The Fallacy of Collectivism - Ludwig von Mises

I am going to re-pose this question again for you Pejeu... because I do believe you earnestly believe in what you say and truly believe you are aiming for good.

If you fully think this through it should shed some light on the true nature of the system you propose.

While reading my question keep in mind how vehemently I disagree with you and how dangerous I consider you and your ideas to be despite your best intentions. I understand you are likely to perceive me the same in reverse... that's the entire point.

Pejeu
I favour eugenics (I think it is necessary for the long term survival and prosperity of man kind; but you can think of it as bioengineering applied toward the betterment of the human species if the connotations of the word 'eugenics' put you off) and would put bankers in forced labour camps.

Are you comfortable with me personally making the eugenics decisions and who belongs in forced labor camps?

What will you feel if you wake up and realize I'm in control of the state you were previously in control of?

----------------------

Thank you again for your time. This discussion has been lively and colorful. I am content to leave you to offer whatever last words you wish to offer without fear of a followup.

/namasalute

Bluesma

BardingTheBard

There is nowhere on this planet for me to go and not live under the authority of a government or international finance system.

There is no country that corresponds to your preferences??? Really?

I have trouble understanding.. but I am willing to chalk that up to two glasses of wine with dinner, which is not usual for me.

No country is perfect for you then.... are you sure? I mean, I didn't know how other countries were until I tried... and was surpised to find that some did.
Well, I am sorry to hear that, it is really too bad.

There is no country on this planet to run to. Our federation was conceived to allow us to 'vote with our feet' from state to state and that is completely destroyed by federal government overreach which eliminates that basic premise of the state laboratory concept.

reply to post by Pejeu


I like your comments. It's because we each do not exist in isolated universes that we have to consider each others actions with respect to its broader impacts.

A man alone on an island can do whatever he wants as long as he can survive. But a man that isn't alone has to respect the desires of the others who live with him.

I wonder if this could eventually lead to catastrophe or war, though? For example, if speed of travel and exchange of information continue to increase then the need for people of earth to coordinate their actions and to make peace with each other will increase. However, if people are unable - because of their nature or another reason - to make peace then conflict is a result. I surmise conflict is plausible and it'll result in people leaving earth for other places to colonize to escape the violence.

3 is a crowd but 4 or more is war! Lol.

Or maybe we'll find genuine peace on Earth, but it'll have some kind of cost. For example, perhaps we'll stop exploring and/or eliminate emotions. I think if everybody stays on earth it'll be like we all have cabin fever. Perhaps we'll escape to virtual worlds in order to feel like we have freedom as an individual.

How much can we control ourselves (as a population) and control earth without losing our freedoms to act independently? Perhaps we'll redefine freedom as including those things that preserve prosperity and excluding those things that ferment unrest? That seems likely, but it means freedom is a word that can mean freedom in an authoritarian nation or freedom in a libertarian nation. It's a word which demands context, if it can mean different things for different peoples.

Bluesma
There is no country that corresponds to your preferences??? Really?

I have trouble understanding.. but I am willing to chalk that up to two glasses of wine with dinner, which is not usual for me.

Show me a libertarian country and I'll consider it.



I'm doing what I can in the US... Texas... Austin... as it's about as close as I can find (though I know many libertarians will stick their nose up at Austin, heh). I'm sticking it out with the US because legally we have not revoked the government which does correspond to my preferences and thus is the only one I know of that is still legally built upon those preferences.

However it's been taken over via the Federal Reserve and is actively considering people like me potential terrorists (despite more or less being a non-interventionist pacifist) and engaging in financial fraud that everyone on the planet is forced to participate in or face bombs.

Bluesma
No country is perfect for you then.... are you sure? I mean, I didn't know how other countries were until I tried... and was surpised to find that some did.

I'm not looking for a country to be perfect. I'm looking for a country that recognizes no country is perfect and leaves it to the people to figure out the best course of action for themselves so long as they aren't infringing on other people's efforts to figure out the best course of action for themselves.

Bluesma
Well, I am sorry to hear that, it is really too bad.

Perhaps our cries to be heard might be starting to make sense. We don't want to prevent socialists from having a socialist town, state, or country. There has been a constant process of eroding any place for people like me to live though and having socialism forced upon us.

