5조원 어디 갔나? [이규택] 이봉규 티비 https://youtu.be/haZi7f1ZcMM --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 이재명측이 부정선거 초기에 부정선거 시위에 참석했다가 철수한 사실이 있었고 이번엔 부정선거의 중심에 있는 이근형이를 캠프로 끌어온것은 이자가 부정선거를 알고 이용하고 있다는 증거 탙탈탈홍홍홍 415총선 결과를 쪽집게 예측 '부정 선거' 의혹 논란 이근형, 이재명 캠프 갔다. 양정철도 돕는다/ 성창경 티비 https://youtu.be/M4c5a8vkAgw --->이재명이 다음 대통령이 될 가능성이 커졌다. 지금 윤석열을 둘러싼 뉴스나 논란은 좌파들이 꾸민 일종의 연극 같은 느낌이 든다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 청주 상당구 재검표에 선관위의 충격적 꼼수, 황교안 대선주자 동참 촉구 시대정신 연구소 https://youtu.be/kbQddQotT1A ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 중공발 최대 희소식 본격적인 쇄국/ "시진핑이 뒷목잡을 일은 막아야"/기괴한 강시공연 박상후의 문명개화 중공이 본격적으로 나라문을 잠가 걸기로 했습니다. 중공국가이민관리국은 7월 30일 기자회견을 통해 2021년 상반기 여권발급량을 98%줄였다고 밝혔습니다. 유학과 취업, 비즈니스 목적의 여권발급이 33만5천건으로 2019년 동기 대비 2%에 불과했습니다. 중공사람들이 각국에서 배척하고 있는 터라 해외에 가기도 힘들지만 중공당국도 꼭 필요한 경우가 아니라면 자국민을 내보내지 않겠다는 방침입니다. 15억 중공인구가운데 여권소지자는 2000에서 3000만으로 추정되고 있습니다. 전체 인구가운데는 극소수지만 이 인구를 무기로 유학생이나 관광객송출을 무기로 삼아왔습니다. 이제 중공관광객으로 돈을 버는 시대는 확실히 지났습니다. 전세계가 중공을 규탄하고 있어 자국민이 이런 반중감정에 물드는 것을 막는 차원도 있습니다. 또 중공의 외환보유고가 이것 저것 제외하면 그리 많은 것도 아니라는 현실론도 작용한 것으로 보입니다. 이런 가운데 토쿄 올핌픽에서 타이완 배드민턴 복식조가 중공선수를 누르고 금메달을 획득하자 중공관영CCTV가 중계방송송출을 중단하는 황당한 일도 벌어졌습니다. 이를 두고 중공내에서는 시진핑이 혈압이 올라 뒷목을 잡을 일이라 결코 이상하지 않다는 여론도 나오고 있습니다. 이번에 금메달을 딴 타이완 선수 가운데 한명은 타이완 국방의 최전선인 진먼다오 출신이라 더욱 의미가 깊습니다. 푸졘성 샤먼과 지척인 진먼다오에 대해서도 자세히 설명했습니다. 토쿄 올림픽에서는 또 중공여자선수가 과연 여자가 맞느냐는 의혹도 나오고 있습니다. 이번 방송에서는 중공, 타이완, 미국의 여러 참신한 소식들을 집대성했습니다. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 중국공산당, 중국 민간기업들 대대적 탄압, 외국 투자자들 탈출 러시와 투자 전면 중단 조짐 김영호 교수 https://youtu.be/-IHdgRrh2oA --->중국이 본격적인 제2의 문화대혁명에 돌입하려나? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 김민웅, 밀턴 프리드먼은 파시스트 요술공주망치 일배 댓글 아무리 빨갱이라도 좋으니 제발 딱 한 사람 만이라도 똑똑한 애 좀 데리고 빨갱이짓 해라. 프리드만 = 우파 = 극우 = 나치, 파시스트 그래서 프리드만은 파시스트라고 한 듯. 프리드만은 자유주의자이고 파시즘은 전체주의라는 그래서 정반대라는 기본적 상식따위는 필요 없음. 그냥 어차피 빨갱이들은 아무말이나 지껄일 뿐임. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "한미훈련, 김여정이 말랬다고 안 하면… 영원히 北核의 인질 될 것" 태영호 "北 통신선 복원, 대선 앞두고 한미동맹 흔들려는 시도"… "취소하자" 민주당에 일침 New Daily 하라는 대로 또박또박 하는 게 '꼬붕' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 백신을 맞은 미국인들이 치명적인 변이 바이러스를 옮기는 수퍼 전파자들이다. CDC admits that “fully vaccinated” Americans are super-spreaders carrying deadly variants and high viral loads Sunday, August 01, 2021 by: Ethan Huff 출처 내추럴 뉴스 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 핫해경을 간첩으로 보고있는 사람들이 매우매우 많다. 탙탈탈홍홍홍 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11358110455 하태경 "당은 (선거부정 없다고) 입장을 정했었다. 더 이상 언급하지 말라" 하지만 재검표에서 중요한 증거가 쏟아져 나왔다. 수수께끼 같았던 "신권 투표지"는 통째로 투표함을 바꿔쳤기 때문이라는 가설을 완벽하게 입증하는 가짜 인쇄 투표지 증거가 무수히 확보됐다. 증거불충분 무혐의로 종결된 사건도 새로운 증거가 나오면 재수사한다. "간첩 같은 당"은 재조사한 적도 없다. 그런데 왜 과거 입장을 들이대면서 입막음을 하나? 재조사, 재토론해야 하지 않겠나? 영국은 켐브리지 출신의 수상 최측근 참모들이 소련 간첩으로 발각되자 모스크바로 도망쳤었다. 독일은 서독 당시 빌리 브란트의 비서가 동독 간첩으로 드러났고 통독 후 수만 명이 서독 최고위직에 박혀있던 소련ㆍ동독 간첩으로 드러났다. 영국, 독일보다 훨씬 더 취약한 한국에서는 아직 청와대나 국회 최상위에 침투한 간첩이 드러난 적은 없다. 하태경을 간첩으로 보고 있는 국민이 정말 많다는 사실을 하태경은 알고 있어야 할 것이다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 우리는 국가와 길고긴 전쟁을 하고 있다. 국가state는 특정 영토 내에서 강제력을 독점한 조직이다. 사회는 자발적 관계에 기반한 모든 자발적인 기관이다. 사회는 국가가 아닌 모든 것으로, 가족, 교회, 시장, 그리고 권력이 분권화된 지역 정부까지도 포함한다. 국가는 사람들의 마음 속에 존재한다. 국가는 비개성적이고 관료적이며 항구적이다. 국가가 최고의 권력을 지니고 있다는 것을 사람들이 반드시 믿어야 한다. 일반 대중에 적용되는 도덕이 국가에는 적용되지 않는다. 로마제국 멸망 이후 그리고 국가가 발생하기 전까지 유럽 사회는 국가가 도덕과 관계 없이 무슨 짓이든 할 수 있다는 생각을 거부했다. 국가가 도덕에서 해방된 것은 마키아벨리 같은 사상가들이 나타난 이후이다. 국가의 등장 이후로 통치 받는 대중과 엘리트 정치 지도자들의 도덕이 다르다는 인식이 퍼졌다. 하지만 자유주의자들은, 동일한 도덕은 모든 사람에게 평등하게 적용되어야 한다고 믿는다. 중세에는 지역의 군주, 신성 로마 황제, 교회 등에 의해 권력이 분산되어 있었다. 국가가 탄생하기 이전의 세계에서는, 모든 정치가들이 동등한 법적 지위를 지닌 다른 정파에 의해 도전 받았다. 하지만 국가 체제에서는 왕이나 대통령, 의회 등이 그들의 법이 적용되는 영역에서 최종적이고 완전한 권위를 휘두른다. 절대 권력의 핵심은 그들의 백성들의 동의 없이 법을 제정할 수 있는 권력을 지닌다는 것이다. 절대주의 시대에 왕들은 왕을 거역하는 것은 하나님을 거역하는 것과 같다는 생각을 널리 퍼뜨렸다. 하지만 토마스 아퀴나스는 폭군은 죽일 수 있다고 했고, 성 아우구스투스는 부당한 법률은 법률이 아니라고 주장했다. 왕이 총애하는 개인이니 집단에 특혜를 베풀었던 중상주의는 절대주의의 일상적인 표현이었다. 자유주의는 국가와 절대주의의 부상에 대항해 나타난 이념이다. 국가의 절대 권력에 대항한 체계적인 저항에서 구스타브 드 몰리나리Gustave de Molinari는 정교한 논리를 전개했다. 국가 권력과 싸우기 위해서는 무엇보다 국가가 일반인들과 다른 도덕을 가지고 있다는 생각을 배격해야 한다. 두 번째로는 근본적인 분권화를 지향해야 한다. 세 번째로는 가족, 교회, 시장, 지역 정부 등 국가보다 앞선 기구를 재건해야 한다. We’re in the Middle of a Long War with the State Ryan McMaken The term “the state” is a term that gets thrown around a lot with various meanings. Even excluding the confusing American terminology in which the United States is composed of “states,” we’re still left with many other meanings. For example, in the international relations literature, most independent countries are generally referred to as states. Historically, governments and polities of all types have been referred to as states. Moreover, the audience here will certainly be familiar with the term in the context of opposing the state. In libertarian circles, we often hear—although perhaps not often enough—about the need to fight the state, smash the state, abolish the state, etc. Certainly, one doesn’t have to spend an enormous amount of time reading Murray Rothbard to be familiar with this position. Why We Must Be Precise about the State But often, when the “smash the state” position is invoked—especially among those less familiar with the state as an institution—further