Free Investment Advice...

Where should one invest money in these uncertain economic times?  Low interest rates make traditional saving seemingly pointless (thus making future prosperity much less likely), the stock exchange carries more risk than most people are comfortable with and gold and silver are, well, gold and silver!

Let me make it clear that I am not qualified to give investment advice!

The article published here which I reproduce below encourages you to invest some money in becoming a member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.  Why should you do that?  Well, in my opinion orgainsations such as this, by educating the world back to sound economics and money, free market policies and Libertarian ethics, are the best hope that our future will be peaceful and prosperous instead of fearful and unpropitious (which I've just found out is the opposite of prosperous!). 

Let me give you an example of the value Mises offers.  For just $50 (that's £31 to my British readers), you can become a member for a year and receive "The Free Market", a monthly journal that interprets current policy and events in light of Austrian theory and free-market policy.  Remember: Austrian economics advocates such as Ron Paul predicted the Credit Crunch years before it happened!

Let me give you another example: for just $59 (£37) students of the Mises Online Academy are currently studying a 5 week course on the Economics of the Great Depression including 5 weekly lectures (recorded so they can be watched at your leisure), all reading materials (available online), graded quizzes and graded certification at the end.  Okay, so you can't put letters after your name if you pass but where can you get all that knowledge for so little?

So, please do consider giving a little to organisations that are working to promote prosperity, peace and liberty for you and your family.  Unlike most donations you'll make in your life, this one will give real value and truly go to a good cause...your prosperity and well being!

Enjoy...

    
I have been working at the Ludwig von Mises Institute as a senior fellow for the last ten years. I answer economic questions from students, Mises Institute members, and the media. I also work in all the Institute education and scholarly programs and do research. It is probably the best job in the world.

We have teaching programs that benefit high-school students, homeschool students, college students, graduate students, instructors, and professors, as well as the general public. These programs are effective because they are well crafted, time tested, and the staff is incredibly efficient and frugal in terms of execution.

My job is to lecture and sometimes to serve as master of ceremonies, so each and every one of these events is a real nail-biter for me. They are all so important. However, they always seem to turn out fantastically. The key is that we have the best speakers talking about the most important issues of the day to people, mostly students, who see that learning Austrian economics is vitally important to them.

That was not always the case. When I came to Auburn University to go to graduate school in 1982, I was told that there were probably only eight to ten graduate students interested in Austrian economics in the entire world. One of my professors even told me that there was no longer an Austrian School, there were only a couple of Austrians teaching in universities that offered a PhD, and that the Austrian School was just a fact of history, with no future.

Things were pretty miserable that first year. I entertained thoughts of dropping out and getting a job. Then toward the end of my second semester Professor Roger Garrison invited me into his office. He told me that Lew Rockwell was moving the Ludwig von Mises Institute to Auburn University. He said that Lew was going to publish newsletters, journals, and books and that he was going to invite all the leading Austrian economists to come to Auburn to lecture.

I had never heard of Lew Rockwell or the Mises Institute before that point in time, but I realized right away that things would be better. Next Professor Garrison told me that I would probably receive funding for my studies at Auburn University from the Mises Institute. Given Garrison's reputation for pulling people's legs, I naturally started to get suspicious, but he assured me that it was all true.

After leaving his office I was a bit dumbfounded, but I soon realized that I might be as close as I ever would be to an event that might change history. Back then, learning anything about Austrian economics was incredibly difficult, but I was convinced that Austrian economics was the solution to our problems. Having grown up in the 1970s, the list of problems was long.

Nixon had taken us off the gold standard and imposed wage and price controls. Our economy was experiencing high unemployment and high inflation. There had been waiting lines for gasoline. The country was decaying, and we were told that the Soviet Union was the wave of the future. My last two years in college could best be described as an economic depression.

With all that bad experience and with the country at its lowest point, I suddenly found myself magically turned into a raging optimist by Lew Rockwell. I have always sided with the underdog, and this was the biggest underdog situation since David and Goliath. Lew, Mardi, and Pat were stationed in small quarters with nothing to assist them but an electric typewriter and two graduate students to stuff envelopes. It did not appear that the entire Keynesian-socialist state had much to worry about.

Indeed, it's been nothing but a steep uphill battle. The distance yet to travel seems enormous. There have been difficult times and the state is bigger than ever. However, my optimism has never wavered and has indeed only increased. Austrian economics is a message that the establishment now has to deal with.

We are still the smallest school of economics, but we are the fastest growing. We are one of the oldest schools of economics, but the average age of Austrian economists continues to decrease. We still work on the fringe of the profession, but our work is having an ever-bigger impact in the real world. We have the growth, the youth, and the impact. Much of this success is the result of Lew Rockwell building an institutional foundation for Austrian economics to thrive.

