@Waydejack ''decentralized planned economies'' That is an oxymoron. ''their practical effectiveness have been demonstrated by such countries as Chile'' Cybersyn was a few telex machines connected to a few factories, & the info went only one way from factory to centre. & the rest of the economy was untouched. As for the Chilean economy 'doing well' under Allande the collapsing economy & hyperinflation was one of the reasons for the coup.
If economist actually studied socialism they might understand what it really is; socialism is the broadest form of the political and/or economical systems and can only be addressed separately though categorization; some forms of socialism are further apart than this system is for say communism
It is true that some forms of socialism are best avoided, but it is also true that the social optimum would evidently be achieved though a system that is both economically and political socialist
You will find that either people do not understand "socialist ends", or are just against socialism
I believe though he might have studied centrally planned socialism, which I too am against, although it might be the lesser of the 3 general immediate options to best deal with the current issues, I am referring ofcourse to taking social ownership of the banks that have or would have failed, as it stands at the moment the worst attributes of centralized socialism have been enforced...
@radroatch what are socialist ends? please educate me about your assertion : "You will find that either people do not understand "socialist ends", or are just against socialism" and the type of socialism you advocate with its tenets. So that I may comment properly :)
Well, 'socialist ends' could range all across the political spectrum, including the centre, we all live in politically heavily centralized socialist countries (eg roads, public schools, NHS, medicare, doll...), most people believe many of these things are necessary and it is hard to put together a argument for the counter, especially with looking at history
I think a form of libertarian socialism, for now though I would like to see firms turned to co-ops, education reform to start
@radroatch well, as I understand it, socialist ends is usually a "greater equality" for example medicare (roads are not necessarily a socialist ends since they are simply a mean to an end, which is efficient transportation etc.). btw, do you think medicare was really a good idea? look, firms turned to co-ops--that can only happen if workers buy the firms or they establish one that would beat the capitalist firms--or a coercive action.
@pawlo881012 now, socialists generally, believe that "resources must be allocated through political means and not through the market. Sorry, but I am really confused about "libertarian socialism". and I viewed "anarcho-syndicalism" and as I see it, it will employ protectionism since "workers control the production." Historically, unions are not really good as often thought. For example in the US, the Unions of the steel industry lobbied for a "tariff" imposed upon imported but cheaper steel.
@pawlo881012 as a result, the consumer payed more for steel that he would have w/o tariffs. The "extra" money that was spent on US steel (to save the worker's jobs) could have been used to purchase other things (that will help other industries) on top of that, other industries would not want to operate in the us in that reason since they are paying more that they have to. They can also be coercive when certain members do not participate with their actions even if it is within his rights.
What you see today though is artificially low prices of raw materials and imported goods and jobs outsourced, few mesoscopic financial positives come from destroying of entire national industries
The custom union theory is worth a look into as it points out more detailed counter arguments
@radroatch thank you for your wonderful comments. I agree with most of what you say but I would like to point out a few things. About the unions, I am didn't really made a logical argument about its theoretical or ideological background, rather I pointed out some of their ill effects on society(historically). But my point is that their are quite like the corporations who tend to lobby for their own interest at the expense of the consumer. Although they are not necessarily bad but they like ...
@pawlo881012 ... must not be granted some special privilege(like some of the corporations). And the entity of that grants those privileges is the government. And how are they granted? As adam smith and milton friedman pointed out, there are the "do gooders who do harm". those are the people who would either want to save the workers jobs by employing tariffs and subsidies. in other words these things guise themselves as good things such as "health care for all" as vague these terms are..
@pawlo881012 ..and that is what the problem with centralization, the large corporations tend to take over and probably monopolize that area. I am not also against co-ops. They are a very good alternative to the corporations.. provided, they must compete in the market, would not have a "government given privilege" and must not monopolize a certain industry(their competitors could be co-ops too).
I think wage slavery should be viewed as such, so I'm very against hierarchical undemocratic structures, so co-ops are the logical option, it also sorts out the problem capitalisms basic theory I outlined
There is evidence to say that co-ops can outcompete and evidence that proves them a more socially optimum option
Monopolies are a problem in nearly every form of infrastructure, I used Spain as an example to show that co-ops are viable
@pawlo881012 now to where we disagree, Tariffs may have some good in the short run but it in the long run it can have terrible effects. It falls in the "broken window fallacy". The "extra" money that have been paid in products that are protected by tariffs could also be used to buy other products, which in turn can help other industries. Or firms who use that certain product would outsource production to other countries (as a result), or the consumer would just not buy that product...
@pawlo881012 my main problem with that is that it also removes the possibility of saving more (of the consumer) for future consumption. Outsourcing isn't really that bad since it helps the citizens from other countries get on their feet. It may not be as good as in western standards but it gives the poor people the means to save or allow them or their families to access good education and thus give them the ability to break the chain of poverty. The problem why firms outsource is that they find.
@pawlo881012 it "expensive" or thrift to outsource elsewhere. and that is usually the cause of the coercive actions of the government (tariffs therefore high taxes). but even that can help the outsourcing country since more of their products can be purchased by the people of the poor country. e.g. "call center agents in the Philippines who come from poor families are able to purchase electronics and other products. It is far more effective in helping the world's poor than may aid agencies..
@pawlo881012 now healthcare, whether corporations or even (co-ops) lobby before or after the implementation of things similar to it (equality), it is not that relevant. but the point is if it is provided through the coercive powers of the government, when people benefit from the loss of others then we are in deep shit(excuse my language). since any entity that secured a positions as a long term supplier of the government then it has secured monopoly..
@pawlo881012 .. about roads.. hayek, if I am not mistaken (and friedman) accepted that the government should manage the roads (since it is absurd if it belongs to separate entities). personally, I would rather have tolls provided, the government will not take it's funds to manage it throughout its existence from the tax payers money, in turn they are not to justify a larger tax on that premise. another advantage is that those who benefit from it most will pay for it (roads) most....
@pawlo881012 Healthcare(again).in the Road to serfdom, hayek argues for some social safety nets but they should be limited(so he is not really against socialist ends) to avoid parasitism. I would also argue that those who really believe that a certain social group is to be provided for should organize a private charitable institution an not lobby to the government to forcibly take(taxes) from those who do not share the same values. and that would result in a less bigger government.
@pawlo881012 so the "aid" sector would be composed of different groups competing and thus would provide a better service to those whom they serve. if they don't, they would incur losses and thus we removes poorly managed institutions.. but we cannot do that to the government.
I think that you are somewhat misinformed to the negative effects of outsourcing and importing, though it does have a good few positive effects it also does some pretty terrible things, especially to the developing countries; a great deal of the poverty inflicted upon nations is due to economic incentive
A lot of countries population would have been better of keeping their economy internalized largely, of course this is not a realistic option to their leaders, due to western acts...
@radroatch Sorry because I am quite confused about your assertions about outsourcing. Since you did not draw clear causal connections about outsourcing and effects like currency imbalances, wage disproportions and increased rights(?). plus I am quite frustrated that you have ignored my points about outsourcing, that it gave even the citizens of poor countries the money to purchase things other than food and thus help stimulate the global economy. I am experiencing this first hand since i live...
@pawlo881012 in poor country myself(philippines). although I admit that our economy must not depend primarily on outsourcing and we must mobilize our own industries. And I do agree with the assertion that there are a lot of countries that would be better of if they remain internalized. Countries who are doing great nowadays are countries that export many kinds of things that have a good demand. For example, can we assume that singapore will be better off if they remain internalized. it is also..
@pawlo881012 ..false to assume that japan or even africa will be better off if they internalized. the poorest countries are countries with little investment from foreign business. And I think your point regarding "competition and cooperation" is very misleading. Since cooperation co-exist with competition, (tire company is obviously not competing with the automobile company), the real issue is monopoly vs competition. about the unions. again, I am not against them, I just pointed out that..
@pawlo881012 .. they too can be cause harm to society. also, they too can be coercive. as I pointed out earlier in my comments. Also, I am still not convinced that protectionism is really good in the long run. for the reasons that people are paying more than they have to. and can shelter poorly manged firms and perhaps co-ops from competition. the other problem is subsidies. Although, it might look desirable it has ill effects both on the country and in other countries. 1. it promotes more...
@pawlo881012 government spending and that will most likely mean an increase in tax. that in turn would create a disincentive for firms to hire people from your country and even build factories in your country. That maybe one of the reasons why firms turn to out sourcing and why many firms build factories in china and hire chinese people. 2. it provides 'unfair competition". For example the cotton industry in the US is heavily subsidized that it can be sold at a price a lot lower than that of..
@pawlo881012 african countries whose primary income is cotton. therefore, they are unable to compete. Another thing why I am against protectionism is that it is obviously needs a centralized system to impose coercive economic policies. For example, tariffs require coercive entities to be done. and then we go back to hayek's arguments against it. :)
@pawlo881012 also, china is a "statist" country. it will often be disowned by many capitalists and socialists a like. for example, it may have elections but you are only able to choose from one party. and let us not fall to the fallacy of assuming that it is a pleasant society. chinese from all-over the world would choose to do business even in poor countries over staying in their own country.
... Anyway back to the problem with the domestic economies, if you outsource trade from your domestic economy without having an equal inflow of the capital back into the country then you have a big problem over the long term, this is the reason we will not come out of this down turn for at least 8-10 years; the outsourcing, currency imbalances, wage disproportions, increased rights that have led us to do so well have meant that we're in a hollow economy with no real competitive...
... productive base, the protectionism somewhat defended that infrastructure and honestly the country that has best protected its real economy is going to be the winner out of the western part of the world, it is also the reason why China will do well even being so invested in the cycle it has the infrastructure for the future
Yes but this is what the Nash equilibrium(NE) is pointing out, self interest is not always the best response(BR), a game matrix must be evaluated correctly, this is backed up by scientific papers, eg tit for tat is BR in a multiple prisoners dilemmas with the same opponent. An important aspect to have NE is cooperation, without it the system does not work well unless it is innate anyway, the cost of cooperation should be accounted in the matrix, youtube A Beautiful Mind N'E'...
