Ludwig Von Mises - Liberty and Economics
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Stumble ThisMises is one of the greatest Economists. He escaped the Nazi Regime (National Socialists) in his 50s and moved to America to write one of his best works, Human Action. He really understood freedom as it pertained to individual choice, not from the collective good.
http://mises.org/
From Y/T: "What kind of man was Ludwig von Mises? As this unique film shows, Mises (1881-1973) was a man who never stopped fighting for freedom: not when the Nazis burned his books, not when the Left blackballed him at universities, not when it seemed as if statism had won. With courage and genius, he fought big government until the day he died ... in 25 books, hundreds of articles, and more than 60 years of teaching.
Mises's battles against Communists, Nazis, and other socialists, are featured in this film, as are his ideas of Liberty. There is also the old Vienna he loved, the Bolshevik prime minister he dissuaded from Communism, and a cast of villains from Lenin to Hitler, as well as such supporters and students as Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul, Bettina Greaves, M. Stanton Evans, Mary Peterson, Joseph Sobran, and Yuri Maltsev.
Among his many accomplishments, Mises showed that socialism had to fail, that central banking causes recessions and depressions, that the gold standard is honest money, and that only laissez-faire capitalism is fully compatible with Western civilization.
Mises was the twentieth century's foremost economist, and one of its most important champions of Liberty. Here is a film that does justice to this extraordinary man, and to his equally extraordinary ideas. "
http://mises.org/
From Y/T: "What kind of man was Ludwig von Mises? As this unique film shows, Mises (1881-1973) was a man who never stopped fighting for freedom: not when the Nazis burned his books, not when the Left blackballed him at universities, not when it seemed as if statism had won. With courage and genius, he fought big government until the day he died ... in 25 books, hundreds of articles, and more than 60 years of teaching.
Mises's battles against Communists, Nazis, and other socialists, are featured in this film, as are his ideas of Liberty. There is also the old Vienna he loved, the Bolshevik prime minister he dissuaded from Communism, and a cast of villains from Lenin to Hitler, as well as such supporters and students as Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul, Bettina Greaves, M. Stanton Evans, Mary Peterson, Joseph Sobran, and Yuri Maltsev.
Among his many accomplishments, Mises showed that socialism had to fail, that central banking causes recessions and depressions, that the gold standard is honest money, and that only laissez-faire capitalism is fully compatible with Western civilization.
Mises was the twentieth century's foremost economist, and one of its most important champions of Liberty. Here is a film that does justice to this extraordinary man, and to his equally extraordinary ideas. "
In my early studies of economics I believed in Austrian economics, in the power of free unfettered capitalism to cure all ills, until I realized that capitalism possess no soul and could not work unless we were all robots and did not care about the welfare of others.
The key to good governance and national economy is the mixture of both, not the extremes of one over the other. There is a reason there is no Western nation that fully implements Austrian economics as national policies, it is wealth creationary but it is at odds with the welfare of the people under it.
Also why do people slam communism so much? You know I lived under communism, I could not buy much but I was assured a full higher education at the states expense, preventive health care (not the treatment based health care practiced in the west) and a job till the day I died. But it was also an extreme application with a concentrated politburo at its core.
This is why the best implementations favor mixed economies, look at Canada, high tax rates, national health care, controlled economy to an extent yet no bank failures, no bailout schemes and pretty well off financially... now if only Harper fucked off.
You make an assumption here that is false. Businesses get the ruling over us when they are able to enforce the rule of law over us. When we are free to choose what we want when we want it, the consumer is in power.
On the other end of the spectrum, the labor side (means of production). There will always be a fight between the business owners and the workers. When there are many workers, the companies will be able to force lower wages, and vice versa, that is just the way it goes. I think one of the modern success stories of free markets and interesting self regulatory bodies that emerge are the labor unions. They were able to strike out their claims more effectively and nimbly than any government regulation.
When the power is in the hands of the people, they have to recognize that their dollar is indeed power, and where they choose to invest it directly affects the world around them. It is a world where much more thought and responsibility has to be taken into account.
I realized that capitalism possess no soul and could not work unless we were all robots and did not care about the welfare of others.
Business is all about providing solutions for people directly. You aim is for consumer satisfaction. Who are these "others" to which your refer? If a company charges a fair market price for its product, it can pay its workers well, and his family can prosper as well, the consumer also gets his product at a reasonable price. It is the happy medium. It is when the government interferes with this that the unfairness is introduced. When we are forced to pay twice what a hair cut is worth because we need to make sure the barber is placed in a position in society that we wish to make the new minimum, you undermine the consumers right to evaluate what things are worth, and thus undermine the entire price structure. Things will begin to break down and inflation will result, lowering the buying power of everyone and thus returning this man to the same status of which you wished to lower him out of, and over-complicating things by placing a moral agenda on economics that all don't hold to.
The key to good governance and national economy is the mixture of both
This is dialectic reasoning to think you can mix to things that are fundamentally opposed to each other. Trying to merge two opposites is not wisdom. This is the idea of having your cake and eating it too. You can not have the powers of the market work if they are stifled in other areas. There ends up with a bubble of something eventually, and the market will always find that and exploit it until it bursts. The resent housing bubble is the greatest explained of poor government regulation. the The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 caused the housing bubble by not alowing banks to use their normal risk evaluation models when considering blacks and other minorities for loans. The result was the sub prime mess of today; enterprising capitalist's found a way to exploit poor government controls for economic redistribution of wealth and manged to make the poor, more poor, and the rich more rich...which is usually now much government "level the playing field" laws go.
I was assured a full....
