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Libertarian Economics - Part 2

Which concepts do you disagree with?


  • Total voters
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Trust me, it isnt, but I am beginning to see more clearly.

To put it into party political terms it reminds me of the British labor parties history. At one time it was largely dominated by socialists, but eventually rejected socialism in favour of a move closer to the center.

Some of their supporters still self identify as socialists, even though they arent anymore.

It appears you identify with that drift away from socialism toward a more moderate position (although perhaps not as far), but despite rejecting many core tennents of socialism decide to remain self-identified as socialist, as is your right.

Ive always found that stance confusing, given the negative connotations associated with socialism, but I guess people have their reasons.

Well ... at least amung the socialists I know.

I don't know whether it's a moderate position or what, I'm taking the paleo-socialist line, i.e. non-leninist, more libertarian socialist line.

I call myself a socialist because my position has always been what socialism means, from Bakunin to Chomsky, from the origional concept of Soviets (before Lenin and his cronies contralized the process) to the Anarchist CNT-FAI, to the Zapatistas to the Cooperative movement.

I don't know what else to call it, its socialism.
 
There's two parts to "Austrianism"...the economic part and the religious part. The fact that you didn't know that I didn't include the religious part in my list makes it abundantly clear that you have no clue about Austrian economics. Therefore...while it's true that I do need to learn...clearly my understanding and grasp of Austrian economics far far far exceeds your own. FYI...the religious part is the non-aggression principle.

Now try again.
I call Austrian econ a religion because it relies on faith and theories. When put to the test in real economies, its theories fail to come true. Empirical data exists that has shown this over and over again.
 
I call Austrian econ a religion because it relies on faith and theories. When put to the test in real economies, its theories fail to come true. Empirical data exists that has shown this over and over again.

What's a religion? There's a drought so you sacrifice some of your cattle to your god. Why? Because you want something in exchange...you want it to rain.

What do I do? I'm hungry so I sacrifice some of my money to Subway. Why? Because I want something in exchange...I want my hunger to end.

What do you do? There's a recession so you sacrifice more of your taxes to the government. Why? Because you want something in exchange...you want the recession to end.

You're saying that you've got a monopoly on empirical evidence and I'm saying that taxpayers should have the option to directly allocate their taxes. Where's the problem? Why would taxpayers ignore your empirical evidence? Do you think taxpayers enjoy recessions like people enjoy droughts and hunger? No way. If a government organization is truly effective at solving problems that people care about...then there's no reason to believe that taxpayers won't find value in supporting it with their taxes.

Unless I'm wrong and people really do not want the most bang for their buck. It's really easy for you to prove me wrong though...just paypal me $10,000 and I'll send you $10 in return. That will be solid empirical evidence that people do not want more for less.
 
What's a religion? There's a drought so you sacrifice some of your cattle to your god. Why? Because you want something in exchange...you want it to rain.

What do I do? I'm hungry so I sacrifice some of my money to Subway. Why? Because I want something in exchange...I want my hunger to end.

What do you do? There's a recession so you sacrifice more of your taxes to the government. Why? Because you want something in exchange...you want the recession to end.

You're saying that you've got a monopoly on empirical evidence and I'm saying that taxpayers should have the option to directly allocate their taxes. Where's the problem? Why would taxpayers ignore your empirical evidence? Do you think taxpayers enjoy recessions like people enjoy droughts and hunger? No way. If a government organization is truly effective at solving problems that people care about...then there's no reason to believe that taxpayers won't find value in supporting it with their taxes.

Unless I'm wrong and people really do not want the most bang for their buck. It's really easy for you to prove me wrong though...just paypal me $10,000 and I'll send you $10 in return. That will be solid empirical evidence that people do not want more for less.

Because you assume rational thought.
 
Because you assume rational thought.
Well, no, he assumes heterogeneous thought, which taken together, he also argues, is the same as rational thought.

I don't know if I agree with that, though. Culture is outside the realm of rationality.
 
Because you assume rational thought.

I told you exactly how simple it would be for you to prove me very wrong. All you have to do is paypal me $10,000 and I'll paypal you $10 in return. That would be a perfect example of irrational action on your part.

Why won't you do it? You won't do it because it wouldn't make sense to you. The market works because we only engage in trades that make sense to us. We only engage in trades where we expect to profit. And if it turns out that the trade was indeed mutually beneficial...then we'll continue to make the trade.

This is how we prevent massive amounts of society's limited resources from being wasted on nonsensical endeavors. Does anybody want their taxes wasted on bridges to nowhere? Of course not...which is why we should allow taxpayers to be the ones who decide which government organizations are spending our taxes on truly beneficial endeavors.
 
Well, no, he assumes heterogeneous thought, which taken together, he also argues, is the same as rational thought.

I don't know if I agree with that, though. Culture is outside the realm of rationality.

Did you ever read Calvin and Hobbes? There was this one strip where Calvin is happily pounding nails into his mother's coffee table. His mother is horrified, "What are you doing!??" she yells at him. He replies..."Is this a trick question?".

Clearly they both had different perspectives on the rationality of his behavior. What happens in a market though? Nobody is going to pay you to destroy coffee tables...they are going to pay you to create coffee tables.

Here's another example...

I'm a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire. I'm filthy rich. You know why I'm a multi-millionaire? 'Cause multi-millions like what I do. That's pretty good, isn't it? - Michael Moore

Does he truly believe that he's the only person who became a multi-millionaire because millions of people like what he does? He's not the exception...he's the rule. That's why capitalism works.

