This kind of stuff only belongs in the Member Issues forum.
Once again, let me reiterate that, in the best of conditions, we all conform to a large set of social norms; furthemore, violating these implict or explicit regulations can result in various penalties: ostracization, stigmatization, shaming, jailing, etc.
I don’t “just want to control people”; clearly, the ideological black-and-white version of libertarianism you believe colors all that you see with a very rigid perspective. Frankly, I consider “control” more amorphous than you: not only is government coercion “control,” but so is billion-dollar corporate influence. Once again, there is evidence that propaganda campaigns from corporations outcompete other scientific proselytizing. Furthermore, using even more evidence, private tort litigation during the Gilded Age was incredibly ineffective at curbing corporate wrongdoing.
I believe we should advance pragmatically: if letting people free to save or squander their incomes results in an amount of severely-poor old persons, then that is unpalatable to my conscience, and I would recommend forced savings for greater well-being. In essence, if sticking to your short list of ethical principles results in bad outcomes for many people, then maybe your ideology sucks.
We should maintain our skepticism about grand theoretical visions that seek global change. It’s easy to morally shrink our complex social order into a “coercion versus freedom” framework and then see the wretchedness of government everywhere; it’s more challenging to accept an organic evolution of society where all the moving parts have accumulated to produce stability, prosperity, and other civilizational benefits.
Good post and I strongly agree. Caplan said something similiar in on of his short articles on morality vs efficiency.:
Note, however, that I was careful to say that it is “normally” wrong to violate the liberty of others. If you’ve got a good reason to violate liberty, I’m open to it. “We’ll all die if we stop breathing” is a pretty good reason. In contrast, “Most of us want to rob them,” is an embarrassingly bad reason.
If this is really my view, why bother to study economics? My answer: When someone says there is a “good reason” for a regulation or a tax, we can use economics see whether the story holds water. If someone says that we need to restrict the liberty of American consumers to buy Japanese goods in order to prevent the destruction of the U.S. economy, we can see if the textbook chapter on international trade agrees. The same applies if someone says it would be more efficient to raise taxes and spend the revenue on education. Maybe the economics will check out, and we’ll have to think about whether we have a good enough reason to violate liberty. More often, though, the economics doesn’t check out – and we avoid violating the liberty of another human being for less than no reason at all.
Liberty Student: “I have very little interest in technical economics. I do however have a fantastic grasp of Austrian methods for a layman.”
If you have very little interest it’s safe to assume you’ve never studied any economics outside of Hazlitts book, maybe some crankish work by Hoppe, and Rothbard. Since you have such a fanstastic grasp of austrian economics for the layman, why do you continue to make methodological mistakes, conflations between political policy and economy theory, and on top of all that insult Strangeloop for his “lack of understanding” when it comes to AE (which is a strawman in itself).
In fact, if you and stangeloop debated the basic principles of economics, you explaing the layman’s form of Austrianism [I hope you go over capital theory, price theory, free banking, not to mention development theory, hayek’s theory of knowledge and social cooperation, maybe some of dat good old crankish talk about a gold standard, that should cover it, and strangeloop showing where he agrees and disagrees, I’d at the very least hope YOU can find common ground with him, and maybe even a sense of respect. I gotta say Liberty Student, you used to be one of the more helpful posters here, and now you troll a few posters with economic backgrounds different than yours.
PS: Discussing economics with Strangeloop doesn’t mean making one line posts about how he doesn’t get Austria econ. What are you, 30+ and in possession of masterful understanding of Austrian Economics, yet you’ve never once elaborated or applied this masterful understanding. I think this is nothing more than posturing by an old member of this forum.
And please for the love of god Liberty Student stop treating libertarianism as holier than thou, you’re up there with Bernie Sanders at this point.
One more to liberty student:
You write, “You demonstrate ignorance, and I point it out. I don’t have to accuse you of ignorance, your posts speak for themselves.” [INSULT DELETED] Why point out the ignorance if the words speak for themselves? Oh wait, typically they don’t, and I’d say 9/10s out of time you simply don’t understand the argument he is making. Then again, what does influence you? I’d hate to think that your supposed “masterful laymen’s understand of AE” is the only economics you know. That’s ignoring so many different schools of thought that have contributed and worked with Austrian economists in the past.
Fuckin’ Rothbardians, I tell ya.
“lol. I love when you guys appeal to an abstract society as “reality” and proof of some sort of consent or intent. Not only is the aap a logical fallacy, but it isn’t compatible with subjective value OR methodological individualism, which is why you will almost never see an Austrian make such an elementary mistake.”
A serious question LS: What works have you read by Oakeshott, Hayek, Douglass North, the Ostroms, and Tullock and Buchanan? To simply dismiss institutional analysis, or ignoring the evolution of social rules within a society (which eventually become the rule-making and enforcing institutions, government or not) is hindering any hopes you have of being anything other than some wacky, intellectually confused Rothbardian.
I repeat: this kind of stuff is for the Member Issues Forum; use this new Member Issues thread I just created. NO MORE POSTS OF THIS NATURE HERE IN THE MAIN FORUM.
I’d like to add that if you’re going to attack me in the Member Issues forum (and I look forward to it) please remember I am not a Rothbardian.
[ZACHARY I WASN’T KIDDING. -DJS]