The Welfare State

Here are two short quotes from an excellent book, The Ethics of Money Production:

Today, the welfare state provides a great number of services that in former times have been provided by families (and which would, we may assume, still be provided to a large extent by families if the welfare state ceased to exist). Education of the young, care for the elderly and the sick, assistance in times of emergencies—all of these services are today effectively “outsourced” to the state. The families have been degraded into small production units that share utility bills, cars, refrigerators, and of course the tax bill. The tax-financed welfare state then provides them with education and care. (p. 189)

It is precisely because the welfare state is an inefficient economic arrangement that it must rely on taxes. If it had to compete with families on equal terms, it could not stay in business for any length of time. It has driven the family and private charities out of the “welfare market” because people are forced to pay for it anyway. They are forced to pay taxes, and they cannot prevent the government from floating ever-new loans, which absorb the capital that otherwise would be used for the production of different goods and services. (p. 190)

The book takes the reader through a wide range of subjects in economics and political philosophy, which is good. However, this does leave the reader asking many questions not covered by the book, since answering all of these would probably expand the book to a huge size. So I hope the author continues to write on e.g. ethics, and elaborate further on his many insights.

Keynesian economics = socialism?

The so-called Keynesian economics are probably what we could call "mainstream" economics today. At some point this will have to change, since Keynesian economics are the economics of destruction. But how did they become so popular? Henry Hazlitt had a theory (on page 287 in his Failure of the 'New Economics'):

It is more instructive to inquire why Keynes put forward this extremely complicated and implausible theory. And here we may have to answer that, siding as he did with the immemorial  labor-union insistence that employment is not caused by excessive wage-rates, he had to come up with some theory as to what does cause it. And as he couldn't blame the labor-union leaders, what more natural (and politically convenient) than to blame the moneylenders, the creditors, the rich? Like Marxism, this is a class theory of the business cycle, a class theory of unemployment. As in Marxism, the capitalists become the scapegoats, with the sole difference that the chief villains are the moneylenders rather than the employers.
And that, I suspect, rather than any new discoveries of technical analysis, is the real secret of the tremendous vogue of the General Theory. It is the twentieth century's Das Kapital.

I find this very plausible. The Keynesian "system" is socialism in disguise, and socialists like disguises.

Government is an antisocial institution

There is no longer a general public opinion that regards government as an antisocial institution based on coercion and unjust property acquisitions, to be opposed and ridiculed everywhere and at all times on principled grounds. No longer is it generally regarded as morally despicable to propagate or, even worse, to actively participate in the enforcement of acts of expropriation, and no longer is it the general opinion that one would not have any private dealings whatsoever with people who engaged in such activities. ...

The politician who actively supports a continuation of the ongoing system of non-contractual property taxation and regulation or who even demands its expansion is treated everywhere with respect, rather than contempt. The intellectual who justifies taxation and regulation receives recognition as a deep and profound thinker in the public eye, instead of being exposed as an intellectual fraud. The IRS agent is regarded as a man doing a job just as legitimate as yours and mine, and not as an outcast that no one wishes to have as a relative, friend, or neighbor.

... says Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (pp. 63-64). The "State problem" is a problem of attitude towards the State. The State cannot rule over the people unless people support its rule or consider it "inevitable" (which it's not). So if we want to reign in the State, we need to hate the State. So please do that.

Capitalism ends in the Garden of Eden

Thus, the only viable path toward economic growth is through savings and investment, governed as they are by time preference. Ultimately there is no way toward prosperity except through an increase in the per capita quota of invested capital. This is the only way to increase the marginal productivity of labor and only if this is done can future income rise in turn. With real incomes rising, the effective rate of time preference falls (without, however, ever reaching zero or even becoming negative), adding still further increased doses of investment, and setting in motion an upward spiraling process of economic development.

There is no reason to suppose that this process should come to a halt short of reaching the Garden of Eden where all scarcity has disappeared—unless people deliberately choose otherwise and begin to value additional leisure more highly than any further increase in real incomes. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the process of capitalist development would be anything but smooth and that the economy would flexibly adjust not only to all monetary changes but to all changes in the social rate of time preference as well. Of course, so long as the future is uncertain, there will be entrepreneurial errors, losses, and bankruptcies. But no systematic reason exists why this should cause more than temporary disruptions, or why these disruptions should exceed, or drastically fluctuate around, a “natural rate” of business failures.

...says Hans-Hermann Hoppe in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (p. 152). Notice especially the following words: "There is no reason to suppose that this process should come to a halt short of reaching the Garden of Eden where all scarcity has disappeared—unless people deliberately choose otherwise and begin to value additional leisure more highly than any further increase in real incomes."

And indeed, many rulers and socialists choose to completely ignore the results of economic analysis of government intervention. They choose power and their own special kind of "justice", rather than increased prosperity and elimination of scarcity.

No "unintended" consequences can be identified. The results of some planned interventionism are known beforehand.

Aid or capitalism?

No one contests that what makes hundreds of mil­lions in Asia and Africa destitute is that they cling to primitive methods of production and miss the benefits which the employ­ment of better tools and up-to-date technological designs could be­stow upon them. But there is only one means to relieve their distress—namely, the full adoption of laissez-faire capitalism.

... says Ludwig von Mises in The Anti-Capitalist Mentality (section 4). And how true! Since he wrote this (in 1956), Asia has increasingly coupled itself to the world market, and poverty is there on the run. Africa, however, still more or less clings to socialism, and remains poor despite massive foreign aid and relief. The problems of socialism (poverty, death) can only be relieved by the abolition of socialism.

Time to abolish the State?

The last few centuries were times when men tried to place constitutional and other limits on the State, only to find that such limits, as with all other attempts, have failed. Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check. The problem of the State is evidently as far from solution as ever. Perhaps new paths of inquiry must be explored, if the successful, final solution of the State question is ever to be attained.

... says Rothbard in Anatomy of the State. And he is right. Men have tried to reign in the State with all sorts of methods, but have proven unsuccessful. Perhaps it is time to consider abolishing it altogether? Or just embrace socialism. Many seem to have taken that path.

Worst crisis ever?

The 1920s bust was actually worse than the 2000 dot-com bust. In 1920 unemployment jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent and GNP declined 17 percent; however

1. there was no fiscal stimulus,
2. the budget was cut nearly in half and the national debt was cut by one-third,
3. tax rates were significantly decreased for all groups, and
4. the Federal Reserve did next to nothing.

As a consequence, by 1922 unemployment was down to just under 7 percent and declined to 2.4 percent in 1923. (#)

There you have it. How does a politician fix a crisis? Answer: Do nothing (except cut the government budget and lower taxes).

Keynesianism is fascism

Keynesianism, according to Keynes, is fascism. Says Keynes:

The theory of aggregate production that is the goal of the following book can be much more easily applied to the conditions of a totalitarian state than the theory of the production and distribution of a given output turned out under the conditions of free competition and of a considerable degree of laissez-faire.

(quoted from Hazlitt, The Failure of the “New Economics”, p. 277) (I found this quotation in Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 167) See also: Keynesianism Loves the Total State. And why is this important to remember and consider? Because many of the neo-keynesianists call themselves free market supporters and refuse to accept the socialist-stamp. Well, maybe they should reject the Marxist-socialist stamp, because they are fascist-socialists.