You were assured something, but where they something you even wanted? Where they something you asked for? The main problem with this whole idea is the massive waste that goes on, communism is extremely ineffective. It provides things to those that provide nothing. It provides things to those who do not want those things. It essentially is the most unfair system one could make when trying to make something effective and efficient. This is why Soviets could launch objects into space, but could not provide soap or women's pantyhose to its people, there is no real model for determining the value of things OTHER than peoples demand for them. There is no government system you could make until after you have a pricing model for them, it hasn't been shown to be possible without massive inflation or more widespread enforcement of market strategies.
Central planning nearly always results in tyranny of the most extreme kind. Once the power is centralized, the ability to abuse that power becomes irrefutable as far as history is concerned. The idea of the philosopher king (or planners)lacks the merit or the understanding of human nature. People are greedy. To place the power of all our lives in the hands of the few only begs for the worst kinds of tragedy that the world have known. More over, the few that we ask to do it are no wiser on those things than ourselves. Do you think that the hundreds of people on capital hill know what the best course of action is on green energy? Do their one or 2 advisers? No they don't. The only thing they can do, is force it. Even if it isn't the most wise course of action.
Labour unions are given power through Federal and State government. In both cases business claim that minimum wages, safety standards, and work agreements pushed through by labor unions stifle business growth. Labor is seen as an input factor in economic thinking, not as a group of people. Mises always argued for the elimination of minimum wage for example. Furthermore if you remember the when the Detroit bailout was being discussed it was the Union workers that were blamed for over inflating their wages.
If labor mobility is taken as presented in Austrian economics then all trade restrictions must be done away with, there is efficiency reached when US manufacturing jobs are taken to less regulated non union parts of the world such as China.
The business has great power then its workers to dictate the terms of employment, dissatisfaction with labor conditions would mean mass firings and replacements, the exact reason why China has no labor problems with regards to unions there are so many people vying for the jobs as is.
Who are these "others" to which your refer? If a company charges a fair market price for its product, it can pay its workers well, and his family can prosper as well, the consumer also gets his product at a reasonable price. It is the happy medium.
Fair price is never set in the capitalist market, its is the abnormal profits price that is set. With migration of manufacturing to Chinese nations there has been no price fall in basic commodities like clothes. Per unit production costs are in the pennies, however the price charged is inflated. So what you bought for 50$ made in the US is still $50 when made in China, even though production costs are reduced. This applies to almost every industry. Even though market competitiveness is supposed to drive down price we do not see that as there is unspoken collusion of where to set the price. Or rather how much can you set such that demand is stable but with the highest profit creation possible. There is an entire course on profit maximization at the expense of the consumer.
It is when the government interferes with this that the unfairness is introduced.
What about Government intervention on child labour laws? Social externalities and pollution? In the last 8 years the argument has always been that firms in a free market system can account for externalization given the chance because they are hurting their own market in the long run.
However firms operate on short term profit maximization, and do the best they can in socializing their losses, and privatizing their gains. See Banking bailout.
It is only government regulation that allows or rather forces through economic incentives such as carbon trading to make firms pollute less or increase the welfare with regards to its work force.
Trying to merge two opposites is not wisdom. This is the idea of having your cake and eating it too. You can not have the powers of the market work if they are stifled in other areas. There ends up with a bubble of something eventually, and the market will always find that and exploit it until it bursts.
Really? Explain how socialistic and free market governments flourish in places like Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Finland and shit even China? Mixed economy systems are the most prevalent in the world yet somehow you claim they are all made to internally fail because there is government intervention. That flies in the face of historical fact.
China is the perfect example because you have centralized government which allows free market activity in the economy but nowhere else basically proving Mises belief that the free market leads to democracy in a populace is not altogether sound.
The resent housing bubble is the greatest explained of poor government regulation. the The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 caused the housing bubble by not alowing banks to use their normal risk evaluation models when considering blacks and other minorities for loans.
Utter right wing spin rubbish, I mean do you even think about it? A 1977 act results in a market meltdown some 32 years later. Be serious. The banks knew the risks, they just hoped the bubble wouldn't burst before making out, further increased exposure by repacking toxic debt and then selling that off as investment packages.
There clear causality found in the 1994 to 2004 time of Fed debates regarding regulating sub prime and derivatives markets, remember junk bonds of the 1980s? Same shit different name but far more severe effects.
For more http://www.videosift.com/video/Klein-Blames-Greenspan-Deregulation-for-Economic-Crisis
Greenspan believed that banks would self regulate themselves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7687101.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html
Central planning nearly always results in tyranny of the most extreme kind. Once the power is centralized, the ability to abuse that power becomes irrefutable as far as history is concerned.
Of course it does, but that makes my comment sound like an endorsement of communism and central planning, its not, its rather a clarificaition in that there is no idealized free market system that enables all citizens to be free in the vein of Rand and Friedman. One extreme is a mirror of the other.
Goverment intervention is needed to regulate markets through laws, laws that protect from monopolies from emerging and allow free market competitiveness to occur. To state that a free market system would simply regulate and account for all external costs that it imposes is ridculous.
At the end of the day the onus of proof lies at the feet of Free marketers to prove it can, well the derivatives and sub prime market was a free market entirely with no regulation and see how much profit maximazation and risky behavior that developed, primarily because each firm was acting as an independent actor working towards its own profit maximization.
What did it create? A huge social externality that they were bailout out for, so we continuously social the costs and risks through government and privatize the profits and benefits because that is capitalism.
If we allow free market thinking to take over all these banks should have been allowed to fail for their risky behavior in the market, but that would mean socio-economic collapse, though I think it would have been better since it would clarify to any one else that risky business behavior has its costs. But the people running the banks are tied closely to those running the economy, and you can't have a major change in the Wall Street it would create a huge loss of investor confidence that would create even worse effects. Business confidence is a frighteningly fickle beast.