Why you'd find inspiration in a brutal and fascistic law from so far back in the past is beyond me. Hayek's grand vision seems to amount to recreating an 'idealised' time before the 'evil' state became so prevalent - a great and wonderful time in which aristocrats were like gods, workers knew their place, labour was cheap, and the lives of the poor were even cheaper. What a great time that must have been to be alive. Its probably no coincidence that Hayek came from an aristocratic family.
This comment is entirely incoherent. Fascism and feudalism are two entirely different types of socioeconomic systems with very little in common. In other words, Hayek cannot support both systems, at the same time, and remain logically consistent. Though obviously Hayek supported neither fascism nor feudalism.
@Questfortruth86 What fascism and feudalism share is a love of autonomous polarized authority over equally distributed democratic rights. Hayek proposes a social system in which democratic rights are subsumed beneath autonomous economic authority - a system in which the richest have the greatest say, and the poorest are forced to abide by the will of their economic masters. It is worth noting that that Hayek supported the fascistic dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet.
[Continued] That "autonomous economic authority" that you refer to, and which Hayek indeed supported, is nothing more than laborers, consumers, producers (i.e., individuals) freely engaging in voluntary and mutually beneficial transactions in an attempt to better their own positions. In doing so, they create an incentive structure, and certain mechanisms emerge, which assure an optimal allocation of resources and efficient economic production/coordination. So yes, Hayek opposes collectivism.
@Questfortruth86 That idealised view of free-market resource allocation ignores the fact that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECTLY COMPETITIVE MARKET. Just as there is no such thing as a perfectly equal and prosperous communist society - both are idealisations, concepts, illusions. Markets have the advantage in so far as they are self-organising. But in reality they never behave in the ideal way that theorists envision. Market failure is a fact of life, as is political failure.
You're attacking a straw-man. Austrian economists have literally wrote entire volumes criticizing the mainstream and their literal interpretation of Walras' perfectly competitive general equilibrium model. As far as "market failures" are concerned, the fact that markets do not always yield perfect x-efficiency does not (a) mean that government intrusion can improve the situation, and (b) it actually yields long-run efficient conditions (dynamically efficient). The market is a process.
@Questfortruth86 The notion that free markets lead to optimum outcomes is still rooted in the mythology of perfect competition. The market is a process in which individual actors seek in whichever way they can to eliminate their competitors. Inequalities in the distribution of wealth and power are self-reinforcing to the point of excess, often leading to the natural development of oligopolies and monopolies from initial 'free market' conditions.
@Questfortruth86 In many cases government intervention is necessary to maintain competition - to stop markets from destroying themselves. Regulation is needed to force markets to take external costs into account that they would otherwise ignore, to the detriment of society (i.e: pollution). Markets often develop incentives that run counter to the common good, or are driven by short-term benefit at the expense of long-term benefit. Markets endlessly fail to live up to theoretical expectations.
[part 3]. But again, and I must stress this, capitalism does not arbitrarily value equality for equality's sake. And finally, I don’t want to address your monopoly argument simply because it’s so misguided that a proper response would be way too lengthy for a youtube discussion. I simply suggest that you look-up the phenomena known as “chiseling,” and realize that not all monopolies/oligopolies behave in the same way (something that you learn in introductory economics courses).
@Questfortruth86 (pt.3) 1. Valuing freedom for freedom's sake is just as 'arbitrary' as doing the same for equality. The two need to be held in balance, preferably with some 'fraternity' thrown into the mix. 2. I never suggested that mono/oligo-polies all behave in the same way. I stated that they can arise from initial 'free market' conditions and that the government is often needed to enforce competition.
"1. Valuing freedom for freedom's sake is just as 'arbitrary' as doing the same for equality."
Correct. I support capitalism (economic freedom) because, as history as shown, no other system (a) is capable of rational economic coordination, (b) facilitates innovation, and (c) elevates the standard of living amongst an entire society. This system has provided common men goods and services that the Medici and Rothschild's could only dream of.
"I stated that they can arise from initial 'free market' conditions and that the government is often needed to enforce competition."
Every single example of an inefficient monopoly, whose behavior (i.e., pricing strategies) hurt consumers, emerged precisely and only because of special privileges granted by government decree. You cannot find a single historical example of a monopoly naturally emerging, in the free market, that actually hurt consumers. Not one.
It's blindingly apparent that you haven't actually investigated this issue at all (I recommend "Industry, Structure, Strategy and Public Policy" By Scherer). Standard oil, for example, cut the price of crude oil by 95% creating a larger consumer surplus than would have exited if the market was perfectly competitive. It was so efficient that its competitors simply could not compete at that price point (which is why they lobbied against it, and ultimately broke it up in anti-trust court).
@Questfortruth86 The Federal Commissioner of Corporations, following a study of Standard Oil, said in 1906: "beyond question... the dominant position of the Standard Oil Company in the refining industry was due to unfair practices—to abuse of the control of pipe-lines, to railroad discriminations, and to unfair methods of competition in the sale of the refined petroleum products".
Unfair for whom? It certainly wasn't unfair to the consumers who saw dramatic falls in the price of oil, which translated and facilitated a major industrial boom (lower energy costs translates into lower marginal costs across the board). So far you've only managed to regurgitate ancient mythology, appeal to emotion and have shown a complete inability to support your assertions with actual facts.
@Questfortruth86 In 1909 the US Dept. of Justice said: "The evidence is absolutely conclusive that the Standard Oil Company charges excessive prices where it meets no competition, and particularly where there is little likelihood of competitors entering the field, and that, where competition is active, it frequently cuts prices to a point which leaves even the Standard little or no profit, and which more often leaves no profit to the competitor, whose costs are ordinarily somewhat higher".
The quote from the 1909 U.S. dept. of justice contradicts itself and is the typical garbage that uniformed, pontificating government bureaucrats tend to spew. According to them, Standard Oil simultaneously charged "excessively high prices" and "prices so low that even Standard oil" couldn't earn a positive rate of return. The fact is that S.O reduced the price of gas from 30 cents a per gallon in 1869 to 5.9 cents a gallon in 1897. Tell me, how did that hurt consumers?
@Questfortruth86 1890, Rep. William Mason, said: "trusts have made products cheaper, have reduced prices; but if the price of oil, for instance, were reduced to one cent a barrel, it would not right the wrong done to people of this country by the trusts which have destroyed legitimate competition and driven honest men from legitimate business enterprise".
[part 2] Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs only when he began producing what society needs/desires en masse. The funny thing, though, is that capitalist systems end up far more egalitarian than the systems which proclaim to value equality for the sake of equality. The empirical evidence supporting this assertion is torrential. The nations that score the lowest on the economic freedom index tend to be the nations with the highest disparity of wealth. Thus, your original assertion is simply untrue.
@Questfortruth86 (pt.2) The nations that score lowest on the 'economic freedom' index are plagued by all sorts of economic, social and political problems. Poor enforcement of property rights, crime, corruption, undeveloped markets, poor infrastructure, inflation all reduce a country's score on the 'economic freedom' index. The ideal situation re egality would appear to be a balance of 'economic freedom' and government intervention.
Capitalism does not pretend to be egalitarian in nature. Your relative social standing within this system is determined by your productivity i.e., by your ability to make others happy. In other words, your relative social standing is determined by society itself. In this sense, the capitalist system is entirely unique. All other systems determine individual social standings by decree. Steve Jobs was not born the duke of anything, and he wasn’t appointed tsar because of his party loyalty.
