We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day If we immerse ourselves wholly in day-to-day affairs, we cease making fundamental distinctions, or asking the really basic questions. Soon, basic issues are forgotten, and aimless drift is substituted for firm adherence to principle. Often we need to gain perspective, to stand aside from our everyday affairs in order to understand them more fully. This is particularly true in our economy, where interrelations are so intricate that we must isolate a few important factors, analyze them, and then trace their operations in the complex world.
– from the Introduction of What Has Government Done To Our Money? by Murray Rothbard. To read the whole thing, go here.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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There is something of the “academic” in parts of Rothbard’s observations, much as I admire his scholarship and analyses.
The individuals who make up the larger part of the electorate (U S and pobably U K) are caught up in a fast moving current of directly impacting events, not by choice or avoidance, but by circumstance, such as many of us found ourselves in action, or out, in WW II. We simply did what we could. That is what the elctorate does today. To critique them without “being there” is like blaming the negligible results of a “well-planned” campaign on the qualities of the forces in the field.
A dollar today is worth about 5 cents compared to the dollar I grew up with.
I’m constantly explaining the extent of the devaluation to my kids when we watch an old movie or classic TV show and they see people all excited over a few thousand dollars, or ready to kill for it.
They have grown up, especially the younger 2, in a world where $20 can barely pay for some fast food and a movie. When I try to describe quitting one job in high school that paid $.90/hr for a better one that paid $1.15/hr, they look at me as if I just landed in a flying saucer.
The fiat money state has turned dollars into nickels.
Great quote. Like and share
Rothbard was wrong about many things – from military tactics to history.
But, as far as I know, he was never wrong on important matters of economic theory (well not the stuff that is imporant to me anyway).
And his special area of interest was money and credit.
Here (I believe) his Aristotelian philosophy (harking back to the Aristotelianism of Carl Menger himself – who got it from Franz Branteno) helped him.
I must say that I am not talking about a man with a beard in Classical Greece (Aristotle) I am talking about the tradtion of thought developed from Aristotle.
Specifcally….
That human BEINGS (the reasoning “I”) exists – it is not an “illusion”, people can indeed make choices and can base these choices on their reasoning.
That physical reality really exists – it is not just a dream in our minds (and the mind really exists – see the first point).
And that the universe (and how our choices effect things) can be understood by logical reasoning – not a special form of mathematical “logic”, but the ordinary reasoning that human beings are capable of.
“Whatr does this mean in practice?”
It means (for example) that something that no one valued (that no one wanted because they liked it – or wanted to use it to make something they liked) could not have evolved as money (see Menger on this – lots of people might later use the money without likeing the commodity, but someone must have liked it for it to become money – free market money that is) – fiat money (let alone credit money) can only come in later (by force or fraud) it does not emerge in a market context (i.e. a context based on VOLUNTARY CHOICES, choices based on TRUTH, not fraud – not lies).
And…
If someone says they have money to lend, they should be able to SHOW YOU THE MONEY (not just words in a ledger – the actual money).
The human mind is real, the universe is real, and human logic (reasoning) makes sense (is sense).