But how would the governments themselves transition to Objectivism?
“But how would the governments themselves transition to Objectivism?”
Deregulation of victimless actions (both business and individual) and privatization of everything would gradually proceed until taxation would no longer be necessary. But an actual order cannot be predicted, because it depends on how the transition of the dominant philosophy in the populace proceeds from pragmatist/collectivist altruism to Objectivist/capitalist egoism. To the degree that religion persists, material liberty will precede social liberty, as is happening now in China, that is trying to hold on to its mystical belief in communism while racing headlong into individualist capitalism.
I. Ryan,
Me: "A ‘market’ is a physical venue and/or condition in which values are exchanged.
You: What’s the word “value” mean in that context?"
A “value” refers to that which one acts to gain or keep. In discussing ethics or the politics of laissez-faire capitalism in principle, it is better to speak of values, because the word covers everything, tangible and intangible, that one must be free to exchange: objects, land, IP, money, good will, respect, friendship, admiration, love, etc.
(2) Objectivists may take issue with the usage of subjectivism even if they agree with the conclusions reached by Austrians.
Yes, and what’s most unfortunate is that their idea of “objective” is nothing more than circular reasoning.
(4) To the extent that Austrians are connected to anarcho-capitalism, Objectivists will be hostile because of their notion of the need for objective law.
Actual Austrian economics isn’t anarcho-capitalist at all. That’s Rothbardianism, which is more divergent from real Austrian philosophy than even the Chicago school.
Mises correctly identified Austrian philosophy as value-free. It was an attempt to arrive at conclusions rationally, not through the lens of some kind of idiology.
Rothbard is a great example of why Mises wanted to avoid that. He distorted a lot of conclusions in an attempt to pound his own beliefs into an “anarcho-capitalist” dogma.
For example, claiming that fractional reserve banking is “fraud”, even if ALL PARTIES know exactly what’s going on. Typical socialist rationale for violating consensual activity.
Or wanting the Federal government to impose a gold dollar, claiming “it’s already won in the marketplace”, a standard socialist excuse for why the central planners should pick a winner and impose it on everyone.
In both cases, Mises, Hayek, and the rest actually ended up in closer to a Free Banking position than a Rothbardian one.
Certain groups, unfortunately those with some of the most exciting leaders, have turned liberty into a dogma, not a rational, pragmatic position.
The Objectivists and Rothbardians are two examples of these.
They will often more viciously attack other libertarian stances than they would the socialists…especially if the departure from their dogma is threatening by being more sound or rational.
Rand, despite her great rhetoric and impressive pseudo-intellectualism, often appears clueless about the epistemology of liberty, reverse-engineering more primitive rationale than the sounder ideas that actually pre-dated her. But she explained them better, and in a way that (for whatever reason) people who are socialists are often able to understand, when nobody else could reach them. So she gains adherents who are absolutely dogmatic about Objectivism, and more threatened by other libertarians than by socialism.
I see a similar process occur with the Rothbardians, who as I recently noted really aren’t all that Austrian in the first place.
Isn’t the modern Austrian School (at this point what people refer to as “AE”) basically Rothbardianism anyway?
just a small point: the chinese adoption of capitalism is extremely restricted. the only freedoms they really have are to save money and to apply for approval to open a business, and then operate it. it is a point mises makes repeatedly in human action that adopting the forms of capitalism without the philosophy of liberty does not produce a lasting capitalism but rather prolongs the delay of inevitable collapse of a socialist or interventionist system. i guess you would say that china has transitioned from almost pure socialism to a very controlled interventionism.
rothbard’s anarchocapitalism is not a distortion of mises principles at all, but rather an ethical philosophy based on the conclusions of misesian economics. in this way i think you could agree that it is somewhat dogmatic. the example above of fractional reserve banking as fraud, how can it not be fraud if the certificates say they are instantly redeemable as gold (or silver)? if everyone came to claim their gold at once and there is less gold than certificates is that not fraud? i mean, if they say ‘we gotta put that gold on backorder, might be a week before you get it’ that’s not so bad but if they can’t even do that, the point here is not so much that it’s a fraud but it’s bad business practise to make contracts you can’t fulfill. in fact isn’t ‘not fulfilling a contract’ the very definition of fraud anyway?
in response to kaz’ other point about wanting the federal government to impose metallic currency… say what? i am pretty sure the anarchocapitalist position wants the federal government gone and free banking just like mises and hayek. let the market decide, all that. and it will choose gold and silver, most likely, but in smaller scale situations other materials may be chosen because of whatever reason, and then there’s warehousing with certificates and clearinghouses, free banking in other words.
