Dear Reader,

Thanks for having the courageous desire to classify me as a "Flailing Moron", and what I warned about, as a "smear of misunderstanding (that)would be tedious parody ... ".

Yes, I agree with you.

Man, you are so right, you should really be happy and dance with joy!

Do you know what touched me most about your hearty, scientific comment?

The fact that my commentary touched you at all. Nowadays, this is tantamount to a miracle. To use an "oxymoron", I am glad that you are not yet "dead alive". I congratulate you. You can still react, can still get into rage, can still protest. Direct this energy to those who really deserve it, please.

Anyhow, Hurrah! You still are linked to reality, keep up this fighting spirit.

I wish you luck.

Sincere greetings,

Franz.

Professor (Dr.?) Lee, assuming that is you, welcome to my website. Believe me, you are not the first person to discover something I've written about them that compelled an answer. I have to say your response was one of the most good-natured so far. I appreciate your humor.

However, I really did mean what I wrote.

This is primarily because I don't know how you define the various terms in your article and can only operate on the preconception I hold of people who say the things you have. I don't disagree that the communications of my federal government have been tending towards the incandescently propagandistic for quite some time (and certainly before George W. Bush took office), lately ticking upwards in nationalistic earnest and strident disagreement with dissent from the party line. No quibbles there.

However, it is one thing to describe the policies and activities of the current administration and another to then simply ascribe them to the concept of "capitalism." Capitalism isn't what drove the various European fascists to attempt the conquest of Europe. Capitalism ought not to be blamed for the slave trade. Capitalism isn't responsible for the mass murders at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And no serious person would blame capitalism for the horrors of the Soviet GULAG.

It was that last comment of yours that convinced me you were either a moron or a liar. It was your plea that the reader not label you a Marxist or a communist that convinced me you were the former.

Because to me, the concept of capitalism means a very specific thing: the social institution that doesn't prevent individuals from marketing, selling, and buying their goods and services (including labor and ideas) to anyone they wish. In other words, the concept of capitalism is fundamentally connected and related to individual liberty. As such, it is the absence of capitalism - the existence of governments and people engaging in coercion, slavery, theft, and force - that should be blamed for those crimes you mentioned.

The fascists wanted to stomp out liberty for a select spectrum of society. Slavery is utterly at odds with the concept of free trade. The nuclear bombing of Japan had nothing to do with peaceful economic transactions. The entrenched and systematic assault on personal freedom and integrity in Communist Russia was explicitly the desire to combat capitalism and its underlying foundations.

Hopefully you understand the meaning of my comments now. Feel free to respond.

Dear Drizz,

I never ever proclaimed to possess absolute truths about anything or any person, in fact, what I think and do also have nothing to do with human arrogance or omniscience.

For these reasons, I appreciate your detailed explanation of your views, that I accept, appreciate very highly, why not? Why should they not be real, be part of the flowing, ever-flowing, over-flowing Truth on this planet? Why should my views alone be true? Why should I not listen to other views, consider them, respect them?

You know something, dear Drizz, it world be far better for humanity that I am erring, and that you are "right", and I would be the first one to rectify, to recognize my equivocations. I have no problem whatsoever to be proven scientifically and philosophically "wrong". I am learning every day, every second.

However, the strange thing is that every second passing by, I become more desperate, because as reality currently moves on this planet, my greatest fears are being substantiated to the hilt. This is the reason why I so dearly wish that you are "right", so that both our truths could become one, two sides of the same global reality.

Kindly visit my URL, click on my publications, and see what I have said over the last 40 years in five languages. I am serious, very much worried about the future of mankind, about your tomorrow, about my today. It is not America, not the Americans, it is the system in which we live, that has to be changed radically, that is, must be annihilated, and be replaced with something human, humane, humanist, something worth to live for, something worth to die for.

Sincere wishes,

Franz.

Mr. Lee, humans have a specific nature and that nature isn't going to be changed overnight, over a year, or over a generation. Humans act, and we act out of self-interest. To do otherwise would be to invite death and hardship openly into our lives. Given that humans act in order to preserve their values and their lives, I think it is best to let them flourish as much as possible and that means removing the social institutions (such as government) that stand in their way and forcibly prevent them from reaching their potential. This is from both a pragmatic and moral standpoint: freedom works and freedom is just.

