Phillip Blond
Irving, TX. It has been sometime since I have called myself a “conservative.” It is not that any of my opinions have changed, but rather that conservatism forgot just what is was trying to conserve. Increasingly, it became, under Reagan and the Bushes, “neo-conservatism,” and with that philosophy I have only two quarrels: it isn’t new and it isn’t conservative. Or rather, what is “new” about it is the attempt to pass off Enlightenment Liberalism as something worth conserving. As one of neo-conservatism’s founders, Michael Novak, noted, “neo-liberalism” would be a more apt description.
In practice, neo-conservatism was little more than state-supported, monopolistic capitalism with a veneer of “family values” rhetoric. Never mind that the position of the family actually deteriorated in the last 30 years, both culturally and economically. It wasn’t necessary to actually deliver on any promises to the family, since the Democratic alternative of support for abortion and homosexual “marriage” ruled out that path. The end result of such “conservatism” was bloated government complete with debts we cannot pay, obligations we cannot meet, wars we cannot win, and an economy that cannot work.
One had to be even more skeptical of the conservatives when they got “compassionate.” The single program initiative of this “compassion” was the further expansion of the Department of Education, which is a department in search of a job. The job it choose for itself was to impose unfunded mandates on the states under the rubric of “no child left behind.” The department grew with its mandates, even as actual education shrank.
Therefore, I can be excused if I was somewhat skeptical when hearing of the “progressive conservatives” of England. The name sounded a little bit too much like “compassionate conservatism,” just another attempt to dress up a shabby liberalism in the borrowed finery of the conservatives. Further, the English situation struck me as even worse then the American one, with Thatcherism even more destructive of true conservatism than was Reaganism.
But a few weeks ago in Nottingham I got to meet Phillip Blond, one of the “Red Tories” and a founder of the progressive conservative movement. His address was actually about Distributism, and it was backed up with facts and figures in a way that most Distributist presentations aren’t, alas. Perhaps I was wrong, and there was more to the Progressives than a little political cross-dressing. Upon returning to the States, I looked up his speech that is considered a founding document of this movement, The Civic State. What I found is one of the most remarkable short political speeches that I have read in decades.
In Blond’s analysis of the last 30 years, both the Conservative and Labour parties have tended towards the same end: bloated monopolistic capitalism and a bloated welfare state. Thatcher established a “Market fundamentalism [that] abandoned the fundamentals of the market.” Meanwhile Labour entered into a “Faustian bargain” with monopolistic capitalism which:
[E]nsures a permanent ascendancy of the middle class over the working class and creates an antagonistic feudal structure—where any genuine extension of power and ownership to the poor is resisted by the liberal middle classes who fear mostly for their own status and their sole assumed inherited right to social mobility. (Just look at British schooling)
Blond argues that modern conservatism should reject both alternatives (which turn out to be the same) and replace the market state and the welfare state with the Civic State, which:
[A]ims to blend the benefits of welfare and the market mechanism not by favouring one or the other, but by exceeding both. The Conservative’s new civic settlement privileges the associative above the alienated, the responsible over the self-serving and (yes I know this is shocking) the communal over the individual.
This civic state has three main tasks in the current crises: The re-moralization of the markets, the re-localization of the economy, and the re-capitalization of the poor. As the the first, it is a timely project since it is the major theme of Pope Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate. Both men call for markets which serve the public good rather than just private interests. As Blond puts it, the market must have a purpose:
For Conservatives it must be the extension of wealth, assets and the benefits of ecological and social well being to all. Freedom from the monopoly dominance of state bureaucracy and market power would allow independence for the formation of community and autonomy and a rebalancing of the demands of work, family and childcare.
As for re-localization of the economy, Blond notes that the Blair/Brown worship of monopolies “produced the paradox of competition without competitors,” favoring the big-box stores over local production and retailing. Blond (incorrectly, I believe) attributes this dominance to “economies” of scale, when in fact it is attributable to government subsidies. The Wal-Mart distribution model, for example, would collapse if their were weight/distance tolls on the so-called “freeways.” But in any case, it is true, as Blond says, that,
Small and medium businesses are how millions of ordinary people own and secure the wealth for themselves and their families. The present market dispossess them and re-categorizes them as permanent members of the low-waged shop serving, rather than shop owning, class.
Of all the tasks, the re-capitalization of the poor is the most pressing from the distributist point of view. Blond notes that in England in 1976, the bottom half of the population owned just 12% of the nation’s liquid wealth, but by 2003 that number had dropped to just 1%. In the same period, the share enjoyed by the top 10% rose from 51% to 71%. Clearly, the bottom half of the population has been dispossessed even of the share it had. In the same period, the median wage has flat-lined. Such concentration of wealth is not only inconsistent with a free-market economy, it is economically unsustainable. Markets depend (for those who have not forgotten economics 101) on a broad base of solvent consumers and a wide distribution of productive capacity.
Blond concludes by noting that this conservatism “represents a deep and profound critique of the pre-existing extremes and a restoration of something close to the real heart of Britain: an organic conservatism that cares for all.”
I cannot see any “red” in Red Toryism, and much that is true conservatism. It remains to be seen whether such a conservatism gains any traction with the Tories. David Cameron, the party leader, has endorsed the movement, more or less. But “party leader” is an amazingly pliable profession; we will have to see how it all plays out. Nevertheless, if there is any chance of this program regaining control of the conservative movement, then it may be safe to call oneself a conservative again.
97 comments
Siarlys Jenkins
I hope there is some real honest to god “Red” in this movement. I don’t buy that the struggle between labor and capital can simply be overcome. When ninety percent of the population has to “get a job” rather than “ply their craft,” extortion does indeed take the place of contract. We won’t rebalance the needs of childcare without massive transformation in how employers view their employees. But in general, this is an appealing vision. Whether he has the nuts and bolts blueprint to make it happen is not clear. What is clear is that the “deepest pink” British Labor Party does not. Give the reds a chance.
N. P. West
Well at least a conference is a place to start. Movements usually begin small and see fruition down the line, sometimes years down the line. For example the Russell Kirk Center and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute have hosted educational events for students and academics of a traditionalist mindset for years and one has to believe that at some point some of those students and academics will come into their own in the movement or in the larger American scene.
Maybe the place to start is not by reinventing the wheel and thinking we need to create another Heritage. Chances are we aren’t going to get the big donors that the other think tanks get so maybe we should look at combining resources with other organizations (nationally and internationally) until something substantial can be done in this country.
For example, I see no reason to form another pro-family organization when Allan Carlson has done such a fine job with the Howard Center and the World Congress of Families. As to economics I know that the Chesterbelloc and the Distributist Review are doing good things but so is Stratford Caldecot’s Center for Faith and Culture which has a whole division devoted to Catholic Social Teaching on Distributist and Neo-Distributist economics. Likewise there has to be other localist and communitarian environmental groups out there that cover public policy and I am sure we could find common cause with groups that favor a realistic and humble foreign policy that takes the threat of radical Islam seriously.
