started out with a good argument then fucked it up. construction is not the broken window fallacy - quite the contrary because then you have a new road from which the entire community benefits from decreased transportation costs and time. if you destroyed a road only to build a new one that was no better then sure it'd apply, but that is not what public works is about. construction is the *opposite* of destruction...
@satoau1 Construction is the broken window fallacy, your problem is assuming that the government should manage infrastructure. In a completely free market infrastructure would be privately owned and would be just another good or service financed on the free market.Infrastructure is fundamental to creating businesses so demand would spur the creation of infrastructure privately.
@aphorism100 construction is not the broken window fallacy, though pork-barreling is. i don't assume that the government should manage infrastructure, i know that not enough people would be willing to pay for roads for it ever to work in the private sector, mostly because people can't imagine how a road on the other side of the country affects them because it's all very indirect.
@satoau1 I like how you to presume to know things with no proof. People want roads, the free market would facilitate it. Interstate high ways could be managed like toll roads
@satoau1 Businesses could pay for the roads to their businesses, how else would they get customers? And local housing development roads could be managed by home owners associations
@aphorism100 businesses can't afford to pay for the roads, these cost millions of dollars to build. if a business big enough built one it could impose fees so restrictive that their competitors would be shut out of the market. public roads allow businesses to start because they don't need the money up front for the road. later the business contributes to the economy and the cost of the road is paid back to the govt.
@aphorism100 say a chip maker in silicon valley needed a road built, you and pretty much everyone else wouldn't pay for it - "they can pay for their own road!" but it costs millions of dollars so the company couldn't afford it. the road wouldn't get built, so the company couldn't produce more chips, PC prices wouldn't go down, and no-one would build another factory in the same area to also use the new road. but if the govt collects tax and builds that road...?
@satoau1 The PC chip maker could pay for the roads to and from their business and adjust costs accordingly. People implicitly pay for roads already in the form of taxes.
@aphorism100 no really, they couldn't pay for the roads, seriously learn about how much they cost to build. you're right people pay for roads implicitly, we all share the burden because we all benefit either directly or indirectly in quality of life benefits. society has benefited since ancient roman times by the building of public roads and other infrastructure. there's thousands of years of proof and every day is further proof.
@satoau1 They could also pool resources with other businesses that want to exist on the road. Stop taxing people for roads and they can pay a higher premium on products
Im no expert, but it seems that the austrians usually back up their ideas with reference to facts and reality, while the statist economists always talk about vague theories or just call people names.
Funny also that i have met about a dozen economics students or recent graduates in the last year or 2 and none of them has heard of mises or the austrian school. If mises et al are wrong wouldnt they at least teach why they are wrong? Seems more like the statists have something to hide.
@sidvidkid WROTE: "..it seems that the austrians usually back up their ideas with reference to facts and reality, while the statist economists always talk about vague theories or just call people names. Funny also that i have met about a dozen economics students ...in the last year or 2 and none of them has heard of mises or the austrian school. If mises et al are wrong wouldnt they at least teach why they R wrong? Seems more like the statists have something to hide."
This analysis leaves out the fact that the wealthy don't purchase consumer products at the same percentage of their wealth as the rest of us.
Instead, the wealthy spend their money on greater means of production. This means that if (as was the case after the bank crash) the rich feel anxious about risk levels, they will simply hold onto their money and wait until the economy recovers. What stimulus spending is meant to do is increase demand so the rich will spend money on new factories etc.
@psusac no they don't. the wealthy spend their money on luxury goods (often imported) and keep the rest in shares or other savings. think about it, if you were making 100 loaves of bread and just selling them out by the end of the day, would you hire more workers and machines just because u had the money?of course not! you'd only do that if u were selling out early and needed to make more to meet consumer demand.
in short, the rich don't create jobs, customers do.
This argument makes two assumptions: First: That the citizens would spend their money rather than save it. Second: That they would spend it locally. While these two things are likely true for the middle and lower classes, they are definately not for the wealthiest people and organizations. When a multinational corporation gets a tax break in a specific locality that does NOT mean they will hire or spend more in THAT location. Citizens, on the other hand, almost certainly will.
@JoeNietzsche Savings correspond to future spending. Just because you're not spending it now doesn't mean it will be spent. Savers also allow banks to loan the money.
The second assumption also assumes that trade is perfectly balanced... when it never is.
@chaz706 Savings correspond to future spending? That’s a functionally meaningless statement - ok, sure, at some point in the future, some time by someone, some of the savings will very likely be spent. Unfortunately, that's a bit like telling someone they’re going to die - uh, yeah, we know that but it’s irrelevant without details.
