First, the interviewer made a statement that is an outright falsehood: that Keynes seriously advocated stimulus by building pyramids or digging holes in the ground. Kenneth Rogoff makes the same error, falsely accusing Keynes of really advocating employing people by digging holes in the ground. Krugman’s mistake was his failure to correct this rubbish right away (although I get the sense that this interview may be edited, so maybe it got cut out). Keynes, of course, did not seriously advocate this: he said that if you could find nothing else of use to do, then even these acts would still raise income and production, even though it would be of no use in itself. This comment was in fact Keynes’s way of underlining how aggregate/effective demand is what drives output and employment, and he was right. Moreover, any failed private investment is essentially in the same category as the government having people dig holes in the ground, but no one doubts that this private activity raises output and employment while it is in progress. The point is precisely that we want the government to raise output and employment by doing economically and socially productive and useful things.
In the course of the debate, Krugman made what is obviously a facetious remark, a piece of levity, invoking aliens: that, if massive government spending programs were instituted on the scale of World War II to fight off some serious threat to America, say, like an alien invasion, then this would drive the economy to full employment. Note that Krugman was at pains to point out that this kind of military spending involves negative social product spending. Note that he did not seriously advocate any such military spending. Krugman’s point, illustrated in a rather silly way, is the same as that of Keynes: merely that effective demand drives output and employment in modern capitalist economies, and that spending and employment programs on the scale of World War Two would eliminate the sluggish growth and high unemployment the US is currently experiencing.
However, as everyone else who is not an Austrian cultist knows, Krugman favours public works and social spending, not military spending.
This is very clear in the full video of the debate, which you can see below.
It is fairly amusing to see assorted libertarians and Austrians reduced to blathering idiocy as they distort Krugman’s remarks, and falsely say that he really and seriously urged government military spending to fend off an alien invasion. I guess cultist, loser ideologues also tend to have no sense of humour either.*
The haplessness of Austrians was doubly emphasised when the same hacks seized upon the following false message that someone just made up by pretending to be Krugman:
“People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.”Some links on this whole business:
Daniel Kuehn, “The Fake Krugman on Keynesian Economics” August 24, 2011.* P.S. the title of this post and the latter comment are also facetious, before I get inane comments below.
Daniel Kuehn, “One More Quick Thought,” August 24, 2011.
The helicopter was invented in June 1936. Keynes published in February.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame - if the helicopter had been invented earlier, I'm sure Keynes would have coined "helicopter drop" rather than Friedman.
In its absence, of course, he was stuck with
"ditch digging", but the point is exactly the same as the "helicopter drop", which nobody seems to have trouble understanding.
The only real difference is that with ditch-digging at least you get a ditch.
Some of the more grotesque parodies and caricatures promoted of Krugman can be found here: http://mugnaini.tumblr.com/post/8654198637/paulkrugmanmeme
ReplyDeleteWhat you say about Austrians having no sense of humour is true in more ways than one - their attempts at humour are terrible. Let alone the fact that they are based on strawmen.
These people have lost all rights to complain about Krugman's partisan invective. They are much much worse.
This comment was in fact Keynes’s way of underlining how aggregate/effective demand is what drives output and employment, and he was right.
ReplyDeleteUtterly false.
What drives output and employment is savings and investment, not aggregate demand.
If 100 people on an deserted island each have $1 million, and they all say "we're able and willing to buy mansions and cars!" then not a single person will be hired and not a single mansion or car will be produced.
Before things can get produced, people have to abstain from consuming, and save and invest in capital, and if there is a division of labor, then invest in wage labor. Once capital is accumulated, once people abstain from consuming and pay other people for their labor, THEN production of goods and services can grow. Without capital, no amount of demand can drive growth.
Moreover, any failed private investment is essentially in the same category as the government having people dig holes in the ground, but no one doubts that this private activity raises output and employment while it is in progress.
Wrong. A failed investment is not in the same category at all as the government digging holes in the ground. A failed investment costs only those who made the investment. With government spending money to pay people to dig holes, that costs the entire population of taxpayers money, even if they are employed and even if they are producing at a profit.
Furthermore, failed investments are not purposefully repeated. They are avoided. Government spending is NOT avoided. It is purposefully made. To equate failed investment with government spending and then say because we admit failed investment we should admit government spending, is like saying because people sometimes drive over a cliff inadvertently, and we accept it, that we should get the government to purposefully drive people over cliffs.
The point is precisely that we want the government to raise output and employment by doing economically and socially productive and useful things.
But the Austrian point that you yahoos don't want to understand, is that the government cannot KNOW what is "economically and socially productive and useful things." Only the process of economic calculation can enable us to know what is gainful and what is not gainful. You silly Keynesians are like Marxists in that you believe that governments can know what to invest in that will generate gains for people, when only the individuals themselves and their individual spending/investing patterns through exchange can reveal what is good for them.
Why aren't any of you Keynesians considering this? Why do you avoid it all the time?
In the course of the debate, Krugman made what is obviously a facetious remark, a piece of levity, invoking aliens: that, if massive government spending programs were instituted on the scale of World War II to fight off some serious threat to America, say, like an alien invasion, then this would drive the economy to full employment.
So would kidnapping everyone and sending them to the Gulags.
"Employment" in itself is not beneficial. It is the RIGHT kind of employment that is beneficial. The RIGHT kind of employment is had through voluntary exchange, not through government overlords pretending to have information they don't actually have.
Note that Krugman was at pains to point out that this kind of military spending involves negative social product spending. Note that he did not seriously advocate any such military spending. Krugman’s point, illustrated in a rather silly way, is the same as that of Keynes: merely that effective demand drives output and employment in modern capitalist economies, and that spending and employment programs on the scale of World War Two would eliminate the sluggish growth and high unemployment the US is currently experiencing.
ReplyDeleteDemand does not drive output and employment. Savings and investment drives output and employment.
"Demand for commodities is not demand for labor." - John Stuart Mill.
However, as everyone else who is not an Austrian cultist knows, Krugman favours public works and social spending, not military spending.
No Austrians are saying Krugman favors war. And to favor "public works and social spending" is not a badge of honor the way you make it out to be. It's nothing to be proud of. There is nothing in the Keynesian framework that enables one to conclude that "public works" spending is "better" than war spending. That's why you continually have to resort to such phrases as "if you ask him personally how the government will steal and spend and control, he would choose roads, not missiles. Isn't he so moral and righteous and pure?"
It is nothing moral nor economically productive in stealing people's money to build a road they never had a chance to choose whether they will pay for it on those terms, over and above stealing people's money to build a missile they never had a chance to choose whether they will pay for it on those terms. They are both economically destructive and ethically immoral.
It is fairly amusing to see assorted libertarians and Austrians reduced to blathering idiocy as they distort Krugman’s remarks, and falsely say that he really and seriously urged government military spending to fend off an alien invasion. I guess cultist, loser ideologues also tend to have no sense of humour either.
That is a straw man. No Austrian has claimed that Krugman WANTS alien invasions, or earthquake spending, or hurricanes, or wars. Austrians are correctly calling out Krugman's continued appeals to the broken window fallacy.
The haplessness of Austrians was doubly emphasised when the same hacks seized upon the following false message that someone just made up by pretending to be Krugman:
“People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.”
The hilarious thing about that imposter's quote is that a hole slew of Keynesians and Krugman's supporters came out to DEFEND that quote, which of course shows strong evidence that it is something Krugman would say. That quote is also not an advocacy. It is the same form of argument that Krugman made about the Tsunami in Japan, WW2, 9/11, and a host of other disasters.
Prateek Sanjay:
ReplyDeleteSome of the more grotesque parodies and caricatures promoted of Krugman can be found here:
Hahaha, thanks for the link. Now THAT'S funny. They're funny because they're true.
These people have lost all rights to complain about Krugman's partisan invective. They are much much worse.
