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Politically correct

2009-11-07T14:22:32Z

FernandH: /* Examples */

'''Politically correct''' restrictions on what we can say and how we say it have been imposed by [[liberals]]. These restrictions enforce a regime of '''political correctness''' similar to that of the Nazi and Communist regimes of Europe. Some are linguistic, but all are ideological.

Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation, said, "The ideology usually known as ‘Political Correctness,’ which is really the cultural Marxism of the infamous Frankfurt School, is using every type of cultural institution in our country to achieve its purpose, which is the destruction of traditional Western culture and the Christian religion." [http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=145]

[[Image:PC-PILGRIM.JPG|thumb|400px|Horsey cartoon 11-22-2007 parodies PC]]

The modern politically correct movement began at the [[University of Wisconsin-Madison]]; one of the most [[liberal]] institutions in the [[United States]] and is often viewed as a liberalist degrading of the [[First Amendment|freedom of speech]]. George Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' famously incorporated the notion of limiting thought through language (see [[Newspeak]]). Words or actions that violate '''political correctness''' are called [[politically incorrect]].

At American universities, [[Liberal]]s began imposing '''political correctness''' to prevent recognition of differences among gender, religion, belief system, sexual orientation and nationality. In the 1960s, [[feminists]] began to demand that the neutral pronouns ''he'', ''him'' and ''his'' be replaced with expressions like "he or she", "him or her", "them", etc. They argued that no one would be able to understand that the masculine gender included the feminine gender in neutral contexts. But this was just part of their campaign to redefine the social roles traditionally associated with masculinity and femininity.

'''Political correctness''' or '''P.C.''' also means the alteration of ones choice of words in order to avoid either offending a group of people or reinforcing a stereotype considered to be disadvantageous to the group. More specifically, groups which (or whose putative "leaders" or other activists) claim some status as systemically oppressed or discriminated against will periodically attempt to change the terms by which they are referred to and demand that society as a whole change its usage of words as well.

==Examples==

An example of political correctness is the changing terminology used to described handicapped people. In the past the term "crippled" was perfectly acceptable and not considered offensive. At some point, somebody decided "crippled" was degrading and the preferred term changed to "handicapped". This, too, was eventually deemed offensive and "disabled" became the preferred term. Today, "disabled" is now considered degrading and "differently abled" and "physically challenged" are now the politically correct terms. The same can be said for the changing uses of terms for Black Americans: "Negro" and "colored", once perfectly acceptable terms, were declared degrading and offensive by some activists during the 1970s and "Afro-American" and "Black" came into use, which in turn gave way to "[[African Americans|African-American]]", and in broader usage, "people of color".

The distinction for example between "colored people" (1950's-60's usage) and "people of color" (today) is an important one which illustrates the basis of political correctness.

The question of politically correct language has spilled over from the use of racially descriptive words and affected the use of traditional language. In 1999, an aide to the mayor of Washington DC described a budget decision as "niggardly" (a word meaning "stingy," unrelated to the racial slur). The aide immediately came under criticism and was forced to resigned even though he had not said anything racially charged. However, his name was cleared within a matter of days and was offered to return to his previous position. <ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm</ref>

As well as language, political correctness discourages the use of racial or stereotypes in fiction out of concern that these stereotypes may become self-perpetuating. For example, frequently seeing the image black gang-members decked out in gold chains, carrying guns and listening to rap may pressure young black people into seeing this lifestyle as the more 'acceptable' choice for their racial group. The common image of female-dominated occupations (nurses, secretaries, care workers, etc) and of male-dominated occupations (IT workers, military, machinery operators, mechanics, etc.) can discourage individuals of either gender from considering those occupations traditionally belonging to the other. Additionally films like "The Siege" and "True Lies" have been criticized by pro-Islamic groups as having Muslims portrayed as terrorists, despite the fact that most current terrorists are in fact Muslims. Thus political correctness becomes the consideration of all public statements and media for their unintentional social impact.

Political correctness can even affect terminology that's viewed by secularists as too "pro-religion" or an alleged "violation of the separation of church and state" in the United States. The best example of this is the active promotion of the use of C.E. and B.C.E. as the abbreviations used after dates (instead of the commonly and traditionally used A.D. and B.C.).

