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20th January 05:30
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Freedom for the Masses (socialism)
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Freedom for the Masses
Bringing individual liberty to citizens worldwide
Copyright © 2003
"The urge to be oneself, to work out one's destiny without let or
hindrance, is not a matter of environment; it is inherent in the human
make-up."
— Frank Chodorov (1887-1966)
Individual Liberty Guaranteed
Reading the headline news can make people feel discouraged. Citizens
realize that Martha Stewart has been indicted on criminal charges and
faces time in federal prison. Those same headlines reveal that Bill
Clinton makes millions of dollars in speaking fees. Unknowledgeable
citizens might think Martha Stewart has committed an act of ****,
murder, treason, perjury or quid-pro-quo pardons while Bill Clinton
has built a competitive business empire that delivers genuine values
to millions of people. On closer examination, it becomes clear this is
not the case. Martha Stewart simply acted on a tip from her
stockbroker to sell her shares of ImClone stock, which was projected
to decline in value. Now she faces a future as a political prisoner in
a federal prison camp.
Many people want to see Martha Stewart locked up. A recent survey
revealed that nearly one quarter of New Yorkers think Martha Stewart
should be imprisoned. Citizens today seek the incarceration of value
producers while they seek the apotheosis of value destroyers. In
short, they want to bury the value producers while elevating the value
destroyers to preeminent positions in society. Why is this?
There are several reasons for this malady but there is one reason that
stands out above the rest. That reason is revealed below. For now it
is important to realize that citizens are products of State education,
which not coincidentally omits the teaching of logic. All citizens --
government schooled, private schooled and home schooled citizens --
have endured a State mandated educational curriculum. As a result,
citizens have logic omitted from their mental faculty. Lacking
proficiency in deductive and inductive reasoning, citizens can be
manipulated into thinking good is bad and bad is good. A mind without
an ******** grasp of logic can be duped into believing the best is the
worst and the worst is the best.
Since nearly all citizens worldwide have logic omitted from their
mental faculty, they cannot make logical connections between events
that are separated by large spans of time and diverse fields. They can
understand how yesterday's events affect today, but last year or last
century or last millennium is irrelevant to them.
A cursory look at Martha Stewart might convince people that she is a
criminal. After all, look at other value producers who have been
prosecuted and/or imprisoned: Sam Waksal, Bill Gates, Irwin Schiff,
Leona Helmsley, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Stew
Leonard and so on. From the modern mind's perspective, Martha is
guilty by association: she too is a mega value producer like the rest
of these people.
Now comes the reason why citizens today seek to imprison value
producers while they seek to lionize value destroyers. That reason is
Marxism. Marxism? What does Marxism have to do with Martha Stewart?
After all, Karl Marx was born in 1818 and lived in a much different
era. We live in the twenty-first century -- long after Karl Marx
lived. Surely Martha Stewart is a guilty criminal while Marxism is an
irrelevant ideology of the past, right?
Sadly, many citizens think this is the case. However, a mind
illuminated by logic -- deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning and
the scientific method -- can pierce through veils of illusions like
X-ray technology can pierce through opaque objects. So let us use
logic to travel through illusions to arrive at reality.
In the mid-nine****th century, Karl Marx developed a system of thought
that allegedly exposed the flaws of capitalism. Specifically, Marx
argued that capitalism generates surplus value or profit, which is
retained by exploitative business owners (bourgeoisie) at the expense
of workers (proletariat) in the fields and factories. This supposedly
causes class struggle and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, which will
culminate in a dictatorship of the proletariat. As a result, profits
will be eliminated and private property will be abolished. Thus there
will be no more exploitation of the masses by greedy business owners.
Marx articulated this ideology in his treatises titled Communist
Manifesto and Capital. The problem was that classical liberalism,
which held the opposite tenets of Marxism, was flourishing during this
era. Classical liberal tenets include private property, individual
rights and limited government. Marx understood that capitalism
requires those tenets, and since classical liberalism was flourishing,
Marx was unable to see his ideology implemented.
A couple decades after Karl Marx died certain people sensed the
advantages of advancing the State. Those people include John Dewey in
America and John Keynes in England. These and similar people sought to
subvert classical liberalism by detaching it from its original tenets
and linking it to Marxian socialism. Those clever intellectuals
asserted that business, not the State, is the main threat to
individual liberty. Thus, they gradually replaced classical liberal
tenets of private property, individual rights and limited government
with modern liberal tenets of socialism, egalitarianism and big
government.
