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SedanChair posted:It never gets any more complicated than that. Yes, but surely that kind of intellectual dishonesty must raise some red flags. I don't understand how so many people can ignore them.
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Jan 22, 2015 17:59
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Who What Now posted:Yes, but surely that kind of intellectual dishonesty must raise some red flags. I don't understand how so many people can ignore them. Because pseudo-intellectualism attracts people that can't recognize basic intellectual argument problems. Word spaghetti looks cool and sounds impressive.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:02
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Who What Now posted:Yes, but surely that kind of intellectual dishonesty must raise some red flags. I don't understand how so many people can ignore them. Intellectual dishonesty is not discomfiting to cultists.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:02
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Who What Now posted:Yes, but surely that kind of intellectual dishonesty must raise some red flags. I don't understand how so many people can ignore them. For all their talk of rationality and logic-based arguments, when you boil it right down libertarianism is a matter of cultlike faith. It's not that hard to ignore nagging doubts when you can just close your eyes and ~*believe in freedom*~.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:10
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Captain_Maclaine posted:For all their talk of rationality and logic-based arguments, when you boil it right down libertarianism is a matter of cultlike faith. It's not that hard to ignore nagging doubts when you can just close your eyes and ~*believe in freedom*~. Yeah, we've repeated this over and over. Libertarianism is more related to Religion than it is to Economics. Its scary as hell.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:12
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Who What Now posted:I don't understand how jrod and other libertarians can have this enormous blind spot in their philosophies where they never consider that once a Free (or Freed or whatever the term du jour is) Market is implemented that the biggest companies won't use violence to ensure their position at the top and maintain their monopoly. I understand why on a macro level the philosophy in general ignores this and none of the "great thinkers" talk about, because it completely falls apart once you consider it for more than two seconds, but I don't understand how individuals who are seemingly intelligent don't figure this out for themselves. I know that jrod doesn't think about it because he doesn't actually do any of his own thinking and just regurgitates whatever article he's read but surely there are smarter libertarians out there that also ignore this. Do they understand the problem and just ignore it? They've considered that violence will be used by corporations, but then they honestly believe that in a free market society, using violence would not be a profitable thing to do. See, people would find out about all the terrible things this corporation has done, and refuse to deal with them any more, and they'll go out of business. He's dealt with it by reverting to a child's view of morality. People won't do bad things because it is wrong. Which makes that whole problem even more laughable.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:34
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Cemetry Gator posted:They've considered that violence will be used by corporations, but then they honestly believe that in a free market society, using violence would not be a profitable thing to do. See, people would find out about all the terrible things this corporation has done, and refuse to deal with them any more, and they'll go out of business. They think that, somehow in some mysterious fashion, that 'violence' against a person or property would allow said person/property to use a LEGAL means to get 'justice' They literally both want regulation and oversight and DON'T want regulation and oversight.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:36
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Because I Said So Vol. 1 with jrodefeldjrodefeld posted:This will all get sorted out in short order during a transition to a free economy. The State protections and privileges including the entity called the limited liability "corporation" will fall to the side and these businessmen will no longer have a shield to protect them from liability for their actions. They will either satisfy consumers on the market, or go out of business and look for a new occupation. jrodefeld posted:The natural course of a market economy is to become more physically productive, meaning more capital investment in equipment, more goods and services on the market at lower prices. That means that a family could, for the first time in history, afford to keep their kids at home or send them to school. jrodefeld posted:But I am a radical. I want to move as swiftly and decisively towards a complete abolition of the State as is humanly possible. The State is an abomination and it must be opposed decisively on moral grounds. Just as the abolitionists stood up against the evils of chattel slavery, so too must moral and radical abolitionists of this day stand up and oppose the great moral enormity of our era. jrodefeld posted:War is NOT profitable nor is it the "natural" outcome of the free market. jrodefeld posted:Let me clarify that statement. What I meant by "war" is a large scale, sustainable and profitable enterprise as it is currently understood. One of the most common objections to market anarchism is the erroneous notion that private defense contractors will wage war on one another and this will disintegrate society into tribal warfare with no order whatsoever. That is what I am rejecting. I am saying that these private competing firms that are to provide order and security will have every incentive to prevent conflict with one another if they are interested in turning a profit. For society to break down in the way that opponents of anarchism suggest, it would have to be assumed that most, or a significant percentage of private defense agencies and/or dispute resolution organizations will choose to wage war on one another rather than find a peaceful way to coexist with one another will providing their services to their customers. Clearly waging war on other defense agencies would be extremely unprofitable and they would have