Inside the System

Rand wasn't at all anti-government. She was pro capitalism, which requires a government to protect the rights of people to live and engage. 

Personally, I'm elated when an elected official does something right. For example, there's a Federal push to get rid of mandatory sentencing laws. I think that's great! 

Some Objectivists that I really like, Craig Biddle for example (The Objective Standard,) are very hard on libertarians. Too hard, in my view. Instead of applauding the good work libertarian organizations do (Reason Foundation, FEE, etc.) he claims they aren't working from rational or first principles. I often think he's quibbling about semantics ("Free Markets" vs. "Radical Capitalism," really?) but he's still a great writer and educator. Bottom line is that I truly don't care for the barbs thrown by some in my camp at those who are doing the actual heavy lifting. It's libertarians getting the back ache, not Objectivists.

Another thing I've noticed is that it's rare for me to encounter a libertarian who isn't familiar with Objectivism. Some are more familiar than others, of course. I don't think libertarianism could even exist without Objectivism.  

 That's my take. 

I'm torn on the subject. If somebody chooses to participate in an organization, then they are in part responsible for any harm that the organization causes. This must be the case because otherwise nobody in the organization will accept responsibility ("Blame leadership, we're just members." "As leadership, we just do what the members want." etc.).

I've come to the conclusion that "inside the system" participation is necessary to turn around the troubling course toward bigger government that America has taken over the past decades. I confess that my hypothetical wasn't entirely abstract - I've worked in a number of prosecutor's offices and agencies, and I've been the only libertarian in these organizations as far as I could tell. Progressives are naturally drawn to government and are thrilled to expand their influence, so it's no surprise that the vast majority of public employees are liberal Democrats. With progressives taking the helm, government continues to grow itself, just as a living organism naturally grows and births offspring.

The personal test I use is whether a libertarian can realistically make a positive impact by operating within the government, or at least occupy a fixed position that a more progressive individual would otherwise fill and use for nefarious ends. If these conditions don't hold, then I consider that just being another freeloader and part of the problem. I've had arguments with some military "libertarians" on this topic because I don't think being a low-ranking member of the armed forces satisfies this test. I concede the need for a military for national defense, but the military is so much bigger than it needs to be that it's become really just another make-work jobs program in recent years and is more likely to aggress against other countries than play the defensive role that it ideally would.

Re# 1:

>>>I don't think libertarianism could even exist without Objectivism<<<<

Libs either do not accept the necessity of 'First Principles' in order to do politics. Not for the least, several contradictory principles can give the same outcome.

 Moreover, many believe the 'first principle' argument to be false on face value.

Eva

I've spent that last 30 years of my adult working life proving to myself, if no other, that is is certainly not necessary to ban unions.    I have a sign in my tiny, tiny office that is very supportive of unions; it says "Unionize this."

Yes, Right to Work does not ban unions; what it does is remove third party monopolies.    It removes their right to hold a gun to folks and force them to associate.   A clearer example of free vs forced association is hard to find.

If I were to have ever expanded my business activity and taken on employees, and some of them had unionized, 51%  to 49%, on what basis are the 49% forced to join the 51%?   Would the argument have been that the 51% created the working conditions in this endeavour?   I don't care what Obama says about what I did and did not do, and the 51% that buys his bullshit can wait another 5 years for him to deliver their jobs, jobs, jobs as far as I'm concerned.   The entire federal workforce, OTOH, is a kind of union in this nation, sucking it dry like a carcass carving parasite.

I rendered that moot; the 49% can and should, too, and begin to focus on the cancer in DC.  The 51% is doing it to themselves with what they advocate.  This is the surprising face of social justice.

regards,

Fred

When my wife and I moved to the DC area, we had the choice of living in Maryland, DC, or right-to-work Virginia. It wasn't much of a decision. By living in Virginia, my wife and I have saved around $1100 per year by not having to join the unions in our workplaces and pay dues. It's appalling that most of the states have been so corrupted that they don't permit their citizens this basic right of freedom of association.

My experience with the federal government has been that none of the high performers join the unions, and the unions provide little except job security for the lowest of the low, who are so miserable in their jobs that they should have left a long time ago anyway.

A conservative blog I read refers to the "union life cycle," meaning each union will weaken and eventually kill its host organization, just as a biological parasite does. Considering the bankruptcies that have plagued the U.S. auto, airline, and steel industries, and the rash of recent municipal bankruptcies, the analogy doesn't seem to be too far off the mark.

"Robert",

Verses an overwhelming majority of easily manipulated thieves, I don't see how we could win a majority vote.  The sheep can't understand Austrian economics, so they are unable to differentiate our honest optimal from the socialists false promises... and the socialists can pander greater sounding promises since they aren't restricted to reality.