The American people didn't vote the New Deal in because they considered all the options and determined it was best... a fake crash was created so it could be thrust upon them to "save them". Without the crash, no New Deal. Without the Federal Reserve, no national and global crash. Without collectivists desiring to take over the US and subvert the system it had established, no Federal Reserve.

I'm not normally one to quote myself... but it's easier than rewriting everything again.

jonnywhite
It's because we each do not exist in isolated universes that we have to consider each others actions with respect to its broader impacts.

A man alone on an island can do whatever he wants as long as he can survive. But a man that isn't alone has to respect the desires of the others who live with him.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Libertarians and the like are NOT opposed to voluntarily joined and operated social networks, social support systems, etc. All of them know that survival depends on working with others. In fact... when given full opportunity for operation most socialists/communists would be surprised how naturally and easily many of the things they are trying to force at the point of a gun and power of the state will develop locally around them.

Their only contention is that these programs must be *voluntary*. Those who choose to participate will reap the claimed rewards of participating. They are actively invested in the operation and success. Those who do not participate do not receive any support. That is their choice and it is to be respected... and any help offered to them is offered voluntarily. Nobody will force you with a gun to empty your pockets for their choice.

Their belief (and history has proven it time and time again) is that having local safety nets is the way to go... because if one of them falls due to mismanagement or unexpected calamity... the rest can continue. And not only can they continue... they often can help absorb those left out when the other one fell. When we create an all encompassing net... then we ALL live or fall *at once* and can do so due to the actions of a tiny fraction of people.

BardingTheBard

Pejeu
I do not trust the banks not to be creative with their accounting, as you do.

No... you trust the state.

Depends a lot on who's running it.

But yes, generally much more so than a private, for profit corporation.

Because *that's* worked out so well for people through history.

It worked quite well, actually. Certainly better than liberalism (in the European sense), anarchy/libertarianism/feudalism and others.

Mostly it fails through under correction than over-correction and by erring on the side of caution, by allowing accumulation of too much private freedom and power.

Like allowing private corporations to counterfeit money legally and even usurp its money issuing power altogether.

Most of what's wrong with the world today is traceable to following what advice you would have dispensed and still do, in the face of all inexpugnable and unassailable evidence of the inviability of this path of too much individual and private freedom & power.

I don't trust banks anymore than I trust corporations or states or my uncle I lend $100 to.

I could, here, reasonably claim you're a liar.

If you didn't trust banks you'd be clamouring for their abolition, like me.

Instead you want to audit them. So they can buy off the auditors like they do ratings agencies (likewise private, for profit corporations) today.

I'm in quite the agreement.

You realise that's tantamount to banning banking, don't you?

That said... the same effect is reached by having the different types of deposit accounts and doing frequent and open audits.

And who's gonna conduct the audits?

Another private, for profit corporation?

That way when they're found out to have received bribes to overlook cooked books they'll just pay a corporate fine and no one would personally serve long hard time.

Which means there's no deterrent.

Unless you count a slap on the wrist fine to the corporation a personal deterrent.

When it's really already factored into their business model as an expense.

Corporations can't go to gaol or get executed. Nor do they age or die.

The perfect setup.

Not true. Any bank can cook its books even if it's just a warehouse. Storage facilities to this day do steal their customer's goods. They just don't stay in business very long.

At the very least, separating the two sides of banking would be an additional line of defence.

The only protection is frequent and open audits. Regardless of whether the bank allows both On Demand and Timed deposits, or just On Demand. There are plenty of banks that were nothing more than storage facilities spending the money in their vaults for personal gain and being caught with their pants down.

At first you agreed with my proposal to separate the lending side from the warehouse and payment inter mediation side of banking.

Who's to say they won't help each other pass audits by shifting cash around to hide FR Lending? Like now.

It's interesting you suddenly would trust a bank just because it calls itself a storage facility.

I wouldn't.

I already told you they would not be able, by law, to extend loans or invest money. At lest above board.

Of course, they could simply outright steal the money. I suppose regular auditing would prevent or contain the problem.

But even if this occurred, I myself, a completely uninvolved 3rd party, would not be affected in the slightest through inflation or otherwise.

You can never trust a bank no more than you can trust every family member to pay you back if you give them money.

They would no longer be a bank.

They'd just be a thieving warehouse and it would only affect their depositors.

It wouldn't affect everyone else that uses that respective currency.

Customers have to do their due diligence on whether to choose to put their money in a storage facility versus under their mattress.