@Questfortruth86 (Pt1.) 1.Your explanation of how social standing is gained within a capitalist society is way too simplistic. The real world isn't so cute. 2.Steve Jobs may not have been born a duke, but many of the world's richest people were indeed born into great wealth. 3.There is no simple direct correlation between 'economic freedom' and egality. The US has greater 'economic freedom' than Germany but is less egalitarian.
"but many of the world's richest people were indeed born into great wealth"
This is actually false. The vast majority of the world's billionaires are self-made individuals who started with nothing, and a study by the Spectrum Group shows that inherited wealth only accounts for 2% of total wealth among millionaires. Additionally, I never said that there was a perfect, position relationship between economic freedom and equality (but there is a relationship). You attack straw-men.
@Questfortruth86 Forbes estimates that approximately 20-25% of billionaires inherited fortunes. This is a conservative estimate of the influence of inheritance, given that much inherited wealth is not even counted as such in surveys (property, private education, private incomes, etc). I wasn't attacking a straw man, but rather countering your assertion that "capitalist systems end up far more egalitarian than the systems which proclaim to value equality for the sake of equality", which is false
I guess it depends on how we define "vast majority." I consider 80% to be a "vast majority." Let me rephrase it: 80% of the worlds billionaires are self-made, and a study revealed that inherited wealth only accounts for 2% of total wealth amongst millionaires.
@Questfortruth86 Actually the figure I quoted is a bit out of date. In 2011, Forbes states that 30% of the richest 400 individuals inherited most or part of their fortunes, with 5 out of the top 10 having similarly inherited. However, Rupert Murdoch is described as being one of the 'self-made' billionaires, despite the fact that he began his career by inheriting the ownership of a large newspaper company from his father. This fact puts the 70% 'self made' figure into serious doubt.
According to a study of Federal Reserve data conducted by NYU professor Edward Wolff, for the nation’s richest 1%, inherited wealth accounted for only 9% of their net worth in 2001, down from 23% in 1989. (The 2001 number was the latest available.)
@Questfortruth86 If you have a net worth of $1 Billion, of which only 9% was inherited, that's still $90 million of inherited wealth. I'm guessing it wouldn't be difficult to make an even greater fortune off the back of such a large initial sum.
@Questfortruth86 According to that same study, the top 1% of the US population own about 35% of the total US wealth. The Fed stated that in 2010 total net worth of the US was $54.9 trillion. So for the top1% as a whole, inherited wealth (lets say 9%) was equal to $1.73 trillion in 2010. Wolff also states that the bottom 60% owned 2.3% of total US net worth, equal to $1.26 trillion in 2010. So, overall, the inherited wealth of the top1% was greater than the total wealth of the bottom 60% combined
First of all, why are you shifting goal posts? We're talking about how the vast majority of wealth is acquired in a capitalist system, not income equality. Comparing the inherited wealth that the top 1% has acquired to the total wealth that the bottom 60% possesses is absolutely unessential to what we're discussing; it's a distraction. The fact of the matter, and you admit it, is that 91% of the wealth earned, among the wealthiest, is self-made wealth. Your initial claim is factually incorrect.
@Questfortruth86 You define all increases in wealth as being the result of an increase in productivity and/or an increase in the production of goods and services, but I don't consider this to be an accurate description of the facts. Wealth engenders wealth by its very nature, and not necessarily as the result of increased 'productivity' or of an increase in 'valuable service to others'. You use the term "self-made wealth", but a more accurate term might be "wealth-made wealth".
So again, the top 1% acquired 17.5 trillion dollars by producing goods and services that are valued by society, and 1.7 trillion dollars of their total net worth was acquired because one (or multiple) of their dead relatives produced goods and services that were valued by society. Of course, this figure as percentage dramatically falls once our analysis extends beyond billionaires (you conveniently ignore the statistic that inherited wealth accounts for only 2% of total wealth among millionaires
@Questfortruth86 I ignore it because I doubt that it is indeed a 'statistic'. Spectrum Group is a wealth management company, not an academic or impartial organisation.
@Questfortruth86 Let's say someone inherits $1 million in cash. They buy a house for that sum. 15 years later it is worth $10 million, at which point they sell it. According to you they only inherited 10% of their wealth and 'made' the rest by 'producing goods and services'. However, they have produced nothing, and have in truth only profited from an increase in prices. Let's say the intial price was £100,000 and the sell price was $1M. They would register as a "self-made millionaire". Nonsense.
[continued] It leads to the more efficient pricing of assets (under normal conditions) which facilitates economic coordination and allows for rational economic calculation. In other words, it matches expectations with actual economic fundamentals (so-called “real conditions”) so that economic agents can maximize output/utility. Thus arbitrage too (indirectly, even more so than the whore divorcee who “sits” on a fortune) serves the needs of society.
@Questfortruth86 The 'efficient' pricing of assets emerges from group behaviour, not from the actions of any individual. The actions of an individual are normally pretty irrelevant, if a market has enough participants. On the other hand, certain markets can be manipulated, in which case price changes are intended to benefit only those that bring them about.
The phenomenon you're describing is in fact atypical, if at all possible, in an actual free market. This condition, namely extreme asset-price volatility, is the result of a government-induced inflationary expansion (a bubble) and artificial interest rate manipulation. But yes, due to the fact that subjective preferences are in continuous flux, there will indeed be arbitrage opportunities. But arbitrage isn’t superfluous.
@Questfortruth86 Strictly speaking, the problem is not that the central bank/government can control the interest rate on its own currency, but rather that private banks are given a licence to counterfeit that currency when they create credit. Whilst cheap credit encourages asset price rises, in many cases this happens anyway as a result of disparities between supply and demand. There are only so many houses in the centre of a city, but in times of economic growth demand will rise substantially
I ask you to point me to a monopoly that engaged in a pricing strategy that actually hurt consumers, and you point to one which lowered the price of its product by 80% in 30 years. What a joke.
By the way, I'm going to settle the issue by running a regression between income equality and economic freedom, just for you. But the main point is that even the "poor" in economically free societies are far wealthier than the "rich" in those that aren't free.
@Questfortruth86 Our disagreement stems from my initial claim that "many of the world's richest individuals were indeed born into great wealth". I think the figures I have quoted back this up, despite the fact that they only give a partial account of the importance of inheritance today. You'll notice, I hope, that I didn't state that the "vast majority" inherited their wealth.
"your assertion that "capitalist systems end up far more egalitarian than the systems which proclaim to value equality for the sake of equality", which is false"
I'm not going to respond to this any longer. The facts are the facts and they can be, if you're on the wrong side of an issue, quite inconvenient. You may be surprised by the nations that are ranked economically freer than the U.S. (Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Switzerland and others).
@Questfortruth86 Comparing gini coefficient stats and the heritage foundation's 'economic freedom' index may help you to understand the point I was making. It's also worth pointing out that Canada and Denmark have higher levels of taxation and higher government spending (as % of gdp) on social security, health and welfare programs.
@Questfortruth86 1. By your logic, simply owning invested capital is same as being 'productive'. This means that the richer you are, the more 'productive' you are. It's peverse circular reasoning. A person could own a fortune that is professionally managed, not work at all, and yet according to you they would be highly 'productive'. 2. The only social system in which social position is determined by society itself is democracy. Capitalism is not the same thing as democracy.
Again, productivity means the ability to satisfy (directly or indirectly) the subjective desires of others. The individual who already owns a fortune (notice, you leave out how that person actually acquired that fortune), and just "sits on it" (saves it) is also being productive. His savings are being funneled to various productive investment via financial intermediaries. That investment, in turn, will stimulate output and increase the marginal productivity of labor and therefore wages.
