Jealousy

Just about all the Democrat candidates for president in 2020 have a common theme to their candidacy ... socialism to various degrees ... driven by an attempt to tap into a national jealousy ... through the use of a wealth tax ... or piggy-backing on a desire for social justice ... or playing the green-eyed monster. Whatever you call it, there is a lietmotif ... “billionaires are evil” (“except when they donate to my campaign.”)

It might be unfair that CEOs make more the 500 times their lowest paid employee. But, you know what, capitalist free markets do involve short-term dislocations ... and using some equally greedy bureaucrat to remedy fairness is a stupid solution. Are you listening Bernie? The invisible hand of capitalism does have a way of remedying things in the longer run, Right Jeff Inmelt? Politicians worship at the altar of lucre as much as, if not more than, the worst high-tech CEO ... and allowing pols to try to fix things is throwing more sand in the gears.

Social change through politics should be based on more noble emotions than jealousy and greed.

Obvious Truth #31

"Nationalism is to capitalism as globalism is to socialism" -- Anon.

Like the 'invisible hand' of capitalism produces overall individual benefit ... so does the economic self-interest of nationalism produce an equivalent expansion in the wealth of nations.

The Professors Are Winning

Ivory Tower

The drip, drip, drip of liberal teaching in our colleges and universities is finally winning out. In a recent survey 43% of millennials view socialism more favorably than capitalism (with under 33% favorable) ... see: Breitbart Article. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary ... where country after country which has gone down the Bernie Sanders path ... most recently Venezuela ... have ended up economic hellholes, our capitalist-spoiled children would throw it all away for that nirvana of "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability."

In a way you can't fault these tyro thinkers. They believe that they are being idealistic ... and that is good ... but they have no clue as to the consequences of this misguided idealism. Their preaching professors have lived in the cocoon of capitalist largess all their adult lives and the current leader of the Catholic church says that capitalism is "the spawn of the devil." while enjoying the lush luxury created by capitalism. Yes, capitalism is based on economic self interest which is easily misrepresented as greed. But it is the striving for wealth through innovative thought and action that has created our societies of wealth unimagined in the Middle Ages ... a period of widespread repressive poverty to which our current breed of Socialist professors and politicians would have us return.

Yet it would be foolish to aver that greed never is bred under capitalism ... witness Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals whose price gouging has jeopardized his company ... and made him a social pariah. Adam Smith pointed out that the invisible hand of capitalism tends to punish such avaricious entrepreneurs. So when greed exists within capitalism, it tends to be self-defeating. However, unfortunately inequities have also crept into the American tax system and, due to its huge complexity, this system has often become regressive. This needs to be corrected ... but not to a Bernie Sanders degree which would snuff out capitalism alltogether (his intent?) And, if our idealistic youths don't understand that equivalent greed also exists within government, their professors have been criminally derelict.

No wonder both Hellery and Bernie, using free tuition, want to make our public citadels of lower learning even more extensive propaganda factories. That way they can guarantee a steady supply of mind-numbed youthful supplicants.

To conclude, please remember that envy (as well as greed) is also one of the seven deadly sins.

Amazon.com

Many people believe that CEO Jeff Bezos has created a monster ... while others feel that Amazon's dog-eat-dog culture is just what was needed to propel a small on-line bookseller into the most valuable retailer in the United States ... having just recently surpassed Walmart in its stock-market valuation.

Clearly, Amazon.com has taken the Darwinian corporate culling culture developed at General Electric a number of steps further ... to the point where it's high turnover rates (half of its employees last just one year and only 15% of its employees last five years) might eventually be its undoing. The New York Times has done a very long, fascinating and in-depth article on Amazon which exposes not just its many maniacal successes but also its disturbing ugly warts ... see: New York Times Story.

The older I get, the more I believe that capitalistic success is very often predicated on a Messianic vision on the part of corporate founders ... from John D. Rockefeller to Henry Ford to Thomas Watson to Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos. And although there might be much personal employee suffering along the way, the end result is, for a time, an "insanely" transformative company. After you have digested the above article, see if you can't somehow forgive the tyranny that many of these corporate founders have engaged in to birth their visions. I may not like it, but I can forgive it ... such is "invisible hand" of capitalism.

Greed

Last night on television I happened upon a PBS documentary on The American Experience which focused on the birth and growth of Silicon Valley in California.  In particular, it chronicled Bob Noyce’s co-invention of the integrated circuit and how he grew a small division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument (Fairchild Semiconductor) into a giant which then spawned dozens of other semiconductor companies throughout this region (watch it HERE ).  It was a fascinating walk-through the growth of this technology: semiconductors, integrated circuits, microprocessors, etc (most of which I was peripherally involved with) … and the players that made it happen: William Shockley, Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, etc. etc.

Bob Noyce, after seeing dozens of his co-workers found their own companies … and become uber-rich in the process, and, being unable to convince his higher-ups to do the same for his employees, took a few key players out of Fairchild Semiconductor and founded Intel Corporation.  He and thousands of other players around the Santa Clara area became insanely rich as a consequence of the dog-eat-dog competitive atmosphere that developed around this and ancillary technologies.  To me this was and is Capitalism personified … all driven by greed (economic self-interest if you will) and the need to one-up your competitor in this high-tech race … and get wealthy in the process.

This story has been repeated many times in the United States … the steel industry, the car industry, the telecommunications industry, the computer industry, etc., etc. … all driven by Capitalist greed.   Ergo, greed can be both good and bad.  Obviously stealing candy from a baby is bad … and this type is one of the seven deadly sins.  But the kind of greed as described by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, where he coined the term “invisible hand,” is a good that few liberals understand.  He says:

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he [the Capitalist merchant] intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

Adam Smith’s disdain for those “who affect to trade for the public good” is well taken and the results of such squishiness can be seen over and over and over again in the policies espoused by our current President (Solyndra, for instance).  Isn’t it funny how, generally, the people who become insanely rich in a Socialist society are generally found in the government.  Perhaps this is a corrupted variant of Adam Smith’s invisible hand.  This greed (avarice if you will) is akin to the candy-stealing kind and is what causes societies and their economies to rot and collapse.  I do believe we are currently knee-deep in same.