I Utterly HATE Marxists

There's no point holding back about it. I hate Marxists and that includes lite-Marxists. I've tried to find the good in them and treat them with the respect owed a sophisticated opponent, but it just hasn't worked. Very slim partial truths abound for Marxism; not much more than that though. They are the airheads of political philosophy. Keynesians, by comparison, are pure evil. I can at least respect that deep down Keynesians do not believe their garbage, that it is just a front to enhance the power of the ruling elite. The academic ones make good money off their scheme.

I've given Marxism more than a few passing glances, never came close to embracing it, but have given Marxist social commentators their time of day. In earlier times, I was quite impressed with their canny perception of societal ills such as huge wealth distribution gaps, corrupt business practices, the favored status granted to large businesses by the government, etc.

All of this was of course until I found the Austrian School of Economics, which diagnosed many of the same problems AND provided much more convincing explanations grounded in the a priori laws of economics. For example, the Marxists are sharp enough to notice some of the shenanigans involving the railway and oil monopolies over a hundred years ago, yet unlike the Austrian scholars, they mindlessly blamed it on the specter of free market capitalism. It was indeed a specter because there was nothing close to free market capitalism for those industries. Instead, the real-life explanation was that the banks, railroads, and oil folks (many of whom were the same across industries) received special regulations that entrenched their monopolies. If not a monopoly situation, then an industry cartel created by government regulations that can only be followed by a small group of wealthy companies (smaller competition gets destroyed). Furthermore, the fact that there is ever a favored status granted to certain companies over others should be a red flag that it IS NOT a free market, but rather a corporatist one.

Marxists are often able to see that something is not quite right, but then take the pre-schooler approach to explaining the causal mechanisms. I would like to think the difference between Austrian scholars and Marxists is mostly an epistemological one: the individual vs. class as the preferred unit of analysis. That would be fine, but it's not. Marxists are genuine idiots who cannot see farther than beyond their noses.

Anyone who is familiar with Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickeled and Dimed, understands that Marxism is alive and well amongst public intellectuals. The Cold War may have dealt a decisive blow to planned economics, but these individuals still linger. The economically illiterate Ehrenreich once waged a pointless, non-scientific, pre-concluded experiment to show that living off minimum wage was less than enjoyable (who would have guessed?). Nowhere in the analysis of her experiment does she consider the idea that the minimum wage laws themselves are the reason so many workers cannot get jobs or are de facto forced into miserable conditions. Nope, the answer is always the same: employers are evil and the minimum wage should be doubled (even if this still wouldn't come close to producing the bourgeois, entitlement lifestyle Ehrenreich thinks is a right). The work of Marxists like Ehrenreich demonstrates how tired, myopic, incomplete, and mis-leading this line of thinking really is.

Note: My writing in this article may seem a bit negative and attacking. This is obviously more of a rant than anything else. For a more academic take on the subject, visit the Mises Institute online.

I cannot complete this rant about Marxists without talking about the lite-Marxists I mentioned at the beginning. Much the way the neo-Keynesians are compared to old-fashioned-Keynesians, these half-baked intellectuals are several magnitudes more frustrating than their progenitors (and not because they are closer to being correct). If you read my earlier post on this blog, you could have probably gotten an idea as to how I feel about squishy, unprincipled thinkers. While their philosophical limbo may be easy to identify and rip apart, these tend to be the folks who are taken most seriously and can convince a lot of lay people of their views.

The brilliant Lew Rockwell really hit the nail on the head once again as it pertains to the fellows I'm discussing. In his article, Down with the Rich, Again?, he points out the glaring inconsistencies of the anti-rich lite-Marxists who at one time hated the wealthy for living extravagantly, but now hate them for not spending enough to help the economy (admittedly, some of them get mixed up with neo-Keynesians, who may in fact be consistent about spending like crazy even before the economic downturn).

