/lit/ - Literature

>>930927
>No, peace was maintained because they listened to John Maynard Keynes

Ahahaha. The Marshall Plan certainly helped with reconstruction, no doubt about that. But credit extensions never really reached damaging levels until the 1970s as far as the concept of fiscal, and later neo-Keynesian monetary stimulus go.

It should be noted, that often forgotten is the role Erhard played in transforming W. Germany into a free market economy as well.

>And so if you foresee a collapse of America's financial system, please tell me what you foresee following that?

Who knows, I don't engage in Hegelian mysticism like Socialists do.

>I mean, you betray a deranged bias against "democracy" in every post you make, but you say what you'd actually PREFER.

Constitutional Monarchy, because even if we achieve limited Government, there's no way to enshrine that it will remain so with universal suffrage democracy in place. Democracy engenders the growth of the state, the growth of debt and the growth of short-termist policy for the reasons I've already outlined.

>>930919
I have some misgivings as well. But I believe they're generally quite logically rigorous.

Assume that you don't own yourself. Now, who does? Logically, whoever owns you has a greater claim to ownership over you than you. But on what basis do they make this claim? We've already assumed self-ownership doesn't exist. If you have no basis for a claim to own yourself, then everybody else has less basis for that claim.

>>930896
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL5995251M/Exchange_prices_and_production_in_hyper-inflation_Germany_19
20-1923.

>>930906
>equality under the law

Is a negative right, i.e. a natural right.

What I'm referring to are unscientific beliefs such as blank slateism.

>>930890
>idiotic ideologies

Like egalitarianism you mean? That's about as unscientific an ideology as there possibly exists.

>>930871
>Which your precious 19th century constitutional monarchies more or less encouraged, until it led to the Great War.

It was actually diplomatic blundering on the part of Wilhelm II, Bismarck, another 'imperialist' had worked extremely well to avoid such confrontations by maintaining friendly relations with Russia.

As for post-1945 Europe, peace was maintained because of free trade and increasing prosperity, it had nothing to do with monarchies or democracies, as democracies are not some religious force that can never do any wrong nor ever start wars.

>The Weimar economic collapse had more to do with the Treaty of Versailles than it did with Central Banking on the part of the Germans.

I actually agree with this in part. Though it must be noted I don't think this made war inevitable, as Keynes claimed, and as Mantoux demonstrated in his refutation of Economic Consequences.

>It had to do with unrestricted greed on the part of a 19th century Liberalism that you admire so much.

The same 'greed' that caused the Austro-Hungarian Emperor to make peace offerings in 1917 you mean? Which were by your democratic crusader Wilson who was driven irrationally insane by a hatred of European Monarchism?

>It might give you some glimpse of the dustbin of history, which is where all your deeply-held convictions are invariably headed.

The really funny thing is that you think you can keep up your policies of deficit spending, credit extensions and debt financed booms forever actually.

Paradigms don't last forever you fool. Keynes is on the way out.

>>930860
Fuck year.

>Well, McKinsey was clearly so accurate about Enron, and cell phones being a niche market only

Fallacy of poisoning the well.

Anyway. Monarchy or no monarchy, what drives real wage rates up is capital investment, it's just that a monarch has less of an incentive to exploit his nation's capital stock for short term gain than a democratic caretaker government does.

>Ayn Rand's dexedrine-addled vagina.

Who said anything about objectivism?

Are you strawmanning again? Now, now, construct a rational argument or I'll have to school you again.

>nightmarish repressive shithole of a country, which understandably produces jihadists, and whose most repellent aspects America is forced to ignore because of our reliance on Saudi Arabia's oil.

Non causa pro causa.

Monarchies do not produce jihadism or islamic extremism. Why do you the US supports the relatively secular Mubarak in Egypt who bans the overwhelmingly popular Islamic party from participating in elections?

Muslims would vote in Islamic parties in a democracy, so your point is moot.

