Occupy Wall Street – October 7, 2011 Chris answers some questions and refers to a video of him posted on YouTube a week earlier by Philip Small which can be seen on Philip’s blog smallstoryvisuals.com/blog/ and on his YouTube account Small1124. The video is also on the YouTube account of StephenHannardADGUK where it has received over 200,000 hits as of this date. Chris has the YouTube account*** CptnMidnite and the webpage whataboutliberty.com. His Twitter is AboutLiberty and email is whataboutliberty@gmail.com.
#1 by esteban on October 11, 2011 - 6:49 pm
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I want to write about and add a critique about this whole END THE FED discussion. I’m not saying that this isn’t an important issue, but I want to caution those who hold this close to their hearts from not being overly deterministic when they bring this topic up in conversation. I’m beginning to notice a few of you who are dissatisfied that this topic is not constantly and soley up for discussion at all times.
We have to recognize the difference between causal inference and dialectical relationships. Arguing that the discussion of the FED should be of primary importance is healthy, but calling for its destruction to be our one and only goal is egoistic, and overly deterministic.
What I mean is that this discussion implies that the federal reserve is the root of the problem. It may be, I’m not well versed in monetary policy. But it is not the only conversation worth having. This would be as short-sighted as saying Al Gore invented the internet, there-for, we have Al Gore to thank for the creation of social networking and the rise of horizontal participatory democracy movements like this–And ManBearPig.
Our technology discloses our relatiionship with nature. A technological innovation with regards to the federal reserve question is the money commodity (a need to resolve the difference between the use-value and exchange-value of commodities we produce). This relationship is effected and effects, dialectically, our proecesses of production (labor), which in turn, dialectically relates to the reproduction of daily life (commodities we use and need every day) and which is further developed in a dialogue between our dialy life and our social relations.
This continuous process is itself a disclosure of the interaction of our social relations and the way we labor and produce.
Our social relations dialectically effect and are effected by our mental conceptions, which in turn effect and are effected by our technology.
These dialectical (not causal) relationships further show us the interconnected interactions between our mental concepts, our processes of porduction, our social relations (and the relationship between our processes of production and social relations) and how they all relate back to our technological development.
Is the Fed part of the problem? Probably. Is it the only issue we need to address? Not even close. Please think of the big picture before freaking out about not moving quick enough to reformulate monetary policy in the USA. I encourage the discussion and ask that those of you interested go to the Occuptation and go around on your own volition to form a study group on the subject. This way, you can form proposals for joint action which will be tempered by the heat of a wide variety of opinions before being put into the crucible of the General Assembly.
#2 by Austrian Economics is Color Blind on October 26, 2011 - 7:33 am
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esteban @ comment #1,
The FED is of primary importance because massive artificial expansions of credit are the cause of the boom and bust cycle. This was true of the 1929 stock market crash as well as the crash of 2008.
So, while technically, the problem isn’t the FED, PER SE, that is the cause of artificial bubbles, the fact that the FED is currently the thing that enables the central planning of the money supply (and thus enables artificial expansions of credit), makes it the primary target of Austrian Economists.
The following article explains this in greater detail:
Tom Woods vs. the Fed
[link]http://www.lewrockwell.com/kramer/kramer25.1.html
#3 by Austrian Economics is Color Blind on October 26, 2011 - 7:41 am
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Further, artificial expansions of credit allow governments to more easily infringe on the liberties of the citizens. Without the ability to centrally plan the money supply, they cannot continually spend our money on bigger government, war, crony capitalism, government pensions, etc.
Commodity money cannot easily be inflated, and so it is a natural restraint on the power of government. This is why Ron Paul wants to return to a commodity money standard (but will begin with a competing currencies standard, where if you still want to use paper money, then go ahead).