News & Analysis
The Anti-Freedom Movement States Its (Worst) Case? ... Austrians Vs. the Illuminati
Proof Libertarianism Is an Illuminati Ploy ... So Jewish Supremacism can be retraced directly to the Austrian Economics' main proponent himself (Murray Rothbard) ... Libertarianism and Austrian Economics are not the products of maverick free thinkers. On the contrary, all leading proponents of the movement were highly connected individuals. In the early years the Volker Fund made available vast sums of money, because Austrian Economics was considered the right answer to communism, to maintain the dialectic the Money Power needs (also see: 'Banker explained 'Occupy America' Scam'). Far from a fringe movement, Mont Pelerin Alumni collected no less than eight Noble Prizes. Alan Greenspan testified of its pervasive influence by saying in 2000: "the Austrian School have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country." In this day and age when communism is no longer considered a threat, but with Marxism/Liberalism/Political Correctness a strong force in Western nations, Libertarianism has found a new lease of life as a way co-opting the resistance in the Alternative Media. The dialectic continues unabated. – Henry Makow
Dominant Social Theme: Freedom is government?
Free-Market Analysis: Social credit entrepreneur Anthony Migchels has authored a screed at HenryMakow.com entitled "Proof Libertarianism is an Illuminati Ploy." He also thanks a fellow who has often provided controversial feedback here at the Daily Bell, "Memehunter."
We don't doubt that both Memehunter and Migchels mean well (in the sense that they wish for human beings to progress toward more tolerable and "just" living conditions, worldwide) but we are puzzled about why they (and others) believe that by attacking the evolution of free-market thinking they are providing a service to those who support freedom in the alternative media.
Migchels' article seems basically a restatement of another article by "Anonymous" that was published in May 2011 and has had circulation on such websites as the Democratic Underground. We have read other, similar statements recently on the Internet as well. So for purposes of identification, we will refer to those who espouse these views as "anti-libertarians."
It would be easy – too easy, in fact – to attack the motives and backgrounds of those who espouse these views – even Henry Makow himself, who is providing a platform for these perspectives and has his own problems of late. (Memehunter, too, with whom we are more than familiar.) But we will do our best in this article to restrict our criticisms to what has been actually presented.
One needs to combat pernicious ideas (in our opinion) with facts if possible rather than ad hominem arguments. First, let us figure out the background of "social credit." Here are excerpts of a profile of social credit's founder, C.H. Douglas, taken from Wikipedia (but seemingly well sourced nonetheless):
C. H. Douglas was born in either Edgeley or Manchester, the son of Hugh Douglas and Louisa Hordern. Few details are known about his early life and training; he probably served an engineering apprenticeship before building an engineering career that brought him to locations throughout the British Empire in the employ of electric companies, railroads, and other institutions ...
Douglas concluded ... the economic system was organized to maximize profits for those with economic power by creating unnecessary scarcity. Between 1916 and 1920, he developed his economic ideas, publishing two books in 1920, Economic Democracy and Credit-Power and Democracy, followed in 1924 by Social Credit. Freeing workers from this system by bringing purchasing power in line with production became the basis of Douglas's reform ideas that became known as Social Credit.
There were two main elements to Douglas's reform program: a National Dividend to distribute money (debt free credit) equally to all citizens, over and above their earnings, to help bridge the gap between purchasing power and prices; also a price adjustment mechanism, called the Just Price, which would forestall any possibility of inflation. The Just Price would effectively reduce retail prices by a percentage that reflected the physical efficiency of the production system.
Migchels has explained that his version of social credit is free-market oriented and "private," but Douglas's certainly does not seem to be. We can see from this brief description that Douglas apparently intended to use social engineering (government power) to redistribute wealth via a "national dividend" and also via his idea of a "just price" that would fix prices across a given society.
Of course, price fixing via force is likely, in our view, to further distort an economy, not bring it justice. As Adam Smith (and then others) showed, the only methodology of true economic growth resides in the marketplace itself, which can efficiently distribute capital via the Invisible Hand of competition. Without competition, one simply has the hand of man. The "hand of man" (government) murdered some 150 million people in the 20th century.
The articles of late, promoted by those we are calling "the anti-libertarians," seem to us to be espousing a power elite dominant social theme; they evidently seek to discredit about 50 years of theoretical progress in the freedom movement that has seen the rise of Austrian, free-market thinking and the spread of the concepts of human action and the business cycle.
Contrast free-market thinking with Douglas's theories of social credit. Human action, as conceived by the Austrians, points out that individuals are the prime actors within an economy. There is no such thing as "government," in fact. Government is "we" – individuals.
Our choices, in fact, seem relatively simple. Either individuals will work cooperatively and peacefully via enlightened self-interest to pursue their aims and goals or they will in some sense attempt to inflict their private agendas on others via force. In the modern era, this sort of force has been administered by government – what we call regulatory democracy. It is force, nonetheless.
Douglas and his theories are very obviously to be administered via official power. There is no other way that we can see to "redistribute wealth" via a "national dividend" than by taking money from some and giving it to others. His just price is surely not meant to be a "suggestion," either.
It seems to us that anti-libertarians who espouse social credit and other social-engineering schemes are inevitably suggesting that force be used to bring people in line with their views of how society should operate.
Is this an encouraging approach when it comes to reinforcing human freedom? We're more comfortable with the considerable body of modern libertarian thought that promotes individual liberty and the idea that people ought to organize societies as much as possible to reject coercion and violence.
In fact, free-market thinking is an ancient conversation. One can trace it back to the Greeks and likely beyond that. Modern free-market thinking may have gotten its start in Spain or in France where the French philosophists opposed Napoleon.
