Taking It for Granted

"Capitalism, says Marx, unthinkingly repeating the fables of the eulogists of the Middle Ages, has an inevitable tendency to impoverish the workers more and more. The truth is that capitalism has poured a horn of plenty upon the masses of wage earners who frequently did all they could to sabotage the adoption of those innovations which render their life more agreeable. How uneasy an American worker would be if he were forced to live in the style of a medieval lord and to miss the plumbing facilities and the other gadgets he simply takes for granted!" —Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

The Miracle of Mass Production

"The fact that my fellow man wants to acquire shoes as I do, does not make it harder for me to get shoes, but easier." —Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Shame on You, Socialists

American socialists not only pit workers against entrepreneurs; they also pit rich American workers against the poor workers of the rest of the world. Shame on you, socialists!

The Value of Selfishness

"The welfare school pretends not only to stand for the interests of the whole of society as against the selfish interests of profit-seeking business; it contends moreover that it takes into account the lasting secular interests of the nation as against the short-term concerns of speculators, promoters, and capitalists who are exclusively committed to profiteering and do not bother about the future of the whole of society. This second claim is, of course, irreconcilable with the emphasis laid by the school upon short-run policies as against long-run concerns. However, consistency is not one of the virtues of the welfare doctrinaires. Let us for the sake of argument disregard this contradiction in their statements and examine them without reference to their inconsistency.

"Saving, capital accumulation, and investment withhold the amount concerned from current consumption and dedicate it to the improvement of future conditions. The saver foregoes the increase in present satisfaction in order to improve his own well-being and that of his family in the more distant future. His intentions are certainly selfish in the popular connotation of the term. But the effects of his selfish conduct are beneficial to the lasting secular interests of the whole of society as well as of all its members. His conduct produces all those phenomena to which even the most bigoted welfare propagandist attributes the epithets economic improvement and progress....

"The welfare propagandist, it is true, raises two objections. First, that the individual’s motive is selfishness, while the government is imbued with good intentions. Let us admit for the sake of argument that individuals are devilish and rulers angelic. But what counts in life and reality is—in spite of what Kant said to the contrary—not good intentions, but accomplishments. What makes the existence and the evolution of society possible is precisely the fact that peaceful cooperation under the social division of labor in the long run best serves the selfish concerns of all individuals. The eminence of the market society is that its whole functioning and operation is the consummation of this principle."

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Mises on Equality and Inequality

"The liberal champions of equality under the law were fully aware of the fact that men are born unequal and that it is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation and civilization. Equality under the law was in their opinion not designed to correct the inexorable facts of the universe and to make natural inequality disappear. It was, on the contrary, the device to secure for the whole of mankind the maximum of benefits it can derive from it. Henceforth no man-made institutions should prevent a man from attaining that station in which he can best serve his fellow citizens."

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

TGIF: Police-State Progressives

Progressives see themselves as, well, progressive. But they aren't. Even at their best, in opposing the national security state, they support massive government power in other realms of life. At heart they are social engineers. They seek a "moral equivalent of war," that is, regimentation without bloodshed. They are even anti-democratic when it suits them.

We can see all of this through the eyes of Ludwig von Mises. This is from his book Planned Chaos (1947; free audiobook here). Mises, of course, championed the unhampered market economy, or laissez-faire capitalism. He wrote:

In the market economy the consumers are supreme. Their buying and their abstention from buying ultimately determine what the entrepreneurs produce and in what quantity and quality. It determines directly the prices of the consumers' goods and indirectly the prices of all producers' goods, viz., labour and material factors of production. It determines the emergence of profits and losses and the formation of the rate of interest. It determines every individual's income. The focal point of the market economy is the market, i.e., the process of the formation of commodity prices, wage rates and interest rates and their derivatives, profits and losses. It makes all men in their capacity as producers responsible to the consumers. This dependence is direct with entrepreneurs, capitalists, farmers and professional men, and indirect with people working for salaries and wages. The market adjusts the efforts of all those engaged in supplying the needs of the consumers to the wishes of those for whom they produce, the consumers. It subjects production to consumption.

