Monday, October 18, 2010

THE WISDOM OF ADAM SMITH, THE FATHER OF MODERN ECONOMY: On the falacy of "Free Market Economy" and the Fairy Tale of The Invisible Hand

They say if you repeat and repeat a lie so many time and for so long, no one will know when the lie start, presumably over time it will be retold as a Truth!
So it go with the GOP falsehood of the "Free Market Economy".

I mean, don't get me wrong, they are full of Goblins story and an imaginary policies, but the claim of the "Free Market Economy" is the one that make me shiver in cold disbelieve, cause it is so cleverly presented, so sophisticated in its deception that more and more look like a Gordian knot, so it will take a razor cut to untangle reality from fiction, cause it is all a fiction: their claims and pursuits of the theory, their religious persistence is nothing but a fiction...

And yet, it resonate with the people...big time...
They even spur the passion of one side of the population to march for them!
Yeah...
One day History will point to the TEA party like a cleverly manipulated part of the American population into a self inflicted hatred, kind of like a populist self destruction!
Marching poor people to fulfill the interest of their rich masters, offering themselves on the altar of Corporate greed, like a bonus in the end of the year...
Extremely successful year, may I say!

Corporate America is posting record profits, they just need a little more deregulation and a couple more tax cuts so they will start hiring and investing again in the Economy...

Loosen up the leash will You!?-said GOP...
Let the Market work his wisdom!

