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Texas Dissident [OP]

2002-03-23 09:59 | User Profile

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/tucker16.html

Buchanan and Market

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

In all the commentary on Patrick J. Buchanan’s new book (The  Death of the West, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), has anyone discussed his silly economic fallacies and highly interventionist policy agenda? This is the conservative book of the year, the core thesis of which (the West needs higher rates of population increase to keep up with the Third World) impacts very strongly on economic issues.

What then does Buchanan propose?

The Family Wage: Buchanan says (p. 232) he favors amending the Civil Rights Act "to allow employers to pay higher wages to parents than to single people.... This should apply to single dads and moms.... Employers should be given tax incentives to pay higher wages to parents."

Does he really believe that employees want to pay higher salaries to people with children but are currently not doing so for fear of lawsuits? If anything, the pressure runs in the opposite direction, married people suing because single people are paid more.

Does he not understand that wages and salaries are determined by the supply and demand for an individual’s contribution to the productivity of the firm? Can he not grasp that employing federal law to raise the price of parent-labor would reduce, not increase, its marketability, and thus create incentives not to be married and have children?

Corporate Taxation: Buchanan says (p. 233) that "the burden of corporate taxation should be shifted off family businesses and farms onto the larger corporations. As Ronald Reagan used to say, corporations don’t pay taxes, people do. Corporations only collect taxes. Let the Fortune 500 do the collecting."

Huh? Buchanan is demanding that if a corporation is really successful at marketing its product and running a tight ship, and then becomes a Fortune 500 company, the government should only then start demanding that it function as a proxy for the IRS!

Reagan employed his quip as a case against taxing all corporations. His point was to say that corporations in the abstract aren’t doing the paying. They are being forced to collect from individuals, and its comes out of workers’ wages and salaries. Buchanan’s suggestion will only lower the incomes of people who work for the best companies.

New Revenue: Buchanan says (p. 233): "If new revenue is needed to pay for these family tax cuts, it can be obtained through taxes on consumption and duties on imports."

Now there’s an idea! Prevent the Death of the West through higher prices on consumer goods!

Women in the Workforce: Buchanan says (p. 33): "As men’s jobs in manufacturing, mining, farming and fishing are no longer needed, or are shipped overseas, the skills and talents of women are now more desirable. Businesses, large and small, offer packages of pay and benefits to lure talented women out of the home and keep them out of the maternity ward."

Here we go again demonizing business, and with the weirdest theory ever: the conspirators behind economic development are really out to smash the employability of the male sex in favor of the female sex. It takes a heated imagination to dream up this stuff.

A major reason moms went to work was inflation and taxes, which caused the real standard of living of the American family to decline. The first year when both mom and dad were more likely to be working, rather than not, was 1985, and the biggest growth in this trend occurred at the same time real family income took its biggest postwar hit. To resist that impulse (and many do) requires a high income or deep convictions. In any case, it is going to take far more than a few taxes credits to restore the belief that one income is enough to provide for the family. Making government more intrusive won't help; intrusive government is the problem.

In any case, does he not know that the rap against high tech is that unfairly employs too many guys, that its work isn’t really designed for women? Does he believe that women on farms sit around and coddle the young’ns while Dad does all the work? Not so in any farm I’ve ever seen. Of course business is pleased to employ anyone who will assist in its desire to serve the consuming public. But women, like men, all face a choice. Is it really so hard to imagine that people can make choices consistent with their own best interest?

Evils of Riches: Buchanan says (p. 34): "The richer a nation becomes, the fewer its children, and the sooner it begins to die"; and (p. 37): "When the income tax rate for the wealthiest was above 90 percent in the 1950s, America, by every moral and social indicator, was a better country"; and (p. 47), today "young people are not concerned about their souls; they're worried about the Nasdaq."

Like the environmentalists, then, Buchanan has decided that poverty has a wonderful upside. That’s one way to save bad economic ideas: claim they are supposed to depress the standard of living! But there are a few problems with Buchanan’s theory that poverty makes people pious and pregnant. Poverty-stricken places like Bosnia-Herzegovina, among many other Hell holes, have lower birth rates than the US. And as even Buchanan has to admit, the first time US births fell below replacement level was during the Great Depression. Finally, for the record: I know many people who want to save their stock portfolios and their souls.

Anti-Corporate Mentality: Buchanan says (p. 229): "The transnational corporation is a natural antagonist of tradition. With its adaptability and amorality, it has no roots; it can operate in any system. With efficiency its ruling principle, it has no loyalty to workers and no allegiance to any nation. With share price and stock options its reasons for being, it will sacrifice everything and everyone on the altar of profit. The global capitalist and the true conservative are Cain and Abel."

Or one might point out that multinational corporations increase competition and quality, expand access to new technology, reduce the price of goods for consumers and producers, create hundreds of millions of new paying jobs, lift the developing world out of poverty, permit the developed world to specialize in what it does best, foster peace among nations, promote financial stability, undermine the power of dictators, break up entrenched producer cartels, expand economic opportunity, undermine the welfare state, crush the menace of union power, and spread prosperity and liberty to the entire human race.

Or is it better to sacrifice everything and everyone on the altar of losses?

Dogs Eating Dogs: Buchanan says (p. 33): "The Global Economy works hand in hand with the New Economy, transferring manufacturing jobs from high-wage Western nations to the low-wage, newly industrializing nations of Asia and Latin America."

Last check, the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent and falling, and this in a recession. This is below what the Keynesians used to call full employment. The number of people working in manufacturing has indeed fallen, which reflects a sectoral shift due to economic development: witness the steady rise in household income since the mid-1990s. Thus, the Latin American, Asia, and Westerns nations are growing wealthier together by cooperating through trade and exchange.

Surprise: trade works! Why must Buchanan see conflict where there is none? Is it really necessary to point out that getting rid of high tech and global trade at this point would reduce the standard of living rather dramatically? How the heck does Buchanan expect the massive population increases he hopes for to be sustained absent economic development?

Freedom Is Heresy: Buchanan says (p. 37): "Many conservatives have succumbed to the heresy of Economism, a mirror-Marxism that holds that man is an economic animal, that free trade and free markets are the path to peace, prosperity, and happiness...."

Sorry, but free trade and free markets are the path to peace and prosperity. There’s a word for people who deny it: socialists. As for happiness, Thomas Jefferson was right that freedom allows only for its pursuit.

Disastrous Trends: Buchanan says (p. 127): "People identify less and less with the nation-state, more and more with kith and kin."

This is supposed to be bad news. To stop this horrible trend, Buchanan offers no proposals to curb big government and plenty to expand it (like instituting a National History Bee administered by Historian-in-Chief George W. Bush).

I know Buchanan’s book is about more than economics. Buchanan is right (p. 55) that John Lennon shouldn’t have said, 36 years ago, "We’re more popular than Jesus." He’s right that "American Beauty" was an awful movie (p. 84). He is right that Confederate symbols are not racist, that the left is engaged in cultural jihad, that high Third World immigration has been invasive.

But what he suggests as a replacement is another central plan, one that would promote impoverishment. But he has put zero thought in the core issue: if you want a huge population increase, you have to come up with some system of economics to sustain it. The capitalist process of economic progress is the only system that does so. As even Buchanan notes in passing (p. 13), the welfare state brings about depopulation.

Buchanan hasn’t made his peace with the market economy, but his book is not highly unusual in this regard. Economic fallacy is everywhere. I shudder to think of the errors unleashed on the world simply because people haven’t taken a weekend off to read a basic text like Murray N. Rothbard’s Power and Market.

March 23, 2002

Jeffrey Tucker is vice president of the Mises Institute.

