368 thoughts on “What Every Man Needs To Know About Capitalism And Economics”

1. The difference between capitalism and communism is that, despite all the criticisms levelled against it, capitalism occasionally works.

   1. exactly. Capitalism’s relative success compared to other forms of economic/social organisation is proven by the historical record. You don’t need to be a gung-ho free market advocate to accept that.
      Capitalism is flawed but it is the best we have.

2. And, by virtue of what capitalism is, Voluntaryism is the ethical philosophy underpinning pure capitalism. Reading up on Voluntaryism is essential to understanding the “why.” You can check out more via The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard and The Myth of the Rule of Law by John Hasnas.

3. Socialism “works” when it’s funded by a stable capitalist economy – It is not so much an economic or social policy as it is a luxury product, bought and paid for by capitalism
   Your average leftist refuses to face this reality because they’re blinded by moralism, unable to shake equalist indoctrination, and therefore spend their lives emotionally committed to ignorance

   1. The irony is that they do not understand how immoral their utopia is! Their dreams are funded by theft and enforced by death.

      1. Theft and violence are the ultimate “free markets.” Survival of the fittest/competition, dontchaknow.

         1. What? Capitalism is not “survival of the fittest”, it is respect for the private property of others. Theft is the ultimate act of anti-capitalism.

         2. First of all, most land for example was originally acquired by theft. E.g., America. There is still a piece of property in my family we have title to because some ancestor killed Indians.
            “Respecting property” generally requires respecting theft, because a great deal of property was acquired via theft, often legally.
            If you really wanted to be hard-line about respecting property, you’d have to take great quantities of it away from some very wealthy people and redistribute it. Sorry.

         3. You’re attempting to claim that both theft and respect for private property are immoral despite the fact that they are opposite by definition. If theft is immoral, then capitalism is moral. If capitalism is moral, then the thefts you describe are immoral. Which is it?

         4. Theft is immoral and the outlawing of theft is a type of market regulation. Outlawing theft is an example of society putting limits on competition for the greater good.
            All I’m pointing out is that libertarian ethics and logic themselves demand a huge amount of redistribution and socialization of wealth if they are applied honestly.

         5. Like I said, to the Anti-capitalist, there’s no difference between persuasion and coercion…arguing with them is a waste of time.

         6. Exactly the only concept of property that is grounded in natural law instead of some dead Anglo-Saxon’s idealistic worldview is that the law of the jungle dictates that property is gained and then protected by the sword. There is no rule inherent in nature that men or other species must respect the territory, space or property of those who can’t defend it. Most of those ‘founders’ Americans idealise and their Anglo idealism of ‘equality’, ‘justice’ and ‘property’ was something that was recognised amongst themselves for surely they showed the Natives none of that. All property is gained by the theft of the sword and defended with the same sword until that man or his decedents can no longer defend it. That is the real law of nature.

         7. “All property is gained by the theft of the sword and defended with the same sword until that man or his decedents can no longer defend it. That is the real law of nature.”
            This is simply false. Property is exchanged between individuals without violence all the time! Do you rob your neighbor when you’re hungry or do you go to the store and buy groceries?
            To claim that peaceful exchange is not a “law of nature” is to believe that men are somehow unnatural, for we frequently abide by it.

         8. Any movement that is asking for a centralized redistribution of wealth is not libertarian. Libertarians, while recognizing that many currently own what they have not earned, trust a free market to redistribute this wealth.
            For example, suppose a businessman used the state to cripple his competitors and build a monopoly. When the state that supported him crumbles, he will find that he has not learned the skills necessary to truly succeed. His wealth would diminish quickly as his competitors, who long toiled against unfair laws, would find their businesses booming.
            Another example: a man spends a lifetime helping people navigate the complexity of the tax code, making a six-figure salary for his highly-specialized expertise. When the state crumbles and taxes disappear, he finds that his life was wasted on a task with no purpose. With no valuable skills to speak of, he works an entry-level job until the day he dies, watching his retirement savings burn away.
            Does that make any sense or would you like me to try and explain this idea in a different way? If you have any other responses, just let me know! I appreciate your thought-out critiques.

         9. Yeah sure, I wonder how well those propertied contracts would be honoured if your country was defeated and group of well armed soldiers decided to loot your house, rape your wife and daughters, kill your sons and procure your property to the new victor. What are you going to do? Present them with the deed? Show them a copy of ‘capitalism and freedom’? Read them the Bill of ‘Rights’? Lol… Don’t make me laugh. All property is gained by the sword, how it’s exchanged after it’s conquered is solely up to the whims of the conqueror.

         10. Read about the Homestead Principle and Free Market.

         11. Another Libertarian idea that wouldn’t stand chance under group of men with m4a1 assault rifles with murder and rape in their hearts. Fantasies galore. Good luck though!

         12. Not really. Outlawing theft is not a limit on competition as the law is just a message by a powerful group of men (govt) to criminals, to try and take property that they are protecting if they dare. Nothing is stopping a gang from trying to take over my house right now. The key word is “trying” as they would fail miserably because law enforcement would successfully protect it.
             I understand what you are trying to argue, but if we play by the “might is right” argument, than govt outlawing theft and stomping anyone who steps out of line is survival of the fittest. If we go by the libertarian ethic of “you leave my property alone, and I’ll leave you alone”, nobody is going to argue that once that agreement fails that might is right comes into play and that the land will belong to those who hold on to it.

         13. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396760/How-Comanche-Indians-butchered-babies-roasted-enemies-alive.html
             Get your cultural marxism bullshit elsewhere, whites conquered America, and rightfully so, private property is a white concept so it makes sense that in a still racially homogeneous white country like America is something to be protected and pursued.

         14. most libertarians are into guns and gun rights for the individual. your move

         15. Who should “take” from “whom” and “redistribute” to “whom”?
             That whole line of thinking is even more muddleheaded than the almost equally silly notion that there is some great, cost free and impartial protector in the sky, or on Fox News or in the GOP, of “private property.”
             As usual, the anarchist solution works, is cheap, is morally defensible, plays no favorites, and is all around just dead on: your Private property is that which you have earned, made, traded for or otherwise gotten hold of, AND (and this is the important part) is willing to expend the resources to defend.
             That latter part does put a serious crimp on how many millions of acres some schmuck wants to claim as his own, now that he cannot rely on some thug army funded by other people’s taxes, to do it for him.

         16. If you claiming something as your private property, implies you simultaneously claim the right to compel someone else to work or pay to help you defend it, you are obviously engaging in theft of his resources, not?
             And if you pay for it yourself, what purpose does then the the state serve?

         17. indians didn’t have any concept of ownership of the land and were largely nomadic….. they were displaced, the land wasn’t stolen, because they didn’t lay claim to it in that way.

         18. yes, but in a human society, we don’t want to be constantly waring over assets, because it’s a massive drain on resources and developments…. imagine if you have to carry automatic weapons and risk muggings and murder, just to go to the supermarket…. unproductive.

         19. That’s disingenuous. They were forcibly denied the use of the land according to their own paradigm, yet they weren’t given corresponding rights under the new legal paradigm that was imposed on them. They had all the restrictions that came with the new paradigm imposed on them, without gaining any of the rights.

         20. The exchange happens without violence only because either of the two following applies:
             1. There is parity in capability to violence between the parties, and they both deem it to be in their self-interest to trade rather than fight
             2. Some third party is more capable of violence than either of the two, and it uses it to force interaction between the two to happen on certain terms (this is the case in most societies, and that third party is either the state or your local feudal overlord)

         21. You are still generalizing. Just because it is possible to have your property stolen doesn’t mean that “all property is gained by the sword.”
             Have you ever had your house looted, your wife and daughters raped, your sons killed and your property awarded to a conqueror? You talk about these things as though they are a daily occurrence, when the truth is that property is exchanged peacefully a vast majority of the time. I can’t believe at least fifteen people have agreed with your delusional argument.

         22. Did you read the last fucking sentence? ‘All property is gained by the sword, how it’s exchanged after it’s conquered is solely up to the whims of the conqueror’. So do you live in the US, I’m sure you pay rent or have a mortgage. This is is a relatively peaceful exchange between debtor and creditor etc. How did this come to be? Did the natives not live on this land about 150-300 years ago? How were they removed? Did they just disappear?
             Don’t be naive. You can fucking read. Peaceful exchanges exist after a said territory is pillaged and conquered by an opposing people. For instance if the US was to rid itself of its nuclear arsenal and cut it’s military down to 100,000, the Russian Federation would and could obliterate the US overnight and vice-versa. Humans are predators, at least the best of men.
             If you aren’t a predatory male and breed successive generations of weak males, they will be exterminated. In fact libertarians such as yourself are only protected by the very weapons you seek to attenuate. Some chief on the trail of tears was shot and his women exterminated, do you think his protestations of ‘you gave us a deed before, worked’? If push comes to shove, all the pieces of paper in the world won’t stand up to one bullet in your cranium.

         23. 3. Both parties believe it is immoral to steal from the other (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”)
             4. The more powerful party believes it is immoral to steal from the weaker party.
             5. The more powerful party values the continued wealth of the weaker party. For example, although Google could probably hire an undercover team to raid their favorite restaurant, they prefer to pay them for the food because they want the restaurant to succeed.
             These are just a few examples, but that should be more than enough to disprove the theory that the world would be “dog-eat-dog” without the state.

         24. “All property is gain by the sword, how it’s exchanged after it’s conquered is solely up to the whims of the conqueror.” If this is true, then how does the black market exist or function? By their very definition, exchanges in the black market of a nation are against the wishes of its conqueror. If your theory were true, black markets would not exist at all, much less thrive (as they do in many nations.)
             The problem with your argument is that conquerors are not all-powerful and omniscient, meaning that when two people chose to make a peaceful exchange of their own property, it is usually less at the “whim of the conqueror” than beyond the control of the conqueror.
             Furthermore, even the most dominant conqueror requires the support of more lenient people to rule a nation. No matter how fearsome a conqueror is, he’s going to have to compromise with his enforcers and his people or they will simply overthrow him. Unless he’s a literal god, he won’t be able to defend himself against an entire army.
             I hope this makes sense but, if not, I will gladly give additional examples or think of a different way entirely to show that your theory is fundamentally flawed.
             That being said, why do you think I am libertarian? I’ve never made that claim in any of my comments. I’ve also never implied that paperwork defines what is or is not someone’s private property. You are emotionally attached to your arguments for some reason, and you’re building straw men to take your anger out on.
             It’s childish, and it does a disservice to your intellect. When you act like this, a lot of people will ignore what you say, even though you raise good points. Others will feed off your anger and believe you are right without thinking at all. What good does that do?

         25. Ask the kennewick man if they got any ‘rights’ from the genocidal redskin, the white man was here first, get over it.

         26. Thank you for affirming what I originally stated. How property is exchanged after it’s been appropriated by arms under a new conqueror is solely up to the whims of that conqueror. And yes it would be in his best interest and that of his ruling class to have a fair system of exchange after said area and opposing people have been decimated. The United States is a prime example, property rights were originally meant for the white man, because the white man was the enforcer of the Southern slaver and Northern industrialist. In other words, you don’t shit where you sleep. This doesn’t negate the original premise, that land and property with an ill established defence can, has been and will be conquered.

         27. You missed my entire premise Ray.

         28. I did not affirm what you said, I disproved it by referencing the existence of black markets, which could not exist if your theory were true. What is your response to that? What is your explanation for the existence of exchanges which occur against the will of a conqueror if your theory is that all exchanges are at the will of the conqueror?

         29. I take it that Lance Christopher grew up in a war zone and has probably spent a lot of time in an Arabic country under something similar to a Muslin Sharia law. Did I get that correct or am I way off base? I apologize if I am off base but this is what I am picking up from all of this talk that everything is obtained by the sword.

         30. Harsh truths, much needed.

         31. Beware challenging an American’s Hollywood film view of the world where all is black or white.

         32. “if the US was to rid itself of its nuclear arsenal and cut it’s military down to 100,000, the Russian Federation would and could obliterate the US overnight and vice-versa.”
             …Just like they did to Afghanistan? Or how the U.S. did to Vietnam? Private militias are far more effective at defending a nation than established governments. The North Vietnamese Army would have been crushed by the U.S. Military in a matter of weeks if it hadn’t been for the Viet Cong. Considering that the U.S. has some of the most heavily armed private citizens in the world, and our great geographical advantages (flanked by two oceans), I’d say we’d do fine without the military. The only way to invade the U.S., besides extremely disadvantageous aerial and/or amphibious landings, is through the bitter cold Canadian border or the bottlenecked Mexican border. It could simply NEVER happen.

         33. your right. power is authority. so whats your fucking point?

         34. Most human transactions are peaceful, it’s called the social contract. The idea has been around for centuries.

         35. Well, our current generation of fighting age men seem to be fairly weak and sensitive. It is a shame seeing my great brothers at arms followed by a bunch of (figurative) women.

      2. The most important point missing from this article and one that is always glossed over… is the hatred that socialists have for ‘rich’ capitalists, and their constant need for security via Govt. that protects them against greedy capitalist monopolies. The issue here is patently false.
         Corporations and the wealthy, use the government to create monopolies and tip the playing field in their favor. Why wouldn’t they – large government is itself a monopoly.

         1. Indeed – good point

   2. Soft socialism is 51% voting themselves a free lunch at the expense of the 49%.

      1. There was a study done recently at Princeton which proved that only the policy preferences of the wealthiest 5% are taken into account by American politicians.

         1. Go back to to your OWS tent in the park!

         2. Source?

         3. Lawerence Lessig has his book/TED talk where he gives the stat that only 150,000 americans in the entire country give $200 or more to a political campaign/action fund. Thats a pretty low bar to pass to get access to a cannidate.
            http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=288631511
            http://lesterland.lessig.org/
            “Well, here are the numbers from 2010 – .26 percent of America gave $200 or more to any federal candidate, .05 percent gave the maximum amount to any federal candidate, .01 percent – 1 percent of the 1 percent – gave $10,000 or more to federal candidates. And in this election cycle, my favorite statistic is .000042 percent. For those of you doing the numbers, you know that’s a 132 Americans gave 60 percent of the Super PAC money spent in this cycle we have just seen ending. So I’m just a lawyer. I look at this range of numbers, and I say it’s fair for me to say it’s .05 percent who are our relevant funders in America. In this sense, the funders are our Lesters.”

         4. Lots of others hire Chelseas for internship jobs. And many more again, befriend politicos and political donors by way of buying their way into the latters’ children’s school districts.

         5. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
            http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9354310

         6. ok

         7. its been all over MSM, do your own research. the main point was not that the elite get their policies approved every time, it was that the 99% do NOT get what they voted for 100% of the time

   3. Viewing it as a luxury is very apt, as rok points out how luxury corrupts. And free stuff for living is the ultimate luxury.

   4. Most Capitalists are leftists. Explain that one, mate.

      1. I suggest you read a book … the term “left” actually historically applies to classical liberalism and the rabble inciting the French Revolution … the capitalists, social reformers, and secular liberals (in the original sense of the word) sat to the left of the King.
         Those of us on the right favor aristocracy and tradition … the rest of you, whether you be socialists, capitalists, or Marxists, are on the left.

         1. Dr. Orange, socialism is government ownership of property. Capitalism is individual ownership of property, which is protected by the government. Marxism as practiced by nations is really socialism, and Marxism as envisioned by Marx is a utopian pipe dream.
            My question for you: if you oppose both capitalism and socialism (you have accused them of being subversive), who do you believe should control the resources of society?
            It is easy to criticize socialism, and it is easy to criticize capitalism, but the fact is that you have not presented a viable alternative.
            Most here on rok support tradition. As for aristocracy (the elite), you will find them to exist in both socialist and capitalist societies. However, neither aristocracy nor tradition are alternatives to socialism and capitalism.

         2. It’s too exhausting to explain my position. I assure you, I have a well thought out manifesto.
            Just like the Nazi revisonist issue, people jump to assumptions as soon as you use definitions of words and terms they can’t understand. It takes me too long to unpack all of it.

         3. Well if you ever make your views public on the Internet or in a book, you should let us at rok know with an article or in the comments, you certainly seem to have a unique perspective which I would be interested to understand.

         4. you can’t h8 national socialism and feminism at the same time m8
            it’s like hating David AND Goliath. Mortal enemies. David is the good guy.
            If you do your own research into the matter (which is illegal btw) then you’ll come to your own conclusions, and you won’t like them.
            Are there any other supposedly obvious historical events that are illegal to research? The energy spent on trying to cover it up is only further evidence of the assumption. What are they hiding?

      2. I can explain it by assuming you get the left on the wrong side.

4. “So before you go running to the state …. you may want to look at what happens when the state gets more power.”
   This needed to be repeated.
   À bientôt,
   Mistral

   1. Is this what you had in mind?

      1. Hippie: “I want more government so we can save the environment.”
         Government worker: “I want more government so I can get a higher paycheck.”

