That's not what happened. How did FDR reimplement his policies in 1939 if he didn't have the money? The second crash was because he backed off of socialism at the behest of business friendly Republicans. They hated the fact that his policies were working.
I obviously can't get you to stop rewriting history, but your revisionist speculations are not shared by the majority of economists, historians, or regular folks. It must gall you to realize that most people think FDR was one of our greatest presidents, and his policies a complete success.
But please, attempt to show with facts and figures that it was the money supply drying up and not Republican anti-socialism that caused the 1938 mini-crash. Here's a link to get you started on your new, fact based path: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937
Maybe you can explain why the 1937-38 mini-recession was so short? For bonus points, try to do so without resorting to 'the government spent bunches of money on the buildup to WWII,' because of the logical contradiction that government spending on a war could fix things, but government spending on public programs couldn't.
Really? Because to me, the data shows that when FDR implemented socialist plans, the economy turned around. Took off, in fact. Then in 1938 when the Republicans convinced him to stop, the economy (especially the unemployment rate, which had started to get dramatically better) tanked, until he re-implemented his plans. You can look at the graphs and see his policies working, and when he stopped them, things got worse.
It's all there in black and white. But as I suspected, you've resorted to the grade school tactic of shouting, 'Nuh uh! Is not!'
McGrew. Please. I know how old you are. You've been posting here forever, you like to share stuff about yourself, and you're a memorable character.
Yes, I was trolling you. Sort of. But you DO seem to equate 'anarchism' with 'bomb chucking terrorist' or 'crusty street punk' and you shouldn't. The philosophy of libertarianism is a branch of anarchism (in the US, just one branch. In the rest of the world, it's just a synonym for 'anarchism.' But I'm talking about the US use of the word)
I'm 37, (thus the joke in calling you 'kid.') As for books, read some Proudhon. Read Trotsky. They were anarchists, not libertarians, because nobody had invented that word yet.
Okay, cool. Some other things you might want to look into include the concepts of positive and negative freedoms (freedom to do things, and freedom from having things done to you) and social anarchism versus individualist anarchism.
Finally, for a good example of a blending of socialism and the free market, in an anarchist/distributist system, look up the Mondragon Cooperative. It was started in Basque Spain by a couple of Catholic Priests, and it is an amazing success story. They took a poor, backwards region of Spain and turned it into an industrial powerhouse. Everything there, from banks and ad agencies to housing and schools, is a cooperative. Everyone is encouraged to start their own cooperative if they like, and get this: because new businesses get so much support and advice from business service cooperatives, their five year failure rate for new businesses is under 20%. That's about what our success rate is.
Let's look at some graphs to see how your claims stack up. There is a point in all these graphs, around 1938, where the Republicans convinced FDR to back off his socialist practices. Their claim was that the economy had been fixed, and such terrible emergency measures were no longer needed. That's the point where everything goes bad again. Once FDR started up the practices once more, things started to get better again.
With unemployment, you can see FDR's policies starting to work dramatically until the Republicans interfere. Hayek's claims are ludicrous and not accepted by most modern historians or economists. He makes outrageous claims and does not back them up with enough data. Hayek cherry picks his data, ignoring anything that does not support his predetermined conclusion that government can't help.
You, like Hayek, ignore any data that does not support what you know must be true, the government can only hurt the free market. I've put links to graphs here that show that FDR's policies did indeed fix the depression. I think it's fairly easy for anyone not blinded by ideology to draw their own conclusions from the facts.
You make a number of outrageous claims as if they were completely accepted by everyone in the fields of science, history, and economics. They simply aren't, your view, and Hayek's, are outside the mainstream, not supported by evidence. You and other free market ideologues HATE FDR with a passion, because his actions and his legacy prove your theories wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But please, using actual data from the time, attempt to make your point that FDR's policies damaged the economy. So far, you've just made unsupported assertions. Well, now we have some graphs to go on. If you don't like these, you can always go directly to the source for yours. Of course, knowing free market ideologues, you will probably claim that the source (our government) is lying.
Oh no. Not another Randroid. I'm not re-reading Rand for you, how about you go read the works of some real anarchists like Proudhon and get back to me, okay?
Okay, so, in the depression, what year did the economy start to turn around? How fast did it grow after it did, compared to pre-depression growth? When did it reach a pre-depression level? At what year would GDP growth extrapolated from pre-depression rates, and assuming the depression never happened, meet the actual GDP? That is to say, at what point in time were the effects of the depression entirely erased?
