A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth Part II.

A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth (continued here):

Part II.

Today, I wish to continue with my discourse on the economics of our republic and our “Christian” participation in its economy. Below are some more of my points at which I believe Tea Party Christians can take issue. If you respond to my blog commentary, please read what you write in response first (no jibberish). I do this out of affection for you, respect too, and reverence for a person of accomplishment and moral purpose. You of course are going to think my praise syrup (flattery you say)! I do not waste words on folks I have no time for!

1) You say that freedom is capitalism. Do you mean they are synonymous? Perhaps you wish to say that freedom without capitalism is not freedom. If that is what you meant to say, I can argue in favor of that point of view but only in so far as every human freedom is brokered in society. Your right to swing your fist ends a while before it strikes my nose. Restraint of freedom is normative in society. Chaos otherwise would result. Restraint of capitalism (consumer safety laws, usury laws, criminal fraud, et cetera) is normative. Even if you have a minimalist view of the societal need for governance of human freedom, you began at some point to place restraints on human conduct, and therefore profit taking as a human conduct is no exception.

2) You say “we” are transferring wealth from producers to the ruling class (Senators, Representatives, Judges, and Executive Branch Officials). You say merely. Perhaps you meant to say to no good purpose this limited transfer of wealth is made. I beg to disagree of course with that only in part. By good purpose the reader might think of a number of good purposes among which only “domestic tranquility” sounds Marxist ( see the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution). The wisdom of a just society is in distributive acts of wealth so as to empower people, not just the Establishment, but persons who want to have a livelihood or even become the nouveau riche. The limitation on capitalism is that taken to the extreme, wealth pools at the top of society and impoverishes everyone else (which creates social instability, civil war, and war generally to distract the masses from the economic injustice of such a society). Good grief, America is vaunted for being the land of opportunity. You mean you want to shut it down tight so that we develop permanent social classes. I for one am not ready for a return to a Brahman - serf - pariah mentality. Our America does have a general course direction as the just society it can be! We dissent from wrong turns and self-dealing that fail to advance the loadstar of the just society.

3) Your underlying supposition is that wealth is held by producers of wealth and these producers via taxation are forced to share the wealth with state employees (which technically is the larger class to which the ruling class of government belongs). I of course think you are half baked on this one. The ruling class of government is the toady of big industry, big banking, and conglomerates. The real transfer of wealth is to the ruling class of society. These are the folks who hold capital ownership interests. They are shielded by limited liability laws in corporations and other inventions of capitalists from personal liability for injury under the civil law and in almost all cases from criminal prosecution. They are in position to benefit from usury laws that permit profit taking not from production of goods and services (this is the credit card world as we know it), They are the holder of greater diversity ownership stakes in mutual funds in which professional money managers manage the risk of speculation in the value of holding stocks, bonds, et cetera. They are the one’s who manipulate the regulations and laws of government to spur their wealth increase and protect and safeguard it from diminution (the function of the Republican Party and the New Democrats (think Clinton and Obama).

4) The wealth transfer from the ruling class to government is only transactional. You know that income tax paid by the corporation or limited liability operation is some kind of mistake. They failed to shelter the income, failed to pay a dividend, or had a windfall of profits due to unexpected or unintended consequence. The income tax is predicated on employee compensation. Well, we know the saga.

Congress votes into law all the deductions of the people that send and keep them there. Then the ruling class protects the employee compensation with all sorts of schemes which the politicians have brokered for the ruling class. The only sorry ass who pays the significant amount of income tax is the person in the middle between the ruling class and those who truly do not experience significant income (poverty class). Notice all income tax reform is always pushed down the road a ways by both parties. Our current situations is undertaxed wealth, overtaxing the working class of persons to afford tax evasion of the wealthy (some of whom claim to be middle class), and shrinking the middle class and enlarging the poverty class.

No one who loves this republic of ours can abide this state of affairs. It’s why even Warren Buffet calls for effective income taxation of wealth!

