So yeah, I think communism is just pie-in-the-sky, like Shangri-La or the Big Rock Candy Mountain.  It is impossible in a world of scarcity and subjective value.

Which made me think how ironic communism is.

Without scarcity, there would be no purpose for communism, and due to scarcity, it is impossible.

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The first Chinese participant does a fantastic job of challenging George Soros, with what sounds to me, like an argument directly out of Tom Woods NYT bestseller, Meltdown. Now I haven’t read Meltdown, but I have caught all of Woods’ articles and speeches available online, and feel I can confidently make that assessment.

At 2:30, the Chinese participant mentions that markets can correct themselves, and Soros argues they cannot.

Notice how Soros stumbles when he talks about how markets are smarter than regulators, then claims that only regulators can stop perpetual market failure.  And the questioner does a wonderful job of pointing out, that only expansion of the monetary base can provide the necessary environment for these large booms, and Soros starts blinking, which sometimes is a sign of discomfort (approx. 4:30)

Great video, and wonderful to see the oligarchs challenged, particularly in Asia, which is where the hope for rational, free market economics, specifically Austrian Economics, has enormous potential to take hold.  As the flows of capital shift from the West to the East, its my feeling that change in economic attitudes will come where people have a healthy disrespect for the state, for propaganda, and the population generally values intellectualism, and savings.

Choice Soros quotes;

“Regulators can’t predict any better than the markets, in fact they are going to be less good at it than the markets. ”

“Regulator creates moral hazard.  But if they didn’t intervene, markets would actually collapse, therefore they must intervene.”

“The evidence shows that they can’t”
in response to the claim that markets can correct themselves

“Without the regulators interfering, the financial system would collapse, would have collapsed a long, long time ago, and would continue to keep on collapsing.  And that is why regulation has come into play.”

The quality of Soros’ doublespeak is unconvincing, and I think that the audience recognized it.

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One such item is the excommunication from the anarchist blogosphere (yeah, think about that) of a fella named Keith Preston. Seems Keith wrote some things that upset some people, namely Charles Johnson, Brad Spangler and Kevin Carson, amongst others.

I had never heard of Keith Preston until I saw this post on No State, and it intrigued me, because I have recently been cutting ties with paleos who are more conservative than libertarian.

So yesterday, I finally got around to giving the offending post by Preston a rigorous examination with a clear mind and a critical eye.

The article is approx. 7700 words, excluding the three quotations that lead it off but including quote blocks in the post proper.

NoState points out a 68 (give or take) word section as offensive.

Do we really attract more people into our ranks by having so many self-hating whites, bearded ladies, cock-ringed queers, or persons of one or another surgically altered “gender identity” in our midst? Is this really something the average rebellious young person wants to be associated with? Could we not actually attract more young rebels into our ranks if all of this stuff was absent? I believe we could.

Ironically, most of the post indicates out how Keith  could care less about people’s personal preferences, but when he singles out specific stereotypes (admittedly, in an inflammatory manner) it’s implied to be hate speech, when it clearly is nothing of the sort.  I don’t know if being gay or bisexual is a choice or not, I assume some people could choose to have those sexual perspectives, but Keith makes a fantastic point about the conflation of gay rights with racism, and I can see that in how the PC crowd begins to extend discrimination so widely, it is nearly impossible to remark without self-censorship.

Keith seemed to be making clear that he wasn’t comfortable with alternative agendas and preferences leading because he doesn’t think that is good for big tent anarchism.  And it probably is not, because fringe anarchists and cultural preferences don’t have a mainstream appeal, and in the blogosphere in particular, there seems to be a drowning out of alternatives to alternative  ideas and preferences.

It’s interesting to read the responses to Keith’s post, overlooking all of the good, for a paragraph or two of inflammatory rhetoric.  I don’t think he could have done much more to qualify his statement in advance, dedicating what seemed like half of the very long post to laying out his own ideas, experiences and preferences.  He could have toned down his rhetoric, but if he is as frustrated as I am with certain parts of the libertarian and anarchist left, then I can understand his questionable judgment.

