Atheist Capitalism

A Fool's Party

2005-07-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

“homines natura libertati studere et condicionem servitutis odisse”
– Julius Caesar

As stated earlier, aesthetic ideals that exist outside of man are inhumane because in evaluation they sacrifice man. But how was the philosophy of radical individualism perverted to serve the socialist ideal? How was it that existential philosophy and atheistic thought followed into utopian and socialist idealism? How did the radical individualist belief that man is alive and free become a philosophy wherein he is neither?

As a member of the social machine a radical individualist is a puffed up person who can fancy himself as master of his fellow men, since the State is master of all men. The greater the ego of the individual, the mightier the power of the State, and there is much ego in the maxims of socialism. Maxims such as; “man does not live by bread alone”, when bread is his livelihood.

For a value to be regarded as the highest value it must either be universal or singular. Putting life and living as the highest value singularly is elitism and cowardice. The most singular form of elitism being, “my life has more value than anybody else’s”, also known as a sense of entitlement. If life is the highest value universally then we come to the conclusion that, “all life is infinitely valuable, since my life is infinitely valuable to me”. The misconception in both cases is that the radical individualist holds simply being alive as the highest value, and now we start to unravel the origins of socialist and utopian idealism. Let’s explore further.

Freedom to act, next to being alive, is the other concept that radical individualists regard as sacrosanct. If this is your highest ideal, then socialism can appeal to you by claiming that economic inequality is equal to slavery. As has been noted by many thinkers, wealth gives a person freedom of action that poverty can not afford. A poor man can not do such and such but a rich man can. In a sense the rich man is freer than the poor man. Freedom is purchased through effort which produces wealth. Marx viewed the purchase of labor for production as extortion of labor. This view believes that the investor gets rich from the labor of the worker, and so is free while the worker is enslaved. The industrialist is seen as a slave master instead of someone who offers others the economic opportunity to make themselves free. True extortion of labor can only occur when someone is forced to produce with no chance of escape. A situation of dire poverty can limit a person’s choices to where they are forced to work, but there can be no escape from that work only under two conditions, when the worker has no place to invest his earnings or when the worker makes a wage just sufficient to support himself. This second condition is the one that Marx attacked. He believed that the industrialist will take as much as possible from the worker leaving only what is necessary for him to sustain himself. This is true. Mobility of labor, however, prevents this as the industrialist can get better more productive labor by paying more for it. Economic inequality can only limit the freedom to act when there is some force to prevent investment opportunity or mobility of labor. One such force is government regulation, the bread and butter of the socialist.

So to the atheist and radical individualist who would be easily swayed, utopian and socialist idealism sells itself as equality but it seeks to accomplish this by treating people differently, it claims to set the people free but creates the economic conditions which keep them bound, and it claims to respect life but abolishes the worth and value of it. This would surely be a sick joke, if it were not the farcical fate of many atheists who simply abandoned one religion for another.

Everything is Under Control: economic stagnation and individual freedom

2005-06-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

Economic progress, the source of television, automobiles, wage labor, and cheap consumable goods, according to the Austrian capitalist philosopher and economist Ludwig von Mises, comes from three forces.

Entrepreneurs, who employ capital which has been accumulated by investors to satisfy a want or need of the masses.
Investors, who loan their capital with the expectation of a return in excess of the original loan (the demand that their capital be productive). And,
Technologists, who attempt to perfect methods of production, thus making it cheaper and more efficient.

Thus, economic progress can only be hindered by,

The amount of capital available for allocation, and
Regulations on the ability to move capital freely.

Markets determine the first condition, and governments determine the second. (For the sake of accuracy let’s note that governments can borrow to increase the amount of available capital temporarily, but other than this, all governments can do is regulate and restrict.) The only way that governments can promote economic progress is by deregulation of policies it never should have created in the first place, or offsetting regulation in one area with regulations and taxation in another.

History teaches that in the absence of forced resistance governments when not maximizing power are maintaining it, but never relinquishing it. So, there is a tendency to increase the power of the State over time.

