Rick Kelo speaks on Pacifism & Economics

Rick Kelo is a pacifist who believes that initiating violence is illegitimate.  It's rare to meet a former military officer and combat veteran who is a pacifist.  Rick did not come to understand the value of the Non-Aggression Principle until years after leaving the military.  Since then he has been an outspoken advocate of peaceful human interactions.

To Rick Kelo we are all born with a basic understanding that initiating violence is inherently wrong.  So when the question of how to best organize a society where many people have to function together this topic comes to the fore-front.  Fundamentally we can either organize a society along the peaceful lines where people interact voluntarily, or along the violent lines where interactions are forced.

Do we force the cake baker to make a cake for a wedding he disagrees with, or do we not force him?

Richard Kelo's answer is not to use force.

Rick A Kelo

Some would respond that a voluntary economy, or a capitalist economy, relies on violence because it requires a police force and a court system in order to protect private property.  Rick Kelo's view is that when someone robs you, and the police find them and return your stolen property the police haven't initiated violence.  The robber initiated violence; the police merely restored your prior condition of peaceful existence.

That's how private property rights work Rick Kelo teaches.  Capitalism is based on private property & does not require violence, it only requires you not initiate thievery / violence and that a police force protecting private property exists to deal with those thieves who do initiate violence.  Now compare that to the robber in the above example (who was the Socialist).  The Socialist must steal & violate property rights in order to implement his theft-based system.

Rick Kelo speaks on Central Planning in Socialism

Rick Kelo

Socialists today work to distance themselves from the Central Planning regimes of the USSR and Soviet satellite nations.  Rick Kelo, a graduate of West Point and a prominent Classic Liberal scholar and social thinker, points out though that is impossible.

Rick Kelo examines these claims and notes, "The Socialist of the 21st century tries very hard to disavow central planning.  They claim that was a feature of a totalitarian government in the USSR, but not necessarily a feature of Socialism as an economic system."

There are some hard questions for Socialists to answer though, that Richard Kelo has thought out all too well:

• How will you seize & redistribute the means of production from the entrepreneurs who own them to worker co-ops other than by central government dictate?
• How will you maintain an economy where only worker co-ops have legal sanction other than by central government dictate?
• How will you forcibly restrict every other form of economic organization other than by central government dictate?

Socialists may not like the word "central planning" but, as Rick Kelo points out, they are committed to using it regardless.  This is why the ideas they advocate will ultimately fail: Socialism's central value is the use of force against peaceful people.  Again Socialists may not like the word "force" but they are committed to using it regardless.

Without central economic planning no Socialist economy can ever exist.