The Fear of Dickensian Future

Most everybody in former English colonies has heard of Charles Dickens. He brought to light the atrocious conditions that most people faced in England with the industrial revolution, unsafe work, child labor, low wages, exploitation of the poor, and generally a new kind of poverty.  The images that are set in the mind of this time period are frightening, and they should be.

It is these kind of images that make people fear the free markets, fear that when markets are left unrestrained it this day and age with the whole world attempting to move forward in terms of producing goods and services at an efficient pace, unrestrained markets will lead to a race to the bottom for most people. This of course would never happen if the free market was implemented properly, but what we see is not the free market, it never was, it is a corporatized world, run for the benefits of corporations and sold as the free market.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with corporations, there is a lot wrong with any institutions running the government. Corporations should stay out of the government for the same reasons that church and state should not mix. Mixing state and religion leads to a bias towards the church or Mosque, giving power to others to decide what is good and what is right, taking away the rights of others, what if people don’t believe in Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed, why should they be forced to believe in it. They are individuals and should be free to use their minds to decide. This is but an example, but religious groups once entangled with the state will basically demand the state to take from people to give it to the religious groups, the idea of equality before the law will fall straight through the floor. Talent and will power will be despised, what will be appreciated is connection to religious groups or the aristocracy.

When corporations are close to government, they corrupt government in the same way that religion corrupts government, that they get legislation in their favor. They do it in exactly the same way as the church, the end result is talent is despised, the individual initiative loathed, and only way to get freedom is to join a corporation and rise up the corporate ladder by not being innovative, but by going with the flow. Legislation is created to thwart future competition down the line, and the corporations are sold as the free market, what is good for big business, is the free market. The corporations demand less regulation, as they believe in the “free markets”, and demand legal barriers for competitors.

For the free market ever to be successful, ever to reach its true potential, a proper constitution needs to be in place that is respected guaranteeing equality before the law, no special privileges for anybody. The free market, and that by definition means there is liberty and equality before the law, will always guarantee the greatest use of human potential, greatest use of the human mind, the greatest release of knowledge, because people are truly free to pursue that knowledge. The spin that corporations in bed with governments is the height of freedom and good for society is a folly. Just empty talk as much as religion in bed with governments is.

Those who believe in free markets and by extension liberty and rights of mankind have in many ways failed in the propaganda war to convince people that a corporation does not represent the free market, does not represent liberty, it represents an entity that is out to maximize profits for its shareholders, buying a government official to maximize profits is fair game in their mind.

The philosophy behind the free market encompasses things far deeper than the  concept of money and profit, libertarians have failed to put this argument across. The right to make money is not the only condition implied in a free market, competition encompasses thoughts far deeper than just the right to enter into business, competition implies that even the poorest has a right to compete with the richest, that can only be done if there is equality before the law. A simple minded person will just shout free markets without ever understanding the deeper implications of what they are saying, they read it somewhere and never thought it through.

Simple minds can defend slavery and apartheid and call that liberty, liberty to them means somebody must lose, others must be denied. They are everywhere, calling themselves lovers of freedom but willing to deny others freedom, harking to days of slavery and apartheid in 2013. A simple mind can defend racism and call themselves a believer in liberty and freedom. And one can’t argue with a simple mind, call it free will to be racist. Simple minds fear everything, causing misery to the world, denying millions, in many instances calling themselves believers of freedom and liberty.

 If you think you are somehow more than other humans you can never believe in liberty, one would be trying to use the words of liberty and freedom as a smokescreen for their true intentions. It is like a scientist talking of numbers never lie, that maths is the universal language because it can not lie, then their true colors come out when the very maths that does not lie comes from somebody they did not expect, it is only a universal language when they discover it, but lacks that ability when others discover it.

When you read you must criticize it in your mind, find the weakness, the books where also written by human beings, find the weakness, and find ways to reduce that weakness, we are thinking beings. Nobody wants to return to Dickensian, those who believe in the free market must find ways to convince people that the free market can never lead to that, a true free market can never lead to a race to the bottom. Those who support Keynes have been bolstered by the trillions that have gone to bail out bankers, but anybody who truly believes in the free market knows that the market was merely correcting inefficiencies, all these too big to fail banks should not be existing, the people running those banks should have become janitors, Keynes did not win, his philosophy, along with Milton Friedman’s philosophy that in a crises give banks the money merely ensured by the bailouts that the incapable become a permanent elite, and knowing they are incapable will always despise the human mind, and will always encourage divisions in human society to take the attention away from themselves.

If people cannot be honest about what liberty and freedom is, those fighting for liberty and freedom will always remain a disjointed lot, then everywhere be ready for the great leaders, and the world will deserve them for being liars and hypocrites. It starts with a simple thing spying on everybody, and justified by it is for security, if you do nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. What a funny life saying things like this, a believer in liberty, I know my knowledge economics, using deduction not induction only economist to have published an unknown number series that is true, can be applied in any mathematics not just economics, mainstream media will never allow me to say anything about it, because their award winning economists who are with the system have thus far never been able to do that, though calling themselves scientists, that is just life one sticks to principles. The future is frightening to many, but clearly something will give, it is either we will have a combination of fascist/socialism, corporations influencing government and that balanced out by more ant liberty laws, or liberty, the actions taken by activists today will affect that outcome.

Those who believe in freedom, in liberty and the free markets better stand up right now before it is too late, the right to use your talents and make the best living for yourself  is the right to make money, but that implication needs to be explained at its full depth, other wise, people will fear free markets that have never been  allowed to operate fully, will lead to the era of Charles Dickens, people will be too frightened to support the concept of liberty and freedom.

Bhekuzulu Khumalo