Friday, October 3, 2014
Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Destructive President
Franklin D. Roosevelt is viewed by many scholars as one of the greatest presidents in American history. The United States Presidency Center ranked Franklin D. Roosevelt as the best president in American history, followed by Abraham Lincoln and George Washington (“UK Survey of US Presidents: Results and Analysis”). Out of 238 scholars surveyed by Siena College, Roosevelt was ranked the highest (Finnegan). However, there is information about Franklin D. Roosevelt involving his negative traits that may not be taught in history class.
Before evaluating the president directly, some context to the environment that he was placed in is first required. Roosevelt was elected during a difficult time – perhaps the most difficult time in American history. To understand whether or not Franklin D. Roosevelt planned and executed the correct course of action, we first must understand the nature of the Great Depression itself.
The Great Depression is not to first be viewed by the economy’s decline, but by its previous boom period. The 1920s are referred to as the “roaring twenties” for good reason. Throughout the decade, ownership of cars, new household appliances, and housing itself increased significantly. The productivity of labor and capital grew enormously and the overall economy flourished. This is despite a severe sudden depression in 1920, comparable to the fall in 1929, which only lasted less than a single year (Smiley).
What followed this growing period was the worst economic downturn that the United States has ever seen. What happened? What led this flourishing economy down this incredibly dark path?
To this day, what caused the Great Depression is still a highly debatable topic, explained differently by different theories and economists. The two arguably most notable theories derive from the Keynesian and Austrian schools of economic thought. Keynesian economics, nicknamed after the famous economist, John Maynard Keynes, is far more popular among the Western world and is the school of thought usually taught in universities. Austrian economics is typically classified as the more fringe school of thought. The Austrian economists were Jewish and fled Austria in order to avoid the eventual wrath Hitler’s regime. They went to the United States promoting their ideas of economics and ended up being labeled as Austrian economists ("Keynesian Economics vs. Austrian Economics”).
The Keynesian economic theory essentially holds that aggregate demand decreased, which led companies to stop investing in markets that did not possess sufficient funds in order to profit. The lack of economic activity caused more of a lack of activity, and the cycle continued. In other words, consumers suddenly decided to come to a screeching stop of spending in the middle of the roaring twenties so severely that it caused the Great Depression. ("Three Economists and Their Theories”).
No one, including John Maynard Keynes himself, foresaw the crash of the Great Depression from the Keynesian model. In fact, Keynes showed confidence in the opposite direction, stating “we will not have any more crashes in our time” in 1927, two years before the start of the Great Depression (Somary, pp. 146-147).
The Austrian theory explaining the cause behind the Great Depression tells a different narrative. Essentially, the theory holds that the central bank’s massive credit expansion during the 1920s enabled short-term economic prosperity but long-term economic disaster. The central bank’s low interest rates throughout the 1920s incentivized businesses to make large investments throughout the 1920s, causing an economic boom period that we refer to as the “roaring twenties.” By the principles of supply and demand, higher savings cause lower interest rates (which is a general acceptance among economists – not just the Austrians). The Austrians claim that because the interest rates were artificially manipulated into being lowered during the 1920s, it created the usual result of having low interest rates – a large number of funds being allocated into capital investments, fueling workers and the economy in the process. Unfortunately, because the low interest rates were a result of the central bank’s manipulation rather than an abundance of savings, none of the rewards followed. Because there were no savings to be pulled from, when the interest rates were eventually raised again, the production halted but the investments never paid off. The Austrians claim that this resulted in the Great Depression (Rothbard, pp. 3-27).
While no one foresaw the Great Depression using the Keynesian model, Ludwig von Mises, one of the most prominent Austrian economists at the time, predicted that a “great crash is coming” in 1929, declining a very high position in the banking industry, not wanting to be associated with the upcoming depression (Spitznagel). In February of 1929, Friedrich Hayek, perhaps the most famous articulator of the Austrian theory, published a paper predicting that a severe crash would occur in a matter of months (Herman).
