We venture back to the neutral zone and boldly go where no man has before to discuss another episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation with Pat MacFarlane of Liberty Weekly.   This is our continuing mission to cover a few key episodes of this thought-provoking series for this summer.

Picking up decades after Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series, The Next Generation follows the intergalactic adventures of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his loyal crew aboard the all-new USS Enterprise NCC-1701D, as they explore new worlds.

Hoping to further his creator’s work and perpetuate his species, Data creates an android named Lal, who identifies as female.

Is she a creation or an offspring? Do the rights afforded the father extend to his creation? There are some administrative fireworks between Picard and Admiral Haftel that are unfortunately defused by the plot convenience of Lal’s cascade failure, but this is still a fun episode that explores the concepts and situations around parenting, social interactions, and education.

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Episode Description

Season 3, Episode 16: The Offspring

Hoping to further his creator’s work and perpetuate his species, Data creates an android named Lal.

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In early June, we covered the episode called “Justice” which can be found at:

Episode 131 – Star Trek: TNG – S1E7 Justice (1:16:30)

In July, we did the episode called “The Measure of a Man” where the recognization of Data’s rights as a sentient and self-owning being is realized.  You can find that episode at:

Episode 136 – Star Trek: TNG – S2E9 The Measure of a Man (1:05:41)

That one is directly related to tonight’s episode, regarding Data’s “child” Lal.

Our guest Patrick MacFarlane is a Rothbardian Ancap practicing lawyer in the State of Wisconsin.  He runs Liberty Weekly, Your weekly source of classical liberalism, Austrian Economics, personal liberty, and free markets! and hosts the Liberty Weekly Podcast. You can also find him at the Libertarian Institute and the Libertarian Union.

Here are the previous appearances by our guest:

Episode 119 – My Cousin Vinny (1:03:43)

Episode 97 – Liar Liar (1:07:28)

https://www.actualanarchy.com/2017/11/05/episode-48-the-shining-ancap-movie-reivew/

Episode 41 – IT (1:48:55)

Episode 35 – Rogue One (1:16:05)

And here are our guest appearances on his show:

http://libertyweekly.net/how-to-turn-a-statist-into-an-anarchist-ft-actual-anarchy-ep-113

How to Talk to Statists: A Report From Larken Rose’s “Candles in the Dark” Feat. Actual Anarchy Ep. 26

The Death of Hollyweird? Feat. Actual Anarchy Ep. 37

Finally, here is the series with Liberty Weekly where we discussed the Netflix Documentary “Wild, Wild Country”:

http://libertyweekly.net/liberty-weekly-summer-special-wild-wild-country

http://www.libertyweekly.net/wwc

Here be some of the show notes:

The new Picard trailer:

Here is Murray Rothbard’s book on Compulsory Education, it’s history, stated purpose and some of the unintended effects:

If you want to dive into the history of education more deeply, you would do well to check out the work of the recently-passed, John Taylor Gatto. Here is his ground-breaking work that put him on the radar of many people:

And here is one of his more recent books:

We also highly recommend the book series called “The Tuttle Twins” by Connor Boyack and illustrated by Elijah Stanfield.  Each book is a fun story imbued with free-market and libertarian principles that are great for kids roughly 5-12.

Our kids enjoy these books where they learn about how goods and services are created via spontaneous order on the free-market, how law and legality are not the same thing, the value of entrepreneurship and providing value for others among other excellent lessons.

Each story introduces your children to the thinking of the greats like Rothbard and Gatto (mentioned above), as well as Frederic Bastiat, Leonard Reed, Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, F. A. Hayek, and more…

If you are interested in learning more about homeschooling and the laws in your state that you should be aware, please check out the Homeschool Legal Defense Association at: https://hslda.org/content/

And if you have made the decision to pursue homeschooling, you would do well to check out the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum at: http://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/index.cfm?affID=cdlearning

And Liberty Classroom, by Tom Woods: http://www.libertyclassroom.com/dap/a/?a=11470

[The above links are affiliate links where we will receive compensation from the provider if you choose to purchase using our link. This will come at no additional cost to you, and while we do benefit, we would recommend these products with or without compensation as we believe in them and use them ourselves.]

