If you’re going to invoke Mises as an authority on morals, I’ll say his opinions are irrelevant. It’s not my fault that he didn’t understand the flaws in utilitarianism, just like he didn’t understand that a minimal state is a mistake.
If what you say is that Mises economic ideas are valid despite his moral position, I of course agree.
However, that has nothing to do with the fact that economic ‘efficiency’ is or should be less relevant for libertarians than justice - a point meaningless for Stranger because he’s not a libertarian.
You call me a collectivist, tell me I do not understand economics, and now try to pass off the absence of competition by government fiat as similar to free market competition?
Shame on you. Seriously. After the Ad Homs and strawmen, the best you can do is offer an obvious falsehood?
You’ve made some good points, but you have really munged up this debate by letting Stranger off the hook for a false utilitarian argument, and trying to shift it to a moral argument, when he has already acknowledged that his moral standard is different, and you know full well, you cannot prove your morals universally superior.
Another important fact was that Mises was not a communist, which self-described libertarians have always been ever since adopting this name in lieu of anarchist, and have once again exposed themselves as communists, having no regard for the material welfare of anyone so long as their idea of social justice is upheld.
But he’s not really private because his future revenue stream is created by protectionism and subsidy. His revenue is related to his status as a monopoly, not for any particular market activity he performs. It would be like claiming a federal contractor is private, even though his work is paid by state largesse, and any taxes he remits are merely a kickback for the government work. This is fully 100% compatible with Hoppean class theory. I cannot understand how you and Stranger, admittedly people who have a high regard for Hoppe’s work, can’t see the contradiction arising from your positions.
I think you know this already. We’re arguing in circles.
Can non-specific non-tax payers have a higher claim than non-specific tax payers?
That is the question BrainPolice is avoiding.
He understands the implications of answering it honestly. It either refutes the ideology he and his friends hold, or it exposes them as anti-property rights criminals. A Morton’s fork because the conclusion is the same. His ideology is not legitimate within the supposed context of being free market (which implies individual property rights and justice for property owners).
Now you are playing a similar game, phrasing your responses so as not to contradict the foundation of what you claim to believe.
Yes. The question of whether or not one pays taxes is irrelevant when considering homesteading. I don’t see how egalitarian handouts are just or practical in this situation. However, this would only apply if the taxpayers in question can’t be found.
Well, I pointed out that a ‘private’ provider who enjoys a legal privilege faces no competition, just like the state, and so has no incentive to provide better services than the state does. I’m not sure that’s been disproved…
Also, I wasn’t trying to make a moral argument, but pointing out that all Stranger has to offer is the misapplication of a principle which 's not completely relevant to the subject at hand.
If we’re discussing what to do with some stolen goods, economic efficiency is not the criterion to use IMO.
de Molinari lived with the original libertarians, who were anti-authoritarians, anti-hierarchy and anti-misoginy much like you are. de Molinari was firmly in the liberal camp, anti-communist, pro-privatization.
The word libertarian was coined to distance the anarchist egalitarians from liberals like de Molinari.
No, what I meant was that the libertarians wanted to distance themselves from the liberals because they were too conservative on social mores, such as the place of women and hierarchy.
The point of this exercise is simple enough. To clearly expose the fact that the people opposed to privatization are in fact communists who came here because it was a forum friendly to libertarians, but who have no interest whatsoever in economic policy and do not care one iota about social organization on economic principles. Remember what de Molinari called himself, an economist. You are clearly not one. You have stated matter-of-factly that utilitarian concerns are of no relevance to your ideology.
im confused what relevance has utilitarianism (an ethical/moral theory) has to understanding economics qua our being economists? are we using a different meaning of ‘utilitarian concern’ than the one I am familiar with?
You just did it again. You answered and then rephrased the question.
This was never a question of homesteading. The goods are stolen.
Homesteading doesn’t come into effect, unless you believe that the state has not stolen property in the first place.
The only people eligible to receive recovered stolen goods, are the people who have been stolen from. If you have not been stolen from, you aren’t due any compensation, and any compensation you receive, will be at the expense of justice for someone who was stolen from.
As a class, non-tax payers have NO claim on property stolen from tax payers, even if the lines of ownership are blurred, the only people eligible for any claim on that property, obviously are the tax payers. They would have the right to homestead state property to settle blurred lines of ownership, if anyone did. Not people who potentially fed at the public trough (and thus had the most intimate access to these goods) and then later get to keep the goodies the state stole because they were willing collaborators in the crime.
Stranger, YOU are the communist here. YOU don’t believe in individual rights. YOU want to pretend that a firm which enjoys a legal privilege is ‘private’ when in reality it’s just an extension of the state.
You are the variety of commie who want things to be nominally private and is ‘socially conservative’, i.e. a fascist.
So, again, the idea that “libertarian” means “communist” because IN FRENCH they used a similar word is NONSENSE. In English libertarian means
One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
My ideology is built around individual sovereignty and individual rights. Economic efficiency is just a byproduct.
Economics is concerned with the production and accumulation of material wealth. It has to be utilitarian, implying that more wealth is better than less.
that strikes me as a peculiar use of ‘utilitarian’, but perhaps it is indeed a word that would have different meanings in different contexts. i have to admit to being ignorant of its uses outside of the ethical tradition associated with J.S.Mill.
in the traditional meaning of which i am familiar. saying ‘economics is utilitarian, implying that more wealth is better than less’. strikes me as being wrong, by virtue of a confusion of terms.
as I once heard Walter Block say, a person could be an excellent economist understanding the capitalist system, and understanding the effects of interventions along the scale to complete socialism. and they might be a misanthrope. and advocate socialism. our advocacy for the free market comes from our libertarianism, because as libertarians we have values, and we use our knowledge (i.e. of economics) to inform how we transform the world , how we act, to bring about improvements of it which agree with our values.
if i met an ignorant socialist, and they took a personal dislike to me, they might curse me to live under ‘capitalism’ .
edit: to answer your question more directly
i certainly think that believing in an incorrect ‘ethical theory’ (utilitarianism) is poor justfication for motivating a study into economic laws, which can allow us to discover laws that result in more wealth being produced over less… a simpler justfication would be to desire a world in which more was produced than less .(essentially stripped out the moral aspect and just made it a question of personal values; i.e. the world we would rather have, not neccessarily because we hold any particular ethical position)
anyhow, hopefully i’ve demonstrated that economics being the study of human action, is itself value free even if humans have subjective values. I also believe that the desire to see a more prosperous world (stated in non moral terms) is sufficient to motivate such a study and to seek improvement.
i go further by recognising that libertarianism is an ethical system more coherent and to my eyes more defensible than utilitarianism. so when arguments go into the realm of morality that is the corner i fight because thats the only corner i see as fightable.