a strong disincentive to do so. jrodefeld posted:It's called the loving non aggression principle for a reason. It cannot EVER be legitimate to initiate violence. I was just contrasting the willingness of people to theoretically fund such an exercise of enforcing victimless crimes if such people had to fund the effort out of their own pockets in comparison to the current US system which does precisely what you fear MIGHT happen in a Stateless society! jrodefeld posted:We can create a world of mutual aid where communities and social clubs provide aid to the needy rather than some faceless bureaucracy. jrodefeld posted:Even IF Molyneux is a misogynist and cult leader and Hoppe is a racist, that still does nothing to disprove the validity of the non-aggression principle or libertarian theory. It is the ideas that I am concerned with. I follow a great number of libertarian thinkers, including but not limited to the following: jrodefeld posted:Almost all major wars in the history of civilization were financed partially or mostly or entirely through inflation. That is just a historical fact. jrodefeld posted:Once you get rid of the smokescreen of "free" money to paper over deficits, people actually come to grips with the genuine cost of these programs. The illusion is shattered and large scale efforts to push back against the State gain much more traction. jrodefeld posted:I don't think I said war was impossible without fiat money. However, I will take back what I really did say, which was something along the lines of "no modern large scale war was waged without fiat money". I shouldn't have said this. I don't have a comprehensive and exhaustive enough understanding of each and every war of aggression that States have engaged in to make such a sweeping statement. jrodefeld posted:Why wouldn't a private system of "common" law that emerges on the market also simply favor the wealthy just as most State monopolized legal systems do? jrodefeld posted:How many preventable deaths could have been avoided if we simply allowed the profit and loss system to determine the allocation of scarce resources? jrodefeld posted:How do you think the rich get rich? The unjust rich are those that use the power of the State to expropriate the citizens, while the just rich are those who trade voluntarily on the market and satisfy consumers. By taking away that State and rejecting the legitimacy of the use of force, the wealthy gain wealth through satisfying consumers. Unless the rich have a steady stream of new profits and revenue, then their wealth will soon be consumed and they will fall into the middle class or even into poverty. If the "rich" all thought they would collude and piss off everyone else then that would be disastrous to their bottom line.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:37
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Who What Now posted:I don't understand how jrod and other libertarians can have this enormous blind spot in their philosophies where they never consider that once a Free (or Freed or whatever the term du jour is) Market is implemented that the biggest companies won't use violence to ensure their position at the top and maintain their monopoly. I understand why on a macro level the philosophy in general ignores this and none of the "great thinkers" talk about, because it completely falls apart once you consider it for more than two seconds, but I don't understand how individuals who are seemingly intelligent don't figure this out for themselves. I know that jrod doesn't think about it because he doesn't actually do any of his own thinking and just regurgitates whatever article he's read but surely there are smarter libertarians out there that also ignore this. Do they understand the problem and just ignore it? I know a libertarian guy who acknowledges this and embraces it, although he argues that the totalitarian level of control that these business entities would exert would be less severe than what the state exerts. Of course this guy also goes on rants about Keynesian economic theory without even knowing what it is, so take that as you will.
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Jan 22, 2015 18:42
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jrodefeld posted:You are wrong about inflation but you are correct about the term "violence". I was trying to explain that libertarians use the term "violence" in the correct way rather than in supposedly redefining it. Violence of course does include initiatory force, but it also includes self defense. So when libertarians oppose initiatory violence, we are using the term correctly. You have conceded that point. Self defense is a type of violence that libertarians support in the last resort. The point being made is that violence includes self-defense, but libertarians have redefined the term to not include self-defense. You've made that extremely clear in your previous posts. Libertarians also redefined the term to include non-damaging actions, such as walking across someone's property without permission. That's not violence. That's a libertarian misuse of the term. For the same reasons, taxation is not violence, and labeling it as such is a libertarian misuse of the term. quote:As for inflation, classically inflation has always meant an expansion of units of currency. Think about the language. Prices can't "expand". Prices rise or fall. Units of currency can expand or contract. Rising prices is a usual consequence of monetary expansion but it doesn't always happen at the same time. There is an association obviously between expansion of the money supply and rising prices but they are NOT the same thing. Prices of course can rise and fall for many other reasons than expansion or contraction of the money supply. Again, you're completely wrong. You're conflating a cause and an effect into a single term, but this effect can have other causes, and the cause that you're using does not always lead to the effect. Libertarians misuse the term for their own purposes. quote:I haven't proven his point. His point was that libertarians misuse the terms "inflation" and the term "violence". As you have conceded, initiatory force IS violence. And expansion of the money supply is inflation. If increasing the units of a currency through printing money is not inflation, what do you call it? Holy poo poo, by parroting redefinitions of two commonly used terms you are precisely proving his point while also proving that you've been completely brainwashed by libertarian literature and are unable to think for yourself. This is further proven by the fact that you've been caught plagiarizing other libertarians in previous posts.
