The Mentality of Anti-Capitalists
Ludwig von Mises (pronounced meeces) is one of the giant intellectuals for freedom along with Milton Friedman and Hayek. He explains the mentality of socialists in books such as The Mentality of Anti-Capitalists. In his book Theory and History he writes: "Similar motives prompt those who advocate socialism and interventionism for moral and religious reasons. They consider it supererogatory to examine the economic problems involved, and they try to shift the discussion of the pros and cons of the market economy from the field of economic analysis to what they call a higher sphere. They reject capitalism as an unfair system and advocate either socialism or interventionism as being in accord with their moral or religious principles. It is vile, they say, to look upon human affairs from the point of view of productivity, profits and a materialistic concern about wealth and a plentiful supply of material goods. Man ought to strive after justice, not wealth."
He says, "The only fault they find with the tenets of the Marxian socialists and the secular parties of interventionism is their commitment to atheism and secularism.... The truth is that those fighting capitalism as a system contrary to the principles of morals and religion have uncritically and lightheartedly adopted all the economic teachings of the socialists and communists."
Murray Rothbard is what is called an anarcho-capitalist. I disagree with him that there should be no government, but total laissez-faire capitalism. Even the ideal world will have government, but I agree with him on how magnificent the unfettered market place is. Ayn Rand and others explain how critics of capitalism don't see that if there was faults it was usually because capitalists go to socialist centralized power of the state to get favors and then disrupt the economy. If America had continued in the 20th century the limited government of the 19th we would be a much more productive country and much more inspirational to the world. Friedman explains that America is more socialistic than capitalistic because government takes half our income.
Rothbard says, "One of the most common charges leveled against the free market (even by many of its friends) is that it reflects and encourages unbridled 'selfish materialism.' Even if the free market -- unhampered capitalism -- best furthers man's 'material' ends, critics argue, it distracts man from higher ideals. It leads man away from spiritual or intellectual values and atrophies any spirit of altruism .... Many critics complain the free market, in casting aside inefficient entrepreneurs or in other decisions, proves itself an 'impersonal monster.' The free-market economy, they charge, is the 'rule of the jungle,' where 'survival of the fittest' is the law. Libertarians who advocate a free market are therefore called 'Social Darwinists' who wish to exterminate the weak for the benefit of the strong." Rothbard goes into a rebuttal of these accusations. I haven't time to go into all the arguments.
The essence of true human relationships is to create an environment where people are free to choose and to grow as they see fit. A world of true love is a voluntary world, not a world where people use force to make them do right. It is a world of the pen, not the sword. It is a world of persuasion, not coercion. Governments are instruments of force and should only use that force against those who initiate force. It is right, contrary to the belief of the Libertarian Party, that the U.S. used force against Hitler in WWII and against Kim Il Sung in the Korean War who initiated violence to bring their version of order to the world. But it was wrong of the U.S. government to enact laws and use force against those who drank alcohol in the 1920's. Friedman explains that the"Noble Experiment" of Prohibition only made matters worse. Libertarians are correct on their analysis of domestic policy in America. To correct what we perceive as evil, we must use persuasion. Cigarettes kill far more than cocaine, and it is wrong to ban either one. Socialist do-gooders like politicians use force to make people do what they think is right. Milton Friedman and some conservatives like Bill Buckley see that the Republican Party is wrong to advocate economic rights but not civil rights.
Ayn Rand is right when she wrote in For the New Intellectual: "The world crisis of today is a moral crisis -- and nothing less than a moral revolution can resolve it: a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American Revolution."
Rothbard writes, "It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization." The Libertarian Party rightly puts in its constitution that government should leave religion alone and specifically condemns the sick socialist practice of deprogramming. They don't write this because they necessarily love so called cults; they write it because they believe deeply in freedom.
Jim Lewis was the vice-presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 1984. In his book, Liberty Reclaimed, he teaches that America must give up its tendency to turn to government force to punish noncoercive people and groups regardless of whether they are businessmen or churches who are simply offering their services voluntarily. America, he says, must go to a "new level of tolerance for others. Our nation is made up of many diverse groups, nationalities, customs and lifestyles. For centuries the political process has been used by some groups to harass, imprison, and even murder other groups. It has been used by Catholics against Protestants, by Protestants against Catholics, by one nationality against another. It has been used to eradicate customs, languages, and beliefs. (The UC is sensitive to the Japanese domination by force of Korea for 40 years.) And as tolerance was destroyed so was freedom because the two are intimately linked together. A free society must be a tolerant society because intolerance leads to crusades which need big government."
"As crucial as tolerance is to freedom, it is still very difficult for many of us. Sometimes we watch someone get wrapped up in a religious cult and lose his individuality. We may want to grab him by the arm and drag him off somewhere until we can get him thinking straight again. But if we respect that person's right to make decisions we can only try to persuade him. Or perhaps we see a friend gorging himself on pastry and candy. We know he is gaining an incredible amount of weight. We know that it affects his heart and can ultimately kill him, but still we have no right to forcibly wire his mouth shut or lock him up while we feed him health foods. Instead, we must limit our actions to noncoercive means. Or perhaps a dear friend has started taking drugs which we feel will be destructive to him or he becomes an alcoholic. Do we have a moral right to call in the State and have him incarcerated 'for his own good?' No! All we can morally do is try to help him while respecting his right to be wrong.... This respect for the right to commit moral errors is the core of any philosophy of liberty."
