The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism
The anti-capitalists are still with us, and how. Robert Murphy has decided to give them an in-your-face economics education that they won't forget — ever.
His approach comes from years of teaching undergraduates and dealing with the most common errors. He also draws from his teaching experience at the Mises University to offer an Austrian perspective on economics.
He offers explanations and examples that are clear and compelling. What's wrong with zoning? Murphy explains it. Isn't outsourcing destroying America? On the contrary says Murphy: it is a wonderful for Americans! Shouldn't the rich fork over in the name of social justice? Murphy says that this would make us all poorer.
Isn't the Fed protecting us against depressions and inflations? Precisely the opposite, he says: the Fed is causing economic instability.
In so many ways, this book is a product of the Mises Institute. Murphy learned his economics at the Mises University (while getting his PhD at New York University) and then began to teach at our programs. He now serves as the headmaster of the Mises Institute online classroom.
This could be the most accessible and compelling introduction to free-market economics since Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. Certainly economics has rarely been this fun! The socialists and Keynesian of the world will hate this book and make it a target of all their venom. But if they read it, they might learn something.
This book is sure to become a hot seller, and a major source of controversy on campuses. A previous book in this series landed on the New York Times bestseller list. How splendid to think that with this book, the Austrian perspective is receiving yet another boost in public life.
Some topics covered:
* Why central planning has never worked and never will
* How prices operate in a free market (and why socialist schemes like rent control always backfire)
* How labor unions actually hurt workers more than they help them
* Why increasing the minimum wage is always a bad idea
* Why the free market is the best guard against racism
* How capitalism will save the environment — and why socialist countries were the most polluted on earth
* Raising taxes: why it is never "responsible"
* Why no genuine advocate for the downtrodden could endorse the dehumanizing Welfare State
* The single biggest myth underlying the public's support for government regulation of business
* Antitrust suits: usually filed by firms that lose in free competition
* How tariffs and other restrictions "protect" privileged workers but make other Americans poorer
* The IMF and World Bank: why they don't help poor countries
* Why the industrial revolution was the biggest boon for the middle class in human history
* Plus: Are you a capitalist pig? Take the quiz and find out!
Breezy, witty, but always clear, precise, and elegantly reasoned, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism is a solid and entertaining guide to free market economics written from the perspective of the Austrian School.
Murphy deploys all his abundant talents here, and to spectacular effect.
Comments (9)
Niels van der Linden
Truly wonderful!
Published: March 23, 2007 9:47 AM
Michael
we need more of this... more books for laymen, more television documentaries with austrian perspective in channels such as history channel or discovery channel, more articles written in newspapers, more tv anchors with paleo-libertarian views (one would be a good start!), more austrians at magazines such as time economist newsweek and so on, more austrians at ivyleagues teaching new/future elite austrian economics, etc. etc. etc.
its time for libertarianism to pull a gramsci and "march through the institutions," so to speak.
Published: March 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Nick Bradley
I would like to see a Politically-Incorrect Guide to Foreign Policy and one for Unions.
There are far too many fallacies in the public mind reagarding those two areas.
http://crwl.blogpsot.com
Published: March 23, 2007 10:48 AM
Person
This is wonderful! I saw it on Amazon a few months ago and I couldn't believe there would be a PIG on capitalism, and Robert_P._Murphy would be writing it. If anyone can set the record straight, he can.
Published: March 23, 2007 11:07 AM
Dropout
This is a wonderful idea, I agree that we need to promote our ideas in the mainstream. Thank you Mr. Murphy for your contributions!
However, it will be some time before Austrian economics hits the classrooms of the Ivy League. I was enrolled in a PhD program at one of those universities. I came across a copy of Human Action the summer after completing my qualifying exams and it changed my way of thinking forever. All the contradictions and fallacies of modern economics were exposed by the writings of the great Ludwig von Mises. When I was told by my advisor to "get over" Austrian thinking, I left. These schools don't want original thought, they want to mold you to follow the prevailing paradigms. Sometimes I think I should have stuck it out and used my position as a professor to promote Austrian ideas but I suppose that's always a possibility in the future. Of course, I would have to finish my degree under the supervision of people who have actually heard of Murray Rothbard! Freedom will prevail...
Published: March 23, 2007 11:22 AM
Mark Brabson
I was just browsing through the Mises store and noticed that under the "Buy the Store" option, the MSRP was give as $2041.50 and the "your price" option was given as $2557.35 This can only mean two things:
1. Somebody made a numerical mistake.
2. There is one HELL of an inelastic demand curve for Austrian books currently. :)
Published: March 23, 2007 3:25 PM
Dennis
Dropout,
I sympathize with your comment.
I would like to add that, regarding the Austrian School of Economics, not only freedom, but even more importantly, truth and accuracy in scientific research "will prevail."
Published: March 24, 2007 6:21 AM
Pepe
Congratulations Dr. Murphy!
I am looking forward to purchasing and reading this new book.
Also, I think it is great achievement to have this book published by well-known publisher and this minor-point is good for Austrian Economics.