You WISH.
This has to do with fallacious economic doctrines being pushed by Krugman, which acolytes like LK swallow up because they themselves lack any comprehension of economic calculation and catallactics.
"The RIGHT kind of employment is had through voluntary exchange, not through government overlords pretending to have information they don't actually have. "
ReplyDeleteA value judgement that can only be derived from the flawed theory of natural rights - a false theory:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/rothbards-argument-for-natural-rights.html
"Before things can get produced, people have to abstain from consuming,
ReplyDeleteA flawed real theory of the interest rate that ignores the significant idle resources, unused capacity and unemployment that normally exist in capitalist economies.
"But the Austrian point that you yahoos don't want to understand, is that the government cannot KNOW what is "economically and socially productive and useful things." "
ReplyDeleteOh really? So a universal health care system, say, of the type that exits in France, that provides health care free at the point of delovery doesn't constitute a socially and economically thing? And by what criteria do you say it is not socially and economically useful?
(1) Subjective utility?
No way that will work: in well sampled survey after survey in industrialised nations, a majority of people strongly support universal helath care systems. A majority derive utility/satisfaction from universal systemsand reject privatised systems.
(2) economic efficiency?
Universal health systems ARE less expensive and use less resources than privatised systems, as they do not require an extra layer of private-sector bureaucracy in insurance industries and HMOs deciding who gets coverage or insurance and who gets their policy claims honoured.
A value judgement that can only be derived from the flawed theory of natural rights - a false theory:
ReplyDeleteFalse. That the right kind of employment can only be had through voluntary exchange, as opposed to government who does not have the requisite information, is not an argument that can only be derived from Rothbard's natural rights theory. You just WANT it to because you believe you have refuted Rothbard's theory. Thus, if you can connect ANY argument to Rothbard's natural rights theory, it must therefore be wrong! What an intellectual catastrophe.
No LK, my argument that only through exchange can the right employment be had follows from economic science. Hayek's "information problems of socialism", Mises' catallactics, methodological individualism, and individualistic ethics derived from praxeological ratiocination, are what underlied my argument.
At any rate, you didn't even refute Rothbard's natural rights theory, so you can't even use that as a basis to respond to my argument above.
"Before things can get produced, people have to abstain from consuming,
ReplyDeleteA flawed real theory...
Hahahahahahahaha
No you idiot, that follows from the law of non-contradiction. If you are producing something, you are not consuming that something. If you want to produce a shop made of wood, then you can't consume that wood in a fire. If you want to produce apple trees using seed, then you can't consume the apple seeds. If you want to produce anything, you must abstain from consumption, so that resources are made available not for consumption, but for production.
In order to build a factory made of steel, you cannot consume that steel in building consumer goods like cars.
In a monetary economy, where goods and services are traded indirectly through a medium of exchange, then in order to produce something, one must make a productive expenditure in money. If one makes a productive expenditure in money, then one cannot also make a consumption expenditure with that same money. You can only spend a given dollar in one way.
Thus, if you want to build a factory and employ workers, then you need to make productive expenditures for steel, concrete, electrical wiring, lighting, furniture, and all other capital goods that a factory requires. This of course means that you cannot also make consumption expenditures with that same money you used to build the factory!
There is no "flaw" in this, not unless you consider logical necessities to be "flaws" in reality, LOL.
of the interest rate that ignores the significant idle resources, unused capacity and unemployment that normally exist in capitalist economies.
Hahaha, have you ever observed no idle resources and no unused capacity and no unemployment? No? Then how can you claim to use these concepts as a basis for your theory on government spending? You just claimed before that if you can't observe it, you can't use it in one's theory. Now here you are using non-observed counter-factuals in your theory! LOL. But forget about that blatant contradiction, because it's irrelevant anyway.
No you idiot, even if there are idle resources, that doesn't in any way detract from what I said. The presence of idle resources need complimentary resources and labor that are not idle, in order for them to "fit" in the structure of production. In order to invest in reintegrating an idle resource into the structure of production, the owners of the complimentary resources and employers of complimentary labor must abstain from consuming out of their revenues, and save and invest in the complimentary resources and labor.
Furthermore, even the idle resources themselves, if the uses are going to be determined by government spending, instead of the uses being determined through economic calculation and exchange, then there still needs to be an abstaining from consumption, i.e. expenditure for the purposes of making subsequent sales, if there is going to be production. All government inflation does is allow for spending not preceded by production and earnings, in other words, consumption. The money the government spends allows for the receivers of that money to buy real wealth out of the economy, without putting any real wealth in the economy prior through earning money instead.
Inflation cannot replace real investment.
Just because the government can print its own money, that doesn't mean that production no longer requires abstaining from consuming. You can't eradicate economic laws by counterfeiting money.
See William Hutt's "The Theory of Idle Resources."
"But the Austrian point that you yahoos don't want to understand, is that the government cannot KNOW what is "economically and socially productive and useful things."
ReplyDeleteOh really? So a universal health care system, say, of the type that exits in France, that provides health care free at the point of delovery doesn't constitute a socially and economically thing? And by what criteria do you say it is not socially and economically useful?
You clearly have no clue what the Austrian theory argues. Your questions convey a deep and profound ignorance of it.
You fail to comprehend that benefits and costs, gains and losses, exist only for the individual human. They are individual-based concepts. There is no such thing as "social costs" and "social gains". There is only individual costs and individual gains. Profit (the difference between gains and costs) is a praxeological concept, not an empirical group based concept.
YOU personally believe, through a flawed ethics value judgment, that universal healthcare is "gainful." But whether or not a government program is "gainful" is up to each and every individual who is affected by it, who has to pay for it, who has to live in it. But the only way you can know if another individual gains from something, is if you observe them choosing it over something else. But government doesn't allow such revealed preferences from the individual. The individual is coerced. The individual MUST pay whether he wants to or not.
You are fallaciously claiming that because you see people "gaining" healthcare services, that the whole program is "gainful." You can't do that. You can't do that any more than I can't claim that after stealing $100 billion from the population, my construction of a lemonade stand that many people do actually come up and buy from me, constitutes a "gain" to "people." I can't claim that because I would be ignoring the subjective costs that each individual has, which are different from all other individuals.
Costs are subjective. By that we mean that for any given end, such as "healthcare," each individual has their own ranked order of alternative ends that they are willing to forgo in order to achieve the end in question. For government healthcare, some individuals would rather have the money they are taxed to pay for it, rather than the government healthcare service, so that they can spend that money on more urgent ends, like buying a house, or private healthcare, or a car, or their children's schooling, whatever. Only the individual can tell you whether or not a particular end is "worth the price." But with government healthcare, these revealed preferences cannot be observed.
You are, through your flawed and irrational ethics, making a value judgment that "universal healthcare is gainful". But gainful to who? You aren't even considering individual choice and asking if someone actually values it rather than something else. You are like an ignorant dictator wannabe, just declaring from your make believe throne that "you shall value government healthcare as gainful." You don't know if government healthcare is valuable to me. You didn't even ask me or passively observe what I do with my own money so that you can know what I do in fact value for myself. You just rhetorically asked "You don't think universal healthcare is not useful?"
What is "useful" to the individual is up to the individual themselves, not you, and certainly not the government.
(1) Subjective utility?
ReplyDeleteNo way that will work: in well sampled survey after survey in industrialised nations, a majority of people strongly support universal helath care systems. A majority derive utility/satisfaction from universal systemsand reject privatised systems.
Subjective utility is INDIVIDUALISTIC. What "the majority" wants is irrelevant to subjective utility. What the mob wants is not some magical insight into the workings of each and every individual that reveals what each and every individual "really" wants.
The majority have no right to impose their will on the minority you collectivist idiot. By your asinine worldview, if "the majority" favored slavery, then your crap understanding of "subjective utility" would allegedly show that slavery is valuable to everyone, including those enslaved!
