What does this form of libertarian capitalism has to say about human basic psychology??
Its evil nature to exploit others to his own benefit??
How does this capitalism applies to different cultures and religions??
Does it has has limitations?? A dark side?? Or a proper way to use??
Economics can only show that socialism means discoordination and capital consumption to an extreme degree. Add what we know about physiology, and we can know it also means mass famine and starvation. Add what we any semi-competent student of his fellow man know thymologically about him (meaning our informed judgment regarding his ends) and we know that most men prefer not to sicken and die. Thus we can conclude that people would be worse off. We can take the same approach to the caste society, with simply somewhat less extreme results.
With that, it’s 3:15 am in Taipei, so I’m off to bed.
Danny,
I completed my political science degree without a scrap of economic knowledge, and got a decent grade to boot. Looking back ten years later, I can say with some conviction that the beliefs of a political philosopher who is not well grounded in economics, are highly likely to be fecal matter of the gloopiest kind. The two cannot and should not be separated.
Then to turn to your other thoughts, you base your argument for the importance of economics on consequentialist/utilitarian grounds, and as much as I appreciate the common sense and pragmatic nature of this line of reasoning, the objectivity of it worries me. It brings to mind Rothbard’s argument in ‘Ethics of Liberty’ where he derides a customary law order for being potentially unlibertarian, but what could possibly be more libertarian than a free market in law?
So to follow that same logic, what could possibly be more libertarian than a free market in economic systems? Or in other words, let the people choose their economic system. If that is not capitalism then so be it, those people at that time were not ready for it. I hope, for the sake of humanity that we slowly become more rational and reasonable, and that capitalism does triumph.
Although I respect Mises with my entire hart and soul, Mises was entirely wrong with stating that ‘the’ classical tradition of liberalism was a utilitarian tradition. There are only a few classical liberals with a utilitarian perspective and even than; the ones most famous (mill, bentham) were actually quite statist and the others (hume, Smith) weren’t exactly utilitarians pur sang.
How do you see this relation?
Why the dichotomy? Why excluded the possibility of an interconnection, as Roderik Long argues.
“There can be no purposes other than individual human purposes. There can be no ends, other than individual human ends. There is no conceivable human standard by which to choose ends that would not by definition be an individual human end in itself.”
<= Well, it’s awesome to argue with Mises, but that is not what natural law thinkers claim. Nobody is saying ‘well, natural law is an end outside the realm of human action’. Mises is correct in saying that there can’t be an economic analysis of what ought to be. If you want social cooperation - which is an economic concept - than let’s see what economic system fits it. But where did the impossibility to apply the logic of action to a science of law come from? Is there actually an argument, or is it an assertion by lack of knowledge of any possibility? ‘Proving that something is impossible’ is not the same as ‘I can’t proof that it is possible’. I belief you are doing the second, not the first in this post. Could you actually give an argument, or is it a proof out of lack of knowledge of any real possibility of doing so?
Do you accept logical positivism? If not, why? If so, why?
Because that is the only alternative: natural law or logical positivism. Tertium non datur.
Edit: as far as I see it. ‘Natural law’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘libertarian law’, though. But still: either differences between humans can be decided - and the human relevant for law is the praxeological man - based upon an analysis of the world or differences ought to be created by an agency.
Thanks for starting this thread. As you might have realized, I’m very interested in this debate and especially your opinion. I don’t know anyway who is so Misesian, so it ought to be interesting.
I’m a contractarian. I lay rights out and leave them to others to pick up or not. I don’t care about sweeping social proposals. If people want to advocate bad acts against me, I’m happy to return the favour. So, you like to pay taxes, eh? That’s cool. You can find me on the receiving end. Feel free to pay even more if you want. I could always use the money. I protect only those that agree to acceptable terms. I already live in a libertarian society; it’s only confusing because there are many environmental hazards that look like people.
Because it simply is. And not because intellectuals chose it as a system. It’s entirely irrelevant whether someone wants or doesn’t want capitalism as a whole, because capitalism exists because it is, not because it “ought to be”.
This would be a good point. At first I was floored.
But capitalism has a long history of intellectual thought. Just, it’s earliest thinkers didn’t call it capitalism.
Does that mean that you are no longer a ethical subjectivist (or was it moral subjectivist or emotional subjectivist) (I know it had something to do with subjectivism)?
Capitalism is competitive. It drives all other modes of production out of the market.
my question is “why capitalism”? why continue to use a word that has many different meanings for different people, some quite the opposite of what is intended, and why use an -ism word that implies a system, when what is being advocated is the lack of any system? laissez-faire seems to me to be infinitely preferable to the word capitalism. it means “let it be” which precisely defines the free market, it’s a word that hasn’t been vilified, and its new to most people, it doesn’t have unwanted or unearned connotations. why “Capitalism” indeed!
