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The Emergence of Sanatana Marxism

With the advent of Modinomics, there is a considerable decline in the process of intellectualisation in the economic sphere. It may be a new norm of new India. The production of arguments, generally led by a coterie of statists, is usually drenched with the hopeless spirit of incoherent reasoning, confirmation bias and straw man fallacies. Murray Rothbard has a quote for these imbeciles, “It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

I do not contrite to use the term ‘imbeciles’ for this privileged tribe, who happen to confuse their own ‘feelings with thinking’, ‘economics with sociology’ and ‘statistics with history’, and nevertheless ‘sanatana dharma’ with ‘sanatana marxism’. This tribe is into the vocation of policy making, cow vigilantism, trolling, chanting, cacophonous journalism, and nonetheless politics. One may spot them individually but one can verily identify their nescience, in public sphere. They were ‘coherently’ critical in their analysis of socialism, marxism, hinduphobia, leftism, liberalism, nehruvianism, fabian economics and ‘license raj’ epoch, but [unfortunately] the cards got painted in the same colour that they used to condemn it once. This is to say that, saffron is the new red.

Some even dare to proffer credit to Modinomics for doing something ‘new’, but little do they know that their socialistic ‘grandmaster’ simply renamed the title of public policies (19, out of 22) after coming to power in 2014. The theme of UPA govt. or the Congress govt. always leaned towards the left spectrum. What India is witnessing today is political right-ism and economical left-ism at the same time, which is a perilous combination than carbon monoxide. This tribe, loving saffron colour, are nothing but cowmunists (not communists), who are simply and obediently OK with their grandmaster’s take on orwellian ‘Aadhar’ card, increasing taxation, ‘nationalization’ of cash holdings (aka demonetisation), general slavery tax (GST), taxes on profits (success) and cashback, beef ban (India being the 2nd largest exporter of beef, even today), illegalization of cryptocurrencies and the symmetrical regulation of right-to-information.

Ceteris Paribus (other things being equal), Modinomics came to power with a sweet promise “minimum government, maximum governance” but it turned out to be the case of “maximum government, minimum governance”. In my article on The Quint, I ratiocinated this case with facts. The government was supposed to leave people and market ‘free’. That’s the sanatana dharma.

But, bloggers like Arun Jaitley, and Piyush Goyal, and the most hon’ble cowmunist Nirmala Sitharaman seems to keep Indian economy upside-down. If Chanakya were alive today, he would die from brain hemorrhage by looking at the art of tax collection, GDP calculation and bailout structures.

The era of vedic India (Bhaarat) actually civilized the economic societies within India. It was mainly due to the then existence of ‘janpada’ system (decentralization of power and economic activities), which caused prosperity and collective growth. The year 2014 was assumed as 1947 part-II, begetting independence to India again, but the travesty of Modinomical civilization is poorly reflected on India’s ranking on the indexes of capital formation, job creation, obtaining construction permit, speedy trials, property rights, black wealth creation, start ups, etc.

The results speak louder than speeches, thus making India a nation of sanatana marxism (in short, socialism + cow). The rising debt, fiscal fascism, collectivism thought and rampant monetary apoplithorismosphobia are ‘ravana’ enough to grill the ‘ram rajya’ honeymoon story of Indian economy.

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About the Author

Prof. Jaimine Vaishnav is an anarcho-capitalist based in Mumbai, India. His hobbies are about defending the liberties of all his dissents without charging any fee at the cost of nobody.

Twitter a/c @jaiminism

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Sort Yourself Out – Part Way Through Jordan Peterson’s Book

By Daniel Elwood

Amazon Affiliate Link: http://www.readrothbard.com/12rules

Jordan Peterson has burst onto the stage in recent years with an amazing combination of intellect and personality that is taking the world by storm. He is making a difference in many peoples’ lives and is the hottest thing going. He just recently released his new book, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” and is gaining even further traction in making the world a better place.

I’m reading his book now.  Most of it is great so far.  There are a few areas that are soft.  And yes, I realize that he’s not an economist but there are a couple of glaring issues that if he better understood, he would be even more effective at helping people.