Democracy is an evil and corrupt ideology. How can you accept mob rule tyrannizing the minority? If the majority wanted to kill the minority, then you as a democracy worshiper would be compelled to accept it as just, beneficial, valuable, utility deriving, or whatever other word you want to use to represent "I accept it."
(2) economic efficiency?
Universal health systems ARE less expensive and use less resources than privatised systems, as they do not require an extra layer of private-sector bureaucracy in insurance industries and HMOs deciding who gets coverage or insurance and who gets their policy claims honoured.
False. Socializing any program into a monopoly tends to raise the costs and lower the quality over time.
We don't have "private" healthcare in this country. It's not an open and competitive market. The supply is kept artificially low by government regulations and licensing, and that has raised the price of healthcare for everyone.
The only way that prices can fall, given no change in the quantity of money, is by increasing the supply. Supply is increased in a sphere of economic calculation and exchange, NOT government spending.
Consider the electronics industry, which is relatively unregulated compared to most other goods and services. Prices fall because entrepreneurs are relatively free to innovate and their choices are judged by the market. It gradually leads to bad projects to be reversed, and good projects to be expanded. If the government were to nationalize electronics, then they would have no recourse to the process of market exchange and profit/loss. All they could do is spend money and set budgets. Entrepreneurship would have to take place elsewhere.
In the US, the government has MASSIVELY increased the costs of healthcare since they interfered with it. The healthcare market in the US is not even close to being free and competitive. Just look at how much of the federal budget consists of medicare and medicaid unfunded liabilities. The government has bankrupted healthcare.
"But government doesn't allow such revealed preferences from the individual. The individual is coerced. The individual MUST pay whether he wants to or not."
ReplyDeleteLOL... The voting populations of, say, Western Europe who repeatedly endorse universal health care and freely tell in majority numbers that they WANT such a system are actually just "coerced" by the evil state into accepting it. The populations already had privatised health care for a over a century, but people voted on mass to replace these privatised systems with universal systems in the 1940s/1950s, and have never elected a party with a mandate to abolish then since.
Welcome to the world of Austrian ideology, devoid of any relation to reality.
"Socializing any program into a monopoly tends to raise the costs and lower the quality over time."
ReplyDeletePatently false.
In the US, the government has MASSIVELY increased the costs of healthcare since they interfered with it.
Nope. It is privatised parts of the US health care system that are the main reason for rising costs.
"You don't know if government healthcare is valuable to me. You didn't even ask me or passively observe what I do with my own money so that you can know what I do in fact value for myself."
ReplyDeleteAs usual, you display ridiculous ignorance. Virtually all Western nations with universal systems ALSO have private insurance or private pay for service providers too.
People are free to choose one or other.
The majority prefer a universal system, and, as I have said, in survey after well sampled survey the majority prefer tax-pay funded, universal systems.
"What "the majority" wants is irrelevant to subjective utility. What the mob wants is not some magical insight into the workings of each and every individual that reveals what each and every individual "really" wants. "
ReplyDeleteRed herring. In saying the majority favour universal system it is ALREADY presupposed the a minority don't and prefer some other system.
That is irrelevant to the question whether a very large number of poeple - a majority - derive utility/satisfaction from a universal system.
How can you accept mob rule tyrannizing the minority? If the majority wanted to kill the minority, then you as a democracy worshiper would be compelled to accept ..
ReplyDeleteYou dont. Such thing are already ruled out by ethical theory that must limit public/state action.
The normal position on what is moral and right public policy is this: A policy implemented by a government must
(1) be moral under some workable and defensible ethical theory, and
(2) command majority support.
Broad democratic support is not a "sufficient ground" for action. Action must be (1) moral as well.
Policies implemented by extremists, for example, will be unacceptable if immoral and an intelligent person would oppose them, even if they managed to command majority democratic support.
There is no contradiction in this position.
Quite convincing moral justifications for government and government intervention (such as progressive taxes, basic welfare and universal health care) can easily be given through act or rule utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, the non-absolutist ethics of W. D. Ross, Rawl’s human rights objectivism, or other liberal contractarian moral theories.
Right major freedom. Here's the problem with your argument.
ReplyDeleteLK:
"Universal health systems ARE less expensive and use less resources than privatised systems.."
A claim about actual observed healthcare systems.
MF says:
"False. Socializing any program into a monopoly tends to raise the costs and lower the quality over time..."
An objection based on theory. In my line of work, we have a name for someone who dismisses well observed events because they don't conform to theory: 'Jackass'.
Further MF says:
"In the US, the government has MASSIVELY increased the costs of healthcare since they interfered with it..."
Well, maybe so, but anybody with a 5 minute memory will note that we have both the most market oriented, and by far the most expensive health care system in the world, without much better outcomes. This is hard to square with the idea that government interference ruins absolutely everything.
Both LK and Prateek have apparently been struggling with the strange aesthetic sensation that accompanies Austrianism. As they both note, Austrianism is not funny. I have lately determined that Austrians, along with zombies and corpses, inhabit the uncanny valley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
By all accounts, austrians seem to be human at first, but then you read them condemning a tax required to save the world from destruction by immanent asteroid impact, or siding with the south in the US civil war based on their greater commitment to liberty. And you get this strange chill down your spine, and the urge to back away slowly.
"then you read them condemning a tax required to save the world from destruction by immanent asteroid impact, or siding with the south in the US civil war based on their greater commitment to liberty. And you get this strange chill down your spine, and the urge to back away slowly."
ReplyDeleteNice comment. That is the price they pay for natural rights ethics that places absolute rights to property above human life or well being!
The logical outcome of this flawed ethical theory is the sight of them arguing that the the earth being destroyed would be preferable to government taxation to prevent such an disaster. A high damn price topay for a moral theory that is, anyway, utter rubbish to boot:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/rothbards-argument-for-natural-rights.html
"But government doesn't allow such revealed preferences from the individual. The individual is coerced. The individual MUST pay whether he wants to or not."
ReplyDeleteLOL... The voting populations of, say, Western Europe who repeatedly endorse universal health care and freely tell in majority numbers that they WANT such a system are actually just "coerced" by the evil state into accepting it. The populations already had privatised health care for a over a century, but people voted on mass to replace these privatised systems with universal systems in the 1940s/1950s, and have never elected a party with a mandate to abolish then since.
Majority opinion is not "subjective utility" you idiot. That utility is subjective means that utility is determined by the individual, for the individual, according to the individual's preferences.
People did NOT "vote en masse" for Obamacare in the US. The support for Obamacare is not only not 100%, which would already totally negate it as an ethically or economically optimal system, but the support for it was nowhere close to being the kind of huge support you are pretending universal healthcare has.
The principle that the majority has no right to impose its will on the minority stands. You have not refuted this at all. You're just repeating the nonsense that majority support equals "subjective utility is being had."
If the majority were in favor of slavery, which used to be the case in the US, then your asinine and flawed ethics would compel you to support that too.
Welcome to the world of Keynesian ideology, devoid of any relation to reality.
"Socializing any program into a monopoly tends to raise the costs and lower the quality over time."
ReplyDeletePatently false.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
No, it's patently true you idiot. Any economist worth his salt will tell you that monopolies tend to lead to higher prices and lower quality over time. Only the most demagogic moron would claim otherwise. The case for monopolies leading to higher costs and lower quality has been conclusively settled, by Austrians, Neoclassicals, Keynesians, virtually every economics school on the planet. It's one of the few things that all economics schools agree on. The thing that separates Austrians from other schools is that we are logically consistent, so we apply it to the state as well, and not just private monopolies.
Idiots like you believe that economic laws don't apply to people with guns.
In the US, the government has MASSIVELY increased the costs of healthcare since they interfered with it.
Nope.
Hahahahahahahahaha
You ignoramus. You have absolutely no clue about economics or the history of healthcare.