© 2002 LewRockwell.com

Faust

2002-03-24 04:27 | User Profile

I will admit I disagree with Pat on some things in this area. I donot like the tone of the Article. And I cannot stand the "Free Trade" ranters nonsense!

Sertorius

2002-03-24 07:11 | User Profile

Faust,

There are things here that I dont like the sound of either. I have yet to read Pats book, so I really dont know how much Tucker is taking Pats words out of context, if indeed that is the case.

The ideal of allowing an employer to pay more money to married couples sounds like Pat is thinking about the Roman Republic. There they used to penalize men for not being married and procreating. This sounds like a variation of that.

There are a few things that I will address.

[QUOTE]** Or one might point out that multinational corporations increase competition and quality, expand access to new technology, reduce the price of goods for consumers and producers, create hundreds of millions of new paying jobs, [u]lift the developing world out of poverty, permit the developed world to specialize in what it does best, foster peace among nations, promote financial stability, undermine the power of dictators, break up entrenched producer cartels, expand economic opportunity, undermine the welfare state, crush the menace of union power, and spread prosperity and liberty to the entire human race.[/u] **

How noble sounding. I like reading Lew Rockwell, but sometimes to me it seems that they live in a parallel universe from the one I live in. What is written above is how it should be in theory. The reality is quite different, in my opinion. I have nothing against corporations, per se, just multinationals and the things that they support that are anathema to Freedom and America.

[QUOTE]lift the developing world out of poverty,

Thats great as long as it doesnt result in America becoming a third world nation. Shipping our manufacturing capability overseas doesn`t do one thing to keep this nation strong.

[QUOTE]permit the developed world to specialize in what it does best,

Which is replacing good paying jobs here with low paying "service economy" jobs. I will also note that a computer is good for alot of things, but you cannot throw one at an enemy tank and knock it out.

[QUOTE]**foster peace among nations, **

B.S. Here we go again on that parallel universe again. Our multinationals did a great job fostering peace with the U.S.S.R. and we see them at it again with Red China. I wonder if Tucker has a clue what it cost the taxpayers to undo the damage the multinationals and the big banks did with all their dealings with the U.S.S.R? I`d say trillions of dollars just so they can make a buck. For that matter, does Tucker even know what went on the last twenty years?

[QUOTE]promote financial stability, undermine the power of dictators,

Yes, they have done a superb job getting rid of dictators, alright. And Mexico was such a success! That`s why we have to "loan" them $20 billion dollars after the signing of the NAFTA treaty.

[QUOTE]expand economic opportunity, undermine the welfare state, crush the menace of union power, and spread prosperity and liberty to the entire human race.

Yeah, they really are hard on the welfare state. Thats one reason why they want to hire illegals. They can make everyone else pay for the illegals health care. Union power- to be replaced with corporate power. No difference when I consider the bosses of both.

As for spreading prosperity, I dont think that liberty is something that Microsoft, Ted Turners, Enron, and a host of other multinational give a rat`s rear end about, *nor do their policies even accidentally bring these things about.

At Lew Rockwell, they deal with theory and despite what they may think, the multinational corporation is not the most perfect economic unit ever designed.

[QUOTE]**Sorry, but free trade and free markets are the path to peace and prosperity. There's a word for people who deny it: socialists. As for happiness, Thomas Jefferson was right that freedom allows only for its pursuit. **

That`s a typical smear from these types. I submit that a capitalist society like the type we have today and a Marxist one are two different sides of the same coin.

Oh, and one other thing. Jefferson turned against "Free Trade!"

edward gibbon

2002-03-24 18:45 | User Profile

This was an extremely thoughtful post by Sertorius.  The nonsense of "free trade" has brought ruin to much of this country.  For trade to work to mutual advantage an underlying ethic about right and wrong, shared values and common political goals must exist.  Adam Smith was not an unyielding advocate of trade.  He remarked that defense had precedence over opulence.

The man-children of Milton Friedman at lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com have never read Smith.  Their espousal of buying one's way out of military service and appeasing evil people would earn them his contempt.  Smith, a hairy-chested Christian and Scot of the old school, would despise many of the fairies misusing his name.

wbr

2002-03-26 20:25 | User Profile

Since Pat has invented slavery and poverty, it is only reasonable to assume that he has invented socialism as well.

Faust

2002-03-26 22:04 | User Profile

AntiYuppie:

Great Post!!!

"One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the formulaic and quasi-religious way in which libertarians peddle their free trade dogmatism. It would be one thing if they would discuss where the specifics of Buchanan's protectionism and suggested economic incentives/subsidies fail. What they do instead is dismiss these policies as though they violate some sort of self-evident (in their minds) and inviolable truth. Truly, "The Market" is some sort of deity in the libertarian mind, just as "Free Trade" is supposed to be the Elixir of Life.

And of course, when all else fails, throw the word "socialist" around to label your opponents. By the libertarian definition of "socialism," virtually every US President up to Woodrow Wilson (except Cleveland) was "socialist," even their allegedly beloved Thomas Jefferson."

solutrian

2002-03-27 16:52 | User Profile

It's important to remember that free trade does not exist anywhere in the world as every nation or group finds someway to tilt the field to its own benefit. Rules, tariffs, taxes regulations, and  fineprint are just a few of the gimmicks used to thwart "free trade." Indeed free trade does not exist in the United States since state taxes and regulations vary so much that some states have leverage over others. Free traders also overlook cultural and social factors in determining the quality of life. I would sooner pay a higher proce for a product, or not buy it at all, rather than have my town, county, state, country flooded with cheap labor and bargain basement junk. Certainly many others feel the same.

Okiereddust

2002-03-28 15:31 | User Profile

[QUOTE]One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the formulaic and quasi-religious way in which libertarians peddle their free trade dogmatism. It would be one thing if they would discuss where the specifics of Buchanan's protectionism and suggested economic incentives/subsidies fail. What they do instead is dismiss these policies as though they violate some sort of self-evident (in their minds) and inviolable truth. Truly, "The Market" is some sort of deity in the libertarian mind, just as "Free Trade" is supposed to be the Elixir of Life.....

When they are asked for specifics, even their examples are formulaic mantras rather than analysis. For example, they will inevitably shout "Smoot Hawley, Smoot Hawley" as an exorcism of protectionist *heresies, even though even a cursory investigation reveals that Smoot Hawley came after the crash of 1929, and furthermore, while the economy contracted by a third, imports and exports made up only 5-10% of the economy. Even libertarian/neocon demi-god Milton Friedman has admitted as much, though he remains a devout Free Trader for different reasons.

As an aside, I would argue that the libertarian obsession with Smoot-Hawley is a Red Herring designed to distract attention from the uncomfortable fact that their "free market" ideas are what make Speculative Bubbles of the sort that actually caused the Great Depression possible. You would think that libs would be embarassed by the Great Depression and would keep quiet about it, yet they've managed to stand the truth on its head by making Smoot-Hawley the whipping boy for laissez-faire irresponsibility.

The incantations stated in this article against Buchanan never really make the case that his proposals would not or cannot work. What really irks these dogmatic ideologues is the fact that his proposals violate their precious, pie in the sky "Free Market." One can't expect anything but tautologies from ideologues who assume what they claim to be proving.

AY, these are similar to the what you said over at

Closing the Gap Between Conservatives and Nationalists

which do as I say deserve more of a detailed response. *I think there is a good reason though for conservatives to be a little perplexed about some of Buchanan's economic ideas, and I think this is one of the reasons he's lost a lot of support among his former backers and only pulled 0.4%.

There is a good argument to be made that Buchanan's attack break with free market principles really just muddy the waters, open's him to counter attacks by neo-con sympathizers that "he's not a true conservative either" just a nativist identitarian like the neo-cons he accuses of being Zionist identitarians.

