(왜구,언론)..“금융붕괴” 한국・금리인상、자금역류로 원화폭락 2개의 시한폭탄 작렬의 공포 아베노문시키 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11358810767 “금융붕괴” 한국・금리인상、자금역류로 원화폭락 2개의 시한폭탄 작렬의 공포 “金融崩壊”韓国・利上げ、資金逆流でウォン暴落「２つの時限爆弾」炸裂の恐怖 (왜구,언론)..2021.7.13 한국 금융 시장의 문제가 있는것 같다。 부동산 가격 개폭등과 가계부채 팽창이 멈추지 않고 금리 인상 등을 계기로 자금이 역류하기 시작하면 두 개의 시한폭탄이 작렬할수 있다는 것이여. 韓国の金融市場の問題があるようだ。不動産価格の高騰と家計債務の膨張が止まらず、利上げなどを引き金に資金が逆流し始めると「２つの時限爆弾」が炸裂（さくれつ）する恐れがあるというのだ。 「金融危機がやって来る」と叫ぶ韓国銀行　年内利上げを予告、バブル退治も時すでに遅い？ 1997년 외환위기 당시 반정부 금융개혁 집회에 모였던 한국 중앙은행 직원들 1997年の通貨危機当時、金融改革方針を巡る反政府集会に集まった韓国中央銀行の行員たち 한국에서 거품 붕괴 가능성이 높아진다. 필사적으로 저지하는 중앙은행과 못 본척하는 정계。 　韓国でバブル崩壊の可能性が高まる。必死で阻止に動く中央銀行と、見て見ぬふりの政界。 　＊＊＊ 돈을 빌려 투기하지 마라... : 한국의 중앙은행인 한국은행이 목이 쉬도록 국민에게 빚내서 투기하지 말라고 경고..... カネを借りて投機するな ：韓国の中央銀行である韓国銀行が、声をからして国民に「借金までして投機するのはやめろ 한국은행에 （中央銀行） 의하면, 3월말 시점의 한국의 가계부채는 사상 최고로 폭증한 1765조원( 약 171조엔)으로, 한국의 국내 총생산 1924조원에 필적하는 수준까지 증대했스무니다. 　한국 경제좃문가, 아이치 쪽발대학 비즈니스 학부의 쪽발이 교수는 한국에서 가계부채가 폭증하는 배경으로 코로나사태에 수반하는 경제적 타격에 의한 차입금의 증가가 있는것은 틀림없다. 그러나 이것에 덧붙여, 버블화한 자산을 담보로 또 다시 빚을 내서 투기를 하는 움직임이 있는것에도 유의해 두어야 한다. 한국에서는 부동산을 실속이 아닌 투기로 운용하고 있다고 해설한다. 　KB거시기?은행에 따르면 수도 서울의 4월 아파트 평균 매매가는 약 11억1100만원(약 1억954만엔)으로 사상 최고치를 기록했다고 하는 이바구여. 시민단체의 조사에서는 2017년부터 4년간 거의 2배로 개폭등했다고 한다. 한국에서는 온갖 수단과 방법으로 빚을 내 자금을 조달하는 투기꾼시키들의 존재도 지적된다. 취업난을 배경으로 부동산과 주식, 암호화폐 투자에 뛰어드는 젊은이도 많다는데 코로사태의 경제 대책으로 한은이 기준금리를 내려 저금리로 돈을 조달할 수 있게 된 것도 거품을 과열시키고 있다. 　韓国銀行（中央銀行）によると、３月末時点の家計債務は過去最高の１７６５兆ウォン（約１７１兆円）で、韓国の国内総生産１９２４兆ウォンに匹敵する水準まで増大した。 　韓国経済に詳しい愛知淑徳大ビジネス学部の真田幸光教授は「個人の借金が増える背景として、コロナ禍に伴う経済的な打撃による借入金の増加があることは間違いない。しかしこれに加えて、バブル化した資産を担保に借金を重ね投機をする動きがあることにも留意しておきたい。不動産を実利ではなく投機として運用している」と解説する。 　ＫＢ国民銀行によると、首都ソウルの４月のマンション平均売買価格は約１１億１１００万ウォン（約１億９５４万円）で過去最高を記録した。市民団体の調査では、２０１７年からの４年間でほぼ倍増したという。 　韓国ではあらゆる手段で借金し、資金を調達する「ヤンクル」と呼ばれる人々の存在も指摘されている。就職難を背景に不動産や株式、仮想通貨（暗号資産）への投資にのめり込む若者も多いというのだが、コロナ禍の経済対策として韓銀が政策金利を引き下げ、低金利でお金を調達できるようになったこともバブルを過熱させている。 코로나 사태 이전부터 한국의 부동산 개폭등은 사회 문제가 됐지만 문 정권은 이 문제를 해결하기는 커녕 사태를 더욱 악화시켰다. 아이치 쪽발대학 비즈니스 학부의 쪽발이 교수는 「부동산 가격을 안정화 시킬수 없는 문정권에 비판이 높아지고 있지만, 코로나 사태하에서는 간단하게 금융긴축으로 방침 전환하지 못하여, 간단하게 부동산 투기를 억제할 수 있는 기초 환경은 없다」라고 씨부렸다. 저금리가 시중에 나돌고 있는 동안에는 빚내서 자전 조업도 가능하겠지만 한은이 연내 금리 인상을 시사하고 있다. 금리가 오르면 자금 흐름이 역회전하고 가계 빚도 커진다. 변동금리 대출로 구입한 부동산을 처분하는 움직임이 강해지면 자산가격 하락도 멈출수 없게 된다. 　コロナ前から韓国の不動産高騰は社会問題になっていたが、文政権は解決するどころか事態を悪化させた。前出の真田氏は「不動産価格を安定化できない文政権への批判が高まっているが、コロナ禍では簡単に金融引き締めへと方針転換できず、簡単に不動産投機を抑制できるような基礎環境にはない」と語る。 　低金利の資金が市場に出回っているうちは借金による自転車操業も成り立つが、韓銀が年内の利上げを示唆している。金利が上昇すると資金の流れが逆回転し、家計の借金もさらにふくれ上がる。変動金利ローンで購入している不動産を手放す動きが強まれば、資産価格下落にも歯止めがかからなくなってしまう。 한국의 경우 돈이 해외로 빠져나가기 시작하면 원화가치가 폭락하는 사태를 막을 수 없을 것으로 우려된다는 거시기여. 이를 막는 것은 통화교환(스와프) 협정이지만 우리 쪽발이들과의 협정은 파기된 채 그대로다. 최악의 경우 금융 패닉 상태에서 내년 3월 대통령 선거전에 돌입할 수도 있다. 국내 여론조사에서 최대 야당인 '머시기당'의 지지율이 여당 거시기당을 앞서고 있는 것도 부동산 정책에 대한 불만이 큰 요인이다. ........자세한 내용은 원문을 거시기 하라......... 　韓国の場合、資金が海外に流出すると通貨ウォンが暴落する事態を止められない恐れがある。これを防ぐのは通貨交換（スワップ）協定だが、日本との協定は破棄されたままだ。 　最悪の場合、金融パニックの状態で来年３月の大統領選に突入することも考えられる。韓国の世論調査では最大野党「国民の力」の支持率が共に民主党を上回っているのも、不動産政策への不満が大きな要因だ。 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 아시아경제 무너지는 자영업…문닫은 식당 5만곳, IMF때보다 2배 많아 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 인플레이션을 못느끼는 게이들을 위해 알려준다 모머마미노너 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11358840324 수만가지 상품을 취급하는 지인이 요즘 죽겠다고 한다 가격을 올린다는 통보 때문에 자기도 가격 변경하느라고 알바도 추가로 고용할 정도라고 한다 이해했나? 농산품이나 계란이 아니다 10~20% 정도 오르고 있단다 모든 것이 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 크게 놀라고 당황하고 있다 / 이렇게까지 확대될 줄 몰랐다 / 예전 같았으면 황 후보는 정신 나간 사람으로 매도되었을 것 / 놀랍게도 여야의 침묵, 우리는 한 통속 [공병호TV] https://youtu.be/MY5UlTQCQm4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 조선일보 정부 “원전 7%, 태양광·풍력은 최대 71%”… 원자력학회 “국민부담 年 41조~96조 증가” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 중국 기업 주식 시가 1천조원 증발, 왜 한국안보에 직접 영향을 미치는 중대 사안인가? 김영호 교수 https://youtu.be/mhJb2B5Uiks ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 연합뉴스 영국서 무슨일이..방역규제 완전해제 뒤 확산세 둔화 미스터리 19일 방역규제 푼 뒤 우려와 달리 신규 확진자 절반으로 '뚝' 집단면역 가능성엔 의견 엇갈려..영국 정부도 신중 입 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 코로나 검사, 유전자 증폭횟수와 확진자수의 관계 2021.07.29 작성자 rodeo 식약처가 허가한 코로나19 검사 CT 값은 평균 40-45 사이클이다. 최근 들어 정부는 코로나19 확진자가 증가하고 있다고 연일 떠뜰고 있다. 그리하여 정부는 코로나 재확산에 따라 수도권 거리두기를 4단계로 격상했다. 거리두기 4단계 격상은 수도권 주민의 일상과 소상공인·자영업자의 생업 등에 심각한 영향을 미치고 있다. 정부는 코로나19 재확산(28일 0시 기준 1896명)이 늘고 있다는 코로나19 확진자 결정근거는 무엇인가? 코로나19 확진자 결정 기준은 PCR 테스트이다. PCR은 무엇인가? PCR은 중합효소 연쇄반응(重合酵素連鎖反應, polymerase chain reaction)이라 한다. 이는 DNA의 원하는 부분을 복제·증폭시키는 분자생물학적인 기술이다. 보통 코로나19를 검사할 때 긴 면봉으로 콧속 깊은 곳에서 검체(검사 대상물)를 채취한다. 그다음에 면봉을 보존액이 감긴 튜브에 넣고 채취한 검사 대상물을 녹인 뒤 검사 업체에서 미리 만들어 놓은 시약을 넣어 코로나바이러스를 구별하고 증폭할 준비를 마친다. 코로나는 RNA 바이러스이기 때문에 RNA를 DNA로 변환시켜서 증폭시킨다. DNA를 검출하기 위해 얼마나 많은 증폭을 했는가를 'Cycle Threshold'(CT) 라고 한다. CT 값은 유전자 증폭횟수이다. 한국은 코로나19 검사에 ‘유전자 증폭횟수(CT 값)’를 얼마로 정하고 있는가? 연합뉴스 임순현 기자는 「한국 코로나 검사, 유전자 증폭횟수 적어서 확진 적다?」 기사에서 "진단검사관리위원회가 권고한 컷오프(cut-off) CT 값은 33.5가 기준이라 했다. (2020.12.01.) 그러나 본인이 식품의약품안전처에 정보공개 청구해서 얻은 자료는 코로나19 진단시약 국내 정식 허가받은 업체의 CT 값은 평균 40-45 cycles로 확인했다. 식약처 '의료기기 전자민원창구'(https://emed.mfds.go.kr)에 기재된 내용은 코로나19 코로나 검사 업체의 진단 시약별 CT 값 40 cycles 넘는 업체가 10개이고, 그 외 2개 업체는 38, 32 cycles이었다. CT 값이 업체별로 차이가 나는 것은 각 회사의 진단키트마다 시발체의 유전자 종류가 다르기 때문이다. 즉 CT 값은 제조사에서 정하고 식약처에 허가를 받는 것이다. 의학계에서는 PCR 테스트 합리적으로 신뢰할 수 있는 최대 증폭 주기는 28~30 사이클이라고 한다. 예를 들면 30 사이클에서 검사를 멈추면 처음에 있던 바이러스양에서 10억 배 증가, 35회에서 멈추면 343억 배까지 증폭된다. 그러므로 CT 값 30 이상 검사로 인한 확진자는 대부분 위양성 환자이다. 〬※ 참고 위양성(僞陽性): 어떤 질환에서 양성을 나타내는 검사가, 그 질환에 걸리지 않은 사람에게서도 양성을 나타내는 현상 PCR 중합효소 연쇄반응(重合酵素連鎖反應, polymerase chain reaction)은 DNA의 원하는 부분을 복제·증폭시키는 분자생물학적인 기술이다. CT (threshold cycle) 값: 유전자 증폭 회수 식약처가 정보 공개한 CT 값이 45 cycles인 업체(4개)는 ㈜ 바이오코아, ㈜ 바이오니아, ㈜ 팍스젠바이오, ㈜ 솔젠트, CT 값이 43 cycles 1개 업체, ㈜ 켄서롭, CT 값이 42 cycles 1개 업체, ㈜ 씨젠, CT 값이 40 cycles 업체(4개)는 ㈜ 바이오세움, ㈜ 코젠바이오텍스, ㈜ 옵토레인, ㈜ 지노믹트리, CT 값이 38 cycles는 ㈜ 에스엠엘제니트리, CT 값이 32 cycles는 ㈜ 렙지노믹스 이었다. 식약처는 코로나 진단시약 국내 정식 허가를 받은 회사 중 약 절반은 CT 값조차 '의료기기 전자민원창구'(https://emed.mfds.go.kr)에 등재 하지 않았다. 정보공개 청구 자료 ☐ 코로나19 진단시약 정식 허가 현황 1. 에스디바이오센스(주) CT 값, 누락 2. ㈜ 바이오세움. CT 값: 40 cycles (62〬 C, 30초) 3. ㈜ 시선바이오. CT 값: 누락 4. ㈜ 켄서롭. CT 값: 43 cycles (58〬 C, 1분) 5. ㈜ 코젠바이오텍스, CT 값: 40 cycles (60〬 C, 1분) 10. ㈜ 씨젠, CT 값: 42 cycles (72〬 C, 10초) 18. ㈜ 에스엠엘제니트리, CT 값: 38 cycles (64〬 C, 10초) 19. ㈜ 바이오코아. CT 값: 45 cycles (60〬 C, 30초, 95〬 C, 15초) 22. ㈜ 렙지노믹스. CT 값: 32 cycles (60〬 C, 30초) 23. ㈜ 옵토레인. CT 값: 40 cycles (57〬 C, 10초, 95〬 C, 5초) 32. ㈜ 바이오니아. CT 값: 45 cycles (55〬 C, 30초) 38. ㈜ 팍스젠바이오. CT 값: 45 cycles (58〬 C, 30초, 95〬 C, 20초) 43. ㈜ 지노믹트리. CT 값: 40 cycles (60〬 C, 45초, 95〬 C, 15초) 52. ㈜ 솔젠트. CT 값: 45 cycles (60〬 C, 45초, 95〬 C, 15초) 손영래 중앙사고수습본부 사회전략반장이 지난 6일 브리핑에서 "현재 검사 건수를 공격적으로 확대하고 있어서, 내일부터 환자가 더 증가할 수 있을 것으로 예상한다"라고 밝혔다. 