... There are good arguments for many protectionist acts, in fact adam smiths principle of everyone acting in self interest is advocating protectionism and therefore custom unions
where the NE is advocating cooperation and free trade between boarders
What we must keep in mine is that outsourcing destroys domestic economies, it causes capital flight and such other horrors I think I outlined on other countries, we must find the right balances and regulations, not just the this that...
... Im in firm opinion that healthcare is a right to all people and that public healthcare and public healthcare alone should be the only form in a nation, I believe that the evidence overwhelmingly supports this, although somewhat skewed by the corporate sector acting under its profit motive, public healthcare after all is bad for business
I do thing though the private sector and the public sector do not work very well together
IN my opinion unions are the a creation of the flaws in the economic theory, it draws a relationship between the firms and the consumers and claims they cause an equilibrium, what it does not take into account is that firms are made up of workers and management, owners and such, the worker are divided in aims form the 'runners'; as they want to lower wages to increase demand and therefore profit, consumers to want the price to be lower so the workers are somewhat out gunned...
... this would not be a problem in a free entry and exit market, but these rarely exist
There is economic theory that tries to explain away this short fall by outlining the employment to population relationship, unfortunately this equilibrium is far below social optimum and weaker than other demand equilibrium. As this is a mutualistic relationship between the firms its workers and the consumers, no equilibrium can be maintained
... more of a balance against the generally stronger opposing forces
Generally groups do lobby in their own interest above all, I believe capitalism somewhat glorifies and justifies this. The problem comes when one group overwhelms the others, unions can do this at times, but the corporate sector does so far worse, a lot of the rhetoric against the unions is attacks from the corporate sector, using financial power over the media and politics, but not all, of course unions are...
... flawed just like any other institutional form, but the real question is what is the alternative under our realistic perimeters in the system, I believe that the success of the media campaign weakening the unions other the last few decades has made the financial situation worse as well as equality
If you look at how the private market deals with macroeconomics then you cant really say much about the democratic business decisions, basically the private market destroys its own economy by outsourcing work to people who are not protected by human rights and have currencies that the private market devalues to make profit, therefore the only way the western true economy could have been saved would have been to introduce tariffs that balanced it out, this didnt happen and now...
... western infrastructure cant correct our economy, so as things stand this is about as badder outcome possible
The problem you point out is self interest, it exists in this socioeconomic system as well, AS would be a lot different from what we are use to as firms and be responsible for more than just business, in any system cooperation is needed between regions
Well lets remember medicare got thought though only after being ripped apart by the drug company lobbyist funds, so the bill had to be of minimal impact to the industry; also having a private healthcare system in the 1st place brings a range of problems, such as with insurance, which in its own way causes a lot of the problems you get with government inefficiencies as it is self defeats either its purpose or the profit motive;. If you look at the UK the biggest problem we...
Well lets remember medicare got thought though only after being ripped apart by the drug company lobbyist funds, so the bill had to be of minimal impact to the industry; also having a private healthcare system in the 1st place brings a range of problems, such as with insurance, which in its own way causes a lot of the problems you get with government inefficiencies as it is self defeats either its purpose or the profit motive;. If you look at the UK the biggest problem we...
... are having with healthcare is the fact it is being privatized more and more, 10/15 years ago it was at not so bad and other countries in Europe experience much better conditions with healthcare than either of our countries, supported by the figures of public health, life expectancy etc. Which brings me on to what would happen without such programs as medicare, the people that need medial aid but cant afford it would die, the US has the worst health inequality gap in the...
Developed world. So next why do so many US people not know that socialist means can be better, well it is because of money like many things, if the public can be made to believe it then the main thing that stops you bought government is working in their favor instead of against it
Roads need to be payed for and maintained, they are only not socialist normally when the are toll roads, which in some cases there are good causes for, they show just how socialism works when it doesnt ...
... get hinder by the private sector, UK being a bad example lol
Co-ops do thrive in a capitalist economy, there are more than one example, eg in spain the largest business is a co-op, private companies often buy the co-ops out quickly so people dont catch on, if the workers owned the business no more stock crashes or bubbles, theyre democratic not hierarchical etc
Game theory is a good way of finding what is better public accessing the NE, the biggest problem is how you reach it
the truth is that it is the centralization of systems is the problem, some systems are more centralized than others, our own being heavily centralized, moving towards fascism rapidly; socialism though runs across the political economic axis more than any other named form and has many differing subcategories, eg libertarian socialism, which is worth looking into
What are words worth when they are not understood in context
It creates work environments they are wholly unhealthy for everyone but the profit takers.
If "ownership" means the right to determine the use and disposal of material goods, then Nazism endowed the state with every real prerogative of ownership.
"To be a socialist", says Goebbels, "is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."
"What we have established in Germany is the ideal system, SOCIALISM."
A brilliant, brilliant man, he is being proved right now as he was in the 70's. Silly , silly libs will never learn, and that will be their downfall. You can not bend reality and you can not consume more than you produce. When the war comes the socialists will understand this truth in a way even they can't imagine now. Gonna be fun...LOL LOL LMAO!!!
@nerfmyaccount I don't think you could defeat even one of his ideas if you spent your whole life time trying. Hayek did the smartest thing any person can do and that is to know that that not everything is measurable by math or science such as human action and motivation. Socialist and current day keynesian economist will have you believe that you can measure people's actions by aggregating everything in models when the fact is aggregating things is an assumption itself and not knowledge
@batman93oo keynesians might think that but they're liberals and that's what liberals do. I don't know of many socialists that tote the neo-classical line.
As for defeating Hayek, what's the point of defeating ideas that will never be put into practice. Still waiting for the government to get out of markets. How long till the corporations voluntarily remove their monetary influence from government without regulation? Think I'll be waiting for the next thousand years lol.
@nerfmyaccount There is a difference to not steering the market and that of complete laissez Faire economy. Hayek was anti Monetary and Fiscal policy so you couldn't have corporations influencing either or. Plus if you fully follow an Austrian perspective you would have gold money and nobody would want to lose the value of the dollar by messing around with the currency. now I'm not with Hayek 100% but we have to get out of the game of winners and losers through collectivist idealogy
Socialism is not about central planning. In fact it is about decentralize planning were people in cities and towns are electing people in workers councils. Beside this interview is very old, pre-1990 I think. In a time when there was no Internet and no social networks.
The old style centralized planned economies did not work, because people had no participation rights. The bureaucratic state decided and people were forced to do what the state wanted them to do. That was not socialism at all.
@UDSS Socialism is just redestribution from rich to poor, capitalism and free markets or allowing profit makes the prices to go down by competition and inventions, socialism is worthless that's why marxism is useless in a free market it doesn't have any idea to create goods or services which are the important things in the economy. Central planned socialism can work for a time but you will have a boring society. In liberty you can organize whatever you like while you don't force.
@UDSS Hayek's critique while focusing on central planning was fundamentally about what GR Steele calls non factor market socialism. Central planning was not originally an end in itself but a means of bringing about a society with no exchangeable property rights in production. This is the goal of the socialism Hayek is discussing. If the socialist wants this end & to avoid central planning he must find a way of discovering relative scarcities without market exchange ratio's offering a guide.
@UDSS Elections are centralization. Little more than half or less get decide who is elected to a few positions and they are not constantly held 24/7. In a free society leaders are elected unanimously 24/7 through the buying of products. The value of a leader depends on the number of people who recognizes the value of his/her product for themselves.
All he is pointing out is that perfect central planning does not work because there is no information on what to produce. If the authority had all the information available then there would be perfect planning, and that would bring the same outcome of markets under perfect competition. He is just talking in absolutes and that there is no way of achieving a perfect system in reality. That is why we must steer away from extreme ideals (a perfect free market) that are not achievable in reality.
@fbonnefoy91 And when the central planners fails everybody fails, & hurts longer. In free markets if I fail then I only hurt myself, but the hurt is short lived. Free markets are perfectly achievable except in the minds of those who hate competition.
@fbonnefoy91 One slightly pedantic correction. You say "If the authority had all the information available". Hayek's point is that some of the information will not be available at all due to its tacit & non articulatable nature, & as he points out in 'Competition as a Discoverty Procedure' may not even exist due to the knowlege of relative scacities being generated by the competitive process itself. Perfect competition is a false standard its assumptions are not just impractical but impossible.
@fbonnefoy91 A gov planning at all is an extreme, because it's not just a lack info but contempt of it. Info being the collective thought of everybody. Business's try to follow people's demands and provide best product possible indicated by profit, but government is like stupid people don't know what's best for themselves.
Good job he died before the rise of China's Totalitarian Capitalism & the debacle of the western champions of neoliberalism. It is interesting to see people who has clearly benefited from what is left of a Welfare State, or better yet, the Great Society, defend he who argues that just distribution is impossible. Clearly there are limits to the Welfare State most of the them, however, are ideological rather than "scientific".
Socialism is usually democratically planned by the public. You cannot get more "decentralized" than that. Decentralization was the ONLY motivation in forming a left-wing in France, in the first place. They needed to break up the plutocracy, because all of the wealth accumulated at the top.
@1969lincolnosiris That's right but since there are no purely socialist countries, in the sense of the ultimate goal of communism, where people organize themselves in little cooperative communities and the government doesn't exist, one must conclude that's not an attainable or realistic goal for the whole of society. In any case, socialism defeats itself sooner or later by removing the incentive to effort. There's no way a society is going to hold if everyone is rewarded the same.
You are NOT rewarded the same. Just because decisions are made collectively, how is there less incentive to work hard?
I worked for a collectively owned company and we ALL got rewarded when we worked harder. We took the company from a worth of $14 Million to a worth of $155 Million. If it were owned by someone else, we would have gotten ZERO reward for our hard work.
Your thinking is fundamentally flawed, JUST like Hayek's.
@1969lincolnosiris If you want to get together with other people and invest your money in a collectively owned company that's fine, then your reward will be relative to your share of the investment, that's a business strategy like any other. Just don't advocate forcing it on everybody else. And of course everyone gets rewarded the same in colectives, that's the very definition of socialism
Collective success would have to be "forced"? ROTFLMAO
Yes, it would be inhumane to ask people to work for an actual share of the profits for their work, instead of a FORCED, IMPOSED labor value of FAR LESS. LOL
In my company there was not a SINGLE participant who didn't walk away wealthy. There was also not one SINGLE complaint of being "forced".
