(Reposição de um "post" de Janeiro.)
Murray N. Rothbard: "New Light on the Prehistory of the Austrian School":
(...) Far from mystical dunderheads who should be skipped over to get to the mercantilists, the Scholastic philosophers were seen as remarkable and prescient economists, developing a system very close to the Austrian and subjective-utility approach. This was particularly true of the previously neglected Spanish and Italian Scholastics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Virtually the only missing ingredient in their value theory was the marginal concept.
(...) One of the most important, and probably the most neglected, was The School of Salamanca by Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, who suffered in the economics profession from being a professor of Spanish literature. Moreover, the book bore the burden of a misleadingly narrow subtitle: Readings in Spanish Monetary Theory.*58
In fact, the book was a brilliant discovery of the pre-Austrian subjective-value-and-utility views of the late sixteenth-century Spanish Scholastics. But first Grice-Hutchinson showed that the works of even earlier Scholastics as far back as Aristotle contained a subjective-value analysis based on consumer wants alongside the competing objective conception of the just price based on labor and costs. In the early Middle Ages, Saint Augustine (354-430) developed the concept of the subjective-value scales of each individual. By the High Middle Ages, the Scholastic philosophers had largely abandoned the cost-of-production theory to adopt the view that the market's reflection of consumer demand really sets the just price. This was particularly true of Jean Buridan (1300-58), Henry of Ghent (1217-93), and Richard of Middleton (1249-1306). As Grice-Hutchinson observed:
Medieval writers viewed the poor man as consumer rather than producer. A cost-of-production theory would have given merchants an excuse for over-charging on the pretext of covering their expenses, and it was thought fairer to rely on the impersonal forces of the market which reflected the judgment of the whole community, or, to use the medieval phrase, the "common estimation." At any rate, it would seem that the phenomena of exchange came increasingly to be explained in psychological terms.*59
Even Henry of Langenstein (1325-83), who of all the Scholastics was the most hostile to the free market and advocated government fixing of the just price on the basis of status and cost, developed the subjective factor of utility as well as scarcity in his analysis of price. But it was the sixteenth-century Spanish Scholastics who developed the purely subjective and profree-market theory of value.
Thus, Luis Saravia de la Calle (c. 1544) denied any role to cost in the determination of price; instead the market price, which is the just price, is determined by the forces of supply and demand, which in turn are the result of the common estimation of consumers on the market. Saravia wrote that, "excluding all deceit and malice, the just price of a thing is the price which it commonly fetches at the time and place of the deal." He went on to point out that the price of a thing will change in accordance with its abundance or scarcity. He proceeded to attack the cost-of-production theory of just price:
Those who measure the just price by the labour, costs, and risk incurred by the person who deals in the merchandise or produces it, or by the cost of transport or the expense of travelling...or by what he has to pay the factors for their industry, risk, and labour, are greatly in error, and still more so are those who allow a certain profit of a fifth or a tenth. For the just price arises from the abundance or scarcity of goods, merchants, and money...and not from costs, labour, and risk. (...) Prices are not commonly fixed on the basis of costs. Why should a bale of linen brought overland from Brittany at great expense be worth more than one which is transported cheaply by sea?...Why should a book written out by hand be worth more than one which is printed, when the latter is better though it costs less to produce?...The just price is found not by counting the cost but by the common estimation.*60
Similarly the Spanish Scholastic Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva (1512-77) a distinguished expert on Roman law and a theologian at the University of Salamanca, wrote that the "value of an article" depends "on the estimation of men, even if that estimation be foolish." (...)
The Spanish Scholastic Francisco Garcia (d. 1659) engaged in a remarkably sophisticated analysis of the determinants of value and utility. The valuation of goods, Garcia pointed out, depends on several factors. One is the abundance or scarcity of the supply of goods, the former causing a lower estimation and the latter an increase. A second is whether buyers or sellers are few or many. Another is whether "money is scarce or plentiful," the former causing a lower estimation of goods and the latter a higher. Another is whether "vendors are eager to sell their goods." (...)
The Spanish Scholastics also anticipated the Austrian school in applying value theory to money, thus beginning the integration of money into general value theory. It is generally believed, for example, that in 1568 Jean Bodin inaugurated what is unfortunately called "the quantity theory of money" but which would more accurately be called the application of supply-and-demand analysis to money.
Yet he was anticipated twelve years earlier by the Salamanca theologian the Dominican Martin de Azpilcueta Navarro (1493-1587), who was inspired to explain the inflation brought about by the importation of gold and silver by the Spaniards from the New World. Citing previous Scholastics, Azpilcueta declared that "money is worth more where it is scarce than where it is abundant." Why? Because "all merchandise becomes dearer when it is in great demand and short supply, and that money, in so far as it may be sold, bartered, or exchanged by some other form of contract, is merchandise and therefore also becomes dearer when it is in great demand and short supply." (...)
Furthermore, the Spanish Scholastics went on to anticipate the classical-Mises-Cassel purchasing-power parity theory of exchange rates by proceeding logically to apply the supply-and-demand theory to foreign exchanges, an institution that was highly developed by the early modern period.
The influx of specie into Spain depreciated the Spanish escudo in foreign exchange, as well as raised prices within Spain, and the Scholastics had to deal with this startling phenomenon. It was the eminent Salamanca theologian the Dominican Domingo de Soto (1495-1560) who in 1553 first fully applied the supply-and-demand analysis to foreign exchange rates. De Soto noted that "the more plentiful money is in Medina the more unfavourable are the terms of exchange, and the higher the price that must be paid by whoever wishes to send money from Spain to Flanders, since the demand for money is smaller in Spain than in Flanders. And the scarcer money is in Medina the less he need pay there, because more people want money in Medina than are sending it to Flanders."*64 (...)
The de Soto-Azpilcueta analysis was spread to the merchants of Spain by the Dominican friar Tomás de Mercado (d. 1585), who in 1569 wrote a handbook of commercial morality in Spanish, in contrast to the Scholastic theologians, who invariably wrote in Latin. It was followed by García and endorsed at the end of the sixteenth century by the Salamanca theologian the Dominican Domingo de Bañez (1527-1604) and by the great Portuguese Jesuit Luís de Molina (1535-1600). Writing near the turn of the century, Molina set forth the theory in an elegant and comprehensive manner:
There is another way in which money may be worth more in one place than in another; namely, because it is scarcer there than elsewhere. Other things being equal, wherever money is most abundant, there will it be least valuable for the purpose of buying goods and comparing things other than money.
Just as an abundance of goods causes prices to fall (the quantity of money and number of merchants being equal), so does an abundance of money cause them to rise (the quantity of goods and number of merchants being equal). The reason is that the money itself becomes less valuable for the purpose of buying and comparing goods. Thus we see that in Spain the purchasing-power of money is far lower, on account of its abundance, than it was eighty years ago. A thing that could be bought for two ducats at that time is nowadays worth 5, 6, or even more. Wages have risen in the same proportion, and so have dowries, the price of estates, the income from benefices, and other things.
We likewise see that money is far less valuable in the New World (especially in Peru, where it is most plentiful), than it is in Spain. But in places where it is scarcer than in Spain, there will it be more valuable. Nor will the value of money be the same in all other places, but will vary: and this will be because of variations in its quantity, other things being equal.... Even in Spain itself, the value of money varies: it is usually lowest of all in Seville, where the ships come in from the New World and where for that reason money is most abundant.
Wherever the demand for money is greatest, whether for buying or carrying goods,...or for any other reason, there its value will be highest. It is these things, too, which cause the value of money to vary in course of time in one and the same place.*652.3.9
The outstanding revisionist work on the economic thought of the medieval and later Scholastics is that of Raymond de Roover. Basing his work in part on the Grice-Hutchinson volume, de Roover published his first comprehensive discussion in 1955.*66 For the medieval period, de Roover particularly pointed to the early fourteenth-century French Ockhamite Scholastic Jean Buridan and to the famous early fifteenth-century Italian preacher San Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444). (...)
De Roover then discussed the sixteenth-century Spanish Scholastics, centered at the University of Salamanca, the queen of the Spanish universities of the period. From Salamanca the influence of this school of Scholastics spread to Portugal, Italy, and the Low Countries. In addition to summarizing Grice-Hutchinson's contribution and adding to her bibliography, de Roover noted that both de Soto and Molina denounced as "fallacious" the notion of the late thirteenth-century Scholastic John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) that the just price is the cost of production plus a reasonable profit; instead that price is the common estimation, the interaction of supply and demand, on the market. Molina further introduced the concept of competition by stating that competition among buyers will drive prices up, while a scarcity of purchasers will pull them down.*69
(...) de Roover demonstrated that Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) and his great pupil Thomas Aquinas (1226-74) held the just price to be the market price. In fact, Aquinas considered the case of a merchant who brings wheat to a country where there is a great scarcity; the merchant happens to know that more wheat is on the way. May he sell his wheat at the existing price, or must he announce to everyone the imminent arrival of new supplies and suffer a fall in price? Aquinas unequivocally answered that he may justly sell the wheat at the current market price, even though he added as an afterthought that it would be more virtuous of him to inform the buyers. Furthermore, de Roover pointed to the summary of Aquinas's position by his most distinguished commentator, the late fifteenth-century Scholastic Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan (1468-1534). Cajetan concluded that for Aquinas the just price is "the one, which at a given time, can be gotten from the buyers, assuming common knowledge and in the absence of all fraud and coercion."*70
The cost-of-production theory of just price held by the Scotists was trenchantly attacked by the later Scholastics. San Bernardino of Siena, de Roover pointed out, declared that the market price is fair regardless of whether the producer gains or loses, or whether it is above or below cost. The great early sixteenth-century jurist Francisco de Victoria (c. 1480-1546), founder of the school of Salamanca, as well as his followers insisted that the just price is set by supply and demand regardless of labor costs or expenses; inefficient producers or inept speculators must bear the consequences of their incompetence and poor forecasting. Furthermore, de Roover made clear that the general Scholastic emphasis on the justice of "common estimation" (communis aestimatio) is identical to "market valuation" (aestimatio fori), since the Scholastics used these two Latin expressions interchangeably.*71 (...)
In a comment on de Roover's paper, David Herlihy noted that, in the northern Italian city-states of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the birthplace of modern commercial capitalism, the market price was generally considered just because it was "true" and "real," if it was "established or utilized without deceit or fraud." As Herlihy summed it up, the just price of an object is its "true value as determined by one of two ways: for objects that were unique, by honest negotiation between seller and purchaser; for staple commodities by the consensus of the market place established in the absence of fraud or conspiracy."*73 (...)
Several years later, de Roover turned to the views of the Scholastics on the broader issue of trade and exchange.*75
He conceded the partial validity of the older view that the medieval Church frowned on trade as endangering personal salvation; or rather that, while trade can be honest, it presents great temptation for sin. However, he pointed out that, as trade and commerce grew after the tenth century, the Church began to adapt to the idea of the merits of trade and exchange.
Thus, while it is true that the twelfth-century Scholastic Peter the Lombard (c. 1100-60) denounced trade and soldiering as sinful occupations per se, a far more benevolent view of trade was set forth during the thirteenth century by Albertus Magnus and his student Thomas Aquinas, as well as by Saint Bonaventure (1221-74) and Pope Innocent V (1225-76). While trade presents occasions for sin, it is not sinful per se; on the contrary, exchange and the division of labor are beneficent in satisfying the wants of the citizens. Moreover, the early fourteenth-century Scholastic Richard of Middleton developed the idea that both the buyer and the seller gain by exchange, since each demonstrates that he prefers what he receives in exchange to what he gives up. Middleton also applied this idea to international trade, pointing out that both countries benefit by exchanging their surplus products. Since the merchants and citizens of each country benefit, neither party is exploiting the other.(...)"
quarta-feira, 22 de novembro de 2006
terça-feira, 21 de novembro de 2006
The Scholastics
* On the issue of the “just wage,” which has been the source of so
much contention in Catholic circles over the past century, the Late
Scholastics contended that a wage rate mutually agreed upon had to
be just. According to Luis de Molina (1535–1600), an employer was
“only obliged to pay [the laborer] the just wage for his services considering
all the attendant circumstances, not what is sufficient for his
sustenance and much less for the maintenance of his children and
family.” Domingo de Soto (1494–1570) argued that “if they freely
accepted this salary for their job, it must be just,” and held that “no
injury is done to those who gave their consent.” His advice to
unhappy employees was simple: “[I]f you do not want to serve for
that salary, leave!”
* On the subject of free trade, for example, Chafuen quotes Leonardo Lessio (1554–1623) as saying,
“If, without cause, the magistrates exclude foreign sellers,
and for that reason the price of the good in question is increased,
they have to compensate the citizens for the damage caused by that
increase.”
* On inflation of the money supply, we have (for example)
Juan de Mariana (1536–1624):
The king has no domain over the goods of the people, and he can
not take them in whole or in part. We can see then: Would it be licit
for the king to go into a private barn taking for himself half of the
wheat and trying to satisfy the owner by saying that he can sell the
rest at twice the price? I do not think we can find a person with such
depraved judgment as to approve this, yet the same is done with
copper coins. (p. 66)
* Chafuen also shows that, contrary to those who would have the
Scholastics setting prices of goods according to their “objective
value,” the subjects of his study believed in subjective value theory.
This has been a difficult point for some Catholics, particularly those
with an antipathy toward the market, to grasp, since they insist on
interpreting the term “subjective value” as implying relativism or
nihilism. The view of Luis Saravía de la Calle, who is reasonably representative
of the Late Scholastics on this point, clarifies the matter:
Those who measure the just price by the labor, costs, and risk
incurred by the person who deals in the merchandise or produces
it, or by the cost of transport or the expense of traveling . . . or by
what he has to pay the factors for their industry, risk, and labor, are
greatly in error, and still more so are those who allow a certain
profit of a fifth or a tenth. For the just price arises from the abundance
or scarcity of goods, merchants, and money . . . and not from
costs, labor, and risk. If we had to consider labor and risk in order
to assess the just price, no merchant would ever suffer loss, nor
would abundance or scarcity of goods and money enter into the
question. Prices are not commonly fixed on the basis of costs. Why
should a bale of linen brought overland from Brittany at great
expense be worth more than one which is transported cheaply by
sea? . . . Why should a book written out by hand be worth more
than one which is printed, when the latter is better though it costs
less to produce? . . . The just price is found not by counting the cost
but by the common estimation. (p. 114)
* The Scholastics contended that incases of extreme need, as when a person (or his family) is on theverge of starvation, his appropriation of the property of the richwould not be considered theft. Addressing his largely classical-liberalaudience, Chafuen does a creditable job explaining this traditionof thought, all the while assuring skeptical readers that modern disparagementof property rights is not traceable to the “extreme need”allowance of the Scholastics. Moreover, some of the Scholastics(including St. Thomas Aquinas) insisted that someone who hadrecourse to the goods of another during a moment of extreme need would ultimately have to make restitution to the owner. Martin deAzpilcueta (1492–1586) wrote that he “who takes something inextreme need, is obliged to make restitution when he has a chance;independently if he has goods in another place or not, and even if hehad or had not consumed the goods.”Another point Chafuen might have made is that when theScholastics spoke of “extreme need,” they meant extreme. They meanta kind of poverty that is essentially nonexistent in a modern marketsociety. It would therefore be the height of dishonesty to try toemploy the Scholastic argument here in defense of modern welfarestates or any other form of wealth redistribution." JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES, Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
much contention in Catholic circles over the past century, the Late
Scholastics contended that a wage rate mutually agreed upon had to
be just. According to Luis de Molina (1535–1600), an employer was
“only obliged to pay [the laborer] the just wage for his services considering
all the attendant circumstances, not what is sufficient for his
sustenance and much less for the maintenance of his children and
family.” Domingo de Soto (1494–1570) argued that “if they freely
accepted this salary for their job, it must be just,” and held that “no
injury is done to those who gave their consent.” His advice to
unhappy employees was simple: “[I]f you do not want to serve for
that salary, leave!”
