A Challenge to Modern Liberals Regarding their Fealty to the Principles they Espouse

Great Debates
21

I don’t expect all of you to agree with what I am saying. I welcome debate. But single sentence, snarky answers to an articulate essay that posits several series points that deserve reflection and a sober response is unbecoming of an intelligent political observer.

One of the central points in my essay, which you brilliantly demonstrated, is the irrational mistrust of the unhampered market economy by modern progressives. Suppose you vehemently oppose what you term “ruthless and amoral” corporations and want to keep them in check and prevent their excesses. And lets further suppose that you are not too troubled with expansive government, at least on principle. You should STILL oppose the State and support a laissez faire market economy if only on the desire to see the ruthless and amoral corporate scum get whats coming to them.

Think about this honestly. You can identify a business that is abusing its customers. It might be polluting your property. It might be treating its workers bad.

Imagine two scenarios. The first is that the business exists without the support of the government or the federal reserve. There are no regulations and restrictions to businesses that seek to compete with that amoral business that you oppose. Public pressure, boycotts, consumer preferences choosing a better business that treats its employees and customers better would lead either to bankruptcy in quick order, or a very rapid changing of policies for the offending business. And without the “corporate” veil hiding the owners from liability (a purely government mandated concept), if a business is polluting your water or air, or hurting you in some way and you sue, the OWNERS will be liable and have to pay you rather than the blame placed on a non person, the artificial “corporation”.

In the second scenario, we have a situation similar to what exists today where we have a central bank that can bail out businesses, a government than is occupied by people who are funded by special interest dollars. If a business is hurting you or providing bad service what are your options? They are getting your money anyway in the form of government subsidies. They are not worried about bankruptcy, they have made a deal with the Federal Reserve to rescue them if they get into trouble. They have “friends in high places”. They could care less about you or the consumer.

You really only have the option of voting for different Congressmen in the hopes that they will effectively regulate the abuses of the corporation. In the market, consumer decisions make a difference rapidly. A business is losing profits to a competitor, it must change its behavior, lower prices or do something or it will continue losing market share or go bankrupt. All these daily decisions and value appraisements by millions of actors in an economy change behaviors very quickly. Yet government change is agonizingly slow, if it happens at all. It might take decades to overturn a bad law or pass a “good” regulation to stop the corporate pollution that has been happening for the past twenty years. It is not efficient and it is not effective.
I am not saying that there aren’t many good progressives who honestly hold out the hope for good government that is full of reasonably honest people who will work in the interests of the poor and middle class and effective regulate the abuses of the private economy. But if you understand the way government works, the most powerful will always have the upper hand in controller that government.

Do you really think that the poor and middle class, or labor unions for that matter, will ever have the lobbying power that Goldman Saches or defense contractors have?

This is the problem. Understanding this trend, it becomes clear that the best way to prevent the abuse of our rights by corporations and the powerful, is to reduce the power of the State as drastically and quickly as possible.

I highly suggest you learn about the benefit of voluntary transactions between mutually benefited parties (this is all the “free market” is) and don’t fear freedom from coercion.

Free people could take down an abusive business in short order in an unhampered market economy.

22

And the purpose of this post is what exactly?

This forum is called “Great Debates”. I am trying to spark a debate. If I am full of shit and you are so brilliant, then it would be no big task to school me on the failings of my reasoning.

I hope I am wrong about you Kimstu, but in my experience people who cannot engage in a discussion on a substantial level usually resort to snarky comments.

I am not trolling or trying to provoke anything (other than honest debate). I am honestly genuinely astonished than progressives endorse the Federal Reserve System and fiat money when I know how horrendously harmful it is to a country’s prosperity and the well being of the middle class and poor.

If you doubt this, please take the time to read “The Ethics of Money Production” by Jorg Guido Hulsmann:

I assume that the support of fiat money either signals a wide scale ignorance of leftists to the effects of money creation on society as a whole, or that they don’t really mean what they say and simply support state power for its own sake, never mind its effects on the poor and vulnerable.

If you could take the time to address this single point, it could both satisfy my curiosity and spark an ACTUAL debate.

23

I appreciate the honesty. No shame in not knowing about certain political theories whatsoever.

I don’t think the nuances of anarchist theory are exactly essential to my essay though. It is really directed at conventional liberals and progressives to spark a reassessment of their priorities and the unseen effects of certain government programs they favor.

I certainly hope to hear from the members you listed. I don’t know about “seeking them out”. I assume if they are interested they will respond in this thread.

24

This is a woeful ignorance of history. The fact is that prior to 1933 the United States went through a series of economic booms and economic collapses. Establishing national control of finance finally broke that cycle and brought some degree of stability to economics.

