May 26, 2006

The State in the Dock

Lew Rockwell asks: Under what law should the heads of governments be tried? If they are tried according to every-day moral law, they would all be in big trouble. Did you plot to steal the property of millions of people in the name of "taxing" them? Oh sure! Did you send people to kill and be killed in an aggressive war? Thousands! Did you mislead people about your spending? Every day! Did you water down the value of the money stock by electronically printing new money that you passed out to your friends? Hey, it's called central banking!

Judged by this standard, all states are guilty. And all heads of state are guilty of criminal wrongdoing if we are using a normal, every-day kind of moral standard to judge them. Thus are they all vulnerable. FULL ARTICLE

Link post | 12:41 AM | Comments (0) | contact Mises.org Updates | other posts

May 25, 2006

Phone Tax Finally Sunsetted... After 108 Years

Several months ago Ted Roberts wrote an article discussing the tax on international phone calls that was originally levied to finance the Spanish-American War back in 1898. Today, MSNBC and others are reporting that effective July 31, this tax will finally disappear. In addition, consumers can file for a refund on this tax from March 2003 through the present - this is expected to be approximately $13 billion when the dust settles.

While much can be said on the topic of coerced philanthropy, this should serve as a clear illustration of how when the State gains the authority to do something, it is reticent to relinquish the authority. One down, thousands more to go.

Link post | 05:05 PM | Comments (2) | contact Tim Swanson | other posts

Fibonacci and Mises

Mises has emphasized the central role of calculation in a developed economic order. This is not an allegorical term but quite literal. He means adding, subtracting and otherwise calculating with numbers... Numbers that are money prices arising from private property.

But the theoretical relationship that Mises points out, the dependance of rational economic decision making on mathematical calculation, is not historically a one way street. In Rodney Stark's recent book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success we see that the spread of math in Europe, at least what we think of as math now, was closely related to the rise of early Italian capitalism.

Continue reading "Fibonacci and Mises"

Link post | 02:22 PM | Comments (3) | contact Stephen W. Carson | other posts

Mises Mises Mises

The Club For Growth takes note of this funny speech by Rep. Barney Frank (socialist!), in which he says: "Mr. Chairman, I am here to confess my reading incomprehension. I have listened to many of my conservative friends talk about the wonders of the free market, of the importance of letting the consumers make their best choices, of keeping government out of economic activity, of the virtues of free trade, but then I look at various agricultural programs like this one. Now, it violates every principle of free market economics known to man and two or three not yet discovered. So I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture." (Thanks Greg.Bacon@gmail.com)

Also, Steve Hanke writing in the Wall Street Journal quotes Mises (he is a blog reprint): : "In addition, I repeated the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises's argument that sound money 'was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights.'"

Finally, National Review quotes Mises on the housing bubble question.

Link post | 09:44 AM | Comments (22) | contact Jeffrey Tucker | other posts

The Intelligent Lover of Radical Liberty

Here are six must-read books for the intelligent lover of liberty. The disastrous policies of the current US government show the dangers of centralized power, as did those of the previous administration. Even the Hamiltonians — the original American centralizers — would be horrified by what their republic has turned into. Those who read all these books will have an excellent understanding of how America has reached its present crisis and what needs to be done to return to the path of freedom. FULL ARTICLE.

Link post | 01:01 AM | Comments (17) | contact David Gordon | other posts

May 24, 2006

Government in Business

Click and read this 1956 Freeman essay by a 30-year-old Murray Rothbard, recently provided on the Foundation for Economic Education's web site. One can see many themes here that would later be expanded upon in For a New Liberty.

Link post | 03:08 PM | Comments (0) | contact Christopher Westley | other posts

Real Versus Nominal Prices Explained

In this cartoon by the Cincinnati Enquirer's Jim Borgman. (HT: Andrew Samwick)

Link post | 01:29 PM | Comments (8) | contact Peter G. Klein | other posts

What Does the High Price of Gold Mean

Gold is not money, writes Sean Corrigan, and this is one reason we are on a path where genuine entrepreneurialism and the creation of real wealth are very much hampered. It is a path whose weary milestones are scored with the wasteful disincentives of welfarism and which is misleadingly signposted with the daubings of post-modernist voodoo, its billboards shrieking the slogans of group victimhood and emblazoned with demands for the suppression of the individual. It is a path whose crumbling paving stones are being overrun by the toxic, green shoots of that shrill new Inquisition which is today's cult of environmentalism. FULL ARTICLE.

