The Case For Free Market Fractional Reserve Banking

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

 

Bernanke’s next career.

Questioning Rothbard : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education.

I’ve always felt like one of the biggest frustrations in life is having an opinion or belief that is fairly clear in your own head, but that you’re unable to articulate in a manner that is clear for others to understand.  Conversely, one of the great joys in life is when you stumble upon a well written argument, expressing that same opinion or belief, thereby showing you exactly how it can be articulated in a coherent and intelligent manner.

That was the case for me when I read this article on The Freeman website, written by Malavika Nair.  I cannot recommend it strongly enough for anyone who has ever given serious thought to the question of whether fractional reserve banking could still exist in a “free” economy, absent a central bank.  I won’t bother to re-state the entire argument here, but essentially, it states that fractional reserve banking could still continue to exist in a free-market society, provided that the contracts were drawn up in such a way as to make clear that the bank would in fact be loaning “your” money out to others, and not merely “storing it for safekeeping.”

The fact that money in a bank is loaned out to others is, in fact, what makes it possible for someone to receive interest on their deposits in the first place.  It is what distinguishes a bank from a warehouse, and a checking account from a safety deposit box.  Imagine a “bank” that does nothing but keep your gold bars safe.  It does not loan your hold out to anyone else, it simply holds it and allows you to come claim it whenever you’d like.  Would the owner of this bank pay you for the privilege of storing your gold?  Of course not!  You’d have to pay him!  He’s performing a valuable service (storage and security) and the only way he could make money is by charging fees to his clients.

Fractional reserve banks, for the most part, actually pay their clients to hold onto their money for them.  The only reason this is possible is because they are able to loan this money out to others.  As far as I know, 100% reserve banking is not currently illegal.  There are, in fact, secure storage facilities where you can take your gold (or even your paper dollars, if you so choose) to be held and not loaned out to anyone, but the average person chooses not to patronize these establishments, despite the intuitive sense we all have as to the fact that the entire banking system “works” by loaning “your” money out to others.  Even in the absence of government control and centralized banking, I believe that the overwhelming majority of customers would prefer fractional reserve banks (the lack of an FDIC or similar institution could provide a disincentive, but private insurance would surely be capable of filling the void).

I’ve always believed that in our society, fractional reserve banking would be the norm, even if we adopted sweeping free-market principles and ended the fed.  Quite simply, it is the system that most individuals prefer, and it can be maintained in such a way as to be fully within the freedom of contract principles of the market.  Thanks to this outstanding article, I now know exactly how to make the case.

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Conservative Voices Disappoint On Syria

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

You’ll have to forgive me; this one is going to be a little short and a little light on specific details, as I don’t really have the time to gather the appropriate source links on this one.

I didn’t watch Obama’s speech of press conference or whatever last night, because politicians don’t matter.  That said, my understanding is that military intervention in Syria is now basically off the table, as some sort of deal has been struck where Syria will turn its chemical weapons over to Russia or something.  Whatever.  I don’t really care about the specifics of this.  It’s their problem and none of my business really.

Good news, right?  No military intervention!  While I don’t trust Obama’s motivations one bit, I’ll certainly take it.  Last week, I was demanding, “No war in Syria,” and that seems, for now, to be what I’m getting.  I’m willing to give credit where credit is due.  Regardless of why he did it, Obama apparently actually is following the will of the people.  Good for him!

Unfortunately, many prominent voices in conservative media and political spheres seem incapable of being so gracious.  Some of the same people who last week were blasting Obama for “trying to lead us into World War 3” are today blasting him for… well what, exactly?  Caving to the Russians?  Making “us” look weak?  Going back on “our” word?  Really?

My liberal readers can now take a moment to say, “I told you so.”  It turns out that while I wanted to give a lot of these so-called conservative voices the benefit of the doubt and assume that they really were now anti-war, it turns out they were in fact merely anti-Obama all along.  It’s sad really.  This was a great opportunity for conservatives to prove the doubters wrong.  To prove to skeptical libertarians that they really had turned a new leaf when it comes to foreign policy.  That they were ready to embrace non-interventionism rather than an imperialist doctrine where America serves as the world’s police force.