Adam Smith contributed to free-market thinking with his Wealth of Nations and later the Austrian free-market school developed the theory of marginal utility, which is the dividing line between static classical economics and neo-classical economics.
Neo-classical economics is based on the idea that markets provide price discovery. While rulers can fix prices by decree, such price-fixing is inevitably a wealth redistribution that takes wealth from its creators and hands it over to those who didn't create it and likely won't utilize it as efficiently.
Austrians such as Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wieser elaborated on free markets, entrepreneurship and the mechanisms of economic growth. The most famous 20th century exponents of Austrian economics were FA Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and, later on, Murray Rothbard.
Mises further developed the theory of human action that holds people themselves are the prime influencers of the economy (how could it be otherwise?). FA Hayek and Mises together developed the theory of the business cycle that shows clearly how central banks overprint money, leading first to booms and ruinous busts.
The only way to end the terrible (central banking) business cycle is to allow money to operate freely within a free-market environment. Fixing the volume or value of money via any government monopoly scheme is bound to cause more misery, not less.
Murray Rothbard is well known for his late 20th century influence, which included helping to found formal Libertarianism – an anti-government movement based on the principals of free-market economics – and participation in the founding of the Ludwig von Mises Institute as well.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute, styling itself as "anti-state, anti-war and pro-market," is also the brainchild of Lew Rockwell. Interestingly, while some of the modern progenitors of Austrian economics were Jewish, Lew Rockwell is a devout Catholic.
Catholicism is deeply rooted in Rockwell's conception of Austrian economics; he even identifies the Spanish Jesuits as playing a role in the founding of what eventually would become modern, free-market thinking.
Under Lew Rockwell, the Mises Institute and his own LewRockwell.com website, has recruited such intellectual "paleo-conservative" stars as Patrick Buchanan, whose Catholicism is very much part of his larger sociopolitical orientation, and Thomas Woods, a devout Catholic whose scholarly work has often focused on the Church via such books as How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization and The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy.
Ironically, it could be said that currently the thought leaders of free-market economics are increasingly Catholic: Anti-War's founder Justin Raimondo (a confidant of Rothbard's) was "raised Catholic" and Rockwell's Paleo-Conservative movement has a distinct Catholic subset. (Would the anti-libertarian crowd characterize them as crypto-Jews?)
This brings us, of course, to another disturbing facet of the current anti-libertarian movement – its determination to equate free-market thinking with a "Jewish Illuminati." Anti-libertarians seem to believe that because some modern Austrian economists were Jewish, the entire 2,000-plus-year-old evolution of free-market thinking is to be invalidated as a power-elite plot.
The argument currently being made is that the modern free-market philosophy is actually an elite creation intended to provide a dialectic between the forces of elite-managed totalitarianism and freedom-oriented thinkers such as Rothbard. These latter individuals are conceived as tools of the elite, intent only on confusing people and priming them for further anti-freedom takeovers.
It is ironic, however, that these arguments are being made by anti-libertarians who want to utilize government itself as a mechanism of monetary equality. The same modern history that shows us that governments conspired to murder some 150 million in the 20th centuryinforms us that government is not to be trusted when it comes to supporting and advancing the cause of liberty.
We are well aware that prominent alternative media facilities routinely characterize the evident and obvious Anglosphere conspiracy to create global governance as "Zionist." We have argued that this conspiracy is a good deal broader than a single religion or ethnicity.
The one-world-order conspiracy may have at its core a group of intergenerational families that control central banking around the world but it is aided and abetted, apparently, by factions of the Vatican and other religious elements as well as non-Jewish corporate, military and Intel enablers and colleagues.
To call this complex amalgam of interest and ethnicities "Zionist" is to simplify a complex phenomenon. Much as the Italian mafia hires Italians, so those involved in the one-world-order conspiracy prefer to work with people of their own religion and ethnicity. Those at the top are running a CRIMINAL conspiracy, not a religious one. These people USE religion, and even encourage anti-Semitism, ironically. They are not "of" religion, not by any means.
Nonetheless, the anti-libertarians continue to emphasize an apparently Zionist/Jewish argument by conflating the modern freedom movement with "Illuminati Jews." In our view, this does an injustice to liberty's greater conversation and even its modern, 500-year-old pedigree.
To buttress arguments that free-market thinking is a Jewish plot, anti-libertarians have now constructed a specious (in our view) alternative history of freedom's modern evolution. These articles tend to begin (nowadays) with someone called William S. Volker (1859-1947) "a wealthy German-Jewish businessman." Volker is supposed to have led the charge for an Illuminati-created freedom movement:
Far from defending freedom, the Illuminati created Libertarianism to reflect their Social Darwinian and racial supremacist ideology. With its opposite twin, Communism, they control the dialectic ... "These two contraries, like Bolshevism and ourselves, find their identity in the International."
According to anti-libertarians such as Memehunter, David Rockefeller himself personally funded Ludwig von Mises when he arrived in the United States, broke and out-of-work, and Volker, apparently a modern-day Illuminist, also funded von Mises as well as Murray Rothbard.
The anti-libertarians also argue that such entities as CATO, funded by the neo-libertarian Koch Brothers, are actually part of a larger elite dialectic. Of course, there is no doubt that the elites HAVE tried to set up a dialectic using various free-market elements and individuals.
From our perspective, FA Hayek cooperated with some of these efforts, as did the Chicago Freshwater School led by Milton Friedman. Friedman, for instance, could never bring himself to disavow central banking entirely, arguing instead for a "steady state" central bank that would mechanically inject a certain amount of money into the economy.
