Thanks for this excellent reminder on why communism is evil and can never work. People are going to try to advance their own self-interests ... and meritocracy is the only model that seems to advance society. I look forward to reading your other essays.
A hat tip to Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute for promoting this Substack to fellow Brownstone writers. I would say the would-be communists are not fans of the Brownstone Institute!
I also note that millions of people read "Atlas Shrugged" and books like "1984," which was once widely taught in schools and colleges. But, apparently, the messages/warnings didn't take.
Big Brother IS watching us and Atlas is now shrugging.
You are but half way there. You've missed the biggest, most glaring examples of the culprits here (in their own words). The rabbit hole is deeper than you think:
I don't see the goal of the deep state as communism or socialism. That assumes they care about the people they rule. My opinion is the deep state want to rule absolute over the people of the world in keeping with Facism and worse.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Fred! However, I must respectfully disagree with your supposition that communism and socialism "care about the people they rule". In my opinion, the very essence of communism and socialism is that they do NOT care. They CLAIM to do so, with the ultimate REAL goal of gaining unlimited power under the guise of "public good". They claim to know better than you do what's "good" for you - this is how they gain power over you. This is exactly what the current deep state is after, isn't it?
I made that point in my recent article, Fred. Real communism is supposed to make everyone equal, right? The people and organizations pushing this form of communism don't want that. They just want to become richer and more powerful and have more control and perks.
The Truth, Bill, is that it's IMPOSSIBLE to make everyone equal. In a competitive, meritocratic society, those who contribute more will do better. Those who can't or won't contribute, will not do as well. Anyone who tells you "making everyone equal" is what they are after is a liar. And the question then becomes, what are they aiming to gain by lying to you?
Correct. While Gramsci theorized that dividing people by race, gender, etc as opposed to class would be a more successful way to bring about a Marxist Revolution, the political ruling class discovered they would be advantaged by the 'divide and conquer' strategy as well at least in the short term. So, most of the people pushing Communist/Marxist narratives don't necessarily want a socialist economic system. They just want to benefit financially from the Grievance Industrial Complex or by dividing people culturally to distract us all while also robbing us blind. It's just my theory.
As far as Atlas Shrugging, that is no longer necessary, imho. The % of competent doers in this country has dwindled so much that we're seeing the effect of a conscious Atlas Shrugged type worker strike without a John Galt led strike. We are the 20th Century Motor Company while it was implementing it's 'experiment'.
You have a point Lisa! However, I do believe that competent doers will always exist - if they are unable to function within the existing framework, they will create parallel structures that will eventually bring on the demise of the current system. A new kind of Shrugging.
Oh, I agree that parallel structures are being formed out of necessity and existing alternatives to our failing institutions will continue to expand and thrive. I'd give homeschooling as an example.
That is a good example Lisa! Here's another: in the rural area where I live, there is a young man who goes round collecting surplus agricultural products from people and selling them to those who want them. We have recently acquired a freshly-slaughtered lamb that way, and this morning he brought us two cartons of farm-fresh eggs.
It's this kind of entrepreneurship that has driven and will continued to drive our society forward. Any system that attempts to kill that spirit is destined for demise.
Exactly! If the markets are stifled by the government's command-control approach, they will go elsewhere, out of the reach of governments. It's already happening in rural Canada, where people trade and barter outside state control. Government-run "planned economy" will then become irrelevant and collapse. This happened in the USSR in the 1990s.
"Economic laws, like laws of nature, are so complex that it’s virtually impossible for one individual or even a group, however smart, to fully grasp the magnitude of that complexity and evaluate all implications. Any attempt to be “in charge” of the economic laws, to control or “plan” them, results in what we’ve come to refer to as “unintended consequences”.
Apple was created by a few tech geeks in a garage. A government agency could NEVER have created Apple.
Check out the history of the Ford Motor company. No government agency could have created the manufacturing process that Henry Ford did, such that he could make a car that almost anyone could afford.
I ended up making good money, making replacement wood for antique cars, including woodie station wagons. That's not even a fly speck relative to the overall economy, but I saw an opportunity and went with it. No school guidance counselor is aware of such opportunities.
