By Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
“‘(The German economist Kestner wrote:) The greatest success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commercial experience enables him best of all to understand the needs of the buyer, and who is able to discover and effectively awake a latent demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to estimate, or even only to sense in advance the organisational development and the possibilities of connections between individual enterprises and the banks.’
Translated into ordinary human language this means the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still ‘reigns’ and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the big profits go to the ‘geniuses’ of financial manipulation. At the basis of these swindles and manipulations lies socialised production; but the immense progress of humanity, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit the speculators. We shall see later how ‘on these grounds’ reactionary, petty-bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of going back to ‘free’, ‘peaceful’ and ‘honest’ competition.” (emphasis his)
- V.I. Lenin
The rather ideology-defining question of connecting banks and businesses; socialising the production and creating massive human progress, but then privatising the gains; (Corona proving the loser of the Cold War was both the USSR & the USA because corona exposed how in order to beat the USSR the US turned to) the constant swindles and manipulations of hyperfinancialisation, like Quantitative Easing… Lenin could have easily also unmasked the “Fiat is all the problem” critics of neoliberal capitalism in 2020 – like this article will – but Lenin lays in Red Square (because he is still so important today).
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During the corona overreaction into Great Lockdown into US rebellions era many of the most dynamic commentators are those who feel dominated, insulted, financially cheated and unfairly bested by the almighty US greenback, which they insist is about to become less valuable than used toilet paper (as the value of unused toilet paper has infamously skyrocketed during the Great Lockdown).
A whole range of political, economic and moral ideas are represented by these who insist that the primary problem in non-socialist-inspired nations is paper (fiat) money and its alleged overprinting:
Goldbugs, bitcoin evangelists, and silver miners; crooked Austrian economic policemen and their sons and daughters who follow “the (University of) Chicago Way: Get them before they get you”; Trotskyists who kind of understand economics but interpret every stock market dip as a sign that capitalism is finally collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions; anti-imperialists who are getting ready all the yuan they have been hoarding under their mattress – all these groups have insisted since the start of QE5 (i.e., QE 2.1) that the very next sheet of printed dollars will be the one which breaks the greenback’s back.
I accurately related what happens to the US dollar in times of economic crisis in No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all, but this article seeks to correct another incorrect view related to and often shared by these ardent “dollar demisers”:
The problem is not the dollar, nor the fact that it is issued on paper, nor the fact that QE issues money via a keyboard tap – the problem is not even the nature of money itself but the capitalist-imperialist culture which surrounds that money. Thus, the problem with the “Fiat is all the problem” (FIATP) crowds is that they obsessively see only a financial system instead of a moral-political system.
Translated into ordinary human language: The “dollar demisers” have no conception that the problem is not paper money, nor is it all money – it is the capitalist ideals regarding money.
Goldbugs: Old Testament fire and brimstone in monetary policy
Of the FIATPs the most resistant to modern political ideas – and the ones who are the most vocal and the most certain about the immediate collapse of the dollar – are the proponents of gold, but also many bitcoiners.
I understand their frustration: I, too, would be upset if I believed that overprinting should lead to a drop in the greenback… but then if I believed that it would mean that I foolishly believed that economics followed mathematical laws, and it would also indicate that I had little understanding about the political-social-moral role money plays in the absolute non-science of economics.
This group, which believes that the physical asset they have invested in should be worth more than it currently is, has two major flaws: 1) They view economics as investors, not as real people/workers. The former are competing at least partially as carnival barker salesmen: they want THEIR product to win so they can profit. 2) Unlike normal people/workers, they do not realise that it doesn’t matter at all if nothing is “backing” fiat in the 21st century – the real-world necessity of needing to get something in return for your labor makes paper as good as gold, or as good as cowrie shells, or as good as increasingly scarce toilet paper, or as good as whatever a government-backed-by-guns says that it is. If the government says we go back to cowrie shells then we all go back to cowrie shells, and this could absolutely be a positive thing because money is merely a tool, duh!
The gold proponents sound the most Old Testament – they act as if it is a God-given law that gold and only gold or gold-backed tools must be used as a medium of exchange and that it is just a matter of time before God’s wrath smites us for going fiat. I am unaware of this verse in Scripture.
Goldbuggers especially feel entitled to some sort of moral supremacy over the “early adopters” of digital fiat money (i.e. QE) when the average person knows they deserve nothing of the sort.
Gold and silver, after all, only became poplar because monarchs and aristocrats thought that wearing shiny stuff would give them an air of divinity to us plebes. That Lenin quote doesn’t apply to this crowd, for whom there is no “development of capitalism” – no changes or progress – merely the eternal value of gold (their God), which always was and always will be.
Austrians/Chicagoans/Bitcoiners – ‘moral hazard is when I don’t profit’
Bitcoiners can be placed along with the goldbugs because they both share an intense moral rage. However, libertarian/radical-individualist bitcoiners don’t have an old-fashioned sense of collective morality, thus their critiques of 21st century Western capitalism lack Biblical depth. This is why many of them really belong with the Chicago/Austrian crowd, which is ruled by competition, cruelty and greed-is-good.
(However, I am an open supporter of bitcoin, and we’ll see that those who would use bitcoin for personal and not social gain actually fall into all three camps.)
The Austrian/Chicagoan crowd… wow. It’s not really sure what they want – other than that they want money for themselves, and for the exciting law of the jungle to rule unchecked.
This group is defined by one primary characteristic: anti-socialism. The proof of their opposition to the ideology of political modernity is their Salafistic, fundamentalist insistence that all would be well if we could only just return to the roots of classic English liberalism. Oho! How they pine for the sweet days of Adam Smith & David Ricardo up until the Third World holocausts of the late Victorian era – what sweet days unmarred by problems they were!
These sentimental and thus ultimately right-wing critics of QE merely “dream of going back to ‘free’, peaceful’ and ‘honest competition” – Lenin had to deal with these types in his day as well.