He claims “ideology” is bad and “anything that claims to have the answers” is bad. I would agree in 99.9% of cases, but clearly, the man hasn’t read Mises, Rothbard, Higgs, Woods, Block, or Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

So To Speak – The Misunderstood and Misrepresented Thought of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

He mentions a “Social Contract”, but in relationships, so I’m not sure if it is more a euphemism as opposed to the “social contract theory” employed by statists everywhere.

I do like that he reviles communism and questions why the seemingly “good intentions” result in murdering 100 million people. He also has researched mythology and stories to inform his understanding of society over time. I think this is beneficial.

He fears war in the technological age as the capacity to destroy the world is on the table. If he read some Higgs on this point, I think he would understand that it is primarily under a state that such destructive power can be amassed.

The State Is Too Dangerous to Tolerate

Perhaps Chaos Theory would be good here.

If I had my magic wand, I would get JP to engage with thin libertarianism a la Block’s question: “when is the initiation of force legitimate?”.


Continue reading “Sort Yourself Out – Part Way Through Jordan Peterson’s Book”

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When a Communist Complains About Capitalism Starving People

By Andrew Smith

I keep seeing communists posting memes about ‘Companies throwing food away ‘for profit’, while people ‘starve to death’, and that capitalism, as an economic system, is to blame.

There are so many flaws with this logic, but the two things to point out immediately, if you see one of these, is that companies LOSE money when they throw their inventory away, so how is it ‘for profit’ when they throw away their food?

Second, it is countries that have the economic system/policies that these people want, where starvation is a real issue. In the capitalist west, involuntary starvation has not been an issue since the great depression, and wouldn’t have been during the depression had the government not forced farmers to burn their crops, literally, because they believed the depression was caused by ‘overproduction’…

USSR, Red China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Romania, Yugoslavia, 80% of the countries on the continent of Africa, have the policies ‘production for need, not for profit’, that communists/socialists want, and these are the countries where starvation was/is most prevalent.

Episode 43 – First They Killed My Father (1:32:27)

 

 

Starvation doesn’t exist in Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, it doesn’t even occur in the desert climate of Chile, where the only natural food that can be harvested is seafood, yet the socialist countries, where the policies that the anti-capitalist want have been fully implemented, are the countries with major food and basic necessity issues.

The government declaring that food, housing, health care, jobs, are human rights does absolutely nothing to produce food, housing, health care, employment opportunities, or anything else.

Instead of battling it out with commies, I’m going to start providing a single refutation on my own wall (and this site), to memes, pop culture icons, political quips, bumper sticker taglines, etc. While it’s fun to debate morons, it’s a lot easier to provide the refutation to my friends, and equip you with the intellectual ammunition you need to debunk these myths among your friends and family (and readers of this site).

For the history you didn’t learn in school, check out Liberty Classroom:

Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day….
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Episode 43 – First They Killed My Father (1:32:27)

Steven Clyde joins us to discuss “First They Killed My Father” a 2017 biographical historical thriller film directed by Angelina Jolie currently available on Netflix. The story is about Loung Ung, based on her memoir detailing how she as a 5-year-old girl embarks on a harrowing quest for survival amid the sudden rise and terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Steven writes for the site and is always has a fun and interesting take on all things related to liberty and Murray Rothbard.  We would each other in the Tom Woods Elite last year and have become good friends.

Here is the recent article he referenced in our discussion:

True Libertarianism Is Colorblind

Google Description:

Loung Ung is 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge assumes power over Cambodia in 1975. They soon begin a four-year reign of terror and genocide in which nearly 2 million Cambodians die. Forced from her family’s home in Phnom Penh, Ung is trained as a child soldier while her six siblings are sent to labor camps.

Continue reading “Episode 43 – First They Killed My Father (1:32:27)”

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Physical Removal – Separating the Facts from the Perversions

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Augusto Pinochet, and the Alt-Right Trolls

By Anarcho-Viking

The meme warriors from 4chan have revolutionized the art of meme warfare, and in the process of doing so; prominent libertarian scholars have appeared frequently together with fascist leaning military dictators, in what I would call the “alt-right meme circus”.

Memeing Gone Rampant

The helicopter is warmed up, photoshoped into the image are the faces of Augusto Pinochet (the former Chilean dictator) and Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Austrian economist and libertarian theorist) replacing the original caricature faces. Loaded onto the helicopter are a few communists or antifa social justice activists. Pepe the frog furthermore drags the commies onto the helicopter, and the helicopter carries the flag of Kekistan (an invented kingdom).

