U.S. Capitalist Party

One of the founding fathers of the United States, John Adams, rarely mentioned today, was important enough to be the first Vice President to George Washington and our second President. He wrote a little bit about constitutional laws and principals. The main idea of a Republic is to keep all power from collecting in one center. History taught us that to accomplish this we have to divide the power between the three classes of people: Democratic, Capitalist and Government.

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Location: Wisconsin, United States

Reading the classics teaches one the basic principles on which our world was established. This has nearly all been lost in the fog of time past. All that remains are syllogysms and subjunctives it seems. In my BLOGs, i attempt to incorporate principals that are the real basis underlying civilizations as contrasted with the mythology we learn in our childhoods that goes unreflected. About me as a person: I enjoy wine(organic)and pizza (organic), and in the morning a nice strong cup of coffee - organic and fair trade whenever I can get it. I started cooking a lot more lately.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

The Military Industrial Complex

An important issue that must be reconciled with for a Capitalist party to be legitimate is the military-industrial complex. This is a very sticky issue today because the government has the vast majority of the nation's liquidity. Against the warnings of John Adams and John Stuart Mill, we have allowed government into the position of the highest wage payer in most of the professions (See the U.S. Labor Department's Job Satistics). This is highly debilitating to capital, since then capital becomes increasingly dependent upon the ingenuity dictated by government institutions, rather than having the preponderance of ingenuity influenced by market forces and the liberty of the people.

Without a Capitalist party dominating in the U.S. Senate, the government can usurp as much economic power as it wishes. When making purchases, individuals can select items again and again, making subtle improvements in their decision making. With government, the individual gets to vote only once and is stuck with whoever they get. Politicians do not come with an ingredients label, an organic or free trade sticker, fat free or cholesteral free or even a no trans fats label. Usually all one hears about is how corrupt the other politician is, or can be made to appear.

Very rarely is this sort of advertising promoted in any serious manner for capital goods, and for good reason. People wouldn't purchase products made by companies with a bad attitude, yet we're stuck with lousy politicians because we HAVE to choose one. We can't skip that item because we don't like it (though my father does). As a consequence, when there is more liquidity in the realm of capital, there is in fact greater liberty throughout the sovereign nation. People can pick and choose what we want, when we want it and Capital WILL be there to supply it if there is motive to invest in that direction.

Today, liquidity is tight in the Capitalist third of the political tripartite. This is due to two primary factors and one absolute one. The first of the primary factors is that an 'interest' is not applicable to a fiat money. There is neither principal nor a principle by which an interest can be conjoined to the lending of a fiat money. Fiat money is not capital, it is valuable neither due to scarcity nor to a demanding labor cost in its production. It in fact retains no value whatsoever. Money is a promise note, backed by the force of the U.S. Government that ensures that the value quantity shown on the face of the money can serve to exchange goods and services of the corresponding real value over time and distance.

That interest is charged by private individuals for this governmental service is equivalent to a defacto nobility, which is expressly forbidden by the U.S. Constitution and for good reason. A feudal nobility would devastate industrial capitalism. The consequence of interest being charged on fiat, is that every penny of interest paid, which can not be attributed to the service and real capital component of banking (building, technology, tellers...) translates as additional price, and increasing prices sum to inflation.

The second cause of inflation is military spending. Since money spent by government on military systems is money earned by workers, industries and servicemen, but no commodities are in fact produced. What this does is cause and increase in demand without an increase in supply. This too leads to higher prices and lower real profits due to supply and demand being related in a curvelinear relationship. Since government has more liquidity than capital and can afford better benefits and higher wages, debt accrues more to the labor force of capital. Increasing labor debt causes upward pressure on the wage and reduces capital liquidity further, causing capital itself to rely more heavily upon debt as an investment option. Obviously leading to even more perpetual inflation.

The absolute factor leading to the loss of capitalist liquidity is the direct and indirect taxation of capital. Since a real repubilc is based upon a balance of power between the classes and economic power is pretty much the most significant power, at least during times of civility, all three classes or components of society should have an equal share of the 'social product' or gross profits of capital. Today, government takes nearly two thirds of the profits of capital (both directly and through wage taxes. This does not include State and local taxes), the democratic class takes slightly more than half of what is left as Social Security (which is by far the best way the democratic class should get our third due to our penchant for licentiousness), leaving less than 20% of the profits of capital to capital, and if one considers the State and local taxes this number is significantly smaller.

