The Market Fundamentalist

http://reason.com/blog/printer/130475.html

Link from Reason.com blog, HIT AND RUN

Sometimes, in order to understand how large social organizations work, it is illuminating to examine a relatively trivial example of the dynamic and gain insights into the more complicated large scale organization.

In Oregon, car dealerships, who are facing hard times, are asking the state government to PASS A LAW forbidding car sales on SUNDAY.

Of course, they will say that Sunday is a religious day, and large scale commerce should be banned for religious reasons.

This is a perfect example of the Baptist and Bootlegger paradigm in “rent seeking activity”. (RENT SEEKING is the PUBLIC CHOICE school of economics term for using the state to gain competitive advantages in the market)

The Baptists would be the evangelicals and others who would welcome the State of OREGON to ban car sales on Sunday as a religious gesture of the importance of the SABBATH.

The Bootleggers, in this case, are the CAR DEALERSHIPS who want to cut down their expenses in a sagging economy and try to squeeze more sales out of the Saturdays they are open.

The KICKER is that the dealerships do NOT just want to close on their own. Why? Because PRIVATE CARTELS do not last long, that is why. Even OPEC has its internal discipline problems. If all the current dealerships decide to close down on Sundays voluntarily, why some one might change their mind, or an UPSTART new guy from Nevada might see an OPPORTUNITY FOR PROFIT and open a dealership that is closed on MONDAYS, but open on SUNDAYS, when frustrated weekend shoppers might be willing to close the deal.

Ok, Ok this is small potatoes. What is the point you were trying to make about major issues?

Well, since we have numerous liberals on this list, let’s look at JIM CROW laws.

OMG, he’s talking about RACISM in economic terms! How dare he analyze the relationship between HUMAN BEINGS in anything but purely humanitarian calls for equality?

Well, because, like it or not, we live in a world of scarcity, and with limited knowledge, and those are the conditions that economics is geared to analyze.

Consider that in the DEEP SOUTH, the majority of the white people were racists and wanted to keep blacks down. What would their strategy be? Well, the majority of white people is STILL not the majority of all people. Some whites are not racist, and the blacks might even outnumber the whites.

So, what organ of power would you try to focus your attentions on? Controlling the free market? Not likely, because the free market is well, free. Too many variables.

So, how about controlling the STATE! Yes, that’s the ticket! Concentrate on controlling the STATE!

So, make it harder for blacks to vote. Sure, that is important. Then, the majority of racist whites can elect RACIST governments, willing to pass and uphold JIM CROW LAWS.

Then, be sure the District Attorney is racist, and the judges. Easy to do when justice is a MONOPOLY controlled by the state. Make sure juries are all white.

Then violence and intimidation against blacks will go unpunished, and any uppity blacks will be prosecuted to the “full extent of the law”.

Now, this is most important: Pass laws that state that EVERYONE MUST DISCRIMINATE. No exceptions. Every business must be all white, or all black. No one can move to the South , no big corporations can move in, without obeying the JIM CROW laws.

No white liberals can gain a competitive advantage (like being open on Sundays in Oregon) by being willing to serve both whites and blacks.

There you have it. Jim Crow was a function of the state controlling business, not vice versa.

Free markets in the South would never have supported JIM CROW, because segregation does not make MARKET SENSE. You would have to have two of everything: two locker rooms, two bathrooms for each gender, two lunch rooms, etc. The costs of doing business would be prohibitive. Not to mention the constant racial tensions in the workforce.

That is why when the black man Plessy dared to sit in a whites only railroad car in the 1890’s and was arrested , the RAILROADS paid for his defense all the way to the Supreme CT., which did not uphold his right, or the rights of the railroads either (government regulated, you know) to conduct their business in a PROFIT MAXIMIZING WAY.

So, large corporations usually avoided investing in the JIM CROW south. The south did NOT become prosperous until JIM CROW ended.

Now, what about the civil rights movement? Was it the best solution?

Not necessarily. Sure, the power of the state was crushed. But, the power of individuals to think and act in a private capacity was crushed as well.

