Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government.
The source.
Not much difference between Britain and East Germany. The image is from England in the 1960s, but in the 1980s, when I lived in England, there was still a lot of GDR-type dereliction and bleakness around. Image credit.
Referring to political criticism of private equity firms, Don Boudreaux argues:
So if politicians and pundits really wish to excoriate those responsible for shutting down hopelessly inefficient producers and for forcing others to operate more efficiently, they should blame consumers. These pols and pundits should demonize the likes of families and small businesses that greedily seek to get as much as possible in return for each dollar they spend.
The source.
I do not disagree with Boudreaux, but I insist that the picture is larger than he paints it. The initiative of entrepreneurs is a vital force in its own right in this process.
If we had only demanding customers but no entrepreneurs, not much in the way of advancement would happen. In fact, in such a situation, faithfully enacted in a system called socialism, consumers will, for lack of clout and comparison, tend to adjust to the low quality produce surrounding them all over the place, as I witnessed in East Germany and the UK.
It was hard to fathom for me what kind of grotty stuff the British (not to mention the East Germans) would get excited about after years of socialist gagging. Especially with the British, there was also a good portion of nationalism in their excitement, say, for cars ("made in Britain"), residences etc that people in other countries would turn up their noses at.
The prime status symbol prominently displayed in the living rooms of East Germans was an empty can of Coke.
Before ushering you to some weekend reading at the bottom of the post, some light personal news.
I had a perfect Saturday, collecting Lucky early in the afternoon to take him for a two hour tour of the wilderness. Just before we were going to return to the civilised world, a man turned up with a beautiful she-dog. Lucky had fun with black beauty Lola for another two hours, while I joined our new companion on his search for a ditched glider. Mysteriously, yet reassuringly, there was a note on the glider to the effect that the pilots had decided to land so as to have a drink in the pub of a nearby village.
There was one thing, however, that made me feel very sad. Lucky ferreted out a dead fawn, probably the victim of an unusually cold night yesterday. Once again, Lucky proved an excellent tracking dog and pointer with no interest in actually killing game. I observed carefully how he approached what turned out a dead fawn. Once again, Lucky remained perfectly obedient to me in the face of game alive or dead. He would be the ideal dog for a hunter who does not want his dog to interfere with the killing job or the prey.
However, the sight of the perished mini deer, so beautiful and cute (probably only a few days old), did make me feel really awful for a while.
Life goes on.
For a weekend read, try this on Martingale, and this by David Stockman.
PS
While Lucky was right with his prediction that my home team would suffer relegation from the first German soccer division this year, I am glad to report:
Hurrah, Borussia Dortmund, who have snatched the German soccer championship for the second consecutive year from Bayern München, look like defeating Bayern again decisively, in the final of the German Football Federation Cup. This being a most remarkable fifth consecutive win over Bayern, who in their turn have made it to the final of the European Champions League, where they face the English team of Chelsea.
Notice how it is not the head of the department that is at fault, but the collective “we” and their processes which occur beneath him. They, who or whatever ‘they’ are, provide cover for all that is wrong. The singular in politics exists for promotion only.
I am compelled to quote Tolstoy once again:
“From the day when the first members of councils placed exterior authority higher than interior, that is to say, recognized the decisions of men united in councils as more important and more sacred than reason and conscience; on that day began lies that caused the loss of millions of human beings and which continue their unhappy work to the present day.”
It is impossible not to speculate.
Speculating is a form of behaviour, active or passive, resulting from a view taken on the course of future events. If you do not participate in the stock market you are effectively taking a speculative position. Your speculative position will be rewarded if the stock market is doing badly; you will be punished if exchange-traded equities are doing well.
Probably the most risky and most questionable form of speculation is to be long, as it were, on government and the state, i.e. to rely on these forces to influence and shape your fate.
My own generation is likely to become part of a long and uninterrupted sequence of generations totally destroyed (physically and/or materially) by the German state (First World War, hyperinflation, depression, Third Reich, Second World War, impending currency collapse and break down of the "welfare state").
Don Boudreaux has an excellent letter to the editor, where he brilliantly debunks the unthinking emotionalism - "the stakeless and idle yammering" - of those who blame rising oil prices on speculators.
