Its like a pillar of austrian economics, which backs ancap
Apfelstrudel: I know very little about praxeology, but will read up more on it. I did not understand that it was such an important concept for ancap.
It is only the foundation for all economic thought.....
Apfelstrudel:Concepts such as wage slavery and possession
One being a contradictin in terms, the latter being a type of property. I know that you won't accept that though and that you will accuse me of not understanding it. But this is a limitation inherent to all semantic/rhetorical debates which is all communists can provide. It's not realy my problem. IT's really the communist who must face the issues of wrapping their incoherent double speak around actual reality.
Apfelstrudel:"Exchanging one object for another mutually with another individual" would not be outlawed or anything, it being anarchism,
And so as I pointed out LadyAttis's point here applies to these interpersonal exchanges. As was also confirmed here.
Apfelstrudel:Exchange only makes sense if there is property; I must own something in order to exchange it for something you own.
You can call it what you like. You can call it possessing, you can call it anything. Exchange always occurs. This is just further proof that property never really goes away. It just changes shape and form based on degree and application. The behavior of such depending on the normative preferences of individuals in the area. But modern day "property" which I am assuming you are referring to is not necesary for exchange to occur. Robinson Crusoe not only exchanged with others on his island (absent any concept of property) but he also placed trades with himself in whats called autistic exchange. Exchange is always present, both with ourselves and with those around us.
Apfelstrudel:When property is abolished, the role of exchange either disapears or is marginalised.
Which ofcoarse is imposible. You just throw behavior under the table. Many communist countries try to abolish exchange but it comes out in other forms or is found int he crooks and nannies(Usually in desperation). Abolishing exchange is abolishing social cooperation and collaberation all together.
So unless you expect people to be hermits, and tend to their own farm feeding themselves, exchange will always exist. Though I am curious that in such a scenario if you would say that the earth is then the employer and that farmers are slave laborers to the earth. Forcing them to toil the fields because food does not fall from the sky.
Why are you guys letting this man conflate the political philosophy of anarcho-capitalism with the value-free science that is economics? You're hardly doing him a favor, and if he ever accepts Austrian econ and/or anarcho-capitalism he will just be another dumb libertarian who doesn't understand what he supports.
Bearchu:How do we even decide who gets what, if we dont even know what "what" is?
I didn’t pick the actual topic of the thread, since I’d like to know how they ration. In capitalism “what to produce how” and “who gets what” is baked into one process, since everything that is produced, necessarily comes into the world as the property of someone, the producer (Yes I know the objection you want to raise there Apfelstrudel), who is absolutely free to use it or exchange it as he wants (except he does not use it to endanger/damage other people or their property). Both issues are regulated through the price system (which by the way keeps no one from giving his produced goods for free to anyone!)
In socialism production and the distribution is split up. They are not connected to each other any more through the price system/private property. Now socialists either think that their system is much more efficient and will create goods in so vast amounts that they are abundant and there never can be a supply shortage for any demand of any good/service, or the produced amount is somehow fixed, and socialism would have at least the same amount of production as capitalistic system. You really cannot help the former; they are lala-wonderland believers. The latter have to explain how to ration.
Now Mises stated the well warranted question of even how to know of how to produce what in socialism, and you can find lots of discussion and information for this topic on either side, but not on the distribution/rationing issue. So I picked the opportunity to ask one of their proponents about the MSDP, which ancom would have to suffer even if they could solve the ECP at least nearly as good as capitalism does.And that’s even not all the problems for them…
@ Apfelstrudel
I never said you are not allowed to have more than one rationing system, never! How's it if for the start you just tell me at least even one of those vast solutions you claim to have. If you had them they’d come out like a machine gun fires bullets. But all solutions you did tell after pushing hard are crap! How many examples do you want to hear (BTW I even offered you to set the stage)? Too less butter, too few HDDs, too less beach available on the balearic islands, too few IC STK0040 Darlington Power Packs, too few hexagon head screw M4X8 ECO-FIX, too less Kirschtopfenstrudel, too less vanilla ice cream (this series goes to infinity, although too less vanilla ice cream alone will screw your dream any way ;).
wouldn't hesitate to jump in and save him, free of charge.
Offcourse you would. I think you misunderstand my question; the point is not if people in ancom or ancap would jump or not. In any society there are people who would and those who would not. The question is if it would be ethical?
The point was to illustrate that, no matter what society we live in, taking advantage of a person in such a desperate situation for personal gain is unethical. I am sure that most people, capitalists or not, would agree with that. So why is it any different when he is starving? Why is placing him in a sweatshop OK?
Regarding your question, there will always be conflicts like that. Ancom is not an utopia. Take what Orwell writes in Homage to Catalonia:
"...The normal military punishments existed, but they were only invoked for very serious offences. When a man refused to obey an order you did not immediately get him punished; you first appealed to him in the name of comradeship. Cynical people with no experience of handling men will say instantly that this would never 'work', but as a matter of fact it does 'work' in the long run. The discipline of even the worst drafts of militia visibly improved as time went on. In January the job of keeping a dozen raw recruits up to the mark almost turned my hair grey. In May for a short while I was acting-lieutenant in command of about thirty men, English and Spanish. We had all been under fire for months, and I never had the slightest difficulty in getting an order obeyed or in getting men to volunteer for a dangerous job. 'Revolutionary' discipline depends on political consciousness--on an understanding of -why- orders must be obeyed; it takes time to diffuse this, but it also takes time to drill a man into an automaton on the barrack-square."
