You truly do not believe that scientists can not resist advocating their own judgements of value in their scholarly works. That’s all that’s needed to be objective, yet you say that just because I hold belief C that my work is condemned to advocate belief C, that I cannot restrain myself to just theories, and phenomena.
So what? The point that matters is that the theories are objective, the author’s motive to write objective theories I don’t care about here.
Yes, the world of explaining phenomena by the most efficient method without letting one’s own judgements of value about the subject taint one’s theories.
Objectivity is a necessary precondition for truth because otherwise we are easilly decieved by subjective semblance as being truth, while it is really just our subjective judgements of value.
It is necessary to learn economics. Mises stresses: “This is, in our age, the primary civic duty.”3 And he insists that the matter is too important to be entrusted to public education and government experts:
“Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence.”
In the concluding chapters of his magnum opus he emphasized the importance of private education. It was an important lesson he had learned firsthand in his long life: government sponsorship introduces a pro-government bias into economic education and economic research, thus undermining the social function of economic science.
Sure it is. Because preserving Mises’ legacy would have never have been appropriate with coercion. First it is immoral, second, one knows that Mises would never have had wanted that.
How much knowledge I have is irrelevant to the statement. It is either true or not.
It’s not a commons Lam, not matter how you rationalize it. The money is taken by force, with coercion. And then it doesn’t go into a commons, it is doled out to people to morally compromise them [:o] to maintain political power. Not everyone can get money from the government, and not everyone can use money from the government any way they wish.
Wombatron and I had a long discussion about whether it is possible for government to alter property titles through the use of coercion. The conclusion I believe we both came to, is that it cannot. Theft cannot validate a change in title.
There are some positions assumed here, it’s ok to challenge them, although the paragraph I quoted does no such thing. You’re making a utilitarian argument for wealth confiscation, then trying to tell me that it’s moral if you can spend it on “good science” instead of bombs, when you know full well that money spent on science doesn’t cause a drop in military spending. It doesn’t save a single life. More often than not, government scientists are the ones manufacturing wholesale death.
Either taxation is theft or not. If it is, then those are stolen goods and they are not in a commons.
Scientists, who produce nothing or nearly nothing in the market, are simply arms of the state (like so many other professions). They take state money, and “pay” some back to make it look like they are honest tax payers like the rest of us. The reality is that they are just moving money from one pocket to the other. This is what I usually refer to as a tax parasite. I got the bulk of the idea from Hoppe.
It is laughable to paint these people as trying to undermine the state by increasing it’s debt load (or that it is a morally acceptable tactic under the NAP or other moral system). By that rationale, we should all go on welfare and stop working. No more food, no more electricity, no more nothing. But wait, then where would the resources for “good science” come from? The market?
Maybe. It would be interesting to see scientists make meaningful presentations to non-scientists (ignorant capitalists like me) in order to solicit funding. To compete.
But what is going on right now is a straight wealth transfer. Giles values economic science, you value good science enough to take stolen money.
I’m making a statement that neither are great enough to validate taking from others, nor can their benefits be held up as noble outside the market process, any more than state health care, or state education.
Anarchist Cain, I think you’re confused, the fact that the scientist holds values (which, presumably he does) does not entail that economic science is not value free. Simply put, economic science seeks to explain price formation, the values of the scientist doing this explaining has no impact on the nature of the science itself, and whilst there may be implicit value judgements, as science progresses these will be purged and the science will continue to be value free. To the extent that value judgements are retained in economics, they’re irrelvant and the science is to be considered to be less complete, since they have no explanatory power in regards to price formation and the issue of scarcity.
You can quote Rothbard on this, but he was in favour of a value free economic science. As were Mises and Hayek and as are Block and most modern Austrians (and economists in general).
LS. you’re clueless, fact is, most universities that Austrians (that include LvMI and GMU scholars) work at would not even exist if the state weren’t pushing everybody to get an education and regulating the workforce so as to make it difficult to find employment without a diploma. Now, other than Menger I can’t think of a single economist who didn’t work for some university that made serious contributions to Austrianism. Hazlitt may have been a journalist, but he certainly didn’t produce anything novel. On the other hand: Hayek, Mises and Bohm Bawerk (maybe Menger also) worked for the Austrian government. Since then just about every Austrian who has done something has worked for the government or has benefitted from government intervention in the economy.
