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Right Wing Ideology Fails in Economics As Well

Agent_Grey said:
I don't understand how you can have so much faith in the free market. While I feel it has been an incredibly useful tool for the production and distribution of a large number of commodities, there are other areas where it has completely fallen on its face.

We've been listening to stories about how everyone benefits when the wealty benefit for 30 years now, and despite the fact that the rich have indeed gotten richer and richer, the "rising tide" has yet to lift a single other boat.

What is your faith in the market rooted in, exactly?
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The point of a free market is not to make everyone rich or economically equal in the end...that is not realistic. It will never happen.

The point of a free market is freedom. Plain & simple. Wealth is not what matters in life, the liberty to pursue your own goals and take advantage of your own natural talents and inclinations is what matters.
 
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other said:
The point of a free market is not to make everyone rich or economically equal in the end...that is not realistic. It will never happen.

The point of a free market is freedom. Plain & simple. Wealth is not what matters in life, the liberty to pursue your own goals and take advantage of your own natural talents and inclinations is what matters.
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Ah, but how do you prevent those of means from restricting the freedoms of those without?

To me this is what is lost in the right's ideology. When you open unlimited freedom through capital, you open the freedom to oppress others along with it.
 
Agent_Grey said:
Ah, but how do you prevent those of means from restricting the freedoms of those without?

To me this is what is lost in the right's ideology. When you open unlimited freedom through capital, you open the freedom to oppress others along with it.
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No. A Free market doesn't entail the freedom to curtail others' rights. That would not be free, would it?

Government has a place within society, and its place is to protect peoples' rights. Economics aside. This in no way makes allowance for the government to step in and set prices/wages, enact a progressive tax system, etc. etc. which does, in fact, often infringe upon peoples' rights. (and hinder market systems)
 
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Agent_Grey said:
What is your faith in the market rooted in, exactly?
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Freedom: The right to sell my labor, a good, or a service for a mutually agreed upon price; the market's ability to meet demand; the profit motive's ability to drive effort and innovation...

... and common sense: I look around the world and see what systems have worked and which ones have not, which ones are but utopian pipedreams, and which ones best accord themselves with human nature. Free-market capitalism is the one that best meets the needs and wants of humanity. That's not to say that it's perfect. It's not, because we're still talking about humans and their personal foibles. I think with rights come responsibilities, and some people are not good at upholding their end of the bargain. But, all in all, I think it provides the greatest good to mankind.
 
Agent_Grey said:
I don't understand how you can have so much faith in the free market. [...]
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Once again, free market capitalism is an empirical system - it doesn't require faith. In fact, faith most often only leads to financial losses. Reason is the means by which individuals succeed within the capitalist system.


Agent_Grey said:
[...] While I feel it has been an incredibly useful tool for the production and distribution of a large number of commodities, there are other areas where it has completely fallen on its face.
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Why, did you expect the free market system to buy you a unicorn for your birthday? :roll:


Agent_Grey said:
We've been listening to stories about how everyone benefits when the wealty benefit for 30 years now, and despite the fact that the rich have indeed gotten richer and richer, the "rising tide" has yet to lift a single other boat.
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The free market system is the most effective system for creating wealth, and thus propelling the human civilization forward, but that doesn't mean wealth will suddenly fall on you from the sky - you yourself have to create it!

It is natural and even beneficial that economic inequality will continue to grow as civilization advances forward - the greatest minds leveraging the greatest resources will be able to create ever-more wealth, while the productive value of a hunter-gatherer with a stone spear will continue to decline. Life doesn't owe anyone a free ride.

It's not a secret that success within a capitalist system requires a good education and a good work ethic. You have your whole life to contemplate your abilities and enhance your productivity. If by the time you reach middle age you still can't contribute anything to the economy other than following your boss's instructions, well, c'est la vie...


Agent_Grey said:
Ah, but how do you prevent those of means from restricting the freedoms of those without? [...]
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Balance of power. [ame="http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=121399"](See this thread on another forum.)[/ame]
 
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Ahlevah said:
Freedom: The right to sell my labor, a good, or a service for a mutually agreed upon price; the market's ability to meet demand; the profit motive's ability to drive effort and innovation...

