Self-Sufficiency and Autarchy

[H_H]

Going full autarchy would probably be highly beneficial in the long term for the health and well-bring of the people of the United States of America. Autarchy means national self-sufficiency. Just cut off all trade with everyone. This situation happens during an all-out war, due to logistical realities —not being able to trade with anyone — but it could also be enacted as a matter of conscious policy.

This would result in a lower level of economic prosperity for the USA, all else equal, as a thousand Mises Institute lectures can explain to you. It might, however, seem to you, alert societal observer, that more prosperity is the very last thing the people of America need. So while the conventional thinking is that any reduction in the sacred GDP is an unalloyed catastrophic bad, if you are a strange and baffling breed we call “independent thinker,” you may think it would be a good.

It also would result in increased independence, both nationally and for American fathers and their families. Everything anyone in America wants to buy — and there is an awful long list of such things, let me tell you — would have to be made by a fellow American. And so finally the insatiable appetite for consumption would be matched — precisely — by an equally insatiable appetite for production.

It’s simple economic law. Watch some Mises if you don’t agree/understand.

 

[shakey1]

Agreed... too much emphasis is placed on continual unabated growth, year after year. I've often wondered why anybody could believe that growth could be maintained indefinitely without interruption.

 

[Stratovarious]

I can agree with the 'Self Sufficiency' part for sure, I've written
this 1000 times since 2002.
Self sufficiency in all sectors from Agriculture to Energy and
all that lies between.
I don't however believe we need to be complete economicisolationists.

 

[H_H]

I don't however believe we need to be complete economic isolationists.

There perhaps isn't a strong need, but probably there is no strong need not to be, either.

Whatever, we're doomed anyway. Our whole so-called "society" is an insane clown circus. So maybe that means if it could have any hope of helping, it is needed, as is any such measure with any such hope. Desperate times. I don't know.

 

[Stratovarious]

There perhaps isn't a strong need, but probably there is no strong need not to be, either.

Whatever, we're doomed anyway. Our whole so-called "society" is an insane clown circus. So maybe that means if it could have any hope of helping, it is needed, as is any such measure with any such hope. Desperate times. I don't know.

The Social ''Clown Circus'' will only be tamed but exporting SJW's, PC-SOCIALIST-LIBERALS , and MSM.
The Economic ''clown circus'' is cured with asset based currency, end of FED, the defunding of most of our alphabet agencies,
the gutting of the IRS, end of career welfare.

 

[H_H]

The Social ''Clown Circus'' will only be tamed but exporting SJW's, PC-SOCIALIST-LIBERALS , and MSM.

Yes, as Hans Herman-Hoppe puts it: "physically removing" a certain problematic group of people -- globalists, rootless cosmopolitans, European-style Socialists, or as Alex Jones called them "Chinese Communists" -- would give us all some hope of eventual renewal.

The Economic ''clown circus'' is cured with asset based currency, end of FED, the defunding of most of our alphabet agencies,
the gutting of the IRS, end of career welfare.

Having Food Stamps run out of money in March sure woulda been a nice start.

 

[Swordsmyth]

You can debate what the correct balance should be but wealth is often in opposition to liberty and independence.

On the other hand, if you give up too much wealth you will become weak and someone strong will conquer you.

I believe that we have strayed too far in the direction of wealth for a very long time and the irony is that it has begun to damage our wealth as well as our liberty and independence.

 

[timosman]

Agreed... too much emphasis is placed on continual unabated growth, year after year. I've often wondered why anybody could believe that growth could be maintained indefinitely without interruption.

Allegedly Ponzi schemes are illegal.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Yes, as Hans Herman-Hoppe puts it: "physically removing" a certain problematic group of people -- globalists, rootless cosmopolitans, European-style Socialists, or as Alex Jones called them "Chinese Communists" -- would give us all some hope of eventual renewal.

You can't live in the same country as those people and long retain liberty, while they are few in number thay can be ignored in the name of liberty but when they become a large enough group then only separation from them by one means or another can restore liberty.

Having Food Stamps run out of money in March sure woulda been a nice start.

Hopefully the next shutdown will last a lot longer.

 

[Matt Collins]

Dumbest idea ever.

Trade produces wealth and breeds peace.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Dumbest idea ever.

Trade produces wealth and breeds peace.

