Economics and Liberty: GOP "debate," left-liberals vs. the market, and paleocons vs. the market

GOP "Debate" & Farming

Even though I mainly listened to the play-by-play reactions to the recent GOP "debate" at RonPaulRadio.com, in my listening I reflected on how awful Republicans are on economic issues. It is amusing how many men buy into the Republican folklore legend that the "Stupid Party" is actually good and smart on economic issues. This seems to allow them to get away with more government expansion than the Democrat Party. Fundamentally, though, the two political parties are not much different. Both parties support Leviathan statism. They just wear different masks, and many people get cornered into supporting one or the other.

(From the kool-aid drinking partisans, though, that come from either the Democrat Party or the Republican Party, it's made to seem that these two major political parties are light-years apart in their economic views. Ha-ha.)

Sure in the big picture of things Republicans sound relatively better in rhetoric on economics, but rhetoric is just rhetoric. Ronald Reagan, for example, was a huge government expander in terms of spending, and he was not good in taxation either. And he was a huge deficit spender, to boot. This was both true when he was president and when he was governor. Credulous conservatives always paint him wrongly. In fact, according to Mr. Lew Rockwell, then President Reagan gave a personal call to Rep. Ron Paul asking him to vote "yea" in a spending increase. Of course, Paul did not sell his soul to the despicable Reagan.

As the circus show played out a few days ago on CNN, candidates danced around the subject of farm subsidies to please the farming lobby.

The Bad Boy of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, would have none of this. As you can imagine, he hated the subsidized farmer. And he was not afraid to write it in his acidic style:

"Let the farmer, so far as I am concerned, be damned forevermore! To hell with him, and bad luck to him! He is, unless I err, no hero at all, and no priest, and no altruist, but simply a tedious fraud and ignoramus, a cheap rogue and hypocrite, the eternal Jack of the human pack. He deserves all that he suffers under our economic system, and more. Any city man, not insane, who sheds tears for him is shedding the tears of the crocodile."

"No more grasping, selfish and dishonest mammal, indeed, is known to students of the Anthropoidea. When the going is good for him he robs the rest of us up to the extreme limits of our endurance; when the going is bad he comes bawling for help out of the public till. Has anyone ever heard of a farmer making any sacrifice of his own interests, however slight, to the common good? Has anyone ever heard of a farmer practicing or advocating any political idea that was not absolutely self-seeking -- that was not, in fact, deliberately designed to loot the rest of us to his gain? Greenbackism, free silver, government guarantee of prices, all the complex fiscal imbecilities of the cow state John Baptists -- these are the contributions of the virtuous husbandman to American political theory . . . . Yet we are asked to venerate this prehensile moron as . . . the foundation stone of the state!"

Now in the "debate" it was claimed that the State should subsidize farmers because other States are doing it too! So, they are hitting their heads, so "we" should too? Only a politician would reason that way. If other nations want to subsidize farmers, then the U.S. federal government should stop and then we as consumers should take advantage of the other nations' stupidity by buying their artificially priced stuff. That is not a loss, but a win. It would obviously encourage other States to be more economic as well. But if you really boil it down, such costs are just past on to the American public. Guess who is suckered with the needless bill? It only makes us poorer.

Left-Liberalism, Libertarianism, & the Free Market

One of the many problems that I have is that many left-liberals (who stole the term "liberal") falsely think that the Republicans have libertarian economic views. The trouble with them is that they not only hate the freedom to choose, which comes about with private property, but they fail to understand that politics is a rich man's game. It was they----rich big business----that cheered on (for the most part) the centralization of government power, the creation of central banking, and various regulations to freeze out small businesses. Liberals have been scammed, only they do not know it.

Recently, when browsing through various blogs around the Internet at random, I keep running into the idea that to be for personal freedom and, at the same time, to be against economic freedom is to be libertarian. "Personal freedom" only comes from private property, which these individuals are against (to varying degrees). So such a claim is fallacious. Possessing a cultural hedonistic, relativistic, or "pluralistic" outlook or attitude neither qualifies a man to be a libertarian. The only requisite to be a libertarian is to support private property and what such support logically and deductively implies. Namely, that aggressive violence against those engaging in non-violent activity should be prohibited. (This is what libertarians often call the "non-aggression axiom.") Strictly speaking that is it. To take part of a phrase from President George W. Bush, it is a uniting and not a dividing philosophy. It applies the general ethical code to everyone, including government officials. If you agree with this philosophy, then great: you are a libertarian.

