AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

I haven’t posted an article for over a year.

Why? Because I started to value other activities more than I valued writing.

Why? Because all the economic and social problems we have in the U.S. can only be made better by 1) Allowing individuals to make decisions concerning their day to day lives. And 2) Stopping politicians and bureaucrats who wield government power from making decisions for these individuals.

I also found it difficult to come up with new ways to say the same thing over and over again.

But I know that the only way to learn anything is repetition. Monotonous monotonous repetition.

So I’m going to jump back in to the game and see how it goes.

WHO SHOULD MAKE ECONOMIC DECISIONS.

On my site I have a one sentence quote from F. A. Hayek. Volumes have been written on the subject of this quote.

This quote sums up the decision that civilizations have to make on how their societies are going to coordinate their activities.. Here is the quote.

“THE COORDINATION OF MEN’S ACTIVITIES THROUGH CENTRAL PLANNING OR THROUGH VOLUNTARY COOPERATION ARE ROADS GOING IN VERY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, THE FIRST TO SERFDOM AND POVERTY THE SECOND TO FREEDOM AND PLENTY.”

We have never had a society where there were no government enforced rules. Just as we have never had a society where all decisions are made and enforced by individuals wielding government power.

Even though The Soviet Union was centrally planned, they still had black markets and at least the government allowed some industries to have a little freedom to make decisions.

The Unites States constitution set up a free market economy, with some governmental rules.

So neither was totally centrally planned nor totally free.

The quote states that every society is moving in one direction or another. We never arrive at a utopian paradise, because time passes and change happens. But no matter what the changes, we have to understand that the more government decision making we allow, the poorer and less free we become. But if we allow individuals to decide how to order their lives, we become more free and prosperous.

The history of the world is all about this battle of who should make decisions. The consequences on who wins this battle does not just decide what our standard of living will be. But also who lives or dies.

Free market capitalism has lifted multiple millions of people out of poverty. It has also allowed more people to be born. If it wasn’t for the industrial revolution, you and I may never have been born.

China is an example of what we are talking about. Mao killed 10’s of millions of people to bring about his centrally planned communist society. People in China lived in poverty, if they lived at all. But over the last thirty years or so, China has allowed some free market reforms which has lifted the standard of living in China above mere substance living. Even though these people are still not free.

The opposite has happened in Venezuela. Venezuelans standard of living and freedom started being destroyed after Chavez started nationalizing industries. AKA government central planning.

Cuba’s standard of living and individual freedom was destroyed when Castro took control of their economy.

So what direction do you think the U.S. is heading? With The amount of decision making taken over by government central planners in the last thirty years, there is no doubt what road we are traveling.

The question is, do we have enough people in the country who understand that decision making by individuals in a free market is the only way out of our problems?

We have to fight against all government central planning, championed by both Democrats and Republicans

Because if we allow politicians and bureaucrats to take over more and more economic decisions, our standard of living will go down and our individual freedom will go away. And the fact is, this is already happening.

Related Article – Milton Friedman, Moving toward Serfdom.

Explore posts in the same categories: Econ. 101, Government and Politics

This entry was posted on March 16, 2022 at 7:10 pm and is filed under Econ. 101, Government and Politics. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Central Planning, Free Markets, Road to Serfdom

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