If you can speak, then you already know better than to support the state!

There are many things in life that we do without even thinking about it.  It can be very easy to dismiss some of these things as trivial and meaningless... perhaps even as unable to teach us anything about life and our understanding of it.  For example, most people do not consciously think about the fact that they can in fact think...

When it comes to speaking, most people don't consider what knowledge can be derived from the fact that we can make sounds with our mouths to communicate ideas.  One reason for this is because we know these sounds to mean definite things or ideas that we assume others,who speak our same language, can identify with.  If I say "book", you probably know I am talking about something that can be read.  You also probably know that I do not mean a newspaper, magazine, or blog.  You are able to distinguish the characteristics of "book" from the characteristics of everything else in the universe.  If you could not at least make a generalization of objects, speaking would be useless.  It does one no good to say "book" when the receiver of the message "book" doesn't know it from that of "star" or "worm", etc.  What is truly amazing is this is even true when there is a language barrier.

My own trip to China was a prime example of this.  Now, the Chinese for the most part had no idea what I meant by "bathroom", but they did know that I was looking for something specific, with definite characteristics.  Often times when looking for something, or trying to obtain something, where the language barrier was present, playing charades and drawing pictures proved to be extremely helpful.  It's true that there was occasion where miscommunications occured, but the point is, each person knew that the other was looking for something with specific characteristics, and even for a specific purpose.

When we think of the State, or "government", we often think about justice, and what it means.  Almost universally, the government is expected to seek out those who harm others and get retribution, or protect the peaceful from the aggressions of others.  These two deeds are noble enough.  The rapist must pay for his crimes.  The thief ought to return what he has stolen.  But these are not the only characteristics of the State.

While the State may offer protective services, it survives completely by threatening people in society with imprisonment for refusing to fund them through taxation.  They strive to fine those for driving too fast, having the wrong vegetation, and countless other crimes which are completely victimless.  In fact, some stats report as high as 86% of the prison community being filled with those who have never harmed another.  And since justice inherently involves protecting those who have never harmed another from those willing to harm, we must conclude that the State has characteristics that are more inclined towards injustice rather than justice. But why should we come to this finding when on occasion the State does do something to help the peaceful?

Because there are no contradictions in reality.  A tree cannot be a tree and also be a pen.  A pair of scissors cannot be a spoon at the same time it is a pair of scissors; there are no square circles.  Hence, an organization that survives through coercive methods against peaceful people cannot be an entity of justice just because it provides protection once in a while (it is most likely the case that the protection it offers is more about beating the competition, as the State claims for itself a monopoly on coercion in society).  But if speaking is all one needs to do, why is the State supported?  I have 3 theories.

1)  It is most likely the case that the state is supported, not because people actively want it, but because they value the hardship of going against it less than they value going on with life and just putting up with it.
2)  Anxiety occurs whenever one proposes abolishing the state.  If the state doesn't provide protection (which, as we have seen, the state is not even an entity of protection) then nobody will and chaos will occur.  This is really just a knee jerk reaction.  Anyone who understands subjective theory of value, voluntarism, and entrepreneurship knows that protection services can and would occur in a pure market society, and they would actually be protection services.
3)  As stated in the beginning of this blog, most people don't think about these things.  For sure, it takes more than simple thought to overcome our prejudice in favor of statism, but sitting down and giving the matter serious thought is a terrific starting place... perhaps the only starting place, and there are many who will never do it.

It is my sincere hope that with the United States in the economic condition that it's in, with all the wars spreading, loss of liberties (we now have a president who says he can assassinate American citizens if he is suspicious of them, the U.S. being defined as a battleground, and indefinite detainment without due process whatsoever) that more people will start to think about these matters.

If you can speak, you know enough to reject an institution claiming a monopoly on coercion as being an institution of justice.

The Economy is Organic!

In this blog I intend to go over the basics of how an economy works, and how some of the interventions from the state affect it.  To begin with, I will write a brief analysis of all the market actors (Consumers, Laborers, Capitalists, and Entrepreneurs). It should be noted that a single person does not have to be limited to just one of these functions.