Brad Spangler;

The first thing that came to mind for myself was that Preston’s colorful call to purge the queers reeks of the influence of the sort of strutting leather-boys with way to much Fallschirmjäger memorabilia who think that they’re not gay as long as they’re always the top.

Seems Spangler didn’t notice the comment (mid-post) about gays that Preston respects

For instance, I’ve gone out of my way to promote the work of Justin Raimondo, not because Raimondo is gay (who cares?), but because Raimondo is one of the very best critics of U.S. imperialism to be found. One of the very best critics of the police state is Glenn Greenwald, a gay man. One of my favorite political writers is Gore Vidal, who is a homosexual.

and (emphasis mine)

As for homosexuals, let them be evaluated according to what they actually contribute to our movement rather than simply for their status as homosexuals. We need the likes of Justin Raimondo or the late Alisdair Clarke. I’m not so sure we need some of these others.

So taking the previous comments into account with other statements in the post, Preston has no issue with gays (ie. “who cares?) and states that he appreciates and respects several gays, but wants anarchists to be evaluated on their merit, not their social preferences.  That is significantly different than what has been criticized by Spangler.

RadGeek in response to another commenter at NoState;

I dunno, dude, when someone starts complaining about “cock-ringed queers,” “bearded ladies,” “pissed-off, man-hating, dykes with an excess of body hair,” and “persons of one or another surgically altered ‘gender identity,’” quote-unquote, and states, without any qualification, that fewer such people ought to be “in our midst,” in order to make the kind of person he thinks of as the “average young rebel” (who, we can glean from the textual evidence, is supposed to be white, male, straight, and not an immigrant) more comfortable joining up — well, I get the impression that he does care, and moreover that he expects other people to care. Not so much about the fact of sexuality per se, but more about how far one is open about sex and gender in a way that makes things uncomfortable for those who believe in a very rigid set of gender norms.

If RadGeek has read the entire article (he may have) then I don’t know how he can draw some of the conclusions he stated in the above.  Keith makes clear he cares about what gays contibute, not what sort of sex they participate in, because it is irrelevant.

Textual evidence is nonsense, in that Preston infers that what is desirable and missing from anarchism is more racial and sexual diversity.  The textual evidence is RadGeek’s hangup about Preston’s views on immigration, which are a testy second-best issue for many libertarians, present company included.  No need to shift the goalposts.

And the last sentence is a strawman, in that Preston makes clear that sexual preference is not the issue at several points in the post.

Kevin Carson;

But while I could respect your willingness to tolerate loathsome people on pragmatic grounds, I can’t remain neutral when you advocate purging the anti-state movement in order to appease those loathsome people.

He’s not talking about appeasing anyone.  Note to readers, anytime someone uses the word appeasement, they are trying to portray another party in a weakened or submissive state.  Cheap rhetorical trick.

You have “evolved,” if you can call it that, from a willingness to share a tent with racists and homophobes for the sake of defeating Empire as the primary enemy, to promoting an active purge of anti-racists and gays from the anti-Empire movement because the majority of your anti-state coalition might find them offensive.

I bolded the two strawmen.  Nowhere did Keith call for a purge of gays and I’m not sure he called for a purge of anti-racists either.  I also don’t recall that any purge was necessary to appease the current coalition, but that the elements he thinks should be purged, are hindering the growth of anarchism from the outside.  And if the various left anarchist groups, coalitions and think tanks are any indication, I would have to agree.  The cultural-leftism is a big turnoff to massive swathes of libertarians, almost all minarchists, conservatives and anarcho-capitalists.

The “cultural left” as Carson goes on to talk about, is ridiculous anyway.  Cultural norms, personal preferences, and value are all subjective. I don’t care about the preferences of others as a matter of justice, as long as they conform to the NAP.

