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Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Looney Left

by Sam Huntington

No one I know on the right believes that capitalism is perfect. No one I know on the right thinks that our economy should operate without any regulation or oversight. What we do believe on the right is that they, who govern least, govern best. And while I think there should be oversight, we should pay as much attention to those who are doing the oversight, as we are to those whose corporate behaviors we intend to monitor. I am confounded by the fact that placing government in an oversight role is akin to hiring a fox to guard the hen house.

But what is it, exactly, that the leftist believes about the economy? There are several variables, of course. Some of these people are Keynesian ideologues who dream about a welfare state through industrial democracy. Others believe government should nationalize the economy and govern through central planning. One might recall that the Soviet Union tried central planning, too. Yet, some on the American left persist. It is the classical demonstration of insanity—at least according to Albert Einstein. Still other leftists are anarchist communists. Amazingly, while many of these people denounce globalization, they seek to impose it through their illogical support of the United Nations.

Still other leftists advocate in favor of Marxian economies. They seek to make a distinction between Marx the philosopher, and Marx the economist. I suspect they do this in order to mask their goal of imposing communism on the rest of us. It is convoluted even for leftists, which is why I think they frequently do not make any sense. They regurgitate the talking points, but they have no idea what the hell these words mean.

And then we are blessed with the left-libertarian, libertarian socialists, and the outright anarchists, who demand a decentralized economy run by trade unions, worker’s councils, and cooperatives —people I like to think of as fascists in mufti. Leftist will argue that a society without substantial equality will distort the development of not only deprived persons, but also those who privileges undermine motivation and their sense of social responsibility. It is a collectivist mentality, and might I add, the bane of a free society—for whom better to dictate to everyone else than the leftist with all the best ideas?

Ah, but there’s the catch. Leftist ideas are not the best ideas; among clear-thinking people, they are unfathomable. Who but a mentally deficient person can prefer regulation in place of free markets, or bureaucracies more than corporations, or government controlled insurance plans, rather than private insurances, and more government control over the economy rather than less.

We do have to acknowledge the consistency of the American left, however, for in spite of all that history tells us about the failure of communism and socialism in the 20th Century, American leftists remain committed to irrational notions. Still, we must remind ourselves that it was not an easy task to produce such troglodytes: it has taken more than three generations to brainwash these people. As we have seen, leftists live in a bizarre world. It is a world of opposites where progressive is regressive. It is the land of Cheech and Chong.

Listen carefully now; you may even hear the leftist protestations in the background. “The state of our economy proves that we need more government, not less.” Except that it was government that placed us in this position to begin with. At best, George Bush had it only half right. Reducing taxes is a good thing, but not while increasing government spending. Compassionate George seemed incapable of understanding that if taxation is a tourniquet around the neck of a robust economy, government spending is a gunshot wound to the head.

I personally think Milton Friedman had some very good ideas about free market capitalism, but I do not think he had all the answers. The problem is that, looking around, there is no one on the other side of this argument that can compete with Friedman. So where are all of those good ideas from the left? Answer: there are no good ideas on the left. If anything, leftist economic policy has made things worse —much worse.

When government policy seeks to diminish capital investments, no one in a proper mental state will want to risk their capital. Without capital, businesses cannot remain competitive. A non-competitive business is only a few steps away from closing its doors. This doesn’t matter to leftists, however. What matters is that government regulates businesses —for their own good.

Still, our topic is far too complex for the space allocated to a blog post. For example, we have not even touched upon corrupt government, which forces corporations to find some way of profiting within a sullied framework. If businesses want to survive in a corrupt environment, they have to find some way of accommodating the devil; and they do find ways.

Our question to the leftist provocateur remains: who will hire American workers when government bureaucracy replaces the American corporation? Who will pay salaries when businesses have been taxed or regulated out of existence? When businesses fold, when workers are unemployed, when the US no longer manufactures anything, when the economy is destroyed (we’re close to that now), then who will carry the tax burden for the United States?


Oops. I guess the left didn’t think about that. Maybe government will round everyone up and march them off to government-controlled factories, a la the Soviet Union. Yes, that should work!

19 comments:

  1. Lefty/Progressives like Shaw from that Looney Left Progressive blog are entitled to say or blog any thing she wants to and eventually she will shoot her self in the foot.
    So are liberals evil? No, I wouldn’t put it quite that way, they're stupid and undoubtedly close-minded. Always shooting off her mouth and running around labeling everybody who disagree with her as a bigot, and picking a fight with the commentors who disagree with her nonsense.

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  2. Liberals are wishful thinkers with a slippery grasp on reality.

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  3. First, Leftists understand that the idea of "free market" is intrinsically involved with government.
    The last decade gave an excellent demonstration of the silliness of the idea of automatic self correcting markets. Yes, we need regulation but we saw a situation where reduction in regulation was the problem not the inverse.

    Leftists understand in other words that markets are a function of government including the idea of the private corporation. Property rights, patents? Government.

    So what we represent is a sane response to Libertarian cliches.
    Let's go back to the days of the robber barons when laissez-faire was such a grand success ... for a few anyway.