@Questfortruth86 By your logic a unemployed divorcee living the easy life in Monte Carlo or a high class prostitute are more 'productive' than any given factory worker.
Yes. The prostitute and the divorcee, at the margin, create a higher degree of net satisfaction than the average factory worker (the prostitute does so directly, and the divorcee does so indirectly). Justin Bieber is more productive than any teacher no matter how much YOU revere teachers, and no matter how much YOU may hate his music. This is the logical conclusion anyone must draw once they realize that value does not exist objectively in nature, but is confined to human tastes and preferences.
@Questfortruth86 As I said your reasoning is circular and perverse. Essentially you equate 'productivity' with wealth and then you draw the conclusion that the wealthiest individuals are therefore the most productive. You have decided to define 'productivity' in a way that best suits your point of view. According to your logic, saving someone's life is less 'valuable' than releasing the latest crappy pop tune, if the former attracts a lower rate of financial return than the latter.
@Questfortruth86 Again, following your odd logic it would appear that Van Gogh was, during his lifetime, an extremely unproductive artist, given that he made very little money from his work. This despite the fact that he was hugely prolific and is now considered by most to be a major figure in the history of modern art. Whilst in your view he was highly unproductive, the dealers who today sell his works at auction for million-dollar profits are in contrast seen as being highly 'productive'.
@Questfortruth86 A man bets $10 on a race and wins $1000. He takes his winnings and pays an exclusive prostitute $500 for a blowjob. She takes the rest of the day off, goes shopping and pays a dressmaker $200 to spend the day making her a dress. According to you, in this scenario the man is the most productive, the prostitute is the second most productive, and the dressmaker is the least productive of the three. This strikes me as being a very odd way of describing things.
You keep trying to moralize the issue rather than test the logical validity of my argument. Whether the person desires a blowjob, or an American made automobile, is completely immaterial from an economist's point of view. Whether the consumer is a teacher, a mother of ten, or a prostitute is entirely immaterial from an economists point of view. Again, the fact that people desire things that YOU may not approve of is irrelevant.
@Questfortruth86 You moralized the issue with the statement: "your relative social standing within (capitalism) is determined by your productivity i.e., by your ability to make others happy". The gambler has produced nothing and made no one 'happy' in the acquisition of his wealth, he has simply been lucky and won a bet. The prostitute's income is not determined by her ability to make others 'happy' but by her ability to do what the majority would find morally repugnant.
What does gambling have to do with capitalist production and income distribution? You do realize that gambling exists in even in socialist/communist systems, correct?
"The prostitute's income is not determined by her ability to make others 'happy'"
The prostitute's service doesn't make people happy? It doesn't satisfy the desires of his/her clientele?
"but by her ability to do what the majority would find morally repugnant."
@Questfortruth86 Most types of currency, derivatives, commodities and shares trading are basically just forms of gambling. If a trader makes a fortune from buying and selling gold futures contracts, he has produced nothing as such, he has simply been good at predicting changes in prices, and willing to take risks.
@atlasman55 Well, that were fine if they a) don't get bailed out and b) use their own flippin' money; they gamble because "we, the people" demand more and more return.
This is absolutely correct. Democracy is a system where 51% of the population tells the other 49% how to live their lives, which car to drive, what meals are "appropriate," etc. Capitalism, on the other hand, is a system rooted in property rights, where individuals are free to engage in any sort of relationship insofar as they don't violate the property rights of others. You don't need the permission of 51% to buy/sell anything.
@Questfortruth86 That's a ridiculous assertion. 'Private property rights' only exist in any meaningful sense because they are upheld and enforced by law which is created by government, which in a democracy is elected on a majority vote by the population. The government enforces legal tender laws, which give the national currency its value, and ensures that assets retain their value by guaranteeing their security against theft. Your bank balance only has value thanks to the government.
First, that's not an assertion; that's, in a nut-shell, the definition of capitalism. It is the mere extension of property rights. Next, I'm not an anarchist; I do believe that the government plays a vital role, namely in the defensive of such property rights and the establishment of a coherent and uniform legal system. Capitalism and democracy are not mutually exclusive, but they also do not go hand-in-hand. In fact, democracy tends to stray away from capitalistic principles.
@Questfortruth86 The government can only defend property rights once it has recognised them as such and written them into law. If a government does not recognise a theoretical category of property rights then they have no legally defined existence within its jurisdiction.
"The government enforces legal tender laws, which give the national currency its value"
This too is incorrect and has been invalidated multiple times, primarily by Austrian economists (though their refutation is accepted by the mainstream). Google the "regression theorem."
@Questfortruth86 Legal tender laws state that the national currency has to be accepted in payment of debts, and that payment of taxes and other fees to the state must be made in the national currency. Other laws and state-imposed rules state that domestic bank credit may only be denominated in the national currency and must be fractionally backed by reserves in that currency. Thus government creates the basic value of, and demand for, its money.
[continued] Occasionally, various kings attempted to replace real money with pseudo-currency that they created (usually to finance wars), only to have such schemes backfire (money would not be employed, i.e., the demand and therefore the actual value of such currency would collapse). In Yugoslavia, for example, individuals began trading in German Marks when the government did not authorize them to do so. I would suggest reading "Theory of Money and Credit" if you wish to learn more about this.
@Questfortruth86 1. I'm well aware that back in the day when we rode around on horses and were ruled by autocratic monarchs we tended to use gold and silver coins as money. I was describing how money functions today, not how it used to function in the past. Clearly fiat money can lose value for a number of reasons, but this doesn't make it 'pseudo money'. Inflation was also experienced in the past when large new discoveries of gold were made. Black markets will always develop in times of crisis
Money, defined as a commonly accepted medium of exchange, predates legal tender laws. Monarchs were forced to accept gold and silver as money, for example, because they were already chosen as the common medium of exchange by society. Rulers would attempt to arbitrarily fix exchange rates between different forms of money only to have such regulations backfire (Gresham's law).
It's becoming increasingly clear to me that you have absolutely no idea what fascism actually is and how it operates economically. You seem to be employing the 8th grade interpretation of fascism, which was force-fed to you by your history professor, who also happened to be your track coach. Fascism is precisely the type of system that promotes "democratic rights" (if by this you mean the rights of a majority) at the expense of individual rights.
@Questfortruth86 Fascism is completely anti-democratic, typically taking the form of a totalitarian dictatorship. Of course this is not what Hayek advocates. But he argues for a social system in which political power is basically eradicated in favour of economic power. Whilst each individual in his system has the same basic rights, the result is that individuals have no option to try and improve their situation through the democratic process. The richest in society become the rulers of society.
@ElJefer That would actually be quite funny if it wasn't so sad and deluded. Beyond providing bread, rags and pennies for the dying, crippled and aged, the poor law instituted forced labour, beatings and imprisonment for the 'able-bodied poor'.
Basically what he's saying is that the rich should be absolutely free to do as they please and everyone else should just do as they're told. Oh and if you run out of money then you can just fuck off and die in a workhouse.
Please note that my book Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Shaped Modern Economics is published by W.W.Norton in October.
Professor John B.Taylor says that: “Nicholas Wapshott brings the Keynes-Hayek fight of the 20th century back to life, making the clash both entertaining and highly relevant for understanding economic crises of the 21st century.”
Read an extract at: sites.google.com/site/wapshottkeyneshayek/
at the end " a degree of intellectual understanding that may unachievable." scary but true, more one reflects on current world, says alot.... Perhaps man is destined for the road warrior situation..... as the only way to learn for the masses. Like little kids the only way they understand/learn sometimes is to let them experience it...Failure is a great teacher.....
