Supposedly, socialism meant something different back then. I am guessing it was then just a generic word which could have different meanings for different people.
The socialism of Marx was supposedly “scientific socialism”, but even that kind of socialism is not the one spoken of today. Daniel Kuehn explained to me on his blog that people in the 1900s identified themselves as socialists then who would not do so now.
I get what you mean.
- Where are entrepeneurs suggested in the word “capitalism”? The conflation of capitalist and entrepeneur I often see implied, if not outright stated, on the Mises forums can be rather annoying. Being an entrepeneur involves innovation, holding capital does not.
Why do ‘entrepreneurs’ have to be represented in the word ‘capitalism’? I said that capitalism comes down to the private ownership of capital (the owner of capital being a capitalist), and the concept that (accumulated) capital is ultimately what allows for economic growth. My overall point is that you can do a lot of play on words, so trying to define ‘capitalism’ by making some non-sequitor based on ‘capital’ is ingenious.
- I claimed that Proudhon advocated a free market. I didn’t claim he advocated the same type of free-market society as Rothbard, Mises or Hayek.
There aren’t multiple types of free markets. Proudhon was a poor defender of the free market, just like the mutualists.
- I concede about property that mutualist occupancy and use could be considered a form of property. Maybe I should start saying I support mutualist or posession-based property rights, instead of talking about non-property-based economies and confusing everyone.
Why not concede that most people prefer to own their own property, that’s why most advanced societies are property-based?
- Do Keynes’ solutions in The General Theory involve post-scarcity?
He suggests institutional reform that will lead to that world.
For those interested in having their brains literally ooze out of their ear canals, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is now available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w .
Two hours and forty-one minutes of…who knows.
Hopped through it:
Dear god, how much bull-shit can these guys come up with?
Zeitgeist entirely relies upon fallacious and moronic comments designed to make them look ‘socially aware’. For instance, the old man at the start of the video says “I watched whilst precious finite resources were destroyed in the name of profit and the free market.” It is utter bullshit statements like these that keep Zeitgeist going, because people believe it without questioning: who profits from destroying finite resources? If finite resources are destroyed, they cannot be maximised and sold for profit. Therefore, Zeitgeist are wrong.
It’s ironic that it’s called “Moving Forward” since their prognosis seems to be ‘abandon money and don’t work; profit is bad!’ which will inevitably be a great leap back in terms of human civilisation.
Hah, Friedman, Hayek, and Mises all get mentioned in this movie for being, well, more or less evil money-grubbers. What an absolute joke.
“Money is evil rah rah rah.”
The guy who posted the video blocked me from commenting because I said it was a cult.
Worth it. I feel like, just by telling them that it’s a cult, you moved everyone’s cult level down by 3 energon cubes
Molyneux just posted his review of this movie:
I doubt any Austrian(majority on this site) promotes “state intervention in the economy”, i.e. the state intervention we have/have had, ain`t the free market/laissez-faire capitalism.
Free trade/laissez-faire capitalism etc implies the absence of a state backed fiat-currency monopoly and state intervention in the free market(i.e. the initiation of force would be illeagal). Ergo it might be difficult for a fiat-capitalist to become rich and powerful in a society with actual free trade/laissez-faire capitalism, or the absence of a state backed fiat-currency monopoly and state intervention in the free market. I.e. the ones who would become rich and powerful in a truly free market would have to be awarded(voluntarily) the actual produce of the customers labor(not fiat-dollars, the dollar is often used when arguing for “voting with ones dollars”, but the dollar is a government backed fiat-currency, so it kind of goes against the principles of free trade). Ergo it would only be the innovative entrepeneur that would become rich and powerful.
It sounds like you’re saying it’s fine to invest capital but not hold it. So you’re against savings?
What did Warren Buffet create, hes been moving fiat-capital, we live in a regulated fiat-economy, i.e. if youre gonna argue in defence of laissez-faire capitalism, you must reiterate the fact that what people see everyday in this day and age and in the recent past, ain`t laissez-faire capitalism.
An inventor doesn`t necessary invest capital, he/she just comes up with an idea. Anybody can produce a surplus, i.e. capital.
Are you against the hoarding of resources that the hoarder doesn`t have any use for, except for keeping it from others?
What strikes me about the zeitgeist movement - Frescoism would probably be a better term - is how it’s essentially a further development of Marxism, in that it attempts to resolve the flaws that were left in Marxist-Leninist theory. (And maybe contributions by later Marxist thinkers, I’m no expert on Marxism.) Marxism, as it stands today, has certain flaws, which lessen it’s appeal. Although the zeitgeist people swear up and down that they aren’t Marxists, their theories are all clever rephrasings of Marxist clichés. And what they added addresses flaws in Marxist theory. For example Marxism proposed that central planning - scientific socialism - would eliminate scarcity. That assumption allowed for all sorts of wacky conclusions because it avoided the very problem of economics: that you have to make trade-offs between different goods. Without scarcity there is no need to make trade-offs or worry about efficient production or economic coordination. With the assumption of superabundance all that goes away, and you can freely spin theories about utopia. The Marxists just never really explained how exactly this superabundance would come about. Frescoism proposes a solution… robots! How will central planning be more efficient than free enterprise? We automate everything! It’s obviously a nonsensical solution to anyone with a minimum of economic education, but rhetorically it resolves that flaw. Now the theorists can come up with all sorts of explanations for why centrally planned automation will be more efficient than free enterprise. And scientific socialism is revived for another attempt.
Peter Joseph is an absolute Marxist.
He responds to Stefan:
Just listen to the first few minutes and that will be clear.
You gotta see this too:
Quite interesting to see how much he hates the ‘normal’ things about life (working, selling, etc).
Basically I would recommend these people to Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s chapter “On the Tarantulas.” I’ve never seen a bunch of more spiteful, jealous people in my life.
Apparently there’s an easy way to end scarcity, that millions of economists just somehow overlooked. Luckily some internet kids figured it out.
It’s because the kids on the Internet have the best interest of humanity in mind, whereas economists are academic shills bought and paid for by the powerful elite.
Jesus christ that guy is so patronizing, and ignorant at the same time. I mean, Stefan is pretty intense sometimes, but it never seems so patronizing or sarcastic. Every other sentence is huffing and puffing. He’s so worked up into his emotion and hatred of money that he misses key concepts.
His whole arguement is “Hey, lets just do it!” Great, I’d like to fly if I flap my arms enough too.