Ayn Rand and Mises underestimating the common man/woman

[gravyten577]

Sorry a lot of this might seem like rambling

Page 13 of “A Farewell to Alms” by Gregory Clark

Workers in modern cotton textile factories in India, for example, are actually working for as little as fifteen minutes of each hour they are at the workplace

!!!

That has to be an exageration but it does make the point that the attitudes of the common people do make a big difference.

In Human Action Mises wrote that the progressing economy comes from the entrepreneur and the workers to him are like clay that are molded by the entrepreneurs. To him the workers had nothing to do with building the modern world but they benifit from it. Ayn Rand of course took these kinds of ideas to the extreme seeing common folk as just clay that doesn’t produce anything. After all if it wern’t for the innovators the common folk would just be hunting and foraging

Mises even wrote that common folk don’t have ideas of their own but only copy ideas of “uncommon man”.

But Mises seems to contradict himself when he says that the flowering of human society depends on sound economic and social theories being spead amongst the public. If the masses of people were just worthless clay to be molded by capitalists the spreading of bourgeois virtues would be meaningless. For example in Human Action Mises said people in 3rd world countries are so callous that any extra money they have they blow it in just not working while in rich countries people will accumulate wealth. I remember reading a quote somewhere from 18h or 17th century England complaining that whenever workman have a little more than they need to survive they will just take time off which would of course stifle industry.

And of course birth control is a big part of making the modern world. After all if any increase in wealth lead to more breeding people would never become richer because any extra wealth would be consumed by a greater population. Adam Smith even made the point in his time that richer people have less children than the poor. But the spread of birth control to the lower classes isn’t just the lower classes copying the bourgeois but becoming bourgeois themselves. In fact Mises makes the point that it isn’t enough for 3rd world countries to copy the United States they must also have the capitalistic ethic, technology itself won’t do it.

Has anyone else seen a contradiction where Mises says that the masses of people will always be some unthinking horde but at another place says that econoics is a subject to be studied by everyone. If this was true it wouldn’t even be necessary to have wide spread literacy. On the other hand the industrial revolution did involve a closing of the gap between unskilled and skilled laborers.

Mises has said in many places that in modern capitalism it is possible for a fairly poor person to be a creditor to a rich corporation as opposed to the ancient system where the rich were usually creditors and the poor usually debtors. Of course in modern America everyone is in debt, but the economic system in America is on the verge of collapsing so that doesn’t count. The fact is in a modern economy it is possible, perhaps even neccesary that the poorer classes be creditors, they save part of their pay checks and use those funds productively. In a libertarian society there would be no FDIC insurance so even the poor will have to put thought into how they invest. They won’t be simply copying what the upper classes will be doing they will be bourgeois themselves. There would be no public school system and no government subsidized student loans so parents would be required to decide the right schools and teachers for their children.

Another contradiction is that Mises says that the common person is competent enough to make their own decisions in consumption and are not idiots that will succumb to any advertising. But how does this reconcile with the idea that the common person is just clay copying the ideas of other people?

Interestingly enough many liberal type people are well off, even extremely wealthy while many poor people are very conservative and believe that it is wrong to punish to tax somone for being succesful and that being hard on businessman will hurt themselves. Certainly the common people might mindlessly hold onto certain beliefs but it is equally true that even businessman might mindlessly hold onto false ideas which is certainly seen with the business cycle where businessman never seem to learn their lesson that the central bank inteervention in the economy doesn’t bring to prosperity that the false boom will always end in tears. On the other hand some of the people that dislike the government the most are the poorer people, and some of the people that hate foodstamps the most are the poor. After all it is frustrating when you are struggling to get by in an honest job and the guy next door is getting stuff for free

Here is one article “On Equality and Inequality”

http://mises.org/daily/2179

Also Mises makes the mistake in assuming the same kind of people will be succesful in any economic system. Accoding to him the strong will always be in higher positions than the weak. But evolution isn’t about being strong but about being adaptable. The kind of person who might flourish in a capitalistic society might not be able to under communism and vise versa. A talent that will be very good at working up the ranks in the communist party might not make it very far under capitalism. A businessman who supports socialization may find that the government suddenly works against his own interest making the businessman just as foolish as the poor person who supports socialism

The tenor of the arguments of such “progressive” businessmen runs this way: "I owe the eminent position I occupy in my branch of business to my own efficiency and application. My innate talents, my ardor in acquiring the knowledge needed for the conduct of a big enterprise, my diligence raised me to the top. These personal merits would have secured a leading position for me under any economic system. As the head of an important branch of production I would also have enjoyed an enviable position in a socialist commonwealth.

