Barack Obama's transition team is hard at work on an economic stimulus plan. The team hopes to help the United States dig itself out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. To achieve this, it will spend money to improve infrastructure. Public works building is a typical liberal approach to aiding an economy in trouble.
The big-ticket items in the stimulus plan are likely to be road and bridge building and repair and mass transit. Because one of the major security problems facing the United States is dependence on foreign oil, mass transportation should take center stage in such a plan. The majority of Americans live in cities. Making it possible for them to get to work without having to own a car would simplify many lives.
Some major urban centers, like New York and Philadelphia have dependable public transportation, but in other cities, mass transit looks like a bad joke. In some parts of the country, one must own a car because public transportation is inconvenient or does not exist. The sooner this situation changes, the better. Europeans cannot imagine a world where they must own a car any more than many Americans can envision not needing one. Good public transportation in all major cities could make a major dent in U.S. dependence on foreign oil if Americans would use it.
There are many advantages to expanding mass transit. Americans spent an astounding 3.7 billion hours sitting still in traffic, wasting 2.3 billion gallons of fuel last year. Good public transportation could save much of that time and most of that fuel. Removing private cars from our highways also makes moving freight simpler.
According to the Modern Transit Society (MTS), American communities subsidize automobiles and their drivers through ordinances that favor driving over public transportation, bicycling or walking. Such subsidies include forcing businesses and landlords to set aside specific amounts of land for parking related to their size. These ordinances increase costs to companies and make public transport more difficult.
The public also subsidizes drivers when it builds roads and freeways with public funds. MTS claims that if freeways became "fareways" (toll roads), those who benefitted most by using them would also be the ones who paid for them. This sort of arrangement would allow non-drivers to spend their transportation money in other ways. This argument is convincing only where people have access to public transportation, however.
The big three automakers are struggling because they have not kept up with trends. Here is an opportunity for them to reinvent their businesses and help the United States in the process. Why not let Congress lend the big three money, but place conditions on the loans to ensure that the vehicles of the future include public transport as well as private? Americans need to move from place to place. Cars are part of the solution, but they should not be the only solution. Choosing, as a society, to travel by public means will have many benefits. We can reduce pollution, mitigate the stress of traffic jams, and release ourselves from dependence on imported oil.
Americans will not be able to shop their way out of the current economic downturn. Tax cuts have not fixed the problems we face. Many experts agree that public spending on a grand scale is the best solution. Careful planning could make that public spending provide for our comfort and security in the twenty-first century.
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Comments: 89
Big three could manufacture in these areas while car biz is lousy.
Fares and parking are going up.
Already, I can drive into Boston or Cambridge for less than I can take the T.
I just cannot find cheap parking in Boston, or Cambridge. Usually, I cannot find parking at all.
I realize that many communities would benefit by having a MTS or a bigger one, but it is not the entire answer. For Massachuetts, the state with the 3rd highest density and 44th out of 50th in population, we have 6 million in the state but 4 million in the greater Boston area, even though Boston proper- only a few square miles, only has 600,000 or less.
But the roads and highways are packed to capacity with cars. Even though there are stations sometimes not far. We just can't get out to many places in the burbs via a MTS, so we have to drive.
On any given day, about 3 million people are driving from the NH border to around Hyannis and then West to Worcester and about a million drive into Boston.
Featured in the Triple Name Club.
We live in the north country, where trains used to run quite regularly. Now, much of the track is weed-choked and unused. Passenger trains only run from the metro Detroit area across to Chicago. I would love to be able to take a train down to visit my parents and children, rather than driving on the freeway.
Although kvetching about the subway if you're a New Yorker is required by contract, the millions that use these amazing systems will be the first to state how preferable they are to overly crowded freeways and the hassle plus expense of a private vehicle. It's a no-brainer which I hope all major areas get on the band wagon with. With AmTrak in between!
On the west coast this year, in my housebound mother's S. Cal. car/necessity city, I've used my brother's bicycle for the weekly trip to the grocery store, my only mandatory outing per week. I can easily pack a week's worth back. If a larger shop is necessary, I use a "rescued" gutter doomed grocery cart all polished up. The largest grocery store in the neighborhood encourages it's customers to come and go with their carts to facilitate it's customer return. Wise and considerate management, and a very popular and busy store.
Excellent article Ann and a grand 'futuristic' photo as well. Think Jetsons!
"The public also subsidizes drivers when it builds roads and freeways with public funds. MTS claims that if freeways became "fareways" (toll roads), those who benefitted most by using them would also be the ones who paid for them. This sort of arrangement would allow non-drivers to spend their transportation money in other ways."
Huh? Are they saying that goods and services should be paid for, by the people who use them?
Now that's a strange idea!
But if that happened, then goods and services would be produced in direct proportion to the utility and value that people derive from them! That would mean that scarce resources would be allocated according to the uses that satisfy the most urgent needs and demands of the public; instead of according to whatever is most expedient for politicians trolling for votes.
Nah; we couldn't have that. Not enough waste. Also, it doesn't leave enough room for corruption, graft, and political privilege and favoritism.
It's much better that we have politicians and bureaucrats take our money from us and spend it according to what is most expedient and beneficial for them and the interested rent-seekers who supply them with votes and campaign cash.
Lord knows, us hoi polloi are too stupid to know what is best for us, what we should buy and what we should invest in, how to channel our energies to best alleviate our own personal subjective sources of dissatisfaction.
Thank God for organized plunder.
If fast hi-speed rail transportation were available it would reduce the air traffic at those area airports by 23% and, for the moment, remove the congestion on the roadways that service them.
Yes, I've surrendered to the "robber government" you hate so much.
If you look into the Modern Transit Society's website, you'll see that they would like to charge highway users a fare for driving on the roads based on where they drive and when. It isn't a bad idea.
How do you propose we avert this depression without massive federal spending?
Today, on WDET, someone was talking about making "Car Trains" on our freeways. He thinks we can come up with the technology to have cars get in line and run automatically in high traffic areas. With the cars running a few feet apart, we could get many more cars on the same roads we have now. With the cars all running the same speed, there would be less accidents. With the speed computer controlled, there would be no stoppages, saving the 2.3 billion gallons of fuel mentioned above. During this automated commute, we could be working in our cars. And we would still have the freedom of owning our own cars.
Being a musician who needs to haul equipment around, I hate to see a situation where we have to give up our cars. But I would like to be able to take convenient mass transit to work and have a choice of modes of transportation.
But, I think that it might just be able to work in this day and age.
I would personally love it if we could release some of the burden on the environment. And, basically cut out our dependence on other countries.
That should be our goal.
Are you kidding? Are you suggesting that "massive federal spending" is somehow a requirement for curing depressions?
For prolonging and exacerbating depressions, sure; massive federal spending is a great idea. For curing them; not so much.
As to what I would suggest: cutting taxes across the board (especially on incomes and investment), cutting government spending, no bailouts, and most importantly, let interest rates settle on the market (as opposed to where the central-planners at the Fed think they should be) which means no more artificial expansion of money and credit.
