Category Archives: YTT

What Adam Smith had to say about conspiracies

They are quite common, especially if they are given protection by government regulation

We often hear people being dismissive about “conspiracy theories”. Yet one of the most eminent thinkers of the 18th century, who is often called the founder of economics (although there were others, see here), Adam Smith, knew that they were commonplace. Here is what he wrote in his famous book with the (abridged) title “The Wealth of Nations”:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. 

– The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X. 

Most people who remember reading this however don’t know that the really interesting part comes after that. Smith goes on to say:

It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. . . . A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows, and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary. An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole.

– The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X.

Regarding this, Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute writes:

As Eamonn Butler has written, Smith’s point is that the only way businessmen can succeed in a ‘conspiracy against the public’ is if they are given protection by government regulation. If not, the pressures of competition will ensure that conspiring businesses are quickly undermined by their competitors.

It’s Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted.

Article by Gary North from July 3, 2009

[The original is here.]

Global warming is based 100% on junk science. The most vocal promoters are not interested in the details of physical science. They are interested in two things: political control over the general public and the establishment of international socialism.

Junk Science vs. Real Science

For a detailed, footnoted, 12-page article, written by three scientists, two with Ph.D’s from CalTech, click here.

This paper was sent to tens of thousands of natural scientists in the United States.

Over 31,000 scientists have put their reputations on the line and signed a politically incorrect petition opposing the 1997 Kyoto agreement or protocol. Here is a photocopy of a signed petition.

It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake.  What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted.

Here is a letter from a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He asks recipients of the petition to sign it.

Back in the 1970’s, the bugaboo was the coming ice age, as this Time Magazine article promoted. Not to be outdone, Newsweek got on board. The article warned: “Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects.” Want more examples? Click here.

It, too, was based on junk science. It, too, had the same solution: government control over the economy. The goal never changes: government management over the economy. The justification has changed. If the voters won’t accept control over their lives on the basis of one brand of junk science, maybe they will accept another. As they used to say in the Nixon Administration: “Let’s run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.”

Socialism’s Last Stand

The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.

This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats. He did this in an article, “Reflections: After Communism,” published by The New Yorker (Sept. 10, 1990).

In this article, he made an astounding admission. He said that Ludwig von Mises had been right in 1920 in his article, “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.” Mises argued that without private ownership, central planners could not know what any resource is worth to consumers. With no capital market, the planners would be flying blind.

Heilbroner said that for 70 years, academic economists had either ignored this article or dismissed it without answering it. Then Heilbroner wrote these words: “Mises was right.”

Heilbroner was one of these people. There is no reference to Mises in The Worldly Philosophers.

This admission was the preliminary section of Heilbroner’s manifesto. He was cutting off all hope by socialists that there is a theoretically plausible response to Mises. The free market economy will always outproduce a socialist economy. Get used to it, he said.

Then, in the second section, he called on his socialist peers to get behind the ecology movement. Here, he said, is the best political means for promoting central planning, despite its inefficiency. In the name of ecology, he said, socialists can get a hearing from politicians and voters.

The article is not online. An abstract is. Here is the concluding thought of the abstract.

The direction in which things are headed is some version of capitalism, whatever its title. In Eastern Europe, the new system is referred to as Not Socialism. Socialism may not continue as an important force now that Communism is finished. But another way of looking at socialism is as the society that must emerge if humanity is to cope with the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment. From this perspective, the long vista after Communism leads through capitalism into a still unexplored world that roust [must?] be safely attained and settled before it can be named.

Heilbroner did not care that a worldwide government-run economic planning system would not be called called socialism. He just wanted to see the system set up.

Heilbroner’s peers got the message. That was what Kyoto was all about.

Conclusion

If you like poverty, inefficiency, and bureaucratic controls over the economy, and therefore control over your choices, the “climate change” movement is ideal.

If you want to subsidize China and India, neither of which will enforce the rules laid down by unelected international bureaucrats, this movement is for you.

If you want to pay more for less energy, there is no better way than to pass the cap and tax bill which the House has passed. It will be sent to the U.S. Senate next week.

The rest of us should oppose it.

I hereby authorize anyone to reprint this article or post it on any website, just so long as the text is not changed.

Neil Oliver warns against digital central bank currency

In this 15 minute video.

Reminds of the “mark of the beast“:

“Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.” (From Revelation 13:16-17)

Thomas R. Schreiner writes about this on crossway.org:

“The beast is not confined to the Roman Empire; it refers to Rome but applies also to every manifestation of evil in all governments throughout history, and also to the final conflict to come at the end.”

Discussing censorship on Twitter

Jordan Peterson discusses this with David Zweig

Video is here.

From the description:

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and journalist David Zweig discuss his role in breaking the Twitter Files, government censorship in society, the extent to which lockdowns were effective, how they affected children in particular, and how one renegade church would not bow to overzealous regulation.

David Zweig is a writer and journalist, with multiple books published, such as “Invisibles” in 2014 and the upcoming “Abundance of Caution” that centers on the effects of the COVID-19 response on schools and children. He was also one of the journalists who helped break the Twitter Files, focusing on the suppression of information to the satisfaction of the U.S. government and the public health establishment.

Chapters – (0:00) Coming up (1:16) Intro (1:51) The role of the media (3:25) How Zweig joined the Twitter Files team (5:02) Parameters of the investigation (6:00) Determining relevance (9:39) Why Zweig chose to tackle lockdowns (14:13) Having solid stories turned down (18:44) Bari Weiss, willing to listen (21:53) What the suppression of voices on Twitter means (26:23) Public trust in vaccines before the pandemic (30:45) The biological parallel (33:00) Overt focus on the pathogen left us blind to the side effects of our response (35:43) “Stay in your lane” (30:42) The problem of having too many options (41:58) Why we have natural, inalienable rights (47:55) Early data that was completely ignored (49:52) Weighing risk against value (53:45) An astonishing lack of curiosity (54:40) The evidence based hierarchy: where expert opinion ranks (57:30) The censorship at Twitter exposed (1:00:25) Some censorship is not unreasonable (1:01:03) Psychology of troll behavior (1:03:09) The few can corrupt the whole (1:05:22)The job of a journalist is NOT to draw the line (1:07:26) Authoritarian information control (1:13:43) Confusing a model with actual data (1:14:52) The error in “techno-solutionism” (1:18:07) The places that stayed closed and those left outside (1:22:22) Critical well being dispensed over assumptions (1:25:10) Asking questions makes YOU the pathogen (1:27:08) Spying on church members, millions in fines (1:31:50) Rapidly diminishing returns across time (1:33:30) The truly affected are those who lost their support systems