Gone are the days when bankers and industrial magnates could meet in Paris to plot the course of the global economy.
The First World War changed all that.
Every single nation state on the planet today is "State Capitalist". The only difference between them all , being the degree of economic centralization and control.
No nation state will forfeit its ability to mobilize for, and conduct the next Great War. It is ludicrous to even imagine that any state would relinquish its control over the national economy or its currency. (For that reason, Bitcoin is the biggest pyramid scheme in history).
As the global rate of profit races to zero, corporations have cut back in long term investments in plants and equipment, R&D, training, quality, etc ... investing only in fictitious capital and buying back their own stocks.
As in the past, the only hope for capitalism today is the destruction of capital itself. And nation states internationally are flexing their muscle and positioning themselves to both secure and extend their regional and global dominance.
Client states - the smaller state capitalist nations - have become the proving ground for the weaponry of the next state capitalist world war as regional battlefields arise around the globe.
The disparity of wealth in the world today is greater than that of pre WWI. They had their Robber Barons so dearly loved by Libertarians ... while we have our Philanthropists.
As far as personal wealth is concerned, the US should be every Austrian Economist's wet dream. So much wealth is concentrated into so few hands that they all have their very own personal rocket-ship companies. I'm not one to complain. I only wish that they would all just fly away.
Uh-huh. So the dude's never had to work a minimum-wage job, has always had excellent health insurance, and has a job for life, but he wants poor people to suffer more? Private prisons are an awesome indicator of how well privatizing things go. Need he be reminded of Crassus and firefighting in Ancient Rome as well? And Sharia law courts are SUPER fun for women and gay people - sure, it sounds like a brilliant idea to implement something similar in the West - what could possibly go wrong? Congrats on finding someone more out of touch with reality than Julie Bindel - he really is living in an ivory tower. That said, Peter did a great job of pushing back on some of the issues.
Both Anarcho-capitalism and Libertarianism, on their face are utopian, and are bubbles. Neither realistically/practically acknowledge a different world outside the utopian bubble, they are inward facing and outward blind. I suppose they might be workable if applied to the entire world all at once. (duh). Both are fun to think about, intellectually purified and protected by the bubble.
They remind me of the communist Kibbutz's in Israel. They would quickly collapse without their adult/child relationship with the state of Israel.
Something that irks me about Block and his argument for road privatization is his use of absolute traffic fatalities.
While it true that figure hovers around 40,000, using an absolute figure ignores population and/or miles traveled.
This is the same thing anti-car activists and Cluster B(Ike) Activists use to insist that automobiles need to be regulated out of existence with big government and be replaced with bike and transit utopia naturally forced onto the people. While those forms of transportations may make sense in some places, it’s being imposed where it’s not in demand.
When you actually use those later two figures, traffic fatalities in the U.S. peaked in the early 70s and then have been on a general decline since.
Americans since then drive far more miles, and there are far more Americans driving those miles. Road design in general *has* improved since then as has automobile safety. Things are far from perfect of course but I think Block largely ignores or is ignorant of these things.
I wrote about this stuff in my Traffic Violence Series (yes, that’s what some people call it. Peter, you’d find this topic fascinating given it’s so controlled by woke ideologues) over on Principled Bicycling.
Part I of the series has charts showing the figure above going back over a century.
Gone are the days when bankers and industrial magnates could meet in Paris to plot the course of the global economy.
The First World War changed all that.
Every single nation state on the planet today is "State Capitalist". The only difference between them all , being the degree of economic centralization and control.
No nation state will forfeit its ability to mobilize for, and conduct the next Great War. It is ludicrous to even imagine that any state would relinquish its control over the national economy or its currency. (For that reason, Bitcoin is the biggest pyramid scheme in history).
As the global rate of profit races to zero, corporations have cut back in long term investments in plants and equipment, R&D, training, quality, etc ... investing only in fictitious capital and buying back their own stocks.
As in the past, the only hope for capitalism today is the destruction of capital itself. And nation states internationally are flexing their muscle and positioning themselves to both secure and extend their regional and global dominance.
Client states - the smaller state capitalist nations - have become the proving ground for the weaponry of the next state capitalist world war as regional battlefields arise around the globe.
The disparity of wealth in the world today is greater than that of pre WWI. They had their Robber Barons so dearly loved by Libertarians ... while we have our Philanthropists.
As far as personal wealth is concerned, the US should be every Austrian Economist's wet dream. So much wealth is concentrated into so few hands that they all have their very own personal rocket-ship companies. I'm not one to complain. I only wish that they would all just fly away.
🚀🚀🚀
The Federal Reserve is as "federal" as Federal Express. Not a even a year after it's 'creation' we had the first 'World' war, a "war to end all wars".
Uh-huh. So the dude's never had to work a minimum-wage job, has always had excellent health insurance, and has a job for life, but he wants poor people to suffer more? Private prisons are an awesome indicator of how well privatizing things go. Need he be reminded of Crassus and firefighting in Ancient Rome as well? And Sharia law courts are SUPER fun for women and gay people - sure, it sounds like a brilliant idea to implement something similar in the West - what could possibly go wrong? Congrats on finding someone more out of touch with reality than Julie Bindel - he really is living in an ivory tower. That said, Peter did a great job of pushing back on some of the issues.
Rob Henderson’s “luxury beliefs” comes to mind.
Indeed. After all, it was the Jewish State which crucified Jesus ....
Though one might think there should be a statute of limitations that should have some bearing and relevance ...
Both Anarcho-capitalism and Libertarianism, on their face are utopian, and are bubbles. Neither realistically/practically acknowledge a different world outside the utopian bubble, they are inward facing and outward blind. I suppose they might be workable if applied to the entire world all at once. (duh). Both are fun to think about, intellectually purified and protected by the bubble.
They remind me of the communist Kibbutz's in Israel. They would quickly collapse without their adult/child relationship with the state of Israel.
Something that irks me about Block and his argument for road privatization is his use of absolute traffic fatalities.
While it true that figure hovers around 40,000, using an absolute figure ignores population and/or miles traveled.
This is the same thing anti-car activists and Cluster B(Ike) Activists use to insist that automobiles need to be regulated out of existence with big government and be replaced with bike and transit utopia naturally forced onto the people. While those forms of transportations may make sense in some places, it’s being imposed where it’s not in demand.
When you actually use those later two figures, traffic fatalities in the U.S. peaked in the early 70s and then have been on a general decline since.
Americans since then drive far more miles, and there are far more Americans driving those miles. Road design in general *has* improved since then as has automobile safety. Things are far from perfect of course but I think Block largely ignores or is ignorant of these things.
I wrote about this stuff in my Traffic Violence Series (yes, that’s what some people call it. Peter, you’d find this topic fascinating given it’s so controlled by woke ideologues) over on Principled Bicycling.
Part I of the series has charts showing the figure above going back over a century.
https://principledbicycling.substack.com/p/is-there-really-an-epidemic-of-traffic