Productivity + Resources=Wealth
Part One
Initial Hypotheses, Welcoming Input
Printed: 26 December 2025
Oxford Dictionary of Finance and Banking (ISBN 978-0-19-878974-1): wealth p 501“The value of the net assets owned by an individual or group of individuals. It is the value of assets minus the value of liabilities.”
Asset p 25 “any object, tangible or intangible, which is of value to its possessor.”
Black’s Law Dictionary, Ninth Edition (ISBN978-0-314-19950-8) wealth p 1730 “A large quantity of something. 2. The state of having abundant financial resources; affluence.”
All Wealth is created by the application of Productivity to Resources of defined specificity.
There are several genuseris of wealth.
Material Wealth is created by taking natural resources, applying productivity to them, to produce Products. The car that you drive, the appliances in your kitchen, the clothes that you wear, the abode that you live in, &c., are examples of Material Wealth.
Industrial Wealth is the state of a specific State’s economic productivity, often referred to as Gross Domestic Product or Gross National Product. It is made of both the manufacturing capability of the State and its service sector. U.S. Steel, Inc., is an example of Material Wealth.
Stipendia Wealth is access to professional services of another. Lawyers, doctors, cab-drivers, cooks/chefs, accountants, &c., perform stipendorum for barter or merchandise. Janes Group, Inc., the premiere news gathering and analysis agency, is an example of Stipendorum. Stipendia is counted in the Service Sector of GDP, however, Stipendia also includes the non-monetary contributions of volunteers, house-spouses, and charitable organizations.
Health Wealth, i.e., bodily well-being, is created by proper diet and exercise, productively applied to one’s person. The result being toned, well-fed, and reasonably immune from various diseases and illnesses, barring, of course, those externals such as COVID. Jack LaLane was an example of Health Wealth.
Mental Wealth i.e., psyche well-being is created through productively using one’s mind through learning and mental exercise, and the application of beneficial philosophies, e.g., the Socratic Method, Taoism or Christianity. You are an example of Mental Wealth.
Social Wealth is the productive application of the Social Contract to create and maintain a Society wherein the Individual’s Rights & Liberties[1] are equally respected by all, AND where the Individual’s Freedom to productively apply his inherent abilities to their fullest potential is respected by all and criminal activities are completely excluded. The Jeffersonian Yeoman-Farmer is an example of Social Wealth. This Social Wealth is a promise made to all of humanity by The Founders of these United States and may be found in The Declaration of Independence 1776, The Constitution of The United States 1787, Thomas Paines’ Common Sense, and particularly in The Debate on the Constitution.[2]
Throughout History, Economic Schools of Thought have only dealt with Material Wealth, even though the other areas are the fount and drivers of Material Wealth and are inseparable therefrom!
This failure to hypothesize a Universal Economic Theory has kept Mankind in violent conflict with ourselves. These conflicts are the creators of such waste in both resources and human potential that if it had not been for such nonsense, Mankind could have colonized all of our Solar System and be now exploring our Galactic Spiral Arm. F.A. Hayek is the closest economic philosopher to thinking in universal terms with his emphasis on individual knowledge.[3]
Current Economic Schools divide the economics of material wealth into a spectrum of Collectivism to Individualism.
Absolute Collectivism is the idyllic state of ALL working for the Common Good, and none receiving any benefit above that or different from that of any other person. A Beehive is almost this state. However, even in the Beehive, is there an aristocratic hierarchy wherein some have material benefits granted on them that are not available to the common worker, breeding with the Queen is only one example. Such a society would be so bland and homogeneous that even the concept of the individual would not exist. Innovation, invention and intellectual & spiritual growth are alien to this idyll. Ayn Rand’s Anthem describes this state and its end. [4]
Those who have professed to this idyll have always created abusive tyrannies resulting in unacceptable waste of human potential and natural resources. Examples are so numerous and extend back to Man’s keeping records, but just as starters, Egypt and the Pyramids, China’s Warring States Period, and its subsequent and eternal Imperial Dragon Throne, Mao/Xi and the millions of abortions and the starving of their own people, and down to Castro’s Cuba with its monthly black-outs, Stalin’s U.S.S.R., Maduro’s Venezuela, all of the African Tribal States, and on and on.
Because of Man’s inherent individuality and genetic makeup, i.e., exogamic reproduction, homo collectivus, is an impossibility. There will always be the selfish individual who will take advantage of the virtue of altruism to raise himself over others. Often this selfishness manifests as Crime i.e., criminal activity as a “profit making” enterprise. These individuals have no qualm as to stealing the productivity of others. Slavery, theft, and fraud are examples, yet no example is more egregious than that of taxation which exalts one person or group to the diminishment of others. All such exaltation occurs through violence or the threat of violence. Not one of such activities creates wealth.
Collectivism has always been attributed to the Political Left, regardless of the Age. The transitions from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, and that of the Warring States Period to the Imperial Dragon Throne, demonstrate this. People(s) exalting themselves are socially exclusionary, thereby making the excluded not only aliens, but their economic structures and properties proper targets for expropriation through any means, as these aliens are perceived as threats to the self-styled elites. Thus, in soviet style jurisdictions, the peasant has the same access to the same goods and services as all other peasants, the Party Elite have access to the same goods and services except that for the peasants, the shelves are empty of product, apartments are unavailable, and personalty are lost in Siberia, yet the Party member has access to the Gom Department Stores, apartment blocks that actually exist with habitable rooms and electric & plumbing, and doctors & medicine that are physically located in their neighborhoods. In PRC hospitals, party members are given luxurious private rooms and personal doctors, whereas the commoner has a straw filled mattress spread among a ward of straw filled mattresses and share a doctor’s visit, if & when.
Political forms of Collectivism that are on the far Left are indistinguishable from each other, differing in name only, not content or result. Note that these are, in practice, not economic forms. As an aside, note how the USSR priced all of its goods and services.[5]
Communism (from the Communist Manifesto: 2, 4)
2. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property;
2. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end[6];
2. The Ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class;
4. The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be obtained only by forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite![7]
Communism today has several iterations, but the commonality is twofold: 1. The end of private property; and 2. Creation of the hive with its inherent and inherently evil tyrannical aristocracy through violent means.[8]
Iterations of communism include communism, Marxism, socialism[9], progressivism, faux liberalism[10], Hamas, AntiFa, democratic-socialist, and democrat. The Republican of the XXIst Century, using Safire’s definitions[11], is the Jack Kennedy Democrat of 1960. The policies of fiscal responsibility coupled to the social safety-net are identical. The moderate and the centrist of both American political parties are non-existent. Note how Moderate Democrats, Joe Manchin/John Fetterman, talk a good game but always vote the Marxist party line. On the GOP side, the Republicans almost always vote the party line, but which Party? The party is split by both The Tea Party and The Freedom Party, the latter two including partizans of Libertarian and Conservative alleged positions.[12] Thus the surface unanimity is in constant non mentis internal dissent. Thus, the party line is schizophrenic. This places progress in a manic flux of progress and oppression with both having a negative impact on economic growth and social well-being.
The form of government created by these people is a kakistocracy, defined as a government of the worst men. James Russell Lowell (1876), a government for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools; a government by the worst of men, for the benefit of rogues, paid for by simpletons.[13] That said, all of these forms are utilized to interfere with the operation of the honest & open market-place and take the wealth of the productive for personal gain without having to contribute to the creation of that wealth. The primary methodology is fear coupled to hatred by creating warring exclusionary groups; groups based on arbitrary and conflicting differences allowing them to be manipulated by fear and lies and kept in abysmal social & economic ignorance.
History[14] showed The Founders that this always occurs when the plebe is ignorant and unarmed, leading to the aphorism: Freemen are armed and educated; Slaves are unarmed and ignorant & arrogant. With the possible exception of Fundamentalist Judaism as professed by Elijah and Moses, this holds true and is the basic reason for the U.S. Constitution’s IInd Amendment. It also explains Jefferson’s preference for the Yeoman-Farmer, and Hamilton’s preference for the Jobber.
Notice how the external infringement upon the individual’s private property and productivity extends from the Left through the Center and well into the Right. Jack Kennedy tried to push some individualism into the Federal Bureaucracy by creating the civil service union membership via Executive Order. Notice again, how the Left eschews the true popular vote.
Control of The Warrior Class by the Kakistocrats, coupled to Man’s inherent desire to root & nest has led to the abuses of one-party rule, as in Oregon, Hawaii, California, New York, Cuba, Venezuela, PRC, USSR, 3rd Reich, &c.[15]
The failure to limit government to its fundamental and only legitimate activity and purpose, that of the universally agreed Police Power[16] is the obvious cause for the failure to create a Universal Economic Theory.
On the Far Right, the claim to individualism is made by both Libertarians and Conservatives. Neither is correct. The Rational Anarchist[17] cannot exist because of Man’s exo-gamic condition. Man must always rely on another for some portion of his existence. The need for sleep alone exposes him to death by predator and thus, the need for a guard. The need for a gender partner to continue the species precludes any form of onanism. Only the team concept provides for growth of any kind, individual, social, economic, moral, &c.
