[GJM] #13 Brad Edmonds On The Inner Structure Of TOP (The Optimum Policy)

[Wesley S. Burt]

Dear Mr. Edmund,
Many thanks for your article below on becoming a Libertarian.  I traced
your path a few years before you and keep hanging up on the same
question:  How does a Libertarian define the optimum policy for funding a
species of productive assets with a long and expensive period of
development before they become productive and self supporting?  Most of
us agree that such funding can come only from folks currently in
production.  Only a few of us have found alternative sources of such
funding: such as perpetual motion machines, the fountain of youth, and
various Post Keynes funny money solutions which make water run up hill.
I became acquainted with this question during General Electric's 1940s
decentralization program; and again during GE's 1950s program to automate
the dispatching function on electric power grids.  The capital investment
required to create one additional job in our capital intensive industries
is comparable to the investment in subsistence and education required to
bring one new worker into the work force at age seventeen.  What bothers
me is illustrated in attached Figure 17h.gif.  The preproduction
investment in capital assets is fully capitalized, while the
preproduction investment in human assets is only 50% capitalized (12
years of public education) with subsistence and higher education paid by
each parenting family, at the lowest pay period (parenting age) of their
working lives.
I understand that free markets are created and sustained by financial
rules observed by the suppliers to that market.  So the world market is
free, under one set of rules (full capitalization), while the labor
market has not been free since the 1890s under a different set of
financial rules (50% capitalization).
As You write below: "Rothbard, in plain and forceful language, was the
first I'd ever seen to logically equate taxation with theft (though we've
all heard people rant to that effect) – a simple and inescapable truth,
obvious once you've seen it, but one I'd never considered and had never
heard discussed rationally."  Could we not minimize the amount of tax
revenue stolen by fully funding the development of our future work force
from the local tax revenue?  That would bypass the state and federal
governments where most of the tax revenue is lost, and restore a free
labor market at the same time.  It would also tend to decentralize our
system of governance, just as our private sector corporations are
presently decentralized.
Please let us know the approved Libertarian take on this question as you
understand it.
Kind regards,
Wes Burt


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How I Became a Libertarian
by Brad Edmonds
Brad Edmonds
  A few years ago, several LewRockwell.com writers exposed themselves to
the public, telling the stories of their journeys toward libertarian
thinking. Mary Ruwart, Walter Block, Stephan Kinsella, Karen De Coster,
and others wrote their autobiographies around December, 2002. Sometimes
I'm a little slow keeping track of the interoffice memos.
Perhaps that's fitting; I came to libertarianism later in life than most.
I grew up in a conservative household, and was a typical under-informed
Reagan Republican while in college in the 1980s and 1990s. That changed
around 1999, when I discovered Neal Boortz on the radio.
Neal opened my eyes to libertarian thought when he asked the simple
question, "Who owns your body?" He explained that if the government can
kick down my door, point guns at me, cuff me and drag me away to jail,
for sitting peacefully at home injecting dangerous recreational drugs
into my own body, then that government in effect owns my body; not me.
The basic injustice of that struck me. It was simple, correct, and
compelling – something I should've recognized on my own years before.
>From reading Neal's daily news website, I discovered LewRockwell.com.
Neal has a daily "assigned readings" list at the bottom of his news
column, and at one time was known to link LRC articles. I discovered LRC,
and without realizing it I began the journey that would result in my
advocating the complete abolition of forcible government.
The first LRC articles that caught my eye were about Abraham Lincoln and
the War Between the States. Before that time, it hadn't occurred to me
that the leaders of the CSA were on the same moral footing as our
founders in their secession from Great Britain, as the LRC articles
informed me.
>From there, I discovered Austrian Economics and the Ludwig von Mises
Institute (in fact, the first articles I had published were at
Mises.org). I remained a fan of Neal Boortz, and thought I was soon to be
a celebrity when, while reading Boortz's daily news, I found two of my
own articles among his reading assignments! This was during the spring
and summer of 2001.
During all this, I discovered Murray Rothbard, again at LewRockwell.com.
Rothbard, in plain and forceful language, was the first I'd ever seen to
logically equate taxation with theft (though we've all heard people rant
to that effect) – a simple and inescapable truth, obvious once you've
seen it, but one I'd never considered and had never heard discussed
rationally. Through Rothbard and Rockwell, I soon recognized government
for what it is: organized crime, but in a context where the victim
population has been indoctrinated to swallow government's claim to moral
legitimacy.
Soon enough, I was convinced of the moral illegitimacy of forcible
government, and better informed about the history of man's peaceful
achievements and the true reasons for human progress (entrepreneurship
born of self-interest; a Randian notion, but something she got right).
One thing I didn't expect was how some of my pet political positions
would change. As a lifelong Reagan Republican, I supported the
traditional Republican planks of lower taxes, a strong military, family
values, and yes, the war on drugs; and opposed traditional Democrat ideas
such as decriminalized drugs, prostitution, pornography, and social
giveaway programs.
But after becoming fully libertarian, and having my views on individual
issues come into line logically with my belief that forcible government
should be (peacefully) abolished, the results were surprising: Getting
government out of the drug-enforcement business not only is the right
thing to do, but I've learned how it would tend to decrease drug abuse
problems. I agree with traditional left-wingers on many civil-liberty
issues, but only because I disagree that anyone has any business deciding
on anyone else's liberties. So, to my surprise, I came to be linked
occasionally on Free Republic as a left-wing hippie (though just as often
as a conservative hero).
I grew up arguing with teachers and classmates about politics, always
trying to persuade them of the rightness of my right-wing views. The
great thing about anarcho-capitalist libertarianism is that, for the
first time in my life, I can persuade left-liberal Democrats, as well as
the right-wing Republicans I grew up agreeing with, of my views – I agree
with both sorts on their most precious policies! You want the poor better
off? There are a thousand ways government prevents that. You want
security from terrorism? There are a thousand ways government prevents
that.
Perhaps the most gratifying thing about the conviction (backed by tons of
reading) that forcible government should be abolished is that, in
innumerable conversations over the last five years, nobody has left
thinking I'm a nut. Every person who stays with me for at least 15
minutes starts asking "okay, I see that, but
" questions. "But what about
police protection?" "But what about military defense?" "But what about
roads and hospitals?"
Anarcho-capitalism answers those questions. It's not a tribute to me that
these conversations go well; it's a tribute to human nature combined with
good reasoning. I didn't find anarcho-capitalism; it found me. I'm the
one who's the better for it.
November 13, 2006
Brad Edmonds [send him mail], author of There’s a Government in Your
Soup, writes from Alabama.
Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com
Brad Edmonds Archives 
http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds-arch.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               TOP and TWP are cognoscible on
                Dr. W. Curtiss Priest's web site at:
                    <http://www.epie.org/cyber-
                             soc/default.htm>
                 TOP is GOOD --- TWP is EVIL
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