Natural born followers love the idea of a planned economy, because they hope to have their plans made for them. Natural born meeting takers want to have meetings to go to where they can make their grand plans. NEITHER of these is where innovation comes from. BOTH of these stifle innovation and initiative.
Personally I never try to argue about particularly defined forms of governing other than to show that human interactions give only take place in two different ways. Self controlled by willing parties of by third party control. Communism, socialism, fascism, all fall under statist control. Hence individuals can either be left free to choose or the state holds the power to determine which exchanges are allowed.
A wonderful tribute to Ayn Rand - thank you for sharing this Garret! I agree that Ayn Rand was not infallible. For one thing, she was not able to accurately predict back in 1957 what would happen today. However, what's happening today is the direct result of the trends she accurately identified and described. The theory of Objectivism is her other important contribution. I believe that much of what's wrong with our society is happening because we lack objectivism in our judgements.
You got me thinking Explorer! Thank you for your comment. Here's what I've come up with:
1. Workers are slaves in a communist society, regardless of what commies claim. State ownership of means of production ensures that.
2. I believe that the most accurate description of where we are headed today is actually FASCISM - the fusion of Big Business and totalitarian state. This is not to say I don't see your point (and that of esteemed Mr. Tucker, whom I hold in highest regard!). However, I do believe that to fix our society, we must start with limiting powers of the state. Big Business wouldn't be able to do what they are doing without Big State to back them. Look what happened with the "covid vaccines": there is no way Big Pharma would have done so "well" on free market demand alone, without the coercion and "customership" of the state.
I am planning to write more on this in my upcoming posts. Stay tuned!
I am truly happy for that. Thinking is very needed in this crucial times.
Just to add, I have come to similar conclusion like Jeffrey Tucker without reading his article few days back. I am aware what is happening since 2020, and I thought to be good to analyze little bit economist side here - I have studied economy and instead of the academia, journalists and scientists I decided to use a little bit of thinking just to analyze the current reality. I have summarized it in a very short article named "Current economical model - corporatism" here: https://pooky.substack.com/p/current-economical-model-corporatism
Honestly, it's not even so hard, if you actively live in the real world and participate in the labor force these days. My assumption is that not many people truly live in real world or participate in workforce, otherwise they would see it in real life.
If we insist on the old model of West vs East (Capitalism vs Communism), I will just add a few points, why it's not communism what we are witnessing in reality now. Firstly, what is similar is the tools, which they use to invoke the revolution - communism as well as corporatism uses the group which feels, they don't own proper share of the economic output and are strong enough, to take it by force. Also, both ideologies communism and as well as so called "Wokeism (corporatism)" rely on the scientific discoveries. In case of communism it was economic studies and well thought system of new society, in case of wokeism (hidden corporatism), it's not economy but social sciences. They use it because the group which they need to activate are mostly students of social sciences, academia in general, teachers, nurses, corporate workers, minority groups, imigrants, state workers and girls. Wokeism works not on hard sciences but on feelings, language and gender ideology. They also use the same tools, like censorship, fraud and oppression.
What I see as a big difference, is that the communism or the people stated officialy their goal to empower the worker and relied on worker class for power. To keep this, they had to at least to some extent use the resources to improve the worker class living and include it in their plan as common good. They also had to use the resources, which the working class produced and were motivated, to really improve the output - for example they needed children to have workers to produce something, therefore they had to support families. Yes, there were political motivations, but the ideology in pure essence had some points which you couldn't cross.
The wokeism (corporatism) is different, it's one of ideology used by corporate and already powerful players to activate the people to destroy and rebel against their opposition. The ideology is itself meaningless, it doesn't have any vision or future except for permanent destruction and revolution to gain power. It also doesn't have any real scientific background besides some socials construct which appears to less bright like social good but in reality, they are terrible.
Try to image it like in 1968 - in Prague there was Prague Spring, people wanted to reform the system of communism and go back to original idea, which would cut the Soviet influence. The communism reform would be good for the people but you can not allow that, so you support the Woke movement or LGBT movement in Prague. You will say that the "reformist" are racist people and that the whole idea of "reformation" is right-wing conspirency to take down the communism system. You convince the woke crowd, to kill or take down the reformist and after they do that, you impose iron-fist rule and clean the possibility which allowed the reform movement to arise. (In case of 1968 it was russian army, as the Russia doesn't have so much evolved mind tricks used in West to influence human thinking). The result is same, you crushed the resistance and can expand the power more easily and prevent the resistance to accur again. Here it took another 20 years till 1989 and after 30 years in 2020 we are back there. The cycles are truly repeating in history.