* On the subject of free trade, for example, Chafuen quotes Leonardo Lessio (1554–1623) as saying,
“If, without cause, the magistrates exclude foreign sellers,
and for that reason the price of the good in question is increased,
they have to compensate the citizens for the damage caused by that
increase.”
* On inflation of the money supply, we have (for example)
Juan de Mariana (1536–1624):
The king has no domain over the goods of the people, and he can
not take them in whole or in part. We can see then: Would it be licit
for the king to go into a private barn taking for himself half of the
wheat and trying to satisfy the owner by saying that he can sell the
rest at twice the price? I do not think we can find a person with such
depraved judgment as to approve this, yet the same is done with
copper coins. (p. 66)
* Chafuen also shows that, contrary to those who would have the
Scholastics setting prices of goods according to their “objective
value,” the subjects of his study believed in subjective value theory.
This has been a difficult point for some Catholics, particularly those
with an antipathy toward the market, to grasp, since they insist on
interpreting the term “subjective value” as implying relativism or
nihilism. The view of Luis Saravía de la Calle, who is reasonably representative
of the Late Scholastics on this point, clarifies the matter:
Those who measure the just price by the labor, costs, and risk
incurred by the person who deals in the merchandise or produces
it, or by the cost of transport or the expense of traveling . . . or by
what he has to pay the factors for their industry, risk, and labor, are
greatly in error, and still more so are those who allow a certain
profit of a fifth or a tenth. For the just price arises from the abundance
or scarcity of goods, merchants, and money . . . and not from
costs, labor, and risk. If we had to consider labor and risk in order
to assess the just price, no merchant would ever suffer loss, nor
would abundance or scarcity of goods and money enter into the
question. Prices are not commonly fixed on the basis of costs. Why
should a bale of linen brought overland from Brittany at great
expense be worth more than one which is transported cheaply by
sea? . . . Why should a book written out by hand be worth more
than one which is printed, when the latter is better though it costs
less to produce? . . . The just price is found not by counting the cost
but by the common estimation. (p. 114)
* The Scholastics contended that incases of extreme need, as when a person (or his family) is on theverge of starvation, his appropriation of the property of the richwould not be considered theft. Addressing his largely classical-liberalaudience, Chafuen does a creditable job explaining this traditionof thought, all the while assuring skeptical readers that modern disparagementof property rights is not traceable to the “extreme need”allowance of the Scholastics. Moreover, some of the Scholastics(including St. Thomas Aquinas) insisted that someone who hadrecourse to the goods of another during a moment of extreme need would ultimately have to make restitution to the owner. Martin deAzpilcueta (1492–1586) wrote that he “who takes something inextreme need, is obliged to make restitution when he has a chance;independently if he has goods in another place or not, and even if hehad or had not consumed the goods.”Another point Chafuen might have made is that when theScholastics spoke of “extreme need,” they meant extreme. They meanta kind of poverty that is essentially nonexistent in a modern marketsociety. It would therefore be the height of dishonesty to try toemploy the Scholastic argument here in defense of modern welfarestates or any other form of wealth redistribution." JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES, Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
A defesa do feto e a defesa dos consumidores
"Governo quer proibir televisões de alterar programação
O Governo quer acabar com a contra-programação nas televisões portuguesas. De acordo com o anteprojecto de proposta da lei da televisão, apresentado hoje pelo ministro dos Assuntos Parlamentares, os operadores de televisão devem informar o público, com razoável antecedência, sobre a sua programação."
O Estado acha por bem legislar sobre todos os aspectos da nossa vida na defesa dos palermas dos consumidores que não sabem recorrer aos tribunais civis para resolver abusos contratuais, intrometendo-se como um Estado absolutista, com o argumento falacioso da defesa da "parte fraca". Só o aborto é que se revela um assunto da estrita competência da mãe.
"devem informar o público, com razoável antecedência, sobre a sua programação"
Isto será como informar o público das alterações (na prática) dos programas eleitorais após passarem a governo?
O Governo quer acabar com a contra-programação nas televisões portuguesas. De acordo com o anteprojecto de proposta da lei da televisão, apresentado hoje pelo ministro dos Assuntos Parlamentares, os operadores de televisão devem informar o público, com razoável antecedência, sobre a sua programação."
O Estado acha por bem legislar sobre todos os aspectos da nossa vida na defesa dos palermas dos consumidores que não sabem recorrer aos tribunais civis para resolver abusos contratuais, intrometendo-se como um Estado absolutista, com o argumento falacioso da defesa da "parte fraca". Só o aborto é que se revela um assunto da estrita competência da mãe.
"devem informar o público, com razoável antecedência, sobre a sua programação"
Isto será como informar o público das alterações (na prática) dos programas eleitorais após passarem a governo?
segunda-feira, 20 de novembro de 2006
Justiça Privada
Via Blasfémias
"Para perceber como nos países do socialismo em forma legal o poder se mede pela capacidade de fugir àquilo que é oficialmente obrigatório para todos à excepção daqueles que têm meios e influência para lhe escapar ler no mesmo DN:
«Julgamentos milionários fogem dos tribunais comuns»
Em Portugal também se faz justiça privada. E é um sector em crescimento, em alternativa aos tribunais judiciais. Sem juízes nem procuradores e, na maioria das vezes, com negócios de muitos milhões em litígio. Para os economicamente poderosos, a morosidade da justiça é coisa de pobres.»Obs. Não deixa de ser curioso que o autor desta prosa do DN se mostre ainda mais indignado com o facto de haver quem escape à morosidade do sistema e ao estapafúrdio funcionamento da justiça em Portugal do que com a morosidade e mau funcionamento em si mesmos."
Nota: A indústria de tribunais arbitrais é já uma realidade a ter em conta em todo o mundo. É que não existe razão de princípio para que o Direito Civil e Comercial não possa ser exercido por Tribunais Privados (ou arbitrais) a que as partes contratuais voluntáriamente acordam "submeter-se" em caso de litígio.
Num cenário alargado, a disseminação de informação de rating para avaliar quer os tribunais (e a sua jurisprudência) quer a adesão das partes condenadas às sentenças e penas proferidas, cumpriria o seu papel de manutenção de ordem. A falta de crédito legal de uma entidade (pessoa ou empresa) conduzirá rápidamente à incapacidade de estabelecer relações contratuais, é este o papel do ostracismo.
Será previsível que os contratos passem a explicitar todo o modo processual, estabelecendo também possíveis limites de indemnização, etc. Também será de esperar que as Seguradoras desempenhem um importante papel oferecendo "seguros de litígio".
"Para perceber como nos países do socialismo em forma legal o poder se mede pela capacidade de fugir àquilo que é oficialmente obrigatório para todos à excepção daqueles que têm meios e influência para lhe escapar ler no mesmo DN:
«Julgamentos milionários fogem dos tribunais comuns»
Em Portugal também se faz justiça privada. E é um sector em crescimento, em alternativa aos tribunais judiciais. Sem juízes nem procuradores e, na maioria das vezes, com negócios de muitos milhões em litígio. Para os economicamente poderosos, a morosidade da justiça é coisa de pobres.»Obs. Não deixa de ser curioso que o autor desta prosa do DN se mostre ainda mais indignado com o facto de haver quem escape à morosidade do sistema e ao estapafúrdio funcionamento da justiça em Portugal do que com a morosidade e mau funcionamento em si mesmos."
Nota: A indústria de tribunais arbitrais é já uma realidade a ter em conta em todo o mundo. É que não existe razão de princípio para que o Direito Civil e Comercial não possa ser exercido por Tribunais Privados (ou arbitrais) a que as partes contratuais voluntáriamente acordam "submeter-se" em caso de litígio.
Num cenário alargado, a disseminação de informação de rating para avaliar quer os tribunais (e a sua jurisprudência) quer a adesão das partes condenadas às sentenças e penas proferidas, cumpriria o seu papel de manutenção de ordem. A falta de crédito legal de uma entidade (pessoa ou empresa) conduzirá rápidamente à incapacidade de estabelecer relações contratuais, é este o papel do ostracismo.
Será previsível que os contratos passem a explicitar todo o modo processual, estabelecendo também possíveis limites de indemnização, etc. Também será de esperar que as Seguradoras desempenhem um importante papel oferecendo "seguros de litígio".
domingo, 19 de novembro de 2006
O Indivíduo
O Indivíduo faz hoje 9 anos.
Estão de parabéns todos os colaboradores e em especial, como não podia deixar de ser, o Pedro Sette Câmara. O Indivíduo foi o primeiro site liberal em português que li regularmente e numa altura em que a internet estava ainda bem menos difundida (especialmente fora do contexto da língua inglesa) teve um notável papel pioneiro na divulgação e promoção do liberalismo clássico. 9 anos depois, a conduta lamentável dos tais maus elementos da PUC-Rio passou à história (mas não está - nem deve estar - esquecida) enquanto que muitas das ideias defendidas n'O Indivíduo, apesar das muitas dificuldades que infelizmente se continuam a colocar a quem defende a liberdade, estão mais fortes do que nunca.
Saúda-se por isso a republicação dos textos originais. Quando um dia se fizer a história do reavivamento do liberalismo clássico no mundo de língua portuguesa que teve lugar a partir de meados dos anos 1990, O Indivíduo e a notável coragem e integridade intelectual manifestada pelos seus autores será obrigatoriamente um marco de referência.
Post anteriormente publicado n'O Insurgente.
Lembre-se de que em 1997 não existiam blogs, o acesso era majoritariamente discado e o site só foi posto no ar porque o Sergio de Biasi era (e ainda é) um sujeito informático. Fizemos primeiro o jornal em papel e só porque os maus elementos da PUC-Rio nos catapultaram para o estrelato é que partimos para a versão digital.
Estão de parabéns todos os colaboradores e em especial, como não podia deixar de ser, o Pedro Sette Câmara. O Indivíduo foi o primeiro site liberal em português que li regularmente e numa altura em que a internet estava ainda bem menos difundida (especialmente fora do contexto da língua inglesa) teve um notável papel pioneiro na divulgação e promoção do liberalismo clássico. 9 anos depois, a conduta lamentável dos tais maus elementos da PUC-Rio passou à história (mas não está - nem deve estar - esquecida) enquanto que muitas das ideias defendidas n'O Indivíduo, apesar das muitas dificuldades que infelizmente se continuam a colocar a quem defende a liberdade, estão mais fortes do que nunca.
Saúda-se por isso a republicação dos textos originais. Quando um dia se fizer a história do reavivamento do liberalismo clássico no mundo de língua portuguesa que teve lugar a partir de meados dos anos 1990, O Indivíduo e a notável coragem e integridade intelectual manifestada pelos seus autores será obrigatoriamente um marco de referência.
Post anteriormente publicado n'O Insurgente.
sexta-feira, 17 de novembro de 2006
Milton Friedman RIP III
Claudio Tellez sobre Milton Friedman n'O Insurgente:
Sem Friedman, o Chile não seria o que é hoje. A China, de certa forma, também não. Mas não precisamos referir-nos somente aos frutos que estamos colhendo na atualidade. Ao lado de outros grandes homens, como Karol Wojtyla e Ronald Reagan, Friedman deixou o seu legado como um dos homens cuja contribuição foi essencial para pôr fim a um dos períodos mais negros da história da humanidade: a Guerra Fria.
Podemos não concordar inteiramente com as teses de Friedman. Hayek (outro grande homem!), por exemplo, não concordava. Mas não podemos negar o seu impacto e a sua importância, e devemos reconhecer a sua incansável defesa da liberdade diante de uma alternativa que nunca foi, de fato, uma alternativa.
Adeus, Milton Friedman! A sua morte nos deixa um desagradável sabor de orfandade. Espero que tenhamos suficiente maturidade para não voltarmos a cometer os erros magistralmente denunciados em sua obra. Porque inimigos da liberdade, há muitos. Defensores da liberdade, somos poucos. E raríssimos do calibre de um Milton Friedman.
Leituras sobre liberdade de educação
Já está disponível o Nº 2 do "Vale apena ler", publicado pelo Fórum para a Liberdade de Educação. A recolha de artigos inclui: "O que mudou desde as primeiras listas ordenadas" por Fernando Adão da Fonseca, " O Mal da Educação" por Vasco Pulido Valente, "A melhor chave para mudar a sociedade" por Rui Pedro Batista e excertos de uma entrevista de Marçal Grilo à RR. Vale mesmo a pena ler.
The Death of Milton Friedman
Gary North
"Yet when it came time to educate the public, no one did it better than Milton Friedman, at least when his wife Rose was behind the scenes. Their 1980 PBS TV series, Free to Choose, was a masterful defense of the free market. It remains the clearest, most effective case for the free market ever seen on national television. You can see the tenth installment on YouTube (at least today). "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYWahkEAfVE
"Yet when it came time to educate the public, no one did it better than Milton Friedman, at least when his wife Rose was behind the scenes. Their 1980 PBS TV series, Free to Choose, was a masterful defense of the free market. It remains the clearest, most effective case for the free market ever seen on national television. You can see the tenth installment on YouTube (at least today). "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYWahkEAfVE
Milton Friedman RIP II
By Walter Block
"...Instead, I wish to focus on the positive, and to relate a few personal experiences I have had with him. I shall end with a joke that gives a taste of the kind of embattled professional life he led.
Here's the positive. Milton was a beacon of light on issues such as the minimum wage law, free trade, and rent control. This might not seem like much to radical libertarians, but, what with the Democrats recently seizing more power, and promising to impose wage levels on those who can least afford them, the unskilled poor, and with hundreds of economists signing a petition in support of this truly vicious and pernicious legislation, Milton's valiant, witty, wise, eloquent and yes, I'll say it, inspirational analysis on this issue must stand out as an example to us all.