이 발언에 대해 「파이넌스투데이」 인세영 기자(2021.7.8.) 코로나 확진자 숫자, 정부 멋대로 조작해 왔나?"라는 기사를 올렸다. 그는 “방역 당국 관계자가 검사 건수를 늘리면 확진자가 증가하고, 검사 건수를 줄이면 확진자가 감소한다는 것을 스스로 인정한 것이다”라고 했다. 출처 : 파이낸스투데이(http://www.fntoday.co.kr) 오로지 작가님이 「프라임 경제」에 투고한 ‘한국에서 사용되는 PCR 테스트, 얼마나 정확할까?’에서 “지난 4월 European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases에 발표된 데이터에 의하면 PCR 테스트의 100% 정확성을 가지려면 Ct 값이 17 미만이고 80%의 정확성은 25 미만이고 34 이상이면 0%로 떨어진다”라고 했다. 또 그는 “지난 9월 Clinical Infectious Diseases에 발표된 논문도 비슷한 결과를 보고했다. Ct 값이 25일 때 70%의 정확성, 30이면 25%로 떨어진다. Ct가 35일 경우에는 고작 2.7%이다.”라고 했다. 그는 “최근(2021년 1월27일) 중앙대병원 감염내과·고려대 의대 미생물학 교실 공동 연구논문이 권위 있는 New England Journal of Medicine에 게재됐는데 Ct 값이 28.4 이하에서만 바이러스가 배양됐다”라고 했다. PCR 테스트의 Ct 값은 코로나19 확진자를 결정하는 근거이다. 과학계에서는 PCR 법을 사용할 때 CT 값을 30까지 제한하고, 그 이상 돌린 것은 적절한 데이터로 쓰지 않는다.​ 왜냐하면, CT 값이 30회를 넘어가면 한 번 사이클을 돌릴 때마다 수십억에서 수백억 배로 바이러스가 증가하기 때문이다. 예를 들면 30 사이클에서 검사를 멈추면 처음에 있던 바이러스양에서 10억 배 정도 증가하는데, 34회는 170억 배, 35회는 340억 배 증폭되고, 36회는 680억 배까지 증폭되기 때문이다. PCR 테스트를 발명해 노벨상을 받은 Kary Mullis 교수는 ‘증폭을 많이 하면 누구한테서도 무엇이든 찾아낼 수 있다’라고 했다. 부정확한 PCR 테스트는 수많은 사람을 감염자로 낙인찍고 그로 인해 일어나는 인권침해, 심리적 피해, 엄청난 경제적 파괴가 일어날 수 있다. [참고자료] 1. 한국 코로나 검사, 유전자 증폭횟수 적어서 확진 적다? 연합뉴스 임순현 기자 (2020. 12. 01) https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20201201149400502 2. 코로나 확진자 숫자, 정부 멋대로 조작해 왔나?" 파이넌스 투데이 인세영 기자. (2021. 07. 08) http://www.fntoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=260057 3. 한국에서 사용되는 PCR 테스트, 얼마나 정확할까? 프라임경제 (2021. 03. 04), 오로지 작가. http://m.newsprime.co.kr/section_view.html?no=535558... 공개내용 ※ 식약처 홈페이지(http://www.mfds.go.kr) → 알림 → 공지 → 검색란에 "코로나19 진단시약 국내 정식 허가 현황"으로 제목 검색 ◎ 허가받은 코로나19 진단시약의 CT 값을 포함한 제품별 허가정보는 우리 처 '의료기기 전자민원창구'(https://emed.mfds.go.kr)에 공개되어 있음 ※ 정보공개 → 제품정보방 → "업체정보" 또는 "제품정보"로 해당 제품 정보(업체명, 제품명, 허가번호 등) 입력 후 검색 출처 : https://www.facebook.com/100003477564393/posts/3922339471225266/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 조선국가재정 파탄의 주범 '노비제도' 북극곰은 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11358864056 조선은 비정상적인 사회였다. 악명높은 노비제도가 있었고 전국민의 절반가량이 노비였기 때문이다. 노비(奴婢)란 사실상 노예였다. 평민과 노비는 명백히 다른 개념이다. 평민과 달리 노비는 자기재산을 가질 수 없었고, 철저히 소유물이었기에, 조선시대 양반들은 마음대로 노비를 거래할 수 있었다. 물건이 아닌 사람이 거래대상이 되었던 것이다. 그리고 노비가격이 너무나도 저렴했다. 노비1명 가격이 오승포 150필이었고, 말한마리 가격이 오승포 400~500필이었으니 노비 1명의 가치가 말한마리 가치의 절반도 안되었던 것이다. 임진왜란, 병자호란 같은 전쟁 시에는 말한마리에 노비를 10명까지 살 수 있었다고 한다. 아주 끔찍한 시대였다. 아니 사람이 말못하는 짐승보다 가치가 낮다는게 말이 되는가? 사람을 키워서 그 재능을 써먹었어야 했는데, 조선시대는 그렇지 못했다. 고려말엽만 하더라도 우리나라에서 노비비율은 3~5%에 불과했다. 반면에 조선은 전기때 노비비율이 40~50%였고, 17세기가 되면 60%까지 늘어나게 된다. 조선은 사실상 노비의 나라였다. 그럼 왜 고려시대에 비해 조선시대때 노비숫자가 이렇게 늘어나게 되었는가? 가장 큰 이유는 두가지이다. ​ 첫번째로, 고려를 멸망시키고 조선을 건국한 사대부(양반)들이 노비에서 해방될 수 있는 노동비를 크게 올렸다. 과거에 노비신분에서 해방되려면, 세금(비용)을 지불해야 했다. 고려시대때는 120일의 노동비만 지불하면 되었다. 120일치의 노동비면 조금만 부지런하면 얼마든지 노비신분에서 해방될 수 있었다. 게다가 고려시대때는 노비신분에서 해방되면 고려조정의 고위직으로도 진출할 수 있었다. 이의민, 김준 등이 노비였다가 고려조정의 재상까지 출세한 인물들이었다. 노비였다가 고려조정의 중급벼슬을 받은 사람은 수도없이 많았다. 고려가 그만큼 열린사회였던 것이다. 하지만 고려가 멸망하고 조선이 건국되자 양반들이 이 노동비를 660일로 크게 늘렸다. 660일치의 노동비를 어떻게 지불한단 말인가? 사실상 조선시대때는 한번 노비가 되면 영원히 노비신분에서 해방될 수 없었다. 두번째로, 고려시대때는 노비종부법(奴婢從父法)을 실시하여서, 노비가 되는것이 굉장히 어려웠다. 노비종부법이란 반드시 아버지가 천민(노비)일 경우에만 노비가 될 수 있었던 제도였다. 과거역사를 살펴보면, 아버지 신분이 높고, 어머니 신분이 비천한 경우는 많아도, 아버지 신분이 낮고 어머니 신분이 높은 경우는 드물었다. 이때문에 노비종부법을 실시하면 노비숫자가 적어질 수 밖에 없었던 것이다. 반면에 조선은 세종 때 노비종모법(奴婢從母法)을 실시한다. 노비종모법이란 반드시 어머니가 천민(노비) 일 경우에만 노비가 될 수 있었던 제도였다. 보통 과거 역사를 보면 아버지 신분은 높아도 어머니(첩)가 노비인 경우가 상당했다. 이럴경우 아버지가 아무리 영의정(국무총리)라고 하더라도, 어머니가 노비면 그 자식도 노비가 되는 것이다. 홍길동이 대표적인 예이다. 홍길동의 아버지가 벼슬이 높은 대감이었지만 어머니가 노비라서 노비가 된 것이다. 결국 "아버지를 아버지라 부르지 못하고, 형을 형이라 부르지 못했던 것이다." 우리가 세종을 조선최고의 명군(名君)이라고 알고 있지만 실상은 그렇지 못했던 것이다. 사실 조선은 성리학을 국교로 삼은 시스템 상 치국(治國)을 잘하는 명군이 나올 수 없는 나라였다. 조선이라는 잘못된 시스템 하에서 명군 흉내를 낼 뿐이었다. 노비종모법을 실시하여, 노비숫자가 늘어나게되면, 임금에게 세금을 낼 양민의 숫자가 적어져서 세종같은 임금은 오히려 불리해지는 것이다. 세종임금이 바보는 아니었을 것이고, 아마도 양반들의 눈치를 많이 보았던것 같다. 조선최고의 전성기라는 세종대왕때 국가재정이 60만 석이 불과했으니, 고려말엽 우왕시기 100만 석보다 훨씬 적었다. 현실은 이러했다. 세종대왕시기가 전성기였으니 그 이후에는 재정규모가 계속 하락하여 (세종대왕이 제정한 노비종모법으로 인해), 성종 1년 44만 석, 중종 20년에 27만 석으로 감소하였다. 명종 원년에는 26만 석, 임진왜란 직전에는 25만 석 가량이었다. 조선왕 선조가 왜 임진왜란을 대비하지 못했는지 빈약한 국가재정에 답이 있다. 재정이 있어야 군사를 키우는데, 군사를 키울 재정이 없었던 것이다. 세종이 노비종모법을 시행하여, 노비숫자가 대폭 증가하니, 후대임금들의 국가재정은 계속 하락했던 것이다. 이때문에 조선시대 임금에 대한 환상에서 벗어나야 한다. 조선왕들은 대부분 무능했고, 유능하더라도 조선이 군약신강(君弱臣强)의 나라였기에, 신하(양반)들의 기세에 눌려 제대로 뜻을 펼칠 수 없었다. 왕이 무슨일을 하려고하면 폐쇄적인 유교(성리학)지식으로 무장한 신하(양반)들이 왕을 가르치고 억누르려고 하였다. 게다가 국가재정도 형편없어서 군사력도 약했으니, 조선시대 군왕들이 별로 할만한 일이 없었다. 군약신강(君弱臣强)의 나라라고 하더라도 신하들이 실용적이고, 똑똑했다면 나라가 잘 운영되었겠지만, 조선은 폐쇄적이고 교조적인 성리학을 국교로 삼은 나라였기에 기대할 것이 없었다. ​ 즉, 대토지를 소유한 양반들은 노비가 많아야 국가에 세금을 내지 않고, 노비를 부려먹으면서 잘 살 수 있었기에, 노비를 어떻게든 늘리려고 한것이다. 조선시대 지배층들은 나라가 어떻게 되든 말든 자기 이익만 챙긴것이다. 게다가 조선의 성리학은 이러한 노비제도를 이론적으로 뒷받침해주었다. 고려나 조선이나 토지에서 수확량의 10분의 1을 세금으로 거두었다. 그리고 세금을 주로 내는 계층이 양민들이었다. 고려는 말기에 권문세족들이 대토지를 소유하여, 자영농이 적어졌다고 하더라도 국가재정(100만석 유지)이 무너지지 않았던 이유는 노비숫자가 적었기 때문이다. 고려말기 대부분의 평민들이 권문세족(귀족)들의 땅을 빌려서 농사를 짓던 소작농이었다. 소작농들은 노비가 아니었기에, 땅을 빌려서 수확을 하면 수확물이 본인들 재산이었다. 따라서 고려왕조는 소작농이 수확한 곡물의 10분의 1을 세금으로 거둘 수 있었다. 물론 귀족도 소작농에게 세금을 걷었기에, 고려말엽 소작농들의 생활은 어려웠던것은 사실이었다 (전근대시대때는 생산력의 한계로, 전 세계 모든 나라의 평민과 소작농의 생활이 풍족하지 못했음). ​ 즉, 고려시대때는 권문세족(귀족)들의 토지를 경작하는 사람들이 노비가 아닌 소작농이었기에, 아무리 권문세족(귀족)들이 대토지를 소유해도, 국가는 권문세족(귀족)들의 토지에서도 세금을 거둘 수 있었고, 국가재정을 유지할 수 있었던 것이다. 반면에 조선은 양반(귀족)들이 소작농이 아닌 노비를 소유해서 농사를 지었기 때문에 조선왕조는 양반들로부터 한푼의 세금도 거둘 수 없었다. 노비는 양반의 소유물이었기에 세금을 거둘 수 없었기 때문이다. 이때문에 농업생산력이 증가했음에도 불구하고, 조선왕조의 재정(20만석)이 고려말엽(100만석)에 비해 5분의 1로 줄어든 것이다. 고려왕조가 계속 유지되었다면 15세기 말정도 되면 국가재정이 적어도 200만석 정도로 증가했을 것이다. 하지만 '노비숫자증가'와 '양반면세특권'으로 세정에 문제가 많았던 조선은 20만석에 불과하여 국가재정규모가 전시대보다 크게 퇴보하게 된다. ​ 즉 조선은 재정이 완전히 무너져서 국가가 어떠한 큰 프로젝트(군사력, 토목사업)도 할 수 없었다. 껍데기만 나라였지 군왕이 할 수 있는 일이 거의 없었다. 동시대에 유럽도 고려와 비슷한 농노(소작농)만 있었지 노비(노예)는 존재하지 않았다. 농노가 영주의 땅을 빌려서 농사를 짓고 수확물의 일부를 세금으로 냈을 뿐이다. 그리고 밀가루를 만드는 제분소나 빵을 굽는 오븐을 이용할 때 이용료를 지불했을 뿐이었다. 반면에 근세시대에 전국민의 절반이상을 노예화(노비화)한 나라는 조선이 유일했다. 비정상적인 사회였던 것이다. 이성계의 역성혁명은 분명히 잘못되었고, 후손들은 큰 피해를 입게된다. 조선은 결국 성리학과 그 성리학을 국교로 삼은 이기적인 양반들때문에 망한 것이다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://mises.org/library/murray-n-rothbard-go-thou-and-do-likewise 아래의 연설을 들을 수 있는 사이트 로스바드가 위대한 이유 로스바드는 미제스를 포함해 기타 모든 경제학자들이 등 돌린 일을 했다. 즉 그는 경제와 윤리학을 연결해서 생각했다. 왜냐하면 그는 아리스토텔레스의 추종자였고, 천부 인권(자연권)과 자연법을 믿고 있었기 때문이다. 자유의 개념을 추적하다 보면, 그것이 천부 인권을 지키기 위한 수단이라는 것을 발견했기 때문이다. 로스바드는 당시 이미 죽은 학문이라고 여겨지던 오스트리아 경제학을 옹호했고, 그럼으로써 자신의 미래 경력은 망쳐버렸다. 로스바드는 1인 청산소clearinghouse였다. 그는 사상의 청산소, 각주의 청산소, 재능의 청산소였다. 로스바드는 오스트리아 경제학 이론을 확장하고, 윤리적 개념으로서 자유시장경제를 옹호하고, 그리고 위의 두 가지를 더 확장해서 정치학, 사회학, 역사학을 포함해 현대 문명 전체를 분석하려고 했고, 그것을 자신의 소명으로 삼았다. 