investigation often reveals a dangerous lack of precision about what exactly the state is. In many cases, “the state” is (wrongly) understood as all forms of civil government, or any institution that employs coercion, such as law courts and other legal institutions. “The state” can include everything from the highest levels of the national security apparatus right on down to your local dog catcher. Or historically, it can mean everything from the local feudal lord to the grandest imperial despot. This vague and all-inclusive notion of the state, however, exposes the antistate position to a pretty convincing objection from others. That is, if “the state” is any and all types of government, then the state is as old as mankind and apparently endemic to the human condition. By this definition, no group of human beings has ever existed without a state, because even the most primitive tribal elders have “coerced” members, in the form of forcing guilty parties to pay retribution to wronged parties. Or, in extreme cases, local leaders have sometimes imposed exile or enslavement on others in their community. No human association simply lets people do whatever they want whenever they want and still remain members of that group in good standing. If this is true, then eliminating the state—defined as any organization using coercion—this would strike many, if not most, reasonable people as utopian in the extreme. If “the state” has always existed and is found in every human society, then its elimination is about as likely or wise as eliminating the family. This objection can be addressed by being more precise and clear about what we mean by “the state.” By better understanding what the state is, we can perhaps also better see why it is an especially damaging and dangerous institution. And once we understand that, we can better see how to fight and unravel the state more effectively. What I want to do here today is two things. I want to show how the state—which I will sometimes call “the sovereign state” or the “modern state”—is a very specific type of government, and not at all eternal or necessary in ordering human affairs. Its abolition is by no means utopian. Secondly, I want to discuss what is the role of the liberal—that is, the “classical liberal” or libertarian—in advocating for the radical reining in and, ideally, the elimination of the state altogether. (As a side note: I agree with historian Ralph Raico, one of our late senior fellows here, who regarded what we now call libertarianism as simply a modern variant of so-called classical liberalism or, more correctly, simply liberalism. Raico used all three terms interchangeably, and I’ll do the same.) What Is the State? So, when I say, “the state” what do I mean? First, we can briefly note what the state is not. Rothbard covers this well in his essay “The Anatomy of the State,” so there’s no need to belabor the point here, but the jist of it is this: Rothbard uses the standard Weberian definition for the most part: the state is an organization with a monopoly on the means of coercion within a specific territory. Even if we don’t quite agree with it in every respect, it is at least a good starting point. As Rothbard points out, the fact that it is a specific organization means it is not us. The state is not society overall. The old classical liberals made this distinction. In fact they invented the notion of using the word “society” to be something distinct from the state. “Society” is all those things that are not the state. Families, churches, the marketplace, even arguably some local governments where power is more localized and specific rather than centralized and general. But society is certainly any voluntary institution built on voluntary relations. Now, this can be confusing for readers of older writers. St Augustine uses the term “the state” to mean something closer to society in general. Or more correctly, he uses a Latin term, rem publicum—or other variants—which are generally translated as “the state.” But what St Augustine means by this is better understood as the word “polity,” which is a community of human beings and all its institutions, including its governmental institutions. So, in our usage here the state is not the same thing as a polity, a community, or even a civil government. So we’ve declared what the state is not—it is not the community, or the polity in which we live. And what is the nature of this organization? There are four main aspects of what the state is that I want to discuss here. ONE: the first point is that the state exists in the people’s minds. Martin van Creveld, for instance, states, The state … is an abstract entity which can be neither seen, nor touched. Van Creveld’s observation takes us back to Joseph Strayer, author of On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, who reiterates that the state exists in the minds of people. And the crucial step takes place when people start to believe that they need a state. Now, neither Van Creveld nor most other historians of the state would deny that the tools of the state are obviously real and tangible. We can touch