I am no scholar, I am Joe six pack, though I don’t drink. I have learned much from the Mises.org web site. Yet at this time of great crisis I feel as though most Austrians have been content to sit out of the current fight. With the exceptions of Ron Paul, Tom Woods and Peter Schiff where are the Austrians? It was to be a crisis like the one we currently face that was to open the hearts and minds of the masses. It seems to me that the main stream intellectuals are too committed to their course and perquisites to change their views. Is it time to target Joe the plumber? For even if it is true that only the intellectuals disseminate ideas, who are they disseminating them to? Ultimately it is up to the masses to ignore their masters and learn that they are all liars. Now more than ever the people need to hear the basics of why we are in this mess, what it is costing them and what it will cost them. The Joe’s do not care about the theories of liberty, they care about their wallets. You may return to your high work of this and that once Austrian economics is as well know as Marx or Ralph Raico is invited on the Oprah show, whichever comes first. Shouldn’t take too long. Was all the talk about being ready when the “revolution” came just talk? It appears to me to be the case.
Can some smart person out there tell me what every working person “owes” the Fed this year. The math goes something like this;
4+ TRILLION divided by 110 million or so working people, my calculator stopped working after the Carter Admin.
This is what people care about, tell them everyday how much they “owe” the state and ask them if they “voted” for this as they would in a market transaction.
In my most humble opinion every conversation about this mess should include what a TRILLION is. How about these figures;
A million seconds is 12 days.A billion seconds is 31 years.A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
The line that , “ if printing money worked, we would ALL be filthy rich”, is a good one that needs to be repeated ad nauseam.
Time to get to work Austrians and convert the masses as you converted this Joe six pack.
Be responsible, ease suffering; spay or neuter your pets.
We must get them to understand that government solutions are the problem!
what I tend to do to advance the cause is go online to places that I'm already welcome and allowed some tolerance and then I debate and argue in favor of anarchy (politely of course). I figure, some seeds are being planted that way.
And of course educating myself -always key.
Stranger:We have more and more of these. What we still lack is organization.
And action.
But organization to do what? To further educate? To vote? To go agorist?
MatthewF: Stranger:We have more and more of these. What we still lack is organization. And action. But organization to do what? To further educate? To vote? To go agorist?
If you get a group of natural elites together they have the power to oppose the decisions of the political oligarchs, as the people have much more respect for the elites than they do the politicians. However, this only works if they act as a group, otherwise they do not have the concentration of force to oppose the politicians.
What's necessary is to establish them as a new legislative/executive body concurrently with the established politicians, such that they can nullify the politicians and provide an alternative arbitrator to appeal to. This means you have to recruit a lot of natural elites, but you also need a system where they can claim to be the legitimate representatives of a certain class of people, meaning having to design some sort of alternative electoral system.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
In other words, you need a group/business/community/whatever willing to stand up to the police?
MatthewF: In other words, you need a group/business/community/whatever willing to stand up to the police?
The opposite, a group the police isn't willing to stand up to.
Stranger: MatthewF: In other words, you need a group/business/community/whatever willing to stand up to the police? The opposite, a group the police isn't willing to stand up to.
Though I say this in uncertainty, I believe the people would side with the police in this situation.
fakename: Though I say this in uncertainty, I believe the people would side with the police in this situation.
That's irrelevant, who will the police side with?
I'm with Stranger on the point that organization/structure is and has been lacking for the liberty focused view point. This may be due to the abstract reasoning required to grasp its main points, but I also think it's due to people depending on the concept that good ideas sell themselves. If that were the case, Microsoft and Apple would have been defunct years ago or any other mediocre institution (public/private). Like Life itself, change takes blood, sweat, and toil. And just doing it all at random won't get you anywhere. You need to plan, first and foremost. In some ways, you have to plot or conspire as it is a conspiracy against the current paradigm (and its leaders) than anything. *shrugs*
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
ladyattis:organization/structure is and has been lacking for the liberty focused view point.
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process."
I have a hard time reconciling these two ideas.
Yet at this time of great crisis I feel as though most Austrians have been content to sit out of the current fight.
Is there really anything to be gained by media attention or political jobbying? Austrian economists are just that, economists - intellectuals and professors. It is not really their job to try to fix what's built to be broken. And they couldn't if they tried. The trouble is not to convince the majority through academic appeals (which most people, naturally, have little interest and even less training) nor to convince the academics - who are more or less peon-priests of the fascist state. People need to stop relying on mass-media and 'higher' education altogether if we are to escape this mess.
“Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of the government.” - Proudhon
Stranger: That's irrelevant, who will the police side with?
I think that the police and the people would gang up on us. What I mean is that we will be alienated.
Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Htut:
This is the great debate- is it not. How to bring about change. I disagree with your assertion that it is not up to the scholars etc. Then why the hell are they there? Why do we need them if only to pass on their ideas to us. What use is this information if not to be used to bring about liberty?
If it is not to be done through mass media, then how? There must be real options available, not just pie in the sky dreams. We need to look at how the left has come to dominate academia and media. It was “ a slow march through the institutions”. The main problem as I see it is that libs do not seek the power that the progressives did.
People are easily influenced; libertarianism can influence both the left and the right. We can speak out against a current war and a current economic crisis. Millions of people listen to neocon talk radio, Austro economists can influence them to vote for liberty minded politicians. But you say we don’t need so called political leaders. How many minds did Ron Paul influence? Think of what another dozen of him could do. Maybe end the Fed??? Who knows. We must be realistic, the party system is not going away any time soon. We must use it or we can continue to talk to the hand, I mean speak to the choir.
I always thought that most of the time a publicist gets their clients on these shows??
fakename: I think that the police and the people would gang up on us. What I mean is that we will be alienated.
If "we" means a bunch of philosophy nerds, most likely. If "we" consists of a large number of natural elites with the direct support of a large portion of the population through an election, then it will be the politicians who are ganged upon.
MatthewF: ladyattis:organization/structure is and has been lacking for the liberty focused view point. "The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." I have a hard time reconciling these two ideas.
Then do you not understand that organization does not imply coercion or exclusion of alternative organizations?