| | Risk is unavoidable in the Universe; the Universe is not impressed with our unilateral attempts to repeal it, and always deals the cards from the top of the deck.
The downside of risk is loss, the upside is gain. Value is at risk of loss even when standing still. It is seldom at risk of gain when standing still. The Universe and its entropic rules have in this sense rigged not the deck, but the need to play the game and draw cards: we are all drawing from the deck whether we want to or not.
When socialists(call them what they insist, it may not be that)proudly claim, as a virtue, that they have no interest in gain/profit, it is as silly as claiming that they have no interest in loss. The Universe doesn't care, it is still going to deal the cards from the top of the deck.
The efficient application of current value leads to additional future value, required to consume in the future; the inefficient use of present value leads to less future value. If socialists want to claim that they can cheat the deck and always guarantee breaking even via the socialization of risk, then they need to finally prove the point after the 98th failed experiment, but their attempts to rig the deck ultimately involve force, coercion, whips and chains, as a necessity to beat a dead horse.
Capitalism has evolved under a model of free association without coercion, until recently, when the government inserted itself far too deeply into the often open arms of those who courted soft-fascism.
But under a model of free association(once the very purpose of our form of government), capitalism ethically evolved a tiered system of collective risk management, one that was not only not based on force, but defined fairness as well, precisely because it was not based on force. Marxist theories of fairness do not recognize unavoidable risk, and only enter the discussion far after risk has been fairly managed, to focus only on outcomes. That is hardly fair at all, it is child-like in its ignorance of risk.
The tiered model of collective risk management under capitalism is as follows, and individuals can choose among all three or just one in order to participate -ethically- in the economies:
1] Exert effort at risk with no guarantee of positive ROI for that effort; ROI totally at risk. This is nothing more than man in the universe as it is and always was and always will be. The downside is total loss of investment of effort. The upside is unbounded, which is the incentive to take on the risk. You win by fairly playing the game in the universe as it is. Success is not guaranteed, but can be influenced by knowledge and heuristics, as opposed to random flailing. The universe and its card game is not totally a game of pure chance, there are some rules, some firm ground, and more than even chance of success. Extreme loss is rare, as is extreme gain, but any intelligent effort at all has more than a 50% chance of gain, which is not to say, a 100% chance of gain. Risk is always with us. The 'means of production' are not factories and machines. 'means of production' of greater value from lessor value is the ability to intelligently take on risk coupled with the willingness to take on risk, which implies the incentive to take on risk. That is human capital. A consequence of this model, which is a requirement in order for this consequence to exist as an option, is the following.
2] Modern economies only evolved a second means of participation: effort with a guaranteed ROI as negotiated wages. Working for others...who are participating with ROI totally at risk. Yes, at a discounted rate of return, ethically reflecting the value inherent in the guaranteed rate of return. Many are happy with this deal(judging by the number of folks who seek employment.) Disgruntled wage earners, unhappy with their deal, and convinced they could do better if they, too, took on risk directly, often do leave these arrangements and start their own at risk businesses. Those are both ethical choices.
3] A third means has evolved. Individuals can ethically distribute and self-modulate their exposure to risk by way of purchasing stock in other efforts equities. This is also an ethically arrived at arrangement under free association. Individuals or even groups of individuals can freely negotiate the price and level of exposure to risk-reward using this means, and still participate directly in one or even both of the ROI at risk or ROI guaranteed models.
The system above is an ethical approach to the unavoidable management of risk in the universe, and is a vast improvement over any model that relies on force or forced association.
It is also clear that, without the application of force or coercion, the only way to have opportunities for risk free wage jobs is if others are participating with ROI at risk. If we claim we are born with a 'right' to a ROI risk free wage job, and it is the function of government to provide it for us as citizens, then what we are really saying is that it is the function of government to aim guns at others on our behalf and force them to manage risk in this universe on our behalf, on our terms, at our pleasure.
I don't think so. If these mysterious few are able to manage risk in the universe and carry us all then they are also able to easily dodge our clumsy forks, which they would do ethically in those circumstances.
We can rail at the Universe and its harsh uphill gradients. We can regard as a hairshirt the fact that it is hard to run uphill, and easy to run downhill. We can rail at the consequences of that -- the fact that it is crowded at the bottom of the hills. (There is a restaurant on the top of a hill in Montego Bay that literally illustrates this reality.) We can wish that others would be born to carry us effortlessly up those hills. We can wish to remain children for life.
But we are adults; peers in the universe with its unavoidable risk.
It is not our bosses who force us to exert effort as value in order to consume value; that is a cold uncaring rule of the Universe. Capitalism is an ethical system of addressing that rule that has evolved under a model of free association.
The role of government in that model should be as traffic cop, to police the gaming at every level. It cannot effectively police itself when it has so deeply inserted itself into the game.
The circumstances that it deeply inserted itself into the game include our World Wars of last century, but also include infection from global movements of the last century. We didn't just win the Cold War, we also caught the Cold, and are still fighting off an infection that could yet prove fatal to the ethical idea of Capitalism under a model of free association.
This wasn't purely an attack from the left, however. It was also tolerance for the abuses of the right, who have also courted cozy relationships with government as a short cut means of shedding risk onto others, ultimately via forces association, bought and paid for with corruption in DC. WWII accelerated this rot, an unavoidable consequence of taking on external totalitarian alternatives completely anathema to freedom. But in so unfettering the 'Arsenal of Democracy,' we also unfettered our own state by bolting yp the coercive guns of government to -some- businesses with deep connections and purchased feedback to buy-able naked sweaty apes in Congress of all flag waving persuasions.
By tolerating that rot, we have sold out not only capitalism -- an ethical model of risk management consistent with free association-- but freedom itself.
regards,
Fred
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