Learning The Hard Way

I have so much to be thankful for.  An awareness of The Almighty God and His salvation, Yeshua.  My wife. This plot of ground and the health to work it.  Relative peace amidst a world of chaos.  Too much to list here.

If there is one thing I have to be thankful for at this time of year, it is the re-appearance of the true stories from this country's history that prove that my reason and epistemology are intact.  What God's Word says about human nature, and the laws of economics, are proven over and over again.  This proof comes in the micro and in the macro.  Scale does not change the outcome.  It can be a group of five survivors on an island or a billion Chinese.  The intentions of the participants, especially the leadership, doesn't matter.  When you work with, and put to use the laws of human nature and economics, you get mostly good results, and when you try to deny those laws and work against them, you get disaster.  John Stossel reminds of this lesson here, and following is the meat of his article.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That's why they nearly all starved.

When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.

"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I) (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."

In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic.

"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."  

Capitalism and free enterprise are not perfect, but only because human beings are not perfect.  The reason free enterprise -- which includes private property rights -- works, is because it works with, not against, human nature.  I've debated this issue with believers in communism or some variant thereof.  It always comes down to the fact that any form of collectivism requires force to make people conform to the ideals of that economy, thus enslaving the very people that the idea is supposed to help.  Free enterprise is completely voluntary and requires no one to participate against their will.  Their consequences are entirely of their own making.

Of course, that means they are free to fail.  It is this certainty that drives the left into fits of moonbat madness. Reality has no feelings. The laws of economics have no feelings.  They will be obeyed eventually.  You can work with them and get the most optimal outcome for the greatest average of people, or you can fight against them and end up with a horrific disaster that drags everybody down with it.

You see, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, food pantries, hospitals, The Red Cross, orphanages, and other such institutions are not started, maintained, or supported by governments, or otherwise talented or productive people who have been reduced to being slaves of the state by the "good intentions" of those who believe in socialist utopias or the fantasy of any inherent goodness of mankind.

Believers in socialism can't seem to comprehend that there will always be leaders, and that unchecked power corrupts.  They further don't understand that those who desire and strive to have the positions of power do so for their own self interest, first and foremost. The moment you forget that, you are on your way to being a slave.  The moment you fall for someone who says, "Give me this power, and I will see to it that you get this or that,"  you've begun to lose your dignity, the respect of respectable people, and your freedom.

I do understand Aesop's Fable about the dog in the manger.  I'll bet they don't touch that one in the government schools with a ten foot pole.  There really are people in this society who will gladly suffer under state imposed poverty as long as others are not allowed to become "rich."

Enough for now, I need to work on preparations for the coming economic collapse.  The people of the State of California have proved to me that it is inevitable.