Hoppe: The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years

(Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, Democracy, Immigration, Political Correctness, The Left, The Right, Vulgar Politics
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I was privileged to attend to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society last week. It was held in beautiful Bodrum, Turkey at the Hotel Karia Princess, from June 3-7, 2010. The list of speakers may be found in the Program. This is my second, having also attended the inaugural meeting in 2006. I’ll put up another blog soon with more details about the event, but for now let me say it was without a doubt the best liberty related event I’ve ever attended. And two of my fellow TLS co-bloggers also attended–Gil Guillory and Juan Fernando Carpio.

Group photo2 from the Fifth Annual Meeting, June 2010, Hotel Karia Princess, Bodrum
Group photo from the Fifth Annual Meeting, June 2010, Hotel Karia Princess, Bodrum

Professor Hoppe’s opening address, “The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years,” is published here on The Libertarian Standard today. It’s a fascinating, informative, and perceptive overview of various libertarian paleo- and related alliances over the years.

Hoppe surveys the mistakes of former alliances, and lessons learned; and also devastatingly illustrates how the state has coopted even most free market think tanks into serving the state’s aims:

The strategy of Hayek and of the Mont Pelerin Society, then, had to fail. Instead of helping to reform—liberalize—the (Western) State, as they intended (or pretended?) to do, the Mont Pelerin Society and the international “limited-government” think-tank industry would become an integral part of a continuously expanding welfare-warfare state system.

Indicators for this verdict abound: The typical location of the think tanks is in or near the capital city, most prominently Washington, DC., because their principal addressee is the central government. They react to measures and announcements of government, and they suggest and make proposals to government. Most contacts of think-tankers outside their own institution are with politicians, government bureaucrats, lobbyists, and assorted staffers and assistants. Along with connected journalists, these are also the regular attendees of their conferences, briefings, receptions and cocktail parties. There is a steady exchange of personnel between think tanks and governments. And the leaders of the limited government industry are frequently themselves prominent members of the power elite and the ruling class.

Most indicative of all: For decades, the limited government movement has been a growth industry. Its annual expenditures currently run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and billions of dollars likely have been spent in total. All the while, government expenditures never and nowhere fell, not even once, but instead always and uninterruptedly increased to ever more dizzying heights.

And yet, this glaring failure of the industry to deliver the promised good of limited government is not punished but, perversely, rewarded with still more ample funds. The more the think tanks fail, the more money they get.

The State and the free market think tank industry thus live in perfect harmony with each other. They grow together, in tandem.

As for lessons learned:

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Great Libertarian Quotes in Robert Heinlein

Anti-Statism, Pop Culture
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Yesterday on LewRockwell.com, Jeff Riggenbach posted a short essay entitled “Was Robert A. Heinlein a Libertarian?” It reminded me of how much I enjoyed Heinlein’s incredible novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, for its witty characters and thought-provoking political dialogue.

Besides the inimitable Mike (who is actually a computer), my favorite character was definitely Professor Bernardo de la Paz, affectionately called “Prof” throughout the book. He identifies himself a rational anarchist and always has something interesting to add to whatever is going on at the time.

I have taken the liberty to type out my favorite quotes from the book for your reading pleasure. Maybe it will inspire you to read the novel in full…

“Under what circumstances may the State justly place its welfare above that of a citizen?”
“Prof, as I see, [there] are no circumstances under which [the] State is justified in placing its welfare ahead of mine.”
“Good, we have a starting point.”
~ Professor de la Paz and Manuel O’Kelly-Davis

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Article: Justice for All Without the State

Featured Articles, Libertarian Theory, Private Security & Law
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Writing on The American Conservative website, Daniel McCarthy argues in “Anarcho-Distributism” that the so-called state of nature that libertarians discuss would not resemble what a Stateless society would look like if the State collapsed. He argues that reasoning from the state of nature may not be the correct starting point for conceptualizing or building an alternative political structure. He therefore claims that anarcho-capitalist arguments about how private defense agencies, protection agencies, or dispute resolution organizations work assume a certain level of equality which would not be present in reality and that these institutions of justice would thus favor the rich. I argue in this article that the free market can provide justice without disproportionately favoring the rich.