5) When you say wealth producers, do you mean the extractors of minerals, the producers of plastics and metals for production, and the equipment of manufacturing, and the consumer products, the tillers of the soil, the harvesters, the food processors? I think you do. In the traditional Marxist and economic sense, the wealth takers are not the miners, the field hands, or the farmers even. All of the valuables may be said to pass through the hands of laboring persons whose labor can be said to produce the traditional wealth producing activities (for others).

The union movement was predicated on slowing down the wealth transfer to the limited benefit of the laborer as opposed to unmerciful exploitation of immigrant classes of persons (the historical context in which America first embraced unionism was European immigration to America).

6) If we live in a post- Marxist reality, it is that machines are displacing the working unit known as the at-will employee (whose term of employ is at the pleasure of his employer). The employer of human workers though is still part of our society. However, it does appear that the curtailment of consumerism now apace will actually speed that process of the reduction of the actual number of wealth producers. This is no one’s fault per se. Technology is about “labor” saving advances, of which the computer is proving especially effective.

7) Today, a person of middle age and women and young adults too are likely to be confronted with “temporary” and “part time” status to such an extent that they are actually beginning to withdraw from the consumer society in whole or in part. This too is neither good nor bad (potentially good in light of waste of the planet's resources and the environment). It might spur a few individualists to think of ways in which to raise income by other means than traditional employment (forty hour week with two weeks off per year paid vacation and to some good measure health insurance benefits). The harsh reality is that the number of low paid positions tend to increase, positions which have no benefits whatsoever. In fact the minimum wage is trivialized as few employees will be working forty hour weeks (much less ever make Christmas bonus status with time and a half for overtime hours). Meanwhile, the attics and garages of my generation are filling up with a lifetime of middle class consumerism, and garage and estate sales are a prevalent situs of consumerism for those part time, poorly compensated at-will employees of current generations.

8) The clout of my working class generation has fallen from a high of trade unionism to a low of non-tax paying economic unit. Some of us in the dwindling down middle class actually think the rich are paying too great of a share of their annual income from wealth. Really? Are you one of these persons? Or are you? Do you help others to stay mired in this swamp of recriminations for economic malaise? Is this because you fear that if your peers actually understood who is exploiting them, they would start the mindless killing of another in anger and revenge? Are you keeping the lid on a society coming to a boil while there was yet time to deal with economic disparity?

9) One reason I am not a Marxist is that I do not accept that revolution of proletariat is a necessary corollary of capitalism. I believe that rational self-government imposes on capitalism the income tax as a means to effect rectification of imbalances that result of capitalism unbridled, unfettered, and evil in its disregard of people and the despoiliation of nature. We as a people just have to have the will to impose it and not let the politicians owned by the ruling class water it down to a pittance!

10) In our society, trained in civics as citizens of a representative democracy, our allegiance quite frankly to the flag (my country right or wrong) is quite problematic. Why is that? Because our government is subject to international law (or it is not). The culmination (high point) of the Twentieth Century was the Nuremberg Trials in which war criminals were prosecuted for war crimes as individuals. Instead of punishing the loser nations as happened in the aftermath of the Versailles Treaty which ended WWI, the decision was made to hold accountable the crimes against humanity which are to be found in international law (i.e. Geneva Conventions) perpetrated by persons in power who committed the atrocities. The fly in that particular ointment (being the onesidedness of losers only being prosecuted) was that war atrocities in violation of international law occurred on both sides of WWII. Were the winner nations of WWII to proceed to put on trial those who had committed crimes against humanity committed by Allied personnel? Obviously not! Thus the high point of the Twentieth Century was shy of transformative. The country we love shied of holding its own war criminals to account, and even though it decided to foster international governance (the United Nations) in the aftermath of WWII, it made sure “winner” nations in international conflict would by virtue of the security council veto prevent prosecution of people who committed the crimes against humanity of the winners.