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1933, he had to operate in the midst of the Great Depression, not the start of it, so how could the cause of the Great Depression have any relevance to the presidency of Roosevelt? The cause of the Great Depression obviously has no connection with FDR, but it is crucial for understanding the nature of the Great Depression and FDR’s subsequent attempted remedies to cure the economy.
The Keynesian and Austrian schools of thought differ greatly on what would have been considered the proper response to the Great Depression. Because the Keynesian theory attributes a decline in aggregate demand as the cause of the depression, it promotes an artificial boost of aggregate demand as the most appropriate response to the crash. In other words, people need to start buying stuff. The Keynesian school holds that the best way that this end could have been achieved was through government spending of infrastructure and an expansion of credit from the central bank. The Keynesian model gives a supposed quick and easy solution that requires the government to act and remedy the problem. Essentially, the Keynesian theory advocates for massive government spending and artificially low interest rates in times of economic downturns as a solution (Blinder).
The Austrian solution runs quite contrary to that of the Keynesian. Because the Austrian school of thought advances that artificially low interest rates were the cause of the depression in the first place, the theory would strongly oppose exercising exactly this activity in order to restore the economy. The Austrian model recognizes that the Keynesian solutions did somewhat stabilize the economy in the short-run (though hardly did they completely cure the economy), but further suggests that these practices were only beneficial for the short-run and detrimental to the long-run. Unlike the Keynesians, the Austrians did not offer a quick and easy get-out-now solution to the Great Depression. Instead, they advocated for the depression’s eventual dismissal, as the market would eventually correct itself (Rothbard, pp. 2-27). As would be expected, the theory which advanced that the solution was for the government to step back and let the market work itself out was not exactly the most popular idea.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, influenced by the Keynesian model, promoted and implemented significant spending programs as the path to economic recovery. The president’s most significant contribution was the New Deal, which implemented massive government spending throughout the 1930s, and is often credited by Keynesians as the fuel factor to boosting the country out of the Great Depression ("Keynesian Theory and the New Deal”). However, the Austrian would make the opposing claim: that the Great Depression eventually ended despite FDR’s efforts, and the stimulus packages throughout the Great Depression only prolonged the condition.
Frédéric Bastiat was an economist in the 19th century who may have been considered someone who fell under the Austrian school of thought had he been born in a later timeframe. He famously published a thought experiment in an 1850 article entitled “What is Seen and What is Not Seen.” In it, he refuted government spending as a solution to economic recovery in what is now often referred to as the “Broken Window Fallacy.”
Propose this scenario: a hooligan throws a rock through a window. The window is destroyed and the owner must now pay to buy a new one. A crowd gathers around and someone observes that this event is actually not too bad. In fact, this person claims, it is beneficial for the economy. Because the owner of the window now must purchase a new window, he is funding the glazier, which the glazier will use to spend money on something else, which that person will use to spend money on something else, and so on and so forth. This hooligan has just done a favor to the economy by enforcing the circulation of the money supply.
Bastiat points out that while this claim is technically accurate in that the glazier will receive money and the money will circulate, it only takes into account what is seen and ignores what is not seen. What is seen is that the window owner has paid the glazier and money has circulated into the economy as a result. What is not seen is that, if the hooligan had not destroyed the window, the window owner would have spent the money on some other industry, boosting that sector of the economy, causing the same effect. (This is not to ignore the possibility that he could have decided to save his money for later. The money would still be spent eventually, and, in modern era, money that is put in a bank is lent out to investors and circulated into the economy that way.) The difference is that, in the scenario in which the window is not destroyed, the window owner has the enjoyment of a window, as well as the enjoyment of something else he could have afforded with that money (perhaps shoes or extra money for later). In the scenario in which the window is destroyed, the window owner is left with only the benefit of a functioning window but nothing else. Essentially, economics, in this case, boils down to common sense: when a window is destroyed, the economy is down exactly one window.
This loops back into the concept of government spending in order to boost an economy. What is seen in the scenario of the government spending money on infrastructure is that the economy collects funds, those funds circulate, jobs are created, and so on. What is not seen is that the money that the government collected through taxes, inflation or debt would have been spent elsewhere.
