“Are you claiming outright that its impossible for people to think they are supporting one thing, and getting another?”
No, I’m saying there’s nothing special about me so if I can figure out how things work and still support it then anyone can. By the way, I get exactly what I want from government. What is it you think people want?
**
Gallup Poll to the rescue.
Unemployment: You can find a plethora of articles here on mises.org demonstrating that the government’s policies will not work. They will not resolve unemployment. People want this. They don’t get it.
Economy in general: Same thing.
Healthcare: Aside from the mises.org articles demonstrating the folly of government+healthcare, you must realize that what NO ONE has in mind is for a government cartel to continue restricting output and charging monopoly prices.
Dissatisfaction with government. This is by definition not getting what you want.
Federal Budget Deficit: Doesn’t show any signs of turning around. Politicans only pay lip service to.
Lack of money: Luckily, the fed is printing money out of thin air, but they’re not really handing it out to people. This would be a bad idea, but again, people aren’t getting what they want.
31+24+20+10+8+5=98% of Americans feel this way. They are not getting what they want. I would wager that you don’t actually get what you want, but you would lower your standards and compromise till whatever the gov gave you was what you wanted.
Ok, so is it just out of sheer misinformation and stupidity that people haven’t turned to libertarianism and Austrian econ?
I mean, based on these numbers and your interpretation of them, everyone should be an anarcho-capitalist libertarian. Why hasn’t that happened? What aren’t we seeing here in this poll?
Put it another way: do you think the respondents want more or less government involvement in unemployment, healthcare and the economy in general? It’s one thing to say there’s a problem, this poll does not tell us what the respondents want done about it.
What I’m trying to say is that you should be the majority and I should be in the smallest minority according to your interpretation, and yet this is not so.
They’re misinformed in thinking that the government can solve those problems.
Your statism is the majority due to a myriad of factors, having the correct worldview is not among them.
Way to dodge an economic debate. We both know that on any of those issues Austrian Economics would win in two seconds. Face it, at least 98% of people aren’t getting what they want from government. You thought most people did.
And I don’t need a theory about why people don’t know that 2+2=4. It is enough to show that they don’t. I do not think the majority of voters have read human action, much less one of Murphy’s articles on the fed.
No, everyone values prosperity, which is what I have been claiming all along. I never said people had devoted large chunks of time and energy to self-education.
We’re seeing values (ends). Anarcho capitalism is a means. I would need another chart to show that 99% of everyone votes for the mainstream parties. From this chart we can conclude that people do not choose Ancap as a means.
If they want more or less government, that is immaterial to this argument. No citizen wants more bad government. They want problems solved, one way or another. Austrian economics claims that a priori these problems cannot be solved with more intervention, but I can adopt a much narrower and less controversial view that these problems cannot be solved by ineffective intervention. This is what they are getting.
They want it to go away. Duh. If they were more educated about ecomics (means), they’d probably have some different answers.
What you’re trying to do is save face despite my overwhelming evidence that people are not getting what they want. Government is lame, and doesn’t fix anyone’s problems. I would expect the majority to be more Austrian if Austrian economics were taught in schools and colleges. It also takes a lot of courage to be independent. You give up the group identity and choose to be at odds with the mob. So there are psychological factors too.
In a way, I am in the majority because I also value prosperity. And you are in the smallest minority becuase you admittedly don’t care about the progress of the human race. The only difference between me and the majority is we differ on means, but I’d wager this is due to having studied a whole lot more political philosophy, economics, and economic/war history. Conversely, the only thing you share with the majority is means. Beyond that, you have no kinship with them.
So, short answer, people aren’t Ancap/Austrian/Libertarian because they haven’t studied anything, aren’t exposed to new ideas, and don’t want to break group trends. They still aren’t getting what they want from government.
This isn’t about economics, this is about politics. You bring a poll into the game and try to avoid a political debate. Why? Because I think you know the politics isn’t on your side (but perhaps the economics is and that’s why you want an economic debate.) But if you wanna talk politics, let’s talk politics.
Simply put, I don’t think you’ve shown that people don’t get what they want from government but instead that they don’t get EVERYTHING they want from government. Of course this is true. People will always be dissatisfied with something.
What you have failed to show is that people are so dissatisfied with government that they’re looking for alternatives. It seems only ten percent of respondents even saw dissatisfaction with government as a big problem and it’s not clear whether those people are saying that they themselves are dissatisfied with government or if they think it’s a problem that other people are dissatisfied with government.
Bottom line: all you’ve shown is that there are problems and people are aware of them. But no one says that states bring utopian societies where everything is perfect and I don’t think any intelligent an-cap follower would claim that an an-cap society would be a utopia either. There will always be problems.
If people really weren’t getting what they wanted from government (to the point where they saw the existence of government as not being worth the power it brings), they’d be talking about alternatives to government instead of just changing the existing structure. For the most part, people are clearly generally satisfied with government and would rather look for solutions within the current system rather than getting rid of the current system altogether. Find me a poll that says a majority favors the dissolution of the state and then I’ll be wrong.
