Archive for economics
Communism Kills
Posted by: | CommentsToday begins a weekly series highlighting posting the former memes of Bureaucrash, an organization once headed by my friends Pete Eyre and Jason Talley of the Motorhome Diaries. The memes were originally authored by Pete Eyre and Anja Hartleb-Parson, and were intended as means of communicating ideas about liberty in catchy and succinct ways. Though Bureaucrash still exists, it unfortunately took a turn for the worse – find out more in my article The Fall of Bureaucrash.
Communism is the vision of an egalitarian society with common ownership of property. Karl Marx, the father of communism, stated that the prevailing capitalist environment is responsible for class struggle and inequality among people. He believed that people’s lives are determined by their economic environment and in order to achieve the communist utopia, that environment has to be changed. For this change to occur, the working class (proletariat) must overthrow the existing regime, dismantle all capitalist institutions, and eliminate the possibility of a counterrevolution by the merchant class (bourgeoisie). Then, as a necessary pre-stage to communism, a socialist authoritarian government must be established to take complete control over the means of production—natural resources, infrastructure, tools, financial capital, and labor. Once people are thoroughly conditioned by this new structure they will morph into a “higher” man. Soon, government will wither away and in its place will emerge the stateless, egalitarian society that communists envisage. This may sound good in theory to some, but the communist experiments of the 20th century resulted in economic deprivation and murder on a massive scale.
Communism kills. Marx knew that winning the revolution would not be enough. He penned that “so long as other classes continue to exist, the capitalist class in particular, the proletariat fights it…it must still use a measure of force, hence governmental measures.” Lenin purged his ideological rivals, the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries. Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, Castro, and Mao all eliminated whoever they suspected of opposing their regimes, whether by deporting dissidents to slave labor camps, subjecting them to sham trials in which the forgone conclusion was a “guilty” verdict and execution, or simply murdering them outright. In all, even according to conservative estimates, communist regimes have killed at least 150 million people. Not too peaceful…
Communism prohibits private property. As Marx saw it, private property is the primary cause of man’s alienation from his social nature and a limitation on his freedom: "The right of property is therefore, the right to enjoy one’s fortunes and dispose of it as he will; without regard for other men and independently of society…It leads every man to see in other men, not the realization, but rather the limitation of his own liberty." Marx agreed that private property is the basis of the capitalist system, creating enormous wealth and economic progress; but he claimed that such wealth and progress is limited to a small class of rich merchants at the expense of a large class of poor workers. But, as classical liberals such as Adam Smith and John Locke argued, private property is essential to securing man’s natural rights to life and liberty. Think about it: the right to life is the right to live, and to live in the way you choose; the right to liberty is the right to pursue what you need to survive and live a good life, so long as it does not entail violating the rights of someone else to do the same.
However, if the needs of others are the determinant of how much food, shelter, or clothing you are allowed to have or of the profession you may pursue—then, ultimately, your life depends on whoever can claim to have a greater need than you. That’s not freedom; that’s slavery.
Communism is full of contradictions:
- Communists claimed that their philosophy would outdo capitalism economically because it promotes the good of all rather than the narrow self-interest of a few greedy capitalists. Yet, if being self-interested means that one acts according to a set of values that one holds and wants to realize, then communism itself could not be implemented without self-interest. Capitalist economies far surpassed communist ones in wealth, evident by the fact that the least-well-off in the former have a greater standard of living than all but the top echelon of government officials in the latter. To achieve the economic growth necessary to alleviate poverty, productivity and innovation are key, both of which depend on the proper incentives. Under capitalism people get to keep and dispose of what they have produced, which gives them an incentive to produce and innovate more. This is absent under communism.
- Communist leaders hailed their societies as beacons for a more just, abundant society. Yet, one only needs to look at how people voted with their feet to know that was not true; many willingly risked death to escape the devastatingly brutal conditions of communist countries to obtain a better life in capitalist countries. Moreover, in areas once seen as “breadbaskets” of the world, communism (and the disallowance of private property) brought mass famine, as was seen in Russia in the early 1920s and in China in the late 1950s.