Individual professors can do fine work, but putting together large instructional conferences is beyond their means. Lew has also made it possible to publish or to bring back into publication books that were too radical for other publication outlets. Generally put, the Mises Institute is the hub network through which the Austrian School grows in size and impact. More than 20 other Mises Institute–like organizations have been established in various countries, most of which are modeled after and inspired by Lew's design.

As an economist, many people ask me where they should invest their money. My response is that if you care about the future, if you care about the free society, then the best place for your money is the Ludwig von Mises Institute. We have had 30 years of growth and increasing impact thanks to Lew, the ideas of Mises and Rothbard, and to you, the members of the Mises Institute.

Frankly, there are few people who could have anticipated this success. I remember talking to fellow graduate students in the 1980s at the Mises University conference. Someone wondered aloud, "How many more years do you think they will hold the Mises University before everyone who wants to has already attended one?" Well, it doesn't look like we are stopping anytime soon. Last summer we were at full capacity, with four times as many people watching live on the Internet.

Having seen programs like Mises University and the Summer Fellows Program in person, I can tell you that they change people's lives. Of course these programs instill knowledge, but more importantly attendees gain a better grasp of reality that only Austrian economics can provide. In addition, with the state fouling up everything it touches, creating chaos everywhere, attendees come away from our programs with a newfound optimism and new zeal to learn as much as they can.

As a donor, the Ludwig von Mises Institute has always been my biggest charity. I know it is easy to feel helpless against expanding evils of the state, but I can tell you that knowing that my money is going to the Mises Institute programs has always provided me with a great deal of satisfaction. We share the right ideas, and the history of man has shown that the power of ideas is all that really matters.

Help us take down Goliath. Be David. Donate today.

Mark Thornton is a senior resident fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and is the book review editor for the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. He is the author of The Economics of Prohibition, coauthor of Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War, and the editor of The Quotable Mises, The Bastiat Collection, and An Essay on Economic Theory. Send him mail. See Mark Thornton's article archives.
You can subscribe to future articles by Mark Thornton via this RSS feed.
Copyright © 2012 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided full credit is given.

Does the UK have a "Ron Paul"...?

I was musing today whether we here in the UK have our own "Ron Paul", struggling to protect Libertarian principles such as limited government, civil liberties and free markets.  The nearest I have found so far is Douglas Carswell, the MP for Clacton, a constituency within 20 miles of me.

Now, I'm not sure Carswell has the Libertarian credentials of Ron Paul, but I did like this article about how the internet will enable us to live without Big Government.  Of course, it will also need a radical change in our individual thinking; away from always looking for someone to blame or to pick up the pieces when things in our lives go wrong, to facing up to reality with personal responsibility and initiative.

Please do comment if you find other examples of the "Ron Paul Spirit" within UK political life...     

Discrimination - A Symptom of Our Time

I have always been against discrimination.  By this, I mean that I am against a legal requirement to favour one group of people over another in your economic life.  I don't mean that I am against the right to do business with or associate with who you so desire.

To use an example, whatever I think of a hotel owner who refuses to admit homosexual customers (and I know I am risking a lynching here!), I will always defend the right of a business owner to do business with whosoever he/she chooses.  This is the principle of voluntary, enforceable contract.  Your business may not want to do business with people who, like me, wear spectacles but, much as I dislike it, I support your right to contract with whosoever you choose.  In a free market, I'll simply use another vendor who will serve me. 

   
The government/state uses discrimination in its efforts to interfere in the lives of ordinary people.  In the US, Obama is currently crusading to raise the pay of women who, he claims, earn 23c per hour less than their male counterparts.  Apart from the fact the argument does not stand up to examination, this article explains rather well why this type of interference in the market actually harms women's employment prospects.

In the UK, there is a raft of legislation that prevents employers practicing discrimination when recruiting new staff.  However, there are plans in the UK to offer ex-service personnel that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan free tuition fees to study for a degree and a £9,000 bursary to train as a teacher (all at tax payers expense, of course).  This is so-called "positive discrimination", illegal for you and I to practice but perfectly okay for the government.

But on a more lighthearted note...

            

Ron Paul - Farewell to a Great Man

Ron Paul, a man whose values I admire, says farewell to the US Congress. 

Using his knowledge of Austrian economics and sound theory of money, he predicted in 2003 that state intervention in the mortgage market would lead to a "bubble" and inevitable market crash.  He was ignored.

The crash occurred in 2007-2008.

   

Hayek v Keynes

Who's best?

Only one way to find out...FIGHT!

