Like with everything else, if you draw an “accurate” demand curve sloping upwards, you are equivocating between more than one good.
No one claimed it was. However, statist cowards get really uncomfortable when confronted by strong market arguments which make a positive case for anarchy.
Right, because people are clearly bright enough to not believe that burning witches will protect crop harvests or that gods live in the night sky.
Advertising and the threat of force are two different things. Read Mises on advertising to know the Austrian perspective. But if you want to have the argument, let’s get it on in a new thread. I am itching for a donnybrook with some statists.
This has not been that forum for a long time if it ever really was. This has been the LvMI community going back to 2007.
It also doesn’t exclude advancing anarchism either. The point is neither here nor there, because we allow attempts at advancing many things, including silly arguments by state apologists.
But you really don’t know, and you really shouldn’t speak to policy if you aren’t aware of it explicitly.
Sure, the state apologists love to operate in a bubble where they can discuss the state without anarchy, however, anarchy is intrinsic to free markets, so it cannot be so easily removed from positive economic analysis strictly by pointing at it as a normative political position and rendering it outside the domain of economic discussion.
In other words, one should deal with the market if they plan to discuss economics for (or against) the state. If one is here to discuss economics and isn’t interested in dealing with markets, then they are not really here to discuss economics in the Austrian tradition at all.
And no, the general section doesn’t imply that this forum is suitable for any or all topics, and we aren’t discussing in the general forum, we are discussing in the economics forum.
Right, because people are clearly bright enough to not believe that burning witches will protect crop harvests or that gods live in the night sky.
Austrian economists (Leeson), amongst others, have argued that such seemingly pointless and stupid beliefs often had positive consequences. See Leeson’s papers such as Ordeals and Trial by Battle.
“However, statist cowards get really uncomfortable…”
“…including silly arguments by state apologists.”
yah, this is how i want to spend my afternoon.
ps* i like economistintrainings reference to leeson’s paper on ordeals.
But you really don’t know, and you really shouldn’t speak to policy if you aren’t aware of it explicitly.
if you don’t want yessir and i sawing on the “purpose” of the board, that’s fine by me chief.
That wasn’t the argument. And you know it. Also, I don’t need to read Leeson’s paper. If you believe he makes a valid point, articulate it. Tossing source reading out in the middle of an argument is poor form, and I think damn lazy.
Also, do you have the capacity to respond to the following?
Thanks for reinforcing my point about the discomfort of certain statists when asked to defend their pov.
You started off with the purpose of the board as an aside.
The point remains, no one claimed the board was for advocating anarchism, nor is there a stance one way or the other.
Introducing red herrings is very poor form.
But it isn’t, because you replied. Performative contradiction?
Who has utopian hopes? Why strawman? You seem to know very little about the personal preferences of anyone on this forum, least of all me.
You started off with the purpose of the board as an aside.
actually i was responding to this statement.
The point is that people are underestimating the cost of the state, and one role of this website is to make them aware of it. Thus changing the relevant costs of the game, and thus eventually changing its outcome.
i read that as meaning the purpose of this forum (and as the conversation flowed lvmi in general) was to make people aware that the cost of the state was so great they would gladly expel it. i was simply pointing out that that there was no reason to suspect that lvmi as an organization advoated a stateless society. if that isn’t what yessir meant, i am sure he can clarify his own remarks.
as for poor form…well…“statist cowards” “silly arguments”
and i think that ends my part in our conversation. 
have a good night!
And how did you derive anarchism from what he wrote? Sure he can clarify his remarks. And you’re expected to clarify yours.
That reads like an attempt at a tu quoque.
When I read it I couldn’t help but to think of all of the cowards I have known who play victim when challenged on their arguments. Good thing you’re not that sort of person.
That wasn’t the argument. And you know it. Also, I don’t need to read Leeson’s paper. If you believe he makes a valid point, articulate it. Tossing source reading out in the middle of an argument is poor form, and I think damn lazy.
