The 'Kraut' takes a sideways look at Ron Paul

I once went down with a bad dose of libertarianism but happily I recovered.  I put it down to my youth, I think I was in my 40s then!  It is an enticing philosophy, even more so when all around you are the results of meddling, muddling governments.  However, it is, I suggest, a bit like Christianity, the main tenets and thrust of the idea are good but one simply couldn't live with the devils in the detail.  But even so, virtually all governments everywhere are long overdue a hefty dose of libertarianism, not least in the USA where the Federal Government is growing like Topsy.

Hence, the 'Kraut', or Charles Krauthammer as he is known in The WaPo, casts a benign smile on Ron Paul's balding, 76-year-old pate and applauds him (one-handed, I sense) for gaining, via the current GOP nomination process, an ever-increasing audience of stunned Americans who had never heard anyone in their entire lives on prime-time TV:

calling for the abolition of the Fed, FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and the CIA; American withdrawal from everywhere; acquiescence to the Iranian bomb — and perhaps even Paul’s opposition to a border fence lest it be used to keep Americans in.

Millions of Americans are hearing such subversive thoughts for the first time.  It will not do Ron Paul any good in his bid for the presidential nomination, let alone for the presidency, itself, but it may, according to the 'Kraut', achieve two things.  First, it may put Ron Paul in a key and influential position come the Republican convention:

Paul won’t quit before the Republican convention in Tampa. He probably will not do well in South Carolina or Florida, but with volunteers even in the more neglected caucus states, he will be relentlessly collecting delegates until Tampa. His goal is to have the second-most delegates, a position of leverage from which to influence the platform and demand a prime-time speaking slot — before deigning to support the nominee at the end. The early days of the convention, otherwise devoid of drama, could very well be all about Paul.

The second aim will be to blaze a trail for his son, Rand Paul, aged only 49 and already a Senator, who shares many of his father's ideals but (apparently) without following Pop to the outer fringes of loonyville!  The 'Kraut' summs it up, thus:

Put aside your own view of libertarianism or of Paul himself. I see libertarianism as an important critique of the Leviathan state, not a governing philosophy [my emphasis]. As for Paul himself, I find him a principled, somewhat wacky, highly engaging eccentric. But regardless of my feelings or yours, the plain fact is that Paul is nurturing his movement toward visibility and legitimacy.

Paul is 76. He knows he’ll never enter the promised land. But he’s clearing the path for son Rand, his better placed (Senate vs. House), more moderate, more articulate successor.

And it matters not whether you find amusement in libertarians practicing dynastic succession. What Paul has already wrought is a signal achievement, the biggest story yet of this presidential campaign.

Hmmmn!  I wonder.  A wily, cunning political operator told us many years ago that 'a week is a long time in politics'.  Young Paul will have to wait at least five years, assuming Obama wins, before he can reap the harvest sown by his dad.

 

Comments

[A K Haart]

"I see libertarianism as an important critique of the Leviathan state"

I tend to see it like that too - let's have a few ideals about freedom even if we can't live up to them in real life.

[David Duff]

Spot on, AK.

[Lawrence Duff]

Wet, wet, wet.

Just like new labour, happy to pretend to be "Anglo-Saxon neo-Liberals" and bask in Libertarianism's reflected glory, while raising the state's percentage of GDP from 34% to 50% in a decade and a bit.

So when it comes to "having a few ideals about freedom even if you can't live up to them", what percentage of GDP should go through the State - leave it at 50%, I take it, from you two old Social Democrats?

SoD (still in his 40's)

[David Duff]

See what you get, AK, when you let the wife talk you out of using the cane on a weekly basis - disrespect and disobedience from your children!

Listen, 'SoD', libertarianism taken to extremes is as mad and useless as Marxism. The 'Kraut' is entirely right to suggest that as an ideology it is the equivalent of a litmus test against which government's may be judged but it is not "a governing philosophy" for the simple reason that it is impractical and goes against the grain of human nature. Humans, by and large, like societies because they are a useful way to organise for mutual benefit and security. A non-society based on extreme libertarianism would - and what a delicious irony - have to be enforced!

Right, you will go to bed tonight without any supper or TV . . . oh . . I've just remembered, you're in your 40s!

[Lawrence Duff]

Spoken like a true Social Democrat politician - totally avoided answering the question!

What percentage of GDP should the state deliver - 34%, or 50%, or something else?

I'll give you my answer first.

If we retain 50% we'll go bust and collapse, then the filth will rise up out of the sewers and destroy us - as in the dress rehearsal last Summer.

If we shrink the percentage of GDP through the state to 34% the schools, hospitals and benefits system will go bust and collapse, then the filth will rise up out of the sewers and destroy us - as in the dress rehearsal last Summer.

And people will wonder why if we return state spending to 34% we can't have the same schools, hospitals and benefits we had when it was 34% in 1997? The answer is because the state ownership of the means of production and distribution (as Arthur Scargill used to call it) reduces its productivity, efficiency and competitiveness and fails inexorably over time, dragging down an economy at a rate of knots in direct proportion to its size.

