Ludwig von Mises - "The Problems of Inflation"

Presented at FEE on 3 April 1968. [1:07:18] --- worth remembering that this was delivered even before the gold convertibility of the US$ was suspended by the Nixon administration

the problem of legislative powers usurped by unelected bureaucrats

Imran Khan on Pakistan current affairs and upcoming election

60 Minutes - how "crony capitalism" works

The Road To A Downgrade (WSJ)

The Road To A Downgrade (WSJ)

a short recap of the salient facts, and the simple meaning thereof, from the Journal editorial team

The Ruins of Afghanistan's Monument Valley (WSJ)

The Ruins of Afghanistan's Monument Valley (WSJ)

the assault on civilization is relentless, priceless treasures of archaeology now irrevocably damaged - Genghis Khan took no interest in them since they were not made of gold and silver, but the radical, aggressive monotheism of the nomads has proven intractable, the embedded genetic deviances of exponential and incalculable consequence - monolithism, monotheism of various types are very appealing and infectious to populations experiencing tyranny while deprived of the intellectual tools to reach a proper understanding of the cause

the cynical exacerbation of these fundamental contradictions, by ad hoc realpolitik is simply not sustainable because at some point the exhaustion of US moral capital will impinge on the ability of even the large US corps, the primary clients of the state, to operate freely in world markets without some aggression or other - at precisely the moment when the whole world is necessarily riveted by the spectacle of a giant rolling recession in the US, and its rippling consequences worldwide, the magnifying glass of exponential significance has been squarely placed on the US challenge, to make a giant upgrade in governmental morality and international morality, a challenge that the EU is making a spectacular, historic hash job of!

this is the point at which I make my pitch for Liberty, of course - the US can meet this challenge confidently because the fundamental strengths of the constitutional ideology are ever relevant to the present and eternal menace to civilization, aggression, ever relevant to the security of what is held by the US to be self evident truth - if I have discovered a point of difference with Mises (I have very few! before you faint from my shocking impertinence) it is on the singularity of civilization, I would speak of cultures as plural and civilization as singular - the constitution permits no abdication of the natural, self-evident humanism of classical liberal ideology, it is the "mission statement" of the nation, the implicit purpose of all state action, and therefore the irrevocable cornerstone of foreign policy

it is a misnomer to call the libertarian position "isolationist" in any other sense except that it is ideologically "isolationist" to the classical liberal humanism, Liberty requires that the US relationship with the rest of the world be driven by the friendships and business relationships of the people, without a partial application of state power in favor of this or that corporation/industry, no matter how large and lucrative a 'cash cow' it presents for the state - the state can only be consistent and principled in its use of counter-aggression when it is firmly committed to the principle of non-aggression that derives from the humanist premise, and applies across cultures and continents

speaking to this specific issue, Liberty recognizes the criminality of the taliban aggression against intellectual capital owned by all the people, likewise Liberty recognizes the duty to arrange and execute effective counter-aggression to prevent the vandalism of the peoples' treasures - swift, targeted action is the need of the hour, and it follows most smoothly from crystal clarity in the "mission statement", and Liberty is the mission statement of the constitution and the nation, an eagle that soars far above the paralysis of "left" versus "right"

[this vandalism really annoyed me, it should have been prevented - is it a case of empty lip service to the stone masonry of the ancient world?]

Lord Monckton on the Environmentalist hoax (video)

there are 5 parts to it, a priceless bit about Al Gore later on, and RK Pachauri

"We told you so" the Austrian demolition of neo-Keynesian ad hockery, Gary North (video)

Anti-capitalists: Barbarians at the Gate, Larry Sechrest (video)

Are we forgetting what "freedom" is? the Mises vision explained

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

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

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

The Anticapitalistic Bias of American Intellectuals - Ludwig von Mises

The Anticapitalistic Bias of American Intellectuals - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily

the professional intellectuals, especially of the mediocre kind, gravitate towards direct/indirect employment by the state as a praxeologically rational choice ("benefits" and "security", I hear, are big keywords) as employment by the markets is hazardously related to the quality of results produced by one's intellectual efforts, and the jeopardy of competition measured in those terms

the persistence of caste systems well into the capitalist age cannot be explained by Mises, although his observations are completely accurate, because what he saw was the practical application of the idea in "secure the fruits of liberty to ourselves and for our posterity", whereby the perpetuation or (capitalistically inevitable) annihilation of the caste system is a matter entirely reserved to the volition of those indicated by "ourselves" and "our posterity" or, in other words, it is entirely up to the signatories of the constitution and their offspring to admit of any amendment to the definition of "ourselves" and "our posterity", only from which would then result the swift dismantling of the caste system in favor of a capitalistically rational society of high individual mobility and low information asymmetry - such a society, however, will put into rapid obsolescence ideas and philosophies (like eugenics) that derive from the false conception called "race", along with all other endogamous hierarchies that are predicated on unearned wealth secured by the application of state force, in defiance of nature's own distribution of human abilities

US Hubris and the Destruction of the Middle Class

America's economic system, which is based upon debt and Federal Reserve-generated inflation, benefits a chosen few while destroying the middle class.

"Since the supposed end of this economic recession in late 2009, the number of people added to the food stamp rolls has increased by 8 million. The annual cost for this program will reach $70 billion this year, up from $33 billion in 2007. If the economy is recovering and people are voluntarily leaving the workforce, why have the number of people on food stamps increased by 22% since the official start of the recovery? Why does the number of people going on food stamps go up every month? The answer is that there has been no economic recovery for the average American. Wall Street bankers and the ultra-wealthy elite are the only people who have experienced a recovery."