>Hayekian bugbears that seem to haunt you

Hayek actually believed in concept of public goods though, which many libertarians disagree with as a fallacious concept in of themselves. Not sure why you're bringing him up, his improvements to the theory of credit extension were good though.

>nightmare that you are proposing.

That people control their own property, how nightmarish!

>>930826
>The UTTER CERTAINTY that you know the SOLE cause of the Great Depression (Big Government) and the reason for its duration (BIg Government).
>Doesn't understand the business cycle

In issuing fiduciary media, by which I mean bank notes without gold backing or current accounts which are not entirely backed by gold reserves, the banks are in a position to expand credit considerably. The creation of these additional fiduciary media permits them to extend credit well beyond the limit set by their own assets and by the funds entrusted to them by their clients. They intervene on the market in this case as "suppliers" of additional credit, created by themselves, and they thus produce a lowering of the rate of interest, which falls below the level at which it would have been without their intervention. The lowering of the rate of interest stimulates economic activity. Projects which would not have been thought "profitable" if the rate of interest had not been influenced by the manipulations of the banks, and which, therefore, would not have been undertaken, are nevertheless found "profitable" and can be initiated.

Do you understand? Or do you need me to spell it out to you again?

As for the New Deal, unemployment remained as high as it had been in 1932 in 1940, agricultural policies such as the forced destruction of crops and dairy products drove up food price inflation and the US was in just as bad a state as it had been under Hoover (who actually began the process, contrary to popular belief, with his economic relief plan of 1932 and the biggest rise in taxation ever seen in a Western country in contemporary times.

>Are you seriously the only person besides Goebbels who believes Hitler was "democratically elected by a broad majority"?

There's never been any historian who has believed that the Weimar elections in the early 1930s weren't legitimate and reflective of the national mood.

The great majority of the German nation had been both socialist and nationalist for many years. The Social Democratic trade union members sympathized as much with nationalist radicalism as did the peasants, the Catholics, and the shopkeepers. The communists owed their votes in great part to the idea that communism was the best means to establish German hegemony in Europe and defeat Western capitalism. The German entrepreneurs and businessmen contributed their share to the triumph of Nazism, but so did all other strata of the nation. Even the churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were no exception.

>>930810
See pic.

> "Need" now means wanting someone else's money. "Greed" means wanting to keep your own. "Compassion" is when a politician arranges the transfer.

>- Joseph Sobran

>>930789
>Kaiser Wilhelm

Are you completely forgetting the Hohenzollerns were -dissolved- after WW1 you fool?

>Vittorio Emanuele,

Mussolini's fascism was less totalitarian precisely because Italy was a constitutional monarchy.

Not sure why you're bringing Hirohito into this, Japan wasn't a fascist state and never made any claims to being a fascist state.

>ones which had collapsed economically due to the policies pursued by those liberal 19th century Monarchies you admire

Er.

No.

Hyperinflation in Germany happened because of the stupidity of Weimar central bankers, and central banking in general.

Read Franklin D. Graham's book on the period, it's an economic history:

>The fundamentally sound and the policy of laissez-faire to which they point is valid still.… The mills of international finance grind slowly but their capacity is great.…The one condition is that the hoppers be not unduly loaded in [an] effort to get the whole grist from a single grinding. So much for the economics of the question. What politics has in store is, however, an inscrutable mystery. It can only be said that such financial difficulties as may occur will almost certainly arise from political rather than economic sources.

>>930788
>economic conditions circa 1890 - 1940

You mean... rising real wages, falling work week hours, increased ownership of consumer goods, increased home ownership and so on?

Or do you mean the state intervention in central banking that led to the great depression, and the new deal that prolonged it by an entire decade?

>I'd like to know on what basis you assert that Saudi Arabia has a "flourishing middle class".

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Shedding_light_on_the_Gulfs_middle_class_1931

>So you still find Saudi Arabia's economic system preferable to "progressive" taxation in the USA

Yep. Absolutely. Although they have problems of their own, namely with tariffs, monopolized oil sector and so on.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to demonstrate in this discussion anyway, other than a non-sequitur that asserts the end result of not having a huge welfare state, invasive laws and other forms of statism will lead the US down the road to becoming a Islamic state. It doesn't seem to make much sense.