That is all.

Join us next week as we discuss “Crazy Heart” with our musician friend, Scott M.

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Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Actual Anarchy Podcast!

The Actual Anarchy Podcast is all about Maximum Freedom.

Robert and I analyze popular movies from a Rothbardian/Anarcho-Capitalist perspective. If it’s voluntary, we’re cool with it. If it’s not, then it violated the Non-Aggression Principle and Property Rights – the core tenants of Libertarian Theory – and hence – human freedom.

We use movies as a starting point for people who may not be familiar with this way of thinking. Discussion of the plot and decisions that characters make in relation to morality and violations of the non-aggression principle are our bread and butter.

We also will highlight and discuss any themes or lessons from Austrian Economics that we can glean from the film.

The point is to show what anarchy actually is with instances that are presented in film.

We publish new episodes on Sunday just in time for your Monday commute; and occasionally will do specials surrounding holidays or events (elections/olympics).

For our show where we talk about movies from a Rothbardian/Anarcho-Capitalist perspective, we often watch them on our various devices via Netflix, Amazon Prime or on VUDU (which lets you redeem UV content as well). The VUDU one is nice because once it is in there, you know it will still be there a few months later:

ABOUT

Actual Anarchy, an anarchy unlike what the average idiot thinks it would be. Anarchy means no rulers, not no rules. The non-aggression principle and a respect of property rights are what makes it go.

We host a podcast where we take pop culture movies and showcase moments or scenes or themes throughout that are literally actual examples of anarchy.

Any place, around the world, there are always examples of Actual Anarchy all about you. Sometimes you just have to sit back and take a look. It’s easy once they’ve been pointed out a few times.

Actual Anarchy is real world examples of anarchy in action.

Movies, Shows, Books, News, etc… we host all sorts of content on the site from a bevy of writers enthusiastic for one goal: human freedom

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Read Rothbard is comprised of a small group of voluntaryists who are fans of Murray N. Rothbard. We curate content at www.ActualAnarchy.com and on the www.ReadRothbard.com site including books, lectures, articles, speeches, and we make a weekly podcast based on his free-market approach to economics. Our focus is on education and how advancement in technology improves the living standards of the average person.

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The post Episode 140 – Star Trek: TNG – S3E16 The Offspring (56:04) appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

I know many people believe that “one should join politics to do ‘greater good’ for the society” but they fail to consciously understand that politics is a profession designed to degrade, dictate and debauch the liberties of all individuals except for the establishment.

Therefore, politics is a medium to organically achieve the disastrous conclusions.

It’s the power that attracts the miscreants toward politics, otherwise, why wouldn’t you become an entrepreneur, social volunteer, educator, anarchist or an agorist to serve the economic needs, anthropological desires and empathetic expectations of the people?

I am sure that you would not join the Taliban group to “change” the theme of Islamic terrorism “from within”. Similarly, what’s so magical about ‘joining politics to change politics from within’?

In this case, the only good thing about Taliban terrorists is that:

1) they do not fund the media,

2) camouflage people’s opinion,

3) fake electionery promises,

4) lobby with cronyists and

5) deliver unaccountable GDP results.

Whereas, politicians enjoy the monopoly on terrorizing the system.

Amazon Gold Box – Deals of the Day – Today’s Deals

They say, “It is not ok if you are uninterested in politics because every function of our lives is determined by the activities of the politics”. I think this is untrue and baseless.

Every activity is, in fact, determined by freedom, reason and human action.

It’s the politics which turn things upside-down through legislations, regulatory captures, and legal robbery.

Read: Why democracy choose bad policies?

Watch: Why politicians don’t cut spending?

Anyway, good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws or constitution. To become a good person, you do not need a ruler. You need voluntary or apolitical rules. And, as long as we have the supply of politics, the world will never know peace.