Political correctness can be also seen as a tool for totalitarian, [[mass murder]]ing systems. Germany under [[evolutionary racism|racist]] [[Adolf Hitler]], for instance, coined the term "Final Solution" to denominate its campaign of [[Holocaust|extermination]] of European Jews. In the same line, the terms "deportation" and "special treatment" were also used as ways of hiding from victims was truly was to happen.

==Differing Opinions==

Demands for politically correct language usage are rooted in the notion widely promoted among left-wing academics and sociologists that Western culture promotes systemic oppression against some groups by marginalizing them and excluding them from the "norm"; the groups thus supposedly systemically marginalized are referred to as "the Other" by these left-wing academics.{{fact}} The implication is that these groups are systemically excluded from the mainstream. "Colored people" is therefore deemed offensive because the order of words puts "colored" first, emphasizing their difference from the mainstream, while "people of color" is acceptable because putting the term "people" first emphasizes that they are people and thus does not emphasize their difference from the "norm".

Some people allege that instead of encouraging supposedly marginalized groups to integrate with and assimilate into the mainstream of Western culture, political correctness ironically encourages them to emphasize and indeed to wallow in their marginalization from society, and to make a public display of such. This is known as [[identity politics]]. According to this view, gays and lesbians are therefore encouraged to label themselves as "queer" and make public displays of "queerness" calculated to disturb the sensibilities of mainstream people, rather than integrate into the mainstream themselves;{{fact}} Black Americans are encouraged to adopt [[Afrocentrism]] and convert to [[Islam]] or to conform to stereotypical black behavior, etc.{{fact}}

==The Language Police==
Conservative scholar [[Robert Bork]] has charged that the educational system is a battleground where the future of America is being undermined and ill-served. He has counseled against the troubles which will ensue as a result of anti-religious policies in the schools, permissive attitudes toward [[homosexuality]] and [[abortion]], as well as welfare policies that have destroyed families since [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]'s War on Poverty. <ref> Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. by Robert Bork published by Harper Collins (c) 1997</ref>

In her book "[[The Language Police]]", [[Diane Ravitch]] documents just how easy it is to get a word, phrase or idea banned from modern textbooks and references. Textbook producers are beholden to small non-elected liberal educational boards in a few key states such as New York or California. Few citizens know anything about these boards or who holds the seats of power on these boards. It's not a difficult for an interest group to mobilize a campaign to bombard the educational board. Meanwhile, the public is not even aware that their words or values are under attack from this corrupt system, while many ''elected'' Conservatives have rallied against this polocy .

Then, once a big state makes a textbook purchase, it's very difficult for a small state or any municipality to make any changes. Thus, profound changes can be inserted into textbooks and reference books by putting pressure on a handful of educational administrators. The work of textbook selection committee's is done privately, to avoid politicizing textbooks, but the reverse has happened. It's easier to pressure a lawmaker who is not beholden to community standards, but instead is enamored with political correctness. <ref>The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Children Learn by [[Diane Ravitch]] (c) 2003 published by Knopf</ref> Ravitch has documented "''bias guidelines''" for major publishers of texts and tests. These "guidelines" consist of advice to writers and editors about words and topics that must be avoided.<ref>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003695</ref>

==Totalitarianism and Political Correctness==

The comprehensive and detailed control of all ideas, beliefs, and statements is one of the most problematic features of [[totalitarian]] regimes.[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-3816(196002)22%3A1%3C68%3ATIAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W]

Political correctness can trace its origins back to the world of 1920's Germany, where [[Communist]] academics sought to impose their [[Marxist]] views on students. It is now acceptable in many Universities to have courses on gender, [[homosexual]] and [[African American]] studies, which, in fact, encourage the mainstream public to become different to avoid criticism.

