I don’t know if any are reading this, but I divide them in two groups: sincere ones, and devious ones. Milton Friedman was sincere. Karl Marx was sincere. Keynes was not, and it’s difficult for me to believe Paul Krugman could really be as dumb as he appears to be, so I lump him there too.
For the first group: an old Turkish proverb has it that “no matter how far up the wrong road you have gone, turn back.”
This is going to sound arrogant and presumptuous, but I really think even the Chicago School and the Austrian School failed to FULLY grasp the implications of the mere fact of the EXISTENCE of a monetary policy. Intrinsically, the ability to create money constitutes the ability to confiscate wealth through the police power of the state–which is either doing the confiscating, or enabling it through granting banks and others priviledged places in the system (typically with a justified expectation of kickbacks of various sorts.)
As far as I can tell, none of them argued forcefully enough against fractional reserve banking and central banks. They argued against government interference in private enterprise, and specifically against central planning in all forms. This is all too the good, but not enough.
We need radically new thinking. A new paradigm. If you think I’m full of it, confront me, take me on, take me down.
For the devious people: look in your hearts. At some point in your life, presumably you actually wanted to help people. That’s why you adopted your politics. Yet, it isn’t working. Leftist policies don’t work to alleviate human suffering. They CREATE human suffering.
Somewhere along the line all of you, in order to get the power to pursue policies that were politically unpopular, compromised. You decided that a little lie here and there wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and that the ends justified the means. But then you forgot the end, didn’t you? Other than getting power for you and yours, of course.
What I have put on the table is a solution to the problems of poverty that can be supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. Look at it, evaluate it.
And if it warrants it, advocate it.