Thus, a Universal Theory of Economics must be in some very limited form of collectivism.
Productivity + Resources=Wealth
Part Two
Historians have all too frequently allowed their personal biases to decide their conclusions.
The most obvious example is that of the American War of 1861, commonly called the American Civil War, even though the definition of civil war does not apply as this was a war of secession exactly as was the American Revolutionary War of 1776. In fact, the establishment of the two secessionary governments was identical. Each set of States individually held popularly elected conventions to decide if they should stay within the over-riding central government. Each secessionary government applied the principles of self-government as stated in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence 1776 (July 4) and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as well as the numerous pamphlets of freedom circulated at that time.[18] In fact, the Confederacy’s Declaration of Independence is almost identical to that of Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 declaration.[19]
Ignored by historians is the actual cause of conflict. In the seceding states, the bulk of the capital was tied up in slaves. In order to fairly manumit them, the owners had to be reimbursed in cash or kind. The progressives of the time not only refused but blocked the plan to have the federal government pay for their manumission.[20] The Northern States did not want the diversion of these tax dollars from their industrial expansion goals.[21]
The arguments of slavery are rebutted by historical fact. Note what happened to numerous slaves when their owners died and manumitted them in their wills. George Washington’s Probate, as just one example, was that Martha inherit everything in Trust, then all of the slaves were manumitted and inherited. So, what happened to all of those freed-men? Did they immediately get on boats and move to Africa, or did they stay in the U.S.A. as free citizens? Think about how many times this pattern repeated itself.
No regional economy could survive such a bankruptcy of labor nor capital.
To digress for the obvious but often ignored economic facts: cotton, tobacco, cochineal, wood, and other agricultural products were sold to English factors, credited in New York and London banks, shipped in British and Yankee ships, manufactured in The Low Countries and the U.K., goods then shipped back to Southern states, where there was rarely a profit to the Yeoman-Farmers as they had to pay for those goods and the transportation thereof as well as the excise taxes that no one else paid. Everyone else in the triangle made money.
The North spent the excise taxes on industrial expansion; the South was vilified for having its industrial capital locked up in slaves. Throughout the first century of the U.S., Southerners were constantly looking for a way out that would not bankrupt them.
A fair and balanced level economic playing field would have prevented this, and most other wars. Notice how unfair and un-level the economic playing field was made by these unevenly applied taxes.
All Economic schools of philosophy marginalize or ignore the most basic of human attributes. The need to Survive!
Mankind’s over-riding imperative is to SURVIVE AND PROSPER!
This double imperative is what allows the criminal his self-respective and moral self-approval. To state that the criminal views himself as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and thus is justified in shearing us, is an unacceptable over-simplification of a complex personality disorder.[22][23] Criminals and their societies are the most virulent forms of cultural exclusionism developed by mankind with The Warrior societies only one step above.
A Universal Theory of Economics must include the level playing field, such as Hayek’s open-free market, a stable currency, and an un-corruptible & intellectually pure judiciary.[24] The characteristic of meritocracy will fall into place automatically as will the best utilization of resources and labor.
The Judiciary must be honest, ethical, knowledgeable, objective, and accept that the legislature writes the law, and follow the plain meaning of the law.[25] Given the state of human morality, it may be possible to create a Bench of mostly honest and uncorruptible justiciars.
To create such a Bench, both the legal education and judicial institution must be changed to create a class of altruistic individuals wedded to the concept of non sibi sed populi.[26]
Militaries of democratic nations have a process that comes close. When the Roman Republic transitioned into the Empire, the Praetorian Guard ended up choosing the Emperor frequently by assassinating the one and replacing him with one of their own. In the democratic nations, the civilian authorities control the military, and the military understands the necessity of their being subordinate to civil authority. In the process of training ego-centric individuals into exo-centric team players[27] the individual learns and intentionally chooses to function as an individual within the guidelines of the plan; and the plans goals are embraced by the individual as a goal that the individual wants achieved.[28]
Establishing this cadre of altruists would mean the voluntary participation in prolonged intense community service. The suggestion here is three years of enlistment in the Military or comparable service. Peace Corps and AmeriCorps would serve provided the latter two started with the three-month military basic training wherein no recruit nor instructor would know to which service the recruit was enrolled. Thus, ALL would be uniformly separated from the civil self, joined as Brothers in commonly shared sacrifice & training, and dedicated, by voluntary choosing, to working for the benefit of both self and community.
Currency: Gold, silver, copper, platinum, rhodium &c, the “precious metals” historically offer the best unit of exchange, not particularly subject to manipulation, inflation, deflation, and counterfeiting. All of these objections do exist, but the very nature of these commodities limit the abuse to that of institutions with immense political and industrial resources. Iran’s massive counterfeiting of U.S. currency during the Clinton Administration[29] causing an inflation through non-economic factors and the changing of the paper currency of the U.S. Iran, as a national agency had access to the cloth/paper fiber necessary for paper currency. The PRC has been noted in numismatic circles to have debased gold coins, but they may be discovered through normal PCGS[30] tests and thus the value discounted in the various exchanges.
Digital currency, as evidenced by how the PRC harshly controls its population, is not an answer. All digital everything is subject to hacking by every government agency and by, as evidenced by the DOJ cases brought against teenagers, anyone with coding skills.
What exactly supports cryptocurrency? This is not a solution to the currency problem.
Gold is available in amounts as small as 1/1,000th /troz in the form of Goldbacks. Goldbacks are a marriage of gold and plastic such that a miniscule amount of gold is imbedded in a dollar size slip of plastic.[31] The technology may also be used for all precious metals. Furthermore, the use of a plastic strip will allow for QR or UPC or other coded imprints to prevent all counterfeiting of this currency, a currency not subject to institutional interference.
A conformity necessity requires that there be a complete revamping of all educational institutions. Not only must honesty and truth be brought into the K-12 system, but the curriculum and educators be changed to be at least as intense as the current Japanese system, but basic economics and civics must be integrated into the system. Standards once taught in religious institutions, e.g., right from wrong, The Ten Commandments, The Golden Rule, &c., will have to be integrated into the system as well as meritocracy and respect for others and the fact that you cannot have self-esteem without culturally identifiable accomplishments.[32] This brings us back to collectivism vs individualism.
And a need for a Universal Economic Theory.
Productivity + Resources=Wealth
Part Three
Originally written in 2011, updated 2014, & STILL RELEVANT!
There are three basic forms of education:
1. Lecture and Recital;
2. Socratic; &,
3. Auto-didactic[33].
The purpose of education is to pass proven as true &/or factual information accurately both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal transfer of information is from individual to individual or group to group within one generation; the vertical transfer of information is that of from one defined generation, individual or group, to another generation of individuals or groups. Books do this so well!
The lecture and recital method of education is the common method in Western Civilization in the K-12 segment and is self-explanatory. It manifests as an individual lecturing on a particular sub-topic of a topic to one or more individuals who then memorizes the lecture and recites it back either verbally or scripturally without cognition. Currently the most extant form is in Mosques where the Q’Ran is memorized irrationally in order of chapter size from the shortest chapter to the longest chapter. All questioning of content is heresy with all interpretations generated by “chosen” clerics with no known authority overseeing these holy visions. Note that K-12 in the United States, including Missouri, is of this form.
The Socratic Method, that of directed queries thus forcing the student to not only think critically but to pursue information readily available to him, attributed to pre-Christian Greek philosopher Socrates, may have been developed much earlier in China as noted in Dallas Galvin’s comments to Lionel Giles translation of Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.
Introduced into modern society by Harvard University School of Law in the 1880’s, it forces the student to think both logically and rationally on the subject matter under discussion, thus, ‘critical thinking’. The Socratic Method although creating the ability to critical thinking in the student, does not necessarily create the concurrent and necessary cross-germination of fields of study necessary for the creation of the entrepreneur. Of particular interest to Missouri is that the result of this form led to two recent highly controversial, and in the author’s opinion both unconstitutional and egregious, Federal Decisions: the first the obviously incorrect desegregation decision re the Kansas City Missouri Unified School District, and the extension of voting hours in St. Louis, preposterously founded on 14th Amendment Civil Rights violations.
A hybrid of Lecture & Recital and the Socratic Method is the Case Study Method. A ‘case’ of a particular incident within the field of study is developed by the professor[34] and presented to the class as an object lesson. The class then dissects the case and analyzes it in the expectation of learning both the How and Why behind this particular case. The How and Why is the egregious omission in the Lecture and Recital methodology but an assumed benefit of The Socratic Method; this assumption is unproven.
The auto-didactic[35] methodology is that of the entrepreneur as well as that of engineers, scientists of both the first and second order, innovators, and the generally successful. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates appear to personify this type, yet the process can be seen in all areas as noted by statesmen as diverse as Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, and Henry Kissinger, tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin, and politicians such as Teddy Roosevelt.
The formal process of education started as the dissection of a general subject area into easily studied modules with the anticipation that at the end of the study the student will have grasped the whole. For easy reference, consider how the field of business is studied at university.