Austrians argue that because the government cannot possess enough knowledge to know the best interests of every individual and by effect cannot know the correct course of action for what needs to be invested in compared to the individual actor (Hayek), government spending is nothing but detrimental to correcting the economy. Due to the circular nature of the spending accompanied by the misallocation of resources, stimulus packages and recovery plans can only prolong a recession (Rothbard, pp. 3-27).
According to the Austrians, the government’s lack of a response to the sharp economic downturn in 1920 explains why the economy was able to bounce back in a matter of months. This event is often cited by the Austrians to demonstrate their solution as the proper one, given that this was a similar timeframe with a similar sociocultural environment, and the cause of the downturn was arguably the same as the cause of the Great Depression (Woods).
Herbert Hoover, the unfortunate president in office when the Great Depression began, responded to the crash immediately by launching government spending programs in an attempt to remedy the problem. Despite popular belief, Hoover’s economic response was overwhelmingly interventionist in the economy, implementing massive spending methods in an attempt to lift the economy out of the depression, including the Hoover Dam (Horwitz). By Austrian theory, this implicates a prolonged effect of the recession, which did occur throughout the rest of Hoover’s presidency.
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president for the first out of four times. During his time as president, he immediately started implementing Keynesian solutions to the disaster of the Great Depression. Through countless public work and spending projects, FDR furiously spent money throughout the 1930s in hopes of retrieving the economy.
With terrible economic conditions still raging after years of attempted stimulus spending, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of Treasury to the FDR Administration, made a claim about the administration that did not display it in a positive light. As the secretary of treasury, he ideally should have known the economic situation of the environment better than anyone. In 1939, he stated: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work … after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!”
Despite this prolonged severe depression, which was an accurate mold of the Austrians’ predictions, FDR persisted with a new plan. In 1940, FDR approved of the military draft, forcing a large chunk of the workforce into employment. On November 26, 1941, an all out war ultimatum was presented to the Japanese ambassador which demanded that Japan immediately withdrew all of its armed forces -- army, navy, air force, and police -- from China and Indochina immediately. Arguably, FDR’s motive behind this course of action was to provoke an attack out of Japan and justify American military presence in the war (Martin).
Sure enough, in a matter of days following FDR’s ultimatum to Japan, Pearl Harbor ensued. FDR was seemingly ecstatic to join the war in his speech on December 9th, 1941. With the public’s support, the military was able to operate, and eventually enrolled over sixteen million people, both from voluntary participants and from those who were forced to join, virtually eliminating that pesky unemployment figure (Glass).
While FDR enjoyed the pleasure of claiming his administration to be successful by forcefully employing the workforce and boosting the Gross Domestic Product figures purely through even more aggressive government spending, he simultaneously decided to conduct another project in the United States. He issued executive order 9066, demanding that people who have not been proven guilty of any crime or have shown any sign of danger must be thrown in internment camps, referred to by Roosevelt himself as “concentration camps,” solely because of their ethnic background (“Internment History”).
All in the name of “national security,” Japanese Americans were forced into the remote camps, surrounded by barbed wire and security guards, without any chance for trials or legal objections. George Takei, most known for his role in Star Trek and has made many other appearances in several television programs, was one of these people, and has described the experience as so:
“[M]y parents have passed now, but we were citizens of this country. We had nothing to do with the war. We simply happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. But without charges, without trial, without due process—the fundamental pillar of our justice system—we were summarily rounded up, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast, where we were primarily resident, and sent off to 10 barb wire internment camps—prison camps, really, with sentry towers, machine guns pointed at us—in some of the most desolate places in this country: the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, the blistering hot desert of Arizona, of all places, in black tarpaper barracks.” (Dvorsky)
As George Takei stated, he was hardly one of the only people to have to endure this experience. Well over a hundred thousand people of Japanese descent in the United States were imprisoned in these concentration camps with no opportunity for civil questioning. Many victims died as a result of an inability to access any medical treatments and suffered emotional distress. The guards even outright killed many of the victims based on alleged disobedience. Half of the over hundred thousand Japanese Americans were children. Not only was Franklin D. Roosevelt the driving force behind this course of action, but his administration had full knowledge that not a single one of the Japanese victims committed any act of espionage or sabotage (“Internment History”).
