Editorial
The Personal Is the Economic
Feminist Carol Hanisch is famous for opposing the Miss America contest in the 1960s. She is also the person who in 1968 coined the phrase "the personal is the political." Her essay on the topic denounced the idea that women's liberation can come about through individual action. The issue, she wrote, is not about having women make better choices with their lives. Instead, it is about revolutionizing politics. As she said, "There is only collective action for a collective solution."
Now, this extreme statement is only different from conventional left-wing academic opinion in one sense: it is in plain English. As the decades wore on, the opinions of the post-Marxist crowd didn't change. They only began to wrap them in ever more turgid gobbledygook. But the conclusion is always the same: we need collective action, which is a euphemism for the state. The goal is to strengthen the state, that is, make it more totalitarian.
In this view of the social order, individual action cannot be permitted to shape reality. Choice and freedom leads to conflict, abuse, exploitation, inequality, injustice and every other evil you can name. Capitalists exploit workers, men dominate women, whites abuse blacks, the able-bodied erect barriers to the disabled, religious people marginalize non-believers, the rich kick the poor and so on. This is their view of a world of freedom. The only way to keep this nightmare at bay is total control.
For this reason, reform cannot come through individual choices; society must be radically politicized in every respect, all the way down to relations between individuals. Every slight or unwelcome glance cries out for a gargantuan statist response. Every sign of marginalization is a signal for why we need a mammoth state to constantly rearrange and monitor social and economic relationships. And note that in this view, there is really no chance of finally eliminating the conflicts inherent in the structure of the world, so there is really no time at which this crowd believes that the state is big and intrusive enough. It must grow and grow forever.
This view is utterly impervious to facts. That women make less on average than men in the marketplace might be due to individual choice, as our Schlarbaum laureate Walter Block has shown. But if you discount individual choice and regard the structures of a wage economy as inherently exploitative, such facts do not matter.
By the way, we all need to congratulate Walter Block for being one of the few academics to withstand and emerge victorious from a wicked assault, which he endured a few years ago. He pointed out some basic facts on the economics of discrimination to a college audience, and was promptly blasted for failing to abide by the speech codes that govern academic life. Even his job seemed to hang in the balance. Instead of crawling and begging forgiveness, he fought back point for point. The bad guys aren't used to resistance, nor facts calmly and brilliantly prevented. Nor is a college used to its alumni rising up to defend a visiting speaker and cutting off their donations. Eventually, reason prevailed over the smearmongers. Congratulations, Walter!
The proto-Marxist, academic mainstream view of society is the polar opposite of the old liberal view. Bastiat summed up the correct perspective on how society works as "social harmony." If we let people be free to act, own, choose, associate, build, risk, experiment and go about their business, so long as they are not physically invading another's person or property, a harmony tends to characterize the development of society.
The personal really is just the personal. It is the state that creates conflict where none need exist.
It is not surprising that history's main thinkers who have held this truth had a thorough familiarity with economic logic and economic science. Here is where we discover the essence of human decision-making and choice. Here is where we discover the magic of mutually beneficial exchange.
And it was Ludwig von Mises who took the theory as it applied in economics and expanded it into a general theory of human choice, of which economics became a subset. Mises turned economics from speaking about the supposed "economic man," as if we all made our decisions in life based only on the expectation of the highest possible pecuniary return.
Only a bit of thought shows that man is in fact not a narrow profit maximizer in this sense. Essential institutions in society like the arts, religion, charity, family, as well as social mores and norms, exist outside the commercial nexus.
But they do not exist outside the realm of human choice. Mises put together a science of human choice not only to explain commercial activities but the whole of social development. And therefore, after Mises it was no longer necessary to talk about the harmony of interests only in commercial relations. The harmony is extended to the whole of human society.
What this amounts to is a complete reversal of the neo-Marxist slogan "The personal is the political." I would propose, instead, "The personal is the economic."
What this means is that there is nothing we do in this world that economics cannot shed some light on. That does not mean, as some Chicago School economists would have it, that all human behavior can be reduced to and explained by narrow economic interests. That line of thinking has produced shelves of fallacy.
It means instead that economics as the logic of human choice has some degree of universal explanatory power. It sheds new light on old problems. It can cut through our biases and help us see the truth about human cooperation in unexpected places. It was on this basis that Mises said that economics is the very pith of life. His point is that we can discover economic logic in all things and, through the study of economics, we can gain new insight into every manner of human behavior and man-made institution.
With this background, perhaps we can understand something about how the Austrian School of economics has been such an incredibly fruitful research paradigm. It doesn't try to shove the entire world into its apparatus. It uses a robust theory to understand the world and to formulate radical ideas for reform to make the world a more peaceful and productive place.
Before getting to Walter Block's own efforts, let's look at the history.
Mises launched his career in Vienna with a book on money. It made him famous. Writing about money is what economists are supposed to do. Whenever they step outside this area they step on landmines. This is why all the truly great economists have been so thoroughly denounced by not only the academic elites but the politicians, too. Bastiat faced this criticism, as did Mises, Rothbard and, of course, Walter Block. The cry is always the same: stick to economics and stop talking about other things! But as we've seen, there is no such thing as other things that cannot be elucidated by economic theory.
After Mises wrote his large book on money, seven years later, following the so-called Great War, he came out with another book. Here he tipped his hand. It was Nation, State, and Economy. The book explained that democracy of the sort being talked about in the world absolutely required the right of secession for language groups no matter how small they might be. He further pointed out that self-determination and socialism are utterly incompatible. The only system compatible with freedom and true democracy, Mises wrote, was capitalism.
Though Mises had already been denied a paid position at the University of Vienna, this is when the storm clouds began to gather around his career, as Guido Hulsmann documents in his biography of Mises. The clouds burst after 1920, when Mises wrote his proof that socialism was not an economic system at all, but a recipe for the total destruction of economics and civilization itself. His logic was impeccable and the argument incredibly effective. He had refuted an obsession of intellectuals that dated back to the ancient world.
This was unforgivable. The cries that he stop talking about these things and stick to economics grew louder. But Mises didn't back down. Two years later, his full book on socialism came out. Then he tackled economic method. Then, eventually, his fully treatise on human society came out. It was called Human Action. This book is the one that established him as one of the great thinkers in history. It was also the book that finally killed his career.
So why did he do it? There were three reasons. First, scholarly integrity demanded that he follow all the implications of the theory. Second, telling what is true is the moral thing to do, and it is heroic to do it, especially when you realize that doing so will harm you personally. Third, no one else was saying what Mises had to say, so therefore it was up to him to do so.
It was the same, of course, with Murray Rothbard. He told the story to an interviewer, granting that he had never been careful in grooming his career to the establishment's liking. He told Bob Kephart in a letter that he was warned early on to never attack individuals but only ideas. He rejected that advice because he thought it was important to alert the people to the existence of a ruling class that used the state to loot us. You can't draw attention to the existence of such a thing without naming names.
It was the same with his views concerning anarchism. He was told that pushing this idea would ruin his scholarly career. Then he was told to stop distinguishing the Austrian from the Chicago School, since that broke up the image of one big free-market school. Then he was told to stop talking about war and peace since that would wreck his image among conservatives.
To be sure, he knew this was good career advice. So why did he reject it? Why did he consistently take the wrong course?
Murray explains:
I like to think that the main reason is one that moved me a great deal when I read about it in Garlund's life of the great Swedish 'Austrian' economist, Knut Wicksell. Wicksell was asked: 'Here you are, a great economist, and yet you're getting yourself always into trouble, and ruining your scholarly image, because of all the crazy radical things you're doing.' ... [Why?] And Wicksell answered simply: 'Because nobody else was doing it.'
For me that summed it up. If there had been lots of libertarians who were anarchists, lots who were antiwar, lots who named names of the ruling elite, lots attacking...Friedman, etc., I might not have made all these choices, figuring that these important tasks were being well taken care of anyway, so I may as well concentrate on my own 'positioning.' But at each step I looked around and saw indeed that nobody else was doing it. So therefore it was up to me.
Of course, Rothbard's sacrifice cleared the way for future generations to advance these ideas with relative safety. Today, there are many Austrians, anarchists and pro-peace libertarians in academia, journalism and other mainstream fields. Many are outspoken, and these ideas are being circulated.
But do they know that Rothbard is their benefactor in this respect, too? Most likely not. But it takes such people to pave the way, with their own lives, so that the world of ideas can be safe for others in the future.
