There has never occurred a crisis for civilization when capitalism failed to function. “Capitalism” is innate, virtually instinctive among humans, and the most powerful of motivators in societies as small as one member. An individual has the same needs for life on a personal level as a family, clan, village or nation has: clothing, food, protection and shelter. At whatever level or intensity of need, humans will attempt to obtain as much as possible of any of them at the lowest “cost” of effort possible.
Once acquired these needed things automatically become property – property on a spectrum of ownership, from the very personal, like clothing, weapons, tools, personal or family shelter. Beyond the immediately personal, family property and then clan or village property, there automatically develops properties that are belief-based, like loyalty and group-safety obligation. It is a short journey to sharing beliefs about events, conditions, weather, waters, animals and childbirth… and death, that are unexplained and ascribed to supernatural influences. These beliefs are as crucial a private property as clothing and self-defense, and as durable a cultural quality as pottery styles or graphic and oral expressions of every sort. And they will be passed on to children nearly infallibly. Behavior by either children or adults that is contrary to those shared beliefs automatically produces negative sanctions.
In groups as small as two, and certainly of 3 or 4, specialties: differences in abilities, are quickly apparent. In a group of families there will be definite skills of higher degrees of excellence in this person or that – better hunting skills, better tool-making, better making of clothing, better hut-building. Someone – an elder – will gain enough knowledge to predict outcomes, or eclipses, or the arrival of herds. His or her wisdom will be sought out for transfer to children. Specialization. Economics is part of and an outgrowth of specialization. Wise men, chiefs, healers and others will be fed in exchange for their unique services. Food is an automatic medium of exchange. Next, perhaps, are weapons and tools. The hunter who unerringly leads the hunting party to the clan’s next moose or buffalo or elk, may be “gifted” with a blanket, better shoes or more food… or a wife.
Rules, mores, or customs guide the relationships within the group. Inevitably there is a shared concept of us and them: people from outside the clan. The desire to protect the clan is just as automatic. Yet the possibility of trade with outsiders may be easily entertained because of the ease of acquisition compared to the work required to obtain the outsider’s goods on their own. The values must be set. How many of this kind of skins or tools or decorations or… whatever, are “worth” the higher quality flint arrowheads the stranger makes? Before long the first group will be trapping extra beavers just to trade for arrowheads: an economy is created.
The big impact on economics, and on the establishment of capitalism as an organizing force in society, came with the introduction of agriculture. As people settled around their fields, the importance of property changed forever. Where crops “belonged” to the village, or “city,” their grains and products were not handed out to every family for free. There were trades or barters required, leading to record-keeping, counting, weights and balances. There appeared the recorded existence of debts to be repaid in the (near) future, between families and the granary (city) and even between cities: a collective capitalism (property rights) and individual capitalism (private property rights.) Automatically new specialties arose: law-enforcement within the city, and border-enforcement against all outside the city – soldiers and general conscription when fields and water sources were threatened.
Treaties were needed: rules to reduce threats from “others,” and to define ownership of certain lands and resources. There always existed nomadic peoples who refined forms of movable dwellings, like those of indigenous peoples in North America. Conflicting interaction between “property-rights” people and nomadic tribes inevitably result in destruction of nomadic uses of lands desired by those who employ fences, borders and ownership-based economic structures. Native Americans had no concept of fences and property lines, and this difference affected why they never developed cities, industries and massive growth. Today, the simplicity of indigenous people’s way of life is attractive to those who wish to tear down our current, sloppy, polluting and more or less capitalist, civilization.
Capitalism and all of its moving parts: private property, profit, risk, debt/investment, accumulation of wealth and inheritance and the freedom to fail and learn, is the prime driver of the global economy and amazing invention and innovation that supports more than 7 Billion humans. But it does all of this at great cost, not least of which is the expansion of the number of possible “sins” and multiplication of the number of temptations (frauds, scams, legal deceptions, global banking). On the other hand, and comprising the basic defense of capitalism as an organizing principle, capitalist economics and politics have spurred the greatest wealth and health in history. More people are well-fed and comforted in hundreds of ways, educated and made relatively “free” thanks to capitalism than under any of the more or less tyrannical systems employed, ever.