At this point, the Keynesian may claim that although FDR’s actions were, shall we say, a bit on the unethical side, those actions were what ultimately lifted the country out of the Great Depression. Therefore, FDR was a hero.
Because the Keynesians viewed spending as the remedy, they foresaw the end of the war to be economic disaster. In the year of 1946, government resources were essentially exhausted. Spending was slashed by two thirds, taxes were reduced by a third, ten million troops were brought home, and a massive number of price controls and interventionist policies ceased to be enforced. By Keynesian forecast, this was going to result in the next Great Depression. Now, even if we forgive the Keynesians for failing to predict the Great Depression, failing to get the economy back on track after ten years of FDR implementing its solutions (until eventual forced employment euphemized as a low unemployment rate and happy economy), is it honestly reasonable to yet again forgive the Keynesians if they incorrectly foresaw the effects of this event? Surely, something so basic to their entire theory should have been clear-cut. The Keynesians predicted clearly that these reductions in government spending and intervention would encompass another severe economic crash, throwing the economy back into a depression. In reality, there was no repeat Great Depression of 1946. In fact, 1946 was one of the best years in American history in terms of real economic growth (Vedder, et al). Allowing the economy to function without artificial manipulation in the market resulted in the proper allocation of resources and economic flourishing.
To reiterate the facts: a severe crash occurred in 1920. The government unintentionally practiced the Austrian solution by doing virtually nothing. The depression lasted for eight months. Throughout the roaring twenties, the central bank artificially lowered interest rates and predictably, by the Austrians, another crash took place in 1929, unforeseen by any Keynesian economist. This time, the government practiced the Keynesian solution by furiously launching inflationary, tax, and debt funded money into the economy. Franklin D. Roosevelt took office not to bring any change but to further expand on Herbert Hoover’s attempted stimulus responses to the economy. The depression carried out for ten years after the crash of 1929, prompting FDR’s very own secretary of treasury to call out the administration for failing in its efforts. Subsequently, FDR forced millions of people into employment via military conscription and provoked Japan to attack. FDR responded to the attack by ordering over a hundred thousand knowingly innocent civilians, half of which were children, to what he called concentration camps on the basis of their race. It was only after his death in 1945 that the United States finally had real growth in 1946, the same year that the government significantly scaled back on the bulk of government programs.
Was Franklin D. Roosevelt really the honorable president he is often portrayed as? The answer should be obvious.
Works Cited
Bastiat, Frédéric, and W. B. Hodgson. What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen: Or Political Economy in One Lesson .. London: W.H. Smith and Son, 1859. Print.
Blinder, Alan, Ph.D. "Keynesian Economics." The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Web. 31 July 2014. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/KeynesianEconomics.html].
Dvorsky, George. "George Takei Describes His Experience in a Japanese Internment Camp." Io9. 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 31 July 2014. [http://io9.com/george-takei-describes-his-experience-in-a-japanese-int-1533358984].
Finnegan, Leah. "FDR Rated Best President In Survey Of 238 Scholars." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 01 July 2010. Web. 01 Aug. 2014. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/fdr-rated-best-president-_n_632182.html].
Glass, Andrew. "FDR Born, Jan. 30, 1882." POLITICO. N.p., 30 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Aug. 2014. [http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/this-day-in-politics-franklin-d-roosevelt-born-102829.html].
Hayek, Fredrich. ""The Use of Knowledge in Society"" Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society. Web. 30 July 2014. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html].
"Henry Morgenthau Diary." Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (1939): n. pag. Web. 24 June 2014. [http://www.burtfolsom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/Morgenthau.pdf].
