Praxeology

and history

“Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science... Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts.” ~ Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, Anno Domini 1949

On the first day of the 8th month in the year 1941 in New York city a conversation took place between author Isaac Asimov and editor John W. Campbell. At the time, Asimov was a graduate student in chemistry at my alma mater, Columbia university. One of my friends liked to call Columbia “the ivy in the big apple” and by other less printable names.

Although war raged in Europe at the time, and had been vicious and terrible in China since AD 1931, there was still a very strong peace faction in the United States. Unknown to nearly all Americans there was an active project by Frankie Roosevelt, Winnie Churchill, and a few others, that began in the 10th month of 1940 to orchestrate a set of attacks to bring America into the war in Europe, destroy the overseas colonies of Holland, and accomplish certain other nefarious goals.

It would be entirely accurate to say that in 1941 at the time of their conversation, Asimov and Campbell both understood the British empire to be a contemporary version of the Roman empire of 27 BC to AD 476. Both men would have been familiar with Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a six-volume work published between 1776 and 1788. It offers a comprehensive narrative of the Roman Empire's history of decline, from the second century AD to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Asimov proposed to write a story for Campbell to publish. The story would be about a galactic empire that was decadent, corrupt, and destined to fall. One of the primary characters would establish mathematical proofs for this situation and suggest that the interregnum would be lengthy and terrible. While the decline and fall would be unavoidable, it would be possible to shorten the time before a new and better situation for the galaxy could be established.

Campbell not only wanted Asimov to write that story, he saw that it was far too long to be encompassed in a single work of fiction. It needed to be a series of stories, short and long, and it would eventually become what American science fiction fans know as “the Foundation series.” The first inkling of the series would be published in Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction magazine under the title of “Foundation” in the fifth month of 1942.

By then, of course, Americans, including my dad, had been drafted in very large numbers into the military. Asimov was a civilian chemist at the Philadelphia Navy yard's air experimental station from 1942 to 1945 so he was deferred from service until 1945. Campbell, who was 32 at the time, also did not serve, and it is unclear why not. Nevertheless, both men would have been aware of the possibility of science fiction readers seeing a kind of allegory within the Foundation stories. (Quite a long while later, in 1966, JRR Tolkien wrote an introduction to his novels collected as “The Lord of the Rings” in a single compendium. In it, Tolkien said that allegory was not intended by himself, but that readers were free to find applicability, or reader-found allegory, in the stories he wrote. I think that is clearly the case for the numerous “Robot” and “Foundation” stories that Asimov wrote and which he deliberately interconnected in his novels.)

The decline and fall of the “galactic empire” is in various ways analogous to the fall of the Roman empire of Rome, the Roman empire of Byzantium, and the British empire of our day. In identifying the corporation of the United States and the corrupt District of Corruption as elements of the actual British empire of today, I am not venturing out onto any sort of fragile limb. Rather, I am simply identifying for you a truth described in the testaments of Cecil Rhodes, in the actual affairs of the Feral Reserveless scam, in the identifiable masters of the deep state, and in the “five eyes” of the global surveillance network managed by the nationalist socialist security agency (nsa) of evil repute.

You are welcome to offer evidence tending to disprove my hypothesis of the USA being ongoingly a colony of the house of Windsor’s British empire in the comments here or in essays of your very own. I studied astrophysics, economics, history, and a number of other subjects at Columbia university, finance, economics, entrepreneurship, marketing, operations research, and statistics at Rice university. So please don’t refrain on my account from giving details, citations, and arguments vehement and specific if you feel called upon to falsify my hypothesis. Give it all you’ve got, please.

Praxeology

One of the things I found pleasing in the aftermath of some financial success in AD 1995 was joining a “Mises circle” in Houston, Texas. Over the ensuing years I’ve contributed some funds, attended circles in various communities, and interacted with some of the good people. One of them, Lew Rockwell, spoke at the Freedom Summit in Phoenix, Arizona in 2002. He and I had encountered one another at previous and subsequent Mises circles as well.

Frequent readers of this ‘stack will find the graphic at the top of this essay familiar. I included it with my essay Making technology anti-fragile which remains relevant to some of the work I’ve been planning. One of the most important lessons I learned from Ed Williams in his courses on entrepreneurship at Rice university was that starting a business involves doing many things. Doing the things that don’t cost any money, such as writing a business plan, can occupy the time an entrepreneur inevitably encounters at the beginning of any new venture. The more abundant the time, the greater depth of the plan, and therefore the better potential for finding not only adequate funding, but funding from parties who understand the goals and expected timeline of the venture.

Who was Ludwig von Mises? Why do his writings matter?

Gosh, friends, let’s revisit a key principle of which you should be mindful when reading my essays. Do your own research.

The things I say here are meant to be viewed as aspects of various hypotheses. You are welcome to believe what I believe, but my beliefs don’t require you to share them. You aren’t going to be convinced by a bunch of links anyway, so I won’t include any links very often. If you do your own research, you will be more effectively persuaded of what you come to believe to be the truth of certain matters. I want you to know the truth. So I don’t want to coddle you or claim to some level of understanding that I lack, or lead you down a primrose path. Instead, I want you to seek the truth of your own accord. Many authors have written extensively on why approaching the truth is important, how it may best be done, and what impediments you’ll find on the way, so maybe read up on those topics, too.

