Confusing constants and variables in Political Economics
If many top notch computer programmers, in a field where people are largely selected for their ability to understand causes and consequences, fail to understand the difference between a constant and a variable with respect to a given choice, how can you expect people from professions that don't thus select their members to fathom the difference?
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I don't believe in conspiracies. I don't think that there is some evil, scheming cardinal gris or some cabal that misleads people into believing statist ideology and furthering its evil goals. That is not how the world operates.
Being an anarchist, I fullheartedly agree that our world is full of widespread delusions (including those that result in people forcing one another to do harmful things to themselves and their fellows), but the reason for their spread is that they are adaptive.
The majority of people are perfectly well-meaning. When the established social order results in absurd injustice, the best thing to do about it is to have a good laugh at it. Also, it tends to be a more effective way of persuasion (or subversion, if you like) than angry rants using the language typically used by the all-knowing lesson-givers you are so keen to criticize.
Anarchy, in my view, is not going to be imposed as a new social order, as it is impossible by definition. It's not that the state will collapse and everybody will be free. A person who is free only because he lives "in a free society" (whatever that means) is not free at all; he's merely on a long leash. Freedom and anarchy are within. Instead of (or, rather, in addition to) "spreading the gospel", it is more useful to develop techniques and structures that allow individuals and groups to function successfully "outside the box" and demonstrate the benefits of freedom by example.
In this particular case, if studying faux economics gets one bright academic careers and/or well-paid positions at respected institutions, good luck with selling Austrian economics, which gets you what exactly?
If you believe that you have some model of the world that is more accurate than those of others', prove it by out-competing those acting upon false beliefs. Incidentally, it helps you to test and refine your own model of the world. I would really like to read more stories of your success with your ideas than stories of others' failure with theirs. That would be far more inspiring, really.
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You're right of course.
See Patri's recent article
Beyond Folk Activism,
responses to it,
and Patri's
follow-up
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You know, Bulgakov wrote in "Dog's heart" the following (in my translation):
"If you care about your digestion, here's my friendly advice: do not talk about Bolshevism and medicine at the lunch table. And, God preserve you, do not read Soviet newspapers before lunch."
I think this is great advice (Bulgakov, after all, did have medical training and practice) and can be generalized way beyond that particular historical context. Now, as much as I like what you have to say in many cases (I am your regular reader), some of your rants have a similar venomous quality to them, which I would really like you to consider (and avoid, if possible) in the future. Please-please-please don't write like a Soviet journalist.
One reason I love Nasreddin Hodja stories so much is that they are uplifting and funny (and I believe they help digestion, too :-) ), while being in large part responsible for my anarchist world views, so they definitely do work as a tool of persuasion/subversion. Now, the peoples of Central Asia, who passed on these stories through generations, have more experience with brutal state oppression than us East- and West-Europeans combined. Yet, they found the strength to laugh it in the face, for which I admire them so greatly.
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And blessed be the lack of copyright enforcement in Russia. :-) Download it while you can.
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