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CAPITALISM
The Natural Utopia
An economic system in which the means of
production and distribution are privately owned.
Prehistory
Before people had evolved into what we think of as homo sapiens, there were families. People taught other people the skills needed for survival. Each child was taught by his or her parents. Each man was expected to know how to make a club, how to create a fire, and how to hunt and fish. Each woman was expected to know where to find firewood and water, how to cook, how to cure skins, and how to make primitive clothing. Before families became very large, there were individuals who were more skilled at certain tasks than others.
The families eventually grew until there were tribes which were extended families. When tribes were evolving, there was trading between individuals. The one who made the best hand-axes would trade his implements for skins from the one who was the best tanner - or perhaps the skins and the axes would go for the best food from the one who was the best hunter.
The people who survived and flourished in both prehistorical and historical times were
those who were willing to work for what they acquired. Those who did not, did not
usually survive. This led to what we call today a "work ethic" in which people
have no self-esteem or sense of satisfaction if they are given free handouts.
Generally speaking, people want to acquire benefits proportional to their work effort and
mental capacity for providing benefits (material, mental, and spiritual) for others.
Medium of Exchange
As time passed, there were individuals in
a tribe who wished to carry more goods for trading than was feasible for them to
carry easily from their own tribe to a neighboring tribe. Eventually, there
were even larger distances to be traveled between tribes, and traders began
to carry wares from one tribe to the next. Aside from the difficulties
involved with large loads, there was the problem of knowing what the individuals in
the other tribe would want - and taking the wrong items along, meant that the items
might not be accepted. However, if some token was used that was easily carried
and accepted for trade by anyone, the problem was solved. So a medium of
exchange evolved - and today we call it money or "capital".
Agriculture
At first, people were nomads who gathered berries, nuts, and other things which grew
along the way. They hunted game that was in whatever area they frequented.
But as time passed, some of them learned to plant seeds and agriculture was established.
This meant that land was needed and must be guarded. So at least some of
the people in each tribe became farmers and land was considered to be a form of
"capital". Private ownership of land became a reality.
Businesses
By this time, people were becoming specialists rather than generalists. There
were manufacturers of needed goods; farmers, hunters, and fishermen for needed food;
traders to exchange goods between tribes; midwives to aid in birthing; medicine men and
women to cure the sick; and so on. Manufacturing businesses began to grow when the
manufacturer produced the best spears and clubs. Farms began to grow when the
farmer produced food that was better than the food of other farmers. Even medicine
men needed apprentices who knew which herbs were gathered and when to gather them.
So the idea of employers, employees, and wages was established.
Partnerships
When managing a business became too much for one person - or when one person had the
expertise to manage a business while another had the necessary money (capital) to
fund the enterprise - partnerships evolved.
Corporations
There were times when a business enterprise was too large to be handled by partnerships. An example might be the construction of a dam which was needed to avoid the spring flood. Or perhaps a pony-express type of operation was needed to carry messages from one tribe to another. In such cases, more capital was needed fund the operation. So corporations were established along with stockholders who furnished the funds and shared the profits. For those who think corporations are bad things, bear in mind that nothing could be done on a larger scale without them - this includes coast-to-coast communications, large buildings, manufacturing automobiles, and even constructing a power grid using a network of dams and coal-fired generators. Of course, a large socialistic government could do this - but a large socialistic government is a corporation which, unlike capitalistic corporations, has no need to be nice to the people who use its products or services.
Corporations must have stockholders who are interested in making a return from their
investments - so the corporation must make a profit sufficient to give the stockholders
their return - otherwise, the corporation will not keep existing (or attract new) stockholders
- and it will go out of business. When corporations must pay income tax, the tax
is added to the price of the goods or services sold by the corporation - so corporations
are tax collectors rather than taxpayers. Furthermore, a corporate income tax is
a double tax since the stockholders must also pay income tax as individuals.
The Stock Market
When there are stockholders, there must be stock to be bought or sold. This automatically creates a stock market and speculators who sometimes cause problems. In the old days, speculators were supposed to buy with their own money. As time passed, they found that they could buy with essentially no money whatsoever and survive as long as they sold before anyone could collect the money they supposedly had. This worked only as long as they could collect the money they needed before they had to pay for what they bought.
For example, you could buy three new cars by giving the dealer a check written on a bank account that had no money in it. Then you could sell all three cars at a higher price than you were supposed to have paid for them. From the proceeds of your sale of the cars, you could put enough in your bank account to cover the check you wrote to the dealer. You could also make some money for yourself. But what if you were not able to sell the cars at a profit before the dealer cashed your check? Then you would be in trouble.
It gets worse. You could buy the three cars, five houses, and ten motorcycles buy paying with checks written on that same empty bank account. Then you could sell the five houses at a profit that allowed you to pay for all of your purchases. Then you could buy two yachts and pay for them with the money you got for selling the three cars - and so on. It all works fine as long as your timing is right and know one realizes that your checks may not be any good. But with this philosophy, sooner or later you slip up and lose everything while causing others to lose as well. All those to whom you gave what turned out to be bad checks have lost their rightful money. This thinking is what can cause the stock market to crash.
It can be partly cured by forcing people to have a certain percentage of the money used
for buying in their bank accounts - and laws were made to do this. But this law
is difficult to enforce because detection of a violation of the law is difficult.
Probably the best way cure the problem is to have a law stating that the speculator must
keep what he buys for several weeks and pay everything he said he would before he can
sell. However, the speculators have many "reasons" why there should not be such
a law. After all, such a law might prevent them from taking someone else's money
as easily - if they are good at what they do.
Insider Trading
Insider trading happens when someone inside an organization knows that something is about to happen that would allow stock to go up or down at a specified time. For instance, if it were known by a few at the top of a large corporation that they plan to merge with another corporation at a certain date, and that this would increase the value of their stock, they could sell their stock all at once, causing the stock to drop in value, triggering a general market scare causing the value of the stock to drop even farther. Then they could buy back the stock they sold along with even more stock (since the price would be low). When the price of the stock goes up after the merger, they will have acquired lots dollars to increase their personal wealth.
