It’s cool.
What’s that supposed to mean ? Utilitarianism is an intellectually bankrupt moral theory. Maybe you mean that economics is allegedly value-free ?
I must confess that it is harder for me to write about this topic than in other posts, especially because of a lack of reading background.
However, I would argue that economics is not value free. Economics has values, but usually implied. The profit maximization objective that worked so well in the 19th and 20th centuries comes from valuing material well-being over spiritual well-being. Hopefully that will no longer be the case in the 21st century. There are indications suggesting that succesful economies and succesful businesses will be those able to place spiritual and social (not socialist) values at a level comparable to the material.
Well said.
I affiliate with many ideas of the libertarian-left (side note: does the order of prefix matter currently? it’s confusing me a little lol… I ask since I’m referring to the market-anarchists, etc. not the statist-leftist who consider themselves “civil” or “social” libertarians or some other nonsense.), but voluntaryist would describe me better, I suppose (“who you are never stop’s changing, what you are never changes” and all that, etc.).
What would you call it, then? Criticism is fine by me; without it, I don’t think any of us would be here, honestly 
It is value-free but it is about economizing scarce material goods, meaning that it is by nature materialistic.
I don’t understand why I have to explain this to you.
I have a similar question. As I understand it, a “left-libertarian” is a free-market anarchist who believes in market-based revolutionary strategies over political strategies, while a “libertarian leftist” is a state-socialist who doesn’t mind if people smoke pot. Yet the “libetarian left” as a philosophical coalition is composed of the former sort.
I think you’re confusing “the libertarian left”, which is a somewhat broad label for a coalition of different philosophies, with “libertarian socialism”, which is one particular philosophy.
Most “libertarian socialists” are not anarchists, although unfortunately many of them wave the black flag in the name of social democracy. Occasionally one may meet a one or two who are not ultimately advocating violence and mob rule.
The “libertarian left” mostly consists of market anarchists with “left-wing” sympathies and social anarchists who are tolerant towards market anarchists, and while the libertarian left does tend to emphasize market-based and bottom-up strategies over political strategies, that is hardly what defines it.
From my perspective, left-libertarianism can range from mutualism (like Kevin Carson) to free market anarchism with a slight “leftish” tinge (like Roderick Long). Left-libertarians are generally more critical of the political right, emphasize corporate-state relationships more and tend to be “thick” libertarians when to comes to certain causes beyond anti-statism that may be traditionally associated with “the left”.
I didn’t say you have to explain anything.
Too bad economics is built around subjective value – and subjective value is definitely not materialistic.
It is about the subjective value of scarce goods, meaning material things. Once again I don’t understand why I have to explain this to you.
I really don’t want to have this conversation. 1. the forum ptb might delete it like they did the last one, and that would really make me mad, and 2. it’s just rehashing what has already been said many times. Stop worrying about what to call yourself, and stop trying to identify with or create sub groups. This really seems to be a hangup with the under 30 libertarian crowd. Spending a lot of time classifying themselves and others. It’s irrelevant. We’re all slaves.
The goal is liberty, a world where no one has a monopoly on violence, or if we’re feeling utopian, a world without coercion. Better to spend our time discussing tactics towards that, than what we will call ourselves when we get there.
That’s the opposite game. I get accused of painting right good, left bad. But in reality, the people who build such strawmen go out of their way to identify left and paint the right as bad.
I don’t think there is room for right or left within libertarianism, and it is a false paradigm to continue to self identify oneself as left. You’re either for liberty, or you are not. You are either against coercion, or you are not. You either believe in the right to own property and free markets, or you do not. To me, that’s basically the 3 tests. If you can pass those, then in MY WORLD, you are acceptably libertarian, and I don’t give a flying fart if you like Hans Hoppe, Lew Rockwell, Rod Long or Lysander Spooner.
The only reason there is a libertarian right, is because the libertarian left have gone out of their way to recreate the political paradigm by branding themselves on a spectrum of libertarianism.
Profit maximization in no way implies any set of values. It only implies that one has values, and that one strives to get what one values the most. It would not be “profit maximizing” to seek only material gain if you preferred psychological gains. Profit maximization is not a value, it is a fact about human action. All action is, in a sense, at attempt at “profit maximization” - that is, exchanging a less desirable set of circumstances for a more desirable set of circumstances, with the least loss and most gain possible.
Yeah, I never thought this would be so lacking in self-evidence on a forum devoted to economics.
He is confusing catallactics with praxeology. Catallactics (i.e. economics) is specifically related to material goods as well as services produced for the purpose of attaining a profit. Praxeology subsumes all action.
-Jon
utilitarian
–adjective
- pertaining to or consisting in utility.
- having regard to utility or usefulness rather than beauty, ornamentation, etc.
- of, pertaining to, or adhering to the doctrine of utilitarianism.
So…which one of those meanings is Stranger using please ?
The first. It deals with the subjective preferences of agents in the market, i.e. how they set out to satisfy these preferences (utility.) Economics deals specifically with the material aspects of this process. So what did he say that is unclear?
-Jon
Furthermore a google search for the exact phrase “Economics is utilitarian” only returns 10 matches and, surprise, surprise, the first match is Stranger’s post – which means that such a phrase is just marginally more used than, say, “green cows fly” – and probably as meaningful.
Utilitarian can mean relating to utility. So it’s far from meaningless.
-Jon
You can go back to Brainpolice’s post and Stranger’s reply and perhaps clarify what Stranger is saying ?
Agreed.
But now this thread is becoming Futilitarian. Relating to futility.