The Worker as Free Person

"In the market economy the worker sells his services as other people sell their commodities. The employer is not the employee’s lord. He is simply the buyer of services which he must purchase at their market price. Of course, like every other buyer an employer too can take liberties. But if he resorts to arbitrariness in hiring or discharging workers, he must foot the bill. An employer or an employee entrusted with the management of a department of an enterprise is free to discriminate in hiring workers, to fire them arbitrarily, or to cut down their wages below the market rate. But in indulging in such arbitrary acts he jeopardizes the profitability of his enterprise or his department and thereby impairs his own income and his position in the economic system. In the market economy such whims bring their own punishment. The only real and effective protection of the wage earner in the market economy is provided by the play of the factors determining the formation of prices. The market makes the worker independent of arbitrary discretion on the part of the employer and his aides. The workers are subject only to the supremacy of the consumers as their employers are too. In determining, by buying or abstention from buying, the prices of products and the employment of factors of production, consumers assign to each kind of labor its market price.

"What makes the worker a free man is precisely the fact that the employer, under the pressure of the market’s price structure, considers labor a commodity, an instrument of earning profits. The employee is in the eyes of the employer merely a man who for a consideration in money helps him to make money. The employer pays for services rendered and the employee performs in order to earn wages. There is in this relation between employer and employee no question of favor or disfavor. The hired man does not owe the employer gratitude; he owes him a definite quantity of work of a definite kind and quality."

--Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Labor as Commodity

For the individual actor, "as for everyone, other people’s labor as offered for sale on the market is nothing but a factor of production. Man deals with other people’s labor in the same way that he deals with all scarce material factors of production. He appraises it according to the principles he applies in the appraisal of all other goods. The height of wage rates is determined on the market in the same way in which the prices of all commodities are determined. In this sense we may say that labor is a commodity. The emotional associations which people, under the influence of Marxism, attach to this term do not matter. It suffices to observe incidentally that the employers deal with labor as they do with commodities because the conduct of the consumers forces them to proceed in this way."

--Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Some Things Never Change

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

--John Philpot Curran, Irish statesman, 1790

TGIF: That Was the Election that Was

One can be overjoyed by the repudiation of a candidate without being pleased with the opposing candidate's victory. This election is an occasion for that reaction. An American (or anyone actually) is perfectly justified in taking pleasure in Kamala Harris's humiliating defeat while anguishing over the intemperate Donald Trump's impressive win. As I like to say, every election has good and bad news: the losers lost but the winners won. That's where I am today if anyone cares to know.

I rejoice at the defeat of Harris and virtually all that she stands for, while also realizing that some of the grounds for that defeat are themselves to be repudiated. Most Trump voters seemed to have had "the economy" uppermost in mind, with immigration a distant second. That's sort of good news, except that most people think tariffs are a big solution for our economic woes. (In fact, there's no "economy." There are only cooperative interacting individuals deploying material factors and human effort to improve their conditions.)

Trump's defects have been widely discussed here and elsewhere. No need to rehearse them now. (As Yogi Berra said pre-internet, "You could look it up.")

One of Harris's problems was that while there was no there there, she was likely surrounded by the condescending woke set whom she would have wanted to please. This held the potential for outright violations of freedom and impediments to advancing prosperity. It may well have aggravated tensions between people of different skin tones and ethnicities—something no advocate of social cooperation through the market economy should take lightly. We must be wary of those who seek to undermine domestic peace, especially when the cause is not justice, but trivial natal characteristics (like where your parents were born). (For an account of the dangers of a Harris administration, see Gene Healy's "Fear and Loathing at the Ballot Box.")

