The state loves to regulate the market. They often couch their regulations in words like “efficiency,” “savings,” and “choice,” but the fact is that all their regulations can do is impede the efficiency of the market, force savings where consumers want better solutions, and eliminate choices.
Tag: economics
I’m going through Human Action again, and this section just jumped out at me. It’s the most succinct, clear, and beautiful takedown of the anti-market mentality, and how democracy is inferior to markets, that I’ve read in a long time.
The corresponding bit of Human Action is here, for your own reading pleasure.
Check out my latest at the Mises Wire. It’s about how the Modern Monetary Theory clowns use something like the Motte and Bailey fallacy to gain influence with politicians and feed them really bad ideas. The negative consequences of those ideas are well known to MMTers, but they can omit them and pretend they’re “unintended.”
Here’s a little bonus bit that I wrote about it:
My focus was how MMT’s use of odd definitions, convenient tautologies, and strategic vagueness leads to politicians thinking they be more aggressive parasites without negative consequences.
Court intellectuals remain so by justifying the actions of their state masters. MMT is just another place for would-be court intellectuals to do this. It’s as easy as omitting secondary consequences (“unintended” consequences) from their writing.
The modern capital structure is vast and complex but can quickly and easily be destroyed by an overzealous state. The USSR’s policies turned Ukraine from a breadbasket into a valley of death in just a few years, and it can happen again.
Good economists stand in the way of idiots demanding our seed corn. Bad economists cheer the thugs on. They omit vital caveats and let the state’s greed take its course.
I read Menger’s Principles of Economics a few months ago, and I’m currently re-reading Mises’s Human Action, and I’ve noticed both of them introduce the concept of the “order” of goods, that is, the number of production steps a good is from consumption.
For example, if the path to making bread is: seed -> wheat -> flour -> bread, then flour is a second-order good, wheat is a third-order good, etc.
Both Menger and Mises introduce this concept, but both dismiss it as effectively meaningless. Their reason, I suppose, is that in complicated production pathways, one good might be fourth-order in one pathway, and fifth-order in another.
But I think they might have missed something–something where understanding the order of goods allows us to make a clear example of the usefulness of a medium of exchange or money.
(Also available on Bitchute.)
There is a tendency for thinkers to use metaphor and allegory to reframe a problem or issue in a way that clarifies or simplifies it. The problem with metaphor and allegory is that they necessarily change or obscure details. Therefore, the solutions you propose from looking at a metaphor might be way off.
Even worse, the retreat into metaphor can be so deep that no concrete solutions even appear, and you end up with long periods of idle musing.
Categories
Effective Altruism Isn’t
The idea of “effective altruism” is that you do the most good by making as much money as possible, and then living frugally and using the rest of that money for charity.
Of course, nowadays, with the state having the stranglehold on the economy that it does, it turns out that the easiest way to make a bunch of money is to have a bunch of government connections that will help you win a contract or two. Actual entrepreneurship is hard.
Then, it gets worse! The fact you’ve spent so much time hanging around politicians and bureaucrats warps your sense of charity. Instead of serving the people, you serve the state.
More in the video above, also available on Bitchute.
After reading a few reactions to my review of George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier, it looked like I was a little bit unclear about Orwell’s position on socialism. I’m aware that he never denounced socialism as an ideology. However, the issue that becomes painfully clear when reading Wigan Pier is that he really had no clear idea of what socialism was or what it meant. With that in mind, I thought I’d make a quick video explaining this point a bit more clearly, so I hope this helps.
You can read my review here.
…and all the men and women merely Doomers.
But seriously, I recently read a little piece over at Of Two Minds and Mr. Smith spends a lot of time defining Doom Loops, but not really explaining how we should be reacting to them. So, I figured I’d contribute a little analysis, and maybe some advice.
A recent article at the Mises Institute got me thinking about the concept of “passive investments.” The article was written by Daniel Moule, and is called “Taxing Capital Leads to Capital Consumption.” Setting aside the general argument Moule is trying to make, I find his concept of “passive investment” to be a possible source of confusion.
Paul “the Internet is not a big deal” Krugman has stated that it’s paranoid to worry about Central Bank Digital Currencies. See the article at this link.
Considering his track record, did he not realize that his statement makes it more likely that concern is justified?