#96: More Q and A

Q: Why on earth are you against capitalism? Ben, Utah

A: Because capitalism is exactly what I say it is, making money on money without work. We have a specific definition for work too, it's the time out of the rest of your life in which you earn money to barter for your living. The real economic and political issue is what has been called “free” enterprise, but which E. C. Riegel properly identified as PRIVATE enterprise.

The people who sell and have sold capitalism to the rest of us, would like very much to continue the almost universal acceptance of the equation, capitalism = free enterprise. Well, as with many other “surprises” that are falling away from us by the day, as they are revealed to be scams, as a matter of fact, this identity is FALSE; they are NOT identical ideas at all. In fact it can be adequately demonstrated that both capitalism and (state) socialism aren't “natural” or “scientific” in any sense at all; they are systems that were devised to propel a governing elite into absolute control of everything; these systems were deliberately concocted to take over the world and they serve no further ultimate purpose.

Free enterprise is the right by nature to go out into the world and earn a living, any living you possibly can, by honest means. Our proposal is based on this understanding. We see no reason for “right to work” laws as we understand that every human being has a right to work and to be paid in their own money, which is exactly what this blog's proposal advocates. We don't need any further layers of labor unions, just as we don't need any absentee owned “public” corporations. These institutions are aberrations. The normal focus is the LOCAL community, the FAMILIES that live there, the extended families that may live elsewhere, the businesses that are LOCAL and intended to serve specific groups of people. It is nobody else's business to determine what's fair or unfair. It is the community's resolve to take care of their own through what we have deemed “natural socialism” which will ultimately fade away as people become more prosperous. Why? Because OUR monetary system will be designed to operate from the grass roots, eye to eye, ground up, which is as natural as any growing organism growing right out of the ground could be.

Capitalism on the other hand is an ism. I wish people would examine the words used in everyday talk and in the press; they would learn more about the actual and truthful usages in language and the exact meaning and sense of each word and then maybe they could have one up on those whose intention is to sway public opinion regardless of the facts, etc.

An ism is an itch, an irritation. To name the three most common: capitalism is the itch with capital as socialism is the itch with society and communism the itch with the community, taken to as large a space of state as possible; Bolshevism is an ism with the political majority, the mob. What happens when you scratch an itch? It usually gets worse.

These isms were literally intended to serve an ulterior purpose, to politically-economically take over the world. In fact, economics, properly known as POLITICAL-economics, as an academic discipline, is specifically exposed as essentially nothing but an apologetics for the present disorder of things; a series of excuses for how our political and economic leaders run things. All academic economic solutions involve changes they wish to make to natural institutions, never questioning the fundamental validity of those institutions they put in their place or the practices of these new institutions.

Neither the “Austrians” (they aren't, so why don't they just? … oh never mind) nor the Keynesians, who are the side of THEIR dialectic currently in power, EVER question usury as a practice and what it inevitably leads to; the present cancerous mountains of public debt that shall destroy the host governments, societies, economies and currencies. The process can adequately be compared to blood sucking or energy stealing from the rest of us.

Academic economics can say nothing about any of it else it would be akin to the dog biting the hand of its master and thus most economists are in fact dogs to some patronage (paymaster) master or another often identified as just capital. Even that is mistaken as these capitalists frequently have very little going for them and were they ever bereft of their riches would be absolute social nothings. We'd prefer calling most economists apologists for the wolves of society, for among capitalists, if they cannot produce a thing with their riches, at least they can use them to steal more from those who do produce.

E. C. Riegel was by comparison among the “sheep;” he was innocent in his observations and actually sought the recognition to assist the powers that be to improve things for more people; his instincts were purely humanitarian. He was not trained as an academic economist. We call him self taught; an autodidact. We believe strongly that all real education must be autodidactic and that's what education was before THEY took it over for their own purposes. Riegel was and still is a stand out among those calling themselves economists, which is why this blog bears his name.

In contradiction to capitalism, which requires capital, free enterprise and PRIVATE (non state initiated) enterprise are natural and everyone's right. They don't require a state. They can be aided by PRIVATE initiatives involving PRIVATE associations. Looking back through history reveals that there were times of relative prosperity (all brought to short ends by the bankers, by their manipulation of states and their war making power, etc) when many PRIVATE organizations (some called guilds), provided the basis for the community and its economy and prosperity. The proposal of this blog concerns itself with furthering the advancement of all PRIVATE enterprise everywhere, because after all the isms are no more, there will still be PRIVATE people, acting either individually or in groups that will be able to survive and continue … if we have time to stop some of the most horrific slow motion mass extinction events going on right now.

I also need to say that at one time, when I didn't consider the obvious difference between capitalism and private free enterprise, I was a prime supporter of capitalism and didn't see the difference. I worked many years for genuine capitalists. One of my mentors was a great capitalist. I'm sure he thought of it as free enterprise and as hard work, but all he ever did was buy and sell pieces of companies and watch his bets mature and cash them out. He took no part personally in anything any of the companies he was invested in actually produced. There are some out there that would like to keep capitalism as a familiar mental blanket because they still imagine that the real war is between their side, the capitalists, and all those who want to take their gains away, the socialists, when both were and are the creatures of the same people. What did I say? I told you that both systems were specifically launched to take over the world NOT to help people satisfy their barter arrangements.