What is Your Calling?

I was flabbergasted to find a book by a gentleman called Gary North that had taken 39 years to write!  Not only that, but it is posted online for free.

I hope you have registered the point I'm trying to make here - the man has given up 39 years of his life to write a book.  Clearly, the writing of the book was something immensely important to Mr North.

Mr North has said that the writing of this book was his "calling".  In the video below, he discusses the difference between a "calling" and a "career".  It has led me to think what my calling should be.

Brainstorming that question, I've come up with the following:

• Publicising Libertarian ideas in the UK.
• Researching and writing about Austrian economics.
• Standing for public office on a "free market" platform (become the UK's Ron Paul).

The point of a "calling" is that no-one will pay you to do it.  Therefore, it must be a labour of love.

What is your calling?

       

Austrian Economics - Liberty, Freedom and Peace

When I was a very young man, I wanted to go into politics.  I had a sincere desire to make the World a better place.  I must of had ambitious plans as I distinctly remember attempting to design a system of World Government.  Where I got this idea from escapes me.

Every morning except Sunday, I delivered newspapers to the residents of my street, collecting the money on a Friday evening.  One Friday evening, a lady customer who I remember by virtue of her tight sweaters and ample breasts (such things make a big impression on a 16 year old lad!), asked me what I wanted to do when I left school.  I replied:  "I want to be Prime Minister."  She asked me which political party I would lead and, when I answered that the Labour Party would be the beneficiary of my considerable talent, she laughed said something to the effect that I would change my political views as I got older.

Actually, she was right!

I inherited my political views from my Father.  Dad was a Labour Party supporter and active within the Post Office trade union.  He is a kind, compassionate man and I believe that he honestly thought that socialism, as represented by the Labour Party, was the political system most able to care for the individual.  As a point of interest, his Father, my Grandfather (who was known as "Fromp" to his many Grandchildren), was a committed Conservative voter and fan of Enoch Powell.  He took the Telegraph newspaper (Conservative leaning) whilst my Dad took the Daily Mirror (Labour leaning).

As I got older, I began to think that politics was incapable of solving societal problems.  All political parties seemed to morph into the same entity with the same policies.  I slowly began to see that all political parties were, at heart, socialist and that socialism did not work.  My research delivered shocks such as discovering that Fascism and Communism were actually the same system; after all, the Nazis were "National Socialists" by name.

So if all politicians are socialists and socialism does not work, what is the solution?  Is there a solution?  What is the point of being involved in politics if politics itself is the problem?

The epiphany moment came for me when I realised that all our failing political systems were based on the importance of the majority over the individual and where Governments were increasingly intent on intervening in aspects of economic life.  Nowhere practised a system where the individual had primacy, where government relegated itself to protecting individual persons and property against assault and confiscation by force or fraud.      

One organisation that has helped me to understand this is the Ludwig von Mises Institute.  The institute is named after a leading Austrian economist, a school of economics which champions a true free market economy (where government and economics are kept apart).  In fact, the more I see of the writings of Austrian economists, the more I am convinced that their ideas hold the key to a more just economic system.

 
One champion of Austrian economics is Ron Paul.  Watch the interview below, where he makes a key point about politicians.  If they were to admit that their efforts do not work, they would put themselves out of a job.  Therefore, they must continue to pretend that "Big Government" is the answer and that the State must have more power to intervene in our lives in order to correct the problems which, it can be argued, were created by government intervention in the first place.  This in turn justifies bigger budgets and more bureaucracy, meaning more taxes and a lower standard of living for us all.

 

What was the cause of Nazism?

In continuing to research Ayn Rand and Objectivism, I have come across Leonard Peikoff, the literary executor of Rand.  Peikoff wrote a book entitled, "The Ominous Parallels", linking the rise of Nazism with what was (is?) going on in the USA during the 1980's.  Having just returned from Berlin and having stayed in the old Jewish quarter, I was interested in the Objectivist view of Nazism.

Peikoff thought that Nazism was not rooted in the consequences of World War I but in the philosophy that had developed over centuries, a philosophy consisting of three tenets:

• the worship of unreason.
• the demand for self-sacrifice.
• the elevation of society or the state above the individual.

  In her introduction to the book, Ayn Rand states:

It is a tragic irony of our time that the two worst, bloodiest tribes in history, the Nazis of Germany and the Communists of Soviet Russia, both of whom are motivated by brute powerlust and a crudely materialistic greed for the unearned, show respect for the power of philosophy (they call it "ideology") and spend billions of their looted wealth on propaganda and indoctrination, realising that man's mind is their most dangerous enemy and it is man's mind that they have to destroy — while the United States and the other countries of the West, who claim to believe in the superiority of the human spirit over matter, neglect philosophy, despise ideas, starve the best minds of the young, offer nothing but the stalest slogans of a materialistic altruism in the form of global giveaways, and wonder why they are losing the world to the thugs.

