The Right to Life is also the Right to Death

Suicide - people don't talk favourably of that sort of thing. But could it be said that the right to end you own life is a key natural right all people possess? David Hume once wrote a great essay justifying the right to suicide to many of its religious critics. I would approach this from a different perspective though - the perspective of property rights and self-ownership. The definition of property (as I have written before on this blog as well as countless articles and school papers) which I accept is: "that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe". This is, of course, the definition written by the great codifier of Natural Law, Lord William Blackstone. The only thing I would change in that definition is the removal of the adjective 'external' which I consider superfluous because internal things (such as our bodily organs) are clearly also our property (unless Lord Blackstone used the word 'external' as referring to all things external to the conscious mind, in which case I would agree - the physical body is external to the mind after all).
So what does property have to do with suicide? Well, since property right is despotic, it includes the right of destruction. If we own something, we may destroy it. It might not be prudent or advisable to do so, but we have the right to destroy out property. In fact, I always use this easy exercise to see if something is actually property. Just ask yourself (about the thing you are trying to determine whether it is your property) if you are allowed to destroy it. If you are, it is your property. If not (i.e. someone else has the right to prevent you from destroying it) then it is not. To be a property owner means being a despot! This is always a criticism I have levelled at so-called 'left-libertarians' or 'socialist anarchists'. They reject the despotic aspects of property and yet claim it exists. In a way, they are involved in a simple contradiction. Property is by definition a despotic right; it is a tautology to speak of it this way.
And this, in turn, means that if we own our body, we have the right to destroy it any time we damn well please. In fact preventing people from committing suicide is an act of usurpation (as defined in yesterday's post, it is the claiming of their rights for your own). If you prevent someone from killing themselves what you are really saying is "I have a claim on your right to life that is stronger than you own right to life". This is a clear breach of the self-ownership principle. The 'rescuer' is claiming ownership of the person attempting suicide. This is clearly an acknowledgement of slavery.
I write this post today because I had a conversation about this with a friend of mine today and she seemed to be very sceptical about it. We were watching a program on Polish TV which was about people who 'saved' others from suicide. The suicide 'victims' are then treated as mentally ill people. The word victim is very much out of place there by the way - am I a victim of starvation if I don't eat of my own choice, for example? I cannot be a victim of my own actions because I cannot commit a crime against myself, it is a logical impossibility.

Juan de Mariana - The Anarcho-Monarchist Visionary?

The great Jesuit Juan de Mariana is that man who most anarcho-libertarians know for his unprecedented understanding of the economic theory of money and principled stand against tyranny of any kind. But isn't what Mariana describes in some way a proto-Anarcho-Monarchist order? I would suggest so. Coming from the traditional Monarchist tradition of the Catholic Scholastics, Mariana writes about the people freely aiding the King while he performs his duties of protecting them and their property. He also points out, however (in his De Rege), that all people have to consent voluntarily and any authority gained by conquest can never become legitimate - even if the conquered party consents to the ruler (or state legislation) after the fact. Furthermore, if any subject of the King deems that the King is not acting in society's interest, he may freely leave the jurisdiction of the King by secession (Mariana does not explicitly say this, but I infer it from his writings about any party being able to break out of the 'compact' when wronged). And, if the King prevents him or a multitude of others from doing so while acting in a tyrannical way (imposing taxes upon them without consents or not allowing them to voice their opinions), he may justly assassinate the Tyrant. There is the key difference between Kings and Tyrants that Mariana points out and John Locke also mentions. As Locke writes: "[U]surpation is the exercise of power which another hath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to..." Clearly Tyrants and/or usurpers may be assassinated and this is justified by simple self-defense.
Mariana gives the example of the famous French monk, turned assassin, Jacques Clement. Brother Clement was justified in killing French King Henry III because the latter had become a tyrant and was no longer worthy of ruling the nation. Henry assassinated his Catholic opponents and tried to support his rule (and his successor's rule) with force.
This is, of course, not what Anarcho-Monarchism is in an exact degree (in my opinion, at least). Mariana, though an individualist Scholastic, still held some superstitious beliefs regarding the nation and the state being a single 'body politic' with a will. The breakthrough he reached was actually the limiting of this general will's power to a very large degree - but he never really dismissed it entirely. An Anarcho-Monarchist society would be even more voluntaryist and individualist than Mariana's. This is because Mariana's society relied mostly on personal honour, honesty, and chivalry. Such virtues are always laudable, but it is also always good to prop them up with contracts. Good will is not always enough to win the day.

