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Vulcan Capitalism, Austrian Drivel January 3, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture, Economics , comments closed

The things that come out of the Mises Institute nowadays are starting to become nearly unbelievable. Mr. Rockwell & Co. seem to be publishing every piece of B.S that labels itself as “pro-market.” A recent example is an article by a certain Jack Maturin which entertains the [literally] out-of-this-world idea that the Vulcans of the Star Trek universe are “really future Austrians in disguise.” By “Austrian,” he means “advocate of the free market social order.” As proof of his megatheory he offers his collection of quotes from Uber-Rationalist Mr. Spock — among them the following one:

Being a Vulcan means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. — Journey to Babel.

Altruism anyone? As to logical, give me a break! What the hell does Spock mean by a “beneficial way of life” [sic] if said way must be followed without — or better yet, at the expense of — personal gain, i.e., benefit? Somehow however our dear author seems completely blind to this blatant contradiction, for according to him the meaning of the above quote is this:

… if you want to understand the social sciences, adopt the praxeological method of a priori logic. You need to have your theory straight before you begin to try to come to some clear understanding of how the world around you works. In the long term some of us may die, but our children will succeed to inherit our decisions, good or bad. So if you want your children and your neighbor’s children to prosper, always follow the Austrian method of logic.

Excuse me, but what the [bleep] is he talking about? How on earth did he arrive at this bizzare interpretation? I must let you divine, as I have no idea. Mr. Spock’s quote is clearly an ode and an urge to principled Altruism, and Altruism in Ethics translates into Statism in Politics, as demonstrated both in our actual history and the fictional semi-socialistic world of Star Trek. To the credit of the series’ authors however, the Borg race is an excellent depiction of the nightmare of collectivism. As to the allegedly “Austrian” way of doing “logic”, well, it must be rather good — so good that it is incapable of spotting a glaring self-contradiction in the same single sentence.

Thankfully, a commetator with a cooler head on his shoulders quickly put Jack Maturin’s dreams to rest with one quote of his own:

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Yes, that was Mr. Spock speaking — guess who else spoke (and still speaks) in similar ways? So much for Vulcan Capitalism.

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Moving to Wordpress January 3, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Meta , comments closed

Well, that’s it. I think the old saying may just be true: when you go Wordpress, you never can go back! I wonder why I ran away from this elegant piece of sotware in the first place — well the price was paid.

Anyway, the archive transfer is done. This blog is now Wordpress 2.0 powered — and the comments are back as well. Not to imply that you noticed they were gone, of course. :)

Feel free to leave your thoughts on the new layout.