I think Lew's article sums this point up well enough. The mindless pseudo-thinkers that dominate the media and universities possess no true beliefs about anything other than a knee-jerk hatred of the (mostly self-made) wealthy. Also, as far as universities go, I've noticed a trend away from the classically-Marxist professor toward a more moderate social-democrat who has it out for the free market due to the fact that the academic labor market is currently a nightmare for today's PhD holders. I'm certainly not surprised they hate competition since their competition is as stiff as it is (blame the state expansion of education credit, by the way). Academia is full of un-scholars who greatly appreciate the foundation of the American welfare state and only criticize it for not being even larger.

Overall, Marxists have had a much greater influence on that status quo than they would like you to believe. Marx had the nerve to complain about alienation of workers (during the 1840's) when most people still worked for themselves (until Lincoln changed that). Alienation of the so-called "working class" is a newer phenomenon. TODAY's world is full of bizarre and dysfunctional relationships between workers and owners because of the economic policies that have re-distributed the wealth toward a power elite, taking it out of the hands of creative entrepreneurs. Nowadays, most people have to put up with that half-wit boss who may have gotten his/her job solely through affirmative action or other preferential treatment. The evil bourgeoisie assailed by modern Marxists is the product of their own policy prescriptions. In summation, I can assure you that the folks in Washington have followed Marxist prescriptions a heck of a lot more than mine (or any other sensible, ethical individual for that matter).

Does Austrian Economics Fill Me With Hope and Optimism?

No, Austrian Economics does not. It depresses me to the point of despair. The saving grace is that it cannot provide hope anyway. Economics does not do that and it only provides despair when combined with other cognitive faculties such as value judgment.

Austrian Economics is a school of thought that professes a value-neutral approach to economic learning. This means that the study of economics has nothing to do with a "good" or "bad" outlook for society. It is simply the study of what is logically possible given conditions of scarcity, the type of money system, the presence/lack of market distortions, etc.

There is nothing in the Austrian School that says there should (or should not) be any hope for the future. If it is the case that the central bank is rapidly inflating money supply, which pushes us closer to disaster, the Austrian School will have predicted it without elaborating what exactly is meant by disaster, or what kind of human misery it entails. This is perfectly acceptable too since misery is not at all an economic concept.

Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall. A purely economic lens will surely not allow us to decipher it, but any understanding of the real terms (socially and politically) provides us some insight into the horror. It's not hard to see that runaway inflation might lead to a lot of nasty things: starvation, homelessness, crime like you've never seen it before, perhaps genocide, perhaps sex slavery. Economics of any sort cannot predict these things (it might come close with starvation, maybe). However, after we figure out the inevitable consequences of certain policies, all we have to do is use our knowledge of the past as well as our imaginations to figure out that there is a very grim future.

Learning Austrian Economics is a good thing. It is unlikely that it will be applied soon enough to avert "shit from hitting the fan," but you can at least have the gratification of knowing that you "called it" and that you did not die economically illiterate like most other bozos. Beyond that, I would not count on an expertise of Mises's Human Action to bring about personal prosperity (other than intellectual enlightenment). They can only hire so many people to work at the Mises Institute, after all.

Minarchist? Anarchist? Downward-Momentumist!

If you were not already aware, there is a bit of a rift between two different types of libertarians in the liberty movement (to put it very generally). The two somewhat-opposing viewpoints are minarchism (limited, minimal amounts of government) and anarcho-capitalism (volunteerism, purely free market, no state).

A quick look at some of the libertarian chat forums on the web, RonPaulForums.com for example, shows that these two camps do not necessarily get along too well even though they both purport to want a change from the totalitarian statist quo (to borrow Jeff Tucker's term). I've seen a lot of shouting and acrimony over this debate. I'll not spend a lot of time dissertating the two camps, but basically the minarchists accuse the anarcho-capitalists of taking the desire to destroy the state too far, while anarcho-capitalists believe minarchism is too nebulous and does not vanquish the root of the problem. Murray Rothbard, one of the greatest anarcho-capitalist thinkers, makes the point that anarcho-capitalists and minarchists would not be at odds with one another and would be able to work together against a common enemy better if it was not for minarchists' lack of a hatred for the state.