So, was this rebellious Catholic School-man a predecessor of the Anarcho-Monarchist movement, and can his doctrine help define ours? You decide.

Peter Schiff tells it like it is! (As Always!)

I was about to write a blog post about inflation figures - the real inflation figures, not the ones that the US government puts out. And, lo and behold, the inestimable Peter Schiff came out with a videoblog on this topic (more or less) just now. Firstly, I would like to bless everyone with a very good source for real (not governmental) statistics about the economy (here). As Mr. Schiff recently pointed out, inflation is probably closer to 10% than it is to the government 3.6% figures. But what I really wanted to talk about was gold. Why is gold getting more expensive? People seem to think there is a bubble in gold! That is very naive thinking, however. Gold is really just a way of observing price inflation. It is not the value of gold that is going up, it is the value of all fiat currencies that is going down (simple supply-and-demand). Supply of fake-money ('toilet' paper) is going up and the supply of real-money (gold) is staying relatively the same, therefore the price relations between the two have to change. A good example to illustrate this is the Swiss Franc - how come gold prices haven't risen that much in relation to it? Simply because until recently it was not being inflated by the Swiss Central Bank!
And I have a few questions to the fiat cultists out there. For example, if it's good to print lots of money and create 'wealth' that way, why is Zimbabwe not the richest country in the world right now? Why is hyperinflation bad, but low inflation good? Or, another example, can we just use toilet paper as money - wouldn't that be just as good? Then we don't even have to spend resources on printing Central Bank notes!

As Friedrich von Hayek wrote: "I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments." Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that. So why do we keep putting up with it?

Ever more Western hypocricy...

Today I read a disturbing news report - Turkey has bombed 85 targets inside the sovereign state of Iraq where they claim Kurdish rebels of the Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) were stationed. The 'rebels' from this socialist group have been committing terrorist acts across Turkey in order to fight for their independence and the recreation of their previous state, Kurdistan. The Kurdish people are currently living in a state of diaspora all around the Middle-East, especially in Turkey and Iraq. The Turkish government is quite well-known for brutally suppressing Kurdish national identity amongst members of the Kurdish nation residing in Turkey. But that's not really what I'm after here. I would like to point out that Mr. Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq, was hanged for persecution of Kurds and (allegedly) killing a few of them. Now if this is true, why is Turkey, an important NATO member and key Western ally in the Middle-East, not being treated the same way Iraq was treated? We know for a fact they are repressing and killing civilians, and we know they have WMD's - they even have access to nuclear weapons for God's sake! We also know Turks are capable of mass murder and genocide (Armenia and Greece in the early 20th Century).
I am hoping someone will have the courage to condemn these bombings, but this is highly unlikely because the PKK has been officially recognized as a terrorist group equivalent to the likes of al-Qaeda. This incident will pass into the realm of history and no one will give it another thought. But what we can really see here is the effect of nationalism and strict statism. This whole problem could be solved if only the rigid and cruel states would allow secession to take place. And the US should really think about their stance here. The United States were founded through secession and facilitated through 'terrorist' means of George Washington's guerilla army.