로스바드는 명료하게 그리고 끝임없이 글을 썼다. 그리고 그는 자신의 글이 실리는 기회를 주는 모든 사람을 위해 글을 썼다. What Made Rothbard Great Gary North If you don’t mind, I am going to do what men of my age do from time to time, and that is tell you war stories—usually insufferably boring for younger people, but occasionally enlightening if you find that perhaps you are going through a similar trial. I want to talk about my own situation in 1961, ’62, ’63, when I was an undergraduate. It was a difficult time for those of us who were conservatives or libertarians, because we did not have lots of publications. We didn’t have magazines. We did not have much, and if we were on a college campus, we were pretty much alone. But there were newsletters from time to time, or there might be a tabloid newspaper from time to time, and we would find bits and pieces of intelligent material that were being produced by people who did not think that the expansion of the state was a positive aspect of our civilization. Every once in a while, I would come across the name of Murray Rothbard—usually in a short piece of some kind, a short essay, in an obscure newsletter that I have certainly forgotten by now. Murray was generous enough to donate his time, because he rarely got any money to do it. I began to realize that there was a unique fellow out there, who spoke very clearly, very much directed to the issues of the day, on many topics: politics and economics, certainly issues of philosophy and moral philosophy. So, I knew he was there, but I had not met him. And at that stage, I could not read much of what he had written, because it was confined mostly to a few academic journals that I was not familiar with and to newsletters to which, as an undergraduate, I did not subscribe. Then, in 1962, through the generosity of the man whose organization, the Volker Fund, funded Man, Economy, and State, an economist named F.A. Harper (known as "Baldy"—who was not bald), I was sent a copy of a brand-new two-volume work, Man, Economy, and State. I was aware of Mises, and I was aware of Hayek, because, like most of the people who came to a libertarian position in my day, someone had handed me a copy of The Freeman, which in that era was about the only way any younger person or any average person learned about the free market economy. From The Freeman, I had learned about Mises, and I had learned about Hayek. I had bought Human Action, and I had bought Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty. I was struggling to get through them. Economics was not my major, so I did it on a part-time basis. Then, in the summer of 1963, I got the best job I’ve ever had, and ever expect to have. I got a job where I was paid the equivalent in today’s money of $3,000 a month to sit at a desk and read Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. I never had a job like that, and never expect to have a job like that again. So, for three months in the summer of 1963, I read. I read a lot of what Mises wrote. I read every book Rothbard had written. I read a great deal of Röpke’s material. I read a great deal of Hayek’s material. It was a wonderful, wonderful summer. Now, understand what had happened. In 1962—early ’62—there was no book by Murray Rothbard. By the summer of ’63, there was the two-volume Man, Economy, and State. There was the 350-or-thereabouts-page monograph on America’s Great Depression. And there was his doctoral dissertation on The Panic of 1819, which was our first depression. Understand, it was within a period of approximately twelve months that this material appeared. At that point, I knew I was dealing with something certainly on the far edge of the bell-shaped curve. What I want to talk about is not so much my personal war stories. I am going to talk about Murray Rothbard’s war stories, because the further back in time you go, the smarter and more creative you’d better be. There was no support. There was no body of literature to which you could go. Each generation has its own responsibilities, and each generation has its own gifts and resources. The greater your resources, the greater your responsibilities. If you forget this, you will not understand why you are here. You have this tremendous ability: you can walk into any of these rooms, just of the publications of the Mises Institute, and if you bought everything on the shelves, you would be a busy beaver for the next year. Then, if you go beyond that to the Liberty Fund, and if you go beyond that to some of the better university presses, your library will cover shelf upon shelf of material defending the concept, to one degree or other, "Let us shrink the state." There weren’t shelves upon shelves of books in 1956 when Murray Rothbard got his doctoral dissertation finished. You did not have this enormous body of literature, and if you were going to do something of a really creative nature, you had to spin it out of your own entrails—as Rothbard did. So, let’s talk about what I see as his accomplishments. The Rothbardian Legacy First, conceptually—that is, his intellectual legacy that he has left us. He put Mises’ economics into a structured, organized, and readable pattern. Mises was a good writer; he was not an incompetent writer by anybody’s standards. But some men have an ability to think in a systematic fashion; and other men have an ability to communicate verbally, or at least on paper, with such great clarity that what they write sticks in your mind. Murray Rothbard had both. He was a systematic thinker in a way that very few people of any period of time have ever been. He had the ability to communicate on a piece of paper almost better than any economist who has ever lived. Some might say Böhm-Bawerk had that ability. I would say yes, he did, but he was very narrow on the topics he addressed. Rothbard was at the other end of the spectrum. He addressed all of the issues with enormous clarity, and not just clarity, but with rhetorical skill to drive his point home into your mind where you won’t forget it. Most people do not have that skill. So, he took this body of literature—that is, the writings of Mises—and he began to put them in a format and defend them intellectually in a way much more powerful than Mises himself could defend his own positions, because Mises was not gifted rhetorically in the way that Murray Rothbard was. You’ve got to understand, and you don’t understand, and I really didn’t understand until within the last twelve months in