News & Analysis
The Anti-Freedom Movement States Its (Worst) Case? ... Austrians Vs. the Illuminati
Proof Libertarianism Is an Illuminati Ploy ... So Jewish Supremacism can be retraced directly to the Austrian Economics' main proponent himself (Murray Rothbard) ... Libertarianism and Austrian Economics are not the products of maverick free thinkers. On the contrary, all leading proponents of the movement were highly connected individuals. In the early years the Volker Fund made available vast sums of money, because Austrian Economics was considered the right answer to communism, to maintain the dialectic the Money Power needs (also see: 'Banker explained 'Occupy America' Scam'). Far from a fringe movement, Mont Pelerin Alumni collected no less than eight Noble Prizes. Alan Greenspan testified of its pervasive influence by saying in 2000: "the Austrian School have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country." In this day and age when communism is no longer considered a threat, but with Marxism/Liberalism/Political Correctness a strong force in Western nations, Libertarianism has found a new lease of life as a way co-opting the resistance in the Alternative Media. The dialectic continues unabated. – Henry Makow
Dominant Social Theme: Freedom is government?
Free-Market Analysis: Social credit entrepreneur Anthony Migchels has authored a screed at HenryMakow.com entitled "Proof Libertarianism is an Illuminati Ploy." He also thanks a fellow who has often provided controversial feedback here at the Daily Bell, "Memehunter."
We don't doubt that both Memehunter and Migchels mean well (in the sense that they wish for human beings to progress toward more tolerable and "just" living conditions, worldwide) but we are puzzled about why they (and others) believe that by attacking the evolution of free-market thinking they are providing a service to those who support freedom in the alternative media.
Migchels' article seems basically a restatement of another article by "Anonymous" that was published in May 2011 and has had circulation on such websites as the Democratic Underground. We have read other, similar statements recently on the Internet as well. So for purposes of identification, we will refer to those who espouse these views as "anti-libertarians."
It would be easy – too easy, in fact – to attack the motives and backgrounds of those who espouse these views – even Henry Makow himself, who is providing a platform for these perspectives and has his own problems of late. (Memehunter, too, with whom we are more than familiar.) But we will do our best in this article to restrict our criticisms to what has been actually presented.
One needs to combat pernicious ideas (in our opinion) with facts if possible rather than ad hominem arguments. First, let us figure out the background of "social credit." Here are excerpts of a profile of social credit's founder, C.H. Douglas, taken from Wikipedia (but seemingly well sourced nonetheless):
C. H. Douglas was born in either Edgeley or Manchester, the son of Hugh Douglas and Louisa Hordern. Few details are known about his early life and training; he probably served an engineering apprenticeship before building an engineering career that brought him to locations throughout the British Empire in the employ of electric companies, railroads, and other institutions ...
Douglas concluded ... the economic system was organized to maximize profits for those with economic power by creating unnecessary scarcity. Between 1916 and 1920, he developed his economic ideas, publishing two books in 1920, Economic Democracy and Credit-Power and Democracy, followed in 1924 by Social Credit. Freeing workers from this system by bringing purchasing power in line with production became the basis of Douglas's reform ideas that became known as Social Credit.
There were two main elements to Douglas's reform program: a National Dividend to distribute money (debt free credit) equally to all citizens, over and above their earnings, to help bridge the gap between purchasing power and prices; also a price adjustment mechanism, called the Just Price, which would forestall any possibility of inflation. The Just Price would effectively reduce retail prices by a percentage that reflected the physical efficiency of the production system.
Migchels has explained that his version of social credit is free-market oriented and "private," but Douglas's certainly does not seem to be. We can see from this brief description that Douglas apparently intended to use social engineering (government power) to redistribute wealth via a "national dividend" and also via his idea of a "just price" that would fix prices across a given society.
Of course, price fixing via force is likely, in our view, to further distort an economy, not bring it justice. As Adam Smith (and then others) showed, the only methodology of true economic growth resides in the marketplace itself, which can efficiently distribute capital via the Invisible Hand of competition. Without competition, one simply has the hand of man. The "hand of man" (government) murdered some 150 million people in the 20th century.
The articles of late, promoted by those we are calling "the anti-libertarians," seem to us to be espousing a power elite dominant social theme; they evidently seek to discredit about 50 years of theoretical progress in the freedom movement that has seen the rise of Austrian, free-market thinking and the spread of the concepts of human action and the business cycle.
Contrast free-market thinking with Douglas's theories of social credit. Human action, as conceived by the Austrians, points out that individuals are the prime actors within an economy. There is no such thing as "government," in fact. Government is "we" – individuals.
Our choices, in fact, seem relatively simple. Either individuals will work cooperatively and peacefully via enlightened self-interest to pursue their aims and goals or they will in some sense attempt to inflict their private agendas on others via force. In the modern era, this sort of force has been administered by government – what we call regulatory democracy. It is force, nonetheless.
Douglas and his theories are very obviously to be administered via official power. There is no other way that we can see to "redistribute wealth" via a "national dividend" than by taking money from some and giving it to others. His just price is surely not meant to be a "suggestion," either.
It seems to us that anti-libertarians who espouse social credit and other social-engineering schemes are inevitably suggesting that force be used to bring people in line with their views of how society should operate.
Is this an encouraging approach when it comes to reinforcing human freedom? We're more comfortable with the considerable body of modern libertarian thought that promotes individual liberty and the idea that people ought to organize societies as much as possible to reject coercion and violence.
In fact, free-market thinking is an ancient conversation. One can trace it back to the Greeks and likely beyond that. Modern free-market thinking may have gotten its start in Spain or in France where the French philosophists opposed Napoleon.
Adam Smith contributed to free-market thinking with his Wealth of Nations and later the Austrian free-market school developed the theory of marginal utility, which is the dividing line between static classical economics and neo-classical economics.
Neo-classical economics is based on the idea that markets provide price discovery. While rulers can fix prices by decree, such price-fixing is inevitably a wealth redistribution that takes wealth from its creators and hands it over to those who didn't create it and likely won't utilize it as efficiently.
Austrians such as Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wieser elaborated on free markets, entrepreneurship and the mechanisms of economic growth. The most famous 20th century exponents of Austrian economics were FA Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and, later on, Murray Rothbard.
Mises further developed the theory of human action that holds people themselves are the prime influencers of the economy (how could it be otherwise?). FA Hayek and Mises together developed the theory of the business cycle that shows clearly how central banks overprint money, leading first to booms and ruinous busts.
The only way to end the terrible (central banking) business cycle is to allow money to operate freely within a free-market environment. Fixing the volume or value of money via any government monopoly scheme is bound to cause more misery, not less.
Murray Rothbard is well known for his late 20th century influence, which included helping to found formal Libertarianism – an anti-government movement based on the principals of free-market economics – and participation in the founding of the Ludwig von Mises Institute as well.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute, styling itself as "anti-state, anti-war and pro-market," is also the brainchild of Lew Rockwell. Interestingly, while some of the modern progenitors of Austrian economics were Jewish, Lew Rockwell is a devout Catholic.