11) Which brings us to the evil conjunction of capitalism and the military industrial complex. War is the greatest wealth accretion known to humankind (if you win). Our parent’s generation, speaking as a baby boomer beneficiary, knew the advantages of winning. Today, in our elective wars such as the Iraq War, the apparent losers for objective comment include our sons and daughters who volunteered for service but today are dead or maimed for life. The social compact requires that they be made whole at a minimum (a concept taxpayers bolt at actually). Our winners are the investors in munition industries and precious metals. Our collateral damaged persons are those whose share of economic prosperity must be delayed for some later time of social advance (remember the disparity of percent of drafted Blacks in the Viet Nam War).


Conclusion. This remains the status quo today. You may want to blame this on baby boomers (Dad’s generation). Well guess what, now it’s been your turn for the past twenty five years, and your children will do the same for you. The will to effect change comes along in the likes of Paul Wellstone. Exceptional politician. Did you vote for him for U.S. Senate?

How about a moderate like Durenburger who shepherded the health care reform laws to find new funding mechanisms for private medical insurance and for the medical industry while employers are weaning themselves of employees covered by health insurance by them in whole or in part.

I am for single payer health insurance simply because medicine should not profiteer on sickness and disease and disability. The for profit realm of private industry in the medical area is unseemly. Single payer works for medicare and the military. It will always have bureaucratic adjustments to make. It is not a panacea, but the profiteering over sickness and death might be brought under control.

Finally, as a Christian you either do or do not have a sense of “unjust enrichment.” The Bible is so stewed with examples. King David and Bathsheba comes to mine. The love of anything other than God is the root of evil. The actual proverbs might help you out on that one! “Neutralist” Switzerland for example washes its hands of the art confiscated of Jews being sent to the death camps of the Nazi Era, which art is stored in its vaults. Our corruption even in our bastions of wealth is that we close our eyes while the stranger is robbed and beaten and raped. This mindlessness for a Christian in this republic of laws, not men, must and will not stand! More is required!

A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth, Part I.

Introduction. My niece who is extremely well educated and trained as a nuclear warrior, recently wrote me on Facebook: "Yep. Sounds Marxist to me. Freedom is capitalism. We are merely transfering wealth from the producers to the government ruling class...it never works...the ecology will collapse and all but the rich will suffer. To (sic) bad for the money lovers but hope is in Jesus. If you can read a book. You are the rich-- what will the get through to you?"

So you need a little more context? Her retort was in reference to my Facebook comment Monday, October 28, 2013. If you read the comment, perhaps her retort will make kinda, sorta sense. The challenge of social snippets on facebook is my forte. I like to stir the pot (which in my opinion is already stirring). It helps dissipate negative energy for some and disturbs others who then continue unabated in the brew which is private/public social media.


A Discourse on Prosperity, Economic Advantage, and Wealth

Part I.


We all probably have a dear niece or nephew who consumes enormous amounts of Tea Bag politics and stirs in a select jaundiced version of Christianity. I consider this particular mixed drink, toxic! I know that capitalism conceptually is no better nor different than the very embodiment of the human ego in advance of its own agenda. What scares me is that my one certain niece confuses the prosperity of persons in the faith with the faith itself. The Christian faith can not serve both God and Mammon, but her “dispositive” explanation for prosperity is that it is a product of human freedom (here think small government without regard for the harsh consequences of unbridled capitalism).

In this Tea Party segmented view with which I take issue, any rule or law that interferes with economic freedom is evil. If my words offend some in the Tea Party cause who do not consider themselves libertarian, I am only directly here in the face of such persons who claim Christ as Lord and Savior and then wash their hands of the burdens of citizenship in a representative democracy, our beloved republic of laws, not men.

On another front her capitalist-Christian rhetoric is a self serving and ego centric congratulatory Christianity. I am not alone in finding it extremely chilling, and I might add, the anti-thesis of the Gospel attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and Paul and other traditionally accepted renderings of the core and essential messages of Christianity embraced by Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Protestant denominations.