Another of the high points of his career, for me, was his "Open Letter" to then drug czar Bill Bennett" (Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1989) in which he alienated many of his conservative followers with his clarion call for drug legalization. The US government has truly unleashed the whirlwind on this matter. It is responsible for untold incarcerations of innocent people and tens of thousands of needless deaths around the world. When one day we as a society come to our senses and repeal drug prohibition as we previously did for alcohol prohibition, we will owe that happy day to Professor Friedman as much as to any man.
My favorite essay in his Capitalism and Freedom is chapter 9, where Milton rips into the AMA for its policies of restrictive entry into the field of medicine. With the Democrats taking over both houses of congress, and with that harridan Hillary the front runner for its presidential ticket in 2008, we will likely face some mighty battles against the imposition of fully socialized medicine. Thanks to this insightful analysis of Milton's, we will not be without intellectual ammunition in this regard.
Here's the personal. The honor once befell me in the 1980s to serve as Milton Friedman's chauffeur. I drove him around Vancouver, British Columbia during the day of one of his speaking engagements there that evening. The trip was part tourist and part business: pick up at the airport, lunch, a few radio and television interviews during the day, setting up the podium for his evening's speech, etc. I was amazed and delighted at his pugnaciousness in defense of liberty. He would engage seemingly everyone in debate on libertarian issues: waitresses, cameramen, the person placing the microphone on his lapel. He was tireless, humorous, enthusiastic.
Another vignette. He once made a statement at a meeting of the American Economic Association that made me very proud indeed to be an economist. He stated (this is a paraphrase from memory) as follows: "Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been." Dramatic pause goes here. A very long pause. He then continued: "And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold." What could put matters in better perspective?..."
"...Instead, I wish to focus on the positive, and to relate a few personal experiences I have had with him. I shall end with a joke that gives a taste of the kind of embattled professional life he led.
Here's the positive. Milton was a beacon of light on issues such as the minimum wage law, free trade, and rent control. This might not seem like much to radical libertarians, but, what with the Democrats recently seizing more power, and promising to impose wage levels on those who can least afford them, the unskilled poor, and with hundreds of economists signing a petition in support of this truly vicious and pernicious legislation, Milton's valiant, witty, wise, eloquent and yes, I'll say it, inspirational analysis on this issue must stand out as an example to us all.
Another of the high points of his career, for me, was his "Open Letter" to then drug czar Bill Bennett" (Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1989) in which he alienated many of his conservative followers with his clarion call for drug legalization. The US government has truly unleashed the whirlwind on this matter. It is responsible for untold incarcerations of innocent people and tens of thousands of needless deaths around the world. When one day we as a society come to our senses and repeal drug prohibition as we previously did for alcohol prohibition, we will owe that happy day to Professor Friedman as much as to any man.
My favorite essay in his Capitalism and Freedom is chapter 9, where Milton rips into the AMA for its policies of restrictive entry into the field of medicine. With the Democrats taking over both houses of congress, and with that harridan Hillary the front runner for its presidential ticket in 2008, we will likely face some mighty battles against the imposition of fully socialized medicine. Thanks to this insightful analysis of Milton's, we will not be without intellectual ammunition in this regard.
Here's the personal. The honor once befell me in the 1980s to serve as Milton Friedman's chauffeur. I drove him around Vancouver, British Columbia during the day of one of his speaking engagements there that evening. The trip was part tourist and part business: pick up at the airport, lunch, a few radio and television interviews during the day, setting up the podium for his evening's speech, etc. I was amazed and delighted at his pugnaciousness in defense of liberty. He would engage seemingly everyone in debate on libertarian issues: waitresses, cameramen, the person placing the microphone on his lapel. He was tireless, humorous, enthusiastic.
Another vignette. He once made a statement at a meeting of the American Economic Association that made me very proud indeed to be an economist. He stated (this is a paraphrase from memory) as follows: "Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been." Dramatic pause goes here. A very long pause. He then continued: "And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold." What could put matters in better perspective?..."
Os aspectos
...menores:
* "O maior dos princípios de Milton Friedman? Talvez: a inflação explica-se sempre por um aumento da quantidade de moeda em circulação."
* ."..os seus argumentos a favor da teoria do monetarismo - que seriam reconhecidos em 1976 com o Prémio Nobel da Economia.2
* "A ele e à sua teoria deve-se a mudança do paradigma keynesiano para uma nova epistemologia, que definiu na sua Methodology of Positive Economics"
* "É conhecido como o teórico que desenvolveu o campo da moeda, da teoria do valor, do mercado de trabalho, o estudo da função consumo, que são marcos na evolução da ciência económica."
...maiores:
* "Ele usou a sua inteligência brilhante para avançar uma visão moral: uma visão da sociedade em que os homens e as mulheres são livres para escolher e onde o governo não é livre de alterar as suas decisões."
* "Advogado do capitalismo, argumentava num ensaio intitulado É o Capitalismo Humano?, que as instituições sociais que promovem o indivíduo, a e a responsabilidade e liberdade individual conduzem a um "clima moral" mais elevado e justo."
* "Friedman publicou dezenas de livros, assinava uma coluna na revista Newsweek e até produziu um elogiado documentário sobre economia para a rede pública de televisão americana, intitulado Freedom to Choose), o economista sempre se destacou por uma defesa intransigente da liberdade individual"
* "...como notava ontem no FT on-line Samuel Brittan, "os que o queriam catalogar simplisticamente como um republicano de direita foram confundidos pela variedade de causas radicais que ele defendia"."
Nota: retirado dum artigo do Público, hoje.
* "O maior dos princípios de Milton Friedman? Talvez: a inflação explica-se sempre por um aumento da quantidade de moeda em circulação."
* ."..os seus argumentos a favor da teoria do monetarismo - que seriam reconhecidos em 1976 com o Prémio Nobel da Economia.2
* "A ele e à sua teoria deve-se a mudança do paradigma keynesiano para uma nova epistemologia, que definiu na sua Methodology of Positive Economics"
* "É conhecido como o teórico que desenvolveu o campo da moeda, da teoria do valor, do mercado de trabalho, o estudo da função consumo, que são marcos na evolução da ciência económica."
...maiores:
* "Ele usou a sua inteligência brilhante para avançar uma visão moral: uma visão da sociedade em que os homens e as mulheres são livres para escolher e onde o governo não é livre de alterar as suas decisões."
* "Advogado do capitalismo, argumentava num ensaio intitulado É o Capitalismo Humano?, que as instituições sociais que promovem o indivíduo, a e a responsabilidade e liberdade individual conduzem a um "clima moral" mais elevado e justo."
* "Friedman publicou dezenas de livros, assinava uma coluna na revista Newsweek e até produziu um elogiado documentário sobre economia para a rede pública de televisão americana, intitulado Freedom to Choose), o economista sempre se destacou por uma defesa intransigente da liberdade individual"
* "...como notava ontem no FT on-line Samuel Brittan, "os que o queriam catalogar simplisticamente como um republicano de direita foram confundidos pela variedade de causas radicais que ele defendia"."
Nota: retirado dum artigo do Público, hoje.
Milton Friedman , RIP
Nota. E para que pensa ser um representante do imperialismo-"neo-liberal":
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has died. He was 94.
I know our readers have a wide range of views regarding his economics, but Friedman deserves the thanks of everyone opposed to conscription. A long-time opponent of the draft, Friedman served on the presidential commission that finally abolished what he forthrightly called a form of slavery. At a conference on the War on Drugs, which he also opposed, Friedman recalled the anti-draft movement as a source of hope for anti-prohibitionists:
Back in the 1940s and 1950s we had a military draft. And I may say, I was just as opposed to the military draft as I now am to the prohibition of drugs. It looked as if you couldn’t get rid of it. It was politically unfeasible to get rid of the draft. We had a conference like this at the University of Chicago; I have forgotten the exact date – sometime in the fifties or early sixties. It was one of the few conferences in which opinions were changed. I hope this will be another. We took a poll at the beginning of the draft conference. We had, just as here, people in favor of the draft, people opposed to the draft-a much wider group than here, including politicians, academicians, and so on. At the beginning of that conference the vote was one-third in favor of the volunteer army and two-thirds in favor of the draft. After three days of the conference, the vote was precisely reversed. Two-thirds expressed themselves in favor of the volunteer army and one-third still in favor of the draft.
I believe that was a major factor in starting the ball rolling, which ultimately got rid of the draft in 1973. 1 believe that this is the same kind of an issue. The evidence is highly persuasive to those who are willing to look at it from the point of view not of one extreme or the other, but of the sensible middle that everybody is looking for. We must change the present policy. I am not without hope that something will happen. At least, the vigor of the attempt at enforcement will lessen.
When specifically asked about foreign policy in a 1995 interview, Friedman was somewhat ambivalent:
Reason: Do you consider yourself in the libertarian mainstream on foreign policy issues?
Friedman: I don’t believe that the libertarian philosophy dictates a foreign policy. In particular I don’t think you can derive isolationism from libertarianism. I’m anti-interventionist, but I’m not an isolationist. I don’t believe we ought to go without armaments. I’m sure we spend more money on armaments than we need to; that’s a different question.
I don’t believe that you can derive from libertarian views the notion that a nation has to bare itself to the outside without defense, or that a strong volunteer force would arise and defend the nation.
Reason: What did you think about the [First] Gulf War?
Friedman: I always had misgivings about the Gulf War, but I never came to a firm decision. It was more nearly justified than other recent foreign interventions, and yet I was persuaded that the major argument used to support it was fallacious.
After all, if Iraq took over the oil, it would have to do something with it. If they don’t want to eat it, they’d have to sell it. I don’t think the price of oil would have been much affected. The more important consideration was the balance of power with Iran and Iraq. I have mixed feelings about that war; I wouldn’t be willing to write a brief on either side.
Yet, as our own David Henderson noted earlier this year, Friedman’s economic insights, when applied to foreign policy, yield decidedly noninterventionist conclusions. And in a July conversation with the Wall Street Journal, the still spry gentleman was flatly opposed to the latest attack on Iraq:
“What’s really killed the Republican Party isn’t spending, it’s Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression.” Mrs. Friedman – listening to her husband with an ear cocked – was now muttering darkly.
Milton: “Huh? What?” Rose: “This was not aggression!” Milton (exasperatedly): “It was aggression. Of course it was!”
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has died. He was 94.
I know our readers have a wide range of views regarding his economics, but Friedman deserves the thanks of everyone opposed to conscription. A long-time opponent of the draft, Friedman served on the presidential commission that finally abolished what he forthrightly called a form of slavery. At a conference on the War on Drugs, which he also opposed, Friedman recalled the anti-draft movement as a source of hope for anti-prohibitionists:
Back in the 1940s and 1950s we had a military draft. And I may say, I was just as opposed to the military draft as I now am to the prohibition of drugs. It looked as if you couldn’t get rid of it. It was politically unfeasible to get rid of the draft. We had a conference like this at the University of Chicago; I have forgotten the exact date – sometime in the fifties or early sixties. It was one of the few conferences in which opinions were changed. I hope this will be another. We took a poll at the beginning of the draft conference. We had, just as here, people in favor of the draft, people opposed to the draft-a much wider group than here, including politicians, academicians, and so on. At the beginning of that conference the vote was one-third in favor of the volunteer army and two-thirds in favor of the draft. After three days of the conference, the vote was precisely reversed. Two-thirds expressed themselves in favor of the volunteer army and one-third still in favor of the draft.
I believe that was a major factor in starting the ball rolling, which ultimately got rid of the draft in 1973. 1 believe that this is the same kind of an issue. The evidence is highly persuasive to those who are willing to look at it from the point of view not of one extreme or the other, but of the sensible middle that everybody is looking for. We must change the present policy. I am not without hope that something will happen. At least, the vigor of the attempt at enforcement will lessen.
When specifically asked about foreign policy in a 1995 interview, Friedman was somewhat ambivalent:
Reason: Do you consider yourself in the libertarian mainstream on foreign policy issues?
Friedman: I don’t believe that the libertarian philosophy dictates a foreign policy. In particular I don’t think you can derive isolationism from libertarianism. I’m anti-interventionist, but I’m not an isolationist. I don’t believe we ought to go without armaments. I’m sure we spend more money on armaments than we need to; that’s a different question.
I don’t believe that you can derive from libertarian views the notion that a nation has to bare itself to the outside without defense, or that a strong volunteer force would arise and defend the nation.
Reason: What did you think about the [First] Gulf War?
Friedman: I always had misgivings about the Gulf War, but I never came to a firm decision. It was more nearly justified than other recent foreign interventions, and yet I was persuaded that the major argument used to support it was fallacious.
After all, if Iraq took over the oil, it would have to do something with it. If they don’t want to eat it, they’d have to sell it. I don’t think the price of oil would have been much affected. The more important consideration was the balance of power with Iran and Iraq. I have mixed feelings about that war; I wouldn’t be willing to write a brief on either side.
Yet, as our own David Henderson noted earlier this year, Friedman’s economic insights, when applied to foreign policy, yield decidedly noninterventionist conclusions. And in a July conversation with the Wall Street Journal, the still spry gentleman was flatly opposed to the latest attack on Iraq:
“What’s really killed the Republican Party isn’t spending, it’s Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression.” Mrs. Friedman – listening to her husband with an ear cocked – was now muttering darkly.
Milton: “Huh? What?” Rose: “This was not aggression!” Milton (exasperatedly): “It was aggression. Of course it was!”
Ayn Rand, Murray N. Rothbard e Milton Friedman
Provávelmente cada um terá a sua opinião. Para mim, a prova do tempo acabará por estabelecer Ayn Rand, Murray N. Rothbard e Milton Friedman como as três personalidades-chave no nascimento de uma nova feroz atitude anti-estatista, quando o mundo era e é dominado pelas ilusões económicas e filosóficas do socialismo antes e agora da social-democracia onde todo o domínio da nossa existência está sujeito à regulação colectiva e a propriedade passou a ser mais um licenciamento do que um direito humano. Rand e Rothbard completamente off-(quando não, anti)-mainstream e Friedman mais inserido mas tendo a particularidade que, exceptuando o seu monetarismo e confiança inicial no sistema monetário socialista em que vivemos (parece que, o seu pessimismo foi crescendo), apelar à não-criminalização da droga, à completa des-regulação das ordens profissionais (incluindo médicos e advogados), à privatização dos recursos (direitos de pesca, etc), etc.
Um dia triste
Provávelmente o mais "libertarian" de Chicago deixa-nos.
