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Edit: A good post on fighting back against Koch influence FSU. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3598750&userid=83359 Since there was interest. The “Science of Liberty” Let’s start with the root of the ideology, from the horses mouth. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=....55819444,d.b2I http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/market_based_man Market Based Man (On Charles Koch) posted:As an MIT-trained engineer, he understood the physical world to operate according to fixed, natural laws. In the course of his reading, he gradually came to discover a set of similar laws governing societal wellbeing. Those laws, he proposed, could best be understood through what he calls the “science of liberty,” which applies the science of human action to social organization. Charles Koch: posted:“The Science of Liberty—the study and practice of sustainably advancing liberty to create prosperity and social progress—involves much more than studying why free societies are wealthy and un-free societies are poor. It involves understanding and creating social change. So what’s going on here. Charles Koch believes the natural world follows a set of (knowable) universal laws. He states that this comes from his engineering background at MIT. He then goes on to assert that human societies (making this a theory of history) also follow a set of universal laws. To Mr. Koch the laws that govern human society are markets and liberty. And they (markets and liberty) are one in the same. From this root Mr. Koch espouses several systematized ideas (built on the thought of the Austrian economists) among them MPA (market process analysis) and MBM (market based management), with the explicit end goal of universalizing these them to all of society. The end goal, to make all society more free and more wealthy. So what is this? Mr Koch is asserting that liberty/markets are the laws that underlie history and that we can know about them by being methodical in our examination (what is meant by his use of science). And that individuals can have/ or create a systematized description of those laws. More simply put the root of all this is an assertion that markets/liberty/freedom to are the Truth. And further that they have a saving character for society. This is all from the idea of: Praxeology: praxis-logos (in a literal sense action - word/reason/truth then combined with the study of history.) That's the foundation for the Austrian school. Mises, Rothbard, Hayak all use this idea. And Mr. Koch explicitly identifies these as his sources. Anyway Mises explicitly outlines the things I said were implied in the other thread (with jrodenfeld), that are a consequence of the nature of this root. It has these characteristics: That the empirical conversation is a secondary conversation. That it's a matter of soul and will. And he uses the phrase "ultimate end". Freedom being the implied ultimate end (to me this is to assert that freedom is God). That the idea is hypostatized, he argues that this ideology is might in the world. And Mises ends the book where he describes praxeology out right stating: Ludwig von Mises posted:But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race. That looks to me like: The wages of abandoning Austrian economics, the action-truth (praxis-logos) are death and the end. So some applicable labels to describe this: religious, dualistic, apocalyptic, logocentric (again not Christian logocentric) A Gospel of Liberty. So what does that mean for how this ideology behaves, how it argues with other ideologies, and how can it be fought? In that it’s a logocentric (not in the Christian sense, in the sense that it deals with Truth and a generative natural law ) construction it’s probably going make arguments like other logocentric ideologies. It’s going to do universalizing apologia. To develop answer from the root to questions like these: Charles Koch, Koch Industries, Market Process Analysis, and the Science of Liberty posted:We are particularly weak in understanding, implementing, and sustaining It’s going to attempt to use it’s root assumption to explain how society works, while also attempting to force it’s root assumption on society. When it argues with other ideologies it’s not always going to make arguments that are empirical. It’s often going to make arguments that precede empirical talk, radical arguments. It argues from revelation but not external revelation, revelation from self reason (not reason in the sense of an exclusive rationality, but reason that includes will and soul). This is why Mr. Koch would fund programs in many universities,( and he has explicitly stated so) for the purpose of developing answers and explanations of reality consistent with markets and freedom. So make no mistake empirical arguments and academic research that come out of this, always have a conclusion first. This type of research examines data and supports a thesis already predetermined by the ideology. Much austerity research is of this type. Through the medium, Under the norm So what are the norms and language of this ideology? Business, particularly heavy industry, and systems engineering. Primarily Mr. Koch’s line of thought is a theory of management (specifically so with MBM). He's written a couple of books on this (http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Science_of_Success.html?id=5sHXL8HBtUkC) It is a way to run a business, informed by the methods of systems engineering. In that context it is undeniably success (KII has grown to be the largest private owned company on the planet). This is it’s medium. This is it’s language. It is communicated in flowcharts and decision matrices governed by equations and statistics (eg. of a matrix, there might be individual, firm and society on one axis, things like Decision Rights, Knowledge Processes, Incentives, etc along the other. The whole thing filled in with things like property rights, self fulfillment, creative destruction etc.) So to know what's being said that's the language one has to understand, which also implies it's audience (the business community.) Soteriology Charles Koch: posted:“"It is meant to be internalized, to become a new mental model, a new way of looking at the world. That process of internalization requires a focused and prolonged effort. It requires, writes Koch, “the most difficult and painful of all changes: A change in the way we think.”"” What Mr. Koch is proposing here is he wants you to think in the manner that he thinks. This does not mean that he wants you to have and identical belief set, the same beliefs he has. What it means is that he wants the meta way you think about the world to be like the meta way he thinks about the world. He wants you to have a new perception of reality, which is to say a new reality. One might call that new life. The implied promise is salvation, and not just for individuals but for the world. What that means is that this ideology differs from the sister ideology of objectivism in fundamental way. Objectivism basically reduces to "gently caress you, get mine" (or I am free to). The character of this is different it's more like: I