- Communists stated that their philosophy is ethically superior to classical liberalism and capitalism because it seeks to abolish inequality. Under communism, they claim, everybody is equally provided for but in reality only those in power (bureaucrats and party honchos) win while everybody else loses. The only level of equality reached by the common man is in the shared level of misery.
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Fear the Boom and Bust: Hayek vs. Keynes
Posted by: | CommentsFor those of you who haven’t heard, this video has been circulating around libertarian circles like crazy the past week. I particularly like the alcoholism-as-printing-money metaphor used. The production quality is excellent, and if you know a bit of econ you’ll understand all the references to, say, aggregate demand and the paradox of thrift. Ha! Enjoy…
Tags: business cycle, economics, Hayek, keynesianism, money, video
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Mises Circle Houston Recap
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been reticent to post a recap of Mises Circle Houston because I didn’t have any photos of the event until yesterday. But now, everything is here and I’m happy to tell you a little about it… First off, I need to send a great big THANK YOU to Jeffrey Davis, the conference sponsor, and the entire staff of the Mises Institute for their amazing service – Kristy, Norma, Pat, Chad, and Willard. We love you guys!!!
Our group from the Libertarian Longhorns (and Robert Butler, executive director of LP-Texas) left Austin around 6am on Saturday, January 23, to make sure we arrived in time to get a decent seat. Robert volunteered his vehicle, and so I didn’t have to drive. We talked up the LP’s plans and upcoming events on the drive to Houston and back.
Upon arrival, we had the privilege to meet some really neat people. I happened to run across a few LCC readers as well, like Yvonne Kelly (on the far left of the group picture). Tom Woods said hello as he walked in, and I briefly spoke with Lew Rockwell as well while drinking some coffee.
The theme of the day was "the failure of Keynesianism" — appropriate considering our current political situation, wouldn’t you say? Doug French was the first speaker. For some reason I have lost my notes, but his topic was "Bank Failures in a Keynesian World." What was most interesting to me about his talk was the striking parallels of the circumstances preceding "the lost decade" and the circumstances we are now experiencing in the United States. One can only hope that failed policies would be remembered, but alas and alack it’s politics not wisdom that we deal with.
Tom Woods spoke about "Keynesian Predictions vs. American History." Did you know that as World War 2 was coming to a close, policy makers were concerned that the soldiers coming home would overwhelm the economy and that a new depression would ensue. How wrong they were: 1946 was the single greatest year for the American economy ever. I also enjoyed his ransacking of Paul Samuelson and Paul Krugman.
Before lunch we enjoyed hearing the beloved Congressman Ron Paul. His principal point was simply that a true revolution is philosophic in nature. This is most certainly true, and the Austrian School of Economics is at the forefront of this change. Dr. Paul touched on many topics, but as he likes to do he focused on monetary policy and foreign policy. He made specific mention of the importance of auditing the Federal Reserve. He said that once audited, two well-kept secrets will be brought into the open once again: (1) that the Fed frequently bails out friends via the discount window (Fed short term loans), and (2) that the Fed has many international activities unaccounted for. Thus, we find monetary policy is also connected to foreign policy as well. Call me conspiratorial if you must, but the CIA’s funding goes beyond Congress – it’s tied to the Fed as well. Best quote from Ron: "Quite frankly, in a Constitutional Republic, you would not have a CIA."
Lew Rockwell was our final speaker for the day on "Economics and Moral Courage." He noted that although in many ways we are quite free (such as the freedom of the internet), we are also having much freedom taken away from us little by little. Moreover, as more freedom is stolen from us, people are more frequently not able to envision how freedom actually works. They simply do not have experience in understanding cause and effect. In truth, this is due to the "banality of evil," something small that ekes its way into public life. For example, the acceptance of a wrong premise about the role of government in life can be a first step toward more and more government control, leading finally to totalitarianism. What begins with banality, ends in bloodshed.