Consumers-  For example, all people are consumers.  Consumption merely means enjoying the product of the other three functions, Labor, Capital investment, and economic development.  Everyone starts out as a consumer, and it is for the consumer that all market activity is directed.  This may seem trivial, but there are schools of thought that teach what is called the Labor theory of Value, which indicates that a thing has value simply because work was put in to it (and not because consumers choose to purchase it).  It is the labor theory of value that have lead people like John Maynard Keynes to suggest paying people to dig holes as a policy for economic recovery.  It has also lead some to fail to understand how a person could have gotten rich selling pet rocks.  If the labor theory of value were accurate, there would be no such thing as a bankruptcy.  Consumers would not ask what the use value of an item is at the store, but they would ask things like "how hard did the person who made this work?" or "how long did it take to make?"  Clearly, this is absurd.  Nobody is buying the hole I dig just because I spend time and energy doing it.  

Labor- The function of labor is quite easily understood.  The Capitalist and Entrepreneur are the ones who have the resources to open up a production line, and they employ labor to get that production line going.  But labor doesn't always mean some sort of construction.  It can be much easier things; for example, football players and other athletes are considered laborers.  

Capitalists- This function is somewhat ignored within the general public when it comes to the economy today, but it certainly is not unimportant.  In order to apply resources in the production of consumer goods, one must come up with capital (that is, one always must be a consumer, and in order to spend time producing rather than consuming, it is necessary to save and forgo consumption).  For example, suppose you were stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean.  If you wish to consume as fast as humanly possible, you would try to catch a fish with your bare hands and hope you catch one quickly.  If you hold off your plans to consume, you can try to find a pointy stick first, or still farther, you could spend time making a net.  The reason for production is clear; you will catch fish faster and easier with the stick or the net.  In this example, the stick and the net are called capital goods (tools that increase the production ability of the laborer, you)

Entrepreneurs- This is the function of economic calculation.  The business owner who decides what is to be made, at what quantity, sold at such and such price, etc.  As stated in the "Consumers" section, all economic activity is directed at consumption.  What entrepreneurs do is try to figure out a product people would buy, and determine if it could be produced at a lower price than it could sell for.  If the entrepreneur is correct in his calculations, he will make profits (which means the capitalists will as well, and the laborers will continue to have work), if he is wrong, the business will go bankrupt.

It should be pretty clear that all these functions are interrelated.  The entrepreneur makes a forecast; the capitalist decides to give a loan to the entrepreneur for a percentage back in return; Laborers are then hired to carry out the production process; but it is ultimately the consumers who decide if the line of production is worthy of existence (not to mention how much money labor will make and exactly how profitable it will be for the capitalists and entrepreneurs)  and the entire thing can be looked at as the workings of time preference.   

Time preference refers to how long a person is willing to wait to consume.  If you are the type of person who says "I must spend all my money now because I like to, I need to", whatever the reason, your time preference is high.  And the more you are willing to wait and save rather than consume now, the lower your time preference is.  (This should also show that investment cannot go up while consumption remains the same in an economy.  This fact was one of they key elements that lead the Austrian economists in realizing housing was indeed in a bubble almost a decade before it hit mainstream.)  So, if investment leads to more capital goods, which makes it easier and more profitable to make consumer goods, the clear way to grow an economy is to adopt a lower time preference.

Time preference also determines interest rates and profits in equilibrium.  This is quite obvious when you think about it.  It is quite natural to want to consume all the money one makes... so if I am going to forgo consumption now in order to make interest/profits later, then the money I expect in return must be enough to rank higher on my demand schedule to be worth more than spending now.  Why would anyone go through the trouble of entrepreneurial risk and forgoing consumption, if only to break even?  It's simple, they wouldn't. 