Depressions (or "recessions" or "downturns" or whatever they want to call them now) happen because of systemic imbalances in the economy caused by artificial manipulation of the supply of money and credit (and the corresponding manipulation of the interest rate). Investors and entrepreneurs are misled by the false signal that the artificial interest rate composes, and the result is systematic clusters of malinvestment. The production structure is set askew; it creates an unsustainable condition. The "boom" that we experience during periods of inflation is illusory; it's false prosperity. It must eventually "bust," because resources have been allocated along lines of production that do not line up with the real-life conditions on the market, particularly the present aggregate consumption/savings ratio of the public, and the consumption habits of the public. The errors eventually reveal themselves, and the result is a depression. Over-inflated asset values become obvious, prices must be lowered in order to clear the market, long-term projects that people thought would be profitable are revealed to be unprofitable considering the real conditions on the market.
The only way to "cure" it, after its already been brought about, is to let the market sort it out. Let all the malinvestment be liquidated, and most importantly, do not inflate the currency anymore, so that the price structure (inclduing wages and interest rates) can reflect the real-life conditions of supply and demand on the market. Investors and entrepreneurs and wage-laborers will then allocate their own respective resources along lines that are dictated by undistorted market signals, and the resulting cost/price/production structure will hence be sustainable.
If you want to cure the situation in the long term -- meaning prevent the next round of inflationary bubbles and their resulting bouts of malinvestment and error -- then you would have to abolish the central banking cartel and repeal all legal tender laws.
But that would mean depriving alot of people who get rich by covertly siphoning the wealth of the middle-class of their means of exploitation, and it would mean depriving the politicians of their means of levying the hidden inflation tax (meaning the true costs of government would be plainly obvious), so don't count on that happening anytime soon.
At least not until alot more people find it worthwhile to learn about what the hell is happening to us.
Taking money from people, in order to spend it on things that they would not voluntarily buy, is not a way to cure depressions. A way for politicians to win votes, yes. Cure depressions, no.
I not only want mass transit increased in our awesome city, and county--I also want bike paths paved NEXT to the highways, so folks can ride their bikes to work. Okay, a little logistics would be needed for overpasses and underpasses, but it could be done. Cheaply, too. I'd keep my truck for moving folks and furniture, and important things (like camping) but I'd ride the bike to work. It's 12-15 miles, but it would be so worth it.
I think not just busses, but light rail needs to be expanded within each major city, but also beTWEEN each major metroplex also.
As for Steve's thoughts? Flat tax. Everyone could get down to about 10% that way. Would that be nice, or what?
Blessings on your head for another good write.
Wilka
Wilka
It is true, however, that small rural communities are difficult to accommodate, and indeed are often problematic in Europe as well. The discontinuation of railway routes connecting these communities and the resulting economic downturn is a common story everywhere in Europe.
I adamantly oppose light rail, at grade, and in traffic. This mode of transit must be stopped.
Here is South Jersey, public transit is a joke. I have a co-worker who has to take one bus to get to the train station. Once off the train, he takes a second bus, then a shuttle to get to work. It takes him over two and a half hours sometimes to get to work. By car, it is a 45 minute ride. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a car, so to keep his job he has to spend 4 to 5 hours a day in public transit.
Thanks!
OTOH, my dream job was always working in the Loop so I could take the train. I'd have at least an hour a day on the train...and that time is mine not my car's--I can read, sleep, put on my makeup(yes I have done this in a moving train), write, do homework.
Many dismiss the ability of rail being an alternative for cross country travel...it works in many other large countries, we've just decided we're too important to watch the scenery. The journey is as important as arrival.
I live in Spokane Washington and like a lot of western cities mass transit here is a joke. I would love to see our city's bus system become viable. It would completely change the economic dynamic here.
However, I do have a problem with the idea of "fareways." Our street and highway infrastructure is far more than simply paved paths for us to drive on. They are the veins and arteries of our economy's circulatory system. In fact our highway system is one of the most significant factors in making the U.S. the worlds biggest economic superpower. Our investment in our highway infrastructure is an investment in our nations economic health. And since we all benefit from it we all must be equally responsible for maintaining it. And there is the issue of penalyzing the poor. Regardless of how improved our nation's mass transit system becomes, there will always be poor people dependent on personal transportation. Fareways would place an unfair burden on them and we've had enough of that.
I wouldn't exactly call the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve Bank, or the executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "capitalists." That's the same kind of twisted logic as calling the Pentagon's military subcontracting "privatization."
When private corporations gain privilege and profit through state intervention, when they are able to externalize and socialize costs and losses through force of government, then they are no longer "capitalists." They are then appendages of the fascist state.
I realize it's so much easier to want to accept the "deregulation caused the recession" line; a nice, simple explanation that requires no critical thinking or further examination. However, the reality is not so simplistic.
But, in order to avoid any discomfortable cognitive dissonance, it is probably best that you remain as stubbornly ignorant as possible; if you go looking deeper for some answers beyond that which is spoonfed to you by the elite-owned media, you might end up learning some things that make it more difficult for you swallow the anti-capitalist sophistry whole.
"Roosevelt saved this country, unlike Hoover, that earned the distinction of having many transient shanty towns named Hoovervilles after him, for his wonderful work that made them possible. Magic? Hardly."
Your take on history is just as simple and fallacy-laden as your take on economics.
Truth is, Roosevelt's the one who put in place the entrenched corporate-state fascist apparatus that is killing us now.
And the New Deal didn't cure the Depression; it prolonged and exacerbated it.
Moreover, the New Deal policies were just an extension of the policies that had already been implemented by Hoover, and Roosevelt openly admitted as much (it's interesting to note, though, that Roosevelt defeated Hoover on a campaign platform of non-intervention; denouncing Hoover's "meddlesome" policies). All the so-called "liberals" and "progressives" who denounce Hoover and put Roosevelt up on a pedastal, are contradicting themselves.
I know it doesn't jive with the popular mythology, but Hoover wasn't a "laissez faire" president, capitalism didn't cause the Depression, and the New Deal didn't cure it.
If anything, Roosevelt set the economy back, by insisting on policies that prevented the necessary adjustments from taking place, that would have ended the recession within one or two years -- just as every boom-and-bust-caused recession before it had ended within two years, without such massive interventionism to obstruct market adjustments.
" How do you explain that before there even was a FED, we had the same bubbles, cycles of boom and bust, as we do now?"
Because we had institutionalized fractional-reserve banking before the Fed, too, genius. Firstly, the Fed is actually the third central American central bank. The first two were allowed to die, mostly because of the incredibly sad fact that the general public was vastly more educated and informed about basic economic principles in the early 19th Century, than they are today in our modern "information age."
But aside from that, there have been laws on the books that were established for the purpose of sustaining fractional-reserve banking practices, in some form or another, since the 1860's, when the National Bank Act was passed. It was a cartel system, a sort of predecessor to the Fed, that established an intricate network of federal and state banking regulations that made a quasi-cartel of sorts. But the idea was the same: bankers and politicians benefit when banks are able to artificially expand the supply of credit, so they try to make fraudulent, inherently-insolvent practice sustainable and profitable in the long-term.
Eventually, though, it became clear that a centralized monolithic banking cartel -- such as they had long established in England and some other European countries -- was the best way to go, and so JP Morgan and the Rockefeller and Rothschild interests set about propagandizing the need for a central bank, and in 1913 they finally were able to implement their dream fascist central-planning machine, the Federal Reserve.
