More knowledgable Austrians on here should have a ball:
http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
LOL, what in the world is that?! I've never seen it before.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
His point about the static supply + demand shifts does appear to make sense:
The movement of or along one line creates ripple effects throughout the economy that violate Ceteris Paribus. This leads to a constant feedback loop, and so the static nature of the models renders them useless.
Edit: Perhaps this ties into the Austrian idea of markets never really being in equilibrium?
^ ya derp
1. Artificial credit expansion that doesn't happen on a free market causes the boom-bust cycle...
It's a bit like saying that cell mitosis causes cancer, so let's artificially regulate cell mitosis with regular doses of ionising radiation to prevent it. After all, regular cells are much hardier and more resilient than cancer stem-cells right?
(Oh wait, they actually do that...)
2. Similar arguments do apply to all government.
3. The government shouldn't do anything. What's "information assymetry"? Someone knowing something that someone else doesn't? Are we not allowed to keep anything to ourselves?
I presume it must be referring to insider trading regulations. Insider trading is not fraudulent. Fraud is when you deliberately induce someone to act based upon disinformation you provide them. If you sell stock, you're releasing the information you're witholding by doing so, really. It's actually the fastest way of spreading such information. Everyone knows the score if a CEO suddenly dumps stock in their own company. If that's prohibited by his contract with his company, which it most likely is, then he's violated that contract.
4. There has never been a free market. All the "historical" bashing of capitalism is really about fascism and corporatism.
Besides, there are sound economic arguments for a hard currency which have no concern for whether or not it has been done before, and those are the really convincing ones.
5. Strawman... There's no such thing as meritocracy, because there isn't an objective standard for what is more or less meritorious activity.
Besides, a foolhardy heir will quickly squander an inherited fortune, and any capital he owns will land up in the hands of people who "deserve" it, i.e who will employ it gainfully.
6. Ok... This is like saying that you'll get the same results if you try to force a completely out of shape piece of flab, like me, to run fives miles right now versus someone who is very fit choosing to run until he decides to stop. I'll have died of a heart attack after one, whereas he might still be going after twenty or forty...
7. What? No, perpetual economic growth takes a lot of work.
8. Inflation is an absolute increase in the money supply. Does the government burn the taxes it receives, or does it spend them? It sure as hell doesn't invest them wisely.
9. A priori is really the way to go. Positivist reasoning is liable to have you confused if you haven't defined any of your variables, and don't even know what you're looking at. You're liable to come up with theories which have no relationship to reality if you start with an entirely unsupported premise (we are looking at a free market system) and go from there without ever questioning it.
10. Yes we bloody-well do.
11. You will note in the first paragraph of the article referenced regarding how welfare is nationalistic, that the author rhetorically concedes the point that welfare is not harmful, to allow for his argument... That doesn't mean he actually believes that welfare isn't harmful.
Those who believe it isn't harmful can explain why it isn't nationalistic.
12. I don't really agree with Hayek on these subjects, but in any case, the criticism isn't fair...
In the first instance, whether or not something is 'politically acceptable' cannot apply to a situation in which only voluntary transactions are acceptable. You shouldn't have to give your wallet to a mugger - it certainly won't make you richer - but if he's got a gun to your head, it might be the only politically appropriate course of action...
Don't forget that the exceptional deflationary low of the Great Depression had been "induced" - that's what Hayek calls it - by the previous inflationary boom of the 1920's, fueled by credit made artificially easy... So he's really saying that government should clean up the mess it made. I don't agree with that, because I don't think it can. Nevertheless, he's not talking about government solving a free-market problem, but government solving a government problem.
State intervention in 1930's and 1940's Germany worked out so well, didn't it?
As to the second instance, he clearly isn't talking about actually expanding the money supply. He says that government should disperse savings it has been holding. "Legislation to help the poor" could be just about anything under the sun, but you can bet it doesn't refer to the expansion of the money supply.
13. That's because intellectual property isn't. I don't present arguments in favour of IP.
14. Unproductive parts of the private sector are responsible for their own losses. They pay to be unproductive. Government extracts wealth by force to be unproductive. Incentives...
