Northern Illinois Campaign for Liberty

The political world, or at least the right (as in right vs. left, not right vs. wrong) part of the political spectrum is all abuzz with news about the “Mt. Vernon Statement.” I guess it doesn’t occur to some people that even non-politicians don’t always do as they say, and simply signing a “statement” is not going to change anything.

But, that’s not what I meant to say…I intended to point out some anomalies in the Mt. Vernon Statement. I found out about this from Fox News, not always a libertarian’s best friend (I suspect that a dog could easily be a libertarian’s best friend over Fox)…but I digress. Here’s the link for yourself, so you can read the article, and send me raging emails about how wrong I am, or, if you prefer, you may email me with letters extolling my clarity, honestly, and ability to see through facetious scams put on by the neo-cons.

So, by now you’re wondering if I have a point, and frankly, I am wondering too. So I’ll try to get down to business. The Mt. Vernon Statement is suppose to determine “Who’s Who” in the conservative circle. I think they could more truthfully say the Mt. Vernon Statement is supposed to determine Who’s Who in the neo-con circle.

From the Mt. Vernon Statement, “The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.”

I apologize, but I didn’t realize they had conservatives back in the 1770’s, I thought they had the Patriots and the Tories, and of course, the undecided.  But that’s rather irrelevant, so I’ll move on.

Conservatism asserts life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Mt. Vernon Statement. How nice, (I really am serious here), that conservatives are always defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Then perhaps it was a malicious hacker who added these words, “It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.”

“Advancing freedom?”

Do you know what that means?

The War in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We’re advancing freedom by fighting two unnecessary wars in the Mideast.

We’re asserting life by killing innocent civilians.

We’re defending liberty by taking away our own freedoms to fight these wars that will take away their freedom as well.

We’re protecting the pursuit of happiness by helping to embroil the Mideast in long, bloody, violent, and unhappy conflicts.

Uh-huh…or should I say, “yeah right”?

By Lew Rockwell

But the problem is that the capacity to imagine freedom — the very source of life for civilization and humanity itself — is being eroded in our society and culture. The less freedom we have, the less people are able to imagine what freedom feels like, and therefore the less they are willing to fight for its restoration.

Click here to read the complete article

By Ron Paul

We have been on a disastrous course for a long time. The money supply has doubled in the last year, our debt is unsustainable, the value of the dollar is going to continue its drop, and those Americans who understand where we are headed feel helpless and held hostage by foolish policy makers in Washington. When the bills finally come due and the dollar stops working we are in for some real social, economic and political chaos. That is, unless we take some major steps now to allow for a peaceful transition in the future. These steps are laid out in my legislation to legalize competing currencies.

Click here to read the complete article

by Karen Kwiatkowski

Andrew Bacevich describes America as an “unserious empire.” He corrected his PBS interviewer who had offered the more commonly heard phrase “reluctant empire” as a way to think about our country. Evidently there is concurrence of American political thought that America is indeed an empire, legitimate debate limited only to the qualifier.

Before examining our unserious empire, it might be interesting to see why it is that being “reluctant” is more acceptable toAmericans at war than being unserious. If I am a reluctant bride or a reluctant student, the implication is that I am forced to do something by the stronger party in a husband/wife or teacher/student relationship. “Reluctant” implies that the doer of the deed wants something different, and in marshalling their limited autonomy, is trying to avoid the sin perceived.

Clearly, the United States is in no way a reluctant empire.

Click here to read the complete article.

By Jo Comerford

$57,077.60. That’s what we’re paying per minute. Keep that in mind — just for a minute or so.

After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 U.S. troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, rankedby the United Nations as second worst in the world in terms of human development.

Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60.  That’s how much it will cost you, the taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.

By the way, add up the yearly salary of a Marine from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you’ll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute’s sum.

Read the complete article here.

By Don Cooper

There was once a small village in the heart of country “US”called village A. Village A was the source of a river that flowed to another small village, village B. Both village A and village B had all the fresh water supply that they needed.

There was another village though, village C, that didn’t live near a river so they got the government to reroute the river running between village A and village B to run through village C as well. Even though the project was drastically over budget and schedule it was eventually completed and the government was hailed as good and righteous. Unfortunately, the government didn’t know that village C sat right on top of a fault line. One day the fault moved and opened up a large hole in the earth right underneath the river cutting off the water supply to both village C and village B.