Herman, Arthur. The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization. New York: Random House, 2013. p. 508. Print.
Horwitz, Steven, Ph.D. "Hoover's Economic Policies." : The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Web. 01 Aug. 2014. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/HooversEconomicPolicies.html].
"Internment History." PBS. Web. 25 June 2014. [http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history]
"Keynesian Economics vs. Austrian Economics." Be Financial Cycles Educated. Web. 30 Jul. 2014. [http://www.befinancialcycleseducated.com/index.php/keynesian-economics-vs-austrian-economics].
"Keynesian Theory and the New Deal." Novelguide. Web. 31 July 2014. [http://www.novelguide.com/reportessay/history/american-history/keynesian-theory-and-new-deal].
Martin, David. "The Ultimatum That Gave Us Pearl Harbor." Web. 25 June 2014. [http://www.dcdave.com/article5/121019.htm]
Rothbard, Murray, Ph.D. America's Great Depression. New York City: Richardson & Snyder, 1983. pp. 3-27. Print.
Smiley, Gene. "The U.S. Economy in the 1920s." EHnet. Marquette University. Web. 01 Aug. 2014. [http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-u-s-economy-in-the-1920s].
Somary, Felix. The Raven of Zurich, London: C. Hurst, 1986. pp. 146-147.
Spitznagel, Mark. "The Man Who Predicted the Depression." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 6 Nov. 2009. Web. 31 July 2014. [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574443600711779692].
"Three Economists and Their Theories." Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. [http://www.infoplease.com/cig/economics/three-economists-their-theories.html].
“UK Survey of US Presidents: Results and Analysis.” United States Presidency Center. p. 2. Web. 31 Jun. 2014.
Vedder, Richard K., and Lowell Gallaway. "The Great Depression of 1946." The Review of Austrian Economics 5.2 (1991): 3-31. Web. 25 June 2014. [https://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae5_2_1.pdf].
Woods, Thomas E., Ph.D. "The Forgotten Depression of 1920." Mises Institute. Web. 30 July 2014. [http://mises.org/daily/3788].
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Libertarian Ethics Simplified
“Ethics” can be defined as a universally
applicable code of conduct. If an ethical system is not universally applicable,
it cannot be said to be beneficial or useful as a set of moral principles,
since no relative code of ethics could be shown to be superior to the next. An
ethical proposition that holds that all people must eat peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches every hour is not universally applicable, nor can it be shown to be
any more valid than a proposal stating that everyone must eat jellybeans every
hour. A relative code of conduct cannot demonstrate its validity, and crumbles
as nothing more than simple arbitrary rules. Thus, any ethical standard that is
not universally applicable cannot be said to be of any use or specialty, and so
a rational ethic must be a universal one.
Ethics can be boiled down to a theory of
ownership. A code of ethics can hold one of two positions: either human beings
possess self-ownership, or they do not. If they do not, only two options
remain: either human beings must own an equally distributed piece of everyone
else, or human beings arbitrarily own one another depending on relativity.
Because ethics has been defined as a universally applicable code of conduct, an ethic that surrounds itself by
relativity cannot be a useful or verifiable ethic. A proposal that states that
Bob owns Mike cannot be proven to be more valid than that of Mike owns Bob. It
is not universally applicable as it claims that a human being not only owns
himself but also has 200% ownership over himself and another person, while
simultaneously holding that a human being cannot own anything.
The other option holds that every individual owns a piece of every other
individual. This, similarly, cannot be held to the universal standard, as each
person would be required to get permission to do anything from everyone else in
the world in order to be a “good” society, including using one’s mouth to
breath and communicate said permission. The ethic necessarily self-collapses.
Another option could possibly be slipped
in: that no person “owns” anything. However, this proposition also necessarily
collapses, seeing as if no one owns anything, no one has the right to control
anything, including one’s self to communicate said ideas. Like the other
propositions, this cannot stand as an ethical structure.