Basically, I’m saying you made a big deal out of this poll before thinking about what it’s really saying and, much more importantly, what is ISN’T saying.
I think the government can solve just about any problem, but often at great cost. The contention of the Austrian school of Econ doesn’t seem to be that government can’t solve problems but that the government is less efficient at solving certain problems than the market is. For instance, the government can solve the problem of rising healthcare costs by legislating price controls, but that action will come with a price. The government could also pay people to do damn near anything, but the problem is that in doing so, it will have to divert resources from elsewhere. Nothing without a price.
So, are the people prepared to pay that price? Well, libertarians aren’t. But it seems most people are.
I would argue that most people aren’t aware of the hidden costs of government interventions like price controls. People see the immediate, short-term benefit (hey, prices are lower, thanks government!) but if they don’t understand economics they won’t realize that the cost is nearly always higher. As a result, they will support the policy even though it is hurting them (and everyone else) in the long run.
I dunno, I think for some people, the value of price controls is worth almost any price.
If Keynes said anything of value it was “in the long run we are all dead.”
State worship is an ugly thing.
Bloom “Hey doc, I’ve got an ingrown toenail that’s bothering me, what can you do?”
Doctor pulls out a chainsaw and proceeds to take the man’s entire leg off
Doc - “Well, I’ve fixed your problem”.
Bloom - “It is what it is. As long as most people don’t mind it, I can’t complain”.
I don’t worship anything, I simply see uses for the government chainsaw. Maybe not for removing ingrown toenails, but for some things it’s very effective.
If you had children or yonger friends/family members, would you care about their quality of life after you are dead? Also, the long run can be less than a lifetime.
About politics - you have a good point that politics are not on our (the libertarian) side. I am not expecting radical change. But I have decided that working toward gradual change in favor of libertarianism will benefit me in my own lifetime, and my children in their lifetime (if I ever have any). That is my calculation.
Also, do you agree that politicians these days mainly serve the interests of bankers and corporations who spend millions of dollars lobbying them and helping them get elected, not the people who vote for them? Heck, there are even rigged voting machines.
Indeed, most anarchists wrongly assume that they are the only ones that know how government functions.
Furthermore most anarchists wrongly assume that they know how government functions.
As a general note, I’m going to make a point I’ve made before. Rhetoric is no substitute for serious argumentation, it might be persuasive to claim that I want to throw you in jail for disagreeing with me, but the reality is that it’s a poor argument. I would advocate using coercion to enforce compliance with my legal code, just as you would use coercion to guarantee that people adhere to the NAP. Unless you’re advocating some form of pacifism (and even that isn’t unproblematic) the question doesn’t revolve around who wishes to throw who in jail, it revolves around assessing our different institutional arrangements on numerous margins: fairness and efficiency being the two that come to my mind immediately.
I find anarchism to be wanting on both these counts, and moreover, I don’t think that it can practically be “implemented” any time soon, even if I were to grant that it is a viable system.
Economics is about getting what you want. Politics is a means to get what you want. The argument involves both things. The claim is that people do not get what they want.
Its on my side in that I can show how the political remedies to America’s top problems will fail. Its not on my side in that the majority are not anarcho capitalists. I don’t think argumentum ad populum flies.
If you want to be really childish you can say that people get oxygen, therefore the people are getting what they want from the government.
But this poll was THE NUMBER ONE issue people think is important. If you can produce other statistics gauging the other wants of people, go for it. It will only lead you into a debate about whether government can effectively provide those goods and services; a debate you will lose since you’ll have to start doing some economic analysis. I don’t think you’ll take this avenue, since you avoid economics like the plague.
Sure. I didn’t show that they are all a bunch of malconent anarchists. I did show that the #1 thing they wanted wasn’t going to happen from government though.
Immaterial. One’s satisfaction with government is psychological. It does not have to reflect the actual effifacy of government. Government could be doing an awesome job and people still might hate it. Vice versa.
Well, you’re right. But if there are always problems around that no institution can solve, then government cannot help people with these problems and then “people aren’t getting what they want from government”
But specifically in the real world, the problems people are complaining about actually could be solved. You just have to stop inflating the monetary base, saturating credit markets, and granting legal cartels over some of the most important industries. No appeal to the garden of eden, just good common sense.
Well, its because people entertain that the institution can be reformed. This is a mistake on their part. It doesn’t mean they aren’t getting what they want from government.
They don’t know what they want. That doesn’t mean they can’t be better served by an option they haven’t considered.
Well its the most insight I could get into the minds of Americans. See, I would be perfectly happy saying that Americans just value peace, prosperity, and freedom, and debate from that position. But for some reason this isn’t good enough for you. I don’t understand why.
Americans: I want to have more economic security
State: I’m going to implement policies XYZ to do that!
Policies XYZ fail
Americans: I do not have more economic security. I wanted economic security. I did not get what I want.