Here are two of my suggestions for the conference idea:
First a small private meeting should occur between an international body of traditionalists, localists, and communitarians in which they lay out a statement of principles from which they all agree to move the traditionalist movement forward. This would serve as the “Sharon Statement” of the traditionalist movement (the Sharon Statement was the founding document of Young Americans for Freedom back in the 1960s).
Second two conferences should be held, one in the U.S. and one in the U.K. to capitalize on Red Toryism, progressive conservatism, traditionalism, communitarianism, localism, etc. get as much input from other parties and the public.
John Médaille
N.P., something like that is in the works, or so I understand. However, let me point out one big difference between the UK and the US. Phillip was able to raise 1.5 million pounds in a week to fund his new communitarian think tank. In a country 10 times the size, we couldn’t raise that much in year, or maybe in five. All the money (being corporate money) goes to the Austrian libertarians or to the neoconservatives.
N. P. West
It seems to me that the folks at FPR would be the obvious choice to get the ball rolling on a trans-Atlantic conference on traditionalism, localism, and communitarianism. Maybe get the folks at the G. K. Chesterton Institute, the Russell Kirk Center, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the National Humanities Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Howard Center, and the Center for Faith and Culture at the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts to send representatives.
Also, what the traditionalist/civic communitarian/localists need is their own think tank like Res Publica since Heritage and Cato and the American Enterprise Institute don’t address our issues.
We also need more traditionalists to run for high office so we can eventually have a better quality bench of presidential aspirants down the road. No offense to my libertarian brethren but Ron Paul and his disciples just don’t cut the mustard when they care more about the Fed and free markets instead of issues that matter to traditionalists like localism, the environment, and families.
Kevin Carson
I think John has nailed it on the nature of the cross-subsidy to long-haul trucking. Heavy trucks cause almost all the structural damage to road beds, but don’t pay almost all the taxes.
Re tolls, even if they can’t entirely substitute for fuel taxes, they can at least replace fuel taxes on those roads where excludability is feasible. The most equitable way to do it, IMO, is to fund the Interstates with weight-based tolls that fall mainly on trucks, to fund urban freeways with a combination of weight-based tolls and congestion pricing, and to reduce the total gasoline tax by a revenue-neutral amount. Then all the gas tax revenues go to roads where excludability and tolls are not an option (like county roads).
As for the urban residential and commercial street grid, one idea to toy with is privatizing streets to the residents and businesses located on them, and letting them take responsibility for funding their own repairs via assurance contracts and other voluntary funding mechanisms.
Bruce Smith
Thanks John. What you say is absolutely right. From my past experience in Community Planning and Design there is a huge convergence between what the dominant market (and sometimes the state) supplies as environment and what ordinary individuals (not politicians) sitting down and working together would like in the place they live. As soon as you allow elitist control of capital it will tend to distort the decision making process and especially monopolization which reduces options for people in so many ways. One aspect of Freedom is about choice but our current system narrows it down in very undemocratic ways. Where, as you say, is the choice for American people in having to rely on China for many of their goods when elites in the form of Chinese and American governments together with American capitalists are so clearly rigging the market to determine that choice? The market-state is increasingly dictating the way we live and not for the best. Hobbes’s Leviathan is rearing its ugly head in a form he did not expect!
John Médaille
Bruce, excellent observations. The market depends on public goods which it cannot itself supply. Roads are an example, since you cannot have a “free market” in roads; you cannot have different suppliers on the same route. You can have competing modes (rail, hiway, air transport, canals) and competing routes, but these will never be homogeneous products.
To your excellent suggestions I would add devolving, insofar as practical, as many decisions–and costs–on the local entities.
John Médaille
Pete, you need no help from me in calculating the amount of the subsidy; your own excellent research is enough to get an approximate figure. You say that the trucks drive a third of the miles and pay a third of the taxes. Very good so far. But then if you convert that to weight-miles (the basis of road engineering) the situation changes. I don’t know the real numbers, but lets say cars and light trucks average 3,000 lbs. and the semi’s 60,000 lbs. Suddenly each semi mile is worth 20 of the car miles. Now the subsidy looms large, does it not? If the big box stores had to carry the cost of transportation they would fail. Or at least, they would lose their subsidized advantage over local production. (Let’s not even go into the subsidy they get from Chinese currency manipulation.)
I don’t know why you maintain that the trucks shouldn’t pay usage fees for using state and local roads. I would say that if they don’t use them much, they don’t pay much; it they use them a lot, they pay a lot. This is not rocket science.
You say they build the big box out on the freeway because its “cheaper.” Of course. It’s subsidized. But this destroys the local business and exerts a centrifugal force on cities, pulling them apart. This makes the provision of all services more expensive: the sewer lines are longer, the patrol beats are wider, everything a gov’t does costs more. But that’s not the end of it. Now you cannot walk to a store, as we did when I was young. So to the cost of a gallon of milk, you have to add the cost of the drive to get it. It even contributes to obesity, since there is no longer any place to walk to.
Subsidies defy not only the laws of economics, but the laws of physics. An engineer cannot pronounce one system more efficient than another without knowing the costs of the inputs. If these costs are externalized, engineering itself is no longer possible. That is not to say we should never subsidize; there are public goods which may require it. But one needs to do so consciously and cautiously. The problem now is that there is a general expectation of subsidies; everybody becomes a special interest group. But the whole system is no longer sustainable. There are no “solutions” out there; the whole uneconomic system has reached its end. We need to be thinking not about how to fix what we have, because we can’t have that any longer, but about “What comes next?”
Bruce Smith
Outside of the tolls, or no tolls, argument between John and Pete what is interesting in this debate is how inseparable having Public Goods is from having Government. This is Government to decide which Public Goods to supply, who should supply them and who should pay for them. It would seem reasonable to assume that we have Public Goods because the Market has opted not to supply them except as contractors to the Government. The Market’s reasons for not being directly involved in the supply of Public Goods has to be because it cannot cherry-pick its profits (Healthcare being the classic example of the totally absurd contradictions between profit and the Public Good of well-being where the insurance companies constantly look to deny cover wherever it can to loss-making propositions and usurp the role of the doctor by determining what drugs and treatments are available on the insurance plan). What seems to happen in a Market where investment capital is controlled by the few is that those few are constantly engaged in a battle to push the cost of the Public Goods onto somebody else in order to maximize profits irrespective of the honesty in doing this. They are also at the same time usually engaged in supporting a campaign to reduce the Public Goods where it has no benefit to them. The “somebody else” they try to push Public Goods costs onto is the ordinary citizen who usually lacks the power of direct day-to-day control of investment capital (and consequently is usually in no position to bribe Government). It would, therefore, seem better that a society seeks to resolve this contradiction by devolving investment capital to its citizens and thereby devolving the power of decision and influence also. The reason it also has a chance of being better resolved is because the payer is more directly identified with the other consumers of Public Goods. If you don’t pay then the schools close down, or the mains sewage system clogs up and this doesn’t just affect your immediate family it affects your relatives and your friends’ families. It forces the ordinary citizen to weigh up the benefits of being selfish or altruistic. Furthermore, it exposes for all to see that a system of elite monopolization of power derived from investment capital is a form of free-loading or cheating. Finally, the citizen as investment capital controller has more reason within the Private Goods Market to object to unfair subsidy and monopolization of trade and this also impinges on issues of sustainability.
