At EPJ, in a post, I discuss the Bank of North Dakota, which is run by the state of North Dakota. I am not a fan.
I conclude:
It is, in short, a small-time, money/capital distortion machine.
In the comment section, reinkefj writes:
https://reinkefaceslife.com/?s=bank+of+north+dakotaThis is what I consider ass-backwards libertarianism.
I thought that BND is a way of taking Wall Street out of the Crony Capitalist equation in State Gooferment "banking". I think that it's an ESSENTIAL step in regaining States' Rights from the Federal Gooferment. Like the Texas Gold Depository, it's another step toward freedom and liberty.
In a 2017 post, I explained ABL this way:
I consider an ABL to be any libertarian, who upon recognizing a distorting intervention by government in free markets and a free society, calls for another installment in the direction of socialism. They are not aware that they are advocating another step toward socialism. They believe that their call for interventionism is the only sound policy move that can be made, never once recognizing they are calling for more bricks to be laid on the ever more stifling socialist wall that prevents us from entering a land of pure freedom.Fighting the growth of government by supporting the expansion of government is almost always a bad idea. In tjhis case, we should be demanding the end to the crony part of capitalism and an end to the Federal Reserve Bank, but in no way is the support of the establishment of government state banks a move in this direction.
It is ass-backwards libertarianism, somehow holding the view that the expansion of government in this way moves us toward "entering a land of pure freedom."
It does the exact opposite.
Libertarians should focus on shrinking government not on advocating new government entities that are evil in and of themselves and are also subject to the general tendency of government agencies to expand and expand.
-RW
Humor me for a moment. Wouldn’t 50 state banks be preferred to one Fed? At least there would be some type of competition.
ReplyDeleteRobert, let me pose this hypothetical situation to get your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe federal government controls a park in a local village. The local mayor successfully fights to get the park taken out of federal-government control and under the control of the village government.
Both before and afterwards the park is run by an arm of the state. However, one could make the argument that moving the control from DC to the village provides a better opportunity to eventually move the park into local, private hands, because the village board members are likely to be more responsive to their residents -- among whom they live, and with whom they interact on a daily basis -- than would any state bureaucrats in DC, thousands of miles away (i.e., the principle of subsidiarity).
Would you disagree?
This is that grey area I talk about from time to time and would have to agree with reinkefj though Napster's perspective is more realistic in in the scheme of things.
DeleteStatic stances and static thinking wont make progress in this crazy country
Hello, The NAPster!
DeleteI'll pose a different scenario to you: Suppose that a piece of land is taken over by the local municipality to turn it into a park. It may or may not be privately-owned, it doesn't matter. When the locals get the change to question the municipal authorities why would the municipality do such a thing, the local mayor or council respond with: Well, the federal government does it, why not us?
Which is exactly what is going on with the Bank of North Dakota, run by the State of North Dakota.
OM, in that scenario, it is important to know if, prior to the takeover, the park were privately owned or not. If it were, then the local village taking it over would be a step in the wrong direction. If it were already controlled by a level of government, then my original point stands.
DeleteI think it matters less to the liberty question what the alleged justification for the takeover is.
If government was reduced to managing public parks and roads, be it federal, state, local, or otherwise that would be a vast improvement.
DeleteI still consider myself pretty new to the libertarian idea (and am deeply drawn to it's principled approach). So, is a debate between incrementalism vs revolution what is underlying this discussion? I can understand Bob's view that in an ideal Libertarian world, this is still a fiasco... However, I also believe that we are not going to wake up one morning with everyone on the same page - our page. Therefore, I think I have to agree with NAPster that every time we can move some function from a higher (centralized) level of the state to a lower (decentralized) level of the state, we have made progress. And if we can keep doing that, eventually we can get within pitching wedge distance of talking to your everyday man-on-the-street about a private property society...
ReplyDeleteAmerican citizen's response when asked in 1776 why he was reluctant to join the fight against the British: "Is it worse to have one tyrant 5,000 miles away or 5,000 tyrants one mile away?" The fight for liberty isn't about the number of tyrants it is about tyranny. Do we accept the initiation of force in human relationships or do we not? There is no successful incremental approach.
ReplyDeleteAbsent the mythical "libertarian switch" being activated, bringing a Rothbardian world into existence in a nanosecond, getting from here to there is going to require incremental steps. Better to find steps towards liberty than head in the other direction. So, for example, I would like to see the Department of Interior shuttered tomorrow even if the rest of the federal government were not dismantled immediately, I would like to see the US broken up into 50 nations, even if we weren't able to abolish state governments immediately, etc.
DeleteThe decentralization via the State Banks is a mechanism to ultimately diminish the power and role of the Federal Reserve so I am in favor of it. The financial and medical sectors are the two most controlled industries and must be broken up.
ReplyDeleteSo you think that State Banks are actually free from federal regulation including regulation by the federal reserve?
Delete"Fighting the growth of government by supporting the expansion of government is almost always a bad idea."
ReplyDeleteThe exception of course being the immigration issue. Bring about the conditions for state expansion today to have as open a flow of people inbound across the borders as possible, worry about the resulting growth of the state later.
Murray Rothbard wrote quite clearly of the need to never advocate more statism. Read at http://lprc.org/strategies .
ReplyDelete