Any increase in technology that makes business more efficient can also be used to make government more efficient so the natural course of economic progress makes the government better at its job, which is wielding power over the individual, the subjugation of the individual to the collective. This increase in the effectiveness of government allows a smaller and smaller group of people to rule over the body politic. This can be considered The Law of Efficiency of Control. Totalitarianism is inevitable.

Or so it would seem, but as government increases its power over the individual it also restricts the free movement of capital and screws up economic progress. Is this a big enough obstacle to prevent totalitarianism?

If this imposition of government control could be supported by the advances already achieved, or advances that can be stolen from other freer governments, then the fact that it screws up economic progress could be mitigated by the ability to maintain the progress achieved. To Hell with the individual, the government can exist without him, and after the fall of capitalism a modern global form of medieval feudalism may be the norm. The individual will exist as a serf within a structure of baronies, tied to whatever fixed capital exists (land factories, mills, etc.) and bought and sold with it, the whole of his endeavor will be subsistence from day to day.

Rand believed that mans mind does not work at the barrel of a gun, essentially that you can not force people to think and create, but there is no need for continual creation. There is no assurance that the individual is the final consideration, or that reason needs to prevail for humans to survive. Indeed, they can survive within irrational traditions, and an economic system simply built around maintenance, for a long time.

Freedom for the individual is inexorably tied to the ability to move capital freely, as they wish, and without hindrance from the government. This is because without economic progress individual freedom can only be achieved by anarchy. Man is either free from government or free within government. There are no other options for the individual.

Novus Ordo Seclorum

2005-06-15T08:24:00.000-05:00

The great undertaking of 1776 is far from complete. There are still people who live in the dark shackles of statist bondage, and the destruction of feudalism, aristocracy, and traditionalism in the West has not lead to the broad freedom of mankind.

What is occurring is not a war of ideas, an ideological struggle, or any other nonsensical military analogy, but the process of soul-craft. The creation of man’s soul and we, as individuals, are losing. When a politician can stand before us and straight-faced offer reasons why some should live off of others against their will, we are losing. There is no collective soul or Holy Ghost. You are number one. The process of soul-craft begins within, and the path is in production not giving, or taking.

The sick live among us, the child molester, the collectivist parasite, the rapist, and priest. Any and all who fuel the great untergehen of mankind, the great condemnation and hatred of man. Much better to invite the wholesale slaying of such sickness, because condemnation of mankind knows no bounds, it is eternal, and turns the whole Earth into a graveyard. Cast them into the fire and justify the value of life in the process.

But what matters such sickness? It does no harm unless it is allowed to rule and exert power over beasts and men. Yet this is the state of things in many regions of the world. Places where the darkness of the past waxes heavy, and nothing; not money, faith or blood, can shock them out of it. The rulers of such attitudes cast a black shadow of tyranny over their subjects, and what matters our little light if it does not penetrate, illuminate, and free those bound in such darkness. What value would we have created then? We should not rest until the whole world is free as we are.

Here, too, religion has become subvert and spirituality is its new flag bearer, once again fixing the game in favor of those who would condemn man to save him. Statism appears to grow ever more necessary as its intention is whitewashed to appear less destructive. The sum total of the collectivization and redistribution game is zero.

What, too, shall we have accomplished if our convictions become another condemnation of man? Better for mankind that we throw ourselves into the aforementioned fire as well, because humans do not need another reason to die rather than live, or to languish rather than create. The ability of man to bare any burden does not mean that we accomplish anything by adding to the burden.

Yet if we have faith in the overall rightness of our ideal, the capitalist ideal, and reject the compromise that socialism, statism, is wrong for the "right reasons" and capitalism, individualism, is simply more “workable”, then the foundation of a future free of tribalism and barbarism can be laid.

The Protection Racket

2005-05-31T01:47:00.000-05:00

The need to hire defenders of property and wardens and prisons is a great expense that increases as the value of life and property increase. Now, introduce people of dire poverty who maybe produce enough value to eat, but not enough to pay for the protection that they receive. Under a government that holds a monopoly on the use of force, some people are going to be providing property protection for others, thus life sustaining value not only includes production for consumption, but also for protection (government). If it is reasonable to expect people to pay for protection in equivalence to the amount of property they own, then it is also reasonable that they only get protection equal to what they pay, but this is not the case. Protection is a binary variable. Either property is protected or it isn’t (amount of damage to property, and value of property may vary though).

