Richard Wolff: On Bernie Sanders and Socialism

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. Professor Wolff, like Bernie, is 'just what the doctor ordered', but it

Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2015, 10:55 AM - Edit history (1)

was disappointing to hear him lump in Adam Smith with the likes of the Baroness Lady Carboard, whose 'bon mot' - which, inadvertently, it evidently was - that there is no such thing as society was apparently a quote from none other than Inayn Rand.

The fact is that Smith's disparagement of the merchants of his day seemed to know no bounds. Today, he would have said that they should be electronically tagged and bugged, because as he said, even when enjoying a cup of coffee with each other, they couldn't resist conspiring against the common good, e.g. by fixing prices.

So, evidently, that business about the Hidden Hand Prof Wolff alluded is a misinterpretation, at least an over-interpretation, of his words. What he meant was surely that just as street-fighters are used as infantry and shock troops in wars, in the commercial wars - which they always are - you don't get rid of merchants because many are animals (not meant a a slur against street-fighters or grunts) ; you use their dubious skills, albeit ensuring they stay within the law. What you do do, also, is keep a very, very close eye on them and their activities, as they are natural recidivists.

It is the precept framed by St Augustine of Hippo, that grace builds upon nature. A crucial weakness of atheist Communist ideologues, (ensuing inevitably from their failure to acknowledge their debt to Judaeo-Christian scripture), who wanted to collectivize everything, while people understandably could not trust politicians at any level sufficiently to hand over what little they and their parents had managed to scrape together.

In fact, Smith's attitude to income tax, perfect common sense, was just short of communist in nature. He asserted that people should pay according to their income. If that happened, few people would pay any tax at all just the billionaire class and the like. (ALL taxes other than tax on income should be abolished, imo, and, by the sound of it, he would have thought the same).