Does passing laws saying NO ONE CAN DISCRIMINATE an ethically better option than laws saying EVERYONE MUST DISCRIMINATE?

Given that those who wish to discriminate will face market losses and pay for their discrimination, and that free markets will not sustain large scale discrimination, was it worth attacking private property rights and free speech and free thought to “stamp out” all discrimination?

Those who believe in political correctness, favor forced busing, believe that the government must constantly intrude into the lives and businesses of citizens to enforce “equality” certainly do.

Those of us who are skeptical of government intrusions, and are willing to tolerate private behavior we do not agree with so that the overall freedom of association (and non association as well) is protected, do not.

Barry Goldwater did not vote for the Civil Rights Act, because he thought it would indeed lead to the PC culture we indeed have today.

Was he right?

Brendan

We need to return to a people who have a healthy disrespect for the
state, and also for a large standing Military..

To this end, conservative William S Lind and libertarian Democrat Gary
Hart have spent years working on military reform. To little avail so
far, because after 9-11 the military has been seen as our Great
Protector, never mind that we are facing a non convential war in two
countries that a conventional military is ill equiped to win. Even their
headquarters, the Pentagon in Washington, was hit by the air pirates.

The Washoe Co. Republican Party Platform calls for a fully equipped
“modern” military. However, as Ron Paul will point out at the Nevada
State Convention, a fully equipped MODERN army needs to be smaller, not
larger.

William S Lind recommends scrapping all Destroyer and some Aircraft
Carriers, making the submarine the backbone of the Navy. Reduce the Air
Force to a Nuclear Strike Force, period.Air strikes create insurgencies,
they do not stop them. Reduce the Military, but leave some Army and
Marine Divisions as Special Ops Units, trained in swift interdiction,
not Nation Building.

Nation Building is now an official part of the US Army Manual. As Padme
said in Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith: “So this is how a Republic dies.
With applause.”

Brendan

(originally in the NATION under a different title , by Peter C Baker)

Waiting for Giuliani
a Play in One Act by William Kristol

* * * *

Two hoboe’s meet by a trash can filled with burning garbage.

PODHORETZ: We are only in the very early stages of what promises to be a very long war–

PIPES: A profound war and long-term war, in which Afghanistan and Iraq are sideshows.

PODHORETZ: Iraq is only the second front to have been opened in that war: the second scene, so to speak, of the first act of a five-act play.

PIPES: I already predicted failure for an American-led military occupation of Iraq in February 1991…. [Podhoretz frowns] But President George W. Bush is right to insist on keeping troops in Iraq.

PODHORETZ: I think Iraq has gone not badly but well, is not a disaster or a crime or a delusion, but what’s more is a noble, necessary effort.

PIPES [apologetic]: Oh, it was a success…. That six-week victory remains a glory of American foreign policy…. The ingratitude of the Iraqis. [He raises his glass and takes a long, mournful swig. A tear wells in his eye.]

PODHORETZ [nodding sympathetically]: We’ve paid an extraordinarily small price by any reasonable historical standard for a huge accomplishment. It’s unseemly to be constantly whining.

PIPES [as the previously welled tear drops to the floor]: Probably those weapons were well hidden; maybe some were latterly destroyed.

PODHORETZ: They were shipped to Syria.

PIPES: They might well still appear.

PODHORETZ: The only reason in my opinion that we’re having as much trouble as we’re having in Iraq is that we’re not getting intelligence…. You can only get that kind of intelligence by squeezing it out of prisoners. Both domestic opposition and the international community, unhappily, are defining torture down. The things they’re calling “torture” now have never been and have no business being considered torture.

PIPES: Is there not something deeply flawed about the US government consistently siding with terrorists?

PODHORETZ: Even a lot of my neoconservative friends have either lost heart and deserted the cause or devoted themselves mostly to bitching about this and that and the other thing and everything else.

[An awkward pause. Both men look at the floor. After a few seconds, Podhoretz suddenly looks up.]

PODHORETZ: Which brings us back to Ahmadinejad.

[Pipes makes a fist, and pumps it furiously in the air.]