Overall, I’d say it was a great day…
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Why being a candidate can be beneficial for liberty
Posted by: | CommentsThough I think it is misguided to believe that electoral politics is the primary means of effecting change for the cause of liberty (especially at a national level), local activism is still a valuable tool for gaining visibility and spreading the libertarian message. For the first time ever, I’m running as a Libertarian for State Representative in District 49 in Austin, TX. Today I had the opportunity to submit a questionnaire to the League of Women Voters in their pre-primary/convention issue. I was pretty thrilled considering I know quite a bit about each of the issues in the questionnaire. By golly, they even asked about one of my specialties: transportation pollution!
Just the act of answering questions like this means that somebody, somewhere is probably going to hear the libertarian perspective, perhaps even for the first time. Here is the questionnaire and my answers. See what you think and comment about what you would have said. You can help me improve for next time!
Q1: Since the State financial support for education has decreased over the past two decades, what measures would you support to provide our public schools with adequate funding? (75 words)
A: Public school funding is not a sufficient metric for successful education efforts. Many private schools and homeschooling families operate on extremely low budgets yet educate children at a disproportionately high level relative to public schools. Rather than focus on increasing funding, I would support measures that give back control of educational resources to teachers and parents first. Eliminating systemic problems caused by political control of education should always take precedence over funding.
Q2: Texas is recognized as the highest carbon dioxide polluter among the 50 states. What would you propose to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Texas? (75 words)
A: Carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced using many methods that do not resort to increasing the government’s control over the economy. Clean vehicle purchases can be encouraged by repealing all taxes and tariffs upon high-efficiency vehicles. Tax deductions should exist for efficiency improvements, upgrades, and repairs on older vehicles, and those purchases should be tax-free. Alternative energy subsidies should be eliminated; the free market will determine how to allocate energy resources most efficiently.
Q3: How would you address the major transportation problems in Texas? (75 words)
A: The Trans-Texas Corridor scheme proposed by Rick Perry is a scam, and the government’s general effort to manage transportation in Texas is a failure. If an effective, inexpensive solution is sought, the government should reduce its role in managing the system. By allowing private roads to develop freely and competitively upon the market (not like the pseudo-public-private toll roads that TXDOT has built), transportation problems will invariably begin to solve themselves.
Q4: How should Texas solve the depletion of the unemployment fund? (75 words)
A: Ultimately, the unemployment fund can have no other effect than the perpetuation of unemployment since financial resources are used to allow idleness rather than productive activity. Instead of worrying about the depletion of the unemployment fund, the government should work in every way to reduce its own spending, thereby allowing the free market to adjust resources and capital toward creating new jobs without interference by the government.
Tags: activism, economics, elections, philosophy, pollution, public schools, transportation, unemploymentRelated Content:
The Dismal Year
Posted by: | CommentsOne year ago today, Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office for his first full day as President. So far, it has pretty much stunk. Anthony Gregory has written a stupendous article at LRC recollecting many of the events of the past year. Here’s a brief excerpt, but I suggest you read the entire article for good measure. Anthony is a great writer, you won’t regret taking the time out to read it. The sources alone make it a valuable essay.
The First Anniversary of Hope and Change by Anthony Gregory
Moderate Americans tend to trust Democrats in domestic affairs and Republicans on national security issues. The financial collapse of 2008 played into the hands of Democrats who wanted to use the crisis as an excuse to expand government power and implement the policies they had long wanted – just as 9/11 was the type of foreign-policy crisis that formed the perfect storm for Republican interventionism.
Indeed, in the domestic arena there has been the most actual change, at least superficially. Most of the debates in the last year have concerned domestic policy. The flavor of central planning we could always expect under Obama is a mixture of center-left Keynesianism, corporate socialism with an egalitarian veneer, and the machine-politics pragmatism of Chicago from whence his career was launched.
But libertarians, limited-government conservatives and anti-corporatist liberals should actually agree on one thing: Obama’s economic policy has been a disaster and a betrayal in practically every way.
We could tell there would mostly be continuity when Obama picked Timothy Geithner, who had been intimate in the Bush-Paulson Wall Street bailouts, as his Treasury Secretary. From then to Obama’s nomination of Ben Bernanke to serve another term as Fed Chairman, there has been little for anyone wanting actual "change" to celebrate.
