Egalitarianism

[Conza88]

Hey guys, just wondering if I could get your opinions / arguments against this? I am having trouble refuting it...
http : // tinyurl.com/ 6fx7t

Also not sure if this is the right forum or not. Thanks!

[Demogorgon]

The reason you can't refute it is because you agree with it. Your signature tells us your actual views so just come out and say what you want to say rather than making an attempt to sneak it under the radar.

[Conza88]

The reason you can't refute it is because you agree with it. Your signature tells us your actual views so just come out and say what you want to say rather than making an attempt to sneak it under the radar.

I didn't want to scare folks away... with the title.. :D

Please don't send me to the Gulag.. :scared:

[Demogorgon]

While we are on the subject, unless you happen to have been born in 1988, I suspect you will be more than just restricted.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Blah blah blah people are naturally different blah. Difference does not imply any kind of objective hierarchy. Next argument?

Oh, and you guys should really stop putting obvious clues in your usernames, you know.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Blah blah blah people are naturally different blah. Difference does not imply any kind of objective hierarchy. Next argument?

Is this the same sort of piece that argues that in a "truly" egalitarian system, people will all be made the same height or something along those lines?

[Nwoye]

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/8534.aspx

lawl. it's a mises.org conspiracy!

[krazy kaju]

haha, talk about epic phail. Why would you even try to impersonate someone else?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Hey look, the Miseslings are watching and selectively choosing to focus on "emotional" posts full of moral indignation against their anti-human ideology instead of taking the time to read through our lengthy, argumentative posts in reply to Kaju in other threads.

Is anyone surprised?

[GPDP]

What the butt? Now we're having a forum war against the miseans? I thought we only did that with Stormfronters?

[Conza88]

While we are on the subject, unless you happen to have been born in 1988, I suspect you will be more than just restricted.

Correct in the former. Made it as my internet handle & only found out later what it could be interpreted as.


haha, talk about epic phail. Why would you even try to impersonate someone else?

I said I would, "impersonate" my former self, that = someone else? And I didn't even do that, I suggested I would, but alas I couldn't be bothered with the effort to do even that. I am open to persuasion; and what I said still stands up: "Hey guys, just wondering if I could get your opinions / arguments against this? I am having trouble refuting it..." :)

Kind of makes it extra obvious when I make my avatar, a picture of Marx being erected by the establishment. Add in my signature, my thread posted 2 minutes after this one, asking for marxist / socialist opinions about self ownership, me joining the chat & 'debating' Vinnie & others.. as an ancap.

I don't particularly see how I could have been confused as anything else.


Blah blah blah people are naturally different blah. Difference does not imply any kind of objective hierarchy. Next argument?

Is this some kind of rebuttal? Reading the thread there is a lack of responses to the actual article. Granted, some of the distraction stems from the op, lol.

[Invariance]

Add in my signature, my thread posted 2 minutes after this one, asking for marxist / socialist opinions about self ownership, me joining the chat & 'debating' Vinnie & others.. as an ancap. For the benefit of everyone else, the debate consisted of Conza88 claiming that since humans must act, that the only way to refute praxeology is to prove that humans don't exist, Conza88's claim that since Picasso can paint something worth more than what a normal person would paint, that therefore the LTV was debunked, that there is a 'natural law', that all human actions are rational, and other interesting garbage (e.g against the minimum wage, that economics shouldn't apply a scientific method but should apply a priori philosophy etc). It wasn't so much a debate as a fantastic piece of comedy from Conza88. So far as the Austrian roundabout method of production is concerned, if I get time I'll post a thread debunking it as the nonsense it is. Hopefully Conza88 or anyone else from Mises.org can defend their theory. But considering they typically reject mathematics (and often I agree that neoclassical economics and their magical smooth curves are complete distortions of reality, but that is a problem of application not of mathematics per se), or empiricism, then I doubt they will.

[Invariance]

As a side note, it is interesting to note Rothbard's selective use of quotes (one might say a complete distortion). For example, I checked the full length of the quote by Lenin. Rothbard quoted Lenin as saying:

And Lenin looked forward in 1920 to the "abolition of the division of labor among people...the education, schooling, and training of people with an all-around development and an all-around training, people able to do everything. Communism is marching and must march toward this goal, and will reach it."
Yet the full quote goes like this:
Capitalism inevitably leaves socialism the legacy, on the one hand, of the old trade and craft distinctions among the workers, distinctions evolved in the course of centuries; on the other hand, trade unions, which only very slowly, in the course of years and years, can and will develop into broader industrial unions with less of the craft union about them (embracing entire industries, and not only crafts, trades and occupations), and later proceed, through these industrial unions, to eliminate the division of labour among people, to educate and school people, give them all-round development and an all-round training, so that they are able to do everything. Communism is advancing and must advance towards that goal, and will reach it, [Rothbard conveniently cuts off here] but only after very many years. To attempt in practice, today, to anticipate this future result of a fully developed, fully stabilised and constituted, fully comprehensive and mature communism would be like trying to teach higher mathematics to a child of four.

We can (and must) begin to build socialism, not with abstract human material, or with human material specially prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism. True, that is no easy matter, but no other approach to this task is serious enough to warrant discussion.

Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm)
So, Lenin was quite realistic about the material requisites required for a communist system, and the experience of the Bolsheviks from 1920 on confirmed this view. Other quotes are probably just as distorted and taken out of context, which shouldn't be surprising coming from free-market fundamentalists.

[Conza88]

For the benefit of everyone else, the debate consisted of Conza88 claiming that since humans must act, that the only way to refute praxeology is to prove that humans don't exist.

Nay, the fundamental premises were being discussed. I said you have the wrong epistemology for the social sciences. I said the scientific method fails in economics. You laughed stating I said 'the scientific method fails in general.' I made the distinction between the natural sciences & the social sciences, no response to that. Question was asked why does it fail? - Because value is subjective, humans (individuals) are unique and have different preferences, values, tastes etc.

You asked what epistemology I thought you had, I said it could be a myriad of them, but if it's not apriori then it's wrong. I established the axioms the Austrian school is built on. Human action. i.e Humans exist. And they always act. It's self evident. From these axioms you can use logical deduction to gain further truths. Praxeology is the study of human action. Enter: Human action by Ludwig Von Mises, and Man, Economy and State by Murray N. Rothbard

Then there were laughs about apriori being absurd. etc :lol:


Conza88's claim that since Picasso can paint something worth more than what a normal person would paint, that therefore the LTV was debunked, I said I spend 5 hours of my labor doing a painting. Picasso also spends 5 hours of his labor painting. I then asked, what determines it's value? Shouldn't it be the same according to LTV?


that there is a 'natural law'Introduction to Natural Law by Murray N. Rothbard


that all human actions are rationalRationality and Irrationality; Subjectivism and Objectivity of Praxeological Research (p. 19) of Human Action.


and other interesting garbage (e.g against the minimum wageIf the minimum wage is $10 an hr, why shouldn't it be $30 or $50 an hr?


It wasn't so much a debate as a fantastic piece of comedy from Conza88. Thanks, I also found the exchange amusing. :)


So far as the Austrian roundabout method of production is concerned, if I get time I'll post a thread debunking it as the nonsense it is. Hopefully Conza88 or anyone else from Mises.org can defend their theory. But considering they typically reject mathematics (and often I agree that neoclassical economics and their magical smooth curves are complete distortions of reality, but that is a problem of application not of mathematics per se), or empiricism, then I doubt they will.It's all meaningless if you have the wrong epistemology / economic reasoning. These give light to what I'm talking about if anyone is interested on an elaboration of what was talked about earlier.


An Introduction to Economic Reasoning by David Gordon
"As the only text of its kind, this book is engaging, funny, filled with examples, and never talks down to the student. It is perfect for homeschoolers, but every student, young or old, will benefit from it. Indeed, a student familiar with its contents will be fully prepared to see through the fallacies of the introductory economics texts used at the college level."
Epistemological Problems of Economics by Ludwig Von Mises
"The science of human action that strives for universally valid knowledge is the theoretical system whose hitherto best elaborated branch is economics. In all of its branches this science is a priori, not empirical. Like logic and mathematics, it is not derived from experience; it is prior to experience. It is, as it were, the logic of action and deed."
Economic Science and the Austrian Method by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Praxeology and Economic Science:

Sec I : "It is well-known that Austrians disagree strongly with other schools of economic thought..."
Sec II : "Non-praxeological schools of thought mistakenly believe that relationships between certain events are well-established empirical laws..."

On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology

Sec I : "As have most great and innovative economists, Ludwig von Mises intensively and repeatedly analyzed the problem of the logical status of economic propositions..."
Sec II : "Let me turn to Mises's solution..."
Sec III : "I shall now turn to my second goal: the explanation of why and how praxeology also provides the foundation for epistemology..."
Sec IV : "In so establishing the place of praxeology proper, I have come full circle in outlining the system of rationalist philosophy as ultimately grounded in the action axiom..."Not allowed to post links yet, fair enough - property owner can impose the rules they want, so I guess google the titles. :)

[trivas7]

So, Lenin was quite realistic about the material requisites required for a communist system, and the experience of the Bolsheviks from 1920 on confirmed this view. Other quotes are probably just as distorted and taken out of context, which shouldn't be surprising coming from free-market fundamentalists.
How that quote by Lenin represents anything other than a blank check re what he expects of human beings living under communism is beyond me. How does Rothbard distort Lenin exactly?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Nay, the fundamental premises were being discussed. I said you have the wrong epistemology for the social sciences.
How so? Is not human action guided by the human brain? Is not the human brain made of the same matter as the rest of the universe? Whatever laws apply to the rest of the universe must also apply to the human brain. Thus the social sciences are, and should always remain, a particular application of the natural sciences.

The Austrian argument against empiricism in economics amounts to "human behaviour is too difficult to understand scientifically, so let's give up trying."


I said the scientific method fails in economics.
Why?


Because value is subjective, humans (individuals) are unique and have different preferences, values, tastes etc.
So, what? Those preferences do not come out of thin air, you know. They are not uncaused. Like everything else in the universe, they have causes. With sufficient knowledge of those causes we could predict human preferences, and thus also predict your "subjective value". (all of this assuming you are right about value - which, of course, you are not; but the point is that even if you were right, the scientific method would still be applicable to economics)


I said I spend 5 hours of my labor doing a painting. Picasso also spends 5 hours of his labor painting. I then asked, what determines it's value? Shouldn't it be the same according to LTV?
And they would be worth roughly the same, if Picasso did not sign his painting. You see, a Picasso painting is only valuable because it was painted by Picasso. The exact same painting made by someone else (an exact copy, for example) is worth much, much less. So the difference in price between your painting and Picasso's comes entirely from his signature.

And why is that? Because, in bourgeois society, paintings by famous artists can serve as status symbols. They are a form of conspicuous consumption. But they have to be originals. An exact copy just won't do. And the supply of Picasso originals is limited and can never increase. This artificially limited supply drives the price of a Picasso painting far above its value. You'd see the price drop sharply if everyone suddenly forgot who Picasso was.

This reveals another problem with Austrian "Economics". An Austrian would be content to observe that people value Picasso originals very highly, far above any exact copies, and would leave it at that. He would not inquire why people have that preference. Austrian Economics fails because, among other things, it takes individual preferences as axiomatic and unchangeable by external means. In reality, preferences can be changed, and often quite easily and without involving the state. But Austrians refuse to accept that some preferences can be morally superior to others, so they have no ethical basis on which to attempt to change people's preferences - not even by voluntary persuasion.

Or to use a practical example: To an Austrian, there is no moral difference between a billionaire spending his money on a luxury yacht and a billionaire spending his money to feed starving children, so they would not even attempt to persuade the former to be more generous. Even at their most benign, Austrians advocate indifference in the face of overwhelming evil, and for this they are as evil as the monsters they tolerate.

Oh, and by the way, Picasso was a communist.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Since you asked so nicely, Conza, I will take the time to explain precisely why that sad heap of Rothbardian logical fallacies you referenced is wrong.


Let us proceed, then, to a critique of the egalitarian ideal itself – should equality be granted its current status as an unquestioned ethical ideal? In the first place, we must challenge the very idea of a radical separation between something that is "true in theory" but "not valid in practice." If a theory is correct, then it does work in practice; if it does not work in practice, then it is a bad theory.
This is only true for positive statements, not normative ones. It may be impossible to ensure perfect justice, but this does not make perfect justice a bad idea.


