Why do the rules say "no fascists" when you use their tactics?

[Grozny]

Economics in the second German Reich, as represented by the government-appointed university professors, degenerated into an unsystematic, poorly assorted collection of various scraps of knowledge borrowed from history, geography, technology, jurisprudence, and party politics, larded with deprecatory remarks about the errors in the "abstractions" of the Classical School.



After 1866, the men who came into the academic career had only contempt for "bloodless abstractions." They published historical studies, preferably such as dealt with labor conditions of the recent past. Many of them were firmly convinced that the foremost task of economists was to aid the "people" in the war of liberation they were waging against the "exploiters."


This was the position Gustav Schmoller embraced with regard to economics. Again and again he blamed the economists for having prematurely made inferences from quantitatively insufficient material. What, in his opinion, was needed in order to substitute a realistic science of economics for the hasty generalizations of the British "armchair" economists was more statistics, more history, and more collection of "material." Out of the results of such research the economists of the future, he maintained, would one day develop new insights by "induction."


Does Gustav Schmoller remind you of anyone alive today?



The original statements by the rebellious French economics students define autistic economics in terms of its one-sided and exclusionary interest in "imaginary worlds," "uncontrolled use of mathematics" and the absence of pluralism of approaches in economics. The hard-core autistic walling off from the societal environment can be seen most strongly in the specific, highly abstract, axiomatic school that the students protested against.


More recently, the Post-Autistic Economics Network has grown bold enough to demand that federally-funded economics associations censure anybody who displays “axiom-happy behavior,” as this is considered symptomatic of autism.



It is accepted fact that the economics profession through its teachings, pronouncements and policy recommendations facilitated the Global Financial Collapse (GFC). To date, however, the world’s major economics associations have declined to censure the major facilitators of the GFC or even to publicly identify them. This silence, this indifference to causing human suffering, constitutes grave moral failure. It also gives license to economists to continue to indulge in axiom-happy behaviour.


Since these associations are funded entirely by the Federal Government, this is tantamount to government censorship. Indeed, their use of the word censure, rather than censor, implies a formal reprimand issued to an individual by an authoritative body. This is highly reminiscent of the Soviet practice of denouncing dissidents as mentally ill. If preventing autistic people from getting published becomes government policy, it is only a short step to forcibly institutionalizing anybody who has studied geometry or otherwise shown an aptitude for the axiomatic method.


If this comparison seems unimportant, recall what the German Historical School led to.



The political significance of the work of the Historical School consisted in the fact that it rendered Germany safe for the ideas, the acceptance of which made popular with the German people all those disastrous policies that resulted in the great catastrophes. The aggressive imperialism that twice ended in war and defeat, the limitless inflation of the early 1920s, the Zwangswirtschaft and all the horrors of the Nazi regime were achievements of politicians who acted as they had been taught by the champions of the Historical School.


At this early stage of the Post-Autistic Movement, the most obvious point of comparison with the Nazis is their campaign to ban academic papers.


Just because it is not the government, in the sense of actual federal agents, who are burning books does not mean that it is any less wrong or any different than Nazi book burning. That was not done by the government either. It was the German Student Association.



The German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft) proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit," to climax in a literary purge or "cleansing" ("Säuberung") by fire.

Placards publicized the theses, which attacked "Jewish intellectualism," asserted the need to "purify" German language and literature.

On May 10, 1933 the students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of "un-German" books, presaging an era of state censorship and control of culture. On the night of May 10, in most university towns, nationalist students marched in torchlight parades "against the un-German spirit."

[Dean]

More recently, the Post-Autistic Economics Network has grown bold enough to demand that federally-funded economics associations censure anybody who displays “axiom-happy behavior,” as this is considered symptomatic of autism.





Since these associations are funded entirely by the Federal Government, this is tantamount to government censorship. Indeed, their use of the word censure, rather than censor, implies a formal reprimand issued to an individual by an authoritative body. This is highly reminiscent of the Soviet practice of denouncing dissidents as mentally ill. If preventing autistic people from getting published becomes government policy, it is only a short step to forcibly institutionalizing anybody who has studied geometry or otherwise shown an aptitude for the axiomatic method.

Fundamentally, these are issues dictated by the economic makeup of society - that is, the finance of industry, and more importantly the financiers of government and corporate bureaucracy, as well as any other bodies which have managed to centralize control over political, economic and military bodies.

