Prepare for modern communism

It's already happening, but the real push has only just begun -- the communist idea will not die easily. What we'll see soon is the Modern Communist Movement in earnest under a new name. With a short revival in the 60s and early 70s, communism has been degraded, especially with the fall of the USSR in 1989, but the ideas didn't die -- communism just put on a modern suit. Progressives, environmentalists, anti-capitalists, some unions and a variety of socialist groups have kept the dream alive. Now that the recession has lingered and Wall Street has been blamed, a new confidence is arising, but still cautious of over-reach.

One idea the Left will address is economic growth. We will hear that endless economic growth is unrealistic, and that the neoliberal push for rapid growth the last three decades has created a credit and debt crisis, plus high unemployment. "Neoliberal" is a term being used to place classical liberalism, free market principles, Country Club Republicans, libertarians, modern liberals who promote economic growth, and practically all capitalist-system acceptance on the Right under the same umbrella. So, on one side of this battle we have the "neoliberals", and on the other side we have the progressive/socialist/communist coalition. Keynesianism will be thrown in with failed liberalism after the present push to "invest" doesn't change poverty and umemployment. Then, it will be demanded that America has to move forward in its evolution and stop fighting the inevitability of a new progression toward social justice, stability and security.

Instability in the world feeds into the Left's desire to create a new world order of stability, security and equity. The key principles are redistribution and regulation. The current finacial crisis is laid at the door of Wall Street, but in a larger narrative, it's laid at the door of capitalism and the remants of classical liberal economic practice. Statism, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, has morphed capitalism and free market principles into a modern State Marketism in which the State manages the direction of the economy at home and internationally. America has always leaned more toward a Merchant-State than a free market, but now we are on the verge of a leftward shift that will transform America for decades to come. There has been a battle in America between the capitalist ideas of classical liberalism and the more socialistic ideas of progressives. We combined the two ideas in the hope that the tension will prevent either extreme from gaining too much power. However, the movement has been steadily leftward and progressive over time. But, really, what has hurt the American economy has been how our mixed economy has removed certain limitations from government, allowing power players in government and in corporations to rig the financial game and amass huge sums of wealth and power.

The Right and Left have battled over ideas, but raw power has had its way while hardly anyone paid attention. Now people are paying attention, and the battle of ideas has heated up, but this time there's a serious desire to limit power. The enlightened Right believes that the power of the State should be limited, while the Left believes that the power of corporations and international institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO need to be limited. There are too few people who understand the distintion between the ideas on the Right and the Left. Many on the Right criticize Democrat controlled government because they think they tax and spend too much, and they are too liberal, so the Right wants more freedom to keep what they earn and spend it how they like, but this is all superficial -- many on the right are just as willing to misuse government power if it's for purposes they support. Many on the Left have basic ideas of the Right and criticize Republican controlled government because they think they will violate civil liberties and cause wars and bash unions and protect the wealthy -- this too is superficial.

As I said above, this battle between Left and Right has obscured the real problems, and honest thinkers on both sides have similar goals that could be achieved if the real issues are ever dealt with. Great wealth is not our problem -- power-lust is our problem. The Left is currently misled to believe that if they can only institute methods to control the desire for economic growth and settle on the proper output, then wealth can be redistributed to create stability, security and equity. The Left imagines a static amount of production which can be managed to prevent an unfair accumulation of wealth in certain industries, and, through regulation of industry, minimize the risks of investment, thereby minimizing the rewards -- this will curb the desire of investors, move them out of industry, and create more public/worker-owned companies which distribute the income more equitably.

The Left is working on a philosophy of less, not more, efficient economic growth, and they are not driven by the idea of full employment. The "neoliberal" desire to maintain a high rate of economic growth, high profits and full employment is seen by the Left as the cause of the current financial crisis and wealth inequality. The Left believes that full unemployment in a global economy is an illusion, and that there can be enough production to support a certain amount of unemployment through a gauranteed income to ensure a comfortable "survival" level for those who aren't in the work force -- this is accomplished by not allowing individuals or corporations to amass an unfair amount of wealth.

The Left also wants to transform the idea of globalization to create redistribution between countries. The left believes that the IMF, World Bank and WTO were created to enrich the neoliberal power elite, and that these organizations should work toward stabilizing commodity prices by removing speculation so that speculators don't become rich to the detriment of the poor. The Left's new world requires much State intervention, and international cooperation between countries to intervene in the global economy in order to bring about social justice.

I will write more later to make the distinction between "neoliberalism" and free market principles.

Unadulterated hypocrisy

There is so much hypocrisy in the political realm right now that it's truly frightening. Who can we believe? Does anyone have any integrity? I think we're witnessing the final corruption of the US State. There are some new representatives who were elected during the mid-terms, and I want to believe they are not yet corrupted, but they are a relative few. Plus, the tenacles of the State are so powerful, a handful of men and women can't touch the fundamental problems. The media has become a unit of the State. The Fed is a unit of the State. It's just too much.