Capitalism is a system characterized by cooperation amongst strangers. Individuals who, in other circumstances, might very well kill each other, are turned into trading partners in the capitalist order (whether they're aware of this or not). Their interests become mutually bound and there actions are guided by the preferences and desires of others. The capitalist system punishes those who produce for themselves but rewards those, in the form of profit, that produce for others. It's remarkable.
My comment may be remarkably simple, but it is also undeniably true. This is why your response is nothing but an amusing knee-jerk reaction. The fact of the matter is that (1) somewhere in the world right now there are anti-American's producing products that will inevitably end up in the shelves of U.S. supermarkets and (2) Steve Jobs became wealthy by producing products that other people desired.
there some places that manifest perfectly hayeks message.
they are called ghost towns.
the problem rises early on with austrian economists theories.
it starts from the point that economists want to replace science of phychologists sociologists/anthropologists or neurologists/phychiatrists/biologists dealing with dna and biological driven behaviours, with their crack pot creationist psedoscience about human beahavioure.
free is a word that means nothing,if you cant assing atributes to it.
So we should enforce protection of all people's decisions that can't gain voluntary funding? Tell me, is it moral to support one by forcible funding by stealing from others, if that one is extending his risk taking on knowledge of that forced support, and is producing according to what he can steal rather than gain by pure contract? If it is not automatically right to retain that theft for HIS satisfaction then why coercively support settlements that are now untenable due to altered conditions?
"for HIS satisfaction then why coercively support settlements that are now untenable due to altered conditions?"
Here I should add;
for HIS satisfaction-a myopic one at that given that this coerced funding of all investments of human and material producer goods, capital, would destroy society and thus the capacity for society to fund those who would forcibly take from it, in divorcing income from what people will voluntarily pay and perverting incentives for production. Zero-sum game Myopia.
@MikeTMerciless I had an acquaintance, someone with tattoos and piercings and an anarchic streak that basically made them unemployable. This person was on state welfare but wishing they could do better. They expressed to me at one point that they would enjoy being a bike messenger (but they had no bike). I bought him a bike. My $200. of altruism resulted in him continuing to this day to have a profitable profession. Whereas the government was forking over much more than that per month of Dole.
@ravaneli55 Yes it scares me. But I don't think it's entirely impossible since I achieved this 'intellectual understanding' and I'm not the sharpest knife in the box
@ravaneli55, what is truly frightening is when people believe they can remove risk and suffering from our existence in this world. When the idealists have power they soon find that heads must roll (literally) because the universe does not respond to their conceptions. To minimize (not eliminate) suffering you must maximize liberty. Optimization is the principal; you don't seek absolutes but optimal conditions given the constraints. Liberty=not ruled Utopian Vision=you will be ruled.
Or there could be anarcho-capitalism i.e. no coerced jurisdictional monopoly thanks to the abolition and absence of initiation of coercion, i.e. abrogation of one's bodily and material property, to remove control of anybody but over their own propertarian domain, to make truly voluntary exchange and to make society viable by defending against thieves via contractual agencies of defence who will also defend against any States, defined by their invasion of property that is, theft.
I love Paul, and Schiff, and Faber, and Rickars and all the bright folks who know what is happening. But Hayek is the smartest man I have even hear speak. I think he is the Einstein of economics. Did you see what kind of expressions he builds on the spot? What mind must to have to be able to talk like that??
Its not altruism when it is taken from you and given to the needy. You do not feel good about giving your money to the state for distribution, and the recipient does not feel as grateful for recieving it from a faceless entity.
Therfore you have stolen the "joy of giving " from the giver, and the gratitude from the recipient.
When you remove the good feelings from the act, all that remains are feelings of resentment, and entitlement. Both of which are damaging.
@pensword5 That's a good point. Elsewhere, Hayek does say that altruism is instinctual, and that it made sense when we knew the people we were dealing with. The problem with altruism as applied to the state is that it is isn't altruism at all. People are sold policies with altruistic purposes, but it ends up often as you described it.
@Brantoc Well, they aren't carbon copies of the older generation, but are very much their own distinctive selves, but check out many of the regular speakers at Mises dot org. Of special note perhaps is Tom Woods for his extreme and prolific ease with language and wealth of knowledge. Peter Schiff is likely to ultimately make almost as many waves as Ron Paul (I predict). Robert Murphy may well ultimately inherit Rothbard's economic scholar / intellectual mantle, and he is also easy to listen to.
"All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. " - F. A. Hayek
Socialism is based on the idea that it is good to force someone else to give something to another person. That is never altruistic, rather it is selfish in the negative sense. In the honest pursuit of profit (not only measured in money) each person is an entrepreneur and must help his clients, and even often cooperate with his competitors. Because of the need to make a living, even enemies will join in a project.
@bsabruzzo You need to produce to furnish your own wealth. And others need to produce so they can trade you for your goods, if it is valuable to them. That is it. Your job is to provide food, medicine and education for yourself and your family. Others need to do the same. If you want to give to charity, good for you. Sadly, some insist on living their lives as a dependent child, living at the expense of others. They hire politicians to take our money.
Unless there is a real, sustained and massive awakening, we will continue down this path of neo-feudalism with the vast majority of us being defacto crypto slaves of the state of which we are already are in large part. We have exactly three elections to turn this around and we have to win each one of them.
Prioritize self involvement with the aim to educate self and those close to you.
State government control is far more important than the federal govt.
@kmg501 The war is coming... there will be no turn around with any election... that train left the station long ago. Now, its who is willing to fire the first shot of the next revolution because there is no other way... the statists and fascists will never relinquish claim to your or my bodies, our lives and our property without being force to relinquish that claim via war. They won't let us be. They will never rest because they enslave us with the approval of their own conscience.
Why you'd find inspiration in a brutal and fascistic law from so far back in the past is beyond me. Hayek's grand vision seems to amount to recreating an 'idealised' time before the 'evil' state became so prevalent - a great and wonderful time in which aristocrats were like gods, workers knew their place, labour was cheap, and the lives of the poor were even cheaper. What a great time that must have been to be alive. Its probably no coincidence that Hayek came from an aristocratic family.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
This comment is entirely incoherent. Fascism and feudalism are two entirely different types of socioeconomic systems with very little in common. In other words, Hayek cannot support both systems, at the same time, and remain logically consistent. Though obviously Hayek supported neither fascism nor feudalism.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 What fascism and feudalism share is a love of autonomous polarized authority over equally distributed democratic rights. Hayek proposes a social system in which democratic rights are subsumed beneath autonomous economic authority - a system in which the richest have the greatest say, and the poorest are forced to abide by the will of their economic masters. It is worth noting that that Hayek supported the fascistic dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet.
atlasman55 4 months ago
[Continued] That "autonomous economic authority" that you refer to, and which Hayek indeed supported, is nothing more than laborers, consumers, producers (i.e., individuals) freely engaging in voluntary and mutually beneficial transactions in an attempt to better their own positions. In doing so, they create an incentive structure, and certain mechanisms emerge, which assure an optimal allocation of resources and efficient economic production/coordination. So yes, Hayek opposes collectivism.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 That idealised view of free-market resource allocation ignores the fact that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECTLY COMPETITIVE MARKET. Just as there is no such thing as a perfectly equal and prosperous communist society - both are idealisations, concepts, illusions. Markets have the advantage in so far as they are self-organising. But in reality they never behave in the ideal way that theorists envision. Market failure is a fact of life, as is political failure.