Pete Peterson
Let’s go back to your original statement: “The Wal-Mart distribution model, for example, would collapse if their were weight/distance tolls on the so-called “freeways.”
Now I think it’s obvious that the term “freeways” here is misleading. In the very least we have a system of cross-subsidizing going on. If we were to eliminate all fuel taxes (a fantasy) and replace them with tolls you acknowledge that while trucks would pay more on the highways they travel (as we all would), regular passenger car drivers would also pay more for the State and Local roads that we use. We would also pay more for mass transit – a true “subsidy” paid on the part of the trucking industry.
Given your model, tolls would replace the higher diesel fuel taxes trucks pay – at both Fed and most States’ level, and, if we’re really trying to “get into the habit of what we’re using”, they really shouldn’t pay State or Local sales tax on gas (I’ll allow it on the Slim Jims at the truck stop).
So now we have a pure toll-based system – probably somewhat more expensive for all trucks – how much you haven’t opined. We’d have to create some master-“Fast Pass” for all of us, which would work across State-Lines – not to mention County and local roads. Oh, heck, why don’t we just put a microchip in every car and toll-taking monitors every few miles or so…on every road. Sounds like a real Front Porch operation…centralized and high-tech.
But you said it would “collapse” the Wal-Mart distribution model.
Now, here’s a little problem. They build all those Wal-Marts on the interstate for reasons. Part of it is the cheaper land to be sure, but the other part is the ease of supply. The Big Box stores rarely build in town. The trucks that drive on your local roads – County/town – are not Wal-Mart trucks. They’re Shop-Rite trucks or the Tru-Value trucks for the store in town. You’re building up your local roads (those that actually allow long-haulers) to supply local businesses…not Costco, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart.
John Médaille
Pete, I’m having difficulty seeing how your statistics support your point. The trucks pay about a third of the tax and use about a third of the total mileage. But their usage causes a lot more damage, requires a lot more engineering. If you measure “pound-miles” instead of just miles, they use a multiple of what cars do. I have sat in too many committee meetings, listened to too many angry citizens, too many earnest traffic and highway engineers not to be aware of these facts. But then, one doesn’t really have to sit in on committee meetings or talk to engineers to know that 60,000 lbs. on the hoof does more damage than 3,000. This is just too trivial a point to argue about.
Again, it does not matter how much the trucks use the local roads, these roads still have to be engineered for the trucks. This adds tremendous cost.
The point about the roads being “more durable” is nonsense; it is the weight that destroys the roads, it is the major cause of the maintenance costs. Pete, these are simple matters of physics; this is not where the debate lies.
As for the mass transit funds, it is 2.86 cents/gallon, which works out to 15.5% of gasoline and 13.3% of diesel taxes, not 20%. But mass transit is another story; maybe I’ll address it in another post.
The subsidies distort the shape of industry and the shape of the cities. Instead of being for inter-city connections, the highly engineered roads become a necessity for cities that are now too spread out to be economical without subsidies. The whole thing is perverse, and has a perverse effect on cities and industries.
Pete Peterson
John, I appreciate your pushing me on the research. Still, the further I go the more my points are proven. Again, your central premise here is that long-haul trucks are “free-riders” on the Federal gas taxes that we all pay. My premise is that from a “Front Porch” viewpoint, I’m in agreement that policies to support and grow localized businesses and economies are generally a “good thing”, but you have failed to buttress this point (again, one I agree with) economically.
You do raise an interesting point in this last response in the greater costs to build roads that must take long-haul trucks. Still you don’t mention how much more a “heavyweight” road costs over a “lightweight” road, and, also, how this reinforcing might contribute to overall durability (ie if a heavyweight road lasts twice as long as a lightweight road there may be economic advantages). Also, remember that part of the reason for the development of the Fed Highway System was national security – enabling military transport across the country. This can only happen on heavyweight roads.
Am glad you mentioned the American Trucking Association in an earlier response. It prompted me to take a look at their site and actually correspond with their VP of Public Affairs. Here’s what I found out:
1. You mention that trucks pay 35.7% of Fed/State gas taxes, while they constitute 10.9% of the traffic
2. I wondered if “traffic” meant miles, and checked out this chart – http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/vm1.cfm#foot2
where the DOT says that in the most recent year studied (2007), on interstate highways, passenger cars travelled 122Billion miles, and trailer trucks went 42B – still about a third of total mileage – a heavier weight on those miles, no doubt, but passenger cars are the majority users of interstate highways.
3. To your point that trucks use local roads too…well, they do, but the DOT says that in “All Rural Roads” traffic, cars travelled 529B miles and trucks, 82.9B or 1/6 of car traffic. And again, through State gases and sales taxes, trucks are subsidizing our byways. Subsidies may not get better by multiplying them, as you say, but, by neglecting the trucks’ portion in subsidizing our roads you’re not looking at the full equation regarding your “free rider” supposition…not that I blame you for doing this…it weakens your argument.
To your earlier point that the transportation fund is running out of $$, I had placed a link to an article on that in my first post. I’ll just say here that the major reason for this is that 20% of Fed gas taxes go to “transit subsidies” (bus, light rail, subway systems). These much more closely approximate the types of subsidies you feel we’re paying for truck traffic in that a much smaller portion of the population uses public transportation that interstate highways. Again, the highway portion of the Fed Transportation fund is in the BLACK. And in this, the 20% of the trucks’ 35.7% is definitely a subsidy as trucks are not using light rail or buses. Trucks pay for local roads they rarely use, and local transit systems they never use.
Bruce Smith
Surely it’s indicative of a sociopathic mentality that a big box company can take advantage of public goods paid for by members of communities and when it’s pointed out that the company is engaged in unsustainable environmental practices, exploitation of under-developed countries’ workers and environments, creating a monopoly against the consumers’ interest and destroying local enterprise amongst other accusations it responds with the mantra that the only reason for a business’s existence is to make a profit! Isn’t it time we all did some better joined up thinking than to fall for this self-centered logic?
John Médaille
Your point was that, one, trucks already pay their way, and two, if they had to pay it another way would be punishment. Don’t see your point.
I will ignore the silliness about trying to “prove” that trucks are heavier than cars to say that the road has to be built for the heaviest weight. If you are building for 80,000 pound trucks, it doesn’t matter if you have 90% 2,000 pound cars and 10% 80,000 pound trucks (actually, its about 15%); you still have to build it for the 80,000 pound truck. The major cost will occur at the margin, at the last pound the roadbed or the bridge is engineered to take. By their own claim, they only pay 33% of the cost. But they cause most of the damage and most of the initial expense.
