tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post5361068084818396634..comments2023-10-25T08:46:20.242-05:00Comments on The Distributist Review: Breaking the OligararchsJohn Médaillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16463267750952578888noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post-69648089905849303052009-05-07T13:08:00.000-05:002009-05-07T13:08:00.000-05:00"I believe the problem lies in who are the oligarc..."I believe the problem lies in who are the oligarchs and what their motivation is ..... rather than that oligarchs exist."<br /><br />It's time to dust off Machiavelli and develop a good theory of social class. Reading Machiavelli will cure your of any desire for liberal democracy and toward republicanism. <br /><br />In every society there are 3 forces at to influence politics. <br /><br />The One i.e. Autocrat of Tyrant. <br />The Few i.e. Aristocracy or Oligarchy.<br />The Many i.e. Democracy or Ochlocracy.<br /><br />So which one what do you want? <br /><br />Answer? You want to decentralize not just property but political power as well. The entire idea of the separation of power comes from concept and is basis of republicanism is that only a balance of power can maintain the general welfare. <br /><br />The problem is that the Congress doesn't represent the people it represents the lobbyist paid for by the Banking Oligarchs. <br /><br />The problem with the President is that he doesn't represent an independent leader working on behalf of the nation but is a pawn of Banking Oligarch because of the political machine and his advisors like Larry Summer.<br /><br />The best argument for Monarchy has always been that a King tried to his lands and his people will form a natural interest toward those lands and people and be less inclined toward letting Imperial Oligarch loot them. <br /><br />In fact, that is how the Modern Nation-State arose. It was a kind of pact between the great Louis XI and people of against the feuding Oligarchs and uniting the country as Nation for the time. <br /><br />While I'm not a monarchist, I have to say that maybe Hamilton's idea of "elected President for Life" which got him accused of being a monarchist wasn't as bad of an idea that people think. <br /><br />The now to the question of the "Few" You can have Aristocracy or Oligarchy. <br />Aristocracy has an attachment to place and limited ambition like the founding families of old fashion city-state. Those old families dominated the political and business of town because they have been their longer and built more wealth than newcomer but they a desire to make their lives there and keep their city alive. <br />The Aristocracy is the original city builders who understand the principle of agape and the commonwealth or General Welfare.<br />An Oligarchy on the other hand are interconnected families of insane imperialists who loot town to town and nation to nation intermarrying with the original Aristocracy into order to gain control so that they can add another town to the family Empire. They don't care about the places or people the control they just want more power and thus are always interesting in the Occult, Satanism i.e. power from deception using symbols as psychological warfare.Septeus7https://www.blogger.com/profile/00337900484297284276noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post-22964237070278737342009-05-01T19:04:00.000-05:002009-05-01T19:04:00.000-05:00Is it possible to create a decent standard of livi...Is it possible to create a decent standard of living for all citizens and at the same time have people inspired by "greed" in order that they be as productive as possible ? <br /><br />There must be some way of having the oligarchs striving for a great society instead of being motivated by complete selfishness .<br /><br />I thought it was Henry Ford who said that great riches were more of a heavy responsibility to the nation than a luxury.<br /><br />I believe the problem lies in who are the oligarchs and what their motivation is ..... rather than that oligarchs exist.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post-37812718994717638322009-04-27T13:18:00.000-05:002009-04-27T13:18:00.000-05:002 things
1. Some more Chesterton: I could do a gre...2 things<br />1. Some more Chesterton: I could do a great many things before I came to definitely anti-social action like robbing a bank or (worse still) working in a bank.<br />2. while skimming this article i read "rhubarb financial contraptions" instead of Rube Goldberg - seems either one would work after re-reading it.bugeatersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post-12890661621959439322009-04-26T12:50:00.000-05:002009-04-26T12:50:00.000-05:00Excellent post but I have a few more we may want c...Excellent post but I have a few more we may want clarify. <br /><br />Quote from Dr. Johnson: “Local banks, sometimes pressured by the government, become too willing to extend credit to the elite and to those who depend on them. Over borrowing always ends badly, whether for an individual, a company, or a country.”<br /><br />There are two problems with this statement even if in the general it is close to happens. What actually happens is that mostly privately controlled central banks issues too much credit to workers and businesses creating a self feeding bubble economy because creditors then turn around and speculate on markets using the interest collected from the loans.