So, you still want to hold onto capitalism and being a capitalist? Why do that? It doesn't have to mean or imply that you are a socialist. If free enterprise or more properly PRIVATE enterprise, and capitalism, are really two quite different things, then why continue the habitual mental confusion? Why not step out of and off of THEIR intentional philosophical-economic dichotomy?

How about landlords? Are they capitalists? Look at it this way: if someone has a property that they would rent to someone else, they certainly had to buy that property (may still be paying for it) and however they managed to do that, they must be making money doing something or else have enough to provide for maintaining it. Because a typical landlord is directly responsible for the upkeep of the property, his business is as if he were renting rooms in a hotel on a grand scale; instead of letting rooms for a night, he rents out whole living spaces for months or even years. This is clearly a PRIVATE enterprise business that qualifies as such because the landlord must have some direct command of the business of renting his property.

But how about the real estate investment trust market? This is a practice where huge corporations might buy and rent properties the owners (most drawn from the general public, so anonymous) may never ever see. All the owners care about is that the rents are paid and that they get their cut in terms of larger than average yields. The trust might or might not appoint some local caretaker company to go in and “run” the local property, collect rent, etc. This business practice is clearly capitalism.

We need more of the former not more of the latter. We must state these things as we see them, because we need the help of key elements in society; we MUST secure their help in our efforts to establish the means of our own money. These are the “pillars” of their communities. They are often rich in comparison with the people in the communities in which they reside or serve. These people run real businesses, growing, making or producing things or performing services for large numbers of people; they actually OWN and RUN their own businesses. Most communities are lucky enough to have one or two of these great people among them. The more of these people a community has, the wealthier it will be. We're using wealth in the same sense we always do, as productive of income for more people and most importantly that income usually available to be spent and invested locally by people who actually live there. Supporting and strengthening private enterprise is the goal, not advocating more capitalism.

Q: My biggest concern is that if something happens to me, what will all the rest of the people who depend on me do? Where is their future? How can anything you talk about help them? Tom, Oregon

A: Most people I discuss their present living conditions with are quite pessimistic concerning the future. They do not see a materially better future for themselves or their children and grandchildren. They are concerned that they will be economically dispossessed. They are also concerned about whether where they live will be taken over through some oppressive government regulation or policy. People are angry and scared and getting ready for any opportunity to either improve their conditions without having to engage with THEM or THEIR system … or to fight for their lives and their property!

Whichever it is, Tom, neither you nor they can go it alone. The best you can do for them is to organize them. But the form and quality of that organization matters. The rugged individualist who didn't need the rest of society to survive was also one of THEIR memes to keep people from organizing and standing up to them. But these people don't really need to be stood up to, they need to be walked out on, left behind, excluded, removed from our consideration, ignored, made irrelevant. We need to organize and do what we need to do, to promote PRIVATE enterprise - which really built all the developed nations of the world - NOT capitalism.

Parenthetically, ALL the worst aspects of colonization – particularly demonstrated by the lust for gold – were DRIVEN by capitalism, NOT free or private enterprise. Every single expedition was “capitalized” by a “crown” syndicate of investors who were to receive rewards (yield) from whatever the colonies produced. In very real terms, the American revolution was a revolt against these capitalists. What on earth have the works of Antony Sutton and others revealed about who were really behind the Russian revolution? We have come to the point where we cringe whenever we hear that someone has set up yet another bank. Wherever there is a bank, you can almost hear that sucking sound as the usurers take what was never created from everyone else. We certainly do not need another bank. We need our own independent exchanges.

Q: Can you explain just how we will ever be able to free ourselves from their credit system? I mean for big things like cars, machines, businesses, real estate, etc. Marco, New Mexico

A: Start by regarding banks and all THEIR money as THEIRS not YOURS. Begin to untangle yourselves from THEIR snares by paying off all debts to them and not acquiring more. Work to establish your own local Valun exchanges instead and coordinate any credit arrangements with the businesses in your area that will spring up.

David Burton  
dpbmss@mail.com

Current Hypothetical Value of a Hypothetical Value Unit 

[10/4/16: Q: Mr. Burton I watch your valun go up and down in dollars and it seems to go up when gold goes down and down when gold goes up. Is this by design? What does this mean about money? Joe, Connecticut

A: There isn't any mistake, Joe. What you are seeing is what THEIR money is worth in terms of ours by THEIR own reckoning, not ours. Ours is a fixed piece of purchasing power in THEIR money as determined by a particular TIME. The proposed Value Unit (Valun) is based on a transaction involving a piece of purchasing power, exactly as E. C. Riegel would have recommended, except that we didn't use the US dollar, we used gold. What do gold and US dollars have in common? They are both brands of THEIR money, not ours.

So if on 11/2/2011 (inception) V1,000 = 1 oz gold and at that time 1 oz gold = $2,160 to hold in your hand, then V1 = $2.16 and if the price of gold falls to $1,582.66 as on 10/4/16, then 1 oz of gold only buys V732.81 and each Valun would be $2.74 in fair trade. V1 at inception was $2.16 and that already would seem a “heavy” currency. But at the moment that same piece of purchasing power has a current value of $2.74 in THEIR money, an increase against theirs at the moment of 27%.

If gold should rise above the inception price a new inception replaces the previous one, always higher, never lower, as the purpose of this proposal is to preserve purchasing power by design. So Joe, congratulate yourself for noticing and now you see the whole conception. It's really very simple. This isn't rocket science, people. There will be coming times when we will have to explain how this new money will work and be ours and maintain its value. We'll have to do that face to face and eye to eye going door to door or it wont get done.]