The role money plays in all this is obvious.  Money flows where actors want it to, indicating their wishes.  If consumption is wanted, with a very high time preference, money will flow into consumption goods, and only to those goods consumers want.  If there are consumers with a lower time preference, projects will be invested in and the calculation process will be undertaken by an entrepreneur.  How much money exactly will determine the length of the process, the wages for laborers, etc.  Without money communicating time preference and demands, the entire process would be reduced a primitive situation where people trade goods directly (a fish net for a lighter or something, rather than determining how many fish nets should be made, and sold at what price, and then mass producing them)

So what happens when the state intervenes and say lowers interest rates?  A facade of investment and lower time preference is created.  And entrepreneurs go through the process of calculation and hiring labor to take on new projects, based on false signals.  True preferences will prevail in the end, when nobody is purchasing the final product these new projects were aimed at creating.  This went on in the housing sector for almost 2 decades.  It happens because consumers/labor/entrepreneurs/and capitalists do not communicate by talking to each other.  The capitalists do not find the consumers and ask them what they want, nor the entrepreneurs and any other group.  Money and interest rates are the means of communication.  When the government and the federal reserve interrupt that conversation, they throw off the entire thing. To clarify, suppose you are the parent of a ten year old boy.  You send him to the store one day to pick up some bread and milk, but the boy instead spends the money you gave him on a candy bar and a yoohoo.  You said bread and milk, but the boy told the clerk candy bar and yoohoo.  The market was saying "we want to consume now" (because these days Americans do not save and invest much, so we have a high time preference) and the banks took that message, and under the direction of the government and the central bank, said "uh ya, they're investing and want to hold off on consumption."

There are really only 3 ways this situation can work itself out. 1) Everyone could become aware of what has happened and change their preferences to match the bad message sent by the fed, so a lot of people don't lose their jobs and wealth.  This situation is absolutely unlikely to happen.  2)  The bad investments will be liquidated and the production process will go back to reflecting what people ACTUALLY prefer, which is a completely necessary step for any bubble, since the preferences are not real, but falsified by poor communication.  3) When the liquidation of the bad investments begins, the government and the fed will step in and keep throwing money at those same bad investments.  This is the most dangerous situation because since those investments are not ACTUALLY preferred, the amount of money that can be spent on keeping those production lines going is literally endless.  It is dangerous because when the government spends money, they spend tax-payer money... that is, they spend your money.  Bush and Obama, and any others, are not spending all this money out of their own pockets.  When the fed spends money, they do 1 of 2 things.  They either simply type a number into a computer screen, or order new money to be printed from the treasury dept.  Either way, the money they spend gets its value from all existing money, and lowers the value thereof (making prices raise.  essentially, a more sophisticated way of taxing).  If it is the fed creating new money to make up the losses, and they never stop doing it, the end result is the destruction of the currency through a hyper-inflation, which brings the value of all money to zero.  This is how a loaf of bread in the Weimar republic came to cost billions...

Again, this is a very simplex example of how an economy is organic, and a brief analysis of what happens when the government and its central bank interferes with just 1 aspect of that process.  The process gets infinitely complex when you consider that everyone is a consumer, but laborers can be capitalists and entrepreneurs as well, capitalists are usually entrepreneurs... 1 person may perform all 3 functions...  and then you must consider how many lines of production there must be, how long they take, etc.  Indeed, the complexity of the situation is the very reason no one person could ever run it all by himself...  This is obvious even before we consider that demand cannot be measured in any way.  Are you thirsty right now?  How badly do you want something to drink?  Shall I get out my tape measure to see how badly you want a glass of water?  These questions are pretty bizarre to ask.  Yet, when we assume the government can intervene and run the economy by performing mathematical functions (ironically, functions for which no constants exist, for you will not always want that glass of water), we do so under the pretense that politicians can possibly know these things for every single line of production in existence, as well as every single demand (which, demands are themselves endless).  In essence, we must assume politicians to be gods if we believe they have the knowledge necessary to pass laws and force everyone to do what politicians claim to know they want to do.  Bizarre indeed.

Thoughts on Criminology Part I - Defining Crime

The definition of crime sounds somewhat trivial to most people.  It is commonplace to believe that the definition of crime is any action taken against the laws of the state.  This, however, barely scrapes the surface.  The state, or government, is nothing more than a body of people organizing in a certain way, and calling their organization the government, or the state.  Hence, these same people, just as anyone else, are capable of committing crimes as well.  The most obvious example of this is the Nuremberg trials after World War II.  Since governments can commit crimes as well as citizens, it goes to show that the definition of crime cannot simply be actions taken against the laws of the state (as refusing to follow orders in the case of Nazi Germany would have been considered a crime by the German government at the time).