Operating under the banner of neo-liberalism and progressivism, they
killed two birds with one stone. They buried the classical liberal
tradition while infusing Western civilization with Marxian socialism
and its escalating assault on business.
Today in 2003, many citizens distrust business. They believe that
successful businesspeople are dishonest and guilty. Yet this is
nothing more than the psychological expression of Marxism. In such a
societal atmosphere, clandestine criminal minds have discovered how to
exploit this situation by attacking, prosecuting, jailing and
sometimes murdering the best, brightest and most competitive value
producers. To make things worse, those hidden criminals glean prestige
and millionaire wealth as a result of destroying value producers.
Take for example Joel Klein. He made a name for himself by attacking
Bill Gates for bundling the Internet Explorer browser with the Windows
operating system. Klein was viewed by many people as a modern-day hero
-- a David taking on Goliath -- a tough protector of the populace who
was going to put an end to Microsoft's business practices. Klein has
since been promoted to Chancellor of New York City public schools. He
is in charge of educating over one million youth and will probably get
a million-dollar book deal to highlight his educational reforms.
Klein is not an isolated case. Rudolph Giuliani locked up Michael
Milken for developing the high-yield bond market. Giuliani was then
promoted to Mayor of New York, which recently netted him a lucrative
book deal. Then there is James B. Comey who is striving to replicate
Giuliani's path to fame and fortune. Comey is a US attorney for New
York who is stretching arbitrary laws to lockup Martha Stewart so he
too can glean fame and fortune.
And who can forget Hillary Clinton? She socialized and nearly
destroyed America's health care system only to get a
multimillion-dollar book deal and a seat on the US Senate. Then there
is Bill Clinton who destroyed the American economy with his
mass-counterfeiting Greenspan that left hordes of investors
empty-handed. Forget about the Foster, Jones, Lewinsky, Chinagate and
Pardongate crimes. Even forget about the 911-attack Clinton made
possible. Just look at the false prosperity Clinton created during his
tenure: the titanic financial bubble he assembled to garner votes and
power. That financial bubble has burst, yet today he makes millions of
dollars from speeches while millions of Americans are financially
ruined.
"Yes, lockup the value producers!" cry the benighted public. "We need
more Kleins, Giulianis, Comeys and Clintons! They are our protectors
and our future!"
Such utterances would have been inconceivable a couple centuries ago.
It was the value producers -- the productive class -- that uplifted
humanity from the drudgery of crude agricultural labor to industrial
labor and into the information economy. Those value producers provided
genuine jobs, paychecks, products, services and wealth to citizens and
society. They brought innovations, new technology and new ideas to the
masses. In sum, they elevated the quality of life for citizens
worldwide as they lowered the cost of living.
Their opponents -- the value destroyers -- have stifled innovation
while driving up the cost of living. They have systematically
undermined each citizen's liberty while making business a criminal
activity. This prevents potential entrepreneurs from working to uplift
humanity to new heights of prosperity, longevity and happiness.
Modern liberals like Hillary Clinton ply socialism throughout America.
That is a slap in the face to a long line of liberal thinkers from
Cicero with his defense of natural law to John Locke to Adam Smith to
Thomas Jefferson to Frederic Bastiat to Ludwig von Mises and his
successors. Hillary Clinton required neo-liberals John Dewey and John
Keynes, who required Karl Marx.
Recently reporters photographed Martha Stewart being escorted into FBI
headquarters in New York. The normally happy queen of home decorating
was wearing a look of disgust as authorities brought her into a
mug-shot and fingerprinting session. In all likelihood, Martha Stewart
will spend years in an isolated federal prison.
Karl Marx died in 1883. Martha Stewart was indicted on criminal
charges and resigned from her self-made business empire in 2003. Count
the years -- 120 of them -- between Karl Marx's anti-business ideology
and the destruction of businesswoman Martha Stewart. This took a lot
of time, more than a century, but Marx's ideas came to fruition in
America albeit in a circuitous way. His ideas took root much earlier
in Eastern Europe and China in the form of Marxism/Leninism and
Marxism/Maoism during the twentieth century. Those regions of the
world were philosophically ready for Marx. They only required a few
decades for Marxism to be implemented.
When you see today's headline news filled with value producers going
to jail while value destroyers receiving promotions and
multimillion-dollar book deals, do not fall into despair. Do not lose
hope for the works of Mises, Rand, Rothbard and Neo-Tech. Remember
Marx required over a century for his ideas to take root in society.