And the problem with these systems is not some silly posturing (which is what censure is, nothing more). The posturing of Obama, for instance, in opposition to the banking firms, in notable primarily in its impotent character. That is to say that his relationship with Robert Wolf and UBS, in addition to the vast corporate welfare paid for by working class and weaker corporate taxpayers - those who fail at correctly defending their assets by efficient use of global tax codes - these are more important issues to focus on when determining the character of government and corporate policy.

If you are concerned with fascist leanings, then surely the explicitly anti-democratic tendencies promoted by tea partiers should cause concern, since those xenophobic movements mirror the last years of the Wiemar Republic.

The government is run and maintained by advanced finance capital, so we are really experiencing the representation of capitalist interests in its doctrine. Private security would do the same, since it acts just like our government does - it responds to the will of the highest bidder. Familiar, huh!

The apparent notion you are putting forward, that somehow "axiomatic" hysteria and its "censure" is a big deal, is preposterous. Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, Bush & Obama all heavily endorse neo-liberalism, so we aren't seeing any real socialist leanings in our governance - quite the opposite. This is evidenced not only in the relationship of finance capital to the government, but also the policies of government, which has been more geared towards corporate welfare, deregulation and lower taxes on large corporations during every presidency since Reagan, at least.

I can't stress that fact enough, since its critical: we are seeing the representation of the interests of advanced capital, provided by market forces which would behave no differently in a "stateless" context (as if that meant anything that the market didn't anyways - the state is a market force just the same!)and we are seeing a state increasingly promote neo-liberal, free market, de-regulatory, lower corporate taxation policies.

The fact is that right wing economics are empowered, and increasingly represent the governing milieu of all major economies. The evidence for this fact is incredibly vast. And right wing economics serve an increasingly marginal population.

Simply put, your ideology is the control of the economy, and the benefit of the economy, for fewer people. How you can have righteous indignation from such an edifice is frankly bizarre.

[IcarusAngel]

Yes. really the whole claim that the rise of Hitler was because of some conspiracy of economists to keep "axiomatic economics" out is bizarre.

And the post-autistic economics school has some great quotes on its website at least:


". . . economics has become increasingly an arcane branch of mathematics rather than dealing with real economic problems"
Milton Friedman

“[Economics as taught] in America's graduate schools... bears testimony to a triumph of ideology over science.”
Joseph Stiglitz

"Existing economics is a theoretical [meaning mathematical] system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world"
Ronald Coase

“We live in an uncertain and ever-changing world that is continually evolving in new and novel ways. Standard theories are of little help in this context. Attempting to understand economic, political and social change requires a fundamental recasting of the way we think”
Douglass North

“Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas […] Year after year economic theorists continue to produce scores of mathematical models and to explore in great detail their formal properties; and the econometricians fit algebraic functions of all possible shapes to essentially the same sets of data”
Wassily Leontief

“Today if you ask a mainstream economist a question about almost any aspect of economic life, the response will be: suppose we model that situation and see what happens…modern mainstream economics consists of little else but examples of this process”
Robert Solow


Post-Autistic Economics is about changing this state of affairs.

"Economics is supposed to be social science, i.e. an intellectual discipline resting upon empirically-observed facts, in which mathematics and conceptual frameworks are tools for understanding. But in contemporary mainstream economics, the tools are often in the driver's seat, declaring evident facts impossible and reducing the subtleties of the real world to whatever clockwork economists best know how to build. Post-Autistic economics is the attempt to escape the tyranny of these tools and build new ones that will work properly."
Ian Fletcher
“Modern economics is sick. Economics has increasingly become an intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences for understanding the economic world. Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything and practical relevance is nothing.”
Mark Blaug

[IcarusAngel]

Economics is probably the weakest social science out there. It is full of bad predictions, bad methodology, and bad ideology. It tells us virtually nothing about human nature or even the nature of trade. It borders on being a psuedo-science and in "axiomatic economics" is a cult based on old, traditional approaches to philosophy that are no longer relevant.

It is true that the bad ideology of economists causes great misery for people around the world, including the recent financial crisis. It should probably be subsumed properly under the domain of political science, merely as a mathematical tool for analyzing certain situations.

[Skooma Addict]

You are just mad because sound economics goes completely against everything you believe in.

[Thirsty Crow]

You are just mad because sound economics goes completely against everything you believe in.
Now this is an example of a well constructed argument.

