Anti Semites and other lunatics love spreading the canard that Jews control everything and run the world like a puppet show. This is obviously stupid, but it does, like all lies, have a smidgen of truth in it. (See Rashi on Joseph’s dreams.)
We don’t intend to, but the world always divides on Jewish schisms. Like the claim that Israel causes all the world’s wars, it sort of does inspire them if not intentionally. There’s nothing we can do about the fact that we are the core of Western Civilization other than to accept it and assume the role in order to lead the world, finally, to peace. Until we accept the role that the anti Semites insist that we have, the world will continue to be at war.
The most obvious example right now is Iran’s intention to destroy Israel, and the fact that America is now threatening to enter the scene and start yet another war. We, the Jews, didn’t want anything to do with this, but once again, we are forced to take center stage. That is our role after all.
But this post was initially going to be about the economy and economic philosophy. So here it is. The two schools at war now are the Keynesians and the Austrians. Besides Keynes himself, virtually everyone else in this war is Jewish.
On one hand, you have Paul Krugman, Alan Greenspan, and Ben Bernanke, all Jews. They like the idea of price stability, because they think price stability is essential to keeping an economy stable. So when prices go down, they buy bonds and print money so the prices go back up. And when prices go too high, they sell bonds and suck up money so they go back down when they should be higher.
The opposite of course is true. Price stability only destabilizes an economy. As supply and demand changes, prices MUST change. Otherwise, malinvestment occurs when people buy things that aren’t worth what the real market price should be and vice versa. This gives you booms and busts.
On the other side of this war are Ludwig Von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Peter Schiff, and Murray Rothbard. All Jews. They think we shouldn’t do anything to fix prices. As Mises puts it in his book “The Theory of Money and Credit”: (Page 102 in the Liberty Fund edition for those interested)
The loss of a consumption good or production good results in a loss of human satisfaction; it makes mankind poorer. The gain of such a good results in an improvement of the human economic position; it makes mankind richer. The same cannot be said of the loss or gain of money. Both changes in the available quantity of production goods or consumption goods and changes in the available quantity of money involve changes in values; but whereas the changes in the value of the production goods and consumption goods do not mitigate the loss or reduce the gain of satisfaction resulting from the changes in their quantity, the changes in the value of money (prices) are accommodated in such a way to the demand for it that, despite increases or decreases in its quantity, the economic position of mankind remains the same. An increase in the quantity of money can no more increase the welfare of the members of a community, than a diminution of it can decrease their welfare.
Ludwig Von Mises. A Jew.
And as the Keynesian Jews and the Austrian Jews duke it out, the global economy hangs in the balance. Consider me one more Jew on the Austrian side of the equation.
The Jews control the economic world…as always.
The Jewish Libertarian 
Hi Rafi,
From my readings on mises.org about Rothbard, I only know that Rothbard was — so to say — Jewish in name only, and didn’t have the knowledge nor interest to search for common views into Jewish sources; he was reportedly quite under the influence of christian ethics, which happen to be originally based on the Torah but with some fundamental flaws introduced by early thinkers such as JC itself, who had some kind of issue with rich people. In contrast, if you check into the Torah, you will conclude that the main characters (the Patriarchs, Yosef etc.) were immensely wealthy as they had been blessed by G-d with huge cattle herds and servants. Even Moshe was wealthy from the fragments of the first broken set of tablets which were made out of precious stone, and we find no condemnation against wealth in the Torah — as long as it is used in a just manner, i.e. giving to the poor, helping the needed, supporting the orphan and the widow etc.
My point is, not exactly that Rothbardian views are evil, I was just saying that libertarianism according to Rothbard doesn’t deal with moral issues other than the NAP, which is the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. Moral stuff is simply out of the scope of Rothbard’s work.
For instance, if you see a neighbor of yours ruining his life by using drugs, according to Rothbard you have no right to interfere and try to stop him from doing that – or even more radically, if the guy is trying to commit suicide, according to Rothbard it’s *his* problem, not mine.
In opposition to Torah, that teaches us not to stand idly by our brother’s blood. According to Torah, we should even confiscate his drugs, or force him into rehabilitation, in order to save his life — the reason for such apparent lack of positive action before other people’s issues is that, according to NAP, I would only have the right to stop the guy from doing drugs in case he would clearly threaten to initiate any kind of violence against me or my property. And this reasoning propagates throughout the whole spectrum of human relationships: if it doesn’t mess with me or my property, or any common issues — which in a purest libertarian environment would be practically next to zero — then I should just sit back and do nothing.
Even though I’m just an interested reader in Libertarianism and have no academic basis for high level discussions, as far as I can understand, that would the most important, major inconsistency between Libertarianism and Torah.
I would appreciate if you could provide any further clarification whether my reasoning above is correct or if I missed anything relevant out of the picture — be it through the comments page or by delving on the subject in more detail in a future blog post.
Thanks for your time & Shavua Tov.
R. Halevy
Hey, thanks for your comments. Very well thought out. I have no academic background either. I just read stuff, which arguably is what academics do too. Only I don’t get paid to be pedantic about it. Rothbard always emphasized that libertarianism is not a theory of morality. It is a political theory as to the applicability of violence in society.
I would expand on that and say that the NAP is a necessary though not sufficient condition for morality. In cases such as the drug case and לא תעמד על דם רעך, I would say that at a certain point, yes, the Torah would require you to intervene, but not by force. You would have a moral obligation to convince the person to stop hurting himself, but to actually grab him and throw him into rehab would not be a chiyuv, at least in my opinion. I paskin for myself on NAP matters because I don’t trust non-libertarian Rabbis to have the same value system as mine.
At a certain point, yes, if someone is holding a gun to his own head and threatening to shoot, I would say you have a moral obligation על פי תורה to break the NAP and subdue the guy before he pulls the trigger. What’s the difference between the cases? I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it. That’s my gut feeling though.
Wow, so they’re right after all??
Just kidding, but you let’s also remember one of the most influential (self-hating) Jews, and that’s the class-struggle-wielding guy, that hateful Marx!! A total ignoramus in basic economics, who did’t even own a popcorn stand on the marketplace but distilled supposedly unshakeable and universal economic laws, promptly absorbed by the ignorant masses and willingly adopted by the pseudo-intelectual class. His nefarious influence is the other side of the Keynesian coin that dominates the current economic so-called thought.
You may probably have read Mises’s essays on Marx in “Human Action” destroying into microscopic fragments each and every false premise the guy used to build his hateful pseudo-scientific ideology.
BTW, this site is really interesting. From what I’ve read until now, Torah views and Austrian economics are mostly consistent – however the same could not be fully extended to the Rothbardian views on things that are considered inherently evil according to Torah, as I understand HKB”H expects us to proactively fight against them and help our Jewish brothers overcome them.
I’ll read more on this and may come back later.
Thanks for taking your time to share your thoughts on these subjects.
R. Halevy
Mech. Engineer
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Thanks for the compliments. Marx was one of the true self hating jews. They say that about Rothbard but in his case it was not true. What Rothbardian view is considered inherently evil? Torah and Austrian economics are mostly consistent, but not 100% so. I have a friend writing a thesis now about price controls in the Talmud.