Parasitism is the common defining characteristic of people who choose to be employed by the state, rather than seeking market alternatives both in career and remuneration.
The world is not a manichaean struggle between the forces of the state v. the market; many in the state actually believe that they are doing something positive in the world, and many who are employed by the state, college professors for instance, actually do have positive benefit to the world.
People acting in their own interest would be a good start. Often enough they don’t, while they actually may think they do.
While it is the individual that performs action. People often act in line with norms and patterns that are influenced by social, cultural and biological factors.
I thought as a christian you would have a manichean view of the world, God and the devil etc. but whatever…
positive net benefit?
Mind taking Christian theology 101, or just reading some St. Augustine before you make a fool out of yourself? After all the belief in a cosmic Manichaean struggle is a Christian heresy, not doctrine.
That doesn’t matter.
For those of us the parasites feed off, yes it is.
Che Guevara and Hitler thought they were doing something good. Eugenicists think they are doing something good. Neocon republican war mongers think they are doing something good. People who wiretap illegally think they are doing something good.
Intent is meaningless, what counts is action. We can never meaningfully judge intent, only results.
Actually, they do not. They provide a loss on the services they provide without market competition.
Scientists on the state teat in particular help crowd out private funding of research, and every dollar of state subsidy to science results in a greater loss of private funding due to crowding out.
The Myth of Science as a Public Good - h/t Nielsio
There is nothing to stop college professors from pursuing education as a career privately. And certainly demand for education is not created by the state.
Anyway, parasitism is parasitism. It’s obvious to everyone, of course except the people acting parsitic. They have all sorts of justifications for feeding on the life and labour of others.
And are you the enlightened ubermensh who is one of the only individuals who act out of his own interests?
Of course it matters.
Everyone acts out of his own interests. That is the root of methodolical individualism.
The world is painted in shades of gray; not black, and white. All who view the world in black, and white lack the empathy to actually realize that many individuals who do great harm do so in an attempt to do great good.
And we should keep that in mind when analyzing their behavior.
Intent is where the morality of an action lies.
Most of modern science has been created by individuals from public universities, if that is not a positive benefit, I do not know what is. But of course, you are all going to say that the market could have done a better job - but, the market did not do that job, and we will never know how it would have done that job, so mind as well credit the actual individuals who did the creating, and the institutions that facilitated them. That does not mean that you have to be completely in favor of them, or in favor of them at all, but mind as well give credit to what actually happened then pondering about “what-if” scenarios.
That’s not what I’m arguing.
By the way LS, why cannot I have a basic intellectual conversation without you demanding that we all have a libertarian-slant while doing so? Why cannot there be a single politcs-free conversation in this entire forum? This is the reason why I don’t care about politics, and why I’m apathetic about political libertarianism, LS, people like you cannot have a simple chat without mentioning it, and if I even mention the fact that the public university system has yielded some positive benefit, which (outside of “what-if” scenarios) it truly has, immediatly there’s a post claiming that I am essentially a statist synchophant. Not only is it tiring, but it ensures that there is not a single conversation that can occur without either libertarianism, or anarcho-capitalism being endorsed, and proceeds to stifle any intellectual worth to it. I don’t understand why most libertarians, and essentially all anarcho-capitalists can’t have a politics-free academic discussion, perhaps it is just bitterness: you’re angry at the world because you’re not free, and the world does not share your own judgments of value, but its certainly not done in the pursuit of truth. As long as Austrian economics is nothing but libertarian-apologetics, it will go nowhere. Surely, you might be able to catch an adolescent disciple here, and there, but eventually they will grow out of it like all adolescents do with their radical politics when they mature, but that will be all that you will catch.
why are you so passionate about not hearing about libertarianism?
Can you paint this for me? All these colors seem fantastic…
If you want to keep morality hidden, then keep it with intent. If you want to be morally scientific, then take note of their actions.
My comments were apolitical, but then all of a sudden I was ambushed because they did not fit into the libertarian-view orthodoxy (e.g. state-run universities having a positive benefit) even though my comments were not at all an endorsment of such a system.
Was morality even a subject of my commentsbefore LS proceeded to hijack this thread: no.
why can’t he look at the free market and take note that political actions impact the market… Businesses have this potential U.S. universal healthcare plan looming over their heads and will they hire more people with the possibility of their businesses having to weigh the costs of government mandatory regulations, aside from all the health care regulations that already stifle economic competition in the market place currently? A huge part of the economic equation is ignored by Keynesians: the consumer… a big economic equation is ignored by lamin.: the state.
but then theres no reason to be upset by people who you do not disagree with. both you and libertarians do not endorse such a system. so why the tantrums?
also for the record, and any statists viewing the board, please note that state-run universities do not have a net positive benefit.
Hey, I’m only going with the flow and I made a comment about what you said dealing with morality and intent.
Because I am speaking in a academic, and theoretical propositions, not meant to convey my political beliefs, and yet those propositions are taken as my political beliefs.
Anarchist Cain main point is government workers are net tax consumers and these taxes are consumed whether those government workers: know it, like it, or don’t know it - by coercion. The government doesn’t produce anything from its premise of coercion. Workers in the free market on the other hand are trying to voluntarily play in accord with the free market system. The class divide, or better yet the category divide is government worker - coercion - free market worker. The divide is coercion coming not from the free market, obviously, but from the government. I think that was the simple point being made until unnecessary complexities arose in the discussion.
its not all about you lam. some of us have an eye on the thoughts of others that read the boards. if you are dropping knowledge bombs that can easily be misinterpretted to support naive statists in their arguments we will point them out, to be on guard for them as an aide to each other, and as a flag to pro-statist that this ‘ammo’ will misfire on them. please forgive us for our trespasses. im sure they will continue.