We can certainly include many MMT-ers (Modern Monetary Theory) here, as they believe that capitalism is a way to control rentier exploitation, not expand it.
This entire group truly acts as if capitalism only started with the invention of the cotton gin or steam engine, and their primary fear mongering reflects that limited historical view: a warning that we are headed towards to “neo-feudalism”. But feudalism was certainly capitalist – there is ultimately no significant difference between the two in either their means nor their ends (simply change “king” for “banker” and “church” for “corporation”; certainly, nobody has ever confused feudalism with socialism.
This group insists that QE is a perverted degradation of sweet, sweet capitalism from the Salafist era of Smith and Ricardo. Oho! If only we could return to that angelic era unmarred by economic inequality when those mild and holy saints of competition spread the ideals – the TRUE ideals, not the false ones of this QE-corrupted era! – of the true capitalist gospel!
People like the MMT-ers because they are capitalists but at least they are not heartless hypocrites bent on ruining their country in order to show their personal greatness. However, they essentially claim to have found the elusive “Third Way” – I just don’t understand why they don’t openly push socialism, because after over a century of trying humans have found that there is no Third Way.
However, absolutely nobody likes Austrians/Chicagoans, and Austrians/Chicagoans are made quite content by that: they view it as proof that they are winning the competition over losers who are just jealous of their success.
The ‘QE feeds imperialism’ crowd – but then why did imperialism exist before digital fiat?
Bitcoin evangelists can often declare how fiat money feeds American imperialism. Surely, if everyone would buy some of their bitcoin and use it in everyday purchases, then Western militarism would collapse.
The obvious problem here is that these laudable anti-imperialists correctly perceive how imperialism is wrong and predatory as an economic system, but they fail to see how neo-imperialism is equally undergirded by a political-cultural-moral system. The Pentagon’s “war on ____” is not solely about the greenback – that is an outdated nation-state analysis and not a class-based view.
Their inevitable solution of isolationism (towards non-bitcoining nations) is the same flaw of the libertarians: as long as the extent of my individual rights/society are not curtailed, then I am content to not become involved in the problems of others. This “just wait for fiat to implode” leads to the same flaw as the Trotskyists “just wait for the capitalist system to implode” – what does Palestine, for example, do in the meantime? The moral aspect of this question should be obvious, but have you ever heard a bitcoiner discussing Palestine?
They discuss Palestine about as often as they discuss bitcoin’s moral Achilles heel: the fact that 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 owners (known as “whales”). If the moral philosophy of that tiny vanguard party is libertarianism, radical individualism and Anglo-American liberal Salafism (which it sadly is), then I for one say that we should confiscate their bitcoin immediately because how is their political-cultural-moral system they any different than American banksters? Aspiring to be an all-controlling bankster but with bitcoins is still banksterism.
Inevitability has laziness inherently inscribed in it, as well as selfish individualism, because YOU do not need to do anything, take a moral stand, resist, sacrifice, etc., only wait. Thus, of course comfortable bitcoin investors do nothing but play defense around their own little yard and digital wallets, waiting for the fiat-based economy to implode and then the price of bitcoin to explode: They feel they are all set – Palestinians deserve what they get because they haven’t gone fully bitcoin quickly enough.
Even Kestner had to write “[?!]” at these “speculative genius(es)” who are indeed at the crest of the wave: Lenin, however, would surely say that many of them are actually just “reactionary, petty-bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism”.
Conclusion: The world actually had major problems before QE-fiat
These groups lack coherence, modernity and popular appeal because when they look at the QE economy they see a financial system and not its concomitant political system.
When they do perceive a moral system they look with the isolated eyes of a Western individualist instead of with the united, consensus-respecting socialist outlook provided by billions of pairs of eyes. Therefore, FIATPs answer comes down to the same old Western answer post 1989: technology and technocratism. The FIATPs could have become epidemiologists, had they been biologically and not monetarily inclined.
FIATPs often deserve credit for seeing the internationalist aspects of Western war, but their lack of modern political ideology causes them to fail to see the domestic & historical aspects such as the Yellow Vests, Black Power Movement, the jailing of Eugene V. Debs, etc. They seem to think that because they have invented a new tool they have discovered a new morality – they have not, and this is another example of their often blatant arrogance and overweening pride.
The FIATPs hostility to socialism is based entirely on the outdated and always-inaccurate Western capitalist-imperialist propaganda that socialism is totalitarian (when it is instead all about the empowerment of the individual in order to reach his or her full potential), of course, but it is especially unfortunate with many of the bitcoiners because the social morality they are demanding in public policy is fundamentally socialist democratic, not liberal democratic – 99.9% of bitcoin holders are not whales, after all.
Money in any form – fiat, bitcoin, gold, beads, whatever – is not the key to happiness for anyone with a compass whose pointer extends to heaven even only occasionally. Money is the root of all evil – its pointer only drops towards earth, thus it will always carry the potential of carrying disastrous imbalances.
Goldbugs, bitcoin whales and Austrian/Chicagoan gangsters may be speculative geniuses and merchants talented at finding profits, but they are not a vanguard political party which can lead society to a healthy balance of broad prosperity and stability – they aren’t even right about money.
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Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis.
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20,
2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26,
2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Reading Piketty: Does corona delay the Greens’ fake-leftist, sure-to-fail victory? – May 8, 2020
Picturing the media campaign needed to get the US back to work – May 11, 2020
Scarce jobs + revenue desperation = sure Western stagflation post-corona – May 13, 2020
France’s nurses march – are they now deplorable Michiganders to fake-leftists? – May 15, 2020
Why haven’t we called it ‘QE 5’ yet? And why we must call it ‘QE 2.1’ instead – May 16, 2020
‘Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty public servant!’ That’s Orwell? – May 17, 2021
The Great Lockdown: The political apex of US single Moms & Western matriarchy? May 21, 2021
I was wrong on corona – by not pushing for a US Cultural Revolution immediately – May 25, 2021
August 1: when the unemployment runs out and a new era of US labor battles begin – May 28, 2021
Corona proving the loser of the Cold War was both the USSR & the USA – May 30, 2021
Rebellions across the US: Why worry? Just ask Dr. Fauci to tell us what to do – June 2, 2021
Protesting, corona-conscience, a good dole: the US is doing things it can’t & it’s chaos – June 3, 2021
Why do Westerners assume all African-Americans are leftists? – June 5, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the NEW ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
If the monetary systems were a closed loop then everything would be fine. What we have is tax dodging, tax avoidance, inflation, interest and rent which accrue to a few and these funds are not then recirculated through the economy. More money is then printed to keep things going leading to more debt and interest. Without plugging these economic holes and redistributing funds back or cancelling them out, the lop sided system will always tip over into have everythings and have nothings.