The common separation between theory and practice is an artificial and fallacious one. But this is true in ethics as well as anything else. If an ethical ideal is inherently "impractical," that is, if it cannot work in practice, then it is a poor ideal and should be discarded forthwith.
There is no such thing as an ideal which cannot work in practice. Anything can be put into practice. When we say that some ethical ideal "cannot work," we do not mean that it is literally impossible, but rather that it is impossible in the near future, or that it could only be implemented at great cost. But if you are willing to pay the cost or wait as long as necessary, any ethical ideal is possible.


To put it more precisely, if an ethical goal violates the nature of man and/or the universe and, therefore, cannot work in practice, then it is a bad ideal and should be dismissed as a goal. If the goal itself violates the nature of man, then it is also a poor idea to work in the direction of that goal.
Non-sequitur. It may be possible that a desirable goal violates the nature of man while at the same time the nature of man allows us to asymptotically approach that goal (without ever reaching it).

For example, the complete absence of murder is a desirable goal. It's also quite clear that it violates the nature of man - there will always be some murder. Does that mean that we should abandon all attempts to approach this desirable but impossible goal? Of course not. We will likely never reach the goal itself, but every step forward towards it is good. The more we can reduce murder, the better.


What, in fact, is "equality"? The term has been much invoked but little analyzed. A and B are "equal" if they are identical to each other with respect to a given attribute. Thus, if Smith and Jones are both exactly six feet in height, then they may be said to be "equal" in height. If two sticks are identical in length, then their lengths are "equal," etc. There is one and only one way, then, in which any two people can really be "equal" in the fullest sense: they must be identical in all of their attributes. This means, of course, that equality of all men – the egalitarian ideal – can only be achieved if all men are precisely uniform, precisely identical with respect to all of their attributes.
Strawman. One giant strawman. No real egalitarian supports "equality" in this sense.

The rest of the argument can be entire discarded, as it is an argument against the strawman proposition that "all people should be identical to each other in every respect." No one advocates this, therefore Rothbard is arguing with himself. What we communists advocate is equality OF WEALTH. Rothbard does not even bother to mention economic equality or equality of wealth in that entire essay.

This ends the debate, except for one last point:


...the species, mankind, is uniquely characterized by a high degree of variety, diversity, differentiation; in short, inequality...
So, as you can see, my initial reply was entirely accurate: "Blah blah blah people are naturally different blah." Difference does not imply any kind of objective hierarchy. Next argument?

And while we're at it, I'd like to comment on your signature:


"The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community."
The toleration of injustice is a vice, not a virtue. If a certain kind of society is unjust, then it should be eradicated everywhere and replaced with something better. You are taking pride in your refusal to do good onto other people, even by your own standards of what is good. How fitting.

[nerditarian]

May I enter the waltz of words here?

How so? Is not human action guided by the human brain? Is not the human brain made of the same matter as the rest of the universe? Whatever laws apply to the rest of the universe must also apply to the human brain. Thus the social sciences are, and should always remain, a particular application of the natural sciences.
Because (as I understand it and I'm certainly a lesser expert than the fellow Misesians cruising for a bruising) at this point you enter into a giant post hoc ergo propter hoc scenario that you enter into.
In a chem lab you can isolate your variables. Because we added calcium it bubbled. Or whatever. IANAC/IANAP. But in the social sciences we are not dealing with numbers and figures. First of all take the Great Depression. One person says it ended after the US entered WWII. One person says that the WWII statistics are flawed and the Depression didn't truly end until the post-war period. Whose right? One says once we went to war the depression lessoned, hence we are correct and the other says once we ended the war and cut regulation the depression really ended. Once more which party is correct? Impossible to know with an empiricist epistemology. I wish I had been more concise but I hope you can bear it, old sport.



The Austrian argument against empiricism in economics amounts to "human behaviour is too difficult to understand scientifically, so let's give up trying."


Why?
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science

Part of your confusion is that you are viewing the definition of science where science=scientific method vs. science=systematic knowledge. In this sense of the word I don't see why Austrianism is unscientific, just anti-empiricist. I also don't see why everything should inherently be understood by empirical methods rather than by axiomatic-deduction.



So, what? Those preferences do not come out of thin air, you know. They are not uncaused. Like everything else in the universe, they have causes. With sufficient knowledge of those causes we could predict human preferences, and thus also predict your "subjective value". (all of this assuming you are right about value - which, of course, you are not; but the point is that even if you were right, the scientific method would still be applicable to economics)

What's your favorite color? What's everyone in this forum's favorite color? Be careful to get the right answer-it may effect later patterns and thus change how it is necessary to structure central planning.

Since I already defended a priori economics, I will simply add that empiricism fails in all other social sciences too.



And they would be worth roughly the same, if Picasso did not sign his painting. You see, a Picasso painting is only valuable because it was painted by Picasso. The exact same painting made by someone else (an exact copy, for example) is worth much, much less. So the difference in price between your painting and Picasso's comes entirely from his signature.

And why is that? Because, in bourgeois society, paintings by famous artists can serve as status symbols. They are a form of conspicuous consumption. But they have to be originals. An exact copy just won't do. And the supply of Picasso originals is limited and can never increase. This artificially limited supply drives the price of a Picasso painting far above its value. You'd see the price drop sharply if everyone suddenly forgot who Picasso was.


I'll ignore some loaded language and cut to the chase. You're admitting that people value originals more and you're admitting that this raises the price. Now, whether you find how other people value things correct or not is beyond me. The point is that because people value a painting by a famous artist (b/c it's a status symbol or whatever) they will pay more for it. Hence, the value of the paintings in question is subjective as is all value. Thanks for the opening, old sport. At least concede STV after that. QED.


This reveals another problem with Austrian "Economics". An Austrian would be content to observe that people value Picasso originals very highly, far above any exact copies, and would leave it at that. He would not inquire why people have that preference. Austrian Economics fails because, among other things, it takes individual preferences as axiomatic and unchangeable by external means. In reality, preferences can be changed, and often quite easily and without involving the state. But Austrians refuse to accept that some preferences can be morally superior to others, so they have no ethical basis on which to attempt to change people's preferences - not even by voluntary persuasion.

Austrian Economics is value-free, or at least it strives to be. Of course slipping bias in is what happens in all versions of economics. Here you are confusing libertarians, an ethical-political philosophy, with Austrians, a tradition in economics. Whilst there is much overlap for the sake of clarity lets keep them separate.

Austrian Economics deals only with Economics. Period. It does not attempt to say for example, whether its better to have a high or low time preference. It only attempts to elucidate the effects on society of having people with different time preferences that wish to voluntarily associate.

Libertarianism, a philosophy most Austrians support, does hold moral views on these matters. A libertarian would agree for example that a preference not to murder is greater than one to murder. See below for more.


Or to use a practical example: To an Austrian, there is no moral difference between a billionaire spending his money on a luxury yacht and a billionaire spending his money to feed starving children, so they would not even attempt to persuade the former to be more generous. Even at their most benign, Austrians advocate indifference in the face of overwhelming evil, and for this they are as evil as the monsters they tolerate.

Ay there's the rub: first the leftist proclaims that "we" (psst-some agency that I bet is coercive will probably have to enforce this...) have the ability and right to both know the factors that effect an individual's choices and valuations and then to pressure this individual to change. Aside from the near impossibility of gathering and updating all that information, there is no moral difference between freedom and criminal control here! Then he proceeds to attack the poor yacht industry.

Let's examine what would happen if his wish was followed through with. No more yachts! What happens next? All the people who make yachts go out of work. All the people who make parts for yachts go out of work. All the people who rely on the transportation for yachts and their employees go out of work or at least lose a lot of money. All the people who mine fiberglass either go out of work or lose a lot of their wages. All the people who had any money in any of these enterprises go out of work. All the people who relied on the patronage of these people lose money or go out of work. So how are you going to feed the children of these people, commissar?


Oh, and by the way, Picasso was a communist.
Ironic! A communist posthumously shows LTV to be a crock of horse sh*t! Well, if even communists are disagreeing with it...

[nerditarian]

Since you asked so nicely, Conza, I will take the time to explain precisely why that sad heap of Rothbardian logical fallacies you referenced is wrong.

As an ideological compatriot of Cona's I do thank you. Sparing doth sharpen the mind, eh?



This is only true for positive statements, not normative ones. It may be impossible to ensure perfect justice, but this does not make perfect justice a bad idea.

I haven't read this in awhile but read my summary and correct me if I'm wrong: First, Rothbard both asserts that individualist ethics are more rational and, well, moral as compared to collectivist or egalitarian ethics. Then, Rothbard asserts that your definition of "justice", which he deems unjust, requires violation of human rights and human life to be accomplished. Therefore it is an unjust ideal.

Rothbard is not saying if it's unlikely stop trying. Hell, Rothbard himself expounded many times on why anarcho-capitalists should not despair based on the odds against him. I think your missing his point.



There is no such thing as an ideal which cannot work in practice. Anything can be put into practice. When we say that some ethical ideal "cannot work," we do not mean that it is literally impossible, but rather that it is impossible in the near future, or that it could only be implemented at great cost. But if you are willing to pay the cost or wait as long as necessary, any ethical ideal is possible.
To an extent, I do concede. I do concede that normative ethical statements do not have to appear to be achievable to be valid. However, this is not entirely fair. But that's not the point I want to address, rather->

Why should everyone be equal economically?


Non-sequitur. It may be possible that a desirable goal violates the nature of man while at the same time the nature of man allows us to asymptotically approach that goal (without ever reaching it).
If the nature of man dooms an ideal to poverty, death, hunger, misery and [eventually] collapse then is that ideal desirable?


For example, the complete absence of murder is a desirable goal. It's also quite clear that it violates the nature of man - there will always be some murder. Does that mean that we should abandon all attempts to approach this desirable but impossible goal? Of course not. We will likely never reach the goal itself, but every step forward towards it is good. The more we can reduce murder, the better.


I am of course anti-murder, but see my previous critique. Socialism means poverty, theft, death, hunger and misery while a bunch of fat cats in the citadels of power grow wealthy off the backs of the masses.


Strawman. One giant strawman. No real egalitarian supports "equality" in this sense.

The rest of the argument can be entire discarded, as it is an argument against the strawman proposition that "all people should be identical to each other in every respect." No one advocates this, therefore Rothbard is arguing with himself. What we communists advocate is equality OF WEALTH. Rothbard does not even bother to mention economic equality or equality of wealth in that entire essay.

No. Reread it. Rothbard is doing this for a reason. He's not strawmaning you. Rather he's making a nuanced point. He is arguing against the moral justification for any form of intervention on behalf of equality. Be it equality of wealth or equality of height. Whatever anyone could argue for.



The toleration of injustice is a vice, not a virtue. If a certain kind of society is unjust, then it should be eradicated everywhere and replaced with something better. You are taking pride in your refusal to do good onto other people, even by your own standards of what is good. How fitting.
You are touting doing good at the point of a bayonet and killing those who disagree. Least we are willing to live and let live! When was the last time you put your despicable, murder-excusing face in front of a mirror?!?

Thanks for your time,
Nerditarian

[laminustacitus]

How so? Is not human action guided by the human brain? Is not the human brain made of the same matter as the rest of the universe? Whatever laws apply to the rest of the universe must also apply to the human brain. Thus the social sciences are, and should always remain, a particular application of the natural sciences.

The fact is is that man, unlike trajectories, or atoms react differently to different stimuli, even the same person might react differently merely a second after. Man, and atom need to be classified differently if we are ever to truly understand either.

[trivas7]

Kwisatz Haderach][/B]
How so? Is not human action guided by the human brain? Is not the human brain made of the same matter as the rest of the universe? Whatever laws apply to the rest of the universe must also apply to the human brain. Thus the social sciences are, and should always remain, a particular application of the natural sciences.

The fact is is that man, unlike trajectories, or atoms react differently to different stimuli, even the same person might react differently merely a second after. Man, and atom need to be classified differently if we are ever to truly understand either.
Indeed, human psychology isn't studied by studying biology; human action isn't studied by studying human brains.

[Invariance]

I'm not avoiding this thread, I just don't have the time/energy at the moment to address the points. I will in about two days.

[krazy kaju]

Hey look, the Miseslings are watching and selectively choosing to focus on "emotional" posts full of moral indignation against their anti-human ideology instead of taking the time to read through our lengthy, argumentative posts in reply to Kaju in other threads.

Is anyone surprised?

Hey look, the commies are ignoring Kaju's lengthy replies and instead locked him out of his own thread where their own "comrades" were getting out of hand with uncivil insults like the one presented in the above quotes.

Is anyone surprised?

