Lew Rockwell on Optimism Amidst Fascism
Nelson Nash apparently bought 50 copies of Lew Rockwell’s new collection of essays, Fascism vs. Capitalism, because he was so excited by it. He sent me one. I have only just begun it (David Gordon reviews it here), but I wanted to share the conclusion of his introduction, because it got me all fired up. I hope it does the same for you:
This is no time for pessimism, despite the great many problems we continue to face. Imagine if, in the midst of the Nixonian stagflation forty years ago, we had been told that within our lifetimes the following things would happen: (1) the Soviet Union would collapse, and with it the case for the planned economy; (2) the official opinion molders’ monopoly would be decisively smashed; (3) interest in the Austrian School of economics would explode among American students; and (4) despite a media blackout, Ron Paul and his libertarian ideas would become a nationwide and even worldwide sensation that astonished the most seasoned veterans. We would have dismissed this as a fantasy.
…
The great struggle of liberty against power, which has been going on since time began, has reached a watershed moment. Let us not be mere spectators. With our pens, with our voices, with our contributions to our great cause, let us give history a push in the direction of freedom.
“The idea here is that the whole of society is really shaped and controlled by a single will — a point that requires a leap of faith so vast that you have to disregard everything you know about reality to believe it.”
Ummm…
I’m mildly optimistic because apparently even the MMTers know that politicians will not openly support the idea that deficits are good for us. Krugmam interviewer and MMTers wrote, quoting Stephanie Kelton:
CLINTON: So, Bob, what do you think of my economic policies?
EISNER: On the whole, not bad. But you’ve got to know your dead wrong on Social Security. [Eisner wrote a lot on SocSec, including the single best statement I have ever read. For him, there was not and could never be a “solvency” problem since the issuer of the currency can always pay. As Greenspan later told Paul Ryan!!!!]
CLINTON: I know Bob, but you’ve got to understand. This is politics.
Those words are indelibly etched in my memory. Here I was, naive and dedicated to policy-oriented research, thinking that if we just worked hard to teach/explain things to those in power, that they would do the right thing. How quaint.
That’s the tragedy of economics. And unfortunately that’s feeding into the tragedy of the economy.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-biggest-tragedy-in-economics-2012-9#ixzz2n7RoHeR2
I’m also mildly optimistic because our opponents are so obviously scared to death to engage our ideas directly. All they can do is ignore us or viciously mock us. The reason I keep repeating that no non-Austrian dares to understand even basic Austrian analysis is because such avoidance by our opponents is such a hopeful sign for the future. Our opponents have NOTHING. That in itself is a reason for optimism.
Coming from a person who cannot even say whether flexible prices and wage are an important part of Austrian theory, that is priceless.
LK, please shut the f*** up. Don’t turn this in to a 500+ comment thread.
All I’m going to say is that LK’s style and content are important factors in my optimism.
Hey Richie I’m not a fan of the long debates either but please be more respectful.
For the record, of the 817 comments on “Respecting Sacred Cows”, 19.5 comments are mine (one is a correction of a typo). However, I think some of the past long drawn out debates with LK were quite educational by giving us a clearer picture of his methods and arguments.
“Hey Richie I’m not a fan of the long debates either”
Life is a debate.
Did any of you Austrians out there imagine back in 2007 and 2008 that the crash of the housing bubble would rejuvenate the Keynesians? I sure never saw them coming back because I thought the housing bust would finish them off for good. Further, I never imagined that, except for LK, they would be so incurious as to never even examine basic Austrian ideas. I admit that my predictions in that regard are very bad.
Austrians have been wrong about everything since 2008 so of course they did not foresee the liquidity trap that would rejuvenate Keynesians. They don’t even believe in liquidity traps.
Most of Ron Paul’s followers do not examine basic Austrian ideas. The crash of the housing bubble proved that markets do not regulate themselves. So why were you expecting it to drive people to investigate a radical free market ideology?
It’s not surprising that Austrian economics got more attention since Austrian economists are always predicting bubbles and are usually ignored. The crash of the bubble made some take notice but then when they investigate they realize these people are always predicting bubbles.
“Austrians have been wrong about everything since 2008”
Austrian economics is not a prediction science.
Another superfluous prediction.
I disagree.
I predicted you would …
You’ve successfully predicted 22 of the last 10 disagreements.
Then what are Austrian economists doing when they say planned economies will fail or won’t work?
I predicted in 2009 that the new funny money would go into propping up asset prices and would not result in significant CPI inflation because there were so many assets, such as housing, that would collapse in price. (But I thought all prices were administered and inflexible!).