thinking about it, that Mises gave us this comprehensive, broad, sweeping economic theory tied to a handful of axioms and corollaries in which economics as a sweeping whole could be attained in one volume. Fat as it is, Human Action covers what needs to be covered. And, prior to Human Action, prior certainly to Mises’ writings in German, there was nothing else like it. There were textbooks: conventional textbooks, never systematically developed, never all-encompassing, never providing basic axioms that could be applied across the board. There were monographs—first-rate monographs—that were available. There were some powerful writings that economists had produced over the years, but nothing on a scale in terms of its comprehensive nature that was equal to Human Action. Rothbard took Human Action and all of the other materials that Mises had written and put them all into a format that an intelligent person who was willing to sit and read can grasp. This was an enormous skill. Then what he did, if you look at Man, Economy, and State, was to bring the whole corpus of Mises’ writings to bear on specific aspects of economic theory. If you look to the footnotes, you find that in those footnotes that he has addressed most of the modern world of economics (except perhaps for the rigorously mathematical stuff that he knew nobody was going to read anyway—although he could, but didn’t bother). He addressed all of this material, so that in 1962, a beginning amateur in libertarian thought could, if he had the ability and access to a good enough library, pursue all of those ideas by means of the footnotes that Murray provided. If you have read Mises, you may notice that he is long on exposition and short on footnotes. Part of it was, in Mises’ own mind, he felt his own exposition was a whole lot better than the footnotes. Murray thought the same of Mises, but he did us the favor of saying, "Let me show you that there is support material here." So, the footnotes became a kind of gold mine for any person starting out in 1962, trying to master the Austrian theory. He was clear. He was rhetorically powerful. And he did what scholars in my generation, and even in your generation, were told you must never, ever do: he put important ideas in italics, so you could spot them. That is considered outside the realm of scholarship. And yet Murray put them in when they were needed. If you want to review something and get the idea, Murray in a very gentle, and in a very—I think—gentlemanly way put things in italics to say: "Here, dummy, review it!" And there were plenty of dummies out there who needed to review it, and of those, I was chief. So it makes reading easier. I have, by the way, copied his style for many years, and from time to time have been accused of misusing the italics, but I found something interesting: I am attacked very often by people, and they are smart enough to attack my italics. Usually when people don’t like what I have written, they have understood what I have written. It’s a great advantage. You make it clear to them, so at least they know what they don’t like. Now, if you have read other materials of Rothbard, you know that he integrated economic theory with the writing of history, with historiography. He wrote superb economic history, and we could tell that immediately, first of all from an academic standpoint. The only really dry thing he ever wrote was his doctoral dissertation on the panic of 1819, but it’s readable and intelligent, and it was well received by the academic community. Then, months later, came America’s Great Depression, which was hated, panned, and rejected because it said that Herbert Hoover made the Depression worse; and then at the very end, it said what Hoover did was just getting started compared to what Roosevelt did. That made the Democrats as mad as the first part of the book made the Republicans angry. So, he killed off his audience on all sides almost immediately. That book was ignored for literally twenty years. Finally, if not the finest historian of our generation, then the best writing historian of our generation, Paul Johnson, in his book, Modern Times, gets to the Great Depression, and relies almost exclusively on America’s Great Depression. It took twenty years for a distinguished academic to figure out that Murray was right. But of all the historians of the 20th century that I would say I want to convince, Paul Johnson is that historian—and Murray convinced him. He wrote revisionist history. Murray was great on revisionist history. He would come against the prevailing interpretations in terms of Misesian principles of economic analysis. He also did what all economists, including Mises, did not want to do: he began to raise the issues of ethics and its relationship to economics. That was because he called himself, I think accurately, an Aristotelian: he believed in natural rights; he believed in natural law; he believed that the state violated the principles of both natural rights and natural law. Mises and other economists (certainly the Chicago School) would never make that kind of statement. They wanted a value-free economics. Murray pursued value-free economics, but what he found again and again is that if you pursued the concept of freedom, you found over and over that this was a means of defending natural rights, which should not be violated. Mises would not have said that. Certainly, I can’t think of anybody at the University of Chicago who would base his reputation on that idea. So, he was truly a maverick. He then challenged the critics of Austrian theory in a way that Mises could not—on issues of epistemology, on issues of interpretation. He would go into the scholarly journals in the early years, and he’d fight. He fought well. He would take on anybody. If the journal would publish the article, Murray would write the article. He was not afraid to interact with his peers, despite the fact that every time he did it, he was presenting himself as a maverick, a defender of what was regarded at the time as a dead system. To the extent that anyone remembered Austrian economics, they regarded it as a dead system. So, he was hammering down nails into his own career coffin—and he did not care. He would defend the system. In later years, he chose not to interact in the scholarly journals because in later years they had so completely forgotten about Mises and Austrianism that he had nothing really to react against. But in the