Am I making myself clear? If we side with those who ban drugs, then we endanger the messiah. Because Satan will make people fear the messiah more than drugs. The messiah is looked at as a germ in Satan's world. People want to eradicate him for the good of all. They killed Jesus. God has worked for 400 years to teach people to be tolerant and learn from the mistake of killing Jesus. Tolerance can flourish only in capitalism, not socialism. That is why Father is giving billions to the Washington Times and the Republican Party and the economic libertarian, F.A. Hayek. Let's sell Mary Pride's books on anti-feminism and her homeshooling resource books at WFWP meetings instead of Boslooper. That's what Father would want if he knew what poison Boslooper wrote and what Godly things Mary Pride writes. We must help those to fight such incredibly dedicated anti-capitalists as John Kenneth Galbraith and Ralph Nader. Let's fight the good fight -- not help the enemy.
Ben Rogge in Can Capitalism Survive says, "The modern liberal is usually inconsistent in that he defends man's noneconomic freedoms, but is often indifferent to his economic freedom. The modern conservative is often inconsistent in that he defends man's economic freedom but is indifferent to his noneconomic freedoms." I love Milton Friedman. He is obviously Jewish and has the warmest smile and personality. Years ago he started me on my road to understanding the real meaning of freedom. His book Free to Choose was a best-seller. What really knocked me off my chair was his 10-part video series of the same title I watched on PBS. It is beautifully done. If it is in your library, please watch it. When I was going to college at the University of Nebraska in 1965, Father came to Lincoln and blessed holy ground. I was searching desperately for truth. If there had been an ad in the classified of the student paper saying there was a 16mm film (there were no videos then) at the library that would explain the meaning of life I would have gone to see it and accepted its teachings just as I got excited about Milton Friedman's teachings when I saw him. I have changed my life around from living a feminist lifestyle where my wife worked to God's way of life where she doesn't just because I read a book. We don't only have to witness face-to-face. We need to have books and videos and tapes in all the libraries and put an ad in every classified in every newspaper directing people to a clear Principle. In the 1970's I put Father's Day of Hope speech book in the downtown branch of the library in Lincoln, Nebraska.. This was before books were checked our electronically. In the cover was the names written of those who checked out the book. Several years later I went to see if it was still there. There must have been 20 names. One name was to a minister in a small town 100 miles away who had apparently been searching for it.
America must not become digested by this culture that hates capitalism. It must see through the illogic and misuse of idealistic words. It must discern Satan's tactic to manipulate the emotions by using words that religious people feel emotional about to trick them. For example, one person wrote that "liberation theologians" believe that "Capitalism fosters individualism, competition, materialism, and greed. Socialism offers an alternative set of values, which stress the virtues of participation, community, equality and sacrifice." This sounds good, but it is false. People should not listen to such people as the famous theologian, Paul Tillich, who said, "Any serious Christian must be a socialist." Listen to religious leaders such as Zig Ziglar and Norman Vincent Peale. Dr. Peale is the writer of one of the best-selling books of all time, The Power of Positive Thinking. He said once, "Put God to work for you and maximize your potential in our divinely ordered capitalist system." Amen. God blessed America, not with wealth, but with capitalism that unleashed the energies of the average person so they could go on to invent airplanes and come out of a log cabin and become the president to fight and end slavery.
The attack on capitalism is relentless. Most capitalists don't read a lot. They are too busy serving their customers. Socialists dominate the media, the government, and the universities. They are constantly writing and speaking their hatred of capitalists -- from your neighbor who has a pizza restaurant to the billionaire who started out with one store and now has them everywhere, called Dominos. They especially hate the billionaire because he flies in a helicopter and bought a professional sports team in Detroit. This is greed to them. He should have spent his money on the poor. Nobel prize winner Paul Samuelson teaches that Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman shows "the hollowness of a life spent in commerce." Zig Ziglar teaches the truth about selling. Socialists will see Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times as showing the alienation of the worker. Robert Heilbroner's In the Name of Profit presents stories of large corporations being cruel and irresponsible and ruled by moral cripples who have sold their souls and conscience. They are shown as cynical and callous. General Motors is seen as deliberately building unsafe school buses and a drug company that made the drug thalidomide that caused a few women to have deformed babies. The moral is that Big Business needs to be regulated.
Milton Friedman is critical of capitalists who run to Washington D.C. to get politicians to use force to prevent competition. Businessmen in cahoots with politicians throw a wrench in the invisible hand of the free market and give capitalism a bad name. In Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise the author writes,"If a detailed, factual study were made of all those instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of free enterprise and as an argument in favor of a government-controlled economy, it would be found that the actions blamed on businessmen were caused, necessitated, and made possible only by government intervention in business. The evils, popularity ascribed to big industrialists, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The villain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not free enterprise, but government controls."
One of the most influential socialists in America who has fought Milton Friedman is Michael Harrington. In one of Friedman's videos on Free to Choose we see the two of them debating for a few minutes. Harrington is ridiculous, and Friedman is the essence of heart and mind. But sadly, Harrington's view prevails on college campuses. I pray our universities will teach the second generation to not be fooled by socialists and see the lies of Harrington and not believe in him. Harrington said once, "Capitalism ... is outrageously unjust; it requires a continuing maldistribution of wealth in order to exist ... We live in the twilight of an epoch ... I am absolutely convinced that we are moving toward some kind of planned economy." Not if I can help it. Socialism is so bad that lately some long-time socialists like Heilbroner I quoted earlier are having to admit that capitalism has won. How different can you get when you compare North and South Korea. South Korea does not have a laissez-faire capitalist society, but it has far more free enterprise than North Korea, and so it is booming. The Mormon church is booming. It respects its members such as Marriott and Covey. It loves capitalism.