5. Almost all people will follow their own self-interest in the vast majority of choices they make. For this reason, organizations composed of people often have problems with corruption, as each person attempts to benefit themselves at the expense of others in the group.
   The benefit of the free market is that it aligns the self-interest of the individual with the best interest of society. This is because an individual in a free market benefits himself by providing products or services that are useful to others (think Gates, Jobs, Ford, and the millions of other lesser-known working people).
   Unlike the free market, in socialism and other forms of government ownership, those who have possession of the resources do not have a personal incentive to use them from the benefit of others, which is why economies based largely on socialism fail.
   Of course, sometimes markets need to be regulated in order to prevent monopolies or other developments which prevent the market from being truly free, but other than this small area of regulation, government interference is not a good thing.

   1. No they will follow their tribal or clans interests. Individualism is a strictly western conception.

      1. It’s a perversion of Western ideology.
         To care about becoming wealthy ahead of the progress of your kin is a disease. The bourgeois, untamed by higher ideals is enormously destructive to culture.

         1. While there will always be hierarchies, there is nothing more despicable than an effete, sedentary and softened class of nobles. The best part the French Revolution is that they executed in en masse the lot sorry aristocrats whose predecessors were men who rode on horse next to William the Conqueror in England. Capitalism plants the own seeds of its destruction, bases human life on baseless materialism and strives to produce men whose highest ideal is to become Shylock instead of Beowulf. The warrior instinct is repressed and mammon enthroned.

         2. I agree with your concerns, but I tend to view the focus on materialism to be more a result of the sexual revolution and destruction of the family, than of the market. Prior to the sexual revolution, the US had a free market, but family and kin ties were still strong.
            In response to Thorsen, I agree with you if by clan interests you mean family interests. However, in broader society and outside of familial ties (ie in the economy, which was the subject of discussion) people will almost always act in their self-interest.
            Some below are objecting to my use of the term “free”; I suppose definitions vary, but what I meant was open markets in which competition is promoted and policies are not imposed to support the special interests of that sector.
            For those who disagree, what alternate method of economic production would you propose society should adopt, and why?

         3. Don’t be naive. The decision to foist women into the labour markets wasn’t a decision of socialism or communism but a decision of industry, the tycoons, financiers and industrialists working in tandem with the government. It was a market base decision to address a labour shortage and to get women access to salaried positions where they’d spend that money in the consumerist economy which as we all know is mainly predicated towards women. Money that men would have been less likely to spend on bullshit. Again just as we tell the culti marxists to deprogramme yourselves, deprogramme yourself.

         4. Europe lived with the taming effects of higher ideals for a long period of time, and what it got was the great chain of being and barely any room for social mobility.
            The pursuit of higher ideals, or anti-materialism (which philosophically is not just about being anti-wealth, but anti-matter), leaves people enduring the pains of reality, with the hope that in the afterlife, the endurance of pain and having no ambition, will lead to the equivalent of kingly lives. It’s the same logic behind jihad, where you suffer for most of your life, then you die in a holy war and then you go to heaven and get to have 72 virgins. The results speak for themselves.

         5. No one “foisted” women into the marketplace. They entered it of their own accord, because they viewed it as beneficial to their interests, and over time the portion of the economy dependent on hard physical labor (male) has decreased. You are right that industry appreciates the extra labor.
            But anyway, are you proposing a system in which women are prohibited from free participation in the economy? I agree that this would restore more traditional family structures by forcing women to pursue beta men, but by the same token I tend to be opposed to such radical measures.

         6. Yes I agree.
            Unfortunately many westerners, especially americans, are not able to critically evaluate their materialistic worldview. America is founded on a syncretism of enlightenment ideology and jewish inspired calvinist christianity.
            This is the reason some variant of liberalism, in this case libertarianism, is seen as the only viable alternative to the postmodern liberal regime.

         7. You have an infantile idea of what “freedom” is. You assume that maximum freedom for the masses is good, while I would submit the opposite.
            Freeing women made them miserable.
            No good parent would extent maximum liberty to their child to choose to do or be anything they like … so to, government should mold and restrict behavior of its citizenry.

         8. That’s your own idiotic rationalization … you think some dumb peasant Christian who thinks Jesus is going to save him is any less deluded than the modern obese consumer? Both adhere to demented worldviews, but at least the former is motivated by something other than nacho chips and the NBA.
            Regardless, the aristocrats of Greece and Rome had highly advanced cosmologies which were not fairy tales, but rather the explication of metaphysical truth.
            Higher ideals are the only thing that distinguish men from beasts.

         9. I think the obese modern consumer would much rather be obese and live to 70, rather than be poor, pursue the ideals dictated by aristocrats and live only to the age of 30, while those same aristocrats get to become obese, preach asceticism and are the ones who get to live long lives.
            And there is an ideal that capitalism is driven by, and has always been driven by despite all the saying of it’s critics; it’s the ideal that the future will be better than the past, and it’s something they’ve been willing to work for and what has driven society to the point, where you can trash talk all you want about it on a mobile device or a computer. It’s decline, if anything has come due to the passage of power and influence of it’s culture into the hands of those who wish to somehow install some society of great ideals since the 1950’s: the result has been a boom in fundamentalist religion and cultural marxism.
            As for the Greeks and the Romans, they were far closer to capitalism, because even their ideals were more close to reality than a higher ideal: what kind of higher ideal has gods committing adultery left and right in it? If they had not put more value into war and conquering, rather than producing and preparing a better future, they too might have had societies where people could be nacho eating and NBA loving citizens.

         10. You make sloppy arguments … saying that because I argue on an iPad my views are invalid is as incorrect as would be for me to say that your views are invalid because the political lexicon and social framework, we use consciously or not, is the product of aristocratic regimes in the distant past.
             Regardless, we aren’t going to agree because you view man as an animal who seeks pleausre, I’m more concerned with meaning. You and I are different species.

         11. Your arguments are based on a straight up disrespect for human beings and the choices they make on their own accord, without the influence of coercion. You refuse to accept that the societies that you refer to in the past, where ideals were pursued and emphasized, were pursued not due to choice but due to coercion and a limitation on ambition that was reserved for those advocating for those ideals. You dislike the fact that people, when given the freedom to choose, choose vulgarity and toys, much more so than noble ideals.
             You act as though it is society that prevents you or others from pursuits of meaning; that it is capitalism that prevents it. Yet, is there no place in a capitalist society where people are denied pursuits of meaning? Is it not capitalism that created the environment for public libraries, where even the lowest and poorest of people could read books and achieve all the knowledge of higher ideals to pursue are right there in the open and free to borrow, or buy for a price lesser than a big mac? You are free to be what you want, it’s just that the majority aka society is not obligated to follow as such.

         12. No it was not a result of independent decision making in each and every household.
             A campaign swept over the western world with the aim of promoting feminism and female economic independence.
             The cultural marxists and the corporate capitalists worked in concert to make it happen. The marxists wanted to destroy the family and patriarchy. While big business wanted more cheap workers and consumers. Women are always more demanding consumers, more susceptible to marketing and fads. Hence good for business.
             You sound a tad gullible to assume this just happened as a result of individual utility maximization. This was from design, not the result of spontaneous order.

         13. You are right that big industry probably had a hand in promoting women as a labor source. I agree with you that maximum freedom for the masses is not good, and I do agree that society was better off prior to women’s liberation.
             I do support restriction of abortion and birth control, promotion of the family via government policies, promotion of traditional religion, and abolition of feminist anti-male policies as a means of at least partially restoring the old order.
             However, I have always had a strong negative reaction to the thought of government actively discriminating against women in the economy. The concept just seems oppressive to me, perhaps I am wrong though. When you say “restrict the behavior of citizenry” what exact policies would you favor?
             Furthermore, what does this have to do with the economy? The discussion of whether or not women should be allowed to work in the economy is separate from the discussion of what sort of structure that economy should have. I am in general agreement with you criticism of women’s lib, but you also seem to be twisting that into an argument against the free market.

         14. Capitalism disprivileges excellence and dissent by uniting the concensus of the mediocre and timid altruistic men, bourgeois pettiness, and scientific rationalism into an impenetrable fortress of spiritual nihilism which dominates all aspects of culture.
             Read Nietzsche’s passage on the Last Man.

         15. “One should see the dominant role of the weak in shaping man’s fate not
             as a perversion of natural instincts and vital impulses, but as the
             starting point of the deviation which led man to break away from, and
             rise above, nature — not as degeneration but as the generation of a new
             order of creation.
             The corruption inherent in absolute power derives from the fact that
             such power is never free from the tendency to turn man into a thing, and
             press him back into the matrix of nature from which he has risen. For
             the impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give
             to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature.
             Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes.
             The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still
             demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in
             absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.” – Eric Hoffer

         16. I am not sure I actually said something like “restrict the behavior of citizenry”. Maybe that was Dr. Orange. Nevermind.
             I am not advocating discrimination against women. What values are promoted in society are however of outmost importance. Women should never be encouraged to choose careers over families.
             The external effects of mass employment of women is a degradation of communal life, chaotic relations among the sexes and depression of the fertility rate. Just to name some of the most severe effects.
             I even doubt that it is societally sustainable in the long run.
             And I am not sure the structure of the economy can be separated neatly from female workforce participation. The economic sphere can not be separated from the social or cultural one. They are interconnected.
             I prefer local community based economies. I am not against free enterprise as such. But corporatism breeds corruption and crowds out community based social life.
             I dont think libertarianism is the answer, its just another spiritually empty form of liberalism. And I fear that it will just entail
             more deregulation and power to the financial sector and corporations.

         17. Nail. Head. Hammer. I always wondered how these secret elite meetings took place. What the format and location was.

   2. Markets are never “free” but are tightly regulated spheres of society. A free marketer always seeks to become a monopolist, since its good for business.
      Selfprofessed freemarketers are lying when they say they welcome competition.

      1. Why don’t you believe that a free-marketer could value the freedom of others over his own interests? Soldiers die everyday for the systems they believe in. Can not even one businessman have the same sentiment?

         1. “Competition is a sin” – J.D. Rockefeller

         2. To most anti-capitalists, there’s no difference between persuasion and coercion, thus there’s no difference between capitalism and oligarchy. There’s no point arguing with such people.

         3. Beyond the fact that the opinion of a single man does nothing to disprove the theory that others could value their beliefs over their self-interests, could you please source this quote? When did Rockefeller say this and what was the context?
            Also, do you realize that if he truly believed that competition is sinful, he is not a free-marketer at all? That means he cannot be considered evidence even if this quote is genuine.

         4. Of course capitalism increases wealth, but it is foolish to believe that markets are “free” … the right word is “open” markets, meaning they are open to the public and priced at market demand.
            Rich people will never allow for a “free market” (not that I blame them). Are people this stupid? You think the super wealthy are immune to the same market forces that the average Joe investor is? Ha! There is no such thing as a “free market” because all aspects of guilds have always been structured as in/out group relations… and speculation is often based on intel (available to the wealthy only).

         5. No. Merchants never offer their life in exchange for liberal freedoms.
            This is the job of gullible working class patriots who have been scammed into fighting wars for the zionists.
            The liberal merchant seeks profit and hedonistic pleasure. He is the embodiment of the last man.

         6. Good ole’ Rockerfeller! Can that man go a day without eating babies?

      2. Exactly… these moron libertarians believe that “the market” is an independent principle that is self sufficient. It’s the result of being raised in America… libertarians eat up this idea that America was made great by merchants.
         A mercantile society is a society in decline, not ascent. The plebs are ascending, that’s it. The problem is that pleas are lazy and eventually destroy society by becoming too decadent (think baby boomers). Libertarians over look the fact that society is organic and cyclical, not linear. They stupidly forget the obvious; if government is extremely limited, cartels will rise up and for the equivalent in other industries.

      3. Markets aren’t free? In the summertime, sometimes my neighbor and I used to sell cold water from a cooler, on weekends, to passing motorists. No ‘regulation’ was needed, unless of course the socialists suddenly step in.

         1. And from where do you get your tap water?
            You are basically just reselling a highly regulated good that has already been paid for.
            Take a look at the taxes you pay for clean water.

         2. Uh, we pay a water bill. If you don’t pay a water bill, you don’t get water. This happened in Detroit, they shut down tons of people’s water. Maybe in your country you don’t pay water bills.

         3. You are missing the point.
            Water is a highly regulated natural ressource. The fact that you are reselling this ressource on the informal market doesnt change this fact.

         4. What we were selling was spring water, which is privately collected from privately owned springs.

         5. Thats all fine, but only a very small amount of water is privately owned by individuals. And still water use is tightly regulated. You cant just pollute your water source as you see fit.
            In the large majority of countries in the developed world the water industry forms a natural monopoly. Mainly since its an essential good, which need protection for environmental reasons.
            This is really no good example of a free market.

   3. So you prefer just a small amount of arbitrary tyranny? People are responsible for regulating themselves, using the non-aggression principle. The presence of a victim dictates a wrong. The government is a self-serving system and its only goal is to increase wealth and power to those in its little club. It will happily take on regulatory roles as a guise for doing this, but it is not interested in acting in pursuit of the truth, only for its nefarious ends. For these reason “regulation” is decided in favour of which groups have the best lobbying efforts.
      Yes, the government is currently so good as ferreting out monopolies. This is why I have the choice of one cable company, one electric company, one water works, one natural gas provider. Yet it took them years to issue a permission slip for Sirius and XM to merge, because there’s hardly any competition for entertainment out there these days.

   4. oh yes: “those who have possession of the resources do not have a personal incentive to use them from the benefit of others, which is why economies based largely on socialism fail.” Socialism And Feminism share this selfish trait but they don’t share their resources. Instead they take – and they work in tandem until they run out of other people’s money… Women in particular have much less of a personal incentive to use ‘their’ resources for the benefit of others – the useless, loser, dead beat, pathetic, predatory, rapist, low-lifes… a demographic currently defined as 80%+ of the male population.
      You see the Feminine Imperative is to withhold all feminine ‘goodies’ from the Beta Male Providers until she finds Mr. Right, her one and only Prince Charming with whom she will happily give of herself [and maybe her resources] only so long as her man has more than her… Women don’t marry simply for good looks – like men do – no women need much more than a handsome face to turn their head: social status, charm, wealth, height and you guessed it, Money – that is what women are looking for in a male and they sure as hell aint interested in sharing their resources with men who they find repulsive, unattractive, creepy, stalkerish or rapey.
      Quite the opposite actually. I get the feeling feminists would be content to have 80% of the male population eradicated from the planet – leaving the 20% to form harems of polygamous marriage with the women who are interested in marriage and children.

      1. I don’t marry just for looks. Seriously, a females resources matter to me in mate selection. If all she brings to the table is physical beauty, well no point in actually marrying her, just enjoy her one asset and move on.

   5. I agree with you until your final paragraph. Regulation is never necessary, because the free market has never produced a monopoly without the power of the state. Every example of a monopoly in human history had been the result of a businessman using his wealth to lobby the state to raise the barrier of entry to his chosen industry or penalize his existing competitors, thereby locking out competition.

      1. Jesus, never actually heard of that. Do you mind explaining to a wanna be economist in more depth? Thanks in advance.

         1. Sure thing, Cheuk! Let me give you an example. Suppose you’ve just invented the cell phone. One day, you discover that someone else has studied your phone, figured out how it was made, and then started manufacturing cell phones on their own, even selling them at a lower price than you!
            Most people would try to find a way to manufacture the phone for even less than the new competitor, or a way to increase the quality of their phones so that people are willing to pay more for it. However, with the state, you can instead declare that you have intellectual copyright on cell phones and sue the competitor, first distracting him from his business by burying him in legal fees, then ultimately preventing him from making the product at all if the court rules in your favor.
            Copyright law is an example of the state creating of barrier of entry to new competitors in an industry. Another example is regulations. Let’s return to the example. Having crushed every competitor to your product that has emerged using copyright law, you have enjoyed a monopoly on cell phones for a few years and built up a large amount of capital.
            One day, you attempt to stop another new competitor, but the state rules that the product they are manufacturing is different enough from your own product that they are not infringing on your copyright. Again, rather than improving your product or lowering its cost, you turn to the state for a solution.
            Using the capital you’ve built up over years of monopoly, you lobby the state to impose new “safety” regulations for the manufacturing of cell phones. These safety regulations require a building of certain size for the product for and specific, expensive materials during the manufacturing process. For safety reasons of course!
            The new competitor is unable to afford a larger space or the new equipment required since they’ve just started out, so their business caves in and you are able to enjoy a few more years of monopoly on the cell phone market.
            One day, you are horrified to see that a business larger than yours has started selling their own cell phones, announcing the product with a high-profile and expensive advertising campaign. Unlike a startup, they are able to defend against your copyright claim and are also able to afford to adhere to your safety regulations.
            Finally, you are forced to either find a way to improve your product or sell it for less. After some research and development, you discover a way to lower your price by 40% (the trick is surprisingly similar to some that your earlier competitors were using….but they, having been long out of business, do not notice that you are infringing on their “intellectual properties.”)
            To your delight, people continue to purchase your cell phones. But one day, you see that the larger business has also dropped their price by 40%. When you study their product, you can’t see how they managed this. Then, the answer becomes clear: they have lobbied the state to create a 40% tax break for cell phone manufacturers if their sales exceed 10,000 units per year, claiming that cell phones are crucial to the future success of American citizens.
            Since your business is only selling about 5,000 units per year, you are ineligible for the tax break. You spend more on advertising, but are unable to convince enough people to buy your phones since their only advantage against the larger competitor is that they cost less to manufacture.
            At the end of that year, drained of capital, you are forced to close your business despite the fact that your product costs 40% less to manufacture than your main competitor, who now has a monopoly on cell phones.
            These are three examples of how businesses can use the state to enforce a monopoly. I am unaware of any monopoly in history that has not required the support of the state. I hope this helped you to understand what I meant earlier.
            If you have any questions, just let me know!