Richard Ebeling gave some presentations that made me think a great deal about several topics. His wife Anna did, as well. After the Soviet Union fell in 1991 there was a period of difficulty but around 1993 or so there was a brief window of opportunity for people to go to Moscow and get certain records. So it would be well to acknowledge some of what happened.

All the way back in AD 1923 there was a guy in Austria who was supposed to be responsible for the ministry charged with issuing money for the country. You can read all about it. A useful term for finding essays and articles on the topic is Republic of Austria. There has been more than one. The first in the series was started after the treaty that settled the division of the elements of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the last vestige of the power of the house of Habsburg.

Now, the story as I heard it is, the minister wanted to get the very best advice on a big problem. There was monetary inflation in Austria. So, asking around, the minister of finance who was in charge of the exchequer got wind of an extraordinarily talented man there in the national capital of Vienna. Apparently this guy knew all about economics. That guy was Ludwig von Mises. No greater source of information and advice would be possible, the finance minister was told.

Well, of course, he sent a telegram to von Mises. He paid for a reply, which was a thing one did in those days when you had money and wanted to hear back right away. So you can imagine von Mises receiving this official communication and the telegram delivery boy standing there offering a pad of telegram forms on which to jot down a response.

Monetary inflation is a terrible thing. It hurts everyone. By some accounts, in Austria in 1923, it was running about 50,000%. Estimates vary but the Weimar republic just over the border in what you would call Germany, was experiencing about 354,000% inflation in the 10th month of 1923. People in Vienna would pay for their meal when they sat down and ordered it because by the time they got up at the end of eating, the price would have risen appreciably.

So von Mises would have recognised the importance of the official communication. What measures should we take to stop inflation? Pondering the matter, and as I heard the story told, getting out a street map, von Mises jotted down a quick reply more or less along these lines: “If you want to know how to end inflation, meet me tonight at midnight at this street corner,” and gave an address.

You can imagine a forty-two-year-old von Mises, perhaps wearing an overcoat and hat against the chilly Autumn air that night, standing on a street corner at midnight. In the background is a constant metallic pulse of some machinery making the same sounds again and again. It is a well-lit area, with streetlights appropriate to the neighbourhood, and some homes and industries located round about.

Here comes a small motorcade. Security police on motorcycles roar up. A big long limousine arrives. The minister motions for von Mises to join him within the car, but Ludwig is having none of that. He requests that the minister get out and join him on the street corner. There he asks if the minister can hear the noise in the background, the loud metallic pulse of machinery. On learning that the auditory function of the minister is intact, von Mises says, “If you want to stop inflation, make that noise stop.” Then he walks away.

That noise was from the official printing service of the Austria republic’s finance ministry, working around the clock to print more currency. It is easy to stop monetary inflation if you control the issuing of currency. All you have to do is stop issuing more money.

Papers

If you have read his opus Human Action or much else by von Mises you may have been struck by his intelligence, his command of language, and his knowledge of history and of economics. Since he spoke German, Polish, and French by age 12, well before he learned English, his writing should be understood in that context. He would also have been familiar with Latin, Yiddish, and Russian dialects based on his biography.

Well, he was in Vienna in 1934 but left there to begin teaching in Switzerland. In 1940, he left Geneva for the United States. Various of his personal and academic papers remained in Vienna. These were seized by the Nazis when they marched into Austria in 1938. According to the Ebelings the papers were then packed into various wooden crates and sent to Berlin. Why? Because understanding how economics actually works was regarded as important to the dictatorship in power from 1933 to 1945. It was also viewed by them as suitable material to make into state secrets.

Much the same view was held by the people from the Soviet union who captured and sacked Berlin in the fourth and fifth months of 1945. They found a railroad box car loaded with crates, including the papers of von Mises, on a siding in Berlin. So they had those papers delivered to Moscow by rail. Why? Because understanding how economics actually works was regarded as important to the dictatorship in power from 1917 to 1991. It was also viewed by them as suitable material to make into state secrets.

All of which brings us up to the early 1990s when there was no longer a Soviet union. The state archives were more or less open. So Richard and Anna were able to obtain entry visas, bring in high speed photocopier equipment, and go into the part of the state archives where the von Mises papers were kept. They made copies of everything and brought it all to America.

I mention these points to suggest that if the military dictatorship in Germany, and the military dictatorship in Moscow, and the Ludwig von Mises institute in Auburn, Alabama, all felt that the things von Mises wrote during his entire life were vitally important to understanding how things actually work, you may want to consider it to be true. I certainly think it is.