early years, in the ’50’s, in the early ’60’s, he still did. He was not afraid to mix it up. It’s a tremendous conceptual legacy that he spun almost single-handedly—almost, Mises being the giant on whose shoulders Murray stood. But there was no other comparable giant. An Activist for Liberty Now this gets into an area you don’t of course see in published materials, so you have to take my word for it. Organizationally, he was in one sense a lightening rod, but he was, as with any flash of light, a very bright light. There’s an old saying that bright lights attract large bugs. Murray attracted his share of large bugs—as any early movement will attract. If you read the history, for example, of the Fabian movement in England, there were some exceedingly large bugs that were attracted because it was an offbeat position, and offbeat people tended to be attracted to it. Murray attracted young scholars. I can see one of them in the room today—I won’t point him out—but he is no longer a young scholar. But Murray attracted him. And there were others like him. He attracted beyond the personal. Very intelligent readers understood the magnitude of what he was saying, and realized in their own lives that they could not get this kind of help from anyone else, so they began to read more and more of what Murray wrote. He wrote so much, so amazingly much. He was a one-man clearinghouse. I’ve listed three things: a clearinghouse of ideas, of footnotes, and talent. He would put people of considerable gifts into contact with each other. This was in a day before there was a Web. He would do it by the fact that bright kids were coming. He knew so many of them. He would put them in contact with each other. He would help them with their reading. He would give bibliographical information. He was just extraordinary. This man made it possible for a group of disciples to get their feet on the ground epistemologically and intellectually. Now, Mises did the same. Mises performed that role after World War I in Vienna with the Mises Circle. Hayek was attracted. Röpke was attracted. He picked off some of the best and the brightest of his generation and pulled them out of socialism. But Murray did this, not from a strong position institutionally, but essentially no position institutionally. Mises at least had a paid position in the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Murray was fortunate to get jobs writing book reviews, and get little grants here and there from under-funded libertarian organizations, of which there were only a handful anyway. He created a sense of camaraderie. This I know in a later period, but I’ve had it told to me again and again by once-young men and women. That’s fun—camaraderie is a good thing. And he was an optimist. You always hear the phrase—at least in my generation you did, attached to Hubert Humphrey—the "happy warrior." Murray was a happy warrior. He really was a happy warrior. He was always happy. He always had a good word to say. And even when he beat up on people verbally, it was (usually) always in a light-hearted manner—devastating, but light-hearted. I always appreciated that. He was motivational. People were so impressed by what he did—and almost no one realized really how much he did, but even in what they saw of what he did—it motivated them. He was a model for them. He encouraged us to do this—a tremendous benefit for a young man starting out. We could say, "Yeah, but it’s so tough out there, Murray." Tough, like for Murray? We were getting there in the ’60’s, when there were at least publishers for this material. He was doing this in the early ’50’s and earlier, even earlier, in the ‘40’s, before he found Mises. Rothbard's Liabilities Let’s talk about the liabilities, especially in this earlier period—’56, when he got his doctorate, to ’65, when things began to change. Intellectually, he was an Aristotelian in an age of Kant. He was a deductivist—as he showed in his writing in defending Mises—in an age of empiricism. He went to axioms of human action, and the entire profession went to statistical correlation to prove their theories. As I have said, in Mises’ phrase, Murray came, like Mises, in the name of "apodictic certainty" (a great phrase) in the middle of an era of almost complete relativism—an era in which, really, the only certainty was the speed of light, and everything else was up for grabs. He used verbal logic in presenting his case instead of mathematics. He wrote for popular journals instead of academic journals. He did all the things you are not supposed to do to advance your career with a brilliance he had for not advancing his career. I mean, he was a specialist in the division of labor in not advancing his career! Think of the climate of opinion. He was surrounded by leftists, and I don’t mean just leftists at the university. I mean, he was surrounded by leftists among all of his relatives. Everybody he knew—except for his father—everybody he knew was debating the real issue of the 1940’s: Stalin versus Trotsky. He said that was it; that was the sweep of public opinion in the public in which he traveled. He said they would—he didn’t use the word excommunicate, but that’s what it meant—they would excommunicate each other. Yet here he was—with his father—here he was defending the idea that the state should be removed. He didn’t trust the state. He arrives on the scene, and he goes with Human Action. Well, it’s a comprehensive treatise—and the one thing you don’t write in the modern world is a comprehensive treatise. You can write textbooks, but you don’t write a comprehensive treatise. You don’t write an Adam Smith-type book. You can’t do that because you have to know too much; you have to know too many facts; empirically, you have to make too many statistical correlations. No one can make statistical correlations outside of narrow topics suitable for detailed footnoted monographs. So, Murray walks into this and says, "I think I’m going to write Man, Economy, and State, in which I’m going to tell you about everything, with the footnotes to prove it." Not de rigueur in academic circles in the 1950’s and ’60’s. He was living in an age of Keynes, and he despised Keynes’ position. He was living in age of central banking. He was convinced that central banking was a gigantic cartel that was created by capitalists who were using the state to advance their personal economic position. You go try to find that even today in a standard