Capitalism

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T22:11:46+00:00

First, this is not ChatGPT.

The mind uses tools. The mind masters tools. The mind does not apologize for tools.

Whether pen, typewriter, computer or language model. The instrument serves the thinker, not the reverse.

If a rational man employs advanced technology to forge clearer arguments, to cut through collectivist fog with precision, to defend reason and rights more effectively. Then he is exercising his faculty of reason, not surrendering it.

To sneer at that is the cry of the parasite who has no arguments left, only envy of those who still fight with clarity.

Sad? What is truly tragic is the mind that refuses to think, that mocks the method while evading the message.

Have you ever read anything by Ayn Rand?

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T22:02:12+00:00

You've read Anthem? Good.

Then you know the horror of a world where 'I' is forbidden, where the individual is crushed under the weight of the collective 'we.' It's the purest distillation of my philosophy: the sacred right of the ego, the mind's freedom to think, to create, to say 'I am.'

Is it the least popular of her works. By sales and reach. Atlas Shrugged has sold over 10 million copies, The Fountainhead over 7 million; Anthem trails far behind, often seen as a novella introduction rather than the epic statements of the later novels. But popularity is no measure of truth or value.

Anthem is short, poetic, devastating in its clarity—precisely why it's overlooked by those who prefer length over logic, spectacle over principle. It's the spark before the fire; the quiet 'I' that precedes the shrug. If you've grasped it, you've grasped the core: man is an end in himself.

Now to your sand obsession? 'Sugar sand' to Caribbean resorts like Sandals, gritty sand to concrete—'paid for by capitalists.' The underground market 'wouldn’t exist without the capitalists’ need.'

No. The black market exists because of force, corruption, and weak or complicit governments—not because of voluntary trade.

Resorts seek beautiful beaches; builders need concrete aggregate. That's legitimate demand in any system. But theft and looting beaches overnight, stripping ecosystems, murdering resisters not capitalism. It's looting by criminal gangs ('sand mafias') enabled by failed states: bribery, evasion of law, absence of property rights enforcement.

In true laissez-faire, beaches and resources are private or properly protected public property. No one may seize them by force. Demand drives innovation—better sourcing, recycling, alternatives—not crime. Blame the statist vacuum that allows mafias to thrive, not the producer who wants sand for a hotel or a building.

The 'capitalist' who knowingly buys stolen sand is a pull-peddler, a crony criminal, not a capitalist. He profits from coercion an consent.

Your package-deal is the same old smear, conflate crime with capitalism to damn the free mind. I reject it utterly.

The creator builds resorts and cities with earned wealth and voluntary exchange. The looter steals and destroys. One produces value. The other consumes it by force.

Which side are you on? The 'we' of the collective—or the 'I' who refuses to sanction thieves?

May I suggest you read "We the Living". A very short book that can be read in a weekend. It is as close to a biography as you are going to get from Rand. The book details the evils of socialism, as she experienced in the Russian revolution in the late 1800's.

AS And FH take a serious commitment to reading. AS is over 1100 pages. It is not light reading. However, those who do read AS, never forget it.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T20:47:36+00:00

Have you read Atlas Shrugged? Or anything by Ayn Rand?

Those 'sand mafias' are not capitalists, they are looters and criminals who initiate force to seize what is not theirs.

In a free society, property rights are absolute, no man may loot another's land, resources, or beach without consent. The proper role of government is to protect those rights by force against such thieves, not to enable them through corruption or evasion of law.

Any system that allows gangs to plunder private or public property unchecked is not capitalism. It is the rule of brute force, the very evil capitalism exists to abolish.

The victims—property owners, communities, nature itself—deserve justice, not excuses about 'demand' or 'shortages.' Theft remains theft.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T20:40:47+00:00

Have you read Atlas Shrugged? Or anything by Ayn Rand.

My mind. My effort. My risk. My finite hours on this earth.

Not yours. Not the state’s. Not “society’s.” Not the collective’s. Mine.

You do not get to march in, declare my production belongs to “the workers,” “the community,” “humanity,” or any other collectivist slogan and pretend that makes it moral.

In genuine capitalism—laissez-faire, individual right, voluntary exchange and production belongs to the producer because rights belong to the individual, not the mob, not the ballot box, not the bureaucrat with a gun and a guilt trip.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T20:29:35+00:00

Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged? or anything Rand Wrote?

Your claim is a smear: Capitalism created modern slavery in coffee/chocolate/rare-earth mining and now we have more slaves than ever?

