May
20
Theory of Bureaucracy
Posted by: DM | Filed In Business and Management, Corporatism | 2 Comments
This is my introductory post to go back to first principles, to begin working on the philosophy that underlies this blog.
The blog is about individualism. The primary counter to individualism is organization, and its modern preeminent form - Bureaucracy. My life studies in human interaction led me to study the nature and form of human interaction. Government and “society” seemed to be ethereal concepts to me as a young man, so I worked to understand business in a conscious effort to limit my scope.
What I found is that my studies in business led me to understand human organization, and ultimately, the ideas of government and society. Many of my colleagues, having been interested in my business ideas, were disappointed that my blog hasn’t spent much time within that realm. It is my wish to begin a series of posts that work on melding these ideas together.
W. Edwards Deming was the catalyst for my awakening. Deming taught me about variation and uncertainty, about respect for the individual. From there, many ideas flourished.
Bureaucracy cripples individualism. In a bureaucracy, people fall into the ranks. A heirarchy is established which filters ideas to the top, vested in a few decision makers that choose the “right” or “wrong” ideas. Ultimately, the right or wrong ideas are only those ideas that are right or wrong in the opinion of the person supporting or quashing those ideas.
Organizations go through several phases. They begin with an idea, launched by an entrepreneur with a commitment that his idea will sell, which is to say that it will present value to enough people to provide him with a profit. If there is initial success, the entrepreneur and those he has collaborated with to bring the idea to market begin to flourish.
In this stage, the organization is dynamic. The ideas matter, and everyone works toward the goal. But something tragic occurs along the line: Organization creeps in.
There is a whole school of management theory that dominates most individuals, and for the most part, goes completely unchallenged: It is the school of control. When decision making gets more and more distributed among larger numbers of individuals, those who are in “control” lose their locus of control - they can’t be involved in every decision at every moment. And when mistakes are made that they didn’t have a direct decision over, they become quite uncomfortable.
This is where one of my core precepts - Management by Exception - comes in. Each undesirable outcome brings about a new “rule” to prevent it from happening again. Rather than dealing with the decision of an individual, and working with them to understand the consequences of their decision, and learning from it, we pass a “rule” to prevent it from happening again.
Any “rule” passed among a group to manage the possible negative outcomes of an individual action stifles the freedom and creativity of the rest of the group. Bureaucracy is built on rules.
Most entrepreneurs pass through this stage, and then it becomes all about the “people.” If only the people would “do their jobs” everything would work out fine. But as they lose their local control, most entrepreneurs believe that people can’t be trusted to do their jobs, they need external control to bring about the correct behavior. Thus the Carrot and Sticks school of management.
As an organization becomes more bureaucratic, the people at the top of the hierarchy become further and further detached from the dynamics of human interaction at the problem-solving level.
Here’s where I’ll work on putting it together into a cohesive theory: The myriad exceptions become intolerable to the people at the top. There is too much variation in the system, too much uncertainty. So they pass more and more rules to eliminate uncertainty, and they stifle all of the dynamics that allow them to better serve customers. In a true free market, this organization dies because its market share is picked away by younger, more flexible, and more dynamic organizations. But we do not function in a free market…
The need for control, built in to the DNA of a bureaucracy, make it wish to eliminate uncertainty. In a free market, uncertainty is the name of the game. In their effort to bring about certainty, unscrupulous business leaders look to use force on the market place.
Government is the monopoly on the use of force.
This is the essence of corporatism, the poisonous relationship between business and government. Government is the ultimate form of bureaucracy, the quintessential form of hierarchical, command-and-control management. What government makes a rule becomes “law”, and business leaders can use this “law” to quash their competition and force their business model on consumers, restricting their choice in the marketplace.
The Law, most eloquently stated by Frederic Bastiat, has only one purpose: To protect the life, liberty, and property of individuals. Any legislation written that restricts or denies the individual his life, liberty, or property is not law at all, it is a tool of plunder.
The individuals that make up this fiction called “government” live off the plunder of individuals. As Murray Rothbard said, they are nothing more than a band of thieves writ large.
Corporations are a creation of the state. It is a deal with the devil (government) exchanging a protection against liability for an oath of loyalty to the state. In trading their desire for certainty for external control by the rule of men in the state, entrepreneurs sell their soul to the state.
There are many ideas to expand upon based on this post, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. It is neither comprehensive nor well organized - it’s a start on some ideas. This is the purpose of this blog.
