Hello.I am 22 years old, and I' am intresting in libertarian filosophy and economics.
I have some questions for you:
Does globalization of economy requires to abolish the boundaries and promote multi-culturalism everywhere?
Is global society a society witch everything, the roads, the dresses, the buildings, the "soul" of people are the same?
The most libertarians are for or against multi-culturalism?
Which is the diference from Austrian economics and Milton Friedman' s ideas?
Thank you!
someone90:Hello.I am 22 years old, and I' am intresting in libertarian filosophy and economics.
Welcome to the Mises Forum! Be sure to check the newbie thread for forum tips and how-tos.
Where are you from? What is your native language?
That's kind of a pointed question. I suppose the best way to answer it would be to say that to the extent that barriers to trade and communication are removed, trade (and therefore prosperity) will be affected in a positive way.
I'm not sure I understand the question. This may be a language barrier. I wouldn't define "global society" as one in which everyone has the exact same culture. You don't even define "society" as "a group of people with a single culture". A common culture is not necessary to have a "society". I tend to think of the word "society" in a more abstract sense...just a way to call a group of individuals who interact within a certain scope (and that scope can be as small or as big as you want it...from a small community to the entire planet).
It sounds like you're asking If most libertarians are for or against "multi-culturalism"...I suppose you would have to define what you mean by that term.
Milton Friedman is typically associated with a school of economic thought known as the "Chicago School of economics". The differences are discussed below:
The Chicago School versus the Austrian School
Vienna and Chicago: A Tale of Two Schools
Vienna and Chicago: Friends or Foes? A Tale of Two Schools of Free-Market Economics
Economics on Trial (Feb 1995)
Economics on Trial (March 1995)
Friedman vs. The Austrians, Part II: Was There an Inflationary Boom in the 1920s?
Austrians vs. The Chicago School, Part III
Milton Friedman Unraveled
Chicago School vs Austrian School
Austrian School of economics
The Chicago School: Libertarian or Jacobin?
If there is a demand for it I guess. What can be said is that there is no rational way to subsidize either thing, as they are aesthetics and vacant of much meaningful conversation. Economics can not predict the future, it can only speak of the logic of action, and the consequences of such things - that's all.
Would you like article links, or do you have specific questions?
here are two good starting points:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AustrianSchoolofEconomics.html
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
"Does globalization of economy requires to abolish the boundaries and promote multi-culturalism everywhere?"
That depends partly on the political structure and the choices of individuals. It's natural that as trade between to places takes place that there is some cultural diffusion between the two areas, but ultimately what happens depends upon how people react to it. For instance Japan and America have both rubbed off each other in a lot of ways through their close trade connections, and there are definite subcultures that are very similar to the other country in both nations, but both obviously have different cultures.
"Is global society a society witch everything, the roads, the dresses, the buildings, the "soul" of people are the same?"
Please rephrase this question.
"The most libertarians are for or against multi-culturalism?"
Most libertarians don't care a lot about the subject, but I'd daresay the majority would invite cultural diffusion, but this is partly because of the demographics of people who tend to be libertarian.
"Which is the diference from Austrian economics and Milton Friedman' s ideas?"
Austrians tend to be more pro free market than Friedman is, Austrian models depend more on uncertainty and most importantly Austrians are a priori while the Chicago School is ultra-empiricist
Also, if you look at the "ABC" with the check next to it on the control panel under the text "Description" you can turn on a spellcheck, I would suggest that you do this to help with the English translation.
Welcome to Mises!
Hallo everybody.Thank you for your answers.I am from Greece and as you can see, my english aren' t very good.
The issue with globalization is that, I have read in different leftish and right-wing books, that it's a global society witch everything is like USA in its utopian future situation.Look at Hong Kong buildings, they are like USA.The notion is that in future all of peciuliar people's cultures will not exist, it will be only the same thing everywhere.The american culture and aspiration for money and material things.The local traditions, music, dressing will be the same.
Is that true?Is that what the defenders of globalization want?
in future all of peciuliar people's cultures will not exist, it will be only the same thing everywhere.The american culture and aspiration for money and material things.The local traditions, music, dressing will be the same. Is that true?Is that what the defenders of globalization want?
Oh man, I could almost write a book in response to these questions... great questions!
Let's talk about language - we will use language as a metaphor for political systems and culture generally. After all, both language and political systems are parts of culture.
Right now, there are I believe around a thousand actively spoken languages. However, a tiny number (the top five of those languages account for the vast majority of all speakers in the world. There is even some overlap where multilingual people know more than one language (think of this as a metaphor for dual-citizenship or doing business across political borders).
