Permanent Keynesian Refutation Thread

[z1235]

@Fool on the Hill

How am I valueing their values? I seek only to describe their values. My approach is one akin to that of a pollster. I am not saying that we need to follow the wishes for the majority, but rather I am asking, “what are the wishes of the majority?”

Each individual’s wishes/preferences are revealed through his/her voluntary action (including exchanges with others). Individual wishes/preferences/values are not amenable to summation/aggregation. You are seeking something which does not exist.

You claim that I can’t know someone else’s values, and yet you claim to know mine!

I did no such thing.

I am merely questioning Hazlitt on the very terms which he asserts.

No you are not. You are purposefully misrepresenting Hazlitt and quoting him out of context which (again) makes me question your motives in this thread. The Broken Window uncovers a fallacy. It simply states that destruction/war/catastrophy can not create wealth. It is not just an example concluding that “this suit will never be made if this window is broken”. You keep stating how any outcome (destructive, aggressive, etc.) creates Group A that benefits, and Group B that loses from it, but all in all, we’re all even as society, humanity, majority. Thus, any outcome/scenario is just a different distribution of matter and energy in this universe. Then you must agree that by killing you I may not necessarily be decreasing wealth, depending on the amount of joy and entertainment such action may provide me (and whoever else may be watching)! As long as the majority is better off, right?

You keep saying how your examples/schemes are not symptomatic, but I will keep pointing out that there is something very dysfunctional in your inability to distinguish between voluntary and coercive/aggressive human action; between individual subjective preferences/values and objective your (‘objective’?) measures of wealth and wellbeing of others.

How can one claim to be an economist if he doesn’t seek to measure other people’s desires? What is economics concerned with if not that?

Economics is a value-free science. Austrian Economics suggests the best means for a given end. It doesn’t say anything about the ends themselves.

Hazlitt makes claims such as, “this suit will never be made if this window is broken.” I’ve shown that such a claim is not necessarily true.

Good work. You proved that a suit may still be made even when a window is broken. The government could just print some money and pay someone unemployed to make the suit, which wouldn’t even cause inflation because the printed money would equal the value of the new suit. Or the government could just kill someone random on the street and give his suit to the baker. Got it. An utter destruction of Hazlitt’s argument.

I got this deja vu feeling. I may not last too much longer in this discussion with you.