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Jan 22, 2015 19:09
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Nothing. That's exactly the problem and the greatest irony of a proper free market. The government needs to regulate the poo poo out of it and prevent monopolies to keep the market properly free. Otherwise you get, you know, Standard Oil. That's the craziest part, they think that the 1800s were a golden age of entrepreneurship and good times for all. They're familiar enough with the era to know that there was little regulation but not familiar enough with the era to know that a lack of regulation led to a fuckload of problems for the free market and resulted in a bunch of regulations. They believe that government regulation just sprung up out of nowhere rather than as a reaction to the lovely things that humans do to each other AstheWorldWorlds posted:I know a libertarian guy who acknowledges this and embraces it, although he argues that the totalitarian level of control that these business entities would exert would be less severe than what the state exerts. Of course this guy also goes on rants about Keynesian economic theory without even knowing what it is, so take that as you will. Have you ever asked him how he would feel if the United States Government declared itself to be a giant Dispute Resolution Organization and that it would tolerate no other DROs within its jurisdction, which is all of the lands currently considered part of "The United States" QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 19:15
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Cemetry Gator posted:They've considered that violence will be used by corporations, but then they honestly believe that in a free market society, using violence would not be a profitable thing to do. See, people would find out about all the terrible things this corporation has done, and refuse to deal with them any more, and they'll go out of business. Now hand on for a minute here, the Libertarian argument is a valid one in this case. Remember that Union Carbide folded within 48 hours of the Bhopal disaster due to public outrage and mass boycotting, and the company devoted all remaining resources to handing the cleanup and paying out compensation. AstheWorldWorlds posted:I know a libertarian guy who acknowledges this and embraces it, although he argues that the totalitarian level of control that these business entities would exert would be less severe than what the state exerts. Of course this guy also goes on rants about Keynesian economic theory without even knowing what it is, so take that as you will. Well in all fairness, if you're in the upper echelons of a cyberpunk mega-corporation that has destroyed or seriously denuded the state, you probably really do have a lot more freedom than you would if the state was still powerful. It's just that this is not a good thing.
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Jan 22, 2015 19:19
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QuarkJets posted:Have you ever asked him how he would feel if the United States Government declared itself to be a giant Dispute Resolution Organization and that it would tolerate no other DROs within its jurisdction, which is all of the lands currently considered part of "The United States" Yeah I have, but I am pretty sure he has the mind of a 14 year old because his answer was seriously that he would be a mercenary for them. No, he does not have relevant experience aside from a brief stint as a law enforcement officer in a small town. My point is that I am starting to think that many libertarians have considered the outcome and do not care or find it desirable, especially the newest generation of libertarians and the edgier crop of libertarian "intellectuals" that have appeared. Mister Adequate posted:Well in all fairness, if you're in the upper echelons of a cyberpunk mega-corporation that has destroyed or seriously denuded the state, you probably really do have a lot more freedom than you would if the state was still powerful. It's just that this is not a good thing. Yeah but this guy is not well off so it is an "interesting" opinion to have. As you said, supporting the destruction of the state might be a rational choice for a business elite if you think you could do better in a neo-feudal system, not so much for anyone who is not a business elite.
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Jan 22, 2015 19:33
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Mister Adequate posted:Well in all fairness, if you're in the upper echelons of a cyberpunk mega-corporation that has destroyed or seriously denuded the state, you probably really do have a lot more freedom than you would if the state was still powerful. It's just that this is not a good thing. You'd also have a good chance of being a distributed AI and/or dragon, so there's that too.
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Jan 22, 2015 19:39
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:Yeah but this guy is not well off so it is an "interesting" opinion to have. As you said, supporting the destruction of the state might be a rational choice for a business elite if you think you could do better in a neo-feudal system, not so much for anyone who is not a business elite. This is the basic core of why I'm virulently anti corporatist. In a peaceful society that has common currency, money is literally power and allowing anyone to have wealth several hundred times over is fiercely undemocratic if you believe in any level of "all men are created equal". Neo feudalism and its ilk require free people to dismiss and forget that the ultimate libertarian ideal of " there is no man fit to rule me but myself" is whole subsumed when a corporation now a person can afford to write off your existence as a business expense.
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Jan 22, 2015 19:46
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RuanGacho posted:This is the basic core of why I'm virulently anti corporatist. In a peaceful society that has common currency, money is literally power and allowing anyone to have wealth several hundred times over is fiercely undemocratic if you believe in any level of "all men are created equal". The SCOTUS has determined that money is a form of free speech. We should take all of the free speech being hoarded by giant corporations and spread free speech to everyone who doesn't already have a lot of free speech. That way we can all be more free
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Jan 22, 2015 19:53
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QuarkJets posted:The SCOTUS has determined that money is a form of free speech. We should take all of the free speech being hoarded by giant corporations and spread free speech to everyone who doesn't already have a lot of free speech. That way we can all be more free Yesterday I was in a local chamber of commerce meeting, ( which can be roughly described as where libertarians go to be serious people with reasonable considerations) and they were telling their attending membership that when topics come up like raising the minimum wage, tax revenue proposals and labor laws the chamber would take a stance so that no business alone would have to take the brunt of those unpopular opinions which might affect their bottom line. They then quickly added that they understood that not everyone who belonged to the chamber may not agree with every stance the chamber takes (guess which stance the chamber will take) but its for your own protection. I can only wish I had the presence of mind to record the whole speech.