Some have made the same accusations about the Mont Pelerin Society and the Austrian element at George Mason, and its mission to "professionalize" Austrian economics. The answer to these charges, when it comes to the Rothbardian/Misesian School of Austrian, free-market economics, is fairly straightforward. Both Rothbard and Mises were fairly incapable of compromising their personal beliefs for social gain and evanescent wealth.
Mises himself disavowed the Mont Pelerin Society when he reportedly stormed out of a meeting shouting, "You are all socialists!" Mises, too, (contrary to Memehunter's assertions in these pages) was never funded directly out of David Rockefeller's pocket and eventually all funding from the Rockefeller Foundation is said to have been terminated.
Murray Rothbard was fired by the Volker fund honchos in the early 1960s, just as he was fired from CATO in the early 1980s (a few years after CATO's inception) by the Koch Brothers along with Lew Rockwell when the two men refused to significantly soften their "hard" freedom-oriented positions, especially as concerned their principled opposition to the elite's cash-cow, central banking. The result, in fact, was the Mises Institute.
None of this is hidden information. Rothbard, Rockwell (and Mises), determined to go their own way, rejected elite establishment funds and prominent elite positions. Rothbard eventually helped found the Libertarian Party, which is the precursor to the modern US anarchy movement. Mises, of course, created his masterwork, Human Action, (much hated by elites, as it remains formally unpublicized), along with the anti-central-banking business theory that has been driving the elite establishment nuts for decades.
Rockwell, a devout Catholic, has been significantly responsible for spreading the doctrine of freedom – real freedom – around the world for years via the Mises Institute and Lewrockwell.com. His Catholic colleague Justin Raimondo founded Anti-War.com.
Free-market thinking, a concept with a 2,000-year-old pedigree, has virtually exploded in the past decade thanks to the Internet. To argue that the current freedom movement is merely an outgrowth of a shadowy US "German-Jewish" banker, William Volker, is to entirely miss the point about what's going on.
Human beings are not perfect creatures, of course. The Rothbard Misesian focus on a gold standard runs counter to neo-Austrian thought on the value of competing currencies and even private fractional reserve banking. But Rothbard was apparently shifting his views on these issues before his death; Rockwell and libertarian Congressman Ron Paul have stated more flexible views as well.
Yet there is nothing remotely wrong with suggesting that gold and silver have a place within a free-market money environment. History shows that this is the case. However, any sort of mandated or government approved gold standard would be price-fixing and would present some of the same problems, sooner or later, as the current central banking regime.
Some other issues ... anti-libertarians believe that "most leading Libertarians are or were Jewish." But the modern movement of libertarian/conservative scholarship and principled anti-war activism is led by four Catholics, Raimondo, Rockwell, Buchanan and Woods. (Maybe freedom is not specifically a Jewish preserve after all ... )
Rothbard and Mises are said to have been funded throughout their careers by the Rockefellers and the Koch Brothers. But anyone who actually bothers to read the history of these relationships will find out that both scholars were fired by the very individuals and foundations that were supposedly their supporters.
Finally, as a free-market publication we should deal with the issue of Rothbard's "racialism" (whatever that means) as mentioned in several anti-libertarian articles. In fact, free-market theory tells us clearly that people are social and cultural animals.
People, in fact, tend to stick together and absent government coercion will seek out those of their own kind – whether it be as regards skin color, religious preference or various cultural elements.
This clear and salient observation can be lost in accusations of racism, but the principled libertarian stance is that people ought not to be forced to live in ways they don't want to or in places where they don't wish to. This no doubt is Rothbard's larger point, and certainly it's not racist to point it out. (Or certainly not more so than to point out that the founder of social credit apparently referred to the Protocols of Zion for inspiration.)
What is more disturbing than Rothbard's supposed "racialism" (in our view) is the growing drumbeat of anti-Jew prejudice within the context of the alternative 'Net media. Whether it's "Jewry" or assertions that "all Jews" subscribe to the mysterious Protocols of Zion, anti-Jew sentiment is definitely on the rise.
Here at the Daily Bell, we're starting to get our share of it. In fact, many who participate in DB's brief are not Jewish, either formally or informally. We believe, in fact, that the state of Israel should be secularized and we believe that at the core of the criminal power elite there is a significant Jewish element. We haven't been shy about stating it.
Our feedbacker "friend" Memehunter, who is apparently anti-Jew (though he claims to be Jewish), once pointed out on these pages that Austrian Economics was invented in the late 1920s as a result of a pan-European movement. He later partially retracted the statement, which he then tried to blame on the irrepressible and sometimes inaccurate Eustace Mullins.
We would tend to believe that such claims, because they are inaccurate (even profoundly ignorant), are bound to fail. In fact, Carl Menger, commonly held as the founder of the school, did not approach his investigations into marginal utility religiously but as an economist.
Now, it's been pointed out that Menger and other early Austrians were involved with the power elite of the day. But this, too, is a kind of specious logic. The kind of classical liberalism and republicanism that is reflected in Austrian, free-market economics goes back to the Greek "Golden Age" and beyond.
So ... the conversation of freedom is an ancient one. To try to collapse a 2,000-3,000 year old conversation into a 150 year time frame in order to make it appear linked to a modern elite conspiracy is to argue in bad faith, in our view.
The Austrians, especially the modern Misesian-Rothbardian school, have made significant contributions to it in the modern era by stating (restating) important elements of REAL economics. Their contributions cannot be denied; their observations cannot be minimized by rewriting history to make it look as if the purest expression of scholarly free-market thinking (the Rothbardian-Misesian school) is merely a dialectical, elitist strategy to denude us of our "freedoms."
