Capitalism and the Abolition of the Welfare State

Posted on April 24, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Capitalism and the Abolition of the Welfare State (Part 4 of 10)

BY GEORGE REISMAN | APR 23, 2023

The savings of individuals would steadily replace taxes as the source of provision for old age.

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This article is excerpted from chapter 20 “Toward The Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism” from George Reisman’s Capitalism: A Treatise On Economics (1996). See the Amazon.com author’s page for additional titles by Dr. Reisman.

Let me now present a program for accomplishing what many people believe to be simply impossible politically, namely, the abolition of the welfare state.

Elimination of Social Security/Medicare

The social security system, together with medicare, could be eliminated by means of the following steps. First, following a grace period of perhaps two or three years, to provide sufficient warning and time to adjust, there should be an immediate rise in the age at which individuals are eligible to receive social security and medicare benefits, from 65 to 70.

As compensation for the loss of these benefits, individuals in the age bracket 65 to 70 should be made exempt from the federal income tax on whatever earnings they derive from employment. The result would not only be an enormous reduction in government expenditures, but a substantial rise in government tax revenues as well. The rise in tax revenues would come about because the people in the 65-70 age bracket would now pay more in the form of sales, excise, and property taxes, as the result of their having and spending higher incomes. And they would pay more in the form of state and local income taxes as well.

If enacted today, this part of the proposal for abolishing social security and medicare would cut the costs of these programs on the order of a third.

But there is more. As part of the same legislation that quickly raises the social security retirement age to 70, the age at which people are eligible to receive social security and medicare benefits should be further increased, say, by an additional calendar quarter with the passage of each subsequent year. Under this arrangement, individuals who wished to retire at age 70, despite the progressive rise in the social security retirement age beyond 70, would have an additional year of notice in which they would have the opportunity to accumulate additional savings to take the place of the loss of each successive three months’ social security/medicare benefits.

For example, those age 64 at the time the social security/medicare phase-out began, would have an additional year in which to compensate for the rise in their prospective social security retirement age to 70 [and] 1/4. Those age 63 at the time, would have two additional years in which to compensate for the prospective rise in their particular social security retirement age to 70 [and] 1/2, and so on. Possibly, the additional savings such individuals would need to make could be made tax-exempt, under an IRA-type arrangement. (Savings in the government’s budget achieved by the initial rise in the retirement age to 70 would help to offset the revenue loss of making these savings tax exempt.)

All by itself, the progressive rise in the social security retirement age in this way would slowly operate to abolish the system. However, I do not believe the system’s demise should be allowed to drag on indefinitely. I think that no later than twenty-five years after the initial rise in the social security retirement age to 70, the system should accept its last new beneficiaries, who would then be 76 [and] 1/4. By that time, everyone would have had in excess of 25 years to make provision for his own retirement at age 76 [and] 1/4.

It should be realized that the progressive elimination of the social security/medicare system would operate to promote savings and capital accumulation. The savings of individuals would steadily replace taxes as the source of provision for old age. The increased capital accumulation that this made possible would, of course, increase the demand for labor and the productivity of labor, which means that it would increase wage rates and the supply of goods, which latter would operate to reduce prices. Thus, real wages and the general standard of living would rise. The rise would be progressive insofar as the rate of capital accumulation was increased.

* * *

While the total abolition of social security and medicare must always be one of our long-run goals, an immediate way to begin reducing the cost of these programs would be for the government simply to make the kind of tax-exemption offer I described above, to everyone eligible to receive these programs’ benefits. Namely, so long as anyone eligible to receive such benefits abstains from doing so and continues to work instead, his earnings from employment will be exempt from the federal income tax. Being enabled to keep almost all of one’s earnings might make it worthwhile for many people to keep on working some years longer, rather than accept social security and medicare. Not only would the government’s outlays be reduced as the result of this measure, but, as I noted before, its revenues would almost certainly increase. If enacted, this proposal would achieve some significant immediate good, and, in addition, help to prepare the ground for further reductions in the cost of social security and medicare.

It should also be noted here that the phaseout of the social security and medicare programs, or the undertaking of any other measure that would be accompanied by an increase in the number of people seeking employment, calls for an intensification of efforts to abolish or restrict as far as possible prounion and minimum-wage legislation. This is necessary in order to make it possible for the larger number of job seekers to find employment.

Elimination of Public Welfare

The public-welfare system, including food stamps and rent subsidies, could be substantially eliminated within a few years. What would need to be done is to begin reducing welfare payments for able-bodied adults and for minors above the age of fourteen by, say, 10 percent per year across the board, until those payments fell substantially below the wages of the lowest-paid workers. Aid to dependent children below the age of fourteen could be gradually abolished by a law declaring children born more than one year after its enactment to be ineligible for receipt of such aid. Henceforth, dependent children of welfare recipients would have to be supported out of the welfare payments of their parents, which would be steadily reduced. Thus within a few years, welfare for able-bodied adults would cease to be economically significant, because all such adults would be confronted with a situation in which they would be substantially better off taking even the lowest-paid jobs. Within fifteen years, aid to dependent children would cease entirely, whereupon the whole welfare program would be without economic significance.

As previously noted, at the same time that welfare benefits were being reduced, legislation limiting employment opportunities would also have to be abolished or at least progressively restricted, such as the minimum-wage laws and prounion legislation. In addition, restrictions on the employment of teenage juveniles would have to be eliminated in conformity with the immediate reductions in welfare allowances to teenage children. The abolition of these restrictions on employment opportunities are necessary to provide people presently receiving welfare benefits with a realistic alternative of living by working. Finally, the reduction in government expenditures for welfare could be earmarked for increasing the personal exemption from the income tax of people who are gainfully employed. This would further increase the economic advantages of working over being on welfare.

My reason for suggesting the gradual reduction in welfare benefits rather than their immediate or very rapid total elimination, is to allow time for large concentrations of people on welfare, such as in Harlem in New York City, to move to areas that offer better prospects for employment; and, at the same time, for new industry to move into areas such as Harlem, in response to the existence of large numbers of people willing to work for low wages. The gradual reduction in welfare benefits would also allow time for private charitable efforts to develop to deal with the cases of individual suffering not caused by the fault of the individuals themselves.

Once public welfare benefits were reduced to a level substantially below the wages of the lowest-paid workers, the problem, as I have said, would cease to have much economic significance. Almost everyone would be working who was able to work. The system could then be reduced further by totally denying benefits to any able-bodied person, or to anyone suffering as the result of his own irresponsibility, such as drug addicts and alcoholics. After some years, once the government had ceased to be regarded as offering anything but the most minimal relief from want, and private charity had been reestablished in the public’s eyes as the place to which the indigent must turn, the remaining public welfare system could probably be totally abolished, practically without being missed.

A vital aspect of the campaign for the abolition of the welfare system must be the conversion of intellectual opinion among the groups most affected. They must understand that the system’s demise is indispensable to the genuine assimilation of all groups into American society and essential to the opportunities of every person now on the welfare roles who would like to make something of his life, and to the opportunities available to his children.

