歷史 on LW Studio

【譯文】自由與聯邦制

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】自由與聯邦制

組織犯罪｜16. 自由與聯邦制

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：jypsygen via photopin cc

美國人建立並維繫自由社會的重要手段「聯邦制或州權」已被剝奪，世界上其他地方也大概都差不多。聯邦制被丟入記憶洞又或者被貶低為種族主義工具，並非只是意外。傑佛遜式的州權傳統，是理解為何傑佛遜認為政府管越少越好的關鍵，而且最小範圍的憲政政府也確實可行。自由的敵人們偏好政治壟斷，總是到處反對去集權化。

州權是什麼？

州權的概念與傑佛遜流的政治思想緊密相關。傑佛遜本人從未擺弄「州政府具有權利」的稻草人論點。「州政府」當然不具有權利，只有活生生的個體才具有權利。傑佛遜的基本想法認為，如果人們是政府的主人而不是政府的奴隸，那人們就必須擁有能夠控制政府的機制。在傳統傑佛遜流思想中，這種機制就是州與地方層級的政治社群。人們足以監督、控制、管束他們自己的政府，必要的時候甚至能夠解散。

畢竟，傑佛遜寫下獨立宣言，寫下「政府權力的正當性基於人民的同意，一旦政府凌駕人民的生命權、自由權與其追求幸福的權利，人民有責任該解散政府，並以其他政府取代之」。為了實現到這個目標，當時的人們透過各州的政治協議來施行憲法。美國開國之初，每一州都被視為於獨立的國家，像大英帝國與法國一樣的獨立國家。獨立宣言中，州政府「自由且獨立」，獨立的程度就像其他國家一樣，可以徵稅與發動戰爭。

這就是為什麼，傑佛遜的政治後進與 19 世紀中的南方民主黨，都舉辦州範圍的政治會議（與普選），決定是否要繼續留在開國元老們所創建的自願性聯邦。新英格蘭州的聯邦黨人曾經在 1814 年於哈特佛舉辦政治會議，考慮是否退出聯邦，最終提案被駁回。美國憲法第七條，各州可以透過州內各社群代表召開的政治會議（不限指州立法機關），決定是否參加聯邦，在保有獨立宣言的承諾下，各州社群代表有權透過投票來退出現有政府並創造新政府。

傑佛遜不僅起草美國退出大英帝國的獨立宣言，他在 1798 年肯塔基決議中主張州法無效一事違憲，並相信憲法第十修正案為完善憲法的基石（「憲法未授予合眾國、也未禁止各州行使的權力，由各州各自保留，或由人民保留。」）。傑佛遜是「狹義釋憲派」，認為要盡一切努力迫使中央政府只能擁有拿些第八章第一條所賦予的權力。

州權或者是聯邦制，並不代表州政府的政客就比較具有道德、智慧，或者是比聯邦政府的政客更不腐敗一點。一直以來，這個概念只有兩個重點：第一，人民可以較容易地監控距離自己較近的政府。第二，由無數相互競爭的州所組成的分權化聯邦體系，可以讓人民從較集權或較政治壟斷的州逃離。舉例而言，如果馬薩諸塞州建立政教合一的政府，那些不想留在政教合一政體（或神權政治）下生活的人就可以逃到弗吉尼亞州、賓州，或其他州。傑佛遜創建的州權概念，並非像當代政治學家所稱的「政策實驗室」。「政策實驗室」這種說法就像是把人當成同一個籠子裡的白老鼠，傑佛遜也不太可能會這樣看待自己。

分裂或是分裂威脅，一直以來都被視為維繫美國聯邦與憲政政府的手段之一。中央政府如果了解到頒布違憲的法令可能會導致分裂或者無效，那麼就能夠迫使中央政府只提初合憲的法令。法令無效以及分裂威脅的效果相同。這就是為什麼偉大的自由主義英國歷史學家阿克頓勳爵在 1866 年 11 月 4 號去信 Robert E. Lee 的原因，寫於將軍在 Appomattox 投降的 17 個月後：

我認為州權是絕對主權意志的唯一檢核手段，分裂讓我重新看到希望，不是破壞，而是民主的復興。因為那些被邦聯憲法巧妙修正的舊有憲法漏洞，讓您的共和國機制〔指邦聯憲法〕沒能解放舊世界。我相信，這樣偉大的改革將賜福全人類，清除共和國的固有的危險與失序，建立真正的自由。我認為，您為了我們的自由、進步與文明而戰，我對那些在 Richmond 陣亡者的哀悼，更甚看到 Waterloo 獲救者的欣喜。

除了將分裂視為人們阻止殘暴政府的「唯一手段」，阿克頓勳爵也指出邦聯憲法消除了美國憲法中的「福利條款」： 6 年總統單一任期、禁止保護性關稅與企業福利（除了疏浚港口的經費以外），以及普遍而言更加去集權化的政府系統。當然，那套系統從未實現，因為邦聯遭受當時世界上火力最強大的軍隊入侵，侵略軍隊做了政府在這種情況下總會做的事：徵收資源並進行權利集中，以對抗防禦性戰爭。

Lee 將軍理解阿克頓勳爵所言，並同意他的看法。將軍在 1866 年 12 月 15 號的回信中寫道：

我仍然認為，僅讓政府擁有帶保留的憲法權力是和平與安全的基石，我還相信憲法未授予的權力由各州與人民保留。不只是整體系統的調整與平衡，也保障自由政府的延續。我將這點視為我們政體穩定的主要來源，但將各州凝聚成龐大的共和國勢必會導致其侵略性，這將成為最終毀滅的前導。

阿克頓勳爵與 Lee 將軍的書信往來別具洞見：政府權力集中是 19 世紀末的政治標記，並帶來 20 世紀的人類文明瘟疫，權力集中是採納法西斯主義及所有其他形式之社會主義的前提，包括共產主義。

【譯文】策動主義的詛咒

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】策動主義的詛咒

組織犯罪｜14. 策動主義的詛咒

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：Mr Jaded via photopin cc

共和黨在 2011 到 2012 年間所有的候選人中，只有 Ron Paul 擁護 Washington 和 Jefferson 的美國外交哲學。為此， Ron Paul 和過去七十年中抱有類似思想的國會議員一樣，被誤導、抹黑成「孤立主義」。這種「孤立主義」的指稱，完全是歐威爾主義（維基百科註：指現代政權藉宣傳、誤報、否認事實、操縱過去，來執行社會控制）。 Ron Paul 提倡和平與自由貿易，只支持正當的防禦性戰爭，他所支持的是世界上人際互動的最大化。

人類文明的起源正是國際勞動分工與商務自由。我們日常生活中所享受與使用的商品及服務，都是世界上無數專業人士透過自利之激勵而作的結果，不管是麵包、牛肉、啤酒或者是其它所有東西。貿易限制才是真正的「孤立主義」，沒有什麼比戰爭更加阻擋國際間的互利性互動。戰爭導致孤立主義。人們在自由市場中進行和平且互利的互動，但若情境換作是戰爭，同一批人可能會互相殺戮。

經濟學的中心原則在於，只要私有財產與一定程度的自由市場存在，個體為了追求自我利益，會把自己的所能發揮極致，銷售自己擅長生產的東西給別人，然後再向別人購買那些自己不擅長生產的東西。這就是為什麼那些最窮困的人也依然能生存下來，並改善自己的生活。自由市場中沒有所謂「最適者生存」。窮困者不需要自己生產食物、建造自己的房子或者縫製自己的衣物（其他人也不需要這樣）：國際勞動分工讓他們得以依賴他人提供這些物品，讓自己的可以持續生活。

然而，另一方面，戰爭則將這樣的國際分工「四分五裂」，正如 Ludwig von Mises 在其大作《 Human Action 》中所述。舉例而言， 19 世紀末與 20 世紀初，工業革命大幅增進平均生活水平，增進程度簡直讓上一代人無法想像。資本主義的蓬勃發展，讓一般人得以享受國際分工的果實，在每週工時不斷減少的同時，還能持續提高生活水平（也要歸功於資本主義下的資本投資所帶來的生產力提高）。第一次世界大戰毀掉了這一切，讓一個一個的國家回到孤立主義，打亂了國際勞動分工。曾經在無數方面得益於陌生人努力工作成果的人們，因為受到孤立而與這些獲益隔離，他們的生活水平也跟著每況愈下。各國為了戰爭而組成政治聯盟，卻遠離了國際貿所帶來的受益。戰爭是資本主義的相反詞，其結果只有成千上萬的死亡與大規模的資本損失。

當然，從戰爭中獲益的總是那些人：君主、獨裁者，以及那些沉浸在「帝國榮譽」的「政治家」。正如漢密爾頓所言：親政府者透過國防合約獲益；替政府籌劃親戰宣傳的學者與「記者」獲得名聲、地位與財富；政府本身也從戰爭中獲益。戰爭是政府的命根子，沒有什麼比戰爭更能膨脹政府與其機能。作為推論，沒有什麼比非防禦性戰爭更能摧毀自由與繁榮。 Murray Rothbard 在他《 Just War 》一文中指出，美國史上真正的正當防禦性戰爭只有兩場：美國獨立戰爭；南方抵抗共和黨在 1861-1865 年間發動之侵戰的反戰。

真正旨在破壞人們和平協作的「孤立主義者」，是一群可以被稱為「策動者」的人。他們是一些透過謊言、縱容與操弄手段來策動戰爭的自大狂與尋租者。這些人一般從未親身參與戰爭，甚至連在和平時期也跟軍隊扯不上關係，被許多評論家貼上「懦弱鷹派」的標籤簡直適得其所。

林肯對南方奴隸制的最強烈辯護，出現在他首任總統的就職演說，在他承諾遵守憲法的同時，以戰爭來威脅徵稅。由於他根本沒有想要解放奴隸，加上為了徵稅而發動戰爭會讓自己變成國際戰犯，林肯得杜撰侵略自己國土的理由（順道一提，林肯的所為正是美國憲法第三章第三條中所述之叛國罪的定義）。他編造了「永久聯邦（ perpetual union ）」的概念。林肯暗示美國開國者們同意，如果有任何團體企圖離開開國者們創建的「自願性聯邦」，中央政府有「權利」侵略那些想要脫離聯邦的州、謀殺成千上百的州民、轟炸他們的城市、燒毀他們的土地、掠奪他們的財富。當然，這正是林肯軍隊的所作所為，一切都以保全七十年歷史之政體為名。至於薩姆特堡事件，林肯在（無人傷亡）事件過後寫了一封信給他的海軍司令 Gustavus Fox ，感謝他唆使南方卡羅萊納州開出第一槍並策動戰爭。

美西戰爭純粹就是帝國主義戰爭，對於一般的美國人沒有帶來任何好處。 19 世紀末偉大的自由主義學者 William Graham Sumner 在其著名《 The Conquest of the United States by Spain 》中寫道，美西戰爭讓美國變成像西班牙一樣的帝國，取代了開國元老創建的憲政共和國。但像 Teddy Roosevelt 那樣討人厭的自大狂，卻從這種瘋狂的冒險中開創政治生涯。

一次世界大戰是 20 世紀最慘痛的災難，但一般美國人跟干預一戰扯不上任何關係。如 Jim Powell 在《 Wilson’s War 》所述，這場戰爭「成功地」鞏固了蘇聯共產主義者手上的權力，並讓德國的納粹主義興起。許多政客與其支持者從中獲得權力、地位與財富。國防合約承包商做夢都沒想到自己會變得那麼有錢；原先卑微的政府官員搖身一變成為經濟獨裁者；國家主義知識份子甚至把自己當成偉大的社會工程師。幾乎所有自稱的進步主義都親戰，因為他們相信：第一，政府有能力也應該要在美國與歐洲建立天堂；第二，美國採用的蘇聯式戰期經濟規劃，戰爭結束後，可以作為和平時期導入蘇聯式中央經濟規劃的範本。

羅斯福與經濟大蕭條奮鬥了八年後，其重度干預主義政策甚至雪上加霜，他轉而策動日本侵襲珍珠港，詳情請見 Robert Stinnett 在他《 Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor 》書中的詳盡揭露。在羅斯福眼中，美國參戰可以成為龐大政府計畫的金雞母，就算不能終結經濟蕭條，至少也能將民眾的注意力從他無底的失敗中轉移。畢竟，羅斯福的聲譽當時正受到莫大威脅。（戰爭並未終結經濟大蕭條，充其量只有提高就業，那也是因為國家徵召了超過一千萬人入伍，但 1930 年代美國失業人數大概只有五百萬人上下。）

策動主義派編謊促使美國參與越戰，這場戰爭造成 55,000 名美國人與成千上萬越南人不必要也沒有意義的死亡。接著而來的伊拉克戰爭是策動主義者最近期的「勝利」，就連中情局自己都承認該場戰爭是因謊言而起： Saddam Hussein 握有威脅美國的「大規模毀滅性武器」。上千的美國士兵戰亡、上萬美國士兵終身殘廢、無數伊拉克人被殺害。政府這一切作為都與一般美國納稅人在意的事情無關。

下次你再看到那些虛情假意的政客敦促入侵伊朗、敘利亞、北韓或任何他認為美國炸彈應該轟炸的地方時，記得想想策動主義病態的歷史。

【譯文】社會化醫療與經濟法則

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】社會化醫療與經濟法則

組織犯罪｜8. 社會化醫療與經濟法則

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：bitzcelt via photopin cc

美國政府漸進地接管醫療體系的核心，是歐巴馬政府所通過的某項法案，最終不是將私營健保產業給趕出市場，就是把它轉變為「事實上」的國有產業。該法案在私營健康保險公司身上加了額外的稅項與成本，同時又成立表面上要和私營公司「競爭」的健康「保險」官僚機構。這些措施只是實現美國醫藥國有化這個社會主義夢想的一部分，社會主義在其他國家實行得可好的。就像所有的政府壟斷，國營健保會以國稅局的惻隱之心加上國有郵局的效率來運作。

諾貝爾經濟學獎得主 Milton Friedman 若干年前針對美國的醫療供應史做了研究。胡佛研究所在 1992 年發表的《 Input and Output in Health Care 》研究中， Friedman 點出美國在 1910 年時有 56% 的醫院為私立的營利醫院。但在政府開始資助公立醫院的數十年後，這個比例〔由 56% 〕掉到 10% 。雖然花了數十年，但政府最終在 1990 年初期掌管了幾乎整個醫療產業。極少數維持私營的醫院，因為受到大幅度的政府監管，也可以被視為是政府的附屬品。「私立」醫院經營者絕大多數的決策，都遵循著政府官僚法令，而不是照護病患這件事。

Friedman 的關鍵結論在於，政府擁有或者受政府控制的醫療照護，就像所有官僚體系一樣，會在器材、基礎建設、專業人員支薪等「輸入」增加的同時，造成醫療照護質量之「輸出」的減少。例如，醫療支出從 1965 年到 1989 年增加了 224% ，但每千人口的病床數「跌」了 44% ，病床使用率則減少了 15% 。在 Friedman 研究的 1945 到 1989 年期間，即使將通貨膨脹因素考慮在內，每一病患的均日醫療成本仍提高了幾乎 24 倍。政府對於醫療照護的干預增加，不僅減少了服務，還增加了天文數字的成本。

所有政府營運的官僚機構中都可以發現這種結果，因為市場反應機制在政府機構中缺席。因為政府不將獲利納入考慮，也就不會有獎勵優良績效與懲罰不良績效的可靠機制。事實上，在所有的公營企業中，與上述相反之情況真實上演：績效不良的單位在承諾他們會用更多錢來「做得更好」之後，一般都會收到預算增加的「獎勵」。

只要政府開始干涉，成本就會呈現爆炸性飆高，所有產業都是如此。政府在 1970 年預估 Medicare 的醫院保險（ hospital insurance ）每年「只會」佔 29 億美金。實際的支出為 53 億，政府低估了 79% 的成本。政府在 1980 年預估醫療保險成本為 55 億，實際支出超過預估額的四倍－ 256 億。但是，政府在開始要接管任何產業時，總是承諾要「減少」成本。

政府為了應對自己制定之政策所造成的成本爆炸，進一步賦予自己在醫療照護產業中更多的權力，在 Medicare 的前三十年內就實施了 23 項新稅（參 Ronald Hamoway ，「 The Genesis and Development of Medicare 」，收錄於 Roger D. Feldman 編，《 American Health Care 》）。

所有的政府醫療壟斷都經歷成本與需求的爆炸性成長，不管是加拿大、英國或是古巴，需求爆量是因為這些國家的醫療照護「免費」（當然，這些事實上並非「免費」，成本都被隱藏在稅單裡。）。當某樣商品的價格為零的時候，消費者需求為出現戲劇性成長，醫療照護也不例外。與此同時，官僚作風的惡習也會造成逐年增加的龐大低效。當成本開始失控，讓那些原本承諾「減少」成本的官員臉上無光時，我們可以預期政客在那種情況下的通常作為：以「總額預算控制」之類的偽裝來對該產業實施最高限價。

最高限價總是在刺激需求的同時減少供給，從而造成短缺。無關價格的配給制度成為必要。這也意味著，政府官僚將無可避免地取代個人與其醫生，決定受照護之醫療資格、可供之醫療技術、醫護人員供給數等各種醫療資源之分配。換句話說，政府官僚以極權主義控制了產業。

所有實行社會化醫療的國家，都飽受價格控制下的醫療短缺之苦。譬如，某位加拿大公民因為車禍造成的三度灼傷而需要整形外科重建手術，平均手術等待時間快五個月。骨科手術的輪候時間也快五個月；神經外科手術是三個月；心臟手術要等超過一個月。（參 Baccus Barua 、 Mark Rovere 和 Brett J. Skinner 著，由菲沙研究所發行的《 Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada, 2011 Report 》）這就是美國醫院多年來湧入許多急需醫療照護、手頭較為寬裕之加拿大人的原因。

《紐約時報》在 2000 年 1 月 16 日一篇由 James Brooke 報導的「 Full Hospitals Make Canadians Wait and Look South 」中，提出許多加拿大社會化醫療體系造成之嚴重且危及生命的醫療短缺案例。例如，一位等待心臟手術的 58 歲奶奶，她與其他 66 位病人在蒙特利爾醫院的走廊上一起等待，電動門整夜開開關關，從零度以下的室外不斷帶進結霜。當時，她被列在心臟手術的「五年候診清單」上。

在多倫多，因為醫師短缺的關係，全市 25 所醫院一天之內就有 23 所醫院拒收救護車帶來的病患。在溫哥華，救護車還一度在停車場「堵塞」了好幾小時，當時救護車內還載著心臟病發而等待救護的病患。為了躲避工資管制，至少有一千名加拿大醫生與數千名加拿大護士離開加拿大到美國工作。 James Brooke 在《紐約時報》寫道：「很少有加拿大人認為加拿大的體制可以做為出口模範。」

加拿大因為價格管制所造成之短缺，也讓加拿大人難以取得醫療技術。以人均計算，美國有八倍的 MRI 儀器、七倍的癌症放射性治療單位、六倍以上的碎石儀器、三倍以上的心臟手術單位。光是人口約五百萬的華盛頓特區， MRI 儀器的數量就超過人口超過三千萬的加拿大（參 John Goodman 與 Gerald Musgrave ，《 Patient Power: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis 》）。如果美國繼續走這條社會化醫療的路，加拿大的現狀就是前景。

【譯文】反壟斷勒德分子

Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】反壟斷勒德分子

組織犯罪｜7. 反壟斷勒德分子

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：CJ Isherwood via photopin cc

所謂「勒德分子」是 19 世紀的英國紡織工人，他們以損壞機器的方式來抗議當時開始引進的紡織機，並且以神話中舍伍德森林的勒德王為名，譴責這項新科技。這些勒德分子以及現今的新勒德分子們，都沒能理解「節省勞力」會帶來成本與價格降低，使得消費需求增加，整體而言，這將使得工作機會「更多」，而不是減少。

歐巴馬政府在 2011 年阻止 AT&T 與 T-Mobile 併購案時，出現了新勒德運動。根據 2011 年 8 月 31 號的《紐約時報》，阻止併購能「拯救美國勞工的工作」。反壟斷部門的副檢察長 James M. Cole 說：「〔歐巴馬〕政府認為，透過創新與競爭，我們創造工作。併購會『消除冗餘』，一般而言大多會減少工作機會。因此，我們認為政府這項措施將有助於維持經濟體中的就業機會。」在歐巴馬政府的眼裡，創造美國就業機會的公式，就是在必要的時候，保護與擴張增加成本的「冗餘」。美國產業的外國競爭者想必正在替歐巴馬政府歡呼。

然而，事實正好與歐巴馬政府的「經濟分析」相反，企業「減少冗餘」是「降低成本並提高國際競爭力」的另一種說法。當企業透過這種方式變得更成功，它的市占率將擴張，「該公司將出現更多的工作機會」。

「創新」確實可以創造工作機會。歐巴馬政府沒能認識到像 AT&T 與 T-Mobile 那樣的併購結盟也是一項創新。併購是減少電信服務成本的創新提案。在像電信業那樣高度競爭的產業中，不斷創新是必要的。

歐巴馬政府在該併購案中的立場，是勒德主義與重商主義的綜合體。 18 世紀的重商主義迷信，認為財富不是透過生產來創造，而是透過囤積黃金。顯然，歐巴馬政府將現有的工作機會比作黃金，認為需要保存現有工作機會，他們沒能認清經濟是動態的，創新與改良的產業與企業不斷地淘汰過時且服務消費者又低效的對手，工作機會也同時不斷地被創造與消除。

如同以往的反壟斷案件，歐巴馬政府聲稱併購案某種程度會減少競爭。但是，怎麼可能？在當時，美國有超過 180 間電信公司，美國之外還有好幾百個美國市場的潛在競爭者。 AT&T 和 T-Mobile 根本不可能抬高價格，更不可能因為併購就晉升壟斷階級，數以百計的競爭對手正伺機而動，等著他們做出愚蠢的定價策略。

另一個拿來反對併購的理由是成本降低可以提高利潤。但商業世界沒有「肯定」這回事，即使併購也不一定代表他們可以做到提高利潤。唯一可以肯定的是，歐巴馬政府阻止了這兩間公司的併購案，也就阻止了這兩間公司想變得更具競爭力、創造更多工作機會的嘗試。

【譯文】反壟斷、反真相

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】反壟斷、反真相

組織犯罪｜6. 反壟斷、反真相

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：Funky64 (www.lucarossato.com) via photopin cc

當美國政府在 1990 年代起訴微軟時（經過十年的「調查」仍未發現任何違法），司法部反壟斷部門主管 Joel Klein 說這場訴訟是在維持美國自 1890 年《謝爾曼法》以來保護消費者的優良傳統。事實上，反壟斷法的歷史，其實是打擊美國最具競爭力、最創新之企業的政治獵殺史，通常由那些酸葡萄心理的競爭者發動。

我在 1985 年發刊的《 International Review of Law and Economics 》中提到，被參議員 John Sherman 一夥人指控的「壟斷」產業，在《謝爾曼法》出現之前的十年內，其生產規模的擴張速度大概是整體經濟的四倍（有些甚至是十倍）。在那十年的通貨緊縮期間，這些產業價格下降的速度也比當時的均價下降速度要快得多。這種「壟斷」可視為政治攻擊，因為這些產業持續製造價格更低廉的產品，讓那些在政治領域占一席之地的低效競爭對手難堪。打從一開始，反壟斷就是保護主義者的把戲。

微軟反壟斷案的法官之一 Thomas Penfield Jackson 因為過於偏見，被指派他的三位聯邦法官調離該案（也就是被解雇的意思）。例子之一是他在一篇雜誌訪談中將 Bill Gates 與 John D. Rockfeller 、 Al Capone 相提並論。 Jackson 法官將 Bill Gates 與 Capone 相比確實大錯特錯，不過和 Rockefeller 相比反倒錯得並不離譜。正如 Dominick Armentano 在其《 Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure 》書中所做的說明， Rockefeller 的標準石油公司透過無數的新產品與產業創新，讓精製石油每加侖的價格從 1869 年超過 30 美分，降到 1897 年的 5.9 美分。因為這樣， Rockefeller 被起訴、被迫分割他的公司，儘管當時他有超過三百個競爭對手，他還是被認為「壟斷」石油產業。

Dominick Armentano 在他的經典《 Antitrust and Monopoly 》中仔細地分析了 55 件美國歷史中著名的反壟斷案件，他的結論是：每一間被起訴的公司都「調降」價格、「擴大」生產、創新、開發新產品、普遍而言讓「消費者受益」。受害的並不是消費者，而是那些效率低落、酸葡萄心理的競爭對手。舉例而言，美國菸草公司在 1911 年被裁定「壟斷」，即使該公司每一千支的香菸價格從 1895 年的 2.77 美金降到 1907 年的 2.2 美金，而且原料價格還上漲了 40% 。

反壟斷史中最無厘頭的案例，大概就是 1944 年 Learned Hand 法官判的 Alcoa 案，法官認為 Alcoa 「具卓越遠見與技能」，「搶先」那些比較沒有技能又較無遠見之競爭對手，因此裁定 Alcoa 「壟斷」鋁錠市場。法官譴責 Alcoa 善於預測並供應市場需求，從而「排擠」價格較高的競爭對手。

Hand 法官說 Alcoa 以「卓越」組織「擁抱每個新機會」，組織中充滿「商業精英」，這種「罪行」必須受到處罰。

政府在 1962 年禁止市占率只有 1% 的 Brown Shoe Company 收購 Kinney Shoes ， Kinney Shoes 當時的市占率大概也就差不多 1% 。政府可笑地聲稱市占率 2% 的公司將會對市場競爭造成威脅。

1969 年，聯邦政府起訴當時市占率約 65% 的 IBM 壟斷電腦產業。在政府最後放棄訴訟之前， IBM 被這件官司纏了 13 年。於此期間， IBM 因為英特爾、微軟與其他公司而黯然失色。政府對於 IBM 的這場攻擊，無疑削弱了該公司的實力。

1962 年，政府強迫 Schwinn Bicycle Company 終結其與經銷商的合作網。國外競爭接踵而來， Schwinn 最後以破產收場。

通用汽車從來都沒有因違反《反壟斷法》而遭到起訴，但該公司擔心受到起訴，從 1937 年到 1956 年間一直採取保守政策，不敢讓自己的市場佔有率打破「三大」汽車公司或超過 45% 。這種政策造成通用汽車面對國外車廠的競爭力低落，特別是日本車廠。

反壟斷監管人員禁止 RCA 向美國持權者收取特許權費，因此 RCA 改而將自己的產品授權給日本公司。此一事件直接導致日本電子業在美國市場上具有壓倒性優勢。

反壟斷法禁止泛美航空公司收購國內航線。沒有了這些「航線收入」來維持國際班機的營運，該公司最後也宣告破產。

〔真正的〕自由市場不可能會有壟斷。政府的專營權、保護性關稅、許可法、「必要證照」還有其它像反壟斷法那樣的壟斷監管噱頭，才是壟斷的真正來源。

【譯文】我們的極權監管官僚

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】我們的極權監管官僚

組織犯罪｜5. 我們的極權監管官僚

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：quinet via photopin cc

諾貝爾經濟學獎得主 F.A. Hayek 在他 1944 年發行之經典《 The Road to Serfdom 》的第五章中，警告國家不可像極權控制全國經濟那般，直接掌控所有的生產手段。他舉 1928 年的德國為例，當時「中央與地方政府直接掌控 53% 的德國經濟」。除此之外， Hayek 寫道，私營企業受到嚴格控管，德國「間接」控制了「幾乎全國的經濟活動」。正是因為這樣的極權控制，德國走向「通往奴役之路」。如 Hayek 進一步陳述：「由於社會成員鮮少能獨立於國家作為而不受影響，引導政府活動的『社會價值觀尺度』必須考慮到所有的社會成員。」換句話說，政府監管無處不在，原先由消費者偏好所驅動的利潤追求機制，大多被監管當局的率性而為給取代。

對於某些人而言，這或許很令人震驚，但以國家干預並控管經濟活動的程度而言，現代美國已經可以和 1930 年代的法西斯德國相比。首先，政府支出約佔國民總收入的 40% ，雖然每年的確切數字有些許差異，但最近幾年大概都落在 40% 左右。前述比例並不包括政府預算外的聯邦、州、地方政府機關，正如 James Bennett 和我在我們《 Underground Government: The Off-Budget Public Sector 》書中討論的那樣。如果要將預算外的政府機構也納入計算，政府支出會佔國民總收入的 45-50% ，這個數字已經跟 Hayek 所提之納粹德國的 53% 相差不遠。

談到政府監管，美國有 9 個內閣級聯邦機構分別監管與控制住房、交通、醫療、教育、能源、礦業、農業、勞動與商業。除了幾十個聯邦級政府監管機構，州政府也推出一堆管制法規。譬如，阿拉巴馬州網站上面就羅列州政府所成立的各監管機構與委員會：退休、地質、公共衛生、教育、保育、天然資源、工業關係、農業、高齡市民、觀光、差旅、退伍軍人、環境管理、鑑定科學、商業發展、受刑期滿再社會化、銀行、保險、勞動、交通、青少年服務、兒童事務、影片製作、港務、殘疾人士、藝術、房地產、石油與天然氣、森林、道德、露天採礦、酒精飲品、拍賣，與「出於信念之舉措」。阿拉巴馬其實是比較偏保守派的州，其他的州大概會有更落落長的監管清單。

因為民主國家的政府計畫必然會遭遇失敗， Hayek 寫道：「在效率管理的信念之下，計畫必須『去政治化』，計畫權要交到專家類終身職官員或者是獨立自治機構的手中。」更進一步地，「呼籲政府領導經濟的主張，是走向〔中央〕計畫整體經濟的階段性特徵。」這確實可以形容政府監管職能，特別是那些填滿聯邦政府各行政部門的「沙皇」。截至 2010 年，「沙皇」等級的政治監管者分別被指派到下述的經濟領域：阿富汗事務、愛滋病防治、汽車修復、邊界、加州水源、汽車、中東事務、海灣國家事務、巴基斯坦事務、南亞事務、氣候、家庭暴力、毒品、經濟、能源、環境、出於信念之舉措、政府績效、五大湖、綠色就業、關塔那摩灣基地關閉事務、醫療照護、資訊、智財、科學、經濟振興法案、支付、監管、蘇丹事務、 TARP 不良資產救助計畫、技術、恐怖主義、城市事務、武器、大規模殺傷性武器、戰爭、石油、製造、網路安全、學校安全與伊朗事務。

當今美國經濟受到重度控制、監管與，程度更甚 Hayek 寫下《 The Road to Serfdom 》時的納粹德國，這點讓人很難辯駁。美國人已經在通往奴役之路上走了好幾里路，自欺欺人地認為民主之神會拯救眾人免於被國家奴役之苦。正如 Hayek 警告的：「沒有理由相信凡是透過民主程序獲得的權力就不會被濫用…」

【譯文】政府管制與股市

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】政府管制與股市

組織犯罪｜4. 政府管制與股市

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：Devin_Smith via photopin cc

如果不是因為政府監管，使得企業得將資源與時間用來迎合政府官員，而不是用來創造新產品、改良現有產品與服務、減少成本與價格，道瓊工業指數可以比現在還要再高個幾千點。由於股票價格取決於未來預估獲利，政府監管破壞了股票價值。

政府監管已經將美國企業從具創業精神之企業轉變為遲鈍的官僚巨獸。正如 Ludwig von Mises 在《 Liberalism 》所言：

我們今天在私有企業中所見到的官僚作風，純粹就是政府干預主義的產物，企業被迫考慮那些遠離營運業務主軸的政策制定。一旦決策過程必須留意政治偏見與情感，以避免來自各種國家機制的不斷騷擾時，企業將很快地發現其計算基準已不再純然基於獲利與虧損。

Mises 在 1962 年寫下這段話的時候，政府干涉的範圍與今天的利維坦政府相比，簡直微乎其微。法院與監管機構透過監管法規，洗劫資本主義的三個最重要的組成：私有財產權、契約自由、結社自由。多虧了那些幾乎影響美國所有企業的監管控制，現代的商業社會中已經不存在所謂真正的私有財產權。

政府對企業的監管範圍簡直令人頭腦發麻。華盛頓的競爭企業協會（ Competitive Enterprise Institute ）每年都會發行《 Ten Thousand Commandments 》（由 Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr. 主編），紀錄聯邦政府的監管範圍。該刊的 2011 年版表明，企業為了遵守聯邦政府的法規所付出的成本，估計約為 1.752 兆美元。這個數字幾乎等同聯邦政府該年百分之五十的聯邦總預算，超過了全美企業的總稅前利潤，幾乎是該年所得稅收總額的兩倍。此外，《 The Federal Register 》上所列出的細節法規，總計印刷頁數超過 80,000 頁，超過 58 個聯邦監管機構正專職於每年再增加數千頁的法條。州政府與地方政府為了執行這些法令，另外還有數以萬計的細節執行法規。

顯然，除了上兆的美元，美國企業還得花上許多時間來應付政府文書、規範與管制，而不是把精力花在製造更好、更便宜的產品上。利潤被降低、工作機會減少或甚至打從一開始就胎死腹中，股票價格遭受扼殺。因為政府法條與規定不斷變動，有時候根本是無中生有，這種因政府監管所直接造成的產權不穩定性，使得投資人對於合約的估值更加不確定。

大部分的政府監管，對於其聲稱所要保護的消費者建樹甚少（如果有的話），這已經成為一種定律。前述為諾貝爾經濟學獎得主 Ronald Coase 所做出的結論，他以芝加哥大學法學教授的身分擔任著名期刊《 Journal of Law and Economics 》的主編多年，該期刊在當時發表了上百篇有關政府管制的學術研究。在編輯與發行了數百篇類似研究後， Coase 教授在 J.F. Weston 的《 Large Corporations in a Changing Society 》中總結道：