The real question, in our view, is why would anyone want to do this? What is it about modern free-market thinking – an extension of people's natural yearning to live as they choose within cultural and familial associations – that arouses such vituperation? Is it because anti-libertarians want to build a case for government activism? (And, again, why would they? What appeals to them about authoritarianism?)
The modern power elite reigns via mercantilism. As we've pointed out plenty of times, government, especially big government, is bound to be taken over – dominated – by elite forces. The best way to deal with government is to make it as small as possible while seeking to live (ourselves) in small, flexible and self-sufficient communities. Why does such a solution arouse antipathy?
Conclusion: To insinuate (or even state, as anti-libertarians are now doing) that the millennia-old freedom conversation, with contributions (in the West) from Greeks, Romans, Catholics, Europeans and Americans, is a modern outgrowth of Illuminati strategic destruction is not only inaccurate, it is worse. It is profoundly, well ... banal. And banality, in some of its forms, is plain evil.
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Posted by RR on 02/19/12 05:33 PM
The power of the malevolent state has been used to create a money monopoly. Only power of the benevolent state can break this money cartel.
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Posted by rossbcan on 02/19/12 05:15 PM
1 - "Austrianism ignores the problems associated with interest or usury"
Rebut: According to free marketeers, ALL have free will to choose the "terms of association", usuary included. So, borrow from someone in a usuary free manner, or, IF none choose to lend interest free - Don't choose to borrow.
All of your "opinions", or framing of problems, implied solutions are a "thin wedge" of compulsion / prohibition, a cancer which has, over the centuries, for faux "neccessity" grown to tyranny and servitude.
"self interest reins supreme"
define "self interest". Bet you are thinking "selfish". Self-interest is "will to live and choices in support" INCLUDING "not aggressing against your fellows, lest they smite you in defense".
Selfish is the pursuit of narrow, short term interests at the expense of the future and others (no mutually agreed trade) and, by definition, involves some sort of aggression and/or fraud. Not very bright, because, when ability to defend from your victims ends, so do you. Or, at a minimum, no friends, support or helping hands for the "selfish".
In general, freedom allows people to organize in a diversified, ad-hoc manner, as they see fit, facing the consequences and learning from their own choices.
The Austrians and free market economics do not propose forcing anyone to do or not do anything. They have no "philosophy", just the proven knowlege, hows and whys in very important areas such as fiat money destroys civilizations and, forceful coercion causes a "human action" response in adaptation, negating any possible gains, for anyone using coercion in the long run.
I know you will consider this as me stating: "my mind is made up, please don't confuse me with the facts", but, you have thoroughly discredited yourself here at DB and, from my perspective, you are not seeking truth, but, rather "flogging an agenda". So, please do us all a favor and stop annoying.
The state is dead and, thanks to the internet, hopefully, there are enough of us who "won't be fooled again" by statist "snakes in the garden" with utopian "proposals" to "make others better". I want to be "better", but, I will do it on my own terms.
Justice Defined: We are all free to profit or suffer and learn (adapt to excellence) by facing the consequences of our OWN choices. Injustice is to be forced to suffer the consequences of choices of unaccountable (irresponsible) others.
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Posted by memehunter on 02/19/12 04:22 PM
Regarding the quasi-religious, unfounded, and not empirically supported assumption that Austrian economics are be entirely truthful:
1. Austrianism ignores the problems associated with interest or usury. In fact, Böhm-Bawerk explicitly justifies interest. Austrianism thus serves, or at the very least does not harm, Money Power.
2. In the balance of "individual freedom" vs "collective will", Austrianism/Libertarianism squarely emphasizes individual freedom and initiative of action to the detriment of everything else: self-interest reigns supreme.
I would not necessarily call these aspects "untruths" - "blind spots" would be more appropriate. But these are very significant "blind spots".
A more detailed analysis of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" in Austrian economics can be found on Anthony Migchels' blog:
"Faux Economics"
Click to view link
The following blog also addresses these issues:
"Top Ten Austrian Economics Lies and Mistakes", on Recovering Austrians:
Click to view link
Reply from The Daily Bell
After an almost endless series of mistakes, mis-statements and outright falsehoods, your critique of Austrian economics now seems to come down to its endorsement of the use of non-coerced interest and a philosophy where "self-interest reigns supreme."
You expend not a bit of energy on critiquing the theory of Social Credit which mandates forcible redistribution of income and price fixing via a just price.
You are quite comfortable endorsing government force and further authoritarianism. It's freedom you despise, for some reason. It's some sort of psychological issue, perhaps ...
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Posted by dave jr on 02/19/12 02:37 PM
In the interest of the fairness of equality and maximum security for all, why not live in jails? Except who would produce that which is needed to sustain? Jails won't work without labor camps. Yes, for a period each day, we are allowed to contribute our fair share for the goodness of all. If we listen to the social engineers, they can deliver heaven down to earth. No war, no hunger, no crime. Everyone is equal. Social credit is not near enough.
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Posted by rossbcan on 02/19/12 12:54 PM
"that some Rothschilds and Rockefellers teamed up with von Mises, Rothbard, Rockwell and Satan himself to cook up Austrian Economics"
Agreed. Truth cannot be tainted by subjective "interpretations". It just IS, independent of opinions regarding the discoverer, the financiars, the floggers or, whether anyone actually agrees.
If this were not so, the earth would still be decreed "flat" and, we the feudal serfs would be terrified to venture too far from home, lest we fall off the edge or be killed by the demons guarding the edge, be suspicious of strangers and those who are different, etc.