Ayn Rand is disgusted that business, small and big, has to apologize for existing. It is also disgusting that stay-at-home mothers have to apologize. We must teach the world to praise right values. One person wrote, "Capitalism requires not defense but celebration. Its achievement in creating high and rising living standards for the masses without sacrificing personal liberty speaks for itself. Only the deaf will not hear and the blind will not see."
"Its achievement prevails over its defects. Yet its critics continue decade after decade to be preoccupied if not obsessed with its defects. Even those who acknowledge its achievement continue to urge the alternative of socialism without reason or demonstration from world experience to suppose it could equal and surpass capitalism."
Thomas Jefferson said, "I am not a friend to a very energetic government." Government today is so "energetic" it threw the messiah in jail because he put money into a bank. Logic is the last thing socialists use. One liberal wrote an article against capitalism in a newspaper article I read once. He opposed the idea of some government official of trying to privatize a "part of the interstate highway." The writer said if businessmen ran the highways there would be "toll gates...and potholes." He says, "No, thanks. I'll get my greed and incompetence from rascals we can throw out of office every once in a while." He went on to say how big things especially have to done by big government, such as the post office and public schools. This is the prevailing view. It Satan's lie.
Walt Disney vs. Uncle Sam
I hope the UC will not get sucked into this argument of a mixed economy where there is a mixture of capitalism and socialism. The welfare state is not the third way. The ideal world needs the world to be 99% privately owned. I imagine the ideal world to be like a global Disney World -- a world where private enterprise makes sure no one gets hurt and families can always have fun. The Disney corporation has been around for a long time. They have transported millions of people year after year throughout their magic kingdoms, and no one dies or gets injured. You feel safe because you are safe. They built their transportation system privately with billions of dollars obtained voluntarily. This is capitalism. Who is in charge of the roads you drive on? Socialist centralized government monopoly. Did they get there money voluntarily? A staggering 50,000 people die horrible deaths every year for decades and millions more are injured and crippled. Do you know anybody who has been hurt or had property damaged on public roads? Who hasn't? How many people do you think would die every year if all roads were owned and managed privately by capitalists? Of course, it would be less than the grotesque number of 50,000 a year. If any business killed that many people they would be shut down, and it's owners would be imprisoned for life. Disney is big business. So what? The president of the company is a millionaire. So what? Are public roads a monopoly? Yes. And yet the passionate fear of socialists is that somehow evil capitalists like Walt Disney will rule with monopolies and hurt us. All socialist theories can be, and have been, crushed by Hayek and others, but most people just don't know about libertarian thought or just can't get it when they hear it. People hear the Principle and often can't understand it.
If I didn't fight and just went off and became a businessman and lived happily with my traditional values, the ideal world will come. Eventually, everyone will see the truth. My conscience doesn't let me do this. I'm a fanatic to help people see the wonderful truth that has set me free of ignorance. I want my kids and future descendants to live in the ideal world just as soon as possible. Nations have to change their economics so wealth can come and children can be fed. Everything I write about are laws of the universe. I have been hurt by teachings that told my wife to work, and that I did not have the final say in my home. I died inside and didn't know why. Now I feel like a man who can have big dreams and teach my boys to become no limit men. I've learned from Tocqueville what happened to me. He uses the word democracy in the next quote but substitute the word capitalism instead: "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." John Stuart Mill in On Liberty said, "A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished."
The debate between capitalists and socialists has been around for thousands of years. Plato was for socialism. And Aristotle was for private property. Aristotle criticized Plato. Aristotle said in his book, Politics, "what should be our arrangements about property: should the citizens of the perfect state have their possessions in common or not?" Aristotle says Plato is wrong and "there is always difficulty in men living together and having all human relations in common, but especially in their having common property." He explains how men love things they own: "how immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature and not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured; this, however, is not the mere love of self, but the love of self in excess, like the miser's love of money; for all, or almost all, men love money and other such objects in measure." And "For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it .... everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfil." In modern day language Milton Friedman says in Free to Choose,"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition." In the former USSR farming was collectivized and people would have starved if it wasn't for their little plots of ground that produced a tremendous amount of food as compared to the vast acres of public land. Meanwhile in America only 3% of the population are farmers and there is so much produce the social engineers in Washington D.C. pay farmers not to grow as much as they could. Aristotle explains that without having property a person cannot show kindness to others: "And further, there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends and guests or companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private property. These advantages are lost by excessive unification of the state."
Government is coersion, not persuasion
P.J. O'Rourke in Parliament of Whores writes, "The federal government of the United States of America takes away between a fifth and a quarter of all our money every year. That is eight times the Islamic zakat, the almsgiving required of believers by the Koran; it is double the tithe of the medieval church and twice the royal tribute that the prophet Samuel warned the Israelites against when they wanted to anoint a ruler."
"All tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot."
In "Why I Believe What I Believe" he writes, "When those who are against conservative policies don't have sufficient opposition arguments, they call the love of freedom selfish. Of course it is -- in the sense that breathing's selfish."
"Charity is one of the great responsibilities of freedom .... But that responsibility must proceed from the bottom up, from the individual outward, never from the top down .... You have to take care of yourself to the best of your ability to do so. Your family has to take care of you. Friends have to take care of your family. Neighbors have to take care of those friends. And a community has to take care of its neighbors. Government, with its power of coercion, red tape and inevitable unfamiliarity with the specifics of the case, is a last and desperate resort."