* * *

When I first wrote the above discussion of the elimination of the welfare system, I believed that the element of gradualism was necessary not only for the reasons stated but also if efforts to eliminate the system were to have any hope of gaining significant public support. On this score, it appears that I may have been wrong. For example, the state of Wisconsin now intends to remove people from the welfare rolls after two years if they turn down a job or job training, and Governor Weld of Massachusetts wants to compel welfare recipients to find work within sixty days or else lose their cash benefits or take state-provided community-service jobs. It remains to be seen whether such policies, which apparently give no thought to the need to abolish the obstacles presently standing in the way of employment, can not only be enacted but also be maintained in the face of the serious hardships that are likely to accompany them.

Elimination of Public Hospitals

Public hospitals and public clinics could also gradually be abolished. Their operation and the ownership of their assets could be turned over to recognized private charities, which would temporarily receive public funds to finance their operation. But the appropriation of public funds for such purposes would steadily fall, again, say, at a rate of 10 percent per year. These charity hospitals and clinics would be empowered to charge fees to their patients, at their discretion, to help compensate for the loss of government funds. It should be expected that the elimination of government control would be accompanied by major reductions in the costs of operating these hospitals and clinics. Medicaid could be phased out in step with the reduction in the public funds turned over to the now private charity hospitals and charity clinics. (Obviously, it would be extremely desirable if this process were accompanied by the most rapid possible liberalization of the licensing requirements for entry into the medical profession and for the ownership and operation of hospitals and clinics.)

Firing Government Employees and Ending Subsidies to Business

I believe that it is possible to fire government employees and abolish government subsidies to business with the support of the groups concerned. This can be accomplished by making the termination of employment or loss of subsidy to the immediate financial self-interest of the parties. What could be done is to offer very generous severance terms, in the form of the continued payment of the salary or subsidy for a limited time, during which the parties would be fully free to change over to any alternative private, unsubsidized activity they wished.

Thus, for example, a government employee presently receiving a salary of, say, $30,000 a year and whose job deserves to be eliminated might continue to receive that salary for a full year, while being free to do anything he wished in the way of private economic activity. He would be in a position to take a substantially lower-paying job in private industry and use his severance pay to tide him over until he had gained sufficient work experience to increase his earnings to a level comparable to what they had been before. Or he could go to school and in that way very comfortably learn the skills necessary to earn an income in private industry comparable to what he had earned as a government employee.

In comparison with the present situation, such an arrangement would be very much in the self-interest of the general, taxpaying public. The financial burden of the taxpayers would certainly be no greater than it is now, and it would, of course, be reduced as soon as the severance pay of the government employees came to an end. Moreover, to the extent that the government employees are presently engaged in carrying out policies of destructive interference in the lives of the citizens, the public would enjoy the immediate gain of the end of some part of such interference. It is a comparatively minor evil to pay a simple dead weight subsidy to former government employees now engaged in other activities, when the alternative is to continue to support them as destroyers. Of course, in order to prevent anyone from taking unjust advantage of such a plan, government employees who received its benefits, should thereafter be barred from government employment (other than elective office) for a protracted period of time, perhaps for life–unless they refunded the extraordinary severance pay they had received.

To the extent that the former government employees turned to seek jobs in private industry, their competition would cause the money wage rates of the average worker there to drop. This would be the case both insofar as they entered the labor market prior to the reduction in government payrolls and in taxes and insofar as, when it came, the reduction in government payrolls constituted a drop in the aggregate demand for labor. (This last would be the result to the extent that taxpayers spent the funds they no longer paid in taxes to meet government payrolls, in buying goods rather than in paying wages.) A tendency toward a drop in wage rates would, of course, also be present as the result of the phasing out of the welfare system and of social security, inasmuch as both would bring about an increase in the supply of labor relative to the demand for labor.

As the readers of this book should know by now, the effect in all these cases would be benevolent. For the necessary fall in wage rates would be accompanied by reductions in prices that would be still greater. This is because the employment of more workers means more production and thus lower prices caused by more supply, as well as the saving of taxes to support the unemployed or unproductively employed. The fall in prices relative to wage rates, moreover, would be a continuing one, because the effect of reduced government spending, reduced taxation, and reduced government interference in general is increased capital accumulation and thus a rising productivity of labor. Capital accumulation and the rise in the productivity of labor would be the result both of a greater relative production of capital goods and a higher productivity of capital goods. The greater relative production of capital goods would be made possible by reduced government spending and lower taxes and thus more saving and productive expenditure relative to consumption expenditure. The higher productivity of capital goods would be the result both of lower taxes and thus greater incentives to use capital goods efficiently, and of reduced government interference of other types that stands in the way of the efficient use of capital goods.

It follows, and deserves to be stressed, that the long-run effect of firing unnecessary government employees is to progressively increase the economic well-being of those employees, along with that of everyone else, and that this is true even in the absence of any severance pay. The former government employees also benefit from the additional capital accumulation and rising productivity of labor and real wages that are made possible. They too benefit from the fact that more people now contribute to production instead of having to be supported out of the production of others, and that production is no longer held down by their activities.

Essentially the same conclusion applies to welfare recipients. In the long run, they too would be economically better off living as self-supporting wage earners in a progressing economy than as welfare recipients. Their gain would come not only from the economic progress or more rapid economic progress that abolition of the welfare system would greatly contribute to, but also, and in many cases even more importantly, from having at long last to develop and actualize their innate human potential, which the welfare system has permitted them to avoid doing. Being compelled at last to work in order to live, many of them would accept that necessity and strive to do better at it, whereas at present they need strive for nothing and thus develop into nothing.

There is absolutely no kind of magic or “free lunch” assumed here. The source of the universal gains is an increase in production. Every individual’s removal from an unproductive or destructive position in government employment or on the welfare rolls, to a positive, productive position in private employment, adds to the total of what is produced and contributes to the further increase in the total of what is produced, through making possible additional capital accumulation. It is because of this increase in total production that everyone is in a position to gain, with no one having to lose. It should actually be no more surprising that former government employees end up being economically better off without their government jobs than that blacksmiths and horse breeders end up being better off without their former jobs–and that they do so, even if they must settle for a relatively lower position on the economic scale. Indeed, it should be less surprising when one considers that the nature of so many government workers’ jobs is precisely the stifling of innovation and improvement and that the loss of such jobs means precisely the opening of the way to progress and improvement. By the same token, the gain of former welfare recipients from the abolition of welfare should be no more surprising than the gain of someone needlessly confined to a hospital from his discharge and emergence into the world of life and action.

Every serious advocate of capitalism has always been able to understand such facts in connection with the so-called long run. The proposal I have made about generous severance pay for government employees makes it possible for a harmony of material self-interests to exist even in the very short run.