Again, even though this is illegal, it is difficult to detect. However, it would be less likely to occur if there were a law forcing speculators to use their own dollars to purchase stock and to keep the stock for a specified length of time before selling it. Then the speculators would be less likely to jump in and buy any stock that suddenly seems to be dropping in value.
If the truth be known, stock speculators make money by being gamblers. For every one
that gains, someone loses. Overall, they have no intrinsic value for society.
They do nothing that benefits others unless they use their gains to help charities or like
endeavors on the side. Of course, there are jobs created when they decide to have
mansions built or other personal possessions purchased.
Inflation
Inflation means that the value of the medium of exchange (the dollar in the U.S.) is devalued because more dollars are needed to buy the same product or service. In a healthy capitalistic system there must be a slow rate of inflation. This slow rate (about 1% per year) is the result of union bargaining for higher wages, raises given to company administrators, business owners asking for more profit, improvements in what is being produced, etc. A high rate of inflation is bad for banks who have money loaned in the form of home mortgages and other individual needs (which should have a certain amount of collateral involved). The banks have their loans set up for a certain rate of inflation. When a higher rate is introduced, the actual value of payments back to the bank is less - and the bank loses money. A higher rate of inflation is bad for the individual because his or her income is reduced more quickly than business profits, pay raises, or social security increases can correct.
A low rate of inflation or negative inflation (called deflation) is an indicator of a
failing economy. Instead of economic growth, businesses are throttling down and
will eventually fail as their investments in material and labor become proportionately
higher relative to their profits.
Social Security
Social security has become something of a joke. The money each individual gives to the social security trust during their working years is usually stolen by the legislators for pork-barrel projects. The money one obtains from social security payments after he or she attains a certain age is far less than what it would have been had the money been properly invested either by the government or by the individual. The government depends upon the fact that people die and the legislators will have more dollars to use for their pork-barrel projects - because dead people can't legally collect social security. The amount that could have been invested and then inherited by the individual's heirs is lost to the government. The legislators also have chosen to break their word on when the social security is to be paid to the individual - the prescribed age was supposed to have been 65 and has shifted back to whatever they decide to choose for a later date. Social security payments are supposed to be adjusted for inflation, but in reality they never are - which means that the value of one's monthly social security check is reduced as time passes. And to add insult to injury, social security payments to the individual are taxed.
Needless to say, social security was foisted upon us by the socialists in our government.
In its present form, it is a means of stealing our money and another crowbar in
the gears of capitalism that cripple our hopes for the future.
Savings
When a person saves for old age - which he needs to do because social security is so bad - the interest on his savings is taxed. This means that there is less incentive for people to save and less money that can be saved - and often when they reach old age their standard of living drops - sometimes to the poverty level.
The rate of interest on savings is almost never as great as the rate of inflation.
So savings are being devalued regardless - and should not be devalued even farther by taxing
the interest on the savings. Interest on savings should not
be taxed - and again it is income tax, introduced by the socialists, which is the
means to tax savings.
So income tax is another crowbar in the gears of capitalism.
Capital Gains
Capital gains is the name for any profit that is made from the sale of capital (which includes property, bonds, stock, etc). For an individual to survive, he or she must be able to sell at a price that is higher than was the buying price. This is because inflation over time has lessened the actual value of the capital. If the sale price is greater than was the buying price, and the profit is either equal to or greater than what would have been the case had the money been placed in a CD or money market account in the bank, then there is some incentive for the individual to invest in capital.
Our corporations are needed to allow us to have larger endeavors than can be handled by only a few individuals. Stock in each corporation must sold so that larger groups of people can be united in the common corporate enterprise. Investments in corporate stock are always a little risky because a corporation can fail. Investors who buy this stock must be assured that their profits from the investment will be greater than would be the case had they placed their cash in a bank. Otherwise, the investment will not be worth the gamble. Therefore, when the stock in the corporation is sold, it should bring a price that is greater than what would have been the case had the money be placed in the bank.
When a tax is placed on capital gains, the investor must include this tax in his calculations and see if the investment is worthwhile. High taxes on capital gains tend to prevent investment because the calculation shows that the investment will not bring any profit and might even cause a loss in income. Low taxes on capital gains still discourage investment. No taxes on capital gains is best for investment and thus for the economy.
No tax on capital gains encourages investment. This means that new corporations can be created and old corporations can keep their investors. This, in turn, creates jobs and subsequent economic improvement.
Historically, the Democrats (and especially the communists in that party) have either been
too ignorant to understand the nature of capital gains and the economy - or they are
deliberately attempting to kill the economy - because when they are powerful enough to do so
they always choose to place a high tax on capital gains.
Monopolies
When there is only one business providing a product or service within any geographic area, it is called a monopoly. Monopolies prevent the use of competition to keep prices down and to benefit the consumer with choices. It is competition that gives capitalism its free-market economy that is self regulating. If, in the old days, a club maker from a tribe or nation used the Al Capone method to eliminate his competition (clubbed their heads in), he could charge whatever price he wanted for his clubs. But as long as there were several club makers in a tribe or nation, they would be competing by keeping the prices of their clubs to a minimum.
Communists use language to confuse us and promote their cause. By changing the name of something, they can hide what it is - as they have done with their own name (they are now "progressives", "liberals", "leftists", etc.). By changing the definition of a word, they can create confusion and altercation between those who knew the original definition and those who have succumbed to the new definition.
The original definition of capitalism included the fact that it is a free-market system. The communists began to call capitalism "monopoly capitalism". This was a lie because capitalism is diametrically opposed to monopolies. Eventually, people shortened the name back to "capitalism", but many still thought of it as being monopolistic. It was like calling white "black white" and waiting until it was shortened to white. Some people would begin to think white is black. After the communists had called capitalism "monopoly capitalism" long enough, their useful idiots began to think of capitalism as a monopolistic system - and they have been trying to make the rest of us think so too. Capitalism is, as already stated, the diametric opposite of a monopolistic system.
Socialists love monopolies because they are so easy to take over by a socialist government. And whenever a socialist government takes over an industry, it becomes a government monopoly, eventually caring only for itself as a bureaucracy working in competition for growth with other government bureaucracies.
