Marxists’ Apartment A Microcosm of Why Marxism Doesn’t Work. From the Onion.
Slavic Feminists in Paris (Not Safe for Work)
Is Peronism back in Argentina? Pay attention to the Left’s rhetoric
Author: Brandon Christensen
Around the Web
Matt Steinglass has a couple of great posts over at Democracy in America:
Paul Pillar of the National Interest picks on Romney as well
As I keep saying over and over: Mitt Romney is going to win the election. Why? Because the economy sucks. If it gets better within the next seven months, then Obama will get four more years to urinate on the rule of law and our federal republic.
K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid.
And last but definitely not least, Marxist historian Gabriel Kolko sets the historical record straight on Herbert Hoover and his supposed laissez-faire policies: The New Deal Illusion. This is a must read (h/t Steve Horwitz).
The Lonely Libertarian
In my elementary school, we began every day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Each morning, I and 29 of my ten-year-olds colleagues would tramp to school around 8:45, hang up our coats, take off our boots or rubbers when the weather was bad, put our books in the old-fashioned lift-top desks with attached chairs, and fool around while waiting for the bell to ring at 9:00 a.m. When it did, we would all quiet down, stand in line to the right of our desks, place our right hand over our hearts, and look at the upper right-hand corner of the classroom. Hanging there was an American flag next to a loudspeaker attached to the school’s public address system. Immediately after the bell, the school principal’s voice would emanate from the loudspeaker and lead us in the Pledge. Every school day for each of the last five years, we had mumbled the same meaningless words in unison, continually reaffirming our allegiance to the republic for Richard Stanz. But this day, something was different.
Immediately following the Pledge, our teacher instructed us to take out our “social studies” books. This was the day we were reading about the Soviet Union and why it was such a bad place. Our book explained (in language appropriate for fifth graders) that the Soviet Union was bad because its government enforced conformity on its citizens. To drive this point home, the book contained a picture of an elementary school class in the USSR showing the boys and girls lined up beside their desks (all wearing uniforms and hats with little red stars on them) reciting something in unison. Looking at the picture, something clicked in my ten-year-old brain and I thought, “Hey, didn’t we just do that? If government-enforced conformity is bad in Russia, why isn’t it bad here?”
From John Hasnas. Do read the whole thing.
I’ve been on summer break for the last few days, but I’ll be back on here regularly. Soon. 🙂 Hope you’re all enjoying the last remnants of a most memorable summer.
The Trees, the Bramble, and the Forest
I apologize for not blogging much lately. I have finished summer school and have been enjoying my week off from rigorous studies. Back to the grindstone!
In China, protesters have been surrounding the Japanese embassy in Beijing and recently begun hurling debris at both policemen protecting the embassy and the embassy itself. In other parts of China (but not in the “special economic” [free trade] zones) Chinese citizens have been burning Japanese flags and calling on their government to take a harder line on a territory dispute and in trading policies with Japan.
The violence is not limited to the embassy or Japanese flags, of course. Japanese businesses have also been vandalized, threatened, and shut down due to the violence currently raging throughout the Chinese state. Continue reading
Islam and Free Speech
Dr Gibson and Dr. Delacroix have both staked out their positions on the matter, and Dr. Delacroix has promised more, but I thought I’d add my own two cents to the matter.
I’ve already shared my thoughts here before, and nothing that I see in the Middle East or elsewhere changes my argument.
Among observers of all political stripes, there have been two broad categories into which they have gravitated. One of these has been the Islamic societies are still in the middle ages argument. This is a legitimate point, too. As Dr. Gibson points out: Continue reading
“The Young British Soldier”
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come out to cut up what remains
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
– Rudyard Kipling, “The Young British Soldier,” 1892
Fwd: Warren Buffet’s Idea for Passing the Budget
Dr. Delacroix recently e-mailed me the following chain. I thought I’d reproduce it here since most of my e-mail contacts are from school and I use it get laid rather than to argue about politics. I don’t agree with everything Buffet says, of course, but when somebody says something smart or thoughtful, I’ll take it into consideration no matter which quadrant of the political section it comes from. The chain is below the fold. Continue reading
Around the Web: Cato Unbound Edition
The response essays to Dr. Horwitz’s Cato Unbound lead-off essay are now up.
Horwitz, Economy and Empirics by Bryan Caplan, a very good critic of the Austrian School
Free bankers George Selgin asks: How Austrian Is It?
And Antony Davies plays nice by saying “come to the middle!”
My own quick thought: none of these guys are hostile to the Austrian School the way a Keynesian would be. I take this as a sign that Keynesianism is dead intellectually, rather than any sort of selective bias on the part of Cato Unbound’s very good editors.
More on Secession
Secession is not just a means of creating new countries, but can become a central element in governance in general. The general principle is that at any level of government, lower-level governments or individual residents may secede in part or in whole.
This is from a paper by our own Dr. Foldvary. Do read the whole thing. One thing I get tired of dealing with is the “confederate!” slur that is inevitably hurled my way when I bring up secession as a legitimate political function. In other parts of the world, secession is just as hotly debated (if it is not a forbidden subject to talk about).
I think there is a good case to be made that secession would get better reception once a larger (and lighter) federal or confederal system is place, and then allowing for mechanism of decentralization to happen. This way the polities under each system are still bound to each other economically or in some small political way, and would thus likely keep the threat of violence to a minimum.
Dr. Foldvary’s fascinating paper touches on this, too. Just read it!
States and Secession: Lamenting the Failure of the Euro Zone
The Guardian has a so-so map on secessionist movements in Africa that’s worth checking out. I say it’s only so-so because it doesn’t really cover all the secessionist movements in the region, just the violent ones or the ones favored by Western diplomats.
