Tag Archives: Hidden History

Southern Avenger: Confused Confederates

This post will likely be shocking to some of my readers who see the Civil War as the just war. For a more extensive re-examination of it, read Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln.

For anyone who thinks the Civil War is justified by the abolition of slavery, I will say that slavery was abolished peacefully everywhere else in the world (see Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia). There was no reason to kill 600,000 young men to do it here.

NY Times Obituaries for 3 Communist mass murderers, and 1 anti-Communist mass murderer

Below are the headlines of four obituaries that have run in The New York Times. The first is that of the recent obituary of the Anti-Communist Augusto Pinochet. The next three are those of the obituaries of the Communist mass murderers Mao, Stalin, and Lenin. Please be sure to note how many are described as having ruled by terror.

December 11, 2006, Augusto Pinochet, Dictator Who Ruled by Terror in Chile, Dies at 91

September 10, 1976, Friday, . . . Mao Tse-tung Dies in Peking at 82; Leader of Red China’s Revolution

March 6, 1953, Friday, Stalin Rose From Czarist Oppression to Transform Russia Into Mighty Socialist State; RUTHLESS IN MOVING TO GOALS

January 24, 1924, Thursday, ENORMOUS CROWDS VIEW LENIN’S BODY AS IT LIES IN STATE; Wait Hours in Snow and Zero Temperature Outside Moscow Nobles’ Club. COFFIN CARRIED FIVE MILES Members of Council of Commissars Stagger Under Load, Refusing Gun Caisson. LENIN CALLED A CHRISTIAN Archbishop Summons Synod to Declare Founder of Bolshevism Member of Church. ENORMOUS CROWDS VIEW LENIN’S BODY

(Read more from blog.mises.org)

The Scandinavian-Welfare Myth Revisited

It is always good to look at the history of a country when examining its economic performance. Stefan Karlsson did just that back in 2006 in an excellent article on the economic history of Sweden. I will therefore only give a brief overview of this subject before focusing on the central point of this article.

Karlsson wrote the following:

As a result of its free market policies, the resourcefulness of its people, and its successful avoidance of war, Sweden had the highest per-capita income growth in the world between 1870 and 1950, by which time Sweden had become one of the world’s richest countries.

. . . .

Indeed, thanks to its “neutrality” during WWII, Sweden was never bombed or invaded.[1] This left Sweden’s industries intact and unharmed, which, along with its free-market-oriented economy, enabled the country to profit extensively from the reconstruction of war-torn continental Europe: Sweden exported huge amounts of goods and natural resources to the rest of Europe, fueling an economic boom in Sweden that lasted for over two decades.[2] As Karlsson points out, during this time “Sweden was still one of the freest economies in the world, and government spending relative to GDP was in fact below the American level.”

On the back of this boom the Swedish government began setting up a massive welfare state throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, causing government spending to skyrocket to more than 50 percent of GDP. At one point during the mid-’70s, the top marginal tax rate was an unbelievable 102 percent.

One of the people who were burdened with this tax was Astrid Lindgren, the famous author of children’s books best known for her Pippi Longstocking series. In 1976 she wrote a satirical short story published in one of Sweden’s biggest newspapers, where she told the tale of a troubled children’s-books author called Pomperipossa, who lived in the fictional kingdom of Monismania. Among other things, Pomperipossa pondered why the more she earned, the less she got to keep, and why people like her were being economically punished by the government simply for writing popular children’s books. The story also mentions that in Monismania one could escape some of the taxes by purchasing real-estate property, which is exactly what the Swedish secretary of the treasury, Gunnar Sträng, had been doing at that time.

Lindgren’s story stirred up a fierce tax debate in Sweden, and for the first time in 44 years the incumbent Social Democratic Party lost the general elections.

The Swedish economy was in an uphill struggle throughout the ’70s, mainly because the increasingly socialist policies had caused the economy to stagnate and lag behind the rest of the world. Many other European countries had caught up with Sweden and its monstrous welfare state and were now outperforming the country economically.