Link post | 08:08 AM | Comments (44) | contact Mises.org Updates | other posts

Freedom the Press and Liberty

This last week, the attorney general said that he would consider prosecuting any journalist or newspaper that published classified information that had been leaked. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," he said.

Freedom of the press is in the 1st Amendment because history taught America's founders its importance. They remembered that colonial printers had been licensed, but licenses could be revoked and printers imprisoned (Ben Franklin's older brother James was once imprisoned for a month). Those dedicated to liberty rejected British fears that "Great inconvenience may arise by the liberty of printing" and Virginia Governor William Berkeley's 1671 view that "I thank God that there are no free schools nor printing...learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both."

Unfortunately, current press freedoms fall short of that envisioned by our founders. The first worldwide press freedom index in 2002 ranked America only 17th in the world, "mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there...often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court." Judith Miller of the New York Times, jailed in 2005 for refusing to disclose a source, is the most famous illustration, but others, such as San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams could face similar fates.

Continue reading "Freedom the Press and Liberty"

Link post | 07:44 AM | Comments (3) | contact Gary Galles | other posts

May 23, 2006

The promise, the calamity

Soviet propaganda posters, 1917-1991

Link post | 05:09 PM | Comments (4) | contact Jeffrey Tucker | other posts

Pollution and Property Rights in Hong Kong

The Stalwart is reporting that smog and air pollution in Hong Kong is causing a brain drain and talent diaspora. The root cause seems to be soot created from mainland factories whom are not held liable for their negative externalties.

For those unfamiliar with Ronald Coase, he is credited as single-handedly influencing several generations of economists and lawyers - most notably those comprising the Chicago School - with his social costs theory of justice. This was in direct contrast to the rights-based approach that had been effectively used for centuries.

The classical scenario used by Coase et al., is that of a farmer's wheat field which is bordered by a railroad track. At some point while moving along the tracks, a train causes a spark and sets the field on fire. In a propertarian-based legal theory, trespass would be taken into consideration as would the question of who was there first.

Whereas in a Coasian framework, the costs associated with a farmer moving his crops versus the costs of building a spark-prevention on the train are weighed. Whoever has the highest costs, or rather, has the most to gain or lose, is the party the law should side with.

And unfortunately, this 'utilitarian, of the greatest-good' reasoning has become the entrenched legal theory that Statists of all stripes have used to dodge accountability and justify a slew of socialistic confiscation (from eminent domain to outright nationalization).

See also: Undermining Proprety Rights: Coase and Becker; The Spectrum Should Be Private Property

Link post | 04:59 PM | Comments (0) | contact Tim Swanson | other posts

Tom Wolfe and the 'Fiction-Absolute'

Tom Wolfe’s gifts as a writer are much in evidence in his 2006 Jefferson Lecture, "The Human Beast." No one reading it will be able to forget, for example, his description of José Delgado in the bull ring: "The bull charged. Delgado stood there, motionless. The bull reached the critical point where it would be useless for anyone, even a toreador, to flee. Delgado pressed a button on the transmitter – and the bull came to a shuddering halt within feet of the scientist, and then turned and trotted off in the other direction."

Unfortunately, Wolfe’s ability to write vivid prose gets in the way of his argument. He looks for striking ways to make his points; and, in doing so, he exaggerates. He starts with an insight of Max Weber’s. By the time he has finished with it, an amusement-park mirror distortion of Weber’s view has become the clue to explaining history.

Continue reading "Tom Wolfe and the 'Fiction-Absolute'"

Link post | 10:25 AM | Comments (3) | contact David Gordon | other posts

That Fiery Classic

Some great books are the product of a lifetime of research, reflection, and labored discipline. But other classics are written in a white heat during the moment of discovery, with prose that shines forth like the sun pouring into the window of a time when a new understanding brings in the world into focus for the first time.

The Market for Liberty is that second type of classic, and what a treasure it is. Written by two authors—Morris and Linda Tannehill—just following a period of intense study of the writings of both Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, it has the pace, energy, and rigor you would expect from an evening's discussion with either of these two giants.

More than that, these authors put pen to paper at precisely the right time in their intellectual development, that period rhapsodic freshness when a great truth had been revealed, and they had to share it with the world. Clearly, the authors fell in love with liberty and the free market, and wrote an engaging, book-length sonnet to these ideas.

This book is very radical in the true sense of that term: it gets to the root of the problem of government and provides a rethinking of the whole organization of society. They start at the beginning with the idea of the individual and his rights, work their way through exchange and the market, expose government as the great enemy of mankind, and then—and here is the great surprise—they offer a dramatic expansion of market logic into areas of security and defense provision.