It is a timely issue though, as the economic problems he raised are in fact being ignored by both the major parties and the conservative establishment for the most part, as a recent Paul Robert Article pointed to *[Topic: White male worker blues., Paul Craig Roberts on White men's plight]

Also at Free Republic

Worsening Job Prospects for White Males

Okiereddust

2002-03-29 06:32 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Okiereddust:

[QUOTE]I think there is a good reason though for conservatives to be a little perplexed about some of Buchanan's economic ideas, and I think this is one of the reasons he's lost a lot of support among his former backers and only pulled 0.4%.

There is a good argument to be made that Buchanan's attack break with free market principles really just muddy the waters, open's him to counter attacks by neo-con sympathizers that "he's not a true conservative either" just a nativist identitarian like the neo-cons he accuses of being Zionist identitarians.

There are two issues involved here. The first is whether Buchanan makes valid points on these economic issues, the second is whether doing so hurts or helps him with his traditional constituency.

As for the first question, you seem to agree that at the very least these matters need to be discussed rather than having one side of the debate being accepted as axiomatic:

[QUOTE]It is a timely issue though, as the economic problems he raised are in fact being ignored by both the major parties

Well, let's just stick with the first issue. First we must ascertain whether what Pat said was true, and then we can figure out whether what its political effect are. Politically, I have always been a fundamentalist -.i.e. determine what is true firstly and mainly. Anyone can argue over political tactics. While the pattern of Pat's 2000 campaign - leaving the GOP for the Reform Party, courting Fulani and Sharpton, attacking Free Trade with Nadar, getting bogged down in internecine wars within the Reform Party - all seemed very strange to his conservative GOP base, it is just speculating to say anything he would have done would have might have made a difference electorally.

Skipping the second point, on the first point I did agree with you that Pat talks about issues that need to be discussed, we can agree on that. Beyond that we had a long discussion on the previous "conservatism and nationalism" about various excesses which are long time concerns of yours. I'd just like to address one point, as it is one Tucker adressess on Rockwell also - that of family economics and the government role in this. *You previously said

[QUOTE]The NEA is a symptom, not the disease itself. That's just one simple example.

In his criticism of Buchanan's Death of the West, Paul Gottfried noted that rather than dismantling the Managerial State, Buchanan's goal was to use state power (in the form of tax incentives, subsidies, tariffs etc) to create an economic system in which "white yuppie women would be encouraged to bear children." Perhaps this is the right approach considering the fact that "market efficiency" obviously demands fewer Europeans and more cheap, third world labor substitutes. But let's first look at other glaring examples of where markets forces run counter towards social/cultural/ethnic conservatism:

Furthermore, there are a number of other ways in which market forces have contributed or are contributing to our decline. Decades ago, America's manufacturing jobs provided enough pay so that a mother could stay home with the children. Our transformation from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, again by the demand of "market efficiency" (which puts men who once worked on living wage manufacturing jobs to work at Wal-Mart or Taco Bell) has forced both parents into the work force, creating an economic precedent for feminist ideology, and, perhaps worse still, a typical "family" where the television set is the only upbringing most children get to know. All in the name of "market efficiency."

You basically implicate, as does Buchanan, the transformation away from the manufacturing economy as the key factor in the breakup of the traditional home with stay at home moms. *As a solution you basically suggest two regulatory subsidies (even if you dispute that label) a tariff subsidy for our manufacturing industry, and a government income subsidy for working dads with stay at home wives.

1. I just question your economics as to whether the manufacturing sector can really be preserved over any significant length of time through subsidies. *Though foreign manufacturing has played a substantial role, the general history of manufacturing is that as processes become mature, efficiencies increase and jobs are lost. That has been the history of every large industry in our history, from the days of textiles in Britain to farming and mining in the US. *

The real question in all these industrial upheavels is why, since efficiency was being increased and wealth being increased, why so little of the net increase in wealth seemed to sometimes find its way into the hands of the workers themselves. That is a distribution problem/managerial/political problem, not really an economic problem, and

It strikes me both here and below you and Pat are doing what you accuse the libertarians of doing, turning these more fundamental societal social problems into just economic problems - thus mirroring somewhat our beloved business-libertarian friends. You have socialist economic determinists and libertarian economic determinists. Arguing over who's determinism is better is a no-win situation IMO.

The case of feminism is complex. It is firstly like I say a gross oversimplification IMO to blame feminism and the rise of two-wage earner families to a fall in wages caused by loss in manufacturing. Much deeper forces arre at work subverting the traditional family structure, along the lines of the Frankfurt School/Gramscianism. *

There is however a distinct economic factor at work disadvantaging traditional families and encouraging women to leave the workforce. *Simple expedients such as increasing the allowable personal deduction for children to $4000 (which is the minimum the Family Research Council considreed equitablefor fairness) ensuring stay at home moms receive the same benefits for childcare as working moms from the government, abolition of the marriage penalty, etc. and many other changes we haven't even gotten into, would provide a much better framework to support the social status of traditional families, and are free-market to boot, forcing the neo-cons to explain why they give these type of changes such a low priority in their agenda.

You and Pat give up on freedom and the free market I'm afraid far too easily. The real achilles heal of libertarianism after all is that it focuses in practice only on esoteric (and anti-social)matters such as immigration, drugs, pornography, and abortion, ignoring the much greater corruption and distortion of market forces in indirect subsidies for the managerial state and its agenda. In advocating the ideals of the managerial state as something which on the conservative side is a good and necessary thing - all these distinctions are lost.

It shouldn't take Von Mises and even Rockwell to point these things out.

wbr

2002-03-29 16:49 | User Profile

If you want a better understanding of Buchanan's point of view on corporations, the economy and the community, read G.K. Chesterton. Buchanan's views on the American economy are rooted in Catholicism.

Faust

2002-03-30 03:19 | User Profile

wbr:

A good point! "If you want a better understanding of Buchanan's point of view on corporations, the economy and the community, read G.K. Chesterton. Buchanan's views on the American economy are rooted in Catholicism."

Some Links.

G. K. Chesterton Page , with links to etexts of many of his works.

Hilaire Belloc Archives , a page on the other half of Chesterbelloc. Also see Hilaire Belloc's Survivals and New Arrivals , a general account of past present and future threats to Catholic Church

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) and       Hilaire      Belloc (1870-1953) of the Distributist League

What is "Distributism?" by David M. Deane

American Chesterton Society

A Distributivism Page

International Third Position .

What is distributism? by Thomas Storck.

Distributism; Ownership of the Means of Production and Economics.

George

2002-03-30 17:27 | User Profile

Posted: Mar. 24 2002,12:45     This was an extremely thoughtful post by Sertorius.  The nonsense of "free trade" has brought ruin to much of this country.  For trade to work to mutual advantage an underlying ethic about right and wrong, shared values and common political goals must exist.  Adam Smith was not an unyielding advocate of trade.  He remarked that defense had precedence over opulence.

The man-children of Milton Friedman at lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com have never read Smith.  Their espousal of buying one's way out of military service and appeasing evil people would earn them his contempt.  Smith, a hairy-chested Christian and Scot of the old school, would despise many of the fairies misusing his name. -edward gibbon

I haven't read Smith, or enough of Smith either. But I think we always save a lot of time and needless effort(s) if instead we ferret out, like sweet, little ferrets, firstPrinciples. In the West, for example to get to "this" (where we are today, for better or worse) a cultural direction was gone in...permitted and led of course by the elite, but also in response to a kind of popular acclaim, wherein we've agreed unconsciously/i.e. culturally to imbalance in the direction of "that", in order, to get to "this" (where we are today) for better or worse. THAT being notions of things like Plato's Logos or Word and so on the Platonic Facade (or necessary counterPoint, so to speak, to "this" world, meaning our larger more non-verbal experience/s.) And historically moving along further in that same cultural direction, via a crushed-Judaism in exile...to something even more grandiose (and perhaps, under the circumstances, appropriate) regarding said Word: "heaven and earth may pass away, but my Word, will never pass away." -J.C.  