Personally, I am much more in line with the anarcho-capitalist school. The biggest problem for minarchism is the lack of an identifiable goal. What is a minimal amount of government anyway? Would that not be "zero" government? It's just too hard to pinpoint a fixed, identifiable level of government that is ideal. That is, unless you come to the conclusion that we should have no government at all. This is one of the reasons anarcho-capitalism is appealing (that along with the myriad of empirical examples of the state being miserable in EVERYTHING it touches).

Can we get beyond this libertarian dichotomy though? Both minarchism and anarcho-capitalism appear to be a long ways off anyway. My suggestion is this: Downward Momentumism. It's perfectly fine for everyone to have their preferred destination of either limited/no government, but let us at least agree that we need to strip away government fast and furiously for the time being. We should know by now that the state is not going to give up easily and it is very unlikely that minarchists will get exactly what they want or anarcho-capitalists what they want. It is up to the freedom fighters to keep the momentum downward no matter what happens! Eventually this would lead to zero if done effectively enough and long enough (which favors the anarcho-capitalists), but in the unlikely event that it gets that way, and, we realize it's a questionable state of affairs, we can then revise our plan and visit the possibility of instituting a benevolent state.

In the mean time, even if you are a minarchist, it's imperative that you avoid the beltway libertarianism that has become popular. Downward Momentumism cannot be accomplished with libertarians who are willing to compromise all the time. Bad ideas like school vouchers, anti-discrimination laws, and libertarian "status seeking" in Washington are the bane of the freedom movement. Whether you hate the state or are simply irritated by its present manifestation, please do what you can to help us reduce its size and scope. Compromises and the re-arranging of chairs will not accomplish anything and will likely advance statism further.

Which is more tacky? Capitalism or the State?

I get a little tired of people using the tackiness of reality television as a rebuttal to capitalism. Leave alone the absurdity of using aesthetics for political theory, I take exception with the idea that the free market produces demonstrably unappealing things compared to statism. Perhaps people simply do not think about the alternative to capitalism and the undoubtedly horrible creations that come from it. Allow me then to help the statists see that the state creates some possibly tacky items as well (I say "possible" due to the fact that this is all completely subjective, as any intelligent person would know).

First, there's this monstrosity, the Ryugyong Hotel, in North Korea. Could this maybe be tacky? There's a friggin' crane on the top of it! This is what government planning gets you. It looks like the ruins of the pyramids of Giza (worse). I'm not saying I would like to see a Taco Bell next to the Taj Majal, but only government can produce something this bad. This thing will never be finished, by the way.




Next, we have something a little closer to home, the U.S. Federal Reserve Building. You don't see this very often because of the clandestine nature of the Fed, not because it is ugly. Nevertheless, it is an eyesore and the propagandists in D.C. would not want to showcase it anyway. Look at this thing. I would just assume take a picture of the Temple of Doom. Honesty compels to admit that the inside looks rather nice (seen on that interview with Helicopter Ben last year), but the outside is chock full of government-crusted ugly.





I may as well throw in this lousy piece of junk that I saw on LewRockwell.com the other day. It's the U.S. embassy in London. Not every statist eyesore comes in the form of a building (how about piles of dead bodies?), but the state tends to get it done best in the realm of architecture.





I do not want to make it sound like statists have not produced anything beautiful (Palace of Versailles, ancient pyramids, etc.). They do after all steal from the beauty of the free market all the time. I just want to highlight some of the nasty structures the statists have erected and dispose of this silly misconception that the free market has a monopoly on tackiness. Also, if people are willing to pay for something, it can't be that tacky anyway. Prices can even help us in the domain of aesthetics.

