The Case Against The State

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

just to enlighten some

link

There are many varieties of libertarianism alive in the world today, and they owe a great debt to the work of Ludwig von Mises. His top American student was Murray N. Rothbard, and Rothbardianism remains the center of its intellectual gravity, its primary muse and conscience, its strategic and moral core, and the focal point of debate even when its name is not acknowledged. The reason is that Rothbard forged a blend between Austrian economics and natural-rights political theory of the old liberal school to create a modern libertarianism, a political-economic-ideological system that proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the trappings of left and right and their central plans for how state power should be used. Libertarianism is the radical alternative that says state power is both unworkable and immoral.

"Mr. Libertarian," Murray N. Rothbard was called, and "The State’s Greatest Living Enemy." He remains so. Yes, he had many predecessors from which he drew: the whole of the classical-liberal tradition, the Austrian economists, the American antiwar tradition, and the natural-rights tradition. But it was he who put all these pieces together into a unified system that seems inevitable once it has been defined and defended. The individual pieces of the system are straightforward (self-ownership, strict property rights, free markets, antistate in every conceivable respect) but the implications are earthshaking.

Once you are exposed to the complete picture – and For A New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century – you cannot forget it. This book has been out of print but will appear early next year from the Mises Institute. More than any other of his works, this book explains why Rothbard seems to grow in stature every year (his influence has vastly risen since his death) and why Rothbardianism has so many enemies on the left, right, and center.

Quite simply, the science of liberty that he brought into clear relief is as brilliant in the hopes it creates for a free world as it is unforgiving of error. Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical-explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be.

Rothbard set out to write this book soon after he got a call from Tom Mandel, an editor at Macmillan who had seen an op-ed by Rothbard in the New York Times in the spring of 1971. It was the only commission Rothbard ever received from a commercial publishing house. Looking at the original manuscript, which is so consistent in its typeface and nearly complete after its first draft, it does seem that it was nearly effortless joy for him to write. It is seamless, unrelenting, and energetic.

It is also striking how Rothbard chose to pull no punches in his argument. Other intellectuals on the receiving end of such an invitation might have tended to water down the argument to make it more palatable. Why, for example, make a full case for no state when a case for limited government might bring more people into the movement? Why condemn the US? Why go into such depth about privatizing courts and roads and water? Why enter into the sticky area of regulation of consumption and of personal morality? And why go into such detail about monetary affairs and central banking and the like?

Trimming and compromising for the sake of the times or the audience was just not Rothbard’s way. He knew that he had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to present the full package of libertarianism in all its glory, and he was not about to pass it up. And thus do we read here: not just a case for cutting government but eliminating it altogether, not just an argument for assigning property rights but for deferring to the market even on questions of contract enforcement, and not just a case for cutting welfare but for banishing the entire welfare-warfare state.

Whereas other attempts to make a libertarian case, both before and after this book, might typically call for transitional or half measures, or be willing to concede as much as possible to statists, that is not what we get from Murray. Not for him such schemes as school vouchers or the privatization of government programs that should not exist at all. Instead, he presents and follows through with the full-blown and fully bracing vision of what liberty can be. This is why so many other similar attempts to write the Libertarian Manifesto have not stood the test of time, and yet this book remains in high demand.

Similarly, there have been many books on libertarianism that have appeared in the intervening years that covered philosophy alone, politics alone, economics alone, or history alone. Those that have put all these subjects together have usually been collections by various authors. Rothbard alone had the mastery of all these areas to be able to write an integrated manifesto – one that has never been displaced. And yet his approach is typically self-effacing: he constantly points to other writers and intellectuals of the past and his own generation.

In addition, some introductions of this sort are written to give the reader an easier passage into a difficult book, but that is not the case here. He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Every page exudes energy and passion that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

The book is still regarded as "dangerous" precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

[babesagainstmachines]

just to enlighten some

link

Is it any good?

[Mal Volio]

The price of everything, value of nothing, eh ?

[Stars]

The rothbardians ignore the fact that some of their conceptualisations of property conflict with self ownership

It's a contradiction, but there is too much privelige at stake for them to be honest.

[Injin]

The rothbardians ignore the fact that some of their conceptualisations of property conflict with self ownership

It's a contradiction, but there is too much privelige at stake for them to be honest.

Indeed they do.

