ㅈ난 87년 노태우는 6. 29 선언이라는 놀라운 선언을 함으로써 대권의 승기를 잡았다. 훗날 그 발언이 전두환과의 교감 속에 만들어진 거라는 게 밝혀졌다. 이번에 윤석열의 적폐 발언도 청와대를 당혹하게 한 놀라운 발언이라고 하지만, 윤석열이 좌파이고, 문죄인이 그의 대권 승리를 돕고 있다면, 충분히 가능한 발언이다. 둘이 짜고 고스톱을 치고, 선거 끝나고 모르쇠로 하면 그냥 끝나는 일이다. 시간이 지나면 진실이 드러날 것이다. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [속보] 러시아 - 군대 철수 중 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 깜깜무소식식식 https://www.wowtv.co.kr/NewsCenter/News/Read?articleId=A202202150100 실제로 우크라이나와 국경을 접한 벨라루스에 병력을 증강한 명분도 벨라루스와의 `연합 훈련`이었다. 그런 만큼 압박을 늘리다가도 `훈련이 끝났다`며 아무 일이 없던 것처럼 병력을 철수할 수 있다는 설명이다. 신문은 "이 사태를 지금 마무리한다 해도 푸틴 대통령은 냉전 종식 후 가장 큰 전략적 승리를 손에 쥐고 (이번 사태에서) 빠져나올 수 있을 것"이라고 분석했다. 주요 자원 부국인 러시아의 지정학적 위험이 부각되면서 석유와 천연가스, 구리 등 원자재 가격도 치솟고 있다. 특히 러시아는 이번 사태를 통해 세계 최대 천연가스 수출국이라는 위상을 이용해 유럽에 영향력을 제대로 보여주고 있다는 평가가 나온다. 유럽의 주요 지도국으로서 여러 국제적 위기 상황에 앞장서 목소리를 내온 독일조차도 이번 사태에는 위축된 모습을 보인다. 러시아에 대한 독일의 천연가스 의존도가 너무 높기 때문이다. @깜깜무소식식식 얘가 정확하게 맞춤 지금 훈련 끝났다고 다 돌아가는 중 금값 폭락 나스닥 선물 폭등 중 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 전쟁이다 ) 러시아 군 축소 안함 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ대륜행 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11395551211 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [속보] 시나리오대로 착착 진행되어 갑니다!!! ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ KCIA008 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11395516912 2월말 10만명 간다고 했노? 안 했노? 예상에서 한 치의 어긋남도 없이 모든 게 시나리오대로 착착!! 지금 윤석열 이긴다고 낙관하고 있을 때가 아니다. 부정선거 한방이면 이재명이 당선됨. 그때 부정선거는 절대로 없었다고, 승복해야 한다고, 길길이 날뛸 새끼가 뜻밖의 이준석 ㅋㅋ 2020년 4.15부정선거때 그랬음. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 긴급) 조광한 남양주시장, 공직선거법 위반 혐의 법정구속ㄷㄷㄷㄷ 리버에넘김 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11395474777 이분 이재명이 남양주 계곡 평상놓고 장사하는거 자기가 최초로 한거라고 이재명 저격하고 그러다 최근에 스타벅스 쿠폰 직원들에게 나눠줬다가 이재명이 경기도지사일때 징계 받았던 사람임ㄷㄷ 근데 오늘 구속되버림 ㄷㄷㄷ 무섭노 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 조선일보 안치환, 80% 풀대출로 산 연남동 땅에 불법건축 O접종자 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11395478849 사람이 꽃보다 아름다워‘ ‘빨갱이’ 등의 노래로 유명한 민중가수 안치환씨가 서울 마포구 연남동 소재 본인 소유 건물에 불법 건축물을 만들었다가 구청에 적발됐다. 구청 시정 요구에도, 안씨는 1년째 불응하며 불법 건축물을 계속 활용 중인 것으로 15일 확인됐다. 민원인은 “안치환씨는 민중가수라고 스스로를 소개하며 무슨 불의에 맞선다는 둥 얘기하지만 실상 우리 주민들이 보기엔 너무나 폭력적이고 막무가내인 기득권 자본가에 불과하다”라고 주장했다. 이 건물에는 B은행이 설정한 채권최고액 51억원이 걸려있다. 1금융권이 통상 대출금의 120%를 담보로 잡는 점을 감안하면, 안씨는 약 40억원 대출을 받은 것으로 추정된다. 조선닷컴은 안씨 측 입장을 들으려 소속사 등에 10여차례 이상 연락했지만, 답을 듣지 못했다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 뉴데일리 기사펌)주술,무속,신천지로 윤석열 공격해라 민주당 내부문건 파문 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 문재인-조갑제-나경원-이동욱-이영훈 커넥션에 악취 진동 (지만원박사님 칼럼) 노일인 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11395480213 http://systemclub.co.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=12&wr_id=20303 문재인-조갑제-나경원-이동욱-이영훈 커넥션에 악취 진동 보랏빛호수 저자와 주인공을 밤중에 지방 모텔 등으로 불러내 1시간 및 4시간씩 협박한 이동욱 조갑제-나경원-이동욱 커넥션 그래서 문재인은 2019.2.11.국회(한국당)로 이동욱 말고 다른 사람으로 재추천하라 공문을 보냈다. 그런데 이 웬 일인가?2019.11.13. 문재인이 이동욱을 합격시키기로 했다. 이에 대해 한국당 나경원과 청와대는 경력을 보충해서 합격시키기로 했다고 둘러댄다. 경력을 보강한다? 아무리 보아도 아래 자격요건에서 이동욱이 비집고 들어갈 곳은 제4항, “▶역사고증ㆍ사료편찬 등의 연구 활동”뿐이다. 문재인-조갑제-나경원-이동욱-이영훈 커넥션 악추 진동 여기에 최종적으로 조갑제의 이념적 동지인 이영훈이 이승만학당이라는 이름을 팔아 이동욱이라는 고졸출신을 일약 대제학으로 분장시키고 사술을 동원해 문재인의 소원을 성취시켜주려 하는 것이다. 이것이 이 시각까지 내가 추론한 음모의 뼈대다. / 발췌 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "주사파 활동가들, 택배기사로 위장 취업"… '범민련' 출신 폭로 hdrgdruee http://www.ilbe.com/view/11395488048 압카드/ 댓글 택배 시장이 커지니까 그거 잡고 삥 뜯으려고 이미 한참 전부터 작전을 세우고 한 것임. 작년부터 택배 기사 과로사 뉴스 계속 나왔던 거 알지? 과로사가 택배만 있는게 아닌데 왜 택배만 계속 뉴스에 나왔을까? 뻔하지. 전에 무상급식도 "애들 굶기자는거냐" 구호로 전원 무상급식으로 우긴 다음에 뜬금없이 "친환경"무상급식 이걸 해야 된다고 우겼지. 무상급식하고 친환경하고 무슨 상관? 친환경 인증을 받은 업체만 급식 공급을 할 수 있는 거임. 왜? 갑자기 생긴거라 인증 받은 업체가 거의 없었다. 지들하고 통하는 업체만 미리 준비하게 해 둔 것. 다 돈을 먹을려고 저러는 것. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 헤럴드경제 野, 김혜경 공금 유용 의혹 ‘맹공’…“최소 5억5000만원 갚아야” --->그것보다 범죄를 저질렀으니 감방부터 가야한다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 한경 티비 `적폐 발언` 사과 없는 윤석열에…靑 "지켜보고 있다" 文 공개 사과 요구…尹 사과 없어 尹 검찰 강화 공약에 靑 "언급 적절치 않아" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 한국 20대男 42%가 섹스리스, 60대보다 많다···그 이유는 중앙일보 ming**** 20년 전에 있지도 않던 개념들이 여성부, 페미단체 덕분에 생겨나서 20대 남성들이나 30대 초 남성들은 연애해서 얻는 효용가치보다 거기에 치루는 유무형의 비용들이 너무 치솟았죠. 그냥 금전비용만 말하는게 아니라, 사회적으로 매장되거나 범법자로 누명쓸 그런 인생비용을 말하는 겁니다. 게다가 결혼한 경우에도 언제든지 여자가 마음이 바뀌면 '부부강간죄'가 성립하므로 결혼의 메리트가 거의 유명무실해졌죠. 같은 집에 살면서 눈 앞에서 얼씬거리는데 정작 결혼 전이나 결혼 후나 접근성에 차이가 없고 일반강간죄처럼 다루니 멍청한 남자 말곤 결혼할 이유가 없지요. 쳐다보면 '시선강간' 고백하면 '성희롱' 사귀면 '데이트폭력' 결혼시엔 '편파적 경제적 부담' 결혼후에도 '부부강간'. 남성이 여성에게 접근하는 합법적 루트에 부비트랩이 한두개가 아니죠. 이런게 다 여성부, 페미 덕분에 '대가(price)' 즉 유무형 비용이 높아진거죠. 반면 효용은 급락했죠. 가치는 하락했는데 가격만 올랐으니 누가 굳이 ming**** 1.남자가 여자를 보고 매력을 느낀다 -> 2.용기를 내어 대쉬해본다 -> 3. 대쉬해서 여자도 남자를 좋아한다면 서로 사귄다 -> 4. 사귀다가 경우에 따라 결혼한다. 20대 남성들은 공포에 사로잡혀 있습니다. 위 1,2,3,4마다 20년전 없던 공포의 억압기제가 생겼지요. 페미니스트, 여가부 덕분에요. 1. 여자를 바라봤다가 시선강간범으로 매도당함. 2. 대쉬(고백)해 봤다가 성희롱으로 고발당함 (고백 자체가 높은 확률로 차여서 존심 무너지는데 이젠 형사처벌까지 걱정해야 하니 누가함?) 3. 단계에선 사귀다가 상대방이 기분나쁘면 '데이트폭력'이라고 매도당함. 말 그대로 누가봐도 폭력인 경우만 데이트폭력으로 칭해야 하는데 일상에선 문제안되는 대화들도 전부 데이트폭력이라고 싸잡아 매도당함. 안사귀면 이 범주에 안들어가니 안심. 4. 