today's south there is an energy and a
bustle that approximates what Tocqueville described of the North's
"middle-class" culture of the 1820s.
CM
> MARX'S AMBITIOUS PREDICTIONS.
>
> snipped
>
> Now, in the South, the middle class is as large and important as that
> of the north. In fact, in today's south there is an energy and a
> bustle that approximates what Tocqueville described of the North's
> "middle-class" culture of the 1820s.
That may be true about places such as Atlanta, Greenville, Jacksonville,
New Orleans, etc. (Urban Environs). And Roy Barnes' devastating programs
have done more to bring down rural Georgia than the dreaded Zell ever
imagined, but the rural south still has it's "Southern Flavor" and much of
it's rural values intact. Southern culture will never approach anything
like that of the north no matter how many Affirmative Action plans get
passed and approved. Agreed, the blight of a middle class is growing by
swallowing up rural second rate southerners but we'll not go without a lot
of kicking and screaming.
Anyway, how can you plant corn and tobacco in those pollution and smog
infested environs of the urbanites. The last time I was in Atlanta I saw
a pigeon that was so bedraggled and greasy from walking underneath cars he
couldn't fly more than a few feet at the time. Now that's some democratic
progress Tocqueville could review....
I can see it now.... "pigeons, on the main, have experienced some decline
with the advance of America's democracy. They have determined that it is
better to walk about and beg for morsels rather than employ themselves in
the industrious labor of gathering their sustenance from more traditional
sources as other birds have continued to do."
Cheers.....
CM
Mark&Leslie Matthews
Feudalism
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Pure Socialism
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with
everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government
gives you all the milk you need.
Bureaucratic Socialism
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the
chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives
you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.
Fascism
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of
them, and sells you the milk.
Pure Communism
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all
share the milk.
Real World Communism
You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about
who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one
works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
Russian Communism
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes
all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the
black market.
Perestroika
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all
the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free"
market.
Cambodian Communism
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Militarianism
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
Totalitarianism
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed.
Milk is banned.
Pure Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
Representative Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the
milk.
British Democracy
You have two cows. You feed them sheeps' brains and they go mad. The
government doesn't do anything.
Bureaucracy
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them
and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes
both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it
requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
Pure Anarchy
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your
neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
Pure Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Capitalism
You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows,
because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.
Enviromentalism
You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
Political Correctness
You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the
phallo centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently - aged (but
no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
Surrealism
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica
lessons.
CM
Now, that one was good....... and soooo true!