THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 362, April 9, 2006
Free Market Money

Home of the Slave?
by Michael Bradshaw
evilgringo [at] usrepeals.org

Exclusive to TLE

Re the article "Home of the Brave?" by John Steinsvold in issue #361: If Master Steinsvold's article is supposed to be an April Fool day joke; it is a day late. If so, please accept my apology and read no further. If not, I wish to address and dismiss it.

In TLE #360 Jim Davidson said of John Morris, in his letter to the Editor: "I'm a bit surprised to find his [Mr. Morris's] natterings in The Libertarian Enterprise, though I guess you scrape the bottom of the barrel when you must."

I have been, for some time, trying to refrain from saying what Mr. Davidson has said in an effort to remain polite. Now M. Steinsvold had pushed me over the brink.

I must heartily concur with Mr. Davidson's observation that Mr. Morris is, indeed, an epitome of barrel-bottom scrapings. His masterful grasp of the obvious, his condescendingly voluminous and maundering output, his vast and sweeping ignorance and self-absorbed meanderings into subjects various and remote from libertarian philosophy or interest have prompted me to ignore his columns entirely.

Now, it seems, I must add another to the short list (previously one, now two) of TLE columnists to pass over with a heavy and resigned sigh.

M. Steinsvold's "piece" is the most blatant and infantile example of Communist propaganda and apology that it has been my unhappy lot to wade through since my days with the astronomers in a major (and unnamed to save embarrassment for the guilty) university. They taught me astrophysics and I exposed them—usually for the first time—to philosophy and economics. Perhaps I should try again.

And so, another brief exercise in futility.

The Marxism that M. Steinsvold presents to his projected audience of mentally retarded eight-year-olds has not a thing to do with economics. It is a religion originating as a heresy from Christianity; a bastard child, as it were. As such it displays the three earmarks of all religion:

• A world view—which is false to fact.

• A moral code—doctrines regarding conduct and requiring obedience to the Lords Spiritual.

• All arguments in support of the religion are based on the fallacy of Argument From Authority—without regard for truth.

M. Steinsvold places blame for all the troubles in the world on the shoulders of the free market and the use of money. He is unaware of the fact that all wealth (Wealth consists of goods and services, Master John.) above the level of the small animal pelt, the sharp stick and plucked fruit is the result of people trading in the free market. He is unaware that money is a symbol structure that represents value received by a customer; and not a spawn of his devils with purely spiritual attributes—for the corruption of the souls of commoners.

If, that is, the low, brutish and sub-human commoners actually have souls; a point that is still under debate among the anointed.

He decries social, technological and economic complexity. It therefor follows, as the night the day, that there can be no division of labor. He thereby tells us that choices are bad and that one size of everything fits all. Either that, or all people may only have what they can make for themselves.

And under his perfect Marxism there can be no exchange of values among individuals.

He condemns competition in business, thereby telling us that all technological progress and improvements in efficiency are bad. He condemns competition in business, telling us that it is "unnecessary duplication of effort". It therefor follows, as the night the day, that all products of a certain kind may only be made in one factory—a factory that is owned by the Lords Temporal—and worked by their slaves. Either that, or we must reduce our industry to hunting and gathering; and our technology to the sharp stick, the un-tanned animal pelt and the un-modified rock. After all, the chipping of stone arrow heads is a technological skill that only a few can do.

And under his perfect Marxism there can be no exchange of values among individuals.

He tells us that he, or his Lords, have abolished human nature. That all men henceforth are devided into three races. (Before you condemn me for putting words in his mouth; remember that words mean things and ideas have consequences! Read his catechism with care, and look beyond it to the true history of his church, as exemplified in the German Third Reich and the Russian and Chinese empires.) He tells us that these races are the Lords, the Bureaucrats and the Commoners. That no men have any vestige of self interest. That all men strive only for "the good of the whole". That the Lords have only the best interest of the lower races in mind, always, have no self interest—and are the natural owners of all other men. That the Bureaucrats do only what they are ordered to do by the Lords, have no self interest or desire for wealth and have only the best interest of "the whole" in mind, always. That the Commoners are, by nature and right, the property of the Lords, subject in all things to the control of the Bureaucrats, incapable of operating their own lives, without self interest and willing to work without end for the benefit of the superior races.