Either by left way or right way, the virtual aim of the politics is to dominate, conscript, expropriate and inspect the life, liberty, and property of individuals. Debating “who is the lesser evil” is idiotic, incoherent and imbecilic. It does not matter who is in power because politics is anyway the art of strengthening the master-slave relationship. It is also the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the ‘democratic’ government at the cost of individual liberty (refer democide).

Conclusion: Imagine that you detach from legitimizing the whole saga on the voting day and become a person of humane conscience.

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

The post You Should Not Join Politics. This is why. appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

We live in prosperous times.

Our water is clean and sewage free, transportation is readily available, communication is instantaneous, and entertainment is available on demand.

We live in a world of rapid communication and wondrous new technologies. There are people here in the world whom I have never met in person, yet we have had wonderful discussions, we have shared hopes and even some dreams. We have collaborated on projects and we have exchanged ideas and argued points. These people are my friends and they are no different than the people with whom I share my “normal” life.

I just completed a terminal degree. I stopped working and through the powers of technology I was able to research and publish a dissertation, without having to attend classes in person. In fact I completed all three of my college degrees through the internet, no one can tell from my diploma that I am any different than any other graduate of that school.

After composing music for 35 years, I realized my lifelong dream and released a CD. The album is available on BandCamp, they are a company that simply takes a small percentage of what I collect to provide me an avenue of distribution. Years ago, I would have had no avenue to even consider recording my music, today I can do it in the privacy of my home office/studio for a minimal investment (maybe a month’s salary altogether).

I have access to the works of the great philosophers through online resources (like Liberty Classroom) that provide structured self-paced classes for a very small fee.

I order food, music, fountain pens, movies, car parts, motorcycle parts and countless other things online and it is delivered to my door, even on Sundays.

I study philosophy, theology, history, physics and countless other subjects online. A guy like me who started off a blue-collar worker (I was an electrician for the first ten years of my adult life) has moved on to academia. I am starting a new job with a major corporation this month (the application and one of the interviews were online). Decades ago I would have been dismissed as “reaching above my station.”

Over the half century of my life doors have not just been opened:

They have been knocked down and destroyed:

We can reject the pabulum fed to us by approved sources and go around them and read primary sources, hear interviews from eyewitnesses, and come to our own conclusions. We do not have to accept the approved truth, socialize with people that do not share our values, or accept the status quo.

We can watch the television shows we want to watch, when we want to watch them and we can talk to whomever we want to. Our circles of friends and family are no longer dictated by geography.

Whether you share my beliefs or not, every single day in this modern world is a blessing. Yes, I have faced hardship, I have struggled to find food (when I was in my late teens) and I do not dispute that life is still very hard.

But humankind has never had it better. Please for all that is good and holy, embrace the change. Encourage young adults to provide the world with intelligent and free thinking rule breakers.

They can take this wonderful gift we have been given called modern life and turn it into so much more! In the words of that brilliant philosopher Louis Armstrong:

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!

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The post Have Hope: It is a Wonderful Time to be Alive appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

Otherwise, you would have a difficult time in organising the slaves and call yourself “the government”.

To destroy your nation’s economy, you need to abhor freedom of others. If you lack this quality, you are not “mentally fit” to envy and expropriate others. All your actions can be justified by a piece of paper called “constitution”. There’s nothing to worry about, except anarchists.

Second thing, you should never learn economics. What matters is sociology because it helps us to “screech autistically” and attain the status of victimhood, followed by a biased understanding of the history subject.

By the way, if you come across any “critical thinker” or “learned person” then it is your moral duty to shun his/her opinion without using facts, but sentiments.

Anyway, the above premises are the fundamental and foundational qualities to embrace the civility of a good politician. Only Ron Paul can be a bad politician because he does not support this guide/blog. I condemn him for that.

To begin with:

Power does not corrupt. Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely. It’s the limited power which corrupts the economy wholly. In fact, unlimited power is the science of getting things done without being accountable at all. Without power, you cannot choke down your imbecilic imaginations on anyone’s soul.

Money is the Kim Kardashian of the economy. If you don’t know how to spank (spend) the paper then you are unfit to be a politician. All you have to do is print the paper out of thin air. It is uneconomical to back the paper with gold or any other commodity because it would end up empowering your slaves and they would devalue you later.