[Dean]

You are just mad because sound economics goes completely against everything you believe in.

"Sound economics," like obtusely proclaiming that some of the most lucrative financial bodies - namely security-for-profit and fractional reserve banking - would not survive under a less regulated market because you think its fraudulent (notably contrary to a vast majority of economists, including the neo liberals and Austrians)?

Sorry, your ideology is based on nothing but ideological assertions which serve to prop up the propertarian milieu. There's no underlying "epiphany" to your body of theory - merely obtuse rejection of the real state of affairs of the market, and an incredibly laughable attempt to blame all market failings on the state (who, we should note, act at the behest of the market like any capitalist body).

[Dermezel]

Because the Right-Wing Cliffites cannot honestly argue for their bizarre theory of "State Capitalism". There isn't even a coherent definition of what State Capitalism is:



State capitalism has various different meanings, but is usually described as a society wherein the productive forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_forces) are controlled and directed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statism) by the state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State) in a capitalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist) manner, even if such a state calls itself socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Capitalism#cite_note-0) Corporatized (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatization) state agencies and states that own controlling shares of publicly-listed firms, and thus acting as a capitalist itself, are two examples of state capitalism.
Within Marxist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist) literature, state capitalism is usually defined in this sense: as a social system combining capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism) — the wage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage) system of producing and appropriating surplus value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value) in a commodity economy — with ownership or control by a state apparatus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state). By that definition, a state capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts like a single giant corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Capitalism#cite_note-1)
There are various theories and critiques of state capitalism, some of which have been around since the October Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution) or even before. The common themes among them are to identify that the workers do not meaningfully control the means of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production) and that commodity relations and production for profit still occur within state capitalism. Other socialists use the term state capitalism to refer to an economic system that is nominally capitalist, where business and private owners reap the profits from an economy largely subsidized, developed and where decisive research and development is undertaken by the state sector at public cost.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Capitalism#cite_note-2)
This term is also used by some advocates of laissez-faire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire) capitalism to mean a private capitalist economy under state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state) control, often meaning a privately-owned economy that is under economic planning. Some even use it to refer to capitalist economies where the state provides substantial public services and regulation over business activity. In the 1930s, Italian Fascist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Fascism) leader Benito Mussolini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini) described Italian Fascism's economic system of corporatism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism) as "state socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism) turned on its head."[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Capitalism#cite_note-3)
This term was often used to describe the controlled economies of the great powers in the First World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I).[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Capitalism#cite_note-4) In more modern sense, state capitalism is a term that is used (sometimes interchangeably with state monopoly capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_monopoly_capitalism)) to describe a system where the state is intervening in the markets to protect and advance interests of Big Business (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Business). This practice is in sharp contrast with the ideals of both socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism) and laissez-faire capitalism.


Did you read that? There was no less then FIVE different definitions of "State Capitalism" presented in that opening explanation. It refers to Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, and the Welfare States, and Laissez-faire. It refers to privatization, AND state ownership. It is a term that means everything in practice and subsequently, nothing in theory.



And it stands in direct contrast to Trostky's argument that the USSR and People's Republic represent deformed and degenerated Workers' States:



In Trotskyist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism) political theory, deformed workers' states are states where the bourgeoisie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie) has been overthrown through social revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_revolution), the industrial means of production have been largely nationalized bringing benefits to the working class, but where the working class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class) has never held political power (as it did in Russia shortly after the Russian Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1917)). These workers' states are deformed because their political and economic structures have been imposed from the top (or from outside), and because revolutionary working class organizations are crushed. Like a degenerated workers' state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerated_workers%27_state), a deformed workers' state cannot be said to be a state that is transitioning to socialism.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers%27_state


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerated_workers%27_state


And his call for Permanent Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/index.htm).

[Skooma Addict]

"Sound economics," like obtusely proclaiming that some of the most lucrative financial bodies - namely security-for-profit and fractional reserve banking - would not survive under a less regulated market because you think its fraudulent (notably contrary to a vast majority of economists, including the neo liberals and Austrians)?

I don't think FRB would disappear in a free market and I don't think it is fraudulent.



Sorry, your ideology is based on nothing but ideological assertions which serve to prop up the propertarian milieu. There's no underlying "epiphany" to your body of theory - merely obtuse rejection of the real state of affairs of the market, and an incredibly laughable attempt to blame all market failings on the state (who, we should note, act at the behest of the market like any capitalist body).