Business studies are broken down into management, marketing, finance, accounting, human resources (personnel management), and even farther into sales, advertising, equities and debt, and then even farther into Management 101, Management 102, &c. At no time in the process is there a comprehensive exam testing the student’s knowledge of the subject as a whole. Beyond that, there is not even the attempt to require that a business major learn history, philosophy, culture, math, science &c. One of several egregious unintended consequences is how so many business people support so many virulently anti-business tenets such as the non-existent global warming, the necessity for cap & trade or the immoral and legally reprehensible positions on illegal immigration, and the undesirability of petrochemicals in our economy.[36] Or, the procrustean assumption of guilt on the entire working class to provide health care to all regardless of the legal status of the recipient, the recipient’s desire for it, or whether or not it’s even legal to do so under our present republican form of government[37][38].
Education is the key to jobs and sustained economic growth.
As discussed supra, there are three time ranges to consider before a government policy should be instituted:
1. Immediate;
2. Intermediate; &,
3. Extended.
Immediately, with almost no expense or budget impact, the State of Missouri can institute a series of standardized tests for all levels and subjects taught from K-12, under-graduate and graduate university programs.
Historically, prior to 1970, the acknowledged best public school system in the United States was that of New York State.
Both New York City and New York State required standardized testing[39] at levels 4, 6 and 8 in primary school and for ALL subjects in secondary school. NYC tests were known as ‘city-wide’ testing, state testing is by the NYS Board of Regents who conduct “Regents” Exams, and until the introduction of bi-lingual, ethnic studies, and diversity requirements, everyone not only knew where they stood compared to other graduates and schools but as to others entering into the labor force, thus providing a proven source of competent workers to business.
Such being no longer applicable thereby forcing an unnecessary expense upon all businesses as well as being a huge waste of limited tax resources to government.
The introduction of such standardized testing, although contested by school boards and unions, is practical to the state government by the simple process of stating that it is voluntary. The State Department of Education can produce the tests, administer the tests, and certify both those who pass and the test itself. As long as the tests are standardized within the arbitrary and artificial restrictions of the Federal Court System, no action against them will take place inhibiting the higher standard. The market place will be the determining factor as businesses may simply require that all job candidates have such certification, which is unchallengeable as the tests are both voluntary and meet the discriminatory restrictions of judicially legislated law!
At the university level, standardized testing should be instituted as well as a revamping of the bachelor’s degree requirements to include fewer elective courses and more required major cross-over courses. Business majors should be required to take a Shakespeare course as well as a philosophy course and some courses in business history, and vice-versa. Standardized testing for certification in any field is a snap as noted by the fact that the beauticians and masseuses are all tested to state specific standards as are the doctors and lawyers![40]
At the intermediate level, a university level program, initially at the graduate level, should be developed in a school of generality. Call it the Degree of Generalization, aka The DoG degree! Interestingly enough, both India and China have this program. In China it is at The Central Party School in Beijing.[41] The only comparable programs in the United States, although claimed by institutions such as Harvard and Wharton, are only in the Military, with Fort Leavenworth KS’s War College and the Navy’s Naval Postgraduate School[42] in Monterey CA being noteworthy of actually doing so.
The structure used by the Chinese Communist Party provides for residency on campus in luxurious surroundings thus providing a taste of the possible rewards for both businessmen and bureaucrats who succeed at their jobs. The CCP program includes all aspects of business, government policies, law, regulations, culture, manners, and a cross-germination not only of ideas, but of social networking. The bureaucrats meet and co-mingle with the capitalist and the capitalist meets and co-mingles with the bureaucrat, thus providing not only a fertile meeting of the minds but of the needs of each group and from that understanding of the process’ by which each may prosper to the benefit of the entire society.[43] The structure of the school requires not only actual residency, which may be accomplished in Missouri by altering the hours of attendance but still requiring a physical presence on campus, but real personal contact with teachers, fellow students and support personnel such as librarians, researchers and other physically accessible resources.[44] A lesson the likes of Soros and Druckenmiller have not learned.
Also in the intermediate stage is the necessity to overhaul both the textbooks and teaching methodologies. Texas has started to require text books at all levels be true, correct, and historically accurate which may lead to the same for the rest of the country as their purchasing power often forces book makers to make only one style and other school districts simply can’t afford to pay for state specific, PC &/or U.N. compliant texts.
The teaching methodology for K-4 should remain the same, Lecture & Recital, for 5-8 The Socratic Method should be gradually introduced so that eighth grade is all Socratic and the Case Study methodology, where applicable[45] should be used throughout secondary school., thereby pushing the university level into the professorial-didactic method, that is, a hybrid of auto-didactic and case study, which is desirable.
If the immediate and intermediate policies are instituted, without political-partisan interference and allowed to grow, the extended policy need only be a rigid objective oversight of the programs.
The educational system of today is no different from that of John the Baptist. With immediate change and gradual overhaul of the educational system with the goal to create and attract entrepreneurs, the effects, immediate, intermediate, and extended for Missouri, and hence, the United States itself, will be job and economic growth unparalleled in Western Civilization.
– 86 –
[Post published note, 31 December 2013, the Kansas City School District, keeping to the form that led to the Deseg Suit, is now un-accredited with its corruptive influence now spreading to neighboring school districts; &, due to the complaints of the business community, there is a move to require a STANDARDIZED EXIT EXAM, in certain disciplines, for those graduating university with a baccalaureate!]
(Part IV, & more, still in draft and to come)
[1] See Freedom in One Lesson; The Best of Leonard Read, ISBN 978-1-61016-780-2 available at: www.mises.org/store .
[2] Bernard Bailyn, Editor, © 1993, Literary Classics of the United States, Library of Congress Catalogue No 92-25449; ISBN978-0-940450-42-4 Parts One and Two
[3] Not to diminish Leonard Read, Ralph Raico, von Mises, Rothbard &c. Consider Adam Smith as well as The Levelers and St. Thomas Aquinas.
[4] As an interesting cultural aside, note that in Hell, everyone is lumped into one particular group and treated identically. In Heaven, one is given a harp, wings, a halo, and allowed to float around at will. See Dante’s Divine Trilogy in support hereof.
[5] The various embassies priced goods and services in their locales sending such data to Moscow where an algorithm determined what the prices were to be outside of the GOM department stores. Wages, for those who have not read The Gulag Archipelago were arbitrary, capricious, and at the sole determination of the plant supervisor, always a Party Member.
[6] Such a falsehood. Note the antipathy between the National Socialists of the 3rd Reich and the Stalin’s Soviet Comintern or Communists International or the hatred & distrust between the PRC and the Russian Federation.
[7] Note the now permissible violence of AntiFa, BLM, La Raza, Hamas, Hezbollah, &c.
[8] Antifa, BLM, La Raza, anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity, Hamas, &c.
[9] Of contemporary import, NAZI is an acronym for National Socialism, not fascism. Hitler differed from Trotsky-Lenin-Stalin in that Hitler was for German Socialism, i.e., national, and the soviets were for international communism, i.e., the Comintern or Communist Internationale.
[10] Liberalism was stolen during the latter part of the XIXth Century to hide the two factors of no private property and no individualism. The true Liberal, according to Ludwig von Mises (Liberalism, the Classical Tradition ISBN 978-0-86597-585-9), is masquerading as Libertarian.
[11] Safire’s Political Dictionary, William Safire, Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-534061-7
[12] The ignorance of both ends is apparent in that none on the Left have read Marx, and those on the Right have never read Leonard Read or Ralph Raico. Based on the public records of these people, most have never read The Constitution of the United States, The Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, nor The Debate on the Constitution. I hereby coin the term AGIT (Arrogant Grossly Ignorant Toadies).
[13] See Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
[14] The Founders read more than Smith and Locke. Foundational sources included Thucydides A History of the Peloponnesian Wars, Cæser’s Commentaries, Pliny the Younger, Cicero, Plato’s Republic, and the likes of Tom Paine.
[15] As Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, “… Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”
[16] The Police Power consists of an internal police force designed and trained to Protect and Serve, an honest, open, ethical, and completely objective Judiciary, and a True and Faithful Military to protect from external criminals. None of which exist anywhere today – for those apologists for the U.S.A., just look at the lawfare of the past several decades.
[17] Although similar individuals are mentioned throughout the Austrian School as buyers and sellers, the only true reference that I have found is in the science fiction works of Robert A. Heinlein, particularly in Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and many of his future histories stories.
[18] Numerous works are available on this, however, Charles Adams’ Slavery, Secession, and Civil War, ISBN 978-0-8108-5863-3, Freehling’s disunion books and Hugh Thomas’ The Slave Trade, cover this quite well.
[19] The absurdity of The 1619 Project is refuted by such works as: Charles Adams’ Slavery, Secession and Civil War, Hugh Thomas’ The Slave Trade; a history of the North Atlantic slave trade, and Jeffrey Addicott’s Union Terror.
[20] We will not go into the impact of The Scottish Reformation of the 1720’s herein.
