Rhetoric is a high time preference and informal method of communication. Don’t confuse it with something it is not. No one is implying that the terms crank and parasite, statist and socialist be applied as scientific definitions.
No, the point is that if you wish to assert something, namely that state employees are parasites, the burden of proof is on you. Furthermore, as a result of one of the most substantial points of Austrian economics you can’t meet this burden of proof. At most, you can speculate, little more than that.
Hoppe’s argument is far too simplistic. I’d rather listen to Gordon Tullock than Hans Hoppe when it comes to this. The fact of the matter is that the state causes all sorts of redistribution with its interventions, so it may well be that various lobbyists are merely getting back income that they would have otherwise earned. Of course, it’s impossible to know.
To the contrary, many have spent long periods of time defending their definitions offered in this post.
I quoted other literature giving a definition. You keep going on with your own definition, which the only definition I’ve seen you give is illogical: Socialism is the government performing, but not government controlling, so, therefore according to you the government isn’t doing what the government is doing. I quoted you. You can clarify, your choice obviously. I really didn’t think this would turn into such a big deal.
What does that have to even do with my defining socialism, in other words, what does this have to do with what we were discussing? We as in you and I.
And I have established it. It’s not that difficult really. If someone gets all or most of his income from the state, he necessarily has to be a state parasite. If his non-state income tax returns are smaller than his tax receipts, he is a parasite.
Water is wet. And so are you.
I think Hazlitt and Bastiat both wrote about the fallacy of such arguments. Fact is, you’re not looking at the unseen, and you never will be able to be precise about the unseen.
Yes, if this is what you call quoting. Gimme a break
You rather amusingly left out when I said that performing a particular function, such as defense, is not commonly referred to as socialism. If you want to argue that you don’t like how the masses are defining things, and you prefer to call Mises a socialist, then go ahead.
Hmm. What are you saying exactly? I don’t know what this has to do with the seen and unseen.
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I never got into this: “Mises is a socialist or not” debate. So I’m not talking about that.
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How the masses define things is a joke argument that I’m not going to entertain.
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Socialism is government expansion. The government expands into defense all the time and has for centuries in certain parts of the world. If you don’t want to think on your own and would rely on what the masses tell you, then this discussion can’t go much further until you first contact the masses and let me know the answer.
Because Libert Student is focusing on the seen. Namely that various state employees receive money from the state, this is at the expense of the unseen. The unseen being the money that the state employee cannot receive because of state monopolization of whatever branch of government they work for.
OK, better throw out the dictionary and create everything from first principles. Be back later.
I see what your saying now. However, it seems like we could still call them parasites because they are still net tax consumers. What they could have earned in the free market seems irrelevant to me. All that matters is whether or not they are net tax consumers. Not what they could be earning in some hypothetical scenario.
However, I don’t know if we should simply say “net tax consumer = parasite.” Because then we would have to start calling children and babies parasites. They are net tax consumers…aren’t they?
Not in their payments received for labor.
Indeed, while the broken window may not create more prosperity, it does not change the fact that the repairman is in fact a glazier.
They are not. You have to evaluate them within the context of a family, incorporating their parents as the only legitimate economic actors into the equation. For all intents and purposes, the so-called parasitism of the children is completely voluntary, which is not the same as the market actor vs. state relationship.
Yes, you could do so. But I don’t see the value in calling them “parasites”, unless you wish to use pejoratives to describe those who have suffered a net loss as a result of the state. But that option doesn’t seem very fair to me, nor does it fit with the rest of so called “Austrian” class analysis.
What makes you say they suffer a net loss as a result of the state? I am not really familiar with “Austrian class analysis”. I think “class analysis” is a pretty boring topic for the most part.
Austrian class analysis basically holds that the net tax consumers (parasites) feed on the net tax producers (hosts). That any delineation based on race, breeding, aggregate wealth, social status, isn’t valid (ala marxian class analysis popular with left libertarians and mutualists) as an actual accounting of who feeds on who involuntarily in a society.
In an Austrian class analysis, the poor can be parasites (net consumers) and not just the rich. Because a poor man, who is a thief, is clealy a larger villain to libertarians than a rich man who conducts his business voluntarily and honestly.
I was pointing out that it’s possible for one to be a net tax consumer whilst suffering net losses as a result of state intervention in the economy. That’s all.
Oh. Well yes, that is certainly possible.
But does calling such people parasites make much sense?