I know these things. I have graphs I can show you. I've disproven Hayek many times before, not that that takes much work, I just copy the masters who've been doing it for decades.
What's your take, and where is your evidence? I'll let you go first and then I'll show you mine.:)
Actually, I'm a hard core anarchist who like to make libertarians justify their existence. Or to put it in Slashdot terms, I'm trolling them. For a reason. Most libertarians know nothing about the history of the philosophy they espouse. They don't know about the split between social anarchists and individualist anarchists. They don't know why they call themselves libertarians instead of anarchists.
They don't realize that there is a whole branch of anarchism with specific critiques of their branch. And the critique boils down to this: they don't understand the obvious (to everyone else) unintended consequences that would happen if their philosophy were put into action. They ignore any history that shows what their worldview will do.
Liberarianism (in the US) is anarchism light. It's anarchism for people who don't want to acknowledge that even anarchists have social responsibilities. Libertarianism is anarchism that's been co-opted by the ruling class. It is "I've got mine, so bugger off" anarchism. It makes even the circle-A crusty punk street kid anarchists wince.
Most people who say, "I'm a libertarian" want society a-la carte, where they get to pick and choose what parts they support. This usually involves them externalizing a lot of the social costs, claiming they get no benefit, but that's what all leeches and free riders say.
Libertarians tend to be simple and dogmatic. They have a simple answer for everything, "Let the free market do it," and they ignore any evidence that the free market sometimes fails. And they tend to act as if this simplistic philosophy is pure genius, and the reason we don't agree with them is obviously that we don't understand it. And then they get all preachy instead of looking at any critiques, because anyone who understood their philosophy obviously wouldn't critique it.
Liberians use the concept of individual responsibility as a big stick. They use it to whack people they don't feel like empathizing with or helping. They use it as an excuse to avoid responsibility for any negative externalities they take part in creating. To libertarians, any time another person is in need or has suffered some kind of misfortune, 'individual responsibility' is just an excuse not to help or even care, in fact, the unlucky person is often castigated by libertarians for getting themselves in the mess they did.
I'm just saying what I've seen, okay? If that's not you, fine. But everyone needs to know what the group they choose to associate with looks like to others. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just prejudiced. But it also seems like libertarians use 'individual responsibility' as an excuse not to look at that, either. It's not their fault because they aren't that type of libertarian. Libertarians, in general, don't take criticism of their philosophy very well.
This is the fifth time today I've seen you posting today. What awful purpose could possibly have driven you out from your dark hoary crypt? The stars aren't even right yet!
I've run out of munchies. RAAAH! Stoner needs food, badly!
Um, what? You seem to misunderstand completely. 'Real libertarians' are for limiting government down to only the protection of property and are exactly the sort of folks Adam Smith was warning about.
No, it just means your world view has to be internally consistent. As in, someone who can be reasoned with. Disagree with me all you like, just don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. Many people who claim to be libertarian are simply antisocial elitists who's political philosophy boils down to "Yer not the boss of me and I can do whatever I want!"
Which is technically true, but not if you want to live with other human beings. If you want the privilege of living in a society, you follow society's rules. Libertarians want to live in a society, and gain the benefits, like protection of property, but not to have to follow any rules they don't like or help pay for things.
The rich man could even more easily be replaced. What does he do besides sit on his ass and collect a check? He is exploiting the janitor, and all the others at his company.
You don't know the history of libertarianism, and you appear to know nothing about the philosophy of anarchism. To top it off, you feel compelled to share your ignorance with the world. Go read a few books and get back to me, kid.
Do what I do and call yourself an anarchist, then you won't confuse people who, for some strange reason, think the platform of the Libertarian Party defines what it is to be a libertarian.
You could even qualify the word anarchist, like I do. You are probably some breed of 'individualist anarchist' while am a type of 'social anarchist.'
A libertarian association of like minded individuals would be a partnership. Real libertarians would reject the government created limit on liability and take responsibility for the actions of their partnership.
I know its not what most of them want. Most of them are good people. It is, as you say, what they will get, and for that reason, I enjoy putting them on the defensive now and then.
