I think that’s a preposterously bold statement. Is it ‘guilt by association’? How much guilt? How much association?
Maybe there’s not nor never will be absolutely free enterprise, but I don’t think you can say no free enterprise exists today. How can you broadly condemn the subjects of a system? How can you know what portion of one’s riches are from free enterprise and what portion is from non-free enterprise? So the remedy for government intervention is government intervention? There can be no ownership within a system tainted by non-anarchic tendencies? It’d be quite easy to rationalize any actions if your only appeal is to the purity of the present system.
I love this question as it strikes at the core of what makes a free and prosperous society. You have the socialist/welfare/statists vs the liberty loving capitalists, lets see who wins:
Redistributionist State vs Liberty: The two largest and best funded redistribution schemes are in order the Federal Reserve followed closely by Social Security. Neither of these are nice to the poor.
The worst is the Fed. It steals money from the poor by NOT INCLUDING ENERGY and FOOD in their computations of inflation. It just so happens that the poor spend larger amounts of their incomes buying these two things. Furthermore the Fed gives their money to banks which are controlled by rich stock holders. These banks get to lend the money before the poor gets to use it and we see the result: Housing Price Boom, Savings and Loan Crisis, and now Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis.
The other scheme that hurts the poor is Social Insecurity. This is less hideous as it takes their income directly instead of of stealing it through higher prices on things. Still it bestows its goodness on the rich and somewhat rich stiffing the poor who get stuck with the return on social security around inflation plus 2% or worse.
Police State vs Liberty: This is easy. The Government rarely harasses the rich, sure there are rare Michael Vicks and Martha Stewarts, but for the most part the government arrests, detains and persecutes the poor a lot more for rather stupid things like public intoxication, smoking, dope use, etc.
But we get welfare and health care vs Liberterian Nothing: The poor never seem to get enough of these. Amazing how little these programs help the poor. Liberterians help everyone by stopping licensing and regulation. This helps the poor by expanding their choices of providers and by lowering the price. Is plastic surgery less expensive than heart surgery? That is a big yes!!!
We’re talking about bankers. Bankers do their jobs knowing full well that there is a central bank, that they are charging interest on non-existent money, and that they are engaged in fraud. They have enough education to know that you can’t have withdrawal on demand, with interest, and not be lying.
We’re talking about bankers. Bankers do their jobs knowing full well that there is a central bank, that they are charging interest on non-existent money, and that they are engaged in fraud. They have enough education to know that you can’t have withdrawal on demand, with interest, and not be lying.
Are you saying that people who own patents have no idea that they are benefitting from a government monoply? You think the owners of the Federal Reserve have no idea that they are largest counterfitters in the world?
The fact that there is no obvious solution does not diminish the reality of the problem.
Lockheed-Martin and all the other corporatist entities of the military-industrial complex have no legitimate claim to their property.
Haha very true… Its just a catch phrase I like to throw around… but I might stop using it now
I always feel like its a telling sign where the poor are better off when you hear about refugees from North Korea and Vietnam attempting to immigrate into Hong Kong… there are reports of Vietnamese building rafts made of bags of ping pong balls trying to float to Hong Kong… Or another example of this behavior is the Cuban refugees who float on any thing possible to get to America… In countries that claim the ideals of socialism and communism that claim to be populist and more caring of the poor its a telling sign when you have the lower classes of its country attempting to make it to Capitalist countries in droves in the most desperate ways possible…
That being said I think we would be even better off if we had more free market thinkers running the show
Second, the Aspect of Opportunity:
In the welfare state, the income of employers are garnished (taxed) to be redistributed amongst those who are able to work the system to convince others that they are poor when, in fact, they are not. Thusly, there is less employment opportunity for the poor. Thusly, the poor are, in fact, hurt by the welfare system. After all, the wealthy are the ones who have the capital to be able to employ the person, thusly allowing the poor person to keep food on their table. The poor person is then allowed to eventually gain skills which make him (or her) more productive and eventually allow the poor person the opportunity to find better, higher-paying jobs based on their skills and possibly to end up becoming an employer themselves, thusly creating more jobs for the rest of the poor. If, however, you steal from (tax) the rich to “redistribute the wealth”, then you accomplish nothing more than to deny the capital needed to gain employment, skills, and eventually profitable employment to the poor. (It’s a rough theory I’m working on regarding the welfare state, so please pardon me.)
Third, the Aspect of Morality
Regardless of who is doing it, stealing is still stealing. The fact is that you are still forcing one person to give up what they often times worked their rear ends off to get - and according to some philosophies therefore taking a part of their lives. No matter where it goes, how is this just? How is this right? How can anyone argue that it is okay for anybody to violate your privacy (which is exactly what tax information does), and use force or the threat of force to forcibly remove property or money from that person. For anyone else that is robbery.
Fourth, the Aspect of What the ****!?!?
First, the truly rich don’t pay that much in taxes. A person who gets their funds off of a trust fund pays next to nothing. The people who are hit hardest by taxes are the middle classes. Quite flatly put, welfare does nothing more than to keep the poor the way they are and allows socialists an avenue to conduct their war on the middle class. (Just my opinion.)
the beauty of liberty and the free market is that it is both just and efficient. whoever made that statement regarding the rich has no clue about economics…well, no wonder that person is a socialist. the key question to ask is - how did the rich guy get rich? once you answer this question the refutation of this argument will be self-evident…and the answer to this question is precisely what economics teaches us!