綜觀歷史，過去十五年來，出現許多政府監管之影響的大型研究，特別在美國。這些研究有定量也有定性…而研究結果也很清楚：這些研究都傾向政府監管低效率、成效些微，有些甚至造成不好的影響，結果，因為這些監管，消費者不是獲得品質更差的產品，就是獲得價格更高的產品，又或者是兩者兼具。事實上，這些研究發現如此一致，反而創造謎題：人們期望在這些研究之中，總會發現一些利大於弊的政府計畫。

大學商學院很少教授「企業家精神」或「自由市場資本主義的美德」，但是卻提供無數的「企業法」、「行政法」、「企業道德」、「企業社會責任」等課程。這些課程都在教學生官僚作風、迎合國家的眾多官僚機構，忽視營利。就連會計課程，也都在證卷交易委員會的指導下教授。國家對企業的管制越來越多，許多大企業的執行長具有律師、說客或是政治背景，企業成為政府操縱的工具，而不是製造與工程的工具。

政府監管也摧毀了商業世界的言論自由。出於對監管處罰、稅務審計或任何其他形式政府騷擾的恐懼，鮮少商業人士會公然反對政府監管。許多美國企業受到來自國家監管的恐嚇，反而資助政治團體數十億美元，讓他們遊說政府實行更多的管制與干預主義。據華盛頓國會研究中心估計，在美國，企業每捐一塊美金給像 Mises Institute 那樣的親自由組織時，反企業自由組織就會收到三塊的捐款。顯然，部分捐獻者相信自己是在「買取」監管者的青睞，但事實上，他們正在送出讓國家可以在經濟上「吊」死他們的「繩子」。部分捐獻者則純粹是左翼激進團體敲詐的受害者。

聯邦官僚機構連自己的預算都沒有能力管理，更何況是成千上萬私營企業的預算管理。公營企業的懶惰、散漫、低效率與貪腐，臭名遠播。讓這些人來干涉成千上萬私營企業之企業決策，這種想法簡直就是摧毀美國資本主義的鬧劇。

【譯文】誰來管制這些監管人員？

Mon, 11 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯文】誰來管制這些監管人員？

組織犯罪｜3. 誰來管制這些監管人員？

作者：Thomas J. DiLorenzo
譯者：吳莉瑋
圖片：satanoid via photopin cc

對政府部門來說，失敗就是成功。這就是我提出的政府第一定律。當福利國家的政府官僚沒能減少貧困的時候，反而會因此得到更多的稅金與職責等「獎勵」。當公立學校沒能教育好孩子的時候，反而得到更多稅款、更多染指教育之權力的回報。當 NASA 炸掉一架太空船時，反而會得到一大筆預算追加（不像一般遇到這種狀況很可能就會破產的私人航空公司）。當美聯儲在 2007 年造成繼美國經濟大蕭條之後最嚴重的一場經濟危機時，其權力反而獲得大肆擴張。

我的政府第二定律：政客對於糟糕政策所造成的問題，從來都不需要真正負責。社會中，沒有任何一種團體比政治人物還要不負責任。當然偶有零星例外，但整體而言，他們總是將經濟問題怪罪在資本主義身上，儘管我們現在的經濟系統也不是真正的資本主義（用經濟法西斯主義或權貴資本主義比較能精確形容現有狀態）。明知後果的情況下，將越來越多的中央經濟計劃加諸於我們僅存的經濟成長動力上，沒有什麼比這種行為還要更不負責的了，即使冠了一個可笑的「公共利益監管」也一樣。

我的政府第三定律：政客都是慣性說謊者，極少數例外。而所謂的「監察媒體」其實應該是「哈巴狗媒體」，因為指出政客的謊言正是記者想要終結職涯的最佳捷徑。如果你這麼做，你的消息來源大概就準備要殺過來砍你了。

政府最大的謊言之一，就是「金融市場未受監管，亟需更多的政府中央規劃」。自由放任主義被說成是大蕭條的主因。美聯儲的官員到處遊說，以建立一個據說可以解決問題的超級監管機構。這些都是謊言，根據美聯儲自己的出版物《聯邦儲備機制：目標與功能》，美聯儲已被授權許多「監督與監管範圍」，以下列表只是「部分」的監管範圍：銀行控股公司、國家特許銀行、會員銀行的國外分支、邊緣法與協議公司、美國國家授權之銀行分支、外資銀行的機構或代表辦公室、外資銀行的非銀行業務、國有銀行、儲蓄銀行、銀行控股公司的非銀行子公司、儲蓄機構監管局、銀行財務報告程序、銀行會計政策、緊急經濟情況下的企業「存續」、消費者保護法、銀行證券交易、銀行使用的信息技術、銀行的國外投資、銀行的國外貸款、銀行分行、銀行併購、銀行持有資格、資本「充足率標準」、證券購買時的信用評估、平等機會貸款、抵押信息揭露、儲備金準備率、電子資金轉帳、銀行間負債、社區再投資法（ Community Reinvestment Act ）次級貸款「要求」、所有國際銀行業務、消費租賃、消費者財務訊息隱私、活期存款支付、「公平信用」報告、會員銀行及其隸屬機構之間的交易、貸款條件，以及儲蓄條件。

此外，美聯儲還從事利率法的制定，透過「公開市場操作」製造價格通膨，還有繁榮－蕭條的商業週期。再者，金融市場受到證券交易委員會、貨幣監理局、儲蓄機構監管局，以及許多州政府機構的嚴格監管。這些都是華盛頓所謂金融市場「自由放任」的定義。

我的政府第四定律：政治人物只有在學術顧問團其建議保證會增加國家權力、財富與影響力的時候，才會採用其建議，即使他們自己也知道這些建議對於社會弊大於利。學者們樂於參與這種貪腐的遊戲，因為這也會增加他們的名聲與財富。這種現象的明顯案例：大蕭條之後，留下大量有關政府過去一世紀以「公共利益」為名而推行之監管所造成的失敗紀錄文獻，但政府官方、媒體、相關財經作者對此幾乎沒有任何的相關討論。

美國的經濟活動或多或少都有受到政府監管，但聯邦監管機構是在 1877 年最高法院的 Munn v. Illinois 判決中才取得第一次的權力擴張。 Munn 兄弟經營穀倉生意，但是他們州內有權有勢的農場說客，想要透過立法實施穀倉最高租價的方式來偷取他們的財產。這類法律以往會被認定為違反憲法中保障的合約權，但這次土豪農主占了上風，而這項判決更被國家主義者讚頌為「公共利益」的勝利。「公共利益監管」的第一起主要案例，犧牲公眾利益來讓特殊利益團體合法獲益，其實，公眾在自由市場中能夠獲益更多。

不管是無知還是腐敗（或兩者兼具），當時的國家主義學者們唱起了「公共利益」的高歌、創造市場總是「失敗」的迷思，倡議由無所不能的政府管制來把持公共利益。這些學者忽略身邊處處充滿政府管制、幾乎所有政府活動都存在特殊利益的事實。

正如歷史學家 Gabriel Kolko 在他 1963 年的著作《 The Triumph of Conservatism 》中所述，二十世紀初的大企業開始尋求與政府監管合作，因為「政府監管不可避免地將由產業領導者主導，由產業領導者來決定什麼是可接受、什麼是不可接受」。政府監管通常被用來加強控制那些早已受到監管的領域。芝加哥學派經濟學家將這種現象稱為「規制俘虜理論（ capture theory of regulation ）」。

大多數的學術派經濟學家以政府顧問的身分獲得聲譽、就業與資助，不但忽略經濟事實，從一次大戰到 1960 年代左右，反而花上快 50 年的時間，憑空捏造「市場失靈」的空洞理論。當時的流行讀物為 Francis Bator 的《 Anatomy of Market Failure 》，該書以欺詐的伎倆為基礎，首先將現實世界與烏托邦式的「完全競爭」理論世界相比較，接著批判現實世界「不完美」，最後「預設」政府監管可以完美地「糾正」這些缺陷。經濟學家 Harold Demsetz 將這種手法稱為「聖盃謬誤」，將現實世界與「完美」相比，不管是誰都會在比較過後得出市場「不完美」的結論。市場失靈理論家從來不會將政府干預主義納入同樣的批判標準，拿政府監管結果與「完美」相比較。奧地利學派是唯一一脈從未參與過這場鬧劇的經濟學派。

值得稱道的是，芝加哥學派在這一方面也加入奧地利學派，揭露許多市場失靈／管制之謬誤。數以百計的學術論文陸續發表，紛紛重新發現這個古老真理，正如諾貝爾經濟學獎得主 George Stigler 在 1971 年所寫的那樣，「作為規管，產業所接受的管制通常都被設計來服務於產業利益」。

近年來這類研究範疇不斷擴張，揭露大企業通常支持並遊說政府實施「安全」與環境規管，因為大企業心知肚明，企業要符合這些法規所費不貲，那些規模較小的競爭者可能因此面臨破產，此外，還可以嚇唬那些想要踏入這個領域的其他對手。企業早就發現，由政府強制執行的卡特爾協議，才是唯一可以長久運作的卡特爾。私有的卡特爾協議總會因為卡特爾成員之間的欺瞞而分解。舉例來說，鐵路與貨運產業就透過聯邦商業委員會（ Interstate Commerce Commission ）而取得幾十年來的卡特爾。 ICC 在這些產業中制訂壟斷價格，並且禁止競爭。民航委員會（ Civil Aeronautics Board ）直到 1970 年代末被解散之前，都透過禁止價格競爭來卡特爾化民航產業。二十世紀初，美國境內的電力產業競爭激烈，但在州政府與地方政府紛紛成立壟斷機構之後，競爭宣告終止。 AT&T 也享受了好幾十年政府核准的壟斷。

就在政府核准之壟斷日益漸增的期間，美聯儲的成立是為了卡特爾化銀行產業。正如 Murray Rothbard 在《 A History of Money and Banking in the United States 》中所述：

這個國家的金融菁英們該為美聯儲制度負責，美聯儲為政府創造與核准的卡特爾機制，讓這個國家的銀行得以通膨貨幣供應…同時又不會受到存戶與票據持有者要求兌現的壓力。

換句話說，賦予美聯儲更多的監管權，就像給酒鬼再一瓶威士忌、給謀殺犯再一把槍、給銀行搶匪多一副面具一樣。事情只會更糟，不會更好。

【譯摘】戰爭集體主義 - 第一部分 - 介紹

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

【譯摘】戰爭集體主義 - 第一部分 - 介紹

文：吳莉瑋
圖：Jayel Aheram via photopin cc

龜速更新的翻譯，預計下部發行的是Murray N. Rothbard的War Collectivism，本書集結戰爭集體主義的相關文章，主要分為兩部分，依照慣例，可在mises.org上找到原書。

由於目前個人的職業生涯進入每天忙著籌米的狀態，往後只能改由邊翻譯邊上稿，翻譯完了再找時間集結成冊的模式來更新這裡，每次只能擠出一點點內容，還請見諒…

戰爭集體主義：第一次世界大戰中的政客、企業與知識份子

第一部分

第一次世界大戰中的戰爭集體主義

作者：Murray N. Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

比起任一時期，第一次世界大戰是美國商業體系的關鍵分水嶺。它是「戰爭集體主義」，一項主要由大企業既得利益者透過中央政府為媒介而實行的整體規劃經濟，它也成為二十世紀以來國家資本主義的模範、先例以及靈感來源。

這種靈感與先例不僅出現在美國，同樣也出現在一戰主要參與國的戰時經濟中。戰爭集體主義向西方世界的大企業既得利益者們展示了可能性，表明先前大規模自由市場與資本主義，可以激進地轉變成由大政府透過廣泛、普遍之政府干預與規劃所主導的新秩序，目的是為了提供補助與企業壟斷特權的網路，特別是大企業。具體而言，經濟在政府的主持下被卡特爾化，透過提高價格、生產定額與限制這些典型的壟斷模式；而軍事合約以及其他政府合約也能被分配到受政府青睞的企業生產者手上。越來越難以控制的勞動階級也可以被馴服，透過鼓吹願意與政府合作的工會制度，並將工會領導人攏絡為規劃體制的參與者，從而讓勞動階級也服務於這個國家壟斷資本主義的新秩序。

透過不同方式，這種新秩序其實是老式重商主義的翻新，帶著重商主義的侵略性帝國主義、國家主義、軍事主義，以及巨大的政府補助與大企業利益的壟斷特權。它在二十世紀的形式中，當然，這個新重商主義側重工業而不是貿易商船，因為工業革命使得製造與工業主導了經濟。但這個新重商主義還有其他更重要的差別。原始的重商主義具有相當明顯的階級規則、藐視普通工人與消費者。[1] 相反的，新重商主義披著促進整體國家利益的幌子、化身勞動代表推動工人福利，為了全體公民的福祉而為。這些都替二十世紀自由主義的新意識型態提供其亟需的公眾支持與合法性，從而被拿來替新秩序貼金。將這個新自由主義與前一世紀的小政府自由主義相比，新自由主義宣稱這個新系統將促進整體社會的福祉，與以往剝削重商主義的舊系統有顯著差異。作為這些新「企業」自由派努力提供思想辯論的回報，這個新系統提供了這些自由派社會地位、收入以及規劃這個精密系統與替其宣傳的權力。

在他們的角色中，自由派知識份子不僅獲取了社會地位以及新秩序中的些許權力，他們也同時滿足於相信這個新的政府干預系統能夠解決兩個主要替代方案的缺點與社會衝突：小政府資本主義與馬克思的無產階級社會主義。這些知識份子將新秩序視為整體福祉的代表，在大政府的運作下替所有階級帶來和諧與協作。在自由派的眼裡，這個新秩序提供國家一個中間路線，相比左派或右派的「極端」，新秩序是「重要中心」。

此書轉載《A New History of Leviathan》，Ronald Radosh與Murray N. Rothbard編（紐約：E.P. Dutton & Co.，1972年），頁66–110。

1 有關重商主義者對勞動的態度，參Edgar S. Furniss著之《The Position of the Laborer in a System of Nationalism》（紐約：Kelley & Millman，1957年）。Furniss指出，英國重商主義者William Petyt稱勞動為「資本財…原料與未加工物…是為了交到最高權力的手中，在他們的謹慎處置中改善、管理，並或多或少塑造成益處」。Furniss加註道：「這些作家的特徵，就是他們篤定地相信民間力量『改善、管理與塑造』國家經濟原料的智慧。」（頁41）

【書摘】For A New Liberty｜Murray Rothbard

Mon, 02 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【書摘】For A New Liberty｜Murray Rothbard

摘錄：For A New Liberty｜Murray Rothbard

文：吳莉瑋
圖：Ludwig von Mises Institute

《For A New Liberty》是Murray Rothbard的自由意志主義通識，內容涵蓋了歷史發展（個人認為這部分最為有趣）、所謂「自由主張」的派別比較、全面性的社會議題評論，最後還有未來發展的目標、展望與策略。

不了解自由意志主義（Libertarianism），或者是對於各種細想之下互相矛盾的自由主張感到一頭霧水，相當適合把這本書當成睡前閱讀，看著Rothbard特有的分析以及他一貫的價值觀，總會讓人每晚帶著恍然大悟的驚喜入睡。

本書沒有複雜的經濟學或難懂得專業術語堆砌，相反的，透過歷史巡禮的深度以及現狀議題探討的廣度，即便是自我認定為Rothbadian的我，也會對自己的政治傾向與價值觀有著另一層體會。

最後不免要提醒自己，對於任何看法與觀點，縱使那廂說得有條有理，不經過一輪親身細想的思辨吸收，都不是自己的，不是自己的思想，就沒有辦法抓定心來貫徹，幸好，有這麼一位劇細靡遺地將幾乎所有議題與自由價值觀給連成一氣的理論家，越是閱讀，越是耳目一新。

【書摘】

Page 4 | Location 55-57 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:08:16 PM

It was to defend a pure liberty against the compromises and corruptions of conservatism—beginning with Nixon but continuing with Reagan and the Bush presidencies—that inspired the birth of Rothbardian political economy.

Page 5 | Location 64-68 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:12:42 PM

trimming and compromising for the sake of the times or the audience was just not his way. He knew that he had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to present the full package of libertarianism in all its glory, and he was not about to pass it up. And thus do we read here: not just a case for cutting government but eliminating it altogether, not just an argument for assigning property rights but for deferring to the market even on questions of contract enforcement, and not just a case for cutting welfare but for banishing the entire welfare-warfare state.

Page 6 | Location 81-83 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:15:02 PM

The book is still regarded as “dangerous” precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again.

Page 7 | Location 103-107 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:09:42 PM

Historians have long debated the precise causes of the American Revolution: Were they constitutional, economic, political, or ideological? We now realize that, being libertarians, the revolutionaries saw no conflict between moral and political rights on the one hand and economic freedom on the other. On the contrary, they perceived civil and moral liberty, political independence, and the freedom to trade and produce as all part of one unblemished system, what Adam Smith was to call, in the same year that the Declaration of Independence was written, the “obvious and simple system of natural liberty.”

Page 10 | Location 142-144 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:14:52 PM

While Locke had written of the revolutionary pressure which could properly be exerted when government became destructive of liberty, Trenchard and Gordon pointed out that government always tended toward such destruction of individual rights.

Cato declared, Power must be kept small and faced with eternal vigilance and hostility on the part of the public to make sure that it always stays within its narrow bounds:

Page 13 | Location 188-195 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:24:18 PM

America, above all countries, was born in an explicitly libertarian revolution, a revolution against empire; against taxation, trade monopoly, and regulation; and against militarism and executive power. The revolution resulted in governments unprecedented in restrictions placed on their power. But while there was very little institutional resistance in America to the onrush of liberalism, there did appear, from the very beginning, powerful elite forces, especially among the large merchants and planters, who wished to retain the restrictive British “mercantilist” system of high taxes, controls, and monopoly privileges conferred by the government. These groups wished for a strong central and even imperial government; in short, they wanted the British system without Great Britain. These conservative and reactionary forces first appeared during the Revolution, and later formed the Federalist party and the Federalist administration in the 1790s.

Page 14 | Location 195-200 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:25:58 PM

During the nineteenth century, however, the libertarian impetus continued. The Jeffersonian and Jacksonian movements, the Democratic-Republican and then the Democratic parties, explicitly strived for the virtual elimination of government from American life. It was to be a government without a standing army or navy; a government without debt and with no direct federal or excise taxes and virtually no import tariffs—that is, with negligible levels of taxation and expenditure; a government that does not engage in public works or internal improvements; a government that does not control or regulate; a government that leaves money and banking free, hard, and uninflated; in short, in the words of H.L. Mencken’s ideal, “a government that barely escapes being no government at all.”

The Jacksonian libertarians had a plan: it was to be eight years of Andrew Jackson as president, to be followed by eight years of Van Buren, then eight years of Benton. After twentyfour years of a triumphant Jacksonian Democracy, the Menckenian virtually no-government ideal was to have been achieved. It was by no means an impossible dream, since it was clear that the Democratic party had quickly become the normal majority party in the country. The mass of the people were enlisted in the libertarian cause. Jackson had his eight years, which destroyed the central bank and retired the public debt, and Van Buren had four, which separated the federal government from the banking system. But the 1840 election was an anomaly, as Van Buren was defeated by an unprecedentedly demagogic campaign engineered by the first great modern campaign chairman, Thurlow Weed, who pioneered in all the campaign frills—catchy slogans, buttons, songs, parades, etc.—with which we are now familiar.

Page 15 | Location 216-218 | Added on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:31:37 PM

in 1844, the Democrats would be prepared to counter with the same campaign tactics, and they were clearly slated to recapture the presidency that year. Van Buren, of course, was supposed to resume the triumphal Jacksonian march. But then a fateful event occurred: the Democratic party was sundered on the critical issue of slavery, or rather the expansion of slavery into a new territory.

Slavery, the grave antilibertarian flaw in the libertarianism of the Democratic program, had arisen to wreck the party and its libertarianism completely.

The Civil War, in addition to its unprecedented bloodshed and devastation, was used by the triumphal and virtually one-party Republican regime to drive through its statist, formerly Whig, program: national governmental power, protective tariff, subsidies to big business, inflationary paper money, resumed control of the federal government over banking, large-scale internal improvements, high excise taxes, and, during the war, conscription and an income tax. Furthermore, the states came to lose their previous right of secession and other states’ powers as opposed to federal governmental powers. The Democratic party resumed its libertarian ways after the war, but it now had to face a far longer and more difficult road to arrive at liberty than it had before.

Page 16 | Location 240-242 | Added on Thursday, July 18, 2013 11:59:34 AM

It is interesting to note that, by the early nineteenth century, the laissez-faire forces were known as “liberals” and “radicals” (for the purer and more consistent among them), and the opposition that wished to preserve or go back to the Old Order were broadly known as “conservatives.”

Page 17 | Location 254-259 | Added on Thursday, July 18, 2013 12:02:53 PM

For the old conservatism’s frank hatred and contempt for the mass of the public, the new conservatives substituted duplicity and demagogy. The new conservatives wooed the masses with the following line: “We, too, favor industrialism and a higher standard of living. But, to accomplish such ends, we must regulate industry for the public good; we must substitute organized cooperation for the dog-eat-dog of the free and competitive marketplace; and, above all, we must substitute for the nation-destroying liberal tenets of peace and free trade the nation-glorifying measures of war, protectionism, empire, and military prowess.” For all of these changes, of course, Big Government rather than minimal government was required.

Page 18 | Location 259-265 | Added on Thursday, July 18, 2013 12:08:51 PM

in the late nineteenth century, statism and Big Government returned, but this time displaying a proindustrial and pro-general-welfare face. The Old Order returned, but this time the beneficiaries were shuffled a bit; they were not so much the nobility, the feudal landlords, the army, the bureaucracy, and privileged merchants as they were the army, the bureaucracy, the weakened feudal landlords, and especially the privileged manufacturers. Led by Bismarck in Prussia, the New Right fashioned a right-wing collectivism based on war, militarism, protectionism, and the compulsory cartelization of business and industry—a giant network of controls, regulations, subsidies, and privileges which forged a great partnership of Big Government with certain favored elements in big business and industry.

Page 20 | Location 294-299 | Added on Thursday, July 18, 2013 11:14:46 PM

By stressing the virtue of tradition and of irrational symbols, the conservatives could gull the public into continuing privileged hierarchical rule, and to continue to worship the nation-state and its war-making machine. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the new conservatism adopted the trappings of reason and of “science.” Now it was science that allegedly required rule of the economy and of society by technocratic “experts.” In exchange for spreading this message to the public, the new breed of intellectuals was rewarded with jobs and prestige as apologists for the New Order and as planners and regulators of the newly cartelized economy and society.

To insure the dominance of the new statism over public opinion, to insure that the public’s consent would be engineered, the governments of the Western world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries moved to seize control over education, over the minds of men: over the universities, and over general education through compulsory school attendance laws and a network of public schools.

One of the ways that the new statist intellectuals did their work was to change the meaning of old labels, and therefore to manipulate in the minds of the public the emotional connotations attached to such labels.

Page 21 | Location 311-313 | Added on Thursday, July 18, 2013 11:17:34 PM

If the laissez-faire liberals were confused by the new recrudescence of statism and mercantilism as “progressive” corporate statism, another reason for the decay of classical liberalism by the end of the nineteenth century was the growth of a peculiar new movement: socialism.

Page 22 | Location 328-330 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 12:10:33 PM

Socialism was a confused and hybrid movement because it tried to achieve the liberal goals of freedom, peace, and industrial harmony and growth—goals which can only be achieved through liberty and the separation of government from virtually everything—by imposing the old conservative means of statism, collectivism, and hierarchical privilege.

But the worst thing about the rise of the socialist movement was that it was able to outflank the classical liberals “on the Left”: that is, as the party of hope, of radicalism, of revolution in the Western World.

Page 23 | Location 346-347 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 12:19:04 PM

after achieving impressive partial victories against statism, the classical liberals began to lose their radicalism,

Instead of using partial victories as a stepping-stone for evermore pressure, the classical liberals began to lose their fervor for change and for purity of principle. They began to rest content with trying to safeguard their existing victories, and thus turned themselves from a radical into a conservative movement—”conservative” in the sense of being content to preserve the status quo.

In short, the liberals left the field wide open for socialism to become the party of hope and of radicalism, and even for the later corporatists to pose as “liberals” and “progressives” as against the “extreme right wing” and “conservative” libertarian classical liberals,

Page 24 | Location 357-359 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 1:14:28 PM

In contrast to the eighteenth-century liberals’ total hostility to the executive and to bureaucracy, the nineteenth-century liberals tolerated and even welcomed the buildup of executive power and of an entrenched oligarchic civil service bureaucracy.

Page 25 | Location 371-373 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 1:22:21 PM

There were two grave consequences of this shift from natural rights to utilitarianism. First, the purity of the goal, the consistency of the principle, was inevitably shattered. For whereas the natural-rights libertarian seeking morality and justice cleaves militantly to pure principle, the utilitarian only values liberty as an ad hoc expedient.

Second, and equally important, it is rare indeed ever to find a utilitarian who is also radical, who burns for immediate abolition of evil and coercion.

The abolitionist is such because he wishes to eliminate wrong and injustice as rapidly as possible. In choosing this goal, there is no room for cool, ad hoc weighing of cost and benefit.

Page 26 | Location 384-385 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 1:27:29 PM

The utilitarians wound up as apologists for the existing order, for the status quo, and hence were all too open to the charge by socialists and progressive corporatists that they were mere narrow-minded and conservative opponents of any and all change.

Generally, statist historians have smeared such social Darwinist laissez-faire liberals as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner as cruel champions of the extermination, or at least of the disappearance, of the socially “unfit.” Much of this was simply the dressing up of sound economic and sociological free-market doctrine in the then-fashionable trappings of evolutionism. But the really important and crippling aspect of their social Darwinism was the illegitimate carrying-over to the social sphere of the view that species (or later, genes) change very, very slowly, after millennia of time.

Page 27 | Location 398-400 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 1:35:11 PM

In short, ignoring the fact that liberalism had had to break through the power of ruling elites by a series of radical changes and revolutions, the social Darwinists became conservatives preaching against any radical measures and in favor of only the most minutely gradual of changes.

Page 30 | Location 447-450 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 1:54:11 PM

The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion.

If no man may aggress against another; if, in short, everyone has the absolute right to be “free” from aggression, then this at once implies that the libertarian stands foursquare for what are generally known as “civil liberties”: the freedom to speak, publish, assemble, and to engage in such “victimless crimes” as pornography, sexual deviation, and prostitution (which the libertarian does not regard as “crimes” at all, since he defines a “crime” as violent invasion of someone else’s person or property). Furthermore, he regards conscription as slavery on a massive scale. And since war, especially modern war, entails the mass slaughter of civilians, the libertarian regards such conflicts as mass murder and therefore totally illegitimate. All of these positions are now considered “leftist” on the contemporary ideological scale.

Page 31 | Location 456-462 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:03:10 PM

On the other hand, since the libertarian also opposes invasion of the rights of private property, this also means that he just as emphatically opposes government interference with property rights or with the free-market economy through controls, regulations, subsidies, or prohibitions. For if every individual has the right to his own property without having to suffer aggressive depredation, then he also has the right to give away his property (bequest and inheritance) and to exchange it for the property of others (free contract and the free market economy) without interference. The libertarian favors the right to unrestricted private property and free exchange; hence, a system of “laissez-faire capitalism.” In current terminology again, the libertarian position on property and economics would be called “extreme right wing.”

the libertarian sees no inconsistency in being “leftist” on some issues and “rightist” on others. On the contrary, he sees his own position as virtually the only consistent one, consistent on behalf of the liberty of every individual.

The libertarian, in short, insists on applying the general moral law to everyone, and makes no special exemptions for any person or group.

Page 32 | Location 488-489 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:07:45 PM

The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the State among its hapless subjects.

Page 33 | Location 498-500 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:10:13 PM

If anyone but the government proceeded to “tax,” this would clearly be considered coercion and thinly disguised banditry. Yet the mystical trappings of “sovereignty” have so veiled the process that only libertarians are prepared to call taxation what it is: legalized and organized theft on a grand scale.

Roughly, there are three broad types of foundation for the libertarian axiom, corresponding to three kinds of ethical philosophy: the emotivist, the utilitarian, and the natural rights viewpoint.

The emotivists assert that they take liberty or nonaggression as their premise purely on subjective, emotional grounds.

Page 34 | Location 506-507 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:14:29 PM

By ultimately taking themselves outside the realm of rational discourse, the emotivists thereby insure the lack of general success of their own cherished doctrine.

Another problem with the utilitarian is that he will rarely adopt a principle as an absolute and consistent yardstick to apply to the varied concrete situations of the real world. He will only use a principle, at best, as a vague guideline or aspiration, as a tendency which he may choose to override at any time.

To say that a utilitarian cannot be “trusted” to maintain libertarian principle in every specific application may sound harsh, but it puts the case fairly.

Page 35 | Location 532-533 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:17:48 PM

Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being “doctrinaire,” to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines.

“Natural rights” is the cornerstone of a political philosophy which, in turn, is embedded in a greater structure of “natural law.”

Page 36 | Location 535-537 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:18:54 PM

Natural law theory rests on the insight that we live in a world of more than one—in fact, a vast number—of entities, and that each entity has distinct and specific properties, a distinct “nature,” which can be investigated by man’s reason, by his sense perception and mental faculties.

Specifically, while the behavior of plants and at least the lower animals is determined by their biological nature or perhaps by their “instincts,” the nature of man is such that each individual person must, in order to act, choose his own ends and employ his own means in order to attain them.

Since men can think, feel, evaluate, and act only as individuals, it becomes vitally necessary for each man’s survival and prosperity that he be free to learn, choose, develop his faculties, and act upon his knowledge and values.

Violent interference with a man’s learning and choices is therefore profoundly “antihuman”; it violates the natural law of man’s needs.

Page 37 | Location 552-553 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:22:21 PM

The libertarian welcomes the process of voluntary exchange and cooperation between freely acting individuals; what he abhors is the use of violence to cripple such voluntary cooperation and force someone to choose and act in ways different from what his own mind dictates.

The right to self-ownership asserts the absolute right of each man, by virtue of his (or her) being a human being, to “own” his or her own body; that is, to control that body free of coercive interference.

Page 45 | Location 679-682 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:39:51 PM

There is no existing entity called “society”; there are only interacting individuals. To say that “society” should own land or any other property in common, then, must mean that a group of oligarchs—in practice, government bureaucrats—should own the property, and at the expense of expropriating the creator or the homesteader who had originally brought this product into existence.

Page 46 | Location 692-695 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 10:52:06 PM

The pioneer, the homesteader, the first user and transformer of this land, is the man who first brings this simple valueless thing into production and social use. It is difficult to see the morality of depriving him of ownership in favor of people who have never gotten within a thousand miles of the land, and who may not even know of the existence of the property over which they are supposed to have a claim.

Page 49 | Location 738-739 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 11:03:44 PM

The libertarian, however, is an individualist; he believes that one of the prime errors in social theory is to treat “society” as if it were an actually existing entity.

The individualist holds that only individuals exist, think, feel, choose, and act; and that “society” is not a living entity but simply a label for a set of interacting individuals.

Treating society as a thing that chooses and acts, then, serves to obscure the real forces at work. If, in a small community, ten people band together to rob and expropriate three others then this is clearly and evidently a case of a group of individuals acting in concert against another group. In this situation, if the ten people presumed to refer to themselves as “society” acting in “its” interest, the rationale would be laughed out of court; even the ten robbers would probably be too shamefaced to use this sort of argument. But let their size increase, and this kind of obfuscation becomes rife and succeeds in duping the public.

Page 50 | Location 757-759 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 11:09:02 PM

The individualist view of “society” has been summed up in the phrase: “Society” is everyone but yourself. Put thus bluntly, this analysis can be used to consider those cases where “society” is treated, not only as a superhero with superrights, but as a supervillain on whose shoulders massive blame is placed.

Consider the typical view that not the individual criminal, but “society,” is responsible for his crime. Take, for example, the case where Smith robs or murders Jones. The “old-fashioned” view is that Smith is responsible for his act. The modern liberal counters that “society” is responsible. This sounds both sophisticated and humanitarian, until we apply the individualist perspective. Then we see that what liberals are really saying is that everyone but Smith, including of course the victim Jones, is responsible for the crime. Put this baldly, almost everyone would recognize the absurdity of this position. But conjuring up the fictive entity “society” obfuscates this process.

Nonsense this obvious can be circumvented only by conjuring up society as devil, as evil being apart from people and what they do.”

Page 51 | Location 777-781 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 11:12:21 PM

The central core of the libertarian creed, then, is to establish the absolute right to private property of every man: first, in his own body, and second, in the previously unused natural resources which he first transforms by his labor. These two axioms, the right of self-ownership and the right to “homestead,” establish the complete set of principles of the libertarian system. The entire libertarian doctrine then becomes the spinning out and the application of all the implications of this central doctrine.

Page 52 | Location 789-794 | Added on Saturday, July 20, 2013 11:14:19 PM

Further, a man may exchange not only the tangible objects he owns but also his own labor, which of course he owns as well. Thus, Z may sell his labor services of teaching farmer X’s children in return for some of the farmer’s produce. It so happens that the free-market economy, and the specialization and division of labor it implies, is by far the most productive form of economy known to man, and has been responsible for industrialization and for the modern economy on which civilization has been built. This is a fortunate utilitarian result of the free market, but it is not, to the libertarian, the prime reason for his support of this system.

Page 54 | Location 821-822 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 12:48:47 PM

Freedom is a condition in which a person’s ownership rights in his own body and his legitimate material property are not invaded, are not aggressed against.

On the other hand, to the libertarian, “crime” is an act of aggression against a man’s property right, either in his own person or his materially owned objects. Crime is an invasion, by the use of violence, against a man’s property and therefore against his liberty.