It is privatised parts of the US health care system that are the main reason for rising costs.
Costs tend to fall in the free market you dolt, they don't rise. The rise in supply in a free market almost always outstrips the rise in demand, because capital accumulates and lowers the costs of production, which lowers prices.
For example, electronics prices fall because electronics is a relatively free market and efficiency gains and capital accumulation enables costs per unit to fall, which then enables sellers to sell at lower prices.
Prices would fall for most everything if the Federal Reserve System didn't keep inflating all the time. Interpreting history, if we look to 1870s, a time when moron Keynesians consider it to be a "long depression" on account of prices falling, fail to take into account that production rose. Even Friedman and Schwartz in their monetary history book admit that productivity grew by leaps and bounds, and they admit they cannot explain it.
Austrians can explain it.
Medical costs in the country are rising because of the government, not the private market. The AMA, government licensing, FDA, insurance regulation preventing cross state competition, wage and price controls during world war 2 which made employers remunerate employees with healthcare, which has since spawned into a market where individual insurance is minimized and where healthcare is almost all through employers, all of this and more have made the costs of healthcare rise.
Government spending in healthcare can only ever raise prices, because spending is a demand, not a supply.
Inflation has also contributed to the growing costs of healthcare, which is a government created problem.
Before the government interfered in healthcare, medical care was affordable to most everyone, through charities and private healthcare providers. After the government got involved, healthcare costs are now so high that most people can only afford insurance through employers. You statists wrecked the healthcare market.
"You don't know if government healthcare is valuable to me. You didn't even ask me or passively observe what I do with my own money so that you can know what I do in fact value for myself."
ReplyDeleteAs usual, you display ridiculous ignorance.
I am not ignorant of my own preferences. You're out of your mind.
Virtually all Western nations with universal systems ALSO have private insurance or private pay for service providers too.
They are all regulated and controlled by the state. I am not free to patronize anyone I want. I am compelled to go to a pre-approved list of licensed doctors only, which holds down the supply and hence raises the prices of, "private" healthcare.
And you didn't even respond to my argument. You called for universal healthcare, which of course means you want to impose it on me and everyone else. You don't want individuals to have the choice on who to go to for healthcare, or for what price. You're a fascist.
People are free to choose one or other.
The majority prefer a universal system, and, as I have said, in survey after well sampled survey the majority prefer tax-pay funded, universal systems.
Universal healthcare doesn't give people the option of opting in or out of it, you idiot. The "universal" part of it means that everyone is going to be mandated into it. You will pay taxes for it, whether you like it or not.
You called for universal healthcare, which of course means you want to impose it on me and everyone else."
ReplyDeleteStraw man nonsense. As pointed out above, universal systems co-exist with private ones. You are free to visit private doctors only, or go overseas to wholly private clinics in other countries, say, Third World ones free from Western government regulation.
"You will pay taxes for it, whether you like it or not. "
ReplyDeleteBack to moral arguments again: your rights natural is untenable.
Reasonable progressive taxation to fund universal health care is morally jutifiable - even from people who don't use, just as taxes for the nation's public infrastucture are fully justifiable, even you if dont use all of them.
"What "the majority" wants is irrelevant to subjective utility. What the mob wants is not some magical insight into the workings of each and every individual that reveals what each and every individual "really" wants."
ReplyDeleteRed herring.
It's not a red herring you idiot. You used the majority to justify your claim that "subjective utility" cannot be used to refute the argument for universal healthcare. Obviously responding to that nonsensical claim by correcting you and saying that subjective utility is individualistic based, not "majority" based, cannot possibly be a red herring.
You're dumber than a bag of hammers.
In saying the majority favour universal system it is ALREADY presupposed the a minority don't and prefer some other system.
Hahahaha, then you admit that universal healthcare VIOLATES subjective utility standards, precisely because the subjective utility of the individuals in the minority are against it!
Thus, your above idiotic claim that subjective utility is consistent with universal healthcare, is in fact not consistent at all.
That is irrelevant to the question whether a very large number of poeple - a majority - derive utility/satisfaction from a universal system.
This presumes your flawed ethical worldview.
If the majority derive utility from enslaving the minority, then your flawed ethics would say "subjective utility arguments make slavery justified, because lots of people are deriving utility from it."
Why is the minority in your worldview getting fucked? It's because your worldview is collectivist and belongs in communist or fascist societies, NOT free societies.
"People did NOT "vote en masse" for Obamacare in the US."
ReplyDeleteRed herring. I don't claim they did. A single payer system or universal system is the preference of the US public:
Another Poll Shows Majority Support for Single-Payer
http://www.healthcare-now.org/another-poll-shows-majority-support-for-single-payer/
Also, a sample of real world evidence as opposed to libertarian fantasy world:
US
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/50940/earth_to_politicians%3A_americans_support_taxing_the_rich/
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/02/snapshot022210.html
The principle that the majority has no right to impose its will on the minority stands. You have not refuted this at all. You're just repeating the nonsense that majority support equals "subjective utility is being had."
ReplyDeleteIf the majority were in favor of slavery, which used to be the case in the US, then your asinine and flawed ethics would compel you to support that too.
I've already dealt with tis rubbish above. Such things are slavery are already ruled out by ethical theory that must limit public/state action.
The normal position on what is moral and right public policy is this: A policy implemented by a government must
(1) be moral under some workable and defensible ethical theory, and
(2) command majority support.
Broad democratic support is not a "sufficient ground" for action. Action must be (1) moral as well.
Policies implemented by extremists, for example, will be unacceptable if immoral and an intelligent person would oppose them, even if they managed to command majority democratic support.
There is no contradiction in this position.
Quite convincing moral justifications for government and government intervention (such as progressive taxes, basic welfare and universal health care) can easily be given through act or rule utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, the non-absolutist ethics of W. D. Ross, Rawl’s human rights objectivism, or other liberal contractarian moral theories.
then you admit that universal healthcare VIOLATES subjective utility standards, precisely because the subjective utility of the individuals in the minority are against it!
ReplyDeleteThere are a group of people who vehemently oppose the production and sale of alchohol, yet that is not a serious argument for banning alchohol.
The issue is whether a large number of people derive utility/satifaction from alchohol: they do. You cannot deny that it satifies utility preferences.
Universal health care systems also provide a large number of people with utility/satifaction. The existence of people - usually screaming, irrational Austrians like you - who don'tderive utility from suc a system is no more significant than the people who derive no utility from alchohol (often religious fanatics opposed to alchohol on irrational religious grounds, people with a type of quasi-theological nonsense rather like that which you spout).
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem is that Austrian theory (if it is correct) is either ceteris paribus or based on ideal type analysis. But ceteris is not always paribus and types are not always ideal.
ReplyDeleteHow can you accept mob rule tyrannizing the minority? If the majority wanted to kill the minority, then you as a democracy worshiper would be compelled to accept."
ReplyDeleteYou dont. Such thing are already ruled out by ethical theory that must limit public/state action.
There is no limit in the ethic of democracy as such, which is the ethic you just espoused as justifying universal healthcare.
You're committing the no true scotsman fallacy. You say majority rule is the ethic that justifies universal healthcare, but then after being presented with a case of majority rule generating an outcome you don't personally accept, then you change your ethic and you say that majority rule must be limited. That's a blatant double standard. Majority rule must be accepted when imposed on me, but majority rule must be limited when it is imposed on you. You moronic hypocrite.
The normal position on what is moral and right public policy is this: A policy implemented by a government must
Arbitrary. Arbitrary. Arbitrary.
(1) be moral under some workable and defensible ethical theory, and
"Workable and defensible" according to what standard? This is the escape clause which enables you to reject, at any time, this clause:
(2) command majority support.
