The Austrian view, according to Russell Roberts, is more or newer financial regulation won’t solve the crises of capitalism. It’ll just make matters worse.

advocating ‘better’ supervision or ‘more vigorous’ regulation or even something more specific such as larger capital cushions, ignores the empirical record that regulators and politicians either for venal or human reasons, seem unable to maintain these restrictions in the face of pressure from participants.

No surprise there, for a follower of Hayek.

But what is interesting is (1) the relation between the state and civil society (which Roberts addresses, and mainstream economists ignore) and (2) the way that relation currently works:

We are what we repeatedly do. Not what we say we are. Not what we’d like to be. But what we do. What we do as a body politic is rescue rich people from the consequences of their decisions. That is bad for democracy and bad for capitalism. Until we fix that, we as citizens are playing a game of “heads—Wall Street executives win a ridiculously enormous amount, tails—they just win a ridiculous amount, paid for by the rest of us.” Until we fix that, little else matters.

Roberts clearly understands that, in the midst of the current crises, the capitalist state bails out rich people and Wall Street and not the rest of us. His mistake is failing to recognize that such government interventions are not bad for capitalism, just bad for a particular—free-market or private—kind of capitalism. In fact, they’re an attempt to save capitalism, by creating a more regulated form of capitalism.

Siempre me ha impresionado mucho las personas que dicen que hay que refundar el capitalismo. Y me sorprende precisamente, porque creo que no ha existido nunca el liberalismo. A raíz de esto, precisamente, un día, por la tarde-noche, me encontré con un blog que propugnaba la democracia socialista como alternativa a ese hipotético capitalismo (El nombre del blog es: La historia del día). No dude en ponerle el siguiente comentario que transcribo, y espero, si es el caso, que les suponga una ayuda para reflexionar sobre el tema:

¿Qué post-capitalismo? ¿Acaso ha habido capitalismo?
En mi humide opinión, creo que nunca ha habido capitalismo, o liberalismo (que así se llama si nos referimos al ámbito económico). El liberalismo se define por la poca o excasa intervención del aparato del Estado en el mercado, o en la sociedad… ¿Hemos tenido poca o excasa intervención acaso en los últimos años? y ¿en los últimos cien años? y ¿en toda la historia? La respuesta es muy clara y concreta: NO. ¿Qué liberalismo (capitalismo) hemos tenido si hasta la bolsa está intervenida? ¿Qué liberalismo si hasta te cobran impuestos por los juegos lúdicos? ¿Qué liberalismo si muchos países ofrecen unas barreras aduaneras avergonzantes? ¿Qué liberalismo si nuestro mercado laboral está muy sujeto, pero mucho, a las normas dictadas por el Estado?
Es bastante claro lo que subyace en el fondo: EL LIBERALISMO (CAPITALISMO) NO HA EXISTIDO NUNCA.
Pero esto no sólo en economía: En España, por ejemplo, no hay liberalismo ni en la justicia (el gobierno de los jueces, por citar tan sólo un caso, es elegido por el Parlamento), ni en las aúlas (el Gobierno adoctrina en su ideología), etc…
Por otra parte, la historia ya ha demostrado múltiples veces, que el socialismo no es la alternativa. Yo apostaría, de una manera seria y decidida, por un sistema liberal.

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

~Thomas Jefferson

Glenn Beck-11-19-09-A

Glenn Beck-11-19-09-B

Glenn Beck-11-19-09-C

Glenn Beck-11-19-09-D

Glenn Beck-11-19-09-E

Glenn Beck-11-19-09-F

Glenn Beck 20091118 Part 1/4

Glenn Beck 20091118 Part 2/4

Glenn Beck 20091118 Part 3/4

Glenn Beck 20091118 Part 4/4

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”

~Thomas Jefferson

Background Articles and Videos

To Create Jobs, Voters Say Cut Taxes and Stop Spending

“…As the policy debate has unfolded in Washington this year, voters have consistently believed that tax cuts would do more than increased government spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Now that the nation’s unemployment rate has reached 10.2%, voters continue to hold that view.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 62% believe tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21% believe that additional stimulus spending is a more effective tool. Earlier this year, as the first stimulus package was being debated in Congress, 62% of voters wanted the plan to have more tax cuts and less spending.

Given a different choice today, 51% believe canceling the rest of the stimulus money would create more jobs while 32% say spending the money would be the better approach to job creation. These findings are consistent with earlier polling. Most Americans say that, generally speaking, increased government spending is bad for the economy.  Earlier this year, before the unemployment rate had reached its current highs, 45% wanted to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending while just 36% disagreed. …”

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/november_2009/to_create_jobs_voters_say_cut_taxes_and_stop_spending

EDITORIAL: National debt projections should be wake up call for our lawmakers

“…This week both the White House and nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued reports painting a bleak portrait of our economy, not just for ourselves, not just for our children but for our grandchildren. The stunningly grim $9 trillion, 10-year national debt forecast, as far as we’re concerned, would seem to preclude any further discussions about adding yet another trillion or so dollars for health care reform, especially if it includes a public option. A recent poll indicates more than half of our nation opposes such legislation, especially if it means more debt.

While much of the deficit spending the next few years is caught up in recent spending such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved under President Barack Obama and earlier Wall Street bailouts approved under President George W. Bush, consider this: Much of the debt piling up after 2013 involves the rising costs inherent in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as baby boomers retire to their expected rewards.

How on earth can this be the time to add another entitlement program? Does anyone really believe the government’s claim that health care reform will pay for itself, especially when Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid almost certainly will force an overhaul of those programs and/or significantly higher taxes for most Americans? …”

http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2009/08/27/08272009wactopeditorial.html

An $800 Billion Mistake

“…As a conservative economist, I might be expected to oppose a stimulus plan. In fact, on this page in October, I declared my support for a stimulus. But the fiscal package now before Congress needs to be thoroughly revised. In its current form, it does too little to raise national spending and employment. It would be better for the Senate to delay legislation for a month, or even two, if that’s what it takes to produce a much better bill. We cannot afford an $800 billion mistake. …”

“…The problem with the current stimulus plan is not that it is too big but that it delivers too little extra employment and income for such a large fiscal deficit. It is worth taking the time to get it right.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012802938.html

Peter Schiff on Budget Deficit National Debt and Economic Crisis

United States of Amercia Government

http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Executive.shtml

http://www.federalbudget.com/

 http://www.scribd.com/doc/3015540/US-Budget-Deficit-or-Surplus-1960present

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

Record-High Deficit May Dash Big Plans

$1.4 Trillion in Red Ink Means Less to Spend On Obama’s Ambitious Jobs, Stimulus Policies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/16/AR2009101602388.html

http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2009/11/obama-tripled-the-national-deficit-his-first-year-in-office.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125119686015756517.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_msr/10msr.pdf

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/29/which-chart-best-exposes-obamacares-true-impact-on-the-deficit/

http://keithhennessey.com/2009/06/22/orszags-health-spending-gap/

I.O.U.S.A. Bonus Reel: Social Security+Medicare Projections

I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized – The 30 Minute Version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

Stop Spending Our Future – The Crisis

$78.8 Trillion; United States Debt Obligations exceed world GDP; Monetary Collapse Looming?

