The following books together perhaps constitute the "Ultimate Library of Enlightenment" in my humble opinion----
"Economics In One Lesson" Henry Hazlitt
"It Didn't Have To Be This Way: Why Boom and Bust Is Unnecessary---and
How the Austrian School of Economics Breaks the Cycle" Harry C. Veryser
"Democracy: The God That Failed" Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before The Coming Fiscal Collapse" Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
"We Who Dared To Say No To War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now" Edited by Murray Polner & Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
"Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction To Revisionism" Jeff Riggenbach
"Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Archenemy Betrayed The American
Revolution---And What It Means For Americans Today" Thomas J. DiLorenzo
"Crisis And Leviathan: Critical Episodes In The Growth of American Government" Robert Higgs
"The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve" G. Edward Griffin
"Requiem For Marx" Edited by Yuri N. Maltsev
"Men Against The State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism In America, 1827---1908" James J. Martin
"Libertarian Anarchy: Against The State" Gerard Casey
*** and last...but CERTAINLY NOT least, these books by Murray N. Rothbard---
"For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto"
"Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy"
"What Has Government Done To Our Money?"
"The Betrayal of The American Right"
The ancient Sumerian cuneiform symbol "ama-gi" is sometimes held to be the first written reference to the concept of liberty.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
Dear Believer in the State...
Dear believer in the State,
Do you really think we'd be best off by having this small class of people who claim to spend our money better than we ourselves can and who therefore have the right to steal it from us (taxes aren't paid voluntarily!) to spend on their collectivist programs, or who have the knowledge and wisdom enough to legislate things to improve a situation or solve problems (which means at bottom the use or threat of violent coercion) because they happen to be benevolent angelic overlords who just want to make our lives better?
To what advantage is it to confiscate money from some and put it in what are less productive and less efficient hands (those of the government, which is productive of nothing but only parasitic and which has no incentive to even provide good services in anything like the long-term because when it fails it is usually rewarded with more power...and more money...and more bureaucracy)? Must there really be a gun-wielding middle-man for the wants and needs in our society to be met, and must voluntarily getting together as an alternative be impossible even though we do it in our ordinary lives regularly?
If you say people are naturally wicked and therefore can't be trusted outside of government management, what is the species that populates government and why can we trust these unique creatures to not abuse their monopoly on the “legitimate” use of aggressive violence toward others? (The private sector is characterized by voluntary interactions of people each trying to satisfy their wants by cooperating with each other---do you deny that when you exchange this is voluntary on the part of both buyer and seller?) If you side with government management, you are implicitly saying we are in some sense owned by these special people, rather than owned by ourselves as individuals---they then would be able to tell us what we can ingest, what fruits of our own labor we can keep and what we can't, etc. in a system akin to slavery really...although justified by appeal to "public good" which happens to be understood by our overlords in their great wisdom! And we can look about the state of our neomercantilist society to see what great wisdom it is up to this point in our history...oh, but they must be rewarded with more power, and more money no doubt too!
At this point you might counter that all is well if we really have "democracy." The word judging by its Greek roots means "rule by the people"....those wicked, greedy people! Oh, I forgot...the political process can Midas-like turn people into angels, so it's ok. If democracy seems tailor-made for anything it would be for a majority (usually those some demagogue can appeal to who are the lowest common denominator of public intelligence or those who are most susceptible of bribery in the form of receiving redistributed wealth) to legally steal from or otherwise use violence against some minority.
P.S. In case you still can't understand what I've written above, see the blog Ama-gi
Do you really think we'd be best off by having this small class of people who claim to spend our money better than we ourselves can and who therefore have the right to steal it from us (taxes aren't paid voluntarily!) to spend on their collectivist programs, or who have the knowledge and wisdom enough to legislate things to improve a situation or solve problems (which means at bottom the use or threat of violent coercion) because they happen to be benevolent angelic overlords who just want to make our lives better?