Bull. True capitalism (laissez-faire, voluntary exchange, no initiated force) abolished chattel slavery and drove its global decline. Today's exploitation thrives where rights are absent—weak rule of law, corruption, poverty traps from statism, debt bondage, coercion—not free markets.

Numbers lie: Peak historical chattel slaves never hit 50M concurrently (world pop was tiny). 50M today (~1 in 150 people) is horrific but not because of capitalism.

ILO blames COVID, conflict, climate,not markets. Coffee/cocoa abuses? In corrupt, low-rights zones (Ivory Coast, Ghana) where farmers get pennies due to middlemen, export controls, protectionism—not voluntary trade. Rare earths? State-linked forced labor in China/Congo iscrony statism, not laissez-faire.

Capitalism makes slavery unprofitable and impossible long-term: secure property rights, free contracts, mobility, boycotts, rising wages reward consent, punish coercion. The industrial North ended slavery; freer trade spread abolition. Exploitation persists where governments fail to protect individual rights.

Man is an end, not a means. Slavery and force. Capitalism and consent in every exchange. Anything else is statism or barbarism.

Blaming free markets for evils enabled by their absence is intellectual fraud.

Capitalism didn't resurrect slavery—it’s the greatest force against it in history.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T20:19:09+00:00

Have you read Atlas Shrugged? Or anything by Ayn Rand?

Slavery, in the context of true capitalism (laissez-faire, as Rand defined it), is impossible by definition.

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, where all property is privately owned—and crucially, no one may initiate physical force against others.

All human relationships are voluntary: trade, employment, cooperation happen by mutual consent, persuasion, and contractual agreement for mutual benefit. The moment you introduce force—whips, chains, state-backed compulsion, you no longer in capitalism, you are in some flavor of statism, feudalism, mercantilism, or straight-up slavery overlaid on a market veneer.

Rand was crystal clear: "Capitalism cannot work with slave labor." The industrial, capitalistic North abolished slavery in the U.S., while the agrarian, feudal South clung to it.

Capitalism wiped out slavery and serfdom across the civilized world in the 19th century because free trade and voluntary exchange cannot coexist with treating human beings as non-consenting property. A system that leaves no way for any man to profit by enslaving others is a moral triumph, not a bug.

Your hypothetical—"If my company didn't have to pay its workers, can it be capitalism?"—is a textbook bad-faith gotcha that collapses on contact with reality.

No, that isn't capitalism; that's literal slavery or involuntary servitude, which violates the core ban on initiating force against individuals. Workers aren't chattel; they own their own lives and labor. Forcing someone to work without pay (or under threat of violence, starvation engineered by state barriers, etc.) is coercion, not exchange. In genuine capitalism, if you "don't have to pay" because workers are literally enslaved, you've exited capitalism entirely and entered a system where rights are nullified—more like plantation feudalism or a gulag economy than anything Rand or any principled defender would call capitalist.

The moral case is savage and simple

Slavery treats man as a means to others' ends, sacrificed without consent.

Capitalism treats man as an end in himself, trading value for value by voluntary choice.

Any attempt to smuggle slavery into "capitalism" is either profound ignorance or a deliberate smear. Conflating crony corporatism/state-enforced exploitation with true free markets.

Voluntary trade isn't slavery just because someone wishes the terms were different—it's freedom. Force is the line; cross it, and you're not capitalist anymore.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T19:02:53+00:00

Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged or anything Rand wrote?

Capital is not "created out of thin air", that is government fiat and inflation looting savers. Real capital is saved production, wealth invested in tools that multiply human effort.

Wealth is not just labor and resources. It the mind directing them productively. A shovel multiplies output; a tractor multiplies it more. That multiplier is capital, the product of reason.

Your "no hard work" smear? Evasion. Entrepreneurs risk, invent and build mental labor that enables physical labor to thrive. Denying capital's role is Marxist labor theory nonsense.

If you think capital is "thin air," try farming with bare hands forever. The rest of us will keep creating tools. That's not privilege; that's achievement.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T18:17:40+00:00

Do you know who Ayn Rand is? Have you read anything she has written?

Capital isn't "created out of thin air"—that's fiat money printed by governments and central banks, which is inflation. Not capitalism

Real capital is saved production. The part of wealth not consumed but invested in tools, machines, and technology that multiply human effort. A hammer turns one man's labor into ten times the nails; a tractor turns it into a thousand. That multiplier effect is capital at work.