Click here to read the complete article

by Jake Towne

This talk was originally delivered to a Campaign of Liberty chapter on December 3, 2009.  Video will be available shortly.

Today President Obama will tour Allentown, Pennsylvania, in my home congressional district as part of a “Main Street Tour” to show his concern for economic plight of the masses. Many of the people I have spoken with while campaigning innately realize that government is at fault — or at least complain a lot about how the government should “fix” the economy. Unfortunately, many do not have enough of a grasp of economics to understand exactly how the government is ruining their lives and their childrens’ lives. Speaking for myself, about 2 years ago I would have been included in this category. This is no surprise as most of the press and educational system has been hijacked by the disciples of Lord Keynes (the Keynesians) and the socialist Karl Marx for the past century.

Click here to read the rest.

I had the great privilege recently of attending an economics class at a local college with some of my friends.  Very fascinating, a different way to do school, that’s for sure. Reminds me of Einstein, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” But I’ll try to keep myself confined to only speaking about Keynesian economics, at least for now.

I met the teacher before the class, so we spoke for a few minutes. I had a chance to look around his office a bit. Didn’t see any Mises or Rothbard, but I glimpsed, “Macro Economics” by Ben Bernanke sitting on his desk.  I was wearing my C4L hat, so he asked me, “What is this Campaign for Liberty?” Well! That the first time anyone had directly asked me about C4L because of my hat. Very thrilling. So I explained what the group was, and mentioned Ron Paul. He said the Ron Paul was an interesting person.  I prodded him a bit, I wanted to know what he actually thought of Ron Paul, and why he wasn’t a Ron Paul fan. Turns out he thinks Dr. Paul is crazy for trying to go back to the gold standard, “and he has some problem with the Federal Reserve.” I pointed out that very few people know what the Fed is. He challenged that, and I said, “hey, I stood on a street corner in Chicago, a few blocks from the Fed, and asked people if they knew anything about the Fed, and most people didn’t have a clue.” I pointed out that we (C4L) believed that the Fed is responsible for the boom-and-bust cycle by their manipulation of the economy. He was impressed, I think, by my knowledge of economics, but not convinced. He mentioned that Milton Friedman is his hero, because of his stand for liberty. I don’t know that much about Friedman, but it seems that he had some major problems in fundamental ideas, and it also seems that Von Mises stood up for liberty far more staunchly than Friedman did, Mises enduring some miserable years at the university in Vienna, and then coming to the US where no one appreciated his work or studies.  I mentioned Von Mises to this teacher, and he said that there was a nice Von Mises website, so I laughed and said I visit it every day.  He said he would look into the Campaign for Liberty, so that is a good thing!

About the actual class. It was far more visually interesting than the classes I take, because usually my classes are audio recording, and there is nothing to look at but the blank computer screen. In this class there was a teacher walking back and forth, drawing on the board, and so forth. With that kind of action, 50 minutes is not long at all. He was talking about labor and labor value.  The Value of the Marginal Product of Labor (VMP) is equal to the Marginal Product of Labor multiplied by the net price. Mostly review, quite familiar with the words and abbreviations, happily, as I was a bit concerned that the Austrians were so marginalized, they used a different set of symbols and abbreviations.  But to my relief, there were the same demand/price/supply graphs and so forth as I’ve used before. I was a little confused at one point because he implied the Law of Diminishing Returns, but didn’t talk about it, or why it is true, so I wasn’t sure if he was going to cover it or not, but turns out they had already talked about it in a previous lecture. I would have liked to hear his explanation of the Law of Diminishing Returns, I suspect it is a bit different than our’s, but oh well. At least it is there. The most amusing part of the class? When the teacher confessed, “recessions just occur in our economy for unknown reasons and they cannot be avoided.”  I think I was the only one who questioned the ability of this teacher to teach economics without being able to explain such a common recurrence in our economy, and I only questioned in my head. Doesn’t anyone else wonder why these teachers can’t understand why recessions happen? I mean, they might as well said, with Keynes, “it is caused by the animal spirits of the investors in the market.” I mean, talk about unscientific!