[#FF0000]

Hey look, the commies are ignoring Kaju's lengthy replies and instead locked him out of his own thread where their own "comrades" were getting out of hand with uncivil insults like the one presented in the above quotes.

Is anyone surprised?

1) We've heard plenty of arguments from you lot. Many of them we've heard over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Lots of people do the whole "hey lets go convert some commies with a pamphlet about self-ownership and a pocketful of rainbows~" thing. So many, in fact, that it cluttered up the rest of the board into capitalism v. communism arguments when it was supposed to be a forum for leftists to discuss... leftism.

So now we have the OI.

[#FF0000]

I'm not avoiding this thread, I just don't have the time/energy at the moment to address the points. I will in about two days.

Oh god. Now you've done it, Miseans.

[laminustacitus]

So many, in fact, that it cluttered up the rest of the board into capitalism v. communism arguments when it was supposed to be a forum for leftists to discuss... leftism.
Its truly anti-egalitarian limiting dissenters to their own little forum instead of letting them have an equal opportunity to post.

[nerditarian]

1) We've heard plenty of arguments from you lot. Many of them we've heard over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Lots of people do the whole "hey lets go convert some commies with a pamphlet about self-ownership and a pocketful of rainbows~" thing. So many, in fact, that it cluttered up the rest of the board into capitalism v. communism arguments when it was supposed to be a forum for leftists to discuss... leftism.

So now we have the OI.

Who says we think we'll convert anyone?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Its truly anti-egalitarian limiting dissenters to their own little forum instead of letting them have an equal opportunity to post.
Unlike real space, internet "space" is not limited. The fact that all your posts go in OI does not mean that there is any less space for them than there would be otherwise. You may notice that OI is our second-largest forum, by number of posts.

[Jack]

Its truly anti-egalitarian limiting dissenters to their own little forum instead of letting them have an equal opportunity to post.

So we can go over to Mises and make a bunch of threads about how excellent Communism is, how wrong you are, how the Jews are doing something evil, how Mexicans took my job so now I'm going to lynch them, how awesome Hitler is, how awsome Franco is, and how awesome Durruti is?

After all, you wouldn't want to ban dissenters.

[nerditarian]

So we can go over to Mises and make a bunch of threads about how excellent Communism is, how wrong you are, how the Jews are doing something evil, how Mexicans took my job so now I'm going to lynch them, how awesome Hitler is, how awsome Franco is, and how awesome Durruti is?

After all, you wouldn't want to ban dissenters.

I don't know how that would play out. But we admit we're anti-egalitarians. And we say it's a good thing to use property rights to exclude those you don't like. Y'all contradictorily deny it! :lol:

[Jack]

I don't know how that would play out. But we admit we're anti-egalitarians. And we say it's a good thing to use property rights to exclude those you don't like. Y'all contradictorily deny it! :lol:

It's not contradictory, I just don't give a fuck about reactionaries or your petty feelings.

Should my anti-war group let in people who support war? Of course not, now stop trying to nitpick libertarianism (the real kind) and kindly fuck off.

[laminustacitus]

So we can go over to Mises and make a bunch of threads about how excellent Communism is, how wrong you are, how the Jews are doing something evil, how Mexicans took my job so now I'm going to lynch them, how awesome Hitler is, how awsome Franco is, and how awesome Durruti is?

After all, you wouldn't want to ban dissenters.
You would be allowed on every forum on the site other than those reserved for moderation; however, if you make comments that would damage the reputation of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, you would be banned.

Nevertheless, we do not exult in the glories of egalitarianism, and social equality, which your own forum sets a terrible example by discriminating against us dissenters.

[Jack]

You would be allowed on every forum on the site other than those reserved for moderation; however, if you make comments that would damage the reputation of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, you would be banned.

Nevertheless, we do not exult in the glories of egalitarianism, and social equality, which your own forum sets a terrible example by discriminating against us dissenters.

What reputation? A couple of virginal idiots on a website, and a couple of fat idiots that sponser talks by other fat idiots?

Freedom of association, which means we have the freedom not to associate with you, which I enjoy very much.

[laminustacitus]

Freedom of association, which means we have the freedom not to associate with you, which I enjoy very much.
Too bad it contradicts your egalitarian principles.

[Jack]

Too bad it contradicts your egalitarian principles.

No it doesn't, what is hierachial about not associating with certain people? What leftist texts have you ever read saying this?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Too bad it contradicts your egalitarian principles.
Only if you assume the existence of private property. But we don't. Try to think outside your Austrian box for once.


Nevertheless, we do not exult in the glories of egalitarianism, and social equality, which your own forum sets a terrible example by discriminating against us dissenters.
The purpose of having different subforums is so that each category of threads will be neatly sorted into its own subforum. This allows easier browsing, and people can find the kinds of threads they're looking for faster.

OI is the subforum for arguments between capitalists and communists. It's a big subforum - our second largest - precisely because those arguments are very common. Are you planning to participate in any other kinds of threads, besides the ones that challenge communism from a pro-capitalist perspective? No? Then you have no reason to post outside OI anyway, and your restriction has not prevented you from doing anything you wanted to do.

[nerditarian]

Only if you assume the existence of private property. But we don't. Try to think outside your Austrian box for once.
No one has to assume anything. He's talking in positive terms. Currently RevLeft.com is owned by somebody, is it not? It's not owned by a government, right? Then it's private property. So you are using private property to discriminate against and alienate your intra-left wing discussion from those who disagree with you.

For example, Left is a vague term and some market anarchists, Brad Spangler and Rod Long, do contend that it's a movement of the left in the terms initially sense of using the market to transcendent statist hierarchy. In order to deny this connotation you, or more properly the forum owners, engage in usage of property rights to do this.

I have no problem with this. But to be consistent you should.



The purpose of having different subforums is so that each category of threads will be neatly sorted into its own subforum. This allows easier browsing, and people can find the kinds of threads they're looking for faster.
Purpose is not important. What's important is that in order to do this, intentionally or not, RevLeft.com has exercised property rights and exclusion. Again, imho it's their opinion so I don't care. The question is, if you believe property rights are illegitimate why don't you care?


OI is the subforum for arguments between capitalists and communists. It's a big subforum - our second largest - precisely because those arguments are very common. Are you planning to participate in any other kinds of threads, besides the ones that challenge communism from a pro-capitalist perspective? No? Then you have no reason to post outside OI anyway, and your restriction has not prevented you from doing anything you wanted to do.
If there is a side forum for literary I might be interested in that. But you still haven't addressed the point. See Above.

[nerditarian]

It's not contradictory, I just don't give a fuck about reactionaries or your petty feelings.
Hey Jack, not to fuck with your petty feelings, but if you don't give a fuck why not just stay off OI? I'm not here long term. I'm just here to have a lil fun with the fuckin pinkos. If you don't like that you could ask the board admins to kick me off their property. O wait you don't believe in property rights. Guess your fucked!:lol::lol::lol::lol:


Should my anti-war group let in people who support war? Of course not, now stop trying to nitpick libertarianism (the real kind) and kindly fuck off.
A. See above.
B. Anarcho-Communism is a dying philosophy that had degenerated into intellectually bankrupt college kids with signs. Pure libertarianism is growing. Flawed, LTV-loving libertarianism is dying a slow, painful and sad death. Really, it's sad. Goldman et al. were so dignified. Now they're stuck with vulgar loser fuckfaces like you!

[IcarusAngel]

Well, revleft having a server doesn't prevent anybody else, like von Mises.org, from having one.

If revleft controlled all the servers and prevented others from having their own sites, I'd be concerned about it. Since this is not the case, of course revleft can have a server and restrict who they want on it.

It is not revleft that is the problem with the internet but big corporations who are trying to make it more restrictive. This is why the internet should remain more open and free and away from market "property rights."

Leftists are concerned with others using their power to push them into things they otherwise wouldn't do, thus limiting their free choices. That is why there cannot be massive landed property and it wasn't even marx who first recognized this fact.

Libertarians are concerned with making everybody slaves to the corporations, who are only replaced by blind luck or chances or their colossal failures, rather than by democratic means.

[nerditarian]

Well, revleft having a server doesn't prevent anybody else, like von Mises.org, from having one.

If revleft controlled all the servers and prevented others from having their own sites, I'd be concerned about it. Since this is not the case, of course revleft can have a server and restrict who they want on it.
That argument could be extended to all property. Me owning a car does not in and of itself prevent you from buying a car, does it? Does that mean you'll recognize my right to that car?


It is not revleft that is the problem with the internet but big corporations who are trying to make it more restrictive. This is why the internet should remain more open and free and away from market "property rights."
At which point RevLeft can represent this openness by...exercising property rights? Do you disagree that regulation by the Federal government is a larger threat to freedom of information on the internet than whether corporations develop and use a lot of the web?

What's with this belief that corporations are this big evil to be reigned in or abolished by beneficent States? The German State was murderous. Not Volkswagon qua Volkswagon. The British State was murderous. Not Tetley's Tea. The American State is murderous. Not Wal-Mart. So what's with the anti-corporation conniption.


Leftists are concerned with others using their power to push them into things they otherwise wouldn't do, thus limiting their free choices. That is why there cannot be massive landed property and it wasn't even marx who first recognized this fact.
You mean the free choice to violate property rights? How about the free choice of Kaju's to post in another forum and violate revleft.com's property rights? Or the right of a thieve to break into your home, drink your milk and sleep in your bed naked? Oh and since your right to does things means nothing, why shouldn't he defecate in your bed too?


Libertarians are concerned with making everybody slaves to the corporations, who are only replaced by blind luck or chances or their colossal failures, rather than by democratic means.
What's so great about democracy? It gives us clowns like BO, McCain, Bush, Clinton, Gore and the rest. You want to make everyone a slave to the collective and the majority. We are to hope the masses make good choices because......well just because. Good luck with that. It hasn't worked and it won't.

Work can suck. I hated my job for a long, long time. However, that is not the same as slavery. That you don't understand this shows either a rhetorical arrogance or a genuine disrespect for those who have been in the condition of slavery around the world or in the past.

[IcarusAngel]

That argument could be extended to all property. Me owning a car does not in and of itself prevent you from buying a car, does it? Does that mean you'll recognize my right to that car?

Yes, but I would call it a possession. With that said I don't agree how cars are manufactured. I would put workers and engineers in complete charge of how cars are manufactured. If that had been the case, maybe seat belts would have come earlier and other safety features that have now been proven to save millions of lives. It was engineer "whistleblowers" who blew the lid on the unsafe design of the automobiles in the first place - good for them.

Furthermore, there should be more public input on how cars are used given that they may cause numerous externalities like pollution which affects people who do not even drive the cars.


At which point RevLeft can represent this openness by...exercising property rights? Do you disagree that regulation by the Federal government is a larger threat to freedom of information on the internet than whether corporations develop and use a lot of the web?

Corporations are proetected by the federal government. Furthermore, it was the federal government who helped fund the internet in the first place. The question is faulty - by your logic the government should own it.

Corporations who want to try and block people from accessing certain sites based on priority is a threat to freedom - the internet should be open to all areas, given that it was created by public research in teh first place.


What's with this belief that corporations are this big evil to be reigned in or abolished by beneficent States? The German State was murderous. Not Volkswagon qua Volkswagon. The British State was murderous. Not Tetley's Tea. The American State is murderous. Not Wal-Mart. So what's with the anti-corporation conniption.

The only thing this proves is that the tyrannical states were based off of capitalism. They may have felt compelled to invade other countries to benefit their corporations. I believe Adam Smith himself noted this in the case of the British companies, and it certainly is true in the case of the American companies.

The Germans also used war to benefit corporations as anybody who's seen Schindler's list knows. The corporations asked the German government if they could use Jewish slaves and Hitler said yes. The corporations were complicit in the murder, like IBM, because all they see is profit not ethics or responsibility.

That shows that capitalist systems are war hungry, totalitarian systems and must be eliminated.



You mean the free choice to violate property rights? How about the free choice of Kaju's to post in another forum and violate revleft.com's property rights?

We've already established that revleft is a personal possession that is not interfering with anybody's rights. "Kaju" can't use someone else's possessions for his ends.

Besides he probably doesn't want to discuss music and science with leftists anyway.


Or the right of a thieve to break into your home, drink your milk and sleep in your bed naked? Oh and since your right to does things means nothing, why shouldn't he defecate in your bed too?

What is a "thieve." It looks like you were trying to form the plural of theif, but when you drop the -f you're supposed to add -ves. However, a plural was not called for in that situation - 'a' comes before singular nouns - so I'm not sure what you were doing.