There’s no such thing as “libertarian capitalism”. There is capitalism. And there is liberalism which is a political doctrine that recognizes the efficacy of capitalism. Liberalism also sees that man has the capacity to recognize the general superiority, in terms of want satisfaction, of mutual exchange over hegemonic relations. Under conditions in which men recognize that, his propensity to exploit others to his benefit is a boon to those he exploits.
Insofar as cultures and religions speak not to the social system of production, capitalism has little to do with them. Insofar as they do, and insofar as they conflict, humans have to simply choose between their folkways and their livelihood. Yet, folkways too are means (which, through habit, become pseudo-ends), so eventually they too will yield, should its adherents become sufficiently cognizant of the bounty of capitalism.
Capitalism is not perfect. No human thing is. It is simply better than all the alternatives.
“For those of you who still think that, ask yourself this. If you were convinced that (A) complete adherence to the natural right of property happened to necessarily engender untold poverty, suffering, and death, but (B) the tiniest imaginable abrogation of the non-aggression principle, undertaken on a very infrequent basis necessarily engendered prosperity, happiness, and long life for virtually everybody, which would you choose, (A) or (B)?”
I’ve generally supported laissez-faire capitalism for what is, admittedly, a very materialistic reason. While my studies in economics and political philosophy are embarrasingly limited compared to my peers on this forum, I have held the (possibly incorrect?) view that private property rights are means to an end, the end being physical prosperity and an improved standard of living for myself, my family, and my friends. I have always told my more statist friends that if their goals are human poverty and unhappiness then they are free to cast off private property and embrace communism, since that economic system is the one most in harmony with those goals.
But going back to your question, in the bizarre world where interventionism and statism improves human welfare rather than retards it, I would certainly support that system and encourage others to embrace it as well. However, I still hold that this system should be completely voluntary. If, for example, the setting of wages by a government board improved economic organizing and the general standard of living, I believe that it should still be up to the individual whether or not they choose to patronize said government. So, to answer your question, I would choose “(B)” as long as it included the caveat I previously mentioned.
I’m not quite sure I explained my thoughts very well, so I apologize if this isn’t entirely coherent.
(Emphasis added.)
This whole approach fetishizes libertarianism. Is libertarianism a religion for you? Like I asked in the OP, honestly would you advocate it, even if you were convinced it would necessarily lead to worldwide suffering and death, and that just a modicum of non-libertarianism would necessarily lead to worldwide happiness and prosperity? Are you a man, who recognizes that social cooperation is the foremost means to all your ends, including those that relate to your own material well-being and that of your loved ones, as well as those that relate to your good-will toward your fellow men? Or are you a would-be cypher, who pretends to subsume his ends in a deontological heteronomous doctrine? Because of your last sentence, I believe that deep-down you (as well as most libertarians) are the former. But because of the criteria of your earlier sentences, it seems that you are, to an extent, adopting the latter approach because of a confusion of means and ends. Let us abandon this confused approach.
Think of it this way. Isn’t it a striking coincidence that the most expedient legal/moral order also happens to be the one founded on the property-rights conception that is most “objectively” just and righteous in the eyes of deontological libertarians? Is that indeed just a coincidence? Or are the two characteristics of the one legal/moral order somehow causally related?
Do they stem from the same cause? Does some god reward those who act righteously in his eyes by also making it so those actions happen to create the most well-being?
Does the latter cause the former? Is capitalism only effective, because otherwise people will stomp around with indignation about the self-evident wickedness of the legal order, and thus not manage to get any production accomplished?
Or does the former cause the latter? Have we come to think of the property rights order that is associated with capitalism as “just” and “righteous” (and even concocted rationalizations for why it is “objectively” so), because we prefer life to death, health to sickness, and prosperity to destitution both for ourselves and our fellow man, and that we therefore ardently want the legal/moral order that is harmonious with those preferences?
First, you say that people should read Human Action and Man, Economy, and State to gain a better understanding of economics. Supposedly because this will somehow effect their knowledge of ethics (a completely separate science). Then you make a quasi-utilitarian statement like this:
For one, you’re being unclear. What exact ethical system you propose? Just whatever is a “best fit” for man? (Best fit according to whom?) Just whatever increases utility the most? (Why should utility or welfare or happiness be considered as ethical benchmarks?) Rule utilitarianism? (Why not act utilitarianism, since it’s more consistent?)
And how do you square your statement to read HA and MES with all of your quasi-utilitarian statements made in this thread? Though Mises was a utilitarian of sorts (I wouldn’t say he was a very strong one; his main concern was just straight economics), Rothbard was an outspoken proponent of natural rights. Obviously, Rothbard knew a thing or two about economics, but he wasn’t concerned with welfare as an end-all be-all goal.
For anyone interested in a kinda Randian, kinda Rothbardian approach to ethics, I suggest Rasmussen’s A Groundwork for Rights.
