Showing posts with label industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label industry. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Labor Protectionism
Written on June 16th, 2012
Edited in April 2014
I'm
not saying that the value of labor should be manipulated so that it
loses its value here... But absent the manipulation of the value of
labor so that the effort of workers gains value (I'm alluding to
minimum wage laws), the going rate for entry-level labor feels like
it should be about 5 or 6 bucks an hour here in America.
...What
I am saying - however - is that that shit should be allowed to
decline naturally; that is, without artificial government
manipulation; that is, government controls should be removed so that
the value of labor can find its real free-market rate, and our
purchasing power and our balance of trade aren't all out of
proportion.
Remember...
We don't have a primarily industrial- / manufacturing-based economy
anymore. We're more of a service economy now. What's allegedly
"backing our money" is more labor / services than it is
goods / products.
Now...
I'd imagine that there are a lot of people who want to keep minimum
wage laws in place, and who even desire that the minimum wage
increase. I'd also imagine that a lot of those same people oppose the
outsourcing of American jobs, prefer unionized to non-unionized
labor, oppose Right-to-Work laws, and oppose benefit and pay cuts for
government employees providing public services.
So
we're living in a primarily service-based economy where the combined
government agencies confiscate 40% of the wealth and employ over 2.2
million people, and most of the debate on labor issues revolves
around government jobs.
Most
of the people on the left want the government to artificially raise
the value of the efforts of workers - including its own workers - who
offer services rather than produce goods. They oppose both
non-interventionism in the value of labor and government intervention
to lower the value of labor.
So
doesn't the left want what could basically be described as a form of
mercantilism or protectionism, except one that focuses on services
instead of industry? Isn't this just liberals wanting America to
protect the value of its economy and its money by keeping
artificially inflated the value of its most valuable assets; its
workers and their labor? Aren't these people more "capitalist"
(specifically, state-monopoly capitalist) than are we free-marketers?
For
more entries on enterprise, business, business alliance, and markets,
please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/agorist-protection-agencies-and.html
For
more entries on free trade, fair trade, the balance of trade, and
protectionism, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/foreign-trade-agreements.html
For
more entries on unions and collective bargaining, please visit:
Questions About Ayn Rand
Written on September 28th, 2011
Rand
criticized altruism as the precept that one should give up his life
and welfare for others while demanding that others do the same.
She
said, “It’s fine to help other people if you want to” “when
and if those others mean something to you selfishly”, and she did
not consider reciprocating gifts to others – even those whom one
loves – as a moral duty.
In
light of these comments, it appears that what Rand most abhorred was
not the act of giving to others so much as the promotion of
the idea that one should feel obligated to give to others.
She
also characterized reciprocal altruism as “an exchange of…
presents that neither party wants”.
Did
Rand fail to take into account the free-market principle of
subjective value; i.e., the idea that transactions which are mutually
voluntary are always mutually beneficial by the subjective standards
of all parties to the transactions?
How
can those who subscribe to Rand’s philosophy – evidently equating
the feeling of
moral obligation with coercion and force themselves –
simultaneously advocate the abolition of obviously coercive Statist
social-welfare programs while actively discouraging charitable giving
to those disadvantaged whom they do not know and expect the
disadvantaged to receive any benefit from the moralistic capitalist
system which Rand recommends be practiced?
How
is the Randian capitalist who – when asked to participate in a
mutually-voluntary transaction (which would not take place unless
each party found the transaction to be in his mutual interest and
benefit) – feels it appropriate to actively discourage charitable
giving to the disadvantaged (even at the risk of their prolonged
suffering and death) any different from the socialist laborer who
consents to have profit extracted from him by a capitalist
entrepreneur, and then unionizes his fellow employees, and actively
encourages workplace democracy as well as the eventual violent
overthrow of the capitalist system?
For
more entries on theory of government, please visit:
Military-Industrial Socialism and Wilsonian Capitalism
Written on February 11th and 14th, 2011
Edited in April 2014
Military-Industrial Socialism
The
American military-industrial complex is the biggest assistance to
international socialism on the planet.
We
help other countries defend themselves by deploying troops and
setting up military bases. This enables them to devote funding
towards the expansion of their public sectors and social welfare
programs.
Countries
can only have successful large-scale national public welfare programs
if they have the right combination of a relatively ethnically and
culturally homogenous population, most of which have the same
political position and wants and needs from their government; a
industrial economy with rapid and / or sustained growth; and / or
significant protection assistance from foreign nations.
Leave
countries to defend themselves. It will compel them to be more
independent, securely sovereign, self-reliant, and self-sufficient;
it will encourage their national pride by encouraging them to
emphasize their cultural strong suits in the world market; and it
will prevent them from feeling the need to dispatch lobbyists for
global governance organizations and institutions to dupe the American
public into believing that the economic well-being of the country
needs to be tethered to sinking European financial ships in the name
of propping up the increasingly globally-integrated international
economy.
Wilsonian Capitalism
You
know how Ron Paul says we should have no entangling alliances with
other countries, but we should maintain open friendships and trade
with them? And you know how Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush wanted
to invade other countries in order to "keep the world safe for
democracy"?
I
think we should make a list of all the governments which are both
oppressing their people and hoarding wealth from them. Then, rather
than bomb or sanction them, we should allow and encourage American
businessmen to trade directly with the people and businesses which
are being oppressed and withheld from by their governments.
That
way, those governments will try to institute protectionism,
corporatism, and state socialism to try to keep individuals from
maintaining economic liberty and security, causing resentment to grow
in the minds of the people.
That
way, entrepreneurial, libertarian, counter-economicist, agorist, and
market-anarchist sentiments will grow among the people, and they will
desire to secede from their governments economically. Once they
eventually succeed, there will be capitalism and minimal governance.
At
this point, communal governments will begin to exercise control,
giving rise to what could eventually develop into a genuine
participatory democracy, which would counter and balance capitalism.
For
more entries on military, national defense, and foreign policy,
please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/foreign-occupation-and-declaration-of.html
For
more entries on theory of government, please visit:
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