Corpratism i.e. Fascism
Writing by abuhatem on Monday, 17 of March , 2008 at 7:53 am
Today Alan Greenspan has an article in the Financial Times saying that the current financial crisis is the worst since World War II. Bear Stearns is bailed out by the Fed, and the dollar moves towards a new record low.
On the television this morning, we find Democrats and Republicans arguing, yet none of them truly believe in a market economy or in true pure capitalism, no matter what either says. The Republicans are arguing for bail outs of big banks, cutting interest rates and increasing inflation to off-set and make quick the recession. The Democrats are arguing for subprime mortgage bail-outs, welfare programs, and unemployment stimulus packages.
Hayek truly got it right when he called interventionism a road down to socialism in his Road to Serfdom. So did von Mises in his great work on Interventionism, when he stated that interventionism is simply a slippery slope down to the fascism of Mussolini or corporatism. While Jonah Goldberg is writing books about liberal fascism, maybe he should be inclined to know that today’s neo-Republicans are themselves neo-Keynesian liberals who are supporting this very fascist system. Ron Paul spoke of it to Tim Russert on Meet the Press last year saying that corporatism was soft-fascism. While Goldberg is out writing a book making money on it, the fact is that his attack of so-called “liberal fascism” is an attack on his own neoconservative movement who upholds the same doctrines.
We have basically two arguments underway now: socialism for the poor what commodities investor Jim Rogers recently called socialism for the rich. Democrats want to take your property and give it away to the poor, create a dependency welfare state, put tariffs on other countries (which are a cause of monopoly if you didn’t know), increase the progressive income tax and punish productivity, keep in tact the deah tax and punish saving, etc. This is not socialism, or the abolishment of private property and the central planning of the economy, but this is welfare statism or in nicer terms a social market or Keynesianism, but not a true free market economy.
Republicans want to cut interest rates and thus increase inflation to cut short the recession, they want bailouts of big failing corporations, they support corporate welfare, wars in Iraq and other programs which increase the deficit, and deficit spending. Socialism for the rich as you may call it, Corpratism, big-business and big government in bed with each other, Keynesianism, etc.
Simply from a moral standpoint, both these interventionist positions of the Republicans and Democrats are immoral. Why? Because in essence both transgress against private property rights. Private property rights are the essence of any market economy. Conservatives traditionally defended private property rights morally using two arguments (1) the argument from natural law, and (2) the argument from religion (Judao-Christian-Islamic), as well as (3) the argument from efficiency (but this was not truly a moral argument).
The Democrat position hurts the rich unjustly. It punishes people for making more money, it steals their property at death, and it re-distributes their property to others who made dumb choices to bail them out. All in the same time trying to stop people from selling their property across national lines to save jobs. Even Karl Marx says in his Communist Manifesto that the progressive income tax and death tax are not economically viable - that their only true meaning is to destroy private property and the market economy system.
The Republican position hurts the poor unjustly. It debases their currency thus inflating their gas prices, it bails out fails banks, and it subsidizes big corporations using normal people’s money. This is not a market economy, this gives the rich government advantages over the poor.
A true market economy which respects everyone’s natural right to their private property is one in which both positions aren’t given sway. Since the American economy is more free than the very un-free economies of Europe, we do have more prosperity. Freedom does lead to prosperity while economic totalitarianism in all of its forms simply leads to poverty and stagnation. While the American economy is not perfect, it still faces this very basic moral problem. Ultimately, we can either have special advantages given to both sides - to both the rich or the poor - which Ludwig von Mises predicted would cause a form of soft fascism to exist (yes, Mr. Goldberg, your Republican party is supporting so-called “liberal fascism”) in which big-government and big-business would mutually help each other. Hayek also predicted it in his landmark work The Road to Serfdom.
The only solution over this, other than removing the welfare state and stopping protectionism, is de-nationalizing money. Hayek wrote an interesting pamphlet about this called The De-Nationalization of Money. The reason money needs to be de-nationalized, is that first of all privatization of almost everything leads to greater prosperity. But secondly, with government through the Federal Reserve being able to manipulate how much your dollar is actually worth, it is a natural extension of economic liberty that one be able to use whatever currency one likes to use. And eventually through market competition those sound currencies based on commodity standards (such as gold or silver) will replace those un-sound debt-based currencies which exist, allowing the poor’s money not to be unjustly debased and inflated.
As a Muslim, I believe that God has ordained the use of gold-based currency and not debt-based currencies, especially since Muslims do not believe in charging interest. In such a case the government cannot manipulate the currency arbitrarily.  Although a recession would be longer without government intervention, we must remember that recessions are also called corrections, and are good things inasmuch as they eliminate malinvestment and correct the economy.
Privatize and thrive. The chances of money becoming privatized, to use Milton Friedman’s words are “almost zero.” However, the idea is supported by many of those who believe in the market economy, if not on moral grounds, then on efficiency grounds - because privatized currencies lead to sounder currencies. Don Luskin, Chief Investment Adviser at Trend Macrolytics and columnist at the National Review Online, Steven Forbes of Forbes Magazine, Congressman Ron Paul, the late Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman, the Austrian School of Economics, and others support the concept. The gold standard seen of as idiotic by the ignorant masses, is actually supported by a huge group of economic intellectuals and actual business people, as well as the Islamic religion itself. And the only true way of returning the gold standard and keeping it to stay is to privatize money let people chose the best currency themselves.
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