Timothy Birdnow

On Facebook a fellow named Obaya Gabriel asked the question "what is your take on socialism and capitalism?"

I responded:

Socialism is an artificial consturct. It involves a power or powers that dictate how wealth is to be distributed and to be used.

As a result, it is inherently immoral; it violates the Commandment against stealing, as well as coveting. It is inherently despotic, an act of theft with the threat of murder behind it.

Capitalism is just a word to describe the natural order if one is left alone. People make and produce things to trade with others for things they make and produce. Subtract government meddling from the equation and it is no different now than it was in the paleolithic. It is about mutually beneficial exchanges of goods and services. It is not a "theory" or system but what people do when left alone.

The socialists of the 19th century began touting it as a theory and it was Marx who largely coined the term as a pejorative, but that was to hide the fact that theirs is very much  a novel theory, one that has always failed in pratcice. (Both Jamestown and Plymouth - the two American colonies of Britain - experimented with primitive socialism early on and found it a huge failure.)

What we call Capitalism today is no such thing. It is rather Corporatism, and was the same socialist economic system employed by Mussolini and Hitler, where companies are at the service of the State and there is partnership between the two.

The Bolsheviks had a saying "first brown then red"; they thought the corporatist economic model of fascism was the final stepping stone to socialism. It's what led G.K. Chesterton to say "the difference between a Communist and a Capitalist is a bigger paycheck". Of course, he was talking about a Corporatist system. Both Corporatism and Socialism seek government control of the economy, just the Corporatists make a big profit off it while the Socialist Party members are the main beneficiaries of socialism. In the end they are just two peas in a pod.

Capitalism is natural, and is in fact what God intended.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:13 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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