Truth just keeps smiting deniars until they do "get it and adapt", or, perish.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/19/12 12:39 PM
"@DB: I am sure that you are aware that you have made a tactical error by addressing the absurd points made by those you call "anti-libertarians", memehunter, et-al, thereby empowering them"
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Ha, I'm going to make a "tactical error" too. Here we go ...
While I agree with feedbacker NAPpy in that, at the end of the day, "I don't care who funded Menger, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, or any other Austrian thinker", I would go even further:
Even if I had seen - with my own eyes - that some Rothschilds and Rockefellers teamed up with von Mises, Rothbard, Rockwell and Satan himself to cook up Austrian Economics, Anarcho-Capitalism and/or Voluntarism, I'd still subscribe to it, because I KNOW that I have no right to rule over fellow men, just as I KNOW that fellow men have no right to rule over me. End of story.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 02/19/12 12:14 PM
"*Any* authority can be unjust and use force and coercion to achieve its ends. However, it is true that governments by nature have greater scale and scalability, which is a problem *if* the people in control are malevolent. "
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May I suggest that the question is not so much about "IF", but "WHEN" people in control BECOME malevolent.
"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern"
Both quotes by Lord Acton
If we are free, there can be no such thing as rule of men over men. Simple, in and of itself.
As long as you refuse to accept human nature, you will be lost, going round in circles, trying to find (not malevolent) people who will then "convince" others of what you (and other well-meaning people) think is best for them.
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Posted by Summer on 02/19/12 08:21 AM
I would not like to comment on the Austrian school's affiliations.
DB: It seems to us that anti-libertarians who espouse social credit and other social-engineering schemes are inevitably suggesting that force be used to bring people in line with their views of how society should operate.
I have no ideological preference for a type authority/rule, it's for people to decide. Having said that, I would like to know if those who wish for no government or smaller government think it's productive to wait for a sweeping change of rule/structure, or if it's is better to at least attempt to make the best of the current system by engaging with government policy? Therefore, at least attempting to have a positive influence over it, until a smaller government arrives (if indeed it will).
And no, I do not believe politicians are 'good' or that they work for the common good but that's an issue beyond the structure of rule and is to do with the general moral tone of society, its principles and Money Power control.
*Any* authority can be unjust and use force and coercion to achieve its ends. However, it is true that governments by nature have greater scale and scalability, which is a problem *if* the people in control are malevolent.
If 'force' is wrong then is it right to impose or to endeavour to impose no government? For example, if the populace were asked if they wanted regulations and the police force most would say: yes. Are they then really subject to force? What if people want government, what if trends are past the point of no return and people simply will not go back to regional/tribal-type rule)? (Smaller authorities use force anyway).
Coming to interest, it has been demonstrated over and over again, without rebuttal that it does indeed transfer the majority of the wealth into the hands of a few (as far as I'm concerned those who defend interest defend Money Power). Government allows debt at the point of printing and lending. So shall we twiddle our thumbs until there is no government or smaller government before it is lobbied against? If libertarians are anti-debt at the point of printing then why not so later at lending? If it's a free market idea of 'let the market decide' then surely libertarians should let the market decide on a debt based currency too and not advise against it? This is the trouble, you cannot have a just society without principles. It would never be free, might would always be right.
I do not support Ron Paul but he is a libertarian that wishes to engage with the current political system, does that make him a statist or a proponent of the use of force?
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Posted by rossbcan on 02/19/12 08:19 AM
DB: "Maybe freedom is not specifically a Jewish preserve after all"
It is a historical FACT that "rank and file" Jews have been targeted for "special treatment" and oppression, oftimes, as pawns betrayed by their own "leaders" and institutions.
Since actions always have consequences, is it any surprise that honing the intellectual weopons of freedom (from corecion / oppression) should come from those most motivated (oppressed)? These are the same forces that evolved Martin Luther King, Jr. We are all in this together and, Jews, like all other enumerable classes have provided their fair share of tyrants and saints. Matters clarify immediately and immensely when the enumeration criteria is reality based: initiate aggression or not? Predator / Prey? This cuts across all racial / ethnic / religious (fale groupthink) judgment criteria which those who corece us INSIST we think in terms of, the false ad homium "who / what is" versus "does what" method of conceptualizing / classifing friend / foe.
... we live in an "action precdes consequence" reality. The only REAL way of factually understanding anything is in terms of action leading to consequence. Is there any contest between the plausibility of "evil Jews are the problem" (lie) and "those who initiate aggression are the problem" (truth)?
As to the absurd and false assertation that freedom and Austrian Economics is a pole of a faux Hegellian Dialectric, easily refuted, numerous ways:
The point of Hegelliqan dialectric "argumentation" is to set up a fake, but threatening "problem" and then present two seeemingly polar opposite "solutions", a Hobson's choice which provides the illusion of choice (freedom), but choosing either is a dead loss to those coerced to "pay for the solution" and a win for those who "administer / profit from the solution". With the added characteristic that "solutions" are bandaids, cash cows which solve no problems, but do provide the illusion (to fools) of being "neccessary" while hopefully spawning all other sorts of alleged "unintended consequences" which, in turn can be milked as "problems to solve".
So, applying the ancient maximum, "cui bono", and following the logical implications of an environment of personal freedom and uncoerced (free market) economics, "who gets the rewards"?
Is the answer not the "just" one: Those who contribute to civilization and EARN the rewards.
Justice Defined: We are all free to profit or suffer and learn (adapt to excellence) by facing the consequences of our OWN choices. Injustice is to be forced to suffer the consequences of choices of unaccountable (irresponsible) others.
