Classic Capitalism for Romantics?

(This post and the previous one—Natural or Unnatural?—were triggered by a recent post entitled, Socialism for Dummies And Nature for the Savvy.¹)

What does one say to Econ Romantics¹ when seeing they see not? when hearing they hear not? And what is it they do not see and hear? Could it be the real world of nature and human nature²? Could it be the contradictions in their own reasoning?

How do we always get to the state of "crony-, corrupted-, monopolistic-, fascist- capitalism" if it is not via the romantic notions of free, unregulated, invisible-hand dynamics that allows the natural man³ and his Systems to do their own thing for their own (so-called) best interest? Adam Smith's invisible-hand may have some application to small, local economies, but go national, mega, or global and the natural, capitalist hand always becomes a fist.

Indeed, what a boon the romantic construct of “free markets” has proven for people without conscience (PWOCs) in a real world where too many meet the criteria of psychopathy⁴—where corporations (CWOEs) rate even worse.⁵ Even Adam Smith knew that  the trio of competition, profit motive, and human nature was a toxic mix that a Utopian notion of “free markets” could not survive:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary. (The Wealth of Nations, p. 148—I.X.I)

When masters combine together in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement not to give more than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to accept of a certain wage under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very severely; and if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same manner. (The Wealth of Nations, p. 164—I.X.I)

Adam Smith even recognized the meritocracy trap:

... This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages. (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 58—I.III.III)

Is not the current college admissions scam⁶ the perfect exposure of meritocracy posturing? that what we call meritocracy often has an underbelly of vice and folly, faking and fraud, entitlement and egoism, oppression and suppression, crime and corruption?

When will the Econ Romantics finally admit that classic capitalism is a phantom construct that could never survive unredeemed human nature?—a human nature that has manifest in every age, beginning with Cain⁷? a human nature exacerbated by a competitive system and spirit that stimulates the worst aspects of the natural man? a competitive system that rewards greed, corruption, and conspiracy? If the word conspiracy bothers anyone, just re-read Adam Smith above—just review the entire history of those pursuing and protecting power and gain.

Take this romantic statement:

In a free-market economy as in nature, when something emerges that is non-natural and which tries to block nature and prevents the natural system from running, that non-natural element is quickly rooted out. Hence, the classic, capitalist, natural economy has built in protections against greed and corruption.⁸

Yet in numerous paragraphs that author laments the corruption of so-called classic capitalism. But if the "classic, capitalist, natural  economy has built in protections," why has this “natural” economy not corrected the greed and corruption that characterizes the present system? How does classic capitalism expect to protect against fear and favor paradigms that PWOCs exploit to further their power and gain agendas? How does classic capitalism expect people-WITH-conscience to freely and fairly compete with PWOCs who will say and do anything for the sake of increasing power and gain—to "ensure [their] own survival"? with PWOCs who seek to compromise and corrupt everyone and everything for the sake of domination? How does classic capitalism expect to "control" PWOCs without violating the "free" in free-markets?

The simple, historical truth is that free-markets can never survive PWOCs. PWOCs love the romance of free competition. In economics, competition is the very toxin that poisons "free and fair." Competition justifies and rationalizes most of what PWOCs do for power and gain. Thus, as long as we romanticize power and wealth in place of “wisdom and virtue,” we fall squarely into “the complaint of moralists in all ages” (as Adam Smith says) and into the concentrations of power and wealth in the hands of a few PWOCs running CWOEs.

Competition for profit and market-dominance is the heart and gut of capitalism, but, as usual, romantic, classic capitalists shunt the natural, inevitable consequences of competition (concentration, corruption, conspiracy, disparity, elitism, etc., etc.) onto the tyrannies of socialism—a conflation and projection that boggles plain and simple observation—manifesting a classic blind spot that might warrant a reading of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People and an in-depth consideration of The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium.

Do we really think that competition is a heavenly value? How much advancement and artistry have we forfeited because competition was the paradigm we preferred over freely-chosen cooperation and sharing? What would our world be like if more of us chose the better-half of our dual natures—freely sharing our skills, gifts, and potential—becoming unnatural beings—refusing to be corrupted by the dueling fists of socialism and capitalism?⁹ As one writer observes:

Mammon is wiser in its way than the dictator, for money enslaves not by force but by love.¹⁰

What if most disparities and poverty are inevitable by-products of a competitive system (classic or otherwise) that blatantly rewards greed, corruption, and dominance?—that penalizes transparency and integrity? What if we promoted a system that encouraged and rewarded the gifts and potentials¹¹ of every human from a win-win perspective instead of the win-lose of competition? a system that rewarded the best of the individual within society and society within the individual? a system that honored values beyond profit and bottom line? a system that was not a toxin but an elixir favoring transformation?

