House of Eratosthenes

Think of this as an extension of D’JEver Notice? I, in which I made the point that each one of the industries that have “let us down,” if you take the time to inspect how that industry works and how it has morphed in recent history, you find it fails to stand as an example of the weaknesses of capitalism because it no longer adheres to any capitalist model. You have education, healthcare, the world oil market, and — since I wrote that above installment, which has turned out to be prescient — we’ve had this huge ol’ dealy-do with the subprime lending mess.

Capitalism didn’t create those problems. It didn’t leave us; we left it. We started messing around with some cross-breeding against the marxist way of life and that is when the real problems started.

Now there’s an election upon us in which we get to figure out an answer to the central question: Are we ready to give up on capitalism? Are we ready to put the socialists in charge of our government, unopposed, when they aren’t even ready to admit they’re socialists? And it occurs to me:

Capitalism is “failing” because we have seen it fall short of a standard that is so inherently silly, we cannot even say what it is, out loud, and still preserve a healthy, decent sense of shame. That standard is this:

To motivate all those involved in a financial transaction, to act in the interests of other parties similarly involved, to the detriment of their own.

And here, I’m specifically calling out those “Wall Street traders” who sold those Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) to suckers, along with the banks that made those bad loans in the first place that later on were packaged into these SIVs. That’s your failure of capitalism, there; people failed to look out for one another because we had this “Wild, Wild West” thing going on in the lending industry. Capitalism unfettered and running amok.

To make this look like the Wild West, you’d have to have a very special Wild West. Basically, you’d have to have the Marshal acting as a Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE), sitting on a huge sack of gold bullion. Sort of insuring the town saloon — if Frank Miller shows up on the noon train and starts smashing up the town saloon, the Marshal would have his bag of gold ready. Except he wouldn’t offer a settlement to the saloon owner to replace his big ol’ bar mirror he bought in St. Louis. No, he’d be giving the gold bullion to Frank Miller for smashing up the saloon.

See, the government’s standing behind these bad loans…that’s the genesis of the problem. Now, the bank has to make bad loans. It would be irresponsible of the bank not to. Look at all that free money from the government just waiting to be snatched up out there. That isn’t capitalism.

But anyway. The point is, socialism…which is running for President in six days, and true to form, is afraid to call itself socialism…also has a thoroughly miserable job of living up to this impossible standard. Motivating people to engage in transactions, looking out for everyone else. It doesn’t succeed at this any better than capitalism does. The difference is, a) unlike capitalism, socialism is internally structured to count on meeting this impossible goal; and b) unlike capitalism, when socialism fails to meet this impossible goal, we have a lot of people running around who don’t remember. Seems the folks who suffer from the shortest memories have the loudest voices about this.

In my opinion, Barry O needs to get his talking points in order. Right now, the issue that confronts him is that the people who don’t want to see him win, are making the point Barack Obama wants us to become a socialist country and socialism doesn’t work! And the Obama/Biden campaign has responded with two rejoinders that really should put us in our place:

No he isn’t…

…and…Yes it does.

I know he’s all hopey-changey and makes the leg tingle, etc. But shouldn’t voters at least press him to pick one of those two mutually exclusive responses? No I’m not, and Yes it does. He’s supposed to be so clean and articulate and he likes to use the cliche “Let’s be clear” a lot. Fine. So be clear.

Is an Obama presidency all about giving up on capitalism, or not?

Image credit: Yet another outstanding cartoon resource linked by Rick.

Unlike a lot of people, I think the media has actually done a better job than in previous elections of informing people on the issues. Sure, there are plenty of examples of that not happening, but compared to the most recent elections, I think voters are more informed.

That’s why I think with this election America will get the government it demands. I disagree with Americans that socialism is bad, but I have a feeling I’m outnumbered.

And you know, when you think about it, for thousands of years the majority of people have lived under fascist governments. The problem is that America has allowed too many Americans to forget how bad communism is. So it looks like we’ll be reminded.
- JohnJ | 10/29/2008 @ 11:13
Unlike a lot of people, I think the media has actually done a better job than in previous elections of informing people on the issues. Sure, there are plenty of examples of that not happening, but compared to the most recent elections, I think voters are more informed.

You’re f—ing joking here, right? If it weren’t for the blogosphere and the alternative media, nobody would be getting the truth out about Obama. I’m in my mid thirties, and I’ve never seen the mainstream press quite this in the tank for a candidate. Even Clinton didn’t excite them this much.

That’s why I think with this election America will get the government it demands.

File that under “sad but true.” Next.

I disagree with Americans that socialism is bad, but I have a feeling I’m outnumbered.

I don’t know if you are outnumbered or not, but that’s entirely beside the point. The concepts of “best government” are not a popularity contest; it’s more like a scientific theory – testable, subject to independent verification via repeated experiments. A quick look at the 20th century should be all it takes to convince even the most casual observers that socialism (however you define the word) fails to deliver when compared with more hands-off forms of government.

And you know, when you think about it, for thousands of years the majority of people have lived under fascist governments.

I thought the majority of human history found them living under monarchies or oligarchies, not fascism. Course, maybe there’s not much difference in the end. In any case, there’s a reason that the USA and nations like it (ancient Greece, the republic of Rome, etc) stands head and shoulders above any other experiment in government – in human history – according to any yardstick you can name. Why do you think that is?

The problem is that America has allowed too many Americans to forget how bad communism is. So it looks like we’ll be reminded.

So why is “communism” bad, while you “disagree with Americans that socialism is bad?” Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the first major communist country officially named “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?”

There was also this little thing about seventy years ago called “National Socialism,” and look how that turned out. It was started by some guy named Hitler. Have you heard of him?

Seems to me like they’re all part of the same continium, with the only difference being the relative amount of human freedom and whether or nor concentration camps are part of the picture.
- cylarz | 10/30/2008 @ 21:42
[…] before the elections, I had made an observation about the various failures of capitalism. Actually, it was an observation I had made before: Think […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/29/2009 @ 05:44

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D’JEver Notice? XIVWednesday, October 29th, 2008

D’JEver Notice? XIV
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008