Jan

27

The fact that our lives belong only to each of us individually is completely lost in this political environment. The most patriotic thing any of us can do to benefit our country is go out and get a job on our own, do great work at that job and improve our lot in life.

Then if we choose to, we can give back in whatever way we chose.

For instance, you become successfully self-sufficient and raise a family that grows up to do the same.

You could volunteer and teach people how to fish (as opposed to the government that gives them fish or, in the case of this misguided idea of "national service", forces them to fish).

You could further your education.

But at no point, ever should you be a burden on society or expect society to anything other than what the Founders intended (society being the government). If you're a child, you get a pass… except that you must work constantly to educate yourself and develop a good work ethic.

If you are physically or mentally unable, you get a pass and charities or family will care for you (believe me, it doesn't take the government to do it… you'll be surprised at just how generous people will be when they don't live under the oppressive rule of the government that encroaches further and further into their lives and finances.

It's time we do something in this country that has never been tried: laissez faire politics. Busybody politicians do not know what's best for me and my family.

Kim Zussman looks at the investment implications:

SocialismOK but 'splain me this: If free markets reward hard work, independence, and innovation, why should one work hard when the markets become unfree? Many folks paying usury taxes on their marathon efforts might resent decreed redistribution of the fruits of their labor "putting America to work" (whether they can or not, qualified or not, want to or not). If the hard workers pull back, and the soft workers get softer, fiat monetas vaporis.

Increasing socialism is very bearish.

Pitt Maner III adds:

A couple of forthcoming books — no doubt timed for the New New Deal — make the opposite argument:  irrational and animal-spirited humans need government intervention.

Free Market Madness by Peter A. Ubel

"What’s wrong with free market theory? It doesn’t take into account our human nature. We humans aren’t entirely rational creatures.[…] All too often our subconscious causes us to act against our own self-interest. Yet our free-market economy is based largely on the assumption that we do act in our own self-interest. In this book, I argue that the combination of human nature and free markets can be downright dangerous for our health and well-being. That government must step in and further regulate the markets[…]".

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller

"Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government–simply allowing markets to work won't do it. In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life–such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes–and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them."

Stefan Jovanovich concludes:

As with most "debates", this one has the fix put in with the premise. (No wonder the citizens of Athens got so tired of the Socratic method that they asked its creator to take a walk.) Neither Ronald Reagan nor Margaret Thatcher thought that liberty = perfect rationality. No one who spent most of a lifetime working in Hollywood or being the only woman in the meeting could think that even imperfect rationality had much to do with human conduct. (No wonder they liked and respected each other.) Mr. Ubel creates the same egregiously phony straw-man by his thesis that the "free-market economy" is based on the "assumptions that we do act in our own self-interest." Markets are never "free"; there is always a house and usually someone has an assured position at the rail. Yet, even with their corruptions, the uncompelled exchanges between private parties still work far better than any prescriptive allocations determined by the people with the best transcripts. Even a little bit of liberty works far better than the pure hierarchies of authoritarian structures. What really screws things up is when the people who benefit most directly from government interventions completely rig the game and call it a collective good. Mr. Ubel's use of the universal academical "us" - "human nature and free markets can be downright dangerous to our health and well-being" - is the classic aggregation fallacy that makes so much of economics remind me of Tennessee Williams's best line ("File this under C for crap").

You had it wrong, Mr. L. The first thing to do is kill all the preachers of the economic doctrine who never have to worry about the actual cash market for their wisdoms. Or, even better, don't kill them and make them get by on their royalties from writings other than the required text books. Without the state-sponsorship of their compulsory indoctrination of the collective "us", the lawyers would hardly be much of a threat.

Sorry for the rant, Pitt; I will now retreat to my private, unmortgaged cave and consider why my nature remains so persistently unable to see the obvious benefits of Fannie, Freddy and the future Maes now working together to build a "more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism".


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3 Comments so far

  1. Gary Rogan on January 27, 2009 1:14 pm

    Pitt, the government is composed of people who are just as irrational as those they are trying to regulate. The difference is that "the subjects" have fewer resources and if they waste them long enough they will stop being able to waste them one way or another affecting mostly themselves and their immediate family. The government has access to far more resources, and it will waste them until they are all gone. There is also the small matter of "the subjects" not being able to subjugate more than a small number of others, while we all know what governments are capable of.

  2. joe on January 27, 2009 5:13 pm

    Dr. Zussman said, "… folks paying usury taxes on their marathon efforts might resent decreed redistribution of the fruits of their labor …".
    This is me! A couple years ago I became so dissatisfied with paying huge income taxes that I quit. With the house and cars paid, I have a lot of free time to spend with my daughter, volunteer in my community, enjoy the outdoors, and to spread the message of freedom and liberty.
    campaignForLiberty.org is in line with many of thoughts on this.

  3. Rich Berger on January 28, 2009 1:00 pm

    I was looking for a book to read and found on my night table the 1994 edition of Road to Serfdom by FA Hayek. In the past, I found Hayek's style rather dry, but on rereading this great book, I realized that Hayek takes great pains to describe and draw essential distinctions. This book seems very fresh, 65 years later, and is unfortunately, topical again. I just finished the chapter on The Great Utopia (socialism versus individualism).

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