The only remaining option is that of self-ownership. A rational code of ethics
necessarily holds that each person owns him or herself, dismissing the ethical
possibility of slavery. Furthermore, the theory implicates that claiming
ownership of another person is unethical, ruling out the possibility of murder,
rape, or physical assault as being “good.”
Because people own themselves, it logically follows that they own their actions, and
the effects of said actions. The same process as before could be applied to
prove the proposal, by demonstrating that the alternatives, which must either
incline that (1) everyone owns a piece of everyone else’s actions and effects,
or (2) people arbitrarily own one another’s actions and effects, necessarily
fail as rational ethics. This leaves the only logical conclusion being that
people own their actions and the effects of said actions.
This leads to two basic conclusions: people must be responsible for violating the ownership of one another, and
people own resources that they have created.
If Bob kills Mike, Bob has violated all of Mike’s ownership, and is therefore responsible for said murder (unless Mike
was trying to kill Bob to begin with; in which case, Bob would be exercising
whatever necessary in order to secure his self-ownership). However, if the
ethical standard cannot be applied to one party, it cannot be applied to the
other. If Mike were a worm, he would have no capacity to be responsible for
anything; thus, Bob cannot logically be responsible for the “murder” of killing
Mike if Mike cannot be responsible for killing Bob. The principle of
universality concludes that the responsibility of depriving one’s ownership is
one that applies to the human species, but not to incompetent species.
The second conclusion drawn from the ownership of one’s actions and effects is the ownership of property. Because
using natural resources is necessary for survival, an ethical standard must
hold that people have a right to use said resources, and in a universally
applicable way. Since everyone owning an equal piece of everything would
require the permission to use any resources from everyone else in the world,
including the air required to breath in order to communicate said permission,
an ethic which proposes such cannot logically stand. Similarly, an ethical
standard that holds that certain people hold arbitrary claims to certain
resources cannot be verified as a valid ethic. The result is the same as the
extension of self-ownership: that people own the effects of their actions,
including that of natural resources. For example, if one creates a fishing rod
out of an untouched tree branch, it can be said that he/she owns the fishing
rod.
Because people own their property, it logically follows that they can choose to transfer said ownership to that of
another person if they so please. If they desire to transfer ownership conditionally,
this can easily be arranged, establishing the legitimacy of trade. However, if
one were to simply take the property of another, this could not stand as an
ethical action, for this person’s claim to the property is no more valid than
the next guy’s, destroying the entire purpose of ethics. Thus, while trade is
ethical and beneficial, theft cannot be ethically upheld.
Neatly, this ownership theory falls into the “screaming chimp” ethic: that murder, slavery, rape, physical assault, and
theft are “wrongs.” These traits are so well ingrained in human nature that
they do not reside in the analytical part of the brain but the instinctual.
People have a basic understanding that pushing a fat man to stop a train is a
deprivation of his ownership rights.
Unfortunately, such ethical principles fall under Kohlberg’s post-conventional stage of moral development, which many
people do not practice. Instead, people often typically carry out the
conventional stage of moral development, which is to follow whatever the
authority dictates. As demonstrated in the Milgram Experiment, half of
participants were willing to murder a person from electric shocks because they were
told to do so by a seemingly legitimate authority (Brown).
Ethical codes of conduct can be useful to guide people’s behavior, but such ethical principles must be taught and
practiced in order to be of practical use. Too often, ethical principles are
thrown out in the name of authority or other arbitrary criteria. In order to
achieve an ethical society, we must not forget our moral and instinctual
principles. As time has gone by, society has become increasingly ethical, and I
can only hope that such a trend will continue.
Brown, Derren. "Milgram Experiment." YouTube. YouTube, 15 July 2007. Web. 6. Jul. 2014. .
Monday, January 27, 2014
NY Times Brings Libertarianism in the Media!
I opened open my facebook page to see all the libertarian pages talking about an article from the NY Times which was apparently dedicated to condemning libertarianism. "The New York Times talked about libertarianism? This I have to see," I thought, so I clicked on the link. To my disappointment, I found that the article was regarding the libertarian impostor Rand Paul. Little did I know how much exposure this article actually gave to libertarianism.