So, the freedom "argument" is not an elite presented faux "choice", benefiting them, either way. It is a REAL "cui bono" issue. Do the productive survive, or, do slavers survive, as vampres sucking the life out of all of us and civilization? An existential question, between predator / prey.
And, predators "winning" (achieving control) always has and always will destroy civilizations:
Click to view link
USSR was the most recent one, now, it is the west's turn because we have forsaken the values and thus ability to collectively survive. The power of the west was once based on freedom, mutual consensus which resulted in stunning achievements and unprecedented prosperity for the majority (personally responsible). Then, "justice" and the legal "profession" dropped the ball, became corrupt, arrogant and decided that they can control the uncontrollable (inherently free mankind), that civilization is "what they decree" thereby destroying our collective ability to adapt, choose and survive, so, we are not. THEY rationalized away the "rule of law", mankind's highest achievement and basis of peace and civilization:
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In our current hiarchical (array of pawns, controlled from top) mode of "civilization", there are three powers: The legislative, the executive (both totally corrupt, locked into a mutually profitable symbiotic relationship, preying on the productive) and, "we, the people", the final line of defense against tyranny.
The "Rosetta Stone" for decoding how THEIR (really OUR) power works is thus: We live in an action precedes consequence reality impartially enforced by natural law. THEY forcefully redefine the ownership of consequences such that THEY profit by their crimes and predations (private profit) while others are coerced to pay for the consequences (socialized loss).
This sorry state of affairs exists because, we (collectively) have and are making the WRONG choices, based on idle threats, with attrition costs pushed to the future, which has become NOW. And, the ability to make correct choices IS FREEDOM which EQUALS survival:
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If we want to survive, we need to make better choices which requires ability to THINK:
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@DB: I am sure that you are aware that you have made a tactical error by addressing the absurd points made by those you call "anti-libertarians", memehunter, et-al, thereby empowering them. This, of course is an unavoidable trap based on the false (requiring challenging) assertation by power that their "moral high ground" includes the "neccessity to initiate aggression" (approved criminals) which they exercise after a bunch of false rationalization of "neccessity", which sucks us into defensive refutations, such as this article / this comment.
Deal decisivly with the general question of "are those who initiate aggression, prima facie: criminals"? and then we can safely ignore statist rationalizing trolls such as memehunter and avoid all of their stupid deflections and disengenious "argumentation" from the path of truthseeking. The most charitable adjective for such is "annoying".
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Posted by the_IRF on 02/19/12 06:28 AM
Dear Staff at The Daily Bell,
Intelligent dissection of the new anti-Libertarian crowd in your recent post, "The Anti-Freedom Movement States Its (Worst) Case? ... Austrians Vs. the Illuminati (Saturday, February 18, 2012 - by Staff Report)"
In particular, i very much like the questioning precursor to your conclusion:
"Is it because anti-libertarians want to build a case for government activism? (And, again, why would they? What appeals to them about authoritarianism?)"
What appeals to everyone is the act of 'doing-power'. My bet is that any attempt at quantifying an economic system that will work well for folks, globally and endure over time, must, of consequence, somehow successfully address the inherent dynamic by which 'doing-power' can be nullified such that it does not {yet again} erect some reconstituted corruption of the so hoped for 'ideal'. Good luck with that, say i, which great frustration.
The best i can offer is that as the Planet continues to shed density, things will change and the 'doing-of-power' will yield no attraction.
See:
"Iraq War Will Untie Israel's Hold On The World"
Click to view link
Yes, i concur with you that the "Zionist-corporate-dictatorship" word construct wrongly implies a religious bent to things, which it should not. It is all about 'doing-power'.
If i am correct, historically, both President Geo. Washington and Ben Franklin were both very fearful of the 'doing-power' thing, especially {for them both} as embodied in the Rothschild money dynamic and the Illuminati thing that, as Washington predicted, would foment the rise of and promote the bloody mess of the French Guillotine.
Robert
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Posted by memehunter on 02/19/12 03:59 AM
N: I don't care who funded Menger, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, or any other Austrian thinker.
M: The 'cui bono' principle is one that ought not to be forgotten. In fact, it is applied routinely by the DB in their analyses: for instance, pointing out that Keynes was a member of the Fabian Society and the Bloomsbury Group, analyzing who benefits from the 'global warming' meme, and many other similar examples too numerous to be listed here.
It is my contention that the 'cui bono' principle is ALWAYS valid, regardless of whether it is used for or against someone's viewpoints.
N: The Anti-Libertarians need to answer the following questions if they want to "convert" me to their thinking:
M: The term 'Anti-Libertarian' was used by the DB to describe a very loosely organized movement that purports to identify Austrianism/Libertarianism as part of a dialectic engineered by the elites. Fair enough on the part of the DB, insofar as it enabled them to discuss these positions in a concise way in their article.
However, I do not consider myself as belonging to any particular system or school of thought, save for seeking truth above all else. As I said on this thread, I believe that all leading politicians are controlled by the elites. I also wrote elsewhere on the DB that I did not spend so much energy criticizing Keynesianism (or socialism, for that matter) because I believe that most people reading the DB agree that these are elites' promotions. I actually know little about Douglas and Social Credit (probably less than the DB elves).
I will echo the sentiment expressed by thinker70 on this thread:
'First of all I despise labels and refuse to be pigeonholed by anybody as belonging to any school of thought or organization. I think for myself and agree or disagree with any position postulated by any individual or organization, and reserve the right to change my opinion based on new information or evidence on a given point.'
Now, to your questions:
1. Do I get to own myself in their system?
I don't have a 'system', but I don't see why you could not own yourself.