So yes, at some point, if all appeals, all attempts to explain why we need that object fails, and it is somehow REALLY important and we REALLY can't go without it (nevermind why we used such an important resource for a toy to begin with!), lives depend on it... well someone would have to take it. It's the standard reply to total pacifism, really, just stated a bit differently; violence is morally acceptable if it can be shown to directly prevent far more an greater violence and is the only option.
I can also ask you the same question; what if someone in an ancap society owns something that is vital for the survival of everyone, and he refuses to sell it. No price, no deal, no offer, hell no appreal to comradeship or his consciousness, works. What would you do? Die rather than violate the principles of the free market? The question is irrelevant - both scenarios are extremely unlikely for many reasons. Some solution can, in practice, always be found that does not involve force. This is the basis of both our philosophies.
Thanx for the link also.
filc,
Don't argue semantics. Think whatever you wish of the terms and how they sound; I personally think that anarcho-capitalism is the mother of all contradictive terms but arguing about that would be missing the point. It's not what you call it that is important, it's what it is. If "wage slavery" and "possessions" bother you, call 'em Bob and Alice. Just learn about them and what they mean, and they are very important in anarchist thought.
The ancom position is still that exchange in the capitalist sense would not occur because it would make no sense. That it is not forbidden doesn't mean that it would be prevalent. You cannot debunk a philosophy by pointing to an act that would make no sense given that society. It would be like me asking "what if I burned all the money I have?" or something; in a capitalist society it's just crazy...
You do not understand was possession is, or how it differs from property, at all.
Nor does even the theoretical possibility that some people will wish to exchange their possessions (rather than give them away as gifts, or anything else that does not involve a tit-for-tat exchange, which is common in non-market societies) discredit the philosophy. As I have pointed out before, an objective account of value still allows for personal differences. We all have a need for art and beauty, but I happen to prefer your painting to my sculpture (and vice versa), so we exchange them. Why does this discredit the entire system, which is concerned mostly with the organisation of and purpose of production? That money or a market is needed somehow does not follow, unless perhaps one assumes that exchange like that would be the basis on which commodities are distributed (which would contradict ancom theory).
Defining exchange to include all social cooperation and collaboration misses to point. Such collaboration is not subject to ladyattis' critique at all.
ladyattis' assumes that "production cycles start and stop on their own schedules free from consideration of consumers (and their demands)" which is false. It is simply in no way true. Ancom would very much take people's demand into account, as it is essentially an economy planned by the people (both in their role as producers and as consumers).
Just-in-time and on-demand methods of production have already been referenced to. In other words, we stop producing when people stop ordering, just like in capitalism. Measuring demand is a similar technical process both in a free market system and a non-market society. You look at for opinions and trends. The only difference is the purpose of production.
skylien,
What I meant with more examples wasn't "lack of good x", and then you insert a bunch of different things that x can be. I meant a detailed example: How much do we have, how much is needed, who needs and for what do they need it? What is the cause of the shortage? Can it be remedied within an acceptable time-frame, or must we begin considering other options? Where are we, what neighbouring communities do we have, and what is their situation in regards to this commodity? Are there substitutes, can we access them and what is the comparative cost in labour, energy, resources, environmental impact, etc.? Is that cost worth it? Is it necessary? Or are people willing or able to wait for more of what they demand to be produced? If not, why not, and how long would producing more take? Why was the shortage not avoided? Is it a failure of the system, or something we could not have possibly foreseen? Etc.
Apfelstrudel: How much do we have, how much is needed, who needs and for what do they need it? What is the cause of the shortage? Can it be remedied within an acceptable time-frame, or must we begin considering other options? Where are we, what neighbouring communities do we have, and what is their situation in regards to this commodity? Are there substitutes, can we access them and what is the comparative cost in labour, energy, resources, environmental impact, etc.? Is that cost worth it? Is it necessary? Or are people willing or able to wait for more of what they demand to be produced? If not, why not, and how long would producing more take? Why was the shortage not avoided? Is it a failure of the system, or something we could not have possibly foreseen? Etc.
How much do we have, how much is needed, who needs and for what do they need it? What is the cause of the shortage? Can it be remedied within an acceptable time-frame, or must we begin considering other options?
Where are we, what neighbouring communities do we have, and what is their situation in regards to this commodity? Are there substitutes, can we access them and what is the comparative cost in labour, energy, resources, environmental impact, etc.? Is that cost worth it? Is it necessary? Or are people willing or able to wait for more of what they demand to be produced? If not, why not, and how long would producing more take? Why was the shortage not avoided? Is it a failure of the system, or something we could not have possibly foreseen? Etc.
As I said, psychosis-level megalomania. Just count the number of "we" or passive verbiage above! To even think that "we" (or "our" central committee with their genius assistants running Cockshott algorithms on TVP/TZM super-computer mainframes) could provide answers to these questions and, more importantly, shove "The Solution" down everyone's throats (without coercion, mind you!) is bordering on sheer lunacy. I'm out.
