Mises conflated absence of government with lawlessness. He claimed that government, which he defined as a coercive institution that is the negation of liberty, is necessary to foster the social cooperation brought about by the net benefits of the division of labour; without such, conflicts of interest would arise among men and they would be sworn enemies (a.k.a lawlessness).
Ironically enough Mises stated government is not evil, and is a recourse to violence. He also said that anarchists believe education would be the substitute for the foundation of an anarchist society. My point being that this is the same fallacious nonsense that is reitterated today, even has been in this forum in arguments against anarchy. Now stop evading my argument that the factors today are relatively similar to that of the past, yet even laymen have rejected that silly strawman of anarchism.
The conclusion is a simple three:
Mises was not infallible, and had his time and energy focused toward other endeavors (praxeology, monetary theory, socialism etc..).
Using Mises as an introduction to anarchism for newbies is a bad idea.
Conflating absence of monopolistic rulers with lawlessness is a strawman, as it would be in any argument.
His books would have read differently.
What I have realized is that your wordsmithing is a weak attempt to cover up for Mises’s achilles heel.
I refuse to respond to the post above line-by-line or paragraph-by-paragraph because it so grossly misrepresents my argument. I will instead provide a few points which I hope will re-rail this discussion:
I have not questioned or rejected that Ludwig von Mises viewed government as a necessarily collectivistic, territorial, monopolistic, bureaucratic institution which serves as the necessary prerequisite of the market economy. Thus I have not attempted to “cover up for Mise’s achilles heel”.
He assumed that the existence of “anarchy” were to imply the absence of law and order. Thus, when he attacked the idea that we should implement “anarchy”, he attacked the idea that we should de-implement the laws, the courts, the police, that we should implement lawlessness.
From “Human Action”, Section 8.2:
“Anarchism believes that education could make all people comprehend what their own interests require them to do; rightly instructed they would of their own accord always comply with the rules of conduct indispensable for the preservation of society. The anarchists contend that a social order in which nobody enjoys privileges at the expense of his fellow-citizens could exist without any compulsion and coercion for the prevention of action detrimental to society.Such an ideal society could do without state and government, i.e., without a police force, the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion.”
2.1. The term “anarchy”, when Ludwig von Mises used it, apparently meant that no “compulsion [or] coercion” exists to “prevent[ …] action detrimental to society”. The term “anarchy”, when Bob Murphy uses it, does not mean that no “compulsion [or] coercion” exists to "prevent[ …] action detrimental to society.
2.2. The term “anarchy”, when Ludwig von Mises used it, apparently meant that no “police force” exists. The term “anarchy”, when Bob Murphy uses it, does not mean that no “police force” exists.
In conclusion, he never strawmanned anarchism. He simply attacked what it meant, the idea that a market economy would be able to flourish within an expansive, lawless territory.
He assumed qua begging the question that the exclusive prerequisite for law is government. Now tell me how one is exonerated from making a fallacious argument by making another one, without special pleading.
Yeah, I’m not convinced.
As for your “time is a factor” ad nauseam argument, it doesn’t account for Mises not developing a warped anachronistic view of other terms. He did not conflate Capitalism with Mercantalism.
What a question! Are you guys voluntarily identifying as MCP’s. I’m a female, and I’m on this blog. Why do you think there are no females here?
I became interested in '07 when the stock market began going crazy. I began studying economics and went through several schools of thought before I found AE. This is the only one that is consistant and logical all the way through.
I find that young people are easier to interest through Libertarian interests and parties such as C4L, etc. and books like Atlas Shrugged. Older more experienced people are easier to influence through the effects on their money.
I don’t think the point was that there were no females here. I think the point was that there were few. I think that few women are interested in politics/economics. It’s not like I am pointing out some fault or being sexist.
Caley, I was joking. Also, it was a question, not a statement. I do hope you can recognize a joke.
To Laughing Man: I really didn’t realize there were so few women. I though there were more. I do recognize that most members are quite young.Most, I say, not all. I would think there would be more older members.
Today President Obama, in a meeting concerning the new finance bill, challenged the Repiublicans to name ONE economist that recommends NOT spending more money. Not to mention spending less money. And they couldn’t name one. Which leaves the whole Mises Institutie and at least 1/2 of the Cato Institute. We sure do need a whole lot more older members. More women would be good also.