Read the Full Article by David J. Heinrich

Afterwards, discuss the article below.

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More economic pain coming

(Austrian) Economics, Business, Corporatism
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In the chart below, provided by chartoftheday.com, one can see how grim the job situation has become. The long term-trend experienced since 1961 has been abandoned for what can only be described as stagnation in job creation. As jobs remain flat, of course, the size of the job force will continue to grow as more young people graduate from college and secondary school.  This is partly why unemployment among teens and twentysomethings is now about 25 percent.

According to chartoftheday.com:

Today, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 431,000 in May. It is worth noting that a large majority of last month’s gain in payrolls was due to the hiring of temporary workers for the 2010 census. Today’s chart provides some perspective on the US job market. Note how the number of jobs steadily increased from 1961 to 2001 (top chart). During the last economic recovery, however, job growth was unable to get back up to its long-term trend (first time since 1961). More recently, nonfarm payrolls have pulled away from its 40-year trend (1961-2001) by a record percentage (bottom chart). In fact, the number of US jobs is currently at level first reached in early 2000.

So far, the current “recovery” has produced a net loss of 133,000 jobs. During the same point in the last recovery (2003), the economy was adding 200,000 to 300,000 jobs per month. Calling the current situation a recovery is risible to anyone who is out looking for a job right now, especially since workers are now experiencing the longest periods of joblessness experienced in decades.

We can add to this the fact that the debt crisis in Europe has now spread to Hungary.  So now, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Hungary are all now facing serious debt crises and even risk of default. The European economy is in disarray, and investors were not pleased as the Dow plunged more than 300 points to below 10,000.

The homebuyer tax credits are gone, the stimulus is beginning to wear off, and there is nothing left that the feds can do to stave off another crisis since interest rates are already effectively zero and the federal government is more more broke than ever. State and local governments are in even worse shape.

Needless to say, this does not bode well for the “recovery.”

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The Coming Obamacare Healthcare Inequality: Concierge Medical Services

Health Care
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My wife and I have a great doctor. She has a small clinic nearby with a few other doctors, who are also all very good. Our doctor has a waiting list for people who want to be her patient. We have over the years recommended several people, even some who live 20 miles away, to her. She is very nagging–in a good way. She makes you promise to get a physical, eye exam, etc., intervenes to get you an appointment with a specialist if you need one, etc. Follows up by phone, and so on. She is great.

She recently announced to us that she is moving to some kind of “concierge” service–she figures she basically provides that kind of above-average service already, and this is a way to reduce her patient load (from about 4000 to about 400), and escape some of the regulatory burden that Obamacare is going to impose. So she’s picking a select group of her current patients–about 10% of them–and they will be allowed to remain her patients–for $1600/year each. Now, we love our doctor, so will probably do this. And 3600 of her patients will now lose their favorite doctor. Thanks, in part, to Obamacare.

So, you can see what’s coming. The affluent will have to pay more–in our case, $3200 a year more–but for even better service than we already get. And others will have increasingly slim pickings. Case in point, I mentioned this to some friends, and my TLS co-blogger Brian Martinez noted: “This is what my wife’s doc did, too. Went to a concierge system. Unfortunately we couldn’t justify the extra expense and pay for health insurance for the rest of the family. So my wife had to leave her doctor of 10 years and find a new one, and she hates to switch doctors.”

Expect to see more of this. I had never heard of it before and am still waiting to hear the details from our doctor (some information will be mailed later), but a google search revealed that this is indeed a growing trend; see Health care reform laws prompt surge in ‘concierge medicine’, Are Concierge Medical Services on the Upswing?, and Royal Pains: Can Concierge Medicine Coexist With Obama’s Healthcare Plan?

So, Obamacare will only exacerbate healthcare “inequalities,” and diminish the quality of care of many people. The government will then use this as an excuse to bash “greed” and “inequality,” and clamp down further, driving us closer to outright socialized medicine. As one of the articles above noted, “Critics say boutique medicine will only exaggerate the health insurance crisis. Many doctors may leave traditional family practices — widening the gap between the affluent and the poor.” As Martinez noted to me, “You know all the good doctors with wealthy patients will follow this route and as you say it will prompt the regime to crack down on this ‘greedy’ practice. [expletive deleted] Obama.”

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