         2. Cheers. To what extent do you think government intervention of patents is appropriate? Clearly you have outlined the flaws in copyright laws, but don’t you think these very laws help to preserve private property rights that Friedman and Hayek advocate for?
            Take a pharmaceutical company for example, they spend millions to invest in one drug, and are need of profit to keep them afloat. An Indian company comes along, take their ingredients and thus is able to sell it at a much cheaper rate. This is not only not fair, but it will slow growth and advancement in the industry: The indian company probably isn’t capable of producing new innovations, the original company is disincentivised. So in this case, wouldn’t the barrier of entry be in the interest of both producer AND consumer?

         3. I believe patents and copyrights are completely unnecessary and usually harmful. You mention that pharmaceutical companies use patent law to protect their product in order to cover their massive research costs, but in actuality the only reason pharmaceutical research is so expensive is overwhelming and time-consuming regulation on that particular industry by the state.
            If there was less regulation, the product would be less expensive to manufacture, and patent protection would be unnecessary. Another reason patent protection is unnecessary is that duplicating a product takes research and investment. For example, suppose you wish to sell a successful new drug, it would take a least a few weeks to take it apart, analyze the components, then design and build the equipment necessary to mass-produce it.
            In the meantime, the inventor has already had time to build confidence in their own product, and have the resources to distribute it. It would be difficult to gain ground on the original item when your business is basically just repackaging it. It’s also unlikely you would become aware of the item at all until it already has some success, meaning that the inventor has a substantial headstart in the market.
            The inventor is also much more likely to discover improvements to the product, because they are the ones who thought of it in the first place. They understand the design and purpose of each component. So, even if a competitor is able to replicate your product and distribute it quickly enough to substantially affect your sales, the inventor is more likely to find an improvement and create a new and better product.
            In conclusion, copyright and patent law is only useful to producers insofar that it somewhat solves the problem created by the state in the first place. It is never helpful to consumers because it only stagnates product evolution.

         4. You clearly have never been involved in product development. It can take years, especially for a start-up, to design, manufacture and package a product, and to secure distribution. What you propose would kill the ‘little man’. Big corporations could copy the idea and have marketing, sales and distribution channels in place to surpass anything the originator could muster. The development of IP takes time, money, and resources so it must be protected.

         5. It is true in theory that an existing corporation could copy a new idea and use their resources to outsell the creator, but in reality it is very unlikely. This is because it is so difficult to convince an established/large corporation to take a risk on a new idea if the creator hasn’t already had substantial success with it.
            For example, look at countless authors like J. K. Rowling who present their ideas to publisher after publisher, only to be repeatedly rejected. There are so many classic stories like Harry Potter that were only published due to misunderstandings, pure luck, or incredible persistence on the part of the author. And that’s just to convince a company to publish a new book, which doesn’t require any research and development investment.
            Another example. Imagine that Mark Zuckerberg walked into Google in 2004 to try to convince them to use their servers to host his new website. They wouldn’t even have stolen it back then!
            Ten years later, Google+ can’t find a way to catch up to Facebook, even though it is superbly designed and has similar capabilities. In real life, even a company as trusted and successful as Google can’t compel customers to switch from the proven creator to their own service, when the product itself is free! Would it really make a difference if they used Facebook’s exact code? For another example of this with a physical product, look no further than the rush of tablets after the launch of the iPad, and how many years it took for any of them to dent its sales.
            If you can provide even one example of an established business copying a product and actually outperforming the original creator, I will gladly show how they used either violence or the state to do it.
            In reality, it is far too hard to convince people to take a risk on something unproven. Anyone who has lent books or movie to friends knows that they frequently don’t get around to it, even if that book or movie is a bestseller. Imagine how much harder it is convince a big business to spend some of their revenue on replicating a new and unproven idea!

         6. Are you kidding? If your reasoning made sense, nobody would get patents. I had a consulting business that specialized in product development and the biggest problem was with products that, for one reason or another, couldn’t be protected by patents. In those cases there was an urgent rush to get the product to market and establish the brand, which takes a lot of money and sometimes years to do. Once the big boys get wind of success they’ll either attempt to acquire the small company (hopefully) or develop a competing product. This isn’t “theory”, this is common reality. And “substantial success” isn’t required. If a product does well locally, a corporation with national or even global distribution channels can take it and run with it. Not to mention the lower costs on raw materials and superior manufacturing capabilities that major corporations have. Without IP protection, the little guy gets crushed. If you need examples, I’m sure a quick Google search will supply you with plenty.

         7. “If your reasoning made sense, nobody would get patents.”
            You follow this by listing ways it which it protects startups, as though they are the only users of patents. This is ignoring the fact that large businesses frequently use patents to lock out smaller competition.
            “Once the big boys get wind of success they’ll either attempt to acquire the small company (hopefully) or develop a competing product.”
            By your own admission, larger businesses prefer to hire the original creator, knowing that they are the most likely of anyone to continue improving the product. So why should the inventor have the right to not only reject the offer of an business that wishes to work with them, but also to prevent that business from creating the product on their own?
            Stated another way: the preferred option of the party most capable of actualizing the product (the established business) prefers to work with the creator of the product, not to copy the product. This strongly rejects the notion that patents are necessary, yet you used it as evidence to support the idea that patents are necessary.
            “Without IP protection, the little guy gets crushed. If you need examples, I’m sure a quick Google search will supply you with plenty.”
            It is the responsibility of the person who supports a theory to provide evidence for it, so it’s telling that you suggested I search on my own instead of providing an example. As the owner of consulting business who had problems with patents, I imagine it would be pretty easy to list just one, keeping in mind that I will then demonstrate how it was actually the result of violence or the state that the larger party was able to outperform the original creator.
            I say all this as a strong supporter in capitalism because I believe in respecting the private property of others, so I doubt you and I disagree to a great extent. I just think it’s important to understand that there is a fundamental difference between an idea and a property.
            I can say that a shirt is mine because it can be taken from me. If you took it from me, I could no longer wear it. If we both tried to wear it at the same time, it would be probably tear. Therefore, there is a purpose to me saying “This shirt is my property;” to knowing who it belongs to.
            An idea is different in that those things cannot happen to it. We can both have the same idea without it’s quality diminishing even slightly. Therefore, it is meaningless for me to claim “This idea is my property.”
            Unfortunately, this is treated as a meaningful statement by our legal system, making it possible to prevent ideas from becoming actualized by effective parties. As Mark Zuckerberg said to the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.”

         8. I wasn’t implying that only start-ups need patents. Big businesses need them to protect their interests as well. They make sense for everyone.
            “larger businesses prefer to hire the original creator, knowing that they are the most likely of anyone to continue improving the product.”
            Sometimes. Sometimes not. Depends on the product and the business.
            “why should the inventor have the right to not only reject the offer of an business that wishes to work with them, but also to prevent that business from creating the product on their own?”
            Umm, because it’s HIS invention.
            “the preferred option of the party most capable of actualizing the product (the established business) prefers to work with the creator of the product, not to copy the product.”
            Again, not always. And it shouldn’t be left up to the business, it should be the creator’s decision.
            “Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind. Every type of productive work involves a combination of mental and of physical effort: of thought and of physical action to translate that thought into a material form. The proportion of these two elements varies in different types of work. At the lowest end of the scale, the mental effort required to perform unskilled manual labor is minimal. At the other end, what the patent and copyright laws acknowledge is the paramount role of mental effort in the production of material values; these laws protect the mind’s contribution in its purest form the origination of an idea. The subject of patents and copyrights is intellectual property. … Thus the law establishes the property right of a mind to that which it has brought in existence.”
            As far as examples, I am bound by NDA’s not to reveal information about my clients. But here’s a link for you –
            http://famous101.com/famous-ideas-stolen-by-big-business
            Please, tell me how the Aqueduck or a socket wrench were stolen through violence or help from the State.
            Btw, the reason there aren’t thousands more examples is…… because inventors know to get their inventions patented!
            Listen, I’m all for smaller government and less regulation, but protection of IP property is necessary. Societies’ great minds must be incentivized and rewarded. Many inventors don’t want to get into manufacturing, sales, etc. They want to create a product, patent it, sell it or get royalties, and move on to the next big thing. Your way of thinking is outdated. It assumes that everyone that has an idea wants to work on that same idea for the rest of their lives.

         9. Thank you for the thorough reply! I will look into what you have said and let you know what I think.

      2. You are right that the government creates some monopolies by arbitrarily raising barriers to entry in support of special interests, but there are natural monopolies as well.
         There are many industries in which barriers to entry are naturally high due to the initial investment required for a firm to start to business in that industry. Government regulation now solves this problem, to some degree, with anti-trust regulation.
         http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/corporate-monopolies/government.html
         And to Cheuk, a monopoly is when one or a few firms dominate and industry. This isn’t always a problem, but when those firms gain the means to keep out competitors, they can raise prices above the normal market level and consumers will be forced to pay the prices or go without the service, since there are no competitors.
         For example, Google has a virtual monopoly, but it can’t arbitrarily raise prices because people would go to other services like Bing. If Google were people’s only option though, it could raise it could charge people to use it’s service and people would have no choice but to pay.

         1. Could you provide an example from history of a monopoly that occurred without the support of government?

   6. Nah, that’s philistine bullshit.
      The “market” has brought us Kim Khardashian, McDonald’s, MTV, and NFL football as religion. The market has no interest in high art or music (real culture).
      The masses are idiots. If you want to worship and exalt their tastes, as you are when you trumpet the market, you are helping to destroy civilization. Civilization needs a caste system, to which the market is subordinate.

6. people on the left nearly stampeding over themselves to point out the Scandinavian countries as proof socialism can work.

   Yeah, progressives can’t get their propaganda straight about white people. America’s white people suck; their cousins in Europe rock.

   1. Unless they are facing Muslims or African immigrants.

7. I don’t understand why this post has a picture of Ludwig von Mises at the top. Mises didn’t really believe in own propaganda, because he became a client of ad man Lawrence Fertig when he migrated to the U.S., instead of getting a real job in a competitive market. Fertig bribed New York University to give Mises an office and pretend that he had a job there as a “visiting professor” or something, while paying Mises a salary out of his own pocket.
   Mises also probably received an administered wage from Fertig on a regular basis that they written into a contract, instead of constantly negotiating with Fertig for his wages based on the marginal productivity of his labor that week as an economist compared with other economists who offered their services to Fertig.
   I also find it funny that the Mises Institute, which professes to carry on Mises’s legacy, has digitized his writings and gives them away for free over the internet, like a digital version of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature or something, even though you ordinarily have to pay for ebooks. If the Mises Institute deliberately ignores price signals and produces arbitrary quantities of ebooks for free distribution, how can it do this without causing economic miscalculations and chaos?

   1. Troll. One long ad hominem.

   2. When you use one candle to light another, the first candle is not diminished by the process. It is not an exchange of scarcities.
      Without the force of government to create and maintain an artificial scarcity, a digital text has less free market value than a single blade of dry grass and the cost of distribution is little more than that required to push a few electrons around, half of which is paid by the receiver.
      Even if a digital text were worth as much as a single penny (and it isn’t worth anywhere near that much), the idea that free market capitalism requires that these advertising brochures be distributed at a direct profit is a bit goofy.

8. I dont think people are really contesting the merits of capitalism or assuming that we currently have a capitalistic economy. The majority of concern I saw was that our current system won’t work going forward.

   1. Really? The original article contained the premise that we have unfettered free market capitalism. The exact point of the original argument, which is wrong, was that free marketing capitalism was not working.
      Are you referring to something else?

      1. I was referring to the commenters on the article. I don’t recall a single post about capitalism not working. Many were aimed at our “capitalism” not working. Many others were focused on the lack of employability due to
         automation, which is something that transcends politics or even economic systems.

9. At this point, the fewer who understand economics, the better. The panic in this guy’s eyes when I explained how over-leveraged the banks are… We dont need to multiply that guy by tens of millions…

10. I’d pay good money to see you do a ‘Right to Choose’ style documentary with left wing academics.

11. All you need to know about economics in less than 5 minutes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4tUQuBCoGU

    1. Baloney. That was put together by someone who doesn’t want to spend the effort to understand much of anything.

12. Capitalism is generally misunderstood, because for most of our history, we’ve been led by Aristocratic ideals of morality and human nature globally. The Aristocratic world view is that a small percentage of people are blessed or have the capabilities to rule the vast majority of people. This is why for most of human history, and even today, the trader/merchant has always been looked upon as vulgar and philistine. Capitalism came about when people stopped buying into the Aristocratic worldview or what in Academia is referred to as the great chain of being after the breakthroughs of the enlightenment.
    Since the French Revolution, there’s been a movement by the intellectual classes to return us to an aristocratic worldview, but unlike that of land owners, it would be a society where intellectuals or technocrats get to occupy the number one spot. Socialism, Communism, Social Democracy, they all are meant to achieve the same end. The reason why their efforts haven’t died, is because we still have a lot of ideals about human nature like the idea of “Noblesse Oblige” that are compatible with Aristocracy but not capitalism.
    Capitalism has always existed in the hearts of men who wanted more for themselves, than what society has dictated to them that they deserved. Capitalism honors man, because it says that you deserve to go as far as your works and the desire of others to either buy or invest in them takes you. It’s not just a law, but it’s justice itself. Any other economic system cannot relate to humans on a fair level, if anything, like communism has shown, every other economic system, requires a lessening of the value of man and work as a whole.

13. I don’t think pure capitalism can exist as long as government is in place. However, the U.S. succeeded in attaining superpower status for a number of reasons – chief among them a high coefficient of capitalism, probably around .8 at one point. Over the course of the 20th century this was whittled away through socialist redistribution programs, especially those of FDR and LBJ. I think we crossed the .5 capitalism coefficient in 2008, when massive bailouts were given directly from the FedRes printing press to the banks, mortgage companies and auto makers. In addition, the new administration declared war on non-subsidized businesses like Gibson Guitar, passed Obamacare to scrap the service industry and blocked natural resource development, especially in the coal and oil industries. Not to mention trillions handed out in QE to benefit Wall Street fedgov workers and contractors only which has not circulated down to the level of the average worker.
    So for the first time we currently have a capitalism coefficient of around .3 to .4. This enables the radicals to rail against the “failure of capitalism” by conveniently not mentioning that capitalism has been eroded by the big guns of government force. If you do recognize these things, however, please stop trying to cajole others into “Starting your own damn business!” While this may have been feasible pre-2008, it now makes no sense. To start a business in 2014 America you pretty much need to be an inventor, manager, programmer, accountant, lawyer, and marketer. You need immense capital to start up which a bank will no longer provide and any of these things you have to hire someone else to do erodes your already razor thin chances at ever making a profit. You are immediately subject to so many legal restrictions you could not even read them in a lifetime and the whims of numerous bureaucratic alphabet agencies. You no longer have the right to hire and fire whom you choose, but are at the mercy of the good graces of the most slovenly and lazy employees just waiting for you to insult their special status so they can have a quick payday in court. On top of all this if you ever manage to make a profit you will pay more than half in taxes and you are always subject to the escalating threats of the “you didn’t build that” crowd.
    And please don’t point to Microsoft, Facebook or Twitter as a shining example of how a twenty something can become a billionaire. Those companies only really took off once the state realized their potential as mass intelligence gathering vehicles.

    1. Israel in the early years was pure communist I believe.

14. Communism is not capitalism in reverse. There are in fact quite a lot of similarities between the two. Mind you, this is not comparing the theoretical versions of the two, but rather the observable real world application.
    The similarities of Communism and Capitalism can be observed:
    – Both emerged as an alternative to feudalism and monarchies
    – Both rely on a command economy (centrally planned economy)
    – Both assert concentrated power (and wealth) over entire industries (disdain for competition)
    – Both institute a non-transparent, top down decision making structure by concentrated power
    – Both play to the working class (labor forces) by marketing populist rhetoric
    – Both rely on a political system of one party or similar parties controlling political process
    – Both’s economic decision-makers also dictate public policy
    – Both supersede public representation (democracy) and nation
    – Both have a ruling class that uses the concept of “ownership” (public or private) to legitimize the economic system
    Things compete because of their similarities, not differences. Pepsi and Coca-Cola compete because they both produce cola. A runner doesn’t compete with a tennis player: the only way they can compete is if one plays the other’s game. Hence, Communism and Capitalism share only superficial differences in practice, and that is why their competition has existed.
    Only in their conceptual form and utopian ideals are they are at odds with one another. Concepts of ownership/property, individuality, equality, etc. are often debated, but debating these concepts that Capitalists and Communists regularly cite are nothing more than human projections of idealism.