have been to the mountain top of "gently caress you" and if you join me we'll all get ours, (or if we are all more free to the world will be better.) Ok so why does all of this matter. Charles Koch funds an assload of things. Importantly Heritage and large chunks of the tea party. When one starts running down the list it gets ugly and worrying: Scott Walker (and thus an indirect connection to R. Preibus) the Tea Party, Americans for Prosperity. A comprehensive wiki list is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers But many of the arguments made by the GOP reflect this ideology. A specific example. Take the criticism of the Affordable care act. Republican rhetoric is along the line of “it’s a lead airplane”. They generally don’t make empirical data based arguments. The gist of what they are stating is: This isn’t from the Truth (idealized freedom), therefore it will fail. They’ll go on to say things like, we don’t have to argue for why it needs to be repealed because eventually the American people will be against it (implied eventual conversion, that "A change in the way we think" ) Watch the GOP talking points on the Sunday shows in terms of how I’ve described the characteristics of how Mr. Koch thinks. While I'm starting the thread about Mr. Koch, any analysis of the related ways of thinking (ideologies present in the GOP or Tea Party) I think would be on topic to the thread. Other topics directly relevant: How to go after it from other perspectives. And how it goes after other ideologies. Edit: Collection of things linked to in the thread: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=....55819444,d.b2I Letter by C. Kock http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/market_based_man Market Based Man article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers Wiki of Koch funded politics http://www.learnliberty.org/ Koch funded "liberty education website" http://www.thenation.com/article/17...-hayek?page=0,0 Corey Robin on the Austrians and Nietzche http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...065e_story.html On Koch money raising http://www.jbs.org/fred-koch John Birch Society on the father Fred Koch http://www.freetheworld.com/ Frasier institute freedom metrics http://www.kosmosonline.org/onlinep...m_campaign=OCDS advancing Science of Liberty academic programs http://www.motherjones.com/politics...s-seminar-tapes biannual Koch fundraising event insights http://www.motherjones.com/politics...rothers-seminar more biannual Koch fundraising event insights http://images2.americanprogressacti...kochmeeting.pdf leaked agenda of fundraising meetings http://www.kochfacts.com/kf/ Koch Facts website http://www.kochind.com/Newsroom/discovery.aspx Discover newsletters KII newsletter http://www.kochind.com/Newsroom/EconomicFreedom.aspx Economic Freedom reading list, the canon http://www.kochind.com/files/AJB02-...tyQuestions.pdf twenty questions with C. Koch http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/us/05koch.html?_r=0 NYT interview with D. Koch http://www.thenation.com/article/16...social-security C. Koch trying to get Hayek to come to IHS and also get SS and medicare http://www.kochfamilyfoundations.org/locations.html Map of universities they donate to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/u...tance.html?_r=0 NYT on Rand Paul and Mises and Libertarians in general https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3gwyHNo7MI Documentary on Soviet Union and scientific management http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/11/1268990/-Freedom-Industries-Has-Ties-to-Koch-Brothers Freedom Industries ties to Kochs http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3L8QaxqEGUiBC252GHy3w Stefan Molyneux youtube page http://www.lewrockwell.com/2005/11/stefan-molyneux/caging-the-devils-the-stateless-society-and-violentcrime/ stateless societies and violent crime http://mises.org/daily/2568/ Mises on Children pretty horrific read http://www.theyrule.net/ About interlocking directorates, and the small number of people on them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pujo_committee More interlocking directorate http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/billionaires-flee-havens-as-trillions-pursued-offshore.html Rich fleeing tax shelters as money is gone after http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/wealthy-stashing-offshore_n_3179139.html inequality and off-shoring wealth http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/02/china-saving-marriage-markets-economy-trade.html Chinese savings and marriage http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/ more interlocking directorates stuff http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power_elite/ more interlocking directorates stuff http://thekronies.com/ cartoon libertarian awareness campaign http://www.linkedin.com/company/chimera-global-holdings back-story for "Kronies" http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/09/telco-to-town-were-suing-you-because-we-care/ Telco suing small town for about public high speed internet http://muninetworks.org/tags-103 Blog on municipal high speed networks http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/the-koch-party.html?_r=0 NYT editorial on Koch money in politics http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/billionaires-role-in-hiring-decisions-at-florida-state-university-raises/1168680 Koch money and FSU http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/wolfish-radicals-in-conse_b_4868203.html Radicals in Sheep's clothing http://www.adamsmith.org/ https://www.propublica.org/article/...tent=1395097124 - on the Koch political network and funding how it's controlled through small obscure llcs [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtoAvSlWxNE[/url] - Johnathen Meades on Stalinism, folksy atheism and reaction http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-contributions.html?hp&_r=1 - Supreme court decision on campaign finance NYT possible pay-wall http://online.wsj.com/news/articles...0515021286.html - Wall street Journal Editorial by Mr. Koch http://www.c-span.org/video/?c44946...s-koch-brothers - above editorial being read aloud in the Senate Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2013 20:05
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BrandorKP posted:...natural laws... Rothbard... It utterly blows my mind that people actually still list Rothbard as an influence on their worldview. The dude literally thought that women voting (which came about thanks to Jews and lesbians according to him) and black people having rights went against ~*~natural laws~*~ and that selling children into slavery was a-ok because "property rights". If this were just run-of-the-mill GOP-esque conservatism (which isn't to say it's not a growing influence there), they'd be tripping over themselves to try and paint him as a super double secret false flag stealth liberal for espousing such monstrous views since "everyone knows no true conservative blah blah blah". I guess it really says something about whatever the gently caress label you want to give Koch et al's ideology that people like that are still embraced.
