The WSJ (Daniel Henninger) suggests that the Republicans develop a new strategy: celebrating private enterprise. Interesting idea. Henninger suggests that they read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/9550/maybe-economics-matters-after-all/
Maybe Economics Matters After All
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Political arbitrage university– if that were actually a strategy with a realistic chance of winning, wouldn’t it behoove a third party to adopt it as its platform (ie, Libertarian Party??!?!) and thereby become the first third party to sweep an election?
Asking the Republican party to adopt a message of free enterprise would be a 180 from current policy and a largely self-defeating measure: “Help us get into power so we can use the opportunity to take power away from ourselves once we’re there.”
Nice try, WSJ, but these people live to rule you and I, not to make our lives better.
Grow up, children. Daddy’s an abusive alcoholic and no matter how much you cry and tell him his behavior hurts you, he can’t and won’t change his ways. The firewater just tastes too good.
“All that’s needed is just one Republican who can explain this idea halfway as well as Ronald Reagan.”
Uhh… can you say Ron Paul? He is one republican who can explain the free market better than Reagan.
This article completely overlooks him, but somehow has the wherewithal to mention Henry Hazlitt.
Ron Paul is antithetical to the Republican party in all honesty. He likely just runs under their banner because it means he can get elected rather than run on a third party ticket and get buried. He is, if anything, a remnant of the old right that actually cared about limiting government. The two remaining parties are merely different aspects of the same redistributive principle. If the Republican party were to champion the free market it would be rhetorical only, underneath will be the reality of the same crony capitalism that gives the free market a bad name to the less informed. Rather, both the Republican and Democrat parties should be encouraged to run as honestly as they can on what they actually are, which put simply is a list of who they plan to take from and to who they plan to give those takings. If that can happen, it might be possible for a third part to sell themselves as a truly free market, free individual, free enterprise party and win.
I can’t but think that as the WSJ directs its readers to Hazlitt and Hayek, von Mises and Rothbard will become more relevant to larger contingent of very intelligent people. This can only be an enlightening activity for new portion of the population.
If the Republicans are looking for answers, it would behoove those who would like to lead their party to read some political philosophy. There’s over 300 years of truly liberal thought under-represented.
I can’t but think that as the WSJ directs its readers to Hazlitt and Hayek, von Mises and Rothbard will become more relevant to larger contingent of very intelligent people. This can only be an enlightening activity for a new portion of the population.
If the Republicans are looking for answers, it would behoove those who would like to lead their party to read some political philosophy. There’s over 300 years of truly liberal thought under-represented.
Where can I get this t shirt?
http://mises.org/store/Henry-Hazlitt-T-Shirt-Gold-P232.aspx
nothing beats the Rothbard shirt – It just looks so cool.
As for the Mises shirt, no disrespect but I’ve had people ask me if that was a NAZI shirt I was wearing!
Can we get one of him when he was younger and put it on the black background?
great shirt…but the yellow…I will never wear it.
Talk about bad ideas. Here is a suggestion for price floor on Crude Oil. Of course, the proponent is a alternative energy investment banker.
There is a fairly significant minority of republicans who never left the “old right”. A minority to be sure, but large enough that the rest of the party can’t ignore it. They make up the lower levels, and generally don’t want to be in the “smoke filled rooms” where the rest of the party throws away our freedom.
My uncle, an economics prof turned me on to Austrians when he mailed me “The Road to Serfdom”. In it he explains that the fascists and the socialists hated each other but would rally together to hate anything “liberal” (Free market). Even though it was written so long ago, I am amazed how similar today’s political landscape looks like what he outlined in his book.
Oh and LOL at Barney Frank for calling for prosecutions for the meltdown. He says we should make any bad practices that led up to this illegal. Does that include government making laws?
I find the whole principal of a body of people conjuring up laws to be pretty funny. A law is inviolable regardless if it is written down or people agree to it. Laws of men are just nothing but contracts, and I haven’t signed on to all of these…
Hey!
I like the yellow.
I used to be a conservative Republican. No more. It is plain to see that Republicans are intent to use their power to redistribute to their friends. This includes the middle class and Wall Street (which both parties kow-tow too).
Their actions over the past eight years prove that they do not believe that liberty is the goal, but rather use their “support” of liberty to gain libertarian votes-then vote only in favor of liberty only if utilitarian (reelection) principles dictate liberty.
Republicans are a lost cause. They have shown themselves as they truly are and we should have no hesitation to let them go extinct from the political landscape. This is the opportunity – if your goal is liberty, do not vote Republican even if there is no other choice.
I used to be a Republican, too. I didn’t leave the party; it left me. I can’t help but think that the Republican defeat in Nov was largely due to people like us either not voting or voting libertarian.
I am getting this shirt.
And to the former Republicans here, I used to be a liberal democrat. And well, the Democratic Party didn’t leave me, I left it.
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