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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Forging ahead to the sound of economic gunfire “As you march grimly forward through the detritus of economic debate, with a Sturmgewehr 90 assault rifle and fixed bayonet gripped firmly in your hand, thousands of blind Keynesian moles will leap up from deep dark holes in the mud to bite your ankles.”
Andy Duncan. Like Andy, I have read Thomas E. Woods’ Meltdown book and I wrote out some thoughts about it here. And here.
Glad to see Andy is writing away. Old Samizdata hands may remember he used to scribble for us occasionally.
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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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If only the establishment “stimulus” people did jump out to fight.
That is not their way, and not just because they are cowards, although they are, – there is also some pig like cunning in their ways.
Establishment organs, such as the Economist”magazine, do not “attack” books like Thomas Woods’ “Meltdown” (that would draw attention to such works) they IGNORE them – they pretend they do not exist.
And remember the young are taught that the Economist magazine (and so on) are the voice of the free market – so when they read in such organs support for endless bailouts (even Bush’s TARP – which was a vast fraud), “stimulus” (such as the 800 BILLION Dollar Apollo Project written corrupt Bill passed at the urging of Obama) and other corporate welfare – they will assume that this is what the “free market” is and either become corrupt themselves or become radical enemies of the free market.
“That is only because people like you are so rude to the establishment – you never miss a chance to attack them, and normally in the most abusive terms”.
True in my case (I confess my guilt) – I use words against people like the editor of the Economist because I am a libertarian and the nonaggression principle means I am not allowed to punch his face in for pretending to speak for the free market view and corrupting the young “there you go again….” (quite so Guy).
However, let us take the example of someone who is (unlike me) a long established academic.
And let us say he comes from a more “mainstream” (not Austrian School) background – and let us say he even goes out of his way to say nice things about the Economist magazine in his book.
I give you Thomas Sowell – and his book “The Housing Boom and Bust”, no naughty Austrian business cycle theory there, just an straight forward account of how specific government interventions and policies led to the credit money (endlessly backed by Greenspan’s Federal Reserve) going into a housing bubble.
Congressman Barney Frank and Senators Chris Dodd and (then Senator) Barack Obama being expossed as the worst bad guys, but with lots of other bad guys to (including out-to-lunch Bush).
As I say above Thomas Sowell (a famous man) goes out of his way to cite the Economist (favourably) in his book.
Oddly enough I do not remember them (or the rest of the establishment organs) reviewing Thomas Sowell’s work either…..
The best one can hope for from the Establishment is that their hated (which is based on FEAR – remember they are cowards) will overwhelm their cunning desire to never engage in debate.
For example, I spotted Glenn Beck on the front cover of this weeks Economist – of course it was an attack cover (Glenn Beck, S. Palin, and so on were shown as insane characters from Alice in Wonderland – it was a standard leftist attack, such as one might get on the front cover of Newsweek, the only difference being that Newsweek does not pretend to be “free market”, even Pravda did not go about saying how supportive of “capitalism” it was).
But however the enemy show you the fact that they show you at all is a mistake – their normal pig like cunning approach of ignoring those who do not want an ever bigger government (or, as they would put it, an end to “Bush’s unafforable tax cuts” – as if ultra high tax rates mean more revenue) is the correct policy – from their point of view.
To so get under the skin of the enemy that they attack you on the front cover of one of their leading publications is a wonderful thing – one that I (and, I suspect, none of us here) will never achieve.
It is like Mrs Thatcher being attacked as the “Iron Lady” by the Soviets – something for Beck and Palin (and so on) to be proud of.
And for the rest of use to envy.
Remember (as a man I much admired used to say) “it is our sacred duty to annoy them as much as possible”.
Both Andy and David Carr are fondly remembered if not quite pined after, from this quarter at least.