... and common sense: I look around the world and see what systems have worked and which ones have not, which ones are but utopian pipedreams, and which ones best accord themselves with human nature. Free-market capitalism is the one that best meets the needs and wants of humanity. That's not to say that it's perfect. It's not, because we're still talking about humans and their personal foibles. I think with rights come responsibilities, and some people are not good at upholding their end of the bargain. But, all in all, I think it provides the greatest good to mankind.
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Free market capitalism is a pipe dream as much as any other Utopian system.
 
Wessexman said:
Free market capitalism is a pipe dream as much as any other Utopian system.
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Your assertion can only be based on the faith that the "divine right of governments" delusion is eternal and omnipresent - now that is a pipe dream!

Once again, free market capitalism is the very opposite of Utopia - it expects people to be just the way they are, minus the blind faith in governments, which they clearly aren't born with but are indoctrinated into. Ever-advancing technology, especially in the field of telecommunications, is challenging the socialist system of ideological control, and thus ideas related to free market capitalism are spreading faster than ever before!
 
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Alex Libman said:
Once again, free market capitalism is the very opposite of Utopia - it expects people to be just the way they are, minus the blind faith in governments, which they clearly aren't born with but are indoctrinated into.

Your assertion can only be based on the faith that the "divine right of governments" delusion is eternal and omnipresent - now that is a pipe dream!
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Mate, these shrill, random assertions are not very persuasive. You need to actually try and informatively and in more detail engage with arguments.
 
I'm not trying to be persuasive.

I'm not being paid to educate anyone here.

I'm right, whether others understand that or not.
 
Alex Libman said:
I'm not trying to be persuasive.

I'm not being paid to educate anyone here.

I'm right, whether others understand that or not.
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This is being discussed in another thread, but have you considered the incoherence of the Austrian Theory of the Firm? The supposed "champion of free markets" cannot explain with any legitimacy, why firms both exist and grow (sometimes into monopolies, in which the state is required to interfere to promote competition)....

Kinda hypocritical if you ask me. Government is actually needed for capitalism to exist?
 
dragondad said:
You're going to run into this often with scientists and economists.

Over 50% describe themselves Democrats...just 6% Republicans.
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Assuming that actually is the case, it probably has to do more with the modern American right's hostility to science and intellectuals than anything else. I would imagine that in terms of actual ideological beliefs, scientists span the ideological spectrum just like everyone else does.
 
Alex Libman said:
"Govmint wuvs me, dis I know, cause the govmint tells me so."

Different dogma, same blind obedience.
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Research and fact based analysis is pragmatism. Your rejection of research and empirical analysis is blind ideology in action.

Of course I believe it was you in a previous post that claimed that Austrian Economics is the only economic science and the rest is pure politics. I don't even think Austrian Economists would make such a claim. In fact, Austrian Economics is far more of a philosophy than Mainstream Economics, its why Austrian Economists have a hard time being published.
 
The fact is that the financial crisis would have never been possible absent an unregulated derivatives market. None of this garbage would have been palatable on the markets if their had not been unregulated garbage out there that insured it. That's pretty much the consensus among all mainstream economists and being that this "market innovation" was backed by both parties, both parties are to blame for it.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
In fact, Austrian Economics is far more of a philosophy than Mainstream Economics, its why Austrian Economists have a hard time being published.
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More of an irrational religion than anything else, actually.

I was introduced by the [Washington State University] chairman of the department of economics to some graduate students whom he termed "our former Austrians." One might ask why the graduate students there called themselves "former Austrians." One name suffices to answer the question: Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Dr. Hoppe, leading light of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, had presented such a loopy, absurd and utterly unhinged picture of Austrian economics at a public lecture there, under the sponsorship of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, that those graduate students felt obliged to distinguish themselves publicly from such a strange and incomprehensible set of views. And I can certainly understand why they would feel compelled to do that. If Hoppe is the leading light of Austrian economics as the Mises Institute presents him, then Austrian economics should prepare for a long dark age. At George Mason University I saw Hoppe present a lecture in which he claimed that Ludwig von Mises had set the intellectual foundation for not only economics, but for ethics, geometry, and optics, as well. This bizarre claim turned a serious scholar and profound thinker into a comical cult figure, a sort of Euro Kim Il Sung.
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SouthernDemocrat said:
Assuming that actually is the case, it probably has to do more with the modern American right's hostility to science and intellectuals than anything else. I would imagine that in terms of actual ideological beliefs, scientists span the ideological spectrum just like everyone else does.
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It also would have something to do with general temperament of intellectuals in our modern society.
 