Now all of that said, I don’t know the body of Keith Preston’s work, so maybe this post was dishonest, and he really hates gays and loves Nazis.  But with regards to the comments on this particular post by prominent market anarchists [sic], I don’t see where he crossed a moral line.

Anyway, that’s my 3 cents on the matter.

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One of the funny aspects of being a somewhat, um, forceful writer is that I’m regularly accused of all sorts of villainy. I was personally responsible for the demise of Enron; my nonexistent son worked for Hillary; etc.. The latest seems to be that I called for the creation of a housing bubble.

In “Krugman Did Cause the Housing Bubble“, Thornton shows that Krugman was supportive of the Keynesian economic policies that would shift spending to Housing and create a bubble to replace falling consumption elsewhere, and the heroic Bill Anderson has followed up with “Paul “Hair of the Dog” Krugman” explaining that the problem isn’t that Krugman is wrong, it’s that his theories are ignorant and have always based on flawed economic reasoning.

I don’t think Paul Krugman, despite his recent Nobel prize, can afford too many more hits like this to his public reputation.  It seems quite obvious that he’s been on the wrong side of so many economic meltdowns caused by government intervention and central planning.

Even progressives have to admit that Krugman was a supporter of the very policies that have brought on disaster for so many working people and their families, creating senseless pain and suffering while bolstering the power of the political class.

Sadly, I’m sure the most dogmatic progressives, as found in his NYT comment pages will continue to worship Krugman as he provides left intellectual cover for the worst policies of the Republican and Democratic administrations.

Here is the interview,

Download audio file (lew_rockwell-infowars-thurs-110609.mp3)

Download mp3

Alex mentioned he would like to have Lew back on again, perhaps regularly.  That would be wonderful.  AJ’s show desperately needs the truth about government and banking.  Not the watered down socialist nonsense some guests bring to Infowars which only leads to confusing many listeners and callers about the essential relationship between liberty and property.

Share the MP3, spread this interview far and wide!

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This is from the June 1971 edition of The Libertarian Forum.  I removed the original emphasis and added my own.

The question of whether a future free society will be “coop” or communal or capitalist brings up the most disturbing problem about the anarcho-syndicalists and communalists. This is the famous “question of Auban” – the question that “Auban”, the individualist anarchist hero of John Henry Mackay’s novel The Anarchists, put to the left-wing anarchists. In essence: would you, in your proposed anarchist society, permit those who so wished to have private property, to engage in free market transactions, to hire workers in “capitalist’ relations; etc.?[¹] The communist anarchists in Mackay’s book never answered the question clearly and lucidly, and neither do any leftwing anarchists that one may encounter today. (For the Auban speech from Mackay, see Krimerman and Perry, eds., Patterns of Anarchy (Doubleday, 1966), pp. 16-33.) Generally, the left-anarchists reply that, in their Utopian society, no one will be so base as to want to indulge in private property or in capitalist social relations. [²] But suppose they do? one persists. The answer is generally either a repeat of the Utopian answer or an evasive silence.

And when the left-anarchists can be pressed for an answer, the response is disturbing indeed. Take for example one of our most distinguished socialist-anarchists, Professor Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky has recently expressed a great deal of worry about the recent rise of our “right-wing” libertarian movement; apparently he is – I am afraid unrealistically – concerned that we might succeed in abolishing the State before the State has succeeded in abolishing private property! Secondly, Chomsky has written that the anarcho-capitalist society would constitute “the greatest tyranny the world has ever known”. (What, Noam? Greater than Hitler? than Ghengis Khan?) Whether or not anarcho-capitalism would be tyrannical is here irrelevant; the problem is that, in so expressing his horror at the possible results of complete freedom, Professor Chomsky reveals that he is not really an “anarchist” at all, indeed that he prefers statism to an anarcho-capitalist world. That of course is his prerogative, and scarcely unusual, but what is illegitimate is for this distinguished linguist to call himself an “anarchist”. And I very much fear that the same can be said for the other varieties of left-anarchists: communal, syndical, or whatever. Beneath a thin veneer of libertarian rhetoric there lies the same compulsory and coercive collectivist that we have encountered all too often in the last two centuries. Scratch a left-wing “anarchist” and you will find a coercive egalitarian despot who makes the true lover of freedom yearn even for Richard Nixon (Arghhl) in contrast.

