It’s not an overstatement to describe Zuccotti Park as New York’s Marxist epicenter. Flags with the iconic face of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara are everywhere; the only American flag I saw was hanging upside down. The “occupiers” openly refer to each other as “comrade,” and just about every piece of literature on offer (free or for sale) advocated socialism in the Marxist tradition as a cure-all for the inequalities of the American economic system.
Don’t try to explain to any of these protesters how those who sought to create a Marxist utopian dream of revolution also gave us the Stalinist purges, Mao’s bloody Cultural Revolution and many other efforts to collectivize thought in the name of economic “justice.”
One woman was holding a “Nationalize the Federal Reserve” sign; I tried to explain that the Fed is already nationalized, because it’s part of government, and she told me to “go check my f--king facts -- it’s privately owned.”...
Maybe the worse-spent dollar I have ever spent in my life was on a propaganda broadsheet titled “Justice,” which advocates “Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism.” On the front page of the newspaper-like document, beneath the headline “Capitalism: System Failure,” was a tease for a story on the economy and how “influential business economist Nouriel Roubini” recently said how “Karl Marx had it right. At some point, capitalism can destroy itself.”
Yes, the left-leaning Roubini made that fatuous statement, and many similar ones -- so many, in fact, that he has lost much of his credibility in financial circles, though that didn’t quite make it into the “Marx Was Right!” story.
Also absent was any notice of how the much-hated banks benefited not from free-market capitalism, which would have let them fail in 2008, but from crony capitalism that bailed them out. The similar cronyism practiced by Trumka and the Obama administration -- massive spending on useless but politically connected businesses like Solyndra, paired with class-warfare rhetoric -- likewise has very little to do with free markets.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Roubini, as Marxist, Is a Hero at 'Occupy Wall Street'
Charlie Gasparino headed down to Zucotti Park and reports:
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The single biggest and most important point to teach the fence riders of this movement (not the actual socialists or marxists obviously) is that the system we have in America is not true free market capitalism, but rather crony capitalism. That's it.
ReplyDeleteShe was right though wasn't she. It is privately owned, even though we know it is a political tool
ReplyDeletePrivately owned in the same way that many German firms in Nazi Germany were. She's right, but the Fed is in so many ways an outright political entity that she may as well be 300% wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe real "war" to win for the liberty-movement is over the federal government's "power to borrow," that is, abolishing this right of government. We know that the federal government can charter banks and corporations and confer them with "private powers" seperate and without relation to any function of government (quoted in THE CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION, Article I. Legislative Department, 359-60, 2002). The Federal Reserve was established to provide government with a ready and available means of credit to finance its inexorably large administration, especially for war. To be sure, study the writings of Thomas Jefferson. These two Thomas Jefferson quotes provide a feel for how his view of the government's "power to borrow" evolved from one in support of it, to one wishing to abolish it:
ReplyDeleteThomas Jefferson in 1788 to George Washington:
“I am anxious about everything which may affect our credit. My wish would be, to possess it in the highest degree, but to use it little. Were we without credit, we might be crushed by a nation of much inferior resources, but possessing higher credit” (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson [ME], 6:453, 1903-04).
Thomas Jefferson a short 10 years later to John Taylor:
“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas” (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson [ME], 10:64, 1903-04).
Everyone needs to understand that "The Fed" along with every other central bank was created to provide their respective governments with ready and available access to credit, to finance whatever they did not have money for. Let's just say, central banking is the government's way of dealing with private sector lenders who would not allow it to borrow - especially on the government's terms.
In sum, the lady RW conversed with has a point, federally chartered banks and corporations can be conferred with "private powers," but to RW's credit, the banks and corporations are still chartered through an act of congress and likewise, can be abolished through an act of congress. However, the abolishment of the Federal Reserve is not a sustainable solution because the government would still have the right to: 1) charter banks and corporations; 2) confer "private powers" separate from and without relation to the functions of government to those banks and corporations; 3) borrow money on the credit of the U.S.; and 4) establish legal tender laws. While I maybe missing a few other "rights of government" that reinforce its monopoly over the issuance of money and credit, the four listed are by and large the "biggies" that lie in the way of a truly sustainable free-market solution to money and credit.
Austro-Contrarian Capitalist is exactly right but to make clear:
ReplyDelete3) borrow money on the credit of the U.S.
Should be:
3) print bogus money out of thin air with it's value based on how much productive output they can violently steal from the dumb tax cattle population.
Roubini?
ReplyDeleteHow about this guy
http://mindbodypolitic.com/2011/10/17/slavoj-zizek-marxist-professor-addresses-occupywallstreet/