It turns out that none of that was true at all.  All they wanted was to bash Obama.  They bashed him when they thought he was going to invade Syria, and now they bash him when it seems he’s not going to invade Syria.  I have no love for Obama whatsoever, but this is the right decision, and he deserves some credit for making it, politics be damned.

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One Really Bad Reason To Support Abortion

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Letting these people die is inhumane. Letting babies die is good economic policy.

I try not to get into “social issues” very much, mainly because they don’t interest me a whole lot.  The issue of abortion is particularly contentious, and is a rare example of an issue that cannot necessarily be easily decided by looking to the non-aggression principle.  The purpose of this article is not to be pro or anti-abortion in general, but rather, to refute one specific claim in favor of it.  You hear this from time to time from a certain set of people.  Typically, they are people who generally believe that abortion is bad and immoral in the abstract, but consider themselves to be “realists” or very “practical.”  It usually goes something like:

“Abortion is absolutely necessary in our society, because think of how terrible things would be if all of the aborted babies were carried to term.  We’d have so many more poor people.  They’d be on welfare!  They’d become criminals!  They would all generally be ‘burdens to society.’  Our society simply couldn’t handle the amount of children, most of which would be unwanted and poor and live in broken homes that would exist if not for legalized abortion.”

The main problem with this argument is that it treats the existence of the welfare state and current standards of criminal justice as universally fixed attributes that are beyond our control, when the exact opposite is true.  Poor children collect welfare because most of the country wants them to.  Poor children become criminals because the potential rewards outweigh the risks.

But let’s have a thought experiment.  Imagine a society in which there is no welfare state.  No forced or mandatory charity or wealth transfers of any kind.  All charity is purely voluntary in nature.  Would starving children then be a “burden to society?”  No, they would not.  They would be a burden exclusively to their parents, and to any individual who chose to assist them, thereby voluntarily assuming some of the burden.  Also, in our imaginary society, it is legal to use lethal force in defense not only of violent crime, but property crime as well.  If someone tries to steal your car, you can shoot them dead.  If it was legal to use lethal force in the defense of property crime, would property crime go up or down?  The risk would certainly skyrocket, that’s for sure.  If it was legal for a shopkeeper to shoot anyone trying to steal from them (as it was for most of human history, by the way), my guess is that crime would fall by a significant amount.

To put it another way:  Nobody can become a “burden to society” unless society allows them to.

It is absolutely not a given that banning abortion would raise the amount of welfare payments required and raise the crime rate.  It is likely that those things would happen, if and only if our current policies vis-à-vis welfare and crime are held constant.  But these policies don’t have to be held constant.  They could be changed, just as easily (if not much more easily) as prohibitions on abortion can be changed.

If you believe that abortion is generally immoral and tantamount to killing an unborn baby, but still favor its legalization for “practical” reasons, consider the following.  When a baby is aborted, there is absolutely no way to know what that baby might have done with their life.  We all know examples of individuals who have triumphed over incredibly adverse conditions, only to become happy and successful and productive people whose existence greatly enhanced human society.  While statistically, it may be very unlikely that the fifth child of a poor woman with no job and no husband might go on to become a successful scientist, artist, or businessman, we can’t really know for sure.  To allow abortion because of these concerns is essentially to say:  “This baby probably wouldn’t grow up to be a great person, so it’s fine to kill it.”  But the selection is random and arbitrary.  It has nothing to do with the merits of the individual baby being aborted (because we cannot yet know their merits.)

Consider, on the other hand, my hypothetical society where abortion is forbidden, but there is no welfare state and you can shoot aspiring criminals dead.  Sounds like a rough place, no?  I’m sure most of you would not favor such an environment.  It’s cruel to let some people starve while others enjoy great wealth!  It’s unjust to shoot a teenager dead for trying to steal your bicycle!  What an awful dystopia I have imagined!