I need a lot of feedback from the readers of this blog to continue to work on these ideas. Most of you know me well for my ideas related to business. We can use this as a basis to expand the ideas out to the fictional ideas of government and society.
Apr
19
The People Have Spoken II - The Futility of Politics
Posted by: DM | Filed In Liberty | Leave a Comment
This is a long overdue follow-up to my post The People Have Spoken in which I noted that the masses were motivated to call and write their “representatives” to oppose Bailout Round One, and despite their activism, the congress went ahead and approved the bailout anyway.
Millions of people took action to participate in the political process to make their voice heard. The house of “representatives” rejected the first bailout - many of the cockroaches doing so only out of fear of losing their comfy seat in government. In response, the imperial senate (unconstitutionally) put forth a second revision of the bill, complete with enough pork to swing enough of the “nay” voters in the house.
The bailout passed. As it turns out, it was really only a softening measure to accustom the sheep to accept what was to come - more and bigger bailouts with no vote from the people whatsoever.
But what is important here is the fact that (of those up for reelection) only 8 out of 257 who voted for the bailout were removed from the congress.
Millions of people called or wrote their “representative”, tens of millions more were complaining amongst one another. To my recollection, this was the largest single display of public opinion on any piece of legislation in recent history. Their voices were ignored.
So the people went back to minding their own business, understanding (to some degree, anyway) that their voice meant nothing. And then the elections came around, and “the people” put the same parasites back in office.
We’re taught for 13+ years of government schooling that “we are the government” and “if we don’t like the way things are going, we need to get involved and ‘change’ the government.” This is the best example in modern history of the outright fraud of this premise.
“We” are not the government. The government is not “us.” Participation in the electoral process is futile, and only serves to grant the Band of Thieves Writ Large what they need most: Legitimacy.
I have many friends who are part of the two party system, who believe in “democracy.” I also have many friends who consider themselves libertarian and believe they can work within the system to initiate change through reform.
Please, just drop it.
There will be no “reform.” This government is on a continual path of growth in power, gaining rapidly throughout the 20th century and now exponentially in the early 21st. You gain nothing by participating in institutionalized theft. The only path to individual liberty and peace is through delegitimizing, and then deconstructing the State.
Mar
28
Gun Control and Violence Against Others
Posted by: DM | Filed In Liberty | Leave a Comment
I don’t often get involved in a debate over gun rights because, frankly, I don’t care. I will own guns whether the government “decides” it is my right or not, and I don’t care to get involved in an effort to beg the government to leave my rights alone.
However, the other day an acquaintance of mine expressed his opinion on “gun control.” He stated that he, as a non gun owner, is vulnerable to people with guns and that he believes they should be taken away from others to make him safe.
I’d like to note that I have spoken with him several times. He’s a good person, who would do no harm to another. In fact, he’s a preacher of a small congregation.
I structured my response with a logical argument. First, one must admit that there is absolutely, positively no way you will ever “rid” the country of guns. Consider the “war on drugs” and the pipe dream of a “drug free America.” This has been going on for decades, and people still use drugs. If you’re not convinced that drugs can’t be eliminated, consider a prison population: There is no greater scenario for control over individuals because you can strip the prisoners of all their rights, confine them to space, and assign guards to monitor their every move - and yet the drug trade thrives in prisons.
Disposing of the myth that we can rid the country of guns, I then pointed out that if my guns were taken from me, my family and I would be vulnerable - why would he wish to put us in that position, or believe that he has the “right” to do so? If he chooses to be “vulnerable” that’s fine, but why wish that status on others?
But here’s the crux of the whole argument: I do not wish to give up my guns, they would have to be taken from me. How would they be taken? By force. So to take them from me would require violence against me. The paradox is that most individuals who would not commit violence toward one another are happy to unleash the violence of the State upon their neighbors. Let’s say he gets his wish, and the police (and probably the military) begin gun sweeps of residences. Is the person who shows up at my door to take my guns going to be “civil” about it? Will he be wearing a suit, asking nicely if I have any guns in the house, and would I please turn them over to him? No, of course not. In fact, there won’t be one person, there will be many. And they’ll be armed to the teeth. What should happen if I refuse to turn over my guns? What if I assert my natural right to defend my property? Violence will ensue, and they’d kill my entire family if they “had to” to bring me in compliance with the “law.”
Is this the outcome my friend would wish on me, my family, and countless others? Would he feel it is “worth it” as mass violence is initated against gun owners and thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of innocent people are killed?