Im no bitcoin buff since those that made it have a billion of the things to themselves. A better system would be a state backed fiat based on a digital currency of limited amount and has a clear account of where the funds are.
Interest should also be abolished, or taxed away, or paid back via government spending on infrastructure or social programmes.
Isn’t it time that the US dollar was nationalized instead of being issued by private banks as interest bearing debt ?
No debts = no money in the current usury system.
Consider HR 2990 a Bill before Congress.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/2990/text
“To create a full employment economy as a matter of national economic defense; to provide for public investment in capital infrastructure; to provide for reducing the cost of public investment; to retire public debt; to stabilize the Social Security retirement system; to restore the authority of Congress to create and regulate money, modernize and provide stability for the monetary system of the United States; and for other public purposes.”
So Zimbabwe, Weimar Germany and the Roman empire all had it right? Gold has existed as a monetary metal for 6000 years because pimps of various grades all thought it was cool looking? Russia and China’s acquisition of bullion is folly? You are wasting your time, when you should become Следующий финансовый консультант России !
(Translation. Mod: “Russia’s next financial adviser !”)
Ramin is totally on target once again. The real problem is the capitalist world view. From within it nothing truly human really works at all. All it can produce is illusory castles in the air and then try and impose them by controlling the narrative. We have been conditioned to call it “the news”.
Who financed Lenin and Trotsky? Hint: it was not Marxists or socialists.
Please enlighten us who financed Lenin
Yes, and please also explain to us why Lenin and Stalin are very popular in today’s Russia.
Moreover, the question ”Who financed Lenin?” has an immediate corollary question:
”Who financed the mass-murdering Western mercenaries that invaded Russia in 1918?”
You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Russians in Alma-ata still have pictures of Stalin in the house, many of whom have relatives who were exiled there, popularity sometimes is naive.
It has a corollary question but does it have an answer. Maybe the Germans since they took the trouble to transport Lenin to Russia they probably gave other assistance.
How to respond to this. Ramin assumes that anyone who sells his fiat into another means of exchange (ie.bitcoin or gold) is some kind of rentier and would wish to have some influence on the outcome of global society. Some maybe do, but not most who have worked hard all their lives and see the writing on the wall for fiat.
On the spiritual level, then that must be the individuals choice. There is little need for money if you believe in heaven. For many this is “Jam tomorrow”. The here and now is reality and whatever you choose to invest in now to avoid the deterioration of fiat is not necessarily a corrupt choice. Most people just want to get on with their lives, whoever the martyrs to previous battles may have been.
For myself, I see evil in the world, mainly perpetrated by those who would profit from the rest of humanity, and would happily see their empires fall. Am I so bad if I wish to save whatever value the money I have legitimately worked for throughout my life as an individual?
Frenck Bloke ; exactly so, and can we not look at what worked very well in the past. Up until 1913 the US economy was doing very well, the envy of many. Then the parasites came in, and using the healthy US host infected the rest of the world, slowly metastasizing to cripple the host and all who embraced it’s cancerous greed.There is a reason the USSR fell, and not too far the USA is on ther same path. There are many reasons why Lenin’s tomb should be removed from red square.
The Americans are up to something trading in bitcoins in a Chagos Islands internet site.
Counterfeit currency system will end. The ‘I promise’ system is over. There is no way around this fact.
new cryptos should be built with an expiration date, say, 2 years. If u don’t use it within a certain time it will recycle back to the pool. This way no one can hoard capital for too long. Money sole purpose is to grease the machinery in society and keep everyone alive.
what if i don’t have income for 2 years? i’m on the street?
Anon, simple answer: You live under the bridge. Why bridge? To keep the rain off your head. Have you ever seen, as per my friend Vince, the Moonlight Hotels in front of UN building? I have. Most of the “residents” were very polite Vets who fell out of the Government support pipe and got thrown into the garbage bin aka “Moonlight Hotel”. Mind you this was many years ago (~30?), but this does not mean that those cardboard boxes have disappeared since then.
you ever see a squirrel stop looking for food in its lifetime? never. why would human be different? hoarding of capital diminshes productive potential for collective use. it is similar to empty luxury apartment not intended for primary residence. The whole concept of capitalism needs urgent and colossal revision to ward off looming crisis. money is like blood in our body. The more circulation the better every part of body gets its nutrient the healthier the body becomes. Stagnating capital is not productive capital period
you can grind yourself all the way to your bone but I prefer to enjoy the benefits of hard work by sitting back and watching the sunset. if the squirrel was smarter it would save a mound up for a rainy day or retirement.
Just of curiosity: everyone realize that all cryptocurrencies are merely digits in a database, yes? And that the upper boundary, which the defines the maximum number of units, falsely presented as scarcity (wherever it’s implemented, of course – some cryptos like Dogecoin don’t have one), is just a constant somewhere in the underlying software’s source code? In other words – easily changed by the team that develops the software running on the mining pools and more easily distributed, because these days, when crypto mining has become a very competitive business, no one builds the software from the source anymore. Despite being advertised as open-source (and it turned out that there are differences between the source code and the pre-build binaries for Bitcoin Code after Microsoft acquired GitHub in October 2018).