Not really.

[Dean]

I don't think FRB would disappear in a free market and I don't think it is fraudulent.
Perhaps I've conflated you with someone else - sorry.




Not really.
Yes, it is. Neoliberal economics are the ruling class ideology... it represents the interests of capitalists and propertied individuals, just like any good market-responsive system.

[Skooma Addict]

Yes, it is. Neoliberal economics are the ruling class ideology... it represents the interests of capitalists and propertied individuals, just like any good market-responsive system.

And you accuse me of rehashing nothing but ideological assertions.

1. Your class dichotomy is flawed.

2. Neoclassical economics does not represent the interests of anybody. It is just a school of economic thought.

3. The interests of capitalists and propertied individuals differ greatly.

[Sam_b]

Because the Right-Wing Cliffites cannot honestly argue for their bizarre theory of "State Capitalism". There isn't even a coherent definition of what State Capitalism is

First of all, lolling at 'right wing Cliffites'.

Secondly, wikipedia articles do not equate argument. Have you read Cliff on 'The Nature of Stalinist Russia'? You know, the one where he defines his argument.

[Dean]

And you accuse me of rehashing nothing but ideological assertions.

1. Your class dichotomy is flawed.
No, yours is.


2. Neoclassical economics does not represent the interests of anybody. It is just a school of economic thought.
Their conclusions - limit government, reduce taxes, reduce regulation, primarily serves the interests of empowered capitalists - this is why Koch Industries funds the tea party movement & the Cato Institute (http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/).

It's just as false as saying Marxist economics "doesn't represent the interests of anyone." We both know that academic tendencies come about via funding and support from portions of society.


3. The interests of capitalists and propertied individuals differ greatly.
Not when they overlap so much, and more propertied individuals are consistently of the capitalist class.

[gorillafuck]

What the hell is this thread about?

Fascists aren't allowed because we'd prefer not to have debates with them on whether white people are superior.

[Skooma Addict]

Their conclusions - limit government, reduce taxes, reduce regulation, primarily serves the interests of empowered capitalists - this is why Koch Industries funds the tea party movement & the Cato Institute (http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/).

It's just as false as saying Marxist economics "doesn't represent the interests of anyone." We both know that academic tendencies come about via funding and support from portions of society.

When you say that "limiting government, reduce taxes, and reduce regulation" benefits the interests of "the capitalists," you are not presenting enough information. Regulations help some capitalists and harm others. Higher taxes can help and harm some capitalists depending on how the tax is structured. Bigger government also helps some capitalists at the expense of others.

But even if what you said was correct, you would still be saying nothing regarding neoclassical econs truth value, and that is what we are concerned with.


Not when they overlap so much, and more propertied individuals are consistently of the capitalist class.


The interests of propertied individual to propertied individual and capitalist to capitalist differ greatly. Thus, it makes no sense to say that X,Y and Z represents the interests of "the capitalists."

[Left-Reasoning]

Yes. really the whole claim that the rise of Hitler was because of some conspiracy of economists to keep "axiomatic economics" out is bizarre.

Fact is stranger than fiction.

[Dean]

When you say that "limiting government, reduce taxes, and reduce regulation" benefits the interests of "the capitalists," you are not presenting enough information. Regulations help some capitalists and harm others. Higher taxes can help and harm some capitalists depending on how the tax is structured. Bigger government also helps some capitalists at the expense of others.
Actually, what I mean by lower government is the privatization of economic paradigms, which allows them to more efficiently respond to the capitalists' interests - which of course is the dominant characteristic of capitalist industry.

A private security force would quickly accumulate economic power from other capitalist entities (against the interests of a great deal of capitalists as well as the working class) so I can see why there would be opposition among the ruling class for this kind of privatization.

Capitalists seek privatization where they can quickly acquire the market shares of the privatized industry, or where its privatization would more closely support the expansion of their capital. And these are the primary forms of privatization occurring today - notably in the health insurance industry, but also social security, corrections and education. Everywhere privatization has occurred, it has had the effect to centralize economic power, since an explicitly for-profit system has much more control over its workings than a state-managed system, or otherwise systems which devolve from representative power.


But even if what you said was correct, you would still be saying nothing regarding neoclassical econs truth value, and that is what we are concerned with.
Actually, Misean economics is primarily used in the context of philosophical arguments rather than economic analysis. Honestly, I've never seen a reputable economic publication (i.e. WSJ, Economist or Reuters) utilize these ideas except in its editorial positions.