* * *

The principle of generous severance terms could be applied to the elimination of government subsidies to business, in the following way. As compensation for the abolition of a subsidy, the government would continue the payment of funds for a number of years equal to the profits and depreciation allowances that the subsidized enterprises would have earned had the subsidies been continued. Its payments could also cover the interest and other such contractual obligations the firms may be obliged to pay as the result of having reasonably entered into such arrangements in connection with the production of the subsidized item. Severance allowances would also probably have to be given for a time to the employees of those enterprises, equal to their wages or to a major portion of them. In addition, it would probably be necessary to some extent to provide such payments to the firms producing equipment or other supplies for the subsidized enterprises, and to their employees. For example, as compensation for the elimination of farm subsidies, not only farmers and their employees would have to receive severance allowances, but also the farm equipment industry and its employees. The total of the severance allowances in any given year, however, would not exceed what the government presently spends in buying the products concerned. The payments at each stage of production would not apply to the sales revenues received at that stage, but only to the much smaller figure of the net income earned by the various parties, plus depreciation allowances.

In this way, I believe that the businesses that are presently recipients of government subsidies, together with their employees and suppliers, could be given a powerful short-run interest in the abolition of their subsidies. They could be placed in a position in which the severance allowances they received would make the transition to producing for the free market virtually painless, indeed, even positively rewarding insofar as those allowances plus immediate earnings in the free market exceeded the income previously derived from the government.

Escaping from Rent Control with the Support of Tenants

The rental housing market, having suffered in places such as New York City from two full generations of rent control, and with no end to rent controls in sight, has devised a method of escaping from the destructive effects of rent controls, and of doing so with the support of the tenants involved. The method rests on the recognition by landlords that in point of fact the tenants have acquired a kind of squatter’s rights to the apartments they occupy, “rights” which have acquired long-standing legal sanction that almost certainly will continue to be upheld by the government. Based on this recognition, the method of escape adopted by growing numbers of landlords is that of allowing the tenants to reap a substantial share of the financial gains resulting from an apartment house becoming converted to condominium or cooperative housing. This is the meaning of the fact that landlords offer their existing tenants substantially below-market “insider prices” on the purchase of the apartments they occupy, on condition that the tenants agree to the building’s change from that of rental housing to condominium or cooperative status. The tenants are then free to turn around and sell their units or rights to their units for a substantial gain, which, of course, is what wins their cooperation.

This is a very sad situation insofar as it represents the fact that to an important extent a group of nonowners has managed to acquire the status and rights of property owners by means of a government-sanctioned–indeed, government-led–violent appropriation. It is the closest the United States has thus far come to a situation comparable to that of a successful feudal invasion, in which an earlier group of property owners is forcibly dispossessed by a subsequent group of property owners. Nevertheless, it is better that property rights of the appropriators finally be recognized than that property should remain indefinitely in a condition in which no one has the power to use it well. Under rent control, tenants can stay on as long as they like, and consume the capital invested in the buildings in which they live. They are succeeded by other such tenants. The result is simply the destruction of the stock of housing, inasmuch as the rent controls deprive the landlords of the incentive and, indeed, the ability, to maintain their housing. Compared with this alternative, the conversion of rental housing to a different status, free of rent controls, at least makes possible the maintenance of the stock of housing and its possible increase.

Apart from once and for all abolishing existing rent controls–however unlikely the prospect may be in many places at present–the contribution that the government could make to the process of the market’s freeing itself from rent controls would be constitutionally to guarantee that once any property managed to escape from rent controls, it would never again, under any pretext, be subjected to them. This would eventually operate to reestablish an extensive market in rental housing. Such a market, of course, is vital for all those who cannot afford to buy their housing.

Copyright 1996 George Reisman. All rights reserved. The encyclopedic Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics is a required reference for every Capitalist’s library. Reisman’s treatise is now available in two volumes: Volume I (focuses on microeconomic issues) and Volume II (focuses on macroeconomic issues).

Articles in this Series

Toward the Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 1 of 10)
Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)
The Freedom of Production and Trade Under Capitalism (Part 3 of 10)
Capitalism and the Abolition of the Welfare State (Part 4 of 10)
Abolition of Income and Inheritance Taxes Under Capitalism (Part 5 of 10)
Establishment of Gold as Money (Part 6 of 10)
A Pro-Capitalist Foreign Policy (Part 7 of 10)
Separation of State from Education, Science, and Religion (Part 8 of 10)
A General Campaign at the Local Level for Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 9 of 10)
The Outlook for the Future of Capitalism (Part 10 of 10)

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GEORGE REISMAN

George Reisman, Ph.D., is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics and the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. See his Amazon.com author’s page for additional titles by him. Visit his website capitalism.net and his blog atGeorgeReismansBlog.blogspot.com. Watch his YouTube videos and follow @GGReisman on Twitter.

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It Takes Gullibility (or Worse) to Be a Leftist

Posted on April 24, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Over the years, I’ve discovered the distinguishing feature of leftists is not irrationality, ignorance or badness, although those qualities are often present. The distinguishing, most widespread feature of leftists is gullibility.

It makes sense.

It takes epic levels of gullibility to believe that you can entrust the least morally and intellectually capable members of society (politicians) with unwarranted power and earned money to reshape human beings not just into what they cannot be, but should never be.

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50 Learning and Development Quotes

Posted on April 20, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

50 learning and development quotes to motivate and inspire

This collection of learning and development quotes serves as a reminder of the meaning and purpose behind this important work.

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As organizations look toward learning and development leaders more than ever to help upskill workers, improve retention, navigate major transitions, and gain a competitive edge, it’s all too easy to get burned out. But it’s important to not forget the powerful, personal and professional impact of this work.

This collection of learning and development quotes from influential business leaders, former presidents, philosophers, and others can serve as a reminder of the meaning and purpose behind all we do.

Learning and development quotes from historical figures

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X, civil rights activist.
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India’s nonviolent independence movement.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin, inventor and statesman.
“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” — Aristotle, philosopher.
“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.” — Galileo Galilei, astronomer, physicist, and engineer.
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” — Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist.
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher and philologist.
“Learn as if you were not reaching your goal and as though you were scared of missing it.” — Confucius, philosopher and politician.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States.
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” — Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States.
“Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or could not learn.” — Sir Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister.
“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” — Abigail Adams, second First Lady of the United States.

Learning and development quotes from authors

“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.” — Frank Herbert, author.
“Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.” — Mark Twain, author.
“Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” — Isaac Asimov, author.
“If knowledge is a power, then learning is a superpower.” — Jim Kwik, author and podcaster.
“Research shows that you begin learning in the womb and go right on learning until the moment you pass on. Your brain has a capacity for learning that is virtually limitless, which makes every human a potential genius.” — Michael J. Gelb, management consultant and author.
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” — Peter Drucker, management consultant and author.
“Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.” — Warren Bennis, author and leadership scholar.
“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” — E.M. Forster, author.

“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” — Doris Lessing, novelist.
“Every enterprise is a learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels—training and development that never stops.” — Peter Drucker, management consultant and author.

Learning and development quotes from scholars

“You can’t teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.” — Seymour Papert, mathematician and educator.
“Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” — Will Durant, historian and philosopher.
“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily.” — Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist and academic.
“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.” — Mortimer Adler, philosopher and educator.
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” — Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist.
“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti, philosopher, speaker, and writer.
“Learning can emerge as spontaneous order at the edge of chaos.” — Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology.

