Sir, – Fintan O’Toole says capitalism was saved, ironically, by the Left (Opinion, October 4th). He claims it introduced four basic modifications to the system, one of which was when “governments, especially in the aftermath of fascism, sought to redistribute enough wealth to ensure at least basic levels of decency for all citizens”.
However, there are at least four times more of us alive now than then and the global population continues to grow. Does Mr O’Toole believe wealth can be redistributed to an ever-growing number of people, always? If so this will need an ever-growing economy, on a planet of finite and disappearing resources, it will mean more waste, more water usage and more pollution.
Those societies who do manage this will attract ever more people who will need more wealth to be redistributed among them, needing ever more wealth creation, etc.
Would it not be better and more sustainable to promote population reduction; why do they all miss that? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole’s misunderstands the terms capitalism and socialism (Opinion, October 4th). Under socialism, the means of production is collectively owned, or owned by the State. Our current crisis is financial in nature. It originated with a massive expansion of credit, which was caused by a massive expansion in the quantity of money. Government, controls the process of money production by selling debt. It increases money supply using the central bank and distributes this money to its banks. It protects its banks, because they are necessary components, of the state-run, money-production process.
Modern money production is the pinnacle of a socialist structure. It is not a free market. It is not capitalist and is profoundly unfair and discriminatory.
His article misrepresents history. All the events he mentions were preceded by government controls of the subsequent failed system. The Federal Reserve was created by government in 1913, just prior to the 1920s and caused the Great Depression with loose monetary policies. Nixon dissolved Bretton Woods, because the US was haemorrhaging gold. US banking reform in the 1990s increased banking protection (with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) provided by the state rather than exposing banks to market forces. The common thread in these events is government expansion of its power over money supply and the sale of its own debt. He should be calling for an end to the socialisation of money production. Yet he calls for the opposite. Mr O’Toole, what is socialism and what is capitalism? – Yours, etc,