The work ethic itself is not under attack as I myself believe in the opportunity afforded everyone regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual identity, inherent in a society where hard work, labor, is rewarded by our peers for the goods and services provided us. I do not begrudge even the cut taken by bankers and persons who seek a return on the labor of others, or for that matter the ownership class of persons who expect to limit the benefit to the “workers” as it would shorten them of the profit that adds to their status as wealthy beneficiaries of capitalism. I am here though most certainly regardful of social polity of shared benefits of prosperity and labor and regard for those less able to exploit our market system of capitalism (or in some cases totally unable to do so).

The notion that successful capitalists winners turn philanthropic (i.e. Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, the Hunt Brothers) does suggest that greed has its limits among those who realize the human being also is a social animal with a capacity for altruism. This type of fairmindedness is at best humanitarian and potentially restorative justice on the part of those whose ”take” far exceeded just compensation for one’s actual labor. Keep in mind that the humanitarian impulse is not exclusively Christian, as an atheist non-true believer is potentially just as cognizant of the benefits of a prosperity beyond all reasonable bounds of just compensation.

In the Tea Party rugged individualist world, one works hard and succeeds and is even “blessed.” However, even the most ardent Ayn Rand type must acknowledge some benefits that derive not of just merit, but priviligege and fortunate timing, and truth be told some skirting of the laws of society and disregard of normal human kindness and too a regard for the fate of our fellows and economic interests of our fellows (copyright or patent comes to mind).

I for one do not think Jesus was silent on the exploitation of people and how the economically prosperous can be so contemptuous of the “less economically blessed.” Let’s not forget Jesus and his righteous anger at the Jerusalem temple precinct money changers who were permitted and encouraged by the Jewish ruling class of priests to fuel the sale of oxen, lambs, doves, and goats of the devout pilgrim to raise capital in order to purchase the “pure” animals bought with pure money purchased at a compounded loss by the devout. The ruling class of Judea which controlled the temple was on the take just like our modern capitalists! Can the “take” of the temple ever be purified of its exploitation of the devout? If the temple is the bank, something is surely awry!

The commonality then and now is that the fleecing of the little people is the traditional premise of capitalism. In our materialistic society, money is enshrined and the perpetuation of wealthy class of persons consumes the waking hours of lobbyists and politicians on the make.

The fact anyone else ever has a say in the U.S. Congress (or my state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota) is to me a marker of hopefulness. I could do with some more meaningful say in progressive, respectful governance. It’s why I am a Democrat. If all I worried about was wealth, yah I too would vote Republican. I just choose not to be defined by the acquisition of material wealth. To me the pursuit of wealth is just one of the facets of the pursuit of happiness for all (not just the advantaged). If you believe in spiritual wealth as I do, the spiritually endowed do or should not create a space in which to ignor the economic hardship of others. No, the exact opposite. I foster a representative democracy in which prosperity is chartered by each succeeding generation for all (not just the advantaged).

See Part II which follows this edition of Glebewise.

Morning Monitor Report

Today is Friday, November 1, 2013. This monitor of the cosmos is its usual manic self, up before the globular revolution provides the local solar light's eruption into day. We, my fellow monitors, do not as yet have a life support system for humans on the adjacent planet Mars. The clock advances on our species of monitors which may or may not one day provide a place of safety should the host planet Earth prove inhospitable to life forms such as the higher life form humans dependent on lower life forms for survival. Our political and social systems broker delay in restraint of global warming of the planet and began to expend enormous amounts of human and monetary resources on reallocation of the planet's resources between the haves and have nots. At some point revolution and break down of society which is periodical is to occur. Low lying coastal regions heavily populated are likely to experience such fundamental need of such reallocation prior to interior upland less populated areas resulting in further political instability. Prognosis is not good. Instability alert issued by this monitor is now on red to yellow due to some institutional compensation to affected areas (i.e. see FEMA and related mechanisms).