The text on the meme reads, “Hoppe’s physical removal service”, or “The Hoppean helicopter ride”, or “Free Kekistan!” Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

If you identify yourself as an anarcho-capitalist libertarian then you have certainly been exposed to the literature of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and you might laugh in amusement at this type of weaponized autism put forward by the alt-right internet trolls.

While the perversion of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics is entertaining in a warped sort of way, it is understandable that some people could be deceived by this distortion of Hoppe’s arguments, and as a consequence obtain a twisted interpretation of one of the greatest heroes for the cause of liberty.

Physical Removal

In order to clear up the confusion regarding the controversy around Hoppe, we need to look closer at his argumentation ethics, and frame the issue given the presumed conditions from which Hoppe derives his reasoning. In his masterpiece, Democracy – The God That Failed, Hoppe famously claims that:

“in a covenant…among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists”

because some people might promote ideas that would disturb the naturally established covenant and destabilize the covenant’s asserted protection of private property, concepts such as “democracy and communism”.

Hoppe furthermore goes on to argue that “there can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order” and the conclusion is that the alleged enemies of private property preservation “will have to be physically separated and removed from society”, so to speak.

The idea of “physical removal” is coming from the aforementioned statements. These statements, when taken out of context can be widely misunderstood. Continue reading “Physical Removal – Separating the Facts from the Perversions”

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Doctor Who, Social Justice Warrior

By Peter Berthelsen

“The endpoint of capitalism: the bottom line, where human life has no value at all…”

I like Doctor Who, but season 10 is filled with this not-even-trying-to-be-subtle-about-it crap. I’m speaking of episode 5, where the Doctor and his diversity-laden sidekick travel to space to find a station where the workers have been starved of oxygen so their employer can “save money”.

We are told that on this space station, oxygen is expelled, bottled, and sold to the workers. To this realization, the Doctor simply states, “capitalism in space.”

Now, anyone whose brain hasn’t been intentionally deprived of oxygen for the sake of corporate greed can tell you that capitalism is not just about sales. It’s about free exchange. It’s about elevating people out of poverty, not plundering and exploiting one’s way to the top of the food chain.

If human life were of no value to the capitalist, from where would one propose a corporation make it’s profits? Oh, yeah, from investors and customers. Both which are groups of — wait for it — people. In order to make money, one has to be a service provider. The true capitalist has to make people value what they have to offer more than they value their own possessions (specifically money), and be willing to exchange their own property for the property or service of another. It’s no small task. Continue reading “Doctor Who, Social Justice Warrior”

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It’s the Horseshoe Theory, Stupid

The economy is in crisis because the economy does not attempt to give a damn about you.

Why?  Because it’s the horseshoe theory.

Where do we get to see this theory? Well, it is everywhere. It’s just that you don’t choose to look beyond what you think.

How to spot this theory in action? I think there’s no special qualification required to fulfill this criteria.

All you have to do is to grasp the logic, and that is:

“there is no difference between the left-government (communism) and the right-government (democracy)”.

If you believe that there is a huge difference between both then you are stupid enough to not endorse the features of horseshoe theory.

In political science (not rocket science), the horseshoe theory asserts that the left and the right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, in fact closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe. Continue reading “It’s the Horseshoe Theory, Stupid”

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The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited

By Murray N. Rothbard

This article was originally published in The Review of Austrian Economics in 1991, during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Introduction

At the root of the dazzling revolutionary implosion and collapse of socialism and central planning in the “socialist bloc” is what everyone concedes to be a disastrous economic failure. The peoples and the intellectuals of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are crying out not only for free speech, democratic assembly, and glasnost, but also for private property and free markets. And yet, if I may be pardoned a moment of nostalgia, four-and-a-half-decades ago, when I entered graduate school, the economics Establishment of that era was closing the book on what had been for two decades the famed “socialist calculation debate.” And they had all decided, left, right, and center, that there was not a thing economically wrong with socialism: that socialism’s only problems, such as they might be, were political. Economically, socialism could work just as well as capitalism.