and see the state’s prisons, its armies, its execution chambers, its nuclear bombs, its bureaucrats, its judges, its courtrooms, and so on. But nonstate organizations (with the exception of nuclear weapons—only states have ever owned those) have controlled these other state amenities in history. But the fact that these are all held together toward the pursuit of certain goals is evidence that there is a unifying idea in the minds of the people who use these tools—and the populations who accept their usage. TWO: a second important aspect is the fact the state is impersonal and bureaucratic, and permanent. The prestate prince of Europe provided an actual service in that he led soldiers in battle and he often traveled around his domains personally acting as judge in legal cases. Charles Tilly paints an important picture here—the medieval king before the age of states personally provided security services. He could be found on the field of battle. The monarch after the rise of state—say in the sixteenth century—sat behind a desk. He headed an enormous, permanent, and impersonal apparatus designed to impose his edicts across a large territory. He did paperwork. THREE: this takes us to the next crucial and more dangerous step: when people start to believe the state is sovereign. Strayer says that yes, people must believe the state exists in order for it to exist. But critical in creating a state is that people must believe the state is sovereign in that the state gets the final say on everything within its borders. There is no peer or higher organization that can challenge its decisions. As we will see, sovereignty is a key issue here. It’s one of two key differences that makes the state what it is. FOUR: but there is one final key step in understanding the state, and this, along with sovereignty, is what truly makes the state different and modern and distinct from other types of civil government. This is the fact that morality does not apply to the state the way it applies to you and me. Van Creveld provides a key insight here: Hobbes deserves the credit, for inventing the "state" … Bound by no law except that which [the sovereign ruler] himself laid down (and which, of course, he could change at any moment), Hobbes's sovereign was much more powerful than … any Western ruler since late antiquity. That is, between the end of the Roman Empire and the rise of the state, European society did not, in theory, buy into the idea that the state could do whatever it wanted regardless of ordinary morality. Notions like “there are not rules in war” or the basic idea, loved by politicians, that if you want to make an omelet you have to break some eggs. Certainly, there were abuses. Certainly, many princes acted at times like they could do whatever they wanted. But it was not generally accepted on a theoretical level—as it is today—that it was a positive good that states and state agents be freed from the inconveniences of morality for the sake of statecraft. That came later, with theorists like Machiavelli. So, this gives us some basic clues as to identifying a state when we see one, but it's these last two characteristics that I want to focus on here, because they’re the most dangerous. The sovereignty of the state, and the state’s detachment from ordinary morality. Let’s let Luigi Bassani and Carlo Lottieri explain why this is important: One of the central axioms of libertarianism is the idea that the same morality applies to every person, whether acting on behalf of a public apparatus or in his individual capacity. Society and individuals must be judged as a whole: if something is morally unacceptable, it should be so for everybody. In Human Action, Mises affirms that the most weighty revolt against reason can be found in the idea that “there is no such thing as a universally valid logic.” Mises calls this polylogism: “Marxian polylogism asserts that the logical structure of mind is different with the members of various social classes. Racial polylogism differs from Marxian polylogism only insofar as it ascribes to each race a peculiar logical structure of mind.” The rise of the State brought about a different kind of polylogism, whose paramount importance for the general theory escapes no one: the division between the mass of subjects and the elite of political rulers. So that’s the state in theory. Law before the State But it’s important to remember we’re not dealing with mere theory here. These are real institutions that exist in real history. The state really came into its own in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, with the rise of the Westphalian state, or modern state, and especially with the rise of absolutism. But understanding what came before the state in Western Europe remains difficult for people to understand, largely because people have been so completely indoctrinated into the idea that there must always be a final sovereign authority within a specific territory. But prior to the state, this was not the case. Prior to the rise of the state and notions of patriotism and national identity, the medieval Europeans were much more pragmatic