Beck is an opportunist and only half libertarian, but if you can stand him this is a pretty good show, especially once the Mises Institute economists Tom Woods and Yuri Maltsev appear (hat tip Lew Rockwell):
Beck, Woods & Maltsev on Hayek
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Tag Archives: collectivism
File under Western Civilization, Decline of: Krugman wins Nobel
The market has been severely hamstrung for decades, and now that it is fainting from loss of blood, its vampire captors point to it and say, “see, markets need to be restrained or else they fail.”
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I won’t actually comment on Krugman, other than to say that he is a socialist, and like many of his breed who do not actually implement collectivist scams (as opposed to Raines, Paulson, Mozillo, Congress, et al.) but provide intellectual support for them, he seems to have a soul, albeit a lost one.
Anyone who understands the principles of the market and defends them in public these days must feel the way I do: that we are simply narrating the decline. You can’t argue with history. You can just put it down as you see it, now in the hope of carrying a few embers of common sense through or out of the West as it enters some kind of dark age.
It is astounding that after recently observing Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Peron, Castro, Chavez and a hundred other tin-pot dictators destroy or hobble their nations through various forms of collectivism, the entire West is now leaping headlong in that same direction, with hardly a second thought. No credit is given to the principles of individualism, private property and freedom of contract, nor the great market economy that created the prosperity these societies are so eager to squander. The market has been hamstrung for years, and now that it is fainting from loss of blood, its vampire captors point to it and say, “see, markets need to be restrained or else they fail.”
This episode will play out over generations, and it will end with tens of millions dead and the end of the very civilization that codified respect for the individual.
The end of the Enlightenment means the end of freedom and the end of freedom means the end of centuries of increasing living standards, from food and health care, to travel and communication, to privacy and personal security.
The West is simply finished. It’s best hope is balkanization, in case any regional pockets of common sense remain, though I can’t think of any that are physically and culturally strong enough to withstand the violence to come. Perhaps Switzerland, for a while.
A chill in the air
Volume was downright anemic today after shorts were done covering at the open. Few were touching the market on the high plateau that formed. Look at DIA (Dow Diamonds Trust) volume:
Click image for sharper view. Source: Bigcharts.com
Isn’t that creepy? I heard a Bloomberg reporter say that the NYSE floor had an atmosphere of exhaustion this afternoon. There doesn’t seem to be any enthusiasm for stocks are these prices, save from the cheerleaders on TV. I would be very surprised if this were a lasting rally.
Where are we headed? History leads the way.
Our collective reality is going through a huge phase shift this fall. This is one of those events that sets the stage for drastic social changes. This would be a great catharsis if only the West had not lost its moral compass and embraced collectivism. Instead, our oligarchy is ensuring that the foreseeable future will be a never ending nightmare.
Collectivism always leads to economic and political horrors. Apparently Americans have learned no lessons from Russia and China’s experiences in the 20th Century, nor innumerable smaller failures at home (the Fed, FDIC, entitlements) so they are doomed to repeat their worst mistakes.
Those looking for a bottom should be prepared to wait at least two generations. The USSR lasted from 1917 to 1989. China was only communist from the 1940s to the early 1980s. Argentina’s economy collapsed in the 1930s and has never recovered. There, kleptocracy replaces kleptocracy, because the people fail to understand that they do not need this giant racket they call a government.
Freedom is a very, very rare human condition. Those of us who experienced a relatively high degree of it in the US prior to 2001 are lucky to have those memories.
Almost by definition, not many people are likely to accept my view of affairs at this stage of history. In Russia, the government was not accepted as the big joke it was until the 1980s, when everyone had finally learned their lesson. In Stalin’s day, one did not dare laugh. The whole nation had the air of a US airport security checkpoint: very serious business, these sacrifices for the collective good.
People do not want to accept that their reality is this horrible, so most simply don’t. Willfully blind to the danger, they don’t stand up to the outrages (fight), nor do they flee (fright). So the horrors progress with no resistance, even though this is still the phase where they might be stopped, if only people had more faith in themselves and less in their government.
History is full of the futile and fatal enterprises of collectivism, and once on a path to ruin, nations seem to stay the course. Why did the French and later the Germans march all the way to Moscow? Why did Macedonia under Alexander try to conquer India? Couldn’t they see that it was madness?
