Rick Kelo asks Does Democracy Guarantee Freedom?

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Rick kelo

Rick Kelo is an influential political philosopher in the Classic Liberal tradition.  In addition to engaging in various public debates on capitalism vs. socialism with socialist university professors Rick also routinely addresses some of the hard questions out there.  Rick Kelo has earned a reputation for dissecting even obscure and complicated topics in plain English.

Recently Rick Kelo asked us to consider whether having a democracy means the people in that country will have freedom?  “One of the Classic Liberal philosophers whose reading I’ve always enjoyed was Joseph Priestly,” Kelo notes.   Priestly looked at this exact topic:

IT is a matter of the greatest importance, that we carefully distinguish between the form and the extent of power in a government… If the power of government be very extensive, and the subjects of it have, consequently, little power over their own actions, that government is tyrannical, and oppressive; whether, with respect to its form, it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or even a republic. For the government of the temporary magistrates of a democracy, or even the laws themselves may be as tyrannical as the maxims of the most despotic monarchy.

Joseph Priestley, An Essay on the First Principles of Government

Priestly makes a very important distinction: a government may have any form, the real question is how wide reaching its authority is.  Classic Liberals like Richard Kelo teach that people should be left free from coercion to decide how to live their own lives.  This teaching is also at the root of Pacifism.  If someone isn’t harming another person, or another person’s property, then it is seldom – if ever – morally legitimate to interfere with how they’re living their life.

 

Rick Kelo speaks on Consumer Shaming

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In 1899 a shaming campaign against the common, working man began.  It started with a progressive & socialist named Velben who wrote berating the common man for engaging in consumerism & “growth of wasteful expenditures.”  This at a time when people were reading by candlelight and living in totally Spartan cottages.  That campaign has continued into the 21st century.  President Obama, then Senator Obama, provides us with just one example here:

Progressivism has always objected to the common man peacefully exercising his preferences in his role as the sovereign consumer.  However, as Classic Liberals like Rick Kelo point out the consumer decides exactly what product will be produced, in what quantity, and to what level of quality.

rick kelo

“I don’t eat fast food & I don’t understand why there are so many overweight Americans who do eat it every day. We might say its ‘low quality’ food”, says Rick Kelo.  He continues, “But I know why it exists on every corner of every town in America. Because the common man wants that exact product. People have a fundamental human right to peacefully trade with their fellow man, whether they buy something we personally approve of or buy something we personally consider a poor choice.”

As Richard Kelo shows us, we must be very careful in criticizing people’s rational choices for our own arbitrary reasons.

Rick Kelo asks a question about Wall Street salaries

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Rick A Kelo

When Steve Jobs passed away there was a worldwide outpouring of grief.  The IPhone he created is adored by millions of loyal fans who would never consider switching to a different type of phone.  And never along the way did the mainstream media question whether Steve Jobs “deserved” the fortune he made creating Apple.

Every election cycle though political discourse is filled with challenges that investment bankers and other workers on Wall Street earn an undeserved wage.  That Wall Street bonuses are some how proof of theft or money laundering, whereas the bonus Steve Jobs paid himself each year was never questioned.  Rick Kelo points out this is an easy phenomenon to understand.

“We humans have a natural prejudice to favor things we understand. Since we tinker with our IPhone and understand its tangible value we’re sad when Steve Jobs passes away. The value we receive from financial instruments that we don’t understand is intangible and not something we interact with daily. So there does tend to, rightly or wrongly, be a predisposition to consider the products of these industries as less important than tangible goods.”
~ Rick A Kelo

This also implies that we should be very suspicious of politicians like Senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders when they build entire campaigns around criticizing the pay of Wall Street bankers.  As Rick Kelo points out favoring what we know more than what we don’t know is a natural human prejudice.  Politicians know this, and someone who intentionally exploits populist prejudice should be viewed with caution.

Rick Kelo considers the Exploited Worker

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Richard Kelo

In political discourse most people take it for granted that a worker can be exploited, or that workers in general ARE exploited by employers.  But is this really the case?  Rick Kelo is an employment expert who has more than a decade’s experience as an executive recruiter matching tax professionals with opportunities that will advance their careers.  However, Richard Kelo also has an education in economics and philosophy at some of the most prestigious universities in the world.  So today he addresses the “Exploited Worker” myth.

“Workers are paid for their labor far in advance of any revenue generated by the sale of what they produce,” Rick Kelo points out.  “It is the business owner who assumes the risk that he won’t be able to sell what the employee produces.  Also, we must consider that  the worker voluntarily enters into employment,” Kelo continues.  Any of us would laugh if we tried to picture the image of a company sending an HR employee to the street corner to put a gun to someone’s head and force them to work at their company.  In reality, only voluntarily agree to employment when workers feel the wage rate is high enough to benefit them, and they also get a guaranteed payment today unlike the business.