Amen.

He then has the temerity and the unmitigated gall to contradict himself completely and tell us that he proposes no substantive change in our economic lives.

He says all this, having no idea that the science of economics is really the study of how people get along with each other. Whether money is involved in the relationships or not.

In summation, Master John's one thousand, nine hundred, seventy-seven word catechism may be summed up in nine words by George Orwell—from his seminal warning against Master John and his church:

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.

_______________
Appendix:

The following six economic principles should help Master John (and, perhaps, others) to get started understanding the basics of economics by observing them in the world in which he lives (the REAL one, not his religious fantasies as expressed in his catechism) and applying them to his life.

1. The nature of property:
Your property is that which you possess, control and defend. An individual's property starts with his life, mind and body. It extends through his land and improvements to land, through his other goods—to his labor (services provided to others), which he exchanges for goods, services and money.

2. The nature of money:
Money is a physical commodity (having mass and occupying space) which has intrinsic value (people use it for various purposes other than money) and is universally or widely used as a medium of exchange. Money is also a symbol structure, assigned by people to the physical commodity, representing value received by a buyer. The best kinds of money have, compared to the value placed on them, compactness, light weight, durability and universal acceptance by other people. These are, primarily, noble or rare metals, such as gold and silver. Widely used substitutes for money are warehouse receipts or certificates that are redeemable for money (ex. the old United States "silver certificate" dollar) and bookkeeping entries—or tally marks, such as the U. S. Federal Reserve Note.

3. The law of supply and demand (another nine words):
"Prices vary directly with demand and inversely with supply." In longer form—The more desirable a thing is (the greater the demand for it) the more people are willing to pay for it, and the less the demand, the lower the price. No matter how useful or necessary a thing is, the more abundant that thing is (such as water) the less people are willing to pay for it—and the more scarce it is (such as oil) the more people are willing to pay for it.

4. The law of price (which follows from supply and demand and is also called "the invisible hand" of the free market):
Because all things (and services) are limited in supply, those who want them must pay a price to receive them. Prices of goods and services are set (and discovered) by auction in the marketplace. Those who need or want a thing more will pay a higher price than those who need or want it less.

Corollaries:

• A producer who asks too high a price will find that demand does not meet his supply; and he will have goods left unsold.

• A producer who asks too low a price will find that demand outruns his supply; and he cannot meet the demand with his maximum production.

• When demand and supply balance through the auction, we find the "current natural price" of the goods in the free market. This varies from time to time and from place to place. That is why the free market auction is continuous throughout human history.

• The prices of goods and services carry information both ways between producers and customers.

  • When prices rise above the natural level, demand is reduced (because the goods are now "too expensive") and production is increased (because producers can now make more profit per unit of goods).

  • When prices fall below the natural level, demand is increased (because the goods are now "cheaper") and production is reduced (because profit is reduced or eliminated).

  • This balancing of forces between production and demand, expressed in the prices of goods and services, is what regulates the amounts of production and demand in the free market. This is what Adam Smith referred to as "the invisible hand" of the free market that guides men to produce the best possible goods and services, in the best amount, at the best possible prices. It is also known as "negative feedback" because each change in supply or demand produces the relative opposite in the other, thereby forcing each toward the neutral or optimum (natural) amount. We also use "negative feedback" in engineering to control machinery, like the governor on your lawnmower engine. Running too fast closes the throttle and running too slow opens it.

  • This balancing of forces between production and demand, expressed in the prices of goods and services, is what allocates goods an services in the most equitable way so that those who have the greater need or want get the greater supply; and those who have less need or want get the lesser supply. In this way we achieve the maximum of economic justice—the fair distribution of goods and services to the customers.