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Jan 22, 2015 20:02
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RuanGacho posted:This is the basic core of why I'm virulently anti corporatist. In a peaceful society that has common currency, money is literally power and allowing anyone to have wealth several hundred times over is fiercely undemocratic if you believe in any level of "all men are created equal". Yeah I agree, and the emerging trend in libertarian and similar far right thought has been to quietly (or loudly in the case of H.H. Hoppe) dismiss and/or reject democracy, although arguably the seeds of this sentiment were always present in the philosophy. Hayek's position on Pinochet, for example, highlights the internal hostility to democracy that is core to the philosophy and becoming more explicit. AstheWorldWorlds fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 20:03
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Yeah I've been reading people unironically refer to " natural elites " . If the natural state of our society is massive wealth disparity then that is only fair and natural. If .1% of the population ends up controlling a majority of the wealth it just proves those people earned it and deserve it and we're better off for it. I mean if they were able to hoard all that wealth through pure merit they've proven them selves to be the true leaders of the world. Basically no matter what happens in society or the economy, no matter what the results are, so long as there isn't government meddling the results are 100% good and should be celebrated. Democracy is bad because it's a form of communism, an attempt at re-distributing political power away from the natural elites and giving them to undeserving poors and scum. Why should a parasite have the same amount of votes as an elite? Let money determine everything as money is the most true gauge of a person's worth. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 20:42
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This thread has ruined me. I was reading some random article about a non-scandal involving Rand Paul's webmaster who is a late-twenties "self-described anarcho-capitalist" and immediately laughed out loud. After pages upon pages of jrod ignoring empirical evidence and misunderstanding the basic definitions of words like 'violence' and 'coercion' just seeing the word 'an-cap' a punchline to me. I'm still not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
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Jan 22, 2015 21:30
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VitalSigns posted:Except that before the Fair Housing Act, people were commonly banned by their HOAs in from selling or renting their homes to black people, so not only is it entirely consisten with Libertarianism for other people to tell you what you may and mayn't do with your property, but as we've discussed exhaustively in this thread and others, for Hoppe the ability to require newcomers to town to sign contracts relinquishing their right to invite black people over to their house is Libertarianism's raison d'être. What a ridiculous assertion. If you own private property, you have the inalienable right to transfer ownership to any person you want or to invite whoever you please onto your property. It is true that communities can voluntarily agree to contracts for behavior in such a community such that a person may agree not to use his or her property in a specified way. But this is not a violation of private property rights but an expression of them. It is like if I voluntarily agree to a contract that stipulates that I won't engage in hate speech in a public forum, that doesn't mean I don't believe in freedom of speech. People are merely expressing their rights through voluntary legal contract. The Hoppe argument has been done to death. But it is still preposterous to insist that the main motivating reason for libertarian ideology is so that we can find ways to discriminate against black people. This sort of accusation is so over the top in its absurdity that it undermines your credibility. It's hard to take anyone seriously who engages in such a low level of discourse. There are many black economists and intellectuals, such as Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, who make a compelling case that the post-Civil Rights policies pushed be left-progressives including the welfare state, affirmative action, minimum wage laws, the drug war, and many others have had disastrous and monstrous negative consequences for the black community. Yet how responsible would it be if I stated that the main intention for progressive intellectuals was to destroy the black family and create dependency and desperation among the African American community just to pander for votes?! I wouldn't do this because, unless confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, I like to assume the best of intentions in my intellectual opponents. You clearly don't extend the same courtesy to libertarians despite the empirical data supporting the notion that libertarian reforms would benefit the black community.
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Jan 22, 2015 22:38
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jrodefeld posted:I wouldn't do this because, unless confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, I like to assume the best of intentions in my intellectual opponents. You clearly don't extend the same courtesy to libertarians despite the empirical data supporting the notion that libertarian reforms would benefit the black community. You can't even gather irrefutable evidence for your own viewpoints  Why should we have to refute the irrefutable faith of libertarianism?jrodefeld posted:You clearly don't extend the same courtesy to libertarians despite the empirical data supporting the notion that libertarian reforms would benefit the black community. Newsflash: NONE of the Libertarian scholars you cite believe in empirical data. At all. quote:Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience... They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. - Ludwig Von Mises
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Jan 22, 2015 22:41
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jrodefeld posted:I wouldn't do this because, unless confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, I like to assume the best of intentions in my intellectual opponents. You clearly don't extend the same courtesy to libertarians despite the empirical data supporting the notion that libertarian reforms would benefit the black community. Er, what empirical data?
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Jan 22, 2015 22:42
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Disinterested posted:He's just hanging on to the fact that when the word inflation was first used, it was used in a monetary context, even though the common use of the word even in economics has been for some time 'increase in prices', even if you, like Friedman, argue that price rises are a monetary phenomenon. It is important to be clear on definitions. How can we possibly have an argument if we are using words to mean different things? Inflation has been redefined by Keynesian economists as "rising prices" but this is deliberate and misleading. The general public doesn't like increased prices and a lower value to their money. Yet the intellectual class loves the ability to print money, monetize the debt and engage in central economic planning. Therefore it is in their interest for the public to not associate rising prices with monetary policy. They claim over and over that the Fed's mandate is to "control inflation". If they claimed to the public that the Fed's real aim was to "create more inflation" there would be significantly more public opposition to monetary expansion. Since a macro economy is complex, if you get people to focus only on rising prices, you can blame the phenomenon on a million different economic and social events, deflecting blame from those that control monetary policy. Another point is that, in areas of the economy that are relatively "free", competition can drive down prices even with massive monetary inflation and currency debasement. Prices rise differently in different sectors of the economy and the effect can be insidious but no less harmful to the people. Focusing on prices can be misleading. Furthermore you can have an economy where prices, under a genuine free market, would be falling but instead they stay stable. Does that mean their is no inflation? No, it means that monetary inflation has caused prices to be higher than they otherwise would be. I'll go back to the break down of the word itself. Inflation means expansion. Prices don't expand. Units of something expand or contract. You can have more units of currency in circulation or less. This is what we call inflation or deflation.