<br /><br />Why do they always do this? Because they are in fact fulfilling a market function of getting credit to people that need credit and if the governments encourage this process they do so at the behest of the private financing capital. <br /><br />I suggest Stephen Zarlenda's book the “Science of Money” for the bubble economies always being caused by PRIVATE bankers based on current market conditions. <br />But that leads us to the questions what market conditions make Banker over lend and workers and businesses to over borrow? <br /><br />ANSWER: Underpayment of Labor. Since the owner of Capital always undervalue labor and fails to pay enough wages to clear the market lending to the illusion of overproduction and more often than not so vastly underpay workers that the worker is to borrow maintain basic living conditions i.e. living off credit cards for the working classes and the middle class is force to borrow to maintain middle class lifestyle due to the inflation cycle. <br />In short, depressions are caused by devaluation of Labor both physical and monetary. Now let’s start dealing with the real science of economics aka human ecological physics and sociology. <br />If wages are continuously cut as a cost to be reduced then worker can no longer function as consumers and savers. Now consumption will occur regardless up until the bubble pops but the more important factor is without savings capital formation is impossible long term. Why are savings necessary for capital formation? The answer has nothing to do with banking contrary to monetarist doctrines. People falsely think capital formation is the result of business getting credit or using saved revenue to invest in R&D or new equipment, etc…. <br />Now while in a bubble Banks do not loan to productive business because the lack of profit relative to speculative returns but prior to the bubble businesses won’t have that trouble. The question of limited credit for capital formation based on the lack business savings therefore cannot be the main issue regarding why savings are needed for capital formation.<br />Monetarists confuse capital formation with capital acquisition i.e. they think that if a business purchases in new capital goods then use that capital to lower the cost of production and produces greater revenue and reinvests in more capital equipment and R&D that cycle is capital formation. That is wrong.<br />In the real world, Capital formation is not simply capital acquisition used in an industrial production cycle but involves three interacting processes. 1. Capital creation 2. Physical production, and 3. Capital acquisition. When you understand the true process of Capital formation which is social and physical you can begin to understand why savings are necessary for capital formation.<br />Step 1. Capital Creation:<br />The process of capital involves creative conception, engineering design, and entrepreneurship. <br /> Inventor and Engineers who are the ones are the who envision creative concept from science in order to apply physical principles to a new tool/machine design but what does it take make a good inventor? It takes savings by individual families. Why? Because without family savings our future inventor or engineer cannot go to school and learn the necessarily scientific, cultural, and social concepts needed to create good inventions. Why? Because an invention has to serve a social function, create a cultural improvement, and be based on sound scientific (physical) principles otherwise it won’t work. Now if a child can’t go to school and is forced to support the family income (because father’s wages are too low) by going to work in a factory for 18 hours a day he can’t participle in the cultural and social process of invention. The Capital Owner has stolen the freedom of the worker’s children to develop their true human potential. <br /> The entrepreneurship basically can’t exist because; 1. With no education that allows him to understand what risks and what potential market could be created for a new product, 2. With no infrastructure he can’t to transport himself or his ideas and create distribution networks, 3. and no seed money he can’t get investors.<br />Step 2. Physical Production.<br />Physical production involves labor, capital, materials, and infrastructure. Once again underpayment destroys all 4 because; 1. Low wage workers can’t generate the tax revenue needed the infrastructure to transport material cheaply and electrical/ water system needed to operate capital machinery, 2. Families without savings can’t send their children to trade school so the quality of workmanship declines 3. The result poor labor and infrastructure wastes material and destroys capital.<br />Step 3. Capital Acquisition.<br />The process involve technical knowledge of the production process in order know what capital goods are needed, affordable and reliable means of transportation, integrating the new capital into process of production. Once again without high wages that means no skilled workers or infrastructure needed to make capital acquisition feasible. <br />So underpayment physically destroys the “ecological” process that is needed for human society to have industrial capitalism.<br />Real economics doesn’t care about so-called market prices unless they shut down the necessary physical process of human development in the physical sense. Labor isn’t doesn't value because a market price for it can be determined for it. Labor has value when it has utility towards physical and cultural contribution needed for continued human existence. <br />Marginal Utility and the Labor theory of value are both nonsense. Productive Utility is the only scientific definition of value because it only definition of value that doesn’t reduce to self-contradictory intangibles such “ the feelings of pleasure and pain” or the “the satisfaction of needs” but places value as a Gestalt effect arises from the qualities of phenomena of human existence not effect of quantities of sense perception. Any other definition will result in the dehumanizing assumptions of the Behaviorist School and self-contradiction. Marginal Utility= Marginal Quantities of quantifiable quantities based on quantifiable sense perceptions of quantifiable quantities of an individual quantity of an individual nerve firings= idiocy.<br />Labor Theory of Value= Value=Calories Burned/desire for object = more idiocy.