Heterogeneous activity means that Michael Moore, Brittney Spears, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, the Koch Brothers and millions of other people will get rich by engaging in a wide range of activity that benefits millions of other people. Clearly their activities do not benefit people in exactly the same way. But economic success...discovery, innovation, ingenuity...in one sector of the economy will prop up a lack of economic success in other sectors of the economy. Heterogeneous activity hedges our bets against recessions/depressions.

What would happen if we created a market for public goods? Is it hard to imagine? Then try and imagine what would happen if we set up a command economy in the private sector. Can you imagine what would happen to the variety, quality and cost of available private goods? It shouldn't take much imagination...just think of Cuba, North Korea and China's great leap forward.
 
Milton Friedman was not reputable. Ok then.

He was a good monetarist and contributed greatly to that important field of economics. He was an idiot when it came to politics and his monetariest theories are unrelated to his anti-government fetish.
 
I told you exactly how simple it would be for you to prove me very wrong. All you have to do is paypal me $10,000 and I'll paypal you $10 in return. That would be a perfect example of irrational action on your part.

Why won't you do it? You won't do it because it wouldn't make sense to you. The market works because we only engage in trades that make sense to us. We only engage in trades where we expect to profit. And if it turns out that the trade was indeed mutually beneficial...then we'll continue to make the trade.
Rothbard candidly admits that "the 'rightist' libertarian is not opposed to inequality." (15). He also admits:

"In contrast to such utopians as Marxists… libertarians do not assume that the ushering in of the purely free society of their dreams will also bring with it a new, magically transformed Libertarian Man. We do not assume that the lion will lie down with the lamb, or that no one will have criminal or fraudulent designs upon his neighbor." (16)


LIbertarians aren't following their own teachers.
 
Rothbard candidly admits that "the 'rightist' libertarian is not opposed to inequality." (15). He also admits:

"In contrast to such utopians as Marxists… libertarians do not assume that the ushering in of the purely free society of their dreams will also bring with it a new, magically transformed Libertarian Man. We do not assume that the lion will lie down with the lamb, or that no one will have criminal or fraudulent designs upon his neighbor." (16)

LIbertarians aren't following their own teachers.

I really have no idea what argument you're trying to make. Rothbard's anti-government argument was based on a very flawed premise. His flawed premise was that taxes and individual valuation were mutually exclusive. I explained this concept in depth over at the Ron Paul Forums...Rothbard's Blind Spot. If you want to effectively critique Rothbard then it might help to actually understand his argument.
 
I really have no idea what argument you're trying to make. Rothbard's anti-government argument was based on a very flawed premise. His flawed premise was that taxes and individual valuation were mutually exclusive. I explained this concept in depth over at the Ron Paul Forums...Rothbard's Blind Spot. If you want to effectively critique Rothbard then it might help to actually understand his argument.

You seem to think all humans are rational, Rothbard seems to think that is a silly notion.
 
You seem to think all humans are rational, Rothbard seems to think that is a silly notion.

In terms of economics...what difference does it make whether people are rational or irrational? Economics just cares about behavior. If you saw a guy exploding watermelons with a sledgehammer would you consider his behavior to be rational? Probably not. But what if a person walks up and gives the watermelon smasher $1? That probably wouldn't change your perception of the rationality of smashing watermelons. Perhaps you'd suspect that both of them were irrational. But what if 1 million people each gave a dollar to the guy smashing watermelons? How could you label the watermelon smasher's behavior as irrational? He's getting paid a million dollars to smash watermelons. We, as a society, use our own money to define what behavior is...or is not...rational.

Right now we allow a small group of congresspeople to spend all our taxes. I think it is irrational to allow congresspeople to spend all our taxes. But clearly the large majority of people believe it's perfectly rational.

It's more useful to think in terms of mistakes. A mistake is simply when you waste your limited resources. Why is it a mistake that congress spends all our taxes? Because they are wasting our limited resources. Markets work because right now you have the freedom to decide exactly how much time you spend replying to this post. Let's say that you spent an hour composing a well thought out reply but you accidentally closed your browser right before you posted it. It would be a perfect example of a mistake because you just wasted an hour of your limited time. People do not want their time/money to be wasted...which is why it's a mistake not to give taxpayers the option to directly allocate their taxes.
 
In terms of economics...what difference does it make whether people are rational or irrational? Economics just cares about behavior. If you saw a guy exploding watermelons with a sledgehammer would you consider his behavior to be rational? Probably not. But what if a person walks up and gives the watermelon smasher $1? That probably wouldn't change your perception of the rationality of smashing watermelons. Perhaps you'd suspect that both of them were irrational. But what if 1 million people each gave a dollar to the guy smashing watermelons? How could you label the watermelon smasher's behavior as irrational? He's getting paid a million dollars to smash watermelons. We, as a society, use our own money to define what behavior is...or is not...rational.

Right now we allow a small group of congresspeople to spend all our taxes. I think it is irrational to allow congresspeople to spend all our taxes. But clearly the large majority of people believe it's perfectly rational.
I love the numerous amount of contradictions libertarians put themselves in.
 
I love the numerous amount of contradictions libertarians put themselves in.

I tried to explain why the idea of rational vs irrational behavior is less than useful. Can you explain exactly why it's relevant to whether taxpayers should have the option to directly allocate their taxes?

Let me give you a hand. Here's the Wikipedia article on rational ignorance and here's the Wikipedia article on rational irrationality.
 
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