Yellow Dog [Part 13]

Marx Wrote: “I wonder if you'd feel that way when the roads were no longer repaired or had to pay toll at all the private roads or if the parks were no longer maintained or charged entrance fees or if the police were for hire only and if you’re poor, no crimes would be solved or if the fire department decided to haggle with you outside your burning house, don’t have the money? Let it burn. I wonder if you'd feel that way if you were having a stroke and your wife had to strike a deal with the paramedics before they'd render any care. Would you feel that way when the poorest children couldn’t get an education and ended up either trapped in a life of poverty, crime or ill health because they couldn’t afford an education or health care either.”


Marx,

Infrastructure, parks, and paramedics...

Let me begin with a few of your own words...Marx! Don’t believe ANYTHING you have ever read about capitalism or capitalists! It’s all lies!!!

Here is a simple rule I’d like you to keep in mind: If there is even one dollar of government money in play, what you are witnessing is NOT capitalism.

Have you ever read the story of the great railroad man, James J. Hill? Back in Lincoln’s time when political entrepreneurs [the people you call “Robber Barons”] stormed Washington D.C. to get their cut of the tax-payer money the government was giving out to anybody who said they could build a railroad, James J. Hill refused government money, gathered a few partners together, took out a loan from a private bank, bought the failed Minnesota line of the government-subsidized Northern Pacific railroad [after battling the government for five years in court], and built the Great Northern Railroad. Because Hill was risking his own money on the project, he built his railroad most efficiently with his customer in mind. He knew he would only survive if he built a railroad that served the people who paid his bills, the farmers [for example] who needed the railroad to move their products to market. Hill’s Great Northern was the “best constructed and most profitable of all the world’s major railroads.” [DiLorenzo] It is the ONLY transcontinental railroad that never went bankrupt.

James J. Hill and J.D. Rockefeller were not Robber Barons, Marx. Robber Barons are the “political entrepreneurs,” people who seek government contracts and federal dollars so that they can....er...make a ton of money. Capitalists, like Hill and Rockefeller, don’t take a dime from politicians or taxpayers. They risk their own money. They have the incentive to be efficient, to serve the consumers who pay their bills, to pay their most productive workers well, because it is their livelihood on the line. Hill’s and Rockefeller’s employees were the best paid in their respective industries. Neither EVER had a workers’ strike while they chaired their own company. Consumers only benefited from their activities as prices in both markets dropped. Political entrepreneurs risk nothing. They take taxpayer money: they have no incentive to be efficient. They’re not railroad men or oil men...they are men who want to make a bunch of money. They, and their political friends in Washington, make a corrupt bundle providing substandard services. When they fail, there are no consequences. Every government-built railroad in the United States failed within 40 years of its construction. Government subsidized airlines today are equally disastrous. Political entrepreneurs are just about all we have left today [except most small businesses]. These people are propped up by both Dems and Reps in Washington, and taxpayers are made to cover their inevitable losses, BUT THEY ARE NOT CAPITALISTS!

If 874 and 836 in Miami had been built by Hill or Rockefeller or any true capitalist, your toll would probably be a quarter and the roads would be better kept. Last time I drove to work and back in Miami, I paid $4.00...average speed? About 20 mph.

Parks. Hey, I heard about this amazing private park. It’s so much fun and so well kept. People from all over the world come to visit it. Every year the capitalists who run the place open the doors to thousands of poor and sick kids who otherwise would never be able to afford to go. There’s very little crime there. In fact, I don’t think there has ever been a murder. It’s called Disney World.

Paramedics. Last time I checked both public and private hospitals offer ambulance services, but that’s beside the point. The point is: laissez-faire capitalists do not argue that there is no proper function for government. As I have said previously, there are legitimate functions for government and taxpayers must pay for these services. Government has a responsibility to protect our individual rights, including our lives, our liberty, and our property. The Defense Department, the Justice Department, police and fire fighters are all legitimate government services.

If we raised our children with the understanding that they have no right to anything they haven’t earned, we’d have far less crime. Of this I am certain.

Donn