This is the only reason that someone like Mises or even Rothbard seems less radical to us than they did in their day. What they said was shocking and alarming, completely unsettling to a whole generation. And they paid a huge personal price. Today we look at this and wonder how it could be that Mises suffered so much and so personally for having opposed socialism, or Rothbard for having opposed the state. But the reason it seems surprising to us is precisely because their actions and words blazed new trails that we now safely follow.
And so it is with Walter Block. He was a graduate student studying economics when he slowly began to work on his side project of Defending the Undefendable. He saw all these peaceful activities being attacked daily in the press. The political culture was down on dope smoking, prostitution, littering, the male chauvinist, gypsy taxi drivers, profiteers, the middle man, speculators, importers, stripminers, scabs, money lenders, misers, inheritors, slumlords and even blackmailers. In each case, where society saw scandal, sin and criminality, Walter saw peaceful economic activity.
So he examined them one by one, and dispassionately. He brought the cool air of reason to each topic and did an analysis of each from the point of view of human choice. In the course of each defense, he illustrated economic principles by discussing a subject that was inherently interesting to the reader. So he ended up doing more than just rescuing these marginal people and activities from demonizing; he actually advanced sound economic thinking in the process.
But if Mises and Rothbard variously walked through fields of land mines, stepping on bombs others told them to avoid, Walter took this a step further. He sought out the fields, followed the map of where the mines where and hopped and skipped on them, practically dancing with glee!
No, he didn't stick to economics narrowly defined, and he didn't try to cram the whole of the human experience into a profit-maximizing framework. Instead, he used a robust theory of exchange and human action to explain how many behaviors that are frequently demonized are actually fine examples of how society manages to get by without the imposition of government rules and enforcement agents.
Walter really did show how the personal is the economic. He followed up on this book with several hundred scholarly articles on various topics, as well as many books. Two of his latest books published by the Mises Institute take on the subjects of discrimination and government road provision. Once again, these are subjects that there is no reason under the sun for him to talk about, except for the fact that no one else is writing about them, they need to be written about and it is the right thing to do.
Let me tell you something about Walter Block that few people know. As a graduate student, he was a successful landlord, already owning two significant apartment buildings. This young man was going to be a decent Donald Trump. But then he met Murray Rothbard and saw two paths before him. Fight for freedom or "get a phonecall at 2:00am from Mrs. Cohen about her broken refrigerator." Walter, society needs great landlords, but God bless you for taking the path you did.
This tendency has always been a feature of the Austrian School. It is not a school of narrow model builders but a school of broad-minded philosophers who offer a radical way of looking at the world. That is to say, they like to get to the root of things and explain the implications of what they find, no matter the personal consequences.
This is also one of the reasons for the dramatic growth of the Austrian School in our times. As a theory of real action, it applies to the real world in ways that are far more intense than the mainstream. You can see the difference in a conventional monetary history of the 20th century, which merely chronicles the ups and downs of a few statistics, and an Austrian version such as that written by Rothbard, which is a real human drama.
Austrian economics is not just economics. It is a theory of human action itself. And this is why the Austrian School continues to grow, despite all the attempts to smear it, put it down, make it go away and otherwise marginalize its thinkers and writers. Consider that this has been going on for well more than a century, beginning with the phrase Austrian School itself, which was coined by the German Historical School with the implication that Austrians were inferior in every respect to Germans.
The attempt hasn't worked over the long run. It does and can work in one lifetime, however, and individual Austrians have often paid a high price for refusing to think as they are told. In the case of Mises, it was not a parlor game. He put his very life on the line in his decision to speak the truth. But extend the analysis over several generations and you see a different picture of trailblazing a new mainstream of thought.
A few years ago, an image came out on the web that was supposed to depict a line of economists. They were all staring at a graph. When the line went up the economists would smile a bit. When it went down they would frown. That was the whole depiction.
Economics is very different in the hands of the Austrian tradition. It is something with powerful explanatory power that deals with the rise and fall of whole civilizations. It deals with gigantic issues and the smallest possible personal issues. It provides a window for looking at the world with intelligence and realism. And though science itself is values free, its practitioners never are. They bring the values of peace, prosperity, and freedom to the mix and provide us with a beautiful vision of life itself.
It is for this reason that Mises ends his masterpiece with these words, which, like Walter Block, we must never forget: "Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man's human existence."
[This talk was originally prepared for delivery at the New Orleans Mises Circle, November 5, 2011.]
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/17/12 05:49 AM
From the foreword of "The Pure Time-Preference Theory of Interest":
"Consumers and entrepreneurs often speak of 'the cost of money' when referring to interest rates. Modern lenders also refer to the interest they charge as 'loan pricing.' Viewed this way, interest is viewed as if it were any other good. The cheaper a good the more affordable it is. And so the lower the interest rate, the more affordable. By dictating key interest rates, modern central bankers are believed to be alchemists, lowering interest rates to magically transform scarcity into prosperity.
As the world struggles to deleverage, with the market constantly forced to clear malinvestments of a continuous string of asset bubbles and crashes, central bankers continue their faith in the ancient tradition. All the economy needs is more monetary elixir. If the patient hasn't yet responded, it must mean larger doses are needed: Interest rates must be too high.
The mainstream view has devolved to the belief that zero is too high. In the spring of 2009, Harvard economist, and former adviser to President George W. Bush, N. Gregory Mankiw seriously wrote in the New York Times, 'It May Be Time for the Fed to Go Negative.' But who would lend money to only receive less in return?
Mankiw approvingly cites German economist Silvio Gesell's argument for a tax on holding money, an idea John Maynard Keynes himself approved of. Crazier still is Mankiw's idea that one of his graduate students ?oated, of turning interest-rate policy into an absurd game of chance."
Chapters:
1. Time Preference - By Murray N. Rothbard
2. Human Action: The Rate of Interest - By Ludwig von Mises
3. In Defense of the Misesian Theory of Interest - By Roger W. Garrison
4. The Pure Time-Preference Theory of Interest: An Attempt at Clari?cation - By Israel M. Kirzner
5. Interest Theories, Old and New - By Frank A. Fetter
6. Professor Rothbard and the Theory of Interest - By Roger W. Garrison
Click to view link
(PDF)
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Posted by memehunter on 02/16/12 02:47 PM
H: First, an asset-based currency of any kind is not debt, because it is an asset. It cannot be created out of debt, it has to be created out of work and real material.
M: If it is truly an asset-based currency, then it is not a debt-based currency, and the argument does not apply since it is, by definition, only applicable to interest-bearing debt-based currencies. No red herring.
H: The assertion that the concept of interest requires exponential growth and consumption of resources is based on a the fallacious presumption that a free market in currencies would be restricted to a single currency (and that debt can be monetized into that currency).
M: Whether there are several interest-bearing debt-based currencies or only a single one has little impact on the negative effects associated with interest.
H: Furthermore, the suggestion to forego interest yet still allow an elite group to print money from nothing and spend it does not offer an inherent solution to the exponential growth problem.
M: So is it better, in your view, to pay interest to 'an elite group'? This is what is happening at the moment. Again, the indefensible assumption that interest-free currencies are associated with coercion. Let's not compare apples and oranges.
H: Projecting the faults of the current system upon a proposed free market in order to promote an even more authoritarian alternative is either a badly mistaken line of reasoning or purposely disingenuous.
M: I have not promoted an 'even more authoritarian alternative', so your comment does not apply.
H: What 'seems' to you, ignores the plain fact that Ron Paul, Lew, et al, have never advocated a compound-interest debt-based currency imposed by force.
M: Whether imposed by force or not, a compound-interest debt-based currency will lead to instability and negative societal effects.
H: Quibbling about the cosmetic differences of one paper money scheme or another does not negate this fact.
M: As far as the means of exchange function is concerned, the nature of the currency (paper, gold, tally sticks) is totally secondary to how the money is issued (as debt, or as an 'asset').
Reply from The Daily Bell
One of his main point seems to be that interest is at least partially paid out of future asset-creation. Thus the creation and payment of interest is not a kind of "zero-sum" or scorched earth process, as you imply. Oops, you don't imply it. You state it with "mathematical certainty."
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Posted by Hoss on 02/16/12 10:07 AM
The argument that debt-based, interest-bearing currency is destined to implode due to compound interest is both a truism and a red herring.
Fiat currency issued as debt, made legal tender at the point of a gun, with compound interest due on it will clearly implode, either through hyperinflation or the rude seizure of all assets by the money-printer. I assume this concept is not at issue.
But it is a red herring based on false premises to assume the same fate awaits a free market in asset-based currencies.
First, an asset-based currency of any kind is not debt, because it is an asset. It cannot be created out of debt, it has to be created out of work and real material.