[21] There being only the excise tax, i.e., tariffs, to fund the federal government, and the fact that the Southern States paid 75% of these while 75% was spent on Northern expansion projects, roads, rail-roads, and canals, made the Northern Jobbers loath to relinquish this wealth.
[22] Consider, in The Magnificent Seven, Tuco says, “If God didn’t want them sheared, he wouldn’t have made them sheep.”
[23] Unlike the university bubble academic, I practiced criminal defense for a few years and have actually met and spoken with criminals who knew that lying to the defense lawyer was against their best interests, whereas lying to academics and social workers provided numerous material benefits.
[24] Note how James Q. Wilson, Thomas Sowell, and Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., agree on this. The economic arena must be of equal opportunity for all. Implicit in this is the honest judiciary.
[25] See Rector et al Holy Trinity Church vs United States 143 U.S. 457 (1892) “It is a familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers.” Amidst a long dissertation on Christianity, SCOTUS declares that it is the sole arbiter of what the spirit of the law is. Trinity Church has been narrowed and narrowed, but NOT over-ruled, thus keeping the premise that SCOTUS is the sole arbiter of the spirit of the law.
[26] “not self but (my) people.” I.e. doing the right thing because it IS the right thing.
[27] Important difference to note: a member of a team is an individual who has chosen to apply his individual skills in accordance with a plan that benefits many; this individual knows that the goal is unobtainable without all team members contributing. A team is NOT a group. The political concept of group demographics, especially as practiced by marketing managers, to place individuals into pre-conceived forms in order to peddle destructive behavior though fear +/or target for a specific product audience, is detrimental to the person.
[28] The instilling of this is leadership; what the media currently refers to as leadership is nothing more than incompetent management. Look at the current state of the U.S. Democratic Party.
[29] Of all news sources, this was only reported by Reader’s Digest!!!
[30] Professional Coin Grading Service
[31] www.moneymetals.com and many other sites, have them for sale and a premium. Further, goldbacks are now legal currency in at least six U.S. states.
[32] A separate article on education is forthcoming.
[33] Yupper, all learning is auto-didactic, herein I am referring to the forms of these educations.
[34] Of interest herein: a teacher, generally K-12, teaches, i.e. is “learned” in Lecture & Recital; a professor professes the subject matter and, hypothetically, guides the student through the learning process hoping that the student will acquire the skill of critical thinking
[35] Greek: self-taught – of course, considering that ALL learning is self taught, this is one of those academic self-determinatives.
[36] Petrochemicals are required by over 97% of EVERYTHING we use, see Leffler’s, Petrochemicals in non-technical language, and his, Refining in non-technical language. Quickly, both aspirin and plastic are from oil, now, consider life without any plastic or most of the drugs in use – not pretty is it, and along those lines, Michio Kaku, Ph.D., New York University School of Graduate Studies, physics, has on numerous occasions commented that we are within 30 years of nuclear fusion; so, what now wind farm?
[37] FOX News ticker just reported, as I write, that the Florida District Court has ruled Obama-care unconstitutional!
[38] The desirability of teaching basic government and law at the K-12 level, and its undeniable necessity at the university level is incontrovertible, but not a part of this piece.
[39] Standardized Testing [from www.justplainbill.wordpress.com ]
Posted: 11 November 2014
On 4 November 2014, in Missouri, we had several constitutional amendments to pass or refute. Amendment 3 dealt with a state-wide educational mandate that would allow the state government to apply standards, via standardized testing, across the state in order to provide educational uniformity among students pre-K – 12. It also provided for requiring accountability for learning to the teachers, and restricted tenure as well as requiring uniform standards to teacher accreditation. Further, it allowed for the termination of incompetent teachers.
It failed to pass by close to ~80% against and ~20% for.
You should review two earlier posts at this time. One starts with an article posted by Yahoo News, which demonstrates the low level of journalism as well as how poor and substandard the educational system is, my comments at the end are important to both of these posts, and the other is the earlier posted White Paper to the Missouri Senate on Education and Entrepreneurship.
Standardized testing as toxic to education is one of the greatest politico-union hoaxes ever perpetrated on a long-suffering taxpayer. Pay close attention to the FACTS.
The first thing that y’all need to know is that standardized testing was and is an irrefutable fact of the lecture-response form of teaching. Lecture-response is universal throughout the pre-K – 12 American Educational System. Read the White Paper for more. The second thing that you need to know is that there are two forms of textbooks for pre-K – 12. The next time that you see your child, look closely at her textbook.
Open it, look at the publisher’s page, and it probably has a Chicago publisher listed as the publishing company. That is correct, wherever you are in the U.S.A., the odds are that the publisher of your kids’ textbook is the same as everywhere else in the U.S.A., and the publisher is in Chicago. Yupper, everyone HAS THE SAME TEXT BOOK! Now, look at the content.
The book is broken down into modules, sections, and chapters that coincide with the school year. So much for “lesson plans”, when the textbook is designed with internal lesson plans. Oh? Look carefully at the questions at the end of each piece.
Keep in mind, now, that the entire country uses THE SAME TEXTBOOK.
Now, the next time that you attend a P.T.A. meeting, ask to look at THE TEACHER’S textbook. Same publisher and ALMOST the same contents. Look closely at the parts of the book immediately AFTER the questions in your kids’ book.
Do not be shocked. In the teacher’s copy, not only are all of those questions answered, but there are whole paragraphs with what the teacher should be concentrating on, with what questions to ask to guide the students to the correct answer, AND there are suggested TEST QUESTIONS! Where do you think teachers get their test questions?
Yupper, ALL TEACHERS GET THEIR TESTS FROM THE QUESTIONS IN THE SAME TEACHERS’ EDITION OF THE SAME TEXTBOOK! THERE IS ONLY STANDARDIZED TESTING!
So why the argument against standardized testing when no matter where you are, the teachers MUST “teach to the (same) test”?
The state will only use the same questions to make up the test in the first place; so no matter what, they MUST ‘teach to the test’! Could it be that it takes the granting of the actual grade AWAY from the teacher? Does it mean no more tokens, no more pets, and no more free passes to “minorities”? Does it mean that there will be a true LEVEL playing field, that FAVORITISM will now be ELIMINATED?
AND, does it mean that incompetent teachers will be exposed for what they are and now vulnerable to replacement with competent teachers?
Now, a little history lesson: until The Johnson Administration and its “Great Society”, New York City had one of the best public school systems in the U.S.A. The New York Public School System REQUIRED standardized testing at several grades until it was, magically by judicial decree, made racist, and therefore discriminatory. Until The Johnson Administration, the teachers were NOT unionized, tenure was limited, and a teacher did NOT need a Master’s Degree, to teach or to get tenure. Teachers and students did not fear for their lives in any of the schools in New York City in 1960. Parents were involved, teachers were involved, and except for a very few, students were involved.
During The Clinton Administration, Hilly-Billy wanted Congress to forgive student debt and allow grants for university students taking teaching degrees. What they found out, once the people got involved, was that for every teaching position, there were 2 ½ accredited and licensed teachers!
Why so many people with teaching licenses, compared to so few jobs?
Class size in the 1950’s, when kids learned to read, write, and do arithmetic, was between 25 and 35. Now the teachers complain about a class size of 15 and our dropout rate is higher now than it was in 1960.
Teachers were not required to have an M.Ed. within 10 years of getting their license, or be fired. Why, when if you look at the teachers’ textbook in grades pre-K – 8, is not an Associates’ Degree adequate? Why shouldn’t there be standardized testing and teacher accountability? Keeping in mind, of course, that STANDARDIZED TESTING is already in place and will remain in place for as long as the lecture & response teaching methodology exists.
Who actually benefits from the current situation? Student? Parent? Teacher?
[40] This White Paper was originally written in 2011. In 2014, according to multiple articles in The Wall Street Journal, dozens of universities and businesses have started research into establishing standardized tests for business school undergraduates to establish a uniform floor for their degrees.
[41] McGregor, The Party, pp 227 et seq
[42] The NPG program in international gov’t, law & treaty is, in personal opinion, much better than the comparable programs at both Georgetown & UCLA
[43] Don’t get mawky, at this point the CCP program is just starting and has many of the typical flaws of a tyranny, still, it’s a foundation for such future growth that it must be investigated, further, it’s derived from the Indian public school (same as British Public School or in fact private schools & academies open only to those with tuition money or who can get scholarships)
[44] As an example, if this program were instituted at MU Columbia, the entire state government becomes a resource for the DoG student! Consider how access to real legislators, regulators, and jurists will impact both entrepreneurs and officials, plus, how government officials will be able to take advantage of this program.
[45] Imagine, if you will, if the case study method was used to explain the how and why of both the 1776 Revolution and the War of 1861! What’s the difference? Why didn’t the Southern states use the Federal Courts to simply legally secede as opposed to armed separation? What were the differences in political theories of the Parliament vs. Colonies and the Unionists vs. Secessionists? How do Calhoun, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Davis, Lincoln, and Washington differ? How are they the same?
