Henry Hazlitt Weighs in on the Current Crisis
Mar 22nd, 2009 @ 03:24 am › William Anderson
As I watch the government continue its massive economic destruction, and as I read things like the “God’s Politics” blog, the following quote from Henry Hazlitt explains what is happening:
“The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects – his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.”
We are seeing this envy and hatred now being institutionalized, egged on by the Obama administration and its media acolytes.
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21 Responses
bring back goldstein the apostate.
Marxists and the writers of the “God’s Politics” blog are essentially radical primitivists. To them, trade is not a positive sum game. This leaves me wondering why they ever buy anything. To be consistent, these people would have to squat on others’ land and live completely self-sufficiently off of it.
Hello, Great resource – I’ve linked to you at:
http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/linksIV.htm
- listed under ‘Economics’.
Best regards
PJ
There is some of this happening, for sure, but it goes deeper than envy. People are pissed off for good reason, but most don’t seem to realize who/what deserve the lion’s share of the blame. They aren’t going after the supporters of the bailouts, the Fed. They are finding scapegoats.
I find myself recalling a little rhyme about this, dating I think to the Victorian era:
What is a communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings.
Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork over his penny and pocket your shilling.
It’s been obvious for millenia, but most people still don’t understand that MoneySapiens has become the new dominant species. Those who aren’t good at acquiring wealth, for whatever reasons, are destined to have a lower standard of living. They need to learn to live with that fact. There is the possibility though, that everyone could end up being millionaires, if the various Central Banks succeed in inflating world currencies enough.
Isn’t our school system all about a positive self-image? Aren’t we told that this is the way to success. Kids don’t need to pass tests on reading, writing, and arithmatic. It is all about how we FEEL about ourselves not what we produce. Come on! How insensitive can you be?
I noticed that socialistic envy come to the surface during the interview with Leno? Austrian economics and classical liberalism has sharpened my perception, no doubt.
All of us who are educating ourselves see right through the veils of ignorance and propaganda. Now our task is to help others to sharpen their perception.
There is another aspect to this as well – the moral aspect. Marx said that democracy is the road to socialism, and this is exactly what we are witnessing today. Democracy is immoral, and socialism is just the end result of this immorality. For a more in-depth look at how the sophistry of these socialists is bringing us all down, check out: http://socialistsatthegate.blogspot.com/2009/03/conscience-of-classical-liberal.html
Competency in implementing whatever plan or concensus to address our troubled societal ills has generally been our shortcoming. Once people realize that politics is rhetoric based and that reality and perception is the spread played via the self- serving media, will individuals see “qui bono” (who benefits) from any given version being purported. Capitalism neat, on the rocks, or best served with a splash of altruism?
And now Obama is planning to nationalize the unhealthy assets of the big banking institutions.
http://economicthought.net/?p=45
William-
What of the man’s (nations, companies, etc) success that is due to pillaging, thievery, deception, enslavement, coercion, et al?
Are we to believe that the leading nations and companies (from Babylonia to the Northern Amalgmated Nations circa 2297) simply amassed their wealth and status by virtue of their god given intelligence and hard work?
I’m far from a socialist but it seems that the people on this board, like most, find the logic and rationale they are most comfortable with and make no exceptions that they could be wrong or that geo-eco-politics is not black and white, not Austrian or Chicago, not socialist or capitalist
I love these boards b/c the people are infinitely more smarter and nuanced than the hacks on CNBC but it’d be nice to hear commenters and posters acknowledge that those who are not 100% devoted to free market everything could in fact have legitimate reasons that extend beyond simply trying to get something for nothing.
Hazlitt is my favorite Austrian author so far but I think this quote is too easily confused in the current political/economic climate. The quote can quite easily be read as a defense of those who were all to eager to inflate, and take advantage of, the most recent bubbles.
k1 said:
“it’d be nice to hear commenters and posters acknowledge that those who are not 100% devoted to free market everything could in fact have legitimate reasons that extend beyond simply trying to get something for nothing.”
