On the Free Market...

I will acclaim, up-front, that I am a free market capitalist, BUT…  I also believe that freedom comes with some sense of responsibility.  What does that mean?

Most people would say that they believe in “freedom”, and yet…most people do not believe in “unlimited freedom”.  Unlimited freedom goes by another term:  “anarchy”…where everyone is free to do anything they wish without the constraints of law.  The close brother to anarchy is pure “democracy”…where the majority is free to do anything they wish without the constraints of law…because the majority rules and creates/alters the law.  The point is that, in a Republic, another ideal, “justice”, is a natural constraint upon our freedoms, especially where interactions with other freemen are concerned.  We are free, but we are not free to exploit others.

Likewise, most Americans believe in capitalism and in a free market economy, and yet…most would not approve of an unconstrained free market.  For example, we would not accept “slave labor” or “child labor”.  We would not tolerate a needlessly dangerous workplace just because the company wants to save a few dollars.

While we believe that there should be a high degree of freedom in the marketplace, we also believe in having some basic fair labor standards.  Some people believe that wages should be more fair and equitable and seek to impose things like minimum wage standards as a solution to perceived oppression in the labor force.  Some people believe that executive salaries are obscenely high and are calling for maximum salary restrictions.

The real question may be:  How can we best impose constraints that require fair treatment of the labor force while not punishing success?  For example, executives that do an excellent job of growing their company should be rewarded, but not if they grew the company’s bottom line by exploiting/oppressing employees.  It doesn’t take a genius to improve the bottom line by firing employees, moving the factory overseas, and hiring workers at $2/day.  It doesn’t take a genius to convert your full-time staff to all part-time staffers, cutting all insurance and benefits.  Executives who use such strategies should not be rewarded as though they ARE geniuses.  The genius is the executive who creates good paying front line jobs, expands the work force, and still guides his company to make good profits.

Granted, this is only my personal “value judgment”, but… I don’t believe that any man is worth 1,000 times as much as the front line employees who work for him.  I’m not completely convinced that even a sharp executive is worth 100 times their average employee.  As a outflow from this belief, I take a different approach to wage equity.

Proportional Wage Constraints:

First, I would do away with minimum wage and other wage restrictions.  There are some types of businesses that simply cannot support the needed number of employees at even a minimum wage level.  Farms employing migrant workers might be one example.  Eliminating minimum wages would allow farmers to do, legally, what they are already doing, illegally:  pay what the market will bear.  This would allow them to continue their business without forcing a drastic increase in overhead, and thus…an inflationary rise in food costs.  This may hold true for other labor-intensive businesses, as well.

In place of minimum wages, I would institute comparative wage restrictions – links between the annual salaries of workers at various levels of the organization.  For example, the salary of the top executive in an organization would be tied to the salaries of the lowest paid worker and/or the average worker.  If an organization had only full-time, well-paid workers, the ceiling for that executive’s salary would be significantly higher than in an organization where there were part-time, poorly-paid workers.

One advantage of a Proportional Wage Constraint is that a start-up business has the option of hiring workers at a very low wage, reducing costs during start-up; of course, the executive salary during that time would have to be proportionately low, as well.  Then, as the business grows and becomes successful, in order to reward that executive for the growth and performance of that business, the company would have to also raise the minimum and average employee’s salaries, effectually allowing them to share that reward for success.

We recognize and expect that some executives would try to find loopholes and other ways around such a law, thus, we would have to impose safeguards against finding creative ways around the wage constraints.  For example, we would include in the constraints all forms of benefits and compensation, including health care, bonuses, stock options, company car (or jet), and so on.

These constraints would also have to apply to any company related to the original company.  For instance, a ABC Company could not have low-paid workers then hire a separate, high-paid XYZ “management firm” to run the ABC Company.  Nor could an executive group (XYZ) hire some cheap labor through some temp company (ABC) to skirt around the Proportional Wage Constraints.  Any company connected to the original company (such as a management firm, a “parent” company, a consulting firm, or a temp agency) would also be forced to comply with the company Proportional Wage Constraints.

This kind of Proportional Wage Constraint does not restrict executive salaries.  It only ensures that the rewards for success are shared by executives and front line workers alike.  It also ensures that executives are not rewarded for oppressive treatment of their other employees.  Lastly, it allows a flexibility for start-ups and for labor-intensive type companies that minimum wages don’t allow for.

Our Mission...

^the  FOuRTH Party

     “We are DONE with the EVIL

   of choosing the lesser of two evils!” 

This is the battle cry that inspires the FOuRTH Party.  We are the party of “moving forward toward the hard solutions”, the party of “going FOuRTH”, making the best aspects of our rich heritage available to all citizens.  If you’re a social and fiscal conservative who has been disenfranchised by the existing political leadership and…if you use social media, then you ARE (or can be) an active part of the FOuRTH Party.

Background:

The two-party system has failed to provide sound leadership for our country.  Neither Democrats nor Republicans seem capable of pledging their political lives, political fortunes, or political honor to the worthy cause of preserving or restoring the liberties that our Founding Fathers (and others after them) gave their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor to establish.

Both Democrats and Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they do, however, believe in slavery, as they enslave our children’s children to massive debt held by the Chinese and others through reckless and irresponsible spending which they have used in the “buying” of votes and influence.  Those to whom you owe a debt are your masters.

The best known third party (the Libertarian Party) may stand for fiscal restraint and limited government, but they are a poor fit for the socially-conservative ideology of mainstream America.  Other third parties tend to be too narrow in scope or inclusivity to be viable alternatives to the two major parties.  Hence, the need for the FOuRTH Party…

We’re used to hearing about the “political spectrum”, but the real political picture is far more complex than a simple “Left-Right” scale.  Even the two-axis table below is far too simplistic, but the FOuRTH Party occupies the fourth quadrant of that political table.  We are both, fiscally and socially conservative, as is much of our country.

Political    Ideologies	Socially    Liberal	Socially    Conservative
Fiscally    Liberal	Democrats	Republicans*
Fiscally    Conservative	Libertarians	FOuRTH Party

*In trying to be “all things to all people”, Republicans

      don’t fit into any category very well, but they are

      (ultimately) still the party of big business which

      “tolerates” influences from social conservatives.

The FOuRTH Party is a new and different kind of political party built upon the communication technology of the 21^st century.  And yet…

The FOuRTH Party is also an old and traditional kind of party built upon the ideology that made America great.

The FOuRTH Party is a solutions-based organization.  Instead of merely pointing a finger and assigning blame, we believe that true leadership involves asking the question:  “How do we go FOuRTH from here?” (…which inspired the unusual capitalization of our party name.)

To understand American politics, one simply must understand that the Democratic Party is all about socialism and creating a tipping point of voters dependent upon the government for a significant portion of their income (through government jobs and entitlement programs) which creates a de facto socialist state before the general public becomes fully aware of their motives.

The Republican Party, however, has always been the party of big business and, although they tolerate and try to bring social conservatives under the umbrella, their real aim is to create a national version of the old “company town” where the company owns the town and pays you in a currency that is worthless outside of the town, money that ultimately ends up back in the company’s pocket.

Until we understand these two evils of socialism and unrestrained capitalistic greed, we cannot understand the forces that play us against each other and thrive upon our foolishness and ignorance.

We are not just another third party.  We are, indeed, the FOuRTH Party!  Get involved, stay tuned, and stay connected for future posts on various FOuRTH Party platform planks and positions.