Justplainbill's Weblog
Productivity+Resources=Wealth
Productivity + Resources=Wealth
Part One
Initial Hypotheses, Welcoming Input
Printed: 26 December 2025
Oxford Dictionary of Finance and Banking (ISBN 978-0-19-878974-1): wealth p 501“The value of the net assets owned by an individual or group of individuals. It is the value of assets minus the value of liabilities.”
Asset p 25 “any object, tangible or intangible, which is of value to its possessor.”
Black’s Law Dictionary, Ninth Edition (ISBN978-0-314-19950-8) wealth p 1730 “A large quantity of something. 2. The state of having abundant financial resources; affluence.”
All Wealth is created by the application of Productivity to Resources of defined specificity.
There are several genuseris of wealth.
Material Wealth is created by taking natural resources, applying productivity to them, to produce Products. The car that you drive, the appliances in your kitchen, the clothes that you wear, the abode that you live in, &c., are examples of Material Wealth.
Industrial Wealth is the state of a specific State’s economic productivity, often referred to as Gross Domestic Product or Gross National Product. It is made of both the manufacturing capability of the State and its service sector. U.S. Steel, Inc., is an example of Material Wealth.
Stipendia Wealth is access to professional services of another. Lawyers, doctors, cab-drivers, cooks/chefs, accountants, &c., perform stipendorum for barter or merchandise. Janes Group, Inc., the premiere news gathering and analysis agency, is an example of Stipendorum. Stipendia is counted in the Service Sector of GDP, however, Stipendia also includes the non-monetary contributions of volunteers, house-spouses, and charitable organizations.
Health Wealth, i.e., bodily well-being, is created by proper diet and exercise, productively applied to one’s person. The result being toned, well-fed, and reasonably immune from various diseases and illnesses, barring, of course, those externals such as COVID. Jack LaLane was an example of Health Wealth.
Mental Wealth i.e., psyche well-being is created through productively using one’s mind through learning and mental exercise, and the application of beneficial philosophies, e.g., the Socratic Method, Taoism or Christianity. You are an example of Mental Wealth.
Social Wealth is the productive application of the Social Contract to create and maintain a Society wherein the Individual’s Rights & Liberties[1] are equally respected by all, AND where the Individual’s Freedom to productively apply his inherent abilities to their fullest potential is respected by all and criminal activities are completely excluded. The Jeffersonian Yeoman-Farmer is an example of Social Wealth. This Social Wealth is a promise made to all of humanity by The Founders of these United States and may be found in The Declaration of Independence 1776, The Constitution of The United States 1787, Thomas Paines’ Common Sense, and particularly in The Debate on the Constitution.[2]
Throughout History, Economic Schools of Thought have only dealt with Material Wealth, even though the other areas are the fount and drivers of Material Wealth and are inseparable therefrom!
This failure to hypothesize a Universal Economic Theory has kept Mankind in violent conflict with ourselves. These conflicts are the creators of such waste in both resources and human potential that if it had not been for such nonsense, Mankind could have colonized all of our Solar System and be now exploring our Galactic Spiral Arm. F.A. Hayek is the closest economic philosopher to thinking in universal terms with his emphasis on individual knowledge.[3]
Current Economic Schools divide the economics of material wealth into a spectrum of Collectivism to Individualism.
Absolute Collectivism is the idyllic state of ALL working for the Common Good, and none receiving any benefit above that or different from that of any other person. A Beehive is almost this state. However, even in the Beehive, is there an aristocratic hierarchy wherein some have material benefits granted on them that are not available to the common worker, breeding with the Queen is only one example. Such a society would be so bland and homogeneous that even the concept of the individual would not exist. Innovation, invention and intellectual & spiritual growth are alien to this idyll. Ayn Rand’s Anthem describes this state and its end. [4]
Those who have professed to this idyll have always created abusive tyrannies resulting in unacceptable waste of human potential and natural resources. Examples are so numerous and extend back to Man’s keeping records, but just as starters, Egypt and the Pyramids, China’s Warring States Period, and its subsequent and eternal Imperial Dragon Throne, Mao/Xi and the millions of abortions and the starving of their own people, and down to Castro’s Cuba with its monthly black-outs, Stalin’s U.S.S.R., Maduro’s Venezuela, all of the African Tribal States, and on and on.
Because of Man’s inherent individuality and genetic makeup, i.e., exogamic reproduction, homo collectivus, is an impossibility. There will always be the selfish individual who will take advantage of the virtue of altruism to raise himself over others. Often this selfishness manifests as Crime i.e., criminal activity as a “profit making” enterprise. These individuals have no qualm as to stealing the productivity of others. Slavery, theft, and fraud are examples, yet no example is more egregious than that of taxation which exalts one person or group to the diminishment of others. All such exaltation occurs through violence or the threat of violence. Not one of such activities creates wealth.
Collectivism has always been attributed to the Political Left, regardless of the Age. The transitions from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, and that of the Warring States Period to the Imperial Dragon Throne, demonstrate this. People(s) exalting themselves are socially exclusionary, thereby making the excluded not only aliens, but their economic structures and properties proper targets for expropriation through any means, as these aliens are perceived as threats to the self-styled elites. Thus, in soviet style jurisdictions, the peasant has the same access to the same goods and services as all other peasants, the Party Elite have access to the same goods and services except that for the peasants, the shelves are empty of product, apartments are unavailable, and personalty are lost in Siberia, yet the Party member has access to the Gom Department Stores, apartment blocks that actually exist with habitable rooms and electric & plumbing, and doctors & medicine that are physically located in their neighborhoods. In PRC hospitals, party members are given luxurious private rooms and personal doctors, whereas the commoner has a straw filled mattress spread among a ward of straw filled mattresses and share a doctor’s visit, if & when.
Political forms of Collectivism that are on the far Left are indistinguishable from each other, differing in name only, not content or result. Note that these are, in practice, not economic forms. As an aside, note how the USSR priced all of its goods and services.[5]
Communism (from the Communist Manifesto: 2, 4)
2. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property;
2. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end[6];
2. The Ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class;
4. The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be obtained only by forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite![7]
Communism today has several iterations, but the commonality is twofold: 1. The end of private property; and 2. Creation of the hive with its inherent and inherently evil tyrannical aristocracy through violent means.[8]
Iterations of communism include communism, Marxism, socialism[9], progressivism, faux liberalism[10], Hamas, AntiFa, democratic-socialist, and democrat. The Republican of the XXIst Century, using Safire’s definitions[11], is the Jack Kennedy Democrat of 1960. The policies of fiscal responsibility coupled to the social safety-net are identical. The moderate and the centrist of both American political parties are non-existent. Note how Moderate Democrats, Joe Manchin/John Fetterman, talk a good game but always vote the Marxist party line. On the GOP side, the Republicans almost always vote the party line, but which Party? The party is split by both The Tea Party and The Freedom Party, the latter two including partizans of Libertarian and Conservative alleged positions.[12] Thus the surface unanimity is in constant non mentis internal dissent. Thus, the party line is schizophrenic. This places progress in a manic flux of progress and oppression with both having a negative impact on economic growth and social well-being.
The form of government created by these people is a kakistocracy, defined as a government of the worst men. James Russell Lowell (1876), a government for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools; a government by the worst of men, for the benefit of rogues, paid for by simpletons.[13] That said, all of these forms are utilized to interfere with the operation of the honest & open market-place and take the wealth of the productive for personal gain without having to contribute to the creation of that wealth. The primary methodology is fear coupled to hatred by creating warring exclusionary groups; groups based on arbitrary and conflicting differences allowing them to be manipulated by fear and lies and kept in abysmal social & economic ignorance.
History[14] showed The Founders that this always occurs when the plebe is ignorant and unarmed, leading to the aphorism: Freemen are armed and educated; Slaves are unarmed and ignorant & arrogant. With the possible exception of Fundamentalist Judaism as professed by Elijah and Moses, this holds true and is the basic reason for the U.S. Constitution’s IInd Amendment. It also explains Jefferson’s preference for the Yeoman-Farmer, and Hamilton’s preference for the Jobber.
Notice how the external infringement upon the individual’s private property and productivity extends from the Left through the Center and well into the Right. Jack Kennedy tried to push some individualism into the Federal Bureaucracy by creating the civil service union membership via Executive Order. Notice again, how the Left eschews the true popular vote.
Control of The Warrior Class by the Kakistocrats, coupled to Man’s inherent desire to root & nest has led to the abuses of one-party rule, as in Oregon, Hawaii, California, New York, Cuba, Venezuela, PRC, USSR, 3rd Reich, &c.[15]
The failure to limit government to its fundamental and only legitimate activity and purpose, that of the universally agreed Police Power[16] is the obvious cause for the failure to create a Universal Economic Theory.
On the Far Right, the claim to individualism is made by both Libertarians and Conservatives. Neither is correct. The Rational Anarchist[17] cannot exist because of Man’s exo-gamic condition. Man must always rely on another for some portion of his existence. The need for sleep alone exposes him to death by predator and thus, the need for a guard. The need for a gender partner to continue the species precludes any form of onanism. Only the team concept provides for growth of any kind, individual, social, economic, moral, &c.