Of course the esoteric content of the statement, is: no kidding, the Unreal, since it doesn't necessarily exist--alone--or as simply THAT, absoluteOther, can't passAway. The 'good news' for example for Jake Barnes in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, is, well, he can't passAway either, since he doesn't really exist. (However I think his immortality, in his present condition, would probably also piss-off Jake, and needless to say profoundly sadden him. If only, he could, as the priest suggested to him, "not think".) But alas, here we also are, having arrived (perhaps unfortunately) at cortical activity. We WANT to screamOut to an all powerful, and yet benign absoluteOther, "Help!" Now fortunately we have primal therapy http://www.primaltherapy.com so 'that' can amount to something physiologically on a permanent basis, in terms of being healed physiologically... than the less permanent petitions to the perfectOther, and those attendant often salutary visions of a perhaps better world, valuable as such conjurings may have been, and may yet be, and perhaps will always be, for mankind.

But here's the rub, by Adam Smith's time, habits of thought, which are not really "thinking", but a kind of culturally induced magical thinking, or really "wishing" disguised as thought, creep into everyone's work, and influence it? For example any so-called 'rights' (or powers) that we have stem from a balance between a point and a counter-point, be it real or imagined. Let's take a point and a counter-point both of which we can agree are real: the group and the individuality. If in reality..(..those of us who are there, or thereabouts?..).the group makes each of its member's individuality possible in the first place (i.e. a firstPrinciple): then we can know, the group is in reality more important than any one of it's so-called 'individuals' (of course.) There's always an exception to any rule, which proves it, but that is so overwhelmingly the case, it's undeniable as a rule. We have individuality because of the group, but in FACT there really is no such thing as an 'individual' per se. So therefore the so-called rights or powers that we have, in reality, accrue the most to those of whom you could say 'know the truth' AND are able to be the most centered or comfortably balanced between any point and counterPoint. Again, whether they're real or imagined, (because even imagined counterPoints, are real in that when entertained they become physiological, chemical producing, electrical events in the brain, and if we imagine something and invest it with belief, WE to the extent it is POSSIBLE make it real.) Of course just like religion--(it is religion)--it's a blessing and a curse.

So edward gibbon, correct me if I'm wrong here, how or where is Adam Smith's, or lewRockwell's habit of 'thought', so to speak, inappropriate (or imbalanced): well, Smith, didn't he-?-believed in the so-called 'individual' and his 'rights', as if they were real, and somehow magically bestowed. Therefore Smith proposed what is a completely inaccurate premise, upon which he based a lot of his work, right? In other words it was a bogus or a false, firstPrinciple. Namely that: if the so-called Individual, simply does what is best for himself, that automatically translates into what is best for the group.

Not only is that neither true, nor actual, but what it does result in, in the real world or human realm, is a license to be an ignorant pig. Why-?-

Because the so-called 'individual' (which I like to refer to as the 'individuality'; which the group makes possible), this individuality can't even know what's 'best' for himself/or herself, unless ALSO first and foremost considering what is best for the group also, which made the individuality possible in the first instance...and preserves the individuality's evolution on an ongoing basis.

So Smith's premise is not only backwards like putting the cart before the horse, but also similarly it's such a huge mistake, it's completely meaningless....EXCEPT in the unintended consequences it has subsequently in the real world, i.e. the human realm. And today, perhaps unbeknownst to lewRockwell (I don't know, I haven't read him much) as we continue in this Absurdly misguided direction it simply is getting WORSE, AND WORSE, AND WORSE. (I hope I'm wrong.)

But it all stems from an inappropriate or inaccurate firstPrinciple. UNLESS, edward, just like the Semitic and Platonic Facades, are of course merely counterPoints of a largely imaginary nature, whose direction in which the culture decided to Imbalance, as a practical matter--for purposes of adjustment of those WANTING to believe in THAT imbalance, perhaps Smith "figured": "by Jimminey, let's pretend it's like this for a while, and there are 'individuals' with 'magical rights', and for "heaven's sake" let's see what conFigures? "

TODAY noticing what's happened at least so far on the continuum, I think Smith would be nonplussed: a lot of red ink, Pollution of environment, PROFOUND imbalances, and SCAMS, CONS, avec incessant blood(i.e. captial)thirsty Wars etc., and probably he'd be downright CHAGRINED? Qui or Non? It's the French's fault.

Or do you think Smith would say: look we've got no choice, we've got to JUMP on the Abusive BandWagon, if we're balanced and smart enough to know the truth, or we'll be one of the ABUSED--needlessly--and it won't even do us--much good.... Could such as that, do you think, for example be lewRockwell's covert, point? I certainly don't know.

However I must say, I for one, do not know how cannibalizing people, does them much good. I'm sure--almost--a fish or a cow, are much happier in my stomach, than they were, constantly dodging bigger fish, or swatting flies, but I'm certainly NOT prepared to aver the same thing about people.

So, probably you're right: Smith had enough hair on his chest, to be prepared to take a decent stand, at some point, even if it meant admitting, he himself for a while, may have been unwittingly going barseAckwards?

edward gibbon

2002-04-01 18:57 | User Profile

George

Over the weekend I had an attack of the vapors.  After reading your post, I had a relapse.  I will try to get back.

George

2002-04-02 17:06 | User Profile

When you say you had an attack of the "vapors", I haven't heard of that one. Does that mean (probably not) VAPORS from my post(s).

If so, seriously I hope you do recover shortly or get a gass mask on, for the very simple reason, I think you and only yourself since you're an honest man, and also familiar with Smith, can answer it. If you choose to, I really appreciate it.

Okiereddust

2002-04-06 11:50 | User Profile

[QUOTE]You and Pat give up on freedom and the free market I'm afraid far too easily. The real achilles heal of libertarianism after all is that it focuses in practice only on esoteric (and anti-social)matters such as immigration, drugs, pornography, and abortion, ignoring the much greater corruption and distortion of market forces in indirect subsidies for the managerial state and its agenda. In advocating the ideals of the managerial state as something which on the conservative side is a good and necessary thing - all these distinctions are lost

[QUOTE] Now, you may counter this by stating that such a movement isn't "conservative" at all in that it rejects "freedom," but once again this returns to the libertarian fallacy of equating "conservatism" with "freedom" and "free markets" with "the right." *

Hardly just a libertarian fallacy. *Western conservatism, while not exactly approaching liberty in the same way as classical liberalism and its bastard descendents, modern liberalism and libertarianism, still finds freedom essential

[QUOTE] Otto von Bismark was neither a free marketeer nor a great advocate of personal liberty, one would never call him a leftist.

He certainly wasn't a great conservative *according to Kirk's principles, although he did stand up for the german establishment. However as Suba notes, "conservatism is not inertia."

[QUOTE]Nikolai Bakunin, on the other hand, was a most vocal advocate of "freedom." Was he a great "conservative?"

No, he was a "libertarian socialist". A term going back to the early internationalle, according to Bill White. (Where it split between Marxist Socialists and anarchists/nihlists). Careful, the good SFF contributor Bill is a supporter of Bakunin. And for that matter, I hear echoes of "Libertarian Socialism" in your own positions, and its distrust of both government and business power.

Texas Dissident

2002-04-06 23:49 | User Profile

Okie,

Can you give a working definition of "libertarian socialist?"

Thanks.

Faust

2002-04-07 06:27 | User Profile

**AntiYuppie:

Great Posts!!

