I will try to respond in more detail to your post later, since for now I am pressed for time to show a board of "city honchos" (i.e. planning board), what are my ideas as to what to do with a piece of land I am trying to buy from their own long fingers --which makes me wonder how on earth they got hold of it in the first place. Ah politics... what else.
For now I need to respond quickly to this:
I've already seen the results of "individualism" and I can put a name and face to them. Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Michael Milken, Gary Winnick, Marc Rich, Raul Salinas de Gotari, Carlos Menem, Benazir Bhutto, Moise Sese Seko, Idi Amin, et al are the winners in the game of "individualism".
I do not believe these would be my prime examples of individualism at all... in your roster I can identify one or two politicians and some common criminals. That is a bad sign, i.e. not the best examples.
Just to pick one, Raul Salinas de Gortari is nothing more than a common criminal and a gangster with a brother in high places... DO NOT confuse milk of magnesia with magnesium -gg-
The real examples of individualism are probably unknown faces and names of entrepreneurs who have little to do with the political scene or altruistic ideals of some economics professor that while the idea sounds great on paper it is either too difficult to implement or unrealistic in their goal as it does not identify the real reason of the problem at hand.
They are industrialists and professionals with great ideas, in other words productive people... I doubt many of them would have little to do with public figures, or worse, politicians.
By individualism I mean people who gear themselves and their respective infrastructure to satisfy the needs of the many and make money in the process. In this fashion, there are no needs for fees, taxations, and other utopia (or forced) collections from those who are capable and productive to deliver services or "protection" to those who cannot pay their own way.
As unfortunate as it may sound, it is true that the survival of the fittest is a good way to become more efficient and productive.
I would be willing to listen to proposals that are reasonable in order to establish a minimum standard of existence for those less fortunate.
BUT NOT a blanket formula that in stead of providing for such standard, it becomes a blank checking account to simply provide money, programs or whatever other scheme some bored bureaucrat or politician in the need for votes can dream up.
For example... if one is to direct specific resources to "poor people" we need to be sure that these "poor people" is not going to continue to reproduce like rabbits something needs to be created where education is part of the solution.
As Ayn Rand said:
"What about the poor you ask ? Well, make sure you are not one of them".
I would rather see that money is spent on the education of children before I would consider spending a dime on grown up poor people... PARTICULARLY, when no program or policy is implemented that would control the population growth of unwanted children. Needless to say... I would start taxing the CHURCHES as for one, I do not see any reason why these leaches ought to have any brake from taxation and most importantly, because they have been part of the problem, i.e. with their idiotic policies of NO USE of contraceptive when families of 5, 7, 10 or more children already exists AND under miserable conditions...
The free enterprise system is a system that is driven by the market. Provided the profit motive exists people will come up with ideas, products, services that meet those needs.
It is an error to assume that entrepreneurs "exploit" people. Entrepreneurs exploit opportunities when they can be found (or created).
Now...
An important component of the market is the level of education and knowledge the participants of those markets may possess, if they are ignorant (or stupid), it will take little to satisfy them. If, on the other hand the participants are educated, (or are willing to learn), then the entrepreneur will have to meet higher standards in order to meet the needs.
Politicians or bureaucrats simply want to TAX (i.e. steal with license) and pass on the benefit through a system that employs the largest possible amount of people regardless of its efficiency.
By the time the supposed beneficiary of the program receives the intended benefit, a bloated infrastructure is so bloated or inefficient that it becomes either irrelevant or it is a joke.
Regardless... the politician has won since the infrastructure is now in place and all he/she needs to do is say...
The idea is still sound, we just need additional funding and.... whack... an increase of tariffs/fees/taxes/younameit in other words... they consider the productive people their slaves who upon their command and wish a new tax is imposed "just because" (i.e. because it is there, because you can be productive.
Mostly I am talking about productive people who take action with projects and ideas that truly solve problems.
I do not understand why is it that immediately when a bad guy shows up (or more likely gets caught), doing his/her ugly deed those who are in the camp of the "share the wealth --just because" camp start clamoring that such bad apples are the sole product of individualism, capitalism, entrepreneurship... etc etc etc...
For now I leave you with some thoughts by Ayn Rand... I am sure you have read this before...
And don't tell me these thoughts are any more "idealistic" since they could not be any more than the Tobin taxes of the world.... -gggg-
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"So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can not exist unless there are goods produced and men capable of producing them.
Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force.
Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is that what you consider evil?..."
Opening remarks of a speech given by
Francisco d'Anconia, Copper industrialist.
John Galt's closest friend and first
to join him in going on strike by the men of the mind.
In Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
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"America's founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more and nothing less. The rest --everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything "noble" and "just", and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history-- was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle. The first consequence was the principle of political freedom, i.e. an individual's freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by the government. The next was the implementation of political freedom: The system of Capitalism."
["A preview" Ayn Rand Letters]
*****
"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence....The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law."
~ John Galt from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, 1957
****
"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter."
~ Francisco D'Anconia from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
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"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose...the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before...Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. "
~ Francisco D'Anconia from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged,
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"Altruism does not mean mere kindness or generosity, but the sacrifice of the best among men to the worst, the sacrifice of virtues to flaws, of ability to incompetence, of progress to stagnation--and the subordinating of all life and of all values to the claims of anyone's suffering."
~ Francisco D'Anconia from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
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I must go now... |