My Views Vindicated by Pragmatics

Everyone knows I have been opposing Drunk Driving Laws for the last couple of years. I think such laws are unfair discrimination - there are people who can drive safely and well when drunk. Also, there is no reason to think a drunk person must necessarily behave in an unsafe way. It is probably more likely, but if probability was an issue here we would also have to arrest young people and skinheads for driving (both of those groups seem to be prone to recklessness in my experience).
Now I just found an article written back in 2010 by Mr. Radley Balko of reason.com. I know from experience (although I don't drive) that people often focus on how many drinks they can have before driving, which is a quote in the Balko article by a police officer. Mr. Balko is giving the practical side of the argument which I give in theory. All reckless driving should be punished (when evidence of reckless driving exists), not just drunk driving. I can't count the times I've seen people drive like crazy. Dangerous driving has nothing to do with drinking. By allowing the conclusion that driving while drunk is punishable, we allow what is in actual fact a prohibition. If driving when drunk is not okay, why is drinking alcohol ever okay? It's dangerous either way isn't it? A drunk man is more likely than a sober man to commit murder or just beat someone up, isn't he? So why allow alcohol at all?

"Occupancy and Use" - A Deadly Leftist Fallacy

In one of my last blog posts I mentioned something called 'Occupancy and Use' theory of property. This is a kind of strange concept where in order to own something (as personal property) you have to first acquire its use through something similar to Lockean homesteading and then keep using it. If you stop using the property it is considered abandoned and anyone can now get their hands on it ('re-homestead' it, so to speak). Occupancy and Use (OaU) is favoured mostly by leftist groups such as left-libertarians and anarchists. Famously it was the position held by Benjamin Tucker and other individualist anarchists. Now I see more and more people (who usually describe themselves as 'Mutualists') subscribe to this theory. In fact, a couple of my friends have recently argued with me about this because they seem to have become converts to this new faith.
But the OaU makes no sense to me at all. Not only does it seem illogical and weird (from my Rothbardian perspective), but it also seems impossible to put into practice. I think the whole point of inventing OaU was to eliminate rent in land. Rent, usury, and profit are, of course, perfectly legitimate; but socialists have been trying to purge the economic sphere of these essential elements. So what are some questions I have about OaU?
How is it possible to determine when someone is allowed to re-homestead a thing? If I take my dog out for a walk and come back to my house just to find a group of gypsies sitting there, can I kick them out? The squatters would argue that I left my land unattended and therefore I abandoned it. I really don't understand how someone could make such an arbitrary decision as seizing someone else's property! And what then about other items? I only use my vacuum cleaner once a week - does that mean that I don't own it on the other 6 days? And what about the food in my refrigerator, I'm not currently eating it, so can someone just homestead that? This just seems silly to me.
And how can capital accumulation take place in such a society? We all know that without capital accumulation investment is impossible, and without investment there is no economic growth of any kind. Clearly the very definition of accumulated capital is capital which is available for investment because it is not currently being used by the owner to satisfy his/her present needs.
But under a system of OaU if I tried to save up a quantity of anything (particularly land) I would be committing a immoral act. People would have the right to take my surplus goods or settle on my surplus land. Is this 'hand-to-mouth' reality really one we want to live in?

Am I missing something here, or are socialists really that crazy?

