Self-Sufficiency and Autarchy

[H_H]

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

Bingo.

[Stratovarious]

Bingo.

[H_H]

Occam, I am delighted to see replies from you. You're, like, smarter than me. Well, I guess it's hard to really tell from internet forum posts. But you write smart things, anyway. Maybe a little too "stock" at times.

But always rigorous. A worthy foe, ally, or interlocutor of any order.

So thank you. It's an honor.

Better yet, read the man himself.

Yeah. Have. Not the whole corpus, mind you. But more than anyone on this thread, put it that way. Probs. And it's too bad -- more people should read him.

I think Human Action scares people off with all the discussion of different types of probability and such super-abstract concepts up-front at the beginning of the book. And the vocab, of course. Which is delicious! But.

So guys, start in the middle of H.A. and have a dictionary at hand.

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?

I don't know, Occam. Beheadings? Behangings? Forcible Watchings of thousands of hours of Michael Jackson Death Saga commentary on eternal loop?

Note I didn't say "Let's do it!" I said it would, in my judgment, be beneficial to the people of America were it to happen. That is my judgment. I think that is true.

Look, I have also said the same thing about nuclear blasts to large American cities. That doesn't mean I'm going to open the football and push the button.

One may not wish to implement a policy one thinks would be practically beneficial to the people. Probably because one believes for some reason in absolute supernatural morality and that violating certain supernatural tenets would incur the displeasure of God or Mises or the Universe. Maybe other reasons could be possible. I don't know what they would be.

And I get that.

I kind of have it myself. And soooo.....:

Of course, just as one can essentially eliminate public nudity or infant abandonment or putting Oxycontin in children's breakfast cereals or whatever it is you think probably Ought Not to Be but yet cannot be prohibited without Violating Someone's Supernatural Rights; just as one can almost and for all practical purposes eliminate these bad behaves even in a walled an-cap community, via various An-Cap tricks of social pressure, commercial pressure, mind-control (media) pressure, blah-blah-blah it's all technically voluntary -- so likewise one could practically eliminate all trade with other distant foreign lands in a completely voluntary way, stamped Rothbard-Approved.

So you could do that. If you actually believe in supernatural things like Rights (I do. I think.). Or have some other reason. Obviously an-cap is cool enough that implementing it would be its own reason -- we totally should do that. But that's kind of a different issue.

If autarky is so salubrious, then why not implement it for your own household, regardless of what others do?

Well I do.

Did you know that?

We make our own food. My wife does now, but I know how. I like that. It makes me more independent. I also know how to fix my own car. I know how to build and re-build my own house. I have done it repeatedly, in fact. I know how to build my own computer. I know how to write my own software. I know how to dig a fair ditch and design a fair circuit board. You know, there's a great quote from Robert Heinlein, let me see.... ah, here:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Now, Occam, I know perfectly well this whole time from "well I do" you have been just skimming, chomping at the bit to say: but that's not real self-sufficiency! That doesn't count! Did you grow your own brussels, or just steam them? Did you mill your own lumber? Why, consider the very Pencil you used to draw up the house plans!...

And yeah. But have we heard of the concept of "Spectrums"? It's all relative, and while Pa Ingalls may be no Robinson Crusoe, and while I am certainly not even any Pa Ingalls, yet there is a value to not being utterly dependent and hapless, to having some understanding of and competence in all the wonders of the modern world. So they're not just wonders to gape at. They're tools in your hands.

So it's all relative. And while the Platonic Floating Form of self-sufficiency may be unattainable and in fact uninteresting even if it were, yet there is an element of Truth and Usefulness in it, in balance.

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 ...

Force. The force thing is gone. Solved by an-cap genius, as said. So: Check!

Starve. Ain't nobody gonna starve. With modern ag techniques you can feed ten kids on five acres easy in most, maybe all, of the USDA regions of America. Alaska maybe not (my grandpa tried).

But you say impoverished=terrible. Let me tell you, brother, there are a lot of more terrible things. A lot. And much more. Infinitely more. Terrible.

If the kids grow up strong and vigorous, anti-fragile, and go on to land superior mates, making the bloodline better and stronger and awesomer.... does it matter? Does anything else matter? So you grew up in a log cabin. Bigs. Your grandbibees have IQs of 180 and bench 250, never get sick and will live to 100. Sounds success to me.

Sounds success to me.

Oh, BTW, they live in a log cabin too. On Mars.

(I guess there they can bench 750.)

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

Because a nation is not a person?

Because those are two different things?

Nations could be kind of like extended families, maybe? I guess? That's what you're saying?

But scale does really matter. As in, like, everything in life. It's a real thing. It affects. Donald Trump is not actually my daddy.

[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 ...... 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.

