And all he sent was a bunch of Austrian blighters. Stirling Newberry, a writer who was introduced to Spot by NBBooks, says as much at Firedoglake in The Depression that Hayek Built:
To read the British press is to realize how fundamental the failure the theory of libertarian economic thinking has been. In this theory, the wealthy possess a special insight into the allocation of capital, and governments should abandon their role in allocating effort to a small extremely wealthy elite. It was a theory adopted by Iceland, which was lauded for its open laws and "flat tax." It was adopted by Lithuania, and to a lesser extent, by Spain. One country that embraced this idea more than any other, was Ireland, which took neo-liberal policies as virtually a doctrine. It attracted 40% of all American direct foreign investment in Europe, which liked it's educated English speaking population, proximity to the UK, and low prices. For its part, the government of Ireland threw the doors open. As the Guardian reports by piecing together individual stories the plunge has been swift and dramatic. A new Irish Diaspora has begun, as the weight of debt and the utter absence of an internally driven capital system, leaves behind the husk of an economy.
What created this collapse was the pure corruption at the top. A corruption seen in the expenses scandal now unfolding in Great Britain is destined to topple the ruling New Labor party -- as was seen in the borrowing binge of the very wealthy in Ireland. These two pieces are not unconnected: the culture of flowing money lubricated politicians, who naturally saw that its continuation was essential for their own secure life style. This is not an issue of left or right in the context of the age. There was no left, merely a right that wanted slightly more of the money to flow to socially useful causes.
You see, boys and girls, it really isn’t the Invisible Hand at all!
Phoenix Woman said that Austrian economics made her think of this from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Ludwig von Mises Institute
www.mises.orgThe Ludwig von Mises Institute, founded in 1982 by Llewellyn Rockwell Jr. and still headed by him, is a major center promoting libertarian political theory and the Austrian School of free market economics, pioneered by the late economist Ludwig von Mises. It publishes seven journals, has printed more than 100 books, and offers scholarships, prizes, conferences and a major library at its Auburn, Ala., offices.
It also promotes a type of Darwinian view of society in which elites are seen as natural and any intervention by the government on behalf of social justice is destructive. The institute seems nostalgic for the days when, "because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority [were] likely to be passed on within a few noble families."
But the rule of these natural elites and intellectuals, writes institute scholar Hans-Hermann Hoppe, is being ruined by statist meddling such as "affirmative action and forced integration," which he said is "responsible for the almost complete destruction of private property rights, and the erosion of freedom of contract, association, and disassociation."
A key player in the institute for years was the late Murray Rothbard, who worked with Rockwell closely and co-edited a journal with him. The institute's Web site includes a cybershrine to Rothbard, a man who complained that the "Officially Oppressed" of American society (read, blacks, women and so on) were a "parasitic burden," forcing their "hapless Oppressors" to provide "an endless flow of benefits."
"The call of 'equality,'" he wrote, "is a siren song that can only mean the destruction of all that we cherish as being human." Rothbard blamed much of what he disliked on meddling women. In the mid-1800s, a "legion of Yankee women" who were "not fettered by the responsibilities" of household work "imposed" voting rights for women on the nation. Later, Jewish women, after raising funds from "top Jewish financiers," agitated for child labor laws, Rothbard adds with evident disgust. The "dominant tradition" of all these activist women, he suggests, is lesbianism.
Institute scholars also have promoted anti-immigrant views, positively reviewing Peter Brimelow's Alien Nation.
So that’s where the Invisible Hand comes from! And it’s trying to strangle the “excess population!”
Sort of like Tim Pawlenty, right Spot?
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