@GasserVsGoodyball Hayek was not denying that a redistribution of wealth is possible (even before the internet). He is denying that an economy could be run maintaining that distribution on an ongoing basis. As prices are meaningless unless they arise from market exchange, which is the same institution which necessarily leads to inequalities in income as part of its functioning. Accept the market we lose our 'just' distribution but move towards planning & we lose economic coordination.
@GasserVsGoodyball 1985.Although if you are insinuating that the internet could solve the problems of non factor market socialism then you would be mistaken.As this 'knowledge' he is talking about is dispersed in time as well as space, involves information that can not be articulated or only partially articulated,& information that is both subjective & tacit in the sense that it is only discovered & used in the context of market activity.In fact the internet makes economic planning harder.
All of these FANTASY "models" completely ignore the fact that MOST people in society are anti-consumerist/capitalist and his "model" simply cannot function to include these people.
Democracy lets us know what people want, WITHOUT excluding ANYONE(especially indigenous peoples, poor and environmentalists.)
Take the Amish for example. They refuse to participate in industrialism and capitalism yet they have EVERY right that ANY man as.
@1969lincolnosiris Democracy is a scam. A single vote counts for nothing. The free market system is where everyone can choose to produce and consume as they wish providing it does not infringe upon other people's ability to free choice.
Everyone is happy except those which must have been deluded by seductive politicians or idiots like Karl Marx.
If a single vote counts for nothing, then the little bit that the workers make compared to collective corporations, is even LESS.
The Amish reject Industrialism and Capitalism, how will they get a say in things?
MOST people know that ENDING consumerism is the answer. My "free will" is to disallow private ownership of EVERY natural resource, and take EVERY profit made from them. Don't tread on ME!
@1969lincolnosiris "the public" The is everyone, it is humanity within a society. It contains individuals, acting on their own accord. You cannot give a collective power. Only individuals have power. Now, do you want a minority dictating choices upon the majority, where the majority stupidly subjects to their own slavery? Or do you want each individual freedom over their own life and their property?
You are a retard, In a Right-Wing government people don't have individual freedom.
n socialism, production is controlled by EVERYONE and not the few. This is CRITICAL in a world where natural resources are finite, and can never belong to individuals. These resources can only be managed by the public, because they are God given. Nobody has the right to exploit them for personal gain.
@1969lincolnosiris I am sick of acting as teacher to ignorants in the comments about this, if you want to educate yourself follow the first link in the description box. Over 100 years worth of writings(both anti & pro capitalism) on the subject should provide some context.
@1969lincolnosiris I think the point he was trying to make is that the decision making process under socialism, whether by tyrants or by elected officials, would be economically arbitrary as they would not have access to sufficient information to provide for what the general public wants and needs.
You cannot judge what the public wants based on spending and consumerism. Most people in society REJECT Consumerism, Industrialism and Capitalism. They STILL have a right in decision making.
@1969lincolnosiris I did not mention anything about spending and consumerism, merely that Hayek's point is that without sufficient information available we would not have enough knowledge to produce for people we do not know, hence my comment about economically arbitrary decisions. I believe Hayek even stated that profit itself is the key information we need in order to know what to produce for people we do not know.
He went to the University of Vienna and obtained doctorates in law and political science, he authored several books, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in the field of economics.
@1969lincolnosiris Socialism DOES depend on a central authority. Once it is given to the central govt even when it is established through a democratic process this central entity can than legally take charge. However once a central entity is given the power to act in a collective way and interest of the people, it ALWAYS leads to serfdom NO matter how well the original intentions where to begin with. Hitler was elected democratically and took a turn for the very worst.
@FRSFreeStateNow you dont understand socialism them.socialism is about companies like apple and Goldman Sachs instead of paying big bucks to the koch brothers would pay profits to the govt who in turn would return them to the tax payer in the form of better schools and health care. yes a individual on his own could not build a school, a corporation could but it would have a monopoly and charge high , the govt collects tax from the population gives them a fantastic school
@FRSFreeStateNow nope subsidies to big oil , farm and giving contracts to Halliburton.Bailing out banks with no strings attached is all Crony Capitalism .
In Socialism the govt only gives money to companies which are owned by the state, and any money made by the state owned companies goes to the tax payer
One form of socialism which is a very diverse Political Ideology not just an Economic Policy. Is Government Subsidization of business, thats what Corporate Welfare is. And you might not like that fact as a socialist because your anti Corporate Welfare but so am I. But thats what it is.
@FRSFreeStateNow In all fairness the citizens of modern societies can barely point out their OWN nation on a map.. never-mind understand the global scope of the world they live in. Most people on a daily bases don't do what is in their best interest. I'm not saying government knows better, not at all... just kinda.. pointing at the 800 pound gorilla in the room... People themselves rarely know what is "best".. how could they? They have neither the expertise or clairvoyance to know what is right
You just laid out the argument for the need for Big Government, the need for government to protect people from themselves. No other socialist could make your argument any better. Which I totally disagree with.
@FRSFreeStateNow First, I wasn't advocating ANY form of government... just pointing out the obvious.. that every day people don't know enough about economics, geopolitics, other cultures.. and so on to be able to make decisions on those issues and that is essentially where I stand. Yes, government is corrupt and incompetent. But the average citizen really isn't much better. When you look at the statistics. People waste tons of money, make assumptions about all kinds of things...
I didn't say you were advocating anything, I'm just saying what you said no other socialist could make a better argument for Big Government. Then what you just laid out whether you believe in Socialist Big Government or not.
@FRSFreeStateNow This is obviously the case at least some of the time, unless you're arguing that local groups of people can build massive infrastructure more efficiently than non-local groups.
3. Also, Sweden is a capitalist country do doubt about it. It may not be as free market oriented as the USA, yet, but what we have here or even what we had during the 70's was in no way socialism. A welfare-state, perhaps, meaning a capitalist state with a government intervention in the economy, with good intentions (universal health care, lower income gap than most countries, etc.). But by no means socialism.
2. Very simply put, if one admits that markets cannot solve some problems, and that some things are better handled in other ways, there is logically no reason not question markets in regards to other problems, or even in markets in
general.
And vice versa; if one believes that some things are far better handled by the market than alter alternatives such as democracy, there is logically no reason not to explore the idea of markets being left to handle more things.
1. Because it is ideologically cowardly and intellectually insulting? Being "in between" is what most people are, simply because most people don't really care - they have not considered the issues or the philosophies and the reasoning behind them.
It is a middle-of-the-road, lowest common denominator option that appeals to most people, and thus what most politicians promote, since they want to get elected. So it's what we wind up with.
why do people THINK that it needs to be either socalism or right winged ism? Why do people assume that since socalism fails, one needs to go deep into the other direction. One needs not to, just look at Sweden.
@gulbirk Except Sweden's government is moving toward a market-driven state right now, privatizing some of its services from education to transportation.
7. For all O'Neill is saying is that there are several, logically independent (i.e. one being true does not mean all are, one being false does not mean all are) arguments being made.
Why are you complaining, anyway, isn't it good for your side that you have found TWO major faults with Communism?
Also, please elaborate on the "technical economics and social theory" bit, and/or provide links to more info.
6. Given your failure to write his name accurately (O'Neill, not Neill! :) ), I assume that you cannot have more than skimmed through his book (correct me if I am wrong, by all means!).
Elaborating or not, Hayek winds up making a separate point, focusing on epistemology. What are you arguing for exactly, that there is just one big point made about socialism from Austrians?
5. This is merely a philosophical interesting observation, and a division of a problem into two logically separate points made in order to be more accurate and fair, and not an actual attempt to separate Mises and Hayek entirely.
4. What O'Neill is trying to do is put an interesting "twist" on the debate, by showing that actors generally thought to be on different sides still shared some common ground (Mises and Lange on commensurablity, Neurath and Hayek on epistemology) and that vice versa (Lange and Neurath on epistemology, Hayek and Mises on the importance of commensurablity).
3. O'Neil attacks a specific aspect of the Misean critique, namely the one stating that commensurablity is required for comparability and thus necessary for a rational decision to be made. He, like Neurath, calls it pseudo-rationalistic since it fails to grasp the limitations of rationalism.
He never claims Hayek "rejected" Mises, just that he never shared his views in this particular matter (that of commensurability being required for practical rationality).
2. And is not a free market, without regulation and intervention, what Austrians want, because they believe that such a free market can solve most problems in society?
It does, I fear, reek of Cartesian rationalism - the belief that one procedure, one institution, is THE best and the answer to ALL our problems.
1. Where? Everywhere. Not in those words exactly, but that's the essence of their argument, is it not? That the market allocates resources the most efficiently, that prices are the best way to carry information relevant for investment. That decisions, such as the choice between two mutually exclusive options, should be made based on the market price, since that is what tells us what people want.
9. O'Neill is not claiming Mises is wrong but Hayek right - or anything like that (nor am I). It is however a fact that, despite being on the same side and agreeing with eachother on most things, they DID make different points.
Also, it is far more simple and far more fair to deal with a series of arguments if one "divides" them into the points being made. Not doing this is for example why the technocratic answer to the calculation problem fails - it addresses Mises's but not Hayek's points.
8. No one is trying to "disentangle" the two, taking the history of the argument into account it is clear that the only reason that Hayek doesn't repeat Mises argument is that Lange already agreed on it.
That does not change the fact that the two points are logically independent if read broadly - this is not a bad thing, but something that allows even an anarcho-socialist to use Hayek's arguments against for instance technocrats and Communists. It was meant as a compliment, if anything...
@derapfelstrudel ''That does not change the fact that the two points are logically independent'' Given Neill's failure to show that Hayek was doing no more then elaborate aspects of Mises point, i am doubting that assertion, also Hayek made connected but different arguments about technical economics & social theory/ philosophy The latter is secondary as the former is more fundamental. That Neurath agreed with the latter does not mean he understood the former.
@derapfelstrudel ''No one is trying to "disentangle" the two'' it is one of John O Neill's main points that Hayek rejected Mises calculation arguements so that in effect that Mises was closer to Lange then Hayek, who himself was closer to Neurath. If that is not disentangling, I don't know what is. In fact he is trying to put a meat cleaver between the two. Neill's interpretation is baffling, misguided & probably based on a lack of understanding of Austrian school methodology.