How can you argue?
What piece of light are we missing? Granted some anarchists flame, but Roderick T Long seems to understand how government functions.
We define coercion to mean aggression, or violence against innocent people. We have no problem using force against aggressors, but we don’t call it coercion.
Why? We do not advocate all possible anarchies, surely as you do not advocate all possible governments.
bloomj31:
I don’t think you give the statists the credit we deserve. I think most of us understand exactly how government works and that’s why we favor it.
I think you overestimate how often people really consider stuff like this. What you are saying may certainly be true of statists on this forum or others like it, and I enjoy the reading the reasoned debate here because of it, but the average Joe spends something on the order of zero time educating themselves on the alternatives.
However, I think you’re wrong in saying the government is used to express the goals of the few, I think it’s used to further the goals of the many (ofcourse some people are benefited much more than others.) I think that’s why there’s majority support for it. If people are good at nothing else, they’re good at calculating self interest.
If people were good at calculating self interest history would be a lot less bloody. It would certainly be fair to say that people are good at calculating self interest in the short term. In the long term, the level of complexity requires a knowledge of causation that goes beyond the average. That’s why there are books like Economics in One Lesson; to explain the non-obvious to people who never considered it. As has been said before, people tend to not be able to appreciate the power of implicit cooperation through the market. It’s something that has to be learned.
It would also be fair to say that government can (and often is) used to further the goals of the many in the short term. In the long term, however, there is no free lunch and their resorting to the violence of statism ultimately leaves most worse off than they otherwise could have been. Only a few gain from government in the long term.
I think he was one of the first to attempt a value free understanding of political science. I try to be as amoral in my reasoning as he is in the Prince. That’s why it’s always the only book I take with me wherever I go; every now and then I need to be reminded of how things work.
I understand why you claim you like the book, but it would be foolish to assume that the majority of statists would share your view. Most people try to follow a moral compass. The more people like yourself that openly state “hey, this is how the State works. These guys with guns will make you my tax slave because they can. Isn’t this great?” the more people will begin questioning their support of such a construct.
And that is the crux of my original post: Even though most people here would find your position repulsive, it is in reality not really different from the inevitable result of government action, even if the State supporters hadn’t considered it in that light. That you are on the side of the average man but willing to openly say exactly how and why the State is used is only a boon to those of us against it.
I don’t think that it can practically be “implemented” any time soon, even if I were to grant that it is a viable system.
I agree with this. In much the same way that today’s democracies require the will of the people to be maintained, a Stateless or even limited government requires the same. Such support simply doesn’t exist today. That’s why I view education as supremely important.
So just to recap, let me get this straight. Most people are not satisfied with government, they’re not getting what they want. But because of misinformation and just general ignorance, they do not know that there is a better alternative. Because they lack this information and knowledge, they favor the state. But really, they don’t care about the state per se but the things they think they can get from it, which they can’t. So everyone’s ends are totally in line with libertarian’s, they’re just confused about the proper means to those ends. If they ever educated themselves, they’d certainly choose anarchism because they’d realize that their ends and means would be lined up and they’d get more of what they wanted and not less. The government is an impediment to this realization in everyone and it works assiduously to misinform and manipulate the public at large to maintain its power. There are only a handful of people like myself who actually understand how the government works and still favor it, presumably because we have some perverse set of values but most people are not like us, they’re just clueless. Is that basically what you’re saying?
I have repeated time and time again that this is immaterial. People’s perceptions of the state are probably positive, but they are wrong. They think the state is/can be used to give them what they want. They are wrong.
No. If you knew anything about Libertarians here on this forum you would know they tend to favor moral arguments against the state (attacking innocent people is wrong). We’re not Libertarians though, and neither are Americans, so it would be foolish to make this point. Instead I’ve just asserted that people want peace/prosperity/freedom and cited some anecdotal supporting evidence.
Again, psychological points are irrelevant. Maybe they would. I’m certainly open to debate about anarchism. Maybe as my education gets better I’ll steer away from it. But certainly Austrian Economics should inform people that central banking and financial bailouts negatively impact the economy.
Sure. I mean even the monetarists will claim our economic history is all wrong. And as evidenced the the links cited on the Hiroshima thread, there’s a whole lot they don’t teach us that would damage their credibilty. Why would the state go out of its way to make itself look stupid?
I also don’t have to explain why people think the way they do. This is a psychological point and I’m not a mind reader. I can speculate, but at the end of the day people don’t get what they want from government, whether or not they know how it happened.
I would also challenge that you don’t understand how government works, since in order to assess the economic impact of their policies you have to be able to do economics. You also are completely close minded and shut off from analysis in political philosophy / game theory. These are essential in understanding how the state apparatus works. Its like you just walk around reading Machieavelli and think that its the end all be all on pragmatism. None of us feel so much smugness in our literature. I don’t even think leftists are so arrogant.
I dunno man, Machiavelli’s worked pretty well for me so far.