There are a few trends we can identify in languages. First of all, the number of actively spoken languages is decreasing. It has been decreasing for quite some time. Second, the "language gap" between the most common languages and minor languages is increasing - the top 10 languages account for more speakers than all other languages combined. Third, there is an adversarial competition between the top languages to become the global language.
The closest thing we've had to a global language was Latin. Scientific, mathematical, philosophical and theological works - even some contracts - were commonly written in Latin. It's a bit of a canard to represent this as "elitist" since the purpose of writing in Latin was not to keep the masses from reading it but to enable everyone who spoke Latin - regardless of their mother tongue - to be able to read it, and translate it back to their own mother tongue if they so desired. One of the interesting things about Latin is that it was a "dead language" by the time it began to be used for international communication. Hoppe mentions somewhere (I have not been able to find the cite since I stumbled across it some time back) that the fact that Latin was a dead language is precisely why it become adopted for international communication in the first place. Because it was dead, the rules couldn't be changed.
And this is the problem with the modern situation. We have all these living languages vying for the top spot. In the end, there can only really be one global language for the same reason that there can only be one global money - the advantages of a single language or single medium of exchange are so overwhelming that its emergence is inevitable (Austrians derive this from the division-of-labor, as Hoppe explains in his many lectures on money and banking). However, I'm extremely skeptical that any living language can fulfill this role - or any national money, for that matter. There is simply too much conflict-of-interest. "Hey, the whole world will be better off if everyone just spoke English." Sure, it would be, but American and the UK would be that much better off than the rest of the world. I don't think we're ever going to see a situation where English is spoken by a majority of people in the world.
For the same reason, I would offer you assurance that I don't think we're ever going to see a situation where the "chrome and plastic" American culture you (rightly) dread is adopted by a majority of people in the world. People speak the language they are born into and adopt the culture that they are born into. A tiny number may adopt multiple languages and cultures and an even smaller number might "defect" from the culture and language of their birth but such people are so rare as to be negligible. In terms of sheer population, the masses of people who prefer their native tongue and native culture is immensely greater.
What is needed, however, is a "sterile" language, a "sterile" law, a "sterile" culture that permits people who want to communicate an idea to the rest of the world or trade with the rest of the world to do so with at most one translation. A single translation from a local language to the global language would enable the world to have thousands of living languages - as it once did - while permitting people around the globe to speak to one another with a much smaller number of translators.
To summarize, my answer to your questions is two-pronged: first, I think you don't need to fear the world becoming a "cultural monolith" even though some globalists definitely desire that and, second, I think we eventually do need a global language, global money, and so on. The logically possible answers for these needs, however, are not what most people think - I don't think we need US Federal Reserve Notes or their digital equivalent in IMF's SDRs or World Bank bancors or BIS funny-money. Gold is a possibility, silver is a possibility but to find out, what we need is a free market in the production of money. We won't know what money people are willing and demanding to use as a global money until the market is freed and people start trying different things. The same goes for language... until the subsidization of national languages is reduced, we're just going to see the same process of each nation trying to promote its national language to become "king of the hill" and the same goes for culture, as well.
What the world needs is a global money selected by the free market combined with the naturally occurring local variation in the production of goods and services. We don't need a worldwide McDonald's - there are a million ways to cook a hamburger and variety and competition in the production of hamburgers is good. What the world needs is naturally occurring local variation in cultures combined with a global "merchant law" - emerging within a free-market for mercantile arbitration - that permits people across different languages and cultures to trade goods and services with peace of mind that they will get paid.
Clayton -
1. Not sure what the problem is. If we assume a free market, then people will get what they want, only less expensive than before.
If they want to dump their culture, why should anyone be allowed to stop them?
If they want to keep their culture, they will.
2. In any case, if a culture is so shallow that all it has going for it is external things like the shape of a building, as opposed to values and ethics and the like, it can't be that important or worth preserving at great cost to everyone.
3. Finally, look at Japan. When they got really rich after WW2, they still preserved their culture quite nicely. It is very very different from American culture.
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Does globalization of economy requires to abolish the boundaries and promote multi-culturalism everywhere? Is global society a society witch everything, the roads, the dresses, the buildings, the "soul" of people are the same? The most libertarians are for or against multi-culturalism? Which is the diference from Austrian economics and Milton Friedman' s ideas?
Globalization is just a buzz word. There has been trade across the planet for 100s of years. We may have even reached the point where we can say that there has been what we can consider global trade across the planet for 1000s of years. It would depend on what you would consider to be the start of global trade. I think that is a fair question, if said in a different way, what would an cap society do about immigration. Of course the government creates the boundaries. But without the socialist government there would be less incentive for people to immigrate to the country. But there would still exist the possibility of highly successful areas of becoming over populated because people would move to a city like london for example if they perceived that they would be better off. Even without a socialist system, in terms of opportunity and standard of living. This is especially a problem when you consider modern day transportation technology and the sheer amount of people that can travel through today's transportation hubs in a single day. Then consider that countries like India and China have a billion people while some countries have only 50 million people.
