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An understanding of politics is impossible without a basis in understanding of our economic history
mises.org ^ | various | Many

Posted on 12/06/2005 10:42:49 AM PST by Marxbites

Reagan loved Hayek, and Hayek was an associate of Hazlitt, Rothbard and Friedman.

This site is loaded with the economic concepts that crush the collectivist utopianism of the welfare/warfare state Americans were duped into.

http://www.mises.org/studyguide.aspx?action=author&Id=299


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Reagan loved Hayek, and Hayek was an associate of Hazlitt, Rothbard and Friedman.

This site is loaded with the economic concepts that crush collectivist utopianism.

1 posted on 12/06/2005 10:42:49 AM PST by Marxbites
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To: Marxbites
Hayek is the Founder, but among the living:

Sowell rules.

Basic Economics.
Applied Economics.

2 posted on 12/06/2005 10:45:26 AM PST by George Smiley (This tagline deliberately targeted journalists.)
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To: Marxbites

I don't think Selma Hayek and Reagan ever met. I will check out the link, though.

parsy, the curious.


3 posted on 12/06/2005 10:46:17 AM PST by parsifal
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To: Dolphy

Ping for later...


4 posted on 12/06/2005 10:52:18 AM PST by Dolphy
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To: Marxbites

BTTT!


5 posted on 12/06/2005 11:00:08 AM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool; He is holy. Ps 99:5)
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To: George Smiley

Yes, he is excellent and so is Walter Williams, and most of the boys at Cato, AEI & Heritage who do a great job of exposing the lies of the left.


6 posted on 12/06/2005 11:06:14 AM PST by Marxbites
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To: parsifal

Good for you! Really - makes me feel I've accomplished something for America.


7 posted on 12/06/2005 11:07:54 AM PST by Marxbites
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To: Marxbites

You put forth a false statement, Reagan loved Freidman, not Hayek. Freidman and Hayek were competitors/rivals, not associates. Friedman is a monetarist, not an Austrian School economist. While both believe in the private sector as the driving force in an econmy, they have divergent views. If you looked at your website before posting, you would not have tried to lump Hayek, Rothbard, von Mises and the Austrian School with Friedman. The Austrian School is much more libertarian than Friedman. Friedman is the one who brought down the Keynesian economic model. Neither the Austrian School nor Friedman are true supply siders, like Nobel Laureate Robert Mundell and Dr. Arthur Laffer.

There are many economic schools of thought, all claiming to be the superior model, but, sadly, academia still is dominated by Keynesian economics professors. Any of the above, Austrian School, monetarist and supply side are superior to Keynes socialist leaning economic theories.


8 posted on 12/06/2005 11:07:55 AM PST by KMAJ2 (Freedom not defended is freedom relinquished, liberty not fought for is liberty lost.)
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To: KMAJ2

Oh really??

Yes I know Milty was a Chicago School monetarist

Is that why Milty wrote the foreword in the Latest edition of "Road to Serfdom", Reagan's favorite book, and Thatcher's too?

I have heard him speak on Hayek, have you?

Milty has seen the light as it were, and he, like Hayek who helped found it, were both members of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Limited Govt of enumerated powers, IS supply side!


9 posted on 12/06/2005 11:17:28 AM PST by Marxbites
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To: KMAJ2

I did want to agree with you that all interventionist economics is no economics at all, it's the history proven formulae for tyranny.


10 posted on 12/06/2005 11:19:08 AM PST by Marxbites
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To: Marxbites
Reagan loved Hayek, and Hayek was an associate of Hazlitt, Rothbard and Friedman.

That's doubtful. I don't know whether Hayek and Friedman or Hayek and Hazlitt were associates any more than other economists who might agree about this or that are. I do know that Rothbard had no use for Reagan, and that the feeling would have been mutual, if Reagan had followed Murray's slime trail:

There are only two solutions to his dilemma, neither one a happy situation for conservatives. Either Reagan is a total cretin, a puppet who gets wheeled out for ceremonial speeches, and who really believes that he is putting conservative policies into effect. Or Reagan is a cynical master politician, keeping the conservatives happy by dishing out their rhetoric and his phony 3x5 card anecdotes, while keeping corporate centrists happy by pursuing the New Deal-Fair Deal-Great Society-Nixon-Ford policies that we have all come to know so well. Either way: Reagan the imbecile or Reagan the cynical manipulator, the situation is hopeless for conservatives, who yet persist in willfully not perceiving this stark reality. Ronald Reagan, Warmonger by Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard is one the most central figures of twentieth century libertarianism. He derides Reagan with terms like 'cretin', 'blithering idiot' and 'demented half-wit', descriptions which simply do not square with the recollections of all who knew him personally. In fact, Reagan made a career of pundits underestimating him. Many opponents who dismissed him before they knew him privately, later expressed astonishment at the depths of his knowledge. Evidently, the esteemed Rothbard was not one of them. Source.