Their story are embedded in people memories like a fairy tale, with  heroes and villains, twist and turns...
Free Market vs Big Government!
Deregulation vs Government control!
Them vs Us!
And the cry of the Corporate Media rise in whisper:
- If we can only have free market again...
And many, many of the people deluded for so long start singing to their tune:
- Lets try it, to see how it goes...
- Take the Government out of our lives...
- Let  "the Invisible hand"  handle the Economy...
Many of those people never really have an idea how the name "the invisible hand" come to be, and for those who know the origin, if they did not study economy, that simple knowledge does not mean much...
Me, I can tell You this much:
Each time I heard them talking about "the Invisible hand and the free market economy"  a thought crossed my mind:
- What a bunch of phonies!
Cause they never read the whole book actually!
Yeah...
Never really read Adam Smith's " An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", or the "The principal of Political Economy" from the critic of Smith, David Ricardo who claim in the Preface that he is dedicating his book to correct the flaws of the theory of his predecessors, or for that matter Marx's "Capital" who pick up were they both left over and discover the Laws behind the ultimate flaw of the system to go from one to another crises!
At the University We use to make theatrical jokes about them, we  call them Socrates, Plato and Aristotle of the Modern era:
The Holy Trinity of Philosophy vs The Holy Trinity of Economy...
Equally boring!
GOP they never read any of them...
But they bow down to "The invisible Hand"!
The sole use of the name is deliberate misconception to sell a Deceit that is going on for decades, something that the Father of the Modern Economics, Adam Smith, would never have in mind...
Poor Man actually if we somehow get him today to see our modern society dominated by the Corporate America, our system of taxes, of education, our Budget run deficit, our system of foreign trade, well to say that he will be shocked is undermining the grave reality of the state of horror in which he will be in!
But, being a perfect Scottish Gentleman and a Professor of Moral Philosophy, he will sit down to gather a breath, before he ask the following question:
- Oh, my Dear Child, can I see my book please?
While he flip trough the pages he will calm down and say:
- Yes, yes... it is all there My Child, but You must have misunderstood everything!
- Let's have a cup of tea and talk about it, shall we, cause You frighten  me there for a while that my "Wealth" was terribly, terribly took for another author's tale...
While the butler is preparing the tea, the Dear Professor will tap the table completely speechless in disbelieve:
- Eh, so they say "the invisible hand" will make things right...
- Oh Dear...and they call my book " a bible of conservative"...sacrilege...
After sipping a great deal of the tea, while the redness of his face slowly fade, he will paint the picture of the Time he was living  in so we can better understand his work:
- My Dear Child, when I wrote the "Wealth" 1776, We did not have Market Economy at all, our mode of production, our Economy was mostly agriculture dominated Economy, Feudal Economy, ones sources of wealth were coming from the possession of the land or from the accumulation of gold and silver trough the Commerce, surplus balance of one Trade, export more then You import...
Mercantile trade system, mingled with Feudal Economy...
Dear , oh Dear, We did not have Industry yet, we have small manufactures, and yes We produce much, much more then the hand made tools the Generation before Us used, but nothing like the machine production in the time of the Industrial Revolution...it was years after with the introduction of the steam machine so to say...
- Oh Dear, nothing like the marvel You have today! - Oh no, no,...our roads were...well plain, but still to transfer our goods and merchandise from one place to another We have to pass from one Landlord property to another Landlord property, and they were burdening the exchange with unnecessary taxes, on the other side foreign exchange were heavily monopolize, and the Monopolies made the goods that were coming from the colonies way more expensive by them, the whole exchange was restrain with a high duties, export was ridden with lots of advantageous treaties of Commerce and bounty, so I saw that like a brake on the Progress, cause I believe that it will be better off if we free the exchange also called Market!
"The Free Market Economy" is just a fancy name I use for what Your People today called Capitalism: massive productions and establishment of a wide spread of the wage labours imprint in  the Society as a whole, and that happen soon after the heads of the Monarchy fall in Paris...The free flow of capital soon after circle the World and still does...
You see My Child The Discovery of America has benefited Europe not by cheapening of gold and silver, but by opening a new Market which improve the productive powers of labour, and that is a true source of the Wealth of the Nations!
As for the "invisible hand...Dear Child, in those days the Sovereign, The King, or the Landlords were the ones who were building the roads and bridges, the common goods, they were, trough charity, the benefactors of the Society, and I believe that if we let the Individual Endeavours, acting in the best self interest, to employ their capital in the advantage of their own gain, They will also act in the best interest of the Society even when they have no intentions of doing so...
- My Dear Child, I use a picturesque word to describe that the sole desire of the Endeavors, their simple Pursuits of Profits will led them like the invisible hand in promoting the benefits for the Society as well as getting them rich, that is all, not the Market itself...good Lord, no...
Still, My Dear Child, I don't understand Why Your People dwell into My Naivete when not even a Century letter my Dear Followers refute my shortcoming due to the tremendous changes that took place in the World...
But to call upon me for this system of Yours today after my constant, constant warning of the malice of the Monopoly, it is beyond my comprehension!
- Dear Child, You have nothing but Monopoly every were You turn, and when you have monopoly You have no Market!
- Lord oh my... Their sole purpose of existence is to diminish the Market force, to kill the competition, to control the prices, to manipulate, to avoid, to deny the exchange and to promote negligence toward its own servants...
- Then Your  whole World Trade is ridden by Monopoly!
- They are even producing, blasphemy right there,  extremely cheap in oversea country, and they are selling You their own goodies home, and they calling that internal Trade a Foreign Exchange!?
- My Dear Child and that is Your Trade Deficit...Good Lord All Mighty!
- And You are telling me that the Public subsidize their Profits...Good Lord, why?
- What do You promoting with their bounty?
- Outrageous...
- My Dear Child I can not even start to manage all the words you guys use to hide the benefits of the Division of Labour, the cornerstone of my book, the driving force behind the Wealth of the Nations: outsourcing, off shoring, supply chaining, streamline of the operations?...and yet instead of being beneficiary, the Division of Labour on the Global scale is killing the Domestic Economy, cause the only thing that is Falling are  the Wages, not the Prices of the Imports!
- As for the taxes, My Dear Child is that a joke You telling me, they  asking for another tax cut?
- Dear Lord, the possibility You have in Your era of technological advantage if You apply them for the benefits of the Common good are enormous, and yet the burden of paying for them is on the back of the people not proportional to their riches?
- Then to robe the labour of the living wage is reckless, economically insane...
- I never stand for that, as You can see in the "Wealth"!
- My Dear Child, the only thing I see Free in Your Economy is the Power of Monopoly to relentlessly pursuit profits, while the Public is taking the risk of the Market...
- My Dear Child, my "Wealth" came late, my warning couldn't save the England Crown, all the wrongdoing of the people,  due to the harsh treatment of the Monopoly that were controlling the Economy in the Colonies, make them rebel and, well...we lost them!

So said the Father of the Economics...