But it’s important to keep in mind that in my dystopia, who exactly will be dying that didn’t die before?  Not randomly selected babies whose individual merit is impossible to know.  They’re now allowed to live.  They’re given a chance (it might be a very small chance, given their unfavorable starting conditions, but it’s a chance nonetheless) to become productive members of society.  No, now the only individuals dying are those who have already been given a chance, and have proven themselves to be a “burden to society.”  The selection is no longer random or arbitrary.  Those who cannot be productive enough to feed themselves will starve.  Those who rely upon force to obtain their food from others will be killed in the name of justice.

So, which society is better off?  The one that randomly selects a certain percentage of its population for death before it even has the chance to see the sunlight?  Or the society that forbids this practice, but is much more likely to allow the unproductive and the predators to die?  As awful as my hypothetical society may sound to common sensibilities, I’d encourage you to really think this one through.

Remember, this thought experiment is not to say that abortion is necessarily good or bad.  The questions of whether a woman has the “right” to abort a fetus living inside of her, or questions of when “life” begins are also quite relevant to this topic, and far beyond the scope of this article.  This article exists only to refute the “legalized abortion lessens the burden to society” objection.  It is not a valid objection, as it depends on the faulty premise that we cannot change our policies vis-à-vis welfare and criminal justice.  It just really irritates me when people who are obviously well-intentioned and trying their best to be rational and practical make terrible arguments.  Hopefully, this is one terrible argument that we can justly abort, before it becomes an even greater burden to future thinkers.

Posted in General Theory | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Dude Where’s My Podcast – Episode 1

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Big news guys!  I’m officially launching the Dude Where’s My Freedom podcast!  Episode one is available for your listening pleasure…. right now!  I’d really appreciate it if you listened and gave me some feedback, but just in case you don’t have the time or the desire to hear me ramble for thirty minutes, I figured I’d also provide a brief outline/summary as today’s post.

[audio https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/dwmfpodcasts/DWMF+Podcast+1+-+Syria+and+Military+Pictures2.mp3]

Download Episode 1

Intro

In the Introduction, I briefly discuss the reason for the podcast as well as the plans for it.  As of now, there aren’t really any detailed plans for it to be honest.  It’s just something I decided to try and see how it goes.  If it goes well, maybe it expands, becomes a regular feature, and includes guests.  One of the main motivations for even having a podcast is that I still feel like I’m not that great of a writer.  Or, at the very least, that I do a better job in political arguments in a discussion sort of format rather than writing a series of lengthy blog posts or essays or what have you.  So in this podcast where I can just sit down and ramble on about a topic for a bit, I actually think that format works a little bit better for me.  I’d love to have guests in the future to make it more of a back-and-forth sort of conversational style, but we’ll have to see how this goes first.

Main Topic

The main topic of this podcast involves the meme that you may have seen on the Internet where active duty military members are taking photographs of themselves, in uniform, holding signs over their faces expressing their opinions against intervention in Syria.

‘Treason’ Or ‘Free Speech?’ – Are These Anti-Syria Strike Pictures From U.S. Military Members Okay? (Blaze Poll) | TheBlaze.com.

The Blaze actually published an article about this exploring whether this was authorized under military regulations, and even hinting that such actions might even be treason.

Potential UCMJ Violations

I spend a decent amount of time discussing the various regulations on political speech in the military, including providing a bit of my own experience from nine years in the US Navy, and how these rules influenced my decision to leave.  Also discussed (and thoroughly debunked) is the notion that these photographs would be in violation of a UCMJ article forbidding commissioned officers from making contemptuous remarks about the President and other public officials (the photos do no such thing).

The next bit of discussion involves whether these photographs are “violation of a lawful order or regulation.”  In the event that Obama starts a war in Syria, it is quite likely that any order for troops to deploy there would in fact be considered a “lawful” order, but as of right now, these photographs simply say “If the order is given, I won’t obey it.”  That, in and of itself, is not disobeying an order.  You cannot disobey an order that has not yet been given.

