What Is Worse Than Socialism?

Answer: Austrian Economics Without Morals

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “Another story that we have here today, and we can apply a little bit of philosophy of Wisdom Wednesday to this, and that is that we now have in earnest a field of either eleven or twelve candidates for president in the Republican field.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Another story that we have here today, and we can apply a little bit of philosophy of Wisdom Wednesday to this, and that is that we now have in earnest a field of either eleven or twelve candidates for president in the Republican field.  Most people are going to pick and choose – I posted a little something about Mike Huckabee yesterday on my Facebook wall.  As I said, I find myself withdrawing from the need to be drawn into these – most of them are useless.  They’re not debates.  They’re just judgment porn.  It’s screaming porn.  It’s “Hey, look at me” pride porn or whatever the case may be.  I still do have friends that I like to communicate with, and from time to time I like to say: Hey, think about this.  So I posted a little something about Huckabee yesterday and about his speech.  The responses were not responses to Huckabee.  The responses were “Rand 2016,” “Cruz 2016.”  I noticed a trend.  It was either Rand Paul or Senator Ted Cruz.  Little is known about either, first-term United States senators.

Senator Cruz actually went through an educational process that should have prepared him for something like what we were doing.  He was educated in a free market think tank in Houston, Texas.  I know the guy that runs it.  He’s as conservative as you and I would say is conservative.  I believe, though, that the approach to economics that has influenced him, and I would say it’s the same with Senator Paul, the approach to economics is one that is totally devoid of the human element.  Just like with Mises and Hayek – they’re both brilliant men, so please don’t misunderstand.  Their process and the way that they look at economics removes the human element, and it also removes the concept of subsidiarity and the concept of solidarity.  Neither one of the two are included.

David Simpson:  Maybe subsidiarity.

Mike:  Maybe subsidiarity.  In some people’s capitalism, subsidiarity is, but never solidarity.  We mock solidarity.  Your average “conservative” or libertarian Austrian economist, with the exception being Wilhelm Roepke, would mock the concept of solidarity.  [mocking] “I don’t owe that guy anything.  He’s poor and homeless.  Go out and get a job, you idiot!”

Simpson:  Dog eat dog.

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Mike:  Dog eat dog, this is all about private property, all about this and that and the other.  Now, Cruz and Paul are certainly going to present the best economic arguments because they both know them.  Senator Cruz, because I know where he studied at, he certainly knows the Austrian argument, and he does it pretty well.  But it’s missing that element.

Simpson:  And because you’re saying that, you’re going to come under attack.

Mike:  I am.  How many “conservatives” – this is especially important for the Christian conservative – have A, thought about this, B, even know what we’re talking about when we talk about solidarity, C, care about it, and D, will do something about it?

Simpson:  Or will just go: Cruz ’16!

Mike:  [mocking] “I don’t care, man.  He’s better than Obama.”

Simpson:  We stop thinking.

Mike:  No thinking.  Thinking is not allowed, because if you think about this, then you go: Oh, wait a minute now.  I don’t want to confuse the issue here.  It’s either Hillary or Cruz.  Don’t you think that Beelzebub is just laughing his little horn-tail off?  He’s going: I have succeeded in conning three billion humans, the whole planet now.  The Eastern mystics are just as far removed from this as your average not-contemplative Christian is.  He’s succeeded in conning three billion humans into the false choice of either/or.

Simpson:  Because I want to maybe take off some of the heat that you’re invariably going to catch because of these statements you’re making right now, I grew up as an Austrian free market economist guy.

Mike:  So did I.

Simpson:  This is not hatred or an attack on the school of economics.

Mike:  I love the Austrians.  I just think that they’re missing that one – Roepke is and was born an Austrian.  He is the only one that I’m aware of that put that part, put solidarity in it.

Simpson:  Solidarity in economics or in society at large, what is that?  It used to be part of our political discourse, too, which is government is for the common good.  When we pass a law, when we do an economic action, if it doesn’t help everyone, it shouldn’t be done.  We don’t serve privileged classes.  We don’t serve particular groups.  Government is supposed to be for all and for the common good.  We don’t even have that discourse anymore.  As a matter of fact, you could almost relate it to the very fact that we have two parties.  The parties are saying: I want what I want for my side and you want what you want for your side.  That’s not government; that’s war.  It’s completely false the way they present it to us.  Instead of saying: Wait a second, I want government to do something for the common good.  We join one of the parties that are at war.  That doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what we’re going to keep doing because that’s what we’ve been told we have to do to get our guy in.

Mike:  Of course, you’ll also be told, [mocking] “There’s no other way to do it.  You have to do it this way.  It’s got to be us versus them.  Mike, you and your little buddy there, obviously you’ve never been in a fight before.  If someone is coming to kill you, you pick a side.”  Of course, don’t pick the side of solidarity because that puts you then on the side of Christ, that puts you on the side of – wait a minute now, there’s something more to the immediate economic decision that I must make whether or not I earn a penny or you earn a penny.  Think about that conversation we had at the Waffle House that day.  Did I actually smile at that customer because I love him, because I’m a Christian and I love our Lord and he told me to love your neighbor?  Or did I smile at him because I know he’s got a $100 bill in his pocket and I want it?  Talk about a contemplative Wisdom Wednesday question.

Simpson:  Getting back to your having to pick a side, that’s not true.  Our own government had a process called the Electoral College.  Let’s talk about politics for a minute.  We’ve got an electoral college.  What was the Electoral College?  These were supposedly wise political thinkers who would pick the best guy for the country.

Mike:  Wait a minute, this sounds like the College of Cardinals.

Simpson:  Where’d they get that idea?

Mike:  That could not possibly be.

Simpson:  No, they didn’t do that.  They didn’t say: Hey, here’s an institution that’s lasted over thousands of years.  Maybe we should mimic them.

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Mike:  Read the debates from Farrand’s book of records from the Federal Convention when they’re discussing the Electoral College and why they call it a college.  I can’t recall the exact verbiage, but it was that historically choices of this magnitude cannot be made by the plebes.  You cannot allow the common pedestrian man to vote on something that is as important as the presidency.  We have to have some consortium or some gathering of the wise and accomplished and those that don’t have a direct outcome.  That can’t come into the consideration.

Simpson:  It shouldn’t.

Mike:  If you’ve ever wondered by there’s an electoral college – this is just the greatest irony, isn’t it?  What’s everybody hollering and screaming about on

Facebook, Twitter, at gatherings everywhere?  You were never intended to vote for president.

Simpson:  It shocks people when they know that.

Mike:  [mocking] “That’s ‘cause the founding fathers didn’t get it right the first time.”  Maybe they did have it right on the first go-round.

Simpson:  We rejected the rightness.

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Mike:  We rejected their correction and then amended the Constitution four times to correct it, four times to see to it that the common man would elect the president.  You don’t think that there was process to that?

Simpson:  It’s crazy.  I’ve told people that with the value of the Electoral College.  There are moves to get rid of it.  Even though it’s a completely functional thing, the Electoral College doesn’t work like it was supposed to work.  We know that because now they’re just following popular voting, which was not the way it was supposed to work.  I’m against getting rid of the college because there is still some off chance that one day the college will not vote in accordance with the popular vote and say: No, we’re going to exercise our own brain and pick the best guy for this job.  Like these 16 people running for president now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the college, after the election, said: No, Mike Church is going to be president.  We’re not going with any of the clowns we have here.

End Mike Church Show Transcript