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FDR Wasn't FDR ... Until His Hand Was Forced By Civil Disobedience
Progressives are disappointed that - contrary to the hype - Obama is no FDR.
But FDR himself wasn't who we think of as FDR until he was forced by protests, strikes and other forms of civil disobedience.
As historian Howard Zinn wrote in March 2008:
In
1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over
the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general
strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile
mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country.
Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to
put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help
organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.
Without
a national crisis—economic destitution and rebellion—it is not likely
the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms
that it did.
Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party,
unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two
leading Presidential candidates [i.e. Obama and McCain] have made it
clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq
War ....
They offer no radical change from the status quo.
They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for ....
They
do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical
changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for
social programs to transform the way we live.
None of this
should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic
conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only
when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and
the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in
November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental
illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.
***
For instance, the
mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes—they
should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War,
when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our
homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were
threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the
thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take
place.
The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents
should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they
organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their
apartments, in defiance of the authorities.Historically,
government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats,
conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until
forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of
black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies
and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting ... is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.
Similarly, Zinn said in 2008:
The
obstacles are a kind of resignation that things will go on as before.
That's always the obstacle to change. The obstacle to change is not
that people don't want change. People want change. But most of the
time, people feel impotent. However, at certain points in history, the
energy level of people, the indignation level of people rises. And at
that point it becomes possible for people to organize and to agitate and
to educate one another, and to create an atmosphere in which the
government must do something. I'm thinking of the 1930s; I'm thinking of
Franklin D. Roosevelt coming into office not really a crusader.
Roosevelt
came into office, you know, with a balance-the-budgets history. It was
not clear what he was going to do, and I don't think he was clear
about what he was going to do, except that he was going to be different
from Hoover and the Republicans. But when he came into office, he
faced a country that was on strike. He faced general strikes in San
Francisco in Minneapolis. He faced strikes of hundreds of thousands of
textile workers in the South. He faced a tenants movement and an
unemployed council movement. And he faced a country in turmoil, and he
reacted to it, he was sensitive to it, he moved. That's what we will
need.
We will need to see some of the scenes that we saw in the '30s.
Liberal Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig pointed out last week that - instead of mocking the Tea party - progressives should emulate it's energy:
Many
of my friends have been puzzled that I have not been a strong critic
of the Tea Party. Indeed, quite the opposite, I stand as a critical
admirer.... I am a genuine admirer of the urge to reform that is at the
heart of the grassroots part of this, perhaps the most important
political movement in the current political context.
My
admiration for this movement grew yesterday, as at least the Patriots
flavor of the Tea Party movement announced its first fight with (at
least some) Republicans. The Tea Party Patriots have called for a GOP
moratorium on "earmarks."
***
This disagreement
has thus set up the first major fight of principle for the Tea Party.
As leaders in the Tea Party Patriots described in an email to
supporters,For two years we have told the media and
the rest of the country that we are nonpartisan and that we intend to
hold all lawmakers to a higher standard.This, they
insist, is their first chance for that stand with the new Republican
Congress. And the Tea Party Patriots have now mobilized their list to
pressure Republicans to support this first and critical reform in the
new Congress.
***
Earmarks are ... an essential element
in the corruption that is Congress today.... they have become the key to
an incredible economy of influence that effectively enables lobbyists
to auction too many policy decisions to the highest special interest
bidder. That economy won't change simply by eliminating earmarks. But
eliminating earmarks is an essential first step to starving this
Republic-destroying beast.
***
We do face a common enemy.
Special-interest-government is anathema to both the true Right and the
limping Left. Progress would be to work together to end it.
Lessig is not alone.
As I've previously pointed out, progressives such as Dave Lindorff, political science professor Peter Dreier, economist Dean Baker, Daniel Ellsberg, Jonathan Capehart
and many others say that we should be emulating the protest energy of
the Tea Party, because we have to raise some hell before anything will
change.
In fact, as I've repeatedly
noted, the whole left-versus-right thing is just a distraction trick.
It's really the American people versus the giant bankers, captains of
the military-industrial complex, and handful of others who are benefiting by shafting the average American.
Remember that one of the founders of the Tea Party - Karl Denninger - has slammed
the current Tea Party (which was quickly co-opted by the mainstream
GOP) for serving the rich and the Republican party instead of fighting
against the giant banks, and is calling for non-partisan, Gandhi-style nonviolent resistance to take on the banskters.