"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity. And no virtue in advocating it."
"When government...becomes the principal source of aid and assistance in our society, it is proof that we're jerks, since we've decided that politicians are wiser, kinder and more honest than we are and that they, not we, should control the dispensation of eleemosynary goods and services."
Some people are beginning to take a look again at why it was so much better a century ago in so many areas of life. Covey is one of those. His best-sellers are simply a rehash of Victorian culture in modern language. People are hungry for it. One of the Victorian virtues he emphasizes is the principle that if you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life.
It is a sacred duty of religious people, especially women, to help the poor as women did in the 19th century. Sisters have so much to do that they can't possibly find time to go out and make money. Women's nature is more homey and intimate and personal. There are so many hurting people in Sister's own neighborhoods.
Johnson's War on Poverty
President Johnson tried to inspire the nation with his "War on Poverty" and ended up making things much worse after wasting billions of tax payers money. Johnson lost the war on poverty because he didn't believe in grass roots. He thought he was better than the average person. He was arrogant. He demoralized the nation and our young men in the military fighting in Vietnam because he couldn't articulate why we were there. Leadership's job is to motivate people to win. To do that they have to understand the laws of success. Johnson didn't have a clue. Usually government doesn't.
The Tragedy of American Compassion
Some say a laissez-faire economy would create so much wealth that there would be no poverty. It would certainly help, but until there is a perfect world women will be needed to help the needy. A recent book that teaches we must return to the Victorian example is Marvin Olasky. In The Tragedy of American Compassion he writes that people have run out of ideas on how to help the poor. Nothing has worked. He says, "The answer is sitting on pages of old magazines and reports deep in the stacks of the Library of Congress. Americans in urban areas a century ago faced many of the problems we face today, and they came up with truly compassionate solutions." He says we must not look down our noses at the Victorians with "smug rejection or neglect of pre-twentieth century moral understandings." He says, "The good news is that the impasse can be resolved. Many lives can be saved if we recapture the vision that changed lives up to a century ago, when our concept of compassion was not so corrupt. In one sense, we have thought ourselves into this social disaster -- and we can think ourselves out of it. The key to the future, as always, is understanding the past. This book, by laying out the history, attempts to suggest a new form for the debate over poverty and a new way out of the impasse." I'm doing the same thing in this book. The Andelins are teaching Victorian virtues.
Charles Murray wrote in his preface to Olasky's book, "Why was the underclass so much smaller then, at a time when poverty was so much closer to real destitution than 'poverty' as we know it today? Within the welter of candidate explanations is Marvin Olasky's central truth: Human needs were answered by other human beings, not by bureaucracies, and the response to those needs was not compartmentalized. People didn't used to be so foolish as to think that providing food would cure anything except hunger, nor so shallow as to think that physical hunger was more important than the other hungers, nor so blind as to ignore the interaction between the way that one helps and the effects of that help on the human spirit and human behavior. The Tragedy of American Compassion is the recounting of an American history that today's Americans never learned."
Olasky writes, "When the New Deal came alone, it seemed that perfection was within our grasp if we simply used government to do more efficiently what private institutions had been doing all along. We were wrong in that belief, but we are equally wrong in thinking that because government cannot do the job, nobody can. What is required is no more complicated, and no less revolutionary, than recognizing first, that the energy and effective compassion that went into solving the problems of the needy in 1900, deployed in the context of today's national wealth, can work wonders; and secondly, that such energy and such compassion cannot be mobilized in a modern welfare state. The modern welfare state must be dismantled." What a great challenge we have before us to do that. Let's begin by having our sisters start volunteering their time to give compassion intimately and for our brothers to dismantle government welfare and abolish socialism forever.
In Marvin Olasky's Renewing American Compassion, Newt Gingrich writes in the Foreward: "Marvin Olasky unlocked for me the key of how to replace the welfare state. His earlier Tragedy of American Compassion was one of the most extraordinary books written in our generation. In it, he went back and looked at 350 years in which Americans dealt with poverty, tragedy, and addiction with much greater success than the current welfare state has done." Gingrich says Olasky "even discusses the provocative notion of completely doing away with the federal safety net."
Olasky writes, "a headline in the June 4, 1995, New York Times: 'Gingrich's Vision of Welfare Ignores Reality, Charities Say.' The story mirrored what became in 1995 the conventional way of dealing with the unconventional goal of replacing the welfare system over the next generation with one based in private, church and community involvement. Impossible ... inconceivable ... preposterous ... ignores reality. With words of that sort, ideas that could renew a nearly dead system of compassion were shunted away." Gingrich and anyone who proposes to even reduce the size of government entitlement programs is accused of being mean.
'When the Pilgrims came to the New World in 1620, they saw before them 'a hideous and desolate wilderness,' in the words of William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth colony. The colonial era of American history was a time of journeying into the wilderness and turning that wilderness into neighborhood. Good neighbors not only worked hard and cared for their families but also exercised compassion. Individuals and churches cared for widows, orphans, and others who had suffered destitution by disaster or were unable to help themselves."
"The early understanding of compassion is different from what has prevailed in recent American history, however. Most settlers read their King James Bibles, where the word 'compassion' appears forty-two times, usually as the translation of words coming from the Hebrew root rachum (womb) or the Greek root splanchnon (bowels of yearning). The linguistic connection underscores the close personal relationship that the person who offers compassion has with the recipient. Our predecessors knew that suffering with means not just sympathy but sympathy that is active and often painful, like giving birth."