Partisan Political Activity

The next bit of discussion regards some common regulations on political conduct by members of the armed forces.  This is something I researched quite a bit while I was in, because I wanted to stay within the rules.  The main prohibition of political conduct by active duty military involves a prohibition on “partisan political activity.”  Basically, you aren’t allowed to identify yourself as someone in the military while engaging in partisan politics.  I go on to discuss how that shouldn’t apply to this particular case, because whether to intervene or not intervene in Syria seems to be a completely bipartisan issue.  There are Republicans and Democrats on the extreme ends of both sides of the question of foreign intervention.  So, as far as I can tell, prohibitions on partisan political conduct would not come into play with these photographs either.

Lawful Orders and the Nuremburg Defense

Many commenters in the Blaze article make reference to the fact that an order to invade Syria would not in fact be a “lawful” order and troops would be authorized (if not outright compelled) to disobey it.  I think this really comes to the heart of the issue.  Despite the fact that the military readily acknowledges that some orders are unlawful and must not be obeyed, the culture of the military absolutely does not embrace that line of thinking at all.  Individual soldiers are told to shut up and obey orders and let someone else worry about whether the war itself is legal and ethical and such.  Anyone who attempted to refuse to deploy based on the notion that the order was unlawful would immediately be in a great deal of trouble and there career would instantly be over (we actually saw this happen in a few prominent cases with the Iraq war during the Bush administration).

This leads me to a discussion of the “Nuremburg Defense” where Nazi war criminals famously attempted to excuse their actions by pointing out that they were “just following orders.”  The global community, led by the United States, famously rejected this defense, setting international precedent that individuals have the responsibility to refuse to carry out unlawful orders.  But the average soldier is, of course, required to assume that all of his orders are lawful.  He is forced to either obey, or to face immediate (and potentially very harsh) consequences.  The system is essentially rigged against him.

Standing Orders Against Protest

I then go on to point out that there are various tiered structures of rules within the military.  Every specific location and command have their own sets of rules, and it’s entirely possible that various locations and commands have specific prohibitions on their personnel engaging in this type of activity on Facebook.  This is almost impossible to know for sure, because the amount of research required would be totally exhaustive.  Given this, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that some of the people posting these pictures are in violation of some sort of local or regional policy prohibiting this type of activity.

Also, as one last point, I ask the question of whether this would even be an issue if their protests were in favor of intervention in Syria.  If they agreed with the President, would anyone even care?  Would it be considered bad for the military to engage in political speech if it was incredibly mainstream and popular speech?  I tend to think not.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, I basically ask for your feedback, as it would be greatly appreciated and will very much help me decide whether to keep this going, make any major changes, or anything else.  Please get ahold of me on Facebook, Twitter, or through some other method and let me know what you think.  Thanks again for reading and/or listening!

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Remind People That The Politicians Don’t Matter

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

A job he’s even less qualified for.

I spent some of this last weekend with an old friend who is generally well informed and aware of current political issues (unfortunately, we don’t agree on most of them).  He asked me if I had watched or listened to Obama’s press conference on Syria, and he seemed to be surprised when I said that I had not.  This is actually a fairly common occurrence in my life.  People generally know me to be interested in politics and current events, and are usually quite surprised when I reveal to them that I don’t watch presidential press conferences, I don’t watch any particular news program on a regular basis, or read any particular newspaper.  I generally skip the state of the union, and any other pre-rehearsed speech written by a team of political flunkies.

And yet, I am able to stay well informed.  I read a variety of websites (news aggregators on Facebook and Twitter are a lifesaver!), some blogs, and listen to some talk radio.  While I didn’t watch Obama’s press conference, I had in fact already gotten the summarized version of it from a few different perspectives on Facebook.  Bam!  More information served up with less time and effort invested.

Some might suggest that I would be better served to go straight to the primary source myself, rather than relying on second-hand reports.  Occasionally, if particular phrases or sentences end up being somehow controversial or disputed, I will do so, but for the most part, it’s simply not necessary.  I don’t need to spend my time listening to Obama drone on and on (pun intended) about how much he respects the law and that’s why he’s deferring to Congress, I just need to know that he is.