And remember that "liberal" George Soros is paying a top aide to "conservative" Sarah Palin.
Of course, some have argued that there are more effective methods of disobedience than protests and strikes such as this or this. I will leave strategy to those who have better tactical sense than I have.
But one thing is for sure: unless we make the lives of those in power a little more uncomfortable, nothing will change.
Note
to conservatives who dislike FDR: Glass-Steagall and other regulations
against fraud wouldn't have been passed unless the public had raised
hell through protests and strikes.
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Moneymutt: yes, populism is exactly what it is. It cuts across party lines. The populists of the 1890's were mostly framers who were losing the farms to banks and being gouged by speculators. So they joined together and formed co-ops to by their goods at a fair price. At their peak they controlled state legislatures, had several governors, and one Senator.
Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting was directly influenced by the Populists.
a free market.
it is called wall street.
rigged. manipulated. fraud. ….
bring it on.
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new radicals - you get what you give
Another general comment on Austrian swine: GW, myself, and other commenters have been defending FDR (often with reservations) from one criticism after another, like putting out fires. So, Austrians, what society in what time period most closely resembles your ideal? Obviously I don't expect a perfect fit, but what comes closest? I guess it wasn't the time and place where the Austrian School started: its founder, Karl Menger, was a pet of the Habsburg family in Vienna, tutoring the Crown Prince; Menger had won a professorship at the U. of Vienna through the graces of Rothschild employee Karl Kraus. Menger was primarily employed in the 1870's and 1880's to argue against the German economic policies (which had created huge growth rates in every basic industry) in favor of laissez faire. Fuck your Menger. Fuck your Austrian School. Put up an example of it actually working (ANYWHERE, ANY TIME IN HISTORY) or shut the fuck up.
Put up an example of it actually working (ANYWHERE, ANY TIME IN HISTORY) or shut the fuck up.
Yes - I can just hear a Roman emperor saying that to someone who wants to abolish slavery.
What a sophist you are.
He is too enamored with the "grandeur" of FDR that he cannot see the idiocy of policies such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act. This goes beyond left or right politics and deals with catastrophic policy errors that influenced millions of people for the worse. Of course he will want to divert attention to his hatred of Austrian theory so as not to address some of the real underlying causes of the Great Depression.
So? Did Socialism work for the Soviet Union? I'll bet you would really enjoy the Worker's Paradises of either North Korea or Cuba -- let's get together a collection and buy you a one-way ticket!
I would suggest, more or less, splitting the difference and selecting the French model.
Now, please...attack me.
Testy, testy, testy. You socialists and your command economies- they always turn out so well. Stuck defending your elite masters and their debt slavery methodology. I would love to cite an example, but your bosses won't allow them.
It is so much better to live in an economy that protects the interests of the top 1% at the expense of all the rest. FDR was an asshole. If I saw him today, I would rip off his head and shit down his neck. Then put it on you tube.
Until then, I'll have to enjoy reading your pathetic arguments and responses. Your historical inaccuracies and inability to read material with understanding.
GW - we need progressives, Tea Partiers, libetarians, and anti-Wall Street conservatives to get together on the principles we agree, for lack of a better word, we should agree on and agitate together around "populist", anti-corruption principles
Most congressional districts will always be Blue or Red based on cultural things, pro or anti-war, attitude toward social safety net or defense spending etc...but we CAN require populist principles from all our Red and Blue candidates and seated congress people.
If Tea Partiers, Libertarians, Progessives get together on a few clear anti-corruption issues, we could really force congress to clean up its act...Tea Partiers are energized, not yet demoralized, if demoralized Progressives can get with them on an issue which they agree and see a win, it could be golden for further cooperation. I've notice congress really has a hard time with populist issues if the can't divide right and left on it..
We should unite around the current establishment plan to kill the congressional watchdog org, the OCE...Boehner wants to kill it and so does the Black Congressional Caucus...there is a story about Tea Partiers objecting to it being killed at "thinkprogess"....a sign of a coalescing anti-corruption agenda? http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/18/boehner-ethics-tea/
Other hings that we could likely agree on:
- Audit/End Fed
- No bank bailouts beyond deposit insurance and seizure for orderly unwinding
- Strong anti-trust enforcment, break up monopolies and cartels
- No too big to fail
- Remove all GSE-type arrangements where profits are privitized and losses are socialized
-Politicians pledge to take no money from Wall Street.