If they changed their model from land ownership to paying others for the service of not going there, all woudl eb well.

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

The rothbardians ignore the fact that some of their conceptualisations of property conflict with self ownership

It's a contradiction, but there is too much privelige at stake for them to be honest.

where there is no property there is no justice

[Stars]

where there is no property there is no justice

Wherever there is bad property - ditto

[Stars]

Indeed they do.

If they changed their model from land ownership to paying others for the service of not going there, all woudl eb well.

Yes ..just one fly in the ointment

[Injin]

where there is no property there is no justice

Land ownership isn't property - it's a fiction.

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

Wherever there is bad property - ditto

go on then whats bad property

is it property that the State doesnt tax

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

of course at this present moment in time the state is controlled by the bankers

who have so far pulled off the biggest heist in history

some thoughtful quotes

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article11551.html

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.†- Henry David Thoreau

Time is running out. The public relations campaign being conducted by the Obama administration, Federal Reserve and nation’s largest banks is beginning to fail. The lies, half-truths, and cover-up regarding the solvency of the largest banks in the U.S. will be revealed as reality interrupts their master plan. The politicians and government bureaucrats know that 80% of the population don’t understand or care about economic issues. The plan is insidious, systematic and deceptively simple:

Part 1 of the plan was for the Federal Reserve to print billions of dollars and lend this money to the insolvent banks in return for worthless toxic assets as collateral. They have not revealed which banks received the money or the “assets†that have been hidden on the Federal Reserve balance sheet.

Part 2 of the plan was to reduce short term interest to 0% so that the insolvent banks could borrow money from the Fed for free and then lend it out at 6% or higher to consumers and businesses. Therefore, risk averse senior citizens like my mother are receiving 0.5% on their money market funds, while the horribly run insolvent banks are being propped up and enriched by the Fed. With billions in TARP funds, the FASB no longer requiring mark to market accounting, and free money from the Fed, the large banks reported fake profits in the 1st Quarter of 2009.

Part 3 of the plan was the fake stress test conducted by Tim Geithner, his Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve. The entire stress test was a publicity stunt conducted to provide a false sense of confidence in the largest banks so they could fool investors into pouring billions of new capital into their bankrupt banks. The assumptions used in the stress test were stress free. Unemployment is already higher than the worst case scenario. The stress test time frame ended in 2010. The next wave of mortgage resets and foreclosures will hit in 2011 and 2012. William Black, former bank regulator and author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One, concluded:

If Only the Dead Could be Stimulated

James Hagner: It shocked me and I laughed all at the same time and though how in the world could they do this.

TV Commentator: 83 year old James Hagner says he isn’t too big on surprises, but he got quite a big one when he visited his mailbox last Thursday.

James Hagner: I got a check for my mother. She has been dead 43 years, and I got a check for my mother. The $250 stimulus check in the mail.

TV Commentator: As part of President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinstatement act, the Social Security Administration somehow mailed a $250 stimulus check to his mother Rose, who passed away Memorial Day 1967.

James Hagner: I didn’t even expect to get one for myself, but to get one for my mother from 43 years ago…

Interviewer: kind of strange, right?

James Hagner: Yes sir.

TV Commentator: We contacted Social Security representatives over the phone and they told us there is a good explanation here. First of all, Social Security has mailed or is mailing out 52 million checks, and of those 8,000 to 10,000 have been sent to people who are deceased. Social Security blames the error on the strict mid-June deadline for mailing out all the checks which didn’t leave officials much time to clean up all their records. So that means there are 8 to 10 thousand James Hagners all over the country getting the same surprise in the mail box. The thing is what do you do with the check? Social Security kindly asks that you return it. As far as Hagner is concerned, he would like to frame it and hang it on a wall.

James Hagner: I just want to keep it as a souvenir. That’s all. I will never cash it.

This is just another quaint funny story about our incompetent government working to improve our lives. They sent $2.5 million to dead people. Social Security’s records haven’t been “cleaned up†for people who died before we put a man on the moon? Picture the scene when a government bureaucrat explains to your family that taking out your liver instead of your appendix was due to some computer system glitch. Once the government puts its efficiency expertise gained from running the IRS, Social Security, the Postal Service, and Amtrak to work on your healthcare, the fun will really begin. It will make dealing with Verizon’s “customer service†seem like a treat.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. A report by Deloitte Touche last week said that about $500 billion of the $787 billion in stimulus will be spent through the "traditional (government) procurement network." Using past performance as a gauge, Deloitte Touche predicted as much as $50 billion will end up being fraudulently spent — or 10% of the total. The entire United States government outlays in 1952 totaled less than $50 billion. Now, $50 billion is an acceptable fraud write-off.

