Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Capital Destruction by Enemies of Our Civilization - By Michael S. Rozeff

Tearing down statues of Columbus is a symbol of tearing down our predominantly Western (European) civilization. In the same way that a mass LOCKDOWN quickly destroys capital that has taken lifetimes to build up, tearing down our civilization will relatively quickly destroy other valuable portions of our individual and social capital. We’ll end up impoverished if we let this happen. It’s one thing to create and make a place within our civilization for many other cultural ideas that can co-exist. It’s an entirely different matter to work out of hatred and hostility to destroy what’s there and replace it with rubble or ideas that destroy capital and civilization.

 

With respect to lockdowns, additionally, let’s never forget that it takes more time to build something than to destroy it. The time it takes to build up a collection of better ways to produce better goods and services is accompanied by their being embodied in physical and human capital. It takes years for a human being to become an adult, and even child prodigies take years to grow up. Killing them takes very little time. Burning a church to the ground takes much less time than constructing it, and the knowledge it takes to build a magnificent church or bridge took thousands of years to accumulate. The techniques of making submarine cables and laying them, and the techniques of building satellites and launching them into space take a long time to learn. Our knowledge of botany and plant life has taken thousands of years to accumulate. Western civilization permeates everything that its enemies and destroyers take for granted. There is no greater act of suicide and genocide than destroying this incredibly valuable civilization.

The discovery of America took hundreds of years, and it was a great accomplishment. The natives on this continent didn’t think of it as a New World or even as a continent. Europeans had been trading with Asia for a long time in 1492, but the trade routes were long and dangerous. At that time, heads of state and governments financed business ventures. The idea of making London into a trade center, if a short sea route to Asia could be found, was what motivated the voyages of John Cabot. Explorers from Spain and Portugal had similar ideas. The North Men (Norsemen) had landed on Greenland before the year 1,000, but they didn’t discover America as a continent. They didn’t communicate this idea to Europe. There had to be an Age of Discovery that initiated the large scale transformation of a thinly populated continent into what we see today.

Africans didn’t discover America as a continent replete with opportunities. They didn’t have the ships or the motivation. Asians didn’t discover America, even though their descendants lived in the land. They were blocked by the Pacific Ocean expanse. The process of discovery took a long time and even longer were the complex processes of trade, commercialization, exploration, invasion, migration, invention, and industrialization.

We have a bountiful civilization that’s European in origin. We have Columbus Day and Columbus statues to memorialize this history. It is by no means a history of total glory and perfection. There have been many injustices, and that is the way of mankind. It has all sorts of human blemishes. Our culture absorbs many influences. Culture is not the same as civilization. Our language, law, ethics, peoples, family systems and religions have largely drawn from European sources.

Tearing down statues of Columbus is a symbol of tearing down our predominantly Western (European) civilization. In the same way that a mass LOCKDOWN quickly destroys capital that has taken lifetimes to build up, tearing down our civilization will relatively quickly destroy other valuable portions of our individual and social capital. We’ll end up impoverished if we let this happen. It’s one thing to create and make a place within our civilization for many other cultural ideas that can co-exist. It’s an entirely different matter to work out of hatred and hostility to destroy what’s there and replace it with rubble or ideas that destroy capital and civilization.

LOCKDOWNS have been accompanied by movements whose aim is to destroy and/or transform America. There are street movements of which Antifa and BLM are most notable. But off-camera, American freedom-lovers face many enemies: oligarchs, professional cliques, generals, deep state bureaucrats, counter-cultural judges and attorneys, socialists, and fascists.

The challenge ahead of us is to avoid the destruction of capital and existing systems of civilized life while ridding our land of elements that are hostile to these.

This is a battle of ideas. The communication of ideas and understanding to unenlightened people is absolutely essential to win this battle. The enemies hold important strategic ground in media and universities. They need to be starved out by withholding funds from them unless they change their practices.

Anyone who in any way advocates doing away with western civilization is advocating death by suicide and genocide. Such advocacy is therefore profoundly immoral and evil. Advocating for specific improvements is categorically different from “down with Western civ”.

The Best of Michael S. Rozeff

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/10/michael-s-rozeff/capital-destruction-by-enemies-of-our-civilization/