You speculate that “excessive speculation, mainly by Wall Street index-fund traders, is needlessly driving up [gasoline] prices” (“Speculators and the Gas Pump,” April 19).
Speculative buying is excessive only if it pushes prices higher than will be warranted by tomorrow’s conditions. But no one – not even the academic authors of papers to which you link – knows for certain just how tight gasoline supplies will be tomorrow. Many investors are speculating that these supplies will be very tight indeed. If these investors are correct, they’ll earn profits and their purchases today will be revealed tomorrow not to have been excessive.
You, in contrast, insist that these speculators are mistaken (that is, you think they’re destined to lose money on their investments). So put your money where your mouth is: invest contrary to these speculators by going short in gasoline. If you’re correct that today’s speculation is excessive, not only will you make a killing when proof of your prescience arrives tomorrow in the form of gasoline prices that are lower than are expected by the speculators who you criticize, you’ll also put downward pressure on today’s gasoline prices.
Rather than opine with no skin in the game, get involved! Show the world that your intellectual speculations aren’t idle.
The source.
Image credit.
While I consider this article by Dwight R. Lee a good read, I differ with the author's conclusion
that self-interest is not good or bad, but an unalterable fact of life.
I would argue that self-interest is good - and not bad - in that it is a fundamental part of human nature and as such a requirement not only for man's survival but also for his continuous improvement, materially and spiritually.
There are two aspects to my argument, the first, I have written about before. So I touch on it only briefly.
I.
Every human being is an individual, separate from every other individual, and must therefore perceive and cope with the world in a way unique to himself. Inevitably, he has concerns alone to himself. Man quite simply does not have the perspective of another person but only his, he does not live the life of another person but his life, and he does not have the needs of another person but his own needs. If he does not know how to heed his very own concerns he cannot but (a) damage himself seriously and ultimately mortally, and he will (b) lose the ability to improve himself and to make his best contribution to the improvement of his fellows.
The idea of freedom is essentially the idea of personal freedom, the need of which is based on the recognition of point (b) above.
The constructive and conducive aspects of self-interest are manifold, complex and absolutely indispensable for human survival and advancement. Unfortunately they are only too often swept aside by crudely equating the concern of the individual for himself with greed or other forms of objectionable misconduct. This habit appears to be a remnant of the times when the individual was constantly and brutally bullied and terrorised by the tribal collective. Today, the ideological war on self-interest is part of the efforts to turn human beings into mere means for the ends of the powerful.
II.
The second aspect that is even more pervasively overlooked concerns the nature of human needs. I mention this aspect because it leads me to the conclusion that man must and ought to strive for ever growing wealth. If this desire for more wealth is crudely equated with greed (which is silly) then greed is morally desirable - as one might argue for rhetorical effect, while correctly speaking greed is bad, of course, and self-interest good in the above sense. In fact, what is bad about greed is that it represents an overdoing, a transgression of the right measure of something, an excess beyond the harmless or wholesome, whereas an excess of self-interest does not make conceptual sense as defined above, since it would imply a violation of self-interest by self-interest.
The crux: the way in which human beings adapt to their environment is by having and satisfying desires/needs. The greater the variety, variability and degree of differentiation of a specie's ability to have and satisfy needs/desires, the greater its ability to fit successfully with the wider environment. So the ability to constantly renew, extend and grow this ability is key to survival and advancement.
Now, what is wealth? Wealth consist of things and practices that enable man to satisfy his desires/needs. Hence, if an open-ended development of desires is an anthropological sine qua non and the key to continuous successful adaptation to a changing and changed environment, then incessantly growing wealth is just as important.
If man's ability to adapt to and advance in his environment is damaged and curtailed, he suffers impoverishment (relative to the unhampered presence of this ability), even to a degree that may well lead to stark poverty, misery, and death.
Truncating, inhibiting or fully precluding man's ability to develop and satisfy ever more desires/needs and hence to build up more and more wealth is quite simply inhumane. Not to mention that resource-intensive ambitions like comprehensive environmental protection cannot be achieved unless a high level of wealth is achieved and maintained.
See also my posts: The Most Stupid Statement about Capitalism, Greed - Detractors and Defenders of Capitalism Get It Wrong, Personal Freedom, Inequality and Justice,
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