By now dear reader you have probably either come to enjoy or vehemently hate my articles, but you’ve got to give me credit for sticking to principles of individual freedom.
I enjoy reading political blogs, and one of my favorites, Lew Rockwell, was discussing a new Web site he discovered called GovernmentisGood.com by Mount Holyoke professor Douglas J. Amy. If you enjoy a good laugh, check out this Web site. He states that capitalism only exists by government protecting it and our rights are not natural but given to us by the government.
He states that the “free market” caused the current financial crisis. By his reasoning, why even have capitalism? Instead just have government run the economy. It must be angry right-wingers who hate government, not people who realize that no other criminal organization could have killed 200 million people in the 20th century and gotten away with it.
You see, that was under Conservatives and dictators, but progressive leaders will only bring prosperity; I mean it’s not like Woodrow Wilson stifled free speech, sterilized the deaf and lied and got us into World War One.
There are obvious fallacies in Amy’s argument that government is good, and the fact that he is a professor who still believes these myths is ridiculous. If a historian or an economist made some of the statements that capitalism needs government and that government protects our rights and all we need is the right leadership to bring prosperity, they would surely be laughed at by their fellow colleagues. Then again I guess this is what political science majors would believe in because without any government they’re out of a job.
Let’s look at one of the obvious fallacies on his Web site that the market caused the current financial crisis. Everyone agrees that the depression began under the Bush administration and his supposed deregulation philosophy (whatever that means). Let’s take a look at the Bush presidency: We can see that he raised tariffs on imported steel, passed Sarbanes-Oxley, passed a huge welfare prescription drug plan for Medicare, told Greenspan to turn on the monetary spigots and inflate the housing bubble and massively bailed out industries toward the end of his presidency. That is some definite free market action by Bush. He stated, “I have to abandon the free market in order to save the free market” .
Unfortunately Amy’s ignorant views permeate throughout mainstream news media like Fox News, MSNBC, New York Times and the National Review. So, dear reader, read Mises.org or LewRockwell.com to get news stories not covered by the mainstream media and get to the truth behind historical and current events. And for laughs check out Amy’s Web site because he definitely has some anti-conservative mentality. (Note I am a Libertarian-anarchist not a Conservative.)
The Daily Gamecock > Viewpoints
Political Web site errs in claims about capitalism
Ignorant blog makes for laughs with statement that government grants, protects individual rights
Published: Monday, November 30, 2009
Updated: Sunday, November 29, 2009
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19 comments
Where is your hope? Where is your incentive to fight for a better, not only richer, future? I understand this is idealistic, though I hope not ideological. Personally, I do not feel violated or robbed when I send my taxes in, and, as I accept that there are people who do feel robbed, I hope you can accept that there are people who do not. I do not say to you that you need to understand how much you depend on government for the very social stability that allows us to have arguments on such abstract and academic subjects as this, because we are not distracted by the simple struggle for survival or 14 hour workdays. I know you will not and that is fine, it is your right to disagree. I ask you only to see that I am disagreeing with you, not out of ignorance or naivity, but because I too have looked at the issues and evidence and simply come to a different conclusion. Perhaps my priorities are different.
Also, sorry I forgot to sign my name to my last post, computer was giving me some issues. Anyway, good to talk with you, I enjoy arguing :)
Well, I started with Mises.org, but frankly could not stay there very long as all my screaming at the computer was annoying my roommates. I am loathe to think that money is the most important thing in the world, and unfortunately that seemed to be the underlying idea behind most of the articles I saw there. Personal freedoms, my dear sir, are are well and good, greatly to be desired of course, but the extension of personal freedom to mean the right to hold all of your money for yourself with never a thought or care for the good of the community in which you live is, to tell the truth, abhorrent to me. We none of us are islands and the sacrifice of a tiny percentage of our income (and in America it is indeed tiny comparitively) so children can go to school for free or so that there are firefighters to put out a burning house or so that a policeman can respond to burglery or so that a criminal is guaranteed legal representation for free or so that there are traffic lights to stop us from crashing into each other or so that roads are kept drivable or so inspectors are hired to make sure our food isn't poisonous or for any number of other reasons is, to me, a perfectly valid, indeed necessary thing to do.
