The end of private property

 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. - Robert Frost

Pivots

50 years ago America was faced with a "pivot" ... whether to embrace fiat credit via the Nixon Shock or private property via Small is Beautiful.

Today I read an article entitled "Death of Ownership" and it caused me to reflect on which way we pivoted and why people can no longer afford to "own" much other than the food on their table and the clothes on their backs ... which are increasingly being bought on credit. Has the era of private property ended ... and if so why ... and what comes next ?

They rose together ... from labor

First came the natural world ... then labor ... that is the order of things and the hierarchy that rules us. And from those two Ecological  elements arose the structures of Economic regulation that, via common sense then common law, over time became the pillars on which the West constructed modern civilization ...

• private property
• common currency and
• the division of labor.

These three had interacted for centuries among the ancients ... then lay dormant [in the West at least] during the middle ages ... but they always presupposed one another so that one could not be re-discovered, understood or utilized without the other two rising with it ... until they were finally re-accepted as "self-evident" and became the basis of the modern western nomos. ... now broadly known as classical liberalism [or as conservatism by some].

Durable ... they persisted and grew through revolutions, wars [foreign and civil] and natural disasters ... continuously shaping the emergent nations and social unions which rested on them.

But unquestioned and unexamined, they began to be taken for granted and those who benefited from them forgot why they arose in the first place ... to protect, divide and balance labor as the foundation for capital and government.

They fell together ... from fiat finance

Then those who prefer not to work ... who despise labor ... imagined how to use fiat finance to plan and subvert the functioning of Economy.

And in the short space of 50 years, the deep pillars of modern civilization ... the nomos of the west ... buckled then collapsed ... first the common currency ... then the division of labor ... and finally but inevitably private property ... for they presuppose one another and none can exist alone.

And while the superstructure of the west still appears to tower in the distance like the frowning face of a once mighty power ... for those who look with more than a cursory glance, it is bereft of its foundations ... a colossal wreck rapidly sinking into the sands of time ... a hated and dead monolith which nature is burying in an impartial and just judgment.

But as long as natural resources and labor persist [for lasting Ecology judges temporal Economy] ... they promise to rebuild the perennial foundations for those who will use private property, common currency and the division of labor to honor labor with protection, division and balance.

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Epilogue

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” - Shelley

Planning against despotism

 

Legitimate planning

All law is planned, but not all planning is law-full. Furthermore, it is well known that the rule of law facilitates planning that is more organic [ie. less partial and specific] and thus more consistent with liberty and justice for all:

"Formal rules intended for such long periods that it is impossible to know whether they will assist particular people [or tend] toward the satisfaction of particular needs ... could almost be described as a kind of instrument of production, helping people to predict." - Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chap 6 Planning and the Rule of Law

Mises was even more specific about the objective for legitimate planning in the form of law:

"The ultimate end that men aim at by establishing government is to make possible the operation of a definite system of social cooperation under the principle of the division of labor." - Mises, Liberty and Property

Externalities

The problem with all finite planning [ie. by creatures as opposed to the Creator] is that it is non-comprehensive: there are always externalities for which it did not account:

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, [not alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley, [go oft awry]
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
          For promis’d joy! ― Robert Burns, To a Mouse

Subversion & perversion

However, the biggest problem with legitimate planning is perversion which ALWAYS takes the form of attempts to fine-tune results thru non-organic [ie. increasingly partial and specific] short-term interventions via the intentional and partisan/divisive subversion of the collective power to plan. The perversion inevitably begins gradually and temporarily but gains both speed and standing as it proceeds until the planners replace the plan. As Bastiat observed, this subversion can result from either evil or ignorance but the result is always the same: despotism.

"It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution—some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding." - Bastiat, The Law

Planning against despotism

So the challenge for legitimate planning is how to restrain the forces of despotism. And the twofold answer is ALWAYS the same:

1. use COMMON SENSE to publicly expose growing despotism and
2. use COMMON RESISTANCE to subject the subverted power to its proper limits under law.

Any other course of action will only substitute one despot for another without regaining the benefits of legitimate planning.

Hussman's common sense !!

In Fabricated Fairy Tales and Section 2A, John Hussman has used common sense to expose the Federal Reserve's growing despotism by

• invalidating its perverted use of the Phillips Curve [employment v inflation] as a policy justification for its increasingly dangerous interventions and
• clearly restating then thoughtfully explaining the import of the Fed's 2A charter from which it has patently, illegally and disastrously departed.

Our common resistance ??

All that remains is for reasonable liberals to

• put aside their pride,
• gather behind Hussman's irrefutable arguments and
• join together to RESIST THE GROWING DESPOTISM by calling for a public trial of the Fed and its patently illogical and unlawful actions.

What say ye?

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Planning against despotism