economics textbook. Look up "Federal Reserve System." You’re not going to find it under the chapter dealing with cartels. He was a man who believed in non-intervention, non-coercion, non-violence in the era of the Cold War. He was a man who believed in local sovereignty, local responsibility in an era of the United Nations. And all of it was in New York, and so was Murray. So, he latches on to Ludwig von Mises, the number-one pariah of the economics community. Mises was a guy you don't want to touch with the ten-foot pole—and Murray was sitting around there with a three-foot pole. He didn’t care—except he wanted to defend the truth. Look at his occupational situation. Here he is in New York City. He can’t leave New York City. That’s because Murray at that stage suffered from a kind of phobia. I don’t know what you call a phobia about crossing the East River, but that’s the phobia he had. He couldn’t leave New York City. He’d get panicky. He couldn’t go up in an elevator, more than about—what?—maybe five stories at most, and he couldn’t leave New York City. He was structured in; he was pushed down; he couldn’t leave. He didn’t get a job until late, at Brooklyn Polytechnic—a bunch of engineers and no graduate school. There was no old-boy network to get him a job, because in the Austrian School, there was just one old boy! So, there was no way to do what I call the "calling" by means of an occupation, or almost none. I define the "calling"—you can write this down—as the most important thing that you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace. That’s your calling. That’s usually not your job. Your job is how you put food on the table. But the calling is the most important thing you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace. Murray believed that his calling was to extend Austrian economic theory and the defense of the free market as an ethical idea, and extend both of those to an analysis of the whole sweep of modern civilization—history, sociology, politics (and when Murray talked politics, it wasn’t just local, it wasn’t just state, national—he could give you facts and figures on all of it). Rothbard's Advantages How’d he do it? Well, he had advantages. He was very, very smart. And he had an extraordinary memory. If you check his footnotes, you’ll see the extent to which he had an extraordinary memory. He always had the ability to go to the central issue in a debate. It was as if he was just pushing off the extremities to get to that core issue. The only thing I’ve seen like it in sports from my generation was a defensive giant by the name of Big Daddy Lipscomb, who was a terror in professional football. They asked him once, they said, "Big Daddy, how is it that you get so many sacks against the quarterback?" He said, "It’s not so hard. I just go in and I tear off all the people around the quarterback till I get him." That’s what Murray does with an argument. All of the defensive paraphernalia, all of the offensive lineman on the other side of the line, and he just picks it off and goes right to the quarterback and sacks him. That was his gift. Mises did not have it to that extent. Mises was smart. But Murray was a master of simply, publicly, either decapitating or disemboweling the opponent. They never liked to come back twice. He wrote clearly. He wrote continuously. He wrote for almost anyone who would give him an opportunity to put an idea in print. That was an advantage. Because he got disciples. People came to him because he never stopped writing, and he had the option of going for tiny little newsletters and tiny little magazines for either no money or hardly any money, and he did it. He had those outlets and was able to recruit a generation of disciples. They just didn’t pay him any money—it was part of his calling, but it wasn’t part of his job. He had Mises as an advantage. Now, that’s an advantage. That’s way up there on the list of advantages. Because Mises by then, by 1949, had Human Action in print, and he had Socialism in print, and Theory of Money and Credit was in print. So, the basics of the position Murray did have access to. And it wasn’t just that Murray read them; Murray mastered them, internalized them, brought them into the way he thought, and he applied them—a tremendous advantage. Mises was in New York City because he had fled from pre-Nazi Austria, then went to Switzerland, then fled from Switzerland, and then came here. He had the Seminar, a weekly seminar, a graduate seminar, which he would allow non-enrolled students to attend, and Murray attended. That was a tremendous advantage. He was curious. It never stopped. Everything was grist for Murray’s mill. He would get excited about some of the strangest things that almost anybody could imagine. And yet, he’d make them interesting. And he tied them to Austrian economic principles. He was a great conspiracy theorist. He believed in it because it was consistent with Austrianism. Basically it’s this: you start with methodological individualism, which means that individuals act to improve their situation, and therefore these great impersonal social forces are mythic. Well, that’s consistent with the Austrian position. And Murray believed that. So, he said if you want to find out why people do something, either ask them or see what they’ve written, and then follow the money. Then he looked at the state, and he perceived the state as an oppressive agency, but an oppression that could be used to feather one’s own nest. So, then he said, "All right; I’m going to see what people are doing in terms of establishing state power, and follow the money." He followed the money. Now this, let me tell you: if you want a suicidal pill academically, you adopt conspiracy theories—unless you’re a Marxist. If you’re a Marxist, you get to do it—because you’re a Marxist. But nobody else is supposed to do it. And Murray did it—killing himself, in a sense, academically. He would challenge anybody with the optimism and the laughter and the good-nature—all were advantages that most of us don’t have. He also had what no one talks about, but was important—the Volker Fund. The Volker Fund was the one large source of libertarian money until the mid-’60’s. He did get some money from them. He wrote book reviews, he wrote position papers—I can tell you, if you want to be systematically humiliated, all you have to do is go up to the third floor of this building and look at the file cabinets of