115 responses so far ↓

• chArles

  Feb 23, 2010 at 7:16 pm

  

  @Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  “I’m a Post-Anarcho-Austrian Neo-KEEN-sian”

  just curious as to what that is? as an anarchosyndiclist I am clueless as to the concept of Anarcho-Austrian….I am assuming you mean some form of minimalist statism ala Nozick if so that is a misuse of the prefix Anarcho….there is no such best as anarcho-capitalism, just can’t exist (all anarchist are oppose all forms of hierarchy, and one can never freely place themselves in a subservient relation)

  anarcho-capitalism is like Jumbo shrimp…or my new favorite make believe political concept…”Neo Monarchist” Mr. Romney gave the world that piece of idiocy at CPAC, the current presidents and administration maybe a lot of things, but I doubt if he is that.
• WL

  Feb 23, 2010 at 7:24 pm

  

  Keynes was a fabian socialist, A derivative of Marxism, same ideology, different strategy. This is the CANCER, now Progressivism, in all Political Parties and infiltrating all parts of society. it is really tribal elitism.

  http://www.keynesatharvard.org/book/KeynesatHarvard-ch02.html
• Viriathus

  Feb 23, 2010 at 7:58 pm

  

  Really? The deathbed of Keynesian Economics? What a joke. So the casino gulag model of neoliberalism proves Keynes was wrong? How very convenient for the Friedmanites and Randroids. Tell me, you plucky bootstrappers, was it government spending on the real economy that caused and is exacerbating this mess, or was it unfettered financialization, captured regulators and trickle-down economics?

  The only actual Keynesian policies that exist in America are for the MIC and Wall Street. For everyone else it’s the invisible hand – up the ass!
• Adam C

  Feb 23, 2010 at 8:09 pm

  

  “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” — John Maynard Keynes
  http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

  A couple of related links:

  Adam Curtis Blog — THE ECONOMISTS’ NEW CLOTHES
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/02/the_economists_new_clothes.html

  ‘…perhaps the economists are the problem? That they themselves cannot see the full dimensions of the project of which they have been a part. But still we listen to them, and still our journalists use their language and assumptions. Which means that despite the disasters we are still trapped in the economists’ world. But the moment you pull back and look at that world from a wider perspective strange things start to emerge. — Over the past 15 years the idea of the “market” has been extended to practically every area of society – education, health, even the arts. But to make this happen those running the neoliberal project had to enforce it by creating vast and intricate performance indicators and feedback systems (which in many cases led to wide scale absurdities). And to do this they used the mighty power of the state. — We think it was the resurgence of capitalism. But maybe it was something very different?’

  Yes, Mercantilism. State(ists) as rentier middlemen collecting fees/bribes.

  Freedomain Radio — #642 Mercantilism: A theory of state and corporations (MP3)
  http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_642_Mercantilism.mp3

  Gisted — “Mercantilism is simply the transfer of money from the State to particular corporations in return for services without which the State cannot function.” Mercantilism is inevitable whenever there’s a State because the State is fundamentally helpless and can’t do anything for itself. — The government has three relationships in the economy. With: #1. Criminals: The black/gray market. #2. Net-providers of taxes: Companies the State steals from. #3. Net-receivers of taxes: Companies the State gives to via subsidies, tariffs, guaranteed contacts, etc, in order to get things done. — As State power grows mercantilism always ends up as fascism as more and more corporations get their value from, and give their allegiance to, the State. Eventually, when the bloated State has destroyed all geniune wealth creation in the economy, it starts printing money just to pay off the mercantilist corporations it has hired to maintain the appearance that anything reasonable is getting done at all.
• chArles

  Feb 23, 2010 at 8:15 pm

  

  @ Viriathus

  it’s a religion…doesn’t matter what the real shows the Chico go Boy’s and dutiful disciples well parrot the same thing, over and over and over. It can be seen as destroying the real economy obliterating the social fabric of a society and like good fundamentalist they will scream “WE HAVE FAILED YOU MY LORD” they just didn’t believe hard enough to stop the man made tornado from tearing threw their trailer park.

  and was so glad to hear Fabian socialist were back being the bug a boo…maybe Glen Beck will diagram their connection to the real controllers of the world.
• WL

  Feb 23, 2010 at 8:37 pm

  

  Long before Beck nice smear though

  G Edward Griffin pt1 of 3

  Fabianism-Leninism-Communism

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEgU8JrWdXs
• WL

  Feb 23, 2010 at 8:47 pm

  

  IS KEYNESIANISM A SOCIALIST MANEUVER?

  There has been a steady and increasing chorus of denials that Keynes and his theories have anything to do with socialists and socialism. Incongruous as it may seem, most of the disclaimers have come from socialists themselves. Beware when socialists defend anyone against socialism! However, there are those bearing conservative labels who join in the same denial. The campaign has been incredibly successful.

  Keynes is fixed in the minds of most observers as a savior of capitalism. The argument proceeds that the private enterprise system was failing and take-over either by communists or fascists was imminent. Along came Keynes with a presumably unique and original plan to save the doomed capitalist system from complete disaster. The major precept was projected as a theory of “mixed economy” whereby the government would act as receiver and administrator of the “national product.”

  The liberals, bankers, manufacturers and government officials who embraced this package went through the motions like men grabbing at life preservers while still standing on the shore. The sight of the economic waves in the distance was projected histrionically as actual drowning. This stampeded the foolish, the timid and the opportunistic into accepting an old reactionary propaganda device that was refurbished in the modern tones of a cultured English accent.

