More on the Crude Oil Export Ban
I’ve written on this topic before, but at FEE today I made a new observation:
There’s another way of seeing the foolishness of the hostility to [U.S.] oil exports. Normally, when it comes to international trade, the layperson is wary of “cheap imports.” Those wily foreigners are always scheming to send us their products to help their own producers, at the expense of our own workers.
So isn’t it interesting that when it comes to crude oil exports, the layperson’s gut instinct has totally flipped? In other words, shouldn’t foreigners be angry at the United States for seeking statutory permission to flood their markets with cheap American oil, hurting their own workers and inculcating “dependence on US oil”? Isn’t it amazing that — apparently — shipping goods across borders causes pain to both the receivers and the senders?
Or are the “laypersons” truly being consistent as total isolationists? If the answer is yes then that puts the pacifist economist in the middle of the pack of “lay” isolationists.
I noted Don Boudreaux plugging for this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Pop-Internationalism-Paul-Krugman/dp/0262611333/
This was written before that unfortunate incident with the alien mind control crystals… could happen to anyone.
Hilarious!! When was that incident, BTW? Can’t quite pin down the date.
“Ludwig von Mises argued that the logic of interventionism could not stop short of full-blown socialism. Any isolated intervention — such as a price control on a particular product — would generate undesirable consequences, leading to further interventions.”
This insight by Mises is one of his most important and tragically on of the most misunderstood.
The essence of it is so simple. If nothing else, if we had any thought about it, it is most easily understood by approaching any social ill by thinking about what ethic is consistent with the most effective solution.
Suppose we consider a serial murderer who has gotten away with those murders for the last 10 years.
Now imagine what you, the reader, should do, or at least what others should think is OK for you to do. Should there be any resistance whatsoever to this serial killer? That resistance is competition.
Competition is always and everywhere a good thing.
Yes, even competition in killng. If a serial killer had a monopoly in killing, there would be nothing to stop killing as such. But if there was competition in killing, then any serial killer, indeed any killer, could be killed.
Competition in serial killing did you say? If you imagine such a world, then even there, if you think of stopping serial killing, you are imagining competition. And, maximizing defensive killing against serial killing is itself killing. So competition in killing is still the most effective way to stop serial killing.
Most statists, and even minarchists, when they try to justify monopolies of force, fail to even engage competition in goods. They always create a scenario of competition in bads only, and say that such bads must be isolated and centralized as much as possible. So when they read competition in killing, they imagine a murder orgy throughout all of society, but then their conception of competition suddenly stops there. They don’t keep going with it. They don’t imagine competition in the prevention of murder by defensive killings. For if there are serial killings taking place, clearly not enough is being done to stop it. So the solution is more competition with whoever was trying to stop it, and competition with the methods that weren’t working.
They can’t wrap their heads around the solution to serial killing to be maximized defensive killing attempts of serial killers, because for some insane reason, they view defensive killing as immoral, incredibly. How else are we to understand them when they take our argument of more defense against murderers, as itself activity of introducing murder that should be stopped? Is there some subconscious desire on their part to allow murder and mayhem in their own conception of controlled manner?
Anyone should be able to kill a serial killer, especially the would be victims. That requires competition in “serial killer stopping”. So if anyone imagines competition in serial killing, then competition does not stop there. To stop that activity, there ought to be competition in stopping those people. I think it is OK to dismiss the notion that serial killers must not be killed by the victims unless those victims were sent prices of paper or electronic signatures from 51% of the population indicating their approval.
Competition of goods is the anarcho-capitalist solution.
Competition of bads is the statist solution. Why is that? In order for bads competition to result in a greater production of bads, there has to be a reduction in competition and production of goods, and vice versa. Statists and minarchists interpret anarcho-capitalism as a desire or unwitting advocacy of more competition in bads, and then their minds stop. They imagine Wal-Mart suddenly offering ” serial killers for hire”. Better for serial killing to be monopolized by the state. On but a wait a minute, statists and minarchists say they are against serial killing despite them supporting a state. As monopolist supporters, they are not saying they want a monopoly in ALL activity, such as baby killing and rape, in which case they would be advocating for those things. They say they are against murder and rape, and claim to be making a consistent argument. By denying their own principles and saying “OK for THAT activity, no it should not be permitted as a monopoly, nor should it be permitted in competition. It should not take place at all.”
OK then, I advocate for the neat little package tied with a bow idea that I support competition in everything that is good, and that everything evil should not take place. Checkmate statists!
Of course anarchist ideas are not so evasive and internally contradictory. That is how the statist solution goes.
The anarcho-capitalist solution of more competition against states, to the point of elimination of states, cannot logically be a solution of competition in everything. Competition in everything includes competition of states. Competition in everything is actually a praxeological impossibility.
Anarcho-capitalism is competition in everything that can logically be made competitive. So if the path forward contains competition in serial killing and competition in stopping serial killing, nobody can do both. They have to do one or the other. It is an individual choice as is everything else. Can one or the other be made competitive? Only one can. Competition in serial killing is impossible. Competition in serial killing means those who are to be killed, have to themselves be competitive serial killers. But that contradicts the serial killing from the alleged competitive serial killing. It self-detonates.
What about competition in defense against serial killing? Here we can have people all at the same time defending themselves and others from serial killing. There is no contradiction here. You can defend against me without contradicting my defense against you. Defense against others is possible.
What Mises’ principle of “middle of the road socialism is impossible” boils down to is this: Even if we are all unsure about what WAS the cause of economic, material production problems we face today, and people can argue that it was too much government or not enough government, that it is always the case going forward that any solution will be to have more competition in what can logically be competitive.
Too many people are poor? Solution is more competition in everyone producing what they want when they want.
Governments cannot be benevolent in giving goodies that don’t yet exist.
But individuals can be benevolent in producing goodies that don’t yet exist.
Plead with the perpetrators or arm the victims… those are the choices.
So far to date, governments have the highest score though, it’s going to be difficult to outdo the various bombing campaigns. So yeah, the competition is open for all entrants, but don’t expect to win that one.
We already did that, the State won.
It is easy for a State to kill an individual, but very nearly impossible for an individual to destroy a State, and even then for those few times when an individual did destroy a State it was done from the inside by driving the system off the rails and in the process sacrificing many individuals… ultimately leaving a vacuum filled by another State (usually worse than before).
Teamwork is an effective way to perpetrate violence… this has been demonstrated so many times over.