"American churchgoers through the mid-nineteenth century also were taught that Biblical compassion was more the culmination of a process than an isolated noun. Repeatedly, in Judges and other books, the Bible says that only when the Israelites had repented their sins did God, as a rule, show compassion .... Our predecessors did not worship a sugar daddy god."
"This understanding of compassion as covenantal -- requiring action by both parties -- was critical in keeping the principle of suffering with from becoming esteem for suffering. The goal of all suffering was personal change. Those who refused to change did not deserve to be the beneficiaries of others' suffering. They might have to be left to themselves until their own suffering became so great that they gave up their false pride."
"The colonial understanding that compassion should be challenging, personal, and spiritual provides insight into what early American philanthropies such as the Scots' Charitable Society (established in 1684) meant when they 'opened the bowells of our compassion' to widows but ruled that 'no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein.' Sermons for several hundred years equated compassion with personal involvement that demanded firm standards of conduct among recipients of aid." Olasky goes into detail of how charitable organizations didn't just give handouts but required some effort on the part of the needy. I'll give a few examples out of the many he gives. The minister Charles Chauncey told members of the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor to restrain "the Distribution of their Charity; not being allowed to dispense it promiscuously...distinquishing properly between those needy People who are able, and those who are unable, to employ themselves in Labour."
Some people, of course, became poor through circumstances beyond their control. They received personal care, often in neighbors' homes. The emphasis on suffering with meant that orphans during colonial times normally were adopted into families." He goes into great detail mentioning many organizations and how they were sensitive to each person. Tocqueville observed this and said that "Americans 'display general compassion' through personal interaction, unlike the European pattern by which the 'state almost exclusively undertakes to supply bread to the hungry, assistance and shelter to the sick, work to the idle, and to act as the sole reliever of all kinds of misery.' This difference, Tocqueville surmised, was due in part to the presence of small communities and strong religious ideas."
"Americans understood that large-scale aid programs could not be discerning in that way and therefore intrinsically lacked compassion. An 1844 McGuffey's Reader ridiculed a 'Mr. Fantom' who had 'noble zeal for the millions' but 'little compassion for the units.'...Personal involvement became the hallmark of nineteenth-century compassion."
Olasky shows how the turning point came in the 1920s. One example he gives is a quote from a speech by a man pioneering government welfare who believed volunteers were not as good as what would be called professionals. He said that while volunteers had endeavored"to ameliorate evil social conditions, to lighten the burdens of poverty, to reduce the volume of ignorance, combat the ravages of disease and otherwise labor diligently to assuage the flood of human sorrow and wretchedness," social workers and their allies would be"social engineers" capable of creating"a divine order on earth as it is in heaven .... Simply making the earth a place that will be humanely endurable." Government: 1 Church: 0.
. One person taught that men's spirits die if they don't have property: "No one, when men have all things in common, will no longer set an example of liberality or do any liberal action; for liberality consists in the use which is made of property." He says "legislation" sounds good but it does harm: "Such legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially" when they are told all the evils that "arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause -- the wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much more quarreling among those who have all things in common, though there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property."
Plymouth Plantation -- socialism to capitalism
Capitalism produces harmony as well as bread. Socialism produces disharmony and no bread. Socialism kills the spirit and eventually kills the body if gone long enough. Starvation is a fact of life in socialism. It was the brutal fact of life at the Plymouth Plantation until Bradford decided Plato was wrong, and Aristotle was right. In his classic book, Of Plymouth Plantation, he writes how they had tried to live by the philosophy of Christian Socialism where everybody shared everything so nobody would be unequal. He writes, "So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end...This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content." He is talking about himself as the Governor and how much his life improved because there were fewer problems by giving up socialism. Bradford said people "went willingly into the field...which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."
Bradford was wise enough to change and try something new. He writes, "The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."
Adam Smith said that each person is unique, and God works through that person in a free market to provide a service society needs. It "encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may possess for that particular species of business." This decision can only be made between him and God. Socialist planners cannot possibly keep up with everyone's individuality.
Adam Smith explains that those socialist elites who would try to "direct private people" on how to spend their money with schemes of national economic plans are "dangerous." He says, "What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."
Smith hated government officials by calling each of them who interfered in the market place an "insidious and warty animal called the statesman and politician." Smith says they are also hypocrites too because it always happens that leaders who want to guide the spending habits of others -- judging everyone from capitalists to housewives as spendthrift, often themselves live in luxury at the taxpayers expense and can't balance their own budgets and spend people's hard earned money that they earned honestly, less wisely than the average person would. He writes: "It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves, always, and without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own expense does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will."
The only way for the average person to overcome the brainwashing of those who push for socialism is to clearly understand the principles of wealth and to see that capitalism and decentralization of power is spiritual. George Roche, the president of Hillsdale College, a college that teaches the free market, wrote, "A society unwilling to place its faith in the dignity and capability of free men is a society doomed to the mismanagement of 'little men playing god.' These little men of course fail completely to realize that contrast and individual difference are the foundation of all genuine creativity. A situation in which an individual is left free to dispose of his property and order his affairs as he sees fit is an ideal, both for human productivity and for human freedom. Such institutions of the private sector as private property constitute an indispensable support of personal liberty. Viewed in such a light, private property becomes truly spiritual, valued less for its material complexion than for its underlying spiritual value. The Biblical injunction, 'seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,' is a suggestion of how important are the underlying values, and how they serve as an absolute prerequisite for the creative capacities which are unleashed when our spiritual values and our emphasis upon individual freedom are in proper order. If we would be materially prosperous, let us begin by being spiritually healthy, by allowing a productive form of social organization, a truly free market and free society premised upon the dignity of the individual."