Obama; Spending us into Oblivion. Why? – How do we pay off this Debt? – Glenn Beck Explains

Has the White House Gone Nuts?

MarketTamer.com: Credit Market Debt

U.S. National Debt Clock Real Time

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

CURRENCY COLLAPSE: Why The Government Won’t Act

CURRENCY COLLAPSE: Why The Government Won’t Act Part 2

Related Posts On Pronk Palisades

Saul Alinsky

This Joker Is A Lost Cause: Keeping President Obama Honest on Health Care–Let’s But A Smile On That Face–Staying Alive

Voters Beware: The Radical Rules of Saul Alinsky and Leftist Democrats

Cloward Piven Strategy

Cloward Piven Strategy–The Crisis Strategy Of Barack Obama

President Obama’s Cloward-Piven Strategy of Controlled Crisis Creation Crippling Capitalism–Coup D-Etat On America 

Yuri Bezmenov

Yuri Bezmenov On KGB Soviet Propaganda and Subversion–Videos

KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov: Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press–Videos

George Soros

George Soros: Government Interventionist and Global Socialist–Obama’s Puppeter Master–Videos

George Soros: Barack Obama’s Money Man and Agenda Puppeter

Andy Stern

American Citizens Want Jobs and Criminal Alien Removal, Not Criminal Alien Census and Health Care!

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John Holdren–Science Czar–Videos

John Holdren: Global Warming: What Do We Know and Should Do–Videos

Apollo Alliance

Apollo Alliance and Obama’s Green Czar Van Jones: Greens on The Outside–Reds On The Inside–Big Greens, Big Unions, Big Foundations, Big Business, Big Bucks, Big Taxes–Videos

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Fiscal Policy

The Battle For The World Economy–Videos 

The Big Economic Picture–Some Perspectives–Videos

The Obama Depression: Lessons Learned–Deja Vu!

Rose Colored Glasses: The Economy Is Recovering–Where Are The Jobs? When Will Inflation Hit? 2012–Election Year!

Broom Budget Busting Bums: Replace The Entire Congress–Tea Party Express and Patriots–United We Stand!

The Obama Depression Has Arrived: 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 Unemployed Americans–Stimulus Package and Bailouts A Failure–400,000 Leave Labor Force In July!

American People’s Plan = 6 Month Tax Holiday + FairTax = Real Hope + Real Change!–Millions To March On Washington D.C. Saturday, July 4, 2009!

A New Political Party In The United States? American Citizens Alliance Party–ACAP On Government Spending, Taxes, Debt, and Regulations!

Bad Government Intervention Requires Bad Government Bank-The Road Map Out Of The World Economic Crisis–Stabilize–Stimulate–Strengthen–Simultaneously!

Barlett Boo Boos–Boortz Blasts Back

President Doom and Panic Obama’s Big Lie: More Government Spending Works and Tax Cuts Do Not Work

Ben Bernanke

The Coming Inflation and A New Money Supply Backed By Real Estate?–Free Enterprise To The Rescue?

Banking Cartel’s Public Relations Campaign Continues:Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke On The Record

The Obama Depression Has Arrived: 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 Unemployed Americans–Stimulus Package and Bailouts A Failure–400,000 Leave Labor Force In July!

Richard Fisher–Inflation and Debt: The Interaction of Fiscal and Monetary Policy –Videos

Banking Cartel’s Public Relations Campaign Continues:Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke On The Record

Banking–Videos

Creature from Jekyll Island: The Federal Reserve System–Videos

The Monopoly Men: The Federal Reserve Bank Cartel–Videos 

M3 Money Meteorite Moves–Deep Impact–The Coming Inflation Tidal Wave–Wage and Price Controls Will Signal Radical Socialist Obama’s Failure!

Services Employee International Union (SEIU)

American Citizens Want Jobs and Criminal Alien Removal, Not Criminal Alien Census and Health Care!

Public Option = Government Option = Pathway to Single Payer = Single Payer = Socialized Medicine = Blue Pill = Poison Pill

The American People Confront Obama’s Red Shirts (ACORN) and Purple Shirts (SEIU)–Bullhorns and Beatings Over Obama Care!

Obama’s Marching Orders For His Red Shirts (ACORN), Purple Shirts (SEIU) and Black Shirts (New Panther Party)–Progressive Radical Socialists

Socialism, Progressivism and Fascism

The Battle For The World Economy–Videos

G. William Domhoff: Who Runs America–Videos

Liberal Fascism–Jonah Goldberg–Videos

Today’s Progressives–Obama’s Radical Socialist Democratic Party

It Is Official–America On The Obama Road To Fascism–Thomas Sowell!

President Obama and His Keynesian Spending Cult of The Fascist Democrat Radicals–FDRs 

The Racist Test for Judge Sonya Sotomayor and President Obama–Racism Unmasked!

Calling and Raising The Stakes for Race Card Players–Obama and Sotomayor

George Soros: Government Interventionist and Global Socialist–Obama’s Puppeter Master–Videos

George Soros: Barack Obama’s Money Man and Agenda Puppeter

Ludwig von Mises Institute

Our Enemy, Inflation–Videos

Murray Rothbard–Videos

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Paul De Grauwe:

…Hayek argued that no individual is capable of understanding the full complexity of a market system. Instead, individuals only understand small bits of the total information. The main function of markets consists in aggregating this diverse information. If there were individuals capable of understanding the whole picture, we would not need markets. This was in fact Hayek’s criticism of the “socialist” economists who took the view that the central planner understood the whole picture and would therefore be able to compute the whole set of optimal prices, making the market system superfluous.

Rational expectations models as intellectual heirs of central planning

My contention is that the rational expectations models are the intellectual heirs of these central-planning models. Not in the sense that individuals in these rational expectations models aim at planning the whole, but in the sense that, as the central planner, they understand the whole picture. These individuals use this superior information to obtain the “optimum optimorum” for their own private welfare. In this sense, they are top-down models.