I'm not even sure what this sarcasm is supposed to mean - basically this is incoherent.


What's so great about democracy? It gives us clowns like BO, McCain, Bush, Clinton, Gore and the rest. You want to make everyone a slave to the collective and the majority. We are to hope the masses make good choices because......well just because. Good luck with that. It hasn't worked and it won't.

That's representative democracy. I don't think there is any real comparision between the likes of George Bush and Bill Clinton. GWB was a terrible president who passed Orwellian laws, ended habeas corpus, further consolidated resources in the hands of the rich and laid the blueprint for the current economic disaster (although Reagan is also responsible, and Clinton to some extent). The worst presidents have been more capitalistic.

Leftists want direct democracy where people participate in power and govern themselves.

Democracy is the ultimate freedom of choice. You participate in human activities and human creations. You may not always get your way, but democratic theory ensures that you always get to have an opinion and can try and change the will of the majority.



Work can suck. I hated my job for a long, long time. However, that is not the same as slavery. That you don't understand this shows either a rhetorical arrogance or a genuine disrespect for those who have been in the condition of slavery around the world or in the past.

It's slavery because the corporations illegitamately get the resources and force everyone else to participate.

The worst forms of slavery - like colonial slavery - were based on property rights.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

So you are using private property to discriminate against and alienate your intra-left wing discussion from those who disagree with you.
[...]
...you, or more properly the forum owners, engage in usage of property rights to do this.
[...]
What's important is that in order to do this, intentionally or not, RevLeft.com has exercised property rights and exclusion.
Um, actually, no. The forum is not run by the owner. It is run by a group of elected representatives. The owner usually doesn't even join the discussion about administrative decisions, because he does not want to make anyone feel obligated to vote his way.


Again, imho it's their opinion so I don't care. The question is, if you believe property rights are illegitimate why don't you care?
Because it is possible to exclude someone from something on a basis that has nothing to do with property rights.

For example, I believe a communist society should exclude 5 year old kids from driving cars. That does not mean I believe those cars should be private property.

[Demogorgon]

If you register on a forum dedicated to a particular music group for the sole purpose of criticising that group and turn every discussion about that group into one about whether they have any merit at all, will you stay long?

The same principle applies here. It would not be possible to have discussions between leftists if every single thread was hijacked by non-leftists. We know this would happen because that is how it was before OI. OI is maintained so that those opposed to Communism can still debate us.

(Note that I don't think the restriction system as it exists now works, but the principle is fairly sound)

[nerditarian]

Um, actually, no. The forum is not run by the owner. It is run by a group of elected representatives. The owner usually doesn't even join the discussion about administrative decisions, because he does not want to make anyone feel obligated to vote his way.
When the owner made the decision to allow others to manage his property. That's still exercising property rights, similar to a managing company in an apartment building.



Because it is possible to exclude someone from something on a basis that has nothing to do with property rights.

For example, I believe a communist society should exclude 5 year old kids from driving cars. That does not mean I believe those cars should be private property.
But as things stand RevLeft IS private property. And it IS excluding using this right.

[Jack]

When the owner made the decision to allow others to manage his property. That's still exercising property rights, similar to a managing company in an apartment building.



But as things stand RevLeft IS private property. And it IS excluding using this right.

NO U!

Honestly do you have nothing better to do than go IT IS TEH PROPERTIES!!11!!1?

[nerditarian]

Yes, but I would call it a possession. With that said I don't agree how cars are manufactured. I would put workers and engineers in complete charge of how cars are manufactured. If that had been the case, maybe seat belts would have come earlier and other safety features that have now been proven to save millions of lives. It was engineer "whistleblowers" who blew the lid on the unsafe design of the automobiles in the first place - good for them.
Who will engineer the vehicles? Workers aren't engineers and designers. That's OK it's just not what they do. The whistleblowers were not assembly workers were they? What makes you think assembly workers running factories would make cars better? What if they decided to take the afternoon off and make half as many cars.


Furthermore, there should be more public input on how cars are used given that they may cause numerous externalities like pollution which affects people who do not even drive the cars. Should every Tom, Dick and Harry have a vote on what cars get made?



Corporations are proetected by the federal government.
Because corporations are protected by the feds it doesn't mean everyone HAS to be one nor does it imply that everything has to be owned.


Furthermore, it was the federal government who helped fund the internet in the first place. ok.


The question is faulty - by your logic the government should own it. Since the government is an illegitimate organization it should own nothing. Even stuff it created. However, the internet is an unownable entity. Parts of the network were created by various people for different purposes. No one individual or organization can claim to have invented the internet by it's nature. The internet, therefore, must have an anarchy of different ownerships.


Corporations who want to try and block people from accessing certain sites based on priority is a threat to freedom - the internet should be open to all areas, given that it was created by public research in teh first place.
Corporations don't have the legal power to truly do that to my knowledge. Who does have the authority to block people from accessing the web? States. (even State bans are becoming untenable a la Iran). And if corporations need the legal power who would they need to get it from? The State.




The only thing this proves is that the tyrannical states were based off of capitalism. The Soviet State? The Cuban State? The North Korean State?


They may have felt compelled to invade other countries to benefit their corporations. States go to war to aggrandize their own power. Certain corporations (arms dealers) tend to benefit from that but many other corporations will likely suffer. For example, producers of manufactured goods likely suffer. But commerce and corporations and private business can exist with out war. And commerce will do better without war. But the State grows by leaps and bounds and does better with war.


I believe Adam Smith himself noted this in the case of the British companies, and it certainly is true in the case of the American companies. Some American corporations.


The Germans also used war to benefit corporations as anybody who's seen Schindler's list knows. But war doesn't necessarily help all businesses/corporations


The corporations asked the German government if they could use Jewish slaves and Hitler said yes. Are you saying that Hitler wouldn't have hated, attacked, and taken away the rights of the Jews were it not for corporations?


The corporations were complicit in the murder, like IBM, because all they see is profit not ethics or responsibility. Corporations might have been complicit but that does not mean the corporations caused the what happened to the Jews.


That shows that capitalist systems are war hungry, totalitarian systems and must be eliminated. Hitler believe in economic fascism AKA corporatism. That's not an inditement of capitalism in anyway!





We've already established that revleft is a personal possession that is not interfering with anybody's rights. "Kaju" can't use someone else's possessions for his ends.

Besides he probably doesn't want to discuss music and science with leftists anyway. It's not a possession if he's not the primary user. Or am I misunderstanding the difference between possession and property?




What is a "thieve." It looks like you were trying to form the plural of theif, but when you drop the -f you're supposed to add -ves. However, a plural was not called for in that situation - 'a' comes before singular nouns - so I'm not sure what you were doing. I had written a thieves, looked quickly and just changed it wrong...typo.


I'm not even sure what this sarcasm is supposed to mean - basically this is incoherent. If someone can lose your productive property however they want why shouldn't they be able to use your personal home the same way? What's the objective difference besides capitalists own "property" and you own "possessions"? Sounds selfish to me.




That's representative democracy. I don't think there is any real comparision between the likes of George Bush and Bill Clinton. GWB was a terrible president who passed Orwellian laws, ended habeas corpus, further consolidated resources in the hands of the rich and laid the blueprint for the current economic disaster (although Reagan is also responsible, and Clinton to some extent). The worst presidents have been more capitalistic. They all continued the same fascist poicies against human liberty. And the cause of this current disaster was the Federal Reserve inflating the money supply not the consolidation of resources in the hands of the rich.


Leftists want direct democracy where people participate in power and govern themselves.

Democracy is the ultimate freedom of choice. You participate in human activities and human creations. You may not always get your way, but democratic theory ensures that you always get to have an opinion and can try and change the will of the majority.
It's not freedom if you're in the majority. It's not freedom if the masses tell you how to organize yourself in human activities and creation. Now anarchy? Anarchy allows you to choose whatever you want. As an individual.






It's slavery because the corporations illegitamately get the resources and force everyone else to participate.

The worst forms of slavery - like colonial slavery - were based on property rights. Only to the extent that they use government. Otherwise, you are not forced to work for a corporation. I don't.

[nerditarian]

NO U!

Honestly do you have nothing better to do than go IT IS TEH PROPERTIES!!11!!1?

good rebuttal, Jack, old sport.:lol:

[AnthArmo]

Who will engineer the vehicles? Workers aren't engineers and designers. That's OK it's just not what they do. The whistleblowers were not assembly workers were they? What makes you think assembly workers running factories would make cars better? What if they decided to take the afternoon off and make half as many cars.

Well someone clearly knows absolutely nothing about Marxian economics. Workers aren't just the factory laborers who run the machine, they are also the designers, the engineers, the accountants, the shopkeepers, the secretaries.

The Capitalists are the ones who sit in their ivory towers, profiting off the labour of their workers. thanks to your precious private property.

And Worker's have taken over their workplaces before and instituted workplace democracy. When we talk about a workers revolution, we don't just mean the government being taken over, we mean the whole economy!

Workers, being closer to the actual production of the commodities, know whats best and most efficient in the design and production of commodities. Capitalists rarely take part in the production, and when they do, its as an accountant or a higher up manager.

Its the same problem as was found in State Capitalist Centrally Planned economies. The planners didn't know what the actual needs of the people, or the actual demands of each and every enterprise was. This led to mass inefficiencies. This problem occours in market capitalism as well. Capitalists call for an over-production of goods, or production isn't environmentally efficient.

Any loss in productivity would therefore be made up for in an increase of efficiency.


Should every Tom, Dick and Harry have a vote on what cars get made?
Not everyone, that would be too inefficient, but at least every stakeholder. If I bought my cars from a particular worker run car collective, then I should at least have a say in how its production works.


Since the government is an illegitimate organization it should own nothing. Even stuff it created. However, the internet is an unownable entity. Parts of the network were created by various people for different purposes. No one individual or organization can claim to have invented the internet by it's nature. The internet, therefore, must have an anarchy of different ownerships.So you begin by saying its an unownable entity, then you end it by stating that it should be owned by different organisations.

Real smooth



Corporations don't have the legal power to truly do that to my knowledge. Who does have the authority to block people from accessing the web? States. (even State bans are becoming untenable a la Iran). And if corporations need the legal power who would they need to get it from? The State. No, Corporations don't yet have the power to block the internet. But if you privatise everything like you suggest, Corporations could cooperate to block part of the internet. Or even more likely, the State could block the internet on behalf of the Corporations to protect their interests.


The Soviet State? The Cuban State? The North Korean State?
According to you, these are excellent examples of private property. North Korea is privately owned by Kim-Jong Ill. If the people were to rise up and overthrow the government, they are denying Kim-Jong Ill's right to his private property! *Gasp*


States go to war to aggrandize their own power. Certain corporations (arms dealers) tend to benefit from that but many other corporations will likely suffer. For example, producers of manufactured goods likely suffer. But commerce and corporations and private business can exist with out war. And commerce will do better without war. But the State grows by leaps and bounds and does better with war.Of course States go to war to increase their own power, but a state is nothing more than a formal representation of a certain group in society. Sure our western governments pretend to be democracies and allow us to participate in show elections that allow us to pick specific people. But almost everyone in government is a wealthy capitalist. Lobbying means more than elections. our western governments were brought off a long time ago. That's why Captialism and Democracy are incompatible and you can't have both.


Some American corporations.

But war doesn't necessarily help all businesses/corporations

Are you saying that Hitler wouldn't have hated, attacked, and taken away the rights of the Jews were it not for corporations?

Corporations might have been complicit but that does not mean the corporations caused the what happened to the Jews.

Hitler believe in economic fascism AKA corporatism. That's not an inditement of capitalism in anyway!
Corporations actively funded and supported Hitler in his rise to power. If it weren't for the support of Capitalists, the holocaust would have never happened.


It's not freedom if you're in the majority. It's not freedom if the masses tell you how to organize yourself in human activities and creation. Now anarchy? Anarchy allows you to choose whatever you want. As an individual. As stated repeatedly, Democracy is definetly not perfect. But whats wrong with consensus democracy then?

And what if I don't have any money to begin with? what if I haven't been paid enough? What if I'm a homosexual and nobody in my nearby area will hire me or allow me into their "Private Property". And don't say I can't move to another area, I'm broke remember! the roads are privatized now so I can't afford them.

I don't choose what I buy, the Corporations choose what I buy. I have no democratic control in the economy remember! And don't give me any of that "Vote with your dollars" crap. I'm poor! I have no money!


