The End of the World As We Know It?
"And I feel fine." Well, not quite. The pleasures of saying "I told you so" have always been overrated, but they're non-existent these days as the parasite politicians and central bankers, and their willing enablers, non-Misesian economists, wreck the world. Then they use the wreckage as the excuse for vaster inflationism, fascism, and socialism.
But in the maelstrom, we have a job, aside from protecting ourselves and our families to the best of our abilities. That job is to teach discover and teach the truth about freedom and about the crimes and consequences of the state, the empire, central banking, and paper money. The truth is the necessary foundation of the restoration.
What Mises wrote seems ever more prescient:
No one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result.
In 1940, he was leaving Geneva, leaving a war-torn Europe for a centrally planned United States. Disaster was everywhere and there was far less hope to be had than today. He wrote:
How one carries on in the face of unavoidable catastrophe is a matter of temperament. In high school, as was custom, I had chosen a verse by Virgil to be my motto: Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it. I recalled these words during the darkest hours of the war. Again and again I had met with situations from which rational deliberation found no means of escape; but then the unexpected intervened, and with it came salvation. I would not lose courage even now. I wanted to do everything an economist could do. I would not tire in saying what I knew to be true.
Comments (14)
burgreen
Well said.
I am new to these economic truths and am wasting no time or efforts sharing them within my sphere of influence.
Published: October 10, 2008 3:46 PM
David Spellman
There is always a critical moment when lies fail and the truth shines as a bright beacon amid the disaster. If we faithfully expostulate the truth, when that moment comes we will be able to carry the day. The night may grow very dark, but the dawn will come.
Published: October 10, 2008 3:47 PM
Brian McEvoy
Just point people to lewrockwell.com
That site will do the rest.
Published: October 10, 2008 3:51 PM
magnus
Then they use the wreckage as the excuse for vaster inflationism, fascism, and socialism.
Gee, it's almost as though this increase in governmental power were planned all along.
As though the government benefits from chaos and crisis.
As though government would have an incentive to engineer chaos and crisis.
As though.
Published: October 10, 2008 4:14 PM
Robert
As though... the government, as Madison said, was again moving toward "...the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government.."
Published: October 10, 2008 9:07 PM
Stanley Pinchak
magnus,
now you are just being facetious (or sarcastic). :) Anyone who has studied the state in any depth I am sure has run across the Hegelian Dialectic. That is the modus operandi of the state as so clearly documented by Robert Higgs. Too much power to be gained. To not seize it would be to betray the nature of the state. We couldn't have that now could we?
Published: October 10, 2008 9:25 PM
meh
Curious that Rockwell and his ilk are using the genius of Mises and the (earlier, at least) Austrians to mount an anti-state crusade. Mises recognized a role for the state. Granted, nothing like what we're seeing unfold today (i.e., nationalization of the banking industry). I'm just tired of hearing the rants on this blog about how inherently evil the state is, while wrapping oneself in Mises. Let's hear from Mises himself: "Government as such is not only not an evil, but the most necessary and beneficial institution, as without it no lasting social cooperation and no civilization could be developed and preserved. It is a means to cope with an inherent imperfection of many, perhaps of the majority of all people." Again: "All great achievements of mankind were the product of a spontaneous effort on the part of individuals; government substitutes coercion for voluntary action. It is true, government is indispensable because men are not faultless." Mises recognized a role for limited government. So let's be careful when we throw around rhetoric about "the crimes and consequences of the state," as though the state per se were necessarily an evil thing. It's not the solution, I grant you. I'm just saying, be careful.
Published: October 10, 2008 11:51 PM
Jeremy
Hi Meh,
The smaller the state, the more good it is - the larger, the more evil it is.
I don't think most of us here want to abolish the state, but rather have it serve the people instead of the other way around.
But Llewell's article (perhaps unlike the commentators you are addressing) isn't attacking the state as an institution per se but the central bank and centrally planned policies of all kinds.
Published: October 11, 2008 12:09 AM
meh
Jeremy:
Fair enough. I, too, would like to see the state scaled back to its proper confines. So, I suspect we broadly agree. I simply worry that supporters or adherents to Austrian economics--granted, perhaps not the serious scholars and economists--make their "evangelization" task all the more difficult with uncautious rhetoric. Venting is natural. Frustration at seeing fundamentally unsound policies again and again touted and advanced, only to deepen and broaden the problems facing America, gets released, but then people who otherwise might be willing to listen to serious solutions offered from serious voices just shake their heads and tune it out.
I'm pro-not-shooting-oneself-in-the-foot. :)
Published: October 11, 2008 12:19 AM
Brad
Yeah, I have shot myself in the foot many a time. It's something I and many other people need to work on.
If our message is to be accepted people need to not see us has lunatics but logical thinking individuals who feel the same way they do about the status quo.
Published: October 11, 2008 1:09 AM
Ed
Gentlemen,
I agree completely. I have often been speaking quite convincingly with someone who is clearly interested in my point of view, only to cross the line and lose them completely. Some things which seem self evident to us, can be quite a turn off to people who have not spent much time thinking on the subject or developed an indepth knowledge of the cause and effect of government intervention.
Published: October 11, 2008 9:39 AM
jason4liberty
What is the ethical basis for the State's power? To me, this is the fundamental question. To most (if not all) of the anarchist you will find on this site is that there is not one. The very existance of a state - the monopolist of power - implies that the rights of individuals will be violated - for what else is power?
I have always wanted less government, and for people to be responsible for themselves. Really what I want is for me to be ABLE to be responsible for myself, and to shed the viscious burden of everyone who is freeloading off of me. Then after I started reading on this site, I thought I was a minarchist. Then the more I read, and the more I thought, I found that there is NO ethical justification for a state (involuntary monopolist of power) starting from private property rights. In fact, I would posit that a private property anarchism is the logical conclusion of the arguements that most of us use to convince people and make our points. It was for me.
You should note that Mises always (almost always?) condemns government action in the market. And the enforcement of law actually exists in the market... Even the ideas of great thinkers can be developed and expanded. The discussion of private defense, police, and fire protection is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intervention sentiment of von Mises.
Also, who would you rather have defending you from perils - the company who has to pay out for letting the peril get you, or the government agent with no direct incentive to provide you excellent service?
As an aside, I have purchased 5 copies of Hazelitt's "Economics in One Lesson" to use as an outreach tool. I am up to 7 people now. But when
I hand it to them, I always say "Now realize that Hazelitt is fairly moderate by today's standards. He talks about several functions in society that he says are the responsibility of government, but that I and others think could/should be provided by the market."
Published: October 11, 2008 11:22 AM
Jason H.
The two quotes by Mises in Rockwell's post strike at the core of a central feeling I have had since I began to casually study economics. In the same way that many people enlisted in the military after 9/11, I want to enlist in this war of ideas. Though I am a salesman by trade,
I am investigating pursuing a master's degree or even a doctorate in economics with the intent to teach part-time. Could anyone suggest some universities that have a relatively decent economics program in the eyes of an Austrian, or at least have one or a few notable Austrians on staff, especially in the Chicagoland region?
Published: October 11, 2008 12:13 PM
Maturin
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
W.B.Yeats, 1921
Published: October 12, 2008 6:13 PM