As per your OP, "sound economics" can refer to either truthful or desirable economic theory.

Since your ideology serves to expand the free-market paradigm, it seeks to empower capitalist entities. It is the definition of the free-market - the empowerment of market forces, which are of course dominated by capitalist systems.

If the state and its "monopoly on force" were removed, a slew of new security firms, each acting toward the interests of the highest bidder will emerge. This would be corporate martial law, and while extant systems will certainly be reorganized toward the interests of those with more stock in such firms, it will not be any "less" totalitarian - it will certainly be more so!


The interests of propertied individual to propertied individual and capitalist to capitalist differ greatly. Thus, it makes no sense to say that X,Y and Z represents the interests of "the capitalists."
Not really - capitalists, by their nature, desire an expansion of their capital - otherwise the term is inapplicable. I don't see how the dominant class of property owners today could be seen as not wanting to expand their capital, since that is the primary vehicle by which they have achieved their status - those who cease to advance their capitalist interests cease to maintain an empowered position.

[Skooma Addict]

Actually, what I mean by lower government is the privatization of economic paradigms, which allows them to more efficiently respond to the capitalists' interests - which of course is the dominant characteristic of capitalist industry.

As long as you realize that acts of privatization and deregulation benefit some capitalists and harm others.


Capitalists seek privatization where they can quickly acquire the market shares of the privatized industry, or where its privatization would more closely support the expansion of their capital. And these are the primary forms of privatization occurring today - notably in the health insurance industry, but also social security, corrections and education. Everywhere privatization has occurred, it has had the effect to centralize economic power, since an explicitly for-profit system has much more control over its workings than a state-managed system, or otherwise systems which devolve from representative power.

I don't know why you would use health insurance, social security, and education as examples of privatization. The portion of your post which is in bold is false.


Actually, Misean economics is primarily used in the context of philosophical arguments rather than economic analysis. Honestly, I've never seen a reputable economic publication (i.e. WSJ, Economist or Reuters) utilize these ideas except in its editorial positions.

As per your OP, "sound economics" can refer to either truthful or desirable economic theory.

Since your ideology serves to expand the free-market paradigm, it seeks to empower capitalist entities. It is the definition of the free-market - the empowerment of market forces, which are of course dominated by capitalist systems.

If the state and its "monopoly on force" were removed, a slew of new security firms, each acting toward the interests of the highest bidder will emerge. This would be corporate martial law, and while extant systems will certainly be reorganized toward the interests of those with more stock in such firms, it will not be any "less" totalitarian - it will certainly be more so!

I thought we were talking about neoclassical econ? Also, idk if by Misean economics you mean AE or just the economics of Mises himself. There are mainstream academic journals which publish papers from Austrians. Also, parts of AE have been applied by most economists. The regression theorem of money is pretty popular nowadays for example.

By sound economics I mean correct economics. Then, after that is achieved, which policies are desirable becomes a lot clearer.

I don't think there would be corporate martial law unless there were some violent civil war or something of that nature. Then again, maybe that wouldn't even be enough.


Not really - capitalists, by their nature, desire an expansion of their capital - otherwise the term is inapplicable. I don't see how the dominant class of property owners today could be seen as not wanting to expand their capital, since that is the primary vehicle by which they have achieved their status - those who cease to advance their capitalist interests cease to maintain an empowered position.

Right, capitalists seek profits, and thankfully so. But what is good for one capitalist is bad for another. So to say that "capitalists" favor deregulating the X Market is misleading. Some do, and some don't.

[Grozny]

Economics is probably the weakest social science out there. It is full of bad predictions, bad methodology, and bad ideology. It tells us virtually nothing about human nature or even the nature of trade. It borders on being a psuedo-science and in "axiomatic economics" is a cult based on old, traditional approaches to philosophy that are no longer relevant.

Are you SURE that Axiomatic Economics is based on old, traditional approaches to philosophy that are no longer relevant?



Instead of attempting to untie it, I cut the Gordian knot of GE Theory by throwing all of Walras’ and Pareto’s assumptions overboard and starting from scratch with my own set of axioms. When faced with a dilemma "in the context of GE Theory," I invented Axiomatic Economics. As Hannibal Barca said, "we will either find a way, or make one."

You don't know your enemy.