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Jan 1, 2014 20:53
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The Austrian school is kind of scary in just how much of a cargo-cult science it is. It abuses the rhetoric of science and engineering, but the rigour is absent. This is what you get when an engineers ignores the philosophy of science completely, you get someone who uses the intellectual authority of the sciences in society to justify their arrogance.
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Jan 1, 2014 23:35
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rudatron posted:The Austrian school is kind of scary in just how much of a cargo-cult science it is. It abuses the rhetoric of science and engineering, but the rigour is absent. This is what you get when an engineers ignores the philosophy of science completely, you get someone who uses the intellectual authority of the sciences in society to justify their arrogance. Except for the part that the Austrian rhetoric is anti scientific, it rejects empiricism and relies on non-mathematical logic.
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Jan 1, 2014 23:55
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Occupy Japan posted:It utterly blows my mind that people actually still list Rothbard as an influence on their worldview. The dude literally thought that women voting (which came about thanks to Jews and lesbians according to him) and black people having rights went against ~*~natural laws~*~ and that selling children into slavery was a-ok because "property rights". If this were just run-of-the-mill GOP-esque conservatism (which isn't to say it's not a growing influence there), they'd be tripping over themselves to try and paint him as a super double secret false flag stealth liberal for espousing such monstrous views since "everyone knows no true conservative blah blah blah". Not to entirely play devil's advocate, but Murray Rothbard's views were not exactly atypical for the time he was around. You can certainly argue that he was a racist shithead, but so were a very, very large number of people back then. Hell John Maynard Keynes can be quoted as saying: quote:They have in them deep-rooted instincts that are antagonistic and therefore repulsive to the European, and their presence among us is a living example of the insurmountable difficulties that exist in merging race characteristics, in making cats love dogs … Admittedly he lived to 1995, unlike Keynes who died in 1946 and thus should have mellowed slightly over the years, but a lot of lovely viewpoints like that were pretty common at the time and shouldn't really discredit his theories. His theories can do that by themselves. Likewise Rothbard never suggested selling children into slavery. He said that you should be able to sell children, like adoption but for money. It was his way to work around the problem that Murray Rothbard doesn't believe you should have a legal obligation to FEED children, which is arguably the more pertinent and disgusting point made in his work.
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Jan 2, 2014 04:58
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Charles Koch posted:1. Why do free societies adapt policies that erode their freedom I'm impressed he's even asking these questions. As for #1, I guess that depends on whatever warped definition of freedom he uses. If by "erode their freedom and prosperity" he means the creation of regulations and welfare programs then the answer seems to be pretty obvious to me, but I'd like to know how self-aware he is. And for #2 it's plain that unrestrained market forces will create a majority of people antagonistic to unrestrained market forces, but Koch seems to think there's more agency involved among some sort of subversive or self-destructive "job creators" instead of popular movements.
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Jan 2, 2014 05:24
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Soviet Space Dog posted:Except for the part that the Austrian rhetoric is anti scientific, it rejects empiricism and relies on non-mathematical logic. That's one of the biggest problems with economics in general. It's been tied into politics at an impossible level so you get conversations like...  Hey, if we reduce taxes on the rich they'll use the money to create jobs and everybody will benefit! How do you know? Well it's a thing I thought up because logically the rich will invest the money and create businesses which will hire people to do things! But what if they horde the money? Trust me, they just won't but we need to test this theory to see if it works. Lower taxes on the rich right now or you obviously hate poor people and kittens. Uhhh....ok, done! Oh wow, the rich just horded the money, jobs were actually lost, and the poor got pretty heavily dicked over by the fact that the government couldn't afford services. The loss of tax revenue also meant the government had to eliminate the government jobs. You know, I think your theory is bullshit. No, we just didn't cut taxes enough. Cut them more! Eliminate all taxes and we'll enter a utopia!
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Jan 2, 2014 05:34
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ToxicSlurpee posted:That's one of the biggest problems with economics in general. It's been tied into politics at an impossible level so you get conversations like... Not quite. The problem with economics in general is that its tied into politics. The Koch brothers fund a study that aims to say 'reduce taxes on the rich' and they get a study that says that even if the science behind the study is bullshit. Mises had this to say about praexology: quote:Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. 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. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts That is a straight up rejection of science. Praxeology cannot fail, it can only be failed.