Capitalist politics depend on democracy and, judged by the success of the United States, upon republicanism: the democratic election of ostensibly more capable, perhaps wiser, representatives. Evidently, as well, Constitutional republicanism is crucial to the explosive growth of wealth and a “middle class” of upwardly mobile individuals and families who could, realistically, work their way higher up the economic ladder. It is worth analysis and reformation, both political and economic, to return the U. S. system to its successful ways. This means reformation of economic institutions, and of political institutions, both of which, today, conspire to concentrate power – and share it – to the detriment of freedom, upward mobility and essential Constitutionalism.
The strongest voices raised against “America,” are firmly on the left, socialist and worse. Their prescription is virtual destruction of “capitalism” and honest conservatives / constitutionalists must recognize their logic in the presence of an extremely unbalanced, oligarchy of global bankers who largely have brought the financial system to a point of dictating to even the United States, what its future will be: indebtedness to that cabal, and therefore limited as to the extent of our independent action internationally.
Capitalism requires limits and institutions that prevent its (people’s) essential tendencies toward 1) monopoly and, 2) political / governmental advantage. We can see the damages that concentrations of wealth will cause, not least of which is empowering socialism and anti-constitutionalism. But it also creates severe stratification in a society formed without “castes” or “classes.” Perhaps worst of all, super wealth transcends nationhood; when profits can be earned around the globe, the need to adhere to a single country’s norms and laws, tends to evaporate. Most particularly, the impact of market presence in the nations of our rivals / enemies, sees corporations or syndicates of corporations, bending to not offend those who mean the U. S. the most harm.
Is it possible to restore a sense of nationalism for industries key to the defense and independence of the United States? What would such a policy look like? What could possibly be the enforcing agency? Can current political hatreds and ignorance permit the formation of a national-interest industrial policy that serves the country, rather than one that serves a party?
When the two – or three – political “sides” in the U. S. don’t agree on what the national interest is, or even if there IS a national interest, it appears that a national industrial policy is rather remote. Yet it must manifest if the United States is to control its own destiny. What forces must come together to make this happen… and within two years?
A “fusion” government. A… what the Hell? Never happen.
It has to. Until Bush beat Gore, technically, the two-party system functioned as a modified “fusion” government system. Overall, both parties were mainly interested in doing what was best for the country and managed to cooperate on major issues and trends. Sloppy, corrupt and self-serving, and able to cooperate as much as we did thanks only to the unlimited creation of stultifying debt, both parties managed to avoid the corrosive hatreds of the past twenty years. How we’ve operated since, say, the Kennedy administration, is NOT the model to strive for, now.
Thirty Congresses and eleven Presidents have brought America to the edge of insolvency and at risk of subservience to China and others. The abrupt re-set due to coronavirus is an opportunity and a test. For the faithful, a test like this is not an accident, it is a loud vibrant message from God that we are far along a wrong path. But, those certain that they do not believe can get the message, too. The United States cannot continue to waste its wonderful gifts bestowed at our founding and many times since. Here are a few changes that must manifest if we are to maintain our independence:
- New leadership. Without trying to parse all the forces that pushed on the psyche’s of numerous political leaders, we – and they – must recognize that the Democrat party has shifted distinctly leftward… and that leftist policies – virtual socialism – are incompatible with Constitutional republicanism. Some leaders are so committed to this relatively new political stance that they must be replaced by younger, more pragmatic and, dare it be suggested, more conservative leaders.
The same is true for Republicans. Republicans have been pulled leftward by the most crass and aggrandizing consideration: re-election. Appealing to the (leftist) attractiveness of “free” advantages for voters, Republicans learned to win re-election along the same paths as more left-leaning Democrats. Those who have built political careers (another problem) by hewing closer to Democrat principles, should be retired so that conservative principles can again define Republicans.
