Eric’s Blog

Ever since i started this blog I’ve been trying to say something. Time after time I write something and don’t post it, which is really not why I started this. The problem is that I am at once counter culture and traditional. I had my wild years. That party is long past the statute of limitations. I also served my country in the Navy where frankly I thought we were pretty disorganized. Years later I found myself in Amway at a meeting where people cheered me for serving my country. It was weird. I was in right after Veit Nam. It wasn’t like coming home from WW II where you were a hero. In fact that point in our history was interesting. Whatever your views the communists there had a strategically brilliant idea. If they could turn the mood of a democratic country they could win. As I say it was brilliant because older people assumed the government was always right, younger people didn’t understand why we were there and then we micro managed the war with an utterly stupid premise that the enemy cared about death tolls.

I bring this up because the most remarkable thing about the Viet Nam war is that the protest mechanism and mind set was outside the control of our enemies. Decades later and much as Japan and Germany are no longer enemies neither is Viet Nam. However the strategy they set loose is still in motion. You can see the mindset in Oliver Stone movies. While it was Kennedy and Johnson who got us in it was Nixon we love to hate.

When I was 17 I remember thinking capitalism was evil. My folks decided to get me a book on communes in America. That was nice of them. The problem was as I read through it about some 200 communes over hundreds of years I noticed something. They all failed. I asked my folks why they got a book about the failures and where the successes were. I remember that Reagan predicted the fall of the USSR to within a few months some 10 years earlier. After Ted Kennedy died I read about the Russians finding a letter from Kennedy trying to get Andropov to help him run against Reagan for president. Kennedy thought Reagan was dangerous. Right. I thought the Reagan presidency would be a disaster, but only because I got my news from Saturday Night Live. I was forced to admit the obvious and anyone who lived through the Carter years knows what I’m saying. The 80s is called the decade of greed because how else do you disparage prosperity.

In recent years I see a lot of people wearing T-Shirts with the image of Che Guevara. I usually think they must like the image and not know who he is. I mean if you don’t know that he was a rich kid turned mercenary who got bored in Cuba and wanted to overthrow some more governments then it’s a great image. When I read years after the fact about him being executed I figured he had it coming. You go to some other country and try and wage war, kill people and overthrow the government and you should not expect to be treated like a diplomat. The problem I have lately is I wonder if maybe people wearing those shirts do know who he is.

Just in case you are not versed I’ll explain the understanding of capitalism I had instilled in me. Capitalism for me means that I enter the market to compete. In order to achieve a reward I have to offer a product or service that has a perceived value in line with what I’m charging. Usually this keeps prices low, but in the case of our products the market has a collective myopia offering me a niche market. We compete with price secondary to quality to offer a value proposition. Regardless it is the market that will validate our vision. My incentive is to succeed by making the optimal price and value decisions. While it’s more complex in practice the principle is that I can only thrive by satisfying customer demand.

Communism fails for the simple reason that humans demand leadership or ruthless types simply fill the void. So communism always because a ruling class and a peasant class. The fundamental difference between the natural law rights of the US and of a Marxist group is that we believe in an equal opportunity to produce an unequal result while the Marxist and social justice crowd believes we have an unequal opportunity to produce an equal result. The equal result is the crux of the problem, because it is impossible to elevate an entire population to the pinnacle of success, but we can all arrive at the depths of despair and poverty… except of course for the ruling class.

However the bridge between capitalism and communism is socialism. In fact once your commune stratifies a ruling class it by definition becomes socialism rather than communism. Karl Marx expressed communism as “To each according to his need from each according to his ability”. It really sounds nice, doesn’t it. Unfortunately it fails to recognize the most basic of human aspects, motivation. Motivation begins with fear of loss, moves to hope for gain and ultimately has the level few find of pure attitude driven purpose. One must develop a habit on each level to reach the next. Therein lies the problem. Without a fear of loss or hope for gain there is no motivation to struggle. Life and especially any worthy enterprise is struggle.

So where do you stand? Many people often thank us for what we do. I find it difficult to imagine there are many socialists shopping with us. Yet I know there are a lot in Oregon who are looking to the government to offer solutions. In fact from the time we leave our parents how many of us are ready to take the unnerving walk to the front of the crowd and take full responsibility for our financial future? To fully participate in free enterprise capitalism you have to take great risks. Not many do. Not many see the fact that in many ways this is not such a capitalist society. Our tax code punishes success and rewards failure, but does so under the guise of compassion. Much of the former Soviet empire now has a 10% flat tax. Imagine that.

Many countries now have adopted ideas from us. While our social security is only a few years from insolvency a number of countries moved to private and solvent solutions decades ago. I recently saw someone make the example that because Lasik eye surgery was always paid out of pocket prices were going down. I’m sure there are many factors but the one thing I am confident of is this. Since the United States was founded very nearly every country in the world has followed our grand experiment and adopted self governance and some degree of capitalist free markets. No other economic idea has been as viral or as successful. At the same time the Soviet Union fell, China has been totally infected by Hong Kong and every free country implementing socialist ideas has had serious troubles with the solvency of those problems.

As long as we continue to believe in freedom and free enterprise capitalism we can pass on a better world to our children. If we are seduced by Marxism then the greatest country on earth would be suffering the ultimate irony of following the USSR into the dustbin of history.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.