==Notes==

<references/>

==See also==
* [[Postmodernism]]
*[[Racial censorship]]

==External Links==
*[http://www.capc.co.uk The Campaign Against Political Correctness]
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=8olE_futZogC&pg=PA378&lpg=PA378&dq=communist+%22socially+correct%22&source=web&ots=DYD85Lsf1G&sig=pkoUxDOLFJZsme40QO13zakFZw4 The Chinese Have A Word For It]
*[http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=218 DiscoverTheNetworks.org - Political Correctness, Appeasement and Speech Codes in Academia]

[[Category:Political Terms]]

Capitalism

2009-11-07T14:14:53Z

FernandH:

[[Image:Tokyo Stock Exchange.jpg|thumb|Tokyo Stock Exchange]]
'''Capitalism''', also called a '''free market economy''' is an economic system where the investment of capital, and production, distribution, income, and prices are determined not by government (as in [[socialism]]) but through the operation of a competitive market where decisions regarding transfer of money, goods (including capital goods), and services are voluntary and private rather than regulated and mandated by government (see [[law of supply and demand]]).

==Overview==
One self-regulating feature of capitalism is competition, which helps maintain fair market value for goods and services. However, ''unrestrained'' or ''pure'' capitalism may sometimes create a positive feedback loop in which a small number of individual accumulations of capital grow ever larger, eventually becoming so few as to limit effective competition, thus ceasing to strictly be free-market capitalism. In this regard, pure capitalism is unstable. Modern political systems have developed regulation mechanisms in an attempt to render capitalism more stable, including anti-trust regulation, trade tariffs, etc.

Since the fall of [[communism]], and the advent of information technology, capitalism is becoming increasingly widespread.

[[Adam Smith]] described the operation of capital accumulation through the productive powers of labor as such,

{{Cquote|Whatever a person saves from his [[revenue]] he adds to his [[capital]], and either employs it himself in maintaining an additional number of productive hands, or enables some other person to do so, by lending it to him for an interest, that is, for a share of the profits. As the capital of an individual can be increased only by what he saves from his annual revenue or his annual gains, so the capital of a society, which is the same with that of all the individuals who compose it, can be increased only in the same manner. <ref>Adam Smith, ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html Book II, Chapter 3, Paragraph 15,] ''Of the Accumulation of Capital, or of Productive and Unproductive Labour'', First Edition 1776.</ref>}}
[[Image:Eco Pillars.jpg|right|320px]]
Smith goes on to describe how the productive powers of labor employed by the owner of a capital allow laborers to reproduce with a profit the value of their maintenance, over and above their own consumption, which then allows for an additional set of hands to be employed. <ref>Adam Smith, ''Wealth of Nations'', Book II, Chapter 3, Paragraph 22.</ref> Smith observes labor is the original purchase price for all the wealth of the world,

{{Cquote|The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour, <sup>2</sup><ref>'Everything in the world is purchased by labour.'—Hume, 'Of Commerce,' in Political Discourses, 1752, p. 12</ref> as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command. <ref>Adam Smith, ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html Book I, Chapter 5, Paragraph 2,] ''Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities'', First Edition 1776.</ref>}}

Real wealth consists not in money, but in the things money will exchange for,

{{Cquote|In order to put industry into motion, three things are requisite; materials to work upon, tools to work with, and the wages or recompense for the sake of which the work is done. Money is neither a material to work upon, nor a tool to work with; and though the wages of the workman are commonly paid to him in money, his real revenue, like that of all other men, consists, not in money, but in the money's worth; not in the metal pieces, but in what can be got for them. <ref>Adam Smith, ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN7.html Book II, Chapter 2, Paragraph 37,] ''Of Money Considered as a particular Branch of the General Stock of the Society, or of the Expence of Maintaining the National Capital '', First Edition 1776.</ref>}}

Since wealth does not consist in money, gold, or silver, and labor is the original purchase price, Smith explains how the capitalist system is then put into motion, complete with natural incentives, only Smith does not use the word "capital" here to describe what is needed. Smith explains how a "store of goods", or "stock sufficient to maintain" the original capitalist entrepreneur is necessary;

{{Cquote|When the stock which a man possesses is no more than sufficient to maintain him for a few days or a few weeks, he seldom thinks of deriving any revenue from it. He consumes it as sparingly as he can, and endeavours by his labour to acquire something which may supply its place before it be consumed altogether. His revenue is, in this case, derived from his labour only. This is the state of the greater part of the labouring poor in all countries.