"We" as in our community. The one with the problem. Seeing as, in an ancom society, you wouldn't be involved in the decisions that don't affect you, I assumed that I am one of the people deciding here. You ask me what I would do, and then accuse me of being a megalomaniac when I reject that I would do anything and insist that this is a collective problem? Shit, seriously, are you in such a hurry to attack me personally?
I am sick of it. I have been nothing but polite, and yet I have to endure ad hominem after ad hominem. I do my best to understand your philosophy and position, you just accuse me of standing for the opposite of what I stand for. I have over and over denied the existence of a single solution (that is your god damn position!) or coercion. You just ignore this. You can't even be bothered to put some thought into how you insult me.
You're out? No, I am out. I decided to stay on because some people where actually engaging me in a serious debate. Now I leave because of you, personally, and your immature behaviour and inability to actually discuss something. Congrats, you actually bullied me out of the forums, hope that makes you really proud.
Thank you to everyone else, I'll be sure to read up more on praxeology.
Apfel
Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7853
Ancoms like you are going to end up subsistence farming, working in the fields 10-14 hours a day just to survive because of your lack of planning.
z1235: -Related; what about those who cannot participate in a market? I am thinking here mostly about future generations (since you cannot call them lazy, like the poor, or unimportant, like animals). Who appointed you as someone else's spokesperson/defender? As I said, you commies are nothing but a bunch of megalomaniac busybodies: the defenders of the victims of voluntary action! How about you mind your own business and stop "protecting" ones that never asked for your help or concern in the first place? What about the short and bald dudes? I think they might be having difficulties getting laid. I think we should force women to have sex with them. Are you with me on that one?
-Related; what about those who cannot participate in a market? I am thinking here mostly about future generations (since you cannot call them lazy, like the poor, or unimportant, like animals).
Who appointed you as someone else's spokesperson/defender? As I said, you commies are nothing but a bunch of megalomaniac busybodies: the defenders of the victims of voluntary action! How about you mind your own business and stop "protecting" ones that never asked for your help or concern in the first place? What about the short and bald dudes? I think they might be having difficulties getting laid. I think we should force women to have sex with them. Are you with me on that one?
I lol'd, because so true.... some people just LOVE to control other people and imagine that they know what they want better than themselves.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
"ladyattis' assumes that "production cycles start and stop on their own schedules free from consideration of consumers (and their demands)" which is false. It is simply in no way true."
Wait one second there, um you probably never worked in a factory. But the fact is all productions from simple butane cartrages to air conditioner units isn't done with regard to consumer demand like what you have in retail sales, and even those are decoupled from day-to-day demands. The reason is pretty obvious if you know why, but lets not bullshit about stuff you haven't dealt with IRL. The fact is, even in a farmstead situation, exchanges are decoupled from each other. Consider granny making an apple pie, does she really need to think of what grandpa is doing in the field if grandpa cultivates wheat? Of course not. Exchanges even in a strictly non-economic pattern or structure are decoupled because space and time make them so. Even within the same person exchanges (Austistic exchange as Mises called them in HA) are decoupled too by space and time. This is a given. I strongly suggest hunkering down and reading HA to understand this point.
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
My comments in bold:
All the issues have been addressed. To wit:
Apfelstrudel: So far, no one has addressed the following issues: -How little shit you give about nature is beside the point. You are absolutely dependant on it for survival; no such thing as being "too cool for clean air and water and a healthy topsoil". So how does a market address environmental issues, when money does not carry the information needed? This is a strawman argument. Esuric not caring about nature meant he would rather be able to afford his electric bill, say, than have the waterfull's pristine visual beauty marred by a generator near it. At least I hope that's what he meant. As for damage to air and water and topsoil, if all land and sea and air are owned by someone, one could sue for damages to his property. -Related; what about those who cannot participate in a market? I am thinking here mostly about future generations (since you cannot call them lazy, like the poor, or unimportant, like animals). Two replies here. As resouces get depleted, they get more expensive, thus being conserved, and alternates searched for. From the days of Malthus right down to the present, we have been fed scare stories about there won't be enough to go round in a few short years. Always proven wrong somehow. Not to mention, why do you think you care more about someones children and grandchildren than he does? If you are concerned, so is he, and a thousand times more. No need to confiscate his property into some giant pool "for the good of his children". -What exactly the problem is. I notice not even you can agree that the central issue of the ECP is; is it how we produce or what we produce? Ladyattis seems to agree that Mises talked about decidng how. She claims that deciding what is [also] a huge problem. Not sure she is right. It is important to note that the two questions are closely related. How you produce A determines what you can produce of B, C, etc. -Your response to the ethical issues I brought up. This, I think, should include why a person ought not to be able to influence decisions affecting him/her. As someone just pointed out very clearly, that is besides the point. Mises argued that even if we all agree to all the ethical issues any form of socialism holds to, the ECP shows that socialism will get us further away from a satisfactory solution of those issues. Unless we want mass starvation and universal poverty. Socialism will achieve that very quickly. The basic libertarian theory is that you have a right to defend yourself against violence to yourself and others [if they ask you to], and to your property and theirs [if they ask you to]. You have a right to keep and use the fruits of your labors as you see fit, if it does nop damage to others. As other posters have pointed out "decisions affecting someone else" is very very vague and allows for way too much. If you marry a pretty girl, others may feel bad they cannot have her. The movies and novels describe the intensity of their anguish. What if someone just married her for the most trivial of reasons? Should these poor lovesick sufferers have the right to demand the wife? -You response to my assertion that the algorithmic account of practical reason moves away from Hayek's (admittedly strong) position, and sides with your opposition on a vital issue. Beyond my knowledge, but this was also addressed. So Hayek was wrong about something, so what?