From technical perspective, cryptocurrencies aren’t that different from the digital representation of the fiat currencies, issued by the central banks. The main difference is that the central authority of any cryptocurerncy is not the issuer (the mining pools, there are very few cryptos left being mined by individual miners), but the developer of the printing press (figuratively speaking). i.e. the development team of the software.
From the financial perspective, regrettably, the cryptos have been turned into just another Ponzi scheme. If anyone reads Satoshi’s white paper carefully, he or she could see that the Bitcoin was specifically intended to be used as a medium of exchange (i.e. precisely as currency). Instead, these days it’s used as an investment vehicle, and unregulated speculative one at that. Even the losses and gains are measured in fiat cirrencies – just check the price analysis, published on sites like CoinTelegraph or CoinDesk. Aside from the hard-core HODLers, most people enter the crypto-scene specifically for the purpose to make quick buck. And, due to the nature of the crypto-exchanges, the only way to do so is if someone else’s put more fiat money in the system.
Someone may try to make an argument that the bitcoin, for example, must have intrinsic value, because a lot of work is done to solve complex mathematical problems in order to obtain new units, but do you really believe that wasting a lot of time and electricity to guess a hash function result – an operation that produces nothing tangible, or usable for anything else in the world – really is that valuable? From an objective point of view such operation is just a waste of resources.
Others may argue that the cryptocurrencies worth a lot – after all the Bitcoin is traded somewhere in the range betweem 9500-10000 USDs (at the time of this writing). Sure – and the Google common shares are traded somewhere around $950 on the stock exchanges, however, Google itself would redeem a share at price 1/10 of a cent (and I’m not joking about it). And the only way to make a gain on Bitcoin is only if you find someone willing to pay more for it than you spend to buy it. Unfortunately, the pool of the people, willing to buy it at such high valuations, is rather small.
In fact, the only advantage that a cryptocurrency has over the precious metals, is that crypto units can’t be that easily confiscated by the authorities, provided that you have the private keys – if your crypto is on an exchange – well, your situation is similar to those guys, who invested in a gold ETF backed by a gold on unallocated basis.
The bottom line is that Satoshi’s idea of unregulated, distributed currency was an excellent one (the cryptographic part is not that original – there was a prior work, done by two mathematicians working for NSA). Unfortunately, it was ahead of its, because it wasn’t accompanied with corresponding change of the understading what the money is.
From technical perspective, cryptocurrencies aren’t that different from the digital representation of the fiat currencies, issued by the central banks.
Fiat currencies are not issued by privately owned central banks; they are created by commercial banks as interest bearing debt ex nihilo whenever they make a loan. In any case they are not true fiat currencies created by edict of the government. A true fiat currency would be issued directly by the US Treasury without incurring debt.
This is what the Chinese are doing to expand their infrastructure and consumer based industrial economy without incurring debt to private banks.The international private banking cartel do not like this one bit, and explains why China is ringed by US military bases.
Most of them – yes. And I guess that in US there are no longer requirements for a minimal amount of reserve capital in order to create loans, but in many countries (including my own) there are still such requirements. Which means that there should be at least some initial number of currency units, issued by the central bank (out of thin air, of course) to bootstrap the entire machine.
Hmmmm. Since the monetary system is the greatest treasure in the nation, perhaps we should create money as an asset, instead of a debt? Have you ever seen ant colonies collapsing through debt?
http://theq1.org/index_htm_files/Intro%20to%20the%20Money%20Challenge.pdf
The answer is already there.
A transparent, trustless, decentralized financial system, in short “DeFi” that will replace our current financial system.
Check out this video on YouTube explaining DeFi.
https://youtu.be/bRizf5uH2Oo
Bitcoin is just one part of the toolkit to reduce the harm of central banking slavery.
Libertarians are going to dream of their gated fantasy land with or without bitcoin.
Well, I’d give the author an A for effort, even if his analysis and conclusions are mistaken (or maybe he is just talking around the real issue?).
I agree that fiat currency is not the problem in and of itself. In theory it could be the best of all “monies”, but only under very specific conditions…conditions which we have not seen in the Western world, ever. Gold on the other hand IS money regardless of what conditions may prevail at any given time. It was money a thousand years ago and it will be money a thousand years from now. It is the only “money” which has maintained its purchasing power over thousands of years. However; I completely agree that going back to a gold standard will not solve our problems, and will likely make things much worse.
The fundamental problem is usury, which is intimately related to “capitalism”, at least as we know it today. Almost all of our social and economic ills in the West stem directly from usury. If you eliminate usury and the legalized fraud known as fractional reserve banking, the vast majority of the rest of our problems will resolve themselves, or at least be reduced to manageable levels.
Of course if you remove usury, the current system will collapse and we will have to move to an economic system that allows people to thrive in a zero growth environment. Then, and only then, will we be able to bring human civilization into balance with nature. Everything else is either a distraction or just treating the symptoms. The cure is simple enough. People understood how dangerous usury was thousands of years ago…there is a very good reason why it was always considered a sin.
concept of usury did not come about in a vacuum. people search for ways to put capital to work. Borrowing is such a need. So people put that concept to work as a need arises. It is a fair trade, dictated by market. The problem is people abuse market forces to gain dominance. There may always be a good intention for every deed which gets abused and misused for nefarious and socially detrimental intent.
@vientito
Modern banking and usury are not about putting idle capital to work. The system we have today allows a private banking cartel (which is global) to create money out o thin air and charge people compound interest, often totaling multiples of the principle. The truth is that banking should be a public utility and all fractional reserve schemes and interest should be outlawed. The notion that the fraud that is modern banking is necessary for the economy is utter nonsense.
No, it is not a fair trade if the bank is allowed to create money out of thin air and then charge compound interest to the lender. What of value is the bank bringing to the contract? From what I can tell, nothing, which makes such contracts invalid under English common law. This is why the banks needed special laws to make their fraud “legal”. Essentially, the current system allows the bankster class to skim so much money from productive enterprise and consumers that they are crushing the people. If you can explain why these criminals deserve their ill gotten gains, I’m prepared to listen.
