—Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, 2nd ed. of the Scholar's ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009), 616.
Friday, October 18, 2019
There Can Be No Calculation Problem in the Evenly Rotating Economy (ERE) Because No Calculation There Is Necessary
The proof-by-listing-of-mathematical-equations is no proof at all. It applies, at best, only to the evenly rotating economy. Obviously, our whole discussion of the calculation
problem applies to the real world and to it only. There can be no
calculation problem in the ERE because no calculation there is necessary. Obviously, there is no need to calculate profits and losses
when all future data are known from the beginning and where
there are no profits and losses. In the ERE, the best allocation of
resources proceeds automatically. For Barone to demonstrate
that the calculation difficulty does not exist in the ERE is not a
solution; it is simply a mathematical belaboring of the obvious. The difficulty of calculation applies to the real world only.
—Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, 2nd ed. of the Scholar's ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009), 616.
—Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, 2nd ed. of the Scholar's ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009), 616.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
The New Deal Can Be Seen As a Veteran's Reunion Reconvening the Bureaucrats Who Had Managed the Wartime Economy in 1917-18
The war metaphor influenced nearly all of the New Deal’s reform programs and the institutions put in place to implement them. The NRA was modeled on the War Industries Board of 1917, established by Woodrow Wilson to subordinate industry to the needs of wartime production, and it was directed by a former general who had served on that body. The Civilian Conservation Corps was paramilitary in structure. Even programs that seemed far removed from military purposes—the construction of settlements, the regulation of rivers, and the production of electricity—were thoroughly infused with the aura of wartime mobilization. Indeed, the Tennessee Valley Authority was presented to the public as a continuation of a defense project from World War I.
Extending the military metaphor, the New Deal could be seen as a veteran’s reunion, reconvening the bureaucrats who had managed the wartime economy in 1917 and 1918. For them, the New Deal was an occasion to bring a chapter of history that had ended in disappointment, to a happier conclusion. Tugwell spoke for many when he said that the wartime economy had been a kind of socialism and regretfully added that with the war’s end a great experiment had been broken off in midstream. Such sentiments were echoed in the nostalgic euphoria with which early Fascism and National Socialism pursued their experiments. Journalists who witnessed events on both sides of the Atlantic found the popular mood in the first days of the New Deal reminiscent of the Fascist March on Rome in 1922 and the German elections in March 1933.
—Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (New York: Picador Henry Holt and Company, 2007), Kobo e-book.
Extending the military metaphor, the New Deal could be seen as a veteran’s reunion, reconvening the bureaucrats who had managed the wartime economy in 1917 and 1918. For them, the New Deal was an occasion to bring a chapter of history that had ended in disappointment, to a happier conclusion. Tugwell spoke for many when he said that the wartime economy had been a kind of socialism and regretfully added that with the war’s end a great experiment had been broken off in midstream. Such sentiments were echoed in the nostalgic euphoria with which early Fascism and National Socialism pursued their experiments. Journalists who witnessed events on both sides of the Atlantic found the popular mood in the first days of the New Deal reminiscent of the Fascist March on Rome in 1922 and the German elections in March 1933.
—Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (New York: Picador Henry Holt and Company, 2007), Kobo e-book.
Monday, October 14, 2019
The Technocrats Had No Problem Seeing the Similarities between the National Recovery Administration (NRA) Codes and Fascist Corporatism
Roosevelt himself once spoke in the presence of journalists of Mussolini and Stalin as his “blood brothers.” And during the public unveiling of the National Industrial Recovery Act, when Roosevelt referred to the industrial associations that had been reconstituted by the codes as “modern guilds,” those fluent in the jargon may well have recognized the reference to the corporatist system associated with Fascism. . . .
Rexford Tugwell, the man who was known as the most left-wing member of Roosevelt’s brain trust and who was frank about his admiration for the Soviet planned economy, was also open in his respect for Mussolini’s economic policies, though he otherwise rejected Fascism on ideological grounds. . . .
The technocrats who worked below the level of political decision making had no problem seeing the similarities between the NRA codes and Fascist corporatism. As one put it: “The Fascist Principles are very similar to those which we have been evolving here in America and so are of particular interest at this time.”
—Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (New York: Picador Henry Holt and Company, 2007), Kobo e-book.
Rexford Tugwell, the man who was known as the most left-wing member of Roosevelt’s brain trust and who was frank about his admiration for the Soviet planned economy, was also open in his respect for Mussolini’s economic policies, though he otherwise rejected Fascism on ideological grounds. . . .
The technocrats who worked below the level of political decision making had no problem seeing the similarities between the NRA codes and Fascist corporatism. As one put it: “The Fascist Principles are very similar to those which we have been evolving here in America and so are of particular interest at this time.”
—Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (New York: Picador Henry Holt and Company, 2007), Kobo e-book.
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