Above I said:

“The problem with ideologies of all hues is that they contain pre-packaged (supposed) truths that are conveniently provided for all as a means of short-circuiting your own thinking on particular matters.”

This should have read “…our own thinking on particular matters”

I am sorry you only picked up on my badly put perspective on the role of envy. It is a difficult subject in psychology and this was not the place to briefly refer to it in the manner I did.

The main thrust of my piece should not have been clouded by this limited comment on envy but that is my fault, and if I could re-edit the post I would delete all reference to it.

I therefore retract those comments on the role of envy.

I appreciate your response and especially the comment that you agree with the identification of the problem as being crony capitalism, nepotism & of course, corruption. I guess many if not all would agree.

Yet, it is essential for everyone to correctly identify concepts and ensure they are correctly aligned with reality. Shades of grey can exist, yes, but this makes it all the more important to be certain of your conceptual understanding of the world as it is – in other words, to be *objective* and to leave your prejudices, and the influences of others thinking at the door when you need to start your own hard thinking on the issues of the day and to reach your own tested conclusions.

The problem with ideologies of all hues is that they contain pre-packaged (supposed) truths that are conveniently provided for all as a means of short-circuiting your own thinking on particular matters. Such short circuits are educated into us by the state as if they were knowledge and as a replacement for active thinking in most schools.

The answers are already given they claim. No need to think harder/differently because Mr/Ms Academic (MA,phd), or Mr/Ms Politician has done it for you.

Or, sometimes, we try to look at lessons from history and apply them today, but without looking at those historical matters from a different angle that was not appreciated let alone understood or developed at the time (re: you reference to historical philanthropy).

I would argue that a company that does *not* seek the “welfare”,as you call it, of its customers, its suppliers, its employees, or its shareholders, is one that is less likely to be successful. Businesses fail and should fail to the extent they get these interrelated factors all wrong.

It is the power of the market that decides what should fail. Not the politician. Not you or me. The market is a reality check device of beautiful simplicity since it ensures that resources are diverted to the human activity of most value (to society – the sum of all individuals) in the long run.

The market is the sum of everyone’s opinion and works without force or guns or protectionist trade barriers when allowed to function in a laissez-faire form, something we have never had.

Of course, the legal framework to enforce the law of contract is a necessary objective requirement (a necessary function of the state paid for by small taxes) that allows for the application of justice; a primary concept of life and relationships whether private or business.

And I will add, that the application of property rights, coupled with contract law, provide all the necessary environmental protection required.

But when there is intervention in the market, economic activity is distorted resulting in a misallocation of capital and resources as the intervention, by necessity, must change the way a business functions. Values are distorted. Justice is undone. Unearned wealth is created always at someone else’s expense.

I recommend the economic writings of Harry Hazlitt and Thomas Sowell for a better instruction than I can provide in this limited space. They will both make you think beyond what you currently understand, though think you must.

How can people protect themselves from ill health, from periods of unemployment? There is no reason why able people cannot take out self-insurance to cover these matters.

For those less fortunate, acts of charity will be bountiful and more benevolent than any taxation system could ever hope to provide. Human beings are by nature good. That is my view.

We do not need an imposed system of gun-backed taxation to enforce acts of goodness. The evidence for this fact is compelling and unchallengeable… the human race has survived thousands of years in its fight with nature by this very aspect of our nature – co-operation and benevolence is naturally occurring.

There would be no “sporadic bursts” of goodwill as you suggest, but rather family based/community based acceptance of help in localities, supported by geographically wider, wealthy privately funded charitable foundations should local needs require greater assistance.

The “law of the jungle”/”people left in the street” view, is the Dickensian world view…a human nature is bad viewpoint that I find not only unhealthy but truly at odds with the facts of reality and nothing more than guilt trip blackmail which is never healthy, but so beloved of organised religion..

Do we live in an unequal society – yes, of course. People are subject to all sorts of obstacles that they must climb over in order to survive as a rational human being is designed to live.

Nature is a cruel beast, but our views on nature are distorted by its beauty. We see nature as benevolent. It is not. Try living outside, without clothes, without shelter, or to be born with physical limitations.