Why Government Cars Are Worthless

I think it's safe to say that over the past several decades the car industry has been wholly co-opted by the state and the unions, rendering it a fascist industrial complex similar to the military, medical, educational, and environmental industrial complexes. Here are some reasons why the government-infiltrated car industry produces shabby vehicles and a lousy transportation system:

1) Repairs - Any of the following items may require you to spend money either fixing or
replacing: car engine (good luck), catalytic converter, car battery, mass air filter, electrical issues, belts, fuel hoses, throttle sensor, brakes, accelerator, cylinders, muffler, oil changes, tune-ups, tire rotations, re-fueling, spark plugs, broken fuses (these are just a few of the things I've dealt with; there are more) . . . and you will also need to get a driver's license, car insurance (whether you want it or not, and whether it pays anything when you make a claim), state inspections, car registrations, and license plates.

By the way, I know things break, but let's be honest, cars break down at a ridiculous rate and the automotive repair industry is a boon because of it. However, their benefit is at the expense of an efficient, safe driving experience.

Why can't manufacturers work on making cars that do not fall apart every few months? Because that would require them to respond to the consumer demand for better quality, something that does not rest well with unions who are in the business of pumping out new hunks of metal repeatedly (see Detroit). This is just like how public school teachers have no desire to provide quality educations, for then pupils would rise through the education process quicker, thereby decreasing the need for a high supply of over-paid teachers.

2) Debt Financing to Pay for Them

This is the same unsustainable problem Americans have with housing, education, health care, and even general purchases. People use and abuse debt at an obscene level. All things considered, car debt may not be what breaks the camel's back for most families, but it does make up another several thousand dollars in expenses, stymieing the effort to save money. As has been the case in the housing industry, people have fallen for un-fixed loans and extended warranties in this domain as well. The average auto loan in this country is about $30,000, even higher than student loans.

3) Monopoly on Transportation

Believe it or not, cars CAN share the road with travelers of other means. Check out this video of 1905 San Fransisco. This is spontaneous order for transportation. Nobody needs a stop light, stop signs, yield signs, or much else to function peacefully. Even for its time, San Fransisco was still more crowded than many American cities and towns today. To say that we need traffic regulations and a one-vehicle-type system is to ignore reality. Urban planning at both the local and federal levels have distorted the marketplace for transportation. We are de facto stuck with a single mode of transportation, for most of our travels, due to the dictates of elected/non-elected tyrants. Wouldn't things be better without the automobile monopoly?

4) Used on Unsafe Roads

With all the fuss that has been made about BP's blunders, it is a wonder why nobody holds government accountable when its Frankenstein roads put far more people in danger than any oil spill. In Walter Block's book, The Privatization of Road and Highways, he cites a death toll of around 40,000 per year due to automobile accidents. Could the private sector get away with anything like that? Of course, they could not. This problem may not be directly attributable to the quality of cars, but it is worth mentioning. The monopolization of cars as the only method of transportation may have a lot to do with the government plastering roads and highways all over the country, leaving little or no alternative for getting to and from places. Unsafe/faulty cars go hand-in-hand with unsafe roads. Anyone who has seen how inefficient government is in dealing with postal delivery should not be surprised that the same entity takes it sweet time doing basic repairs for roads. For more on this, I highly encourage a reading of Block's book.

5) Very Little Advancement Recently

Unless you are easily impressed by the increase in mass of the average American car over the past 20 years, there is very little to write home about when talking about the most recent evolution in automobiles. The government decided to enact emissions crackdowns on polluting cars, the emission standards ex-communicated almost all old cars, manufacturers got around this by creating SUVs (which pollute a ton, but are not really "cars"), and the rest is history. Now everyone wants to get rid of SUVs. We also have hybrid cars, which are also a statist/leftist idea, and are completely impractical. Hybrids have multiple, highly-polluting batteries.

When compared to the great leaps made in the early part of the 20th century, recent developments are decidedly lame, unnecessary, and usually brought on by frivolous lobbyists (unions and environmentalists). If the free market was allowed to operate, our vehicles would be more akin to Star Trek or the Jetsons. However, when the state interferes with things, progress is slowed to an almost stand-still and prices increase due to artificially-imposed scarcity. I have not even said anything about the oil manipulations, almost entirely attributable to the state in one way or another.