Perhaps you missed my post above when I said:
There is some of this happening, for sure, but it goes deeper than envy. People are pissed off for good reason, but most don’t seem to realize who/what deserve the lion’s share of the blame. They aren’t going after the supporters of the bailouts, the Fed. They are finding scapegoats.
Ben W., I disagree with Marx, on just about everything. I don’t think we live a true democracy and besides we are supposed to be a constitutional republic. Think about it a bit. There is nothing wrong with people voting for what they think is right. Did we get to vote on the bailout? No, because we have a representative democracy. They just BS ya till they get elected. Those “representing” pander to party politics and are afraid of simply doing what is right. Most of them are more like actors or puppets. I think our federal govt has pretty much reached soft despotism.
What we need to do is return to a constitutional republic, thereby allowing us to hold our politians accountable and restore power to a state, local, and personal level. It is time for a tea party, for real.
k1,
Go to a coffee shop and you can find plenty of liberals to talk this over with. Not trying to be mean here, but this is a site for Austrian economics, the epitome of free-market ideology. I realize that there may be plenty of good intentions by neocons and liberals alike. However, in my humble opinion there are serious flaws in their economic philosophy. Ceilings, floors, regulation, private public partnerships, Keynesian economics, and fiat monetary policies might aide someone and will definitely hurt someone else. I agree with you that by discussing our ideologies with those who have another perspective, we are able to refine our ideas and make a better case for what we believe. This is not the place for that. This is the place where we, who are of the Austrian school of thought, talk about what we find in those discussions and share the cases we have made.
Joe,
The will of the majority is not ipso facto ethical. If the majority wanted to reinstate slavery, or execute all redheads, etc. would this be a positive victory for democracy? Or in the words of Dr. Hoppe, who was more democratic, Kaiser Wilhelm or Adolf Hitler? Legitimate Private Property Rights and eventually prosperity are always infringed upon in a democracy, republic, monarchy, or any other institution which steals wealth (taxes).
For the Failures of democracy ready Hans Hoppe’s “Democracy: The God that Failed”
For the impossibility of a “limited government” read Murray Rothbard’s “Ethics of Liberty”
or Dr. Tom Wood’s “Who killed the Constitution?”
It’s not envy, it’s fear. We are the same people we were before the bail outs. Everyday we hear of something else that is going to cost us more money. I don’t really believe people want to take someone elses money.They just want to keep what they have worked for all their lives and to be able to continue doing the things they enjoy. Not everyone wants 10 cars, a diamond ring on each finger, and 4 houses. I too believe this is being egged on. I am glad I bought “Meltdown” and found my way to this site. I, like alot of other people(my opinion), were not paying attention. Keep the faith. If I can find my way here and educate myself, so can others.
“Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others.”
The big problem is that socialist economic systems ALLOW people to succeed in these ways, and this does not go un-noticed by the less successful. Then the latter, rather than demanding equal opportunity, demand punishment and retribution against the successful– i.e., more socialism.
Thus socialism becomes self-reinforcing and a vicious downward spiral.
Paraphrasing a quote from J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian theologian of the early twentieth-century: It never occurs to our legislators that, though welfare, the helping of our fellow brothers and sisters, is good, forced welfare, the confiscation of resources, without our consent and effectively at gunpoint, in the cause of assisting our fellow brothers and sisters, may be bad.
What is the point of being ‘moral’ with respect to the poor, when it is done with ‘other people’s money’ that was obtained by what can only be characterized as simple robbery.
The condition of not having amassed great wealth, or attained a high income, is no more necessarily the consequence of any failure or limitation than having attained it must be the consequence of duplicity and exploitation.
Both come of decisions, which vary not only in luck and asperity, but also in the degree to which the decider wishes to sacrifice other values and wishes in favor of increasing income and wealth.
The evil comes in after the consequences of these decisions become evident, and those whose decisions were motivated by (ephemeral) considerations other than wealth-maximizing, and renounce both their decisions and the role of such decisions in the outcomes.
At that point only may they be seen to have “failed” in attaining goals whose primacy they denied when making the decisive choices. It’s very much an afterthought – and a pernicious one at that, promoted and preyed upon by those ultimate exploiters, politicians.