When a rule commands majority support, then you want to reserve the final judgment via (1) to accept or reject it. If you accept a majority's opinion on X, then everyone else is imposed with X via (2). If you don't accept the majority's opinion on X, then you invoke (1), and deny (2).
Broad democratic support is not a "sufficient ground" for action. Action must be (1) moral as well.
ReplyDeleteBut you just argued above that universal healthcare is justified because it has majority support. That was your justification. Now you're trying to escape from that evil ethic by reserving for yourself the judgment of what constitutes "moral as well."
I hold universal healthcare to be immoral because it is based on violating individual rights to free choice. Your response was to say the majority wants it, so it's moral. But then you say that the majority's opinion must also be moral, which means you're talking in circles.
Policies implemented by extremists, for example, will be unacceptable if immoral and an intelligent person would oppose them, even if they managed to command majority democratic support.
"Moral and intelligent person" is the escape clause you demand for yourself while everyone else must bend to the majority's will. Again you keep using circular logic. What basis would a "moral and intelligent person" use to arrive at the conclusion that a given policy X is immoral, given the fact that majority's will is ultimately irrelevant as you now hold?
There is no contradiction in this position.
Hahahahahahaha, there is a HUGE contradiction in that position. There's circular logic as well.
The contradiction is that you hold that majority rule is both the source for determining whether X is moral, and you also hold that majority rule is NOT the source for determining whether X is immoral. It is the source when you want to advance YOUR agenda, but it is to be ignored when OTHERS use it to advance THEIR agenda that you don't personally accept. You want to impose your will on others, but you refuse to have others impose their will on you.
Your (1) and (2) above can be mutually exclusive, but you have not shown what (1) is even based on, which means you're position is not even properly explained. Merely claiming that a policy has to be "moral" doesn't answer the question on what basis is it determined to be "moral." You've already rejected majority rule as the ultimate foundation.
Quite convincing moral justifications for government and government intervention (such as progressive taxes, basic welfare and universal health care) can easily be given through act or rule utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, the non-absolutist ethics of W. D. Ross, Rawl’s human rights objectivism, or other liberal contractarian moral theories.
These are all different moral frameworks. Rawls for example is incompatible with Kant, and Ross is incompatible with Utilitarianism.
No wonder your ethics is flawed. You're adhering to mutually exclusive ethical frameworks that are irreconcilable, which means you are compelled to arrive at essentially arbitrary judgments of moral and immoral behavior.
None of the ethical frameworks you listed are "convincing" when judged against a rational, logical foundation.
ArgosyJones:
ReplyDeleteRight major freedom. Here's the problem with your argument.
LK: "Universal health systems ARE less expensive and use less resources than privatised systems.."
A claim about actual observed healthcare systems.
A claim that fails to take into account the government intervention in the "private" sector.
MF says: "False. Socializing any program into a monopoly tends to raise the costs and lower the quality over time..."
An objection based on theory.
It is not just a hypothesis. It has logical foundation, which when used to interpret history, is completely consistent with it.
In my line of work, we have a name for someone who dismisses well observed events because they don't conform to theory: 'Jackass'.
In my line of work, we have a name for someone who dismisses the reasons why empirical events transpire, and blames the free market, even though there is no free market in the area being critiqued: sophist.
Further MF says: "In the US, the government has MASSIVELY increased the costs of healthcare since they interfered with it..."
Well, maybe so, but anybody with a 5 minute memory will note that we have both the most market oriented, and by far the most expensive health care system in the world, without much better outcomes. This is hard to square with the idea that government interference ruins absolutely everything.
It is not "market oriented." It is government hampered.
Both LK and Prateek have apparently been struggling with the strange aesthetic sensation that accompanies Austrianism.
They have been struggling with logic.
As they both note, Austrianism is not funny. I have lately determined that Austrians, along with zombies and corpses, inhabit the uncanny valley.
Hahahahahahaha, oh my god that was soooo funny!
By all accounts, austrians seem to be human at first, but then you read them condemning a tax required to save the world from destruction by immanent asteroid impact, or siding with the south in the US civil war based on their greater commitment to liberty.
If the only justification you statists have for taxation is an end of the world scenario where it's either taxation or extinction, then congrats on admitting to having no justification for taxation.
By that crap logic, it is justified for a dictatorship to rule the world and enslave everyone in concentration camps, and if anyone complains, respond with "What, are you saying that you'd be against slavery if it meant having to choose between slavery and the end of the human race? You're EVIL!!11!1!1!"
And you get this strange chill down your spine, and the urge to back away slowly.
If only we libertarians could do that with you statists. But no, we can't back away slowly. We're forced into your violent worldview.
Nice comment. That is the price they pay for natural rights ethics that places absolute rights to property above human life or well being!
ReplyDeleteAbsolute rights IS placing human life above all else, namely, the LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
If your only justification for taxation is end of the world apocalyptic scenarios, then you just admitted to having no justification for taxation right now.
The logical outcome of this flawed ethical theory is the sight of them arguing that the the earth being destroyed would be preferable to government taxation to prevent such an disaster.
Crap logic. By that crap logic, my enslaving you is justified on the grounds that if the choice is between slavery and extinction, you should choose slavery, and because you chose slavery, I can enslave you now.
A high damn price topay for a moral theory that is, anyway, utter rubbish to boot:
You have not shown it is rubbish.
"People did NOT "vote en masse" for Obamacare in the US."
ReplyDeleteRed herring. I don't claim they did.
I didn't claim you did say they did. You said:
"The populations already had privatised health care for a over a century, but people voted on mass to replace these privatised systems with universal systems in the 1940s/1950s,"
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/austrians-have-no-sense-of-humour.html?showComment=1314293623909#c242532737528048109
My statement that people did not vote en masse for Obamacare was in response to your statement that universal healthcare is justified on the basis of majority rule. Well, if the majority did not want Obamacare, then by your (original, before you changed it) ethic, Obamacare should be unjustified in your opinion.
A single payer system or universal system is the preference of the US public:
Another Poll Shows Majority Support for Single-Payer
http://www.healthcare-now.org/another-poll-shows-majority-support-for-single-payer/
Now you changed your ethic AGAIN, this time we're back to "majority rule is justified."
Also, a sample of real world evidence as opposed to libertarian fantasy world:
US http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/50940/earth_to_politicians%3A_americans_support_taxing_the_rich/
You mean the majority of people support taking money from other people? Well then that must means slavery is justified is the majority wants slavery.
Oh that's right, majority rule is only valid when it arrives at something YOU subjectively accept. Just more evidence that your ethics are flawed down the core.
"then you admit that universal healthcare VIOLATES subjective utility standards, precisely because the subjective utility of the individuals in the minority are against it!"
ReplyDeleteThere are a group of people who vehemently oppose the production and sale of alchohol, yet that is not a serious argument for banning alchohol.
"Not a serious argument" is just another example of an escape clause you set for yourself.
The issue is whether a large number of people derive utility/satifaction from alchohol: they do. You cannot deny that it satifies utility preferences.
So now we're back to majority rule again. If the majority wants slavery of the minority, or to kill the minority, then because your fallacious ethics cannot come up with a defense against it, you herp derp and appeal to a set of mutually exclusive ethical frameworks, find someone whose ethic is against slavery and murder, then come back and commit the fallacy of authority and say "W.D. Ross says it's wrong, so it's wrong."
That's pathetic.
Universal health care systems also provide a large number of people with utility/satifaction.
The majority choosing to enslave the minority would also provide large numbers of people with utility/satisfaction. The majority choosing to steal from a small minority of wealthy people would also provide large numbers of people with utility/satisfaction.
Your flawed "sometimes democracy, sometimes not" ethics cannot cope with this, so you resort to vague and undefined standards as "a moral and intelligent person would be against it."
The existence of people - usually screaming, irrational Austrians like you - who don'tderive utility from suc a system is no more significant than the people who derive no utility from alchohol (often religious fanatics opposed to alchohol on irrational religious grounds, people with a type of quasi-theological nonsense rather like that which you spout).