From this perspective, even though I would be the last person to characterize the preceding century as being "free," when you say "the system in which we live, that has to be changed radically, that is, must be annihilated" I wonder just what you mean.

Dear Drizz,

Reality disproves your generalizations about "humans". In any case, as you stated originally, either I belong to the species of morons, or to the species of "humans".

To tell you the truth, from what you explained above, I am honoured to be something different, a moron.
Long live the morons of the Milky Way!!

Did you know that on this planet live "speaking tools" (Aristotle), "negroes, who serve neither for the use nor for the abuse of philosophy", in whom "the Almighty God could not have placed a 'good' soul in such a black, stinking body" (Voltaire and Montesquieu), furthermore, that there are "tin-collectors" (a Venezuelan. Aryan, favourite phrase), "Kaffirs", "camel-drivers", "slit eyes", "morons", etc.?

Also, there are an Albert Schweitzer, Marquis de Sade, Danton, a Lady Di, a Mother Theresa, Blue Beard, Nero, Hitler, Bush, Rumsfeld, Carmona Estanga, Chávez, and who knows who and what all. If you place them all under the same "human" umbrella, you should not have any problems with any one of them, they are just like that, very human, every single one of them. Chávez is just as human as Bush, as Carlos Andres Perez! Long live the human race, the humans! Have you never heard about masters and slaves, rich and poor, whites and blacks, about generations of vipers and pharisees, about different social classes, about class struggles? Well, consult the Bible, pre-Marxist. French historians of "science fiction" like Guizot, Thiers and Thierry? Communists got the stuff from them, man!

I am so happy that you have designated me to another species, to another inhuman category, unless, of course, all humans, except you, are essentially morons.

Cordial greetings,

Franz.

Mr. Lee, I don't think you are considering what I wrote closely enough. Reality demonstrates conclusively and without doubt that humans DO act and we DO act primarily out of our own self-interest in order to obtain and defend the things we value. Disagreement with that will seriously undermine any remaining positive opinion I have of you or your mental faculties, for in the very process of disagreement you’ll be proving my point.

Your digression into a historical cast of wildly divergent characters does not bolster the case I think you are attempting to make. Each of them acted and acted in accordance with their values. Many of the values many of those people hold and held are simultaneously abhorrent to me and signs of virtue to others. And? The people on this planet can and do exist in various states of intellectual and social diversity.

In any event, I do regret you still haven't addressed my initial point, assuming that was your intention. If capitalism is characterized as a system that respects individual freedom and property in order to let people exchange goods, services, and ideas among each other and across the seas (and I say it does), then everything you smear it with in the article I quoted above is just that: an insulting smear borne of subject ignorance or irrational hatred.

I invite you to try again.

Dear Drizz,

As I stated before already, you are so right!
A Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year 2005.

Franz & The Pandemonium Crew.

hmmmmmmmm interesting

Dear Drizz, If you think that Capitalism 'respects individual freedom and property in order to let people exchange goods, services and ideas...' Then I'm afraid you're living in cloud cuckoo land. Capitalism exists to make a profit, by 'whatever means', for the corporations and their shareholders. Which is why Big Business, and Western Capitalist Society exploits the less well off and most vulnerable citizens of the Third World, and has little regard even for the underclass within its own society. With the wealth accumulated comes the power to enforce their ideas, politics, and philosophies on countries too poor, or too small, or too 'undeveloped' to stand up to them. I say this neither as a Marxist, Communist, Capitalist or any other 'ist' but just as an ordinary person who thinks he has seen through the Bush and Blairs of this world who are controlled by vast, inter-global, corporations, who last concern is for 'freedom'. They want control, and the more that the World's natural resources are used up the more control they'll demand, and will allow even less freedom to anyone, except the elite few.

