Dear Lew,
Gary North is some kind of a giant. I got into his Institutional Corpse article yesterday and followed the link to Freebooks. Previously having followed a few of his other links this one blew me away.
As I read on and installed DjVu and read on further I began to evolve an idea that had probably been gestating in the back of my mind for a long time. I'm not sure how it came about. (Free association is a feature of schizophrenia.) But it did.
I'm writing to ask if you think this is a reasonable and feasible course for me to pursue.
Would it be worthwhile to explore the idea that to get "the message" out to a greater number of people one avenue is to emphasize – by examples, logic, repetition, etc., the inevitability of graft and corruption in central planning…, at least in the implementation of central planning. I mean, something I would concentrate upon, article after article.
People are attracted to sordidness; piling it on in descriptions of corruption might attract many who would then be receptive to the concept of the relationship between such corruption and the concentration of power. We might be able to get their attention and disapproval of the connection between graft and corruption and their tax dollar, their contract-in-good-faith with their representatives.
There are many flaws in the results of central planning, which is one of the continuing themes of true conservative and economic libertarian, Austrian, punditry. These include but are not limited to: inefficiency, inevitable loss of freedom, lack of true security, loss of diversity, unfairness, inevitable graft and corruption, and ultimately the ultimate impossibility of central planning.
All of these themes need to be developed continuously as they currently are. I'm thinking I may pursue and concentrate on the theme of corruption… pleasant thought…. It is "in your face," a feature of my personality; it doesn't require a depth of knowledge of economics, Austrian or otherwise (is there any otherwise?); there is a wealth of material out there, historical and ongoing.
It wouldn't keep me from popping out the occasionally diverse piece as has marked my first six. But it would give me some depth in a specific area which I could turn to benefit, for personal satisfaction, for personal advantage (?recognition), and for furtherance of reaching more of the population (mass-man) and influencing them away from the central state.
There are lots of good people out there even if they are not part of the remnant (am I, are you?) who might be offended by this one specific negative, corruption, who might otherwise just accept the ups and downs of the current scene as presented by the various forms of the media, as going with the territory. Maybe they could be reached by getting more of this type stuff into more popular media.
There certainly is lots of corruption in the news currently, as there usually is, but the point is never made, that it is just inevitably a part of welfare, redistribution, central planning, etc., albeit a typical part of human nature(??), and would be much less able to permeate in decentralized systems. Special interests are often mentioned, and usually with a pejorative sense, but not with the explication and vitriol of pointing out their inevitability in our current system.
This is part and parcel, Chuck George's fantastical extension, of the stated principle that the ultimate route to a cleaner, more honest, libertarian society is through education, the mission of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Helping students to discover the economics of freedom, and inspiring them to go on to teach at the university level, is perhaps the Institute’s most important program. The idea I'm stewing on here might evolve as a non-academic's supplement to that mission.
I'm thinking not as an investigative operative – I'm not a net-worker – but as a consolidator and analyst to put the material into a digestible form with the underlying theme that corruption is inevitable in central planning. That's something students of libertarianism and laissez faire economics understand. More of the population needs to be exposed to the concept. Maybe I can help.
Please excuse me if asking this is too presumptuous but it would be most helpful to know whether you think this might be a profitable theme to develop further, or whether I should continue with my random subject selection.
Sincerely, Chuck
February 8, 2006