-Constitutional Amendment to stop any corporation or organization spending on candidates or...if popular support....go further to ban any money in elections at all. Let candidates have a web site, go to debates, publish writings in newspapers, shake hands...but no commercials, not fliers, no facebook ads
- Ban any gifts, support, conferences, travel whatever to politicians from lobbiests..none, nada, done..you can talk to reps from orgs, but they can't give you anything, in any form.
- Balanced budget/pay-go (to remove selective, inconsistent concentration on deficits only for programs you dislike and ignoring deficit spending when its programs you like...)
Restrictions on Fed/State goverment employee and politician pay/benefits based on smoothed percentage of average of private sector taxpayer wages/income.
- Vigilant protection of personal and civil liberties, including free speech, privacy, gun rights, property rights etc..
- National financial sherrif in charge of enforcing criminal fraud laws as consistently and thoroughly as street crime is enforced. Put financial scammers, liars on trial and in prison.
- - Publicly, verifiable, automatically audited paper ballot elections with reasonable ID requirements
Can "conservatives" and "liberals" agree on breaking up the too big to fail banks?
"Can "conservatives" and "liberals" agree on breaking up the too big to fail banks?"
Yes.
This get's into the complexities I was speaking about.
Glass-Steagall...a Virginian and an Alabaman by the way ;-)...held the New York commercial banks and taxpayers at arms length for half a century. It speaks volumes that it's re-introduction into law was the first thing set aside in the recently passed Dodd financial deformed law.
"They" have always coveted that risk mitigation factor in their activities...the backing of their gambles by goverment taxation.
If we cannot or will not re-institute Glass-Steagall they must be busted up.
Can they agree? I am not sure.
Not without loosing party identity in order to focus on the issue. Leaders in the drive will have to forfeit any party association or biases in order to maintain an even hand over followers. Cliques would have to be discouraged because they would only allow dissent. Your namesake had a very difficult time because of this very same thing after the Revolution. It really would take a George Washington to lead such a diverse group in a charge on such an uphill goal.
It seems to me that social liberalism cannot function without the government and the government cannot function without the banks. How does on decouple this arrangement? People labeled "Progressive", be they conservative or liberal, today seem to have agendas which hing on the very necessity of government control to force fairness and abstract rules which favor central planning objectives. Their very core is based on controlling the institutions which you want to break up. Government, by its nature, as it grows larger only becomes more gluttonous. Fighting the beast now and then placing it under government rule will, in my opinion, only allow the beast to manifest itself again later on in a more destructive way.
Personally I think the question is bigger than just banks. It is a fundamental need to be either ruled over or set free to succeed of fail by ones own merits. Government intervention to stop failure is the failure. Be it a bank, business or individual Americans. How can one be expected to learn and grow if they never fail, or suffer because of that failure. The most successful and balanced entropanures failed many times before they got it right. Most interviews I have read seems to point at being humbled by the experience. Success is always a positive outcome where failure is mostly defined by the individual.
When you find enough Americans willing to let a true free market exist, in all aspects of our society, to all people in our society, then I think you will have enough people to fight a cause like breaking up too big to fail banks. I don't see that enough people have experienced enough pain or failure to make such a thing happen.
Absolutely! See anyone in Congress developing a spine and even proposing such?
This is why REAL neocons, Irving Kristol style, believe strongly in the domestic socialist state and also constant war, of course.
That's how banks get things done. It is the PERFECT bank system. War and domestic tranquility (enough) while THEY control OUR military, opening markets and forcing loans.
If you look at Yemen, you will see a few new US bases coming on line. An invasion and occupation with hardly a headline. Obama. Smooth.
Obama is THE reason there's no energy on among counter-currency progressives. We get it.
I like FDR. His regulations were a lesson in good government. His safety net wasn't seditious in intent because he slammed the breaks on banks and the speculators at the same time. He couldn't know we'd do NOTHING while this enemies eroded his BEST work (bank royalty regulation) and advantaged themselves on his easiest work. (giving people stuff)
It's hard not to be torn about the safety net when you see it working both ways.