But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him for months or years, he naturally endeavours to derive a revenue from the greater part of it; reserving only so much for his immediate consumption as may maintain him till this revenue begins to come in. His whole stock, therefore, is distinguished into two parts. That part which, he expects, is to afford him this revenue, is called his capital. The other is that which supplies his immediate consumption <ref>Adam Smith, ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN7.html Book II, Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1 & 2,] ''Of the Division of Stock '', First Edition 1776.</ref>}}

The [[division of labor]] is the necessary condition that gives rise to the productive powers of labor that allows for large scale economic growth. By "division of labor", Smith is referring to "specialization of labor", where each worker acquires specific knowledge to apply to a specific task.

{{Cquote|In that rude state of society in which there is no division of labour, in which exchanges are seldom made, and in which every man provides everything for himself, it is not necessary that any stock should be accumulated or stored up beforehand in order to carry on the business of the society. Every man endeavours to supply by his own industry his own occasional wants as they occur. When he is hungry, he goes to the forest to hunt; when his coat is worn out, he clothes himself with the skin of the first large animal he kills: and when his hut begins to go to ruin, he repairs it, as well as he can, with the trees and the turf that are nearest it.

But when the division of labour has once been thoroughly introduced, the produce of a man's own labour can supply but a very small part of his occasional wants. The far greater part of them are supplied by the produce of other men's labour, which he purchases with the produce, or, what is the same thing, with the price of the produce of his own. But this purchase cannot be made till such time as the produce of his own labour has not only been completed, but sold. A stock of goods of different kinds, therefore, must be stored up somewhere sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work till such time, at least, as both these events can be brought about.

As the accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous to the division of labour, ...in order to give constant employment to an equal number of workmen, an equal stock of provisions, and a greater stock of materials and tools than what would have been necessary in a ruder state of things, must be accumulated beforehand. <ref>Adam Smith, ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN7.html Book II, Introduction, Paragraphs 1, 2, & 3] ''Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock,'', First Edition 1776.</ref>}}
{{Cquote|When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society. <ref>Adam Smith, ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN7.html Book I, Chapter 4, Paragraphs 1] ''Of the Origin and Use of Money'', First Edition 1776.</ref>}}
==Capitalism and Society==
[[Image:Ludwig von Mises.jpg|thumb|100px|Ludwig von Mises]]
Historically, capitalism has fostered freedom, and vice versa. Societies that have tried non-capitalist systems inevitably fall into tyranny.

For example, [[Venezuela]], while not a perfect country before [[Hugo Chavez]], had freedom and wealth unprecedented in its history. As Chavez has nationalized industries, he has also centralized power for himself, becoming a dictator. The [[Soviet Union]] eventually fell under the rule of [[Joseph Stalin]], who killed millions and is considered by many the worst dictator in history.

Capitalist societies also generally have higher standards of living compared to their non-capitalist counterparts in terms of per capita GDP, education, healthcare, and poverty rates. [[China]], for instance, has been growing extremely prosperous since it began opening its economy to the world.

== Quotes ==

“Historical evidence speaks with a single voice on the relation between political freedom and a free market. I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.”

--[[Milton Friedman]], Capitalism and Freedom, 1962.

“Capitalism is essentially the economic system of poor people. That’s what allowed the people that came from humble origins of the world to have economic rights the way only nobility and the high bourgeoisie had it before. So capitalism is essentially a tool for poor people to prosper.”

--Hernando de Soto, PBS Interview, March 30-31, 2001

(cf: [http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?Page=026a3bda-755c-45d8-84d3-c68eef294612 Values - Free Enterprise])

"The only real cure for poverty is production". [[Henry Hazlitt]], from ''Man vs. the [[Welfare]] State''.

== See also ==

*[[Capital]]
*[[Free Enterprise]]
*[[Ludwig von Mises]]
*[[Enterprise]]
*[[planned economy]]
*[[Socialism]]
*[[Welfare]]

==External links==
*[http://www.capmag.com Capitalism Magazine]
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/capitalism/ What Liberals Say - Category: Capitalism], [[Accuracy In Media]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Business]]
[[Category:Libertarianism]]