Monday, November 14, 2016

Autarky





Subsidiarity raised to its highest power, so to speak, is seen in an autarky: a self-sufficient nation. It sounds like a wonderful idea, but an idea is what it remains, at least for the foreseeable future. The closest real-world example is North Korea, a fact that should raise your eyebrows.

Little has been written about autarky; what has been is usually negative in tone. “Only by eliminating the deadly germ of monetary sovereignty will currency crises become yesterday's disease, and will globalization live up to its economic and political promise”, wrote Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics of the Council on Foreign Relations, an impartial organization if ever there was one, heh heh. The CFR is a policy arm of the NOW and the globalist banker cabal, an integral part of what has come to be known as the “Shadow State” that pulls the strings of the political puppets the unwashed are permitted to elect. The article appeared on 22 April 2004 as an op-ed piece in the little-people-friendly publication The Wall Street Journal.

Also weighing in against the principle was Dispensationalist minster and Y2K hysteric Gary North, a fan of Austrian Economics. Yours truly went through an Austrian phase and contributed essays (non-economic) to an online publication of Lew Rockwell, founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the leading Austrian economics organization. Austrian economics advocates free trade and a return to the gold standard, positions it took me two years to abandon once I understood how thoroughly heartless and banker-friendly the Austrian School truly is. No citations from the-sky-is-falling Gary North are necessary; ignore him.

The final easily accessed web page dealing with autarky comes from a 25 Sept. 2005 paper taken from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System International Finance Discussion Papers series. Favorable or unfavorable with respect to currency autarky? Ah hah hah! A rhetorical question if ever there was one! Let’s look elsewhere.

Ellen Brown’s 2007 book Web of Debt (a very worthy read) explores a Twentieth Century example of a reasonably successful­—in some instances, very much so—trial of autarky: Hitler’s (EEEEEK! HITLER!!) Germany. Even the astonishingly ignorant young folk of the present century know who Hitler (EEEEEK!) was. They may never have heard of Stalin and/or Chairman Mao, both of whom killed many more people and lasted in power for far longer, but everyone knows who Hitler (EEEEEK!) was. But once one goes beyond his boogieman status, subjects such as how he came to power and what he did during his early years in power remain in the vault of general ignorance along with the fact that the Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve. Monetary history is simply not a part of national educational systems and the people who run those systems plan to keep it that way.

The Subsidiarity Institute is designed to be a source for monetary education materials. Its founder and only scribe at present is independent of outside influence and therefore free to make errors and more importantly to admit them, which while humbling is of great importance in an inexact “science” such as economics.

Tomorrow’s post will examine Nazi Germany’s (NAZIS!! EEEEEK!) very impressive pre-war efforts toward reach autarky. Finding source material on the subject is not easy, but a brief overview is provided, you’ll understand why that’s the case.

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