The Gilded Age and the Gold Standard | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Recorded at the Mises Institute Supporters Summit, 31 October 2008; Auburn, Alabama. Introduction by Mark Thornton. Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College, Maryland, and a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

[@suereed]

Yes, Mises should be congratulated for these great talks. Compulsive study.

[@TeaParty1776]

Theft, eg, tariffs, decreases production in the long run in the economy as a whole, regardless of short-range effects on one or a few industries.

[@norcofreerider604]

Man, I just finished reading Hamilton's Curse and loved it, definitely pick up a copy.

[@RedShirtArmy]

End the Fed.

[@WJack97224]

End manmade and immoral political governments.

[@PrinceMyshkin22]

for our government officials and the military. He actually provides a tangible good that protects our soldiers and governmental reps. Yet even after Wells received a bailout, and were allowed to give their c.e.o's fabulous bonuses, they took our home. This happens to countless good hard working Americans everyday. They fall deeper and deeper into poverty, most out of no fault of their own. So to even discuss the removal of social safety nets in this time of crisis is morally reprehensible.

[@grraadd]

Nice history lesson - I never realized that you were so close to catastrophe at the beginning of US.

[@TeaParty1776]

The Constitution is basically an individualist, not a commie, document, whatever its flaws. You love America the way Hitler loved Germany. The Founders, advocates of Enlightenment realism and rationality, knew that reality is absolute, requiring an absolute defense of individual rights against statism, religion and democracy.

[@TeaParty1776]

How much wealth would you create with a bureaucrat's gun to your head? Man's mind, not mindless muscles, is the source of production. Even ditch-digging takes a mind.

[@TeaParty1776]

_The Capitalist Manifesto_ by Andrew Bernstein, Ayn Rand Bookstore, is an excellent, essentialized, clear, philosophical, economic and historical study of capitalism. It has a chapter on "The Gilded Age."

[@TeaParty1776]

And capitalism, ie, individual rights applied as freedom.

[@TeaParty1776]

One of the problems of living in an anti-individual rts govt is that its victims often have no choice, in defending their rights, but to attack that region as a whole. Thus the moral right to attack the South, Germany, and Japan as a whole. Govts, even dictatorships, are dependent upon financial and moral support from their citizens. Your defense of slavery excludes you from any honest concern w/rights.

[@Individual_Lives_Matter]

He’s not defending slavery. Get a grip.

[@TeaParty1776]

The Inventive Age was great because rational philosophy, theoretical and applied science, technology, inventions, industry and business created historically unimaginable, widespread prosperity.

[@TeaParty1776]

Agreed, there is no rational refutation of individual rts. The Constitution ,inc/the Bill of Rts, is the most rights-defending practical politics in history. The religious, conservative, and democratic rejection of individual rts is the problem. Rand's worship of man's mind is the enemy of faith and democracy.

[@TeaParty1776]

>During the Gilded Age we had VERY high with protectionism. Very high by what standard?! Further, its merely a coincidence, not a cause. Protectionism stops market-based investments for the sake of politics-based investments of less productivity. The "Gilded Age" is a communist name, an attack on inequality. The Inventive Age had many of the most important technological and industrial advances we benefit from today. Eg, mass production in oil, steel and railroads by Rockefeller, Carnegie, Hill.

[@TeaParty1776]

Individual rights-defending Union soldiers were murdered by slavery-defending Confederate soldiers. Confederate soldiers, by defending slavery, had chosen to initiate force and thus abandoned the right to life. Rights are conditional upon respecting other people's rights. Morality is a guide to life, not a rationalization of sacrifice. Lincoln changed from nationalist to individualist. Further, preserving the Union preserved an individual rights society. Your subjectivism has no rational basis.

[@Salvysahagun]

This is SOOO wrong. During the Gilded Age we had VERY high with protectionism. Has this guy even read Alexander Hamitons "Report on a National Bank" the 1st National bank was NOTHING like the Bank of England. Read the 23 points of the national bank. Very different. As a matter a fact most The National Banking Act was modeled to get private banks to do the same thing as the as Hamilton's National bank. Just listen to William Mckinleys speech on Protectionism.