단계 결혼? 돈없어서 결혼 못하는 경우가 많기도 하지만, 설사 결혼에 골인해도 여자가 맘 바뀌면 언제든지 '부부강간죄'성립. 결혼자체가 무의미함. ---.아래 댓글 쓴 사람이 이 분야의 박사처럼 간명하게 잘 요약ㅎㅆ다 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 임시사무소의 충격적 비밀. 이재명의 엄청난 뒷배경.(220215) bj톨 법치와 자유 민주주의 연대, 맹주성 이사장 https://youtu.be/ybmU42GlQdU ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 한국은행 발권력 동원 / 적자국채 인수시키다 / 또 하나의 성역이 무너지다 / 한국은행이 재정포퓰리즘 지원 출장소인가? [공병호TV] https://youtu.be/0g_1Aqs5gKc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 원시주의를 거부한다: 폴라니 비판 칼 폴라니의 책 <거대한 변화>는 혼란, 모순, 오류, 자유시장에 대한 왜곡된 공격 등으로 가득찬 책이다. 폴라니의 한가지 철학적 결점은 현대 지식인들에게 공통된 것인데, 그것은 루소와 낭만주의 운동 이후로 기세를 떨친 원시 숭배이다. 현대의 루소주의는 루스 베네딕스, 마가렛 미드, 프란츠 보아스 등의 인류학자들에 의해 추진력을 얻었는데, 그들은 원시 부족을 방문해 사유재산이 없고 일부일처제의 구속도 없는 그들이 행복한 생활을 누리고 있다고 보고했다. 아리스토텔레스가 말하듯 인간은 최고의 이성적 동물이기 때문에, 원시의 숭배는 심각한 반인간적인 사상이다. 폴라니의 책에는 행복한 야만인의 신화가 미만해 있다. 하지만 원시의 생활은 거의 연속적인 두려움의 연속이다. 그들은 각종 귀신들의 노여움을 풀기 위해 공물을 바치는 등 항상 두려움 속에 살았다. 만일 폴라니나 기타 비판자들이 시장의 전횡이나 불안정이 싫다면, 그들은 이런 생활을 떠날 수 있는 자유가 있다. 아무도 강요하지 않는다. 폴라니는 시장이 사회를 분열시킨다고 일갈한다. 하지만 그가 말하는 “사회”란 누구를 말하는가? 사회가 과연 어디에 있을까? 사회를 말하는 인간들은 사실을 사회를 구실로 사람들에게서 돈을 갈취하는 권력에 굶주린 인간들일 뿐이다. 우리가 사회를 정의하는 유일한 방법은 이것이다: 자발적인 인간 상호 관계의 그물들. Down with Primitivism: A Thorough Critique of Polanyi Murray N. Rothbard Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is a farrago of confusions, absurdities, fallacies, and distorted attacks on the free market. The temptation is to engage in almost a line-by-line critique. I will abjure this to first set out some of the basic philosophic and economic flaws, before going into some of the detailed criticisms. One basic philosophic flaw in Polanyi is a common defect of modern intellectuals—a defect which has been rampant since Rousseau and the Romantic Movement: Worship of the Primitive. At one point, (in dealing with the Kaffirs), Polanyi actually uses the maudlin phrase "noble savage," but this idea permeates the book. (For an excellent discussion of Rousseau, primitivism, and the romantic movement, see Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism.) Modern Rousseauism received a major impetus from the cultural anthropologists, such as Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Franz Boas, and the like (many of whom were Communists, and the remainder highly left-wing), who went eagerly to visit the existing primitive tribes, and reported back about the gay, happy life of Tribe X which had no private property and no inhibitions imposed by monogamous marriage. There are several things to be said about this worship of the primitive. First, it is absolutely illegitimate to do, as Polanyi does, and infer the history of pre-Western civilization from analysis of existing primitive tribes. Let us never forget that the existing primitive tribes are precisely the ones that didn’t progress—that remained in their primitive state. To infer from observing them that this is the way our ancestors behaved is nonsense—and apt to be the reverse of the truth, for our ancestors presumably behaved in ways which quickly advanced them beyond the primitive stage thousands of years ago. To scoff, therefore, at the idea that our ancestors among primitive tribes engaged in barter, then in monetary exchange, etc., on the basis of the magic and games indulged in by present-day primitives, is a blunder of the highest order. Second, it is implicitly and even explicitly assumed that the way primitive tribes act is more "natural," is somehow more appropriate to man than the "artifices" of civilization. This is at the root of Rousseauism. The way ignorant, fear-ridden, quasi-animalistic savages act is somehow more natural, because presumably more "instinctual," than the ways of civilization. This is the root of Rousseau’s, and many other leftists', view that man is "naturally good," but is corrupted by his institutions. This basic idea is fundamentally and radically anti-human, because it denies the basic facts about human nature and the way human beings must necessarily operate. Animals are born with "instincts"; these instincts are, in essence, sense-determined responses. Animals do not possess a free will, rational consciousness; hence, they can only adapt, in sensory fashion, to their environment. Man, on the other hand, can alter his given environment by use of his reason and his free will. Man is born a tabula rasa; he must learn and learn how to choose the ends that are proper for him, and the means which he must adopt to attain them. All this must be done by his reason. Civilization is precisely the record by which man has used his reason, to discover the natural laws on which his environment rests, and to use these laws to alter his environment so as to suit and advance his needs and desires. Therefore, worship of the primitive is necessarily corollary to, and based upon, an attack on intellect. It is this deep-seated "anti-intellectualism" that leads these people to proclaim that civilization