The Platonist Plague

Everyone knows the main flaw of the Platonist philosophy (and no, it isn't totalitarian utopianism): the belief that cocepts and ideas exist independently of the human mind. This means that, in essence, non-material things have a material existence somewhere outside the brain. The brain (or reason, to be precise) is only a medium which allows us to communicate with the world of ideas and draw knowledge from it. But this knowledge is not created by the mind, it is independent of it. Essentially Platonism is crazy, it is a mystical tradition which was picked up by Neo-Platonists such as St. Augustine and then passed on to through Hegel to Marx - the greatest spreader of such evil anti-human theology as communism and socialism in our world today.
Now it is true that I was heavily influenced by Plato myself in my early years of philosophical study and I still catch myself making some silly Platonic statements at times. Plato introduced me to the crucial concept of human nature and nature of other objects in general. His writings in this regard and rather useful - we can tell how and why his great pupil Aristotle (whose views are nearly a 180 degree reverse of Plato's) created his own ideas on nature. The introduction of the concept of nature (human nature and other things' natures) and its study of it is perhaps the single greatest contribution of ancient Greek philosophy.
Today, however, I see Platonism is exercising a very harmful effect on the minds of many people by fostering collectivism. When I opened the Polish news portal onet.pl I saw a number of headlines which were quotes from speeches by Polish politicians and other dignitaries pertaining to the holiday we are celebrating today. Here are the rough translations of the quotes:
1. President Bronisław Komorowski: "the Polish state is going through a test today"
2. Prime Minister Donald Tusk: "our National pride demands that the museum [General Pilsudski Museum] be created"
3. Archbishop Andrzej Dzięga: "the Nation has a right to ask questions about the Smolensk Catastrophe"
Now on the face of it these statements seem normal, but let's look at them from an individualist perspective. All these men above are naming fictional entities, none of which actually exist, and using personification in order to give these entities the appearance of intelligent acting beings. Thus 'National pride', 'the Polish state', and 'the Nation' have somehow become existing, speaking, acting things. They seem to have the right to 'demand' things from us! This is a deeply Platonic confusion which is now being applied by politicians, who probably actually believe in the truth of their words, in order to accomplish their goals.
But, NEWSFLASH GUYS, these 'beings' are not actually beings! They are only concepts which exist in your head! Continuing to personify such concepts and perhaps conversing with them (the men quoted above seem to know what the abstract concepts want) seems to me to be a sign of acute schizofrenia. I can no more access the knowledge of 'nation' than I can access other Platonic concepts like 'the good' or 'the beautiful'. The nation doesn't want anything because it doesn't have a mind to comprehend desire or a mouth to articulate it.
Or maybe someone can explain to me how can any such statements be in any way rational?

Baroness Margaret Thatcher, probably the greatest head-of-state in the 20th Century (at least in terms of ideological awareness) once said that "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women..." She understood that 'society' was a word now treated in a Platonic way. Rather than meaning the group of people occupying a certain area and sharing a community, 'society' became a living being, an entity with its own needs and goals. This is, of course, rather ridiculous. But such is the language of all mystics.

Resources are Limitless

Lately I have been hearing a lot about 'finite resources' and all the problems the human race has or will have in the future because of them. Oil, water, air - all these things get mentioned. Historically, the most important resource which was argued about in this way was land. This wouldn't be a problem in itself if not for the terrible conclusions these people were led to. Namely - land socialism. This is the phenomenon we now see similarly in the case of evironmentalists, who are air and water socialists (though most of them seem to care more about ice than water). The most important proponent of land socialism (or 'common ownership of land') was Henry George. Otherwise a free-treader, George was a fanatic when it came to the land issue. Frighteningly enough, a case for moral land socialism is made even in early writings of Herbert Spencer (although he concedes that it is impossible to practice land socialism). These writings of George and Spencer heavily influenced many modern 'left libertarians'. Land is given some kind of special status because it is finite. And why does this supposed limit of quantity pose a problem when it comes to land? Because it is argued that Lockean Homesteading can only be justified when land is limitless - when people who don't have land and can't live have the ability to just go somewhere and homestead their own land. This, in turn, has been the cause of many of these modern 'left-libertarians' and most 19th Century individualist anarchists (such as Benjamin Tucker) turning away from Lockean homesteading and instead favouring 'occupancy and use' doctrines. Such doctrines maintain that if a person is not currently living on or using a piece of land, it has now gone back to the common stock and may be homesteaded by anyone else. Clearly this is a huge block on capital accumulation and eliminates landlords and land-rent by definition. Furthermore it has been argued that this land socialism was actually Locke's position, clearly he thought all the Earth was owned in common by all men.
Now, I hate to disappoint my friends on the left, but their beliefs are actually false. If we use their definition of 'finite resources', then everything in existance is a finite resource and must be socialized. But I claim that NOTHING in the physical universe is a finite resource. As far as we know, the only limited resource may be vacuum in outer space because space itself might not be infinite. The rest is up to man's INGENUITY and thus open to change by TECHNOLOGY. Take the example of oil (which is now being hailed as a finite resource as opposed to resources like solar power). There have been opinions going as far back as the late 19th Century that oil is running out. What we see in actual fact is that human ingenuity has discovered ways to get a lot more oil from many different locations on earth and technology allows us to do it efficiently and quickly. Oil is not running out. New oil fields have just been discovered in Canada (100 years worth of oil!). Rants in support of anything being finite, whether it be oil, air, water, the ice caps, or land, are just a symptom of primitive Malthusian panic. Thomas Malthus claimed that resources would run out and overpopulation would destroy humanity. Now, over 200 years onwards, this has not only failed to happen, we cannot even see signs of this being viable. Standards of living increase as populations increase because human labour and human ingenuity (enterprenourship) are the only conceptual finite resources of humanity. The more people, the more work and the more good ideas!

