[Wuli]

It is not about “stocks” per se, nor really about the companies represented by those stocks.

Those things are stand-ins for the economy in general, and the economy in general is about the people, their livelihoods, their savings, their ability to pay for the things they need, to provide for their children and to prepare for a future.

It is not about “saving corporations”. It is very much about saving one of the most important things in people’s lives - the economic ability to care for themselves.

Of course to all Leftists THAT is not so important.

[dfwgator]

“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)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

It is not about “stocks” per se, nor really about the companies represented by those stocks.

Those things are stand-ins for the economy in general, and the economy in general is about the people, their livelihoods, their savings, their ability to pay for the things they need, to provide for their children and to prepare for a future.

It is not about “saving corporations”. It is very much about saving one of the most important things in people’s lives - the economic ability to care for themselves.

Of course to all Leftists THAT is not so important.

In trying to articulate such thoughts, I like to use the word society: American socialists have been determined to evade the totalitarian implications of socialism. Thus, they call socialism “liberalism.” And thus, they follow longstanding tradition of suppressing - by propagandistic abuse of the very word for it - the very concept of “society:”

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;

the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices.

The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.

The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .
For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest . . . — Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.

And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.

So, “You didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen?” Yes - but that “somebody else” was not government. The “somebody” was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly. It is not the government but society - as Thomas Paine points out in Common Sense, a very different thing - which makes the pencil.

Government planning is merely interference in society’s subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government “planning” is a paper tiger.