Posted on 05/25/2023 7:10:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I’m a capitalist. You are a capitalist. Karl Marx was a capitalist. Josef Stalin was one of the biggest capitalists ever. Bernie Sanders is a capitalist. AOC is a capitalist. All the members of Occupy Wall Street, Antifa and BLM are capitalists, even if they don’t know it or won’t admit it.
Capital is anything used in production that is not a free gift of the earth like land or human effort like labor or entrepreneurship. That is a bit of a long economist way of saying capital is tools. So, if you favor using tools, you are a capitalist.
Less abstractly, if you favor having a smart phone, a laptop, a car, or any other tool at work, then you are a capitalist. If you prefer to dig a hole with your hands rather than a shovel, a post hole digger or a machine, then perhaps you aren’t a capitalist. There seem to be few people who really prefer to dig holes with their hands.
Karl Marx popularized the term capitalism and despite clearly being a capitalist. Pictures of Marx show that he used pen and ink, which are tools which of course are capital. Further, Marx published his writings using his publisher’s printing presses and binding capital. So, apparently capital was not the issue to Marx. Perhaps it was borrowing money to get tools he could not afford, as people often confuse capital good or tools with money capital that might be borrowed money.
If you don’t have a tool that would make your job easier, it is natural to want that tool. If you cannot afford to buy that tool today, would most people be happy to commit some of the earnings they would make in the future with that tool to have that tool today.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Josef Stalin was one of the biggest capitalists ever, as shown by the way he tried to grow the Soviet Union economy. His first Five-year Plan adopted in 1928 was all about investing in factories and heavy industry — about capital. The Soviet plans for 70 years were focused on getting more capital.
So, if it were not capital and not even borrowing to get capital that Marx and his current followers objected to, perhaps it was private ownership. All those factories Stalin built were not privately owned in his day.
So, would the members of Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, BLM accept a publicly i.e. government-owned cell phone? Maybe they, or at least some, would in 2023. But what if the government issued them a Samsung phone rather than an iPhone or vice-versa? Would they have similarly accepted government ownership of the cell phone they used in 2019 under a Trump administration? Would they accept the government owning the cell phone they used under any Republican administration. I wonder.
No, they’re not all Capitalists.
Socialists still use money.
Communists still use money.
Even in the depths of the Soviet Cold War era, behind the Iron Curtain Rubles still flowed.
The fact that BLM is greedy and are enriching themselves doesn’t make them Capitalists, it makes them greedy.
There is always Capitalism.......It’s about the control of Capital. Communism was nothing more than “State Capitalism”.
What we advocate is “Free Enterprise”, putting more Capital in the hands of the individual.
It’s just that some capitalists choose to steal their money legally instead of working for it. Those call themselves socialists.
Without capitalism, we’d all be dependent on somebody else.
Without capitalism, we’d all still be cavemen hunting for food and scavenging for scraps.
Without capitalism, the world’s population would still be a million or less. Perhaps that’s the goal of the left-wing nuts.
“What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.” - Arthur Jensen (Network)
You have proved your point even Soros still use money.
Bonus round: Xi wouldn’t have what he has without money.
There are two types of capitalism: free enterprise and totalitarian.
Totalitarian capitalism encompasses marxism, fascism, socialism and corporatism.
Free enterprise capitalism is the Biblical model, the model Our Lord used in His parables.
It is true that is all purely my opinion, but it aligns with the facts.
In Capitalism you have private entities all making billions of microdecisions on how to spend their resources to maximize return.
In Communism you have a central committee micro managing the economy.
This author says land and labor aren’t capital? Those are free?
False premise from the get-go.
Land and labor are the most basic, necessary tools, in addition to “tools” (machinery) which the capitalist MUST own/control in order to produce anything.
“First We Get The Money…”
Then they don’t know what to do with it! Lol
And now we’ve got basically a few global conglomerates doing the same thing, with the assistance of governments. It’s becoming a distinction without a difference.
Most of the big projects under Stalin's rule, were mostly built using essentially slave labor. Another inconvenient fact Leftists don't tell you.
I get the point the author is trying to make, but he’s being a little too clever. Capitalism isn’t the belief that capital exists. Nor is it even the pursuit of that capitalism. While void of any context, you could etymologically reach is definition, what is really mean is that capital controls societal choices; the person who can wield capital makes the decisions.
This is why it should infuriate any American when our system is called ‘capitalist,’ because it is a slander against our democracy. Go watch old tapes of Ronald Reagan; he always spoke of “free markets.” Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, etc., always spoke of “Capitalism,” and it should be a tell that they are all think like Marxists.
This is also why there’s a horrible sleight of hand that took place between Pope John Paul II and earlier popes who warned of capitalism and when Pope Francis (and even to a lesser extent Benedict XVI) speak of capitalism: Pope Francis intends a frontal assault on freedom, whereas John Paul II was warning against the agglomeration of power by economic oligarchs which threatened freedom, and even free markets.
Is it really any worse than the turn of the 20th Century with the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Morgans, etc. controlling most if not all of the macroeconomy?
ie free enterprise
Geez, I wish FR could allow edits. Take two:
I get the point the author is trying to make, but he’s being a little too clever. Capitalism isn’t the belief that capital exists. Nor is it even the pursuit of that capitalism. While void of any context, you could etymologically reach such a definition, what is really meant by capitalism is that capital controls societal choices; the person who can wield capital makes all of the decisions.
This is why it should infuriate any American when our system is called ‘capitalist,’ because it is a slander against our freedom and democracy. Go watch old tapes of Ronald Reagan; he always spoke of “free markets.” Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, etc., always spoke of “Capitalism,” and it should be a tell that they all think like Marxists.
This is also why there’s a horrible sleight of hand that took place between Pope John Paul II and earlier popes who warned of capitalism and when Pope Francis (and even to a lesser extent Benedict XVI) speak of capitalism: Pope Francis intends a frontal assault on freedom, whereas John Paul II was warning against the agglomeration of power by economic oligarchs which threatened freedom, and even free markets.
When I look at Marx I see a man who, knowing he was an incompetent investor, sought to further an ideology that he knew would find enough traction in the chattering classes so that he and people like them would have plenty of patrons so they never had to actually work.
Only now it’s global in scale.
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