Morreu o economista americano Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman, um dos mais influentes teóricos do liberalismo económico, distinguido com o Prémio Nobel em 1976, morreu hoje, aos 94 anos de idade, anunciou a fundação a que deu o nome..
Morreu o economista americano Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman, um dos mais influentes teóricos do liberalismo económico, distinguido com o Prémio Nobel em 1976, morreu hoje, aos 94 anos de idade, anunciou a fundação a que deu o nome..
quinta-feira, 16 de novembro de 2006
The Free Lunch Project: Progresso, Justiça Social e Almoços Grátis
A resposta progressista ao Free State Project: The Free Lunch Project
The Free Lunch Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 dependence-loving people to move to Massachussetts or perhaps California, Venezuela, Illinois or Wisconsin. We are looking for progressive reformers, communitarian activists, and folks from all walks of life, of all ages, creeds, and colors who agree to the political philosophy expressed in our Statement of Intent, that government exists to provide jobs, and should punish those who interfere with the redistribution of wealth.Post anteriormente publicado n'O Insurgente.
Origens da Justiça
* Benson gives an excellent account of the development of law in Anglo-Saxon England. Custom gave birth to the law and sustained it. The state entered afier the legal system was developed, seizing control of it in order to gain power and money. His description of the history of English law from Anglo-Saxon times through the nine- teenth century shows mastery of a wide variety of sources; his presentation is a veritable tour de force.
* The author places great stress on the Law Merchant, which during the period 1000-1200 "evolved into a universal legal system through a process of natural selection" (p. 32). Trade among the nations of Europe took place principally in fairs and markets, and merchants traveled from one to another. They devised a system of courts and regulations to handle business disputes; to rely on the varying customs of each nation would have been grossly inconve- nient. This system, formed independently of the various states, be- came the basis of modern commercial law.
* Benson, drawing upon a wide array of data, describes many cases of law without the state, ranging from the Kapauku Papuans of Western New Guinea to the American West in the nineteenth century. Contrary to various Hollywood movies, the West was not a series of never-ending gunfights in which outlaws terrorized a cowed popu- lace. Quite the contrary, the West developed a considerable measure of home-grown law and order (pp. 312-21).
* David Landes and Richard Posner, for expample, maintain that written opinions by judges produce positive externali- ties, since people other than the parties to the case can use written decisions as guides (p. 279). Benson has a double line of defense to these criticisms of private law. First, he endeavors to show that the market can internalize the externalities in question. Neighborhood associations, e.g., can re- quire everyone who purchases property in an area to contribute to police protection. (Of course, this must be done not through compul- sion but contractually.)
* In a competitive situation, judges need to acquire a good reputation in order to attract customers; no one --can compel disputants to use them. To issue opinions that attain wide- spread respect is obviously one means of doing so. One might add to Benson's discussion that in the Roman Empire many legal scholars or jurisconsults gained recognition through their writing.
David Gordon ,Review: The Enterprise of Law. By Bruce k. Benson. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute, 8996).
* The author places great stress on the Law Merchant, which during the period 1000-1200 "evolved into a universal legal system through a process of natural selection" (p. 32). Trade among the nations of Europe took place principally in fairs and markets, and merchants traveled from one to another. They devised a system of courts and regulations to handle business disputes; to rely on the varying customs of each nation would have been grossly inconve- nient. This system, formed independently of the various states, be- came the basis of modern commercial law.
* Benson, drawing upon a wide array of data, describes many cases of law without the state, ranging from the Kapauku Papuans of Western New Guinea to the American West in the nineteenth century. Contrary to various Hollywood movies, the West was not a series of never-ending gunfights in which outlaws terrorized a cowed popu- lace. Quite the contrary, the West developed a considerable measure of home-grown law and order (pp. 312-21).
* David Landes and Richard Posner, for expample, maintain that written opinions by judges produce positive externali- ties, since people other than the parties to the case can use written decisions as guides (p. 279). Benson has a double line of defense to these criticisms of private law. First, he endeavors to show that the market can internalize the externalities in question. Neighborhood associations, e.g., can re- quire everyone who purchases property in an area to contribute to police protection. (Of course, this must be done not through compul- sion but contractually.)
* In a competitive situation, judges need to acquire a good reputation in order to attract customers; no one --can compel disputants to use them. To issue opinions that attain wide- spread respect is obviously one means of doing so. One might add to Benson's discussion that in the Roman Empire many legal scholars or jurisconsults gained recognition through their writing.
David Gordon ,Review: The Enterprise of Law. By Bruce k. Benson. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute, 8996).
quarta-feira, 15 de novembro de 2006
Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction
AUTHOR: Mises, Ludwig von
This volume contains nine lectures delivered over one week, from June 23, to July 3, 1952, at the San Francisco Public Library. Mises was at his prime as a teacher and lecturer. He shares a lifetime of learning on topics that were (and remain) central to American public life.As the title indicates, his main focus is on Marxism. He discusses Marx and his place in the history of ideas, the destruction wrought by his dangerous ideology, the manner in which his followers have covered up his errors, and how the Marxists themselves have worked for so long to save Marxism from itself. He discusses Marxist claims about history and refutes the smear of the industrial revolution. The approach is systematic but casual. So the reader encounters wonderful insights in the form of short asides. For example: "The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends."
The Libertarian Case Against Abortion
by Bill Barnwell (via LRC):
"(...) It’s about time that defenders of freedom and personal responsibility put more pressure on promiscuous or sexually irresponsible people to take proper measures to avoid a pregnancy. It is morally and intellectually unfair to make unwanted children bear the burden for the irresponsible actions of others. While libertarians would rightly say that the State has no business trying to correct the poor attitudes and behaviors of others, it also makes little sense for the State to sanction aggressive and anti-life laws which punish innocents for the mistakes of their parents. That is not libertarian; it is selective freedom which pushes aggression on defenseless unborn children.
This leads us to one final consideration in this essay; that abortion violates the principle of nonaggression. The mother (or parents), usually as a result of her (or their) own irresponsibility, makes a decision to end a life unilaterally. The child obviously has no say in the matter. The pro-abortion parents and the State make the decision for child, and prematurely end his or her life. Again, not a very libertarian concept.
Abortion supporters object. The government is telling a woman what to do with her body! I'm encouraged when left-leaning thinkers start talking like libertarians, but discouraged to see that it stops at giving mothers the "right of privacy" to get abortions. Back in his quasi pro-life days, Al Gore once said "abortion is arguably the taking of a human life." If those who argue that it is the taking of a human life are correct, then I think even the staunchest libertarian can agree that the state should not be in the business of sanctioning aggression and destructive anti-life policies. Unfortunately, the State seems mainly concerned with economic stagnation and the destruction of life and property through war, abortion, anti-capitalistic measures, etc. Abortion is another piece of that puzzle.
It must also be recognized that the process in which abortion became the law of the land was nothing short of statist aggression. The State, through the judicially abominable decision of Roe v. Wade, federalized the matter through convoluted constitutional reasoning. This was a pristine example of political and judicial aggression that denied the rights of individual states to decide the matter by federalizing it. All honest libertarians should see this as an assault on states’ rights regardless of their position on the moral, legal, or philosophical merits of the actual abortion itself.
Notice in this libertarian attack on abortion I have not sought to endorse all pro-life legislation that has been considered over the years. That is because some of the legislation has approached the matter in a big-government or statist approach and actually negates itself because of it. Yet all libertarians should agree that Roe v. Wade is a blow to libertarian philosophy, and the issue should be returned to the states. In the meantime, individual states, and personal consciences would do well to consider the real nature of abortion: an aggressive, irresponsible act which denies personal freedom, liberty and justice to a weaker and inconvenient class of people.
As a libertarian, I defend the pro-life cause not only on moral and spiritual grounds, but also philosophically on the nonaggression principle and upon the principles of freedom and personal liberty. As has been shown, a government that sanctions abortion sanctions aggression, and gives rights and privileges to some (mothers) while taking away rights and harming others (the unwanted children). This tradeoff of rights and State-sponsored aggression is not libertarian, as most "mainstream" libertarians would assume. It is the standard statist model of how society and government should function which is ultimately unfair, immoral and destructive.
Such a concept has much more in common with the philosophy of the Left than it does with the philosophy of freedom. And there’s nothing libertarian about that."
"(...) It’s about time that defenders of freedom and personal responsibility put more pressure on promiscuous or sexually irresponsible people to take proper measures to avoid a pregnancy. It is morally and intellectually unfair to make unwanted children bear the burden for the irresponsible actions of others. While libertarians would rightly say that the State has no business trying to correct the poor attitudes and behaviors of others, it also makes little sense for the State to sanction aggressive and anti-life laws which punish innocents for the mistakes of their parents. That is not libertarian; it is selective freedom which pushes aggression on defenseless unborn children.
This leads us to one final consideration in this essay; that abortion violates the principle of nonaggression. The mother (or parents), usually as a result of her (or their) own irresponsibility, makes a decision to end a life unilaterally. The child obviously has no say in the matter. The pro-abortion parents and the State make the decision for child, and prematurely end his or her life. Again, not a very libertarian concept.
Abortion supporters object. The government is telling a woman what to do with her body! I'm encouraged when left-leaning thinkers start talking like libertarians, but discouraged to see that it stops at giving mothers the "right of privacy" to get abortions. Back in his quasi pro-life days, Al Gore once said "abortion is arguably the taking of a human life." If those who argue that it is the taking of a human life are correct, then I think even the staunchest libertarian can agree that the state should not be in the business of sanctioning aggression and destructive anti-life policies. Unfortunately, the State seems mainly concerned with economic stagnation and the destruction of life and property through war, abortion, anti-capitalistic measures, etc. Abortion is another piece of that puzzle.
It must also be recognized that the process in which abortion became the law of the land was nothing short of statist aggression. The State, through the judicially abominable decision of Roe v. Wade, federalized the matter through convoluted constitutional reasoning. This was a pristine example of political and judicial aggression that denied the rights of individual states to decide the matter by federalizing it. All honest libertarians should see this as an assault on states’ rights regardless of their position on the moral, legal, or philosophical merits of the actual abortion itself.
Notice in this libertarian attack on abortion I have not sought to endorse all pro-life legislation that has been considered over the years. That is because some of the legislation has approached the matter in a big-government or statist approach and actually negates itself because of it. Yet all libertarians should agree that Roe v. Wade is a blow to libertarian philosophy, and the issue should be returned to the states. In the meantime, individual states, and personal consciences would do well to consider the real nature of abortion: an aggressive, irresponsible act which denies personal freedom, liberty and justice to a weaker and inconvenient class of people.
As a libertarian, I defend the pro-life cause not only on moral and spiritual grounds, but also philosophically on the nonaggression principle and upon the principles of freedom and personal liberty. As has been shown, a government that sanctions abortion sanctions aggression, and gives rights and privileges to some (mothers) while taking away rights and harming others (the unwanted children). This tradeoff of rights and State-sponsored aggression is not libertarian, as most "mainstream" libertarians would assume. It is the standard statist model of how society and government should function which is ultimately unfair, immoral and destructive.
Such a concept has much more in common with the philosophy of the Left than it does with the philosophy of freedom. And there’s nothing libertarian about that."
terça-feira, 14 de novembro de 2006
Direitos e o suicídio colectivo
PORTOLANI
O REFERENDO SOBRE O ABORTO: "Um dos maiores problemas na Europa dos nossos dias, tanto humano como económico (portanto social) é o problema demográfico. Lentamente a Europa está a morrer. Enquanto os nascimentos continuam a descer, em vez de promover a natalidade através de incentivos fiscais e apoios sociais, o governo PS e os seus aliados enviam uma clara mensagem á população que desejam a liberalização do aborto. Dizem que esta medida chamada de "despenalização" é destinada a acabar com o flagelo do aborto clandestino. É uma falácia. O aborto livre foi, durante quase toda a vigência do regime soviético, o método contraceptivo artificial mais preferido e banalizado. A maneira mais saudável, humana e segura de evitar o aborto clandestino é o apoio à maternidade. O recente debate televisivo foi repleto de confusões, meias verdades e algumas mentiras. Piedosa mentira é essa repetida ad nauseam que nenhuma mulher encara o aborto com indiferença, mas que todas sofrem. Há, sim, muitas mulheres que recorrem ao aborto como método contraceptivo POR ROTINA. São as que têm dinheiro para isso. Muitas são da esquerda e estão simplesmente a seguir os passos traçados pelas suas avós revolucionárias. O aborto livre desencoraja a contracepção, fornece um péssimo exemplo para as jovens e também para os jovens (desresponsibilizando-os) e assim constitui mais um factor nos riscos da sida. O aborto livre é péssimo para a saúde da mulher e da sociedade. A sua aceitação é sintoma indelível da decadência e do lento suicídio nacional."
Notas: Um aparente paradoxo do Estado Moderno é arriscarmo-nos a que, em nome de todos os direitos e tolerância, acabamos a suicidarmo-nos colectivamente. Afinal, temos todos os direitos, o aborto, divórcio, uniões de todas a espécie, os testamentos que asseguram a partição compulsória, etc, mas a taxa de natalidade indica a diminuição da população. A imigração não é solução, porque mais tarde ou mais cedo , não só asseguramos o desaparecimento de uma cultura e ideia, como apenas adiamos o problema a prazo. E não será que o Liberalismo poderá estar também a contribuir para esse paradoxo?
Bem, o Liberalismo é também a filosofia do direito (honestamente adquirido) de propriedade (incluindo do seu próprio corpo), que por definição, altamente descentralizado porque a capacidade de um individuo ou grupo restrito actuando em concerto, por meios honestos, concentrar poder de forma significativa é praticamente nula (as multinacionais são associações voluntárias de propriedade de agregados de centenas de milhares ou mesmo milhões de indivíduos, os condomínios que começam agora a atingir dimensões de vilas, dificilmente conseguem atingir maiores dimensões devidos aos custos contratuais, emboram seja potencialmetne possivel a associação voluntária de condomínios para definir uma ordem comum de forma contratual civil - confederação), mas dentro desse poder limitado à sua propriedade a capacidade de exclusão e discriminação é um direito inerente.
Recomenda-se a visão de Hoppe (para quem tiver estómago) e que concluiu o que se pode intuir, de que quanto mais natural for a ordem social (e portanto baseada sim nos direitos no contrato), maior é a capacidade da sociedade civil regular os valores morais de forma descentralizada e sem a necessidade de imposição central e estatista quer do moralismos quer de direitos positivos à imoralidade. A sociedade civil, sem incentivos artificiais, persegue a sua sobrevivência. Numa ordem social, quanto maior fôr o respeito por direitos naturais, mais socialmente conservadora tende a ser.