Government then justifies its excessive takings based upon social excuses that are primarily the consequences of unemployment. Crime, unemployment itself, drug addiction, single parent situations, health care support... In addition, there are many issues, such as natural resources management, transportation, communication, trade subsidies, agricultural subsidies, tarrifs, minimum wages and so forth, which are served up for capital, but without any real organized input from capital as a class, which would streamline or eliminate costs tremendously. A beneficial consequence of organizing capital is that it would also increase accountability in those sectors that tend to usurp functionality that would be more effectively(and sustainably) utilized if treated as a shared utility.

The military industrial complex is wide and deep, few industries today do not benefit directly from government contracts, but this is completely the consequence of government malfeasance with taxation. the problem is a government that calls itself a democracy, who's constitution guarantees a republic, but with two thirds of the parts of a republic missing and no sign of either a democratic influence nor an aristocratic (capitalist) influence. If one considers that voting counts as the democratic influence, first remember that in the Roman republic, after the people won the right to have Tribunes that could be either plebian or patrician, 150 years passed before a plebian was ever elected and that was only due to the fact that the law was changed to make it a legal requirement for the Tribunes to be plebian only. The patricians kept the senate, and the councilship was mostly patrician, but occasionally very wealthy plebians did get elected. In other words, people rarely support issues or leaders that are good for us. Capital on the other hand, profits directly from the good will of the people, in contrast to the government class, and has the intellect and discipline to forge reasonable legislation in the interest of the people. There will still be people watching and the House of Representatives (the democratic component of government) will still be there to balance the Senate, but the wealth of the nation will be better served by a Capitalist political party.

By Capitalist party, I am suggesting all of capital, the vast majority of which are the smaller businesses who do 80% of the business in this country. The big names have all the political clout and power and many such as banking and resources aren't really capital at all. Ricardo considered all profit due to the gifts of nature to be rents of land and NOT capital. He considered capital to be all things built, (which does include houses and apartments) whereas land rent was garnered by the feudal landlord and not the capitalist. This is a distinction that we seem to have lost. Property and property rights are in fact more arbitrary dictates of government and the value of such gifts of nature, such as forests, oil and minerals do not originate by the hand of man and can not be considered as profits of capital. Still, I suggested in an earlier post that an improved market signal on these elements of the physical economy would emerge if the Social Security third of the social product were taken as a tax directly on natural resources divided across the entire domain of natural rents. While this would be a dramatic improvement in the economic system, the extant 'pretend capitalists' who influence government policy would never allow such rationality to even be considered within the walls of Congress. This alone is proof positive of tyranny.

If the majority of capital could organize, the big players would no longer have the clout they currently wield to the detriment of all. For instance in current farm policy, government pays the difference to the farmer between the market price and the actual production cost. This difference is typically over $1.00 a bushel (summing to about 5 billion a year from the U.S. Treasury) Cargyle and ADM profit from this under valued commodity (source: "The Omnivore's Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals", pp52-53 by Michael Pollan, 2006). If all the Farmers, who are also capitalists were added up, they would dwarf the garguantuan processors politically and market forces would be more in line with reason and accountability. The U.S. would not be suffering from a health care crisis due extensively to the epidemic of obesity. Instead, farming would be a more lucrative business and investments in land treatment that yield long term sustainablity would be more prolific.

There are huge benefits that can accrue to capital if it would wake up and organize politically. This is in fact what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they drew up the Consitition. It is what is meant by the words "balanced government". It is why we have a Senate at all. Congress is NOT the secretariat of the whitehouse and must never be. Legislation and its execution must be held by different classes of society such that wisdom and reason ALWAYS prevail over arbitrary whim and injustice. For each branch to be held by its respective class, there has to be a minimum of three political parties. The capitalist class is the one losing the most and with Social Security on the table, the government is poised to take everything.

The term Military-Industrial complex suggests a union between government and capital that can only form for one reason, and that is to dominate tyrannically over the people. Capital, however is getting the raw end of this complex and needs to realize it. It may already be too late. Hitler took over in a matter of weeks once the right conditions were in place. He dismissed congress - all out of the excuse provided by the Reichstag fire, which he exploited to aggregate power by blaming it on the "communists". The World Trade tower incident is identical in political significance.

Not really one to shout fire in movie theatres, I adhere to the belief that there is always just enough time left if I start right away. It works... I am trying now to learn how to connect DSOs to web pages and make online forms that can serve as petitions and membership forms. Meanwile I set up a small -free- website that has a voting section. I would like to use that to collect information on people's interests in a Capitalist Party. It has some questions on it now, but I get six more, which I will use... the site is bran new. Please visit: uscapitalistparty.bravehost.com

VOTE U.S. CAPITALIST PARTY - target Senates