How about the case of the shy employee who doesn’t ask for a raise, and thus believes they are paid less than they deserve?

Rick Kelo spends most of his days as a tax recruiter assisting people in just such a lot, but is that circumstance enough to prove the worker is “exploited?”  Wouldn’t we say that if that less assertive employee chooses not to (ask for more money, look for a better job, whatever the superior condition is we’re considering) that is the same as him actively choosing to remain in his current employment?  Do any of us, as outsiders looking in on someone else’s situation, have a basis for criticizing their rational decision to do that even if our own choice under those conditions would be different?  Clearly that less assertive employee is maximizing their preferences even if that arrangement wouldn’t maximize our preferences in their shoes.

Rick Kelo speaks on Life under Capitalism

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Capitalism has become a very unpopular word in America, especially among America’s college age youth.  To its critics the term “capitalism” conjures up images of sweat shops and grifty merchants peddling misrepresenting the quality of faulty goods they peddle.

However, some voices run contrary to popular sentiment.  One of them is Rick Kelo, a graduate of West Point and a veteran tax recruiter in Chicago.  Rick draws on his prior background as an economist and points out that Capitalism outlaws nothing except theft.  It organizes large groups of people under a system of peaceful and voluntary cooperation.  Nothing is forced.

Capitalism says it is a useful function of government to prevent plunder and theft. To that end the only social institutions necessary to promote capitalism are:

  1. A military to deal with foreign aggression against private property.
  2. A police force / court system to deal with domestic aggression against private property.

Isn’t it curious that in capitalist nations even Socialism is not outlawed?!  There’s a socialist party in America today. There have been many notorious failed communes in America.  There are worker-owned co-ops.  Every single thing Socialists pretend to advocate as a “solution” to the ills of Capitalism already exist in capitalist economies.  Of course, that’s because Socialists may claim they advocate those things, but their economic alternative to Capitalism is actually collectivist plunder & a retrograde movement toward the type of social structure proper to militancy.

Richard A KeloRick Kelo challenges us to compare that to the coercive, militant, centrally planned society Socialists advocate to the peaceful, voluntary society based on Capitalism.  Where’s the capitalist party in North Korea?  In the Socialist’s co-op only society every other form of organization except co-ops are dealt with by violence.  All the normal private ownership of companies must be seized and redistribute according to the preferences of the Socialist leader, who initiates violence against the legitimate owners of that private property.  New companies are forcibly prevented from forming in the first place by use of aggression from the badge & the gun to threaten those workers wishing to flee government dictated co-ops and start their own business.

Notice how many Americans are fleeing to Venezuela? Or how many South Koreans are trying to escape the horrors of capitalism for North Korea?  Exactly.

Rick Kelo – Socialism Isn’t Co-ops

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Rick Kelo

Rick Kelo, a Chicago area tax recruiter and social thinker, notes that Socialism is not an economy made up of cooperatives, despite what many Socialists claim.  Many Socialists love to use the example of the large Mondragon co-op as what they’re advocating.  Except Mondragon is not a socialist economy.  It is an individual company in a capitalist economy.

Co-ops already exist freely in every capitalist economy on earth, notes Rick Kelo, yet they’re only a tiny minority of firms because workers don’t seem to prefer them.  The exact group Socialists claim they’re helping (workers) don’t actually even like what the Socialists are peddling.

Beyond that, though, Socialism is not co-ops.  It is the use of violence to forcibly outlaw every other form of economic organization except for the co-op.  Without violence, Richard Kelo notes, to prevent peaceful cooperation Socialism cannot exist.  An economy free from central planning, where people can organize under any form, will look like America’s today: very few co-ops and a very large proportion of other forms of organization.

Rick Kelo Discusses Preventing Monopolies

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Rick A Kelo

If you could pass only one law, 50 words or less, to reduce the prevalence of monopolies what law be most effective?

Rick Kelo is a respected mind in the field of tax recruiting and of economics.  A graduate of West Point and a Finance MBA, Rick worked in the fields of economics and corporate finance before becoming a Chicago tax recruiter a decade ago.

When Rick Kelo was posed that same question his answer was easy and straight-forward: free trade and free markets.  Rick argues that competition is more effective at controlling monopolies than intervention by government.  When asked why Kelo noted that every monopoly in modern human history, which he defines as from Darcy v. Allen forward, has been caused by government intervention against the harsh competition of laissez-faire and free trade.