Learning and development quotes from business leaders

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” — Richard Branson, entrepreneur and business magnate.
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.” — Jack Welch, former CEO of GE.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” — Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.
“The important thing is not your process. The important thing is your process for improving your process.” — Henrik Kniberg, co-founder of Hups.

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Learning and development quotes from motivational speakers

“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.” — Zig Ziglar, author and motivational speaker.
“Change is the end result of all true learning.” — Leo Buscaglia, author and motivational speaker.

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” ― William Arthur Ward, consultant and motivational speaker.
“Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.” — Brian Tracy, motivational speaker.

Learning and development quotes from artists

“Learning never exhausts the mind.” — Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, and architect.
“I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor.
“Genius is eternal patience.” — Michelangelo, painter and sculptor.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss, cartoonist and author.

Learning and development quotes from poets

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet and playwright.
“Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire.” — W.B. Yeats, poet and politician.
“When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” — Maya Angelou, poet and civil rights activist.
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” — Robert Frost, poet.

Learning and development quotes from entertainers

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” — Bruce Lee, actor and martial artist.
“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” ― Phil Collins, musician.
“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” — B.B. King, blues musician.
“He who laughs most, learns best.” — John Cleese, actor and producer.
“One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.” — Earl Nightingale, radio speaker and author.

Final thoughts

These training and development quotes can be used to inspire L&D teams, but also learners themselves. Consider ending team meetings with an encouraging quote, or include one in an e-blast about upcoming learning programs. Sometimes, motivating learners can be as easy as quoting a famous musician or author.

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The American Public School System is a Mess

Posted on April 20, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Think twice about this.

The American public school system is a mess. Our students, on average, rank way down the list as compared to students from other economically advanced countries. While results differ amongst surveys, the sad pattern is clear: as a country, America ranks low on every international survey (Bendix, 2018).

Public schools are state monopolies, and, as with all monopolies, the teachers’ unions are concerned heavily with self-aggrandizement: more pay, more power, and less focus on the basics, such as reading and writing, than on the latest trends and fads. Schools even decide which fiction books to approve, some of which parents do not approve of. They fight about sex education.

Competent, heroic, public school teachers do exist, but merit pay is hard to come by. Beyond that, unions consistently oppose charter schools because they do not want competition from less unionized or non-unionized schools.

So, what could we do? Here are some ideas.

Forbid all attempts by unions to continue blocking (honestly run) charter schools.
Support opportunities for parents to choose alternative or non-public educational opportunities. This could include calculating the taxpayer dollars that would go to a child’s public-school education and, instead, letting all parents use this money to spend on education as they choose. This would, of course, require some oversight to protect against fraud and parents misusing the money.

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled in Carson v. Makin that religious school kids have the same right to aid as public school kids. One could make the argument that this is a poor idea because of the importance of separating church and state. But one might reasonably argue in response that if by law the state is going to support education through taxation, every child should get the same amount of government aid.

Make more use of computer programs for teaching specific lessons.
Fire any teacher who tries to use the whole word method rather than phonics to teach reading. (The research on this universally favors the latter; the whole word method fosters illiteracy and would represent educational malpractice.)
Adopt the Montessori Method in every school up through sixth grade. I have studied this method for years, and this is the best educational system that I know of. The Montessori Method focuses on the basics, and not on political propagandizing. (I recommend two excellent books by Charlotte Cushman: Montessori: Why it Matters for Your Child’s Success and Happiness and Effective Discipline the Montessori Way.)
Encourage parents to push their children relentlessly to get educated, which includes completing all homework, as well as reading and learning with their parents’ help and on their own. This will determine the types of schools they can attend later, the careers they can pursue, their future income, and even the type of people they will meet.

An important added benefit of these recommendations would be to give parents more choice. Many are justifiably outraged by what they consider to be arbitrary choices of school boards about curriculum (e.g., creating White guilt about slavery—which is not the same as teaching about the history of slavery, which is legitimate—in five-year-olds. Pushing a particular view of sexuality long before young children can understand what is going on, teaching that morality is subjective, selecting books that the school boards like and rejecting those books that parents like). Propagandizing is often done at the expense of teaching core subjects, such as reading, writing, and math, which are essential for thriving in life and represent the areas in which American schools are failing.

This is not to say that parents are always good role models for their children. Sadly, many of them need a good education themselves. Parents may not always pick suitable books for their children (no matter what the topic) but the state has no right to overrule them. Reference books should be written so that the author honestly identifies the theme of the book. More importantly, parents should educate themselves and be encouraged to take their children to the local library every week or more and read to them every night when they are young. Education is too important to be left just to teachers.

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EDWIN A LOCKE

Edwin A. Locke is Dean’s Professor of Leadership and Motivation Emeritus at the R.H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial & Organizational Behavior, and the Academy of Management. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (Society for I/O Psychology), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Management (OB Division), the J. M. Cattell Award (APS) and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Academy of Management. He, with Gary Latham, has spent over 50 years developing Goal Setting Theory, ranked No. 1 in importance among 73 management theories. He has published over 320 chapters, articles, reviews and notes, and has authored or edited 13 books including (w. Kenner) The Selfish Path to Romance, (w. Latham) New Directions in Goal Setting and Task Performance, and The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators. He is internationally known for his research on motivation, job satisfaction, leadership, and other topics. His website is: EdwinLocke.com

America is a Land of Systemic Justice

Posted on April 19, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

The best available evidence suggests that, in terms racial demographics, cops are arresting those who actually commit the crimes.

Abraham Lincoln described America as a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Today’s Left portrays America as a nation conceived in slavery, and dedicated to the perpetuation of racial oppression. When CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell asked Joe Biden in the summer of 2020, “Do you believe there is ‘systemic racism’ in law enforcement,” Biden answered, “Absolutely. But it’s not just in law enforcement. It’s across the board. It’s in housing. It’s in education. It’s in everything we do.”

Such assertions of “systemic racism,” both in our police forces and in America writ large, are the topic of the latest issue of the American Main Street Initiative’s Quick Hits: “Are Cops ‘Systemically Racist’—and Is America?” Quick Hits are readable four-pagers, chock-full of key information on important issues of the day.

During the same summer Biden told America that its cops and its broader society are systemically racist, the Bureau of Justice Statistics—the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Justice—undertook a meticulous examination of the demographics of those who commit crimes and those who are arrested for crimes. I was the director of BJS at the time, and this inquiry was led by Allen J. Beck, Ph.D., who was the top-ranked statistician at the bureau and had begun his tenure there during the Reagan Administration. Our aim was to see whether police disproportionately arrest alleged offenders of one racial group or another—that is, whether police appear to be biased against, or in favor of, any particular race.

The results of this inquiry were released in mid-January 2021 and are discussed in the newly released Quick Hits. BJS compared victims’ accounts of who committed crimes against them (rather than relying upon cops’ own reporting) with the arrest records of police. For serious nonfatal violent crimes reported to police, BJS found following:

White people accounted for 41 percent of offenders and 39 percent of arrestees;
Black people accounted for 43 percent of offenders and 36 percent of arrestees;
Asians accounted for 2.5 percent of offenders and 1.5 percent of arrestees.

