This video had some good points. But the author/creator said that Obama does not understand capitalism.
I don’t find the author’s assessment credible when the author says contemporary America is capitalist. (Though I myself, on reasoning different from the author’s, would say Obama, like most people today, does not understand capitalism.)
Such a statement shows the author of the video is the one who does not understand capitalism.
We live in a welfare state today, not a capitalist society.
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of each individual’s natural and inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. No right can be exercised unless one has the right to property. We live in a physical, material world; it is the realm in which we take action and express our convictions, values, and love.
Now where in this America of a mortgage industry and banking industry damaged by the CRA and regulation do we have the right to property respected?
Where in this America of New Orleans post-Katrina, of Ike and Gustave, do we have the protection of property rights? Nowhere: we have massive governmental handouts, welfare, and control.
Our rights to free speech, gun ownership, income, home education of our own children, property (real estate, that is; the stuff that we have ownership of but the state has control of via zoning), and more, are undercut and under attack.
This all is not a recognition of rights. This all is not a recognition of self-sovereignty and self-ownership. This is not capitalism.
A certain amount of socialism has always been necessary for the functioning of a large polity.
It keeps the people at the bottom from revolting.
The problem then is to keep it from being unfordable and thus damaging the “animal spirits” of the economy.
I was once a purist like you. However, my understanding of the system (emphasis on system) has changed.
I appreciate your support for capitalism. Thank goodness.
Now I don’t look at “the people at the bottom” in the way you do.
That view of “people at the bottom” seems to suggest that “people at the bottom” just can’t think, or see how a principle such as property rights is to their benefit, or do much of anything mentally beyond the immediate here-and-now; it suggests that such people are metaphysically dependent on others — that such people do not have an efficacious faculty of reason or volition; for another that such people have no values or ambitions other than those entertained by Roman cicuses or bread.
So then how to explain the “people at the bottom” who have become some of the greatest “people at the top?” Read, for example, “The Myth of the Robber Barrons” by Burton Folsom. A found a review at: http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-of-myth-of-robber-barons-by.htm. Or did Bill Gates start out with anything near what he has now? How about Steve Jobs?
Where did Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton come from? It was not the rich part of town.
How about Thomas Sowell? Look up his bio.
What you say about “animal spirits” and “the people at the bottom” makes me wonder if you’ve been influenced by Plato, who said there were three parts to society, just as he thought there were three parts to each individual man; or by Marx, who said said religion was the opium of the masses, just as one could say socialism is the opium of the “underclass:” or by Roman thinking (or Aristotle’s tragic mistake) that there was always a servile class and always a ruling class?
I’d like to clarify that I have developed my position based on observation and induction, and on integration of inductions concerning man’s nature, economics, history, political theory, psychology, technological development, philosophy — given the limited time I’ve had since I am not a professional philosopher — so I’d say I’m a realist, not a “purist.”
I live in Houston, TX…where we had Hurricane Ike…and where we’re trying to get things going after that disaster…so I’m limited on time here, but I did want to respond since you were so kind to comment!!
Michael,
Economics is as dependent on sentiment (animal spirits) as it is on rational calculation. It is why it is an art as well as a science.
If socialism is not the opiate of the underclass (I like that) how do you explain its continued popularity despite its record?
Comments
4 responses to “Obanomics 101”
This video had some good points. But the author/creator said that Obama does not understand capitalism.
I don’t find the author’s assessment credible when the author says contemporary America is capitalist. (Though I myself, on reasoning different from the author’s, would say Obama, like most people today, does not understand capitalism.)
Such a statement shows the author of the video is the one who does not understand capitalism.
We live in a welfare state today, not a capitalist society.
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of each individual’s natural and inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. No right can be exercised unless one has the right to property. We live in a physical, material world; it is the realm in which we take action and express our convictions, values, and love.
Now where in this America of a mortgage industry and banking industry damaged by the CRA and regulation do we have the right to property respected?
Where in this America of New Orleans post-Katrina, of Ike and Gustave, do we have the protection of property rights? Nowhere: we have massive governmental handouts, welfare, and control.
Our rights to free speech, gun ownership, income, home education of our own children, property (real estate, that is; the stuff that we have ownership of but the state has control of via zoning), and more, are undercut and under attack.
This all is not a recognition of rights. This all is not a recognition of self-sovereignty and self-ownership. This is not capitalism.
A certain amount of socialism has always been necessary for the functioning of a large polity.
It keeps the people at the bottom from revolting.
The problem then is to keep it from being unfordable and thus damaging the “animal spirits” of the economy.
I was once a purist like you. However, my understanding of the system (emphasis on system) has changed.
I appreciate your support for capitalism. Thank goodness.
Now I don’t look at “the people at the bottom” in the way you do.
That view of “people at the bottom” seems to suggest that “people at the bottom” just can’t think, or see how a principle such as property rights is to their benefit, or do much of anything mentally beyond the immediate here-and-now; it suggests that such people are metaphysically dependent on others — that such people do not have an efficacious faculty of reason or volition; for another that such people have no values or ambitions other than those entertained by Roman cicuses or bread.
So then how to explain the “people at the bottom” who have become some of the greatest “people at the top?” Read, for example, “The Myth of the Robber Barrons” by Burton Folsom. A found a review at: http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-of-myth-of-robber-barons-by.htm. Or did Bill Gates start out with anything near what he has now? How about Steve Jobs?
Where did Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton come from? It was not the rich part of town.
How about Thomas Sowell? Look up his bio.
What you say about “animal spirits” and “the people at the bottom” makes me wonder if you’ve been influenced by Plato, who said there were three parts to society, just as he thought there were three parts to each individual man; or by Marx, who said said religion was the opium of the masses, just as one could say socialism is the opium of the “underclass:” or by Roman thinking (or Aristotle’s tragic mistake) that there was always a servile class and always a ruling class?
I’d like to clarify that I have developed my position based on observation and induction, and on integration of inductions concerning man’s nature, economics, history, political theory, psychology, technological development, philosophy — given the limited time I’ve had since I am not a professional philosopher — so I’d say I’m a realist, not a “purist.”
I live in Houston, TX…where we had Hurricane Ike…and where we’re trying to get things going after that disaster…so I’m limited on time here, but I did want to respond since you were so kind to comment!!
Michael,
Economics is as dependent on sentiment (animal spirits) as it is on rational calculation. It is why it is an art as well as a science.
If socialism is not the opiate of the underclass (I like that) how do you explain its continued popularity despite its record?