The politically correct interests for women do not include economics, math, phyics, and many others.
I do not know what you supposed the second sentence to mean. But the first sentence, which claims that Ludwig von Mises “assumed qua begging the question that the exclusive prerequisite for law is government”, is, from my perspective, entirely irrelevant. I will allude to why it is in the last section.
Whether you believe that he should have or should have have defined “anarchy” as “lawlessness” is irrelevant to this discussion. How he referred to it is the only relevant factor.
How is, in the 1940’s, to define “anarchy” as “lawlessness” to “develop a warped anachronistic view”? The term “anarchy”, at that time, meant “lawlessness” and still, at this time, means “lawlessness” to most persons. The only persons who define “anarchy” differently than that are the Rothbardians.
Is that a joke?
Poptech attacked the austrian-school conception of “anarchism” via a set of quotations from Ludwig von Mises which attacked the anti-law conception of “anarchism”, a different conception of “anarchism”, via a set of paragraphs which attacked the idea that a market economy would be able to flourish within an expansive, lawless territory.
Ludwig von Mises attacked the anti-law conception of “anarchism” via a set of paragraphs which attacked the idea that a market economy would be able to flourish within an expansive, lawless territory.
If (a) counterargument X corresponds to ideology X and (a) counterargument Y corresponds to ideology Y, Poptech used counterargument X to attack ideology Y. But, in defense of himself, he claimed that he used counterargument X to attack ideology X, not ideology Y. So, if you assume that both the first and the second sentences are true, his argument was a straw-man.
I now wonder whether you even know what a “straw-man” is. A straw-man occurs when one person attacks a doctrine, X, for example, via a counterargument which actually applies to a different doctrine, Y, for example.
If, as an example, (a) person A were to have argued that, in an expansive territory without a monopoly government, the market economy would be able to flourish because P and (b) Ludwig von Mises were to have then argued that, contrariwise, in an expansive, lawless territory, the market economy would not be able to flourish because Q, he would have straw-manned the argument of person A. For he would have assumed dogmatically and unsubstantiatedly that “without a monopoly government” implies “lawlessness”.
If, as an example, (a) person A were to have argued that, in an expansive, lawless territory, the market economy would be able to flourish because P and (b) Ludwig von Mises were to have then argued that, contrariwise, in an expansive, lawless territory, the market economy would not be able to flourish because Q, he would not have straw-manned the argument of person A. For he would have adopted, without distortion, the preconditions, the existence of “an expansive, lawless territory”, of the argument of person A.
The disagreement between us, I think, is that you believe that the former, the story of #1, happened whereas I believe that the latter, the story of #2, happened. Is that correct?
Yea this whole internet fad never caught on with the older generation. If you go to a conference it is pretty much all middle to older age people. Kind of strange because they ask you what you do as if you are some kind of office jockey. They also ask a lot of questions with the words ‘younger generation’ in them.
They are politicians. If they knew anything more then how to get elected then they would suddenly burst into flames. I think having more women in the party would be great also. Women are more stable and reasonable.
Well we need more members of all kinds but more of boths those areas would be good as well. This is a bad thing to say but I would prefer if we could bring more black members to the table. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Libertarians called racists because they tend to (or at least appear to be) be either older or younger wealthy white people… But then again it seems absolutly impossible to find a black person who is anything other than a liberal Obama supporter
I’ll take that as a “no, I won’t touch that one with a forty foot pole.”
There are two doors. You go through the one that is labeled labour theory of value instead the subjective theory of value door. Same idea, but with more relatively advanced doors.
I see that you’re trying to stretch the definition, so it’s compatible with the potential straw man you have picked out for me below.
Not if you want to invoke a straw man. here’s how it is:
Mises declares that absence of monopolistic, coercive, liberty negating cap shampoo bottle is a state of shampoo liquid overflow.
Do you see the distinction in that wacky analogy? There is no mysterious third party. There no counter argument or any mention of a flourishing market. There is just the straw man, “where anarchy begins, law ends.”
Now you have two options:
Cease your use half truth pet definitions (omitting the mention of government and lawless in the same breath) which you ascribe to Mises.
Or
Continue doing so to obfuscate your double standard.