Only to the extent that they use government. Otherwise, you are not forced to work for a corporation. I don't.But I don't exactly have any other choice now do I? They control all the money and the reasources. Your "Libertarian" idea of Freedom sounds highly flawed to me. Its like I put you in a brutal prison were you are forced to work endlessly to please the prison wardens, but the prison has no fence, instead its surrounded by a river of molten lava. According to your logic, there's nothing at all wrong with the back breaking labour and class inequality of the prison, because everyone has the freedom to jump into the lava if they wish.

[Invariance]

I said you have the wrong epistemology for the social sciences. Allow me to find this comment highly amusing from someone who claims that neither empiricism, history, sociology, or mathematics is useful for understanding the economic system.


I said the scientific method fails in economics. Economics, by and large, doesn’t apply what is commonly known as a ‘scientific method’ – neoclassical economics, as with Austrian economics, when confronted with contrary data, with anomalies in its theories, either empirically or logically, does not disregard hypotheses or modify them.

But you’d be a fool to think that any other science instantly throws away a theory when confronted with contrary data. When astronomers used Newton’s laws with the celestial mechanics of Kepler, they found that the observed motion of Uranus was contrary to prediction. Did they just throw away Newton’s laws!? On the contrary, they postulated an, as yet unknown planet, which ‘accounted’ (only to an extent as they later found at) for the discrepancy. Fancy that - a planet ‘found’ by mathematical equations over empirical observation and in the most ‘hardest’ of sciences.

Another example is Galileo’s arguments for the Copernicus hypothesis that the Earth orbits the sun rather than the sun orbiting the Earth – one which seemed empirically wrong (drop a stone off a tower, and it drops at the foot of the tower, if the Earth was moving, shouldn’t the stone move away from the tower – or so thought the critics of the day). Galileo praised Copernicus and others of similar thought 'Who through sheer force of intellect have done such violence to their own senses as to prefer what reason told them over that which sensible experience plainly showed them to the contrary.' Imagine, such a comment from one of the greatest scientists.

In the Einstein example of relativity, Einstein had to overcome theory (i.e. space and time as a separate thing) to explain observation. Galileo had to overcome observation to reach a good theory.
Another example, Copernican astronomy predicted stellar parallax which was not observed until 1838 with the work of Friedrich Bessel, three hundred years after Copernicus's book was published, owing to, amongst other things, lack of technology. Yet according to Austrian’s myopic view of science, they only would have accepted the Copernican hypothesis until 1838 – since ‘hard sciences’ should, according to them, aim for empirical observation!

Sorry to destroy your naïve and immature view of science, but anyone who maintains that science adheres to a ‘scientific method’ just doesn’t know how it operates. Normal science continues in the face of anomalies, in the face of contrary data, doesn’t abandon theories when they fail to account for everything, and invents unknowns like an imaginative priest… If indeed one were to strictly follow a ‘scientific method’ it would be a stunt to the growth of science. Science has never been, nor should it ever be, a purely empirical affair. In this respect, economics is no different. You’ve just thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

And just as in physics as in economics the concept of ceteris paribus is applied, i.e. assumptions that everything ‘holds constant’ are made. This is perfectly acceptable – so long as it is acknowledged. Often in economics it isn’t – which is the only way for neoclassical economics to construct the demand and supply curves they so wish.

Looking back at Galileo, he assumed that air-resistance was negligible when trying to prove the theorem that all objects fall at the same rate, whatever their mass. However, the assumption becomes untenable in particular circumstances. Heuristic assumptions are also a perfectly valid tool – assumptions which are known to be false, only to be used as a stepping stone into a more realistic theory. For instance, Newton’s starting assumption that the solar system consisted only of the sun and earth, which later gave rise to more and more realistic models.
When developing the theory of relativity, Einstein stated:

Let us suppose our old friend the railway carriage to be travelling along the rails with a constant velocity v, and that a man traverses the length of the carriage in the direction of travel with a velocity w. How quickly, or, in other words, with what velocity W does the man advance relative to the embankment during the process? The only possible answer seems to result from the following consideration: If the man were to stand still for a second, he would advance relative to the embankment through a distance v equal numerically to the velocity of the carriage. As a consequence of his walking, however, he traverses an additional distance w relative to the carriage, and hence also relative to the embankment, in this second, the distance w being numerically equal to the velocity with which he is walking. Thus in total he covers the distance W = v + w relative to the embankment in the second considered. We shall see later that this result, which expresses the theorem of the addition of velocities employed in classical mechanics, cannot be maintained; in other words, the law that we have just written down does not hold in reality. For the time being, however, we shall assume its correctness.
When Einstein dropped this heuristic assumption, an assumption known to be wrong, the theory of relativity was the result.

Yet according to the great Austrians, science just ‘doesn’t operate like that.’ The idea that scientists just ‘sit down and read data’ and form deductions from that flies in the face of the history of science for the past two thousand odd years. You need a thorough history lesson.


You laughed stating I said 'the scientific method fails in general.' Actually, no I didn’t. I said something along the line of ‘so throw away all science’ which you misinterpreted. I certainly understand that you accept the scientific method in the so-called ‘hard sciences’ yet you reject them in social sciences. This betrays complete ignorance on your part of how ‘hard’ sciences operate.


I made the distinction between the natural sciences & the social sciences, no response to that. My response is that the so-called demarcation between natural sciences and social sciences has been made by those who know nothing of either field, but has been coined by philosophers with a totally unrealistic view of science. Hence, your demarcation falls flat on its face. The ironic thing is that such a demarcation typically comes from logical positivists / logical empiricists --- a school which you most adamantly deny!

The best understanding of how science actually works has come from two physicists whom turned to philosophy of science – Thomas Kuhn who wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Imre Lakatos who wrote The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. I've uploaded both, if you want the links to read them.

Question was asked why does it fail? - Because value is subjective, humans (individuals) are unique and have different preferences, values, tastes etc. This is you just redefining economics so you can justify your misguided methodology. Economics, primarily, is concerned with the production and distribution of goods and the different incomes/forms of income going to different groups – capitalist, worker, whatever. Individuals are certainly unique, and their actions diverse, but they don’t act in a vacuum, but in an institutional setting. A historical and sociological setting is most appropriate – contrary to Austrians abstracting everything away. Putting it all on the idea that humans ‘must act’ ignores the multitude of economic systems and formations that humans have operated under – feudalism, slavery, industrial capitalism. Did all these economic formations simply depend on what human tastes/values were? Please forgive me for pointing out how seriously intellectually lacking your view of economics and society is.

Methodological individualism fails because one cannot derive how social forces work by simply ‘adding up’ how individuals work – society cannot be summed up as the many actions of one, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, so to speak. No clearer is this when marginalism attempts to aggregate numerous demand curves, where the assumptions they make are patently absurd (i.e. homothetic tastes) and contradict the very case they are trying to make (individual uniqueness). A far more superior approach is found in the likes of Smith, Ricardo, Malthus and Marx – i.e. using class analysis.


You asked what epistemology I thought you had, I said it could be a myriad of them Indeed; empiricism is useful in circumstances, but nor is it written in golden ink. As I’ve demonstrated above, some of sciences most famous advances have been made contrary or without empirical observation. Indeed, Einstein first proved relativity mathematically. Historically, it is said to be first ‘proven’ with Eddington’s 1919 expedition which showed that Einstein's prediction for the deflection of light by the Sun were correct.

However, if a theory consistently and repeatedly fails to describe, or explain, some phenomenon then we should certainly begin to question the theory itself. Typically another ‘school’ does that – a dissident school is born, which challenges the dominant paradigm resulting in a scientific revolution:

In the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9.]

(2001), 'Refusing The Devil's Bargain: What Kind Of Underdetermination Should We Take Seriously?', in Barrett and Alexander (2001), pp.1-12.

Economics, however, rarely does this – we still employ the same analysis of marginal utility, of indifference curves, that were invented over a hundred years ago. Even when dissident economists have proved their logical inconsistencies.

Economics has a woefully abysmal record of prediction or explanation. And primarily neoclassical economics has the same conclusions as Austrian economics (use of marginal utility & ‘law’ of diminishing returns, interfering with the market is wrong, minimum wage is wrong, supply and demand ‘laws’, methodological individualism, monopolies are wrong, market is in equilibrium (neoclassical) or approaches equilibrium (Austrian). Perhaps you should begin to question your own assumptions and conclusions in the face of such a weak record. But I doubt you will.


but if its not apropri its wrong Yet, this itself seems a priori conjecture – talk about circular reasoning! Or if its inductive reasoning, then you’ve contradicted yourself. In other words, stop playing philosophical word games; you’re going to have to give me more than slogans if you’re going to establish an argument.


I established the axioms the Austrian school is built on. Human action. i.e Humans exist. And they always act. It's self evident. And my reply was that a four year old could have told me as much, and probably in a much more nuanced manner. Humans act, but their actions are varied and limited by the situations they find themselves in. These sort of ‘axioms’ try to explain everything but end up telling nothing – except what the author wants us to know. The economic system to you is just a matter of the mind, if only they thought like capitalists did two thousand years ago.


From these axioms you can use logical deduction to gain further truths. Praxeology is the study of human action. Fine, so praxeology is the study of human action. But human action, as you yourself have conceded, is varied and unpredictable. If one were to derive a priori statements about human action it would be just that – humans are unpredictable, lack all information and are social beings. This might lead you to some justifiable arguments - i.e. that there is no such thing as perfect completion or equilibrium, that humans do not act rationally, that we should focus on social forces over the actions of individuals and so on. But ultimately, simply looking at human behavior (which isn’t even what you do – you philosophize about human behavior – which is a big difference) isn’t a very good means to examining economic phenomena.


I said I spend 5 hours of my labor doing a painting. Picasso also spends 5 hours of his labor painting. I then asked, what determines it's value? Shouldn't it be the same according to LTV? And my reply was: no, you idiot, Picasso does not represent standard labor. If I find a diamond on the side of the road, which takes me several minutes to find and next to no labor, it doesn’t mean that the diamond is worth next to nothing – the LTV takes as its basis the socially necessary labour. You would think that someone criticizing the LTV would at least understand its most basic fundamentals. But that’s even assuming that Picasso producing paintings is a form of commodity production – it isn’t. Marx’s LTV applies to commodity production, which revolves around workers creating commodities. I myself have criticisms of the LTV, but they don’t rely on spurious straw men as the one you have put forth.


Introduction to Natural Law by Murray N. Rothbard Natural law: the way to ‘argue’ for something without giving any proof. I’m only familiar with natural law via legal philosophy, so my understanding of it might be different from Rothbard’s. The problem with any argument of natural law, however, is that it can just about be used to justify anything – John Finnis, for example, is a contemporary natural law theorist, who argues that there are a priori ‘basic goods’ which are intrinsically valuable to human life - knowledge, play, friendship, religion, life and several others.

These are said to be ‘self-evidentially good.’ According to Finnis, one cannot say that a life without friends would be superior to one with friends, to give an example. The basic goods are also incommensurable. This is all very well, but what are the deductions that Finnis draws from this a priori reasoning?

That abortion is wrong, that euthanasia is wrong, that sex between unmarried person’s is wrong, that birth control is wrong, that homosexuality is wrong. I am not saying that you, or any other Libertarian, holds these views – you most likely don’t. However, that is the very point – if someone can use the very same reasoning, the same deductive philosophy, as you do, yet reaches totally opposite conclusions, then what is ‘self-evident’ falls to the ground.

Worse than that, it applies a naturalistic fallacy, that even presupposing that there are natural laws, that such laws should be followed. This is often behind the ‘reasoning’ that homosexuality is wrong – they view it as unnatural, unnatural is wrong, therefore homosexuality is wrong. (Well, clothes are unnatural and so are computers, the Internet, pens, paper, just about anything if one extends the definition wide enough). And whom ordains these so-called natural laws? Typically, classical natural law theorists proclaimed God as the one whom created them. Today, natural law is written by our ‘human nature’ which is presumed to be self-interested and greedy.

This presumes that society has remained unchanged, that humans have remained unchanged over thousands of years, that our social habits/consciousness has been the same since day dot and not conditioned by our circumstances. Does that sound at all reasonable to you? It also provides the perfect justification for capitalism – that it conforms to human nature, and therefore is justified. Philosophy itself is a social product, how then can it be used to describe social phenomena? Yet this is the inane task you have set it.


If the minimum wage is $10 an hr, why shouldn't it be $30 or $50 an hr? I’m a communist; hence the higher the wage, the lower the capitalists’ rate of profit (and there you have your limit). Maybe using deductive reasoning you can see which side I’d argue for.