So the minority of humans are insignificant to you. That's all we needed to hear. You're an anti-human collectivist dictator wannabe.
You called for universal healthcare, which of course means you want to impose it on me and everyone else."
ReplyDeleteStraw man nonsense.
It is not a straw man. You said:
"Oh really? So a universal health care system, say, of the type that exits in France, that provides health care free at the point of delovery doesn't constitute a socially and economically thing?"
That is a clear advocacy of universal healthcare.
Then, in response to my argument that universal healthcare is not socially or economically gainful, you write:
"(1) Subjective utility? No way that will work: in well sampled survey after survey in industrialised nations, a majority of people strongly support universal helath care systems."
That is another advocacy of universal healthcare.
Then you write:
"(2) economic efficiency? Universal health systems ARE less expensive and use less resources than privatised systems, as they do not require an extra layer of private-sector bureaucracy in insurance industries and HMOs deciding who gets coverage or insurance and who gets their policy claims honoured."
That's another advocacy.
And then:
"Quite convincing moral justifications for government and government intervention (such as progressive taxes, basic welfare and universal health care) can easily be given through act or rule utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, the non-absolutist ethics of W. D. Ross, Rawl’s human rights objectivism, or other liberal contractarian moral theories."
This is another advocacy of universal healthcare.
That's at least 4 different occasions of you advocating for universal healthcare, and so you are lying when you claim that you didn't advocate for it.
As pointed out above, universal systems co-exist with private ones. You are free to visit private doctors only, or go overseas to wholly private clinics in other countries, say, Third World ones free from Western government regulation.
Universal healthcare does not have an opt out clause you idiot. Universal healthcare forces everyone to pay taxes even if they don't want any healthcare from government paid doctors. Stop pretending that universal healthcare is private and optional. It isn't. It is public and mandatory.
"You say majority rule is the ethic that justifies universal healthcare, but then after being presented with a case of majority rule "
ReplyDeleteFalse. The position above on what is moral public policy has ALWAYS been my view, and was expressed here a long time ago:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/06/austerity-and-weimar-republic.html?showComment=1307378274700#c8748505127140116232
"That's at least 4 different occasions of you advocating for universal healthcare, and so you are lying when you claim that you didn't advocate for it."
ReplyDeleteStraw man again: supporting universal helath does NOT mean I wish to FORCE you do use it, and deny you access to private clinics or pay-for-service medical care.
"Universal healthcare does not have an opt out clause you idiot. Universal healthcare forces everyone to pay taxes even if they don't want any healthcare from government paid doctors"
You now confusing the issue by dragging up the ethical point of coercive taxation: since your natural rights arguments that say that tax is theft are wrong, your position collpases.
"my enslaving you is justified on the grounds that if the choice is between slavery and extinction, you should choose slavery, and because you chose slavery, I can enslave you now."
ReplyDeleteTotal drivel.
The fact is that the logical outcome of natural rights ethics is the sight of libertarians like you who would seriously say the earth being destroyed would be preferable to government taxation to prevent such an disaster.
"If the only justification you statists have for taxation is an end of the world scenario where it's either taxation or extinction ...
ReplyDeleteLaughly false:
Utilitarian views:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=omnPB1MuY1wC&pg=PA191&dq=utilitarian+justification+of+taxation&hl=en&ei=9kRXTpSMFdGcmQXTv-igDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=utilitarian%20justification%20of%20taxation&f=false
For those who Rawl's ethics:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=OlqC2l2jMLgC&pg=PA140&dq=utilitarian+justification+of+taxation&hl=en&ei=9kRXTpSMFdGcmQXTv-igDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=utilitarian%20justification%20of%20taxation&f=false
"Your response was to say the majority wants it, so it's moral."
ReplyDeleteFalse. Pathetic straw man.
My original argument was that universal health care provides utility/satisfaction to many - in fact a majority - of pepople, not that majority support constitutes the sole the ethical justification for it - this is your ridiculous distortion.
"You say majority rule is the ethic that justifies universal healthcare, but then after being presented with a case of majority rule"
ReplyDeleteFalse. The position above on what is moral public policy has ALWAYS been my view, and was expressed here a long time ago:
I don't care. I am going by what you told me in our discussions. You used majority rule to justify your advocacy of universal healthcare, and then, after I exposed the flaws in that ethic, you changed your argument and reserved an escape clause for yourself so that you can arbitrarily reject majority rule when it suits you, and defend it when it suits you.
"That's at least 4 different occasions of you advocating for universal healthcare, and so you are lying when you claim that you didn't advocate for it."
ReplyDeleteStraw man again:
It can't be a straw man "again" because I never straw manned you the first time you liar.
supporting universal helath does NOT mean I wish to FORCE you do use it, and deny you access to private clinics or pay-for-service medical care.
You obviously have no idea what universal healthcare implies. Universal healthcare is NOT optional. It is mandatory. In order for it to exist, people MUST be FORCED to use it. If they are not forced, then many won't pay for it because they have more important things to spend their money on, such as better healthcare providers, or something else. If the government does not force everyone to pay into it, then it's not universal. It's a public option system.
Universal healthcare is based on coercion, not consent.
"Universal healthcare does not have an opt out clause you idiot. Universal healthcare forces everyone to pay taxes even if they don't want any healthcare from government paid doctors"
You now confusing the issue by dragging up the ethical point of coercive taxation: since your natural rights arguments that say that tax is theft are wrong, your position collpases.
False. You're evading the issue by this red herring of referring to your alleged "refutation" of rationalist ethics. My argument is that universal healthcare does not have an opt out clause. That is a fact. Universal healthcare means all taxpayers have to pay into it, whether they want to participate in the program or not. That means it is coercive. That means it is theft.
That taxation is theft is not wrong. It is theft. Only a fool would deny it. Theft is the use of violence or the threat thereof to confiscate private property. Taxation satisfies that definition. The government threatens people with violence to confiscate their private property. If you peacefully resist and refuse to pay, then you will be victimized by actual violence from the state. At first, you will get a letter. Then another. Then a final warning. Then you will get phone calls. Then a government lawyer will contact you. Then armed thugs will arrive at your home. Then if you keep peacefully resisting, they will forcefully kidnap you, drive you to a place where they keep humans in cages, and throw you in one of them, where you will most likely be sexually assualted.
Not theft? Fuck yes it is theft. They don't call it taxation for nothing.
You want to talk about ethic collapses? Yours is a complete clusterfuck. It doesn't even get off the ground.
"my enslaving you is justified on the grounds that if the choice is between slavery and extinction, you should choose slavery, and because you chose slavery, I can enslave you now."
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that the logical outcome of natural rights ethics is the sight of libertarians like you who would seriously say the earth being destroyed would be preferable to government taxation to prevent such an disaster.
The fact is that the logical outcome of your anti-natural rights ethics is the sight of statists like you who would seriously say that slavery all the time is justified on the grounds that you believe slavery is preferable to an end of the world disaster.
No human has the right to kill, hurt, maim, enslave, or violate another individual. If that means that some natural event will kill the human, then so be it. There is no rational justification for one person sacrificing another, and there is certainly no rational justification for humans to enslave other humans now so that non-existent humans who may be born in the future can benefit.
You statists' only recourse to justifying the oppression you advocate today is to imagine end of the world thought experiments where you imagine choosing between what you advocate today, and death of the human race. By that crap logic, I can say that anarcho-capitalism is justified on the basis that if there is an end of the world scenario, and the choice is between anarcho-capitalism or death of the human race, then clearly people of sound mind and judgment will choose anarcho-capitalism, and therefore anarcho-capitalism is the only justified social system to be practiced from now until the end of the world.
"If the only justification you statists have for taxation is an end of the world scenario where it's either taxation or extinction ...