It's worth noting that many of the early Neocons (Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Albert Wohlstetter, James Burnham) had been Trotskyites; to this day the Trots hate FDR as badly as anyone for proving that the American System is the most equitable and fruitful history has yet known. The Neocons share this hatred.
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him four times.
"In fact, as I've repeatedly noted, the whole left-versus-right thing is just a distraction trick. It's really the American people versus the giant bankers, captains of the military-industrial complex, and handful of others who are benefiting by shafting the average American."
Indeed. There are definitely some things that true libertarians and progressives can find common ground on and the Powers that Be know it! A coalition of the Ron Paul crowd and the Alan Grayson group would make the Tea Party look like a Boy Scout Parade...let's get it going America!
Do the elites dare to walk amongst us ?.
If you spot one, what will you do ?.
Ask for an autograph ?.
Plunge the pen in their jugular ?..
Peaceful protests are not enough. The oligarchy has tentacles that touch everything you need to make a change; both parties, the media, the law, the congress and the white house.
Give Denninger a break. He's out there in public. I wish I could be as brave.
the more time & energy this stillborn movement concentrates on individual personalities and/or ideologies, the more likely this movement will remain stillborn.
The whole point of this post is to get beyond the fake left-versus-right dog-and-pony show. So far, it looks like most posters are falling straight into the left-versus-right trap instead of suggesting how we can unite to stand up to the forces bankrupting our economy...
I'm not saying FDR necessarily did everything right. Personally, I think he chickened out on making fundamental change:
FDR Chickened Out from Making REAL Economic ReformI totally disagree with confiscation of gold. I totally disagree with his emergency executive orders which took power away from Congress. His court-packing plan was unconstitutional. Internment was unconstitutional and descipable. I've previously noted that FDR's actions may have prolonged the depression:
The NEW New Deal: Dead on ArrivalBut even for those who are both wholly opposed to public banking and libertarian in their outlook (and I have very strong libertarian leanings), suggest ways we can change things for the better. My post is aimed at lefties, but what the libertarians and the conservatives have been doing isn't working either ...
"My post is aimed at lefties, but what the libertarians and the conservatives have been doing isn't working either"
I understood this...but I would submit that we have not tried "conservative or libertarian" for quite some time...we live in a world of Keynesian psycho-babble.
I share your vision for wanting to bring the sides together...but as I said up thread, the sides will not agree on all things.
On government, one side believes less is better, the other side believes more is better.
Fundamentally intractable positions...however both sides know (deep down, in their gut) one side could survive without it's interference and in fact prosper.
The statist cannot survive without a state...the all in bet at the table ;-)
What both sides agree on is the fox is in the henhouse...LOL.
SeeYa
714825
Do you really expect anyone to give you credibility by quoting Howard Zinn? Is there anyone more radical, marxist, and hateful of everything that America stands for? Is there anyone who is a more ardent enemy of the Constitution and the principles the Founding Fathers codified in our Constitution? I would have a very difficult time imagining one.
The Constitution gives broad powers to the US President to clamp down on uprisings and domestic insurgencies. Obama and his progressive collectivist buddies would love nothing more than to find an excuse to use those powers against those they perceive as their political opposition.
Inciting violence is what made the French Revolution so bloody. It is one of the significant contrasting points between theirs and ours. Another that made the French Revolution so disastrous was Robespierres assertion that there are NO individual rights. Only the collective has rights. This ironically is one of the bedrock principles of progressivism -- that we are all just cogs in the Borg collective wheel.
I suggest we learn more of our own history and the principles that have made America truly exceptional, and hit the delete button on the French Revolution, its methods that bathed it in blood, and the collectivist mentality that emerged from it and influencedc modern progressives.
mjfpilot-
Please reference a graph of US GDP 1929-1945.
FDR comes into office at the absolute bottom.
Kind of hard to argue with a chart.
GDP tends to go up after a sharp decline. Also GDP isn't exactly a great measure of sustainable economic output, as government spending and inflation both make it go up. Anyone can make GDP go "up", by inflating things and spending a lot.
Also, it's kind of impossible to credit him for that when there was no alternate universe where we can compare how different policies would have played out.
Why not look at 1920 when there was a -20% GDP growth rate, and we rebounded in about a year, and the president then did pretty much NOTHING but CUT SPENDING. I wonder why that depression wasn't so "Great"? Hmm?
