How to Catch Wild Pigs
The following is a modern parable that has been floating around social media for a few years. Supposedly the parable is intended to be a warning about socialism. But actually the parable is a concise explanation of how modern neoliberal capitalism works. Here’s the parable:
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A chemistry professor at a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.
In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.
You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.
Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.
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Where did the corn come from? Where did the fence come from? The wild pigs certainly did not grow any corn or build any fences. They only had the freedom to roam the countryside in search of what they could take from the forest to survive. The wild pigs never produced anything for themselves; they had been living on ‘free stuff’ all along. Finding corn wasn’t any different than finding anything else the wild pigs could take for themselves. The wild pigs were trapped by their own greed because they couldn’t produce anything for themselves.
The parable is really a warning about globalism and neoliberal economic philosophy. Austria was the origin of neoliberal economics espoused by Ludwig von Mises; Karl Marx was a German economic philosopher that has influenced German economic policy. Austria experiences large trade deficits for its size while Germany enjoys the largest trade surplus. In fact, countries that have been influenced by the socialist economic philosophy of Karl Marx (like China, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries) enjoy trade surpluses. The countries that have been influenced most by the neoliberal economic philosophy of Ludwig von Mises are experiencing the largest trade deficits. That should not be too surprising. Karl Marx’s economic ideas depended upon producing corn while Ludwig von Mises’ economic ideas depended upon removing fences so it would be easier to take corn.
Like wild pigs, neoliberal capitalists roam the planet searching for corn they can take for themselves. Neoliberal economists glorify private ownership while they control governments to prevent fences being built; making it easier to take corn they haven’t produced. The world would starve if people depended on stock markets, venture capitalists, banks, financiers, and neoliberal economists to produce corn. Modern neoliberalism is about taking and not about producing. Neoliberal capitalists are like wild pigs fearing they will be trapped by their own greed.
The United States shouldn’t be afraid of socialism, that’s just a red herring thrown out to distract the public. The terror the United States should fear is losing the ability to produce its own corn. Those who produce corn can trap greedy wild pigs; that’s what the parable is really about. And the gate is closing on the United States.
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Beware neoliberal economists who are afraid of fences. They'll eventually take all your corn.
Well said. Basic neoliberal economic philosophy accord that few--if any--restrictions should be placed or demanded upon capitalism.
For myself---and my own personal opinion however--I believe that capitalism is moribund at the least and dead at the most---completely supplanted and overwhelmed by Supply Side Economics.
I liked it, but a little corny. I like to put boundaries around my oh fences, but
probably because i don't live in a gated community.
I lost all my corn, in a maze, Indian Corn, i believe it was, but shucks, it was kinda husky, and it looked sorta like stacked dominoes all in a rows, with white dots crossing all the T's, while crossing my eyes, but with O's, instead of Ex's.
.
I enjoyed your parable seeded, but corn stands in rose, pricked by thorns, torn from the thickett, like tears in your jacket, weren't tears
streaming down cheeks.
.
I don't know, are "Pigz in Zen" or
are pigs in pens, that used to be surrounded by fields of fences, that when harvested, wind up being blown tumble weed smoking dopes smoking ropes that tie the hands that tie the hands on a clock to a sprung Spring pressuring the well roped to a bucket list that pales in comparison to buckets of bucket lists stored in pails, impaled buy handles bought with coupons discounting the field left baren in land adjacent to out of right field due to a fielders choice, right out of Left field by sum might assume was a product produced in error, as i once thought i had ADD, but it didn't add up,
or
subtract down a fur tracker's down, pill oh , filled with uppers, that on ok sion, bring downs just B 'Cosby style , right around post 7;14 , bearing the wait, others can't lift
but i die gress, cause i wanted to change the color of the black and white gress, back to color
books with words, while in K- 9th grade, i remember hearing it be said,
K-9's are color blind, but i'll await the results of the hearing
impaired for the equal opportunities it creates for the deaf
.
Sorry Norm, do what you will with my rambling , i just have to cut n paste it into little pieces
i can piece and paste together later, whence paste is required to brush
on my indentured servants known as teeth, but tongue tastes great , while enameled Bi Cuspids are less filling
than straight braces that scare crows and teeth straight out of line dancing on the edge
.
i did enjoy the symbolism i heard beat out of the striped bass drum stripped of it's stripes,
buy a pin, that pop capped off Capitalism from the social society bottled up with necks that have had it up to hear
with what the deaf were blindly seeing, the unspoken words that dumb down , to new heights,
ones depths ...
.
Whatever Time to go make Happy Hour a mellon Collie moment CHEERS NERM !
A couple of claymores ought to do it...
Best way to catch a pig? Wait outside the doors where senators are entertaining lobbyists.
Lobbyist usually use a ''free trip'' to catch as many pigs as they want.
just that word
pisses me off !
That's the winning answer.
now they're
domestic
wild pigs, raISed by US, to raze US
Well, the response to the article has been most enlightening. Guns and politics. Both are tools that facilitate taking something from others. The only rational conclusion to be drawn from the response is that the United States has become a nation of wild pigs.
sounds boarish
Oh hog wash. lol.
as i pig in the poke
and
make an attempt at a joke
Abbey has a point that will not doubt, wallow in the mud,
asz we have become a nation of wild pigs,
now,
pass the BarbeQue Sauce