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Jan 22, 2015 22:53
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jrodefeld posted:Another point is that, in areas of the economy that are relatively "free", competition can drive down prices even with massive monetary inflation and currency debasement. Prices rise differently in different sectors of the economy and the effect can be insidious but no less harmful to the people. Focusing on prices can be misleading. Further proof that you don't comprehend why a 'Free Market' is not actually 'Free' and how competition is easily stifled in an open market in the age of International Conglomerates and Mullti-National cross border business transactions. jrodefeld posted:I'll go back to the break down of the word itself. Inflation means expansion. Prices don't expand. Units of something expand or contract. You can have more units of currency in circulation or less. This is what we call inflation or deflation. Could you be any more smug while being any more wrong? jrodefeld posted:Yet the intellectual class loves the ability to print money, monetize the debt and engage in central economic planning. So what class does that make Libertarians? Anti-intellectual? Pseudointellectual? (hint, its the latter) CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 22:56
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jrodefeld posted:It is important to be clear on definitions. How can we possibly have an argument if we are using words to mean different things? Inflation has been redefined by Keynesian economists as "rising prices" but this is deliberate and misleading. The general public doesn't like increased prices and a lower value to their money. Yet the intellectual class loves the ability to print money, monetize the debt and engage in central economic planning. Yes, yes it is important. So why do you consistently change the meaning of well understood economic terms in favor of what they meant in the early 1900's? Because that is what you are doing here, and it is really important for you to remember that you are the minority in this discussion. If you want to use the old definition of inflation then you can use it, but you need to make that clear from the get go, for the same reason that I would appreciate it if you clarified that your usage of fag had more to do with a bundle of sticks than the colloquial usage. Inflation as it is used to day, means rising prices. You are the only one in this thread who uses the old usage, so the onus is on you if you are going to use it that way. quote:Therefore it is in their interest for the public to not associate rising prices with monetary policy. They claim over and over that the Fed's mandate is to "control inflation". If they claimed to the public that the Fed's real aim was to "create more inflation" there would be significantly more public opposition to monetary expansion. Yes, that is one of the Fed's primary roles, and one they have done for nearly a century. The fact that you put it in scare quotes doesn't make it wrong, because the Fed's job is to control inflation, to keep it from going too high or too low because common economic wisdom among anyone who is taken seriously is that small amounts of inflation spur business demand. quote:Since a macro economy is complex, if you get people to focus only on rising prices, you can blame the phenomenon on a million different economic and social events, deflecting blame from those that control monetary policy. The Fed doesn't often 'blame' inflation on anything. Having 2% inflation is not a bad thing and inflation has largely not been a problem outside of the 1970's where the fed failed to control inflation. I know you have a bug up your rear end about modern monetary mechanics, but no one else sees the problems that you do here. Also, it is important to remember that the crisis in the 1970's wasn't solely a result of monetary policy, which it would have to be under your definition of inflation. quote:Another point is that, in areas of the economy that are relatively "free", competition can drive down prices even with massive monetary inflation and currency debasement. Prices rise differently in different sectors of the economy and the effect can be insidious but no less harmful to the people. Focusing on prices can be misleading. Focusing on monetary policy to the exclusion of the loving economy can be a hell of a lot more misleading. Economists have dozens of metrics used to determine inflation, and it is absurd to suggest that they can't account for differing amounts of inflation in differing sections of the economy as if that somehow proves that prices are misleading. Also areas of the economy that aren't at all relatively 'free' can also drive down prices. Have you noticed that oil prices have dropped like a stone? That isn't because of the free market, but as a direct result of monopolistic cartels attempting to smother competition in its crib by deflating oil prices to below profitable levels. quote:Furthermore you can have an economy where prices, under a genuine free market, would be falling but instead they stay stable. Does that mean their is no inflation? No, it means that monetary inflation has caused prices to be higher than they otherwise would be. This is a pointless statement and a moving of the goalposts. Prices aren't moving, but under my hypothetical and radically different economic system they might be falling, thus there is inflation despite the fact that prices are dropping. Well you know what, I think that prices would be eight billion times higher if the alien overlords from Omicron Persei 8 came to earth and destroyed most of our industry, but fortunately they have a special love for the federal reserve and can't be angry with it, so the existence of the federal reserve means we are actually in a huge period of deflationary pricing! Take that! It is ridiculous to assert that current economic conditions are better or worse than they are because some hypothetical economic system might make them better or worse than they are. We are either undergoing inflation or we are not, your fanfiction has no bearing on reality. quote:I'll go back to the break down of the word itself. Inflation means expansion. Prices don't expand. Units of something expand or contract. You can have more units of currency in circulation or less. This is what we call inflation or deflation. Cool. By that I clearly mean cold, because what other possible definition could I have for a word of germanic origin that means cold? In retrospect saying cool doesn't really mean anything at the front of this sentence does it? Meanings of words change. Inflation has meant increase in prices since the late 1930's. I'm sorry you have trouble keeping up with the times.