[@WJack97224]

I like DiLorenzo's disclosures of factual evidence. Yes, I like Murray Rothbard, too. No one is without fault. I read somewhere that silver/coins was the "money of the people" long before gold. My guess is because silver was a bit more plentiful and yet still rare. OTOH, silver oxidizes while gold far less so; gold lasts for hundreds of years on the bottom of the oceans. The thing that bothers me is that politics is violence and manmade political governments are the bane and pain of mankind; they are not Christian no matter their makes, models or flavors; they are Satan's wickedness. I recommend Ted R. Weiland’s messages: www.kingdompromises.org/kingdompromises_audio/1145.mp3 Pick the audio up at the 33:22 mark and listen to Weiland explain the problem of voting and political government. This Biblical information was never mentioned in the political, manmade, government schools and one private school that I attended. The colonists erred when they supplanted Jehovah God with the new manmade god, We The People, and Amerikans have been punished for that sin ever since. Yes, we are not in Nirvana Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Amerikan politicians have imposed all 10 Planks of the diabolical Commie Manifesto on us. Amerika is in the toilet and deservedly so. Yes, Lincoln was no a Christian and should not be idolized. Instead of the slaves being freed, Lincoln paved the way for the politicians to create a plantation state of stinkin' naggar slavery of us all and operated by masters/politicians/elitists and their overseers/judges/enforcers.

[@Salvysahagun]

The title for one Hamilton is the reason this nation became the economic power it was

[@PrinceMyshkin22]

Anyone who thinks that the Gilded Age was a time of prosperity for all, is seriously in need of re-education. Child Labor? Why not? Why not even chain them to the machines so that they can't leave their post? If they fall asleep and get maimed by it, eh oh well. Women..paid the same as men? You're kidding right? And why not let Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and the money lenders monopolize the entire economy through Trusts?! I mean, it was unregulated so it was utopia!

[@TeaParty1776]

Ignore my 1st reply. I have a computer bug.

[@Salvysahagun]

Yes the average tariff was 30% that is why production boomed

[@Salvysahagun]

@gunsandbullhorns its fundamentally wrong

[@Salvysahagun]

The simple fact that Hamiltons ideas built this nation, from his basic infrastructure, to Clays Erie Canal, to Lincolns Railroad and Land Grants, to FDR's Tennesse Valley Authority, to Eisenhowers Interstate Highway and to Kennedy's NASA Ambitions. It all comes together.

[@Individual_Lives_Matter]

The free market always did it better and where it was actually needed.

[@WorldsEdge608]

What corporate welfare?, give an example please.

[@PrinceMyshkin22]

I refuse to live in a nation where 1 in 2 Americans are on or below the poverty live; that is half the population. I refuse to live in a nation where the rich get richer and the rest of us are allowed to slip into poverty. My father is a great man. If you go find the picture of Bush on 9/11 when he's on the phone and behind him are two men pointing at the tv, my father was a member of the team that developed that phone, the most secure phone in the world. He develops these technologies..

[@Salvysahagun]

The fact that when Tariffs are low production lacks. Ie NAFTA. Why don't you just look at American Economic history and see protectionism has always worked. The midwest would be nothing if the Government hadn't built the Erie canal. America produced the most in world history because it tariff and intervened the most in world history.

[@Salvysahagun]

Hamiltons Curse is pure slander

[@Salvysahagun]

Tariffs are taxes. The average gilded age tariff was over 30%. again history isn't helping you . You have no other evidence suggesting that tariffs hurt production. Wheras their is plenty suggesting protectionism works. Ie Gilded America, Post War Korea, Meji Japan, Germany under Bismark. the list goes on.

[@ronc7599]

Salvador N Sahagun Your comment doesn't prove anything. I could literally flip and attempt to use the same argument on the contrary. By your logic if I took anti-stink pills, farted in a room full of people yet they all stayed in their seats instead of dashing for the door then the pills actually worked.