General comment on Austrian School morons: it isn't surprising that comments from them are lacking in historical content and/or are wildly inaccurate. Austrian economics, contrary to almost every other school of thought, is not a science at all. Science holds that one must test hypotheses against real world evidence: Austrians, on the pretext that history, psychological motivations, etc., are too complex to allow empirical testing of economic theory, refuse this. Instead, Austrian theory is made of unproven axioms (based mainly on "Robinson Crusoe" style individual behavior), elaborated and connected to one another through deductive logic. I would point out that this is the method of the Medieval Scholastics who employed Aristotle and the Bible in the same fashion, ignoring reality. I repeat: Austrian economics is not a science; it is a religious cult.
Give me deductive logic any day! Did you know that FDR set the price of Gold based on how he "Felt" that particular day? Austrian economics might indeed be a cult, but at this stage of the game, it sure beats everything else in the realm of Economics, which seems to be populated by Fortune tellers!
Funny, isn't it science that has resulted in environmental pollution, poisoned air and water supplies? A medical system that is incapable of curing anything except broken bones? And then only some of them? The same science that has brought us frankenfoods? Tremendous expenditures on grants to study the mating rituals of flies? Chemical poisoning? The use of corn and soy until it is the base for all processed food products? Plastics and the associated hormone issues? The same science that cannot develop a working knowledge of nature and how it works? The one that shoots depleted uranium rounds all over the world or threatens to blow up the entire planet in a cloud of radioactive debris? The one afraid to consider alien life because it conflicts with religion? The same science that changes and evolves over time as it realizes it's theories were inadequate and possessing incomplete knowledge?
Those crazy Austrians- using observations and compiling them to come up with a theory that actually works! What were they thinking? Science has done sooooo much better...
FDR: Science holds that one must test hypotheses against real world evidence: Austrians, on the pretext that history, psychological motivations, etc., are too complex to allow empirical testing of economic theory, refuse this.
Actually no, like so many scientists in a labratory they tested their theories with little restriction in a labratory called Chile and they worked.
The laboratory called Chile - you refer to the fascist dictatorship under Pinochet? How about the Confederacy - it's Constitution was rigorously laissez faire and reflected the economic practices the pre-war southern states had followed as far as possible for generations; so what if it was a slave empire whose only purpose was providing cheap raw materials for the British Empire? I guess free markets work better without freedom, huh?
So! The Confederacy was a libertarian exemplar, was it?
The Confederate Constitution specifically forbade public works, national banking (mandating the gov't had to borrow in private markets), and tariffs. This merely reflected the policies the South had pursued from the start: there was nothing public (not even public schools for the most part), no dirigist direction given to the economy, and a constant rankling over the protectionism imposed on America by the Federalists and Whigs.
And the slavery that underpinned it all? That was standard libertarian practice?
Give it up, mate.
The ability to have a control group and implement various economics is not something that is lacking in Austrian economics, but all economics. So one certainly cannot claim that economics is science. Indeed, statements by politicians that "they have saved X million jobs" are absurd; we do not know what would have happened had the politician's policies not been implemented, nor can we accurately gauge unseen impacts like "jobs that will never be created" as a result of the policies that 'saved X jobs', for instance.
To make a sweeping statement that "Austrian economics is not a science; it is a religious cult" while ignoring other schools is, at best, inaccurate and, at worst, it ironically relegates your intelligence quotient of those residing within the bible belt.
There are decent experimental proofs on laissez faire. The term "great Depression" was used before the 1930's to refer to the last quarter of the 19th century in Britain. It was in the 1870's that England finally went free trade on industry (having done so 30 years before for agriculture) and the result was a nightmare: high unemployment, pitiful real wages, diminshing scientific prowess, etc. relative to nations like Germany and the U.S. that had more interventionist governments; the Brits finally pulled out of the spiral at the turn of the century, as Germany had almost caught up to them in record time (with her oh-so evil financial regulations, pensions, labor laws, tariffs, regulated public utilities.) In general, free market conditions have come closest to being fulfilled in countries subject to imperial control - like the third world nations of today under IMF SAP's or the old imperial colonies - because a society rarely sees fit to impose such lunacy on itself.
Actually, there aren't. The bank of England has always used leveraged fiat monetary policies. This is why the corn laws failed in the 1700's. Business and government subverted and the repealed the laws.
German productivity and frugality has always balanced out their intervention, but you have to be willing to accept tyranny.