7. Regarding point 1. Yes, but "implicit" does not mean "logically dependent on". It is perfectly possible to agree with one point and not the other - technocrats for instance would agree on the calculabilty point but not the epistemological, while anarcho-socialist would not agree on the fist but on the second.
5. The point also itself Cartesian rationalist implications (with market price being the one optimal solution to the problem of what to produce, and Mises arguing that the use of a single unit lends itself to calculation, etc.) that primarily Hayek's writings reject.
@derapfelstrudel ''market price being the one optimal solution'' Nonsense! I ask you to find anywhere where Mises (or Hayek) talk about Optimums!! This is a conflation of Austrian school economics with neoclassical economics. Neil is just wrong about Mises. In the passage he cites as showing the rift between them he says that Mises considered the socialist problem as one of ACCOUNTING!!?? WTF! Hayek was complaining about conflation of accounting & calculation & Neill then goes & conflates them!
4. In regards to my point 7, comparability does not logically require calculability- in other words, a community need not know the "market price" of two options in order to directly assess which one is more valuable to them. In fact, this is the only way that ethical, philosophical, environmental, political, etc. aspect can be a part of the decision-making.
3. The goal, that of profit, is still attained so in a capitalist economy this is not a problem. However, in a socialist/anarchist society it WOULD be - thus the need to do away with markets and money. Their function is not compatible with the goal of use-value production.
2. (cont.) Due to the nature of markets, entrepreneurs will NOT act on certain information that they do have (since it will not result in profit/is not usable on a market) and will NOT possess certain information at all (since such information is actively kept from them, such as the future production and research plans of other firms).
1. I do not misunderstand the function of prices. They are indeed "an aid to the mind of entrepreneurial activity", and I am well aware that Hayek's intent was for the entrepreneur to act on local knowledge, etc., I personally think he makes that quite explicit enough for me.
10. Socialism does not do the above. The old debates on the good life, pluralism of life-plans, the organisation of society, ethics, etc. all remain a part of the anarchist and socialist traditions. Most neoclassical and Austrian economists would consider that silly, and assert that marginal utility has replaced those notions. Which is just a swell opinion to have, but alas, an opinion none the less, and not a fact...
9. The Austrian argument is pretty much that that is impossible - unless you can read minds there is no way to know what people need. It does away with the arguments regarding the "ideal society" or the "good life", which was a part of the classical economics of Smith and Ricardo, and goes back all the way to Plato and Aristotle. Marginalist revolution and all that, yada yada.
8. That means that "individual subjective desire measured as the willingness to pay", crucial in Austrian economics, is irrelevant in a socialist society (much like actual needs are irrelevant in a capitalist society).
7. Socialism entails production of use-value - the goal is the satisfaction of human needs.
Like Otto Neurath, an opponent of Hayek's, argued, real socialism MUST do away with money and markets because it CANNOT take the information it carries into account and still be socialism. A socialist society MUST consider use-value only.
@derapfelstrudel Reply to point 7 - And that is where Neurath's arguement dies. The aid to the mind that prices are can not be done away with, to uses Mises terminology- the community has no standard for cost evaluation, to use Hayeks; the knowledge of relative scarcities needed to produce economically is given to no one & is only discovered(generated) in a competitive market process.Talk about other information apart from that in price is irrelevent since it plays no part in their main point.
6. I said: "We need information channels other than the market."
You replied: "Well obviously, I don't see how anyone reading Mises, Hayek, or contemporary Austrians could get the idea they think otherwise. However the other types of information can not replace the former."
To put it very simplified:
The reason socialists and anarchists want to get rid of money is precisely to replace the information that money carries with what is considered actually important information.
This is correct - market "socialism" IMO combines the worst aspects of capitalism and socialism, and fails at achieving anything that either side would like. At any rate, it is seldom what is meant when one debates socialism, and since even Mises acknowledges the possibility of market syndicalism (like I quoted earlier), I think it's safe to keep this out of the discussion.
This is demonstrably false. Thought it may go against intuition, spontaneous organisation can occur without markets or hierarchy, and in fact HAS occurred historically. This idea lies at the heart of all anarchist thought.
Now, I'm not saying that those few data-points are proof that the system in question is superior or anything, but it does show that it is POSSIBLE.
3. Since this epistemological argument is logically independent from the issue of money, it is quite possible for an anarcho-socialist to agree with Hayek on the issue of centralisation and the dispersal of knowledge, without agreeing that money and markets are the only solutions.
Also, when I speak of Hayek I mean Hayek, "not contemporary Hayekians" or their thought and/or interpretations, but the man himself and the things he actually wrote.
2. I believe reading Hayek is important for anarcho-socialist, since that tradition is otherwise strongly rooted in Cartesian rationalism - it can strongly benefit from understanding the limits of rationality and the practical boundaries of reason.
1. Indeed, Hayek's ideas are based on Mises, but not logically dependent on him. His epistemological critique can be read far more broadly as a critique of centralised decision-making in any form, and is itself independent from his argument that the market solves the problem of knowledge.
@derapfelstrudel Reply to point 1 - I disagree. Mises calculation argument is implicit in Hayek. The context of Hayek's arguments are that Lange et al agreed that a single unit of cost accounting is needed. Hayek epistemological arguments was aimed at showing how the ECONOMIC knowledge needed for this could not be generated or encapsulated in the absence of real competition. John O Neil (who you have clearly read) is clearly ignorant of this context. Hayek & Mises can not be disentangled.
Socialism a is a world wide system of society based on sharing the Earth for all generations in cooperation for our common needs and well being . A MONEYless,CLASSless ,STATEless communities of humanity organising lives not through the MARKET MECHANISM of ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY and employment system of wage slavery but rational,scientific means to TAKE CARE OF OUR WELL BEING . Governments are expressions of CLASS RULE,
Socialism does not assume that knowledge is used by a central authority. Socialism is social ownership of production. There is no central authority involved. It's as decentralized as you could get, because there isn't even a capitalist calling all the shots. It's workers deciding what they will do with their own efforts.
So, this video/argument was null in the first 30 seconds. Yawn, next.
@aluisious There is of course more basic arguments he is assuming are understood. Which hayek gives a flavour of from 1:20 . If you don't use the spontaneous ordering of rivalrous market behaviour then, the only alternative is top down organisation & its accompanying centralisation. & of cource the intellectual rivals is is alluding to in this video understood & accepted this, only disagreeing on whether centralisation works. ''It's as decentralized as you could get'' But not in the right way.
@Malthus0 I don't see how worker ownership of production prevents rivalry between organizations. It doesn't even prevent rivalry within the organization. It merely protects against what is basically an authoritarian situation where one guy owns everything and forces everyone else to do as he demands.
Let's not beat around the bush here. Most capitalists are characterized by their desire to take anything that isn't nailed down, and then get a pry bar to take the things that are nailed down.
@aluisious If you are talking about a kind of market syndicalism then, you are right, to an extent. However what we define as 'social' & 'ownership' matters in this. The conception of socialism on which virtually all debates about socialism hinges has originated in Marx. To whose conception of socialism markets & rivalrous competition are an anathema. Whatever the details of your 'co-op capitalism' it's failures will be wherever free exchange & competition is not permited.
If there is no central planner involved, then whose finger is it pointing and who set the prices of goods after the mass has taken over production. In every case where socialism has replaced capitalism, there are bloodshed. You are right to yawn. Time to go back to the cave. Neanderthal like you does not belong in free society.
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dont listen to this man hes an idiot, hes the father of globalisation which destroys this world
meProudToBeCaucasian 1 week ago
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Waydejack 1 month ago
@Waydejack ''decentralized planned economies'' That is an oxymoron. ''their practical effectiveness have been demonstrated by such countries as Chile'' Cybersyn was a few telex machines connected to a few factories, & the info went only one way from factory to centre. & the rest of the economy was untouched. As for the Chilean economy 'doing well' under Allande the collapsing economy & hyperinflation was one of the reasons for the coup.
Malthus0 1 month ago
Hayek is the Jesus of economics.
sotirisp16 1 month ago 3
@sotirisp16 disagree. Adam Smith is the Jesus of economics. Hayek, Mises, Friedman, Rand are all his disciples
breedlove94 3 weeks ago
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@sotirisp16 Friedrich Hayek
is the father of globalism which let to deindustrialization where is he the jesus???
He burns in hell where he belongs
meProudToBeCaucasian 1 week ago
If economist actually studied socialism they might understand what it really is; socialism is the broadest form of the political and/or economical systems and can only be addressed separately though categorization; some forms of socialism are further apart than this system is for say communism
It is true that some forms of socialism are best avoided, but it is also true that the social optimum would evidently be achieved though a system that is both economically and political socialist
radroatch 3 months ago
@radroatch he studied socialism, he is not really against the "socialist ends" but is against the means that are necessary to employ those ends.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
You will find that either people do not understand "socialist ends", or are just against socialism
I believe though he might have studied centrally planned socialism, which I too am against, although it might be the lesser of the 3 general immediate options to best deal with the current issues, I am referring ofcourse to taking social ownership of the banks that have or would have failed, as it stands at the moment the worst attributes of centralized socialism have been enforced...
radroatch 3 months ago
@radroatch what are socialist ends? please educate me about your assertion : "You will find that either people do not understand "socialist ends", or are just against socialism" and the type of socialism you advocate with its tenets. So that I may comment properly :)
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
Well, 'socialist ends' could range all across the political spectrum, including the centre, we all live in politically heavily centralized socialist countries (eg roads, public schools, NHS, medicare, doll...), most people believe many of these things are necessary and it is hard to put together a argument for the counter, especially with looking at history
I think a form of libertarian socialism, for now though I would like to see firms turned to co-ops, education reform to start
radroatch 3 months ago
@radroatch well, as I understand it, socialist ends is usually a "greater equality" for example medicare (roads are not necessarily a socialist ends since they are simply a mean to an end, which is efficient transportation etc.). btw, do you think medicare was really a good idea? look, firms turned to co-ops--that can only happen if workers buy the firms or they establish one that would beat the capitalist firms--or a coercive action.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 now, socialists generally, believe that "resources must be allocated through political means and not through the market. Sorry, but I am really confused about "libertarian socialism". and I viewed "anarcho-syndicalism" and as I see it, it will employ protectionism since "workers control the production." Historically, unions are not really good as often thought. For example in the US, the Unions of the steel industry lobbied for a "tariff" imposed upon imported but cheaper steel.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 as a result, the consumer payed more for steel that he would have w/o tariffs. The "extra" money that was spent on US steel (to save the worker's jobs) could have been used to purchase other things (that will help other industries) on top of that, other industries would not want to operate in the us in that reason since they are paying more that they have to. They can also be coercive when certain members do not participate with their actions even if it is within his rights.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
What you see today though is artificially low prices of raw materials and imported goods and jobs outsourced, few mesoscopic financial positives come from destroying of entire national industries
The custom union theory is worth a look into as it points out more detailed counter arguments
radroatch 3 months ago
@radroatch thank you for your wonderful comments. I agree with most of what you say but I would like to point out a few things. About the unions, I am didn't really made a logical argument about its theoretical or ideological background, rather I pointed out some of their ill effects on society(historically). But my point is that their are quite like the corporations who tend to lobby for their own interest at the expense of the consumer. Although they are not necessarily bad but they like ...