in their view of government power. The prince or king existed to address problems in emergencies. Moreover, he and the many other lords, dukes, and other members of the warrior class existed to be arbitrators in disputes, and to exact retribution from wrongdoers. Naturally, this sort of work required violence, and these groups used coercive means in their work. But these groups were not strong enough to claim sovereignty or a true monopoly on the means of coercion, and each prince had to compete with other princes. Indeed, kings were, in the words of Hendryk Spruyt, just a first among equal princes within their realms. Political units tended to be very small. Moreover, as described by Spruyt, human beings were in the West subject to overlapping legal claims—people could be vassals of more than one prince. This meant an attempt to tax a city, a bishopric, an individual local lord, could encounter stiff resistance from the church, from a city council, or from another prince. Spruyt writes: One could simultaneously be the vassal of the German emperor, the French king, and various counts and bishops, none of whom necessarily had precedence over the other…. a vassal might recognize different superiors under different circumstances. In effect this meant that various competing powers sought consensus, negotiation, and other means of dispute resolution other than simply calling upon a sovereign to impose his will through the power of physical force. Obviously, this placed substantial limits on the power of political leaders. For example, historian Charles McIlwain, writes: [P]roperty which a subject had of legal right in the integrity of his personal status, and the enjoyment of his lands and goods, was normally beyond the reach and control of the King.… At the opening of the fourteenth century John of Paris [a Dominican philosopher] declared that neither Pope nor King could take a subject’s goods without his consent. Moreover, Bruno Leone concluded: [A]n early medieval version of the principle, “no taxation without representation,” was intended as “no taxation without the consent of the individual taxed,” and we are told that in 1221, the Bishop of Winchester, “summoned to consent to a scutage tax, refused to pay, after the council had made the grant, on the ground that he dissented, and the Exchequer upheld his plea.” Power was divided up among local princes, the Holy Roman emperor, and the church. All competed with each other for power. Over time, this means that all these different groups also were careful to define their own rights within the legal system. This didn’t mean lawlessness, of course, just as there is not lawlessness in today’s anarchic world of international relations. There is international law. There are countless agreements among sovereign states. Similarly, in the prestate world of nonsovereign governments, there was law, there was conflict resolution, there was enforcement of legal rulings, and negotiations among semi-independent powers were commonplace. Yet there was no sovereign, final power. Kings existed to settle disputes, to subdue violent aggressors, and engage in conflict resolution. They often succeeded; they often failed. Just as in any age of mankind. These legal systems were often systems of restorative justice, designed to offer a means of obtaining payment from those who committed offenses against others. It wasn’t perfect, but it would be hard to argue that the age of absolutism in the seventeenth century, or the age of total war in the twentieth century, was less chaotic or bloody. Nor were regular people on their own and at the mercy of grand organizations. Human beings and households were affiliated with many organizations. City governments, guilds, churches, family clans (and more) provided shelter to individuals which could offer legal and physical protection from outsiders and criminals. The untethered, atomistic individual did not really exist. This, of course, was the world that Machiavelli and other “modern” thinkers wanted to do away with. And they succeeded. What they got instead was the state, absolutism, and sovereignty. In the prestate world, no politician could be confident that he would not be challenged by a party of equal legal stature. In the state system, every sovereign, whether a king, president, or parliament, exercises final and total authority within his jurisdiction. Just as important is the fact that most other states, most of the time, recognize the sovereignty of other states. Not surprisingly, absolutism followed soon thereafter, which is described by absolutism’s defender Jean Bodin: The sovereign, furthermore, must be unitary and indivisible, the locus of command in society … we see the principal point of sovereign majesty and absolute power to consist in giving laws to subjects in general, without their consent. So, in both theory and practice, consent is of no importance in the mind of the absolutist. So to this, of course, Machiavelli would give a knowing nod. Liberals versus the State It is not surprising that during this period we see a multiplication of efforts to assign “divine