To what advantage is it to confiscate money from some and put it in what are less productive and less efficient hands (those of the government, which is productive of nothing but only parasitic and which has no incentive to even provide good services in anything like the long-term because when it fails it is usually rewarded with more power...and more money...and more bureaucracy)? Must there really be a gun-wielding middle-man for the wants and needs in our society to be met, and must voluntarily getting together as an alternative be impossible even though we do it in our ordinary lives regularly?
If you say people are naturally wicked and therefore can't be trusted outside of government management, what is the species that populates government and why can we trust these unique creatures to not abuse their monopoly on the “legitimate” use of aggressive violence toward others? (The private sector is characterized by voluntary interactions of people each trying to satisfy their wants by cooperating with each other---do you deny that when you exchange this is voluntary on the part of both buyer and seller?) If you side with government management, you are implicitly saying we are in some sense owned by these special people, rather than owned by ourselves as individuals---they then would be able to tell us what we can ingest, what fruits of our own labor we can keep and what we can't, etc. in a system akin to slavery really...although justified by appeal to "public good" which happens to be understood by our overlords in their great wisdom! And we can look about the state of our neomercantilist society to see what great wisdom it is up to this point in our history...oh, but they must be rewarded with more power, and more money no doubt too!
At this point you might counter that all is well if we really have "democracy." The word judging by its Greek roots means "rule by the people"....those wicked, greedy people! Oh, I forgot...the political process can Midas-like turn people into angels, so it's ok. If democracy seems tailor-made for anything it would be for a majority (usually those some demagogue can appeal to who are the lowest common denominator of public intelligence or those who are most susceptible of bribery in the form of receiving redistributed wealth) to legally steal from or otherwise use violence against some minority.
P.S. In case you still can't understand what I've written above, see the blog Ama-gi
Friday, March 15, 2013
Down With Mercantilism! Or, Capitalism: The Seldom Known Ideal
In trying to explain how we would be better off under capitalism, the situation one may find oneself in is the encounter with the widely held belief that we are under "capitalism" already, and that many of our problems are to be blamed on the free market (for example, the most recent economic downturn---but as I've written elsewhere this is not true).
Dom Armentano back in 2011 in his piece "Capitalism and the Wall Street Protesters" wrote---
"So what is capitalism? Free market capitalism is based on the individual right to own and freely trade property. It permits owners of property (land, labor, capital, etc.) to enter (or exit) any contract on mutually agreeable terms. It gives entrepreneurs the freedom to start any business (without government permission) and to borrow money and develop products for consumers. It permits land owners to rent (or sell) their property for any peaceful purpose. It gives adult workers the liberty to lease their services to any business at any agreeable wage and to terminate that agreement at will; employers would have the same right.
Capitalism allows firms to compete (and cooperate) with other firms; it allows firms to succeed and reinvest their profits; it allows firms to make losses and fail and go out of business. It allows consumers to choose any product or service (drugs and prostitution would both be legal) and allows parents to educate their children in any manner and for any length of time that they decide is appropriate.
Under capitalism, there would be no government bailouts; no Federal Reserve; no Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac; no state restrictions on competition (so-called antitrust laws); no tax-supported schools and no government supported monopolies of any kind. Crony capitalism, after all, is not real capitalism."
Clearly Dr. Armentano does not believe we are in a capitalist society. We currently have government bailouts, a Federal Reserve, etc. We also have illegal drugs and prostitution is illegal, no matter if the transaction is voluntary on the part of both parties.
See also this 8-minute video that also bursts asunder the mainstream thinking about what exactly capitalism is.
The confusion comes about perhaps because the term "capitalism" achieved the popular usage it has because of the spread of Marxism. Prof. David Osterfeld, in his article "Marxism, Method, and Mercantilism" which appears as Chapter 4 in the anthology "Requiem for Marx" (see here at unz.org) looks at Karl Marx's treatment of capitalism and finds that he does not use a consistent definition for it. "Marx did not distinguish between mercantilism and capitalism," he concludes.