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Jan 2, 2014 05:50
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While I'm on the subject of bullshit science, I'll link this as well:quote:A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university. The TL;DR of all of that is that Charles Koch paid 1.5 million dollars as an endowment to Florida State University. Rather than the usual 'name on a building' style thank you, Florida State agreed to allow Koch to screen and effectively choose who gets hired in the economics department at Florida state. And yes the 'state' there does mean that this is FSU, the public university of Florida. This allows them to publish 'legitimate' studies from Florida state that coincidentally support their beliefs that lower taxes and FREEDOM is better overall.
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Jan 2, 2014 05:56
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Caros posted:While I'm on the subject of bullshit science, I'll link this as well: Holy poo poo. As an FSU alum, I can't possibly say how disgusting this is.
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Jan 2, 2014 14:24
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Soviet Space Dog posted:Except for the part that the Austrian rhetoric is anti scientific, it rejects empiricism and relies on non-mathematical logic. It's and it isn't. It's not empirical and materialistic. It is methodical and seeking knowledge. Charles Koch would say he was pro-science, very, very pro-science. And it's something he funds. Ever watch NOVA, listen to the donors at the end. He's a massive backer of public science television and public radio. Many of us listen to science programing he funds. Think of it this way. Science can be thought of as the scientific method strictly, based on data and testing. This way of thinking about it produces models that fit data that are revised with new data. It can't make grand Truth claims. We call this science, more accurately I think it's empiricism. Or Science can be thought of as any methodical knowledge that can be explained, applied, and communicated. Sometimes the term natural philosophy is used. There might be a science of cooking, or farming or whatever. C. Koch was educated as a systems engineer. I think that education sort of primes one for that second definition (My undergrad was a system engineering degree). Caros posted:That is a straight up rejection of science. Praxeology cannot fail, it can only be failed. It's claiming to be a science of that second type. Praxeology, is a "science of human action" in that second sense of science (which is actually the original sense of the word). Mr. Koch has turned it into a science of success and freedom. The real problem is he has been very successful in, explanation, application, and communication. Explanation is the "science of freed research topics" stuff funded at universities and think tanks. Application is the very real sucess of KII and all the related business. Communication, well look at GOP or Tea Party messaging. It's a tight goddamn ship they communicate pretty effectively. He has been rigorous. And that's the problem, it's why it's so nasty and dangerous to society. “Charles,” says Richard Fink, who has worked with him for more than three decades, “is the most consistent person I have ever met". The hangers on (think the flash in the pan GOP politicians of the month), they for the most part aren't rigorous. Mr. Koch is. Sega Saturn posted:Holy poo poo. As an FSU alum, I can't possibly say how disgusting this is. It's more wide spread than FSU. It's everywhere frankly. In conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce at business schools stuff it's terrifying frankly. And FREEDOM got mentioned. That's the real issue for me. How does one effectively attack FREEDOM (the absolute ideal freedom, or perfect freedom, or freedom as an idol) when one doesn't want to give up the non-distorted, non-idealized, non-idealized idea of personal freedom? Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 16:08
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BrandorKP posted:Science can be thought of as the scientific method strictly, based on data and testing. This way of thinking about it produces models that fit data that are revised with new data. It can't make grand Truth claims. We call this science, more accurately I think it's empiricism. The problem with discussing Mr. Koch's 'second form' of science is that it has by and large been rejected completely over the last several centuries. Its like alternative medicine which by definition has either been proven not to work, or has not been proven to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work? They call it medicine. Praxeology draws from the ideology the permeated the world in the time before hard science. The idea back then, that of natural philosophy, was that you could logically describe the workings on the universe, and in doing so come up with absolute truths that would explain how things worked. It is these 'absolute truths' that are the core problem of Praxelogy. Mises came up with these truths through logic that simply must be true, and because of that they cannot be falsifiable. Even if you produce evidence showing that Mises was wrong about labor, or about rational actors or any number of other things that doesn't disprove its point. Your science is simply wrong. With that in mind I find it hard to take an even handed response to things like the statement that Mr.Koch is somehow pro-science. Off of the top of my head he funds some of the biggest climate change deniers in the world, he funds Austrian think tanks which reject real world evidence in favor of logic based circle jerks. That he does some things right by occasionally funding meaningful programs doesn't mean much to me. Even Hitler painted roses. Its also worth mentioning that it was actually David Koch who funds NOVA. quote:It's more wide spread than FSU. It's everywhere frankly. In conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce at business schools stuff it's terrifying frankly. I actually think Sam Seder, for all his faults in debating libertarians is actually really on the money whenever this comes up. Anytime a libertarian starts talking about LIBERTY or FREEDOM, he simply asks "What is that?" Libertarians love to cloak themselves in certain words, liberty, freedom and so forth, and in those cases the best solution is often to take the bull by the horns and engage them. Why is absolute personal FREEDOM some massive ideal? We already accept that there should be limits to personal freedom, after all you aren't permitted to steal, to murder, to rape. So acknowledging that there are some things one isn't allowed to do we've accepted that there are some limits to Freedom, so why not others? Society is based in many ways around the balancing act of personal freedom vs societal good. Past that it really depends on the libertarian. The more 'sophisticated', and I use that word lightly, libertarians will go on about the Non Agression Principal, which is an entirely different argument. The simpler ones will just go on about how more freedom is good, at which point you can slam them with examples where 'freedom' is not good. Social Security is wonderful for this. When Libertarians argue that it should be privatized, that people should be able to keep their tax dollars you have what is effectively a knock out argument by pointing out that pre-social security, back when people kept the money that would go to it, 2/3 of US elderly lived in poverty a number which now hovers at roughly fifteen percent or less. But I'm rambling.