Your wild anti intellectualism is getting the better of you. Not everybody is meant to be a scholar, not everybody can. Those that can’t will have to content themselves with being less intelligent than scholars and realise that when intellectuals speak, they’d best listen, because the scholar’s opinion is more informed and is worth more. So keep resorting to ad homs, they won’t get you far. As for LvMI being a private institute, yes it is, however, a great deal of its scholars teach as universities that would not exist in a free market (by your own admission, funnily enough). That is actually one of the overriding goals of the LvMI, putting scholars in good institutes to advance Austrian economics.
laminustacitus, you’re exactly correct. It’s a commons. In fact, LS and the rest don’t seem to have much of a problem with using commons such as the road etc. they see those as perfectly reasonable to use. Now, when they get a chance to mount their hobby horse and go on a tirade against intellectuals because they’re exploiting their own commons, things change. They let their Randian side get the better of them, I don’t imagine they much like the fact that they’re not going to be the ones writing Human Action and yet, at the same time they imagine themselves perfectly capable of doing so.
The fellows are not the Institute itself. You’re conflating the two.
Source?
That is a strawman.
This isn’t my base argument, but it will do for now. Being a state scientist is a lot closer to volunteering to be in the army than it is to using a state road as a private citizen. You’re volunteering to choose the state over the market. In the case of public roads, no such choice exists, however if one is principled on the issue of free markets, they would have to choose a private road should one be available in contrast.
No, scientists have plenty of other options. They take the easy one. State money is easier to come by and more plentiful than private money. There is also a lot less accountability. So before we get sucked into this notion of a scientific elite (which is ironic coming from theists for multiple reasons) let’s make clear, there are other options.
I’m engaged in a related argument about voting on another forum with some Austrians. The same strawman was attempted. Where there is an option, we must not choose the state. Morally, and pragmatically (assuming we are for free markets) the state should be the choice remove from the equation.
Maybe you and Lam aren’t balls out for free markets, and you guys really believe that taxation is not theft. In which case, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
How am I clueless about that? I agree! And without those institutions, those individuals would be in the private sphere, making a net contribution, instead of in some cases (not all) making a net subtraction from society. Public money is parasitism. Hoppe has covered this in his presentations, I am sure you have read it in some of his work.
Have you noticed how as people get closer to LvMI, they get further from state funding? Do you think that is merely coincidence?
The big difference is, I willingly would choose the free market and a civil society, laminustacitus and you, Giles, are arguing the State is “good”, so, you willingly advocate coercion… big, big difference.
Did not Mises work at the University of Vienna during the 1920s? Was not the University of Vienna financed with “corercion”? Did not the bulk of Austrian theory emerge from the Univserity of Vienna?
I suggest you should stop putting beliefs into your hagiophical image of Mises.
How much knowledge you have is extremely important to the matter - have you never read Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society”?
It brings the government one step closer to bankruptcy, every cent spent at CERN cannot be sent on a bomb.
And guess what, funding in the sciences can save lives, even if it is funded with government-money, did not Alexander Fleming discover Penicillin, a medical miracle as far as saving lives, at the University of Edinborough even though it had some government-funding?
Do you realize that you must be an intellectual to be an anti-intellectual intellectual, you are not going to spread your ideas in the long run without debate in academia.
Feel free to go by the option. But personally I desire more in life than to live on a meager hand-out.
Mabye you should stop valuing science as far as its applicability to you, or whatever political ideology you support, and start realizing that pure theories ought to be valued on the basis of how efficiently they describe given phenomena.
I’m not taking from others, I’m merely accepting money given to me knowing that the consequences are far better if I get the money than if someone else does.
LS, the institute simply does not exist besides the fellows, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. As the banner says, the LvMI is aimed at advcancing the scholarship of liberty, which is why they hold things like the Rothbard Graduate Seminar to be attended by 20 top PhD students with only a few observers. Look at Walter Block’s memo, its seeking to put Austrians in top graduate programmes, ask Salerno what he thinks is the best way to advance Austrian economics. He’ll tell that that we need the youngest and the brightest going to the very best institutions they can. He won’t tell you that the average man can make huge contributions, because quite honestly, he knows it to be false. Unless you’re willing to do a great deal of research, in all likelihood, you’ll have nothing to add to economic science.
As for the overriding goal of the LvMI, just look at its activities. Yes, it makes a huge deal of literature available to the public. It also pushes students to go to grad school and get a PhD. It also holds exclusive seminars to educate and train young Austrians. What does this tell you? The LvMI believes quite strongly that there are not huge amounts of people who can become intellectuals. Few can, and few want to, so the institute puts a lot of effort into training those that can.
