On Many Important Things

The prize for headline of the day goes to this: Israel bombs UN Headquarters in Gaza. Sounds much like the Maoists blowing up a police station in Chattisgarh. Wouldn’t pure anarchy be better? What is “government”?

Khalil Ahmad’s article, “A world without rules” begins by saying that we call ourselves human only because we have Law. And if our society is lawless we fail as human beings. We “devolve” rather than “evolve”: we all become lower species. He calls terrorists just that. And he then proceeds to discuss the Rule of Law. Excellent piece, thanks to In Defence of Liberty.

Carl Menger theorized on the spontaneous evolution of Law: In any society, the majority is weak while a minority rules with arms. The minority plunders the majority. There is no Law. It is then that the majority gets together and forces the numerically inferior tyrant and his cohorts into signing up on a Law common to all. This, indeed, was the Magna Carta. The fact that the world is lawless does not imply that we must ask the world’s parliaments to make new law. Rather, we must place all the world’s governments under The Old Law. May this uprising happen first in India.

There must be No Plunder – and that is The Law. What is happening today is Universal Plunder – a state of lawlessness.

Next: Thanks to Walter Block on LRC I found this excellent column in the NYT that argues against “fair trade” – in particular, against governments in rich countries banning the produce of “sweatshops” in poor countries. Yes, a factory job is certainly not the worst fate that can befall a poor person here. At least it is in the shade! Obama must read this.

Lastly, readers are invited to read my column in Mint, which I had titled “Science Vs. Social Science.” It shows how the two are totally different in their methods and scope, and that a false social science that apes physics has taken over the universities – all backed by our The State, which is an interested party in these studies. The article calls for the private sector to step in. That is, to set up something infinitely superior to the Tata Institute for Social Sciences. An institute that will never be a lackey of The State. And I hope some brave profit-makers are reading this.

I therefore find it amusing to read what the Paki State has done to schoolbooks there. Let us first put our own house in order.

And the Bozo Award goes to these “economists” who are warning us of the “danger” of falling prices. They don’t know “sound money.” And their thinking lulls the lay public into believing that governments and their central banksters have a role in “price stabilization.” They don't understand Catallactics.

One more reason for a new, private school of social science.