RE: Genoa and Beyond II: The View from the Black Bloc

[timework@xxxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

David Shemano asked,

>As the resident reactionary, I have to ask, does this mean that the
>anarchists do not do readings of Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt at their strategy
>sessions?

As the resident non-reactionary, non-anarchist reader of Henry Hazlitt and
Bastiat, I am sorry to confirm David's suspicion that anarcho-strategic
thinking is deficient in its study of and respect for "the enemy". If
leftistes would only read Hazlitt and Bastiat, they would suddenly realize
whence comes the seemingly bottomless vault of plagiarism and posturing that
passes itself off in the newsmedia as "commentary".

The broken window fable is part and parcel of the luddism/lump-of-labour
refrain. It is the bulwark defence of the mainstream cult. It is a clever
concoction of half-truths, straw men and abstract theorizing posing as
empirical fact.

It is absolutely, unquestionably true that a broken window doesn't
contribute one iota to the welfare of the community through its role as a
"job creation project". Nor, it should be remembered, does an oil tanker
spill or the subsequent public relations campaign to make people forget
about it.

But, contrary to the Hazlitt/Bastiat dictum, not every technological advance
contributes to the welfare of the community either. There is a much more
complex balance of livelyhoods and relationships at stake than can be
answered by the formula, "more stuff is better". Blind worship of the supply
side is no less blind than blind worship of demand management. Nothing
personal, David, but "we have designed a system that routinely puts farmers
out of work, so why can't we do the same for lawyers?"
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213