Muscles: Kindly sign up with your nearby local mafia gang without letting them know that you’re the best mafia in town. Delude them but pay them handsomely. You need muscle power, along with money power, to get the people obey you decently. Call them “cops” instead?

Monopoly: Imagine people listening to you or obeying you without questioning you or regulating you? It is possible if you prioritise the power of monopoly without sharing it with others. As long as you have the monopoly with yourself, people won’t take you jokingly. Your uncontrollable attitude towards monopoly will determine the course of people’s aptitude and political altitude.

Sadism: All your political speeches should look diplomatic and manipulative. If any trait is missing then you won’t achieve the aim. I know that you are always orgasmic to screw people’s wealth but please ensure that you’re not letting them know, otherwise who would suck their liberties? Try to camouflage your opinions as if you’re the only romantic person in the economy, without letting your people know that you’re going to economically BDSM them, without their consent.

Propaganda: Buy as much as media you can, but on the mainstream level. Anyway, social media memes have limited reach. If some of the media houses don’t gibe with your ‘policy’ then over-regulate their “freedom of expression”. Automatically, the media would love to appreciate your narcism (if you can make them sleep with you over a bottle of whisky). Propaganda is an art of showing yourself clean when you’re not. Imitate the propaganda models of Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, or Trumperica, to begin with.

Regulation: Your chances of getting re-elected is lower if you minimise the regulations. Already people are addicted to submission, fear and violence so it makes sense for you to supply them with more laws, rules and regulations. Make the “book” more technical, biblical and draconian so that you can create more jobs and consultancy firms and the regulatory captures. If you minimise the regulations, you lose your presence  in the history of global economy.

Ideology: Don’t use “isms” at all but do translate the theory into action. For example: You can say that “we believe in democracy” (which is, of course, a mild version of communism) without letting the “social scientists” know that you’re actually doing fascism or communism. I know that you cannot “convince” the mass society all-the-time but you can surely “confuse” them with the ideologies. Develop a “public sphere” and [discursive] “marketplace of ideas” so that people fall for it, and you end up diverting them from the unimportant issues like economics freedom, property rights, judicial independence, etc.

People’s wealth is your wealth. Your wealth is your wealth only. Just don’t forget to use the term “people” in your speeches or else people won’t fall for your Ponzi schemes. The best way to get more wealth from people is to tax their every function, including non-economic ones. They would believe that you’re creating the wealth in the economy, and that’s what matters for the economy of “social security”. When it comes to taxation, always ignore knowing that it is the “compulsory fee” which we pay for the uncivilization.

War: Anything you can do constitutionally is fun. For example: You will be charged for murder if you’re not from the government. You can have more wars so that you can create more jobs through inflation, wealth through defence industries, and popularity through media. War is the health of your political stability. It should make you look powerful, no matter how you’re.

Fair Trade: There is nothing called “free trade”. I mean it is so insane to learn that people can voluntarily trade with another without coercion. The idea of “fair trade” makes sense because it can help you to play with the currencies and trade conflicts at your political whims. The more you bring fairness in trade, the more people would legitimise your defence policy.

Conclusion: If you’re not convinced to be a politician then you need to reread this piece.
_______________________________________________________

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.

Twitter a/c
@meritocratic
_______________________________________________________

The post A Political Guide To Destroying Your Economy appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

Robert and I were interviewed by Mike Tilden at the Battle for Liberty to discuss what we do in our efforts to promote the ideas of anarchy and liberty through our show and websites.

Here is the link to the show:

https://battleforliberty.com/39

He is a great host and produces excellent work documenting his journey in educating himself and his listeners as they fight their statist indoctrination in their very personal battles for liberty.

Look for him to be a guest on one of our shows in the coming weeks!

The post Featured on the Battle for Liberty Podcast appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

Misunderstanding anarchism is also an auxiliary activity of the mainstream media, public schools, bureaucrats, politicians, and the ignorant populace.

