It’s snowing outside and I am working at the house. Gives me time to do a little more reading. Found an interesting article about our economy that I am sure you will find interesting.
A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But he is not a champion of private property. The point about capitalism is that it preaches the extension of business, but not the preservation of belongings; it also tries to disguise the pickpocket with some of the virtues of the pirate. The point about communism is that it tries to reform the pickpocket by forbidding pockets.
While Chesterton demonstrates how Socialism utterly fails to fulfill any of its promises because it does not trust the common man to make his own decisions, he also points out that capitalism’s primary failure is that it has accomplished everything that socialism threatened to do. Under capitalism, a clerk lives in a house that he does not own, that he did not make, and that he does not want. He thinks in terms of wages, of putting in time. It would make no difference to a clerk of a huge corporation if his job were instead in a government department. It makes no difference if he’s a faceless servant of the State or of the Rich.
The present system, especially as it exists in industrial countries, has already become a danger, and is rapidly becoming a death trap. This system rests on two ideas: that the rich will always be rich enough to hire the poor; and the poor will always be poor enough to want to be hired by the rich.
Paralysis in this system is inevitable. Capitalism is a contradiction. When most men are wage-earners it is hard for them to be customers. For the capitalist is always trying to cut down what his servant demands. And in doing so he is cutting down what his customer can spend. He is wanting the same man to be rich and poor at the same time.
Chesterton prophetically describes “The Bluff of the Big Shops.” He saw clearly that today’s “Superstores” would snuff out small local shops, and in almost every way it would be the customer who would suffer. With the elimination of the small shops, there is no more shopping around. At the big shop we really can’t get what we want.
"I think the big shop is a bad shop. Shopping there is not only a bad action, but a bad bargain. The monster emporium is not only vulgar and insolent, but incompetent and uncomfortable. And I deny that its large organization is efficient. In truth, large organization is always disorganization.
It is said that it is convenient to get everything in the same shop. But in truth the monopolists’ shops are only convenient to the monopolist. They concentrate business as they concentrate wealth–in the hands of fewer and fewer citizens."
I would love to know what you think and what have some of your experiences been. I am curious as to what position we as Christians should take.
Oh, they say more snow is coming. Check the website before you head out to Family Hour tomorrow night. I will post and changes on the website.
Michael
The frightful fact is that they may well know what they are doing. Soon all the strings will be pulled by their fingers.
Walter Williams & Thomas Sowell are my favorite Economists. Please read the following article written by Walter Williams: Capitolism and the Financial Crisis by Walter E. Williams published on Nov 5, 2008 on TownHall.com.There has always been contempt for economic liberty. Historically, our nation was an important, not complete, exception. It took the calamity of the Great Depression to bring about today\’s level of restrictions on economic liberty. Now we have another government-created calamity that has the prospect of moving us even further away from economic liberty with the news media and pundits creating the perception that the current crisis can be blamed on capitalism. We see comments such as those in the New York Times: "The United States has a culture that celebrates laissez-faire capitalism as the economic ideal. Or, "For 30 years, the nation\’s political system has been tilted in favor of business deregulation and against new rules." Another says, "Since 1997, Mr. Brown (the British Prime Minister) has been a powerful voice behind the Labor Party\’s embrace of an American-style economic philosophy that was light on regulation."First, let\’s establish what laissez-faire capitalism is. Broadly defined, it is an economic system based on private ownership and control over of the means of production. Under laissez-faire capitalism, government activity is restricted to the protection of the individual\’s rights against fraud, theft and the initiation of physical force.Professor George Reisman has written a very insightful article on his blog titled "The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Financial Crisis." You can decide whether we have in an unregulated laissez-faire economy. There are 15 cabinet departments, nine of which control various aspects of the U.S. economy. They are the Departments of: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, and Interior. In addition, there is the alphabet soup cluster of federal agencies such as: the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, and NASA.Here\’s my question to you: Can one be sane and at the same time hold that ours is an unregulated laissez-faire economy? Better yet, tell me what a businessman, or for that matter you, can do that does not involve some kind of government regulation. A businessman must seek government approval for the minutest detail of his operation or face the wrath of some government agency, whether it\’s at the federal, state or local level. Just about everything we buy or use has some kind of government dictate involved whether it\’s package labeling, how many gallons of water to flush toilets or what pharmaceuticals can be prescribed. You say, "Williams, there\’s a reason for this government control." Yes, there\’s a reason for everything but that does not change the fact that there is massive government control over our economy.It is incorrect to say that laissez-faire or free markets are unregulated. There is ruthless regulation, but it\’s not by government. Take the mortgage industry. In the absence of government interference, it is unlikely that a lender would extend a mortgage to a person with a poor credit history, making no down payment, and providing no verifiable employment history. But under the pressure of the government\’s Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying up or guaranteeing such mortgages, a lender will.When businesses make unwise decisions that lead to bankruptcy, their assets are sold off to someone else who might be able to put them to wiser use. Government bailouts give businesses a reprieve that the market wouldn\’t give them. Bailouts have at least two effects. They permit continued unwise use of resources and it creates what economists call moral hazard, the expectation of future bailouts and others hopping on the bailout wagon.The blame for our current financial mess rests with government, with the major player being the Federal Reserve Board keeping interest rates artificially low and the congressional and White House market interference in the name of more home ownership. In the clamor for more regulation over our financial institutions, has anybody bothered to ask whether people in government know what they\’re doing?Share:Digg Del.icio.us Facebook Newsvine My Web Post to MySpace!MySpaceForward Print Single PageVote on It:Average Vote: About The Author Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well. TOWNHALL DAILY: Be the first to read Walter Williams\’ column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.