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 ... must not be granted some special privilege(like some of the corporations). And the entity of that grants those privileges is the government. And how are they granted? As adam smith and milton friedman pointed out, there are the "do gooders who do harm". those are the people who would either want to save the workers jobs by employing tariffs and subsidies. in other words these things guise themselves as good things such as "health care for all" as vague these terms are..
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 ..and that is what the problem with centralization, the large corporations tend to take over and probably monopolize that area. I am not also against co-ops. They are a very good alternative to the corporations.. provided, they must compete in the market, would not have a "government given privilege" and must not monopolize a certain industry(their competitors could be co-ops too).
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
I think wage slavery should be viewed as such, so I'm very against hierarchical undemocratic structures, so co-ops are the logical option, it also sorts out the problem capitalisms basic theory I outlined
There is evidence to say that co-ops can outcompete and evidence that proves them a more socially optimum option
Monopolies are a problem in nearly every form of infrastructure, I used Spain as an example to show that co-ops are viable
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 now to where we disagree, Tariffs may have some good in the short run but it in the long run it can have terrible effects. It falls in the "broken window fallacy". The "extra" money that have been paid in products that are protected by tariffs could also be used to buy other products, which in turn can help other industries. Or firms who use that certain product would outsource production to other countries (as a result), or the consumer would just not buy that product...
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 my main problem with that is that it also removes the possibility of saving more (of the consumer) for future consumption. Outsourcing isn't really that bad since it helps the citizens from other countries get on their feet. It may not be as good as in western standards but it gives the poor people the means to save or allow them or their families to access good education and thus give them the ability to break the chain of poverty. The problem why firms outsource is that they find.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 it "expensive" or thrift to outsource elsewhere. and that is usually the cause of the coercive actions of the government (tariffs therefore high taxes). but even that can help the outsourcing country since more of their products can be purchased by the people of the poor country. e.g. "call center agents in the Philippines who come from poor families are able to purchase electronics and other products. It is far more effective in helping the world's poor than may aid agencies..
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 now healthcare, whether corporations or even (co-ops) lobby before or after the implementation of things similar to it (equality), it is not that relevant. but the point is if it is provided through the coercive powers of the government, when people benefit from the loss of others then we are in deep shit(excuse my language). since any entity that secured a positions as a long term supplier of the government then it has secured monopoly..
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 .. about roads.. hayek, if I am not mistaken (and friedman) accepted that the government should manage the roads (since it is absurd if it belongs to separate entities). personally, I would rather have tolls provided, the government will not take it's funds to manage it throughout its existence from the tax payers money, in turn they are not to justify a larger tax on that premise. another advantage is that those who benefit from it most will pay for it (roads) most....
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 Healthcare(again).in the Road to serfdom, hayek argues for some social safety nets but they should be limited(so he is not really against socialist ends) to avoid parasitism. I would also argue that those who really believe that a certain social group is to be provided for should organize a private charitable institution an not lobby to the government to forcibly take(taxes) from those who do not share the same values. and that would result in a less bigger government.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 so the "aid" sector would be composed of different groups competing and thus would provide a better service to those whom they serve. if they don't, they would incur losses and thus we removes poorly managed institutions.. but we cannot do that to the government.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
I think that you are somewhat misinformed to the negative effects of outsourcing and importing, though it does have a good few positive effects it also does some pretty terrible things, especially to the developing countries; a great deal of the poverty inflicted upon nations is due to economic incentive
A lot of countries population would have been better of keeping their economy internalized largely, of course this is not a realistic option to their leaders, due to western acts...
radroatch 3 months ago
@radroatch Sorry because I am quite confused about your assertions about outsourcing. Since you did not draw clear causal connections about outsourcing and effects like currency imbalances, wage disproportions and increased rights(?). plus I am quite frustrated that you have ignored my points about outsourcing, that it gave even the citizens of poor countries the money to purchase things other than food and thus help stimulate the global economy. I am experiencing this first hand since i live...
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 in poor country myself(philippines). although I admit that our economy must not depend primarily on outsourcing and we must mobilize our own industries. And I do agree with the assertion that there are a lot of countries that would be better of if they remain internalized. Countries who are doing great nowadays are countries that export many kinds of things that have a good demand. For example, can we assume that singapore will be better off if they remain internalized. it is also..
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 ..false to assume that japan or even africa will be better off if they internalized. the poorest countries are countries with little investment from foreign business. And I think your point regarding "competition and cooperation" is very misleading. Since cooperation co-exist with competition, (tire company is obviously not competing with the automobile company), the real issue is monopoly vs competition. about the unions. again, I am not against them, I just pointed out that..
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 .. they too can be cause harm to society. also, they too can be coercive. as I pointed out earlier in my comments. Also, I am still not convinced that protectionism is really good in the long run. for the reasons that people are paying more than they have to. and can shelter poorly manged firms and perhaps co-ops from competition. the other problem is subsidies. Although, it might look desirable it has ill effects both on the country and in other countries. 1. it promotes more...
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 government spending and that will most likely mean an increase in tax. that in turn would create a disincentive for firms to hire people from your country and even build factories in your country. That maybe one of the reasons why firms turn to out sourcing and why many firms build factories in china and hire chinese people. 2. it provides 'unfair competition". For example the cotton industry in the US is heavily subsidized that it can be sold at a price a lot lower than that of..
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 african countries whose primary income is cotton. therefore, they are unable to compete. Another thing why I am against protectionism is that it is obviously needs a centralized system to impose coercive economic policies. For example, tariffs require coercive entities to be done. and then we go back to hayek's arguments against it. :)
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012 also, china is a "statist" country. it will often be disowned by many capitalists and socialists a like. for example, it may have elections but you are only able to choose from one party. and let us not fall to the fallacy of assuming that it is a pleasant society. chinese from all-over the world would choose to do business even in poor countries over staying in their own country.
pawlo881012 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... Anyway back to the problem with the domestic economies, if you outsource trade from your domestic economy without having an equal inflow of the capital back into the country then you have a big problem over the long term, this is the reason we will not come out of this down turn for at least 8-10 years; the outsourcing, currency imbalances, wage disproportions, increased rights that have led us to do so well have meant that we're in a hollow economy with no real competitive...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... productive base, the protectionism somewhat defended that infrastructure and honestly the country that has best protected its real economy is going to be the winner out of the western part of the world, it is also the reason why China will do well even being so invested in the cycle it has the infrastructure for the future
I comment on the other points later
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
Yes but this is what the Nash equilibrium(NE) is pointing out, self interest is not always the best response(BR), a game matrix must be evaluated correctly, this is backed up by scientific papers, eg tit for tat is BR in a multiple prisoners dilemmas with the same opponent. An important aspect to have NE is cooperation, without it the system does not work well unless it is innate anyway, the cost of cooperation should be accounted in the matrix, youtube A Beautiful Mind N'E'...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... There are good arguments for many protectionist acts, in fact adam smiths principle of everyone acting in self interest is advocating protectionism and therefore custom unions
where the NE is advocating cooperation and free trade between boarders
What we must keep in mine is that outsourcing destroys domestic economies, it causes capital flight and such other horrors I think I outlined on other countries, we must find the right balances and regulations, not just the this that...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... Im in firm opinion that healthcare is a right to all people and that public healthcare and public healthcare alone should be the only form in a nation, I believe that the evidence overwhelmingly supports this, although somewhat skewed by the corporate sector acting under its profit motive, public healthcare after all is bad for business
I do thing though the private sector and the public sector do not work very well together
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
IN my opinion unions are the a creation of the flaws in the economic theory, it draws a relationship between the firms and the consumers and claims they cause an equilibrium, what it does not take into account is that firms are made up of workers and management, owners and such, the worker are divided in aims form the 'runners'; as they want to lower wages to increase demand and therefore profit, consumers to want the price to be lower so the workers are somewhat out gunned...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... this would not be a problem in a free entry and exit market, but these rarely exist
There is economic theory that tries to explain away this short fall by outlining the employment to population relationship, unfortunately this equilibrium is far below social optimum and weaker than other demand equilibrium. As this is a mutualistic relationship between the firms its workers and the consumers, no equilibrium can be maintained
Unions inhibit this, giving the workers...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... more of a balance against the generally stronger opposing forces
Generally groups do lobby in their own interest above all, I believe capitalism somewhat glorifies and justifies this. The problem comes when one group overwhelms the others, unions can do this at times, but the corporate sector does so far worse, a lot of the rhetoric against the unions is attacks from the corporate sector, using financial power over the media and politics, but not all, of course unions are...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... flawed just like any other institutional form, but the real question is what is the alternative under our realistic perimeters in the system, I believe that the success of the media campaign weakening the unions other the last few decades has made the financial situation worse as well as equality
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
If you look at how the private market deals with macroeconomics then you cant really say much about the democratic business decisions, basically the private market destroys its own economy by outsourcing work to people who are not protected by human rights and have currencies that the private market devalues to make profit, therefore the only way the western true economy could have been saved would have been to introduce tariffs that balanced it out, this didnt happen and now...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... western infrastructure cant correct our economy, so as things stand this is about as badder outcome possible
The problem you point out is self interest, it exists in this socioeconomic system as well, AS would be a lot different from what we are use to as firms and be responsible for more than just business, in any system cooperation is needed between regions
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
Well lets remember medicare got thought though only after being ripped apart by the drug company lobbyist funds, so the bill had to be of minimal impact to the industry; also having a private healthcare system in the 1st place brings a range of problems, such as with insurance, which in its own way causes a lot of the problems you get with government inefficiencies as it is self defeats either its purpose or the profit motive;. If you look at the UK the biggest problem we...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
Well lets remember medicare got thought though only after being ripped apart by the drug company lobbyist funds, so the bill had to be of minimal impact to the industry; also having a private healthcare system in the 1st place brings a range of problems, such as with insurance, which in its own way causes a lot of the problems you get with government inefficiencies as it is self defeats either its purpose or the profit motive;. If you look at the UK the biggest problem we...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... are having with healthcare is the fact it is being privatized more and more, 10/15 years ago it was at not so bad and other countries in Europe experience much better conditions with healthcare than either of our countries, supported by the figures of public health, life expectancy etc. Which brings me on to what would happen without such programs as medicare, the people that need medial aid but cant afford it would die, the US has the worst health inequality gap in the...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
Developed world. So next why do so many US people not know that socialist means can be better, well it is because of money like many things, if the public can be made to believe it then the main thing that stops you bought government is working in their favor instead of against it
Roads need to be payed for and maintained, they are only not socialist normally when the are toll roads, which in some cases there are good causes for, they show just how socialism works when it doesnt ...