Know yourself and know your enemy and you will be victorious in a hundred battles.

But I know you.

[#FF0000]

But I know you.

See, i don't think that's true because in my experience, libertarians tend to know their idols up and down but never ever ever ever read a single page of Marx, while Marxists tend to be p. knowledgeable of economics in general.

[Nolan]

never ever ever ever read a single page of Marx

Which is why they say stupid things like "can't these people see that the government is a flawed institution?" when talking about Revleft.

[#FF0000]

Which is why they say stupid things like "can't these people see that the government is a flawed institution?" when talking about Revleft.

Yeah. I am usually alright with different opinions but when people clearly don't know a goddamn thing of what they're talking about, and get all of their information from biased sources.

[Salyut]

Who the hell are these post-autistic people? This is the first I've heard of them and they seem a little nuttier then your typical Misean. :/

[Dean]

As long as you realize that acts of privatization and deregulation benefit some capitalists and harm others.
This is empty rhetoric. Empowered capitalists - of course - benefit. It benefits capital.

Your silly little capitalist ideals - "well it doesn't beenfit the downtrodden capitalists" - are bullshit - no capitalist system benefits the unempowered capitalist.

[QUOTE=Skooma Addict;1732073]I don't know why you would use health insurance, social security, and education as examples of privatization.
Education is tending toward privatization, The Health insurance bill was a massive privatization of public funds, and social security has been a target of privatization for years - I'm not sure if its been done at all yet, but we are tending toward it. Eventually it will happen.


The portion of your post which is in bold is false.

It benefits the interests of capitalists, and not the working class: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/hiding-behind-the-invisible-hand/




I thought we were talking about neoclassical econ? Also, idk if by Misean economics you mean AE or just the economics of Mises himself. There are mainstream academic journals which publish papers from Austrians. Also, parts of AE have been applied by most economists. The regression theorem of money is pretty popular nowadays for example.
Right. They're reprinted because they benefit the ruling class.


By sound economics I mean correct economics. Then, after that is achieved, which policies are desirable becomes a lot clearer.
:laugh: That's great.


I don't think there would be corporate martial law unless there were some violent civil war or something of that nature. Then again, maybe that wouldn't even be enough.
Clearly, you haven't been following the Iraq & Afghanistan wars.


Right, capitalists seek profits, and thankfully so. But what is good for one capitalist is bad for another. So to say that "capitalists" favor deregulating the X Market is misleading. Some do, and some don't.
The empowered capitalist class typically seeks deregulation. And the capitalist systems that will be harmed are by and large waning power structures. Banking firms and private security would benefit immensely, on the first hand by achieving total power over the finance and security industries.

It's not hard to see, but if you deal with narrow bullshit - like erroneously believing that mainstream economics are "correct" :laugh: or arguing by simply saying "x of your post is false" - you will end up as the deluded, willfully ignorant fuckhead that you have. You directly ignore real power structures in the furtherance of your own delusional mindset - and this is why you link to theory and not investigative journalism. You're stuck in an idealist milieu.

[Grozny]

Parts of AE have been applied by most economists. The regression theorem of money is pretty popular nowadays for example.

Mises' regression theorem is popular because I made it popular. The Mises cult does everything in their power to suppress any mention of the regression theorem because they associate it with me. If you don't believe me, try starting a thread about the regression theorem at the Mises Institute forum and see if it gets deleted.


Ludwig von Mises was not a mathematician – he actually despised us – but, in his own vague way, he made the same claim [as my third axiom] about money. Money is valued today because it had value yesterday and it had value yesterday because it had value the day before. In this way, Mises’ Regression Theorem traces the value of money back to when it had value primarily for its use. But that is as far as he got; not being a mathematician, he had no way of knowing that the distribution of people’s valuations of their first unit of the monetary unit is log-normally distributed.

I went beyond Mises by recognizing that his Regression Theorem is not a theorem but an axiom and that it applies to all phenomena, not just money. When I wrote a letter of introduction to Murray Rothbard in 1993, I fully expected the Austrians to recognize that I was extending Mises’ rudimentary work and applaud me for doing so. How naïve! The Austrians have enough hatred in them to feed seven hells. To this day I am appalled by the ferocity of their attacks on me. Oh well – ferocity is meaningless if it is not accompanied by effectiveness.This quotation is from my "Non-Mathematical Explanation of the Axioms," which you can find a link to directly below the axioms listed at the top of my home page.