I agree that Rothbard had some ideas which were not consistent with Misesian Austrianism. But that is insufficient to condemn “Rothbardians” as contra-Austrian. Whereas Randians tend to ostracize and demonize those who disagree with Rand herself, I know of no Austro-libertarian, anarchist or not, that has a problem with people disagreeing with Rothbard. I recognize that this is a generalization and there will be exceptions, but it is nonetheless mostly true in my experience - that libertarians will take truth wherever they can find it, even from those who largely do not agree with them, whereas Rand is considered to have issued holy writ as far as Objectivists are concerned.
For example, the free banking issue. I know of many, many people who call themselves “Rothbardians” who loudly and shamelessly disagree with him on that. There are also the Agorists, whose founder claimed that he was “more Rothbardian than Rothbard” - meaning that he believed he had worked out some of the inconsistencies in Rothbard’s position, while maintaining its core body of thought. Can you imagine any Objectivist describing himself as “more Objectivist than Ayn Rand?” If any dared to do so, they would be officially kicked out of the movement. Austrians and libertarians do not even have an official social center with the means to do that.
Absolutely not.
I don’t really see Rothbard as an Austrian at all, any more than he’s an Objectivst, except that he uses them as his source…but misrepresents Austrian philosophy terribly.
But even if we should consider him still Austrian, the Rothbardians are even farther away, having taken his abandonment of Austrian principles (clinging instead to specific, austensibly prior austrian positions, as if they were immutable conclusions) and run with it.
As I think I mentioned before, even his claim that Austrianism and Anarcho-capitalism are morally integrated violates the Austrian stance that its efforts are value-free.
But, more importantly, many of the conclusions he calls “Austrian” are not.
If all holders of McDonald’s gift cards went to buy a Big Mac RIGHT NOW, there would not be enough Big Macs. Probably not even enough food in general, if they were diverted to other menu items.
It’s absolutely silly to imagine that everyone who bought a McDonald’s gift card was depending on being able to use them at the same moment.
A gold certificate means they’ll give you the gold when you redeem it. This does not mean they think you’re such an idiot that you don’t understand what would happen if EVERYONE tried to redeem them at the same moment.
And if they did, then a fractional reserve bank could simply SAY “this is redeemable in gold, based on supply, and we keep a ten percent supply on stock at all times”.
And with that stipulation on the certificate, obviously, fractional reserve banking instantly and completely eliminates Rothbard’s ridiculous, socialist rationale for banning this consensual activity.
But he, instead of assuming the free market would solve that problem, the way a free marketer does, assumed that coercion had to be used to destroy the choice he didn’t like…a normal socialist solution.
http://mises.org/rothbard/genuine.asp
Why do I have to keep pointing out that pivotal article, to Rothbardians?
Rothbard wanted the dollar to be defined in terms of gold…that is, he wanted government coercion to be used to impose a monopoly gold dollar.
Yes, the REAL Austrians prefer a Free Banking position, but Rothbard actually attacks that, in the very same article, using the typical socialist “it just wouldn’t work” attacks on freedom of choice.
But aren’t most of the widely-acknowledged “Austrian School economists” Rothbardians?
I’m just disputing your use of the words. I mean, how could it be accurate to say that Rothbard, the man who almost defines the modern Austrian School movement, isn’t even an Austrian? Isn’t the way that we use the word “Austrian” simply in part to refer to the Rothbardians? Maybe he’s not true to the “old Austrian School”, but then again don’t most people use the word to refer to the “new Austrian movement”? Sure, maybe he wasn’t consistent with many of the Misesian principles, but then again isn’t that also the case for most of the current Austrians? Or are they not even Austrian either? Or are you just using the word in a much different way than I am? Maybe you’re using it to refer to “the old movement”, where I’m using it to refer to the “new movement”? Or perhaps I’m just too trapped in the LvMI paradigm, and am neglecting too many of the current Austrians who aren’t Rothbardians?