    Let's abandon the idea of the commons completely in favor of chaos.

    A liberal is someone who has read Smith's, "Theory of Moral Sentiments" as well as "The Wealth of Nations" and understands his caveats about the structure of capitalism.

    Someone who hasn't blindly joined Locke's cult of property.

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    1. Ducky... not quite.

      First, Sam explicently said that we (capitalists) do not believe in zero regulation, just little regulation. Everyone knows the flaws of the factories or 'robber barons' as you call them (who weren't business owners, they were LAND owners during the FEUDAL days. You know, before central government existed as a strong entity?) But we do believe that too much regulation is basically a red-tape noose. And that fundamentally governments are prone to error, thus the less the do the less they mess up.

      Markets are not a function of a government as much in an allowance of government. People operate the market, and the government basically doesn't shut them down. Occasionally, they do helpful stuff, like police work. Patents? Simply a no-stealing measure. Property in a way is the exact same concept- my land, you no takey. But understand this: it is still a persons property (intellectual, physical, body) whether the government says so or not. The only thing that changes is if the government respects it or not.

      Commons? Heh? Might be because of my education level, but I have no heard that phrase. Wiki (yaya, reliable I know) defines it as universal resources- air, water, etc. When did THAT come up? And where does chaos come in anyways? I think you mean property=chaos and commons=socialism/communism style-property, but it doesn't make much sense. Property does not equal chaos, if we take chaos to mean the opposite of order. Property REQUIRES some amount of order to work. At the very least a system of who owns what needs to be in place, as well a system of exchanging property peacefully.

      Nice pot shot. Implication, capitalists are not well-versed? We usually are, especially past the high school level. But even I have to read SOME material, such as Friedman's book Capitalism and Freedom. And I am anything but well-versed.

      Again with the pot shots. I could easily retort, but there isn't a point in doing so. And blindly? Really? Do any of us here really sound like fanatics? Be honest Ducky. We are willing to criticize our side when it is being stupid, and no blind follower can do that.

      -Wildstar

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  4. I'm not quite sure who gives a flying CRAP about that shaw whatever she/he is...? and I do not understand why so many commenters on the left and (supposedly) the right bring her/him up. who the hell cares?

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  5. even more curious is that those who constantly bring this shaw thing up never have a blog. and why bring the shaw blog up when he or she has so few commenters? again, this is quite odd and maybe not quite so very odd?

    jill

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  6. Stogie, let's take a look at the slippery grasp on reality: The drought in California.

    Now, the "looney left" may propose municipal water entities to distribute water reasonably to the entire population. I imagine you would call this a socialist plan.
    The right is likely to just let cotton and rice growers continue to consume water to irrigate a very water intensive crop.

    There is nothing "loony" about the liberal proposal. It certainly makes more sense than Milton Friedman's unregulated market proposal.

    So just who is out of touch?

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    1. Reasonably according to whom? Ducky, without meaning to you have given more credibility to Sam’s post that you realize. You people are seriously deranged—subjectively, of course. If you were living in the old Soviet Union, you’d be quite normal.

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  7. Liberals are a coalition made up of many groups; sometimes dissimilar but with one common denominator and that is chronic disgruntlement. Although they will never be truly happy in their sense of being treated unfairly they will always seek out the government to rectify their miserable lot. But for the fact that they thrive on making life miserable for those more normally adjusted, I could almost feel sorry for them-almost.

    Stogie makes an excellent point, as well.

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  8. Anonymous said:

    "Shaw is the typical Loony Leftie"

    Pardon me if I sound naive, but who the heck is "Shaw"

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  9. There's an example day after day of the looney right:'

    Congressional Candidate: Entitlements Are Like Slave Owners That ‘Took Pretty Good Care Of Their Slaves’
    http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/03/13/3402081/arizona-candidate-entitlements-slavery/

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  10. LiberalmannMarch 13, 2014 at 7:30:00 PM EDT

    There's an example day after day of the looney right:'

    Congressional Candidate: Entitlements Are Like Slave Owners That ‘Took Pretty Good Care Of Their Slaves’


    I don't give a damn about the "SLAVES" Enough already about the damn "SLAVES" And personally, Sick of these Movies About Black Slaves! I won't spend a dime to see any of them...
    12 Years A Slave, The Butler, Django, The Help, Roots

    Right now, as I type this , Black and White people as well as Kids are being shot and murdered in our streets and people are talking about this CRAP that happened 120 years ago!! Thats Bullcrap! We have 16 percent unemployment rate in some of our cities , racism at an all time high, we can’t even let ou kids play in our playgrounds and you are talking about some crap that hasn’t happened for 120 years! , ENOUGH already as far as I’m concerned.

    These people that need these movies to teach them where their ancestors come from 120 years ago better wake up and smell the roses. We have more important things to be concerned about today.
    The Obama administration promised us relentless honesty, and transparency, and gave us NOTHING like that .
    This president is as weak as hell and lets everyone run allover him. He is outmatched by a man we kick in the ass years ago and came back again because we have such a weak man in the white house. How can slave movies change any of that? Focus should now be more on making movies about our war heroes, like the seals, and the mean who come home without legs or arms etc.
    Kids need to be educated on something other than slavery, it’s no wonder these black kids are so dumn about everything else..