Catholicism is deeply rooted in Rockwell's conception of Austrian economics; he even identifies the Spanish Jesuits as playing a role in the founding of what eventually would become modern, free-market thinking.
Under Lew Rockwell, the Mises Institute and his own LewRockwell.com website, has recruited such intellectual "paleo-conservative" stars as Patrick Buchanan, whose Catholicism is very much part of his larger sociopolitical orientation, and Thomas Woods, a devout Catholic whose scholarly work has often focused on the Church via such books as How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization and The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy.
Ironically, it could be said that currently the thought leaders of free-market economics are increasingly Catholic: Anti-War's founder Justin Raimondo (a confidant of Rothbard's) was "raised Catholic" and Rockwell's Paleo-Conservative movement has a distinct Catholic subset. (Would the anti-libertarian crowd characterize them as crypto-Jews?)
This brings us, of course, to another disturbing facet of the current anti-libertarian movement – its determination to equate free-market thinking with a "Jewish Illuminati." Anti-libertarians seem to believe that because some modern Austrian economists were Jewish, the entire 2,000-plus-year-old evolution of free-market thinking is to be invalidated as a power-elite plot.
The argument currently being made is that the modern free-market philosophy is actually an elite creation intended to provide a dialectic between the forces of elite-managed totalitarianism and freedom-oriented thinkers such as Rothbard. These latter individuals are conceived as tools of the elite, intent only on confusing people and priming them for further anti-freedom takeovers.
It is ironic, however, that these arguments are being made by anti-libertarians who want to utilize government itself as a mechanism of monetary equality. The same modern history that shows us that governments conspired to murder some 150 million in the 20th centuryinforms us that government is not to be trusted when it comes to supporting and advancing the cause of liberty.
We are well aware that prominent alternative media facilities routinely characterize the evident and obvious Anglosphere conspiracy to create global governance as "Zionist." We have argued that this conspiracy is a good deal broader than a single religion or ethnicity.
The one-world-order conspiracy may have at its core a group of intergenerational families that control central banking around the world but it is aided and abetted, apparently, by factions of the Vatican and other religious elements as well as non-Jewish corporate, military and Intel enablers and colleagues.
To call this complex amalgam of interest and ethnicities "Zionist" is to simplify a complex phenomenon. Much as the Italian mafia hires Italians, so those involved in the one-world-order conspiracy prefer to work with people of their own religion and ethnicity. Those at the top are running a CRIMINAL conspiracy, not a religious one. These people USE religion, and even encourage anti-Semitism, ironically. They are not "of" religion, not by any means.
Nonetheless, the anti-libertarians continue to emphasize an apparently Zionist/Jewish argument by conflating the modern freedom movement with "Illuminati Jews." In our view, this does an injustice to liberty's greater conversation and even its modern, 500-year-old pedigree.
To buttress arguments that free-market thinking is a Jewish plot, anti-libertarians have now constructed a specious (in our view) alternative history of freedom's modern evolution. These articles tend to begin (nowadays) with someone called William S. Volker (1859-1947) "a wealthy German-Jewish businessman." Volker is supposed to have led the charge for an Illuminati-created freedom movement:
Far from defending freedom, the Illuminati created Libertarianism to reflect their Social Darwinian and racial supremacist ideology. With its opposite twin, Communism, they control the dialectic ... "These two contraries, like Bolshevism and ourselves, find their identity in the International."
According to anti-libertarians such as Memehunter, David Rockefeller himself personally funded Ludwig von Mises when he arrived in the United States, broke and out-of-work, and Volker, apparently a modern-day Illuminist, also funded von Mises as well as Murray Rothbard.
The anti-libertarians also argue that such entities as CATO, funded by the neo-libertarian Koch Brothers, are actually part of a larger elite dialectic. Of course, there is no doubt that the elites HAVE tried to set up a dialectic using various free-market elements and individuals.
From our perspective, FA Hayek cooperated with some of these efforts, as did the Chicago Freshwater School led by Milton Friedman. Friedman, for instance, could never bring himself to disavow central banking entirely, arguing instead for a "steady state" central bank that would mechanically inject a certain amount of money into the economy.
Some have made the same accusations about the Mont Pelerin Society and the Austrian element at George Mason, and its mission to "professionalize" Austrian economics. The answer to these charges, when it comes to the Rothbardian/Misesian School of Austrian, free-market economics, is fairly straightforward. Both Rothbard and Mises were fairly incapable of compromising their personal beliefs for social gain and evanescent wealth.
Mises himself disavowed the Mont Pelerin Society when he reportedly stormed out of a meeting shouting, "You are all socialists!" Mises, too, (contrary to Memehunter's assertions in these pages) was never funded directly out of David Rockefeller's pocket and eventually all funding from the Rockefeller Foundation is said to have been terminated.
Murray Rothbard was fired by the Volker fund honchos in the early 1960s, just as he was fired from CATO in the early 1980s (a few years after CATO's inception) by the Koch Brothers along with Lew Rockwell when the two men refused to significantly soften their "hard" freedom-oriented positions, especially as concerned their principled opposition to the elite's cash-cow, central banking. The result, in fact, was the Mises Institute.
None of this is hidden information. Rothbard, Rockwell (and Mises), determined to go their own way, rejected elite establishment funds and prominent elite positions. Rothbard eventually helped found the Libertarian Party, which is the precursor to the modern US anarchy movement. Mises, of course, created his masterwork, Human Action, (much hated by elites, as it remains formally unpublicized), along with the anti-central-banking business theory that has been driving the elite establishment nuts for decades.
Rockwell, a devout Catholic, has been significantly responsible for spreading the doctrine of freedom – real freedom – around the world for years via the Mises Institute and Lewrockwell.com. His Catholic colleague Justin Raimondo founded Anti-War.com.
Free-market thinking, a concept with a 2,000-year-old pedigree, has virtually exploded in the past decade thanks to the Internet. To argue that the current freedom movement is merely an outgrowth of a shadowy US "German-Jewish" banker, William Volker, is to entirely miss the point about what's going on.
Human beings are not perfect creatures, of course. The Rothbard Misesian focus on a gold standard runs counter to neo-Austrian thought on the value of competing currencies and even private fractional reserve banking. But Rothbard was apparently shifting his views on these issues before his death; Rockwell and libertarian Congressman Ron Paul have stated more flexible views as well.
Yet there is nothing remotely wrong with suggesting that gold and silver have a place within a free-market money environment. History shows that this is the case. However, any sort of mandated or government approved gold standard would be price-fixing and would present some of the same problems, sooner or later, as the current central banking regime.
Some other issues ... anti-libertarians believe that "most leading Libertarians are or were Jewish." But the modern movement of libertarian/conservative scholarship and principled anti-war activism is led by four Catholics, Raimondo, Rockwell, Buchanan and Woods. (Maybe freedom is not specifically a Jewish preserve after all ... )
Rothbard and Mises are said to have been funded throughout their careers by the Rockefellers and the Koch Brothers. But anyone who actually bothers to read the history of these relationships will find out that both scholars were fired by the very individuals and foundations that were supposedly their supporters.