Germany before Nazism was a major European nation, intellectually and industrially developed, widely admired for its culture.  It was considered a modern, civilised nation.

Adolf Hitler, in explaining the moral philosophy of Nazism, said:

It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realise that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole ... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual...."

"This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture.... The basic attitude from which such activity arises, we call-to distinguish it from egoism and selfishness-idealism. By this we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men.

Is there anything evil in these ideas?  On the surface, no.  However, it led to this:

The gas chambers themselves [at Auschwitz] and the adjoining crematoria, viewed from a short distance, were not sinister-looking places at all; it was impossible to make them out for what they were. Over them were well-kept lawns with flower borders; the signs at the entrances merely said BATHS. The unsuspecting Jews thought they were simply being taken to the baths for the delousing which was customary at all camps. And taken to the accompaniment of sweet music!

"For there was light music. An orchestra of 'young and pretty girls all dressed in white blouses and navy-blue skirts,' as one survivor remembered, had been formed from among the inmates. While the selection was being made for the gas chambers this unique musical ensemble played gay tunes from The Merry Widow and Tales of Hoffmann. Nothing solemn and somber from Beethoven. The death marches at Auschwitz were sprightly and merry tunes, straight out of Viennese and Parisian operetta.

"To such music, recalling as it did happier and more frivolous times, the men, women and children were led into the 'bath houses,' where they were told to undress preparatory to taking a 'shower.' Sometimes they were even given towels. "Once they were inside the 'shower-room' — and perhaps this was the first moment that they may have suspected some thing was amiss, for as many as two thousand of them were packed into the chamber like sardines, making it difficult to take a bath — the massive door was slid shut, locked and hermetically sealed. Up above where the well-groomed lawn and flower beds almost concealed the mushroom-shaped lids of vents that ran up from the hall of death, orderlies stood ready to drop into them the amethyst-blue crystals of hydrogen cyanide....

"Surviving prisoners watching from blocks nearby remembered how for a time the signal for the orderlies to pour the crystals down the vents was given by a Sergeant Moll. ' Na, gib ihnen schon zu fressen' ('All right, give 'em something to chew on'), he would laugh and the crystals would be poured through the openings, which were then sealed.

"Through heavy-glass portholes the executioners could watch what happened. The naked prisoners below would be looking up at the showers from which no water spouted or perhaps at the floor wondering why there were no drains. It took some moments for the gas to have much effect. But soon the inmates became aware that it was issuing from the perforations in the vents. It was then that they usually panicked, crowding away from the pipes and finally stampeding toward the huge metal door where, as Reitlinger puts it, 'they piled up in one blue clammy blood-spattered pyramid, clawing and mauling each other even in death.' "

 William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

After the Nazis had led their country to destruction, Frederich Hayek attempted to warn the World that countries should not fall into practising the political philosophy (Socialism) that had led to Nazism.  However, as Peikoff's book attempts to show, this warning continues to go unheeded, moving the Human race closer and closer to more destruction. 

Ayn Rand and Objectivism

During a few days rest and relaxation from work, I have been reacquainting myself with the ideas of Ayn Rand, known collectively as Objectivism.

On the front page of the Ayn Rand Institute web site is a short description by Rand of what Objectivism is:

 My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

Copyright © 1962 by Times-Mirror Co.

I once disregarded Rand's ideas as, whether by conditioning or whether by nature, I have always thought of myself as altruistic.  However, I see now that altruism has its flaws.

Firstly, it assumes that all actions must have a "winner" and a "loser". Therefore, if we act out of self-interest and gain from it, them someone in turn must lose.  Is this assumption correct?  Rand thought not and envisaged a society where individuals freely and voluntarily exchanged "value" with each other.  This must be the basis of all relationships, personal and commercial; two or more parties in a relationship from which all gain something of value from that interaction.

Next, it assumes that, in performing an act for the benefit of someone else (or for collective society), it is possible for us always to know what is best for that person (or society).  However, it is impossible for us to have all information needed to judge whether our well-intentioned action will be beneficial or not.

Can it be desirable or, indeed, just for us to reap the consequences of others' actions, whether or not they are carried out with good intentions?  Some may benefit us and some not - how will we learn from experience what is right action and what is wrong action if consequences do not accrue from our actions but from the actions of others?

Lastly, how can we be sure who we are helping when we perform an act of self-sacrifice intended to help another?  How do we know if we are helping hero or villain, peaceful individual or thug? 