    1. Has there ever been a civilization that survived without the necessity of ideals to pursue, including our own?

       1. That’s not the point. The point is that we are being sold just another form of communism (or capitalism, if you wish). There’s a wonderful phrase for how capitalism works in the real world: “The socialisation of risk and cost, and the privatisation of profit.”
          That’s a pretty good description of what the state does under actually existing capitalism, as opposed to the free market. Just about everything we identify as problematic about corporate capitalism — the exploitation of labor, pollution, waste and planned obsolescence, environmental devastation, the stripping of resources — results from the socialization of cost and risk and the privatization of profit.
          Why haven’t the technological revolution and the vast increases in productivity from technological progress resulted in fifteen-hour work weeks, or many necessities of life becoming too cheap to meter? The answer is that economic progress is enclosed as a source of rent and profit.

          1. Because why work 15 hours per week, when you can work none at all?

       2. Has there ever been a civilization that survived without the necessity of food?

    2. They both also promote “gender equality” while going against traditional values.
       Both also actively destroy cultural and racial integrity of nations through integration and ideas of equality.
       Anyone who blindy supports capitalism is just as delusional as anyone who blindly supports socialism and communism.

       1. Capitalism does not promote gender equality.
          Capitalism relies on entrepreneurship, innovation, the creation and ownership of goods, all which women continually fail to achieve.

          1. Who care what women can or cannot achieve? The capitalist system benefits from having as many wage slaves and brain-washed consumers as possible. Indpendent career women who buy useless frivolities such as their 30th pair of shoes are perfect for the capitalist system.

          2. that’s more of a cultural problem in America than it is a problem with capitalism. Women forced themselves into the labor market, not necessarily because free market forces drove them there. However, I would say that the cultural issues are a result of being so spoiled by the fruits of capitalism.

       2. Oh how misguided you are. Capitalism is merely the respect of individual rights, especially about property right. Profit is just a secondary characteristic, with the other side of that coin, loss.

    3. “Both rely on a command economy (centrally planned economy)
       – Both assert concentrated power (and wealth) over entire industries (disdain for competition)
       – Both institute a non-transparent, top down decision making structure by concentrated power
       – Both play to the working class (labor forces) by marketing populist rhetoric
       – Both rely on a political system of one party or similar parties controlling political process”
       You described Communism and Fascism. Not capitalism. Your move.

       1. Political, capital (sic) C, Capitalism, has not existed since before, and cannot exist absent, big, omnipotent governments similar to communistic ones.
          The “natural” capitalism you refer to, is the outgrowth of an anarchic environment. One in which you cannot have government enforce so called “property rights” on your behalf over the likeness of some silly mouse, while using taxes collected from uninterested third parties to do so.

    4. That was about the stupidest, most uninformed thing I have read all day. “Centrally Planned Economy” Capitalism when correctly defined does not allow for central planning. That is a statist idea. You more effectively described fascism while attempting to describe capitalism. You are right, “capitalism” (fascism) is basically the other side of the collectivist/statist coin with Communism/socialism. You are obviously a subverter and a leftist. Be gone, brute, troll us somewhere else.

    5. You are confusing capitalism with socialism. Socialism is not capitalism. So all the comparative that you did was Communism vs socialism.

       1. I am not confusing anything. Capitalism is not free market. Free market is much closer to socialism as there is SOCIALISATION OF BOTH PROFIT AND RISK. It’s too long to explain and if you are interested you’ll dig it yourself.

15. Sorry, but libertarianism is not the answer. There are other alternatives beside 1850s-style “free” economics where 8 year olds had to work the mines and shoe-less hordes worked in shoe-factories. http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/interest-free-economics/.
    But I agree with your basic tenets anyway.

    1. wow William McKinley said this ? A republican too…
       I agree we need to dial back the free trade madness and put USA workers first

       1. in the 19th century the republicans were generally liberal, the democrats conservative.

16. Marx had a trust-fund?
    I thought he had filthy rich Engels

17. “Free trade” is an ideology invented to justify things like the forced sale of opium to China and the exportation of food by wealthy English landowners in Ireland during the potato famine.
    The Chinese have to accept the importation of opium because “free trade” is God’s invisible hand making life better than all alternatives, get it?
    English landlords have a right to export food from a land where most people are literally starving to death because “free trade” on an open market place creates the best of all possible worlds, ok?

18. I hate all these millennial communists. Their comfortable youth in the 80s-90s was enabled by capitalism and they don’t even realize it

19. Yes basically capitalism in the sense of the free market is the better system, but that should not be seen as precluding government action when you are a poor country who needs to rapidly industrialize. Japan and Korea first made it under protectionist conditions; China’s industrialization was also heavily state directed; and both the USA and Britain first industrialized under very protectionist conditions

20. More simplistic garbage from Clarey.
    The market isn’t god, contrary to what free market proponents declare… once a society values money and “personal freedom” above higher interests (spiritual, familial, and ethnic), the social fabric decays. I can prove it with the last 5 thousand years of history. Capitalism isn’t progress, it’s the last phase before a civilization collapses (read Oswald Spengler). Plato argued that the regression from aristocracy to oligarchy and democracy was a cyclical process and recurrence … moderns mistake it for progress.
    Contrary to what progressives believe (I include libtards in this group), humans are NOT in a state of improvement, mankind is essentially as flawed as it always has been and no amount of material progress can fix that predicament. The best man can hope for is MEANING, not pleasure or a longer life. As Neitzsche said [paraphrasing], a society which only values comfort and physical longevity is effeminate, unheroic, and senile.
    The merchant must kneel to the king.

    1. As opposed to your totalitarian garbage. Western civilisation might be a mess but it’s better for individuals to do the right thing because they want to as opposed to being told to.

       1. Childish comment.
          You assume that democracy and capitalism mean the people have a real voice? It just appeases men in the same way giving my dog peanut butter makes him happy and excited.
          America has been controlled by a plutocracy from day one, pal, they just let proles like you think they “have a right to vote” and are “middle class”, so surely they matter! No, not really.
          Your banks and resources were owned from day one.

          1. Never mentioned democracy. Capitalism doesn’t give people a voice it gives them an option. If I don’t like something I don’t buy it. Why don’t you commit to the fascist cause and get off your computer which I’m guessing wasn’t produced by Thus Spoke Zarathustra inc.

          2. Konrad Zuse, the inventor of first programmable computer, was a Nazi member and was given resources by the Nazi German government.
             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

          3. Don’t forget jet planes, mach technology and the first nuclear designs. Nothing that capitalism could have produced given that there wasn’t a ‘public demand’ for it.

          4. Based on Turing’s work.

          5. Again Turing received funds from His Majesty’s government for the war effort, hardly a product of capitalism aka sending a product to market.

          6. … and Turing based his work on other people’s contribution. That’s not the point we’re making here.

          7. What is it than? That a guy who designed computers was a Nazi?

          8. His Majesty’s government receiving said funds from private enterprise.

          9. Read this again – http://www.returnofkings.com/48788/what-every-man-needs-to-know-about-capitalism-and-economics#comment-1728986100

          10. No explain it to me. What is the point? I made a flippant comment about Nietzsche and computers, and you say a Nazi invented a computer. They didn’t market it or make it available for the majority of people.

          11. Get government out of the banning business,and I can assure you there’s plenty of demand for all of the above……

          12. Who was given a monopoly by Royal decree…….
              It’s rotten all the way down….

       2. Capitalism /democracy /free markets are “the least worst system” and the least coercive. If I don’t like WalMart I can shop Kmart, Target etc. All I know is I can get fucking blueberries in the middle of January

          1. Wow blue berries in January! Neato!
             “The last man lives longest.” -Nietzsche

          2. When it all comes down to it, it’s a philosophical issue.
             If you believe that mankind benefits most when it is left to itself, then the logical conclusion will lead you down the path of capitalism. However, if you believe that mankind only benefits when it’s led by the best of the best, whether it’s in terms of superior minds or strength, then yeah you’re going to favor some form of coercion to keep the vast majority of people in line, so that civilization, society or the community survives.
             You talk to an anti-capitalist long enough, you’ll slowly see the illusions subside and the heart of a person who wishes to have power over the masses, due to his/her heavy distrust and fear of them. He/she might not have the skills, talents, hope or even wealth to legitimize such an attitude, but it’s there. Like I said before, it’s the aristocratic worldview, which has been dominant for most of human history. It hasn’t died off yet, and it probably won’t for a long period of time.

          3. But if you like neither, you cannot shop at MyMart, since the above three paid government to enact enough zoning laws that I couldn’t afford the lawyers and permits to set up shop and compete with them…….
             If you rank order “systems” by sorting less coercive above more, you are indeed a sensible person. And an anarchist, even if perhaps still in the closet.

          4. You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve got family on the left. Who I like to call champagne socialists. When you listen carefully to what they say, and what they don’t say you come across a very nasty side of humanity.

          5. It’s so true.
             Behind the love for the environment, humanity, peace, etc there’s a desire to rule, teach and govern people. That is why the left has always succeeded in the realm of criticism, but falls apart when it comes to building anything of lasting value.
             It’s just like Communist Russia and Socialist India, they were both able to develop great technological advancements, and highly educated citizens, yet both failed to provide the basic needs, especially food for it’s citizenry. They were more concerned with developing all the tools they needed to control the masses, than actually taking care of them.

       3. You give the average individual too much credit. Most people are too naive, petty, and selfish to do the “right” thing.

          1. That’s what I’d like people to realise. The essence of human nature. No blame laid on sin, religion, race and men. If you take a good look at yourself and recognise this type of behaviour it’s pretty difficult not to do something about it.

    2. It’s highly debatable to whether capitalism encourages social fabric to decay. A large portion of the United States social decay stems from a lack of strong institutions. Christianity is by far the strongest institution keeping our communities from exploding in chaos, yet you see an increasing movement to replace this institution with government. Family has been another glue for society but this is rapidly being replaced by careerism and mass consumerism.
       The one industry which I feel should be strongly regulated and monitored by a morally sound organization is the media. Right now the mass media is the most powerful deviant controlled form of thought slavery in American history. The free market certainly isn’t good in the media. People always gravitate towards deviancy and corruption through violence, celebrity idolization, and oversexualization.

21. The United States has one of the most progressive tax systems in the industrialized world. Is this capitalism? give me a break!.

22. ‘A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.’
    ― Milton Friedman
    This includes economic freedom and more importantly economic freedom is responsible for all other freedom. Freedom is a concept that only exists in a society, society requires a government, and government requires an economy to exist.

23. Mises, Hayek and Friedman all share a common thread. Their style of economics is not good for nation states. Free banking has been shown not to work and Ayn Rand has been shown to be a lunatic. However, why is Germany’s economy never discussed as the model to go to, both under the Third Reich and the German economic miracle? No living wage model, financiers having their way with society and government and ‘free-banks’ crashing every 5 years. No thank you. You’ll see bankers advocating for both communism and pure free market capitalism. They benefit under both and you’ll see the same actors under both. Dumb fucking Americans thinking that some fat fucking banker and handing the keys of capital over to him is the solution. Destroyed the last strong state in Europe that had a better solution and today you’d rather put the shackles of debt over yourselves as ‘freedom’. Not to mention Hayek got on social security in his old age, fucking hypocrite. Yes let’s become debt and wage slaves! Mises and Hayek! Wooo!

    1. They are advocating the both as they are both system allowing them to privatise the profit and socialise the risk and cost.
       The natural effect of free market competition is socialism. For a short time the innovator receives a large profit, as a reward for being first to the market. Then, as competitors adopt the innovation, competition drives these profits down to zero and the price gravitates toward the new, lower cost of production made possible by this innovation (that price including, of course, the cost of the producer’s maintenance and the amortization of her capital outlays). So in a free market, the cost savings in labor required to produce any given commodity would quickly be socialized in the form of reduced labor cost to purchase it.
       Only when the state enforces artificial scarcities, artificial property rights, and barriers to competition, is it possible for a capitalist to appropriate some part of the cost savings as a permanent rent. The capitalist, under these conditions, is enabled to engage in monopoly pricing. That is, rather than being forced by competition to price her goods at the actual cost of production (including her own livelihood), she can target the price to the consumer’s ability to pay.
       That form of enclosure, via “intellectual property,” is why Nike can pay a sweatshop owner a few bucks for a pair of sneakers and then mark them up to $200. Most of what you pay for isn’t the actual cost of labor and materials, but the trademark.

       1. There is nothing noble about capitalism (I’m not for or against it, I just see it as a process like industrialism).
          We forget that the bourgeois also send soldiers out to go kill for resources and land. We forget that people died in mines and factories to get to the point where we have “property rights” for a sizeable majority.
          This cushy image of middle class capitalism where everyone wins through non violence, peace, and love is just as dangerous as communism.

          1. Hardly as dangerous as communism. Fascism / corporatism isn’t capitalism despite the constant mouthpieces that state as such.

       2. What America does better than any other nation in history is technological and entrepreneurial innovation from Steve Jobs right down to Dr. Dre, with Germany and Japan coming in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. This cannot be sacrificed, however capitalism in its purest equals children and women of prime child bearing age wasting their years in some factory for some old fuck, instead of developing their youth and talents and breeding the next generation. Fuck this Yankee Anglo style of capitalism. I read that piece of shit book too, ‘Capitalism and Freedom’, and boy was it full of contradictions, even the title. Something so subjective as ‘freedom’ being tied to wage and debt slavery, and dumb ass Middle America eating up like it’s gospel along with their monthly donations to Israel and emaciated blacks in Haiti.
          We don’t have a population on average that’s capable of critical thinking. However, bankers and financiers don’t innovate, they are involved in parasitism. They great lie is that if you don’t have some nation destroying economist and banker feeding you the profit motive, then you don’t innovate. Then how do you explain Germany’s technological innovation under the Third Reich or even Herr Werner Von Braun making NASA competitive with the Soviets? People who are fed this bullshit about ‘Capitalism and Freedom’ are no different from the liberals they despise who are fed Cultural Marxism. Look deeper and you’ll see both philosophies cut from the same cloth.

          1. Look deeper and you’ll see both philosophies cut from the same cloth.
             Agreed.

             What Every Man Needs To Know About Capitalism And Economics

          2. You should write an article.
             You’re on the ball.

       3. “They are advocating the both as they are systems allowing them to privatise the profit and socialise the risk and cost.”
          Sounds like the wall street bailouts of 08. Fuck that shit.

    2. But that’s the whole point that American free market libtards don’t get… mass democracy and capitalism is slavery to a new elite. It’s slavery with big screen TVs and junk food.
       Soros and Buffet, like Rockefeller of old, made their money through the system of capitalism, and they use that money and power to run the country. They made Obama. They are the kings of the West.
       Whether the libtards get it or not, there will always be an aristocracy that runs the show … the people decide nothing.

       1. Then what, in your opinion, would be a better system?
          I’m convinced there is no better “system”.
          I always figured anarcho-capitalism would be best. But the obvious
          problem is that people are sheep and need to be told what to do.
          Supposing such an ideal situation were to arise following the collapse of our civilization, the masses would be begging for a leader.
          Therefore the problem and solution lie within each of us. We need to accept sovereignty and actively defend our free will. Control from without will only subvert free will, and our evolution.
          I don’t think this problem can be fixed within the current paradigm. We need a massive shift in consciousness. Neil Kramer says a quantum shift is on the horizon. However most people won’t make it to the other side.

          1. I can’t adequately address your question, because the tone and point of reference I have is too eclectic. My views on politics are not utilitarian nor are they totally secular. I’m more interested in building a society that has great men than happy men.

          2. Wonderfully said. ‘I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.’ – Voltaire. Thus is the conqueror’s creed and the naturalist’s motto. Democracy is mediocrity.

          3. F obeying. Shoot the Lion, poison the rats, burn the remains, move on……… That’s what those with a history of sacking self important hucksters like the Romans all seem to have practiced successfully. Time and time again. And they’re at it again in Europe as we speak….
             As quotes go, Zapata’s (and others) “Better to die on ones feet than live on ones knees” is much more to my liking.

          4. I love the energy, however you fail to realize that it’s that same revolutionary fervour that always gives birth to lions. After all who replaced the Tsar when the Russians were tired of kissing Boyar and Tsarist spoilt arse, but Lenin and Stalin who commanded respect out of sheer brutality.

          5. And the descendants of Lenin and Co are now well on their way to getting their comeuppance at the hands of anarchic elements out of Central Asia, starting around 1980…… Just like Rome and the rest have before them….
             Those who expend their available energy and resources taking Genesis 9:7 to heart, will inherit the world. While those focused on all manners of other vanities, get displaced

          6. It’s all a cycle. One can only teach his descendants militarism and strongest of the fittest until one of them becomes the inevitable weak link in the chain, hopefully the original progenitor of such a descendant had other ‘chains’ with other women to keep the original aggressive blood strong. An effete, pampered, sedentary and un-aggressive upperclass won’t hold on to power for long. I don’t know about Bible quotes, all I know is the truth of nature, and nature is quite the bitch.

