what kinds of arguments should i expect against free markets/liberty/small governments?
i already know that liberals will try to use emotion to sway ones opinions, they want to steal money from people to give money to poor people.
I’m a beginner so does anyone know where I should start studying?
(I already read: liberty defined, anatomy of the state, communist mannifesto)
what other works should I read first? human action or road to serfdom?
i just need some pointers
I wouldn’t start out with Human Action just yet. There are many book lists availabe (if John James is around he can post it in this thread), including beginners’ lists, and going right into a 912-page magnum opus translated from German to English would be incredibly time consuming and may turn one off to reading more. I’ve not yet read either Human Action or Man, Economy and State and this doesn’t necessarily hinder one’s ability to argue for free markets and so forth (although, these are masterpieces that, when read, will allow one to have a deeper understanding of the methodology of the Austrian school as well as economics). These are challenging books and deserve to be read closely and re-read from time to time- and if this debate is in the near future, it may not do the works justice to cram as much as one can and insert it into one’s arguments.
The Road to Serfdom does not revolve particularly around economics, although economic principles do supplement its purpose (warning against large, centralized states). It could provide many rhetorical points and historical insights. For these reasons, I could recommend reading it.
In terms of providing information regarding the current economic downturn as well as information on the health care industry, I can think of no place better to start than with reading Meltdown and Rollback by Tom Woods. These books should be more than sufficient to declare victory over a typical Obama “lover” (Meltdown was the first Austrian text I ever read and I was instantly hooked). Both works also provide valuable insights into the Austrian school including the Austrian Business Cycle Theory as well as historical cases in which the theory is able to explain economic downturns (as well as a period in history in which what the theory advises -reduced spending, no tampering with monetary policy, lower taxes, and so forth- and the economic disturbance lasted only 18 months despite having statistics worse than the first year of the Great Depression).
A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Whatever variant of socialism put forth, Hoppe destroys it and shows that, in terms of ethics and in terms of wealth production, socialism is argumentatively unjustifiable and inferior to capitalism.
Find the socialist’s persuasion of socialism (Soviet-style, conservative socialism, egalitarian socialism, social-democratic socialism) and lay the smackdown.
Our resident thread-ninja John James has you covered:
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/questions-from-a-newbie/23165/2
Welcome to the Mises Forum! Be sure to check the newbie thread for forum tips and how-tos.
As Clayton said, I probably have you covered, but I’m not sure why he picked that particular post (that one contains resources on difference between Austrian School and Chicago School). For your purposes, you might start with these:
Getting started in the Austrian School
thanks for the support.
I guess i’ll start with Meltdown first, then ill follow the reading list and once im smarter i’ll read human action and road to serfdom.
I would also encourage you to consider reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. It is a very good book and elaborates on Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy- one of the main economic fallacies that modern-liberals and socialists have.
k thanks, I’ll read that one once im finished with meltdown. I guess i have alot of reading to do before going into a debate…
in regards to the broken window fallacy, I understand it since if the government wants to make jobs it will have to tax its people. and the taxes decrease the people’es wealth (and doesn’t the government have to tax the workers that are working at the government jobs?).
However what about in war? After ww2 the economy prospered. Was this merely because of the nationalism/patriotism which was driving people to build factories and join the war?
How would the broken window be fallacious when one talks about ww2?
Trust me (your friendly stranger on the internet!), Meltdown and Economics in One Lesson are brief, informative and, above all, intellectually exciting reads. Reading them isn’t a burden.
The reason the economy prospered after -emphatically, not during nor because of- the war is that federal government outlays and taxes declined dramatically. In spite of millions of soldiers returning to the nation without jobs, the economy thrived.
War probably would benefit a few individuals/firms such as weapons dealers, air craft manufacturers et cetera.
Is war good for the economy? Thought experiment:
The United States is in a recession. Economic growth is declining and it needs to grow. So the government subsidizes a firm to build an entire fleet of aircraft carriers, rifles, ammo, explosives, uniforms, and aircraft. The carriers are sent into the middle of the Atlantic whereby all personnel are safely evacuated and the carriers are sunk. WIth all the economic calculation, labor input, engineering, production, savings, investment, planning, and so forth at the ocean floor, the Americans dance and cheer at the wealth and prosperity “created.”
All these inputs went into “goods” that were destroyed- what could have been produced if production structures weren’t diverted to war materials? Who knows. But market actors are poorer because of this diversion. It’s just a broken window.
Of course, this is what happens in war. War is a vice on economic growth. It may produce some transitory benefits for some individuals including jobs and higher incomes for certain firms and politicians involved, but it is at the expense of factors of production that are ultimately wasted as the products of these inputs are, literally, destroyed. Countless resources that could have been used to produce goods that consumers actually demand are instead directed to production processes that produce materials meant to be destroyed. Economic goods are misallocated and, as a user mentioned above, the Production Possibilities Frontier shifts left (declines; becomes poorer) as wealth is destroyed.
Pssst- Both Hazlitt and Woods talk about the effects that war has on an economy in those books!
More reading, my friend.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal
what kinds of arguments should i expect against free markets/liberty/small governments?
Despite his reputation, I kinda like Molyneux’s answer here. Expect moral arguments in the form of ex post facto rationalizations. These moral arguments will be disguised as utilitarian arguments, or as allegedly objective in one way or another. But know that they are based on a moral position and are always necessarily fallacious, so the hardest part (or the fun part) is simply spotting the fallacy.
People will use mainly a few fallacies to avoid challenging the status quo:
• Ad Hominem and other Red Herring fallacies: They will focus on an eronious or irrelevent point, despite the substance of the argument.
• Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc and other ex post facto fallacies: An example: “Things are great, or at least not terrible, thanks to government.”
• Questionable Cause and other Slippery Slope fallacies: “There’s always been government and there always will be.”
• False dichotomy and other Begging the Question fallacies: “Without government there would be chaos.”
From arguing for a few years now, my experience is that the moral fallacy is always “government is justified”. It’s a fallacy because they never attempt to justify government. Slavery, or government—but I repeat myself—is unjustifiable morally, so they never even attempt it. They just assume government and start from there.
I think i understand it now. How could the people be cheering for the wealth that building the ships were created if they were just destroyed? It makes no sense right? If the firm had used materials to build houses or make foods etc. it would do more good than just building ptless ships to destroy them. Sound kind of like 1984 with the perpetual war (kind of like what we are seeing today with the US, always going to war).
This might help cement things for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQM_-LucnZA
This is the video he mentioned in the clip above:
Right.
A very astute observation, by you, and forecast, by Orwell. “We’re at war with global terrorism; we’ve always been at war with global terrorism.”
I think im starting to understand this now. the government would bankrupt the citizens with such high amount of taxes that is needed for so many wars (building things which will get destroyed anyway). and after the wars then what? all those guns are pretty much useless.
my goodness, think about how big the government will expand due to war…
When I was a conservative (I wouldn’t say neo-con, I always did have some libertarian tendencies) and read this in Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State, it was one of those “Oh my God- he’s right!” moments.