right” to monarchs. This is often attributed to the Middle Ages, but few monarchs in prestate Europe could credibly claim such a title. It was also during this period when absolutists made other outlandish claims, such as the notion that "God ordains all magistrates." Or that to disobey the king is to disobey God. We can contrast this with the idea of St. Thomas Aquinas, who sanctioned the killing of tyrant kings, or St. Augustine, of course, who declared that an unjust law is no law at all. But it wasn’t just the stylings and claims of the ruling class that communicated the growing power of those who ruled in this period. Absolutism manifested itself in many ways. The most remembered today, perhaps, is the economic system of absolutism, known as mercantilism. Mercantilism, as described by Rothbard, was simply the everyday expression of absolutism, and a system of special favors and interest group politics that naturally grew up around absolutist rulers. Rothbard writes: Mercantilism, which reached its height in the Europe of the 17th and 18th centuries, was a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state. This was the natural outcome of the sovereign state. No longer bound by any law other than its own will, the state could dole out favors to its supporters, redistributing property and granting monopoly powers at will. This is where the liberals come in. In many ways liberalism is a reaction against the rise of the state and absolutism. Rothbard writes that the Levellers of England in the seventeenth century were likely the first self-conscious and true libertarian movement. They explicitly opposed both the mercantilist system of favors and the absolute power of the monarch. They explained the impoverishment imposed on ordinary people by trade restrictions. They advocated for decentralizing the armed forces into militias. In the Americas, the Antifederalists carried on this tradition, to an even greater extent. They often nurtured a deep distrust of centralized power, and opposed the idea of federal sovereignty altogether in many cases. In practice, even the state legislatures in America lacked sovereignty, especially since the means of coercion was so diffuse and in the hands, in many cases, of local militias. Decentralization, of course was a key issue. By the nineteenth century, liberalism had gained ground in France, in England, and in Italy. These placed obstacles in the path of the state, in efforts to reduce abuses and to more greatly decentralize power. The Jacksonians and Cleveland Democrats in America carried on this tradition as well, into the very late nineteenth century. But in many cases this failed to address the two most dangerous aspects of the state: sovereignty and moral polylogism. But some liberals did indeed zero in on the central problem of the state. Systematic opposition to the very idea of state sovereignty among liberals likely reached its most sophisticated level in this period with Gustave de Molinari. Specifically, he explicitly opposed the very idea of state sovereignty even to the extent of opposing a monopoly over military power and security services. This, of course, was along the main claim the state made in favor of sovereignty—it must be the last word on matters of security, and war and peace. But at the foundation of Molinari’s opposition to monopoly was his rejection of the idea that the state could apply its own version of morality. He writes: It offends reason to believe that a well established natural law can admit of exceptions. A natural law must hold everywhere and always, or be invalid. Just as natural law—i.e., basic moral laws—dictated people were free to choose providers for shoes or food, the same was true for security services. This position would have appeared quite reasonable to many prestate Europeans. Today, however, many consider it to be outlandish. Unfortunately, few liberals since Molinari go this far. Some Rothbardians qualify, of course, but most assume the state as a given. Even the most seemingly radical theorists either miss the key problem of state sovereignty and moral exceptionalism or are simply unwilling to address it. So What Is to Be Done? If we accept the idea that the state does not exist on its own moral plane or that the state should not be ultimately sovereign above all other possible challengers, what is to be done? First is to not buy into the grift. And it is a grift. If the state relies on the perpetuation of the idea of the state, we need to at least stop believing the idea ourselves. But most important is to reject the idea that the state gets to function on its own moral plane. We hear this all the time from regime supporters, of course. We shouldn’t complain too much, we’re told, because politicians make “the hard decisions” and we can’t hold state actors to the same standards as mere ordinary people, whose only function should be, apparently, to pay all the bills. This is poisonous thinking, and should be treated with the contempt it deserves. Moreover, we must fight the historical myths that back the state, such as the regime narrative that the state is