The idea that personal consumer spending is inherently and always good is, well to be blunt, a fraud. Given a choice between a bridge and a new washing machine, I will take a bridge. After all, how many washing machines can one family own? At some point, the supply will simply outweigh the demand and all economic hell will break loose in any case. The idea that consumer spending is the exercise of free choice, depsite the millions of dollars spent on advertising that clearly have a great effect on consumer choice, is only supported by government regulations that establish a minimum level of honesty in said advertising (and let's face it-it is a VERY minimum standard). Consumer spending would have companies fighting to provide the lowest price, regardless of the human cost of getting to that price. A low price does not show the conditions of the workers that make that product, does not take into account the price of getting that product to the store, and consequently allows for horrors to occur that the market both does not care about and can do nothing to fix. You may say, well tell consumers about the conditions and they will not buy from abusive stores, but I hope you know as well as I do that that is simply not true. Sweatshops, near slave-labor conditions, long hours, child labor-these conditions do not occur in the US precisely because of government regulations but they do occur in countries where many companies operate, precisely because their governments have not stepped in to stop it. When the aquisition and retention of money is the highest hope, that hope falls far too low for me. To fight a market that is amoral and indifferent to human suffering takes another force that does seek to be moral and establish some balance between business obsession with the bottom line and basic humanity. As the US is the richest country in the world, I am disinclined to think that its laws are biased against the companies or against the consumer. My apologies if this was somewhat angrier than usual - I did try to keep it civil. I hope only that I have persuaded you and the author of this article to no longer laugh at the idea that capitalism would be insupportable without government regulation. Any greater change of attitude is, I understand, unlikely.
I have no defense against my admitted ignorance of the details of economic theories. My only comfort is that most economists don't really understand what is going on either, or so they say. Money is so dang complicated.
Still, I did read up on the Austrian theory, blaming low interest rates set by the government for falsely increasing consumer confidence that banks have the hard money to back up their loans. During a boom, borrowing increases, fueled by artificially low rates set by the government, the supply of money is not enough to meet the demand, the charade is exposed and a recession follows that resets the actual supply of money to the demand. At least, this is how I understood it. Perhaps it is because we are in the middle of a recession and so these issues are fairly mainstream now, but I didn't find this idea as revolutionary as you did. Anyway, I have no argument with this theory, though I admit I take a more Keynesian view of economics. As a mere historian, I confess to being something of a humanist and so don't mind some government spending if it provides jobs and improves lives. Doesn't always work that way, but I think it's the right idea.
Also, I'm glad you presume I meant the the Great Depression, since that's what I said. My point was that Wilson had not much to do with it, which is why I didn't understand why 'Wilson-era regulation' (the creation of the Fed in 1913?) should be credited (pun intended) with a role in the 1929 crash. Is it the Austrian theory again, that the Fed kept rates so low that credit expanded out of control and the BAM! Black Friday? Fair enough, at least the follows logically and is supported by some factual evidence. Hm.
Also, I put forward the idea that there is a difference between investment in the country's infrastructure (railroads, Eisenhower's interstate system, public schools, hospitals, so on and so forth) and subsidizing banking companies just so that they can remain super-rich. Again, it must be the Keynes in me, but I'd say the government got more than its money back in these investments. After all, Northern railroads helped keep the Union together, interstates eases transportation and allows for freer movement of goods (as do RR's as well actually) and people, and schools and hospitals provide a priceless service. That's my boost for responsible government spending, though as I freely admit, the crucial words there is responsible and not spending.
That was the most thoughtful thing ever posted on here. Thank you.
In a brief statement of personal defense, I will say that I am a History major and so do little else but re-read history books. It is sometimes really quite dull. Also, I would never recommend Rolling Stone as a history source...except perhaps to someone looking to learn more about why the Beatles fell apart or the musical inspirations of Metallica. It only has some political articles that can offer interesting and generally well-researched points of view.