And the economy has grown much larger since we went off the gold standard. Which is no surprise - tying the size of your national economy to the amount of gold you have is a silly idea. You’re better off cutting the line to that anchor and letting your economy grow beyond it. Let the government print the amount of money that fits the overall economy rather than trying to keep the economy small enough that it fits the fixed supply of money.

25

Let me ask you to address it, by giving us a glimpse of your Jayarutopia without fiat money. Are only gold and silver coins to be used as money? If, instead, private banks will create banknotes in your scheme then I’m afraid it is you who totally misunderstands the concept of “fractional reserve banking.”

Please do try to actually help us envision the society you imagine. If you can do that, you will have bested all the other Libertarians who espouse ill-defined zany Utopias here at SDMB.

(I apologize if it’s snarky to capitalize the L in Libertarian. I do that because, if “libertarianism” means understanding the virtues of liberty and a market economy, then include me in! Calls for dismantling central banks, OTOH, show unreasoning fundamentalist fervor, not understanding.)

26

I understand your criticisms. Sometimes atheists criticize it as necessitating the existence of a deity (this is not the case). I think there are arguments on both sides on this issue, even within libertarian circles.

For myself, and this is a rather superficial interpretation, Natural Law provides a good cornerstone for rejecting moral relativism or political tyranny. The concept of a higher law means that undue deference to man made laws will cease. Sometimes man made laws are just, other times (most times actually) they are odious in the extreme.

The basis thesis of Natural Law is that by examining man’s nature, one can deduce certain undeniable truths from which the concept of Natural law can be discovered. The topic is a bit broad to go into fully and this time and is rather ancillary to my main point, so it will suffice to link to a few articles that you might care to read at some point.

Introduction to Natural Law:

With or Without a God: Natural Law and Property Rights:

27

And how exactly are individuals supposed to accomplish anything against large corporations? Eliminate government and you’ve eliminated the only organization that’s powerful enough to control corporations. If we were foolish enough to try libertarianism, we’d find ourselves far more vulnerable to coercion and oppression.

28

I still struggle with Austrian economists who think that the whole of the US’s and lets not forget Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc was due to them having their currency backed by gold and then say that the great depression was not caused by this.

The rise in wealth was due to a lot of reasons not the least having vast continents to rip resources out of.

To say non fiat money was the reason for success at best shows correlation without further evidence.

bring on bit coin I say!

29

So is being a smart alec.

30

No, I don’t mean fiat money ceased to exist. That would be absurd. The point is that nations that embark on unchecked money creation eventually lose their prosperity and their society decays and their empires fall. Sometimes this can take a lot of time but the trend is undeniable.

You admit that free market capitalism has been shown to work. That is a central element of the libertarian program so how can you call it “some untried theory”? All the libertarian theorists are doing is examining what HAS worked in our nation and in other countries and improving upon it, getting rid of the ideological inconsistencies.

Just because we cannot achieve the ideal of no State coercion, does not mean that we should not seek to maximize the potential for a free society.

For example, we agree that murder is immoral and should be against the law. From examining that truth, we know that the ideal would be a society without any murder at all. We know that will not be accomplished. But should it not be a goal to strive for? The reduction of murder to the lowest level we can achieve?

If the initiation of force and violence against peaceful individuals can be shown to be blatantly immoral, the argument that there will always be SOME State coercion is not a compelling argument against doing everything in our power to reduce that coercion as much as possible.

We might not achieve the ideal of NO State coercion. But it is still the moral and just vision for society and we should attempt to achieve it.

31

The foolishness is thinking that because free market capitalism works it’s the only solution we need and it can solve every problem.

The real world isn’t so obliging. It doesn’t owe us one simple solution to all problems. The real world is complex and requires a multitude of complex answers.

32

Thats it? That is all you can muster to refute my analysis? For the record, I am sincere and I have studied history and economics and political science for many years now and I am afraid that it is you who have swallowed fantasies and falsehoods that have been tragically anti progress and opposed to the interests of the most vulnerable in society.

Perhaps you can explain how a secretive Federal Reserve System which creates tens of trillions of dollars and passes them out to favored special interests and foreign governments in secret is beneficial to the poor and middle class in this country? How is inflation and continually rises prices helpful to the poor?

Why are monetary and fiscal policies that hurt savers and reward speculating in the stock market beneficial to the poor, minorities, the less educated and sophisticated in matters of economics and politics?
Lastly, you made an absurd insinuation at the end, “you’ve swallowed the Libertarian fantasies promulgated by the corrupt exploiters you claim to despise.”