None of these differences between the percentage of offenders and the percentage of arrestees of a given race were statistically significant. (The findings are limited to nonfatal crimes for the simple reason that murder victims are unable to identify their assailants.)

In other words, the best available evidence suggests that, in terms racial demographics, cops are arresting those who actually commit the crimes. As the Quick Hits says, “Far from providing evidence of ‘systemic racism,’ such statistics provide evidence of systemic justice.”

The latest Quick Hits also highlights other illuminating statistics. For example, according to victims’ own accounts, a whopping 70 percent of violent incidents involving black victims also involved black perpetrators. BJS writes, “Among black victims, the percentage of violent incidents perceived to be committed by black offenders (70%) was 5.8 times higher than the representation of black persons in the population (12%).”

Despite such high rates of intraracial violent crime committed against black residents, however, black Americans on the whole are victimized by violent crime at rates similar to other Americans. To quote Quick Hits, “The reason for this is that there are comparatively few violent crimes committed by white (or Hispanic) residents against black residents.” Indeed, violent incidents involving black offenders and white victims were 5.3 times as likely as those involving white offenders and black victims—a huge disparity.

Again, all of these statistics are according to victims.

“Our history shows that America is a nation conceived in liberty, which fought for and won the freedom of the English colonists and later of the slaves,” the new Quick Hits concludes. “And while today’s race-obsessed Left seeks to re-instill a divisive race-consciousness, the evidence indicates that the actions of our police forces are consistent both with the hard-won colorblind ideal and with our founders’ dedication to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Jeffrey Anderson

The Freedom of Production and Trade under Capitalism (Part 3 of 10

Posted on April 18, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

TRADE

The Freedom of Production and Trade Under Capitalism (Part 3 of 10)

BY GEORGE REISMAN | APR 14, 2023

The establishment of the freedom of production and trade implies the abolition of all government interference with production and trade. It implies, for example, the abolition of all labor legislation, licensing laws, the antitrust laws, and zoning laws. It implies the abolition of virtually all of the alphabet agencies. It also implies the freedom of international trade and migration.

An important principle that I think we should adopt in fighting for the freedom of production and trade is to show how its establishment would enable individuals to solve their own economic problems. For example, there are few more serious economic problems than mass unemployment. As we have seen, this problem is the result of the government restricting the freedom of individuals to offer and accept the lower wage rates that would make full employment possible. The restrictions are in the form of minimum-wage laws, prounion legislation, unemployment insurance, and welfare legislation. Abolishing such legislation and establishing the freedom of production and trade should be presented as the solution to this problem–as a solution that would enable the voluntary, self-interested actions of individuals to establish the terms on which everyone seeking employment could find it.

In the same vein, we must take the initiative in calling for a widening of economic freedom as the solution to the problems the United States is encountering in international trade. We must show that the inability of major American industries to compete with foreign goods is the result of government intervention, and that the remedy is not the imposition of further intervention, in the form of tariffs or quotas, but the repeal of existing intervention. For example, prounion legislation causes artificially high wage rates and holds down the productivity of labor, thereby causing an artificially high level of costs for American manufacturers. The tax system and inflation have prevented the introduction of more efficient machinery, and thus have also contributed to the artificially high costs of American manufacturers, as have numerous government regulations. Such intervention should be the target of campaigns for repeal. Obviously, this would be a fertile area for the writing of books and monographs demonstrating the general principle in terms of the specific conditions of individual industries.

Similarly, the freedom of production and trade should be presented as the means of sharply reducing the cost of housing, thus making it possible for many more people to afford decent housing. The abolition of prounion legislation, building codes, zoning laws, and government agencies that withdraw land from development (such as the California Coastal Commission) would all serve to reduce the cost of housing, as would the abolition of property taxes that support improper government activities. (As should be clear from previous discussion in Chapter 10, all of these points, of course, apply to the solution of the problem of homelessness, which is greatly exacerbated by the imposition of government requirements concerning minimum housing standards.)

The freedom of production and trade should also be explained as the means of sharply reducing the cost of medical care. As explained in Chapter 10, under present conditions the government restricts the supply of doctors and the number of hospitals through licensing. Its solution for the consequent inability of many people to afford medical care is then to pour more and more public money into subsidizing their medical bills. The effect of the government’s spending programs is to bid the price of medical care ever higher, progressively substituting new, ever higher income victims for previous victims just below them who are added to the subsidy rolls–and, of course, to reduce the quality of medical care for all groups. The obvious real solution is to end government interference in medical care and thus to make possible the largest and most rapidly improving supply of medical care that free and motivated providers can offer.

In sum, our theme must be the opposite of the one people are accustomed to. Instead of it being what new programs the government must undertake to solve this or that problem, it must be what existing government programs and activities must be stopped, in order to allow individuals to be able to act in their own self-interest. Instead of the question being “What can the government do?,” we must explain what it must stop doing that it now does, and that has caused the problem complained of.

We need to show how abolition of the antitrust laws would mean more competition, greater efficiency, and lower prices; how abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency would mean more efficient production and thus a greater ability of man to improve the external material conditions of his life, i.e., his personal environment; how abolition of the Food and Drug Administration would mean the introduction of more life-saving drugs; how abolition of medicare and medicaid, the National Institutes of Health, and all other government interference with medicine would lower the cost and improve the quality of medical care.

While fighting against all existing violations of the freedom of production and trade, a further important principle to seek to establish is the exemption of all new industries from violations of the freedom of production and trade. This, in fact, was one of the principal methods by which economic freedom was established historically in England: the significance of the restrictions imposed by the medieval guilds was steadily reduced by the exemption of new industries from those restrictions.

Appropriate Compromises

It should be realized that if the immediate, total abolition of a given policy of government intervention cannot obtain sufficient support to be carried out, it is proper to work for programs of partial liberalization as temporary compromises–provided it is done explicitly and openly, in the name of the right principles, and no secret is made of our ultimate goals, which one is always prepared to defend and whose achievement serves as the standard and purpose of any temporary compromises.

Thus, for example, while openly advocating the full freedom of the housing industry, including the ultimate abolition of all building codes, one might participate in, or even launch, a campaign for a much more limited objective. Such an objective might be that the government be required to reduce the financial impact of meeting code requirements by an average of, say, X thousand dollars per house, and that it be guided by the advice of private insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and construction contractors in deciding which code requirements to modify or abolish in order to achieve this goal. Such a step would be helpful in reducing the cost of housing. A campaign for it, properly conducted, would help to make people aware that it was government intervention that was responsible for the high cost of housing and high costs in general. If carried out under the terms mentioned, a major value even of campaigns to accomplish such limited objectives would be that government intervention, not private business, would be made the target of restriction. Government force, rather than the profit motive of business, would come to be established in the public’s mind as the evil that must be controlled and progressively rolled back.

Similarly, if the immediate, full freedom of medicine cannot be achieved, then, as a temporary compromise–again, presented as such and in the name of the right principles–one might work to allow merely registered nurses and licensed pharmacists to begin practicing various aspects of medicine. Such liberalization would significantly mitigate the problem at hand and, at the same time, it would promote the essential principle that more freedom is the solution to economic problems. It would thus be an important step in the right direction.