So far, no one has addressed the following issues:
-How little shit you give about nature is beside the point. You are absolutely dependant on it for survival; no such thing as being "too cool for clean air and water and a healthy topsoil".
So how does a market address environmental issues, when money does not carry the information needed?
This is a strawman argument. Esuric not caring about nature meant he would rather be able to afford his electric bill, say, than have the waterfull's pristine visual beauty marred by a generator near it. At least I hope that's what he meant.
As for damage to air and water and topsoil, if all land and sea and air are owned by someone, one could sue for damages to his property.
Two replies here. As resouces get depleted, they get more expensive, thus being conserved, and alternates searched for. From the days of Malthus right down to the present, we have been fed scare stories about there won't be enough to go round in a few short years. Always proven wrong somehow.
Not to mention, why do you think you care more about someones children and grandchildren than he does? If you are concerned, so is he, and a thousand times more. No need to confiscate his property into some giant pool "for the good of his children".
-What exactly the problem is. I notice not even you can agree that the central issue of the ECP is; is it how we produce or what we produce?
Ladyattis seems to agree that Mises talked about decidng how. She claims that deciding what is [also] a huge problem. Not sure she is right.
It is important to note that the two questions are closely related. How you produce A determines what you can produce of B, C, etc.
-Your response to the ethical issues I brought up. This, I think, should include why a person ought not to be able to influence decisions affecting him/her.
As someone just pointed out very clearly, that is besides the point. Mises argued that even if we all agree to all the ethical issues any form of socialism holds to, the ECP shows that socialism will get us further away from a satisfactory solution of those issues. Unless we want mass starvation and universal poverty. Socialism will achieve that very quickly.
The basic libertarian theory is that you have a right to defend yourself against violence to yourself and others [if they ask you to], and to your property and theirs [if they ask you to]. You have a right to keep and use the fruits of your labors as you see fit, if it does nop damage to others.
As other posters have pointed out "decisions affecting someone else" is very very vague and allows for way too much. If you marry a pretty girl, others may feel bad they cannot have her. The movies and novels describe the intensity of their anguish. What if someone just married her for the most trivial of reasons? Should these poor lovesick sufferers have the right to demand the wife?
-You response to my assertion that the algorithmic account of practical reason moves away from Hayek's (admittedly strong) position, and sides with your opposition on a vital issue.
Beyond my knowledge, but this was also addressed. So Hayek was wrong about something, so what?
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Apfelstrudel:Don't argue semantics.
I'm not the communist. So I am not. The definitions I employ can be found in the webster dicitonary or any other common dictionary. The terms employed are terms that have been used for centuries. The semantic issues are found on your end. You should know this is an inherent problem to the communist methodology(Since 90% of their argument is one of semantics and rhetoric. Very little scientific or logical analysis is involved). Some people call this doublespeak. "Wage Slavery". "Exploitation". "Exchange". "Property" are all terms that must be changed in order for your line of thought to even begin to make sense.
And ofcoarse the response is going to be that these terms were tainted by the capitalistic society. An inherent flaw of people who believe in insane idea of polylogism.
Ancoms like you are going to end up subsistence farming, working in the fields 10-14 hours a day just to survive because of your lack of planning. (Justin)
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n2-7.html
You give the impression of being unessecarily eltisit. You need money to plan?? Are you certain? Maybe Communism failed in the USSR b/c they probably weren't using the scientific method to arrive at decisions. Perhaps, it was b/c it was an elitist, totalitarian, and militant regime where an elite created a false representation of reality? That's why, seemingly, information from the outside world collapsed the regime. Unlikely it was b/c of using a scientific economics which didn't use monetary prices. I have never seen ANY EVIDENCE directly showing the monetary market systems are actually necessary. I need some causative evidence, not just anecdotal evidence.
You have probably realized before that correlation does not equal causation? Monetary Market operations are "faith based" upon "In God We Trust"/InvisibleHand of God are not scientific evidence or reliable.
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention (Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations)
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
Secular reasoning from Noam Chomsky.
Throughout history, Adam Smith observed, we find the workings of "the vile maxim of the masters of mankind": "All for ourselves, and nothing for other People." He had few illusions about the consequences. The invisible hand, he wrote, destroys the possibility of a decent human existence "unless government takes pains to prevent" this outcome, as must be assured in "every improved and civilized society." It destroys community, the environment, and human values generally—and even the masters themselves, which is why the business classes have regularly called for state intervention to protect them from market forces. (...)