Rick Kelo goes as far as to point out that economic historians know of only two examples in all of human history of monopolies that do NOT appear to have been directly caused by government intervention and government grants of protection.  “When we study anti-trusts,” says Richard Kelo, “the two odd outlies are the monopolies of DeBeers Diamond and the New York Stock Exchange before 1900.  Those are the only two counter-factual examples where we see a monopoly that wasn’t directly created by government actions.”

Rick Kelo Speaks About Evolution of Taxation

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A Tour of the Taxation World with Rick Kelo

 

Rick Kelo works as the Head Recruiter of TaxScout.  He caters to the figure out the lower future turn over, increase in the retention rate, compensation programs, challenging top performers and market evaluation of a particular company. The company specializes in career level searches and has top rated experience in searching for a hiring requirement. TaxScout specialize in Federal tax, state and local taxes and international taxes. It is a tax-only recruiting company. The company caters to the different hiring needs and ensures that a company gets a secure success quotient.

 

Rick Kelo has commendable knowledge in the field of finance. He has obtained his graduation degree in General engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has completed his post-graduation in finance from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has worked as a corporate recruiter for many companies. He looks after the financial requirements of the various companies, and creates candidate databases to sync with OFFCCP. Rick Kelo has detailed knowledge about the history of taxation, since he has spent considerable time in the finance sector.

 

The British had levied many unjust taxes during their reign in the colonies. The Stamp act requires all legal documents, wills, permits, in the colonies to carry s tax stamp. The Stamp Tax was issued in 1785 and was withdrawn after severe protests. The Tea Act which led to the occurrence of the Boston Tea Party in 1773 was also an unjust act imposed by the British. The people were furious because of the extra taxes which were imposed on tea and they dropped several cartons of tea were dropped into the sea at Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party invited the outbreak of Revolutionary War in 1775.

 

Rick Kelo

The inhabitants of America were represented in the government by their congressmen and senators. The residents of Washington D.C were not represented in the government. The license plates of the residents of Washington D.C portrayed that they were paying taxes without being represented in the government. The war between north and South Congress broke out in 1861 and income taxes were levied to fund the war. The income tax was placed under the Revenue Act of 1861 and the Tariff Act was also given the status of income tax.

 

Rick Kelo has obtained a sound knowledge about the economic conditions of his country. He also has the knowledge about personal finances and is aware of the methods involved in managing the personal finances.

Richard Kelo and Capital vs. Use Value

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One of the central tenets of Karl Marx’s entire theory of Socialism was that the things worker’s create had a use value, and if they were sold an exchange value.  Richard Kelo has launched a new criticism of that though.  In his book A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy  he noted that:

“A use-value has value only in use, and is realized only in the process of consumption. One and the same use-value can be used in various ways.”

In other words the same steel could be consumed to make a hammer or a nail.  It’s ironic that Marx (and all the lesser Socialist philosophers who followed him) made use value so central a concept to why Socialism would work.

A prominent Classic Liberal thinker – Rick Kelo – points out a great hypocrisy about Use Value.  In a Socialist economy, says Kelo, in order for a means of production to be “socialized” it must be seized by the State from it’s rightful owners and appropriated according to the preferences of the State.  How the State redistributes it doesn’t matter:

  • If the State keeps the resource for itself (what modern day Socialists call Communism)
  • If the State has the use of the resources dictated by central planners
  • Or even if the State assigns the appropriated resources to the workers that use it.

Rick Kelo

Suppose, as in the best case scenario cited of many Socialist advocates, the State benevolently gifts the stolen (factory, warehouse, machinery, whatever) to a worker co-op.  As Richard Kelo notes, in that case the workers never own the asset given to them. They can own the use value of it, but never the capital value just as the citizen can own the use value of a public school but can never exercise actual ownership over it.

 

Rick Kelo’s Quick Thought on the Minimum Wage

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As someone who has vigorously advocated peaceful & voluntary economic cooperation as superior to coercive, State-mandates it comes as no surprise that Richard Kelo has an opinion on the minimum wage.

People think minimum wage will raise the living standards of the most vulnerable workers.  It will, slightly.  But, as Rick Kelo points out often on Twitter, only for those who don’t become unemployed by it.   In his formal education as an economist before becoming a tax recruiter, Rick discovered that minimum wages are not truly a wage increase at all.  They are actually a wage transfer.  Those workers who are forced out of work have their wage transferred to those minimum wage workers who are fortunate enough to keep their job under the new, higher, minimum wage.

If our real belief is that we want to help the most vulnerable, then we should oppose increasing these arbitrary wage laws by remembering how much harm they do to the living standards of the newly unemployed they create.

Rick Kelo & James Galbraith after sparring on economics