I’m interested in secessionist movements because of the effects that they have on nationalism, one of the most dangerous ideologies to haunt mankind since the industrial revolution. Nationalism is probably worse than racism, or at least on par with it, when it comes to ideas gone horribly wrong.
That’s why I support free trade between states, and the deeper the better. The true tragedy of the EuroZone crisis is not the inevitable and predictable collapse of the euro but the fact that anti-liberal policies like the central bank and more political integration between states (and away from the people) are being misconstrued as liberal, in the classical sense.
The smaller the states the better, and the freer the trade the better. Mexicans should be able to travel and live in the US and Canada the same way that Nevadans are able to travel and live in California. The EuroZone could have been beautiful, but the pressure for a central bank and more control from a center, in Brussels, has probably ended it. It’s a good primer on how beautiful ideas often don’t pan out the way people would like them to.
Here’s how to fix the EuroZone crisis:
- Eliminate the monopoly of the central bank on creating money and credit.
- Open up the EuroZone market to more goods from the rest of the world (especially agricultural products from developing states).
I also think it’d be a good idea to keep Brussels as limited as it is. Doing so will not only allow more room for local policies to be experimented with and tested against other policies, but it will continue to erode the nation-state as well. What we were seeing prior to the crisis in the EuroZone is more calls for autonomy from state capitals throughout the EuroZone, and a powerlessness on the part of states to do anything about it.
So instead of France and Spain, two states, the world may have seen up to five or six states in their stead, all interacting with each other economically while retaining nominal political independence from each other.
What a shame.
US Military Spending
Over at Democracy in America, Roger McShane wonders aloud:
But I say the situation may be worse on the left, because if Democrats do not make the case for seriously cutting back military spending, who will?
He is speaking of course, of the so-called “cuts” to spending undertaken by the Obama administration. I put “cuts” in quotes because, well:
The cuts Barack Obama has pushed (outside of sequestration) are meager, despite what you may hear from Republicans. They are cuts to a ten-year plan that assumed annual increases. As Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute notes, “Over the next decade, the Pentagon’s annual base budget (which excludes most war costs) will average $517 billion in constant 2012 dollars, 11 percent higher than what Americans spent during the George W. Bush years.”
Jacques Delacroix seems to believe otherwise. In March of this year, he wrote:
In connection with Pres. Obama’s then-recent speech on cutting the US military budget, Paul also said clearly that those are cuts in increases to military expenditures, not absolute cuts. As one who has been reading the Wall Street Journal for the past thirty years and also for the past thirty days, I tell you that this is not true. I think it sounded good at the time so, the Congressman just said it, irresponsibly.
Dr. Delacroix is a numbers man (that’s how he earned his infamy), but with his track record on foreign policy I’d take his argument with a grain of salt.
At any rate, it’s nice to see the non-interventionists on both the Left and the Right get a shout out from the Economist (a supporter of the Second Gulf War), too:
And while the Republicans at least humour the Ron Paul-wing of their party, the Dennis Kucinich-wing of the Democratic Party has no voice in Charlotte.
Imperialism: the bane of free trade and individual liberty. Is it any wonder that Washington has so many enemies these days?
Around the Web
Gene Callahan breaks down social thought through the ages.
The auto industry’s success story since Obama’s union vote-buying bailout.
Debt: the first 500 pages. An economist from Australia reviews David Graeber.
Daniel Larison laments the terms of debate in regards to US foreign policy this election.
The Economic Recovery: Jobs Edition
Economist Mark Perry has a great take on the current sluggishness of the jobs rate over at Carpe Diem. He brings our attention to the following graph:
His observations:
Most of the weakness in the U.S. labor market, the stubbornly high unemployment rate, and the slow rate of overall job creation can be traced to the ongoing decreases in government jobs, see chart above, especially at the local level […] Perhaps the significant downsizing of government at the state and local level is a positive development for the future growth of the U.S. economy, and one benefit of the Great Recession. But we should also pay some attention to the fact that one of the reasons for the disappointing monthly employment reports is the persistent weakness in the public sector employment, which is offsetting the relatively healthy increases in private sector hiring.
This is a damn good point: unemployment rates have remained high because of losses in the public sector, not the private sector (which has been steadily growing). As Dr. Perry observes, this is good for long-run growth, but I can’t help but lament the fact that cuts in government spending have not been deeper and more robust. Imagine what the economy would look like if if deep cuts had been made six years ago.
As always, it is important to look at what the graph does not tell us. The graph explains that government jobs have been decreasing, but tells us nothing about expenses for current and retired government employees. Federal and state employees have gained notoriety for their lavish retirement packages (especially in California!), and none of this is covered in the graph. Public sector pension reform is still a vital issue that needs to be solved.
One other lament that I feel I must make pertains to the bank and auto bailouts of 2008-09. Although the bailouts don’t have any casual correlation to the graph I reproduced, I don’t think it is hard to image, again, what the economy would look like today if there had been a rigorous separation between business and state.
Methodology, Theory and “Real” Sociology
Co-blogger Jacques Delacroix writes the following (in 1995!):
Organizational ecology is the other major open system school of thought. Organizational ecology (sometimes called “population ecology”) is built around the concept of structural inertia. In the ecological view, organizations in general have little latitude for effective structural change. Indeed, accoriding to some ecologists, important structural forms are often recipes for disaster and more likely lead to organizational demise than to organizational adaptation, as assumed by managerial schools of thought […] Continue reading
Around the Web
Political scientist Jacob Levy shares his thoughts on unions
Social liberalism and the drug war, in which Bill Clinton and the Left gets taken to task for its hypocrisy
Notes On Liberty 