If this analysis is correct, as I believe it is, then it makes all the more absurd the hankering by so many of our “left-wing” for an intimate comradely alliance with the anarcho-left. [³] Beneath superficial agreement in rhetoric, there is nothing in common between genuine libertarians and collectivist “anarchists”. Superficially, we both oppose the existing system – but so too do monarchists, Nazis, and those who hanker for a return to the Inquisition – scarcely enough for a warm and comradely dialogue. It is indeed fortunate for Liberty that the left-anarchists have about as much chance of victory as some of our Conservatives have to restore the Bourbon dynasty. For if they did, we would soon find that the embrace of left-anarchy is the embrace of Death.

1. Left-anarchists are not anarcho-capitalist fellow travelers when it comes to non-aggression.
2. Thick libero–utopian-arianism.
3. The obsession with reaching out to the statist and anarcho left as superior to the statist and anarcho right alienates a great many people through false characterizations (vulgar this, vulgar that) and partisan/adolescent clique games.

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Here is Mises on this matter from “Planned Chaos” (http://mises.org/web/2714#Ch.3)

“The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. It is true that the various individuals have not the same power to vote. The richer man casts more ballots than the poorer fellow. But to be rich and to earn a higher income is, in the market economy, already the outcome of a previous election. The only means to acquire wealth and to preserve it, in a market economy not adulterated by government-made privileges and restrictions, is to serve the consumers in the best and cheapest way. Capitalists and landowners who fail in this regard suffer losses. If they do not change their procedure, they lose their wealth and become poor. It is consumers who make poor people rich and rich people poor. It is the consumers who fix the wages of a movie star and an opera singer at a higher level than those of a welder or an accountant.”

–Mises

In the past, I have promoted this idea as market as democracy, but now I believe it is quite false.  The market is not a democracy as popularly understood.

In a democracy the will of the majority prevails.  That the so-called losers are bound by the decision of the so-called winners (majority).  In a free market however, the minority or minorities are not bound by the majority.  Their capital (in politics, it would be political capital, or political will) is allocated based on their decisions, irrespective of the decision of the majority of market actors.

As an example, in democratic politics, if the majority elected Barack H. Obama to be President, then he would be the President for everyone, who voted for, not at all and against him.

In a free market, if a majority choose Barack H. Obama and a minority choose Bob Barr, and another minority Chuck Baldwin, then all of those individuals would lead their respective constituents.  There is no need to have a consensus or monopoly outcome in a free market.  As a matter of fact, this is precisely what the free market is.

With the left-libertarians and anarcho-socialists pushing anti-capitalists memes, it is best to divorce ourselves as anarcho-capitalists from this notion of market as democracy.  The rich do have greater purchasing power, but it should not influence the decisions of those less rich than they are, just as the less rich should have no claim on the spending patterns or wishes of the more wealthy.

Both parties can get what they want as long as they are willing and able to pay for it themselves.

In my mind, this is not like voting at all.

I hope others stop identifying the market as democracy, because it perpetuates this notion that the opportunity to vote validates a potentially undesirable binding outcome.

The political system which most closely mirrors a free market is Panarchy, not Democracy.

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Now why Alex Jones has Tarpley on Infowars and continues to pump him up is beyond me.  Tarpley is the opposite of Ron Paul and Chuck Baldwin.  On economics, law, history and social policy, Tarpley is basically an ideological neocon.  Webster is as far from a Libertarian as Obama is, just in a different direction.

That Alex Jones continues to feature Webster Tarpley in movies and pump him up every single day, means that AJ is either,

• Unaware of the subject matter Tarpley is promoting
• Deliberately promoting Tarpley’s doublethink
• An idiot

I don’t think Alex is an idiot.