Now, In Washington DC, congress fails to rise up and stop Obama from pulling our military into a war in Libya. The political pundits on the Left that I've heard on talk shows are supporting going into Libya. We should already be out of Iraq and Afghanistan, yet we are considering going to war in Libya, making Libya the thrid country in the Mid East in which we are involved militarily? Grown ups in Washington DC have got to seize the reins and stop this madness. Obama appears to be operating on some kind of academic illusion of global/One World power and control which is going to cause real damage to real American soldiers, when America has no interest in Libya. If Bush had done this, the Left would be in the streets. It's hypocisy.

We need to get out of the Mid-East completely. We are slowly being drained and pulled into a no-win situation of chaos and destruction. The rebels fighting Qaddafi could be worse than Qaddifi --we just don't know. Britain loved Qaddafi's son -- let them take him to a night club and talk it out, but not one American soldier needs to die for Libya, and not one dollar needs to be spent.

Update on Friday, March 18, 2011 at 08:40AM by M. Farmer

In the coming week, I will be writing several posts addressing the political realm and how the idea of neo-liberalism is an obscurantist tactic to hammer the final nail into the coffin of classical liberalism/libertarianism -- all political labels are being obscured, but underneath the obscurity is a reality that has to survive.

The Left can't have it every way possible

A big part of the problem for Leftist apologists who support statism is that they are intellectually cornered and unless they get honest the Information Age will continuously squeeze them into irrelevance. A major complaint from the Left is that billionaire business people like the Koch Brothers are buying their way into power and influence. If money can buy power and influence, then the Koch Brothers ought to be canceled out by the likes of George Soros, Al Gore, Google, GE, and all the other wealthy interests who support statist policies.

The other problem with the Left's narrative is that if it's government influence that's being bought by billionaires, isn't this a failure of statism? How did our government become so powerful that government officials can interfere in the economy in such powerful fashion to give advantages to big businesses? And if it's a matter of the party in power making the difference, what happened with the Democrat majority which has had control over congress more often than not, and how did Big Insurance do so well in Obamacare, and how did Big Finance come out so sweet in the bank bailouts?

The Left claims we have a deregulated economy due to powerful interests. But what good are regulations if they can be captured by powerful business interests no matter which party is in power? The problem the Left must fact is how a powerful, statist government attracts rent-seekers. When rent-seekers succeed, it places pressure on more companies to rent-seek in order to compete in a statist environment. Slowly, big businesses who can afford the most politically connected lobbyists begin dominating the market, and honest business people are squeezed out, prevented from entering the market in the first place, or morally corrupted by the necessity of the game. When more and more companies become corrupted by the statist system and their corruption is revealed, then even louder calls for regulation are forthcoming. The new regulations are exploited like the previous regulations, thus, we become stuck in a downward spiralling loop of government/corporate enmeshment/corruption. Demanding lobbying laws to stop the corruption is futile, because as long as government has the power to sell favors, or swap favors for political support, rent-seekers will find a way to pay the price and gain the favors.

The answer is limited government and a free market, but then the Left says this is impossible and not even desirable, because it will cause corporate corruption. The Left is in dire need of some serious soul-searching.

Resistance to a free market

America needs to learn from Egypt, Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain and all other countries who are now suffering from economic problems caused in one form or another by statism, i.e. State control and management of the economy. I beat this drum continuously, as do a relatively few others who understand how statism will be our downfall. We have other problems, but these other problems will be almost impossible to deal with unless we deal with our economic situation and the statism which is keeping our economy down, perhaps for good this time.

The Left, and this, in my mind, includes moderates and liberals, accuse free market proponents of not addressing the needs of the poor, handicapped and elderly in a purely free market. No matter how many times this problem is addressed, the Left refuses to listen or believe the response. But before the Left plants its flag on the high hill of morality, let's look look at their morality more closely. Of course, when you say "Left" this is not a homogeneous group of automatons. The Left as a political force, though, have created an alliance over certain interests which they believe can only be achieved through a strong, interventionist State. The Left is in agreement that universal healthcare is a public good, even if they might disagree on the particular merits of what is called Obamacare -- they all agree it's better, though, than what we had prior to the passage of the bill. Public Unions make up a significant portion of the political "Left", although who knows what the individual union members believe outside their benefits and pensions -- they are at least unified in the idea that the State, or individual states, should provide all these benefits, pensions, and more if they can get it. Teachers are especially unified in not accepting any cuts or reductions in benefits.  