I would hope not, but the Milgram study shows that people are willing to countenance violence against others as long as it is initiated by, or advocated by, persons of “authority.” I would recommend reading Chapter One of Healing Our World by Mary Ruwart for the implications of this study.
I didn’t take up the common arguments for gun rights, because as I stated before, my right to bear arms is an absolute right that is not up for vote. I don’t care to argue about statistics, or the “success” of gun control in other countries.
I simply wanted to point out that seemingly nonviolent people can and will support violence against others, whether they realize it or not. One must think through the consequences of that which he advocates.
Mar
16
Bailout Smoke and Mirrors
Posted by: DM | Filed In Corporatism | Leave a Comment
Some of the most heated discussion over the bailouts has been around executive bonuses and lavish parties ongoing at the corporate beneficiaries of redistribution.
This debate, fueled by the government’s kept media, serves two primary purposes:
.
.
1) To redirect the water cooler discussion to the millions in bonuses while distracting the masses from the hundreds of billions that were extracted from them in the first place
- and more importantly -
2) To reinforce the meme that government is good and the free market is bad.
To make the first point clear, we’ll use the AIG bailout and the recent uproar over $150 million in bonuses paid out to executives. I present you with a bar graph comparing the $150 million in bonuses to the $150 billion that the AIG bailout has cost (so far…) I had to stretch it out a little to get the bonuses to show up, so you may have to scroll a bit. Pardon me for not inserting it directly in the post.
The great physicist Richard Feynman once commented:
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
Of course, that was in Feynman’s day. Today, the national deficit will be $1.7 trillion dollars. These numbers are not even comprehensible to humans. I propose that we rename Feynman’s economical numbers to governmental numbers.
And yet, the masses debate over $150 million…
On to the second and more important point: To shift the blame from government to the “free market.”
The institutions in question are the farthest thing from free market institutions. They are creation of the State. The government builds these corporations with legislation and regulation designed to protect them from competition. In return, government officials get their campaign coffers filled and score highly paid positions within these corporations when their term is done (not to mention the many under-the-table benefits we never hear about.) This cozy government/business partnership is not capitalism, it is corporatism.
These corporatist institutions would never survive in a truly free market. Government creates them, and then gets to blame the free market and capitalism when they inevitably fail. This reinforces the meme that the free market is greedy, corrupt, and will run out of control without the hand of government to guide it and keep the greedy capitalists in check. Study your history, and you’ll find that the robber barons have always been highly politically connected, and have used the force of the State to gain their monopoly position. Corporatists hate the free market, it is too uncertain. They seek State power to kill their competition, to reduce the amount of uncertainty in their market.
Bailouts are an inevitable result of the corporatist state. The business models fail because protectionism breeds complacency, and inefficiency results. But even more importantly, the cozy relationship with the parasites in DC (and their central bank) encourages irrational risk-taking behavior, because they know they’ll be bailed out if they fail.
The worst effect of the failure of corporatist enterprises is that the government gets more control over the market. It is a truly vicious cycle: Government creates the corporatist system, then grows in size and power when its creation fails, as there is outcry for more protection from the “greedy capitalists.”
So please, keep your eye on the ball, and don’t let the government and its kept media distract you. Place the blame where it belongs: The Federal Government and its evil central bank, the Federal Reserve System. Without them, no one gets “too big to fail.” No one gets to privatize their profits while socializing their losses. In a true free market, scandal and unscrupulous practices will still exist, but they will be dealt with swiftly and judiciously - and you won’t be forced to pay for it.
Mar
7
Here’s a clip of me speaking with the great Scott Horton of Antiwar radio on March 5, 2009. Scott and I are discussing the inevitable end of the American empire, and how it will play out. I brought up systems theory but don’t do a great job of elaborating on it here.
You can listen to Scott’s incredible bank of interviews at www.antiwar.com/radio or listen to his show live at www.kaosradioaustin.org Tuesday-Friday from 2pm to 4pm Eastern time.
This clip is (13:17)
Feb
10
We’re All Socialists Now?
Posted by: DM | Filed In Liberty, Socialism | Leave a Comment
The February 16, 2009 issue of Newsweek indicates all that is wrong with the old dinosaur mainstream media. The article is devoid of any economic theory, nor even a premise other than that socialism is inevitable and, what the heck, we might as well embrace it because “since neither consumers nor business is likely to do it, the government will have to stimulate the economy.”