In a recent paper, I contrast the rational expectations top-down model with a bottom-up macroeconomic model (De Grauwe 2009). The latter is a model in which agents have cognitive limitations and do not understand the whole picture (the underlying model). Instead, they only understand small bits and pieces of the whole model and use simple rules to guide their behaviour. I introduce rationality in the model through a selection mechanism in which agents evaluate the performance of the rule they are following and decide to keep or change their rule depending on how well it performs relative to other rules. Thus agents in the bottom-up model learn about the world in a “trial and error” fashion.

In David Hume’s Essay “Of the Study of History” he recommends that men purchase for their women books on history to encourage them to learn about realism instead of living in the world of romantic fantasy.

Among other important truths, which they may learn from history, they may be informed of two particulars, the knowledge of which may contribute very much to their quiet and repose; That our sex, as well as theirs, are far from being such perfect creatures as they are apt to imagine, and, That Love is not the only passion, which governs the male-world, but is often overcome by avarice, ambition, vanity, and a thousand other passions.

Hume sees the benefits of the study of history as  ”it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.” Plus as a woman that follows “Girl Game” it only adds to your value.

A woman may behave herself with good manners, and have even some vivacity in her turn of wit; but where her mind is so unfurnished, ’tis impossible her conversation can afford any entertainment to men of sense and reflection.

As an undergrad I studied the post-Civil War history of the U.S. as well as the history of other regions (some European focusing on world wars and on Eastern regions.) One area that I still lack knowledge in is ancient Greek and Roman history to my chagrin.

Personally, I’m interested in learning more about the history of the conservative movement, the rise of fascism in early 20th Century, and also world history (historical events/time periods that spanned many continents) and ways that movements of people (immigration) may have effected societies.

Are there any good history books that you can recommend to me, my dear readers? Or ones that you would gift to friends this holiday season?

I highly recommend Hayek’s “Capitalism and the Historians” for further knowledge on the benefits of capitalism during the Industrial Revolution. This book discusses the connection between politics and history and the anti-capitalism bias of historians. In the second portion he goes through the history of the industrial revolution.

It’s a small book and it’s easy to get through, plus I think it’d be eye-opening to folks that believe our school textbooks which only highlighted the problems during that time period.

To say that in a planned society the Rule of Law cannot hold is, therefore, not to say that the actions of the government will not be legal or that such a society will necessarily be lawless. It means only that the use of the government’s coercive powers will no longer be limited and determined by pre-established rules. The law can, and to make a central direction of economic activity possible must, legalize what to all intents and purposes remains arbitrary action. If the law says that such a board or authority may do what it pleases, anything that board or authority does is legal – but its actions are certainly not subject to the Rule of Law. - F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.

Health Choices Commissioner, “pay czars”, the Kelo decision, bail outs! To this layperson all of it seem so, well, arbitrary. It’s as if we in the U.S. are moving toward a system where just about anything can be justified because some government official says that it should be so. It’s all for the greater good, right? What are pesky little things like individuals and predictable rules in the face of all that wonderful greater goodness?

(cross-posted at chicagoboyz)

1.  “The Real Reason Only Five Detainees Are Coming to New York?

Is it just a coincidence that the five detainees who have indicated they intend to plead guilty are going to New York, but the ones that are fighting the charges are getting military commissions?”

http://www.911blogger.com/node/21859

2.  “Mukasey: ‘very high’ risk of attack over NYC 9/11 trial

“The [Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan] is a very secure place….Is it secure? Of course, it’s secure. They’re not going to escape,” Mukasey told a conference of the Federalist Society. “The question is not whether they’re going to escape. The question is whether, not only that particular facility, but the city [at] large, will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed–whether this raises the odds that it will. I would suggest to you that it raises them very high.”
…
The Man Is A Sociopath

Mukasey wasn’t afraid that torture would cause a terrorist attack when he was brown nosing for the Bush dictatorship!

Mukasey was the judge that covered up the FBI’s involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing. The bomb that went off was made by the FBI!”
http://www.911blogger.com/node/21858

3.  What awful news:

“The Pentagon’s Long-Term Plan to Get Back on Campus

The military wants to integrate itself into campus life and therefore gain routine access to rank-and file students to recruit regular soldiers

If the wrestling entertainment conglomerate, WWE, tried to set up a “wrestling” curriculum on a college campus, replete with course credit, training in how to become a professional wrestler, special graduation ceremonies, with Hall of Fame wrestlers Bobo Brazil and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as featured faculty teaching the history and strategy of the sport, it would be hilarious. But when the military says it wants to purchase a piece of the university and use it to recruit and train its officers, with full certification as a legitimate university curriculum, we are expected (even by the New York Times) to speak with reverence about how honored we are to host them.
…
Beyond direct access to the officers-in-training and the enlistees in waiting, ROTC programs on the campus allow the military to burnish its image while presenting its distinct point of view about national and global issues to the campus. The most outrageous aspect of this is that the university gives students credit toward their degrees for learning military discipline and absorbing military propaganda, but the military’s self promotion extends well beyond their formal classrooms. Officers are given “tours of duty” on the campus — with all the rights and privileges (however meager) attendant with faculty status — where they serve as instructors of for-credit classes, participate in campus intellectual and social life, and present viewpoints dictated by the Department of Defense in various forums that confer upon them the imprimatur of scholarly respect.

As far as I know, ROTC is the only program on university campuses that gives credit for courses that are not designed by qualified scholars and not taught by qualified scholars, and whose instructors are selected by an outside organization who also pays them and controls their lives. The instructors are under orders to teach specific content that has never been validated through any scholarly process and which would fail any such test. And the students subjected to this indoctrination are told by the University that this content is co-equal to other courses and given credit for taking them. And, unlike other courses of study, they are honored for completing this alien curriculum with high profile ceremonies on the campus which are attended and validated by the top officials of the University.”

http://www.alternet.org/rights/143947

4.  “Predictably, Republican critics vowed to fight the decision, since they much prefer to hold people forever without trial while torturing them, sort of the way some English kings did in North America before there was that pesky American constitution. In fact, on a whole range of issues, the contemporary Republican Party is a party of medieval romanticism. Its disquisitions on when the human person begins are theological in character and rooted in assumptions even a lot of medievals would have questioned. Its faith that bankers would never steal from us and so do not need to be regulated is a form of mysticism that medievals would have applied to saints. And its fascination with arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and with torture more recalls the star chambers of yore than the deliberations at Philadelphia over 200 years ago.”

http://www.juancole.com/

5.  “Would Our Government Really Start a War to Try to Stimulate the Economy?”