That is a long time. Marx fans had to wait patiently to see the
destruction of great business heroes and heroines.
So be patient; the works of Mises, Rand, Rothbard and Neo-Tech will be
implemented. Mises' sound money and banking theories, Rand's sound
philosophical theories, Rothbard's sound political theories and the
fully integrated honesty of Neo-Tech will prevail. This will not
happen tomorrow morning, but it will happen. We the producers of
genuine values will be free. We will be able to produce goods and
services for others without fear of being prosecuted, imprisoned or
destroyed by the State. The terrorists of value producers will be
ostracized while the mega value producers will be praised. Valid
justice will prevail as will honesty, longevity, happiness and
individual liberty -- a product that has always been denied to the
masses.
The exact way individual liberty will unfold is unknown. Generally
speaking, it will materialize through educational and entertainment
avenues. Fiction stories such as Gift of Immortality and movies such
as Matrix Revolutions will advance the paradigm of freedom.
Organizations such as the Ayn Rand Institute and the Ludwig von Mises
Institute will also advance this paradigm. Plus many unseen actions
will converge to bring about individual liberty for the masses.
For people who do not want to wait decades or centuries, there is one
action that can be taken now. If implemented now, it could greatly
speed up the transition from our upside-down world of inverted justice
to a right-side-up world of valid justice. That action consists of
creating an Internet ostracism network. However, this requires an
investment of time, money and brainpower. Understandably, these are
highly valued resources to be used wisely. But what could be more
valuable than individual liberty for all?
Supporting Information
1. ImClone developed an anti-cancer drug called Erbitux that the Food
& Drug Administration rejected. The FDA's rejection of Erbitux caused
ImClone's stock to drop; hence Martha Stewart sold her 4,000 shares of
ImClone stock. It is now apparent that Erbitux does help cancer
patients; it was originally rejected due to the ineptitude and
indolence of government regulators.
2. Criticism of government education does not imply that education per
se is bad. Human beings can benefit from learning valid knowledge.
However, the government should neither supply nor control education.
Education should be provided by the free market to citizens who choose
to learn. Nobody should be forced to learn anything. Moreover,
compulsory education opens the door to abuse by shaping young minds in
ways that serve the State while undermining the self-interest of each
citizen. The proper role of education is to impart contextual facts
and teach students how to think so each student can become a
self-sufficient person.
3. Deductive reasoning consists of starting with a generalization and
deducing particular facts. Inductive reasoning consists of starting
with particular facts and inducing a generalization. The scientific
method consists of performing controlled tests to determine through
repeatable experiments if a hypothesis is valid. Reason prescribes the
rules of conceptual thought like mathematics prescribes the rules of
numerical calculation. Logic, reason, science and math are
indispensable for mastering reality.
4. Marx believed surplus value or profit is bad; most political
leaders hold the same view. Yet using Aristotelian logic, which Marx
rejected, it becomes clear that profit tells entrepreneurs what to
produce more of and what to stop producing. Profit and loss statements
act as a numerical guidance system needed by businesspeople. Profits
indicate productive business activities and losses indicate
unproductive business activities. Moreover, the expectation of profit
provides an incentive for entrepreneurs to innovate and take risks to
deliver products and services to citizens. Contrast this with coercive
edicts by governmental authorities telling people what to produce.
Chaos and poverty ensues in the absence of the profit motive as
demonstrated in Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Ayatollah's Iran,
Castro's Cuba and Jong's North Korea.
5. You can become rich and famous by publicly denigrating and denying
private property rights. Government representatives will take notice
and offer you a cushy job, guaranteed income, fame, fortune,
promiscuity and protection from predatory government. Why? Since all
governments today survive by violating private property, you will act
as a needed government apologist. This is the secret reason why most
social intellectuals and university professors assert that private
property rights are a myth. Just do not try to violate their private
property.
6. Did Rudolph Giuliani redeem himself by managing the aftermath of
911? Give credit where credit is due: Giuliani played a noteworthy
role after 911 by maintaining order and restoring New York City with
commendable efficiency. However, a decade earlier Giuliani destroyed
perhaps the greatest financial institution in the world -- Drexel
Burnham Lambert -- and jailed perhaps the greatest financier in
history: Michael Milken. Giuliani inflicted massive damage to capital
markets both home and abroad with his political machinations. He
destroyed untold quantities of capital, businesses, jobs, products and
services. If left alone, Drexel and Milken might have financed
companies that today could deliver cures for aging, disease and death.