Once again Explorer, you make some very good points! I particularly like this: "what is similar is the tools, which they use to invoke the revolution - communism as well as corporatism uses the group which feels, they don't own proper share of the economic output and are strong enough, to take it by force." I would add that these disenfranchised people who feel (or are made to feel) that they deserve a bigger share are USED by nefarious forces who are in it for their own benefit. When all is said and done, these people actually end up WORSE OFF - but of course they don't realize that.
I agree. Central planning never works due to the "conceit" of knowing how an economy should work. There is no price discovery in a socialist/communist economy.
But there are instances of people working hard and giving away their earnings.
Crazy Horse was a fierce Sioux warrior. In his dream, he saw a crazy horse and learned that if he gave away all of his trophies, both animal and man-made, he would stay strong and free. Crazy Horse could keep his tools, (horse, weapons, clothes), but had to give away the rest.
Crazy Horse did this and the tribe respected him for it.
Crazy Horse would go into the Black Hills and kill gold miners there. He'd some back with white man's loot and give it to the tribe.
But one day Crazy Horse saw a white miner's bauble that Crazy Horse kept.
Within a week Crazy Horse was captured and then killed at Ft. Robinson in western Nebraska.
Nikola Tesla is John Galt https://youtube.com/watch?v=wseyWRBWzyM The character in the speech speaks of nature of Good & Evil, The Force & Man's Existence, The Dark Side's "Morality of Death", Perpetually Motors, Extracting energy from the Ionosphere, Cyclotrons, Atoms are Indestructible, Logic: A is A and not E is M, and much much more. http://amberandchaos.net/?page_id=73
Atlas Shrugged II. 10/2/89 is the number of the date Coincidentally the date used in Atlas Shrugged II; the date the frequency of 2.3TZH was determined to break apart human DNA. Also, Atlas Shrugged points out, and Supreme Court Cast 369, Marconi vs US Govt. in 1943 is that the Government owns all patents; including Marconi's Radio Invention and Nikola Tesla's Patents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged -- John Galt refers to the year Nikola Tesla died, 12 years before 1955-6 when Atlas Shrugged was written, published in In; also the dates in Back to the Future, 1955. "I gathered the leaders of industry" -- Nikola Tesla 1891-3; prior and at the Colombian Exposition https://youtu.be/T1dy3gCUE7I?t=1
DNA resonant frequency is approximately 2.0 Terahertz, This is the earliest report cited by most that determined the resonant frequency of DNA is on October 2nd 1989, Phys. Rev. A 39, 2672 (1989) (10/2/89) - Millimeter-microwave spectrum of DNA: Six predictions for spectroscopy https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.39.2672 Coincidentally the date used in Atlas Shrugged II. (10/2/89) https://youtu.be/T1dy3gCUE7I?t=1
This article is true and good, but it addresses primarily the "practical" reasons that collectivism is wrong-headed. I would relish even more discussions of the moral aspects of the problem of collectivism that demonstrate the false nature of altruism as any basis for economic behavior, and the bedrock truth of the rights of man to private ownership of property--first of himself, his labor, and, then, to all that he produces for exchange with others in value-for-value mutually agreeable transactions. Again, good article. More, please, and thanks.
Agreed. Communism is at our front door.
Thanks for this excellent reminder on why communism is evil and can never work. People are going to try to advance their own self-interests ... and meritocracy is the only model that seems to advance society. I look forward to reading your other essays.
A hat tip to Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute for promoting this Substack to fellow Brownstone writers. I would say the would-be communists are not fans of the Brownstone Institute!
I also note that millions of people read "Atlas Shrugged" and books like "1984," which was once widely taught in schools and colleges. But, apparently, the messages/warnings didn't take.
Big Brother IS watching us and Atlas is now shrugging.
