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Production for Profit Is Production for People

“Profit and loss can be expressed in definite amounts of money. It is possible to ascertain in terms of money how much an individual has profited or lost. However, this is not a statement about this individual’s psychic profit or loss. It is a statement about a social phenomenon, about the individual’s contribution to the societal effort as it is appraised by the other members of society. It does not tell us anything about the individual’s increase or decrease in satisfaction or happiness. It merely reflects his fellow men’s evaluation of his contribution to social cooperation. This evaluation is ultimately determined by the efforts of every member of society to attain the highest possible psychic profit. It is the resultant of the composite effect of all these people’s subjective and personal value judgments as manifested in their conduct on the market.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Pseudo-Liberalism

“The detractors of liberty are in this sense right in calling it a ‘bourgeois’ issue and in blaming the rights guaranteeing liberty for being negative. In the realm of state and government, liberty means restraint imposed upon the exercise of the police power.

“There would be no need to dwell upon this obvious fact if the champions of the abolition of liberty had not purposely brought about a semantic confusion. They realized that it was hopeless for them to fight openly and sincerely for restraint and servitude. The notions liberty and freedom had such prestige that no propaganda could shake their popularity. Since time immemorial in the realm of Western civilization liberty has been considered as the most precious good. What gave to the West its eminence was precisely its concern about liberty, a social ideal foreign to the oriental peoples. The social philosophy of the Occident is essentially a philosophy of freedom. The main content of the history of Europe and the communities founded by European emigrants and their descendants in other parts of the world was the struggle for liberty. ‘Rugged’ individualism is the signature of our civilization. No open attack upon the freedom of the individual had any prospect of success.

“Thus the advocates of totalitarianism chose other tactics. They reversed the meaning of words. They call true or genuine liberty the condition of the individuals under a system in which they have no right other than to obey orders. In the United States, they call themselves true liberals because they strive after such a social order.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Freedom and Competition

“The freedom of man under capitalism is an effect of competition. The worker does not depend on the good graces of an employer. If his employer discharges him, he finds another employer. The consumer is not at the mercy of the shopkeeper. He is free to patronize another shop if he likes. Nobody must kiss other people’s hands or fear their disfavor. Interpersonal relations are businesslike. the exchange of goods and services is mutual; it is not a favor to sell or to buy, it is a transaction dictated by selfishness on either side.

“It is true that in his capacity as a producer every man depends either directly—e.g., the entrepreneur—or indirectly—e.g., the hired worker—on the demands of the consumers. However, this dependence upon the supremacy of the consumers is not unlimited. If a man has a weighty reason for defying the sovereignty of the consumers, he can try it. There is in the range of the market a very substantial and effective right to resist oppression. Nobody is forced to go into the liquor industry or into a gun factory if his conscience objects. He may have to pay a price for his conviction; there are in this world no ends the attainment of which is gratuitous. But it is left to a man’s own decision to choose between a material advantage and the call of what he believes to be his duty. In the market economy the individual alone is the supreme arbiter in matters of his satisfaction.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Do You Really Meme It?

Do You Really Meme It?

I was going to write a comment on some current discourse, the usual diatribe of impulsive viral outrage invented by those who live online. A reaction to trending tantrums. The usual produce from memetards who vomit digital junk the algorithms, whether one follows them or not the social media feed insists we see it. Then the likes, shares, comments and responses by those who help to fan the flames of nothing. All the while behind the memes are children, mostly little boys or another Ian Miles Chong, so desperate for wealth and fame that they sit behind their screens and consummate junk. I wanted to write about the widespread indifference to footage of cats eating the flesh from dead Palestinians and the accuracy of trained professional snipers in executing their children with head and heart shots.

I just don’t think many really care about real suffering. Only entertainment or a narcissistic motivation speech about relationships. Phonk ‘music’ belching over a Ai generated image, or a gym bro showing Tren gains or maybe cats, though not those ones devouring child corpses in Gaza. The cute kind.

Imagine a world were the children make multi millionaires of influence, so famous they suffer no repercussions to idiocy and intentional insult, in fact that helps there brand to these children. The easiest examples would be the Paul brothers, who made their fame by performing to children who had screens in their faces, babysat by them. Mr Beast so terribly desperate for wealth and fame would say his heroes name one hundred thousand times into the camera in his ascent to super stardom. The children watched in delight. The role models and moral dignitaries of not just a generation but digital culture itself. Mr Beast and his heroes, the Pauls are now partners. Dreams do come true to those who grift.

The time of the influencer is waning, marred by deceptions and scandals but above all the bullshit products that digital performers shill are becoming well known scams or just junk. Honey browser, Feastibles, Prime energy drink or Athletic Greens, whatever your sector of the influencer realm happens to be chances are something that the top tier have promoted was just junk. The corporate cockroaches always survive and thrive, social media helped them to break into and profit from the under thirty-five market and helped isolate advertising into specific areas of interest and demographics that agencies could only have dreamed of generations ago. Now, it’s all very easy and the more the money comes easy to those who don’t work or who are gorged on inflated currency, so to are there spending habits.

Married to an algorithm and social media experience designed to keep eyes and ears on, blips of junk, the user is the product. The information age promised access to knowledge, where the user sought it out. Multi-media and search engines, both physical and digital information storage so that we could find what we looked for. Now the search engines are junk, granting preferences to government and corporations, not relevance but those who pay. That assumes anyone searches out information any more, instead it is all reactionary. Or searches for services, and shopping. The reaction age is upon us.

Did you see this?”