Page 55 | Location 827-829 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 12:49:50 PM

The libertarian, then, is clearly an individualist but not an egalitarian. The only “equality” he would advocate is the equal right of every man to the property in his own person, to the property in the unused resources he “homesteads,” and to the property of others he has acquired either through voluntary exchange or gift.

Page 56 | Location 850-852 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 12:53:06 PM

Property rights are human rights, and are essential to the human rights which liberals attempt to maintain. The human right of a free press depends upon the human right of private property in newsprint.

In fact, there are no human rights that are separable from property rights. The human right of free speech is simply the property right to hire an assembly hall from the owners, or to own one oneself; the human right of a free press is the property right to buy materials and then print leaflets or books and to sell them to those who are willing to buy. There is no extra “right of free speech” or free press beyond the property rights we can enumerate in any given case.

Page 58 | Location 884-886 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 12:59:17 PM

in the system of criminal punishment in the libertarian world, the emphasis would never be, as it is now, on “society’s” jailing the criminal; the emphasis would necessarily be on compelling the criminal to make restitution to the victim of his crime.

Page 59 | Location 892-893 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 1:01:08 PM

the critical difference between libertarians and other people is not in the area of private crime; the critical difference is their view of the role of the State—the government.

For libertarians regard the State as the supreme, the eternal, the best organized aggressor against the persons and property of the mass of the public. All States everywhere, whether democratic, dictatorial, or monarchical, whether red, white, blue, or brown.

Service to the State is supposed to excuse all actions that would be considered immoral or criminal if committed by “private” citizens. The distinctive feature of libertarians is that they coolly and uncompromisingly apply the general moral law to people acting in their roles as members of the State apparatus. Libertarians make no exceptions.

Page 60 | Location 908-909 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 1:04:31 PM

the “rightist” libertarian is not opposed to inequality, and his concept of “coercion” applies only to the use of violence.

Page 61 | Location 924-925 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 1:07:11 PM

To guard against private criminals we have been able to turn to the State and its police; but who can guard us against the State itself? No one.

as we have discovered in the past century, no constitution can interpret or enforce itself; it must be interpreted by men. And if the ultimate power to interpret a constitution is given to the government’s own Supreme Court, then the inevitable tendency is for the Court to continue to place its imprimatur on ever-broader powers for its own government. Furthermore, the highly touted “checks and balances” and “separation of powers” in the American government are flimsy indeed, since in the final analysis all of these divisions are part of the same government and are governed by the same set of rulers.

Page 64 | Location 967-968 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 11:51:14 PM

Crime is crime, aggression against rights is aggression, no matter how many citizens agree to the oppression. There is nothing sacrosanct about the majority; the lynch mob, too, is the majority in its own domain.

Page 65 | Location 982-985 | Added on Sunday, July 21, 2013 11:56:08 PM

Nowhere has the coercive and parasitic nature of the State been more clearly limned than by the great late nineteenth-century German sociologist, Franz Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two and only two mutually exclusive means for man to obtain wealth. One, the method of production and voluntary exchange, the method of the free market, Oppenheimer termed the “economic means”; the other, the method of robbery by the use of violence, he called the “political means.”

In short, private crime is, at best, sporadic and uncertain; the parasitism is ephemeral, and the coercive, parasitic lifeline can be cut at any time by the resistance of the victims. The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for predation on the property of the producers; it makes certain, secure, and relatively “peaceful” the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society.

Page 67 | Location 1025-1027 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 12:07:20 AM

If the State is a group of plunderers, who then constitutes the State? Clearly, the ruling elite consists at any time of (a) the full-time apparatus—the kings, politicians, and bureaucrats who man and operate the State; and (b) the groups who have maneuvered to gain privileges, subsidies, and benefices from the State.

Page 69 | Location 1049-1051 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 12:10:01 AM

If states have everywhere been run by an oligarchic group of predators, how have they been able to maintain their rule over the mass of the population? The answer, as the philosopher David Hume pointed out over two centuries ago, is that in the long run every government, no matter how dictatorial, rests on the support of the majority of its subjects.

Page 70 | Location 1066-1070 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 12:14:19 AM

The masses do not create their own abstract ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and promulgated by the body of intellectuals, who become the effective “opinion moulders” in society. And since it is precisely a moulding of opinion on behalf of the rulers that the State almost desperately needs, this forms a firm basis for the age-old alliance of the intellectuals and the ruling classes of the State.

Page 74 | Location 1131-1133 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 12:32:19 AM

Since most men tend to love their homeland, the identification of that land and its population with the State is a means of making natural patriotism work to the State’s advantage. If, then, “Ruritania” is attacked by “Walldavia,” the first task of the Ruritanian State and its intellectuals is to convince the people of Ruritania that the attack is really upon them, and not simply upon their ruling class.

Page 75 | Location 1140-1143 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 12:34:00 AM

Often the call upon the public to yield more resources is couched in a stern call by the ruling elite for more “sacrifices” for the national or the common weal. Somehow, however, while the public is supposed to sacrifice and curtail its “materialistic greed,” the sacrifices are always one way. The State does not sacrifice; the State eagerly grabs more and more of the public’s material resources.

Page 76 | Location 1148-1151 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 12:35:12 AM

The general opinion—carefully cultivated, of course, by the State itself—is that men enter politics or government purely out of devoted concern for the common good and the public weal. What gives the gentlemen of the State apparatus their superior moral patina? Perhaps it is the dim and instinctive knowledge of the populace that the State is engaged in systematic theft and predation, and they may feel that only a dedication to altruism on the part of the State makes these actions tolerable.

For example, a thief who presumed to justify his theft by saying that he was really helping his victims by his spending, thus giving retail trade a needed boost, would be hooted down without delay. But when this same theory is clothed in Keynesian mathematical equations and impressive references to the “multiplier effect,” it carries far more conviction with a bamboozled public.

The increasing use of scientific jargon, especially in the social sciences, has permitted intellectuals to weave apologia for State rule which rival the ancient priestcraft in obscurantism. For example, a thief who presumed to justify his theft by saying that he was really helping his victims by his spending, thus giving retail trade a needed boost, would be hooted down without delay. But when this same theory is clothed in Keynesian mathematical equations and impressive references to the “multiplier effect,” it carries far more conviction with a bamboozled public.

Page 88 | Location 1336-1337 | Added on Monday, July 22, 2013 1:12:55 AM

It is only because we have become accustomed over thousands of years to the existence of the State that we now give precisely this kind of absurd answer to

It is only because we have become accustomed over thousands of years to the existence of the State that we now give precisely this kind of absurd answer to the problem of social protection and defense.

The libertarian creed can now be summed up as (1) the absolute right of every man to the ownership of his own body; (2) the equally absolute right to own and therefore to control the material resources he has found and transformed; and (3) therefore, the absolute right to exchange or give away the ownership to such titles to whoever is willing to exchange or receive them. As we have seen, each of these steps involves property rights, but even if we call step (1) “personal” rights, we shall see that problems about “personal liberty” inextricably involve the rights of material property or free exchange. Or, briefly, the rights of personal liberty and “freedom of enterprise” almost invariably intertwine and cannot really be separated.

Page 96 | Location 1468-1472 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 12:41:27 AM

there can be no more blatant case of involuntary servitude than our entire system of conscription. Every youth is forced to register with the selective service system when he turns eighteen. He is compelled to carry his draft card at all times, and, at whatever time the federal government deems fit, he is seized by the authorities and inducted into the armed forces. There his body and will are no longer his own; he is subject to the dictates of the government; and he can be forced to kill and to place his own life in jeopardy if the authorities so decree. What else is involuntary servitude if not the draft?

Page 97 | Location 1476-1481 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 2:38:25 PM

This act of conscripting is just as much a deed of unjustifiable aggression—of kidnapping and possibly murder—as the alleged aggression we are trying to guard ourselves against in the first place. If we add that the draftees owe their bodies and their lives, if necessary, to “society” or to “their country,” then we must retort: Who is this “society” or this “country” that is being used as a talisman to justify enslavement? It is simply all individuals in the territorial area except the youths being conscripted. “Society” and “country” are in this case mythical abstractions that are being used to cloak the naked use of coercion to promote the interests of specific individuals.

On the market, people can and do obtain food, shelter, clothing, medical care, etc. Why can’t they hire defenders as well? Indeed, there are plenty of people being hired every day to perform dangerous services: forest firefighters, rangers, test pilots, and… police and private guards and watchmen. Why can’t soldiers be hired in the same way?

Page 99 | Location 1516-1517 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 2:46:33 PM

If a man signs up for seven years and then quits, he should be allowed to leave. He will lose pension rights, he will be morally criticized, he may be blacklisted from similar occupations, but he cannot, as a self-owner, be enslaved against his will.

Page 101 | Location 1543-1547 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:00:43 PM

It is no doubt convenient for a long-suffering public to be spared the disruptions of a strike. Yet the “solution” imposed was forced labor, pure and simple; the workers were coerced, against their will, into going back to work. There is no moral excuse, in a society claiming to be opposed to slavery and in a country which has outlawed involuntary servitude, for any legal or judicial action prohibiting strikes—or jailing union leaders who fail to comply. Slavery is all too often more convenient for the slavemasters.

Page 102 | Location 1549-1552 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:02:17 PM

But the remedy for this self-contradictory policy, as well as for the disruptive power of labor unions, is not to pass laws outlawing strikes; the remedy is to remove the substantial body of law, federal, state, and local, that confers special governmental privileges on labor unions. All that is needed, both for libertarian principle and for a healthy economy, is to remove and abolish these special privileges.

Given a choice, the natural tendency of the State is to add to its power, not to cut it down; and so we have the peculiar situation of the government first building up unions and then howling for restrictions against their power.

Page 103 | Location 1564-1567 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:05:19 PM

one branch of the Department of Agriculture pays farmers to restrict their production, while another branch of the same agency pays them to increase their productivity. Irrational, surely, from the point of view of the consumers and the taxpayers, but perfectly rational from the point of view of the subsidized farmers and of the growing power of the bureaucracy.

Similarly, the government’s seemingly contradictory policy on unions serves, first, to aggrandize the power of government over labor relations, and second, to foster a suitably integrated and Establishment-minded unionism as junior partner in government’s role over the economy.

Part of the essence of slavery, after all, is forced work for someone at little or no pay. But the income tax means that we sweat and earn income, only to see the government extract a large chunk of it by coercion for its own purposes. What is this but forced labor at no pay?

the employer is forced to expend time, labor, and money in the business of deducting and transmitting his employees’ taxes to the federal and state governments—yet the employer is not recompensed for this expenditure. What moral principle justifies the government’s forcing employers to act as its unpaid tax collectors?

Page 104 | Location 1589-1592 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:09:20 PM

To add insult to injury, the individual taxpayer, in filling out his tax form, is also forced by the government to work at no pay on the laborious and thankless task of reckoning how much he owes the government. Here again, he cannot charge the government for the cost and labor expended in making out his return. Furthermore, the law requiring everyone to fill out his tax form is a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, prohibiting the government from forcing anyone to incriminate himself.

Page 105 | Location 1597-1600 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:17:37 PM

The high costs of tax collecting for the government have another unfortunate effect—perhaps not unintended by the powers-that-be. These costs, readily undertaken by large businesses, impose a disproportionately heavy and often crippling cost upon the small employer. The large employer can then cheerfully shoulder the cost knowing that his small competitor bears far more of the burden.

But compelling testimony from anyone for any reason is forced labor—and, furthermore, is akin to kidnapping, since the person is forced to appear at the hearing or trial and is then forced to perform the labor of giving testimony.

Page 106 | Location 1619-1621 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:22:43 PM

The libertarian believes that a criminal loses his rights to the extent that he has aggressed upon the rights of another, and therefore that it is permissible to incarcerate the convicted criminal and subject him to involuntary servitude to that degree.

In the libertarian world, however, the purpose of imprisonment and punishment will undoubtedly be different; there will be no “district attorney” who presumes to try a case on behalf of a nonexistent “society,” and then punishes the criminal on “society’s” behalf. In that world the prosecutor will always represent the individual victim, and punishment will be exacted to redound to the benefit of that victim. Thus, a crucial focus of punishment will be to force the criminal to repay, make restitution to, the victim.

Page 108 | Location 1643-1646 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:28:27 PM

The policeman who apprehends a criminal and arrests him, and the judicial and penal authorities who incarcerate him before trial and conviction—all should be subject to the universal law. In short, if they have committed an error and the defendant turns out to be innocent, then these authorities should be subjected to the same penalties as anyone else who kidnaps and incarcerates an innocent man.

The granting of bail is a halfhearted attempt to ease the problem of incarceration before trial, but it is clear that the practice of bail discriminates against the poor. The discrimination persists even though the rise of the business of bail-bonding has permitted many more people to raise bail. The rebuttal that the courts are clogged with cases and therefore cannot grant a speedy trial is, of course, no defense of the system; on the contrary, this built-in inefficiency is an excellent argument for the abolition of government courts.

Page 109 | Location 1656-1663 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:32:05 PM

there is another cornerstone of the judicial system which has unaccountably gone unchallenged, even by libertarians, for far too long. This is compulsory jury service. There is little difference in kind, though obviously a great difference in degree, between compulsory jury duty and conscription; both are enslavement, both compel the individual to perform tasks on the State’s behalf and at the State’s bidding. And both are a function of pay at slave wages. Just as the shortage of voluntary enlistees in the army is a function of a pay scale far below the market wage, so the abysmally low pay for jury service insures that, even if jury “enlistments” were possible, not many would be forthcoming. Furthermore, not only are jurors coerced into attending and serving on juries, but sometimes they are locked behind closed doors for many weeks, and prohibited from reading newspapers. What is this but prison and involuntary servitude for noncriminals?

Have we forgotten that free labor is happier and more efficient than slave labor? The abolition of jury-slavery should be a vital plank in any libertarian platform. The judges are not conscripted; neither are the opposing lawyers; and neither should the jurors.

Page 110 | Location 1671-1672 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:34:25 PM

One of the most shameful areas of involuntary servitude in our society is the widespread practice of compulsory commitment, or involuntary hospitalization, of mental patients.

Compulsory commitment and compulsory “therapy,” moreover, are far more likely to aggravate and perpetuate “mental illness” than to cure it. All too often, Szasz points out, commitment is a device for incarcerating and thereby disposing of disagreeable relatives rather than a genuine aid to the patient.

The guiding rationale for compulsory commitment is that the patient might well be “dangerous to himself or to others.” The first grave flaw in this approach is that the police, or the law, is stepping in, not when an overt aggressive act is in the process of occurring, but on someone’s judgment that such an act might someday take place. But this provides an open sesame for unlimited tyranny.

Page 111 | Location 1688-1691 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:42:23 PM

the fundamental libertarian creed holds that every individual is capable of free will and free choice; that no one, however likely to commit a crime in the future based on a statistical or any other judgment, is inevitably determined to do so; and that, in any case, it is immoral, and itself invasive and criminal, to coerce anyone who is not an overt and present, rather than a suspected, criminal.

Page 113 | Location 1723-1724 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:51:37 PM

It is far more principled, as well as more truly humane, to treat every prisoner in accordance with objective criminal law.

Page 114 | Location 1739-1745 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 3:57:51 PM

In our view, “incitement” can only be considered a crime if we deny every man’s freedom of will and of choice, and assume that if A tells B and C: “You and him go ahead and riot!” that somehow B and C are then helplessly determined to proceed and commit the wrongful act. But the libertarian, who believes in freedom of the will, must insist that while it might be immoral or unfortunate for A to advocate a riot, that this is strictly in the realm of advocacy and should not be subject to legal penalty. Of course, if A also participates in the riot, then he himself becomes a rioter and is equally subject to punishment. Furthermore, if A is a boss in a criminal enterprise, and, as part of the crime, orders his henchmen: “You and him go and rob such and such a bank,” then of course A, according to the law of accessories, becomes a participant or even leader in the criminal enterprise itself.

If advocacy should never be a crime, then neither should “conspiracy to advocate,” for, in contrast to the unfortunate development of conspiracy law, “conspiring” (i.e., agreeing) to do something should never be more illegal than the act itself.

Page 115 | Location 1750-1752 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 4:00:12 PM

What the law of libel and slander does, in short, is to argue a “property right” of someone in his own reputation. Yet someone’s “reputation” is not and cannot be “owned” by him, since it is purely a function of the subjective feelings and attitudes held by other people.

A person’s reputation fluctuates all the time, in accordance with the attitudes and opinions of the rest of the population. Hence, speech attacking someone cannot be an invasion of his property right and therefore should not be subject to restriction or legal penalty. It is, of course, immoral to level false charges against another person, but once again, the moral and the legal are, for the libertarian, two very different categories.

Page 118 | Location 1792-1796 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 4:07:28 PM

In a purely libertarian world, where all streets are privately owned, the various street owners will decide, at any given time, whether to rent out the street for demonstrations, whom to rent it to, and what price to charge. It would then be clear that what is involved is not a “free speech” or “free assembly” question at all, but a question of property rights: of the right of a group to offer to rent a street, and of the right of the street owner either to accept or reject the offer.

Page 119 | Location 1809-1811 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:46:31 PM

Because every station and every broadcaster must always look over its shoulder at the FCC, free expression in broadcasting is a sham. Is it any wonder that television opinion, when it is expressed at all on controversial issues, tends to be blandly in favor of the “Establishment”?

Page 120 | Location 1827-1829 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:50:04 PM

The solution for radio and television? Simple: Treat these media precisely the same way the press and book publishers are treated. For both the libertarian and the believer in the American Constitution the government should withdraw completely from any role or interference in all media of expression.

Page 121 | Location 1836-1844 | Added on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:53:03 PM

One might ask what difference it makes to the consumer whether he pays the advertising costs indirectly or pays directly for each program he buys. The difference is that these are not the same consumers for the same products. The television advertiser, for example, is always interested in (a) gaining the widest possible viewing market; and (b) in gaining those particular viewers who will be most susceptible to his message. Hence, the programs will all be geared to the lowest common denominator in the audience, and particularly to those viewers most susceptible to the message; that is, those viewers who do not read newspapers or magazines, so that the message will not duplicate the ads he sees there. As a result, free-TV programs tend to be unimaginative, bland, and uniform. Pay-TV would mean that each program would search for its own market, and many specialized markets for specialized audiences would develop—just as highly lucrative specialized markets have developed in the magazine and book publishing fields. The quality of programs would be higher and the offerings far more diverse.

We have to pay a certain amount for a loaf of bread, for shoes, for dresses because they are all scarce. If they were not scarce but superabundant like air, they would be free, and no one would have to worry about their production or allocation.

Page 123 | Location 1864-1871 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:00:49 AM

Most people believe that this is precisely the reason the airwaves were nationalized; that before the Radio Act of 1927, stations interfered with each other’s signals and chaos ensued, and the federal government was finally forced to step in to bring order and make a radio industry feasible at last. But this is historical legend, not fact. The actual history is precisely the opposite. For when interference on the same channel began to occur, the injured party took the airwave aggressors into court, and the courts were beginning to bring order out of the chaos by very successfully applying the common law theory of property rights—in very many ways similar to the libertarian theory—to this new technological area. In short, the courts were beginning to assign property rights in the airwaves to their “homesteading” users. It was after the federal government saw the likelihood of this new extension of private property that it rushed in to nationalize the airwaves, using alleged chaos as the excuse.

Page 125 | Location 1911-1917 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:07:01 AM

Neither side deals with the crucial point: that the good, bad, or indifferent consequences of pornography, while perhaps an interesting problem in its own right, is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not it should be outlawed. The libertarian holds that it is not the business of the law—the use of retaliatory violence—to enforce anyone’s conception of morality. It is not the business of the law—even if this were practically possible, which is, of course, most unlikely—to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright. This is for each individual to decide for himself. It is only the business of legal violence to defend people against the use of violence, to defend them from violent invasions of their person or property. But if the government presumes to outlaw pornography, it itself becomes the genuine outlaw—for it is invading the property rights of people to produce, sell, buy, or possess pornographic material.

Page 126 | Location 1923-1924 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:51:37 AM

To outlaw violent films because they might someday induce someone to commit a crime is a denial of man’s free will, and a total denial, of course, of the right of those who will not commit crimes to see the film.

It should be clear, too, that prohibition of pornography is an invasion of property right, of the right to produce, sell, buy, and own.

Sometimes it seems that the beau ideal of many conservatives, as well as of many liberals, is to put everyone into a cage and coerce him into doing what the conservatives or liberals believe to be the moral thing. They would of course be differently styled cages, but they would be cages just the same.

Page 127 | Location 1937-1937 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:53:52 AM

The concept of “morality” makes no sense unless the moral act is freely chosen.

The libertarian, in contrast to so many conservatives and liberals, does not want to place man in any cage. What he wants for everyone is freedom, the freedom to act morally or immorally, as each man shall decide.

Page 129 | Location 1962-1963 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 1:04:24 AM

If labor and persons in general are to be free, then so should there be freedom for prostitution. Prostitution is a voluntary sale of a labor service, and the government has no right to prohibit or restrict such sales.

It should be clear that advocacy of freedom for prostitution does not, for the libertarian, in the least imply advocacy of prostitution itself.

Page 131 | Location 1992-1994 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 1:09:21 AM

If we are to treat the fetus as having the same rights as humans, then let us ask: What human has the right to remain, unbidden, as an unwanted parasite within some other human being’s body? This is the nub of the issue: the absolute right of every person and hence every woman, to the ownership of her own body.

Even in the stronger case where the mother originally wanted the child, the mother, as the property owner in her own body, has the right to change her mind and to eject it.

Wiretapping is a contemptible invasion of privacy and of property right, and of course should be outlawed as an invasive act.

Page 132 | Location 2017-2021 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 1:17:37 AM

It is proper to invade the property of a thief, for example, who has himself invaded to a far greater extent the property of others. Suppose the police decide that John Jones is a jewel thief. They tap his wires, and use this evidence to convict Jones of the crime. We might say that this tapping is legitimate, and should go unpunished: provided, however, that if Jones should prove not to be a thief, the police and the judges who may have issued the court order for the tap are now to be adjudged criminals themselves and sent to jail for their crime of unjust wiretapping.

Page 133 | Location 2023-2026 | Added on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 1:18:16 AM

Certainly equality of liberty requires that the law applies to everyone; therefore any invasion of the property of a non-criminal by anyone should be outlawed, regardless of who committed the deed. The policeman who guessed wrong and thereby aggressed against a noncriminal should therefore be considered just as guilty as any “private” wiretapper.

Page 135 | Location 2069-2070 | Added on Thursday, July 25, 2013 9:17:57 AM

Only the overt commission of a crime should be illegal, and the way to combat crimes committed under the influence of alcohol is to be more diligent about the crimes themselves, not to outlaw the alcohol.

Page 136 | Location 2075-2077 | Added on Thursday, July 25, 2013 9:19:35 AM

Once again: Every man has the right to choose. Propagandize against cigarettes as much as you want, but leave the individual free to run his own life. Otherwise, we may as well outlaw all sorts of possible carcinogenic agents—including tight shoes, improperly fitting false teeth, excessive exposure to the sun, as well as excessive intake of ice cream, eggs, and butter which might lead to heart disease.

Page 137 | Location 2086-2090 | Added on Thursday, July 25, 2013 9:26:11 AM

The common law makes a vital distinction between a crime that is a malum in se and one that is merely a malum prohibitum. A malum in se is an act which the mass of the people instinctively feel is a reprehensible crime which should be punished. This coincides roughly with the libertarians’ definition of a crime as an invasion of person or property: assault, theft, and murder. Other crimes are activities made into crimes by government edict: it is in this far more widely tolerated area that police corruption occurs.

Page 139 | Location 2118-2119 | Added on Thursday, July 25, 2013 11:30:51 AM

If, as libertarians believe, every individual has the right to own his person and property, it then follows that he has the right to employ violence to defend himself against the violence of criminal aggressors.

Page 140 | Location 2131-2135 | Added on Tuesday, July 30, 2013 4:28:48 PM

It should be clear that no physical object is in itself aggressive; any object, whether it be a gun, a knife, or a stick, can be used for aggression, for defense, or for numerous other purposes unconnected with crime. It makes no more sense to outlaw or restrict the purchase and ownership of guns than it does to outlaw the possession of knives, clubs, hatpins, or stones. And how are all of these objects to be outlawed, and if outlawed, how is the prohibition to be enforced? Instead of pursuing innocent people carrying or possessing various objects, then, the law should be concerned with combatting and apprehending real criminals.

Page 145 | Location 2211-2216 | Added on Tuesday, July 30, 2013 4:52:44 PM

A crucial fallacy of the middle-class school worshippers is confusion between formal schooling and education in general. Education is a lifelong process of learning, and learning takes place not only in school, but in all areas of life. When the child plays, or listens to parents or friends, or reads a newspaper, or works at a job, he or she is becoming educated. Formal schooling is only a small part of the educational process, and is really only suitable for formal subjects of instruction, particularly in the more advanced and systematic subjects. The elementary subjects, reading, writing, arithmetic and their corollaries, can easily be learned at home and outside the school.

America was built by citizens and leaders, many of whom received little or no formal schooling, and the idea that one must have a high-school diploma—or nowadays, an A.B. degree—before he can begin to work and to live in the world is an absurdity of the current age.

Page 149 | Location 2281-2283 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 10:38:41 AM

One of the most common uses of compulsory public schooling has been to oppress and cripple national ethnic and linguistic minorities or colonized peoples—to force them to abandon their own language and culture on behalf of the language and culture of the ruling groups.

Page 150 | Location 2284-2285 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 1:22:29 PM

One of the most potent stimuli for discontent and rebellion by these oppressed peoples was the desire to rescue their language and heritage from the weapon of public schools wielded by their oppressors.

Page 153 | Location 2336-2339 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:00:29 PM

In contrast to the private, profit-making business, the government bureaucrat is neither interested in efficiency nor in serving his customers to the best of his ability. Having no need to make profits and sheltered from the possibility of suffering losses, the bureaucrat can and does disregard the desires and demands of his consumer-customers. His major interest is in “not making waves,” and this he accomplishes by even-handedly applying a uniform set of rules, regardless of how inapplicable

Page 154 | Location 2344-2347 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:01:50 PM

If the decision is for traditional discipline in the schools, then the more progressive-minded parents lose out, and vice versa; and the same is true for all the other critical decisions. The more that education becomes public, the more will parents and children be deprived of the education they feel they need. The more that education becomes public, the more will heavy-handed uniformity stamp out the needs and desires of individuals and minorities.

Page 156 | Location 2374-2377 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:07:33 PM

A compulsory public press would rightly be considered an invasion of the basic freedom of the press; is not scholastic freedom at least as important as press freedom? Aren’t both vital media for public information and education, for free inquiry and search for the truth? In fact, the suppression of free schooling should be regarded with even greater horror than the suppression of a free press, since here the tender and unformed minds of children are more directly involved.

Page 160 | Location 2445-2447 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:18:34 PM

One crucial task of libertarians is to highlight the common cause of all groups of parents against the State’s educational tyranny. Of course, it must also be pointed out that parents can never get the State off their educational backs until the public school system is totally abolished and schooling becomes free once more.

Page 162 | Location 2480-2483 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:25:36 PM

A “right,” philosophically, must be something embedded in the nature of man and reality, something that can be preserved and maintained at any time and in any age. The “right” of self-ownership, of defending one’s life and property, is clearly that sort of right: it can apply to Neanderthal cavemen, in modern Calcutta, or in the contemporary United States. Such a right is independent of time or place.

Page 163 | Location 2485-2486 | Added on Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:26:27 PM

To speak of a “right” as something which can only be fulfilled in modern industrial conditions is not to speak of a human, natural right at all.

the libertarian “right” of self-ownership does not require the coercion of one set of people to provide such a “right” for another set. Every man can enjoy the right of self-ownership, without special coercion upon anyone.

Page 169 | Location 2587-2588 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 2:16:18 PM

The libertarian ethic is not to impose equal slavery on everyone, but to arrive at equal freedom.

Page 171 | Location 2607-2615 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 2:22:13 PM

The libertarian prescription for our educational mess can, then, be summed up simply: Get the government out of the educational process. The government has attempted to indoctrinate and mould the nation’s youth through the public school system, and to mould the future leaders through State operation and control of higher education. Abolition of compulsory attendance laws would end the schools’ role as prison custodians of the nation’s youth, and would free all those better off outside the schools for independence and for productive work. The abolition of the public schools would end the crippling property tax burden and provide a vast range of education to satisfy all the freely exercised needs and demands of our diverse and varied population. The abolition of government schooling would end the unjust coerced subsidy granted to large families, and, often, toward the upper classes and against the poor. The miasma of government, of moulding the youth of America in the direction desired by the State, would be replaced by freely chosen and voluntary actions—in short, by a genuine and truly free education, both in and out of formal schools.

Page 182 | Location 2787-2789 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 6:55:35 PM

“To seek and accept direct public relief all too often invites the curse of idleness and fosters the other evils of dole. It destroys one’s independence, industry, thrift and self-respect.”

Page 183 | Location 2792-2793 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 6:56:10 PM

The inspiring example of the Mormon Church is a demonstration that the major determinant of who or how many people go on public welfare is their cultural and moral values rather than their level of income.

Page 184 | Location 2802-2809 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 6:58:57 PM

Professor Banfield, in his brilliant book, The Unheavenly City, has demonstrated the importance of what he calls “upper-class” or “lower-class” culture in influencing the values of their members. The definitions of “class” in Banfield are not strictly income or status levels, but they tend to overlap strongly with these more common definitions. His definitions of class center on the different attitudes toward the present and the future: upper- and middle-class members tend to be future-oriented, purposeful, rational, and self-disciplined. Lower-class people, on the other hand, tend to have a strong present-orientation, are capricious, hedonistic, purposeless, and therefore unwilling to pursue a job or a career with any consistency. People with the former values therefore tend to have higher incomes and better jobs, and lower-class people tend to be poor, jobless, or on welfare. In short, the economic fortunes of people tend over the long run to be their own internal responsibility, rather than to be determined—as liberals always insist—by external factors.

Page 187 | Location 2853-2855 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 11:32:33 PM

If people wish to be “spontaneous,” let them do so on their own time and with their own resources, and let them then take the consequences of this decision, and not use State coercion to force the hardworking and “unspontaneous” to bear those consequences instead. In short, abolish the welfare system.

The left-liberal attitudes of social workers discourage the poor directly by fostering the idea of welfare as a “right” and as a moral claim upon production. Furthermore, the easy availability of the welfare check obviously promotes present-mindedness, unwillingness to work, and irresponsibility among the recipients—thus perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty-welfare.

Page 190 | Location 2899-2902 | Added on Sunday, August 4, 2013 11:42:06 PM

Since welfare families are paid proportionately to the number of their children, the system provides an important subsidy for the production of more children. Furthermore, the people being induced to have more children are precisely those who can afford it least; the result can only be to perpetuate their dependence on welfare, and, in fact, to develop generations who are permanently dependent on the welfare dole.

Page 195 | Location 2984-2986 | Added on Monday, August 5, 2013 1:23:49 AM

There is plenty of income redistribution in this country: to Lockheed, to welfare recipients, and so on and on, but the “rich” are not being taxed to pay for the “poor.” The redistribution is within income categories; some poor are forced to pay for other poor.

Page 196 | Location 2989-2991 | Added on Monday, August 5, 2013 1:24:56 AM

The object of this discussion is not, of course, to advocate a “really” progressive income tax structure, a real soaking of the rich, but to point out that the modern welfare state, highly touted as soaking the rich to subsidize the poor, does no such thing.

Soaking the rich would not only be profoundly immoral, it would drastically penalize the very virtues: thrift, business foresight, and investment, that have brought about our remarkable standard of living. It would truly be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Page 208 | Location 3185-3187 | Added on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:42:28 PM

It should be emphasized that the Keynesian theory did not win out by carefully debating and refuting the Austrian position; on the contrary, as often happens in the history of social science, Keynesianism simply became the new fashion, and the Austrian theory was not refuted but only ignored and forgotten.

Page 216 | Location 3295-3299 | Added on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:55:55 PM

governments have come up with a much more complex and sophisticated, and much less visible, means of doing the same thing: of organizing increases in the money supply to give themselves more money to spend and to subsidize favored political groups. The idea was this: instead of stressing the printing of money, retain the paper dollars or marks or francs as the basic money (the “legal tender”), and then pyramid on top of that a mysterious and invisible, but no less potent, “checkbook money,” or bank demand deposits. The result is an inflationary engine, controlled by government, which no one but bankers, economists, and government central bankers understands—and designedly so.

Page 217 | Location 3318-3321 | Added on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:59:10 PM

In short, when the commercial banks lend money to an individual, a business firm, or the government, they are not relending existing money that the public laboriously had saved and deposited in their vaults—as the public usually believes. They lend out new demand deposits that they create in the course of the loan—and they are limited only by the “reserve requirements,” by the required maximum multiple of deposit to reserves (e.g., 6:1).

Page 225 | Location 3436-3440 | Added on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 2:16:38 PM

The Ricardians realized that the major evil was the preceding inflationary boom caused by government intervention in the money and banking system, and that the recession, unwelcome though its symptoms may be, is really the necessary adjustment process by which that interventionary boom gets washed out of the economic system. The depression is the process by which the market economy adjusts, throws off the excesses and distortions of the inflationary boom, and reestablishes a sound economic condition. The depression is the unpleasant but necessary reaction to the distortions and excesses of the previous boom.

Page 226 | Location 3453-3455 | Added on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 2:18:39 PM

The Austrian, or Misesian, theory of the business cycle built on the Ricardian analysis and developed its own “monetary overinvestment” or, more strictly, “monetary malinvestment” theory of the business cycle.

Page 249 | Location 3802-3804 | Added on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 12:47:11 AM

“Discrimination,” in the sense of choosing favorably or unfavorably in accordance with whatever criteria a person may employ, is an integral part of freedom of choice, and hence of a free society. But of course in the free market any such discrimination is costly, and will have to be paid for by the property owner concerned.

