Walter Block on morality vs. the marketplace

This book does not claim that the marketplace is a moral economic institution.  True, the profit and loss business system has brought mankind a plethora of consumer goods and services unkown in the entire history of the world.  These benefits are the envy of all peoples not fortunate enough to live under its banner.  Given the tastes, desires, preferences of the ultimate consumer, the market is the best means known to man for providing for his satisfaction.

But the marketplace also produces goods and services – such as gambling, prostitution, pornography, drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc.) alcohol, cigarettes, swinger’s clubs, suicide abetment – whose moral status is, to say the least, highly questionable and in many cases highly immoral. The free enterprise system, thus, cannot be considered a moral one. Rather, as a means of consumer satisfaction, it can only be as moral as are the goals of the market participants themselves. Since these vary widely, all the way from the completely depraved and immoral to the entirely legitimate, the market must be seen as amoral – neither moral nor immoral.

The market in other words is like fire, or a gun, or a knife or a typewriter: a splendidly efficient means towards both good and bad ends.  Through free enterprise we are capable of achieving virtuous actions, but also their very opposite as well.

How, then, can we defend the immoral activitys of some market actors?  This stems from the philosophy of libertarianism, which is limited to analyzing one single problem.  It asks, under what conditions is violence justified?  And it answers, violence is justified only for purposes of defense, or in response to prior aggression, or in retaliation against it.  This means, among other things, that government is not justified in fining, punishing, incarcerating, imposing death penalties on people who act in an immoral manner - as long as they refrain from threatening or initiating physical violence on the persons or property of others.  Libertarianism, then, is not a philosophy of life.  It does not presume to indicate how mankind may best live.  It does not set out the boundaries between the good and the bad, between the moral and the immoral, between propriety and impropriety.

The defense of such as the prostitute, pornographer, etc., is thus a very limited one.  It consists solely of the claim that they do not initiate physical violence against non-aggressors.  Hence, according to libertarian principles, none should be visited upon them.  This means only that theses activities should not be punished by jail sentences or other forms of violence.  It decidedly does not mean that these activities are moral, proper or good.

~ Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable, introduction

Thomas Sowell on why the elites hate the free market

One of the problems with the market from the standpoint of those who think that they are the brightest, the best, and ought to be telling the rest of us groundlings what to do, is that the market allows ordinary people to go out there and make their own decisions.  And people who think they have the Truth and the Light don't want that; they want no part of that.  It's really what they hate most, I think, about a market system.

~ Thomas Sowell, "Interview with Thomas Sowell," Reason, December, 1980

Simon Hallett on wealth creation today vs. the past

Modern capitalism differs from wealth creation in the old days.  In the olden days, if you wanted to get rich you had to knock somebody on the head and steal their stuff.  Today if you want to get rich you have to provide goods and services at prices that people want to pay.

~ Simon Hallett, interview, 19:40 mark, Stansberry Investor Hour, September 16, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the willingness of the young to abandon time-tested institutions

Capitalism lifted man out of the Malthusian trap circa 1800 and created the hockey stick of human prosperity, yet many – especially the young – are ready to risk it all for a new form of economic organization based upon fuzzy concepts like “fairness” and “equality.”  (This is technically an old idea which has failed countless times, but we should never allow details to get in the way of progress!) 

While we’re at it, the family originated between 100,000 and two million years ago.  Time for a replacement, say the cultural Marxists.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Neomania Revisited," The Coffee Can Portfolio, April 26, 2021

Ludwig von Mises on the importance of private ownership to the market economy

Private ownership of the means of production is the fundamental institution of the market economy.  It is the institution the presence of which characterizes the market economy as such.  Where it is absent, there is no question of a market economy.  Ownership means full control of the services that can be derived from a good.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Kevin Duffy clears up confusion about capitalism

capitalism: achieve ends (making money) without using violence 

politics: achieve ends through violence (obfuscate by calling it "democracy") 

political capitalism: mix the two 

Left: blame capitalism for all ills 

political establishment: mislabel Milton Friedman a capitalist

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, October 6, 2020

Frank Borman on bankruptcy

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.

~ Frank Borman, U.S. Air Force colonel

Simon Mikhailovich: "the capitalist system without capital is like dinner without food"

If a washing machine doubles we say, "oh, it's inflation." But now when stocks double in price without any increase in earnings or any other change - just like the washing machine - we say, "oh, it's a bull market."  Or 'it's multiple expansion." But it's inflation.  It's the same thing.  You're paying more for the same thing.  So capital is being debased.  And the capitalist system without capital, it's like dinner without food.