ReplyDeleteUtilitarian views:
Utilitarianism is demolished by John Wild, "Pluto's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law", Henry B. Veatch, "For An Ontology of Morals: A Critique of Contemporary Ethical Theory", and Herbert Spencer, "Social Statics".
Rothbard demolishes Utilitarianism:
http://mises.org/daily/4047
For those who Rawl's ethics:
ReplyDeleteRobert Nozick handily demolished Rawl's flawed ethics in his book "Anarchy, The State, and Utopia."
"Your response was to say the majority wants it, so it's moral."
ReplyDeleteMy original argument was that universal health care provides utility/satisfaction to many - in fact a majority - of pepople, not that majority support constitutes the sole the ethical justification for it
False. Your original JUSTIFICATION for universal healthcare was that the majority allegedly want it.
You now changed your justification and deny it is an ethical justification for it after you originally tried to use it as a justification and found that it leads to condoning any evil so long as the majority wills it.
What does it even mean that "majority rule is not the only justification."? It either is or isn't an ethical justification. You can't argue that majority support is only one part, where the other part is reserved by you to arbitrarily claim your personal utility rises or falls with it.
There is only individual utility you idiot.
Your changed argument that now treats "majority preference" as merely an inconsequential empirical fact, means that there are no political or ethical consequences that arise from it. There is no reason to bring it up. There is no more reason to bring it up than the the majority's favorite flavor of ice cream.
So what if the majority want universal healthcare? What does that have to do with the ethical justification of it?
It derives utility? For who? Obviously not everyone, because not everyone wants to take part in it. The only people who would derive utility from it are those in the group who derive utility from it, which you call the majority!
So you're going in circles. You originally said that the majority justifies universal healthcare. Then you changed your argument and said no, it's majority + utility. But those who derive utility ARE the majority, which means majority + utility = majority.
In other words, your flawed ethics is so flawed, that you cannot help but contradict yourself over and over again.
"You will pay taxes for it, whether you like it or not.",
ReplyDeleteBack to moral arguments again: your rights natural is untenable.
Nonsense response. You're evading. You have not shown it is untenable. Merely claiming it is does not constitute an argument that it is.
You did not respond to my argument. My argument is that you will pay taxes for it, whether you want to or not. Prove that claim wrong. Don't just stick your fingers in your ears.
Reasonable progressive taxation to fund universal health care is morally jutifiable - even from people who don't use, just as taxes for the nation's public infrastucture are fully justifiable, even you if dont use all of them.
Wrong. Taxation to fund universal healthcare is not morally justifiable, and taxation to fund public infrastructure is also not morally justifiable.
Your position is so weak, that you have to resort to vague and undefined concepts such as "Reasonable" progressive taxation. Define reasonable progressive taxation. Oh that's right, it's whatever the state wants. What's that? It's not what the state wants? Then it must be what you want. Not what you want? Oh, then it must be what the majority wants. Not what the majority wants? Then it must be utilitarian considerations. Whose utility? Why, the majority's of course!
Moron.
"Merely claiming it is does not constitute an argument that it is."
ReplyDeleteAlready done so:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/rothbards-argument-for-natural-rights.html
If you have counterarguments (as opposed to hot air), then make them.
"Your original JUSTIFICATION for universal healthcare was that the majority allegedly want it."
ReplyDeleteA pure falsehood.
Your original assertion:
"But the Austrian point that you yahoos don't want to understand, is that the government cannot KNOW what is "economically and socially productive and useful things."
My response:
Oh really? So a universal health care system, say, of the type that exits in France, that provides health care free at the point of delovery doesn't constitute a socially and economically thing? And by what criteria do you say it is not socially and economically useful?
(1) Subjective utility?
No way that will work: in well sampled survey after survey in industrialised nations, a majority of people strongly support universal helath care systems. A majority derive utility/satisfaction from universal systemsand reject privatised systems.
(2) economic efficiency?
Universal health systems ARE less expensive and use less resources than privatised systems, as they do not require an extra layer of private-sector bureaucracy in insurance industries and HMOs deciding who gets coverage or insurance and who gets their policy claims honoured.
--------
Read carefully and learn: the argument is about whether the majority derive utility/satisfaction from universal systemsand reject privatised systems, and whether they more economically efficient.
This was NOT an argument about the moral
justification for universal health care or progressive taxes: that is your red herring evasion of the original issue.
Your continuing inability to refute the obvious - that many people and a majority in many countries derive utility/satisfaction from their universal systems - reinforces the fact that you lost this argument a long tiem ago.
ReplyDelete"Merely claiming it is does not constitute an argument that it is."
ReplyDeleteAlready done so:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/rothbards-argument-for-natural-rights.html
(1) is flawed because you're conflating children with adults, and mentally impaired with mentally non-impaired.
Rothbard's ethics rests on individual reason, which of course implies fully developed reason, which excludes children, and the mentally impaired.
Even if a child or a mentally impaired individual may benefit from supervision by non-children and non-mentally impaired individuals, that doesn't at all constitute a refutation of Rothbard's argument: "since men can think, feel, evaluate, and act only as individuals, it becomes vitally necessary for each man’s survival and prosperity that he be free to learn, choose, develop his faculties, and act upon his knowledge and values."
You can't refute this argument by presuming non-children, non-mentally damaged individuals in the very course of your response. You say Rothbard is wrong to just presume adults and non-mentally impaired individuals in his ethic. But you did the exact same thing by saying "children benefit from supervision" and "mentally impaired individuals benefit from supervision."
The key is "supervision" by whom? Well, the very same type of people you say Rothbard should not have just presumed!
(2) is not important at all to the natural rights ethic. It is a red herring. Whether humans have innate knowledge or not has no bearing on whether nor not natural rights is valid. If humans had the innate knowledge to fold paper airplanes, then this would have no consequences to issues of rights.
At any rate, you're wrong to claim that humans have innate knowledge. Hunger and thirst are biological necessities, but all humans have to learn that food satisfies their hunger, and liquids satisfies their thirst. They learn this at very young ages. Without a mother nudging and assisting babies to do what is physically mechanical in their behavior (sucking motion), babies would not be able to eat or drink, because they haven't learned how to eat or drink. They are not born with the knowledge that eating satisfies their hunger or that water satisfies their thirst.
Futhermore, the issue of DNA and acquiring of language. Humans are not born with knowledge of language. They are born with the capacity to learn language. Language is NOT automatic. It must be learned. It is a social convention. No child has ever spoken a language that they were not taught. You don't see children in China speaking English spontaneously. You see them speak the language they are taught.
(3) is the only criticism that has some merit, although your attempt at refuting the is-ought dichotomy is terrible. For the leaf, it is in the nature of the leaf to grow. A better analogy would be if someone picked the leaf from the tree when it is in its nature to grow. If there were such a thing as a tree ethic, then it would in fact be the case that the nature of the leaf is to grow, and any act of picking it from the tree, goes against the nature of the leaf. It is therefore anti-leaf.
ReplyDeleteAs for the is-ought dichotomy, Rothbard admits that his natural rights theory is wimpy. I myself do not subscribe or adhere to Rothbardian natural rights. I subscribe to a blend of my own natural rights which is derived from Hans-Herman Hoppe's ethics. See Rothbard on Hoppe here:
http://mises.org/daily/4629
(4) is terrible. Self-ownership is also rationally founded. See Hoppe here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe25.1.html
You defer to Feser's criticism of Rothbard, whose arguments are demolished by yours truly here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Major_Freedom/comments/i2ep9/response_to_ed_feser_june_1th_2011/
That's it? Those are your only criticisms that you believe constitute an entire refutation of Rothbardian natural rights? Good lord, that was weak. That was the weakest criticism of Rothbard I have ever seen.
You have no basis to claim Rothbardian natural rights is flawed. It is flawed, but your 4 criticisms are even more flawed. The only criticism that has a kernel of validity is (3), but you even messed that one up.