Yet the human spirit shines through and there are many stories of people overcoming what are perceived as weaknesses and avoid any sense of self-defeatist attitudes in order to survive happy successful lives. Some need the hand of benevolence and kindness to help them on their way.

And yes, freeing the economy up from state intervention would lead to a cloudburst of economic activity that would solve any unemployment issues.

Human beings by nature are prone to burst of ingenuity to provide life enhancing values if they are left alone to form mutually beneficial relationships and to voluntarily interact with other like-minded parties. This is proven in human nature.

To be selfish requires rationality if you are to survive. To the extent you respect your own life (to act rationally selfishly) allows you *THEN* to be of use to others in building mutually beneficial harmonious relationships, built without force or threat of force. First, you must do the right things to look after your own life, to meet the requirements of life as a human, before you can then act with others. That is the correct order of things. The Dalai Lama places others first, but how can you look after others unless you first selfishly support your own life? He is wrong.

A drug induced stupor is not acting selfishly: it is selfless, putting your life out of your own control, denying your self and reducing the values you can bring to others.

Any trip to a supposed higher plane is simple self-delusion; a distorted mindless state akin to the economic distortions arising out of state intervention. A perversion of reality.

Peace.

I agree with what you say on crony capitalists, corruption and nepotism. I particularly agree with your point on the privatisation of gains, but would add the socialisation, or externalisation of risks. After all, most companies don’t like to take on any costs that they can lawfully shed, for their legal obligation under the companies code is the maximisation of profit (within the law) for shareholders under their fiduciary duty and not the welfare of people or the environment – that is, currently, the duty of the state. Likewise I agree that we should foster innovation and small businesses.

However, in a statement reminiscent of Ron Paul’s attack on the state and taxation as “theft” I personally feel you lose your way. Whilst you may have the good fortune to be healthy and in work, this is not the lot of everyone (nor maybe even yourself over your entire lifetime) – in particular in a downturn largely of the making of people other than those that suffer through it.

The society you seem to aspire to resembles the one that existed before Lloyd George, Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan. A Society in which people like “Natty” Rothschild chose to give some of his immense (inherited) wealth to the ‘deserving’ poor, but fought tooth and nail against taxation and redistribution. He eventually lost, at least in part, and I think for the good of all. The welfare state, at least in this country, was truly born. The alternative is the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, with at best sporadic bursts of ‘altruism’, perhaps motivated by the guilt of living in such opulence whilst many starve, cannot afford decent healthcare etc… (around the world too, not just in the UK – African Americans in the US have a lower life expectancy than Indians from the state of Kerala (See Amartya Sen, the 1998 Economics Nobel Prize Laureate’s work: Development as Freedom – and Tower Hamlets, a London Borough, is one of the three poorest in the UK)

Surely from a position of compassion, rather than envy, this is not tolerable. There are currently over 2.8 million unemployed, over 1m of whom are the young – most not out of choice – they risk becoming the ‘lost generation’. What should be done with or for them, if they cannot do it for themselves? Whilst self reliance for those that have the ability is surely best (I am part of the Transition movement which aims to reskill people to do just that) there are those who, at least currently, can’t. And some never will, through chronic disability if nothing else. Should we abandon them to their fate? To die as an injured animal would in the wild?

A reading of “The spirit level” amongst other great texts shows that more equal societies have less crime, fear and perform better, for all – just look at the oft-admired Scandinavian countries, which have some of the best indicators of achievement, happiness and well-being across the board. Contrast this with some of the less equal – The US, China, Brazil, and, yes – the UK.

I would argue that ultimately, whilst your argument means well, as the Dalai Lama said (and the Art of Happiness is definitely worth a read – it’s very accessible, and not a big book): If you are to be selfish, at least be wisely selfish – and realise that by being good to / helping others, you are ultimately helping yourself…

Hi FrannyG

You presume wrongly.

We all look at the problems we have and approach them in different ways – I don’t have a pension fund; I work for myself. I don’t see anyone in Occupy having an envious claim on my property – my property is more at risk from my mortgage becoming unpayable due to interest rates and unemployment than anything else.