Further, I believe in “liquidity traps” except I call them by a different name. When prices are collapsing due to previous unsustainable funny money binges, people are too wise to borrow or lend any more money. It should be called the “period when people are temporarily too wise to continue lending and borrowing unwisely”.
Silly Roddis, you’re thinking from the perspective of the individual. The liquidity trap is when the central bank is unable to continue screwing people over with coercion based purchasing power redistribution the way they used to, all under the hilarious (and tragic) guise of “helping others.”
Everything in Keynesian economics makes sense when you think of the economy in terms of the state controlling everyone by coercion. Then all the contradictions, sophistry, flaws, and confusions can be seen as purposeful.
“The crash of the housing bubble proved that markets do not regulate themselves.”
The crash of a bubble fueled by easy credit and intentional government regulation aimed at, in no uncertain terms, CREATING A HOUSING BUBBLE (which even Krugman admitted Greenspan was trying to do in 2002) proved that markets do not regulate themselves?
That’s like saying electric components don’t regulate themselves because the failsafes designed into it don’t function properly when you throw a circuit board into a Tesla coil and repeatedly allow it to be shorted. Wow.
Bubbles are caused by the Fed. For proof, I’m going to turn to Paul Krugman here:
“To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
Judging by Mr. Greenspan’s remarkably cheerful recent testimony, he still thinks he can pull that off.”
“Mr. Greenspan needs [a recovery] to avoid awkward questions about his own role in creating the stock market bubble. ”
That’s an awful lot of blaming Greenspan for supposed failings of market self-regulation. You’d almost think that the root of the problem wasn’t with the market, but with low interest rate “easy money” policies that intentionally create bubbles to get “economic recovery”.
One of the most important lessons every intellectual of political economy should learn is the philosophy of Fabian socialism.
A frog dropped into a pot of boiling water will immediately reject it and jump out.
A frog dropped into a pot of initially cold water, that is gradually heated up to the boiling point, will not jump out, but remain in there until dead.
Human society can turn towards fascism (or communism) gradually as well, without most people realizing it due to the fact that it’s so hard to make explicit focal moments in time when people can say hey wait a minute, we’ve just turned fascist!
By gradual means, one law at a time, the socialists can always smear those who say “This step is socialist!” as paranoid extremists who are making mountains out of mole-hills. This as the mole-hill is getting larger and larger every day. But the one law is always communicated as “needed for the moment!” Or it is “temporary”.
If everyone were educated in Fabian strategy, then they would treat each incremental step as so important it is not worth sacrificing for some short sighted, vague, larger good ideology where peaceful solutions to social problems are considered “dogmatic”.
Do you agree that perhaps the statists are moving too fast this time so that the public might be able to see what’s really going on? I think that happened with the left in the 70s but the reaction to it was taken over by the Reaganites.
Obamacare seems to violate the rule of gradualism which would avoid a focused reaction. Further,the funny money system was purposefully supposed to be indecipherable and obscure. The Keynesians and MMTers are helping to make it much clearer (in its absurdity).
There might be some truth to the notion that the average “size” of the increments being brought about by the socialists are increasing.
Like a drug addict taking larger and larger doses to get his fix.
test
confirmed
Murray Rothbard:
“If, then, inequality of income is the inevitable corollary of freedom, then so too is inequality of control. In any organization, there will always be a minority of people who will rise to the position of leaders and others who will remain as followers in the rank and file. Robert Michels [fascist sociologist] discovered this as one of the great laws of sociology, “The Iron Law of Oligarchy”. In every organized activity, no matter the sphere, a small number will become the “oligarchical” leaders and the others will follow.
In the market economy, the leaders will inevitably earn more money than the rank and file. Within other organizations, the difference will only be that of control. But, in either case, ability and interest will select those who rise to the top.”
“If, then, the natural inequality of ability and of interest among men must make elites inevitable, the only sensible course is to abandon the chimera of equality and accept the universal necessity of leaders and followers. The task of the libertarian, the person dedicated to the idea of the free society, is not to inveigh against elites which, like the need for freedom, flow directly from the nature of man. The goal of the libertarian is rather to establish a free society… In this society the elites will be free to rise to their best level… we will discover “natural aristocracies” [oligarchies] who will rise to prominence and leadership in every field. The point is to allow the rise of these natural aristocracies [oligarchies]”.
http://mises.org/fipandol/fipsec4.asp
Hans Hermann Hoppe:
“the natural outcome of voluntary transactions between private property owners is non-egalitarian, hierarchical, and elitist. In every society, a few individuals acquire the status of an elite through talent. Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, and bravery, these individuals come to possess natural authority… Moreover, because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are likely to be passed on within a few noble families.”
http://mises.org/etexts/intellectuals.asp
“Oligarchy, (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning “few”, and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning “to rule or to command”) is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
Calling Bob Murphy: This comment apparently didn’t close a bold tag, so the rest of the page is in bolf.