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... get hinder by the private sector, UK being a bad example lol
Co-ops do thrive in a capitalist economy, there are more than one example, eg in spain the largest business is a co-op, private companies often buy the co-ops out quickly so people dont catch on, if the workers owned the business no more stock crashes or bubbles, theyre democratic not hierarchical etc
Game theory is a good way of finding what is better public accessing the NE, the biggest problem is how you reach it
radroatch 3 months ago
@pawlo881012
... with none of the positives
the truth is that it is the centralization of systems is the problem, some systems are more centralized than others, our own being heavily centralized, moving towards fascism rapidly; socialism though runs across the political economic axis more than any other named form and has many differing subcategories, eg libertarian socialism, which is worth looking into
What are words worth when they are not understood in context
radroatch 3 months ago
Socialism is Nazism
It creates work environments they are wholly unhealthy for everyone but the profit takers.
If "ownership" means the right to determine the use and disposal of material goods, then Nazism endowed the state with every real prerogative of ownership.
"To be a socialist", says Goebbels, "is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."
"What we have established in Germany is the ideal system, SOCIALISM."
americanbandwidth 4 months ago
A brilliant, brilliant man, he is being proved right now as he was in the 70's. Silly , silly libs will never learn, and that will be their downfall. You can not bend reality and you can not consume more than you produce. When the war comes the socialists will understand this truth in a way even they can't imagine now. Gonna be fun...LOL LOL LMAO!!!
xerakis 4 months ago
Hayek had a lot of good ideas...for me to poop on lol.
nerfmyaccount 4 months ago
@nerfmyaccount I don't think you could defeat even one of his ideas if you spent your whole life time trying. Hayek did the smartest thing any person can do and that is to know that that not everything is measurable by math or science such as human action and motivation. Socialist and current day keynesian economist will have you believe that you can measure people's actions by aggregating everything in models when the fact is aggregating things is an assumption itself and not knowledge
batman93oo 4 months ago
@batman93oo keynesians might think that but they're liberals and that's what liberals do. I don't know of many socialists that tote the neo-classical line.
As for defeating Hayek, what's the point of defeating ideas that will never be put into practice. Still waiting for the government to get out of markets. How long till the corporations voluntarily remove their monetary influence from government without regulation? Think I'll be waiting for the next thousand years lol.
nerfmyaccount 4 months ago
@nerfmyaccount There is a difference to not steering the market and that of complete laissez Faire economy. Hayek was anti Monetary and Fiscal policy so you couldn't have corporations influencing either or. Plus if you fully follow an Austrian perspective you would have gold money and nobody would want to lose the value of the dollar by messing around with the currency. now I'm not with Hayek 100% but we have to get out of the game of winners and losers through collectivist idealogy
batman93oo 4 months ago
Socialism is not about central planning. In fact it is about decentralize planning were people in cities and towns are electing people in workers councils. Beside this interview is very old, pre-1990 I think. In a time when there was no Internet and no social networks.
The old style centralized planned economies did not work, because people had no participation rights. The bureaucratic state decided and people were forced to do what the state wanted them to do. That was not socialism at all.
UDSS 4 months ago
@UDSS Socialism is just redestribution from rich to poor, capitalism and free markets or allowing profit makes the prices to go down by competition and inventions, socialism is worthless that's why marxism is useless in a free market it doesn't have any idea to create goods or services which are the important things in the economy. Central planned socialism can work for a time but you will have a boring society. In liberty you can organize whatever you like while you don't force.
crazy3d 4 months ago
@UDSS Hayek's critique while focusing on central planning was fundamentally about what GR Steele calls non factor market socialism. Central planning was not originally an end in itself but a means of bringing about a society with no exchangeable property rights in production. This is the goal of the socialism Hayek is discussing. If the socialist wants this end & to avoid central planning he must find a way of discovering relative scarcities without market exchange ratio's offering a guide.
Malthus0 4 months ago 8
@UDSS Elections are centralization. Little more than half or less get decide who is elected to a few positions and they are not constantly held 24/7. In a free society leaders are elected unanimously 24/7 through the buying of products. The value of a leader depends on the number of people who recognizes the value of his/her product for themselves.
Bleakfacts 2 months ago
What are you going to eat in two weeks? If you dont know, how could the central planner possibly know?
LucBertolotti 4 months ago
All he is pointing out is that perfect central planning does not work because there is no information on what to produce. If the authority had all the information available then there would be perfect planning, and that would bring the same outcome of markets under perfect competition. He is just talking in absolutes and that there is no way of achieving a perfect system in reality. That is why we must steer away from extreme ideals (a perfect free market) that are not achievable in reality.
fbonnefoy91 5 months ago
@fbonnefoy91 And when the central planners fails everybody fails, & hurts longer. In free markets if I fail then I only hurt myself, but the hurt is short lived. Free markets are perfectly achievable except in the minds of those who hate competition.
jaeLAX23 4 months ago
@fbonnefoy91 One slightly pedantic correction. You say "If the authority had all the information available". Hayek's point is that some of the information will not be available at all due to its tacit & non articulatable nature, & as he points out in 'Competition as a Discoverty Procedure' may not even exist due to the knowlege of relative scacities being generated by the competitive process itself. Perfect competition is a false standard its assumptions are not just impractical but impossible.
Malthus0 4 months ago 2
@fbonnefoy91 A gov planning at all is an extreme, because it's not just a lack info but contempt of it. Info being the collective thought of everybody. Business's try to follow people's demands and provide best product possible indicated by profit, but government is like stupid people don't know what's best for themselves.
Bleakfacts 2 months ago
Good job he died before the rise of China's Totalitarian Capitalism & the debacle of the western champions of neoliberalism. It is interesting to see people who has clearly benefited from what is left of a Welfare State, or better yet, the Great Society, defend he who argues that just distribution is impossible. Clearly there are limits to the Welfare State most of the them, however, are ideological rather than "scientific".
FromSouth99 5 months ago
A part he left out though, the only way for a central authority to "know all the facts" is to reduce your liberty.
bweazel 6 months ago
True. Central planning is impossible.
NunoMigueI 6 months ago
@NunoMigueI
It doesn't matter.
Socialism is usually democratically planned by the public. You cannot get more "decentralized" than that. Decentralization was the ONLY motivation in forming a left-wing in France, in the first place. They needed to break up the plutocracy, because all of the wealth accumulated at the top.
EDUCATE don't indoctrinate.
1969lincolnosiris 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris That's right but since there are no purely socialist countries, in the sense of the ultimate goal of communism, where people organize themselves in little cooperative communities and the government doesn't exist, one must conclude that's not an attainable or realistic goal for the whole of society. In any case, socialism defeats itself sooner or later by removing the incentive to effort. There's no way a society is going to hold if everyone is rewarded the same.
NunoMigueI 6 months ago
@NunoMigueI
You are NOT rewarded the same. Just because decisions are made collectively, how is there less incentive to work hard?
I worked for a collectively owned company and we ALL got rewarded when we worked harder. We took the company from a worth of $14 Million to a worth of $155 Million. If it were owned by someone else, we would have gotten ZERO reward for our hard work.
Your thinking is fundamentally flawed, JUST like Hayek's.
1969lincolnosiris 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris If you want to get together with other people and invest your money in a collectively owned company that's fine, then your reward will be relative to your share of the investment, that's a business strategy like any other. Just don't advocate forcing it on everybody else. And of course everyone gets rewarded the same in colectives, that's the very definition of socialism
NunoMigueI 6 months ago
@NunoMigueI
Collective success would have to be "forced"? ROTFLMAO
Yes, it would be inhumane to ask people to work for an actual share of the profits for their work, instead of a FORCED, IMPOSED labor value of FAR LESS. LOL
In my company there was not a SINGLE participant who didn't walk away wealthy. There was also not one SINGLE complaint of being "forced".
Your propaganda is ridiculous and weak at best.
1969lincolnosiris 6 months ago
@GasserVsGoodyball Hayek was not denying that a redistribution of wealth is possible (even before the internet). He is denying that an economy could be run maintaining that distribution on an ongoing basis. As prices are meaningless unless they arise from market exchange, which is the same institution which necessarily leads to inequalities in income as part of its functioning. Accept the market we lose our 'just' distribution but move towards planning & we lose economic coordination.
Malthus0 6 months ago
@GasserVsGoodyball 1985.Although if you are insinuating that the internet could solve the problems of non factor market socialism then you would be mistaken.As this 'knowledge' he is talking about is dispersed in time as well as space, involves information that can not be articulated or only partially articulated,& information that is both subjective & tacit in the sense that it is only discovered & used in the context of market activity.In fact the internet makes economic planning harder.
Malthus0 6 months ago
All of these FANTASY "models" completely ignore the fact that MOST people in society are anti-consumerist/capitalist and his "model" simply cannot function to include these people.
