Dear Friends,
It seems to me, many economists, historians and academics believe there are three basic systems of human organization.. free enterprise, communism and fascism. Free enterprise is where individuals make their own choices, communism is where you have no choices, and fascism is where the state makes your choices for you… for the betterment of all. So far, communism and fascism have failed every time they have been tried, while free enterprise has succeeded. Nevertheless, despite the empirical evidence of free enterprises’ superiority, the elite stubbornly opt for either communism or fascism. I think it is because these two systems are based on central control, and the elite, being control freaks, think that they, the experts, must do a better job than a self arranging complex system.
These three systems of human organization are more than simply economic schemes, they encompass the totality of human endeavor… economic, social and some even seek to control our evolution itself. You might think that free enterprise is all about getting rich, and that is a large part of the incentive structure, but it is about much more than that. This is because before free enterprise can exist several factors must be met. The people must have a minimum of integrity, the laws must be limited and fairly applied, crony capitalism must be discouraged, taxes must be low or nonexistent, free speech protected and regulation has to be replaced with standards. The other two systems also cover every aspect of human life. Instead of freeing mankind, they control us to the nth degree, even to the point of eugenics.
Socialism even failed Jesus’ disciples. It failed the Pilgrims, the French, the Russians, the Chinese, the Cambodians and the list goes on and on. Each failure spilling more blood than the last. At each incarnation, the socialists, both fascist and communist, thought more power in the hands of the despots would make it work. Each time more power was usurped by the experts… more people died. Mao killed tens of millions with his Great Leap Forward, Lenin’s Bolsheviks killed millions in their march to power and the blood that flowed from Robespierre’s guillotine filled rivers. The Pilgrims starved to death en masse until they gave up socialism and embraced free enterprise. History teaches us nothing if not that free enterprise succeeds, whenever it is tried, as fascism/communism fails… every time.
Control freaks desire control. They are deeply uncomfortable when not in control. The whole idea of a self organizing system gives such people the Heeby Jeebies. Empirical evidence be damned, they cannot understand, how order can arise from chaos, if they are not the ordering agent. I suspect it boils down to maturity. Some people are not able to let go. That illusion of control gives them something solid to grasp in this maelstrom of a world. Control freaks are just not mature enough to allow free enterprise to work. It upsets them too much. Even if fascism and communism create disaster for millions of people. Millions of others get to live under strict order, and that, in and of itself, is a price control freaks are willing for others to pay… to make the control freaks more comfortable.
We have to ask ourselves, do we want strict top down order, that kills tens perhaps hundreds of millions, but lets control freaks feel good about themselves? Maybe we would prefer a system where the control freaks are not so comfortable, but hundreds of millions of people get to live, with an ever increasing standard of living? These are the two options we as a species are faced with. The control freaks are at the top today, pulling the lever on totalitarian global fascism, and we have less and less say every day. Because control freaks are not open to debate, delegation of authority, or democracy. Those things limit their control. Just like in WWII, two of the three great systems are faced off, Fascism and free enterprise. The elite have chosen global fascism… what do you choose?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