(and then, of course, Roosevelt solidified their death-grip on the American public, by issuing an unconstitutional "executive order" commanding federal goons to confiscate all Americans' gold holdings in excess of 5 oz., leaving the public no choice to trade in the vicious fraudulent wealth-siphoning paper of the Federal Reserve cartel.)
"Could it be there will always be someone that finds a way to subvert whatever system is in place, because, frankly, greedy bat turds are a never ending commodity?"
well, if you have a system of laws that is designed expressly to protect liberty and establish equal justice, then nobody would be able to subvert it without significantly altering the very foundation of the system itself, making it easy for anyone to trace back exactly where the subversion occured, and thus correct the situation.
Greedy bat-turds can only harm anyone by their greed, if they are able to violate the person or property of others. Our current system of law gives them access to a nominally "legal" method of doing so. If the laws protected against plunder, instead of providing a facilitory conduit for the safe and easy organization of mass plunder, then the only way the greed of anyone would be able to harm anyone else, would be by breaking the law.
I lived outside of Houston for several years, commuting into town. The area developed a park-and-ride bus system that was wonderful. I drove (or my wife dropped me off) to a huge lot 10 minutes away, got on the bus and opened up my paper. Half an hour later, I got off and had a refreshing walk (2 to 6 blocks, depending on my mood).
Now I live in Phoenix, where the bus system is abysmal. Many bus stops don't even have shade from the brutal desert sun. Those that do, have a tiny plastic flat roof that is useless except at mid-day when the sun is directly overhead.
We just got a several-billion-dollar light rail system that may provide some relief, but I can't help but wonder what those $$billions would have bought in terms of a bus system.
Government enterprise in action; what else would you expect? When you don't have to worry about competition -- because its been legislatively abolished -- then there's no pressing need to worry about details, such as consumer satisfaction and convenience.
"We just got a several-billion-dollar light rail system that may provide some relief, but I can't help but wonder what those $$billions would have bought in terms of a bus system."
Typical of a so-called "progressive." Instead of wondering what those $$billions would have bought in terms of what the people who originally earned that money would have preferred to spend it on, you wonder how politicians and bureaucrats could have spent the money taken from others in a way that would have been more pleasing and convenient for you.
On the other hand, some cities were terrible. State College (PA) and Little Rock (AR) were among them. While I was recovering from my coma in Little Rock, I usually chose to wait for friends to come get me and drive me places than to make ALL the effort necessary to use the bus system.
Funny how that has always happened throughout history........
"Funny how that has always happened throughout history........"
If you want to get a clearer idea of why that's always happened throughout history, look in the mirror. Think about why it is that you continue to naively trust that empowering a group of humans to impose arbitrary compulsions and restrictions on the entire society, will ever result in anything different than it has here and now, despite the wealth of historical evidence that this is all could ever possibly produce.
respect the dupes of one of the strangest illusions
that have ever taken possession of the human mind.
Man recoils from trouble—from suffering; and yet he
is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation,
if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to
choose then between these two evils. What means
can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and
there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy
the labor of others. Such a course of conduct
prevents the trouble and the enjoyment from assuming
their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to
become the lot of one set of persons, and all the
enjoyment that of another. This is the origin of slavery
and of plunder, whatever its form may be—whether
that of wars, taxes, violence, restrictions, frauds,
etc. -- monstrous abuses, but consistent with the
thought that has given them birth. Oppression
should be detested and resisted—it can hardly be
called trivial. Slavery is subsiding, thank heaven!
and on the other hand, our disposition to defend
our property prevents direct and open plunder from
being easy.
One thing, however, remains—it is the original
inclination that exists in all men to divide the lot
of life into two parts, throwing the trouble upon
others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves.
It remains to be shown under what new form this sad
tendency is manifesting itself.
The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own
powers upon his victim. No, our discretion has become too
refined for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present,
but there is an intermediate person between them, which
is the Government— that is, the Law itself. What can be
better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is
perhaps better appreciated, to overcome all resistance?
We all, therefore, put in our claim under some pretext
or other, and apply to Government. We say to it,
As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making
some similar request to the Government; and as, on the
other, it is proved that Government cannot satisfy one
party without adding to the labor of the others, until I
can obtain another definition of the word Government,
I feel authorized to give my own. Who knows but it
may obtain the prize?
Here it is:
For now, as formerly, everyone is more or less for
profiting by the labors of others. No one would dare
to profess such a sentiment; he even hides it from
himself; and then what is done? A medium is thought
of; Government is applied to, and every class in its
turn comes to it, and says, “You, who can take justifiably
and honestly, take from the public, and we will partake.”
Alas! Government is only too much disposed to follow
this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers
and officials—of men, in short, who, like all other men,
desire in their hearts, and always seize every opportunity
with eagerness, to increase their wealth and influence.
Government is not slow to perceive the advantages
it may derive from the part that is entrusted to it by the
public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the
destinies of all; it will take much, for then a large share
will remain for itself; it will multiply the number of its
agents; it will enlarge the circle of its privileges; it will
end by appropriating a ruinous proportion.
But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing
blindness of the public through it all. When successful
soldiers used to reduce the vanquished to slavery, they
were barbarous, but they were not irrational. Their object,
like ours, was to live at other people’s expense, and they
did not fail to do so. What are we to think of a people
who never seem to suspect that reciprocal plunder
is no less plunder because it is reciprocal; that it is no less
criminal because it is executed legally and with order; that
it adds nothing to the public good; that it diminishes it, just
in proportion to the cost of the expensive medium which we
call the Government?" ~ Frederic Bastiat, That Which is Seen, and That Which is Unseen
I just wanted to say I am finally going through what is now under 5,300 pieces of gather new mail that is in my inbox on here. So with that in mind I have finally come to a piece of mail that was addressed to me in regards this article submission you have created to share with the gather community. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your piece with us here at gather. :o)
And I hope you have a Happy New Year... in 2009 :o)
Steve, you think you could read that back to yourself, thinking about your own ridiculous proposed economic system, that WOULD be imposed on the entire society, benefit the rich at the expense of the rest, as well, and listen to your own wisdom there? The truth is the reason is a lot more simple, yet a lot more complex than your Utopian Libertarian nut case philosophy can handle. The greed of man. Boom and bust didn't start in 1860, either, bucko. Nice dodge. Adam and Eve were the first to experience boom,.....and then bust.
Yeah, well they aren't the ones that got us into this mess, it was the Bush administration, and his free market, deregulatin' lovin' cronies, that used the fed to do it, but I can see how them being YOUR people would make you want to sluff it off on the Fed, and FM and FM. How embarrassing for you.
I only wish to take away the power by which anyone can inpose anything on anyone else.
All I want is freedom. I know that freedom scares you, Ron. But the reality is that you have no reason to fear freedom, unless you are someone who derives sustenance or power from the use of coercive force against the innocent.
"The truth is the reason is a lot more simple, yet a lot more complex than your Utopian Libertarian nut case philosophy can handle. The greed of man."
The greed of man any man can only harm anyone else, if the greedy are able to violate the rights of others.
I want a system of laws that protects the rights of everyone equally, precisely because I fully recognize the greed of man.
Tell me, Ron, how would the greed of one person be able to harm you or anyone else in any way, aside from that person having recourse to directing the apparatus of government force to infringe against the rights of others to their own advantage or benefit?
If the law protects the rights of every individual equally -- as is its only justifiable purpose for existing in the first place -- then how is it that "the rich" or anyone else could harm you or anyone else by their own personal greed?