Okay, one more observation about their economics. There is far more math than I generally do in my economics; maybe that’s why I enjoy Austrian econ so much.  These algebraic equations and so forth make no sense in the real world. How can you apply it in a meaningful and relevant way? The economy cannot be explained by algebraic phrases. I think this was a joke one of the Mises professors used: There was a drunk man searching the ground around a lamp pole. Someone came up and asked him what he was looking for. “My keys,” he said. “I dropped them.” And the person said, “but your car is way down the street, why are you looking here for your keys?” And the drunk replied, “because this is where the light is.”  Suffice to say, I had to do a bit of explaining with this one to apply it to economics. The application is, Keynesians generally use more math in economics because that is what can be understand. They know how to deal with algebraic equations, because they follow a set of rules.  But people are unique, and so the actions that they make are unique. They follow their own set of preferences and principles. Obviously, this makes it a bit more difficult to understand. And don’t misunderstand me, I am not comparing Keynesians to drunkards, I am sure there are some very nice people who are, sadly, Keynesians. And this teacher I met at this college was a very friendly and nice person, it is just we have a little different idea of economics. I don’t mean to insult or offend anyone, and this is not meant to be a personal diatribe against Keynesian teachers. Just a comparison of philosophies.

Another thing that struck me about this class is, I realized the enormous power a teacher has over the students. I’ve always generally known this, but as I teach myself, I’ve never really experienced it. Very disturbing idea. These kids, for the most part, are not free thinkers, they are not prepared to stand up to their teacher, or even to question the validity of the teacher’s statement. Now I understand why some of my friends are so messed up in their economics. This teacher “explains ” and “proves” an argument, and that is the end of it. It must be true, because 1) my teacher is saying it, 2) it is in the official textbook, 3) my teacher said there aren’t any strong arguments for another opinion.  Their opinion makes sense because they’ve never heard anything else in a fair and balanced way. So, I must conclude that the college is a great drone factory, to turn out kids who follow the rules and think just like everyone else.

And people ask me why I don’t, and won’t, go to college. Gee, I wonder.

By William Anderson

After years of writing about how governments abuse, murder, and imprison innocent people and destroy life around the world, I find that I have been wrong, really wrong. All this time, I wrongfully tried to convince readers that terrible things are done in the name of “good government,” and now I have to apologize to them.

Why this turnaround? I have seen the light. Government is good, yes, very, very good. How do I know this? WhyDouglas J. Amy, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts (an island of True Political Correctness in America’s Most Politically-Correct State) has opened a world of Truth and Beauty to me with his website,Government Is Good.

You see, until I read this wonderful site praising the Great Accomplishments and Missions of Government (or at least government when run by the Democratic Party), I had no idea that government constantly did wonderful things for me. I was ungrateful, but no more!

Click here to read the rest.

I have noticed that one of the major problems people have with the free market, is their fear of monopolies. And I do want to point out that if you believe the government should create laws and regulations to prevent monopolies, you do not believe in the free market. You might be a believer in the quasi-free market, but not the real thing.

So, what is it about monopolies that scare people so much? I don’t know for sure, but some people seem to be afraid of Walmart taking over the world as much as Al Gore fears global-warming. Because this is a main argument against the free market, I try to keep track of the arguments against government regulations, so I can show people that we don’t need the government to fix this “problem” that has, ironically, never actually happened yet.

And now I will offer 5 arguments against anti-trust laws, and the like.