And here we delve into the area of silly libertarian positions.

Tell me, how do you tell how well an airline maintains its fleet?

Can you tell just by looking at the plane on the tarmac from afar, before you embark?

Also, how do you know in advance whether a particular company's particular batch of foodstuff you're buying some of right now isn't Salmonella (or smth. worse) infested?

Do you want to leave private, for profit corporations to police themselves?

That will be true always. Forever. Separating them doesn't fix anything. It does make it easier to audit though, which is why I agree with separation.

Some common ground.

I'm content to let customers make their choices and to let honest banks survive while dishonest banks fail.

I am not content to let customers fend for themselves.

It's the ability to be bailed out by the state that leaves it viable to cook books and get away with it.

Why would the state bail out the thieving warehouse?

Why not make the depositors whole again instead, if you're gonna bail anyone out?

You're basically saying people are expendable and proactive prevention and social protection by government watchdog is pointless.

That there should be only reactionary punishing of thieving warehouses by consumers and, maybe, the government.

That's, again, a view I do not ascribe to.

There are tons of banks historically that operated honestly and never had problems. It was only when a bank was able to take on the risk without paying the price that the creature rises again.

Quit calling money warehouses and payment intermediaries banks, will you? Please.

Western Union, for example, is not a bank.

So please stop calling it that.

You can NEVER EVER ensure something will never occur again. ESPECIALLY in secret.

Semantics. Ok, not "ensure". Make it satisfactorily unlikely. Is that satisfactory?

The earth might be hollow. Or flat.

Or the moon might really be made of cheese.

This is the core fallacy of almost anyone trying to use the state to solve what are ultimately personal responsibilities.

The state is not perfect. But it is a whole lot better than the alternative.

For example instead of having a government issued only currency we have privatised currency.

How's that worked out for ya?

Or me?

Or anyone else on this rock?

The state is not perfect.

But at least you get some representation. And some consideration. And some (albeit meagre) choice.

At the ballot.

I fully agree with you that it would be far better if instead of representative democracy we would have a virtual direct democracy, like in that game, Civilization Call to Power. Through an electronic ballot.

Each week you'd connect to the ballot server site like you do to your online banking account, to see what new bills are put up for a vote.

And vote on the week's legislative proposals.

To initiate a legislative proposal you'd need to obtain endorsements online for the idea.

The bill would only be submitted to a general, public vote after it had already obtained 500.000 or so private, voluntary endorsements.

To prevent spamming the general public with hundreds of legislative proposals each week.

BardingTheBard
Are you comfortable with me personally making the eugenics decisions and who belongs in forced labor camps?

What will you feel if you wake up and realize I'm in control of the state you were previously in control of?

You, personally?

No.

A bunch of people? Yeah, probably. If I knew they were honestly left wing.

A computer program? Even more so.

At some point there needs to be a leap of faith.

This is true of any system you can conceive or concoct wherein multiple people can coexist, interact and maybe even collaborate, whether that trust is abused or not.

Without trust we have nothing.

Without collaboration we also have nothing.

We stand on the shoulders of giants: our collective forebears.

I think you have a very unfortunate world view. I can understand why you may feel that way but I do not agree.

I believe human beings are essentially good. Or at least have the potential for good.

If they are brought up the right way and taught the right morals and if society itself is not deeply immoral.

As I believe the environment you are born, grow up, develop and live in has a very profound bearing on the kind of person you grow up to become.

I believe we are, for better or worse, shaped by society on an individual level as much as we shape it, collectively.

reply to post by Pejeu

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Best wishes to you in your path through life and /namasalute.

reply to post by BardingTheBard

...The truth never stopped being the truth... has never been under attack or threat from ceasing to be the truth... and over time... asserts itself quite well all on its own. Thus why the statement that the truth doesn't need as much defending as lies is... well... true.

Lies require constant maintenance and always build a structure that ultimately collapses under their own weight. Truth sits around eroding lies without exerting any effort at all.....

I disagree. Humans hardly ever know the truth. It is the winners who write history and that is what becomes "Truth"

Since you take the name of the "Bard" he is a good example and so is his play, Richard the III. Did Richard kill the princes or was it Henry, who married his sister and who so after claimed the throne of England?