Further, the trucks do use the streets; I don’t know of any warehouses on the freeway off-ramp. Even if they didn’t use the streets, that would just make it a case of cross-subsidies. Subsidies do not get better by multiplying them.
And it is the poor who subsidize the rich in this system. The middle class moves 30 miles from the city to buy a MacMansion in the suburbs. They got there over a two-lane blacktop, but as they move traffic increases, so they demand the legislature build them a six lane highway. And they get it. So they tax the single mom in the inner city to pay for the suburban road.
I don’t mind people living where they want to live; I do mind them demanding a subsidy to live there. They can have six lanes if they are willing to pay for them. It is a mindset that caused the Californication of the nation, that determined the very shape of cities, a shape that is more difficult and expensive to service, and will soon cause intractable problems.
The toll gets us in the habit of paying for what we use. It is a habit familiar to free men and to adults.
Pete Peterson
It’s pretty simple, John.
1. You haven’t proved your point on the supposed “free rider” (no pun intended) posed by long-haul trucking. To your last point, “surely, more than half the costs of construction and maintenance have to do with weight”, you’d have to prove that: A. this statement is true, and B. That trucks do exert more than half the WEIGHT on our roads and bridges. My experience in bumper-2-bumper traffic on the Fed Highways around me in LA belie this point. Certainly 90% of the traffic is passenger cars – that doesn’t mean that 90% of the weight is cars, but I have a hard time believing that it’s 50% as you suppose.
2. Trucks already pay more relative to their size on State highway tolls. They also pay sales tax on the gas they purchase, which goes into local road construction for roads they may never, and, in many instances, can never use. You don’t account for this.
3. In confronting your argument that if long-haul trucks paid their true costs local business would flourish, I’m saying that you haven’t proved this point, but you nonetheless raise a valid societal concern: the supporting and building of local businesses.
4. This being the goal, then more Fed highway tolling might play a roll in reducing long-haul trucking – for all industries – from Wal-Mart to the trucker from Strathmore that delivers paper to your local printing company. It becomes a “punishment” when the fees are over and above the costs. But, due to the societal “costs” this might still be a valid proposition. I just don’t see how you’ve proved your point financially. So I’m not saying that we would completely replace gas taxes with tolls…that’s a silly proposition that would necessitate not only dramatically high tolls on Fed/State/Local roads, but would also be regressive – affecting the poor much more than rich. I’m assuming that the tolls would be IN ADDITION to the current tax system. I think this is a pipe dream. And we’d no longer have the long-haulers paying the sales taxes and some of the State taxes, which go to the County roads they rarely use, but would, nonetheless need to be covered.
John Médaille
Pete, sarcasm aside, I am having just a little trouble understanding your logic. On the one hand, you argue that long-haul already pays its fair share because the fuel tax is equivalent to a use tax. On the other, you argue that switching to an actual use tax would “punish long-haul” trucking. If the first statement is true, the second cannot be true. It would merely be a matter of switching the collection method.
Further, asking an industry to pay its own costs is not “punishing” it. There is no natural right to a subsidy, albeit we’ve all been raised to expect them as a right.
As for numbers, according to the American Trucking Association, the truckers pay 33% of all the federal and state taxes. But surely, more than half the costs of construction and maintenance have to do with weight. We would build roads to much lower standards at lower costs if there were only cars and light trucks. As my traffic engineer tried to pound into my head when I was responsible for these things, it is weight that destroys roadbeds. And, by the way, the trust fund is running out of funds, and is being subsidized by the general fund.
3/4ths of social justice issues are just proper cost accounting, assigning costs to cost causers.
Pete Peterson
Ah yes, a chicken in every pot and a toll on every road – now I get it…and the goal is smaller, less intrusive government?
So we eliminate gas taxes – Fed/State/Sales (local) and how do we pay for State/County/local roads? We already have some states pushing for tolls on Fed highways – on TOP of these other taxes.
To your point: “The bottom line is that the long-haul industry does not pay its costs”…so what exactly is the bottom line…I’m waiting to see data.
I know Wal-Mart provides an obvious whipping boy on this blog, but, John, you haven’t made the case (with actual numbers) that in additional upcharges trucks pay for diesel plus the already increased tolls on State highways plus the State and local taxes they pay for roads they’ll never use, that trucks – Wal-Mart or otherwise don’t pay more than their way. Your point:
I’m obviously not sure of this either…but I have cited several instances where trucks – Wal-Mart or other – pay more than cars.
Now if your goal is just to punish long-haul trucking in order to engender local industry, well, then, that’s another matter. Go ahead and add those tolls, or put those mileage tracking sensors in these trucks. They’re trying this in Oregon…but never mind the privacy concerns. But you haven’t proven the point that trucks don’t pay their way…and, in many cases, yours.
Bruce Smith
John is right you can have automatic highway detection and billing. Deterring long distance transfer of goods must in principle be good for sustainability one would hope, albeit that competitiveness over non-agricultural product quality may suffer in the short term with the nudge towards local production (Ricardo’s comparative advantage and all that). Phillip Blond’s concept of a return to tiered markets ( See his Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jan/30/davos-religion )also has a good deal to recommend itself ecologically in terms of providing increased local diversity and helping avoid things like the Sub-Prime Fiasco which was amplified by globalised financial markets.
John Médaille
I know exactly how time consuming it would be: zero. It’s all done electronically.
Bob Cheeks
Do you have any idea how inefficient and time consuming ‘tolls’ would be for people? And, do you really expect that gov’t is going to reduce the gas tax while they impose a ‘toll?’ And, finally, all corporate taxes is passed along to the consumer.
John Médaille
Pete, I agree with your description: a series of cross-subsidies. But the problem of subsidies isn’t made better by increasing them, but by eliminating them. The bottom line is that the long-haul industry does not pay its costs; they are subsidized by the local user.
This privileges the remote producer over the local one, and destroys the local community which depends on local production. I was taken with your article on garbage-dump parties, but it is this system of subsidies which destroys this, even on the analysis in your excellent article.
Pete Peterson
I actually don’t have problems with tolls – as long as they apply to all. What you don’t address is that while the trucker pays Fed gas taxes he frequently uses, he also pays the sales and State taxes for the by-ways that you drive on…he “subsidizes” your asphalt, as you “subsidize” his. You only frame one side of this equation in your argument. Also to your comment, “Diesel pays more, this is true, but nowhere near their usage” – do you have numbers to back this up? While they’re are multiple more cars than trucks on our highways, I’ll take your point that trucks do more damage. If so, then our debate is over how much more they should pay, not whether trucks pay more than you or me…they do.
I don’t have a problem with tolls, but I find taxes – at this stage technologically – to be a more efficient way of paying for road systems. Yes, toll the Fed highways, but also State/County roads as well. If you want to run more traffic through the Front Porch Republics, just toll the Fed highways…
But, again, your central premise was to propose some way of forcing Wal-Mart trucks to pay more. In one sense this dismisses the payments they do make – towards both the roads they use and don’t – and, in another, proposes the impossible, if not silly – company-specific truck toll.