EDIT: And another point I’d like to make is that a Rothbardian would argue that a system of natural rights/law is “the most efficacious legal/moral order to establish with regard to effective rights for human purposes.” After all, which system would be most efficacious for human purposes besides the one which establishes an order which is natural for humanity?
Fantastic discussion.
Why isn’t this a front-page article? It makes Long’s extensive article “Why Does Justice Have Good Consequences?” seem like so much wasted breath, like a floundering defense of a broken idea: objective ethics. To paraphrase Hazlitt, Ethics were made for man, not man for ethics. Given that, it is perfectly obvious why justice/capitalism/liberty has good consequences: the rules governing each were chosen for precisely that purpose, and stuck as custom because they worked for that purpose.
With that in mind, I would like to add as an aside that such systems are not one-size-fits-all, and different societies will require somewhat different rules to be upheld in order to “provide for human welfare as bountifully as possible.” This is a side point from the main thrust of article, which I think is to extricate ourselves from the muck of deontology and other semantic games, but here is some insight I hope is not lost.
(from my perpetual favorite article on customary law: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/Obvious.pdf)
Uniformity
Supporters of government claim that government is necessary to ensure that there is
one law for all and that the law applies equally to all citizens. If the government does
not make the law, they contend, there would be no uniform code of laws. People in
different locations or with different cultural backgrounds or levels of wealth would
be subject to different rules of law.
The proper response to this is probably the one Woody Allen made to Diane
Keaton in Annie Hall when she complained that her apartment had bad plumbing
and bugs, which was: “You say that as though it is a negative thing.” How persuasive
is the following argument? Government is necessary to ensure that there is one style
of dress for all and that all citizens are equally clothed. If the government does
not provide clothes, there would be no uniform mode of dress. People in different
locations or with different cultural backgrounds or levels of wealth would be clothed
in garments of different styles and quality.
Why would anyone think that uniformity in law is any more desirable than
uniformity in dress? The quest for uniformity leads us to treat the loving husband
who kills his terminally ill wife to relieve her suffering the same way we treat Charles
Manson, to apply the same rules of contracting to sophisticated business executives
purchasing corporations and semi-literate consumers entering into installment
contracts, and to act as though the slum lord in the Bronx and the family letting their
spare room in Utica should be governed by the same rules of property law.
There are, of course, certain rules that must apply to all people; those that provide
the basic conditions that make cooperative behavior possible. Thus, rules prohibiting
murder, assault, theft, and other forms of coercion must be equally binding on all
members of a society. But we hardly need government to ensure that this is the
case. These rules always evolve first in any community; you would not even have a
community if this were not the case.
The idea that we need government to ensure a uniform rule of law is especially
crazy in the United States, in which the federal structure of the state and national
governments is designed to permit legal diversity. To the extent that the law of the
United States can claim any superiority to that produced by other nations, it is at
least partially due the fact that it was generated by the common law process in the
“laboratory of the states.” Allowing the development of different rules in different
states teaches us which rules most effectively resolve disputes. To the extent that the
conditions that give rise to disputes are the same across the country, the successful
rules tend to be copied by other jurisdictions and spread. This creates a fairly uniform
body of law.10 To the extent that the conditions that give rise to disputes are peculiar
to a particular location or milieu, they do not spread. This creates a patchwork of
rules that are useful where applied, but would be irrelevant or disruptive if applied
in other settings.
One of the beauties of the common law process is that it creates a body of law
that is uniform where uniformity is useful and diverse where it is not. This is the
optimal outcome.
Government legislation, in contrast, creates uniformity by imposing ill-fitting,
one-size-fits-all rules upon a geographically and ethnically diverse population. Once
again, not only is government not necessary to the creation of a well-functioning
body of law, it is a significant impediment to it. Please consider this the next time
you find yourself wondering why all businesses must be closed on Sunday in the
Orthodox Jewish sections of Brooklyn.
10Fairly, but not fetishistically. The law against homicide functions quite effectively
despite the fact that the definitions of first and second degree murder and voluntary and
involuntary manslaughter differ from state to state.
You must have quite a precise definition of logical positivism for you to make such a tight logical claim, so what is it? I see no unified or easy-to-pin-down definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
With that in mind, I would like to add as an aside that such systems are not one-size-fits-all, and different societies will require somewhat different rules to be upheld in order to “provide for human welfare as bountifully as possible.” This is a side point from the main thrust of article, which I think is to extricate ourselves from the muck of deontology and other semantic games, but here is some insight I hope is not lost.
Good link. As much as I think defederalization/ customary law goes together with market theory it should probably be mentioned that one has the stronger argument when able to use market science (as opposed to the practiced art of legalism). It is also important to always seperate the arguments when they are being leveled against you. That is, economics can only speak in economic language and legal theory can only speak the language of legal theory - they are different “language games” and to get them tangled is going to lead to unfruitful dialogue. You can not level a charge of “injustice” against an economic proposition, and an economic proposition can not tell what is just or unjust.