No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
William Jennings Bryan, 1860 – 1925,
an American lawyer, statesman, and politician, three times the Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States.

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.
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Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest [sic] of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
John Maynard Keynes, 1883 – 1946,
a British economist whose ideas, called Keynesian economics, had a major impact on modern economic and political theory, as well as on many governments’ fiscal policies.  

So far, we have noted many deficiencies in the capitalism which we practice.  The purpose behind such a look is to encourage thought and action about how to make capitalism work better.  So we look at more deficiencies.  

We have explored the problem which economic libertarians would create if their wish of the unfettered pursuit of wealth became reality:  as they worked without constraint, they would restrain employees and consumers by taking wealth, through exploitation, regulation or deception.  

Civil libertarians want to ensure that the state and society not trample upon individual rights.  The First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments of the Bill of Rights (side note:  is it not remarkable that we capitalize these words, as if they were accorded sanctity?) are within the panoply of weapons which civil libertarians use to protect individual rights.   

Yet, civil libertarians would create a problem because of the unfettered pursuit of wealth.  There are people in our society who are very incapable of resisting the exploitation, regulation or deception of economic libertarians.  The situation of such vulnerable people is aggravated because of the desire of civil libertarians to protect the individual to the extreme.  Such protection of the individual leads to dependence on public welfare, to the sale of illegal drugs, and to the disintegration of the family and homelessness.  

To illustrate, let us glance at an obvious example:  vulnerable individuals who need monitoring.  These could be people who have irreversibly damaged their brains because of drugs.  Economic libertarians, through their pursuit of wealth, which makes drugs immoderately and imprudently available, and civil libertarians, through their interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, which limits search and seizure by authorities, create a situation in which harmful drugs become available and there is insufficient monitoring, leading to harm, even extreme harm, to many individuals.  When these individuals be irreversibly injured, the only recourse is public welfare to maintain them.  So, in promoting individual rights, civil libertarians make many individuals welfare-dependent.  

It is strange that economic and civil libertarians might not be cut of the same cloth and might not sit at the same table, but, together, intentionally or inadvertently, conspiratorially or coincidentally, they combine forces to assault many individuals to the benefit of the few.  Their agendas combine to become a juggernaut, irresistibly trampling upon a large number of people.

February 28, 2008