There's something inherently invalid about the Monetary Market System. I don't think even Chomsky supports a moneyless economy. I'm just pointing out something he said. Along w/this link, providing some evidence of inherent invalidity.
http://www.alternet.org/story/150570/hedge_fund_gamblers_earn_the_same_in_one_hour_as_a_middle-class_household_makes_in_over_47_years?akid=6823.280485.3dXgGD&rd=1&t=2
EIRMOS: Maybe Communism failed in the USSR b/c they probably weren't using the scientific method to arrive at decisions.
No if they employed the Scientific method to social sciences you'd probably get the same outcome.
Look bottom line is you guys are throwing out all kinds of nonesense but nothing cited here or presented addresses the underlying fundamental issue that praxeology presents(The very point of this thread). Economic Calculation.
Unless you are omniscient, and you can see the ordinal preferences of every man women or child on earth of every second of every day, your plan for society logically is incapable of working. You are essentially trying to make 2+2=5 by changing the definitions of 2. It just doesn't add up. Only when you delve into the realm of nonesense and incoherency is such discussion permited because reason can be ignored(Hence the reason communists hide themselves in rhetoric and semantics).
Ya, the guy saying "capitalism = voluntary exchange" is not engaging in semantics and linguistic gymnastics.
Or "acting actors act" ie, praxeology (I read Danny's article. I don't think it adequately addressed this issue, or the verification issue.)
Ya, no perversion of language there.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Filc: No if they employed the Scientific method to social sciences you'd probably get the same outcome.
Oh my ass. I don't think that statement makes much logical sense.
Ya, the guy saying "capitalism = voluntary exchange" is not engaging in semantics and linguistic gymnastics. Or "acting actors act" ie, praxeology (I read Danny's article. I don't think it adequately addressed this issue, or the verification issue.)
1. Voluntary exchange can only occur within a system of private property rights, hence the ability to exchange.
2. Acting actors do act. It's implicit in the definition. Now this isn't enough, of course, since one has to figure out how you get from a definition to where you point at something and say, "That thing over there is an actor."
EIRMOS:Oh my ass. I don't think that statement makes much logical sense.
2+2=4 doesn't make logical sense to someone who never took basic arithmetic either. In the same light your arguing economics but y our entire economic education is founded on communist rhetoric(little of it having a logical or scientific premise).
Any how the point of the following statement.
Filc:No if they employed the Scientific method to social sciences you'd probably get the same outcome.
Is to point out that radical empiricism cannot be applied to the social sciences as there are no constants. Anyone who's studied some basic economics knows this dilemma. The fact that I have to repeat it to y ou is a testament to the type of research you've actually done on the subject.
Laotzu del Zinn: Ya, the guy saying "capitalism = voluntary exchange" is not engaging in semantics and linguistic gymnastics.
Your being sarcastic because your definition of Capitalism is actually fascism. Remember we're the ones using the webster dictionary, not you.
If it happens "within" then it is not "it." It's called conflating terms.
Gravity can only happen within a system of matter. Gravity is not matter.
Ya Filc. Except if you remember (I tend to think you've intentionally, but subconsciously forgot) I was the one always linking the dictionary definitions. And you and your friends were the ones saying I would "just have to accept (y)our definitions."
@EIRMOS
Filc: No if they employed the Scientific method to social sciences you'd probably get the same outcome
You’re treating the scientific method as if it were not already rooted in assumptions. Using the scientific method is a way to be objective about results but it says nothing to the fact that there are already results, opinions, biases, assumptions, etc rooted before you begin the scientific method.
Read until you have something to write...Write until you have nothing to write...when you have nothing to write, read...read until you have something to write...Jeremiah
Laotzu del Zinn: And you and your friends were the ones saying I would "just have to accept (y)our definitions."
How can you have a meaningful debate if you cannot accept terms? Only in a world of polylogism can you think that makes any kind of sense. lolol
So you agree that you are not, nor have been using the dictionary definitions for many of these things, and if we want to debate you we have to accept your terms, rather than the dictionary definitions?
If you go back to the discussion your referring to you will see how it was explained by many that the definition used both on Wiki and in webster is entirely consistent/compatable/ and equivilent to the terms accepted by the Autsrian School.
It was you you who was trying to argue that State Capitalism(Fascism) and anything related to propertarianism was inherently exploitive. It was your implied exploitation of property which lead you to come to conclusions that were different from ours. When asked to explain why you couldn't go beyond petty argumentation.
Thanks for bringing it back up again though.
If we go back, and I am fine doing that, you will see that your definitions are only consistent with the dictionary definitions if you conflate terms and engage in other linguistic gymnastics; ie, conflating voluntary exchange with capitalism, etc.
I don't want to derail the thread. You're free to open another. So I'll just leave it at that. I merely wanted to step in and correct the charge that the OP is the only one here engaging in semantics.
Laotzu del Zinn: I don't want to derail the thread. You're free to open another. So I'll just leave it at that. I merely wanted to step in and correct the charge that the OP is the only one here engaging in semantics.
No that wont'e be necessary. If anyone needs to make a post arguing that property is exploitive it's you. I don't need to make such a post here on this forum.