Thus, a Universal Theory of Economics must be in some very limited form of collectivism.
Productivity + Resources=Wealth
Part Two
Historians have all too frequently allowed their personal biases to decide their conclusions.
The most obvious example is that of the American War of 1861, commonly called the American Civil War, even though the definition of civil war does not apply as this was a war of secession exactly as was the American Revolutionary War of 1776. In fact, the establishment of the two secessionary governments was identical. Each set of States individually held popularly elected conventions to decide if they should stay within the over-riding central government. Each secessionary government applied the principles of self-government as stated in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence 1776 (July 4) and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as well as the numerous pamphlets of freedom circulated at that time.[18] In fact, the Confederacy’s Declaration of Independence is almost identical to that of Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 declaration.[19]
Ignored by historians is the actual cause of conflict. In the seceding states, the bulk of the capital was tied up in slaves. In order to fairly manumit them, the owners had to be reimbursed in cash or kind. The progressives of the time not only refused but blocked the plan to have the federal government pay for their manumission.[20] The Northern States did not want the diversion of these tax dollars from their industrial expansion goals.[21]
The arguments of slavery are rebutted by historical fact. Note what happened to numerous slaves when their owners died and manumitted them in their wills. George Washington’s Probate, as just one example, was that Martha inherit everything in Trust, then all of the slaves were manumitted and inherited. So, what happened to all of those freed-men? Did they immediately get on boats and move to Africa, or did they stay in the U.S.A. as free citizens? Think about how many times this pattern repeated itself.
No regional economy could survive such a bankruptcy of labor nor capital.
To digress for the obvious but often ignored economic facts: cotton, tobacco, cochineal, wood, and other agricultural products were sold to English factors, credited in New York and London banks, shipped in British and Yankee ships, manufactured in The Low Countries and the U.K., goods then shipped back to Southern states, where there was rarely a profit to the Yeoman-Farmers as they had to pay for those goods and the transportation thereof as well as the excise taxes that no one else paid. Everyone else in the triangle made money.
The North spent the excise taxes on industrial expansion; the South was vilified for having its industrial capital locked up in slaves. Throughout the first century of the U.S., Southerners were constantly looking for a way out that would not bankrupt them.
A fair and balanced level economic playing field would have prevented this, and most other wars. Notice how unfair and un-level the economic playing field was made by these unevenly applied taxes.
All Economic schools of philosophy marginalize or ignore the most basic of human attributes. The need to Survive!
Mankind’s over-riding imperative is to SURVIVE AND PROSPER!
This double imperative is what allows the criminal his self-respective and moral self-approval. To state that the criminal views himself as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and thus is justified in shearing us, is an unacceptable over-simplification of a complex personality disorder.[22][23] Criminals and their societies are the most virulent forms of cultural exclusionism developed by mankind with The Warrior societies only one step above.
A Universal Theory of Economics must include the level playing field, such as Hayek’s open-free market, a stable currency, and an un-corruptible & intellectually pure judiciary.[24] The characteristic of meritocracy will fall into place automatically as will the best utilization of resources and labor.
The Judiciary must be honest, ethical, knowledgeable, objective, and accept that the legislature writes the law, and follow the plain meaning of the law.[25] Given the state of human morality, it may be possible to create a Bench of mostly honest and uncorruptible justiciars.
To create such a Bench, both the legal education and judicial institution must be changed to create a class of altruistic individuals wedded to the concept of non sibi sed populi.[26]
Militaries of democratic nations have a process that comes close. When the Roman Republic transitioned into the Empire, the Praetorian Guard ended up choosing the Emperor frequently by assassinating the one and replacing him with one of their own. In the democratic nations, the civilian authorities control the military, and the military understands the necessity of their being subordinate to civil authority. In the process of training ego-centric individuals into exo-centric team players[27] the individual learns and intentionally chooses to function as an individual within the guidelines of the plan; and the plans goals are embraced by the individual as a goal that the individual wants achieved.[28]
Establishing this cadre of altruists would mean the voluntary participation in prolonged intense community service. The suggestion here is three years of enlistment in the Military or comparable service. Peace Corps and AmeriCorps would serve provided the latter two started with the three-month military basic training wherein no recruit nor instructor would know to which service the recruit was enrolled. Thus, ALL would be uniformly separated from the civil self, joined as Brothers in commonly shared sacrifice & training, and dedicated, by voluntary choosing, to working for the benefit of both self and community.
Currency: Gold, silver, copper, platinum, rhodium &c, the “precious metals” historically offer the best unit of exchange, not particularly subject to manipulation, inflation, deflation, and counterfeiting. All of these objections do exist, but the very nature of these commodities limit the abuse to that of institutions with immense political and industrial resources. Iran’s massive counterfeiting of U.S. currency during the Clinton Administration[29] causing an inflation through non-economic factors and the changing of the paper currency of the U.S. Iran, as a national agency had access to the cloth/paper fiber necessary for paper currency. The PRC has been noted in numismatic circles to have debased gold coins, but they may be discovered through normal PCGS[30] tests and thus the value discounted in the various exchanges.
Digital currency, as evidenced by how the PRC harshly controls its population, is not an answer. All digital everything is subject to hacking by every government agency and by, as evidenced by the DOJ cases brought against teenagers, anyone with coding skills.
What exactly supports cryptocurrency? This is not a solution to the currency problem.
Gold is available in amounts as small as 1/1,000th /troz in the form of Goldbacks. Goldbacks are a marriage of gold and plastic such that a miniscule amount of gold is imbedded in a dollar size slip of plastic.[31] The technology may also be used for all precious metals. Furthermore, the use of a plastic strip will allow for QR or UPC or other coded imprints to prevent all counterfeiting of this currency, a currency not subject to institutional interference.
A conformity necessity requires that there be a complete revamping of all educational institutions. Not only must honesty and truth be brought into the K-12 system, but the curriculum and educators be changed to be at least as intense as the current Japanese system, but basic economics and civics must be integrated into the system. Standards once taught in religious institutions, e.g., right from wrong, The Ten Commandments, The Golden Rule, &c., will have to be integrated into the system as well as meritocracy and respect for others and the fact that you cannot have self-esteem without culturally identifiable accomplishments.[32] This brings us back to collectivism vs individualism.
And a need for a Universal Economic Theory.
Productivity + Resources=Wealth
Part Three
Originally written in 2011, updated 2014, & STILL RELEVANT!
There are three basic forms of education:
1. Lecture and Recital;
2. Socratic; &,
3. Auto-didactic[33].
The purpose of education is to pass proven as true &/or factual information accurately both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal transfer of information is from individual to individual or group to group within one generation; the vertical transfer of information is that of from one defined generation, individual or group, to another generation of individuals or groups. Books do this so well!
The lecture and recital method of education is the common method in Western Civilization in the K-12 segment and is self-explanatory. It manifests as an individual lecturing on a particular sub-topic of a topic to one or more individuals who then memorizes the lecture and recites it back either verbally or scripturally without cognition. Currently the most extant form is in Mosques where the Q’Ran is memorized irrationally in order of chapter size from the shortest chapter to the longest chapter. All questioning of content is heresy with all interpretations generated by “chosen” clerics with no known authority overseeing these holy visions. Note that K-12 in the United States, including Missouri, is of this form.
The Socratic Method, that of directed queries thus forcing the student to not only think critically but to pursue information readily available to him, attributed to pre-Christian Greek philosopher Socrates, may have been developed much earlier in China as noted in Dallas Galvin’s comments to Lionel Giles translation of Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.
Introduced into modern society by Harvard University School of Law in the 1880’s, it forces the student to think both logically and rationally on the subject matter under discussion, thus, ‘critical thinking’. The Socratic Method although creating the ability to critical thinking in the student, does not necessarily create the concurrent and necessary cross-germination of fields of study necessary for the creation of the entrepreneur. Of particular interest to Missouri is that the result of this form led to two recent highly controversial, and in the author’s opinion both unconstitutional and egregious, Federal Decisions: the first the obviously incorrect desegregation decision re the Kansas City Missouri Unified School District, and the extension of voting hours in St. Louis, preposterously founded on 14th Amendment Civil Rights violations.
A hybrid of Lecture & Recital and the Socratic Method is the Case Study Method. A ‘case’ of a particular incident within the field of study is developed by the professor[34] and presented to the class as an object lesson. The class then dissects the case and analyzes it in the expectation of learning both the How and Why behind this particular case. The How and Why is the egregious omission in the Lecture and Recital methodology but an assumed benefit of The Socratic Method; this assumption is unproven.
The auto-didactic[35] methodology is that of the entrepreneur as well as that of engineers, scientists of both the first and second order, innovators, and the generally successful. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates appear to personify this type, yet the process can be seen in all areas as noted by statesmen as diverse as Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, and Henry Kissinger, tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin, and politicians such as Teddy Roosevelt.