If government is to provide universal protection, as it must since Vikings don’t target only your neighbor’s home, those people who can afford to pay for their equal share of protection will be forced to pay for the protection of those who don’t or can’t pay. While paying to have your lazy neighbor defended is different from paying for him to eat, this is still an instance of Welfare Statism. The only just thing in such a situation would be for you to have some claim on what does exist of the neighbor’s property. Automatically this should alarm people because it is essentially a collective claim on private property. Such a claim causes a dilemma. Now no longer does everyone have an equal claim on everybody else (Remember it was zero, or no claim). So, the government protection racket by its very nature is set up to be unjust to the individual. Government can not be separated from such pitfalls, as long as it exists as an entity in and of itself with a tacitly accepted monopoly on the use of force.

un-Natural Right

2005-05-28T21:55:00.000-05:00

The destruction of old ideas is better than their perversion, and Natural Right is such an idea. Natural Right does not exist. All claims to rights must be secured by the individual or for the individual by someone else, by threat of violence. Objectivists don’t like to speculate on the source of property rights, believing only that man is entitled to them. As though they sprung from the head of Zeus and thus should be respected because they are just and logical, but the nature of justice and rights is such that they have to be created.

The desire to escape from violence gives foul birth to the faith that Natural Right can be achieved simply by deference to a system or tradition. This is understandable, and not necessarily based in cowardice. Having obtained property one can not spend all of one’s time defending it. If so, no production of value can be undertaken from the property. Yet putting the source of Natural Right in a system undermines the goal of making rights “natural”, or outside of human creation.

Even if accommodation can be achieved through discourse, the very fact that people have different wills and different agendas means that conflict is inevitable. Force is the final arbitrator of human affairs. Basically, any form of justice regarding property rights exists because there are brave people who are willing to do violence for money, on the behalf of the property owner.

Atheist, Morality?

2005-05-18T12:42:00.000-05:00

Imagine a hypothetical example in a small universe consisting of only a street and three houses owned by Cain, Abel, and Bill. Within a capitalist system all three of them have a written contract called the law which states that none of the three may harm another's property, remember individual property rights is the basis of capitalism. Happily they live until Cain decides one day to slay Abel. This is a most blatant violation of individual property rights and Cain, for breaking the contract, forfeits the rights granted by the contract. Cain can then be slain by Bill in return, and the breach of Abel's individual rights avenged. Note that Bill is simply enforcing the contract and is not violating it by slaying Cain. What this all comes down to is the fact that there needn't be any reason for Cain not to kill Abel other than that the law forbids it. When asking why that law exists, it is possible to point to the respect for property rights.

Saying that life itself does not have any inherent value or goal is not the same as saying that the natural state of man is amoral. The natural state of man, whatever that means, is amoral in relation to an aesthetic ideal only if that ideal lives outside of man as an individual. Man is moral when it comes to dealing with man because morality is a human constructed system for dealing with man. It was only after man was viewed as a "problem" that the nature of morality as a human, not godly, construct became clear.

Morality as a human construct is nothing more than a system of rules we use for dealing with each other. It dictates how we are to treat each other, and everyone is supposed to follow the rules. So let's examine what type of morality would be best suited for enslaving the strong to the weak. Such a morality would have to,

have more restrictions on the strong than the weak (ex. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak.)
expound equality in the name of the aesthetic ideal to eliminate the concept of the strong being different from the weak (ex. We are all equal sinners in God's eyes.)
and, promote the idea that life is simply a process of staying alive, not the process of sustaining life, which implies the necessity of creating some value (ex. All life is sacred.)