Second, any borrowing in any economy presumes that the loan will be paid back out of future production of real goods or other consideration. (So the lender accepts a promisory note, which is a kind of currency of itself. So, any economy will include some debt-based, interest bearing currency of some sort.) On a macro scale, any interest actually paid can only come out of an increase in production of real wealth.
The assertion that the concept of interest requires exponential growth and consumption of resources is based on a the fallacious presumption that a free market in currencies would be restricted to a single currency (and that debt can be monetized into that currency). It would not, and this is why Ron Paul and others do NOT advocate a government-mandated gold standard (and I have argued in the past that it is possible the elite are cooking up a pseudo-gold standard to replace paper, 'only you can't have the gold and you still must use their paper').
A free market would go around any exponential growth pratfall like water around a rock in a river. Borrowers would not borrow at rates they could not repay, and if they did, they would default. Ultimately, interest charged on loans would be limited to a rate in accordance with increasing productivity. Perhaps a new, risky, wildly profitable venture could promise a rate of return that would support compound interest, and if so, then good for both parties. I would predict that most run-of-the mill loans would likely be simple interest. I would further predict that with prices falling in accordance with increases in productivity, the amount of borrowing would decrease dramatically (it being already profitable to simply save). People would buy things from savings, property could be transferred to offsping, etc. And people would be free to make their deals in any commodity -- chickens, wheat, silver, gold, hours of work.
The perverse effects of the current fiat/debt economy seems to implant through lifelong experience some basic assumptions that might be radically different if we had economic freedom. Perhaps it is difficult to imagine a world where nothing can be loaned without first being earned or produced. One effect is that it would make more sense to save than to borrow. Most people would own their homes, rather than having the money-printing class holding title to most of the real estate. (In fact, though it might be possible to try it, I think it would prove impossible for a bank or other entity to create debt notes out of thin air and end up with title to all the property, as it is now.)
On this basis then, I contend that the assertion that a free market in currencies would require exponential growth to be false.
Initially, perhaps people accustomed to living in an inflationary debt-based economy might not realize the folly of their ways, but this mistake would be self-limiting. Without the ability to create currency out of nothing, any actions taken based on the faulty exponential growth expectation would quickly fail, because there would be no ability to put off the effects of the folly into the future or onto unwilling third parties, as it is now. What cannot happen, will not happen.
Furthermore, the suggestion to forego interest yet still allow an elite group to print money from nothing and spend it does not offer an inherent solution to the exponential growth problem. In fact, growth in the money supply under such a situation has been shown many times to be limited only by the avarice of the money-printers and their ability to enforce through use of arms the exclusive use of their counterfeit issue. Growth in currency quantity in excess of growth in assets equals impoverishment of the people forced to use the currency.
The bottom line is that when one person has to produce real wealth in order to obtain currency, and someone else can create the currency at zero cost and obtain real wealth for it, an injustice is being committed.
The assertion that freedom causes victims is questionable at best, but the use of this canard to justify purposely victimizing people outright as an answer to it is simply absurd. And paper money created from nothing is evil, much more evil than whatever 'disadvantages' freedom might bring. It is PURPOSELY evil.
Projecting the faults of the current system upon a proposed free market in order to promote an even more authoritarian alternative is either a badly mistaken line of reasoning or purposely disingenuous. "Austrianism seems to ignore the exponential growth and resulting instability associated with compound-interest debt-based currencies." What 'seems' to you, ignores the plain fact that Ron Paul, Lew, et al, have never advocated a compound-interest debt-based currency imposed by force. Red herring, based on a false implication.
If I strike it big and make gazillions, I will spend money to support Ron Paul and others like him, too. And some would try to taint them for it, using class warfare arguments. So be it. If I were a neocon and struck it big, and paid money to think-tanks to support my views, and then if some of the people I were paying started to point out the absurdity of my statist views, I suppose I would cut them off. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
My freedom goes to my ability to own myself and keep the fruits of my labor. Paper money is the largest-scale device yet concocted to steal the fruits of people's labor, and allow some people to own others. Quibbling about the cosmetic differences of one paper money scheme or another does not negate this fact. None of the arguments I've read here alter the fact that the better Austrian economists come out squarely in favor of my freedom, and none of those arguments have yet convinced me to willingly ask to have my freedom denied. Not even rush hour traffic. (Which is almost always made worse by statist attempts to 'solve' it through restrictions. Another red herring.)
Reply from The Daily Bell
Very good.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/16/12 09:37 AM
"Has the DB ever mentioned the collaboration between Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, and power elite member Lewis Lehrman? If the DB was aware of this collaboration, why did the DB claim that 'if they [the elites] HAVE decided that central banking is compromised by the Internet Reformation, you can rest assured, they have not done so within the context of coordinating their strategies with Rothbardian Austrians'?"
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"Rothbardian Austrians", in essence, have been saying the same things about central banking, fiat-money, gold, the business cycle, money power, etc. time and again, for decades, way before the Internet was launched, of course.
You're nuts, at best.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/16/12 08:10 AM
DB: Your implication was quite clear that Lew Lerhman was approached by Ron Paul as a co-author of a book on gold.
M: No, the question of who approached whom was not even addressed in the Wikipedia quotes to which I linked. Please re-read my post at 02/15/12 05:27 PM.
DB: Again, you practice the art of rhetorical restatement. Rebutted, you merely repeat that you are correct without actually dealing with the substance of the rebuttal.
DB: Over and over, you repeat your initial factual errors as if repetition increases accuracy.
DB: You've consistently attacked the Austrian school (which you call "Austrianism" for some reason, presumably to conflate it with "Keynesianism,") tried to debunk its leading exponents, falsely implied that Mises was personally funded by David Rockefeller, maintained erroneously that Rothbard was a strong backer of CATO and a lifelong recipient of Koch dollars, insanely maintained that the school was founded in the late 1920s.
M: These claims have already been refuted on this thread and will not be revisited unless new and significantly relevant information is provided.
I note that 'Austrianism' is a variant commonly found on the 'Net. Please Google "Austrianism" - you will find tens of thousands of cites.
As this debate is now drawing to a close, I would like to ask the following questions to the DB:
1. Why does the DB keep insisting that 'power elites REALLY dislike Austrian economics'? This is, after all, the reason why I felt compelled to address this issue over the last few days - we would not be where we are now if the DB had presented the issue differently.
2. Has the DB ever mentioned that a super-PAC endorsing Ron Paul was generously funded by a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group? Isn't that a topic that would be of interest to DB readers, especially in light of the claim that elites dislike the Austrian/Libertarian movement?
3. Has the DB ever mentioned the collaboration between Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, and power elite member Lewis Lehrman? If the DB was aware of this collaboration, why did the DB claim that 'if they [the elites] HAVE decided that central banking is compromised by the Internet Reformation, you can rest assured, they have not done so within the context of coordinating their strategies with Rothbardian Austrians'?
Reply from The Daily Bell
1. Why does the DB keep insisting that 'power elites REALLY dislike Austrian economics'? This is, after all, the reason why I felt compelled to address this issue over the last few days - we would not be where we are now if the DB had presented the issue differently.
DB: Yes, you would not have had the opportunity to claim that Rothbard was enamored of CATO throughout his professional career (false) that David Rockefeller personally funded Ludwig von Mises (false until you prove otherwise) and that the Austrian began in 1929 (false). Of course the Rothbardian/Misesian Austrian School was not a welcome addition to mainstream econometric economics. Common sense tells us that. Rockwell is still regularly attacked and the only reason there ARE Rothbardian Austrians in academe is because of the Mises Institute. To insist otherwise is simply a historical faslity.
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2. Has the DB ever mentioned that a super-PAC endorsing Ron Paul was generously funded by a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group? Isn't that a topic that would be of interest to DB readers, especially in light of the claim that elites dislike the Austrian/Libertarian movement?
DB: We didn't mention it because we didn't notice it. Even if we had noticed it, the idea that Thiel - having contributed a quarter of a PAC's money at arms length to a campaign on its way to raising US$30 or $40 million - was suddenly a noteworthy "insider" member of Paul's campaign would likely not have occurred to us. There's no evidence of inordinate input into the campaign that we know of. You're the one making accusations. Prove it.
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3. Has the DB ever mentioned the collaboration between Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, and power elite member Lewis Lehrman? If the DB was aware of this collaboration, why did the DB claim that 'if they [the elites] HAVE decided that central banking is compromised by the Internet Reformation, you can rest assured, they have not done so within the context of coordinating their strategies with Rothbardian Austrians'?
DB: The "collaboration" as you put it, was the result of an involuntary marriage because of the creation of a committee. Paul did not pick Lerhman to be his co-author as you implied strictly on a voluntary basis. If there were truly collaboration one would expect continued professional affiliations - not just as regards Lerhman but a panoply of power-elite individuals. We don't see it. Here are some of the important Misesian names (below). Is this a who's who of the Council on Foreign Relations?