A better example would have been the scandinavian economies of the last thirty years, whose balance of enlightened socialism and financial austerity have yielded the highest standards of living on the planet in an environment of relative freedom.
What you fail to grasp, is how much better it could be if those people could spend their labor in a more efficient manner where government doesn't add a layer of cost to every one of it's actions. Further, rather than socializing costs, the people would actually have a say in the manner, but then- that would be liberty.
While I haven't taken the time to study 1870's British/World economics, I do know that during that time the bank of england kept interest rates at 9%. Not sure what that's called, but it certainly ain't called Laissez Faire.
I've been following your posts, FDR. You string together non-sequitors and then start throwing around insults when other posters call you on it.
General comment on Austrian School morons: it isn't surprising that comments from them are lacking in historical content and/or are wildly inaccurate. Austrian economics, contrary to almost every other school of thought, is not a science at all. Science holds that one must test hypotheses against real world evidence: Austrians, on the pretext that history, psychological motivations, etc., are too complex to allow empirical testing of economic theory, refuse this
Is a classic example. For a discipline to be a science, it must be amenable to the scientific method. It is impossible to isolate all the variables in an economy to conduct experiments, and thus, macroeconomics is not amenable to the scientific method.
However, contrary to your assertion, history, and psychological motivations are constantly studied in Austrian theory. And your namesake doesn't fare to well in any objective analysis of his disastrous reign. Why not read Rothbard's America's Great Depression and maybe you can let go your cringeworthy FDR-worship.
As for understanding Austrian theory... come back when you've read and digested Man, Economy and State. Until then you're just making a fool of yourself with your anti-Austrian diatribes and FDR apologia.
History is studied by Austrians so they can cherry pick facts to graft onto pre-formed theory; the axioms of the system are never allowed to be questioned, as they are "self-evident." Further, Rothbard's book is on my shelf, as is FDR and Wall Street by Sutton (another Austrian), several by Ayn Rand, etc. I do not attack the Austrian School out of hand and am thoroughly familiar with its tenets. For an experimental proof of political economy that works, look no further than the great experiment of the USA; it has not followed your ideology even remotely (and does so more over the past generation than previously)
For an experimental proof of political economy that works, look no further than the great experiment of the USA
Oh yeah, working like fucking charm isn't it? Which USA do you live in?
Having his book on your shelf won't help you - you'll need to read it.
The USA follows 'my ideology' more closely over the past generation than previously?
Well, at least now I know you've a sense of humour. Or a truly perverted view of libertarian economics.
I read all the books I mentioned - paltry stuff. As for modern-day America, the Austrians focus as much attention as possible on the Fed's money-creation and the various bail-outs as a proof that we are less market-oriented now than a generation ago. What about the deregulation of public infrastructure, the surge of free trade/demise of protectionism, the lowering of upper income tax rates, the repeal of Glass-Steagall and other financial regulation? Though our central banking system is not within a gold standard as you would probably prefer, even it exists in the post-1971 floating exchange rate regime that replaced the state-centered Bretton Woods system. Do you have any sense of perspective at all?
Deregulation of public infrastructure? Like what? The post office? Highways? The Military? Education?
The surge of free trade? Free trade is a two way street, if you have read the books on your shelf- you might understand that. Or market makers or Cartelization. Or Monopoly with government police power.
Austrians abhor all taxation. The US has not been on a gold standard since 1932. The bullion standard was abolished in 1971, but still had been subject to manipulation by price fixing.
Paltry stuff? Your arguments are puff pastry. They can't find a better troll than you?
Government by definition is an intervention in the free market. Fiat money systems and leverage are the tools of those who would run this country- through the treasonous activities of the FDR's, Trumans, Eisenhowers,Carters, Nixons et al and their conspirators in Congress and the Judiciary.
Hopefully, FDR and his criminal buddies are languishing in the deepest part of hell, tortured beyond imagination for an eternity beyond our understanding.
"Deregulation . . . like what?" Like airlines, railroads, electricity, water, gas, telephones. You've heard of those things, right?