You are but half way there. You've missed the biggest, most glaring examples of the culprits here (in their own words). The rabbit hole is deeper than you think:
https://substack.com/profile/91945971-abuse-productions/note/c-54628711
Be careful with that. They want you to look that way.
Funny. I haven't seen it anywhere else.
I don't see the goal of the deep state as communism or socialism. That assumes they care about the people they rule. My opinion is the deep state want to rule absolute over the people of the world in keeping with Facism and worse.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Fred! However, I must respectfully disagree with your supposition that communism and socialism "care about the people they rule". In my opinion, the very essence of communism and socialism is that they do NOT care. They CLAIM to do so, with the ultimate REAL goal of gaining unlimited power under the guise of "public good". They claim to know better than you do what's "good" for you - this is how they gain power over you. This is exactly what the current deep state is after, isn't it?
I made that point in my recent article, Fred. Real communism is supposed to make everyone equal, right? The people and organizations pushing this form of communism don't want that. They just want to become richer and more powerful and have more control and perks.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/our-side-actually-has-a-numerical?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
The Truth, Bill, is that it's IMPOSSIBLE to make everyone equal. In a competitive, meritocratic society, those who contribute more will do better. Those who can't or won't contribute, will not do as well. Anyone who tells you "making everyone equal" is what they are after is a liar. And the question then becomes, what are they aiming to gain by lying to you?
10-4 on that - but, I think, that's one of the communism spins.
Correct. While Gramsci theorized that dividing people by race, gender, etc as opposed to class would be a more successful way to bring about a Marxist Revolution, the political ruling class discovered they would be advantaged by the 'divide and conquer' strategy as well at least in the short term. So, most of the people pushing Communist/Marxist narratives don't necessarily want a socialist economic system. They just want to benefit financially from the Grievance Industrial Complex or by dividing people culturally to distract us all while also robbing us blind. It's just my theory.
As far as Atlas Shrugging, that is no longer necessary, imho. The % of competent doers in this country has dwindled so much that we're seeing the effect of a conscious Atlas Shrugged type worker strike without a John Galt led strike. We are the 20th Century Motor Company while it was implementing it's 'experiment'.
You have a point Lisa! However, I do believe that competent doers will always exist - if they are unable to function within the existing framework, they will create parallel structures that will eventually bring on the demise of the current system. A new kind of Shrugging.
Oh, I agree that parallel structures are being formed out of necessity and existing alternatives to our failing institutions will continue to expand and thrive. I'd give homeschooling as an example.
That is a good example Lisa! Here's another: in the rural area where I live, there is a young man who goes round collecting surplus agricultural products from people and selling them to those who want them. We have recently acquired a freshly-slaughtered lamb that way, and this morning he brought us two cartons of farm-fresh eggs.
It's this kind of entrepreneurship that has driven and will continued to drive our society forward. Any system that attempts to kill that spirit is destined for demise.
In the end, reality wins. A free market can only be quashed for a limited amount of time.
Exactly! If the markets are stifled by the government's command-control approach, they will go elsewhere, out of the reach of governments. It's already happening in rural Canada, where people trade and barter outside state control. Government-run "planned economy" will then become irrelevant and collapse. This happened in the USSR in the 1990s.
"Economic laws, like laws of nature, are so complex that it’s virtually impossible for one individual or even a group, however smart, to fully grasp the magnitude of that complexity and evaluate all implications. Any attempt to be “in charge” of the economic laws, to control or “plan” them, results in what we’ve come to refer to as “unintended consequences”.
Apple was created by a few tech geeks in a garage. A government agency could NEVER have created Apple.
Check out the history of the Ford Motor company. No government agency could have created the manufacturing process that Henry Ford did, such that he could make a car that almost anyone could afford.
I ended up making good money, making replacement wood for antique cars, including woodie station wagons. That's not even a fly speck relative to the overall economy, but I saw an opportunity and went with it. No school guidance counselor is aware of such opportunities.
Natural born followers love the idea of a planned economy, because they hope to have their plans made for them. Natural born meeting takers want to have meetings to go to where they can make their grand plans. NEITHER of these is where innovation comes from. BOTH of these stifle innovation and initiative.