The Case for the Immediate Sweeping Abolition of All Violations of the Freedom of Production and Trade

If the public possessed the necessary philosophic and economic understanding, the ideal procedure would be the immediate and simultaneous abolition of all interferences with the freedom of production and trade. This would be both on the principle of individual rights and on the principle that pressure-group warfare is inherently self-defeating. It is self-defeating in that whatever any one pressure group gains by violations of freedom made on its behalf, is reduced by what all other pressure groups gain by violations of freedom made on their behalf, and reduced by more. For example, what the workers in the automobile industry gain in higher wages resulting from the existence of an automobile workers’ union, they lose back in higher prices that they must pay for the products not only of all the unionized industries (which by itself may be very considerable), but also for the products of all industries enjoying protective tariffs or receiving government subsidies, all of which is the result of the underlying principle of government intervention. And everyone loses by virtue of the unemployment and overall reduction in the productivity of labor that result, which simply cause less to be produced and sold in the economic system. In essence what is entailed in pressure-group warfare is mutual plunder. Under such an arrangement, not only does each victim lose an amount equal to what the predator gains, but the victims produce less, with the result that there is less to plunder. The process can be pushed to the point where virtually nothing is produced and thus very little can be plundered–much less than could be obtained by honest work in a free society. The pressure-group marauders have long since carried things to the point where the real wages of the average worker are far lower than they could be.

The simultaneous abolition of as much government interference as possible would help to diminish the losses experienced by any one such protected group when its privileges were removed, and would make possible correspondingly greater gains, both in the long run and in the short run, for everyone. Thus, for example, when the wheat farmers lost their subsidy, they would be compensated by the lower prices resulting from the abolition of others’ subsidies as well, along with lower prices resulting from the abolition of protective tariffs, labor-union coercion, and minimum-wage legislation. The substantial increase in production that would result would operate further to compensate them, through a fall in prices greater than any fall in the average of incomes that might result.

The special importance of abolishing prounion legislation at the same time as minimum-wage legislation, should be obvious. This is necessary to prevent unemployed workers from having to crowd into a comparative handful of occupations at unnecessarily low wages, by opening all occupations to the freedom of competition.

* * *

It is important to understand that acceptance of the principle of laissez faire and the willingness to fight for that principle is the only safeguard of the public against the depredations of pressure groups. Each pressure group is in a position in which the comparatively small number of its members is able to have a potentially substantial gain. This gain comes at the expense of a relatively small loss on the part of each of the enormously larger number of people who constitute the rest of society. For example, if the members of a pressure group numbering, say, one hundred thousand people are to receive a subsidy of some kind, that subsidy may provide each of the recipients with $100,000 per year in additional income, while it costs each of the far greater number of taxpayers only a small fraction of that sum. In this case, the total cost of the subsidy is $10 billion (i.e., $100,000 x 100,000). If there are a hundred million taxpayers, the cost of the subsidy to the average taxpayer is just $100 per year (i.e., $10 billion divided by 100 million). The diffuse interest of the taxpayers in saving $100 per year each cannot remotely compare in strength with that of the highly concentrated interest of the pressure-group members who stand to gain $100,000 per year each. Accordingly, the pressure-group members are willing to make substantial financial contributions and to engage in intense lobbying efforts in order to get their way. Virtually no individual taxpayer, on the other hand, has a sufficient incentive to do anything to counter such assaults on the country’s treasury.

The taxpayers can acquire an incentive to protect themselves only when they view the depredations of each pressure group as a matter of the violation of a supreme political principle–namely, that of laissez faire–a principle whose violation by any one pressure group opens the gates to its violation by scores of other pressure groups. Taxpayers who would view the matter in terms of principle would recognize that pressure group warfare already costs them many thousands of dollars per year each in higher taxes and higher prices, and that there is no limit to its potential cost short of total financial ruin. If they could be led to view matters in this light, I believe that they could then easily be organized to overcome the pressure groups. By taking on all the pressure groups at once, they would have not only a powerful individual financial incentive, but they would also be able to play up all the inherent conflicts among the various pressure groups themselves, and thus obtain substantial support from within the ranks of the pressure-group members, a growing number of whom are also more and more harmed, the more widespread becomes the system of pressure-group warfare.

* * *

An appropriate vehicle for the establishment of the freedom of production and trade, whether all at once or gradually, would be the establishment of one last regulatory-type agency: the Deregulation Agency. Its powers would supersede those of any regulatory agency, the acts of state and local legislatures, and the prior legislation of Congress. In sharpest contrast to all regulatory agencies, however, its powers would be limited to the repeal of existing regulations and laws, including the narrowing of their scope in conditions in which considerations of political expediency prevented their total repeal. It would have no power to enact any new or additional regulation.

The mandate of this agency would be to ferret out all regulations of any federal, state, or local government department or agency, and all federal, state, and local laws, that violated the freedom of production and trade. Ideally, the agency would possess the power to render any or all of them null and void. As a minimum, the enabling legislation for the agency should require it, within a fairly short period of time, such as three years, to reduce the cost of government interference in the economic system as a whole by a minimum of 50 percent. (This figure would not apply to spending for social security, welfare, and public education, which would follow the less-radical reduction schedules explained below.) Further reductions of at least 2 percent per year would be achieved thereafter, until the full freedom of production and trade was established. If, for Constitutional reasons, the agency could not be given the power to supersede federal legislation, its tasks would include the annual submission to Congress of the necessary legislative proposals for the repeal of existing federal laws.

Articles in this Series

Toward the Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 1 of 10)
Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)
The Freedom of Production and Trade Under Capitalism (Part 3 of 10)
Capitalism and the Abolition of the Welfare State (Part 4 of 10)
Abolition of Income and Inheritance Taxes Under Capitalism (Part 5 of 10)
Establishment of Gold as Money (Part 6 of 10)
A Pro-Capitalist Foreign Policy (Part 7 of 10)
Separation of State from Education, Science, and Religion (Part 8 of 10)
A General Campaign at the Local Level for Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 9 of 10)
The Outlook for the Future of Capitalism (Part 10 of 10)

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GEORGE REISMAN

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While Hamilton, who died in a duel in 1804, did indulge protectionist arguments during his stint as Secretary of the Treasury, the rebranding of Jefferson and Madison as American System enthusiasts runs directly contrary to historical evidence.

Unions Should Not Be Protected Against Suits for Deliberate Property Damage

Unions must go about their objectives of trying to organize workers without committing acts of destruction.

The Capitalist Society and a Political Program for Achieving it

Posted on April 18, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

unwillingness to acquire a sufficient combination of knowledge of political philosophy and economic theory, above all, of economic theory. Remnants of the mind-body dichotomy in their thinking prevent them from fully grasping the intellectual–indeed, the profoundly philosophical–value of a subject as “materialistic” as economics. To be successful, the advocates of capitalism must immerse themselves in the study of economic theory.