What will happen when the pressure of healthcare costs on states conflicts with public union pay, benefits and pensions? I can tell you what will happen -- this faction of the "Left" will not give an inch, and they'll claim that if we need more money, take it from the greedy corporations and businesses in the private sector as they always have. But at some point there will be no more to take from the private sector, and what has been taken will have caused economic stagnation and reduced revenues to the government (this is happening). What will public unions do at this point, when there is no way out but to reduce their pay, benefits and renege on the pensions? They'll take to the streets, but they won't sacrifice anything for the poor, handicapped and elderly -- they'll say they are victims, too. I might be wrong, but if history is any guide, I'm not wrong. What they are doing now by refusing to sacrifice is contributing to the downfall of certain states, and this has been building up for decades.

So, I'm not impressed with moral lectures from the "Left", because the Left's idea of compassion for the poor, handicapped and elderly is to confiscate more and more money from the producers and wealth creators. This doesn't mean that there are not any on the Left who volunteer, donate and do good things for the unfortunate, but these are individuals, not the Left as a whole as it relates to support for statist/redistributionist solutions. The wishful thinking that a sufficient stream of revenue will continue indefinitely from the private sector to government in order to support universal healthcare, Medicare, SS, Medicaid and to pay for the costs of government is delusional. The Left has no idea how to provide universal healthcare coverage, they've merely pushed a bill through that creates the image the problem is being solved, even if much more work needs to be done. But what is the "much more" that needs to be done? Why wasn't it done to start with? The Republicans wouldn't let them? No, not really. The Left has no answer to the reports which contradict CBO's orginal phony numbers -- they just repeat the same lies, that it will reduce healthcare costs and people can keep their coverage.

Anyone who doesn't have a need to believe the Left's image of healthcare can see this bill will crush the economy and send more states along to the brink of bankruptcy. Over 700 companies have been given waivers, because the plan doesn't work. This is not a moral stand, it's a sham. There has been much criticism that the Right doesn't have a plan to replace the healthcare bill, except for a few "free market" ideas. This accusation reflects an ignorance of free market principles which stands as the main obstacle to discussing the problem intelligently. It's especially clear that young bloggers who tackle the healthcare issue have no idea what they are critiizing or why, only that "free market" can only ever be but part of a plan, because the "free market" doesn't address -- you guessed it -- the poor, the handicapped and the elderly.

Never mind that we've always had statist management of the economy, therefore "free market" is a radical idea that's never been tried. What has passed for the "free market', and has served as a whipping boy when things go wrong, is statism that has allowed a certain amount of freedom which varies according to who's in office. A free market is a certain reality in an economy, and it has never existed, no matter how much the Left insists that it has, and that it has failed. It's not even a "mixed" economy -- it's a statist economy which gives permission to some to act relatively freely and restricts others and forbids many things from ever materializing.

A free market means a separation of government and economy, and no one, if they are honest, can imagine this ever being the case. Of course, in a free market under a limited government the idea is to protect people in the market from rights violations, but beyond that the government has no power to interfere. This has never existed -- it turned out to be too radical even for the Founders who created a Merchant State which ultimately coercively favors some over others and sets the economic direction for the country through various management techniques such as regulation and tax policy. The trend now in Amerca is toward something similar to a Merchant State, which is State Capitalism, a contradiction in terms if there ever was one.

So, the problem is not that the Right doesn't have a plan to replace the healthcare bill -- there's no difference between the Right proposing a few market solutions and saying we'll figure out the rest later and the Left who have proposed an unworkable plan and say we'll figure it out later. Neither side has proposed a free market solution -- and not just to healthcare, but to any problem, because the free market solution is the creation of a free market, and that ain't happening. It's ridiculous for the Left to criticize the Right for the failure of the Left's unworkable statist plans.

We could turn healthcare, retirement and unemployment benefits over to market right away and 85% of the country would be much better off. The Left can't even entertain this possibility because it destroys their statist world-view. The Left is quick to accuse the Right of ideological myopia, but the truth is that the Left is the most ideological -- the Right has talked about ideology, but they've never followed through as far as limited goernment and a free market are concerned. The Left has acted on its ideology over and over, and we suffer the results.

The one thing that keeps the Right from acting on its professed ideology is the charge that the Right has no answer to -- you guessed it -- the poor, the handicapped and the elderly. The Right has to address this charge head on, if they ever want to be more than statism-lite. There's a part of this problem that's almost always left out of the debate -- the responsibility of the American people. I will follow up with several posts addressing this connection and then tie it all together with a free market proposal -- at least no one will be able to say that no solution has been put forth (although I and many others have put these solutions on the table many times -- some proposed them decades ago.).

A problem on the left

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/14/chris-matthews-whats-with-these-crackers-wanting-to-see-obamas-birth-certificate/

So, when will the left rebuke Chris Matthews for sowing hate and discord?