Thinking Aloud, a minarchist blog, defends Ron Paul against Gary Weiss’s vicious rant at Salon:
“The Libertarians vision is not one of people starving in the streets so that rich people can be richer. It’s a vision of a non-coercive society. In Libertarian thought, cutting social services can be done morally because the Libertarians believe Americans are big enough as people to voluntarily provide for those who are hard-up. This does not constitute a denial of our obligations to each other, but rather a denial of the morality of using coercion to fulfill them. I do not necessarily agree that this would happen, but it is fundamentally different than a Randian ‘what’s-mine-is-mine.’ Paul Ryan might be a Randian, but Ron Paul is not. Furthermore, Weiss’s implication that Ron Paul is a shill for oligarchic interests is simply dishonest. Part of the libertarian critique is that the modern state engages in significant cronyism, patronage, and rent-seeking for the connected-thus creating the oligarchy. Weiss ignores this entirely in his quest to paint Paul as a stooge, and ignores the wider point that the income of the most economically powerful is most certainly augmented by those sorts activities through campaign finance, regulatory capture, patronage, and other mechanisms.
Mr. Weiss’s tone and style is not well-placed in the service of attacking fellow enemies of American corporatism. Mr. Paul, though wrong in my opinion, is an honest and principled politician who in many fields is helping to fight the good fight. He is connected to his followers because he offers something different, something principled. He is not a ‘manipulator’ or “faux-populist con job” that Weiss portrays him as. If Mr. Weiss wishes to spill ink in such a virulent fashion, perhaps he should restrain himself to the actual shills, manipulators, and faux populist con-jobs that inhabit the Republican Party, rather than the honest man in the lot.Any reader of this blog would realize that I am no member of the Paul-cult, reflexively attacking any critic. Unlike much of the Left, who find their sympathies with the closet-collectivism of American social conservatives, my ‘were I a wingnut’ sympathies lie with the Libertarians. I find the motivations behind libertarians to be nobler and less intrusive than other ideologies. That being said, I also think that life-mistakes should not be punished with utter destitution, that the Federal Reserve performs a useful function in providing for an elastic currency, that Austrian economics is merely the most highly developed form of the arm-chair school, that market power exists and is frequently abused, that there are public goods best served by the public authority, and that there are market externalities that are frequently left un-addressed and that this encumbers society significantly. This is what separates me from the libertarians. They’re good people. Good– but wrong–people.”
It’s very sad; these publications are really cheapening themselves by continuing to hire Weiss.
Amazing what you can do in the press these days and get away with it.
“I also think that… the Federal Reserve performs a useful function in providing for an elastic currency,”
WTF? You’re defending theft? Wow.
scratch that comment, my errror. Thinking Aloud is the one defending theft. … too much reading at once on my part.
Hi Clark,
Not me. That’s the blog I quoted from.
In theory, some small amount of elasticity probably wouldn’t do too much harm.
I take it that’s what Hultberg and other Friedmanites are talking about.
But, for me, “small amount” is something that will never work in the current circumstances.
If they can print, they WILL PRINT.
If they do print, it will be a lot
the Fed performs a useful function in providing for an elastic currency, in the same way that private corporate-owned tollways charging exorbitant fees would probably still perform a useful function of moving traffic. But that don’t mean it’s good, on balance.
If there’s gonna be a monopoly on something (because, say, it’s in the nature of a natural monopoly; people want a standard national currency), make it public and not for profit. (This does not of course rule out all sorts of private systems between individuals.)
But the other major problem with the systemis totally outside the Fed’s reach — at least, its monetary policy reach.
“The Chicago School effectively ignores the reality of a land-value boom-and-bust cycle driven by its own internal dynamic — by factors outside the scope of monetary policy. …I am not disputing the idea that money supply influences economic outcomes … [However,] their analysis simply ignores the easily observed fact that land speculation has preceded major economic crises and deprived banks of liquidity.”
Gaffney, “After the Crash: Creating a Depression-Free Economy”
I’m autodidactically trying to get my head around how all these factors (land price/bank expansion/Fed policy/illiquidity/bank capital requirements/etc) interact, as told by Gaffney; someone with a better grip on finer points of finance may have an easier time of it.
“that market power exists and is frequently abused…”
Not if by market you mean voluntary exchanges.
State-granted privilege, however, is abused (or rather, used as intended: to aid some at the expense of others).
however, I do include under the rubric of state-granted privilege, the denial of opportunity to large swathes of the population. People without options are easier prey, whether for big corporate employers or greedy banksters.
“that there are public goods best served by the public authority…”
Yeah, but which? If this guy is coming from the left, he suffers from the malady of seeing natural monopoly type goods as identical to individual goods — or of using paternalist rationales to blur the distinction. The left so overreaches on public goods, that it creates cover for rentier elements in the guise of the right to advocate privatizing EVERYTHING: roads, water, sewers, air , sunlight, space-time, God…
“… and that there are market externalities that are frequently left un-addressed …”
Look to H. George and A. Pigou. “Externalities” caused by intervention are stopped by stopping intervention. (Wanna shed the externality of caring for people with unhealthy habits? Make them and theirs responsible for their own health.)
Charge for environmental externalities (pollution).
” They’re good people. Good– but wrong–people.”
Mostly good, mostly right, but missing a few key puzzle pieces.
As for bad guys, vulture capitalists and phonycronytarians hiding behind the libertarian banner, shame on them.