2. Do I get to own what I create or voluntarily trade for in their system?
I don't have a system, but I don't see why you could not own what you create or voluntarily trade for, with the following proviso: as long as your activities are not detrimental to other individuals or to your community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop conducting these harmful activities.
3. Are all instances of aggression--fraud, theft, assault, rape and murder--outlawed for EVERYONE (including those wearing costumes) in their system?
I don't have a system, but again I don't disagree with you.
However, I must add that my definition of 'aggression' and 'fraud' also includes activities that are detrimental to other individuals or to a community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop conducting these activities. For instance, if a community of users sharing a particular currency *voluntarily* decides that users of that currency should not contract interest-carrying loans, then, in that context, an instance of a user of such a currency knowingly choosing to lend or borrow at interest could be labeled as a fraud with respect to other users of that currency.
4. Is mob rule (voting) forced upon the innocent in their system?
I don't have a system, but you read what I said above about politicians. I have never voted for *anything* above school/university representation in my entire life, to the recurrent dismay of family and friends.
5. Can I use whatever money I want, however I want to define it, in their system?
I don't have a system, but I would say yes - as long as your use of money in the way you definite it is not detrimental to other individuals or to a community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop using money in the way you define it.
6. Can I rent out my savings, to whoever I want, under whatever terms I can get, in their system?
I don't have a system, but again I would say yes - as long as your economic activities are not detrimental to other individuals or to a community to such an extent that the community *voluntarily* and *freely* decides to ask you to stop conducting these activities.
As you can see from the repetitive tone of my answers, what I am advocating is that the insistence on individual freedom and initiative advocated by Austrians/Libertarians should not be carried to such an extent that is detrimental to other members of the community.
I can already imagine that the DB elves or other feedbackers will characterize such a position as 'collectivist', but I disagree. I am merely attempting to state clearly that it is intellectually misleading to constantly emphasize individual freedom while at the same time treating *any* decision by a community to protect its own interests as being 'authoritarian' or 'coercive'.
Collective or communal (for instance, governmental or tribal) authority can be abused. We are all aware of that and have seen numerous historical examples of this. However, individual freedom can also be abused. We have also seen numerous examples of how one person or a small group of people may act in ways that demonstrate a lack of concern for other individuals or for the well-being of a community.
Both individuals and communities tend to act in self-interested ways, and both tend to seek to protect their interests first and foremost. Both can, and have historically, abused their freedom. Thus, the challenge as I see it is to find a balance between individual freedom and the 'will of the collective'.
Constructive solutions and viewpoints are most welcome.
Reply from The Daily Bell
"I don't have a system." Truer words were never spoken.
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Posted by Klink on 02/18/12 11:39 PM
The way to combat the anti-Jew sentiment is with the truth. The Illuminati was/is not Jewish rather denotes Freemasonry, which again is not Jewish rather Templar founded.
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Posted by equipoised on 02/18/12 09:25 PM
My favorite quote from this discussion: "government, especially big government, is bound to be taken over - dominated - by elite forces. The best way to deal with government is to make it as small as possible while seeking to live (ourselves) in small, flexible and self-sufficient communities. Why does such a solution arouse antipathy?"
Someone told me recently that they had heard that Ron Paul was a tool of the elite. After a moment of doubt, I realized that if true the elites are playing with fire. The ideas he espouses surely are not in the interests of anyone trying to dominate and control a population. The notion that the elites are behind the Libertarian / Austrian movement seems unlikely even to those of us with a very superficial knowledge of the movement.
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Posted by Nightcrawler on 02/18/12 08:42 PM
Excellent!
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Posted by NAPpy on 02/18/12 07:33 PM
I don't care who funded Menger, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, or any other Austrian thinker.
I went to college for economics, and they didn't even present the Austrian school as an option. It took me 10 years of searching to find answers to why our economy is imploding--books like "The Case Against The Fed", "Defending the Undefendable", "Human Action", "Man, Economy and State" and "Economics and Ethics of Private Property" provided the answers to my questions.
The Anti-Libertarians need to answer the following questions if they want to "convert" me to their thinking:
1. Do I get to own myself in their system?
2. Do I get to own what I create or voluntarily trade for in their system?
3. Are all instances of aggression--fraud, theft, assault, rape and murder--outlawed for EVERYONE (including those wearing costumes) in their system?
4. Is mob rule (voting) forced upon the innocent in their system?
5. Can I use whatever money I want, however I want to define it, in their system?
6. Can I rent out my savings, to whoever I want, under whatever terms I can get, in their system?
My study of Austrian economics has led me to my own conclusions about what the answers to these questions should be.
My intuition tells me how I think the anti-libertarians will answer these questions, and that they will be too cowardly to actually answer these questions.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Yes, most of the arguments seem to consist of innuendo ...
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Posted by Danny B on 02/18/12 06:19 PM
nithsdale, great writeup.
There can be no yin without yang.
We can say that Douglas, Charles Ferguson, Eustace Mullins, R. L. Northridge,
Dr Ha-Joon Chang, Mahathir Mohamed, Prime Minister of Malaysia, et al are all demanding freebies and handouts. OK, fair enough.
Take a look around at the regions and states that do not have any resources. Take a look at the millions of people who aren't born with any particular abilities that are needed in todays economy. Look at the huge areas that are converted to mechanized agriculture, displacing people who had previously done subsistence farming. Look at all the millions who have lost their water resources or quality of soil.
I traveled across India by road. That is one situation.
What do we tell people in rich countries that no longer have a niche in the job market?
Top-down "money" injections don't seem to be helping.
