Lew Rockwell speaking to the Houston Mises Circle, Jan 23, 2010 (video)
25 pithy minutes, Rockwell has that Misesian ability to load every sentence with meaning, to make every word count
Thursday, June 30, 2011
topical thoughts on civil disobedience, the Lokpal agitation
I think the Lokpal is a great idea, it would be of high value in an otherwise normally functional republic, I would congratulate each and every Indian who got off his behind and hit the streets, but the specific society of India has a unique historic legacy of divine right endogamous hierarchy enforced by state coercion to which the major political party/ies and the society in general adheres, and for the maintenance of which no other viable alternative exists except dynastic cronyism
the fight here is not for regime change, the removal of a tyrant or party, the fight is for the moral soul, the conscience of the nation, because an end to state corruption would simultaneously mean the end of the millennia-old business model of the aryan endogamous hierarchy - sadly, history provides no cause whatsoever to hope or believe that such an outcome is possible without the use of coercive force, that Sonia Gandhi is going to turn into Mayawati, Manmohan Singh is going to turn into Nitish Kumar, the state is going to become free of corruption because of "civil disobedience" - the myth that the british left India because of "civil disobedience" is a profound insult to the memory of those brave soldiers who mutinied in defense of their generals, the memory of the patriot generals themselves, Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Sehgal, and above all, to the memory of the widely popular Subhash Bose, who had earlier been coerced into resigning the Congress presidency by Gandhi's paroxysm of petulance, before organizing a military strategy to oust the brits
for the agitation in India to become a real movement it needs ideological clarity and a specific objective/s (like 'swaraj') as cleaner government is hard to define and quantify, rather it is a reflection of the rule of law, a measure of the competence of the executive branch - what is "rotten" in this Denmark is not a single, rogue king but rather the whole dynasty and the whole ideology, the casteism that is its' bread, the violence that is its' wine, the human vileness at its' very centre; a single, dramatic gesture (Hamletian or Gandhian, makes no difference) cannot substitute for the principled humanism of Ambedkar's classical liberal ideology
Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, the Swami, the Anna, these are people of impeccable intentions, so the question is not whether the civil society can get another law passed, rather can the civil society effect a revolution in the moral climate of government? without actually taking the reins of power the proper way? the honest answer is, no, not without understanding liberal economics, not without a locus of Indian humanism, not without becoming Ambedkarite in the process - the noblest of intent will be wrecked on the anvil of ignorance, the stoutest of morals drained by delusion, in the blind repetition of history not yet understood
Ambedkar challenged the bahujan majority of India to be patient but steadfast on the mission to capture state power in the constitutional way, in which cause this agitation of the civil society is beside the point because it is unable to add to the Ambedkarite theoretical understanding of why this state is immoral in the first place, why bolshevism so fascinates the upper castes, why rule of law was better under the brits, why liberal thought and Indian culture were thriving under the brits
that is why this is a last hurrah of Gandhism, regardless of the Lokpal bill's journey and outcome, and like all other Gandhism, in reality it will be of minimum impact for the poor, and maximum publicity for window dressing cases
the fight here is not for regime change, the removal of a tyrant or party, the fight is for the moral soul, the conscience of the nation, because an end to state corruption would simultaneously mean the end of the millennia-old business model of the aryan endogamous hierarchy - sadly, history provides no cause whatsoever to hope or believe that such an outcome is possible without the use of coercive force, that Sonia Gandhi is going to turn into Mayawati, Manmohan Singh is going to turn into Nitish Kumar, the state is going to become free of corruption because of "civil disobedience" - the myth that the british left India because of "civil disobedience" is a profound insult to the memory of those brave soldiers who mutinied in defense of their generals, the memory of the patriot generals themselves, Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Sehgal, and above all, to the memory of the widely popular Subhash Bose, who had earlier been coerced into resigning the Congress presidency by Gandhi's paroxysm of petulance, before organizing a military strategy to oust the brits
for the agitation in India to become a real movement it needs ideological clarity and a specific objective/s (like 'swaraj') as cleaner government is hard to define and quantify, rather it is a reflection of the rule of law, a measure of the competence of the executive branch - what is "rotten" in this Denmark is not a single, rogue king but rather the whole dynasty and the whole ideology, the casteism that is its' bread, the violence that is its' wine, the human vileness at its' very centre; a single, dramatic gesture (Hamletian or Gandhian, makes no difference) cannot substitute for the principled humanism of Ambedkar's classical liberal ideology
Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, the Swami, the Anna, these are people of impeccable intentions, so the question is not whether the civil society can get another law passed, rather can the civil society effect a revolution in the moral climate of government? without actually taking the reins of power the proper way? the honest answer is, no, not without understanding liberal economics, not without a locus of Indian humanism, not without becoming Ambedkarite in the process - the noblest of intent will be wrecked on the anvil of ignorance, the stoutest of morals drained by delusion, in the blind repetition of history not yet understood
Ambedkar challenged the bahujan majority of India to be patient but steadfast on the mission to capture state power in the constitutional way, in which cause this agitation of the civil society is beside the point because it is unable to add to the Ambedkarite theoretical understanding of why this state is immoral in the first place, why bolshevism so fascinates the upper castes, why rule of law was better under the brits, why liberal thought and Indian culture were thriving under the brits
that is why this is a last hurrah of Gandhism, regardless of the Lokpal bill's journey and outcome, and like all other Gandhism, in reality it will be of minimum impact for the poor, and maximum publicity for window dressing cases
Friday, June 24, 2011
topical thoughts on land acquisition, POSCO and Singur
The POSCO case demonstrates the monstrosity of "imminent domain" crashing into the right of "catalytic property" and resulting in the sort of mess that makes perfectly well meaning people conclude that no other option is left but "majoritarian tyranny" or aggression. I will talk about the non-aggressive solution in a little bit, but to set the scene first: what has happened is some unfenced, unused government owned land, allocated to a large infrastructure project by a multinational, has been homesteaded by local farmers who are growing cash crops on it. The state wants to clear the homesteaders with a small compensation while the homesteading farmers are demanding the same compensation for vacating the land that title holding property owners received. Activists and agitators have arrived on the scene muddying up all this cozy deal making between the state and giant mercantile interests for "development" - how else could we have development unless the almighty, benevolent state does it for us?
India is being wracked by repetitions of this sort of statist predation of property rights, with the same common theme of state aggression and large corporate interests. In the forests where India's indigenous libertarian people reside, most of the property rights are held without title deed, but the problem has surfaced even where no homesteading issue complicates the affair, like in Bengal where only privately owned farm land was in play. There we are confronted with a "majoritarian tyranny" issue, as a minority of farmers chose not to sell their land and Tata's new Nano car project fell through. The political fallout proved disastrous for the ruling communists at the election.
The happy thought of communist downfall aside, the first thing that almost anyone would embrace about a free market, is that it would compel such deals to be concluded peacefully between buyers and sellers, with the state playing no other part except the prevention (or termination) of aggression. If there are 500 farmers then it is up to the buyer to persuade them as a group or as individuals. The farmers who need the money most will very likely sell first, while others for whom farming is working well enough may hold out for a higher price. In any case 500 sales have to be closed, as sellers have different prices because they value the land according to their individuality.
In tightly knit communities the farmers may choose to bargain collectively if they are aware of the buyer's larger interest. This will probably result in a higher total cost for the land but it saves the buyer the costs of closing 500 deals. The case of 400 farmers 'Yea' and 100 farmers 'Nay' can only occur if a price is being fixed. The 100 'Nays' all have a price at which point they will switch to 'Yeas'. It is an error to think a price fixed by the state is "just" when it is in fact coercion. It is usually a strong persuasion in rural communities when most of one's neighbors want to do something anyway, so I see no reason why "majoritarian tyranny" has to be kicked in at a certain fixed number. Such haste is aggression against precisely those who value the land most, and who wish to push the price higher. How could it be "just" to coerce them? Why shouldn't they demand more comprehensive compensation, like equity sharing? Cash today is not gold or silver, it is a piece of paper that loses value unless expertly invested, whereas land is a capital asset that earns and earns and earns. So is "cash for land" truly a just exchange in this context? or is it the exploitative consequence of a fatal information asymmetry?
How the farmers arrive at their agreement is of no concern to the state so long as no aggression occurs. The state's idea of "national interest" is simply the interest of the politicians, bureaucrats and their clients, more appropriately termed "criminal interest". There is NEVER a "national interest" in the aggression of rights, it is always a criminal interest.
