It doesn’t work because it can’t calculate.
Ixtellor,
I am noticing that you are picking and choosing which posts to respond to. It appears you are simply picking those of least resistance. As such, I doubt you are really here to learn what we think, but instead to push your own views. Good luck, you will not be taken serious for long on here with an attitude like that.
Because GDP does not reflect whether capital is being produced, or consumed it cannot be trusted as a basis for analysis. Surely it can reflect growth, but it cannot reflect whether that growth can be sustained in the long run, which is what economics cares about.\
If you torture the data it will confess. Aggregates can only corellate for they do not act each other, ergo to base economic theories on it, which is what I’m as of now concerned about, leads to faulty theories.
Not a question I can answer, nor one I see as very relevant for me right now. I’m more conerned about the reasons behind productivity than gauging it.
Austrian economics is qualitative, not quantitative.
Its still a titanic margin or error that is anything but precise, I’ll be impressed once Keynesians are able to do predict the economy within 0.2% for a period of time.
Because I do not believe that is possible to gather all of the data necessary to make such a calculation for either Austrians, or Keynesians.
I don’t believe that economics can explain all of history, when Marx made that assetion it was based off of the fallacious doctrine of dialectical materialism and that economics must explain everything because economics was concerned with the material factors of production that drove the course of everything. He was not a genius, he was a deluded Hegalian following his theory to its conclusion.
Do you believe in dialectical materialism. If not, then you must reject Marx’s historical analyses.
Remember, in Marx’s vision of history, man’s action meant nothing for it was in reality the material factors of production that drove history. Its truly not a moral statement, its an existential one describing the world as it appeared to Marx.
One can be an Austrian economist and still not uphold the Austro-libertarian vision of morality. For Austrian economics to be wertfrei, a distinction must made between the two.
No, I am reading about the form of society the deterministic material factors of production would eventually create.
Though parts of this have already been stated above, Marxism isn’t true/ fails not because of that assertion, but because of the fact that it is both based on a fallacious philosophy of history as well as not allowing the market catallactics that enable civilization to emerge.
Taras: I can attest to the fact that Walmart did try predatory pricing in one town here in Kansas and eventually what happened was that the store they were competing with (Dillons) closed down. Afterward Walmart decided to ratchet up the prices, but a funny thing happened, the other store had another one ninety minutes drive away, and most people went and drove to that store just because of the prices being lower. So much for predatory pricing actually working 100%.
“Communism can not work because it fails to accept “Man is inheirantly self interested”, which I firmly subscribe to.”
I’d like to point out that before you claimed that Communism was the most moral system. Then by what standard do you measure the moral versus the immoral? I believe that whatever standard you use, I suspect it is possibly the weakest I could envision as if Communism is the most moral system that could be devised, that suggests in itself that what is moral is what puts humans in peril their lives.
First, humans are individuals epistemologically and metaphysically. Second, humans being individual (of the two kinds stated before) then humans cannot ‘live’ through command proxy the lives of other humans or rational beings. And third, historically collectives have operated below the optimal in pretty much all fields of human adventures (science, mathematics, philosophy, architecture, engineering, and so on…), so to suggest communism just from a functional basis is just as suboptimal.
I’m not sure what life experiences or logic allows you derive that collectives of any sort are the most moral choice for human beings, but whatever the content they are, I suspect you’ve been mistaken for some time. And thus why you argue for the doom of Men.
I’m glad Ixtellor exists, because I like the flavour of this debate.
On the other hand, I’ve got a problem with your trust in empiricism in general, and your specific trust in statistics. Who makes the statistics? What do they add up? Gross Domestic Product is supposed to be an aggregate of the economic activity occurring in a geographic area. Economic activity is necessarily that which is driven by subjective marginal utility, and individual subjective valuations i.e. economising.
No government can do this, and the G in the expenditure method equation is thus false. Governments produce output, it has to be said, but since this output is uneconomic, there is no way to count it. The expenditure method of calculating GDP is only valid due to the fact that if an individual spends £20 of his own money on an item, we can objectively say that at least £20 of value has been produced; value is defined subjectively. If a government spends money they have no reason to actually express people’s preferences (and in fact, no method of determining what these are). Therefore we would either have to multiply government expenditure with some method, e.g. 0.1, which would be necessarily arbitrary (but would at least go some way to approximating the inferiority with regards to economy that government output experiences), or do as Rothbard did in his GPP calculation, and ignore government expenditure in the calculation of output entirely. GPP is plagued by some of the same problems, but is overall a much better measure.