Now examine the types of restrictions placed on the individual by religious systems. Religious restrictions on the individual come in two forms, those that have a logical underpinning in protection of the individual and the individual's property, such as "thou shall not steal", and those that simply serve to promote the religion and make the individual servile, such as "thou shall have no gods before me". Morality based on individual property rights is the immutable basis of Democratic Capitalism, but individual freedom requires that moral restrictions based solely in servility be separated from government. Indeed, the logical foundation of capitalism in personal property rights not the religious moral one is the source of individual freedom. The common criticism is that personal property rights come from religious morality as a foundation for the concept of natural rights, but the concept of natural rights can exist without a religious morality. Furthermore, it is possible to abandon religion, and keep a morality that is respectful of human rights because the logical basis of capitalism, personal property rights, states that it is unjust to harm another individual's property, including their body. The natural right in such a case comes from placing the aesthetic ideal in man.

Nietzsche Part 3: Rejection of Institutions

2005-05-16T00:47:00.000-05:00

Nietzsche conceptually separated the democratic institution from the struggle to form it, and individual freedom was merely the background ideology. The struggle is good, but the ultimate end, the democratic institution, was scornfully labeled by Nietzsche as degenerate, hedonistic, and the eventual tyranny of the weak over the strong. This occurs because given a system where all individuals have an equal right to express their individual Will to Power; weak people will tend toward collectivization, and a collective Will.

Although, this rejection of democracy is determined by whether or not one believes that the majority of people can create life-sustaining value, Nietzsche viewed the will to a system, even a democratic one, as a lack of integrity, since all systems are a symptom of the degeneration toward collective Will. These systems lead to the degeneration of the warrior spirit which affirms life. Remember, Nietzsche asserted that it is danger that leads to reverence for life, not the comfort and safety of monks. Basically, that which is unchallenged is not valuable because it can not react under pressure to create value. This is the same principle that applies to life-sustaining value.

Is anarchy preferable to institution? We might say so, because all institutions suppress individual Will to Power, and whether or not you believe in innate strength, as Rand did, or strength simply as resistance to adversity, as Nietzsche tells us, this systematic suppression differs from suppression of the individual Will within Nietzschean concepts of strength and weakness, where the root of suppression is based in another’s Will to Power. Institutions are suppression of the Will based on some past Will which forged the institution. Therefore, individual weakness is allowed to propagate because responsibility for action, which lies with the Will, is alleviated and delegated by tradition. The leaders of the institution lead not from strength, but simply dole out favors. Leadership positions are conferred as such favors, and a French style aristocracy grows from unchallenged tradition.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche states, “Overcome yourself even in your neighbor: and a right that you can rob you should not accept as a gift.” For democracy to work properly, every person must “rob” their individual rights from the collective. This is another way of saying that only the strong can remain free.

This is characteristic of Nietzsche, who believed in building his house as far into the ocean as possible. The idea being that if humans are going to “fly”, i.e. reject intense gravity of the soul, it is important to let go of that which keeps us grounded in the past. Depending on how radical and far one wants to carry this idea, the now can be rejected leading to the “madness” of the truly free spirit. (It is important to note that, according to Nietzsche, if any idea is carried to far it becomes a burden.)

Furthermore, this stance differs from that of the pragmatist. Pragmatists carry the burden of their rejection of idealism as a new anti-idealistic idealism, and simply give up in favor of cynicism and contempt. This contempt is an expression of what Nietzsche termed the great going-under of man. Instead of soaring, the spirit clutches onto the last piece of ground available, utilitarianism. That which does the most “good” for the most people, is hailed as the best course of action, and is used as a mason’s tool to mortar the individual will to the collective.

Nietzsche Part 2: The Überman

2005-05-10T12:07:00.000-05:00

The überman as concept is not a man in the literal sense, but a type of person toward which to aspire. It is the virtuous person. This virtuous person varies from different interpretations of virtue, but Nietzsche established his concept of virtue as that which is life affirming. By differences in position in the conflict of Wills, the strong and the weak differ also in their concepts of virtue.

Virtue for the strong is that which makes an abundance of life sustaining value, while virtue for the weak is that which enslaves the strong to their purpose, that which distributes the life sustaining value of the strong. Thus virtue as defined by the weak is self sacrifice.