Democracy lets us know what people want, WITHOUT excluding ANYONE(especially indigenous peoples, poor and environmentalists.)
Take the Amish for example. They refuse to participate in industrialism and capitalism yet they have EVERY right that ANY man as.
Hayek is a HACK.
1969lincolnosiris 7 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris Democracy is a scam. A single vote counts for nothing. The free market system is where everyone can choose to produce and consume as they wish providing it does not infringe upon other people's ability to free choice.
Everyone is happy except those which must have been deluded by seductive politicians or idiots like Karl Marx.
god0fgod 7 months ago
@god0fgod
If a single vote counts for nothing, then the little bit that the workers make compared to collective corporations, is even LESS.
The Amish reject Industrialism and Capitalism, how will they get a say in things?
MOST people know that ENDING consumerism is the answer. My "free will" is to disallow private ownership of EVERY natural resource, and take EVERY profit made from them. Don't tread on ME!
1969lincolnosiris 7 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris You want to remove choice, competition and literally force poverty?
god0fgod 7 months ago
@god0fgod
How does giving the public power over decision making "remove choice" or "force poverty"?
1969lincolnosiris 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris "the public" The is everyone, it is humanity within a society. It contains individuals, acting on their own accord. You cannot give a collective power. Only individuals have power. Now, do you want a minority dictating choices upon the majority, where the majority stupidly subjects to their own slavery? Or do you want each individual freedom over their own life and their property?
god0fgod 6 months ago
@god0fgod
You are a retard, In a Right-Wing government people don't have individual freedom.
n socialism, production is controlled by EVERYONE and not the few. This is CRITICAL in a world where natural resources are finite, and can never belong to individuals. These resources can only be managed by the public, because they are God given. Nobody has the right to exploit them for personal gain.
1969lincolnosiris 6 months ago
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@1969lincolnosiris "You are a retard" When it comes to ad hominem, I think it is best to exit the argument.
god0fgod 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris What exactly are you calling for when you say Democracy? Pure Democracy? Just curious.
umadumLib 7 months ago
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1969lincolnosiris 7 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris I am sick of acting as teacher to ignorants in the comments about this, if you want to educate yourself follow the first link in the description box. Over 100 years worth of writings(both anti & pro capitalism) on the subject should provide some context.
Malthus0 7 months ago 8
@1969lincolnosiris AKA a central authority. If it's elected, it makes no difference.
god0fgod 7 months ago
@god0fgod
EVERY right-wing form of government is a central authority BAR NONE. You would have to be illiterate to NOT know that.
You have been sold a bill of goods, because you are a weak minded, GOYIM SHEEPLE.
1969lincolnosiris 7 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris I think the point he was trying to make is that the decision making process under socialism, whether by tyrants or by elected officials, would be economically arbitrary as they would not have access to sufficient information to provide for what the general public wants and needs.
hjsman 7 months ago
@hjsman
You cannot judge what the public wants based on spending and consumerism. Most people in society REJECT Consumerism, Industrialism and Capitalism. They STILL have a right in decision making.
Hayek completely overlooked enormous errors.
1969lincolnosiris 7 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris I did not mention anything about spending and consumerism, merely that Hayek's point is that without sufficient information available we would not have enough knowledge to produce for people we do not know, hence my comment about economically arbitrary decisions. I believe Hayek even stated that profit itself is the key information we need in order to know what to produce for people we do not know.
hjsman 7 months ago
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hjsman 7 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris You're an ignorant fuckwit.
mip0larity 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris
He went to the University of Vienna and obtained doctorates in law and political science, he authored several books, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in the field of economics.
Boredpersons55 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris Socialism DOES depend on a central authority. Once it is given to the central govt even when it is established through a democratic process this central entity can than legally take charge. However once a central entity is given the power to act in a collective way and interest of the people, it ALWAYS leads to serfdom NO matter how well the original intentions where to begin with. Hitler was elected democratically and took a turn for the very worst.
DutchsMaria 6 months ago
My main problem with socialism is that assumes that it can spend peoples money better then the people themselves.
FRSFreeStateNow 7 months ago 7
@FRSFreeStateNow you dont understand socialism them.socialism is about companies like apple and Goldman Sachs instead of paying big bucks to the koch brothers would pay profits to the govt who in turn would return them to the tax payer in the form of better schools and health care. yes a individual on his own could not build a school, a corporation could but it would have a monopoly and charge high , the govt collects tax from the population gives them a fantastic school
harj2009 7 months ago
@harj2009
Actually you make a good point, Corporate Welfare is a form of socialism which is why I'm not in favor of Corporate Welfare.
FRSFreeStateNow 7 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow no its a form of crony capitalism...socialism is about putting tools of production in the hands of the workers
harj2009 6 months ago
@harj2009
Government Sponsored Enterprise counts as socialism which is what Corporate Welfare is
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow
Just saying something doesn't magically make it reality. ROFL
1969lincolnosiris 6 months ago
@1969lincolnosiris
You don't say
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow no its not.The Govt owning state business is nothing like corporate welfare
you dont know what corporate welfare is
harj2009 6 months ago
@harj2009
I just told what Corporate Welfare is, apparently you don't know what it is.
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow nope subsidies to big oil , farm and giving contracts to Halliburton.Bailing out banks with no strings attached is all Crony Capitalism .
In Socialism the govt only gives money to companies which are owned by the state, and any money made by the state owned companies goes to the tax payer
harj2009 6 months ago
@harj2009
One form of socialism which is a very diverse Political Ideology not just an Economic Policy. Is Government Subsidization of business, thats what Corporate Welfare is. And you might not like that fact as a socialist because your anti Corporate Welfare but so am I. But thats what it is.
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow In all fairness the citizens of modern societies can barely point out their OWN nation on a map.. never-mind understand the global scope of the world they live in. Most people on a daily bases don't do what is in their best interest. I'm not saying government knows better, not at all... just kinda.. pointing at the 800 pound gorilla in the room... People themselves rarely know what is "best".. how could they? They have neither the expertise or clairvoyance to know what is right
ShinEmperor 6 months ago
@ShinEmperor
You just laid out the argument for the need for Big Government, the need for government to protect people from themselves. No other socialist could make your argument any better. Which I totally disagree with.
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow First, I wasn't advocating ANY form of government... just pointing out the obvious.. that every day people don't know enough about economics, geopolitics, other cultures.. and so on to be able to make decisions on those issues and that is essentially where I stand. Yes, government is corrupt and incompetent. But the average citizen really isn't much better. When you look at the statistics. People waste tons of money, make assumptions about all kinds of things...
ShinEmperor 6 months ago
@ShinEmperor
I didn't say you were advocating anything, I'm just saying what you said no other socialist could make a better argument for Big Government. Then what you just laid out whether you believe in Socialist Big Government or not.
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
@FRSFreeStateNow This is obviously the case at least some of the time, unless you're arguing that local groups of people can build massive infrastructure more efficiently than non-local groups.
technoviking 6 months ago
@technoviking
Actually they can but I'm speaking more in broader terms
FRSFreeStateNow 6 months ago
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'No doubt, not do doubt.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
3. Also, Sweden is a capitalist country do doubt about it. It may not be as free market oriented as the USA, yet, but what we have here or even what we had during the 70's was in no way socialism. A welfare-state, perhaps, meaning a capitalist state with a government intervention in the economy, with good intentions (universal health care, lower income gap than most countries, etc.). But by no means socialism.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
2. Very simply put, if one admits that markets cannot solve some problems, and that some things are better handled in other ways, there is logically no reason not question markets in regards to other problems, or even in markets in
general.
And vice versa; if one believes that some things are far better handled by the market than alter alternatives such as democracy, there is logically no reason not to explore the idea of markets being left to handle more things.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
1. Because it is ideologically cowardly and intellectually insulting? Being "in between" is what most people are, simply because most people don't really care - they have not considered the issues or the philosophies and the reasoning behind them.
It is a middle-of-the-road, lowest common denominator option that appeals to most people, and thus what most politicians promote, since they want to get elected. So it's what we wind up with.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
why do people THINK that it needs to be either socalism or right winged ism? Why do people assume that since socalism fails, one needs to go deep into the other direction. One needs not to, just look at Sweden.
gulbirk 7 months ago
@gulbirk Except Sweden's government is moving toward a market-driven state right now, privatizing some of its services from education to transportation.
Seiku 7 months ago
@Seiku Yes, and thats bound to happen because they get pushed from the rest of the western world, which is simply sad.
gulbirk 7 months ago
7. For all O'Neill is saying is that there are several, logically independent (i.e. one being true does not mean all are, one being false does not mean all are) arguments being made.
Why are you complaining, anyway, isn't it good for your side that you have found TWO major faults with Communism?
Also, please elaborate on the "technical economics and social theory" bit, and/or provide links to more info.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
6. Given your failure to write his name accurately (O'Neill, not Neill! :) ), I assume that you cannot have more than skimmed through his book (correct me if I am wrong, by all means!).
Elaborating or not, Hayek winds up making a separate point, focusing on epistemology. What are you arguing for exactly, that there is just one big point made about socialism from Austrians?
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
5. This is merely a philosophical interesting observation, and a division of a problem into two logically separate points made in order to be more accurate and fair, and not an actual attempt to separate Mises and Hayek entirely.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
4. What O'Neill is trying to do is put an interesting "twist" on the debate, by showing that actors generally thought to be on different sides still shared some common ground (Mises and Lange on commensurablity, Neurath and Hayek on epistemology) and that vice versa (Lange and Neurath on epistemology, Hayek and Mises on the importance of commensurablity).
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
3. O'Neil attacks a specific aspect of the Misean critique, namely the one stating that commensurablity is required for comparability and thus necessary for a rational decision to be made. He, like Neurath, calls it pseudo-rationalistic since it fails to grasp the limitations of rationalism.
He never claims Hayek "rejected" Mises, just that he never shared his views in this particular matter (that of commensurability being required for practical rationality).
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
2. And is not a free market, without regulation and intervention, what Austrians want, because they believe that such a free market can solve most problems in society?