Published: March 24, 2007 11:48 AM
Lyle
"Generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade." -- Karl Marx
Where a regulatory and welfare state exist, free trade, ie. the elimination of tariffs and the creation of open borders, cannot. The nation which engages in free trade while failing to eliminate the regulatory and welfare state invites its own demise. Such a nation cannot compete against foreign markets that are genuinely free of government intervention. Where the welfare state exists, there cannot be a free flow of labor over national borders without the citizen being plundered by the alien. Where the regulatory state exists, there cannot be an elimination of tariffs on imports from nations whose labor, environmental, and regulatory laws are unparalleled in scope with the domestic market. To do so will invite the migration of business from one nation to the other. In this sense, it is not the more efficient means of production based on available resources, but the lack of government intervention in the foreign market that makes a redistribution of capital attractive.
Free Trade under such conditions will not create more capital or make a more efficient use of resources, it will only redistribute capital and exploit resources through a global monopoly. Free Trade can only exist between nations whose economies are genuinely free. For this very reason, Karl Marx supported Free Trade amongst nations whose economies are not genuinely free. In the Communist Manifesto Marx admits:
"[Communists] fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty-bourgeoisie.
[...]
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time."
Is there any wonder as to why a socialist world government would support free trade, if in nothing more than name only? What seems to have escaped Dr. Robert P. Murphy in his book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism" is that the United States suffers trade deficits with China, not because it is good for America, but because the American economy is more controlled than even that of China. Similarly, the United States suffers the outsourcing of jobs, not because it is good for America, but as a result of greater socialism that has crept into her economy when compared to nations like India and China who continue to free their economies. Indeed, we must ask, Why does the WTO support free trade when we know that the WTO answers to a socialist world government?
Dr. Murphy would have been better to add at least one chapter distinguishing the difference between what has traditionally been know as free trade and what international socialists are pushing on the world in the name of free trade. Dr. Murphy would have been better to have suggested a plan for transitioning America back to a state in which Free Trade would be beneficent for her citizens. Eliminate the welfare state, then open borders. Eliminate environmental, antitrust, labor, and regulatory laws, then lower tariffs.
I support a revenue tariff to pay for the constitutionally limited functions of our federal government for the same reason our Founding Fathers supported a revenue tariff. A revenue tariff is much better than a direct income tax, flat or graduated, that infringe on the privacy of citizens. Also, not all protectionism is bad. Protecting the integrity of the free market from fraud, injury, or theft is a worthwhile cause. Sure we who learn from others' experience can prevent our own injury, theft, or defraudment by refraining from economic intercourse with the criminal. However, this doesn't help he who has had to learn from his own experience or the experience future victims will incur as a result of the criminal being allowed to continue transacting fraudulent or injurious business. A free market needs a judicial system to ensure justice. Justice is protectionism but of a different hue than we have come to know under less endearing rhetoric.
When used properly, a tariff acts in much the same way as the market entrepreneur who raises his prices in direct proportion to government taxation incurred. Is it wrong for the entrepreneur to pass on the taxation incurred especially if his consumer may be a recipient of that taxation in the form of an economic subsidy? How does a market maintain its integrity if other nations are allowed to dump commodities into the U.S. market by subsidizing prices? Should an international judicial order, ie. socialist world government, be erected to protect the integrity of free trade between nations? Genuine free trade does not require participants in agreements to relinquish sovereignty or subject themselves to policies that are not mutually beneficent.
The biggest concern is Dr. Murphy's negligence on the subject of sovereignty. A consumer and producer in a free market have the freedom to transact business with whom they please. A consumer is not restricted from producing necessary commodities for himself even if he can find them at market for cheaper. The consumer who is allowed to retain his sovereignty is equally served if the producer of a desired commodity decides not to sell to the consumer because of some grudge against or dislike for the consumer's religion, race, ethnicity, sex, etc. There is nothing good about being interdependent on nations that are your enemies. Dependency never was self-sufficiency. While a necessity may be acquired at a cheaper price by doing business with an enemy, unless one has the option of self-sufficiency, one is conquered.
Indeed, this is the very hope of Socialists and Mercantilists working for world government. Lenin, the great "Free Trader," revealed this design when commenting on his New Economic Policy that promoted free trade and laissez-faire:
"The Capitalists of the world and their governments, in pursuit of conquest of the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the indicated higher reality and thus will turn into deaf mute blind men. They will extend credits, which will strengthen for us the Communist Party in their countries, and giving us the materials and technology we lack, they will restore our military industry, indispensable for our future victorious attacks on our suppliers. In other words, they will labor for the preparation of their own suicide."
The idea of possessing sovereignty, either as an individual or as a nation, is to be free to practice one's own trade policies even if they are bad ones. It isn't really "free" trade if you are forced to accept the lowering of tariffs coupled with an increase in government regulations over the domestic market. Since the People of the United States have delegated to their government power over the regulation of trade, we must look at the nation as we would an individual. To say that the United States cannot raise a tariff to protect the integrity of its market from other nations who would use fraud, injury, or theft to gain an advantage is the same as telling the producer he must not only accept taxation but also artificially low prices imposed by government. If such a power held by government to raise tariffs is disagreeable to international socialists and alleged free traders, then the elimination of federal power to regulate trade, either through retention by the people or by abdication to international institutions of unelected bureaucrats, can only be accomplished by Constitutional amendment.
Published: June 8, 2007 10:59 PM