  • Any outside influence, such as a natural disaster (which increases demand and reduces relative supply, thereby driving up prices) or government interference through violence (business regulation and taxes) or fraud (the printing of paper "money" that is not backed by a real money/commodity—AKA "inflation") distorts the market and drives prices away from their natural levels.

  • Natural market distortions—causing changes in demand or supply, such as natural disaster, new memes in society or new technology—tend to be short lived because they are self-correcting through negative feedback in the market as seen above, or produce a new and better balance of the market.

  • Governmental market distortions (violence and fraud) tend to be long-term and are not self-correcting, because there is not enough balancing force (the "black" or free market) to move the market toward a new equilibrium. This produces shortages of goods and services with unnaturally high prices; or excesses of goods and services with unnaturally low prices.

  • Government responds to the results of its earlier interference in the market with more interference—by forcing production or prices up or down by means of violence and fraud (prohibition and mandates on business, price "controls", inflation of the "money" supply, etc.) against producers and customers. These violent changes in production and price are almost always away from the natural levels of production and price, thereby resulting in more distortion in the market and chaos in society. The government does this until it over-shoots to a huge extreme and reverses to the other extreme, as in the United States between 1920 (boom), 1929 (bust & depression) and 1942 (war "boom"). This function of violent efforts at control is known as a "positive feed-back loop" in which each distortion produces more distortion—instead of a dampening of the wild swings of change.

    And here we have a working definition of "chaos".

  • These governmentally induced chaotic swings of the economy and the political system result in economic crash, including depression and famine; and political crash, including foreign war, civil war, genocide and revolution. As a result of the above, governments in the twentieth century have impoverished almost all of mankind and murdered over 300,000,000 (Yes, Master John, that is "over three-hundred million") people.

• Just as an aside, chaos is not anarchy. The two are polar opposites. To the extent that you have one, you have less of the other. Chaos is disorder; such as we see in governmental interference in the market economy, pogrom, genocide and wars between states. Anarchy is the absence of a king or political state. A free market, guided by the invisible hand of price feedback is the classic example of anarchy. Most, by far, human interaction is an-archic. Examples are families, friends and shopping—as none of these require governmental intervention. That is why anarchy is peaceful and orderly, with a rather smooth progression of increasing prosperity.

5. The forge of adversity:
This is also known as evolution by natural selection, or "survival of the FIT", as originally described by Charles Darwin. It does NOT mean "survival of the FITTEST", which is a piece of Marxist propaganda. For a species, an individual or a business firm to survive it must meet the minimum requirements of its environment, whether that is an ecological zone or a market.

If a species is not fit it will go extinct and leave that ecological niche open for a better one. If an individual is not fit he will die (and, we may hope, before he can reproduce) thereby leaving "his share" of resources for others and cleansing the gene pool of his inferior inheritance. If a business firm is not fit it will go broke and out of business, thereby freeing-up market share and production resources (plant, equipment and labor) for more efficient businesses to use. This is technically know as "recycling".

In that way the market eliminates inferior goods and services and promotes the better and more efficient ones. The best businesses receive the most business and make the most profit. They then invest some of the profits into more business expansion (capital investment); thereby making more of the best for the customers at the lowest practical prices. Not being the best does not kill you. If you are only fit to survive, it just keeps you humble.

This constant challenge to survive in competition with others, whether they are species, individuals or businesses, puts stress on the participants in the system of life. It is stress (exercise) that makes us stronger than before and reduces our weaknesses. This has been compared to heating and then rapidly cooling (quenching) steel in a forge and water bath; thereby setting up stresses in the metal and making it harder or stronger. That is why the tempering of our minds and ambitions in the free market has been compared to the blacksmith tempering the steel. Thus we speak of "The Forge of Adversity".

And that is why it is good.