I started reading the article, which, to my surprise, referred to the libertarian philosophy, which Rand Paul was supposedly associated with. Libertarianism referred to as a philosophy is rare in the realm of the mainstream media. Usually, the only mention of "libertarian" is to describe a political candidate here and there, mostly attacking the actual politician and then throwing in "libertarian-leaning." However, in this case, it seemed that the article was not actually going to attack Rand Paul, but the "libertarian philosophy." This is a change for mainstream media.
I continued on to find a reference to a libertarian institute. Reason and Cato, the libertarian-lite and more publicly exposed think tanks almost never get into the mainstream media; a mention of these institutions would be quite beneficial to the libertarian movement even though they're not purist. However, that is not what this article referenced -- they referenced a far more informative and libertarian organization. They referenced the Mises Institute.
"The Mises Institute in the mainstream media!? That's a first!" I thought as I continued reading. Little did I know that this reference was only the beginning. The article went on to mention Lysander Spooner, the libertarian abolitionist of the 19th century. The Mises Institute and Lysander Spooner in the same article? My mind was blown. But it only got better. I admit that I almost fainted to see Murray N. Rothbard's name come up.
The article kept going on and on, displaying some of the most brilliant libertarian minds to the public. It talked about Lew Rockwell, Jack Hunter, Tom Woods, Walter Block, the Young Americans for Liberty, and an association that I never heard of -- the National Association for Gun Rights, which apparently condemns the NRA for allowing too many gun regulations.
The criticisms in the article were nothing new -- your typical Civil War and Civil Rights Act ignorance. However, the exposure was something very new. Was this author a libertarian troll trying to get as many great libertarian philosophers out there in one article to as many people as possible? Perhaps. Or perhaps the author didn't understand the concept of publicity. Either way, this is a victory for the libertarian movement.
Read the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/us/politics/rand-pauls-mixed-inheritance.html
Monday, January 13, 2014
Violent Opposition vs. Peaceful Opposition
It's the same rhetoric I constantly hear: "I want Law X because I support Value Y. I want Law A because I support Value B." Advocating for something and wanting a law for it are two completely separate propositions and should be treated as such. There is a fine line between valuing something and wanting the government to place a law which would encourage the exertion of whatever that value is. It is one thing to value people getting paid a decent wage (who doesn't?); it is an entirely different idea to endorse minimum wage laws. It is one concept to value safe food being sold (who doesn't?); it is another concept to advocate for the existence of the FDA.
First, we must recognize the nature of advocating for any law. When a law is advocated for, the philosophical underlying is not to value something and enhance it through a given law, but to oppose the action or inaction that a person may commit and using governmental power to provide an incentive for people to refrain from that action or inaction. For example, take the person who values people being provided a decent wage and advocates for a minimum wage law. He may value workers receiving a decent wage, but when he advocates for the law to be put in place, he's implying that his opposition to employers not paying workers a high enough wage should be prohibited. This distinction is important: the nature of any modern government is that its citizens are permitted to commit any action unless there is a law prohibiting such action -- not the other way around. Thus, when one is concerned with the implementation of a law, he is concerned with the opposition factor rather than the endorsement factor.
Further understanding the nature of law, when prohibiting an act, the government is using its monopoly on force as a threat to deter the exercising of such act. In the case of food regulations, the intended advocacy may be safe food, but the real opposition is selling food that has not been approved by the FDA. If someone were to sell food without the proper licensing from the FDA, the home of that person would be invaded, a gun would be pointed to his head and would subsequently be chained, kidnapped, and caged. Whether or not he sold unsafe food or harmed anyone is irrelevant in the eyes of the law. The intention may be to ensure safe food, but criminal law only concerns whether or not someone followed the rules that the majority of politicians at whatever time the law was implemented approved. When a law is ratified, the government grants itself legitimacy to exercise invasive and violent means to enforce it. Thus, all laws are enforced through the threat or exertion of violence. The person selling food goes through the appropriate FDA regulations because he knows he runs the risk of being arrested if he does not comply. The person employing another gives his worker the minimum wage because he knows he runs the risk of violence being initiated upon him if he does not comply (if the employee's equilibrium value is below the legal minimum wage).