a progressive force for humanity and human rights. The state has been immensely successful in writing its own history, in which it is both inevitable and highly beneficial. Both of these claims must be rejected. Support Secession The second step is to support secession and radical decentralization. It’s very hard for people to wrap their minds around the idea of competing sovereignties, and this is an obstacle to winning them over in the fight against state sovereignty. But one thing people do understand is the right to self-determination, self-government, and local autonomy. People don’t want to be ruled by a culturally alien force imposing the will of the majority on powerless minorities within a large state. The answer to this problem, of course, lies in secession, and in making government power more polycentric, more dispersed, more decentralized. This by itself brings us closer to the prestate model even without requiring a direct attack on the idea of sovereignty. Moreover, secession does act as a de facto indirect attack on sovereignty in two ways. First of all, because a regime that fails to impose perpetual unity on its subjects is a weakened regime. And secondly, because secession creates smaller states and secession-prone, small states are less able to exercise sovereignty. The smallness of the state, and the relative ease with which people may leave that state, mean that it is more constrained in its ability to raise taxes and impose regulations, and to abuse the population in general. Build up Other Institutions And lastly—but perhaps most importantly, because it’s the right thing to do in all circumstances—is build up nonstate institutions. What are these institutions? They’re the institutions that predate the state. The family, the church, the market. Even local governments are key in this equation. As Van Creveld has explained that the rise of the state required the triumph over all these institutions. It has been the decline of these institutions—encouraged by the state itself—that has paved the way for state dominance of society in so many cases. And it’s easy to understand why. Society naturally organizes around kinship, around religious groups, around economic ties, professional associations, guilds, town governments, and even neighborhoods. The work of the state for centuries has been to destroy and impoverish these natural organizations, replacing them with the artifice of the state, claiming the whole time that the state can better provide what these institutions once provided. But all the while creating a more fragile society. The project of the state and its intellectuals has been to run down especially families and churches and local allegiances, because these groups have been so fundamental in creating parallel institutions that have competed with the state for loyalty and for resources. Ultimately, it’s not enough to just oppose the state and call it a day, because society has to organize itself around some institutions other than the state. If these alternative institutions don’t exist, people will turn to the state, and it will only be strengthened. Most importantly, these other institutions of the marketplace and private society are nothing like the state. They aren’t above morality. They aren’t sovereign, handing down immutable edicts to the rest of us to obey. In fact, these nonstate institutions help to illustrate just how different, and dangerous the state is. It’s a lesson we must not forget. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 옳바른 경제 이론은 언제나 현실 세계에 기반해야 한다. 경제학의 개념은 현실에 근거가 있어야 한다. 개념들을 소급해서 현실 세계에 이르지 못한다면, 그 개념은 쓰레기로 버려야 한다. Good Economic Theory Is Always Grounded in the Real World Frank Shostak In his "Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics" (Mises Daily, June 17, 2006), David Gordon writes that Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk maintained that concepts employed in economics must originate from reality—they need to be traced to their ultimate source in the real world. If one cannot trace it, the concept should be rejected as meaningless. Yet, assumptions employed by economists in their models often appear to be detached from the real world altogether. For example, in order to explain the economic crisis in Japan, well-known economist Paul Krugman employed a model that assumes that people are identical and live forever and that output is given. Whilst admitting that these assumptions are not realistic, Krugman nonetheless holds that somehow his model could be useful in offering solutions to the economic crisis in Japan. According to Milton Friedman, since it is not possible to establish "how things really work," then it does not really matter what the underlying assumptions of a model are. In fact anything goes, as long as the model can yield good predictions. On this Friedman wrote, The ultimate goal of a positive science is the development of a theory or hypothesis that yields valid and meaningful (i.e., not truistic) predictions about phenomena not yet observed…. The relevant question to ask about the assumptions of a theory is not whether they are