The ability of a “party” to be defined by, and to defend, an articulable philosophy of government, of legal code, of education and of help for the poor, is fundamental for representatives of that party to deserve enough votes to gain governing authority under the Constitution. Subsequently, the two parties should be able to agree on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution. These essentials seem simple to some of us, but are not agreed-to by about half of the voting public. It is time for both parties to lead America onto a stronger, Constitutionally purer path.
- Destruction of debt. None of our agreed Constitutional principles will protect us if we sacrifice the independence of the United States, and nothing risks that independence more, or more directly, than our ballooning debt, owed in large fraction to non-Americans, including other countries. An industrial policy that both parties can agree to is part and parcel of controlling our national debt burden and the ultimate value of our currency and labors.
Total annual expenditures must reverse direction. Contrary to the unsustainable trends of the past half-century, the federal “budget-in-name-only” must shrink by fully 25% – a prospect surely deemed impractical, if not impossible, by most in both parties, Republicans included. While Republicans have always preached “smaller” government, since Johnson’s “Great Society,” indeed, since F.D.R.’s “New Deal,” the ostensible conservatives have succumbed to the enrichening advantages of staying in office, and have diverted their efforts to re-election rather than statesmanship. For many now in office their personal advantages of office are shameful and distinctly off the mark.
- Electoral honesty. Democrats have raised the art of pandering to ephemeral, personal issue-driven groups to an art-form, even as they have learned – codified – numerous ways to expand “voter participation” so as to steal elections. Vote-harvesting, early voting, same-day registration, automatic registration when interacting with state governments for unrelated matters, non-verification of citizenship status during such interactions, “Rank” voting and organized surrogate voting, and other schemes honest people can’t imagine, all contribute to the erosion of democracy. Matched with these illicit garnerings of “votes,” is the opening of borders to waves of illegal entrants who, it is hoped by their advocates, will vote for Democrats and some misguided municipalities are granting illegal entrants voting privileges in “local” elections – a virtually unmanageable distinction. To form a more unified national political structure, these tactics must be renounced and abandoned. One voter – one vote… per citizen.
Republicans are no purer when opportunities are present to take advantage of election management dominance. For shame. Both parties must commit to, and back legislation that strengthens enforcement of election laws, including “clean” voting rolls.
- Deconstruction of the labyrinthine administrative “state.” Both parties have colluded to slough off responsibility for the laws that are passed, by installing more and more agencies, offices, titles and programs among the 15 executive departments. Within virtually all of them are powers to regulate citizen behaviors, each with the force of law despite no specific authorization from Congress. This threatens personal freedom. Both parties should be able to agree on the restoration and future preservation of freedom.
What there is no agreement on is what constitutes that freedom. To socialists, freedom means freedom from personal responsibility… in the dozens of forms that can take. To originalists freedom means freedom to make as much of one’s abilities and situation as can legally be done and according to individual initiative and enterprise. To make the opportunity to succeed manifest for the largest number of citizens and legal residents, government must be a trusted partner in life, and not an opponent. Repeatedly, this immense gulf separates the parties to the degree that cooperation appears unreachable. There must arrive a more cooperative, constitutional understanding of individual sovereignty and responsibility.
- The re-establishment of honest budgeting. Both parties must agree to annually cleanse the federal complex of agencies and programs, of wasteful overlap of purposes and missions and personnel. The budget line-items for each should be justified or eliminated at least bi-annually.
Beyond congressional oversight of each component of the total budget, an agreement is needed to cut federal spending by every Congress for five Congresses (10 years) until total outlays are equal to inflows during the period of the previous budget cycle. Can that much discipline be found among current and future members? And, in current and future presidents? A president can begin the process with a half-hour address to the nation. Bring back “Ross Perot’s charts” and ask the questions needed and issue the challenge. Let those who are opposed to balancing the budget make their case. There isn’t one. On this challenge the construction of a fusion government can – and must – move forward.
Ultimately, Americans and their representatives will agree on the unifying principle that fuels the exceptional American, Constitutional experiment: Our success as a free people and nation is measured not by how large our governments are, but by how small.