First, a note on Obama’s style of governance. A product of a tech-savvy and youthful political movement, Obama repeatedly promised transparency, transparency, transparency. He said the deliberations with drug and insurance companies would be on C-SPAN. He said all non-emergency legislation would be online for five days for the public to read before it was voted on. He has broken these promises.
The first bill Obama ever signed, the Lilly Ledbetter "Equal Pay for Equal Work" law, was not put online as promised. Neither was the stimulus bill. And neither have all the health care talks been on C-Span, as he repeatedly promised. It is also difficult to find an excuse for why Obama’s website that showed where all the stimulus money was supposed to be creating jobs listed 440 Congressional districts that don’t even exist. This is the kind of mistake that is either the product of such brazen hubris, or such incompetence, that it makes even the most cynical opponent of government corruption scratch his head and laugh.
Now, in the case of the stimulus bill, Obama did claim it was an emergency. The cost of inaction was too great to delay action. "[A]t this particular moment, only government can provide the short term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe." He also said, "For every day we wait or point our fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs. More families will lose their savings."
And how did that work out? As USA Today reported just recently:
Even before Barack Obama took the oath of office, his economic advisers projected that without hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, the U.S. economy could lose another 3 million to 4 million jobs on top of the 3.1 million lost in 2008.
It turns out they were optimistic. Even with the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed in February, more than 4 million jobs have been lost in 2009, the worst year for job losses since World War II. The jobless rate that advisers projected would peak at 8% has topped 10%.
Early on, Obama gave us the auto bailouts that Bush probably would have had he continued serving in office, circumventing bankruptcy law, hurting creditors and essentially nationalizing the car industry. Now the Treasury tells us such "loans" are "highly unlikely to be recovered." Related to this of course was the Keynesian and Rooseveltian "Cash for Clunkers" program, an insane subsidy project whereby cars that could have been sold to people who actually could use them were destroyed wholesale in exchange for a voucher to buy a new car. Many of these new cars were foreign imports, even though the program was supposed to boost America’s auto industry. But all in all, what the program did was encourage Americans to either buy a car a little earlier or later than they would have anyway. The only tangible result is American taxpayers were ripped off and perfectly good cars were destroyed.
As far as old-fashioned spending goes, Obama is king. Last Spring, Obama unveiled an unfathomable $3.6 trillion budget with a $1.2 trillion deficit. The deficit is now nearly as large as the entire budget was when Bill Clinton took office in 1992. In real dollars, you can go back to the height of the Vietnam War, and the U.S. was still not spending as much as the U.S. is borrowing today. Talk about scary.
In terms of the general flavor of Obama’s domestic policy, it is generally the same welfare-state corporatism we have become all too familiar with. Those progressives who think the president is standing up to corporate interests should read Matt Taibbi to learn all about how Obama has only taken the Wall Street–Washington revolving door and widened it.
There is a new emphasis on regulation and welfarism that we did not get from Bush, but the shift has mainly been rhetorical. The corporatist nature of America’s mixed economy can be seen in Obamacare – where the insurance companies will have a captive market, thanks to the "individual mandate" that candidate Obama claimed he opposed – as well as in Cap and Trade, which will create a commodity market in the right to pollute (and that’s assuming you take the administration at its word that carbon dioxide is a pollutant).
Speaking of health care, the interventionist scope of Obama’s bill is deeply unsettling. By forcing people to buy insurance, the government will soon embark on a virtually unprecedented and unconstitutional intrusion into our personal lives. Meanwhile, keeping with the corporatism of the previous president, Obama’s FDA has successfully opposed the reimportation of cheap drugs, which Obama once supported, and his Department of Agriculture represents a continuation of the corporate-welfare subsidies and cartelization in farming we’ve seen over the years.
Overall, there has been a sharp acceleration of intervention at home. There is no doubt. Obama’s health-care plan represents a tax increase, which he claimed he would not impose on the middle class. This administration has banned flavored cigarettes, invaded the corporate boardroom, expanded the budget, buffed up the EPA and regulatory agencies, pushed for an "network neutrality" policy that would hand the internet over to the FCC, and on and on.
Read the entire article at LewRockwell.com.
Tags: economics, Obama, politicians, politics
Norman is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the 