Twilight Capitalism: American Turns Socialist; Russia, China . . . ?

Anarchy Deluxe ^ | 12/19/2009 | Michael Nichols

[Anarchydeluxe]

Growing up in the United States, I was incessantly bombarded by propaganda about the Reds, namely, Russia and China. They were the enemies of freedom, prosperity, progress, and capitalism. We, on the other hand, were the champions of liberty and free markets. Of course, there was more than a little bit of truth behind the propaganda. With mass-murdering leaders such as Stalin and Mao, Russia and China caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent victims with 5-year plans and Great Leaps Forward, and those numbers are probably way too generous. There is no way to tell how many people truly suffered and continue to suffer under the iron fist of planned economies and politburos. The effects are still being felt today, because once a bureaucrat, truly the lowliest of creatures, puts his greedy hands on the free market, it is impossible to know the ripple effects his regulation will cause. But that was then.

And now? Did we learn at all from the lessons of history? Apparently not. In fact, quite the opposite. America, having just recovered from a quasi Republican president who claimed that the only way to save the free market was by abandoning free market principles and expanding government more than any president since Lyndon Johnson, now has a president who is all too happy to abandon free market principles without any prodding and is on the march towards global warming legislation (cap and trade), universal health care (though an epic fail so far), regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (beyond absurd), and redistributing wealth. In the 2008 Election we witnessed two economically illiterate candidates bash the free market and constantly label free marketeers as greedy and unethical, all the while failing to mention government's own role in the crisis and acting as if politicians...

[Bon mots]

[Hugin]

Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, had the following advice for Obama:

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute . . . In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated . . . Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of freeenterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of business people, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe thatwe can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto thestate . . . we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debtsand ‘bad’ assets. True, this will be an extremely painful andunpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearingfor their capitalization, bonuses, or reputation. However, we would‘conserve’ and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balancesheets . . . The time for enlightenment has come. We must calmly, and withoutgloating, assess the root causes of this situation and try to peek intothe future.

Good Lord. Now we have an ex-KGB agent Russian leader having to explain the benefits of free market capitalism to a neo-Marxist ex-community organizer American president. The world has truly gone insane.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Functionally, we're more Communist than China; here's a little editorial I wrote about that very subject.