If they wanted to increase their own wealth, then they would have to produce some good or service which others were voluntarily willing to exchange their money for, and do so continuously if they wanted to sustain wealth -- because any other way of appropriating the property of others, aside from voluntary mutual exchange, is either by force or fraud, which the law should protect against, instead of facilitating.
If you see that idea as "Utopian nutcase philosophy," then so be it.
But I would submit that your own idea is just as utopian, and just as nutcase -- that you can entrust one group of humans with power to impose arbitrary compulsions and restrictions upon everyone else, and that this will result in anything other than social injustice and economic turmoil.
"Boom and bust didn't start in 1860, either, bucko. Nice dodge. Adam and Eve were the first to experience boom,.....and then bust."
Yeah, well I didn't say it did start in 1860, bucko; and I'm not dodging you or anyone else.
Boom and bust cycles are a product of manipulation of money and credit; where ever and whenever there has been monetary manipulation in history, there has been boom-and-bust cycles.
Europe has had central banks since the late 1600's. The colonial governments of pre-Revolution America issued unbacked fiat money, and the colonists experienced trade cycles on account of it.
But the establishment of fractional-reserve banking practices is what produces perpetual boom-and-bust cycles. And the reason central banks were even conceived of, was as a way of making the inherently-insolvent practice of fractional-reserve banking sustainable in the long-term.
There was a time in history, when there economic fluctuations related to seasonal cycles, the harvesting and marketing of agriculture during crop seasons, etc.
But this is a completely different phenomenon from cycical recessions on account of money and credit manipulation.
I could explain to you in plain terms, exactly what all the immutable laws of nature are, that produce cyclical boom and bust in our modern society; in a way that would require only your own willingness to examine and apply common sense; but it would likely be a bit lengthy, and I won't waste my time unless I know that you'll actually read it all the way through.
"Let's just eliminate all government, right? Simple. I think we went through that period of history, and living in a cave doesn't appeal to me."
So you think that we'd be relegated to living in caves, if we didn't have one group of humans to treat the rest of society as if we were livestock?
Human society does not need a monopoly on coercive force to survive and thrive. We only need laws, to establish justice. And justice is not a man-made thing; it is a natural, immutable principle. It cannot be made, unmade, or altered by any human power; it can only be enforced, or violated. But the commands of legislators are not "laws," they are just commands. If legislators command us to do justice, their commands are superfluous. They add nothing to anyone's right or obligation to enforce justice. If they command or license anyone to do that which justice would forbud them to do, it is naken tyranny. If they prohibit us from doing that which justice forbids us to do, again it is superfluous. It adds nothing to anyone's duty to refrain from commiting injustice. If they prohibit anyone from doing that which justice would permit them to do, is a criminal violation of our natural rights.
No matter which way they are viewed, the commands of legislators bear nothing like authority or obligation.
Justice exists only because humans have rights. And we do not derive our rights from the consent or discretion of any person or group of people -- our rights are derived by virtue of our own humanity, and the intrinsic equality of each and every human.
When coercive force is initiated against the person or rightful property of another, then this is injustice. The only just scope of the law is to prevent injustice, and to exact just restitution for the imposition of injustice.
If it goes beyond that, then the law is itself imposing or facilitating injustice.
When one group of people -- even if the members of the group are interchangable and selected by others outside the group -- claim to have a monopoly on law and justice, and claim to have some righful authority to subject society to their own arbitrary whim and caprice, and claim to have some authority to enforce some binding contract that obligates everyone to support their organization and obey the commands of that organization, absent the voluntary consent and participation of people to be party to this alleged "contract," then it is tyranny, plain and simple.
You think that humans must live under tyranny if we are to not be relegated to existing caves and huts; but I disagree. I believe humans can be free and prosperous; that all interpersonal relationships in society could be voluntary and peaceful and that the laws would act only upon those who coercively impose their own will upon others.
The greed of man is a given; but as long as those who would violate the rights of others would be acting against the law to do so, then the greed of man could only benefit, not harm, society.
It is the greed of man which has made our society as wealthy as it is. If it wasn't in human nature to want to alleviate as much as possible, the sources of felt uneasiness deriving from the condition of natural scarcity, then we porbably would still be living in caves and huts, self-sufficient and living off the scarce available ready-to-consume resources provided by nature.
Bush and his cronies don't want free markets. They profit off the labor of others, precisely because of interventionist institutions such as the Fed and the SEC and Fannie Mae.
It's funny that Bush has been the biggest interventionist president since Nixon, with all his tariffs and bailouts and nationalizing the banking system -- and yet Homo Boobus apparently feels no cognitive dissonance ascribing "free market" ideological motives to him.
You know, Ron, sometimes politicians use this thing called "rhetoric" when they speak. Often times, that rhetoric is blatantly contradicted by their actions. Bush has always been great at using the rhetoric of "freedom" and of "free markets" and "peace," etc., but that doesn't mean that's what he really believes!
I know, this might be a big surpise to you. Sorry I had to be the one to break it to you.
"that used the fed to do it, but I can see how them being YOUR people would make you want to sluff it off on the Fed, and FM and FM. How embarrassing for you."
"MY people." Funny.
Don't you get a tinge of guilt, Ron, from the intellectual dishonesty you employ in your attacks against me?
How could the Bush administration be "MY people," if the "used the Fed" to plunder others, and you know that I oppose the Fed?
How can you attribute their actions to "free market" ideology; when you even admit that it is through government-created interventionist institutions that they commit they crimes?
I don't just blame the Fed; I blame everyone who uses the Fed to plunder others.
But I also recognize that without the Fed, they would be unable to plunder us in that way. If they still wanted to partake in unearned wealth by expropriating the property of others, then they would have to find some other government institution to use, for them to "legally" take money from us. If we had a government that removed all such institutions, then we would have a free market, and the only way anyone would be able to get rich by stealing would be to break the law.
If they didn't want to risk breaking the law, then they would have to resort to producing goods and services that others were willing to voluntarily exchange money for.
I know; its crazy to want that, right? I must be a real whacko nutjob utopian to want a situation where the only anyone could get rich, would by producing real value and utility for the rest of society, which we could exchange our own production for. I think thats called "prosperity." Sheesh; how nutty of me.
The only way that I know of is for the Government to own businesses and socialize certain services such as health care. But that would be Socialism and Socialist governments generally spread the money among their citizens equally. You say that you favor a situation where the only way anyone could get rich would be by producing real value and utility for the rest of society. However Socialist systems don't usually create an environment in which anyone can get rich, let alone someone who is producing real value and utility for the rest of society.
Honestly, it appears like you are most likely suffering from low self esteem and you have resorted to the internet in order to give your esteem a boost via 200 word bullshit spun around comments full of fancy words that make you appear to have an extremely high IQ when in fact your comments have no meaning nor substance whatsoever and are often contradictory.
If you are truly in need of a jolt of self esteem, my suggestion would be to make an appointment with a therapist.