But even here most of these left-liberals do not really believe in "personal freedom." They are very selective by what they mean by that phrase. (For example, why are they against the "personal freedom" of consenting adults to engage in voluntary capitalist acts with each other?!) While such men as these left-liberals are generally for Cultural Marxism to one degree or another, they easily adopt anti-libertarian views when they then see the State aggressively promoting Cultural Marxism or seeing the State limit man's ability to use his personal freedom to discriminate as he sees fit. (E.g., to non-violently discriminate against these kinds of left-liberal attitudes and/or the specific men that subscribe to them.) Moreover, they support the use of coercion to collectively force people to accept homosexual "marriage." They love the idea of civil "rights." They love commies like "Dr." MLK. In fact, their ideas of Cultural Marxism require State interventionism. This requires the substitution of family, kinship, community, church, covenant, and so forth by (i.e., to be replaced by) the State. This allows their left-cultural views to breed and expand.

A fundamental problem they have as it relates to economics is that they do not know the difference between a free market and what is in existence today. Ordinarily I do not debate teachers or professors, but one time I gave an example to my liberal chemistry instructor of how big business seeks governmental regulations to close the door to competition. I said that Clear Channel has tried to get laws past that would stop any satellite radio from doing any local news or local traffic reports. She replied that is no big deal and is only one tiny example making it irrelevant. Given that she is essentially a government-worker, maybe it is not surprising that she is so in the dark.

Liberals promote a "utilitarian" ethic and try to pin an anti-utilitarian (anti-goodness) ethic on any non-socialist. They knowingly and disingenuously structure the debate superficially where it is they that are for helping the poor and the downtrodden. It is "easy" for a man to say that he wants "society" to produce this or that good to help the poor. If man was omnipotent and could snap his finger like magic, then who could be against the idea to end this or that man's suffering?

But I reject the leftist premise. So it is not even "easy" to say that. In actual practice, when they say this they equate "society" and "state." No advocate of liberty would. The poor and those down on their luck should seek help through private-voluntary means. Greater focus on these means strengthen these means of help. It would therefore strengthen man's generosity. That is, it would strengthen the individual's direct involvement in charity. The less these private means are used, the less individual man will be generous with his money because the State has been substituted to replace the need for man to be generous. Left-liberals therefore produce a society that is less generous. Men will consequently become increasingly detached from charity.

Since liberals like talking about a "safety-net," their ideas destroy the safety-net that comes from the social intermediate institutions. As covered above, the welfare state helps destroy the formation and strength of private institutions of charity. Churches, for instance, have lost a major role in charity (relatively speaking). Another case in point has been the extended family. At one time it was held together in greater vigor and provided a comfortable safety net vis-à-vis its members. It was not as if those who were truly poor had nowhere to turn to when the welfare state did not exist. Believing that was the case is just nonsense.

Putting that aside, the move from private-voluntary charity to collective-coercive charity has only made problems worse. We do not live in the Garden of Eden. Our world is a world of scarcity. And it is a world where there are laws of nature, of mathematics, of economics. Their collectivist idea to help the poor, unlike private charity, collectively reinforces what they want to help cut-down. It systematically and collectively diverts finite resources to reinforce poverty and consequently will subsidize it. Such statist intervention makes wealth production more costly. What it does, in effect, is punishes productive men. Not only will redistribution be occurring but the size of that redistribution will continually decline. This is the great fallacy of the welfare state.

The true advocate of the poor, then, should promote effective methods through freedom. In addition to this, while we are at it, let's cut down taxes of the poor (and everyone else) to, ummmm, zero. Or, for the time being, close to zero.

More fundamentally, these liberals do not understand how the market works. Allocations of finite resources need to be allocated through the free market's spontaneous pricing system which is derived from acting men.

This is most clearly seen with how an individual businessman must behave (if he wants to remain a businessman for long). He knows that he is using his resources successfully when he makes a profit on them (or, at least, comes out even). More precisely, when a businessman takes what is perceived as less valuable and uses it to produce something that is perceived as more valuable to consumers. Or, put in another way, where the input, which costs X, and the output, which is sold at Y to consumers, is related to each other so that Y is greater than X, and where the difference between them (Y - X) is the businessman's profit. Now it is this pricing system that allows rational calculation in the free market. It helps prevent resources from being allocated to unwanted and uneconomic lines of production. It thus helps to divert resources to their most wanted and needed areas. And it helps men cut down on waste and to economize to the conditions of what people demand and to the underlying reality of the finite supplies of goods and natural resources that are in existence. This ability, which States by their very operation do not and cannot possibly have, also allows resources to be freed up so as to produce a greater amount of different things. The free market is imperative to living a comfortable life.

