Privatization in State Capitalism

This piece is from an anonymous guest writer. 

 Privatization in state-capitalism is a basic principle. Placing the means of production in the hands of private capital is one of the main tenets in the philosophy of capitalism. It leads to competition, producing increasingly improved quality in commodities. It increases efficiency and opens the floodgate to entrepreneurship.

            This is all in theory, of course. If we want to observe the results of privatization in state-capitalism in practice, we need only take a cursory glance at existing institutions.  I shall use two examples: transportation and financial institutions.

            Transportation, which is essentially a public service that is most often offered by the state for the benefit of the public, has largely been privatized in many the industrial nations of the first world. These services are initially set up as social powers, funded by taxes collected from public sector. In the conservative fervor of the 1980’s, many of these social powers were turned over to the private sector. Now, how does this occur? It’s essentially a very simple process. The state defunds the service, and, in effect, causes the social power to begin to fail. In reaction to this, the social power is sold off to the private sector and placed into the hands of private capital. The service is now subjected to the ‘free market’ of state-capitalism. It undergoes drastic cuts in what private company deems ‘unnecessary’. This entails everything that will obstruct profit (especially short-term profit) for the company. The social service is now placed at the whims of profit, and in result the benefit of the public is now irrelevant.

            Financial institutions are a particular case of interest. When financial institutions are in the hands of the private sector, their goal is to generate profit. How do they generate profit? By utilizing reserve funds (banking accounts) to make investments. The goal of corporations is to generate as much short-term profit as possible. One is legally obliged to do this when in the corporate system. To generate massive amounts of short-term profits, financial institutions make incredibly risky investments, in order to receive incredibly high returns. And, naturally, these investments do not always bring returns. It’s improbable for them to even bring returns on half of the investments. When these financial institutions lose in this gamble, it directly affects the market. Over-time, these bad investments can lead to a downfall in the market, and eventually the institutions begin to fail. But, of course, these institutions are ‘too big to fail’, as it’s put. Now, this is where the ‘state’ in state-capitalism comes into play. The state is lobbied by the corporations and provides a ‘stimulus’ to them, which, essentially, is an enormous subsidy funded by revenue generated by taxes from the public.

            Privatization, in theory, is the pursuit of profits in the market. In practice, it leads to inefficient services and an irrelevant public. Should the public allow this system to produce poor services? Should the public ‘bail out’ the private sector? 

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The NAP for dummies

Because many of you are new to the idea of liberty, I'd like to introduce you to one of the axiomatic ideals: the Non-Aggression Principle. (My more seasoned liberty advocates might get bored of this post, but I'll have one for you guys later!)

The Non-Aggression Principle has two parts. The first part states:

"I will not initiate force, either through violence, threat of violence, or fraud."

This is a powerful statement. In a world where violence and force seems to be the norm, pledging nonviolence is an act of treason. I'd like to bring to light how the state violates all three of these tenets.

First we have "Violence". How does the state initiate violence? Most notably, through law enforcement and the military. The police are a perfect example of an arm of the government that directly initiates deadly force. When one does not follow the laws set in place by the state, the police will intervene and use force to violate your property rights and imprison you. You do not have a choice in the matter. Remember, you own yourself.

Second is "threat of violence". This is shown perfectly through taxation. Taxation is how the parasitic entity funds itself. It's money stolen straight out of your pocket by the IRS. Where does the "threat of violence" come from? Well, if you choose not to pay your taxes, you are threatened with legal action through the police, who are initiators of violence. Therefore, any state that collects taxes is committing violence against you. Just because you can't see the gun held to your head does not mean it's not there.

Third is "fraud". Fraud in this case is defined as "an act of deception designed to make you do something you wouldn't normally do". I'm sure the first thing that comes to everyone's mind in this case is.... politicians. Politicians will tell you anything you want to hear, as long as they get your vote. The reality couldn't be much further. They are keeping up appearances with you and taking money from special interest groups. They may act like they care or listen, but in reality they only care about the interests of people who are giving them money. This is just as reprehensible as any act of physical violence, because it is again violating your personal right to have an opinion.

These three tenets constitute the first part of the NAP. The second part is as follows:

"In the event that my life, family, or property is threatened, I have the right to initiate force in self-defense."

Violence is justified in one instance- if you are defending your life, family, or property. Because you are an individual, you have the basic right to protect the things that are owned by you. Your family is also a valid reason for defense. There is one exception to this rule, but I'll discuss this in a later post.

Because the government is not an individual, its application of force is not justified. This is a shorter post, but I hope this helps explain one of the basic tenets of voluntarism. All interactions between human beings should be voluntary, and not influenced by force from an outside party. It's the only moral way.

