[patriciacolling]

I actually used a card that I didn’t want to use because I didn’t want to risk an overdraft on the card that I would have preferred to use.

[patriciacolling]

I’m sorry–trying to understand the second paragraph…”it doesn’t follow…that the pattern of prices…bears no relationship to people’s preferences”?
As I was writing my last post, I understood that entrepreneurs are still satisfying consumer preferences; but, I’m reading the Great Deformation and I think it is arguable that the loose monetary policy has created non-productive trades and that much of the market’s foresight is in response to the easy money. Therefore, many people are getting rich that aren’t necessarily in government but conceivably shape government to protect their ends; and, they are probably not providing net value to the economy. Moreover, the preferences of these people that possess so much disposable money create markets in the private sector. Do you believe we can improve the economy by privatizing things that are currently under government purview and by reforming the tax code? I’m of the opinion that all bets are off as long as we have government issuing currency, particularly fiat. Sorry if I seem to be getting off track. I guess I just worry about so much of the debate being on taxes, interventionism and the mixed economy, which I am against, while only paying lip service to the monetary system, which I believe is the source of all the other distortions. I want to be satisfied with your answers and not waste your time–I have a lot to learn so this must be frustrating for you. Thank you for engaging me all the same.

[patriciacolling]

I think where I’m confused is that we do not have an unhampered market. I think it’s possible, with an inflating money supply, that someone might value your barter more than paper and one might have a better offer with their barter than what he has been able to accumulate in currency +/or money. A bit of a regression do to central banking, I’d say. Even if we do not call currency money–currency can still be used to attain money for a store of value–which gives the current wealth accumulators–that may have participated in the use of government aggression, as well as fraud–an advantage in trade. This may be something we’re just going to have to accept. In Iceland, I hear, some people went to jail but who can say justice was served? Having exceptional foresight and practicing austerity are not the only ways people get rich–again, not an unhampered market phenomenon. Furthermore, people with exceptional foresight and that exercise austerity aren’t always able to get ahead. However, currently we are all forced to participate in fraud because we trade in dollars, which is fiat. I have no way of knowing my value to the economy because I am paid in fiat. Many think I am paid too much–who is to say? I do know I provide some value in aiding in the transport of mail, but I do not know how much. Even people in the private sector that do not depend on subsidies are still paid in fiat; and, therefore, cannot say they are rightly compensated when you acknowledge the world market…let alone bureaucrats, central bankers and welfare recipients. I do think that I understand your answer, but I also see a role for barter, albeit small and rare, in any economy. Thank you.

[patriciacolling]

Unhampered Market Economy

[patriciacolling]

The private property discussions are under Life and Property and Private Property in General Discussion forum.

[patriciacolling]

I think eventually the free market would have used outer space. Who is SmartMuffin? Anyway, I don’t know about the statement “the free market is designed to fill the most urgent needs of individuals”. People can invest their capital any way they want–hind sight is 20/20 even in a free market.

[patriciacolling]

I strongly believe that all bets are off without the use of honest money in civilization.

[patriciacolling]

Incrementally, of course. A market’s ends will get us there. The means come from building on past accomplishments. Government is romanticized as being the expedient way of doing things. One must engage in austerity to soundly produce. My belief is that we’d be much further along like the tortoise in the race than having used force (government) as a means to an end.

[patriciacolling]

Thank you, I’m much more comfortable with that answer.

[patriciacolling]

Cool, got it back!

[patriciacolling]

Do people have a right to protect their property by shooting at trespassers on sight? I believe Hoppe wrote that that sort of aggression is not congruent with defense of property. I would have to agree. Ultimately, however, it is the community that decides this–I’m not sure “natural rights” address these gray areas. Even with negotiating, the property owner has the final say–he may be persuaded by discomfort to compromise, I suppose. A scenario in which property owners chase someone off their properties until the trespasser dies of exhaustion does not sound moral to me. That may sound extreme and unlikely but, with refugees, I suppose it applies somewhat. Perhaps life takes precedence over material/land property and freedom as a natural right; and, therefore, a system of containing those that are not accommodated freely would exist through private contract to satisfy this dilemma. Rothbard and Block, if I understand it correctly, address abortion as a means of evicting a “trespasser.” I find this morally repugnant and, indeed, an assault on natural rights. I suppose that my philosophy is life first; and, indeed, that there is a hierarchy of natural rights. Perhaps I would put it as: Life, first; Property, second; Freedom, third. Has that principal ever been suggested–if so, by whom and whence? Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote …”Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” The latter originally being, “the pursuit of property,” or so I have heard; but, I’m not sure he was putting them in order of importance. I think I would put private property before liberty, myself, because otherwise it is wholly untenable. Now I’m not suggesting that we have “positive” rights in that we must provide sustenance for others; but, morally, we cannot get in the way of their personal survival. At which point does our defense of property create a death sentence? Well, that’s another area of gray that the community must decide, I guess.

[patriciacolling]

Darn it. I just spent a half hour writing a reply and it didn’t register! I was suggesting a hierarchy of natural rights beginning with life, then property, then freedom. Not suggesting positive rights in that we are not morally obligated to give sustenance to someone but in that we cannot get in the way of his survival. At which point does our defense of property give a death sentence to someone? Well, that is a gray area, I suppose on which the community must decide.

[patriciacolling]

Ultimately, I guess the left doesn’t want growth–just redistribution. Hasn’t it always been the goal of the left (or socialists) to destroy the “bourgeoisie”? Do they believe that the proletariat is worse off with a burgeoning middle class when it has actually included the labor force? Is the intent on killing the entrepreneur even when he has raised with the workings of a more unhampered economy its standard of living? Maybe you should direct the conversation to what the end game is. It would appear that the left is so caught up in its original intent that it cannot see the light. Indeed, I would say, the socialists have thrown in with the elitists to meet their end–a greater portion of the world’s capital. How are the socialists suppose to get rid of the rulers once the competitive market economy is destroyed? Will they finally reach their nirvana when the whole world is in squalor?

[patriciacolling]

If it’s not reflecting real growth in how it is calculated then what good are the comparisons?

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