Capitalism

In an article about King Leopold II's of Belgium murder of millions of Congolese the author "talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, [and] all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide.

This article of course was racist suggesting that whites murder blacks. The truth is people murder people. If you put people in a position of power over other people abuse will occur because power corrupts. People were not designed to rule over each other.

Power to rule over your neighbor leads to abuse of power, black, white, red, yellow or green makes no difference. Evil comes in all colors, shapes and nationalities. Some systems lend themselves to that abuse. The ones that centralize power or use power to control others and make them do what they want are the the social DNA of tyranny and tyrants.

Besides the race distortion in the article there was another insidious misconception hidden in it about "capitalism".

• "Capitalism has been getting a bad rap as if it is the cause of world problems. Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. Politically, it is the system of laissez-faire (freedom). Legally it is a system of objective laws (rule of law as opposed to rule of man). Economically, when such freedom is applied to the sphere of production its’ result is the free-market."

• "Capitalism is an economic system in which capital assets are privately owned and goods and services are produced for profit in a market economy."

The United States has been moving away from Capitalism as an economic system since the institution of the Federal Reserve and abandoning it with its pursuit of socialism to provide benefits, especially in a bankrupt economy and government borrowing.

There are good capitalists and bad capitalists, just like there are good and bad blacks and whites etc. And when it comes to mass murder socialists like Stalin and the Chinese communists win the world prize for most dead, even out doing the socialist Hitler.

So where and why did capitalism start getting a bad name?

• "When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church." Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness.

Natural law allows one to halt or detain or even restrain someone for the violation of rights inherit in someone else. It does not allow you to punish, fine or regulate pre-crime.

In order to license and regulate natural activities where no rights are violate one needs a contractual society or legal system. Legal systems have legal regulations of activities. They do not regulate rights but privileges. These privileges are created by contract. Or in other words contract make the law.

Economy is a product of the labor of the people. In a free society the possession of property, rights and the means of production is in the hands of the people individually family by family and not in the hands of the state as a collective or corporate entity. If the state can control the economy the people are not free.

Free Governments

In 'The Enterprise of Law', Dr. Bruce Benson shows that, in fact, "our modern reliance on government to make law and establish order is not the historical norm." The historical norm was customary law, spontaneously created and voluntarily obeyed. It provided law and order in all early societies and free societies throughout history. It often included written guidelines to aid in the understanding of law but these guidelines should not be construed as statutory.

A free government is one in which people have power over how the economy of the government shall operate. In other words the people are only free if they have the power to determine their contribution to support the operation of their government.

Such governments were like early Israel where the government was dependent upon free will offerings to the ministers of their individual choice. There were expected to give an amount close to a minimum of 10% to the government official they personally chose.

The people owned the beneficial interest of themselves and their property and everything they produced within the family. This was their personal estate which included natural rights. There was law such as they could not steal from others or murder which included injuring others or even willfully endanger or neglect to prevent injuries to others, etc..

Courts consisted of the people who decided fact and law and their were appeals courts amongst the government officials that could acquit if there was evidence of miscarriages of justice in the peoples courts.

These government officials were public servants. They had to serve the needs of the individual families that supported them according to their service or the elders of those families would give to another public servant who would.

Electing men to provide the services of government is the formation of government. The manner of support that government may rely upon determines if the people are free. If the officials of government are titular and can only obtain free will offering from the people to provide the services of government then the people are free. If the governments can exercise authority one over the other even if the leaders are elected by a majority of the people then the people are not free.

The power of everyman to govern himself was granted by God to men. This is the natural state of man. Men may then endow that power upon other men, which we call government. There are many ways to form governments which we call the state.

In one form of government we endow men with the power to rule over the people who collectively elect officials like kings and princes, prime ministers and parliaments or presidents and legislators. If these rulers have the power to take from the people the means by which the public administration of services are provided then this is not a free government and there will not be a free economy.

In another form of government the people retain the right to choose the manner and means of support to the government official of their choice. They may be required to support that government to be counted participants. They only relinquish the power over their contribution to the officials of government but the the right to choose the continued flow of support remains with the people.

In this latter form the people retain rights to choose and only endow leaders with the means of serving the people and the right to choose over the manner in which that duty is performed. This is form is the only true government of the people, for the people and by the people. For most of man's history this is the way most governments operated.

What of the state and church? The Church is a religious institution and religion is how we "perform our duty to God and our fellow man". If the state is caring for the people and providing for the needy of society then there is no separation of Church and state because their is no separation of religion and the state. The state is doing the work of the Church.

The way legal governments work is that bind people together with contracts in legal systems where the government regulates the law. This is not usually done at one point in time but is a progressives process.

Governments may offer benefits that are not freely given. They offer these benefits with legal strings attached. In order to provide those benefits they must take the means from the people and or borrow those means using the members of their society as surety for the debt.

More detail on the word "capitalism".

Footnotes

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