** "Libertarians (and, seemingly, most of the mainline conservatives) reverse the logic to say that free markets are a desirable end in themselves rather than an (often or sometimes) straightforward means to the desired end. In many ways, this is the result of a knee-jerk reaction to Communism: Communism is bad, Communists reject free markets, so if we want to be "conservative," we must champion corporate and market interests above all else.

The hope of Wall Street Libertarians/Neocons is to replace the entrenched managerial power of the public sector with the Michael Milken style plutocrats that they champion. So all of this talk about "Free Markets" from the establishment Right is a Red Herring to begin with. "Free Markets" simply means replacing the Public Sector elite with a Corporate/Financial elite, and I really fail to see how such a shift of power aids the conservative cause in any way. Is George Soros really that much better for America and the world than Bill Clinton?" -AntiYuppie

"In many ways libertarianism is the mirror image of Bolshevism. Bolsheviks also talked a lot about "freedom" and about the evils of "oppression," but where libertarians believe that only the public sector is capable of abuse, Bolsheviks claimed that all evil stems from the private sector. Thus their utopia was to eliminate the private sector and replace it with the public, an equally simplistic worldview. Both models have been tried and have failed miserably (places like Somalia for the libertarians, the USSR etc. for the Bolsheviks. Arguably, the former is an even more abysmal failure)."-AntiYuppie

Anyone look at my Chesterton and Belloc links?

Frederick William I

2002-04-07 07:02 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Anyone look at my Chesterton and Belloc links?

I have looked at the Third Positionist links. Practically these Strasserite guys don't have too much support. Even radical guys over at SFF like Triskelon said he thought these guys were a pain with all their talk of Alexander Dugan and Che Gueverra and other "Red-Brown" type stuff.

Chesterson though I assume though would be quite a bit different than these occultists.

Faust

2002-04-08 03:07 | User Profile

Frederick William I:

Very True: "Chesterson though I assume though would be quite a bit different than these occultists"-Frederick William I

Yes I am not a fan of the "Third Positionist" types. The "Red-Brown" types has a more than a few screws lose: they call Che Gueverra a Nationist? Only one of the links I gaves was of such types; the others were I think closer to Chesterton and Belloc. I am sue sue what I think of them I have not read that much of them.

I posted the links after reading WBR's post. "If you want a better understanding of Buchanan's point of view on corporations, the economy and the community, read G.K. Chesterton. Buchanan's views on the American economy are rooted in Catholicism."-wbr

Faust

2002-04-08 03:15 | User Profile

More Thoughts On Patrick J. Buchanan

I do not like the tone of Tucker's article and I think he would attack anyone who said that  "laissez-faire capitalism" does not always lead to the best outcome.

As I said before I did have problems with PJB.

1. He played down Immigration; which should have been the center of his policy agenda.
2. He put economic before culture.
3. He did a Pruge of "Racist" from his staff.

It's Immigration Pat!

That is why people voted for you! Can you take the man out the stupid party but you can not take the stupid out of the man?

The first part of the PaleoConservatives agenda must be stoping the Genocide of the European Peoples. I do think the PaleoConservative would like to cut back the "Mangerial State", but the first goal must come first. I can not work up any love for "laissez-faire capitalism".   "I submit that a capitalist society like the type we have today and a Marxist one are two different sides of the same coin."-Sertorius

I will add: Why do the Big Capitalist always give most of their wealth away to the Marxist? Ford, Rockerfeller, Bill Gates

Also see:

Jim Lubinskas' "End of Paleoconservatism" Affair: http://www.amren.com/paleoend.htm

And

Peter Brimelow on PJB:

Peter Brimelow comments: Pat Buchanan is a feline-lover and the Awful Truth, not apparently obvious to everyone for reasons that are inexplicable to me, is that he?s really just a big #####cat himself. Today?s immigration speech (Jan. 18), the first he?s given in this campaign although immigration was slugged as a key issue on his website, is positively cuddly. "Like all of you, I am awed by the achievements of many recent immigrants. Northern Virginia[as a result of immigration] has become a better place, in some ways, but nearly unrecognizable in others, and no doubt worse in some realms, a complicated picture over all." Aw, phooey! The plain fact is that post-1965 immigration has been on balance a DISASTER for the American nation. Say it?s so, Pat!

Nevertheless, Buchanan?s position as outlined today is infinitely better than the position of all the other candidates  infinitely, because their positions are actually negatives. Dubya is particularly awful. He wants to increase immigration, something for which every poll agrees there is absolutely no support, except possibly in Silicon Valley country clubs. At least, that?s what Dubya appears to want. Sharp questioning last week in New Hampshire by Project USA?s incomparable Craig Nelsen has revealed that he doesn?t know what chain migration is  unlike Buchanan - embarrassing him to the point where he said he would have to review legal immigration policy.  [WATCH VIDEO]

Yeah, right. Quite probably Dubya had indeed never confronted these issues before, for which the conservative Establishment media is definitely to blame.

Sometimes I amuse myself by composing answers for public figures who are undergoing politically correction. (For John Rocker: Truth is an absolute defense. Is this a free country or what?)

In this spirit, I append my version of what Buchanan should have said at the Nixon Library today. The biggest difference is that I would have had him address the question of the shifting racial balance protected, I would argue, by that fact that President Clinton has already done so, in his 1998 address at Portland State. Of course, there is no protection against accusation of racism and Pat would no doubt have found himself in a massive brawl again. But he could have handled it. And in the immigration debate, the alternative is being ignored.

George

2002-04-09 16:30 | User Profile

Gentlemen, or perhaps tooGentle-men -?-:

ALL WELL AND GOSH-DARN GOOD. GARSH-DARNIT. BUT WE SHOULDN'T BE FIDDLING AROUND (INTELLECTUALLY) SHOULD WE-?-WHILE ROME (THE PLANET) BURNS??? I DON'T KNOW, I'M ASKING IF WE DON'T TAKE OUR RIFLES DOWN FROM OUR WALLS NOW, WILL WE EVER? I'M ASKING.

Anyway, here's what I posted on polinco.com, in case you want to know:

Below is an excerpt apparently from the most recent article by Israel Shamir, sent to me by a friend via email:

Destruction of environment is a natural mode of takeover by a foreign group.

Profit is not the last word; greed is not the ultimate sin. No greed, can explain a drive of the billionaire to make more billions. He is after different 'game': domination.

My opinion: We all have and are a: will to power. Better to elevate it Up to consciousness, rather than attempting to only beautify it, or Make it Over. Because the greatest Problem now for everyone is the regrettable stupidity of those Unconsciously in its possession. Especially when they have billions and create monopolies which not only ruin life for everyone, but the entire planet.

If they have elevated this Up to consciousness, and persist both consciously and subsequently cynically, so as to be all the more effective in their destruction and domination, then I'm going to have to take them all out the woodShed...come on guys, rich guys & rich dolls, come on, I'm gonna to have to learn you something. You'll be better off afterward: just like Johnny Cash was. Did you know once he shot a man in Vegas, just to watch him die.

Texas Dissident

2002-04-09 17:09 | User Profile

George,

Not to nitpick, but Cash "shot a man in Reno," not Vegas.  

George

2002-04-09 17:43 | User Profile

Thanks, doll. You don't know about the one in Vegas. (I'm kidding.) I didn't mean to be publically castrating. That would be gross. I'm with you. I hear the sentiment. I'd trust you with my back.

Don't be tempted.

Juan Raymondo Cortez

2002-04-10 17:42 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Anyone look at my Chesterton and Belloc links?**

I have looked at the Third Positionist links. Practically these Strasserite guys don't have too much support. Even radical guys over at SFF like Triskelon said he thought these guys were a pain with all their talk of Alexander Dugan and Che Gueverra and other "Red-Brown" type stuff.