The importance of individuality

"And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory.

The sacred word: EGO"

Powerful words from an equally powerful novella. For the few reading this that may not have read "Anthem", it's an absolute must read, and is my personal favorite from Ayn Rand.

The concept of the individual seems to be on the chopping block everywhere you look these days. Children are encouraged to conform to their own "cliques", adults choose sports teams, political parties, social clubs, and other groups. The television is full of charismatic people we follow religiously. Everyone's concerned about which celebrity married who, who divorced who, what talking head is spouting what, who's wearing those shoes. The problem runs much deeper than that, though.

We are born into a world that is designed for its creatures to be individuals. Each one of them must follow its own unique path. Some will succeed, others will fail. It is the natural course of life. Individuality fosters natural selection, and allows the best path for survival. Why, then, is the course of human society leaning toward the side of collectivization and forced equality? If individuality is natural, it cannot be a natural tendency. Today, I'll explain why the existence of a state is fostering an unnatural push for equality.

One of the most remarkable things about human beings is that we are able to think for ourselves. We can form our own opinions, think our own thoughts, and use our own judgment to make our own decisions. Throughout human history, the norm has been for one party to subjugate the majority of the population. They've tried direct force, trickery, and subterfuge. Today's human farmers have stumbled upon the best system for subjugation yet devised: Mentally condition the livestock into believing they ARE individuals, while still remaining under the influence of the state, and you will never have to worry about anyone asking questions.

You may say, "But I am an individual! I have followed a unique life path and have chosen things for me that nobody else has!". However, if I were to raise you in a chamber with many, many rooms(but no windows) and allow you to go anywhere you wanted in the chamber, you'd eventually forget that there was a life outside the chamber at all. This is what is in place today. We are born, we enter our "clique" in high school, we start backing the red or blue guys in college, we choose our favorite football team, and we pick our career. During this time, we have focused so much on making sure we don't "hang out with nerds" or "argue with a stupid liberal", that we forget that there are ways to live our lives completely off the map. We've successfully lost our individuality to the collective mind, and the worst thing about it is that we don't even realize it. We THINK we are unique, but we are not.

Socially, collectivization just leads to a loss of creativity and creative thinking, but it is indicative of a much larger problem.In the United States, the government has given you two major political parties to rally behind. The majority of the "politically-minded" sector of America believes you're either a Democrat or a Republican. When you're passionate for either party, you tend to associate with like-minded peers. You proclaim that you are a "liberal" or a "conservative". You vote, you pay your taxes, and you loudly shout the slogans you hear. Because you're focused on what this politician is doing for your side of the race, you've become so domesticated that you don't even ask the proper questions in the first place. And most startlingly, you've completely forgotten that you're "voting" for two sides of the exact same coin.

With these political parties, the state has furthered its own interest(the collection of taxes) by completely indoctrinating you to not even think that there ARE any other options. "Majority rule", "Spread the wealth", "Tax the rich", "Flat taxes for all!". All are slogans you hear daily from a statist. The public doesn't even begin to consider things like "Why do we need taxes in the first place?". Such things don't belong in a society where collectivization is king.

Religion is another polarizing factor. You go to church, mosque, temple, synagogue... You follow the book of your choice. You pick your side, join your group, and persecute who doesn't agree with you. In each case, the human need to be right has been manipulated by the state and by the leaders of religion to be more important than the human need to be an individual.

Wake up. You've lost the most valuable thing you own: your individual spirit. Your ego. It's time to reclaim it. Begin to ask questions. Think for yourself. Learn as much as you can about the world, especially the stuff the state does not want you to learn about. When  you're part of a group/party/team, you sacrifice your indivuality and become leveled out to be equal with everyone else. All of life shouldn't be that way.

Working with others is great, but don't become others. Be yourself. Don't let the state take that.

And again, I implore you: If you haven't already, read Anthem. You won't be disappointed.

EDIT: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." -Noam Chomsky

A Few Words On Regulated Economies

With all the buzz about Obamacare and socialized medicine, I thought it'd be prudent to discuss a couple problems I see with regulated services and products.

There is a marked decline in quality when a product or service is regulated. This is due to the issue of regulation vs. quality. Ordinarily(in a free market), the costs of the company go toward making a product that will allow them to have the greatest customer retention. This means they need to make a good product relatively cheaply. Trial and error will come into play, along with consumer review and feedback. Eventually, the kinks and issues with the product will sort out and you're left with a real, quality item.