I also hate to disappoint all the land socialists, but not only is land infinitely available throughout the universe, but it is barely beginning to be occupied here on Earth. Imagine the possibilities: space stations, other planets, asteroids, huge skyscrapers, underwater cities (or floating cities!) here on Earth. Currently land - most of which is not even being occupied here on Earth yet due to either government meddling or lack of technology - covers only 30% of the planet. People have used technology to enlarge it, but soon maybe technology will allow us to simply live in the water-covered areas as well. Austro-Libertarian Dr. Walter Block has called for the privatization of the world's water for just this reason (as well as environmental reasons). As he says it "water is just fast moving land, and land is just slow moving water".

I feel like Edmund Burke must have felt...

Friedrich August von Hayek used to describe himself as an "Old Whig" and that is distinctly how I feel in regard to all the recent debates about the UK Riots. As strange as it may seem, I know some Lefties who are quite good at criticizing the government from an anarchist perspective. Some of them even run interesting (though rather confused) blogs. Philosophically even within the anarcho-capitalist movement there is a a so-called 'left-wing' variety. This includes pretty much all the people who call themselves 'free-market anarchists' (such as Roderick Long or Charles Johnson - who annoys me with the use of the word 'she' in his writings with which he replaced the traditional 'he').
A few of these friends of mine who approach anarchism from a egalitarian perspective (which I believe is wrong) are actually speaking out in support of the rioters. This debate I've been having with them clearly reflects the one over the French Revolution which broke apart the British Whigs in the 18th Century. The Old Whigs, led by the The Right Honourable Edmund Burke based their opposition to the revolution on Burke's great work: Reflections on the Revolution in France. The reason I feel like Burke is that I have been using arguments similar to Burke's in my opposition to the riots. That is, I support traditional order, Rule of Law, and anti-egalitarianism. Both the means and the ends of the rioters are, in my opinion, evil and wrong.
Meanwhile, the New Whigs, led by The Honourable Charles James Fox, supported the French Revolution on principle (anti-royalism and egalitarianism). In fact many of them, such as Fox himself, supported the revolution even after it degenerated into the famous Reign of Terror under Robespierre. Many Rothbardian anarchists of the 'left' variety have been using rhetoric similar to Fox's when arguing their case with me in their pro-Riot view.

Another thing I notice here is that the pro-Riot opinion seems to be highly reminiscient of 'Propaganda by the Deed' talk. Personally I am more in favour of education and peaceful resistance than violence, as I think I have discussed often enough on this blog. As the great Edmund Burke wrote in those Reflections: "Our patience will achieve more than our force".