Chesterson though I assume though would be quite a bit different than these occultists

This alternate position that Belloc and Chesterton held, "distributism" (something between capitalism and socialism) is my position. Though, I must admit, when I hear $40-million-dollar-a-year Rush Limbaugh, with his one failed-out semester of college education, lecturing on the economic benefits of cutting taxes for the rich and suggesting taxing the poor more, I become pretty socialist. Frankly, I'm to the point now that I detest most non-cultural (non-paleo) conservatives. Conservatives like Dick Cheney have sold out European Christian interests for Haliburton ones throughout Central Asia and elsewhere. And most conservatives now only care about one culture, and that is Jewish and Israel. Much of present-day conservatism is influenced by Protestant Evangelicalism, which accounts for its stupid, emotional, and platitudinous nature. Read FR and see the anti-Russian, anti-Buchanan, anti-Catholic stuff, along with the Fundamentalist Christian, "pray for Isreal", crap. I'm not a Republican anymore!

amundsen

2002-04-10 23:58 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Though, I must admit, when I hear $40-million-dollar-a-year Rush Limbaugh, with his one failed-out semester of college education, lecturing on the economic benefits of cutting taxes for the rich and suggesting taxing the poor more, I become pretty socialist.

Now having majored in Econ I have to say the fact that Rush doesn't have a college Econ education actually gives him greater credibility.  Much of Econ is about coming up with ridiculous theories explaining why government largess is good for us all.  There is a reason they used to call it political-economy!

Our economy is so screwed that the day of reckoning will be mighty bloody.  So many have mortgaged their futures based on the assumption that the government printing press will not fail them.  They will be proven wrong yet again.

van helsing

2002-04-11 01:26 | User Profile

I am increasingly disenchanted with rush, but I do like the tax-the-poor approach.

stupidity should not pay.

and the poor, as well as the richest of the rich, get so much more out of the system than they put in.

maybe what we need is a true middle class exemption from taxes!

Juan Raymondo Cortez

2002-04-11 06:01 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Now having majored in Econ I have to say the fact that Rush doesn't have a college Econ education actually gives him greater credibility. Much of Econ is about coming up with ridiculous theories explaining why government largess is good for us all. There is a reason they used to call it political-economy!

Our economy is so screwed that the day of reckoning will be mighty bloody. So many have mortgaged their futures based on the assumption that the government printing press will not fail them. They will be proven wrong yet again.

Most of what I "learned" in college was bullsh*t ( I graduated in '96). I have little good to say about the discipline of economics. I wasn't an econ major, but I did take an adv. microeconomic theory class with econ majors (some of them went onto Sloan and Wharton). The first day of class the professor says that the course grade will be based on two exams, the mid-term and final. So, he will take the average of the mid-term and final, OR the grade on the final, whichever is higher, and that'll be our grade. He then says that attendance is optional and theoretically we can blow off all classes and just show up for the final. Well, this is what I did. A few days before the final I opened the book for the first time. I freaked. I couldn't understand a damn bit of it after reading it for several hours. I knew I could not learn ten chapters of highly complicated stuff I had never studied before. Since I was about to graduate, I saw my expected "graduation with honors" go up in smoke right before my eyes. What I undertook in two days was one of the greatest feats in human history, and will never be known and appreciated. Early the next morning I was able to track down a student in the class, photocopy their mid-term, and begin to analyze it. I was able to find a complicated pattern in the word problem questions. I then found a pattern in the answers. I then tried out my formula for guessing and was right approximately 60% of the time (three times higher than by chance). I then found a pattern within these questions and was able to apply another guessing formula. I kept tweaking it up till a few hours before the exam and then began to memorize the different formulae for different problems. I then went in to the exam, with around 50-60 other students. Listening to other students going over material made me freak and I almost bolted from the whole thing. But before I could make a move, the professor came in started handing out the dozen-plus page final and soon you could hear a pin drop in the lecture hall. After a few comments and the time limit given, everyone began feverishly working on the exam. I had second thoughts, that maybe I should abandon my stupid and nutty plan and try to work out the problems, since after all any pattern on one exam surely couldn't be applied to another, without having the answers in advance. So I began working on the problems the old-fashioned way but soon realized I didn't know what I was doing, and had no confidence in my answers. I then threw the Hail Mary and starting answering each question based on my guessing formulae. So, I finished a three-hour exam in 10 minutes. Since the professor stated that we are to show all work done solving the problem, I scribbled in integrals, diffs, et al., with inscrutable stuff all over the place. I waited an hour and a half before the first person handed in their exam, the whole while I was pretending to be frustrated over a problem and scribblng away. I waited for a few others to hand in their exam and then I handed in mine, acting all exhausted. A week later I went to see the grades posted outside the professor's door and see my social security number (or student ID number) among a few pages of other student's SSNs. Out of some 60 people in the class my grade was the third highest.

True story.

Walter Yannis

2002-04-11 14:26 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Chesterson though I assume though would be quite a bit different than these occultists.

This alternate position that Belloc and Chesterton held, "distributism" (something between capitalism and socialism) is my position. Though, I must admit, when I hear $40-million-dollar-a-year Rush Limbaugh, with his one failed-out semester of college education, lecturing on the economic benefits of cutting taxes for the rich and suggesting taxing the poor more, I become pretty socialist.

Well said.

I'm a Chestertonian myself.  

The thing about the libertarians is that they're very disproportionately white and male, and that should tell you something about libertarians' true agenda: to protect white males from the depradations of the Democrats' Racial/Gender Extortion Coalition under the cover of high-sounding universalist rhetoric.

I used to be one of them, but over the years I've been forced to admit that my libertarianism was a subconscious self-defense mechanism, and I learned to embrace my desire for self-defense as normal and healthy.  

Consistently with Catholic teaching, Chesterton was an ethnic nationalist.  He understood the Church's teachings on the centrality of the "Divine economy of the nations" to God's plan of salvation.  (Catechism Articles 56 & 57)  Nations are defined by the indicia of bloodlines/race, language/culture, and territorial sovereignty.  

For it is only in an ethnically and culturally pure nation state that a just economy is possible (although surely not guaranteed).  In multi-ethnic states, each group inevitably tries to use the machinery of the state to wrest resources from other groups, and the end result will always be one or another form of slavery.  No matter whether it's 19th century black chattel slavery or 21st century white tax slavery, it's all an abomination.  

That which our neo-cons call "capitalism" is in fact a system designed to enrich some ethnic (gender) groups at the expense of the majority.  Confiscatory taxes ensure the slow genocide of whites - our population stopped growing as women are forced to leave the home to work.  Inner Party control of the securities markets, media, and corporate board rooms ensure that more working whites will lose their pensions, as did Enron employees.  The list goes on.

In Chesteron's system, the state is obliged to see that every citizen has the chance to acquire enough property to ensure individual human dignity, the properity of families, and the increase of the race.  Whereas in the Catholic system a free enterpirse and a profound respect for private property are means necessary to secure the Divinely-mandated ends of human dignity and freedom, the libertarians worship the concepts of free enterprise and private property as concomitants to their worship of themselves.

Thus, libertarianism is in practice a politically-acceptable banner around which white males can rally for self defense, and in theory it is self-worshipping idolotry.

The world needs the Chesterton's outline of economic sanity more than ever.

Walter

Juan Raymondo Cortez

2002-04-11 22:37 | User Profile

Walter,

Good post!