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Jan 2, 2014 17:39
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BrandorKP posted:And FREEDOM got mentioned. That's the real issue for me. They're defending the God-given freedom of screwing over people poorer than you. The freedom to exploit, defame, and defraud must be defended at all costs.
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Jan 2, 2014 18:20
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What ought to be explored is how they use intuitions about access to reasons in a foundationalist way in this type of ideology. The reason I would claim is because it seeps into multiple spots outside of that ideology and structures how people represent relations across the board. We can observe this in things like the loss of the commons and the language of certain pop economic views seeping into various other relations like sex and science. Koch and others et al. openly deny certain causal processes as having any value. Examples are how they treat certain studies of poverty or disease. The causal effects captured in such studies lack a certain actuality for them because they fail lack intuitive traction. Certain historical causal relations become problematic. Instead, there is a a causal connection that they have intuitive access to and acts as a epistemic foundation to their other claims. Hence, why they extrapolate from a certain position the position of all others. They often take the position that their is a sense of intuitive progress as a upshot of having access to reasons that everyone has access to. It also plays a role in how they understand history as almost normative in function. History becomes a thing that yields a historical reasons that are applicable in total. It is not normative at the micro or macro but only in its larger unfolding at all levels. People over time suffer for bad things or for some failure in reasoning and that runs counter to some sense of intuitive progress that they can naturalize in some cases.
Ogodei_Khan fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 01:20
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Norbert Weiner, The Human Use of Human Beings (first published in 1950) posted:The beginning of the twentieth century marked more than the end of one hundred-year period and the start of another. This was perhaps first apparent in science ... Norbert Weiner was a founder of Cybernetics, the intellectual movement that applied feedback and other engineering concepts in a wider context. He worked at MIT in the 1950s, around when Koch was educated in engineering. Notice how anti-Austrian it is? Engineering applied to societies doesn't lend itself to the liberal worship of liberty and the dualism of non-mathematical "natural laws" derived from intuition. Cybernetics had an influence on many sciences, though it was an influence towards structuralism not individualism. The Soviet Union justified itself through engineering far more than the Austrian style "classical" liberals did. Institutional Keynesianism merged economists and engineers, being large on statistics and short on grand theory. So why does Koch claim to have developed his Science of Freedom both from engineering and Austrian political economy? Philanthropy Round Table's Market-Based Man posted:That process was developed through his study of the writings of Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term “creative destruction.” It was refined at Koch Industries, which developed the discipline to sell operations when they believed the opportunity cost was greater than the value created. (“Working on profitable activity is wasteful,” he has written, “when there is another, even more profitable activity that can be performed instead.”) Koch can name dozens of businesses from which the company has exited, in fields such as animal feed production, natural gas liquids processing, and transportation. One notable example is Koch Industries’ crude oil gathering business, which grew from modest beginnings to the largest system in North America. It was sold in 1998. AKA, the business 101 concepts of "opportunity cost" and "buy low sell high" are in fact deep insights derived from study of the Great Economic Thinkers. He's an intellectual narcissist. He's also an autodidact and a successful businessman. His "ideology" is personal and developed without any real criticism or synthesis,. It's a businessman's, buzzwordy and all embracing. Market-Based Management® is standard "good business" advice you can get from a whole range of sources dressed up in grand theory. It isn't Koch's ideology (which politically is bog standard "right wing nut job"ism, which sadly seems to infect a large number of Americans), it's his business ability that is dangerous. One thing Koch is good at is creating self supporting units that do their job, sadly for us all.
