Joe Biden Calls for End of “Shareholder Capitalism”
Capitalism has always been at the heart of America, and capitalist opportunity is what has defined the country the most. Current Democrats want to put the brakes on it.
The American Revolution that was fought almost 250 years ago arose out of a thirst for the freedom to control our own destiny and to get out from out of the thumb of the British who governed our colonies in a way that many found distasteful.
Being told what to do by what was essentially a foreign country and especially having to pay taxes to fill the treasure chests in London just didn’t sit well. There’s no way that the colonialists could have imagined being subject to a power as vile as what the Democrats have planned for us all these years later though, comparable to having our tea spilled by the British upon our laps compared to seeing us tied up and beaten in the name of the new radical socialist movement that has arose now like a flash mob.
The biggest difference between now and then is that back then, Americans fought courageously against the oppression that they were under, but when now faced with a level of oppression far greater and more dangerous, people are either hiding from it or have joined the revolution themselves.
Whether or not the U.S. moves as much in the direction of communism that is being threatened or not, there is more at stake here than our personal liberty. Political change aside, we really need to worry about the economic impact of such an upheaval, where our way of life on every level becomes seriously threatened.
Economists understand why left-wing politics and economic prosperity are so opposed, and why a capitalistic economy provides much better outcomes than collective ones. Even China has learned this lesson, and while the Communist Party rules absolutely, part of this absolute rule has included letting the economy become capitalistic even though their political ideology remains fully communist.
The Chinese claim that their system is better because they understand central rule to be preferable to political rule based upon capitalism. They do have a point though, and although we may see authoritarian rule as being much more odorous than turning our political system over to capitalists, both political systems are supposed to convey the power in the people, either individual wishes being compiled and acted on by way of majority like democracies do or party officials deciding based upon what is genuinely in our best interests collectively.
Both political systems end up being oligarchic in practice, where either the party rules with an iron fist with communism or we see our politicians being used as puppets by the biggest capitalists. The political system itself is capitalist in modern democracies, especially with the United States, where we have built up a level of tolerance for what should otherwise be viewed as political corruption, where our elected officials decide not on what is in our interests but by whoever bribes them the most and offers them the most job security.
If we do choose to reform, the first thing we need to do is to at least seek to reduce the influence of capitalism upon the political process. Politicians should not have to choose whether to take the bribes they call contributions or not have enough money to keep their job. Money may not be the only criterion, but without it, you just don’t stand much of a chance no matter how good your platform is, because your voice won’t be heard enough.
Facebook is debating whether to allow political ads this time around, and we’re not even sure what their motivation is here, but allowing political ads by anyone is simply a bad idea. We cannot afford to reward capital this way and expect that it won’t rear its ugly head and move us toward the interests of the capitalists paying the bill for this stuff and away from what would be best or what we would choose if not for our votes being purchased this way by the capitalistic elite.
Even if we manage this, this still would leave a very potent capitalistic force out there that is even more powerful than lobbyists, which is the extent of the power of popular media to shape our political views to their liking.
That’s not such an easy problem to solve, not that banning political ads would be easy either, especially when you consider that the contributors surely don’t want this and the contributions themselves enable them to fight these things with considerable veracity. Allowing ourselves to become so docile and compliant with the wishes of those who hold our strings and make us dance to their beat is the real problem, and if we’re going to save ourselves, improving this fate is not optional.
The capitalists look they are about to get squeezed out, where the media now has the means to decide our political fates without their assistance, and has even now declared war on them to some degree anyway. Like with all wars, the first shots are just a sign of things to come, and capitalism itself may be in serious trouble now.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s vow to be rid of the police should scare us enough, but he and his cohorts have even more than this in store as their attack on capitalism becomes more organized.
Defunding the Police is a Thinly-Disguised Attack on Capitalism
The concept of capitalism relies on not just the mechanism of free exchange that has shown to be the best approach by far for distributing value, exchanges governed by freedom and not the will of those not party to these transactions, but for this to be maintained, we also need the freedom to keep what we earned.
