Malthus & Darwin

 

April 20, 2012

landlordsgame.jpegThe board game Monopoly, created and
first introduced in 1903 as The “LandLord’s Game” by Philadelphia
Quaker “Lizzie” Magie, was designed to teach Henry George’s anti-Darwinian economic
philosophy.

Malthus provided Darwin with the
economic ideology; Darwin came up with the “science” to justify it, and
eventually it was put into practice, i.e., applied Darwinism, meaning
applied eugenics and genocide of “inferiors,” and who are referred to as
“useless eaters.”

 
by Elm
(henrymakow.com)

 
Contrary to conventional notions, Social Darwinism – the secularized science of evolution is an economic ideology masquerading as a natural science.

Much of Darwin’s thinking was derived from the economic theories of British-born Thomas Malthus his Essay on Population, i.e., that population tends to outstrip subsistence.

Of course, this is an Old World reductionist view, largely predicated upon feudalistic notions propagated by the Land “Lord” or privileged class. The Malthusian theory of an increasing population juxtaposed with a scarcity of resources, actually serves as a pretext for control, greed and genocide – that it’s all about the survival of the “fittest” and the disenfranchisement culling of those less “fit” and less deserving.
 
A contemporary polar opposite to Thomas Malthus, today largely expunged from the halls of academia, is American born economic philosopher Henry George, and his refutation of Malthus in his 1879 treatise on economy, Progress And Poverty.

george.jpegIn contrast to Malthus’ assertion that wages are a claim upon the capital and wealth of the Land “Lord’s,” George explains, wages are neither a demand nor a claim upon the capital or wealth of another, that all labor creates its own wage, thus refuting the view that labor is a “cost of doing business.”

Indeed, it is this fundamental inversion of the true relationship of a man’s labor to his wages, which forms the basis of economic servitude.

Labor is neither a cost nor an expense of doing business, but an asset of a production of wealth, no matter at which stage this production occurs. Labor wages constitute a value for value exchange.

What the current Corporate Interface does is masticate labor into a cost of doing business, i.e., a “wage cost,” then regurgitating it out the corporate backside as profit income to owners.

All free men own their labor, which is their most private form of capital and property. A man whose labor does not belong to him is in economic servitude, no matter how pretty it comes packaged.

Further, George explains, nature bends her knee exponentially to the creative ingenuity and labors of man, thus challenging the Malthusian assertion of scarcity, as if man were bound to a hunter gatherer society economy.
 
Whereas Henry George is portrayed as a “socialist,” he was rather, predisposed to the principle ideal of social justice rather than the pretentious political ideology of social”ism.”

So essentially, Malthus Darwin are the warp and woof – the economics science of Applied Eugenics and Social Darwinism, this predicated upon an inverted notion of the relationship between labor and wages, and the hunter gatherer economic ideology of scarcity adversity.

Our greatest concern today, is not whether man “evolved” from a chimp, but whether he will devolve into a chump.

The question is not, how do we feed and manage the world, but how do we empower the people of the world to manage and feed themselves?

http://www.gamereport.com/tgr26/monopolyswindle.shtml

 

Comments for “Malthus Darwin – Joined at the Hip “

Bill said (April 20, 2012):

Apparently the Landlord’s game, by Philadelphia Quaker “Lizzie” Magie Phillips, was designed to teach Henry George’s anti-Darwinian economic philosophy. So paying rent and accumulating houses and hotels and collecting rent if fine. Labor adds value, according Henry George and should not be viewed as a “cost of doing business.” It is a valuable assets rather than an expense.

I always wanted to be a business owner growing up. I observed my father working for others and complaining about the way he was treated. I got to know the owners of the car dealership where he worked as first parts manager and them sales manager. I knew that I wanted to be the owner! So I attended college, got some work experience and eventually started my own company in 1992. I have achieved the freedom from bosses I desired. But here’s the thing. I have always been afraid to hire employees. I was a member of 2 businessman’s luncheon groups back in the 90’s. I heard story after story about the hassles of problem employees and government regulations. Wanting to keep my overhead and liabilities at a minimum, I chose to do all the work myself – and keep all the profits – except for the part the government demands of me (grrrr). One of my fears is that if i train someone to do what I do, they will eventually steal my customers. Who wants to train their competitors?

So the idea that employees are valuable assets rings true – sometimes. However, the thought that they are also overhead expenses and potential liabilities is also true. Any thoughts about this?


Dick said (April 20, 2012):

The important thing about Henry George is not that he was anti-
Malthus, but that he was anti-Lincoln. In his time (1880s-90s), the US federal government was run almost entirely on tariffs (import taxes) and corporate tax.

George’s doctrine is essentially that we should have global free
trade, and tax the bejesus out of land. This idea had some purchase in that time period, as most people didn’t own land or understand economics, and the railroads and industrialists were powerful.

George managed to represent the interests of Wall Street and London – who are weakened by nationalist trade barriers, and don’t need land or productive capacity – by appealing to widespread socialist and anti-monopoly sympathies.

Henry George was also the chief influence on George Bernard Shaw, who would help populate the post-Lincoln west with a bunch of Fabian-sponsored nonsense like Georgism, social credit, distributism, etc. Take a look at “The New Age” magazine (of which Shaw was a sponsor and frequent contributor), which pulls all these supposedly anti-imperialist but actually anti-nationalist economic schools together:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Age

There’s only one valid school of political economy – the American
System (protectionism). Everything else is a convoluted scam to
remove national protections for the benefit of speculators.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire!


Steven said (April 20, 2012):

Pay for labor is essentially a business transaction and not an unjust claim on capital.

If employers don’t want to pay for the services of their workers they may find themselves doing all the work on their own.

To obtain a man’s property or his time and efforts there must be a trade of value for value.

These days the medium of exchanges value is at best dubious and at worst non-existent. So it is entirely possible that there has been no genuine payment for labor since the 1960s when they removed silver from the coinage.


Henry Makow is the author of A Long Way to go for a Date. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto. He welcomes your feedback and ideas at

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