Remember Our Forefathers

The simple answer: education, or rather the lack thereof. An unrelated case in point, a couple days ago I finally purchased Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln. In all fairness, I have never been a Lincoln admirer based upon what I have read prior to DiLorenzo’s work (consisting mainly of attempted positive portrayals of Honest Abe too). I have barely been able to put the book down, so when the situation arose, I spilled all the info that I had absorbed from the first few chapters to some coworkers in my office. Well, amongst the listeners was one person who’s predictable reply was, “There are tons of books on him [Lincoln] to the contrary, you can’t believe that one.” Ahhhh yes, all those books written by the students of government education parroting the Government’s line that good ol’ Abe Lincoln worked tirelessly to free slaves and reign in the out of control South, as well as to bring about the necessary capitalist reforms that this country was long in need of. And then there was reality, the reality long since glazed over by the myth creators who wished nothing more than to hide the true nature of Lincoln’s politics: the consolidation of power in a centralized Federal Government. Revisionist history sure works wonders.

It may appear as though I have digressed from my proposed title, however I have not. My point is that Hitler’s “Big Lie” theory (“[I]n the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie…” Mein Kampf) has been proven absolutely true. As with the big Lincoln lies, we also have the big capitalism lies. Beaten into our heads by the likes of government educators and the always honest politicians, is the idea that America is a great capitalist nation. That, yes, we do have some rules governing that wild and crazy free market, and although we do dole out corporate welfare and other subsidies, we are still definitely living under a capitalist economy. Some have even taken the government koolaid to the next level, for instance:

“One of the most common and misleading economic myths in the United States is the idea that the free market is “natural” – that it exists in some natural world, separate from government… Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, a market economy does not exist separate from government – it is very much a product of government rules and regulations… Without these rules, our prized free-market economy would be a stunted and feeble version of what we see today.”

This nonsense is only the beginning of a long love-fest with government, and the sad fact is that this garbage is being perpetrated by a college professor (albeit a professor of politics, which is laughable in its own right).

Our economic system as it exists today, call it whatever you will, is decidedly unfair and deserves every ounce of criticism that it gets. The corporate welfare which our beloved Congressmen so willingly bestow upon their greatest donors is a threefold affront to American citizens: not only are portions of our hard earned incomes robbed from us and given to undeserving corporations, and not only do these welfare payments also serve to stunt development as these corporations have no incentive to significantly improve given that they will receive their unjust rewards either way, but also the myriad regulations that these same corporations lobby on behalf of serve to keep start-up companies from entering the market due to oppressive legal costs thus artificially raising the prices of the products existing on the market. The American people are further injusticed by the over 12,000 tariffs on the books. These protectionist tariffs serve only one purpose: to keep the incomes of those protected American producers artificially higher than they would be under free competition. And all that does for you and I is keep the prices of the protected goods higher by preventing competition, thus reducing our purchasing power. Finally, the existence of labor laws, including the minimum wage and 40 hour work week, does further damage to the pocket books of Americans as they prevent people from their freedom of contract and also by keeping wages artificially higher than they would be in certain circumstances, they prevent employers from hiring even more employees than they currently do. We won’t even get into the havoc wreaked upon the free market by the very existence of a central bank!

So then, how can I say with such surety that education is the issue? Quite easily in fact. The system that I described, which just about everyone will agree with its existence, its most certainly not a capitalist one. The very definition of capitalism should shed some light on this matter: an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, characterized by the freedom of capitalists to operate or manage their property for profit in competitive conditions. If an entrepenuer is unable to bring a new product to the market because of the unnatural costs associated with doing so, is that person free to operate or manage their property? If an importer is unable to import and sell a product from a foreign country because the tariff associated with doing so makes the venture unprofitable, is that person free to operate or manage their propery? If a business owner is prevented from hiring additional employees due to the high costs involved with doing so, is that person free to operate or manage their property? What about having tens of thousands of laws restricting commercial activity sounds remotely close to people being free in distribution and exchange of their property? Perhaps another definition may fit this economic system a little better, mercantilism: an economic theory which suggests that the ruling government should advance the nations wealth by playing a protectionist role in the economy by encouraging exports and discouraging imports, notably through the use of subsidies and tariffs.

So again, I say that education is the issue. Realistically though, miseducation is the true cause of this disconnect with reality. Our protectionist government has sought to maintain this mercantilist nirvana since Abraham Lincoln was finally able to implement it after decades of it being rejected by Congresses and Presidents alike. In order to foster more and more disdain for the notion of capitalism, the government school systems have deliberately stained its reputation thus allowing themselves more power to intervene in the market. So while the American consumer suffers the hidden pain of higher costs and unnatural unemployment, the American politician lines his pockets with the kickbacks from his happy corporate constituents and pads the comfort of his future with the government pension earned by the re-election guaranteed by his corporate sponsors.

So, do some people hate capitalism? Sure, they’re called government employees. The rest of us hate mercantilism. And rightfully so.

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