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Jan 3, 2014 02:02
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Soviet Space Dog posted:Norbert Weiner was a founder of Cybernetics, the intellectual movement that applied feedback and other engineering concepts in a wider context. He worked at MIT in the 1950s, around when Koch was educated in engineering. Notice how anti-Austrian it is? Engineering applied to societies doesn't lend itself to the liberal worship of liberty and the dualism of non-mathematical "natural laws" derived from intuition. Cybernetics had an influence on many sciences, though it was an influence towards structuralism not individualism. The Soviet Union justified itself through engineering far more than the Austrian style "classical" liberals did. Institutional Keynesianism merged economists and engineers, being large on statistics and short on grand theory. So why does Koch claim to have developed his Science of Freedom both from engineering and Austrian political economy? It would be difficult to investigate what each field in engineering and their applied uses have in being natural laws. We don't really need to investigate that. A historical look might be useful but even that is not really necessary. The difficulty of doing either is not just because they are not monolithic but because many fields do not actively deal with a lot of their past histories. Things like Cybernetics for instance were influenced by the idea of early enactivist feedback loops but more importantly they claimed to have epistemic access to that feedback loop through certain assumptions about language. An early debate they had just as the Vienna circle and Dutch linguists like Louis Hjemslev and the Copenhagen school of linguistics had. The enactivist did react as the Austrians did when they would make claims about the intentionality of communication being either nonexistent or meaningless. They filled in intentiononality with something they consider familiar to multiple agents.They then extrapolatde certain possible meanings of intentional actions. These possible meanings were held coextensive with the function or with the object of denotation. This lead to problems once strong enactivism and stronger reductionist began to make inroads on the field. Every field at a certain point or another has had groups like this. It is true that a large amount of Koch's success as an ideology was due to economic reasons. The reason why, and understanding its intellectual nuances once it leaves its individual form and becomes adapted to others is important. An example would be the selling of it in Singapore or in other places. An example of an analogical relation would be how objectivism become adapted to multiple fields due to the business community favoring it. Rand, the company/think tank, is an example of that. It may even be more of a social expression of a certain position than an actual system. Edited: Edited for Grammar and Clarity Ogodei_Khan fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 02:19
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Ogodei_Khan posted:It would be difficult to investigate what each field in engineering and their applied uses have in being natural laws. We don't really need to investigate that. A historical look might be useful but even that is not really necessary. Necessary or not, the connection is heavy industry. Petroleum, Marine, and Mechanical. Engineering that has large complicated systems that correspond directly to a physical reality, steel making, power generation, marine transportation, etc. Koch is an MIT petroleum guy. One uses and produces systems in those disciplines. My suspicion is that the way he would think about a single idea like "creative destruction" is analogous to how he might think about the role of a condenser in a steam cycle. I think it's also the way he thinks about employees in his businesses. Each is like a piece of machinery in the overall system. I don't think why he's good as a business man can be separated from the way he thinks as a consequence. The systematizing that makes him good at making money is the same as the systematizing of his ideology. You mentioned intuitions in general. Specifically I think the intuition leading to it's foundation is this: I want to be free, or I am free. That's one hell of thing combined with this: "History becomes a thing that yields a historical reasons that are applicable in total." It's like Marxism or Christianity in that it's an encompassing theory of history. ToxicSlurpee posted:The freedom to exploit, defame, and defraud must be defended at all costs. They aren't (well the objectivists are, but they're a different beast) really defending the harmful effects on others though. What they are really defending is "I want to be free and that is what saves me and that is goal of all history", that basic intuition. Going after that is an apocalyptic endeavor, when you go after the FREEDOM being appealed to you're going after all history in total and their personal salvation. Caros posted:Praxeology draws from the ideology the permeated the world in the time before hard science. The idea back then, that of natural philosophy, was that you could logically describe the workings on the universe, and in doing so come up with absolute truths that would explain how things worked. There are some wordings I don't have a non-religious equivalent of: "the demonry of the pure doctrine", or "the tyranny of the absolute position". I guess I look at it this way. Logo-centric Christianity does a similar thing. It sets Jesus equal to the Truth and the Truth is immanent in the world. But the negation of the Truth, death, sin, the cross is also real and very present in a immanent way. As is the double negation of resurrection. The praxis-logos of Mises does not have that characteristic. If it's negated there isn't a resurrection for it. So it has to deny and attack anything that might falsify it. Sometimes it does the "Your science is simply wrong" thing, but I think the more simplistic adherents go that route. The more sophisticated ones make arguments like "idea X will fail to fulfill it's explicit or implicit promises to you". That argument makes the science a non-sequitur, they don't have to say it's wrong, just that it doesn't matter. Take the Koch funded political groups going after the affordable care act, that's the structure of the attack/criticism they're using.
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Jan 3, 2014 20:18
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Ogodei_Khan posted:It would be difficult to investigate what each field in engineering and their applied uses have in being natural laws. We don't really need to investigate that. A historical look might be useful but even that is not really necessary. So basically, I know the Real Existing Truth, Charles Koch has an Ideology, it comes from Engineering from MIT and Austrian Economics, lets ignore that at the time Koch was studying Engineering at MIT the intellectuals there rejected the idea of natural laws, and MIT was the stronghold of the neo-classical/keynesian synthesis that Austrian Economics defined as the enemy? None of that really matters, because instead I Know The True Ideology of a man I've never met and know a little bit about? And this ideology has repercussions?
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Jan 4, 2014 00:57
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Caros posted:That is a straight up rejection of science. Praxeology cannot fail, it can only be failed. It sounds like straight-up corporate-run Lysenkoism.
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Jan 4, 2014 05:00
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Young Freud posted:It sounds like straight-up corporate-run Lysenkoism.
