Part 19 of 22, from Exiting the Wizard's Circle of Economics
The 2nd of the 'Economic Thinkers' 3-part strategy for separating you from reality, relies upon refuting Jean Baptiste Say's The Law of Markets, or Say's Law.
There's something curious about how 'economic thinkers' like John Maynard Keynes have gone about opposing Say's Law, in that they typically attack it upon points it doesn't make. Not surprisingly that's what my xTwitter's did as well, when I pointed out that the theories they proposed violated Say's Law, they promptly replied that if Say's Law were valid "...there would be no business cycles or depressions...", which is something it neither claims nor implies. It turns out that since Say first introduced his Law of Markets, other economists have either tried and failed to find flaws in it, or they've tried ignoring it (which not even J.S. Mill could manage to do), or they simply went about lying about and mischaracterizing what Say said in formulating his Law of Markets, which is what our buddy Keynes chose to do, in order to strawman it to death.
Henry Hazlitt demolished Keynes' attempt at that, in an excellent chapter that's available online "Keynes vs. Say's Law" , pointing out that:
"...No important economist, to my knowledge, ever made the absurd assumption (of which Keynes by implication accuses the whole classical school) that thanks to Say's Law depressions and unemployment were impossible, and that everything produced would automatically find a ready market at a profitable price....", and that,
"...Keynes 'refuted' Say's Law only in a sense in which no important economist ever held it."What's most curious for the casual reader, is that what Say's Law claims, is a truth which is seemingly so obvious that there seems to be no need for it, in that it provides a simple and clear indicator of the inescapable connection between products, services, value, and reality. But of course that simple truth is what Keynes understood to be most detrimental to those dazzling tools of 'Economic' magic, which he wanted to control 'the economy' (which you shouldn't forget refers to you, to everyone you know, and to all that any of you do) with. And so instead of actually refuting it, he lied.
You might well ask:
"But Van, if Hazlitt refuted Keynes, why does Keynesianism still operate?", and the simple answer to that, is because we've allowed it to. Just as we've allowed the Common Sense Realism of our Founders' era to be ignored and become forgotten. We - you - have to bother to notice that what Hazlitt (and Say) showed us, was real and true, and that the Pro-Regressives have denied and ignored that, and that we should either care about that, or accept to be ruled by it.
The fact that so many are tempted to shrug that opportunity off, shows the power of the dialectical spell that they've cast over popular opinion today.
"Come on now Van, that's ridiculous!"Really? Have you read what Say said? Or what Keynes said about it? Or how Hazlitt exposed his and their duplicity?
Despite the fact that nearly everything that most people routinely complain about with 'the economy' today, traces back to the obfuscations that Keynes made about it then, most people have not bothered to read what those same issues result from. They'd rather complain about the positions that other people take, and those of us who point out the history, facts, and principles that they've missed, are typically met with insults about hiding answers behind 'walls of text', and worse.
Even so, the fact remains that the problems we're experiencing today, are because of the errors and lies of yesterday, which 'We The People' routinely allow to go unchallenged today. If we - you - want to correct them, we have to take notice of them, we have to try to understand what is understandable about them, talk about them, and perhaps most importantly, laugh at them and at those who continue to propose them as 'serious thinking'.
Make no mistake, the 'Economic Thinkers' claims are laughable. Which is a fact that's easily seen for yourself by reading Say, Keynes, Hazlitt, and most of all Bastiat. What else you'll notice by doing so, is that the 'economically minded' prove nothing about either Say's Law or their own claims, instead they only equivocate upon this and that term, while dropping important contexts here and there, to create the impression that Say's Law made a false claim, and then they reach into their top hat and pull out a rabbit which they claim proves it (what was never actually claimed) to be false.
And then confident that they've dazzled & disarmed you with their magician's sleight of mind, they continue on with their fanciful economic theories of the market, which simply don't apply to the real world.
It is perilous to forget that all forms of Pro-Regressive thinking, Left or Right, 'Economic Thinking', included, requires thinking about their ideas as something separate from reality, because thinking objectively about reality anywhere, is a threat to totalitarian thinking everywhere, and the ideology of 'economic thinking' is nothing if not totalitarian in nature (reminder: see Wickard v Filburn for reference).
With that in mind, what Henry Hazlitt says about Say's Law is more important now, than ever before:
"... there is still need and place to assert Say's Law whenever anybody is foolish enough to deny it. It is itself, to repeat, essentially a negative rather than a positive proposition. It is essentially a rejection of a fallacy..."Say's Law is not a complex theory which other 'schools of economic thought' can argue over or discredit, it's barely even a formal Rule. Say's Law is simply the observation that it production comes first, that "supply constitutes demand", or IOW:
You produce a product or service in order to offer it in exchange for some other product or service that you value more than it., meaning that you can have all of the demand you want, you can even designate anything as money you want - gold, paper, bitcoin, clamshells - and have all of that you could ever want, but unless someone actually produces something, nothing will exist to be purchased or traded for.
Is that so terrifying? Well, it is if you're an economic sophist who's seeking to con your way past the constraints of reality, as Keynes and those who followed after him have been. It is always the simple truths that modern philosophy most abhors (hello: What is a woman?).
Ok Van, fine, but so what? What does it matter to me if economists lie?
How? Perhaps you've heard of Inflation? Inflation is one of the key consequences of denying and violating "Say's Law", and the reason why Keynes denied it.
This is even and especially true of those who say "I'm not a supporter of Keynes!", as they typically propose something that builds on what he, or other follower's "... intellectual influences..." will transform their listeners into "... the slaves of some defunct economist...." whose dialectical tactics are typically less about admitting or correcting the errors of the renowned wizard, than with carrying the useful parts of the old scheme forward through what the new TURD's bless as being "only reasonable", nudging them further and further away from the terrifying (to them) reality, which both the old and the new lie want so much to not have to face up to.
However minor it may seem to be at first glance, allowing 'economic thinkers' to get away with denying "Say's Law", is authorizing them to fabricate false realities, and to lie to your face about it.
Torpedoing Say's Law was a key factor in Keynes scheme for gaining power over 'an economy' (AKA: Your life), because it enables 'economic thinkers' to devise buffers of distractions to keep reality at a safe distance from 'their' markets, while at the same time it throws open wide the gates to the power of unlimited totalitarian government. That is the reality that lays behind Lord Keynes' quip:
"...Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist...."
No comments:
Post a Comment