Falling empires

Many things are said about the decline and fall of the Roman empire, its division in twain, the fall and sack of Byzantium, and the rise of a so-called Holy Roman empire. You might wish to read up on these matters because they have very strong applicability to your time in this world now. You should attune your reading to the fact that people living in prior days had an understanding of their time, their situation, and took actions reflecting such understanding without regard to your situation, biases, and preferences. In other words, people did things based on what they knew, not based on what you know, and definitely without concern for how you feel.

You don’t need to believe that the British empire of today is actually the direct successor in interest to the Roman empire of caesar Augustus. You do need to consider that upchuck the third, the fellow who sits on the throne in various castles in England, seems to have that belief. While the belief systems of every person on Earth are beyond the scope of this essay, it is useful to consider the beliefs of some people. Which ones? Well, to be sure, the very ones who believe themselves to be “more equal” than the others. Since we are prevented at this time from having a comprehensive list of all such persons, just pick out the ones who seem noteworthy to you. Pray for guidance and you are likely to be led to greater understanding.

Rather than tell you what to conclude about these empires, I would like to offer a brief review of things that I believe. I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of the heavenly realm and of the earthly realm, in Jesus Christ His only son our lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

Therefore, if we stipulate that it is the belief of upchuck that he rules in direct line of succession from caesars Augustus and Tiberius, then he carries the moral burdens of those days. Among those moral burdens are the census and taxation at the time of the birth of Jesus, the appointment of Pilate, and the crucifixion of Jesus. Thus, the pretence that the usurper on the throne of England is in any way Christian is made transparent.

You can, with minimal research, simply by looking at his recently unveiled official portrait, understand that upchuck himself thinks of himself and his family as covered in blood so thoroughly it stains the very garments he wears in his portrait. He also sees himself as subjugated by dark forces of evil.

Spirituality and imperial ambitions

I’ve said it before in essays on this ‘stack. I’ll say it again. The Roman empire was no period of civilisation. It was a dark age.

So the view that the decline and fall of Rome led to “the dark ages” shows poor understanding. It was after AD 476 that a great many important inventions became commonplace in the northwestern portion of the great Eur-Asia-African landmass, including the areas around the Mediterranean sea. Improved animal collars, saddles, stirrups, projectile weapons, mechanisms, magnifying lenses, textiles, paper, wood cut graphics reproduction, and a huge number of other things were invented, brought from distant lands, and marketed like crazy by merchants. Talents were taught and passed down through guilds and by outsiders. Schools of learning became universities in the “high middle ages” around the Tenth century. Contracts, including leases, lasting a millennium and being recently renewed date from the same era. Great works of art and architecture were created, many of which have never been overshadowed.

Rome sucked. It was unholy.

Christendom is great. It is holy.

Which facts are difficult to refute. Nevertheless, I welcome comments here from anyone seeking to falsify either of those hypotheses just stated. I don’t agree to respond to ad hominem, churlish, or rude comments. I do intend to read each comment and consider it on its own merits. As well, you are yourself welcome to comment on any comment you find in this ‘stack, because in the search for greater understanding, the heart of our seeking is found in our discussions.

An earlier foundation

Jesus says that if you hear his words and do them, you build upon a solid foundation. You should seek out his exact words in the Gospels. You should seek to understand what he meant.

He says that if you build upon the sand your house will fall. And great will be its fall. Moreover, in various contexts, Jesus mentions wailing and gnashing of teeth. Thus, it would be well to avoid the shifting sands of expedience. It would be well not to seek vanity, as identified comprehensively in Ecclesiastes.

Solomon, who was chosen to be king in Israel in 970 BC according to our current chronology, described vanity and vexation of spirit in great detail. Things that are vanity are not in alignment with solidity.

Jesus says that if you build your house upon a solid foundation of rock, your house will stand. Of course that is great advice to architects and builders. It is, however, also advice for those who seek to found a family lineage, a house, as it were, of posterity. If you want the things you make to last a long time, if you seek anti-fragility, then hear the words of Jesus and do them. Hear them and do them.

Lonely? Same here. So read them out loud, even if you are alone. Hear them. Do them.

Feeling disconnected or lost? Read them again, aloud, to hear them, and do them some more. Pray for guidance, in accord with the ways in which Jesus prays as described in detail in scripture. Hear them. Do them.

Necessarily and inevitably anyone who lived at the time of Jesus or thereafter who claimed to be king or emperor or caesar or tsar should be regarded by you as an usurper. There is no king but Jesus. Jesus lives. Jesus rules.

Forward the foundation

The last book in the series of Foundation books written by Asimov was complete before his death in 1992. It was published in 1993. Its title is Forward the Foundation.

I have trenchant criticisms of many of the ideas Asimov conveyed in his stories, in his non-fiction works, and in his speaking engagements. The man wrote and edited at least 500 books, including known works in the pen name Paul French. He lived in a place where there were many publishers and we don’t know whether he dropped some items in the mail which were subsequently published. Nevertheless, I want it understood that I haven’t read everything he wrote. If you have, I would be delighted to hear about your thoughts on his body of work in the comments here.

So, when I say “forward the foundation” my meaning is the solid foundation of Jesus.

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That’s all I’ve got for today. Come back next time when I have something new. Or old.