Stabilization is Chaos: the shirt
I hate to post this but it is just a fact that one of the perks of working a the Mises Institute is that you get to wear new shirts even before they are available to everyone else.
Hence, I was able to put this gem on--with a Hayek quote on the back--just when it came and before it can be made available through the store. So why am I posting this? Just because the shirt turns out to be incredibly great and I can't resist. It will be available before the weekend, we hope.
The front says: Stabilization is Chaos. The back says: "Monetary policy all over the world has followed the advice of the stabilizers. It is high time that their influence, which has already done harm enough, should be overthrown."
If you have to ask...etc.
Comments (17)
Michael E. Lawrence
No one loves your bow ties more than I do, Jeffrey, but I'm not sure that they go well this this shirt...
Published: September 30, 2008 2:36 PM
Jeffrey Tucker
You might have a point there.
Published: September 30, 2008 2:41 PM
Anonymous Wanker
Jeff is still a sexy beast. Is there any symbolic behind the white rectangle or is it just supposed to make the text harder to read?
Published: September 30, 2008 3:16 PM
Stanley Pinchak
Wanker,
I think it's so the "o" can be discerned without being there.
Published: September 30, 2008 3:42 PM
Arend
Wanker, behind the stabilizers are always people with guns. The O is the point out where that people should point their guns at when they are of the opinion that the ideas expressed are too 'dangerous'. Or it's just what Stanley says... ;)
Published: September 30, 2008 4:44 PM
John Delano
Jeffrey has to include a bow tie no matter what else he is wearing, unless he is making bread at Tom Woods's house. ;)
Published: September 30, 2008 6:02 PM
Steven Shaw
I don't get it. Stabilisation is chaos... I'm pretty new to Austrian views and economics in general. Can anyone point at a good book or article?
Published: September 30, 2008 8:12 PM
jon
if you are holding a gun, you are the stabilizer. you are the weapons platform. but that is not a conversation for this blog. :)
Published: September 30, 2008 8:16 PM
Jeffrey Tucker
So, here's the thing. In the 1930s, it emerged that politicians believed that you could use state tools to stabilize markets in the midst of business cycles. The measures are typically of two kinds: fiscal and monetary. With fiscal policy, you spend money to boost demand and pump the consumer sector. With monetary policy, you inflate prices to keep wages from falling with deflationary pressure. both ideas sound ok but it turns out that there are always secondary effects. Fiscal tricks creates deficits which crowd out private investment and delay recovery. Monetary tricks loot savers and create interest rate distortions which delay recovery. Mostly they make the world an even crazier place and wreck whatever chances prosperity has. so in the name of stabilization, you get choas. If you really want stabilization, you have to permit the "anarchy" of the markets to prevail -- a paradox to be sure and certainly worth a shirt!
Published: September 30, 2008 8:50 PM
Jeffrey Tucker
In sum, the attempt to stabilize markets through the state ("stabilization") leads to chaos. At the same time, you have to permit the "chaos" of the market to bring about genuine stabilization.
I can tell this is going to be a popular shirt ;)
Published: September 30, 2008 9:10 PM
Jim Fedako
What about Chodorov and "Anyone who calls me a conservative gets a punch in the nose." That would be a great t-shirt.
Published: September 30, 2008 9:19 PM
Book 'em Danno
Another way of thinking about stabilization is thinking about an arbitrary level of aggregate prices of arbitrarily selected goods/services/commodities that the arbitrary powers have decided to create or maintain or enforce through the arbitrary tools Jeff Tucker mentioned. But if prices are not able to move with the ebb and flow of supply and demand then someone will always be benefitting at the expense of someone else, and the overall productivity will decrease. So much for stability! Price stability is a destructive myth.
Published: September 30, 2008 11:32 PM
Will
Jeffery are you related to Benjamin Tucker?
Published: September 30, 2008 11:57 PM
nutsack
Jeffrey you could have made did it a little cooler....I guess you guys don't send mechandise to New zealand anyway...
Published: October 1, 2008 2:18 AM
Steven Shaw
Thanks for the explanations. I didn't realise that "stabilisation" was synonymous with govt intervention and control.
I'm a saver and so I know the evils of paying tax on interest most of which is dwarfed by the rate of inflation. It's pretty nasty. And those savings could perhaps soon be wiped out because we don't have deposits insurance here in Australia :).
Published: October 1, 2008 10:15 AM
Steven Shaw
Hmmm so
(Bad) Stabilisation => (Bad) Chaos
but
(Good) Chaos => (Good) Stabilisation
It reminds me of eval/apply because it's kind of circular. Now that's a cool logo.
Published: October 1, 2008 10:26 AM
John
I am convinced Jeffrey Tucker wears a bow tie 24/7.
Published: October 1, 2008 10:01 PM