Politics, Rand states, originates with the philosophical study of ethics.  World politics in increasingly dominated by socialistic ethics, where it is assumed that the State knows best in all areas of our lives.  However, clearly it cannot and therefore the actions of the State do as much harm as good when it attempts to act for the good of all.  Moreover, it encourages a system of ethics and morals which puts the interest of a vague collective called "Society" (i.e. everybody except ourselves) ahead of me, the individual. 

It is this philosophy which Rand blames for the state we find ourselves in today.  The antidote, according to Rand, is individuals acting from a position of rational self-interest.  As I continue to read her ideas, I am inclined to believe it...    

Nazi Persecution of Jews - A Revelation and a Warning...

Neue Synagogue - Berlin (copyright Emma Biggins 2012)

I recently visited Berlin, staying in what was the Jewish quarter at the time Hitler and the Nazis came to power.  During a walk around the area, I stopped at the Neue Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße, the centre of what was the Jewish community in Berlin at the time.  Ironically, the local police chief protected it as best he could from the Nazis, only for it to be badly damaged during WWII allied bombings.  

Whilst my knowledge of the origins and history of Judaism are limited, both Emma (my partner) and I experienced a revelation during our visit.


It became clear, at least to us, why the Nazis persecuted the Jews and other groups like them.  The Nazis, in my opinion, were the epitome of Statism, where the State seeks to impose a total control of the population by demanding adherence to is own definition of what it means to be a citizen of the State.  It is an extreme form of Collectivism, where the State demands total conformity and subservience, a sacrifice of individual liberty and status for the collective good, in return for the security of being protected by the State.

It is possible to see why the German people were seduced by what Hitler and the Nazi party had to offer.  For a people exhausted, bankrupted and humiliated by WWI and its aftermath, the Nazis quickly redefined, with an almost religious intensity, what it meant to be German.  The Nazis promised a return to peace and prosperity, in return for obedience and conformity to the State.  Reading about Jewish life in Berlin before the Nazis, I suddenly and horribly realised why the Nazis, as extreme Statists, could not let them survive.  I also saw a sad parallel with our modern situation.
  
Before the Nazis, the Jews of Berlin had a Community.  What do I mean by that?

• They lived their lives and took their ethics from a centuries old religious belief system, a belief system that, whilst positive and not hostile to the State, did not originate with the State or its philosophy.
• The Jewish Community had elected leaders, respected individuals that were looked up to and whose wise decisions were followed.  Statists will always find this a threat, demanding, as it does, obedience and respect to and for itself and its officials.
• Many influential Jews were independent business people and had independent wealth, not needing assistance from the State.
• Jewish people looked after their own.  They built hospitals, homes for the elderly, schools and orphanages.  They did not look to the State to provide this assistance and therefore could not be induced to follow the State in return for that assistance.

The State cannot sanction sections of the community that refuse to conform to their control.  The Nazis, as extreme Statists, could not tolerate such a challenge to their wish to subjagate all areas of German society to their wishes.  Jews and their beliefs therefore had to be made to seem foreign, anti-German and dangerous.  I need not go into what happened as a result.

Sadly, Statism is alive and well in modern society.  Our political class, drunk on the easy assumption of power by making citizens believe that Government alone can provide safety and security, continue to maintain the Cult of the State.

In the US, it has culminated in such outrages as Waco, where a religious community was murdered on flimsy pretext.  Their crime, at least in my eyes, was wanting to live independently of, and having a belief system not sanctioned by, the State.

In UK society, it has manifested in the destruction of the Family.  The Family, after all, is the smallest form of Community in Society.  It has (or had) all the independent aspects that I have described above as belongiong to the Jewish Community of Berlin, pre-Nazi era.  If the State can destroy the family, then it has won.  Children then are not members of a family, they are wards of the State.  Adults are not senior members of families or, on a larger scale, communities, they are merely members of a greater "Society", controlled by the State.  I shuddered when I read last week of a UK Government Minister who insists that more children should be taken into care, overriding the rights of biological parents.  The State's record of looking after children in care is abysmal, to say the least.

Wouldn't it be lovely to think we could create Communities once again?  Communities that have a shared vision and belief system - would it matter what those beliefs were, as long as they were positive and non-invasive to others?  Communities that provide employment through independent businesses and security by looking after its own members.  Communities that give security that others in your locality are looking out for you and are willing to assist you in times of hardship.

Most importantly, communities that are independent and free from State control and therefore do not demand that you give up all individual rights in return for what is fake security, as does the State.

Pavement plaques, Tor Strasse, remembering Jewish residents, deported and murdered.