Quoth the Raven
· QTR’s Fringe Finance
· July 08, 2026 at 15:02
· ⏱ 11 min read
| Read on Substack ↗
Summary
The article argues that the recent electoral success of democratic socialists and rising populist economic interventionism is not driven by ideology but by a rational reaction to the state's cronyism – yet this push for redistribution is a delusion because state power inherently benefits a small elite, not the broader public. For markets, this implies no actionable trades from the piece itself; it is a philosophical critique of interventionism with no asset-level calls.
•Mises decisively won the economic calculation debate, proving central planning cannot achieve efficient resource allocation without market prices.
•Socialism persists politically because government officials use it as an excuse to expand power and enrich themselves and their allies.
•The public's growing interest in socialism is a reaction to the visible institutionalized theft by the current system, not a genuine ideological shift.
•The author argues there is no non-market way to replicate the information conveyed by prices, even with advanced computing and AI.
•Frédéric Bastiat is quoted: government is 'the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.'
•The piece contends that the left's framing of current crony capitalism as laissez-faire capitalism has misled the public into seeing socialism as the only alternative.