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/would-government-really-start-war-to.html

6.  “Hayek: “Emergencies Have Always Been the Pretext on Which the Safeguards of Individual Liberty Have Eroded”

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/hayek-emergencies-have-always-been.html

7.  “U.S.: Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan”

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16083

8.  “The Disintegration of Yugoslavia

It should be realized that following the collapse of the eastern bloc and the unification of the two Germanies, Berlin saw itself as the strongest player in Europe and actively sought European leadership over which it traditionally competed with France. US military bases that Germany continued to host in the framework of its international obligations after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces presented the main obstacle in the way of the country’s aspirations. There were indications that Germany hoped to have the problem resolved by shifting the bases to the Balkans, where their existence could be based not on Soviet-era international agreements but on a NATO mandate, and where Germany could be guaranteed a place among the key players. What it needed to make the plan materialize was a serious pretext for the Balkan expansion, and the process including the break-up of Yugoslavia and the emergence of several protracted ethnic conflicts spread over its former territory conveniently provided one. The implementation of the scenario began in Slovenia and Croatia, where, due to historic reasons, the German influence was deeply rooted. Already in the 1980ies the German intelligence service had strong positions in Slovenia and especially in Croatia as various émigré nationalist and extremist groups it sponsored gradually made inroads into the administrations. German advisers and NGO envoys flocked to Croatia in numbers in 1989-1990. It was due to their activity that eventually the republic became the scene of the first armed clashes in the former Yugoslavia, which scared even the no less active US representatives. “

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16077

9.  “Obama vs Hatoyama: The making of an unequal, unconstitutional, illegal, colonial and deceitful US-Japan agreement.”

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16084

10.  “The Right’s textbook “surrender to terrorists”

This is literally true:  the Right’s reaction to yesterday’s announcement — we’re too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country — is the textbook definition of “surrendering to terrorists.”  It’s the same fear they’ve been spewing for years.  As always, the Right’s tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers.  Indeed, it’s hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.”

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

11.  “The new WH counsel and “Scooter Libby justice”
A restoration of the rule of law — meaning an end to immunity for high-level political officials who commit crimes — was a central prong of the Obama campaign.  Those who called for a pardon of Lewis Libby — even on the oh-so-clever “progressive” political grounds concocted by Bauer — were as antithetical to that pledge could be.  Yet here is that pro-pardon Washington lawyer now being named as White House counsel.   Then again, one of the few positions more expressive of “Scooter Libby justice” than calling for a pardon of Libby himself is the view that all high-level Bush officials should be immunized from prosecution — even those who committed grievous war crimes and other serious felonies — because it’s more important that we “look to the future” than it is to apply the rule of law equally. If immunity for high-level war criminals — and for lawbreakinng telecoms — isn’t “Scooter Libby justice,” what is? Viewed that way, Bauer would seem to fit in well in his new position.”

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

“Uma regra que, em hipótese, pode parecer a mais vantajosa para a sociedade, pode, ainda assim, ser, na prática, completamente perciniosa e destrutiva.”
David Hume

“Fomos os primeiros a afirmar que, quanto mais complexas as formas assumidas pela civilização, mais restrita deve ser a liberdade dos indivíduos.”
Benito Mussolini

Não, Benito, na verdade, você não foi o primeiro. Os louros pela primeira promulgação desse princípio, com toda a sua atrocidade moderna, devem ir para Lênin, quem, em 1917, se vangloriava de que, quando terminasse de construir o seu paraíso dos trabalhadores, toda a sociedade se tornaria um só escritório e uma só fábrica, com igualdade de trabalho e igualdade de salários.

O que quer que Lênin não soubesse acerca da restrição das liberdades individuais, certamente não valia a pena saber. Admita-se, as coisas não aconteceram exatamente como ele esperava, ou dizia esperar. À medida que a União Soviética avançava, de modo lento e cambaleante, havia cada vez menos trabalho, e os salários eram cada vez mais desvalorizados. A única igualdade que Lênin e seus herdeiros conseguiram foi a igualdade na miséria, o empobrecimento de todos, a menos de uma minúscula e variável porcentagem da nomenklatura (casta dirigente soviética).

Trotsky ressaltou o aspecto central da questão, quando afirmou que, quando o Estado é o único empregador, o velho adágio “aquele que não trabalha não come” é substituído por “aquele não obedece não come”. Mesmo assim, os intelectuais ocidentais organizaram longa fila para irem, verem e serem conquistados. Quantos escritores, jornalistas, artistas e ensaístas bien pensants não se apaixonaram pela URSS, como Lincoln Steffens, que dizia da sua visita de 1921: “Passei pelo futuro, e ele funciona”!

Evidentemente, não se pode fazer um omelete sem quebrar os ovos. Mas é notável a pilha de cascas de ovos que amontoamos ao longo do último século. (E há sempre a constrangedora pergunta de Orwell: “Onde está o omelete?”). Não lembro qual sábio descreveu a esperança como o último dos males que restou no fundo da caixa de Pandora. A afirmação pode ser injusta com a esperança, mas é aplicável à máxima “fé em um mundo melhor”, que sempre esteve no coração dos socialistas. E ainda falam de plantas que resistem ao inverno! A experiência socialista nunca funcionou como anunciaram, mas continua a vicejar no coração humano – ao menos nos dos colonizados pelos intelectuais, aquela tribo palpitante que Julien Benda memoravelmente denominou “clercs”, como na expressão “trahison des”. Mas por quê? Que têm os intelectuais que os torna tão suscetíveis aos “encantos” do socialismo?

Trecho de Hayek & the intellectuals, de autoria de Roger Kimball.
Traduzido por Leonardo S.

F.A. Hayek, along with other thinkers and building on the works of other philosophers, put forth the idea of spontaneous order.

Spontaneous order, in a short description: order coming out of seeming chaos that is the result of action and not planning. One example I was once told of is that of a campus. Whereas the location of the buildings and pathways is the result of human planning, those pseudo-paths that form on the grass from people individually walking the path of least distance is the result of human action. Another example is language. Spanglish never had a chance because, as much as a bunch of people wanted to design a language, language is the spontaneous generation of people acting over time. A more familiar, closer example is that of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

An example of a path spawned from human action and not human design.

Spontaneous order is used by some to argue that freer markets are a better way of allocating resources than any central planner could ever dream of. When governments try to disrupt the spontaneous order of society, they risk making things worse. Pouring salt on the wounds, governments try meticulously to solve the problems of disrupting spontaneous order by, you guessed it, disrupting the spontaneous order even more.

I came across a great example the other day of an entity trying to realign spontaneous order after disrupting it. It was in the movie Back to the Future. In it, Marty McFly goes back in time and accidentally makes his mother fall in love with him. This screws up the properties of time and Marty slowly becomes “unborn”. He needs to undo this and get his parents back together. Think of the “Butterfly Effect” here.