É que, como já tenho referido, é de suspeitar da bondade do Estado em preocupar-se com os direitos individuais (e de propriedade do corpo) da mulher no caso do aborto. No dia em que o problema da natalidade for eleito a como tendo carácter colectivo e de emergência nacional quando não planetária (assim como o ambiente), não só o Estado vai proibir o aborto, como impor toda a espécie de medidas estatistas de protecção positiva do feto e criança, ultrapassando e invadido toda a esfera privada da mãe e da família (imposição de dieta, criminalização de actos, etc).
A alternativa oposta citando umas passagens choque do "austro-libertarian"-anarco-capitalista-conservador H-H-Hoppe. "There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."
Adenda: Quanto aos efeitos do actual paradigma (Hoppe).
"In conjunction with the even older compulsory system of public education, these institutions and practices amount to a massive attack on the institution of the family and personal responsibility. By relieving individuals of the obligation to provide for their own income, health, safety, old age, and children’s education, the range and temporal horizon of private provision is reduced, and the value of marriage, family, children, and kinship relations is lowered. Irresponsibility, shortsightedness, negligence, illness and even destructionism (bads) are promoted, and responsibility, farsightedness, diligence, health and conservatism (goods) are punished. The compulsory old age insurance system in particular, by which retirees (the old) are subsidized from taxes imposed on current income earners (the young), has systematically weakened the natural intergenerational bond between parents, grandparents, and children. The old need no longer rely on the assistance of their children if they have made no provision for their own old age; and the young (with typically less accumulated wealth) must support the old (with typically more accumulated wealth) rather than the other way around, as is typical within families. Consequently, not only do people want to have fewer children – and indeed, birthrates have fallen in half since the onset of modern social security (welfare) policies – but also the respect which the young traditionally accorded to their elders is diminished, and all indicators of family disintegration and malfunctioning, such as rates of divorce, illegitimacy, child abuse, parent abuse, spouse abuse, single parenting, singledom, alternative lifestyles, and abortion, have increased [pp. 195-96]. "
O REFERENDO SOBRE O ABORTO: "Um dos maiores problemas na Europa dos nossos dias, tanto humano como económico (portanto social) é o problema demográfico. Lentamente a Europa está a morrer. Enquanto os nascimentos continuam a descer, em vez de promover a natalidade através de incentivos fiscais e apoios sociais, o governo PS e os seus aliados enviam uma clara mensagem á população que desejam a liberalização do aborto. Dizem que esta medida chamada de "despenalização" é destinada a acabar com o flagelo do aborto clandestino. É uma falácia. O aborto livre foi, durante quase toda a vigência do regime soviético, o método contraceptivo artificial mais preferido e banalizado. A maneira mais saudável, humana e segura de evitar o aborto clandestino é o apoio à maternidade. O recente debate televisivo foi repleto de confusões, meias verdades e algumas mentiras. Piedosa mentira é essa repetida ad nauseam que nenhuma mulher encara o aborto com indiferença, mas que todas sofrem. Há, sim, muitas mulheres que recorrem ao aborto como método contraceptivo POR ROTINA. São as que têm dinheiro para isso. Muitas são da esquerda e estão simplesmente a seguir os passos traçados pelas suas avós revolucionárias. O aborto livre desencoraja a contracepção, fornece um péssimo exemplo para as jovens e também para os jovens (desresponsibilizando-os) e assim constitui mais um factor nos riscos da sida. O aborto livre é péssimo para a saúde da mulher e da sociedade. A sua aceitação é sintoma indelível da decadência e do lento suicídio nacional."
Notas: Um aparente paradoxo do Estado Moderno é arriscarmo-nos a que, em nome de todos os direitos e tolerância, acabamos a suicidarmo-nos colectivamente. Afinal, temos todos os direitos, o aborto, divórcio, uniões de todas a espécie, os testamentos que asseguram a partição compulsória, etc, mas a taxa de natalidade indica a diminuição da população. A imigração não é solução, porque mais tarde ou mais cedo , não só asseguramos o desaparecimento de uma cultura e ideia, como apenas adiamos o problema a prazo. E não será que o Liberalismo poderá estar também a contribuir para esse paradoxo?
Bem, o Liberalismo é também a filosofia do direito (honestamente adquirido) de propriedade (incluindo do seu próprio corpo), que por definição, altamente descentralizado porque a capacidade de um individuo ou grupo restrito actuando em concerto, por meios honestos, concentrar poder de forma significativa é praticamente nula (as multinacionais são associações voluntárias de propriedade de agregados de centenas de milhares ou mesmo milhões de indivíduos, os condomínios que começam agora a atingir dimensões de vilas, dificilmente conseguem atingir maiores dimensões devidos aos custos contratuais, emboram seja potencialmetne possivel a associação voluntária de condomínios para definir uma ordem comum de forma contratual civil - confederação), mas dentro desse poder limitado à sua propriedade a capacidade de exclusão e discriminação é um direito inerente.
Recomenda-se a visão de Hoppe (para quem tiver estómago) e que concluiu o que se pode intuir, de que quanto mais natural for a ordem social (e portanto baseada sim nos direitos no contrato), maior é a capacidade da sociedade civil regular os valores morais de forma descentralizada e sem a necessidade de imposição central e estatista quer do moralismos quer de direitos positivos à imoralidade. A sociedade civil, sem incentivos artificiais, persegue a sua sobrevivência. Numa ordem social, quanto maior fôr o respeito por direitos naturais, mais socialmente conservadora tende a ser.
É que, como já tenho referido, é de suspeitar da bondade do Estado em preocupar-se com os direitos individuais (e de propriedade do corpo) da mulher no caso do aborto. No dia em que o problema da natalidade for eleito a como tendo carácter colectivo e de emergência nacional quando não planetária (assim como o ambiente), não só o Estado vai proibir o aborto, como impor toda a espécie de medidas estatistas de protecção positiva do feto e criança, ultrapassando e invadido toda a esfera privada da mãe e da família (imposição de dieta, criminalização de actos, etc).
A alternativa oposta citando umas passagens choque do "austro-libertarian"-anarco-capitalista-conservador H-H-Hoppe. "There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."
Adenda: Quanto aos efeitos do actual paradigma (Hoppe).
"In conjunction with the even older compulsory system of public education, these institutions and practices amount to a massive attack on the institution of the family and personal responsibility. By relieving individuals of the obligation to provide for their own income, health, safety, old age, and children’s education, the range and temporal horizon of private provision is reduced, and the value of marriage, family, children, and kinship relations is lowered. Irresponsibility, shortsightedness, negligence, illness and even destructionism (bads) are promoted, and responsibility, farsightedness, diligence, health and conservatism (goods) are punished. The compulsory old age insurance system in particular, by which retirees (the old) are subsidized from taxes imposed on current income earners (the young), has systematically weakened the natural intergenerational bond between parents, grandparents, and children. The old need no longer rely on the assistance of their children if they have made no provision for their own old age; and the young (with typically less accumulated wealth) must support the old (with typically more accumulated wealth) rather than the other way around, as is typical within families. Consequently, not only do people want to have fewer children – and indeed, birthrates have fallen in half since the onset of modern social security (welfare) policies – but also the respect which the young traditionally accorded to their elders is diminished, and all indicators of family disintegration and malfunctioning, such as rates of divorce, illegitimacy, child abuse, parent abuse, spouse abuse, single parenting, singledom, alternative lifestyles, and abortion, have increased [pp. 195-96]. "
"Aborto: um direito garantido pelo Estado? "
Público - Carta de Leitor
"Os movimentos pró-vida são contra a despenalização do aborto. Os movimentos pró-aborto exigem-na, mas não é isso que querem realmente. Daí terem recusado com grande alarido a sugestão do prof. Freitas do Amaral, de eliminar simplesmente a condenação.
O objectivo da esquerda pró-aborto não é despenalizar o aborto, é torná-lo um direito garantido pelo Estado. A esquerda quer que sejam os meus impostos a pagar a coisa.Esta é que é a grande questão em debate, e não as propinquidades teológicas e morais do prof. César das Neves e do prof. Louçã. Devem os meus impostos financiar a contracepção a posteriori de quem foi suficientemente ignorante ou suficientemente palerma para engravidar sem querer? A esquerda acha que sim. Mas a esquerda acha que sim porque acha também que os meus impostos devem pagar a comida e a casa a quem não quer ou não sabe trabalhar, e a educação universitária a quem não quer estudar, e por aí fora.A esquerda tem este tique permanente de atirar todas as coisas, do parto à sepultura, para cima do Estado. Não apenas os problemas de pura sobrevivência, mas também os confortos e os vícios dos cidadãos. Os confortos porque são aparentemente direitos inalienáveis, nascidos com as estrelas, e os vícios porque são culpa da sociedade e não a consequência de um défice de esforço e de vontade.Ora eu acho que não é assim. Portanto também não vejo razão para que os meus impostos paguem abortos. Como não vejo razão para que paguem liftings, botox ou fertilizações. Nada disso é tratamento de doença.Querem despenalizar o aborto? Despenalizem. Mas paguem-no."
"Os movimentos pró-vida são contra a despenalização do aborto. Os movimentos pró-aborto exigem-na, mas não é isso que querem realmente. Daí terem recusado com grande alarido a sugestão do prof. Freitas do Amaral, de eliminar simplesmente a condenação.
O objectivo da esquerda pró-aborto não é despenalizar o aborto, é torná-lo um direito garantido pelo Estado. A esquerda quer que sejam os meus impostos a pagar a coisa.Esta é que é a grande questão em debate, e não as propinquidades teológicas e morais do prof. César das Neves e do prof. Louçã. Devem os meus impostos financiar a contracepção a posteriori de quem foi suficientemente ignorante ou suficientemente palerma para engravidar sem querer? A esquerda acha que sim. Mas a esquerda acha que sim porque acha também que os meus impostos devem pagar a comida e a casa a quem não quer ou não sabe trabalhar, e a educação universitária a quem não quer estudar, e por aí fora.A esquerda tem este tique permanente de atirar todas as coisas, do parto à sepultura, para cima do Estado. Não apenas os problemas de pura sobrevivência, mas também os confortos e os vícios dos cidadãos. Os confortos porque são aparentemente direitos inalienáveis, nascidos com as estrelas, e os vícios porque são culpa da sociedade e não a consequência de um défice de esforço e de vontade.Ora eu acho que não é assim. Portanto também não vejo razão para que os meus impostos paguem abortos. Como não vejo razão para que paguem liftings, botox ou fertilizações. Nada disso é tratamento de doença.Querem despenalizar o aborto? Despenalizem. Mas paguem-no."
O processo miseseano
"...whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with.This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars." Mises
S. Ossetia: 99% back independence:
TSKHINVALI, Georgia (AP) -- South Ossetians voted overwhelmingly for independence in their second referendum since breaking away from Georgia in the early 1990s, officials in the tiny mountainous region said Monday, in a vote that neither the United States nor Europe intends to recognize.
S. Ossetia: 99% back independence:
TSKHINVALI, Georgia (AP) -- South Ossetians voted overwhelmingly for independence in their second referendum since breaking away from Georgia in the early 1990s, officials in the tiny mountainous region said Monday, in a vote that neither the United States nor Europe intends to recognize.
segunda-feira, 13 de novembro de 2006
Serviço público
do Blasfémias, em levantar a discussão da demagogia populista (minha classificação) quer do salário mínimo quer da regulamentação dos arredondamentos.
A mãe de todas as guerras
A propósito do dia do armistício na guerra que destruiu o que poderíamos denominar de período do liberalismo clássico (nasce como reacção ao absolutismo monárquico e acaba com o nascimento do absolutismo totalitário republicano e o advento da estado-social-democrata) e um monumento dramático aos males que o idealismo pode causar - não é por acaso que Wilson é uma referência do neo-conservadorismo.
Blame Wilson
(...) When Wilson, who had already invaded Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, finally got Congress to declare war against the Central Powers on April 8, 1917, based on the ridiculous Zimmerman Telegram, the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, and trumped up charges of atrocities against the Belgians, he didn't just get more than 100,000 Americans killed, he solidified the last century's turn toward warfare and totalitarianism that eventually killed over two hundred million people. So says Jim Powell, author of Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II. (...)
Powell makes a compelling argument that by the time the U.S. got involved, World War I was a stalemate. Peace was sure to break out soon. The soldiers on all sides were sick, freezing, and in various states of mutiny.
The Russians in particular had been devastated, many of their soldiers were without weapons, and their luck on the battlefield was running out. (...)
Primarily due to his refusal to withdraw from the war, Nicholas II was deposed in a popular uprising on March 15, 1917. As soon as the U.S. Congress declared war less than a month later, Wilson began applying diplomatic pressure and paid the Russians $325 million to continue the fight. An Anglophile to the core, Wilson didn't care about the fate of the Russians. His concern was in keeping German forces split along two fronts. The payoff worked: Russia's provisional prime minister Aleksandr Kerensky kept the Russians involved in the war.
Finally, on their fourth try, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his sidekick Leon Trotsky seized power. As Powell says in the book,
"If Russia's Provisional Government had quit the war and negotiated peace with Germany in early 1917, we might never had heard of Lenin. (...)"
Wilson's intervention led to the creation of the Soviet Union(...) Without the help of conscripted American soldiers it is much more likely that the Allies would have negotiated sooner and demanded less vengeful terms. And vengeful terms they were: Clause 231 and 232 of the Treaty of Versailles forced the Germans to accept blame for the entire war, and to "make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers" (...) This, as all school children presumably know, caused the German Government to turn on the printing presses, leading to terrible hyperinflation and the complete destruction of the German economy.
One wish of Wilson's was granted: he had demanded that the German Kaiser resign. He would only accept surrender from a "democratic government," presumably meaning one like his. Due to this decision, the German democrats who had opposed the war were discredited for being those responsible for signing the terrible treaty. The opposition took all the heat, rather than the people who got the country into the war in the first place.(...)
The series of maneuvers Hitler used to seize power were difficult enough as it was. Without the destruction of the German economy by the demands of massive reparations and the discrediting of the moderate factions, Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party would never have been able to seize power. Hitler's entire propaganda program was based on the idea of punishing the "traitors of 1918" (those who signed the Versailles treaty), and restoring dignity to a country so humiliated by the aftermath of the first world war. Wilson enabled the rise of Nazi Germany and its bloody fruition, World War II – 50 million individuals killed(...)
Wilson's blunder also paved the way for our current conflicts in the Middle East. With the overwhelming victory of the Allies, made possible by US involvement, the British Empire expanded by over a million square miles. The French were able to greatly expand their territories as well. The current nation-states of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and what was then called Palestine were drawn on a paper napkin by Winston Churchill with no regard for local populations at all. On top of all this, Lord Grey's successor, British foreign secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour, issued his famous "declaration," in the form of a letter to Lord Lionel Rothschild declaring the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..." This has been, and will continue to be, a cause of major problems for the West, and the United States in particular, to say nothing of the people who live there.(...)"
