Markets are not democratic

I saw this Mises quote on the LvMI community forum.

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.

Continue reading Markets are not democratic

 

Too lazy to make a good argument

The premise of the Picket Line, as near as I can tell, is to avoid paying taxes by means of reducing income below taxation levels. From the following entry, The Picket Line — 14 September 2008,

Tucker suggests that the government, via the Fed, is essentially just powering up the printing presses — or, at least, implicitly keeping this option in reserve. Should push come to shove, the government will pay its debt by devaluing it (and everyone else’s dollars) to a manageable level. Or something like that. I dunno. When I hear libertarian types go on about the gold standard and the Fed and sound money and so forth my eyes glaze over and I get the same sort of feeling I get when I hear Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists — maybe they’re right, but they sound a little batty, and I’ve got other things to do than educate myself enough about the issue to evaluate the arguments intelligently.

Jeffrey Tucker is not suggesting. He is pointing out the truth, the post author admits he is uneducated upon and can’t be bothered to educate himself.

I’m not sure why he bothered posting, except that JT is correct, and reducing your tax obligation through lifestyle changes, won’t in any way meaningfully limit or undermine the state. Through inflation of the monetary supply, those people who are not paying tax, will be paying tax through reduced purchasing power.

The failure to understand these simple things can lead people in bizarre and ineffective directions. Don’t be lazy, understand money. Making jokes about sound money is lame.

Related Blogs

Comments Off
Tags: , ,
Posted in Economics, Liberty |

 

Learning about the Federal Reserve and Money

As promised, here are some books and media to explore.

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Online: http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics.asp
Print: http://www.mises.org/sto…ne-Lesson-P33C0.aspx

History of Money and Banking in the US by Murray N. Rothbard
Online PDF: http://mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf
Print: http://www.mises.org/store/History-…-States–P191.aspx

America’s Great Depression
Online PDF: http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf
Print: http://www.mises.org/store/Product.aspx?ProductId=63

The Founding of the Federal Reserve
MP3: http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/rothbard/Fed.mp3
Video: http://mises.org:88/Rothbard-Fed

The Case Against the FED by Murray N. Rothbard
Online PDF: http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf
Print: http://www.mises.org/sto…the-Fed-The-P69.aspx

Related Blogs

 

Friday Ramblings

I think I am finally beating my addiction to forums. Slowly. The leechblock plugin for Firefox helps.

Google releases their new browser, named Chrome. Someone mentioned that it was difficult to find Chrome related domain names. Not too difficult for me. I scored 4 in 10 minutes.

Also, the release of Chrome is somewhat surprising. I’m not a tech gawker, and admit I had no idea it was coming even though it coincided with Google shutting down it’s CPA referral program (perhaps due to someone I know who had found a way to push massive conversions through it) where it promoted Firefox heavily. After doing so much work to move people to a browser that is now a competitor…

Maybe it was to give Microsoft a kick in the jiggly bits.

What’s fascinating to me is that the internet is evolving so rapidly that browsers are becoming more diverse and more disparate. Chrome is not like other browsers, although only the more technically minded folks will realize how different it really is. There truly is a lot of differentiation in the freest market mankind has ever seen.

FSK lost his job. That sucks. Although I think the drama of his workplace was starting to crush his soul, so maybe it is a good thing that he is now searching for a new mission. I’ve been there. I’ve always been better for the resets in my life, whether I pushed the button or someone else did.

I have 10 drafts, or unpublished, half-written, half-baked posts. With each passing day, I feel less connection to them, and the reasons I started them in the first place. While this holds true of what I thought might be a legendary post about the LRC Podcast, with the lack of podcasts for what feels like a couple weeks now, perhaps it is best that I didn’t get that one done or sink hours into transcribing audio quotes.

I totally abuse commas. So sue me.

I don’t like blogging. Bloggers have always seemed like soapbox self-promoters to me. There are so few who have something worthwhile to say, and many who just want acknowledgment for saying anything. But I have to admit that it is cathartic. And can be reflective.

On the Mises forum, someone asked, “How does an industry benefit from being taxed?”. What proceeded were explanations of the method by which companies benefit from taxation, and the conclusion that taxation functioned similarly to regulation as a barrier to entry.

I was going to add to the discussion and point out that lobbyists and corporations now write legislation, because whether it is tax or regulation, the government is the most efficient way for big business to control and limit competition. There doesn’t seem to be enough disgust with statism and the status quo for me in those discussions. At times, the environment seems very laissez-faire and in direct contradiction to Mises admonition, “tu ne cede malis”. I’m all for laissez-faire, but not when it comes to my oppression.

There are so many charades going on around us. The campaign charades, the legislative charade, the patriotic charades. Yesterday I listened to a few friends talk about Obama and Palin. They both acknowledge the system is a scam, that politicians are parasites and so forth, but are completely enthralled with the cult of personality that surrounds speech making and grandstanding.

“You should watch Bill Maher!” they tell me. Well, no I shouldn’t. I gave up Maher early in my transformation. He’s a cynical bigot whose primary contribution is attacking everything and everyone. The problem is, he does it indiscriminately. Literally, the loose cannon of left-intellectualism.

This guy, Francois Tremblay, does a Market Anarchist Carnival. I thought about signing up for it, but I don’t have a lot of content yet. I don’t know that he would let me run one.

Related Blogs