PIPES: Ahmadinejad threatens the elimination of the United States as well as Israel.

PODHORETZ: The old American foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a madman.

PIPES [Leaning in conspiratorially, sweating slightly]: The real story is Giuliani’s fresh start in foreign policy.

PODHORETZ: As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how he sees the war and how I see it.

[Both men jump from their chairs.]

PIPES [sweating slightly]: The war is against radical Islam.

PODHORETZ: I call this new war World War IV.

PIPES [sweating more, and panting]: A profound and long-term war.

PODHORETZ: There’s no alternative to military action.

PIPES: Will we act in time?

PODHORETZ: Even though Hitler in Mein Kampf had explicitly spelled out the goals he was now preparing to pursue, scarcely anyone took him seriously.

[They sit back down, switching seats.]
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At Bully’s, the night RAWC met to discuss the State of the Union by GWB:

Russ said that he did not believe in the doctrines of David Ricardo. I asked him if by that he meant the doctrine of comparative advantage.

I then explained that the doctrine of comparative advantage means that if every nation or region concentrated on producing what it does best, then trades for everything else, the people’s wealth would be optimized. If two nations engage in trade, if each nation trades what it produces the best, for what the other nation produces the best, then both nations are better off-and that includes both a wealthier nation and a poorer nation. Under these conditions, both nations will prosper to the maximum.

Remarkably, Ricardo even showed how a very poor nation that does not produce anything better than a wealthy nation can still prosper, and the wealthy nation as well, by trade:

David Ricardo long ago demolished an objection to free international trade. A country can profit from trade if another country can produce more efficiently a good that it wants. In return, it can offer in exchange a good that it makes more efficiently. “But what of the case where one country . . . is worse at producing everything than some other country is? . . . How can it possibly offer the more advanced nation anything in trade?” (p. 64)., Economics for real people, by Gene Callahan.

Ricardo arrived at a remarkable result. He showed that, in the case just indicated, the advanced nation would still find it advantageous to trade. The poorer nation should produce the commodity in which its inefficiency, compared to the advanced country, is least, —this is its comparative advantage.

This means that even if the US, for example, could produce a product better than a poor country like, say Bangledesh, it still would be advantageous for the US to trade with Bangledesh for that product. Assuming that Bangledesh can produce the product better than it produces other products, both the US and Bangledesh will benefit from the trade.

Now I said that this is a natural law, a law that can be expressed mathematically. It is an a priori law, or a law that can be deduced logically, and does not depend on empirical verification. A mathematical equation like 2+2=4 is valid no matter how cold or damp it is outside, or how smart or dumb the student who works it out is, or how greedy or altruistic the computer is….2+2 still equals 4.

Russ disagreed. He says that Ricardo is wrong. But all he can say to support this claim is that Ricardo is wrong because this is merely a hypothetical and people have free will. I am not clear what this means at all. I asked him to send me his argument, but he declined, saying he has a life. OK, so he refuses to say why he thinks that Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage is wrong. But, this is not the first time I heard him say this. He likes to bring this up in conversation, but he expects others to just accept it, without knowing why or how he thinks the law is deficient. I find this attitude from those who argue for more government interference to be more than curious, it is disturbing.

I assume that we can agree that government is force. It issues laws and regulations that force people to act other than they would on their own. It punishes violations with fines, prison sentences, loss of property, even death. The folks in RAWC say that force is a bad thing to use against Iraq and vilify the right for saying it is good. I agree. However, these same folks turn around and justify every government intervention possible in people’s economic lives and say that is a good thing, because people have “free will”. Just how is this use of force morally different from the right’s use of force?

As a libertarian, of course, I believe strongly in free will. But, you can have all the free will in the world, and you still cannot make 2+2=5. There is nothing your will can do to change a mathematical law of nature.

(more…)

"Libertarian" Chuck Muth is upset because the Republicans will probably not push the English as Official Language Bill former Republican Congressional candidate Sharon Angle wants.