Page 265 | Location 4047-4050 | Added on Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:10:07 PM

It is the slicing off of territorial areas into single, governmental monopolies that leads to mass destruction—for then if the single monopoly government of Walldavia confronts its ancient rival, the government of Ruritania, each can wield weapons of mass destruction and even nuclear warfare because it will be the “other guy” and the “other country” they will hurt.

Page 268 | Location 4099-4102 | Added on Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:17:26 PM

We should all be more familiar with the increasing use of private arbitration, even in our present society. The government courts have become so clogged, inefficient, and wasteful that more and more parties to disputes are turning to private arbitrators as a cheaper and far less time-consuming way of settling their disputes.

Page 275 | Location 4200-4207 | Added on Thursday, August 15, 2013 10:52:20 PM

the major body of Anglo-Saxon law, the justly celebrated common law, was developed over the centuries by competing judges applying time-honored principles rather than the shifting decrees of the State. These principles were not decided upon arbitrarily by any king or legislature; they grew up over centuries by applying rational—and very often libertarian—principles to the cases before them. The idea of following precedent was developed, not as a blind service to the past, but because all the judges of the past had made their decisions in applying the generally accepted common law principles to specific cases and problems. For it was universally held that the judge did not make law (as he often does today); the judge’s task, his expertise, was in finding the law in accepted common law principles, and then applying that law to specific cases or to new technological or institutional conditions. The glory of the centuries-long development of the common law is testimony to their success.

Page 283 | Location 4320-4326 | Added on Friday, August 16, 2013 11:29:09 PM

In contrast to such utopians as Marxists or left-wing anarchists (anarchocommunists or anarcho-syndicalists), libertarians do not assume that the ushering in of the purely free society of their dreams will also bring with it a new, magically transformed Libertarian Man. We do not assume that the lion will lie down with the lamb, or that no one will have criminal or fraudulent designs upon his neighbor. The “better” that people will be, of course, the better any social system will work, in particular the less work any police or courts will have to do. But no such assumption is made by libertarians. What we assert is that, given any particular degree of “goodness” or “badness” among men, the purely libertarian society will be at once the most moral and the most efficient, the least criminal and the most secure of person or property.

Contrast this built-in corrective mechanism to the present-day government courts. Judges are appointed or elected for long terms, up to life, and they are accorded a monopoly of decision-making in their particular area. It is almost impossible, except in cases of gross corruption, to do anything about venal decisions of judges. Their power to make and to enforce their decisions continues unchecked year after year. Their salaries continue to be paid, furnished under coercion by the hapless taxpayer.

But in the totally free society, any suspicion of a judge or court will cause their customers to melt away and their “decisions” to be ignored. This is a far more efficient system of keeping judges honest than the mechanism of government.

Page 284 | Location 4345-4350 | Added on Saturday, August 17, 2013 12:08:30 AM

There is a myth that the “American System” provides a superb set of “checks and balances,” with the executive, the legislature, and the courts all balancing and checking one against the other, so that power cannot unduly accumulate in one set of hands. But the American “checks and balances” system is largely a fraud. For each one of these institutions is a coercive monopoly in its area, and all of them are part of one government, headed by one political party at any given time. Furthermore, at best there are only two parties, each one close to the other in ideology and personnel, often colluding, and the actual day-to-day business of government headed by a civil service bureaucracy that cannot be displaced by the voters.

Page 285 | Location 4361-4363 | Added on Saturday, August 17, 2013 12:09:59 AM

In a libertarian society there would be no need for a massive revolution to stop the depredation of gangster-States; there would be a swift turning to the honest police forces to check and put down the force that had turned bandit.

what is the State anyway but organized banditry? What is taxation but theft on a gigantic, unchecked, scale? What is war but mass murder on a scale impossible by private police forces? What is conscription but mass enslavement? Can anyone envision a private police force getting away with a tiny fraction of what States get away with, and do habitually, year after year, century after century? There is another vital consideration that would make it almost impossible for an outlaw police force to commit anything like the banditry that modern governments practice. One of the crucial factors that permits governments to do the monstrous things they habitually do is the sense of legitimacy on the part of the stupefied public.

Page 286 | Location 4375-4380 | Added on Saturday, August 17, 2013 12:13:11 AM

Once the public had tasted the joys, prosperity, freedom, and efficiency of a libertarian, State-less society, it would be almost impossible for a State to fasten itself upon them once again. Once freedom has been fully enjoyed, it is no easy task to force people to give it up. But suppose—just suppose—that despite all these handicaps and obstacles, despite the love for their new-found freedom, despite the inherent checks and balances of the free market, suppose anyway that the State manages to reestablish itself. What then? Well, then, all that would have happened is that we would have a State once again. We would be no worse off than we are now, with our current State. And, as one libertarian philosopher has put it, “at least the world will have had a glorious holiday.”

Page 287 | Location 4391-4393 | Added on Saturday, August 17, 2013 12:15:09 AM

One of the great evils of the nation-state is that each State is able to identify all of its subjects with itself; hence in any inter-State war, the innocent civilians, the subjects of each country, are subject to aggression from the enemy State. But in a libertarian society there would be no such identification, and hence very little chance of such a devastating war.

Page 290 | Location 4431-4434 | Added on Saturday, August 17, 2013 12:30:40 AM

The main reason a conquering country can rule a defeated country is that the latter has an existing State apparatus to transmit and enforce the victor’s orders onto a subject population. Britain, though far smaller in area and population, was able to rule India for centuries because it could transmit British orders to the ruling Indian princes, who in turn could enforce them on the subject population. But in those cases in history where the conquered had no government, the conquerors found rule over the conquered extremely difficult.

Page 297 | Location 4532-4541 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 4:58:55 PM

What we need is more economic growth, not less; more and better technology, and not the impossible and absurd attempt to scrap technology and return to the primitive tribe. Improved technology and greater capital investment will lead to higher living standards for all and provide greater material comforts, as well as the leisure to pursue and enjoy the “spiritual” side of life. There is precious little culture or civilization available for people who must work long hours to eke out a subsistence living. The real problem is that productive capital investment is being siphoned off by taxes, restrictions, and government contracts for unproductive and wasteful government expenditures, including military and space boondoggling. Furthermore, the precious technical resource of scientists and engineers is being ever more intensively diverted to government, instead of to “civilian” consumer production. What we need is for government to get out of the way, remove its incubus of taxation and expenditures from the economy, and allow productive and technical resources once again to devote themselves fully to increasing the well-being of the mass of consumers. We need growth, higher living standards, and a technology and capital equipment that meet consumer wants and demands; but we can only achieve these by removing the incubus of statism and allowing the energies of all of the population to express themselves in the free-market economy.

Page 304 | Location 4641-4647 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:03:45 PM

The way of production for primitive man was “hunting-and-gathering”: the hunting of wild animals and the gathering of fruits, berries, nuts, and wild seeds and vegetables. Primitive man worked passively within his environment instead of acting to transform it; hence he just lived off the land without attempting to remould it. As a result, the land was unproductive, and only a relatively few tribesmen could exist at a bare subsistence level. It was only with the development of agriculture, the farming of the soil, and the transformation of the land through farming that productivity and living standards could take giant leaps forward. And it was only with agriculture that civilization could begin. But to permit the development of agriculture there had to be private property rights, first in the fields and crops, and then in the land itself.

Page 307 | Location 4700-4702 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:12:35 PM

only private property rights will insure an end to pollution—invasion of resources. Only because the rivers are unowned is there no owner to rise up and defend his precious resource from attack.

Page 309 | Location 4718-4724 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:15:50 PM

The vital fact about air pollution is that the polluter sends unwanted and unbidden pollutants—from smoke to nuclear radiation to sulfur oxides—through the air and into the lungs of innocent victims, as well as onto their material property. All such emanations which injure person or property constitute aggression against the private property of the victims. Air pollution, after all, is just as much aggression as committing arson against another’s property or injuring him physically. Air pollution that injures others is aggression pure and simple. The major function of government—of courts and police—is to stop aggression; instead, the government has failed in this task and has failed grievously to exercise its defense function against air pollution.

Before the mid and late nineteenth century, any injurious air pollution was considered a tort, a nuisance against which the victim could sue for damages and against which he could take out an injunction to cease and desist from any further invasion of his property rights. But during the nineteenth century, the courts systematically altered the law of negligence and the law of nuisance to permit any air pollution which was not unusually greater than any similar manufacturing firm, one that was not more extensive than the customary practice of fellow polluters. As factories began to arise and emit smoke, blighting the orchards of neighboring farmers, the farmers would take the manufacturers to court, asking for damages and injunctions against further invasion of their property. But the judges said, in effect, “Sorry. We know that industrial smoke (i.e., air pollution) invades and interferes with your property rights. But there is something more important than mere property rights: and that is public policy, the ‘common good.’ And the common good decrees that industry is a good thing, industrial progress is a good thing, and therefore your mere private property rights must be overridden on behalf of the general welfare.” And now all of us are paying the bitter price for this overriding of private property, in the form of lung disease and countless other ailments. And all for the “common good”!

Page 311 | Location 4747-4754 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:19:38 PM

To cap the crimes of the judges, legislatures, federal and state, moved in to cement the aggression by prohibiting victims of air pollution from engaging in “class action” suits against polluters. Obviously, if a factory pollutes the atmosphere of a city where there are tens of thousands of victims, it is impractical for each victim to sue to collect his particular damages from the polluter (although an injunction could be used effectively by one small victim). The common law, therefore, recognizes the validity of “class action” suits, in which one or a few victims can sue the aggressor not only on their own behalf, but on behalf of the entire class of similar victims. But the legislatures systematically outlawed such class action suits in pollution cases. For this reason, a victim may successfully sue a polluter who injures him individually, in a one-to-one “private nuisance” suit. But he is prohibited by law from acting against a mass polluter who is injuring a large number of people in a given area!

Noise, too, is a form of air pollution. Noise is the creation of sound waves which go through the air and then bombard and invade the property and persons of others. Only recently have physicians begun to investigate the damaging effects of noise on the human physiology. Again, a libertarian legal system would permit damage and class action suits and injunctions against excessive and damaging noise: against “noise pollution.”

The argument that such an injunctive prohibition against pollution would add to the costs of industrial production is as reprehensible as the pre-Civil War argument that the abolition of slavery would add to the costs of growing cotton, and that therefore abolition, however morally correct, was “impractical.”

Page 313 | Location 4788-4791 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:24:19 PM

Robert Poole cogently defines pollution “as the transfer of harmful matter or energy to the person or property of another, without the latter’s consent.”22 The libertarian—and the only complete—solution to the problem of air pollution is to use the courts and the legal structure to combat and prevent such invasion.

Page 314 | Location 4800-4806 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:27:28 PM

The Friedmanites concede the existence of air pollution but propose to meet it, not by a defense of property rights, but rather by a supposedly utilitarian “cost-benefit” calculation by government, which will then make and enforce a “social decision” on how much pollution to allow. This decision would then be enforced either by licensing a given amount of pollution (the granting of “pollution rights”), by a graded scale of taxes against it, or by the taxpayers paying firms not to pollute. Not only would these proposals grant an enormous amount of bureaucratic power to government in the name of safeguarding the “free market”; they would continue to override property rights in the name of a collective decision enforced by the State. This is far from any genuine “free market,” and reveals that, as in many other economic areas, it is impossible to really defend freedom and the free market without insisting on defending the rights of private property.

Friedman’s statement, in fact, is of a piece with the typically conservative, “If you don’t like it here, leave,” a statement that implies that the government rightly owns the entire land area of “here,” and that anyone who objects to its rule must therefore leave the area.

Page 315 | Location 4823-4825 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:29:41 PM

A libertarian society would be a full-liability society, where everyone is fully responsible for his actions and any harmful consequences they might cause.

Page 316 | Location 4826-4832 | Added on Monday, August 19, 2013 11:30:38 PM

In addition to betraying its presumed function of defending private property, government has contributed to air pollution in a more positive sense. It was not so long ago that the Department of Agriculture conducted mass sprayings of DDT by helicopter over large areas, overriding the wishes of individual objecting farmers. It still continues to pour tons of poisonous and carcinogenic insecticides all over the South in an expensive and vain attempt to eradicate the fire ant.25 And the Atomic Energy Commission has poured radioactive wastes into the air and into the ground by means of its nuclear power plants, and through atomic testing. Municipal power and water plants, and the plants of licensed monopoly utility companies, mightily pollute the atmosphere. One of the major tasks of the State in this area is therefore to stop its own poisoning of the atmosphere.

Page 318 | Location 4870-4871 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 2:54:13 PM

Pending the dissolution of States, libertarians desire to limit, to whittle down, the area of government power in all directions and as much as possible.

Page 322 | Location 4919-4924 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:13:07 PM

There are several fatal flaws in this concept of collective security against “aggression.” One is that when Walldavia, or any other States, leap into the fray they are themselves expanding and compounding the extent of the aggression, because they are (1) unjustly slaughtering masses of Graustarkian civilians, and (2) increasing tax-coercion over Walldavian citizens. Furthermore, (3) in this age when States and subjects are closely identifiable, Walldavia is thereby leaving Walldavian civilians open to retaliation by Graustarkian bombers or missiles. Thus, entry into the war by the Walldavian government puts into jeopardy the very lives and properties of Walldavian citizens which the government is supposed to be protecting. Finally, (4) conscription-enslavement of Walldavian citizens will usually intensify.

There is another crucial flaw in the collective security concept. The idea of entering a war in order to stop “aggression” is clearly an analogy from aggression by one individual upon another.

But “aggression” only makes sense on the individual Smith-Jones level, as does the very term “police action.” These terms make no sense whatever on an inter-State level. First, we have seen that governments entering a war thereby become aggressors themselves against innocent civilians; indeed, become mass murderers.

Page 323 | Location 4937-4940 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:16:36 PM

But there is yet another fatal flaw in the analogy with individual aggression. When Smith beats up Jones or steals his property we can identify Smith as an aggressor upon the personal or property right of his victim. But when the Graustarkian State invades the territory of the Belgravian State, it is impermissible to refer to “aggression” in an analogous way.

No State has any legitimate property; all of its territory is the result of some kind of aggression and violent conquest. Hence the Graustarkian State’s invasion is necessarily a battle between two sets of thieves and aggressors: the only problem is that innocent civilians on both sides are being trampled upon.

Page 325 | Location 4974-4977 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:22:39 PM

The libertarian foreign policy, then, is not a pacifist policy. We do not hold, as do the pacifists, that no individual has the right to use violence in defending himself against violent attack. What we do hold is that no one has the right to conscript, tax, or murder others, or to use violence against others in order to defend himself.

Page 326 | Location 4988-4991 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:25:09 PM

For empirically, taking the twentieth century as a whole, the single most warlike, most interventionist, most imperialist government has been the United States. Such a statement is bound to shock Americans, subject as we have been for decades to intense propaganda by the Establishment on the invariable saintliness, peaceful intentions, and devotion to justice of the American government in foreign affairs.

Page 327 | Location 5002-5005 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:26:56 PM

In the name of “national self-determination” and “collective security” against aggression, the American government has consistently pursued a goal and a policy of world domination and of the forcible suppression of any rebellion against the status quo anywhere in the world. In the name of combatting “aggression” everywhere—of being the world’s “policeman”—it has itself become a great and continuing aggressor.

Page 330 | Location 5043-5046 | Added on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:34:06 PM

Throughout the tragic Vietnamese conflict, the United States maintained the fiction that it was a war of “aggression” by the Communist North Vietnamese State against a friendly and “pro-Western” (whatever that term may mean) South Vietnamese State which had called for our aid. Actually, the war was really a doomed but lengthy attempt by an imperial United States to suppress the wishes of the great bulk of the Vietnamese population and to maintain unpopular client dictators in the southern half of the country, by virtual genocide if necessary.

In its broadest sense, imperialism may be defined as aggression by State A against the people of country B, followed by the subsequent coercive maintenance of such foreign rule. In our example above, the permanent rule by the Graustark State over formerly northeastern Belgravia would be an example of such imperialism. But imperialism does not have to take the form of direct rule over the foreign population. In the twentieth century, the indirect form of “neoimperialism” has increasingly replaced the old-fashioned direct kind; it is more subtle and less visible but no less effective a form of imperialism.

Page 334 | Location 5109-5112 | Added on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:29:21 PM

this is the language of Empire. The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The Spanish Empire added salvation. The British Empire added the noble myth of the white man’s burden. We have added freedom and democracy. Yet the more that may be added to it the more it is the same language still. A language of power.

Page 335 | Location 5131-5132 | Added on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:32:34 PM

A State can only “die” by defeat in war or by revolution. In war, therefore, the State frantically mobilizes its subjects to fight for it against another State, under the pretext that it is fighting to defend them.

Page 337 | Location 5158-5164 | Added on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:38:38 PM

The bulk of our scientists and engineers has been diverted from basic research for civilian ends, from increasing productivity and the standard of living of consumers, into wasteful, inefficient, and nonproductive military and space boondoggles. These boondoggles are every bit as wasteful but infinitely more destructive than the vast pyramid building of the Pharaoh. It is no accident that Lord Keynes’s economics have proved to be the economics par excellence of the corporate liberal State. For Keynesian economists place equal approval upon all forms of government spending, whether on pyramids, missiles, or steel plants; by definition all of these expenditures swell the gross national product, regardless of how wasteful they may be. It is only recently that many liberals have begun to awaken to the evils of the waste, inflation, and militarism that Keynesian corporate liberalism has brought to America.

Page 338 | Location 5166-5171 | Added on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:39:56 PM

The goal of satisfying consumers as efficiently as possible has been increasingly replaced by the currying of favors by government contractors, often in the form of highly wasteful “cost-plus” contracts. Politics, in field after field, has replaced economics in guiding the activities of industry. Furthermore, as entire industries and regions of the country have come to depend upon government and military contracts, a huge vested interest has been created in continuing the programs, heedless of whether they retain even the most threadbare excuse of military necessity. Our economic prosperity has been made to depend on continuing the narcotic of unproductive and antiproductive government spending.

Page 350 | Location 5349-5353 | Added on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:12:31 PM

Many dictatorships have turned inward, cautiously confining themselves to preying on their own people: examples range from premodern Japan to Communist Albania to innumerable dictatorships in the Third World today. Uganda’s Idi Amin, perhaps the most brutal and repressive dictator in today’s world, shows no signs whatever of jeopardizing his regime by invading neighboring countries. On the other hand, such an indubitable democracy as Great Britain spread its coercive imperialism across the globe during the nineteenth and earlier centuries.

While public opinion has to be gauged in either case, the only real difference between a democracy and a dictatorship on making war is that in the former more propaganda must be beamed at one’s subjects to engineer their approval. Intensive propaganda is necessary in any case—as we can see by the zealous opinion-moulding behavior of all modern warring States. But the democratic State must work harder and faster. And also the democratic State must be more hypocritical in using rhetoric designed to appeal to the values of the masses: justice, freedom, national interest, patriotism, world peace, etc. So in democratic States, the art of propagandizing their subjects must be a bit more sophisticated and refined.

Page 351 | Location 5364-5367 | Added on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:15:13 PM

What we have said about democracy and dictatorship applies equally to the lack of correlation between degrees of internal freedom in a country and its external aggressiveness. Some States have proved themselves perfectly capable of allowing a considerable degree of freedom internally while making aggressive war abroad; other States have shown themselves capable of totalitarian rule internally while pursuing a pacific foreign policy. The examples of Uganda, Albania, China, Great Britain, etc., apply equally well in this comparison.

For war and a phony “external threat” have long been the chief means by which the State wins back the loyalty of its subjects. As we have seen, war and militarism were the gravediggers of classical liberalism; we must not allow the State to get away with this ruse ever again.19

Page 356 | Location 5456-5457 | Added on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:00:41 PM

There is no magic formula for strategy; any strategy for social change, resting as it does on persuasion and conversion, can only be an art rather than an exact science.

Page 357 | Location 5461-5462 | Added on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:01:15 PM

Education, in turn, has two vital aspects: calling people’s attention to the existence of such a system, and converting people to the libertarian system.

Libertarians must, therefore, engage in hard thinking and scholarship, put forth theoretical and systematic books, articles, and journals, and engage in conferences and seminars. On the other hand, a mere elaboration of the theory will get nowhere if no one has ever heard of the books and articles; hence the need for publicity, slogans, student activism, lectures, radio and TV spots, etc. True education cannot proceed without theory and activism, without an ideology and people to carry that ideology forward.

Page 358 | Location 5480-5483 | Added on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:04:59 PM

Libertarianism, while vital and true, cannot be merely graven in stone tablets; it must be a living theory, advancing through writing and discussion, and through refuting and combatting errors as they arise. The libertarian movement has dozens of small newsletters and magazines ranging from mimeographed sheets to slick publications, constantly emerging and dying. This is a sign of a healthy, growing movement, a movement that consists of countless individuals thinking, arguing, and contributing.

there is another critical reason for “talking to ourselves,” even if that were all the talking that was going on. And that is reinforcement—the psychologically necessary knowledge that there are other people of like mind to talk to, argue with, and generally communicate and interact with.

Page 359 | Location 5502-5505 | Added on Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:08:44 PM

The major problem with the opportunists is that by confining themselves strictly to gradual and “practical” programs, programs that stand a good chance of immediate adoption, they are in grave danger of completely losing sight of the ultimate objective, the libertarian goal. He who confines himself to calling for a two percent reduction in taxes helps to bury the ultimate goal of abolition of taxation altogether.

Page 371 | Location 5684-5684 | Added on Friday, August 30, 2013 7:17:28 PM

Our hope is to convert the mass of the people who are being victimized by State power, not those who are gaining by it.

Page 373 | Location 5704-5706 | Added on Saturday, August 31, 2013 12:57:42 AM

Ever since the acceleration of statism at the turn of the twentieth century, big businessmen have been using the great powers of State contracts, subsidies and cartelization to carve out privileges for themselves at the expense of the rest of the society.

Page 374 | Location 5723-5726 | Added on Saturday, August 31, 2013 1:03:50 AM

Privilege implies exclusion, so there will always be a host of businesses and businessmen, large and small, who will have a solid economic interest in ending State control over their industry. There are therefore a host of businessmen, especially those remote from the privileged “Eastern Establishment,” who are potentially receptive to free-market and libertarian ideas.

Campus youth is one group that has been prominent in the rising libertarian movement. This is not surprising: college is the time when people are most open to reflection and to considering basic questions of our society. As youth enamored of consistency and unvarnished truth, as collegians accustomed to a world of scholarship and abstract ideas, and not yet burdened with the care and the often narrower vision of adult employment, these youngsters provide a fertile field for libertarian conversion.

Page 376 | Location 5754-5757 | Added on Saturday, August 31, 2013 1:13:32 AM

In short, the potential appeal of libertarianism is a multiclass appeal; it is an appeal that cuts across race, occupation, economic class, and the generations; any and all people not directly in the ruling elite are potentially receptive to our message. Every person or group that values its liberty or prosperity is a potential adherent to the libertarian creed.

Page 385 | Location 5897-5899 | Added on Monday, September 2, 2013 7:49:45 PM

Crisis situations always stimulate interest and a search for solutions. And this crisis has inspired numbers of thinking Americans to realize that government has gotten us into this mess, and that only liberty—the rolling back of government—can get us out. We are growing because the conditions are ripe. In a sense, as on the free market, demand has created its own supply.

【書摘】Planned Chaos｜Ludwig Von Mises

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【書摘】Planned Chaos｜Ludwig Von Mises

摘錄：Planned Chaos｜Ludwig Von Mises

文：吳莉瑋
圖：Ludwig von Mises Institute

《Planned Chaos》選錄了一些 Ludwig Von Mises 談社會主義的文章，其中，Mises 特別強調所謂政治上的左派右派，不管是共產主義還是法西斯主義，在經濟上都是採種中央計畫制度的「社會主義」。這些文章中談了許多共產主義的發展細節，以及共產主義與納粹或法西斯的比較。有興趣的讀者，可以在 Mises Institute 網站免費下載閱讀。

正如 Mises 對社會主義的著名評論，社會主義在經濟計算上完全不可行，所以註定失敗。但其實，干預主義更糟糕，集合了眾缺點於一身，也就是我們現行世界中幾乎所有國家正實施的制度。

為什麼世界變成這樣？Mises 的回答是，那些宣傳社會主義美好的每一個知識份子都有責任。這本書裡我最喜歡的一句話在第 77 頁：

What is needed to stop the trend towards socialism and despotism is common sense and moral courage.

【書摘】

Page 7 | Added on Thursday, April 11, 2013 10:53:51 PM

It is necessary to point out this fact to prevent a confusion of socialism and interventionism. The system of the hampered market economy, or interventionism, differs from socialism by the very fact that it is still market economy. The authority seeks to influence the market by the intervention of its coercive power, but it does not want to eliminate the market altogether.

Page 9 | Added on Thursday, April 11, 2013 10:51:58 PM

In the eyes of the interventionists the mere existence of profits is objectionable. They speak of profit without dealing with its corollary, loss. They do not comprehend that profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all entrepreneurial activities. It is profit and loss that make the consumers supreme in the direction of business.

Anti-capitalistic policies sabotage the operation of the capitalist system of the market economy. The failure of interventionism does not demonstrate the necessity of adopting socialism. It merely exposes the futility of interventionism.

Page 10 | Added on Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:00:46 PM

If the government, faced with this failure of its first intervention, is not prepared to undo its interference with the market and to return to a free economy, it must add to its first measure more and more regulations and restrictions. Proceeding step by step on this way it finally reaches a point in which all economic freedom of individuals has disappeared. Then socialism of the German pattern, the Zwangswirtschaft of the Nazis, emerges.

Page 12 | Added on Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:06:32 PM

Price control is contrary to purpose if it is limited to some commodities only. It cannot work satisfactorily within a market economy. If the government does not draw from this failure the conclusion that it must abandon all attempts to control prices, it must go further and further until it substitutes socialist all-round planning for the market economy.

Page 13 | Added on Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:09:43 PM

The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. It is true that the various individuals have not the same power to vote. The richer man casts more ballots than the poorer fellow. But to be rich and to earn a higher income is, in the market economy, already the outcome of a previous election. The only means to acquire wealth and to preserve it, in a market economy not adulterated by government-made privileges and restrictions, is to serve the consumers in the best and cheapest way.

It is consumers who make poor people rich and rich people poor. It is the consumers who fix the wages of a movie star and an opera singer at a higher level than those of a welder or an accountant.

Page 26 | Added on Sunday, April 21, 2013 8:48:54 AM

Having emancipated themselves from Marxian determinism, the Russian Marxians were free to discuss the most appropriate tactics for the realization of socialism in their country. They were no longer bothered with economic problems. They had no longer to investigate whether or not the time had come. They had only one task to accomplish, the seizure of the reins of government.

Page 29 | Added on Sunday, April 21, 2013 9:00:21 AM

Those Marxians who did not surrender to the dictator in Moscow called themselves social democrats or, in short, socialists. What characterized them was the belief that the most appropriate method for the realization of their plans to establish socialism, the final goal common to them as well as to the communists, was to win the support of the majority of their fellow-citizens. They abandoned the revolutionary slogans and tried to adopt democratic methods for the seizure of power.

The communists, on the other hand, were in the early years of the Third International firmly committed to the principle of revolution and civil war. They were loyal only to their Russian chief. They expelled from their ranks everybody who was suspected of feeling himself bound by any of his country’s laws. They plotted unceasingly and squandered blood in unsuccessful riots.

Page 48 | Added on Monday, April 22, 2013 10:17:16 PM

It is a fact that the majority of our contemporaries are imbued with socialist and communist ideas. However, this does not mean that they are unanimous in their proposals for socialization of the means of production and public control of production and distribution. On the contrary. Each socialist coterie is fanatically opposed to the plans of all other socialist groups. The various socialist sects fight one another most bitterly.

Page 49 | Added on Monday, April 22, 2013 10:19:52 PM

There are no such things as abrupt sweeping transformations of human affairs. What is called, in rather misleading terms, a “turning point in history” is the coming on the scene of forces which were already for a long time at work behind the scene. New ideologies, which had already long since superseded the old ones, throw off their last veil and even the dullest people become aware of the changes which they did not notice before.

Page 52 | Added on Tuesday, April 23, 2013 10:15:44 PM

It is customary to call the point of view of the advocates of the welfare state the “social” point of view as distinguished from the “individualistic” and “selfish” point of view of the champions of the rule of law. In fact, however, the supporters of the welfare state are utterly anti-social and intolerant zealots. For their ideology tacitly implies that the government will exactly execute what they themselves deem right and beneficial. They entirely disregard the possibility that there could arise disagreement with regard to the question of what is right and expedient and what is not.

The irreconcilable conflict of these two doctrines, rule of law versus welfare state, was at issue in all the struggles which men fought for liberty. It was a long and hard evolution. Again and again the champions of absolutism triumphed. But finally the rule of law predominated in the realm of Western civilization.

Page 53 | Added on Tuesday, April 23, 2013 10:25:14 PM

Thus the socialists resorted to a trick. They continued to discuss the coming dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the dictatorship of each socialist author’s own ideas, in their esoteric circles. But to the broad public they spoke in a different way. Socialism, they asserted, will bring true and full liberty and democracy. It will remove all kinds of compulsion and coercion. The state will “wither away.” In the socialist commonwealth of the future there will be neither judges and policemen nor prisons and gallows.

Page 56 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 7:54:47 AM

Fascism and Nazism were both committed to the Soviet principle of dictatorship and violent oppression of dissenters. If one wants to assign Fascism and Nazism to the same class of political systems, one must call this class dictatorial regime and one must not neglect to assign the Soviets to the same class. In recent years the communists’ semantic innovations have gone even further. They call everybody whom they dislike, every advocate of the free enterprise system, a Fascist.

Page 57 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 9:34:47 PM

Dictatorship and violent oppression of all dissenters are today exclusively socialist institutions. This becomes clear as we take a closer look at Fascism and Nazism.

Page 60 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 9:51:21 PM

Fascist economic policy did not—at the beginning—essentially differ from those of all other Western nations. It was a policy of interventionism. As the years went on, it more and more approached the Nazi pattern of socialism. When Italy, after the defeat of France, entered the second World War, its economy was by and large already shaped according to the Nazi pattern. The main difference was that the Fascists were less efficient and even more corrupt than the Nazis.

Page 61 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 9:59:04 PM

Fascism was not, as its advocates boasted, an original product of the Italian mind. It began with a split in the ranks of Marxian socialism, which certainly was an imported doctrine. Its economic programme was borrowed from German non-Marxian socialism and its aggressiveness was likewise copied from Germans, the All-deutsche or Pan-German forerunners of the Nazis. Its conduct of government affairs was a replica of Lenin’s dictatorship. Corporativism, its much advertised ideological adornment, was of British origin. The only home-grown ingredient of Fascism was the theatrical style of its

Fascism was not, as its advocates boasted, an original product of the Italian mind. It began with a split in the ranks of Marxian socialism, which certainly was an imported doctrine. Its economic programme was borrowed from German non-Marxian socialism and its aggressiveness was likewise copied from Germans, the All-deutsche or Pan-German forerunners of the Nazis. Its conduct of government affairs was a replica of Lenin’s dictatorship. Corporativism, its much advertised ideological adornment, was of British origin. The only home-grown ingredient of Fascism was the theatrical style of its processions, shows and festivals.

Page 62 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:00:40 PM

The philosophy of the Nazis, the German National Socialist Labour Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anticapitalistic and socialistic spirit of our age.

Page 64 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:08:03 PM

For more than seventy years the German professors of political science, history, law, geography and philosophy eagerly imbued their disciples with a hysterical hatred of capitalism, and preached the war of “liberation” against the capitalistic West. The German “socialists of the chair,” much admired in all foreign countries, were the pacemakers of the two World Wars. At the turn of the century the immense majority of the Germans were already radical supporters of socialism and aggressive nationalism. They were then already firmly committed to the principles of Nazism. What was lacking and was added later was only a new term to signify their doctrine.

Hitler was not the founder of Nazism; he was its product. He was, like most of his collaborators, a sadistic gangster. He was uneducated and ignorant; he had failed even in the lower grades of high school. He never had any honest job. It is a fable that he had ever been a paperhanger. His military career in the first World War was rather mediocre. The First Class Iron Cross was given to him after the end of the war as a reward for his activities as a political agent. He was a maniac obsessed by megalomania.

Hitler was not the founder of Nazism; he was its product. He was, like most of his collaborators, a sadistic gangster. He was uneducated and ignorant; he had failed even in the lower grades of high school. He never had any honest job. It is a fable that he had ever been a paperhanger. His military career in the first World War was rather mediocre. The First Class Iron Cross was given to him after the end of the war as a reward for his activities as a political agent. He was a maniac obsessed by megalomania. But learned professors nourished his self-conceit.

Page 66 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:19:22 PM

It must be emphasized again: there is no such thing as a scientific ought. Which men are superior and which are inferior can only be decided by personal value judgments not liable to Verification or falsification.

The eugenists delude themselves in assuming that they themselves will be called to decide what qualities are to be conserved in the human stock. They are too dull to take into account the possibility that other people might make the choice according to their own value judgments. [28] In the eyes of the Nazis the brutal killer, the “fair-haired beast,” is the most perfect specimen of mankind.

Page 67 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:29:27 PM

the experience with which the sciences of human action have to deal is essentially different. It is historical experience. It is an experience of complex phenomena, of the joint effects brought about by the co-operation of a multiplicity of elements. The social sciences are never in a position to control the conditions of change and to isolate them from one another in the way in which the experimenter proceeds in arranging his experiments. They never enjoy the advantage of observing the consequences of a change in one element only, other conditions being equal. They are never faced with facts in the sense in which the natural sciences employ this term. Every fact and every experience with which the social sciences have to deal is open to various interpretations. Historical facts and historical experience can never prove or disprove a statement in the way in which an experiment proves or disproves.