It hasn't had that effect in recent history.

 

[H_H]

You can debate what the correct balance should be but wealth is often in opposition to liberty and independence.

On the other hand, if you give up to much wealth you will become weak and someone strong will conquer you.

I believe that we have strayed too far in the direction of wealth for a very long time and the irony is that it has begun to damage our wealth as well as our liberty and independence.

Stoicism is the answer.

The Cato the Elder strategy. The traditional American strategy too, truth be told (Carnegie...Walton...Jobs).

• Be incredibly hard-working.
• Be fabulously productive.
• Make unfathomable gobs of money.
• Spend none of it.

Eat gruel every day at your rough-hewn table, your hovel's sole piece of furniture. Drive the same old pick-up for the last forty years of your life. Wear blue jeans and do your own housekeeping.

This is the solution to the riddle.

 

[H_H]

produces wealth and breeds peace.

Kissing Jesus produces wealth. Death brings quiet and peace.

 

[Stratovarious]

You can debate what the correct balance should be but wealth is often in opposition to liberty and independence.

On the other hand, if you give up too much wealth you will become weak and someone strong will conquer you.

I believe that we have strayed too far in the direction of wealth for a very long time and the irony is that it has begun to damage our wealth as well as our liberty and independence.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Swordsmyth again.

I'm have no idea where that balance is, maybe in getting knocked down once in a while.:shrugs:

 

[Stratovarious]

Kissing Jesus produces wealth. Death brings quiet and peace.

''Nothing more peaceful than a dead man'' ?

 

[Swordsmyth]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Swordsmyth again.

I'm have no idea where that balance is, maybe in getting knocked down once in a while.:shrugs:

I don't know the exact balance point but I know you are safer leaning on the side of liberty and independence than leaning towards wealth.

 

[Occam's Banana]

//

 

[Matt Collins]

It hasn't had that effect in recent history.

Hmmmm not sure what books you're reading, but commerce always leads to peace and prosperity.

 

[pcosmar]

Hmmmm not sure what books you're reading, but commerce always leads to peace and prosperity.

Free Trade,, might.. But Trade Wars are common through history.
Not sure what you are not reading.

 

[Occam's Banana]

The problem with "self-sufficiency" is that it isn't ...

Going full autarchy would probably be highly beneficial in the long term for the health and well-bring of the people of the United States of America.

[...]

Watch some Mises if you don’t agree/understand.

Better yet, read the man himself.

Mises does not agree. He most vehemently does not agree.

Just cut off all trade with everyone. This [...] situation [...] — not being able to trade with anyone — [could] be enacted as a matter of conscious policy.

What will this "conscious" policy prescribe be consciously done to me and mine if we dare to engage in proscribed trade in order that our household might prosper?

[Autarky] also would result in increased independence, both nationally and for American fathers and their families.

If autarky is so salubrious, then why not implement it for your own household, regardless of what others do? Why is it needed to force mine to sacrifice its prosperity as well? Any father (American or otherwise) who tried to run a truly autarkic household would certainly have an "independent" family. But he would also have an impoverished (and quite possibly starving) one. Of course, he could easily alleviate this terrible condition by simply trading with his neighbors - but then his family wouldn't be "independent" any more ...

How are these considerations any different on the scale of nations of families?

[Autarky] would result in a lower level of economic prosperity for the USA, all else equal, as a thousand Mises Institute lectures can explain to you.

It would and they can. Even worse, all else would not be equal. For just one example ...

Everything anyone in America wants to buy — and there is an awful long list of such things, let me tell you — would have to be made by a fellow American.

... there would be "an awful long list of such things" that could not be made at all (or could not be made in sufficient quantities) because there simply would not be enough resources (including fellow Americans) to make them.

And so finally the insatiable appetite for consumption would be matched — precisely — by an equally insatiable appetite for production.

It would not, except in the sense that both would starve "equally".

Restricting access to fewer resources (as autarky requires) will satiate the appetite for neither production nor consumption.

It can only force both to "go hungry". This is not a good thing.

Appetites are boundless, of course. But the resources with which to sate them are not.

These two inescapable facts are among the most fundamental of the laws of economics in particular and of human action in general.

And bad things happen when resources become more scarce - especially when scarcity is artificially foisted upon people (as must by definition be the case under autarky).