Leave a Comment / Uncategorized / By Steve Balich
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
#Constitution #twill #tcot #sbalich #maga #leadright #eyesrightopen #socialis #capitalism #Marx
Miss Constitution thinks it is time to discuss basic economics. America’s first surviving colonies from Europe were financed by corporations who invested in the costs of the journey in hopes of finding raw materials that could be returned on the ships. The Virginia Company, in competition with a Dutch firm, financed the Mayflower in 1620. The colonists brought with them the notions of individual property rights and with those rights the ability to convey property to heirs who, they hoped, would improve and expand what they started. Following a difficult survival, American colonists developed exportable crops (rice, indigo, tobacco) and a lucrative fur trade in beaver. This went on, additional commodities being added, for about two-hundred years.
About the time of our American Revolution in 1776, however, Europe was transitioning from agrarian/merchant to industrial – otherwise known as the Industrial Revolution. This economic revolution was first powered by steam and then by steel, but it changed the nature of society as populations converged in urban centers and factory jobs and away from isolated farms. The social instability this caused, plus the revolutions beginning with the French Revolution and the others in Europe in the 19th century, prompted the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in violent opposition to the ideas of Adam Smith and his Wealth of Nations, that describes the philosophical underpinnings of capitalism, the economic system of America today.
Marx asserted that:
*capitalism is the enemy of the worker
*capitalism confiscates the surplus value of the products created by the worker in the form of profit
*capitalism must be extinguished by a dictatorship of the working class first with socialism and then with communism
This economics-theory war is very real. First published in 1848, Marx’s views have been adopted by many societies in different forms, but the result is always murderous “re-education” programs and tyrannies that diminish the individual and enhance the state and the few ruthless at the top. Why Americans would even consider such a thing is beyond Miss Constitution’s ability to comprehend, but we have gradually gone in that direction thanks to what and how we teach our precious children and young adults. A heavy curtain is coming down on our once-prized “marketplace of ideas” and the re-education we thought could not happen in America is almost complete. If you dare say otherwise you will be widely condemned.
America’s modern version of capitalism has developed in conjunction with our Constitutional system as a representative republic. Our federal Constitution emphasizes personal liberty as our primary value, and a value we wish to pass on to each generation. Our human rights, however, come from God, and include life, liberty, and a form of liberty called the “pursuit of happiness.” This liberty, and our trust in God, are antithetical to socialist and communist ideations about the best way to manage society. Our form of capitalism promotes individual productivity and inventiveness within the boundaries of service and charity. As Max Weber, a 20th century philosopher asserts, it is a kind of union of Adam Smith and tenets of the Protestant Reformation. We certainly have wealth disparity in America, but we have opportunity available to all who want to take advantage of it. Corporations share ownership with their workers through shares of stock; invention and creativity are protected in Article I, section 8 of our federal Constitution in the form of patents and trademarks; taxes are confined to income, for the most part, to incentivize productivity and growth. And yet, many grievous social problems exist in our society and need answers. Socialists, democratic or Fabian, or any other version, see the solutions as coming from the national government, and confiscatory taxation as the way to pay for them, personal liberty be damned.
American capitalists see the solution to social problems as beginning with the individual, the family, the community, and the church. When these cannot handle the issue, society asks the private sector to develop solutions; if these are not enough, society asks the private sector to partner with the most local governmental unit available to try and solve the problem or experiment with a solution. To preserve our personal liberty and our God-given right to pursue our own happiness society never goes to the federal government first to tackle the issue. This is socialism. This is death to liberty; this is death to innovation and productivity; this is out of the question. Miss Constitution suggests you look around you; she suggests you thank God for the blessings of this life; she suggests you ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country; and she suggests that some of your thoughts and actions are in service to those fellow creatures in need and to whom you owe a human duty.
Copyright©2019 M.E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
MissConstitution.com
