07 Jun 2011

My Victory Over Krugman Is Complete

Krugman 11 Comments

He endorses privatizing the military today at his blog. Clearly he has been reading my stuff. The truth is irresistible.

11 Responses to “My Victory Over Krugman Is Complete”

  1. Jonathan M. F. Catalán says:

    If the government privatized the military, how would our politicians ever have any fun invading other countries? Just one of many flaws in your theory.

    • Desolation Jones says:

      Don’t worry. They already contract private armies like blackwater. They could still have their fun.

      • Joseph Fetz says:

        Sociopaths with money will always enjoy wars of their own making, that is the truth. And, what better path to riches of which to spend on war than those that are taken from the masses at the point of a gun?

        I have this inkling that if such a situation did not exist, the monopoly power of death or imprisonment over the peoples for nonpayment, that such a situation could not exist in a free market. Call me a Rothbardian, call me what you will, but that is my basic understanding of the situ.

        Is war even possible without a State? Seems to me that without a State that only defense organizations could exist, and that their projection of power would be limited by their consumer base.

  2. MamMoTh says:

    Clearly, it’s been already privatized.

    • Joseph Fetz says:

      Privatized? Completely? Let me ask you, where do these “private mercenaries” receive their money from? I assure you that it is not private individuals in the market. Rather, it is governments paying them, and that most of the personnel and management of these supposed “private” military outfits are former military, intelligence, and/or bureaucrats/politicians.

      Where do you think a Marine with physical security and infantry skills goes to after he gets out? Most of the time, he doesn’t become a store clerk.

  3. Warren says:

    —Pawlenty said those organizations “were all built for a time in our country when the private sector did not adequately provide those products. That’s no longer the case.”—–

    In the case of the mail it was never the case.

    • yahya says:

      good point. and we can add printing or coining money to that list too. at the very least small denominations, according to Good Money by Selgin

    • Joseph Fetz says:

      Show me a service or good that did not first originate in the private market, and I’ll show you a jackalope. Trust me, I promise.

      Pawlenty is a stooge, and is a Johnny come lately when it comes to liberty issues. He’s trying to ride the train, but he is still at the caboose. But, then again, Palin has been trying to find the caboose for a few years now, and even she is getting attention.

      One must truly set back and shake their head at the shear stupidity and ignorance; but that is governance.

  4. Warren says:

    And roads.

    I have good Money, it’s a great book.

    And for the curious if you read up on free-banking you’ll see that private business printed all manner of currency. The competition between banks acted as a brake to inflation and the currency grew in response to demand from users not from top-down decisions made by bureaucrats. So it was an ad hoc, decentralized monetary policy in which no one person had the ability to screw up the economy.

    Of course the businessmen were not setting out to establish any sort of macro policy of any sort, they were just looking to make a buck but yet did a better job than these so called professionals.

  5. Major_Freedom says:

    Notice how Krugman did not actually argue against it.

    It’s almost as if he believes merely stating a proposition is enough to refute it.

  6. Tel says:

    As Machiavelli pointed out, you can pay a man enough to do your killing for you, but you cannot pay him enough to die for you.

    http://italian.about.com/library/anthology/machiavelli/blprince12.htm