6. The ZAP (Zero Aggression Principle):
For thousands of years men have been working on ways to make society work well for the killer-apes that we are; so that we can live together in peace and exchange values to our mutual profit. (With thanks to L. Neil Smith for the wording.) Hammurabi had his long and detailed law code. The Jews have their Ten Commandments. The Christians have the Golden Rule. Now we have the next extension of human philosophic and moral principles—The Zero Aggression Principle, or "ZAP" of the libertarians. Each try gets shorter or more refined, as we approach a basic "law" of peaceful and productive human interaction.

The ZAP boils down tens of thousands of years of head-scratching and experimenting (and failure and trying again... ) into a single principle—expressed in a single statement:

"No one has the right, under any circumstances, to INITIATE force against anyone else."

If we want to expand that a little to cover all the cases, we may point out that fraud is theft by guile or trickery, instead of direct physical force—and has the same result for the same reasons. The credible threat of force that has not yet been applied is an initiation of force that saves ammunition. Hiring someone else to do your stealing or murder for you is still stealing or murder on your part. Therefor all those things come under the definition of "initiating force".

Please note the word "INITIATE" with regard to force or violence. The libertarian philosophy is not one of non-violence or pacifism. The ZAP means that decent people do not start fights. However, they may certainly end fights by any means—specifically including killing the criminals. That is because violence is morally neutral. It may be used for either good or evil. M. John's church uses it for evil. Decent people use it for good.

Over six thousand years of human history, and especially the last few hundred years of American history, prove that non-aggressive, competitive cooperation through production and trade in the free market (the practical and empirical development of the ZAP) produce peace, progress and prosperity, while political aggression (government by a political state) produce robbery, rape, slavery and genocide.

That is why the ZAP is good—and political government (most especially including Marxism, M. John) is bad.

And that is why I invented Fifth-Generation War.

To solve the problem of the political state for good and all.

With thanks to my predecessors:
Jim Bell for inventing what is probably the most important idea in human history ("assassination politics" at http://jya.com/ap.htm and other sites on the net), and that unknown soldier who was the first to kill an officer instead of another grunt.

References:

To see where Master John wants to take us (or, at least, those few that he doesn't murder in the process), see the history of the Soviet Union and/or Communist China—or in a fictional rendition (easier and MUCH more fun to wade through as a novella) read "Anthem" by Ayn Rand at:
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/mcnally/anthem/

To see where Master John is coming from with regard to his "philosophy" and the crimes that he wants to commit, see Prof. R. J. Rummel's rather conservative research on the history of M. John's "Church of the Holy State" (Over 300,000,000 murdered in the 20th. century alone, only one-seventh of them in war—and counting!) at:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/

To learn about Fifth-Generation War and how to avoid Master John's Final Solution to the American Problem see my articles "Election and Revolution" in TLE issue 295 at
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2004/tle295-20041031-03.html

and "Teaching the ZAP to the 4GW Crowd" in issue 345 at
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle345-20051113-02.html

And to see an example of where decent people might want to go from here, read "The Probability Broach" or "Pallas" by L. Neil Smith.

For an in-depth study of a REAL philosophy (libertarian) read "The Ethics of Liberty" by Murray Rothbard
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics.pdf a 7.4 megabyte download.

If Dr. Rothbard is too heavy-going for you, start at the Advocates for Self Government and take the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" at:
http://www.self-gov.org/

For the tools you need (You REALLY need these!) to preserve your freedom and defend your self, family, property and country against M. John and his "friends" see (along with many other good companies at other addresses)
Springfield Armory at:
http://www.springfield-armory.com/index.shtml
and Midway USA at:
http://www.midwayusa.com/

I recommend the M1A rifle and the M1911-A1 (big or small) pistol. Don't leave home without one!

Michael Bradshaw is the Speaker (also the Lord-High Janitor) of the United States House of Repeals, www.usrepeals.org.
Copyright © 2006, Michael T. Bradshaw

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