In order to define crime, we need to explore the nature of mankind.  It is necessary to start with universal facts about human existence.  What do we know that applies to everyone in the world, and at all times?  Well, we know that people can only be at one place, at one time, doing one thing at a time (yes, I know multi-tasking is growing, but multi-tasking involves constant shifts in attention and goals rather than doing them all at once).  That being said, we may say that we know "man acts". Thanks to the contributions to the social sciences by Ludwig von Mises in the 20th century, who used the science of Human Action (praxeology) in order to build a coherent economic model, we already have the necessary axioms of human action to begin with.  Human action, which ought be the starting point of all social sciences, shows that man acts in order to improve the conditions of his life with purposeful behavior.  If there were nothing man could 'do' in order to make his life better than what it is, there would be no reason for action.  The axiom of argumentation proves that since individuals can and do argue with one another, there are cause and effect expectations in life. 

There are two distinct ways in which man interacts with the world in order to improve the conditions of his life.  These include forming relations with others, and acquiring property.  In order to analyze the aspects of crime when it comes to relationships, it is first necessary to explore the question of property. 

Since we are all in complete control of our own bodies (baring some medical deficiency of course), we may say that we own our bodies.  I am the only person with the brain required to tell my body what to do; to tell my fingers to type, my legs to cross, etc. 

Ok, so we own ourselves, but how do we gain ownership of things outside of ourselves; provided by the Earth?  One way is by homesteading property.  This means being the first to mix one's labor (that is, effort to improve one's living conditions) with the land.  Being the first to mix your labor with a piece of land means that it is your will that is at work there; you are the one using the said land in order meet your ends, and it was your labor.  Rightfully, this property belongs to you. 

Suppose you decide to use this piece of land to build a house.  Since you were not born with any knowledge on how to build a house, your venture could take quite a while.  But this is true of everyone, so how do we overcome this obstacle?  By exchanging with others.  Man cannot possibly bring into reality everything he wants throughout his life all by himself, however, if I could get someone to build this house for me, I can spend my time trying to acquire some of the other things I want.  It is easy to see why people trade with one-another (first through barter and later through the indirect money economy). 

It should be noted that before something can be exchanged, one must acquire it, that is, make it his property.  Since we have seen that property is a reflection of man's efforts to improve his own life, we may say that all actions taken against man's property, which includes his labor and his body, ought to be considered crimes.  In order to live one's life to the fullest, he must be permitted to use his property as he wills without anyone else forcibly exerting their will upon his property.

The keyword in that last sentence is forcibly because only the individual truly knows in what manner his property is meant to be used.  For example, I own a car that I sometimes let my girlfriend drive.  When she is driving my car, she is exerting her will on my property.  However, in such a case, this is in line with what I want, what I see as the best way to improve the conditions of my life, and therefore should not be interfered with.

Therefore, the definition of crime should logically be: any forcible exertion of will against another's property.

Property here being defined as: one's body, any homesteaded land (land in which the owner gained by being the first to apply his labor to it), or anything in which one received through any form of voluntary transfer (usually trades or gifts). 

I will, however, provide a few examples.  Since we own our bodies the labor they produce, nobody can own another person.  Criminal acts such as murder, rape, assault, arson are all obviously crimes by the definition we have put forth.

Here is an example that I live through every day as a security guard, which is not so obvious.  I work in the parking lot of a retail store in which a panhandler visits on a daily basis.  And on a daily basis, I have to ask him to leave.  His being there is a crime by our definition.  It is known to him that the store in question does not want panhandlers on their property, and yet he exerts his will upon their property anyways by asking people for money.  This is a little more tricky than rape or murder because there is not a clear example of force.  This panhandler has never been violent with any of the workers and usually leaves when asked to do so.  But the force can be seen in his constant defiance of the rules of the property.  His actions say "you don't want me panhandling on your property and I know it, but I am coming here and doing it anyways." 

Why is this force?  because constantly telling this man to leave the property requires actions taken by the property owner to deflect the will of rule breaker in order to use his property in the way which he wishes (and not as a place for panhandlers to annoy people, since they are his customers).

Exploring the complexity of the definitions which I have used here is an endless task, outside the scope of this little blog.  But it is important to know what to look for when we try to define actions as criminal.  The reason for this will be explored in Part II covering the methodology of providing justice.

