Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/07/2009 10:04:48 AM PDT by FromLori
A current events lesson from Gary North:
The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.
This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats. He did this in an article, "Reflections: After Communism," published by The New Yorker (Sept. 10, 1990).
In this article, he made an astounding admission. He said that Ludwig von Mises had been right in 1920 in his article, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." Mises argued that without private ownership, central planners could not know what any resource is worth to consumers. With no capital market, the planners would be flying blind.
Heilbroner said that for 70 years, academic economists had either ignored this article or dismissed it without answering it. Then Heilbroner wrote these words: "Mises was right."
Heilbroner was one of these people. There is no reference to Mises in The Worldly Philosophers. This admission was the preliminary section of Heilbroner's manifesto. He was cutting off all hope by socialists that there is a theoretically plausible response to Mises. The free market economy will always outproduce a socialist economy. Get used to it, he said.
Then, in the second section, he called on his socialist peers to get behind the ecology movement. Here, he said, is the best political means for promoting central planning, despite its inefficiency. In the name of ecology, he said, socialists can get a hearing from politicians and voters.
The article is not online. An abstract is. Here is the concluding thought of the abstract.
The direction in which things are headed is some version of capitalism, whatever its title. In Eastern Europe, the new system is referred to as Not Socialism. Socialism may not continue as an important force now that Communism is finished. But another way of looking at socialism is as the society that must emerge if humanity is to cope with the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment. From this perspective, the long vista after Communism leads through capitalism into a still unexplored world that roust [must?] be safely attained and settled before it can be named Heilbroner did not care that a worldwide government-run economic planning system would not be called called socialism. He just wanted to see the system set up. Heilbroner's peers got the message. That was what Kyoto was all about.
Last stand?
Hardly.
Just another battle in a very long war.
I would beg to differ. Barry is using far more than the alleged issue of ‘global warming’ to implimnet and entrench socialism and/or a socilist agenda in the US.
you got it
Latest stand ... not LAST stand
This must be the high point of socialism. Finding a way to scare people into paying taxes for breathing is the ultimate dream of statist control freaks.
Excellent post.
“The Global Warming Campaign Is Socialism’s Last Stand”
Boy are you optimistic!!
These guys never give up - it’s in their genes!!
Very interesting. Good post. As usual, von Mises was correct.
You join the Army, you're in such a collective, but it's volitional. If you're drafted it isn't. You join a commune, it's volitional; a ruling class arrogates to itself the control of your society and fences you off from leaving, it isn't. The difficulty with socialism is that there are quite a few people perfectly willing to enjoy the advantages of membership in a collective by voluntarily accepting its limitations on one's freedome of action, but that the seemingly unavoidable necessity of a ruling class inevitably makes such collectives less attractive for those members outside of that ruling class, and they opt out. Hence there are various schemes for preventing that opt-out, notably police states and prison walls, that will be necessary as long as that collective is less than the entire world. That's why world socialism is the holy grail of any would-be ruling class - there's no escape, no means of opting out, and there are only masters and slaves.
This contention is easily falsified - build a socialist state and allow free movement of its citizens in and out. Show that there is social mobility sufficient to prevent the stratification of a ruling class. Show that the State really does wither away in time. Allow the socialist and capitalist models to compete freely. See where people elect to live and respect that choice.
It isn't likely to happen. In the final analysis socialism is simply another means for a self-identified elite to rule. Where it competes for membership on the basis of human actualization and satisfaction (the two arenas in which Marx insisted it was obviously and permanently superior) it loses. That isn't a theoretical conclusion, it's an observed historical fact.
One can only hope.
no, if they fail with this I’m sure they will be back again with something else
They always have something else. Here are some of the current ones: Nuclear power is (still) bad. The housing bubble was caused by Wall Street. We need universal health care. Stimulus spending will end the recession. Tax cuts unfairly favor the rich.
I'm sure the crowd here could come up with a few dozen more.
Some people will always be consumed by envy. Others will fall for the guilt trip used against them by the envious.
This will never end.
Ditto, they'll latch on to some other cause. They never give up.
Yes and now gore is comparing not passing crap and tax to nazi’s in his usual attempt to deceive.
(( ping ))
Check this out. Real good stuff here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.