Mises versus Marx
This is undoubtedly one of the best things I’ve ever seen on YouTube.
To be upfront about my proclivities, my heroes are Hayek, Mises, Menger and Sowell. Which makes me, eh… a little bias… and perhaps incapable of seeing the other side as logical or reasonable or even human. Ha ha. I jest, of course they are human. (just not very good ones1). Still, I thought this was remarkable in its ability to so succinctly portray economic theory so cleverly and with so much wit.
[1] Snark aside, I’d be willing to wager supporters of this ideology have likely never lived in a region that has fervently adopted the machinations of Karl Marx and have never gotten to appreciate the nuances of central planning and the motivating power of forced equality. And while I can appreciate the idealistic utopian-ism that comes with the concept of socialism, the spanner in every plan is always the human being… and so until you can iron out that niggle, I’ll go with idea that doesn’t lead to authoritarianism and evenly distributed misery. I believe that Socialists just want to help people (they are likely genuinely good people), it just that the -ism has NEVER worked out for anyone involved.
‘So Capitalism is diabetes?’ (I love this line)
Yeah, it kinda is.
‘The whole point of this country is if you wanna eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so! To me, that’s beautiful’.
-Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation
A sugar-tax (for example) that incentivizes/punishes you and tries to get you to make ‘better’ choices is authoritarianism! Because (apparently) you’re an idiot and you can’t make ‘informed’ decisions about your own life and health.
I’m mounting my libertarian hobby horse… and that isn’t really the point of this post. Watch the video. It’s awesome.
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