Trump was called Hitler, a Nazi, and a fascist, which was not only ill-defined and absurd but malicious. The people who trafficked in such charges, including the top of the Democratic ticket, deserved to lose just for using such tactics. Warnings that he would establish a dictatorship were hollow and not really believed by many who issued the warnings. Remember that a partly Democratically controlled Congress reauthorized horrendous surveillance powers for this "worse than Hitler" figure during his first term. How are we to explain that? Politics, that's how.

We have to discount much of Trump's flamboyant rhetoric because we know that he loves to play to his core audience, which in turn loves to see the woke progressives sent into rage on MSNBC, CNN, etc. His core audience called on candidate Trump in 2016 to "lock her up," meaning his rival, Hillary Clinton. Did his Justice Department bring a case against her? No, it didn't. He didn't try to lock her up.

When Trump partisan Sean Hannity asked him during the latest campaign if he would abuse his power to retaliate against his enemies, he smiled and said he would, but only on day one. What would he do? "Seal the border" and "drill, baby, drill" for oil. When Hannity said, "That's not retribution," Trump ignored him and kept talking. That did not keep his opponents from "reporting" that he said he would be a dictator on day one and beyond and would punish his opponents. The Democrats' implicit message all season seemed to be this: "He's really not so bad, so we have to make up stuff."

I'm not defending his "seal the border" promise or his promise to round up and deport millions of people for lacking government permission papers. Those would be terribly unjust policies. Tragically, however, a president probably has decades-old congressionally delegated powers to do such things. So technically Trump wouldn't be acting like a dictator. The same is true for oil drilling. We don't know exactly what he means, but if he intends to free producers to bring more oil and gas to market, then yay! If he intends to direct an effort to create energy independence, then boo. We'll have to wait and see. The point is that any president would probably already have congressionally authorized powers to loosen restraints on oil producers. His promise does not imply dictatorship.

But let's consider the possibility further. Would there be no checks on his power if Trump tried to be a dictator? Would the military obey orders to arrest, say, Supreme Court justices or recalcitrant members of Congress? Would the courts support him? Unlikely. How would he enforce orders no one obeyed? He'll have no guns.

America still has a legacy of liberalism in the best sense, which includes deep-seated attitudes about government power, as well as an independent judiciary and a Constitution-bound military. This limits what even a dictatorial-minded president could get away with in America. In a sense, it really can't happen here. At least it's highly unlikely compared to other places without our traditions.

My old friend the historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, who has thought much about the role of ideology in society, used to say that if a Soviet ruler had magically appeared as the president of the United States, he could not have ruled in the Soviet style. Likewise, if a libertarian had magically become the head of the Soviet government, he could not have governed like Ron Paul would have. History and tradition—ideology—would have prevented it. The result is a sturdy, albeit not indestructible set of taboos.

Even Trump is probably not blind to what is unique about the American liberal legacy (including freedom of enterprise) and what makes for legitimacy. Ideas, not force, rule the world, Hummel says. "Ideas ultimately determine in which direction [people] wield their weapons or whether they wield them at all," he writes.

This does not mean we will be able to sleep soundly from Jan. 20, 2025, through 2028. Guarantees are not to be found in such things. But we need not run around like our hair is on fire. I question the claim that Trump will be a dangerous freer agent in his second term. As self-centered as Trump is, he will surely have an eye on the mid-terms; he won't want to lose the House or Senate in 2026. Moreover, he won't want to hamper J. D. Vance or another would-be successor for 2028. He won't be free to offend those who still are connected to America's pro-freedom legacy.

In foreign affairs, if Trump means to get and keep out of other people's conflicts, then good. But he gives us no reason for confidence. Look at his first term. Look at his unwavering support for Israel's violence against the Palestinians. (No defense of the brutal Hamas is hereby implied.) Look at his belligerence toward Iran. Look at his acceptance of the expansion of NATO. To state the obvious, Donald Trump is no Richard Cobden, even if we ignore the tariffs, which we cannot do.

