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Zen Capitalist
#1
If this thoughtful gentleman's scribe doesn't give you pause, I think the American Experiment is lost forever, judging by the current apathetic American publics' attitude. Do we really believe our nation is headed in the right direction? Feel free to correct my grammar in a reply. I am always eager to learn that which was lost on me in my formative years.

Zen Capitalist
It must be difficult to go through life as a socialist.


If every disparity is an injustice, then every human being you encounter is either your oppressor or your victim, depending on their wealth relative to yours. Those with more incite hatred, and those with less induce guilt.


Hatred and guilt do not move others to cooperate, so socialists must rely on coercion to co-exist. Coercion, hatred, and guilt – there is a recipe for an unhappy life.


How much better it is to live as a free market capitalist.


When every other human on the planet is a potential partner in mutually beneficial exchange, then each encounter begins with hope and anticipation, and ends in gratitude - the thank-you, thank-you ritual of purchase that we all know so well.


Volition cannot be coerced; so persuasion is the means by which capitalists co-exist. Hope, persuasion, and gratitude – that’s how we roll. No wonder we are so pleasant and good-natured, and no wonder those miserable socialists are insanely jealous.


It is a choice to be socialist or capitalist; it is not a genetic assignment, like race, gender, hair color, dominant hand, or sexual preference. Each of us is free to choose the basis from which we will interact with the rest of humanity - either the hatred-guilt-coercion paradigm, or the hope-gratitude-persuasion paradigm, or some watered-down variant of the two extremes.


Socialists are not miserable because they are poor; a great many of them live in the cocoon of security and privilege known as government work. Even our millionaire socialists, like Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi, and our billionaire socialists like George Soros, appear to spend nearly every waking hour pissed off that someone somewhere has more money than they do. How awful for them.


Young people, listen to me: if it bothers you that someone else has more than you do, the problem is yours, not theirs. There are billions of people in this world, and you will always be able to point to someone who has more and point to someone who has less. It is up to you decide when you will quit pointing in anger and start living in serenity.


Capitalists, as a general rule, do not covet. We admire the wealth created by others, but we do not imagine it is rightfully ours. We seek to learn the ways of winners, and we try to avoid the mistakes of those who have squandered what they had – capitalism is a life of learning, growing, and adapting to changing circumstances.


Socialists need capitalists to produce the wealth they redistribute, while capitalists do not need socialists for anything. It is this unequal and fundamentally parasitic relationship that drives socialists to acts of disproportionate hysteria at the slightest hint of abandonment.


Recall that Wisconsin’s public sector unions accepted benefit concessions readily, if not happily. It was only the prospect of having to collect dues from their own members – to survive by consent - that brought out the drums, death threats, vandalism, extortion, boycotts, harassment, intimidation, fraud, and angry protests.


All you need to know about compulsory unionism is the compulsory part. And compulsory unionism is socialism practiced at the level of the firm.


And what is moral about taking someone else’s money to buy the things you wish not to pay for yourself? What is the noble principle that compels you to buy my health care, food, and train fare so that I can use my own money to get a Louis Vitton tattoo on spring break?


The first responsibility we have to our fellow man is to not be a burden; to be economically autonomous. Charity is only possible from surplus; you can’t be your brother’s keeper if you both need to be kept.


Are libertarian capitalists uncharitable because we oppose all forms of government assistance – programs funded by confiscatory taxation and run for the benefit of the public unions who administer them? I’ll tell you what is uncharitable: incompetence, deceit, false hope, ignorance, and economic suicide.


The greatest threat to the Western democracies is not Al Qaeda; it is our unsustainable public debt and the impending collapse of our currencies. The welfare/warfare state is devouring itself to keep up the appearance of sustaining commitments it cannot possibly keep.


Capitalists did not deliver us to the edge of the abyss; it is the enemies of capitalism who argue for deficit spending and monetizing the debt. For 100 years, the socialists’ answer to every problem has been more government and more debt. They have created a beast so large and slow it cannot save itself from itself.


The capitalist knows what the socialist will never learn; redistribution destroys the wealth that was created through voluntary exchange. We prospered as a nation when we held liberty as our first principle and embraced capitalism as the only system compatible with our notions of self-sovereignty, equality, and freedom.


True prosperity will not return until we do so again.




“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.timnerenz.com">www.timnerenz.com</a><!-- w --> to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”
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