"While it is true that freedom 'works' and that it is the only system consonant with a high degree of material prosperity, it is the underlying why it works, the spiritually correct condition of individual freedom which releases those creative energies, to which we owe our primary allegiance."
To be a socialist is to be unspiritual. He says, "modern man's insistence upon collective solutions is understandable, since he has divorced himself from the spiritual values which give meaning to him as an individual personality."
If the U.S. government was like voluntary churches which had to use only persuasion to get people to send them money, how much would they get? One recent candidate for president campaigned on the theme of a 17% flat tax. If leaders were really God centered they would have taxes as totally voluntary as well as the military. No draft. No forcing anyone to give money or to fight. Do you think people voluntarily would send in 50% of their earnings to local, state and federal governments which still leaves a deficit and no payment on the debt? Would they voluntarily send in 17%? Of course not. Most people would send some money, perhaps 10%, and tell their representatives to apply that to our military, local police and courts. America would have a laissez-faire economy immediately. We must trust people so much that even though they are fallen it is best to leave them alone instead of having a few elites, who intimidate people by saying they are superior, run their lives. Making taxes voluntary would unleash creativity and wealth we could never even imagine.
I know it sounds strange that to be public and selfless, you must be private and in love with yourself as God's unique channel to serve. It doesn't make sense that if you leave people alone wealth comes. But it happens. Grass roots works miracles. What would America be like today if government hadn't taken trillions of dollars and tried to emasculate entrepreneurs? It would be so much more truthful, beautiful and good. Smith is considered the father of modern economics and the father of free enterprise. His classic book, The Wealth of Nations, was printed in 1776. God was behind it. It is interesting to me that his name is Adam. From him we get our first written classic for the economic system of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. His last name, Smith, symbolizes the average man who will prosper in a capitalist economy. The historian, Thomas Buckle, was so excited he went a little overboard, but he is right in seeing the incredible breakthrough that Smith brought. He said that Smith "discovered the laws which regulate the creation and diffusion of wealth" and his book "is certainly the most valuable contribution ever made by a single man towards establishing the principles on which government should be based .... This solitary Scotsman has, by the publication of one single work, contributed more toward the happiness of man than has been effected by the united abilities of all the statesmen and legislators of whom history has presented an authentic account."
Smith has many disciples and admirers. Milton Friedman likes to wear a tie with faces of Adam Smith on it. But many others do not like him. Years ago I was watching a televised debate between the Republican candidates for the presidency. John Anderson, a congressman, after listening to several of his competitors, blurted out in disgust that they were all advocating the teachings of Adam Smith, and these are his exact words, "who lived 200 years ago." It is intellectually bankrupt to say this. Truth is truth.
The key to understanding the debate between capitalism and socialism is to understand the word "equality." Feminists fight for the Equal Rights Amendment which would only bring an equality of misery for women. Liberals fight to be social engineers who want to be Robin Hoods which kills the goose that lays the golden egg and brings on equality of poverty for the masses. Religious socialists fight to control others with fear of excommunication and eternal punishment.
Socialism is equalilty of misery
Winston Churchill said the only equality socialism gives is the equality of "misery." He tells those in power to "Set the people free": "I do not believe in the power of the state to plan and enforce. No matter how numerous are the committees they set up or the ever-growing hordes of officials they employ or the severity of the punishments they inflict or threaten, they can't approach the high level of internal economic production achieved under free enterprise."
"Personal initiative, competitive selection, the profit motive, corrected by failure and the infinite processes of good housekeeping and personal ingenuity, these constitute the life of a free society. It is this vital creative impulse that I deeply fear the doctrines and policies of the socialist government have destroyed."
"Nothing that they can plan and order and rush around enforcing will take its place. They have broken the mainspring, and until we get a new one, the watch will not go. Set the people free -- get out of the way and let them make the best of themselves.
"I am sure that this policy of equalizing misery and organizing scarcity instead of allowing diligence, self-interest and ingenuity to produce abundance has only to be prolonged to kill this British island stone dead."
Bottom-up
President Reagan said it well in a speech: "We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity, and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down.
"Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development. The societies which have achieved the most spectacular, broad-based economic progress in the shortest period of time are not the most tightly controlled, nor necessarily the biggest in size, or the wealthiest in natural resources. No, what unites them all is their willingness to believe in the magic of the market place."
"Everyday life confirms the fundamentally human and democratic ideal that individual effort deserves economic reward. Nothing is more crushing to the spirit of working people and to the vision of development itself than the absence of reward for honest toil and legitimate risk. So let me speak plainly: we cannot have prosperity and successful development without economic freedom. Nor can we preserve our personal and political freedoms without economic freedom."
"Governments that set out to regiment their people with the stated objective of providing security and liberty have ended up losing both. Those which put freedom as the first priority also find they have also provided security and economic progress."
It is time to restore the value of power coming from the ground up as our Founding Father's knew so well. Charles Murray writes In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government that Jefferson spoke the truth in his inaugural address about limited, minimal power at the top when he said, "a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities." Murray says, "I am asking that we take more seriously the proposition that Jefferson's was a vision suitable not only for a struggling agricultural nation at the outset of the nineteenth century but also for a wealthy, postindustrial nation at the close of the twentieth."