Self-sacrifice is enslavement to the purposes of the collective Will to Power of the weak. This is why the conceived “New Socialist Man” is not the same as the Nietzschean überman, as the left Nietzscheans declare. The “New Socialist Man” is the Christlike slave who must rely on an outside source, such as God or some other ideal, for his power. This socialist man comes from an aspiration toward a virtue based on kindness. The Nietzschean überman, on the other hand, is an aspiration toward the full expression of the individual Will to Power, not the aspiration toward kindness or cruelty. Kindness and cruelty grow out of the expression of power, thus aspiration toward the full expression of the individual Will to Power is in accordance with the whole of atheist law, do as you will.

Nietzsche Part 1: War as Metaphor

2005-05-07T08:34:00.000-05:00

Academics, seldom in actual conflict, are prone to using the analogies of warfare to illustrate their points, and the “mad” German philosopher was no exception. Such comparisons in Nietzsche simply mean, as he points out several times, that people should become as warriors, respectful and enamored of life, not that life should become or be viewed as war. Struggle, war, is understood by the warrior as an integral and necessary part of the whole.

According to Nietzsche, all struggles in life stem from the Will to Power, and the most enduring conflict is that between the strong and the weak. Many people have interpreted this proclamation as a justification for Social Darwinism, but we are not talking about the weak in literal physical and economic terms. Rather, the weak are those that are too weak in spirit, passion, and will to carry on a self-sustaining life. (Note: those that cannot carry on a self-sustaining life are not by that misfortune alone considered weak.) Under an existential interpretation of Nietzsche, a person must essentially choose weakness.

The weak are those that elect to live off of the good will of others, as opposed to literal physical and economic strength, which exist in a continuum. As children we are all literally weak, and are forced to live off of the good will of our parents. Extended old age is a similar state, where we are forced to live off of our children.

Here is where there is a conflict of Wills. The weak, lacking in the desire to sustain their own life, must press into service the strong for this purpose. The establishment of this type of parasitism, according to Nietzsche, has lead to religion, and the concept of guilt. Most recently, however, it has become socialism.

How to Skin a Cat: individual value within atheist capitalism

2005-05-04T00:25:00.000-05:00

In traditionalist lines of thought the search for intrinsic worth in human beings, hum-animism, is vital for keeping a society humane. To examine human worth is to naturally assume that some humans have more intrinsic worth than others, so the traditionalist comes to the conclusion that humans all have equal worth which is immeasurable. Immeasurable worth must be divine in origin, because if the worth of the human comes from anywhere but an infinite source, such as a god, it can be quantified and measured comparatively.

So far so good, but imagine that we remove this intrinsic worth. Humans are not all born with equal abilities. The removal of this intrinsic infinite worth means that we all start at the same place, zero. Every person is not a star. We are essentially all equally worthless. Worth can only be measured in terms of function, so it is logical to examine what type of worth that capitalism places on the human. What type of function does the person perform to produce worth?

The Objectivists have attempted to tackle this particular concern from their unique atheist perspective. The ‘enlightened self-interest’ of Ayn Rand was to promote a philosophy which boiled down human worth in a capitalist system to being essentially determined by the system. This is a black mark on an otherwise sound philosophy. The thought goes, as a capitalist, I am free to perform any function I want, and you are free to decide whether you want that service or not. If my function is in great demand, then I am very valuable. Thus in effect my worth is determined by the needs and desires of society as a whole. Sound familiar anyone? It should, it is so close to how socialism determines individual worth it must simply be wrong by proxy. Socialism of course fixes the problem of worth so that it remains fixed, and the individual is not free to select among goods produced or services rendered, the paternal government worries about those things so you don’t have to.

So if we all have zero intrinsic value, how can we unite this idea with one where value is not determined by society? Radical individualism fills this gap nicely by giving the individual responsibility for their individual worth. Practically, individual worth is determined by the forces of the market, but the individual determines what, and how much, they produce. In addition, markets are created in the minds of people and since people have various and ever changing needs, individual value is an ever changing constant. Simply put, I decide what I produce, you decide what you want, and either of those things can change at any time. This ever changing quality makes it impossible to measure a person’s worth with any sort of utilitarian calculus.

