Some Links on Anarchism

It may sound bizarre, but it's interesting to note that many of the world's top intellectuals are anarchists. These include Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn (see here). This has prompted me to look into it a tiny bit. I watched a series of YouTube clips called Anarchism 101 that is here. It introduces the concept and addresses common objections. Seems very reasonable to me. There are different strands, including anarcho capitalism and anarcho syndicalism. The former is regarded as a contradiction in terms by it's critics (see here) and is criticized in the Anarchism 101 series. Chomsky and Zinn regard themselves as anarcho syndicalists.

Which societies have adopted anarchism? According to my first wiki link some Native American societies would qualify, if imperfectly. David Friedman asks whether the Amish are anarchists here and concludes that they are. For a brief period Spain was anarchic (see here). Monty Python's annoying peasant was an anarcho syndicalist (see here). A city in Hong Kong was regarded by some as anarcho capitalist and there's a German documentary on it starting here. It has since been demolished. Noam Chomsky criticizes anarcho capitalism and discusses liberterianism here.

Is Arson a Good Economic Policy?

Alan Greenspan says that what the government should have done in response to the housing bubble is buy up a bunch of houses and burn them to the ground. Watch him here.

Greenspan was among Ayn Rand's inner circle. Here's a photo of the two of them along with Gerald Ford. But what he's advocating sounds more like Keynsian stimulus. It sounds like something you might here from a liberal. In this YouTube clip Paul Krugman makes the claim that from an economic perspective the attacks on the World Trade Centers were actually good for the economy. The video describes what is known as the Broken Window Fallacy. Sure, breaking stuff puts people to work. But now the owner of the window can't spend his money on other things. He might have bought a suit. Now he can't afford it. Buying a suit puts people to work too. And if the window hadn't been broken people would have been put to work AND he'd have a suit. That would have been better.

Fair enough. But what if the owner was so rich that he could afford both to buy a suit and to fix the window. Does breaking the window mean we actually get to enjoy more economic growth? It seems to me that we do.

Conservatives are generally very much prone to ridiculing this view. Recently University of Maryland economist Peter Morici said something similar regarding hurricane Irene. In reply Mark Perry points to Don Boudreaux, economist at George Mason University in what he calls a brilliant economic smackdown. Here's Boudreaux:

I hereby offer my services to you, at a modest wage, to destroy your house and your car. Act now, and I’ll throw in at no extra charge destruction of all of your clothing, furniture, computer hardware and software, and large and small household appliances.

Hardy har har. Seems Morici's point is kind of silly. I guess he wants us to destroy stuff.

Morici says that destruction does produce economic growth. That is it does lead to an increase in GDP. It comes at the cost of wealth. Wealth is destroyed. Economic growth occurs. Isn't that true? Seems it is. Then comes Boudreaux's fallacy. I guess Morici wants to destroy things.

No, he doesn't. But that doesn't change the facts. Destruction can lead to economic growth. Particularly when present resources are underutilized, as they obviously are in our economy today.

Isn't it true that WWII ended the Great Depression? The government created the demand for tanks, bombs, and planes. So everyone went to work creating them. Unemployment fell through the floor. GDP went up. And the stuff that was created was just destroyed. It does produce economic growth.

That doesn't make it wise. Why not rather create demand for things that are useful and won't be destroyed? Build bridges and schools. Fund research that can lead to improvements for all, like renewable energy and medical research. Rather than send people to war, why not send them off to provide medical care for the poor? That can stimulate the economy as much as war and destruction can.

Better still why not contrive an economic arrangement that doesn't demand escalating consumption, as ours does? Our system does in fact incentivize destruction. Hardware engineers and SW developers will tell you that really phones don't have to be designed such that they are obsolete so quickly. I-pod accessories don't have to be designed so that they are incompatible with future models. But they are. Computers really could be designed so they are easily upgradable instead of discarded. But that's not in the interest of short term profit.

But back to the system we have. We're not in favor of destruction. We prefer a better use of resources. But in an economy where wealth is concentrated in the hands of few and resources are underutilized, would breaking the windows in mansions produce economic growth? It seems to me that it would would.

Milton Friedman on Donahue

As much as I would disagree with Milton Friedman, you have to be impressed with his ability to argue and his fun demeanor. He completely stymies the liberal Phil Donahue in this 1979 interview. His influence is probably partly due to the fact that his arguments are very useful to business and concentrated power, but also due to the fact that he is quite persuasive. It seems to me looking at the audience that he is reaching them.

