A friend of mine directed me towards this FAQ on the Subjective Theory of Value and some related ideas. Its brilliant comedy in my opinion.
Noor and Franc are super cranks.
I honestly thought it was a satire at first.
No, they really believe that stuff. And they are incapable of debating it without strawmen and Ad Homs (Franc’s specialty).
Their problem is economic ignorance.
This is why it is necessary to spread economic education, not ideological (libertarian) fanaticism. The fanatics who don’t get economics, end up being left-anarchist boobs.
Their problem is economic ignorance.
They best I could make of his argument was that what cost, say two hours, to make, deserves a product that also took two hours to make. If he and any like-minded individuals want to live that way, great, more power to them, just count me out.
Well…better they become anarchists than politicians.
the problem is like the problem of all “libertarian” socialists. they twist words and the defenition of rights to outlaw capitalism. if one wants to be a socialist, thats fine and dandy. i like brocolli, i think people should eat brocolli, but that doesn’t mean that apples are a bad thing. they often juggle words like legal, moral, and ethical to oppose ancaps. the hiring a murderer part is a hoot.
As anti-propertarians, there is little distinction to me.
Politicians actually cause harm, they just cause headaches (and laughter). At least so far that is…
Right, but I wouldn’t confuse them with allies or bystanders. They are agitating for an anti-intellectual agenda. We all know the power of populist anti-intellectualism.
Allies! My goodness no. At best I’d strive for civility.
Buy guns.
“There are more ways to start a business than by waiting for an investor to grant people capital. The traditional anarchist method is for a group of people to pool their resources.”
And thus becoming an investor? LOL at the hitman example too.
Here you can read Franc and Noor in the comments (19 pages) on this piece.
He is a marvellous example of regression.
These are such bizzare strawmen. The reason someone rents out their capital is because they bought or built it. The rent represents a compensation from the borrower to borrow it so he can use it for his own purposes.
says the man with a mutualist avatar.[:P]
i wonder why they call themselves socialists. after all, they don’t want property to be “used by all society”.
I think the problem with your statement is that Austrian economics doesn’t necessarily imply a social theory. You can have Austrians who are any type of social theorist. So yes its good to spread education on economics but also just as necessary is a school of social/legal theory.
the problem is not that. the problem is that anarchists twist the concept of freedom to fit their anti-capitalist value judgments, period. it’s basicly legislating morality.
It doesn’t need to. Social theories are subjective, Austrian economic theory is objective.
I’ve seen too many libertarian ideologues lost to bad ideas, because they never had a conception of free markets and the economic ideas supporting them.
Libertarianism deals with what is and isn’t acceptable in a given society in an objective, normative fashion. If you like painting houses red or blue that I would say that is a personal subjective preference, however, the NAP and its implications [ namely property rights ] is an objective declaration of justice. Without objective obligations [ namely a respect for rights ] then you have lawlessness, ‘might makes right’, and impractical chaos. You have no legal system. It is a true Hobbesian state of nature.
Well that is just the thing, Austrian economics doesn’t establish a just system of property acquirement. It doesn’t establish a legal system. It is a positive science that merely accounts for what transpires regardless of the normative ideals. So the idea that we can derive normative statements from a positive science is false.