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Leading Austrian Economist: Some Conspiracy Theories Are True
Many people are starting to appreciate the Austrian school of economics, and its recognition that unrestrained bubbles lead to economic crashes.
But many of those who respect Austrian economics dismiss all "conspiracy theories" as being crazy.
But in fact, leading Austrian school economist Professor Murray N. Rothbard wrote in 1965:
It
is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an
aversion to any "conspiracy theory of history"; for a search for
"conspiracies" means a search for motives and an attribution of
responsibility for historical misdeeds. If, however, any tyranny
imposed by the State, or venality, or aggressive war, was caused not by
the State rulers but by mysterious and arcane "social forces," or by
the imperfect state of the world or, if in some way, everyone was
responsible ("We Are All Murderers," proclaims one slogan), then there
is no point to the people becoming indignant or rising up against such
misdeeds. Furthermore, an attack on "conspiracy theories" means that
the subjects will become more gullible in believing the "general
welfare" reasons that are always put forth by the State for engaging in
any of its despotic actions. A "conspiracy theory" can unsettle the
system by causing the public to doubt the State's ideological
propaganda.
And in 1977, Rothbard wrote:
Anytime that a hard-nosed analysis is put forth of who
our rulers are, of how their political and economic interests
interlock, it is invariably denounced by Establishment liberals and
conservatives (and even by many libertarians) as a "conspiracy theory
of history," "paranoid," "economic determinist," and even "Marxist."
These smear labels are applied across the board, even though such
realistic analyses can be, and have been, made from any and all parts
of the economic spectrum, from the John Birch Society to the Communist
Party. The most common label is "conspiracy theorist," almost always
leveled as a hostile epithet rather than adopted by the "conspiracy
theorist" himself.
It is no wonder that usually these realistic
analyses are spelled out by various "extremists" who are outside the
Establishment consensus. For it is vital to the continued rule of the
State apparatus that it have legitimacy and even sanctity in the eyes
of the public, and it is vital to that sanctity that our politicians
and bureaucrats be deemed to be disembodied spirits solely devoted to
the "public good." Once let the cat out of the bag that these spirits
are all too often grounded in the solid earth of advancing a set of
economic interests through use of the State, and the basic mystique of
government begins to collapse.
Let us take an easy example.
Suppose we find that Congress has passed a law raising the steel tariff
or imposing import quotas on steel? Surely only a moron will fail to
realize that the tariff or quota was passed at the behest of lobbyists
from the domestic steel industry, anxious to keep out efficient foreign
competitors. No one would level a charge of "conspiracy theorist"
against such a conclusion. But what the conspiracy theorist is doing is
simply to extend his analysis to more complex measures of government:
say, to public works projects, the establishment of the ICC, the
creation of the Federal Reserve System, or the entry of the United
States into a war. In each of these cases, the conspiracy theorist asks
himself the question cui bono? Who benefits from this measure? If he finds that Measure A benefits X and Y, his next step is to investigate the hypothesis: did
X and Y in fact lobby or exert pressure for the passage of Measure A?
In short, did X and Y realize that they would benefit and act
accordingly?
Far from being a paranoid or a determinist, the conspiracy analyst is a praxeologist;
that is, he believes that people act purposively, that they make
conscious choices to employ means in order to arrive at goals. Hence,
if a steel tariff is passed, he assumes that the steel industry lobbied
for it; if a public works project is created, he hypothesizes that it
was promoted by an alliance of construction firms and unions who
enjoyed public works contracts, and bureaucrats who expanded their jobs
and incomes. It is the opponents of "conspiracy" analysis who profess
to believe that all events — at least in government —are random and
unplanned, and that therefore people do not engage in purposive choice
and planning.
There are, of course, good conspiracy analysts and
bad conspiracy analysts, just as there are good and bad historians or
practitioners of any discipline. The bad conspiracy analyst tends to
make two kinds of mistakes, which indeed leave him open to the
Establishment charge of "paranoia." First, he stops with the cui bono; if measure A benefits X and Y, he simply concludes that therefore
X and Y were responsible. He fails to realize that this is just a
hypothesis, and must be verified by finding out whether or not X and Y
really did so. (Perhaps the wackiest example of this was the British
journalist Douglas Reed who, seeing that the result of Hitler's
policies was the destruction of Germany, concluded, without further
evidence, that therefore Hitler was a conscious agent of
external forces who deliberately set out to ruin Germany.) Secondly,
the bad conspiracy analyst seems to have a compulsion to wrap up all
the conspiracies, all the bad guy power blocs, into one giant
conspiracy. Instead of seeing that there are several power blocs trying
to gain control of government, sometimes in conflict and sometimes in
alliance, he has to assume — again without evidence — that a small
group of men controls them all, and only seems to send them into conflict...
Rothbard's points are well-taken: there are in fact
conspiracies involving powerful people. But people that go off
half-cocked with baseless allegations unsupported by the evidence do a
disservice to everyone, and do nothing but muddy the waters.
We must treat conspiracy theories like judges are trained to do: as claims to be proven or disproven based on the evidence.
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Disgusting.
WaterWings, I generally enjoy reading your contributions to various threads here. In this case, you aren't looking under the hood and taking my appearance at face value. I wish this were not the case but right now it is.
George, I bow to you in your excellence and perseverance. I'm am with you. Good luck, and good night.
And you as well WaterWings. I'm not George though.
No Sir. The fact is you do not know what happened. Very few do.
I will see you a, Flt 77 was hijacked by Islamic radicals and crashed into the Pentagon.
And call whatever lunacy you happen to believe in.
And what is it that you know? Nothing?
... which diminishes trust in that state
once gone, anything the state does is suspect, even those things of value.
sadly, most states prefer the short-term fix of cultural comfort to the preiodic pain of a sustainable truth, regardless of the predictable resultant unwind.