atlasman55 4 months ago
You're attacking a straw-man. Austrian economists have literally wrote entire volumes criticizing the mainstream and their literal interpretation of Walras' perfectly competitive general equilibrium model. As far as "market failures" are concerned, the fact that markets do not always yield perfect x-efficiency does not (a) mean that government intrusion can improve the situation, and (b) it actually yields long-run efficient conditions (dynamically efficient). The market is a process.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 The notion that free markets lead to optimum outcomes is still rooted in the mythology of perfect competition. The market is a process in which individual actors seek in whichever way they can to eliminate their competitors. Inequalities in the distribution of wealth and power are self-reinforcing to the point of excess, often leading to the natural development of oligopolies and monopolies from initial 'free market' conditions.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 In many cases government intervention is necessary to maintain competition - to stop markets from destroying themselves. Regulation is needed to force markets to take external costs into account that they would otherwise ignore, to the detriment of society (i.e: pollution). Markets often develop incentives that run counter to the common good, or are driven by short-term benefit at the expense of long-term benefit. Markets endlessly fail to live up to theoretical expectations.
atlasman55 4 months ago
[part 3]. But again, and I must stress this, capitalism does not arbitrarily value equality for equality's sake. And finally, I don’t want to address your monopoly argument simply because it’s so misguided that a proper response would be way too lengthy for a youtube discussion. I simply suggest that you look-up the phenomena known as “chiseling,” and realize that not all monopolies/oligopolies behave in the same way (something that you learn in introductory economics courses).
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 (pt.3) 1. Valuing freedom for freedom's sake is just as 'arbitrary' as doing the same for equality. The two need to be held in balance, preferably with some 'fraternity' thrown into the mix. 2. I never suggested that mono/oligo-polies all behave in the same way. I stated that they can arise from initial 'free market' conditions and that the government is often needed to enforce competition.
atlasman55 4 months ago
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@atlasman55
"1. Valuing freedom for freedom's sake is just as 'arbitrary' as doing the same for equality."
Correct. I support capitalism (economic freedom) because, as history as shown, no other system (a) is capable of rational economic coordination, (b) facilitates innovation, and (c) elevates the standard of living amongst an entire society. This system has provided common men goods and services that the Medici and Rothschild's could only dream of.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"I stated that they can arise from initial 'free market' conditions and that the government is often needed to enforce competition."
Every single example of an inefficient monopoly, whose behavior (i.e., pricing strategies) hurt consumers, emerged precisely and only because of special privileges granted by government decree. You cannot find a single historical example of a monopoly naturally emerging, in the free market, that actually hurt consumers. Not one.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 De Beers, Standard Oil, Microsoft, Monsanto.
atlasman55 4 months ago
It's blindingly apparent that you haven't actually investigated this issue at all (I recommend "Industry, Structure, Strategy and Public Policy" By Scherer). Standard oil, for example, cut the price of crude oil by 95% creating a larger consumer surplus than would have exited if the market was perfectly competitive. It was so efficient that its competitors simply could not compete at that price point (which is why they lobbied against it, and ultimately broke it up in anti-trust court).
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 The Federal Commissioner of Corporations, following a study of Standard Oil, said in 1906: "beyond question... the dominant position of the Standard Oil Company in the refining industry was due to unfair practices—to abuse of the control of pipe-lines, to railroad discriminations, and to unfair methods of competition in the sale of the refined petroleum products".
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
".....was due to unfair practices"
Unfair for whom? It certainly wasn't unfair to the consumers who saw dramatic falls in the price of oil, which translated and facilitated a major industrial boom (lower energy costs translates into lower marginal costs across the board). So far you've only managed to regurgitate ancient mythology, appeal to emotion and have shown a complete inability to support your assertions with actual facts.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 In 1909 the US Dept. of Justice said: "The evidence is absolutely conclusive that the Standard Oil Company charges excessive prices where it meets no competition, and particularly where there is little likelihood of competitors entering the field, and that, where competition is active, it frequently cuts prices to a point which leaves even the Standard little or no profit, and which more often leaves no profit to the competitor, whose costs are ordinarily somewhat higher".
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
The quote from the 1909 U.S. dept. of justice contradicts itself and is the typical garbage that uniformed, pontificating government bureaucrats tend to spew. According to them, Standard Oil simultaneously charged "excessively high prices" and "prices so low that even Standard oil" couldn't earn a positive rate of return. The fact is that S.O reduced the price of gas from 30 cents a per gallon in 1869 to 5.9 cents a gallon in 1897. Tell me, how did that hurt consumers?
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 1890, Rep. William Mason, said: "trusts have made products cheaper, have reduced prices; but if the price of oil, for instance, were reduced to one cent a barrel, it would not right the wrong done to people of this country by the trusts which have destroyed legitimate competition and driven honest men from legitimate business enterprise".
atlasman55 4 months ago
[part 2] Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs only when he began producing what society needs/desires en masse. The funny thing, though, is that capitalist systems end up far more egalitarian than the systems which proclaim to value equality for the sake of equality. The empirical evidence supporting this assertion is torrential. The nations that score the lowest on the economic freedom index tend to be the nations with the highest disparity of wealth. Thus, your original assertion is simply untrue.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 (pt.2) The nations that score lowest on the 'economic freedom' index are plagued by all sorts of economic, social and political problems. Poor enforcement of property rights, crime, corruption, undeveloped markets, poor infrastructure, inflation all reduce a country's score on the 'economic freedom' index. The ideal situation re egality would appear to be a balance of 'economic freedom' and government intervention.
atlasman55 4 months ago
Capitalism does not pretend to be egalitarian in nature. Your relative social standing within this system is determined by your productivity i.e., by your ability to make others happy. In other words, your relative social standing is determined by society itself. In this sense, the capitalist system is entirely unique. All other systems determine individual social standings by decree. Steve Jobs was not born the duke of anything, and he wasn’t appointed tsar because of his party loyalty.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 (Pt1.) 1.Your explanation of how social standing is gained within a capitalist society is way too simplistic. The real world isn't so cute. 2.Steve Jobs may not have been born a duke, but many of the world's richest people were indeed born into great wealth. 3.There is no simple direct correlation between 'economic freedom' and egality. The US has greater 'economic freedom' than Germany but is less egalitarian.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"but many of the world's richest people were indeed born into great wealth"
This is actually false. The vast majority of the world's billionaires are self-made individuals who started with nothing, and a study by the Spectrum Group shows that inherited wealth only accounts for 2% of total wealth among millionaires. Additionally, I never said that there was a perfect, position relationship between economic freedom and equality (but there is a relationship). You attack straw-men.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Forbes estimates that approximately 20-25% of billionaires inherited fortunes. This is a conservative estimate of the influence of inheritance, given that much inherited wealth is not even counted as such in surveys (property, private education, private incomes, etc). I wasn't attacking a straw man, but rather countering your assertion that "capitalist systems end up far more egalitarian than the systems which proclaim to value equality for the sake of equality", which is false
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
I guess it depends on how we define "vast majority." I consider 80% to be a "vast majority." Let me rephrase it: 80% of the worlds billionaires are self-made, and a study revealed that inherited wealth only accounts for 2% of total wealth amongst millionaires.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Actually the figure I quoted is a bit out of date. In 2011, Forbes states that 30% of the richest 400 individuals inherited most or part of their fortunes, with 5 out of the top 10 having similarly inherited. However, Rupert Murdoch is described as being one of the 'self-made' billionaires, despite the fact that he began his career by inheriting the ownership of a large newspaper company from his father. This fact puts the 70% 'self made' figure into serious doubt.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 I seriously doubt that your 2% figure is anywhere near to being accurate.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
Here's one final statistic:
According to a study of Federal Reserve data conducted by NYU professor Edward Wolff, for the nation’s richest 1%, inherited wealth accounted for only 9% of their net worth in 2001, down from 23% in 1989. (The 2001 number was the latest available.)