In a capitalistic society, there are laws against monopolies that are not always enforced. However, the reason they are not enforced usually has to do with communist moles in key bureaucracies or key positions in the legislature.
Today, in the United States, public schools are geographic monopolies - and this is why it is so easy for communists to convert youngsters as opposed to teaching them the academic subjects for which the teachers were hired.
Hospitals are usually geographic monopolies as well. Many healthcare insurers (HMOs and the like) are geographic monopolies because they are the only ones hospital employees can use (the hospital has an agreement with the insurer). They force the employees to go to certain designated clinics or specialists who are cheap for the insurers and not good for the employees. To make matters worse, some of those clinics are fronts for communist tactics to take over the country - such as those that ask questions regarding firearm ownership before patients are allowed to be treated.
The troubles that monopolies cause are often used in communist disinformation campaigns as
ammunition for the argument that capitalism is bad. In truth, it is lack of
capitalism due to there being a monopoly that is the real cause of problems.
The Beginning of Monopolies in the U.S.
The American free-enterprise system was originally the opposite of communism. The Constitution forced the government to stay out of the affairs of business, education, religion, and other facets of society. It might seem that those who profit most from free-enterprise (the wealthy capitalists) would be proponents of the system. However, free-enterprise means competition, and the greedy do not want competition. Consequently, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and like-minded psychopathic power-seekers were monopolists, completely against free-enterprise. Rockefeller once said: "Competition is a sin."
One should remember that Fredrich Engels, Karl Marx' source of money, was a wealthy businessman, and communism and socialism are systems of government monopoly. When a wealthy businessman or banker can make loans to the state, manipulate a central bank, and provide bribes to politicians (sometimes called campaign donations), he can essentially take over the government. Such a person can find socialism to be of benefit because it allows him to more easily manipulate and control society. This began to happen early in America when leaders in the textile industry in New England began to buy politicians to give themselves monetary advantages. Today, this principle can be seen on television when members of Congress speak with Bill Gates and very obviously kowtow to him as if he were God almighty.
Much of this information can be found in James Perloff's book The Shadows of Power. In his book he mentions what Frederick C. Howe said in his book Confessions of a Monopolist (1906). This is a story of something for nothing - of making the other fellow pay. This making the other fellow pay, of getting something for nothing, explains the lust for franchises, mining rights, tariff privileges, railway control, tax evasions. All these things mean monopoly and all monopoly is bottomed on legislation... These are the rules of big business. They have superseded the teachings of our parents and are reducible to a simple maxim: Get a monopoly; let society work for you; and remember that the best of all business is politics, for a legislative grant, franchise, subsidy or tax exemption is worth more than a Kimberly or Comstock lode, since it does not require any labor, either mental of physical, for its exploitation.
Nineteenth century robber barons and their slightly-less-wealthy brothers routinely bribed government officials and politicians to gain their ends. The early railroad magnates were able to get public funds for constructing their railroad lines. The first regulatory agency of the U.S. government was the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was created at the petition of railroad owners - not railroad users. My grandfather on my mother's side, C.P. Morris, was an attorney working for the Interstate Commerce Commission. He was veteran of World War I and World War II who had sacrificed a large part of his life voluntarily for his country. He was honest, persevering, and dedicated. He eventually suffered a nervous breakdown due to the corruption he tried to fight that was part of the workings of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
The psychopathic monopolists prefer government regulation because it is so easy to bribe government officials and politicians so that the regulation can work for the monopolist. When the Federal Reserve was being considered in 1912, J.P. Morgan told Congress "I would rather have regulation and control that free competition." The Federal Reserve is a foremost example of how government can be controlled so that it creates a regulatory agency that works for the monopolists.
It may appear that free-enterprise breeds monopolists. However, vigilance can
counter the tendency of the monopolists to take over. In a socialist or communist
nation, the government is the one supreme monopolist, so free-enterprise has already
been sacrificed and the evils of monopolies have already taken over.
Price Fixing
Sometimes, in a capitalistic society, there are only a few examples of a particular
industry in a given area - and their leaders conspire to keep the same agreed price
for their product or service. In other words, they prevent competition and
thus gain more money for themselves. This is illegal in most areas and can
usually be caught in a relatively short time.
Cartels
A cartel is an international combination of independent enterprises in the same branch of production aiming at monopolistic control of the market by means of weakening or eliminating competition. Cartels are usually used to manipulate prices so that they are up when the customers can be bilked for the cash - or down when they want to underprice their competition and thus make it go out of business. A good example of this is OPEC which controls most of the oil market of the world. Because cartels are international, national law cannot control them.
Another excellent example of a cartel is the Federal Reserve which is neither a reserve or
federal. The name should have been "Big Bankers' Cartel". It was foisted upon
us illegally and those who did the dirty deed would have spent years in prison if they had
been caught. See The Federal Reserve System.
Unions
Just as a business should have competition for a free-enterprise system
to function properly, labor must be competing for jobs. Each person who works for
someone else is selling his labor (whether physical or mental) to his employer. Labor
unions are socialist in nature and act just like monopolies or cartels but on the side of
labor. They have never done what they purport to do. Every time a higher wage
or more benefits are provided because of pressure from a union, inflation occurs.
When this happens very
often and with numerous industries involved, the laborers must pay more for their housing,
food, transportation, and other necessities. The only ones who do well from unions
are the union bosses - and they constitute another level of management which takes more money
from the laborers.
The Minimum Wage
The idea of hiring someone with a fixed minimum wage sounds great. Actually, it is
not so great. When a mimimum wage is created or increased by government, employers
must either pay their people more
or lay some of them off. Usually, some are laid off or, in the case of a growing
business, less are hired. Where those who stay make more, those laid off or not hired
make nothing. The result is an average wage that is much less than before.
United States Government
The United States federal government was created primarily to (1) provide for the common defense, (2) provide for a national medium of exchange (print money and back it up with gold), and (3) provide some regulation for interstate commerce. This left us with a small government and eventually some very capable armed forces. Taxes were low and federal bureaucracies minimal. But then the socialists moved in, infiltrating bureaucracies and political parties. This influx led to high taxes, many entitlements, many lazy people, and much waste.