There's a bs answer for everything, and you've found the well of them with Von Mises, Paul, and that racist Institute. The BA CAUSED THIS MESS with specific action, and that action amounted to deregulating the market, and that IS what you propose. NAFTA is, simply, an example of deregulating trade, and the results for the American worker have been devastating. The fact is, you sell economic snake oil, with hundreds and thousands of excuses and justifications of why black is not black, it is white, but to those that aren't blinded, like yourself, it's obviously still black, and your bright light bulb, that is actually pretty dim witted, should be relegated to the dustbin of political and economic discourse like Ron Paul, Libertarian BS, and ALL free market "rich get richer at the expense of the public" schemes. Regulated Capitalism, to protect the public from the greedy excesses of unhampered pursuit of profit at all costs, is much preferred in a modern society. I am sorry the rich and the stingy don't want to pay taxes, I am sure they don't want to see a single nickle of the money they have made on the backs of their laborers help maintain the system that has favored them with their wealth, but government, and yes, taxes, are necessary to an orderly society. Representative Democracy gives you a voice every four years, or two years, or seven, and if you can convince enough nut cases to join you, you can elect a racist nut case like Paul, and impose anarchy as you so desperately want, and declare open season on the middle and lower class, as your masters so desperately want, but I sincerely hope you are doomed to the ignominious defeat libertarians always seem to manage. Get a clue.
Go to news archives and read about the killing on the Bay area transit system. While it was a fluke, you can read a lot of comments about gang type activity on the transit system. That has always been my concern about mass transit, since I missed my last bus in downtown Albuquerque, NM and was stuck there at 6:30pm on a winter night, alone, no cell phone in those days, no public phone in sight and all buildings closed and locked and the night crowd of homeless already scattering across the streets. It was a seedy area at night and as a 40 year old woman with no street experience, I was frightened. I can only imagine how much bigger a problem this in this decade. I'm not sure a single armed guard is a good solution to this either.
What do some other serious, green posters think about this issue?
Very well written!
My grand kids can't use the bus to school, college, or work because it is $5 per boarding for the general public and no student discount! Unless subsidies are done for cities to present good (enough hours) service, at a reasonable rates, mass transit will never become popular. I can remember in the fifties that Pueblo, CO issued student passes for junior high and high school students on their regular bus lines and the school district saved a bunch of money over their own bus service. I seel little evidence of various agencies and age group services working together to solve transportation problems. They each invest too much in separate systems. A lot of work is required to rethink all of this across the country.
<<< "Looking back on how the mess was made, critics say regulators' absence wasn't the sole cause of the bubble, but Washington's decisions set the stage for the crisis and exacerbated it once it began." >>>
Hmmm. Sounds interesting. Let's see where this is leading...
<<< "The most important decision may have been the Federal Reserve's move to keep interest rates near all-time lows for three years, which acted as a clearance sale for borrowers." >>>
What's this? The Federal Reserve? But the Federal Reserve isn't a market-created entity, is it? Nope. It seems that the Fed was created by the federal government.
(I also seem to remember the fact a state-sanctioned central bank with a monopoly on money and credit happens to be the Fifth Plank of Marx's "Communist Manifesto" -- real "capitalist" agitators, those guys, Marx and Engels. But nevermind...)
<<< "The Fed cut its target short-term interest rate for overnight loans to banks, the federal funds rate, from 6.5 percent in 2000 to 1 percent in 2003. Loans for cars, homes and houses were on sale, almost 85 percent off." >>>
Yes. But what the author of this article doesn't get into, is that this central-planning manipulation of interest rates creates a condition which is inherently unsustainable. The "recession" is in fact the inevitable consequence of inflation.
Every recessionary "bust" comes contained within the inflationary "boom" that precedes it. It is a necessary correlation. Classic cause-and-effect.
<<< "Cheap credit spurred the rise in housing prices. The Fed viewed that rise as fuel for the economy after the burst tech bubble and the Sept. 11 attacks." >>>
The reader here is supposed to just accept all this. The author assumes that the reader, like herself, is ignorant of economic principles. Therefore, it doesn't occur to her that perhaps the reader is aware of how the science behind business cycles. It probably also doesn't occur to the author that the central-planners of the Fed were fully aware of the fact that their manipulation of interest rates -- far from being "fuel" for an economy still reeling from the bursting of the last Fed-induced bubble -- would ultimately result in yet another period of illusory prosperity, systematic clusters of malinvestment due to the distorted signals which business plans it's operation according to (the artificially-depressed interest rate), and then a jolt of economic reality which results in a period of recession while the market tries to re-adjust to conditions of reality (even as the conditions of reality are being obscured by the Fed's continuing manipulation of interest rates).
<<< "At the same time, international changes in bank regulation in 1988 and 2001 lowered banks' reserves." >>>
Ahh, yes. Finally we come to some of this "deregulation" we hear so much about.
What this means is that central banks lowered the reserve/loan-liability ratios of the banks which they serve as central-planning overlord for.
See, central banks are all created as a cartelization device. Ordinarily -- under a free market -- banks that made loans in excess of genuine savings they had on hand to loan out, would run the risk of insolvency in the event of (even a partial) bank run or "currency drain" (similar to bank run, except it occurs when competing banks demand that a bank redeem bank notes or checks deposited by the competing banks' customers which were drawn on accounts held by the first bank). It wasn't long before bankers discovered that if they wanted to continue practicing fraud (by issuing loans in excess of what they genuinely had on hand to loan out) and reaping unearned profits, then they would have to find some way to overcome the inherent problems associated with the fraudulent practice. A Cartel arrangement is the best way, they discovered. However, a cartel arrangement always requires the assistance og government to succeed; otherwise there is no way to stop new competitors from arising who aren't members of the cartel, who would thus be able to blow their whole scheme out of the water, because they would have no incentive to go along with cartel's agreement to pool together all reserves and not to bankrupt one another by demanding bank-note redemption).
So when central banks lower the reserve-ratio requirements of the banks under them, what they are saying is that they will permit the bankers to issue even more fraudulent debt than before.
But it is the fact that the banks are able to issue any fraudulent debt at all, that sets the stage for the inevitable boom and bust.
And it's because of the very existence of the state-sanctioned cartel, that banks are able to sustain an inherently-insolvent, fraudulent system of fractional-reserve banking.
This is a failure of a government-created, government-sanctioned, and government-sustained institution -- not the "free market."
Let's look at some more of the consequences of this state-created fraud:
<<< "The reserves, kept in banks' vaults and with their regional Fed banks, are their cash cushion; when borrowers don't pay back loans, banks can cover the shortfall with their reserves.
The regulations also allowed banks to keep some debts off their balance sheets — the snapshot of a company's financial condition that helps investors gauge its health.
As a result, banks' total loan portfolios looked smaller than they were, allowing them to hold even less cash as a proportion of real total loans." >>>
And then we have this:
<<< "As if to hasten the crisis, the federal government crowded out state regulators.
In 2003, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which supervises all national banks, said states could not regulate a bank's mortgage lending if the bank had no branches in the state. Wachovia Corp.'s mortgage subsidiary promptly sued Michigan's bank regulator, claiming that its mortgage unit there was no longer subject to Michigan state regulation." >>>
It's odd how the author notes that federal government bureaucracy "crowded out" state bureaucracy -- but it is never mentioned how all government bureaucracy crowds out potential private accreditation and consumer-protection agencies.
<<< "Now the banks are in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, and the era of big Wall Street investment banks has drawn to an ignominious end." >>>
Yes; and the author has just demonstrated that the whole mess was spawned by the existence of central banks; not "laissez faire."
