Socialism vs Freedom, Good Government vs Greed

Lately people are pointing at Iran and Cuba, Venezuela and the failed Soviet Union and using them as excuses to fight back against unions, against socialist/government control of key industries, and against human rights.

Let us take the most glaring example - Venezuela, who under Chavez repatriated corporate assets and tore their economy free from control by the international banking community.  Then, as most often happens, they were attacked both from within and from afar.  

These attacks were financed and controlled by the wealthy elite who dominate the world - a world that has suffered for 1700 years under predatory capitalism, a world where 5% of human beings "own" 95% of everything that exists.

Venezuela is thus an example of human greed at work, not socialism or the lack thereof.

There is also the evidence (for example, Cuba and Iran) that any country so BOLD as to take back their agricultural land and their oil wells from the wealthy elite (now in the guise of multinational corporations) will be sytematically destroyed economically and if necessarily bombed into dust.

Predatory capitalism is not individualism - it is the opposite of that.  However, individualism/libertarianism and the American Flag are often the disguise worn by the elite to justify continuation of what has been at least 1700 years of human suffering.  

5% of people own 95% of everything that exists.  This is a fact, and it is simply wrong.  It is both immoral and abusive to all the rest of us, who they set against each other like dogs in a kennel to fight over their scraps.

Millionaires are not the problem - nor is human ownership and control of assets....   Greed, unrestrained, animalistic, legally sanctioned predatory greed is and always will be THE issue.

Like many academics and writers, my continued work and study in the field of economics and culture have led me to embrace and engage actively in a strong commitment to "moral philosophy" - a perspective on economic theory and culture that requires firm choices regarding human rights, community interest and most importantly, the ethical constructs of compassion frequently referred to as "right and wrong". 

I'd love your thoughts on what you call individualism or libertarianism in the context of morality and healthy communities and cultures.

I respect that my voice echoes here in the United States - as our media and our leaders are very effective in demonizing and making fools of anyone so perverted or insane as to think "sharing" is both a good idea and the core of good government and human rights.  

If you are a person who thinks it is perfectly OK for our nation to use force to starve other countries and steal their resources, I am sad for you.  

Right is right, and wrong is wrong.  America and indeed most developed countries quite literally encourage the wealthy to build castles on the graves of the poor.

Unions - A Necessary Evil

Unions:  Are they Necessary?  Are they Evil?

In a short answer, yes - they are very necessary, and No, they are not inherently evil. 

What is evil is the near-universal human greed that expresses itself in everything from selfish hoarding to overpopulation, in gluttony and in rich countries with homeless problems.

You see, Unions must exist to counter the near-unbreakable power and corruption of employer over employee.  Since most large firms are now soulless, immortal, unseeing uncaring beasts called corporations, Unions had to rise up to protect the working person.

If a "boss" was bad, mistreated his employees, starved his worker's families, denied care after injury, people could simply stop working for him and choose elsewhere.  No more is this possible.

Non-Union Corporations often,  like Wal-Mart,  harvest the lives of their poor employees like bacteria consume flesh - always devouring, never ceasing, never giving the poor employee even a shred of a chance of thriving under the oppression of "rules" and "policies" and profit motives.

The average Wal-Mart store employee makes less than $10 per hour - and in February 2018 the three children of Sam Wall pocketed over 12 billion dollars.  The president of Wal-Mart makes 22 million dollars a year, and here in Fort Wayne we are working with a young man, 20 years old, who can't pay his apartment or his car note because Wal-Mart piss tested him - on his $8.60 per hour job, while he was working...  cleaning bathrooms.

Evil, faceless, soulless, immortal corporations - vs the working man.

Unions give the worker a fighting chance.  Are they evil?  No - not automatically.  Can they be evil, work with organized crime, and be predatory toward the market and the employer?  Well...  yes!

If a country buys tanks and guns and bombs for defense, they can be used wrongly.  That is what unions are.  They are the weapons necessary to defend the weak and the helpless against these slathering beast corporations and the anonymous wealthy who pull the strings.