Finally, as a free-market publication we should deal with the issue of Rothbard's "racialism" (whatever that means) as mentioned in several anti-libertarian articles. In fact, free-market theory tells us clearly that people are social and cultural animals.
People, in fact, tend to stick together and absent government coercion will seek out those of their own kind – whether it be as regards skin color, religious preference or various cultural elements.
This clear and salient observation can be lost in accusations of racism, but the principled libertarian stance is that people ought not to be forced to live in ways they don't want to or in places where they don't wish to. This no doubt is Rothbard's larger point, and certainly it's not racist to point it out. (Or certainly not more so than to point out that the founder of social credit apparently referred to the Protocols of Zion for inspiration.)
What is more disturbing than Rothbard's supposed "racialism" (in our view) is the growing drumbeat of anti-Jew prejudice within the context of the alternative 'Net media. Whether it's "Jewry" or assertions that "all Jews" subscribe to the mysterious Protocols of Zion, anti-Jew sentiment is definitely on the rise.
Here at the Daily Bell, we're starting to get our share of it. In fact, many who participate in DB's brief are not Jewish, either formally or informally. We believe, in fact, that the state of Israel should be secularized and we believe that at the core of the criminal power elite there is a significant Jewish element. We haven't been shy about stating it.
Our feedbacker "friend" Memehunter, who is apparently anti-Jew (though he claims to be Jewish), once pointed out on these pages that Austrian Economics was invented in the late 1920s as a result of a pan-European movement. He later partially retracted the statement, which he then tried to blame on the irrepressible and sometimes inaccurate Eustace Mullins.
We would tend to believe that such claims, because they are inaccurate (even profoundly ignorant), are bound to fail. In fact, Carl Menger, commonly held as the founder of the school, did not approach his investigations into marginal utility religiously but as an economist.
Now, it's been pointed out that Menger and other early Austrians were involved with the power elite of the day. But this, too, is a kind of specious logic. The kind of classical liberalism and republicanism that is reflected in Austrian, free-market economics goes back to the Greek "Golden Age" and beyond.
So ... the conversation of freedom is an ancient one. To try to collapse a 2,000-3,000 year old conversation into a 150 year time frame in order to make it appear linked to a modern elite conspiracy is to argue in bad faith, in our view.
The Austrians, especially the modern Misesian-Rothbardian school, have made significant contributions to it in the modern era by stating (restating) important elements of REAL economics. Their contributions cannot be denied; their observations cannot be minimized by rewriting history to make it look as if the purest expression of scholarly free-market thinking (the Rothbardian-Misesian school) is merely a dialectical, elitist strategy to denude us of our "freedoms."
The real question, in our view, is why would anyone want to do this? What is it about modern free-market thinking – an extension of people's natural yearning to live as they choose within cultural and familial associations – that arouses such vituperation? Is it because anti-libertarians want to build a case for government activism? (And, again, why would they? What appeals to them about authoritarianism?)
The modern power elite reigns via mercantilism. As we've pointed out plenty of times, government, especially big government, is bound to be taken over – dominated – by elite forces. The best way to deal with government is to make it as small as possible while seeking to live (ourselves) in small, flexible and self-sufficient communities. Why does such a solution arouse antipathy?
Conclusion: To insinuate (or even state, as anti-libertarians are now doing) that the millennia-old freedom conversation, with contributions (in the West) from Greeks, Romans, Catholics, Europeans and Americans, is a modern outgrowth of Illuminati strategic destruction is not only inaccurate, it is worse. It is profoundly, well ... banal. And banality, in some of its forms, is plain evil.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/18/12 10:21 AM
DB: Our feedbacker "friend" Memehunter, who is apparently anti-Jew (though he claims to be Jewish), once pointed out on these pages that Austrian Economics was invented in the late 1920s as a result of a pan-European movement. He later partially retracted the statement, which he then tried to blame on the irrepressible and sometimes inaccurate Eustace Mullins.
M: I am anti-Zionism, not anti-Jew.
Yes, I claim and repeat that my mother comes from a Jewish background and that several members of her family died during World War II. There is a monument in a European city to victims of WWII, with my grandfather's name inscribed upon it. I have seen it myself.
Anti-Zionism and 'anti-Jew' are not the same thing. This has already been explained at length on this website. Unfortunately, the DB seems incapable of differentiating between Zionism and Judaism (or Jewry), at least not when debating this topic with feedbackers who disagree with the DB's views on Zionism.
Regarding Austrian Economics and the pan-European movement, here is a passage quoted verbatim from my post at 02/11/12 01:45 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread:
- Eustace Mullins wrote in his book "The World Order, A Study in the Hegemony of Parasitism"
Click to view link
"Hence his [Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England] campaign in favour of completely autonomous central banks, dominating their own financial markets and deriving their power from common agreement among themselves. They would succeed in taking out of the political realm those problems which are essential for the development and prosperity of the national financial security, distribution of credit, movement of prices. They would thus prevent internal political struggles from harming the wealth and the economic advancement of nations.
In short, Norman wished to see the imposition of the World Order over the financial affairs of the nations. It was this agreement among the central banks, rather than the front organization, the League of Nations, which became their final instrument of power. Crucial to these arrangements was the monetarist school, the Austrian School of Economics, an outgrowth of the Pan-Europe movement."
I later wrote on the same thread that, yes, Mullins was inaccurate, but that he never claimed explicitly that 'Austrian Economics was invented in the 1920s'. This is a distortion introduced by the DB.
I also provided documented evidence of the connections between leading Austrian economists such as Mises and Hayek and elite European globalists such as Habsburg and Coudenhove-Kalergi. That the DB refuses to accept this evidence (even though it is available on Wikipedia) does not change that it is most likely to be factually true until proven otherwise.
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DB: Mises, too, (contrary to Memehunter's assertions in these pages) was never funded directly out of David Rockefeller's pocket and eventually all funding from the Rockefeller Foundation is said to have been terminated.
M: Here is my very first statement, the one which started the current debate and motivated me to do more research on the topic (especially after the DB's denial), posted on the 'Atlantic Misleads with Short History of Money' on 02/09/12 01:15 AM:
'This may be true, but Mises was funded by Rockefeller and was close friends with European elites such as Coudenhove-Kalergi and others. Not as "anti-elite" as the DB would like to have us believe. This has been covered before on these pages.'
So yes, I should probably have said 'Rockefeller foundation'. Having said that, I have provided documented evidence, including evidence provided by Dr. Richard Ebeling, a close collaborator of the Daily Bell, showing that Mises was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation for several years.
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Finally, I must note that, although some of my statements may have been slightly inaccurate, this pales in comparison to an enormous blunder committed by the DB, a blatant error that, significantly, they still refuse to acknowledge even though they had ample opportunity to admit that it was a false statement, or at best a very misleading one:
'The Anglosphere power elite REALLY dislikes Austrian economics for three reasons.'
Click to view link
Reply from The Daily Bell
M: I am anti-Zionism, not anti-Jew.