Krugman in 2006 on Housing Bubble

I think it's useful to just go back in time and see what one side was saying and what the other side was saying prior to the economic downturn. Who understands things and who doesn't? I've talked about Mark Perry from the right wing American Enterprise Institute. Take a look at what Krugman had to say in 2006. Who knows their stuff and who doesn't?



Krugman has been criticized because in 2002 he recommended policies that would create a housing bubble in order to get us out of that recession. Basically it was some Keynsian stimulus for a slumping economy. It worked temporarily and blew up in our faces in 2008. But sometimes people don't know that in 2005 Krugman saw that as well. He said sure, the bubble was necessary. It was implemented and it worked. But at this point it's gone on too long and must be scaled back. So he seems to have understood what was going on.

How Far We've Come

I was at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry a couple of years back and my kids enjoyed climbing into a big tractor. There was a scene before them that made it appear they were farming their field. Some buttons to push. Interactive sounds. It was fun. In fact the whole museum was great.

Had my kids gone in 1968 they might have found a different interactive exhibit. Read an article from Time about it here. It's a Huey helicopter aimed at Vietnamese huts. The kids would fire the machine gun at the huts and enjoy the sound of machine gun fire. When they hit the huts light bulbs would glow to let you know you've scored a direct hit.

When JFK sent B-52's to carpet bomb South Vietnam in 1962 most Americans really didn't mind. Contrary to perceptions today in fact Walter Cronkite was as much of a cheerleader as the rest of the mainstream media. To protest was to take your life in your hands. That's the kind of backdrop that produced this exhibit. But what the Pentagon hadn't yet realized is that the activism and protests of the 60's had changed public perceptions. By 1968 things were starting to change. Groups such as Vietnam Veterans for Peace angrily resisted and the museum was forced to close the exhibit.

It seems to me that it used to be much easier to inflict massive death. JFK's massive bombing campaigns were not only tolerated, they could be celebrated. Games for children could be created to glorify them. That seems unimaginable today. It is unfortunate that our government still is killing a lot of people. But they can't do it quite as openly. It can't be celebrated publicly. So the young people that go off to war haven't been indoctrinated to the same degree, which means likely they will be less indifferent to gratuitous violence. That means less death. Violence is pervasive, but it could have been worse. It isn't thanks to 60's activism.

7 Biggest Economic Lies - Robert Reich

Too Smart For The Job

You may have heard how Bill O'Reilly thought that the tides proved the existence of God because they cannot be explained. What you may not know is that when his listeners wrote in and explained that the tides are caused by the moon, not God, O'Reilly, rather than admitting he was perhaps out of line, instead compounded his error by just moving on to what he thought was the next unexplainable thing. "So how'd the moon get there? How'd the sun get there." Pretty wild. Watch here.



This guy has the top rated cable news show in America. One might think that this is strange. You might expect that the top rated cable news show would be headed by someone that isn't so ignorant. But I don't think we should be surprised.

Corporate sponsored media is naturally going to prefer that certain stories, even if they are important and even if the public would want to hear about them, will not be discussed. You'd have to be a real cynic to know of the stories and intentionally focus on irrelevant tripe in order to distract the masses. That's not easy. It's also not going to work to have producers tell hosts what stories they can cover. You can't go up to O'Reilly and say "Don't tell viewers that the Taliban repeatedly offered to hand over Osama bin Laden. That would make war less likely and we want war." O'Reilly would be indignant and would probably talk about the Taliban's offers under those conditions. O'Reilly sits where he does because he demonstrated that he's the kind of person that doesn't talk about the wrong kinds of stories. He has the critical blind spots. People like that are more likely to have other, non-critical blind spots. Sometimes those can be embarrassing, but it's worth it.

I call Bob Dutko and it's constantly a matter of making him aware of critical things. He has a real problem with terrorism, especially the 9-11 terrorism that killed 3,000 people. What about the terrorism in Nicaragua that killed 40,000? He's vaguely familiar with it. What about the fact that single payer health care has been supported by the public by overwhelming majorities for decades? Can't be true. He's never heard of OBL's letter to America where he spells out the motivations for his attack.

I think the same is often true of major corporate sponsored media. Terrorism against Cuba? Never heard of it. Afghan convoy of death? Never heard of it. COINTELPRO? Never heard of it. Oil spills in Nigeria or the Amazon? Never heard of it. Nurse Nasiriyah? Never heard of her. Saddam's peaceful withdrawal offers in 1990? Never heard of them. Iran's full cooperation on nuclear weapons offer? Never heard of it. Well yeah you've never heard of it. If you had your chances of working here wouldn't be so good.