But it’s not just about saving time.  There’s another reason, a much more significant reason, why I never drop everything I’m doing to watch a politician give a speech (even if it’s Ron Paul, I usually just catch it on Youtube later).  I like to live by my values as much as I can, and one of my widely stated values is that politicians simply don’t matter that much.  Now, some of you might consider that a shocking statement.  Lord knows that virtually every corner of society is constantly trying to convince you otherwise.  Both political parties, nearly every mainstream news and media outlet, even a lot of libertarian-leaning folks live their lives as if the President really is the most important person on the planet and that our lives should come to a grinding halt whenever he feels like telling us something.

These people are all wrong.  Politicians think they’re the most important thing in the universe, but they really aren’t.  Mostly they just get in the way of things we like to do in our lives.  Think of most of the actions you undertake in a given day.  How many of them changed significantly because Obama is president and not Romney?  How many changed when Obama was president and not Bush?  How many changed when Bush was president and not Gore?  I think if you really look at your life, you’ll find out that the answer is virtually zero (unless you work for the government or are in the military or have some other job that is majorly involved in politics).

These people just don’t matter very much.  The illusion that they do is what allows them to continue to grasp whatever limited power they still possess.  I once famously stated that if I had to choose between a competent president and a competent “girl who works the drive-thru window at my local McDonalds,” I’d take the McDonalds girl.  I stand by that statement.  The girl who works the drive-thru window has a direct, regular, and predictable effect on my quality of life.  Elected politicians are just a bunch of wannabe dictators in suits who desperately desire to have a direct, regular, and predictable effect on my quality of life, but fortunately, they don’t.  Don’t bother scheduling your life around their pronouncements.  They aren’t nearly as important as everyone pretends they are.

Posted in General Theory | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

If Denmark Jumped Off A Bridge, Would You?

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

 

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. It’s the economy, stupid!

Scandinavia’s Weakest Nation Finds Welfare Habits Too Costly – Bloomberg.

I always find these stories to be quite interesting.  For decades, the American left has pointed to Europe in general, and Scandinavia in particular, of how great and wonderful socialism can be.  Over there, we’re told, everyone is rich and happy because they get these wonderful and generous welfare benefits from the government.

How has that worked out in the long run?  Well, not so great really.  This story details some of the problems Denmark has been having, and more interestingly, some of the solutions.  Their economy is in the crapper, citizens would rather sit around collecting welfare checks than trying to work, and foreign investors are balking at the prospect of buying their debt.  So how have they responded?

By lowering taxes and reducing benefits.  Gee, what a novel concept.  Turns out even the European socialists understand that welfare is indeed mandatory charity, and that it is not an economic development plan.  Even though their populace by and large still thinks highly of these programs, they’re somehow aware enough of basic economics to understand that these generous programs cannot be sustained.  You cannot grow entitlements without a corresponding growth in productivity, and lately, productivity has fallen.

Yet, in America, a nation that’s supposedly really darn conservative and where we’re often told that our leftists would be considered right-wing extremists over in Europe, our politicians still have the gall to insist that welfare is good for the economy.  That taking money away from people who work and giving it to people who don’t work is a surefire way to increase overall prosperity.  That we can increase productivity with higher taxes and expanded benefits.  We are quite literally doubling down on the policies that have just failed in Europe.

I predict that within our lifetimes, America will become far and away more of a socialist-dominated welfare state than Western Europe.  Europeans have had to confront the harsh realities of exactly what happens when you allow the government to exercise almost total control of the economy.  They know it has failed.  They intuitively understand that only a return to market principles can save them in the long run.  Meanwhile, in the US, we’re still firm believers in the decades-old myth that the massive welfare/nanny-state of Scandinavia is the absolute perfect economic and political system, and that as soon as we can implement the exact same policies they did, all of our problems will magically disappear.