Like governments, Marty got in the way of how things were “supposed to happen”. Although most people don’t agree with how things are “supposed” to happen, Hayek would say that the best spontaneous order is the one that happens based on voluntary exchange of individuals in a system with legal equality. Unlike governments, Marty was able to correct the spontaneous order (only to be followed by a myriad of challenges, laughs, and excellent actions scenes in the second and third parts of the trilogy).

Governments, it seems, tend to do the opposite. Austrian economists would argue that all of the world’s ills (ok, maybe not all of them) come from the government disrupting spontaneous order through manipulation of the money supply. But I’ll give a more relevant example: minimum wage. Assume, for just a second, that my thoughts on minimum wage are correct: it creates a surplus of workers instead of its intended consequence of just raising the wage of workers. To combat this unemployment, the government raises welfare benefits which, as any cross-country comparison shows, creates a higher level of the natural rate of unemployment.

Maybe there were too many assumptions necessary for that example to be convincing. But I think you can probably think of an instance where government’s “cure” is worse than the disease – the disease it happened to have created. Plus, I figured it was about time for a more lighthearted post.

Via @Openworld, Amity Shlaes in Bloomberg Markets:

“‘Emergencies,’” Hayek wrote, “have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.”

…

For a number of decades the main thing about Hayek seemed to be that he was wrong. Britain did head to the left, far to the left. After the war, the U.S. also institutionalized government planning in new areas. Yet neither Britain nor the U.S. went socialist or trampled personal freedoms.

…

But this low estimation of Hayek fails to appreciate his central thought: the economic damage is subtle and is evident only over time.

Expanded health care, which the Democratic-controlled Congress is attempting to adopt, provides the best example. In 1964 the Democratic Party platform document contained a passage on health care. “We will continue to fight until we have succeeded in including hospital care for older Americans in the Social Security Program and have insured adequate assistance to those elderly people suffering from mental illness,” the platform said.

At the time, the idea seemed radical. Something beyond Social Security for seniors? This was the new, final benefit. But once a hospital-care program was in place lawmakers decided that wasn’t enough, and added doctor visits to the benefits list. In later years they expanded yet more, including, under President George W. Bush, the inclusion of Medicare Part D and prescription drugs in the offering.

Hayek’s Prescience

Even that didn’t suffice, which is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate leaders are trying to ram through a vastly expanded public health program this month. The various health- care bills, with their proposed mandates on individuals and their new taxes on wealthy earners or on gilded health-insurance policies, are probably something Lyndon Johnson himself never envisioned.

But Hayek did. Hayek understood that a good decade where government expansion seems to stall — the 1990s — doesn’t mean government won’t expand when the next crisis comes.

The recent pattern of following a war and a financial collapse with the creation of a new entitlement is a perfect example of the Hayekian dynamic in action. No doubt, a new health-care program would be only the first in a number of government incursions, no matter how Republicans do in the midterms.

Amity’s analysis is excellent, but at the end she veers off-track, failing to pursue her ideas to their inevitable depressing conclusion:

Hayek was such a dire fellow that many tend to resist his ideas. Even those of us with serious concerns at seeing a great portion of the economy tip into the public sector were buoyed this weekend by the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If a big thing like the Wall can come down, then surely it won’t be impossible to kill off a small thing like the surtax on gold- plated health plans.

I and plenty of others think that Hayek is wrong. The U.S. won’t necessarily tip into socialism. It will eventually again embrace markets. Too bad we’ll all have to endure the long wait to find out if we’re right.

The Berlin Wall fell because the barrier to customer choice could not hold up against consumer pressure. It was a victim of competition, beaten fair and square by democracy. But there is nothing yet effectively competing against decaying Western social democracies, nor will there be until we open the next frontier. Just like any huge entity which would rather focus on enjoying its power rather than innovating and competing, the US will not embrace markets until it has to.

Unless you have some specific theory as to why things will move in a good direction if good people don’t act, waiting is not much of a strategy. In this case, unfortunately, theory says the opposite. The time for waiting is over.

It’s raining dollars!  What would Frederic Bastiat have to say about this if he could speak to us from 1848?

As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness – Judge Robert Bork

Frederic Bastiat

NEWS FLASH!

We interrupt our regular programming.  The President bans windows in order to benefit candle makers; candle production, he says, will stimulate the economy as long as candles aren’t melted by sunlight.  The administration also announces it will nationalize candle manufacturing, allow greedy wax suppliers only 10% of the money they are owed by the candle makers, plus grant a 30% share of Acme Candles, Inc.  to the UCMDWU (United Candle Mold Delivery Workers’ Union).   New York Times White House correspondent asks Press Secretary Roberty Gibbs what enchanted moment inspired this economic epiphany.

OK, I’ve got the facetiousness out of my system.  I wish I could take credit for this prescient concept.  I’ll admit to only my personal sarcasm in tying the philosophy of that remarkably witty proponent of freedom and liberty: Frederic Bastiat, (see link to Wikipedia entries from the pictures on the sidebar) to our current state of affairs.  Frederic Bastiat was a member of what was known as the French Liberal School in the 1840s (liberal as in the classical/original free market definition), warning of the folly of government intervention in the marketplace.  His parable of a fictitious petition by candle makers to the French government to eliminate windows in order to prevent candles from melting – thereby increasing economic prosperity by insuring the success of the candle industry (at the expense of the window industry…oops) – is a hilarious anecdote.  It also unfortunately illustrates the genesis of the president’s belief system.

Obviously above, I make reference to the bailout of GM, the perversion of the rule of law in throwing Chrysler bond holders to the wolves, and the artificial propping up of the UAW rather than normal bankruptcy pecking order.  Bastiat’s fable of altruistic but ultimately damaging marketplace intervention, is echoed consistently by the current administration’s adherence to this paradigm of unlimited spending by fiat justified by its immediate/short term effects on various and sundry interest groups.  In fact, Friedrich Hayek (see my previous two posts) said in a review of Bastiat that, according to 1930s economist John Maynard Keynes, the assumption of a multiplier effect (simply meaning a belief that the government can stimulate the economy by spending, producing a return greater than the cost of the stimulus; thereby increasing employment) on general economic prosperity would precisely mimic the argument of the candle makers!

Cash for clunkers (and maybe the upcoming Stimulus II cash for “cluckers” chicken farm bailout?) would most certainly fit neatly into these fallacies: money will do more good in the hands of the government, and it is the duty of government  to see that all get what they “deserve”.