ADDENDA:
it is the government's duty to put a fence or employ a guard or whatever, the government has no business holding land just for holding it and using it to extort - if you have to enforce "imminent domain" then the compensation to homesteaders has to be negotiated, without coercion, based upon loss of income they will experience - whenever the state makes life "easy" for one person it is at the cost of "uneasiness" for someone else, always, by an immutable economic law
Swami Agnivesh came up during the JP movement, he knows there is no substitute for parliament when rule of law has collapsed
India is being wracked by repetitions of this sort of statist predation of property rights, with the same common theme of state aggression and large corporate interests. In the forests where India's indigenous libertarian people reside, most of the property rights are held without title deed, but the problem has surfaced even where no homesteading issue complicates the affair, like in Bengal where only privately owned farm land was in play. There we are confronted with a "majoritarian tyranny" issue, as a minority of farmers chose not to sell their land and Tata's new Nano car project fell through. The political fallout proved disastrous for the ruling communists at the election.
The happy thought of communist downfall aside, the first thing that almost anyone would embrace about a free market, is that it would compel such deals to be concluded peacefully between buyers and sellers, with the state playing no other part except the prevention (or termination) of aggression. If there are 500 farmers then it is up to the buyer to persuade them as a group or as individuals. The farmers who need the money most will very likely sell first, while others for whom farming is working well enough may hold out for a higher price. In any case 500 sales have to be closed, as sellers have different prices because they value the land according to their individuality.
In tightly knit communities the farmers may choose to bargain collectively if they are aware of the buyer's larger interest. This will probably result in a higher total cost for the land but it saves the buyer the costs of closing 500 deals. The case of 400 farmers 'Yea' and 100 farmers 'Nay' can only occur if a price is being fixed. The 100 'Nays' all have a price at which point they will switch to 'Yeas'. It is an error to think a price fixed by the state is "just" when it is in fact coercion. It is usually a strong persuasion in rural communities when most of one's neighbors want to do something anyway, so I see no reason why "majoritarian tyranny" has to be kicked in at a certain fixed number. Such haste is aggression against precisely those who value the land most, and who wish to push the price higher. How could it be "just" to coerce them? Why shouldn't they demand more comprehensive compensation, like equity sharing? Cash today is not gold or silver, it is a piece of paper that loses value unless expertly invested, whereas land is a capital asset that earns and earns and earns. So is "cash for land" truly a just exchange in this context? or is it the exploitative consequence of a fatal information asymmetry?
How the farmers arrive at their agreement is of no concern to the state so long as no aggression occurs. The state's idea of "national interest" is simply the interest of the politicians, bureaucrats and their clients, more appropriately termed "criminal interest". There is NEVER a "national interest" in the aggression of rights, it is always a criminal interest.
ADDENDA:
it is the government's duty to put a fence or employ a guard or whatever, the government has no business holding land just for holding it and using it to extort - if you have to enforce "imminent domain" then the compensation to homesteaders has to be negotiated, without coercion, based upon loss of income they will experience - whenever the state makes life "easy" for one person it is at the cost of "uneasiness" for someone else, always, by an immutable economic law
Swami Agnivesh came up during the JP movement, he knows there is no substitute for parliament when rule of law has collapsed
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Ron Paul - The Keys to Economic Growth
Ron Paul - The Keys to Economic Growth
"First and foremost, we must create a sound U.S. currency backed by gold or some other commodity respected by the market. No nation in history with a rapidly depreciating currency has attracted private capital. Unless and until we prohibit the Treasury and Federal Reserve from essentially creating money and credit from thin air, we cannot restore the U.S. economy.
"First and foremost, we must create a sound U.S. currency backed by gold or some other commodity respected by the market. No nation in history with a rapidly depreciating currency has attracted private capital. Unless and until we prohibit the Treasury and Federal Reserve from essentially creating money and credit from thin air, we cannot restore the U.S. economy.
· Second, we must create a favorable regulatory environment for U.S. business. This cannot be stressed enough. When businesses don’t know what’s coming next from the EPA, when Obamacare spikes their healthcare costs, or when the Dodd-Frank bill adds almost unknowable regulatory compliance burdens, businesses simply will not expand and hire. It is time to start shrinking the federal register.