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Jan 4, 2014 05:19
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Soviet Space Dog posted:So basically, I know the Real Existing Truth, Charles Koch has an Ideology, it comes from Engineering from MIT and Austrian Economics, lets ignore that at the time Koch was studying Engineering at MIT the intellectuals there rejected the idea of natural laws, and MIT was the stronghold of the neo-classical/keynesian synthesis that Austrian Economics defined as the enemy? None of that really matters, because instead I Know The True Ideology of a man I've never met and know a little bit about? And this ideology has repercussions? Yes, because as an ideology it is going to refit history to match itself. It tends to reorient things to the present moment. It may be relevant if we want to limit it specifically to his early works but that would cut out a lot of the later attempts to retrofit it into existing policy and what not. Recreating that strong relationship and claim to rewriting seems to make more sense than follow the actual history of the movement? It may but in a very local way. Hence why going from press release to press release, from side groups he founds, and to his speeches would tell us more about how the view has changed. How does MIT being a stronghold of neoclassical and Keynesian synthesis matter in relation in their view except incidentally to where those ideas only play a role as fixtures in that ideology and ways for that ideology to understand things. It is true that there may have been an articulation in terms of metaphors from the field but to characterize something by that alone seems to fix the metaphor into a singular temporal moment alone with the movement. It may be relevant if we are talking about the actual development of policy in light of its existence but that would require a case by case focus as well. Ogodei_Khan fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Jan 4, 2014 |
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Jan 4, 2014 05:29
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Soviet Space Dog posted:None of that really matters, because instead I Know The True Ideology of a man I've never met and know a little bit about? And this ideology has repercussions? No one has to speculate: "When Koch began grappling with the questions of human flourishing, two works proved especially influential: Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action and F. A. (“Baldy”) Harper’s Why Wages Rise. They provided him with the beginnings of a theoretical framework, but perhaps more importantly, they helped provide him with a vision. " "When Charles Koch returned to Wichita in 1961, he developed an intense curiosity about many of the elemental questions of human existence. What is the nature of human freedom? How does freedom lead to human flourishing? He began to read widely and deeply, studying works of history, economics, philosophy, and psychology. In so doing, he immersed himself in what he refers to as the “science of human action.” As an MIT-trained engineer, he understood the physical world to operate according to fixed, natural laws. In the course of his reading, he gradually came to discover a set of similar laws governing societal wellbeing." Mr. Koch has written extensively about his ideology, and the beginning of his frame work is Mises' Human Action. It's not a secret. He's been chairman of the board at IHS since what 65? Ever been to http://www.learnliberty.org? And this stuff is literally up on the walls in his businesses too. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 16:00
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This is all bullshit window dressing, the Koch ideology is fascism and that is literally the only thing that needs to be said about it. The sooner we call these people exactly what they are, the sooner we can fight them and not the rhetoric they use as a smokescreen.
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Jan 6, 2014 16:06
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Fascism fetishizes violent action for the sake of violent action, this stuff fetishizes absolute freedom in human action for the sake of humanity. It also is the inverse of the nation state as all encompassing; it's the individual as all encompassing.
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Jan 6, 2014 16:15
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I don't think you understood me. This stuff is a smokescreen. A facade. Window dressing. A false front. A misrepresentation. A smokescreen. Disinformation. The complexity of a lie does not make it any more a lie. We've had a perfectly perfect word for these people for nearly a century.
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Jan 6, 2014 16:37
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I understood. But fascism is a specific idea with specific characteristics. But somewhere along the line the word fascism started getting used in a way that is very similar to the concept of the demonic. I'd rather call this that (demonic.)
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Jan 6, 2014 16:55
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How productive is it to worry about labeling it as being exactly the same as fascism? In fascism the state has to be strong, in Kochism it has to be weak. At its root lies the same nihilism and gleeful evil that led hollow-eyed, sportscar-driving, prostitute-strangling European fops to devise fascism; but it's different.