I agree with Elex, in that your view of an Anarcho-Libertarian society seems nothing more than an idealized version of our current system. I do not disagree that a "free society" could and has worked on a small scale (although I do disagree that Ireland is a valid example of peaceful governance in a sustainable form). I do dispute the idea that it could provide any form of security or sanity on a large scale, in a country of America's size and cultural differences. Of course we have issues of police brutality, miscarriages of justice, and generally terrible things that happen. But the great thing about the system is that it at least provides a way to rectify these problems. People do not always chose to try to stop these issues, but that seems to me to be a problem in human nature, and not necessarily in the system. After all, government is made up of individual people, and its problems are the problems of single human beings writ large. Just as humans are complex beings, so is government. Ignorance, waste, bias, cruelty can live in the same house as wisdom, efficiency, honesty, and kindness. I refuse to believe that because government is guilty of great harm it is incapable of great good. Indeed, there are historical examples to bear out this view. I would argue that Roosevelt-era welfare programs, (not Wilson era-his presidency was followed fairly quickly by the Great Depression...hardly evidence that he ever regulated anything. He was primarily an idealist, though also a racist and sexist. Again, the complexity of humanity is sometimes just depressing), the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe, Lyndon Johnson's civil rights laws, the Supreme Court that declared segregation illegal, hell, even Reagan's minimal role in helping to end the Cold War and allow Eastern Europe to breath again, are all examples of good on so great a scale that only a strong government could have enacted it. I agree there are enough examples of atrocity as well, and I only do not cite them because I think that you know what they are already.
Speaking as someone who has been in quite a few protests against government stupidity and downright cruelty, I end by saying that I am not blind to the follies of government, but feel that any system that trusts to the inherent goodness and fairness of people will probably end as a tyranny of the majority and be no better guarantor of human rights or liberties than what we have now. Try to reform people and you will by default reform government.
What you describe includes a government. Courts and laws = government, only if it is run by common law, the laws would be made by the courts. So if your point is that you don't need government to have rights, your system fails to live up to your ideals. Also, I don't see why you think the courts in this mythical land would not infringe on rights if you believe current courts do so. I'd also note that people can appeal court decisions in our current system, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
Police protection which requires sufficient ability to pay does not uphold the rights of those that lack the ability to do so. Also, what would these security firms be targeting if not violations of laws created by government? And who's to stop the firms from doing whatever they want if not a government? Additionally, in this mythical land, gangs could simply bomb your security firm or all security firms and there goes all rights for everyone.
You can live in such a society if you'd like..just go to a failed state and pay a gang to protect you, or build a time machine and go back to 4000 BC. If that's your thing, go for it, but what you describe includes a government and does not guarantee rights for all.PS: Are you Bill Potter?
an Anarcho-Libertarian society would still have courts, laws, and police. laws would be based on common law and police would be provided by security or insurance firms. Ask columnist Will Grigg how abuseful the police are because he writes stories on lewrockwell.com all the time detailing police abuse because they have a monopoly on protection. people would be able to appeal their decision unlike the current system where the supreme court can infringe on peoples' rights like they did to the japanese in world war two. Look up medieval Ireland and Murray Rothbard to see how an anarcho-libertarian society would be possible. what is necessary is too look beyond government schooling history and see that a free society could work. the situation you describe is chaos and not anarchy because anarchy is just the absence of government not of rights.
Go to Somalia and see how your rights hold up. Rights don't exist in reality without laws, courts, police etc. You may find that "horrid," but it's true. And I don't mean to spark any more controversy, but the sky is also blue.
There are no rights without a government to guarantee them..it'd just be you with your 9 iron trying to protect all your property, which you would lose to the first "rational and self-interested" person to come by with a gun.
On another note, I think that it is by no means agreed that the Bush years were responsible for the current economic crisis. Most sources that I have read, including the New York Times, the Times of London, and even Rolling Stone, agree that Clinton era deregulation legislation is the real culprit. I think again, you have a preconceived notion of what liberals and conservatives believe, and so view the arguments going on through that lens. While no doubt gratifying to sit back and laugh at the foolish Democrats and Republicans, and I agree there are some very foolish people out there, that does not mean that some do not have valid points to make. The true independent mind is not afraid to say, yes that idea is right and I agree with it. I would suggest to you some Matt Taibbi articles-he is certainly biased towards a liberal viewpoint, but his allegiance is to the ideals and not to people. He criticizes Dems and Republicans, Bush and Obama, politicians and idealists equally. Hopefully you will be able to use your next few years at college to actually expand your ideas and attempt to let go of your ideological paradigms. They are are rarely helpful to intelligent conversation.
Will, excellent article as usual.
Come back when you ar a fourth-year, and also tomorrow, and the next day, and next year, and the year after. Never stop searching for and speaking the truth. Your comments show an ability to see through the whitewash and the hogwash. I wish I was a bold and knowledgable as you are when I was your age. I am sure, with your comments and your attraction to Lewrockwell.com, that you are aware of the Austrian school of economics. Blessings on you. Keep up the good work and the good fight.
Come back when you are a Fourth-Year and you know what the hell you are talking about.