Laotzu del Zinn:you will see that your definitions are only consistent with the dictionary definitions if you conflate terms and engage in other linguistic gymnastics; ie, conflating voluntary exchange with capitalism, etc.
In your new post you can explain what terms were conflated. (Nice try). Dishonesty fails. :)
The irony of a communist attacking a capitalist for his alleged use of rhetoric and semantics. lolol
^ Uses rhetoric and semantics to prove that capitalists don't, and socialists do use rhetoric and semantics.
Now that is irony.
You give the impression of being unessecarily eltisit. You need money to plan?? Are you certain? Maybe Communism failed in the USSR b/c they probably weren't using the scientific method to arrive at decisions. Perhaps, it was b/c it was an elitist, totalitarian, and militant regime where an elite created a false representation of reality? That's why, seemingly, information from the outside world collapsed the regime. Unlikely it was b/c of using a scientific economics which didn't use monetary prices. I have never seen ANY EVIDENCE directly showing the monetary market systems are actually necessary. I need some causative evidence, not just anecdotal evidence."
EIRMOS,
What was the point of posting me that link from Cato?
Maybe, probably, perhaps you should read it.
Let me quote it for you.:
"Chapter 3, "What Price Socialism? An Economy without Information," could have been written by Ludwig von Mises or F. A. Hayek. Although Shane nowhere mentions the pioneering work of the two Austrian economists, who long ago predicted the impossibility of efficiently allocating resources without competitively determined market prices and private property rights, his findings show that they were right and Marx was wrong. This chapter can be profitably read by both economists and noneconomists--it gets to the heart of the information failure in the Soviet system of central planning without getting mired in technical jargon.
Shane shows the difficulty of trying to ration scarce goods without the price mechanism and the loss of freedom that occurs when economic life is strictly controlled by the state. By keeping the prices of consumer goods artificially low, the Soviet planners created the ubiquitous "waiting line." Around that institution grew "an elaborate subculture...with its own habits and rules." The odd thing is that shortages appeared in product lines of which the Soviet Union was the largest producer in the world. In the late 1980s, the USSR produced more than three pairs of shoes for each citizen, but people had to wait to buy shoes. The problem was that the available shoes did not reflect consumers' tastes: the shoes were made to fulfil a government plan, not to satisfy market demand. Thus, consumers had to wait in line for hours to find shoes that fit and were stylish--and most of those shoes were imported.
That "malfunction," argues Shane, was due to information control:
Prices are information--the information producers need in order to know what and how much to produce. In a market for a product as varied in material and design as footwear, shifting prices are like sensors taped to the skin of a patient in a medical experiment; they provide a constant flow of information about consumer needs and preferences. When the state controlled prices, it deprived producers of information about demand [p. 77].
The politicization of economic life in the Soviet Union meant that "prices functioned as propaganda and therefore malfunctioned as economic indicators." Keeping the prices of food and housing artificially low helped support the myth of a Soviet socialist utopia or, as Shane puts it, "Controlled prices were an indispensable prop for the Soviet illusion" (p. 79).
Without the feedback of prices based on demand and supply, planners had to make production decisions on the basis of past data rather than on current consumer preferences. As a result, production targets could change dramatically, as could prices. In the case of laundry soap, for instance, an acute shortage turned into a giant surplus in less than two years. Without the guidance of prices, "the soap industry was like a hugh truck with no steering wheel, careening from one curb to the other" (p. 84).
Because the state empowered bureaucrats to set prices and made illegal what was natural--the inclination to make one's self and one's family better off by private production and market exchange--people had a strong incentive to break the law. The "shadow economy" became a way of life and helped people survive. Those who operated in the parallel market economy were "economic dissidents," argues Shane. "By exercising economic freedom, they were challenging the state's monopoly on the economy, just as a political dissident who asserted freedom of speech or of the press challenged the state's monopoly on ideology" (p. 92).
The Soviet system was totally corrupt. Those in power readily accepted bribes from those who found market activity more lucrative than following orders from party bureaucrats. Shane provides numerous examples of such corruption: from the illegal use of Xerox machines by workers at the Communist party's headquarters to "the Uzbec affair," in which party members enriched themselves by underreporting cotton production, selling the residual on the black market and accepting large bribes. "What became increasingly clear after 1988," writes Shane, "was that the Stalinist economy, still essentially intact, could not be reformed. It could only be dismantled, and a market economy grown in the ruins" (p. 98)."
Some relevant and prophetic words of Gibbon. Find and replace Christian with Socialist:
But the most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing hand of a superior magistrate: and the order of public deliberations soon introduces the office of a president, invested at least with the authority of collecting the sentiments, and of executing the resolutions, of the assembly. A regard for the public tranquillity, which would so frequently have been interrupted by annual or by occasional elections, induced the primitive Christians to constitute an honorable and perpetual magistracy, and to choose one of the wisest and most holy among their presbyterians to execute, during his life, the duties of their ecclesiastical governor... The advantages of this episcopal form of government, which appears to have been introduced before the end of the first century, were so obvious, and so important for the future greatness, as well as the present peace, of Christianity, that it was adopted without delay by all the societies which were already scattered over the empire, had acquired in a very early
period the sanction of antiquity, and is still revered by the most powerful churches, both of the East and of the West, as a primitive and even as a divine establishment. It is needless to observe, that the pious and humble presbyters, who were first dignified with the episcopal title, could not possess, and would probably have rejected, the power and pomp which now encircles the tiara of the Roman pontiff, or the mitre of a German prelate.
