Doesn't this make you wonder just what it would take for people to actually reject the moral premises of altruism? Was the formation of the US just an accident brought about by reaction to some terrible actions of an oppressive monarchy? Was it due to being in essentially inhospitable and unforgiving lands that made people feel independent? Is it the very success of the USA that breeds the unthinking desire for socialism ? Ayn Rand thought that AS would wake people up, but that wasn't right. It didn't wake people up to the horrors of collectivism, or by the time many people read it their minds were already corrupted. Interesting questions, the answers to which will affect the world for a long time

Don't count on them rejecting socialism just because they see failure all around them. With the invalid moral premises of altruism and collectivism they continue to pursue socialism while blaming their misery on those who don't.

Adam Smith's moral theory was altruistic and not acceptable.

+100

Slamming apologists for usury may appear extreme. But tolerance of evil is not merciful to the next victim.
Any one who can do "Future Worth" calculations and not recognize the inherent insanity of usury is worthy of slamming.

In simple terms, the old saw, "Neither a lender nor borrower be" applies. You're addressing the dangers inherent in indebtedness, while I was referring to investor-based transactions. The investor is party to risk, gambling on project success, while a lender (usurer, if you prefer) expects payment regardless of outcome. I agree that avoidance of indebtedness is the preferred path. Slamming Adam Smith for recognizing such transactions take place seems a bit extreme.

I think what surprises me is the depth of their belief in socialism in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the complete failure of it. The country is sitting in the dark this week because there is no electricity and Maduro still is alive !. Although I hope it doesn't have to get that bad here before people reject socialism, but I fear it will

It shouldn't amaze you. The Venezuelan culture still accepts the collectivist ethics of sacrifice of the individual that led to the first round of socialism. People are doing this all over the world. They keep promoting collectivism-statism as a moral ideal and when it fails, again and again, they keep pursuing it, again and again. The collectivists still regard the Soviet Union as moral ideal that was only beaten down by the "capitalists". If people do not reject the mystic-altruist ethics they will keep making the same destructive mistake. Mistakes of that magnitude are not made innocently. They ask for it.

Much of Adam Smith's economic observations were correct. His moral theory contradicts a capitalist society.

Thank You! -- j
.

There's a very good reason why I advise anyone to run like hell from limited partnerships, which work very much like the Venetian model. If the borrower risks nothing, keeping capital and assets if the venture fails, where's his share of the risk? Endless scams have been based on this con, bilking the gullible out of their hard-earned capital. You have a very distorted definition of usury.

It's important to remember that Adam Smith's other work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, was predecessor to his more well known work. It laid the moral precepts on which his concept of the capitalist marketplace was based. Without moral bounds, Smith assumed, the marketplace couldn't work as it should. In that sense, he very much conceived of capitalism as a moral social system.

AMERICA VERSUS THE WORLD
...
Property rights
...
The world’s view of private property :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_...
“....Private property is a legal designation of the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity; and collective property, which is owned by a group of non-governmental entities.”

A non-government legal entity can own “private property,” as distinguished from government ownership of “public property.”

America’s view of private property:

"PRIVATE PROPERTY - As protected from being taken for public uses, is such property as belongs absolutely to an individual, and of which he has the exclusive right of disposition. Property of a specific, fixed and tangible nature, capable of being in possession and transmitted to another, such as houses, lands, and chattels."
- - - Black's Law dictionary, sixth ed., p.1217.

"OWNERSHIP - ... Ownership of property is either absolute or qualified. The ownership of property is absolute when a single person has the absolute dominion over it... The ownership is qualified when it is shared with one or more persons, when the time of enjoyment is deferred or limited, or when the use is restricted. "
- - -Black's Law dictionary, sixth ed., p. 1106

LAND. ... The land is one thing, and the ESTATE in land is another thing, for an ESTATE in land is a time in land or land for a time.
- - -Black's Law dictionary, sixth ed., p.877
. . .
Land held with qualified ownership is estate (aka "real estate").
Land absolutely owned by an individual is private property.

NOTE: Only in American law is private property absolutely owned.
In other nations, "private property" only refers to property not owned by government.

Restating: Qualified ownership aka "estate" is not constitutionally protected, as is private property.

Since 1933, private property has not existed for most Americans due to the STATE OF EMERGENCY and confiscation of all lawful money by St. Roosevelt and his glorious socialist minions.