1) China is still making the case for a planned economy.
2) there was never an opinion molders monopoly
3) interest in the Austrian school has not exploded. Most people who name drop Hayek don’t know basic principles of Austrian economics and merely parrot a few bumper sticker slogans
4) Ron Paul was not blacked out by the media. He’s been all over the media for years. That’s how people know about his racist newsletters.
1. I don’t generally put out typos, but you have misspelled Venezuela very badly.
2,3,4. Yes.
1) China is going to have some bad times ahead as its bubble bursts.
2) There is almost a total monopoly on permissible thought and statements in the USA.
3) There has been and explosion in the interest in the Austrian school. Our opponents are so afraid of us that not only will they not mention our ideas, they won’t allow themselves to be on the same block as our ideas. Or they scream RACIST RACIST RACIST. Hmmm.
4. Ron Paul hasn’t a racist bone in his body. On the other hand, “progressives” seem to love to exhibit Münchausen syndrome by proxy on their poor minority and impoverished victims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_syndrome_by_proxy
AN explosion of interest…
Most people don’t have interest in economics in general; whether it be Austrian or Keynsian. And I’d imagine the Keynsians would like to keep it that way.
Blame the economists with physics envy, who have turned mainstream economics into a veritable incomprehensible mess of purely idealistic model building and symbol manipulation games.
Apropos of nothing, one topic but I’m not particularly optimistic about is the American justice system.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/former-hillsborough-teacher-sentenced-to-38-years-for-sex-with-student/2156270
Anders Breivik and Karla Homolka are laughing.
If I were running a so-called liberty movement I’d care more about atrocities like this than rehabilitating the reputation of John C Calhoun. Just sayin’.
You mean there are quality issues in the “service” of a monopoly?
Economists the world over roll their eyes…
This sounds like undersupply to you?
Parsing failure.
Quality/Quantity…
What’s the difference?
Gosh Ken B, you are so right. No libertarian ever says anything about the American “justice” system.
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/
William L. Anderson (whom LK, in his own sweet way, repeatedly calls a moron) used to write daily about judicial outrages.
http://williamlanderson.blogspot.com/2012/09/west-virginia-prosecutors-prove-once.html
Murray Rothbard:
“If, then, inequality of income is the inevitable corollary of freedom, then so too is inequality of control. In any organization, there will always be a minority of people who will rise to the position of leaders and others who will remain as followers in the rank and file. Robert Michels [fascist sociologist] discovered this as one of the great laws of sociology, “The Iron Law of Oligarchy.” In every organized activity, no matter the sphere, a small number will become the “oligarchical” leaders and the others will follow.
In the market economy, the leaders will inevitably earn more money than the rank and file. Within other organizations, the difference will only be that of control. But, in either case, ability and interest will select those who rise to the top”.
“If, then, the natural inequality of ability and of interest among men must make elites inevitable, the only sensible course is to abandon the chimera of equality and accept the universal necessity of leaders and followers. The task of the libertarian, the person dedicated to the idea of the free society, is not to inveigh against elites which, like the need for freedom, flow directly from the nature of man. The goal of the libertarian is rather to establish a free society… In this society the elites will be free to rise to their best level… we will discover “natural aristocracies” [oligarchies] who will rise to prominence and leadership in every field. The point is to allow the rise of these natural aristocracies [oligarchies].”
Hans Hermann Hoppe:
“the natural outcome of voluntary transactions between private property owners is non-egalitarian, hierarchical, and elitist. In every society, a few individuals acquire the status of an elite through talent. Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, and bravery, these individuals come to possess natural authority… Moreover, because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are likely to be passed on within a few noble families.”
“Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning “few”, and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning “to rule or to command”)[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next.” (Wikipedia)
Today I learned that me having exclusive control over my house, is the same thing as being a Pharaoh slave owner in ancient Egypt.
Power, control, EQUIVOCATIONS galore!
Hoppe forgot the inbreeding. Shouldn’t forget the inbreeding.
right-wing “libertarians” should really refer to themselves as ‘oligarchists’. It would be more accurate.