Lastly, Frederic Bastiat’s landmark book: The Law has remarkable parallels to the economically damaging entitlement philosophies of the current congressional majority.  For example Bastiat says in the section The Results of Legal Plunder, “No society can exist unless the laws are respectable to a certain degree.  The safest ways to make laws respected is to make them respectable.”  This quote illustrates the current congress’s path towards a society in which greater than 50% of workers pay no taxes, and receive payments in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit.  Therefore, this non-tax paying majority – the receivers of public services and governmental largess – are able to award themselves through the ballot ever increasing free goods and services from the minority: the tax payers/suppliers of public services and governmental largess.  I see no end to this increase in receivers, to include the resulting unconstructive inertia towards manufactured dependence.

So to bring my polemic to a close, I quote Bastiat one more time: “Legal plunder is identified as “… the law takes from some persons [what] belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong…The person who profits from this law… will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry…”

— Or nationality, ethnicity, income demographic, religion, color, blue collar, white collar, government employee, Woodstock museum, first time home buyer, union member, sexual preference, illegal immigrant, home in foreclosure, Wall St., Main St., small business, large business, self esteem damaging tatoo removers (I didn’t make this one up: see   http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/63697.html), “green” energy producer, municipality, farmer, auto parts supplier, environmentalist, “too big to fail” bank and insurance companies, student, teacher, cop, mechanic, ethanol producer, the bicycle spoke hooker-uppers’ guild, donut shop owners’ amalgamated, and last but not least……….Acme Candles, Inc.

Comments on the blog con or pro most welcome.

At the 1990 Mises University at Stanford, Professor Murray Rothbard (1926-1995) spoke on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the future for freed markets in a lecture titled, “The Future of Austrian Economics.” Educational and always humorous, he shows the flaws of the U.S.S.R. weren’t practical blunders, but ideological and methodological flaws of “planning the modern industrial State” which made its demise inevitable from the start and why compromising radical philosophy with the irrational “doesn’t work”. (49:39):

More from Prof. Rothbard:

• Murray Rothbard on Political Strategy (Video)
• Rothbard on Keynes: Hero or Villian? (mp3)
• The Founding of the Federal Reserve (Video)
• Rothbard: The State is a Counterfeiter
• Dr. Murray N. Rothbard: “America’s Two Just Wars”

His full archive is at Mises.org.

Ett citat ur Jan-Werner Müllers artikel Fear and Freedom: On ‘Cold War Liberalism’ i European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2008, pp. 45-64. (En strålande artikel för övrigt, läste den för ett år sedan ungefär men lär få anledning att återkomma till den.)

Of course, many libertarians – Hayek and the representatives of the Freiburg School – also did not simply celebrate the strength of the capitalist entrepreneur, or saw the market as an unmixed blessing: there remains a world of difference between Hayek’s followers and, let’s say, Ayn Rand’s Nietzschean, if not outright Social Darwinist pro-capitalist dogma. Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow looked to Christianity and cultural traditions to compensate for the moral damage the market may inflict; and the very notion of ordo betrayed the Catholic roots of the Freiburg School and some of Hayek’s disciples in the US.

[s. 56 i EJPT eller s. 21 i onlineversionen ovan]

Johan Wennström dissar idag Ayn Rand. Jag har då och då själv skissat på en sågning av Rand men har gett upp: jag lyckas knappt skriva mer än ett par meningar utan att börja raljera å det grövsta. Och eftersom jag helst undviker att författa sådana texter så drar jag mig hellre klädsamt tillbaka. Men kort: jag anser att denna ideologi och dess para-intellektuella stödtrupper är det mest vämjeliga inom den svenska högern idag. Att Timbro eldade igång denna utopiska och ortodoxa lära är bedrövligt, och ovärdigt en liberal tankesmedja.

Och det är kontraproduktivt. Wennström skriver:

Om allt fler vill luta sig mot Rand är det inte alldeles bra. Hon var en ytterlighetstänkare. Det skulle även underminera viktig kritik mot statens ökande inblandning i ekonomin, eftersom det skulle bli enklare att avfärda den.

Jag instämmer. Ett exempel från ganska nyligen är den här artikeln av Gerald L. Houseman i Times Higher Education. Just eftersom måltavlan, Rand, är så stor så bemödar sig Houseman inte ens om att sikta. Det försåtliga är dock, vilket är Wennströms poäng, att han i förbifarten kan kasta ner en rad andra marknadsliberala teoretiker i samma sopsäck.

I det aktuella fallet använder sig skribenten av Joseph Stiglitz forskning, vars resultat bevisar. . .

. . . that there is no such thing as a “free-enterprise system”, simply because all the bargains taking place in a market system are characterised by an information deficit on one side or the other. This gap reflects an information advantage that one side invariably holds over the other in any deal so that there are, in fact, no truly equitable financial agreements to be had. And it is because of this absence of equity that free enterprise can achieve only what can be regarded as a mythic status. This not only applies to the free-enterprise myth itself, however; it applies to all its constituent elements, such as Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, which was perennially held to be a kind of guarantor of self-interest that allegedly made the whole system work. But there is no invisible hand, just as there is no free enterprise.

Detta kan möjligtvis vara ett vettigt angrepp på Rand, men sedan går Houseman vidare och påstår att i och med detta så faller allt marknadsliberalt tänkande; att denna nya “information economics” utgör en “mortal blow” som är “quite complete” och att hela traditionen från Adam Smith, neoklassisk nationalekonomi, såväl som Hayek och Mises helt enkelt har visat sig vara bankrutta. Detta visar, menar jag, på faran med att lägga sina liberala ägg i Rands korg, för genom att göra så, istället för att föra fram de intellektuellt mest kompetenta teoretikerna, så ger man möjlighet åt kritiker att avfärda all liberal ekonomisk doktrin genom det enkla avfärdandet av Rand.

Exempelvis låter i mina öron avfärdandet av Hayek och Mises som lättvindigt. Nu har jag ju inte läst Stiglitz och är kanske lite out of my depth här, men min reaktion på Housemans sammanfattning var att finns det någon nationalekonomisk falang som står teoretiskt välrustad att handskas med Stiglitz så är det väl just den österrikiska skolan (Menger, Mises, Hayek, et al.). Jag kan inte riktigt sätta fingret på varför det är så, men det måse ha att göra med dess syn på kunskap, rationalitet och jämviktsteori, särskilt i kontrast med neoklassisk teori. (Mer kompetenta läsare får hemskt gärna kommentera huruvida det ligger något i denna min hunch. Jag läste Hakelius Den österrikiska skolan i en känslig ålder, men tyvärr har jag inte riktigt följt upp det spåret och inte läst mer än några doser Hayek.)

Hayek’s challenge: An intellectual biography of F.A. Hayek
HB101.H39 C39 2004
330.092

Quote from F. A. Hayek’s book: The Road To Serfdom:

“Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving.”