@WeGameAlotSir The point is not the specific industries that are stimulated; the point is that for every good that is purchased in an economy, another is not purchased. In the case of the broken window, not only is another good not purchased, but resources must now be wasted producing a new good that would not have otherwise been necessary. Society is less wealthy by the amount that that good (the window) is worth.
The broken window fallacy is ridiculous. It implies that each individual would have spent the money in their pocket, when in reality, in times of economic struggle, they are far more likely to sit on the money.
Plus, the idea that you could discredit Keynesian economics (a macroeconomic theory) with such a limited, hypothetical theory like the broken window fallacy (microeconomics, and completely unfounded) is insane. It'd be like trying to cut bread with a salmon....
@esimon7188 u really need to read How an Economy Grows and why it crashes by Peter Schiff, it's written for 10yr old so u'll be fine.it doesnt matter what people do with that money. If they spend it that's fine and if they save it that's even better because that money is used to as capital to finance other economic growth! banks can now loan that savings to a person who wants to start a business who then hires people and creates ACTUAL GROWTH. its time to wake up and stop getting brainwashed.
@familyguy350z Okay, well, let me see if i can explain this better for you. The money in an economy is sort of like the blood in a body. That is to say, not only does it have to be there, it also has to circulate. When people pocket their money, it's not being spent on goods or services. Thus the people that provide those services lose money, and they in turn do not have money to spend on other goods and services and the entire economy shrinks.
@familyguy350z (Cont.) What you've said is predicated on the idea that someone would want to start a business in a poor economic climate. Fine. Maybe so. But they're still entering a market where people are saving their money, not spending it on products. Keynes' theories insist that a government can stimulate an economy by pumping extra capital into it, to unfreeze the market. In 2008, even lifelong fiscal conservatives like Greenspan knew that Keynesian theories were the right way to go.
"When people pocket their money, it's not being spent on goods or services."
"they're still entering a market where people are saving their money, not spending it on products"
And here we see familyguy350z's first fallacy - that if people are not consuming, then they are hoarding their wealth in their mattresses. This is completely false. Their money is invested in other businesses - either directly, or through bank savings accounts. It does not sit 'uncirculated'.
Continued: "Thus the people that provide those services lose money"
This is the second fallacy. Such individuals do not "lose money". One cannot lose that which one never had.
"the entire economy shrinks."
This is the third fallacy. The money is still in the economy. It is invested, not in the one service, but in some other business instead. This is 'that which is unseen' - in this case, evaded, by familyguy350z. IOW he claims investment in a business is an economic loss.
Wow man, I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. You can invest all you want into businesses, but it's not going to create demand. You are trying to uphold Say's Law (though I doubt you know what it is) when most economists would agree that it's become irrelevant to modern Macroeconomics. I don't really know where to begin here, other than to tell you that you ought to read a little more on the subject.
@esimon7188 The video didn't say anything about discrediting Keynesian macroeconomics; it pointed out how important it is to understand that public works do not "create" jobs or wealth; they divert them from the private sector. As Bastiat and Hazlitt would contend, this is sometimes in the best interest of society. But we must remember that each dollar the government spends is one dollar that is not spent in the private sector (or, as you point out, lent to others by banks).
The broken window fallacy is often used as a response to Keynesianism. But let's see if we can get to the heart of your confusion. Your idea works, if the economy is working to it's full potential. Keynesian government spending in a healthy economy will "crowd out" private interests. But what if the economy is not working at full potential? What if the private sector isn't building, creating, etc? This is where the government comes in to "fill the gap," temporarily, get circular
@esimon7188 If the free economy isn't producing something, then that hypothetical thing SHOULDN'T be built/produced. It's as simple as that, since either it's to expensive for anyone to want it or it's unnecessary.
The reason somthing might be built by the govenment is because it's stolen money which they don't have to be careful with. And when it's all done were supposed to say thanks....
@erikal85 Okay this is exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to people's fundamental lack of understanding of Keynesian economics. The situation that you describe is that of a perfectly rational, efficient market. When macroeconomists develop models to describe economics, they ignore market inefficiencies, basically to make the math manageable. Keynes was one of the first economists to acknowledge that real economies do not always operate at perfect efficiency (obviously), and thus, the
@erikal85 (cont.) models cannot be used to accurately predict how markets will behave. Besides, you're dealing with this on an incredibly micro level. You're dealing with this product by product. Keynes was a macroeconomist, so his theory deals with aggregate demand / supply, unemployment.