Their imagination isn’t only limited to the belief that ‘government is a magical institution’ but it also extended to the practice that everyone else should also survive within the limits of their perspectives.  If you attempt to reason or discourse with them then they will ensure that you’re ashamed and defamed.

Thus, the burden of proof is not on the anarchists to prove “why freedom is vital” but on the pro-slavery advocates to prove “why people should be forced to live in a system of organised chaos (government)”. 

Worse, some who call themselves “anarchists” don’t even know the meaning of the term. These people fall, in general, into three classes:

1) advocating that state should be abolished and then replacing the society with collectivism spirit, wherein “anarchists” should not be allowed to reap fruits from their own labor,

2) advocating that state should be abolished and then replacing the ‘welfare policies of Stalin’ with the ‘welfare policies of Mao’, and

3) advocating that the state should be abolished and then replacing the society with ‘Trump’.

Therefore, it is also necessary to save anarchism from such “anarchists”.

Many ignoramuses continue to believe that “anarchism is terrorism” because they’re taught to believe that anarchists blow up the buildings, bridges and ‘roads’. This is the height of today’s modern education, in fact.

Anarchists are not the ‘violent creatures’ who believe that people have a compulsory obligation to follow incoherent and illusionary ideologies like republicanism, communism or parliamentary democracy. Instead, anarchists are the ‘voluntary creatures’ who intend to tranquilly denounce the general belief i..e “there should be rulers to police, discipline and indoctrinate the populace”.

Please note that anarchism is not an anti-freedom philosophy that calls for the initiation of violence on peaceful people who simply disagree or dissent, otherwise, why do you think the government officials had such a hard time defining the word “terrorism”?

The answer is that every time they defined the word ‘terrorism’ they admitted to this stunning fact that the government’s action utilises the use of terror on peaceful people. A government can only survive via the initiation of violence of individual’s property rights.

Without the use of terrorism, the government would cease to exist, and a propertarian society would ensue wherein peaceful people are free to do as they wish as long as they don’t infringe on others. In social relations between people, certain voluntary social norms will have to be accepted, namely, the obligation to fulfill a freely accepted agreement.

In this case, it is advisable to ratiocinate [form judgments by a process of logic; reason] that:  anarchism is not anti-rules, but anti-rulers.

To sum up, anarchism is self-government (or its equivalent, self-administration). Self-government is the best form of government, which people rarely talk about because they have more faith in a ‘few strangers’ ruling them and others at the expense of everyone else.

Self-government starts with self-discipline. If you cannot discipline yourself then you have no right to misunderstand anarchism. You can move to North Korea to get policed morally and bodily before bashing the theory of anarchism for the sake of criticism.

The post Misunderstanding Anarchism appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

By LyStoy

So you think your schooling’s phony
I guess it’s hard not to agree
You say it all depends on money
And who is in your family tree

– Supertramp, Bloody Well Right

I am returning to my thoughts on education this week. Here are some of the ideas/theories I have developed regarding education as a former public school teacher and parent:

The best way to educate a child is in a homeschool environment. Homeschool does not necessarily mean that the parent educates the child all the time, parent cooperatives, child directed learning and online schooling all fall under the umbrella of homeschooling for the purposes of this discussion.

Homeschool students are better prepared for college.

The second-best option is a classically oriented private school that a parent has personally vetted. If you have a particularly bright child (and don’t we all) this may be a viable option if you want her to learn Latin and Greek or any other subject you may not have mastered. Just remember not all private schools are created equally.

You may want to combine homeschooling in early years with classical education in later years.

Use immersion prior to age 12 (the earlier the better), to help your child learn a/many foreign languages. I personally believe that we would all be better equipped to travel throughout most of the world if we knew Spanish, French (particularly for travel in Africa), and Mandarin. Latin is great preparation for the SAT and later scholarship. Anecdotally, the multilingual people I know all learned multiple languages early in life. I encourage the use of television, radio broadcasts, movies and visiting ethnic communities where your child has no option but to learn the language.