Now, regarding your bigger point. I don’t think taxation is theft, I think when you go to live somewhere you’d best agree to local custom. It just so happens that when you live in most places on the earth you agree to pay taxes. However, there are those places you can live where you don’t have to pay tax, so I suppose that not all is lost. If you truly value liberty, you can go live in those places. Otherwise, you’d best be willing to agree with local custom wrt taxes, just like you’d agree to any other local custom. I also don’t believe in the NAP, or in fact, any ethics that claim to be able to be proven. If you want to get across the is - ought gap, you’d best be willing to make a leap of faith (and as a theist, I’m in a better position to do that than you are). If you want to make an ought statement either you can choose an axiom (in which case it’s arbitrary and the question “why?” is always valid) or you can choose some other ought statement (in which case you’re going to get stuck in an infinate regress). Now, I don’t want to drag this off topic, but if you want to challenge me and tell me how you would prove your ethical system, I’m more than willing to listen.
You can live a life without state roads, perhaps not as comfortably as you would otherwise, but it’s certainly possible. That said, I think the opportunity cost of using the roads is very low and the returns are very high (you get a far more comfortable life and all you have to give up a little bit of intellectual purity). You may say that no alternative exists, but to the extent that I choose a private university your point is obviated, to the extent that my university of choice is public I can simply appeal to the crowding out effect, just as you are (there are private roads you know). See, any way you wish to rationalize your use of roads can be applied to my use of universities, the two are analogous. Which just brings me back to my earlier point: your whole argument is ad hoc, you’re targetting a group that people who love to target for no reason other than that you hold a grudge. Now, some LvMI scholars such as Hoppe and Rothbard are willing to pander to such sentiments, others realise it is a dangerous and mistaken idea. I, on the other hand, don’t need to rationalise my use of universities. I don’t believe the state is illegitimate, just inefficient, and the fact that I’m using their money for whatever purpose makes it no less efficient. On the other hand, I put huge value on science and I wish to advance it and spend my life studying it. I don’t believe that the free market would provide science to the extent that I would like it to, from my perspective, it’s a market failure. So why not attempt to get my piece of the pie whilst I can?
You seem to have problem with exploiting this commons, but not others. Strange.
Giles and laminustacitus seem confused about what intellectuals are. Since when did the set of all intellectuals equate to the set of academics with public funding?
You can’t get efficiency at the point of a gun, not for very long at least. Trust me on this, I would love nothing more than the state to collapse ASAP, especially given my social views.
But it’s just not going to, the state will be around for some time yet, in that time I can either use it to further my own life or spend my life dealing with it in other ways. I think I know which route I’ll choose thanks.
As has been pointed out, the state created commons everywhere. Higher education is one such commons, use it whilst you can. Just like you would with roads.
Government revenue vs. spending is not a zero sum game.
I can’t believe you’re making another ends vs. means argument, and defending results determined outside the market.
That’s the notion I am arguing against. Few care how many journals GMU economists publish in. Those few who do care, are more likely to be consumers than producers. It’s a subsidized activity. It’s possible in the free market, no one, or very few would pay for it without a gun to their head.
Why not stop taking any handouts at all?
And how else is human action meant to function?
Ah, I see. I should stop valuing science by how it is applicable to me, and value it by how it is valued by you.
You are requesting the money, yes?
That’s some clever rationalizing.
I think we’ve reached the point where we have divergent opinions and not much else is going to be gained from this. I’ll read your response but may not reply back to avoid going in circles.
When (if) you are a producer, you will feel differently about this. As a consumer, you can only try to rationalize consumption as valid. I might do the same if I was in your circumstances. But when you produce, when you realize how hard it is to create honest wealth, it makes you appreciate that much more (if you have any morals or ethics) how wrong it is to take from others by force.
In other words, you don’t understand how it is robbery until they point the gun at your head, and you empty your pockets.
This. People seem to have some pretty strange views that the government can never help humanity. That no matter what the state does it’s bad, Popper is turning in his grave!
And you’ve hit the mark once again, which brings me back to my original point. Either you’re a scientist (that means working at a university) or a political opportunist. LS, Wilderness etc. can’t even be entirely sure that libertarian ethical theory or Austrian economics is correct, it might well occur that somebody writes a brilliant paper tomorrow for AER that refutes the entire substance of Mises’ calculation argument.
Fact is, the only reason LS is a libertarian is because of ethical science (which I don’t consider to be a science, but there we go), if he’s not willing to confront other scientists and face the possibility he’s wrong, he’s taking his position on faith. And if he’s doing that he’s fighting as a political opportunity, just as those people over in Iraq who are fighting for Allah are. His position is just as rational as theirs, as far as his knowledge goes.