[Grozny]

Who the hell are these post-autistic people?

Go to my website, scroll down to Critiques of Fascism and click on "The Movement to Burn Toxic Textbooks."

There will be links and verbatim quotations from the Post Autistic Economics Network.

[Bud Struggle]

Go to my website, scroll down to Critiques of Fascism and click on "The Movement to Burn Toxic Textbooks."

There will be links and verbatim quotations from the Post Autistic Economics Network.


Go to the Charile Chaplin website, scroll down to Critiques of Fascism and click the "Great Dictator."

There will be links and quotes.

[Skooma Addict]

There were so many errors in your post Dean that the opportunity cost for me to address all of them individually is just too great. So I will just make one statement which applies to everything you said: You're wrong.

[Dean]

There were so many errors in your post Dean that the opportunity cost for me to address all of them individually is just too great. So I will just make one statement which applies to everything you said: You're wrong.

Once again, The Boy Who Takes Oblivion Intravenously proves to us his ability to transcend the standard debate and offer a penetrating analysis of the issues at hand.

Oops, I must have been thinking of a number of other posters here. In fact, your posts almost never amount to anything more than flippant contradictions. Whenever your argument is more than "you're wrong," its typically "cite x idealist point (such as how states are the only bad guys, man)" or "cite x microcosm as a universal characterization of market forces (i.e. claiming that bankers supporting the federal reserve means that the free market won't benefit rich capitalists :laugh:)."

Simply put, you have nothing more to offer than pedestrian assertions about how the market is just perfect when those nasty statists don't step in to defend the winners in the market, or how you can't blame anything on the market, and everything is the fault of regulation.

I guess banking regimes want more regulation, huh? That's why audits of large corporations have gone up - oh wait once again the facts indicate that deregulation is happening at the hands of the bankers: http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/newfindings/v15/

I fully expect another reference to some study or theory promoted by capitalist enterprises like CATO. While every day, investigative journalism is telling the real story:
http://mixa.blog.is/blog/mixa/entry/1050973/
http://exiledonline.com/did-goldman-sachs-manipulate-journalists-and-stock-price-on-same-day-as-senate-testimony/

Oh wait, sorry for providing evidence. I guess this is grounds for another dismissive remark. :( I'll do better next time, Heroin Addict! I'll learn the only language you accept: dogmatic Austrian idealism.

[Agnapostate]

There are times when idiots simply belong where they belong, Victor. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showpost.php?p=2399706&postcount=5


I am not Agnapostate.

In fact, I was instrumental in getting him banned from the Political Forum on the grounds that he is a pedophile. He was advocating relaxing the laws which prohibit adults from having sex with children. In general, I respect the free speech of everybody, even strident communists like Agnapostate, but I draw the line on pedophiles.

But at least Agnapostate is honest enough to freely admit that he is a communist, though for reasons that are clear to nobody else, he attaches the adjective "libertarian" to the noun "communist." A libertarian communist? That's like a straight queer, isn't it?

:rolleyes:

[NecroCommie]

If anyone has the audacity to claim that capitalist economics are a science, then I'd suggest reading about Pinochet's Chile, the "Chicago boys", and the influence of Milton Friedman on Latin american economics. While doing this, pay extra attention to the capabilities of these economies to tend to the basic human needs such as food, medicine and housing.

[Grozny]

If anyone has the audacity to claim that capitalist economics are a science, then I'd suggest reading about Pinochet's Chile, the "Chicago boys", and the influence of Milton Friedman on Latin american economics. While doing this, pay extra attention to the capabilities of these economies to tend to the basic human needs such as food, medicine and housing.

Capitalist economics became a science in 1999.

In the context of GE Theory, the conditions required for capitalism to be efficient are implausible in practice, though conceivable in theory. The former implies that the free market is always inefficient. The latter implies that a central planner can mimic how capitalism would work if it were efficient while the "profits and interest generated by the operations of publicly-owned business enterprises would be distributed to the general public as a social dividend."

In the context of GE Theory, there is no way for libertarians to get around this dilemma without being impaled on one or the other horn. Either we live with a system that can never be efficient in practice or we have an efficient system but renounce private property rights and put distribution of the "social dividend" in the hands of a central planner.