About the only insight the article offers is that the Republicans, after their turn at growing government with their brand of corporate fascism are now crying “foul” over socialism in the Obama regime. This is a ploy to keep themselves relevant as the party of smaller government.
The authors go on to state that once the crisis passes, the US will try to revert to a more free-market style of capitalism. Implied, of course, is that a free market is not the solution to the crisis; government is.
And here’s the kicker: “The Obama administration is caught in a paradox. It must borrow and spend to fix a crisis created by too much borrowing and spending.”
Seriously, who gets paid to write this stuff? Is this some kind of inside joke I’m missing out on? So…if I’m in trouble because I went on a spending binge using my credit cards, the solution is to get more cards and spend more money I don’t have?
Newsweek, like all of the old-school print media, is in decline. Their days are numbered, and the end can’t come too soon. Get your news from the Internet. Avoid this useless drivel - what do people pay, four bucks or so for this at a newsstand? - and get your economics from Mises.org.
Socialism is not something to be taken lightly, it is the end of liberty and the devolution to tyranny and mass murder. The fact that this “mainstream” publication offers nothing more than acceptance at best, advocacy at worst, disgusts me. Die Newsweek. Die.
Jan
4
I’ve been studying the Austrian School of Economics for some time now, and I am proud to have finally found a home.
In the business and management world, Dr. Deming taught that without proper theory, one has no sound basis for action. Without theory, one finds themselves endlessly reacting to events that occur around them, and their attempts to “fix” the problem only wind up making matters worse by tampering with the system. Theory provides a lens with which one may view events, place them in context, and make rational decisions.
The Austrian School is my lens for the study of economics; the study of how individuals, acting in their own self-interest, interact with others in society and improve the standard of living of mankind through mutually beneficent exchange. The Austrian School is proper theory because it recognizes order in society as an emergent property, the result of billions and billions of individual choices and actions taking place in the free market.
Mainstream economics, as represented by the Keynesian school, denies the emergent property of order, and instead prescribes central control as the means by which order is imposed on society. Keynesianism is Statism. (For more, please see my post The Two Schools of Economics.)
So after a long period of independent study, I was pleased to receive feedback in the form of a 100% Austrian score on the Austrian Economics Quiz at Mises.org. Personally, I didn’t find the quiz all that difficult, and I know I still have a lot to learn about the Austrian School, but it was nice to verify that I’m on the right track. In the coming years, I hope to not only be a student of the Austrian School, but a contributor to the theory. A solid foundation in Dr. Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge provides insight that I believe can add value to the Austrian School. I still have the itch to go back to school and earn my PhD, and have decided that if I am to do so, the study will be Economics. I’d have to find the right fit, though, as I have no interest in earning a PhD in the Keynesian school that dominates academia.
I encourage you to take the Austrian Economics quiz - it is 25 questions in multiple choice format, and even if you choose the “Keynesian” answer, it will present the Austrian answer to each question for you to ponder. Let me know how you did in the comments!
Dec
30
I Don’t Know the Answer
Posted by: DM | Filed In Liberty | 2 Comments
This is a statement that I wish those who advocate the free market used more often: I Don’t Know the Answer.
Those who argue for the State often challenge those of us who are against the State to pose our alternative. Pick your scenario, it doesn’t matter: How would we provide “xxx” without the State? Too often, those who will defend the free market feel compelled to provide a solution.
The right answer is “I don’t know.”
It’s easy for statists to say “Ah hah! Without a better solution, you’re lost!”
To that I say “BUNK.”
If I professed to know “the answer” I would either be:
A) The one who will provide a market-based solution, subject to the discrimination of everyone…and if successful; hugely profitable and documented as one of the great business visionaries of all time
-or-
B) On the same plane as a government official claiming that his solution is the “right” solution for all members of society, and imposing it on all others as “law.”
If I claim to be none of the above, I only posit that the free market will come up with millions of solutions, and that the best solutions will rise to the top - and that as better and better solutions are found, they’ll supplant the earlier solutions at the top.
This is because that is what the free market is all about: Ideas.
If you have a better idea of how things should work, introduce your idea to others. If they think it’s a good idea, they’ll tell you with their choices, by allocating their money to your idea. If it’s not good enough, it will fail because people won’t support it with their hard-earned money.
Yes, it is that simple. It is a deterministic ideal to believe that there is a “one best solution” to all issues confronting mankind. The best solution is to let them be presented with multiple choices, and to let the best one emerge in the market of free choice.
Pick any example. Post it in your comments. I’ll respond with a few potential ideas, but not the “right one.”
