The notion is to employ as many resources as possible to produce as little as possible. You have to grow the full crop, so you buy seed and fertilizer, you employ as much labour as possible. Then you destroy parts of the supply, making the remainder not only scarce, but relatively expensive to produce.
It is unbelievably evil and I have a hard time believing it is based on good intentions.
Oh, I know what you’re talking about now. They do this to keep income up for farmers. This was a consequence of fixing prices in the rest of the market. If food prices go down, then the store owners aren’t making their money either, and the rest of the market prices drop in accord. Yet, with fixed prices, including wages, this would crush the farmers and kill the food supply for the non-farmer market prices wouldn’t be able to drop since the State is fixing the prices at a standard level.
Demand for food in general should be inelastic, people gotta eat. Demand for a particular food would be more elastic since there are so many substitutes. Whether a farmer over produced or underproduced, his net would likely be the same, approaching break-even in the long run. If he over produced and was unable to bring some goods to market, he’d have the choice of destroying the excess ot letting it rot.
When FDR forced farmers to destroy crops while people were starving, this was clearly evil, only benefitting the farmers large and small at the expense of the masses facing higher prices, inflation, and more limited supply.
Yes.
I just wanna play devil’s advocate, but didn’t that program instead pay people to destroy food?
I’m no historian but I inferred that FDR payed small farmers to destroy their crops, artificially reducing supply which benefited both large and small producers and hurt the consumers with higher market prices and greater public debt and/or monetary inflation.
I’d rather have my belly full than my pocket full.
“I’m no historian but I inferred that FDR payed small farmers to destroy their crops, artificially reducing supply which benefited both large and small producers and hurt the consumers with higher market prices and greater public debt and/or monetary inflation.”
The Grapes of Wrath is actually accurate on this point.
First they were paid to destroy crops and animals. Then they were paid to not raise animals and crops.
This is one of those again, “unintended consequences” that the State partakes in (I don’t like the unintended part of this concept cause they know what’s going on they just turn a blind eye). The market is pulling prices down, houses, food, wages, furniture, etc… And the government bubbles up parts of the economy to show happy times are still here, meanwhile, rest of market is pulling prices down and everybody would be better off if the bubble will just pop. But government regulation and price fixing isolated the farmers for their labor yielded a good harvest. How does one part of the market get jacked up and bubbled while others parts are pulling the supply/demand prices into harmony? One part is propaganda.
It took years for people to believe that farmers were not only getting kicked off their land in the midwest, but that they were also living in shacks and populating in large numbers California and the borders thereof. State police put up roadblocks and wouldn’t let some people travel across state borders. John Steinbeck wrote about these events as he actually went and visited some of these places. But the FBI kept an eye on him and Steinbecks “Grapes of Wrath” was being laughed at as lies. It became political enough that FDR’s wife went to the southwest eventually to see what all the excitement was about. She saw it and came back and said Steinbeck’s book was not only true but actually downplayed the horror to some extent. Meaning, it was even worse than what Steinbeck wrote about. Steinbeck’s life was marked and watched by the State until he died. He tried to go into the military and serve during World War Two, but he wasn’t allowed to serve in the military only as a reporter (I believe it was this role he was only allowed to serve as). Yeah, even while farmers were getting kicked off their land by the State and some went west, the big magazines like “Time” and “Life” were denying that any of this was going on.
but hey the State can just categorize these events as “unintended consequences”… what a load of sh-t
We could almost surmise that employment is as important as high prices, if not more important.
It’s the classic government mistake, confuse activity with production.
I think the State’s consequences are far more unintended than you give them ‘credit’ for. And it really isn’t credit - they’re not malicious, they’re well-meaning, ignorant, incredibly biased in terms of what information and opinions they have/receive. There are exceptions, but those are exceptions. People don’t lie that well. There are simply not that many cynical sociopaths in the human race. Granted, many cynical sociopaths might be attracted to politics. But most politicians, government employees and their extensions - media for example - are really trying to help, and many of them think they are. They just can’t conceive of the other alternatives, and rarely encounter them anyway.
And, yes, their personal and ideological interests often manage to ‘dovetail’ surprisingly well - but perhaps you Misesians know a thing or two about ‘incentives’ - and people respond to incentives in the formation of belief much more than they’ll admit. Some actually believe in that the natural moral order of the Universe (whatever that means) exactly coincides with Anglo-Germanic Property Law. Some of them, on the other hand, have rather casual beliefs that ‘violence is often an effective response’. It may be ugly, but there’s more truth to the latter than the former.
“The Irrelevance of Economic Theory to Understanding Economic Ignorance” http://www.criticalreview.com/crf/jf/20_3_caplan.pdf
Between de Jasay and Critical Review (Jeffrey Friedman esp.) you get a much more realistic view than this parochial ‘libertarian’ spread, including Public Choice theory. The assumptions and conclusions are just too unrealistic from this ideological corner. That’s not to say, however, that they’re all wrong or baseless.
Libertarians tend to know more about political science and political economy than most people. But they are often philosophically - limited. They often make such spurious arguments like - “moral relativism is self-contradictory, therefor moral absolutism is true.” Which is a non-sequiter. They are both different propositions, and a false dichotomy.
as far as i can tell many people are stuck on a false paradigm, on morality. the truth of it, is this morality true?, is that morality true? etc.