As we all know, life and nature produces conditions that change. There is no such thing as a static world. Once again, it is the market that is needed to deal with this reality. For example, prices change on commodities. A businessman must be able to foresee this. The better he does the more profits he can make. If he sees that Z commodity will become scarcer and buys it, and if he has correctly foreseen the future, then he has diverted resources to be used to the corresponding reality to serve the public better. When he fails he suffers losses. This, obviously, is not what he wants. Thus, businessmen tend to be able to foresee future market conditions well (under normal non-inflationary conditions).

Another important example is how the various demands of consumers, because it is not a constant, changes through time. A businessman must do his best to pay close attention to these changing demands. He has to stay on top of the latest developments. The less he does this successfully, the more he directly suffers and the smaller his business will become. He might even go out of business. Thus, to stay in business, a businessman must please people. If a businessman does not, then he goes out of business. Does this happen with statist management? No. Of course not. Our relationship is not voluntary with statist management.

Just recently, where I presently live, the statist electric system upgraded so as to have everyone's amount of usage register electronically to the electric plant. They therefore no longer have to send someone out to manually go to house-to-house to see how much electricity everyone is using. This is an example of statism and how backwards and Third World-like it is. Upgrading and economizing is sluggish. The incentive and need is just not there. It is not as persistent and pressing as the free market. These very things cause the standard of living to be less than they could otherwise be.

And when I look at public property in my area, what I see is litter and poorly maintained property. Publicly owned land is similar. Instead of this land being civilized by private property, it is a wilderness of the wild. A wilderness that is waiting to catch on fire one of these days and maybe burn down the houses near-by. Nature is always and will always be the enemy of civilization. It must be used and civilized by man.

To continue this discussion, there are several things moreover facing a businessman, unlike a politician and his coercive activity, which have positive affects on his actions. These principles play across the board to how the free market works.

Again, a cornerstone to the market is its profit-and-loss check. This has already been covered in its management of resources above, but there is more to it. Businessmen know they can go out of business or suffer large losses by other businessmen out-competing them. Customers want high-quality but low cost products and services. To remain competitive a businessman then has to do his best to provide such. If he does not, another businessman might. If that happens, then this will cause him to lose business and perhaps go out of business completely.

Businesses that lose money, profit, or closes down is actually a positive feature of the free market, for the whole of society. Scarce resources then move into businesses that are more successful at using them. Therefore, resources tend to move into their more productive lines of production. The free market encourages productive causes. It also encourages innovations.

Unlike the government and socialism, the free market gives man choices. These choices are made numerous because there is a competitive field, filled with many businessmen and capitalists. When one man buys something from another man, the other man buys something too. Joe goes to the store and buys a candy bar. Bob, the store owner, buys money. Joe buys the candy bar with the money because he, at that moment, values the candy bard more than the money. Bob, on the other hand, values the money, at that moment, more than the candy bar. Neither Joe nor Bob would have traded if they didn't expect that they would both gain in the trade. Trade, between two exchangers of opposite preferences, thus, in the ex ante sense, is mutually beneficial.

Already, even from this very basic and introductory analysis, we can dispel the myth that inequality is created or perpetuated in capitalism. A businessman can pander to a small select rich cliental. However, it is he who tries to pander to the public at large who will prosper in wealth even more. The public does not "lose" in this arrangement. They do not lose when television sets are mass produced at low costs. Costs low enough so as to be affordable to even a man who is considered in relative poverty to most other men in the given society. The poor live like kings in a free(er) society. He who trades (purchases with money) is giving up what he values less to get what he values more. Just as, supply and demand are really two frame of references equally applicable from either "end" in an exchange, so too is the concept of profit. To purchase is to purchase for profit monetarily, materially, or psychologically. To act is to act for profit. It is to give up a sadder state of affair for a better one. The rich, in a free market---not in a statist market (that currently exists)----, get wealthy only by making the public wealthy. It does not produce inequality, but wealth for all parties. If this were not the case, then no one would act to exchange with another in the market in the first place.