          7. The major flaw with a pure free-market system is that it dissolves localized economic power. Free trade and offshoring are scams pushed by a global elite . It’s completely unethical and borderline criminal to send jobs overseas with our workforce participation rate at such a low level.
             The need for government regulation in big business comes from the soul-less corporate shareholders who elected to send a large portion of US employment to third world shit-holes. The government’s job is to protect the life and liberty of it’s citizens. Part of life is our ability to obtain employment, which is becoming more difficult with every job being exported and every employee being imported from these same third world shitholes for half the wages.
             In an ideal world, the government would enforce a highly protectionist economy with stingy tariffs for any material good that can be made in the US. College education would be eliminated and corporations would provide 1-2 years of specific training in exchange for a non-compete employment contract. Immigration would only be available to budding entrepreneurs who can create jobs

          8. then the lion eats you so then you have no opinion. LOLOLOL FAIL
             I live by the “cowards creed”
             The one who turns and runs away
             Lives to run another day

          9. Thank you for responding in a civil manner. Your opinion, unlike others here, isn’t too “eclectic” for my pea-brain to handle, lol.
             The problem I see with government of any kind, is that given a long enough timeline, they are all vulnerable to corruption. The US constitution was meant to give maximum freedom to its citizenry and look what’s happening.
             If there was no government meddling in the affairs of the free market, then things like tarrifs, free trade, lobbying wouldn’t exist. Tuition wouldn’t be inflated via student loans. Inflation would be kept at a minimum.
             The thing people have to realize, is that by not trusting ourselves, you automatically can’t trust government; because government is just a collection of people with their own interests as well.
             We have the technology now to run a democracy completely devoid of any central authority. All it would take is a few saavy individuals to set up a voting website, completely open-source, with all votes open for public scrutiny.
             I’m not even a proponent of democracy but it would be a step forward. I realize we’d still be subjected to the tyranny of the majority. The ideal authority is each one of us, as individuals, as sovereign beings. Saying nothing is consenting to rule from without.
             The Obamacare experiment is a massive injustice to Americans. It’s not even about healthcare. It’s about harvesting consent. Being fined for not signing up for healthcare is completely immoral. And the PTB know this. Tens of millions of people won’t be able to afford healthcare. A similar thing happened in Britain in 1989 with the poll tax. It was completely immoral and people actually opposed it by the millions. They had to remove the tax. You don’t see that happening in America. The people have been conditioned to passively observe instead of controling their own lives.
             I don’t like the idea of democracy, but being ruled by a dark triad monarch doesn’t appeal to me either. We all come here alone. We live alone, on our own personal journeys of evolution. We die alone. Subverting free will just turns us into automatons. We may as well just develop conscious robots and get on with it, if life is really that cheap.

          10. Do you consider the entire concept of democracy mediocre or just the type we have today? Before only certain people like landowners had the right to vote. I’m just wondering your thoughts on this.

          11. Things definitely oscillate, but I would be surprised if the oscillations’ amplitude does not over time dampen, until they become mere ripples around the baseline of loosely organized, ethnically/family derived clans.

          12. We are already in a powerful shift in Consciousness. We will all make it… eventually, that is inevitable and unavoidable. The real question is how smooth and soon do we wish to embrace this transition?
              Everyone here speaks of being a traditionalist. There is nothing more traditional then spiritual awakening. Nothing more ancient or sacred then knowing the true bliss and power of our true selves!
              Yin/Yang are symbolic of duality. Yet duality is an illusion that allows oneness a diverse experience of infinity! The truth is polarity is an illusion that we have created in order to experience a full spectrum of existence…

          13. Same page, brotha!
              I agree we will all make it eventually. Although not all at once.
              I am of the opinion that the earth is simply a training ground for consciousness. It can never be perfect on the 3d level. This particular stage is just to help us understand the power of our choices. Once we ascend, our thoughts and choices will manifest instantaneously. And you can only ascend by becoming aware of the true nature of reality. Personally I’ve been experiencing some undeniable synchronicity in my life. Numerology being the most prevalent. It doesn’t even faze me anymore, but talking about it isn’t important. Everyone has their own path.
              Cheers!

          14. Everyone has their own unique path indeed…
              Cheers brother! 😉

          15. Yes. Globalized capitalism is an attempt at moral justification of national treason
              Economic nationalism is the only long term sollution.

          16. You are convinced that there is no better system, since you are stuck in the liberalism/marxism dialectic.

          17. If it’s too much to try to explain all the complexities of your manifesto, is there any book you recommend that represents your beliefs well? Something to get started?

       2. If you don’t buy the big screen TVs and the junk food, and you get a big enough movement to lower taxes and increase privacy rights so that the cops can’t randomly kill your sons in the streets, then you’re home free as an American in a capitalist land.
          You can’t say that about a lot of other countries around the world.

          1. Yes, I agree, Americans are the happiest and dumbest cattle on the planet.

          2. If you choose to be. You don’t have to be a cow to live in a bountiful field. America is about choice. What choices do you make for yourself, as an individual?
             Just because nobody is forcing you to make choices doesn’t mean you can’t choose a noble life for yourself. Stating that you need a big-daddy state to force you to choose is almost an admission of individual weakness.

          3. And why would government lower taxes again?
             The Somalis actually managed to scale their government back to a more reasonable size. But theirs wasn’t nearly as big to begin with. And they’re of “cradle of civilization” stock, rather than just well indoctrinated fatsos, who accidentally slipped past both contraceptive devices and the abortion doctor to be raised by single sluts.

          4. hahhahahaa

          5. LOL “get into the voting booth and work at creating a better life for you.”
             read this article:

             Why American Men Should Refuse To Vote

          6. Lol, or organize, create your own groups. My friends and I help each other out. It’s not even like clannishness. Remember what the Republicans used to say about faith based initiatives?

          7. Not sure about the happiest bit!

          8. Yup. That’s where I lost him. That last sentence about embracing your right to vote is the worst possible thing to say to refute Dr. Orange’s dumb cattle statement.

    3. Check out Estonia, took wholly Friedmanian politics after the collapse of the S.U., they have been doing pretty well since.

    4. Lol I don’t think the Third Reich allowed dual-national citizens to hold public office.

    5. No reason to believe Mises/Hayek economics is bad for nation states. Friedman was too blinded by empiricism to see the forest for the trees, as has been the fashion in Economics post WW2.
       Where the Austrians got on wobbly ground, was in their sidestepping of the costs of property rights protections. Claiming Government shall protect/enforce property rights sounds nice in theory, but what property rights? And at what costs? Nuclear war against China because some Ching Chong draws a funny looking mouse on a lunchbox he is selling to some kid? Or chasing some guy across the US, because he supposedly urinated on a corner post of one of Ted Turner’s numerous multi thousand acre ranches? Or guerrilla camped there one night? Two nights? Permanently?
       The Austrians were all blessed/cursed to have lived in a society/societies where there were relatively strong agreement about what was “right” and “wrong.” And what was yours and mine. Etc., etc.
       But once you try to apply the prerequisites for their economic prescriptions universally, to societies where noone agrees about anything, and everyone press every advantage they can get, it turns out that even limiting government the single task of protecting private property, still results in a government that grows out of control.
       Hence, even property protection Government cannot be trusted with, lest they should grow out of proportion and consume all else. Leaving the list of things they can be trusted with, to one containing exactly zero elements.

       1. There will always be government or anarchy. The first time a group of savages stopped killing each other and turnt to the band of savages with the most spears and men and their leader for guidance was the first government. Order inevitably comes from chaos, therefore government comes from anarchy. It’s only the type of government that we would be willing to tolerate and what role we see ourselves playing in it. However, those ‘Austrian’ hucksters of certain ethnic predispositions knew that the feeble Western European mind was and is all too susceptible to catch phrases and grand ideologies that have little to no real meaning in the natural world or are too obtuse and subjective to really carry any weight. For instance, the most abused two words of the last three centuries, ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’.
          As long as man tires, gets cold and feels hunger, he will truly never be free. A man may be unemployed, lose his shelter and starve, and he is only as free as his hunger dictates until he decides to be at the mercy of those above him through shelters and foodbanks, or steal to satiate his hunger. Freedom is impossible to define as is equality, but throw a bunch of self-proclaimed intellectuals in a room and let them write all sorts of fantasies sold as non-fiction to the public and the masses in their ignorance will eat it wholesale. Every man would love to believe that being the hireling of someone else and access to second tier women is ‘freedom’, and for this he’ll kill and die, a life fit for a slave. I have no such reservations about bullshit theories, the truest philosopher man ever had was Nietzsche who knew humanity as is, not as we’d like it to be. The more general an idea is with abstract concepts that are impossible to identify in humanity such as freedom, the more likely it’s bullshit.

          1. In political philosophy, “freedom” (more commonly liberty), is generally taken to mean absence of morally justifiable intrusions into someone’s life.
             Not “freedom” in the sense that I’m lacking it since I’m a slave to gravity because I cannot fly to the moon.
             And not in the sense that I’m a (temporary) slave to some random thug with a gun barrel pointed at me.
             In both cases, I’m not 100% free as in unbounded by any restrictions of what I can do if I just want to. But I can still be free in the political liberty sense.
             In the former case, rather trivially, as even just political systems can’t be expected to suspend gravity.
             In the latter case, as long as noone is justified in pointing a gun barrel at me. And consequently, as long as I’m free to do what I have to to erase that threat, I am still politically free.
             The problem we are facing today, is not really of the gravity kind, but of the kind where lots of people genuinely believe that others have the right to stick gun barrels in their face and demand they do as told, as long as the guys with the guns have the “appropriate” job titles.

    6. The west is ruled by jews. For this reason it is simply not possible that the Third Reich can be reconsidered in any positive ligtht. It is off the table in public discourse.

       1. It’s a shame that we can’t even discuss the merits of their economic recovery without discussing Nazi philosophy. If you know German, Guido Knopp wrote a book called ‘Hitlers Manager’, about his economists and other nation builders. But the case in point is that they eliminated the Great Depression in one year, that also happened to be the so same year Hitler became Reichs chancellor; 1933. An economic recovery in an year, inflation crushed, and debt free currency issued without causing inflation. You’d think this would get a mention. But no we can only discuss Tiger tanks.

          1. Yes it is. I will look into Guido Knopp, thx for the tip.
             There are also large sources on the history of usury. Many things that are not even mentioned if you study (neo-classical)economics.
             The german economic recovery in the 30ties is rarely subjected to critical scrutiny, if at all studied as part of economic history in academia.
             This is without a doubt something I need to look into.

          2. Should have stopped at your first point.
             “But you’ve got some hustlers who convinced these idiots that handing
             bankers over $1.4 trillion, cutting student aid and being anti-minimum
             wage would solve the crisis. ”
             The 2nd and 3rd points, despite being terribly inefficient current policies, no one ever said would solve any crisis. It’s simply a matter of efficiency & fairness with those two. Minimum wage doesn’t work in a the global economy. We can eliminate the minimum wage laws entirely within 2 years if we wanted to if we just got rid of the global “Free Market” system we have and go back to import tariffs. Slapping massive minimum wage increases will only guarantee one thing – the fastest pace of automation in the history of Western society.
             As for student aid, barely limiting debt that currently:
             1) Is unable to be discharged in bankruptcy
             2) Has banks that have no reason to care if you graduate
             3) Has colleges that have no reason to care if you graduate
             4) Makes it so Colleges have no reason to keep costs down
             5) Creates a disincentive for the user to care about costs of a program
             6) Vast majority is going to stupid liberal programs that brainwash their inhabitants
             7) Ties you to the federal government
             Is, IMO, a good thing.

          3. They also began to massively cut back on how much they were sending to pay for their “war debt” at the same time. This alone would have been massively beneficial for their own economy. The Treaty of Versailles post WW1 was one of, if not the, major cause of WW2.

    7. “Free” – or more specifically – leveraged banking – exists in every system. What do you think collapsed most economics over the last several thousand years (massive state debt due to the money lenders / banks)? Massive banking system is incorrectly attributed to capitalism but really is more in line with command economies than capital economies. Fascism and banking go hand and hand, though.

    8. “Not to mention Hayek got on social security in his old age, fucking hypocrite.”
       Hayek isn’t a hypocrite for taking social security. It was the most economic thing for him to do. It’s better to take social security than not to take it. You can even be on welfare and advocate for capitalism without being a hypocrite. Why? Jobs are limited because of things like the welfare system, so if you go through a time where you can’t make ends meet, you have to take the most favorable economic route available to you at the time. If you were kidnapped, would you be a hypocrite for eating the food your captors served you?
       I think the social security system is a ponzi scheme. I’d be much better off putting that money every month into investments. But I’m still going to take social security when I retire if it’s available.

24. Capitalism is not survival of the fittest.
    It’s survival and triumph of whoever controls the central banks. A few Presidents were shot over this issue.

    1. Not to mention a few countries destroyed.

       1. I’m surprised you’re half black and hold these views, most blacks I talk with are anti-elitist and hate authority. You’re a better European than 95% of American whites.

          1. he’s only half bad

    2. Except that warriors, aristocracy and priestly castes did not dominate all societies. For example Chinese culture selected its “aristocracy” based on anonymized standardized testing. Early Scandinavian culture had one of the first forms of democracy through the meetings, called the Things, of all people in the region.

       1. No there was no choice of religion in pagan europe. You might have your favorite deity, but everyone was expected to honor the gods.
          What happened in Rome or some of the Greek city states was an urban exception.
          You are projecting americanized consumer driven liberalism on the historical past.

          1. My bad, I don’t know enough about Europe, but in India, early Syria / Asia Minor, and China you had a choice of belief system. Such as the Isis and Mithras mysteries in Asia Minor, or even Christianity.

          2. No problem.
             The mystery cults which spread to the hellenic world were mostly an urban phenomena. When christianity spread to Rome, the christians got into trouble with the rulers since they wouldnt honor the roman gods along with christ.
             The romans allowed conquered people to retain their gods, as long as they paid homage to the roman pantheon.
             Recognizing the existence of only one god was totally alien to pagan europe. You were still expected to worship the gods of your forefathers, even if you started worshipping foreign gods. You were therefore still born with specific ancestral gods.
             Religious intolerance came chiefly with the spread of chistianity and the jewish diaspora.

    3. Like most of the pointless arguments made above, it’s all up to one’s interpretation. Mediocrity is a very broad concept, so how do you define it and what’s your solution?

25. Independent scholar Kevin Carson, in his piece Why Corporate Capitalism is Unsustainable, explains:
    Capitalism as a historic system is five hundred or more years old, and the state was intimately involved in its formation and its ongoing preservation from the very beginning. But the state has been far more involved, if such a thing is possible, in the model of corporate capitalism that’s prevailed over the past 150 years. The corporate titans that dominate our economic and political life could hardly survive for a year without the continuing intervention of the state in the market to sustain them through subsidies and monopoly protections.
    As such, the economy of the nation-state is directly linked to these institutions, forging a corporatist political economy where the state has direct interest in the success of these now “too big to fail” concentrations of capital.

26. Supporters of communism are severely delusional and uneducated. Colleges are full of these idiots but they think simply being a college student makes them smarter and more enlightened than everyone else so they must be correct with their parroted illogical ideologies.

27. I haven’t studied enough econ/history yet to really have a valid opinion unfortunately.
    But, are there not valid criticisms of capitalism that were discussed from the very beginning? Monopolies for example. Didn’t Adam Smith himself discuss how capitalism can spiral out of control and lead to monopolies that basically make competition impossible, therefore leading to capitalism’s little Oligarch bastard son???

    1. Capitalism is just another name for the state-corporate mafia. It’s wrong to use this term when we actually want to talk about stateless free market society.
       As surprising as it might seem, there’s a strong parallel between this free market vision of abundance and the Marxist vision of full communism.
       This parallels a major strain of thinking among socialists in the free culture/open source/P2P movement. They see the communist mode of production practiced by Linux and other open-source developers as the kernel of a new post-capitalist, post-scarcity social formation. Much as capitalist production started out in tiny islands inside the larger feudal economy and later became the core of a new, dominant social formation, commons-based peer production is the core around which the post-capitalist economy will eventually crystallize.

    2. There’s been a lot of developments in capitalism since Adam Smith; the term didn’t really exist in Adam Smith’s time. A lot of the confusion behind what capitalism is, is due to the fact that the term was pretty much propagated by Karl Marx and was in fact regarded as an insult.
       The reason why business on it’s own cannot form into a monopoly is due to the fact that monopolies by definition, are thus, because they produce barriers of entry, meaning that they block people from getting involved in an industry. The fact is, if people see a business concept working and that it’s very profitable, they are by nature going to try to emulate it so they too can cash in on the market, and being that they’re smaller, they’re going to look for ways to either be more efficient or cheaper in the making of their product, so they can compete for customers from the more established companies.
       The only way, without government interference, for the more established business to deal with competition, is to take the vast majority of its profits, and constantly dedicate it’s self to staying ahead of the competition (which is difficult, because the larger corporations get, the more difficult it is to not become a bureaucracy). However, with government interference, they can block people either by having the government assign them monopoly rights, increasing minimum wage laws, licensing, regulation, anti-small business legislation, bail-outs etc. The more expensive it is to start a business, the less established businesses have to be competitive.
       Basically, by choosing sides, the government corrupts the market and produces an environment where monopolies are basically the only logical conclusion.

    3. If you critique capitalism on economic terms alone, assuming that maximum productivity means maximum happiness, you will lose, just like critiquing Marxism on the basis of believing humans are or should be more or less equal, is impossible.
       Instead, you need a broader approach which prioritizes the question of man’s existential destination above his material needs.