The Capitalist Society and a Political Program for Achieving It

The capitalist society we want to achieve is a society in which individual rights are consistently and scrupulously respected–in which, as Ayn Rand put it, the initiation of physical force is barred from human relationships. We want a society in which the role of government is limited to the protection of individual rights, and in which, therefore, the government uses force only in defense and retaliation against the initiation of force. We want a society in which property rights are recognized as among the foremost human rights–a society in which no one is made to suffer for his success by being sacrificed to the envy of others, a society in which all land, natural resources, and other means of production are privately owned. In such a society, the size of government would be less than a tenth of what it now is in terms of government spending. Most of the government as it now exists would be swept away: virtually all of the alphabet agencies and all of the cabinet departments with the exceptions of defense, state, justice, and treasury. All that would remain is a radically reduced executive branch, and legislative and judicial branches with radically reduced powers. To the law-abiding citizen of such a society, the government would appear essentially as a “night watchman,” dutifully and quietly going about its appointed rounds so that the citizenry could rest secure in the knowledge that their persons and property were free from aggression. Only in the lives of common criminals and foreign aggressor states would the presence of the government bulk large.

If these brief remarks can serve as a description of the capitalist society we want to achieve, let us now turn to a series of political proposals for its actual achievement. I group the proposals under seven headings: Privatization of Property, Freedom of Production and Trade, Abolition of the Welfare State, Abolition of the Income and Inheritance Taxes, Establishment of Gold as Money, Procapitalist Foreign Policy, and Separation of State from Education, Science, and Religion. Under each of these heads, I develop specific issues and programs each of which deserves to be fought for and which, in being fought for, would serve to promote the spread of our entire political-economic philosophy.

Copyright 1996 George Reisman. All rights reserved. The encyclopedic Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics is a required reference for every Capitalist’s library. Reisman’s treatise is now available in two volumes: Volume I (focuses on microeconomic issues) and Volume II (focuses on macroeconomic issues).

Hasn’t the Earth Warmed and Cooled Naturally Throughout History

Posted on April 18, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Hasn’t Earth has experienced cold periods (informally referred to as “ice ages,” or “glacials”) and warm periods (“interglacials”) on roughly 100,000-year cycles for at least the last 1 million years. The last of these ice age glaciations peaked* around 20,000 years ago. Over the course of these cycles, global average temperatures warmed or cooled anywhere from 3° to perhaps as much as 8° Celsius (5°-15° Fahrenheit). It was partly through their attempts to understand what caused and ended previous ice ages that climate scientists came to understand the dominant role that carbon dioxide plays in Earth’s climate system, and the role it is playing in current global warming.

Over at least the past million years, glacial and interglacial cycles have been triggered by variations in how much sunlight reaches the Northern Hemisphere in the summer, which are driven by small variations in the geometry of Earth’s axis and its orbit around the Sun. But these fluctuations in sunlight aren’t enough on their own to bring about full-blown ice ages and interglacials. They trigger several feedback loops that amplify the original warming or cooling. During an interglacial, sea ice and snow retreat, reducing the amount of sunlight the Earth reflects; warming increases atmospheric water vapor, which is a powerful greenhouse gas; permafrost thaws and decomposes, releasing more methane and carbon dioxide; and the ocean warms and releases dissolved carbon dioxide, which traps even more heat. These feedbacks amplify the initial warming until the Earth’s orbit goes through a phase during which the amount of Northern Hemisphere summer sunlight is minimized. Then these feedbacks operate in reverse, reinforcing the cooling trend.

*Correction. An earlier draft mistakenly said that the last of these ice ages ended about 20 thousand years ago. The glaciation phase peaked around that time. The Grindlewald Fluctuation began in 1650 and ended in the early 20th century, and so ALL of our calculations reflect warming from that period.

NDAA.gov

Clarence Thomas—the Most Persecuted Black Man in America

Posted on April 17, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Liberty Nation News

Or

The left revives its hatred.

By: Graham J NobleApril 17, 2023 – 7:30 amArticles, Opinion, Politics

| Opinion News Article

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BeyondWords

If there’s one man aside from Donald Trump who enrages the left so much that the establishment media just can’t let go of their obsession with linking him to ginned up scandals, it is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Recently, the associate justice has come under considerable fire for having, over a period of many years, accepted “personal hospitality” from his billionaire friend, Harlan Crow. This “personal hospitality” came in the form of gifts and expensive vacations that Thomas did not report. Contrary to what is being claimed by those whose only real concern is the establishment of an ideologically driven progressive Supreme Court majority, none of that was illegal. Ethics or the rule of law plays no real part in the persecution of Clarence Thomas. He represents so much of what the left despises, both as a man and as a jurist.

Is It a Game or Law?

Democrat politicians and the wider progressive movement have made a big deal out of celebrating all things black. They have now even taken to spelling the word with a capital “B.” But there are few people in America for whom they harbor more disdain than black conservatives. This mindset was demonstrated perfectly by Joe Biden himself during a 2020 interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God. The presidential candidate cut the interview short, and Charlamagne suggested they set up a second round at a later date because “we’ve got more questions.” Mr. Biden responded, “You’ve got more questions? Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

The clear implication – and it is arguably something that all progressives believe – is that blacks have a duty to vote Democrat; any who don’t should not even be considered black. Little wonder that Clarence Thomas, the second black man ever to serve on the Supreme Court and debatably the most conservative of all the nine current justices, is so intensely disliked by people on the left.

From Poverty to Pariah

Thomas was born in Pin Point, GA, in 1948. When he was two years old his father abandoned the family. When he was seven, he and his brother were sent to live with his grandfather. He later entered a seminary school as the only black student. Rising from poverty and racism to become an assistant attorney general in Missouri, chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and then a judge on the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, Thomas seemed to be exactly the kind of figure the black community would consider a role model for its youth. But even back in those days, he was universally despised by the left and already had attracted a cadre of media critics.

Anita Hill (Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images)

Clarence Thomas has served on the Supreme Court since 1991. He was appointed by then-President George H.W. Bush. Thomas was heavily criticized for his work at EEOC because he wouldn’t aggressively promote affirmative action. “I don’t believe in quotas,” he once said. “America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.” Had he been white, Thomas would have been branded by the left as a racist. The fact that he was black was hugely inconvenient.

During his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Thomas was faced with accusations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill. When Thomas was at the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, he hired Hill as a special assistant. Hill claimed Thomas began harassing her soon after she took the job. However, when Thomas went to the EEOC, Hill went with him. The alleged harassment was not physical in nature. Hill claimed Thomas repeatedly asked her out on dates and spoke with her graphically about sex. Thomas denied the accusations.

Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans subjected her to quite an ordeal and Hill, along with a lot of others, felt the committee chairman had failed to protect her from some inappropriate questioning. That chairman was none other than Sen. Joseph R. Biden.

The FBI investigated the matter and submitted its report to the committee and to the White House, which concluded that the accusations were “unfounded.” The committee sent Thomas’s nomination to the Senate floor without a recommendation after a 7-7 committee vote on whether to recommend Thomas’s confirmation. He was confirmed, anyway, by a narrow party-line vote.