Very few people I’ve encountered suporting Occupy are envious; however most are fired by a sense of fair play.

But surely the “OWS” protest camps across the Western world should all be located outside the respective, but not respected, “democratic” (sic) decision-making centres of what are all effectively bankrupt countries?

It is our politicians of the West that immorally socialised the private sector losses of the crony capitalists. It is our politicians that sold off state assets on the cheap, rather than as ordinary shares to all.

It is our governments that support crony capitalists who destroy shareholder wealth (including our pension funds). It is the crony capitalists who employ politicians once they retire out of office in a symbiotic relationship.

It is the excessive influence on the economy of politicians and the endemic cronyism within the economy that needs to be targeted, not capitalism per se.

It is the Central Banks of the Western world, with the demands of politicians to artificially cheapen the cost of money who are destroying the value of our paper currencies today through the silent pernicious tax of inflation.

It is the excessive political legislation that imposes huge costs on employing people that needs to be targeted. The solution is not more legislation, rather less and hence more private sector jobs. Meanwhile, your union leaders live their lives of luxury.
It is the excessive political tax and spend policies that imposes huge costs on society that needs addressing. You cannot tax a country into prosperity, only bankruptcy.

It is the politicians who pass legislation protecting big business with increased barriers from more nimble competition who should be targeted. Whose back is your MP scratching when (s)he votes for certain legislation?

It is the harmful cycle of continual re-election of politicians on spend, spend, spend promises which we are paying for today and which our future generations will pay for tomorrow when we are long gone that is the problem. The only outcome is that the £100 in your wallet will be worth £10 in 10 years time, whilst your salary grows by less than inflation – assuming your job has not been exported to a “cheaper” more free-market friendly country, which is very likely thanks to our political economic policies of the past 100 years continuing as they are.

Yes, we need to change the system, but the change required is to free up the market place to allow for a vibrant, dynamic, Hong Kong style creative energy to be set free from the dead weight of the nation state.

Technological innovation coupled with the entrepreneurial spirit is what will improve everyone’s standard of living now and in the future.

More nation state interference will take us back to caves.

We need to create the conditions that will allow the seeds of ingenuity and creative solutions to thrive as we seek answers to the problems we are facing today in the areas of energy, resources, water supply, hunger and disease.

It is those who create these solutions, those who tap into the vast arena of supreme human capabilities, who are the real heroes of our lives, – they are the real gods and it is these people whose statues should occupy the pedestals of our cities and be lauded and thanked each year.

If you prefer to live in a cave, then you are free to do so, but you are not free to take me there with you with you.

99% of us are thankfully healthy enough to be capable of taking actions that can self-support our own lives. Self-support is psychologically healthy and the physical rewards people get from being self-supportive should be theirs to be retained for whatever purpose they choose.

My wealth from my actions should be mine to determine how it should be distributed and it is this concept that gives rise to acts of true benevolence.

Stealing is malevolent and immoral, whatever its form, whether backed by the guns of the lawmakers, or by the guns of a criminal.

Mutually agreed exchanges of value that harm no individual or property are never criminal.

Envy is also a malevolent character trait.

Unfortunately, I was born into a country whose people have envious tendencies educated into them, and these tendencies are psychologically unhealthy but useful for our politicians to tap into.

The envious like to see retribution through redistribution as recompense for their own ills.

Meanwhile, the politicians and crony capitalists prosper, at our expense, happy in their ability to manipulate and distort through their respective useful envious idiots.

The message to all is: don’t be a useful idiot.

Rather, do what you can to support your own life; ignore the envious and their claims on your property. Once you can support your own life, then you are well placed to distribute your surplus capital as you see fit – but that is your decision and choice.

You’ll feel better for it and so, eventually, will the rest of society once others realise the key to a happy life is not redistribution but rather creation.

If only we had the right economic environment that supports human ingenuity in all its beauty and glory. That should be the aim of the protestors across the Western World. Sadly, it is not.

I presume this comment will be deleted even though I am part of the 99%.