Churchpeople, Socialism, and Capitalism
In an article in the journal Freeman Reverend Doctor John K. Williams wrote an article called "Churchpeople, Socialism, and Capitalism" saying, "In 1915 Karl Barth, one of the theological giants of the twentieth century, asserted that a 'true Christian must be a socialist.' Barth's thinking on this issue did not change: in 1951, for example, he wrote that capitalism 'not only allows, but demands in principle, that men make a mere instrument, a means to their own ends, of other men and their work..' In 1919 Paul Tillich, another revered twentieth century theologian, called upon Christians 'to enter into the socialist movement in order to pave the way for a future union of Christianity and the socialist social order'; near the end of his life, when asked by a student whether he still supported socialism, Tillich reported that he did, insisting that socialism 'is the only possible economic system from the Christian point of view.' Reinhold Niebuhr, probably the most influential Protestant theologian in the United States of America for many decades, insisted in 1931 that he espoused the revolutionary socialism of Marx rather than the reformist, evolutionary socialism of the early Christian socialists. He denounced Christians who did not regard Marxist 'class struggle' as a 'fact of history' as either naive or willfully perverse."
He goes on to defend capitalism against socialism. I find it interesting that he says capitalism can operate under authoritarian governments such as monarchies as well as democratic governments. In fact the first group of thinkers that advocated free enterprise economics also argued for monarchy: "not all people who have defended the view that market forces can allocate scarce resources so that people's wants are least inadequately met, have even defended the free society. The Physiocrats who preceded Adam Smith and who coined the motto, 'Laissez-faire, laissez-passer' ('Let things alone, let things pass') advocated absolute monarchy: such a form of government, they argued, would be consolidated and made more stable if the monarch recognized the inexorable laws which govern economic affairs, did not intervene in the market, and thereby allowed wealth to be created and his people to enjoy prosperity."
Passionate enthusiasm for capitalism
What I like about Gilder is that he is passionate about capitalism. Socialists from Marx to Michael Harrington have a burning intensity in preaching socialism. The Democratic Party often is emotional. Democrats speak out with a cry of moral outrage in denouncing capitalism. They really care about their crusade for big government. Republicans point to their opponents and call them "bleeding heart liberals." They think Bill and Hillary Clinton are only faking their emotions. They are not. Both Bill and Hillary have written books. And they mean every word of it. They are tricky like Satan and fool people, but their genuine emotion touches more hearts of the people than the Republicans. That is why they are usually in power. Capitalists appeal to reason and logic. But it seems cold to most people. We must defend capitalism not only by constantly refining and clarifying terms like "liberty," and "equality" to show how intellectually bankrupt and dangerous liberals are, but we must argue our case with feeling. We don't have to be theatrical, but we need to show genuine outrage for how socialism has hurt people. At the same time we need to be classier than socialist/feminists and show patience instead of anger at the naive insanity of those who inspire envy and teach that coercion and theft are needed to bring about 'social justice.' Those of us who fight for liberty must do so with joy and infectious enthusiasm as well as logic.
We must become salespeople for freedom and inspire mankind to join this crusade for our vision of an ideal world that is run by limited government and Libertarian economics. If we are going to be successful at proselytizing for free enterprise we need to match head and heart. Somehow we must make economics exciting. We have to show the idealism and love that exists in physical things and that business is spiritual. Countless people found that to be spiritual was to be celibate monks who baked bread in quiet and prayed for hours in a monastery away from the noisy and messy outside world. The MFT is mixture of this in which a member is isolated from being close to the outside world but yet walking around in it. The true spiritual training and the true spiritual life is Tribal Messiah and Home Church. It is thinking globally and acting locally. It is being personal and serving the customer. Father is elevating Christianity by ending monasteries. He is ending celibacy. He is teaching that everyone to be truly spiritual will have a family. There are, of course, some people not ready now for marriage and some who are ready for marriage, but not for having children. We should respect them and not push those who may never be ready for marriage on earth to marry or push those who can handle marriage but not children to have children. I know people in both categories. But it is proper for the rest of us to push ourselves to grow by getting married and having children. I strongly urge those blessed couples who want to be parents but cannot conceive for physical reasons to work round the clock to get a good income, good credit and good references so they can spend the thousands of dollars needed to adopt a child. I was listening to a Christian program recently about Josh MacDowell who has a ministry to help orphans in Russia (He sends a free packet of info. Write to him in Dallas, Texas). He says he charges one-third of what most agencies charge to place Russian children in American homes. Why doesn't our church offer this to members? There will never be enough blessed couples who will volunteer to give up a child. And besides, we should have large families.
Quality service
Father constantly tells us to be superior to the outside world. I interpret this to mean that we do better financially than the national average. And we should do it in less hours so we can devote some time to witnessing and Father's campaigns. Father wants us to be successful. He said in 1994 Father gave an example of how to do good business: "One reason our fish distribution center has been so successful is that it stays open until midnight to obtain what the customer wants. If we do not have the stock, we ask Washington to send a supply. The restaurants trust us now. The only way to secure markets is through service." This is what all the motivational and sales trainers are teaching today. Quality service. It's a competition of service, not greed that wins customers. Notice also that Father says there is only one way to make money. It is to provide service. He doesn't say it is socialism. He says it is capitalism. He is for competition. He says in the paragraph next to the one just quoted, "Do we want to be out-done by others or win the competition? Of course, we want to win. To do so, we have to work harder and with greater concentration and confidence. If outside people work eight hours, we have to work nine or ten hours." One of the premier business trainers, Brian Tracy, says that to be successful financially we must be workaholics. I would like to add that we can be much more efficient if we live as trinities and follow some of the other principles I've written about such as being debt-free.