Historical experience never comments upon itself. It needs to be interpreted from the point of view of theories constructed without the aid of experimental observations.

Reference to historical experience can never solve any problem or answer any question.

Page 74 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:58:09 PM

Freedom of thought and conscience is a sham in a country in which the authorities are free to exile everybody whom they dislike into the Arctic or the desert, and to assign him hard labour for life. The autocrat may always try to justify such arbitrary acts by pretending that they are motivated exclusively by considerations of public welfare and economic expediency.

Page 75 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 11:00:06 PM

The truth is that most people lack the intellectual ability and courage to resist a popular movement, however pernicious and ill-considered.

Page 77 | Added on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 11:15:26 PM

It is not true that the masses are vehemently asking for socialism and that there is no means to resist them. The masses favour socialism because they trust the socialist propaganda of the intellectuals. The intellectuals, not the populace, are moulding public opinion. It is a lame excuse of the intellectuals that they must yield to the masses. They themselves have generated the socialist ideas and indoctrinated the masses with them. No proletarian or son of a proletarian has contributed to the elaboration of the interventionist and socialist programmes. Their authors were all of bourgeois background.

The intellectual leaders of the peoples have produced and propagated the fallacies which are on the point of destroying liberty and Western civilization. The intellectuals alone are responsible for the mass slaughters which are the characteristic mark of our century. They alone can reverse the trend and pave the way for a resurrection of freedom.

What is needed to stop the trend towards socialism and despotism is common sense and moral courage.

【譯作】Hazlitt與大蕭條｜Hazlitt and the Great Depression

Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】Hazlitt與大蕭條｜Hazlitt and the Great Depression

文：吳莉瑋
圖：rishibando via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中的「Hazlitt and the Great Depression」，Jeffrey A. Tucker帶我們回顧讓Henry Hazlitt一戰成名的辯論，也就是羅斯福新政之前的《The Nation》社論大戰，即使Hazlitt以清楚的文筆一一分析對手的荒謬與錯誤，《The Nation》最終還是照計畫選邊站，堅持自由市場的Hazlitt當然是被一腳踢出門去另找頭路。

本格曾經介紹過Hazlitt的小說《Time Will Run Back》，他是一位多產又犀利的作家，文筆又如此簡練與透徹，除了長期耕耘《Business Tides》社論之外，他還寫了《Economics in One Lesson》、《Thinking as a Science》、《Man vs. The Welfare State》等等橫跨各領域議題的專著。

除了強勁過癮的論述之外，他對自由與其信念的從不妥協，也令人肅然起敬。閱讀Rothbard、Hoppe、Mises、Hazlitt等等數不清的自由鬥士，不管是他們的人生還是他們的學術理論，都令我這個自由後進者感到勇氣倍增。

Hazlitt與大蕭條｜Hazlitt and the Great Depression

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

老右派記者Garet Garrett形容羅斯福新政為一場違反美國私有財產、有限政府及法治傳統的革命。確實，這些都是標記。羅斯福總統在競選的時候反對政府支出與赤字，但一上台後，他就像個獨裁者。

羅斯福推翻了政府角色的傳統限制，並在每一個經濟部門中實行中央規劃和福利國家主義。

而後，國家主義邪神一發不可收拾：接著來到羅斯福的戰爭社會主義、杜魯門的工運、約翰遜的大社會計劃（Great Society）、尼克森的價格管制、卡特的通貨膨脹、雷根的赤字支出、布希的監管以及柯林頓的費邊主義。

因為思想問題跟權力欲望一樣重要，羅斯福新政必須透過公共知識分子的合理化才能進行。股市崩盤與經濟衰退之成因的推衍式理論孕育而生。為了讓社會主義主導美國，學術界與大眾必須要被說服資本主義已經失敗。

Henry Hazlitt處於那次辯論的中心，不斷地在《The Nation》這份頂尖的雙周刊上侃侃而談。他受聘為編輯，相對而言是一個較為政治中立的職位。但是，隨著政治情勢變得更具爭議性，他負責了許多社論篇幅。他開始為文反對聯邦政府侵占民營企業。

當羅斯福開始扭轉競選說辭並擁抱國家主義時，《The Nation》的編輯們都知道自己不得不採取立場。正當Hazlitt對於羅斯福的批評漸增之時，《The Nation》內部對於Hazlitt理念的抱怨也漸增。《The Nation》沒有直接解僱這些編輯，而是安排了一段兩方立場之間的冗長論戰，一方堅稱資本主義失敗（因此社會主義成為解答），另一方則堅稱干預主義失敗，資本主義才是解答。

其中一邊的成員有Hazlitt、文學評論家和金融記者。另一邊則有Louis Fischer、俄羅斯流亡者、記者和社會主義者。「Depression and the Profit System」這場交流於1933年5月24號發行，當時正進行羅斯福的貨幣與財政革命。

Fischer採用馬克斯主義對大蕭條的解釋。他援引勞工統計局的數據，認為世紀之交以來生產率提高，但工資相對於輸出呈現下降。勞動者能夠購買的產品越來越少，因為資本家剝削他們的剩餘價值。「多年來，美國的財富和國家收入集中到越來越少人的手中。」

引發危機的是什麼？

Fischer解釋道，那是馬克斯危機理論和凱因斯消費不足理論的結合：「那些想要最大消費的人沒有足夠的手段，而那些擁有手段的人不想全數消費。因此，我們的購買力下降。」

需要做什麼？他說：「分割與重新分配利潤。這是出路。」「在今後幾年裡」應該要有「平分剩餘價值的規定」；我們應該消除「資本所有者的利潤」，並建立「社會主義」。

Hazlitt的回應則指出Fischer剩餘價值的採用數據基礎為「選擇謬誤」。Fischer有心選擇基準年（1899年和1929年），將非常態混淆為一般趨勢。兩方都可以玩這種遊戲，Hazlitt演示，要是改用其它基準年（1869年和1921年），勞動者可消費的產品相對於輸出可以說是一直在增加。

此外，Hazlitt問道，如果原因是勞動應佔溢利下降，那要怎麼解釋同一時期的經濟復甦？用這種推理，我們要怎麼解釋，為什麼危機出現的時間沒有更早？

正如Hazlitt所言，馬克斯的理論「很難解釋為什麼我們不是總是在危機中，也無法解釋我們如何克服危機」。在此基礎上，他忽略了1929年崩盤的更廣泛含義，這只不過是代表著經濟結構基礎下的長期運行趨勢。

但如果Fischer是對的，勞動者的收入相對於資本偏低？Hazlitt點出這並不一定意味著人們受到剝削。它可能只是意味著，該產業資本量的增加幅度大於勞動的增加幅度，這表明高效率的技術越來越多。如果是這樣，古典經濟學家的「生產力提高時勞工將擁有更多資本」預估則有助於解釋。例如，1920年代股東人數急劇增加。

為了辯退Fischer籠統的馬克斯主義理論，Hazlitt主張，就經濟觀點而言，最佳檢視期間是「當前與最近一次危機」，譬如，1922年到1929年。在此期間，我們可以注意到工業部門的資本與勞動力的價格和產出增長，超過農業部門。這對於危機成因可能沒什麼重要性，但這帶來經濟剝削勞工的質疑。

轟炸完Fischer的數據和經濟理論後，Hazlitt推測另一種可能。當時，在美國為何陷入危機的討論中，並沒有出現自由市場理論。但Hazlitt從自己對歷史的瞭解，知道過度活躍且負債累累的政府是問題的根源。他知道崩潰的秘密藏在這些問題中。

他說，一個穩定的市場秩序，需要震盪的自由，或至少，政府要能允許經濟在這些震盪中糾正。戰爭人為地抬高商品價格，而這些價格需要糾正到更實際的水平。他認為1929年的危機是經濟的向下修正。

他寫道：「但這種對於崩潰的關注卻大幅加重一系列的戰後政策。」他列舉了「惡性凡爾賽條約」、「因為戰後賠償與負債造成的解體」、「無所不在的荒謬關稅壁壘」、廢棄金本位並採用「金匯兌本位」，以及「魯莽的國外放款」。

最重要的是，他指責「英美追求的人為性廉價貨幣政策，加上柯立芝總統與梅隆先生的鼓勵下，導致龐大的不動產與股市投機。」這種因為通膨政策所造成的不良投資，創造出需要修正的資本扭曲。

接著，Hazlitt結論出不良投資才是核心問題，不只在大蕭條時期如此，在所有商業週期中也是如此。他受到Ludwig von Mises的影響，大約十年後，他們見到彼此。他們一起支持金本位以及「奧地利學派」的商業週期理論。這個理論由Mises所發展，理論指出，隨著時間推移，市場能夠調和各種投資計畫，但央行貨幣與貨幣擴張則擾亂這些計劃。

Hazlitt在正式獲知這個理論之前，已傾向奧地利學派理論。因為這個理論最符合他的思想。作為文學評論家，他的專長就是戳破理論家的自命不凡。他熱愛挑出時髦的學術文章，從誇大的文句中剖析出基本主張，然後直指這些主張有多荒謬。簡言之，他的天賦在於揪出論點的核心，不懈地進行測試，檢視這些論點是否合理。這是奧地利學派自19世紀誕生於維也納以來的特質，也是16世紀西班牙經院哲學傳統的特質，托瑪斯主義乃至亞里士多德的推理都受惠於此。

根據Hazlitt，Fischer論文中的特有荒謬建議，便是對資本開徵高額新稅。這個措施「將猛烈加劇災難」，Hazlitt說，這將使得企業進入另一次經濟衰退，讓1929年的股災變得微不足道。增加工資也同樣不可取，Hazlitt說，因為那會導致經營成本增加，並導致更多失業。他說，為了讓經濟復甦，我們需要更多的民間資本，而不是減少，這意味著，讓市場自體運作。

Hazlitt說，最重要的是，我們不需要社會主義、共產主義或「所謂規劃的曖昧東西」。基於負責人員的類型以及政治的本質，他確信經濟將會由「經濟文盲」掌舵，那些人，毫無疑問地，就像Louis Fischer。

幾乎所有Hazlitt寫於這篇強力論文的爭點，他對成因、影響與解決方案的分析，隨後都在Murray Rothbard和Robert Higgs的學術研究中獲得平反。Paul Johnson在其《Modern Times》書中，指出Hazlitt在猛攻新政一役中奠定自己的定位。最近Richard Vedder和Lowell Gallaway也在《Out of Work》中指出類似看法。

要是Hazlitt對正在形成之共識的攻擊不是這麼全面與毀滅，他可能保得住自己的工作。如果他做出一些讓步，甚至是不要這樣全面抨擊Fischer，他或許能夠留住飯碗。但是，將隱瞞真相作為權宜之計，並非Hazlitt的本性。他一定感受到自己在《The Nation》的工作已經接近尾聲，並決定壯烈出走。

Fischer與Hazlitt之間戲劇性的辯論，最終由編輯的不祥註語結尾：「這個討論…將是未來議題的編輯評論。」事實上，《The Nation》在下個議題中宣布投入社會主義事業。編輯呼應當時的傳統智慧這麼說：「羅斯福先生試圖保留資本主義，透過暫時打劫幾個主要資本主義特權，來拯救資本主義。」

編輯以罕見的洞察力說：「如果新政通過，他將有權力告訴產業應該要生產什麼、該生產多少、產品該收取多少費用、應該支付勞工多少、勞工又該工作多少個小時。」

但《The Nation》未就此打住。編輯說，「我們傾向於」認同Fischer，「集體社會可以提供理想最佳希望」。他們贊成「走向集體主義」，越快越好。他們批評羅斯福的膽怯，他們說：「國家應該刻意且具有目的地走向融合與社會化的工業社會。」

這份雜誌致力於推動進步主義的文化改革，完全贊成集體主義。這個神妙理論首次明確出現，而Hazlitt則被推開，被迫尋找其它工作出路。

社會主義的宣傳士，《Dissent》的編輯Irving Howe，死後不斷被主流媒體吹捧，僅管（或可能這才是原因）他反對財產權、反對中產階級，這在新政之前的美國完全是陌生概念。就算在世界各地的社會主義陸續失敗後，他仍受到吹捧。

Hazlitt許多次都是對的，在社會主義、福利國家主義、通貨膨脹與黃金標準、流行文化以及其他許多議題上。不像Howe，Hazlitt的文句就像他的思緒一樣清楚。

他從未利用職務之便傳播替意識形態服務的錯誤訊息，不像Howe；Hazlitt信仰真理，讓邏輯與事實替自己發聲。Henry Hazlitt的死訊幾乎未受注意，這正是官樣文化腐敗的度量衡。

我確信，他最大的希望就是這個國家能瞭解並糾正自己的歷史錯誤。當我們的歷史開始重寫，當Irving Howes被視為名副其實的社會威脅時，Hazlitt將被視為一位對掌權者說真話的先知。而逆轉社會主義編輯政策的《The Nation》，將承認Hazlitt始終是對的。

【譯作】思想，自由與不自由｜Ideas, Free and Unfree（發明歷史的騙局）

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】思想，自由與不自由｜Ideas, Free and Unfree（發明歷史的騙局）

文：吳莉瑋
圖：hurleygurley via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中「Ideas, Free and Unfree」的「發明歷史的騙局」部分，《Against Intellectual Monopoly》以其中一章替真正的發明英雄平反，不管是飛行器、廣播還是電話，我們常見的歷史總是「專利版本」，但事實上，除了那些人除了沒能在「大眾歷史觀」中留名，還飽受壟斷者（所謂專利發明人）的法律威脅，是呀，這真諷刺。

思想，自由與不自由｜Ideas, Free and Unfree

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

發明歷史的騙局

所有流行的商業歷史，都充滿了謊言。或者，更溫和地說，它們都充滿了基於愚蠢版本因果影響的謊言：發明是因為人們可以申請專利。這種假設幾乎未受主流文獻質疑。作者們看著專利記錄，並假定它們是技術進步的記錄。

事實遠比這更糟。專利記錄是那些申請專利然後什麼都沒做的快照。

人們基於專利史學，認為萊特兄弟發明了飛機，而事實上，他們只有將機翼與控制舵相結合的這個微小貢獻。發明飛機的大量工作，由英國的George Cayley爵士和德國的Otto Lilienthal所完成。但萊特兄弟申請了專利，並迅速用它來對付Glenn Curtiss，Glenn Curtiss發明了用來橫側操控飛機的副翼系統。

同樣的，廣播傳統上被歸功於1909年諾貝爾獎得主Guglielmo Marconi。英國的Oliver Lodge、被遺忘的天才Nikola Tesla、俄國的Aleksander Popov或是英國海軍工程師Henry B. Jackson，他們的貢獻又如何？

Marconi做的不過就是接地天線，還有專利戰的勝利，這得歸功於他財大氣粗的貴族合作夥伴Andrew Carnegie。在專利獲准了50年後，最高法院承認，這是不公正的裁決，但其他索賠人都死了！（但至少Marconi從一而終：他是義大利法西斯主義的大力支持者。）

再有就是著名的貝爾神話，幾乎很少有人知道真正的電話發明者是Antonio Meucci，只是Meucci無法負擔申請專利的費用。美國國會在2002年的聲明修正了這個疏忽，只是為時已晚。類似這種案例有無數件，我們不得不開始質疑專利與創新之間的關係。事實證明，歷史上極少有普羅米修斯式的一次大躍進。大部分的進步都是社會上許多要素的合作，每個人各自改良一部分，這些改良最後以可在市場上銷售的形式被組合在一起。

專利基本上與此無關。Boldrin和Levine並不是第一個指出這點的作者。你可能會感到驚訝，許多學院派經濟學家，對專利和經濟進步之間的關係做了實證研究。在Boldrin和Levine所審閱的共23份研究中，他們發現幾乎找不到建立專利與經濟進步的強大關係，但卻發現專利和發展之間的負相關關係：也就是說，專利實際上阻礙進步。

他們進一步發現，專利的主要貢獻就是增加專利數量。但是，專利數量增加與發明增加並不相同，專利的主要用途是制止類似創新或改良專利技術。專利權人持有這種權利一段時間，但歷史實際上被凍結。引發創新的模仿與分享過程，變得制式化、集中化、固定且停滯。

他們檢查了資料庫的案例，資料庫技術在歐洲有專利，但在美國沒有。美國輕易地在資料庫競爭中勝出。美國與歐洲相比，占主導地位的資料庫生產比例為2.5：1。對我來說，這有助於解釋許多人也注意到的現象，雖然歐洲致力於訊息的數位化與組織化，但許多歐洲人對於資料庫技能的知識卻很過時。現在我們知道：這不是他們的錯，這是他們智慧財產權制度的錯。

《Against Intellectual Monopoly》在第八章討論了現有反對專利的文獻，這些文獻有意或無意地透露反專利立場。該章充滿實證細節，但我特別好奇他們對英格蘭和歐洲在18和19世紀音樂創作的歷史回顧。

他們發現在沒有著作權立法之國家（尤其是德國地區）的人均作曲家比例，高於像英國那樣有著作權立法的國家。具體而言，英國在1750年出現著作權法，並於1777年將保護範圍延伸至音樂，這對於整個作曲產業產生了致命效應。而後，義大利與法國實施著作權，導致作曲家驟減。

這段回顧相當耐人尋味，比大多數音樂史學家所能想像的更多。它解決了長期以來的謎，音樂教育最普及的世界，也曾出現許多作曲天才的地方，怎麼會突然未能參與莫札特與貝多芬時代的進展。這些歷史學家只是不知道要到哪裡去找線索。

本章最讓我感傷的，便是那些偉大創新者的名字都沒有被放在歷史書上，更可悲的，是我們這些被剝奪偉大創新的人，這一切只不過是因為那些人只想趕快拿去申請專利以使用特權來追殺競爭者。專利與著作權，遠非鼓勵創新，而是扼殺了許多精彩的藝術作品與令人驚奇的技術。為了要理解這點，你必須看得比專利記錄深入。你必須訓練自己看見政府法規的隱形成本。

【譯作】守財奴只會傷害自己｜The Miser Hurts No One but Herself

Fri, 24 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】守財奴只會傷害自己｜The Miser Hurts No One but Herself

文：吳莉瑋
圖：SnaPsi Сталкер via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中的「The Miser Hurts No One but Herself」，Jeffrey A. Tucker介紹了John T. Flynn所著的《Men of Wealth》，其中一章裡介紹了Hetty Green（1834－1916）的故事，雖然表面上她好像很吝嗇，過世的時候什麼好名都沒留下，但就我個人而言，若是這樣的人生正是自己堅持過的生活，她本人應該快樂得很。

最神妙的，莫過於，你不需要喜歡一個人的人格，也可以在自由市場裡彼此互惠合作。

守財奴只會傷害自己｜The Miser Hurts No One but Herself

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

John T. Flynn的《Men of Wealth》最後一章，讓我腦子裡最近一直想著一個以前早該知道的人，除此之外最近19世紀後期的華爾街故事簡直嚴重短缺。但多虧了Flynn，我現在瞭解Hetty Green（1834－1916）的故事，她怪異又令人毛骨悚然的生活現在對我簡直造成無盡困擾。

她是鍍金時代最富有的女人，她死的時候留下2億美元。但她是個守財奴。事實上，如果用守財奴這個形容詞來描述她的話，其它人就沒得用了，我們得改用一些像極限守財奴或是超守財奴才行。這個女人拒絕付錢讓醫生治療她兒子腿上的傷口，最後不得不截肢。她曾經為了200美元一匹馬的報價而被激怒，尋找一切可能的可怕手段，恐嚇賣家把價格降到60美元。她坐渡輪的時候待在車裡只付貨運費而不付客運費。她住在霍博肯的一間矮房子裡。她只有兩套衣服，兩套都是破爛的黑衣。她可以為了討債旅行數百英里。她從不給小費。

她具有最邪惡的智慧。邪惡：她被稱為「華爾街女巫」。智慧：她成功的關鍵相當簡單，真的很簡單，Flynn說，每個人都想這麼作但幾乎沒有人實踐。她買一些沒有人想要的東西，然後在每個人都想要的時候賣出去。在她心中沒有什麼是永久的。她在債券崩盤時買債券，然後在債券需求高漲的時後通通賣出去。她在房地產跟鐵路也做同樣的操作。她似乎願意借錢給那些到處借不到錢的人，所以她家門口總是排了一長串借錢的隊伍。她提供強硬的條件，並收取高昂的價格。

她在投資任何一毛錢之前，她會找出該公司所有營運者的名字。她會挖出能找到的每一個污點。然後，她會對每個人進行深度訪談，要求對這些指控詳細解答。她對那些跟她借錢的人也做同樣的事。除非她覺得自己能有效掌握這個借貸者之前，她不會放貸。

正如Flynn寫道：「她不是一個建設者。她不會提高產業生產力。她的生意就是站在旁邊，並從那些需要她的錢的生產者和建設者身上收取費用。」

她瘋狂又偏執。她相信每個人都想殺她。如果附近有木條掉下來她就會覺得那是要用來謀殺自己的。她對所有意外都抱相同看法：在她的腦海裡，整個世界都在與她對抗。她恨每個人跟每件事，真的。

通常在市場經濟中，這種人不會過得很好。但她做到了，這只是因為她有商品。她從少女時期就著迷於金融，她高聲朗讀年邁家庭成員所持有的股票。她繼承了一些他們從鯨油貿易賺得的錢。她轉過身來進入龐大的金融帝國，但除了訴訟之外她什麼都不做。她熱愛法庭而且起訴很多人。她在法庭上用惡毒的報復跟殘忍的用語侮辱他們。她總是輸。

她有愛過嗎？顯然，有過短時間的愛戀。Edward H. Green是個有錢的單身漢，出於一些奇怪的原因喜歡上她。他給她寫了一封情書，並在同一天寫了一張支票給裁縫，支付一套便宜西裝。他不經意間拿錯了信，所以Hetty拿到了給裁縫的信。她因為他花這麼少錢在西裝上而感動到答應嫁給他。後來，他失去了他所有的錢。她沒有提供任何幫助，讓他餘生都過得憔悴貧困。

不過也有好事：她討厭政客。當政客跟她的鐵路公司要免費通行證時，她指示員工給那些政客一張卡片，上面寫著：

星期一：「你不可經過。」民數記20：18

星期二：「沒有人可以過。」士師記3：28

星期三：「惡人必不可過。」那鴻書1：15

星期四：「這世代不得過。」馬可福音13：30

星期五：「以永恆法令之名，不得通過。」耶利米書5：22

星期六：「沒有人可以通過。」以賽亞書24：10

星期日：「他給了船價，上了船。」約拿書1：2

她的錢後來怎麼了？依照複雜的家庭成員意願，部分地產被瓜分成一千多份。部分財產由不同的家庭成員繼承。不多不少。

關於這個守財奴，我們能說什麼？我認為我們可以說，她做了許多不錯的事，儘管她的邪惡與可怕方法。她出借以獲取利潤。她在沒人購買的時候購買，並在大家都購買的時候出售。她從事互利交換。她很難搞，但事實證明人們滿足於她所能提供的，並樂於與她合作。交換雙方都在結束後過得比之前更好。

現在有許多左派會覺得市場經濟孕育著這類人。事實並非如此。Hetty是出了的與眾不同。每個人跟她比起來都胸懷寬懷。確實，鍍金時代給人一種巨大財富使得人們亂花錢的印象。但這兩種說法都不對。

從Hetty Green的生命中，我們可以觀察到的，是各種社會機制中都會出現不好的人。資本主義本身不會創造守財奴；資本主義會把這些守財奴帶往生產性活動上。Hetty所傷害的只是她自己以及所有與她親近的人。市場經濟將她的任何人，但她和她那些親愛的。市場經濟本地化她的罪並兼容它們。她創造了巨大的社會價值而且也獲得獎勵。

其實，甚至很難去說她傷害了自己。她很高興，因為她只是在做自己，沒有人去強迫她改變這種情況。她的人格特質我們可能認為很可怕，但是她在產業中工作，並把這些特質用來成就一些好事。這歸功於市場經濟！確實，對於自由市場最大的褒獎，就是最糟糕的人也可以在其中找到自己的位置。

另一件有關Flynn這本好書的注意事項：該書發表於1941年。Flynn是老式進步主義者，一位對商人階級深感懷疑的記者。他對於所謂新政的真相相當反感：由企業階級炮製的幌子。他轉而反對羅斯福。他震驚於那些自由主義同胞們不這麼做。然後，他反對美國進入二次大戰。我想，這本書寫於他的悲傷時期，一種調查政府與企業之間複雜關係的方式。他漸漸瞭解，全面擁抱自由市場是唯一能夠用來檢核政府與企業聯合權力的手段。

這只有書裡的其中一章。每一章都同樣精彩。這是一本驚人的著作，但它似乎已被遺忘，這真是個謎。感謝老天爺，現在我們可以再次看到這本書。

【譯作】為「瑣碎」小事舉杯｜Three Cheers for “Petty” Concerns

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】為「瑣碎」小事舉杯｜Three Cheers for “Petty” Concerns

文：吳莉瑋
圖：Gordon Lew via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中的「Three Cheers for “Petty” Concerns」，Tucker提出歷史是由人類生活細節所決定的，而非是誰去統治哪個地區而言，確實如此，真正劃分時代的是人們的選擇，不是偉大的戰功。

Tucker的文字相當動人，我本人都因此買了一套美白牙貼來用。（得意）

為「瑣碎」小事舉杯｜Three Cheers for “Petty” Concerns

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

某天，我7歲大的女兒問，我是不是在email誕生以前出生的。我承認：「是呀。」她又繼續問：「那你是在塑膠誕生以前出生的嗎？」我說：「不，我是在塑膠誕生以後、email誕生以前出生的。」她在把我擺進世界歷史中感到滿意後，就去玩自己的遊戲了。

上述對話中有個很重要的真理。統治喀布爾的這個部落還是那個部落這種事，並不會改變我們的生活，所以我們很難理解那種狂熱。真正推動歷史前進的，據我們所知，是那些我們在日常生活當中使用的器具，例如電腦、DVD或者是燒錄機。這些簡單的經濟問題劃分了每個世代，而不是那些戰爭跟政治。

因此，每個人都因為高速網路時代來臨而取消第二條電話線，導致電話公司苦撐，這個消息非常具有新聞價值。原來，對於這些小型壟斷企業而言，第二條電話線可是筆大生意。其他的不祥徵兆包括大學生和小企業甚至出現只用手機的傾向，就像那些第三世界國家的人那樣。說實話：這是不是比中東星球上的塔吉克族和普什圖族糾紛有趣多了？

讓我們來談談真正有意義的趨勢，首先是速食，接下來是牙齒的顏色。在未來12個月內，這兩個領域即將出現改變我們生活的革命。

快餐革命從Arby’s餐廳開始。沒錯，就是那間成立於1964年的過時快餐店，漢堡王跟麥當勞大戰的時候Arby’s還不知道在哪裡。熱烤牛肉三明治的概念可是1970年代的大件事，不過自那之後就一路走下坡。

即使在1998年的市場狂熱下，Triarc餐廳集團（擁有T.J. Cinnamon和Pasta Connection）仍遭受驚人打擊，資產價值下降了一半。1999年，Arby’s的速食市占率只有3.9%。有誰真的會特地去Arby’s？那只是找不到其他速食店得來速的空車道才會去的地方。

但大新聞來了：Arby’s的革命性「市場新鮮三明治（Market Fresh Sandwich）」。這可能是你吃過最棒的三明治，不誇張。那個想出這個點子並在2001年5月推出產品的人，簡直是個天才，完全顛覆思考。它背離了一切曾經定義Arby’s的概念，或者說是速食本身。

不再有加熱燈、油膩的麵包、枯萎的生菜。打開熟食風格的包裝後看到的是超棒餐點，高高一疊新鮮食材的美麗食物。它有全麥麵包、道地的瑞士奶酪、甜紅洋蔥和美妙蜂蜜芥末。咬下第一口就會好吃到在地上滾來滾去。你終於找到完美午餐，用速食的價格買到樂勝紐約最佳熟食店對手的三明治（5美元以下）。

不僅如此，你還無須等待。三明治做好擺在那等著你挑選。4個不同口味都好吃到不行：烤牛肉加瑞士起司、烤火雞加瑞士起司、烤火腿加瑞士起司，還有烤雞肉凱撒。為了保證品質，這間公司決定和全國性食品經銷合作，基於堅實理由，他們不相信當地農產品的品質。

我對這個三明治大感震驚，因此，我做了非正式的調查，環顧餐廳看看還有誰買這些三明治。事實證明，有超過三分之二的顧客桌上都是市場新鮮三明治，我和幾個人聊過以後，顯然他們都和我有同樣的印象，覺得這是完美的一餐。

現在，基於真實顧客訪談，Arby’s開始對這個產品進行第二輪的全國性行銷。如果這個產品熱賣（怎麼可能不熱賣），想想這對速食產業會造成什麼影響。麥當勞不得不跟上腳步，然後是漢堡王、溫蒂漢堡以及其他業者。即使如此，最後Arby’s仍然是領導者，因為他們是創始者。

熟食店和熟食連鎖店即將受到嚴重競爭。那些怒斥了幾十年美國漢堡的政治左派，將會不知道該怎麼辦是好。這個左派拿來當書名的「速食國度」，將會開始食用完全不同的食物，這些食物的供應就像把漢堡推上地圖的資本家模式一樣。

看個市場如何以創新來回應消費者需求，永遠都不膩。因此，我們再來看這個時代偉大革命的第二個例子：去年夏天Crest推出的美白牙貼。一盒大概30到40美元之間。

這些簡單的牙貼含有過氧化氫，每次貼個半小時，一天兩次，連續貼兩周。它們可以把你的牙齒變回珍珠白，這實現了牙膏業者承諾了30年可是從未達到的消費者夢想。美白效果可以持續6個月，然後必須再做一遍。現在每家藥局都買得到，因為廣受歡迎，它們乾脆被擺在結帳櫃檯上賣。

我發現這個現象是在大約一個月前，一個相識多年的朋友對我微笑的時候，他的牙白得發亮。我碰巧稱讚了一下，他就透漏了秘密。後來我去買花的時候也注意到結帳阿姨的牙齒也白皙皙。接著，我開始注意到每個在圖書館走動的大學生牙齒都超白，而且每個人看來都笑得很詭異。

南部本來就是個笑臉迎人的地方，但這些美白貼讓笑臉變得更多。你會開始懷疑，說不定這些美白貼可以替紐約或底特律那種臭臉城市帶來文化革命。我們都知道，如果你歡笑，世界也會與你一同歡笑，和哭泣不同，很快，整個世界都會充滿微笑的理由。不久之後，牙齒染色可能被視為異類甚至不衛生。因此，美白牙貼的問世，可能跟除臭劑一樣具有革命性。

我知道，新保守主義者和那些國家建設者會說這些都是「瑣事」。他們希望我們都活在一個人們隨時準備戰爭、為了共同利益犧牲、青少年都夢想開轟炸機去殺死國家敵人的世界裡。我可不想。對我來說，一個透過自願市場合作而擁有歷史上最便宜三明治還有最白牙齒的社會，就是偉大的社會。

我很羨慕今天之後出生的世代可以吹噓自己誕生於美白牙貼、速食三明治、CD燒錄機之後。我願意打賭，從現在開始的半年內，不會有阿富汗人民說塔利班解放喀布爾是世界歷史上的決定性時刻。

【譯作】廢除飲酒限齡｜Repeal the Drinking Age

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】廢除飲酒限齡｜Repeal the Drinking Age

文：吳莉瑋
圖：miuenski via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中的「Repeal the Drinking Age」，Jeffrey A. Tucker用強制性的飲酒最低年齡法，說明「為你好」之名的許多「家長作風」道德觀，如何無理地「管太多」。而許多主張這些「壞東西」與犯罪關聯的論點，事實上就像Rothbard所言那樣：「只有真正的犯罪才應該非法，打擊受酒精影響的犯罪，需要專注於犯罪本身，而非取締酒精。而這也有助於減少不受酒精影響的犯罪。」

當然，主張廢除某種不合理的限制，並不等同於鼓勵。這兩者在邏輯上不是同一件事。

廢除飲酒限齡｜Repeal the Drinking Age

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

不知何故，這個國家直到1984年以前都沒有最低飲酒年齡，好像沒有人可以想像它是如何生存與發展。在那之前，飲酒問題是州政府的事。

在19世紀甚至更早之前（請準備好要想像一下可怕的無政府主義噩夢），沒有人可以回想出有任何地方有出現所謂最低飲酒年齡的限制。飲酒年齡的規則由社會決定，也就是說家庭、教會、社區規範這些用不同層面與考量進行不同強度規範的社會機構。可能會有些孩子喝酒喝到變傻子，我們都知道這種狀況現在不會發生（啾咪），但是有許多人在很小的時候就學會負責任地喝酒，甚至拿波本酒配早餐。

真的，對於國家禁止向21歲以下的人出售啤酒、葡萄酒和蒸餾酒的荒謬法律，我們不知何故地慣於接受。這種限制不會出現在已開發國家。許多國家將限制設在18歲，而德國和奧地利則允許年滿16歲的人購買葡萄酒和啤酒。而在我們這個勇士之家，警方猛力取締青少年聚會，關閉酒吧、威嚇餐廳、對便利商店罰款、欺壓百姓去過清教徒生活。我們看著新聞的時候心裡想著：這些瘋孩子，他們不應該這麼做。

年輕人每天都在找辦法突破這些幾乎未被質疑的荒謬限制，在他們的變通方法成功的時候，他們帶著對守法意識的不屑還有犯罪創新精神豪飲。

在大學校園裡，假身份證行業前所未有地蓬勃發展。幾乎每個學生都認為自己需要拿到一張。餐廳和酒吧知道這點嗎？他們當然知道。他們希望這些假身分證看來越像真的越好，如此一來，就算有人被逮住，也多少能給自己帶來某種程度的法律豁免權。整件事情是個巨大fakeroo（譯註：假的apps，沒有實際功能的裝飾品），每個人都心照不宣的公開行事。

