Excellent, Faryn.

If the banksters would only pull their heads out of the adolescent rationalizations of Ayn Rand and read the mature insights of Adam Smith, they could transform the free enterprise system into a generator of dignity and prosperity for all.

But they get more kicks out of Ayn Rand's lurid fantasies, so don't hold your breath.

Yes, he advocated markets without heavy taxation... And he lived in a world without any sort of meaningful representative government. when he published Wealth of Nations, the American Revolution would not kick off for several months, King Louis XIV had just taken the throne of France two years before, "Germany" was a crumbled empire ruled by petty princes and bergermeisters, and Sweden was a world power wrestling with Russia for title of "Europe's most absolute monarchy."

In this world, taxes were heavy, and went solely to the upkeep of opulent royal lifestyles, and petty wars where the casualties were almost exclusively conscripts from the labor class.

Today's regressives (I join Robert Reich in saying they shouldn't be called conservatives!) are constantly trying to rewrite history to make every historical figure a spokesperson for their Randian philosophy of selfishness.

We have a joke over here that the problem with the Adam Smith Institute is that they don't read enough Adam Smith.

And screaming 'Kill the evil Banksters©, the Rothschilds, blah, blah, blah' won't do the trick. Push them back to what they were gien the power and intended to do, make national and even global economies more efficient (in transactions, not cutting throats) because we've gained a lot by not having a barter system.

Because that is maintained by force or arms or armies. Like the gold swindle, the value is not set upon any tangible, but the power of those who control the supply.

I've talked over the years with the Libertarian bunkerheads who thought when the 'big one hits and currency is destroyed,' they'll just go to town with their trusty gold pieces and get what they can't make in their alleged self-sufficiency.

Like bartering a chicken for heart surgery, LOL.

I said, 'Okay when you go to town or your neigbhor or whoever, and they don't offer you what you think, with your 'enlightened self-interest' idea, what will you do? Say you worked a month to buy one of those coins, and instead of getting a dozen chickens like you want, they say you'll get one and that's all their is to it? And if you don't go with their price, they pick up their gun and tell you to clear off?'

The typical response was, 'Well, I have my gun and ammo, they won't get to rob me like that.'

To which I said, 'Then why not cut out the bullshit about gold? The issue in the end, is who has the most guns, the biggest tribe or the most ammo. Why not just fight it out, because it will take force when there is no standard you and they refuse to follow? No authority allowed, except your everyman for himself motto you say is at play?'

They just thought, with the luxury of the liberal system, that somehow a genteel transaction was going to take place, when they'd removed all the social restraints. After all, they sure did brag about their guns and their freedom and their liberty. And they never tried that tack again, but how many still think this way?

Those who are of the Austrian school of economics, the Van Mises, etc., might want to think about the issues that Adam Smith takes up. And those who use slogans instead of thinking about what the core issues are, might do themselves a bit of good to think on the adage by an early American writer, to 'Not seek to find the answers to life's questions that your ancestors did to live your life around, but instead, seek what they were looking for to answer the important questions of life.'

Fauxheads, in particular, are afflicted with repeating what they heard and never thinking to motives, only parrot the ones they have been 'told' that other people have, when they know no such thing. Everyone has a good reason for what they do, even if we hate it. Adam Smith was right about a lot of things, but I think he was surpassed by Thomas Paine when he wrote 'Agrarian Justice.'

JMHO. Not that interested in the economic wonks or wannabe wonks. Just in what works in a just matter.

Thanks to a complicit media, that was a big part of how we got to this deregulate-everything/anti-government climate we have today.

Last edited Wed Apr 29, 2015, 10:12 AM - Edit history (1)

This is one extra good and relevant OP!

He stopped saying capitalism and instead kept using 'free markets'