Especially relevant, Milken could have developed Middle Eastern
financial markets, thereby replacing religious terrorism with secular
capitalism.
7. Which person has the criminal mind: Martha Stewart or James Comey?
Martha Stewart acted logically by selling her shares after her
stockbroker advised her to do this. James Comey by contrast has
inverted justice by asserting that Martha's proclamation of innocence
is a lie and a criminal act of securities fraud in an attempt to
protect the stock price of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO).
Moreover, any attempt by Martha to proclaim her innocence is seen by
Comey as an obstruction of justice. Thus Comey is subverting a
fundamental rule of law: innocent until proven guilty. If Comey
obtains a guilty verdict against Martha Stewart and locks her up in
prison, will he rise to political prominence and get a million-dollar
book deal? Does he care about the destruction of Martha Stewart's
business, the jobs she has created, the values she has produced, the
lives she has lifted? All evidence points to the fact that Comey seeks
to destroy a great American success story for no other reason than for
personal glory and riches. Giuliani did it; so can Comey!
8. What does Giuliani's destruction of Milken, Comey's destruction of
Stewart and Clinton's destruction of the US economy have in common?
They are all instances of State interference in the marketplace, which
increases chaos and poverty. Sadly, citizens and politicians alike see
the results and decry more government intervention. This cycle repeats
itself until the State totally straightjackets the economy and a
revolution or societal collapse occurs. Either outcome could be near
since the State now controls money, banking, finance, airlines,
trains, roads, mail, libraries, education, agriculture, drugs,
television, radio, art, science, medicine, commerce, law, protection,
land, water, air… The only respite from the State is cyberspace, which
the State is striving to takeover under the pretext of ****, spam and
taxation.
9. Who really needs value destroyers? Value destroyers put
agricultural goods in vast warehouses to rot while millions starve;
this is done in the name of raising prices for farmers. Value
destroyers cripple and decimate legitimate businesses; this is done in
the name of squelching political opposition. Value destroyers
confiscate gold from the populace and replace it with worthless paper,
e.g., Federal Reserve Notes; this is done in the name of stabilizing
the exchange rate of foreign currencies. Value destroyers force the
youth to endure a statist education; this is done in the name of
creating responsible citizens. Value destroyers launch costly and
bloody wars; this is done in the name of one's religion or nation. In
reality, human beings only need value producers; market-driven
producers can take care of all our needs and wants.
10. We have already seen the results of Marxism in communist Russia
and communist China. Mass poverty and mass murder is rampant in
countries that practice Marxism. Do we really need to wait for
Washington DC to transmogrify into Moscow to see those horrors come to
America? Must we witness more business titans such as Michael Dell
fall under the guillotine of the State? And what would an economy that
is stripped of its best producers look like?
11. Mises championed the free market and specie-backed currency that
is non-inflatable. Rand championed objective concept formation that
enables open-ended thinking. Rothbard championed the prohibition of
initiatory force that enables personal initiative to prevail. And
Neo-Tech champions fully integrated honesty that enables individuals
to consistently act on reality. Free markets, clear thinking, personal
initiative and integrated honesty are in everyone's future.
12. Freedom will take time to materialize. This is because
universities are packed with socialist professors who produce
society's politicians, lawyers, judges, doctors, scientists, teachers,
artists, authors and businesspeople. Those intellectuals further the
cause of socialism because they view the world through the lens of
socialism. But the human spirit burns bright and its desire for
freedom cannot be extinguished. Can an Internet ostracism/praise
network expedite freedom? Criminal-minded value destroyers will think
twice before decimating business titans. They will not want their
destructive actions wrapped in XML tags and displayed in a PHP dossier
for the entire world to see at the click of a button.
13. Despite the predations and destructions that abound in the
earthbound world, conscious life is great. Beethoven said, "Those who
truly understand my music will be freed from the miseries of the
world." Likewise, those who truly understand historical processes will
be freed from the miseries caused by criminal-minded pip squeaks.
Earthbound authorities will disappear into the great bit bucket as
citizens become free to experience the beauty, grandeur and riches of
the cosmos.
Further Reading
* Las Vegas Dialogues published by Local Group (40,000 words; May
2000)
* Surprise Package published by Local Group (25,000 words; June 2003)
* The Only Way Out published by Local Group (3,300 words; January
2003)
* Tipping the World published by Local Group (10,800 words; April
2003)
Source: http://www.localgroup.net
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