is "opposed to nature" and [that] the primitive tribes are closer to it. . . . And because man is supremely the "rational animal," as Aristotle put it, this worship of the primitive is a profoundly anti-human doctrine. Anti-human, anti-rational doctrine, then, goes eagerly to illiterate, savage, fear-ridden primitives as people on whom we—the heirs of 2000 years of the finest products of civilization and the human race—are supposed to model ourselves. If an existing primitive tribe has no private property, or engages in indiscriminate promiscuity, this should be all the more reason for us to do the reverse. The myth is then coined of the "happy savage," that [these] primitives are truly happy and content. This myth permeates the Polanyi volume. Let us shed the vestiges of romantic mythology and look at these savages as they are. They are, in the first place, complete slaves to their environment. When the fruit tree is in bloom, they can perhaps subsist by picking the fruit off the tree; but suppose there is a blight, one year, on fruit trees? What happens to this "happy-go-lucky" tribe? It dies, en masse. It is no wonder that the primitive tribes are all small in number. Secondly, the primitive’s life is a life of almost constant terror. Terror of the world about him, which he does not and cannot understand, since he has not engaged in any sort of scientific, rational inquiry into its workings. We know what a thunderstorm is, and therefore do not fear it, and can take rational measures against lightning; the savage does not know, and therefore surmises that The God of the Thunder is displeased with him, and that therefore that god must be propitiated with votive offerings and sacrifices (sometimes human sacrifices). Since the savage has no concept of a world knit together by natural law (a concept which employs reason and science) he believes that the world is governed by a whole host of capricious spirits and demons, each of which can only be propitiated—with only partial "success"—by ritual, by magic, and by a priestcraft of witch doctors who specialize in this propitiation. So fearful is the savage that he can do nothing on his own, that his individuality is virtually completely undeveloped—because the individual savage makes almost no use of his reason and of his mind. Therefore, virtually everything the savage does is governed by immutable, utterly irrational, taboos or command: by custom. And this is the fear-ridden, barely-human, creature whom we, people who have used our intellect to "conquer" nature, are being asked to emulate, whom Polanyi extols as being truly "social," and as being happily tree of the "inhuman" despotism of the free market. Moreover, the life of the savage, as Hobbes put it, is "nasty, brutish, and short." His life expectancy is very short, and his life is ravaged by all manner of disease, disease which he can do nothing about except give food to witch doctors to utter incantations. The increasing conquest of disease has been made possible only by the advance of civilization: by the use of reason, by capitalism, and by the market. Polanyi admires the tribal and other caste societies, because "nobody starves." Everyone might admittedly be on a subsistence level, he concedes, but no individual starves. Is it that great a comfort that everyone starves together? This is a grotesque statement. The primitive world—indeed all worlds before the Industrial Revolution—[is] constantly racked by famine and by plague. "Famine" was a continual occurrence before the Industrial Revolution; since the I.R. we have never heard of famine (the only recent famines have been in Communist China, and earlier, in Soviet Russia). Famine emerges from a lack of inter-local trade; when one locality’s food crop fails, since there is virtually no trade with other localities the bulk of the people starve. It is precisely the permeation of the free market throughout the world that has virtually ended this scourge of famine, by permitting trade between areas. It is this market that Polanyi castigates as the bringer of virtually all evils. Polanyi admires all societies of caste and status: tribal, mercantilist, or whatnot. A caste society, he maintains, provides "security." Famines and plagues: are they "security"? No amount of restrictionism can provide that production from which any economic "security" must come; in fact, just the opposite, for all caste restrictions, all restrictions on the market, simply cripple and hinder production, and thus keep everyone at or near subsistence level. In fact, the Asiatic "extended family" system, has kept China, Indonesia, etc. in primitive poverty and misery for centuries. This "share and share alike" custom, which Polanyi undoubtedly admires, decrees that as soon as any individual makes a little more money, he must distribute it pro rata among a whole host of distant, as well as near, relatives. As a result of this "noble" system, there is no incentive for any individual Chinaman to earn more and produce more and hence, the Chinese did not (before Communism) do so and did not progress. In Java, the village commune system, definitely Polanyi-esque, means that a starving, massively overpopulated Java has been exploiting and tyrannizing over, the much more progressive and capitalistic islands of Indonesia (e.g. Sumatra). The "security" of the caste system is the security of the prison-house. (By the way, anyone who wants "security" in a market economy can always commit a crime and go to jail, where Polanyi-esque security will be furnished to him.) This "security" means an all-pervasive hopelessness in a caste society. The son of a baker must always be a baker, even if his interests and abilities are completely elsewhere. No one can rise, no can shift his occupation or do anything differently from his ancestors. This is the annihilation of all that is most vital, most purposeful, most alive, in the life of any individual. Another basic flaw in any caste society—and ignored by Polanyi—is the problem of population growth. The witch doctor, the custom of tribe, the chief or king, and Prof. Polanyi, can all decree that X and the son of X be a baker, Y and the son of Y be a farmer, etc., but what happens when population increases, as it almost inevitably tends to do? What does the younger son do? Polanyi sneers at Malthus but the Malthusian problem is always supremely evident in the caste society. What happens when the "natural checks" of famine and disease do not work sufficiently? This is why the caste-communal society of Sparta put their babies out to the woods for an "exposure test," not because the Spartans were inherently a cruel people, but because they were faced to what was, in the context of their social structure, an insoluble problem: what to do with their population increase. It was population growth, further, that was wrecking mercantilist Europe. Population growth was the reason for the rise of able-bodied beggars and thieves in 18th Century England. There was no work for them to do. It was the rise of capitalism, the advance of capital to provide them with jobs, the expansion of the market to producing cheap goods for the masses, that not only enormously increased the standard of living of the masses, but also provided jobs for these increasingly "excess" people. Furthermore, Polanyi continues the old anti-capitalist canard that the Industrial Revolution was made possible by the enclosure movement, which supposedly drove sturdy yeomen off their lands, and into the cities. This is nonsense; not only did the enclosure movement enclose the "commons" and not people, and by the great increase in agricultural productivity provide the wherewithal in resources and income for the industrial revolution, but also the enclosures did not drive people off the land. The surplus population in the rural areas was a consequence of population growth; it was this increase in rural population that drove these desperate people into the cities to look for work. Capitalism did not, therefore, tragically disrupt, as Polanyi would have it, the warm, loving, "social" relations of pre-capitalist era. Capitalism took the outcasts of society: the beggars, the highwaymen, the rural over-populated, the Irish immigrants, and gave them the jobs and wages which moved them from destitution to a far higher standard of living and of work. It is easy enough to wring one’s hands at the child labor in the new British factories; it is, apparently, even easier to forget what the child population of rural England was doing before the Industrial Revolution—and during the Revolution, in those numerous areas of England where the I.R. and the new capitalism had not yet penetrated: these children were dying like flies, and living in infinitely more miserable conditions. This is why we read nowadays, when it seems inexplicable to us, British and American writings of the period which praise the new factories for giving work to women and children! This praise was not due to their being inhuman monsters; it was due to the fact that, before such labor was available, and in those regions where such labor was not available, the women and children were living and suffering in infinitely worse conditions. Women, children, immigrants, after all, were not driven to the factories with whips; they went voluntarily and gladly, and that is the reason. There are even broader aspects of the population problem which Polanyi ignores. For capitalism was responsible, in a sense, for the huge increase in population in the modern world. Capitalism’s upsurge in living standards has enabled capitalism to free the world from the Malthusian checks, from the grim evils of over-population, and has permitted a rapid multiplication of population at even higher living standards than before. So when Polanyi, in effect, asks us to scrap the