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By: Considerthesource Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:02:17 +0000 Paul-
In capitalism, the govt. is inevitably corrupted and controlled by those with the real power, which is money. Sure, the govt. then enables others to become richer, perhaps undeservedly, in return. Why wouldn’t it, since it has been penetrated by those who represent wealthy capitalists?

Your animosity towards capitalism is skewing your view on governing bodies and history in general. The fact is power structures whether capitalistic, oligarchical, monotheistic, dynastic, feudal..etc..etc have been causing their citizens pain for as long as recorded history. From the British empire to Soviet Russian. From Germany to Ancient Egypt. Rome, the Mongols, French dynasty. Pol Pot, Mao, Pinochet, infinitum. Sure, every so often you get a King Arthur, Marcus Aurelius or George Washington, but then the corruption creeps in. Sometimes it swoops in.

Why on Earth would you give governments more authority over the individual? I never said “Evil governments corrupt pure capitalism.” I said over time ALL governments become corrupted BECAUSE of their monopoly on power. It has nothing to do with capitalism per se. Each structure has its’ own way of abusing power. Another analogy would be that of an organism. It is born and is pure. Over time it grows and matures. It encounters stress and adversity. It develops scars and mended bones. As it ages disease and CORRUPTION gain a hold. At some point nature, in its’ infinte wisdom, kills off the body as it can longer perform its’ ORIGINAL FUNCTIONS. The American constitution was an attempt to keep that corrupting force at bay as long as possible. Apparently we are now on life support.

How do you explain communist russia? It was supposed to be a socialist paradise. It went from idealistic(newborn) intentions to complete collapse(death) in less than a century. It was arguably in its’ final stages just a few years out the gate after Trotsky was assassinated and his image and contributions were scrubbed from official history. Talk about the surreal power of the monopoly of force(government)!!

I have spent time living overseas. I have seen what governments are capable of doing to their own people. I have seen corruption. It’s handing a carton of Marlboro Red’s to a guy with an Ak-47 so you can get through customs. It’s paying the policeman a hundred dollar bill so he doesn’t confiscate your car and all the contents. It’s watching the few people left who have any decent standard of living surrounded by armed guards because the masses of the population have been thrown into abject poverty. And let me tell you the whole while these things were going on the local government was busy telling people how “grand” they had it and how “bad” everyone else was in comparison.

The fact is we already magically create money out of thin air. And it goes right where it was always intended to go. Whether under our (supposedly) capitalistic society or a socialist goes to the people with the monopoly on power. For god sakes…in the mind of the human animal, what good is authority and power if it doesn’t confer to you some benefit over others.

All you can ever hope to do is LIMIT groups access to power and protect individual liberties. Then you must hope good things come about naturally as it is also in our human nature to be joyful and prosperous.

Just out of curiosity, what is YOUR solution to the fact that the wealthy have gotten a disproportionate share of compensation in recent years?

Flat tax. Simple and fair across the board..end the preferential treatment. Which means you will also have to get the bribery…err I mean campaign contributions and lobbyist money out of politics. Special interests and corporations dictate our policies now..not people. Only individual contributions should be accepted when running for office and those should probably be capped. And the big one…I think we need to start viewing giant multinational corporations as quasi-government entities. Certainly they can have nearly as large an influence on peoples’ lives as their governments. Perhaps better minds than mine(and thiose with more time) can begin discussing some type of a Constitution for Corporations. A document that LIMITS powers and places constraints. Everyone knows corporations muscle out competition and stiffle innovation. And please notice I am referring to giant corporations…the GE’s, Monsanto’s, etc. I am not referring to small LLC’s and mom and pop’s or even medium sized comapnies. There is a precedent for breaking up monopolies in this country it was done not that long ago with the Bell phone company’s or AT&T. Of course I am EXTREMELY hesitant to even suggest this as once again I know that it means placing huge amounts of power into some “decision-makers” hands. That almost never works out as corruption always rears its’ ugly head. But on the other hand I don’t want my child’s life dictated by a world in search of the next quater’s profits at the expense of all else.

-Best of luck

By: Paul Boisvert Thu, 17 Jan 2013 22:26:36 +0000 My take here is largely that of a lot of others online–that the slippery slope idea is not the right representation. It seems plausible in theory, but historically hyperinflation hasn’t happened without huge, catastrophic, outside factors completely separate from any routine inflationary forces–war, revolution, societal collapse, external currency manipulation, etc.