Those are just two examples. Heck every government uses illusions and propaganda. We think of the US government as GOOD but it has killed it's own citizens . In the 1960s and 1970s it was radiation experiments on Cancer Patients. My mom was a casualty. More recently the EPA has been using humans to experiment on WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. Is the University of Rochester trying to hide its illegal human experiments?

crimvelvet
reply to post by BardingTheBard

 

...The truth never stopped being the truth... has never been under attack or threat from ceasing to be the truth... and over time... asserts itself quite well all on its own. Thus why the statement that the truth doesn't need as much defending as lies is... well... true.

Lies require constant maintenance and always build a structure that ultimately collapses under their own weight. Truth sits around eroding lies without exerting any effort at all.....

I disagree. Humans hardly ever know the truth. It is the winners who write history and that is what becomes "Truth"

Since you take the name of the "Bard" he is a good example and so is his play, Richard the III. Did Richard kill the princes or was it Henry, who married his sister and who so after claimed the throne of England?

Those are just two examples. Heck every government uses illusions and propaganda. We think of the US government as GOOD but it has killed it's own citizens . In the 1960s and 1970s it was radiation experiments on Cancer Patients. My mom was a casualty. More recently the EPA has been using humans to experiment on WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. Is the University of Rochester trying to hide its illegal human experiments?

The problem is the failure of our government to live up to the principals upon which it was founded.

I am arguing that our founding principals are just, not that our government is. It is up to us to keep the state in check as it is presumed to always become corrupt.

There are no lies in our constitution or bill of rights.

reply to post by greencmp

I am arguing that our founding principals are just, not that our government is. It is up to us to keep the state in check as it is presumed to always become corrupt.

I will agree with that but I will not agree that truth does not need lots of work to get it out to the mases especially when the MSM is owned by the banksters and their buddies who also control our government.

I just spent several years trying to fight the lies that led to the passage of the 'Food "Safety" Modernization Act of 2009' that is about wiping out independent farmers and will make our food less safe and much more expensive. Then there is the Global Warming Hoax that is killing off people in the UK and soon will be killing off people here in the USA.

UK Suffers Coldest March in 50 Years, Global Warming to Blame

This is what Green Genocide looks like.

Freezing Britain’s unusually harsh winter could have cost thousands of pensioners their lives.

This month is on track to be the coldest March for 50 years – and as the bitter Arctic conditions caused blackouts and traffic chaos yesterday, experts warned of an ‘horrendous’ death toll among the elderly.

About 2,000 extra deaths were registered in just the first two weeks of March compared with the average for the same period over the past five years.

‘An increase in fuel costs and the extended winter means that more people are going to suffer, and more will be unable to afford to eat and heat their homes. It’s a scary prospect.’

This isn’t just more cold weather. It’s cold weather exacerbated by Energy Poverty caused by Green gimmicks that promised to fight Global Warming while dramatically driving up energy costs....

Unbelievably there are still diehards here at ATS defending this Hoax.

crimvelvet
reply to post by greencmp

 

I am arguing that our founding principals are just, not that our government is. It is up to us to keep the state in check as it is presumed to always become corrupt.

I will agree with that but I will not agree that truth does not need lots of work to get it out to the mases especially when the MSM is owned by the banksters and their buddies who also control our government.

I just spent several years trying to fight the lies that led to the passage of the 'Food "Safety" Modernization Act of 2009' that is about wiping out independent farmers and will make our food less safe and much more expensive. Then there is the Global Warming Hoax that is killing off people in the UK and soon will be killing off people here in the USA.

UK Suffers Coldest March in 50 Years, Global Warming to Blame

This is what Green Genocide looks like.

Freezing Britain’s unusually harsh winter could have cost thousands of pensioners their lives.

This month is on track to be the coldest March for 50 years – and as the bitter Arctic conditions caused blackouts and traffic chaos yesterday, experts warned of an ‘horrendous’ death toll among the elderly.

About 2,000 extra deaths were registered in just the first two weeks of March compared with the average for the same period over the past five years.

‘An increase in fuel costs and the extended winter means that more people are going to suffer, and more will be unable to afford to eat and heat their homes. It’s a scary prospect.’

This isn’t just more cold weather. It’s cold weather exacerbated by Energy Poverty caused by Green gimmicks that promised to fight Global Warming while dramatically driving up energy costs....

Unbelievably there are still diehards here at ATS defending this Hoax.