I don't know how many times I will have to explain this: an archos = no rulers, an ocracy = no government. When people say 'libertarian' they mean 'anarchist.' Libertarians don't even know their own history or where they came from. You see, back in the late eighteen hundreds through the early nineteen hundreds, the individualist anarchists wanted a divorce from the social anarchists, and anarchy in general had gotten a bad name thanks to government propaganda, so the individualist anarchists came up with a new name, and then promptly forgot who they were and where they came from.
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
* V.i.b.12 (Part II)
Ah, so Libertarians like the government when it creates new classes of property out of whole cloth. Love that government granted monopoly on 'intellectual property' backed up by men with guns... Yeah, that's really consistent reasoning.
I love it when people claim the title 'libertarian' and then go on to explain all the ways they disagree with the Libertarian party platform.
Do what I do, call yourself an anarchist. You aren't a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination as you have just negated most of the most important planks in the Libertarian party platform.
If I said, "Yeah, I'm a Democrat but I want a smaller Federal government, I want to make abortion illegal, I oppose gun control, I want creationism taught in schools, I don't believe in global warming, and I am against any federal regulation of business." You would think I was crazy, or had no idea what the Democratic Party stood for.
Are you from the US? What I'm saying about libertarians only apples to US libertarians. In the rest of the world, 'libertarian' is just a synonym for 'anarchist' used by people who don't want to associate themselves with brick throwing crusty punk circle-A anarchist types.
In the US, "libertarian" means only strong property rights individualist anarchism. There are no leftist libertarians. If that does not fit what you are, call yourself an anarchist instead. I do.
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
* V.i.b.12 (Part II)
The word "Libertarian" is a cop out. The Federal government went after anarchists with force and propaganda in the early part of last century, and made everyone believe that anarchists were all bomb throwing mad-men bent on destroying society.
We aren't.
The reason I give libertarians a hard time is because I am a social anarchist and they are individualist anarchists. Social anarchists think individualist anarchists are selfish, and want to externalize as much of the cost of running a functional society as they can. They, in turn, think we aren't really anarchists at all, we're socialists in disguise.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not what happened. How did FDR reimplement his policies in 1939 if he didn't have the money? The second crash was because he backed off of socialism at the behest of business friendly Republicans. They hated the fact that his policies were working.
I obviously can't get you to stop rewriting history, but your revisionist speculations are not shared by the majority of economists, historians, or regular folks. It must gall you to realize that most people think FDR was one of our greatest presidents, and his policies a complete success.
But please, attempt to show with facts and figures that it was the money supply drying up and not Republican anti-socialism that caused the 1938 mini-crash. Here's a link to get you started on your new, fact based path: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937
Maybe you can explain why the 1937-38 mini-recession was so short? For bonus points, try to do so without resorting to 'the government spent bunches of money on the buildup to WWII,' because of the logical contradiction that government spending on a war could fix things, but government spending on public programs couldn't.
Really? Because to me, the data shows that when FDR implemented socialist plans, the economy turned around. Took off, in fact. Then in 1938 when the Republicans convinced him to stop, the economy (especially the unemployment rate, which had started to get dramatically better) tanked, until he re-implemented his plans. You can look at the graphs and see his policies working, and when he stopped them, things got worse.
It's all there in black and white. But as I suspected, you've resorted to the grade school tactic of shouting, 'Nuh uh! Is not!'
*sigh*
McGrew. Please. I know how old you are. You've been posting here forever, you like to share stuff about yourself, and you're a memorable character.
Yes, I was trolling you. Sort of. But you DO seem to equate 'anarchism' with 'bomb chucking terrorist' or 'crusty street punk' and you shouldn't. The philosophy of libertarianism is a branch of anarchism (in the US, just one branch. In the rest of the world, it's just a synonym for 'anarchism.' But I'm talking about the US use of the word)
I'm 37, (thus the joke in calling you 'kid.') As for books, read some Proudhon. Read Trotsky. They were anarchists, not libertarians, because nobody had invented that word yet.
Okay, cool. Some other things you might want to look into include the concepts of positive and negative freedoms (freedom to do things, and freedom from having things done to you) and social anarchism versus individualist anarchism.
Finally, for a good example of a blending of socialism and the free market, in an anarchist/distributist system, look up the Mondragon Cooperative. It was started in Basque Spain by a couple of Catholic Priests, and it is an amazing success story. They took a poor, backwards region of Spain and turned it into an industrial powerhouse. Everything there, from banks and ad agencies to housing and schools, is a cooperative. Everyone is encouraged to start their own cooperative if they like, and get this: because new businesses get so much support and advice from business service cooperatives, their five year failure rate for new businesses is under 20%. That's about what our success rate is.
