He’s not criticizing the concept of inequality. He’s criticizing racism. People are individuals. Race is a collectivist concept that should mean absolutely nothing to a libertarian.
Yes, and to say all blacks are stupid, simply as a result of belonging to a particular race is one thing. It’s a completely different thing to say that biological factors can explain certain traits amongst individuals. The former is collectivist, the latter is realistic. It’s also completely rational to say that people generally distrust and dislike those different from them.
Not really. My point was praxeologists do not need to assume objective standards for success; they can simply go by what most people would prefer.
Yeah…
If their aims are for them not to result in destitution and poverty, no, not really.
I recall Stranger providing his definition. I do not recall providing one myself. Nor do I recall being committed to whatever Stranger says. So…
No, I’m referring more to your allusions of being closet-monarchists etc etc.
No, you can call them racists until you go blue in the face. Personally, I do not care. From the minute they do not wish to involve the state their preferences become neutral to me, hence irrelevant. If you think it is sufficient to discard their arguments, though, you’re in error.
If I simply stated that it is, that would be assuming what I want to prove. But I didn’t. So it isn’t. I was clarifying something for the sake of GS and BP, when you simply jumped in. Now, I am done with this.
In any case, it’s not really a contradiction is it? When Stranger claims that wealth is a measure of their success doesn’t that merely mean that a large number of people rank a particular end highly on their value scales? In this case, the end is a culturally conservative community.
Well more accurately it’d be the means. Or rather a means. I think Hoppe is a bit too slanted to the conservative end of the spectrum, but the death of the welfare state will definitely necessitate the revival of civil society in its multitudinous forms, which may include the church, family, and on the non-conservative side mutual aid societies such as “friendlies” &c. I would not be personally inclined to inhabit the more conservative societies, though; I simply think a lot of people will opt for them, and that they will secure their ends. However, I would go for the more capitalist forms, as opposed to merely market anarchist.
Hoppe’s argument is even more specific than that: cultural conservatism directly promotes the production and accumulation of wealth through lower time preference, better education and better morality. It’s not so much that the market demands culturally conservative communities, but that culturally conservative communities will come to take up a larger and larger part of the market.
So even if only 10% of the population is conservative, that 10% will come to own most of the land.
Yep, that’s a good way of putting it.
Sounds like the other 90% may want to follow some of the 10%'s examples.
Right. Look at the Amish. Quite wealthy captains of industry, are they not ?
They are in fact extremely wealthy, despite limiting themselves to less productive technologies.
Of course. Extremely wealthy. Silicon valley is an Amish ‘enclave’, no ?
I’m not sure what your point with this is.
When I asked you how you measure success you replied
So you did provide a tentative definition ? Now you seem to be saying that social conservatism as a means is better suited to achieve…social conservatism as an end ? Or simply put that social conservatism is easier to achieve…? Or what ?
Thanks for allowing me to use the English language the way it’s supposed to be used. And since you don’t care, maybe you should stop commenting about my calling people who hold racist views racists ?
You mean racist views are scientifically sound ?
That social conservatism doesn’t necessarily lead to wealth perhaps ?
How do you expect to counter the economics of conservatism with historical coincidences when whole books have written by Austrian economists on why this is meaningless?
You mean, you can assert any nonsense you want, declare that it is ‘a-priori’ true, and forget about reality ?
What’s the heck is social conservatism?
I can certainly ignore your meaningless anecdotes since they provide no evidence or knowledge of anything.
Here’s a good discussion of conservatism in general that can shed some light on social conservatism as well
Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard
Wow, that rolls right off the tongue… only 9 syllables!