Often logic does not motivate the statist, but irrational resentment and envy. They wish to bring down the rich, even though it would hurt them too. Many of them also, as Ludwig von Mises explained, have what is called the Fourier Complex. Many of men blame society for their inefficiencies in life. As children men have high dreams, but reality curtails them. Men with the Fourier Complex mask their feelings of inadequacy by blaming the world, and especially the rich, for their own condition. They hide it and embrace various versions of socialism. Those men with this problem cannot be reasoned with at all. All that can be done is for them to sort out their mental complex(es) willingly.

Even the ethic of equality is faulty. Inequality is what makes man truly human. Men differ in ability, intelligence, talent, aptitude, physical appearance, et cetera. Men also grow up in different environments. We are born unequal to each other and we live unequal to each other. This is part of the reality to be human and to live. Man could not exist if this were not the case. Reality makes use of this inequality of man. It allows the man with little intelligence and little strength to live a productive and happy life. Another myth of the liberal is that market activity is like the jungle of animals. This too is nonsense. In early hunter-gather societies this was true, but capitalism grew mankind out of it. Infanticide was practiced then because primitive man did not have the capabilities or the capital he has now. Then, no one who was handicapped could live. Now, however, a handicapped man can because of capitalism. A division of labor, unlike some kind of war against all in the jungle, is what produces peace between men. It motivates men to get along with each other. The more complex and diversified it is, the more peace is required, and the more economically dependent we are on one another. Any kind of civil war would be disastrous. It would isolate man and starve him.

The so-called "ideals" of extreme left-liberalism help therefore to create war and hate.

[To footnote: This important point also helps to show how anarcho-capitalism is not only possible but something mankind should embrace.]

The "business" of a politician and of government works completely outside of the constraints of a free market enterprise. It limits our options and our choices. The more the public sector takes over life, the smaller the free market. A State that dictates our health, for example, is one that corrals man into a cage of the State's dictates. It smashes man's choices away to subservience and slavery. Such an ideology is an ideology of dictatorship. Statist management always is top-down and simplistic. Given the diversity of mankind, and the diversity of needs and wants of different men in different environments and circumstances, no top-down approach is adequate to fulfill the actual plural needs of society. They can only do harm and cause numerous and incalculable distortions, like the butterfly effect in chaos theory. Its one-size-fits-all collectivism brings havoc on a world that is made up of millions of actions by millions and millions----billions----of men. One that wants a just and wealthy society needs the markets bottom-up apparatus.

The "business" of the politician is not to fulfill the actual needs of consumers, but to pander to the various lobby groups that want the State's loot. Instead of voluntary choice, mankind gets coercive dictates. (Taxation being the clearest example of the State's criminal operation.) Instead of having mutually beneficial relationships, the State brings a relationship that is a plus for them but a negative for the robbed.

Allocations of the State will always have to be arbitrary and wasteful. When a true economic businessman fails, he then suffers a loss and perhaps disappears. It promotes correct allocations. On the other hand, when the State fails nothing happens. There is nothing that helps divert resources into productive uses. By its very nature it will use resources uneconomically, and such use harms mankind. Consumers are no longer king. It so happens when a State failure is clear and evident for men at large, the State and the pundits call for more money to be diverted into the public sector----as if that would make the State economic and wise! Instead all that happens is that the State conquers more of society.

If I am a businessman and cannot fail (because of government protection), then moral hazard is created. I no longer have to worry about acting in a rational manner with my limited resources. If I am a businessman and the State has outlawed competition or potential competition, then I no longer have to worry about a competitor out-competing me and/or driving me out of business, and therefore have no reason to economize, innovate, or lower expenses to the consumers. States, then, promote failure, abuse, waste, destruction, and other kinds of evils. This is the implication of socialist ideology.

Republicanism, Neoconservatism, and Paleoconservatism

No more talk about "Buy America." (God bless China!) It does not make America more prosperous; only less. When I trade with my neighbor, he does not vacuum up our trade into the ether. There are two sides to the transactions that make the trade beneficial. A swooping vacuum does not suck up savings into nothingness, but into increased productivity to further increase living standards. Trade could not even take place if it was not for this advantage. Even if one person (or people) in the trade are physically and mentally superior in producing goods, it still is better to trade for the weak and the strong person than not to trade at all.