I thought I’d post this as I suppose in some sense it has some relevance to my previous post – it’s definitely up there as one of my favourite quotes. I picked up The Road To Serfdom and started reading through a few chapters about a year ago. I have to say I’m still yet to read through all of the it, though.

I had thought that Hayek’s use of the markets concept helped to explain why Keynesian economics would ultimately fail.  Each market participant would contribute his iota of information to determine prices, which would then reflect collective wisdom.  Any tinkering by a “smart policy maker” would be undone, and thus this ended up as the kernel of the Lucas Critique.

But it seems Lucas became the foundation of later work, called RBC and then DSGE models, that came to be touted as “the best there is.”  This is of course vainglorious and premature self-congratulation, what with the advent of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The explanation is perhaps that Lucas never really read Hayek.  Very few mainstream economists did or do.  But here’s an explanation by Paul de Grauwe.  In short, de Grauwe considers DSGE/Lucas as “top down” models built on the short-circuitry of rational expectations (“If it doesn’t succeed, it must not have been rational; so it could not have happened”).  But models running on Hayek’s ideas are “bottom up” models of incomplete information, which provides an alternative explanation of unemployment even as markets try to do their thing. It is better than Keynes because Keynes simply assumed wage and price rigidities (a failure of some kind of markets) and injected “animal spirits” to explain the Depression.

Bottom line:  Lucas was a detour into not-quite-useful rationality.  That is why macroeconomics is back to the drawing boards.  Kind of like the Wise Guys having to stock up on home-made pasta and mattresses, waiting for a solution to their “territory” problems.

Caros da 2ª fase,

Boa notícia para alegrar a tarde de um 3 de novembro magnífico, de 40 º dentro de casa Oo raios!: :TEMOS PROVA DE ECONOMIA POLÍTICA SEXTA!

Então, tentando ser CURTA E GROSSA: Prova sexta-feira. Cinco textos relativamente grandes. Economia Política. Eu gosto. A maioria odeia. A maioria odeia e não vê a hora de se livrar disso. Contudo, para se livrar de Economia Política, é preciso tirar 6,0 na prova de Economia Política – isso para quem conseguiu ao menos a média na 1ª prova hehehehehe.

Bom, então o que será escrito adiante neste post são só idéias gerais, muito gerais mesmo! Tipo, geral do geral, tópicos simploríssimos do que pode cair na prova eventualmente. Geral, hein! Esta é a palavra!

Então, se por um acaso algum economista ler este post e se deparar com idéias absurdamente medíocres, patéticas e estapafúrdias sobre esse fenômeno complexo que é a Economia, não me massacre! É só uma tentativa – espero que não totalmente inútil e vã – de fazer uma turma da 2ª fase de Direito (portanto NÃO de economia!) seguir alegre (?) e sem amarras pelo decorrer do curso. Isso soou um tanto quanto, sei lá.. alegre, sem amarras .. glup .. Oo rs

CARA! Não consigo ser curta e grossa mesmo 8C Bah!

Enfim, VAMOS LÁ 2ª FASE! \o/ hauihauiahuaah:

TEXTO 1. ENSAIOS SOBRE O CAPITALISMO NO SÉCULO XX.

O MERCADO E OS DIREITOS SOCIAIS – Luiz Gonzaga de Mello Belluzzo

Aqui nesse texto nem adianta reclamar ou ousar falar que é difícil, que não entende nada, nhé nhé nhé, ou coisas do gênero. É muito fácil, e são só 3 meras páginas! Se o prof. Sandro tivesse passado, por acaso, o livro inteiro do BELLUZZO, ainda seria um pouco plausível a reclamação. Mas 3 páginas? 3 páginas? :O

O QUE ANOTEI SOBRE ESSE TEXT (inho):

1. Durante o LIBERALISMO CLÁSSICO: os direitos, para o mercado, são aqueles que nascem do contrato, dos negócios. Sem mais. É a tal da sociabilidade mercantil, onde para  vc querer algo, vc deve vender seu produto ou sua capacidade de trabalho.

Belluzzo, o autor, vai dizer que “o homem vale o que o seu esforço vale e o seu esforço vale se a mercadoria que ele produziu foi transformada em R$” (Tá. Belluzzo não disse beeeem assim, mas essa é a versão deturpada – por mim – do que ele disse. Sorry, prof. Belluzzo. Huiahuahauiaha)

Assim, no século 19, o desemprego, por exemplo, era um PROBLEMA INDIVIDUAL. Se você fracassou em seu emprego, por exemplo, o problema é seu.

Vai parecer patético, mas vejo o Estado capitalista do século 19 como se estivesse cantando aquela música da LuKa para os trabalhadores, para os desempregados: “Tô nem aí, tô nem aí, não vem falar dos seus problemas que eu não vou ouvir” (SIm, eu disse que seria ridículo falar de economia sem saber de economia.. :X rsrsrs)

Bem, além disso, o Estado defendia as normas do livre mercado, defendia o valor externo da moeda acima de tudo, “mesmo que isso custasse o aumento do desemprego ou a queda dos salários dos trabalhadores”.

2. JÁÁÁÁ no SÉCULO XX  a história era outra: vários fatores contribuíram para a mudança daquele processo descrito ali em cima.

Entre eles, aponta-se:

- ampliação das massas trabalhadoras nas cidades e a luta destes, é claro;

- sufrágio universal (“direito de voto, a todos os indivíduos considerados intelectualmente maduros (em geral os adultos). No Brasil, os adolescentes acima de 16 anos têm direito ao voto, sem distinção de etnia, sexo, crença ou classe social.”) Tá na Wikipedia, pra quem não sabe.. hauihsauhsuhsa

-pensamento socialista em ascensão;

TUUUDO isso transformou os problemas ANTES particulares em PROBLEMAS SOCIAIS, COLETIVOS. O desemprego, voltando ao exemplo dado anteriormente, era agora um problema social e político a ser enfrentado pelo governo!

Como resultado dessas lutas [COMO JÁ VIMOS EM TEORIA CONSTITUCIONAL!] temos a CONQUISTA DOS DIREITOS SOCIAIS. O Estado agora tinha uma dívida para com os indivíduos desde o momento do nascimento desses.

O cidadão, em contrapartida, também tinha um dever com o Estado. São os deveres que conhecemos bem (e o nosso bolso tbm! Rsrs): pagar impostos, cumprir as leis e cooperar para o bem comum.. (o de sempre..)

CONCLUINDO: agora era o ESTADO que deveria garantir o cumprimento dos contratos, assegurar liberdade política e econômica (até aqui, características típicas de um Estado Liberal) + regular o ciclo econômico (intervenção) e criar espaços de integração social (características do Estado Social)

 TEXTO 2. OS DIREITOS DO ANTIVALOR – FRANCISCO DE OLIVEIRA

A 2ª metade do século XX estabelece-se por meio da participação intervencionista do Estado na economia e nas questões sociais, buscando estimular o INVESTIMENTO PRIVADO e a PRODUÇÃO DA FORÇA DE TRABALHO.

