Tag Archives: Ludwig Von Mises
We the People
Posted by on Jul 13, 2019
This week on Facebook: I would venture that there never has been a time in history of mankind when there was not a wealthy Aristocracy. The Encyclopaedia Britannica opens with the definition that aristocracy means, ‘government by a relatively small privileged class or by a minority consisting of those felt to be best qualified to rule’.
Of course the vast majority of people supporting this ‘privileged class’ have no desire to rule, they are only interested in their own welfare. However, the even smaller privileged class¹ that they currently support most certainly do. Furthermore, be they capitalists or socialists, or even the demos (whoever they may be), the ruling elites always claim that they represent the views of ‘we the people’.
It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. (Aldous Huxley – Berkeley 1962)
Written nearly 500 years ago and preceding Aldous Huxley’s remarks, the prescience of Étienne de La Boétie ought to be remembered for his essay The Politics of Obedience — The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. Both are now largely forgotten by a demos that loves its voluntary servitude under a controlling oligarchy. However, searching for a political system on which there would be a consensus in the nature of a more perfect union is a fruitless task, as is any reliance on ‘we the people’ seeking political solutions to their subjugation. Read more of this post
The Value of Money
Posted by on Oct 6, 2018
This week on Facebook: In ‘The Coming Dark Ages?’ I criticised all the articles for failing to point out that (in my view) the prevalence of an economic global hegemony by Western Philosophy relied on a reserve currency in a fiat money world. Money at the centre of globalisation, whether it is trade or war that is the dominant driving force for global economic growth. I was especially critical of the article America enters the dark ages concluding that in my opinion money, war and a rising nationalism, are the most likely harbingers in any coming of a new dark age.
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It’s only money!
Posted by on Sep 9, 2017
This week on Facebook: Trying to use last weeks post on Criminals & Taxation as a link to those that may follow at some point proved to be very difficult, the reaction of a public administration’s response to economic failure is more akin to investigative journalism than a short, singular, post. So this week I focused a little bit on factors relating to Government economic policy, with particular reference to Social Security and taxation in the UK. My post last week last week illustrated some of the financial disasters that can occur when a public administration overreaches its level of competence. In an earlier post on Debt & Taxation (2013) I began: ‘The role that economic theory plays in the creation of money and the role played by all politicians in the manipulation of economic theory for the purpose of a fiscal policy, bear little relationship to the social responsibility that Drucker applied to a private enterprise.’ Read more of this post
Cryptocurrency as fiat
Posted by on Jul 1, 2017
This week on Facebook: When I wrote Monday’s article in 2011 about fiat money I never had in mind the cryptocurrency in last week’s post, although I was certainly aware that the ravages created by the inflationary effects of fiat money did not protect wealth. Wealth protection only comes to those with the means of investing in things whose rarity increased their value. The rise in the value of cryptocurrency, particularly as a wealth protector (like that of gold), shouldn’t really have come as the surprise it did. Read more of this post
The Troika & The IMF
Posted by on Aug 13, 2016
This week on Facebook: My innate cynicism tells me that that this exercise in flagellation by the International Money Fund (IMF) issuing their critical report¹, is not a pursuit of penance but rather a manipulation of the media. The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on:… and so does the IMF. The media criticism of the IMF’s handling of crises mentioned in the report, especially the crisis in Greece and that of the Eurozone, will soon be forgotten as the media also moves on. The IMF will be left to continue dispensing what is euphemistically called its aid, regardless of its efficacy to those in receipt of it. Read more of this post
Beggars are coming to town.
Posted by on Jan 24, 2014
The Tudor Age (1485 – 1603), especially during the reign of Henry VIII, was a period of great social upheaval. The Act of Supremacy coupled with the dissolution of the monasteries, the enclosures of common land and the great debasement, affected all strata of English society. The wealth of English landowners vastly increased, as did the size of their farms and estates, but the effect on those not owning land and the hired labour, especially in rural communities, was catastrophic. Vagrancy became endemic as a largely self-sufficient, if often subsistent, rural culture effectively ended. The rural dispossessed swelled the bands of those regarded as idle vagabonds, who roamed the country plaguing all communities in England. Crime increased, as did the indigent population of English towns and cities. The punishments for vagrancy introduced after the Peasants Revolt of 1381, and meted out to the indigent considered to be deliberately indolent, were made even harsher. Read more of this post
Principles of Economics
Posted by on Jan 4, 2013
Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics, Translated
by Yoram Bauman [1]
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
The cornerstone of Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw’s introductory economics textbook,Principles of Economics, is a synthesis of economic thought into Ten Principles of Economics (listed in the first table below). A quick perusal of these will likely affirm the reader’s suspicions that synthesizing economic thought into Ten Principles is no easy task, and may even lead the reader to suspect that the subtlety and concision required are not to be found in the pen of N. Gregory Mankiw. Read more of this post
Cash is subversive
Posted by on Feb 1, 2012
The following is a brief extract from ‘Big Brother Loves You!’ by Detlev Schlichter in which he rails against fiat money and the creation of debt something that I touched on in A Universal Debt. Commenting on the trend towards interventionist policies and assertive state action, The Economist and the Financial Times talk of the trend towards ‘repression’ and ‘national capitalism’ in crisis management. The public believe that greedy bankers and ‘unfettered capitalism’ brought about this crisis. Yet cheap credit through state fiat money and the systematic subsidisation of the housing market, are not features of the free market but of politics. Read more of this post
Euronomics
Posted by on Dec 30, 2011
There is a view (especially in France) that the enemies of the Euro are the AS (Anglo-Saxons). In my opinion this is not so. I do not believe the AS are against the Euro but, in common with the Austrian School of Economics, they are against its inherent flaws. As Martin Feldstein points out in his article ‘The French Don’t Get It. The French government just doesn’t seem to understand the real implications of the euro. French officials apparently don’t recognize the importance of the fact that Britain is outside the eurozone, and therefore has its own currency, which means that there is no risk that Britain will default on its debt. By contrast, the French government and the French central bank cannot create euros. There is a second reason why the British situation is less risky than that of France. Britain can reduce its current-account deficit by causing the British pound to weaken relative to the dollar and the euro, which the French, again, cannot do without their own currency. The eurozone fiscal deficits and current-account deficits are now the most obvious symptoms of the euro’s failure. But the credit crisis in Europe, and the weakness of eurozone banks, may be even more important. The persistent unemployment differentials within the eurozone are yet another reflection of the adverse effect of imposing a single currency and a single monetary policy on a heterogeneous group of countries. These comments may be valid but in making the ‘French connection’, either Feldstein hasn’t been following recent European events very well, or he simply doesn’t understand the nature of the Anglo/French relationship, which is based on mutual distrust. Read more of this post
Inflationary money – ‘let it be done’ (fiat)
Posted by on Dec 8, 2011
Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclopædia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn’t listening.
Unlike Owl I always have a problem spelling Tuesday – my shortcomings here saved by a spellchecker and an intuitive notion that something doesn’t look right. When extraordinarily large valuations are put on artifacts, it simply doesn’t look right, especially when the artifact being purchased appears to be trivial, like a comic book. But this of course misses the point, which is that the investment in artifacts can be a means of hoarding wealth. This also means that large exchanges of money for artifacts has to take place. However: regardless of the price that an artifact may sell for, in a world where the medium of currency exchange is fiat money, any sum of money becomes irrelevant. With fiat money, there is no need for money to exist in a form that requires its physical exchange. Read more of this post