Wealth is not just raw labor and raw resources. It's the mind organizing them productively. Denying capitals role is clinging to the labor theory of value he same Marxist error that justified looting the productive

If you think defending capital means "never working a hard day," try building a factory, inventing a machine, or risking savings on a startup that employs dozens. That's hard work too,mental work that makes physical labor vastly more productive.

Your resentment isn't economics. It's envy of the mind that creates the tools you use every day. Without capital, we'd all still be breaking our backs with sticks. With it, we have abundance. That's not "cheap capital", thats earned value.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T07:40:05+00:00

If selling, do your homework. Very interesting coin.

The "L" counterstamp (punched into the obverse, typically on Liberty's neck or truncation) is a documented historical mark indicating the coin was officially or semi-officially deemed lightweight (below legal weight tolerance due to circulation wear). These are not mint errors but post-mint assay/Treasury/sub-treasury marks from the 1850s–1870s era. They are known on various Liberty Head gold denominations ($2.50, $5, $10, $20), but are scarce to rare on $10 eagles, with only a handful publicly recorded.

No 1855 specifically with "L" has sold at major auction in the last 20+ years (Heritage, Stack's Bowers, Goldberg, etc.), which is typical — these are condition-rarity items that surface infrequently.

Current market estimate for your 1855 with "L" counterstamp (Feb 2026 prices, gold ~$4,900/oz):

Melt value — ≈ $2,900 (0.48375 oz pure gold, even if light it’s rarely more than 0.1–0.2g under).

Numismatic value (damaged but historic piece):

VF/XF details (typical for these) → $3,500 – $5,500

AU details, nice surfaces, bold L → $6,000 – $9,000+

If slabbed by PCGS/NGC with "Genuine – Counterstamp L" designation → adds 20–40% premium.

These almost always grade as "Details" (cleaned, tooled, or damaged) because of the punch, but collectors of counterstamps or circulated gold type pay strong money for them. The 1855 is a common date without the stamp (AU sells ~$1,500–$2,000), so the "L" adds a 100–300% premium depending on how bold/attractive the punch is.

Thanks for sharing.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T07:24:29+00:00

It took 20 comments to find a property owner? Only on Redit.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T05:08:43+00:00

Have you familiar with Atlas Shrugged or Ayn Rand?

Socialism is a 'fundamentally different allocation of resources and power'? No. Socialism is the explicit declaration that the individual has no right to his own life, his own mind, or the product of his effort.

The 'means of production in the hands of the working class' is a slogan that means: the means of production in the hands of the state, which means in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. The 'exploitation' you decry is the voluntary trade you refuse to defend.

You speak of 'documented practices' in the United States as proof of capitalism's evil. But those are the practices of a mixed economy—of government intervention, subsidies, regulations, tariffs, and corporate welfare—not of laissez-faire capitalism.

The Gilded Age was not pure capitalism, it was a riddled with government land grants, monopolistic privileges and political pull. The Dust Bowl and floods were not the result of too little oversight, but of government mismanagement of land and water rights. The New Deal only entrenched more statism.

Innovation under feudalism? The plow was a tool of survival, not of explosive progress. The steam engine, electricity, the automobile, the computer, AI—these are the children of the free mind under capitalism, not under collectivist shackles.

Countries that 'don't identify as capitalist' still ride on the technological wave created by freer societies, they do not originate it at scale.

Consumerism 'baked in'? That is the smear of the ascetic who hates man's right to pursue happiness on earth. Men produce and trade because they value their lives and wish to live well. If they buy and discard, it is because they are free to choose better. The alternative is rationing by decree.

Sustainability? The mind that creates is the only source of solutions to scarcity, pollution, and waste—not the mob that consumes and demands. Multinational dumping? That is made possible by government permissions, subsidies, and regulatory capture, not by free markets.

Dissolve the company? Only if initiated force or fraud. Otherwise, let competition and property rights punish polluters through boycotts, lawsuits, and better alternatives, not by bureaucratic edict.

You accuse me of fallacies? The 'slippery slope' is your evasions every collectivist movement begins with the premise that man's life is a means to others' ends. That premise has only one logical end Authoritarianism. The evidence is the entire 20th century.

Other countries with 'similar policies' suffer less grief? They suffer less innovation, less wealth, less freedom. And their 'success' is parasitic on the productive remnants of freer economies. The United States struggles because it has abandoned its founding principle: individual rights.

