Obama's Economics in Wide Public Dispute

"Capitalism is based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights..."

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy," said President (Elect) Barack Obama on January 9, 2009.

With no respect on my part for the ignorance of a President who embraces Marxism and ignores the Austrian economic school of free enterprise, I can tell you that 200 of our leading economists who are not Keynesians say the President is wrong. This includes William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

They said so in full-page newpaper ads in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal [see below] against the trillion dollar spending binge proposed by democrats.

"The ad, sponsored by the Cato Institute, blasts the massive boondoggle that funds liberal projects under the guise of "stimulating" the economy."

"Keynes distilled a fantastically wrong theory of capitalism and of a socialist paradise erected out of paper money. Moreover, Keynes offered no theory of stagnation at all." Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned...

"The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve the common good. It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence." Ayn Rand

Keynesian politics embraced by President Obama and the Democrats deny the justice attendant with capitalism, of allowing the people to prevent, let alone clean up, the mess made by the government. Instead, Keynesianism adds layers of government on the layers of the mess.

Republicans also believe in Keynesian economics, to the extent that at present they are decrying those parts of the "stimulus plan" which are not "stimulating." They like certain parts of the plan. They don't want the parts that appear to be only pork.

However, if some of those pork projects were proposed outside of the stimulus plan, they would vote for it. So would I. Example: no one disagrees that the National Mall is falling apart and needs repair. But resodding it should not be called "stimulus" and be expected to help the economy, nor should any "stimulus" be called "government partnership" with capitalism. Government interference in the economy should always be voted down.

When the government becomes a "partner" with capitalism, capitalism no longer exists. Then, the system becomes what is called a "mixed economy." To the extent that the economy is "mixed" in this way is the extent to which that economy is socialist--or worst.

We are in a world of hurt right now, because of government actions in the wrong places, and government inaction in the wrong places.

The rallying cry of the laissez-faire capitalist is, "Get out of my way!" Our government is doing everything it can to stand in the way of economic recovery, which can only come from consumer interest in goods produces. When the government dictates where capital is to be spent, the consumer is likely to be uninterested in the product, because it is a politically-motivated product, like wind farms and goat milk instead of cow milk.

Let the market do its job. The job of the government is to keep a watchful eye on the ethics in the market place, so the Birney Madoff's of the world, and the Enrons, and the sub-prime markets don't ruin us in the future.

You can put my signature on that, too.

Read this important report:

majicJack rips off consumers; leaves behind spywar...

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Rand, von Mises, Leiter, Dworkin, Wilkinson

Dworkin, Leiter, and Wilkinson are All Off the Mark;

"Blame It On Ayn Rand"

First, from today's NY Times, Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis) writes:

"For more than a decade, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has fiercely objected whenever derivatives have come under scrutiny in Congress or on Wall Street. [ ] An examination of more than two decades of Mr. Greenspan’s recordon financial regulation and derivatives in particular reveals the degree to which he tethered the health of the nation’s economy to that faith. [ ] Time and again, Mr. Greenspan — a revered figure affectionately nicknamed the Oracle — proclaimed that risks could be handled by the markets themselves. [ ]

"Put this together with Keynes:
” . . . the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." and we get Ayn Rand as an important cause of the catastrophe we are in."

As it turns out, Brian Leiter of the Leiter Reports http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/jerry-dworkin-1.html quoted Dworkin, after which Will Wilkinson http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/10/10/blame-it-on-ayn-rand/ criticizes blaming it on Ayn Rand as the recipient of Keynes' "wisdom," claiming, "Surely the problem is that we didn’t Keynes it up enough! But Ayn Rand… Now there’s the intellectual force behind the status quo structure of American monetary and regulatory policy!"

Wilkinson was poo-pooing the ability of Ayn Rand to be behind anything, when, by calling her "the intellectual force behind" it all, is dismissive of Rand's intellectual ability to be of any force behind anyone or anything that matters. The problem was, he improperly attributed all of this to Leiter instead of to Dworkin.

So then, Leiter had to write: "Will Wilkinson, a former philosophy graduate student and libertarian zealot, has ripped into Jerry Dworkin's attributing Greenspan's disastrous economic policies to the influence of the pseudo-philosopher Ayn Rand as mere "hackery" (though Wilkinson attributes the offending view and the "hackery", oddly, to me, a "professional philosopher").

"Some philosophers may know Mr. Wilkinson from his all-too-frequent appearances on Blogging-Heads TV. I think BHTV is great, but they really need to have better interlocutors for the philosophers on the show. And I certainly think Jerry Dworkin's point in the original post was apt."

So then, Wilkinson went back to his posting and crossed off "Leiter" replacing it with "Dworkin," after which he created a new posting which he titled: "Blame It on Gerald Dworkin for Blaming It on Ayn Rand."

In the second posting Wilkinson writes: "Both Dworkin and Leiter are very interested in the fact that I left grad school in philosophy, but neither has anything intelligent to say in defense of Dworkin’s risible claim about the roots of the financial crisis — a causal claim that has nothing much to do with philosophy. Leiter adds with his typical threatening charm that I am incompetent to interview philosophers on Bloggingheads TV. It’s interesting that none of the philosophers I have interviewed have given any indication of my incompetence, and clearly that can’t be because philosophers are especially gracious as a class. If either Dworkin or Leiter would like to appear on Free Will and discuss Ayn Rand, the causes of the collapse of the financial system, or any other topic, I would be delighted to have them on. If I fail to keep up competently with either of these genuinely accomplished scholars, they will be able to expose my failings in real time. I really mean this. Here is the invitation… Prof. Leiter, Prof. Dworkin: I would very much like to have a civil discussion with each of you on a set of topics of your choosing. But I would especially like to explore your thoughts on the role of ideology as a cause of the financial crisis."

But as you will notice, Wilkinson had nothing "intelligent to say [about] Dworkin’s risible claim about the roots of the financial crisis." What Wilkinson had to say the first time around was not intelligent. Whether the reader cares for Rand or not, she has influenced more economists, philosophers, and world leaders than can be named. Alan Greenspan was one of them.

I cannot speak to whether or not Greenspan's "faith" in the free market had anything to do with the impending fall of Wall Street and the irresponsible actions of Freddie and Fannie. I heard credible reports that ACORN [see Obama, Character, and American Exceptionalism] had much to do with forcing Freddie and Fannie to act in the irresponsible manner they did, by using their well-known tactics of harrassment to get mortgages for low-income people who should not have been able to otherwise buy homes.

The fact is, as a Randian myself, as on Objectivist, I do not see the objectibility in Objectivism's principles to tell business to "put its money where its mouth is," meaning, that accounting practices and owning enough capital in one form or another to back up the business dealings that businesses make with each other and for the benefit of stockholders.

In fact, Rand wrote: [see continuation Blame It On Ayn Rand ]

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®