In an effort to save the economy, the government carried out extensive reform and liberalizations throughout the ’80s and ’90s, cutting taxes and welfare expenditures, abolishing government monopolies, reducing regulation, floating the currency, and permitting more private alternatives in the public sector.

This increase in economic freedom is partially illustrated in Fig. 1, which comes from the Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom.

. . . .

We have seen that while the Scandinavian countries have extremely high amounts of what Rothbard called binary intervention, i.e., taxation, their saving grace is their relatively lower amount of triangular intervention, i.e., regulation. This puts the Scandinavian countries on a level playing field with other developed countries and helps explain why they are able to have equal or higher living standards. The misconception that the other Western countries are a lot more free-market oriented than Scandinavia is very unfortunate; it feeds the notion that more government expansion would bring joy and happiness to all, when in fact it would make things worse.

However, the real point of all this is that the world at large is so unfree that even the massive Scandinavian welfare states can be considered among the “most free” countries in the world. While things have generally moved in the right direction in Scandinavia in terms of increased economic freedom, the very opposite trend seems to be taking place in several other countries, particularly the United States. Seeing as the United States has already descended to the level of Denmark in terms of economic freedom, one can only wonder how long it will be before it finds itself approaching Finland, Norway, and Sweden. (Read more from mises.org)

My two favorite Mises Institute lectures

Keynesian Predictions vs. American History

Tom Woods is a very lucid and exciting speaker. I love this particular lecture because it reveals some monumental bits of hidden history.

Lecture begins @ 5:00.

@8:20 Tom Woods talks about how Keynesians predicted massive unemployment and a depression in 1946 because of demobilization of the military and huge reductions in government spending. In fact, 1946 was the single greatest economic year for the United States.

@18:00 Tom Woods talk about influential American economist Paul Samuelson who repeatedly praised the Soviet Union in an influential Economic text widely used in classrooms from 1973 to 1989. Samuelson wrote, among other things, that Soviet political oppression might be worth its economic gains.

In the 1989 edition he wrote “Contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, the Soviet economy is proof that a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.”

There was gigantic Soviet propaganda in the United States, and I like when people have the courage to point it out.

***

Technology and Social Change

I love this lecture by Jeffrey Tucker for its last ten minutes. Skip to 20:00 if you just want the best of it. He dispels the myths that progress is driven by government force or even by great individuals. Eli Whitney did not invent the cotton gin (people have been ginning cotton since the 5th century), and the Wright brothers did not invent the airplane. (They got one little patent, and sued the pants off everyone else working on airplanes. This set American aviation back so far that the U.S. had to buy planes from France during WWI.)

Progress, he argues, is made in little steps by ordinary people imitating success and making modest improvements. I found this very inspirational.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

I heard these mentioned in opposition to Big Media’s consensus that ideas about state’s rights, nullification, and sovereignty are reserved for racist, red-neck whack-jobs.

All from wikipedia:

The resolutions opposed the federal Alien and Sedition Acts, that extended the powers of the federal government. They argued that the Constitution was a “compact” or agreement among the states. Therefore, the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it and that if the federal government assumed such powers, acts under them would be void. So, states could decide the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions. The Kentucky state legislature passed the first resolution on November 16, 1798 and the second on December 3, 1799.

James Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution. The Virginia state legislature passed it on December 24, 1798.

Alexander Hamilton, then building up the army, suggested sending it into Virginia, on some “obvious pretext.” Measures would be taken, Hamilton hinted to an ally in Congress, “to act upon the laws and put Virginia to the Test of resistance.”

Three Cheers for the Swiss People

In this great article, Paul Green discusses how Switzerland remains resolutely free and prosperous.

Guns and the military are yet another example. Guns are everywhere – and crime is nowhere. In fact they have at least two of the most peaceful, crime-free cities in the world – according to various online authorities. Zurich even has a half-holiday in October for the “boy shooting” contest and American-style fair where young boys – and girls too – compete with assault rifles at targets.