Thursday, January 23, 2014

Gary North on Ellen Brown: Cheerleader for Hitler's Economics

As a follow up to my post, Mish Takes on Money Printing Advocate Ellen Brown (Again), a friend reminds me of Gary North's awesome takedown of Ellen Brown, Cheerleader for Hitler's Economics. Snippet:
Ellen Brown is a lawyer by profession, a Greenbacker by confession, and a fan of Adolf Hitler’s economics by consistency.
She is quite open about her support for National Socialism’s economics, as I shall demonstrate. What is depressing is this: she is getting a respectful hearing in Tea Party circles. Her book, The Web of Debt (2006), is widely cited on the World Wide Web. As of early October, 2010, a Google search for “Ellen Brown” and “Web of Debt” generated close to600,000 hits. This is huge.
Here is a tactical problem. For two generations, conservatives have been shouted down by the Left with this accusation: “Fascist!” Ellen Brown is now making this accusation plausible. Yet the great irony is this: Ellen Brown is a Leftist. There is nothing even remotely free market or conservative about The Web of Debt. It is a call for a Federally funded welfare state. She praises the New Deal. She praises John Maynard Keynes. She has only one objection to their recommended programs: governments borrowed money to fund them. She wants a welfare state that is funded entirely by paper money printed by Congress. She is about as conservative as Nancy Pelosi.
How could her ideas be getting a hearing in Tea Party circles? It’s a long story. Let me summarize it.  
Read the rest here.

3 comments:

  1. While I generally agree with the classical liberal defense against the Greenbackers, North went over the top in declaring "she is about as conservative as Nancy Pelosi" Ellen Brown represents the economic thinking of many rightwing thinkers and intellecutals (e.g. Ezra Pound), general Midwest, anti-interventionist populism, conservative Prussian socialism, and several other themes of interest to paleolibertarians which should require a more serious attempt to understand the actual point--developing a monetary system that deals with the realities of "democracy" in the modern world, such as it is, where people will always vote themselves their neighbors money.

    The key point, which North and Brown both miss, is the monopoly claim the Federal Reserve maintains with its fiat currency--that is by force, we have to use it. As most of us support doing away with the state, and funding competing insurance/security firms, how should they be paid?

    Ellen Brown and Gary North both actually agree on the subject of "fractional reserve banking" as a system of fraud. That is enough to encourage greater dialogue then North's position.

    ReplyDelete
  2. gladly RW didn't reply, but you must admit North has explained what to do, in "How To End The Fed and How Not To", a grand contribution to paleolibertarians which should require a more serious attempt to understand the actual point: Pound and the ilk are intellectually barren, or malicious, and Kyle Bass called it, politically, "intellectually dishonest"

    Free market production of money obviates the issue of excess debt, the moral and economic issues of coercion and redistribution. Where deflation and falling prices are the normal course of action, and where misallocation of capital goods signaled by an entrepreneurial loss (as opposed to a profit) causes the time-honored redistribution under the law--bankruptcy and associated proceedings.

    People get paid what both parties agree to, when there is a transaction...

    Grunts*

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, he explained what to do, like how to survive the year 2000? Or are you too young for that fiasco? Lets be a bit more serious.

    Reciting economic doctrine does not reflect the real world situations sovereign's deal with when they attempt to operate outside the Federal Reserve System, whether it be war on Germany, Bitcoin, or the American Revolution.

    Still, a voluntarist society, should be free to pick and abide by the rules of a script and more discussion should be encouraged about what is a practical goal that can be defended.

    ReplyDelete