By definition, a "regulated" economy imposes "regulations" upon products and services. These regulations are intended to have safety and quality control in mind, but end up being detrimental to both. When a regulation is imposed, it provides a boundary and a limitation on the product being regulated. This regulation MUST be met, or the company will face legal penalty. When a company is meeting a regulation, the time and money that would've been spent on independent trial and error and customer feedback is now being spent meeting the regulation. As more and more are imposed, the company finds that all of its labor and capital is going toward meeting the regulations, rather than taking the time to make a quality product. Therefore, when a product or service is regulated, the quality goes down because there is no room for trial and error.

In a free market, there is one way and one way only for a company to generate a profit- its customers. There are no safety nets, no fall-backs, no bailouts. You either create a quality product that customers want, and want to keep, or your business fails. It's that simple. It's Darwinism at its finest, and it's an organic approach to economics. After the  unsafe, bad, or unnecessary products are weeded out, you're left with products and services that are the highest quality and the best value.

In a regulated economy, there is an effect I'd like to call the "Law of Diminishing Labor Efficiency***". When a business exists inside a socialized or regulated economy, a new way to generate money arises- the state or regulator. The state does not allow businesses it deems important to fail, so it will use revenue from taxation to support a business. When a business does not solely rely on customer input to survive, it begins to become complacent. The attention is taken away from the quality of the product and is focused on the cost of the labor and capital. To put it simpler, the boss knows he's still going to have a job even if he puts out crappy stuff, so he's more concerned with making a quick buck by cutting corners and making things as cheap as possible. This leads to a drastic decline in quality, which is of course detrimental to the consumer.

In either case, the customer loses and the state and mega-corporations win. For those of us who understand what this entails, Obamacare is a dark cloud looming over America.

(***If there is already a name for this, feel free to let me know! I am familiar with concepts, not names.)

I originally posted this on July 4th on my Facebook profile, but I thought it would be relevant here, and a good starting point for my friends who are not familiar with what I stand for.

From the time we are born, we are bombarded by sights, sounds, and thoughts that are all designed to keep us from realizing the horrible truth: We are property. Human beings, owned by other human beings. Our possessions and resources are harvested.

A human being can now successfully go from birth to death without realizing he is livestock. We are given the ILLUSION of free will, choice, and liberty. Not because we are cared for, but because it increases our productivity.

We are born, we go through state education, we choose our career, we pay our taxes, we retire, we die, and most importantly.... We do not ask questions.

The government is an entity that leeches onto a group of people like a parasite. It begins by taking away liberties. Then it makes its constituents believe that these freedoms were taken away by an external force. Following that, said government makes a great show of force to make you think they are working to return those liberties to you. Once you're indoctrinated to believe that the entity that took away your freedoms in the first place is working to return them to you, you begin to accept taxation and state education as a fact of life. You believe that the state is a benevolent entity that is protecting you, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Once this first crop of humans is sown, it is simple to indoctrinate those generations who come after using state education and patriotism. These generations become progressively more complacent until the very idea of government being malicious becomes laughable among the mainstream schools of thought.

The state has successfully domesticated you. You now provide a steady stream of income for your owners without even realizing it.

As a race, we're entering a unique threshold- People are beginning to wake up. They are beginning to see the cage we are all in, and they are beginning to question the governments that have enslaved them for so long. They strive for true liberty, but they are met with heavy resistance.

The livestock knows no other way but enslavement, and the government has them indoctrinated quite well. They lash out, they threaten, they attempt to hurt... They are in fear because they know they do not understand.

What can you do? You can start by using your knowledge as a tool. You have something the state does not want you to have. Use it to your advantage. Spread the word, open minds, broaden hearts, and help those in need. But the most important thing you can do is to make people ask questions. That's the biggest enemy to a human farmer- an inquisitive mind.

Have a happy "holiday", ladies and gentlemen.

Hello world!

You can call me Gamaliel. I am a 20 year old male living in rural Middle Tennessee.

In the course of my life, I've come to realize something quite unnerving and frightening- The vast majority of human beings are not free. We're not even *somewhat* free. We live in a society where we are indoctrinated to become comfortable with our enslavement. It's time we began to wake up. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands who are beginning to see the nature of the world we live in, and want to change it.

We are a faceless, leaderless movement. There's many names for it... Abolitionism, Anarcho-Capitalism, the Liberty Movement... We consist of your neighbor, your boss, your best friend, your lover.... We're everywhere. No matter the name, the creed, the demographic, we all strive for one thing: freedom.

This is going to be my personal venting space where I post my views on current events, ideas and thoughts of a voluntary society, and anything else I find of interest. Follow me, and we'll take a journey.

Godspeed.