Editor’s Break 028 is a look at the personal disasters that have been plaguing Skyler as a homeowner lately, and why they are nothing to fret over.
Tag: capitalism
Houston, TX
As usual, when some kind of catastrophe strikes — Hurricane Harvey in this instance — anti-market types will pipe up with “I’ll tell you so” shots such as “Who will save the people of Houston now? The market?” My response is “Exactly!”
Markets
A trip to a local food market will tell you more about a geographic spot than I could possibly relate in a blog entry. I love supermarkets, new and used book stalls, flea markets, art galleries, sidewalk vendors, newsstands, tradesperson workplaces, restaurants, fairs, craft shows, auctions, theaters (movie, stage, concert, and opera).
Distinct Politico-Economic Systems
Some people feel an irresistible urge to lecture others on how every ideological group or movement that is not pure capitalism is simply socialism. Hence they rush to insist that, for example, the Nazis were just national socialists, whereas the Bolsheviks were international socialists, and therefore both were just socialists, which is the important aspect of the matter.
What’s In Your Bag?
When I buy baked goods or produce at Wegmans, the cashiers don’t even bother to look in the brown paper sack. They simply ask me, “What’s in your bag?” – and ring up whatever I declare. How can profit-maximizing businesses treat me so well?
The Free Market is Always Regulated
The free market is by definition regulated by the interactions of consumers and producers – producers regulate each other’s plans through the process of entrepreneurial competition, while consumers regulate the plans of producers through the exercise of their sovereign buying decisions.
Crops, Currency, and Crypto
Peoples in places with a single staple grain, harvested at the same time once each year, were easy for states to subjugate and coerce. Partly for this reason, most humans resisted extensive grain farming, even several thousand years after it had been invented, and opted instead for what Scott calls a complex ‘web’ of nutrients.
UBI Proposals Prove Welfare Critics Have Been Right All Along
If there is anything positive to be said about the growing chorus of voices advocating a “Universal Basic Income” or UBI, it’s that the long-term critics of the welfare state have at last been proven correct. The flowery language of “safety nets” and “a hand up, not a handout” has always been a lie, and the proof is indisputable in this latest notion.
Socialism Is Dead; Participatory Fascism Has Triumphed
Unlike full-fledged socialism, which leads to totalitarian rule, mass poverty and economic decay, participatory fascism not only placates people’s wish to participate in the formal process of government decision-making but also permits private entrepreneurs enough room for maneuver that they can in some cases get rich; also enough that they can keep national output at a tolerably high level and in some cases even generate positive economic growth.
We Are the Economy They Want to Regulate
The question is not whether the market should be regulated, but who should regulate it. And the only two choices are: 1) market participants through the exercise of their free and peaceful choices or 2) politicians and bureaucrats relying on the threat of violence to impose their will.