John
The symbolism of colour.
Once upon a time and not so long ago it was the tories that were warning us about the “red menace”—red Russia and China, reds under the bed etc etc.
Now tories are loudly claiming that red is the only possible future. They also celebrate and champion “red state” America over and against “blue state” America—blue states of course being hopelessly decadent.
Red is also the colour of gross materialism. And of course, rivers of human blood everywhere.
Blue by contrast represents the faculty of discriminative intelligence—discriminative in the most positive sense.
John Médaille
Pete, quite obviously, and unarguably, if I pay the fuel tax whether or not I drive the freeway, then the gas I use off the freeway subsidizes the freeway. They are not a user fee, they are a consumption tax. I don’t pay a toll. That’s the problem. I am an adult, quite willing to pay for the services I use. Walmart is not an adult, not even person, and quite happy with the subsidies. Diesel pays more, this is true, but nowhere near their usage. The majority of damage done to roads come from weight, and the major cost in building them comes from the weight they need to bear. The truck didn’t buy the road, and the road is a subsidy for the remote producer over and against the local one.
Systems cannot be properly evaluated unless their costs are known and figured into prices. Externalized costs distort the price system. But in any case, I cannot understand the ground of your objection. Surely, you don’t seem to object to the users paying, and surely there can be no argument that weight and distance tolls would be more accurate than a fuel tax. So why not shift from the fuel tax to the toll?
Pete Peterson
With all due, respect, John, you are wrong here…and it’s not because Cato says so. Of course, you’re right to say that when you’re driving on state/county highways or local roads you’re not paying a user fee for Fed highways, but that’s why you also pay state gas taxes, which go into state and local road funds. There’s also the matter of sales tax on the gas you by, which also goes back into roads.
To think that the Fed gas taxes are not, in large part a user fee, is not telling the whole story. Maybe you never drive on the Fed Highway System, but you’d be one of the few. And while that Wal-Mart truck doesn’t pay a toll…you don’t either.
Another “user fee” that focuses on those Wal-Mart diesels is that every state in America except one (CT) there is a higher sales tax for diesel than for regular gasoline (http://www.californiagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx).
As an old print salesman, one of the phrases the truckers used to use was “if you got it, a truck brought it.” It might be nice to hypothesize about some imaginary Wal-Mart truck toll, but the fact is when you toll one truck, you toll every truck – the ones that deliver the the milk to the Tewksbury (NJ) General Store, and the Branchburg Wal-Mart (about 5 miles apart).
Bruce Smith
Whilst welcoming Phillip Blond’s initiative to help build a trans-Atlantic consensus around distributist and communitarian ideas I know from previous involvement in conference organizing that it helps a conference to be more productive if discussion on issues are as focused as possible. This means pre-selection of issues, topics or objectives. This would be possible to do via the internet pre-conference if a website and moderators were willing to take on the challenge. It can also help if the focused issues can be contained within an overall theme that will link issues and provoke interest. So by way of illustration off the top of my head, it could be a re-examination of the use of capital since capital is a source of abuse as well as benefit. Such a theme might generate a title like “Capital as Fire: Reinventing Its Use.” (Don’t all run for the fire-extinguisher at the same time!)
John Médaille
Absolutely wrong. The fuels tax is collected regardless of where the fuel is used. It is a consumption tax on gas, not a use tax on the federal highways. When I drive on surface streets (which I mostly do) the money is still collected to pay for highways. Thus, I subsidize the highways even when I am not using them. Were there tolls, the gas tax could be lowered or eliminated, and the cost of the roads charged to the users of the road. Even the Cato Institute ought to understand that principle.
Pete Peterson
Though not the major point of this piece, Mr. Medaille (and others) need to get their facts straight about Federal highway funding. This happens through user-generated fees (for the most part, gas taxes) not subsidies. In fact, the Federal Highway system (unlike the deficit-riddled transit systems) more than pay for themselves:
http://www.newgeography.com/content/00908-subsidies-starbucks-and-highways-a-primer
Phillip Blond
Dear friends and colleagues,
Though I don’t know most of you, a sincere thank you all for these voluminous and highly informative postings. Its extraordinary useful and I think its important to build an alternative trans-atlanic consenus around these issues.
I can tell you that a new think tank has already been constituted and will launch in the autumn see http://www.respublica.org.uk/
I hope to continue this debate with you all and extend our critical range and deepen our analysis.
Perhaps we should try to organise, with like and opposed minds, a conference in the US on these issues?
Any thoughts on this are most welcome.
Best wishes to all
Phillip Blond
John Médaille
Bruce: ROFLOL
Bruce Smith
Just as a tragi-comical aside, was the announcement of continuing $1 million bonus payouts to staff from banks that had to be bailed out by the tax payer under the Bush administration really a Bush/Republican Party version of Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program?
Bruce Smith
Thanks Dan. I guess I mislead you by using the term “control mechanisms” it wasn’t price mechanisms I was referring to. It was mechanisms to control the abuse of power in the economic system.
Dan
Bruce,
“”So the next question Dan is “What control mechanisms do you believe in that will help prevent economic screw-ups like the types I’ve just out-lined?””
Economic screw-ups, like all screw-ups, cannot be prevented. In order to always make the correct economic decision, on a macro or micro level, one must have perfect information. One of the problems with being human is our inability to know and experience everything all the time, hence, imperfect information, and of course, by necessity, bungling of all kinds.
Now better and more complete information will lead to fewer screw-ups and this is something to strive for.
Our greatest source of economic information is price. Price transmits an astonishing volume of information about any good or service. It’s an exchange ratio that allows us to literally compare apples and oranges. It gives us information about exchange value, about supply and demand, about scarcity, and about what people want and what they are willing to give up for it.
This would be where I believe the greatest possibility to reduce the occurrence and magnitude of screw-ups is found, in making sure that prices correspond to exchange ratios grounded in the real world of scarcity, supply, and demand.
Perhaps the greatest threat to price as actual real world information is intellectual property. Privileged charters to information creating monopolies. Another would be subsidies which artificially reduce or increase the price divorcing it from real world exchange value. These are two examples but the problem is large, it contains multitudes.
Bruce Smith
Thanks John. I think Enlightenment Liberalism and Communism are much the same in the sense that neither properly articulate, or address, how to have a good system for achieving the common good from a material and psychological viewpoint. That is their weakness and they never have understood that the color of the cat to catch mice is important. I guess having a residency permit system means that if trouble flairs up in the cities the Party Leadership knows it can quickly revoke the permits and send the newly urbanized peasants back to the countryside and in theory out of revolution’s way. This idea probably stems from the difficulty Mao had in getting the Revolution going in the cities because of the suppression methods used by the Nationalist Government.
John Médaille
Bruce, I think that is an excellent and perceptive analysis of the mentality of the Chinese leadership and the history which formed it. But two things occur to me. One, the simple explanation is that if they allowed any real changes, the first real change is that people will get rid of them. The second factor is that they seem to be playing off the cities against the countryside.
Bruce Smith
Dan. I agree with your answer. However, I will argue in more long-winded fashion that the Communist Party leadership has only partially learnt from history especially Deng Xiaoping of “does it really matter what color the cat is as long as it catches mice” fame. I do think though they have learnt three principal things.
Firstly, China’s long history is one of trying to hold a largely flat geographical terrain under one government against disruption by invaders and internal warlords. They will, therefore, have easily perceived that too much freedom which allows special interests to operate can easily blow a hole in your empire! They will have also learnt that from the history of the British empire. The East India Company was established in England as a joint stock company in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I who was also a stockholder as was King George III. The East India Company was one of the world’s first super corporations and could easily be called Worldmart for brevity. It was English aristocracy and businessmen who largely ran Parliament and some would own stock in Worldmart. Together with King George III (who still had considerable political power) they decided that Worldmart should be exempt from the tea tax they wished to impose on the American tea merchants and their American customers. The tea tax they argued was needed to pay for the wars with the French. Worldmart, however, had huge stocks of tea in English warehouses they needed to sell. Hence the tax exemption scam which back fired and caused the American Revolution. A very big hole in the future of the British empire!
Secondly, they will have perceived through the writings of Friedrich List as I mentioned earlier that pursuing a nationalistic economic development program can pay “dividends”. The protectionist policy of the British they will have seen as enabling that country to build up both its industry and its military forces. It was the strength of the British navy that forced open China for trading with the British foreigners and allowed Worldmart to become a major drug baron causing massive social disruption in China through the importation of opium.
Thirdly, they will have learnt a bitter lesson from Mao Zedong’s behavior which is that too much power can create set backs for a country’s development. The Cultural Revolution where schooling stopped for five years and the great March Forward famine were obvious examples but they could also learn that Chinese technological development stalled by 1500 AD due to the prohibitions of emperors and court bureaucrats. This, of course, left them vulnerable to a powerful military state like Britain with its interlinked corporate trading arms like the big Worldmart company.
What economic and political conclusions would the Communist Party Leadership have concluded from the above? I think that they would have perceived that since America has nuclear weapons no amount of militarization by China would enable it to adopt the British method of growing its economy by military backed trading or even conquest of other countries. Those days ended with the surrender of the Japanese in the Second World War. I think they would have recognized they could use a private market economy to act as a kind of autocatalytic (self-perpetuating) check against another autocratic Communist dictator slowing down and screwing up economic and technological development. I think they would have figured out by artificially pegging their currency and recycling their American dollars back into American government bonds and purchase of American companies they could over time keep in check a potential enemy by weakening it somewhat especially if they could encourage American capitalists to invest in manufacturing in China rather than their own country (they would have been aware of Lenin’s supposed dictum about capitalists and hanging rope). Of course such a policy meant severely curtailing the rights and demands of their own workforce such as banning Unions and the use of residence permits to control mobility and of course weak regulation of pollution. But China had long had a history of command economies and especially under the Communists. What, of course, they failed to figure out was that American elite capitalist governments were so dumb they would use the recycled Chinese (American) dollars to keep interest rates down that allowed High Tech Stock and Housing bubbles and that Wall Street would use the latter bubble to produce counterfeit financial instruments based on slicing and dicing Liar and Sub-Prime Loans.
So what lessons are ordinary folk in Western economies to draw from all this. Well the obvious one is the same as the Chinese Communist Party leadership that you need to put some mechanism in place that stops the sociopaths from screwing up your economy! By sociopaths I mean those individuals who have great power within an economy but have had a hard-wired, or learnt, empathy by-pass that enable them to take actions only in the interest of the glory, status and/or profit/greed demands of their egos despite the effect on the ordinary folk. The next lesson to try to understand is whether there is anything better than the autocatalytic market mechanism for running an economy and minimizing abuse. The answer seems to be no because markets automate the matching up of data very well if not always how you’d like and its too late to go back to hunter-gatherer distribution and reciprocity arrangements. So we ordinary folk in the Western economies just like the Chinese Communist Party leadership are stuck with a market mechanism that is vulnerable to being screwed up big time by the sociopaths. Where do we go from here?
Well to progress, the next question Dan you and I should attempt to agree on is how we can best control these powerful individuals who screw up economies and that brings us to control mechanisms. You may think that if all the world’s economies were controlled by Communist Command governments you wouldn’t have Sub-Prime Disasters and no beggar my neighbor policies so that’s the answer. I don’t know. Maybe you are libertarian and blame the whole thing on having governments in the first place. I do know for me that I believe ordinary folk do want to control their own lives as much as possible in order to flourish. I think they are instinctively hard-wired not to be used as means to ends if they can possibly help it by an individual, or individuals, who have no, or little, capacity to empathize with them. This hard-wiring I believe occurred in us as animals and by living in hunter-gatherer groups for many thousands of years and it uses both selfish and altruistic instincts. This is also why I think human history seems to show a movement towards increased democracy. The commoditization of nature I see as a sort of temporary hiccup excluding the notion of it being an unmitigated disaster.
So the next question Dan is “What control mechanisms do you believe in that will help prevent economic screw-ups like the types I’ve just out-lined? (Does the color of the cat really matter after all?)
Dan
Bruce,
In answer to your question because they believe they are serving the common good and that any opposition would be the product of opportunistic politicians that could gain power by catering to particular interests that would promote division, privilege, corruption, and decadence.
Bruce Smith
Dan. I think we have too many issues running here. I would like to deal first with a main one. I believe that the type of capitalism, global trade and a nation’s security are all inter-linked. Accordingly, I have been thinking that to reach better understanding of each other’s views I need to ask you a question which is simple to state but intricate to answer. The question is “Why do you think the Chinese Communist Party leadership is reluctant to permit multi-party democracy?” I do by the way accept they enjoy the lifestyle!
Dan
Bruce,
“With regard to your points I did not imply that investing in other countries was always pure greed. Those are your words.”
They are indeed my words but they remain the implications of your argument. As your logic goes investing in other countries and buying foreign goods leads to less dollars being invested in America and American goods. This leads to fewer American jobs, lower American wages etc. So why would you spend and invest elsewhere if you know as a direct consequence it will result in fewer American jobs and lower wages? Either because the quality of the product is better or because it is cheaper. Because you value the products use and value to you as more important than the wages and employment of your countrymen. How is this not greed?
“Of course, trade with other countries on the right terms is important because it keeps your own country’s businesses competitive.”
According to your logic, why is this good? Competitive means a lower operating cost or higher quality than a competitor (Hopefully both). Why does being competitive outweigh the employment and wages lost as a result of trade? Why are balance sheets, efficiency, cost and quality control more valuable than people?
“In addition, if we have any morality about us we will want all people to flourish depending on politic realities and especially under-developed countries where that has to mean partnering investment in those countries rather than pure exploitation as Jack Welch’s Barge Economics implies.”
Why would we want people’s flourishing dependent on political realities? Why should we be particularly concerned with flourishing in under-developed companies? Is human flourishing in Denmark less valuable than human flourishing in Somalia? Why? If we can cause ten human persons to flourish for the price of one human person flourishing in Denmark would it be a moral imperative to invest in Somalia until equilibrium was attained?
“Secondly, investing in other countries clearly needs to be put under democratic devolved capital control in the United States and other countries since especially in the case of the United States it is now deeply in debt, wages have been stagnant for a long time for a significant percentage of the population and the tax base is beginning to fail quite rapidly after the Sub-Prime Fiasco and ensuing recession.”
What is democratically devolved capital control? Is it the use of capital decided on the basis of one man one vote? Is it nationally based (Citizens of the U.S.A. voting on U.S.A. capital) or international (Citizens of the world voting on world capital)? Why is this solution clear?
“It is absolutely no good relying upon Republican and Democratic Party political representatives to make these decisions at the current moment since both parties were responsible for the financial sector deregulation, global trade agreements that undermine the economy and are still subject to heavy subversion by business money (Senator Sessions of Sotomayor grilling fame being the latest dupe today on Yahoo internet news!). Once these parties are reformed, or replaced, it becomes possible for democratically controlled businesses to work with their political representatives to decide on the wisdom and necessity of overseas investment.”
So until the next election cycle no solution is possible? Is their any solution outside the political? Any possibility of resistance outside of parliaments?
“Finally. with regard to investing outside the United States being a threat to security you need to read up on the history of how the British created their empire which Friedrich List covers to some extent. The British were very zealous to build up their home base first to create the money to militarise. Also although it’s probably a bit of fluff internet search “Manchurian Microchip”.”
This is not an argument. The reason seems to be because the British had a successful imperial project for reasons that Friedrich List outlines somewhere. Are we not now, by virtue of our deficit spending and increasing military spending creating the money to militarize?
Bruce Smith
Dan. I mentioned George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” to John because I recently viewed a movie version of it in which the Communist pig leaders start to engage in underhand commercial dealings with a human farmer capitalist after telling all the worker animals the new Animal Republic would never have any dealings with human beings again. Thousands of Americans lost their lives fighting communism in Asian countries which they were told by their political and media establishment was a threat to American security and a heinous system for those living under it. After plowing my way through many books on communist Russia and China exposing the reality of these regimes I concur that they are heinous systems. This is still true of China despite Russia having fallen by the wayside. So what has changed? The Chinese Communist Party Leadership worked out that their tenure on power would be short unless they opened up their country to Western ideas of manufacturing and business organization. They also started looking at the successful Japanese economy and as Wikipedia states Deng Xiaoping’s post-Mao policies were probably inspired by the ideas of the German, nineteenth century economist, Friedrich List as were the Japanese (See James Fallow’s article in Atlantic Monthly December 1993). List recommended that successful industrialization depended upon having a good trade protectionist policy. After all he argued that’s the way the British did it and the Americans were doing it too (List having spent time living in the States). Deng Xiaoping would also be mindful of Lenin’s supposed dictum that capitalists would out of greed rush to hang themselves and, of course, he was right. Straight out of “Animal Farm” Richard Nixon and his business chums had no hesitation in taking up the offer to invest in China regardless of the fact the low costs of production would undermine US manufacturing plants and the guys in the Chinese government ran the country like a slave labor camp. Who cares business is business and greed is good!
With regard to your points I did not imply that investing in other countries was always pure greed. Those are your words. Of course, trade with other countries on the right terms is important because it keeps your own country’s businesses competitive. In addition, if we have any morality about us we will want all people to flourish depending on politic realities and especially under-developed countries where that has to mean partnering investment in those countries rather than pure exploitation as Jack Welch’s Barge Economics implies.
Secondly, investing in other countries clearly needs to be put under democratic devolved capital control in the United States and other countries since especially in the case of the United States it is now deeply in debt, wages have been stagnant for a long time for a significant percentage of the population and the tax base is beginning to fail quite rapidly after the Sub-Prime Fiasco and ensuing recession. It is absolutely no good relying upon Republican and Democratic Party political representatives to make these decisions at the current moment since both parties were responsible for the financial sector deregulation, global trade agreements that undermine the economy and are still subject to heavy subversion by business money (Senator Sessions of Sotomayor grilling fame being the latest dupe today on Yahoo internet news!). Once these parties are reformed, or replaced, it becomes possible for democratically controlled businesses to work with their political representatives to decide on the wisdom and necessity of overseas investment.
Finally. with regard to investing outside the United States being a threat to security you need to read up on the history of how the British created their empire which Friedrich List covers to some extent. The British were very zealous to build up their home base first to create the money to militarise. Also although it’s probably a bit of fluff internet search “Manchurian Microchip”.
D.W. Sabin
Smith,
Dammit, who said anything about logic?
Medaille, While it would appear there is a certain , near automatic trajectory of capitalism toward tyranny in this lapsed -Republic and certainly as practiced in China under much different conditions, I am not entirely convinced that Capitalism is automatically tyrannical. Perhaps I enjoy the beating too much….for if it be a beating, it seems in my case to be a briar patch for Bre’r Rabbit. Then again, I must recall the old definition of a recession as when your neighbor loses a job and a depression is when you lose a job.
Seems this relatively straightforward call for a a fuller definition of liberty to include a sense of civic responsibility has taken flight into all manner of blind alleys.
John Médaille
Dan, in regard to your second point, it is interesting that the new encyclical insists that wealth should be primarily invested in the country in which it is produced. Yet the requirements of justice must be safeguarded, with due consideration for the way in which the capital was generated and the harm to individuals that will result if it is not used where it was produced. (40)
Dan
Bruce,
The communist remarks are unfortunate and counter-productive on all sides.
That being said I think you’re points deserve a response as the issue of China seems to get quite a few people hot under the collar.
“The country of China, as currently governed, is the place of the Tiananmen Square protests which led to approximately 400 to 800 Chinese citizens being killed by their own government for wanting the same democratic rights that the American investors enjoy.”
The Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989 were not pro-democracy demonstrations. Some of the students and workers involved were indeed pro-democracy advocates but others were hard line Maoists upset by reforms and the opening of Chinese society. It was an eclectic movement. Some leaders openly courted confrontation at martyrdom while others sought dialogue. The American mythological reading of the events of 1989 doesn’t give a truly accurate picture of what was at stake, who was involved, and what the context of the admittedly repressive state response was.
“In my morality the people who do this investing really deserve the term ”commie rat” for their unfeeling, selfish and downright sociopathic behavior that in many cases not only deny jobs to fellow Americans in the name of greed but long term undermines the security of the United States.”
American investors in China deserve to be called communist and co-conspiritors in the killing of hundreds because:
a)The money could have been used to create jobs for American citizens in America. Putting money anywhere else is greed pure and simple.
b) Investing money outside of the United States constitutes a threat to national security.
