I want to get some information and see if we (Me Keynesian) and you, can reach some economic beliefs we hold to be true. Here are some concepts I think we might be in agreement about.
A nation/state/society can not exist without national defense or means of preventing aggressor nations from invading/taking over.
Man is inheriantly self interested.
Because populations are growing, a growing economy is not only a positive, but something societies should encourage/strive for. (I don’t want to get into a debate on forced growth versus liberty, but can you agree that societies regarldess of methods should try to achieve economic growth?)
Free-Market capitalism can not exist without A) competition and B) access to information.
Ixtellor
P.S. If #2 devoloves into philosophical debate on reality, I would say ignore it or dismiss it.
This is up to the market. Growth and contraction are natural movements that are subject to more than policy or desire, but also influenced by nature, scarcity, and social conditions.
Free market Capitalism cannot exist under coercion.
Your postulates are not wrong, per se, but poorly worded or unmeaningful if taken literally.
#1: A more accurate and succinct phrasing would be “security is valuable.”
#2: Austrian’s regard this as a truism.
#3: You seem to be (implicitly) putting the cart before the horse. Population growth can only occur because of economic growth, or rather it is a necessary requisite for a population to increase.
#4: Competition should be understood as a result of separating institutionalized aggression (the state) from society, not as a thing to be created and maintained; in a similar vein, entrepreneurs are in general quite capable of finding accurate information on their own, i.e. it is not something they need handed to them (or something they have a right to).
In short, sure. Self-defense is necessary. Collective self-defense is a right, however it must be voluntary. Would you agree that because man is self-interested he would be better at making preparations for his own defense in cooperation with others voluntarily rather than through government? I don’t think so, so I guess that means we half-agree.
All of Austrian Economics is derived from a rewording of that statement, into the “Axiom of Human Action”. Would agree that because man is self-interested he acts to improve his lot as he sees it?
Growth is great. But forced growth is a contradiction in term. No philosophy but socialism, or statism whathaveyou, simply has no incentive to calculate well and cause sustainable growth. Also, growth based on central planning inherently crashes be it central planning of the money supply or of shoes. Thus decreasing economic health and causing death instead of population growth. Could you consent to my expansion of your point?
Only if you’d agree that prices in themselves on a free-market are informative. And would define competition as unrestricted entry, a truism when we state there’s a free-market.
1)Does this means Austrians don’t believe in social contract theory?
But looking at the real world, where no single place on earth exists without belonging to a state, and where other states desire your resources, do you agree with the premise that in the ‘real world’ and not in the ‘ideal world’ that people can
I read the link and think it means two things.
Praxeology = Hisenbergs uncertainty principle as applied to human motivations.
You agree with me. “Mises derived the idea that every conscious action is intended to improve a person’s satisfaction.”
I don’t believe they are controllable as you stated and I agree that they are natural movements. However, do you disagree with the premise that striving or helping promot economic growth is a goal societies should persue?
Your statement leads me to believe: That you think it would just as well if a society were to either a) reduce the distribution of resources to meet the needs of the population or b)do nothing to to increase the production of needs and let componants of society perish.
or
Would you argue that the very ‘laws’ of free markets would dictate that the society will naturally try to expand resources to meet their own needs, and NOT require any societal motivation/encouragement? If this is true, it seems like an argument that ‘human nature’ leads to economic expansion.
I apologize but that was to cryptic a response as I can take it too mean many different things, included “I agree with you”.
A society cannot exist without defense but it certainly does not need national defense. See The Myth of National Defense. (pdf)
Competition is implied by a free market, since free market implies that anyone can enter any branch of production for himself, so the statement is tautologic. Information, however, is a scarce good that must be economized. As such it must be produced by capitalists on the free market.
Exactly. Self interest necessarily includes voluntary charity. If I give money to charity I do it to feel dutiful, to help people (etc). I am doing it for my own self-interest.
Just saying, but the government hasn’t been very helpful with spreading information-I mean just look at the public school system (which I attend, sadly enough).
If you end up doing any signinficant research papers, particularly in economics. You will find their data quite open and the best source. The CBO, Fed, OMB, Treasury, and Census Bureau provide a wealth of information, including self critiques. (problems, assumptions with dynamic modeling as an example). 99% of all the ‘Im going to catch the government doing something wrong’ bloggers and theorists, use government data. Its not perfect, but the US government is second to no one I can think of in terms of quality information.
I don’t believe in social contract theory. I feel relatively confident that Austrians like Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Woods, and Ron Paul do not believe in social contract theory.
Well, that presumes that everyone in the society has the same goals. Which if you had a free market, and everyone desired growth, then they would work towards it. I don’t believe everyone in society is likely to all agree on the same goal, how to go about it, and how much resources they have to commit to it.
Again, you presume that I believe there is any moral authority for some people to rule over everyone else. Or that some sort of collective will or good exists. I don’t believe that. I think through competition in the market, some niches will find success, and others will indeed perish. Things that are “common good” as dictated by individuals en masse will come down in price as more resources are diverted to meeting those needs, and thus with a cheaper price, the “common good” components of an economy, will become even more prevalent.
We don’t have free market capitalism. We can only guess and wonder at what would happen under it specifically. Right now, we have regulation and coercion, so the market is anything but free, and because no one actually owns anything (taxes are a lien on property and earnings) capitalism also does not exist.
“Access to information” is a bit of a generality. Anyone with at least one sensory organ intact has such.
Free market advocates will argue that fraud is a coercive crime, not consistent with a free market. Any individual or group, however, can freely refuse to divulge information that they did not contractually agree to divulge.
Free market capitalism can not exist WITH taxation (which allows subsidies), tariff, or regulation. These all violate property rights.
And that all empirical “information” and “models” did a lot of good in helping Keynesians who studied it predict the current collapse in 2002? O wait, what school was it that predicted a collapse in 5-10 years? O yeah, the Austrians. Whose methodology is not empirical. Guess praxeological method can’t be that bad after all, huh?
Noted. I meant to use the words in scare quotes to highlight the contradiction in their own terms. Empirical statistics that empirically failed in aiding economists in predicting said bust. On their own terms, they fail. Epically.
This is true in many situations, but I am not interested in maintaining a nation state, and I think few on this forum will be.
Yes
I consider a growing economy, i.e., one in which fewer labor hours are required for the same amount of production, to be good, but this has nothing to do with the population growth. And if the entire world wants nothing more than a little shack, a garden in the backyard, and lots of free time, who am I to tell them off?
Free Market Capitalism is not something you create. It is what happens when people are free to produce, trade and consume as they see fit within a framework of property rights. Competition is part and parcel of this process, and access to information will of course be sought out. However, you make it sound like some outside entity (would that be government, perchance?) needs first to establish competition and access to information before Free Market Capitalism can flourish. 'Tis no such matter