What Makes Economies Grow?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north953.html

 

*/WHAT MAKES ECONOMIES GROW?/*

 

The answer to this question has been clear since the days of the
little-known School of Salamanca in the sixteenth century. It was
popularized by Adam Smith in 1776. This was made even more clear by
Austrian School economists, beginning in the 1870s.

 

What makes economies grow is this: (1) private ownership, (2)
future-orientation, (3) capital formation through thrift, (4)
technological innovation, (5) a system of profits and losses, (6) low
taxation, (7) free trade at every level, (8) the enforcement of
contracts, (9) honest money, (10) the reduction of envy. This list can
be boiled down into three phrases, all of which have been dominant in
the history of the United States.

 

    1. Live and let live.
    2. Let's make a deal.
    3. Mind your own business.

 

The American middle class has seen its progress blunted ever since 1973.
There are reasons for this. (1) present-orientation, (2) capital
consumption through reduced thrift, (3) government-capped profits and
government-subsidized losses, (4) rising taxation (Social Security), and
(5) dishonest money (no gold exchange standard after 1971).

 

What has saved the middle class from ruination is this: (1) private
ownership, (2) technological innovation, (3) free trade, (4) the
enforcement of contracts, (5) the reduction of envy.

 

Entrepreneurship is still alive and well in the United States. It is
very easy to start a company. The USA remains the richest free trade
zone on earth. Generally, "live and let live" overcomes the politics of
envy. "Mind your own business" is honored in the breach, although the
extension of Homeland Security is undermining this relentlessly.

 

So, there is a war on. It's an ideological war. The Keynesians want to
reduce the extent of the second list of five. The libertarians want to
increase this list and then reduce the government's restrictions on the
first five.

 

*/CONCLUSION/*

 

Your assessment of the economic future of the United States and the West
should focus on the list of ten virtues of the free society. There are
large segments of the elite that do not see them as virtues except when
overseen by government-empowered, academically certified experts.

 

What is happening in the Middle East indicates that millions of people
have had enough. The attitude of Americans toward a government shutdown
indicates that they have also had enough . . . before any pain from a
shutdown actually sets in, anyway. The fact that legislatures are ready
to confront the public employee unions indicates that the last remaining
stronghold of union power is about to end.

 

Where we are clearly losing is in monetary policy. Dishonest money is
still undermining the middle class. Until that battle has ended in favor
of the enforcement of contracts, the abolition of legal tender laws, and
the abolition of central banking, the middle class will be on the defensive.

 

Conclusion: end the FED.

Chapter XX Homo Edax excerpt from Toilers of the Sea

In a recent email I made these comments:

And what society [modern society]is that?..........one that has as its
pre eminent presumption the idea that humans can control everything and
level all injustice.  Events in Japan ought to give some pause regarding
the front part of that [the material aspect] [ not to open too much of a
theological discussion]  for a hint at that see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilers_of_the_Sea

but we are not in fact in control and our attempts to gain it leads to
great evil  see in part >>   
http://camp100.blogspot.com/2008/11/confederate-memorial-day-speech-1-june.html

and the events of the last 50 years should give evidence of the failure
of the other [that attempt at social control of vast numbers of humans
called governments - shaped to the needs of their
rulers]..............Frankly, I confess that i hold most of the modern
world in contempt, which is to say I hold the current version of this
country in contempt.........We are not now and have not been for a long
time who we claim to be...........seeing all that in its proper context
and result is our challenge and difficulty


The issue is control (the desire to get what one wants) which is in part
always based on fear plus the attempt to attain the impossible to
satisfy our vision of fitness.

I think an excerpt as referenced is timely and revealing>>  In time the
configuration of an island changes.  An island is formed from the
ocean.  Matter is eternal, not its appearance. _Everything on earth is
perpetually molded by death_, even the extra-human monuments, even
granite.  Everything changes shape, even the shapeless.  Edifices built
by the sea crumble like the rest.,,,,,Of all the teeth of time, the most
industrious is the pick-axe of man.  Man is a gnawing creature.  He
modifies and alters everything subject to him, whether for better of
worse.  Here he disfigures, there he transfigures.....The scar of human
work is visible on the divine work.  It seems that a certain power of
achievement is given to man.  He appropriates creation to human needs. 
Such is his function.  Her has the audacity necessary to accomplish it;
one might also say the impiety.....Man, this short lived being, this
creature always surrounded by death, undertakes the infinite...all these
ebbs and flows of nature, to the vast traveling of forces to is depths,
man declares his blockade.  He too states his, "Thou shalt go no
farther"  He has his idea of fitness; the universe must accept it. 
Besides has he not a universe of his own?  He expects to make of it what
seems to him good.  A universe is raw material.  The world, work of God,
is man's canvas.

Formerly he took all this trouble for Xerxes [which is to say ancient
Oriental tyrants] today, less foolish, he takes the troubles for
himself.  This diminution fo stupidity is called progress.  Man works at
his house, and his house is the earth. If the immensities of nature are
within his reach he batters them down.  This side of God which can be
ruined tempts him; and he undertakes to assault immensity, carrying the
hammer in his hand.  The future will perhaps witness the demolition of
the Alps.  Globe let thine ant alone.

The child breaking his plaything seems to be seeking its soul  Man also
seems to be looking for the soul of the earth [which maybe is to say God]

Let us not, however, exaggerate our power; notwithstanding what man may
do, the grand lines of creation remain; the supreme mass does not depend
upon man.  He can produce an effect upon portions, not upon the whole. 
And it is well that this is so.  Everything is providential  These laws
are higher than we.  What we do does not extend beyond the surface. 
What is high remains on high.  Man may change the climate, not the
season.  Dreamers, some of them illustrious have dreamed of restoring
perpetual spring to earth.  The extreme seasons are produced by the axis
around which the earth spins.  In order to suppress these seasons all
that would be necessary would be to straighten out this axis....Nothing
more simple..have ten teams of ten billion horses each, make them pull
and the axis will straighten.....you see, it is not much to accomplish.

Let us look elsewhere for Eden.  Spring is good;  liberty and justice
are better.  Eden is allegorical, not material.  To be free and just
depends upon us.  Society is within (and begins with a sense of piety
[which is to say a sense that would ground a certain amount of restraint
in our behavior])  Our perpetual spring is found within us.

And a bonus
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/martenson3.1.1.html