>>930778
>lolbertarian

>>930755
Universities are not private businesses though, and I'd be interested in a source on that claim. I know Richard Sander has criticized UCLA practices as far as AA go anyway, they simply don't work as most recipients drop out in the first year.

>lawyering

Which is a cost in of itself.

>crying for more regulation

Huh?

>greater income

I don't doubt we'd see token hiring under a free market system for the purposes of good PR, but we certainly wouldn't see anything like the state mandated requirements we have now.

>>930745
>To that of the very small ruling class

Saudi Arabia has a flourishing middle class, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here.

>Wouldn't you call that "legal plunder"?

Well yeah, but it's far less plunder than democratic republics loot from their subjects.

>I'd say social security is not so illusory a thing as you think.

So the purpose of entitlement programs in the US and Europe is to..... prevent wahhabist jihadis from gaining a foothold? lol.

>the IRS is not likely to come and beat me to death.

No, the principle is the same though, force or coercive force - It's still force. And it's still a barrel of a gun that is its ultimate guarantee.

>fascism

Fascism grew out of democracy, not monarchy. Fascism had widespread popular support and was elected in overwhelmingly.

>economic tenets of fascism?

Er, no that's corporatism. Fusion of state and business.

Do you even understand ELEMENTARY political theory or economic theory?

You fucking tard, stop getting overly emotional. Are you a girl?

>>930737
Well if you're a real propertarian, then you believe somebody polluting somebody else's property, i.e. fucking up a farmer's fertile land through negligent practices if you neighbor him is a violation of his property rights anyway. So you could establish clear liability between the entrepreneur and the farmer for the latter to gain compensation for any damages incurred.

>>930728
>and the 20th century filled our air with poison.

Eh, I'd disagree with this.

You're aware the first clean air laws came into being in 1970 right?

But from 1950 until 1970, the amount of volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide in the nation's air fell by more than 20 percent, even though total vehicle-miles traveled in the country rose by 120 percent, from 458 billion to 1.1 trillion. The level of sulfur dioxide in the air began falling as far back as 1920, and the total amount of airborne particulate matter has been reduced by 79 percent since 1940.

See: John Merline, "How Deadly is Air Pollution?" Consumers' Research (February 1997)

>>930715
>Being a small farmer is virtually impossible NOT because of "regulations".

See:

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm

He -is- a small farmer, he disagrees with you.

> That's called unrestricted capitalism.

lol, with the largest subsidies in the western world?

It's amazing how people like you take an example of a government created problem and ascribe it to the market every single time.

Of course, you'll have large farms in any event under a free market system, because yeah, conglomeration and the ensuing economies of scale are generally a good thing for consumers. But you certainly wouldn't see the complete destruction of small farmers without the regulations mentioned in the above link and massive agrasubsidy.

>>930714
>but schools have their own ideological reasons to push diversity

Schools have been self-segregating ever since the early 70s bro. Government introduced forced bussing to try and 'overcome' this.

So yes, racial agglomeration is perfectly spontaneous, Government efforts to somehow try and socially engineer diversity however, are not.

>diversity is useful for PR

It may be so. But are you even aware of the four fifths rule and what that means for companies?

>>930708
Funny thing is, with the Irish, the potato famine could have been prevented if Europe had had real free trade at that time.

He's generally right though, I mean, for all their flaws Monarchs generally took care of a nation's capital stock to a very high degree. Democratic Republics tend to have no such inclinations because there is no incentive for them to do so, they're simply usufruct controllers of a nation's capital stock (i.e. temporary caretakers) so they exploit it far more maliciously and without regard for its long term value.

