"V" - A Libertarian Review

Well, the remake of the 1980s miniseries "V" has ended its four episode fall run and I say, so far so good!

*WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD*

Essentially the show is about an alien race that refer to themselves as "The Visitors", or "V", that have come to Earth promising friendship with their catch phrase, "We are of peace, always." They claim that they need water and some other minerals and in exchange they will offer their superior medicine and technology. However, we soon find out that not everything is as it seems. Through an underground resistance, we learn that the Visitors have slowly infiltrated every facet of our world, through government, religion, business, and have twisted each thing to make the world a chaotic place that is in search of a savior. That is when the Visitors make their presence known.

The show (so far) has appeared to be very libertarian, and this makes me ecstatic! It is fairly rare to come across something libertarian on TV, so we libertarians tend to get REALLY excited when a show like this comes along. We have had lots (and I mean LOTS) of criticism of blind devotion and unquestioning loyalty to the wonderful V's (which can easily be read as the government or the presidency specifically), a little shot at universal health care (though probably for the wrong reasons), and a shout out to the dangers of vaccines, mandatory vaccines in particular (what with the possibility of a mandatory swine flu vaccination).

Another good reason to tune in is that the leader of the Visitors is played wonderfully by Morena Baccarin, who played Inara Serra in the show "Firefly", which was also very libertarian.

"V" manages to combine a great alien invasion story, with some very awesome libertarian themes and, so far, I am loving it!

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

Don't Compromise, Don't Quit, Don't Worry, Be Happy!

After many conversations and much reflection on my part, I've come to realize that libertarianism is too important a message to compromise. If followed to its logical conclusion, libertarianism leads to anarcho-capitalism. And even though this may seem like an extreme ideal to most, this is the only form of libertarianism that can work effectively for a long period of time. Classical liberalism, while better than what we have today, still allows for a government monopoly over defense, law, a police force and ultimate decision-making, and this power will no doubt grow to the level that it is today. Therefore, it is important to not settle for a limited government, but end it entirely!

Now, the ultimate goal of libertarianism is to create a peaceful and prosperous society for all and that should be the ultimate goal of every libertarian. This may just be the Catholic Christian in me, but aren't the needs of others just as important, if not more so than the needs of oneself? We should always be looking to help others, which is why the libertarian message MUST be conveyed! This should supersede all other things, because if you believe as I do, we should help others in life and the best way we can do this is through selflessly giving of ourselves, but also through the spreading of ideas. Libertarianism should be spread because, as Mary Ruwart says, "Liberty gives people what they want." But the question is: How does one convey the message effectively?

The answer is simple. We should all just look at the wonderful example of Mary Ruwart and convey the message with a smile. We have to be empathetic and realize that all people believe what they believe because they sincerely feel that what they believe will truly help people. We must always be polite and understanding and welcoming towards everyone. Now, I will be the first to admit that I still struggle with effectively delivering the message, especially to people that I knew before I became a libertarian, and that is something that I work on all the time, but again, this message is too important to just stop trying. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but people's lives DO hang in the balance. Now are you just going to sit by idly as aggression and hatred run our lives, or are you going to fight for peace and prosperity? Yeah, that's what I thought. :)

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

WAR! What is it good for?

Absolutely NUTHIN'! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Okay, today is Veteran's Day and I thought it would be appropriate to throw a number out there: 89,457.

What is the significance of this number? Oh, well that is just the number of US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan since Oct. 7, 2001, which is when the war in Afghanistan began. Of course the number of casualties on the other side (but who cares about them right? I mean, they don't count as people) is much higher and includes many innocent men, women, and children.

Will we ever know peace? Is it too much to ask of people to treat others with respect and dignity? I guess all I'm really saying is, can't we all just get along?

I think that even a five-year-old can tell you that the more hate, death, and destruction that you spread, the more hate, death, and destruction you will spawn (maybe not in those terms, but they would agree that if someone took a toy from them or hit them, then they are more likely to retaliate violently than they would have been otherwise). How different would the world be if we all recognized this?