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one." - Thomas Paine

“Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.â€Andrew Jackson

The chart below shows that after 182 years as a country we had accumulated a National Debt of $389 billion. Then in 1971, President Nixon closed the gold window. The Federal Reserve was free to print dollars with no constraints. And print they did. Politicians used the printed dollars to spend on any costly initiative that would help them get re-elected. From 1970 to 1980, the National Debt went up by 2.4 times. From 1980 until 1990, the National Debt went up by 3.5 times. From 1990 until 2000, the National Debt went up by 1.8 times. From 2000 until today, the National Debt has gone up 2.0 times. Based on the spending implemented and proposed over the next few years, it will go up 1.5 times during Obama’s 1st term. It will have gone from 33.3% of GDP in 1980 to 100% of GDP by the end of Obama’s 1st term. At that point we will have entered the Argentina – Weimer Republic zone.

End of

Fiscal Year US Gross Debt

USD billions US Gross Debt as % of GDP

1910 2.6

1920 25.9

1930 16.2

1940 43.0 52.4

1950 257.4 94.1

1960 290.2 56.1

1970 389.2 37.6

1980 930.2 33.3

1990 3,233 55.9

2000 5,674 58

2005 7,933 64.6

2007 9,008 65.5

2008 10,699 74.6

3rd Quarter of 2009 11,383 82.5

“Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.†Wendell Phillips

“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.†- Herbert Hoover

“In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.†- Voltaire

Warren Buffet described the problem the U.S. was getting itself into a few years ago:

“In effect, our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4 percent more than we produce—that’s the trade deficit—we have, day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.â€

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.†- Henry David Thoreau

“How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.†- Henry David Thoreau

The largest banks in the United States have balance sheets populated by trillions in toxic worthless assets. The lifeblood of any bank is deposits. If a bank is denied its deposits, it will collapse. There are 8,000 other banks and 8,000 credit unions in the country. Thousands of these institutions never made a bad loan. If you have money on deposit with one of these mega-banks withdraw the money and deposit it into a small local bank or credit union. You will have the same FDIC insurance and won’t sacrifice any income, since these mega-banks are paying less than 0.5% on your deposits, while charging you 8% for car loans and 20% on credit card balances.

These banks continue to write-off billions in bad credit card and mortgage debt, quarter after quarter. These banks make billions in late fees and interest income by charging 20% to people who pay their debts over time. If the good credits take their business elsewhere, the mega-banks will be left with only bad credits. Most people have 5 to 10 credit cards. Stop using your mega-bank credit card and use a credit card issued by a local bank or credit union. With mortgage rates near generational lows many people have an opportunity to refinance. If this opportunity arises, choose a local bank or credit union. If you decide to buy a car, don’t buy a General Motors or Chrysler vehicle. The government controls these entities. Don’t finance your car through GMAC. By denying the government beast its revenue stream, it will slowly die.

The average individual tax refund for 2008 was $2,700. This was effectively a $200 billion interest free loan to the U.S. government. If every working American walked into their place of employment on Monday morning and increased their W-4 exemptions by 2, we would deny the politicians in Washington of billions for a year. This is a legal way of starving the beast. The corrupt political machinery in Washington DC is dependent upon Americans to spend money. Our spending accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy. Surprisingly, American citizens have more control over the situation than we know. The mega-banks and our government are rotting from the inside like a diseased Oak tree. A gale force wind provided by the prudent Americans can topple the diseased tree.

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.†- Henry David Thoreau

The current fiscal course of the country is unsustainable. We can choose to let the country drift toward a corporate fascist run government which will collapse under the weight of debt, corruption and mismanagement or we can make a stand today with our own money. If enough Americans choose to put the horribly run mega-banks out of business it can be done. There would be absolutely nothing that Obama or Bernanke could do stop it from happening. It is time to do the right thing. Do you know what’s worth fighting for?

“All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.†-Henry David Thoreau

To join the discussion of how to take back our country from the banking cartel and government central planners, go to www.TheBurningPlatform.com.