I agree with strains of antidemocratic thought that emphasize this because the facts bear out what they've said and claimed, Bastiat was right on the money when he talked about how the idea of legal plunder becomes commonplace under a democracy. Moreover, the perversion of justice proceeds even faster. Instead of protecting pre-existing private property rights, democratic government becomes a machine for the redistribution of existing property rights in the name of illusory 'social security.'

I'd challenge anyway to deny this because the results are there for you to see with your own eyes. Tax rates under this system of universal compulsory democracy make the economic load endured by serfs seem modest. Government debt has risen to breathtaking levels. Gold has been replaced by Government manufactured paper currency with a continually diminishing value. Every detail of private life, property, trade and contract is regulated by ever higher mountains of paper law (legislation). In the name of social, public or national security our caretakers 'protect' us from global warming and cooling, the extinction of animals and plants, from husbands and wives, parents and employers, poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia and countless other public enemies and dangers.

>>930686
Do you have any proof of this? Because as far as I was aware, the auto-industry did -not- want to be forced into using minority owned subcontractors as a matter of law, and they protested this (the SBA agreement).

If you're so convinced that diversity is spontaneous, then you wouldn't need the iron force of legislative law, regulation and the threat of coercion behind it anyway, so you inadvertently work against your own point.

>>930684
Zoning laws fuck up communities too. Means an end to the kinds of local stores you can just pop round the corner to.

>>930678
God forbid people should be allowed to do what they want with their own property eh?

>business owner denying employment based on racism or misogyny

Do you know anything about law? Do you realize how much fraudulent employment tribunals cost the taxpayer every year? Consider: the government reports that job discrimination complaints against private employers increased 4 percent in 2009, to a total of 103,312, the highest level in seven years. Those filing complaints took in $510.5 million in monetary benefits. The cost this has as far as capital investment goes is staggering.

Do you realize it's virtually impossible to 'prove' discrimination one way or the other?

Do you realize you have absolutely no empirical evidence that wide-ranging employment discrimination based on race of sex exists? Oh, and no, unequal outcomes don't count. You have never even demonstrated that employer discrimination is a widespread phenomenon to begin with, not that there's anything wrong with it.

>>930510
I do on occasion, libs on there are soooo easy to rile up.

>8. Religion

Humans construct narratives to understand their actions and that they don't understand, religion is just one part of this. I'm agnostic though.

>9. The environment

Fearmongering, promotes wasteful subsidy and regulations that harm thousands of entrepreneurs and workers. Environmental solutions come through capital investment in technology, not from Governments.

>10. Affirmative action and race relations

AA is not only ethically unjust, it doesn't work (see Richard Sander's report on it). 'Race relations' is just codeword for mollycoddling niggers.

>11. The current plague of mental illness in our society

Psychiatrists trying to make a quick buck. It doesn't exist. Breakdown in the traditional family has caused some degree of psychological problems though.

>12. Drugs, illegal and otherwise

Legalize them all, don't tax them. Doesn't mean an endorsement though, they're generally for retards and bums who think acoustic guitar is a good instrument.

>13. Politics today vs. in the past

Better in the past. All historical states were minarchist by our standards. More of a sense of natural order and no democracy disease/universal suffrage shit.

>1. President Obama

Cretinous nigger savage, black nationalist leanings, deficit spender, doesn't understand economics, worse than the cretin Bush.

>2. Women's rights and the issue of sexism

Employers should be able to hire whoever they want for whatever reason they want. 'Women's rights' is just codeword for abuse of property rights through coercion.

>3. Class relations

Doesn't exist as a concept except in the minds of leftist professors living comfortable lives in taxpayer paid tenure.

>4. Weapons, firearms and self-defense laws

100% for all of them. Especially castle law.

>5. War (not necessarily the one/s in the middle east, but war as a whole historically and today)

Bullshit and costly. Part of the human condition but unprovoked wars to set up client states in the mid east are just.... all kinds of retarded.

>6. The role of the military in modern society as opposed to past society

Should be scaled back.

>7. Abortion

Agree with it so long as it isn't taxpayer funded. Hospitals/Clinics shouldn't be obligated to provide it/not provide it though.