descriptively realistic, for they never are, but whether they are sufficiently good approximation for the purpose in hand. And this question can be answered only by seeing whether the theory works, which means whether it yields sufficiently accurate predictions.1 Defining Money Supply An example for the arbitrary nature of assumptions employed by popular economics is depicted by the Chicago school’s classification of money supply. According to the Chicago school what determines whether M1, M2, or some other M will be considered as money is how well it correlates with national income. On this way of thinking, sometimes M2 could be considered as the valid definition of money and on some other occasions it could be some other M. On this Rothbard wrote, The Chicago School defines the money supply as that entity which correlates most closely with national income. This is one of the most flagrant examples of the Chicagoite desire to avoid essentialist concepts, and to “test” theory by statistical correlation; with the result that the supply of money is not really defined at all. Furthermore, the approach overlooks the fact that statistical correlation cannot establish causal connections; this can only be done by a genuine theory that works with definable and defined concepts.2 According to Joseph T. Salerno, Measures of the U.S. money stock in current use in economic and business forecasting and in applied economics and historical research are flawed precisely because they are not based on an explicit and coherent theoretical conception of the essential nature of money. Given the all-pervasive role of money in the modern market economy, existing money-supply measures therefore tend to impede, rather than to facilitate, a clear understanding of the past or future development of actual economic events.3 To establish the definition of money we have to ascertain how the money-using economy came about. Money emerged as a result of the fact that barter could not support the market economy. The distinguishing characteristic of money is that it is the general medium of exchange. It has evolved from the most marketable commodity. On this Ludwig von Mises wrote, There would be an inevitable tendency for the less marketable of the series of goods used as media of exchange to be one by one rejected until at last only a single commodity remained, which was universally employed as a medium of exchange; in a word, money.4 Similarly, Rothbard wrote, Just as in nature there is a great variety of skills and resources, so there is a variety in the marketability of goods. Some goods are more widely demanded than others, some are more divisible into smaller units without loss of value, some more durable over long periods of time, some more transportable over large distances. All of these advantages make for greater marketability. It is clear that in every society, the most marketable goods will be gradually selected as the media for exchange. As they are more and more selected as media, the demand for them increases because of this use, and so they become even more marketable. The result is a reinforcing spiral: more marketability causes wider use as a medium which causes more marketability, etc. Eventually, one or two commodities are used as general media—in almost all exchanges—and these are called money.5 Money, then, is the thing that all other goods and services are traded for. Through the process of selection people have settled on gold as money—gold served as the standard money. In today’s monetary system, the core of the money supply is no longer gold, but coins and notes issued by the government and the central bank. Consequently, coins and notes constitute the standard money also known as cash that is employed in transactions. Defining What Inflation Is Another arbitrary definition employed by popular economics is that of inflation. According to the popular way of thinking, inflation is about a general increase in the prices of goods and services—described by changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or other price indexes. Inflation is not about a general increase in prices but about embezzlement by means of increases in money supply. Historically, a country’s ruler such as a king would force his citizens to give him all their gold coins under the pretext that a new gold coin was going to replace the old one. In the process of minting new coins, the king would lower the amount of gold contained in each coin and return lighter gold coins to citizens. Because of the reduced weight of gold coins that were returned to citizens, the ruler was able to generate extra coins that were employed to pay for his expenses. What was passing as a gold coin of a fixed weight was in fact a lighter gold coin. On this Rothbard wrote, More characteristically, the mint melted and recoined all the coins of the realm, giving the subjects back the same number of “pounds” or “marks,” but of a lighter weight. The leftover ounces of gold or silver were pocketed by the King and used to pay his expenses.6 Note that what we have here is an inflation of coins, i.e., an increase in the