By the way, I avoid this whole issue simply by refusing every label in economics besides “Misesian”.
As someone who actually believes in the principles and methodology underlying Austrian philosophy, I disagree.
Rothbard had abandoned those. His followers have done so to an even greater extreme.
They do call themselves Austrian, but that’s like Bush calling himself an Originalist, or even Conservative…if what defines the idea is lacking, it’s just someone making noises with his head.
What if Friedman and the Chicago School had called themselves Austrian? Would it be true, just because they did it consistently? Frankly, I think it’d be slightly closer to the truth than the Rothbardians doing it.
There is an entire set of modern economic philosophers who still largely follow Austrian methodology, but most of them call themselves Free Bankers, or hate labels altogether. White, Selgin, Timberlake, Horwitz, those guys are way closer to being Austrian in application than Rothbard.
I would have no idea with Austrian methodology leading one to a completely different set of ideas than I have…but for the ideas to be similar to mine, but the methodology being abandoned, that’s just not Austrian.
from the article referred to
“Since government has monopolized issue of the dollar, and confiscated the public’s gold, only government can solve the problem by jointly denationalizing gold and the dollar. Objection to government’s redefining and privatizing gold is equivalent to complaining about the government’s repealing its own price controls because repeal would constitute a governmental rather than private action. A similar charge could be leveled at government’s denationalizing any product or operation. It is not advocating statism to call for the government’s repeal of its own interventions.”
if the government mediates the power of intervention, austrians, libertarians, anarchocapitalists an many other colours of economic and ethical philosophy holding a position about what government can do is not contradictory, it is simply not narrowly within the context of their system. obviously rothbard wants done away with the state altogether. after reading most of human action now i would conclude that virtually every evil you can name starts with a state so mises position isn’t much different although he arrives at these points via logic.
the paragraph above could be interpreted as being the point that, if the government causes a problem, you can solve the problem by making the government solve the problem. or, of course, you can dispense with government altogether. the former tactic is what we see today with ron paul’s work, though to be honest i wonder whether there will be any great success but on the other hand, ron paul is champion austrian economics anywhere he’s given a platform to speak, and there definitely is a growing movement and a growing understanding of the issue.
in a sense, the gradualist approach of slowly removing government interventions is doing away with the government. so long as this effort comes along with an attempt to educate the voters about why government interventions are only capable of destructive effects, it has some chance of success.
@Everyone, this thread is about AE and Objectivism. Take the Rothbard discussion to another thread.
Are you some kind of authority, an admin acting as proxy property owner for the mises.org board?
Or are you just some busybody trying to tell people what to do?
The question of whether Rothbardianism counts as Austrian economics is, obviously, pivotal to the original question of the Objectivists’ cultish hating.
And that’s even aside from the possibility that the OP actually meant the Rothbardians, who’ve sorta hijacked the term “Austrian”, in which case the answer is that it’s just sectarian warfare between the two groups of True Believers.
Yes, some kind of authority.
Let’s get back on topic. It wasn’t a request or an invitation to a dialog. If you want to discuss my status, use the Member Issues forum.
A better analogy would be if McDonald’s accepted Big Mac deposits from customers who could “cash in” on them (i.e. get their Big Macs back) at any time. Then McDonald’s turns around and issues Big Mac loans to people using those same deposits. So the question is, who owns the Big Macs – the depositors, the borrowers, or McDonald’s?
See here for more information.
EDIT: Sorry, LS, I thought this was too good to pass up.
To get back on topic:
Michael M, could you please prove that choosing life is the correct value vis-a-vis choosing death?
talking about nondurable goods being anything like certificates for retrieval of durable goods is kinda silly. the situation with the burgers is vouchers, which usually will also have expiry dates, and in reality are never purchased but are ‘buy x get y free’ deals.
when a certificate for a precious metal deposit says ‘redeemable as x upon presentation’ that means precisely what it says. you hand over certificate, bank hands over metal. there is no * saying ‘while stocks last’…