想想，這種告訴全國人民在21歲之前都不准喝酒的社會風氣，簡直就是瘋狂，很多人都會樂於打破這種規定。在殖民時期的維吉尼亞州，平均壽命只有25歲，這種法律只允許生命最後五分之一的4年時間可以飲酒（好樣的）。

然而，如果你想想這個國家在20世紀的歷史，人們可能會說21歲的限制實際上相當寬鬆，這種說法怎麼聽怎麼怪。畢竟，聯邦政府曾經實際在這個「自由之地」的國家《憲法》中加入全面禁酒，1920到1933年全國全面禁止蒸餾酒、葡萄酒和啤酒。而1920年代充滿組織犯罪、非法營業、警察腐敗、犯罪猖獗和酗酒。

讓我感到疑惑的並不是這種禁令的失敗，而是怎麼會想要施行這種純粹的精神錯亂。在一個總是宣稱熱愛自由的國家，會出現這種嘗試簡直就是離譜。但下面是1917年通過的《憲法》第18條修正案，與政府想要透過科學的貨幣政策來消除世界專制主義以及所有商業週期同一時代：

禁止在美國及其管轄下的一切領土內釀造、出售或運送作為飲料的致醉酒類；禁止此類酒類輸入或輸出美國及其管轄下的一切領土。
是的，它真的發生了，就在這個美好的美國，感謝Mark Thornton在《The Economics of Prohibition》書中完整記錄這起傷心的政治與經濟事件。後來罕見地承認錯誤，這部《憲法》後來再次修改：「美國憲法第18條修正案現予廢除。」

但禁止的習慣已根深蒂固。這個國家是進兩步退一步。對於我們而言，從舊石器時代開始，飲用本質上無毒的醉人液體本來是正常生活中的一部分，但現在染上一層嬉皮跟蠻勇的社會風潮。美國國父可能是18世紀末期規模最龐大的威士忌釀酒商，但在禁酒令之後，酒類常常被拿來與頹廢和不良行為相關連。現在的釀酒商連市議會都進不去，更別說是想當選美國總統。

沒有太多年前，飲酒最低年齡還是比較合理的18歲，但後來被普遍改成21歲，許多人都還記得當時的情況：曾經有兩年期間，有一些人可以購買啤酒配漢堡，但突然有一天開始，同樣的行為變成犯罪。

在我們試圖翻找這些愚蠢法律的解釋時，普遍會出現的主張是「駕駛」。我們不想要喝醉的年輕人上路。這些法律拯救了成千上萬人的生命，而想要改變這些法律的企圖等同於希望下一代死亡。好吧，自由主義者的反應可能是：廢除公共道路，讓私有道路擁有者去管理駕駛人的飲酒程度。這個立場具有原則，但有點不切實際。而這種回應最大的問題，就是默認太多。

你越仔細看這些研究，就越會覺得不對勁。根據藥物使用報告中，大部分高中生的過度飲酒問題在修法之前就出現下降趨勢，而且，據研究人員Jeffrey A. Miron和Elina Tetelbaum的說法，而修法之後的趨勢，則因為採樣而嚴重偏移。因此，有關酒駕的數據，無論趨勢如何，在統計上都無法與全國飲酒最低年齡法相關連。

在任何情況下，就算有這種法規，「未成年」飲酒的情況仍相當普遍，而法規的存在則使得原因和影響更難以追查。至於，為什麼大學生喝酒比例仍高，美國國家藥物濫用研究所提供以下原因：「針對飲酒年齡法修改生效期間的影響，校園提供了某種隔離效果。」你可以再說一次。人類很偉大：當他們想要做什麼事的時候，再多的暴政，就算是監禁，也不能阻止他們。

然而，我們根本不可能讓那些禁酒支持者閉嘴，他們追蹤每起青年酒駕事故。我發現閱讀這些材料的樂趣，它們和1910到1920年代的禁令文學有太多相似處。他們的宣傳，把家庭破碎、持續貧窮、高犯罪率、文盲問題還有無處不在的一般犯罪，通通歸咎於酒精。顯然，這些觀點被廣泛接受，即使它們是把因果混成一團的巨大謬論。酒精沒有導致這些可怕的東西，只是那些從事可怕行為的人往往也喜歡喝酒。禁止喝酒無法修復人心問題。

青少年飲酒的情況也是如此。低於21歲的人，有三分之二以上承認自己去年曾飲酒，這很明顯，法律唯一做的，就是替專斷的警察國家提供干預人類自由的藉口，同時養成年輕人慣於虛偽與觸法的風氣。就像一則老蘇聯笑話一樣：「他們假裝在管我們，我們也假裝在被管。」

但是，難道不該禁止年輕人酒後駕駛嗎？Murray Rothbard在《For A New Liberty》書中總結了自由主義的觀點：

只有真正的犯罪才應該非法，打擊受酒精影響的犯罪，需要專注於犯罪本身，而非取締酒精。而這也有助於減少不受酒精影響的犯罪。

我們才剛慶祝完一年一度的獨立日，每家電台和電視評論員，都在這一天大談美國自由的光榮，以及為了保護自由所做出的犧牲。

可是我們真的相信自由嗎？我們的開國者從沒想到會出現規範飲酒年齡的國家法律。如果我們真的想擁抱自由社會的願景，而不只是說說而已，我們得做出一些立竿見影的實際行動：廢除全國性的最低飲酒限齡法。

你認為這不可想像？我認為你其實沒有真的相信人類自由。

【譯作】正在前進的人類｜The People on the Move

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】正在前進的人類｜The People on the Move

文：吳莉瑋
圖：VinothChandar via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中的「The People on the Move」，Jeffrey A. Tucker用K-cup的例子，談談人類歷史前進的動力，正是讓生活過得更好，讓每個人都盡可能可以照著自己的意願去過最想要的生活，前進，是因為「個人主義」。

正在前進的人類｜The People on the Move

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

在歷史上有許多時刻，人類在前進，這符合歷史的邏輯，地球上也沒有任何力量可以阻止他們。你可以看到1990年俄羅斯人民拉倒列寧雕像的照片，你可以看到1989年羅馬尼亞人民指控西奧塞古的皇宮的照片。

我昨晚在床上、在浴室裡也見證了這種前進。還有那些用Keurig咖啡機沖泡K-cup飲品膠囊的人，這可是節日禮品的熱門商品（僅次於新版的平裝《人的行為》）。

為了理解為什麼Keurig咖啡機點亮了歷史的進步方向，我們得重思從集體到個人的科技發展趨勢。例如，泡澡在古代是一種社區活動：一池所有人都可以用的水。隨著技術進步，出現了家庭浴缸，人們可以依序泡澡。而現在，我們幾乎都有個人浴缸或是單獨的淋浴間。

電話的發展也是如此，電話剛開始被發明出來時，每個社區只有商店裡看得到電話，而後是幾戶人家共享一條電話線，接下來每戶人家都有自己的電話線。最後，這種個人化的過程催生了放在口袋裡的手機，每個人都有自己的電話號碼。這種過程放諸世界與歷史皆準，而孕育這個過程的是創新、生產與分銷的自由。

書籍也是如此。首先是出現亞歷山大圖書館，然後是城市的公共圖書館，接著出現在家裡的私人圖書館。現在，我們達到終極個人化：每個人的手機裡都有帶著走的個人圖書館。這種滿足個人主義需求的推力，同時也是人類歷史前進的動力。

咖啡也是如此。我們長久處於集體供應模式的生活。不管這個集體大鍋替我們準備了什麼，我們就喝什麼。不要太在意咖啡烘培過頭，不用太在意太濃或太淡，不要太在意顏色過深或過淺，也不要太在意味道好不好。不要太要求那些繁雜的準備與清理過程，那些看了就倒胃口的咖啡渣，不僅堵塞水槽還弄臭垃圾。反正這就是我們現有的東西，而且我們只能用這個。

然後出現了星巴克還有其他專賣店。我們可以在這些店購買想要的飲料，每一杯都根據我們的要求現做。畢竟，我們都是人，每個人都有著不同的口味、慾望和需求。如果有機會可以表達需求，我們就會把握機會，而這也出現了一堆創業機會，讓那些夠大膽、夠有創意，也願意承擔推動歷史前進這個責任的人去發揮。

現在回想起來，Keurig狂熱似乎很明顯，甚至不可避免。我們希望家裡就有星巴克，我們想要無盡口味，我們想要快速享用，我們不想要一起床就聽到研磨機粉碎咖啡豆的可怕聲音。事實上，儘管我們從來沒想過，我們並不想要看到那些咖啡渣，不管是泡過還是沒泡過的。

當你第一次看到Keurig使用的K-cup時，你可能這麼想：這個的效率也低得太可笑。怎麼會有人想要把少量咖啡跟複雜的內部過濾系統放到塑膠杯裡，再浪費地蓋上鋁箔封蓋，只是為了要沖出一杯咖啡？但是你知道嗎？歷史不是一些根據現有狀態來評論效率高低的局外人觀點。歷史是真實人類的想法和偏好。

K-cup的成功要歸功於軟體式的開發模式。Keurig開發硬體，並將硬體（還有K-cup專利）賣給Green Mountain Coffee Roasters。GMCR本來可以使用專利的壟斷特權，但它似乎清楚自由使用比限制使用更能帶來利潤這點。GMCR授權許多不同的公司生產K-cup的韌體，因此造就了現今的龐大市場，甚至是展示這些東西的小玩意的市場。

當專利在2012年到期時，K-cup的價格可能會下降，但GMCR受到打擊有限（本人認為），因為目前已經有很多人在爭市占率。值得注意的是，K-cup是在自由化後才成為主流，就在不久前的2007年，你只會在一些高檔律師事務所裡面看到這些咖啡機，這公司正努力用訴訟打擊其它咖啡機製造商。

當專利明年到期後，這些預測都將見真章。我預期下一世代再也看不到咖啡渣，不再需要去煩惱濕答答的濾紙，就像現在那些吃培根的人不再需要參與圍捕與屠宰豬隻的處理過程一樣。勞動分工將介入，消費者只有一個工作要做：根據個人喜好喝美味咖啡。

你會說，這很昂貴，比自己購買散裝咖啡粉或咖啡豆要貴了三五倍。事情就是這樣。手機很昂貴。浴缸很昂貴。衛生紙很昂貴，洗髮精、除臭劑、牛肉還有百貨公司的衣服也都很昂貴。有一些讓生活更美好的事物就是值得。這難道不是物質世界的重點嗎？讓生活更美好？

接下來是最精采的部分。想想現在這種慶祝資本主義衰落是怎麼被行銷的。我們被引導去相信這個技術來自歐洲（那裡的時髦人莫名其妙地熱愛耗損與低增長的經濟體），但事實上，擁有這項技術的是美國公司。注意，那些PC的行銷都隱約暗示著感性。「綠色」這個詞似乎無處不在。Paul Newman贊助自己的K-cup（我們難道不喜歡這傢伙做的一切嗎？）。包裝上面的人好像站在綠色小丘上的樹周圍。當然，這些荒謬的過剩都相當環保。當然是這樣！資本主義的天才從沒有像在過去幾年那樣，一邊行銷反資本主義，一邊賺大錢。

準備好垃圾填埋場來處理堆積成山的廢棄K-cup吧，這種景象就在道路前方。當掩埋場被填滿時，我們用土蓋上然後再挖一個新的，一個又一個，直到Keurig咖啡機的發明變成回憶，變成人類離開自然狀態並進入高階生活這個長期鬥爭中的另一個里程碑。在這個過程中的每個階段，我們很容易就可以觀察到從集體到個人的路徑，同時陶醉這個優雅的諷刺：正因為我們的獨特性將我們團結在一起，捍衛購買與販賣的自由，而這正是駕駛歷史的力量。

【譯作】怪才和書呆子的政治理論｜A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】怪才和書呆子的政治理論｜A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks

文：吳莉瑋
圖：wetaskiwin.tomorrow via photopin cc

本文意譯《It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes》書中的「A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks」，Jeffrey A. Tucker簡單地把政治上分成兩類人：怪才和書呆子；除了相當貼切以外，我很欣賞Tucker對這兩者的簡要評論：「書呆子盡量把國王拉到自己的陣營裡；怪才殺國王。」

怪才和書呆子的政治理論｜A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks

作者：Jeffrey A. Tucker
譯者：吳莉瑋

很多人透過政治運動而對政治思想感興趣。這也許是因為政治事務強迫你決定自己的身分與信念。

我隱約記得自己還很年輕的時候，也許是7歲那年，我發現我的麻吉一家人認為他們家是民主黨，而我敢肯定，我的家人是共和黨。

我問別人這是什麼意思，可是只得到一些模糊的答案，反正看來很像是跟政府還有公共生活有關的大議題。對此我沒有多想，儘管這是我第一個可能會佔據生命的想法。

很多人都是這樣：政治事務是認真思考政治思想的入門。如果你對政治思想的興趣日益濃厚，你可能會變成這兩者之一：書呆子（wonk）或怪才（geek）。這些術語常被用在生活中的各方面，維基百科上有這兩個術語的定義，但它們在政治領域中有新的涵義。

政治書呆子著迷於過程。他們喜歡遊戲。他們從觀察改變中得到滿足。他們喜歡參與。理想之於他們是無聊的東西。歷史只是數據。知識分子似乎無關緊要。對書呆子而言，最要緊的是正在進行的政治鬥爭這個嚴酷事實。他們可能因為頭銜與地位而有所不同。他們從眾多會議、微小勝利、行政細節，以及這些事務的八卦中茁壯。他們知道搞懂誰是誰與事實為何才是生活的精髓。

書呆子有兩種，政治書呆子和政策書呆子。他們存在於社會各階層。他們出現在運作事務上，因為他們旨在以正確與合乎戰略的方式控制權力槓桿，這意味著在某種程度上有利於同族群的其他書呆子。從地理上看，他們生命的開始與結束都在華盛頓，首都圈出他們的整個世界，而其外圍則是霍布斯所謂的自然狀態（state of nature）。他們透過機密訊息以及卡特爾化政治階級而茁壯成長。他們的報紙是《華盛頓郵報》，他們認為它是內部報告。

政策怪胎則和書呆子形成對比。他們並不著迷於細節而是被理想吸引。觀察本身是無聊的事。吸引他們的是變革的願景。他們不想參與其中，他們質疑遊戲規則而且非常想改變這些規則。他們樂於創造不同意識形態的藍圖，或大或小。他們傾向於獨立工作而且全然不管階級區別。他們感興趣不是表面而是底層，不是貼皮而是木材。以軟體術語來說，他們總是期待下個版本。他們敢於冒險，所以他們寧願先上線再除錯。

在政治上，這意味著怪才會被想法吸引，甚至是激進想法。他們很容易就能想像出不存在的東西，這讓他們成為夢想家與企業家。因此，他們對於研究歷史、哲學和經濟學感興趣。不管古代或近代歷史能否帶來教訓，從古人或今人身上發掘老觀念並把它起死回生，本身就有特殊吸引力。他們透過訊息公開、破除窠臼、打破卡特爾並抨擊權力壟斷而茁壯。在地理上，他們可以在任何地方生活與工作，而且他們不仰賴於任何單一訊息來源。

怪才跟書呆子可以湊在一起共事，但兩者間總是存在自然的緊張關係。書呆子認為怪才無可救藥、缺乏權力，只是腦中充滿無用且不實際幻想的魯莽局外人。怪才則認為書呆子是體制的一部分，因此，很可能會日益受到體制的腐蝕。

將這個觀點擴大，控制歷史的鬥爭是書呆子與怪胎之間的戰鬥。書呆子是那些鞏固、穩定並擴張現狀者；怪才則是那些革命者。書呆子凍結現狀並讓現狀更有效率；怪才則想像且邁往沒有人認為可行的未來。書呆子將激烈與極端措施視為輕率與魯莽；怪才則認為這些是唯一值得追求的道路，並且抱著未來將以某種方式行得通的信心。書呆子盡量把國王拉到自己的陣營裡；怪才殺國王。

凱撒（Julius Caesar）：書呆子
布魯圖（Marcus Junius Brutus Caepio）：怪才
漢密爾頓（Alexander Hamilton）：書呆子
傑弗遜（Thomas Jefferson）：怪才
布希（George Walker Bush）或歐巴馬（Barack Obama）：書呆子
羅恩．保羅（Ron Paul）：怪才

民主的待辦事項之一，就是將整個社會都變成一群相信這個系統可行也致力於使其可行的書呆子。但駕馭人性也不是那麼容易，總是會有一些怪才出現，他們認清民主系統的基礎是謊言，而且想要推翻這個系統。為什麼多數人可以統治少數人？或者更準確地說，為什麼組織良好的少數可以統治意見相左的相對多數？我們需要的不是權力與特權不被操弄的民主2.0，而是廢除整個系統。

誰將帶領世界？從短期看來，書呆子是正確的。他們得勝，他們統治。他們也的確統治了數百年的古代世界。他們統治了72年的蘇聯。他們現在正統治著美國。但從長期看來，則是另一回事。羅馬帝國與蘇聯因為怪才發起的革命而崩潰。書呆子最終將低估思想的力量以及理想的效應。

哪一種生命值得活？書呆子很有名，甚至是傳奇人物。而怪才就算改變了歷史，卻很少聲名大噪。為什麼？因為書呆子寫歷史。但這些歷史卻因為怪才才開始。怪才回過頭來看著自己努力實現夢想的一生而感到滿足。而書呆子回顧一生才發現自己不過是機器上的一顆齒輪。總會有一天，他們也不得不承認自己所做的一切將化為虛無，就算是在美國。

【譯作】Mises Institute的故事｜The Story of the Mises Institute

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】Mises Institute的故事｜The Story of the Mises Institute

文：吳莉瑋
圖：Wiki CC 署名-相同方式共享 3.0 Unported

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《The Story of the Mises Institute》，Rothbard 介紹奧地利學派在二戰後與凱因斯主義、社會主義及國家主義等敵人的抗爭，從一度沒落到 Hayek 獲頒諾貝爾獎的第一次復甦，又從繁榮發展到變種虛無主義、國家主義扭曲奧地利學派之名的再次沒落危機，Mises Institute 秉持 Mises 一生無懼攻訐的勇氣，以同樣不願對任何主流壓力妥協的真理，逐漸收復奧地利學派的失地，透過健全 Mises 理論框架下所發展的自由市場理論、豐富的閱讀資源、定期舉辦的學術研討會，吸引、培養無數願意獻身自由市場的人，成為勇敢堅毅的自由市場倡導中心。

Mises Institute的故事｜The Story of the Mises Institute

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

Mises Institute 採用與眾不同的角度看待經濟研究與應用政治哲學。它相信沒有原則的「政策分析」不過就是詐騙集團跟政策說帖，沙子堆成的模糊政治結論。它也認為，沒有學術原則基礎的政策分析，不值得用掉那些紙張與專門為此所投注的時間與金錢。簡言之，唯一有價值的當代政治及經濟分析，必須以堅實的學術原則為基礎。

另一方面，Mises Institute 也挑戰那些普遍被接受的學術研究手段。與此相反，對 Mises Institute 而言，對於真理的奉獻，意味著學術研究必須追求真理在任何地方的應用可能，包括時事領域。遠離應用的經濟研究，不過就是束之高閣的學者遊戲，就像除去學術原則的公共政策分析一樣混亂。

因此，我們看到 Mises Institute 獨特的研究暨應用孿生計畫的真正重點：將被人為分割的兩個領域重新融合。學術原則被用來分析政府與政府的詭計，就像當代政治經濟仰賴健全學術研究。從公理到應用，最終將學術研究與應用經濟統合成一個整體。

而現在我們看見 Mises Institute 招牌後的真正要點。這個研究所是美國唯一以 Ludwig von Mises 為名的機構，這並非偶然。Ludwig von Mises 的生活與工作都是學術原則與學理應用兩者交融整合的例證。Mises 是 20 世紀最偉大的知識分子與學者之一，他蔑視任何認為學術研究應保持抽象理論且永遠不將原則套用到公眾政策的概念。

與此相反，Mises 總是結合學術研究與政策結論。Ludwig von Mises 是個具有高度勇氣與氣節的學者，他總是追求真理的最終結論，不管那會多麼不受歡迎或令人不快。作為結果，Ludwig von Mises 是 20 世紀追求人類自由最偉大也最不妥協的冠軍。

這也難怪，那些怯懦者與腐敗者總習慣性地迴避 Ludwig von Mises 這個名字。在 Mises 追求真理與自由的道路上，他蔑視一切障礙與誘惑。高舉 Ludwig von Mises 這面驕傲的旗幟，Mises Institute 確實設出了恢復智慧與誠實的標準。

Mises Institute 前所未有地擴大與蓬勃發展。它的學術期刊《評介奧地利學派經濟學（Review of Austrian Economics）》，是奧地利學派經濟學理論以及應用的高水準期刊，也是該領域唯一的期刊。它擴大並發展奧地利學派經濟學的真理。它也孕育奧地利學派學者，鼓勵新進年輕奧地利學派學生閱讀並替該期刊為文，同時發掘成熟的奧地利學派學者，他們往往在學術界被孤立但現在被鼓勵撰寫並提交文章。

這些人士現在知道他們並不孤單，而是日益龐大與增長的全國乃至國際運動的一部分。任何一個記得找到另一個同意我們自由與自由市場偏好意見的人是什麼感覺的人，都會明白我的意思，Mises Institute 對此扮演了非常重要的角色。

研究所針對奧地利學派經濟學教育的全面性計劃，還包括出版並經銷不管是原文或轉載的研究論文、書籍和專著，舉行各種重要經濟議題的會議，並在會議結束後以書籍形式出版會議論文。而它每月發表的政策評論《自由市場（The Free Market）》，提供了奧地利學派角度對世界政治經濟的精闢評論。而《奧地利學派經濟時事通訊（Austrian Economics Newsletter）》則帶來重要發展的相關新聞與評論。

此外，Mises Institute 在美國奧本大學設有學術總部，並頒授經濟學碩士與博士學位。Mises Institute 提供大量研究生獎學金，開放給不管是在奧本大學或是其他在全國各地有前途的年輕研究生。

最後但非最不重要的是，由 Mises Institute 所贊助的夏季研討會取得巨大成功，這個研討會為期一周並專注於奧地利學派經濟學。課程邀請眾多顯赫的講師，並吸引了來自世界各地最優秀的年輕頭腦，從而被認可是最嚴格、最全面性的課程。在這裡，奧地利學派的領頭經濟學家會在舒適的校園環境，對學生進行密集授課並與學生進行討論。參與者幾乎都是最好、最聰明也最具求知慾的奧地利學派新芽。他們從那裡開始發展、畢業，並成為自學的奧地利學派學者、成為商人或其他意見領袖，深知真理以及奧地利學說與和自由市場經濟的重要性。

此外，Mises Institute 的獨特指導方式，避免講師在發表演講後迅速離場的學術常例；相反的，他們出席所有的講座，並鼓勵學生與學院之間的友誼及團隊精神。這些友誼與關係可能走一輩子，而這些對於建立任何形式，具有活力、凝聚力之奧地利學派經濟學與自由市場的長期運動而言，非常重要。

這一系列活動的基本要點有兩方面意義：推進學科內容並不斷擴大奧地利學派經濟學真理的綜合體；建立蓬勃發展的奧地利經濟學家運動。沒有科學或學術專業能無中生有；必須孕育於人們的發展，透過個體間互相討論、筆談與相互交流，來協助建立並維持奧地利學派經濟學的內容。

Mises Institute 取得的巨大成就，只在清楚 1982 年成立當時所面臨的條件背景之下而被理解。Mises 的頭號門徒 F.A. Hayek 在 1974 年獲頒諾貝爾經濟學獎，那是一個令人吃驚的變化，以前的諾貝爾獎專頒給數學凱因斯主義者。1974 年同時也是現代奧地利學派偉大的理論家與自由倡導者 Ludwig von Mises 的去逝周年。Hayek 的獲獎激發了這個長期被遺忘之經濟思想學派的復興。之後幾年，年度的學術研討周會聚集各路領頭的奧地利學派經濟學家以及最聰明的年輕學生；而這些會議論文在會後發表成卷，推動奧地利學派的復甦。奧地利經濟學派在凱因斯主義革命帶來近 40 年的忽視後正在復甦，凱因斯主義革命將習日繁榮發展的奧地利學派給丟入歐威爾式忘懷洞裡。

在奧地利學派復興運動中，許多奧地利學派者視為理所當然的中心，是的，只能是 Ludwig von Mises。這個偉大的智者發起、建立並開拓 20 世紀的奧地利學派，而他對質樸且不容妥協的真理，抱著勇氣與奉獻精神，讓他成為本世紀自由與自由放任經濟戰場上的傑出戰鬥者。以他的思想以及他引以為豪的人格，Mises 是我們所有人的靈感與燈塔。

但在蓬勃發展中，有些問題開始出現。1976 年夏天最後一次成功的研討會結束後，每年一度的高水準研討會消失了。而設立奧地利學派期刊以鞏固並擴大成功復興運動的提案也屢屢碰壁。夏季的基礎教學研討會雖然繼續進行，但語氣開始改變。我們開始聽到一些令人生惡的消息正在蔓延：他們低聲說，Mises「太教條…太極端了」，他「以為他知道真理」，他「疏離人群」。

是的，當然，Mises 遵奉「教條」，即，他全心奉獻於真理、自由與自由企業。是的，確實，Mises 即使是最和藹可親也最鼓舞人心的人，他始終「疏離人群」，意思是，他系統性地疏遠集體主義者、社會主義者、國家主義以及形形色色的整頓主義者與機會主義者。

當然，這種指控了無新意。Mises 英勇且頑強的一生當中都飽受這些抹黑攻擊。而令人感到煩擾的，是這些傳播謠言者都清楚：他們一直到奧地利學派「繁榮」期間，看來都像 Mises 追隨者。

很快地，什麼遊戲正在進行顯得很清楚。無論是獨奏或和鳴，那些參與這一轉變的個人與團體，都出於意識地作出關鍵決定：他們得出結論，自己該早點明白人類行為學、奧地利學派經濟學與不妥協的自由放任主義，既不受政治家歡迎，也不受體制派歡迎。這些觀點也不受主流學者「尊敬」。一小群富有捐助者認定追求權力與財富之路不在此，而許多年輕學者則認定保住學術飯碗的方法是討好學術主流意見，而不是維持往往被忽視之真理的承諾。

但這些整頓主義者並不希望直接攻擊 Mises 或奧地利學派學者；他們深知 Ludwig von Mises 廣受商人與有智人士的欽佩，而他們不想疏離現有或潛在的支持。怎麼辦呢？就和一個世紀前某些團體做的事情相同，扭曲高貴的「自由」一詞，變成與其對立的中央集權與專制，而非自由。同樣的行為，也發生在美國憲法意義的改寫，把限制政府凌駕個人權力的文件，扭曲成認可與合法化這種權力。正如著名經濟記者 Garet Garrett 對羅斯福新政的評論：「只有形式的革命」，保留奧地利學派之名，行相反之實。竄改原先奉獻給經濟法則與自由市場的內容，變成模糊的虛無主義，含糊地接受 Mises 的宿敵：歷史主義、制度主義，甚至是馬克思主義與集體主義。這些，毫無疑問地，在許多學術界內都更「體面」。該拿 Mises 怎麼辦？他們並未公開攻擊他，而是採取忽視，並希望 Mises 過段時間後會同意這個新的狀態。

就在 Ludwig von Mises 的思想快要第二次也是最後一次消失在歷史洪流，而「奧地利學派」這個名字也幾乎被扭曲成反面指稱之時，羽翼未豐的 Mises Institute 走入這團瘴氣與破毀。

Ludwig von Mises 抱著單純的想法創始於 1982 年秋天；沒有凱子爹、沒有捐贈基金，也沒有億萬富翁的協助。事實上，那些當時看來是「奧地利體制派」的高權者們努力地擺爛，希望看到 Mises Institute 失敗。

然而，Mises Institute 堅持下去，被真理與自由的光明激勵，逐漸地找到同樣支持 Ludwig von Mises 一生思想與原則的朋友與支持者。Mises Institute 發現自己的期望是有道理的，美國確實有很多自由與自由市場的忠實倡導者。我們的期刊、研討會、會議中心與獎學金蓬勃發展，我們能夠推行一門學問，不對那些虛無主義與國家主義等不知情社會誤以為的「奧地利學派」經濟學妥協。

這場鬥爭的結果令人滿意。成千上萬接觸奧地利學派的學生，成為主流理論的激進替代品。真理之光壓倒口是心非。不再有任何爭用奧地利學派之名的可行競爭對手。自由市場再次出現具有原則且勇敢的倡導者。正義在這次取得勝利。不僅復甦奧地利經濟學派的蓬勃發展前所未有，它現在也在健全的奧地利學派框架下發展良好。最重要的是，奧地利學派經濟學又再次回到 Mises 主義。

【譯作】美聯儲主席艾倫．格林斯潘：少數派報告｜Alan Greenspan: A Minority Report on the Fed Chairman

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】美聯儲主席艾倫．格林斯潘：少數派報告｜Alan Greenspan: A Minority Report on the Fed Chairman

文：吳莉瑋
圖：trackrecord via photopin cc

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《Alan Greenspan: A Minority Report on the Fed Chairman》，Rothbard 整理了標榜「自由放任的實用主義者」Alan Greenspan 的職業生涯，事實上，一如 Rothbard 所言：

對於 Greenspan 而言，自由放任主義拿來引航的北極星、標準甚至是指導；而只是放在衣櫃裡面的興趣，完全脫離具體的政策結論。

美聯儲主席艾倫．格林斯潘：少數派報告｜Alan Greenspan: A Minority Report on the Fed Chairman

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

媒體廣泛地讚譽 Alan Greenspan（艾倫．格林斯潘）成為美聯儲主席；左派、右派與中間派經濟學家都懾服於 Alan 的偉大、敏銳，以及對「數字」無與倫比的洞察力。唯一保留似乎是 Alan 可能無法享有前任美聯儲主席的巨大權力與尊敬，因為他沒有籃球員那麼高、不是禿頭，也不抽雪茄。

精明的觀察者可能感覺得到，任何受到體制派一致掌聲的人都不會真的那麼好，在這個例子中，這種感覺是正確的。我 30 年前就知道 Alan 這個人，而且富饒興趣地追蹤他的職涯。

我發現特別精彩的，是近期報導「陶森－格林斯潘經濟顧問公司」可能歇業的新聞，因為事實證明，那間公司賣的不是計量經濟學預測模型或是它著名的數字，它賣的是 Greenspan 這個人，還有他以洛可可式語法及模糊空間作成長篇空洞大論的天賦。

身為卓越的預測員，他悲哀地承認他在幾年前成立的養老基金管理公司，因為缺乏能力實行它所憑藉的預測而關閉：當投資基金上線時。

Greenspan 能獲取信任的真實資格是他從不會晃動體制派的船。他早已將自己定位成經濟領域的極中間派。他就像長期以來的共和黨經濟學家一樣，是個保守派凱因斯主義者，而保守派凱因斯主義近日來幾乎和民主黨陣營的自由派凱因斯主義沒有什麼區別。事實上，他的觀點幾乎與同樣是保守凱因斯主義的 Paul Volcker 相同。意味著他想要適中的赤字與增稅，並在傾倒貨幣供應的時候大聲擔心通貨膨脹。

然而，有件事使 Greenspan 在他那些體制派好友中顯得與眾不同。即，他是 Ayn Rand 的追隨者，因此他「哲學上」相信自由放任主義（laissez-faire），甚至是黃金標準。但就像紐約時報和其他重要媒體趕緊向我們保證的那樣，Alan 只在「高度哲學」上相信自由放任主義。在實踐上與他的主張政策中，他就像其他人一樣是個中間派，因為他是「實用主義者」。

身為所謂的「自由放任的實用主義者」，在他主導政治的 21 年職涯中的任何時候，他都不曾倡導過任何疑似自由放任主義甚至是趨近自由放任主義的主張。對於 Greenspan 而言，自由放任主義拿來引航的北極星、標準甚至是指導；而只是放在衣櫃裡面的興趣，完全脫離具體的政策結論。

因此，Greenspan 只在各方面條件都適合時才贊成黃金標準：如果預算平衡、貿易自由、通膨結束、所有人都有正確理念等等。同樣的，他可能會說他只在所有條件都符合時才支持自由貿易：如果預算平衡、工會勢力減弱、黃金標準、我們具有正確理念等等。總之，這個人的「高度哲學」從來都不會實踐於行動。體制派就像吃辣一樣把這個人給納入其陣營。

這些年來，例如，Greenspan 在任職經濟顧問委員會主席時，支持福特總統傻頭傻腦的「打敗通膨」（Whip Inflation Now）。更糟糕的是，這個自由放任主義的「高度哲學」信徒，當公眾開始認識到社會保險計劃的破產，終於遇到機會屠宰這頭偉大的美國政治聖牛時，他在 1982 年保存了敲詐勒索的計劃。Greenspan 臨危受命，擔任「兩黨的」（即保守派與自由中間派）社會安全委員會負責人，以更高的社會保險稅「挽救」破產的社會保險制度。

Alan 是著名三邊委員會（Trilateral Commission）的長期成員，該委員會是這個國家政經權力精英 Rockefeller 主導的巔峰之作。當他被提名美聯儲主席時，他離開他體面的摩根公司（J.P. Morgan & Co.）與摩根保證信託公司（Morgan Guaranty Trust）的董事職位。是的，體制派有很好的理由在 Greenspan 掌舵貨幣時睡得香甜。錦上添花的是，他們知道 Greenspan 的「哲學上」Ayn Rand 追隨者身分，無疑會矇騙不少自由市場倡導者，以為自己主張終於坐上權力高位。