Let's look at some graphs to see how your claims stack up. There is a point in all these graphs, around 1938, where the Republicans convinced FDR to back off his socialist practices. Their claim was that the economy had been fixed, and such terrible emergency measures were no longer needed. That's the point where everything goes bad again. Once FDR started up the practices once more, things started to get better again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1910-1960.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_GDP_10-60.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1930Industry.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GDP_depression.svg
With unemployment, you can see FDR's policies starting to work dramatically until the Republicans interfere. Hayek's claims are ludicrous and not accepted by most modern historians or economists. He makes outrageous claims and does not back them up with enough data. Hayek cherry picks his data, ignoring anything that does not support his predetermined conclusion that government can't help.
You, like Hayek, ignore any data that does not support what you know must be true, the government can only hurt the free market. I've put links to graphs here that show that FDR's policies did indeed fix the depression. I think it's fairly easy for anyone not blinded by ideology to draw their own conclusions from the facts.
You make a number of outrageous claims as if they were completely accepted by everyone in the fields of science, history, and economics. They simply aren't, your view, and Hayek's, are outside the mainstream, not supported by evidence. You and other free market ideologues HATE FDR with a passion, because his actions and his legacy prove your theories wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But please, using actual data from the time, attempt to make your point that FDR's policies damaged the economy. So far, you've just made unsupported assertions. Well, now we have some graphs to go on. If you don't like these, you can always go directly to the source for yours. Of course, knowing free market ideologues, you will probably claim that the source (our government) is lying.
Hey, I'm sure it's news to some people here...
Oh no. Not another Randroid. I'm not re-reading Rand for you, how about you go read the works of some real anarchists like Proudhon and get back to me, okay?
Okay, so, in the depression, what year did the economy start to turn around? How fast did it grow after it did, compared to pre-depression growth? When did it reach a pre-depression level? At what year would GDP growth extrapolated from pre-depression rates, and assuming the depression never happened, meet the actual GDP? That is to say, at what point in time were the effects of the depression entirely erased?
I know these things. I have graphs I can show you. I've disproven Hayek many times before, not that that takes much work, I just copy the masters who've been doing it for decades.
What's your take, and where is your evidence? I'll let you go first and then I'll show you mine. :)
Actually, I'm a hard core anarchist who like to make libertarians justify their existence. Or to put it in Slashdot terms, I'm trolling them. For a reason. Most libertarians know nothing about the history of the philosophy they espouse. They don't know about the split between social anarchists and individualist anarchists. They don't know why they call themselves libertarians instead of anarchists.
They don't realize that there is a whole branch of anarchism with specific critiques of their branch. And the critique boils down to this: they don't understand the obvious (to everyone else) unintended consequences that would happen if their philosophy were put into action. They ignore any history that shows what their worldview will do.
Liberarianism (in the US) is anarchism light. It's anarchism for people who don't want to acknowledge that even anarchists have social responsibilities. Libertarianism is anarchism that's been co-opted by the ruling class. It is "I've got mine, so bugger off" anarchism. It makes even the circle-A crusty punk street kid anarchists wince.
Most people who say, "I'm a libertarian" want society a-la carte, where they get to pick and choose what parts they support. This usually involves them externalizing a lot of the social costs, claiming they get no benefit, but that's what all leeches and free riders say.
Libertarians tend to be simple and dogmatic. They have a simple answer for everything, "Let the free market do it," and they ignore any evidence that the free market sometimes fails. And they tend to act as if this simplistic philosophy is pure genius, and the reason we don't agree with them is obviously that we don't understand it. And then they get all preachy instead of looking at any critiques, because anyone who understood their philosophy obviously wouldn't critique it.
Liberians use the concept of individual responsibility as a big stick. They use it to whack people they don't feel like empathizing with or helping. They use it as an excuse to avoid responsibility for any negative externalities they take part in creating. To libertarians, any time another person is in need or has suffered some kind of misfortune, 'individual responsibility' is just an excuse not to help or even care, in fact, the unlucky person is often castigated by libertarians for getting themselves in the mess they did.
