Thanks to Dan’s astute observations regarding communism, I now know that America has been very lucky avoiding any of those magic variables that cause massive civilian death. For example, China’s policy in the 1950’s called the Great Leap Forward had absolutely nothing to do with 40 million people that starved to death.
Rather, China was unlucky to have some magic variable that had nothing to do with their Communistic policies that cause all the death. America truly is lucky going 200 plus years without one of these random magical variables befallen us and kill millions of our people.

Unfortunately the same can not be said about Zimbawe. Apparently Zimbawe was well on its way to affluence.

In the years following independence, Zimbabwe had the second largest economy south of the Sahara and the third highest per capita gross domestic product. In the first two years after independence, the economy grew by 24 per cent. This was followed by 5 per cent annualised growth in the next 15 years. The highest inflation rate was 12 per cent.

But then, some random variable befallen this fine nation, a variable that, according to Dan, is completely independent of government or economic policy. Look at the carnage this magical variable has wrought on Zimbabwe.

Since then, and especially since 2000, Zimbabwe has gone from being a promising country, full of committed, highly literate and skilled people, to a basket case with a population broken by years of neglect and numerous assaults on their ever-dwindling liberties.

Today, 70 per cent of the country’s commercial agriculture has been destroyed by government mismanagement. Only 10 per cent of the winter food crop was planted due to lack of fuel and fertilisers. More than four million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, 45 per cent of the population is malnourished and unemployment is over 85 per cent. One in four of the population has HIV-AIDS and 350 children in Zimbabwe are orphaned every day due to the disease.

Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy in the world. Women can expect to live to 34.

Inflation is running as high as 150,000 per cent. The price of a carton of milk taken from a supermarket shelf can be higher by the time it reaches the checkout.

It should come as no surprise that Zimbabwe has the world’s second highest per capita diaspora, following only Palestine.

I used to think that such outcomes were largely the result of government oppression and poor economic policy. Dan has certainly disabused me of such silly notions and viewing Zimbabwe’s current situation I am ever more grateful, not of democracy, or free markets, but that America has not had this magic variable randomly visit us. Hopefully, god willing their will never be a time when the magic variable comes and ruins millions of American’s lives.

Since these magic variables are beyond our control I can only pray that God will banish this magic variable from Zimbabwe and the people can rebuild and achieve the affluence the US has been lucky to attain.

Lets take a look at what you get when you put together the desire to redistribute wealth equitably, increase government control over markets, and use experts to inform bureaucrats how best to manage resources and people.

The introduction, by editor Stéphane Courtois, states that that “…Communist regimes…turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”. Using unofficial estimates he cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the “excess deaths” (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:

* 20 million in the Soviet Union
* 65 million in the People’s Republic of China
* 1 million in Vietnam
* 2 million in North Korea
* 2 million in Cambodia
* 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
* 150,000 in Latin America
* 1.7 million in Africa
* 1.5 million in Afghanistan
* 10,000 deaths “resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power.”(p. 4)

It explicitly states that Communist regimes are responsible for a greater number of deaths than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism. The statistics of victims includes executions, intentional destruction of population by starvation, and deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor. It does not include “excess deaths” due to higher mortality or lower birth rates than expected of the population.

This comes from The Black Book of Communism.

Capitalism is all about greed and the ignoble virtue of getting and keeping whats your’s.

Communism is about equity and the noble virtue of sharing whats your’s with all.

If you ask me I would live in the ignoble world of greed than the noble word of sharing. I base this primarily off the likelihood that I would be dead in a world of good intentions.

This interactive site uses poverty statistics to show how billions of people have been pulled out of poverty. What interesting to note is that most of the poor people came from Aisan countries, which coincided with free markets policies. Unsurprising once again that without the good intentions of bureaucrats trying to solve poverty free markets reduce it without even trying.

Capitalism. Is there anything it can’t do?

Its not fair that private companies are allowed to do what they want their product. What about consumers that don’t want the product to change. What we need is some federal regulation telling the company what it should do with it’s products. After all, the federal government knows best.

Over at Buckhorn Road, Chanman writes about how the local JC Penney’s store is only accepting bilingual applicants. Indignant, he avers he will never shop at Penney’s in protest of this policy. He then writes:

I realize that JC Penney is a private company, and if they want Spanish-speaking employees, then as a private company, I believe they have the right to follow this wrong-headed employment requirement if they wish. However, as a consumer who is free to shop anywhere I please, I am under no compulsion to do business with JC Penney, and I am likewise perfectly free to criticize JC Penney for a company requirement that is fundamentally wrong. From now on, I’ll buy my t-shirts and dress shoes elsewhere.

Well lookie here. Chanman understands that companies can’t force him to do their bidding. He also prefers that the state not be used to force companies to do his bidding. Notice that he is free to take his business elsewhere when a company does something he is dissatisfied with. I wonder if he has ever been dissatisfied with state decision and was able to take his business to another state in protest. I just forgot, he can’t do that cause unlike JC Penney’s, the state has a monopoly on coercion.