But what about people who for whatever reason cannot change to create self supporting value? Widows and disabled people are often held up as examples. What happens to these people in a society where someone must be able to produce to have value? As noted earlier, value is entirely created by the market, but attempts to calculate value are only handy from minute to minute, and are useless for determining the future situation. The existentialist point of view mandates that these people be viewed as living off of the good will of others. While it would be a mistake to apply the concept of worth to justify mistreatment of such people, it would be unjust to expect their survival to be assured at the expense of others who are producing value for themselves. In essence, they are forced to live off the good will of others, but should not be allowed to live at the expense of others who do not wish to contribute this good will. Good will is after all, good will.

Illuminating the Masses

2005-05-02T18:02:00.000-05:00

“The most unreported fact of our era is the death of socialism.”
–Daniel Bell

Socialism is religion. The belief in an aesthetic ideal that exists outside of man, whether directly, as in faith in a utopian future, or indirectly, the faith that there is a higher moral good to which we have a duty to aspire, is the central ingredient of religion. The aesthetic ideal of socialism is one of collective good. In their attempts to promote the collective good and chase their aesthetic ideal socialists annihilate man. They destroy mankind as a concept by destroying the concept of individual worth and individual rights. Anyone who has ever lived under socialist rule does not need a description of the limits that socialism places on personal freedom. Socialism like religion requires that the individual subsume his or her worth to that of the aesthetic ideal.

By placing its aesthetic ideal in mankind, isn’t capitalism just another religious variant? The answer is, yes and no. A detailed Nietzschean examination of the concept will yield valuable insights, but suffice it to say that any ideal that does not make mankind its central tenant will be inhumane in practice.

Socialism may believe in a collective good but attempts to reach the collective good by acting as though economics were a zero sum game. In its attempt to make sure that nobody wins, it makes everybody lose. Economics is not a zero sum game. There are no winners and losers in trade, but there is in extortion. Socialism is extortion; it is the taking, by force, the fruits of one person’s labor to distribute to the whole. For those of you who understand game theory, saying that there are a limited number of total resources is not the same as saying that in the attempt to gather those resources there must be a winner and a loser. When all of the resources are exhausted, there will be winners and losers, but this is where the intrinsic philosophy of socialism differs from that of capitalism. To interpret these facts in socialist terms one must believe in a world where the nature and form of resources is unchanging. Capitalism is nothing more than a means by which to take advantage of change in the nature of resources. Under a barter system, the resources themselves are traded; under a system of capital a unit with fixed value (money) is used. Money is the value of stored labor energy, thus resources can change without affecting trade.

The moral social contract of a capitalist system is not based in religious rights, but one truly cooperative idea, the idea of individual property rights. This simple contract consists of;

Each individual has a right to own individual property which they can do whatever they want with, as long as it does not violate the contract.
No individual may harm another’s property.

All Democratic Capitalism relies on this one social contract based around one human invention, the concept of personal property. Ideally, it is government’s sole purpose to enforce this contract as arbitrator. Thus it is no surprise that disregard of this concept has lead to great abuses of government.

Like religion, socialism is dead but still kicking. In the United States socialism lives in the hearts of suburban college students who want a nifty way to be counter-culture and save the world from itself. It lives in the minds of politicians who wish to expand government control as a way of protecting society from itself. Democratic Socialists believe that socialist ideas can be integrated into our Democratic Capitalist system and make it more humane, but a small injustice is still an injustice and a small amount of a bad idea is still a bad idea. If the government forcibly took the labor of and exploited a minority of people, it would be understood to be unjust. Is it wrong for everyone to expect equal protection from extortion? Government should not play Robin Hood. The property of some should not be legally seized for distribution to others. Anyone who wishes to heal the world is susceptible to the traps of socialist ideology, but mankind does not need saved from itself by any aesthetic ideal or its purveyors. Trust that which does not purport to be your salvation.

Let us not lament the death of traditionalist thought or socialism, let us simply document it and move forward because it can safely be said that the future belongs to the new. This site will elaborate on the themes here, and the philosophies behind what can be considered true, or Atheist Capitalism. Do not be a functionary of the social machine.