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Jan 22, 2015 23:10
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You really are a dumbass. It doesn't loving matter what you call an expansion of the money supply or a rising prices. The only important question is what the underlying relationship between prices and money is.jrodefeld posted:It is important to be clear on definitions. How can we possibly have an argument if we are using words to mean different things? Inflation has been redefined by Keynesian economists as "rising prices" but this is deliberate and misleading. No, it isn't. What is deliberate and misleading is you trying to redefine it again when the ship has already sailed. Don't be an rear end in a top hat, use words in their intended fashion. FYI, that is also not just a Keynesian phenomenon. Also, mentioning Keynes is not a form of instant form of discreditation. Even his firm opponents call him one of the most brilliant men in the history of economics. E.g.: quote:“In one sense, we are all Keynesians now; in another, nobody is any longer a Keynesian.” Even if you just read the Wikipedia page on the Austrian school: quote:Definition of Von Mises: 'Classical' doesn't come much more 'classical' than JS Mill, but noooooo, apparently we have to use an rear end-backwards definition of the word. The good thing about inflation meaning 'the increase of prices' is that it makes the word much more neutral - your definition makes highly loaded assumptions about economic policy. If the definition is simply 'high prices' then you can still argue about the cause of the high price - e.g. a monetary cause. quote:The general public doesn't like increased prices and a lower value to their money. Yet the intellectual class loves the ability to print money, monetize the debt and engage in central economic planning. That's only somewhat true. How much the public likes it is in relation to wages; the whole Austrian argument is that because of full employment policies that drove up wages after the war, and the unwillingness to reduce wages, the system compensated for these over-high wages by inflating the currency, thus trapping the economies. The people who hate inflation the most are the super-rich, because they don't want to lose the value of vast amounts of money they have hoarded. This is why a great many very wealthy people like bitcoin and the gold standard even though the gold standard was debunked as an economic theory a century + ago, and was finally murdered by 20th century monetary economics. The intellectual class of all non-moronic stripes loves to be able to print money in case of emergency. QE is a fundamentally Friedmanite concept; when people talk about 'helicopter money' they are using an image from Friedman's work. That is accepted monetarist Austrian economics. This aspect of Austrian economics is disputed by nobody in economics of note. quote:Therefore it is in their interest for the public to not associate rising prices with monetary policy. They claim over and over that the Fed's mandate is to "control inflation". If they claimed to the public that the Fed's real aim was to "create more inflation" there would be significantly more public opposition to monetary expansion. This is the dumbest bit of your argument. It is not the fed's job to create inflation, it's the fed's job to keep inflation low but not negative. Deflation is a bad thing, as is overly-high inflation. So the fed walks the tightrope. QE fortunately does not cause high inflation as practiced today because it's effectively a balance transfer in to a bank's accounts, and thus not all that much of the money goes in to circulation. It simply improves the gearing of the bank. Moreover, there is tremendous deflationary pressure on economies. And again, the use of the word inflation doesn't matter, since people can still believe inflation is a monetary problem if the definition of inflation is 'high prices' - this is exactly how discourse worked in the UK in the 1980's when an extremely firm anti-inflation policy was in place. quote:Since a macro economy is complex, if you get people to focus only on rising prices, you can blame the phenomenon on a million different economic and social events, deflecting blame from those that control monetary policy. Libertarians like to think of individuals as rational actors, but here we're treating them like children. quote:Another point is that, in areas of the economy that are relatively "free", competition can drive down prices even with massive monetary inflation and currency debasement. Prices rise differently in different sectors of the economy and the effect can be insidious but no less harmful to the people. Focusing on prices can be misleading. You're going to have to expand. But inflation figures are understood to be a very broad-based figure that needs to be broken down to be fully understood, which is why central banks and governments enact policies, for example, to try to control things like property price over-escalation resulting from the sudden supply of free credit, which hugely drives inflation. quote:Furthermore you can have an economy where prices, under a genuine free market, would be falling but instead they stay stable. Does that mean their is no inflation? No, it means that monetary inflation has caused prices to be higher than they otherwise would be. Prices are only relevant relative to wages. quote:I'll go back to the break down of the word itself. Inflation means expansion. Prices don't expand. Units of something expand or contract. You can have more units of currency in circulation or less. This is what we call inflation or deflation. What a bizarro linguistically literal argument. This doesn't prove anything, since meaning is dictated by common usage and understanding. This is me saying 'the two ideas melted into eachother' A second person: 'You mean the two ideas combine with eachother?' And you saying: 'Ideas can't melt! He must mean something else!'. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 23:22