But she, like many people, are so woefully ignorant about economics, that they don't even understand the difference between "free markets" and interventionism.
And thus she writes: "In the heady years of deregulation, they took on more debt than was good for them, and now taxpayers could end up paying the price if the government can't turn a profit on the deal."
What was "deregulated" was bureaucracy; namely central banks. Central banks are the same thing as bureaucracy; they are agencies created by the government, to serve the ends of government.
But the government consists of humans, and thus the ends of government are ultimately the ends of the people who compose the government.
And the people who compose the government are people who have been entrusted to impose arbitrary compulsions and restrictions on society. Thus begins the rat race, wherein everyone lobbies the government to exercise that coercive power on their behalf, so that they may, as Bastiat noted, participate in plunder, without having to deal with the dangers and shame that would otherwise come with the act of plunder.
And who is always going to win this rat race? Those who have the most to offer the men and women who direct the state apparatus of coercion and compulsion.
"There's a bs answer for everything, and you've found the well of them with Von Mises, Paul, and that racist Institute."
I don't look to Ron Paul for answers to anything. And you're baseless ad hominem against the Mises Institute is ridiculous. Maybe someone ought to inform all the black, latino, Jewish, Asian and Middle Eastern men and women who publish and study for the Mises Institute that they're "racist"?
"The fact is, you sell economic snake oil, with hundreds and thousands of excuses and justifications of why black is not black, it is white, but to those that aren't blinded, like yourself, it's obviously still black"
No, that's not a "fact," Ron. What is a fact, is that you don't have the slightest damn clue about what the implications of Austrian-school economics are. It's funny that you should call me "blinded," when you have no idea what it is that I see.
All you do is make blanket, unbacked assertions that I'm wrong, with random insults thrown about, but you can never explain why I'm wrong; other than to make some ambiguous, emotionally-based reference to "the greed of man," as if greed by itself could ever harm anyone without the use of coercive force or fraud.
It seems you have some deep-seated, irrational fear of "the rich," who you consistently refer to as a homogenous group, to which you ascribe insidious, conspiratorial motives, as if every rich person has, by default, accrued their money only through exploitation and fraud, and by their nature seek out every opportunity to exploit and plunder "the common man."
I recognize that there is a group of wealthy and powerful people, who do in fact exploit and plunder everyone else. But it is irrational to think that every rich person is a member or even sympathizes with them.
And it is only through sheer economic ignorance that you fail to recognize that it is only through coercive intervention by government that the elite have been able, and are ever able, to reap unearned profits, and accrue greater wealth and power at the expense of others.
If the laws protected every one, equally, from force or fraud against person or property, then they would have no recourse to exploit or plunder anyone -- without endangering themselves by running afoul of the law.
But of course, you probably view the making of profits in and of itself as "exploitation" and "making money off the backs of labor," right?
If so, then it's clearly you who needs to "get a clue."
If you understood what a world without wage-labor, profit and loss, speculation and interest would look like, then maybe we could debate the merits of primitive lifestyle vs. modern integrated social economy.
But I doubt you have such understanding, because I doubt you really desire to have us living in caves and huts and scrounging a bare subsistence from the land.
Well that's a huge leap, and no, but I do recognize reality, something I highly recommend, and the plunder of others in the pursuit of profit is a staple down throughout man's history. Like YOU don't consider the FED as such an instance, gimme a break. I think I plainly advocated regulated Capitalism, which doesn't even indicate such a thing. As you yourself noted up above, there is more than enough history to indicate the need for some limitations on the free market.
First of all, this is a circle argument. What you are proposing is the opposite of free markets, and is in fact going to result in a lot of the regulation we already have in place, that have systematically been negated under the BA in the name of free market theories, but that's not the biggest fly in your ointment. Since the elite buy the laws that matter to them, such as the ones that implemented the Fed, whenever possible, always have, and intend, and have the power, to keep it that way........BINGO, delusional. I don't have to immerse myself in economic theory to know when one is totally being sold to delude us into implementing something that would empower our own demise at the hands of those that want a free hand to exploit us. Reality is all around you Steve, just sayin'. The Von Mises institute is headed by a libertarian that is a confederate apologist, and the Ron Paul letters that were PLAINLY racist, were produced under his watch as the editor. Maybe someone SHOULD tell those folks who they are associated with.
The one thing that this mess could not have happened without, Ron, is the macroeconomic central-planning bureaucracy and the government statute which grants it monopoly privilege over the nation's supply of money of credit and compels us all to use it's worthless paper bank notes in trade.
Here is an apt metaphor for what you are contending:
Suppose the government were to pass a law that granted a monopoly on auto production to one company, say GM. If anyone in America wants to drive, they have no choice to drive a GM automobile. They also create an agency to ensure that GM's production standards are within certain guidelines. Then for whatever reason, the government stops its oversight of GM's production standards, and suddenly peoples' cars are catching fire, falling apart, breaking down; everyone's driving deathtraps and people are dying all over the country.
If we apply your logic to this hypothetical situation, we would have to conclude that it was the removal of the oversight agency that was primarily responsible for the problem; and discount the existence of the law that requires everyone to drive the deathtraps in the first place.
Yes; we may say that the removal of the quality-insurance agency contributed to the turn of events.
But to place that highest on the scale of importance of contributing factors; to try to somehow diminish the fact that it was the existence of the law granting GM the monopoly privilege that attributed such grave importance to the job of the bureaucratic agency assigned to oversight of their production, gives new meaning to the phrase "putting the cart before the horse."
"My views on the exploitation of the lower classes is irrelevant, what happened happened, and though I am sorry it was the very thing you advocate, and therefor shows the folly of your whole free market BS, it is what it is."
But it wasn't anything that I advocate that created the whole mess; nor any of the artificially-induced recessions before it, including the Great Depression.
I advocate freedom; that means free-market money and banking, not a state-sanctioned banking cartel and laws that require all of us to accept in trade the vicious wealth-siphoning paper issued by the cartel.
The fact that you don't see the difference speaks only to your own ignorance, be it willful or otherwise.
"Your delusions that you will ever even the field between the rich and powerful and the poor and helpless are fantasy."
The only "field" I want to level is the law. The law should treat everyone equally; rich or poor or anywhere in between.
And I guess I would be delusional if I thought that I were going to accomplish creating such an environment (especially when there are so many people such as yourself who have been conditioned to fear liberty, and who uncritically accept all the anti-freedom sohpistry and propaganda emitted by the elites who enslave you).
But just because I'm aware that Americans aren't about to stop being afraid of liberty any time soon, does that mean that I should not speak the truth? Should I just decline to point out that freedom would work; that we don't have to be enslaved by a system that impoverishes the many for the benefit of a privileged and insidious few?
Or should I try to force myself to believe in what I know to be absurd; that freedom is to blame for our problems, and that the solution is to grant ever more power to politicians and bureaucrats to direct our fate according to their own arbitrary discretion?
Just because ignorance and servitude suits you, Ron, doesn't mean that I or anyone else is wrong for desiring education and liberty.
" Those that have control now will make sure the laws that you cite as a safety system will not happen, and the end result, if ever implemented will be the exploitation of all but the very rich."
Well, if that were the case, then we'd just be ending up right back where we are now. So then it's not worth advocating?
You're claiming that if we had a system of laws that protected liberty, then the elitists would subvert it and therefore liberty is not worth fighting for. That's ridiculous.