Economics argues a person’s income is determined by the demand for labour by producers and the supply of labour is determined by consumers. Demand reflects firms’ decisions to hire workers to produce output for sale, supply reflects workers’ decisions to about how long to work versus how much time they would like to spend on leisure. A firm’s labour-hiring decision is determined by the impact that each additional worker has on the firm’s profit – if hiring an additional worker will add to the firm’s profit, they are hired. However, this is subject to diminishing returns – for each firm the wage is constant (this assumes that each firm is an infinitesimally small actor – i.e they cannot effect in any way the labor market). The amount each worker adds is variable, and the firm keeps hiring until the point at which the wage equals the amount for which the last worker additional output can be sold. If an industry is subject to perfect competition, the additional units can be sold without the firm having to reduce its price. The revenue the firm gains by hiring its last employee is equal to the price for which it sells its output, multiplied by the marginal product of the last worker. The firm’s demand for labour is therefore the marginal physical product of labour multiplied by the price of the output.

Hence, according to economics income disparities are the product of differential contributions to society – the poor get what they contribute, and the rich get what they deserve.

The real wage is set by the point of intersection of this aggregate demand for labour curve – labour’s aggregate marginal revenue product curve – with the aggregate supply curve which is the sum of the supply decisions of individual workers. The ‘pain’ of work must be compensated for by the pleasure of the wage, to make up for the sacrifice of leisure required to earn the wage. The use of a budget line representing 24 hours is employed to determine how many hours a worker will want to work at the appropriate wage. The individual supply curves are summed up, resulting in an equilibrium price – the average wage. The model is used to argue that minimum wage legislation results in unemployment. Or to quote Rothbard: ‘Unemployment is caused by unions or government keeping wage rates above the free-market level.’

There are numerous internal inconsistencies with such a model. Firstly, without going into too much detail, the supply curve for labor can slope backwards – so that a fall in wages can cause an increase in the supply of labour. Economists have noted this. Further, its probable that abolishing unions along with the minimum wage will result in nothing more than a greater exploited working class (indeed, when unions were outlawed, and workers were murdered for attempting to organize collectively - as they still are today - there was still unemployment, there was still slumps. This won't matter to you, of course, since experience is of no use to an Austrian fundamentalist).

There are also Sraffa’s observations, that if marginal returns are constant (as indeed they are in the real world = 95% of firms face constant costs, contrary to economic theory), then the wage theory collapses, since that theory depends on an employer employing as many workers until their marginal product exceeds their wage. Yet if there is no such thing as diminishing marginal returns, then the employer will logically hire as many workers as s/he can. Indeed, that is how the real world works – an employer will hire as many workers as they can, yet they are constrained by the amount they can sell, which is constrained by the niche of the market they control, which can only be expanded by greater finance. So, in the real world, the number of employees hired has nothing to do with the amount the last worker makes. Lastly, the idea that workers can ‘pick’ between the amount of hours of leisure and the amount of hours worked is nonsense – leisure activity requires income – i.e. it requires a job and a minimum number of hours worked. The only ‘leisure’ activity which costs nothing is sleeping. The economic vision of a worker is someone who has alternative means to generate income at her disposal – i.e. capital, and has to be enticed by the amount of the wage to undertake wage labour over the alternative of working for themselves. In the real world, it’s a choice between either working or starving, not of fancifully picking leisure hours like economists think or hope.

Hell, even people like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have agreed that the neoclassical model of a minimum wage leading to higher unemployment fails in reality. Studies have been conducted by Card and Krueger, testing the rise in minimum wage in New Jersey (~19 percent increase), while the minimum wage in Pennsylvania remained constant. Card and Krueger analyzed the impact the increase this would have on fast food restaurants, set out in their book Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, which found that the increase of the minimum wage actually led to an increase in employment in New Jersey (whereas economists argues that the opposite would happen). Even critics of the study have agreed that the increase in the minimum wage lead to negligible effects on unemployment levels which were offset by other factors. So when put to reality, the idea that the minimum wage causes unemployment is nonsense – a theory used by capitalist ideologues in defense of higher profits and against working class organization.

Of course, that won’t matter to you at all, since reality to you doesn’t matter and should never be consulted.

This is why people point and laugh at you, and rightly so.


It's all meaningless if you have the wrong epistemology / economic reasoning. Yet, as from the very source you’ve quoted, mathematics is (typically considered) ‘a priori’, therefore it would be a form, according to you, of a correct epistemology. (This of course, can be disputed – mathematical rules arose from practical requirements of humans over many centuries, and rules cannot be either true or false, they are neither a priori nor a posteriori. 2 + 2 = 4, only because we have defined those rules. 10+3 = 1, i.e. 10 o’clock + 3 o’clock = 1:00 o’ clock. Both examples depend on the rules we are using, which cannot be derived a priori since they are human invention. If you look at the systems which humans have derived as counting you will note their variety which served those specific societies)

But the use of mathematics or a priori reasoning only guarantees that the mathematics/reasoning is correct, if consistent with the rules. Yet mathematical variables or equations can be used to represent numerous variables or relationships –which might bear no resemblance to the economy. For example, one basic rationality principle in economics is if aRc and bRc then aRc, or another definition: ‘If a bundle (x1, x2) is purchased at prices (p1, p2) and a different bundle (y1, y2) is purchased at prices (q1, q2) then if p1 x1 + p2 x2 ≥ p1 y1 + p2 y2, then it must NOT be the case that q1 y1 + q2 y2 ≥ q1 x1 + q2 x2. If the y-bundle is affordable when the x-bundle is purchased, the x-bundle must not be affordable.’– which is needed to construct demand curves (otherwise individual’s marginal utility levels could not be determined, as they would be sporadic – as indeed they are!). Yet testing of that principle, shows that humans, in reality, don’t act rationally – their tastes change, they act in (what economists would argue) a contradictory manner. Yet the whole principle of rationality is based on the assumptions that: (1) People are self-interested and (2) Optimize, yet when put to the test, humans just don’t act like that. Those assumptions might seem ‘self-evident’, but they’re wrong. It’s irrelevant whether we can construct them a priori if it matches nothing to reality. Would it be so much to ask to look at how people behave first, then try and build models of that behavior?

Well guess what, that’s empiricism.

[Invariance]

In a chem lab you can isolate your variables. Because we added calcium it bubbled. Or whatever. IANAC/IANAP. Yes, we can certainly tell from your ‘understanding’ of how science operates that you are indeed neither a chemist nor a physicists. Physics, like economics, deals with numerable variables, often employing ceteris paribus, just like economics. The so-called universal 'laws' are only abstracts, not something which scientists have ‘uncovered.’ Sure, they call them ‘laws of nature’, but at best they are general descriptions, sometimes even contradictory to one another. Science is certainly not as childishly simple as you have put forth – you have a primary school understanding of it.


But in the social sciences we are not dealing with numbers and figures. And you'd be naive or stupid to think that physics deals with just numbers and not relationships - just like economics.


First of all take the Great Depression. One person says it ended after the US entered WWII. One person says that the WWII statistics are flawed and the Depression didn't truly end until the post-war period. Whose right? One says once we went to war the depression lessoned, hence we are correct and the other says once we ended the war and cut regulation the depression really ended. Once more which party is correct? Impossible to know with an empiricist epistemology. I wish I had been more concise but I hope you can bear it, old sport. I haven’t studied the Great Depression in detail, so I cannot, of course, give you an answer to that question - but your point was one on epistemology. However, first one would need to define depression – perhaps a level of unemployment, a fall in the level of consumer spending, a certain fall in the GDP, reduced trade or whatever. That alone shows how basing a sociological criteria on a priori reasoning is bound to fail – tell me, what is considered a depression a priori? You can’t do it – what constitutes a depression is a normative statement, one which requires a posteriori reasoning of what constitutes a typical functioning economy (which, incidentally, requires the use of statistics and empiricism to form such a conclusion). Economics, truly, is a complex thing because it involves so many factors and influences. Your problem is that you think there is an either/or answer – it is probably much more complex than that, with numerable variables influencing when the US exited depression, not just something which can be reduced to one, as you most probably wish... Please try again.


Part of your confusion is that you are viewing the definition of science where science=scientific method vs. science=systematic knowledge. In this sense of the word I don't see why Austrianism is unscientific, just anti-empiricist. I also don't see why everything should inherently be understood by empirical methods rather than by axiomatic-deduction.

At my most generous, I might call the Austrian school’s methodology metaphysical:

AJ Ayer:

One way of attacking a metaphysician who claimed to have knowledge of a reality which transcended the phenomenal world would be to enquire from what premises his propositions were deduced. Must he not begin, as other men do, with the evidence of his senses? And if so, what valid process of reasoning can possibly lead him to the conception of a transcendent reality?

Surely from empirical premises nothing whatsoever concerning the properties, or even the existence, of anything super-empirical can legitimately be inferred. But this objection would be met by a denial on the part of the metaphysician that his assertions were ultimately based on the evidence of his senses. He would say that he was endowed with a faculty of intellectual intuition which enabled him to know facts that could not be known through sense-experience.

For it will be shown there that a priori propositions, which have always been attractive to philosophers on account of their certainty, owe this certainty to the fact that they are tautologies. We may accordingly define a metaphysical sentence as a sentence which purports to express a genuine proposition, but does, in fact, express neither a tautology nor an empirical hypothesis. And as tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions, we are justified in concluding that all metaphysical assertions are nonsensical.
Ultimately, however, I’m not really concerned whether you call it a science or not, or whether you call it a branch of economics or not. That really doesn’t concern me, only the claims it puts forth and whether they are valid or not. Incidentally, no one claimed that it should only be understood empirically. But if you’re totally unwilling to even look at evidence, then no amount of experience can discredit your ideas. Nor can no amount of evidence confirm or support them. So, at best it remains a pseudoscience or metaphysics. Or both. In either event your ‘economics’ remains masturbatory philosophy.


Since I already defended a priori economics, I will simply add that empiricism fails in all other social sciences too. Nice attempt to slip that one under the radar.


I'll ignore some loaded language and cut to the chase. You're admitting that people value originals more and you're admitting that this raises the price. Now, whether you find how other people value things correct or not is beyond me. The point is that because people value a painting by a famous artist (b/c it's a status symbol or whatever) they will pay more for it. Hence, the value of the paintings in question is subjective as is all value. Thanks for the opening, old sport. At least concede STV after that. QED. Its marginalism that attempts to apply an objective measure to something so inherently subjective. To quote from An Introduction to Austrian Economics: ‘The total demand for a particular good then becomes the summation of each prospective consumer’s individuals demand. And though each individual demand may be unique, each curve depecting an individual’s demand will be downward-sloping to the right. Thus the curve depicting total demand for a particular good will have the same kind of slope, i.e, downward-sloping to the right.’

So, even Austrian fundamentalists think that individual’s demand curves can be added together. There are numerous logical errors involved with this – to be able to add up demand curves, utility must be quantified – there must be some objective standard to measure. But how can we ‘add up’ something so subjective? Yet demand curves represent just that – one individual’s pleasure. What gives great pleasure to one, may give nothing or little to another, but trying to add them up involves trying to measure that utility. This cannot be done – mathematically or logically. I’ve commented on this problem before (http://www.revleft.com/vb/non-mathematical-critique-t107965/index.html):

Individual rationality requires that if A is preferred to B when both are affordable, then A must necessarily provide more utility than bundle B. However, no such thing applies to a social indifference map. Therefore, they proved that the output level chosen by a market economy does not maximise social welfare. A market demand curve doesn't have to behave identically to a single individual's demand curve; it is plausible to demonstrate that an individual demand curve slopes downward, the same cannot be said for a market demand curve where in some places it may be flat, or even slope upwards. In Varian's Microeconomic Analysis (a well known mathematical advanced microeconomics textbook), Varian states: 'Ultimately...the aggregate demand function will in general possess no interesting properties...The neoclassical theory of the consumer places no restrictions on aggregate behaviour in general.'

One individual's indifference curves are the contours on a map of a utility hill that the individual climbs by consuming. Since, however, utility is subjective, the actual height of the hill cannot be specified because utility cannot be quantified - there being no objective measure. Economic theory ignores the question of where consumers tastes come from and assumes that income (budget line) and tastes (indifference curves) are independent, hence each individual's utility hill can be treated as constant. However, the same cannot be said for the social utility hill. For example, if income is redistributed between individuals then there is no way to say whether this results in a greater or lesser degree of utility, since what gives great utility to one may give very utility to another. Therefore, there are numerous social utility hills, one for each distribution of income.