Mr. Rhymer, your conception of the free market is unfortunately marred by your misidentification of the economy around you as "capitalist." It isn't; rather, it's a mixed-up halfbreed of socialism and token capitalist characteristics. The right to the use of one's legitimate private property and the right to be free of aggression are essential for any system to be declared "capitalist." What Bush likes and has done is far from that. Blair doesn't even make the pretenses Bush does; he's far more openly socialist.

Profit "by any means" is not capitalism. To narrow it down for purposes of discussion, for ownership to be legitimate, you have to acquire the property (profits, land, tools, etc.) either by homesteading it when found unclaimed or by voluntary exchange with the current owner. A big business that gets laws passed that favor it over others isn't engaging in voluntary trade to earn it's revenue, it is getting the state to use or threaten force against the business's competitors. If you steal, beat someone up, or threaten to do either to some guy in order to get his stuff, a critical line has been crossed.

Why do so many businessmen do this? Because the state has given itself the power to regulate, to outlaw, and to practically run private enterprises. Just as the state sees us as tools to keep it running (see: Taxes), some businessfolk see the state as a tool to control the market in their favor.

So eliminate all that from your analysis. A subsidized foreign development loan; a ban on liability lawsuits for drug companies; a tweak to the tax code that favors bond investment over commodities; the state financing of a business's employee retirement fund; none of this is capitalism. All of it, when drilled down, represents anti-free market action. It is one reason why I am an anarchist. The state is antithetical to a voluntary society and a free market in all goods and services. It serves, among other things, as a focus point for corporations seeking to get a legal advantage over the individual and other corporations.

Don't conflate what a business does today with what capitalism is. There are indeed companies who have owners that don't give a damn about freedom and rights. They aren't capitalists. Other names are more appropriate: mercantilist, corporatist, and in extreme cases, fascist.

I have two questions of a sincere nature that are completely sans Snark.

and i ask because with every question i objectively ask myself and down every logical path of action and reaction that it takes me, i see no place short of a utopian world populated with citizens of idealized ethics that could maintain an anarchistic, totally free-trade environment.

so: to your knowledge, has there ever existed a free-trade system that you would point to as an example of your values?

and,

has there ever been a society, to your knowledge, that has existed and prospered without social institutions (government)?

Ryan, I basically define a free market as any situation where people can freely, mutually exchange with each other. A free market does not exist when someone is coercing or forcing others to do something they wouldn't otherwise do if the aggression was absent. So, are there any examples of this today or in the past? I might point to neighbors helping each other out with lawn work, a father swapping his car for his teenage son's assurance to buy groceries with it, or farmers selling their produce on the side of the road.

However, there are complications with these and most examples of current behavior: the state and it's threats to invade us have already permeated most of our thought processes when we make decisions. Are the neighbors helping each other out because they can't afford professional services due to confiscatory taxation driving prices beyond their reach? Is the father confident in his son because his son is competent or because the father thinks government police will keep him safe? Did the farmers take into account possible laws against selling alongside public roads and did they choose their venue because they didn't want to deal with a city's or county's business licensing process? It's very hard today to separate the influence of the various levels of government from our actions.

In the past, however, I'm sure you can see where I'd be able to point out safer examples of pure voluntary trade. The smaller the footprint of aggression, the greater the space actual and potential free markets can take up.

As for your second question, let me first say that social institutions encompass more than the government and indeed predate the it. Any functioning society is going to have social institutions that cover the spectrum of human action.

There has been some scholarship and investigation on societies that are close to the one I'd like to see. I am not very familiar with the literature, but the standard example I've heard of is what David Friedman discovered about Medieval Iceland ( http://tinyurl.com/9cjct ) in his book "The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to Radical Capitalism." There are some folks who claim present-day Somalia as an example of anarcho-capitalism (for example, http://www.somalianarchy.com/ ), but I'm skeptical ( http://www.drizzten.com/blargchives/000789.html ) of the situation out there. Bruce Benson has written a few Journal of Libertarian Studies articles on private law and private law enforcement in primitive and tribal societies (http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/9_1/9_1_1.pdf and http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_2.pdf ). This is an area that I haven't explored very thoroughly and don't take this as a claim that the explorations above completely comply with the ideas I advocate.