I would claim that it is wrongheaded to struggle over whether some particular theory of morality is true or not, or whether there is a true morality that awaits discovery… Investigation into a theory of morality start and end with finding a moral theory that is coherent, consistent and can fulfill the function which morality is supposed to fill. i.e. utilitarianism is a moral theory that fails to be coherent consistent and capable of fulfulling the role of a ‘morality’, hence its discarded. My perspective is that natural law ticks the boxes, and will do. Hence when I consider morality issues, i use it.
I dont claim that my perspective is shared by others here, I am speaking for myself.
I don’t have any particular problem with anglo-germanic property law, but that’s all it is - law, jurisprudence, arbitration. There are good schelling points, solid epistemilogical presumptions, high neutrality factors and a handful of consequences that agree with me. Justice is a line of arbitration argument, law is a profession - and it’s got nothing to do with morality, or freedom, or anything. But, at the same time, no one has any imperative to be ‘just’, and there are many points where justice is nothing but simple convenience of convention. It’s entirely up to you to give a damn about ‘the law’.
I understand the State is unintended in its’ consequences. I don’t think the State thinks very well, and I’m talking about the politicians. Americans that I come across have few principles that they are aware enough as they conduct their lives towards each other. I say aware, cause they perform actions that are honest and principled, but they don’t always have the reason as to why they do this or that. But they can sure remember what their mom or dad told them at times.
I think the State runs like a huge peer pressure social club. When the politician goes home he or she saves money. When they go to work for the government they don’t. They’ve convinced themselves that the rules are different. When I say unintended consequences are shit, what I mean is eventually the blame game has to come back to introspection. I understand the intellect is dulled in the government, it’s the social patterns overrunning them. But that introspection is obvious at times, but they quickly forget and have to hide from appearing to be a cause of a social disease. For instance, the AIG bonuses were seen as an outrage by Congress. Yet, the funny thing is Congress signed the bill that allowed them to have bonuses. I’m sure this comes up often. Lindsey Graham made a speech this week I believe it was about how Obama is spending the country into such a huge debt. Yet Graham signed off on all the bills for the stimulus and Graham brought up nationalizing banks in D.C. Yet back home with his voters he speaks a different story. They’re not simply idiots, they’re liars.
Yes there is the knowledge factor. No doubt. I didn’t know before what I know now. But I live a life in which decisions matter more often than not. Politicians create and create even more a bubble for themselves so disconnected and thick that lying and covering up actions is what is called a stereotypical politician. It’s more normal for some of them to do such events. So when will the truth ever be able to pop its head up and give them the precise knowledge to change? I don’t know.
As for the other stuff you mentioned above, I haven’t been into this stuff to be as aware or knowledgeable about the little nuisances in libertarian thought. And the dualistic factor has been long gone from me for well over a decade, but as I said, I don’t know the particulars your scope of awareness speaks of. I just want the State to back-off and also admittedly I want to be able to comprehend this aspect of my life and therefore when I talk to others or my son I want to be able keep their minds down to earth instead of up in the Stately-clouds. I love the woods you know…
So? You don’t know what morality is, but now you’re an expert? And you say you don’t believe in freedom, but now you say morality has nothing to do with freedom… circular or what?
She didn’t say that
or that
or that (but I think she would, and would say that she prefers freedom)
She didn’t say that either
thebob this is what happens when you take a knee-jerk reaction. I’ve been talking with her for a couple days now. She has said this stuff. Don’t be a goof![^o)]
I know what morality is, it’s a cognitive bias and a socio-ideological construct.
Freedom is a vacuous concept like equality. It means nothing, which is why so many people use the word to mean contradictory things.
Justice is seperate from morality as a matter of history and classification; morality may have opinions on jurisprudence but jurisprudence is nothing but arbitration based on conventions, typically including argument.
But she certainly knows all about nihilism, besides her avatar is cute and she’s one of the few female voices here …
I differ. I think morality is intellectual harmony. I also think morality is dynamic. I can see morality being socio-ideological, but that’s minimizing.
Freedom is dynamic. Freewill is limited by particular patterns. The intellect has constructed a good way to diversify free-will via natural property, but then again you don’t accept these things so your comments are based on your opinion outside of spheres of living.
Justice concerned with restoring and sustaining harmony of the social and intellectual kind is the effort of non-contradiction, being considered rational, and peace rather than discord and disconnected whether in theorem or conduct with other people or carbon stabilizing enough for biological creatures to sustain via immunity and others factors to live a life before the dust to dust cycle is completed. Harmony for a human is completely different than harmony for a sand grain. I don’t want to get shot at. I have no idea if a sand grain on the sidewalk thinks about such events to sustain it’s life.
And so what if it’s conventional? I do eat bread, and crap like most other humans. Your meta-talk seems to disconnect you from what I mean. Creates havoc in our discussion, rather than intellectual harmony or understanding. I can meta-talk too, but I’m not going to run over another’s perspective for the sake of what is reality scenarios. I mean we don’t know what reality is fully. It’s new in events each moment. But so be it. Just don’t run my property over with your power.[:)]