My current outlook for the future is the US will continue to decline as it attempts to continue the thieves' standard of living by printing more and more USD/FRN.  I'm not sure how long this will last... other countries such as China are now on the verge of reducing its savings and usage of USD... which means we will soon not be able internationally trade real goods for newly printed dollars... significantly reducing our standard of living.

In this context I think Bitcoin will grow and grow in market acceptance and market capitalization.  Due to bitcoin's distributed nature, the might of the US military may very well fail to stop bitcoin's use, peacefully ending the Federal Reserve's monopoly on money.  I think the ability to print monopoly enforced money is the primary source of the Federal Government's power (particularly its corrupt power), so to me the potential of Bitcoin in pushing our government towards becoming more capitalist is huge.

So that is my big picture strategy.  Little picture is we should all try to live and act in a manner where we do not allow others to net gain from enslaving us.  "Not force another man to live for our sake, nor live for the sake of another."  And to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

The sheep don't understand any economics--Austrian or otherwise. That's because they're all too busy accusing those schools of economics which don't fit their political purposes as somehow 'dishonest' with 'ulterior purpose'.

No, they don't understand economics because they were subjected to the sheep dip of modern academic indoctrination.

It is Capitalism that is under attack, not for being less than 'objective' but because it gets in the way of the elites having control that enables forced association.  Lots of pretend-economics are spun up to justify various interventions in the marketplace that violate free association.  Is this explanation a conspiracy theory claiming a collusion based upon ulterior purposes that generates dishonesty?  Sometimes that is a workable model, sometimes it is more of a psychological artifact where subconscious urges and needs irrationally glom onto the 'best fit' theories (Like those fat people who want to believe in diet that says they can eat as much as they want). What is the psychological drive?  It is an irrational drive to force other people to do what you want.  Shortened to a headline, the generation of economic theories that try to justify the use of force to control others could be: "Control Freaks Tend to become Socialists").   Or it could just be the 'useful idiots' theory where the academic machinery teaches what it was taught and that happens to be very helpful to the underlying concept of power to the elite control freaks - an evolved positive feedback mechanism in society that will ultimately find that it is like the parasite that ate all the hosts.  

Only in the academy are most people so busy deriding anyone who supports free association as an intellectual enemy that they end up tossing 'objectivity' by the wayside - adopting the 'ends justify the means' as their rationale for weaving theories of lies to support lies to explain why they should control the sheep, with force where 'needed' - and disagreement will not be tolerated if it gets in the way of the forced association they desire and it is because lies make for such a house of cards that opposition is so rancorous.

That's a little fast and loose. Game theory isn't synonymous with Austrian economics, and Keynesians and progressives are very hostile to Chicago economics where it doesn't fit their agenda. For example, Chicago school models predict that raising the minimum wage will raise unemployment, but leftists tend to scoff at this prediction.

Austrian Economics uses game theory methodology of comparing choices and declaring that in the long term people will tend to make the more self beneficial choice.  This doesn't preclude people from making bad choices, nor say a time frame nor price things will change to.  Austrians can make predictions about directions prices or employment will go due to some interference... qualitatively not quantitatively.

re# 17 & 18

This is the theory of 'Rational Expectations'. To this end, yes, the Austrians developed the idea in the 1920's & 30's.

However, Chicago School of the 1950& 60's developed models of empirical proof that people really do behave this way.

Hence the break between the two--per Lucas' Nobel Laureate speech. "Economics is quantifiable,or else it's nonsense...."

The right left divide in Economics hinges on two issues:

* The empirical truth of Rat Exp. For example, the research psy Kahneman won his Nobel in Econ by demonstrating that decision-making mostly is not 'rational'.

Leftish economics distrust markets to the extent that markets are empirically seen to be 'irrational.

For example, Stiglitz's 'asymetry of information', yst another Nobel Laureate.

So at least for the jury who awards Nobels in Economics, the notion of either left or right-leaning people using economics as a sop for ideology is nonsense.

** Around 1950, the 'Cambridge Contraversy" erupted between England and USA over the fundamental assumptions of classical economics-- in terms of basic vocabulary.

for example, 'What is profit?

USA-- Portion of total revenue taken by owners for their labor; 'wage' being portion of non-owners.

England-- Back to Ricardo. R=C+V+P creates an inverse relationship between wage and profit. There is a glaringly false assumption that profit always represents work.

This is why in all industrial countries not called 'USA', there's legistation regarding the tax on profits that concerns the level of work contribution of ownership.

EM