"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams

the Misanthropic Humanist:

constantinemagildahyde2@yahoo.com

01 May 2009

"Daily" short: Planning and Crisis

Liberalism and socialized economies are plainly short-sighted, no matter how far-sighted they aspire or claim to be. That such a philosophy can call its opponents "reactionary" is hilarious in a pot, kettle sort of way. They intend the epithet of reactionary as a contrast to their "planned" economy, but in practice it is like Hitler accusing FDR of heavy-handedness, or Bill Clinton calling the Pope a womanizing liar. The reality is that business owners use the capitalist system "reactions" to plan ahead, while state control so quickly falls behind the pace of events that in no time at all it is merely reacting to the loudest complaint of the day, or the highest number of mouths demanding food. There is nothing efficient about this, which most people agree about in theory. That's why nobody actually claims to want socialism anymore. But even without somebody openly advocating the destruction of our competitive culture, the prevailing crisis mentality provides daily steps in that direction. Trying to plan an economy when you claim to know that it's a bad idea is even dumber than doing it on purpose.

1 comment:

  1. The current crisis is in large part due to our government's altering of the free market system. Even businesses that adequately planned ahead, assuming that the market would react in a certain way to changes, couldn't account for bailouts and stimulus packages propping up their competitors. That's the problem when you try to have your cake and eat it too. You have to either go with full-blown socialism and let everyone adjust accordingly. Or you need to allow free market enterprising and have to assure that it will be the market responding, not the government.

    Your point is exactly right. Claiming that our leaders aren't promoting and implementing socialism is disengenuous to those of us that try to live our lives on the assumption that we live in a capitalist society. But then again, who among us is really buying that anymore anyways?!

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