Proving von Mises

Okay, an addendum:

If it's global warming getting tossed, I guarantee you that will cause a thought revolution overnight, and not because of anything having to do with the free market but almost inevitably leading to free-market principles being embraced. Much of our problem in this country is unwarranted trust of educational and governmental institutions. If the Ron Paul Republicans were smart, they would start running commercials like gangbusters highlighting the tactics of the AGW gestapo.

B-Ran wrote:Okay, an addendum:

If it's global warming getting tossed, I guarantee you that will cause a thought revolution overnight, and not because of anything having to do with the free market but almost inevitably leading to free-market principles being embraced. Much of our problem in this country is unwarranted trust of educational and governmental institutions. If the Ron Paul Republicans were smart, they would start running commercials like gangbusters highlighting the tactics of the AGW gestapo.

I hope that people realize how retarded people have been about global warming. The fact is, it could easily be forgotten because so many people want to forget the times when they were foolish. Hopefully there will be a way to emphasize the ridiculous nature of the Global Warming farce. Unfortunately that will involve a little bit of revisiting the fact. You are right though, this is a huge opportunity to show the falsehoods that were preached by the politicians and activists for so long. Don't let this one slide... Too many people have been forced into certain lifestyles in order to prevent global warming to let it go without an apology. For one, Africa has been held to some pretty insane standards in order to prevent them from contributing to global warming.

Yes, yes, yes! Africa is such a good example. Africa, in fact, is one of the best showcases of government policy regulating free trade, even American government policy, oppressing people. That's an angle that needs to be highlighted.

Really, and here's the thing, I think what I've been trying to say this whole time is initially, we can't worry about making the free market make sense. We have to work about making the free market emotionally resonant, because people nowadays are much more apt to respond to something emotionally resonant than something theoretically sound. The theory will fill in after people accept the fact that government intervention just plain hurts people.

Cowardly Republicans could be making an absolute killing right now by highlighting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being such bad ideas... If they hadn't been at the forefront of propping them up. Fools. So, yes, here's an example of what happens when you compromise your integrity. Thought you'd like the parallel.

Voila! I agree.

And, in the practical realm of public policy, I think that bringing us back to free market principles will be much the same process as pruning a diseased tree: you can't cut off all the diseased parts at once, because then the tree won't be able to support itself. You cut off the pieces on at a time, so the whole tree gets stronger and stronger. Eventually, it will be strong enough to fight the disease on its own, and you won't have to do anymore pruning.

B-Ran wrote:And, in the practical realm of public policy, I think that bringing us back to free market principles will be much the same process as pruning a diseased tree: you can't cut off all the diseased parts at once, because then the tree won't be able to support itself. You cut off the pieces on at a time, so the whole tree gets stronger and stronger. Eventually, it will be strong enough to fight the disease on its own, and you won't have to do anymore pruning.

I agree for the most part. An all out elimination of the system we have in one night would not be the best way of implementing a free market system. We also don't want to foster the failed institutions longer than absolutely necessary. A balanced exit plan would be best, but until then, we will need to stay principled and take each victory we can get.

I say target the most egregious offenders, research, and cut when ready.

For example, without even getting into the Federal Reserve (which will be a much larger egg to crack, I'm afraid), it's easy to connect the dots between the CRA, FanFred, the housing crash, the credit crash, and the current recession. If you just hammer on that demonstrably causal chain of events, people will start listening. They know there's something up there; the public consciousness of the issue is at an all-time high. Now is the time to strike.

The Fed will be implicated, but only indirectly, which is probably for the best at this point. As other things are called into question, the Fed will face increasing amounts of scrutiny. But right now, CRAnFred (as we can call the aggregated gov't agencies that allowed so many bad loans to slip through the cracks and encouraged the same) works really well as a crowbar to pry the greedy fingers of government off things they aren't supposed to be touching because of their tendency to break them.

B-Ran wrote:I say target the most egregious offenders, research, and cut when ready.

For example, without even getting into the Federal Reserve (which will be a much larger egg to crack, I'm afraid), it's easy to connect the dots between the CRA, FanFred, the housing crash, the credit crash, and the current recession. If you just hammer on that demonstrably causal chain of events, people will start listening. They know there's something up there; the public consciousness of the issue is at an all-time high. Now is the time to strike.

The Fed will be implicated, but only indirectly, which is probably for the best at this point. As other things are called into question, the Fed will face increasing amounts of scrutiny. But right now, CRAnFred (as we can call the aggregated gov't agencies that allowed so many bad loans to slip through the cracks and encouraged the same) works really well as a crowbar to pry the greedy fingers of government off things they aren't supposed to be touching because of their tendency to break them.

Yeah, that might be an effective strategy. I will not limit my criticism to one or two agencies though. Ultimately, most of our government could not exist with the Fed. The Fed isn't too favorable right now anyway.

You know, I was thinking today about how effective Peter Schiff has been. Peter has made people think because he has been bold, uncompromising and accurate with his projections. Lining Peter up against Paulson or Bernanke makes those two look like retards. He has influenced quite a few. Ron Paul has also been very influencial. Through his honesty and open communication, he took his campaign to unexpected heights. Ron Paul has been less brash than Peter, and pursued freedom through a different avenue. They both are effective even though they use different tactics. Ludwig von Mises took an entirely different approach. He worked as an academic. Again, there are many fronts that this conflict of ideologies has to be fought on. Some of those fronts include in the political arena, in the business community, in the academic communities. Instead of us trying to all decide on one direction to put all of our efforts toward, let's try to make ourselves effective in whatever way we see is best.

I just think that, in the marketplace of ideas as in the marketplace of goods, specialization is almost always cheaper and more effective than generalization. Especially in our soundbite-driven culture, sticking to a strict one-egg-per-basket discipline seems to be the way to go. I think one of the reasons that Ludwig von Mises didn't accomplish more during his lifetime (which isn't to say that he didn't accomplish a great deal, and I'm talking here specifically about his influence in academia) is because he was unwilling to deviate from his all-or-nothing approach. His vision was too broad for his reach, and as a result he was marginalized. LvM did a lot while he was alive, but one thing he demonstrably didn't do was change a large number of minds over to his way of thinking. An analysis of why is important, because without it, we'll end up like LvM: brilliant, yes, but ultimately consigned to the dustbin of history (at least for the time-being).

Yeah, I disagree. I think that people with specific focuses are important and people with broad focuses are important. I think that Mises did what he did and did it extremely well. He was very suited for the academic life and his books will likely inspire truthful thought in many more people than it already has (which many people have been inspired by his writings). Among the many consequences of Mises' studies was the teaching that he provided Henry Hazlitt. Hazlitt was a prominent journalist of the time that publicly helped promote free market ideals. Hayek, Rothbard, Hazlitt, and others were strongly influenced by Mises' writings. Assuming that Mises' influence would have been greater would be merely an assumption. He was great at what he did and he did it well.

Yes, I think there are plenty of opportunities for people to specialize and push one simple objective. However, we need a lot of people with a lot of different skills approaching this problem in a lot of different ways in order to be effective.