Murray Rothbard’s letters and memoranda—whacked out on his manual typewriter and sent out in voluminous quantities to anyone and everyone, and to the Volker organization. We are talking not one filing cabinet; we are talking stacks of filing cabinets of materials that in many cases were suitable for publication. The only thing in all of it that even vaguely can cheer me up is the fact that he would use X's to cross out stuff in his articles: XXXXX. This meant at least he didn’t get it perfect the first time. I call that the X-rated Rothbard. At least he was human enough to put those X’s in. That was about the only thing that even showed a trace of normality in his academic ability. He married the right woman. I think that is as large a factor as one can imagine. If he hadn’t had the support of his wife, I’m not sure that he could have been equally productive. Then, beginning in ’65, it began to change. I basically boil it down to two things: first was the Vietnam War, and the other thing was stagflation. The Vietnam War was a trauma in American academic life, and social life generally, because it created enormous doubts in the wisdom of politicians among the brightest and best of America—the students who were coming in. They began to lose faith in the state. They began to lose faith in public pronouncements by politicians. They lost faith in the Establishment because they were being drafted to go to a war they did not believe in. They lost faith on the campus in the reigning paradigms of the age. The old liberalism did not survive two things. Two things killed it. One was the assassination of Kennedy. The can-do liberalism got shot down—literally killed. As an emblem of the old can-do liberalism, state-run liberalism died. And then, within months, you had the escalation of the war. The faith began to crack. There was a revived interest in conspiracy theories during this period—not widespread, but much more widespread than had existed in 1963. The Kennedy movie, the JFK movie, is kind of a living testament to a conspiracy theory of the assassination. You know how many of them there are. They are truly a dime-a-dozen. There are lots of conspiracy theories. But they were never popular among the general public until the assassination of Kennedy. After that, they became popular. And then there was stagflation of the ’70’s. When inflation, which was supposed to cut unemployment, did not cut unemployment, and the Phillips Curve got kicked way, way out to the right—in other words, the old idea that if you just inflated to five or six percent, you could reduce unemployment to four percent or five percent—we were then getting inflation—expansion of money—in double-digit figures. You had stagnation; you had a recession with Nixon; you had a recession with Ford; and then, when they began to finally tighten the money supply in 1979, it led to the beginning of the recession of 1980 and ’81. Finally, the old Keynesian paradigm began to lose adherents because all of the genius of the economists could not get prices down. They could not get unemployment down. It was the end of the Phillips Curve; it was the end of Bretton Woods: the agreement on gold. Nixon closes the gold window, prices skyrocket, the dollar begins to decline: it was all the things that the Austrians said would happen, but nobody cared. And now, people were ready to listen, more people than ever before. Murray was ready to go—with articles, pamphlets, lectures, all of it. He had done the groundwork when everybody hated him. He had written Man, Economy, and State, he had written America’s Great Depression—the basic groundwork with supporting materials, he had personally written. And now, somebody, more and more, somebody was willing to listen. He had done his work when there was no thanks for it. He was ready, he was prepared for intellectual combat—trained, skilled, battle-ready. Battle-ready—when the Vietnam War of the ’60’s and the stagflation of the ’70’s began to undermine people’s faith in the prevailing Keynesian world-view, and the prevailing Cold War world-view of that generation. He had done the work, he was ready for battle. He had written everything you were supposed to write. He had done the book reviews, he did the newsletters, the Triple-R (Rothbard-Rockwell Report). He did all of it. He did what you were supposed to do, win or lose. Most people won’t do it. If you don’t have the big win out there, they won’t sacrifice to do the work. He did the work. The World Today Now look at we’ve got. He did not live to see the Internet. He died about a year before it took off. He did not live to see LewRockwell.com, to see Mises.org. He would have loved it. And if somebody had shown him a way to get an electric typewriter to type into it, he would have participated. But he respected it. Look at the situation today. For ten dollars a month (or for real cheapskates, five dollars a month), you can put your own Website up. You've got something to say? You can say it. You want to do a blog? You can blog it. You've got articles to publish, books to publish? You can get online and Google will eventually attract people. People will find you. This in operation is what Albert J. Nock called the "Remnant" in that famous essay on Isaiah’s job. They will find you—the line of the generation that you’re more familiar with: "If we build it, they will come." Now, there may not be a lot of them. And you may not be good enough to attract and keep a lot of them. But if you build it, some will come. And one thing is clear—if you don’t build it, none will come. The number of journals now—academic journals—the number of publishing houses that are willing to take libertarian, anti-state, shrink-the-state books and manuscripts and publish them (if they’re good enough), the number of outlets that we have today is just extraordinary compared to what it was when Murray Rothbard was in high school and college. It’s not the same world. The advantage that Rothbard had was that he did not have this gigantic amount of material to master. He had Mises to master. That’s certainly a good start. Even Murray couldn’t keep up with today’s output—and neither can you. But give it a try. You can’t read every article. You can’t read every free e-letter that comes down the pike, you cannot read all of the articles that are published just within LewRockwell and Mises.org—let alone other sites that give you supporting material. You can’t read all the