Capitalism therefore requires the force of law to maintain it, lest we either become subject to anarchy where exchanges become made not voluntary but by way of force. Without law enforcement on hand, we’ll be down to needing to use force of our own to protect our property, and even then, we may become overwhelmed by the forces of those who wish to take what is ours and lose both our property and perhaps even our lives from being on the losing end of these battles.
The very idea that we need to get rid of the police entirely to reform police behavior might be the stupidest thing our species has ever conceived, in spite of all the strong candidates for this. While we may think that only those who have suffered serious brain damage would think that we can cut down on violence by removing the only mechanism we have to curtail it, the law, a lot of people have had their brains damaged lately, a shockingly high amount, including many in the Democratic Party.
Defunding police is a frontal attack on capitalism, where those who are privileged to have capital will see it taken away from them by those who just wish to take it. While it’s one thing to want economic redistribution, desiring it by way of chaos and anarchy takes this idea far beyond anything we have ever seen in history.
How our economy is supposed to function without the benefit of law and order is a question they haven’t gotten around to asking yet, being blinded by their anger so much that they don’t even wonder. They believe in their fantasies so much, where we will rebuild the country’s economy through such things as getting rid of the police and replace the capitalist system that has allowed us to enjoy such prosperity overall to be given over to something much darker.
Capitalism depends entirely on maintaining the voluntary exchanges that provide efficiency and prosperity, but if armed force pre-empts this, efficiency goes right out the window. The biggest knock on communism is that it greatly mutes the incentive to achieve, when you aren’t rewarded for it, but we need to ask what incentive will be in place when your hard efforts wilt under the force of armed conflict.
It’s even hard to imagine commerce itself being much of a force without law and order, without businesses erecting castles with moats. At the very least, this would require a strong and visible armed presence, enough to be confident that you won’t be robbed, but that still won’t solve the problem of people being robbed on the way home. We’re all going to need a security detail as well, where the right to bear arms goes from a right to a necessity, and even this would leave us open to the threat of either being outnumbered or hit with sniper attacks that just can’t be defended against.
We may not be willing to stomach getting rid of law and order entirely, but even turning this down will cause capitalism to be wounded. Less law enforcement means more law breaking, and if we actually were such a peace-loving society, we wouldn’t need police in the first place. Even with the strong police presence that we have, this has been nowhere near enough to deter criminals, and with less deterrence, they will be emboldened and incentivized even more.
That’s only one front on the war against capitalism that is being waged by the Democrats. Joe Biden has now declared that he also wants to put an end to shareholder capitalism, and while he may forget where he is from time to time, his mind has remained sharp enough to keep remembering that he dislikes capitalism as much as he does.
Like other extremists, Biden’s rhetoric of late has really escalated, and the very idea that we need to get rid of “shareholder capitalism” is testimony to just how extreme his views have now become. This sounds like Bernie Sanders talking, and it might actually be, as Joe used to be considered a moderate, at least until he turned into a puppet for more radical factions of the party. Sanders’ loss in the primaries may have been greatly exaggerated.
We can be confident that Joe Biden hasn’t thought very much about what he is saying, not that he may even be capable of this anymore, but as shareholders, who his gun is pointed at now, we need to be taking this very seriously.
For whatever reason, shareholders tend to draw the most fire by far from those who oppose capitalism, even though the majority of Americans own these shares. The only thing that is really notable about owning public shares is the much greater access that this type of ownership enjoys, where you don’t have to have a lot of money to own a piece of a business, and even kids are getting in on this now with their fractional share purchases.
Biden Professes to Be for the Middle Class, As He Prepares to Attack Them
Biden is also courting the middle class with this idea, somehow anyway, even though how his wild ideas that oppose the American way of life by extremes is supposed to help the middle class does not merit any further wondering in his mind.
Biden accuses Trump of just wanting to help the stock market rather than the middle class, but doesn’t realize that most of the middle class are shareholders, capitalist shareholders even, looking to improve their lives and especially get more comfortable in retirement, especially with Social Security now being broke and having to live hand to mouth for the rest of time.
President Trump may cheer when the stock market does well, but the stock market is only a proxy for the economy, and improving the economy itself is the real mission, the capitalist economy that is. When the stock market goes down a lot, this means the economy itself is in trouble, just like we saw when the pandemic started to hit home enough that we became willing to inflict economic carnage upon the country to manage its spread and the stock market dived in turn.