Socialism or its final evolved form, communism, is pledged to bring free nations down
to the level of communist nations rather than causing the communist nations to rise
up to the level of free nations. That way everyone loses except possibly the
higher-level bureaucrats in charge of communist nations. To accomplish this
take-down of free nations, communists use every means possible to place crowbars in
the gears of capitalism - and then to blame capitalism for the ensuing problems.
Some of the crowbars are bureaucrats and politicians who fail to enforce laws against
monopolies, price fixing, and insider trading; prevent us from having better regulation of
speculators in the stock market; create income tax on businesses and corporations,
graduated income tax, social security as it is today, and double taxes to reduce
individual savings, and use lying propaganda against capitalism.
Evolved and Natural
Capitalism has evolved naturally since prehistoric times. It is self-regulating and very efficient. In fact, it is so efficient in satisfying demand with supply that the KGB in Russia spent a lot of time and effort attempting to find the United States' top secret committee that was so efficient at satisfying demand with supply. The Soviets at that time were never taught about capitalism and its marvelous self-regulation. Under Marxism, even the Soviets' vocabulary was very limited. They believed that only control by a government committee could take care of supply and demand.
Capitalism, being an evolved phenomenon and very natural, takes the human equation into consideration. Socialism in all forms is artificial, humanly created, and does not take the human equation into consideration. Once started it evolves into its final form which is known today as communism - control of supply and demand by committees headed by bureaucratic dictators. A capitalist society in its proper form, unfettered with socialist crowbars, is a utopia. Socialism has proven to be the opposite.
Because capitalism is a naturally evolved system, it has natural human incentives as a base and requires very little in the way of laws and law enforcement. Socialism, being artificial, must use laws and harsh enforcement to survive. Consequently, people do not enjoy living in a socialistic society relative to a free-enterprise society. A capitalist would always choose to use incentives to gain cooperation. A socialist believes that he can make a law and that will cure the situation. Many times, the socialist's law turns out to be impossible to enforce or impossible to enforce equally for everyone. This was spelled out in the old adage, you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Historically, people attempt to escape from fully-evolved socialist (communist) societies. The iron curtain in the Soviet Union held within it a population which was subservient to the dictator and kept ignorant by control of the language (only words in Marxist philosophy could be spoken or heard) and by force (fences and armed guards). This was also true in post-war Germany (the Berlin wall), and in soviet satellite countries. Communist China has natural barriers around it to hold the population in (sea, desert, and mountains).
It was not until enough Soviet citizens were able to conceal illegal ham radios and listen
to the "Voice of America" radio broadcasts that the outside vocabulary was heard sufficiently
to offset the numbing lack of concepts created due to hearing
only words found in Marxist philosophy.
Eventually,
even the iron curtain could not keep the citizens in. They preferred to escape to
free capitalist nations such as the United States. Historically, people want to
be in a free society as is experienced today with the large number of illegal immigrants
who cross U.S. borders every day.
Fundamentals of Capitalism
1. Capitalism is an evolved, incentive-based economic system rather than a legislated, enforced economic system.
2. Capitalism is based upon competition among those providing goods and services. Where monopolies exist, there is no capitalism. Consequently, it is necessary under capitalism to divide any existing monopolies into several competing industries and to prevent any proposed new monopolies from coming to fruition.
3. Inflation means that your dollar is losing its value. If you once bought a loaf of bread for one dollar, inflation will mean that the cost of bread will increase to more than one dollar. A sales tax is inflationary because it causes you to pay more for the loaf of bread (because the tax is included). For instance, a sales tax of 8% causes you to pay $1.08 for a loaf of bread rather than $1.00. Income tax on businesses (including corporations) is inflationary because businesses must make a profit or they go out of business - and this means that they pass their taxes on to the customer. Therefore, a corporate income tax on profits from the loaf of bread will raise the price of the bread. This means that an income tax on businesses is actually a hidden tax on each customer.
Inflation rate is monitored by the government and private institutions. What I call real inflation is that which occurs on items necessary for survival such as food, lodging, transportation to and from work, heat, etc. What the government calls inflation takes account of real inflation, but is offset by frivolous items such as electrical gadgets, computer games, items for hobbies, etc. These items are usually manufactured out-of-country by cheap labor. Therefore, real inflation is more than the government-published inflation. Those in the government like it that way because their version makes them look better than does the truth.
4. Deflation happens when business is bad and prices must drop to prevent an extreme loss of money that can occur when too little or nothing can be sold. The economy is never static (never perfectly stable). In every industry, there is always either some inflation or some deflation. The economy self-corrects in each instance if the government does not tamper with it. When inflation is becoming too high, more income tax on the individual will cause a deflationary influence to counter the inflation. This is the result of less money for the individual to spend - so the rate of spending is reduced, causing sellers of products and services to drop their inflationary prices. However, more income tax on the businesses will tend to increase inflation even though the cost is born by the individual. Nevertheless, overall the inflationary trend can be overcome with slightly greater taxation. The opposite happens in normal times or in recessions. In such times, higher taxes merely increase inflation preparatory for an economic collapse.
If the government wishes to "cure" any "bad" economic situation, it must monitor almost every facet of the economy, think carefully, and then take action. In socialist economies relying on such a system, the results are usually too slow and inappropriate by the time they are implemented. In a capitalistic economy, such a system merely upsets the self-correction that is natural. It is best in our capitalistic system that the government intervene as little as possible.
5. A slow rate of inflation is natural in a healthy capitalistic economy. This is caused by unions increasing their demands, businesses attempting to bring in more dollars for the owners, employees wanting pay raises, and attempts by others to keep up with those behaving in that manner. A high rate of inflation hurts lending agencies by making the returns on their loans less than what is healthy for them to remain in business.
6. Each industry in a capitalistic economy goes through cycles just as species do in nature. In nature, when food is abundant for a particular species, it multiplies so that there are more members of that species to eat the surplus food. The species grows in number until its numbers become too great for the food supply. At this point, the members of the species starve until only a few emaciated individuals remain. In any particular industry, entrepreneurs who see that one business is thriving begin to create their own businesses in that industry. This is good because it keeps the price of the product down for the customer. However, if too many get into the same industry, deflation begins to occur and most of the businesses in that industry fail. This bad side is avoided when proper studies are made by those planning to go into business - it is always wise to study the market, be alert, and to think in advance.