Assim, o fundo público era responsável por financiar a acumulação dos capitais particulares (p. ex, a agricultura que era sustentada pelo fundo público…) e a reprodução da força de trabalho (garantir educação, saúde e demais direitos sociais..).

O autor diz que é claro que o uso de capitais públicos é inerente ao capitalismo desde seus primórdios. CONTUDO, foi só com o Estado Providência, Welfare State, Estado Benfeitor ou ainda Estado de Bem-Estar Social que a intervenção estatal se generalizou, se tornou abrangente, estável e institucionalizada.

Outro ponto relevante trata do fundo público & salário indireto:

Primeira pergunta: o que era o tal do salário indireto? Grosso modo, eram os serviços públicos destinados aos cidadãos, como educação pública gratuita (Oo), saúde para todos e etc etc e etc. Ora, já que o Estado garantia tudo isso para as pessoas, elas não precisariam mais gastar com essas questões – só os pais que insistissem em pagar mensalidades de uma escola para os filhos, é claro. Rsrsr

Bem, e qual é a conseqüência disso? O fundo público garantia a vida das pessoas na maioria dos aspectos. E …?

Conseqüência: Quanto menos as pessoas gastarem seu salário direto com educação e afins, mais gastarão este (o salário direto propriamente) com bens duráveis e, portanto, mais caros. Isso gera um aumento do consumo de massa! É a liberalização do salário direto para o consumo da massa, sacaram?

Percebam, então, que o fundo público é fundamental, é pressuposto, é condição estrutural necessária para que os capitalistas desenvolvessem suas atividades e para a própria reprodução da força de trabalho.

MASSSS, SEMPRE TEM UM PROBLEMA….

…. o alto padrão de financiamento público do Welfare State, do Estado de Bem-Estar Social. É meio óbvio Né? Mais gastos do Estado, maior a dívida. Muitas dívidas –> CRISE. :O

Com a crise desse Estado, passa-se a sugerir um conjunto de reformas chamadas NEOLIBERAIS.

Yep! É o neoliberalismo chegando, galera. Bom? Ruim? Hmm.. É o que sempre digo… depende do ponto de vista… KOkPkokoKAOKokaosoak

TEXTO 3. O BALANÇO DO NEOLIBERALISMO (PERRY ANDERSON)

1. ORIGENS DO NEOLIBERALISMO: ai ai .. em termos gerais, o Neoliberalismo nasce após a II Guerra Mundial e se instala, a princípio, na Europa e na América do Norte.

Como vimos, foi uma reação ao Estado intervencionista e de bem-estar.

O texto-símbolo desse surgimento do neoliberalismo é “O caminho da servidão”, de 1944, do austríaco Frederick Hayek. Segundo o autor do texto 3, esse livro era um ataque contra qualquer limitação que o Estado poderia impor ao mercado. Para Hayek, isso ameaçava a liberdade econômica E POLÍTICA, além de acabar com a competição e concorrência naturais do sistema capitalista. Oo patético

Ele ia mais longe ainda e dizia que a social-democracia levaria à servidão. (Hmm.. servidão de quem? Dos pobres capitalistas? Que dozinha que tenho deles .. :C hahaha)

Hayek convoca então uma reunião (clube da Luluzinha) com intelectuais na Suíça (entre eles estava o tal do Friedman, o cara do texto 5..rs). A ganguezinha deles reunião tinha o intuito de combater o keynesianismo e preparar idéias para um outro tipo de capitalismo, um capitalismo duro e livre de regras, onde a desigualdade era algo positivíssimo! Oh, sim. :f

Com a CRISE do Bem-Estar Social, tem-se a ascensão neoliberal. Eles, os neoliberais, vão dizer que os sindicatos e o movimento operário tinham muito poder nas mãos. Além disso, havia muitos gastos sociais do Estado. Em síntese, o Estado regulador levou à decadência do crescimento, pois (falando de modo muito grosseiro) o povo não trabalhava mais por causa daquele salariozinho indireto que eles tinham garantido pelo fundo público.

A solução para isso, segundo os neoliberais, era manter um Estado FORTE para romper o poder dos sindicatos e controlar a grana; e um Estado FRACO com os gastos sociais e intervenções econômicas.

OBJETIVO DO NOVO GOVERNO: A estabilidade monetária era a bola da vez! Deveria-se conter os gastos com o bem-estar do povo, restaurar o desemprego “natural”, executar reformas fiscais para incentivar agentes econômicos, reduzir impostos, e blá blá blá.. (vocês deveriam ter isso no caderno, sabia? LOL)

Awn, dêem uma olhada no final do texto que fala se o Neoliberalismo deu certo ou não e onde foi aplicado em sua forma mais pura. Está lá, é só ler. HUIhahaUIHuiaha

AH! E o prof. passou uma tabelinha no quadro rsrsrsrs que mostra as diferenças principais entre as reformas/idéias/medidas de Keynes e de Friedman:

Bem, o TEXTO 4 traz aqueles conceitos que deveríamos saber, como Estado de Bem-Estar Social, Força de Trabalho, Fordismo …. Afinal, lembro vagamente que tive aula de TGE na 1ª fase. Hm.. só que, não sei porquê, mas não lembro de quase nada que foi ministrado durante o semestre passado. Pois é. Nós, estudantes, somos seres muito esquecidos mesmo. Rsrsr ô língua

Em relação ao TEXTO 5, não fui na última aula. :Z Até tenho o texto aqui, porque peguei no xerox. Porém, não tenho anotações e nem assisti à aula. Virem-se! LOL POkaokPkpakaoak

Um eventual colega de sala perdido: – “Tailine, é tudo isso pra estudar??”

- Não. É mais do que isso. Isso é só o básico do básico. O geral do geral. O.. tá. rsrsr Mas sério, não estudem só por aqui. Depois que vocês se ferrarem eu rirei nas suas respectivas caras… uihUhauhauahaiuhaiu

AH! Se alguém foi na última aula e entendeu o que o prof. tentou explicar, me dê um toque, please! RsRsr

Hmm.. acho que é isso. Se eu tiver esquecido de alguma coisa importante, atualizo depois.

:** e até hoje mesmo na Semana Acadêmica o/

ATUALIZANDO (3 nov. 2009 – 23:36 Oo era para eu estar dormindo! UIhauhsuiahsuihaiush)

DÚVIDAS NO AVA. O prof. Sandro fez um fórum para isso