[The problems with the expenditure method are problematic with the other methods as well for the exact same reasons.]
This.
Being ignored is one thing, but being emotionally attacked and deliberately ‘straw manned’ is another!
That’s when you really know you’re on the right track! [:)]
HAHA at first I thought you were defending me conza. Because if you read his statement, he is emotionally attacking me and assigned a strawman to me “picking those of least resistance”. But then I remember I went on that very brief rant about your name. So what does the 88 symbolize in your name?
I would like to apologize for that brief rant. Regardless of you racial ideology I believe you have a right to your opinon and clearly would not invalidate austrian theory. Perhaps its just an amazing concidence you choose 88 in your name.
Spidey,
I am an industrious capitalist and work a lot. At night I do a lot of reading, so I am limited in my number of posts. I have spent virtually I my free time trying to answer questions here and haven’t even made a dent. If I don’t get to your specific posts, its a time factor, or I felt I answered it in another response.
And on the contrary if I were to pick and choose, I would pick the most intelligent, logical, and convincing posters to respond to. I currently hold liege, david_z, and meepo (or something like that ) as people I try to reply to if I have to choose.
Ixtellor
You think its a fact that Walmart’s prices are high?
Ixtellor, make another ad hominem like that and I can assure to you that you won’t be banned from just a single forum.
I suppose being called a leftist, statist, and being prescribed any number of false beliefs is… er I guess I don’t know the difference between my actions and those of many others here in regards to ad hominem attacks. Furthermore I apologized to Conza, where no one has apologized for calling me a leftist or suggesting I like minimum wage laws. The difference possibly being I have thick skin, cherish free speech, relish lively debate, and attempt 99% of the time to be extremely courteous and not belitting of beliefs different than my own. ( I reserve my contempt usually for Christians and racists)
Ixtellor
How lovely.
That’s funny. To me, it seemed like Spidey’s response was pretty much devoid of emotion and was only pointing out the blatantly obvious.
Doesn’t bother me in the slightest though. Keep wasting your time here, you’re clearly not learning anything. Anyway, you’ve ignored practically every post I’ve ever made in your threads, or in response to your posts. Not that it matters, but:
The only reply I’ve ever received was a combination of you erecting a strawman (about my name) and launching ad hominems. Your apology is meaningless and I doubt sincere. Actions speak louder than words. You haven’t even read my response to yours, and if you have, you’ve disregarded it and played dumb just so you could erect the exact same bs again.
Thank you for proving my point. [:)]
Lies.
Relative to libertarians you are a leftist (or more correctly, libertarians would see you as a leftist), there is no such thing as objective political terminology and it differs heavily in different countries and so on.
Furthermore, are you courteus enough to accept the property rights of others? If not, how do you define courtesy, is it a subjective term to you? If that is the case, why should your “courtesy” be of any value to libertarians?
I will request that the ad hominem attacks be kept at a minimum by all parties, or I’ll be locking this thread. I’d advise against partaking in flamefests, lest one wishes to end up banned.
Further evidence you are simply a troll. Not that they are not “intelligent, logical, and convincing posters”. But here you imply everyone else that has attempted to talk to you is not. And you make this statement with no evidence that such is the case, only your opinion, which I find to be the only thing statists have.
Spideynw, was there just not a warning against ad homines in this post? That does not mean that Ixtellor is restrained while everybody jabs at him for being a troll,no. What it means is that there are NO ad homines. Final warning, if anyone else partakes in such techniques not only will this thread be closed, but all future participants will be temporailly banned.
Do you believe in a state? Your a statist.
Are you the one Right-wing Keynesian known to man? If your a neocon I consider you a leftist.
I did not think calling someone a troll was an ad hominem. But feel free to ban me. If you have such a loose definition of ad hominem, then there is not much I can do. (hint: I was not attacking his character, I was attacking his intentions for being here).
Also, I am not sure why you included my statement, “Not that they are not “intelligent, logical, and convincing posters”.” in your quote. Is calling people not stupid an ad hominem?