Last thoughts on Mr. Breivik

I recently read an article in my favourite Polish weekly magazine "Najwyższy CZAS!" (which is a Conservative-Liberal publication founded in 1990 by Mr. Janusz Korwin-Mikke) about Mr. Anders Breivik. I realize I have already written about this maniac before, but now it turns out that maybe he wasn't such a maniac after all. The article includes some extensive quotes from Mr. Breivik's 'manifesto' and, to my surprise, these quotes include perfectly sensible passages which I could have written myself. Now I don't mean all the anti-Islam babble, of course. What I mean are the passages about political correctness and about its relation to Marxism. Mr. Breivik correctly points out that the two are related - political correctness chains people's language and molds their character through propaganda. As funny as it may seem, I actually learned about the psychological impact of tampering with language from the great comedian George Carlin. Chains put on language are actually chains put on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and, most importantly, freedom of thought. Breivik seems to have understood this phenomenon. He pretty much had to insert criticizm of political correctness into his manifesto seeing as the whole thing was radically politically incorrect. He also rants abouts "cultural Marxism" which is growing in our society (theories of class warfare, egalitarianism, cultural equality, etc.). In this regard I can't not agree with Breivik - he seems to have got it right again. Marxist ideology (or what I would call Marxist 'theology') is dominant in Europe today.
What I despise about Mr. Breivik is his ultranationalism, his views on patriarchy, and his obsessive love of violence. He is a deranged and irrational individual and should be treated as such and rightly labeled as evil.

British "Riots" or whatever

I really have to write at least one post about these crazy things which have been happening in Britain lately. Since I treat Britain as one of my homelands (the other two being Poland and the United States) and much of my family lives there, I follow these things quite carefully. First let's deal not with the reason why all these low-lives (recepients of benefits and other welfare/socialism queens) are looting and raiding or, as they claim, protesting, but with their means of doing so. I find all their behaviour to be entirely inappropriate and I would like some serious action to be taken in order to prevent any further attacks. This is what the army, police, or military police (if such a thing exists in England) are for. Any violent protests should be stopped by any means possible. In this way I hearken back to my blog post about the famous Generalissimo Franco. Authoritarian heads-of-state usually have one good thing about them; they use all means possible to supress any socialist disorder or other evil movements. I think these violent criminals on the streets of England should be "taken care of" by whatever means required aside from simply using live rounds to kill them (that would be a bit excessive for the ones who are in the streets, but would be fully permitted in case of any obvious looters). In case any democratic member of society reads this, I vindicate my seemingly violent position by a link to the following article.
But what about these supposed protesters (i.e. simple gang of looters)? I find their credentials quite questionable because most of the areas they vandalize are retail stores, electronic-device stores, and banks. Clearly, they just want to steal stuff. But let's suppose for a moment they were genuine protesters struggling against the injustice committed against them by the state - what should their plan of action be? Well, as far as I can tell, they should be protesting against the state! I am all in favour of that (always and everywhere)! So what should they do? Attack STATE PROPERTY! So far, however, I have seen no pictures of people burning down state buildings. They seem to be focused on private property. If I was in their place I would be burning down public schools, administration offices, government bureaus, council housing and property, or any other industries that I know are subsidized heavily by the government (good job for burning banks, just don't rob them - it gives the wrong impression!).
So why have these so-called protesters not done any of these things? Because they are on benefits and they are therefore on the government's payroll! These people are government employees rioting because their wages were cut! The welfare-age of Labour is over, the Conservatives have come and finally done some good. I was always very sceptical of the Conservative power take-over but as it turns out they are doing all the right things. To put it simply (as my sister clearly pointed out to me the other day), "the rioters are not burning down Council Houses because they live in them!". And, of course, all these people were actaully educated in public schools. So it seems these people are just disgruntled fledgelings of the Labour Party movement - socialist demagogues and hedonist primitives in the making. We all know what makes criminals criminals (their high time-preference). So now I think the goals of the Cameron cabinet should be to kill off this particular movement and to reform the education system and the welfare system. We cannot have such extreme hedonism tolerated by society. I have always adovcated moderate hedonism (in the Epicurean or Catholic traditions), but all-out hedonism can cause nothing but destruction of capital, authority, and nation.