11 posted on 12/06/2005 11:30:17 AM PST by x
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To: Marxbites
I'm a big fan too.


12 posted on 12/06/2005 11:49:52 AM PST by Paradox (Just because we are not perfect, does not mean we are not good.)
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To: x

I was aware that Rothbard didn't care for RWR, as have others not at mises.org, just like they do W.

Hayek and Freidman were Mont Pelerin Society fellows for sure. And I've heard Freidman praise Hayek in his own voice.

I could be wrong about Rothbard, but I thought he knew Hayek well.

If wrong, I stand corrected.

But I know for sure Reagan certainly DID have more depth than given credit for by having read the books on the huge store of his letters found at his library "Reagan - In His Own Hand" & "A Life of Letters". And everyone thought he was watching TV or sleeping, hah! A lot more depth indeed.

Being wrong on Reagan however, doesn't make Rothbard's work irrelevent by any stretch, in fact he probably made some good points. No one is perfect, even my favorite Pres, but look who had around him.


13 posted on 12/06/2005 12:26:09 PM PST by Marxbites
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To: Marxbites

Touche!

Anyway, I found from reading on your site, the following little bon mot, from James Madison, to wit:

"Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY. (Federalist 62.)"

Like I said earlier, sensible minwages, and sensible living wages, ARE conservative in nature and favor the development of America. The industrious many have enough to live on, and power does not concentrate as easily into the hands of the rich. Even in James Madison;s day, it was obvious that there is a certain class that will plunder the working folks if given the chance.

(Of course, given the chance, the poor will plunder the rich, also! Plundering is inherent in our species or the 10 commandments wouldn't have had a probhibition agasint it.)

You ought to see what Jimmy had to say about the money lenders! Whew.

parsy, the newly more-educated.


14 posted on 12/06/2005 1:19:58 PM PST by parsifal
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To: parsifal
Not on your life.

What that says is a condemnation of laws and regulations that those in the know take advantage of.

The working class in a free market society without Govt regulations that picks winners and losers, indeed armors them from unequal treatment.

He is saying keep Govt out of it altogether, except to expand the individuals rights.

You totally misinterpret it.

And just how many minimum wage articles I linked for you did you actually read, hmmmm?

You turned my hope to disappointment!
15 posted on 12/06/2005 1:55:19 PM PST by Marxbites
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To: Marxbites

I read all the Chinese ones, the How is Fascism different than Communism/Liberalism one. Do I have to read some more?

And, btw, I do not think that the Madison quote is out of context.

parsy, who wonders if a libertarian would try to argue with a hungry great white shark (ala, It simply isn't reasonable to eat me. Your self interest in not eating me outweighs the temporary advantage you would gain of a full tummy. Even sharks should think about tomorr. . .ohhhhhh!)


16 posted on 12/06/2005 2:08:17 PM PST by parsifal
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To: Marxbites

BTW, try this thread I did a few years ago:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/604310/posts?page=1

I'm trying to locate my chicken farmer thread. Patience please.

parsy, who is trying to find this stuff.


17 posted on 12/06/2005 2:15:21 PM PST by parsifal
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To: parsifal

Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest.......


18 posted on 12/06/2005 6:32:07 PM PST by Marxbites
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To: Marxbites
An interesting television special has been aired a few times entitled "Commanding Heights" which portrays the struggle to get beyond Keynesian era economic theories in government. I say "era", as much of what became governing policy associated with his name was probably something he would not have cared for in truth.

In "Commanding Heights" the leadership credit for the reversal is given to Hayek, not to Mises his senior, or Friedman who had his greatest influence in the USA, but Hayek especially for his influence on Britain. Friedman is certainly a co-equal in stature in economics alone, but in Politics and economics Hayek has a special place.