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  11. I agree with your general point wholeheartedly in that progressive mentality has nearly destroyed our once strong business base... If the nut case in the White House and his Marxist cronies aren't removed from power this November, we are in some deep umgwalla-walla. Wishful thinking, I guess.

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  12. Sam is right,as usual.
    Ducky is wrong, as usual -- along with the other screwballs who adhere to Ducky's... sheech... I can't even say it.

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  13. Sam: Thanks for the informative article. I appreciate what you mean about Friedman, and he was pretty much correct, technically, in whatever he advocated. For example, he recommended legalizing all drugs to take the crime out of drug sales. He was not making a moral argumant, but rather an economic argument that is essentially correct.

    However, so many people (Ducky included) suffer in misunderstanding markets. First of all, there are no "free" markets, i.e., markets without any regulation or control. That's because we are a society that believes in opportunity for everybody, and therefore have passed laws to make opportunity as equal as possible for everyone.

    The power of markets is the greatest misunderstanding around. Leftists just don't get it that hundreds of millions of people making decisions on bilions of transactions every day are much wiser than any controlling government could evey guess. That is what is meant when people say that the market is deciding the utility of an item, or service.

    The Soviets tried central control. The Chinese have tried it. Cuba, etc, are trying it. The Chinese are now introducing market reforms, and this accounts for their recent, much admired wealth. On a per capita basis, it may not rival the USA, but the Chinese are making great entrepreneurs and marketers.

    Socialist Europe is wallowing in the mediocrity of their socialist economies. Unemployment is high. The Euro is struggling. Many of the EU socialist countries (Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc) are reaching the point where they are running out of other peoples' money. We hear that this cannot go on forever, therefore these countries will have to pay the piper for all their wealth distribution schemes. There is not enough wealth to go around.

    To say that recent bubbles (dot.com, banking, etc) are the fault of the markets is not totally correct. Sure, markets go up and markets do down, and business cycles and bubbles are part of the economic landscape. However, government intrusion has helped little, and in many cases have exacerbated and lengthened recessions as in this Obama recession.

    Much of the housing bubble was encouraged by ignorant manipulation of credit ratings in relation to loan approvals. The government did this to "make housing affordable".

    Whether liberals like markets or not is irrelevant. Even with socialist/communist/fascist governments (all are leftists), the market is still at work. Venezuela, an oil rich, socialist country cannot keep its population in toilet paper and toothpaste. In an economy where the number of mouths and butt-holes are known, those socialist fools cannot even estimate the demand.

    Markets are like gravity. You cannot get rid of it, and you can get hurt if you bet against them. You cannot repeal the supply/demand equation, or the business cycle. The commies have not figured out that they cannot kill markets, or control them. All efforts to that extent have proved to be disastrous. Instead markets eventually kill the socialist governments because they try to control the market. People simply know better.

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  14. @Ducky "let's take a look at the slippery grasp on reality: The drought in California."

    Ducky, that's probably a different thread. I think we can all agree that California needs water, and they have made poor decisions in that area, similar to their decisions about generating electric power. California is a special place, and in spite of my relatives out there, deserves a special kind of pain for its actions.

    First of all: The current drought is not unprecedented. In the last century probably the worst was the dust bowl drought. Paleo data shows similar long and stressful droughts several times in the last several centuries. You must remember that Southern California is part of the desert southwest. When I lived there (long time ago) I made the observation that if LA were not watered everyday, it would dry up and blow away.

    A recent article reminds me that there is lots of water in Northern California, and environmental decisions to shaft agriculture for a bait fish (the smelt) contribute to the problems. Plus, there seem to be no efforts to build additional facilities to catch runoff water from snow melts and rainfall. I assume you had reference to that.

    What is interesting to me is that huge amounts of water are exported from California in carrots, lettuce, etc. When I munch on those baby carrots from the super market, I am taking a drink of California water. In agriculture water is money.

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    1. Excerpt from this source, about the California drought::

      ...Not even the more respectable pseudo-scientists of the Church think the California drought has anything to do with global warming....

      [...]

      Environmental special interests managed to dismantle the system by diverting water meant for farms to pet projects, such as saving delta smelt, a baitfish. That move forced the flushing of 3 million acre-feet of water originally slated for the Central Valley into the ocean over the past five years.

      That hasn’t helped the smelt any. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Obama or his environmentalist friends.

      The shutdown has been made worse by the inaction of California’s Democrats, who for years have refused to build adequate storage facilities so that rainwater and snowmelt runoff can be stored for use by a growing population during dry years, another element of the earlier system. With no storage, the rain goes wasted....

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  15. Knowing how much teabaggers just love Bill Maher, lol!

    Bill Maher: Most GOP Voters 'Just Corporate America's Useful Idiots' (VIDEO)

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-maher-republican-voters

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