Dec
15
All Rights Are Property Rights
Posted by: DM | Filed In Liberty | 2 Comments
In order to have a clear understanding of rights, one must first understand the concept of property. Questions of “right” can be easily sorted out when approached from the perspective of property.
Most envision a piece of land when thinking about property, but this is too narrow a definition. Property begins with self ownership. As an individual, you have full ownership of your own body. You have the absolute right to determine what goes in to your body. No one has the right to infringe on your property, in this case, to assault your body. Your labor is your property. What you produce with your hands, or with your mind, is your property. When you go to work, you sell your labor to your employer, who in turn sells you money in exchange for your labor. Everything you acquire through lawful exchange is your property, and you have the absolute right to determine the disposition of your property, whether you choose to sell it, give it away, or dispose of it.
Property ownership is transferred through mutually agreed upon exchange. If I own a bicycle, I may agree to sell it to you or I may give it to you. Once I have decided to do so, I have transferred the property and therefore the property rights to you.
Understanding rights from the perspective of property helps us clear the air of confusion when collectivists put forth their “but” arguments against individual rights. For example, many have heard the argument that you have a right to free speech, “but” it has to be limited because it shouldn’t be a “right” to run into a theatre and yell “FIRE!”
Approached from the perspective of property rights, it is easy to see why yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theatre isn’t a “right” in the first place. First, the theatre owner (as the property owner) has the absolute right to establish rules of conduct on his property. By purchasing a ticket, you consent to his rules. The act of yelling “FIRE” disrupts his business operations on his property, endangers his customer relationships and future revenues, and may subject him to liability if people are harmed. The property rights of the individuals attending the show are similarly violated, as they exchanged their money for 110 minutes of entertainment, and cutting the show short deprives them of the property they rightfully purchased.
Speaking of individual rights, it should be noted that only individuals have rights. There is no such thing as a “group’s” right. Groups are abstract concepts, only individuals exist. Every individual in a group has rights inherent in his humanity, but no additional rights are acquired by membership in a group. The rights of a group are simply the rights of its individual members.
Nov
4
The Power to Choose: Not to Vote.
Posted by: DM | Filed In Liberty | Leave a Comment
Election day, 2008:
I don’t think I’ve ever voted Democrat or Republican in a general election - maybe sometime in the past, I’m not sure, but for the most part I’ve always voted third party.
This time around, I made a different choice: I chose not to vote.
I chose not to vote for the lesser of two evils, because I would still be voting for evil. I chose not to vote third party, because I do not believe this government can be “reformed” if we can just get the “right people” in office. I chose not to vote to express something much more profound: I have withdrawn support for this government, and I will not legitimize it by participating in its grand show of validation.
History has shown that while government has had minor setbacks in its growth from time to time, the long term trend is that it will continue to grow. Growth of government and individual Liberty are inversely proportional. Each administration has left us less free than we were upon its taking of office.
The constitution has failed in Thomas Jefferson’s vision that it would bind the government down with chains. This government resembles the constitution only in form, in that it has three branches and holds elections every few years. The constitution is, at best, nothing more than a speed bump to be occasionally overcome by an ambitious ruling class. When the constitution was the supreme law of the land, it could be said that we lived under Rule of Law. Due to its failure, we live under rule of men.
This government has ruled the world money supply for decades with its worthless fiat money, and - as is always the case with the unlimited power to create money out of thin air - it has destroyed the value thereof, devastating the productive base of the nation and the middle class that it built. The future value of all fiat monies, at some point in time, is zero. The three decades since the final breakdown of the Bretton Woods arrangement have brought about deterioration at an exponential rate, manifest in the recent trillion dollar bailout and the multi-trillions yet to come.
This government cannot be reformed. It draws evil to its ranks, and quickly converts the well-intentioned into evil with its black hole-like power center. It is, after all, the most powerful government in the history of the world, running the most expansive empire in the history of the world. As children, we were taught two things about empires: They’re evil, and they are always doomed to failure. This empire’s day is coming, whether it be five years or fifty years from now, I do not know. But it will fail. The only question is whether it will go out with a bang or with a poof. I do not claim to know the outcome.
I do know that I have taken the first and most important step that all of us must take if this government is going to go out with a poof. We must reject its claim to rule over us. We must declare our individual sovereignty. We must strip it of its legitimacy, and then dismantle it - lest we (or succeeding generations) will be forced to shed blood in order to reclaim our natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
I, for one, do not wish to pass that burden to future generations.
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