15. A lot of people this guy refers to in order to make contradictions seem apparent would not claim to be anarchists at all. By and large, there's no hypocrisy... Things are just pulled together from people who genuinely disagree with each other.
You'll note that the word "corporation" does not appear in the referenced interview. Speaking of insurers, Lloyds of London - one of the world's largest systems of insurance - is not structured as a corporation.
Corporations are a form of charter granted from on-high, bestowing special privileges and immunities. They are not free market.
In any case, the salient differences between a government and a dispute resolution organisation is that the latter has the incentives to treat its customers well, and doesn't claim a monopoly on territory or subjects.
16. Tax cuts aren't spending.
17. This is the only half-way valid point in the entire article, because Milton Friedman is a highly intelligent man who didn't get everything right. It's wrong to assume that he's the messiah, last prophet, and grand poobah of the free market.
18. I'm sorry... This is just a Homer Simpson-level non sequiter that I can't even begin to understand. Maybe it's like point 7... Competition involves a lot of work.
The article referenced doesn't seem to bare any relation to the point that is apparently being made... I quote.
"In fact, I suspect that something like the News of the World scandal might have happened even if the paper were run as a socialist co-op. "
19. No we won't. If you, or anyone else, wants to be a slave, that's fine. Only semantic arguments concerning the definition of 'slavery' stand in your way.
20. Rothbard says it's fine because he doesn't think it will happen. If there is a market dominator for a short time, e.g Microsoft, Google, it doesn't matter because they only managed to market the idea recently, and will be supplanted in due course as better things come out. Rothbard goes into great detail there about why he doesn't think a monopoly can entrench itself on a free market, ever.
21. You choose to pay rent.
Being forced to pay taxes is fine, but being forced to pay any thief who isn't wearing the special government hat isn't? Isn't that a contradiction?
Paying rent is wrong, but being paid for your work isn't? What about that? You think you have an absolute right to your body just because you say it's yours? Did you work to earn your body, or did you inherit it from your parents' labours? Why shouldn't it be nationalised for the common good when you're born? You must be a greedy capitalist pig if you think no one else has a right to resources you did nothing to earn.
22, 23, 24, 25 - I wonder if all leftists today agree with Marx's theories about British colonialism in India, or Gandhi's theories about black people, or Mao Tse Tsung's theories about the value of an "intellectual's" life, or even with each other when there's more than three of them in a room together...
Are we in the business of finding and following some sort of messiah/last prophect, or are we in the business of learning, and building upon past knowledge?
The chief reason we need freedom is because we don't all think the same thing, and none of us are right. Ad hominems make no point about ideas whatsoever.
You should edit this thread title to "stupidly funny blogs"
Here's another hilarious one:
http://privatopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/kids-lemonade-stand-curtailed-by-their.html?showComment=1311050334987#c7099953133872387534
James - you should post this on there.
Ok, I didn't think I could without Facebook or Twitter at first. I forgot I had a Wordpress account I never use.
The day I sign up for the Mark of The Beast to post nonsense on the internet... :p
"2. The fact that regulators can be captured means we shouldn’t use them. Similar arguments don’t apply with police and corruption, however."
There's more to the argument than just regulatory capture. There's also the idea that the market would be more effective at this by providing multiple sources of regulation rather than just one, i.e. competition. This would apply to the police as well.
@James
Thank you for a quality and thorough critique of the information presented. With this on here I feel no need to post any in depth criticism, and I am free to express my true feelings on the matter:
Autolykos: LOL, what in the world is that?! I've never seen it before.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
Any comments on his supply/demand critique?
Wheylous, I don't mean to sound crass but this is an easy critique for someone who has really read some serious Austrian Economics or, more importantly in this instance, looked into Austrian criticisms of neoclassical economics.
The entire point is that these models can't perfteclty grasp human behavior, they represent statitic instances which can help to capture or exemplify certain relationships. In the example that he's talking about the ideal isn't present, so it doesn't work just like the ideal would work, however this does not mean that something similar to the ideal doesn't happen often.