Administration
Douglas French, President
Patricia Barnett, Vice-President
Jeffrey Tucker, Editorial Vice-President
Lew Rockwell, Chairman
Senior faculty
Walter Block
Thomas DiLorenzo
Jeffrey Herbener
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Distinguished Fellow, former editor, Journal of Libertarian Studies
Peter G. Klein
Roderick Long, former editor, Journal of Libertarian Studies
Ralph Raico
Joseph Salerno
Mark Thornton
Thomas Woods
Yuri Maltsev
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Posted by memehunter on 02/16/12 02:40 AM
DB: The Case for Gold was the minority report of Reagan's gold commission. Ron Paul did NOT pick Lew Lerhman to be his co-author. Lerhman was APPOINTED to the commission.
M: The DB stated, in reply to my post at 02/15/12 01:45 PM, that 'if they [the elites] HAVE decided that central banking is compromised by the Internet Reformation, you can rest assured, they have not done so within the context of coordinating their strategies with Rothbardian Austrians.'
I have shown convincingly, using material available on Wikipedia, that SOME elites did collaborate with Rothbardian Austrians on promoting a return to a gold standard. That this seems to be a long-term strategy of at least SOME elites is evidenced by Lehrman's own consistency over the last 30 years, including his predictions that 'We will return to the gold standard within five years'.
It is quite clear that, regardless of the details of the collaboration between Lehrman, Paul, and Rothbard, the DB's statement (as quoted above) has been essentially disproven.
DB: As for the rest of this nonsense, it is merely a rehashing of what we've already rebutted. You were apparently incorrect about Thiel: acting as a third-party (not directly involved) he contributed 25 percent of the Liberty Pac's funds, not nearly 100 percent as you first stated.
M: I will limit my rehashing to pointing out that the FoxTV quote I used mentioned the following:
'In Ron Paul's corner is the "Endorse Liberty" group, which reported about $1 million raised for 2011. The group is supported almost exclusively by Peter Thiel, a hedge fund manager who co-founded PayPal.'
If the Buzzfeed quote (and others available on the 'Net) refers only to 2011, then it seems plausible that Thiel contributed most of the money for 'Endorse Liberty' during that period at least.
The Reuters link provided by the DB shows different numbers, but does not claim to refer only to 2011 and does not list the amount given by Thiel himself.
I believe that we should agree to disagree in this case (unless new and relevant information is provided), because the sources we are using are possibly inaccurate themselves and in any case do not seem to refer to the same period. I do not think that either side can make a clear case that the other side is writing nonsense. In any case, even the Reuters article linked by the DB mentions Thiel prominently, including a quote by Thiel in support of Ron Paul, so we can at least agree on that.
DB: Presumably you would make the case that human action and the business cycle are both the work of secretive Austrian elites that have decided the best way to implement a dialectic is to first destroy it!
M: I have written, and will repeat, that it is very possible that the truth content of Austrian economics is higher than that of other schools. DB elves and feedbackers should take note that my aim is not, for the most part, to question the truth content of Austrianism, but to show that it has been continuously supported, over a long period, by at least SOME factions of the power elites.
Readers may ask, how can Austrianism be part of a dialectic if its truth content is actually fairly high?
First, like Keynesianism, Austrianism seems to ignore the exponential growth and resulting instability associated with compound-interest debt-based currencies. Mike Montagne, Chris Martenson, and others have provided decisive evidence (including empirical data, especially in the case of Martenson) to show that this exponential growth is actually occurring as we speak and is not merely a theoretical construct.
It is important to understand that because this is a concept based purely on mathematical principles, the exponential growth will occur with any interest-bearing debt-based currency, regardless of who issues the currency (government of private banks) and irrespective of the nature of the currency (paper, gold, private gold standards, tally sticks, or sea shells) - I repeat, as long as the currency is issued as debt and bears interest.
More generally, both Keynesianism and Austrianism tend to ignore or minimize the negative effects of interest on society at large, even though interest is surely one of the primary weapons of Money Power, when combined with control of the money supply. I, and others, have documented these effects extensively elsewhere on the DB.
Second, and as I wrote previously on the DB:
'The Austrian school seems to ignore the fact that, when two parties agree on a voluntary transaction (an example of freedom of choice), this constitute a forced choice (and sometimes an unwanted one) on other parties operating in the same market. Thus, "freedom" is a subjective concept, depending whether a party is a "voluntary actor" or an "involuntary recipient" of a forced choice. It seems to me that the Austrian school always considers only the viewpoint of the "voluntary actor", and ignores the "involuntary recipients", as if their choice somehow did not matter or was subservient to that of the "voluntary actor". [... ]
Of course, these same rules (about subjectivity of freedom) also apply in coercive societies or in "semi-free markets", so this is not an indictement of free markets. This is simply to make people realize that the concept of freedom must be analyzed from several perspectives, and that it is not intellectually honest to claim to be "pro-freedom" if one refuses to consider these multiple perspectives.'
Feedbacker Abu Aardvark has written on this thread that this was a 'ludicrous statement'. Unfortunately, he does not provide arguments to support his contention. It is self-evident that choices involving a human community and affecting different people with different goals, will not be experienced in the same way by the 'voluntary actors' and the 'involuntary recipients'.
Ignoring obvious examples such as murder, rape, physical aggression, theft, verbal insults, and the like, more subtle cases can be found in the economic sphere, such as the decision of two or more parties to associate and form a cartel to the detriment of other market participants, or to undercut the prices of a competitor who refused to associate with this cartel.
Some commentators in the alternative media, such as Jesse, have in fact commented on potential problems resulting from a 'pure' free-market situation in which self-interest rules unchallenged (I must note that, if my statement was 'ludicrous', then I am in fairly good company):
Click to view link
'Anyone who thinks human systems function naturally well without rules and enforcement has never driven on a modern motorway in rush hour. To support this theory they must believe in the natural goodness and rationality of all people when motivated by self interest, which is the biggest sucker bet in history.
And when crime pays, it becomes prevalent. Bad behaviour that on the whole succeeds drives out the good, making it impractical. This is the lesson of the recent financial crisis.
Good government takes hard work and constant renewal and reform. Human systems do not maintain themselves, and are almost never self-improving, but rather given to entropy, manipulation, and deterioration.'
As a DB feedbacker pointed out to me privately, it is very possible that the Austrian School's primary philosophical objective was to erode sovereignty and trade barriers. The free-market perspective and lack of government control is obviously useful in this regard. Additionally, this provides a convenient answer when the government façade of benevolence becomes obviously false - governments would be allowed to fall by the wayside but Money Power would continue its unabated dominance.
Reply from The Daily Bell
I have shown convincingly, using material available on Wikipedia, that SOME elites did collaborate with Rothbardian Austrians on promoting a return to a gold standard. That this seems to be a long-term strategy of at least SOME elites is evidenced by Lehrman's own consistency over the last 30 years, including his predictions that 'We will return to the gold standard within five years'.
DB: Your implication was quite clear that Lew Lerhman was approached by Ron Paul as a co-author of a book on gold. When it is pointed that Ron Paul essentially had no choice in the matter because Lerhman was already on the committee where he served, you ignore this point and simply restate your initial thesis. Lerhman, by the way, wants nations to "set" a gold conversion rate on the way to returning to gold convertability. From what we can tell, Ron Paul is his most recent legislation does not. That's a huge difference, and one you haven't noticed in your zeal to compare Austrian economics to a Bilderberg meeting.
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It is quite clear that, regardless of the details of the collaboration between Lehrman, Paul, and Rothbard, the DB's statement (as quoted above) has been essentially disproven.
DB: Again, you practice the art of rhetorical restatement. Rebutted, you merely repeat that you are correct without actually dealing with the substance of the rebuttal.
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M: I will limit my rehashing to pointing out that the FoxTV quote I used mentioned the following: 'In Ron Paul's corner is the "Endorse Liberty" group, which reported about $1 million raised for 2011. The group is supported almost exclusively by Peter Thiel, a hedge fund manager who co-founded PayPal.'
DB: Over and over, you repeat your initial factual errors as if repetition increases accuracy. You made the point that Thiel contributed nearly 100 percent of one million contributed to Ron Paul. We pointed out that the Pac has apparently raised four million and it is not at all clear that the four million comes from Thiel. In fact, we'd be surprised if it does. You want to "agree to disagree" - but there is nothing to agree about. Thiel doesn't run the Pac, as you implied, and there is no evidence that we're aware of that he's giving orders to the Ron Paul campaign simply because of a single large contribution. In fact, Ron Paul has raised something like US$26 million, much of it from small donors via money bombs.