Ok, I don’t mind gloating. As far as an election can ever demonstrate correctness, I was right, and the Republicans were wrong. They hitched their wagon to the wrong law and order pony this time, and it turned into a donkey and bit them on the ass…

Score: Immigration 13 Nativism 2

NATIVISM
lOSES!

I was on another email list –washoeantiwar–access it at www.renopeace.org/mailman/listinfo…and I was arguing against some
aspect of the global warming myth…when I got a very good, thoughtfull (but erroneous) reply and in it he called me a “market fundamentalist”… of course, he would be open to being named a “statist fundamentalist”, which I did…

But upon reflection, I kind of liked the term. Liberty is about property, and about markets, and I am a devotee of Austrian economics, which is about value …and value is found in prices which are finalized in markets…so, I adopted the term, and renamed the blog…Hope you like it!

Trying to make up my mind whether to attend the Sept 24 Demonstration Against the War in San Francisco or stay in Reno, I attended the meeting at the Reno PLAN office with Richard Becker of Answer, the National Anti War Demonstration Machine.

Before we spoke the dozen or so of us sat around and made some small talk. I listened to a lot of left wing buzz-words, conveying a common meaning I did not share. I was reduced to taking notes. I couldn’t help but be struck by the complaints of one woman who had to endure too much bureaucracy in transfering her teachers certificate from California to Nevada. As she complained about her ordeal, I wondered how much similar bureaucracy she had advocated and voted for in the past. Why she felt she had the right to complain that some of it came back to bite her I do not know. Except, that somehow many who advocate government solutions to other people’s problems do not believe that the same government solutions should apply to them as well.
(more…)

On the eve of April 15, the subject of taxes and war is most appropriate.

On of the most moving articles I have read was posted to lew rockwell.com.

Written by an expatriate American living in India, it gives a libertarian perspective on how Ghandi’s non-violent approach to tax resistance was directly connected to war and empire.

It is unfortunate that the anti war movement is stuck in the perpective that taxes can produce good results.

The state exists because it is the corporation that has a monopoly on the supposedly legitimate use of force. A republican government, strictly limited by a written constitution and controled by the people could control that monopoly. An anarcho-capitalist non government would have strict real-world limitations on violence and war as well.

Unfortunately, the anti-war left continues in the delusion that all we have to do is elect the right people and taxes will be spent on social justice, not war.

Never mind that social justice programs have traditionally used the rhetoric of war (war on poverty, war on crime, war on drugs, war on illiteracy, etc. etc.) .

The idea still exists in too many good people’s minds that government is a force for positive good, rather than at best a tool to protect our “negative rights.”

So, to my brothers and sisters in the anti war movement, who decry the use of tax dollars to fund needless foreign war, my I humbly submit that, in the spirit of Ghandi, you should also oppose the use of tax dollars to fund a domestic class war?

Iraq-Two Years Later: guests Lisa Paul of Moveon.org, Shane Piccinini of Sierra Interfaith Action for Peace, Steve Gifford of RAWC, Patty Cafferata, Republican, former State Treasurer. Bob Tregilus commented from the audience.

Good show, with challenges on the technical side. In particular, our hostess Lisa Stiller may be hard to hear at times.

Best exchanges-Steve Gifford contradicting Patty Cafferata on her excuses of the intelligence failure regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Most Banal Partisan Bickering-Shane Piccinini and Patty Cafferata partisan wrangling over which intervention was better, the Balkans or Iraq.

Best Insights-Lisa Paul on whether exporting Democracy with War is all its cracked up to be.

Most overused analogy-Patty Cafferata bringing up the Hitler comparison with Saddam Hussein as the unstoppable fuhrer.

Weakest arguments for a better future–Steve Gifford saying alternative energy is the best option to free us from oil. Patty Cafferata shoots him down with a simple “not realistic.”

Best solution ignored by the mainstream-Bob Tregulis asking why the US should be a superpower and why not a policy of non-intervention. Left and right agree its not an option, but do not say why.

Worst ommission- Not once did a panelist mention the word

Neocon

Or, for that matter:

Israel

Watch it on SNCAT channel 16 Charter Cablevision Reno!