Nice personal attacks filc. Please don't respond to me w/ assumptions about my actual education: your entire economic education is founded on communist rhetoric. The information I've shared does not tell you that. You may not have seen the information I've seen, and I may not even be expressing that information fully enough.
your entire economic education is founded on communist rhetoric
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics inherently involves the calculations of these things in order to solve those problems. . Also where ecology is not destroyed in the practical application of this process. We are headed towards a better economics, one that actually can produce the best products at the lowest costs to the environment and individual as is possible. Also one that is falsifiable, but is validated through/application of the scientific method. So-->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_efficiency
No one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. No additional output can be obtained without increasing the amount of inputs. Production proceeds at the lowest possible per-unit cost...
Determing if this is even possible in the Monetary Market System. The end user does not have the actual information that went into making it. Like the price of gasoline. It appears that the money sequence of value would make this impossible to scale.
And what about artificial demand costs? Organic is just as productive and sometimes moreso than conventional, and environmentally cost even less than convential, yet it still costs more money, and not just b/c of demand.
http://agroeco.org/doc/organic_feed_world.pdf
Federal commodity programs and subsidies are geared towards large-scale chemically intensive agriculture and artificially inflate figures for industrial agriculture
The Economics of Life and Death by John McMurtry
Justin I was well aware of the contents of the CATO article: Dismantling Utopia. I knew it supported an aspect of what many of the members on this thread promote. I'm not here to belittle any of you. It failed to explain the actual mechanics of the decisions, like the conditions upon which they were made.
We need stonger induction to minimize potential bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning#Strong_induction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
You are embarassing yourself imo.
For example, I don't go to a physics forum and lecture it's members about physics while using the wiki as my primary source of information.
http://mises.org/rothbard/praxeology.pdf
first 6 sections of
http://mises.org/Books/humanaction.pdf
and if you must use wiki at least spend 5 minutes here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology
Here we go for the 57th time. I call a Venus Zeitgeister.
Also your other rants aren't talking about THE economic calculation problem as raised by Mises in the 1920's. Any well read socialist/communist is already fully aware of the issue. So much that they've gone out of their way to admit the problem and tried to construct socialism as a copy of the market. That whole tidbit about economic effeciency has nothing to do with the conversation.
Which leads me to beleive your not aware of the issue, which is shocking for someone who is allegedly well read on socialist/communist literature.
Notice the spike in the 1920's. That should give you a hint.
z1235: Here we go for the 57th time. I call a Venus Zeitgeister.
It's like a daily occurence, I feel like a broken record. Whats more entertaining is the VP ZGM folk act like this is the first any of this has been explored. When in reality their beleifs have been exploded around 100 years ago.
filc: It's like a daily occurence, I feel like a broken record. Whats more entertaining is the VP ZGM folk act like this is the first any of this has been explored. When in reality their beleifs have been exploded around 100 years ago.
Yes, but people didn't have calculators 100 years ago, you see?. The young'uns today barge in strapped with calculators on their belts: "Word is you guys had a calculation problem here?"
lol!
We are not finished yet ;)
I don't understand why such a background story does anything to help you to answer that. To show you why I want to make my point more clear. I hope you will reconsider and answer to this again. It really is not the right way of how Z is stating his opinion.
I think you understand the law of supply and demand. But to get sure and to state my argument completely I will give you a small example. A company which produces 1000 pcs/year of a good X is able to sell all at exact $100 each year. Now if the price was lowered to lets say $90 it could sell 1050 pcs. But if only 1000 pcs are produced you have a shortage. People who would want to buy this good can't although they are ready to express their demand with the needed purchasing power. If lowered further and the amount produced kept at the same level, it will increase the amount of people who want and could technically buy it but can't practically. They need to go home with empty hands. This is a shortage. The price is the factor that restrains demand until it matches supply. -> If you don't agree about this please comment clearly on it or confirm.
Now imagine the current situation of production on earth how it actually is. But we artificially assume that the production process and the income of people is fixed. Nothing has an effect on it inclusive the price system. All people like zombies go to work and produce as they do today, no matter what happens or changes. So there is no feedback what so ever on the production process. Now we think of what would happen if all prices would be lowered until they vanished completely of all goods every day, and people could finally get everything free of charge. Please note that their needs/behaviour of consumption are normal, not zombie like. So they react on changing matters like prices. Lower prices will cause higher effective demand -> which means we get a growing shortage with ever lower prices, since supply doesn’t change. It should be clear that storage racks in shops would become empty in ever shorter periods of time along with ever decreased prices every day. This counts for all goods and services! The pressure to hurry to the shop after work and get what you want and need increases also, since the time window becomes shorter and shorter. If prices are vanished completely people would already storm shops after work like wild animals, because if you are not there in time nothing is left for you! Finally there is nothing that restrains/ration consumption of anyone! -> Again please tell me if you agree/understand my scenario or if something is not clear. Basically it is only applied law of supply and demand on a hypothetical situation with fixed production and income but normal consumption behavior of people in capitalism.
