Libertarian Economics, socialism, and Neo-con militarism
cross-posted from penigma.blogspot.com;
I'm in good company being critical of neo-con hawkishness
Ludwig von Mises is a hero for libertarians and Austrian school economists on the extreme right wing. His work is built on the foundational belief of praxeology and the action axiom that relies on people making decisions logically and using reason.
We know this is not the case, we know that many decisions are made illogically, impulsively, emotionally, or simply wrongly based on false assumptions and inaccurate information. In the case of supply side, trickle-down, horse and sparrow economics, no matter how many decades of utter, epic failure are the result, we still have Grover Norquist, and effectively the entire GOP and Tea Party advocating something unreasonable, illogical, and ignoring that it economies that redistribute wealth to a small percentage of rich people, and that create the kind of wealth and income gap that we have in this country - again - inevitably fail to grow their GDP, and are more prone to fraud, corruption, swindling, and catastrophic boom and bust cycles. In short, right wing economics create economies with every possible flaw and blight, and little growth at best, and large contraction at worst.
Mises went running for the U.S. when he became afraid that the Nazis were going to invade Switzerland. They didn't; but that was only because Swiss neutrality was useful for them, and they planned to get around to it further into the war. What I oppose is neo-con militarism, not the usual centrist moderate approach to appropriate military roles - like militarily opposing Nazis.
Mises was of course the mentor of von Hayek, and an extreme right wing nut in his own right, contributing to hate groups like the radical right wing John Birch society. This is ironic, given that the Birchers are anti-Semitic, and Mises was an Austrian Jew, but Mises was anti-socialism (like Hayek, sort of, except when they wanted their own government 'hand outs').
The reality is that there ARE some things where war is requisite to economies and societies. Had this nation not opposed the Nazis, we could not have simply defeated them through economic action. Sadly, Mises, and his legacy, the Mises Institute, which has close ties to political figures like Rand Paul, promote ideology without requiring that it function successfully in the real world.
This is as true of Mises work as it is of the Libertarians who love him, or the idiot Tea Party who tend to be functionally illiterate on the subjects of history and economics.
For example, it is perfectly consistent with the positions of the Mises Institute, which are supposed to be true to the thinking of Ludwig von Mises, to be in many respects antagonistic towards democracy. It is not hard to understand why the extreme right wing would be comfortable with voter suppression or election tampering, or even election rigging, if they distrust and oppose our democratic process.
from Wikipedia:
The Institute is generally critical of statism and democracy, with the latter being described in Institute publications as "coercive",[16] "incompatible with wealth creation"[17] "replete with inner contradictions"[18] and a system "of legalized graft."[16]
If you view the desirable goal to be accumulation or creation of wealth for a few, and any government regulation which resist the redistribution of wealth to only a few people, then everyone else becomes expendable, and it becomes reasonable to try to exclude them from participation.
Of course the reality is that those economies have been most effective that are combination economies - a mix of capitalism and socialism. They have the strongest, most efficient and productive economies with solid growth and productivity; but they also tend to be somewhat socialist in providing good public education, social safety nets, free universal health care, and higher taxation rates than those favored by the extreme right. They tend to fund their infrastructure sufficient to maintain and expand it, and they tend to have strong labor advocacy and participation in their economies. Unions are included in government; government does not try to eradicate it. The result is as much or more freedom, a healthier, more productive and better educated population, and healthier and more functional societies as measured by metrics like ethnic and gender equality.
As I noted in a recent post, I find the laissez-faire capitalism of Libertarians to be a thin disguise for justifying institutionalizing inequality, by trying to decry it as 'socialism' when what it really is amounts to rapacious wealth redistribution to the rich, and creating a lack of freedom, equality, and economic growth. It is antithetical and oppositional to 'we the people'. We is you-and-I, not I, at the expense or inequality of You, (singular OR plural).
The thinking of Rand Paul, and those like him in his supportive base, come as much from the ideology of the Austrian School as a jaundiced view of world history and government.