Airlines, railroads, electricity, water, gas and telephones were never public infrastructure. They were allowed to become protected monopolies, but that was to the benefit of corporations-whom run the government. Of course, you probably believed the standard explanation about that? Right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
They were allowed to become protected monopolies by whom, the government? Did the gov't create AT&T, Western Union, the electric holding companies like Commonwealth & Southern? Even most free marketeers consider utilities to be natural monopolies: once an electric grid or road system is built, a second one isn't going to be built over the same area to compete with it, like it's a fucking hot dog stand. The question is whether that monopoly can charge monopoly prices (totally private system) or whether it will charge a price reflecting its costs (regulated) Of course, much of our infrastructure would not be built in the first place without gov't. So hey, let's refuse to have water, electricity, transportation, etc. so we can really stick it to the corporations and government? How bout' that you fucking tailless ape?
They were allowed to become protected monopolies to protect them from competition. Natural monopolies do not have the protection of the police power of the state. Wait, you said you read Rothbard...maybe not huh?
Will a second one be built? Depends. If they charge too much, people fail to use it and they change their prices or the business fails. Then someone new buys it and makes it work at a better price structure. No government. Wow! No, I want regulated prices where I have nothing to say about it and the commissioners can be bribed to get higher and higher prices.
Funny, people had water and transportation before regulation. They just didn't pay so much for it. Electricity will exist whether the government intervenes or not, just at cheaper prices. Of course, you want to pay more!
Must be difficult to keep losing to a tailless ape...I mean, if you can't beat me, what are you going to do when you meet a superior intelligence? Oh wait, everyone is a superior intelligence to you. My bad...
Actually, you didn't state which Rothbards you had on your shelf; and as your grasp of Austrian theory is weak (to put it politely) I would have to disbelieve any claims you might make to have read any of his major works, or, at least, to have comprehended them.
Some questions for you: as we're discussing the purported libertarian-ness of our generation's economic order, please tell us when public infrastructure became regulated in the first place; when protectionism became the standard MO; and when income tax was instituted. Clue - not during the present generation. Ergo, the economy must have been more libertarian before those things were implemented.
Glass-Steagal, incidentally, was enacted in the first place because our money supply was nothing like free-market... so, there too, you lose the argument.
And any suggestion that our current incarnation of money supply is somehow more 'Austrian' than Bretton Woods is specious. They're both centrally-planned monstrosities that look nothing like a money system organised along libertarian lines.
It's funny; you write well, but you just cannot follow a thread of reasoning. I've noticed this a lot with central-planning advocates. For some reason you just cannot give up the idea that clever chaps like yourself can run everyone else's lives better than they can. And you twist yourselves into knots trying to prove it.
It's an ugly sight.
I shall enlighten thee: infrastructure had long been the recipient of public funds (from canals to railroads to telegraph lines.) Often these projects were sold off to private interests (who abhorred the huge initial costs of such things) Regulation in a serious sense was a product of the 20th century: railroad rates were regulated by the Hepburn Bill, and the electric utilities were regulated by PUHCA and other such laws of the New Deal. As for trade: protectionism became "the standard MO" in 1789 when the Constitution gave the gov't the job of regulating int'l trade - the first tariff was authored by Madison and they kept coming, fed by Hamilton's arguments on the subject. Protectionism was applied to virtually every industry we created. Income taxes on the upper brackets were highest during the 1940's-70's, far higher than today. I never contended that our monetary system (1971-present) is Austrian (ya'll likethe gold standard) - but the fact remains that the floating exchange rate system is one of private money monopolies creating money, the value of which is set in most cases by the markets.
Science [sahy-uhns]
c.1300, "knowledge (of something) acquired by study," also "a particular branch of knowledge," from O.Fr. science, from L. scientia "knowledge," from sciens (gen. scientis), prp. of scire "to know," probably originally "to separate one thing from another, to distinguish," related to scindere "to cut, divide," from PIE base *skei- (cf. Gk. skhizein "to split, rend, cleave," Goth. skaidan, O.E. sceadan "to divide, separate;" see shed (v.)). Modern sense of "non-arts studies" is attested from 1670s. The distinction is commonly understood as between theoretical truth (Gk. episteme) and methods for effecting practical results (tekhne), but science sometimes is used for practical applications and art for applications of skill. Main modern (restricted) sense of "body of regular or methodical observations or propositions ... concerning any subject or speculation" is attested from 1725; in 17c.-18c. this concept commonly was called philosophy. To blind (someone) with science "confuse by the use of big words or complex explanations" is attested from 1937, originally noted as a phrase from Australia and New Zealand.