The formal process of education started as the dissection of a general subject area into easily studied modules with the anticipation that at the end of the study the student will have grasped the whole. For easy reference, consider how the field of business is studied at university.
Business studies are broken down into management, marketing, finance, accounting, human resources (personnel management), and even farther into sales, advertising, equities and debt, and then even farther into Management 101, Management 102, &c. At no time in the process is there a comprehensive exam testing the student’s knowledge of the subject as a whole. Beyond that, there is not even the attempt to require that a business major learn history, philosophy, culture, math, science &c. One of several egregious unintended consequences is how so many business people support so many virulently anti-business tenets such as the non-existent global warming, the necessity for cap & trade or the immoral and legally reprehensible positions on illegal immigration, and the undesirability of petrochemicals in our economy.[36] Or, the procrustean assumption of guilt on the entire working class to provide health care to all regardless of the legal status of the recipient, the recipient’s desire for it, or whether or not it’s even legal to do so under our present republican form of government[37][38].
Education is the key to jobs and sustained economic growth.
As discussed supra, there are three time ranges to consider before a government policy should be instituted:
1. Immediate;
2. Intermediate; &,
3. Extended.
Immediately, with almost no expense or budget impact, the State of Missouri can institute a series of standardized tests for all levels and subjects taught from K-12, under-graduate and graduate university programs.
Historically, prior to 1970, the acknowledged best public school system in the United States was that of New York State.
Both New York City and New York State required standardized testing[39] at levels 4, 6 and 8 in primary school and for ALL subjects in secondary school. NYC tests were known as ‘city-wide’ testing, state testing is by the NYS Board of Regents who conduct “Regents” Exams, and until the introduction of bi-lingual, ethnic studies, and diversity requirements, everyone not only knew where they stood compared to other graduates and schools but as to others entering into the labor force, thus providing a proven source of competent workers to business.
Such being no longer applicable thereby forcing an unnecessary expense upon all businesses as well as being a huge waste of limited tax resources to government.
The introduction of such standardized testing, although contested by school boards and unions, is practical to the state government by the simple process of stating that it is voluntary. The State Department of Education can produce the tests, administer the tests, and certify both those who pass and the test itself. As long as the tests are standardized within the arbitrary and artificial restrictions of the Federal Court System, no action against them will take place inhibiting the higher standard. The market place will be the determining factor as businesses may simply require that all job candidates have such certification, which is unchallengeable as the tests are both voluntary and meet the discriminatory restrictions of judicially legislated law!
At the university level, standardized testing should be instituted as well as a revamping of the bachelor’s degree requirements to include fewer elective courses and more required major cross-over courses. Business majors should be required to take a Shakespeare course as well as a philosophy course and some courses in business history, and vice-versa. Standardized testing for certification in any field is a snap as noted by the fact that the beauticians and masseuses are all tested to state specific standards as are the doctors and lawyers![40]
At the intermediate level, a university level program, initially at the graduate level, should be developed in a school of generality. Call it the Degree of Generalization, aka The DoG degree! Interestingly enough, both India and China have this program. In China it is at The Central Party School in Beijing.[41] The only comparable programs in the United States, although claimed by institutions such as Harvard and Wharton, are only in the Military, with Fort Leavenworth KS’s War College and the Navy’s Naval Postgraduate School[42] in Monterey CA being noteworthy of actually doing so.
The structure used by the Chinese Communist Party provides for residency on campus in luxurious surroundings thus providing a taste of the possible rewards for both businessmen and bureaucrats who succeed at their jobs. The CCP program includes all aspects of business, government policies, law, regulations, culture, manners, and a cross-germination not only of ideas, but of social networking. The bureaucrats meet and co-mingle with the capitalist and the capitalist meets and co-mingles with the bureaucrat, thus providing not only a fertile meeting of the minds but of the needs of each group and from that understanding of the process’ by which each may prosper to the benefit of the entire society.[43] The structure of the school requires not only actual residency, which may be accomplished in Missouri by altering the hours of attendance but still requiring a physical presence on campus, but real personal contact with teachers, fellow students and support personnel such as librarians, researchers and other physically accessible resources.[44] A lesson the likes of Soros and Druckenmiller have not learned.
Also in the intermediate stage is the necessity to overhaul both the textbooks and teaching methodologies. Texas has started to require text books at all levels be true, correct, and historically accurate which may lead to the same for the rest of the country as their purchasing power often forces book makers to make only one style and other school districts simply can’t afford to pay for state specific, PC &/or U.N. compliant texts.
The teaching methodology for K-4 should remain the same, Lecture & Recital, for 5-8 The Socratic Method should be gradually introduced so that eighth grade is all Socratic and the Case Study methodology, where applicable[45] should be used throughout secondary school., thereby pushing the university level into the professorial-didactic method, that is, a hybrid of auto-didactic and case study, which is desirable.
If the immediate and intermediate policies are instituted, without political-partisan interference and allowed to grow, the extended policy need only be a rigid objective oversight of the programs.
The educational system of today is no different from that of John the Baptist. With immediate change and gradual overhaul of the educational system with the goal to create and attract entrepreneurs, the effects, immediate, intermediate, and extended for Missouri, and hence, the United States itself, will be job and economic growth unparalleled in Western Civilization.
– 86 –
[Post published note, 31 December 2013, the Kansas City School District, keeping to the form that led to the Deseg Suit, is now un-accredited with its corruptive influence now spreading to neighboring school districts; &, due to the complaints of the business community, there is a move to require a STANDARDIZED EXIT EXAM, in certain disciplines, for those graduating university with a baccalaureate!]
(Part IV, & more, still in draft and to come)
[1] See Freedom in One Lesson; The Best of Leonard Read, ISBN 978-1-61016-780-2 available at: www.mises.org/store .
[2] Bernard Bailyn, Editor, © 1993, Literary Classics of the United States, Library of Congress Catalogue No 92-25449; ISBN978-0-940450-42-4 Parts One and Two
[3] Not to diminish Leonard Read, Ralph Raico, von Mises, Rothbard &c. Consider Adam Smith as well as The Levelers and St. Thomas Aquinas.
[4] As an interesting cultural aside, note that in Hell, everyone is lumped into one particular group and treated identically. In Heaven, one is given a harp, wings, a halo, and allowed to float around at will. See Dante’s Divine Trilogy in support hereof.
[5] The various embassies priced goods and services in their locales sending such data to Moscow where an algorithm determined what the prices were to be outside of the GOM department stores. Wages, for those who have not read The Gulag Archipelago were arbitrary, capricious, and at the sole determination of the plant supervisor, always a Party Member.
[6] Such a falsehood. Note the antipathy between the National Socialists of the 3rd Reich and the Stalin’s Soviet Comintern or Communists International or the hatred & distrust between the PRC and the Russian Federation.
[7] Note the now permissible violence of AntiFa, BLM, La Raza, Hamas, Hezbollah, &c.
[8] Antifa, BLM, La Raza, anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity, Hamas, &c.
[9] Of contemporary import, NAZI is an acronym for National Socialism, not fascism. Hitler differed from Trotsky-Lenin-Stalin in that Hitler was for German Socialism, i.e., national, and the soviets were for international communism, i.e., the Comintern or Communist Internationale.
[10] Liberalism was stolen during the latter part of the XIXth Century to hide the two factors of no private property and no individualism. The true Liberal, according to Ludwig von Mises (Liberalism, the Classical Tradition ISBN 978-0-86597-585-9), is masquerading as Libertarian.
[11] Safire’s Political Dictionary, William Safire, Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-534061-7
[12] The ignorance of both ends is apparent in that none on the Left have read Marx, and those on the Right have never read Leonard Read or Ralph Raico. Based on the public records of these people, most have never read The Constitution of the United States, The Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, nor The Debate on the Constitution. I hereby coin the term AGIT (Arrogant Grossly Ignorant Toadies).
[13] See Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
[14] The Founders read more than Smith and Locke. Foundational sources included Thucydides A History of the Peloponnesian Wars, Cæser’s Commentaries, Pliny the Younger, Cicero, Plato’s Republic, and the likes of Tom Paine.
[15] As Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, “… Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”
[16] The Police Power consists of an internal police force designed and trained to Protect and Serve, an honest, open, ethical, and completely objective Judiciary, and a True and Faithful Military to protect from external criminals. None of which exist anywhere today – for those apologists for the U.S.A., just look at the lawfare of the past several decades.
[17] Although similar individuals are mentioned throughout the Austrian School as buyers and sellers, the only true reference that I have found is in the science fiction works of Robert A. Heinlein, particularly in Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and many of his future histories stories.
[18] Numerous works are available on this, however, Charles Adams’ Slavery, Secession, and Civil War, ISBN 978-0-8108-5863-3, Freehling’s disunion books and Hugh Thomas’ The Slave Trade, cover this quite well.
[19] The absurdity of The 1619 Project is refuted by such works as: Charles Adams’ Slavery, Secession and Civil War, Hugh Thomas’ The Slave Trade; a history of the North Atlantic slave trade, and Jeffrey Addicott’s Union Terror.
[20] We will not go into the impact of The Scottish Reformation of the 1720’s herein.