Yup, all very true, pardon me for asking but, is there something I said that you are disagreeing with or did I disagree with you about something? It is a little late so forgive me if there was something but, it doesn't seem like it from your comments.

reply to post by greencmp


I was arguing against this statement:

...The truth never stopped being the truth... has never been under attack or threat from ceasing to be the truth... and over time... asserts itself quite well all on its own. Thus why the statement that the truth doesn't need as much defending as lies is... well... true.

During my life I have seen many LIES become 'Truth' For example what was the actual cause of the Kent State Riot where students were shot?

You will never find the actual reason anywhere.

I dated a Kent State student who was there. The real reason for the riot?

Vietnam Vets going to school at Kent State were DENIED the RIGHT to vote by the town!!! The town told them to 'Go Home" to vote but the 'Nam Vets' were ADULTS some with wives and children living and working in the town. Many were in their late twenties. My boy friend at the time was a 27 year old 'Nam vet.

crimvelvet
reply to post by greencmp

 

I was arguing against this statement:

...The truth never stopped being the truth... has never been under attack or threat from ceasing to be the truth... and over time... asserts itself quite well all on its own. Thus why the statement that the truth doesn't need as much defending as lies is... well... true.

During my life I have seen many LIES become 'Truth' For example what was the actual cause of the Kent State Riot where students were shot?

You will never find the actual reason anywhere.

I dated a Kent State student who was there. The real reason for the riot?

Vietnam Vets going to school at Kent State were DENIED the RIGHT to vote by the town!!! The town told them to 'Go Home" to vote but the 'Nam Vets' were ADULTS some with wives and children living and working in the town. Many were in their late twenties. My boy friend at the time was a 27 year old 'Nam vet.

I think that was bard but, that whole part of the discussion was triggered by Pejeu's disinformation tactics. It is simply a semantic discussion about whether one should speak the truth or not. Pejeu was saying that anyone who defends freedom and liberty only does so because it is a lie.

Bard was responding the FreeMason's response which affirmed the necessity of such efforts to defend the truth of freedom and liberty. Bard (also defending liberty and freedom) was taking the bait originally laid by Pejeu to state that truth was self-evident and proves itself by the inability of untruths to manifest themselves as put forth.

I appreciate the addition of the new perspective of the observation that lies can become truths if repeated enough (incidentally part of my quotes from Lenin "A lie told often enough becomes truth").

So, as long as you aren't saying that the state is capable of being dependable and trustworthy, we are all in agreement except for Pejeu who insists that no one but the state can be trusted to control all aspects of society. He just doesn't understand that the state is always composed of the same humans which he does not trust (or he recognizes that fact and fully intends to be one of those untrustworthy humans in control).

reply to post by Pejeu

Make no mistake, I actually really am a statist and a socialist.

What you are doing is claiming that socialism is another name for feudalism, describing it as such, conflating the two. I find it abhorrent.

It's not socialism that's been prevailing throughout the world for the last hundred years.

It is neofeudalism.....

Believe me I am well aware it is neofeudalism or neocorporatism and that Rosa Koire's UN Agenda 21 Transit Villages are 'Company Towns' or a modern version of a Feudal village.

The problem is that the elite who are promoting this return to neo-feudalism use 'Socialism' as the cloak to hide the wolf.

Unfortunately for the statists and socialists, the crud rises to the top of the cesspool and that is what we have running our governments. Sociopaths who will walk over bodies and knife you in the back to get to the top.

The honest man with integrity in politics is very rare and usually ends up DEAD. Congressman McFadden for one example.

THis is why I support a SMALL government with just enough laws to keep the elite under control. This is why I want the social programs LOCAL.

As one of the Wolves in Sheep's clothing said:

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

The same person also said:

The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”
LINK

He was a founding member of the Fabian Society, George Bernard Shaw. The Fabians claim to be 'socialists'

As far as I am concerned that is the same mindset as a cattle farmer or a feudal overlord and I want no part of it. Unfortunately the Fabians also started the London School of Economics which trains world leaders. No wonder they came up with a modern version of feudalism like 'Transit Villages'

Crimvelvet, I owe you a debt of gratitude.

In researching your libertarian view points (all the ado about this Fabian Socialists' society) I stumbled across a blog after mine own heart:

The Daily Knell

Much delightful confirmation bias I foresee in my future.

Buh-bye!

How Money Power controls the Libertarian movement in the 21st century

Debunking another cornerstone of the Austrian-Keynesian dialectic: do central banks really control the money supply?