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I have written, and will repeat, that it is very possible that the truth content of Austrian economics is higher than that of other schools. DB elves and feedbackers should take note that my aim is not, for the most part, to question the truth content of Austrianism, but to show that it has been continuously supported, over a long period, by at least SOME factions of the power elites.
DB: You've consistently attacked the Austrian school (which you call "Austrianism" for some reason, presumably to conflate it with "Keynesianism,") tried to debunk its leading exponents, falsely implied that Mises was personally funded by David Rockefeller, maintained erroneously that Rothbard was a strong backer of CATO and a lifelong recipient of Koch dollars, insanely maintained that the school was founded in the late 1920s. Apparently, this is your idea of how to support free-market concepts.
------
Readers may ask, how can Austrianism be part of a dialectic if its truth content is actually fairly high?
DB: Any normal reader who be asking who the hell you are and why you are continually making false statements in an attempt to bring into disrepute a mostly admirable school (in its modern incarnation, which you weirdly call "Austrianism") while maintaining its truth content, nonetheless "is actually fairly high."
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Austrianism seems to ignore the exponential growth and resulting instability associated with compound-interest debt-based currencies .... Second, and as I wrote previously on the DB: 'The Austrian school seems to ignore the fact that, when two parties agree on a voluntary transaction (an example of freedom of choice), this constitute a forced choice." ... This is simply to make people realize that the concept of freedom must be analyzed from several perspectives, and that it is not intellectually honest to claim to be "pro-freedom" if one refuses to consider these multiple perspectives.' .... 'Anyone who thinks human systems function naturally well without rules and enforcement has never driven on a modern motorway in rush hour. To support this theory they must believe in the natural goodness and rationality of all people when motivated by self interest, which is the biggest sucker bet in history."
DB: In a free market, people have the right to charge interest if they wish, which recognizes the advantage of the time value of money (having it now as opposed to having it sometime in the future). It is economically illiterate to insist that people "cannot" do as they choose in a free market. As for the canard that a decision between two people may disadvantage a third, well this is indeed a possibility. However, there is nothing stopping the "third" person from creating his or her own relationships in response to the decisions of the first two. Alternatively, in anarcho-capitalist society, the person might seek to have his interests upheld in some sort of private judicial forum. If all else fails, physical force is a fallback ... if the person in question is being directly attacked.
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Bad behaviour that on the whole succeeds drives out the good, making it impractical. This is the lesson of the recent financial crisis. Good government takes hard work and constant renewal and reform. Human systems do not maintain themselves, and are almost never self-improving, but rather given to entropy, manipulation, and deterioration.'
DB: Good government like bad government is the use of state force to enforce the will of those who control it. You are quite partial to this idea because you are partial to authoritarianism generally. Anybody aware of the tenor of your arguments would come to this conclusion.
-----
As a DB feedbacker pointed out to me privately, it is very possible that the Austrian School's primary philosophical objective was to erode sovereignty and trade barriers. The free-market perspective and lack of government control is obviously useful in this regard. Additionally, this provides a convenient answer when the government façade of benevolence becomes obviously false - governments would be allowed to fall by the wayside but Money Power would continue its unabated dominance.
DB: The idea that the concepts of the business cycle and human action were presented to enhance and support Money Power is so ludicrous it really doesn't warrant serious discussion. Wonder who the "DB feedbacker" was, by the way. You're having teleconferences now!
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Posted by memehunter on 02/15/12 05:27 PM
DB: Your implication is that the Bilderberg Thiel is running the PAC and coordinating his nefarious activities with Ron Paul. When it is pointed out that Thiel's donation is only part of a much larger pile of cash, apparently, and that he has no direct influence over the PAC, much less Ron Paul, you suddenly start to equivocate. It's easier to make false implications when no one is answering back.
M: Again, for the last time, I refer to material previously mentioned on this thread which clearly suggests that super PACs are often closely linked to particular candidacies, and that Thiel was the largest donor to the super PAC founding Ron Paul. This issue will not be explicitly revisited unless new and significantly relevant material is provided.
Source: Wikipedia
Click to view link
'Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties since they are "independent". However, many people held a view early in the 2012 campaign that a candidate may "talk to his associated super PAC via the media. And the super PAC can listen, like everybody else."
[…]
'Even absent a formal connection to a campaign, super PACs openly supported particular candidacies.'
Source: Buzzfeed (and elsewhere on the 'Net)
Click to view link
'The largest donor to a SuperPAC supporting Ron Paul is Peter Thiel, the sort of ultra-wealthy, super-national figure Paul and his supporters love to hate.'
DB: But if they HAVE decided that central banking is compromised by the Internet Reformation, you can rest assured, they have not done so within the context of coordinating their strategies with Rothbardian Austrians.
M: Let's introduce a new and important character into the discussion, Mr. Lewis Lehrman.
'In 1972 Lehrman founded the Lehrman Institute, a public policy think tank in New York City which focused on the study of economic and foreign policy from an historical perspective. […] Washington political columnists Evans and Novak reported that Ronald Reagan considered naming him Secretary of the Treasury before selecting Donald T. Regan.
Lehrman is a former President of Rite Aid and conservative activist. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Project for the New American Century, as well as a Trustee to the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Lehrman was a managing director of Morgan Stanley in the late 1980s. After Morgan Stanley, in 1991, he established an investment company, L.E. Lehrman & Co. He was also an investor in George W. Bush's Arbusto Energy. […]'
Source: Wikipedia
Click to view link
Morgan Stanley, PNAC, potential Secretary of the Treasury, etc…: I think we all agree that Mr. Lehrman is at home in power elite circles.
Now, we also learn the following, again from Wikipedia:
Click to view link
'Lewis E. Lehrman was a member of the U.S. Gold Commission in 1981 with Congressman Ron Paul. In 1982, they co-authored the book The Case for Gold with a team of economists that included Murray Rothbard. Lehrman's singular point of view appears in many periodicals including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Review and Money and the Coming World Order (1976) originally published by the New York University Press.'
Elite member Lewis Lehrman, who presumably knows what he is talking about, recently predicted the following during an interview with Judge Napolitano on FreedomWatch on August 18, 2011: 'We will return to the gold standard within five years.'
Source: The Gold Standard Now, affiliated with the Lehrman Institute
Click to view link
So, essentially, elite member Lehrman not only co-authored a book (in 1982) with Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard advocating a return to a gold standard, he now predicts that this will take place within the next five years.
Crucially, it seems that these long-term elite plans were in fact coordinated with 'Rothbardian Austrians', contrary to what the DB stated.
DB: To state as you have that the top elites have been supportive of Rothbard and Rockwell is plain nuts. There is NO evidence for it. NONE.
M: To recap, I have already shown that Rothbard was a core member of CATO, was funded by the William Volker Fund, and gave speeches and attended Mont Pelerin meetings (see my summary posted on the 02/12/12 at 07:03 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread). I have now provided substantial evidence, using information gathered on Wikipedia, that Rothbard and Paul collaborated with power elite member Lewis Lehrman on a long-term strategy to promote and eventually implement a gold standard.
DB: You have provided NO documented evidence that Rothbardian Austrians are tools of an elite Hegelian dialectic. You were wrong about CATO, incoherent about the Austrian school generally and anybody who knows anything about these issues would reject your contention that Rockefeller personally funded Mises while he taught in America.
M: About Rothbardian Austrians, see above. About Mises, he may not have been funded personally by Rockefeller, but DB collaborator Richard Ebeling has indicated that Mises was dependent for several years on funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition, David Rockefeller himself stated, in an interview with Mark Skousen, that he considered himself a follower of the Austrian school of economics and that he had been tutored by Hayek (again, I refer readers to my summary posted on the 02/12/12 at 07:03 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread).
Reply from The Daily Bell
1. Every time you write something it turns out to be half-truth at best. The Case for Gold was the minority report of Reagan's gold commission. Ron Paul did NOT pick Lew Lerhman to be his co-author. Lerhman was APPOINTED to the commission. When you leave out these facts, and you do all the time, one can be pardoned for believing you are simply acting in bad faith.
See this, from Amazon ...