A couple of years ago, at the Chesterton conference in St. Paul, MN, one of the lecturers was from St. Petersburg University, Russia. Katya Volonkhoskaya, a 24-year old professor/instructor in English at SPU told us that her second-year students read Chesterton!! According to her, her students easily identify with Chesterton, and they view his writing as antedating the East-West split. Isn't this utterly amazing?!! They read Maya Angelou and Tony Morrison and Roberta Menchu in American universities, while in Russia they read Chesterton and Belloc. Is there any doubt which country will emerge as the dominate power in this century? I think it is not by coincidence or mere talk of alternate oil producers that the two countries mentioned most frequently as aiding the US in coming years are Mexico and Russia.

Walter Yannis

2002-04-12 05:06 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Walter,

Good post!

A couple of years ago, at the Chesterton conference in St. Paul, MN, one of the lecturers was from St. Petersburg University, Russia. Katya Volonkhoskaya, a 24-year old professor/instructor in English at SPU told us that her second-year students read Chesterton!! According to her, her students easily identify with Chesterton, and they view his writing as antedating the East-West split. Isn't this utterly amazing?!! They read Maya Angelou and Tony Morrison and Roberta Menchu in American universities, while in Russia they read Chesterton and Belloc. Is there any doubt which country will emerge as the dominate power in this century? I think it is not by coincidence or mere talk of alternate oil producers that the two countries mentioned most frequently as aiding the US in coming years are Mexico and Russia.

Funny you should mention Russia.  I have close ties to Russians (both Orthodox and Catholic) who are interested in these ideas.

Many of the right things are happening in Russia now.  Putin lowered the personal income tax rate to a pan-European low of 13% (revenunes INCREASED by the way through increased voluntary compliance), he enacted important land reform laws, and he's now trying to remove the tax/regualtory burden on small business.  He exiled Berezovsky, Gusinsky and Abramovich, and restored pride to the Army.  The next big emotional item on the agenda is Russia's imploding demographics.  God willing, he'll tackle that one bravely.

Walter

George

2002-04-13 02:15 | User Profile

I can't wait to go to war with Mexico.

amundsen

2002-04-13 16:05 | User Profile

[QUOTE]In multi-ethnic states, each group inevitably tries to use the machinery of the state to wrest resources from other groups, and the end result will always be one or another form of slavery.  No matter whether it's 19th century black chattel slavery or 21st century white tax slavery, it's all an abomination.

I wouldn't limit it to multi-ethnic.  I'd just say that the state is likely to be used by one group to take from another.  Thus you should limit the state's power and ideally have a republic of republics (hopefully so no one political entity will have too much power).  The question is what is us vs. them?  If it isn't ethnicity it will be religion.  If not that then family.  It is always something, or was in America until the stupid whites were convinced to give up all loyalties so they could be bleed by auslanders.  

Certainly ethnicity is a rather large, natural division of peoples that is impossible to overcome.  But it is not the only one.

oldrightlibertarian

2002-04-29 00:04 | User Profile

[QUOTE]This was an extremely thoughtful post by Sertorius. The nonsense of "free trade" has brought ruin to much of this country. For trade to work to mutual advantage an underlying ethic about right and wrong, shared values and common political goals must exist. Adam Smith was not an unyielding advocate of trade. He remarked that defense had precedence over opulence.

The man-children of Milton Friedman at lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com have never read Smith. Their espousal of buying one's way out of military service and appeasing evil people would earn them his contempt. Smith, a hairy-chested Christian and Scot of the old school, would despise many of the fairies misusing his name.

Rothbard and Mises both were from a completely different intellectual tradition as Smith that spanned from JB Say to Bastiat to Menger etc.etc.  

Murray Rothbard has been extremely critical of Adam Smith and spent much of his History of Economic thought lambasting him as a proto-Marxist.  Rockwell, Rothbard, and the Mises Institute have tirelessly attacked Friedman and the Chicago School over Vouchers, praxeology, The Fed and many other issues.  This doesn't mean that the paleolibertarians are right, but that criticism has no validity whatsoever.

oldrightlibertarian

2002-04-30 01:13 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Adam Smith a proto-Marxist? That's a new one to most people.

From what I know about the subject, Marx was far more strongly influenced by the radical tradition of Ricardo and Mill (both doctrinaire free traders and enemies of mercantilism) than he was by Smith. In fact, Marx took his concept of surplus value and surplus labor directly from Ricardo. From Adam Smith it would be much easier to draw a line to the mercantile and protectionist traditions of conservatives such as Edmund Burke, US Whigs and the German nationalist school (followers of Friedrich List).

In his radical rejection of nationalism and an organic conception of society/state/economy, Marx is really quite similar to Bastiat, Say, Mill and Ricardo. The only difference is that Marx substitutes class atomism for individual atomism (or more precisely, Marx represents the interests of the "proletariat" to the exclusion of the rest of the nation, while radical libertarians represent the interests of investor classes to the exclusion of other sectors of society).

Hence, it is no great stretch to argue that Marx is the bastard child of the radical classic liberal tradition (which spawned the French Revolution, after all), insofar as both radicalisms undermine the traditional social and economic institutions of nations. Smith to some extent respected these traditions, radical libertarians and Marxists alike attack them, albeit in the name of different social classes.

My point isn't to get into an argument over the history of Economic thought.  My point is simply that to accuse followers of Mises and Rothbard to be misusing Smith's name, when they did not claim to be followers of Smith is pointless.  Likewise, it is pointless to

There were strains of classical liberalism that did lead to the French Revolution, but again both Mises and especially Rothbard wrote very early on particular flaws in classical liberals: enthusiasm for democracy (though Mises still was in favor of it), skepticism of organized religion, and some egalitarian leanings.  I'm not saying your criticism of Classical Liberals isn't valid, but it does not apply to Tucker or other paleolibertarians.  

Secondly, not all libertarians or classical liberals rejected the idea of an organic institutions, simply organic conception of the state.  Also libertarianism is much more of a negative philosophy-opposition to the state and force, that to say it represents an interest of the investor class is unfair.

edward gibbon

2002-04-30 18:44 | User Profile

ORL:

Wilhelm Roepke, who fought as a German officer in World War I, was just about the first German academic to leave Hitler's Germany.  He detested him.

Roepke wrote a book, A Humane Economy, pleading for an understanding that the economy was to serve man rather than man an economy.  Once in Switzerland he showed either Hayek or Mises (I forget whom) the local plots devoted to gardening.  His guest remarked that it was not an efficient way to grow food.  Roepke replied that his remark may be true, but it was a very efficient way to increase human happiness.

Libertarians reduce everything to money and economics.  From what I have read they discount courage as a virtue though Mises served as an Austrian artillery officer in World War I.  Ideological purity rates very high on their scales.  I differ.

mwdallas

2002-04-30 23:37 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Secondly, not all libertarians or classical liberals rejected the idea of an organic institutions, simply organic conception of the state.  

What exactly is this organic conception of the state?  

Does that mean the state acts like or can be considered an "organism"?  If so that seems like a useful formulation.

In previous responses to Primal I have touched on an understanding of the Jewish group -- informed by MacDonald as well as Sober & Wilson's "Unto Others" -- as an organism at a higher level of complexity.  In this regard, it is worth noting the extent to which Jewish behavior deviates from the behavior predicted by Dawkins' "Selfish Gene", in which Dawkins indicates that the gene is the significant unit of natural selection.  Jews, in contrast, through endogamous and even consanguineous mating emphasize the reproduction of the individual in a form quite similar to the parents -- while showing no inclination to favor those gentiles genetically least-distant from Jews over gentiles at a greater genetic distance.  MacDonald, indeed, speaks of the Haredim as appearing almost to be clones of one another.  While this replication at the individual level is interesting, it is the aggregation at the next level of complexity that is the instant concern.

