Star Wars and the Austrian School: A Brief Overview

By Zach Foster

This article was originally published by Young Americans for Liberty

 

Star Wars is unquestionably a brilliant saga that touches the hearts of many through its incorporation of timeless literary archetypes and humanist themes.  Adventure, love, loss, spirituality, good vs. evil, and the triumph of the human (and humanoid) spirit...

 

Yet there are other characteristics standing out that demand attention and respect, such as the saga’s inclusion of patterns of history (great wars and economic or political disasters) and of the interactions and exchanges of societies and individuals.  One could practically point to passages from Mises’ Human Action or Theory and History while watching any given Star Wars episode!

 

Everyone knows the basic storyline that spans six episodes and numerous television and novel tie-ins.  A once prosperous and peaceful republic decays over time from corruption and then war.  Victory over secessionists in a great galactic war only serves to undermine the Republic’s ideals of liberty and hastens its demise and overt reorganization into the Galactic Empire.  Following two decades of imperial rule and repression, a guerrilla army dedicated to reestablishing the Republic and maintaining its founding principles of liberty fights a lengthy campaign, pursuing only the help of willing parties, eventually destroying the Empire and restoring republican democracy to the galaxy.

 

While the whole republican democracy vs. imperial rule theme is incredibly broad and universal, there are a number of factors that tug on the heart strings of any Austrian economists.  The saga begins with the Trade Federation, involved in a dispute over taxing trade routes, launching a blockade of the planet Naboo.  This is unquestionably an aggressive action inflicted on a sovereign people for the purpose of maintaining protectionist taxes and other economic interventionism—a crime not only against a sovereign people but also a violation of the free market.

 

Throughout the Clone Wars, part of the C.I.S. (Separatist) war effort is paid for by Trade Federation revenues, as well as profits generated by the Intergalactic Banking Clan (secretly controlled by the emperor-to-be Palpatine).  Can anyone say Intergalactic Federal Reserve?  At the same time, the Republic’s war effort is paid for by inflation by its own central bank, and probably also by raising taxes on Republic member worlds.

 

The end of the Clone Wars is met the rise of the Empire and Darth Vader—warnings of what happens when great leaders and great societies sacrifice their principles under an end-justifies-the-means mentality and invariably become what they originally set out to fight against.  In order to carry out the Wilsonian fantasy of “making the world [err, galaxy] safe for democracy” the Republic had to become an Empire, a threshold from which there was no return.

 

Then comes the Rebel Alliance, a coalition resembling that of thirteen autonomous states during the American Revolutionary War, fighting the Empire so that the Republic and its Constitution could be restored.  This Republic would be one that respects individual rights and the self-determination of worlds.  What did the Rebels give to the galaxy? “A republic, if you can keep it” (Benjamin Franklin).

 

Across the journey the audience is introduced to fascinating commercial centers.  Two such places, radically different from each other, are Coruscant and Tatooine.  Corsuscant and its booming skyscrapers represent the hustle and bustle of Wall Street, while the desert spaceports of Tatooine are a haven for the black market—some would call the black market the free market.  Whatever drugs, technology, equipment, and other goods are off the market where the Republic  rigidly enforces its prohibitionist and protectionist laws can easily be obtained in the unregulated bazaars of Tatooine—for the right price of course.  There’s a whole galaxy thriving with exchanges and movement and all sorts of human and humanoid action to explore!

 

Let this serve as an introduction to a series of glimpses into the Star Wars universe through the eyes of an Austrian economist.  Feel free to come along for the ride, and may the Force be with you.

 

[View the original publication]

 

Image edited by Zach Foster. Background taken from a U.S. government photo and in the public domain.

Allegory of the Cave and American Politics, part 5

By Zach Foster

Continued from Part 4

The remaining Republican hopeful is Ron Paul.  Congressman Paul is one of the select few members of Congress who can boast an untarnished record.  In his private life he has served the community and the country, and his entire career as a public servant has been dedicated to restoring Constitutional law and fighting against government corruption and the stripping away of the rights of the citizenry.

He received his medical degree from Duke University in 1961 and served as a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon from 1963 to 1965.  He continued to serve the country with his medical skills in the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968.  He opened a private practice after his military service and, rather than bow down to the authoritative whims of insurance companies, he ran a much more philanthropic private practice by giving reduced-cost services or pro-bono services to the poor.  In chapter four of his book The Revolution, Ron Paul explains how this system was much better for the poor and uninsured than the jokes today known as PMOs and HMOs.

Having been a former airman, he knows how the military works better than the non-veterans who love to shout about their patriotism while campaigning.  Machiavelli disdainfully describes the downfall of the latter in The Prince (chapter 9).  As a long time successful doctor, Ron Paul also has a firm grasp on how the health insurance and health care market, unlike the incumbent President and most
(if not all) Republican nomination hopefuls.

