Fed Friday: The Fed Needs Rainy Day Funds to Preserve the Statist Economy
March 4th, 2011
Global Research, www.globalresearch.ca
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke at a banquet Wednesday night regarding the federal budget. He defended his ideas on Keynesian economic manipulation and the need to have funds ready and prepared to “inject into the economy.“ He may be completely correct that in order to preserve capitalism as it currently exists more fiscal stimulus of printed origin is required. I’m not an expert in maintaining the artificial and exploitative economy that currently exists. I don’t have an advanced degree from Princeton or Harvard on how to centrally plan an economy and manage a monopolistic money supply because that is a skill no one person should reasonably have.
If skilled Austrians want to take on the curious task of how to keep the extremely manipulated economy from collapsing upon its self, the underlying assumption of Keynesianism, then let them debate the finer points of monetary and fiscal policy with their interventionist antagonists. The professional economic consensus has generally rejected Austrian premises as anachronistic and unhelpful, at least regarding the management the economy as it currently exists. They may very well to reject it for that use.
But of course, we aren’t interested in maintaining the stability of the current economy. We want true free markets without privilege where inequality is determined only by productivity and not through power, statist or otherwise. Free markets provide their own natural stability because there aren’t massive foundational anti-market impurities which create an artificial order which needs state intervention to survive. They are decentralized and require no men behind the curtain spending our money for us.
Libertarians would be wise to analyze Keynesian approaches to the economy within this framework. They aren’t morons and it isn’t as simple as screaming “BROKEN WINDOW FALLACY” at them and acting like one automatically wins the argument. Keynesians see the (state) economy as fundamentally unstable and note that it requires a firm hand at points to keep it afloat, and they might be right. We’re one level more fundamental than that: we are at the base confronting the legitimacy of the very state economy! Libertarians and Keynesians are playing on different fields and the sooner we understand this the more persuasive our arguments against central banking will become!