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Who What Now posted:I don't understand how jrod and other libertarians can have this enormous blind spot in their philosophies where they never consider that once a Free (or Freed or whatever the term du jour is) Market is implemented that the biggest companies won't use violence to ensure their position at the top and maintain their monopoly. I understand why on a macro level the philosophy in general ignores this and none of the "great thinkers" talk about, because it completely falls apart once you consider it for more than two seconds, but I don't understand how individuals who are seemingly intelligent don't figure this out for themselves. I know that jrod doesn't think about it because he doesn't actually do any of his own thinking and just regurgitates whatever article he's read but surely there are smarter libertarians out there that also ignore this. Do they understand the problem and just ignore it? In the first place, many of the great thinkers of libertarianism have indeed spent a great deal of time answering such criticisms at length. What I don't understand is how left progressives think that the masses of the people can be educated enough to vote in a responsible way to ensure wise State policy to effectively police private economic power but these same people can't effectively use boycotts, lawsuits, free competition and the like to punish bad economic actors in a free market. Because once you put together a monopoly on force called the State, once it becomes colonized and controlled by private economic power, then the people really don't have much recourse. Unless you think the poor can somehow have the lobbying influence of Goldman Sachs. In a market economy, entrepreneurs and businesses seek profits by anticipating and satisfying consumer demands. For a private business to try and use violence to create a monopoly, they risk being destroyed literally by a private security firm or by individuals who use defensive force. States are able to wage war for two primary reasons. The first is that those who take us to war don't have to finance the war themselves, they outsource it to the taxpayers. It is soldiers who come from middle class or poor families who are killed not the sons and daughters of politicians. Secondly, States have the ability to print money to monetize war debts. Waging open war is incredibly risky for a private company and one that, even if they were to "win" and destroy a competitor, the benefit would be unlikely to outweigh the cost. David Friedman is someone who has written extensively about private provision of security services and why "tribal warfare" is extremely unlikely. Surely private businesses would still like to cartelize and form monopolies if they were able to. But we have a lot of history to show that such efforts to corner the market and then raise prices (predatory pricing), backdoor deals between businessmen and schemes such as this have failed repeatedly in a market economy. They are only sustainable through legislation and State privilege. It's cute how you claim I "don't do any of my own thinking" and just regurgitate articles I've read. On the contrary, most libertarians actually do a great deal of their own thinking. In our society, we are not exactly inundated with libertarian propaganda in schools or in society as a whole. Anyone who comes to believe in a heterodox school of thought usually has come to those beliefs through a great deal of deep thinking. If I was a Sean Hannity conservative or a Rachel Maddow progressive, then you could fairly assume that I never did much thinking on my own. But most serious libertarians, especially well read ones, are those who have done a great deal of thinking on their own.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:03
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Cemetry Gator posted:They've considered that violence will be used by corporations, but then they honestly believe that in a free market society, using violence would not be a profitable thing to do. See, people would find out about all the terrible things this corporation has done, and refuse to deal with them any more, and they'll go out of business. Yes there are economic disincentives for businesses to use initiatory violence but the argument is far more comprehensive and nuanced than that. It is not the we think that people won't use violence in a libertarian society. For every given population there are a percentage of sociopaths and immoral people who will use violence to get what they want. The law should prohibit such actions and the courts, police/security forces should provide punishment and restitution for proven rights-violators. All the libertarian wants is for the law, and society as a whole, to consider all sources of initiatory violence to be immoral rights violations. What this means is that politicians, bureaucrats, the police, the military, corporations and all manner of people with badges, fancy suits and official titles must be held to the same moral and legal standard as everyone else. Why is this simple concept so difficult for you to understand? As it is now, the law in a libertarian society will prohibit violent acts of aggression between private citizens but, unlike now, the law will not be permitted to excuse initiatory violence when it is perpetrated by the State or any privileged class of citizens.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:12
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CommieGIR posted:They think that, somehow in some mysterious fashion, that 'violence' against a person or property would allow said person/property to use a LEGAL means to get 'justice' Again, I don't understand why this is confusing to you. I've never said I don't want "regulation and oversight". I simply oppose initiatory aggression. If you make the choice to use violence against someone else, then you give up your right to be free of coercion. The concept of justice means that a rights violator must provide restitution to his victim and "make them whole" as best as is possible.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:16
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Unless it's not obvious to everyone yet, this is why you don't try to conceive of ethics and politics in purely proprietary terms. Look what you get!
