WTF Rockefeller funded Mises?

[dalai]

Fractional reserve creates negative externalities. The third parties are not free in this case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KmlSxvwqbo

[Merlin]

Do such alleged externalities include a direct destruction of the physical property of third parties? I don’t think so. Nobody owes me a ‘solid’ monetary system.

[Anarcho-libertarian]

@Autolykos

It gives credence to my suspicion that TPTB essentially follow the Austrian school of economics without being public about it. Why would they do this? If you’ve seen the movie Apocalypto, do you remember the solar-eclipse scene? The king, queen, and high priests at the top of the sacrificial pyramid knew what was really going on, but the masses at the bottom had no idea. The high priest proceeded to lie to the masses about what was going on, and the masses ate it up. Exploiting such an extreme asymmetry of information can apparently be very profitable. Most people, however, won’t try to persist such exploitation by deceit or worse unless 1) they believe they have strong incentives to do so, and/or 2) they’re psychopaths.

Professor Jason Jewell at the LibertyClassroom.com forums was asked why people worshipped the pharaohs and whether it was because they had special knowledge with which they were able to fool the people. He responded:

“The pharaoh, backed by the priests, did have some tricks up his sleeve. Some Egyptian temples had sophisticated ways of measuring the water levels in the Nile and could ‘predict’ the annual floods before anyone else noticed the changes in the levels. Priests typically were the only people who were literate.”

[ClaytonB]

I am curious, What does everyone think the most important virtue or psychological trait is with regard to gaining, keeping, and accumulating power?

Please note I provided no ranking of the virtues. Personally, I think we need the lot of them and a big part of the problem with the encroaching, global cultural monolith is precisely that it elevates a very small number of virtues to the be-all-end-all of human virtue. In the process, only people exhibiting these virtues can achieve material success in life and so all the other (absolutely essential) virtues end up being marginalized and neglected and society devolves into this hyper-sterilized, hyper-jackbooted, hyper-anal-retentive culture created in the image and likeness of the Pentagon.

Clayton -

[DanielMuffinburg]

Wait, so what are the virtues and which ones are elevated?

[ClaytonB]

There are a large number of virtues that can be named - kindness, friendliness, diligence, nurturing, forethought, frugality, etc. etc. My contention is that the martial virtues (discipline, physical fitness, punctuality, persistence, energy, ambition, etc. etc.) are assigned the highest seat in modern American culture to the marginalization of other virtues. In fact, if someone is more sensitive than punctual, we consider such a person to be “irresponsible” on net. This bias towards the martial virtues leads to a general beating down of virtuous people who simply exhibit virtues other than the martial virtues. What we really need, instead, are the positive contributions of all virtuous people to our culture and life.

Clayton -