Their discussion of this controversial topic is integrated into their libertarian theoretical apparatus. It deals with private arbitration agencies in managing with disputes and criminality, the role of insurers in providing profitable incentives for security, and private agencies in their capacity as protection services. It is for this reason that Hans Hoppe calls this book an "outstanding yet much neglected analysis of the operation of competing security producers."

Continue reading "That Fiery Classic"

Link post | 08:37 AM | Comments (9) | contact Mises.org Updates | other posts

The Myth of Functional Finance: Mises vs. Lerner

While John Maynard Keynes typically receives credit for transforming economics, much postwar Keynesian economics was actually developed by his interpreters and followers. Perhaps the single most important one of these followers was the Romanian born economist Abba P Lerner. Keynes's book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money popularized the notion that market economies were prone to persistent unemployment. Keynes often receives credit for promoting government deficit spending as a means of combating unemployment. However, Abba Lerner developed this part of the Keynesian program. FULL ARTICLE

Link post | 07:35 AM | Comments (21) | contact D.W. MacKenzie | other posts

May 22, 2006

Who Owns Corporate America?

Here is a little map I made up awhile ago of companies and their board of directors that might shed some light on the situation (courtesy of theyrule.net).

Here is a look at corporate competition. It may not mean much, but then again maybe it does have an effect on a competitive market.

Link post | 11:13 PM | Comments (11) | contact Justin Ptak | other posts

Thanks FEMA

I'm sitting here in the sweltering heat, wondering why the air conditioner at the Mises Institute is not being fixed after a full week of waiting. I again called the company that services them. He reports that all air conditioning parts and units of this size are extremely hard to come by since FEMA "in its infinite wisdom" bought up the entire stock after Katrina, from whereever they could find them, and stored them in a huge warehouse where they are now gathering dust.

Link post | 12:50 PM | Comments (13) | contact Jeffrey Tucker | other posts

George W. Bush's Nixonomics

It was a time of a Republican administration waging an unpopular war. It was a war some Democrats said they opposed but seemed to do very little to stop. Inflation was starting to become a problem. There were calls for price controls on gasoline and many other items. The Republican president increased domestic spending but never enough to please the Democrats. FULL ARTICLE

Link post | 07:28 AM | Comments (4) | contact Gregory Bresiger | other posts

May 21, 2006

Germany's Destructive Tax Increase

I have a new article on the recently decided consumption tax (VAT) increase by the German government, where I point out how this will have a negative effect on Germany's already weak economy and that Germany's large budget deficit should be solved by lower spending instead.

Germany should learn from the experience of Japan, whose VAT increase in 1997 sent the economy into a recession, but whose recent deficit reduction through spending cuts have been associated with strong growth.

Link post | 04:26 PM | Comments (8) | contact Stefan Karlsson | other posts

Temples for the State

Similar to the myriad of tombs, edifices, sanctuaries and pantheons of power scattered throughout D.C., the Kremlin has its own share of shrines and tabernacles dedicated to worshipping the almighty State. And as these plans illustrate, some of the more grandiose architectural plans were never realized.

See also the Ryugyong Hotel.

Link post | 02:53 PM | Comments (2) | contact Tim Swanson | other posts

May 19, 2006

Natural and Artificial States

Rothbard's 1994 article "Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State" distinguishes sharply between the state, as a political entity, and the nation, a "complex and varying constellation of different forms of communities, languages, ethnic groups, or religions." Rothbard develops a theory of natural national boundaries, based on the principle of volunary association and the empirical claim that people tend to associate with particular familial, linguistic, cultural, and religious, groups. "One goal for libertarians should be to transform existing nation-states into national entities whose boundaries could be called just, in the same sense that private property boundaries are just; that is, to decompose existing coercive nation-states into genuine nations, or nations by consent."

A March 2006 working paper by Alberto Alesina, William Easterly, and Janina Matuszeski, "Artificial States," proposes several measures of the degree to which state boundaries are "natural" -- corresponding roughly to Rothbard's nations -- or "artificial." One measure identifies state borders that split ethnic groups into separate states, while another uses fractal geometry to characterize borders as straight or squiggly, assuming that straight borders are more likely to be articifially drawn and not corresponding to natural geographic or ethnic boundaries. The authors show that their measures are closely correlated with the usual measures of national economic performance (the more natural, the better).

A longer version of this post appears at Organizations and Markets.

Link post | 04:35 PM | Comments (2) | contact Peter G. Klein | other posts