And people will then realize what they haven't yet taken on board: that Social Democracy is an experiment, not a proven system with a history of longevity to corroborate it. Just like Socialism was an experiment. The Socialist experiment ran 100% of GDP through the state and failed in 40 years. Social Democracy runs 50% of GDP through the state, half as much, so it will fail in twice the time, therefore it will fail in 80 years: we're 64 years after 1948, so Social Democracy is entering its final decade and a half.

And that is what we are witnessing now: the beginning of the end of Social Democracy. An inevitable consequence of the inner contradictions of the state ownership of the means of production and distribution (to mis-quote another Socialist).

And what will follow Social Democracy after the slaughter and mayhem by the filth? As follows: -

All because no-one was prepared to stand by the only sustainable system known to man: Libertarian Democracy. Even if not perfect, it is at least sustainable. The only system that's a victim of its own success, in that it's the only system that affords the luxury of even thinking about state spending. And so you could say: -

"Libertarian Democracy affords state ownership of the means of production and distribution, which will inevitably follow because of mankind's feckless disregard for the gift of Liberty. This will in turn destroy Libertarian Democracy. After a period of chaos mixed with tyranny, Libertarian Democracy will rise anew, only to generate the prosperity required to be thwarted by the Socialist tendency again, and the cycle will repeat itself endlessly. Like a non-linear equation stuck in a loop."

Funny how it always comes back to non-linear dynamics and chaos. Messers Godel, Hofstadter and Lucas were onto something.

So my answer to the question is: it doesn't matter, 34% or 50% or anything else. The loop will not be denied.

Over to you, Social Democrat!

SoD

[David Duff]

We have a society and and we have a democracy, therefore, we are all 'social democrats' now! The only question is to what degree you allow your government to expand its activities. This is as much a human problem as a political one because politicians (who are human despite appearances) must forever be seen to be doing something. To be fair to them, which I am not usually inclined to be, part of this endless interference comes at the behest of our very own fellow subjects, or at least, the louder members who will forever find more and more 'hard cases' that (they think) can only be cured by government, be they social, military, medical or whatever.

However, if we remain a democracy in which eventually a sort of truth will out, then the pendulum will swing back and an 'Iron Lady' (which I'm going to see tonight but only at your recommendation!) will arise to hack back governmental overgrowth. In a way, that is another example of how capitalism works. An excess of bad behaviour leads eventually to a crisis in which various enterprises go broke but sooner or later new enterprises spring up. (That, of course and as you know well, is why communism never works because there is no room for enterprises which are state/politician-owned to fail.)

Finally, to suppose that it is possible to have a society under pure libertarianism is an oxymoron. The only question is, not whether we should have government but how big do you allow the government to grow?

Now get on with your work!

[David Duff]

This just came in as 'quote for the day' from Cafe Hayek:

from page 8 of L. Albert Hahn’s 1949 collection The Economics of Illusion; specifically, it’s from the final paragraph of that collection’s opening essay, “Cycles in Monetary Theory and Policy”:

"As far as government interference itself is concerned, one should never forget that serious economic disturbances are the consequences of basic maladjustments. The effect of correcting or not correcting such maladjustments is infinitely greater than any artificial creation of demand by government in an economy that, in most sectors, is still free. Therefore an economic policy that concentrates on artificially filling up an investment or spending gap rather than on fostering adjustments – and thus creating demand in a natural way – is doomed to fail in any severe crisis".

http://cafehayek.com/2012/01/quotation-of-the-day-177.html

[Lawrence Duff]

Still not answered the question, dear oh dear. Is there a seat going on the Sherborne Council you could run for?!

Also, I think you've missed my point.

It doesn't matter what level you set public spending at. In order to deliver the same output you have to increase the input. Or if you hold the input the same, the output will drop. No government has ever bucked that trend. And if you don't keep increasing the input in order to sustain the output, the filth will rise up etc.

During the decade 2000 to 2010 the public sector dropped its productivity by 20% relative to the private sector. Given that the public / private sector split is now 50:50, this means that the growth of the private sector through productivity and efficiency must increase by at least the same, e.g. 20%, to afford the public sector to produce the same output. All the hard work, process and technology improvement in the private sector is lost just to fund the extra for the public sector to produce the same. So the economy as a whole will not grow - it being the netting off of public and private sector.

And that's assuming that private sector growth exists to provide the funding, which isn't going to happen in the next decade. So the public sector will have less inputs and its output will disappear. Then the filth will come.

To say that society, or politics, or anything or anyone else has the will to induce this inevitable consequence by forcing a pendulum swing a la Maggie and then defeating the filth in open battle on the field of honour is delusional. There is no stomach for the fight anywhere of any consequence - politicians, classroom, MSM, police, and now it appears, even D&N.

But let's see how you feel after a trip down memory lane tonight, eh?

SoD