Understanding the natural connotations of individualism reveals your use of individualist and economic liberalism as doublespeak. Locke may have claimed property as a natural right, but even he acknowledged that we only come by property we aren’t using through currency, which in turn is provided by government. As a further distinction, you can’t own property in California and live in Connecticut unless you have government indulging you in that endeavor, otherwise, squatter’s rights is the natural economics of such a situation.

Real estate is indeed a great example of government indulgence. Things naturally depreciate with use. Real estate normally appreciates, and the reason lies with an economic system that only government can enable and indulge us with. In a similar vein, a stockholder needs a corporation to “earn” money for which they do not labor, which in turn absolutely, totally needs government to exist (unlike a proprietorship, which could in theory be independent of government). Nation states and corporations have a long history of coevolving.

Liberty and individualism are, quite frankly and by definition, both independent of government. Government can indulge us with property we do not use or earn, but it cannot grant us the independence to self-actualize or labor how we see fit. We must do that for ourselves. A proprietor and a laborer can in theory claim independence for themselves; neither a corporation nor a stockholder can, both need to be indulged by government to merely exist, let along thrive. Governments and corporations can indulge us with security, but independence of thought (independence not only of government, but of corporations and interest groups as well) is something we must claim for ourselves.

In truth, Americans are not remotely individualists, we are perhaps the most indulged citizenry on the planet, and the more dependent we are on corporate capitalism the more remote our understanding of individualism or liberty becomes. Furthermore, what “free market libertarians” often prescribe is further indulgence through corporate capitalism, rather than true independence through real free markets (which cannot exist with government suckled corporate capitalism). We could be more independent and less indulged by returning towards the states rights, agrarian community approach to government that was originally intended, but even then we would not be individualistic. We would just be swapping the indulgence of government and corporations for the more natural (and independent) altruism of grassroots social systems.

Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it—at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens . . .

Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis—and “the public good” is the altar on which victims are immolated. But there are stylistic differences of emphasis. The socialist-communist axis keeps promising to achieve abundance, material comfort and security for its victims, in some indeterminate future. The fascist-Nazi axis scorns material comfort and security, and keeps extolling some undefined sort of spiritual duty, service and conquest. The socialist-communist axis offers its victims an alleged social ideal. The fascist-Nazi axis offers nothing but loose talk about some unspecified form of racial or national “greatness.” The socialist-communist axis proclaims some grandiose economic plan, which keeps receding year by year. The fascist-Nazi axis merely extols leadership—leadership without purpose, program or direction—and power for power’s sake.

You never leave your name or residence, but I’m grateful you are still dropping by a year later. Thanks.

Kirk Sinclair
Norfolk, CT