How the Money Power spawns Libertarians

Austrian Economics was willfully invented, or at any rate made important, to obscure the truth about money. It is there to lead the people awakening from the Fractional Reserve Banking hoax into a blind alley, by saying the problem will be solved by full reserve Gold Banking.

Yummy!

But wait!

There's more!

Proof Libertarianism is an Illuminati Ploy

Far from defending freedom, the Illuminati created Libertarianism to reflect their Social Darwinian and racial supremacist ideology. With its opposite twin, Communism, they control the dialectic. The efficacy of this tactic is demonstrated by their duping the "Truth Movement."

The "Right to Allow your Child to Die"

To his credit, anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard distanced himself from Mandeville's ideology. However, the same Rothbard advocated that parents have "a legal right not to feed [their] child, i.e., to allow it to die", and for the emergence of a "free market in children".

reply to post by NavyDoc

You are quite wrong. Banking, in and of itself is not fraud. If you require capital to expand your factory and a bank lends you the money at an agreed upon interest, no fraud is done and both the banker who earns interest and the business who otherwise could not have expanded without the capital win.

You keep stating an untruth, over and over, that regular banks create money. They do not. We recognize that the Fed does create money and should have nothing to do with it, but your neighborhood savings and loan does not.

Unfortunately you are incorrect in that statement. Banks in a fractional reserve system like the USA ALL create money. That is why I qualify what I mean by adding ' fractional reserve' to the word bank.

*****US Banks Operating Without Reserve Requirements*****
Banks typically have 3% of their assets in cash in order to meet customer needs. Since 1960, banks have been allowed to use this "vault cash" to satisfy their reserve requirements. Today, bank reserve requirements have fallen to the point where they are now exceeded by vault cash, which means lowering reserve requirements to zero would have virtually no impact on the banking system. US banks are already operating free of any reserve constraints. ....

In summary, today most depository institutions are satisfying their entire reserve requirement with this vault cash, which they hold to meet the liquidity needs of their customers and would hold even in the absence of reserve requirements. For these institutions, reserve requirements are effectively non-existent.

At one point I double checked this and got the same direct from the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately they have redone their website and my links are dead.

The money deposited by Joe the plumber is NOT LENT to Suzy Homemaker for remodeling her kitchen. Instead it becomes 'reserve' and ALL the money that is lent out is fresh off the printing presses.

...To the extent that banks lend their own savings, or mobilize the savings of others, their activities are productive and unexceptionable. Even in our current commercial banking system, if I buy a $10,000 CD ("certificate of deposit") redeemable in six months, earning a certain fixed interest return, I am taking my savings and lending it to a bank, which in turn lends it out at a higher interest rate, the differential being the bank's earnings for the function of channeling savings into the hands of credit-worthy or productive borrowers. There is no problem with this process.

The same is even true of the great "investment banking" houses, which developed as industrial capitalism flowered in the nineteenth century. Investment bankers would take their own capital, or capital invested or loaned by others, to underwrite corporations gathering capital by selling securities to stockholders and creditors....

This type of banking, lending actual wealth, is not a problem and I think this is what you mean by banking.

Fractional Reserve Banking

Let's see how the fractional reserve process works, in the absence of a central bank...

How can I "lend out" far more than I have? Ahh, that's the magic of the "fraction" in the fractional reserve. I simply open up a checking account of $10,000 which I am happy to lend to Mr. Jones. Why does Jones borrow from me? Well, for one thing, I can charge a lower rate of interest than savers would. I don't have to save up the money myself, but simply can counterfeit it out of thin air. (In the nineteenth century, I would have been able to issue bank notes, but the Federal Reserve now monopolizes note issues.) Since demand deposits at the Rothbard Bank function as equivalent to cash, the nation's money supply has just, by magic, increased by $10,000. The inflationary, counterfeiting process is under way.