Ginsberg talks of the Jewish role in building states over the millennia, and of course MacDonald observes that Jews are at the top of the energy pyramid -- consuming but not producing.  They are, however, quite willing to direct.  In short, Jews with their eugenically-honed intelligence can be conceptualized as a ready-made brain looking for a body (the state) to provide it with energy.

oldrightlibertarian

2002-05-01 02:05 | User Profile

Economics is a value free science, just as physics and chemistry are.  It simply states what is efficient, it does not mean that you must follow it.  Libertarianism, likewise, is a simply a political worldview that simply opposes state intervention in all forms.  Simply by embracing Austrian Economics or Libertarianism does not mean that you reduce man to a mere economic unit.

If it had not been for Mises, Roepke would have been a socialist.   Roepke made crucial reforms to help save Germany's economy, but before long they ended up back at socialism.  There is no Third Way.   Hayek and Mises(I think) both fought in World War I.  But I fail to see how courage needs to be tied into fighting the state's wars.

amundsen

2002-05-01 11:38 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Simply by embracing Austrian Economics or Libertarianism does not mean that you reduce man to a mere economic unit.

Great point.  

Another thing to keep is mind is that Economics is simply a tool for explaining and predicting the behavior of men.  To have any use one must first know what people value relative to other things.  Hence the importance of the price system.  But the market price is not the price at which everyone will buy something.  Airline seats are a good example of this.  In order to maximize revenue, airlines came up with schemes to be able to offer seats on a plane at different prices.  Airlines know they can charge a business man $1000 for a seat, but the vacationer to the unholy lands of Orlando or Vegas wont shell out that much.

Now, throw in externalities and economics becomes a bit like vodoo.  Externalities being able to pass the costs of something off on someone else.  When we consider the hiring of Mexicans in America we can see how the true cost of this labor is shifted onto society, while the business man gets away with paying lower wages then he would otherwise.  It seems most economic analysis gleefully ignores externalities.

But what exactly is an externality?  I'd say that we suffer a moral problem to which the economic term externalities offers some guidance for the mind.  Just because the term comes from the dismal science does not mean it must be absent moral value.  To make another pay for what you enjoy is wrong in a moral sense.  True much analysis ignores this idea which is the way of determining how you effect others in a negative way, but it is there to be used.

edward gibbon

2002-05-01 19:40 | User Profile

ORL

So economics is a value free science.  For those who value classical music much more so than today's rap or heavy metal the cultural dominance of the latter is hardly without concern, even if much less money is spent on classical music.

Man without courage is worth little.  What else could be accomplished if courage is lacking?  

Your concern about the state is overdone.  You make the state the enemy of all human achievement.  Classical civilization had the state very much involved in the everyday culture.  Once again - you and your libertarian dogma will fail when confronted by violence and people willing to kill.

oldrightlibertarian

2002-05-02 00:35 | User Profile

Economics does not say that Rap is better than classical or vice versa.  Hence value free.  The statement that rap sells better than classical is true, but that in no way means that by following economics you agree with it.  

As for courage.  There's nothing courageous about the US dropping bombs on civillians from hundreds of miles above the air.  I'm not saying I would not be willing to die for a cause, but I don't see how an imperial war should be seen a heroic on face value.

While I'm not denying the state has been involved in great human achievement- Great Pyramids, The Collesium etc.  That doesn't mean that great achievements happened because of the state.  They could have happened in spite of the state.  Who knows what could have been done had the State not done it.  Anyway, I hope nobody here is for the National Greatness bull####.

van helsing

2002-05-02 00:53 | User Profile

It has been said that when America ceased being good when she started trying to be great.

More accurately, America ceased being good when the scalawags gained full control and tried to mold her into their version of greatness (at least in public).

edward gibbon

2002-05-02 19:05 | User Profile

ORL:

If someone is deciding to advertize on radio, and he is deciding between sponsoring a classical music station or a rap station, the decision is not value free.  Perhaps you have noticed the prevalence of rap music over classical.

You stated the dropping of bombs on civilians from airplanes miles away requires  no courage.  Was the pilot of that plane pursued by an enemy fighter or shot at by anti-aircraft guns?  Libertarians much like the left in America claim the high ground because they are morally superior and would not engage in behavior requiring them to display manliness.  For the most part I, as Adam Smith stated, believe it demonstrates lack of courage and manhood.

I ask you to try a little test.  If  you position yourself to be robbed, try to buy your way out.  See if you can satisfy the thieves by offering them some money.  If they suspect you have more valuables, my guess is they will threaten you or beat you to give them more.

If America is to change for the better, the quality of courage will be needed much more than ideological purity.  Please start taking boxing lessons.

amundsen

2002-05-02 23:37 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Libertarians much like the left in America claim the high ground because they are morally superior and would not engage in behavior requiring them to display manliness.  For the most part I, as Adam Smith stated, believe it demonstrates lack of courage and manhood.

.........

I ask you to try a little test.  If  you position yourself to be robbed, try to buy your way out.  See if you can satisfy the thieves by offering them some money.  If they suspect you have more valuables, my guess is they will threaten you or beat you to give them more.

I think you are are ignoring that self defense and aggressive attacks are two different things.  The US engages in aggressive attacks on foreign nations.  For instance, the state argues that Iraq might attack the US with (fill in a horrendous weapon), therefore the state has a right to attack.  Extended domesitically then the state has a right to bust down your door and kill you cause you might someday attack someone.  There is simply no difference in principle.  There is neither courage nor manliness in this behavior.  To live and let live is much more couragous to me, and to the beliefs of the founders of this land.  The founders acknowledged that justice was not punishing someone for what they might do.

Personally, although I object to every, yes every, war the US has conducted since 1861, if anyone wants to break into my house during the night, I'm going straight for the 45.  There is a world of difference in defending yourself and walking around the schoolyard pushing around kids half your age as is the style of most modern Americans.

amundsen

2002-05-02 23:48 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Hence, the Austrian School's demands that we return to 18th century economic and political models is as arbitary as Ludwig Jahn's demand that we go back to hunter-gatherer society and dress in bear skins, or Konrad Lorenz's nostalgia for medieval landscapes.

Hayek in 'Individualism and Economic Order' states that a freedom depends on a social order.  Absent that you will not be able to have freedom.

[QUOTE]When economists argue that a particular system is maximally "efficient," what they really mean is that it maximizes the profits of the shareholders. Thus "efficiency" is measured from the subjective standpoint of the investor classes, without regard to what the particular "efficiency" might mean for the interests of the rest of the nation.

True enough, and you are right to point out that Economics can not provide all the answers.  A moral system must supercede Economics.  But in a minimum state world the corporation would not have much power or existance independant of individuals, thus it is unlikely to grow to the size and scope of our modern corporations.  So while I agree that the modern corporation is a viper, I dont think it could exists absent the megastate.  Thus the state is the central problem that must always be addressed.

Leveller

2002-05-03 00:07 | User Profile

Dead right AY,

'value free science' is illiteration. If it's science, it's value free.

Physicists can be dogmatic and petty in defense of their respective theories, but they are held to account by the scientific method. Einstein spent 20 years trying to prove that quantum physics was wrong - it got him nowhere.

This discipline will never be available in economics, which by its nature must always contain moral claims. 'Natural rights', which I generally agree with, aren't self-evidently right, as libertarians often claim they are. It's better to see them as an evolved good practice I think. Libertarians don't like this, because it's ultimately a weaker claim, but hey, the world's a complicated place!

Even the statement that economic efficiency is a good thing at all (because it provides the most effective allocation of resources), is a moral claim, because it is a statement about what is desirable for human contentment. As you say, the fact that it benefits some people more than others makes it even more contentious.

I'm sure a nightwatchman state would be better than a managerial one. but it's fans should drop the 'natural order' scientism.