market and return to a caste or communal or even tribal society, he is not only asking us to abandon the luxuries of civilization and return to the subsistence level of the primitive tribe; he is also asking for the liquidation and eradication of the vast bulk of the world’s population Because if a caste or tribal system will "work," even on the least subsistence level, it will work only for a small, tiny minority of the population; the rest of us will starve en masse. The fact noted above, of the small numbers of the primitive tribe, takes on, then, a new and more terrible significance. (For a refutation of the enclosure myth and a recognition of the key being increase of population, see W.H.B. Court, A Concise Economic History of Britain (Cambridge University Press, 1954).) In all of his complaining about laissez-faire and the free market, Polanyi somehow overlooks probably the single most important aspect of this system: freedom. In a free society, no one compels Polanyi or anyone else to join in the free market. If Polanyi or any other critic is so hostile to the alleged tyranny, "instability," etc. of the market, the free society leaves them free to get out. Anyone, at any time, can leave the market: can go off in the woods and live on berries in a cave, can buy his own farm and be completely self-sufficient, cut off from the rest of the world, or can vary his participation as much as he likes. Anyone who wants to can, in a free society, even join a voluntary commune, like Brook Farm, or an Israeli kibbutz, and lead as blissfully communistic a life as he or she wishes. Since everyone still has the option to do so, since anyone has the option to go oft to a desert island or join a commune, why is Polanyi bitter about the market?? In fact, the free society leaves everyone such options. Why, in that case, has the free market flourished when people have been left free, flourished until it brought about capitalist civilization? The reason is precisely that the vast bulk of the people, in the past and in the present ages, don’t agree with Polanyi: they vastly preferred the so-called instability, unhappiness, et. al. of the market to the supposedly happy subsistence-life of a communal savage. For, if they had not vastly preferred it, they would not have joined the market; they would have sacrificed monetary income for their tribal or self-sufficient farm life. Yet they did not. There is no better way of thoroughly refuting Polanyi’s weeping about the lost glories of "society" than to observe the numberless millions who have chosen the way of the market when they had the free choice. In fact, it is precisely such left-wing intellectuals as Polanyi who are always weeping about the "Coca-Colaization" of the rest of the world, are bemoaning the supposedly lost glories of "folk culture" in the undeveloped countries. For, as soon as they get the chance, peoples all over the world, regardless of cultural tradition, abandon their supposedly beloved culture, in order to adopt Western ways, Western clothes, get a Western-type job or serve Western tourists, and earn Western money—and drink Coca-Cola and go to Hollywood movies, as well. It took only a few years, for example, for the people of Japan to abandon their thousand-year old traditional culture and folkways to turn eagerly to these supposedly decadent market-brought goods of the West. Why is that? Is it Western "imperialism"? Are American troops forcibly drugging everyone with Coca-Cola? (For an inspiring and scholarly discussion of the enormous growth of a market and exchange economy, among illiterate natives of West Africa, I strongly recommend P.T. Bauer, West African Trade, Cambridge University Press, 1954). Even in backward countries that are hostile to capitalism: such as India, Ghana, etc., these countries do not at all reject the fruits of Western civilization on behalf of their seemingly joyful tribal traditions. On the contrary, they want Western products and conveniences; it is just that they have not understood that capitalism is needed to obtain them. Given a choice, then, almost everyone chooses the market economy and its advanced civilization, even, curiously enough, Prof. Polanyi himself, who most conspicuously did not rush off to some tribe or commune. Why, then, do we consider the free market as "natural," as Polanyi sneeringly asks? The reason is that the free market is (1) what men have turned to when they have been allowed freedom of choice, and (2) what men should turn to if they are to enjoy the full stature of men, if they are to satisfy their wants, and mould nature to their purposes. For it is the market that brings us the standard of living of civilization. In his book, Polanyi is continually assuring us that his beloved primitive natives do nothing at all for personal "gain"; only for magic, for what he calls "reciprocity," etc. What is so bad about gain, which Polanyi virtually assumes