The University of Capitalism

David Musick (David_Musick@msn.com)
Sun, 20 Oct 96 20:25:57 UT


Suresh Naidu asks, "why should someone be able to force others to work for
them, by offering them the "choice", between starvation and slavery."

Well, let's analyze your question, and the answer will be fairly obvious. If
someone only has the option of starving, which isn't much of a choice at all
and someone else comes in to offer them the option of working like a slave and
living rather than starving and dying; now the person has a choice; before
they were going to starve anyway; that was their only option. But now they
have a way out of that; they can work like a slave rather than starve. Then,
maybe they'll look for opportunities to increase their standard of living even
further. They are making progress.... it used to be that they would just
starve, now they at least have people giving them the option of working very
hard and living rather than painfully starving and dying. And maybe as they
work and get a little more skilled and a little more educated, they'll become
smart enough and skilled enough to figure out how to take care of themselves a
little better and maintain their own existence, by their own work.

This is all about the education of Humanity. The whole world is the learning
place of Humanity, and through trial and error and just playing around, we are
learning how to take care of ourselves better and become more successful at
fulfilling our desires. Adult humans in the world are really not much
different from children playing on their school playground. People need to be
educated and learn how to take care of themselves. This is the highest form
of charity: to educate someone to be capable of achieving their own desires,
through their own intelligence and skill.

The problems of the world are mostly caused out of human ingnorance and
stupididy. Most people don't really know how to take care of themselves
competantly. They haven't figured out how to secure a reliable food source
very well. They haven't figured out how to shelter themselves very well, and
they haven't figured out how to educate themselves and each other very well.
Their basic problem is that they are uneducated, in the sense that they don't
know how to adequately take care of themselves. If the poor people had the
knowledge and skills that the rich people have developed in rich countries,
then they could build their own cities and their own factories and become rich
themselves.

But how can they be educated in that? They need experience in running complex
orgnizations and machines. They need to work in these business places, so
they can understand how to run one themselves.

This is why I support the "sweat-shops" in poor countries. Yes, the people
have pretty bleak options: either work like a slave, or starve. But, at least
they have the option of not starving now, rather than just starving by
default. The "sweat-shops" give the people the option of not starving;
without the "sweat-shops", the people would just starve as the natural result
of not having enough food. Now they have the option of securing food rather
than starving, but they have to work really hard to secure that food. As they
become more skilled and more productive, they will be able to secure food more
easily, without having to work so much any more. Then they can use their work
and creativity to find ways to satisfy their other desires, now that they have
satisfied their desire for a secure food supply. It takes time; it's a long
learning process. The western culture has spent thousands of years figuring
it out. It's taken a long time and a lot of education for the Western culture
to learn how to take care of itself so well. It's going to take a while to
transmit our knowledge to other cultures, so they can gain the knowledge and
skills required to take care of themselves better, so that they can create
more opportunities for themselves, so they no longer have only the option of
starving, they have many options for everyone, like our culture does.

"Sweat-shop 101" is one of the introductory courses in the University of
Capitalism. The students start out as starving, miserable people, and they
learn the basics of hard work, with the resulting benefit of being able to
live.

Then the students move into a higher level class, when they are ready. Then
some of them use their skills to work at other jobs that require more skill
and are more productive. Then they can spend less time working and be more
productive in that time, as they become more efficient and intelligent. It's
a very large educational process; that is basically what Capitalism is, an
educational process. We are learning how to take care of ourselves and
satisfy our desires more effectively. Capitalism is a very good teacher,
because it keeps adjusting itself to the needs of the students as each person
is only given tasks they can handle, and if the student wants more, they must
discipline their minds more fully to become more competant in satisfying their
desires. If the students want to learn how to run large, complex,
self-maintaining organizations, such as a business, they can start their own
business, if they have learned the preliminary material to starting one's own
business, which include knowing how businesses operate, which includes working
for a business. If they are capable of maintaining a business then that
becomes apparant to them as they bring money in (money represents the means to
fulfull one's desires), If they are not capable of carrying out their
business, they will have learned some important lessons in the process of
trying, and they can try again, in a modified way, and keep trying until they
have mastered the business of taking care of themselves and satisfying their
own desires.

These poor countries are learning, and going from the starvation stage to the
wealthy stage often requires going through the "sweat-shop" phase. Once the
people on earth are educated beyond the "sweat-shop" phase, "sweat-shops"
won't exist any more. If the people were more educated and capable, they
wouldn't have to rely on someone who offers only horrible working conditions;
they will be able to take care of themselves. But the education must be
allowed to run it's course; don't expect any over-night miracles; the poor are
all becoming wealthier than they were. There is a reason some people are rich
while others are poor; it is because the poor haven't learned how to take care
of themselves as well as the rich have (in general, but there are exceptions)

If you really want to help the poor, educate them. Private property is a
fiction, used by the University of Capitalism to help develop responsibility
in its students. The students must learn how to manage their own property.
The notion of private property seems like a very good learning tool, because
people seem naturally inclined to want to own things, and are thus motivated
to increase their skills and intelligence to aquire even more that they find
of value. It is a good tool for motivating people to progress.

Capitalism is a community education program, working on a very large scale.
To succeed in Capitalism, you must keep increasing your level of skill and
discipline; that is the nature of the game. And it is a game. The
free-market system is all a big game; it is a game designed to build mental
and physical discipline. To play the game well, you must keep improving
yourself, and people seem naturally inclined to fulfill their own desires,
which is what playing the game teaches you to do.

If you wish to make changes to this fine educational facility, please direct
your comments to the Administration of the University of Capitalism, the
people who choose what gets bought and what doesn't, the consumers, the common
people, everyone. If they all wish to change and follow your plan, then that
is their choice, and that is what will happen, but tell the Administration
about it and let them make their choice, whether to buy your idea or not. But
don't try to force people to use your ideas when they don't want to. If you
want people to be giving and hard-working for the benefit of the community,
then present your ideas to people about how to do this and the rewards from
doing this. If they like your idea, they'll implement it.

So, use persuasion to get your ideas enacted, not coercion; let people decide
for themselves how they will live their own lives and what games they play.
Anarchy is not about forcing other people to stop being coercive, it's about
educating people so they understand the destructive consequences of coervice
behavior and then choose *of their own free will* to stop living a coercive
and destructive life.

- David Musick

- David Musick