Point A really isn’t China specific at all. The argument works just as well for Canada or Iceland. It isn’t really investor specific either as the purchase of products leads to the preservation of these jobs. So anyone who spends anything on anything that isn’t the product of American labor is motivated purely by greed and in fact an active denial of employment to fellow American’s (You are essentially responsible for their unemployment, underemployment, unjust wages etc.)
Point B wasn’t really fleshed out but I have two guesses as to what it means. First capital and labor investment in the United States contributes more tax revenue allowing for more weapons, troops, etc. Second capital and labor investment in other countries contributs more to their tax revenue allowing for more weapons, troops, etc. This however doesn’t really make sense as American investors will be paying some (Although less) taxes here no matter where their operations are. Uncle Sam gets paid either way. Unless your point is that it is a moral obligation to contribute the maximum possible amount in taxes and to purchase labor or capital in ways that do not are essentially treasonous.
I’m not convinced that this is legitimate moral reasoning. I’m also not sure how one could ever be sure one was acting morally in any situation, which is pretty important because if you don’t you’re a communist, a murderer, greedy, and treasonous.
Bruce Smith
Yep, and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” illustrates it perfectly.
John Médaille
Clare, HR 2749 is a wonderful example of how big gov’t and big business feed upon each other. In order to solve a problem that mere size creates, the gov’t imposes regulations which are only practical for entities of a certain size. This squeezes out the small businessman, which creates more problems requiring more gov’t. In order to reduce the size of gov’t, you must reduce the size of corporations; in order to reduce the size of corporations, you must reduce the size of gov’t. You can start at either end, but we must aim at both.
Bruce, one thing the Chinese have proven is that capitalism is compatible with tyranny.
Bruce Smith
I’ve been thinking of the use of the term ”commie rat” in this dialogue in relationship to something I read a few months ago that 60% of the foreign investment in the Communist Republic of China comes from the United States. The country of China, as currently governed, is the place of the Tiananmen Square protests which led to approximately 400 to 800 Chinese citizens being killed by their own government for wanting the same democratic rights that the American investors enjoy. A Chinese government security clamp down prevents the true figures being known. In my morality the people who do this investing really deserve the term ”commie rat” for their unfeeling, selfish and downright sociopathic behavior that in many cases not only deny jobs to fellow Americans in the name of greed but long term undermines the security of the United States. As Lenin is purported to have said “You can always rely upon the greed of capitalists to compete with each other to supply the rope for their own hanging.” Accordingly, to criticize distributism for wanting to use the only effective tool of capital devolution to stop this ”commie rat” sociopathy reveals for me an inability to reason logically, morally and patriotically.
Clare Krishan
How about defending what’s already “distributed” before it becomes “inventoried” by the GUMMINT, something Wendell Berry indicated was worthy of a “out of my cold dead hands” spirit of resistence we armchair warriors owe assent to? Seems Ron Paul and other like-minded citizens
http://www.examiner.com/x-12704-Houston-Holistic-Health-Examiner~y2009m7d27-HR-2749–voice-your-opinion
http://www.amconmag.com/schwenkler/2009/07/27/a-time-to-call/
got the message out re: HR 2749 and that legislation was defeated, preventing
* Mandate NAIS (National Animal Identification System)
* Allow industrializations of all farms
* Give the federal government arbitrary power to force any practices they choose on any farm.
* Allow the federal government to outlaw raw milk
Shout it out!
Bob Cheeks
Actually, you’ve just provided a fine start to my requested rectal exam of our elected representative of the Afro-Affirmative Action-o-racracy (tip of the hat to Steve Sailer!)whose policies have drastically driven up the price of guns and ammo!
BTW, I was thinking of getting ten acres of woods cut for wood, but if the price is that low I may just fugg-et-aboutit! However, I have great need for firewood.
“…because the gig is long past up on the current paradigm.” There’s always the hope for reform. Again, for me, the problem lies with a moral corruption…that will occur among the distributists as well.
I cooked a 20lb. turkey today, I must go tend it. Oh, the smell of turkey invades the house. It is rapturous, it is the odor of heaven where there will be turkey sandwiches, turkey and biscuits, turkey and stuffing, turkey and noodles…it is all good, as I tremble at the thought. My best to you and the wife…btw, you and the wife watch the movie, “Defiant,” ….reall good stuff!
D.W. Sabin
Cheeks,
….”commie rats written in blue glitter across the mental horizon”. It’s gems like these which make your brand of enthusiasms worthwhile. When I ever get around to sending that mason jar of Cohiba Exhaust to you, I’ll wrap it with a copy of the picture of my friend Jerry peeing on the doorstep of the French Communist Party in some dirtbag neighborhood in the City of Light.
As to taking any bait on the Obama-Gates-Cambridge Cop imbroglio…..the issue started dumb and is only getting dumber. I can’t agree with your assertion that he has some kind of Afro-centric agenda. If he harbored any antipathy to the Grey-Eyed Devil, he’d have to dislike his ma and so I doubt it. However, he is part of the Harvard Technocratic Establishment which continues to think that Government….. an institution that has not seen a problem that it cannot screw up even more with a 1,000 page bill and a little more printed currency……can solve our so called “problems”. This alone makes him entirely suspect. He’s not in a league by himself though. Washington D.C. and its swampy humours seems to infect everyone with a kind of Rube-Goldberg Utopianism that is fine for a recreational debating society but lethal in government . Just this morning , I overheard some thoroughly flummoxed Republican discussing their much-more-better Health Plan on the Telly and they actually suggested that there be financial incentives …ie cash paid…. to people for practicing good health. Even Republicans think rubbing a cash handout on something is the answer now. A Republican lobbying for cash incentives for Yoga Vegans…gee , there’s a future for the party if ever there was one. I digress.
As to “confiscation of lands by the central regime”…Well, there has already been some of that in a kind of de-facto manner with our Ag Policy favoring Industrialized Agriculture and its remote distribution systems , thereby making it virtually impossible to function profitably as a small farmer. Furthermore, one can also assert at least some tangential “confiscatory” element to the current Mortgage disaster and over-leveraging orgy as well as the general flat-lining of the wage-laborer under the current system in place for over 25 years. Yesterday, I was speaking with a timber-man who does work for me and he was lamenting that due to the decline in work, he’s taken a part-time job at a local mill and that they paid $120 a load of wood in the 80’s and today, near 30 years later, they pay $5 less a load. To a degree, that confiscation ..of land…of the means of production you are concerned about….has already happened under the rubric of Free Trade, Globalism and a distinctly non-laissez faire, laissez faire.
This is why, my fine aurally-bojangling friend, I will suspend my hair-trigger libertarian sympathies and listen in on this distributist….ehhh…… cabal because the gig is long past up on the current paradigm.
I hope you get the inner-ear roar under control.
Bob Cheeks
Yoo Bro,I know!
The irony, of course, is that most of my closest friends are confused socialists and we’ve shared many an hour engaged in “teachable moments,” honest discourse mixed with loud argument, and sundry threatening gestures sans weaponery!
There aren’t many Social Security collecting Randolphian Terium Quids!
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