Nobody will ever acknowledge this, of course.  The power elites on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean depend on the myth of a laissez-faire, conservative America, and a socialist, nanny-state Europe in order to maintain their control of both sides respectively.  The media and public schools both feed into this narrative, never bothering to fact-check or compare the actual results.  But for those who are willing to actually look into the situation, they will increasingly find that Europe learned from the mistakes of the welfare state, while America refuses to them.  We are the proverbial teenager who is going to jump off a bridge just because the cool kid did it too. Although in this case, the cool kid broke his leg, limped back to school, and told everyone that jumping off bridges is really stupid.  Doesn’t matter!  We’ve already decided that socialism is the way to go.  Bridge, here we come!

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What’s So Special About Chemical Weapons Anyway?

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Syria chemical weapons attack blamed on Assad, but where’s the evidence? – CBS News.

As you may have heard, Obama is currently considering whether or not to unilaterally start another unnecessary foreign war of choice – this time in Syria.  For some bizarre reason that seems to make sense to absolutely everyone but me, “chemical weapons” are the main focus and obsession this time.  The American government has its propaganda-machine in full gear trying to convince anyone still willing to listen that Assad did in fact use chemical weapons on the opposition, the implication being that, if true, this obviously means we should throw away perfectly good American lives in an attempt to officiate a foreign civil war.  The American media is devoting all kinds of time and resources on examining whether Assad used chemical weapons or not.  Obama previously identified the use of chemical weapons as a “red line” which, if crossed, would provoke American intervention.  The neocons, meanwhile, are insisting that we have a “moral obligation” to protect those who might be potential victims of Assad’s chemical weapon attacks.  In response to all of this, I have exactly one question.

Why?

What exactly makes chemical weapons so special that their use requires American intervention when the use of “regular weapons” does not?  Should we not be basing decisions on whether to commit American troops to die in a foreign civil war on something- anything – else?  This is really going to be the deciding factor, the type of weapons used by one side?  Not the amount of people killed?  Not whose grievance is more legitimate?  Not which side more clearly benefits American national interests?  But the way in which one side chooses to kill its opposition?

I’m hardly an expert on weaponry, so feel free to correct me if I’m off-base here, but my understanding is that generally speaking, the reason we tend to view chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons as “worse” than conventional weaponry is their capacity for large-scale, indiscriminate, slaughter.  It’s not necessarily that chemical weapons are somehow inherently more immoral than bullets and machetes, but rather, it’s that they are easier to deploy on a greater number of people.

But that doesn’t seem to really be the issue right now in Syria.  We can’t even positively determine if a single chemical weapon attack has really occurred or not.  Even if it has, nobody at all is insinuating that it was some kind of massive attack, the scale of which demands a response.

Look at it this way, what if we were only talking about one death?  Say two groups get in a fight.  One member of Group A kills one member of Group B with a gun.  In retaliation, one member of Group B kills one member of Group A with nerve gas.  Does this really mean that a neutral third-party should automatically intervene on behalf of Group A, because Group B is immorally using chemical weapons?  Of course not, there is an equal amount of blood on the hands of both groups here.

I can definitely sympathize with anyone who desires to ignore the issues surrounding a potential war in Syria.  It’s already a catastrophic mess, and it’s only going to get worse with American involvement, which means that American involvement is probably all but assured.  There’s virtually zero chance of anything even remotely resembling a happy ending to this one.  But for those of us who are going to keep up with it, and enter the debate on whether or not American intervention is appropriate, we must refuse to debate on false pretenses.  Do not let anyone attempt to argue as if “Assad used chemical weapons,” is somehow an automatic justification for entering an unnecessary foreign war.  Force them to elaborate.  The wheels are already in motion on this and there probably isn’t much we can do to stop it, but we can still hold the intellectual high ground by refusing to concede the argument to an improper, illogical, and incomplete justification for war.

 

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Failed States And The “Now What” Question

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

I’ve always believed that one of the best ways to learn about a person is to examine how they react to changing and difficult circumstances.  We all face adversity in life at one time or another, and it’s how we deal with that adversity that truly defines our character.  Perhaps you’ve just been laid off from your job, or dumped by your significant other.  Do you wallow in self-pity, lapsing into depression?  Or perhaps you react with anger, searching for someone other than yourself to blame for these terrible circumstances?  Of course, there’s another, far more constructive option:  To keep a stiff upper lip and a sound determination to learn from your experience.  To move on, confident in your worth as an individual and your ability to rise above momentary setbacks. 

