Well said sir. Philosophy is a dead end, but the logic of economics is irrefutable; it settles all disputes.
Completely ignoring the fact that there exists seperate classes; ie. RULERS vs. RULED - doesn’t come close to being any kind of coherent & successful strategy for liberty.
“VERY few (if any) people benefit from the interventionist state”
And yet so many support it. Both methods are permissble to alter that perception, economic education - as well as political philosophy, to dismiss either entirely is beyond dumb. You find one more convincing than the other… so? Countless others, and I’d contend the majority, find ethical considerations more so. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Would you support central planning if it was more efficient than freedom?
“Rather, it is a matter of shifting altogether from the moralist battleground (which is equally flat and muddy for all its spurious disputants) to the scientific battleground of economics, where the battle is fought over existential propositions that can actually be meaningfully affirmed or denied, and where the scientific case for capitalism is invincible.”
Ahh… the exact same applies to Libertarianism. I’ll be needing to see your refutation of argumentation ethics some time… No doubt it will be better than the mere “lol” Liberte could muster.
Thankfully it’s not.
Thankfully it’s not.
Yeah. But that doesn’t answer the question.
I don’t know. We’re talking about an alternate reality. It would be hard to support freedom if it meant supporting famine, plague, ect. But the point is that Mises and Hayek’s calculation/coordination arguments turned 99.99% of the Marxists into neoclassical economists. It entirely obliterated their framework, and today, even the statists reject communism (though they support fascism). It made no appeal to ethics. It simply revealed the fact that their system, based on the elimination of private property, was untenable.
I can’t think of a better way to support freedom then by showing that it’s the only tenable human condition. Talking about the differences between persuasion and coercion simply doesn’t convince anyone.
Get a grip, I wasn’t attacking your Moloch. Sheez.
“You, on the other hand, can’t even convince the likes”
… You on the other hand, can’t even convince the likes of Mr1001Nights.
“and I’m not saying that there’s no room for a vigorous philosophical defense of freedom.”
Good. Because there is. I’m glad we’ve got no real disagreement then. The folks who contend as such are lost.
“I’m just saying that economics is much more effective in the vast majority of cases.”
Your appeal to God probably makes you appear fantastically inept when dealing and trying to convince folks in the philosophical sphere. So I have no doubt that what you’ve just said is very true, if only when applying to yourself.
That would only be possible if the action axiom was not true, which it could only be if man was incapable of using reason(according to Mises’ Kantian epistemology).
Is this supposed to be some kind of cheap shot? Do you think it will trigger an emotional response?
I don’t see how you can get ethical theory out of economics. We all say Austrian economics is value-free yet how can we progress liberty through a value free science? Is economics no longer value free?
Esuric,
You pulled off some low blows too. Come on admit it.
Putting the weight of the world on Conza because some people are not valuing freedom or private property enough to maintain it’s integrity and viability, but would rather philosophically and maybe even practicially attack private property isn’t an appropiate implication. Let’s not forget praxeology.
And also you’re trying to make a categorical distinction between economics and politics/ethics as if one is better than the other. How did you objectively come to that conclusion? I think the implication is that they go hand in hand.
Lilburne,
I think it would be helpful to understand this from Conza’s perspective don’t you think? I’m not talking about the current thought-experiment either. I mean let’s take note of what Conza implies and maintains on the forum for the most part. Is it really that bad to maintain a civil society?
I think the way it works is this: You grant the opposition that their goal is admirable, which it usually is. Free food for all etc. You then lay out the economic facts, that liberty gets closest to producing their goals, and slavery gets them further away. This is a value free science. You are not saying which goal is right or wrong, just which paths lead to which goals.
Smiling Dave,
That’s a good answer. I know where you are coming from.
What do you think about my question to Lilburne? I think what you said leaves it unanswered.
Thanks for the positive feedback. Indeed I wasn’t attempting to answer your q to Lilburne, it being over my head.
I linked an article written by a native speaker of english. I think that the moment you start quibbling about the meaning of words in languages you don’t know, you admit that you lost the argument.
I see. Well, by black I mean white. And freedom is slavery.
Worse than that. It makes your whole position inconsistent.
Socialism is “sub optimal” according to your arbitrary and subjective judgments of value.
Again, that socialism doesn’t entail peace and prosperity is just your subjective opinion.
That can be achieved under “socialism” too.
Fixed it for you! Thank me later!
SOMEBODY hasn’t read any Mises…
Edit: but seriously, take a few days to read Mises’ Socialism, and you’ll see the absurdity in your own statment. I dare you.
Sure, if you want to avoid what definition a majority of people are utilizing in said discussion & sink the thread into another debate about semantics regarding what kind or what constitutes socialism.
It’s been proven that state-socialism is unworkable, time & time again. Whether stateless-socialism is unworkable could be debated (and has, and many also view it as non-workable), as well as if any currently existing activities of socialism (like say, in the family unit) provide an example that it might work on some level, which certainly wouldn’t be very large.
Institutionally, socialism has & always will fail, short & mid-term dellusions that ignore long-term implications of socialism have proven this in every execution in the past 20th century.
One does not even need to read Mises to see this at all, honestly. It just makes for better reading.
I wish this were the case. It is odd, I suppose, that it takes someone as brilliant as Mises to refute something as foolish as socialism.
I do think that reading Mises should be required reading though, particularly for anybody who maintains that it is just a “subjective opinion” that socialism doesn’t entail “peace and prosperity.” Give me break.
Don’t play down their argument. There are many here, and everywhere, who cannot adequately explain why socialism fails. One of Mises’s many gifts was finally being able to explode the fallacy in a coherent manner. He showed how it didn’t work technically, leaving the emotions on the sidelines. I agree with Esuric’s above point, the argument is won by technical merit in economics. We show where the blueprint fails. It’s not making an ethical statement. It’s not stating that socialism is wrong or evil, it’s simply stating as a matter of fact that the technical blueprint will not output the final desired goal. It’s like an architect being made aware of several dimensional flaws in his blueprints. There is no “moral” value involved, economics remains value-free.
For example, your neighbor may dream of creating a hover craft retrofitted from his jeep wrangler using balloon’s. He may think he only needs one balloon to get his jeep to float. However, a simple lesson in physics will show him the technical flaws of his ways. He can continue his plan and likely look silly or die, or he concede his error and start over.
Now to answer Conza’s point above. If it could be shown technically that socialism is more effecient then I’d be more then happy to jump on board. If we could some how eliminate scarcity and remove human action I’d be foolish to want to fight against it(Ofcoarse would I even be human at that point?). The truth is though that it would require us to stop being humans, and start being something entirely different.
My co-worker phrased it best when he said.
Him: “Socialism works great in theory”.
ME: “No it doesn’t”.
Him: “Let me reword, Socialism works great in theory, if we are all robots”.
ME: “Ahh yes indeed!”