Official death toll in Egypt uprising doubles to over 800

Egypt's health ministry said on Monday that over 800 people were killed in the uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak - more than double the previous estimate of 384

the restraint, the camaraderie with the people shown by the military is the distinguishing feature of the Egypt revolution, but let us never forget the price paid in blood nevertheless - the conscience of an informed and connected global people simply will not go for this any more, this paradigm shift has to be embraced not resisted by state use of force

when you can get blood from stones why not stone them bloody?

More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined.

Thomas Jefferson's Cut-and-Paste Bible

Our third president sought to separate the words of Jesus from the 'corruptions' of his followers

Rastafarians will enjoy this one, especially ones who are tired and bored stiff by the criticism that we are not christian enough, or not orthodox enough

hmm, is Schumpeter's prophecy coming to pass?

A Nation of Dropouts Shakes Europe (WSJ)

I happen to think the amoral, ultra-bohemian set (like the Bloomsbury group) that Schumpeter thought was the inevitable product of capitalist wealth is really a product of unearned wealth, or wealth gained by use of force, over and above the proper market value (empire, in the case of the Bloomsburians) - for example, if a state bureaucrat earns $75K whereas his real market value is $50K then human nature will view the additional $25K as a 'free money' cushion, resulting in a consumption behavior that reflects the self-indulgence of the old aristocrats - once this sense of an economic cushion is internalized the human desire for upward mobility adjusts itself to its' maintenance, the aspirations for one's children naturally incorporate the same privileges of reduced labor for increased wealth, and also obviously foster a willingness to fight to defend the conditions which make the cushioning possible (the same can be said of corporate workers who work in cartelized industries, the same phenomenon is seen, the same subversion of capitalist values)

these are the people whose children develop unrealistic worldviews, adopt consumption behaviors beyond their earning powers and harbor a bizarre combination of guilt and contempt for the unprivileged in society - this departure from bourgeois values simply does not occur spontaneously, but it certainly has the potential to devalue liberty and demoralize democracy very badly, precipitating a quite ruinous crisis in the society - I don't think the US is too far behind Europe in this regard, there is no cushion of time available for inaction and indecision

No Treason, no. 1 - Lysander Spooner - Mises Daily

No Treason, no. 1 - Lysander Spooner - Mises Daily

1. That two men have no more natural right to exercise any kind of authority over one than one has to exercise the same authority over two. A man's natural rights are his own against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime whether committed by one man or by millions; whether committed by one man calling himself a robber (or by any other name indicating his true character) or by millions calling themselves a government.

2. It would be absurd for the most numerous party to talk of establishing a government over the less numerous party, unless the former were also the strongest as well as the most numerous: for it is not to be supposed that the strongest party would ever submit to the rule of the weaker party, merely because the latter were the most numerous.

   And as matter of fact, it is perhaps never that governments are established by the most numerous party. They are usually, if not always, established by the less numerous party — their superior strength consisting in their superior wealth, intelligence, and ability to act in concert.

3. Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority, but by "the people" — the minority as much as the majority.

4. If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation — for they were in a small minority as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over them.

5. Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money as minorities and are liable and likely to be equally — perhaps more than equally, because more boldly — rapacious, tyrannical, and unprincipled, if entrusted with power.

   There is no more reason, then, why a man should either sustain or submit to the rule of a majority than of a minority. Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice. And all talk about them in matters of government is mere absurdity.

   Men are dunces for uniting to sustain any government or any laws except those in which they are all agreed. And nothing but force and fraud compel men to sustain any other. To say that majorities, as such, have a right to rule minorities, is equivalent to saying that minorities have, and ought to have, no rights except such as majorities please to allow them.

6. It is not improbable that many or most of the worst of governments — although established by force, and by a few, in the first place — come, in time, to be supported by a majority. But if they do, this majority is composed in large part of the most ignorant, superstitious, timid, dependent, servile, and corrupt portions of the people; of those who have been overawed by the power, intelligence, wealth, and arrogance; of those who have been deceived by the frauds; and of those who have been corrupted by the inducements of the few who really constitute the government.

   Such majorities, very likely, could be found in half, perhaps in nine-tenths, of all the countries on the globe. What do they prove? Nothing but the tyranny and corruption of the very governments that have reduced such large portions of the people to their present ignorance, servility, degradation, and corruption — an ignorance, servility, degradation, and corruption that are best illustrated in the simple fact that they do sustain the governments that have so oppressed, degraded, and corrupted them.

   They do nothing toward proving that the governments themselves are legitimate, or that they ought to be sustained, or even endured, by those who understand their true character. The mere fact, therefore, that a government chances to be sustained by a majority, of itself proves nothing that is necessary to be proved in order to know whether such government should be sustained or not.

7. The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters and which of them slaves: a contest, that — however bloody — can never, in the nature of things, be finally closed so long as man refuses to be a slave.

Leaders Struggle to Define Next Moves (Libya)

Libyan Regime Is Hemmed In as No-Fly Zone Is Quickly Established, but Divisions Emerge Over the Long-Term Mission

I don't get it, what's to define, it has already been defined by the masters - feudal, dynastic model aristocracies are incompatible with capitalism and will always cause enormous social stress, civil war, and so on - the whole model has to give way to representational government, private property, rule of law as well as free markets and individual liberties agreed upon by the whole world as fundamentally human (unless you're a racist, in which case you have already constructed many types of human in your mind, you will recognize the only sense in which men are equal in this world are their rights)

the utter silliness of the "can't have my oil!" attitude when unless they sell oil it is they who can have nothing! capitalism is not a competition between nation states, and to properly participate in the capitalist world order nation states MUST liberate their citizens to establish untrammeled people-to-people relations across the world, own property and do business as they please - turning the state guns on non-violent people for wishing a change of government is something that has to be phased out as a relic of a barbaric history, in order to earn the term civilization