Blame Wilson
(...) When Wilson, who had already invaded Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, finally got Congress to declare war against the Central Powers on April 8, 1917, based on the ridiculous Zimmerman Telegram, the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, and trumped up charges of atrocities against the Belgians, he didn't just get more than 100,000 Americans killed, he solidified the last century's turn toward warfare and totalitarianism that eventually killed over two hundred million people. So says Jim Powell, author of Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II. (...)
Powell makes a compelling argument that by the time the U.S. got involved, World War I was a stalemate. Peace was sure to break out soon. The soldiers on all sides were sick, freezing, and in various states of mutiny.
The Russians in particular had been devastated, many of their soldiers were without weapons, and their luck on the battlefield was running out. (...)
Primarily due to his refusal to withdraw from the war, Nicholas II was deposed in a popular uprising on March 15, 1917. As soon as the U.S. Congress declared war less than a month later, Wilson began applying diplomatic pressure and paid the Russians $325 million to continue the fight. An Anglophile to the core, Wilson didn't care about the fate of the Russians. His concern was in keeping German forces split along two fronts. The payoff worked: Russia's provisional prime minister Aleksandr Kerensky kept the Russians involved in the war.
Finally, on their fourth try, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his sidekick Leon Trotsky seized power. As Powell says in the book,
"If Russia's Provisional Government had quit the war and negotiated peace with Germany in early 1917, we might never had heard of Lenin. (...)"
Wilson's intervention led to the creation of the Soviet Union(...) Without the help of conscripted American soldiers it is much more likely that the Allies would have negotiated sooner and demanded less vengeful terms. And vengeful terms they were: Clause 231 and 232 of the Treaty of Versailles forced the Germans to accept blame for the entire war, and to "make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers" (...) This, as all school children presumably know, caused the German Government to turn on the printing presses, leading to terrible hyperinflation and the complete destruction of the German economy.
One wish of Wilson's was granted: he had demanded that the German Kaiser resign. He would only accept surrender from a "democratic government," presumably meaning one like his. Due to this decision, the German democrats who had opposed the war were discredited for being those responsible for signing the terrible treaty. The opposition took all the heat, rather than the people who got the country into the war in the first place.(...)
The series of maneuvers Hitler used to seize power were difficult enough as it was. Without the destruction of the German economy by the demands of massive reparations and the discrediting of the moderate factions, Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party would never have been able to seize power. Hitler's entire propaganda program was based on the idea of punishing the "traitors of 1918" (those who signed the Versailles treaty), and restoring dignity to a country so humiliated by the aftermath of the first world war. Wilson enabled the rise of Nazi Germany and its bloody fruition, World War II – 50 million individuals killed(...)
Wilson's blunder also paved the way for our current conflicts in the Middle East. With the overwhelming victory of the Allies, made possible by US involvement, the British Empire expanded by over a million square miles. The French were able to greatly expand their territories as well. The current nation-states of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and what was then called Palestine were drawn on a paper napkin by Winston Churchill with no regard for local populations at all. On top of all this, Lord Grey's successor, British foreign secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour, issued his famous "declaration," in the form of a letter to Lord Lionel Rothschild declaring the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..." This has been, and will continue to be, a cause of major problems for the West, and the United States in particular, to say nothing of the people who live there.(...)"
quarta-feira, 8 de novembro de 2006
Curiosidades dos referendos
* Arizona passed four measures targeting illegal immigrants, including one making English the state's official language.
* In Maine, Nebraska and Oregon, voters considered measures that would cap increases in state spending -- similar to a controversial measure approved in Colorado in 1992.
* South Dakota voters could make their state the first to strip immunity from judges, exposing them to the possibility of lawsuits, fines and even jail for their actions on the bench. Opponents, including leaders of both major parties, said it would create chaos in the judicial system.
* [anti-discriminação positiva] In Michigan, CNN projects that voters will approve a proposition to bar the state government from using race and gender to determine who gets into college, who gets hired and who receives contracts.
* Eleven states considered eminent-domain measures barring the government from taking private property for a private use; Florida, Georgia and South Carolina approved them overwhelmingly. In four states -- Arizona, California, Idaho and Washington -- voters could require state and local authorities to compensate property owners if land-use regulations lowered the value of their property.
* In Ohio, anti-smoking activists won a showdown with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Voters approved a tough ban on smoking in public places and rejected a Reynolds-backed measure that would have exempted bars, bowling alleys and racetracks.
* Nevada and Colorado both offered measures -- trailing badly in the pre-Election Day polls -- that would legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by anyone 21 and older.
* In Maine, Nebraska and Oregon, voters considered measures that would cap increases in state spending -- similar to a controversial measure approved in Colorado in 1992.
* South Dakota voters could make their state the first to strip immunity from judges, exposing them to the possibility of lawsuits, fines and even jail for their actions on the bench. Opponents, including leaders of both major parties, said it would create chaos in the judicial system.
* [anti-discriminação positiva] In Michigan, CNN projects that voters will approve a proposition to bar the state government from using race and gender to determine who gets into college, who gets hired and who receives contracts.
* Eleven states considered eminent-domain measures barring the government from taking private property for a private use; Florida, Georgia and South Carolina approved them overwhelmingly. In four states -- Arizona, California, Idaho and Washington -- voters could require state and local authorities to compensate property owners if land-use regulations lowered the value of their property.
* In Ohio, anti-smoking activists won a showdown with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Voters approved a tough ban on smoking in public places and rejected a Reynolds-backed measure that would have exempted bars, bowling alleys and racetracks.
* Nevada and Colorado both offered measures -- trailing badly in the pre-Election Day polls -- that would legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by anyone 21 and older.
Sobre o conhecimento da ignorância
José Manuel Moreira, Professor universitário e membro da Mont Pélérin Society:
"(...) Isso foi bem visível nos comentários a propósito da atribuição do Nobel a E. Phelps.
Os comentadores – unidos no aplauso – dividiram-se entre dá-lo como renovador do keynesianismo, situá-lo entre o intervencionismo de Keynes e o monetarismo de Friedman, ou entre este e o R. Lucas das “expectativas racionais”. De todos, o último é talvez o mais verdadeiro, mas também o mais preocupante, ao situar Lucas como novo modelo. Questionar o pressuposto de Keynes de que os governantes são racionais e os outros “irracionais” (incluindo os ‘spirits animals’) e, por isso, dados à ilusão monetária, é acertado. Mas esquecer que Lucas – ao democratizar a ilusão das “expectativas racionais”– só ajudou a prolongar o equívoco, é perigoso.
Depois de Stigler – pioneiro da chamada economia das informações imperfeitas – surgiu uma tendência para se considerar que a (minha) ignorância é algo de que tenho pleno conhecimento. Por outras palavras: eu sei exactamente o que não sei, e sei como obtê-lo. E mais: sei quanto me custa essa obtenção. Foi assim que o “conhecimento perfeito” voltou a ser um pressuposto.
Se eu tiver de ir ao novo aeroporto amanhã à noite e não souber como chegar lá, não há problema; sei a quem perguntar como se chega lá. Portanto, desde que eu saiba exactamente o que é preciso para obter a informação necessária, saberei então como chegar ao novo aeroporto. Eis como se chegou à decisão da OTA (e estudos do TGV e Scuts). É por isso que Lino sai mais caro do que Pinho, e tanto mais quanto os otários confiarem que o senhor sabe como (nós vamos) lá chegar e quanto custa.
Aqui o paradigma austríaco ajudaria. Infelizmente, mesmo Lucas, que reconheceu a sua dívida intelectual para com Hayek, revelou-se incapaz de ver que aquilo que este mostrou foi que os preços informam sobre o que é necessário corrigir. De facto, o verdadeiro papel informativo dos preços que a Escola Austríaca ensina refere-se à sinalização dos erros que estão a ser cometidos e aos locais onde as correcções prioritárias devem ser efectuadas. Erros que, em geral, o voluntarismo dos governos impede que se descubram a tempo e horas. "
"(...) Isso foi bem visível nos comentários a propósito da atribuição do Nobel a E. Phelps.
Os comentadores – unidos no aplauso – dividiram-se entre dá-lo como renovador do keynesianismo, situá-lo entre o intervencionismo de Keynes e o monetarismo de Friedman, ou entre este e o R. Lucas das “expectativas racionais”. De todos, o último é talvez o mais verdadeiro, mas também o mais preocupante, ao situar Lucas como novo modelo. Questionar o pressuposto de Keynes de que os governantes são racionais e os outros “irracionais” (incluindo os ‘spirits animals’) e, por isso, dados à ilusão monetária, é acertado. Mas esquecer que Lucas – ao democratizar a ilusão das “expectativas racionais”– só ajudou a prolongar o equívoco, é perigoso.
Depois de Stigler – pioneiro da chamada economia das informações imperfeitas – surgiu uma tendência para se considerar que a (minha) ignorância é algo de que tenho pleno conhecimento. Por outras palavras: eu sei exactamente o que não sei, e sei como obtê-lo. E mais: sei quanto me custa essa obtenção. Foi assim que o “conhecimento perfeito” voltou a ser um pressuposto.
Se eu tiver de ir ao novo aeroporto amanhã à noite e não souber como chegar lá, não há problema; sei a quem perguntar como se chega lá. Portanto, desde que eu saiba exactamente o que é preciso para obter a informação necessária, saberei então como chegar ao novo aeroporto. Eis como se chegou à decisão da OTA (e estudos do TGV e Scuts). É por isso que Lino sai mais caro do que Pinho, e tanto mais quanto os otários confiarem que o senhor sabe como (nós vamos) lá chegar e quanto custa.
Aqui o paradigma austríaco ajudaria. Infelizmente, mesmo Lucas, que reconheceu a sua dívida intelectual para com Hayek, revelou-se incapaz de ver que aquilo que este mostrou foi que os preços informam sobre o que é necessário corrigir. De facto, o verdadeiro papel informativo dos preços que a Escola Austríaca ensina refere-se à sinalização dos erros que estão a ser cometidos e aos locais onde as correcções prioritárias devem ser efectuadas. Erros que, em geral, o voluntarismo dos governos impede que se descubram a tempo e horas. "
terça-feira, 7 de novembro de 2006
As origens do Capitalismo
e a propósito dos jogos de "Civilization"...
Small States, Global Economy: Is Empire Necessary? : "(...)The legal and commercial revolutions bore their first fruits of liberty and prosperity in the city states of northern Italy during the twelfth century. Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Milan were centers of wealth accumulation not only from trade but also profitable industries in textiles, glassware, iron, and other goods. Crucial to the liberty and prosperity of these cities were the decentralization of power within them and the competing centers of power outside them that could be played against each other. With state confiscation constrained, standards of living steadily improved and populations steadily rose. As the great medievalist Robert Lopez put it, at its peak in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Italian commercial power, "stretched as far as England, South Russia, the oases of the Sahara Desert, India and China. It was the greatest economic empire that the world had ever known."[19]
Stark summed up the birth of capitalism in these words, "The 'rebirth' of freedom in some parts of Europe was the result of three necessary elements: Christian ideals, small political units, and within them, the appearance of a diversity of well-matched interest groups. There were no societies like these anywhere else in the world."[20]
In contrast, before the institutionalization of Christian ideas and where power was more centralized in the realm of Charlemagne in the ninth century, the state suppressed economic progress with burdensome taxation and, what Rothbard called "his despotic network of regulations."[21] And where a centralized state suppressed the institutionalization of Christian ideas, such as in Russia, liberty and prosperity failed to arise at all.
Capitalism was spread to northern Europe by merchants from the cities of northern Italy. Interested in trading woolen goods of Flanders with southern Europe, Italian merchants fostered the rise of medieval fairs. The great Fairs of Champagne, beginning in the eleventh century, integrated southern and northern European economic activity into an overarching division of labor. These fairs were made possible because the Count of Champagne was independent of the King of France. When this independence was lost in the late thirteenth century under Phillip IV's consolidation, the fairs went into decline from taxation.
Outside Europe, private property was a privilege granted by the state, not a right against it. And this privilege was not extended to the average person since the ruler, unable to imagine economic progress himself, could not conceive of why doing so would be to his benefit.
Italian merchants evaded these depredations by relying on sea routes to the free cities in Flanders.
Established by merchants outside feudal claims and ruled by interest favorable to commerce that found protection from predation of local barons by agreements with distant monarchs, free cities sprang up across northern Europe in the twelfth century. Bankers from the northern Italian cities established branches in Bruges from which they capitalized woolen production in Flanders.
As a center of trade between English fleece producers and Flanders weavers and Flanders producers of woolens and southern Europe, Bruges became the Venice of the North in prosperity as well as canals in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. War with France to annex Bruges as it had southern Flanders caused merchants seeking freedom to move to Antwerp in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. By the late fifteenth century Antwerp was the richest and most well known city in Europe.
Fed by the burgeoning exchange from the age of exploration, the volume of trade passing through Antwerp far surpassed that of any port in history to that time. However, Charles V's subjugation of southern Netherlands led to Antwerp's decline. Charles V also incorporated Italy into the Spanish realm and state predation, which had been held at bay for half a millennium, was loosed. Venice was the only one of the capitalist cities to avoid this fate. But having lost the balance between eastern and western powers because of the Spanish intrusion, it succumbed to predation by city rulers. Capitalism marched on from Antwerp to Amsterdam as displaced capitalists moved north where capitalism flourished in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century. Eventually, Amsterdam, too, succumbed to Spanish and French intrusions.[22]
By the thirteenth century, capitalism was well underway in England. Christian ideas of equality of natural rights had made further progress in England than elsewhere in Europe, which extended secure private property to a wider circle of persons than on the continent. As a result, English capitalism was not limited to cities. Farmers supplied the fleece for the European woolen markets and entrepreneurs innovated manufacturing processes and power supplies. Water and windmills, mechanical devices, and coal power were common by the thirteenth century. The superiority of coal as a source of power led to innovations in mining and shipping, including wagons drawn by horses on metal rails, a precursor to railroads. And the development of coal power led to the invention of the blast furnace for the working of iron and, eventually, to the steam engine.[23]
Each step forward in the development of capitalism was possible because of a decentralized political system and each step backward was from political centralization."
