The Bushies and the NeoCons where in the pits yelling encouragement as Bush and the Fed drove the economic system into a tree — now they’re cheering on a guy who’s advocating world government as the solution to our economic problems.
Peter Wehner says “I don’t pretend to be an expert on the current financial crisis” but I’m certain I did hear Wehner and Kristol and Podhoretz say they have stayed at the Holiday Inn.
The title of Wehner’s piece is “Anchored in Reality”.
Don Boudreaux has written a partial response to the call for a new global financial regulatory regime here.
{ 18 comments }
Undoing Socialism
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Keynesianism Is Socialism!
Gary North (1) summarizes nicely the destructive educational goal of the economic propaganda promulgated by government funded education:
“The Keynesians’ goal is to train students to believe that money spent by the government is productive, while money spent by investors and capitalist enterprises is wasteful. They teach the students to believe that the expansion of money by the central bank is productive, while increased savings by the public leads to what the Keynesians call the paradox of thrift. Somehow, thrift creates economic recessions. Somehow, increased saving to make available capital goods is a threat to the financial stability of free markets.”
Keynes as well as Greenspan and Bernanke and Krugman and Paulson and Geithner and all of the ego-driven interventionists in the world who use their economic terrorism to redistribute wealth to themselves (directly or indirectly) for the purpose of hegemony are socialists and they are also fascists!
(1)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north701.html
Ha, that Holiday Inn crack was a good one.
Wehner might as well have just said, “I’ve got some bad news, I have to throw my support between an ever increasing fascist government because I’ve drawn some conclusions based on faulty logic… but I did just save a bunch of money on my car insurance!”
It is odd how the label “ideological” has become a badge of shame. Rothbard rightly condemned this tendency, saying that an ideology was nothing more than a coherent system of thought, or something close to that. The problem is when bozos who hold deeply flawed ideologies stick to their guns and are willfully blind to the resulting destruction (think of the neocons, for example). Then others who are “ideological” are attacked via the process of guilt by association. These types of episodes give “ideologies” a bad name, but they do not actually demonstrate the evil of ideologies, per se. Adhering to an ideology which is well-grounded in reality is of great benefit.
Mr. Koerber,
I caught a BookTv program with a fellow named John Taylor Gatto a couple of weeks ago. He was a teacher in New York for 30 years, was Teacher of the Year on several occasions and yet came away from the whole experience with a very negative view of our entire educational system. I haven’t gotten his book, “Weapons of Mass Instruction” yet but it sounded very interesting. As I understood it, the basic point of his book is that our educational system has one purpose; to tame us and shape us to accept the system. Sounded very interesting. He talked quite a bit about the history of education in America and the people who shaped it.
I’ve been thinking lately that the “illness” of our times is hubris, particulary amongst our politicians. I keep thinking about the line from Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe”; No person who wants to be President of the Universe should ever, under any circumstances, be allowed to be the President of the Universe.
The one thing that’s clear to me is that none of what we see today in our political system has anything to do with the classical liberal principles the United States was founded upon. It’s like we’re living on its carcass.
Second generation NeoCons, to be precise.
I have serious amounts of respect for the first generation f.e. Irving Kristol – he a got a few things wrong, mainly the economic stuff, but his writings on f.e. culture and counter-culture are OK, I think. You can learn a lot from f.e. “The Adversary Culture of Intellectuals” and other writings, they are really great.
Compared to him, Bill Kristol is a disgrace…
Mr. Wehner writes,
“There is an impulse in many conservatives to aim their wrath only at government failures and oppose any government action. That is understandable, given the mistakes and unintended consequences created by government over the years and the unprecedented prosperity and human flourishing brought about by free markets. But conservatism is also deeply grounded in empirical evidence. And in this instance, if we are to properly defend democratic capitalism and free markets, we need to be willing to (in the tradition of Burke) promote necessary reforms from time to time. Conservatism is at its best when it is both principled and non-ideological, when it demonstrates intellectual rigor and promotes practical solutions to the challenges we face.”
I find it interesting that a man who admits, “I don’t pretend to be an expert on the current financial crisis, which is a complicated matter,” can then say “Conservatism is at its best when it is both principled and non-ideological, when it demonstrates intellectual rigor and promotes practical solutions to the challenges we face.” It is clear that Mr. Wehner has not done any thinking regarding our financial system, yet he believes that he is qualified to agree with his neocon buddies who also know nothing about economic theory. Perhaps if Mr. Wehner would demonstrate this intellectual rigor himself, we could take his comments a little more seriously.
I also was struck by his comment on conservatism being grounded empircal evidence. It just seems that the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy won’t die. Perhaps someone should mail a copy of Theory and History and The Theory of Money and Credit to Mr. Wehner.
There was a time when I read National Review regularly and even had a subscription. Fortunately, I read a couple of essays by Robert Higgs and Hans Hermann Hoppe. Both were like taking the red pill.
What a shocker that neocons would betray Americans. Isn’t it a solid fact by now that they are anti-liberty and pro-”democracy” as long as they set the agenda, no matter who is elected? They’ve just started a new version of the PNAC.
And no, the older necons hold the same goals as the younger neocons. The younger neocons aren’t going to be restrained, apologetic or thoughtful because they’ve proven they can get into power and have a real chance to get power back in their hands.
