I disagree with the left on their paradoxical belief that you liberate people by socializing the economy. History shows that you impoverish people when you centralize and enrich people when you decentralize. I mean, how can you enrich when you take people's stuff away?
I hate the ideas of the left. Not the people. For that matter, I don't hate the left for their intentions, just the paradoxical thinking that undermines their intentions. When I lefty has good intentions and a rational approach to achieving those intentions, I am willing to give my applause.
For example, I just watched an interview with Former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton is on an international campaign advocating giving.
When I was a progressive thinking student, I was indoctinated to disparage charity. Charity was nothing more than a bourgeoisie attempt to stave off the new order by buying off the proletariat. My lefty teachers had all sorts of put downs for charitable giving.
I am really happy to see Clinton not only promoting giving. He is promoting intelligent giving.
During the interview, Mr. Clinton pointed out the charity Kiva.org. This charity lets people make online microloans to people in countries throughout the world. I made a loan to a Martha Alicia Avila Ramos who is buying up used clothing to resell during the XMas buying season in Monterrey.
I chose her project as she is re-using stuff. She has three months to pay me back, or I am going to have to do a Dog the Bounty Hunter style mission to Mexico. The loan is organized by Accion Network.
Actually, I am not sure if I get my loan money back. I was probably just suckered into giving a donation to a bank. If I do get the money back, I will be able to loan it out again and feel doubly self-righteous.
BTW, I usually believe in keeping charity quiet. I like the online game style. It would be fun to make a program that allows direct people to business loans for US communities. I am sure than any such program would quickly be sued into oblivion.
2 comments:
I was initially skeptical, too, but so far I have received back almost half the money that I've loaned to Kiva participants, and I'm beginning to think that I might get it all back. Pretty neat deal.
Kiva sounds interesting. I'll check it out. That's a great way to bypass the corporate maelstrom and connect person to person.
As for your usual attack on leftist ideas, I should point out that socialism does not require centralization or top-down control of the economy. I should also point out that corporate capitalism has the same centralization problem. For example, when you trade in your locally owned hardware store for a national chain, you take away the income of the accountants, bankers, owners and others involved and enrich people far away.
Also, Bill Clinton is hardly a lefty by any rational definition, if that's what you're implying.
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