<br />Why do Capital Owners always underpay labor? Because as Distributism explains the separation of ownership from work destroys the ability to understand the value because the harmonic relationship between the two has been destroyed. Therefore if you distribute productive property ownership as too as many people much possible i.e. decentralize and localize capital you create what Henry C. Carey (not a Distributist but a good economists who might as well have been) called the harmony of interests.<br />Quote from Dr. Johnson: “The challenges the United States faces are familiar territory to the people at the IMF. If you hid the name of the country and just showed them the numbers, there is no doubt what old IMF hands would say: nationalize troubled banks and break them up as necessary…. <br />Ideally, big banks should be sold in medium-size pieces, divided regionally or by type of business. Where this proves impractical—since we’ll want to sell the banks quickly—they could be sold whole, but with the requirement of being broken up within a short time. Banks that remain in private hands should also be subject to size limitations”<br />I’m thinking that is close to right solution but a few things need to be pointed out. First, it not a problem of just a few big banks but the entire Federal Reserve System needs to be nationalized. The reason why the banks are in trouble is because they are creatures of the post Bretton Wood's financial system and the system died in August of 2007. It died and it’s not coming back. The blow-up doll popped and the hanky-panky is over and we need a real economy now. <br />Second, the mere of act of nationalization won’t help. You must have a goal in mind for nationalization otherwise you’ve simply handled the Federal government a dead corpse full of toxic assets making them the taxpayer’s problem. You haven’t fixed anything. <br />Here’s what you do. You nationalize the entire system and here’s how: <br />1. Declare a freeze on derivatives and other toxic assets. No more selling and trade paper that you don’t what it worth.<br /> 2. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall act firewall between commercial banking and so-called investment banking i.e. go back nature exchanges and halt the unnatural exchanges. <br />3. Place the commercial banks under Federal Protection so that necessary economic functions for society remain intact. <br />4. Freeze all foreclosures on primary residence for the duration of the crisis. <br />5. Start bankruptcy reorganization and triage the debt (what has to written off, what has to be paid, and what can wait) and the courts the settle the issues over the coming years.<br />6. Break up the banks into smaller ones and regulate the finance industry.<br />7. Repeal sections of the Federal Reserve Act and restore the issuance power to the Congress.<br />8. Force the nationalized Federal Reserve now under Treasury to issue .5%-0% loans for productive activities only under a new reindustrialization recovery program. If people want to speculate let them do it they own money and not the National Bank’s money. Target Cooperatives and force business away from the Sloanist model into a more Distributist one i.e. Worker-Owner.<br />That’s it and crisis is over.<br /><br />Quote Old Fashioned Liberal : “Are there ways to break the oligarchs and big banks without nationalizing the banks? Such as just letting the banks fail?”<br /><br />Not under the Constitution which tells Congress to establish national rules regarding bankruptcy and this includes the financial industry. Congress is too establish the means to spend credit into circulation and if bank fails while operating within our national system it subject by law is placed under Federal bankruptcy protection which means it is subject the Federal government’s decisions regarding its holdings aka nationalized. <br />The American Constitution thank God does not permit a “Free Banking” system where International Bankers can dictate terms to the Federal Government like the central Banks of Europe. <br />Under the Libertarian model all the good assets would looted and taken out the Western Nations for investors to find better banks most likely the Islamic world (flat fee system) and entire western world would be left all zombie banks with nothing but debt. At some point the government would collapse or go begging to the IMF and be placed under its feudal conditionalities forcing all taxes to paid into the private International Banksters. In other we would in the exact same place we headed are now but only much faster. <br />Basically libertarians (except Georgists) are right wing Corporate Marxists (all property should be own collectively by consumers/people via the corporation) who say that the way to stop centralized global government is to destroy national sovereignty which doesn’t make any sense but that is what they believe. <br />The problem is seem to have forgotten the Constitution grants sovereignty to the Federal government and therefore don’t have to put ourselves under the thumb the nation crushing IMF and World Bank although that’s we seem to do doing.Septeus7noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post-85272851148906872542009-04-25T18:43:00.000-05:002009-04-25T18:43:00.000-05:00Are there ways to break the oligarchs and big bank...Are there ways to break the oligarchs and big banks without nationalizing the banks? Such as just letting the banks fail?Old Fashioned Liberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15139437884293877190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608702.post-86589879062689607132009-04-25T12:45:00.000-05:002009-04-25T12:45:00.000-05:00It's so ironic that The Fed, Treasury Dept. &a...It's so ironic that The Fed, Treasury Dept. & Wall Street CEO’s and their Harvard “quants” with their economic neutron bombs have done a more thorough job than what Osama Bin Laden’s stated goal was in attacking the WTC - which was to bring down the entire financial system.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com