January 2011 – Page 4 – The Libertarian Standard

Economics, ethics, and Krugman

By Wirkman Virkkala / January 10, 2011 / 6 minutes of reading

Reading Paul Krugman is like picking at a scab: You know you should probably just let it alone, but there’s pleasure in picking the Krugman rough redness. So you read. So you bleed. So you flick away the droplets and the clots.

I could hardly avoid his recent post, “Economics and Morality,” in part because the title mirrors an abiding interest of mine, and of many libertarians. There is a deep connection between economics and ethics. After all, one is the science of human action and transactions, the other is the art of prescribing for same. Frank Knight observed that the subject of economics was the same as that of Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Ethics: “acts adjusted to ends,” or, to put simply, Human Conduct.

Krugman offers no insights about the deep connections. Instead, he regurgitates old pabulum about the welfare state, and misunderstands the case for free markets. Again.

He begins with a concern: “[T]he right is winning economic debates because people believe, wrongly, that there’s something inherently moral about free-market outcomes.”

I don’t know if this is the case, in the real world. Perhaps I don’t follow enough “debates.” But, as I see it, market outcomes are not moral as such. It’s market processes that are. That is, non-fraudulent, non-coerced exchanges (trade) — no matter how much error there may be in them — are more moral processes than fraudulent and coerced processes. It’s the means that are important, here. Fixating on the ends leads you into traps like Krugman seems to rest his whole ideology upon.

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Nock and Leonard Read on “One Improved Unit” and the Power of Attraction

Anti-Statism, Education

By Stephan Kinsella / January 8, 2011 / 1 Comment / 7 minutes of reading

I’ve always liked the idea–which I’ve heard from Albert Jay Nock and Leonard Read–that your primary task is to improve yourself–to strive for excellence in yourself. Then you become a bright light that attracts people; they see you are good, and successful, and worth emlating or listening to–so you win people over by the power of attraction. They come to you, and then you have more success spreading the ideas of liberty than if you go around being a boor.

See the following excerpts from Nock and Read:

From A stroll with Albert Jay Nock by Robert M. Thornton:

Albert Jay Nock was not a reformer and found offensive any society with a “monstrous itch for changing people.” He had “a great horror of every attempt to change anybody; or I should rather say, every wish to change anybody; for that is the important thing.” Whenever one “wishes to change anybody, one becomes like the socialists, vegetarians, prohibitionists; and this, as Rabelais says, ‘is a terrible thing to think upon.'” The only thing we can do to improve society, he declared, “is to present society with one improved unit.” Let each person direct his efforts at himself or herself, not others; or as Voltaire put it, “Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

From Frederick A. Manchester, Apropos of the Presidency:

The Remnant that Saves

It would appear, then, that if we want to have leaders of high quality, Presidents among them, we, the American people, shall have to increase our understanding in politics and related fields. It is fortunately not necessary that all of us should become thus educated, but only a sizable minority—the remnant that saves. But how are we to build up this sizable minority?

Begin, says Mr. Read in the document I quoted at the beginning of these remarks, by genuinely enlightening ourselves, as individuals—morally as well as socially, economically, and politically. Thereafter, if I understand him correctly, he would have us trust mainly to the power of example. “The power of attraction—of attracting others follows all self-improvement,” he says, “as faithfully as does one’s shadow.” In thus asserting this power he undoubtedly has behind him traditional wisdom. “Example,” says Burke, comprehensively, “is the school of mankind; it will learn at no other.”

The Manchester article, from a 1959 issue of The Freeman, is apparently quoting “Wake Up—It’s Tomorrow” by Leonard E. Read, Notes from FEE, January 1959, which I cannot find; similar thoughts appear to be in Read’s How To Advance Liberty: A Learning, Not a Selling, Problem, which is available in text here and in audio and video here (and below):

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How the State Corrupts Religion

Statism

By Robert Wicks / January 5, 2011 / 2 minutes of reading

MSNBC reports on the horrifying death of a two year old. The child apparently died of starvation. This is a good example of why separating the church and state, just as separating everything else and state, is so important. The separation of church and state benefits the church more than it benefits the state. States with close ties to religion do not suffer; the religious organizations which ally themselves with the state do. They begin to take on the characteristics of the state: the lack of accountability, the lack of personal involvement in the lives of people they supposedly serve.

The lack of a genuine personal relationship? The lack of attention to detail? That does not sound like Christianity as I am familiar with it. That sounds like government as I am familiar with it. When religion and state wed, religious practice gives way to state practice, not the other way around. You do not see government unionized workers selling their worldly possessions and working to serve the poor, but you do see people ignoring their own religious tenets in order to qualify for government funds.

Involving the state in charity destroys much of the value of that charity in that it radically alters the incentives of the charity workers. It basically transforms them from philanthropists into government employees, and people like Quasir Alexander suffer for it.

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Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory

Education, Libertarian Theory

By Stephan Kinsella / January 3, 2011 / 1 minute of reading

From today’s Mises Blog:

Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory

January 3, 2011 by Mises Daily [edit]

Libertarianism is both old and new. It is rooted in ancient ideas of natural justice, fairness, peace, and cooperation. You could even say that any civilized society is already somewhat libertarian. After all, civilization requires peace and cooperation. FULL ARTICLE by Stephan Kinsella

For more on the course, see the linked picture below:

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