Economic historian Murray Rothbard explained that mercantilism "was a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state," which reached its height in the Europe of the 1600's and 1700's. What we have now is a revival of mercantilism, although for this new version it seems we can argue that the focus is international or global rather than the national focus of the old mercantilism.
Osterfeld compares and contrasts mercantilism and capitalism. "In brief, capitalism is generally defined in terms of free trade and the absence of government intervention. Mercantilism is defined in terms of highly restricted trade and extensive government regulation of economic activity." In his comparison of mercantilism and capitalism, Osterfeld reveals precisely how mercantilism harms the general public, both as consumers and workers as well as producing conflict in society. (I also found this from Osterfeld on mercantilism vs. capitalism in the journal Review of Austrian Economics).
This profitable video, which includes links within it, is itself just under 15 minutes---"Capitalism In One Lesson."
For the historical angle, there is this piece by Thomas J. DiLorenzo at mises.org about the political legacy of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's "Founding Fathers," this legacy DiLorenzo refers to as "Hamilton's curse" on America.
Dom Armentano back in 2011 in his piece "Capitalism and the Wall Street Protesters" wrote---
"So what is capitalism? Free market capitalism is based on the individual right to own and freely trade property. It permits owners of property (land, labor, capital, etc.) to enter (or exit) any contract on mutually agreeable terms. It gives entrepreneurs the freedom to start any business (without government permission) and to borrow money and develop products for consumers. It permits land owners to rent (or sell) their property for any peaceful purpose. It gives adult workers the liberty to lease their services to any business at any agreeable wage and to terminate that agreement at will; employers would have the same right.
Capitalism allows firms to compete (and cooperate) with other firms; it allows firms to succeed and reinvest their profits; it allows firms to make losses and fail and go out of business. It allows consumers to choose any product or service (drugs and prostitution would both be legal) and allows parents to educate their children in any manner and for any length of time that they decide is appropriate.
Under capitalism, there would be no government bailouts; no Federal Reserve; no Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac; no state restrictions on competition (so-called antitrust laws); no tax-supported schools and no government supported monopolies of any kind. Crony capitalism, after all, is not real capitalism."
Clearly Dr. Armentano does not believe we are in a capitalist society. We currently have government bailouts, a Federal Reserve, etc. We also have illegal drugs and prostitution is illegal, no matter if the transaction is voluntary on the part of both parties.
See also this 8-minute video that also bursts asunder the mainstream thinking about what exactly capitalism is.
The confusion comes about perhaps because the term "capitalism" achieved the popular usage it has because of the spread of Marxism. Prof. David Osterfeld, in his article "Marxism, Method, and Mercantilism" which appears as Chapter 4 in the anthology "Requiem for Marx" (see here at unz.org) looks at Karl Marx's treatment of capitalism and finds that he does not use a consistent definition for it. "Marx did not distinguish between mercantilism and capitalism," he concludes.
Economic historian Murray Rothbard explained that mercantilism "was a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state," which reached its height in the Europe of the 1600's and 1700's. What we have now is a revival of mercantilism, although for this new version it seems we can argue that the focus is international or global rather than the national focus of the old mercantilism.
Osterfeld compares and contrasts mercantilism and capitalism. "In brief, capitalism is generally defined in terms of free trade and the absence of government intervention. Mercantilism is defined in terms of highly restricted trade and extensive government regulation of economic activity." In his comparison of mercantilism and capitalism, Osterfeld reveals precisely how mercantilism harms the general public, both as consumers and workers as well as producing conflict in society. (I also found this from Osterfeld on mercantilism vs. capitalism in the journal Review of Austrian Economics).
This profitable video, which includes links within it, is itself just under 15 minutes---"Capitalism In One Lesson."
For the historical angle, there is this piece by Thomas J. DiLorenzo at mises.org about the political legacy of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's "Founding Fathers," this legacy DiLorenzo refers to as "Hamilton's curse" on America.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)