OK, but you're abusing "all else not equal." "All else" means "factors other than autarchy." Some will make better, some will make worse. For inst: if everyone's depressed and suicidal all the time (like, say, now) they'll be less economically productive and thus, at least eventually in the long term, probably less prosperous (somebody somewhere has to be energetic and productive!). That's a health and mental problem, not an economic one, but it's all Humans and their Actions.

... 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 somehow that just doesn't sound that bad to me.

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

It would not

Tote's would. Closed system. There's supply. There's demand. If'n they're not going to meet up equal at equilibrium, then where? Tell me where.

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

Uhh, well, nothing ever satiates humans' appetites. I just said they'd match.

You can't consume what's not produced. I guess you can produce what's not consumed, but you will not necessarily keep doing it forever.

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

OK, there we go. You do understand this. So you can't exactly condemn a system for failing to do something that every other system will fail to do, too. Now can you.

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.

That we aspire to goals and we can't acheive them. Ever reaching, higher, higher; never spiritually satisfied. Yes, I can agree with that as Fundamental to the nature and meaning of Man. I can go with that. Faustian Man.

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).

Now I don't know about that. A) I don't see how it makes me any difference whether I'm "naturally" bitten by a tiger or "artificially" bitten by a man. But more importantly
B) What challenges, but does not kill quite,
Strengthens, tones, and lifts to Real Might.

The Joy is in the Struggle.
There's no meaning in consuming.

[H_H]

To be stoic is to embody equanimity when thin gruel is your only fare (and to not envy and resent the fellow who has some hearty stew).

It is not to desire and strive only for thin gruel (and to eschew hearty stew).

You would be hard-pressed to make a remotely valid definition of Stoicism that does not include Cato (both, actually). So my post is fine. Hail gruel.

Plus, you're setting up the extremes so the one extreme -- the decadent extreme -- sounds sane. It's not. The extreme of decadence and prosperity is not simple, traditional, nutritious food (like stew), plain, modest, but serviceable clothing, etc. Have you ever read or seen The Hunger Games? The decadent extreme is not a bowl of wholesome stew. It is gorging yourself on rich and extravagant delicacies and then taking a pill to induce you to vomit it all up, so that you can then continue to gorge. All night long.

[H_H]

Autarchy is the attempt to deny oneself because one has discipline.

...have at it.

Thank you.

[Swordsmyth]

Correct, we don't have free trade, as Ron says "free trade doesn't require a 27,000 page treaty"

But we don't have to participate in trade wars in order to get free trade. It is none of the US government's business who I choose to buy or sell stuff to/from.

It isn't free trade if the other side is using government intervention, we must fight back in order to negotiate a truce where neither side intervenes.

[Matt Collins]

It isn't free trade if the other side is using government intervention, we must fight back in order to negotiate a truce where neither side intervenes.

You cannot do anything about other governments. Only those citizens of that government can.

The US government has no business telling me who I can and cannot do business with, so long as I am not harming others.

[Swordsmyth]

You cannot do anything about other governments. Only those citizens of that government can.

The US government has no business telling me who I can and cannot do business with, so long as I am not harming others.

You can and must do something about other governments, just as you would if they were raiding our shipping.

[Matt Collins]

You can and must do something about other governments, just as you would if they were raiding our shipping.

Nothing can be legitimately done, unless you want to go to war? Your line of reasoning makes no sense.

[Swordsmyth]

Nothing can be legitimately done, unless you want to go to war? Your line of reasoning makes no sense.

You can respond in kind just as you would if they were engaged in traditional warfare against you.

[H_H]

Dumbest idea ever.

Trade produces wealth and breeds peace.

Hi, Matt!

Hope everything’s going great for you lately.

Since this this was my idea, should I be offended that it is the “dumbest idea ever”?

No, I suppose the mature thing would be to question my self-assessment of my own intelligence and try not to come up with any more ideas, for fear they would just break my own world record.

But tell me, Matt, before I abandon myself to to the worthless fate to which my stupor consigns me: Is wealth and wealth and more wealth exactly what a conscientious doctor would order for America right now? Is it? Just what the doctor ordered?

Because the OP(that’s me) explicitly claimed his floater would reduce wealth. Sounds like he understood that and thought it a feature not a bug. So,... why is he wrong?

As for peace, this is a nice bennie in abstract, but not applicable to our situation in real life. The US is not getting into wars because people in other countries don’t like us. Our endless wars will be in no way abated by building more commercial ties between US normies and Timbuktu normies. Not even slightly.

No one is starting wars with us. All other countries are in abject terror of us, and while mewling terror may not be friendship, for practical war-preventing purposes it is very certainly Close Eniugh. No, all our wars are started by a Cabal of evil globalists, bent on various insane invasion projects in endless succession, for reason of their own. Trade will not address this, the real, problem.

“Oh, if only we had bought more oil from Venezuela? Then Bill Maher ‘s audience wouldn’t be clapping like trained seals about sending in *Elliot Abrams* to be the new Emperor of Venezuela”?

Do you really think that? Come on.