Are you honestly suggesting that the corporate class, the big bankers, and the corrupt Wall Street firms are trying to promote libertarian ideas? That is astoundingly absurd.

Why can’t the libertarian party get more than 1% of the vote? Why didn’t Ron Paul get any big corporate money, instead relying on millions of small donations from his supporters? Where is the big libertarian “sugar daddy” who is pushing libertarian propaganda on all the networks and is pushing a big campaign to end the Federal Reserve and slash the military?
The answer is obvious. The people I “claim” to despise want nothing to do with a libertarian society. Corporate fascism, replete with massive government regulations and cheap money from the Federal Reserve discount window, serves them perfectly well.

There is nothing they would like less than a free market were their unsound business practices would leave them bankrupt in a matter of months.

If I am REALLY so confused and full of it, surely you could set me straight with a more full fledged critique. You can keep your anger and pity, I am dealing in facts and empirical evidence.

33

I am afraid it is you who have a woeful misunderstanding of history.

There certainly were some economic panics during the 19th century. But the notion that the stability of the economic was far greater under the Federal Reserve has been dis-proven.

See Tom Woods on this subject:

There have not been fewer and shallower recessions since gold was abandoned, and the panics of the 19th century were caused not by gold but by inflationary paper money. In modern times banking crises have skyrocketed, with 124 of them from 1970 to 2007.

Furthermore, you have many misconceptions regarding the Gold Standard. The size of the economy is not constrained by the physical amount of gold. This assumption is based on the assumption that economies can only grow with an expansion of the money supply. This is not how things worked when we had a gold standard. In fact the money became more valuable during that time. The economy grew and the money people saved could buy more things. Prices adjust.

Certainly you wouldn’t dispute the fact that the US economy was far larger in 1900 than it was in 1840? You seem stuck on the idea that economic growth can only be accomplished with the creation of new paper money to be injected into the economy. Under the classical system of economics, inflation was considered destructive, NOT imperative for economic growth. The malinvestment and economic dislocations caused by fiat money creation are incalculable. Savings are destroyed.

As to the other merits of the Gold Standard,

The British achieved the most pronounced and sustained economic growth of any society in the history of the world while on the classical gold standard, which had been abandoned and replaced by the gold exchange standard by the 1920s.

Additionally what we have had is a dollar that’s lost over 95 percent of its value, while it held or gained value before the transition to fiat money. Think about what that means for people’s ability to save for old age.

The great economist Ludwig von Mises said that sound money deserved to be ranked beside written constitutions and bills of rights as protections of the liberties of the people. It is as essential to our rights as any legal protections or Supreme Court cases. The modern expansive surveillance state exists as a result of fiat money.

34

Hi, jayarod7.

You posted a long response to me, but managed to overlook my question: What is your suggested replacement for the “fiat money” you complain of ?

If private banks will print notes in your preferred embodiment, explain how that differs from “fractional reserve banking.”

If you want to get a good reception here, you should focus on specific answers to specific questions not rhetoric like “swallowed fantasies and falsehoods” or “violent expropriation of the citizens wealth to be spent at the whims of political creatures.”

35

I’m surprised there’s not a long-standing thread on why gold isn’t money.
Then you could just direct people there instead of arguing each case individually.

Seems to me some people don’t ever get it.
It’s like trying to explain thermodynamics. Some people never understand where the energy goes.
Explaining that the psychological value of gold is, in fact, fiat money doesn’t register with them.

Also, here’s something interesting about gold-
all the experts telling you to buy gold,
all of them, radio, tv, internet and elsewhere,
they all have one thing in common:

Every one of those men telling you to buy gold owns gold they want to sell.
Inherent conflict of interest is so obvious that everybody should see it immediately.

36

Yes. Really, “let the free market solve everything!” is just the mirror image to Communist totalitarianism; “if government planning is sometimes useful, then surely society would be better if everything was planned and controlled by the government!” Which as history shows doesn’t work very well. Picking a single principle and extending it to the logical extreme is not a good way of running a society in the real world.

Certainly. Libertarian ideas remove restraints from their behavior, lower their taxes, render the common people helpless to resist them, and puff up their egos.

Because it’s blatant amoral lunacy. Often with a strong dose of racism and sexism to further alienate people. And for the simple reason that American politics is structured to produce a two-party system regardless of the merits of the smaller parties.

37

I see what you did there with your 8th, 9th, and 10th words.

38

…so do I now.

39

So you’re a what non-obfuscatory speech would call a libertarian?

40

I on the other hand am in the classical sense a sorcerer. Fear my magic!
I can travel faster that a horse can run, create fire without flint and steel, conjure voices and images from glass, have a box full of winter’s cold even in midsummer - yup, that’s a sorcerer.