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Jan 6, 2014 16:59
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BrandorKP posted:Fascism fetishizes violent action for the sake of violent action, this stuff fetishizes absolute freedom in human action for the sake of humanity. It also is the inverse of the nation state as all encompassing; it's the individual as all encompassing. I don't think this is a fair thing to state. Fascism wasn't (and sadly isn't) some bizarre ideology where people are violent simply for the sake of violence. The end goal of Fascism was always the rejuvination or improvement of the nation, making 'us' better at the expense of 'them' because we deserve to be better by nature of being 'us'. As you say this stuff fetishizes absolute 'freedom' and 'liberty' by stating that by its nature more freedom is better for everyone, just as fascism fetishizes the nation or the people or the race. You are right that this isn't fascism in the literal sense however. Pretty much from the moment the war ended (possibly even before) fascist has been a pejorative word for 'bully' or 'rear end in a top hat'. As a former libertarian I have to kind of disagree with Keshik though. I would not be surprised to learn that Charles Koch believes what he is selling. The man is filthy rich and believes that he has become so solely on his own merits, so why would it not then make sense to give him more and more autonomy so he can 'create' more wealth, thereby improving the lot of everyone. Its hosed up, but I don't doubt he believes this garbage.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:09
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SedanChair posted:How productive is it to worry about labeling it as being exactly the same as fascism? In fascism the state has to be strong, in Kochism it has to be weak. At its root lies the same nihilism and gleeful evil that led hollow-eyed, sportscar-driving, prostitute-strangling European fops to devise fascism; but it's different. You're making my point for me by buying into their bullshit. Koch ideology does not want a weak state, it wants a strong state. They want a state that puts down unions like in Wisconsin, that strips women of their basic human dignity like in Virginia (and elsewhere), that spends enormous amounts of money by trying to humiliate the impoverished with needless drug testing, that denies human rights to homosexuals, and that responds to any efforts to organize politically with police violence and intimidation, and a criminal and civil justice system that favors corporate interests. They just don't want the government to interfere with corporations. They want the government to serve corporations. That's fascism.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:13
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BrandorKP posted:Fascism fetishizes violent action for the sake of violent action, this stuff fetishizes absolute freedom in human action for the sake of humanity. It also is the inverse of the nation state as all encompassing; it's the individual as all encompassing. They don't have any consistent ideology other than the usual conservative FUIGM and will do anything, with no regard to consistency, that benefits themselves. Any label they put on themselves or their ideology is propaganda for their employees in the conservative movement to chew on. It's better to just brand them as later day robber barons than fascists. mcmagic fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 17:15
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Keshik posted:You're making my point for me by buying into their bullshit. Koch ideology does not want a weak state, it wants a strong state. They want a state that puts down unions like in Wisconsin, that strips women of their basic human dignity like in Virginia (and elsewhere), that spends enormous amounts of money by trying to humiliate the impoverished with needless drug testing, that denies human rights to homosexuals, and that responds to any efforts to organize politically with police violence and intimidation, and a criminal and civil justice system that favors corporate interests. You can put that spin on it if you think it's helpful. I'd argue that a state that has forgotten the value of helping people to achieve prosperity is a weak state.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:19
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Sedanchair your use of the word nihilism makes me think of this: http://www.thenation.com/article/174219/nietzsches-marginal-children-friedrich-hayek?page=0,0 Article in the nation that argues for a connection between the thought of the Austrians to Nietzsche.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:50
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Caros posted:While I'm on the subject of bullshit science, I'll link this as well: $1.5 million isn't even very much money these days, all things considered. I can't believe FSU's price is so cheap. I'm on the board of a foundation which funded a $5 million endowment, and we don't get to control poo poo. We get a nice luncheon at the university's expense once a year if we're lucky.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:55
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PT6A posted:$1.5 million isn't even very much money these days, all things considered. I can't believe FSU's price is so cheap. I'm on the board of a foundation which funded a $5 million endowment, and we don't get to control poo poo. We get a nice luncheon at the university's expense once a year if we're lucky. Yup. I honestly can't say whether I am more offended by the fact that FSU agreed to it in the first place, or that they effectively gave staffing decisions for their entire economics department away for loving chump change.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:57
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On the amounts of money involved that the Kochs raise, Washington Post put this up yesterday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...065e_story.html Edit: The connections might be more valuable than the money.
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Jan 6, 2014 17:58
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SedanChair posted:You can put that spin on it if you think it's helpful. I'd argue that a state that has forgotten the value of helping people to achieve prosperity is a weak state. It's pretty disingenuous to say that the United States government presides over a "weak" state.
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Jan 6, 2014 18:01
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The Kochs are slightly more fascist than they are stalinist. Governments that serve wealthy capitalists were not invented in the early 20th century.
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Jan 6, 2014 18:20
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mcmagic posted:They don't have any consistent ideology other than the usual conservative FUIGM and will do anything, with no regard to consistency, that benefits themselves. Any label they put on themselves or their ideology is propaganda for their employees in the conservative movement to chew on. Do scholarships to underprivileged minority youth benefit themselves? Some of the things they do just don't make sense if it's just simple FYGM, an example is "Youth Entrepreneurs". Yes these things are absolutely propaganda. Why do something like donating to "Nova"?. The audience of the things they fund is very broad. Yes do they fund things that produce ideas intended to be consumed internally in the conservative movement like the think tanks Cato or Mercatus. But they also fund many things that have a far more broad audiences and I think that reflects a broader intent, that audience of the propaganda is more than just the conservative movement.
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Jan 6, 2014 19:14
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BrandorKP posted:Do scholarships to underprivileged minority youth benefit themselves? Yes. I'd argue that donating to a variety of causes such as these do benefit the Koch brothers, both financially and as simple 'feel good' measures. When a billionare donates a million dollars to the art it give them personal clout, enhancing their name and reputation as well as simply 'feeling good'. Perhaps I am just biased, but I don't see this as any different.
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Jan 6, 2014 19:22
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Caros posted:Yes. Much like the Clinton Global Initiative, the "philanthropy" that most billionaires participate in is merely a networking club for them to get a little good publicity while trading favors and influence with other billionaires. mcmagic fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 19:28
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