July 20, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
09:55
3748 51% of Millennials REJECT Capitalism | The Daily Argument
A study by Harvard University showed that 51% of millennials reject capitalism - but do they even know what capitalism actually is? Stefan Molyneux breaks down the basic of capitalism in two minutes and then explains common misconceptions regarding the free market. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20170719203440/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.c7ad3a23dcc3Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Now we're going to talk about a poll that came out that said that 51% of millennials reject capitalism.
Now that's fascinating.
I would imagine that about 99% of millennials and most everybody else in the society doesn't have a clue what capitalism actually is.
People think, well, capitalism is trade.
No, no, no.
Trade has been going on since the dawn of consciousness.
Capitalism is corporations.
It's like, no, no, you can have corporations without capitalism.
That's called fascism, where corporations front the trade, but governments profit from the proceeds through taxes and controls.
And there's a black market even in socialist countries.
Is that capitalism?
People don't really have a clue what capitalism is.
So don't worry.
In less than 10 minutes, I will get you completely illuminated and then blow your mind.
So, tall order, but I'm into it.
I'm down for it.
And so basically, what is capitalism?
Well, capitalism is private property and enforcement of contracts.
It's really all it is.
Private property and enforcement of contracts.
Now, there are lots of effects of those sort of basic principles.
So it's keep your stuff, keep your word.
That's all you have.
Keep your stuff, keep your word.
And that is really the only essential aspects to capitalism.
This leads to a whole bunch of other stuff.
But private property rights and contract enforcement, that is all there is about capitalism.
And the funny thing is, it's not even that abstract or that complicated.
It's exactly what you were told in kindergarten.
Don't grab other people's stuff and don't lie to people.
Because breaking contracts is a form of lying, or you make a contract, and then if you don't fulfill on it, and you could assume, then you lied in terms of getting the contract.
So keep your word, keep your stuff.
It's really that simple.
Look, we're at two minutes that I've already explained the entirety of capitalism.
Now, there are, of course, a lot of ramifications to all of this, and I personally am not a huge fan of of what are called corporations at the moment.
Corporations these days are legal fictions that are set up by governments, and what they do is they allow for individuals to hoover up profits out of this legal fiction called a corporation, but losses Don't go back the same way.
So you can make a lot of money out of a corporation, you can go buy a $10 million house, but then if your corporation starts to lose money, nobody can touch your $10 million house.
It's sort of a one-way street of profiteering without risk.
And it used to be back in the day, in the 19th century, banks were fairly conservative, and there were banking crises and so on, but there were also, in America, there were wars and so on, and civil war.
But back in the day, bankers who were personally liable for losses used to be very, very careful about how much money they lent out, how much money they kept in reserve and so on.
Because if the banks lost money, if there was a bank run, people could go after these people's, the head of the bank's personal assets, which of course is exactly what should happen.
Right now, what happens is people take a huge money, a huge amount of money out of corporations.
They go and buy a bunch of fun stuff for themselves.
And then if the bank runs into trouble, the government rescues it with deposit insurance and so on.
So what you're doing is you're relying on the government to go and prosecute bankers.
Now, since the government is so heavily involved in debt, you have to borrow to create the illusion of prosperity, to create the illusion.
That the government is adding to the economy rather than being a desperate drag and overhead to the economy, the government needs to borrow money.
You know, like if you imagine you have a partnership with someone where you both have to put up $100,000 and he has $100,000 and he puts it up and you just go and borrow it and you have no way of paying it back.
You're creating the illusion that you're contributing $100,000 but you're kind of not in a way because it's a liability rather than an asset.
So the idea that governments are going to police the very bankers That they need to facilitate the sale of bonds and to legitimize this monopoly money known as modern currency.
The idea that governments are going to police the bankers, well, as the old saying goes, you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
So I just wanted to point out, corporatism is not the same as capitalism.
It is not the same as keep your stuff and keep your word.
Now, there is something else that's very important for a free market, which is, and this is an old economic argument, that you know there's a free market when there is a stock exchange.