But individuals aren’t the only things that fail.  Governments sometimes fail too.  The term “failed state” often conjures up images of a war-torn society, where violence and chaos rule the day, and large groups of people needlessly suffer and die.  While this may be a generally accurate description, we often ignore the true meaning of the term.  Think about it for a second, it’s a failed… state.  It is not the society or the community that has failed, but the state specifically.  The government has failed.  So, what is everyone going to do about that exactly?

This is the “so what” question.  Something bad has happened… so what?  Many individuals love to spend all day navel-gazing and writing lengthy articles that come to no particular conclusion other than “something bad has happened,” while leaving out the valuable question of so what?  What does it mean, and what do we do about it now?  By observing how societies respond to this question following the failure of government, we can get a good read as to how receptive they may be to ideas of freedom, liberty, and entrepreneurial spirit.

Generally speaking, when the government fails, there are two general paths that people can take.  They can either demand a “better” government that will be more likely to provide the necessary “public goods,” or they can take matters into their own hands, and provide these things for themselves and their communities.  Examining which people take which route can be very instructive.  Traditionally, throughout the world’s history, the first route has been the most popular.  Most people are conditioned to accept the premise that government is generally good, and any flaws it exhibits are not flaws of government in general, but of the specific government in charge at that particular place and time.  This leads citizens of a failed state to propose to “solve” their problem of poor governance through elections, coups, or civil wars.  (Note:  Historically, the track record of any of those things dramatically improving on the relevant failurse of the state is astoundingly poor).  Attempts to replace a bad government with a new one often lead to war and widespread civil unrest, thereby exacerbating the original problems, and dramatically lowering the quality of life for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle of opposing factions.

The other option is to simply accept the situation for what it is, and to understand that bad government is not especially unique to one’s own place and time, but that inefficiency and corruption are inherent characteristics of government.  Someone who accepts this will not propose to fix society’s problems by either “voting the bums out” or shooting the bums in the head.  They will move on with their life, doing everything they can do remedy the deficiencies themselves.  This is the path of the free individual.

My belief is that as government continues to get worse and worse across the globe, we will see a historically high percentage of individuals responding as free individuals, and not as statists who simply attempt to replace an evil with a lesser evil.  In fact, we’re already seeing it.  In Africa, South America, and even Detroit, more and more people are responding to the failures of government through voluntary action rather than through attempts to improve an inherently broken institution.  This is certainly a positive development for liberty, as it is indicative of a global populace more willing to assume individual responsibility and engineer new, private, voluntary solutions for societal ills.

So long as people believe that the government just needs to be “fixed,” that with the right tinkering, we can engineer heaven on Earth, freedom doesn’t have a chance.  But as more and more people awaken to the notion that government can’t be fixed, that it is the problem and not the solution, the statists worldwide will be on the retreat, and the forces of liberty will assume the dominant position in the intellectual battlefield.

 

I’m sure a corporation is responsible for this.

Posted in General Theory | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Progressive Nullification

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Nullification: All the Cool Kids Are Doing It | Tom Woods.

Tom Woods highlights some recent efforts by certain states (including Vermont, a state that voted 66% for Obama in 2013) to nullify federal laws they deem objectionable.  Of course, these recent examples are hardly the only ones we have to draw from.  Several conservative states have recently passed legislation nullifying federal gun control laws, and several liberal states have passed legislation that amounts to a de-facto nullification of federal drug laws.  Outrageous federal laws are being nullified left and right!

Of course, the opinion makers would still have you believe nullification is a loser.  That it’s an “extreme” and “illegal” position that amounts to supporting slavery (if you’re a conservative) or treason (if you’re a liberal).  The talking heads in every mainstream news operation (including ideological outliers such as The Huffington Post and The Blaze) agree on one simple thing:  nullification is bad.  There are virtually zero mainstream voices willing to publicly support the right of the people of a state to nullify unconstitutional federal laws.