The point is that hyperinflation is a symptom of collapse caused by other reasons, and never results from a process of “we’re getting slightly tipsy on small inflation and might just keep getting drunker and drunker til we have hyperinflation.” And if the symptom of hyperinflation does manifest itself, it’s still not the real problem–the war or other societal collapse which is causing the hyperinflation is the real problem.

This is why giving it a separate name like currency collapse would help–some things do cause currency collapse, but a gradual, incremental approach via ever-increasing routine inflation, absent other huge catastrophes, has historically simply never been one of them. Even a libertarian goldbug like Mish Shedlock has this take (for which he takes some heat from his fellow austrian goldbugs!), based on lots of evidence…if you google around on “exogenous causes of hyperinflation”, you should find lots of detailed explication of this idea, which I find wholly convincing.

By: Paul Boisvert Thu, 17 Jan 2013 22:03:16 +0000 hey, docG,

that was one great pun! I am slightly in awe…
Best of the year so far, and may well still be in December… :)

By: Paul Boisvert Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:55:24 +0000 Hi, Consider,

Yes, we have very different philosophies. Mine is to the left of the main MMT people, like Wray, Kelton, Mitchell, etc., so I won’t try to argue it here (if you don’t buy MMT, you certainly won’t buy my even more left/socialist position!) If you’re interested in a critique of your philosophy, the MMT’ers provide many (some implicit) in their general advocacy of MMT, and I won’t reinvent the wheel, as they do a very good job.


In capitalism, the govt. is inevitably corrupted and controlled by those with the real power, which is money. Sure, the govt. then enables others to become richer, perhaps undeservedly, in return. Why wouldn’t it, since it has been penetrated by those who represent wealthy capitalists? There is of course a dialectic, a symbiosis, but I see no historical or current evidence for the “evil govt. corrupts pure capitalism” trope. It runs hugely the other way, I think…

That’s why I advocate a democratic socialist society, so that vast pools of private wealth can’t buy off a (truly) democratically elected govt. of “we the people”. I’m sure your take is different… And yes, it will be hard to get a fairer and more just society, in reality…but everything good is difficult, and this seems worth working for.

By: joebhed Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:48:30 +0000 Yes,
” or any other direct issuance of fiat money, “”
That’s the point.
Seigniorage here is merely the gain from face value versus the cost of circulation.
For the direct electronic Greenback version, it is all a public purpose gain.
For the Money System Common.

By: Considerthesource Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:43:31 +0000 Paul-
While I do understand what you are saying and follow your logic I think we come from vastly different philosophical viewpoints. While we both agree there has been a disproportionate increase in compensation to the highest level income earners over the recent past we differ on how to address it.

You advocate redistribution policies. But how can you trust a civic body to fairly redistribute? Whose idea of fair do we follow? If everyone gets paid evenly where is the incentive to achieve? Wouldn’t you create a soviet style culture lacking in innovation?

What about wealthy people who worked hard, took no special favors and saved their money? Would you punish them through taxes? Why should anyone trust a government body to look after their welfare better than they can themselves? After all history is replete with governments starting out as benevolent only to be corrupted through the exercise of more and more power over time until becoming tyrannical.

Your ideas strike me as something that sounds good on paper but will not work in the flawed world of human beings. My view is to never give more power to governments. Society is made up of individuals and it must be the freedoms and rights of the individual over all that is protected. History shows time and time again people having to fight for individual freedom…things we now take for granted. From the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights. Government appartus is impersonal, prone to abuse, and operates on the threat of force. Who will police it from itself?

By: joebhed Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:42:15 +0000 Come on, Lambert. Get real.
NC is the harbinger of ridicule of debt-free government issuance of money.
Yves is unwilling to discuss it with its proponents, providing NC its alibi of ignorance that a Bill was actually introduced in the last two Congresses by Dennis Kucinich to accomplish all the ‘fiatness’ that can be imagined by the posters on this blog.
As in, it’s about the money. Not the metal.
Yet not a word of analysis.
It is past the time for recognizing the Soddy school of monetary thought, kind of a state-ecology-monetarism, for contrasting with the ideas of the smartest kids in the room here – that being the MMT school of a fiat-based sovereign.
It’s past time.
But it’s not too late.
For the Money System Common.

By: joebhed Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:24:58 +0000 Because that’s what money IS.
A legal, social construct.
And not, debt.