DB: You have at least three different anti-Jew descriptive nomenclatures that we can recall. Maybe more ... Since we cannot keep track of all your minute adjustments we settled on anti-Jew. We used "apparently." If you want to continue refining the vocabulary you're using go right ahead. Seems like kind of a tedious exercise to us.
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Regarding Austrian Economics and the pan-European movement, here is a passage quoted verbatim from my post at 02/11/12 01:45 AM on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread ... Eustace Mullins wrote in his book "The World Order, A Study in the Hegemony of Parasitism" ....
"Crucial to these arrangements was the monetarist school, the Austrian School of Economics, an outgrowth of the Pan-Europe movement."
DB: From Wikipedia: "The International Paneuropean Union claims to be the oldest European unification movement and is also referred to as the Paneuropean Movement and the Pan-Europa Movement. It began with the publishing of Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi's manifesto Paneuropa (1923), which presented the idea of a unified European State."
This fairly clear. Mullins claims that the Austrian economic school descends from the Pan-European movement that began in the 1920s. It didn't. It was founded about a half century before, or more. You can drape the comment (which is ignorant) in any garb you want. He FURTHER compounds the problem by seemingly calling the Austrian School the "monetarist" school - which is the Chicago Freshwater School. Apparently it was all one big mishmosh to him ...
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"Mises, too, (contrary to Memehunter's assertions in these pages) was never funded directly out of David Rockefeller's pocket and eventually all funding from the Rockefeller Foundation is said to have been terminated ... So yes, I should probably have said 'Rockefeller foundation'.
DB: OK, that makes three "non-rebuttals" that you are parading as rebuttals. Actually four as you have now introduced Mullins confusion between the Freshwater School and Austrians. Some expert, eh! And yes, instead of basically making an accusation that David Rockefeller was a personal friend of Ludwig von Mises, you should have used the term "Foundation." And then to be entirely accurate (which is beyond you) you should have explained when the Foundation terminated its agreements.
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Having said that, I have provided documented evidence, including evidence provided by Dr. Richard Ebeling, a close collaborator of the Daily Bell, showing that Mises was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation for several years.
DB: And we rebutted this with a fairly clear statement that MISES sought out the Rockefeller funding, that it was given grudgingly and eventually terminated. Again, you repeat the same nonsense over and over, apparently with the idea that inaccurate restatements if presented manifold times on manifold threads become more magically more accurate.
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Finally, I must note that, although some of my statements may have been slightly inaccurate, this pales in comparison to an enormous blunder committed by the DB, a blatant error that, significantly, they still refuse to acknowledge even though they had ample opportunity to admit that it was a false statement, or at best a very misleading one: 'The Anglosphere power elite REALLY dislikes Austrian economics for three reasons.'
DB: "Slightly inaccurate?" This is like listening to someone who is having a psychotic break with reality describing the symptoms of his psychosis as a "headache." As far as the really "disliking" Austrian economics, the facts speak for themselves. There was almost NO presence of Rothbarian/Misesian Austrian economics ANYWHERE in the US (and the world) before Rockwell set up the Mises Institute. How you construe this FACT as a blunder is another example of general psychosis. Before we compared you to Monty Python's Black Knight, we used to compare you to Humpty Dumpty. "Words mean what I say they mean." For you "facts" are what you claim them to be.
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Posted by bailey on 02/18/12 10:25 AM
But what can we do about the influence of these families who are controlling us? It is very frightening that for so long we have been manipulated like this.
Reply from The Daily Bell
The system is collapsing. The Internet Reformation in our view is fairly unstoppable. Once it occurs, we believe there will be a devolution of power and maybe people can start living in smaller communities and adopt more independent, cooperative lifestyles within a voluntary ambit.
The danger is that people will try keep the system going, or parts of it - through various stopgap activities that are either well meaning or not.
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Posted by pipefighter2 on 02/18/12 11:19 AM
Your Words:
Migchels has explained that his version of social credit is free-market oriented and "private," but Douglas's certainly does not seem to be. We can see from this brief description that Douglas apparently intended to use social engineering (government power) to redistribute wealth via a "national dividend" and also via his idea of a "just price" that would fix prices across a given society.
Of course, price fixing via force is likely, in our view, to further distort an economy, not bring it justice. As Adam Smith (and then others) showed, the only methodology of true economic growth resides in the marketplace itself, which can efficiently distribute capital via the Invisible Hand of competition. Without competition, one simply has the hand of man. The "hand of man" (government) murdered some 150 million people in the 20th century.
My Reply:
Your response to Migchels seems to me to be ad hominem as much as it is cursory. You never discuss why there is always a shortage of money, also how it is created and then injected into the currency stream. You write about CH Douglas, but never that he pointed out why there is always a shortage of effective purchasing power among the working class and the apparent reasons for this.
This article by Migchels is a follow up to numerous others which demonstrate that any debt/usury based private creation of money is always destructive of the people's economic freedom and health. This is where we draw the line with the likes of Lew Rockwell, Gary North and Justin Raimondo. The libertarians refuse to let go of their desire to create the money supply. The reality is that while they demand usury for their created the money, they lock their gold up in a vault and never risk anything in the process. At the same time, the borrowers of their created money may risk a home that they paid principle plus interest for twenty years or more.
The simple truth is this: Money can be created in more ways than one. It can also be created without usury. We have the power to destroy this Ponzi model foisted upon us through the finest document ever devised by the minds of men in 1787. But Rothbard and Rockwell insist that they keep this power in private hands with the ability to collect usury for their money creations.
As always, these 'experts' always reject the the only means the people have for redress of grievances - the state. The people need to stop listening to these 'barking dogs' and use the state in the way that the Unanimous Declaration and Constitution provided us with to promote the general welfare by means of Article 1 Section 8 Line 5. A national dividend to establish a money supply with a compensated price mechanism would certainly keep a free market economy moving briskly.
Daniel S. Krynicki
Reply from The Daily Bell
Your response to Migchels seems to me to be ad hominem as much as it is cursory. You never discuss why there is always a shortage of money, also how it is created and then injected into the currency stream. You write about CH Douglas, but never that he pointed out why there is always a shortage of effective purchasing power among the working class and the apparent reasons for this.
DB: Every day we explain this issue. The article was already long enough. As far as ad hominem goes, how exactly does labeling the entire Austrian school "Jewish Illuminism" fit into your critique? A little over-broad?
Note: We've actually extended an invitation to Migchels to write an article that we would post at DB explaining how his money system works. No response so far.
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This article by Migchels is a follow up to numerous others which demonstrate that any debt/usury based private creation of money is always destructive of the people's economic freedom and health. This is where we draw the line with the likes of Lew Rockwell, Gary North and Justin Raimondo. The libertarians refuse to let go of their desire to create the money supply. The reality is that while they demand usury for their created the money, they lock their gold up in a vault and never risk anything in the process. At the same time, the borrowers of their created money may risk a home that they paid principle plus interest for twenty years or more.