books that are published. You can’t subscribe to all the magazines that will reinforce your position. The disadvantage is you’re always going to be behind. But the advantage is your weaponry will be much more effective, because you can find articles that you need. You can find the background material in a three billion page, free, on-line encyclopedia that the Web is and Google enables you to access. You can find a community of people who hold to ideas. Then you can get the division of labor. And if one guy does one topic and does it well, he’ll get a few disciples, and they’ll work on that end of it. Whether it’s labor economics, whether its central banking, whether it’s the history of cartels, whether its monopoly theory—you will find people now because of the enormous effect of the Web and the enormous effect of materials that are first-rate materials that you can gain access to. You can begin to extend this work even though it’s a relatively small group. You can’t take over the world—but you can inflict damage while we’re waiting. Look, as someone told me years ago, you can’t fight city hall, but you can pee on the steps and run. Now, you have been given this enormous advantage that Rothbard is behind you, that Mises is behind you. Seminars are available for you to come and get this stuff boiled down. This didn’t exist forty years ago. Surely it didn’t exist fifty years ago, when Rothbard was coming up. You can do a great deal even though it doesn’t seem like it. You can be part of an enormous division of labor—social division of labor, intellectual division of labor, which it was too expensive to do as recently as twenty-five years ago—and now you can do it. And that’s what I would tell you to do. Specialize in one area where you really have confidence that you’re making a difference. And if somebody wants to know something about that area, he comes to you—not because you’re loud, not because of anything except what you put online. It’s coherent, it’s meaningful, and people want to find out about it. They’ll come to your site. Go and Do Thou Likewise And yet, you must also do what Rothbard did. You must keep a broad picture. You can’t just specialize. You’ve got to apply these principles, not as a specialist, but as an accomplished amateur, a gifted amateur. You apply the same principles across the board. And you keep working. If nobody ever comes to ask you your opinion, that’s not your fault—because they just never came. Murray worked in that situation for years. Nobody came, nobody cared. And then things changed, and he was in a position to begin to have influence. Each of you should look at your own situation, your own area of specialty—that thing, that calling, that most important thing in which you would be most difficult to replace—each of you has that niche somewhere. Find out where it is, and begin doing the grunt work. You must do the grunt work, but it sure is easier to do it with the Web than ever before. The tool is there; don’t walk away from the tool. Interact, read the Mises materials, read anything you can find on the Web that helps you develop two things: real knowledge of a specialty in which you will make a difference to somebody else; and, secondly, a broad sweep of information which enables you to comment at least intelligently, though not as an expert, but to comment intelligently because you’re applying these fundamental principles to specific situations. How many people do you think are in this room? If each of you wrote three articles or five articles in the next five years and you stayed in communication with each other, just keeping up with each other in this room would keep you very busy. And it can be done at almost no cost because of the Web. So, that’s what I would tell you to do. Go and do thou likewise. You will not be as gifted as Rothbard. You will not write Man, Economy, and State. You will not write—I guarantee you—you will not write a monograph as revolutionary and yet as accurate as America’s Great Depression, even if you work real hard. And you know the great thing about it? You don’t have to. Because it got done. It’s been done. Been there, read that. But what you can do is to go where no one else you know has gone, and hardly anybody else is interested in, and nobody really wants to focus on, and you can niche that; you can own it; you can make it yours. And if all you do is put up a site with links to all the other sites or articles or materials—if all you are is a clearinghouse on the Web—you are doing something tremendously important. You’re reducing other people’s difficulties in locating information. You are participating in the intellectual division of labor. That’s my call to you, my challenge to you. When you go out of here, when you leave this conference, you’ve had it poured into you. Now what’s going to come out? You’ve had enormous benefits poured into you; you’ve had advantages given to you; and you have just—whether you know it or not—increased your personal level of responsibility. You can’t avoid that, because you’ve been here. It’s too late. Now, go apply it. I don’t know where you’re going to do it; I don’t know what you’re major is; I don’t know what you’re interest is. Whatever it is that you really love in which you’d be most difficult to replace—get online, get used to writing, crank the stuff out. If you need to revise it, you don’t even need the X’s—just use the delete key. Murray may not have liked modern technology, but I really believe he would have loved the delete key. We have the delete key. It’s time for everybody in this room—not tonight; I’ll give you a week—either to be online with his own Website or participating in a joint effort by the time you graduate from whatever program you’re in. When you walk out of that program, you better have something online. If you’re an undergraduate looking for a graduate degree or your graduate fellowship, and you can say "Here’s what I’ve done, and it’s online, and you can see it"—that’s an advantage. That’s an edge in a highly competitive world. You go out to get that job, and you can say "I’ve got my own Website; you can take a look at it; you can see what I’ve done"—that is a competitive advantage. So that’s my challenge. Go and do thou likewise. Gary North delivered this speech upon receiving the 2004 Rothbard Medal at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, on June 10, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------