Nevertheless, there are stupid people in most industries who oversupply that industry by investing in what at the time is a good thing. So the industry is cyclic just as a species in nature is cyclic. Some of the down points in the cycle may be minor, and some may be major. Since most industries are up when one is down, the average keeps our economy thriving. Should too many industries hit down parts in their cycles at the same time, we have a recession. However, the system will self-correct.
7. Corporations are necessary for enough money to be available for large projects.
Usually, corporations do well enough as long as stockholders are awake and wary.
A corporate executive officer (CEO) can act adversely to the corporate health.
Crimes against the corporation are difficult to detect in a reasonable length of time.
So it is best to give the CEO incentives that tie his health to that of the corporation.
The best way to do that is to give him large shares of corporate stock in lieu of
a greater and greater salary. Even then, he could sell all of his stock at one time
just before he knows that the corporation is about to fail (insider trading).
This is illegal and can be made more so by proper corporate by-laws. Again, it is
best that the stockholders be awake and wary. They should be careful to monitor
the actions of the CEO in regard to the corporation to be sure that he is acting in accord
with the corporate welfare - and they should report him if he does
anything illegal.
The Major Modifiers of American Capitalism
There are three major things that alter normal capitalism in the United States. Perhaps the most obnoxious is graduated federal income tax. See Income Tax. The social security system is the second most obnoxious in that it is a scam put forth by both major political parties that siphons off money that could have actually done what it purports to do except for the fact that it is administered to short-change us and give the difference to political interests. See Trusting Our Government. The last is the Federal Reserve System which is helpful in some ways but is being used against us. It is the worst of the three as it allows the Shadow Party to move almost unchecked toward their goal. See The Federal Reserve System.
For an interesting comparison of free-enterprise versus government control see Mark Steyn - Is Canada's Economy a Model for America?
Is Money Really the Root of Evil?
From Ayn Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged, we find one of the most perfect answers to this question. For those who have not read this book, I recommend it highly because of the way it uses a very interesting story to show how a free-enterprise economic system works and how socialism can cause it to malfunction.
Have you ever asked "What is the root of money?" Money is a tool of exchange which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears [pity], or of the looters [usually those in a corrupt government], who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. [When you are taxed unfairly (as we are under our progressive income tax), and the money is either wasted or directed (by the looters) only to those who will pay to re-elect the looters, we have been victimized.]
When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor - your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. [We were taken off the gold standard by looters, and today our money is worth but a fraction of what it once was. Now, it is neither redeemed by silver or gold, and the Big Bankers' Cartel that is falsely named the Federal Reserve is taxing us through inflation and stealing from us by "loaning" counterfeit dollars to the government.]
Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions - and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth. [The communists who have taken over the unions look upon efforts of the intellect as inferior to efforts of physical labor. However, they do not produce anything and still take the forced dues of their workers. In essence, they are parasites whose only task is to incite the workers to rebel against those who employ them.]
But should you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made - before it can be looted or mooched - made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade for his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgement of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss - the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery - that you must offer them values, not wounds - that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reasons; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade - with reason, not force, as their final arbiter - it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgement and highest ability - and the degree of man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of the existence whose tool and symbol is the money.
But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality - the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind. [Each person must have a mind of his own and an education of some sort that is based upon reality. The communists under the name of progressivism have dumbed down our children with each new generation knowing less than that preceding it.]
Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgement, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. [Before one begins a journey, he should know where he is going. Life is a journey, and it is a wayward and somewhat useless journey if one does first not reflect and define what his goal is.]
Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth - the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you [may] look on and cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. [The ignorant and the stupid will lose what they obtain as unearned money.]
Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. [Will you] scream that money is evil. Evil because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? [Glorified con men like George Soros who obtained wealth through nefarious means and not by useful mental or physical creativity (he manipulated currency and the stock market like any other subhuman parasite) will find no means of satisfaction. They will always want more of other people's money and will always be the enemy of society while they con others and destroy what they can. Destruction is easy, but only those who have some degree of talent can build.]
Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vice. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit.
Do you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to love its nature. To love money is is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money - and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.
This is a tip on a clue to a man's character. The man who damns money has obtained it dishonestly. The man who respects it has earned it.
Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another - their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to that money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their lives, men who apologize for being rich - will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt - and of his life, as he deserves. [Do not let anyone con you into thinking that your hard-earned money should be theirs. The communists today hide under false and stolen names but can be discovered by their actions. We must fight them and their efforts to steal our worth and destroy us. For instance, in Russia and her satellites, those in charge are eventually purged by others who are no better or smarter. Each time there is a purge, the most intelligent are killed or imprisoned. The result has been a country that must rely upon stealing our technology to begin to keep up with us. The same is true of Communist China.]
Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes [were supposed be] written to protect your against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passes a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get from them as they got it. Then the race goes on, not to the ablest at production, but by those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes in a spread of ruins and slaughter. [With the psychopathic parasites like Obama and Reid (Pelosi is no longer a very potent threat) in key positions, we are seeing this today. Almost half of our people have been dumbed down to the point that they cannot realize that they are being duped. They have reached the point where they are too ignorant to know of the existence of the things they need to know to survive.]
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FOUNDING THE UNITED STATES
The founding fathers were either members of the Masonry or were strongly influenced by the principles of the Free Masons. The Masons at the time of the American Revolution were merely the last of a long line of such groups going back before recorded history. Masons had been outlawed in most of the world because they believed in an ancient principle of freedom for all men and actively opposed any form of forced central government - which included government by kings, queens, sultans, emirs, dictators, czars, emperors, etc. Although at the time of the revolution, Marxism did not exist, Marxism, socialism; and communism being forms of forced central government, would have also been opposed by the Masons. Masonry being outlawed meant Masonry being underground and keeping secrets that could not be known by those the Masons opposed. Without secrecy, Masons could be discovered by the authorities and eliminated.