Bob(s), I totally agree with you. It’s hard to imagine one lugging 10kg bag of gold to do your purchases. Gold is real, but it’s fraudulently manipulated to keep the Fiat money at some fictitious value. Anyone, who claims the right to print Fiat should show us the real money, before handing in the Fiat. In the old days (feudal and before) Lords showed their wealth by holding the land and the peasants whos real value was the ability to produce wealth (agriculture and other goods), which could be traded for precious coin (real). Not like today, where the likes of Google claim to own $B(s) in vapor-wear of no real value. So, to end my tirade, nothing wrong with paper money, upon the condition that it must be supported by the real wealth.
BTW, all the likes of Lenin, Marx and others pretending to be philosophers just recycled the things written by the Greeks in antiquities, without actually giving them the credit they deserved.
At least Newton had some sense by saying “we are standing on the backs of Great men” unfortunately he did not name the men in reference.
“The “dollar demisers” have no conception that the problem is not paper money, nor is it all money – it is the capitalist ideals regarding money.”
Ramin is right that paper money is not the problem. But I am not sure that he correctly identifies what the real problem is.
Money in an economy is like oil in a motor. It keeps the economic motor lubricated. Too little lubrication (money supply) and excessive friction slows the economic motor down. Too much lubrication and the motor spins out of control (inflation).
If the economic motor has a problem, then increasing the money supply can help to maintain economic activity while the problem is fixed. For example, if an economy suffers an external shock, such as a war or an oil embargo, then temporarily increasing the money supply facilitates the economic adjustments required for the new circumstances. Equally, if an economy has internal problems, such as inappropriate regulation or fiscal policies that slow the economy, then increasing the money supply can help to maintain economic activity while the problems are fixed. In other words, monetary policy is like an aspirin, it can’t fix a problem, but it can provide relief while the root problem is treated.
The problem with the U.S. economy is that there is an in appropriate distribution of income. Economies work best with an income distribution characterized by a GINI coefficient (a measure of income distribution, see Wikipedia) of about 0.3. Economies with GINI coefficients significantly less than 0.3, i.e. low income inequality, risk having supply constraints as there may be insufficient economic incentive for production. On the other hand, economies with GINI coefficients significantly greater than 0.3 risk having demand constraints, as there will be a mis-match between income and need. In 1980, the U.S. had a GINI coefficient of about 0.35, moderate income inequality. Today, it is greater than 0.45, i.e. extreme income inequality.
This change in income distribution is the real problem with the U.S. economy. It began with the adoption of ‘trickle-down’ economics under Reagan and has been worsening ever since. As the economy has slowed, as a result of this increasingly inappropriate income distribution, increasingly aggressive monetary policy has been used to try to maintain economic activity. But, like an aspirin, monetary policy only treats the symptom, it doesn’t address the problem. And like any pain killer, excessive use reduces its effectiveness and engenders many dangerous side effects, such as currency debasement.
While excessive income inequality is the problem, the root cause is that the U.S. political system no longer works on behalf of the overall population, but rather has been captured by a wealthy elite who have a vested interest in such income inequality. Fixing the problem of income inequality would require undoing much of the fiscal policy that has been enacted over the past 40 years. This will never happen as long as these wealthy elites control political power in the U.S.
Thus, I agree with Ramin, Fiat currencies are neither the root cause of, nor the solution to, the problems that are crippling the U.S. economy.
At this point there really is no short term solution to the problem b/c the problem is the extended inefficiency of gvt that leads to higher taxes and a higher cost of living stemming from a bad educational system and bad laws.
Money say spent (or subsidized) on expensive health care treatment, could have been spent on repairing infrustructure keeping said vehicles from needing costly repairs.
Too much oil by the way leads to the engine exploding not spinning out of control.
All Empires eventually collapse under the cost of maintaining them and the US will be no exception. Excessive military spending on endless wars would have been more effectively used to build and maintain domestic infrastructure to increase national wealth, provide employment for the workforce and profits of the private companies contracted to do the work by competitive bidding.
90% of the US population have become debt slaves to private banks, who create the US money – federal reserve notes – supply as debt ex nihilo every time they make a loan.
No debts = no money
For one person to be rich, many other people must be in debt, directly or indirectly under the system of fractional reserve banking. The Covid lockdown has enriched the banks and further impoverished the middle class. The financial oligarchy are laughing all the way to the bank or the stock market gains they enjoy, while jobs have been lost.
People are in debted from the high cost of living and being unable to service their needs, to some degree this has always been the case, but its getting worse now yet at the same time the youth have found this to be a normal thing so no need to complain about it.A
‘high cost of living’ to a degree, but Jone’sism, hollywoodism, entertainmentism, instagramism, have lead many into materialism, living way beyond ones means for fleeting self gratification, ‘yeah, I belong,’ and then………..well there will always be debt collectors until ‘bank’ruptsy reverts back to it’s origional meaning.
Cheers
Mr. Mazaheri is fun to read, but he is a socialist, and he ought to be more forthcoming about it; glutinously uplifting stuff about “the empowerment of the individual in order to reach his or her full potential” doesn’t cut it. Read Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists if you want to learn about socialism: no private ownership of land, no private trading of any kind, no saving up for your old age, your very children would not be your own, they would belong to the state. I wouldn’t own this farm; some commissar might decide that I would be allowed to live here provided I were prepared to bust a gut growing cabbages or something, but as soon as I weakened or grew old, I’d be yanked out of here and stuck into some state-run old folks’ home and the farm turned over to someone else. If it weren’t a matter of weakening or growing old but perceived slacking, it’s not an old folks’ home that I’d be railroaded into, it’s a political re-education camp, probably for a twenty-year stretch. Doesn’t sound like paradise to me.
Mazaheri regularly states outright, that he is a socialist (with Islamic characteristics, if you wish). He almost always drops a hint or three. He is not only forthcoming; he is firstcoming.
