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Tag Archives: Finances

H. L. Mencken on Capitalism

25 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Political Philosophy

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Capitalism, democracy, economics, economy, Finances, H. L. Mencken, Macroeconomics, Markets, Minority Report, Regulation

H. L. Mencken

“What we confront is not the failure of capitalism, but simply the failure of democracy.

Capitalism has really been responsible for all the progress of the modern age. Better than any other system ever devised, it provides leisure for large numbers of superior men, and so fosters the arts and sciences. No other system ever heard of is so beneficial to invention. Its fundamental desire for gain may be far from glorious per se, but it at least furthers improvement in all the departments of life. We owe to it every innovation that makes life secure and comfortable.

Unfortunately, like any other human institution (for example, Holy Church), capitalism tends to run amuck when it is not restrained, and democracy provides inadequate means of keeping it in order. There is never any surety that democracy will throw up leaders competent to discern the true dangers of capitalism and able to remedy them in a prudent and rational manner. Thus we have vacillated between letting it run wild and trying to ruin it. Both courses are hazardous and ineffective, and it is hard to say which is more so.”

__________

Entry #310 in H. L. Mencken’s notebooks (collected and printed as Minority Report).

Read on:

  • Calvin Coolidge clearly summarizes when taxes are appropriate and when they’re exploitive
  • Thomas Piketty poses the question Did inequality cause the financial crisis?
  • Mencken’s unforgettable defense of liberty as the primary political ideal

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George Washington Rips Party Politics

25 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in History, Politics

≈ 6 Comments

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American History, American Revolution, Billy Lee, Biography, Debt, Finances, George Washington, Government, Henry Laurens, history, Inflation, Martha Washington, national debt, Party Politics, political parties, politics, Ron Chernow, United States History, Valley Forge, Washington: A Life

George Washington

“[P]arty disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and accumulated debt; ruined finances, depreciated money, and want of credit (which in their consequences is the want of every thing) are but secondary considerations and postponed from day to day, from week to week as if our affairs wore the most promising aspect; after drawing this picture, which from my Soul I believe to be a true one I need not repeat to you that I am alarmed and wish to see my Countrymen roused.”

__________

General George Washington, writing from Philadelphia on December 30th, 1778, in a letter to his friend and signatory to the Declaration Independence, Benjamin Harrison V.

This correspondence, which was penned at the dicey midpoint of the Revolutionary War, of course illuminates the abiding nature of American partisanship and our intermittent anxiety about inflation, debt and national finances. Yet it also gives depth to the psyche of its normally even-tempered author, most especially Washington’s faithfulness, which was as unshakeable as folkloric claims about his honesty. As historian Ron Chernow notes in his biography, “Washington was always reluctant to sign on to any cause, because when he did so, his commitment was total.”

In his text, Chernow bookends this letter which a description of its tense political context, which has some pointed applicability to our own time and picks up exactly a week before Washington penned this note:

On December 23 Washington took a brief respite from his incessant labors and traveled to Philadelphia to confer with Congress about the prospective Canadian invasion… Washington had already asked Martha to meet him in Philadelphia and she had eagerly awaited him there since late November. They would celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary in the city that January… yet the trip would prove anything but a vacation. Staying at the Chestnut Street home of Henry Laurens, Washington got a view of civilian life that would revolt him with an indelible vision of private greed and profligacy. Like soldiers throughout history, he was jarred by the contrast between the austerity of the army and the riches being earned on the home front through lucrative war contracts…

Ever since Valley Forge, Washington had lamented the profiteering that deprived his men of critically needed supplies, and he remained contemptuous of those who rigged and monopolized markets, branding them “the pests of society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America,” as he erupted in one fire-breathing letter. “I would to God that one of the most atrocious of each state was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman.” Because of hoarding and price manipulation, among other reasons, the mismanaged currency had lost 90 percent of its value in recent months. As he contemplated these problems, Washington was also distraught over popular disunity and wished that the nation could move beyond factional disputes…

More letters from the founders:

  • Mr. Jefferson lends some advice to his teenage grandson
  • Alexander Hamilton sends a request to a friend, asking about girls
  • John Adams writes to his wife about his faltering sense of self-confidence

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W. Somerset Maugham on Money

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Literature

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Artist, Creativity, Extravagance, Fiction, Finances, Life, literature, Money, novel, Of Human Bondage, Personal Finances, Subsistence, W. Somerset Maugham, Writing

W. Somerset Maugham

“There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one’s means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn.

You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.”

__________

From chapter 51 of W. Somerset Maugham’s magnum opus Of Human Bondage.

More for Maugham fans:

  • Also from OHB, here Maugham reflects on what he calls “patterns” of human life (I also digress on the emotive consolations of literature)
  • Contemporary novelist Julian Barnes ruminates on Maugham’s stark aphorism “Beauty is a bore”
  • In a debate with his brother Christopher, Peter Hitchens cites OHB to affirm a larger claim about why theism must underpin morality

W. Somerset Maugham

Above: Maugham in his study, 1950.

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