to be a malevolent word? The principle of the free market is voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. This mutual benefit constitutes gain. The free market is, in fact, that interpersonal relationship which does insure mutual benefit by all relating parties. Why does Polanyi find this so obnoxious? Why, at every point, does he seem to prefer only an inter-personal relation where only one party gains? For if only one party gains it follows that the other party loses; in short, it follows that for Polanyi, the ideal relationship between people is not mutual gain, but exploitation: the gain of one at the expense of another. Is this the "moral," "social" relationship for which we are supposed to abandon market-economy and civilization itself? Why is it that every socialist hates and condemns the exchange relationship—the supposedly "calculating," "inhuman," relationship where both parties gain? Do they consider it more moral for A to let himself be exploited by B, and for B to exploit A?? For make no mistake, when the socialist condemns A for not giving money to B without receiving anything, material or spiritual, in exchange, he is calling upon A to be a sacrificial animal for the benefit of an exploiting B. In his discussion of his beloved primitive tribes, Prof. Polanyi says that they deal with each other, not on the basis of (Ugh!) mutual gain, but on the basis of "reciprocity" and "redistribution." The "principle of redistribution" is, of course, this same principle of exploitation. It is the "redistribution," coerced by the State or the tribe, from the producers to the parasitic class favored by the tribal or State chiefs. As for the "principle of reciprocity," Polanyi is certainly unclear about just what it entails. To some small extent, to the extent that the process is rational, this is simply exchange or barter, smuggled in by the conceptual back door. To the extent it is not rational, it is either play or sport—which hardly needs further comment, or it is ritual magic, which has been commented on above. It is apparently the latter part of "reciprocity" that Polanyi extols, for he is apparently enchanted by the "Kula trade," in which one island gives certain objects to another island, and will only receive similar (or the same?) stuff back years or decades later from some other island in the ring. What Polanyi especially likes about this is its lack of true mutual gain—or is it its obvious pointlessness? And, again, must we follow the path of a magic-ridden group of savages? I mentioned that the free society would permit Polanyi or any who agree with him to abandon the market and find whatever other forms suit them. But one thing and one thing alone the free society would not permit Polanyi to do: to use coercion over the rest of us. It will let him join a commune, but it will not let him force you or me into his commune. This is the sole difference, and I therefore must conclude that this is Polanyi’s sole basic complaint against the free society and the free market: they do not permit him, or any of his friends, or anyone else, to use force to coerce someone else into doing what Polanyi or anyone else wants. It does not permit force and violence, it does not permit dictation, it does not permit theft, it does not permit exploitation. I must conclude that the type of world, which Polanyi would force us back into, is precisely the world of coercion, dictation, and exploitation. And all this in the name of "humanity"? Truly, Polanyi, like his fellow-thinkers, is the "humanitarian with the guillotine." (See Isabel Paterson’s profound work of political theory, The God of the Machine, Putnam’s, 1943). The naked and open advocacy of force and exploitation would, of course, not get very far; and so Polanyi falls back on the fallacy of methodological holism, on treating "society" as a real entity in itself, apart from, and above, the existence or interests of the individual members. The market, Polanyi thunders, disrupted and sundered "society"; restrictions on the market [are] "society’s" indispensable method of "protecting itself." All very well, until we begin to inquire: who is "society"? Where is it? What are its identifiable attributes? Whenever someone begins to talk about "society" or "society’s" interest coming before "mere individuals and their interest," a good operative rule is: guard your pocketbook. And guard yourself! Because behind the facade of "society," there is always a group of power-hungry doctrinaires and exploiters, ready to take your money and to order your actions and your life. For, somehow, they "are" society! The only intelligible way of defining society is as: the array of voluntary interpersonal relations. And preeminent amongst such voluntary interrelations is the free market! In short, the market, and the interrelations arising from the market, is society, or at least the bulk and the heart of it. In