Very probably all of the founding fathers were also Christians. Free Masonry was not considered a religion so much as a philosophy, and men of any religion could join as long as they met the requirements of the order. Free Masons were much opposed to a state religion and wanted complete freedom of religion for Americans so long as one's religion did not conflict with the Constitution and did not advocate overthrowing the legitimate government. Needless to say, they hoped that their descendants would be vigilant enough to see who our enemies are and would take very strong steps to eliminate traitors and their organizations.
Today, most of us have been taught (erroneously) that the form of government adopted by the federal government was modeled after the Athenians of ancient Greece. This is not precisely correct. The truth is the American settlers knew almost nothing of democracy or democratic republics, having been exposed all their lives to a monarchical government. They knew what they did not want for a government, but had no idea how to create a government that would not become despotic. The more educated colonists had some notion of what to do to form a government "of the people" but perhaps the greatest influence upon the founding fathers was the Iroquois Nation. Most of what follows is either quotes or information from Jack Weatherford's research.
According to Jack Weatherford in his book Indian Givers: "Reportedly the first person to propose a union of all the colonies and to propose a federal model for it was the Iroquois Chief, Canassatego, speaking at an Indian-British assembly in Pennsylvania in July 1744. He complained that the Indians found it difficult to deal with so many different colonial administrations, each with its own policy. It would make life easier for everyone involved if the colonists could have a union which allowed them to speak with one voice. He not only proposed that the colonies unify themselves, but told them how they might do it. He suggested that they do as his people had done and form a union like the League of the Iroquois." [Weatherford took this information from Bruce E. Johansen's Forgotten Founders.]
"Hiawatha and Diganwidah founded the League of the Iroquois sometime between 1000 and 1450 AD, under a constitution they called the Kaianerekowas or "Great Law of Peace". When the Europeans arrived in America, the League constituted the most extensive and important political unit north of the Aztec civilization. From earliest contact the Iroquois intrigued the Europeans, and they were the subject of many amazed reports. Benjamin Franklin, however, seems to have been the first to take their system as a potentially important model by which the settlers might be able to fashion a new government."
Franklin first became acquainted with Indian political organization when he was the official printer for the colony of Pennsylvania. His job included publication of the records and speeches of various Indian assemblies and treaty negotiations. His curiosity led him into the study of Indian culture and institutions. Because of his consequent expertise in Indian matters, the colonial government of Pennsylvania offered him the diplomatic assignment of Indian commissioner. Holding this post during the 1750s, he became intimately familiar with the intricacies of Indian political culture and in particular with the League of the Iroquois. Franklin became an advocate of the Indian political structure for use by the Americans. During this time, he also refined his own political techniques of persuasion, compromise, and slow consensus building that proved so important to later negotiations as the ambassador to France and as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Eventually, the founding fathers adopted some of the essential features of the Iroquois League, but they never followed it in the detail advocated by Benjamin Franklin.
The Iroquois League united five principal Indian nations; the Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, and Cayuga. Each of these nations had a council composed of delegates called sachems who were elected by the tribes of that nation. The Seneca Nation elected eight sachems to its council, the Mohawk and Oneida nations each had councils of nine sachems, the Cayuga Nation had a council of ten, and the Onondaga Nation had a council of fourteen. Each of these nations governed its own territory, and its own council met to decide the issues of public policy for each one. But these councils exercised jurisdiction over the internal concerns of that one nation only; in this regard they exercised powers somewhat like the individual governments of the colonies.
In addition to the individual councils of each separate nation, the sachems formed a grand Council of the League in which all fifty sachems of the five nations sat together to discuss issues of common concern. The sachems represented their individual nations, but at the same time they represented the whole League of the Iroquois, thereby making the decisions of the council the law for all five nations. In this council each sachem had equal authority and privileges, with his power dependent on his ability to persuade others. The council met in the autumn of at least one year in five in a longhouse in the Onondaga Nation, and if needed they could be called into session at other times as well. Their power extended to all matters of common concern among the member nations. In the words of Lewis Henry Morgan, America's most modern anthropologist, the council "declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties of alliance, regulated the affairs of subjugated nations, received new members into the League, extended its protection over feeble tribes, and in a word, took all needful measures to promote their prosperity, and enlarge their dominion."
Another student of the Iroquois political organization was Charles Thomson, the perpetual secretary of the Continental Congress. He spent so much energy studying the Indians and their way of life that the Delaware Nation adopted him as a full member. Following Thomas Jefferson's request, Thomson wrote at length on Indian social and political institutions for inclusion in an appendix to Jefferson's Notes of the State of Virginia. According to his description of Indian political tradition, each Indian town built a council house for making local decisions and for electing delegates to the tribal council. Even though Thomson wrote this several years before the Constitutional Convention, his full description (not all shown here) reads like a blueprint for the United States Constitution, especially when we remember that the Constitution allowed the state legislatures (rather than the general populace) to elect senators. [It was a mistake to alter this original method to the one we have today.] Thomson stresses that the sachems or political leaders do not acquire their positions by heredity but by election, and he adds that because outsiders can be naturalized into the Indian nation, even they can be elected into such offices.
The Americans followed the model of the Iroquois League not only in broad outline but also in many of the specific provisions of of their Kaianerekowa. The sachems were not chiefs but lawmakers - and as such, the sachem could never go to war in his official capacity. Should he go to war, he must lay aside his civil office until he is finished with being a common warrior. Most Indian tribes had different leaders for peace and war, contrasting strongly with the British tradition. The colonists essentially adopted the Indian model rather than the British model. Henry Steele Commager later wrote that "if Americans did not actually invent federalism, they were able to take out an historical patent on it."
The information on this subject in the Weatherford's book is very detailed and extensive. It would be wise for those interested to read his book - or at least his chapter called The Founding Indian Fathers. There is no doubt that our nation is unique largely because of the Native Americans and the Masons who founded it.
The Masons found no religious conflict with the Native Americans as the Indians believed in a single diety who created the "web" of life. The similarity to the fundamental philosophy of the Masons can be seen when we look at one of their chief symbols, the five-pointed star. The stars in our flag are simply filled-in versions of the pentagram, which is the ancient symbol for the life force. The pentagram within a circumscribing circle is the symbol of the life force within God. The circle is the symbol for God, the creator, the Eternal - because it has no beginning and no end.