Use a mathematics curriculum! Homeschooled students outperform their peers in all regards except in math. They are simply average in that category. I am a fan of the Singapore Maths program but there are a lot of good ones out there.

Ignore the socialization argument, it is not based on any credible research. Your homeschool child is in the REAL WORLD more than his peers, he interacts with people of all ages while “regular” kids are in boxes with children who share her manufacture date. Who will be better socialized? Besides if your child goes to Church, baseball, scouts, interacts with other people, or attends the local cooperative she will be socialized.

Traditional public schools are not about education, they are about indoctrination. I have written about this in the past and will do more in the future, but please understand that the creators of modern public schools did not have the best interests of children in mind.

Having stated my arguments (with references) I want to make the following point (I know, it took me long enough):

Who has your child’s best interests in mind, the state or you?

You want your child to be well equipped for life, the state wants your child to be compliant. In my mind this is a no brainer. Stop counting on statists and ill-prepared educators to equip your child with the foundation they need to succeed in life. Think about it and let me know if you disagree with me.

In parting, school sucks!

Another interesting article for your perusal.

The post School Sucks: HOMESCHOOL your child! appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

Now for confession time, I was a public school teacher for ten years. That’s right! I participated in this evil, vile system designed to destroy the innate curiosity of children and force them into boxes that result in a compliant populous.

Some of you are sitting there saying, “Lystoy you are right about politicians, you are right about double standards, you are probably even right about the pay-gap. But man you have lost it here. Schools suck, but state sponsored child abuse? C’mon, buy a clue.”

Okay, I suppose it all depends on how you classify child abuse.

• Would forcing a child to sit still for hours on end be classified as child abuse?
• How about forcing students to take highly structured tests that last hours each day for ten consecutive days?
• How about locking them inside and only allowing them to play for 20 minutes in 6 hours?
• How about punishing them for age appropriate behavior?
• How about teaching them the party line and disallowing independent thought?

But instead of just the general problems, let’s look at one specific area. Schools are designed to treat boys as if they are dysfunctional girls. When they do not behave they are diagnosed with a series of ailments.

What?

Boys are 2 to 3 times more likely to be dyslexic than girls. The educational profession tried to argue otherwise but that pesky thing called data got in the way.

Boys are more prone to autism: 1 in 42 boys are diagnosed whereas 1 in 189 girls suffer from the learning disability.

Boys are three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls.

Boys are more likely to be diagnosed as learning disabled.

Boys comprise 80% of the students diagnosed as emotionally disturbed.

Boys are 2.5 times more likely to be suspended from school.

Understand that all these problems are the basis of a very disturbing trend. When boys “cannot behave” in schools we diagnose and medicate them. We do not create environments where they can thrive. I would argue that girls are not thriving either, but are more adaptable to the “nature” of school.

My question has always been, why do we sort children by manufacture date, place them in environments that teach to the lowest common denominator, make them sit still inside an enclosed room, and then are shocked when they rebel against this insanity?

Part of the reason is that the roots of American public education are socialist. The purpose of public schools is to teach children to conform to society’s rules, to help them understand their “place” in that society, and to ensure they fit in. Any child who bucks the trend and stands out is medicated into compliance.

I will continue speaking about public education in the next few weeks, but in the interim, if there are any questions, comments, or you want to tell me how wrong I am, please do below.

In the meantime, for further information I suggest you check out Murray Rothbard’s book “Education: Free & Compulsory” below:

The post Public Schools: State sponsored child abuse! appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

It breaks my heart to see how many young people are being broken down by the statist indoctrination system called public school.

I cannot stress enough how important it is this 2017 forward to focus our efforts on reaching the next generation with the message of liberty and striving every day to help free them from the oppressive compulsory schooling system.

Education is not the equivalent of Prussian-model school.

We can do better than this with Voluntaryist virtues and self-directed education. #unschool

Murray Rothbard’s excellent book, Education:  Free & Compulsory

The post The Voluntaryist on Public Education appeared first on Actual Anarchy.

By Steven Clyde

“Money, get away. Get a good job with more pay and you’re O.K.

