Selgin: If so, that's a shame, because no good can come from having the idiosyncratic use of "statist"as a synonym for "non-anarcho capitalist" become widespread.
If so, that's a shame, because no good can come from having the idiosyncratic use of "statist"as a synonym for "non-anarcho capitalist" become widespread.
First of all, I don't like the term "anarcho-capitalism". What I said was that the word "statist" can refer to people supporting compulsory monopolies of law and order, not just people who aren't "anarcho-capitalists". Now the next question is this, what is your definition of the relevant sense of the word "state"? I tend to define it as referring to compulsory monopolies of law and order. So, in that sense, to call people supporting such institutions "statists" is pretty reasonable. In fact, I think that most people define "state" in that way, whether explicitly or not.
Lee Kelly: Using unconventional definitions is a reliable way to become entangled in sterile debates about the meaning of terms.
Using unconventional definitions is a reliable way to become entangled in sterile debates about the meaning of terms.
I agree. But see what I wrote above.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
Jonathan M. F. Catalán: I don't think there is any reason for hostility.
I don't think there is any reason for hostility.
I didn't mean it to come off like that. But I understand why it did.
Apparently even libertarians are mostly statists.
"because no good can come from having the idiosyncratic use of "statist"as a synonym for "non-anarcho capitalist" become widespread."
It's not as if such terms have absolute and precise objective definitions anyway. When does one become a Statist or a socialist? What is the threshold? Can anyone agree? No.
So it's a relative term that will be used differently in different contexts. To us, Obama is a socialist, but to hard-core socialists, he's a Capitalist.
As of now, this forum represents the final destination, the final frontier, and the last stop in "following your logic to its ultimate conclusions". In such a place, everybody in support of a State is a statist.
DD5: In such a place, everybody in support of a State is a statist.
In such a place, everybody in support of a State is a statist.
Exactly.
So is it the consensus on this forum, then, that Mises was indeed a statist?
"So is it the consensus on this forum, then, that Mises was indeed a statist? "
There was already a thread on this, I can't find it.
There is never a consensus, but I would think that yes, most would consider Mises a statist, but not because he believed in the State, but because he was not familiar with the alternative. Intellectual progress, like all progress, is incremental. Those who took market theory to its ultimate conclusions had the luxury of building on previous works of those before them, just like Mises did, just like Hayek did, and just like everybody else. It doesn't mean, of course, that this makes them correct. However, it does mean that if they are correct, their intellectual predecessors cannot be condemned for not realizing all of the further progress that was made after them. That would mean that the first intellectual genius would have had to solve all of the secrets of the universe by himself
There were already individualist anarchists is the 19th century, and it is not like Mises and Hayek was unaware of Rothbard.
Selgin: "So is it the consensus on this forum, then, that Mises was indeed a statist?"
Any consensus would be an over-generalization.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
"There were already individualist anarchists is the 19th century, and it is not like Mises and Hayek was unaware of Rothbard."
It takes more then just being aware of something, and Rothbard became an anarchist, when? when Mises was like 70 already. And it takes more then just Rothbard to make the compelling case for a complete voluntary society. New ideas penetrate intellectual thought very slowly. We have all been spoon fed by the works of others. Mises was busy what, revolutionizing economic thought?
Mises particular use of the term "Anarchy" and his condemnation of it in the literature is unambiguously clear. He is condemning the lawless society, the pacifist anarchists, and the society lacking a system of coercion and compulsion necessary to protect property and the "smooth operation of the market".
Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations in 1776. So surely, if we can forgive Mises for not being an anarcho-capitalist because he was old when Rothbard wrote, ought we not to forgive Smith--at least a little?
Smith is henceforth forgiven for his statism.
So it is written, so it shall be done.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
There seem to be two overall arguments against free market FRB:
1. It is not economically sustainable on a free market.
2. It is fraudulent.
Both of these are complete non sequitur.
1. If it is unsustainable it will not be sustained. No debate necessary, as it cannot be demonstrated apodictically either way a priori and Selgin, White, Dowd, Smith, and others have produced work that indicates it may well indeed be sustainable.
2. If it is fraudulent, it will be revealed and considered as such by whatever standards of fraud are relevant. No debate necessary, as it cannot be demonstrated apodictically what emergent law and norms will be relevant a priori and it largely depends on #1.
The dogmatism over this issue is very silly.
this was told to me here.... "The vast majority of reserves are held as bookkeeping entries at the Fed Reserve banks." http://blog.mises.org/12541/are-the-excess-reserves-finally-leaking-out/comment-page-1/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MisesBlogComments+%28Comments+on+the+Mises+Economics+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader#comment-685740 i went on to ask and others went on to say (at the same link)
“The vast majority of reserves are held as bookkeeping entries at the Fed Reserve banks.”
is that true???
so a reserve requirement – the ones that exist in federal reserve regs and such isnt a requirement to hold paper dollars on reserve (in some vault somewhere) ????
a reserve can be a non paper dollar???
are you calling reserves the very thing that there are supposed to be reserves for???
"We have a fiat money system. So money is whatever the central bank declares it to be. Currency is only printed to satisfy the demands of people to hold cash OUTSIDE of banks, or for banks to have cash in their vaults. In this sense, a paper dollar is just a placeholder. An entry in a book is just as good a placeholder as a piece of paper." this doesnt make much sense to me. but if the above descriptions above are true you may very well have a 100 percent reserve system already. though i have asked if fractional reserve banking actually takes place now and been told that it does. though i cant find that link at the moment. i dont know what you mean about the debate about free banking or what you mean by convincing 100 percent reserve literature. if you mean literature to be something that isnt true...then that is all over the place. if you mean literature to be somethign that is true but written...there is this ..... " It is also why it would be far better to suffer a one-shot deflationary contraction of the fraudulent fractional-reserve banking system, and go back to a sound system of 100% reserves."
udging from your constant, yet vacuous, appeals to authority you have a problem understanding the very concepts of learning and knowledge acquisition. For you, it seems, they're nothing more than cataloging what other people (more "prominent" and "respected" than yourself) have said on any matter. Try thinking with your own head for a change -- it's very liberating.
how do you aquire historical information?? sources from others??? did you ever take a class and learn from an authority??? before you becam an authority yourself???
do you have 300 year old bank books??? do you know if they are legitimate???