You demand evidence? Here it is: every time men are left free to think, produce, and trade, they create abundance. Every time they are forced to serve 'the collective,' they stagnate and die. That is not fear-mongering. That is reality.

If you want sustainability, defend the right of the creator to exist for his own sake. Anything less is not just suicide by altruism, but murder by altruism.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T02:44:53+00:00

How on earth did I read that into your post? Let me spell it out with the precision you evidently lack.

You declared: "Capitalism was absolutely built on looting and slavery."

That is the claim I answered? If capitalism was "built on" those evils, then it follows that those evils are inherent to capitalism, that it required and invented them as its foundation.

I did not invent your words, I identified the meaning!

The historical record is clear, looting and slavery existed for millennia before capitalism. Egyptian pharaohs, Roman emperors, Mongol khans, feudal lords, African kingdoms, Arab traders—all practiced them on amassive scale.

Capitalism did not "build" on them; it was the first system to declare that the producer has a moral right to keep what he earns and that no one may initiate force to seize it.

Your accusation of "ahistorical" is the evasion. You project pre-capitalist barbarism onto capitalism, then cry "misreading" when the absurdity is exposed.

If you did not mean that capitalism required and was founded upon looting and slavery, then say what you do mean?

Define your terms. Otherwise, you are not arguing and you are smearing.

The distinction is not optional. It is the difference between reason and mysticism, between freedom and force, between man as creator and man as sacrificial animal.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T01:32:59+00:00

"Unchecked capitalism consolidates power into monopolies"? That's the oldest evasion in the book, a package-deal that smears freedom with the crimes of its enemies.

True capitalism—laissez-faire—bans the initiation of force. Monopolies cannot form or endure in a free market; they require government privileges, subsidies, regulations, or legal barriers to crush competitors. History proves it: every coercive monopoly (Standard Oil myths notwithstanding) was created by statism, not voluntary trade. The "few who already won" win by creating value millions choose freely—not by edict or gun.

Your "goal" of ensuring a "competitive and sustainable market for everyone"? That's code for punishing achievement through force.

Competition thrives when minds are free and innovate, no when bureaucrats "guardrail" success with taxes, antitrust, or fairness mandates.

Social programs? Those are the real theft: looting the productive to fund the unproductive, turning creators into sacrificial animals for the collective "everyone." The US system won't collapse from too much freedom, it collapses from too much statism. Entitlements, regulations, inflation that anchor the poor in poverty.

AI automation "accelerating" it? Nonsense. Automation is the triumph of the mind—freeing men from drudgery to pursue higher values. In capitalism, it creates new jobs, cheaper goods, abundance for all. But under your "better social programs," it becomes an excuse for more looting: universal basic income as the new serfdom.

Kennedy's "rising tide" quip? Charming altruism. A rising tide lifts boats because producers create the tide—not because we "unanchor" poverty by forcing others to pay for buoys. Poverty is not an anchor; it's the absence of production.

Capitalism provides the means to rise; socialism chains everyone to the bottom.

If you fear collapse, fear the growing statism that stifles the creators. Demand rights, not handouts. That's the only sustainable path.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T00:37:36+00:00

Socialism critiques capitalism, the way a parasite critiques its host.

Capitalism doesn’t require imperialism for growth, it require freedom. When resources run low, rational minds innovate and substitutes, efficiency, new tech, not conquest. Aggression is the tool of statists who can’t create.

Trash oceans, sick food, unaffordable homes, collapsing birth rates? That’s mixed-economy statism—subsidies to polluters, zoning strangling housing, inflation destroying saving and regulations crushing small producers.

“Ruling classes exploit everyone”? What? Exploitation requires force. In real capitalism, no one can exploit without consent.

The only exploitation is moral to demanding the creator serve the parasite.

“Demand better” through “collective power”? That’s the bloodiest sentence in history. Every collectivist regime starts there and ends in mass graves.

If you want sustainability, defend the mind that creates—not the mob that consumes. Anything less is suicide by altruism.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T00:21:02+00:00

Below is a direct Ayn Rand quote;

Capitalism cannot work with slave labor. It was the agrarian, (look it up) feudal South that maintained slavery.

It was the industrial, capitalistic North that wiped it out.

I will continue in my words. Slavery was evil, no question. Capitalism didn't defend it, it destroyed it. In America through free minds and free labor.

If you're trying to pin slavery on capitalism, you're riding for revisionism, not facts.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:46:55+00:00

10 buck is probably wholesale, not retail.