Rockwell writes: “let us give history a push in the direction of freedom”. Of course this should be: “let us give history a push in the direction of oligarchy”. Again, this would be more accurate and more honest.
No it wouldn’t. That would be incredibly dishonest.
There is a difference between serving consumers better than others, such that you are able to acquire relatively more means of production through reinvesting profits and purchasing means of production in the open market, and initiating the most coercion, such that you are able to acquire relatively more means of production through theft and violence.
What you disparage about “Right-wing libertarianism” is actually a disgust and disdain towards the notion of allowing and respecting the sovereign individual consumers to decide, voluntarily, who comes to own relatively the most means of production, through their voluntary purchasing and abstentions from purchasing.
You want guns to decide who owns what.
Right wing libertarians want peaceful production and exchange to decide who owns what.
But OK, call them “oligarchs” if that makes you feel better about YOUR own desire for ACTUAL oligarchy, namely, the oligarchy of a small group of men with the biggest guns deciding who should own what on the basis of violating the sovereign consumer’s desires.
All of that “laissez faire leads to monopoly” nonsense was refuted by Gabriel Kolko in “The Triumph of Conservatism” in 1963:
The stage thus set by the failure of the merger movement, Kolko moves on to the myth that Progressive Era reforms were uniformly or even predominantly opposed by their affected industries. The key is to realize that, economic strategies like corporate consolidation having failed, companies turned to political strategies to freeze the status quo or to gain new competitive advantages. As Kolko states, “the essential purpose and goal of any measure of importance in the Progressive Era was not merely endorsed by key representatives of businesses involved; rather such bills were first proposed by them.” Food companies, for example, wanted the Food and Drug Act so that they could turn its regulations against their competitors (e.g., oleo versus butter). Big meat packers desired to save their industry from tainted meat, which hurt business, but were unable to ensure the quality of small packers’ meat and unwilling to pay for independent meat inspection–so they themselves initiated the meat inspection movement, lobbied for and won passage of the Meat Inspection Act, thereby forcing inspection onto the industry and its costs onto the federal government. As for the Federal Reserve Act, it was the product of a banking reform movement “initiated and sustained” by big bankers who sought to protect themselves from small bank competition. The Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Reserve Act? Most businessmen supported them to better protect themselves from antitrust prosecution under the Sherman Act’s vague provisions or (among smaller businesses) to gain such advantages as enforced “fair trade price-fixing.” Thus, Kolko shows that whether for protection from competition or from the government, businesses themselves initiated or shaped these Progressive Era reforms and others that most Americans regard as being part of an anti-business (or at least not pro-business) reform movement.
http://tinyurl.com/km6pvxc
“Progressives” simply cannot or will not differentiate between crony capitalism and laissez faire.
Further LK’s official adoption of the “Mosler Hut Tax theory of funny money value via enslavement of the natives for fun and profit” demonstrates that colonialism was certainly not an example of laissez faire (or “capitalism” for that matter).
But a “progressive” just can’t tell the difference.
The quote reminds me of a famous one from William F Buckley Junior. But on this blog, it’s more a matter of standing athwart biology, crying stop.
85B per month bond buying and nobody even cares.
Interest rates are artificially suppressed below free by the FOMC.
Real debt is 205Trillion, a number than can never be rectified.
The labor is getting hammered.
The CIA is engineering WW3, why else all the expensive domestic energy production.
McCain still thinks people want him to run.
The Feds just sold GM and now they own health.
Obama is playing goosey with the British Prime Minister at funeral.
Yea, I am really optimistic…
“the Soviet Union would collapse, and with it the case for the planned economy; ”
I’m not so sure this is true. Maybe among the older set, but go ahead and try and find a college student who believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union proved that central economic planning doesn’t work (note: going to a students for liberty meeting is cheating). I’m having a harder and harder time finding anyone under 30 who will even admit that the Soviet Union was a communist, or even socialist nation. They insist that you cannot say the Soviet Union proves “communism won’t work” because they weren’t REALLY communist. They perverted the teachings of Marx and just “didn’t do it right.” If only Communism was done RIGHT, surely it would be wonderful for everyone.
It’s a side issue but I’ve always found kind of irksome that everyone says no one could’ve predicted to the Soviet Union would collapse. George F Kennedy predicted it in 1946; that was the basis of the Cold War. I was always pretty sure it would happen at some point. Free marketers in particular should boast I told you so not cry oh what a shock.