Constructive v.s. Destructive competition

David Hume, who wrote "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals", 1751, among other great philosophical works, was Adam Smith's teacher. Adam Smith's first and most significant work was his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", 1759. Smith's work easily follows from that of Hume.

Hume's endeavour was to discover a distinction that led to a basis of morality grounded somewhere other than self interest. He, as do many of us, found it difficult to fathom how a focus on the self could lead to a functional civil society. His primary argument begins with the fact that language exists that distinguishes between praise and blame. His argument grows fairly powerful, and at any rate, is very good literature. Here is an example paragraph:

" Now, if life, without passion, must be altogether insipid and tiresome; let a man suppose that he has full power of modelling his own disposition, and let him deliberate what appetite or desire he would choose for the foundation of his happiness and enjoyment. Every affection, he would observe, when gratified by success, gives a satisfaction proportioned to its force and violence; but besides this advantage, common to all, the immediate feeling of benevolence and friendship, humanity and kindness, is sweet, smooth, tender, and agreeable, independent of all fortune and accidents. These virtues are besides attended with a pleasing consciousness or rememberence, and keep us in humor with ourselves as well as others; while we retain the agreeable reflection of having done our part towards mankind and society. And though all men show a jealousy of our success in the pursuits of avarice and ambition; yet are we almost sure of their good-will and good wishes so long as we persevere in the paths of virtue, and employ ourselves in the execution of generous plans and purposes. What other passion is there where we shall find so many advantages united; an agreeable sentiment, a pleasing consciousness, a good reputation? But of these truths, we may observe, men are of themselves pretty much convinced; nor are they deficient in their duty to society, because they would not wish to be generous, friendly, and humane; but because they do not feel themselves such."

Ultimately, Hume does show that there is a distinction between morality and self interest, where morality is the preference for increasing utility within society.

"Utility is only a tendency to a certain end; and were the end totally indifferent to us, we should feel the same indifference toward the means. It is requisite a sentiment should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the pernicious tendencies. This sentiment can be no other than a feeling for the happiness of mankind, and a resentment of their misery; since these are the different ends which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote."

Hume's conclusion is that while the instinct for morality may be weaker than the sentiment of self, in conversation and in the daily intercourse with others, the sentiment of morality is edified and emboldened by the recognition of common sentiment between individuals, since self based sentiments rarely correspond. Adam Smith furthers Humes argument by introducing the soldier, who goes to war, placing his life in probable jeapordy based on no sentiment other than that of a service to his/her State. There can be no fundamental self interest either short term or indirect in the sacrificing of one's life.

A lot of competition today, is based upon simple principles of destruction, striving to out-do the competition in innovation and capital investment, all the while building debt, which as we know, no longer has its interest limited by the average rate of profit. The destructive rate of arbitrary interest on fiat money, which no longer has the right to be considered or marketed as "Capital" is the pitfall of just and beneficial investment. The biggest dog in the race is not the biggest industry, but the government itself, who is the fee behind the fiat. It is the government that decides how much debt can be carried by the banks, which equates to how much money is in the money supply and hence, what the value of money is. The more money there is, the less its worth and the less the conservative businessman is capable of using to compete with. Indenture to the bank and ultimately the government is the only course that remains. As money is a public utility that derives its value as the medium of exchange alone and is not in itself a medium of value except by fiat or governmental decree, it is not real capital. Being not capital in reality, it is a political entity and not a commercial entity, which means that a bank is a political institution.

Being a political institution, not within the designs of the U.S. constitutional form of government, banks then leave the realm of capitalist institutions and governmental institutions and enter the realm of a nobility class, which is in direct violation of Article 1 section 9 of the U.S. constitution, which forbids the sanctioning of a nobility class. Hence, the banking institutions of the U.S. must be made directly subject to the House of Representatives, which alone is responsible for managing the value of money in the U.S. In such a case, as in reality it ought to be, there would be no need for interest to support the banking community.

AdamSmith's "invisible hand" quote in his "Wealth of Nations", 1776, refers to the same moral sentiment (Which is what Smith reclassified as "individual-self-interest") that prefers an increase in the total utility or "wealth of a nation", and is what raised the world up out of feudalism and into capitalism. Capitalism provided civil society with both a philosophical liberty and a technological liberty both of which contribute toward giving everyone a dramatically increased level of freedom over what individuals survived even in the fairly recent past. Without preserving the philosophical liberty, however, the technological or physical liberty cannot survive. I suspect that the immanent end of oil is what is encouraging the feudal elements in our society to reach back in time for their own personal safety net in a reemergence of slavery (Machiavelli), but oligarchs are never as bright as the true Aristocracy, which is the real capitalist class. I see the emergence of technological innovations that will transcend the power of oil to an unimaginable extent... as always. The problem is whether or not the philosophy upon which the liberty of capitalism depends will survive or not, since the manufacture and distribution of such novel technologies is critical to its realization.

Destructive competition is is a race to the bottom, not to the top.

Peace