Great comment, Radical Individualist! I agree. And thank you for reading!
Personally I never try to argue about particularly defined forms of governing other than to show that human interactions give only take place in two different ways. Self controlled by willing parties of by third party control. Communism, socialism, fascism, all fall under statist control. Hence individuals can either be left free to choose or the state holds the power to determine which exchanges are allowed.
I followed Bill Rice here and will have a look around. You strike my sentimental side with referencing AS.
Ayn Rand foresaw a lot of what's going on today...
I wrote a short bit expressing some of my thinking an Ayn Rand here.
https://gseine.com/tributes/
A wonderful tribute to Ayn Rand - thank you for sharing this Garret! I agree that Ayn Rand was not infallible. For one thing, she was not able to accurately predict back in 1957 what would happen today. However, what's happening today is the direct result of the trends she accurately identified and described. The theory of Objectivism is her other important contribution. I believe that much of what's wrong with our society is happening because we lack objectivism in our judgements.
I will take a look, thanks Garret! And thank you again for reading and subscribing, and for all your thoughtful and insightful comments!
It's not communism what is coming but corporatism. Jeffrey Tucker described it well here: https://brownstone.org/articles/how-did-american-capitalism-mutate-into-american-corporatism/
I wish we would be progressing to the idea described above but it's opposite, workers will be slaves in this new system.
You got me thinking Explorer! Thank you for your comment. Here's what I've come up with:
1. Workers are slaves in a communist society, regardless of what commies claim. State ownership of means of production ensures that.
2. I believe that the most accurate description of where we are headed today is actually FASCISM - the fusion of Big Business and totalitarian state. This is not to say I don't see your point (and that of esteemed Mr. Tucker, whom I hold in highest regard!). However, I do believe that to fix our society, we must start with limiting powers of the state. Big Business wouldn't be able to do what they are doing without Big State to back them. Look what happened with the "covid vaccines": there is no way Big Pharma would have done so "well" on free market demand alone, without the coercion and "customership" of the state.
I am planning to write more on this in my upcoming posts. Stay tuned!
I am truly happy for that. Thinking is very needed in this crucial times.
Just to add, I have come to similar conclusion like Jeffrey Tucker without reading his article few days back. I am aware what is happening since 2020, and I thought to be good to analyze little bit economist side here - I have studied economy and instead of the academia, journalists and scientists I decided to use a little bit of thinking just to analyze the current reality. I have summarized it in a very short article named "Current economical model - corporatism" here: https://pooky.substack.com/p/current-economical-model-corporatism
Honestly, it's not even so hard, if you actively live in the real world and participate in the labor force these days. My assumption is that not many people truly live in real world or participate in workforce, otherwise they would see it in real life.
If we insist on the old model of West vs East (Capitalism vs Communism), I will just add a few points, why it's not communism what we are witnessing in reality now. Firstly, what is similar is the tools, which they use to invoke the revolution - communism as well as corporatism uses the group which feels, they don't own proper share of the economic output and are strong enough, to take it by force. Also, both ideologies communism and as well as so called "Wokeism (corporatism)" rely on the scientific discoveries. In case of communism it was economic studies and well thought system of new society, in case of wokeism (hidden corporatism), it's not economy but social sciences. They use it because the group which they need to activate are mostly students of social sciences, academia in general, teachers, nurses, corporate workers, minority groups, imigrants, state workers and girls. Wokeism works not on hard sciences but on feelings, language and gender ideology. They also use the same tools, like censorship, fraud and oppression.
What I see as a big difference, is that the communism or the people stated officialy their goal to empower the worker and relied on worker class for power. To keep this, they had to at least to some extent use the resources to improve the worker class living and include it in their plan as common good. They also had to use the resources, which the working class produced and were motivated, to really improve the output - for example they needed children to have workers to produce something, therefore they had to support families. Yes, there were political motivations, but the ideology in pure essence had some points which you couldn't cross.
The wokeism (corporatism) is different, it's one of ideology used by corporate and already powerful players to activate the people to destroy and rebel against their opposition. The ideology is itself meaningless, it doesn't have any vision or future except for permanent destruction and revolution to gain power. It also doesn't have any real scientific background besides some socials construct which appears to less bright like social good but in reality, they are terrible.