I wonder if JC Penney’s stands to make more by being more amenable to Spanish speaking immigrants even though they will shell a small segment of their current shoppers. What better way to find out then to leave it up to the free markets to decide. Capitalism is there anything it can’t do?

From the Wikipedia entry on Commanding Heights, the authoritative source documenting the thrashing capitalism has given any alternative system attempting to help the poor, states:

The market also requires something else: legitimacy. But here it faces an ethical conundrum. It is based upon contracts, rules, and choice — in short, on self-restraint — which contrasts mightily with other ways of organizing economic activity. Yet a system that takes the pursuit of self-interest and profit as its guiding light does not necessarily satisfy the yearning in the human soul for belief and some higher meaning beyond materialism. In the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, Republican soldiers are said to have died with the word “Stalin” on their lips. Their idealized vision of Soviet communism, however misguided, provided justification for their ultimate sacrifice. Few people would die with the words “free markets” on their lips.

Like Braveheart I would die for FREEDOM………OF MARKETS.

Melanie Scarborough writes:

I would have assumed she was an anomaly or blamed the California school system if I hadn’t heard similar comments from other young people who attend top-rated high schools in Virginia, such as the daughter of a co-worker who mentioned a classmate visiting Europe — “one of those places that starts with an A.” Amsterdam? Austria? Antwerp? “No,” she said. “I think it was Alcatraz.”

Clearly, she was not a candidate for higher education; she hadn’t mastered fourth-grade geography. Yet after struggling to graduate from high school, she went on to attend one of Virginia’s state universities — exemplifying one of the reasons college costs now are so high: Taxpayers subsidize college for people better suited to asking, “You want fries with that?”

She continues with what I think is valid point:

Only in Lake Wobegon is every child above average. In real life, not everyone can benefit from advanced education. Not every career demands it. But while a high school diploma historically meant that an individual had been adequately educated for adulthood — could speak and write grammatically, perform basic mathematics, and had a working knowledge of science, geography, civics, and history — as my young friends so ably demonstrated, that is no longer the case.

No doubt part of this problem is the teacher unions. Unlike microwaves we care to much about our children’s education to see it improve.

Of course this is all heading towards this argument:

Throwing money at schools that don’t need it to spend on students who don’t deserve it defines government waste. Before the House bill is reconciled with the one approved by the Senate, perhaps lawmakers should educate themselves on whether such expenditures are actually needed.

When government steps in all sorts of market perversion takes hold. Higher education should have a price associated with it. Otherwise everyone will get a college degree and this will diminish the value of the diploma. Of course when you have noble intentions like making sure everyone gets an equal chance you can’t be bothered with reality, like that people are not equal.

Absolutely nothing when you are talking about global warming.

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived! Support for Western democracy is messianic as proselytised by a President leading a flawed democracy

There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties. It is not that liberal democracy cannot react once it sees a threat, for example, the speedy response to a recent international financial emergency. If governments can recognise a financial emergency and in an instant move heaven and earth (and billions of dollars, pounds sterling and euros) to contain it, why are they unable to do the same in response to a global environmental emergency? Quite simply our system is seen to live and breathe by the present economic system; the problem is that living and breathing within the confines of the world ecological systems is contrary to the activity of progress and development as defined within liberal democracy.

good god y’all!

These kind of people do great harm to the political viability to economic reforms to reduce greenhouse emissions. Quite simply, what they mean by ‘global warming’ simply does not exist. I would happily deny the existence of their global warming all day and night long.

Those that truly see global warming as problem would be wise to distance themselves as much as possible from these kinds of people. The problem is that these are the only people committed enough to global warming to push the issue. It so happens that the vast majority of these people are heavily critical of capitalism and see global warming as a tool to constrain if not completely eliminate capitalism. Its not so much that they are worried about the earth warming, so much as the solution allows them to constrain capitalism.

What will happen, which is what always happens with these kinds of issues, capitalism will drive innovation that will deal with this problem directly. The vast majority of people will not have to make any kind of substantial change to their lifestyle to deal with the so called problem.

The editorial staff at the New York times has fallen sick. Its the only way to explain how this opinion piece got published. The authors argue compellingly that the poor in America have not gotten poorer over time, but in fact have become much wealthier thanks to international free markets. Capitalism, is there anything it can’t do?

Thus there is a certain perversity to suggestions that the proper reaction to a potential recession is to enact protectionist measures. While foreign competition may have eroded some American workers’ incomes, looking at consumption broadens our perspective. Simply put, the poor are less poor. Globalization extends and deepens a capitalist system that has for generations been lifting American living standards — for high-income households, of course, but for low-income ones as well.

Heads are going to roll at the New York times on Monday.

I care about the poor. Thats why I’m a capitalist.