Wessexman said:
Free market capitalism is a pipe dream as much as any other Utopian system.
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Well, the government wouldn't be able to steal from productive folks so that lumps could stay home and watch Crank Yankers. The lumps would have to support themselves for a change. So you're probably right: Having lazy people work is probably a pipe dream.
 
Ahlevah said:
Well, the government wouldn't be able to steal from productive folks so that lumps could stay home and watch Crank Yankers. The lumps would have to support themselves for a change. So you're probably right: Having lazy people work is probably a pipe dream.
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Most welfare goes to corporations and the rich but what I meant was that free market capitalism is not our system nor ever has been and implementing it would be a very great change from the current system.
 
Wessexman said:
Most welfare goes to corporations and the rich....
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I don't know about Australia, but this is how we in America give the rich welfare: we let them keep more of their money so they don't pay all of the taxes, just most of them:

The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shouldered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 percent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

Guess Who Really Pays the Taxes
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The United States also has a 35% federal corporate income tax, among the highest of all the major industrialized nations.
 
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Ahlevah said:
I don't know about Australia, but this is how we in America give the rich welfare: we let them keep more of their money so they don't pay all of the taxes, just most of them:



The United States also has a 35% federal corporate income tax, among the highest of all the major industrialized nations.
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What you are forgetting is that it is the rich and corporations who mostly benefit from the tax system anyway. It is corporations who mostly get to, for instance, take advantage of the fact that in general in the US large trucks cause nearly 100% of road-bed damage and yet they pay less than 50% of maintenance costs. Or that the fact that Congresses own report, according to Kirkpatrick Sale in his Human Scale, showed that in 1976 direct subsidies to industry amounted to more than all corporate profits. A event unlikely to be far from the general pattern. Also you are forgetting that the rich and corporations can much more easily pass on taxes, other than a few like a Georgist land value tax where the burden can't be shifted, to consumers and the less well off. A corporate doesn't pay taxes(or at least doesn't pay them generally at anywhere near the official rate.), it raises prices, lowers the costs of inputs and squeezes suppliers.
 
Wessexman said:
A corporate doesn't pay taxes(or at least doesn't pay them generally at anywhere near the official rate.), it raises prices, lowers the costs of inputs and squeezes suppliers.
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But a company that exists in a low-tax environment has an advantage. That's why companies don't build plants in places like Rhode Island anymore. Liberals haven't figured that out yet.
 
Ahlevah said:
But a company that exists in a low-tax environment has an advantage. That's why companies don't build plants in places like Rhode Island anymore. Liberals haven't figured that out yet.
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Well it is a case of what is good for the individual is bad for the group. There are advantages for an individual company of having lower taxes, it can undercut the competition, but large corporations in general require a lot of taxes from population to support them.
 
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SouthernDemocrat said:
Research and fact based analysis is pragmatism. Your rejection of research and empirical analysis is blind ideology in action.
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You do understand the importance of objective sources, don't you?


SouthernDemocrat said:
Of course I believe it was you in a previous post that claimed that Austrian Economics is the only economic science and the rest is pure politics. I don't even think Austrian Economists would make such a claim. In fact, Austrian Economics is far more of a philosophy than Mainstream Economics, its why Austrian Economists have a hard time being published.
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I shouldn't have made it so black-n-white - different schools of economic thought exhibit pro-government bias and are rewarded by governments to various degrees. That said, I stand by my statement that the Austrian School is the only one I find credible. Though the Chicago School can at times be compromised with, it's a very slippery slope...
 
EvilNixon said:
Krugman is a brilliant economist,but he lets his personal biases get in the way of facts...:(
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I think you just pinned-down the definition of "political hack"
 
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