【譯作】回歸市場貨幣｜Taking Money Back

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】回歸市場貨幣｜Taking Money Back

文：吳莉瑋
圖：Denis Collette…!!! via photopin cc

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《Taking Money Back》，Rothbard 在此文中完整簡介貨幣理論、現有廉價紙幣制度的陷阱，並且最終提供逐步回歸市場貨幣的詳盡建議，非常非常值得仔細思量。

回歸市場貨幣｜Taking Money Back

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

錢是任何經濟體、任何社會中的重要指揮所。社會衍生於自願交換網路，也被稱為「自由市場經濟」；這些交換行為意味著社會分工，那些雞蛋、鐵釘、馬、木材等有形產品的生產者，與教學、醫療照護、音樂會等無形服務的提供者，拿自己的商品來交換他人的商品。在每次交換行為中，每個參與者都因為交換而獲得無法估量的利益，如果每個人都被迫要自給自足，那這些設法生存的人將被迫減低到可憐的生活水平。

商品和服務的直接交換也被稱為「以貨易貨」，只比最原始的自給自足好一些，事實上，每個「原始」部落都很快發現，把市場上某種特別暢銷的商品，用來當成「間接交換」的「媒介」，能帶來巨大的好處。如果某個特定商品廣泛地在社會中被用來當成媒介，那麼這個一般性的交換媒介就被稱為「錢」。

這個被稱為錢的商品，成為每個市場經濟中無數交換行為的一個項目。我販賣我的教學服務來換錢，並用這筆錢購買食品雜貨、打字機或旅遊住宿；而生產者則轉用這筆錢來支付員工薪資、購買設備和庫存，並支付建物租金。因此，對某些族群而言就產生無時不在的誘惑，來掌握貨幣供應這個重要的經濟功能。

在人類社會中，許多有用的物品都曾被選用為「錢」。非洲用鹽、加勒比地區用糖、新英格蘭殖民地用魚、契沙比克灣（Chesapeake Bay）附近的殖民地則用菸草，還有貝殼、鐵鋤頭和許多其他物品都曾經被當成錢。這些錢不僅被當作交換媒介；它也使得個人與商業企業能夠進行先進經濟體系中的必要「計算」。這些錢在交易與估算過程中，幾乎都以重量作為貨幣單位。例如，菸草以磅重來估算。而其他商品與服務的價格則能用菸草的磅重來表示；某匹馬在市場上可能價值 80 磅（的菸草）。而商業公司則能以此計算上個月的利潤或虧損；它可以算出過去一個月的收入是 1000 磅、支出 800 磅，因此淨利為 200 磅。

【黃金或政府文件】

綜觀歷史，有兩種商品在選用為錢的競爭中打敗市場上所有其他商品：黃金與白銀這兩種貴金屬（如果其中一樣無法取得時也會用銅）。黃金和白銀具有我們稱為「可作為錢」的特質，這些特質使它們優於所有其他商品。它們的罕見但充足的供應量，使得它們的價值保持穩定且每單位重量具有高價值；小塊黃金與白銀便於攜帶且在日常交易中方便使用；它們的罕見度使得突然發現巨額供應的可能性較小。它們的耐用度使它們幾乎能永久使用，所以它們能提供替未來準備的「儲存價值」。加上黃金與白銀能被分割，所以，他們可以被分割成小塊，而不會失去其價值；不像鑽石，黃金與白銀等貴金屬具有同質性，所以，某塊一盎司的黃金與其它一盎司的黃金將具有同等價值。

普遍把黃金與白銀當成錢使用的悠久歷史，最早由 14 世紀偉大的法國金融理論家 Jean Buridan 開始，其後出現於各種貨幣討論與金融教科書中，直到西方國家政府在 1930 年代初廢除黃金標準（金本位）。Franklin D. Roosevelt（羅斯福）也在此潮流中於 1933 年廢除美國的金本位。
在自由市場經濟中，金本位遭受到「現代」經濟學家最嚴重的輕蔑和鄙視，不論是坦承中央集權的凱因斯主義或所謂「自由市場」的芝加哥學派。不久前才被譽為健全金融體系基礎的黃金，現在經常被指責為「神器」，或是凱因斯說的「野蠻的遺跡」。好吧，黃金在某種意義上的確是個野蠻的「遺跡」；沒有任何「野蠻人」會接受我們這些風雅現代人被迷惑而採用的虛假紙本及銀行信貸。

「金蟲」不是戀物癖，我們並不符合守財奴擺弄囤積金幣同時陰險咯咯笑的標準形象。黃金之所以有眾多好處，只因為它是人們運行下由自由市場供應的貨幣。擺在我們面前的嚴峻的抉擇總是：金（或銀）或政府。黃金是市場貨幣，是一種必須從土地中挖出來然後經過處理的商品；相反地，政府無中生有地提供幾乎無成本的紙幣或銀行支票。

首先，我們知道，所有的政府運作都是浪費、低效，為官僚服務而非消費者。我們會選擇自由市場上具有競爭力之民營企業所生產的鞋，還是由聯邦政府的巨大壟斷所生產的鞋？提供貨幣的功能，政府也沒能處理得更好，且貨幣供應的情況比鞋或任何其他商品都還糟糕。如果政府生產鞋子，至少它們還能穿，即使價格可能很高、嚴重不合腳也不能滿足消費者期望。

錢和其他所有商品不同：其他的商品都一樣，更多的鞋或發現更多的石油或銅，都有助於減輕資源稀有性而造福社會。但是當某種商品在市場上被當成錢時，市場並不需要更多的錢。因為錢的用途只有交換和計算，更多的美元、英鎊或馬克投入經濟循環並不能視為社會福利：它們只會稀釋現有美元、英鎊或馬克的交換價值。因此，黃金或白銀的稀缺性而提高增加供應的成本，其實是一大福音。

如果政府試圖將紙質票券或銀行信用當成等同於金克或金盎司的錢，而後政府將成為能自由且無成本地依照意願創造貨幣的主導貨幣供應商。其結果就是，膨脹的貨幣供應量會破壞現有美元或英鎊的價值、推動物價上漲、削弱經濟計算，並嚴重損害市場經濟運作。

政府一旦掌管貨幣後，其天性是膨脹並破壞貨幣的價值。為了瞭解這個道理，我們必須深入檢視政府與貨幣創造的本質。綜觀歷史，政府總是長期性的收入短缺。其原因應該很明確：不像你和我，政府並不生產能在市場上出售的有用商品和服務，政府寄生於市場與社會而非生產並銷售服務。不同於社會中的其他個人與機構，政府所獲得的收入來自脅迫：徵稅。在古代與理性時代，確實，國王能夠從自己私人土地與森林的產品，以及高額通行費來獲得足夠的收入。在國家實現正規化的過程中，和平時期的徵稅也經歷數世紀的鬥爭。即使建立了徵稅體系，國王也意識到不能輕易開徵新稅項或提高舊有稅項的稅率；如果這樣做，很容易就會爆發革命。

【控制貨幣供應】

如果稅收永久性地不敷國家支出所需，國家要怎麼補足差額？答案是控制貨幣供應量，講白一點就是「偽造」。在市場經濟下，我們只能透過銷售商品或服務換取黃金，或是接受禮物來獲得錢；唯一獲得錢的其他方式，是從事昂貴的掏金活動。而另一方面，偽造則是竊賊試圖透過假冒來獲利，例如，把一塊黃銅畫得像一枚金幣。如果這種偽造立即被檢測出來就不會產生真正的損害，但只要偽造未被發現，偽造者就不僅僅只是竊取他所購買之商品的生產者。對於偽造者而言，透過將假錢混到經濟體系中，他還能打劫每個人手中握有之貨幣的價值。透過稀釋每盎司黃金或真正美元的價值，偽造的盜竊比真正的強盜更陰險也更具破壞性，因為他搶劫了每個社會上的人，這種搶劫是隱形的，其因果效應關係還能蒙上一層偽裝。

最近我們看到恐慌性標題：「伊朗政府試圖偽造百元美鈔以摧毀美國經濟」。伊斯蘭教的阿亞圖拉們心中是否真的有這種宏偉目標值得懷疑；偽造者不需要隆重的理由就能透過印鈔票來搶奪資源。所有的偽造的確都具顛覆性與破壞性，通貨膨脹也是。

但是，換成政府控制貨幣供應、廢棄金本位並將自己印製的紙定義為唯一貨幣時，我們應該怎麼看待這種情況？換句話說，我們要怎麼看待政府成為合法的偽造壟斷者？

被檢測到的不僅是偽造，還是巨額偽造。在美國，身為巨大竊賊與破壞者的聯邦儲備系統，不僅不被人咒罵，還被歡呼與讚譽為統御我們「宏觀經濟」的聰明機制，我們依賴這個機構來避免經濟衰退與通貨膨脹、確定利率、資本價格和就業。不像往常慣有的扔紅柿和臭雞蛋，不管美聯儲的主席是誰，無論是威風的 Paul Volcker 還是有智慧的 Alan Greenspan，都被普遍譽為經濟與金融體系的「不可或缺先生」。

事實上，識破現代貨幣與銀行系統奧秘的最好方式，是瞭解政府與央行的行為就如同一個大偽造者，兩者對社會與經濟都有非常相似的影響。很多年前，在《紐約客 New Yorker》雜誌的卡通還很有趣的時候，發表了一篇漫畫，畫著一群偽造者急切地看著他們的印刷機印出第一張十元鈔票。其中一個人說：「唉！拿去附近零售商店的消費肯定是一劑強心針。」

是的。偽造者印新的鈔票，其所想要的任何消費支出都將上升：為他們自己所購買的零售商品，以及貸款與其他政府所謂的「公眾福利目標」。但由此產生的「繁榮」是假的；這些現象只是有更多的錢來競爭現有的資源，從而使物價上漲。此外，這些新錢的偽造者還有新錢的早期接受者，把資源從那些後期接受者或甚至是拿不到這些新錢的倒楣蛋手中給吸走。注入經濟體新錢產生不可避免的波及效應，新錢的早期接收者花得更多並哄抬價格，而後期接收者或固定收入者則發現他們必須以莫名其妙上升的物價來購買商品，但自己的收入卻遠遠落後或保持不變。貨幣通膨，換句話說，不僅提高價格並破壞貨幣的單位價值，它也變成偽造者與早期接收者剝削後期接收者的龐大系統。貨幣擴張是隱形財富再分配的龐大計劃。

當政府就是偽造者的時候，這種偽造的過程不僅可以「檢測」，政府還公開地自詡為公共福利貨幣政治家。貨幣擴張變成隱形的稅收計畫，針對那些固定收入族群、遠離政府開支與補貼的族群，還有那些天真地相信手中貨幣單位價值的節儉儲蓄者。

支出與負債被鼓勵；節儉與勤奮工作則被阻礙與懲罰。不僅如此，親近政府的特殊利益集團，可以對政府施加壓力，讓這些新錢花用在自己身上，使得他們收入的上升速度高於物價上漲。政府承包商、與政治有關聯的企業、工會和其他壓力團體將獲利，成本則由不知情且無組織的公眾承擔。

━━━━━━━━━━

我們已經描述了當代從健全的自由市場貨幣飛躍到國有化通膨性貨幣之過程的部分內容：Franklin Roosevelt 在 1933 年廢除金本位，並將美聯儲發行的廉價紙券當成我們的「貨幣標準」。這個過程的另一個重要組成部分，是透過 1913 年建立的聯邦儲備系統，將這個國家的銀行卡特爾化。

銀行是經濟體系中特別神秘的部分；問題之一是「銀行」一詞涵蓋了許多不同影響的各種活動。文藝復興時期，義大利的 Medicis 家族與德國的 Fuggers 家族都是「銀行家」，然而，他們的銀行不僅是私有財產，也至少是從合法、非通貨膨脹且高生產力的活動開始。基本上，這些是「商人銀行（merchantbanker）」，始於傑出的商人。商家在交易過程中開始提供他們的客戶信用貸款，以這些大銀行家族的情況而言，信貸或「銀行」的部分業務最終蓋過他們的商業活動。這些公司把自己的利潤和儲蓄借出，並賺取貸款的利息。因此，他們是自有積蓄的生產性投資管道。

銀行借出自有積蓄或調動他人儲蓄，他們的活動在一定程度上具生產性且無可指摘。即使在我們目前的商業銀行系統中，如果我買了 10,000 美元可在六個月內贖回的存款證明（certificate of deposit, CD），並獲得某個固定利息回報，我是把自有儲蓄借給銀行，銀行再以較高利率轉貸，而這之間的利率差則是銀行提供信譽良好或具生產性借款人借款管道的盈利。這個過程不存在任何問題。

甚至是 19 世紀工業資本主義下而發展出的「投資銀行（investment banking）」情況也相同。投資銀行家會拿自有資本、他人投資之資本或透過借貸而取得之資本，來承銷公司透過出售證券給股東與債權人的公司集資。投資銀行家的問題是主要投資領域之一為承銷政府債券，從而一頭栽入政治，這給他們強大的壓力與動機來操縱政府，讓稅收被分配來支付他們與他們客戶的政府債券。因此，投資銀行家在 19、20 世紀具有強大又惡毒的政治影響力：特別是西歐的 Rothschilds 家族，還有美國的 Jay Cooke 與 Morgan 家族。

19 世紀末期，Morgan 家族率先試圖迫使美國政府卡特爾化他們有興趣的鐵路與製造產業：保護這些行業免於自由競爭，並利用政府權力允許這些行業限產而提高價格。

特別地，投資銀行家為卡特爾化商業銀行的過程中的核心族群。從某種程度上說，商業銀行家借出自有資本與透過存款證明而集資的資金。但大多數商業銀行只是基於巨大騙局的「存款銀行（deposit banking）」：大多數存戶以為他們的錢存在銀行，並能在任何時候以現金贖回。如果 Jim 在當地銀行開立一個 1,000 美元的支票帳戶，Jim 知道這是一筆「活期存款」，即，銀行承諾在他希望取錢時隨時支付他 1,000 美元的現金。很自然的，這個世界裡的 Jim 確信他們的錢安全地存在銀行，他們能在任何時候取出。因此，他們會認為他們的活期帳戶等同於倉儲憑證。如果他們出門旅行前在倉庫裡放把椅子，他們會預期無論何時出示憑證都能取回椅子。不幸的是，銀行靠著倉庫的譬喻系統性地迷惑存戶。存戶的錢並不存在。

誠實的倉庫會確保受託貨物確實存放在庫房或保險室。但銀行以非常不同的方式經營，17 世紀阿姆斯特丹與漢堡的存款銀行，確實像倉庫一樣以足夠的資產支持他們發行的存款憑證，例如黃金與白銀。這種誠實的存款銀行或「轉帳」銀行被稱為「100% 準備金」銀行。但從那時起，銀行習慣性地無中生有創造倉儲憑證（剛開始是銀行票據接著是存款）。基本上，他們是現金或標準貨幣倉儲憑證的偽造者，這些偽造憑證在市面上流通，彷彿完全儲備的銀行票據或支票帳戶一般。銀行透過憑空創造貨幣來賺錢，現今是偽造存款而非銀行票據。這種詐欺或偽造以「部份準備金」的術語除罪化，意指銀行只承諾他們儲備銀行存款的一小部份後盾可供贖回。（現在，在美國，聯邦儲備系統將這個最低儲備比例固定為 10%。）

【部分準備金銀行】

讓我們來看看在沒有央行情況下的部分準備金銀行會如何運作。我成立 Rothbard 銀行並投資 1,000 美元現金（無論是黃金或政府債券都不要緊）。然後，我「借出」10,000 美元給某個人，不管為了消費支出還是投資生意。我怎麼能「借出」遠超過我所有的數目？啊哈，這就是部份準備金所謂「部份」的魔法。我只要開個 10,000 美元的支票帳戶來借給我樂意提供貸款的 Jones。為什麼 Jones 願意向我借錢？唔…只因為我願意收取低於一般儲蓄者所收取的利率。我不用自己存錢，只要簡單的無中生有偽造。（19 世紀時我還能發行自己的銀行票據，但現在銀行票據的發行已被美聯儲壟斷。）由於 Rothbard 銀行的活期存款等同於現金，這個國家的貨幣供應神奇地增加了 10,000 美元。通貨膨脹與偽造的過程正在進行中。

19 世紀英國經濟學家 Thomas Tooke 正確地指出「自由貿易下的銀行無異於自由貿易下的詐騙」。但是，正因為「自由」且沒有政府支持，這個偽造過程或「自由銀行系統」也有一些嚴峻枷鎖。首先：為什麼人們要相信我？為什麼人們要接受 Rothbard 銀行的支票？第二，即使我能找到方法取得輕信，能自由進入銀行系統的競爭事實也產生另一個嚴峻的問題。畢竟，Rothbard 銀行的客戶有限。Jones 借走我的支票存款後他會花掉。其他人為什麼要支付貸款？遲早，他所花用的錢，無論是度假或擴大業務，都會被花到其他銀行客戶所提供的商品或服務上，例如 Rockwell 銀行。Rockwell 銀行對於持有我的銀行票據沒有特別興趣；它希望增加自己的儲備以便它可以基於現金儲備進行金字塔式偽造。這樣一來，簡單地說，Rockwell 銀行拿到 Rothbard 銀行 10,000 美元的支票，Rockwell 銀行會向我要求贖回現金以便進行自己的通膨性偽造勾當。但是，我當然付不出這 10,000 美元，所以我完了、破產、被抓包。按理說，我應該被視為貪污犯被關到監獄，至少我的偽造銀行存款使我退場並退出貨幣供應體系。

因此，在自由競爭且沒有政府支持與強制執行下，部份準備金制度的偽造規模有限。銀行可以組成相互支持的卡特爾，但通常沒有政府強制執行也沒有政府協助打擊競爭的卡特爾，在市場上無法運作良好，在這種情況下，會迫使相互競爭的銀行履行支付。

【中央銀行】

因此，銀行家具有相當動機驅使政府透過設立中央銀行來卡特爾化銀行業。中央銀行始於 1690 年代的英國央行，並在 18、19 世紀擴散到其他西方國家，卡特爾們最終在 1913 年把聯邦儲備系統強加給美國。對中央銀行特別熱衷的要屬投資銀行家，例如率先引進卡特爾概念的 Morgan 家族，當時 Morgan 家族的業務也已擴大到商業銀行領域。

近代的中央銀行被授予壟斷銀行票據發行（最初是用手寫或印刷且相當於銀行存款之無形收據的倉儲憑證），現今被視為政府法幣，並因此成為國內的貨幣「標準」。人們花用實體現金與銀行存款。因此，如果我希望從我的支票銀行贖回 1,000 美元的現金，該銀行必須從它在美儲聯的支票帳戶中提取，向美儲聯「購買」1,000 美元的美儲聯銀行票據（也就是現今的美元）。換句話說，美聯儲的角色就像銀行家的銀行。銀行在美聯儲中的支票存款構成它們所謂的儲備，而它們可以在各自的儲備基礎上增加十倍的金字塔式支票貨幣。

以下為今日世界中偽造的進行過程。比方說，美聯儲像往常一樣決定要擴大貨幣供應量（即膨脹）。美聯儲決定進入市場（稱為「開放市場」）並購買資產。購買了什麼資產並不重要；重要的是它寫了張支票。美聯儲可以購買任何它想要的資產，包括企業股票、建物或外幣現鈔。事實上，它幾乎都是購買美國政府債券。

假設美聯儲從一些「合格」政府債券承銷商（一小群）的手中購買 1,000 萬美元的美國債券，譬如華爾街的雷曼兄弟公司。美聯儲會寫一張 1,000 萬美元的支票給雷曼兄弟公司，換取 1,000 萬美元的美國債券。美聯儲要去哪裡拿 1,000 萬美元支付雷曼兄弟公司？無中生有。雷曼兄弟公司能做的只有一件事，就是把支票存入它在商業銀行的支票帳戶，譬如說大通銀行。這個國家的「貨幣供應量」增加了 1,000 萬美元；沒有任何人的支票帳戶減少。因此產生 1,000 萬美元的淨增加。

這僅是通貨膨脹、偽造過程的開始。大通銀行很高興能取得支票，趕緊再把支票存入它在美聯儲的支票帳戶，現在它在美聯儲的支票帳戶中增加了 1,000 萬美元。而美聯儲的支票帳戶構成大通銀行的「儲備」，此時已經在全國範圍內增加了 1,000 萬美元。這意味著大通銀行可以基於它的「儲備」創造銀行存款，而且，當這些支票和儲備滲到其他銀行時（就像 Rothbard 銀行存款一般），每間銀行都可以進行膨脹，直到整個銀行系統的活期存款增加1億美元，十倍於美聯儲所購買的資產。銀行體系允許銀行只保持銀行存款 10% 的儲備，這意味著銀行基於其儲備以擴張存款的「貨幣乘數」為 10。美聯儲購買了 1,000 萬美元的資產後，整個銀行體系快速地增加了 10 倍的貨幣供應量：1 億美元。

有趣的是，所有的經濟學家都同意這個過程的機制，即使他們理所當然地強烈反對這個過程的道德與經濟結果。不幸的是，一般公眾並不知悉銀行的奧秘，仍然堅信他們的錢「存在銀行」。

因此，美聯儲與其他央行的角色，就像銀行卡特爾中巨大的政府創造者與強制執行者；美聯儲挽救陷入困境的銀行，它集中協調銀行系統，使得所有的銀行能夠同步膨脹，不管是大通銀行、Rothbard 銀行或 Rockwell 銀行。在自由銀行制度下，某個膨脹速度高過其他銀行的銀行，隨時都會面臨破產的危險。但現在，在美聯儲的傘下，所有的銀行都能一起成比例地膨脹。

【存款保險】

但即使有美聯儲的支持，部份儲備銀行制度也被證明搖搖欲墜，因此，1933 年的羅斯福新政增加了「銀行存款保險」的謊言，利用「保險」這個正面用語來掩蓋徹頭徹尾的騙局。當儲蓄和貸款系統（S&L）在 1980 年代末失敗時，聯邦儲蓄和貸款保險公司（Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, FSLIC）的「存款保險」被揭穿為純粹的欺詐。「保險」只是聯邦政府毫無後盾的煙霧彈術語。可憐的納稅人最終得紓困 S&Ls，我們現在只剩為商業銀行擔保的聖人聯邦存款保險公司（Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC），但現在看來 FDIC 也越來越搖搖欲墜，因為 FDIC 本身只握有它所擔保的巨額銀行存款不到 1% 的資產。

「存款保險」的想法是一個騙局；怎麼能擔保本質上無解，且在公眾識破其詐欺行為時終將崩潰的機構（部份儲備銀行）？假設，美國公眾突然在明天意識到銀行的詐騙行為，通通在早上湧到一致地要求贖回現金。會發生什麼事？銀行會立刻破產，因為他們只能拿出應償欠款的 10%。巨額增稅來挽救每個存戶也無法解決。不：美聯儲唯一有權可以做的，只有印出足夠的新錢來清償所有存戶。不幸的是，以目前銀行系統的現狀，其結果將是立刻陷入恐怖的惡性通貨膨脹。

假設被保險的銀行存款總額為 1.6 兆美元。技術面而言，在銀行擠兌的情況下，美聯儲可以行使緊急權力，印出 1.6 兆美元的現金給 FDIC 清償銀行儲戶。問題是，在此龐大紓困金額的壯膽之下，存戶會再把這新印的 1.6 兆美元存進銀行，使得總銀行儲備增加 1.6 兆美元，進而允許銀行立刻進行十倍的擴張，一口氣增加 16 兆美元的銀行存款總量。隨後就是失控的通貨膨脹與貨幣的徹底毀滅。

━━━━━━━━━━

為了拯救我們的經濟免於受到失控通膨的破壞與終極屠殺，我們必須從政府手中取回貨幣供應這項經濟功能。貨幣非常重要，因而不能被掌握在銀行家、體制派經濟學家與金融家手中。為了實現這個目標，貨幣必須回到市場經濟中，讓貨幣的所有功能限制在私有財產權與自由市場經濟的結構內。

或許，有許多人都認定政府與貨幣的結合已經施行許久、在經濟體系中太過普遍、對經濟有著千絲萬縷的束縛，所以沒法在不破壞經濟的狀況下廢除。保守派慣於譴責「可怕的簡化者」採取不可行的簡單計畫而把所有事情摧毀。然而，我們的主要問題恰好相反：每當出現一些公眾發言人呼籲大規模減稅與鬆管時，技術官僚和知識分子等統治精英陣營的神秘人就開始諷刺笨蛋群眾「以簡單的方案解決複雜的問題」。唔…在大多數情況下，解決方案確實明確又簡單，但卻被那些我們可以稱為「可怕的複雜化者」故意模糊處理。說實話，將貨幣供應回歸市場其實簡單又直接，比起東歐與前蘇聯那些共產主義國家去國有化、去共產化的艱鉅任務要簡單得多。

我們的目標可以簡單地概括為貨幣體系私有化，分離政府與貨幣及銀行體系。完成任務的主要手段也很簡單：取消並清算聯邦儲備系統－廢除中央銀行。聯邦儲備系統要怎麼取消？基本上：只要簡單廢除它的法源－1913 年的聯邦儲備法。此外，美聯儲曾經負有償付義務（其票據及存款）－依要求償付黃金。自從 Franklin Roosevelt 在 1993 年的怪異行動後，美聯儲發行的「美元」以及美聯儲和其成員銀行的存款，已經不能贖回黃金。銀行存款能夠贖回美聯儲票據，但美聯儲票據贖不回任何東西，或頂多贖回其它的美聯儲票據。然而，這些美聯儲票據是我們的錢、我們的貨幣「標準」，而所有債權人都必須接受這些廉價紙幣，不管這些紙幣貶值到什麼地步。

除了廢止黃金贖回，羅斯福在 1933 年還參與了其他的犯罪：沒收所有美國人持有的黃金，換成某個專斷定價的「美元」。奇怪的是，儘管美聯儲和政府體制派不斷宣揚黃金貨幣過時且無價值，美聯儲（以及其他央行）仍拼命地握住手中的黃金。我們那些被沒收的黃金仍然由美聯儲所擁有，存放在諾克斯堡與其它黃金保管人的金庫裡。事實上，從 1933 年到 1970 年代，任何美國人擁有任何形式的黃金貨幣都是非法的，無論是金幣或金條，即使只是存放在國內或國外的保險箱。這些措施據說是大蕭條的緊急因應，但一直以羅斯福新政的部份偉大遺產之名持續實施。四十年來，任何流入美國私人手中的黃金都必須存入銀行，而銀行則必須轉存至美聯儲。「合法」的非貨幣性用途，如牙科填料、工業鑽頭或珠寶等目的，都由財務部實施嚴格配給。

幸運的是，由於眾議員 Ron Paul 的英勇努力，美國人現在能合法持有黃金，無論是金幣或金條。但被美聯儲沒收與扣押的黃金仍握在美聯儲手中。要怎麼從美聯儲手中拿回黃金？該如何進行美聯儲黃金儲備的私有化？

【私有化聯邦黃金】

答案是美聯儲曾經承諾以黃金償付其負債。1933 年羅斯福廢除金本位後，該承諾仍為有效默認。美國聯邦儲備系統應進行清算，而清算方式就像其它破產企業一樣：資產按比例分配給債權人。1991 年 10 月 30 日列出的美聯儲黃金資產為 111 億美元。而美儲聯截至該日的負債，包括 2,955 億美元的流通美元及 2,440 億美元的成員銀行的存款，合計總共 3,199 億美元。另一方面，美聯儲除了黃金以外的資產，大部分是美國政府債券，總額為 2,625 億美元。這些債券應立即註銷，因為它們比會計把戲還糟糕：納稅人被迫支付美聯儲本金與利息，而美聯儲是聯邦政府自己創造出來的機構。其餘資產中，最大宗的是應該註銷的 210 億美元的財務部貨幣（Treasury Currency），還有僅僅只是國際央行紙上產物的 100 億美元特別提款權，也應取消。我們只剩下（除了美聯儲擁有價值約 350 億美元的各種建物、固定設施等其他資產）111 億美元來支付應償負債總額的 3,199 億美元。

幸運的是，這種情況並不像看起來那麼可怕，111 億美元的美聯儲黃金純粹是個假評估，事實上，這是我們現有詐欺貨幣體系最詭異的方面。美聯儲的黃金儲備包括 262,900,000 盎司黃金，而其 111 億美元的估值只是政府武斷地將每盎司黃金定義為 42.22 美元的結果。目前黃金市價為每盎司 350 美元左右，這也顯示出現有系統明顯的異常。

【定義和貶值】

42.22 美元的這個數字從何而來？

金本位的基礎，是把美元、法郎、馬克等貨幣單位定義為一定重量的黃金。在金本位制度下，美元和法郎並非只是個別國家央行發行之紙幣的名字，它是某一重量單位黃金的名字。就像「盎司」、「格令」或「公克」等更普遍的重量單位一樣。1933 年以前的一個世紀，「美元」被定義為 23.22 格令的黃金，因為 480 格令等於1盎司，美元也被定義為 0.048 盎司的黃金。換句話說，每盎司黃金被定義為 20.67 美元。

除了廢除美國境內的黃金標準，羅斯福新政還「貶低」美元，將美元重新定義或「減輕重量」為 13.714 格令的黃金，換句話說，定義每盎司黃金為 35 美元。外國央行與政府仍能用較輕重量的美元以每盎司35美元贖回黃金，這使得美國處於混合形式的國際金本位制，直到 1971 年 8 月才由尼克森總統完成徹底鑿沉金本位的任務。美國自 1971 年後進入廉價紙幣標準，並非巧合的是，美國從當時開始遭受前所未有的和平時期通貨膨脹。自 1971 年以來，美元不再以固定重量與黃金掛鉤，因此，它成為一個獨立於黃金而在世界市場上自由浮動的商品。

在美元與黃金鬆綁那陣子，我們進行了最接近實驗的人類事務。所有體制派經濟學家，從凱因斯主義者到芝加哥學派貨幣主義者，都堅持認為黃金已失去作為貨幣的價值，由於政府「固定」黃金的價值，每盎司黃金最高只達政府賦予的 35 美元。由美元賦予黃金價值而非黃金賦予美元價值，如果黃金和美元鬆綁，我們將看到黃金價格迅速下跌到其所預估每盎司約 6 美元的非貨幣價值（用於首飾、牙科填料等）。與這個獲得全體同意的體制派預測相反，Ludwig von Mises 的追隨者和其他「金蟲」堅持認為，每盎司黃金被低估為 35 美元，並聲稱，黃金價格將可能上升到每盎司高達 70 美元。

事實上，黃金價格從未跌到每盎司 35 美元以下，黃金的價格呈凸拱形，曾經達到每盎司 850 美元，近年來穩定落於每盎司約 350 美元。然而，自 1973 年以來，財務部和美聯儲持續評估他們的黃金儲備，當然不是以過時的 35 美元舊標準，但僅小幅提高到每盎司黃金 42.22 美元。換句話說，如果美國政府像要求其他人評估私有資產的市場價值一樣做出簡單的會計調整，美聯儲的黃金儲備價值會立即從 111 億美元上升至 920 億美元。

從 1933 到 1971 年間，曾有為數眾多但後來不斷減少的經濟學家，倡導回歸每盎司 35 美元的黃金標準。Mises 與他的追隨者則主張更高的黃金價格，因為每盎司 35 美元的定義不再適用於美國。但大多數人抱持著任何措施或定義一經接受就應堅持的觀點。自從神聖的每盎司 35 美元在 1971 年宣告死亡後，所有打賭都消失了。由於定義被接受後就應永久堅持，沒有什麼初始定義是神聖的，而應選擇最適用的定義。如果我們想恢復金本位，我們可以自由選擇任何最合用的定義；對過時的每盎司 20.67 美元或 35 美元都不再有任何義務。

【廢除聯邦儲備系統】

具體而言，如果我們希望清算聯邦儲備系統，我們可以選擇一個足以清償所有美聯儲負債的新「美元」定義。在上述例子的情況下，我們可以將「美元」重新定義成 0.394 格令的黃金或每盎司黃金 1,217 美元。在此新定義下，財務部可以將所有聯邦黃金儲備鑄造成金幣，取代現有流通的美聯儲票據，並構成所有商業銀行 244 億美元的總黃金儲量。美國聯邦儲備系統將被取消，金幣取代美聯儲發行的票據而進入經濟體系成為交換媒介，並以每盎司黃金 1,217 美元的新利率進行黃金美元的經濟計算。回歸金本位與廢除美聯儲這兩個重要的需求將一舉完成。

下一步，當然是廢除早已破產的聯邦存款保險公司。「存款保險」的概念是詐欺，你怎麼可能「擔保」本質上無償還能力的整個行業？「存款保險」就像擔保撞到冰山後的鐵達尼號。一些推崇自由市場的經濟學家，主張「私有化」存款保險制度，鼓勵民營企業或銀行自己來「承保」個人存款。但是，這會讓我們回到令人厭惡的佛羅倫斯銀行卡特爾，每家銀行都試圖支撐彼此的負債。這不會管用，別忘了 1980 年代在俄亥俄州和馬里蘭州第一個崩潰的 S&L 也享有可疑的「私人」存款保險。

這個問題也顯示許多自由意志論者和自由市場經濟學家的重要錯誤，他們往往相信所有政府活動都應私有化，或是將私有行為推論為合法。但相反的是，欺詐、貪污或偽造等活動不應該被「私有化」，他們應該被廢除。

讓商業銀行仍處在部分準備金狀態。過去，我曾主張直接將黃金價格提高到足以清償 100% 銀行負債的無欺詐銀行。當然，在那之後，將在法律上要求 100% 的銀行儲備金。以目前估計而言，建立商業銀行活期帳戶的 100% 儲備，會使每盎司黃金升為 2,000 美元；如果是所有支票帳戶的 100% 儲備，黃金價格得定成每盎司黃金 3,350 美元；如果是所有支票帳戶與存戶的 100% 儲備（所有人的要求都被視為可贖回），黃金價格得定成每盎司黃金 7,500 美元。