Click to view link
In 1982, Ron Paul served on the U.S. Gold Commission to evaluate the role of gold in the monetary system. In fact, the Commission was his idea. It was carrying forth a promise made in the Republican platform. Ron couldn't pick the members, so from the beginning, the deck was stacked. The majority was dominated by monetarists, who saw gold as too scarce and paper as just fine. Ron Paul's team was ready, however, with this marvelous minority report. Rarely has a dissent on a government commission done so much good! The result was The Case for Gold, and it was the greatest result of the commission. It covers the history of gold in the United States, explains that its breakdown was caused by governments, and explains the merit of having sound money: prices reflect market realities, government stays in check, and the people retain their freedom. The scholarship and rigor impressed even the critics of the minority. Ron and Lewis Lehrman worked with a team of economists that included Murray Rothbard, so it is hardly suprising that such a book would result. It still holds up as an excellent blueprint for moving beyond paper money and into the age of sound money. In particular, Ron favors complete monetary freedom to use any commodity as money, to make contracts in any money, and an end to the monopolization and printing power of the Federal Reserve. There is a strong piece of history in this book. Not since the 19th century has a political figure made such a sweeping and devastating case for radical monetary reform. This congressman ran circles around even the experts at the Fed.
Paul is remarkably consistent. He is today calling for monetary competition and believes (simply) that money metals will find their place in a free-market monetary economy.
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As for the rest of this nonsense, it is merely a rehashing of what we've already rebutted. You were apparently incorrect about Thiel: acting as a third-party (not directly involved) he contributed 25 percent of the Liberty Pac's funds, not nearly 100 percent as you first stated.
Ludicrously, you continue to insist that Rothbard was a great backer of CATO, when his feud with that organization is well known. From its very founding, he was uncomfortable with the Koch Brothers, and they STRIPPED HIM OF HIS SHARES when he quit. Some elite wheeler-dealer Murray R. turned out to be!
But the hits keep coming. You imply that Rockefeller was a personal "angel" of Ludwig von Mises - this despite the perfectly clear historical record that shows the Rockefeller Foundation apparently CUT Mises off; and you have NO evidence, none, that David Rockefeller himself, or any of the Rockefeller's, were personal benefactors of Mises. You cannot prove it; all you can do is repeat it.
Finally, even leaving aside the gold standard issue, you have no way of rebutting Mises great work "Human Action" which entirely discredits state activism and the great analysis of the business cycle that equally discredits central bank and statits economic manipulation in general.
Presumably you would make the case that human action and the business cycle are both the work of secretive Austrian elites that have decided the best way to implement a dialectic is to first destroy it!
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/15/12 04:01 PM
"By providing documented evidence that the elites have continuously and significantly supported Austrianism and Libertarianism, I hope to awaken people to the sad truth that these movements, alluring as they may be, are still part of a Hegelian dialectic controlled by the power elites. In our quest for truth, and 'true' freedom, it is in our interest to identify this dialectic, so that we can rise above it and look for authentic solutions, instead of remaining mesmerized by seductive illusions which merely serve to keep us enslaved and to condition our minds for the upcoming agenda of the power elites."
-------------------
Wash, rinse, repeat. You submitted your "authentic solutions" a bunch of times already:
"Interest-free" government fiat-money, a "minimum of coercion by government", abolishment of gold as a means of payment and and what have you.
However, you failed to explain so far ...
a) how, exactly, your "authentic solutions" would advance freedom.
b) if this "Austrian/Keynesian dialectic" existed - as a means of the elite that is - how come they never came up with a "solution/synthesis"? How come, then, that they promote, live and breath ONLY ONE of the alleged "sides" of the asserted "dialectic"?
But then again, maybe you really peddle this anti-freedom agenda so feverishly in order to establish just how absurd and indefensible it is to maintain that there is indeed such a thing as a legitimate rule of men over men.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/15/12 01:45 PM
DB: This post is just like your claims that Rothbard was a big booster of CATO or that the Austrian School was an outgrowth of the 20th century pan-European movement. It is a mish-mosh of outright falsehoods and half-truths.
M: I have stated clearly that I have no intention of revisiting old discussions over and over again, and then be accused of clogging threads.
So, once and for all:
1. 'Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard was a core member of Cato's founding group and coined the institute's name. Rothbard served on its board until leaving in 1981.[25]'
Source: Wikipedia
Click to view link
For all future claims by the DB or other feedbackers that it is an 'outright falsehood' to claim that Rothbard was a big booster of CATO (regardless of how they eventually parted ways), you are referred in advance to this passage on Wikipedia.
2. Mullins did not claim explicitly that the Austrian School of Economics was founded in the 1920s (as the DB first inaccurately asserted), he only claimed that it was an outgrowth of the pan-Europe movement, which is admittedly inexact but definitely not 'an outright falsehood' given the numerous documented connections between Hayek, Mises, and pan-European globalists (for more on this, I refer readers to my recapitulative post at 02/12/12 07:03 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread).
If the DB or any feedbacker wishes to further question these two points, they are implicitly referred to the present post. I will not explicitly address these two points in the future, unless new and significantly relevant information is presented.
DB: 1. You say the Liberty SuperPac has raised US$1 million, almost all from Thiel. Not true. From Reuters: "Releasing the donor list before officially filing with the Federal Election Commission, Endorse Liberty founders said they raised $3.9 million to support Paul, who failed to win any of the first three state-by-state Republican nominating contests."
M: I am not in a position to say whether the Reuters' report is more accurate than the FoxTV report I quoted. Assuming it is, does Reuters tell us how much of the $3.9 million comes from Thiel? Can the DB provide a link to the Reuters' quote?
DB: 2. The Liberty Super PAC, was apperently founded by Internet advertising veteran Stephen Oskoui and entrepreneur Jeffrey Harmon not by Thiel.
M: None of the sources I quoted made the claim that Thiel founded the Liberty Super PAC. The DB elves may wish to double-check these sources before claiming that I provide 'outright falsehoods'.
DB: 3. Ron Paul's Masonic ties do NOT make him a Bilderberger or an evil Illuminated one and you have no evidence he is a Satanic messenger of mind control. If you do, prove it.
M: Readers can research these topics by themselves and make up their own minds. As I said, I will restrict myself to elements that are relevant to the present discussion.
DB. 4. All we can go by is whether Paul's rhetoric and his voting record are congruent, and they are. He's called for the removal of foreign military bases and reportedly a US$1 trillion cut in Leviathan. No other candidate has remotely espoused these views. He's written a book called "End the Fed."
M: These positions are certainly laudable. However, I don't see how this disproves in any way my claim that 'SOME elites support Austrian economics' (and, I may add, 'Libertarian positions'), especially when combining the information I gave on the present thread to that provided in my recapitulative post at 02/12/12 07:03 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread.
Moreover, can the DB prove or at least come up with convincing arguments to show that no faction of the power elites could possibly be wishing to 'End the Fed'? We have talked on these pages about plans for a global currency, possibly involving a gold standard of some sort. At first glance, such plans do not seem incompatible with the idea of ending the Fed.
DB: 5. As for Austrians, we made no misstatement. Up until the Mises Institute began to coordinate academic progress, there were but a handful of Austrian academics in economic departments in the US and abroad. That's because the elites disliked Austrian economics and didn't want the school to make any formal progress.
M: I tend to disagree, given that the evidence I have provided over the last few days on the DB evidently show that Austrian economics, marginalized as they may have been at times, have been continuously supported by at least SOME factions of the power elites over the last 75 years or so. The William Volker Fund, whose role has apparently been neglected even in the alternative media (at least judging from my personal research on the topic), seems to have played an important behind-the-scenes role in that regard.
DB: But their messaging has been consistently pro-freedom and focused on re-establishing liberty. It's a shame you spend so much time tearing it down.
M: By providing documented evidence that the elites have continuously and significantly supported Austrianism and Libertarianism, I hope to awaken people to the sad truth that these movements, alluring as they may be, are still part of a Hegelian dialectic controlled by the power elites. In our quest for truth, and 'true' freedom, it is in our interest to identify this dialectic, so that we can rise above it and look for authentic solutions, instead of remaining mesmerized by seductive illusions which merely serve to keep us enslaved and to condition our minds for the upcoming agenda of the power elites.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Again, why you persist in these half-truths and fabrications is beyond us.
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1. 'Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard was a core member of Cato's founding group and coined the institute's name. Rothbard served on its board until leaving in 1981.[25]'
DB:"The "Kochtopus" is a derogatory name coined by the late Samuel Edward Konkin, III, an anarcho-libertarian, for the group of libertarian organizations funded by billionaire Charles Koch ... To say the least, Rothbard's enthusiasm for Cato was not unbounded; and employees of the Kochtopus often treat Rothbard with hostility and contempt. Further, the Kochtopus has displayed unremitting hostility toward the organization with which Rothbard was associated from 1982 until his death in 1995, the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Click to view link
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2. Mullins did not claim explicitly that the Austrian School of Economics was founded in the 1920s (as the DB first inaccurately asserted), he only claimed that it was an outgrowth of the pan-Europe movement, which is admittedly inexact but definitely not 'an outright falsehood' given the numerous documented connections between Hayek, Mises, and pan-European globalists (for more on this, I refer readers to my recapitulative post at 02/12/12 07:03 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread).