Early Christian Socialism
The Bible briefly says that one group of Christians in the infancy of Christianity lived a socialist lifestyle. Acts 4:32 says, "Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common .... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold .... and it was distributed to each as any had need." It goes on to tell the story of a couple who lied and kept some of their property. Peter found out and asked them why they lied. They were so overcome that we read they both "immediately fell down and died." The reaction of the rest of the group to this was "great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things."
Its been two thousand years since this happened. How many Christians do you know who live like this? There are a few little communities around the world living communally and sharing everything with no one owning anything but a toothbrush.
UC members published the best anti-communist book ever written named the CAUSA Manual. It speaks strongly for free enterprise, private property and limited government:"In the past, it has appeared to many thinkers that centralized planning would do away with economic ills and be more efficient than a free-market based economy. The dismal failures of the socialist economic experiments of this century have now shown this to be false." Throughout this book I show how insane this century has been to abandon the free-market economy of the Founding Fathers and of the Victorians. They continue"Highly centralized and planned economies do not work. They thwart human nature and are wasteful of resources rather than efficient."
"Socialist systems abrogate the rights of private property, exert state controls and deny individual free choice. In doing so, they directly oppose three basic aspects of human nature: (1) the desire to better oneself, (2) creativity, and (3) the drive to achieve. Because they oppose these basic human traits, they are sure to fail." And fail they have.
They go on to say that there must be"proper balance between central coordination and individual freedom." We have to hold"fast to three basic principles: the sacred dignity of the person, the social nature of human life, and the obligation to assign social decisions to the level of authority best suited to take action."
They say that it must be local:"In the free market system, the state is strictly limited. One of the clearest limitations on the state is the principle of private property."
The genius of the Founding Fathers was to trust limited government even though they did not trust the masses. They gave up power. We can never thank them enough. Feminists hate them and in classrooms all over America teachers stand in front of class and sneer at those dead White men when they should learn from them instead of thinking they have nothing to learn from them. Madison said the object of the constitution was to"set ambition against ambition." They decentralized power. Lesser men came after them and kept increasing government until today it dominates every aspect of our life and reached its peak of regulation by throwing the Messiah in jail and letting deprogrammers free during an administration that said it was working to get"government of our back."
I agree that the focus of the UC is on the family. I think the number one focus should be not only on the family but three or four families living under the same roof and eating together. But politics is also very important and how we organize ourselves in the fallen world and in the ideal world will have a big impact on the quality of life in our families. Laissez-faire capitalism is good for fallen man and restored man. Religious people should side with libertarian economists and take the flak of being called "radical." The so-called centrist view of mixed government is really dangerous radicalism that creates an economy that makes it very difficult for families to earn money rationally and safely. It is so difficult to earn money under big government that it takes almost all of one's energy. Satan has got everyone running ragged in his socialist economies. He's taken the fun and joy and creativity out of work for most people. And he has pushed women into the workplace that creates a downward vicious cycle that feeds on itself and plunges everyone down to the pit. The only hope I see of getting people to understand true economics is get this message on video. I'm only one person. I don't have a trinity of other men. It will be years before my sons are old enough to be married and have careers and able to help me. If you are inspired by this book, please help get the message out. My goal is to condense this book into a series of videos that clearly explain the laws of the universe such as laissez-faire capitalism and expose Satan's lies of socialism. He makes bad things look so good. We have a great task before us. The greatest in human history. There is a reason to get up excited in the morning. We can save lives. But if we are alone it is easy to give up and get depressed and not run this marathon race. But we have to. The Clintons are excited about big government that Hillary calls a village so she can trick everyone (unconsciously) to create her socialist dream world. The Clintons are attractive. Satan is the ruler of this world. He is damn good at what he does. We have to be better.
The first step is to get Milton Friedman's video series into every library and advertize it world wide.
The title of this chapter is Prosperity. We can only prosper if we decentalize power. One of the best statements on this and one of my all time favorite quotes is by our old friend, G.K. Chesterton.
Drunkenness of Responsibility
G.K. Chesterton said it beautifully: "Despotism, and attempts at despotism, are a kind of disease of public spirit. They represent, as it were, the drunkenness of responsibility. It is when men begin to grow desperate in their love for the people, when they are overwhelmed with the difficulties and blunders of humanity, that they fall back upon a wild desire to manage everything themselves. Their faith in themselves is only a disillusionment with mankind. They are in that most dreadful position, dreadful alike in personal and public affairs -- the position of the man who has lost faith and not lost love. This belief that all would go right if we could only get the strings into our own hands is a fallacy almost without exception, but nobody can justly say that it is not public-spirited. The sin and sorrow of despotism is not that it does not love men, but that it loves them too much and trusts them too little. Therefore from age to age in history arise these great despotic dreamers, whether they be Royalists or Imperialists or even Socialists, who have at root this idea, that the world would into rest if it went their way and forswore altogether the right of going its own way. When a man begins to think that the grass will not grow at night unless he lies awake to watch it, he generally ends either in an asylum or on the throne of an emperor."
Prosperity Pledge
I promise to teach as many people as I can about the wonders of limited government and laissez-faire capitalism. Socialism must be fought with every ounce of our energy. This means I must be bold and courageous to stand up to those who turn to coercive government to organize mankind. That means I must have the guts to stand up in a peaceful way to those in my own country and church that now disparages libertarian economics. The ideal world will be absolutely voluntary, and I look forward to a beautiful, prosperous world where every person can fulfill their creativity in a pure free enterprise economy.
Signed ____________________________________________
Date__________________________________________