Money, it’s a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. New car, caviar, four star daydream. Think I’ll buy me a football team.

Money, get back. I’m all right, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack.

Money, it’s a hit. Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit. I’m in the hi-fi fidelity first class traveling set. And I think I need a Lear jet.

Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.

Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today. But if you ask for a rise it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.”[1]

Money is one of the most misunderstood facets of our personal lives, and we spend a large portion of our existence attempting to acquire more of it. Furthermore, the general public lacks a realistic sense of the world we live in based on media propaganda and misinformation spread through the lens of “conventional wisdom”; so it’s no mystery why there exists this gap of knowledge.

Still it must be true that at least some of us realize in some aspect that this same thing we use every day is exorbitantly complex in nature. Does the average citizen really know what the Federal Reserve is? What a reserve ratio is? What inflation is (beyond the thought of their price of living rising)? Should they be expected to?

To quote Murray Rothbard from a 1970 piece when he was attacking the Anarcho-Communist school of thought, which was heavily attracting Marxist-Stalinists at the time:

“It is no accident that it was precisely the economists in the Communist countries who led the rush away from communism, socialism, and central planning, and toward free markets. 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. Yet this sort of aggressive ignorance is inherent in the creed of anarcho-communism.”[2]

Yet, to this day most have not even the slightest interest in economics or history, yet take positions which would have to imply they are masters of both.

Before we examine money in full, a few examples of how our thinking is heavily influenced by information that is false will illustrate why it’s critical to dissect these assertions. There will never come a time when it won’t be important to stress the pontifications of the main stream media, and their half-truths.

The State and Education:

Education, surely, would be non-existent if not for the system in place. We would all be illiterate if not for the standards set up by the Department of Education. This is of course regardless of places like Detroit where the illiteracy rate is thought to be 47% of adults[3]; facts like this are to be left out of the discussion if we are to be taken seriously in academia. And despite rising costs and flat lining results across public schools[4], it is deemed to be a spit in the face of teachers to examine their effectiveness. They work so hard to educate our students on the taxpayer dime, so this isn’t to be questioned.

The State and Healthcare:

And we would be enamored to believe that without the government there would be access to healthcare. “We would all just die in the streets” they proclaim, and they could point to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor act signed in 1986 by Ronald Reagan as proof. This required hospitals to accept new patients regardless of their ability to pay or their legal status and only applies to hospitals that accept Medicare, so surely we all must be better off. Despite the decades of rising costs[5] and the extremely high deductibles (essentially catastrophic coverage) on plans whom poor people tend to use, there is still the belief that more people are insured now than ever because of Obamacare. To quote the IRS Revenue Procedure for 2017, it states:

“For calendar year 2017, a “high deductible health plan” is defined under § 223(c)(2)(A) as a health plan with an annual deductible that is not less than $1,300 for self-only coverage or $2,600 for family coverage, and the annual out-of-pocket expenses (deductibles, co-payments, and other amounts, but not premiums) do not exceed $6,550 for self-only coverage or $13,100 for family coverage.”

You read that correctly: If you are a poor person and you are gaining “health coverage” for the first time, your out of cost expenses will be anywhere between $1,300 to $6,550 before your insurance will cover anything. So despite the fact that poor people are by definition more uninsured than ever, and are essentially given the bread crumbs from the loaf of bread, the statistics that are produced paint a startling picture. Between 2014 and 2015, 7.4 million people gained access to insurance according to National Health Interview Survey[6], yet in the same graph they show that trends are starting to reverse: more people are starting to opt for private insurance plans over public insurance plans now that they are realizing they are getting the short end of the stick with government insurance.

Why Do We Use Money?

Quite simply, the reason we have mediums of exchange is because humans want more than they have. It is because of this circumstance, that we must also want things we do not have, regardless of whether we have access to any resources at all. I, as person “A”, can logically deduce that if I want person “B’s” product that I must offer them something in return. It must be something that I value less then what I want from them, and they must find more value in what I offer then what they are willing to give up.

Trade[7], by definition, only exists in the paradigm that person “B” and I both benefit.