First off, if someone subverts the system of law and justice so that the apparatus of force is used to plunder others to their benefit, then it would not constitute a system of liberty and justice, and thus it would no longer be what I and libertarians in general advocate.
The idea is, that if enough people are educated and insistent upon liberty and justice, then any subversion of the apparatus of law would quickly be discernible, and eliminated. It's really not hard to tell; if the apparatus of the law initiates or threatens force against someone who has not initiated or threatened force or fraud against others, or if it takes from some people what is rightfully theirs, and gives it to someone else against the rightful owner's will, then it is tyranny and plunder, and must be eliminated.
Right now, we already have a system where we are subject to tyranny and plunder.
You are suggesting that it is folly to try to change it, because the forces that have established it would just try to establish it again.
I believe that if we did have a system of laws designed to protect liberty and establish justice, then people would very quickly recognize the exponentially greater quality of life experienced when so much of the wealth they produce is not siphoned away and all opportunities are open to everyone, that our society in general would be so jealously vigilant of our newfound liberty, peace and prosperity and would be resolved to never allow it to be taken away by anyone.
"Utopia is an unattainable goal, and things that look a lot like it on paper, will come back and bite man right on the keester, because we are an imperfect race."
I agree. And I what I advocate is not Utopia; it's called Justice.
"Utopian" implies something that is inherently unworkable, because it is against the very nature of mankind.
And that explains precisely why all collectivist systems and social structures which place humans in a condition of servitude to another group of humans -- whether it be socialism, fascism, or democracy.
It is not against human nature to be free -- indeed, liberty is the condition under which human potential blossoms, and people are in their most satisfied and peaceful state.
Libertarianism is not Utopinianism. It is much more utopian to think that we could continue to have a social structure which empowers one group of humans to impose their arbitrary will on all other humans, and expect results any better than those we are experiencing now.
<< "But of course, you probably view the making of profits in and of itself as "exploitation" and "making money off the backs of labor," right?" >>
"Well that's a huge leap, and no, but I do recognize reality, something I highly recommend, and the plunder of others in the pursuit of profit is a staple down throughout man's history."
Doesn't seem like such a huge leap when extrapolated from this: <<"I am sorry the rich and the stingy don't want to pay taxes, I am sure they don't want to see a single nickle of the money they have made on the backs of their laborers help maintain the system that has favored them with their wealth, but government, and yes, taxes, are necessary to an orderly society.">>
But anyhow, your comment made no sense. Plunder and profit are two mutually exclusive concepts. Profit is the earning of income through production and voluntary, mutual exchange. Plunder is the use of coercion to expropriate property from others against their will.
Someone does not "plunder in pursuit of profit." If they plunder, then they do so in pursuit of plunder. Even if they originally set out to produce and exchange goods or services on voluntary terms, if they end up resorting to plunder, then it is because at some point, they decided to forgo the pursuit of profits and instead to engage in plunder.
The moment they resorted to the use of coercive force as a means of income -- either on their own strength of through the state as proxy -- then whatever income they accrue by that mode is not "profits," it is plunder.
Some firms -- e.g. Halliburton, Blackwater, General Dynamics, and countless others including banks -- certainly engage in plunder, and the money they accrue is accounted for by themselves and by many in society as "profits," but this is just an example of using a generally-accepted term to disguise the true nature of the reality.
Much like when inter-governmental managed trade treaties designed to benefit specific special interest groups and corporate entites are presented to the public as "free trade agreements."
"As you yourself noted up above, there is more than enough history to indicate the need for some limitations on the free market."
I noted no such thing. There is no need whatsoever for any limitations on the free market.
There is only a need for a system of justice and enforcement of common law, in order to prevent the imposition of limitations on the market.
If there is coercive intervention in peoples' economic lives, then the market is not "free." Plunder and fraud are instances of coercive intervention; whether commited by governments or private individuals or firms. The system of laws should defend and enforce the equal rights of everyone, and that means enforcing the terms of contracts and mutual exchange. Fraud and initiatory coercion must be eliminated in order for the market to be "free." Laws should prevent the imposition of coercive intervention; not establish or facilitate it, as they do now.
<< "If the laws protected every one, equally, from force or fraud against person or property, then they would have no recourse to exploit or plunder anyone -- without endangering themselves by running afoul of the law." >>
"First of all, this is a circle argument. What you are proposing is the opposite of free markets, and is in fact going to result in a lot of the regulation we already have in place, but that's not the biggest fly in your ointment."
No; yours is the circular argument. What you are asserting is that it is "delusional" to want to have a system of laws to defend liberty and establish justice, because it would just end up subverted by the same people who plunder and oppress us now.
You're saying that what we have now is better, because if we tried what would be better in principle, in would end up in what we have now.
You don't see the absurdity here?
And then there's the absurdity of positing that advocacy of free markets is somehow the same thing as advocacy of "the opposite of free markets."
" Since the elite buy the laws that matter to them, such as the ones that implemented the Fed, whenever possible, always have, and intend, and have the power, to keep it that way........BINGO, delusional."
But therein lies the fly in your ointment, Ron. If our system of law and justice was one designed only to protect liberty and exact just restitution for violations of thereof, then there would be no legislative and bureaucratic apparatus such as we have now, and hence no occassion for anyone to "buy laws."
Right now, there are some 4,000 new pages added to the Federal Register every year. Congress passes all these decrees, dictating all manner of minutia, and the public is obligated and bound by all this minutia, and I think it could be said that there is not one single person who is 100% aware of the complete content of all these binding dictates which we are all expected to follow.
When you have a situation like this, it is ridiculously simple for anyone who knows how to maneuver the system to be able to lobby for privileges and advantages to be bestowed upon them through the process.
In a free society, there would be no such thing as "law-making." Because in order for it to be a truly free society, those who hold positions of authority would have to recognize that laws and justice are not things that are "made," but rather things that exist only because of the pre-existing rights of individuals.
Our rights are not granted to us by others -- whether they be monarchs, or legislators, or "the majority" -- they are not privileges that we enjoy at the behest of other humans.
Our rights are derived on account of the intrinsic equality of each and every human. We are all 100% self-owners, because to say otherwise would be to posit an absurdity; to wit, either (a) some humans have a legitimate claim of ownership over other humans, or (b) that everyone owns some minute fraction of everyone else, but does not own their self.
As self-owning individuals, we have a right to defend our own person from initiated aggression, we have the right to the free and inoffensive use of our faculties, and we have the right to ownership of that which we create from the use of our faculties. or else acquire through voluntary mutual exchange or bequest.
We also have the right to combine our individual right of defense, to provide for the constant, common defense of life, liberty and property. This is the origin of law, and it is the only just and proper scope of the law.
If the collective force is applied to anything beyond the scope in which an individual is justified to use force, then it must necessarily violate the rights of some, many, or all.
Will you assert that the force of law may be legitimately and justifiably applied to the violation of the rights of individuals?
If so, then what you are asserting is that humans may be legitimately and justifiably held to be the owners of other humans.
"The Von Mises institute is headed by a libertarian that is a confederate apologist,"
That is a purposely misleading statment, designed to discredit valid philosophy by implied ad hominem attack.
Lew Rockwell and others at the Mises Institute believe in the right of secession; you are trying to twist that into a de facto defense of slavery. It is a purposeful over-simplification and it's blatantly dishonest.