[@vicenzinu3668]

They had to fund the government some how barely any taxes then

[@WJack97224]

Taxation is theft. Until you grasp that simple truth you will just be attacking symptoms and not the root cause. Doctors treat root causes of "diseases" or they are soon without patients. I recommend Ted R. Weiland’s messages: www.kingdompromises.org/kingdompromises_audio/1145.mp3 Pick the audio up at the 33:22 mark and listen to Weiland explain the problem of voting and political government. This Biblical information was never mentioned in the political, manmade, government schools and one private school that I attended.

[@WJack97224]

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act deprived foreigners of Amerikan markets and thus deprived them of fund with which to purchase Amerikan products and services and thus the tariffs exacerbated The Great Economic Depression. The politicians pretty much destroyed the Amerikan Textile Industry after WW II with protectionism for foreign imports.

[@WTFisaSquaLL]

@Salvysahagun Thanks for clarifying that you don't understand comparative advantage.

[@TeaParty1776]

>How difficult is it to understand the concept of comparative advantage? Sufficiently difficult so that each generation needs to learn it. But just ask its advocates if subsistence farming is more productive than trade between cities and farms.

[@TeaParty1776]

States are, within reason, merely and only means to the end of individual rights, not ends in themselves. This is political individualism, not fascism. The Federal govt during the Civil War was, by far, the most individualist state in history. Individuals have a right and responsibility to form an individual rights govt. There is no right to leave it for a slavery-protecting govt. There is no right to violate rights.

[@TeaParty1776]

Individual people are sovereign and thus have rights, not groups. Youre a fascist state-worshipper. One does not merely refuse to trade with people who initiate force. One defends oneself against them w/force. The slave states were part of America, not a foreign nation that we might have ignored. They initiated force against their slaves, contra the essentially individual rights Constitution and thus other Americans were right to stop them w/force. There is no right to initiate force.

[@PrinceMyshkin22]

TeaParty1776 you have got to be kidding me. The reason child labor ended, the reason there is a 5 day work week with an 8 hour day and a minimum wage is because of PROGRESSIVES. Oh and I love your screen name. I wonder how many times a day you scream CONSTITUTION as an answer in a debate. Read the elastic clause.

[@PrinceMyshkin22]

Please, stop listening to Glenn Beck, actually read a book by your crazy hero Ron Paul, and step back and ask yourself if you REALLY want to go back to a time like that. If you truly do, then I'm sure we could find a nice sub-Saharan African nation that is laissez-faire and libertarian enough for you :)

[@TeaParty1776]

Theft, eg, tariffs, decreases production in the long run in the economy as a whole, regardless of short-range effects on one or a few industries. But within your implicit context, nationalism, tribalism or some other particular collectivism, ie, your particular society as a whole as the purpose of your politics (rather than individual rts) , prosperity is less important than that absurd substitute for the absurdity of supernaturalism, ie, social unity, so you will

[@WJack97224]

And Amerikans never learned and imposed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that exacerbated The Great Economic Depression. As DiLorenzo makes clear, import tariffs destroy domestic productivity because the foreigners cannot sell their goods and services and thus cannot acquire "money" with which to purchase Amerika made stuff. Political governments are the ruin of people and Amerika will be destroyed; it just takes some more time.

[@asierra1492]

money, credit and business cycles(or close to it) by desoto. the best book in the last decade acording to joe salerno. :)

[@Salvysahagun]

You need to factor in the fact the currency is given value on what you buy with the currency. The more you can buy with on dollar the more one dollar is worth. Tariff = Production. American System works America, South Korea, Germany, Japan, France, and modern China all agree

[@Individual_Lives_Matter]

So inflation is a bad thing?

[@PrinceMyshkin22]

It's people like YOU who have brought this country to its knees. Maybe we should just go back to the Articles of Confederation, or the Constitution before the bill of rights. There is no debating with you and the other Ayn Rands of this world.

[@WJack97224]

The colonists erred in supplanting Jehovah God with the new manmade god, We The People, and Amerikans have been punished ever since. I recommend Ted R. Weiland’s messages: www.kingdompromises.org/kingdompromises_audio/1145.mp3 Pick the audio up at the 33:22 mark and listen to Weiland explain the problem of voting and political government. This Biblical information was never mentioned in the political, manmade, government schools and one private school that I attended.

[@Individual_Lives_Matter]

We should. Centralization is tyranny