fact, contrary to Polanyi and other’s statements that sociability and fellowship comes before the market; the truth is virtually the reverse; for it is only because the market and its division of labor permits mutual gain among men, that they can afford to be sociable and friendly, and that amicable relations can ensue. For, in the jungle, in the tribal and caste societies, there is not mutual benefit but warfare for scarce resources! Curiously, in his idyllic picture of tribal life, Polanyi never seems to mention pervasive inter-tribal warfare. Such warfare is almost necessary, because groups of people are fighting over scarce resources: water holes, hunting, etc. Tribalism, not capitalism, is the "rule of the jungle," for warfare and extermination of the "unfit" is the only way that some of the tribes can keep alive. It is the capitalist market economy, which increases resources by mutual benefit, that is able to bypass the rule of the jungle, and to rise above such animal-like existence to the status of advanced civilizations—and amicable relations among men. The market, therefore, is preeminently social; and the rest of the social consists of other voluntary, friendly, non-market relations which also, however, are best conducted on the basis of a spiritual exchange and mutual gain. (Isn’t it better if A and B are both friendly to each other, than if A is friendly to B but not vice versa?) The market, then, far from being a disrupter of society, is society. What, then, would Polanyi use to replace the market? The only other relation aside from the voluntary, is the coercive; in short, Polanyi would replace the market by the "social" relation of force and violence, of aggression and exploitation. But this is not social; it is profoundly anti-social. The exploiter, who lives parasitically off the producer by violence, is anti-social; for he is not living according to the best nature of man: by producing and exchanging his produce for the produce of another. He is living by use of violence, one-sidedly and parasitically at the expense of the producer. This is a profoundly anti-social, and anti-human relationship. It disrupts the social market, and leads it—and with it—civilization and civilized living standards, to crumble into the dust. Franz Oppenheimer, in his brilliant work, The State (Vanguard Press, 1922), put it very well: there are two possible roads to wealth, he wrote: one is by producing, by transforming matter with personal energy, and then exchanging this produce with the produce of another. This, he termed the "economic means." Another road is to wait until someone else has produced wealth, and then to seize it by force and violence. This he called the "political means." Which method is "social," and which is profoundly and disruptively anti-social, should be easy to see. Karl Polanyi, in claiming to save society from the market, is in the process of destroying society itself by destroying the market. Polanyi’s work is an apotheosis of the political means. That this is what Polanyi will bring should also be evident from his discussion of free labor. For Polanyi, allowing labor to be a "commodity" was one of the worst sins of the free market; Polanyi therefore proposes to take labor out of the free market. But what is the only alternative to free labor? It is unfree labor, i.e. it is serfdom. The man who is not allowed to be a free laborer is a serf. In fact, in extolling the process (supposedly typical of the primitive tribe) of working without pay, Polanyi is precisely extolling the system of slavery. For what is unpaid, unfree labor, but slave labor? Polanyi, like all socialists, is at pains to teach us that the coming of the new "society" without market is inevitable. Thus, for him, every restriction on the market in the recent century or so came as a "recognition" of social need, and not as a deliberate choice governed by certain ideas and interests. To preserve this myth, Polanyi angrily criticizes those, like Mises, who believe that certain definite socialistic and restrictionistic ideas and interests brought about these government interventions in the market. Polanyi sets up a straw man by calling this a "conspiracy" theory of history, which it is not at all. There need be no concerted conspiracy for two different statists or socialists to advocate statist measures in two different fields. (Of course, Polanyi also ignores very important actual conspiracies like the Fabians.) The result flows inevitably and "naturally" from the premises held by the two men. Not being willing to discuss the different and conflicting ideas at stake in the problems of socialism vs. the market, Polanyi tries to put the whole thing on the plane of social determinism and inevitability, so that human volition plays no role in the [process]. As a corollary, then, to his rejection of reason, Polanyi also rejects man’s free will. Instead, "society" acts, determines, protects, recognizes, etc. In