Idiots against Tom Dilorenzo and FA Hayek

Economics Political Theory
1

I just found this video on youtube. Apparently incensed Lincoln and Hamilton fans hate Hayek and Tom Dilorenzo. Not sure why.

The caption reads:

A short bio of von Hayek, and people he associated with and praised.

Thank you all who have added to the discussion on this issue. I put this together in a couple of hours partly from my anger at the Alexander Hamilton and Abe Lincoln slander speech by Thomas Dilorenzo posted by Nielsio. After looking at it again, I’ll admit that its rather limited in its scope, since to know who Hayek is, you have to discuss the last 2000 years of history, in particular, the fight between the idea of a republican nation-state (as reflected in the discussion in Plato’s dialogues), and that of the oligarchical model which came out of the Babbylonian system through Rome, Venice, and the Anglo/Dutch financial oligarchy up to today. Like all propagandists that the oligarchy have hired throughout history, von Hayek reflects an outlook of mankind that is morally disgusting and should be rejected by any civilization that doesn’t want to end up in the toilet bowl of history like most vanished civilizations have.

For your information, I have compiled a list of the Foundations and think tanks that were set up to promote this Hayekian outlook which has resulted in the US and the world facing the worst economic crisis since the 14th century dark age, caused by the Venetian banks Lombard and Parduci collapsing. I’ll list the Institution and how much they’ve collected since the 80’s. Roughly, they’ve spent a quarter of a Billion dollars in this effort. Shouldn’t that have been spent on something more useful to mankind instead of trying to legalize criminality?

Cato Institute $22.4 million
Hudson Institute $14.9 million
Hoover Institute $24 million
Intercollegate Studies Institute $13 million
Independent Womens Forum $7.7 million
Heritage Foundation $57.5 million
Heartland Foundation $3 million
Certer for Security Policy $6.3 million
Competitive Enterprise Institute $5.1 million
American Enterprise Institute $30 million
Reason Foundation $6.3 million
American Legislative Exchange Council $3.2 million
Citizens for a Sound Economy $16.9 million
Committee For A Constuructive Tomorrow $1.2 million
Collegiate network $3.9 million
Pacific research Institute $8.9 million

Here are the Foundations that fund them.

Lyne & Harry Bradley Foundation
Richard Mellon Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage, Allegheny, & Scaife Family)
John M. Olin Foundation
Coors Foundations (Castle Rock)
JM Foundation
Koch Foundations (Charles G. Koch, David H. Koch, Clause R. Lambe)
Philip Mckenna Foundation
Walton Family Foundation
Wiliam Simon Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation
Liberty Fund
Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation
John Templeton Foundation
Earheart Foundation
Jaqueline Hume Foundation
Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation
Randolph Foundation

As a disclaimer, I still believe that all these folks have a right to fund whatever salespeople they want to hire, just as much as the other foundations fund the environmentalist movement, which is just as destructive a philosophy as the belief in the free market.

I’m actually really mad that the Mises institute didn’t get on the list of morally disgusting institutes. I guess Tom Dilorenzo is a bigger celeb than Mises now.

2

Mises Institute isn’t funded by Koch. They are too poor to be worth mentioning.

3

Baaaaah! Baaaaah! Free market baaaaaaad! [:P]

4

The video is hilarious with all of the voices – he actually gets Hayek’s voice somewhat correct.

The point he’s trying to make in the video or even what he is arguing against is unclear though.

5

$250 million?!?! Oh my gods! That’s almost up to par to Obama’s $265 million feel-good campaign! Woohoo, we are on our way!

Now we just have to figure out how to raise that kind of cash in, say, a year. As opposed to over the span of several decades…

6

So the moral of the story is, Hayek was a Nazi!

7

That’s pretty much what I got out of it.

8

Lyndon Larouche alert!

9

You know that the guy is a idiot because he refers to Hayek as “von Hayek.” I’ve never heard anyone that has any knowledge whatsoever of the Austrian school ever hear that.

10

huh? it is “von Hayek,” is it not? though most people drop the von

11

I have never heard anyone who has any familiarity with any of Hayek’s writings call him “von Hayek.”

12

Perhaps because the proper appellation changes according to how the author is being referred to? E.g. maybe it drops away if he is referred to as Professor. English is full of bizarre grammatic rules. I usually retain the “von”.

13

I think the point is that there is no “von” in the name hayek.

14

His full name is Friedrich August von Hayek.

15

You have to give the guy some credit for creating a video much more appealing and interesting than the collectivist stuff you find over most of youtube. I actually watched the thing to the end, it’s obvious he did some research and put some energy to it, and I found some of his comments witty even if the logic is seriously flawed. For instance, as I read Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, I also got some bad taste at some parts where he is pretty commending and apologetic of England. I understand where he was coming from – the book wasn’t meant to be so long lived; the purpose was to attract people at the time towards a more decentralized line, which is why he is so moderate in the book as well. It does remove some recommendability out of the book today though: while there is good stuff in it, I wouldn’t feel confortable to recommend it to someone without at least making a disclaimer clear.

Anyway, the bulk of his argumentation is association fallacies. Would be more interesting if it contained some actual argumentation against laissez-faire, but these kind of bunch never seem too prone to reason. And I don’t see much consistency in being against the British empire, but forward a British state. It’s just a matter of scales. If it’s bad for people in London to rule people in Mumbai, it’s also wrong for people in London to rule people in Edinburgh – or even nearby Cambridge. And is it less wrong for the person from the 10 Downing Street to rule another from another part of the city. He would get to succession at the individual level if it went through that kind of reasoning.

By the way, I’m so tired of the Pinochet argumentation. I’m not even sure what the point is exactly; the only point I see them making is that economic totalitarism doesn’t necessarily follow from political totalitarism. I do think there tends to be a correlation between the two – where’s the fun of being a dictator if you don’t boss people around? – besides I think bloody regimes are very much afraid of information freedom, and that is much harder to control if you have the pesky free trade going around, but it’s a very good point nevertheless. Either way, what exactly is the argument against free markets they’re making? It seems they’re only trying to play mind tricks with that line of argumentation – but with so many deaths by socialist regimes, including throughout South America countries at the time, is anyone influenced by that?

Also, if you look at his many videos, weird that’s the single one he has made on Hayek (or Dilorenzo). I wouldn’t be surprised if he picked Hayek’s obscure names so people wouldn’t have a standard of proof to compare anything he says about them. At the same time, there are a lot of hits on Hayek, and some people might even recall Hayek’s name as referenced somewhere, so that seems to give plausibility to his argument that he has had much political influence in his time and including today. He opens and ends the video by saying Congress representatives are indoctrinated and followers of him – yeah, right.

16

I don’t think “von” being used or not has to do with English, but with German. Aren’t there English name that have these possesive terms on them, or other such connection terms? Maybe “Paul of Brown”? Either way, in most languages you do, and you’re only supposed to read it if you are citing the full name, especially because it might be confusing otherwise – “von” means “of” in German, so you can imagine how convoluted it would be to read a text where it is being used before some last names and not others.

17

Well that’s the thing. In English the full name is used, possibly alongside the title. I think you’re right on German usage of the name though, perhaps Mises is more appropriate than von Mises.