From this, we can gather that when someone concerns himself with implementing a law, he advocates for the violent opposition for the opposite of what he "values." In other words, if someone says "I want Law X because I support Value Y," what this can be translated to, philosophically, is "I violently oppose the opposite of Value Y because I support Value Y." What the law advocator fails to recognize is that he is committing the jump fallacy by employing the proposition that because he, personally, peacefully opposes something, it should be violently opposed on a grand scale. One who supports Value Y typically opposes the opposite of Value Y, but there is a distinction between peaceful opposition and violent opposition. Peaceful opposition can be expressed through speech; violent opposition is expressed through force.
When the law advocator indicates that because he, personally, opposes something, it should be violently opposed, his proposition necessarily self-collapses, for if personal opposition should equate to violent opposition, nearly every act should be violently opposed, including violently opposing everything people personally oppose, given the wide range of personal opinions. "But I think it should be implemented democratically!" If that's the case, check the polling on whatever issue you concern yourself with because any opinion outside of the majority opinion is, by your own standards, mute.
First, we must recognize the nature of advocating for any law. When a law is advocated for, the philosophical underlying is not to value something and enhance it through a given law, but to oppose the action or inaction that a person may commit and using governmental power to provide an incentive for people to refrain from that action or inaction. For example, take the person who values people being provided a decent wage and advocates for a minimum wage law. He may value workers receiving a decent wage, but when he advocates for the law to be put in place, he's implying that his opposition to employers not paying workers a high enough wage should be prohibited. This distinction is important: the nature of any modern government is that its citizens are permitted to commit any action unless there is a law prohibiting such action -- not the other way around. Thus, when one is concerned with the implementation of a law, he is concerned with the opposition factor rather than the endorsement factor.
Further understanding the nature of law, when prohibiting an act, the government is using its monopoly on force as a threat to deter the exercising of such act. In the case of food regulations, the intended advocacy may be safe food, but the real opposition is selling food that has not been approved by the FDA. If someone were to sell food without the proper licensing from the FDA, the home of that person would be invaded, a gun would be pointed to his head and would subsequently be chained, kidnapped, and caged. Whether or not he sold unsafe food or harmed anyone is irrelevant in the eyes of the law. The intention may be to ensure safe food, but criminal law only concerns whether or not someone followed the rules that the majority of politicians at whatever time the law was implemented approved. When a law is ratified, the government grants itself legitimacy to exercise invasive and violent means to enforce it. Thus, all laws are enforced through the threat or exertion of violence. The person selling food goes through the appropriate FDA regulations because he knows he runs the risk of being arrested if he does not comply. The person employing another gives his worker the minimum wage because he knows he runs the risk of violence being initiated upon him if he does not comply (if the employee's equilibrium value is below the legal minimum wage).
From this, we can gather that when someone concerns himself with implementing a law, he advocates for the violent opposition for the opposite of what he "values." In other words, if someone says "I want Law X because I support Value Y," what this can be translated to, philosophically, is "I violently oppose the opposite of Value Y because I support Value Y." What the law advocator fails to recognize is that he is committing the jump fallacy by employing the proposition that because he, personally, peacefully opposes something, it should be violently opposed on a grand scale. One who supports Value Y typically opposes the opposite of Value Y, but there is a distinction between peaceful opposition and violent opposition. Peaceful opposition can be expressed through speech; violent opposition is expressed through force.
When the law advocator indicates that because he, personally, opposes something, it should be violently opposed, his proposition necessarily self-collapses, for if personal opposition should equate to violent opposition, nearly every act should be violently opposed, including violently opposing everything people personally oppose, given the wide range of personal opinions. "But I think it should be implemented democratically!" If that's the case, check the polling on whatever issue you concern yourself with because any opinion outside of the majority opinion is, by your own standards, mute.
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