Free-Market-Security

Recently I began reading a book dealing with security in an anarcho-capitalist world. The author, whom I will not reveal, was writing as if he had to make the case that security would be better in a market setting due to competition and peaceful incentives inherent in the marketplace. While this is all good, it got me wondering: why do libertarians/voluntaryists/anarchists feel the need to make the case for SUPERIOR security in the marketplace at all?

The case against the state rests on the fact that it does not provide security at all, but at best protects itself from others who would like to loot you. Police investigate robberies, burglaries, murders, etc. while being engaged in imminent domain, coercive taxation, and using force up to the point of murder if necessary to get compliance. If you don't think this is so, refuse to pay taxes for a while. Should any government agent ever come to you face-to-face, resist their infringement upon your property as you would any "private" thief, and see what happens. Or for that matter, resist the police officer who stops you for driving too fast as you would a private person. Without the uniform and badge, these people would appear absolutely insane for trying to stop people for driving faster than what they believe to be safe. But should you resist the person who wears a badge, they get to do whatever is necessary to control you in the name of self-defense.

So why are we more scared of police officers than we are average citizens? After all, a badge is not anything special, and it is possible to drive carrying a weapon of our own. The answer clearly is because the state will send an endless army after you should you escape, in the name of justice and defense of course.

So to sum up, the state does not provide security. The state, as Spooner pointed out, is worse than the highwayman who continually robs you at gun point, since its members believe its force is justified. Any "protective" measures provided are simply measures against their competition in controlling you. What other conclusion could one come up with when analyzing an organization that both claims the right to control you, and claims the want to protect you from people who wish to control you...?

So if you believe in a free market setting for government protection services, don't forget to argue that such services wouldn't only be better in a marketplace setting, but they are non-existent within the state.

I have also noticed a second inherent fallacy in those who argue against a marketplace for security. When the idea of competing insurance companies comes up, almost inevitably the case against it includes the idea that these insurance companies would become states themselves. So the worry about abolishing the state is that private companies might one day take on the characteristics of the state. In other words, the big worry is we might get what we have today. What a completely absurd thing to argue indeed! And to protect against getting what we already have, I suppose to this line of reasoning, is for everyone to submit to a monopolistic state, cutting out the road from freedom to serfdom, and just accepting serfdom from the get-g0!

Bruce Lee was an 'Austrian'

For those of you who don't know, I admire Bruce Lee for his philosophy, as well as his skills. I wrote this little article to be posted at mises.org but Jeff Tucker said that they don't really want to get into metaphor too much, so I am posting it here for the heck of it. No, it's not cited properly since it is an unfinished work, but that's ok. This is just a blog post. Just know that I did not come up with all this information without looking into several books on Bruce Lee and on Austrian philosophy. Enjoy. 

"Bruce Lee Was an 'Austrian'"

Bruce Lee is the most underrated individualist in libertarian circles. I wish to rectify this issue because it was Bruce who first exposed me to the individualist philosophy. Having been in high school at the time and later joining the Army, I can honestly say that if not for his influence, I would not have been attracted to the ideas of liberty and would likely be in the Middle East at this time. While this debt cannot be fully repaid, I can attempt to shine light on what many of his fans are missing out on.
No, Bruce Lee was not an economist; however, he did include many of the same philosophical and even praxeological ideas in his "style" of martial arts which the great Austrian economists use when building economic theory. "Those who think of Bruce Lee simply as a 'karate guy' will learn just how far off base such an assumption is."

"Boards don't hit back" (Bruce Lee, Enter the Dragon)

