Degeneracy Is A Product Of Big Government, Not The Free Market

By orwellngoode
August 7, 2017

Many on the alt-right are swift to condemn goods and services offered by certain companies as degenerate, blaming the entire capitalist economic order for their emergence. Entrepreneurs only seek to turn profits, if degenerate goods and services sell and turn a profit, it’s a symptom of a wider social problem, rather than a bug in the economic system itself.

Without answering consumer demands, the entrepreneur would cease to make a profit and be jostled out of the market by a more able competitor. Those who are quick to lay blame on the market completely overlook the contributing factors to this unsightly phenomenon in order to promote their preferred economic order. To get to the bottom of this issue, we need to interrogate the institutions pushing pro-degenerate, cultural Marxist propaganda.

We can begin to point the finger at Hollywood and the media. Television has become an irreplaceable part of most people’s day-to-day life. Many people religiously follow soaps and series, in which a subtle pro-gay, pro-hedonistic, anti-capitalist, anti-family, anti-Christian undertone can be detected. Martha Kauffman, co-creator of Friends, admitted that the episode “The One With The Lesbian Wedding” was an affront to the religious right. Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro has documented much of the Hollywood agenda pushing in his book Primetime Propaganda, recording Hollywood big shots admitting to a media agenda.

With the downfall of Christianity in the West, there has been an ideological vacuum. The left has transferred all faith, values and morality to the State – these people generally go by the name of “liberal”, “progressive”, “social democrat”, “democrat”, “democratic socialist” or “socialist”, to name but a few. To these individuals, the State is their ‘something bigger’. Adherents of the big government doctrine, encompassing all of the aforementioned ideologies, vociferously trumpet the same sickly slogans and buzzwords bleated by their favorite talking heads and politicians. Everything they agree with – usually antithetical to Western Civilization – is “progressive” and everything they disagree with is “racist”, “sexist”, “homophobic”, “fascist”, etc,. Although some of these progressive useful idiots mean well, they appear to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that they’re supporting the degradation of society.

Another major contributing force to society’s undoing is academia. Our brightest and best are exposed to a tireless onslaught of leftist, cultural Marxist propaganda; permitting little tolerance towards opposing ideas. F.A. Hayek noted in his book, The Fatal Conceit, the reason so many intellectuals were socialists is their overvaluation of their own intelligence. Leftist intellectuals believe they can deconstruct Western society and erect a “fairer”, more humane and “equal” utopia in its place. What they misunderstand is that it took millions of hardworking individuals pursuing their own ends, to provide for their children and their children’s children across tens of generations, to create the present wealth and civilization.

Now, many seeds glorifying degenerate behavior have been sown. Many consumers believe that supporting these positions are “right” or “moral” and they will virtue signal to their peers to accumulate brownie points as a sordid form of social climbing. Sadly, most of this is done in the name of “progress” and “social justice”, giving it an air of respectability. These dupes have expressed consumer demand for a niche created by Hollywood, the Media, Academia and Government (a.k.a “The Establishment”). Without the continual celebration of these lifestyle choices by “The Establishment”, it could be argued that these consumer demands would have never arisen.

The consumerism that drives maniacal hedonism and progressivism today can be pinpointed on our social democratic post-Keynesian economic models. As a result of graduated (progressive) taxation, inflationism, artificially low-interest rates, welfare and heavily regulated markets, individual time preferences have shifted artificially high.

Time preferences are how much an individual values present consumption over future consumption (even if deferring such consumption will yield more or better quality goods in the future than what may be consumed presently). Someone with a low time preference cherishes future consumption over present consumption, and is, therefore, more likely to invest, start a business, save for his children/grandchildren, work harder, self-improve and be disciplined. Someone with a high time preference will often choose to forgo future consumption for present consumption and look to spend and enjoy in the present, with little to no regard for the future. Inflation makes rational economic budgetary calculations very difficult for households as prices never rise uniformly. The bulk of relationships and marriages end over financial difficulties, many of which would be completely avoidable without government interference, creating more unnecessary despair and leaving the children exposed to unpleasant upbringings that render them susceptible to perpetuating the breakdown of the family when they reach adulthood.

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Welfare is a great way for hedonists, liberal arts graduates and wasters to externalize the costs of their poor life choices onto the struggling taxpayer. As the State takes care of these social parasites, they do not have to take responsibility for their unproductive economic decisions and can continue to live carefree, unabated. In order for this web of big government vote-buying to continue, more wealth redistribution from the productive to the non-productive must occur. Eventually, morally depraved non-productive self-centered bums will outnumber the productive, leading to capital consumption and reducing the standard of living for all. All of the aforementioned is executed with the purpose of buying leftist politicians more time in power.

As a consequence of perpetuating this big government apparatus, little disposable income is left for the middle classes to invest. The little income, if any, that’s left after household expenses is spent on consumer goods instead of savings and investments, and money savings lose value due to price inflation outpacing interest rates. As long term investment strategies don’t appear as worthwhile, people tend to offload their excess money balances on frivolities.

If one is serious about reversing degenerate behavior, then he must look to lower social time preferences – in other words, return society to a position where individuals can choose to save long term and plan their lives, unhindered by constant do-gooder government meddling. Inflation must end at once by returning to hard money, issued privately on the market. Progressive taxation must be repealed to give the middle classes financial breathing space so that parents may give their children the best starts in life. Welfare must be abolished at once and economic parasitism must be stigmatized again. State universities should be defunded and tenured professors must face competition from market forces, rather than being shielded by the administration and the State to propagate their toxic, morally bankrupt ideologies unchallenged. The media and Hollywood should have all connections to the State and State bodies severed so that they may contend with competitors without an artificial advantage. While there is a State, voting should be restricted to property owners and net taxpayers; the egalitarian ideal of everyone getting a vote will inevitably lead to the formation of a redistributionist bureaucratic superstructure, expropriating the haves and spoon feeding the have-nots while politicians line their pockets.

Following these suggestions will extirpate much of the social gangrene spread by decades of phony moralizing from self-serving politicians and their armies of brown-nosed Ivy League sycophants. On a lighter note, it’s encouraging to see plenty of social justice oriented movies and comics fail. There is hope yet.

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Tagged alt-right, Austrian Economics, Capitalism, degeneracy, degenerate, free market