You still have to be optimistic about the future. We may not have the numbers and the musical talent of the anti-war movement in the 1960s (mainly because there was a draft then and there is not one now), but we are here! It is important for all the lovers of peace out there to continue to speak up against the actions of our government, not just for our own safety, but the safety of the entire world! Who knows what kind of future death and destruction that the US's actions in the Middle East will cause?

Peace is NOT unattainable. It is NOT unreasonable.

Yours in Liberty (and in Peace & Love),

Andy

Why Socialism (of any kind) Fails

My friend Daniel Krawisz gave a great presentation on the failure of socialism and how it can never work. On the anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, I would like to very briefly summarize the austrian perspective on why socialism has never worked, and will never work.

Ludwig von Mises was the first who clearly articulated this in his essay "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth". Basically what is said is the following:

On the free market, businesses must make money by fulfilling a want or need in the marketplace. If a business is able to provide something that people want, and do so efficiently, they are rewarded with profits. If they are unsuccessful in this endeavor, they are penalized with losses, while other businesses that are able to allocate their scarce resources more effectively get the money that did not go to the other business. Therefore, the most efficient businesses that offer the best products at the lowest cost to the consumer get the most rewards. That is a VERY brief summary of how a free society, with no coercive agent such as a government limiting cooperation, would and should work.

On the other hand, socialism does not work that way. For my purposes, I will define socialism as any government action that involves funding (which essentially is any government action). As a government does not produce anything, they do not earn money in the way that a business would. Instead, a government forcibly takes money from individuals and businesses. Once they have this money, they simply reallocate it to whatever they deem is most worthy.

This creates THE problem of socialism: there is no way to determine if that reallocation is efficient. If this were to happen on the market, that is to say a business takes its profits and decides to spend some of it on a machine that could increase production and profits in the future, there is still some uncertainty. The entrepreneur will be able to find out if his or her investment was worthwhile by doing some simple cost-benefit analysis and by looking at the profits and losses. If the investment ends up increasing profits, then it was a good investment, but if it results in losses, then it was a bad investment.

A government, on the other hand, is incapable of determining this, because there is no system of profits and losses and no way to perform any sort of cost-benefit analysis. ANY government spending is inefficient because that money has been stolen from the market and there is no way to know how that money would have been spent otherwise.

This leads me to the great example that Frederic Bastiat discussed, "The Broken Window Fallacy". If one were to say that war is good for an economy (and yes, war IS a form of socialism), then this is a great example to use. Bastiat essentially pointed out the idiocy in saying that breaking a window is good for the economy as that action employs someone to fix or replace the broken window. Sounds well and good right? WRONG! The problem is this. Let's say that the owner of the building in which the window was broken has $100. He is now compelled to spend that $100 on fixing the broken window, instead of spending it on a new suit or whatever else he felt was a better use of his money. Now society has lost the benefits of whatever he would have spent that money on, because he is now compelled to spend his money on the window. It is inefficient to break windows and employ window makers, because without that money being spent on fixing and making new windows, it would be spent in other areas that the individual deemed more important.

Well, that is enough of my rambling for today. Happy Fall of the Berlin Wall Day!

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

Is Limited Government An Oxymoron?

The answer is, of course, a resounding "YES!".

On the Dallas/Fort Worth affiliate of PBS, they aired a show in which this was the topic and guests Tom Woods and Doug Casey talked about how it is ridiculous to think that a government is supposed to limit itself among other things. The show can be found here in its entirety on YouTube. I still can't believe that this radical anarchist thinking aired on PBS! Oh that just tickles me!

Also, this article on mises.org entitled "Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism" by Jesus Huerta de Soto adds a lot to this discussion of minarchy versus anarchy and how it is naive to think that a government will be able to restrict itself.

Also, on an unrelated note, my friend and fellow Libertarian Longhorn Daniel Krawisz recently got his second article published on mises.org! His article is called "How the Free Market Works" and it is a great introduction and explanation of Murray Rothbard's production theory. Congrats!

Yours in Liberty,

Andy