In response to the AIG bonuses, Darwin came off the rails in expressing his outrage.

It’s no secret that America has a ruling class. political and financial power both travel in families and social circles, and members of the upper class have so many thousands of times more money and power and influence than the common man that any claim of egalitarianism is simply laughable.

It must be a secret being kept from me since I fail to see this so called ruling class. Perhaps you could point to it so that I can see it more clearly. Certainly this upper class has more money, seeing as that the defining feature of ‘upper class’, but as to having more power and influence I’m going to need to see more evidence.

I might be wiling to concede the notion that their has been a trend since the inception of our union of consolidating more power into fewer hands and perhaps thats what you are getting at. However, I would hasten to add that you are the very reason for such increases in power. For you see Darwin you support the polices that consistently put more power into the hand of less people. You have argued for these things:

Increased regulation of industry: this leads to giving regulators, and the legislatures who control them, a tremendous amount of power in controlling those industries. When you complain about how lobbyists control congress you should bear in mind you support the policies that enable that kind of ‘influence’.

Redistribution of Wealth: Again we see consolidation of power because you support the polices of taking the money of close to three million people who make more than a million dollars per year and handing it over to 500 legislatures. However it’s even worse than that. Because you support the polices of using coercion to force this money from these people. You blatantly enable force simply to consolidate resources into less people’s hands. Thats quite alarming.

Banning Gun Rights: You support policies that restrict and eliminate all citizens ability to defend themselves. Assuming you would support federal regulation heavily restricting gun ownership you will be consolidating the power of self defense from the citizenry at large ( about 210,000 million adults) to 500 legislatures.

Darwin, its your support of liberal policy that gives the so-called ruling class the power and influence that you bemoan. If you were really so against the political and financial classes you would endorse a whole different set of candidates and polices. It turns out you don’t care that so few people have so much ‘influence’. Your issue is that these people you have empowered won’t do your bidding. You don’t object to the consolidation of power only that the consolidated power is not being used as you see fit.

But we’ve accepted this for centuries based on the capitalist rhtoric which says the rich are being compnensated for extraordinary skills and abilities, which allow them to keep the entire economy strong and safe, benefitting everyone in the country.

I don’t support this so-called ruling class on the rhetorical grounds of capitalism. I think the more fundamental reason to support capitalism is that it provides people the most freedom of all economic systems. At it’s core capitalism’s fundamental axiom is that a person has absolute control over their property. They get to say how and when their property is used. Capitalism forbids others from using a person’s property without their consent. Effectively capitalism is the least coercive economic system there is. The freedom it confers dovetails nicely with with our bill of rights. Capitalism is to economic freedom what democracy is to political freedom.

Granted, the unfettered freedom of capitalism has its problem and thats why I approve of limited encroachments by the state to regulate capitalism. But I think our system gets it right. We favor the side of capitalism and demand justification for why the sate should interfere. Others systems like socialism get it wrong, assuming the infallibility of regulation forcing capitalists to justify repealing certain regulations. Or worse yet, in communism where the notion that people might own their property is so taboo that capitalism is never justified. Systems heavily respectful of regulation by their very nature have ruling classes. For you see Darwin, in order to regulate you need officials to determine when and how resources are to be used and in selecting those people you form a ruling a class. You consolidate all the resources in the hands of a few people enabling them to maintain their power with a small circle of people.

I favor capitalism not in spite of it’s ruling class but to protect against the formation of one.

Now, with the system crashing around our ears, real people suffereing, and both the political and financial elites revealed as at the very least incompetent and uncarring and at worst criminals and frauds, the general public is no longer willing to accept that rhetoric.

First of all I doubt very much the system is crashing around our ears. But I do want to point out several things. You characterize politicians (in addition to financial elites) as ‘incompetent, uncaring, and at worst criminals and frauds’. Why then do you consistently support legislation that would give these people more power? Placing your characterizations of politicians next to the policies you support leads one to the conclusion you are irrational. You are worried about a ruling class, you think those that rule you are incompetent, and yet you consistently come out on policy positions that gives ever more power to the incompetent ruling elite. Just seems completely irrational.

If you honestly believe their are ‘real people suffereing’ then you should go there and help them. Donate some time and give some of your money to charity. I recommend looking into churches in your neighborhood, they carry the bulk of helping those in need despite you and others being highly critical of their ideology. However, don’t complain about how the financial and political elites refuse to help when you don’t seem inclined yourself to help.

The outrage at the AIG bonuses isn’t because it’s a misuse of the bailout funds, it’s because it’s a final, incredibly blatant and insulting confirmation of the fact that competency, hard work, and good results are NOT what is rewarded in this economy, and that the elites we entrust our economy to are completely corrupt and looking out only for themselves.

Actually I would argue a big part of the outrage is predicated on the fact that it does seem to be a misuse of the bailout funds. However I really don’t know enough of the details to determine if this shows that our merit based economy is a fraud. However if I had to guess, I suspect there is not enough evidence here to demonstrate convincingly that we have ‘confirmation of the fact that competency, hard work, and good results are NOT what is rewarded in this economy’.

I would like to point out that the decision to nationalize AIG was absolutely against the spirit of capitalism and something I vehemently oppose. The decision to nationalize AIG was certainly a slap in the face of the principle of rewarding good results. I opposed both the legislative and executive support of such a decision. One of the reason I voted against both McCain and Obama was because I know both of them would support such polices when elected to office.

The only question I have is why did you support Obama if you were so worried about the state ruining our meritocracy? It was obvious he would support and put forth many of the policies that would create more state interference in the markets. Including policies advanced by wealthy financial elites attempting to influence the political elites in passing laws that secure their finances after they make bad financial decisions.

It might be wise to direct some of your understandable outrage at yourself. You support many of the policies that has lead to this outcome.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.