I came across a well written article about free markets and the extent to which they have been hijacked in recent decades by establishment elites.
It was written by a very astute and prolific writer - Brandon Smith from alt-market.com. The article, entitled The Reasons Behind The Relentless Ideological Onslaught Against Free Markets recently appeared on ZeroHedge and his own website:
via ZeroHedge
via alt-market.com
I strongly recommended that you read the entire article, but I will offer a few highlights from it hereunder [emphasis added]:
In reality, the only time free markets do cause trouble is when they are manipulated or misused by elitists seeking to turn them into something other than free markets.
Human beings actually tend to gravitate toward free markets over and over again in history, and away from centralized government interference and dominance in economic trade. But whenever they do, they get hammered down by the-powers-that-be.
Whenever disaster strikes economically, free markets are blamed. Whenever something is fixed, even if that fix is a temporary band-aid on a sucking chest wound, government involvement and socialism are applauded. And so the cycle continues until free markets become a pariah with no place in our world and centralization becomes the prevailing answer to everything.
Then talking about the arrival of corporations in America the author notes:
Unlike partnerships, leaders of corporations cannot in many cases be prosecuted criminally and their personal assets are protected if those crimes were executed by “the company”. There are exceptions in history, but how often do you see corporate CEO's prosecuted and suffer anything more than a slap on the wrist?
The company can be sued as a “legal person” in civil court, or fined by the government, but in general CEO’s and major shareholders are protected from any consequences, even if they were directly involved in the commission of a crime.
As a further note on the subject, supra-national organizations such as the criminal Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and IMF/World Bank Group enjoy an even larger layer of protection against any kind of prosecution as outlined in their respective charters (which I have exposed in previous posts - click the links to see them). That is why the BIS (and their agents through the Fed, et al.) are able to rig most markets around the world without any repercussions whatsoever.
This relationship between government and corporations has become so egregious that today these monopolies receive special legal protections and immunity from some civil lawsuits, aid in the form of taxpayer funded welfare, massive tax cuts which smaller businesses and less connected corporations do not enjoy, and even central bank bailouts which keep them afloat. Major corporations are not allowed to fail, and no one is allowed to compete with them on a level playing field.
This is the exact antithesis to free markets. This is socialism.
Yet many socialists point the finger at free market “capitalism” as the source of all our economic problems. This is impossible, because free markets on a level any higher than local trade do not exist today and have not existed for at least a century.
The author, astutely, goes on to explain the psychological nature of these "elitists" (both financial & political) branding them, most correctly in my opinion, as narcissistic sociopaths:
There is a group of people that do behave in a destructive way automatically or instinctually when engaging in commerce without regulation, and these people have become a fascination of mine. They are narcissistic sociopaths; the defining characteristic of most financial and political elites.
I have outlined the facts surrounding narcissistic sociopaths in numerous articles, and I recommend readers study these for greater details. To summarize, full blown narcissistic sociopathy is a psychological aberration present in around 1% of any given population from birth. That is to say, in most cases these people are not created by their environment. Many of them come from very balanced and sheltered childhoods. They are born the way they are.
He then raises a key point:
Narcissistic sociopaths are a tiny portion of the population, but lacking any sense of empathy or conscience, they account for a vast percentage of all crimes committed in society. They also gravitate to positions of power and influence from the business world to politics.
Most of the criticisms of [Adam] Smith’s model for free markets revolve around the crimes of corporations (which are anti-free market) as well as the immoral behavior of narcissistic sociopaths.
When one applies the free market idea to normal people, it works. When one applies it to narcissistic sociopaths, it doesn’t. My question is this – Is the best solution to remove free markets for everyone? Or, is the best solution to remove narcissistic sociopaths from positions of power and influence within free markets?
What a great question!
Establishment elites want us to believe that the former solution is the only solution, and with good reason. All centralization starts with economic centralization. Trade is the lifeblood of civilization, and if you can control the mechanisms of trade, you can potentially control an entire nation, or even the entire world. Free markets are a cure for the cancer of corporatism and socialism, and all they require is that people start participating in commerce without the consent or oversight of government. This is a difficult thing to stop when it gets started.
This is what is trying to be accomplished by the masses around the world with blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. And is thus the reason why we see the same powers-that-be try are doing their very best to destroy it - or at least impede it as much as possible, as if they didn't it would render their current archaic models obsolete in a matter of only a few years. It, of course, remains to be seen who will get the upper hand. Undoubtedly, this will be a cat-and-mouse fight that will go on for many more centuries to come.
This is why the establishment is so obsessed with converting to a cashless society in which every transaction no matter how small is tracked and vetted. This is why governments are enacting harsher and harsher penalties for anyone doing business without their explicit approval. This is why government taxation and regulation is making small business ventures more difficult. And, it is why law enforcement officers are being encouraged by bureaucrats to write tickets punishing children selling lemonade on street corners. We are being conditioned to avoid attempting free market trade.
" bureaucrats to write tickets punishing children selling lemonade on street corners": I have seen numerous articles related to this. They want to send a clear message right from childhood - which is "Dare you not try to be an entrepreneur and fend for yourself!" That is as close as you can get to anti-free markets. Pretty pathetic!
The claim of the socialists and environmentalists that more government will save us from bad corporate practices is observably not true. Government and corporations work together to protect their fellow narcissistic sociopaths. More government means more corporate and elitist power. There is not a socialist nation on the planet that has not suffered this outcome.
...the narcissistic sociopaths devoid of conscience with whom we now contend for our freedoms. I would suggest that Smith’s free markets, unshackled from centralization and government interference, would function almost perfectly if these people were cut from the equation entirely.
Thanks for your attention.
In Peace & Liberty,