DB: You (as in "we") may draw the line with the likes of "Jews(?)" such as Rockwell, North and Raimondo, but it seems evident and obvious to us that monopoly central banking is a more serious issue than interest charged by some in the marketplace and accepted by others. You write, "Libertarians refuse to let go of their desire to create the money supply. The reality is that while they demand usury for their created the money, they lock their gold up in a vault and never risk anything in the process." Actually, as we understand it, all free-market thinkers asks is that the market itself decide on value and volume of money. How you meander from that fact to the statement "libertarians demand usury for their created the (sic) money, the lock up their gold in a vault and never risk anything in the process" is hard to understand. And that's putting it mildly.
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The simple truth is this: Money can be created in more ways than one. It can also be created without usury. We have the power to destroy this Ponzi model foisted upon us through the finest document ever devised by the minds of men in 1787. But Rothbard and Rockwell insist that they keep this power in private hands with the ability to collect usury for their money creations.
DB: If you want to create a private money of any sort and circulate it, go ahead. Just don't insist on monopoly privilege to do so. In other words, don't circulate it by force.
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As always, these 'experts' always reject the the only means the people have for redress of grievances - the state. The people need to stop listening to these 'barking dogs' and use the state in the way that the Unanimous Declaration and Constitution provided us with to promote the general welfare by means of Article 1 Section 8 Line 5. A national dividend to establish a money supply with a compensated price mechanism would certainly keep a free market economy moving briskly.
DB: "As always, these 'experts' always reject the the only means the people have for redress of grievances - the state." There is good evidence that the state and its minions icily murdered some 150 million people in the 20th century. Good luck using it "redress grievances."
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Posted by Ol' Grey Ghost on 02/18/12 11:29 AM
"To argue that the current freedom movement is merely an outgrowth of a shadowy US "German-Jewish" banker, William Volker, is to entirely miss the point about what's going on."
"Don't be sailing in them seas heah on this map, laddie. Thar be monsters."
Explaining the free-market to eighth-graders (those who understand why I write to eighth-graders can keep it to yourselves):
Click to view link
What happens when government interferes in the free-market in regards to price controls:
Click to view link
All forms of government regulation become "Fascism":
Click to view link
There is a solution:
Click to view link
The only thing to fear about freedom and liberty is being responsible for taking care of oneself...
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Posted by memehunter on 02/18/12 11:31 AM
DB: The articles of late, promoted by those we are calling "the anti-libertarians," seem to us to be espousing a power elite dominant social theme; they evidently seek to discredit about 50 years of theoretical progress in the freedom movement that has seen the rise of Austrian, free-market thinking and the spread of the concepts of human action and the business cycle.
M: The DB is now talking about an 'anti-Austrian' or 'anti-libertarian' power elite dominant social theme.
Let's see whether the following facts make any sense in the context of the DB's claim:
1. Alan Greenspan said in 2000: "the Austrian School have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country.'
Source: Wikipedia
Click to view link
2. David Rockefeller: 'Finally, in his most surprising statement, he revealed he considers himself a follower of the Austrian school of economics. Friedrich Hayek had been his tutor at the London School of Economics in the 1930s.'
Source: Mark Skousen's website
Click to view link
Some kind of «anti-Austrian promotion », eh?
The DB elves themselves admitted on the 'Mr. Goldberg' thread:
'What is a mystery is David Rockefeller claiming he is an Austrian sympathizer. This strikes us as part of what may become a larger emergent dominant social theme designed to create a perception that the elites somehow favor - or are attuned to - free-market economics.'
So, on the one hand, there is an 'elite dominant social theme' seeking to discredit Austrian economics, but on the other hand, and at the same time, there is a 'larger emergent dominant social theme' designed to create a perception that the elites are attuned to Austrian economics.
Some elites we are dealing with, eh? No wonder the DB has difficulties keeping track of all these 'dominant social themes'. I'm having a hard time myself.
But wait, there's more!
'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.'
Sources:
Buzzfeed (the article quoted above), and several other sources on the 'Net:
Click to view link
Wikipedia:
Click to view link
Official website of the Bilderberg meetings:
Click to view link
So the same elites which are seeking to discredit Austrianism and Libertarianism are at the same time promoting Ron Paul? Did I get that right? Well, at least SOME of these elites, and some high-level ones at that (a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg group, no less) are publicly supporting and endorsing Ron Paul's candidacy.
This is becoming a true nightmare. I hope that the DB elves can help me understand the meaning of all this.
But, let's think about it for one minute. Maybe there is an easier way to make sense of all these 'dominant social themes'. How about the following?
1. Austrianism/Libertarianism is part of a dialectic that has been nurtured and supported continuously by the power elites.
2. ALL the leading politicians, including (but not limited to) Austrians/Libertarians, are bought and paid for by the elites. Otherwise, they would not be "leading politicians".
Reply from The Daily Bell
OK, you will not post the same information over and over, Memehunter. Especially when we've dealt with it on countless other threads.
Fair warning ... again.
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Alan Greenspan said in 2000: "the Austrian School have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country.'
DB: What Austrian School? Was he speaking about the Rothbardian/Misesian school? Those who are trying "professionalize" Austrian economics at George Mason U? Was he referring to Hayek who ended up working with the Chicago boys? Was he speaking about the quasi-Austrian, Schumpeter? And how does this constitute an accusation? Because a bad man says something good about an economic, free-market school, this constitutes an indictment? What a stretch. And then you provide a Wikipedia source, as if that legitimizes your initial confusion.
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David Rockefeller: 'Finally, in his most surprising statement, he revealed he considers himself a follower of the Austrian school of economics. Friedrich Hayek had been his tutor at the London School of Economics in the 1930s.'Some kind of «anti-Austrian promotion », eh?
DB: Ah, well there you have it. As with Greenspan, such statements are PROOF POSITIVE that elites are strong proponents of the Austrians. Now, you'll just have to figure out WHICH SCHOOL. Can't be the Misesian school as the Rockefeller Foundation (not Rockefeller mind you) apparently CUT Mises. So which school was it, eh?
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So, on the one hand, there is an 'elite dominant social theme' seeking to discredit Austrian economics, but on the other hand, and at the same time, there is a 'larger emergent dominant social theme' designed to create a perception that the elites are attuned to Austrian economics. Some elites we are dealing with, eh? No wonder the DB has difficulties keeping track of all these 'dominant social themes'. I'm having a hard time myself.
DB: We never claimed to have definitive answers. We try to analyze elite themes as best we can. You are the one who finds such pleasure in certainty, even if such certainty as you espouse proves wrong over and over again ...
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But wait, there's more! '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 ... So the same elites which are seeking to discredit Austrianism and Libertarianism are at the same time promoting Ron Paul? Did I get that right? Well, at least SOME of these elites, and some high-level ones at that (a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg group, no less) are publicly supporting and endorsing Ron Paul's candidacy. This is becoming a true nightmare. I hope that the DB elves can help me understand the meaning of all this.