I'm just saying what I've seen, okay? If that's not you, fine. But everyone needs to know what the group they choose to associate with looks like to others. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just prejudiced. But it also seems like libertarians use 'individual responsibility' as an excuse not to look at that, either. It's not their fault because they aren't that type of libertarian. Libertarians, in general, don't take criticism of their philosophy very well.
In a nutshell, that's why I troll libertarians.
This is the fifth time today I've seen you posting today. What awful purpose could possibly have driven you out from your dark hoary crypt? The stars aren't even right yet!
I've run out of munchies. RAAAH! Stoner needs food, badly!
Um, what? You seem to misunderstand completely. 'Real libertarians' are for limiting government down to only the protection of property and are exactly the sort of folks Adam Smith was warning about.
No, it just means your world view has to be internally consistent. As in, someone who can be reasoned with. Disagree with me all you like, just don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. Many people who claim to be libertarian are simply antisocial elitists who's political philosophy boils down to "Yer not the boss of me and I can do whatever I want!"
Which is technically true, but not if you want to live with other human beings. If you want the privilege of living in a society, you follow society's rules. Libertarians want to live in a society, and gain the benefits, like protection of property, but not to have to follow any rules they don't like or help pay for things.
The rich man could even more easily be replaced. What does he do besides sit on his ass and collect a check? He is exploiting the janitor, and all the others at his company.
You don't know the history of libertarianism, and you appear to know nothing about the philosophy of anarchism. To top it off, you feel compelled to share your ignorance with the world. Go read a few books and get back to me, kid.
Do what I do and call yourself an anarchist, then you won't confuse people who, for some strange reason, think the platform of the Libertarian Party defines what it is to be a libertarian.
You could even qualify the word anarchist, like I do. You are probably some breed of 'individualist anarchist' while am a type of 'social anarchist.'
A libertarian association of like minded individuals would be a partnership. Real libertarians would reject the government created limit on liability and take responsibility for the actions of their partnership.
I know its not what most of them want. Most of them are good people. It is, as you say, what they will get, and for that reason, I enjoy putting them on the defensive now and then.
I don't know how many times I will have to explain this: an archos = no rulers, an ocracy = no government. When people say 'libertarian' they mean 'anarchist.' Libertarians don't even know their own history or where they came from. You see, back in the late eighteen hundreds through the early nineteen hundreds, the individualist anarchists wanted a divorce from the social anarchists, and anarchy in general had gotten a bad name thanks to government propaganda, so the individualist anarchists came up with a new name, and then promptly forgot who they were and where they came from.
From "Wealth of Nations"
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
* V.i.b.12 (Part II)
Wrong. Look up the word 'archon.' It means 'ruler' not 'government.' In Greek, "No Government" would be anocracy.
Ah, so Libertarians like the government when it creates new classes of property out of whole cloth. Love that government granted monopoly on 'intellectual property' backed up by men with guns... Yeah, that's really consistent reasoning.
I love it when people claim the title 'libertarian' and then go on to explain all the ways they disagree with the Libertarian party platform.
Do what I do, call yourself an anarchist. You aren't a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination as you have just negated most of the most important planks in the Libertarian party platform.
If I said, "Yeah, I'm a Democrat but I want a smaller Federal government, I want to make abortion illegal, I oppose gun control, I want creationism taught in schools, I don't believe in global warming, and I am against any federal regulation of business." You would think I was crazy, or had no idea what the Democratic Party stood for.
Are you from the US? What I'm saying about libertarians only apples to US libertarians. In the rest of the world, 'libertarian' is just a synonym for 'anarchist' used by people who don't want to associate themselves with brick throwing crusty punk circle-A anarchist types.
In the US, "libertarian" means only strong property rights individualist anarchism. There are no leftist libertarians. If that does not fit what you are, call yourself an anarchist instead. I do.
Adam Smith said it best:
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
* V.i.b.12 (Part II)
The word "Libertarian" is a cop out. The Federal government went after anarchists with force and propaganda in the early part of last century, and made everyone believe that anarchists were all bomb throwing mad-men bent on destroying society.
We aren't.
The reason I give libertarians a hard time is because I am a social anarchist and they are individualist anarchists. Social anarchists think individualist anarchists are selfish, and want to externalize as much of the cost of running a functional society as they can. They, in turn, think we aren't really anarchists at all, we're socialists in disguise.
"People's Party of Judea? Pfft, splitters."