28. “Hate capitalism and free markets and people richer than you all you want. The alternative is far worse.”
    “You are no longer a man, a husband, a father or a head of household. You are a sperm donor, a trial husband, or an alimony check. And even if you think you’ll be clever, avoiding these fates by being a bachelor, understand you disproportionately pay taxes to subsidize millions of “empowered, independent women’s” tuition in worthless degrees, while paying even more taxes so they can have make-work government jobs and a surrogate husband in the form of a government check. So before you go running to the state to complain about “minimum wage” or “part time work” you may want to look at what happens when the state gets more power.”
    I’m a pro-choice, pro gay marriage feminist, and I STILL agree with this article.

    1. Well done…you can copy and paste…. here is a ball….. please go away….

       1. How dare I think it’s important for embittered readers to note that not ALL feminists follow the same beliefs. How horrid.

29. What’s wrong with capitalism?
    

30. I think much of the (non-Marxist) criticism of capitalism is actually criticism of usury. Perhaps shifting to “Islamic banking” (or, simply, interest-free banking; it’s just that only Muslims actually do it nowadays) would help matters.

    1. And how would you go about shifting to interest-free banking? By outlawing interest? If so, then that is indeed an attack on capitalism i.e. free trade.

       1. You don’t need to abolish interest charge on money lending. We simply have to open up the supply of credit to unfettered market competition, abolishing entry barriers for the creation of cooperative lending institutions, and abolishing legal tender laws of all kinds, so that market competition will eliminate a major portion of total interest on money.

          1. I have no problem with lenders voluntarily offering interest-free loans. That’s how the free market works; all participants are allowed to experiment with different business models until they find the one that’s most efficient.
             But don’t be surprised if lenders are still charging interest after we move to a completely free market. Interest is basically compensation for time; time that the lender could’ve been spending or investing his money elsewhere, but can’t because he’s waiting on the debtor to pay him back.

    2. “If not only Muslims, but the Catholic Church, condemned usury repeatedly
       throughout the centuries, there must have been a good reason for doing
       so…” It was because they were superstitious and corrupt:
       “Church officials, particularly from the 12th century on, frequently
       manipulated and selectively enforced the usury laws to bolster the
       financial power of the Church. When it wanted to keep its own borrowing
       cost low, the Church enforced the usury prohibition. At other times, the
       Church itself readily loaned money for interest. Monks were among the
       earliest moneylenders, offering carefully disguised interest-bearing
       loans throughout the Middle Ages.” (https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-fall/morality-of-moneylending/)

       1. There’s a difference between powerful, corrupt men within the Church weakening the prohibitions on usury — people are going to do that whenever they’re greedy enough and wherever Church authority is weak or lax enough — and the Church itself ruling that usury is okay, which it never did.

31. I think the article misses the point. Capitalism is human nature, but then so is greed and jealousy. People want what other people have and all the fan letters to socialism are nothing but rationalizations for taking it. So people can steal money without feeling like they actually did something wrong.
    You can not make a dent in their thinking with articles like this because you can rarely talk people out of their jealousy, ego and moral vanity.

32. Only a f*ckwit would think that the only alternative to capitalism is communism.

33. The capitalist system pushes us to work as hard as possible to
    increase our wealth and therefore our social status. In a world with
    less emphasis on tribes, community, and extended family, wealth has
    become the primary indicator of social status. Communists/socialists
    and libertarians/capitalists are equally obsessed with wealth, money,
    and their distribution, speaking of them as if they were the beginning
    and end of all human value, providing us not with just essentials for living but also the substance of social status and the arbiter of self-worth.
    The traditional view of life places higher value on family and
    independent pursuits over “work” for the sake of work itself. This is
    why Evola places action over work.
    In a capitalist, industrial system, without the benefit of organic,
    local social order, there is a tendency for national corporations to
    grow in power until they exert decisive influence over all aspects of
    human society. A social system is created where income is the sole
    determinant of social status, so there is no reason not to work as long
    as possible. This process has reached its logical conclusion in places
    like Japan and South Korea, where fertility rates are at extreme
    lows and people with corporate careers regularly work or spend time with
    their co-workers all day every day. This has led to social
    devitalization whereby many young people have even lost interest in
    romantic relationships. This is the neoliberal capitalist endgame; 70
    hours of work a week, no children, no family.

    1. Yes, you get it. Corporatism crowds out all other essential and meaningful pursuits in life. Its a perversion of the spiritual life.

    2. You convinced me to start reading Evola, Sir.

34. This article is fantastic and a really good brief overview of what red pill economics should be, but it a bit of an over-simplification.
    For one thing, Aaron didn’t address why companies feel a drive to give part time work. After all, it would be easier to train few employees, and 30 years ago a person could find a job working 60 hours a week in one retail store. Aaron wrote this as a response to that other article, but he didn’t do much to address the article’s points.
    He also didn’t address whether the government should have some minimal regulation of the free market, although perhaps that was out of the scope of it.

    1. The only thing “red pill economics” should be is nonexistent, and go die in a fire. What’s next, red pill anthropology? Red pill quantum physics?
       Do we really need a Manosphere bloated with established community beliefs on lots of unrelated issues? As things are going now, “red pill” is losing its original meaning of “understanding the true nature of women” and starting to mean “anything I think every real manly man should know or agree with”.

35. I take no comfort in the majority opinion of a democracy. Most people are completely incapable and unwilling to see past their own noses until it’s too late. No room for abstract thought.
    I do a question though for Cpt. Capitalism, I have a friend that works in private equity. He says that for all of the US’s faults in not being a capitalist society, it is still the best place to make money hands down. Would you agree?
    Also, are there any countries or nations in existence at this point in time that have what you would call a capitalist economic system? If so, which countries?
    Great, to-the-point article.

    1. Absolutely the United States is the best country to make money, a fortune even. HOWEVER, that is sacrificed at the huge expense of culture, naturalism and spiritualism. This is after all a country where you could make a fortune in pornography, in women fucking horses and dogs, that’s a market, it’ll make you money but also debase society immensely. But does it add to the GDP? You betcha! I’d say only a small fraction of US innovation is productive and civilisationally sound such as Uber or the tech sector in general. But as far as hedge funds, investment banks, college debt, mortgage debt, payday loans, pornography etc, the United States is a cesspool.

       1. And that’s the end goal of a market driven society; selling it’s soul and it’s future for profit after everything else has been mortgaged or sold.
          You see, to a bourgeois, death is the only threat … and to avoid this he needs to send other people’s children to war or run up the national debt for future generations to pay back.

       2. Pornography does not add wealth, does not add to GDP. Neither does gambling. Neither do black market illegal drug deals. Neither does a “make-work” program like a light rail that meanders through a city. All of these actions have an overall negative effect on the wealth of a nation.
          It is telling that our modern politicians see some of these as actual revenue streams. Because they’re fucking stupid. And so are the stupid fucks who fucking vote for them.
          Look at all the politicians across the country, in the big cities? What are their big ideas? To fix the jobs problem, let’s build a casino! Let’s build a light rail system so that the unemployed can ride it! (After the unions get their take out of the city’s treasury).
          Let’s legalize drugs! And prostitution! How would these actions increase productivity, ingenuity, or entrepreneurship?
          No one ever proposes that maybe we should reintroduce the teaching of morality in schools as a way to produce more productive, honest citizens who don’t NEED to gamble or sell drugs or sell their bodies. Oh, I get it. You want a QUICK fix? You want it fixed right now? Can’t wait 20 years, huh? Sorry. That’s what it’s gonna take. Minimum.
          But, hey that’s just crazy Fred talkin’, I guess.
          Fucking great article, Captain, keep ’em coming!

          1. How exactly doesn’t porn add to the GDP? Porn is a commodity for which someone is willing to pay. That makes it wealth in exactly the same sense as anything else for which someone is willing to pay, and its production generation of wealth in exactly the same sense as any other.

          2. this is an interesting debate…and both of you are correct possibly…
             If someone is willing to trade real productive goods for the porn it does add to your personal GDP or that of a nation, and improves quality of life for those who receives those goods.
             However, I think his point is that it could easily not exist as an industry and people would suffer no negative hit to their quality of life….it doesn’t increase efficiency in the chain of production and delivery of key goods like food, shelter, energy, transport etc
             Unless you can prove its benefits in say increasing the output of a builder, farmer or factory…it is a luxury service enabled and made profitable by the culture and possibly by finance(how profitable is porn, especially in this day and age? what about rumoured CIA involvement in that as well as other industries, Drugs, weapons etc)
             Media in general is an interesting thing, in the sense that at first Art imitates life, and then life imitates art….is something on TV because it is popular….or is it popular because it is on TV?
             This is the nature of the consumerist culture

          3. Exactly and how about weapons…? Bombs and tanks are clearly in demand and fetch a high price and add to the GDP of whoever sells them….but what are they used for?
             Killing and enslaving people, is that good? is that really productive?
             No, and it is only enabled by a culture, a culture of violence, war, oppression and ultimately EVIL.

       3. with regard to pornography, Media in general is an interesting thing, in the sense that at first Art imitates life, and then life imitates art….is something on TV because it is popular/desirable….or is it popular/desirable because it is on TV? Is it available and promoted because there is a demand for it? or Is there demand for it simply because it is available and promoted?
          This is the nature of the consumerist culture, and a culture can certainly be manipulated to create demand where none previously existed and no real productive benefit is provided.

       4. I agree. There are a lot of players suffocating the financial markets today, although when there are more players and specialized investment vehicles, goods, cost of debt and services should be more efficiently priced to the consumer’s benefit. Moreover, without lending, innovators will lack sufficient capital to borrow and turn their visions into reality.

36. Great article, too much whining going on hear about part time jobs and the U.S. economy. Our grandparents went through the great depression, what is going on now pales in comparison. Learn some skills and adaptability you young punks!

37. Capitalism is not self interest itself. It’s an attempt at the mediation of self-interest through market economies.
    If we want a true natural order where selfishness reigns, let’s have exchange through slavery, rapine, and plunder if we so desire. Why shouldn’t we go back to the “olden days” if that exemplifies the natural order by which we’re meant to live?
    If your next door neighbor is stronger than you are, surely there’s something you have that he’d like. Even if you have no possessions of value, it would be well worth his while to harvest your organs and sell them on the doorstep of the nearest hospital.
    A capitalist economy is itself a distortion of a true law of the jungle where might makes right in personal relations. Markets require the constant protection of a warlord or a state or they are soon looted into the ground.
    Mr. Capitalism’s article starts out strong enough pointing out failure of communism to mediate human self-interest, but suddenly he jumps to the idea that protected private property follows from the natural order he appeals to.
    That’s a big assumption. How is that so?
    In a “natural order” of pure self-interest, why would anyone’s property be guaranteed against anyone strong enough to take it?
    Capitalism is an economic philosophy that can be examined and criticized. It’s just another attempt to channel human self interest to constructive ends, not the immutable natural force of human self interest itself. We can legitimately wonder about alternatives without supposing that we’re violating the laws of physics.
    I will emphasize: to constructive ends. A market economy may produce all the wealth in the world on paper but it’s only good to extent it improves people’s lives, the lives of clans and families, and enables healthy societies to thrive. If it fails at this, it is a failure as surely as communism, however many trillions it may boast.

    1. The market is a means, not an end … it must be directed towards some goal or collective aspiration, as the soul is the chariot of the body. To use the metaphor of a car, it would serve no good to have one, if you never intended to leave the house. Capitalists argue about how nice their Mercedes-Benz looks … but they aren’t driving it anywhere.
       The market economy devoid of high culture is a pitiful, well decorated corpse.

       1. I’m surprised, Mr. Orange to see the opinions of you and Seuthes the 3rd.
          Are you guys of any particular school of thought?
          I started blogging these kinds of thoughts a few years ago and was met with silence.
          And still continue to sporadically put up thoughts as I will at Forward Base B.

    2. you make a good point, but humans are social animals…. they have made an implicit contract with one another not to loot, plunder, murder and rape each other…. if i have to protect my possessions from everyone and everyone has to protect themselves from me… it’s an unpleasant and aggressive animal existence….
       minimal government allows law courts, police, property title and so forth to be acknowledge and thus allows the free markets to survive without Genghis Khan style pillaging……
       the problem arises when Govt. is no longer a force of balance and good, but a parasitic entity intent on enriching and enlarging itself…..
       then the Govt. becomes the pillager by default….
       a small entity that creates title and basic rule of law is what is needed…. a massive octopus is just another warlord.

38. No shit Sherlock. Must be your first rodeo.

39. No manmade law will ever replace a law of nature.

40. You may not like the current day employment prospects our current economy offers. You may not like the part-time job becoming the default economic reality of the labor market. But the adult, male, “time-to-put-on-your-big-boy-pants” truth is that:
    IT ISN’T YOUR FUCKING MONEY!
    IT ISN’T YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!
    Even though I don’t agree with the “free market” views of the author, he is correct that no one is entitled to good pay or a stable job. Fair enough.
    However, the flip side is that employers who pay workers shitty wages and only provide unstable part-time work in turn have no right to complain when they suffer from high turnover rates and workers who put in the bare minimum of effort. When they treat people like they’re expendable, they can’t act surprised when their employees are not the most conscientious or ethical of workers.
    Many “free market” types deride Costco for paying their workers so well and offering benefits, but Costco in turn has extremely low rates of turnover and worker theft. Their business, despite its generosity, has done rather well.
    Responsibility is a two-way street.

    1. “Many “free market” types deride Costco for paying their workers so well
       and offering benefits, but Costco in turn has extremely low rates of
       turnover and worker theft. Their business, despite its generosity, has
       done rather well.”
       Please show me one “free market” type, preferably someone who isn’t John367, Bay Area Guy, or “Rob” on the internet, who derides Costco for doing this?
       PS Costco is able to do this for several reasons
       1) Labor is a much lower cost as a % of sales (or rather hours worked per units sold). Most retailers do not have store labor at anywhere near the rate Costco does regardless of what they pay
       2) They cater to an upper middle class consumer who isn’t driven solely by price but value (ie they have higher margin products than say Dollar General–have you seen some of their Jewelry and Computer costs there?)
       3) They cater to an upper middle class consumer who values customer service to a large degree (ie pay more for better service). This is no different than places like Whole Foods. Great for the upper middle class and the wealthy–not so great for everyone else.
       It’s a great model for them and they deserve all the praise in the world. Would never work for consumers that cater to low and low-middle income (and price conscious middle income) consumers.

41. Excellent article, thank you very much, Sir.

42. It’s usually people whom have nothing to share that want to share everything…e.g the idealistic university student on living on loans and grants or of course Marx himself whom never had a penny to scratch his arse with.

43. One should remember though that governments can boost jobs and private sector by funding things like space programs (i.e. Apollo program boosting Silicon valley), so the argument of “government can’t create jobs” is not that valid.
    But of course, loosely regulated private sector should work aside government boosting.

44. Captain Capitalism is confusing between the old ways and capitalism. Capitalism in its modern form did not exist in old times.
    Capitalism now is based on these basic foundations:
    1) banks, part of whom have the privilege to issue currency,
    2) companies,
    3) stock markets.
    Modern companies put their hands not only on commerce but also on industry. Individual artisans and factories are now replaced with companies. Even agriculture will be dominated by companies.
    All this system put together did not exist in old times. The laws of this system did not exist before.

45. For being a “what every man needs to know”, this article actually says very little at the end of the day, and substantiates it even less, despite the many big words it uses.
    Capitalism is held as the natural state of man by defining capitalism simply as an economic order based on agreed-on exchange between individuals and other economic agents. Which would make something like 99% of all economic systems that have ever existed capitalistic, all but pure centally planned command economies.
    So if we postulate that “capitalism” has historically outperformed everything else, it just implies that the best possible system is some among that 99%, hardly much of a discovery. And not even that claim of outperforming is the absolute it’s held up to be – command economies have been situationally successful, the Soviet Union had humongous growth in the 30s, won WW2 because its newly industrialized command economy massively outproduced one of Europe’s oldest and most advanced capitalist economies, and kept closing the economic gap with the US until about the mid-70s.
    As for the rebuke it makes of those complaining about the part-time economy, the author talks as if the current state of property rights in the US, and the contractual rights employers have over employees under the current labour-law paradigm, are some kind of absolute, objective, natural rights. Something no substantiation is provided for. That’s one of the problems with internet libertarians, they tend to indignantly make moral arguments based on moral axioms that nobody but they acknowledge to begin with.
    All in all, the whole article could be condensed to the following TL;DR, it’d save everyone’s time and show the leaps of logic most glaringly:
    “Free trade is what people naturally do left to their own devices, and Communist dictators have starved millions. Therefore, libertarian capitalism is the best, and you should support it”.

    1. The author had pretty weak arguments. I can basically use the same arguments he used to praise Communism:
       Capitalism is law.
       -Dialectical Materialism is law and Communism is the natural progression of mankind.
       Norway is socialist and doing well, but they don’t count.
       -Germany and Japan is capitalist and doing well, but they don’t count because they were heavily aided by the US.
       US is not a real capitalist country.
       -USSR is not a real communist country.
       Communist dictators have starved millions to death.
       -Capitalism has caused misery and starvation for third world countries.

       1. Yeah, funny how whenever there’s a Socialist economic failure, it proves prima facie that Socialism doesn’t work, but whenever there’s a Capitalist economic failure, it doesn’t count, because reasons.