This scenario is technically already very close to ancom since people can take whatever they want without having to give anything in return. Also production and distribution are split up, they don’t have an effect on each other anymore. But we can alter the situation further and say that production runs exactly how you think it would. Your system also overcomes the ECP and makes perfect use of the given supply of resources. All your “planners” do perfect work and do not make grave mistakes. Yet production is still restraint by resources and the current available technology of production, which is given by nature. -> I hope up to this point you don’t have anything to disagree with if yes explain exactly what.
Now there are 3 ways for you to argue of why people would not storm the shops and empty shops in near zero time: 1: You argue that the perfect anarcho communist way of production would get out of the same resources and state of technology an extreme multiplication of goods/services produced so that all needs/demands by all people are fully saturated, and therefore no fear for not getting what you want can even arise.
2: The amount of produced goods/services will be about the same of what the capitalistic mode can produce. At least there is no way of complete saturation of all needs of all people. But people will exercise self-restraint to match the optimal but still finite supply and no "storming the shops" would occur.
3: The same as 2, but you have any other way of generally ration the given supply. If you do not ration people will take as much as they need (which is more as you think if they do not exercise self-restraint)! This means people who are too slow will get nothing at all!
Number 1 is clearly a lala land point. Number 2 involves a change of human nature and omniscience, also lala land. Leaves number 3 for you to explain.
Considered my above given scenario nearly all your questions you asked me are not making any sense, since your system already produces perfectly as the given resources and current technology allow it. Any shift in production would decrease a shortage in one area only to incease a bigger shortage in another area.
Apfelstrudel:What I meant with more examples wasn't "lack of good x", and then you insert a bunch of different things that x can be. I meant a detailed example: How much do we have, how much is needed, who needs and for what do they need it? What is the cause of the shortage? Can it be remedied within an acceptable time-frame, or must we begin considering other options? Where are we, what neighbouring communities do we have, and what is their situation in regards to this commodity? Are there substitutes, can we access them and what is the comparative cost in labour, energy, resources, environmental impact, etc.? Is that cost worth it? Is it necessary? Or are people willing or able to wait for more of what they demand to be produced? If not, why not, and how long would producing more take? Why was the shortage not avoided? Is it a failure of the system, or something we could not have possibly foreseen? Etc
The only questions that remain to answer are: How much do we have?: Bricks for 1 house How much is needed?: 9 times the amount of bricks for houses demanded who are not available currently. For what do they need it?: For houses -> This kind of shortage will persist for nearly every good/service all the time with the results described above (and more if you take feebacks on the production process into account), except you believe in 1 or/and 2. So how do you ration?
I'm surprised this hasn't gotten mentioned yet...
Art Carden recently said:
If you haven’t read Salerno’s postscript to “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” it’s phenomenal. Casting him as Mises was a stroke of genius that raised the new video to a whole new level of awesome.
Also one that is falsifiable, but is validated through/application of the scientific method.
Just out of curiosity, do you so much as know what that means? How do you falsify truth?
I think Mises' advocation of private ownership could be retranslated to "decentralization" of ownership. If it's not fact, then at least, I would favor decentralization. Anyway, that's kinda' of a tangent, I admit.
I definitely don't want to make a fool of myself, I read through the entirety of Praxeology and Economic Calculation in Socialist Commenwealth. There seems to be admittance of money's imperfection.. He seems to blame all economic blunder on what he knew as Socialism at the time. 1920s, was undoubtedly, a different time. However, in society today, there are many countries w/socialized health care, w/statistics superior to the US's. And even less money is spent per person than in the US's private, capitalist health care system, yet health is worse here, on average. It's that single payer (socialization) of healthcare, costs money, but it's quite less money. Socio-economic inequality has many observable and negative side-effects. I didn't see much mention of that, in my reading of Mises.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
http://www.slideshare.net/equalitytrust/the-spirit-level-slides-from-the-equality-trust
I only agree that information must be exchanged between bodies in order to reliably meet the needs of people. Money only represents debt information. And it's not largely distributed in accordance to physical, neurological, or natural understanding. Prazeology claims to be something along those lines, but I haven't seen any studies actually proving so. I never said Mises was an idiot, but clearly there is somethings he couldn't accomplish in his lifetime, just like Aristotle. Aristotle was wrong about gravity..
If theory or truth can't be observed, or empirically tested (at least in theory) by others then it's not falsifiable. Economics is falisifiable, otherwise it wouldn't be science.It appears that Mises' praxeology (science of human action) is quite questionable, as was alchemy. It's how there was alchemy, before there was chemistry. Many of the same tools (literally the equipment) used in alchemy were used by the first empirical chemists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_College
"The society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation" If we had a reliable tool for guaging the resources needed to meet the needs of production, consumption, distribution, and efficiency, and on a day to day basis.. Like money does, but much less esoterical than alchemy, and much more sound and testable science, like chemistry. I only seek to reform economics where it fails. The damage is widespread and has permeated so much, if not all of us, even the rich could be considered victims..