While it may seem self evident that people are not inanimate objects, and actually do possess a will of their own, the Austrian school is the only school of economics that puts emphasis on this point. It is one of the key fundamentals in understanding the basis of economic logic and the Austrian method. And just as the Austrians would criticize other schools of thought for believing it is possible for central planners to map out the economy just right because of all the subjectivity involved, Lee was equally critical of those forms of karate that made a habit seeing people as being boards and bricks. He made this point clear when he said "Now I ask you, did you ever see a brick or a board pick a fight with anybody? This is gimmick stuff. A human being doesn't just stand there and wait to be hit." That was not the limit of Bruce's thinking about this issue. Indeed, he studied philosophy, and wished to include it into his style of Jeet Kune Do. One could take the following statement and replace "martial arts" with "economics", and successfully convince others that it is a quote from Ludwig von Mises himself:
"Every action should have its why and wherefore; and there ought to be a complete and proficient theory to back up the whole concept of Chinese martial arts. I wish to infuse the spirit of philosophy into martial arts, therefore I insist on studying philosophy."
While the Austrian economist would argue "demand and want satisfaction cannot be weighed, as there is no unit of measure to even make an attempt to do so", Bruce Lee parallels this statement in his theory of martial arts in stating "To stand on the outside and try to look inside is futile; whatever was there will go away. This also applies to a nebulous thing described as 'happiness.' To try to identify is like turning on a light to look at darkness. Analyze it, and it is gone."
What does this have to do with martial arts? Lee believed that the best way to teach martial arts to others did not lie in style or form, but rather within the soul of the student. In the only surviving interview, he explains:
"To me, ok, ultimately martial art means honestly expressing yourself. It is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling, and then feel like pretty cool and all that. Or I can show you some phony things, blinded by it though; I can show you some really fancy movement, but to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, that my friend is very hard to do"
Of course, the only possible way to meet this goal of self expression is to do away with style. As the Austrian economist sees laws and regulations restricting the outcome of market activity, Lee saw style as restricting the truth of human self-expression; or as Mises would say, man's teleological contribution to the universe. And as the Austrians would argue that a completely government dominated economy could never work out with the complex division of labor in the industrialist society due to the lack of a pricing mechanism to conduct economic calculation, Bruce Lee once said of martial arts styles "you can't organize truth. That is like putting a pound of water into wrapping paper and trying to organize it."

Using no way as way. Having no limitation as limitation. (Bruce Lee's motto)

So where is the parallel between pushing for a free market economy, and not restricting one-self to a set style of martial arts? Spontaneity. The argument of free market philosophers is that entrepreneurship is spontaneous activity directed at meeting the demands of individuals. If one sees an unmet demand lingering in society, he or she should be free to utilize whatever resources at their disposal to attempt to meet those demands, as long as no aggressive acts against others are committed. That is nothing more than common sense cause and effect; entrepreneurs see a demand that has not been satisfied as an opportunity to make money, and take up the challenge. Lee's motto reflects this exact same attitude in combat. On the topic, Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce's wife for nine years, said that under his philosophy "it's just two people who are being aware of their own movements, who are observing the other person's movements, and being able to fit in with that person's movements, so that there's no set pattern of movements; no well when he does this, then I do this (as a style would teach). It's just a total freedom to react to what the other person does."
The point? Perhaps there is an argument in Bruce Lee's ideas that can communicate to students of Austrian economics to take that philosophy beyond the objective level of the optimum organization of society, and apply it to their personal lives. We do not believe in any form of government telling everyone how to run their business, or where and when we can invest, or anything else beyond respecting the person and property of other. The next logical step is to apply such philosophy to more personal aspects of life. Rather than crystallizing the style of others, explore yourself. If it is individual liberation we seek, we can learn a lot from Bruce's example. He argued that while learning the fundamentals of martial arts is important, just be yourself. "The main thing is teaching a man to do his thing, just being himself. The individual is more important than style. If a person is awkward he should not try to be agile. I'm against trying to impose a style on a man. This is an art, an expression of man's own self."

Open letter to Occupy Wall Street

To start out, I would like first to say congratulations. You have the world's eyes on you and you also have made it known that people in the United States are getting fed up with the ridiculous system under which we live. Kudos. However, as one of the people who would surely fit in your 99% category, I must decline the idea that any of you represent me. For one thing, to claim that you are able to represent a person is to claim that you know absolutely everything about them and precisely what they would or would not do in every situation. Even the most detail oriented statisticians in the world would not be able to do this for anyone simply because human existence is qualitative, not quantitative. That is to say, our desires, wants, satisfactions, sense of justice, humanity, ability to reason... none of these things can be measured, let alone imitated by one person to another (especially when the imitator does not know the person at all, as is the case with most politicians, even though they claim to represent x number of people at any given time).