Lew Rockwell and those at the Mises Institute are the greatest detractors of all forms of human slavery one could find on the Internet.
The reality is that the Civil War was not started to end slavery, is was started to "save the Union," to prevent the secession of the Southern States as well to set an example.
If the Civil War were about slavery, then it would have been an honorable undertaking. but even if it were, there would have been no reason to not permit the Southern States to secede after the slaves had been rescued.
Lysander Spooner was one of the most vocal and rigorous opponents of slavery. He was an abolitionist before it was cool. He was also an opponent of the invasion and occupation.
You might see this as confusing and counter-intuitive; but that's just an indication of your own simple-mindedness and inability (unwillingness) to look any deeper than the surface for the real meaning of things -- and characteristic which you demonstrate almost constantly.
"and the Ron Paul letters that were PLAINLY racist, were produced under his watch as the editor. Maybe someone SHOULD tell those folks who they are associated with."
Right. "PLAINLY racist." Exaggerate much? First off, the quotes you read were extracted from a handful of articles published over a period of years, in which literally thousands of articles were published. Secondly, most of the quotes you read were plucked completely out of their context, with key sentences and even portions of sentences removed, sometimes the removed portions and sentences were such that the entire meaning of what was written was altered to appear insidious when it wasn't. Thirdly, those quotes, even removed from their context as they were in many cases -- but especially when they are read in the original context in which they were published -- can be honestly said to have been insensitive, politically incorrect, and even downright rude; but that's not the same as "racist."
The Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com each have dozens of people of all colors and cultures that publish at those sites, and often those sites exclusively; and the Mises Institute probably has more scholars of color than most so-called "progressive" think tanks of comparable size.
Their message is one of individualism -- that all humans are intrinsically equal and should be trated as such under the law.
This is the complete, diametric opposite of racism. In fact, ideologies which advocate special privileges established by compulsion through the apparatus of the state can more accurately be described as "racist," than the philosophy of liberty advocated at LvMI.
It is a de facto statement that women and minorities are somehow inferior to white men, and thus need special privileges granted to them if they are to succeed in life. It's ridiculous to assert that philosophy that holds all humans as individually equal, with equal rights to life, liberty and justice, and that the law should be designed only to protect the equal rights of all, as soomehow being conducive or sympathetic to racism; which is a particularly vulgar form of collectivism, the utter opposite of individualism.
At any rate, it's awfully arrogant and presumptive of you to assume that those who study and publish at LvMI aren't familiar with all the accusations and innuendo thrown about Lew Rockwell, and that they haven't made up their own mind about the character of the man and the integrity of the Institute, from which to base their decision to associate with him and it.
I very highly doubt that. Read Mises' Human Action; then you may be able to honestly say you understand the Austrian school of economics and the science of praxeology.
If you really understood the action axiom, the law of marginal utility, the law of association, the concept of consumer sovereignty, and especially if you understood capital structure, production and the price system; then we wouldn't be having this argument about economics.
You would already agree with me.
And you must not have looked too hard for who finances LvMI, or else you probably would have found this at mises.org:
"You've been sold on a new religious cult, the worship of greed as a force for good. That in itself should tell you something, and you desperately need deprogramming."
Good stuff, from somepne who says that I talk down to him.
And a ridiculous oversimplification as well.
Do you deny that greed has been a force for good? Do you deny that it is because of the innate human characteristic that drives people to want to constantly improve their material well-being, that we have become as prosperous as we have?
Do you think it's because of the altruism or philanthropy of entrepreneurs that we have a society where even the in the slummiest of slums, you will find cars, TV sets, DVD players, cell phones, microwaves, and PC's?
I just lack the irrational fear that you have, that the greed of others will somehow be able to harm me or anyone else if the laws were designed to protect against fraud and plunder, instead of to facilitate it.
I don't have the irrational fear of "the rich." I recognize that if a person has become rich because they produce value and utility that others voluntarily exchange money for, then that wealth is acquired to the degree that the person has benefited society as a whole.
I recognize that so long as their are no artificial barriers to enterprise, and no interventionist measures to sabotage the function of the price system, then I and everyone else will always have every opportunity to better our own lot in life, according to how hard we are willing to work for it. That everyone will receive from society in correlation to the value they provide in exchange.
And I also recognize that under freedom, there is competition to do good for humanity. That if people were free, and everyone was able to reap the full reward for their effort, then mankind could safely be counted on to see to the care and provision for those who are unable to care and provide for themselves.
I don't fear freedom. It did take a while for me to shale completely free of my fear, but there came a point where I had learned enough to recognize how irrational yet deep-seated my fear had been.
I haven't been brainwashed by some cult; I have been educated by my own effort. I give credit to God for placing the stepping stones in my path; but I credit myself for having the intellectual curiosity -- and insight to know that there was alot I needed to learn -- to put in the time and effort to learn.
I wasn't suddenly baptised either. I happened upon clips of a video called "America: Freedom to Fascism" right here on Gather. That picqued my curiosity enough that I went to the library and took out Ed Griffin's "The Creature from Jekyll Island." I didn't agree with Griffin's libertarian bent just yet, after reading it, but it certaintly taught me enough to know that there is something seriously wrong going on just under the surface of our everyday lives.
So instead of remaining in the dark, and just going by my gut feelings -- whcih were very much like your own gut feelings -- I decided to try and learn more about Ed Griffin's point of view, to make sure that it didn't hold more validity than my uneducated gut feeling had been williing to grant it.
So I went to Amazon.com and got Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson." Just that one 300 page book will teach anyone more about economics than many will learn in a lifetime. Then to Hayek's "Road to Serfdom," and then Bastiat's "The Law" and "Economic Sophisms," and then rothbard's "Man, Economy and State" and Mises' "Human Action," with a few smaller monographs in between.
Take that route; I can guarantee you, if you have any common sense at all, you will end up agreeing with me on almost every major issue.
Not hardly, we had all that, before deregulation, but it DIDN'T happen, till the BA deregulated the mortgage markets, made it free, in other words, and just as I noted about your whole free market BS, some evil bat turds figured out how to scam the system when not regulated, and fleece us all. The Fed was a contributor, not the cause. God, I can't believe you can't see that. I hate the Fed, but it is not, as I said before, near the scam this free market theory would, and already has been, as an instrument of greed the elite want to sell us on.
"Here is an apt metaphor for what you are contending:
Suppose the government were to pass a law that granted a monopoly on auto production to one company, say GM. If anyone in America wants to drive, they have no choice to drive a GM automobile. They also create an agency to ensure that GM's production standards are within certain guidelines. Then for whatever reason, the government stops its oversight of GM's production standards, and suddenly peoples' cars are catching fire, falling apart, breaking down; everyone's driving deathtraps and people are dying all over the country.
If we apply your logic to this hypothetical situation, we would have to conclude that it was the removal of the oversight agency that was primarily responsible for the problem; and discount the existence of the law that requires everyone to drive the deathtraps in the first place.
Yes; we may say that the removal of the quality-insurance agency contributed to the turn of events.
But to place that highest on the scale of importance of contributing factors; to try to somehow diminish the fact that it was the existence of the law granting GM the monopoly privilege that attributed such grave importance to the job of the bureaucratic agency assigned to oversight of their production, gives new meaning to the phrase "puttin