The Democrats are seeking yet another pandemic, an ideological one this time, and theirs not only have the capacity to inflict a lot more damage upon our economy, it will also be more enduring. Returning to work is much easier than having the politicians we elected get sent back home after they throw our economy under the bus and cheer as it gets crushed, because that requires another election. With the power to do their worst for the next 4 years at least, their worst may end up being alarmingly destructive.
Investments in shares are competitive with other things we can invest in, and as we seek to punish this particular form of investment, this is going to get people to sell their shares in haste and cause a market crash like we have never seen before. Unlike previous ones though, we won’t be on the road back from this because the panic will not be caused by just deteriorating economic conditions, it will be caused by dastardly transforming the structure of these investments to something much less competitive.
If Biden is serious, this could even spell the end of public equity itself, as companies scramble to reorganize the way that they are owned to try to evade the attack on shareholding. Public equity has enormous benefits though, including the ability to buy and sell shares at will, and the thought of this being defeated by politicians is simply a sickening idea.
It is not that this will drive away capitalism, although it will drive away a particular tool of it. If we are to be punished by owning shares, if this goes from the most efficient way to distribute ownership to the most inefficient, all we end up doing is preventing those who aren’t wealthy enough to invest in businesses directly to be excluded, where this burden mostly falls upon ordinary people who are the ones being locked out of the game.
It is actually quite curious that Sanders, speaking through Biden, would unleash his prejudice so much on the shareholder mechanism, painting it so much as the Devil, but this has played a big role in Bernie’s Marxist fantasies for a while now. Ironically, public participation in company ownership is as close as you can get to socialist capitalism, and the only part that resembles it, by allowing everyone and not just the elite to participate in ownership, and this is the part they want to be rid of, to seek to broaden the wealth gap a lot more.
It’s not that the government doesn’t seize a portion of the fruits of our investments anyway, but it has prejudiced it toward holding stock, which gets taxed at a lower rate to encourage this. This broadens the participation rate, but if we instead become prejudiced against this type of investment, this is going to make it far less competitive and will have people running for their lives from it.
If the middle class thinks Joe Biden is in their corner, they need to think again. Many middle- class people will see their retirement plans simply destroyed by him instead if he manages to pull this off, and while this would require control of the Senate as well to push this and all the other anti-capitalist ideas that his party is so drunk on, this is becoming more of a risk each day.
This specter may even be now at the point where it is more likely than not unless things turn around. Just like Biden’s chances have taken a leap forward, we have been expecting the Senate races to go that way as well, and we are now seeing this happen. The Republicans need several key wins, and the pols are now moving the wrong way against them in these races alarmingly fast.
Not long ago, we and others were at least fairly confident that the Republicans would be able to keep the Senate this time around, but their prospects are now deteriorating fast and we may not even need Biden’s VP to do any voting. All hell will break loose if this happens, as we’ll be handing over the keys to everything to the Democrats and both capitalism and our economy will be bashed enough to put them in the hospital, with no one left to care for them.
Biden states that “investors don’t need me,” and while he won’t be offering any assistance anyway, hey could certainly do without the punishment he has planned for them. Joe Biden and his gang of capitalism bashers are far more dangerous than investors have come to realize yet. A real war is on the horizon, where we as shareholders are not only on his hit list, we might even be public enemy number one.
Gil Scott-Heron didn’t live to see it, but it looks like he’s about to get the revolution he has wished for all these years ago, the one he spoke about in his 1970 song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, a backhanded attack on capitalism and the power of the media to promote it.
The one the Democrats are now planning for us is even more anti-capitalist, and revolutions are all the more dangerous when the power of television that alarmed Scott-Heron all those years ago is now an asset of the revolutionaries. This revolution will be televised after all, now that they have seized its power, and that should really scare us. Roll over Washington, and tell Jefferson the news, as someone needs to hear it.
Chief Editor, MarketReview.com
Ken has a way of making even the most complex of ideas in finance simple enough to understand by all and looks to take every topic to a higher level.
Contact Ken: ken@marketreview.com
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