Ludwig von Mises

Mises and the Challenge of Calculation

Before Ludwig von Mises raised the calculation problem in his celebrated article in 1920,[1]  everyone, socialists and non-socialists alike, had long realized that socialism suffered from an incentive problem. If, for example, everyone under socialism were to receive an equal income, or, in another variant, everyone was supposed to produce “according to his ability” but receive “according to his needs,” then, to sum it up in the famous question: Who, under socialism, will take out the garbage? That is, what will be the incentive to do the grubby jobs, and, furthermore, to do them well? Or, to put it another way, what would be the incentive to work hard and be productive at any job?


Continue reading “The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited”

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Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature

By Murray N. Rothbard

For well over a century, the Left has generally been conceded to have morality, justice, and “idealism” on its side; the Conservative opposition to the Left has largely been confined to the “impracticality” of its ideals. A common view, for example, is that socialism is splendid “in theory,” but that it cannot “work” in practical life. What the Conservatives failed to see is that while short-run gains can indeed be made by appealing to the impracticality of radical departures from the status quo, that by conceding the ethical and the “ideal” to the Left they were doomed to long-run defeat. For if one side is granted ethics and the “ideal” from the start, then that side will be able to effect gradual but sure changes in its own direction; and as these changes accumulate, the stigma of “impracticality” becomes less and less directly relevant. The Conservative opposition, having staked its all on the seemingly firm ground of the “practical” (that is, the status quo) is doomed to lose as the status quo moves further in the left direction. The fact that the unreconstructed Stalinists are universally considered to be the “Conservatives” in the Soviet Union is a happy logical joke upon conservatism; for in Russia the unrepentant statists are indeed the repositories of at least a superficial “practicality” and of a clinging to the existing status quo.

Never has the virus of “practicality” been more widespread than in the United States, for Americans consider themselves a “practical” people, and hence, the opposition to the Left, while originally stronger than elsewhere, has been perhaps the least firm at its foundation. It is now the advocates of the free market and the free society who have to meet the common charge of “impracticality.”

In no area has the Left been granted justice and morality as extensively and almost universally as in its espousal of massive equality. It is rare indeed in the United States to find anyone, especially any intellectual, challenging the beauty and goodness of the egalitarian ideal. So committed is everyone to this ideal that “impracticality”—that is, the weakening of economic incentives—has been virtually the only criticism against even the most bizarre egalitarian programs. The inexorable march of egalitarianism is indication enough of the impossibility of avoiding ethical commitments; the fiercely “practical” Americans, in attempting to avoid ethical doctrines, cannot help setting forth such doctrines, but they can now only do so in unconscious, ad hoc, and unsystematic fashion. Keynes’s famous insight that “practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”—is true all the more of ethical judgments and ethical theory.1

Continue reading “Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature”

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Are Open Borders Really the Position of Libertarians?

By Kirk D.

Migration is a hot topic these days, especially since President Trump’s travel ban on nations of interest. Many Republicans tend to embrace strict limitations on immigration while Democrats seem to have no limitations; but what about Libertarians?

The official Libertarian Party’s platform on migration states that people should be able to “travel freely as long as they are peaceful.” They also claim that ‘most immigrants are peaceful and productive’ and that ‘undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be classified as criminals.’ The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF) takes it a step further and claims that “there is only one Libertarian position on immigration” and that is “open borders.” There are a slew of other Libertarian websites (like this one) making similar claims, but do all Libertarians feel this way?

It’s hard to quantify considering most polls don’t include Libertarian based questions on topic issues. But if you take to the comment sections on many platforms and a vast array of websites and blogs, a lot of people calling themselves Libertarian don’t seem to share the institutional views that the Libertarian Party, the FFF and many other gatekeeper outlets espouse. Some more mainstream Libertarians like David Boaz and John Stossel believe that migration needs checks and balances. Some equate open borders as being a principle of communism. Ron Paul has advocated for creating better working visa programs while still enforcing migration laws but above all, ending the welfare state.

But the last point is key.

How can Libertarians be in favor of open borders while a welfare state is in place?

And there lies the conundrum. I think this article from LewRockwell.com is a must read for Libertarians who are confused on their position of open borders. Hans-Hermann Hoppe encourages real Libertarians to not be the useful idiots of cultural Marxism via the victimology that has permeated the main stream Libertarian institutions.