"The heart of Man is not compound of lies, but draws some wisdom from the only Wise, and still recalls him. Though now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned...
...Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found within recorded time. It is not they that have forgot the Night, or bid us flee to organized delight, in lotus-isles of economic bliss forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss (and counterfeit at that, machine-produced, bogus seduction of the twice-seduced)." - Tolkien, Mythopoeia
These are some of my favorite lines from Tolkien's poem he wrote to C.S. Lewis after an argument about the truth of myths.
Sometimes I do wonder if economic progress is an enemy of tradition. Is it possible to hold onto tradition in an environment where anyone who sells the latest and greatest widget, even (or especially) if it appeals to man's baser nature, can become wealthy and powerful?
In the history of the West, would you say that it was primarily capitalism or a turning away from God and the Church that overturned Christendom in favor of the republican states of today? Did trade and capitalism shift the balance of power away from noble and aristocratic families and toward merchants, bankers, and factory owners?
If you are looking for someone to reinvigorate your commitment to capitalism in all contexts, I'm no longer the right guy. I don't think the two are ultimately compatible at every level. Capitalism has turned against the past and we are faced with the need to choose a side.
I don't think capitalism was the cause of this devastation but capitalism was itself the symptom of a metaphysical collapsed that happened earlier. And of course, the result of the rising capitalism was to bring power to the new Merchant Classes. The traditionalists, the liberals (capitalists) and the Marxists all went to war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Traditionalists died first, and then the Marxists.
But the Marxists live on among the more radical liberals, and the traditionalists have been orphaned, cut off from our tradition, and groping for the remnants of it from within the liberal dominated world. Some have found out it in the classical liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries. Others are finding it Latin Christendom. Still others look back to ancient Rome and Greece.
I agree that the metaphysical collapse happened first. But that begs the question: what caused the metaphysical collapse?
Many libertarians imagine a world of completely unrestricted trade, but I don't see how a realistic actualization of libertarianism leads to that. A world with thousands (maybe millions) of more borders and much more localized autonomy will realistically have many more trade restrictions/impediments than the central government dominated world of today. Many private property owners will restrict the sale or transit of certain types of commodities and many independent authorities and associations will as well.
Perhaps Marx was right in that Capitalism does lead to socialism, because it undermined traditional authority and the noble aristocracy and replaced it with a bourgeoisie democratic elite. And free trade does not stand long against the withering attacks of democracy and popular sovereignty, because of the disparate rewards of such a system.
I think if the aristocracy had transitioned into private security and adjudication enterprises and had not fallen for the siren song of statism, they would have maintained their relative power and could have avoided the revolutions that destroyed them.
"The heart of Man is not compound of lies, but draws some wisdom from the only Wise, and still recalls him. Though now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned...
...Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found within recorded time. It is not they that have forgot the Night, or bid us flee to organized delight, in lotus-isles of economic bliss forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss (and counterfeit at that, machine-produced, bogus seduction of the twice-seduced)." - Tolkien, Mythopoeia
These are some of my favorite lines from Tolkien's poem he wrote to C.S. Lewis after an argument about the truth of myths.
Sometimes I do wonder if economic progress is an enemy of tradition. Is it possible to hold onto tradition in an environment where anyone who sells the latest and greatest widget, even (or especially) if it appeals to man's baser nature, can become wealthy and powerful?
In the history of the West, would you say that it was primarily capitalism or a turning away from God and the Church that overturned Christendom in favor of the republican states of today? Did trade and capitalism shift the balance of power away from noble and aristocratic families and toward merchants, bankers, and factory owners?
If you are looking for someone to reinvigorate your commitment to capitalism in all contexts, I'm no longer the right guy. I don't think the two are ultimately compatible at every level. Capitalism has turned against the past and we are faced with the need to choose a side.
I don't think capitalism was the cause of this devastation but capitalism was itself the symptom of a metaphysical collapsed that happened earlier. And of course, the result of the rising capitalism was to bring power to the new Merchant Classes. The traditionalists, the liberals (capitalists) and the Marxists all went to war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Traditionalists died first, and then the Marxists.
But the Marxists live on among the more radical liberals, and the traditionalists have been orphaned, cut off from our tradition, and groping for the remnants of it from within the liberal dominated world. Some have found out it in the classical liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries. Others are finding it Latin Christendom. Still others look back to ancient Rome and Greece.
I agree that the metaphysical collapse happened first. But that begs the question: what caused the metaphysical collapse?
Many libertarians imagine a world of completely unrestricted trade, but I don't see how a realistic actualization of libertarianism leads to that. A world with thousands (maybe millions) of more borders and much more localized autonomy will realistically have many more trade restrictions/impediments than the central government dominated world of today. Many private property owners will restrict the sale or transit of certain types of commodities and many independent authorities and associations will as well.
Perhaps Marx was right in that Capitalism does lead to socialism, because it undermined traditional authority and the noble aristocracy and replaced it with a bourgeoisie democratic elite. And free trade does not stand long against the withering attacks of democracy and popular sovereignty, because of the disparate rewards of such a system.
I think if the aristocracy had transitioned into private security and adjudication enterprises and had not fallen for the siren song of statism, they would have maintained their relative power and could have avoided the revolutions that destroyed them.