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THE FIVE-POINTED STAR
You may wonder why what follows has not been more widely published long before this. After all, the five-pointed star has been the national symbol since our nation began, one star for each state in the union. Our nation was founded by men who were, for perhaps the most part Free Masons, men who were part of a secret organization devoted to individual freedom and the overthrow of kings, dictators, and like despots, whether rulers of nations or rulers of other types of organizations. Such dedicated men have been hunted and killed in the past, causing them to go underground. Even today, there are facist groups (like the communists) who fear the influence of the Masonry.
The Masonry comprised the activists, those who were the "warriors" for individual freedom.
There were other groups who kept the deepest secrets.
The information found herein and much information of like nature has
been kept under wraps for centuries because certain religious organizations feared
that its power might expose them and thus diminish their hold on the masses.
Perhaps some of it can be shown now to those who have ears to hear.
People from before recorded history were interested in mathematics. Mathematics has always existed as the foundation of the universe, and humankind's discovery of mathematical principles did not happen overnight. It was a subliminal process at first, happening very slowly as people grew in awareness, and it predated written language by many thousands of years. It was necessary to use simple math to count things and to divide them. The first traders used math to barter and that was a long, long time ago.
As mathematical knowledge coursed upward, there came a time when ancient humanity was very well versed in the mathematical intricacies of geometric figures. One figure, in particular, fascinated the ancients of many cultures. This was and is the five-pointed star or pentagram. Ten has been used as one of the simple numerical bases for as long as one could count his fingers. But our base ten system is really one with only nine written numbers because zero is not a number and ten is a one followed by a zero. The middle number between one and nine is five. And philosophically, the number five, the one that is midway between one and ten, was considered the number of humanity because humanity was considered the mediator between the higher forces and the lower kingdoms, the caretakers of the Creator's garden. Five as a geometric figure, the pentagram, looks a bit like a human with two legs, two arms, and a head. So the pentagram as well as the number five became the symbol for humanity.
The circle, on the other hand, had no beginning and no end. This was the symbol for the No-Thing, the Eternal, the Infinite, with no beginning and no end. A circle with a dot in it became the symbol for the Face of the Creator, the body we call the sun, the Giver of Life. The circle with both a horizontal line (female force) and a vertical line (male force) in it became the symbol for manifestation on the earth plane. The circle about a square became a symbol for the seasons or the yearly cycle. There were other symbols of like nature, all predating phonetic alphabets but forming ideas in written form nevertheless, and predating most ideograms.
One of the most revered symbols was the circle which circumscribed (enclosed) the pentagram, for this was humanity or the life force within the Creator. And of the ways in which one may construct this symbol accurately, perhaps the oldest way, is to draw a vertical line 26 units long and to divide it into two equal parts of 13 units each. Any unit will do - inches, half inches, feet, millimeters, etc. - as long as one consistently uses the same unit throughout.
Next, we swing a circle about the line with a compass or compass-like device so that the center of the line is the center of the circle, and the circle passes through the exact ends of the line. Now we have a circle with a radius of 13 and a diameter of 26.
Now we draw a vertical line through the center of the circle, and make a mark four units in length upward from the center. So from our new mark to the circle the distance is nine units. We next make a mark 5 units below the center. This leaves 8 units to the bottom of the circle. We draw two straight lines through this new mark, beginning at the ends of the horizontal line and ending at the circle. Now we connect the bottom of each of these new lines with the top of the vertical line, and we have a circumscribed pentagram.
This simple way to construct a pentagram is not quite perfect, but close enough to fool the human eye. It was used often in the past millenia, and if the fundamental unit used was the inch, the resulting pentagram would have been accurate to within .04 inch. The constructed pentagram and its dimensios are shown in the illustration below. Note that the radius of the circle is 13 and that the diameter is 26. The ancient Hebrews apparently either borrowed this knowledge or inherited it from an older source. It could have been taught to Moses by the Egyptians when he was growing up as a prince in the royal household.
Thirteen is a key number in the pentagram. It is an interesting number that is used often in natural phenomena. There are 13 sidereal moon passages in one year, 13 weeks in one season, 13 tribes of Israel (including the Levites at the center of the tribal marching order), 13 notes in the musical octave including the octave note, 13 units in the hypotenuse of the 5, 12, 13 right triangle, 13 inches for the panpipe length for middle C, 13 original states in our nation, etc.
Eight is another key number. There are 8 old sabbats (holy days) represented as 8 spokes on the wheel of the year. Each Hebrew letter is also a number so that each Hebrew word can be represented as a sum. Each sum encompasses a large number of Hebrew words that are part of a spectrum of opposites such as hot and cold, high and low, strong and weak, etc. Eight is the number of the Hebrew verb meaning love (and representative of their love/hate spectrum). There are eight notes in the diatonic scale when including the octave note, 8 years in the old calendar cycle that mated the passages of the sun and the moon, 8 points on the cube (salt crystal), etc.
The smallest angle within the pentagram is exactly 36 degrees. 36 is the extension of 8 which means
8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 36.
Remember that eight is the number of the old sabbats or holy days (the solstices and the equinoxes plus the midpoints between them).
The number 36 is also the square of 6. Six is the number that means perfection because it is the only number in which the product and a sum of the integers leading to three are equal. ( 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 and 1 x 2 x 3 = 6 )
The other two angles of the pentagram are 72 degrees which is twice 36, and 108 degrees which is thrice 36. The number 36 is often used in the old codes to represent the pentagram or life force.
The extension of
36 is 666, which was incorporated into the Fahrenheit temperature scale so that exactly
66.6 degrees lie between freezing and the temperature of the human body.
Seen as the "beast" in The book of Revelation, 666 has been misinterpreted as evil.
Actually, it is neither evil nor good.
At the most easily understood level, the number
666 was never meant to be anything but the initial physical state of each human or of generic
humanity, providing the necessary vehicle for success or failure in life. It is the
job of each of us to tame and use the beast properly.