Would you care to reveal your affiliations?
I live in socialist Canada, same as socialist Sweden…..and other countries where socialism equates to the state taking care of economic regulation and development, health care and education……..were all form of entrepenurial capitalism are welcomed (to a degree)……………life requires more balance………..less greed.
btw, no system is perfect……..some are downright dreadful, ever been to the US?
There are two problems with replacing the dollar.
1. U.S. govt can ban alternatives from citizens: If something like gold or or a gold crypto systematically became more valuable the U.S. govt could ban using it for transactions within the U.S. Look at what we did to Iran. FDR confiscated gold coins during the great depression. I’ve been trying to buy physical gold, it’s harder than you think. Issues: can I trust the vendor, sales tax adds to cost of transaction, vendor charges 5%, all this makes gold more illiquid. Idiots at Fidelity treat you like you are trying to buy Crystal Meth from Hezbollah routed from Venezuela. Maybe crypto can solve this, not certain.
2. The U.S. dollar is a virus: Let’s suppose Russia, China, and all of the trade surplus nations wanted to dump most of their dollars, buy gold and establish a gold backed crypto just for trading, would this actually hurt the dollar?
Top gold producers … 1. China. 2. Australia. 3. United States of America. 4. Russia. 5. South Africa.
Instinctively, I’m thinking that the rule for this new crypto has to be that you can only purchase it with gold so that the U.S. govt cannot destroy it. If you have dollars, fine, issue a transaction that buys physical gold to get your gold crypto but what happens to the dollars? If they end up going to a Russian company that then buys U.S. treasuries then there is no change because the debt is owed in U.S. dollars and the U.S. govt has its failsafe.
The U.S. Treasury Dept can always print dollars to pay off the debt.
Either the replacement can get blasted away by the U.S. Treasury Dept. or the Russian company says, ‘no way’ and it becomes too illiquid to use.
The U.S. dollar cannot be fully replaced but I can see it being replaced by something like a gold backed crypto by countries that want to avoid dollars, an Oceana like Venezuela, China, Russia, and other non-aligned countries.
Ramin, at least one comment. I have read Lenin’s letters and other things in my teen years, and then I bought his writings. But, let me comment on your “feudalism=capitalism” which is not correct. First of all in feudalism peasants were owned by feudal lord, who often traded his villages for his horses, etc. He used his villagers as his fighting force. So, this is why they fought for the land, regardless if it was in France or elsewere in Europe. Villagers were allowed to keep 1day’s work efforts for their family, 1 day went to the church and five days went to the land lord. Everything was fine, until the land lords started to build huge palaces to impress their “friends” but those carried higher taxes for the king. This forced them to carry our their looting wars be it Constantinople in 1204 or Palestine or neighboring kingdoms. Money was always in short supply. Therefore at some point someone decided we need to produce things faster with smaller manual labor, and so the stem engines came along. More and more villagers started to move to the cities where they could find employment. Mind you in those days employment was not much different than feudal work 16hr/day, 7days a week. This was the capitalism, as it was based on the bunch which loved scrooging and using their wealth to milk the ones who needed the money to fund their enterprises. Land lords still had the land but had to sell off most of it, but had to look into looting the colonials. So now we move forward to current times. Now we have “Internationals” owning the countries while bringing “voluntary colonial slaves”. Make them willingly fall into debt “following the A-Dream” The capital floods the world with cheap labor used as part time employees, the “governments” are talking about 3-4 day work weeks intended to make people fight for low paying jobs without benefits. Here, I agree with you, we went full circle and are back to basically feudal times, where people slave away just to survive.
The banksters have so much power and the worlds systems of trading are so interlinked that It would take a paradigm shift to change people’s acceptance of currency as we know it to usher in a fair system.
This debate is a carousel, intricacies of the so called “financial instruments” abound on said carousel,add in our own notions of fairness and conditioning and it revolves by endlessly feeding on such wishful thinking.
In ancient times before the murderous British,especially,Cromwell,trading currency was precious metals or coins of empire backed by steel or simply a barter of goods.
After Cromwell (one of the first to advocate a state of Israel)matters begin to take on a “smoke and mirrors shape” which has devoleped into modern financial casino capitalism with its vagaries.
Ramin is correct in his cynicism’s about bitcoin and crypto.
We have not much choice but accept the money from above,and money from above is always backed with steel,if one does not accept there is nothing left accept looting and mayhem as we now witness.
Unfortunately the outlook is bleak internationally and we have entered a period where clarity is of extreme importance,local common sense must be cultivated as must food and resources such as contacts with clear thinking neighbours.
These times are unprecedented and we will pull through by reverting to our natural caring humanity,not division and bickering.
Sadly bickering is frequently generated by the capitalist v socialist theme of discussion….I wish and wish to stand back here (worldview) and hope here at this website we enlighten each other no matter our held concepts and histories.
Having said all of the above,vigilance is necessary too,a neighbour may have very different notions of matters to hand thus consciousness is of high importance.
The biggest problem with our money is that the 1% has too much of it and the rest of us are deep in debt, slaves to the banksters who just managed to shake down the US government to the tune of $6 trillion and put it on our tab. The COVID-19 bio-weapons attack on China, Iran, and ultimately workers in the USA was only the cover story for this enormous heist. Their menial jobs are never coming back as small business will soon go bankrupt leaving many workers homeless and starving. There’s no safety-net for them in the USA like there is in Europe. We need a new Franklin Roosevelt in November but it looks like we’ll get Adolf Hitler instead.
@Tommy Apeiron
I second you point of view.
Those the 1% want to put humanity into slavery – time to wake up people.
The term wage slave is more accurate today than it ever has been. Most of us are wage slaves. You can give 20 years of your life to a company that becomes part of a wall street takeover. For 20 years you were promised a nice pension, only to find that the pension fund was the source of the money to fund the takeover and wall street profits. Don’t say “the government is there to protect me”. What bs. Wall street gets everything approved and signed off by a federal judge – a judge they got appointed for such a payback. Please note that wall street is the politically correct term. It’s not politically correct to call out the ethnicity of the 2% who happen to have 4 of their group sitting on the supreme court.
