Capitalist punishment

Everyone should read Vivek Ramaswamy's latest book

Vivek Ramaswamy’s latest book exposes the ESG scam in detail, laying the table for readers to understand how Blackrock, Vanguard and Fidelity rip off investors, pillage pension funds, and make their owners billions at the expense of the retail investor and the American economy. It is a great read and, sadly, right on the money.

ESG is an acronym for Environment, Social and Governance and has become a popular leftist slogan for “re-imagining” the corporation to make companies less about profits and more about “social justice”. The playbook for ESG is a modern version of the Communist Manifesto published by Karl Marx about the time of the Russian revolution and, like most leftist nonsense of its era, likely not even written by Marx himself but in all probability the work of Friedrich Engels. Who knows?

For well over a century, the concept that the state can manage the economy better than its citizens through a centralist government that owns or controls the means of production and an authoritarian cabal in its leadership has captivated the minds of citizens struggling to make ends meet and worked nowhere on Earth at any time in the history of socialism. But it won’t die out, it has made a massive comeback in Western democracies led by leftist politicians who seek power by promoting the idea that people can get something for nothing, and are “entitled” to a “fair share” without making any contribution or having any personal responsibility for anything.

Universities and schools across North America and in Britain are staffed by faculties that are predominantly socialists, often outright Marxists, and Conservative voices face opprobrium, career penalties, and in the case of students, lower grade scores based not on the quality of their work but based on their political views. This is a disgraceful situation and needs a systematic remedy. In many ways, academics play a role similar to judges in our judicial system in that they facilitate debate and dialogue about important issues and to encourage an open debate and full discussion need to remain neutral on the topics discussed. Instead, our schools openly promote left leaning values like ESG, DEI, the toxic and irresponsible “climate change” narrative which outright misleads students on the implications of the laws of physics, all in an attempt to rally support for socialism.

Ramaswamy, a voice of reason, provides clear evidence and cogent arguments that point out what is actually going on and the dangers it poses to a free market economy.

Motivated by a desire to narrow income and wealth inequality, the policies that socialists embrace widen both. The U.S. income and wealth inequality measured by the Gini coefficient ranks about equal to China - one a capitalist country and one Communist. But the most dramatic differences in wealth and income distribution are in tyrannies - again measured by the Gini coefficient - with the worst outcomes present in the dictatorships of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Despite the Canadian Liberals railing against income and wealth inequality, that is barely present in Canada with a Gini coefficient of 31.7 which puts Canada at number 125 on the list of 168 countries and in the middle of the pack with respect to European nations. Income and wealth inequality are the natural outcome of the differing skills, education, effort, entrepreneurship and good or bad fortune of citizens in free market economies. Sensible policies that provide publicly funded pensions, health care, education, infrastructure combine with a reasonable progressive income tax system to ensure a more or less even playing field with a great deal of support for those less fortunate, and in that respect Canada works well.

In United States, political corruption (more often found in the Democratic party, exemplified by lifetime politician Nancy Pelosi accumulating over $200 million while serving; ex-President Bill Clinton amassing a fortune well over $100 million; and, ex-President Barack Obama netting a cool $70 million or so, none of which can be traced to the relatively meagre salaries each received in their public service) has exacerbated inequality while Democrats pretend to want to solve that gap. By contrast, ex-president Donald Trump (a target of corruption claims by Democrats) took no salary while in office, left office with less wealth than when he was elected, and made his money the old-fashioned way, by earning it.

The socialist elite who gather annually in Davos at meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF) are privileged socialists whose billions came from policies put in place by Democrats who in turn received millions in donations from those billionaires in an unholy alliance that turns capitalism on its head by enriching the powerful rather than the innovative or those with the courage to take business risks. In his earlier book, Woke, Inc., Ramaswamy details the nature of the relationships between Democrats and billionaires and it is not pleasant reading to learn that CEO’s of major corporations like Microsoft, Google, Netflix, NVidia, Amazon, Apple or Meta kow-tow to China and support Democrat pro-China policies since much of their wealth depends on imports from, sales to, or outsourcing to China. The chickens will come home to roost when China decides to execute its long-standing “One China” policy and take direct control of Taiwan, which seems more likely than not.

America’s love affair with socialism will have drastic consequences for the world’s largest economy. It is often hard to distinguish Kamala Harris statements about how she would regulate markets from hard line socialism. Here is a quote from a 2019 speech she made, which focused on drug costs.

While the comment is narrowly focused on certain prescription drug costs it points to state control over prices and seizure of private property if suppliers don’t “play by our rules” as she calls it. Call it whatever you want, it is state enforced price controls.

In 2019, Harris co-sponsored Bernie Sanders bill mandating “medicare for all” and a one-payer system, but when she saw that was unpopular with voters, she modified her stance to a modified system where private and public medicare systems both operated, as reported by CNN. Her statements that she would ban “fracking” became a claim she would not “ban fracking” when it became clear that winning Pennsylvania was key to winning the White House, so she shifted her feet. What is clear is that Harris’ policies are “shape-shifters” adjusting to appeal to the electorate but without being pinned down on what legislative action she would actually take if elected President.

In my opinion, Harris will say anything she thinks will get her elected. The promised public interview and debates with Donald Trump should make interesting viewing as she tries to thread the needle between the far left policies she embraced to become Vice President and those she pretends to support to get elected President.

I think she is likely to win the November election, and I can’t imagine a worse outcome for the American economy.