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Jan 23, 2015 00:20
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jrodefeld posted:Again, I don't understand why this is confusing to you. I've never said I don't want "regulation and oversight". I simply oppose initiatory aggression. If you make the choice to use violence against someone else, then you give up your right to be free of coercion. The concept of justice means that a rights violator must provide restitution to his victim and "make them whole" as best as is possible.  I don't understand how this is confusing you: In a Libertarian society the Golden Rule would decide that, not some laws: Those who have the gold make the rules.Your concept of justice is wholly dependant upon some sort of grand oversight, a state if you will.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:20
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If words mean a different thing to you than everyone else it is not their problem but your own personal failing. The purpose of communicating is to convey ideas to other human beings without any significant doubt to their intent or purpose. If your entire point of posting now is to argue that the denizens of this forum are incapable of understanding your philosophy of magical thinking because of our inappropriate use of words, you are the problem. Failure to communicate is yours because quite obviously we understand your ideas you just can't fathom they're categorically wrong with correct interpretation.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:21
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Yep. Libertarians both love and hate contractarianism, since contracts are all they care about, but any contractarian account of the state necessitates coercion.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:22
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:Yeah I agree, and the emerging trend in libertarian and similar far right thought has been to quietly (or loudly in the case of H.H. Hoppe) dismiss and/or reject democracy, although arguably the seeds of this sentiment were always present in the philosophy. Hayek's position on Pinochet, for example, highlights the internal hostility to democracy that is core to the philosophy and becoming more explicit. It is not just libertarians who have articulated the flaws in democracy. Why would you assume that a majority opinion matters in regards to the morality or wisdom of public policy? Instead of defending a majority opinion, why don't you logically and intellectually determine what rights you think the citizens of a society have and what role, if any, there is for the State and for law? If your arguments have merit and can stand up to scrutiny, then why not endeavour to limit the State to those functions that you feel are legitimate while protecting the rights of the people? Democracy is not a stable system where rights are protected. Societies can be democratically transformed into a totalitarian hell. We must not forget that Hitler and the Nazis came to power democratically. Perhaps you could articulate why democracy is a good system to promote and why a majority opinion should have any bearing on the correctness or legitimacy of State action?
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Jan 23, 2015 00:33
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I love how Jrod's governmental system is wholly dependant upon the honesty and integrity of some of the most dishonest and least trustworthy people: The wealthy.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:39
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By what method is the state going to permit it's own limitation except Democratic consent or violent overthrow? And any force that can violently overthrow the state cam supplant it immediately. The state's limits cannot be set by socratic argument.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:41
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jrodefeld posted:In the first place, many of the great thinkers of libertarianism have indeed spent a great deal of time answering such criticisms at length. What I don't understand is how left progressives think that the masses of the people can be educated enough to vote in a responsible way to ensure wise State policy to effectively police private economic power but these same people can't effectively use boycotts, lawsuits, free competition and the like to punish bad economic actors in a free market. Because once you put together a monopoly on force called the State, once it becomes colonized and controlled by private economic power, then the people really don't have much recourse. Unless you think the poor can somehow have the lobbying influence of Goldman Sachs. We're back to the insane and completely unbacked assertion that war can't be waged for profit, at least without a state. Have you ever even heard of the Viking Age? There's a reason we make fun of you with Valhalla DRO. jrodefeld posted:It's cute how you claim I "don't do any of my own thinking" and just regurgitate articles I've read. On the contrary, most libertarians actually do a great deal of their own thinking. In our society, we are not exactly inundated with libertarian propaganda in schools or in society as a whole. Anyone who comes to believe in a heterodox school of thought usually has come to those beliefs through a great deal of deep thinking. If I was a Sean Hannity conservative or a Rachel Maddow progressive, then you could fairly assume that I never did much thinking on my own. But most serious libertarians, especially well read ones, are those who have done a great deal of thinking on their own. We aren't really inundated with Scientologist propaganda either, so would you say Scientologists arrived at their conclusions through a great deal of deep thinking? Setting aside the absurdity of that logic, the reason we accuse you of not doing your own thinking is the way you post. You constantly come into the thread with some new article or other, regurgitate its contents, and then vanish without even trying to defend it when we start attacking it. Then you do the same thing a few weeks later. You've even been caught blatantly plagiarizing other Libertarians' arguments and claiming them as your own, which is sort of the epitome of not doing your own thinking. [edit: and you repeatedly remake arguments that we've criticized before without ever addressing the criticism.] So if you want us to shut up about that, defend your arguments. And I mean actually defend them, not just make more bald assertions. Use logic and reasoning. Use actual sources that you didn't copy-paste from mises.org. Actually loving answer the dozens upon dozens of posts about inelastic demand or single payer healthcare. Respond to the critiques of the Action Axiom beyond handwaving about how it's too complex for us mere statists. Do something, anything, that shows us you are actually able to think about what the rest of us say in here. Goon Danton fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 00:43
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What's the libertarian stance on confections shaped like tits?
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Jan 23, 2015 00:46
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jrodefeld posted:It is not just libertarians who have articulated the flaws in democracy. Why would you assume that a majority opinion matters in regards to the morality or wisdom of public policy? Instead of defending a majority opinion, why don't you logically and intellectually determine what rights you think the citizens of a society have and what role, if any, there is for the State and for law? If your arguments have merit and can stand up to scrutiny, then why not endeavour to limit the State to those functions that you feel are legitimate while protecting the rights of the people? Hmmmm that's a compelling argument. On the other hand, a document that enumerates certain underlying principles - which constitute the protections against the risks democracy poses - seems like a better solution than a wholesale abandonment of the state. A Constitution, if you will.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:49
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