I would’ve thought this was obvious. Pooh on us conservatives who get suckered by their temporary change in means.
Crawdad, I’ve read some Gatto. He’s got some interesting things to say, although a little prone to handwaving when it comes to prescriptions. (And on a personal note, I wish he hadn’t slagged the space program in Dumbing Us Down. Austrian or no, I still have a soft spot for the Saturn V — got to see one of the last three, in Florida last week. Heh.)
to bruce koerber:
thanks for the north article reference. i don’t agree with him that $50t of capital has been destroyed with the crisis. paper losses don’t represent capital destruction. i think this is an unfortunate lapse in an otherwise good opinion-piece.
Ken,
Like I said I haven’t read Gatto yet, but I doubt I will agree with everything he says. I just liked what I heard on BookTV where he was laying out the history and philosphical underpinnings of our system. I had come across some of the things Gatto pointed out on my own, like writings of the early advocates for compulsory education in which they stated clearly that its purpose was to bend us to the state’s will. Mostly though, it was my own experience working in public schools for two years as part of an outside program that caused me to seriously question the system. Gatto, and Sowell (Inside American Education) have helped provide me with some answers to the questions that were swirling around in my head after that experience. If you want to be depressed just spend a little time in some of our schools.
The sad fact is that this will not change so long as the Federal Government controls education. Too many powerful organizations and people with vested interests in the status quo for any serious reforms. Right now I’m leaning to each state taking control over their own systems. Won’t solve every problem of course, might even lead to others but the more localized the better.
I’ve been next to one of those Saturn Vs too. Amazing. I wasn’t aware of Gatto criticizing NASA although I agree there is a lot to criticize. I do have a soft spot for the space program though.
A friend of mine had a discussion with a NASA administrator he knows recently. My friend asked him why they didn’t just go back to using the Saturn for some of their missions. Apparently, according to this guy, they can’t seem to duplicate the technology. In the early days it was a bunch of guys working separately but collaboratively with slide rules and notepads. The engineering now is almost a different animal. Funny.
TO KEN: Who said, “if you want to be depressed just spend a little time in one of our schools.”
I write many articles about the socialized school system on my blog site.
Taxes are an involuntary relinquishment of ones property{money} hence a system of thievery. The tax supported school system is based upon a system of thievery. If thievery is wrong and immoral, how can one have a moral system based upon immorality.
Secondly, these students spend twelve yeas being indoctrinated into the system of socialism. Therefore several generations of millions of graduates of socialism, is it any wonder this country is in the crisis we now face?
Thank you
Anne Cleveland
octogenariansblog.com
Anne,
Actually that was me, Crawdad. Sorry for the confusion. I was responding to Ken.
I agree with you about the purpose of our educational system. I watched Dr. Robert Higgs on C-Span today and he did an awesome job defending classical liberalism. You could tell from the temper of the call in questions though that it is an uphill battle; lots of propaganda to be overcome. One nut from Vancouver (U.S.) yelled at Dr. Higgs and called him a fascist. If you are not familiar with Dr. Higgs or his work, there could hardly be anyone further from fascism. He disapproves (understatement) of government and has written extensively on the subject. Good reading.
Anyway, I recommend everyone to watch it if you can, either on C-Span (check listings for the repeat) or on-line at their website. It is 3 hours long.
Crawdad,
John Taylor Gatto’s best book, IMO, is “The Underground History of American Education”….and if you like, can be read for free online, right here:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
Cannot recommend it enough.
Problem, reaction, solution.
“…if we are to properly defend democratic capitalism and free markets, we need to be willing to (in the tradition of Burke) promote necessary reforms from time to time.”
This argument is so cliche’ and absolutely enfuriates me to no end. You cannot have a FREE market with government intervention and planning, or in newspeak, “reform.” It is absolutely incumbent on each of us adherents to the free-market to completely and utterly discredit these farcical commentaries. They are nothing more than socialist shills trying to earn their spot amongst the protected few.
Here’s some practical advice for everyone: next time you’re going out to practice at the shooting range, take all your silhouette paper targets and paint blue helmets on them.
Forget, please, “conservatism.” It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
PS – And “Mr. Worldly Wiseman†Rush Limbaugh never made a bigger ass of himself than at CPAC where he told that blasphemous “joke†about himself and God.
As a staunch social liberal and an Austrian economist I find a lot of problems with the current regime and attempt to denounce our current governments actions as incredibly wicked. The fact is that our “conservative” party failed us by giving us lower taxes and increasing our debt by listening to the Federal Reserve. Nor will I ever subscribe to the Friedman theory that government should not control education. Private enterprise will *NOT* enhance education. Take a look at any of our private universities, could you say a DeVry student will have the same breadth of knowledge that a state university student has been forced to learn? No. Private enterprise does not focus upon breadth, it focuses only upon profit. If you attempt to educate someone, you should not worry about minimizing the content of your course to fit within the profit margin of your corporation. Additionally look at the exorbitant rates charged for the limited education afforded to the student. Of course that is their free market choice, they choose a more focused regime at a higher rate due to convenience rather than a broader base of knowledge at a more affordable rate. Private enterprise can corrupt as long as it can coerce the political regime to play ball by renting the stadium.
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