Well after a completely exhausting day of travel on Wednesday I made it to New York. 1:20 to Phoenix, where I had a 4 hour layover from Salt Lake then approximately 5 hours to JFK from there. Then a 3 hour subway ride to uptown Manhattan where I met Kathleen and walked to her dorm. I wouldn't have been so exhausted but oh well... when I packed my suitcase, I didn't know it was broken until I got to the airport (Mabel hauled it out of the house for me).
That was a treat.
Anyways, I definitely don't want this blog to be a play-by-play of my life. So we'll skip to the good stuff.
Today was great! Kathleen gave me the Tourists Tour of New York... kind of. We took the subway to the Lincoln Center and I looked at the buildings. Then Kathleen let me go inside Julliard. I let everyone around me know that I was a student there.
(Me, casually sitting in Julliard's lobby... I look so natural)
(Me, casually sitting in the lobby of Carnegie Hall... I look so natural)
(Speaks for itself I think?)
And we went to Time Square and Rockerfeller Center. In Time Square we went to this place called Shake Shack that just has started becoming a thing I think. It was super crowded.
(Not even a really accurate portrayal)
As far as fresh fast food goes, I put this miles above In n Out and Five Guys. It was great. I hope it spreads to the West Coast!Thursday I had to myself so I went to Occupy Wall Street which is - ironically - not on Wall Street, but close enough.
I had a blast. There were people everywhere, tables set up, fliers and pamphlets about anarchism, colonial days, why capitalism is bad, why capitalism is good. Mostly, these people are not very unified... at all, but it was fun to be there. Arguments and discussions everywhere, people holding signs everywhere, people singing songs about Occupying everywhere (a personal favorite, a black man singing "Occupy you, occupy me, occupy the world, occupy Wall Street" it was great), policemen everywhere. And of course, what's a good "Occupy" movement without a game of chess?
Maybe a little shopping?
Oh! Maybe model a little? Have a glamour photo shoot?
Play your conch shell for an audience that will really listen.
There's a lot of hostility between the police and the protesters. I saw a policeman just yelling his guts out at a protester and one of the anarchy promoters was staring and the policeman saw him and yelled at him, "What? Are you making sure I'm not breaking anyone's civil rights?" He looked like he was going to punch someone. A lot of people have police horror stories they're sharing there.
Anyways here are a few things I saw:
Anyways here are a few things I saw:
That sign says, "The game of capitalism breeds dishonest men." - James De La Vega
Ok now it's time for me to get up onto my Political Soapbox now. Todays subject: Capitalism.
First off, let us address the basics.
There are two basic ways in which we can organize production: it can be accomplished through government planning, or it can be left up to individuals. The former is socialism, the latter is capitalism.
In a socialistic system, it is up to a single central entity to organize the lives of millions. It is given an impossible task. How will a single planner be able to fully consider the needs and preferences of individuals? How will it be able to fully consider the frictional value of input resources in production?
Empirically, it has never come remotely close to working.
So, why is information more full and efficient in a free market (or capitalism) opposed to a centrally planned system?
You may ask how individuals, acting in their own accord, will have access to such lavish economic information. The answer lies in pricing. In the capitalist system, one doesn't need to know what other individuals prefer. One doesn't need to know which resources are scarce and which are not. They need only look at prices. Yes, this single value carries all this invaluable information. If coal becomes more valuable in India, the price will rise, signaling consumers in the U.S. to use alternate materials, if possible. They don't need to understand India, or even know it exists. The message is carried perfectly through pricing. This is why a capitalistic system is far more profitable and beneficial to society than a socialistic system could ever be. But not only is capitalism more efficient, it also is the more humane system.
In socialism, the central planner determines what is produced and who produces it. Thus, people's decisions are taken away from them. They are told what their career is. They are told what they should produce. They are told what they should buy. On the other hand, capitalism allows complete free will. It allows people to choose the path that is most beneficial to them. It allows consumers to truly express their preferences through consumption choices (this knowledge of preferences can be gained in no other way, so the state could never effectively satisfy needs and wants).
It is undeniable, both through empirical and theoretical evidence, that capitalism is a more efficient economic system. It's possibly even more clear that capitalism is a system that is compatible with free will, while socialism is compatible with coercion.
Now people will say (like my protesting friend from Wall Street protesting capitalism, and many like him) that we've been living in a capitalist nation and it's not working. Well, take a look at what they're actually protesting (some of them... as I've said, they're about as divided as a group of people for "a cause" could be). They're protesting he housing crisis, bailouts, high unemployment. These are all resulting from non-capitalistic causes. The housing crisis was caused by the Federal Reserve manipulating the interest rate and Democrats passing the Community Reinvestment Act, which gave banks incentives to give out loans to low income groups. Bailouts are anti-capitalist by nature. A true believer in free markets says that companies should fail, if they cannot stand without tax-paid benefits. High unemployment is a result of minimum wages and housing crisis (stemming from the government).
It's such a large subject, and I hope I've done it justice. There's so much to be said about it. I'm sure I'll talk more about the free market in future posts, but for now I will bid you adieu.
All right so... bye.