If, say, Lisa is a terrific and world famous soprano but is also very good at bookkeeping, it still would pay for her to hire a bookkeeper to keep her bookings in check. Lisa might be a better bookkeeper than who she hires, but it is better for her to focus on what she is best at. Equally this applies to the bookkeeper. She/he cannot become an operatic singer of such talent of the soprano/tenor. They can do what they are best at even though one is better at both tasks. There is comparative advantage at play.

Or, let's take a look at the logic of the protectionist another way. There should be protectionism between individual cities. If the overall logic is true, it must be true here. In fact, it must be true if no one traded at all. Likewise, if one really thinks that trade, which increases productivity, lowers living standards and/or takes jobs away, then it must be the case that technological progress does the same. In fact, man would then have to look at all machines as a curse on society. Clearly, though, this is nonsensical.

And, by the way, why in the world would one want to trust the State to decide who should and should not trade? The statist managerial elite should have that power?

The only just criticism is that many of these mega companies in international trade are so tied into statism. This does destroy competitive conditions to the point where trade brings less and less benefit than it could otherwise. It does seem to redistribute wealth to some degree. But this attack is not on real free trade, but on the protectionism that we currently have. If there is one thing that "populists" are right on, it is that the middle class is suffering. But look to Mexico. There is no middle class due to the very fact that State power has squeezed it out by their redistributive schemes and economic fascism. While freedom will produce very, very rich people, it will not destroy the middle class. Populists, like Lou Dobbs, would not help the middle class but only make them poorer.

One very large reason that the middle class is hurting tremendously is because of the Federal Reserve. Inflation steals wealth away from them. But instead of looking to the Fed, which controls the money supply, many (but not all) paleocons and populists seem to blame foreign competition or some such thing on the decline of the dollar. Why not look behind the curtain?

All for the good that there are some conservatives (paleoconservatives), who are generally consistent in their hate of foreign interventionism, understand what stimulates increased terrorism and hatred around the world (blowback). But they then use a neoconservative vision or frame of mind to attack China as the enemy of the free world. This is most true for old Cold War warriors.

Often times when this is done, it is done without differentiating between the government (the State) and the people. For example, semi-retired talk radio personality Mr. Art Bell was terrified at how fast China is building up and developing, as he and his new wife saw on their trip about a year ago. ...Are we to look down on a people who are actually trying now to live in comfort with an actual standard of living? Or are these conservatives, mainly paleoconservatives, afraid of a new imperial power; something other than the United States? For the time being, however, they are the world's capitalists.

Trade promotes peaceful relationships between peoples. Too often has trade restrictions been a precursor to war. This is why anti-interventionist-protectionists would promote policies that would hurt their anti-interventionist outlook. They promote counterproductive ideas.

As much as I like, for example, paleoconservative Mr. Pat Buchanan and find him an articulate and luminousness man especially on the culture war, to call him bad on economics would be an understatement. From what I read, he calls Hamilton a good guide for economics. Hamiltonian economics is the anti-Ron Paul economics: central banking, protectionism, and rich man's welfare. (Although, Buchanan would be at least against the last thing. But even on that point, we cannot say this 100%. Protectionism is a form of indirect welfare for the rich, or well-politically connected.)

A point that I read from Richard Weaver is true. Cultural Marxists and their statist brothers have language on their side. This gives them an upper-hand. When politicians and pundits refer to "free trade," they are not referring to actual free trade of the classical liberal, the libertarian, or the anti-statist conservative. It is right to attack the WTO, NAFTA, GATT, FTAA, and whatever else. The protectionist, however, attacks these organizations for mostly the wrong reasons.

Internally in a country they produce a playground for lobby groups and big business. It is really more of a form of protectionism than of free trade. Certain businesses get special protection and others do not. It feeds on corruption and the thirst of power from men who would otherwise work to be market businessmen and not political parasites. The stronger the internal protectionism, the poorer a nation will be because they will have less trading options, and the weaker competitive conditions will be producing less efficient internal companies.

Externally it harmonizes State laws across borders. It creates international bodies of statist management and control. By doing this, such policies centralize power. It disconnects that power from the people to an ever greater extent.

Furthermore, it makes States more internally aggressive by eliminating international (external) market competition. This is because men can no longer "vote with their feet" to states that are internally less aggressive. (Smart businessmen will especially do this.) As such, this allows governments to be more internally oppressive than they otherwise would be.

All of this consequently leads to a general lowering of the standards of living.