I think there's some truth in that.
Of course, a stock exchange is simply, you know, basically, give me money to expand my factory, and I'll give you a share of the profits that I get from all of that new stuff that I'm making, and that's sort of shares and so on.
I mean, it's perfectly fine.
that's just another contract that you can make in a free market.
But right now, the stock market is so distorted by, of course, massive and rampant government intervention in the economy, which is the use of force to destroy either private property rights or contracts.
And you can see this going on in American healthcare right now at the wrangle about how healthcare is going to look.
There are a few people who are saying, well, all you need to do is deregulate healthcare, allow healthcare providers to compete with each other, reduce the barrier entry, lower the barrier to entry to providing healthcare services.
And healthcare could be as cheap as it was.
100 years ago, when you could get fantastic healthcare insurance for a couple of hundred bucks a year in modern terms.
And so if you have a stock market and people that have real private property and real contract enforcement, that's one thing.
But right now, In the West, the stock market is heavily manipulated and controlled by the government, not just because of this regulation and so on, but also because the government herds trillions of dollars into the stock market that damn well doesn't want to be there.
I mean, your stock market money is a hostage.
You're fleeing from the giant smog predator known as the IRS. And one of the caves that you can dive into to escape the fiery breath of rampant taxation is the stock market.
Like if you put your money into a retirement plan, then you can use that to reduce the income that you're taxed on.
And it also in America, of course, drives the housing market because if you rent a house, your interest on your mortgage is tax deductible and so on.
So, trillions of dollars are being herded into the stock market, and they don't want to be there.
You should only be in the stock market if you know what you're doing, and most people are just like, oh, I have to give it to the IRS or to a stockbroker?
Okay, well, I'll give it to a stockbroker.
They don't know the companies.
They don't know how the stock market works.
You know, you don't have to be a professional spelunker and archaeologist to dive into a cave to escape a predator.
And that's kind of what's happening in the modern remnants of the free market.
And of course, you know, big business loves the fact that all this money is being herded into the stock market because, driven into the stock market really, in the way that sheep herd sheepdogs, right?
You go this way or I'll tear your leg off.
Well, invest in the stock market or I'll take your money by force, is what governments say around the West.
And so big business leaders love the fact that the government is herding all this money into the stock market because it means that their stock prices go up and they get a huge amount of vested options and they make out like bandits.
You know, the partnership between big business and the state is just about as unholy as the ancient partnership between religion, between the church and the state.
And although...
That one has been understood how dangerous it is to have the state and the church unified.
Having the state and the economy unified is still a lesson that we most brutally have to learn.
So yeah, when people say I'm against free market, the free market, what are they against?
Are they against property?
Are they against having your stuff?
Well, they can't be.
Because someone's going to have to control stuff in the world.
Like if there's a house there and people want it, the government can come in and say, well, you didn't pay your property taxes because the government is the ultimate landlord.
You don't actually own things in the modern West.
You have a titular ownership as long as you keep paying your rent called your property taxes.
And so the government can say, well, you didn't pay your property tax, so we're going to come and take your house.
But then it's not like there's no property ownership.
It's just the government now, quote, owns your house or the bank owns your house or whatever it is.
So there's going to be ownership of stuff no matter what.
It's either going to be ownership based upon personally earning it, building it, trading for it in a voluntary mechanism, or it's going to be ownership based upon...
Surrendering control over property at the point of a gun, which is what the government does whenever it takes over property.
It's pointing a gun at you and saying, hand over your property or else, which, you know, absent uniform is called something quite different in a dark alley.
So that's the free market.
That's capitalism in a nutshell.
You've got keep your word, keep your stuff.
Now, why don't you...
Know this?
Well, because your education was run by the government and the government does not want you to know about the free market because then you're going to look at the free market, you're going to look at the government and you're going to say one of these is civilized and one of these is not.
So think back on the 12 plus years you spent in government education through to the end of high school.
Think of all of that and ask yourself Keep your word, keep your stuff.