The nineteenth-century English economist Thomas Tooke correctly stated that "free trade in banking is tantamount to free trade in swindling." But under freedom, and without government support, there are some severe hitches in this counterfeiting process, or in what has been termed "free banking." First: why should anyone trust me? Why should anyone accept the checking deposits of the Rothbard Bank? But second, even if I were trusted, and I were able to con my way into the trust of the gullible, there is another severe problem, caused by the fact that the banking system is competitive, with free entry into the field. After all, the Rothbard Bank is limited in its clientele. After Jones borrows checking deposits from me, he is going to spend it. Why else pay money for a loan? Sooner or later, the money he spends, whether for a vacation, or for expanding his business, will be spent on the goods or services of clients of some other bank, say the Rockwell Bank. The Rockwell Bank is not particularly interested in holding checking accounts on my bank; it wants reserves so that it can pyramid its own counterfeiting on top of cash reserves. And so if, to make the case simple, the Rockwell Bank gets a $10,000 check on the Rothbard Bank, it is going to demand cash so that it can do some inflationary counterfeit-pyramiding of its own. But, I, of course, can't pay the $10,000, so I'm finished. Bankrupt. Found out. By rights, I should be in jail as an embezzler, but at least my phoney checking deposits and I are out of the game, and out of the money supply.

Hence, under free competition, and without government support and enforcement, there will only be limited scope for fractional-reserve counterfeiting....
Murray N. Rothbard

Please read the whole article. Rothbard really knows his stuff and is good at explaining it.

This Rothbard?

Now if a parent may own his child (within the framework of non-aggression and runaway-freedom), then he may also transfer that ownership to someone else. He may give the child out for adoption, or Now if a parent may own his child (within the framework of non-aggression and runaway-freedom), then he may also transfer that ownership to someone else. He may give the child out for adoption, or he may sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract. In short, we must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children.

Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.

The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive.[5] (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)?[6] The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die. (Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such “neglect” down to a minimum.)

Yup.

Libertarianism is evil. And, consequently, so are libertarians.

From the horse's mouth:

mises.org...

Yes, I agree with the dude's explanation of FRB.

I disagree with the solution he suggests (abolish central banks and let FRB continue).

I also loathe his values. As well as anyone who shares them.

Still thinking that wolf is a socialist?

crimvelvet
Unfortunately you are incorrect in that statement. Banks in a fractional reserve system like the USA ALL create money. That is why I qualify what I mean by adding ' fractional reserve' to the word bank.

All banks, everywhere, anytime, have been and are FRB.

It's what it means to be a bank.

There is no such thing as a non FR Bank. Or one that hasn't got the potential to very easily start perpetrating FRB.

That's not a bank anymore.

reply to post by greencmp

....So, as long as you aren't saying that the state is capable of being dependable and trustworthy, we are all in agreement except for Pejeu who insists that no one but the state can be trusted to control all aspects of society. He just doesn't understand that the state is always composed of the same humans which he does not trust (or he recognizes that fact and fully intends to be one of those untrustworthy humans in control).

The older I get the less I trust the state. Nasty Stuff an individual would not think of doing when it is his bare face in view becomes easy when hiding in a crowd. It is even easier when hiding behind the Color of the Law.

Socialists seem to come in a selection of flavors.

Some genuinely care for people.
Some see it as justification for being lazy and stealing from the 'rich'
Some use it to justify their government/academic jobs
Others see it as a means to power and wealth.

It is the last bunch who are dangerous and use the others to boost themselves into power.


The website Pejue linked to is hilarious.

They try to link Murray Rothbard, of all people as well as Gary North, Mises, Ron Paul and libertarians in general to the Rothschilds and Rockefellers!
thedailyknell.wordpress.com...


On a more interesting note:

A finding in a study on the relationship between science literacy and political ideology surprised the Yale professor behind it: Tea party members know more science than non-tea partiers.

Yale law professor Dan Kahan posted on his blog this week that he analyzed the responses of a set of more than 2,000 American adults recruited for another study and found that, on average, people who leaned liberal were more science literate than those who leaned conservative.
www.culturalcognition.net...


However, those who identified as part of the tea party movement were actually better versed in science than those who didn’t, Kahan found. The findings met the conventional threshold of statistical significance, the professor said.
Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him.

“I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.
politi.co...

crimvelvet
They try to link Murray Rothbard, of all people as well as Gary North, Mises, Ron Paul and libertarians in general to the Rothschilds and Rockefellers!
thedailyknell.wordpress.com...

O Really?

Why doesn't Rothbard call for the abolition of banking altogether?

Why does he want only the central banks gone but the rest to continue to legally counterfeit or defraud people?

He says the market will take care of it and punishing any who dabble in fractional reserve banking again.



Also, he blames the central banks for the fractional reserve fraud of retail banks.

Ain't that cute?