I think you would find that libertarians have a broad range of opinions on the subject of multiculturalism.
Thank you for answering.
I have some other questions too.
Mises, in "The anti-capitalistic mentality" writes for intellectuals and their abhorence for Capitalism and he says that it is the envy and their social/status failure that make them have such deal.But, aren' t there other reason for someone to be an anti-capitalistic?It's only psychological?
If someone is clever, educated and want to go in a good college but he is poor and can't , and that changes his life, that make him an anti-capitalistist too.
Also, are the things really as Mises says?Is it all about the man' s faculties?Has a poor man same educated parents, siblings, school etc with a rich guy?The first guy maybe be clever, but he has not an home enviroment or teachers as the rich one.So, the rich will always be one or more (sure more) steps ahead.So, are we really so "free to choose"?
I' m not an anti-capitalist, I just have some questions :)
The Anti-Capitalist Menality is probably Mises worst work. It's a lot of psychologisms and speculations. Human Action,, etc are the scientific statements. See what he says in those works and go from there, don't worry about his cultural critiques. Or just read Menger
vive la insurrection:The Anti-Capitalist Menality is probably Mises worst work.
I wouldn't put it in those terms (primarily because I've not yet read all his works), but I wasn't impressed by it either. I'm really liking Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science (more of an aside).
If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH
someone90:Also, are the things really as Mises says?
I'd recommend Economic Calculation in a Socialist Commonwealth. It's a short, but comprehensive, read regarding one of the most (now; thanks to Mises) glaring problems of socialism. Come to think of it, it's the first work of Mises' that I read. Hmm. Anyway, it's a very good read.
are we really so "free to choose"?
Murray Rothbard.
Well, is the congenitally blind man as free to choose as everyone else? The fact is that humans are biological creatures - animals - and we are subject to the same facts of biological variation as every other animal. Some people are tall, others short, some strong, some weak, and so on. Government really doesn't have anything to do with these facts and it is not capable - even in principle - of righting these "wrongs."
And no one really knows which is better across many of these variations - is it better to be tall and lithe (you can run faster) or short and stout (less likely to fall). Of course, it is better to not be blind than to be blind but there is no way to correct many such problems.
The fact is that there is a reason there is variation in animals - it's Nature's insurance policy. Even Nature herself does not know what is the right answer. Nature thought dinosaurs were an answer to the problem of biological survival for millions of years. Then, one day, it turned out that Nature had gotten it wrong and there were no more dinosaurs.
Variation is a sign of vibrancy. It is an artifice to impose a hierarchy on natural variation - tall is better than short, strong is better than weak, and so on. The only true standard of whether a trait is desirable or undesirable is the person's own feelings who has that trait. Some people have red hair and they hate it. So they dye it another color. Other people have red hair and they love it, so they grow it out long and style it to accentuate its redness. Who am I to say that red hair is worse than blonde hair or black skin is better than brown skin? It is up to the individual himself or herself to decide how he or she feels about the hand Nature has dealt him or her.
To move back into the realm of wealth, we can see that it is natural and, therefore, a sub-species of our genetic traits. Some people were born poor in rich countries and other people are born rich in poor countries. The poor person in the rich country may not even trade places with the rich person in a poor country if he were given the chance. It's up to the individual to decide whether he is satisfied or dissatisfied with the material benefits which the accident of his birth has bequeathed upon him.
And - unlike congenital blindness - there actually is a lot that an individual can do if he is dissatisfied with his material prosperity, if he is unhampered by bullies and thugs. What is insane is the public policy of imposing greater and greater constraints on doing peaceful, honest business in the name of supposedly helping people who are dissatisfied with their material prosperity. If I am dissatisfied with my material prosperity, how does it help me to tax me for trying to better myself by getting a job or starting a business? How does it help me to close off opportunities and regulate industries and labor such that I must hire more and more expensive lawyers and advisors just to open a simple ice cream stand or a donut shop.
The fact is that the whole line of discussion is fabricated nonsense. The telos of the government is obvious: to live off the productivity of others. Its claims to care about "evening out" the random variations of natural endowments are laughable. And worse, whatever measures it takes to this end are socially destructive to at least the extent that they are successful.