Small States, Global Economy: Is Empire Necessary? : "(...)The legal and commercial revolutions bore their first fruits of liberty and prosperity in the city states of northern Italy during the twelfth century. Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Milan were centers of wealth accumulation not only from trade but also profitable industries in textiles, glassware, iron, and other goods. Crucial to the liberty and prosperity of these cities were the decentralization of power within them and the competing centers of power outside them that could be played against each other. With state confiscation constrained, standards of living steadily improved and populations steadily rose. As the great medievalist Robert Lopez put it, at its peak in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Italian commercial power, "stretched as far as England, South Russia, the oases of the Sahara Desert, India and China. It was the greatest economic empire that the world had ever known."[19]
Stark summed up the birth of capitalism in these words, "The 'rebirth' of freedom in some parts of Europe was the result of three necessary elements: Christian ideals, small political units, and within them, the appearance of a diversity of well-matched interest groups. There were no societies like these anywhere else in the world."[20]
In contrast, before the institutionalization of Christian ideas and where power was more centralized in the realm of Charlemagne in the ninth century, the state suppressed economic progress with burdensome taxation and, what Rothbard called "his despotic network of regulations."[21] And where a centralized state suppressed the institutionalization of Christian ideas, such as in Russia, liberty and prosperity failed to arise at all.
Capitalism was spread to northern Europe by merchants from the cities of northern Italy. Interested in trading woolen goods of Flanders with southern Europe, Italian merchants fostered the rise of medieval fairs. The great Fairs of Champagne, beginning in the eleventh century, integrated southern and northern European economic activity into an overarching division of labor. These fairs were made possible because the Count of Champagne was independent of the King of France. When this independence was lost in the late thirteenth century under Phillip IV's consolidation, the fairs went into decline from taxation.
Outside Europe, private property was a privilege granted by the state, not a right against it. And this privilege was not extended to the average person since the ruler, unable to imagine economic progress himself, could not conceive of why doing so would be to his benefit.
Italian merchants evaded these depredations by relying on sea routes to the free cities in Flanders.
Established by merchants outside feudal claims and ruled by interest favorable to commerce that found protection from predation of local barons by agreements with distant monarchs, free cities sprang up across northern Europe in the twelfth century. Bankers from the northern Italian cities established branches in Bruges from which they capitalized woolen production in Flanders.
As a center of trade between English fleece producers and Flanders weavers and Flanders producers of woolens and southern Europe, Bruges became the Venice of the North in prosperity as well as canals in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. War with France to annex Bruges as it had southern Flanders caused merchants seeking freedom to move to Antwerp in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. By the late fifteenth century Antwerp was the richest and most well known city in Europe.
Fed by the burgeoning exchange from the age of exploration, the volume of trade passing through Antwerp far surpassed that of any port in history to that time. However, Charles V's subjugation of southern Netherlands led to Antwerp's decline. Charles V also incorporated Italy into the Spanish realm and state predation, which had been held at bay for half a millennium, was loosed. Venice was the only one of the capitalist cities to avoid this fate. But having lost the balance between eastern and western powers because of the Spanish intrusion, it succumbed to predation by city rulers. Capitalism marched on from Antwerp to Amsterdam as displaced capitalists moved north where capitalism flourished in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century. Eventually, Amsterdam, too, succumbed to Spanish and French intrusions.[22]
By the thirteenth century, capitalism was well underway in England. Christian ideas of equality of natural rights had made further progress in England than elsewhere in Europe, which extended secure private property to a wider circle of persons than on the continent. As a result, English capitalism was not limited to cities. Farmers supplied the fleece for the European woolen markets and entrepreneurs innovated manufacturing processes and power supplies. Water and windmills, mechanical devices, and coal power were common by the thirteenth century. The superiority of coal as a source of power led to innovations in mining and shipping, including wagons drawn by horses on metal rails, a precursor to railroads. And the development of coal power led to the invention of the blast furnace for the working of iron and, eventually, to the steam engine.[23]
Each step forward in the development of capitalism was possible because of a decentralized political system and each step backward was from political centralization."
Aborto e Pena de Morte
Não é correcta a comparação da defesa da criminalizaçao do aborto evocando o carácter absoluto da vida com o da aplicação da pena de morte.
A pena de morte é a aplicação de uma sanção proporcional. O problema depara-se com a sujeição ao erro por um lado e ao irracional que é acabar com uma vida que pode ser mais útil com outro tipo de sanções. Numa ordem realmente liberal, e primeira "função" de um criminosos seria indemnizar a vítima, se necessário por trabalho semi-escravo (mas em condições de o poder realizar produtivamente e portanto com dignidade) e não viver em prisões sustentadas pelo contribuinte e geridas pelo estatismo.
Seriam os próprios herdeiros-vítimas a abdicar, digamos, do seu direito a reclamar a pena de morte, preferindo a aplicação da solução trabalho-escravo, mesmo que no limite, a ordem legal deixasse aos herdeiros-vitimas essa escolha, até porque se assim o fosse, a possibilidade de erro de julgamento e pós-aplicação da pena recairia sobre o decisor.
Como digo, analisa-se um cenário onde a ordem legal-criminal fosse o menos estatista possível, e assim se concluiu que mesmo assim e com a possibilidade de escolha, a aplicação da pena de morte seria (voluntáriamente) provavelmente muito pouco aplicada, mesmo que o valor moral da vida não fosse evocada, que de resto, seria também um motivo acrescido para (mais uma vez voluntáriamente) não a aplicar, ou seja, não a reclamar ainda que fosse esse um direito dos herdeiros-vítimas.
Mas é totalmente correcta as opiniões de diversos liberais contra a pena de morte principalmente porque é uma pena aplicada pelos meios do estatismo, e como tal sujeita a erros sem remédio. E em especial, acrescentaria eu, podendo ser o resultados de processos políticos nacionais ou internacionais complexos, onde o cinismo dos interesses é a regra.
A pena de morte é a aplicação de uma sanção proporcional. O problema depara-se com a sujeição ao erro por um lado e ao irracional que é acabar com uma vida que pode ser mais útil com outro tipo de sanções. Numa ordem realmente liberal, e primeira "função" de um criminosos seria indemnizar a vítima, se necessário por trabalho semi-escravo (mas em condições de o poder realizar produtivamente e portanto com dignidade) e não viver em prisões sustentadas pelo contribuinte e geridas pelo estatismo.
Seriam os próprios herdeiros-vítimas a abdicar, digamos, do seu direito a reclamar a pena de morte, preferindo a aplicação da solução trabalho-escravo, mesmo que no limite, a ordem legal deixasse aos herdeiros-vitimas essa escolha, até porque se assim o fosse, a possibilidade de erro de julgamento e pós-aplicação da pena recairia sobre o decisor.
Como digo, analisa-se um cenário onde a ordem legal-criminal fosse o menos estatista possível, e assim se concluiu que mesmo assim e com a possibilidade de escolha, a aplicação da pena de morte seria (voluntáriamente) provavelmente muito pouco aplicada, mesmo que o valor moral da vida não fosse evocada, que de resto, seria também um motivo acrescido para (mais uma vez voluntáriamente) não a aplicar, ou seja, não a reclamar ainda que fosse esse um direito dos herdeiros-vítimas.
Mas é totalmente correcta as opiniões de diversos liberais contra a pena de morte principalmente porque é uma pena aplicada pelos meios do estatismo, e como tal sujeita a erros sem remédio. E em especial, acrescentaria eu, podendo ser o resultados de processos políticos nacionais ou internacionais complexos, onde o cinismo dos interesses é a regra.
sexta-feira, 3 de novembro de 2006
Liberalismo Clássico e Secessão
Já defini a Secessão como o factor supresa na Ordem Internacional. Razões:
1. Reacção ao centralismo democrático que acaba por ser visto como um poder autocrático da maioria que se impõe a sub-regiões.
2. Resolução de conflitos que surgem de velhos status-quos artificiais e construtivistas impondo o convívio de culturas étnicas-religiosas-culturais diversas no mesmo Estado.
3. O retomar de antigas reivindicações (Escócia? Catalunha?) e o surgimento de novas (Madeira?)
4. Pela percepção de que teoria da democracia e mesmo constitucional tem de o conceder, para não cair em contradição.
Existe quem diga que só os Estados democráticos são Estados legítimos. Nesta ordem de raciocínio eu diria que também, ou se calhar especialmente até com mais verdade, só as Constituições que prevêm no seu articulado (formal ou informal) mecanismos de Secessão pacíficos são legítimas porque só assim se pode presumir do acordo das partes e de forma permanentemente renovada, em aderirem a uma Constituição, a um regime de governo político, submetendo a sua vontade, que pode ser antagónica, ao processo democrático inserido num circulo eleitoral que o transcende.
É que a própria ideia de democracia só pode estar baseada na presunção da unanimidade prévia das partes em submeter os seus direitos (e quantos direitos submetemos...) à vontade de um processo colectivo, regido por uma Constituição e um Regime.
Mises fala sobre o assunto no seu "Liberalism", indicando-o como o meio preferencial para a paz internacional:
2. The Right of Self-Determination
It has already been pointed out that a country can enjoy domestic peace only when a democratic constitution provides the guarantee that the adjustment of the government to the will of the citizens can take place without friction. Nothing else is required than the consistent application of the same principle in order to assure international peace as well.(...)
The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with.
This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars.
To call this right of self-determination the "right of self-determination of nations" is to misunderstand it. It is not the right of self-determination of a delimited national unit, but the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong.
This misunderstanding is even more grievous when the expression "self-determination of nations" is taken to mean that a national state has the right to detach and incorporate into itself against the will of the inhabitants parts of the nation that belong to the territory of another state. (...)
However, the right of self-determination of which we speak is not the right of self-determination of nations, but rather the right of self-determination of the inhabitants of every territory large enough to form an independent administrative unit.
If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done. This is impracticable only because of compelling technical considerations, which make it necessary that a region be governed as a single administrative unit and that the right of self-determination be restricted to the will of the majority of the inhabitants of areas large enough to count as territorial units in the administration of the country. "
1. Reacção ao centralismo democrático que acaba por ser visto como um poder autocrático da maioria que se impõe a sub-regiões.
2. Resolução de conflitos que surgem de velhos status-quos artificiais e construtivistas impondo o convívio de culturas étnicas-religiosas-culturais diversas no mesmo Estado.
3. O retomar de antigas reivindicações (Escócia? Catalunha?) e o surgimento de novas (Madeira?)
4. Pela percepção de que teoria da democracia e mesmo constitucional tem de o conceder, para não cair em contradição.
Existe quem diga que só os Estados democráticos são Estados legítimos. Nesta ordem de raciocínio eu diria que também, ou se calhar especialmente até com mais verdade, só as Constituições que prevêm no seu articulado (formal ou informal) mecanismos de Secessão pacíficos são legítimas porque só assim se pode presumir do acordo das partes e de forma permanentemente renovada, em aderirem a uma Constituição, a um regime de governo político, submetendo a sua vontade, que pode ser antagónica, ao processo democrático inserido num circulo eleitoral que o transcende.
É que a própria ideia de democracia só pode estar baseada na presunção da unanimidade prévia das partes em submeter os seus direitos (e quantos direitos submetemos...) à vontade de um processo colectivo, regido por uma Constituição e um Regime.
Mises fala sobre o assunto no seu "Liberalism", indicando-o como o meio preferencial para a paz internacional:
2. The Right of Self-Determination
It has already been pointed out that a country can enjoy domestic peace only when a democratic constitution provides the guarantee that the adjustment of the government to the will of the citizens can take place without friction. Nothing else is required than the consistent application of the same principle in order to assure international peace as well.(...)
The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with.
This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars.
To call this right of self-determination the "right of self-determination of nations" is to misunderstand it. It is not the right of self-determination of a delimited national unit, but the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong.
This misunderstanding is even more grievous when the expression "self-determination of nations" is taken to mean that a national state has the right to detach and incorporate into itself against the will of the inhabitants parts of the nation that belong to the territory of another state. (...)
However, the right of self-determination of which we speak is not the right of self-determination of nations, but rather the right of self-determination of the inhabitants of every territory large enough to form an independent administrative unit.
If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done. This is impracticable only because of compelling technical considerations, which make it necessary that a region be governed as a single administrative unit and that the right of self-determination be restricted to the will of the majority of the inhabitants of areas large enough to count as territorial units in the administration of the country. "
quarta-feira, 1 de novembro de 2006
Ordem, Liberdade e Estado
Informo que já é possível encomendar online o livro Ordem, Liberdade e Estado de André Azevedo Alves.
terça-feira, 31 de outubro de 2006
Aborto e Discriminação VIII
Temos todos os motivos para suspeitar da coerência da defesa da liberdade do aborto por parte do estatismo de todas as cores.
Posso bem imaginar que se um dia o problema da natalidade for eleito à categoria de problema social como o passou a ser o exercício do livre arbítrio e livre autonomia do direito de propriedade dos bares e restaurantes e empresas, venha a mesma "escola" que agora pretende defender a liberdade da mulher e o seu corpo como propriedade sua, evocar o interesse colectivo para passar a promover todas as formas e mais algumas de aumento da natalidade, e isso incluirá, não só a proibição do aborto como o incentivo estatal à natalidade.
Porque foi isso mesmo que sucedeu com a "liberdade de fumar".
Posso bem imaginar que se um dia o problema da natalidade for eleito à categoria de problema social como o passou a ser o exercício do livre arbítrio e livre autonomia do direito de propriedade dos bares e restaurantes e empresas, venha a mesma "escola" que agora pretende defender a liberdade da mulher e o seu corpo como propriedade sua, evocar o interesse colectivo para passar a promover todas as formas e mais algumas de aumento da natalidade, e isso incluirá, não só a proibição do aborto como o incentivo estatal à natalidade.
Porque foi isso mesmo que sucedeu com a "liberdade de fumar".
Aborto e Discriminação VII
* A defesa do direito ao Aborto pela defesa da natureza não humana do feto é apenas uma boa desculpa. Quer à esquerda, quer Ayn Rand, quer outros caiem nesse facilitismo de consciência.
* A defesa do direito ao Aborto só tem como única defesa consistente a reivindicação do exercicío de um direito de expulsão de um "hóspede". Quem pretende fazer a defesa do direito ao Aborto tem de ser capaz de o reconhecer primeiro e argumentar consistentemente em seguida, e eu pessoalmente até acho que insistir nesta formulação se induz a um apelo à consciência moral.
* Murray N. Rothbard em parte alguma defende que os pais ou em particular a mãe têm propriedade sobre o feto ou a criança.
* Se o aborto é uma solução fácil para um problema difícil, a sua criminalização também o pode ser. Constituindo um dilema moral extremo devia ser correspondido com mais envolvimento pessoal por quem o pretende criminalizar, e isso implicaria a incomodidade de praticar a discriminação e ostracismo social, as alternivas obvias a um certo facilitismo da criminalização?
* Aquilo a que se começa a designar como "crimes sem castigo", solução que começa a ser apontada para os problemas morais como agora o aborto é já antes, a droga e prostituição, no fundo devia corresponder à noção de que deveriam constituir objectos para a prática livre de discriminação e ostracismo.