Far from being a "tool of capitalist hegemony," acceptance of GE Theory is the death of capitalism. Our only compensation is that, like a condemned prisoner who gets to choose the firing squad or the hangman, we get to choose inefficiency or tyranny. How did free-market economists respond to this dreadful choice? Milton Friedman invoked his famous "assumptions don’t matter" dictum (1953) to avoid having to admit that he could not untie the Gordian knot of GE Theory – but that is cowardice. Surely there must be a better way!

Instead of attempting to untie it, I cut the Gordian knot of GE Theory by throwing all of Walras’ and Pareto’s assumptions overboard and starting from scratch with my own set of axioms. When faced with a dilemma "in the context of GE Theory," I invented Axiomatic Economics. As Hannibal Barca said, "we will either find a way, or make one." The same goes for libertarians; we will never accept socialism.

My assumptions are three:

1) One's value scale is totally (linearly) ordered:

i) Transitive; p ≤ q and q ≤ r imply p ≤ r

ii) Reflexive; p ≤ p

iii) Anti-Symmetric; p ≤ q and q ≤ p imply p = q

iv) Total; p ≤ q or q ≤ p

2) Marginal (diminishing) utility, u(s), is such that:

i) It is independent of first-unit demand.

ii) It is negative monotonic; that is, u'(s) < 0.

iii) The integral of u(s) from zero to infinity is finite.

3) First-unit demand conforms to proportionate effect:

i) Value changes each day by a proportion (called 1+εj, with j denoting the day), of the previous day's value.

ii) In the long run, the εj's may be considered random as they are not directly related to each other nor are they uniquely a function of value.

iii) The εj's are taken from an unspecified distribution with a finite mean and a non-zero, finite variance.

[NecroCommie]

...I know important looking text...
First of all, do you know what is the impact of Chicago boys in the latin american economies? If so, do you know what their policies were? Then do you know what impact it made on the basic necessities of life?

Secondly, the meaning of language is to inform, not to impress. Would you please explain us this so called GE theory, how is capitalism plausible in theory (yeah, right), and what do the "p" and "q" stand for in the equations.

And even if these all were answered in a satisfactory way, it wouldn't still justify private ownership over means of production.

Oh, and who is "I" in the end? If it's you, then I might just bow to you. After all we have the hero who so gallantly saved us from the dilemma of false assumptions, and delivered us to the glory that is stubborn refusal to admit failure. I will proceed to bask in the divine radiance of servitude at my local factory, while the factory owner blackmails the shit out of local community.

[Scary Monster]

My assumptions are three:

1) One's value scale is totally (linearly) ordered:

i) Transitive; p ≤ q and q ≤ r imply p ≤ r

ii) Reflexive; p ≤ p

iii) Anti-Symmetric; p ≤ q and q ≤ p imply p = q

iv) Total; p ≤ q or q ≤ p

2) Marginal (diminishing) utility, u(s), is such that:

i) It is independent of first-unit demand.

ii) It is negative monotonic; that is, u'(s) < 0.

iii) The integral of u(s) from zero to infinity is finite.

3) First-unit demand conforms to proportionate effect:

i) Value changes each day by a proportion (called 1+εj, with j denoting the day), of the previous day's value.

ii) In the long run, the εj's may be considered random as they are not directly related to each other nor are they uniquely a function of value.

iii) The εj's are taken from an unspecified distribution with a finite mean and a non-zero, finite variance.

Wtf?

What the hell are all these variables supposed to represent and how is it practical in determining a populoation's needs??

[Grozny]

Wtf?

Too many big words?

[Scary Monster]

Too many big words?

Nope. Too many random equations with variables that represent nothing, just to make it sound like youre saying something. If words were a problem for me, I'd be a conservative ;)

[NecroCommie]

Since Grozny has not blessed us with the information to understand his equations, we must draw some deductions from his actions. There are two possibilities:
1) He does not understand the equations himself and simply presented them to seem superior in some artificial way.
2) He understands the equations but is not willing to teach them, signifying that his presence in this forum is for preaching purposes only.

[Grozny]

Since Grozny has not blessed us with the information to understand his equations, we must draw some deductions from his actions. There are two possibilities:
1) He does not understand the equations himself and simply presented them to seem superior in some artificial way.
2) He understands the equations but is not willing to teach them, signifying that his presence in this forum is for preaching purposes only.

I don't have 25 posts yet, so I can't bless you with a link.

But you could go to my website and read the Simplified Exposition of Axiomatic Economics. It's the first link in the "primary documents" section.

When you get done reading it, let me know how blessed you feel.