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 If you have a net worth of $1 Billion, of which only 9% was inherited, that's still $90 million of inherited wealth. I'm guessing it wouldn't be difficult to make an even greater fortune off the back of such a large initial sum.
atlasman55 4 months ago
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atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 According to that same study, the top 1% of the US population own about 35% of the total US wealth. The Fed stated that in 2010 total net worth of the US was $54.9 trillion. So for the top1% as a whole, inherited wealth (lets say 9%) was equal to $1.73 trillion in 2010. Wolff also states that the bottom 60% owned 2.3% of total US net worth, equal to $1.26 trillion in 2010. So, overall, the inherited wealth of the top1% was greater than the total wealth of the bottom 60% combined
atlasman55 4 months ago
First of all, why are you shifting goal posts? We're talking about how the vast majority of wealth is acquired in a capitalist system, not income equality. Comparing the inherited wealth that the top 1% has acquired to the total wealth that the bottom 60% possesses is absolutely unessential to what we're discussing; it's a distraction. The fact of the matter, and you admit it, is that 91% of the wealth earned, among the wealthiest, is self-made wealth. Your initial claim is factually incorrect.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 You define all increases in wealth as being the result of an increase in productivity and/or an increase in the production of goods and services, but I don't consider this to be an accurate description of the facts. Wealth engenders wealth by its very nature, and not necessarily as the result of increased 'productivity' or of an increase in 'valuable service to others'. You use the term "self-made wealth", but a more accurate term might be "wealth-made wealth".
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55 By that I don't mean to say that the wealthy aren't productive, only that the equation wealth=productivity is too simplistic.
atlasman55 4 months ago
So again, the top 1% acquired 17.5 trillion dollars by producing goods and services that are valued by society, and 1.7 trillion dollars of their total net worth was acquired because one (or multiple) of their dead relatives produced goods and services that were valued by society. Of course, this figure as percentage dramatically falls once our analysis extends beyond billionaires (you conveniently ignore the statistic that inherited wealth accounts for only 2% of total wealth among millionaires
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 I ignore it because I doubt that it is indeed a 'statistic'. Spectrum Group is a wealth management company, not an academic or impartial organisation.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Let's say someone inherits $1 million in cash. They buy a house for that sum. 15 years later it is worth $10 million, at which point they sell it. According to you they only inherited 10% of their wealth and 'made' the rest by 'producing goods and services'. However, they have produced nothing, and have in truth only profited from an increase in prices. Let's say the intial price was £100,000 and the sell price was $1M. They would register as a "self-made millionaire". Nonsense.
atlasman55 4 months ago
[continued] It leads to the more efficient pricing of assets (under normal conditions) which facilitates economic coordination and allows for rational economic calculation. In other words, it matches expectations with actual economic fundamentals (so-called “real conditions”) so that economic agents can maximize output/utility. Thus arbitrage too (indirectly, even more so than the whore divorcee who “sits” on a fortune) serves the needs of society.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 The 'efficient' pricing of assets emerges from group behaviour, not from the actions of any individual. The actions of an individual are normally pretty irrelevant, if a market has enough participants. On the other hand, certain markets can be manipulated, in which case price changes are intended to benefit only those that bring them about.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
The phenomenon you're describing is in fact atypical, if at all possible, in an actual free market. This condition, namely extreme asset-price volatility, is the result of a government-induced inflationary expansion (a bubble) and artificial interest rate manipulation. But yes, due to the fact that subjective preferences are in continuous flux, there will indeed be arbitrage opportunities. But arbitrage isn’t superfluous.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Strictly speaking, the problem is not that the central bank/government can control the interest rate on its own currency, but rather that private banks are given a licence to counterfeit that currency when they create credit. Whilst cheap credit encourages asset price rises, in many cases this happens anyway as a result of disparities between supply and demand. There are only so many houses in the centre of a city, but in times of economic growth demand will rise substantially
atlasman55 4 months ago
I ask you to point me to a monopoly that engaged in a pricing strategy that actually hurt consumers, and you point to one which lowered the price of its product by 80% in 30 years. What a joke.
By the way, I'm going to settle the issue by running a regression between income equality and economic freedom, just for you. But the main point is that even the "poor" in economically free societies are far wealthier than the "rich" in those that aren't free.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Our disagreement stems from my initial claim that "many of the world's richest individuals were indeed born into great wealth". I think the figures I have quoted back this up, despite the fact that they only give a partial account of the importance of inheritance today. You'll notice, I hope, that I didn't state that the "vast majority" inherited their wealth.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"your assertion that "capitalist systems end up far more egalitarian than the systems which proclaim to value equality for the sake of equality", which is false"
I'm not going to respond to this any longer. The facts are the facts and they can be, if you're on the wrong side of an issue, quite inconvenient. You may be surprised by the nations that are ranked economically freer than the U.S. (Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Switzerland and others).
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Comparing gini coefficient stats and the heritage foundation's 'economic freedom' index may help you to understand the point I was making. It's also worth pointing out that Canada and Denmark have higher levels of taxation and higher government spending (as % of gdp) on social security, health and welfare programs.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 1. By your logic, simply owning invested capital is same as being 'productive'. This means that the richer you are, the more 'productive' you are. It's peverse circular reasoning. A person could own a fortune that is professionally managed, not work at all, and yet according to you they would be highly 'productive'. 2. The only social system in which social position is determined by society itself is democracy. Capitalism is not the same thing as democracy.
atlasman55 4 months ago
Again, productivity means the ability to satisfy (directly or indirectly) the subjective desires of others. The individual who already owns a fortune (notice, you leave out how that person actually acquired that fortune), and just "sits on it" (saves it) is also being productive. His savings are being funneled to various productive investment via financial intermediaries. That investment, in turn, will stimulate output and increase the marginal productivity of labor and therefore wages.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 By your logic a unemployed divorcee living the easy life in Monte Carlo or a high class prostitute are more 'productive' than any given factory worker.
atlasman55 4 months ago
Yes. The prostitute and the divorcee, at the margin, create a higher degree of net satisfaction than the average factory worker (the prostitute does so directly, and the divorcee does so indirectly). Justin Bieber is more productive than any teacher no matter how much YOU revere teachers, and no matter how much YOU may hate his music. This is the logical conclusion anyone must draw once they realize that value does not exist objectively in nature, but is confined to human tastes and preferences.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 As I said your reasoning is circular and perverse. Essentially you equate 'productivity' with wealth and then you draw the conclusion that the wealthiest individuals are therefore the most productive. You have decided to define 'productivity' in a way that best suits your point of view. According to your logic, saving someone's life is less 'valuable' than releasing the latest crappy pop tune, if the former attracts a lower rate of financial return than the latter.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Again, following your odd logic it would appear that Van Gogh was, during his lifetime, an extremely unproductive artist, given that he made very little money from his work. This despite the fact that he was hugely prolific and is now considered by most to be a major figure in the history of modern art. Whilst in your view he was highly unproductive, the dealers who today sell his works at auction for million-dollar profits are in contrast seen as being highly 'productive'.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 A man bets $10 on a race and wins $1000. He takes his winnings and pays an exclusive prostitute $500 for a blowjob. She takes the rest of the day off, goes shopping and pays a dressmaker $200 to spend the day making her a dress. According to you, in this scenario the man is the most productive, the prostitute is the second most productive, and the dressmaker is the least productive of the three. This strikes me as being a very odd way of describing things.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"A man bets $10 on a race and wins $1000"
You keep trying to moralize the issue rather than test the logical validity of my argument. Whether the person desires a blowjob, or an American made automobile, is completely immaterial from an economist's point of view. Whether the consumer is a teacher, a mother of ten, or a prostitute is entirely immaterial from an economists point of view. Again, the fact that people desire things that YOU may not approve of is irrelevant.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 You moralized the issue with the statement: "your relative social standing within (capitalism) is determined by your productivity i.e., by your ability to make others happy". The gambler has produced nothing and made no one 'happy' in the acquisition of his wealth, he has simply been lucky and won a bet. The prostitute's income is not determined by her ability to make others 'happy' but by her ability to do what the majority would find morally repugnant.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"The gambler has produced nothing"
What does gambling have to do with capitalist production and income distribution? You do realize that gambling exists in even in socialist/communist systems, correct?