DB: Haven't you forgotten something? You initially stated that Thiel had contributed almost 100 percent of the PACS one million dollars and implied he was in charge of the PAC. When it was pointed out to you that the PAC had taken in $4 million and that by law Thiel was not allowed to directly communicate with the Paul campaign, and that Thiel was not even charge of this nefarious PAC, you came back with a stunning rebuttal ... you demanded the link to a Reuters article from which we'd drawn information! Now, like the Pythonesque Black Knight to whom we have compared you, minus arms and legs, you dredge up these points once again. What you believe is argumentation is actually ankle-biting.
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But, let's think about it for one minute. Maybe there is an easier way to make sense of all these 'dominant social themes'. How about the following ... Austrianism/Libertarianism is part of a dialectic that has been nurtured and supported continuously by the power elites ... ALL the leading politicians, including (but not limited to) Austrians/Libertarians, are bought and paid for by the elites. Otherwise, they would not be "leading politicians".
DB: Let's see. Your expert Mullins confused the Freshwater School with the Austrian School and then basically stated that the Austrian school was founded in the 1920s instead of the mid-1800s when it WAS founded by Menger. You endorsed this nonsense by citing it and then backed off later on by claiming that it was Mullins' error not yours. (Fine ally you turn out to be.) You also falsely stated that Rothbard was basically a lifelong friend to CATO when his feud with that facility is well known, basically claimed that Rockefeller was a personal pal of Mises and mis-stated Mises stance to the Mont Pelerin Society, implying he was a lifelong supporter of it when actually he walked out of the group shouting that participants were all "socialists."
This is just what we can remember off the tops of our pointy heads. More recently, you have "stepped in it" with your certainty that the Rothbardian Austrian School is iredeemably Jewish. When we show that many of its main protagonists and supporters are Catholics, including Rockwell, himself, Buchanan, Woods and Raimondo, you fall silent. But not for long! We're sure you'll come up with some other bumbling, fact-challenged and inaccurate justification for this latest nonsensical observation. We can't wait. Actually, yes we can ...
And do NOT revisit these issues on this thread anymore. You have restated them with admirable inaccuracy on numerous threads numerous times. If you have something NEW to add, you are welcome to provide it. However, as you likely have NOTHING new to add, we are doubtful we shall see much more of you, at least for today. Boo hoo.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Yes, you already made your "dry and witty" statement regarding the argument clinic on a different thread. It is a bit less dry and witty this time round. And less so next time, etc.
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Posted by Iapetus on 02/18/12 01:17 PM
Henry Makow's article is just the same old marketing ploy that is used over and over again by the Oligarchy owned MSM. If you tell people over and over again the same thing, sadly, many believe it. Just like the anti Ron Paul, "He Can't Win", slogan that we've heard out of them, adnausium. Libertarianism and their Austrian School are ridicules, evil, for the rich, don't care about the poor, want children to be able to take drugs freely and all the other lies are just praying on the ignorance of the majority. The fact is that they are afraid that liberty will take away their power, and they as we know are right; exactly what we are trying to do.
They use the same techniques also. The throw out some famous names, make unsubstantiated claims, quotes out of context, and other memes that people begin to believe. I believe it is even a part of their training to be able to gain their jobs in the main stream media. I have a true story of such an individual that was used to shut down a open meeting that a bunch of us libs used to have. The article based on the same types of misinformation demonized us as conspiratorialist wachos was written in the local newspaper to attempt to get the restaurant we were meeting at to shut us down and it worked.
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Posted by onebornfree on 02/18/12 01:29 PM
Daily Bell:"Yes, you already made your "dry and witty" statement regarding the argument clinic on a different thread. It is a bit less dry and witty this time round. And less so next time, etc."
30 love? : Click to view link Regards, onebornfree
Reply from The Daily Bell
You have a lot of time on your hands ...
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Posted by cmcaples on 02/18/12 02:09 PM
What appeals to them about authoritarianism? When you put it that way, very few would advocate such an idea. However, when you can foster an illusion of security and protection from the so-called 'harshness of life', many will choose this fool's errand.
Just ask people; if drugs were legalized everyone-but them- would become a heroin addict. If we did away with state monopoly schools, none of the kids would learn to read and write-except theirs. If we did away with the EPA everyone-but them-would fill the rivers and streams with toxic sludge. It's always these mysterious "other people" that we need to be protected from. While this is ignorant, it's even more egregious to think some bureaucratic entity can actually provide security form these things. I find it difficult to reconcile that some people are so far removed from reality that they actually fight on behalf of their slave master.
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Posted by thinker70 on 02/18/12 03:19 PM
Whew, all this rhetoric makes a persons head spin. First of all I despise labels and refuse to be pigeonholed by anybody as belonging to any school of thought or organization. I think for myself and agree or disagree with any position postulated by any individual or organization, and reserve the right to change my opinion based on new information or evidence on a given point.
That being said, my interest was kindled by the mention of SOCIAL CREDIT which captured my interest back in the 60's when it came close to achieving power in Canada. I was in fact a delegate at the Social Credit Convention in Ottawa in 1964 that elected Robert Thompson as leader, though the Quebecker Rauel Cauette (not sure of spelling) was a real firebrand and persuasive speaker. The division between the Que. French wing and English faction helped the "establishment" smear campaign of "funny money" and popular media distortion, (much like Ron Paul is treated today), destroyed the party, in fact I thought it was a mere personal memory until this mention.
One can forget a lot in almost 50 years but the things I read in this essay and its responses do not reflect the realities of the Canadian version of Social credit as I understood it. What I do remember is some of the slogans, such as; "the money supply should be equal to and determined by the production of the country" which on the surface makes a lot of sense, but the exact HOW of achieving that is not as self evident. I guess if honest people dedicated to the welfare of the nation and its citizens were elected then in an ideal world maybe it could be achieved. The problem in my view is "human nature" and I simply doubt this achievement is likely under any political party given the type of people they tend to attract. Much as I admire Ron Paul for the consistency of the positions he has espoused, unless the American people can elect a few hundred Congressmen with similar ideals I doubt that his election as President, "however remote" would really make much difference.
Another popular S/C slogan was; "anything that is desirable (for the good of the nations citizens) can and should be made financially possible". This in turn led to another logical statement; that if we have the raw materials and people willing and able to work then the government can and should on behalf of the people issue the necessary credit on an interest free basis to finance needed public works. Again an idealistic position, as per the previous paragraph, UNLESS a drastically different element were elected to parliament as a whole, and with a majority, the likely hood of a positive outcome are slim to none.
The simple premise of the above idealism is that the same thing that makes a dollar bill good will make a BOND good! WHY should the peoples elected government submit bonds to a private and monopolistic banking cartel to PRINT the money in exchange for interest bearing BONDS? The point being that taxes could be cut in half if we only paid for public infrastructure once in the form of materials and labour, rather than twice by adding unnecessary interest? I know, I know, this is still based on elected governments, but the reality is that is not likely to change, so why tilt at windmills.
There are many more ramifications but the bottom line is simply that bankers propaganda has induced the masses to believe their mantra of; "the magic of compounding" in other words that labouring for money was not near as smart as "allowing your money to work for you" which sounds so good until you see the results in actual practice.