Please tell me how you’ve gained this insight into what I’m thinking. Look, I don’t know if you’re usually as rude as you’ve come across in this discussion or if you’re just having a bad day, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
I pointed to Leeson’s paper because it’s interesting reading for anybody, and I say this as somebody who usually has a pretty low opinion of Austrian economics. The point is quite simple, many social institutions that are we might deem irrational have their purposes, in other words, they’re efficient, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be able to persist for so long.
By itself, the fact that people once believed in ludicrous things doesn’t mean that people are still irrational. I think it’s quite clear that in today’s society reason and science dominate like never before, Joel Mokyr cites this as the reason for economic growth. I also think this trend has been reflected in the path that governments have taken, they’re at once far less arbitrary and far more efficient than they have been for most of human history.
I think Student and Neoclassical make a valid point that needs addressing, it takes a lot of hubris to state that the vast majority of people and scholars have been systematically misguided for all of human history. If states really were so inefficient how have they persisted for so long? Presumably over the course of human society one would have expected to see some anarchist society that presumably should have flourished.
By what standard? What is the optimal level of flights missed?
By ones own standards, there isn’t an efficient level of flights missed and crimes commited that can’t be determined a priori.
Are there any which are not zero sum?
Yes, I think that when the state intervenes to solves asymmetric information and public goods problems there is a net social benefit.
I feel systematically ignored in this thread.
So you’re claiming you didn’t know that what you were arguing was not in fact what was being discussed?
Again, that is not the argument.
This is an Austrian insight. And still not relevant.
Who claimed that?
Violence?
Enough with the logical fallacies please.
Then why did you make your claim about missing flights?
Who pays? Who benefits?
Can you name these specific “public goods problems” which the market cannot resolve? This is going to be a fundamental issue on a community primarily about Austrian Economics.
If states really were so inefficient how have they persisted for so long?
<= There have been several answers given to this question; and I believe not all of them are answered back.
In a nutshell: yes, a state - or any kind of coercive institution - can manage to preserve itself, because it’s a public good - with free rider and coordination problems - to do away with it. It doesn’t follow that the institution itself is ‘efficient’; it’s just efficient at preserving itself. This theory has been elaborated extensively before. (Yes, it was by me; but I think it’s a valid point, which, for some reason, doesn’t get addressed. Maybe it’s so damn ludicrous; but I don’t think it is.)
Also: the fact that the neoclassicals here just do away with ideology - ‘it’s all just interests’ - makes it really hard to see for them to see this (part of the) argument.
I don’t get it. After all the methodology discussions - which you basically just left - how come you still have a ‘low opinion’ of Austrian Economics? (Maybe you can answer that in another thread.)
And lol part 2: after reading the Boettke and others article I can conclude that they are basically making the same argument as me.
One more not: we are not saying ‘there are 20 dollar bills lying everywhere and nobody is picking them up.’
We are saying: ‘there are 20 dollar bills everywhere to pick them up, but It’ll cost any one individual 1000 dollars to pick it up, unless everybody helps with it, but trying to convince everyone else costs 500 dollars. In the mean while; there are people paid 200 dollar to stop us from picking up the 20 dollars.’
(Numbers are random.)
Those answers or suggestions seem to have been ignored, perhaps because the question itself is being applied as a proof.
Thank you.
To quote Calvert:
…[T]here is, strictly speaking, no separate animal that we can identify as an institution. There is only rational behavior, conditioned on expectations about the behavior and reactions of others. When these expectations about others’ behavior take on a particularly clear and concrete form across individuals, when they apply to situations that recur over a long period of time, and especially when they involve highly variegated and specific expectations about the different roles of different actors in determining what actions others should take, we often collect these expectations and strategies under the heading institution…
By the way, everyone, I think the line of research called “rational choice institutionalism” accurately reflects much of my thinking.