What if we are already witnessing a blossoming of cooperation and sharing that is beginning to transform parts of our world? Has humanity ever shared so freely and so much (e.g., apps, podcasts, videos, themes, plugins, photos, books, wikis, crowd-funding, open source, gifts-without-guile, etc., etc.)? What if Daniel Pink is right that there is a greater motivator than money¹²—a motivator that competitive capitalism may not comprehend (may even try to corrupt) because it cannot put a price to it?

What if we could, person by person, business by business, begin shifting away from the poisons of competition and bottom-line obsession into a paradigm of freely-chosen cooperation and sharing? Would it make a difference if our economic system appealed to the best in human nature instead of the worst or instead of crushing the human spirit? Would we find more truth and hope for humanity—fewer lies about the poor and disadvantaged; less romanticism about powerful, wealthy elites—if we fostered and honored the Spirit of Cooperation above that of competition and/or control?

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1. Here is a recent example that energized me again:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/03/no_author/socialism-for-dummies-and-nature-for-the-savy/
2. New Testament | 1 Corinthians 2:14 ~ But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (Bold emphasis added.)
Both history and observation seem to witness that mankind has a dual nature where self-will (typifying the natural man) resists divine design and potential.
3. Natural or Unnatural? at https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2019/03/natural-or-unnatural_16.html
4. https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2016/08/inevitable.html ; https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2014/10/public-enemy-1.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2014/12/without-conscience.html ;
5. CWOEs = corporations without ethics : https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-plague-of-psychopaths.html
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal
7. https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-pity-ploy.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2010/01/deception-three-i-am-free-moses-533.html
8. See footnote 1 above
9. https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2018/01/faux-socialists.html ; https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2018/02/things-as-they-really-are.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2014/12/deception-inc.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2017/08/conflation.html
10. Walter Wink. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Kindle Locations 818-819). Kindle Edition.
11. https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2014/06/gods-economy-is-it-possible.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2015/08/course-correction.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2013/12/gods-economy-christmas-perspective.html ; https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-choice-meconomy-or-weconomy.html
Note: In anticipation of the cry that a gift economy, itself, could never survive the unredeemed nature of PWOCs and the so-called “undeserving” poor—that a gift economy (mutual/reciprocal offerings) is not just its own egregious romanticizing, but unbelievable-pie-in-the-sky—there may be truth in that because PWOCs corrupt everything they can, even gift-giving, BUT, if people with conscience began living a gifts-without-guile economy, maybe PWOCs and CWOEs would have less opportunity to corrupt and more opportunity to witness a better way.
12. https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2013/02/one-more-nail.html

Things As They Really Are??

(Faux-socialists? Faux-polarity? Part Two)

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.
[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism (accessed February 4, 2018; footnotes not included; bold emphasis added)]

So, if social ownership is the common element in socialism, why is it so rare, almost non-existent, in so-called socialist countries?

What if it's all a fraud, a facade for “elites” to hide behind as they maneuver assets into smaller and smaller concentrations of their ownership and control?¹ Where was there ever “social ownership and democratic control of the means of production” amongst so-called socialists? When has promised equity ever flowed to the people?

Why can we not see that the majority of gains from labor, capital, and property, for the entire duration of history, in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people of every stripe and system, has always² flowed upward into private fiefdoms of those who, without conscience, pursue (and protect) increasing levels of power and gain?

Is this not the unvarying way of the sociopath / psychopath; the way of the Korihor-type?³ How long till we acknowledge that all the high-sounding phrases and pretend compassion of elite-socialists is all a game of hide and seek—hide true motives and machinations, all the while seeking the goodwill, support, and assets of those they dupe?

Do we ever ask ourselves why all the elite-socialists are rolling-in-dough? Do they assuage their guilt (if they can muster any) with programs that pretend to “equitize” other people's money? Or is the seeming redistribution all for the sake of appearance, taking credit for the generosity or sacrifice of others? Look at all the elite-socialists. What if they are all just corrupted capitalists in disguise? Name anyone of them. And what if the elite-capitalists are all just (wannabe) oli-garchs, -gopolists, monopolists hiding behind facades of “free-enterprise,” “free-markets,” “competition,” etc. Name anyone of them.

As to the propagandists of “World Order”! not one of them has the remotest intention of establishing social, collective, cooperative, OR free-enterprise ownership. The New World Order is the ultimate left- / right-wing tyranny—the utopia of tyrannies—where the elites (those who survive the oligarchic bloodbath to establish top-dog dominion) will own everything and control everything, issuing order upon order to robots and to semi-robotic, disposable “humans.”

Why must we keep repeating these déjà vus? Certainly, there are many good people in this world, but the number of sociopaths and manufactured sociopaths,⁴ on both the right and the left, is increasing to the tinder-point. And when good people refuse to see—to recognize—the unconscionable, mendacious ways of sociopathic elites (and their willing lackeys), AND the déjà vus (that even initially good governments have always been taken over, in short order, by those obsessed with power and gain agendas), they will become unwitting, deceived accomplices to a tyranny that will destroy all the good they ever thought to do or preserve.

