Capitalism Does Not Work

How many of you have heard someone say that the economic system that we know as capitalism does not work? This is interesting in that we haven't seen capitalism at work since July 2, 1890. That was the day that Republican President Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The act was written by Senator John Sherman, a Republican. It passed the Senate on April 8, 1890 with a 51-1 vote. It then passed the House by a 242-0 vote on June 20, 1890 and then went to the President.

The Sherman Anti-Trust act is referred to as "competition law" by attorneys. It acquired this name because Sherman was designed to stop companies or entities from ganging up on new business that might compete with the old companies. That sounds real good at first glance until you look at what really happened. This Act. for all intents and purposes, emasculated companies while turning them into banks for politicians.

Now what do I mean. If you were a businessman and the government was out to regulate you what might you do? Would you obey the regulations? Would you attempt to "persuade" or "lobby" the politicians to look upon your industry favorably and in so doing become a politician's cash cow. Would you befriend the politician to the point where you might get him to put you or your representative on the board that writes the regulations for your industry? Wouldn't that put you in the cat's seat? You could eliminate your competition with the stroke of a pen.

This is exactly what happened. Call them what you will "Captains of Industries" or "Robber Barons" these businessmen, these capitalists, were not going to lose their positions or their companies so they looked for ways to insure their positions and they found that money, dinners, fine cases of wine, and other junkets, purchased the loyalty of elected officials over those who elected them

The Sherman Act, that we could refer to as the assassin that slayed capitalism, was belligerently used by none other then that so called conservative president, Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy, pretending to do good for the common good, used the act to batter organizations like Standard Oil and then turned around and asked those nasty old businessmen for donations for his presidential campaigns. How do you spell hypocrisy? TR, however, was a piker when it came to Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson was a full fledged Progressive. He was an egotistic narcissist. He was a believer in eugenics and adhered to a belief in Social Darwinism. He supported the sterilization of the"feeble-minded." He believed that history evolved based on epochs and that the Constitution was, therefore, a "living document". He talked about the collective will and the need for a good administrator who understood the collective will and would lead the nation based on that. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence were simply old, moldy documents that were no longer viable documents capable of inspiring the people and the Nation.

More importantly, however, was that Wilson found out the importance of a crisis. Initially swearing that he would keep us out of World War I, Wilson walked us straight in to the last months of that war. Why? It caused the folks to rally round the central government. Wilson put into place the War Industries Board or WIB and he put the heads of companies or their representatives on that board. Wilson was then free to come up with two wonderful laws, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. With these two pieces of legislation, both of them in contradiction to the First Amendment, Wilson was able to toss 150,000 Americans into prisons across the country simply because they spoke out against the war. You thought the Patriot Act was nasty.

Slowly but surely this nation took more and more steps toward socialism. The New Deal of FDR that among other things gave us the Social Security Trust Act. What a laugh that is particularly the word trust. Our elected officials found their way to power, to spend more and more money to do good things for us with our money. Like little children we got in line and said "do daddy do". Two of my favorite quotes come from two women, one a D and one an R, in the current Senate. Senator Barbara Mikulski who stated that she woke up every "morning trying to figure out what to do for her constituents". Don't you mean "do to your constituents" Senator. The other is Olympia Snowe from Maine who during the debate on health care in the Senate committees stated that only the government could solve the health care problem. This is what we have come too.

I could go on with the Great Society that gave us Medicare and Medicaid both going broke. Or the Plan D drug program given to us by George W. Bush. I thing you get my drift. The next time someone tells you capitalism does not work, ask them to define capitalism to you. Then ask them how they know that capitalism does not work tell them how do they know that since we haven't lived under capitalism since the day the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was signed by that black heart, Benjamin Harrison in 1890. Maye its time for a CHANGE.