...
Adam Smith was a shill for usurers (abominations)

http://www.monetary.org/a-brief-histo...
Adam Smith’s 1776 WEALTH OF NATIONS, capitalism’s “bible,” put aside these earlier rationales, and justified usury in economic terms:
“- - - The interest or the use of money…is the compensation which the borrower pays to the lender, for the profit which he has an opportunity of making by the use of the money. Part of that profit naturally belongs to the borrower who runs the risk and takes the trouble of employing it; and part to the lender, who affords him the opportunity of making this profit.”

This is how interest is popularly viewed today. But Smith overlooked that the lender gets his profit even when the enterprise loses [by confiscating collateral]; he ignored the successful business structures used by Venice for centuries, where the lender’s return was based on actual profits. Smith’s endorsement did not remove the stigma against usury; and the debate continued.

Jeremy Bentham’s IN DEFENCE OF USURY (1787) created the present mis-definition of usury as: “The taking of a greater interest than the law allows… (or) the taking of greater interest than is usual.”
He dismissed the harmful effects of usury on the common man: “Simple people will be robbed more in buying goods than in borrowing money.”
...
These two influences among many were instrumental in eradicating public resistance to the abomination of usury.

Ayn Rand did not narrowly use the term 'capitalism' as a kind of commerce. "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Chapter 1, "What is Capitalism?".

It is important to understand how and why Ayn Rand advocated capitalism as a social system based on an ethics* of rationality and egoism. She was not a conservative. It is not enough to denounce "cronyism".

In the August 1971 issue of _The Objectivist, she included the following three items in the regular feature "From The Special 'Horror File'":

Martin Luther (1483-1546)
"Cursed and condemned is every kind of life lived and sought for selfish profit and good; cursed are all works not done in love. But they are done in love when they are directed wholeheartedly, not toward selfish pleasure, profit, honor, and welfare but toward the profit, honor, and welfare of others." Cf. What Luther Says; An Anthology, ed. E. M. Plass (3 vols., St. Louis, Concordia, 1959), lii, 1282.

Adam Smith (1723-1790)
"The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular order or society. He is at all times willing, too, that the interest of this order or society should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state or sovereignty of which it is only a subordinate part: he should, therefore, be equally willing that all those inferior interests should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the universe, to the interest of that great society of all sensible and intelligent beings of which God himself is the immediate administrator and director." The Theory of Moral Sentiments, in Adam Smith's Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. H. W. Schneider (N.Y., Harper Torchbooks, 1970), p. 249.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
"It is as much a part of our scheme as of M. Comte's, that the direct cultivation of altruism, and the subordination of egoism to it, far beyond the point of absolute moral duty, should be one of the chief aims of education, both individual and collective .... every person who lives by any useful work, should be habituated to regard himself not as an individual working for his private benefit, but as a public functionary; and his wages, of whatever sort, not as the remuneration or purchase-money of his labour, which should be given freely, but as the provision made by society to enable him to carry it on..." Auguste Comte and Positivism (Ann Arbor, U. of Mich. Press, 1961 ), pp. 146-8.

The "Horror File" was "documentation pertain[ing] to a special aspect of modern life: to the philosophical-journalistic level of events—i.e., to events and pronouncements which illustrated the intellectual state of our culture and reflected the influence of philosophy (of the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis) on the daily political-cultural life of this country....

"Our purpose is to illustrate the tie, ignored by too many people, between the present state of our culture and its philosophical roots—to demonstrate that today's intellectual trends are as bad as we charge (or worse)—to indicate the kind of ideas that have to be fought and to remind you that the battle lies in the field of ideas."

Not sure I would want any president for 6 years- gives them too much time to get ensconced

term2...how about 6 years with John Bolton or Rudy Giulanni??? or both??

I was actually thinking of private property in general, like bank accounts, any property thats subject to asset seizures, as well as real estate. There is no more "protected private property" in the USA. You get to think you own it, you get to pay to keep it up, and then when the various governents want it, they take it.

You are referring to qualified ownership of estate - not absolute ownership of private property. Since 1933, the presumption has fallen to estate and not private property.

Go check your own state constitution and note that while private property is protected, estate (real and personal property ownership) is subject to ad valorem taxation and regulation.

Unfortunately, I think that the 4 years with Trump OR 8 years with Hildebeast are the options this year.