As I recall, the book that Maggie Thatcher slammed down on the podium at the Conservative Party conference was not Road to Serfdom, but instead, Hayek's Constitution of Liberty.

It is indeed true that from Hamilton on in the US, the economic and the political go hand-in-hand. Certainly, there can be few that can say the from decade to decade that torch is being carried by many conservatives with Sowell one of my personal favorites.

I have tried to read a little Rothbard, but he is so ideological that I feel that since I missed him as an adolescent (unlike Ayn Rand who I did find appealing in a teenager infatuation) I just have to pass on him now.

19 posted on 12/06/2005 6:58:24 PM PST by KC Burke (Men of intemperate minds can never be free....)
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To: parsifal

I am sorry to report I found that incredibly ignorant.

Individuals have the choice to work for who they want.

Here's why (and if this doesn't sink in please don't bother me anymore, I'd rather talk to a post)

The Minimum Wage: Enemy of the Poor
by Jacob G. Hornberger, December 1998

Whenever politicians wish to score political points, they recommend raising the minimum wage. Parading as champions of the poor and downtrodden, they cry out against all those selfish and greedy employers who are paying less-than-subsistence wages to their employees.

The truth is that whenever public officials enact or raise a minimum wage, the only people who get harmed are the very people who are supposedly helped-those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.

In every voluntary economic exchange, both parties benefit. Each party to the transaction gives up something he values less for something he values more. If such were not the case, he wouldn't enter into the transaction.

The principle applies to labor relations. When an employer and employee voluntarily enter into working relationship, both of them benefit. The employer values the employee's work product more than he values the money he is paying the worker. The employee values the money more than he values the time and energy he is devoting to the business.

Let's assume that a certain employer offers to pay a job applicant $2 an hour and that the applicant refuses to take the job. We can assume that the applicant values his time more than he values the money.

What if the applicant offers to work for $5 an hour and the employer refuses? Here, the employer values his money more than he values the work product of the employee.

All of sudden, politicians step in with a law that requires employers to pay a minimum wage of $5 an hour. Is poverty alleviated? Is "exploitation" eradicated? Is the worker helped?

No. After all, a minimum-wage law does not force an employer to hire an applicant. The law simply says that if an employer hires an applicant, he must pay the legally established rate of $5 an hour. Which applicants will get hired? Only those workers whom an employer would have been willing to pay $5 an hour anyway.

In other words, if an employer values the money ($5 an hour) less than he values the work product of the employee, he'll hire the employee. But in such a case, the minimum-wage law is superfluous because the employee would have been hired in the absence of the law.

What if an employer values the money ($5 an hour) more than he values the person's work product? Then he doesn't employ him and, thus, the minimum-wage law has accomplished nothing.

So, what's the problem? The problem is that the minimum-wage law locks out of the labor market all of those people whose labor is valued by employers at less than the legally established minimum wage.

For example, suppose an employer and a worker both wish to enter into a working relationship at $4 an hour. The minimum-wage law prohibits them from doing so. Thus, the worker is condemned to unemployment and the employer loses the value of his labor services.

So, how would wages ever rise in the absence of minimum-wage laws? There is one and only one way that wages can rise in a society: through the accumulation of capital. With capital, workers become more productive. A farm worker who uses a tractor will produce more than his counterpart who uses a hoe. And more productivity means more money with which to pay higher wages.

Doesn't this mean then that employees are at the mercy of the kindness and benevolence of employers to pay them higher wages when they produce more? No. What motivates even the most self-seeking, profit-grabbing employers to pay higher wages is the prospect of competitors' bidding away their workers.

After all, if in the absence of minimum-wage laws, employers would pay only subsistence wages or less, then why do so many businesses today pay their employees more than the minimum wage? Competition in the labor market, not kindness or generosity, forces employers to pay the higher wages.

The key to raising standards of living then, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder, is (1) to prohibit governments from "helping the poor" by confiscating massive amounts of income and capital from the rich and middle class and (2) to prohibit government from "helping the poor" with economic regulations like the minimum wage.

If poverty could be eradicated with minimum-wage laws, everyone in the world would be rich. All that legislators would have to do is raise the minimum wage to match what they make. Come to think of it, why haven't they?

Mr. Hornberger is president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, which will soon publish Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax by Sheldon Richman.

Get it??????


20 posted on 12/06/2005 7:26:39 PM PST by Marxbites
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