"Your original JUSTIFICATION for universal healthcare was that the majority allegedly want it."
ReplyDeleteA pure falsehood.
A pure truth.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/austrians-have-no-sense-of-humour.html?showComment=1314280329854#c4075490109166797326
Your original justification was based purely on majority rule.
the argument is about whether the majority derive utility/satisfaction from universal systemsand reject privatised systems, and whether they more economically efficient.
No, that was not the argument you originally made. Your original argument was not merely an empirical observation of the numbers of people who support and don't support universal healthcare. Your original argument concerning majority support was a JUSTIFICATION for universal healthcare.
I said that the government cannot know what is socially or economically beneficial for people, and you responded with:
"Oh really? So a universal health care system, say, of the type that exits in France, that provides health care free at the point of delovery doesn't constitute a socially and economically thing? And by what criteria do you say it is not socially and economically useful?"
Then you followed that with two justifications. One is subjective utility, the other is economic efficiency. You justified universal healthcare on the basis that it derives subjective utility since the majority supports it, and that it costs less than private healthcare.
So you did JUSTIFY universal healthcare on the basis of majority support. You didn't just IDENTIFY that the majority supported it.
Your continuing inability to refute the obvious - that many people and a majority in many countries derive utility/satisfaction from their universal systems - reinforces the fact that you lost this argument a long tiem ago.
ReplyDeleteHahaha, not even close. Not only did you lose at the very start, and this has only been a continued education for you since then, but the fact that zero, some, half, or or majority support universal healthcare, does not in any way compromise a single thing I said.
That the majority support universal healthcare does not ethically justify imposing universal healthcare people any more than the majority supporting slavery, or vanilla ice cream over chocolate ice cream, does not ethically justify imposing slavery, or vanilla ice cream on people.
"A better analogy would be if someone picked the leaf from the tree when it is in its nature to grow. If there were such a thing as a tree ethic, then it would in fact be the case that the nature of the leaf is to grow, and any act of picking it from the tree, goes against the nature of the leaf. It is therefore anti-leaf.
ReplyDeleteA perfect example of the is-ought problem.
There is no way to derive a moral "ought" from the nature of the leaf. The belief that the leaf or any other thing or person has a moral right to something merely because of some fact about their nature is a totally flawed argument.
"A better analogy would be if someone picked the leaf from the tree when it is in its nature to grow. If there were such a thing as a tree ethic, then it would in fact be the case that the nature of the leaf is to grow, and any act of picking it from the tree, goes against the nature of the leaf. It is therefore anti-leaf.
ReplyDeleteA perfect example of the is-ought problem.
Why thank you. I thought it was a good example of the is ought problem as well. That's why I suggested it for you, so that you can use it instead of the shit one you used.
There is no way to derive a moral "ought" from the nature of the leaf. The belief that the leaf or any other thing or person has a moral right to something merely because of some fact about their nature is a totally flawed argument.
See Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "The Economics and Ethics of Private Property." He solved the riddle.
"A pure truth.
ReplyDeletehttp://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/08/austrians-have-no-sense-of-humour.html?showComment=1314280329854#c4075490109166797326"
You appeal to the comment where it is perfectly clear that my argument was about whether poeple derive utility/satisfaction from universal systems?
LOL... the total failure of all your red herrings and stram man argument above is pretty much complete. Good work.
It's astonishing that you appeal to Hoppe, with his argumentation ethics, one of the worst, most flawed defenses of libertarian principles there is.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the arguments against it are usefuly summed by Robert Murply and Gene Callahan:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_3.pdf
It's astonishing that you appeal to Hoppe, with his argumentation ethics, one of the worst, most flawed defenses of libertarian principles there is.
ReplyDeleteNot a single person has refuted it.
In fact, the arguments against it are usefuly summed by Robert Murply and Gene Callahan:
Stephen Kinsella refute Murphy and Callahan's "refutation" here:
http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=312
Murphy and Callahan's confused rejoinder is an attempt to argue that because Hoppe did not consider God, he is necessarily wrong. Murphy and Callahan are religious and reject Hoppe because Hoppe didn't consider religion.
If you want to call that a refutation, then go ahead. I'll stick with secular arguments, thanks.
See Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "The Economics and Ethics of Private Property." He solved the riddle.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't. All he did was accept that the is-ought problem has NOT been solved by natural rights theorists, and then attempt to solve it by appealing to his flawed argumentation ethics:
Second, there is the logical gap between “is-” and “ought-statements” which natural rights proponents have failed to bridge successfully—except for advancing some general critical remarks regarding the ultimate validity of the fact-value dichotomy. Here the praxeological proof of libertarianism has the advantage of offering a completely value-free justification of private property. It remains entirely in the realm of is-statements and never tries to derive an “ought” from an “is.” The structure of the argument is this: (a) justification is
propositional justification—a priori true is-statement; (b) argumentation presupposes property in one’s body and the homesteading
principle—a priori true is-statement; and (c) then, no deviation from this ethic can be argumentatively justified—a priori true is-statement. The proof also offers a key to an understanding of the nature of the fact-value dichotomy: Ought-statements cannot be derived from is-statements.
They belong to different logical realms.
Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 345.
Hoppe's attempted solution - his argumentation ethics - fails totally:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_3.pdf
Murphy and Callahan are religious and reject Hoppe because Hoppe didn't consider religion.
ReplyDeleteNonsense. Their critique is not dependent on god: they invoke an argument mentioning god just ONCE in whole article, the rest is perfectly secular:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_3.pdf
E.g.,
"Second, imagine that a Georgist were to argue that everyone should own a piece of landed property. The Georgist could go so far
as to claim that his position is the only justifiable one. He could correctly observe that anyone debating him would necessarily grant him (the Georgist) some standing room, and then he might deduce from this true observation the conclusion that it would be a performative contradiction to deny that everyone is entitled to a piece of land. We imagine that Hoppe would point out to such a Georgist that using a piece of land during a debate does not entitle one to its full
ownership, and Hoppe would be correct. But by the same token, Hoppe’s argument for ownership of one’s body falls apart; Hoppe
has committed the exact same fallacy as our hypothetical Georgist
See Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "The Economics and Ethics of Private Property." He solved the riddle.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't. All he did was accept that the is-ought problem has NOT been solved by natural rights theorists, and then attempt to solve it by appealing to his flawed argumentation ethics
He solved the riddle not in terms of bridging the is-ought gap, but rather, showing how various ethics can be judged in the "is" context only.
Hoppe's attempted solution - his argumentation ethics - fails totally:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_3.pdf
No, it doesn't "fail." Murphy and Callahan make a number of errors in their critique of Hoppe. See Stephen Kinsella here:
http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=312
Murphy and Callahan are religious and reject Hoppe because Hoppe didn't consider religion.
ReplyDeleteTheir critique is not dependent on god: they invoke an argument mentioning god just ONCE in whole article, the rest is perfectly secular:
Their second criticism is not valid either:
http://www.anti-state.com/kinsella/kinsella1.html
I guess I'm not libertarian anymore and I should study more economics and philosophy!
ReplyDeleteI'm on my first year of a philosophy course at university and I did noticed there was something wrong with Mises praxeology, Rothbard and Hoppe ethics'.
A lot of Mises writings are quite "cringe" — in a sense that he did misrepresented much of the philosophical discussion or didn't know what he was talking about — and a lot of austrians like to talk about logics but they never set the arguments in a formal language i.e. first-order language; with all the premises and conclusions fully stated. They always do this weird "verbal logic" (?) like you have show on some of your articles. Maybe they all should be more rational and honests.
Some of vulgar austrians do evade refutations with language tricks that are incoherent i.e. the praxeology can't be false, because the praxeology is the economy.
Anyway,
Thanks LK. You're doing a great work!