What kind of a society would we have if nobody wanted to "work" (that dirty four letter word) and we simply relied on our investments so that our money would work for us according to the banker mantra. Ever trained a $10, bill to chop you some wood or go out to the garden to dig you some potatoes
There is no better lesson that "there is no free lunch" than the situation we find ourselves in today where maybe 5% at most at the top of a debt pyramid COLLECT NET interest, while 95% end up PAYING that interest in many well hidden forms, in effect "Compounding in Reverse" where what is growing is not your bank account, but DEBT that is not under your personal control. Look up the statistics on what the average American owes as a percentage of the national debt. Pretty scary and un-payable, the simple truth is that we have all been turned into DEBT SLAVES!
Slavery has not been abolished, it has just been cleverly disguised through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and later "legal tender laws" that forces the masses to use fiat (counterfeit) currency that is BORROWED into existence
as interest bearing DEBT! DO the ARITHMETIC! Since "every bank loan is a new creation of money" that creates ONLY the principal, it necessarily follows that the interest can never settle a debt. The only way it can be paid is if their is an ever expanding PYRAMID of DEBT! In other words it requires an exponentially increasing level of either or both, number of loans or larger loans as debt is rolled over. The paid back principal has to be REPLACED if not expanded to accommodate a growing economy, PLUS the accumulated interest has to be covered by new and larger loans being contracted, otherwise there is a shortage of currency in circulation and the economy slows or even collapses.
OOPS, did I just describe the reality of what is currently happening on almost a world scale? Expect more riots.
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Posted by nithsdale on 02/18/12 05:13 PM
Very good exposition. You are beginning to discard "conspiracies" now and looking at the real problem... competing claims and disclaims. Good!
Social Credit cannot be laid at the feet of Jews. It was a development of christianity. When the jewish belief in their cherishment by Yahwah above all other people on earth was suddenly converted into the cherishment of all people on earth, well most jews were horrified that their exclusivity was now questioned and by some of their own. They did what all do when their superiority is questioned but they could not get it back since so many bought the new idea that all were the children of God! From that moment on, the jewish problems were only made "magnificent" because of their stand!
Social Credit was behind the development of most of the catholic orders so you are correct when you opine that the Catholic Church , the Vatican was behind it! It was out in the open throughout Catholic History and has been an underlying theme of the church and its many affiliates, even when the poltical spheres were opposed. The only deterent was the economic order of the time, when communities had little contact with the outside world except that mandated by their imposed leaders (by force) and then only implemented by "charity and benevolence"! Until the world could read and write and commuicate social credit, it could not come to be because men's words then only went as far as their breath and the local breeze could carry them.
With the advent of the Industrial Era, the growth of "science", the study of Man and his world, came an appreciation of the doctrine but its realization had to contend with custom and practice and await the proper vehicle for establishment. Until that time, it was left in the hands of people to carry it out as they could with what they had on hand! The churches, all of them, and religion in general were the areas keeping the idea alive.
The conglomeraton of industry, its production, built cities like no others ever, requiring distribution of cash for innovation as ideas and populations grew and people used both. Whole new economies were born but all based on assessing Man's worth, then on his ability to produce, first as innovator, then as manager, then as worker. The whole caste system of the world had to be redefined and that was not easy but it was done, thanks to the United States of America. We were the lab since we were the new group in all this and we had drawn our people from every other old group that ever existed!
Like every experiment, we had our fits and starts, disasters and triumphs, but we moved the Social Credit along.
Two world wars woke us to the world we lived in. In both, we were the power house untouched. We became one of the world leader groups in WWI but in WWII, we emerged as the only one left intact. So our lab became the whole world and we rose to the occasion. We innovated with American Express to fill the void in world trade where there were no valid currencies available and lo and behold, the world loved it... so did the traders. Then as millions of American Express checks cleared everyday worldwide, we produced the credit card, first based on businesses and their "take", and then expanded to workers of all stripes, colors, annual income, all, for the first time based on christianity's social credit. These were all unsecured but based on honor and respect... .and they were repaid and so they were expanded! Plastic has been our social credit money for over 60 years now!
Social Credit was such a success that it was expanded into what had been the gold, silver and precious jewel value boxes that were the reserves of the great trading banks, all begun with control of the Royal Jewels of all the old houses of Royalty in the old worlds, West and East when their kingdoms needed to grow and they needed to exchange what they had for what their people wanted as world trade grew. Suddenly, banks exchanged credits too, all based on what their areas populations had and made. Not only business but now people could go worldwide and buy, live, even as they did at home, where they had worked and made their cache! This was an extraordinary revolution!
Social Credit was augmented after that, with welfare, a portion of this growing pot of trade, taken over by government, placing a floor on one person's value. This initial valuation was increased as birth bonuses, then food bonuses were added, then pensions for the elderly, then medical care, then grants and loans for education from cradle to the grave were included. Voila, finally a sum to be totalled for Social Credit for every Man and woman, child on the globe!
We have all been the recipients of this movement... but there is a problem. We have accomplished this in the structured world of the West, some of its allies elsewhere but there is a large part of the world yet to be serviced with it. That is the question now. How is it to be implemented?
If you look at the past, no one asked the question, just acted. Man, his social credit, was in his hands and so far, it was delivered. The church says that is God's way. However, today we have people who do not believe in God, the church, they don't even believe in Man and Social Credit..hell, that should be left to the individual whether he lives well or not, the free market!
There has never been a free market because no man alone can be a market. It takes at least two and for progress many twos, and for our age it now takes millions.
Social Credit is not the brainchild of any man. It is the bedrock of every comunity since the beginning of Man here on earth. It just goes on expanding as Man's mind expands!
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Posted by alexsemen on 02/18/12 05:35 PM
Bussines as usual, the Kisinger's Chinese are doing their work as promissed !
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Posted by Bosco Hurn on 02/18/12 05:38 PM
Great job as usual, DB, including your rebuttals in the comments.
But this statement of yours really sums it up: "It seems to us that anti-libertarians who espouse social credit and other social-engineering schemes are inevitably suggesting that force be used to bring people in line with their views of how society should operate."
Whenever someone falls back on force they've played their hand. As I like to tell them, "Your fascism is showing."
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Posted by alexsemen on 02/18/12 05:49 PM
History is just a Muse, an inspiration and everyone could write what he wants.History is another free-market BS as it is today the situation.
The problem si what to do with so much misery and one billions victims of the lasts 1000 years of the mercantile civilisation !!??
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Posted by Danny B on 02/18/12 06:19 PM
nithsdale, great writeup.
There can be no yin without yang.
We can say that Douglas, Charles Ferguson, Eustace Mullins, R. L. Northridge,
Dr Ha-Joon Chang, Mahathir Mohamed, Prime Minister of Malaysia, et al are all demanding freebies and handouts. OK, fair enough.
Take a look around at the regions and states that do not have any resources. Take a look at the millions of people who aren't born with any particular abilities that are needed in todays economy. Look at the huge areas that are converted to mechanized agriculture, displacing people who had previously done subsistence farming. Look at all the millions who have lost their water resources or quality of soil.
I traveled across India by road. That is one situation.