Standing in Their Way

Clarence Thomas (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Arguably, this was the left’s most terrifying nightmare, a black conservative on the Supreme Court. Worse still, many years later, President Donald Trump gets the chance to nominate three more conservative justices. Since then, progressives and Democrat politicians have been desperate to regain control of the Court. Clarence Thomas is their main target.

A recent report from ProPublica on Thomas’s relationship with Harlan Crow has sent many media outlets into a frenzy. Washington’s most famous left-wing newspaper, along with NBC, MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, and more, have run with the story. By not reporting the gifts from Crow, Thomas may have taken advantage of a loophole in the reporting rule for Supreme Court justices. Something that can be considered “personal hospitality” is not reportable.

Nevertheless, Democrats are having their “we’ve got him now” moment, just as they did with Trump’s two impeachments, the special counsel investigation into his alleged links to Russia – that never existed – and, more recently, with his indictment in Manhattan. There are calls to investigate Clarence Thomas, but no one should be laboring under the illusion that this is about the law or ethics. It is only about controlling the highest court in the land. Trump is fond of saying, “They are not after me, they are after you. I’m just standing in their way.” Clarence Thomas could make the very same observation.

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Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Principle

Posted on April 17, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

POLITICS

BY GEORGE REISMAN | MAR 27, 2023

Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)

The privatization of property is the most fundamental aspect of a procapitalist political program. In addition, its discussion is well suited to illustrate strategy and tactics applicable to the pursuit of all aspects of a procapitalist political program.

Privatization would ultimately require the sale of all government-owned lands and natural resources (with such limited exceptions as the sites of military bases, police stations, and courthouses), which presently include the greater part of the territory of many of the Western states and almost all of the territory of Alaska. It would entail the sale of TVA and all other public-power facilities, the sale of Amtrak and Conrail, the post office, the public schools, universities, and hospitals, the national parks, and the public highway system. It would also entail the establishment of the airwaves as private property and of private property rights under the sea and in outer space.

Those of us who work to establish capitalism must always be aware that the privatization of all of these things is part of our ultimate goal and we must be sure that all new adherents we gain fully understand and support the whole program of privatization, as well as all the other essential aspects of our program. No secret must ever be made of the full, long-range program and its goal of complete laissez-faire capitalism.

In the present situation, I believe that the most important aspect of privatization to concentrate on is that of the federal government’s vast landholdings, in particular where oil, coal, and timber are concerned. Closely connected with this should be the urging of the extension of private ownership to undersea mining operations. These aspects would make it possible to link the campaign for privatization with an assault on the environmental movement, which has replaced socialism as the leading threat to material civilization. Such linkage would provide the opportunity to reestablish the rightful connection between capitalism, on the one side, and science, technology, economic progress, and the supreme value of human life on earth, on the other side. This connection has been concealed for many years because of socialism’s usurpation of the mantle of progressivism. Linkage of the campaign for privatization with an assault on the environmental movement would be instrumental in reestablishing capitalism in the minds of the public as the system of progress and improvement advocated by men of reason, and the opposition to capitalism as the manifestation of ignorance, fear, and superstition. A further major aspect of the linkage should be a continual hammering away at the appalling state of contemporary education and the ignorance of its graduates, including almost all of today’s politicians, government officials, and journalists. The environmentalist and socialist opposition to capitalism should be portrayed as exactly what it is–a movement to return the world to the Dark Ages and a system of feudal privilege. Privatization of education, of course, should be urged as an essential aspect of the rebirth of education.

Other, narrower campaigns for privatization that might profitably be conducted early on would be ones for the privatization of the post office, the airwaves, and the New York City subway system. Postal service and cellular-telephone channels are already private to varying degrees. In these two cases, privatization would merely be a matter of carrying forward something that already exists to an important extent.

The New York City subway system would be a good candidate for an early privatization campaign, because it should be relatively easy to explain how the establishment of private ownership would create an incentive for the subway’s management to want to attract customers and thus to improve the cleanliness, safety, and efficiency of the system. Such a campaign would represent our going on the offensive in the country’s leading bastion of collectivism and making large numbers of collectivists aware that the comfort of their daily lives depended on the acceptance of the principle of private ownership of the means of production.

Each of these individual campaigns would, of course, have to be focused on its own particular set of concretes. But if, at the same time, they were also based on the principle of the economic superiority and moral rightness of private ownership, the cumulative effect would be to tend to establish that principle as correct in the public’s mind. Thus, provided they were conducted in the name of our basic principles and used as the opportunity for explaining those principles, success in such lesser projects would help in someday putting us in a position in which we could accomplish the objective of privatization completely.

We should certainly not expect that we would quickly win any of the campaigns for privatization, even the least among them. On the contrary, for a very long time we would almost certainly lose them all, over and over again. Indeed, we should expect for some time to be written off as cranks and even ridiculed for our views. Nevertheless, if we fight every concrete issue on the basis of correct abstract, general principles, our efforts will never be wasted. We will be successful even though we fail to win our particular objective of the moment. We will be successful because we will have propounded and helped to spread our principles. As a result, we will have gained new adherents, who will have been attracted to our principles. In addition, those who waged the campaign will have become more skilled in the defense of their principles. Thus, we will have gained the basis for conducting campaigns over the same issue, and over a wide variety of other issues, on a stronger foundation in the future. We will be embarked upon a policy of progress in intellectual influence analogous to the process of capital accumulation and economic progress.

If we are successful in making continual progress in our intellectual influence, we cannot fail ultimately to possess major intellectual influence and therefore correspondingly major political influence. To achieve the most rapid possible success, our objective should be to accomplish in terms of intellectual influence the kind of rate of progress achieved economically by Japan and other contemporary East Asian countries that began in the most humble material conditions. If we could succeed in that, then even though we may begin today in the most humble conditions in terms of size and influence, within a matter of decades we would become a major intellectual force.

As part of the same point, I want to stress that a major feature of every political activity we engage in is that it must provide easy opportunities for any new supporters it attracts to become exposed to our entire philosophy. The individual campaigns, such as the ones I have just described, must not only be waged on the basis of the appropriate abstract principles, but they must also provide ready exposure to the main books and publications of our philosophy. This does not mean that handing out copies of Human Action or Atlas Shrugged is the first or most prominent thing we do in such a campaign, but it does mean that we are very interested in making every receptive individual we meet aware of the existence of these books and in getting him to read them and the rest of our essential literature.

* * *

Articles in this Series

Toward the Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 1 of 10)
Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)
The Freedom of Production and Trade Under Capitalism (Part 3 of 10)
Capitalism and the Abolition of the Welfare State (Part 4 of 10)
Abolition of Income and Inheritance Taxes Under Capitalism (Part 5 of 10)
Establishment of Gold as Money (Part 6 of 10)
A Pro-Capitalist Foreign Policy (Part 7 of 10)
Separation of State from Education, Science, and Religion (Part 8 of 10)
A General Campaign at the Local Level for Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 9 of 10)
The Outlook for the Future of Capitalism (Part 10 of 10)

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GEORGE REISMAN

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Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)

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