[21] There being only the excise tax, i.e., tariffs, to fund the federal government, and the fact that the Southern States paid 75% of these while 75% was spent on Northern expansion projects, roads, rail-roads, and canals, made the Northern Jobbers loath to relinquish this wealth.
[22] Consider, in The Magnificent Seven, Tuco says, “If God didn’t want them sheared, he wouldn’t have made them sheep.”
[23] Unlike the university bubble academic, I practiced criminal defense for a few years and have actually met and spoken with criminals who knew that lying to the defense lawyer was against their best interests, whereas lying to academics and social workers provided numerous material benefits.
[24] Note how James Q. Wilson, Thomas Sowell, and Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., agree on this. The economic arena must be of equal opportunity for all. Implicit in this is the honest judiciary.
[25] See Rector et al Holy Trinity Church vs United States 143 U.S. 457 (1892) “It is a familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers.” Amidst a long dissertation on Christianity, SCOTUS declares that it is the sole arbiter of what the spirit of the law is. Trinity Church has been narrowed and narrowed, but NOT over-ruled, thus keeping the premise that SCOTUS is the sole arbiter of the spirit of the law.
[26] “not self but (my) people.” I.e. doing the right thing because it IS the right thing.
[27] Important difference to note: a member of a team is an individual who has chosen to apply his individual skills in accordance with a plan that benefits many; this individual knows that the goal is unobtainable without all team members contributing. A team is NOT a group. The political concept of group demographics, especially as practiced by marketing managers, to place individuals into pre-conceived forms in order to peddle destructive behavior though fear +/or target for a specific product audience, is detrimental to the person.
[28] The instilling of this is leadership; what the media currently refers to as leadership is nothing more than incompetent management. Look at the current state of the U.S. Democratic Party.
[29] Of all news sources, this was only reported by Reader’s Digest!!!
[30] Professional Coin Grading Service
[31] www.moneymetals.com and many other sites, have them for sale and a premium. Further, goldbacks are now legal currency in at least six U.S. states.
[32] A separate article on education is forthcoming.
[33] Yupper, all learning is auto-didactic, herein I am referring to the forms of these educations.
[34] Of interest herein: a teacher, generally K-12, teaches, i.e. is “learned” in Lecture & Recital; a professor professes the subject matter and, hypothetically, guides the student through the learning process hoping that the student will acquire the skill of critical thinking
[35] Greek: self-taught – of course, considering that ALL learning is self taught, this is one of those academic self-determinatives.
[36] Petrochemicals are required by over 97% of EVERYTHING we use, see Leffler’s, Petrochemicals in non-technical language, and his, Refining in non-technical language. Quickly, both aspirin and plastic are from oil, now, consider life without any plastic or most of the drugs in use – not pretty is it, and along those lines, Michio Kaku, Ph.D., New York University School of Graduate Studies, physics, has on numerous occasions commented that we are within 30 years of nuclear fusion; so, what now wind farm?
[37] FOX News ticker just reported, as I write, that the Florida District Court has ruled Obama-care unconstitutional!
[38] The desirability of teaching basic government and law at the K-12 level, and its undeniable necessity at the university level is incontrovertible, but not a part of this piece.
[39] Standardized Testing [from www.justplainbill.wordpress.com ]
Posted: 11 November 2014
On 4 November 2014, in Missouri, we had several constitutional amendments to pass or refute. Amendment 3 dealt with a state-wide educational mandate that would allow the state government to apply standards, via standardized testing, across the state in order to provide educational uniformity among students pre-K – 12. It also provided for requiring accountability for learning to the teachers, and restricted tenure as well as requiring uniform standards to teacher accreditation. Further, it allowed for the termination of incompetent teachers.
It failed to pass by close to ~80% against and ~20% for.
You should review two earlier posts at this time. One starts with an article posted by Yahoo News, which demonstrates the low level of journalism as well as how poor and substandard the educational system is, my comments at the end are important to both of these posts, and the other is the earlier posted White Paper to the Missouri Senate on Education and Entrepreneurship.
Standardized testing as toxic to education is one of the greatest politico-union hoaxes ever perpetrated on a long-suffering taxpayer. Pay close attention to the FACTS.
The first thing that y’all need to know is that standardized testing was and is an irrefutable fact of the lecture-response form of teaching. Lecture-response is universal throughout the pre-K – 12 American Educational System. Read the White Paper for more. The second thing that you need to know is that there are two forms of textbooks for pre-K – 12. The next time that you see your child, look closely at her textbook.
Open it, look at the publisher’s page, and it probably has a Chicago publisher listed as the publishing company. That is correct, wherever you are in the U.S.A., the odds are that the publisher of your kids’ textbook is the same as everywhere else in the U.S.A., and the publisher is in Chicago. Yupper, everyone HAS THE SAME TEXT BOOK! Now, look at the content.
The book is broken down into modules, sections, and chapters that coincide with the school year. So much for “lesson plans”, when the textbook is designed with internal lesson plans. Oh? Look carefully at the questions at the end of each piece.
Keep in mind, now, that the entire country uses THE SAME TEXTBOOK.
Now, the next time that you attend a P.T.A. meeting, ask to look at THE TEACHER’S textbook. Same publisher and ALMOST the same contents. Look closely at the parts of the book immediately AFTER the questions in your kids’ book.
Do not be shocked. In the teacher’s copy, not only are all of those questions answered, but there are whole paragraphs with what the teacher should be concentrating on, with what questions to ask to guide the students to the correct answer, AND there are suggested TEST QUESTIONS! Where do you think teachers get their test questions?
Yupper, ALL TEACHERS GET THEIR TESTS FROM THE QUESTIONS IN THE SAME TEACHERS’ EDITION OF THE SAME TEXTBOOK! THERE IS ONLY STANDARDIZED TESTING!
So why the argument against standardized testing when no matter where you are, the teachers MUST “teach to the (same) test”?
The state will only use the same questions to make up the test in the first place; so no matter what, they MUST ‘teach to the test’! Could it be that it takes the granting of the actual grade AWAY from the teacher? Does it mean no more tokens, no more pets, and no more free passes to “minorities”? Does it mean that there will be a true LEVEL playing field, that FAVORITISM will now be ELIMINATED?
AND, does it mean that incompetent teachers will be exposed for what they are and now vulnerable to replacement with competent teachers?
Now, a little history lesson: until The Johnson Administration and its “Great Society”, New York City had one of the best public school systems in the U.S.A. The New York Public School System REQUIRED standardized testing at several grades until it was, magically by judicial decree, made racist, and therefore discriminatory. Until The Johnson Administration, the teachers were NOT unionized, tenure was limited, and a teacher did NOT need a Master’s Degree, to teach or to get tenure. Teachers and students did not fear for their lives in any of the schools in New York City in 1960. Parents were involved, teachers were involved, and except for a very few, students were involved.
During The Clinton Administration, Hilly-Billy wanted Congress to forgive student debt and allow grants for university students taking teaching degrees. What they found out, once the people got involved, was that for every teaching position, there were 2 ½ accredited and licensed teachers!
Why so many people with teaching licenses, compared to so few jobs?
Class size in the 1950’s, when kids learned to read, write, and do arithmetic, was between 25 and 35. Now the teachers complain about a class size of 15 and our dropout rate is higher now than it was in 1960.
Teachers were not required to have an M.Ed. within 10 years of getting their license, or be fired. Why, when if you look at the teachers’ textbook in grades pre-K – 8, is not an Associates’ Degree adequate? Why shouldn’t there be standardized testing and teacher accountability? Keeping in mind, of course, that STANDARDIZED TESTING is already in place and will remain in place for as long as the lecture & response teaching methodology exists.
Who actually benefits from the current situation? Student? Parent? Teacher?
[40] This White Paper was originally written in 2011. In 2014, according to multiple articles in The Wall Street Journal, dozens of universities and businesses have started research into establishing standardized tests for business school undergraduates to establish a uniform floor for their degrees.
[41] McGregor, The Party, pp 227 et seq
[42] The NPG program in international gov’t, law & treaty is, in personal opinion, much better than the comparable programs at both Georgetown & UCLA
[43] Don’t get mawky, at this point the CCP program is just starting and has many of the typical flaws of a tyranny, still, it’s a foundation for such future growth that it must be investigated, further, it’s derived from the Indian public school (same as British Public School or in fact private schools & academies open only to those with tuition money or who can get scholarships)
[44] As an example, if this program were instituted at MU Columbia, the entire state government becomes a resource for the DoG student! Consider how access to real legislators, regulators, and jurists will impact both entrepreneurs and officials, plus, how government officials will be able to take advantage of this program.
[45] Imagine, if you will, if the case study method was used to explain the how and why of both the 1776 Revolution and the War of 1861! What’s the difference? Why didn’t the Southern states use the Federal Courts to simply legally secede as opposed to armed separation? What were the differences in political theories of the Parliament vs. Colonies and the Unionists vs. Secessionists? How do Calhoun, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Davis, Lincoln, and Washington differ? How are they the same?