    2. Actually Soviet industrialization was initiated, controlled and overseen by American bankers and industrialists, aside from direct aid during the war in the form of food, finance, tanks, radio + radar equipment, a host of electrical and fossil fuel technologies from great Britain and the United states.
       The Soviet union was united states proxy in WW2, given that they were not able to effectively and openly fight a war in europe at that time for political(no support at home) and geographical(too far away) reasons even the “Soviet” tanks+planes, which were of relatively high quality and great utility, were produced in essentially American owned, developed and run factories.
       The Soviet Union didn’t outproduce Germany, the United States did.

       1. Estimates of the share of the Soviet economical war effort that was made up of lend-lease vary greatly, as value comparisons between the Soviet and American shares are hard to do as the Soviet part never got subjected to market valuation. Still, the extreme upper-end of the estimates put the American share at about 30%. That still leaves 70% of Soviet war production as produced by its own command economy, which still leaves the Soviet economy outproducing the German by a large margin.
          All the foreign contribution to the Soviet industrialization during the first five-year plans was bought, traded for and paid for in full by the output of the Soviet economy, which grew at rates of 10-15% per year during the time. Unlike capitalistic economic “miracles” which, when they show growth rates like that, almost always happen through the strength of foreign investment, mooching off investment from other capitalist economies elsewhere.
          Economics is far too complex to be reduced to simple absolutes like “Capitalism > Communism”.

          1. No you don’t understand what i’m saying….I don’t disagree with you that they outproduced Germany, my point is that the “Soviet Union” didn’t outproduce Germany in the sense that the totally disempowered and exploited Soviet citizens had anything to do with it….those 100 million people could have been Australians in Australia for all it mattered…..they are being run by an outside force.
             The point is that the lines are blurred, and it’s hard to say that the soviet union outproduced Germany when most of the technology comes from abroad, as do the owners, designers and builders of the factories.
             The soviet union was a joint communist-capitalist enterprise, capitalism at the top for the profiteers, communism for the workers. But it doesn’t exist without that capitalist incentive for the industrialist and bankers to invest in the first place….It was a hyper-capitalist enterprise, simply with the Russian people/workers/property owners cut out of the picture by communist ideology and politics

          2. That’s a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the role of Western corporations in Soviet industrialization.
             The startup investment capital didn’t come from abroad, the Western corporations involved neither invested in nor owned the factories. The startup capital came from the Soviet economy, mainly through surplus grain sales, about the only thing pre-industrial Russia produced for export. That capital was used to *buy* the services of Western corps, which *sold* their assistance (factory establishment, expertise) in various ways. The factories were wholly owned by the Soviet state, paid for by the Soviet state, and their profits ended up in the pockets of the Soviet state.

    3. Good points, Red Knight. Command economies can work wonderfully when there’s a strong outside incentive like an entire people’s survival in WWII.
       Also, command economies work better when based on less-skilled, assembly line labor, which is why some of them did alright until the 70s.
       To me one of the quintessential symbols of command economy production is the AK-47.
       The easiest to produce, easiest to use, with the most abundant materials, with the greatest durability, in the least amount of time. That’s the genius of command production.
       The opposing great power might give its troops better weapons, but they cost far more, not to mention, they cost at all.
       A huge strength of a command economy in wartime: capital is irrelevant.
       Production is only limited by material!

46. Governments don’t produce – they protect. They’re designed to look out for the interests of its citizen base.

47. Capitalism is a law? Modern Capitalism is founded upon the spurious reasoning of David Ricardo. I also don’t believe we should heed the advice of a bunch of Jews with an anti-statist axe to grind – it was such a shame Rand wasn’t sent to the gulags.

    1. Absolutely, Rand was an agent of the USSR whose job it was to subvert America. She should have been executed by fire-squad or by rope.

48. uhm…
    riiight.
    The gold resource is interesting. Most current research says that South America was the jackpot for the West.
    They were cut off from the East and that valuable trade market by the Ottoman Empire for a while. So enter Columbus and why Aboriginals in North America are labelled “Indians”.
    Beyond that though, supposedly the Incas of South America cared little for Gold and Silver. Their thing was feathers and beads. So the Europeans got a whole load of free gold and built themselves up nicely.
    Capitalism?
    The Generations of free labour from Slavery…
    Capitalism?
    These economic theories are nice and all, but the Kings and Queens of the Old World still have their wealth and power.
    In Canada the Queen is still our “head of state” here in Canada.
    so umm…
    Where is this Capitalism you speak of?

    1. Very true, even if there are a few remaining recognised royal houses in Europe, they all still possess their original wealth. The remaining descendants of the Houses Bourbon, Hapsburg, Hohenzollern and Romanov are all still phenomenally wealthy.

    2. What is your point? You haven’t disputed his points at all. As he mentioned, there aren’t any pure capitalist societies any more. We are becoming ever more redistributionist.

49. More seriously though, it takes money to make money now a days.
    For example, in this new world, my Ancestry is just not as connected as many of my university Colleagues.
    So you know what? No matter how hard you work, no matter you having the same qualifications…
    nepotism is a whole other factor that is completely overlooked.
    Don’t get me wrong, there was a time where it was easier to start up your own business, to work a bunch of overtime at a blue collar job and put your kids through school, own property, have a pension…
    but the sins of the father are vested upon the son

50. The primary reason laissez-faire capitalism – defined as respect for individual rights, especially property rights, which implies no government intervention into the economy except minimal regulations to protect the rights of the individual – has never been attempted fully (there were some systems that came close, but upon close scrutiny they were not laissez-faire.) is because capitalism has never had a moral philosophical defense that evil systems such as socialism and other forms of collectivist statism have had.
    The moral argument for capitalism is as follows: Capitalism requires respect for the individual rights of all men, especially property rights, therefore man will act in his moral right to rational self-interest, vastly improving the lives of all men. Capitalism is the only system that fits man’s requirements for life, thus making it the ONLY moral system as it is the only one where coercion is banned in social life.
    Choosing between capitalism and another system, such as socialism, is not a choice between two political and economic systems. It is a choice between food and poison. Capitalism will further the life of a civilization and of man, while socialism will destroy it. Any attempt to compromise capitalism and socialism (our mixed economy) is an attempt to compromise food and poison. Regardless of how little poison you add to your food, the poison wins in the end.

    1. So would the state intervention to stop monopolies and trusts be considered a violation of property rights? And what about minimum wage?
       Public education for children is one of the 10 points in the Communist Manifesto. So is that also a poison of our society?
       Who defines what constitutes as an individual’s right?

       1. The answers to your questions are yes in all cases.
          Individual rights are defined as life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Rights are moral constructs and are based from reason and our requirements for life.

          1. Just like communist utopia, it all sounds nice and dandy in theory, but in reality, without regulations big businesses just turn into cartels and run crony capitalism by influencing the state.
             There is nothing decent about consumerist slavery and worthless celebrity worship that this system has wrought.

          2. Fortunately for all those who respect other’s rights, you are strongly mistaken on how cronyism and monopolism works.

          3. Individual Rights? Lol… Rights are a myth, much like voting. There is no inherent right to rights for man by nature. Who gives you these rights? Jesus? Jefferson? What’s to prevent someone from taking your property, if let’s say you can’t defend it? Thomas Paine? There are no individual rights, it’s all subjective, a fabrication that wealthy Southern planters and Northern bankers used to convince their fellow Anglo co-racialists that they were ‘equals’. The biggest ruse in history, there are no natural rights of man, no one gives a fuck about you, never have and never will. As George Carlin said, ‘rights are made up’, they don’t exist except by the good graces of your superiors. Life for us humans has been and always will be dictated by force of arms.

          4. I am sorry you fell that way. The sad part part about your vapid little rant was that you in no way disproved me, you just asserted that they did not exist despite me telling you precisely where they come from and how we know that in my previous comment. I guess you can’t fix stupid. However, you did point out a few historical examples with minimal relevance to the subject as hand. Having individual rights does not mean you are “equal” in every discernable way or that you will be treated the same as everyone else. That is just the sad nature of reality. Throughout almost all of human history, man’s rights were violated by the state, wherever it may have been. Your “view” of the world is a recipe for such a historical precedent to continue, with the vanquishment of reason and the rule of brute force.

          5. Lol… So you admit that your worldview is delusional? My view is the reality of nature. I’ll one up your grand philosophies on paper with rifles and bullets. Well… I guess you can’t fix ‘my stupid’. My deepest ‘apologies’ for nature and that canivores and predators exist to weed out the weak.

          6. You have the philosophical understanding of a brute. Only a brute would even suggest that coercion trumps reason. Force is not reason at all. You cannot reason with a brute. Your fundamental misunderstanding of morality is something you will need look at yourself, as you need to take the first step, but if you don’t, you will be very unhappy.

          7. “Reason”? Of course, why use brute force and coercion when you can brainwash the sheeple into buying useless crap to continue the cycle of consumerist slavery, eat garbage junk food to wreck health, and worship celebrities like the Kardashians who contribute nothing to civilization? Who cares about moral decadence, the cultural collapse, or the destruction of the environment as long as the elites are raking in their cash and exercising their pursuit of “happiness”?
             That, in essence, is the problem with capitalism. Don’t confuse the fantasy version with the reality.

          8. The true nature of things is often brutal, high flung noble sentiment but a disguise.
             It takes fortitude to confront realities that are not immediately to our liking. This is what sets a philosopher apart from other men.
             Thus, the philosophical understanding of a brute is actually pretty damn good.
             First we take note of what is. Moralizing about the way things should be comes later.
             Or you ‘will be very unhappy?’ Wut? Come on, man.

          9. I’d rather be a brute than a philosemite. After all capitalism is another form of Anglo-Philosemitism. There’s only one gentile on that picture that precedes the article of famous economists. If subjecting myself to brutish whims because they are grounded in nature, than I’ll happily accept that. I’ll accept all the Genghis Khans, Tamerlanes, Charlemagnes, Richard the Lionhearts and their ilk over all your money lenders and sniveling powered wig idealists, that are so removed from nature as a foreskin is from its glans. And by the way, in rejection of your philosemitism and baseless ‘morality’ I’m happy to have my brutish foreskin too.

          10. A brute is at the philsophical level of a Neanderthal. It adheres to the most basic of mental functions. I am completely aware of the way things are and also of why they are. Philosophy is the core behind such things. Brutish things happen when man has no or a malformed philosophy (Marxism, mysticism, subjectivism, postmodernism are examples) The fact that brutes exist does not invalidate the idea of inalienable natural rights.

          11. So your object is that all but one of the men and woman (Miss Rand) are Jewish, so you must dismiss their ideas. Jesus, you are such a primitivist, showing not only brutish but tribalistic behaviors. You are the reason mankind cannot have nice things, and I do not mean that as joke.

          12. A brute lives and dies by what is, holds no illusions. That kind of realism is what philosophers strive for.
              Good, you understand that knowing how things are, is the core. If you do not first have an accurate understanding of reality, you cannot arrive at useful prescriptions for changing it.
              Why are natural rights intrinsically inalienable?

          13. So you simply have no adherence to any concept of freedom. A leftist scum you are. None of the behaviors you list are in accordence to higher reasoning, but I will not stop anyone if they like those things, as I am not a brute who disrespects and violates the rights of others.
              Capitalism is the only moral system as it is the only one that is in accordance with our individual rights. (Our current system of mixed economy is a compromise with poison, not capitalism.)

          14. Absolutely not, I have Jewish friends and appreciate Jewish contributions. However, this does not mean I need to bloviate in apologia as a congressman would for something off kilter about Jewish philosophy. I reject as did Nietzsche and Schopenhauer the Jewish morality and lens with which has become the Western standard, first through Christianity and now political correctness. In the same vein give me a Thor, Odin or Zeus anyday over your Abrahams and Jobs. As Nietzsche once said, ‘slave religions exist to prohibit the Ubermensch of humanity’. Your type is the worst, you criticise the strength of those whom you’d need in your direst hour. I don’t take lessons or heed advice from any of those people listed above nor their ideological predecessors.

          15. Natural rights don’t exist, inalienable or endowed by their ‘creator’, what ‘creator’? Jesus, or the Masonic God of George Washington? No one is going to care about your inalienable right to be secure or live during times of war or strife. When a lion eats a gazelle, if that gazelle could talk before having its jugular snapped, I’m sure discussing its ‘inalienable’ right to exist by its creator would be laughable. I’m pretty sure the English must’ve laughed when they read that ridiculous document written by a hypocrite who didn’t believe it himself.

          16. Nietzsche was an irrationalist and a relativist. The absolute worst kind. When I criticise brutes, it is not because they are strong, but that they wish and do violate the individual rights of others. It is utterly immoral to do such. You do not even need to be physically strong to be a brute, as I have run across some of the most physically and intellectually weak totalitarian leftists who still qualify as brutes. That’s a shame, there is great knowledge and wisdom in all of those men and women.

          17. As I believe in absolute reality, rights come from that. Reason dictates that man’s requirements for life are the right to live by his judgement, without anyone interfering unless he is violating the rights of others. He also has the right to pursue and own property, to do as he sees fit with in order to maximize his rational self interest in pursuit of his own happiness. Man is an end to himself. All he owes his fellow man is to respect their rights which means not violating them. Only a brute would see error in this.

          18. Where do you derive the power to tell me or decide what is ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’? Does this also come from your ‘inalienable right’ to exist, by your creator? To exist, just because you are human, God’s little special creature? The ultimate authority to set ‘morals’ upon a society, comes from the conquerors, think of it as an edict. Paine and Jefferson had the benefit of strongmen willing to kill and colonise, so those two could sit on their arse and espouse in grand idealisms about what was ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’, that man had ‘inalienable’ rights. I guess those inalienable rights weren’t enough for the British to forfeit their empire or the Anglo-Saxon colonisers in America to hand over land back to the natives. Inalienable rights, ha, if that makes you feel better!

          19. There is no absolute freedom for the individual in any groups or organizations, let alone an entire society. By your definition of freedom children are slaves to their parents, soldiers are slaves to their leaders, and people are slaves to the corporations they work for. Oh, and no one used brute force to bring ‘poison’ to your system, so I guess you’ll have to respect that as well.
              Wake up and come back to the real world. Your ideas about capitalism is as whimsical as communist utopia.

          20. Political freedom to be more specific. All of the examples you have used are easily explained or in most cases, idiotic within themselves. (A worker is not a slave to an employer, slaves keep no product of their labor, so if you want to trash the meaning of words.) Sure brute force was used in poisoning the free market capitalist baseline we have. It is called state interference and it is all brute force that will eventually drag us down, as it is today.
              Your views on morality are brutish and primitive. They have no place in civilization.

          21. So, you’re implying that people never democratically elected their ‘socialist’ governments? If ‘property rights’ without state interference is so important and great, why haven’t the people voted for pure capitalism yet? Maybe they just don’t want it and you should respect their ‘freedom of choice’? Again, your fantasy version of capitalism can only exist in your imagination. It can’t happen in real life for the exact same reason communist utopia can’t happen.
              Where as communists moan, “only if we had real communism instead of the USSR…” You moan, only if we had real capitalism instead of what we have now…” Same delusional crap.
              Your dear civilization exists and continues to exist only because of the brutality that it took to create it. It’s not my view as much as it’s the natural law.

          22. Indeed, I expressed this same sentiment in one of my responses. Where did all this land come from for Darius to expound upon the ‘value’ of capitalism? It was built upon the skulls of exterminated peoples such as the Taino in Hispaniola (Columbus) the Cherokee, Patuxet, Blackfoot etc. Where was their inalienable right to be secure in their private property or whatever it is they conceived of as property? It’s all a joke, the warrior clears ground so that the philosopher may idealise a world in which the warrior never murdered for the philosopher’s sake.

          23. I have already explained why it has never happened, despite the vast empirical benefits market systems have. That was the point of the very first comment I had.

          24. Because it never had a “moral philosophical defense”? Then you go on to state the moral argument for it? It doesn’t make any sense.
              You espouse the power of reason over brute force, yet you complain because there’s nothing you can do about the government’s use of brute force to ‘poison’ the free market system. You believe that individuals have inalienable rights to freedom and liberty, but you bemoan the fact that they’re using that freedom and liberty to cling onto ‘leftist’ ideologies that are poisoning the society. You’re so caught up with fantastical ideas and philosophy that you’re just engaging in intellectual masturbation that has no basis in reality.
              Just answer this question: how are you going to achieve your capitalist utopia without using brute force while respecting other people’s political freedom and choice? Through ‘reason’? Because wasting your time debating on the internet sure isn’t going to do it.

          25. Capitalism requires no force to operate it. In fact, it is force is banned except for state retailitory force upon those who break that ban. All we would have to acquire laissez-faire capitalism is remove all state interventions into the economy, so no minimum wage, absolutely minimal taxation, removal of all entitlements, damn near all regulations. Leftists can go to hell, as most are leftists because they cannot pull their own weight in society despite not being disabled in any way. They just want to be taken care of.
              Do you think the argument I made is old? It came about in the middle of the 20th century, long after the start of the Industrial Revolution.