Obviously, there is a disconnect here between the establishment media, politicians, and talking heads, and the American public at large.  “Well of course!” you say, “Tell me something I don’t know.”  Well, I think this particular issue is different from the average example of “The people overwhelmingly want one thing, yet the government does another and the media is completely in the tank for them,” because while I think the average American supports nullification in deed, they do not support it in name.  There may be a more pronounced liberal/conservative divide on this one, but I suspect if you ask the average Coloradan whether or not states should be able to nullify federal laws they deem unconstitutional, they would say no, but if you ask them whether they support Colorado’s recent effort to (sort-of) legalize marijuana, they would say yes.

That is to say, there are a lot of people out there who support nullification and don’t even realize it.  They think they agree with the talking heads – that it sounds bad for states to just be able to do whatever they want.  Don’t you know that without the federal government asserting its dominance over states, all black people would still be slaves?  Can’t you read the constitution where it clearly states that federal laws are supreme?  What kind of moron could possibly support nullification!?

The answer to that question is:  The kind of moron who doesn’t feel the need to ask permission from his federal overlords to exercise his natural rights.  The kind who says:  “I own my body and can do whatever I like with it, and anyone who doesn’t like that can stuff it.”  A lot of Americans already fall into this category.  Our duty is to help them realize it.  There are hordes of potential libertarians out there, people who believe in individual freedom, but haven’t yet been able to overcome the mental block that has been imprinted on their minds by decades of government propaganda and media indoctrination.  This may be our most important duty and responsibility to our fellow citizens.  Not to try to necessarily change their minds on major positions, but to help them come to the understanding that on many issues, they already agree with us.

I titled this piece “Progressive Nullification” because I think that’s the road we’re going to have to travel here.  The modern progressive movement achieved its ends in much the same way.  Even today, most Americans wouldn’t ever admit to being socialists, yet somehow, numerous socialist policies are regularly implemented in America.  The progressives figured out how to make this happen.  Society changed slowly, yet the labels stayed the same.  The socialist party never made any significant waves.  No significant number of Americans ever identified as socialists.  But it didn’t matter; because they agreed with the socialists on enough issues to help the real hardcore believers achieve their ends.  Walk around any major American city and you can’t swing a stick without hitting someone who might say something like:  “I’m no socialist, but of course we should have single-payer health care, it’s just a no-brainer!”

I believe we’re on the verge of arriving at this moment with nullification.  There are lots of Americans who would never openly endorse the idea of nullification, but might say something like:  “I’m no libertarian, but of course states should be able to decide for themselves what type of gun control or drug policy to have, it’s just a no-brainer!”  If we can cross that threshold, we just might be able to achieve the goal of liberty in our lifetime.

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More On “Fair” Wages

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

In my last post, I mentioned that a libertarian, if asked to estimate the “worth” of an hour of unskilled labor, would likely answer “We can’t know, but probably less than $7.50.”  To me, the logic behind this seems pretty clear, but I figured I’d elaborate a bit and explain it anyway.

The existence of a minimum wage law clearly implies that, in the absence of said law, people would be making lower wages than what the law stipulates – otherwise, the law wouldn’t be necessary at all.  Given that there is a wage floor, but no wage ceiling, we can safely assume that some workers are getting paid more than they are truly worth, but as a rule, nobody is getting paid less.  Anyone who is making less money than they are truly worth should be able to quit their job and find an employer happy to pay them the true value of their services.

Price floors and ceilings both heavily distort the market (this is covered in the first few weeks of any Economics 101 course).  It is only when the market is distorted that the cost of any particular item (including labor) can become detached from what the item is worth (as judged by the preferences of various individuals engaging in voluntary trade).  Therefore, we can safely assume that there are some people making the minimum wage whose labor is actually worth much less.  These people are essentially receiving forced charity from their employers, mandated by the government.

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