”No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all …”
Agreed but a ‘strong’ currency isn’t necessarily an an asset.
United States industry will not benefit from a strong dollar, quite the opposite. A strong dollar will play havoc – indeed has played havoc – with the US industry’s cost structures which makes its exports more expensive and uncompetitive. And of course this is precisely why the US industrial base is being hollowed out. A strong currency will push up domestic interest rates and then exchange rates so that exports become more difficult. Why do you think that Trump is berating the Fed for continuing with a strong dollar policy. That’s the problem with a currency which has to serve a domestic economy and also act as global reserve currency. All of this has been pointed out by Mr Triffin so many years ago. Compare this with China’s policy of a low exchange rate or weak currency, which to a large degree to their export success. It’s horses for courses, economic planning involves foresight and flexibility.
Moreover, the fiat system has only been around since 1971 which in historical terms isn’t a very long time. In addition there are structural problems with fiat currencies. This has been true since the days of the Mississippi bubble, the South Sea bubble and the US Continental bubble in the late 18th century. Paper fiat bubbles seem to have a limited shelf life and almost every return to their real value, which is to say – zero. Personally I’d opt for gold – after all it’s been around for 5000 years and that’s not about to change anytime soon.
@Francis Lee
Just 2% of the US money supply is printed on paper as dollar bills. The other 98% consists of data entries on bank computers, so that debits = credits.
As the principal of a loan is paid off either in installments or in total, the bank deletes it back out of existence, otherwise inflation of the currency would be humongous, but they get to keep the interest, that requires more money to created out of thin air as debt.
If the US Treasury created the US money supply debt free in order to fund all government spending, it would be a simple matter to have the IRS delete money back out of existence with a computer keystroke as necessary.
Palestine is actually a prime example of an actor that could hugely benefit from “first-mover” advantage to bitcoin. DCA into bitcoin using multiple multi-signature distributed wallets and their next generation would buy up neighbouring lands with ease
In some ways I agree and in other ways I do not totally agree with Ramin on this very interesting article.
Anti-Socialist views coming from the West is more or less the same whether it is coming from the pro-Fiat or anti-Fiat crowd. So that is more or less a given, with a few exceptions or movements in the West here and there.
The economic (monetary) system is not and cannot be separated from the moral and ethical system of a society. The moral and ethical fundamental basis determines the political and cultural systems and determines the economic (monetary) system. Defining what is money is absolutely important because it determines how the money enters the economic system and how it used (or abused).The morals and ethics of a society determines:
– how money is defined (what constitutes money)
– how trade and commerce are conducted using this money
Socialism, Marxism, etc…..and the noble and positive points about these ideologies are often compatible/overlap with other ideologies and religions as several authors in this blog have mentioned before. But these important and positive points cannot be realized within the framework of current economic monetary system.
Any person with a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of the economic monetary (banking) system can tell you that you cannot build a free and fair society when any of these two points are taking place:
1) the creation of money out of thin air by a group of people
2) the lending of this created money on interest and indebting of people and nations.
The concept of lending on interest….actually making money without any effort just by having money is wrong…..It makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. This is the nature of this system. When a family loses a home to a bank, which is not even “their home” because they do not own it, this is not a fair business, this is not trade, the bank takes little to no risk. Not only the bank is to blame for this practice but also the home owners are to blame for entering into such a contract.
Such a system is the opposite of charity, it is the opposite of sharing the burden, it is the opposite of entering or starting a fair business where the person who is rich and has money will share in the risk of the poor person starting off a business. But on top of all that, banks create money out of thin air and then expect you to pay interest on the money they created and gave to you. The creation of money in its current form automatically followed the system of lending on interest…..it is a natural consequence of lending on interest.
In the past money was not being printed out of thin air….it was actually first real money in the form of crops, silver, gold etc. This real money (within intrinsic value) started being lent on interest. Once the money lenders realized this lucrative business practice, they started printing money that they did not have out of thin air.
Professor Hudson states in one of his Saker articles (/socialism-land-and-banking-2017-compared-to-1917/):
“There were various schools of socialism, but the common ideal was to guarantee support for basic needs, and for state ownership to free society from landlords, predatory banking and monopolies”.
“Socialism flowered in the 19th century as a program to reform capitalism by raising labor’s status and living standards, with a widening range of public services and subsidies to make economies more efficient. Reformers hoped to promote this evolution by extending voting rights to the working population at large”.
So the question is: Does Socialism attempt to reform the “monetary system” ?
If Socialism was working within the monetary system, how did it expect in “raising labor’s status and living standards” while money lenders and banks existed and while they financed land and wars (among many things), and kept nations and people in debt ?
How does Socialism, within the framework of the monetary system, “free society from landlords, predatory banking and monopolies” if it operates within the money system ?
Two important points the author in the previous article makes:
“The only way to control banks and their allied rentier sectors is outright socialization. The past century has shown that if society does not control the banks and financial sector, they will control society”.
“Will the government enforce bank and bondholder claims, or will it give priority to the economy and its people? That is an eternal political question spanning pre-capitalist, capitalist and post-capitalist economies”.
The question to ask is who controls the banks now ?
Central Banks are either privately owned or are traded publicly.
Who or which part of society will control the banks then……the government ?
How can a government give priority to the “economy and its people” if the concept of usury and “compound interest” exists in the first place?
Then in the conclusion the professor mentions the core and the heart of the entire problem:
That Marx “characterized the ancient mode of production as dominated by slavery and usury, and medieval banking as predatory”.
If Marx actually said this……then I hereby declare that Marx was actually a follower of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christian and Islam on this specific point. By the way Judaism has forbidden usury….but they have interpreted these laws as only to apply to lending between Jews, which is false.