The smallest whole number circle diameter which can contain the whole number construction of the life force (represented by the pentagram) is the number 26. The letters representing what we have interpreted to mean "God" are the Hebrew letters corresponding to IHVH (yod-heh-vau-heh). Each letter in old Hebrew is also a number. I = 10, H = 5, V = 6. The sum of IHVH is therefore 26.
Since every Hebrew letter is also a number, each Hebrew word has a sum - a few of these words and their sums follow as we examine the pentagram. To reach from the center, where we are, and touch the Eternal (the circle), the distance (obstacle or bridge) we must traverse is 13 (strong emotion, love or hate), composed of either 4 (order) plus 9 (study), or 5 (life, being human) plus 8 (devotion, love as a verb).
Hebrew is written from right to left and we inherited our number calculations from a similar source which is why we calculate from right to left with the smallest units on the right.
I + H + V + H = 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26.
IHVH is not a name and should not be pronounced because it is not even a word. Instead, it is the four letters found in three conjugations of the verb to be, meaning that which is, was, and ever will be. It is the favored way that the Hebrews wrote the Eternal. The ignorant sometimes use it as if it were a name and pronounce it "Jehovah". When it is explained to them that it is not a word that can be pronounced, they misunderstand the reason why and pronounce the series of letters as if they were a word - a word that does not exist.
THE FIVE-POINTED STAR AND PHI
Think of yourself as you would have been had you lived in a past age without modern gadgets to distract you. You look at the world around you for hints as to what it is, how it works, and how it was conceived and built. You look for patterns in the growth of plants, examine the nature of each number, and study the geometry of shapes. You notice that each number is a consequence of those that went before it and that certain number sequences match the numbers found in certain geometrical shapes.
The old priest-scientists knew that a certain series of numbers represent the
life force. These numbers are now called the Fibonacci series after the man
who re-discovered it. They consist of numbers that are the sum of the two
preceding them.
0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13,
8 + 13 = 21, and so on.
So the numbers beginning the series are 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and 21.
From the 21st number in the series on,
if one divides a series number by the one preceding it, the answer very closely
approximates what the ancient Greeks labeled "phi". Below, the series does
not reach the 21st number, yet it still shows how near to "phi" the answer is.
The
numbers of this series are found in the construction of the head of a sunflower,
that of a pine cone, the cross-section of our bones, the frequencies of music, the
planetary orbits, and, in fact, all of life.
The very ancient people considered it to be the series of life, and the pentagram
the symbol of life.
0
1
1 = 0 + 1
2 = 1 + 1
3 = 1 + 2
5 = 2 + 3
8 = 3 + 5
13 = 5 + 8
21 = 8 + 13
34 = 13 + 21
55 = 21 + 34
89 = 34 + 55
144 = 55 + 89
233 = 89 + 144
377 = 144 + 233 This 12x12 and the 13th number of the series.
610 = 233 + 377
987 = 377 + 610
1597 = 610 + 987
2584 = 987 + 1597
2584 / 1597 = 1.6180338 which is approximately the irrational number the Greeks called "phi".
"Irrational" refers to the fact that the decimal equivalent can be taken to infinity.
"Phi" is actually (1 + 51/2) / 2 which comes to 1.6180339 and can be taken to infinitely more places to the right of the decimal. If we were to continue the series, "phi" is approached even more closely by dividing the last number in the series by its predecessor.
Phi = (1 + 51/2) / 2 = 1.6180339 when taken to the seventh number after the decimal
One divided by phi = 1 / 1.6180339 = .6180339
Phi squared equals = (1.6180339)2 = 2.6180339
Phi squared times (6/5) = (2.6180339)(6/5) = 3.1416 which is "pi"
Pi is the number used to find the circumference or area of a circle, so it was considered a way to measure the Eternal. This made it a very holy number. The old shortcut method to show "pi" in calculations was to use the fraction 22/7, but the ancients realized that this was merely a means to aid in the creation of material objects. 22/7 was sufficient for most purposes in the material world.
22/7 = 3.1429
"Phi" and "pi" are both irrational numbers which is one reason the ancient priest-scientists preferred to show them as geometrical symbols.
The circle was known to have no beginning and no end. Like the Creator, it was endless. So the circle represented that which has always existed and will always exist, the Infinite, the Eternal. The pentagram that is circumscribed by the circle represents the life force within the body of the Eternal, the Creator.
Many years before the beginning of this era, the Egyptians were using what we call the Pythagorean Theorem to find the square root of five so that they might construct a perfect pentagram (five-pointed star). This symbol was known to be a quality of the planet Venus which moved about the sun in such a manner that each conjunction with the earth was precisely two-fifths of the way about the sun from the last conjunction with earth. When one connected the dots that were adjacent conjunctions, the result was a pentagram.
Each line in this symbol is divided into three parts. If we call the center part "A" and each outer part "B", then B divided by A is equal to 1.6180339, a number the Greeks later called "phi". The length A plus B, divided by B, also equals "phi". And the complete length of one line, A plus B plus B, divided by the length A plus B, also equals "phi". When "phi" is inverted, it equals .6180339, and when it is multiplied by itself, it equals 2.6180339. The Egyptians called "phi" the Golden Mean. And their priest-scientists knew that this was the number of the life force and that the pentagram was, therefore, the symbol of the life force. And a perfect pentagram is constructed by making A equal to 2 units in length, and B equal to 1 plus the square root of 5 in length.
B/A = (A+B)/B = (A+B+B)/(A+B) = (1+51/2)/2 = 1.6180339 = phi
No one really knows where this fund of knowledge began. Although it is found in ancient Egypt, we are beginning to realize that the Egyptians received it from a seagoing people who predated even the Sumerians, settled in the Tigris/Euphrates region, and once lived upon the island of Dilmun (Bahrain) among other places. This is but a sampling of what these people had to offer. Much of it was burned or otherwise destroyed by religious fanatics.
The circumscribed pentagram is used today by the Masons, the Rosicrucians, many modern Pagan and new-age groups, and the United States of America, to name but a few. It has been used most often by groups who oppose any form of kingship or dictatorship, and especially the idea of a state religion or any sort of persecution by religious bodies or the state. Thus, it is a symbol of liberty and equality of opportunity.
Copyright (C) 1992 by Lew Paxton Price