· Third, we must stop spending trillions of dollars overseas on foreign wars. There is no point in debating a foreign policy we cannot afford. It no longer matters what neoconservatives want. Our interventionist foreign policy is financed on credit, and our credit limit has been reached. Our economy would be infinitely better off if those trillions of dollars had never been removed from the private economy or added to our debt.
· Finally, we must completely revamp the U.S. tax system and move to a territorial model that does not tax foreign source income. U.S. corporations are sitting on more than a trillion dollars in foreign earnings that cannot be repatriated to the U.S. because of taxes. We need to stop taxing unpatriated funds to bring those earnings home. Better yet, we need to abolish the income tax altogether."
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
What Is Liberalism? - Ludwig von Mises
What Is Liberalism? - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily
boy, do we need a refresher on this! might as well get it from the master himself
boy, do we need a refresher on this! might as well get it from the master himself
Thursday, June 2, 2011
How to Slow Economic Progress - Stephan Kinsella - Mises Daily
How to Slow Economic Progress - Stephan Kinsella - Mises Daily
a significant clarification on the issue of intellectual property, I thought, the relative scarcity/non-scarcity of ideas and material things is important - what I would question is how this would apply to a case like copies of Microsoft Windows being sold on the street in Asia? because the economic aggression occurs as soon as the buyer begins using the software, other users of the software who paid full price are hurt - are we saying that once Windows has been released to market anyone can make copies for sale? or make copies using a different name? I am not understanding how software as a business model is a product of state decreed monopoly, unless perhaps the IBM-MS relationship is seen in terms of IBM's near-monopoly position at the time being a product of progressive era fiat, which in turn enabled MS to establish a near-monopoly in PCs
the whole issue dates to the very genesis of secrecy, as the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world was captured by war, and subsequently taken "off-market" so to speak or, taken to market for profit as best suited the imperial state, whereas the earliest accumulations of knowledge were voluntarily funded by the society and whatever was of praxeological value or "consequential knowledge" was available to all, the post-war old theocracy world became deprived of its' intellectual fountains but still clings as hard as it can to the spiritual and moral compass of that era - it turns out the centralization of the knowledge, required at that time to enable the best minds from geographically diverse places to work together on elevating quality, was also the Achilles' heel of the old theocracy
a market may in theory develop for ideas that are valuable, but the nature of entrepreneurial ideas is such that they are rarely a "sure thing", so it takes a leap of faith for an entrepreneur and investor to have a go at it, the idea's value is only realized after it has come to market in physical form, that is my personal hunch why a marketplace for ideas has not developed beyond the entrepreneur-investor framework
a significant clarification on the issue of intellectual property, I thought, the relative scarcity/non-scarcity of ideas and material things is important - what I would question is how this would apply to a case like copies of Microsoft Windows being sold on the street in Asia? because the economic aggression occurs as soon as the buyer begins using the software, other users of the software who paid full price are hurt - are we saying that once Windows has been released to market anyone can make copies for sale? or make copies using a different name? I am not understanding how software as a business model is a product of state decreed monopoly, unless perhaps the IBM-MS relationship is seen in terms of IBM's near-monopoly position at the time being a product of progressive era fiat, which in turn enabled MS to establish a near-monopoly in PCs
the whole issue dates to the very genesis of secrecy, as the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world was captured by war, and subsequently taken "off-market" so to speak or, taken to market for profit as best suited the imperial state, whereas the earliest accumulations of knowledge were voluntarily funded by the society and whatever was of praxeological value or "consequential knowledge" was available to all, the post-war old theocracy world became deprived of its' intellectual fountains but still clings as hard as it can to the spiritual and moral compass of that era - it turns out the centralization of the knowledge, required at that time to enable the best minds from geographically diverse places to work together on elevating quality, was also the Achilles' heel of the old theocracy
a market may in theory develop for ideas that are valuable, but the nature of entrepreneurial ideas is such that they are rarely a "sure thing", so it takes a leap of faith for an entrepreneur and investor to have a go at it, the idea's value is only realized after it has come to market in physical form, that is my personal hunch why a marketplace for ideas has not developed beyond the entrepreneur-investor framework
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