Let us wake up to the deceptions that surround us 360 degrees. Re-read Orwell's 1984. It's unfolding before our eyes.

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1. [in similitude of the capitalists]
2. Except perhaps for 1) the City of Enoch, and 2) during the reign of Melchizedek: both Biblical prophets. Perhaps for that reason, most of their history has been expunged.
3. Book of Mormon | Alma 30:17 ~ [Philosophy of Korihor, circa 74 B.C., Americas] “... every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.”
4. A manufactured sociopath is one who lies, cheats, steals, harasses, targets, tortures, abuses, kills, or does anything against his conscience at the behest of another because of fear, coercion, promised reward or favor, and so forth.

Faux-Socialists? Faux-Polarity?

Past time to wake up, folks! Do we really think that the Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis, Reids, Bidens, McCabes, et al. al. al. have the first notion what socialism is? They are first and foremost pawns (and future fall-guys) in an oligarchic game being played by their ghostly superiors / supervisors. These dupers / dupees have sold their souls for transitory sceptres, off-shore mega-riches, and rampant hedonism—the very same things that the power and gain “rightists” have always pursued (as in Bushes, McCains, McConnells, Comeys, Muellers, Rosensteins, et al. al. al.).

The so-called leftists have not the remotest intention of establishing “socialism.” It's all a facade to cover the One-World focus of a MEconomy where elites, left AND right, serve the agendas of their grasping masters till all (even their surprised selves, and that includes Mr. K.) become robotic slaves to a master oligarchy.

So why do we keep obsessing over left and right? keep dividing ourselves in service to a faux polarity? keep believing that Trump is a divinely sanctioned trump-card against those _____ socialists? Yes, Trump is somewhat unique in the presidency. His self-service is child-like egoic. He seems trapped in some level of pre-operational¹ unawareness. If he contradicts himself, he seems to genuinely think the past ceases to exist. If he denies his lies, he seems to genuinely think our cognitive abilities cease to exist. Most of his opposing elites know they are in service to a “higher” power-monger and acquiesce for the sake of their perks (though sometimes from fear) which they fantasize will last forever. But Trump? he doesn't seem to know there is anything higher than himself. He orders and ordains in the most general of terms (“buy, sell, get me off the hook, make money, make a deal,” etc., etc.) and his paid servants carry out the specifics they were trained and hired for; then Trump takes credit for the work, results, and ideas (unless the result is less than satisfactory).

If we have the integrity to review “conservative” Trump's demeanour, speeches,² tweets, history, grandiosity, mendacity, etc., etc. in a full 360 degrees, do we not see the face of Ayn Rand where service to self superseded service to anything broader? On the other hand, the faux-socialists liberally serve themselves on the way to a WO (World Order) that they seem to view as greater than any one person. BUT whether Trump-style or WO-style, the agenda is the SAME: power and gain.

So to all those who think Trump is divinely appointed; they may be right in some measure! At least the entrenched, secretive, criminal cabal of the faux-left did not prevail to perpetuate their cover-up of murder and mayhem from a presidential throne (though they are still trying in every possible way). As to Trump? his childish, egoic ways — spending his tenure self-serving as opposed to also WO-assisting — may leave some wiggle room for a few white-hats to be able to work a little justice, accountability, and restoration into corrupted governance. All the while Trump devotees will “seeing him, see not; and hearing him, hear not” the all-to-visible selfie character of the man.

So, get a grip folks. Trump is no savior; nor team-player (whether the team be good or bad). His self-focus / self-distraction / self-delusion just opens the door enough (we should pray) for a few good people to do something good while he is tweeting, TVing, and travelling.

But those who think Trump is knowingly presiding over a draining-of-the-swamp do not appreciate the nature of his self-delusion, or the full-spectrum extent of our global swamp, or the way power and wealth (or the perception of power and wealth³) corrupts. And those who think that the departure of McCabe or even 100 like him will drain this swamp are in for a rude surprise. Pulling the plug on McCabe or even 500 other power-pluggers will only drain a few compartmentalized fetid shafts. The global master(s) will re-plug all the drains with new, expendable pluggers. The global agenda is too far established for entrenched, hidden power to relinquish with an exposure or two, or even a thousand. The great deception will increase in sophistication, violence, and coercion. More faux-saviors will appear and we shall be suckered again and again if we refuse to see what we see and hear what we hear in full 360; and above all, if we do not persist with courage to expose and counter at every turn the sewage that sustains the agendas of the secretive oligarchy in their never-ending pursuit of power and gain.

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1. Remember Piaget?
2. (his extemporaneous speeches, not the carefully crafted speeches of writers who have been tutored in the skills of propaganda and myth-making / -preserving; and then delivered methodically, without passion, with the essential aid of a teleprompter)
3. http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/03/truly-afflicted-with-riches.html