但這樣的解決方案也有問題。其中的小問題，是這個高於目前市價的黃金美元定義將使黃金產量增加。而黃金產量增長將導致溫和的一次性物價通膨。更重要的是道德問題：有哪間銀行值得在清算美聯儲後獲得 100% 儲備的免費禮物？顯然，即使在平順過度到健全貨幣的名義下，也幾乎沒有銀行配得上這樣的良性治療，銀行應該慶幸自己沒有被以貪污罪起訴。此外，目前行政基礎難以強制執行 100% 銀行儲備。透過法院將更輕鬆也更符合自由意志理論。在南北內戰前，那些被遠離於部分準備金發行銀行所在地的不健全銀行票據，會被專業的「貨幣中間商」折價收購，大量銀行票據被帶回發行銀行的所在地，向發行銀行要求贖回黃金。

這在今日將能更有效率地完成，透過先進的電子技術，專業的貨幣中間商為了利潤，會檢測不健全貨幣並逼迫發行銀行就範。我特別偏好反銀行自發聯盟（Anti-Bank Vigilante Leagues）的概念：替銀行上標籤、檢測出錯者，然後上電視宣布不健全的銀行名單並呼籲存戶立即贖回存款。反銀行自發聯盟掀起的歇斯底里與隨之而來的銀行擠兌，越多越好，讓票據持有人及存戶爭相趕在銀行倒閉前取出他們的錢：如此一來，部分儲備銀行將由公眾本身進行嚴格監督，而非僅由政府監督。必須強調的重點是，當銀行露出無力清償其發行票據與存款的跡象時，警察與法院必須強制停止該銀行之業務。沒有同情也沒有紓困的即時正義。

在這樣的制度下，銀行很快就會倒閉或者是將其發行之票據與存款總額縮回 100%。這樣的貨幣緊縮將導致各種調整，顯然能夠將銀行的負債總額下降到總黃金儲備的 100%。通貨膨脹和通貨緊縮的重要區別，是通貨膨脹可以無限提高貨幣供應量與價格，但貨幣緊縮只能下降到標準貨幣總量，在金本位的制度下，標準貨幣總量等於黃金貨幣供應量。黃金構成了通貨緊縮的絕對下限。

這個建議對銀行似乎過於苛刻，但我們必須認識目前銀行系統不管任何情況都將面臨強大崩潰。S&L 崩潰後，我們終於認識到當前銀行系統搖搖欲墜的本質。人們公開談論聯邦存款保險公司的破產，還有整個銀行體系的結構崩塌。但如果有人真的從骨子裡認識到這點，他們會構成強大的「銀行擠兌」，試圖從銀行手中把自己的錢放回自己的口袋。銀行將因此轟然倒閉，因為這些錢並不存在。唯一能夠拯救這些銀行免於倒閉的方法，是讓美聯儲印出 1.6 兆美元現金並交給銀行進行償付，如此一來，毀滅性的失控通膨與美元崩潰也被瞬間點燃。

自由主義者喜歡將當前經濟危機歸咎為「1980 年代的貪婪」。但 1980 年代的「貪婪」不會比 1970 年代、1970 前的幾十年，甚至是未來多出多少。1980 年代所發生的事，是政府赤字以及由美聯儲所帶動之銀行信貸擴張的致命情節。隨著美聯儲購買資產並注入大量銀行儲備，銀行也樂得基於自己的儲備以倍數擴張銀行信貸並創造新資金。

劣質銀行貸款一直以來受到很多關注：貸款給破產或浮腫的第三世界國家政府，還有不健全房地產計劃跟不知道在哪裡的商場。但劣質貸款和投資，一直以來都是央行與銀行信貸擴張的副作用。這些我們都太過熟悉的繁榮與蕭條、興奮與崩潰的週期，並非從 1980 年代才開始。它也不是文明或市場經濟的產物。繁榮與蕭條的週期現象，始於中央銀行出現的 18 世紀，並隨著中央銀行控制西方世界經濟體系而蔓延與加劇。只有廢除聯邦儲備系統並回歸金本位，才能終結繁榮與蕭條的週期現象，並消除慢性加速的通貨膨脹。

通貨膨脹、信貸擴張、商業週期、沉重的政府債務及高額稅收，並非如體制派歷史學家所聲稱的那樣，是資本主義或「現代化」的必然特性。相反的是，這些都是國家干預主義嫁接到經濟系統的反資本主義與寄生贅瘤，以隱形的特權獎勵銀行家和他們的內部客戶，把成本轉嫁到其他人身上。

自由企業與資本主義系統的關鍵是堅定的私有財產權，保障每個人賺取之財產的安全。另一個至關重要的資本主義倫理，則是鼓勵並獎勵儲蓄、節儉、勤奮工作與生產性企業，阻止揮霍無度並嚴厲打擊任何對財產權的侵犯。然而，正如我們所看到的，廉價貨幣還有信貸擴張逐漸侵蝕這些權利與美德。通貨膨脹透過獎勵揮金如土與內部人員顛覆且扭曲了這些美德，並將其嘲弄為過時的「維多利亞時代產物」。

【恢復舊有共和】

恢復美國自由與舊有共和是多層次的任務。它需要將「利維坦國家」這個毒瘤從我們身上切除。它需要拆除位於華盛頓的國家權力中心。它需要恢復 19 世紀的道德觀和美德，救回我們受害於虛無主義的文化，恢復我們文化中的理智與聖潔。從長遠看來，政治、文化和經濟是不可分割的。恢復舊有共和需要一個建立在堅固私有財產權上的經濟體系，每個人都有權保有他的所得並有權交換他的勞動成果。為了完成這個任務，我們必須回歸市場貨幣，即黃金而非紙幣；將貨幣單位定義為黃金重量，而不是政府隨性發表的紙票名稱。我們必須以市場上的自願儲蓄來投資，而不是以透過不當國家特權之銀行系統發行的偽造貨幣和信貸來投資。簡言之，我們必須廢除中央銀行，並迫使銀行像其他人一樣即時履行自己的義務。貨幣及銀行體系透過神秘化的過程，變得要遵循那些技術精英的指導與操作。但它們並非如此。在貨幣還有許多我們身邊的事務上，我們都被奥兹魔法師給惡意矇騙。貨幣事務，一如我們生活中的其他領域，必須要和恢復舊有共和的努力齊頭並進。

【譯作】通貨緊縮：自由或強制｜Deflation, Free or Compulsory

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】通貨緊縮：自由或強制｜Deflation, Free or Compulsory

文：吳莉瑋
圖：DryRot via photopin cc

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《Deflation, Free or Compulsory》，Rothbard 清楚地分析通貨緊縮有兩種指稱，第一種是自由市場調節下的「物價下跌」，第二種是政府強迫性的「貨幣供應量減少」，前者的三種可能原因都是一種市場調節的新陳代謝，而後者則只會造成更多的災難，諷刺的是，媒體唯一讚譽的通貨緊縮恰恰正是後者－明智的政府緊縮貨幣供應量。

通貨緊縮：自由或強制｜Deflation, Free or Compulsory

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

在經濟思想歷史中，很少有比通貨緊縮更可怕或更受唾罵的概念。即使是精明的硬貨幣理論家 David Ricardo（李嘉圖）也對通貨緊縮採持懷疑態度，而對價格下降的恐懼症則一直是凱因斯主義與貨幣主義的核心思想。

早期芝加哥學派與 Irving Fisher（歐文．費雪）開出的通膨性消費與信貸處方，以及著名的 Friedman（傅利曼）「潛規則」－貨幣固定增長率，都源於避免價格下降的熾熱渴望，至少長期而言。

正因自由市場與金本位將不可避免地導致價格下跌，所以貨幣主義者與凱因斯主義者才要求法定貨幣。然而，奇怪的是，當自由或自願性通貨緊縮不約而同地都遭恐懼渲染時，最近巴西與蘇聯試圖扭轉嚴重通貨膨脹而採用的嚴厲或強制性通貨緊縮措施，卻普遍獲得好評。

但首先，必須對當代貨幣事務相關的模糊語義進行澄清。通常，「通貨緊縮（deflation）」被定義價格普遍下降，但它也可以被定義為貨幣供應量下降，當然，後者往往也會造成價格下降。最重要的，是要區分出這些價格變動或貨幣供應量變動，到底是因為自由市場下個體價值觀與行為的改變所造成，還是因為政府強制性的調整貨幣供應量所造成。

自由市場的價格通縮常常是通縮恐懼症的特別受害者，它被指責造成經濟蕭條、商業活動收縮與失業。造成這種通貨緊縮的可能原因有三個。首先，生產力與商品供應提高將會降低自由市場中的價格。而這確實也是十八世紀中葉針對西方工業革命的一般記述。

這並非令人畏懼且需要防治的問題，透過生產增加造成的價格下降，是放任式資本主義的一個美妙的長期趨勢。西方工業革命的趨勢是價格下降，從而廣泛提高每個人的生活水平，而成本的下降則維持了企業的盈利能力以及穩健的工資率，從而反映出實質工資率（購買力）的穩定增長。

這個過程應該要受到稱讚與歡迎而不是打壓。不幸的是，二戰以來的通膨性法定貨幣世界，已經使我們忘記這個真理，並且讓我們對危險的通膨經濟習以為常。

第二個可能造成自由市場價格通縮的原因，是普遍性「囤錢」的市場反應，這會使那些現金庫存具有較高的購買力而有較高的實際價值。即使已經接受第一類型通貨緊縮的經濟學家們，也會懼怕第二類型的通貨緊縮，並呼籲政府趕快多印鈔票來防止。

但是，那些想要抬高現金價值的人有什麼錯，又為什麼不讓這些人在自由市場上遭遇挫敗，並讓其他消費者達到滿足？具有精明企業家與自由價格體系的市場，正能快速因應消費者估值的任何變化而調整。

任何「閒置」的資源，都是因為個體無法適應市場，堅持以過高定價或要求工資的結果。如果市場允許自由調整，這種故障很快就會被迅速糾正，換句話說，就是政府與工會不以干預來延緩或削減市場的調整過程。

第三種形式的市場導向價格通縮，源於經濟衰退期間的銀行信貸收縮或銀行擠兌。即使已經接受第一與第二類型通貨緊縮的經濟學家們，也都試著阻止第三種，把這種過程視為貨幣政策與市場外部性。

但是，他們忽略了一個關鍵：銀行信貸收縮是針對先前干擾市場的銀行信貸膨脹的健康反應。呼籲銀行以現金贖回腫脹的負債所產生的通貨緊縮，正是市場與消費者能重申對銀行系統的控制，並迫使銀行健全營運以避免通貨膨脹的方法。以市場為導向的信貸收縮速度恢復過程可以洗出不健全和不健全的銀行貸款。

諷刺的是，唯一有害且具破壞性的通貨緊縮，卻常常受到媒體青睞：政府的強制性貨幣緊縮。因此，當「自由市場」倡導者 Collor de Mello 在 1990 年 3 月成為巴西總統後，他立即無預警地關閉多數銀行賬戶，阻止這些帳戶所有者贖回或使用它們，從而將貨幣供應量一口氣緊縮了 80%。

這個行為普遍被讚譽為反映「強大」領導力的英雄措施，但它實際上卻給巴西經濟帶來了可怕的連番重擊。由於政府的貨幣與信貸擴張政策，市場價格進入嚴重的惡性通膨，而政府現在卻阻止人們使用自己的錢來造成進一步毀滅。因此，巴西政府兩度強制破壞財產權，第二次還以「自由市場」與「打擊通膨」為名。

事實上，價格上漲不是一種政府該防治的疾病；它只需要政府停止膨脹貨幣供應。當然，所有的政府都不願意這麼做，包括 Collor de Mello 政權。他突如其來的打擊不僅帶來嚴重的經濟衰退，還讓本來在 1990 年 5 月已經下降到 8% 的物價上漲率開始再次攀升。

最後，巴西政府在 12 月時迅速擴大 58% 的貨幣供應量，並把物價通膨率帶到每月高達 20%。在 1 月底時，「自由市場」政府能想到的唯一反應，是實施不曾管用卻具災難性的物價與工資凍結。

而蘇聯總統 Gorbachev 也許想模仿巴西的失敗，為了打擊「盧布過剩」，他突然決定從市場循環中撤出並廢棄大量的盧布鈔票。這樣嚴峻與突發的 33% 貨幣緊縮措施，是為了政府杜絕「黑市」承諾，所謂的「黑市」正是蘇聯唯一能夠防止大規模饑荒的市場機制。

但黑市活動者早就把盧布兌換成美元和黃金，所以 Gorbachev 的大刀大多砍到那些努力工作以儲蓄微薄收入的一般蘇聯公民身上。唯一可以稍微救贖這一舉動的，是至少它沒有藉私有化與自由市場之名；相反地，它是 Gorbachev 最近試圖回到中央集權與中央控制的重要部分。

Gorbachev 應該做的不是擔心公眾手中的盧布，而是不斷湧入蘇聯經濟的新盧布。如果考慮到據稱自由市場改革者的 Gorbachev 個人經濟顧問 Nicholas Petrakov 對此事件的回應，蘇聯的未來甚至是悲觀的。Petrakov 斷言 Gorbachev 的殘酷行動「明智」，還哀怨地補述：「如果未來我們只能繼續印鈔票，一切只是回到原點。」為什麼有人會認為這種情況不會出現？

【譯作】又一次通膨性經濟衰退｜Inflationary Recession, Once More

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】又一次通膨性經濟衰退｜Inflationary Recession, Once More

文：吳莉瑋
圖：bitzcelt via photopin cc

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《Inflationary Recession, Once More》，Rothbard 大膽地宣布文章發表當時（1991年）美國已處於經濟衰退階段，並在文末提出奧地利學派的政策建議：

首先，停止當前危機的通貨膨脹部分，美聯儲可以永久停止進一步購買任何資產或降低準備金比例。這將停止未來所有的通膨性信貸擴張。第二，政府可以大幅削減稅項：營業稅、消費稅、資本利得稅、醫療費用、社會保險，還有所得稅（包括上、中、下層稅級）。第三，政府可以削減開支，無處不減的巨幅削減：藉此減少赤字並獲得其他好處。這只是開胃菜。

又一次通膨性經濟衰退｜Inflationary Recession, Once More

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

我絕非全然的「非主流者」，但我有個非主流的指標－提供經濟衰退的合理「先行預警」：每當體制派經濟學家與金融作家都正歡呼著永久繁榮又不會經濟衰退的勇敢新世界來臨時，我知道巨幅經濟衰退將指日可待。

它永遠不會失敗。在傅利曼主義的原型思想－Irving Fisher（歐文．費雪）的領導下，1920 年代後期進入「新時代（New Era）」，宣稱新的聯邦儲備制度將透過精細的微調，帶來不再衰退的永久繁榮。然後發生 1929 年的大蕭條。

而 1960 年代，凱因斯主義體制派說服我們商業周期只是過去放任政策的遺跡：透過凱因斯主義官員明智的微調，將保證出現沒有通貨膨脹的持續充分就業。這些體制派經濟學家對自己充滿信心，甚至取消了學校裡的「商業周期」課程。

為什麼要繞著前現代世界的古物打轉？相反地，他們被換成「宏觀經濟學」與「經濟增長」等課程。賓果！接著到來的不只是嚴重經濟衰退，而是看似不可能的通膨性經濟衰退：經濟衰退和物價通膨第一次在 1973 到 1975 年間同時發生，接著是 1980 到 1982 年間繼經濟大蕭條後最嚴重的雙重經濟衰退。（過去，這種嚴重經濟衰退經常會被稱為「蕭條（depressions）」，但自從語義學靈藥接管後，「蕭條（depressions）」這個用詞因為太令人鬱悶而被取締。）

而現在，1980 年代中後期，雷根政府開始再次向我們保證新的經濟時代已經到來，雷根減稅（實際上不存在）政策的奇蹟加上全球化的技術先進，都向我們保證絕不會出現任何經濟衰退，除了一些特殊產業或地區無關痛癢的調整外。

另一個更大的經濟衰退來了，果不其然，我們正處其中。這些體制派不僅忘記經濟衰退，還特別忘記戰後的通膨性經濟衰退。兩個最糟的世界相結合：失業、破產與活動衰退伴隨著陡峭上漲的生活成本。經過半世紀的凱因斯主義微調（僅管它們貼上雷根標籤，我們至今仍然受到影響），並沒有治愈通貨膨脹或是經濟衰退；它只成功地完成同一時間帶來兩者的壯舉。

每個人都害怕先行判斷是否正處於經濟衰退；每個人都習慣屏息等待國家經濟研究所（NBER）的宣布，這個倍受尊敬的私營機構，透過少數專家組成的商業周期測定委員會（Dating Committee）篩選數據，判斷（如果有的話）經濟衰退是否已經開始。現在的問題是，國家經濟研究所需要在陷入衰退的數個月後才能下定決心宣布我們處在經濟衰退，但此時經濟衰退幾乎都快結束了。因此明顯始於 1973 年 11 月的巨幅經濟衰退在一年後才正式公布；而公布後 6 個月，也就是 1975 年 3 月，我們已走在復甦之路。大多數的經濟衰退都會在一年或一年半間結束，也許這才是重點：這些體制派要麻醉我們，直到經濟衰退結束。

國家經濟研究所之所以要花這麼長時間來下定決心，是因為它認為它必須精確定義經濟衰退發病的初始月份；而這個精確月份神器（所有理知與常識都知道其實沒差多少）所賦予的苦難，是因為國家經濟研究所的整套求取商業周期的錯誤方法，仰賴於精確取得「參考月」，再基於這個特定月份取平均、提前與滯後量。截至目前為止，經濟衰退的前一兩個月內，無論怎麼處理數據都會搞砸國家經濟研究所的所有計算模型。而成功完成國家經濟研究所的計算模型，當然也比盡快搞清楚事實並對外公布來得優先。

看著 1988 年的住房市場、失業、債務清償還有許多其他經濟因素，我願意斷然聲明，我們正處於另一個通膨性經濟衰退。這是什麼意思呢？令人心頭一暖的是看到有一些經濟學家歡迎具有重要功能的經濟衰退，經濟衰退能夠清理不良投資與不健全的債務，從而更快也更持久地替經濟增長鋪平道路。因此，芝加哥大學的 Victor Zarnowitz 說：「經濟承受偶爾的衰退，可能比長期的緩慢增長來得更健康。」泛達管理公司（Van Eck Management Corp.）的經濟學家 David A. Poole，提醒不應出現政府刺激下的迅速復甦，否則「經濟衰退無法獲得足夠的時間進行清算」。歡迎來到奧地利經濟學派！

但目前的體制派（老布希政權加上民主黨的左翼自由派）針對此次經濟衰退所提出的方案為何？異常的是，他們的提案違反所有經濟學派的思想：急劇增加稅收！每個學派：奧地利學派、凱因斯主義、貨幣主義或古典主義都會對這種計劃產生驚恐，這種計畫顯然會惡化經濟衰退，它將降低儲蓄、投資與生產性消費（相比於寄生又浪費的政府消費）。增稅對通貨膨脹沒有任何幫助，但是卻會嚴重加劇經濟衰退；它也同時加重了政府施加在經濟上的無謂負擔。

難道加稅不會治好預算赤字？不，它只會給政府藉口（講得好像他們真的需要似的！）進一步增加造成負擔的政府支出。此外，唯一比赤字更糟的是提高稅收；而增稅只會同時帶來兩者。

難道政府沒法做任何事情來緩解目前的通膨性經濟衰退？政府當然可以，而且很快。（不要說奧地利學派總是不能提供積極甚至是短期政策建議。）

首先，停止當前危機的通貨膨脹部分，美聯儲可以永久停止進一步購買任何資產或降低準備金比例。這將停止未來所有的通膨性信貸擴張。第二，政府可以大幅削減稅項：營業稅、消費稅、資本利得稅、醫療費用、社會保險，還有所得稅（包括上、中、下層稅級）。第三，政府可以削減開支，無處不減的巨幅削減：藉此減少赤字並獲得其他好處。這只是開胃菜。您還認為 Newt Gingrich 強硬嗎？

【譯作】政府與企業的「夥伴關係」｜Government-Business "Partnerships"

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】政府與企業的「夥伴關係」｜Government-Business “Partnerships”

文：吳莉瑋
圖：vgm8383 via photopin cc

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《Government-Business “Partnerships”》，Rothbard 把美國從開國的自由放任小政府系統，逐漸走向今日的中央集權大政府的過程，簡單精要地進行回顧。

體制派仍然持續卡特爾、控制、管制、移交政府業務給偏好企業，並紓困拯救他們心愛的騙子和輸家。它仍然在玩「夥伴關係」的老遊戲，當然，犧牲的仍然是我們。

政府與企業的「夥伴關係」｜Government-Business “Partnerships”

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

「政府與企業的夥伴關係」，其實是舊概念的新包裝。我們常常未能理解大政府的意思，正是成立這種有益於政府與企業的「合作夥伴關係」，或者說，有益於某些受到政治青睞的企業與團體。

我們都知道，十六至十八世紀西歐的「重商主義」，是一種高稅收、龐大官僚與廣泛控制貿易與工業下的大政府經濟體系。但我們往往忽視許多的控制實質上是徵稅，限制消費者與大部分的商人和製造者，授予壟斷、卡特爾，並貼補受政府青睞的團體。

例如，英國國王可能授與 John Jones 壟斷英國境內所有撲克牌的生產與銷售。這意味著，任何試圖生產或銷售，與 Jones 相競爭的行為，都是非法，結果可能會被槍斃，以維護 Jones 的壟斷。

不管 Jones 的這種壟斷，是因為他是國王特別喜愛的表弟，還是因為他在國王授與壟斷期間內為預計可獲利的特權而支付國王款項。早期的現代國王，就像任何情況下的所有國家政府，長期缺錢，而銷售壟斷特權則是一個受青睞的籌資方法。

公眾特別討厭的一種常見特權銷售，是「税款承包（Tax Farming）」。國王，實際上把徵稅的權力「私有化」，並出售在國內的特定年間收稅的權力。想想看：我們怎麼會喜歡它，例如，聯邦政府放棄國家稅務局（Internal Revenue Service），把若干年內收取所得稅的權力出售或外包給 IBM 或通用動力公司（General Dynamics）？我們真的希望被民營企業有效率地徵稅？

考慮到 IBM 或通用動力公司將為了這種特權提前支付可觀費用，這些企業將有充足的經濟動機進行無情的徵稅。你能想像我們會有多討厭這些公司呢？我們對於公眾有多痛恨稅款承包商多少有概念，這些承包商在公眾心目中並不享有主權或王權的神秘感。

在進行私有化的激情中，我們應立即停止，並思考我們是否希望某些政府職能私有化從而提高效率。難道這真的更好？例如，納粹把奧斯威辛或貝爾森集中營發包給克虜伯家族（Krupp）或法本公司（I.G. Farben）？

美國從一開始就比任何歐洲國家相形自由，因為我們是在反抗英國重商主義的控制、壟斷特權和課稅下建國。不幸的是，我們在南北內戰期間開始趕上歐洲。在可怕的自相殘殺衝突中，林肯政府看到國會中的民主黨（Democratic Party）被南部各州的分裂給消滅，他便抓住機遇，推動共和黨（Republican Party）與其前身輝格黨（Whig Party）長久以來珍視的國家主義與大政府方案。

我們必須認識到，在整個 19 世紀中，民主黨不管在經濟上或是其他事務，都是自由放任主義與政府（特別是聯邦政府）分權主義的支持者。輝格共和黨則支持政府與企業夥伴關係的「美國制度」。

在南北戰爭的掩護下，林肯政府推行激進的經濟變革：高額保護性進口關稅、高額菸酒消費稅（他們認為是「罪惡稅」）、大量補貼新建橫貫鐵路（龐大鐵路興建與土地取得都透過腐敗的體系供應）、聯邦所得稅、廢止金本位並發行不可兌的法定貨幣（greenbacks）來支付戰爭，以及相對於先前自由銀行系統的準國有化銀行系統－國家銀行系統（National Banking System）。

這樣一來，小政府、自由貿易、無消費稅、金本位以及 1940 到 1950 年代間自由的銀行系統，都被它的反面給取代。這些改變大多是永久的。關稅和消費稅仍在；對非經濟性且過度建設的橫貫鐵路的補貼，結束於 1873 年的經濟大恐慌，但它在失去社會關注的情況下仍在 20 世紀持續影響鐵路。最高法院宣布所得稅違憲（不過被憲法第十六條修正給逆轉）；戰爭結束後花了 14 年才返回金本位。

我們從來沒能擺脫國家銀行系統，在此系統中，只有一些聯邦政府特許的「國家銀行」獲准發行票據。所有民營與州營銀行都必須將儲備金存入國家銀行，允許這些國家銀行進行金字塔式通貨膨脹性信貸。而國家銀行則把儲備金放到政府債券並進行膨脹。

這個系統的總設計師是杰．庫克（Jay Cooke），他是腐敗的共和黨政客薩蒙．蔡斯（Salmon P. Chase）長期的金融靠山。當蔡斯成為林肯政府的財政部長時，他立刻任命贊助人庫克來壟斷承銷所有在戰爭期間發行的政府債券。庫克透過這種壟斷中成為千萬富翁投資銀行家，並被稱為「大亨」，這替他遊說國家銀行法（National Banking Act）增加了許多力道。國家銀行法為庫克的債券提供內建市場，因為國家銀行可以透過債券進行信貸膨脹。

「國家銀行法」在設計上是中央銀行的中繼站，在進步時代（Progressive Era）並進入二十世紀後，這個系統的失敗，使得體制派們進一步推動實施聯邦儲備系統（Federal Reserve System）。聯邦儲備系統成為新重商主義、卡特爾化，及政府與產業合作夥伴關係的一部分。從 1900 年到第一次世界大戰期間的進步時代，重新實施所得稅、聯邦與州等各級地方政府規章、卡特爾、中央銀行，以及戰爭時期的集體經濟「夥伴關係」。這個舞台是為了我們都非常清楚的中央集權制度所搭建。

老布希政府實行老共和黨傳統：加稅、通貨膨脹、推動廉價紙幣系統、不斷地擴大控制，並通過聯邦儲備系統將通貨膨脹與監管控制延伸至國際貨幣和貨品。

東北佬共和黨體制派仍然持續卡特爾、控制、管制、移交政府業務給偏好企業，並紓困拯救他們心愛的騙子和輸家。它仍然在玩「夥伴關係」的老遊戲，當然，犧牲的仍然是我們。

【譯作】威士忌暴亂模式：當代適用嗎？｜The Whiskey Rebellion: a Model For Our Time?

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

【譯作】威士忌暴亂模式：當代適用嗎？｜The Whiskey Rebellion: a Model For Our Time?

文：吳莉瑋
圖：The National Guard via photopin cc

本文意譯《Making Economic Sense》書中的《The Whiskey Rebellion: a Model For Our Time?》，Rothbard 除了是經濟學家外，同時也是經濟史學家。由於歷史事件需透過主觀性的歷史紀錄來回顧與了解，因此，錯誤地詮釋歷史事件（甚至是扭曲事實）的情況或多或少都會發生。重要的是重新揭露事實，並且盡量以正確的角度詮釋。

威士忌暴亂事件的官方記載內容，在近期研究中被揭露許多錯誤，簡言之，威士忌暴亂並非如官方記載的地區性暴力拒絕納稅犯罪，而是全國性的和平拒絕支付社會運動，此事件的歷史意義，在於美國人民對抗政府掠奪並成功地捍衛自由與財產權。

威士忌暴亂模式：當代適用嗎？｜The Whiskey Rebellion: a Model For Our Time?

作者：Murray Rothbard
譯者：吳莉瑋

最近幾年，美國人的國家象徵、假期與紀念日，一致性地遭受打擊。華盛頓誕辰已經被人遺忘，並把哥倫布詆毀成邪惡的歐洲白人男性，然後強加給我們陌生又抽象的慶典。象徵「受壓迫族群」的英雄代表被製造出來，遊街示眾地擺在我們面前接受歡呼。

這沒有什麼錯，但是，這樣的過程推進中，漸漸掩蓋了一些重要的事，並埋葬了我們的過去。特別是，有個廣泛分佈的族群，不僅受到壓迫，還有越來越多的貶低和蔑視：倒霉的美國納稅人。

今年一個美國重要事件的二百週年：美國納稅人拒絕支付可恨的課稅，在這個例子中，是威士忌的消費稅。歷史學家對威士忌暴亂不陌生，但最近的研究表明，這場暴亂的真正性質與重要性，被它的朋友與敵人給雙雙扭曲。

威士忌暴亂起因的官方版本，是賓州西部四縣拒絕支付威士忌消費稅，這個威士忌消費稅由財政部長亞歷山大．漢密爾頓（Alexander Hamilton）在 1791 年春所提議，是他為了解決聯邦所預估的公共債務而提出的聯邦消費稅建議的一部分。

賓州的西部居民無法賦稅，官方觀點說，直到抗議、示威，並遭遇一些加諸於課稅員的違規行為後，華盛頓總統號召了 13,000 人的軍隊，並在 1794 年秋鎮壓暴動。聯邦稅徵收機關擊敗了地區性但戲劇性的挑戰。聯邦法律和秩序的力量保持安全。

這個官方觀點完全錯誤。首先，我們必須深入了解當時美國人憎恨的「內部稅收」（相較於關稅等「外部稅收」）。內部稅收，指的是可惡的課稅員會在你的臉上與財產上，搜索、審查你的記錄與生活、搶劫及破壞。

英國對美洲徵收過最可惡的稅，是 1765 年的針對所有內部文件與交易所課徵的印花稅：如果英國一直保持這種令人憎惡的稅，美國革命會早十年發生，並受到更大的支持。

此外，美國人從英國反對黨身上繼承了可惡的消費稅；在英國徵收了兩百年的消費稅，尤其是蘋果酒稅，引起了騷亂和示威，人民高舉口號「自由、財產、無消費稅！」。對於一般的美國人而言，聯邦政府預設自己有徵收消費稅的權力，看起來和英國皇室的課稅並沒有很大的不同。

官方意見對於威士忌暴亂的主要失真處，是將拒繳範圍限制在賓州西部四縣。在最近的研究中，我們知道，當時在美國「偏遠地區」，沒有人繳納這項威士忌稅：這些地區包含馬里蘭州、維吉尼亞州、北卡羅來納州與南卡羅來納州及喬治亞州的邊陲地區，還有整個肯塔基州。

華盛頓總統和漢密爾頓部長選擇在賓州西部上做文章，正是因為在該地區有許多樂於收稅的官員。這樣的官員在其他州的邊陲地區甚至不存在；肯塔基州或其他偏遠地區沒有發生暴力行為，是因為沒有人要當稅吏。

威士忌稅特別受偏遠地區憎恨，是因為威士忌的生產與蒸餾在那些地區相當普遍；威士忌對於多數農家都是自家產品，經常被用來當成交易中的交換媒介，就像貨幣。此外，為了達到漢密爾頓的計劃，稅務著重在小釀酒廠。結果就是，許多大型釀酒廠支持此項稅政，因為它可以削弱規模較小也越來越多的競爭對手。

賓州西部僅是冰山一角。問題的關鍵，是所有其他的地區從來沒有支付威士忌稅。反對聯邦消費稅，是新興民主共和黨（Democratic-Republican Party）以及和傑佛遜政權在 1800 年「改革」的主張。確實，傑佛遜總統在第一任期間的成就之一是廢除聯邦黨人的消費稅。在肯塔基州，那些威士忌稅逃稅犯很明顯地顯示這項稅收本身應被廢除。

相較於威士忌暴亂的地區化與迅速撫平的說法，歷史事實與官方說詞有很大差異。那些美國偏遠地區的公民，都因為非暴力地拒絕支付威士忌稅而被逮捕。當地找不到法官願意為此定罪。威士忌暴亂事實上是廣泛且成功的，因為它最終迫使聯邦政府廢除消費稅。

除了 1812 年的戰爭期間，聯邦政府再不敢徵收國內消費稅，直到北營在南北戰爭期間把美國憲法重新解讀為中央集權的工具。這場戰爭的惡果之一，是針對菸酒進行永久性的聯邦「罪惡稅」，聯邦所得稅則沒什麼好說的，其可惡與暴政更甚消費稅。

難道以前的歷史學家不都知道這種普遍的非暴力反抗嗎？因為雙方都從事掩蓋事實的「陽謀」。顯然，反抗方不想因為他們實際上處於「非法狀態」而受到大量關注。

華盛頓、漢密爾頓和內閣們掩蓋了革命的程度，因為他們不希望宣傳自己的失敗程度。他們清楚地知道，如果他們試圖強制執行，或把部隊送到其他偏遠地區，後果是失敗。肯塔基州和其他地區也許會脫離聯盟。兩造雙方高興地掩蓋事實真相，而歷史學家則埋在騙局中。

因此，威士忌暴亂應該被視為自由與私有財產的勝利，而不是對抗聯邦稅收的勝利。這一課也許會激發後一代的美國納稅人，當他們受夠了彷彿舊日天堂威士忌稅或印花稅一般的政府掠奪和壓迫時。

註：對於威士忌暴亂有興趣的讀者，應參照 Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) 與 Steven R. Boyd, ed., The Whiskey Rebellion (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985)。Slaughter 教授據稱，一些在國會中反對漢密爾頓的對手認為：「該稅將解封哈耳庇厄的武器，在稅務署的作業下，刺探每個人的房產與個人事務，就像馬其頓方陣一樣擊垮阻擋在他們面前的對手。」不久後，反對者也預測：「襯衫沒課稅之前不能洗的時候將會來到。」