DB: What is it about dates that you don't understand? The Austrian School was formulated in the 1800s. The Pan-European movement was apparently set up around 1929. That's something like a 40-50 year difference. To call the modern, Rothbardian/Austrian movement pan-European, or based on pan-Europeanism is insane.
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If the DB or any feedbacker wishes to further question these two points, they are implicitly referred to the present post. I will not explicitly address these two points in the future, unless new and significantly relevant information is presented.
DB: There is no need to "question" these two points. In fact they are not points at all ... They are weird imaginary narratives that exist only in your own head ...
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I am not in a position to say whether the Reuters' report is more accurate than the FoxTV report I quoted. Assuming it is, does Reuters tell us how much of the $3.9 million comes from Thiel? Can the DB provide a link to the Reuters' quote?
DB: Here's the Reuter's link: Click to view link
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DB: 2. The Liberty Super PAC, was apperently founded by Internet advertising veteran Stephen Oskoui and entrepreneur Jeffrey Harmon not by Thiel. None of the sources I quoted made the claim that Thiel founded the Liberty Super PAC. The DB elves may wish to double-check these sources before claiming that I provide 'outright falsehoods'.
DB: Your implication is that the Bilderberg Thiel is running the PAC and coordinating his nefarious activities with Ron Paul. When it is pointed out that Thiel's donation is only part of a much larger pile of cash, apparently, and that he has no direct influence over the PAC, much less Ron Paul, you suddenly start to equivocate. It's easier to make false implications when no one is answering back.
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3. Ron Paul's Masonic ties .... Readers can research these topics by themselves and make up their own minds.
DB: There you go again. You imply that Ron Paul is a nefarious Bilderberg/Mason and then when we address the point directly, you suggest that people research Masonry. What? Researching Masonry will reveal Ron Paul's ties to the Illuminati?
------
Moreover, can the DB prove or at least come up with convincing arguments to show that no faction of the power elites could possibly be wishing to 'End the Fed'? We have talked on these pages about plans for a global currency, possibly involving a gold standard of some sort. At first glance, such plans do not seem incompatible with the idea of ending the Fed.
DB: You've got to be kidding. The elites CREATED the FED and have now created over 100 central banks around the world, many reporting to the BIS. This is FACT. The PE is BEHIND central banking. Whether they now want to do something else since the Internet has exposed their previous strategies is another topic for another day. But if they HAVE decided that central banking is compromised by the Internet Reformation, you can rest assured, they have not done so within the context of coordinating their strategies with Rothbardian Austrians.
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I tend to disagree, given that the evidence I have provided over the last few days on the DB evidently show that Austrian economics, marginalized as they may have been at times, have been continuously supported by at least SOME factions of the power elites over the last 75 years or so. The William Volker Fund, whose role has apparently been neglected even in the alternative media (at least judging from my personal research on the topic), seems to have played an important behind-the-scenes role in that regard.
DB: You make no distinctions between Hayek and Mises and even Mises and Rothbard. To state as you have that the top elites have been supportive of Rothbard and Rockwell is plain nuts. There is NO evidence for it. NONE. Your CATO statements are demonstrably false, and you would have known that if you bothered to read up on CATO before you made them.
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By providing documented evidence that the elites have continuously and significantly supported Austrianism and Libertarianism, I hope to awaken people to the sad truth that these movements, alluring as they may be, are still part of a Hegelian dialectic controlled by the power elites.
DB: You have provided NO documented evidence that Rothbardian Austrians are tools of an elite Hegelian dialectic. You were wrong about CATO, incoherent about the Austrian school generally and anybody who knows anything about these issues would reject your contention that Rockefeller personally funded Mises while he taught in America.
So many sad things are going on in the world! The amount of energy you have expended in trying to tar freedom loving groups and people is really sad. We have no idea why you do it. Very strange.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/15/12 06:40 AM
"To avoid any misunderstanding: The take-home message is not "I am against Ron Paul and his positions", it is that ALL the leading politicians, including Austrians/Libertarians, are bought and paid for by the elites. Otherwise, they would not be "leading politicians".
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The "take-home message", eh? Yeah, during the last couple of months you peddled some "messages" to "take-home" indeed. Here's another one - five days ago:
"Austrian economics are not inimical to Money Power. Also, the Austrian school seems to ignore the fact that, when two parties agree on a voluntary transaction (an example of freedom of choice), this constitute a forced choice (and sometimes an unwanted one) on other parties operating in the same market. Thus, "freedom" is a subjective concept, depending whether a party is a "voluntary actor" or an "involuntary recipient" of a forced choice."
Click to view link
Now, this is the single most ludicrous statement I've encountered in the DB feedback section, ever, AND a very good sign at the same time. Look, whether you're an "ignorant heretic, and proud of it", a regular troll, a government sponsored disinfo-agent or just another "well-meaning" soul who thinks that at the end of the day people better not take care of their lives themselves - unsupervised, you are as anti-freedom as it gets.
So, if that's the best you can come up with - an impressive track record of distortions, false citations, straw men arguments, association fallacies, outright lies and preposterous nonsense like the above - it makes me feel very optimistic about the future.
But hey, maybe you're THE FREEDOM FIGHTER NR. 1 and you do all this to DEMONSTRATE, in a very inventive way, over and over again, just how absurd and indefensible it is to maintain that there is indeed such a thing as a legitimate rule of men over men.
Either way, thank you for making such a powerful case for freedom!
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Posted by memehunter on 02/15/12 02:08 AM
DB: Why this irrational hatred of freedom and free will?
M: I said already in my post at 02/14/12 04:35 PM, and will repeat it only once:
'The take-home message is not "I am against Ron Paul and his positions", it is that ALL the leading politicians, including Austrians/Libertarians, are bought and paid for by the elites. Otherwise, they would not be "leading politicians".
On the other hand, it IS irrational to claim, as this website does, that 'power elites dislike Austrian economics' (and more generally, Austrianism/Libertarianism). I am not spending much energy on other political candidates or other economic theories (i.e., Keynesianism) because I believe that most people here are already aware that these are creatures of the power elite, whereas naïve but misguided beliefs are still widely held on this website regarding Austrianism/Libertarianism.
DB: Can you prove Paul solicited Thiel's donations? They were given to a Super Pac that in turn is NOT coordinated with the Paul campaign. What a stretch.
Source: Wikipedia
Click to view link
'Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties since they are "independent". However, many people held a view early in the 2012 campaign that a candidate may "talk to his associated super PAC via the media. And the super PAC can listen, like everybody else." Individuals making claims like this included: Peter Grier (journalist); Rick Hasen (an attorney and contributor to the Election Law Journal who was described as being an election law expert),[17]; and Trevor Potter (a former chairman of the United States Federal Election Commission who acted as a consulting attorney for TV satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert).[18]
Even absent a formal connection to a campaign, super PACs openly supported particular candidacies. Typically, they did so by pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads.[19] The New York Times described in February 2012 several super PACs that were run or advised by a candidate's former staff or associates.[20] Some PACs attracted large donations from a candidate's associates. For example, by January 2012, Romney's associates contributed nearly $5 million dollars for his 2008 and 2012 runs.[21] In 2011, President Barack Obama received $4.4 million from one Super PAC.[22]'
Source: FoxTV
Click to view link
'In Ron Paul's corner is the "Endorse Liberty" group, which reported about $1 million raised for 2011. The group is supported almost exclusively by Peter Thiel, a hedge fund manager who co-founded PayPal.'
DB: You will apparently stop at nothing to discredit Ron Paul and Austrian free-market thinking in general.
M: There is way more 'dirt' on Ron Paul (about his associations with Freemasonry, or Youtube videos showing Paul making satanic hand signs) that is freely available online. The same could be said about some dubious political associations of Rothbard and Rockwell by the way. The DB knows full well that I restricted myself to elements that were relevant to our discussion. Besides, as explained above, the point is not to discredit specifically Austrianism/Libertarianism.
DB: Do you have a military background? Intelligence? Do you work for the Pentagon or foreign intel?
M: In this case, the DB actually knows about my background, career, and inexistent 'funding' outside of my salary, and so this question is dishonest. On the other hand, we do not know much about the background of the DB elves (but I do agree with the DB's point made earlier about the respect of privacy, from both sides, and so I think that while these types of questions are valid up to a certain extent, and I have also asked them on this website, both sides should refrain from going too far).