"The prostitute's income is not determined by her ability to make others 'happy'"
The prostitute's service doesn't make people happy? It doesn't satisfy the desires of his/her clientele?
"but by her ability to do what the majority would find morally repugnant."
Immaterial.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Most types of currency, derivatives, commodities and shares trading are basically just forms of gambling. If a trader makes a fortune from buying and selling gold futures contracts, he has produced nothing as such, he has simply been good at predicting changes in prices, and willing to take risks.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55 Well, that were fine if they a) don't get bailed out and b) use their own flippin' money; they gamble because "we, the people" demand more and more return.
manoman0 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"Capitalism is not the same thing as democracy."
This is absolutely correct. Democracy is a system where 51% of the population tells the other 49% how to live their lives, which car to drive, what meals are "appropriate," etc. Capitalism, on the other hand, is a system rooted in property rights, where individuals are free to engage in any sort of relationship insofar as they don't violate the property rights of others. You don't need the permission of 51% to buy/sell anything.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 That's a ridiculous assertion. 'Private property rights' only exist in any meaningful sense because they are upheld and enforced by law which is created by government, which in a democracy is elected on a majority vote by the population. The government enforces legal tender laws, which give the national currency its value, and ensures that assets retain their value by guaranteeing their security against theft. Your bank balance only has value thanks to the government.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
First, that's not an assertion; that's, in a nut-shell, the definition of capitalism. It is the mere extension of property rights. Next, I'm not an anarchist; I do believe that the government plays a vital role, namely in the defensive of such property rights and the establishment of a coherent and uniform legal system. Capitalism and democracy are not mutually exclusive, but they also do not go hand-in-hand. In fact, democracy tends to stray away from capitalistic principles.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 The government can only defend property rights once it has recognised them as such and written them into law. If a government does not recognise a theoretical category of property rights then they have no legally defined existence within its jurisdiction.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
"The government enforces legal tender laws, which give the national currency its value"
This too is incorrect and has been invalidated multiple times, primarily by Austrian economists (though their refutation is accepted by the mainstream). Google the "regression theorem."
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Legal tender laws state that the national currency has to be accepted in payment of debts, and that payment of taxes and other fees to the state must be made in the national currency. Other laws and state-imposed rules state that domestic bank credit may only be denominated in the national currency and must be fractionally backed by reserves in that currency. Thus government creates the basic value of, and demand for, its money.
atlasman55 4 months ago
[continued] Occasionally, various kings attempted to replace real money with pseudo-currency that they created (usually to finance wars), only to have such schemes backfire (money would not be employed, i.e., the demand and therefore the actual value of such currency would collapse). In Yugoslavia, for example, individuals began trading in German Marks when the government did not authorize them to do so. I would suggest reading "Theory of Money and Credit" if you wish to learn more about this.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 1. I'm well aware that back in the day when we rode around on horses and were ruled by autocratic monarchs we tended to use gold and silver coins as money. I was describing how money functions today, not how it used to function in the past. Clearly fiat money can lose value for a number of reasons, but this doesn't make it 'pseudo money'. Inflation was also experienced in the past when large new discoveries of gold were made. Black markets will always develop in times of crisis
atlasman55 4 months ago
@atlasman55
Money, defined as a commonly accepted medium of exchange, predates legal tender laws. Monarchs were forced to accept gold and silver as money, for example, because they were already chosen as the common medium of exchange by society. Rulers would attempt to arbitrarily fix exchange rates between different forms of money only to have such regulations backfire (Gresham's law).
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@atlasman55
It's becoming increasingly clear to me that you have absolutely no idea what fascism actually is and how it operates economically. You seem to be employing the 8th grade interpretation of fascism, which was force-fed to you by your history professor, who also happened to be your track coach. Fascism is precisely the type of system that promotes "democratic rights" (if by this you mean the rights of a majority) at the expense of individual rights.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
@Questfortruth86 Fascism is completely anti-democratic, typically taking the form of a totalitarian dictatorship. Of course this is not what Hayek advocates. But he argues for a social system in which political power is basically eradicated in favour of economic power. Whilst each individual in his system has the same basic rights, the result is that individuals have no option to try and improve their situation through the democratic process. The richest in society become the rulers of society.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@ElJefer That would actually be quite funny if it wasn't so sad and deluded. Beyond providing bread, rags and pennies for the dying, crippled and aged, the poor law instituted forced labour, beatings and imprisonment for the 'able-bodied poor'.
atlasman55 4 months ago
@ElJefer as I said: "...you can just fuck off and die in a workhouse".
atlasman55 4 months ago
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atlasman55 4 months ago
Basically what he's saying is that the rich should be absolutely free to do as they please and everyone else should just do as they're told. Oh and if you run out of money then you can just fuck off and die in a workhouse.
atlasman55 4 months ago
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Please note that my book Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Shaped Modern Economics is published by W.W.Norton in October.
Professor John B.Taylor says that: “Nicholas Wapshott brings the Keynes-Hayek fight of the 20th century back to life, making the clash both entertaining and highly relevant for understanding economic crises of the 21st century.”
Read an extract at: sites.google.com/site/wapshottkeyneshayek/
Nicholas Wapshott
nhwapshott 8 months ago
Boycott green peas.
loujolly 1 year ago
at the end " a degree of intellectual understanding that may unachievable." scary but true, more one reflects on current world, says alot.... Perhaps man is destined for the road warrior situation..... as the only way to learn for the masses. Like little kids the only way they understand/learn sometimes is to let them experience it...Failure is a great teacher.....
LibertyJedi 1 year ago
Altruism is the infringement & slavery of the individual. those who support altruism favor slavery
swu880 1 year ago
Capitalism is a system characterized by cooperation amongst strangers. Individuals who, in other circumstances, might very well kill each other, are turned into trading partners in the capitalist order (whether they're aware of this or not). Their interests become mutually bound and there actions are guided by the preferences and desires of others. The capitalist system punishes those who produce for themselves but rewards those, in the form of profit, that produce for others. It's remarkable.
Questfortruth86 1 year ago
@Questfortruth86 It's remarkable that you can be so ridiculously simplistic and naive
atlasman55 4 months ago
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Questfortruth86 4 months ago
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@atlasman55
My comment may be remarkably simple, but it is also undeniably true. This is why your response is nothing but an amusing knee-jerk reaction. The fact of the matter is that (1) somewhere in the world right now there are anti-American's producing products that will inevitably end up in the shelves of U.S. supermarkets and (2) Steve Jobs became wealthy by producing products that other people desired.