quantity of coins brought about by the ruler making the gold coins lighter. The extra gold coins that the ruler was able to generate enabled him the channeling of goods from citizens to himself. The process of embezzlement was further enhanced when for safety reasons instead of holding gold with themselves; individuals were storing their gold possession with their banks. To acknowledge this storage the banks were issuing receipts. Over time, these receipts had become accepted as the medium of exchange. Problems however would occur once the banks started to issue receipts that are not backed up by gold. The unbacked gold receipts were now employed in the economy along with the fully backed gold receipts. What we have here is the inflation of receipts because of the introduction of unbacked gold receipts. (Note that an unbacked gold receipt is masquerading as the true representative of money proper, gold). The issuer of unbacked receipts could now engage in an exchange of nothing for something. This produced a situation where the issuers of the unbacked receipts diverted goods to themselves without making any contribution to the production of those goods. In the modern world, money proper is no longer gold but rather coin and notes in circulation hence; inflation in this case is an increase in the supply of this type of money. The increase in the supply of money sets an exchange of nothing for something. This amounts to the diversion of wealth from wealth generators to the holders of newly increased money. It follows, then, that the essence of inflation is not a general rise in prices but an increase in the supply of money. Note that we do not say as monetarists are suggesting that inflation is caused by increases in money supply. What we are saying that inflation is increases in money supply. These increases in money supply, which tend to manifest through increases in the prices of goods and services, set in motion the embezzlement of wealth generators. Also, note that increases in prices are the result of increases in money supply. Consequently, it is not the driving force here it is just a symptom as it were. The increase in prices does not cause the impoverishment of wealth generators as such as increases in money supply do. False Concepts Undermine Individuals’ Well-Being The formation of concepts and definitions in economics that are detached from reality is not something that should be taken lightly. For example, one of the main mandates of the central bank is to pursue a policy that is aiming at stabilizing the purchasing power of money, the inverse of which is labelled as the price level. The concept of the total purchasing power of money cannot be traced to anything in the real world. It is not possible to add up the purchasing power of money with respect to various goods and services in order to obtain the total purchasing power. For instance, the purchasing power of a unit of money is established in the market as two potatoes and one loaf of bread. Arithmetically one however cannot add up two potatoes to the one loaf of bread in order to establish the total purchasing power of a unit of money with respect to bread and potatoes. If we cannot ascertain what something is, then obviously it is not possible to keep it stable. A policy that is aimed at stabilizing a mirage can only lead to a disaster. Likewise, if one defines inflation as changes in the prices of goods and services whilst ignoring the valid definition of inflation being changes in the money supply, one is likely to set in motion policies that will undermine the well-being of individuals rather than protecting them from the menace of inflation. On this Mises wrote, To avoid being blamed for the nefarious consequences of inflation, the government and its henchmen resort to a semantic trick. They try to change the meaning of the terms. They call “inflation” the inevitable consequence of inflation, namely, the rise in prices. They are anxious to relegate into oblivion the fact that this rise is produced by an increase in the amount of money and money substitutes. They never mention this increase. They put the responsibility for the rising cost of living on business. This is a classical case of the thief crying “catch the thief”. The government, which produced the inflation by multiplying the supply of money, incriminates the manufacturers and merchants and glories in the role of being a champion of low prices.7 Conclusion By means of valid concepts and definitions we can ascertain the facts of reality. On the other hand, a theory that is based on concepts that are detached from reality cannot be considered as valid simply because it made some accurate predictions during a particular time interval. If the foundation of a theory is flawed a forecast by means of such theory cannot be trustworthy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 사회주의의 종말과 사회주의 계산 논쟁 재고(再考) The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited Murray N. Rothbard https://mises.org/library/end-socialism-and-calculation-debate-revisited-0 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------