this way are the real determinants of action in society: the ideas adopted and pursued by individuals, forgotten, and the spotlight, turned on so-called "social forces," "society," etc. Like all determinists, Polanyi eventually involves himself in severe contradictions. For, when it comes to the adoption of the free market in the nineteenth century, [Polanyi claims] here was not something socially determined, but the reflection of tragically wrong ideas held by laissez-faire ideologues, who by "intervention" in the "natural" (tribal? caste?) processes of state regulation, etc. temporarily brought about a free market. I could go on almost indefinitely in detailed criticism of Polanyi, but there is no point in prolonging this too much further. That by "society" Polanyi means force and the "political means" is indicated by his repeated warnings that "social reality" necessarily must involve force and violence. (But why not force limited to combating aggressive force, thus minimizing the role of force in society?) Polanyi, in caustically rejecting the ideal of free trade, doesn’t realize that he is thereby rejecting international peace, for a world of socialist nations will inevitably conflict with each other’s plans, and precipitate conflict of interest and wars. Also revealing is this quotation: "Economic cooperation (in the free 19th Century free market) was limited to private institutions as rambling and ineffective as free trade, while actual collaboration between peoples, that is, between governments, could never even be envisaged." (Note the totalitarian identification of "people" and "government.") Polanyi sees that the commodity money of the old gold standard is indispensable to a true free-market economy, and therefore scornfully denounces it. Like most anti gold standard, pro-fiat paper men, he at the same time declares that money is more than a commodity (more than just a "veil"), and much less than a commodity (money is a "mere ticket"). Another contradiction; actually, money is, properly a commodity—period. Polanyi is also totally wrong when he says that business "needs" continual doses of inflation, to bolster purchasing-power, which a pure gold standard could not provide, and wrong too when he absurdly maintains that a Central Bank is not as deflationary, in a contraction, as a pure gold standard without such a central bank. A central bank is inherently more inflationary, but when the day of reckoning comes, and it must contract (under a gold standard) it contracts far more than would otherwise be necessary. Further: Polanyi seems to think that he has scored a great coup on free market economists when he says that trade first developed in international and interregional channels, and not from first local and then international. So what? This is certainly not in any sense a refutation of free market economics. It is not surprising that, in a world of self-sufficient farms and manors, the earliest trade should be with far-distant places, which are the only places from which local farms can obtain certain produce. (E.g., Western Europe could only procure spices from the Near East.) This is, in fact, a manifestation of the gains of trade and division of labor, and the growth of the market, and not vice versa. Finally, in the final chapter, Polanyi tries to assure us that his projected collectivist society would really preserve many of the "freedoms" that, he grudgingly admits, the market economy brought us. This chapter is almost a textbook presentation of utmost confusion about the concept of "freedom"; and of confusion between the vitally distinct concepts of "freedom" and of "power." (On this crucial distinction, always blurred by collectivists, see F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.) Many "freedoms" would be kept, even maximized, (after all, isn’t a worker with more money more "free," and who cares about the money taken away from the luxurious rich, anyway?), and including such "freedom" as the "right to a job" without being discriminated against because of race, creed, or color. Not only does Polanyi vainly think, or assert, that we can have at least enough "freedoms" in his collectivist society; he also believes, equally vainly, that we can preserve industrialism and Western civilization. Both hopes are vain; in both cases, Polanyi thinks he can preserve the effect (freedom of speech, or industrial civilization), while destroying the cause (the free market, private property rights, etc.) In this way, he is thinking, not only as Nehru and Kwame Nkrumah think, he is thinking also in the same fashion as the savage whom he so exuberantly extols. To sum up: I have read few books in my time that have been more vicious or more fallacious. This critique was written as a private memo to the Volker Fund in June 1961. It has never been published. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------