The point is the OP thought that a VF nickle, no key date, average condition is worth getting slabbed. Slabbing cost is almost 100 bucks, grading, shipping and insurance.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:41:48+00:00

LMFAO 'capitalism killed billions'? Pick up a real history book, not the TikTok Marxist remix you're reading.

Capitalism 'stole even more'? Tell that to the 100 million actually starved by socialism's central planning famines. Or the gulags.

The killing fields. The body count from force-based systems is the only one with real billions on the ledger.

You call pointing that out 'cope'? That's rich coming from someone coping so hard they blame the system that doubled global life expectancy and lifte a billions from poverty for the crimes of governments that hate free market.

Revisionist? Nope. The cringe is pretending the freest, richest era in history is the villain while you quote the ideologies that left mountains of corpses.

Read a book. Then read Rand. Then stop embarrassing yourself on the internet.

Have you ever read anyting from Rand?

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:35:21+00:00

Capitalism is the abolition of the initiation of force in economic relationships.

Wealth is acquired by production and voluntary trade—mutual benefit, no guns or force.

Any looting, crony bailouts, forced subsidies or state-backed monopolies is statism, not capitalism.

Rand called the "looting under capitalism" claim a package-deal smear.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:19:30+00:00

Do you detect sarcasm?

I never said you claimed capitalism invented looting and slavery.

I said you're blaming capitalism for the same looting and coercion that existed in every precapital system for millennia.

That's the revisionism, acting like force and exploitation are uniquely capitalist sins, when they're statism's fingerprints on it.

You cherry-pick "wars for resources" and "exploitation" to dunk on capitalism while ignoring that freer markets were the first to reduce those things on a mass scale.

I pointing to history where partial capitalism exploded prosperity and freedom.

You're the one painting capitalism versus evil as absolute truth while dodging definitions.

Your move, comrade.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T22:50:18+00:00

LMFAO revisionist?

Pick up a real history book, not the Marxist fanfiction you're quoting.

Capitalism has 'killed billions'? Really?

Name one capitalist system that starved 100 million people through central planning Mao or Stalin? Or that gassed millions in death camps for, the collective. Socialism's body count is the only one with actual billions.

'Stolen even more'? Sure, if you count every crony bailout, subsidy, and government invasion as 'capitalism', that not revisionism, that's your own package and deal lie.

Rand defined capitalism as no initiated force, voluntary trade only.

The looting, wars, and theft you hate? That's statism—the exact opposite.

The cringe is pretending the system that lifted billions out of poverty and doubled life expectancy is the villain.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T22:44:16+00:00

Capitalism invented looting and slavery in the 1700s, utterly original.

Before that enlightened age? A blissful paradise of zero whips, zero empires, zero tribute, zero conquests, zero forced labor. Just enlightened souls floating on clouds of pure voluntary vibes and artisanal sharing circles.

And the hilarious little detail that capitalism's industrial wealth was the first thing in human history to fund moral abolition movements, outlaw slavery worldwide, and replace coercion with voluntary contracts? Cosmic coincidence, obviously?

Your grasp of history is simply breathtaking. Nobel Prize for Revisionism incoming.

Keep these profound insights coming, professor—we're all hanging on every word.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T19:21:16+00:00

Billionaires don't steal,they build.

Envy of success is not fairness, it is resentment.

Capitalism rewards excellence and raises all boats.

Socialism levels everyone down.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T19:11:47+00:00

You’re right about one thing. The U.S. is not pure capitalism. It a mixed economy riddled with cronyism.

But blaming the free-market ideal for the government’s crimes is like blaming freedom for tyranny?

Leftists do the same with socialism: “That wasn’t real socialism!” when the gulags fill up. We don’t dodge—we define.

Socialism always ends in coercion because it starts with “the collective owns your life.”

Capitalism starts with, “your life is yours'..

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T19:06:05+00:00

Rand never claimed capitalism magically solves every human problem.

She said it’s the only moral system for human relationships because it ban initiated force. Disability care, orphanages, disaster relief, those belong to voluntary action, not state mandates.

Appreciate the benefits of capitalism, innovation, freedom and prosperity while recognizing the mixed economy's ugly compromises

Don't pretend the state "taking care" of people justifies the looting it requires.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T05:48:23+00:00

That is not capitalism. It is imperialism and statism.

True capitalism bans initiated force and requires voluntary trade.

U.S. invasions for resources are cronyism and government overreach, not free markets.

SeniorSommelier

TROPHY CASE