It is important to know your place. I don't mean this in a sense where we all subject ourselves to the rule of others, but I mean the position we all occupy in society by voluntary choice according to reason. Low time-preferance being the key to reasonability, of course.
"Order is Heaven's first law; and this confess,
Some are and must be greater than the rest."
Thus writes Alexander Pope and thus, I must confess, lie my own thoughts...

The Coming War?

My great-grandmother has been predicting that a World War will soon erupt. Now she has been saying this for the last four years (more or less). To quote her: "You will see, there will be a war from all this!". I tend to take my great-grandmother seriously. She was born in 1919 (during WWI), lived through WWII (including the September Campaign and the dreaded Warsaw Uprising), and through the whole lifespan of the Polish Communist regime (including the Martial Law in the 80's and all the unrest in that decade). Personally I have also thought about this possibility. After all, the Great Depression led to an even bigger rise in socialism and nationalism and eventually to World War II. This depression we are in (The Greenspan-Bernanke Depression) will be even larger than the one in the 1930's.
So why is war likely? It is likely because we are currently being ruled by radicals. And as the depression deepens the radicals the people elect will become even more radical. Consider this fact: Back in the 1930's a person like Gordon Brown, who ruled the UK recently, would have been considered a radical. Nowadays in peacetime he is elected as a moderate! Well then how radical must today's radicals be!? Compared to many of today's leftists, Hitler was a moderate! I find it very disturbing that since about the year 1900 there has been no real viable liberal option to choose on the political scene. Today libertarians are considered radical whereas in actual fact they are the only moderates in existence. I don't know how the Leftists have won this intellectual war to this extent. The people generally seem to believe that interventionism is normal while peaceful cooperation is radical... I really am scared, maybe my great-grandmother is right, and there is a World War III on the horizon?

The concern I have now was the same concern expressed by Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (who was the famous pupil of the less known, but perhaps even greater man, Gustave de Molinari) when he wrote in 1901 "All over Europe the Liberal Party is disappearing, as are the moderate parties. The extremists stand face to face: on one side socialism, the great rising religion of our age; on the other side, the old religions, nationalism and imperialism." It seems that Mr. Pareto was 100% correct. Currently there are few countries where there is a third option other than socialism or fascism. The United States, I think, is in most trouble in this regard. And I think we all know what accompanies the rise of mutually-exclusive and yet extremely aggressive totalitarian trends (which both socialism and fascism are). The answer is simple: militarism and war.