          26. What is ‘absolute reality?’ How does reason ‘dictate’ these things? Is Reason a person that told this to you and had you jot it down in your notebook?
              Why do they have these rights(what are “rights” anyway?) and why are they requirements?
              Man’s basic requirements for life are food, water, air, shelter, clothing…
              Why is man an end to himself? Why does this mean he should respect the rights of others? How are you so sure he’ll pursue rational self interest? Is pursuing rational self interest necessarily good for everyone (look up tragedy of the commons)?
              Why does he owe his fellow man and why, specifically does he owe them ‘rights?’
              The main problem I see is that you make many assumptions that you haven’t examined.
              I don’t think you know what these ‘rights’ are.
              Why would someone have to be a brute to disagree with you and what’s wrong with being a brute?
              Keep pushing and exploring. Ask why you believe as you do. Test your beliefs with thought experiments and look through the pages of history for examples.

          27. You described what needs to be done to achieve laissez-faire capitalism, but not how. How are you going to remove all state intervention which you describe as being a brute force? With ‘reason’?
              “Leftists can go to hell.” Just like communists, you don’t even tolerate any opinion that isn’t in line with yours and you want us to believe that you actually care about individual freedom and liberty? You’re just as twisted and delusional as the leftists.
              Come back after you achieve your capitalist utopia through your sheer power of ‘reason’. Any fool and sit around and talk about their fantasy utopia to stroke their own intellectual ego; I only respect those that make actual real-life difference.

          28. Lance is trolling. Let him have his authoritarian delusions. He probably wouldn’t last 5 seconds if the world he’s describing came into existence.

          29. Where do morals come from? Nature. Find me a society where killing is considered moral? It doesn’t exist because such a society would be at an evolutionary disadvantage, and would thus eventually go extinct. Morals help protect the species from destroying itself. We are not the only animals that exhibit moral behavior.
              

          30. Care to demonstrate how any rights follow from “reason”? Until now you’ve simply made just-so statements to that effect.

51. Capitalism is just as much as a fantasy as communism.
    What kind of country except a dictatorship could truly have a capitalist system that was based on merits and not toadyism, cronyism and about 100 other ism not revolving aaround merit. Capitalism requires someone protect your assets from someone else and requires all kinds of safeguards not to end up as an oligarchy. The nature of capitalism and democracy is to end up like america where the political parties are run by corporations who use the government to eliminate their competitors.

    1. Well said, the ultimate deficiency in the heads of these dreamers is in their fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the capitalist/entrepreneur. Every capitalist wants to establish a monopoly and price set in his particular industry and any one that doesn’t is a bad capitalist. The capitalist himself is the one who expands government? Why? Because he needs it as a club to smash his competition, and without this club he’d have no other means of doing it, legally. Key examples, all the robber-barons. Expand government, work in-tandem, destroy competition. And then they fund these little neat institutions like the Mises Institute, Cato and other garbage ‘think-tanks’ that have to convince the masses on why their power is not only legitimate but ‘moral’! These people must laugh as they sip their $1,000 scotches at the idiocy of these people who worship at the alter of the market, markets that are inherently rigged by the same people these ‘free-marketeers’ idolise!

       1. And what alternative do you propose?

          1. The alternative is Markets not Capitalism. That’s actually a book title, check it out.

          2. Go on…
             I’m not spending $25. Got a summary?

          3. Individualist anarchists believe in mutual exchange, not economic privilege. They believe in freed markets, not capitalism. They defend a distinctive response to the challenges of ending global capitalism and achieving social justice: eliminate the political privileges that prop up capitalists.
             Massive concentrations of wealth, rigid economic hierarchies, and unsustainable modes of production are not the results of the market form, but of markets deformed and rigged by a network of state-secured controls and privileges to the business class. Markets Not Capitalism explores the gap between radically freed markets and the capitalist-controlled markets that prevail today. It explains how liberating market exchange from state capitalist privilege can abolish structural poverty, help working people take control over the conditions of their labor, and redistribute wealth and social power.
             Featuring discussions of socialism, capitalism, markets, ownership, labor struggle, grassroots privatization, intellectual property, health care, racism, sexism, and environmental issues, this unique collection brings together classic essays by leading figures in the anarchist tradition, including Proudhon and Voltairine de Cleyre, and such contemporary innovators as Kevin Carson and Roderick Long. It introduces an eye-opening approach to radical social thought, rooted equally in libertarian socialism and market anarchism.

       2. Agreed, most Capitalist leaders, entrepreneurs, are actually totalitarian. They do not lead democratic organizations, they lead totalitarian organizations by one smart ruler who wants to kill competitors by any means possible.

52. Brilliant article

53. Very enriching, concise article!
    Thank you!

54. A very well written article. Bravo!

55. Any time you have government you have some degree of socialism. If you really want a free market the governmentg has to go, too… I think some of the people who’se pictures you have up at the beginning of that article could explain it much better 😉

    1. That’s absurd. Where was socialism – as an applied theory of progress – found in the Roman Republic? Free markets are the enemy to American (and Western) prosperity. A basic understanding of Econ 101 will prove just that.

       1. the roman republic was extremely statist and interventionist, which is why it collapsed under its own weight. They were also as bad for the environment as any modern SOCIALIST nation is.
          Show me one example of government intervention actually benefitting the economy in the long term, or of a TRULY free market hurting the economy and going against general prosperity. just ONE example…

          1. Socialism =/= State interventionism. Socialists, for the most part, believe in the abolishment of the State.
             Sure. No problem:
             1) Henry VII implemented tariffs on the wool products, allowing Britain to wrestle textile production from the Dutch.
             2) Moreover, Britain developed a good deal of their economy via Mercantilism and the control of trade.
             3) China – now in the 21st C. – is manipulating their currency to continue exporting goods to America on the cheap, which, if you run the logic out, will end in the destruction of the American economy.

          2. socialism by DEFINITION means a strong state with a centrally planned economy. you are referring to anarchism, NOT socialism.
             The British mercantilist economy is a perfect example of short-term gains leaning to a long term disaster! It eventually led to the Long Depression of 1873 and broke apart the empire bit by bit. And China is heading for much the same fate. Their current position is unteneble on so many levels.

          3. Anarchism is a subset of Socialism. Anarcho-Capitlaism is a subset of Liberalism. Socialism and Liberalism are subsets of Progressivism. And, I despise them all.
             Is it now? Good God – A single depression. If that was the case we would all be international socialists due to the GFC in 2008; or, more like, Austrian Libertarians or Anarcho-Capitalists – because Mises and Rothbard, man. Britain’s Empire broke apart after World War 2, because of Nationalist sentiments in the colonised people.
             Yeah, sure, their current position is untenable… The Chinese Government will just swoop in and fiddle with a few leavers… And run their economy off the internal consumption of its population, or whatever. However, that doesn’t change the fact that China is winning the trade war against the United States.
             The United States is untenable on so many levels – due to free trade.
             Put down the joint and put down Mises. Go look at the hard data. You cannot derive economic principles a priori.

56. Thanks for the article, Cpt.
    Always looking to improve on all fronts.

57. Economics is not a science. It is closer to philosophy or alchemy than is to physics or biology.
    And like the alchemist of old the modern economicist is convinced he is correct no matter how many times he is proven wrong.
    One day this will change. But it’s not today and this is no more than the usual pro-free market drivel you normally hear from Rands faithful.
    Why the free-market crowd idolise a russian jew cult leader is a mystery to me.

    1. Rather than making your case you just attempt to discredit. Spare us the Pseudoskepticism and Ad Hominems.

       1. What more can be done to discredit him than to simply look at the world we live in today?
          If you honestly need someone to explain the many failures of the unrestrained capitalist ideology, then really you shouldn’t be involving yourselves in any form of political thinking.

          1. What more can be done to discredit him than to simply look at the world we live in today?

             Where do you live?

             If you honestly need someone to explain the many failures of the unrestrained capitalist ideology…

             Strawman. Did I make that argument?

          2. I live in the UK. Capitalism has fucked up a lot of things here.
             Prior to the introduction of the internal market the NHS was functioning adequately and was for the most part cost effective. However in order to prepare it for greater integration of private providers they caused the creation of massive costs and destroyed the integration of services.
             Our other national infrastructure has been sold off to private interests who in all too many cases have wound up being owned by foreign governments.
             Our last piece of state owned railways and the only company listing a profit for operating a railway was just sold off.
             Our nuclear power plants belong to the French government.
             Oh and of course a massive migrant population brought in order to drive down wages.
             Everywhere you go in this country unfettered capitalism has left nothing but gaping wounds.
             Only a fool would dare to utter the tripe that the writer of this article has seen fit to shit out. Only some old man, safe and secure in his situation. Protected from the ravages of capitalism by his age and gated community would consider the current situation in any way acceptable.

          3. Didn’t know the UK was Capitalist. Capitalism doesn’t have government welfare programs and other social services. It sounds like you’re confusing Capitalism with having private ownership and a free(ish) market under a Socialist government. What alternative do you propose?

          4. Capitalists will inevitably purchase those things from the government as the government will always seek to extract taxes from them. So they may as well convince the government to spend it on things that benefit the capitalists.
             If you are proposing anarchistic capitalism then you are either the very peak of human idiocy or a useful tool for the upper class. Such a society could only result in corporate feudalism and slavery.
             For a peek into the world under unrestrained capitalism look to the undeveloped world where the government is too weak or too corrupt to oppose the capitalists. Look to slave driven brick mills of India, the clothing sweatshops of Africa and the imprisoned workers of Chinese electronics manufacturers.
             Because that is what the capitalist will do every time. They will simplify and rationalise the means of production, appoint a few white managers and then drag in the masses of cheap foreign labour who will be worked until they drop then thrown on the scrapheap and replaced with yet more victims.
             There is only one alternative. There has only ever been one alternative.
             Capitalism has failed. Classical Communism is nothing more than communal anarchism. Leninism and Stalinism were pointlessly self destructive and completely removed from the reality of their situation. The social democracies of Europe are paralysed into inaction on most occasions and corrupt the rest of the time. And of course the “great” republic of the USA is a worthless failed abortion of a nation, its people corpulent and diseased in body and mind. All of them obsessed with sinking the knife deeper into each others backs for their own gain.
             That alternative? The one possible solution based on our current technological means?
             Fascism.
             The only option for a modern industrial society has always been fascism.

          5. The only option for a modern industrial society has always been fascism.

             Fascism, as in “conquer your neighbors and take their resources”?

          6. If we discounted an entire system of political theory simply because one example of it sought expansion of its borders then we would have to discard every possible mode of human organisation and would not even be able to become simple solitary savages squatting under trees. The only option would be a mass suicide of the entire species.
             Fascism is a political system in which the state is recognised as the primary authority in the nation and through it the people.
             The business cartels, the plutocrats, the military and the socially influential. They all are made to bend their knee and accept their place. Or destroyed utterly.
             In a fascist society the capitalist approach to corporate/government relations is thrown completely on its head. Instead of corporations dictating their often insane or unreasonable demands to the state, the state tells the corporations to stop being idiots or to stop treating human lives as a worthless commodity.
             There are of course different takes on fascism.
             You have the most well known model. The German one. Like all forms of fascism it reflects the nation it was spawned from. Heavy on censorship, massive centralisation of governance and much effort put into ensuring the populace become obedient. While their system of governance has changed the Germans themselves have not. Still supporting some of the strictest censorship in Europe, a massive centralisation of governance in both their nation and Europe and of course being very obedient.
             The Italians, Spanish and Chileans had their own quirks.
             But personally I have always preferred the British approach.
             Its heavy emphasis on things like free speech, the right of assembly, delegation of authority & work along with their rather lovely commitment to things like a fair wage for all workers (the BUF practically invented the concept of fair trade while others were still arguing if “them darkies” were even human). All these things combined with a consistent take on ethnic nationalism make it by far the best flavour of fascism.
             But in this era. Neo-liberalism, capitalism and individualism rule.
             Capitalism of course is no political theory or any such thing. It’s simply capitalism. It will embrace any flag or ideology to perpetuate itself. If you keep it firmly reined in, it can be extremely useful.
             These day it is not however and the combination of capitalism, neo-liberalism and individualism has created much of the poison we see people on RoK arguing against. Often without realising that the very arguments they put forth are the same ones that created the problem in the first place.
             It’s like shooting yourself to cure your gunshot.

58. I think anyone who has taken even an ECO101 course can recognize that a free market economy is the most efficient type of economy.
    (Impossible to reach full capitalism without resorting to anarchy, but I digress).

59. I can’t take you seriously when you imply that an opposition to capitalism requires an opposition to markets.

    1. When you oppose capitalism you oppose voluntary exchange. It is voluntary exchange that creates a “market”.

60. I can’t believe how true it is that the US is not capitalist. It’s gotta be one of the best-kept secrets ever. Saying it will get you dismissed as an Obama-hating conspiracy theorist, but the marriage between government and the market goes WAY back. A relatively small minor instance of this government control is the fact that 9 states mandate that insurance companies cover sex change operations meaning that everyone in that state pays for weirdos to mutilate themselves. Or that employers are prohibited by the government from testing IQ of potential employees, meaning that the only way an applicant can distinguish themselves as qualified is by spending 4 years and 30-100k for “education.” People don’t know about the dangerous relationship between the gov and the economy because it’s really just a series of small, seemingly innocuous laws.

61. So much bullshit in this article it’s hilarious. Economics is only the future of the world if your worldview is based on post 16th century materialism, where the merchant class rules society and money is more important than people or animals or love or God. Before that time, economics wasn’t a huge concern and the world got along fine and survived worse disasters than it has today. Guess what, money won’t make you happy and it won’t make you live forever, or even much longer, really. So why is it “the future of the world”? The future of the world depends a hell of a lot more on how we treat the environment, and right now we’re raping the shit out of it to create virtual money that is entirely worthless beyond the value that humans and governments ascribe to it. We’re killing the future because in a fit of cognitive dissonance we’ve mistaken worthless numbers in a theoretical bank for what is actually necessary for life (clean air, water, food, trees and animals).

62. “One, Norway (the darling favorite of the left) derives a goodly fourth of its economic production from oil…” and saves all that money in a sovereign wealth fund. Has for decades. That is why Norways economy and development is broadly similar to its neighbours Sweden and Finland.

63. You are wrong, socialism works when you have a flourishing black market economic behind it fixing its mistakes. Just kidding, seriously I came from a terrible leftist territory filled with french fagget, we are the most in dept place in Canada. I am 100% agree with you.

64. I am so much against communism. However, simplfying the solving personal economic struggles down to “start your own company” reflects tremendous ignorance to the realities of the modern American economy. Yes pure communism and socialism is a failed ideology. But so is pure capitalism. ROK needs to stay away from ignorant over simplified right wing rhetoric like “pull yourself up” as much as the mass media needs to stay away from leftist indoctrination

65. This 70% youth unemployment in Europe and America is caused by the government. Back in the 90s anyone in Britain could get a job in 1 week, most likely 1 day, and unemployment was a lifestyle choice. But due to the population growth caused by immigration *racist* people with degrees are finding it hard to get jobs, when before a person could leave school with qualifications and become a teacher and retire with a pension.
    Well in Britain, 500,000 immigrants enter each year and 300,000 leave, so the population increases by 200,000 each year. In 8 years time, there’s enough immigrants to make up for the official unemployment rate, but the real unemployment rate is higher, 58% of blacks are unemployed in Britain from leaked data.
    America is no different. Thanks to Obamacare, everyone has to pay for healthcare even if you can’t afford it, ahem, poll tax or risk being fined or being put in prison. And they made it more expensive as insurers now have to cover pre-existing conditions. Plus it’s taking up an extra 15% of the GDP and men are subsidising women’s healthcare and freebies. Due to the law that an employer with 20+ employees must pay Obamacare, hours are cut to part time and 150,000 jobs were lost in 1 month and they’re advertising food stamps on tv. He’s not a socialist, he’s creating poverty, and he’s made unemployment and poverty rise while healthcare companies get richer.
    Politicians tried to get everyone dependant on welfare by creating mass unemployment so they can get more votes, and it’s backfiring due to the rise of anti-immigration parties to fight back our overpopulated countries, except in America thanks to the lamestream media convincing fools that Obama will solve poverty.

66. My problem with free market capitalism is 3 things.
    1. No minimum or living wage or unions.
    2. I don’t want a privatised prison or justice system.
    3. All the companies will keep buying each other until we’re left with monopolies.
    Other than that it’s fine.

67. Capitalism is a complete nonsensical system. Not saying communism is better but capitalism is basically impossible as a system and will always bend towards fascism.
    Capitalism is a systtem whereby the government basically lets the businesses do whatever they want to do. Firstly, the people who run these businesses are not democratic. They are autocrats, communism, fascist, they are not elected by popular employee support, they are either self appointed,or appointed by daddy or a good friend. These are people who basically oppose capitalism, irregardless of how much money they are making. Once they make alot of money, they then want to figure out how to crush the competitors and future start ups by any means necessary. Some buyout the competition, but what usually happens is they try to use the government as a bludgeoning instrument to murder their competitors with high regulation.
    Those at the top don’t want a free market. Do you think someone like bill gates wants some kid in a garage to be able to make a computer that could bankrupt him? No. Hence capitalism always bends towards fascism. The capitalist leaders always want to rely on government to crush their competition.

68. Philosophy of the American economy is stealing other countries natural resources, calling this – fighting against terrorism, Communists, Islamists… but it’s still stealing…

69. Here, here!

70. Good article, but Carl Menger and Frederic Bastiat should been featured between Smith and Mises.

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