  The first thing Keynes did was to disclaim any connection with marxism. This was an elementary Fabian socialist diversionary move to distract the public from noting Karl Marx’s projection of a “mixed economy” in the Communist Manifesto of 1847. Academic pundits suddenly developed a conscious amnesia about the fact that Marx’s socialist forces intended to “use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie” and that private savings would be eliminated by the simple expedient of, “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”(1) This is pure Keynesianism 45 years before Keynes was born. The elimination of private savings and the “euthenasia of the rentier” was the touchstone of the entire Keynesian edifice. Government manipulation of credit policies and regulations that control production movements to undermine the principle of property rights was boldly and directly proclaimed by Marx:

  http://www.keynesatharvard.org/book/KeynesatHarvard-ch10.html
• chArles

  Feb 23, 2010 at 8:51 pm

  

  wasn’t really meant to be a smear…truthfully was said more as a joke,,,and I grew up hearing the John Birch talking points and they were tiring in the 60′s and 70′s now they are laughable. I am not unfamiliar with how this dance is suppose to go just don’t wanna do it any more….sorry Keynes wasn’t a socialist. Maybe one of the reasons I am not such a huge fan of the guy.
• WL

  Feb 23, 2010 at 8:59 pm

  

  @chArles,

  Thanks for clarifying

  I consider the Fabian Socialist movement as tribal elitism, promising a socialist utopia but really just another mechanism to rape the population of freedom and fruits of their labour. Keynes, as well as many other factors, contributed to the situation we are in today,
• Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  Feb 23, 2010 at 9:09 pm

  

  @chArles

  I was talking out of my ASS!!!!
  

  Glad to see someone got suckered into the joke…

  Seriously though… I am a fan of Steve Keen’s work (I like the dynamic theory)

  I also am fond of the writings of Hazlitt, Hayek, and Garrison… I’ve been trying to plug through von Mises’ Human Action but that’s a heavy read… And it will probably take me the rest of the year to properly digest it…
  HOWEVER, I do have Libertarian/Anarchist tendencies…
  Ideally, I want to see society develop into a Technocracy…

  So knowing that, how would you classify me?
  (other than CRAZY)
• chArles

  Feb 23, 2010 at 9:50 pm

  

  @Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  don’t want to classify anyone….hope you didn’t take my little poke as an affront…just one of my pet peeves of the disintegration of political concepts….nothing is more sad than people flinging words around when they have no understanding what they entail…that was why I referenced Mitt Romney Neo Monarchist….John Stewart did a whole rift on that last night

  seems from your interests that you want to maximize personal autonomy while continuing greater expansion of technology….those goals seem to be at odds…technology can only advance via a concerted social engagement between individual…if one holds to tightly to personal autonomy (i.e. I I have a good idea about fire…its mine all mine and you have to protect my property rights to this idea) then technology has a tendency to grind to a halt

  my ideology demands greatest personal autonomy while minimizing inequality…which also suffers a similar flaw…. my ideology has not been successful at maximizing personal autonomy while producing a large industrial society that is needed to minimize the material inequality.
• rokw4petrocollapse

  Feb 24, 2010 at 2:17 am

  

  All U.S. anti-Keynesians still seem to LOOOVE military spending. All Friedmanites just SWOON over military spending. Can’t get rid of the F-22. Why not? Because “my district will lose JOBS.”

  But that IS Keynesian, you dumbfuck Friedmanites.
• Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  Feb 24, 2010 at 4:33 am

  

  @chArles

  Actually…
  Personal Autonomy and Technocracy can work together…
  Under a proper technocracy, there is little need to maintain 95% employment (maybe not even 50%)…
  So what are people going to do with their FREE-TIME ???
  Whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t cause a murder, right?
  Maybe I am trying to meld Anarchy with Technocracy ???
  Have you heard of the Political Compass?
  You CAN have Anarcho-Capitalists…

  I think the Anarchist definition is what hangs people up…
  Just like the definition of INFLATION…

  I fail to see what you mean by technology grinding to a halt under such a scenario…
  but considering this is quickly becoming an old thread,
  like day-old bread,
  I guess we’ll have to take that debate up later…
  down the road…
  Maybe in the FORUM (which is not utilized enough by the denizens of this E-Hole)
  http://maxkeiser.ning.com/forum/categories/general-discussion/listForCategory
• Kay

  Feb 24, 2010 at 1:54 pm

  

  The problem is neo-liberal economics and it’s associated corruption/fraud.

  If the people at the top are allowed to steal everything, Keynesian as well as non-Keynsian policies will all fail.

  Our economy is like a bathtub with many holes in the bottom, it’s silly to discuss which soap would be best to wash ourselves with when all the water is quickly leaking out the bottom.

  And of course we have Geithner and Summers labeling the holes in the bottom of the tub as “innovations” which need to be protected.
• Mr Jones

  Feb 25, 2010 at 7:03 am

  

  OH!!!! So we have actually been practicing Keynesian Economics all this time for the last 30+ years. Guess I have been duped yet again. I have been thinking the world is flat and that we have been practicing Regannomic, supply side, trickle down economics all this time. And lets not forget free-trade and deregulation. And now your saying this has been Keynesian Economics all this time. WOW!!. Now I am really confused. So when a government such as Japan for example subsidizes the development and production of the Lexus, and that Lexus becomes a success and a major export that helps the Japanese economy to proper, what is that called now? My text books referred to that as Mercantilism and now your saying it is not.