Ron Paul’s critique is better than his solutions 

Posted by Steve Welzer on 07/08/08

Libertarianism has part of the critique right. But
Libertarians disparage “government” without
distinguishing between remote, overly-centralized
government vs. local, communitarian self-
administration. Libertarianism sounds good when it
references “self-reliance” and “freedom,” but its
conceptions of these things are hyper-individualistic.

There has never been and will never be a Libertarian
society because human beings do not live primarily as
atomized individuals interacting through contractual
relations. Human society is and will always be
collective in one form or another.

As a principled Libertarian, Ron Paul sounds good in
his critiques of the current Leviathan. But as a
typical Libertarian his solutions are flawed.

We do need devolution of power from Big Government and
more in the way of self-reliance. But it must be a
communitarian self-reliance. We do need freedom from
the oppression of the centralized power elites. But the
viable alternative is not a Libertarian-individualist
form of freedom, but rather a re-localizing form of
communitarian autonomy.

Greens share some of the critiques Ron Paul
articulates, but our solutions are quite different from
his. Ours correspond to the lifeways that have been
most viable and healthy for people over the long
millennia of our species-being.

SW

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From Ron Paul’s Congressional web site 7/7/08

Something Big is Going On

By Ron Paul

http://www.house.gov/paul

The following statement is written by Congressman Paul
about the pending financial disaster. He will introduce
this statement as a special order and insert it into
the Congressional Record next week.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave
concern for the future of America. The course we have
taken over the past century has threatened our
liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these
long-held concerns, I have days - growing more frequent
all the time - when I’m convinced the time is now upon
us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-
approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will
affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some
areas of our country. The world economy and political
system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.

Though the world has long suffered from the
senselessness of wars that should have been avoided, my
greatest fear is that the course on which we find
ourselves will bring even greater conflict and economic
suffering to the innocent people of the world - unless
we quickly change our ways. America, with her
traditions of free markets and property rights, led the
way toward great wealth and progress throughout the
world as well as at home. Since we have lost our
confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance,
hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire
building, financed through inflation and debt, all this
has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic
event.

The problem we face is not new in history.
Authoritarianism has been around a long time. For
centuries, inflation and debt have been used by tyrants
to hold power, promote aggression, and provide “bread
and circuses” for the people. The notion that a country
can afford “guns and butter” with no significant
penalty existed even before the 1960s when it became a
popular slogan. It was then, though, we were told the
Vietnam War and a massive expansion of the welfare
state were not problems. The seventies proved that
assumption wrong.

Today things are different from even ancient times or
the 1970s. There is something to the argument that we
are now a global economy. The world has more people and
is more integrated due to modern technology,
communications, and travel. If modern technology had
been used to promote the ideas of liberty, free
markets, sound money and trade, it would have ushered
in a new golden age - a globalism we could accept.
Instead, the wealth and freedom we now enjoy are
shrinking and rest upon a fragile philosophic
infrastructure. It is not unlike the levies and bridges
in our own country that our system of war and welfare
has caused us to ignore.

I’m fearful that my concerns have been legitimate and
may even be worse than I first thought. They are now at
our doorstep. Time is short for making a course
correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes
into deep hibernation.

There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is
different and bigger than the world has ever
experienced. Instead of using globalism in a positive
fashion, it’s been used to globalize all of the
mistakes of the politicians, bureaucrats and central
bankers.

Being an unchallenged sole superpower was never
accepted by us with a sense of humility and respect.
Our arrogance and aggressiveness have been used to
promote a world empire backed by the most powerful army
of history. This type of globalist intervention creates
problems for all citizens of the world and fails to
contribute to the well-being of the world’s
populations. Just think how our personal liberties have
been trashed here at home in the last decade.

The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is
apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon;
skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the
collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the
NASDAQ bubble; stockmarkets plunging; unemployment
rising;, massive underemployment; excessive government
debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt
exists as to whether we’ll get stagflation. The
question that will soon be asked is: When will the
stagflation become an inflationary depression?

There are various reasons that the world economy has
been globalized and the problems we face are worldwide.
We cannot understand what we’re facing without
understanding fiat money and the long-developing dollar
bubble. There were several stages. From the inception
of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the
Central Bank established itself as the official dollar
manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold,
thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to
inflate for war and welfare. By 1945, further
restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods
Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency
of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During
the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on
the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not
Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an
ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that
system came to an end in 1971. It’s the post Bretton-
Woods system that was responsible for globalizing
inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic
worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting,
and we’re seeing what it’s like to suffer the
consequences of the many previous economic errors.
Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited
from this very flawed system. Because the world
accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to
counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas
(indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as
well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our
dollars and gave us goods and services were only too
anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed
us to export our inflation and delay the consequences
we now are starting to see.