We can decry the welfare-state,,, we can decry social-credit.
What do we tell the many millions who no longer have a productive niche in the economy?
It looks like there will be a LOT of decisions made in May,,,, especially concerning derivatives.
"Well, these Masters of the World will be having a themselves a get-together to plan the future of their world.
*The ISDA 27th Annual General Meeting will be held on April 30-May 2, 2012 in Chicago.
*This will be followed by the G8 summit meeting in Chicago on May 19 and May 20.
*Then this will be followed by the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20 and May 21.
Click to view link
Greece will default about May.
When another half billion people lose their niche,,, what are we going to tell them?
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Posted by alexsemen on 02/18/12 05:49 PM
History is just a Muse, an inspiration and everyone could write what he wants.History is another free-market BS as it is today the situation.
The problem si what to do with so much misery and one billions victims of the lasts 1000 years of the mercantile civilisation !!??
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Posted by Bosco Hurn on 02/18/12 05:38 PM
Great job as usual, DB, including your rebuttals in the comments.
But this statement of yours really sums it up: "It seems to us that anti-libertarians who espouse social credit and other social-engineering schemes are inevitably suggesting that force be used to bring people in line with their views of how society should operate."
Whenever someone falls back on force they've played their hand. As I like to tell them, "Your fascism is showing."
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Posted by alexsemen on 02/18/12 05:35 PM
Bussines as usual, the Kisinger's Chinese are doing their work as promissed !
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Posted by nithsdale on 02/18/12 05:13 PM
Very good exposition. You are beginning to discard "conspiracies" now and looking at the real problem... competing claims and disclaims. Good!
Social Credit cannot be laid at the feet of Jews. It was a development of christianity. When the jewish belief in their cherishment by Yahwah above all other people on earth was suddenly converted into the cherishment of all people on earth, well most jews were horrified that their exclusivity was now questioned and by some of their own. They did what all do when their superiority is questioned but they could not get it back since so many bought the new idea that all were the children of God! From that moment on, the jewish problems were only made "magnificent" because of their stand!
Social Credit was behind the development of most of the catholic orders so you are correct when you opine that the Catholic Church , the Vatican was behind it! It was out in the open throughout Catholic History and has been an underlying theme of the church and its many affiliates, even when the poltical spheres were opposed. The only deterent was the economic order of the time, when communities had little contact with the outside world except that mandated by their imposed leaders (by force) and then only implemented by "charity and benevolence"! Until the world could read and write and commuicate social credit, it could not come to be because men's words then only went as far as their breath and the local breeze could carry them.
With the advent of the Industrial Era, the growth of "science", the study of Man and his world, came an appreciation of the doctrine but its realization had to contend with custom and practice and await the proper vehicle for establishment. Until that time, it was left in the hands of people to carry it out as they could with what they had on hand! The churches, all of them, and religion in general were the areas keeping the idea alive.
The conglomeraton of industry, its production, built cities like no others ever, requiring distribution of cash for innovation as ideas and populations grew and people used both. Whole new economies were born but all based on assessing Man's worth, then on his ability to produce, first as innovator, then as manager, then as worker. The whole caste system of the world had to be redefined and that was not easy but it was done, thanks to the United States of America. We were the lab since we were the new group in all this and we had drawn our people from every other old group that ever existed!
Like every experiment, we had our fits and starts, disasters and triumphs, but we moved the Social Credit along.
Two world wars woke us to the world we lived in. In both, we were the power house untouched. We became one of the world leader groups in WWI but in WWII, we emerged as the only one left intact. So our lab became the whole world and we rose to the occasion. We innovated with American Express to fill the void in world trade where there were no valid currencies available and lo and behold, the world loved it... so did the traders. Then as millions of American Express checks cleared everyday worldwide, we produced the credit card, first based on businesses and their "take", and then expanded to workers of all stripes, colors, annual income, all, for the first time based on christianity's social credit. These were all unsecured but based on honor and respect... .and they were repaid and so they were expanded! Plastic has been our social credit money for over 60 years now!
Social Credit was such a success that it was expanded into what had been the gold, silver and precious jewel value boxes that were the reserves of the great trading banks, all begun with control of the Royal Jewels of all the old houses of Royalty in the old worlds, West and East when their kingdoms needed to grow and they needed to exchange what they had for what their people wanted as world trade grew. Suddenly, banks exchanged credits too, all based on what their areas populations had and made. Not only business but now people could go worldwide and buy, live, even as they did at home, where they had worked and made their cache! This was an extraordinary revolution!
Social Credit was augmented after that, with welfare, a portion of this growing pot of trade, taken over by government, placing a floor on one person's value. This initial valuation was increased as birth bonuses, then food bonuses were added, then pensions for the elderly, then medical care, then grants and loans for education from cradle to the grave were included. Voila, finally a sum to be totalled for Social Credit for every Man and woman, child on the globe!
We have all been the recipients of this movement... but there is a problem. We have accomplished this in the structured world of the West, some of its allies elsewhere but there is a large part of the world yet to be serviced with it. That is the question now. How is it to be implemented?
If you look at the past, no one asked the question, just acted. Man, his social credit, was in his hands and so far, it was delivered. The church says that is God's way. However, today we have people who do not believe in God, the church, they don't even believe in Man and Social Credit..hell, that should be left to the individual whether he lives well or not, the free market!
There has never been a free market because no man alone can be a market. It takes at least two and for progress many twos, and for our age it now takes millions.
Social Credit is not the brainchild of any man. It is the bedrock of every comunity since the beginning of Man here on earth. It just goes on expanding as Man's mind expands!
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