Reply from The Daily Bell
This post is just like your claims that Rothbard was a big booster of CATO or that the Austrian School was an outgrowth of the 20th century pan-European movement. It is a mish-mosh of outright falsehoods and half-truths.
1. You say the Liberty SuperPac has raised US$1 million, almost all from Thiel. Not true. From Reuters: "Releasing the donor list before officially filing with the Federal Election Commission, Endorse Liberty founders said they raised $3.9 million to support Paul, who failed to win any of the first three state-by-state Republican nominating contests."
2. The Liberty Super PAC, was apperently founded by Internet advertising veteran Stephen Oskoui and entrepreneur Jeffrey Harmon not by Thiel.
3. Ron Paul's Masonic ties do NOT make him a Bilderberger or an evil Illuminated one and you have no evidence he is a Satanic messenger of mind control. If you do, prove it.
4. All we can go by is whether Paul's rhetoric and his voting record are congruent, and they are. He's called for the removal of foreign military bases and reportedly a US$1 trillion cut in Leviathan. No other candidate has remotely espoused these views. He's written a book called "End the Fed."
5. As for Austrians, we made no misstatement. Up until the Mises Institute began to coordinate academic progress, there were but a handful of Austrian academics in economic departments in the US and abroad. That's because the elites disliked Austrian economics and didn't want the school to make any formal progress.
Here is Austrian Walter Block in 2005, in an article posted at Click to view link: "Consider first the progress we've made. Twenty years ago, there were only a handful of Austrians teaching and precious few graduate students working within the tradition. Today, there are hundreds of faculty positions around the world, in all departments, held by Austrians."
Click to view link
Sure, your background doesn't matter ... except one has to question your motives, whatever they are, for such a sustained attack on freedom and the few individuals leading the charge such as Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul. Are they perfect people? Of course not. Human beings are flawed. But their messaging has been consistently pro-freedom and focused on re-establishing liberty. It's a shame you spend so much time tearing it down.
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Posted by Snoobar on 02/14/12 10:09 PM
Hi Dotti,
The "presented" turned into "prevented" in the DB posting seems to be a glitch. The original LRC posting uses "presented"
Click to view link
Regards,
Snoobar
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Posted by Libertarian Jerry on 02/14/12 09:26 PM
I've been a reader of the Daily Bell blog for a long time and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of strange,weird and nonsensical people who comment on your Feedback page. It really is truly entertaining.
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Posted by rossbcan on 02/14/12 05:31 PM
Is it any surprise that some factions of 'big money' may want to preserve the freedom elements of the system that made it possible. Is EVERYONE good or evil based on their class, associations.
DB costs significant coin. Found a self-serving agenda, on their part yet.
The only way to truly 'taint by association' is by the ideas you associate with, tainting YOU.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/14/12 04:50 PM
DB: At this point you have zero credibility. As in "none."
At this point, I am not interested in getting in another debate about my credibility here. In the case of my post at 02/14/12 04:35 PM, which was a reply addressed to Abu Aardvark, I have provided detailed sources, and, when possible, the most authoritative ones. Regardless of my credibility, the information cited in my post can be freely accessed online, and doubtless many people have already done so judging from the number of cites on Google.
Reply from The Daily Bell
As we can see from this definition of a SuperPac (below), those who are in receipt of its largesse apparently can have NO direct coordination with it. And that's the Super Pac itself. Its donors are TWICE REMOVED. They contribute to the SuperPac not to candidates.
Can you prove Paul solicited Thiel's donations? They were given to a Super Pac that in turn is NOT coordinated with the Paul campaign. What a stretch. You will apparently stop at nothing to discredit Ron Paul and Austrian free-market thinking in general.
The question is why? Why this irrational hatred of freedom and free will? Do you have a military background? Intelligence? Do you work for the Pentagon or foreign intel?
Why are you so intent on casting aspersions on the modest progress that dedicated people have made in educating others about the possibility of more freedom, wealth and choices in their lives? Very sad.
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Click to view link
Definition of superPAC
What is a "superPAC"? What is the definition of the term "superPAC"?
The "superPAC" is a relatively new beast that emerged as a result of two court rulings, including an important 2010 ruling by the Supreme Court.
The "superPAC", which is officially known as an "independent expenditure-only committee", has become an increasingly popular method of influence for special interest groups.
The "superPAC" is like a traditional PAC (Political Action Committee) without many of the restrictions. For instance, a "superPAC" can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money for the sole purpose of supporting or opposing political candidates.
A "superPAC" can directly attack a political candidate. The only caveat is that a "superPAC" is not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties.
The "superPAC" will be an extremely crucial part of the 2012 Presidential election.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/14/12 04:35 PM
Ron Paul's Biggest Supporter Is A Bilderberger, International Financier
'The largest donor to a SuperPAC supporting Ron Paul is Peter Thiel, the sort of ultra-wealthy, super-national figure Paul and his supporters love to hate.
Thiel -- who gave $900,000 to the pro-Paul group Endorse Liberty -- made his fortune as the co-founder of PayPal; he was also an early investor in Facebook, and is now a major player in the world of high-tech venture capital. He's also a devoted libertarian and devoted Republican: He hosted a fundraiser for the confrontational gay conservative group GOProud at his grand apartment off Union Square in 2010.
Thiel is also a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group, the elite, invitation-only conference that's the frequent subject of conspiracy theories.
"They probably get together and talk about how they're going to control the banking systems of the world and natural resources," Paul said in 2008.
Thiel shares, though, Paul's anti-government, and anti-Establishment, impulses. He has funded a prize to encourage talented students to drop out of college, and is a major supporter of the cause of "Seasteading," creating independent, water-borne cities free of national law.'
Sources:
Buzzfeed (the article quoted above):
Click to view link
Wikipedia:
Click to view link
Official website of the Bilderberg meetings:
Click to view link
NB: A Google search on "Ron Paul funded by Peter Thiel Bilderberg" will give tens of thousands of cites, so the information is already out there. It's too late for "damage control". Internet Reformation indeed!
To avoid any misunderstanding: The take-home message is not "I am against Ron Paul and his positions", it is that ALL the leading politicians, including Austrians/Libertarians, are bought and paid for by the elites. Otherwise, they would not be "leading politicians".
Reply from The Daily Bell
Who knows what goes on in a campaign? One can only look at Ron Paul's record, which seems to conform to his rhetoric. However, YOUR rhetoric has been proven to be consistently suspect. You've stated that the Austrian School was an outgrowth of 1920's pan-Europeanism, that Murray Rothbard was a big fan of CATO and that Mises was personally paid off by Rockefeller. At this point you have zero credibility. As in "none."
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/14/12 05:26 AM
Well, feed(green)backers Anthony Migchels, The Black Memecreator, et al. would have none of it. They claim, dead earnest, that Mr. Rockwell, just like von Mises and Rothbard, were/are part of an elitist hegelian "austrian/keynesian" dialectic and that the only ("not ideal" though) solution would be to ... wait for it ... print "interest-free" money out of thin air, abolish gold as a means of exchange (but keep it as a store of value, maybe) and to give governments the power to exercise a "minimum" of coercion - just in case ... and we would live happily ever after.
No, I'm not kidding, unfortunately ...
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Posted by Jeanna on 02/13/12 08:48 PM
It is the very essence of human interaction that makes economic activity unmeasurable. An economic model is always predicated upon an assumed human response, which cannot be predicted. How do you measure, compute, analyze free choice? Which is, I suppose, the reason so many regulations are passed... to prevent free choice.
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Posted by Libertarian Jerry on 02/13/12 08:46 PM
Excellent article. The efforts of Lew Rockwell,over the years,in the fight for liberty have not only been exemplary but have born fruit in outstanding ways. There could be no better spokesman for freedom and liberty in our troubled times then Lew Rockwell. To paraphrase George Orwell, "to tell the truth in a world of deceit is an act of treason." If this be treason then make the best of it. Keep it up Lew.
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Posted by seer on 02/13/12 07:58 PM
Every government, of an advanced nation since recorded history, be it communism, socialism,a Republic,or a dictatorship or monarchy, has reaped upon itself more power and benefits than its populace at large received.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Austrian School of economics is a school of economic thought that advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments (see praxeology), the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have multispecific uses which must be aligned (see Austrian business cycle theory), and emphasizes the organizing power of the price mechanism (see economic calculation debate).[1] The Austrian School's views are outside of mainstream economics, and mainstream economists are generally critical of their methodology.[2][3] Austrian economists are generally advocates of laissez-faire policies.[4]
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