Questfortruth86 4 months ago
there some places that manifest perfectly hayeks message.
they are called ghost towns.
the problem rises early on with austrian economists theories.
it starts from the point that economists want to replace science of phychologists sociologists/anthropologists or neurologists/phychiatrists/biologists dealing with dna and biological driven behaviours, with their crack pot creationist psedoscience about human beahavioure.
free is a word that means nothing,if you cant assing atributes to it.
amet1980 1 year ago
So we should enforce protection of all people's decisions that can't gain voluntary funding? Tell me, is it moral to support one by forcible funding by stealing from others, if that one is extending his risk taking on knowledge of that forced support, and is producing according to what he can steal rather than gain by pure contract? If it is not automatically right to retain that theft for HIS satisfaction then why coercively support settlements that are now untenable due to altered conditions?
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
"for HIS satisfaction then why coercively support settlements that are now untenable due to altered conditions?"
Here I should add;
for HIS satisfaction-a myopic one at that given that this coerced funding of all investments of human and material producer goods, capital, would destroy society and thus the capacity for society to fund those who would forcibly take from it, in divorcing income from what people will voluntarily pay and perverting incentives for production. Zero-sum game Myopia.
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
@MikeTMerciless I had an acquaintance, someone with tattoos and piercings and an anarchic streak that basically made them unemployable. This person was on state welfare but wishing they could do better. They expressed to me at one point that they would enjoy being a bike messenger (but they had no bike). I bought him a bike. My $200. of altruism resulted in him continuing to this day to have a profitable profession. Whereas the government was forking over much more than that per month of Dole.
Panpiper 1 year ago
Did anyone notice his last line? "That assumes a degree of intellectual understanding which may be unachievable!"
Isn't that scary to anyone other than me? Cos if that is true we are doomed to being ruled by Obamas and Bushes for the rest of our lives
ravaneli55 1 year ago 3
@ravaneli55 Yes it scares me. But I don't think it's entirely impossible since I achieved this 'intellectual understanding' and I'm not the sharpest knife in the box
asalade 1 year ago
@ravaneli55, what is truly frightening is when people believe they can remove risk and suffering from our existence in this world. When the idealists have power they soon find that heads must roll (literally) because the universe does not respond to their conceptions. To minimize (not eliminate) suffering you must maximize liberty. Optimization is the principal; you don't seek absolutes but optimal conditions given the constraints. Liberty=not ruled Utopian Vision=you will be ruled.
nomorepushingusdown 1 year ago 2
@ravaneli55
Or there could be anarcho-capitalism i.e. no coerced jurisdictional monopoly thanks to the abolition and absence of initiation of coercion, i.e. abrogation of one's bodily and material property, to remove control of anybody but over their own propertarian domain, to make truly voluntary exchange and to make society viable by defending against thieves via contractual agencies of defence who will also defend against any States, defined by their invasion of property that is, theft.
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
I love Paul, and Schiff, and Faber, and Rickars and all the bright folks who know what is happening. But Hayek is the smartest man I have even hear speak. I think he is the Einstein of economics. Did you see what kind of expressions he builds on the spot? What mind must to have to be able to talk like that??
ravaneli55 1 year ago 3
Its not altruism when it is taken from you and given to the needy. You do not feel good about giving your money to the state for distribution, and the recipient does not feel as grateful for recieving it from a faceless entity.
Therfore you have stolen the "joy of giving " from the giver, and the gratitude from the recipient.
When you remove the good feelings from the act, all that remains are feelings of resentment, and entitlement. Both of which are damaging.
pensword5 1 year ago 4
@pensword5 That's a good point. Elsewhere, Hayek does say that altruism is instinctual, and that it made sense when we knew the people we were dealing with. The problem with altruism as applied to the state is that it is isn't altruism at all. People are sold policies with altruistic purposes, but it ends up often as you described it.
jmelkis 9 months ago
can somebody text the hayek clips please
bondeangst 1 year ago
Question - Who is the Milton Friedman, or Hayak, or Sowell of THIS generation?
Brantoc 1 year ago
@Brantoc Tom Woods might be our best guy.
fzqlcs 1 year ago
@Brantoc Ron Paul.
Finnbar01 1 year ago
@Brantoc Well, they aren't carbon copies of the older generation, but are very much their own distinctive selves, but check out many of the regular speakers at Mises dot org. Of special note perhaps is Tom Woods for his extreme and prolific ease with language and wealth of knowledge. Peter Schiff is likely to ultimately make almost as many waves as Ron Paul (I predict). Robert Murphy may well ultimately inherit Rothbard's economic scholar / intellectual mantle, and he is also easy to listen to.
Panpiper 1 year ago
"All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. " - F. A. Hayek
Brantoc 1 year ago
Great videos and great rebuttals to socialism..
carlindelco 1 year ago
Socialism is based on the idea that it is good to force someone else to give something to another person. That is never altruistic, rather it is selfish in the negative sense. In the honest pursuit of profit (not only measured in money) each person is an entrepreneur and must help his clients, and even often cooperate with his competitors. Because of the need to make a living, even enemies will join in a project.
XCritonX 1 year ago 3
The world is a much duller place without Hayek :-(
Akatam0t0ma 1 year ago 11
* When I say no gov't needed, I am not including the gov't controled by the people to ensure that laws and the protection of rights.
bsabruzzo 1 year ago
@bsabruzzo "When I say no gov't needed" - You are really saying, "No initiation of force/coercion needed"
TheLegalImmigrant05 1 year ago
I wonder if "self interest" is the key to all good works in a truly free market.
- I want people to buy from me. For that to happen they must have money, be healthy and know why my product or service is better.
- For that to happen I must, as an individual, ensure that people have jobs, food, medicine and education.
- For selfish reasons I use my money, by my choice, to employ people, fund hospitals and schools and to create a clean environment in which to live.
- No gov't needed. *
bsabruzzo 1 year ago
@bsabruzzo "I wonder if "self interest" is the key to all good works in a truly free market" - Thank you. Of course it is the key.
TheLegalImmigrant05 1 year ago
@bsabruzzo You need to produce to furnish your own wealth. And others need to produce so they can trade you for your goods, if it is valuable to them. That is it. Your job is to provide food, medicine and education for yourself and your family. Others need to do the same. If you want to give to charity, good for you. Sadly, some insist on living their lives as a dependent child, living at the expense of others. They hire politicians to take our money.
fzqlcs 1 year ago
I like hayek but its kind of difficult to understand what he is saying due to his accent....
idontgiveashit0930 1 year ago
@idontgiveashit0930 Agreed, but understanding the profound impact of what he is saying is certainly worth the effort.
fzqlcs 1 year ago
their english is so english it's hard to understand
waksibra 1 year ago 3
Unless there is a real, sustained and massive awakening, we will continue down this path of neo-feudalism with the vast majority of us being defacto crypto slaves of the state of which we are already are in large part. We have exactly three elections to turn this around and we have to win each one of them.
Prioritize self involvement with the aim to educate self and those close to you.
State government control is far more important than the federal govt.
Guns, food & community.
kmg501 1 year ago 9
@kmg501 Amen brother!!
carlindelco 1 year ago
@kmg501 The war is coming... there will be no turn around with any election... that train left the station long ago. Now, its who is willing to fire the first shot of the next revolution because there is no other way... the statists and fascists will never relinquish claim to your or my bodies, our lives and our property without being force to relinquish that claim via war. They won't let us be. They will never rest because they enslave us with the approval of their own conscience.
PatriotsRepublic 1 year ago