Having been a leading member of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute for twenty-nine years, Ron Paul can easily call himself one of the leading economists in America—a title and personality cult currently being held by professional inflationists like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.  For many decades, Congressman Paul has studied the economic theories of the leading thinkers in the Austrian School mof economics—Luwdig Von Mises, Frederick Hayek, Murray Rothbard, etc.—whose theories are based on monetary solidity, free trade, and the [proven] idea that individual freedom and economic prosperity go hand in hand.  To give a brief example of the accurate theories of the Austrian School, Ludwig Von Mises accurately predicted (to the detail) the fall of the Soviet Union in his book Socialism, written in 1919 (less than two years after the USSR was formed).  Ron Paul knows sound economics and, unlike most members of Congress, he offers concrete solutions to restoring the value of the dollar and restoring the economy in his books The Case For Gold (1982) and End the Fed (2009).

Under Ron Paul’s Presidency, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be drawn to a close, establishing peace with honor (without abandoning our allies) and this country would no longer be the “world police” (and certainly wouldn’t be involved in the Libyan Civil War, whose marginal-at-best U.S. involvement grows ever less popular).  The list of Ron Paul’s qualifications to be an excellent President goes on—the author doesn’t need to write them since they have already been written by other Ron Paul supporters who, rather than take a politician at his word, investigated his record and his writings and proposed solutions, and found overwhelming evidence testifying of his qualifications.

While Democrats blindly follow the shadows that cheer for Barack Obama and Republicans chain themselves down with Fox News propaganda, following Donald Trump’s shadow puppets on the cavern wall, there will be a minority of Americans who have awakened to the growing nightmare of their loss of more and more liberty, the Monopoly play money that is the U.S. dollar, a spiraling national debt, and the stretching thin of the American Empire.  They will not be fooled by shadows, for they have been freed and have grown accustomed to sunlight and fresh air; they know the truth and they seek to awaken their peers who still dwell in the cave.

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

Certainly, he would.

—Plato

END.

A Question for Socialists, part 2

By Zach Foster
Continued from Part 1

Capitalism already has remedies for such ailments:  1)  relief organizations will be prepared to assist, and the majority of their funding comes from the private sector and private individuals, NOT from the government.  2)  the federal, state, and city governments will hire builders from the private sector who will bring their own materials; 3) though the government will oversee the rebuilding process, it may be slow and cumbersome, so many private citizens will simply rebuild their damaged private property themselves, or hire someone to do it, thus furthering their self-sufficiency and independence from government.

Still, the rebuilding process is not beneficial to the economy because the resources being used to rebuild are not creating new things.  For more elaboration on that, see Frederic Bastiat’s parable of the broken window.  Capitalism makes the economy and infrastructure able to eventually bounce back from destruction, whereas socialism collapses because destruction ruins the best laid plans of mice and workers’ councils.  Regardless of the setbacks of wars and natural disasters, capitalism produces much more than socialism, and much faster, and in better quality.  Frank Chodorov elaborates in his book Out of Step:

Capitalism, without benefit of a theory, and operating solely on the mundane profit motive, has disproven Marx on every point. To be sure, the economists of the Austrian School had done in the labor theory of value — that the value of a thing is determined by the amount of labor put into producing it — by showing that value is entirely subjective and has no relation whatever to labor. But capitalists did it in their own way; when people wanted a thing and were willing to pay for it, the capitalists made it, and when there was no demand for a thing it simply was not made. That is to say, the consumer puts a value on what he wants.

Marxists love to argue that capitalism doesn’t get anything done, that it is entirely wasteful, and that there is enough food produced worldwide to feed everyone several times.  While that much food does exist, capitalism is the system that produces that high quantity of food while socialism can only dream of doing it (and all socialists CAN do is dream).  Free market economies produce much more than socialist and centrally planned economies (which explains why the Chinese economy has grown exponentially after Maoism was replaced by some free market trade).  Kevin D. Williamson writes in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism (recommended for beginners in economics)—a very well researched book that cites economists like Hayek, Rothbard, and Von Mises—writes how socialists love to accuse the U.S. for consuming 40% of a given global food supply, but they ignore the fact that the U.S. produces MORE than 40% of that food supply.  Here are some statistics for the skeptic:

According to the Environmental Protection Agency:

-The U.S. produces 10 billion bushels of corn out of the global total 23 billion (43.47%).

-The U.S. produces over 50% of the world’s soybean supply.

-The U.S. supplies 25% of the world’s wheat exports.

-The U.S. produces 18% of the world rice supply (the U.S. is the second biggest rice producer).

According to Answers.com:

The U.S. exports 70% of its maize and cereal.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization:

-The U.S. is the fourth biggest supplier of potatoes in the world.

Clearly, the United States under a capitalist economy not only sustains itself with food but also exports much of the total food supply to other countries.  How many people have socialist economies been able to feed?  Not even those at home.  Famines have killed millions under socialist regimes, and massive food shortages are occurring even in countries where the economy is not socialistic but the socialists are in power.  One example of this is Venezuela, where inefficiencies in central planning cause such food shortages, meanwhile what food there is simply rots in store houses.  Not even the New Socialist Man, despite the best collective efforts, can change this brutally inconvenient reality.

What worries the author is the very collective nature of the utopia maintained by the New Man, who seems more like an ant than like a person.  Another question I have for Socialists is: other than the right to conform unquestioningly to dictated social requirements, does the New Socialist Man have any rights as an individual?

Continued in Part 3: Those who perish in the fires of Revolutionary Holocaust