Inflation is a policy

Inflation is a policy. And a policy can be changed. Therefore, there is no reason to give in to inflation. If one regards inflation as an evil, then one has to stop inflating. One has to balance the budget of the government. Of course, public opinion must support this; the intellectuals must help the people to understand. Given the support of public opinion, it is certainly possible for the people's elected representatives to abandon the policy of inflation.

.. says Ludwig von Mises in his Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow (pp. 72-73). And there you have it! Do you hate to see your salary decrease in value, year by year, unless you get a substantial raise? Blame the government! Would you like to be able to buy just as much for your savings today and in 20 years, but you realise that you can't? Blame the government! Inflation is a policy. That's it. 

Natural economic laws

Once, during a speech which he was making at a statistical congress in Bern, [Vilfredo] Pareto spoke of 'natural economic laws,' whereupon [Gustav] Schmoller, who was present, said that there was no such thing. Pareto said nothing, but smiled and bowed. Afterward he asked Schmoller, through one of his neighbors, whether he was well acquainted with Bern. When Schmoller said yes, Pareto asked him again whether he knew of an inn where one could eat for nothing. The elegant Schmoller is supposed to have looked half pityingly and half disdainfully at the modestly dressed Pareto - although he was known to be well off - and to have answered that there were plenty of cheap restaurants, but that one had to pay something everywhere. At which Pareto said: 'So there are natural laws of political economy!'

From Rothbard's Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II (p. 459). And what a gold mine this book is! It almost makes one think that history teaches us nothing, that all the mistakes of the past are doomed to be repeated again and again, and every time this happens, something of the good of human thought is lost. One of the mistakes is to consider humans as mere robots, programmable and acting only according to the dictates of the State. This is a fallacy, and an old one. Humans have a "nature", something that you can try to stamp on, force or manipulate, but which you cannot change. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we are on the highway to prosperity, peace and harmony of interest.

GDP and monetary pumping

In an age where "the GDP" is usually considered the all-important parameter to measure the "health" of an economy, the following should be kept in mind:

Remember that changes in GDP are a reflection of changes in monetary pumping: the more is pumped the greater the rate of growth of GDP. (#)

Therefore, it is sad to see robust and solid companies base their forecasts on forecasts on GDP. This is pure guess-work. An increase in GDP is more often than not harmful. A lowering GDP could even be a surer sign of an improving health of an ecomony, as monetary contraction is in many ways a cleaning process rather than the other way around.

The Art of Taxation

The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing.

..said Jean-Baptise Colbert (1619-83), who, to quote Wikipedia, was "a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV". The quotation is from Murray N. Rothbard's The Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume I (Economic Thought Before Adam Smith), page 246.
That being said, he was also an honest supporter of an all-embracing State, that could choke or support all forms of labour and industry as she liked.
I call him an honest Leftist. If only modern day leftists could state their attitudes as clearly as the power-crazy French politician (who receives undeserved praise in Wikipedia).

Give me advice, and no more

Give me as much advice as you please, but constrain me to nothing. I decide upon my own proper risk and peril, and surely that is enough without the tyrannical intervention of law.

..says Bastiat (The Bastiat Collection, p. 982), and I agree.

By what right does the organizer of artificial systems venture to think, act, and choose, not only for himself, but for everyone else? for, after all, he belongs to the human race, and in that respect is fallible; and he is so much the more fallible in proportion as he pretends to extend the range of his science and his will.

..says Bastiat (The Bastiat Collection, pp. 970-971), and how true! Those who want to rule us all (either as tyrants of "representatives" in a democracy) should keep their good advice to themselves if they want to put it into law and enforce them via the force of the police or military.

The other side of welfare: Idleness

Were all our citizens to say, “We will club together to assist those who cannot work, or who cannot find employment,” we should fear to see developed to a dangerous extent man’s natural tendency to idleness; we should fear that the laborious would soon become the dupes of the slothful. Mutual assistance, then, implies mutual surveillance, without which the common fund would soon be exhausted. This reciprocal surveillance is for such association a necessary guarantee of existence—a security for each contributor that he shall not be made to play the part of dupe; and it constitutes besides the true morality of the institution. By this means, we see drunkenness and debauchery gradually disappear; for what right could that man have to assistance from the common fund who has brought disease and want of employment upon himself by his own vicious habits? It is this surveillance that re-establishes that responsibility the association might otherwise tend to enfeeble.

..says Basitat in his Economic Harmonies, Book II (pp. 842-843 in The Bastiat Collection), first published at around 1850. The remainder of this part of the book is a sign of remarkable foresight from a man who understood the nature of the State better than most.

Patents hurt us

[B]ecause of generalized and ever extended patenting, pharmaceutical companies have grown accustomed to operate like monopolies. Monopolies innovate as little as possible and only when forced to; in general they rather spend time seeking rents via political protection while trying to sell at a high price their old refurbished products to the powerless consumers, via massive doses of advertising.

...say Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine in their book, Against Intellectual Monopoly (chapter 9). Their case is compelling as far as I can see, and it is against patents (for their own book as well as for drugs and other "intellectual property").

I intend to read their book, and also the monograph Against Intellectual Property by the libertarian Stephen Kinsella. In my mind, there can be no justified reason to hold ideas sealed behind a veil of "property rights" that the State has imposed in order to protect big business. Now I need to get familiar with all the arguments. Wish me luck?

Why the State can get away with it

One of the crucial factors that permits governments to do the monstrous things they habitually do is the sense of legitimacy on the part of the stupefied public. The average citizen may not like — may even strongly object to — the policies and exactions of his government. But he has been imbued with the idea — carefully indoctrinated by centuries of governmental propaganda — that the government is his legitimate sovereign, and that it would be wicked or mad to refuse to obey its dictates. It is this sense of legitimacy that the State's intellectuals have fostered over the ages, aided and abetted by all the trappings of legitimacy: flags, rituals, ceremonies, awards, constitutions, etc.

...says Murray N. Rothbard in his For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (chapter 12). And how true! The reason the State can do what it does, mostly without resistance no matter what, is because most of us consider the State to be a legitimate entity. A member of the mafia, extracting "protection fees" and "contributions" from the local shop keepers, is always frowned upon. The tax collector is not. The tax collector is a man with a "normal job" and someone working for "the society". But really he isn't. He is a member of the biggest mafia, and a mafia that can operate mostly without resistance. And this is our fault.

The Welfare State vs. The Family

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.

How true! This and more in the very well written and informative book, The Ethics of Money Production. My favorite: The families have been degraded into small production units that share utility bills, cars, refrigerators, and of course the tax bill.

Labour is not wealth

 If men lived in diving-bells under water, and had to provide themselves with air by means of a pump, this would be a great source of employment. To throw obstacles in the way of such employment, as long as men were left in this condition, would be to inflict upon them a frightful injury. But if the Labor ceases because the necessity for its exertion no longer exists, because men are placed in a medium where air is introduced into their lungs without effort, then the loss of that Labor is not to be regretted, except in the eyes of men who obstinately persist in appreciating in Labor nothing but Labor in the abstract.

This is a simple point from Bastiat (Domination by Labor, from The Bastiat Collection, pp. 427-428). At the same time, it is both neglected and understated, even rejected.

We can keep it simple: Labour is not wealth. Wealth is stuff and services, bought with the fruits of labour. The less labour we need to finance the stuff and services we want or need, the better. Should all our needs fall from the sky and render labour unnecessary, we would become better off.