So what is the angle here?

I’m not sure, but over the next week, I will be breaking down Webster Tarpley in an effort to help people see past his doublethink and lies, and continue on a path to better understanding economics, politics and history.  This was a role that Infowars was playing, but has abandoned since the US Presidential Election ended.

Webster Tarpley, disinformation agent

Before I end this post I want to offer an example.  The other day, Alex Jones had John McManus from the John Birch Society on.  Alex gave McManus a lot of respect.  Tarpley comes on yesterday and says something derogatory about the anti-red movement in the 50s.  The anti-red movement was the JBS.  This is classic doublethink.  Alex has an esteemed guest on, speaks to that audience, then a couple days later, has his new buddy Webster Tarpley talking down what the guest represents.

Today, I am listening to Tarpley again, and he’s very careful never to say “private enterprise”.  That is because Tarpley has made very clear that he hates free markets, appearing to me to be a classic statist (socialist/fascist) and I intend to prove this with his own words.

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I don’t even know why Lew Rockwell links to this stuff, because Ron has been off a lot more than he has been on lately.  Would it kill him to make a forceful prepared statement Daniel Hannan style?

The other day, Paul defended his style of questioning, I think it was on Glen Beck.  That wasn’t convincing either.  We can all get all of the Ron Paul opinion time we want on the ‘net.  He has published books, he has his Texas Straight talk, he gives speeches on the house floor, he’s on TV a couple times a week.

But when he gets a few minutes to challenge those in power, he turns into an ideologue and a wallflower and it is immensely frustrating.

Bill Anderson on the LRC blog writes,

Lew, as I watch that video, it dawns on me that Ron Paul might as well be speaking Ancient Greek to Geithner (emphasis mine). Most people in Washington have no clue as to what he means about delegation of powers, or what we have called the “Non-delegation Clause” of the U.S. Constitution.

And that is the point.  Because Ron chooses not to properly prepare and goes off on esoteric tangents, he comes off as speaking in Greek, and the clever bureaucrats play dumb and can avoid answering him.  Ron is not speaking to a friendly audience where he can deliver the same lines and stories over and over, but he’s there as an investigator and an interrogator.

I appreciate everything Ron Paul has exposed me to, and his personal sacrifices to further liberty, but it’s not hard to see how a guy can be punchless in the Congress for so long, when he just can’t ask a few direct questions, and insists upon going on and on about abstract moral and ethical issues that don’t even relate to the hearings.

What a wasted opportunity.  And opportunities are so few they can’t be squandered so carelessly.

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Mike termed it elitism, but it’s not the exclusive domain of elites to do this.  It is very human to believe your own press and to assume that past performance is predictive of future profit.  We take our relationships for granted, we take our jobs, careers for granted amongst other things.  Part of this is that we rely heavily on observation, which eventually becomes an avalanche, burying critical thinking as entropy increases.

The other part is that success is like a drug, changing our perspective.  Failure qualifies as well, but we don’t usually lament the irrationality of people who fail because their failure already discounts their opinions.

For whatever reason, we respect people with money, fame, notoriety.  We rely on these observable traits or conditions to judge or enhance the veracity of their opinions.

I think this is very apparent, as Mike shows, that during economic booms where the stock market is always going up, credit is cheap and easy for expansion of long term capital projects.  It doesn’t take much intelligence to invest in something that continues to generate a profit, even if you don’t know the names of all of the firms you have invested in, let alone what they do, or how their books look.  Hiring 10 senior manager experts may look like a big time move, but it doesn’t guarantee big time results.

Confirmation bias caused by credit expansion and a boom economy definitely forms a key component of Sunshine Capitalism.

Perhaps it tells us something more about ourselves, our flaws and follies.  The easier things get, the harder it is to retain our “A” game.  Maybe humans are hard-wired for creative self-destruction.

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