Firstly, the distribution of income between individuals changes the weighting of each individual in the aggregate called society. Secondly, any one individual's purchases will alter as her income grows. This wouldn't be an issue if income was fixed, but economic theory argues that the price system determines the distribution of income - but to be able to construct a market demand curve you have to alter prices. There will, therefore be a different social indifference map for every different set of prices. The social budget line and the social indifference surface are therefore interdependent, since every set of prices will generate a different social utility hill. The problem is that any change in prices will change incomes and while this will not shift an individual's preferences (according to economic theory), it will shift society's preferences as they depend on distribution of income.

Economists, instead of proving that the interests of the community can be summed up as the interests of the individual members who compose it, proved that only under highly restrictive conditions could social welfare be treated as the sum of its individual members. These were:

1. The distribution of income was fixed and ‘Engels’ curves must have a constant slope; or
2. Engels curves must have a constant slope, and they all have the same slope.

The first restriction was unacceptable since it contradicts the economic theory of income distribution which argues that relative incomes are determined by the price system. Hence, the adoption of the second restriction. The meaning of the first part of that restriction is that the ‘Engel curves’ must be straight lines, so that commodities are neither luxuries nor necessities. However, as I stated earlier there would unlikely be any commodities which fall into this category. Yet, economists maintain that increasing the income of a single consumer by, say, a factor of 10, increaser her consumption of all commodities by the same factor. This is even more extreme than the first restriction; every consumer has to spend the same proportion of each new dollar of income the same way, which means that all consumers must have the same tastes. Which means that society must either be comprised of one individual or a multitude of clones. And this is from the theory which proudly proclaims the uniqueness and authority of the individual!

To quote my mircroeconomics book, Microeconomics – a Modern Approach, Andrew Schotter, 3rd ed., 2001, page 68:


‘When a consumer has homothetic preferences, all goods are superior and purchased in the same proportion no matter what the consumer’s income. In a world where all consumers have homothetic preferences, we might think of rich people as simply expanded versions of poor people. The tastes of such rich people do not change as their incomes change. They allocate their incomes exactly the way they did when they were poor. They just buy proportionally more of each good as their income grows.’

In effect, Schotter is saying that if Bill Gates spent 10% of his income on pizza when he just another university computer science nerd, then he now spends 10% of his total income on pizza. In other words, he spends hundreds of millions on buying pizza for his own consumption.

Alternatively, the poor man who happens to get rich (we all know how often that happens!) did not change his spending habits at all – he still lives in a cardboard box (just an extremely large one). Likewise, the rich man spends the same amount he did on healthcare when he was poor – none. Going from the opposite direction, how many pieces of art work would a poor person have if they spent the same proportion that a wealthy person spends on art? A thousandth of a Mona Lisa?
Economists are aware of this problem:


First, when preferences are homothetic and the distribution of income (value of wealth) is independent of prices, then the market demand function (market excess demand function) has all the properties of a consumer demand function...Secondly, with general (in particular non-homothetic) preferences, even if the distribution of income is fixed, market demand functions need not satisfy in any way the classical restrictions which characterize consumer demand functions...The importance of the above result is clear: strong restrictions are needed in order to justify the hypothesis that a market demand function has the characteristic of a consumer demand function. Only in special cases can an economy be expected to act as an 'idealized consumer.' The utility hypothesis tells us nothing about market demand unless it is augumented by additional requirements.

Shafer, W. & Sonnenschein, H., (1982). 'Market demand and excess demand functions', in K.J Arrow and M.D Intiligator (eds), Handbook of Mathematical Economics (Vol. 2), North-Holland, Amsterdam.

These strong restrictions are that consumers are all identical, consuming identical commodities.

Economists often ignore the absurd things they say. For example:The necessary and sufficient condition quoted above is intuitively reasonable. It says, in effect, that an extra unit of purchasing power should be spent in the same way no matter to whom it is given (!) Gorman, W.M (1953) 'Community preference fields', Econometricia 21: 63-80.

Two criteria will be considered which lead to the possibility of aggregation: (1) identical preferences (hence identical demand functions), and (2) proportional incomes... Chipman, J.S (1974) 'Homothetic preferences and aggregation', Journal of Economic Theory, 8: 26-38. Generally these conditions are known as the Sonnenshein-Mantel-Debreu conditions or the SMD conditions.

The irony is, of course, that economics has proved precisely what it what it opposed. It proved that society is more than the sum of its parts. Even more ironic is that the criticism of trying to aggregate utility from individuals in an objective manner was constructed by its supporters! Economists originally used this aspect of their theory to argue against any social reform which aimed to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, since we couldn't possibly know (according to their theory) whether this would result in a greater social welfare, since taking a banana from one rich person whom derives a great benefit from it and giving it to a poor person who derives little benefit from it would be contrary to social welfare! The defence of inequality backfires, making it impossible for them to construct a demand curve. If the market demand curve depends upon the distribution of income, if a change of prices will alter this distribution of income, and if this does not result in an equilibrium between supply and demand, then economists cannot oppose a distribution which, for example, favours the poor over the rich.

***

Likewise, the supply model, based on the ‘law of diminishing returns’ has been proven to be both logically unsound and without absolutely any basis in reality (firms, in fact, face constant or falling costs – not rising costs based on diminishing marginal productivity). See here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-marginalism-wrong-t109362/index.html).

To quote:

Sraffa argued that the law of diminishing marginal returns will not in generally apply to an industrial economy. Sraffa argued that the common position would instead be constant marginal returns, and therefore horizontal marginal costs. This gets to the very heart of economic theory, since diminishing marginal returns is used to determine everything in the economic theory of production. The output function determines marginal product, which in turn determines marginal cost. With diminishing marginal productivity, the marginal cost of production eventually rises to equal marginal revenue. Since firms seek to maximise profit and since this equality of rising marginal costs to marginal revenue gives you maximum profit, this determines the level of output.

However, if constant returns are the norm, then the output function instead is a straight line through the origin just like the total revenue line, though with a different slope. If the slope of the revenue is greater than the slope of the cost curve, then after a firm had met its fixed costs it would make a profit from every unit sold. The more units sold, the greater the profit would be. At least in terms of the economic model of production, there would be no limit to the amount a competitive firm would wish to produce, so that economic theory could not explain how firms in a competitive industry decided how much to produce. In fact, according to economic theory, each firm would want to produce an infinite amount! The economists will reply that this is patently absurd, that firms don’t produce an infinite amount of goods therefore Sraffa must be wrong. Sraffa put the opposite case: sure, the economic model of production works in theory if you accept its assumptions. But do those assumptions that economists rely on actually apply in practice? If they can’t, then it will be irrelevant to practice.

If we take the broadest possible definition of an industry, say agriculture, then it is valid to treat factors it uses heavily (e.g. land) as fixed. Since additional land can only be obtained by converting land from other uses (e.g manufacturing) it is difficult to increase that factor in the short run. The ‘agricultural industry’ will therefore suffer from diminishing returns. However, such a broadly defined industry is so big that changes in its output must affect other industries. An attempt to increase agricultural output will affect the price of the chief variable input – labour – as it takes workers away from other industries, and it will also affect the price of the fixed input.

This, however, undermines crucial parts of the model: the assumption that demand for and supply of a commodity are independent, and the proposition that one market can be studied in isolation from all others. If increasing the supply of agriculture changes the relative prices of land and labour, then it will also change the distribution of income. Changing the distribution of income will change the demand curve. There will, therefore, be a different demand curve for every different position along the supply curve for agriculture. This makes it impossible to draw independent demand and supply curves that intersect in one place.


‘…if in the production of a particular commodity a considerable part of a factor is employed, the total amount of which is fixed or can be increased only at a more than proportional cost, a small increase in the production of the commodity will necessitate a more intense utilisation of that factor, and this will affect in the same manner the cost of the commodity in question and the cost of the other commodities into the production of which that factor enters; and since commodities into the production of which a common special factor enters are frequently, to a certain extent, substitutes for one another (for example, various kinds of agricultural produce), the modification in their price will not be without appreciable effects upon demand in the industry concerned. ’ (Sraffa 1926).

This means that the demand curve for this industry will shift every movement along its supply curve. It is therefore illegitimate to draw independent demand and supply curves since factors that alter supply will also alter demand! Supply and demand will therefore intersect in multiple locations as shown in the following figure. It is therefore, impossible to say which price or quantity will prevail.

What if we use a more realistic, narrow definition of an industry, for example ‘wheat’ rather than agriculture?

It becomes worse for the marginalists, because, in general, diminishing returns are unlikely to exist. This is because the assumption that supply and demand are independent is now reasonable, but the assumption that some factor of production is fixed isn’t! Economists assume that production occurs in a period of time during which it is impossible to vary one factor of production. Sraffa argues that in the real world firms and industries can vary one factor of production fairly easily. This is because additional inputs can be taken from other industries, or garnered from stocks of under-utilised resources. If there is an increased demand for wheat, then rather than farming a given quantity of land more intensely, farmers will convert some land from another crop to wheat. Or they will convert some of their own land which is currently lying fallow to wheat production. Or farmers who currently grow a different crop will convert to wheat.


‘If we next take an industry which employs only a small part of the " constant factor " (which appears more appropriate for the study of the particular equilibrium of a single industry), we find that a (small) increase in its production is generally met much more by drawing " marginal doses ' of the constant factor from other industries than by intensifying its own utilisation of it; thus the increase in cost will be practically negligible, and anyhow it will still operate in a like degree upon all the industries of the group.’ (Sraffa, 1926)

Hence, the ratio of one factor of production to any other will remain relatively constant, while the total amount of resources devoted to it will rise. This results in a straight line output function. Since the shape of the total, average and marginal cost curves are entirely a product of the shape of the output curve, a straight line output curve results in constant marginal costs and falling average costs. Hence, costs for a firm are likely to be constant (or even falling) within the normal range of output.

Sraffa argues that a firm is likely to produce at maximum productivity right up until the point at which diminishing marginal productivity sets in. Any other patter shows that the firm is behaving irrationally. To use an analogy, suppose you have a franchise to supply ice-creams to a football stadium, and that the franchise lets you determine where patrons are seated. If you have a small crowd one night – say one quarter of capacity – would you spread the patrons around over the whole stadium, so that each patron was surrounded by several empty seats? Of course not. This arrangement would force your staff to walk further to make a sale. Instead, you’d leave much of the ground empty, thus minimising the work your staff had to do. There’s no sense in using ever every last inch of your fixed resource (stadium) if demand is less than capacity.

The same logic applies to a farm of a factory. If a variable input displayed increasing marginal returns at some scale of output, then the sensible thing for the farmer or factory owner to do is leave some of the fixed resource idle, and work the variable input to maximum efficiency on part only of the fixed resource.

Consider a wheat farm of 100 hectres where one worker per hectare produces an output of 1 bushel per hectare, 2 workers per hectare produces 3 bushels, 3 workers per hectare produces 6 bushels, 4 workers per hectare produces 10 bushels, and 5 workers per hectare produces 12 bushels. According to economists, if a farmer had 100 workers he would spread them out 1 per hectare to produce a total of 100 bushels of wheat. But according to Sraffa, the farmed would instead leave 75 hectares of the farm idle, and work 25 hectares with the 100 workers to produce an output of 250 bushels. The farmer that behaves as Sraffa predicts comes out 150 bushels ahead of any farmer who behaves as economics predicts.

Economic theory implies that a farm with 200 workers would spread them over the farm’s 100 hectares to produce an output of 300 bushels. Sraffa says the sensible farmer would instead leave 50 hectares fallow, work the other 50 at 4 workers per hectare and produce an output of 500 bushels. The same pattern continues up until the point at which 400 workers are employed, when finally diminishing marginal productivity sets in. A farm will produce more output by using less than all of the fixed input up until this point. Firms will therefore have straight line marginal cost curves below the level of maximum productivity. If marginal costs are constant, then average cost must be greater than marginal cost, so that any firm which sets price equal to marginal cost is going to make a loss. The economic theory of price-setting can therefore only apply when demand is such that all firms are producing well beyond the point of maximum efficiency. It therefore depends on the economy being in full employment.

Sraffa’s critiques mean that economic theory of production can apply in only the tiny minority of cases that fall between the two circumstances he outlines, and only when those industries are operating beyond their optimum efficiency. Only then such industries will not violate the assumed independence of supply and demand, but they will still have a relatively fixed factor of production and will also experience rising marginal cost. Only a tiny minority of industries are likely to fill these limitations: those that use the vast majority of some input to production where the input itself is not important to the rest of the economy. The majority of industries are instead likely to be better represented by the classical theory, which saw prices as being determines exclusively by costs, while demand set the quantity sold.