What do we tell people in rich countries that no longer have a niche in the job market?
Top-down "money" injections don't seem to be helping.
We can decry the welfare-state,,, we can decry social-credit.
What do we tell the many millions who no longer have a productive niche in the economy?
It looks like there will be a LOT of decisions made in May,,,, especially concerning derivatives.
"Well, these Masters of the World will be having a themselves a get-together to plan the future of their world.
*The ISDA 27th Annual General Meeting will be held on April 30-May 2, 2012 in Chicago.
*This will be followed by the G8 summit meeting in Chicago on May 19 and May 20.
*Then this will be followed by the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20 and May 21.
Click to view link
Greece will default about May.
When another half billion people lose their niche,,, what are we going to tell them?
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Posted by NAPpy on 02/18/12 07:33 PM
I don't care who funded Menger, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, or any other Austrian thinker.
I went to college for economics, and they didn't even present the Austrian school as an option. It took me 10 years of searching to find answers to why our economy is imploding--books like "The Case Against The Fed", "Defending the Undefendable", "Human Action", "Man, Economy and State" and "Economics and Ethics of Private Property" provided the answers to my questions.
The Anti-Libertarians need to answer the following questions if they want to "convert" me to their thinking:
1. Do I get to own myself in their system?
2. Do I get to own what I create or voluntarily trade for in their system?
3. Are all instances of aggression--fraud, theft, assault, rape and murder--outlawed for EVERYONE (including those wearing costumes) in their system?
4. Is mob rule (voting) forced upon the innocent in their system?
5. Can I use whatever money I want, however I want to define it, in their system?
6. Can I rent out my savings, to whoever I want, under whatever terms I can get, in their system?
My study of Austrian economics has led me to my own conclusions about what the answers to these questions should be.
My intuition tells me how I think the anti-libertarians will answer these questions, and that they will be too cowardly to actually answer these questions.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Yes, most of the arguments seem to consist of innuendo ...
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Posted by Nightcrawler on 02/18/12 08:42 PM
Excellent!
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Posted by equipoised on 02/18/12 09:25 PM
My favorite quote from this discussion: "government, especially big government, is bound to be taken over - dominated - by elite forces. The best way to deal with government is to make it as small as possible while seeking to live (ourselves) in small, flexible and self-sufficient communities. Why does such a solution arouse antipathy?"
Someone told me recently that they had heard that Ron Paul was a tool of the elite. After a moment of doubt, I realized that if true the elites are playing with fire. The ideas he espouses surely are not in the interests of anyone trying to dominate and control a population. The notion that the elites are behind the Libertarian / Austrian movement seems unlikely even to those of us with a very superficial knowledge of the movement.
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Posted by Klink on 02/18/12 11:39 PM
The way to combat the anti-Jew sentiment is with the truth. The Illuminati was/is not Jewish rather denotes Freemasonry, which again is not Jewish rather Templar founded.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/19/12 03:59 AM
N: I don't care who funded Menger, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, or any other Austrian thinker.
M: The 'cui bono' principle is one that ought not to be forgotten. In fact, it is applied routinely by the DB in their analyses: for instance, pointing out that Keynes was a member of the Fabian Society and the Bloomsbury Group, analyzing who benefits from the 'global warming' meme, and many other similar examples too numerous to be listed here.
It is my contention that the 'cui bono' principle is ALWAYS valid, regardless of whether it is used for or against someone's viewpoints.
N: The Anti-Libertarians need to answer the following questions if they want to "convert" me to their thinking:
M: The term 'Anti-Libertarian' was used by the DB to describe a very loosely organized movement that purports to identify Austrianism/Libertarianism as part of a dialectic engineered by the elites. Fair enough on the part of the DB, insofar as it enabled them to discuss these positions in a concise way in their article.
However, I do not consider myself as belonging to any particular system or school of thought, save for seeking truth above all else. As I said on this thread, I believe that all leading politicians are controlled by the elites. I also wrote elsewhere on the DB that I did not spend so much energy criticizing Keynesianism (or socialism, for that matter) because I believe that most people reading the DB agree that these are elites' promotions. I actually know little about Douglas and Social Credit (probably less than the DB elves).
I will echo the sentiment expressed by thinker70 on this thread:
'First of all I despise labels and refuse to be pigeonholed by anybody as belonging to any school of thought or organization. I think for myself and agree or disagree with any position postulated by any individual or organization, and reserve the right to change my opinion based on new information or evidence on a given point.'
Now, to your questions:
1. Do I get to own myself in their system?
I don't have a 'system', but I don't see why you could not own yourself.
2. Do I get to own what I create or voluntarily trade for in their system?
I don't have a system, but I don't see why you could not own what you create or voluntarily trade for, with the following proviso: as long as your activities are not detrimental to other individuals or to your community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop conducting these harmful activities.
3. Are all instances of aggression--fraud, theft, assault, rape and murder--outlawed for EVERYONE (including those wearing costumes) in their system?
I don't have a system, but again I don't disagree with you.
However, I must add that my definition of 'aggression' and 'fraud' also includes activities that are detrimental to other individuals or to a community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop conducting these activities. For instance, if a community of users sharing a particular currency *voluntarily* decides that users of that currency should not contract interest-carrying loans, then, in that context, an instance of a user of such a currency knowingly choosing to lend or borrow at interest could be labeled as a fraud with respect to other users of that currency.
4. Is mob rule (voting) forced upon the innocent in their system?
I don't have a system, but you read what I said above about politicians. I have never voted for *anything* above school/university representation in my entire life, to the recurrent dismay of family and friends.
5. Can I use whatever money I want, however I want to define it, in their system?
I don't have a system, but I would say yes - as long as your use of money in the way you definite it is not detrimental to other individuals or to a community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop using money in the way you define it.
6. Can I rent out my savings, to whoever I want, under whatever terms I can get, in their system?
I don't have a system, but again I would say yes - as long as your economic activities are not detrimental to other individuals or to a community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop conducting these activities.
As you can see from the repetitive tone of my answers, what I am advocating is that the insistence on individual freedom and initiative advocated by Austrians/Libertarians should not be carried to such an extent that is detrimental to other members of the community.
I can already imagine that the DB elves or other feedbackers will characterize such a position as 'collectivist', but I disagree. I am merely attempting to state clearly that it is intellectually misleading to constantly emphasize individual freedom while at the same time treating *any* decision by a community to protect its own interests as being 'authoritarian' or 'coercive'.
Collective or communal (for instance, governmental or tribal) authority can be abused. We are all aware of that and have seen numerous historical examples of this. However, individual freedom can also be abused. We have also seen numerous examples of how one person or a small group of people may act in ways that demonstrate a lack of concern for other individuals or for the well-being of a community.
Both individuals and communities tend to act in self-interested ways, and both tend to seek to protect their interests first and foremost. Both can, and have historically, abused their freedom. Thus, the challenge as I see it is to find a balance between individual freedom and the 'will of the collective'.
Constructive solutions and viewpoints are most welcome.
Reply from The Daily Bell
"I don't have a system." Truer words were never spoken.
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