Sunday, April 4, 2021

Collectivism – The Last Refuge Of The Useless

 by Joe Siano



Jean-Baptiste Say notes that the scholarly, philosophic and artistic classes “are almost wholly paid in personal consideration.”  Virtue being its own reward, they reap the intrinsic profit afforded by discovering new knowledge, articulating truth and creating beauty.  The best of them earn the esteem of their peers and, sometimes, the admiration of their countrymen.

Say also observed that “A great nation will probably contain but two or three artists capable of painting a superior picture or modelling a beautiful statue”.  The same could be said about producing any truly groundbreaking scholarship or original philosophical insights. 

Some 120 years later, Joseph Schumpeter, details how capitalism sows the seeds of its own demise through mass education.  Because advanced capitalism requires a highly educated workforce, a capitalist society invests heavily in schooling.  In addition to producing doctors, nurses, business executives, engineers, architects, etc., its universities also produce a fresh crop of intellectuals and artists each year.   These artists and intellectuals produce abstractions and ideas that are oft unvalued by the world. 

The marketplace rewards accomplishment in business, engineering and healthcare.  Even second and third tier players in these fields make comfortable livings while the great mass of intellectuals and artists often flounder.  These disgruntled  underperformers channel their frustrations into careers of bashing the free enterprise system that has lifted millions worldwide out of misery and into middle-class affluence,

In their war against free enterprise, these malcontents donned the mantle of Marxism to turn workers against employers.  The outcomes ranged from disappointing to disastrous.

Their efforts met with disappointment in nations such as the US and UK, that had a well-functioning capitalist infrastructures in place.    Prosperous workers rejected communist mumbo-jumbo as they saw their material well being improve from generation to generation.  New creature comforts like cars, TVs, telephones, electric appliances, plentiful food and home ownership became affordable to the masses.

The outcomes were disastrous in countries lacking in capital accumulation and expertise in wealth creation.  In the USSR,  the Soviet Bloc, the PRC and in Cuba, Marxist rule turned poverty into abject misery.   Basic freedoms were suspended.  Millions were imprisoned and murdered.  Shortages of food and basic necessities abounded.  Material conditions eroded year after hopeless year.

And then there is Venezuela.  Once one of Latin America’s most prosperous nations, the Chavez/Maduro regime destroyed all that they touched, creating an international humanitarian disaster.

Seeing as how Marxism failed as an economic model, Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfort School turned away from organizing workers.   They set off in search of new “oppressed classes” whom they might agitate.  

And, boy, did they find them.  It seems that just about everyone in the good old USA has a grievance based on biological femininity, race, ethnicity, place of national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation or religion (non-Christian, of course).  You name it. 

These self-anointed cultural elitists,  look backwards to sow seeds of hatred, resentment and anger.  They offer no workable solutions for a better future.  They rehash the same destructive recipes of intolerance, contempt, retribution and redistribution.  They can only slice the pie but never bake one.

Through the doublespeak of political correctness, Marxists have tied tongues, suppressed free expression and muddled clear thinking.  They created a culture of intimation that is enforced by woke corporatism and a complicit media.

The malcontents and malingerers may have finally won.  "Democracy" is on the verge of snuffing out the Lockean liberal order that fueled Western progress for nearly four centuries.

Welcome to Venezuela Norte.  

Time to go Galt. 

Go individually.  Or by town  Or by county.  Or by state.  But go! 

Leave this sinking ship and the rats behind.


“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.”

Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged

 

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
 
- Paul Simon

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