Lets come back to present days...
GOP and their "bible", they are taking us for a fools!
The fairy tale they selling us, cause they know that in this busy, self indulging time, no one read books anymore, less a books that are dusty centuries old ones, and they are over a thousand pages long...
-Gee, that many...forget about it...
Actually, they counting on no one reading it, or people will find out that the "bible of the conservative" ask for progressive taxation, state providing public educations or the biggest secret, the source of wealth of the nations is the productive labour...
If People read and think they will say:
- Well sending all those manufacturing jobs oversea made our Nation poorer???
Well yeah...Accordingly...
No, GOP don't wont You to know...that!
- All You need to know is what Corporate Media tell You that You need to know, which  bring us to the crucial question:
- What the hell they are talking about when they say: Free Market Economy"?
- Strip the last layers of obligations they have toward us and the Society!
All the excuses just to set us into a path of oblivion:
Pursuit of higher education in order to get ahead:
- Don't worry, get Your Diploma, those guys in China and India are sleeping waiting for You to graduate...Yeah, they do!
They put us on the Treadmill with the rest of the World:
- Run!... We don't get anywhere, its a treadmill...
- Just run will You, and faster, faster...
And when our heart start beating in our ears, not to worry, we will pass the torch to the next Generations of Americans who love to run and prove theme-self worthy of their attention!
Let the market set the minimum wage means: let the People compete between each other for their daily bread:
-I have ten jobs opening, lets see...Two hundred applicants!
- Interesting...So, Who wont to work for $5 an hour?
- How about who wont to work $3 an hour?
- Only $1 an hour...excellent, You guys are hired!
They already got us working two jobs, overtime, part time...
Gee, we are flexible...
Privatise Social Security will solve the system means: Trow Your money on the Stock Market the way You did with the  Retirement Money...cause they will keep the contribution deducted from your paychecks...All they ask you is to forget about colecting the benefits trought the propaganda:
- Not to worry, we can work deep into our old age, cause seventy are new fifty!
- And by the way, glue yourself to the blip on the screen of Corporate Performance and pray that we make more and more $ billions...just pray, will you!
That is what they strive for: "Free Market" for the ordinary people, not for corporate America, cause they have the Power of Monopoly in every aspect of business, just look at the utility, retail, banks, any given services, and those of you that still think they don't share the market with the mutual agreements, think again:
- What all those summits of G8, G20,  then all those blatantly open organization like NAFTA, World Trade Organizations and The World Bank etc, stand for?
And if they share the World, they will not share the domestic market of any given country?
They are against any bondage call taxes and regulations, cause it is a cost for them, what they like is to come to our restaurant and eat and play for free, living us not just to serve them and clean after them, but to also pay the bill...
And when the system stuck, and unavoidably will, they wont to be free to mercilessly laid off workers, and even if they are awash in cash, they will not start hiring and investing until that awful, awful Big Government don't open the Treasury and cover their projected profits with the people's: taxpayers money, cause they are to big to fail...
-Oh...Oh... While we are at the Treasury, give us another tax cut please, this Right pocket seams to have a little vacancy...
The only one Who can restrain Corporate America in their relentless  race for more and more Profits is the Federal Government, and that is Why GOP is screaming Big Bad Wolf for decades...
It is not enough for Corporate America to buy all of those pathetic excuse of a spineless politicians from the both Party, but the People need to hate their own: of the people, by the people and for the people Government, like it is a force against them, not their own!
Cause in a Democracy people can vote actually, and they can have the Government that can work for them, they can select, and elect People with a strong conviction Who can bring Law that will benefit the People and to discard the Will of the People they have to somehow make them vote against that Big Government, against its own benefits!
- Don't make the Government work for You, just hate the shadow of it will You!
That is a Free Market Economy GOP is standing for!

4 comments:

  1. This is an interesting post. It's too bad its entirely misguided.

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  2. I suggest readers read Ludwig von Mises' _Human Action_ before deciding on the validity of this post.

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  3. Mises...human action...
    Yep, trow a slave into the pit and soon or letter will make him a bloodthirsty gladiator...
    That is Mises Human action!
    Set in void of Imagination, and logical in their predispositions!
    Still You flatter me sending my reader to check the great Mises before they jump into conclusions...
    I would have imagine its better to send them to read Adam Smiths so they can verified are my words true to his views and values...
    Thank You for spending some time on my blog, I hope I will see You again soon!
    Marie

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  4. Great post Marie...you understand the basics of our modern system...and you show clearly that the "free market economy" has long been a fantasy. Thanx for a great post. It is a pleasure to read an economics blogger who understands Adam Smith!!

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