‘Reduced within such restricted limits, the supply schedule with variable costs cannot claim to be a general conception applicable to normal industries; it can prove a useful instrument only in regard to such exceptional industries as can reasonably satisfy its conditions. In normal cases the cost of production of commodities produced competitively-as we are not entitled to take into consideration the causes which may make it rise or fall-must be regarded as constant in respect of small variations in the quantity produced.' And so, as a simple way of approaching the problem of competitive value, the old and now obsolete theory which makes it dependent on the cost of production alone appears to hold its ground as the best available.’ (Sraffa, 1926).

If rising costs and constant revenue do not determine the output from a single firm or a single industry, what does? Sraffa’s argument is simple: the output of a single firm is constrained by all those factors that are familiar to ordinary businessmen, but that are abstracted away by economic theory. In particular, rising marketing and financing costs, both of which are a product of the difficulty of encouraging consumers to buy the firm’s output rather than a rival’s. These are a product of the fact that, in reality, products are not homogeneous and consumers do have preferences for one firm’s product over another’s. Sraffa mocked the economic belief that the limit to a firm’s output is set by rising costs, and emphasised the importance of finance and marketing in constraining a firm’s size:


‘Business men, who regard themselves as being subject to competitive conditions, would consider absurd the assertion that the limit to their production is to be found in the internal conditions of production in their firm, which do not permit of the production of a greater quantity without an increase in cost. The chief obstacle against which they have to contend when they want gradually to increase their production does not lie in the cost of production-which, indeed, generally favours them in that direction-but in the difficulty of selling the larger quantity of goods without reducing the price, or without having to face increased marketing expenses. This necessity of reducing prices in order to sell a larger quantity of one's own product is only an aspect of the usual descending demand curve, with the difference that instead of concerning the whole of a commodity, whatever its origin, it relates only to the goods produced by a particular firm; and the marketing expenses necessary for the extension of its market are merely costly efforts (in the form of advertising, commercial travellers, facilities to customers, etc.) to increase the willingness of the market to buy from it-that is, to raise that demand curve artificially.’ (Sraffa, 1926)

Economists assumes this real world answer away by assuming that products are homogeneous, consumers are indifferent between the outputs of different firms and decide their purchases solely on the basis of price, that there are no transportation costs etc. In such a world no-one needs marketing because consumers already know everything, and only price distinguishes one firm’s output from another. On the contrary, in most industries products are heterogeneous, consumers do not know everything and they consider other aspects of a product apart from price. Further, even where products are homogeneous, transportation costs can act to give a single firm an effective local monopoly. Hence, even the concept of a competitive market, in which all firms are ‘price-takers’ is suspect. Instead, most firms will to varying degrees act like monopolists, who according to economic theory face a downward-sloping demand curve.

A firm has a product which fits within a broad category, for example passenger cars which is qualitatively distinguished from its rivals in a fashion that matters to a subset of buyers. The firm attempts to manipulate the demand for its product, but faces prohibitive costs in any attempt to completely eliminate their competitors and thus take over the entire industry. Not only must the firm persuade a different niche market to buy its product – to convince Porsche buyers to buy Volvos for instance, it must also convince investors and banks that the expense of building a factory big enough to produce for both market niches is worth the risk. Therefore, with the difficulty of marketing beyond your product’s niche goes the problem of raising finance:


Thus, the limited credit of many firms, which does not permit any one of them to obtain more than a limited amount of capital at the current rate of interest, is often a direct consequence of its being known that a given firm is unable to increase its sales outside its own particular market without incurring heavy marketing expenses. If it were known that a firm which -is in a position to pr6duce an increased quantity of goods at a lower cost is also in a position to sell them without difficulty at a constant price, such a firm could encounter no obstacle in a free capital market. On the other hand, if a banker, or the owner of land on which a firm proposes to extend its own plant, or any other supplier of the firm's means of production, stands in a privileged position in respect to it, he can certainly exact from it a price higher than the current price-for his supplies, but this possibility will still be a direct consequence of the fact that such a firm, being in its turn in a privileged position in regard to its particular market, also sells its products at prices above cost. What happens in such cases is that a portion of its mono-poly profits are taken away from the firm, not that its cost of production is increased. (Sraffa, 1926).

Neoclassical theory cannot be saved by simply adding marketing costs to the cost of production, and thus generating a rising marginal cost curve.

Firstly, marketing is not a cost of production, but a cost of distribution. Secondly it is inconsistent with the underlying economic premise that marginal cost rises because of diminishing marginal productivity. Thirdly, its implausible in the economic context of the theory of the firm. There is no point saving the concept of a rising marginal cost curve by introducing marketing costs since this requires acknowledging that one firm’s product differs from another. If products differ from one firm to another, then products are no longer homogeneous which is an essential assumption of the theory of perfect competition. It is more legitimate to threat marketing cost as a cost of distribution, whose object is to alter the demand faced by an individual firm.

With this critique, the most popular image of economic theory, a falling demand curve and rising supply curve intersecting to jointly determine the equilibrium price is an illusion. Rather than firms producing at the point where marginal cost equals marginal revenue, the marginal revenue of the final unit sold will normally be substantially greater than the marginal cost of producing it, and output will be constrained not by marginal cost but by the cost and difficulty of expanding sales at the expense of sales by competitors.
These may look like minor points. The supply curve should be horizontal rather than upward sloping; the output of an individual firm isn’t set by the intersection of marginal revenue and marginal cost; and marketing and finance issues, rather than cost of production issues, determine the maximum scale of a firm’s output. What’s the deal?

If marginal returns are constant rather than falling, then the neoclassical explanation of just about everything collapses. For example, the theory of employment and wage determination. The theory asserts that the real wage is equivalent to the marginal product of labour. The argument goes that each employer takes the wage level as given, since with competitive markets no employer can affect the price of his inputs. An employer will employ an additional worker if the amount the worker adds to the output – the worker’s marginal product – exceeds the real wage. The employer stops employing workers once the marginal product of the last one employed has fallen to the same level as the real wage.

Since employment in turn determines output, the real wage determines the level of output. If society desires a higher level of employment and output, then the only way to get this is to reduce the real wage (and the logical limit of this argument is that output will reach its maximum when the real wage equals zero!). The real wage, in turn, is determined by the willingness of workers to work – to forego leisure for income, so that the level of employment is determined by workers alone. This is why Galbraith said that economics can be summed up in the two propositions that the poor don’t work hard enough because they’re paid too much, and the rich don’t work hard enough because they’re not paid enough .

However, if the output to employment relationship is relatively constant than the neoclassical explanation for employment and output determination collapses. With a flat production function the marginal product of labour will be constant and it will never intersect the real wage. The output of the firm then can’t be explained by the cost of employing labour.

Empirical studies have confirmed this as well:


"so as to cause the variable factor to be used most efficiently when the plant is operated close to capacity. Under such conditions an average variable cost curve declines steadily until the point of capacity output is reached. A marginal cost curve derived from such an average cost curve lies below the average cost curve at all scales of operation short of capacity, a fact that makes it physically impossible for an enterprise to determine a scale of operations by equating marginal cost and marginal revenues.” (Eiteman, 1947)

“Over 89 per cent of respondents indicated that ‘marginal’ costs either declined or stayed constant with changes in output (sometimes involving discrete jumps). Finally, only four [of 200] enterprises had both elastic demand curves and increasing marginal costs.” (Downward & Lee 2001, reviewing Blinder)

The neoclassical concept of cost curves (shared with the Austrian school) fits just 5% of companies & products, the other 95% experience constant or falling marginal cost. The ‘law’ of diminishing returns has absolutely no relevance or basis in the real world, it is a total statistical anomaly. As Keynes once put it, it is rare for anyone but an economist to suppose that price is predominantly governed by marginal cost.

So, no, the STV is a laughing stock of a theory, with so many holes it deserved to be thrown away years ago. But since it serves as an ideological prop for capitalism, its likely to be around as long as capitalism is.


Austrian Economics is value-free, or at least it strives to be. I very much doubt this – all your economics are in favor of capitalism (actually, this is questionable - you posit a hypothetical version of capitalism, which has never existed except in the minds of various economists - ironic, indeed, that communists are called utopian) and are fundamentally opposed to the working class. Just like neoclassical economics. You might claim, just like neoclassical economics, that you are engaged in a ‘positive’ discipline but that is just a smokescreen for your pro-business, anti-worker ideology. At least I have the honesty to maintain that I am completely in favor of workers.


Of course slipping bias in is what happens in all versions of economics. No question there – it’s a part of all sciences and will continue to be so.

[Invariance]

The fact is is that man, unlike trajectories, or atoms react differently to different stimuli, even the same person might react differently merely a second after. Man, and atom need to be classified differently if we are ever to truly understand either. Eh, even in quantum physics the Heisenberg uncertainty principle argues that its impossible to simultaneously both measure position & velocity of particles with any degree of accuracy or certainty. In thermodynamics a standard mercury-in-glass thermometer absorbs some thermal energy to record a temperature, and therefore changes the temperature of the body which it is measuring. If you know anything about physics, you’d know that they delve into pure mathematics which puts the mathematical modeling in economics to shame. So no, poor reasoning on your part, and utterly divorced from how science operates.

Incidentally, the idea that physics, biology or whatever hard science all employ static methods of analysis is wrong – probably stemming from the fact that your view of science comes from the marginalist school – economists attempting to apply classical mechanics and calculus to economics. The economy, on the other hand, is a dynamic system – where the tools of high-school calculus only go so far. Biology, physics, etc employ non-linear dynamic systems.

Nevertheless, in the field of medicine, one human can react totally different to another using the same medicine. Does that preclude biomedicine from being a science?!

And the complexities they face are probably just as numerous as those facing an economist – the endless list of factors which may cause or contribute to different reactions. I am no biomedical scientist, but I assume they use, amongst other things, a system which holds some factors constant and changes others to determine the results – that’s why mice labs are employed – mice with similar genetics are tested with different doses/qualities of chemicals which give a myriad of results and some sort of a limited idea on how humans might react to the medicine. Economics, of course, is much harder to replicate in the lab – it requires advanced mathematical modeling but it doesn’t help when Austrians give up on mathematics altogether. Historical studies can also be used – but again, it doesn’t help when Austrians deny the use of empiricism or history.

In the face of the complex problems facing economics, Austrian fundamentalists have simply closed their eyes and shut their ears, all the while yelling that they can make worthwhile contributions to economics by using their power of deductive reasoning and natural law.

There is a word for that – religion.

[trivas7]

In the face of the complex problems facing economics, Austrian fundamentalists have simply closed their eyes and shut their ears, all the while yelling that they can make worthwhile contributions to economics by using their power of deductive reasoning and natural law.

There's nothing here to the point in response to laminustacitus's quote. What makes you think historical analysis alá Marx is scientific? How do you justify its claims epistemologically?

[Invariance]

What makes you think historical analysis alá Marx is scientific? Historical materialism, causal explanation, abstraction, economic analysis, predictive in parts, analytic in others. I consider Marx as scientific in the same sense that I consider Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Samuelson, Keynes, Menger, whoever, as scientific. Anymore inane questions?

Edit, I guess there was:


How do you justify its claims epistemologically? What claims? I don't support any 'epistemology' as a prerequisite of something to be considered a science - I only pointed out that its dishonest and historically inaccurate of Austrians to claim that 'hard sciences' act only in an empirical fashion, and that they therefore differentiate economics on that basis. That is totally wrong.


There's nothing here to the point in response to laminustacitus's quote. Actually there was. Read it again for it to penetrate that thick head of yours.

[trivas7]

Historical materialism, causal explanation, abstraction, economic analysis, predictive in parts, analytic in others. I consider Marx as scientific in the same sense that I consider Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Samuelson, Keynes, Menger, whoever, as scientific. Anymore inane questions?



Scientific theories are usually not just an idea some guy wrote about in a book; they are usually actually entire fields of study and there are multiple steps an initial concept must undergo as per the scientific method in order for it to gain the status of theory and warrant the field of study that develops.

A scientific theory is a set of observed related events based upon accumulated evidence: laws, hypothesis, proven facts of other scientific theories and then agreed upon and reviewed by multiple scientists - until there is a scientific consensus for such to become a theory.

If you think Marxism makes the grade per this wonderfully succinct statement of what constitutes a scientific theory, you're wrong. Don't you make a distinction bt the hard and soft sciences?