Simon Mikhailovich, founder of The Bullion Reserve, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, August 6, 2020

Ludwig von Mises on how private property and the free market allows non-conformists to exist

In the political sphere, there is no means for an individual or a small group of individuals to disobey the will of the majority. But in the intellectual field private property makes rebellion possible. The rebel has to pay a price for his independence; there are in this universe no prizes that can be won without sacrifices. But if a man is willing to pay the price, he is free to deviate from the ruling orthodoxy or neo-orthodoxy.

What would conditions have been in the socialist commonwealth for heretics like Kierkegaard, Schopenauer, Veblen, or Freud? For Monet, Courbet, Walt Whitman, Rilke, or Kafka? In all ages, pioneers of new ways of thinking and acting could work only because private property made contempt of the majority's ways possible. Only a few of these separatists were themselves economically independent enough to defy the government into the opinions of the majority. But they found in the climate of the free economy among the public people prepared to aid and support them. What would Marx have done without his patron, the manufacturer Friedrich Engels?

~ Ludwig von Mises, "The Rise of Capitalism," Liberty & Property

Eric Hoffer on business corruption and capitalism

It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labour unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a non-capitalist environment.

~ Eric Hoffer, philosopher (1902–83), New York Times, April 1971

Thomas Sowell on capitalism and discrimination

Capitalism knows only one colour: that colour is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.

~ Thomas Sowell

Samuel Smiles defines the capitalist

The capitalist is merely a man who does not spend all that is earned by work.

~ Samuel Smiles, Thrift (1875)

Joseph Schumpeter on capitalism and creative destruction

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organisational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as US Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation – if I may use that biological term – that incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.

~ Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942)

John Maynard Keynes on capitalism and the invisible hand

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

~ John Maynard Keynes

Alan Meltzer on capitalism and failure

Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin.

~ Alan Meltzer, economist

(Meltzer died May 8, 2017 at age 89.)

David Rockefeller on American capitalism

American capitalism has brought more benefits to more people than any other system in any part of the world at any time in history.

~ David Rockefeller

Jim Paulsen on what the reported killing of OBL says to the rest of the world

We've cut the head of the snake off this organization at the same time that we're almost in the process of continually remaking the Middle East in general, with a breakout towards embracement of democracy, which will ultimately lead to more capitalism... there's just a sense of this thing finally turning in the right direction. And I wonder if a ways from now we'll look back and this will be a flag in the sand where we finally turned the corner, even though it's not necessarily the event that did it, it might be the event that marks when Americans in general and investors in general are feeling better.

This morning America is back, and we don't have to take crap from China or North Korea or anybody. That's a good feeling overall.

~Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist, Wells Capital Management, CNBC's Squawk Box, May 2, 2011

Warren Buffett sees economic recovery, warns against further stimulus

I have enormous respect for Bernanke. I think he played a big part in saving the system a couple years ago. And he knows a lot more economics than I do. But this, sort of, stimulative behavior, I don't think it actually is required now. I think the natural resuscitation capabilities of capitalism are showing themselves and the economy is coming back and I would be very careful about how much medicine I gave it.

~Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, CNBC interview, March 23, 2011

Kevin Duffy on the most redeeming feature of capitalism: failure

Any healthy system needs a way to correct error and remove waste. Nature has extinction, the economy has loss, bankruptcy, liquidation. Interfering in this process lengthens feedback loops. Error and waste are allowed to accumulate, and you ultimately get a massive collapse.

Capitalism is primarily attacked by two groups: utopians who wish to impose a more "compassionate" system, and political capitalists who want to enjoy the fruits of success without bearing the pain of failure. They use the coercion of the state to gain privileges, at the expense of everyone else.

As a country we've become less tolerant of economic failure. The result has been a series of interventions, such as meddling in the credit markets, promoting homeownership and creating a variety of safety nets for investors. Each crisis leads to an even greater crisis. The solution is always greater doses of intervention. So the system becomes increasingly unstable. The interventionists never see the bust coming, then blame it on "capitalism."

~ Kevin Duffy, "Shorting the Economic Recovery," Barron's, December 28, 2009, by Robin Blumenthal

Ayn Rand on the humanitarian nature of capitalism

If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants - you may be sure that whatever their motives, love for man is not one of them.

~ Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal