There’s lots of reasons.
Mostly though, it’s because people cringe at anything outside the “mainstream”. There are certain things that are taboo. Calling the government a “criminal gang” is one of them, and Austrians tend to do that sometimes.
Taboos vary from group to group, depending on conditioning/group size.[the larger the group, the more taboos]. For example , as you note, calling the government a “criminal gang” outside of Austrian and libertarian /anarchist groups is, as you say ,“taboo”, while it is virtually mainstream inside the Austrian and libertarian /anarchist associated groups.
On the other hand, while Austrian and libertarian /anarchist associated groups may have fewer taboos overall, within theses circles, other ideas are taboo and often deemed heretical/ dismissed out of hand which is, to my mind, effectively no different from “the mainstream” routinely dismissing any one who calls the government “a criminal gang” .
In other words, there is an orthodoxy within Austro/libertarian circles which does not like to have its taboos/dogmas challenged or threatened, and will attempt to dismiss them out of hand without serious examination [ see my “newbie” post thread: for some interesting examples].
This is normal. Just one groups taboos against another groups - no big deal.
I say get used to it, it is [inevitably] how all groups function- and the larger they become, and the more political they become, the greater the number of taboos/dogmas within the group which are necessary to sustain it.
The “mainstream” has its taboos, Austrians and libertarians have theirs [which will grow in number the more followers it/they attract]- but no difference really.
This post wins
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People don’t know it exists.
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Abolishing government, or reducing it in size drastically, is viewed as an extreme position. Only Democrats and Republicans, which are in favor of the current system with a couple of changes, are viewed as mainstream.
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Most people don’t know economics (even some of the ones who claim they are “experts”), since they do not know the difference between good and bad economists, and they cannot tell the difference. Economics, and other human sciences like history, are different from things like science and math in this regard. As I originally heard Jon Irenicus state, it is much easier to tell a good scientist from a bad scientist than a good economist from a bad economist.
There are a lot of people that are ignorant to economics. As long as times are good they don’t feel the need to understand it. Back in 2005 when things appeared great you had people like Ron Paul claiming the dollar would some day collapse and we needed to return to gold money. People thought Ron Paul was crazy and had archaic views - and probably didn’t belong in politics. They thought / think inflation is a good thing because economists on TV tell them that’s what happens when you have a healthy booming economy.
Then the dollar collapses. Those intelligent enought to watch the evening news may start to question whether their political economists knew what they were taking about in 2005. The interested few start to look for answers elsewhere and maybe even read a book.
We are fortunate to have a couple popular guys like Peter Schiff and Ron Paul that appear on TV to let the masses know that there are actual people that did predict all this would happen. That the political economists were wrong. This makes individuals question the system and maybe even look for answers elsewhere.
And of course gov’t hates Austrian Economists. We believe in small government, low taxes, stable commodity money that the government can’t counterfeit and elimination of the Federal Reserve. We are against everything they use to give themselves more power & economic control, their ability to confiscate private property from the citizens and their ability to redistribute that wealth.
There is some of that but I think people pretty much assume fairly high levels of government corruption and incompetence so I don’t think this has nearly as much shock value as it would in, say, 1948.
I think it’s more a symptom of a society conditioned to believe in free lunches. Nobody likes being told credit is impossible without savings, you have to produce before you can consume, etc. Another problem is most people are employees, not entrepeneurs, and they’ve got a whole host of laws that have the effect of elevating this pure privilege into some sort of “right.” Unless you’re on the front lines in an industry trying to convince people to give you their money you tend to think of commerce as this automatic income stream in which you’re entitled to participate. These are the kind of people who never even look at their witholding amounts and think a tax refund is free money.
A large percentage of the government’s spending goes to support a mandatory brainwashing system through which every child is forced to graduate from.
I would point the finger in that direction.
Here’s the way I see it. The state directs in what direction the funds go, currently, the directions are utilitarianism and relativism in terms of ethics and positivism in terms of economic science.
The implication of utilitarianism is that through social engineering the state can acheive an outcome in line with that prescribed by utilitarianism. The implication of positivism is that we can only know what will happen by testing it. Both are essential to the social engineering.
Second-rate parenting, a bad public school system, an anti-intellectual pop culture, etc. I could give you a ton of reasons why it’s not popular. Being the son of ethnic immigrants, I’ve needlessly adopted just about every liberal guilt concept there is. It was my unrelenting pursuit of truth and knowledge that actually led me to this forum. Considering I read every page of that propagandistic garbage that is the Shock Doctrine before making it this far, I’d say it’s quite a feat(No, I don’t confuse you with Chicago School) that is unfortunately far beyond the effort a layman will put in.
