Just finished Hayek's : The Road to Serfdom
Hayek's analysis of the German state and its collectivist self-destructive collapse is an exceptional read.
It's parallels to the current state of affairs in the USA are uncanny and if a few words were changed, you would swear Hayek was describing the current government of the US.
I highly recommend this read if you have not yet had a chance. The translation makes it a little tough to adjust to Hayek's style.
For me what was most evident in Hayek's analysis compared to present day MSM "babble commentary", is the current absence of any discussion of individual freedom by anyone in the current power regimes. Hayek's arguments should be repeated over and over in the face of the FED, party bureaucrats and each and every freedom loving American. God help us if we continue down the path of 20th century Germany.
You might also be interested in reading his lecture on
"The Pretence of Knowledge".
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"An economy built on fiat money is a society on its way to ashes."
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"An economy built on fiat money is a society on its way to ashes."
That's good Hayek
That's good Hayek Austrian....by the way, where ya been, haven't seen you in a while and was hoping you would chime in on my Socialist Interest Free Economy thread.
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
"If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." ~William G. Sumner
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes
Preaching to the choir
I've tried reading a few books by Austrians like Von Mises and what it comes down to is that I'm already won over by these theories, so it seems kind of hard to maintain interest. They certainly help to refine how you can argue with Socialists and statists though.
I'd like to rad Hazlett's Economics in One Lesson. It might have some succinct arguments that you can present to socialist friends that won't bore them to death.
Register as Republican and Vote for Ron Paul
Finished Hazlett's "Economics" today-Great Read
Reads like he was writing about current economic events. He hits all the major gov't-sponsered "mis-information" ideas put forth. Excellent lesson in economic fallacies and what we "should" be doing. Now i know the frustration that Dr. Paul must feel. It's all been written about, before. Hazlett writes in 1947 and he draws on Smith, writing in 1776. And our gov't is getting ready to repeat all the same 1930's mistakes. What does Homer Simpson say? Duhoa.
"..shall not be infringed."
"..shall not be infringed."
I might eventually read that...
What's holding me back is that Hayek wasn't radical enough.
Btw, I just finished Thomas J. DiLorenzo's two books on Lincoln. What tour-de-forces against the Lincoln cult!
You might be surprised at
You might be surprised at just how radical Hayek really was once you read his works. His rationalism was so rational that it was viewed by many as extreme.
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
"If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." ~William G. Sumner
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes
Interesting
That's encouraging.
Also regarding his "lack of radicalness", I just remembered once reading that he advocated free-market paper money! That is pretty radical.
No, actually he advocated
No, actually he advocated free-market money and stated that if any company that printed fiat money without a gold reserve to back it would instantly be put out of business by their customers and then would be subject to legal remedies for any loss. He did however state that if the markets called for fiat money then he felt that the markets could provide a better fiat currency than any government. He was radically opposed to any governmental control over money. Hayek suggested that all government obstacles were removed, the free market would provide the optimal quantity and variety of monetary products. Just as the forces of competition lead to low prices and superior quality in every other line, so too would competition would lead to monies that were infinitely better than their government-produced counterparts. He purposed that private monies would be far more stable in their purchasing power, would be harder to counterfeit, and would be available in more convenient denominations.
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
"If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." ~William G. Sumner
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes
Ah OK,
thx for that little clarification.
That's awesome that he was such a bulwark in the realm of monetary freedom!
I wonder why he was not able to more deeply "shift" Milton Friedman on this issue...Milton seemed to respect him a lot, and Friedrich even taught at the University of Chicago for awhile. They would have been in close proximity...
Strangely, if you read this
Strangely, if you read this paragraph from Friedman it appears that he is close to Hayek's position on the matter of money and other aspects of society that could be handled better by the market place:
"The (classical) liberal is suspicious of assigning to government any functions that can be performed through the market, both because this substitutes coercion for voluntary cooperation, in the area in question and because, by giving government an increased role, it threatens freedom
in other areas. Control over monetary and banking arrangements is a particularly dangerous power to entrust to government because of its far-reaching effects on economic activity at large --as numerous episodes from ancient times to the present and over the whole of the globe tragically
demonstrate."
...and again in this paragraph he continues:
"The fundamental defect of a commodity standard (read gold standard) from the point of view of the society as a whole, is that it requires the use of real resources to add to the stock of money. People must work hard to dig gold out of the ground in South Africa -- in order to rebury it in Fort Knox or some similar place. The necessity of using real resources for the
operation of a commodity standard establishes a strong incentive for people to find ways to achieve the same result without employing these resources. If people will accept as money pieces of paper on which is printed 'I promise to pay -- units of the commodity standard,' these pieces of paper can perform the same function as the physical pieces of gold or silver, and they require very much less in resources to produce."
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
"If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." ~William G. Sumner
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes
Ya, I've read the article that those quotes are
from before, I can't remember the title of it tho...
The 1st statement is good.
The 2nd is just downright wussy however.
Btw, have you ever read Friedman's 1986 paper titled Has government any role in money?
He kind of weakly (I thought he kinda beat around the bush) came out in favor of free-market money in it.
I've never been a fan of
I've never been a fan of Friedman.
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
"If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." ~William G. Sumner
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes
I used to really like him...
after seeing his Free to Choose series. He dominated people left and right in the debates that they had in the series...
But after learning more, I kind of have a love/hate perspective of the guy now...
you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about this
Fortune Favors the Bold
but I thought that fiat money was defined as money given value by its demand in the form of taxation. Paper currency would not necessarily be fiat money.
Fortune Favors the Bold
The primary definition of
The primary definition of the term "fiat" is "by decree", meaning that a government or power will decree that something, primarily a money substitute like paper certificates, coupons, or tokens will carry the value of exchange. The preferred method of enforcing the use of such paper fiat money is, as we know, taxation. The Federal Reserve Notes that we are forced to use have several purposes, the primary purpose is to supply the government with an unlimited supply of a form of monetary exchange without the restraint of budget requirements, which would be the case if gold was our money. The other purposes of the currency is for the redistribution of wealth, via the various tax programs. The other reason for both fiat money and taxation is social control over the people.
Now, under a gold/silver monetary system it is perfectly acceptable for there to be a corresponding money receipt, in other words a denominated bill that could be used as an exchange medium, but that was redeemable upon demand for the corresponding amount of gold or silver. So, in that case the paper "money" would not be fiat, but only a representative money substitute.
http://www.1776solution.blogspot.com
"If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." ~William G. Sumner
http://militantjeffersonian.com
"Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The People like those best who fool them most, by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles" Raphael Semmes