I hear that shitcoin was a scam?”

Can you believe she slept with that many men?”

He said Americans are retards?”

Gossip and conjecture all turned into a consumption friendly manure. Podcasters and long form video “essayists” know that there is a favourable algorithm preference in talking about trending or presently viral junk. Further adding to the pile of steam. Then Chinese weather balloons to drones or UFOs all of which can be revealed by Naruto running spectrumites. Whatever the case, in the present moment, those precious days or hours that contemporary junk is important to so many can generate gold, well not real gold just digital certificates for gold or more digital currency. Then, like the fidget spinner it is buried beneath many planking tards of viral impulses to be discarded and forgotten.

The economy is in ruins, for more reasons than just one. To rectify will require sacrifice. Few want that, so the can is kicked down the road and miraculously the same variations of the problem is suggested. The neoliberal status quo is in retreat, they can’t meme. The world is discovering a popular Right and in some cases nationalist liberalfascism. Though what is the status quo if not a form of modern fascism? The Right are online, podcasting and talking about the problems that the common person experiences. They listen to the proletariat. They offer solutions, hate, anger, indignation and have scapegoats. The mob in pain responds to this. The status quo is out of touch that they only know taxation, censorship and squealing. Those inside the aircon towers of government and corporate are perplexed by the common persons suffering, “let them eat cake.”

There was a moment that libertarians and anarchists had, to be better. To stay out of the digitally fuelled culture war. To educate on the many platforms the benefits of free market economics. The energy was there, but some decided it was expedient to compromise. To make alliances, to weaken the message, to talk culture war shit. The Right needed the validation of the liberty and antiwar people, not the other way around. The far Left is all but dead, killed by the Gordon Gecko socialists and welfare addictions. The field was clear but the greed to grift, shilling and algorithmic dependency ruined it.

So here we are, responding to digital brush fires. Like a fire brigade watching nonsense burn. Instead of seizing the moment, we now respond, react. The Mr Beasts of politics talk shit and swing from issue to issue while savvy politicians and the entrenched status quo adapt. They will survive and thrive, while the talking heads on their memeplatforms and podcasts become less relevant. Soon the consistency of being inconsistent will erode every ounce of credibility. The appeal to the contrarian will disappear while it appears that more and more are aligned with the status quo and the indignant, principled and those who really want peace and liberty shall be fractured or tainted by an association to coalitions of the moment, endorsing deceit and collectivism by any other form.

The bar has been lowered, chased down below tripping point just so that the terminally online are entertained. The maturity and intellect so terribly diminished that everything is now a child’s meme. Long form conversations meander between points of gossip, unfocused babble that is a reaction to whatever needs to be reacted to. The information no longer evergreen, just bubble gum, chew until the flavour is gone. Principles and information are sustenance, not every one has an obese mind so why feed them bubble gum. Many seek it, they are just not always online like digital junkies feeding that algorithm. Principles are more important than personality, preferences are personal. The time to make this clear is now.

And here I am, writing a reaction of sorts rather than being active and informative. Maybe life is a meme after all, which is why few really cares to change a damned thing.

“Mature Capitalism” Ain’t Capitalism

“It would be correct to describe this state of affairs in this way: Today many or some groups of business are no longer liberal; they do not advocate a pure market economy and free enterprise, but, on the contrary, are asking for various measures of government interference with business. But it is entirely misleading to say that the meaning of the concept of capitalism has changed and that ‘mature capitalism’—as the American Institutionalists call it—or ‘late capitalism’—as the Marxians call it—is characterized by restrictive policies to protect the vested interests of wage earners, farmers, shopkeepers, artisans, and sometimes also of capitalists and entrepreneurs. The concept of capitalism is as an economic concept immutable; if it means anything, it means the market economy. One deprives oneself of the semantic tools to deal adequately with the problems of contemporary history and economic policies if one acquiesces in a different terminology. This faulty nomenclature becomes understandable only if we realize that the pseudo-economists and the politicians who apply it want to prevent people from knowing what the market economy really is. They want to make people believe that all the repulsive manifestations of restrictive government policies are produced by ‘capitalism.’”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Protecting Vested Interests

“There were and there will always be people whose selfish ambitions demand protection for vested interests and who hope to derive advantage from measures restricting competition. Entrepreneurs grown old and tired and the decadent heirs of people who succeeded in the past dislike the agile parvenus who challenge their wealth and their eminent social position. Whether or not their desire to make economic conditions rigid and to hinder improvements can be realized, depends on the climate of public opinion. The ideological structure of the nineteenth century, as fashioned by the prestige of the teachings of the liberal economists, rendered such wishes vain. When the technological improvements of the age of liberalism revolutionized the traditional methods of production, transportation, and marketing, those whose vested interests were hurt did not ask for protection because it would have been a hopeless venture. But today it is deemed a legitimate task of government to prevent an efficient man from competing with the less efficient. Public opinion sympathizes with the demands of powerful pressure groups to stop progress. The butter producers are with considerable success fighting against margarine and the musicians against recorded music. The labor unions are deadly foes of every new machine. It is not amazing that in such an environment less efficient businessmen aim at protection against more efficient competitors.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

From Savagery to Civilization

“The market economy is a man-made mode of acting under the division of labor. But this does not imply that it is something accidental or artificial and could be replaced by another mode. The market economy is the product of a long evolutionary process. It is the outcome of man’s endeavors to adjust his action in the best possible way to the given conditions of his environment that he cannot alter. It is the strategy, as it were, by the application of which man has triumphantly progressed from savagery to civilization.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

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