Organized Crime The Unvarnished Truth About Government_Vol_3_2.pdf
Copyright © 2012 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Permission to reprint in
whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
Ludwig von Mises Institute
518 West Magnolia Avenue
Auburn, Alabama 36832
mises.org
ISBN: 978-1-61016-255-5 (paperback edition)
ISBN: 978-1-61016-256-2 (hardback edition)
Contents
Introduction: Austrian Political Economy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Section One: Coercion and Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. Four Th ousand Years of Price Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Th e Other War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Who Will Regulate the Regulators?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Regulation and the Stock Market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5. Our Totalitarian Regulatory Bureaucracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. Antitrust, Anti-Truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7. Antitrust Luddites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8. Socialized Healthcare vs. the Laws of Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Section Two: Politics and Th ieves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9. Pay to Play: Why the Fuss? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
10. Fed-ACORN Criminality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
11. Price Gouging: Th e Real Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
12. Farmed Robbery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
13. Th e Founding Father of Crony Capitalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
14. Th e Curse of Instigationism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
15. Th e State’s Media Lapdogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Section Th ree: Centralization versus Liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
16. Freedom and Federalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
17. Th e Origins of Nullifi cation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
18. Th e Real Meaning of the Fourth of July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
19. Electing U.S. Senators was a Bad Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
20. False Virtue: Th e Politics of Lying About History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
21. How (and Why) the Lincoln Myth was Invented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
22. Centralization Lets the Worst Rise to the Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
23. Death by Government: Th e Missing Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
24. Th e Birth of American Imperialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
vii
viii · Organized Crime
25. Paul Krugman’s Politically-Correct “Civil War” Delusions . . . . . . . . . . 86
26. Grand Old Tyrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
27. Facialism: Th e New American System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
28. In Defense of Sedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
29. Distorting History in the Service of the State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Section Four: Money and the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
30. Central Banking as an Engine of Corruption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
31. States’ Rights vs. Monetary Monopoly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
32. How Central Banking Hides the Cost of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
33. How the Fed Creates Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
34. Th e Myth of a “Libertarian” Fed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
35. Th e Myth of the “Independent” Fed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
36. Why the Government is Responsible for the Sub-Prime
Mortgage Meltdown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Section Five: Workers and Unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
37. Th e Political Economy of Government Employee Unions. . . . . . . . . . 143
38. Th e Inherent Violence of Unions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
39. Th e False Ideological Foundation of Unionism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
40. Markets, Not Unions, Give us Leisure and Safety on the Job . . . . . . . . 153
41. Th e Union Conspiracy Against Walmart Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
42. How “Sweatshops” Help the Poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Section Six: Truth and Lies about Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
43. Th e Truth about the “Robber Barons”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
44. Th e Truth about the Sherman Antitrust Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
45. Th e Myth of “Natural” Monopoly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
46. Th e Virtues of Tax “Loopholes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
47. Macroeconomists Discover Economics and Debunk
the New Deal (Again) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
48. Will Socialism Make You Happier? Th e Trojan Horse of
“Happiness Research” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
49. Th e Canard of “Asymmetric Information” as a Source of
Market Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
50. Th e Real Ethics Problem in America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
51. Th e Myth of Government Job Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
52. Th e Myth of the Male/Female Wage Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