This topic is very broad and I had to make an effort not to go off on any tangents. Anything specific you’d like to ask?
This 100%. The only moral absolutism taught in public schools is that the you “owe” the state everything. It’s very efficient, actually. You pledge allegiance to the flag every moment, then you are taught about Americans doing great things. Entrepreneurs, inventors, etc. America gives people of various backgrounds the privilege of being here. If you work hard an succeed, it is because of the opportunities that America has “given” you. I’d love it if my parents got their properrty taxes refunded.
It is harder to explain to most people why Libertarianism and Austrian economics is good. It is easier to say the state will solve our problems then to say the free market will bring about prosperity when people don’t even understand how the free market functions. With the state its easier to conceptualize and accept having someone or a group of people that will lead us to prosperity with no effort on the part of the public. With Libertarianism you have an ambiguous hard to understand whole called the free market. People are also of the state of mind that if something is wrong government has to fix it. They can’t imagine a free market working by itself.
Then there is the fact that most people don’t even know what Libertarianism or Austrian economics is. They have no clue on how government interference is hurting the economy. Everything bad that happens is perceived as the fault of the faceless villains in Wallstreet. They can’t connect the dots between the FED and government. The federal reserve isn’t even part of the equation in their line of thinking because they don’t know what they do or even if they exist.
Finally, libertarianism needs more pragmatic spokespeople. Ron Paul can’t be criticizing GOP dogma like the war, drugs and expect to be picked as the presidential candidate. When Ron Paul puts everything on the table he confuses people. He should present only the common principles that are shared between the GOP and the general public like low taxes, less government in people’s lives, etc. Then when elected he can pursue his full agenda of liberty. This is how politics has always been played. Obama only presented populist ideas like “no lobbyist” or “going line by line on the budget” and saved his socialist agenda until after he got elected where he was free to dump his campaign slogans. You got to fool the people because the people are fools.
If Ron Paul gets asked about the war he should just say we have the right to defend ourselves and leave it at that. Let the people come up with whatever conclusions they like. If he gets asked about drugs he should say we should pursue violent drug dealers. Leave out that it is not because of the drug dealing but because they are violent. Obama played that game perfectly. He said we needed change but never said what type of change. He said he was not against the 2nd amendment but failed to mention that he was going to regulate it to death. Libertarians need to infiltrate both parties and play these word games to get elected and change their platform to focus on the commonalities in their respective parties.
Here’s the thing, Ron Paul was never going to get elected, no matter what his position was. Even if he had been elected he would never have been able to change anything. Instead he ran on a platform that appealed to a huge variety of people from across the political spectrum and created a movement that since has done many great things. If you want a sellout for a candidate that’s fair enough, but you can support Bob Barr in that case. As for confusing people, I don’t really see how that’s the case, Paul is a doctor who lives every principle he espouses and has a consistant record in congress, there’s no better person for the job.
Here’s the thing, Ron Paul was never going to get elected, no matter what his position was. Even if he had been elected he would never have been able to change anything. Instead he ran on a platform that appealed to a huge variety of people from across the political spectrum and created a movement that since has done many great things. If you want a sellout for a candidate that’s fair enough, but you can support Bob Barr in that case. As for confusing people, I don’t really see how that’s the case, Paul is a doctor who lives every principle he espouses and has a consistant record in congress, there’s no better person for the job.
People do understand Austrian economics. It’s actually intuitive and rather bleeding obvious once it is explained!
People do support libertarianism, that it is wrong to initiate force or fraud against others and their property. This is how everyone raises their children!
It’s only that most have never heard of or identified the philosophical/political labels for what they want. And then anti-logic religious beliefs and genes evolved under generations of slavery might contribute to the confusion.
To an extent, at least, more so than other economic schools of thought. I don’t think anybody would think that the laws of supply and demand are up for empirical testing.
People are immoral, plain and simple. It does not take a genius to see that ruling over someone without consent is immoral, but people are OK with it anyways because they are afraid that without government, there would be chaos. A completely unfounded fear.
AE takes a position that is viewed as extreme: everyone taking responsibility for all their actions.
the only people who like this idea are people who are already responsible. this is a minority and always will be. most people want to be like children and be taken care of with no responsibility.
I have to disagree. I know plenty of responsible people that do not agree.