For instance, let's say that we have a shrimp company that prices its shrimp at 1.00. It raises its prices to 1.50. Consumers are f***ing dumb in this instance. They think that because this shrimp is 1.50 instead of 1.00 that the more expensive is of a higher quality, so demand for the new shrimp actually goes up when the price rises. However, this is not becuase economic theory is flawed. If all consumers saw that it was of the same quality in both instances then they would not buy the shrimp, or demand would have risen in the first place if it was that good. Consumers identify the more expensive shrimp with a different good. This is an outgrowth of their own ignorance.
The market is full of failures, praxeology is nothing more than a series of tendencies which will happen under a set of conditions, nothing definitive can be said about the extent of the efficiency of the process or the factors surrounding the specific instance at hand. At the same time these failures of human action, brought about by the inherent and necessary defficiencies within our models are what make all government action, and especially the democratic process, even more dangerous and corruptable.
I really need to hit those Austrian books...
Can you post your reply on the website?
Yea, if you want advice on what books to go for then feel free to PM me
I'd be more than happy to except that I really don't like debating illogical people. Feel free to quote me on there, but I don't want to be involved in a debate that will end up where it started except with both parties angrier.
First of all, he's not criticizing Austrian economics, but neoclassical economics. Second of all, the flaw in his S&D argument is that he only violates CP by not holding expectations constant. If you don't hold CP, you don't get CP. Duh.
He's not criticising one thing. There are links and references to Austrians, and their reasoning, in that mess.
He addresses Austrians here: http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/the-different-types-of-libertarian/
No the point was that the price mechanism itself provides signals that change expectations and hence the curves.
I've responded to 'James' on my blog.
No offence guys but there seems to be a lot of confirmation bias on here - you all pat each other on the back and go on about how stupid criticisms of libertarianism are but rarely engage the points. I've seen similar stuff when you've 'discussed' Robert Vienneau and Mike Huben's site. Of course, it's not specific to Austrians - unfortunately economics as a whole seems to have become a set of mutually exclusive self reinforcing circle jerks that can barely understand each other, let alone engage. But it might not hurt to be less smug and more constructive.
This:
Of course, it's not specific to Austrians - unfortunately economics as a whole seems to have become a set of mutually exclusive self reinforcing circle jerks that can barely understand each other, let alone engage.
Then:
But it might not hurt to be less smug and more constructive.
Thanks for starting us off on the right track, prick.
"you all pat each other on the back and go on about how stupid criticisms of libertarianism are but rarely engage the points."
And you say that without actually critiquing anything that James said. I didn't bother to critique anything that you said because for the most part it wasn't worth critiquing and I've spent a lot of time criticizing a lot of things like it. It doesn't seem as though you actually understand much of what you're writing about beyond being able to point out things that you believe are incorrect within the belief. I agree that self assurance is generally bad and I try to expose people around here who aren't doing any critical thinking, because that's a big danger, but that implies that there's something threatening. Right now I'm reading a good book called "The Darwin Economy" that actually does some good work on criticizing libertarianism, I'll admit that and write a critique when I'm done, I won't spend time on something like what you wrote which simply doesn't merit much time being spent on it.
I did respond to him on my blog, which I wrote in my post. A couple of points were decent but in half of them he misses the point and goes off on a red herring. He also appears not to know who I'm criticising in quite a few, having not followed the links. If I were so easy to refute then I would have expected better, frankly.
Oh, I've been called a prick already. LvMI continues to impress! Later, it's not like Austrians will ever change their opinions anyway.
Looks like you're doing quite a bit of patting yourself on the back there.
You're extremely confused if you think I have any affiliation with this institute. Or perhpas you're just confirming your own biases by interpreting an insult from a complete stranger on an internet forum as represeting Austrian Economics or the Mises Institute in any way, shape, or form.
Considering the irony in your accusation of others being close-minded, I think it's best you check yourself.
Oh, and while you might have passed over it admist your distress over my insult, I urge you to look back at my post and see how you blatantly contradicted yourself, and your call for constructive discourse
"did respond to him on my blog, which I wrote in my post."
I realizee that after posting, and I'm sorry for the false accusation, it was uncalled for on my par and, obviously, wrong.
"If I were so easy to refute then I would have expected better, frankly."
You are easy to refute. If you come back then I'll point out flaws in what you said, or if there are none then I'll start to take you seriously
The debate contines here...
http://hanseconomics.com/2012/01/17/unlearning-economics-2/#comment-159