bruce, All that cutting and pasting. I would like to hear what your definition is, how you use it here. I've no desire to read Mr. Rothbard's book.
On Jun 19, 2:34 am, bruce majors <[email protected]> wrote: > It isn't hard to figure out Holly > > What would you think it would mean? > > Try reading Murray Rothbard > > Have you ever noticed that your masters (Tom Dascle, Rahm Emanuel) all make > millions of dollars selling access to the State between their appointments > in goverment? > > *The Great Society: A Libertarian Critique* > > *by Murray N. Rothbard<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard-lib.html> > by Murray N. Rothbard * > > [image: Save a link to this article and return to it > atwww.savethis.com][image: > Save a link to this article and return to it > atwww.savethis.com]<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#> > [image: Email a link to this article][image: Email a link to this > article]<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#> > [image: Printer-friendly version of this article][image: Printer-friendly > version of this article]<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#> > [image: View a list of the most popular articles on our site][image: View > a list of the most popular articles on our > site]<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#> > > DIGG > THIS<http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbar... > Great Society: A Libertarian Critique&topic=political_opinion> > > <http://adserve.lewrockwell.com/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__banner...> > > *First published *in The Great Society Reader: The Failure of American > Liberalism*, edited by Marvin E. Gettleman and David Mermelstein (New York: > Vintage, 1967).* > > The Great Society is the lineal descendant and the intensification of those > other pretentiously named polities of twentieth-century America: the Square > Deal, the New Freedom, the New Era, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the New > Frontier. All of these assorted Deals constituted a basic and fundamental > shift in American life – a shift from a relatively *laissez-faire *economy > and minimal state to a society in which the state is unquestionably > king. 1<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn1> > In the previous century, the government could safely have been ignored by > almost everyone; now we have become a country in which the government is the > great and unending source of power and privilege. Once a country in which > each man could by and large make the decisions for his own life, we have > become a land where the state holds and exercises life-and-death power over > every person, group, and institution. The great Moloch government, once > confined and cabined, has burst its feeble bonds to dominate us all. > > The basic reason for this development is not difficult to fathom. It was > best summed up by the great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer; > Oppenheimer wrote that there were fundamentally two, and only two, paths to > the acquisition of wealth. One route is the production of a good or service > and its voluntary exchange for the goods or services produced by others. > This method – the method of the free market – Oppenheimer termed "the > economic means" to wealth. The other path, which avoids the necessity for > production and exchange, is for one or more persons to seize other people's > products by the use of physical force. This method of robbing the fruits of > another man's production was shrewdly named by Oppenheimer the "political > means." Throughout history, men have been tempted to employ the "political > means" of seizing wealth rather than expend effort in production and > exchange. It should be clear that while the market process multiplies > production, the political, exploitative means is parasitic and, as with all > parasitic action, discourages and drains off production and output in > society. To regularize and order a permanent system of predatory > exploitation, men have created the state, which Oppenheimer brilliantly > defined as "the organization of the political means." > 2<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn2> > > Every act of the state is necessarily an occasion for inflicting burdens and > assigning subsidies and privileges. By seizing revenue by means of coercion > and assigning rewards as it disburses the funds, the state *creates *ruling > and ruled "classes" or "castes"; for one example, classes of what Calhoun > discerned as net "taxpayers" and "tax-consumers," those who live off > taxation.3 <http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn3> And > since by its nature, predation can only be supported out of the surplus of > production above subsistence, the ruling class must constitute a minority of > the citizenry. > > Since the state, nakedly observed, is a mighty engine of organized > predation, state rule, throughout its many millennia of recorded history, > could be preserved only by persuading the bulk of the public that its rule > has not really been exploitative: that, on the contrary, it has been > necessary, beneficent, even, as in the Oriental despotisms, divine. > Promoting this ideology among the masses has ever been a prime function of > intellectuals, a function that has created the basis for co-opting a corps > of intellectuals into a secure and permanent berth in the state apparatus. > In former centuries, these intellectuals formed a priestly caste that was > able to wrap a cloak of mystery and quasi-divinity about the actions of the > state for a credulous public. Nowadays, the apologia for the state takes on > more subtle and seemingly scientific forms. The process remains essentially > the same.4 <http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn4> > > In the United States, a strong libertarian and antistatist tradition > prevented the process of statization from taking hold at a very rapid pace. > The major force in its propulsion has been that favorite theater of state > expansionism, brilliantly identified by Randolph Bourne as "the health of > the state": namely, war. For although in wartime various states find > themselves in danger from one another, every state has found war a fertile > field for spreading the myth among its subjects that *they *are the ones in > deadly danger, from which their state is protecting them. In this way states > have been able to dragoon their subjects into fighting and dying to save > them under the pretext that the *subjects *were being saved from the dread > Foreign Enemy. In the United States, the process of statization began in > earnest under cover of the Civil War (conscription, military rule, income > tax, excise taxes, high tariffs, national banking and credit expansion for > favored businesses, paper money, land grants to railroads), and reached full > flower as a result of World Wars I and II, to finally culminate in the Great > Society. > > The recently emerging group of "libertarian conservatives" in the United > States have grasped a part of the recent picture of accelerated statism, but > their analysis suffers from several fatal blind spots. One is their complete > failure to realize that war, culminating in the present garrison state and > military-industrial economy, has been the royal road to aggravated statism > in America. On the contrary, the surge of reverent patriotism that war > always brings to conservative hearts, coupled with their eagerness to don > buckler and armor against the "international Communist conspiracy," has made > the conservatives the most eager and enthusiastic partisans of the Cold War. > Hence their inability to see the enormous distortions and interventions > imposed upon the economy by the enormous system of war > contracts.5<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn5> > > Another conservative blind spot is their failure to identify *which > groups *have > been responsible for the burgeoning of statism in the United States. In the > conservative demonology, the responsibility belongs only to liberal > intellectuals, aided and abetted by trade unions and farmers. Big > businessmen, on the other hand, are curiously exempt from blame (farmers are > small enough businessmen, apparently, to be fair game for censure.) How, > then, do conservatives deal with the glaringly evident onrush of big > businessmen to embrace Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society? Either by mass > stupidity (failure to read the works of free-market economists), subversion > by liberal intellectuals (e.g., the education of the Rockefeller brothers at > Lincoln School), or craven cowardice (the failure to stand foursquare for > free-market principles in the face of governmental power). > 6<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn6>Almost > never is > *interest *pinpointed as an overriding reason for statism among businessmen. > This failure is all the more curious in the light of the fact that the > *laissez-faire > *liberals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (e.g., the > Philosophical Radicals in England, the Jacksonians in the United States) > were never bashful about identifying and attacking the web of special > privileges granted to businessmen in the mercantilism of their day. > > In fact, one of the main driving forces of the statist dynamic of twentieth > century America has been big businessmen, and this long before the Great > Society. Gabriel Kolko, in his path-breaking *Triumph of > Conservatism,*7<http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard40.html#_ftn7> > * *has shown that the shift toward statism in the Progressive period was > impelled by the very big business groups who were supposed, in the liberal > mythology, to be defeated and regulated by the Progressive and New Freedom > measures. Rather than a "people's movement" to check big business; the drive > for regulatory measures, Kolko shows, stemmed from big businessmen whose > attempts at monopoly had been defeated by the competitive market, and who > then turned to the federal government as a device for compulsory > cartellization. This drive for cartellization through government accelerated > during the New Era of the 1920s and ... > > read more » --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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