Ok, there is human nature, we are animals, there is equilibrium etc etc, bit the problem is here: If our societies are not like those of Middle Age's status, as Mises says, and the competition relies in justice, and everyone is this society can be whatever he want, if he is good on this, for example, if he is smart he can be a good lawyer, or a mathematician because he has these faculties by nature, then why his family's poverty must disincline him from good life which he deserves and it is good for the society and knowlegde too.
I think you are asking the following question [not sure because of the language problem].
Say you have a gifted young man, a mathematical genius. But he is poor, and cannot afford to go to school and better himself, and so he will stay poor all his life. A rich person with the same talent will be able to go to school and become a mathematician and lead a good life.
You are saying that this is not fair. The poor man deserves to be a mathematician. Society will benefit if he is. The world's knowledge will increase if he is.
Let's begin with this question. If "society" will benefit, why are they not offering scholarships to talented people? If they are, the poor man will be able to go to school. If nobody is offering to give him a scholarship, that of course means that they think they would rather spend their money on something else. They don't care about the benefit this poor man can give them, not enough to pay for it. If that is the case, who are we to say they should a different set of values? Who are we to decide how they should spend their money? How do we know better than the people who actually worked hard to earn their money what they should do with it? When they worked hard, they worked with a goal in mind. "I am working hard so I can buy some beer and watch TV and fall asleep." We may not like why they decided to work, we may think it is a foolish reason to work, but they did the actual work, and they deserve to get what they worked for, a beer and a TV. It is unjust for us to have them work thinking they will get a beer and tell them, "No you worked hard to get a mathematician".
Is this fair to the poor man? Is it fair that he has to suffer because nobody wants to give him money, while the rich man's parents are willing to give money to their son? In one sense, it is fair. The rich man's parents worked hard for their money. The poor man's parents did not.
Yes, that is what i meant.You' re right.
So: The goverment can' t take people' s money from taxation and give some tof the them o a genius, because they want spend them for other things, like drinking beers and smoke cigarettes even if it good for the society and civilization.
I can understanding, it is not obliged someone to respect and concerns about cultural things.
But, Mises says that in this laisez faire society, which opposes the status of ancien regime, all the people with abilities can be whatever they want with competition.But, we can see that it's the rich which can do whatever he want and the poor has got many obstacles.Isn't that only a small step from ancien regime' s situation?It seems like in capitalism again, if you have the mental abilities, it's very possible to remain a man which didn' t coax to reach his goal because of the system.
1. Many people came to the USA 100 years ago with no money and became very rich because of their great talent. The list is very long.
In the ancien regime, this would be impossible.
Of course, one may argue that not everyone with talent succeeded. However, some did. In ancien regime, nobody at all could succeed unless he was born into the right family.
2. There is another question. In any system where money is taken by force from the people to help the poor succeed, who is going to be the angel who decides which poor man deserves the money? Whoever has the power to decide will of course give the money to his family and friends. Again, an ancien regime that keeps out those from the wrong family.
Yes, in ancien regime the poor guy will stay in same position.We consider how different is the free market society.I don' t want take others money, I can understand that mathematics are not so important for everyone.But, why is the access so difficult?Why must someone gives so much money to have a good education when he is a talented person?Why is the prices of private colleges so high?It is because of goverment and its obstacles which doesn' t permits good competition on college's prices?
In USA, prices of colleges are high because the govt helps students take out big loans. Meaning the student has a lot of money to spend on college [even though he will later have to repay the loan, right now he has a lot of money]. So the college can charge high tuitions.
If there were no govt loans, like in USA 40 years ago, college would be much less expensive. The colleges would have to lower tuitions because very few could afford the high tuition. It used to be, before govt loans, that working in the afternoon and during holiday was enough to pay for college.
everyone is this society can be whatever he want
This is obviously not true. There are many people who have the "raw biological materials" to be airline pilots and probably would like the work if they could get it but simply cannot afford commercial flight school. There will always be undeveloped talents and unrealized ambitions as a result of material constraints. Why does that matter to anything?
I always try and tell anti-capitalists that you can hate specific corporations or even specific industries without being anti-capitalist. For example you can hate all fast food companies but still appreciate the logistics that goes in to bringing fast food to your table. You can hate biotech industry and companies like monsanto but still think the science is interesting. You can hate corporations without hating capitalism, hating capitalism because you don't like specific corporations is like hating your computer because you found a website that you don't like.
On social mobility, in this day and age there is realy no excuse to be as poor as your parents, there is no doubt that some chidlren have an easier life than others. But there are always people worse off than yourself in the world. There is less excuse these days than there was 100s of years ago, with so much information around and the availability of public schools in the west. You can go to the libraries and read for days and days. There are examples of people that grew up in severe poverty that worked hard and became doctors through scholarships and there are examples of ridiculous rich children that ended up being bums and wasting all their parents money and being a disappointment.