Perhaps the biggest reason I take issue with the idea that any of you speak for me is this ludicrous list of demands that you claim 99% are in favor of. From what I can gather, you simply want the state to solve all your problems. A living wage... a trillion dollars for this or that, debt forgiveness, free college, extended union rights, rights based on gender or race... you know the list. The only thing you do propose that I am in agreement with is your proposal for open borders.

If you truly want living standards to raise in this country, then from my point of view, you should want more investment in capital goods. If you want wage rates to raise, again, more investment, since investment capital is used to pay for wages during the production process prior to the consumer good hitting the market. The only way for an economy to grow is through savings and investment; that is the reality of living in a world of scarcity. Forgoing consumption in the present in order to invest in tools (capital goods) that make production of consumer demands quicker and easier. All this government manipulation of the market place will only make us all impoverished in the long run. Hence, if you really want the end to fossil fuels, you should be investing in alternatives and refusing to use fossil fuels. I wonder how many people out there who hate oil have actually refused to use it? I wonder how many people out there who think cars are causing global warming or climate change, and constantly complain about their existence, have stopped using cars themselves?

Why? because everything the government does is through force. Any proposal for a "living wage" neglects the very purpose of the pricing system to begin with. Housing, cars, healthcare, and every other good out there, does not come out of thin air. Labor, mixed with land and capital, is needed for it all. This is because we live in a world of scarcity. The affect of a living wage would simply be widespread unemployment and a situation in which big business has even more of a strangle hold on everyone else, since they would be the only ones capable of paying this living wage, and after all, not everyone can work for big business.

Rather than going through your complete list of demands, and how most of it would go a long way towards wrecking our economy and making everyone poor, I will finish off by a discussion of justice. I wanted to be a police officer once, but then I realized that all the government is is a monopoly of force in a given geographic area, marked by political borders. It's not that the government wants to end injustice, it wants a monopoly on injustice. Their theft is called taxation, their murders are called wars, their blackmail is called regulation, you get the picture. Why would anyone want to work for an entity that survives by stealing money from people who have done no wrong? This is what the mafia does... yet when the state does it, it is just. Taxes are supposed to be just a part of life, getting licenses to do anything you want to do is just another part i suppose... but my question is, where is the justice in having government in the form of a state? (state meaning a monopoly of force) What would you say if the people stopping you from driving too fast did not wear a uniform and have a badge on their chest? If the tax collector did not work for the state, what would separate that person from any other extortionist? If I cannot go to my neighbor's house and demand at gun point that he pay for my college debt, or to my boss and demand that he pay me my arbitrary estimate of a living wage, why should a person claiming to be a member of the state be able to do it??

If you can't tell by now, I am an anarchist. I do not believe the state is capable of providing justice since it thrives on committing injustices. And here you are, claiming to represent me and my voice, asking the state to inflict society with whatever injustices needed to get you what you want. Unfortunately for all of you who support the OWS list of demands, natural law cannot be repealed. Justice will be served. If, like a robber in the night, you wish to survive by inflicting injustices on everyone in society, whether it's to force them to pay for your debts or to extort money from your bosses, etc., the result will be more impoverishment. If force is your tool, in my point of view you do not deserve to attain your goals, and basic economics proves that you will not. Socialism doesn't work because the state in reality is not god. It has no possible way of turning the qualitative reality of human existence into quantitative measurements, let alone implementing a plan to keep up with the constant changes in human demands. That is to say nothing about building higher productivity through savings and investment. A society, like ours, that spends all its money on consumer goods, cannot possibly hope to develop the necessary capital goods required for the expansion of an economy. Socialism is by definition the elimination of such capital.

So please, don't claim to represent me. I am but a security guard, barely making enough money to attain subsistence. But I don't support your goals, because I find them to be evil in nature, acts of gross injustice, and quite frankly, a contradiction in their own terms. Using state power to obtain better living standards is akin to burning your home in order to maintain shelter.

***I realize not everyone in the OWS movement agrees with the list of demands, indeed there are those in the movement who are anarchists like myself... this is directed towards those who want the government to step in and control everything for them. Please do everyone a favor and at least read Human Action by Ludwig von Mises before claiming to represent 99% and thinking the state can solve all your problems***