1) In the case of an only horizontal monopoly, the companies that sell to the “1 big firm” (i.e., gasp, Walmart!) would not want a monopoly to be created. Why? Because if Walmart has a monopoly they will eventually raise prices, and since the demand for many of their products is elastic, not as many of them will be sold. Walmart will manage to make a profit because of the increased price, but the companies that sell to Walmart will not profit. Example: Tomato Soup, just a random product I thought of. Let’s say that in the competitive market, one can of tomato soup sells for an average of $1.50, okay? If you want the name brand one, a bit more, the cheap one, a little less. Let’s say that a Walmart brand makes the soup, but they have to buy the tomatoes from somewhere, right? Let’s say, from Tomahto Inc., and I am not sure where Tomahto Inc. is based, or where they grow their tomatoes. I really couldn’t care less about tomatoes, so I don’t pay attention to where they are grown. But to keep going. Walmart takes over all the brands of tomato soup on the market. However, they have not taken over Tomahto Inc. Tomahto Inc. know that Walmart will sell the can of tomato soup at $2.00 or more once they completely take over the market. Is this good or bad for Tomato Inc.? They get paid .75 for the tomatoes it takes to make one can of soup. So, now that Walmart has created a monopoly in the tomato soup market, Tomahto Inc. is still getting .75 for each can, but Walmart is charging $2.00 + and making a nice fortune. Most people really don’t have to live on tomato soup, maybe some strange people are addicted to it, but for the most part, if the price goes up to $2.00, people will buy less. In economic terms, the demand for tomato soup is elastic. Now that the price is at $2.00, people only buy 1.5 million cans, not 2 million. So, obviously, Tomahto Inc. has lost a good profit, because they’re only getting .75 x 1.5 million, not x 2 million. But Walmart is making money because of the high price they are charging. Going back to before Walmart has monopolized the market, would Tomahto Inc. want Walmart to monopolize the market?

I know someone is going to ask, “why didn’t Walmart take over Tomahto Inc., and solve all their problems?” Well, yes, in this case, Walmart could have done that, but when you multiply that by every product Walmart sells, it becomes rather clear that it is nearly impossible for Walmart to monopolize the market, horizontally and vertically, by taking over every step of production.

2) If the 1 big firm as a  horizontal and vertical monopoly, it cannot  measure opportunity costs and accurately figure the productivity of production, as there is no outside market to compare it with. This was the argument of Mises against socialism, and against the “1 big firm.” If the world were socialized, and the government controlled every factor of production, it would eventually implode. The reason the USSR lasted so long is because they could look at the free world to measure productivity. Without the consumer “voting” so to speak, on where capital should be allocated, and what is most valuable, it is impossible to know if a capital good is being used for the best ends.

3) This argument is based on F.A. Hayek’s “problem of knowledge.” There is so much knowledge in the market that the bigger a firm is, the less it can keep up with constantly changing demand and preferences in the market. People are always changing their value scales, preferring milk to yogurt, and then cottage cheese to yogurt, but only if cottage cheese is under a certain price, but then…it goes on and on. A localized firm can provide products to its consumers because it is better able to deal with the localized knowledge, i.e., if a number of citizens in a certain town decide that yogurt is bad for them because of an article someone published in the paper, then the firm can quickly respond to that and provide cottage cheese because they know people are avoiding yogurt. Multiply this by the millions of towns in the US, and then think of what would happen if Walmart took over the world…it would be impossible for them to respond to the changing demand in a way that satisfied the consumers.

4) Only the government can truly keep out competition. Only the government can force people to support the 1 big company. In the free market, people can compete with the 1 big firm even on a very local market. Go back to our Walmart and Tomahto Inc. example. If Walmart started charging $2.50 a can for tomato soup, assuming that they did take over Tomahto Inc., then what would stop people from growing their own tomatoes and making their own soup? Or selling tomatoes from their backyard to neighbors and friends, effectively undermining Walmart’s monopoly? The only way Walmart could keep people from doing that is by partnering with the government and making it illegal for people to grow their own food. We know that would never happen though. Hey, wait…what about H.R. 875, the “Food and Safety Modernization Act of 2009″? I thought that would open the door for government regulation of backyard gardens. But then again, I might be wrong. So only big business AND the government working together can create a true monopoly.

5) We can distinguish between competition pricing and monopoly pricing in charts and graphs, but what is the difference in the real world? We don’t know. No one really knows, the definition is subjective. So it is very impractical to attempt to distinguish between the two in the market. Let’s say I decide to start a business selling tomato soup, and I sell it at $1.10, cheaper than anyone else on the market. Is this competitive pricing? Of course everyone wants to offer a lower price for their good. But maybe I am planning to drive everyone else out of business and create a monopoly. Who knows? Who can tell the difference? The answer is, there’s no easy answer, it depends on subjective opinion. So what does it even matter, to talk about anti-trust laws, because we can’t define the difference between competitive pricing and monopoly pricing.

I hope that has helped you understand why the free market does not create monopolies, and why the last thing we need is more government regulation!