So I'm not optimistic about foreign policy, though Harris would have been worse. (Did she push her boss to reinstate the nuclear deal with Iran that Trump canceled? We have no evidence of that.)

None of this is amenable to mathematical or scientific proof. How could it be? We're talking about the always-uncertain future and individuals who have free will. On this day, however, this is how I see it. It seems reasonable

Then again, what the hell do I know?

Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription

The populist Sanders-left (which is actually broader because it includes Tucker Carlson and others called rightists) is partly correct and partly incorrect about what happened to the Democrats last Tuesday.

They say correctly that the Democrats failed because they have taken non-elites for granted, patronizing and subsidizing some (minorities, for example) and disparaging and penalizing others (regular bourgeois working Americans of both sexes and all skin tones and ethnicities). This is usually stated as "The Democrats have betrayed the working class."

This is good as far as it goes, but it goes not far enough. The elites have taken some Americans for granted. Meanwhile, a large swath of Americans, especially those between the coasts, have been treated like outhouse-using country bumpkins if not outright racists and patriarchists. Remember Obama's sneering reference to people who in troubled times seek refuge in their guns and bibles?

It was only a matter of time before an officer-seeker would voice the concerns of the disparaged. It happened in 2016 and again this week. Enough of those people struck back on Tuesday, benefitting Trump and humiliating Harris. People will take only so much abuse or condescension before shouting, "Cut it out!"

Where the Sandersnistas go wrong is in prescribing a warmed-up Marxism. Not full-out nationalization of the means of production, mind you, but heavy government interference with everyone's market relations: a minimum wage, rent control, price ceilings, usury laws, tariffs, product regulation, immigration barriers, etc. They think this is what the "working class" needs. (Ironically, government control of nominally private enterprise is an essential feature of fascism.)

But no, intervention is not the answer, though class bigotry blinds the Sandersnistas to that fact. The same could be said for the MAGA architects. These measures have long harmed people, especially the intended beneficiaries, and they will do so in the future. But you have to know something about economics to understand that. They don't.

The first thing the "working class" needs to do is reject the Marxian notion of an inherent class conflict between business and employees. The market economy—the profit-and-loss system void of government regulation and subsidy—is good for all because, as Ludwig Mises spent his life teaching, we all have a deep harmony of interest in freedom, social cooperation, and rising living standards. Surface disputes are insignificant compared to that deeper compatibility.

The industrious "class"—all contributors to the creation of wealth (which excludes politicians and bureaucrats)—should reject the "left" and the "right."

The Morning After

The fear of dictatorship is absurd.

The Dems Are What They Claim to Hate

As I said in 2016 (or was it 2015?), I despise Trump and I despise most of the people who despise Trump. I will never forgive the Democrats for making it necessary for me to defend him against their lies.

TGIF: Election Reflections

The history of the human race is one long story of attempts by certain persons and classes to obtain control of the power of the State, so as to win earthly gratifications at the expense of others.

--William Graham Sumner, 1883

For advocates of individual liberty, this has got to be the most depressing election in many years. (Well, at least since 2020, the most depressing election since 2016.) Full, true, laissez-faire liberalism is far from public discussion. Kamala Harris ("I'm smart and I care"), the mush-mouthed empty suit, and Donald Trump ("I'm Trump!"), the narcissistic, militantly nationalist demagogic windbag, both threaten what remains of Americans' liberty.

No one can confidently say which is the bigger threat. Their styles differ, but that cannot camouflage the danger each represents. This may be availability bias speaking, but I am not so sure. There has been no joy for liberalism this season.

The palpable lesson of nearly everything we see in politics is that freedom and prosperity are at risk when the government can do almost anything a majority or an influential minority wants—when the idea of constitutional constraint is treated as old-fashioned. It matters little whether those who get their hands on such power come from the "left" or the "right," ideologically incoherent terms signifying little but tribal membership.