Try to image it like in 1968 - in Prague there was Prague Spring, people wanted to reform the system of communism and go back to original idea, which would cut the Soviet influence. The communism reform would be good for the people but you can not allow that, so you support the Woke movement or LGBT movement in Prague. You will say that the "reformist" are racist people and that the whole idea of "reformation" is right-wing conspirency to take down the communism system. You convince the woke crowd, to kill or take down the reformist and after they do that, you impose iron-fist rule and clean the possibility which allowed the reform movement to arise. (In case of 1968 it was russian army, as the Russia doesn't have so much evolved mind tricks used in West to influence human thinking). The result is same, you crushed the resistance and can expand the power more easily and prevent the resistance to accur again. Here it took another 20 years till 1989 and after 30 years in 2020 we are back there. The cycles are truly repeating in history.
Once again Explorer, you make some very good points! I particularly like this: "what is similar is the tools, which they use to invoke the revolution - communism as well as corporatism uses the group which feels, they don't own proper share of the economic output and are strong enough, to take it by force." I would add that these disenfranchised people who feel (or are made to feel) that they deserve a bigger share are USED by nefarious forces who are in it for their own benefit. When all is said and done, these people actually end up WORSE OFF - but of course they don't realize that.
I agree. Central planning never works due to the "conceit" of knowing how an economy should work. There is no price discovery in a socialist/communist economy.
But there are instances of people working hard and giving away their earnings.
Crazy Horse was a fierce Sioux warrior. In his dream, he saw a crazy horse and learned that if he gave away all of his trophies, both animal and man-made, he would stay strong and free. Crazy Horse could keep his tools, (horse, weapons, clothes), but had to give away the rest.
Crazy Horse did this and the tribe respected him for it.
Crazy Horse would go into the Black Hills and kill gold miners there. He'd some back with white man's loot and give it to the tribe.
But one day Crazy Horse saw a white miner's bauble that Crazy Horse kept.
Within a week Crazy Horse was captured and then killed at Ft. Robinson in western Nebraska.
So, you never know.
Nikola Tesla is John Galt https://youtube.com/watch?v=wseyWRBWzyM The character in the speech speaks of nature of Good & Evil, The Force & Man's Existence, The Dark Side's "Morality of Death", Perpetually Motors, Extracting energy from the Ionosphere, Cyclotrons, Atoms are Indestructible, Logic: A is A and not E is M, and much much more. http://amberandchaos.net/?page_id=73
Atlas Shrugged II. 10/2/89 is the number of the date Coincidentally the date used in Atlas Shrugged II; the date the frequency of 2.3TZH was determined to break apart human DNA. Also, Atlas Shrugged points out, and Supreme Court Cast 369, Marconi vs US Govt. in 1943 is that the Government owns all patents; including Marconi's Radio Invention and Nikola Tesla's Patents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged -- John Galt refers to the year Nikola Tesla died, 12 years before 1955-6 when Atlas Shrugged was written, published in In; also the dates in Back to the Future, 1955. "I gathered the leaders of industry" -- Nikola Tesla 1891-3; prior and at the Colombian Exposition https://youtu.be/T1dy3gCUE7I?t=1
DNA resonant frequency is approximately 2.0 Terahertz, This is the earliest report cited by most that determined the resonant frequency of DNA is on October 2nd 1989, Phys. Rev. A 39, 2672 (1989) (10/2/89) - Millimeter-microwave spectrum of DNA: Six predictions for spectroscopy https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.39.2672 Coincidentally the date used in Atlas Shrugged II. (10/2/89) https://youtu.be/T1dy3gCUE7I?t=1
This article is true and good, but it addresses primarily the "practical" reasons that collectivism is wrong-headed. I would relish even more discussions of the moral aspects of the problem of collectivism that demonstrate the false nature of altruism as any basis for economic behavior, and the bedrock truth of the rights of man to private ownership of property--first of himself, his labor, and, then, to all that he produces for exchange with others in value-for-value mutually agreeable transactions. Again, good article. More, please, and thanks.
More is coming Billy! I believe you and I are thinking in the same direction. Thank you for reading and stay tuned!