It does, I fear, reek of Cartesian rationalism - the belief that one procedure, one institution, is THE best and the answer to ALL our problems.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
1. Where? Everywhere. Not in those words exactly, but that's the essence of their argument, is it not? That the market allocates resources the most efficiently, that prices are the best way to carry information relevant for investment. That decisions, such as the choice between two mutually exclusive options, should be made based on the market price, since that is what tells us what people want.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
9. O'Neill is not claiming Mises is wrong but Hayek right - or anything like that (nor am I). It is however a fact that, despite being on the same side and agreeing with eachother on most things, they DID make different points.
Also, it is far more simple and far more fair to deal with a series of arguments if one "divides" them into the points being made. Not doing this is for example why the technocratic answer to the calculation problem fails - it addresses Mises's but not Hayek's points.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
8. No one is trying to "disentangle" the two, taking the history of the argument into account it is clear that the only reason that Hayek doesn't repeat Mises argument is that Lange already agreed on it.
That does not change the fact that the two points are logically independent if read broadly - this is not a bad thing, but something that allows even an anarcho-socialist to use Hayek's arguments against for instance technocrats and Communists. It was meant as a compliment, if anything...
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
@derapfelstrudel ''That does not change the fact that the two points are logically independent'' Given Neill's failure to show that Hayek was doing no more then elaborate aspects of Mises point, i am doubting that assertion, also Hayek made connected but different arguments about technical economics & social theory/ philosophy The latter is secondary as the former is more fundamental. That Neurath agreed with the latter does not mean he understood the former.
Malthus0 7 months ago
@derapfelstrudel ''No one is trying to "disentangle" the two'' it is one of John O Neill's main points that Hayek rejected Mises calculation arguements so that in effect that Mises was closer to Lange then Hayek, who himself was closer to Neurath. If that is not disentangling, I don't know what is. In fact he is trying to put a meat cleaver between the two. Neill's interpretation is baffling, misguided & probably based on a lack of understanding of Austrian school methodology.
Malthus0 7 months ago
7. Regarding point 1. Yes, but "implicit" does not mean "logically dependent on". It is perfectly possible to agree with one point and not the other - technocrats for instance would agree on the calculabilty point but not the epistemological, while anarcho-socialist would not agree on the fist but on the second.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
6. It is a complex subject, however, so please see the following:
-John O'Neill (I have indeed read him!) - 4shared.com/document/lSYwXf_u/oneill_-_summary_of_the_discus.htm
-Anarchist FAQ I.1.1. infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionI1#seci11
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
5. The point also itself Cartesian rationalist implications (with market price being the one optimal solution to the problem of what to produce, and Mises arguing that the use of a single unit lends itself to calculation, etc.) that primarily Hayek's writings reject.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
@derapfelstrudel ''market price being the one optimal solution'' Nonsense! I ask you to find anywhere where Mises (or Hayek) talk about Optimums!! This is a conflation of Austrian school economics with neoclassical economics. Neil is just wrong about Mises. In the passage he cites as showing the rift between them he says that Mises considered the socialist problem as one of ACCOUNTING!!?? WTF! Hayek was complaining about conflation of accounting & calculation & Neill then goes & conflates them!
Malthus0 7 months ago
4. In regards to my point 7, comparability does not logically require calculability- in other words, a community need not know the "market price" of two options in order to directly assess which one is more valuable to them. In fact, this is the only way that ethical, philosophical, environmental, political, etc. aspect can be a part of the decision-making.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
3. The goal, that of profit, is still attained so in a capitalist economy this is not a problem. However, in a socialist/anarchist society it WOULD be - thus the need to do away with markets and money. Their function is not compatible with the goal of use-value production.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
2. (cont.) Due to the nature of markets, entrepreneurs will NOT act on certain information that they do have (since it will not result in profit/is not usable on a market) and will NOT possess certain information at all (since such information is actively kept from them, such as the future production and research plans of other firms).
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
1. I do not misunderstand the function of prices. They are indeed "an aid to the mind of entrepreneurial activity", and I am well aware that Hayek's intent was for the entrepreneur to act on local knowledge, etc., I personally think he makes that quite explicit enough for me.
However, my original point still stands.
derapfelstrudel 7 months ago
10. Socialism does not do the above. The old debates on the good life, pluralism of life-plans, the organisation of society, ethics, etc. all remain a part of the anarchist and socialist traditions. Most neoclassical and Austrian economists would consider that silly, and assert that marginal utility has replaced those notions. Which is just a swell opinion to have, but alas, an opinion none the less, and not a fact...
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
9. The Austrian argument is pretty much that that is impossible - unless you can read minds there is no way to know what people need. It does away with the arguments regarding the "ideal society" or the "good life", which was a part of the classical economics of Smith and Ricardo, and goes back all the way to Plato and Aristotle. Marginalist revolution and all that, yada yada.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
8. That means that "individual subjective desire measured as the willingness to pay", crucial in Austrian economics, is irrelevant in a socialist society (much like actual needs are irrelevant in a capitalist society).
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
7. Socialism entails production of use-value - the goal is the satisfaction of human needs.
Like Otto Neurath, an opponent of Hayek's, argued, real socialism MUST do away with money and markets because it CANNOT take the information it carries into account and still be socialism. A socialist society MUST consider use-value only.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
@derapfelstrudel Reply to point 7 - And that is where Neurath's arguement dies. The aid to the mind that prices are can not be done away with, to uses Mises terminology- the community has no standard for cost evaluation, to use Hayeks; the knowledge of relative scarcities needed to produce economically is given to no one & is only discovered(generated) in a competitive market process.Talk about other information apart from that in price is irrelevent since it plays no part in their main point.
Malthus0 7 months ago
6. I said: "We need information channels other than the market."
You replied: "Well obviously, I don't see how anyone reading Mises, Hayek, or contemporary Austrians could get the idea they think otherwise. However the other types of information can not replace the former."
To put it very simplified:
The reason socialists and anarchists want to get rid of money is precisely to replace the information that money carries with what is considered actually important information.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
5. "To whose conception of socialism markets..."
This is correct - market "socialism" IMO combines the worst aspects of capitalism and socialism, and fails at achieving anything that either side would like. At any rate, it is seldom what is meant when one debates socialism, and since even Mises acknowledges the possibility of market syndicalism (like I quoted earlier), I think it's safe to keep this out of the discussion.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
4. "If you don't use the spontaneous ordering..."
This is demonstrably false. Thought it may go against intuition, spontaneous organisation can occur without markets or hierarchy, and in fact HAS occurred historically. This idea lies at the heart of all anarchist thought.
Now, I'm not saying that those few data-points are proof that the system in question is superior or anything, but it does show that it is POSSIBLE.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
3. Since this epistemological argument is logically independent from the issue of money, it is quite possible for an anarcho-socialist to agree with Hayek on the issue of centralisation and the dispersal of knowledge, without agreeing that money and markets are the only solutions.
Also, when I speak of Hayek I mean Hayek, "not contemporary Hayekians" or their thought and/or interpretations, but the man himself and the things he actually wrote.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
2. I believe reading Hayek is important for anarcho-socialist, since that tradition is otherwise strongly rooted in Cartesian rationalism - it can strongly benefit from understanding the limits of rationality and the practical boundaries of reason.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
1. Indeed, Hayek's ideas are based on Mises, but not logically dependent on him. His epistemological critique can be read far more broadly as a critique of centralised decision-making in any form, and is itself independent from his argument that the market solves the problem of knowledge.
derapfelstrudel 8 months ago
@derapfelstrudel Reply to point 1 - I disagree. Mises calculation argument is implicit in Hayek. The context of Hayek's arguments are that Lange et al agreed that a single unit of cost accounting is needed. Hayek epistemological arguments was aimed at showing how the ECONOMIC knowledge needed for this could not be generated or encapsulated in the absence of real competition. John O Neil (who you have clearly read) is clearly ignorant of this context. Hayek & Mises can not be disentangled.
Malthus0 7 months ago
Socialism a is a world wide system of society based on sharing the Earth for all generations in cooperation for our common needs and well being . A MONEYless,CLASSless ,STATEless communities of humanity organising lives not through the MARKET MECHANISM of ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY and employment system of wage slavery but rational,scientific means to TAKE CARE OF OUR WELL BEING . Governments are expressions of CLASS RULE,
arzoyan 8 months ago
Socialism does not assume that knowledge is used by a central authority. Socialism is social ownership of production. There is no central authority involved. It's as decentralized as you could get, because there isn't even a capitalist calling all the shots. It's workers deciding what they will do with their own efforts.
So, this video/argument was null in the first 30 seconds. Yawn, next.
aluisious 8 months ago
@aluisious There is of course more basic arguments he is assuming are understood. Which hayek gives a flavour of from 1:20 . If you don't use the spontaneous ordering of rivalrous market behaviour then, the only alternative is top down organisation & its accompanying centralisation. & of cource the intellectual rivals is is alluding to in this video understood & accepted this, only disagreeing on whether centralisation works. ''It's as decentralized as you could get'' But not in the right way.
Malthus0 8 months ago
@Malthus0 I don't see how worker ownership of production prevents rivalry between organizations. It doesn't even prevent rivalry within the organization. It merely protects against what is basically an authoritarian situation where one guy owns everything and forces everyone else to do as he demands.
Let's not beat around the bush here. Most capitalists are characterized by their desire to take anything that isn't nailed down, and then get a pry bar to take the things that are nailed down.
aluisious 8 months ago
@aluisious If you are talking about a kind of market syndicalism then, you are right, to an extent. However what we define as 'social' & 'ownership' matters in this. The conception of socialism on which virtually all debates about socialism hinges has originated in Marx. To whose conception of socialism markets & rivalrous competition are an anathema. Whatever the details of your 'co-op capitalism' it's failures will be wherever free exchange & competition is not permited.
Malthus0 8 months ago
@aluisious
If there is no central planner involved, then whose finger is it pointing and who set the prices of goods after the mass has taken over production. In every case where socialism has replaced capitalism, there are bloodshed. You are right to yawn. Time to go back to the cave. Neanderthal like you does not belong in free society.
flynn2008 8 months ago
@flynn2008 You idiot, you can't even write coherently. Where's the bloodshed in Denmark or Canada? Dumbass.
aluisious 8 months ago
@aluisious
You can't even think coherently. To imply that Canada and D