Marx makes a profound statement in Capital III: “Usury centralises money wealth.” “It does not alter the mode of production, but attaches itself to it as a parasite and makes it miserable. It sucks its blood, kills its nerve, and compels reproduction to proceed under even more disheartening conditions. … usurer’s capital does not confront the labourer as industrial capital,” but “impove-rishes this mode of production, paralyses the productive forces instead of developing them.”
The Quran (2:275) is very specific on usury / interest:
Those who consume interest cannot stand [on the Day of Resurrection] except as one stands who is being beaten by Satan into insanity. That is because they say, “Trade is [just] like interest.” But Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest. So whoever has received an admonition from his Lord and desists may have what is past, and his affair rests with Allah . But whoever returns to [dealing in interest or usury] – those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein.
By the way, Islam also has a view on what should constitute money. Unfortunately, the world (including the Islamic world) has been swallowed up by the current economic monetary system whether they like it or not and until it is replaced by something else.
Ramin, Sorry but I strongly disagree with you. Hard money helps to keep those in power honest. It doesn’t in and of itself enforce honesty on the wealthy and those with power but it is definitely one of the pillars. The main problem that very few writers, even yourself never talk about is the power of direct democracy and decentralisation. If you look at countries that have direct democracies you almost never hear about their so called leaders. The reason why is because almost anything that they do can be overridden by the populace. One of the key aspects of direct democracy is the ability of the populace to control how their money is spent. When you have constitutional laws that requires a referendum for any bill that would increase your taxes, you have a powerful tool to not only reduce the power of politicians but also to reduce the power of lobbyists.
I would add one other thing to my point of view. That is the underlying technology (i.e. blockchain and cryptography) which underpins bitcoin, could also underpin both decentralisation of power and direct democracies in more countries. Unfortunately most people are too busy bending the knee to being “woke” to understand how what is called democracy in most countries has in fact been transformed into fascism (i.e. politicians and corporations working together for their mutual self benefit). Maybe you should start there.
The West is actually in the same crisis as Hitler was in the 1930s – the government had printed to much cash and foreigners didn’t want the funny money fiat without gold backing. So Hitler urgently invaded his neighbours for their central bank gold. He was rather cheesed off when Britain etc agreed he could have an ethnic enclave but not the capital where the gold sat.
NATO, chiefly the US, has the same problem and has invaded Iraq and Libya for their gold and extorted gold from Venezuela and other places. The gold is fed into the New York and London derivatives market place to suppress the perceived value of gold esp vs the US dollar. This has been going for more than 20 years. Now the refinery disruptions due to COVID-19 and lack of looted gold is leading to an inescapable gold derivatives crisis so I recommend you buy physical gold and silver if you can find it.
The hyper inflation of the German currency 1921-23 was caused by private banks, who needed to create money in order to pay the reparations imposed at Versailles otherwise the US banks would have had to write it off. Hitler was not responsible.
In fact Hitler pulled Germany out of the Great Depression by creating German money ex nihilo in return for work done, rather than having to borrow it from loan sharks.
In the past if I needed gold ingots, I would place a buy order on NYMEX for future delivery (3 months) on margin. I then waited for the contract to reach the settlement date, when the broker expected me to roll it over, but I advised him that I wanted to take delivery by paying the full contract price. The broker than had to issue me with a gold warrant, that I took to the bank vault where the gold was held in a safety deposit box, and I took physical delivery without paying sales tax.
I am inclined to ask the question, “Why do you think socialist egalitarianism is a stable system if established?” Egalitarianism under any ideology strikes me as being unstable. An egalitarian X would be a magnet for every schemer hoping to cut a large helping of advantage. Especially any X which operates through top down control in the name of some golden ideology.
Remember the 80/20 rule of Pareto. One might say that this means 20% of the people will produce 80% of the results which is hardly egalitarian. One could argue that 20% of the population will have the skills to out scheme 80% of the population without looking further. But of course the successful schemers will not stop there but seek to amplify their results.
In the beginning not everyone will make a good bankster and later the successful banksters will make sure that those who would make good banksters are not allowed to enter the field. This has consequences.
You can consider the US as an example. A small minority of Europeans shafted the larger Indian populations of North America and gained a toehold in North America later exterminating the lot when it became convenient. The Europeans spread out across the continent and established a moderately egalitarian agriculture based polity which Jefferson praised. But along came the industrial revolution which concentrated industrial wealth in a few hands and lead to the consolidation of agriculture and conversion of the farming population into members of the growing urban proletariat.
The New Deal rebelled against that industrial concentration, supported unions and anti-trust. For awhile a more egalitarian attitude seemed to be winning. But by the 1980’s the Reagan-Thatcher rebellion moved events back toward financial and industrial concentration with a large helping of out and out rapine. A state we currently enjoy today.
Egalitarianism appears to be a hot house flower which will wilt at the first breath of ambition and be reinstated only with great difficulty. The losers never seem willing or able enough to fight hard enough or intelligently enough to contain the winners. When John D. Rockefeller consolidated the oil patch his competitors called him Wreckafeller. True enough, but none of them had the simple will to assassinate him for his efforts. Why not? Caution? Fear? Morality? A belief it would all work out? Perhaps just simple ineffectuality is the explanation and which the 80/20 rule argues is fairly abundant.
But suppose there had been an assassin? What are the chances that the assassin would be as bold and as determined to dominate as John D. or more so? Who would take the risk without a willingness to seize the reward for himself?
I suspect that the really great, intractable problems of human existence rise from a level more fundamental than politics or ideology. To get lasting results, if it is possible at all, it will be necessary to look deeper into the human condition than politics or ideology affords. Socialism has been around for a long time, but has achieved no lasting results. Socialist parties in the West are undermined by capitalist finance.
Capitalism seems to be just a current name for something existential in the human condition. Those who can master capitalism become winners who create the losers that socialism wishes to but lacks the power to help. If there is a way out of this it probably requires a more equitable distribution of will, intelligence and determination independent of circumstance. How that is to be managed is a question I doubt anyone can answer.