Reality Check (Further Discussion)

On February 7th I posted "Reality Check!! (Discussion)" to my blog and it was distributed to subscribers that evening. In that post I first set forth my exchange on that topic with Albert Nekimken PhD of Vienna, Virginia, but in the second portion presented an exchange with Mike Cerrato Esq. of Westville, New Jersey. That exchange continued, but was not posted promptly because I felt the need to address "The President’s Second Inaugural Address." Both posts can easily be accesses by double clicking on their titles shown in bold above.

Now I would like to share with my readers the concluding portions of my discussion with Mike Cerrato. Mike wrote:

OOOH, you are making me think about this stuff. That hurts! 

I guess we are going in the same direction, but from slightly differing directions. Of course, I cannot disagree that the reality of what I will call capitalistic opportunism does not in any way come close to the horrors of slavery, I don't believe the mindsets of the opportunists are all that different than the slaveholders. The only difference is, I fear, degree. Only a little over a century separate us from the days when the chains were all too real to today, when they consist of those created by self-appointed masters of the universe who have constructed their more-figurative chains through the crony capitalist-supporting legal and economic systems which enable them to grab most of the pie while forcing the rest of us to fight over the scraps they allow to fall off the table. I cannot help but believe that, had today's robber barons been born in 1860 below the Mason-Dixon line, they would have been all too happy to own a few other human beings. 

I wholeheartedly agree with you, however, about the need to "balance the system."

My response is set forth below:

Thanks, for that compliment. If I can make my readers think, that is far more important than having them agree.

It is second only to giving them facts that they did not possess, and if in the process I slay a few myths, then I am having a very good day.

I am afraid that you are decrying the nature of the beast. Man, or should I say Homo Sapiens, to make sure the female is not overlooked, is and always has been a selfish species. It is the argument against Democracy, which is often referred to as the rule of the mob. It is why our founders created a Republic, and not a Democracy. They were a bunch of aristocrats, who didn't trust the people. That is why the President was to be chosen by electors, rather than the people. Why Senators to be chosen by state legislators and not by direct suffrage. The vote restricted to male property owners and not to others.

Over time we became a Democracy. Still an imperfect one, but a Democracy nevertheless. Many on the Right would like us to return to the Republic of our forefathers. Would our plutocrats of today enslave us if they could? I don't know? Certainly some would! Most I think not. It is irrelevant.

Homo Sapiens are what he/she are, and we have no control over that. It is only what system we employ that we can control.

You appear to be attacking the Capitalist system in all its forms. To that I say the same as I say about Democracy. About that I quote Winston Churchill, "It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

I have to say the same about Capitalism. It too is the worst form of an economic system except for all the others that have been tried.

Today every country that has any kind of successful economic system has a free enterprise system including, "Communist" China. The only variations are the degree to which the system is regulated and the extent to which the state has a hand on the tiller. Where socialist systems have been tried they have failed. We don't have to look at the usual straw men systems such as the Soviet Union to see that. The Labor Party in Britain kept nationalizing the economy every time they came to power. It didn't work. They gave it up.

There are very few instances of managed economies left in the world and they are all failing their people. Venezuela is a prime example. Well meaning, but a disaster. Uganda? Cuba? Well we can make excuses for Cuba because of our economic boycott, but the rest of the world trades with them. I don't think their failures, and I recognize they have some successes, such as good health care, can be blamed entirely on the US.

I am a lawyer like you, only I practiced on the international scene. I remember when India was a Socialist country anxious to keep out foreign capital. It didn't work.

What makes Capitalism work is the very fact that people are essentially selfish. We can't change that! We can only devise a system that takes advantage of that inherent trait.

Like sports, it depends on competition. Like sports, it needs rules, so that mere muscle and unrestrained power does not carry the day. Like sports it needs referees to see that the rules are enforced. Without these rules and the referees it becomes a fixed sport known as crony capitalism.

That is where the battle lies. We fight about the rules and their enforcement and leveling the playing field. To make, as I have said, false equivalencies about good and evil, and the inherent greed of homo sapiens, brings us no nearer to a juster society (and I will not speak of a just society, because there is no such thing). We strive, and the struggle endures; it never ceases. That is what it is all about!

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.