Currency Inflation and Deflation - A Message to Donald Tusk

A lot of people, especially leading politicians, are still basing their opinions on policy on flawed Keynesian economics. They think stimulating demand is the key to prosperity. In fact the current policy of the Polish government harkens back to 17th and 18th Century Britain before the age of Liberalism. Namely - the policy is basically mercantilist. An important aspect of the current government strategy is control over the money supply. What that entails, as we know to be true in all states, is massive public debt and inflation. But what are the arguments for this inflation? Apparently there are still plenty of people who think inflation is actually good! And this kind of thing in Poland, which was nearly destroyed by inflation twice already (back before World War II and then again in the Communist era)?!
So let's assess these arguments. The current government would say that inflation "stimulates exports". They talk about it in a positive manner, i.e "inflation helps the part of the industry geared towards exporting goods" and it "brings capital into Poland when foreigners buy our products". But when you really think about it, this is just a restatement of the old mercantilist fetish of trade being a zero-sum game and only selling products being beneficial. This means that it is good when money flows into Poland, but it is somehow bad when money flows out of Poland (i.e. exports are preferable to imports). Now it is clear that exporting a lot and importing nothing can lead to an accumulation of capital, but ever since Adam Smith's days we know that trade is mutually beneficial to both buyer and seller. Imports are just as beneficial as exports are - trade in general is beneficial.
But, more importantly, we free-marketers must demolish the myth that inflation is a subsidy to the export industry. In actual fact inflation is a subsidy to the foreign buyer. He can now purchase Polish goods more cheaply than he could before because his currency is worth more when compared to the Polish currency. But what is even more important here is that inflation actually harms Polish people. When Polish goods are being bought up by foreigners the demand for them grows. When demand for goods grows, so does their price. But here we see that the foreigner has an advantage over a domestic (i.e. Polish) buyer of Polish goods - he is using his stronger currency. Polish goods are therefore more expensive not only because inflation increases the money supply, but also because the Polish consumer has to compete with foreigners now. Furthermore, because the Polish currency is weaker, the Polish consumer cannot effectively import goods from other countries. Prices in Poland sky-rocket due to these factors.
This is especially damaging when it comes to people on fixed incomes, such as old people. I do not see any advantage in the mercantilist policy. The exporters have a bit more money than usual (and not because their goods are better but because foreigners are artificially richer), but the rest of the populace have been impoverished by their money losing value and their consumer goods becoming more expensive. How does any of this many sense?
So, please Mr. Tusk, curb your appetite, stop borrowing, allow beneficial deflation, and give the Polish consumer some breathing room!

By the way, it might be important to point out that the country which is best off in Europe right now is the non-EU Switzerland. Why? Because it hasn't been suffering from massive bail-outs and inflation, the Swiss Franc is now worth quite a lot! In fact, this is a problem for many people who, years ago, took out loans in the Swiss currency (a popular practice in Poland). So now the Swiss can afford to buy anything they like with their amazingly deflated currency while we, the inflationists, are all poor and miserable.
Also, the Swiss Franc did not actually deflate per se, it was just all the other currencies that went into such huge inflation!

Why am I not allowed to say it like it is?

With all the recent shouting about Mr. Anders Breivik in the air, I think I have to clean up one more linguistic mess. Mr. Breivik is continually being referred to as a "right-wing extremist" or "rightist radical". It has been a common theme throughout history for the Left to label their finest men with such cliche titles. For example - let's take Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler. Both were praised by socialists and other Leftists during the 1920's and 1930's. George Bernard Shaw (the leading Fabian socialist and British intellectual) went as far as to call Mussolini "responsible socialist leader". Fascism is clearly a form of Leftism - it is based around the idea of the most extreme type of collectivism. And Hitler was, after all, a Nazi. That is to say, a National Socialist. Clearly he was vying with Stalin and Roosevelt for the title of World's Most Powerful Leftist of his day (and, as we know, that rivalry ended with war as most socialist projects do).
But what have the Leftists done now? They have labeled these men "right-wing extremists" so that they are no longer associated in one group together! Instead I am the one getting associated with them, since I openly claim to be a right-wing radical. The right-wing, however, has nothing to do with egalitarianism, collectivism, or militarism. These are all aspects of Leftism. And now Mr. Breivik, some murdering nut-job from Norway, got shoved into the same category. From what I know of his views he has recently demanded a lot of things in a statement he made from prison, and one of those demands was the abdication of the King of Norway, His Majesty Harald V! I don't know about you, but I never heard of a right-winger demanding something like that. On the contrary, it is clearly a Leftist sentiment.
Leftists are excellent at turning out such linguistic tricks. They have managed to change "liberalism" into "socialism" and now "the far Left" into "the far Right". Now I don't know how I can describe my political views without having to go into an hour-long explanation!

People interested in language manipulation should listen to George Carlin. He was one man who always said it like it is: "Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a...secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in."
And the Left is synonymous with Government (except for a few self-proclaimed Leftist Anarchists who are living in an impossible dreamworld...)