But it was never destined to last, and now we have to
pay the piper. Our huge foreign debt must be paid or
liquidated. Our entitlements are coming due just as the
world has become more reluctant to hold dollars. The
consequence of that decision is price inflation in this
country - and that’s what we are witnessing today.
Already price inflation overseas is even higher than
here at home as a consequence of foreign central bank’s
willingness to monetize our debt.

Printing dollars over long periods of time may not
immediately push prices up - yet in time it always
does. Now we’re seeing catch-up for past inflating of
the monetary supply. As bad as it is today with $4 a
gallon gasoline, this is just the beginning. It’s a
gross distraction to hound away at “drill, drill,
drill” as a solution to the dollar crisis and high
gasoline prices. It’s okay to let the market increase
supplies and drill, but that issue is a gross
distraction from the sins of deficits and Federal
Reserve monetary shenanigans.

This bubble is different and bigger for another reason.
The central banks of the world secretly collude to
centrally plan the world economy. I’m convinced that
agreements among central banks to “monetize” U.S. debt
these past 15 years have existed, although secretly and
out of the reach of any oversight of anyone -
especially the U.S. Congress that doesn’t care, or just
flat doesn’t understand. As this “gift” to us comes to
an end, our problems worsen. The central banks and the
various governments are very powerful, but eventually
the markets overwhelm when the people who get stuck
holding the bag (of bad dollars) catch on and spend the
dollars into the economy with emotional zeal, thus
igniting inflationary fever. This time - since there
are so many dollars and so many countries involved -
the Fed has been able to “paper” over every approaching
crisis for the past 15 years, especially with Alan
Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board,
which has allowed the bubble to become history’s
greatest.

The mistakes made with excessive credit at artificially
low rates are huge, and the market is demanding a
correction. This involves excessive debt, misdirected
investments, over-investments, and all the other
problems caused by the government when spending the
money they should never have had. Foreign militarism,
welfare handouts and $80 trillion entitlement promises
are all coming to an end. We don’t have the money or
the wealth-creating capacity to catch up and care for
all the needs that now exist because we rejected the
market economy, sound money, self-reliance and the
principles of liberty.

Since the correction of all this misallocation of
resources is necessary and must come, one can look for
some good that may come as this “Big Event” unfolds.

There are two choices that people can make. The one
choice that is unavailable to us is to limp along with
the status quo and prop up the system with more debt,
inflation and lies. That won’t happen. One of the two
choices, and the one chosen so often by government in
the past is that of rejecting the principles of liberty
and resorting to even bigger and more authoritarian
government. Some argue that giving dictatorial powers
to the President, just as we have allowed him to run
the American empire, is what we should do. That’s the
great danger, and in this post-911 atmosphere, too many
Americans are seeking safety over freedom. We have
already lost too many of our personal liberties
already. Real fear of economic collapse could prompt
central planners to act to such a degree that the New
Deal of the 30’s might look like Jefferson’s
Declaration of Independence.

The more the government is allowed to do in taking over
and running the economy, the deeper the depression gets
and the longer it lasts. That was the story of the 30s
and the early 40s, and the same mistakes are likely to
be made again if we do not wake up.

But the good news is that it need not be so bad if we
do the right thing. I saw “Something Big” happening in
the past 18 months on the campaign trail. I was
encouraged that we are capable of waking up and doing
the right thing. I have literally met thousands of high
school and college kids who are quite willing to accept
the challenge and responsibility of a free society and
reject the cradle-to-grave welfare that is promised
them by so many do-good politicians.

If more hear the message of liberty, more will join in
this effort. The failure of our foreign policy, welfare
system, and monetary policies and virtually all
government solutions are so readily apparent, it
doesn’t take that much convincing. But the positive
message of how freedom works and why it’s possible is
what is urgently needed.

One of the best parts of accepting self-reliance in a
free society is that true personal satisfaction with
one’s own life can be achieved. This doesn’t happen
when the government assumes the role of guardian,
parent or provider, because it eliminates a sense of
pride. But the real problem is the government can’t
provide the safety and economic security that it
claims. The so-called good that government claims it
can deliver is always achieved at the expense of
someone else’s freedom. It’s a failed system and the
young people know it.

Restoring a free society doesn’t eliminate the need to
get our house in order and to pay for the extravagant
spending. But the pain would not be long-lasting if we
did the right things, and best of all the empire would
have to end for financial reasons. Our wars would stop,
the attack on civil liberties would cease, and
prosperity would return. The choices are clear: it
shouldn’t be difficult, but the big event now unfolding
gives us a great opportunity to reverse the tide and
resume the truly great American Revolution started in
1776. Opportunity knocks in spite of the urgency and
the dangers we face.

Let’s make “Something Big is Happening” be the
discovery that freedom works and is popular and the big
economic and political event we’re witnessing is a
blessing in disguise.

Ron Paul

http://www.house.gov/paul

Copyright Dr. Ron Paul

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