This category covers posts with economic content.
Technology is a lot like policy: the good analyst looks at the short and long term issues and the primary and secondary and less obvious effects.
I recently heard someone blurt out that hydrogen is the solution to our energy problems on a libertarian-tangent show, and it was bugging me, so a bit of a rant.
“Exploitation theory” is something I see being constantly used in socialist arguments, even today. What you won’t hear is that exploitation theory is an uneconomic mess that was completely destroyed by advances in price theory that happened while Marx was still alive.
Oddly enough, even Marx’s opponents, like Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread, use this faulty idea of exploitation to make their arguments, and it’s kind of painful to watch.
Above, in a ~16 minute video, I’ll break down the problems with exploitation theory and provide a concrete example where a person might choose to rent a tool from another without either person exploiting the other, and with no aggression or differences in ability.
The bottom line is this: anytime someone tells you somebody is exploiting someone else without providing evidence, you can simply dismiss them using the arguments in this video. Their attempts to label certain relationships as exploitative is just them trying to steal a base, and you shouldn’t let them.
My notes and script, if you want to read them.
Video also available on BitChute.
In this article by Frank Shostak, I think he’s made a bit of a mistake. It may be that I’m missing some subtle point, but I really do think I’m on to something here.
I saw this post today and I feel like I had a bit of an epiphany.
As silly as it might sound, I’ve been trying to put up reasonably original stuff, without repeating myself too much. Kind of a “dissertation” attitude toward posts.
Honestly, it’s caused me more often than not, to tell myself it’s not worth saying something that’s been said before.
Section 4 of Chapter 15 of Mises’s Human Action is called “The Sovereignty of the Consumers.” Mises talks about the unhampered market economy and how that democracy, in which “every penny gives a right to cast a ballot,” might be more democratic than any government could ever hope to be. This passage got me thinking about these concepts, and how the state impedes them.
(Video also available on Bitchute.)
A recent article by Jon Miltimore over at FEE about Russell Brand’s demonetization got me thinking about this phenomenon. I think we’re all aware that there are some very shady people who really want to pull the strings of society, but even so I feel like Neo-Feudalism is one of those terms that gets treated as whack-job but really isn’t when you think about it.
(Also available on Bitchute)
Doug French wrote an article last week called “Bank CEOs Have Their Heads in the Clouds” and he talks about how all of the bank CEOs are very optimistic, but he notes that their real estate agents are optimistic, and so are their loan officers.
Had the idea for this video after watching a couple of episodes of the Bob Murphy Show. In the first, Bob has Oren Cass on. Oren did some really excellent work debunking the economic hysteria around climate change, but these days he seems to be going down an oddly protectionist pathway. Bob lets him talk without too much pushback (because Bob’s a nice guy and is genuinely interested in giving opposing views a fair shake).
Breaking down a really economically illiterate article by Caitlin Johnstone, who has some good positions (on say, censorship and government surveillance) but economics apparently isn’t one of them…
I watched a great video from Michael Boldin over at the Tenth Amendment Center the other day. Even though it was one of their shorter “Fast Friday” episodes, Michael touched on a very interesting topic: happiness and freedom. He argued that the Founders placed extreme value on freedom, to the point where several of them said things to the effect of: “You cannot be truly happy unless you are free.” That simple but profound statement got me thinking.