If only one person benefits in a transaction, it can also be deduced that one party is using violence or coercion against the other party. When dealing with human action, it’s always assumed that people act to improve their current condition, not stifle it.

Carl Menger points out in “Principles of Economics” that:

“As long as the development of a people is so retarded economically that there is no significant amount of trade and the requirements of the various families for goods must be met directly from their own production, goods obviously have value to economizing individuals only if the goods are themselves capable of satisfying the needs of the isolated economizing individuals or their families directly.”[8]

His point is that the reason we trade in the first place is because otherwise, we’d be solely relying on our own productive capacities. Even if we could transform the resources around us from soil to commodity, we would be unable to use them because they coalesce with other resources to form usable goods.

What Money Is and Where It Came From:

The majority of the population will tend to fall in line with what society has told them to be true, and the proof is that most would look at you strangely when you explained that money is a commodity, just like any other good. We are very much hardwired to believe that money exists as an external part of our economy, and that it’s all thanks to government.

The origin of money is one of much controversy among historians. New pieces of information regarding how homo sapiens[9] have traded with each other comes to light all the time, and all we really know from research is that where there was trade there were was money; at least if we’re defining money as a medium of exchange (rather than fiat money or bank notes). For example, in August 2016 a group of researchers from the University of Victoria in Canada discovered “scrapers, flakes, projectile points and hand axes” among other ancient tools that seem to date back to 250,000 years ago[10]. This is very significant because up till now we thought based on the Omo bone remains discovered in Ethiopia between 1967 and 1974 that modern humans emerged about 195,000 years ago.[11] Though the answer is always changing, Wampum Beads are thought to be one of the first types of currency used, if not the first at least in American history. Marc Shell discusses this in his book “Wampum and the Origins of American Money”, which has received exuberant criticisms and which will inevitably push for more research in this area.

What we deem to be “money” in the present day is dollar bills and coins, but yet there is still an important corollary between barter and indirect exchange. We are lifetimes past the idea of simple barter because of the great utility we get from having a medium of exchange that represents value; it allows us the freedom to buy what we want. The other alternative, which history has shown to be ineffective, is the daily coincidence of having the exact good someone else needs, and them having the exact good you need. Not only do these values hardly ever line up, but both parties are ending up in worse situations when they can’t trade because they are stuck with a good that has little value to them, at least in contrast to what they really need.

Murray Rothbard gives this example:

“Consider the case of A, the farmer, who wants to buy the shoes made by B. Since B doesn’t want his eggs, he finds what B does want – let’s say butter. A then exchanges his eggs for C’s butter, and sells the butter to B for shoes. He first buys the butter not because he wants it directly, but because it will permit him to get his shoes. Similarly, Smith, a plow-owner, will see his plow for one commodity which he can more readily divide and sell – say, butter – and will then exchange parts of the butter for eggs, bread clothes, etc. In both cases, the superiority of butter – the reason there is extra demand for it beyond simple consumption – is its great marketability. If one good is more marketable than another – if everyone is confident that it will be more readily sold – then it will come into greater demand because it will be used as a medium of exchange. It will be the medium through which one specialist can exchange his product for the goods of other specialists.”[12]

Stay tuned for next week when I’ll discuss the most important idea: Why Money and Governments are incompatible.

[1] From Pink Floyd, Dark Side of The Moon, Money, 1973

[2] Murray Rothbard, The Death Wish Of Anarcho-Communists, Libertarian Forum, January 1^st, 1970

[3] https://cbsdetroit.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/basicskillsreport_final.pdf

[4] http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/12869-tons-more-spending-no-new-results

[5] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus15.pdf#093

[6] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201605.pdf

[7] Exchange (something) for something else, typically as a commercial transaction.,Oxford Dictionary

[8] Carl Menger, Principles of Economics, 1871, 226.

[9] Modern day humans

[10] https://phys.org/news/2016-08-archaeology-team-world-first-tool-discovery.html

[11] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050223122209.htm

[12] Murray Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money

The post Money & Government: Part 1 appeared first on Actual Anarchy.