The Three Biggest Lies About the Economy

Myth 3: The U.S. is sliding into "socialism"

U.S. capitalism seems to be in astonishingly robust shape.

I think the author has very little understanding of the relationship of capitalism to the different forms of government. How robust the capitalism is not the measure. The measure is who owns the capital, or more correctly who controls the capital.

Is the system monopolistic state-controlled capitalism or is it competitive free enterprise capitalism? It is between these two opposing economic system that a battle has always waged.

A free market is a self regulating system in which all parties are completely free to transact with one another. Where force, fraud, or injury damages one party the government’s only role is to punish those who commit such offenses and to vindicate the rights of the other party. This protects the integrity of the free market or free enterprise system without intervening in it.

Four aspects of ownership are necessary in order for the ownership of property to be full and complete. These four are title, control, use, and the ability to dispose of what a person owns. In a free market economy, these aspects are unrestrained so long as the owner does not infringe on the legitimate rights and claims of others. True ownership of property and freedom go hand in hand. They always have.

Now let’s compare the two systems of capitalism, monopolistic state-controlled capitalism and competitive free enterprise capitalism.

Private ownership and control of capital exist in the competitive free enterprise system. In the monopolistic system, private or state title of ownership to the capital exists but more importantly, the state or the elite few who control the state control all the capital.

Socialism is where government officials acquire possession of major industries such as transportation, communications, and utilities in order to leverage control over the entire economy. Through ownership of these vital segments of industry and by creating government regulatory agencies socialist gain control over virtually everything else.

Now let’s combine political and economic systems because ultimately one never exists without the other.

We see again that there are only two ultimate choices, a competitive free enterprise system in a Republic, or a monopolistic state controlled system under an Oligarchy.

The latter appears to be Obama’s agenda as evidenced by his deeds but not his words.

I used the following to try to explain to some people why I don’t accept the blue sky routine about how much better off we all are.

I can show you two farms adjoining the one I grew up on along the Northern edge of South Carolina. Both these farms belong to people who were born on those farms in the 1940s. In both cases the families moved to North Carolina around 1950 and the fathers went to work as mill hands! In both cases, working as “low-paid” mill hands they supported their families, bought houses in North Carolina, went on annual family vacations and frequently returned to the family farms in South Carolina for weekends and holidays. In other words they KEPT the farms in South Carolina for second homes which they passed down to descendants, all the while buying homes and raising families in North Carolina on the pay of a mill hand! Please explain to me how someone could even attempt to do that now.

Note also that they did these things with no more than a PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION. Some of the descendants have also become very well off with only a public high school education, others were fortunate enough to attend college, all the children of both families would be considered middle to upper middle class now. I would really like to see someone try that now. You are more likely to see young people with college degrees looking for a part time job.

I could point to other families from the area who have similar stories, these two happened to live within walking distance of my family when I was a small child.

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