http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHome/RealKatrinaHeroWalMartStudySays.aspx
I agree that the unhampered private market is more capable of an efficient desaster response. Yet, I wouldn’t say a single empirical datum is a proof.
cheers
Nonsense! Don’t you see how this works? If the government does a perfectly good job, or a better job than anyone else, it’s just because they crowded out private interests that could have done it as well or better; if the government does a poor or inferior job, then it’s further confirmation that the government is inept or that private interests are better. Popper would be proud!
Amazing. Do I need to ‘interpret’ your words as a brazen defense of statism ? Is that what the ‘libertarian left’ is about ?
For the record, Popper was a commie, who latter morphed into a radical social-democrat. It’s quite funny to read the nonsense he spouts about economics in his “Open society”. ‘Philosopher of science’ indeed…
I think he was being sardonic, and playing on Popper’s attack on certain viewpoints (e.g. Marxism, Freudianism) as being too able to explain everything and anything…
-Jon
I think not. I think that Danny believes state intervention is perfectly okay in some cases.
I didn’t mean to say that that single example is proof; I only meant that the reasons given in the article are proof. The reasons include freedom to act, knowledge of the local area, and sensitivity to public opinion–not to mention the fact that somebody who voluntarily adopts a humanitarian endeavor is likely to be more enthusiastic and diligent in their tasks than somebody who has tasks assigned to them by a superior. Add to that the fact that somebody who spends their own money on a project will be more careful to see that the money is not wasted, and you have a recipe for success.
See also: Not Yours To Give
I thought statists defend the state; seems to me that quite bit of the libertarian-left do not. Last I checked, counter-economics (agorism) was not developed by a statist-leftist.
I’m not sure I see your point ? Are you denying that popper was a statist ?
Danny said something wich I understood as a justification for the state. If I misunderstood his post he can say so - but he didn’t yet.
With respect to left-libertarianism, I’m still not sure what it is supposed to mean. As far as I can tell, from reading the NLM, Konkin’s brand of libertarianism is ‘leftist’ in that he wanted no involvement with ‘official’ politics (like the libertarian party). I’m not sure Konkin was a fan of say, anarcho-syndicalism, or Proudhon’s free credit schemes.
Why would I deny something concerning Popper, in a previous passage where I did not even mention Popper? That doesn’t make any sense. I was simply objecting to what you called the “libertarian-left” as, and generalizing what Danny may or may not have said to be a represenation of what other individuals may or may not believe.
Btw, I thought Danny was being sardonic (re: mocking or cynical) as well.
Me too. His point (as I understood it) was that we know the state does a worse job a priori, so appealing to empirical “proof” is counter-productive: it invites others to seek empirical evidence to “disprove” an a priori truth–and if they find any evidence, we’ll dismiss it anyway. Best not to give the false impression that we’re empiricists in the first place.
On the other hand, empirical evidence has its uses. As Block likes to say, Austrians do econometric studies not to verify their theories, but to illustrate them. In the same way, Austrian economics predicts that government always produces a worse result (in the Pareto sense) than the free market does, except when they happen to “coerce” people into doing what they would have anyway. This can be illustrated by selecting government actions at random, and noticing how terrible they were. Since the theory is apodictically true, we can seek out such examples knowing in advance that they will readily be found. Similarly, we can investigate “market failures” knowing in advance that government interference is virtually certain to be discovered at the bottom of it.
So if I read Danny right, he wouldn’t quibble if we called Walmart’s Katrina response a brilliant illustration. His scorn was unleashed when someone called it “proof.”
–Len
According to popper a theory can be considered ‘scientific’ if it can be proven false by some experiment or other. If a theory can’t be ‘falsified’ then it’s not scientific - says popper.
Now, this…
"If the government does a perfectly good job, or a better job than anyone else, it’s just because they crowded out private interests that could have done it as well or better; if the government does a poor or inferior job, then it’s further confirmation that the government is inept or that private interests are better. "
…is indeed an example of a theory that can’t be falsified - either way libertarians can claim the market is superior - it sounds like the kind of thing popper would consider unscientific.
So, I’m not sure that Danny’s message is ironic. I rather think Danny believes that government can be superior to private organization ‘in some situations’.
That’s an accurate description of empiricism. Austrians are explicitly anti-popperian; that’s what a priorism is all about. Mises said on this point, “if one accepts the terminology of logical positivism … a theory or hypothesis is unscientific if it cannot be refuted by experience. Consequently, all a priori theories, including mathematics and praxeology are unscientific’. This is merely a verbal quibble.” Interestingly, Popper’s assertion itself is not falsifiable, and hence is not “scientific.”
At the risk of irritating Geoffrey, of course, I’ve already mentioned that mathematics is essentially synonymous with a priorism. This is illustrated by Mises’s instinct to list praxeology and mathematics in the same breath. You’ll find that people do this practically without exception. Whenever they mention an a prioristic discipline as part of a larger family, they will lump it with mathematics. They’re righter than they realize.
It’s possible; he’s already on record expressing the suspicion that coercion may be justified to address “straw that broke the camel’s back” externalities like global warming. We’ll never know for sure what he was getting at unless he comments. But I’ll still bet a nickel on my reading of his comment.
–Len