[ClaytonB]

@OP: I think you would be better off listing specific quotes and then listing the specific problems you have with those quotes. I don’t want to be off-putting, but Mises was an incredibly subtle and sophisticated writer and judging from what you’ve written, I think most of your impressions of Mises’s views are simply mistaken. For example, you’ve completely misunderstood the quote you gave in closing - if you had read the following paragraph, you would see that he is actually refuting the entire line of supposed reasoning:

There is of course, no more sense in the self deception of these capitalists and entrepreneurs than in the daydreams of the socialists and communists of all varieties.

Clayton -

[adam_knott]

This is a valid general criticism, and it shows the problem and danger in allowing value judgments or statements expressing personal approval/disapproval to be sprinkled through a work of science. In my opinion, Mises isn’t perfect, he’s just the best we have.

[gravyten577]

Ah I was just looking at the article the 2nd time you are right he did say that it was self deception of these capitalists and entrepreneurs. And Mises certainly is right when he talks about the cult of the common man when it comes to Marxism.

[gravyten577]

There are other places where he gives the same impression though that the superior people will always be dominant. I think his error as I noted in the first post is that under different conditions different types of people will gain higher positions in society. For example the same qualities that make somone a great warlord might end you up being exiled from an anarcho capitalist society

Permit me to recapitulate some well-known facts. While under precapitalistic conditions superior men were the masters on whom the masses of the inferior had to attend, under capitalism the more gifted and more able have no means to profit from their superiority other than to serve to the best of their abilities the wishes of the majority of the less gifted.

In the market, economic power is vested in the consumers. They ultimately determine, by their buying or abstention from buying, what should be produced, by whom and how, of what quality and in what quantity. The entrepreneurs, capitalists, and landowners who fail to satisfy in the best possible and cheapest way the most urgent of the not-yet-satisfied wishes of the consumers are forced to go out of business and forfeit their preferred position.

For example was the feudal lord superior to the serfs? He does give the impression in different places that workers are like clay.

Edit: Actually it is possible he is saying superior men as in superior status not meaning that they are more talented but then he talks about the more giften men in capitalism. It would be silly to say that a feudal lord has some genitic superiority

[ClaytonB]

I think what you’re coming into contact with is the Austrian concept of natural elites. However, a natural elite is very different from the Elites. That’s the key. In fact, in Austrian social theory, the Elites are not natural elites of anything, except perhaps predation, parasitism, intimidation, deception and the other tools of the State. Michael Jordan is an example of a natural elite. Bobby Fischer is an example of a natural elite. Nikola Tesla is an example of a natural elite. You get the idea.

In an unhampered market, successful entrepreneurs, as a class, are the natural elites of prediction and risk-taking in their respective areas of aptitude. But there is nothing stereotypical in the Austrian conception of an entrepreneur… he is no more likely to be wearing a suit and tie than is a mechanic.

Also, in the Austrian view, we are all entrepreneurs to at least some extent, in the sense that each choice we make is itself a risk taken. In weighing opportunity costs and renouncing all but one alternative, we are constantly making predictions about our own future happiness. The difference is that an entrepreneur makes a profession of such activity. Thus, the conception of workers as “clay” is not Austrian… even the lowly dishwasher is making choices at every point, thus acting the part of the entrepreneur to that extent. However, not all individuals are equally inclined to the occupation of entrepreneur nor do all people have the requisite virtues of diligence, discipline, industriousness, etc. These are the virtues of the bourgeois. By definition, they are the virtues of the upwardly-mobile class. Thus, the dishwasher or the part-time mechanic is not an example of a capitalist precisely because he either will not or cannot attain to the requisite virtues. His profession is evidence that he is not a natural elite of entrepreneurialism or, at least, that he has not yet discovered his entrepreneurial niche.

This assement is entirely value-free. It is a symptom of our hollow, soulless, materialistic culture that we automatically attach a stigma to the less productive and surround the more productive with a god-like aura. The productivity of an individual is a value-free fact about him. The value attached to productivity or lack thereof is a separate matter. I can’t think of a good reason why taking one’s leisure is so stigmatized. In fact, I see in it the handiwork of the Elites … but that’s a topic for another post/thread.

Clayton -