Assim, liberalizar a droga, aborto, etc, não deve corresponder à imposição geral da aceitação da sua prática em todos os locais. O que deve significar é que não constituindo crimes, deve ser possível é a sua livre discriminação local, como por exemplo, a proibição da sua prática ao nível do município e freguesia (e deve ser possível expulsar a prostituição das ruas, como podem existir locais que autorizam "bordéis" com outros onde são proibidos).
Não existem fórmulas "mágicas". O princípio geral é que a moral deve ser regulada "de baixo para cima", pelas atitudes individuais, exercício do direito de propriedade à discriminação, pelo localismo, e não ao contrário, pelo estatismo centralista quer na sua versão liberalizante quer na versão criminalizante.
* Pergunto eu ao "proibicionismo". Se o referendo pelo sim passar, não deverão estes defender a possiblidade de regulação local e livre discriminação ou será que colocarão a sua visão de centralismo nacional do direito acima da possibilidade da sua regulação local?
Os médicos devem ser livres de se recusar a praticá-lo, incluindo em hospitais públicos e estes devem ter autonomia administrativa para também não o praticar. Como as clínicas privadas. Como estas devem poder declarar-se como "livres" de médicos que o praticam.
* A defesa do direito ao Aborto só tem como única defesa consistente a reivindicação do exercicío de um direito de expulsão de um "hóspede". Quem pretende fazer a defesa do direito ao Aborto tem de ser capaz de o reconhecer primeiro e argumentar consistentemente em seguida, e eu pessoalmente até acho que insistir nesta formulação se induz a um apelo à consciência moral.
* Murray N. Rothbard em parte alguma defende que os pais ou em particular a mãe têm propriedade sobre o feto ou a criança.
* Se o aborto é uma solução fácil para um problema difícil, a sua criminalização também o pode ser. Constituindo um dilema moral extremo devia ser correspondido com mais envolvimento pessoal por quem o pretende criminalizar, e isso implicaria a incomodidade de praticar a discriminação e ostracismo social, as alternivas obvias a um certo facilitismo da criminalização?
* Aquilo a que se começa a designar como "crimes sem castigo", solução que começa a ser apontada para os problemas morais como agora o aborto é já antes, a droga e prostituição, no fundo devia corresponder à noção de que deveriam constituir objectos para a prática livre de discriminação e ostracismo.
Assim, liberalizar a droga, aborto, etc, não deve corresponder à imposição geral da aceitação da sua prática em todos os locais. O que deve significar é que não constituindo crimes, deve ser possível é a sua livre discriminação local, como por exemplo, a proibição da sua prática ao nível do município e freguesia (e deve ser possível expulsar a prostituição das ruas, como podem existir locais que autorizam "bordéis" com outros onde são proibidos).
Não existem fórmulas "mágicas". O princípio geral é que a moral deve ser regulada "de baixo para cima", pelas atitudes individuais, exercício do direito de propriedade à discriminação, pelo localismo, e não ao contrário, pelo estatismo centralista quer na sua versão liberalizante quer na versão criminalizante.
* Pergunto eu ao "proibicionismo". Se o referendo pelo sim passar, não deverão estes defender a possiblidade de regulação local e livre discriminação ou será que colocarão a sua visão de centralismo nacional do direito acima da possibilidade da sua regulação local?
Os médicos devem ser livres de se recusar a praticá-lo, incluindo em hospitais públicos e estes devem ter autonomia administrativa para também não o praticar. Como as clínicas privadas. Como estas devem poder declarar-se como "livres" de médicos que o praticam.
quinta-feira, 26 de outubro de 2006
Secessão: o factor supresa e a subversão constitucional
Provavelmente o tema que ao longo das próximas décadas não vai deixar de supreender todos e em todo o lado. Vivemos a diplomacia das fronteiras dos grandes Estados (e guerras ocasionais por causa delas). Mas o conflito entre grandes Estados e Blocos, sendo ainda possível é menos provável. Vamos passar à outra face visivel da democracia - o "direito" a constituir uma democracia mais pequena, à parte, mais homogénea. Para o qual ninguém está preparado. A começar pelos sistema constitucionais. Isto a propósito de:
Telegraph: Will the Union see its 300th birthday?By Alan Cochrane
Is the United Kingdom heading for fragmentation with the secession of Scotland from the Union, even as it prepares to celebrate its 300th anniversary next year? And if it is, should those who make up the vast bulk of its population - the English - give a damn?
The questions arise following a series of astonishing events, beginning 10 days ago when nearly 1,200 delegates packed the new Concert Hall in Perth - the biggest gathering at a political conference that Scotland has seen in recent memory - to hear Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party, deliver his keynote address to his annual conference. His strident call for the break-up of the United Kingdom was cheered to the echo by his adoring audience.
Nothing new there, but what was surprising was what happened next. Two days later, Sir Tom Farmer, the founder of the Kwik Fit chain of exhaust and tyre depots, told the world that Scottish independence was "inevitable".
Telegraph: Will the Union see its 300th birthday?By Alan Cochrane
Is the United Kingdom heading for fragmentation with the secession of Scotland from the Union, even as it prepares to celebrate its 300th anniversary next year? And if it is, should those who make up the vast bulk of its population - the English - give a damn?
The questions arise following a series of astonishing events, beginning 10 days ago when nearly 1,200 delegates packed the new Concert Hall in Perth - the biggest gathering at a political conference that Scotland has seen in recent memory - to hear Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party, deliver his keynote address to his annual conference. His strident call for the break-up of the United Kingdom was cheered to the echo by his adoring audience.
Nothing new there, but what was surprising was what happened next. Two days later, Sir Tom Farmer, the founder of the Kwik Fit chain of exhaust and tyre depots, told the world that Scottish independence was "inevitable".
A economia tem de ser salva dos economistas
...de alguns pelos menos...bom, na verdade da maioria.
Hundreds of Economists Say: Raise the Minimum Wage, 650 of their fellow economists agree
Henry Aaron The Brookings Institution
Kenneth Arrow*+ Stanford University
William Baumol+ Princeton University and New York University
Rebecca Blank University of Michigan
Alan Blinder Princeton University
Peter Diamond+ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ronald Ehrenberg, Cornell University
Clive Granger* University of California, San Diego
Lawrence Katz Harvard University (AEA Executive Committee)
Lawrence Klein*+ University of Pennsylvania
Frank Levy Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lawrence Mishel Economic Policy Institute
Alice Rivlin+ The Brookings Institution (former Vice Chair of the
Federal Reserve and Director of the Office of Management and Budget)
Robert Solow*+ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joseph Stiglitz* Columbia University
Hundreds of Economists Say: Raise the Minimum Wage, 650 of their fellow economists agree
Henry Aaron The Brookings Institution
Kenneth Arrow*+ Stanford University
William Baumol+ Princeton University and New York University
Rebecca Blank University of Michigan
Alan Blinder Princeton University
Peter Diamond+ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ronald Ehrenberg, Cornell University
Clive Granger* University of California, San Diego
Lawrence Katz Harvard University (AEA Executive Committee)
Lawrence Klein*+ University of Pennsylvania
Frank Levy Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lawrence Mishel Economic Policy Institute
Alice Rivlin+ The Brookings Institution (former Vice Chair of the
Federal Reserve and Director of the Office of Management and Budget)
Robert Solow*+ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joseph Stiglitz* Columbia University
quarta-feira, 25 de outubro de 2006
"The question that must be faced, then, is: Can force advance morality?"
E a refutação do argumento conservador de que o Estado nos deve proteger de nós próprios.
Murray N. Rothbard:
"Suppose we arrive at the demonstrable conclusion that actions A, B, and C are immoral, and actions X, Y, and Z are moral. And suppose we find that Mr. Jones shows a distressing propensity to value A, B, and C highly and adopts these courses of action time and again. We are interested in transforming Mr. Jones from being an immoral person to being a moral person. How can we go about it? The statists answer: by force. We must prohibit at gunpoint Mr. Jones from doing A, B, and C.
Then, at last, he will be moral. But will he?
Is Jones moral because he chooses X when he is forcibly deprived of the opportunity to choose A? When Smith is confined to a prison, is he being moral because he doesn’t spend his time in saloons getting drunk?
There is no sense to any concept of morality, regardless of the particular moral action one favors, if a man is not free to do the immoral as well as the moral thing. If a man is not free to choose, if he is compelled by force to do the moral thing, then, on the contrary, he is being deprived of the opportunity of being moral.
He has not been permitted to weigh the alternatives, to arrive at his own conclusions, and to take his stand. If he is deprived of free choice, he is acting under the dictator’s will rather than his own. (Of course, he could choose to be shot, but this is hardly an intelligible conception of free choice of alternatives. In fact, he then has only one free choice: the hegemonic one—to be shot or to obey the dictator in all things.)Dictatorship over consumers’ choices, then, can only atrophy morality rather than promote it.
There is but one way that morality can spread from the enlightened to the unenlightened—and that is by rational persuasion.
If A convinces B through the use of reason that his moral values are correct and B’s are wrong, then B will change and adopt the moral course of his own free will. To say that this method is a slower procedure is beside the point. The point is that morality can spread only through peaceful persuasion and that the use of force can only erode and impair morality.We have not even mentioned other facts that strengthen our argument, such as the great difficulty in enforcing dictatorial rules against people whose values clash with them.
The man who prefers the immoral course and is prevented by the bayonet from acting on his preference will do his best to find ways to circumvent the prohibition—perhaps by bribing the bayoneteer. And, because this is not a treatise on ethics, we have not mentioned the libertarian ethical theory which holds that the use of coercion is itself the highest form of immorality."
Murray N. Rothbard:
"Suppose we arrive at the demonstrable conclusion that actions A, B, and C are immoral, and actions X, Y, and Z are moral. And suppose we find that Mr. Jones shows a distressing propensity to value A, B, and C highly and adopts these courses of action time and again. We are interested in transforming Mr. Jones from being an immoral person to being a moral person. How can we go about it? The statists answer: by force. We must prohibit at gunpoint Mr. Jones from doing A, B, and C.
Then, at last, he will be moral. But will he?
Is Jones moral because he chooses X when he is forcibly deprived of the opportunity to choose A? When Smith is confined to a prison, is he being moral because he doesn’t spend his time in saloons getting drunk?
There is no sense to any concept of morality, regardless of the particular moral action one favors, if a man is not free to do the immoral as well as the moral thing. If a man is not free to choose, if he is compelled by force to do the moral thing, then, on the contrary, he is being deprived of the opportunity of being moral.
He has not been permitted to weigh the alternatives, to arrive at his own conclusions, and to take his stand. If he is deprived of free choice, he is acting under the dictator’s will rather than his own. (Of course, he could choose to be shot, but this is hardly an intelligible conception of free choice of alternatives. In fact, he then has only one free choice: the hegemonic one—to be shot or to obey the dictator in all things.)Dictatorship over consumers’ choices, then, can only atrophy morality rather than promote it.
There is but one way that morality can spread from the enlightened to the unenlightened—and that is by rational persuasion.
If A convinces B through the use of reason that his moral values are correct and B’s are wrong, then B will change and adopt the moral course of his own free will. To say that this method is a slower procedure is beside the point. The point is that morality can spread only through peaceful persuasion and that the use of force can only erode and impair morality.We have not even mentioned other facts that strengthen our argument, such as the great difficulty in enforcing dictatorial rules against people whose values clash with them.
The man who prefers the immoral course and is prevented by the bayonet from acting on his preference will do his best to find ways to circumvent the prohibition—perhaps by bribing the bayoneteer. And, because this is not a treatise on ethics, we have not mentioned the libertarian ethical theory which holds that the use of coercion is itself the highest form of immorality."
Algumas verdades "austriacas"
Study Guide to "Man, Economy, and State" Robert P. Murphy
4. Capital Accumulation and the Length of the
Structure of Production
Böhm-Bawerk demonstrated that longer, wisely chosen processes would always be more physically productive than shorter processes. That is, the quantity of physical output from a given input could always be increased by investing the input in a longer process. This of course does not mean that every longer process will be more physically productive, but merely that there always exists at least one such process (that is both longer and more productive).
5. The Adoption of a New Technique
Other things equal, actors prefer to achieve their consumption goals sooner rather than later. Consequently, they will first exploit the shortest processes, i.e., the ones that involve the least amount of waiting time. The only reason an actor would invest his resources in a longer process is that it promises a greater quantity of output. It is time preference that acts as the ultimate “brake” on engaging in indefinitely lengthy processes.
Thus, because of a process of selection, at any given time there are always lengthier, more productive processes “on the shelf,” that have not been yet exploited because of the waiting involved. For this reason, new savings (and investment) can always yield a higher return to the original factors (after the required delay). Thus capital accumulation alone, even without scientific discoveries or other technological advances, can allow for a continual rise inthe standard of living.
6. The Beneficiaries of Saving-Investment
When land and labor factors are invested in lengthierprocesses, their physical output is greater, leading (eventually) to higher per capita consumption. Net investment (and the corresponding aggregate profits) allow for temporary gains to the investors, but ultimately all increases in productivity will be imputed to the land and labor factors (raising rents and wages).
7. The Progressing Economy and the Pure Rate of
Interest
An increase (decrease) in gross investment can only occur because of an antecedent drop (rise) in time preferences, which will also cause a drop (rise) in the pure rate of interest.
4. Capital Accumulation and the Length of the
Structure of Production
Böhm-Bawerk demonstrated that longer, wisely chosen processes would always be more physically productive than shorter processes. That is, the quantity of physical output from a given input could always be increased by investing the input in a longer process. This of course does not mean that every longer process will be more physically productive, but merely that there always exists at least one such process (that is both longer and more productive).
5. The Adoption of a New Technique
Other things equal, actors prefer to achieve their consumption goals sooner rather than later. Consequently, they will first exploit the shortest processes, i.e., the ones that involve the least amount of waiting time. The only reason an actor would invest his resources in a longer process is that it promises a greater quantity of output. It is time preference that acts as the ultimate “brake” on engaging in indefinitely lengthy processes.
Thus, because of a process of selection, at any given time there are always lengthier, more productive processes “on the shelf,” that have not been yet exploited because of the waiting involved. For this reason, new savings (and investment) can always yield a higher return to the original factors (after the required delay). Thus capital accumulation alone, even without scientific discoveries or other technological advances, can allow for a continual rise inthe standard of living.
6. The Beneficiaries of Saving-Investment
When land and labor factors are invested in lengthierprocesses, their physical output is greater, leading (eventually) to higher per capita consumption. Net investment (and the corresponding aggregate profits) allow for temporary gains to the investors, but ultimately all increases in productivity will be imputed to the land and labor factors (raising rents and wages).
7. The Progressing Economy and the Pure Rate of
Interest
An increase (decrease) in gross investment can only occur because of an antecedent drop (rise) in time preferences, which will also cause a drop (rise) in the pure rate of interest.
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