@esimon7188 Even if the market was some how "ineffecient", although that would imply that the market has some "job" to do, rather than being something that "appears" when people exchange stuff/services (the latter being the correct view according to me), how could the government correct it? It can't.
Also, pretty much everyone of these so called "market failures" are the consequences of goverment intervention.
@erikal85 Ok, it's clear that you haven't even read Keynes. I don't exactly have time to explain the entire "General Theory" in 450 character increments. Plus, I'm sure Keynes could explain it better than I could, anyway. Just go read the book. :)
Government intervention? Funny that every serious economic collapse of the 20th century has followed periods of intense deregulation then....hahaha. Whatever.
@esimon7188 No, I haven't read Keynes, I did take a Macroeconomics course last semester though. Of course it was mostly Keynes theories we were studying. And all I can say is wow, what a waste of time. You were just left wondering where all the assuptions came from...astounding that he got the nobel memorial price....
Allright, so the more the government interviens the better it will be for the economy? Yeah that can be wittnesed through out the world... the more regulation the bettter... haha
The assumptions, my friend, come from observable trends in real data. Not strict adherence to faux models. Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it a waste of time. The more you talk, the more it becomes apparent that you slept through last semester's class. I can't even believe I'm still answering these questions. Maybe, instead of looking for ways to tell us why Keynes was wrong, you should try to understand his theories a little better. And THEN make a decision.
@esimon7188 My "friend", the Keynesian dogma is split into a hundred different schools. Neo-Keynesianism is an umbrella term, because even the fanboys are divided on how the magic of massive goverment work. Nobel memorial prize winner Hayek has a completely different take: easy credit leds to wrong investments which create the fertile grown for a proportionare readjustment (i.e. devastating economic crisis). Subprime mortages? Check. European social debt? Check.
Nobody's talking about The New Keynesians here. Frankly that whole school is an abomination of Keynes's theories, because it, too, relies on models that did not take into account possible crashes and market inefficiencies. This led to Chicago economists (New Classicals) promoting models for predicting the future, which EVERYONE (including the New Keynsians) bought into, unfortunately. This made companies believe they could accurately price risk. As we all know now, they
@Wiytithst (Cont.) didn't, and couldn't, because their models left out what are known as shocks. A few weeks later and the entire financial system was down the tube. Keynes was, in fact, one of the first, and only economists to say that the future was completely uncertain, and that the models, while good tools for macroeconomics (really all economics) did not reflect the real world. Thus, it was the Classical, Hayekian view that people are rational, and the trust in REH models that
@Wiytithst (cont. Cont.) led to the underpricing (or pricing at all of risk). You can believe in Hayek if you want. Plenty of people do (though they're wrong). And there's a lot that Hayek said that does make sense. But don't act like I haven't read the road to serfdom, when the way you are talking about econ reveals an astonishing lack of depth.
(cont.) flow going again, and then allow the stronger private sector to refill the gap. The idea that "every dollar spent by the government is not being spent in the private sector" is predicated on the idea that a private sector is operating at full potential. Otherwise, this isn't true, rather, the government is spending the money that the private sector ISN'T spending.
Broken window indeed. It's like poisoning someone when you have the antidote and expecting thanks for administering the antidote when it wouldn't have been needed if no poison were enforced. Ah, but then how would production of antidotes be encouraged? Things that are needed instead can be produced. Ah, but what if there's no demand for any other product? Then production can project production's finalisation later into time to serve future demand instead thanks to saving reducing costs over time
So the public works is not an example of the Broken window fallacy. The public works is a conditional decision, a decision made on the condition that value has already been destroyed. We are weighing the value of repairing damaged infrastructure, with purchasing Goods. The proper analogy would be of the Baker asking himself if he wanted to replace the window, or leave the window broken and buy the suit he wanted in the first place.
On the public works analogy, you show the goods that could have been with the consumer spending being lost, but you don't show the lost goods that would have been created by the public works. So really this is a misrepresentation on your part. They would have had their furniture, surfboards, and movie tickets, but they would have also had roads and bridges in disrepair. The public works on the other hand offers to repair those, but that opportunity is lost when the taxes are not raised.
I don't think the public works example is analogues to the fallacy the video outlines. First, there is nothing being broken (and thereby destroying value). The reason why the broken window fallacy is a fallacy is because value was destroyed; so what seems to be increased spending is actually funds diverted into replacing the destroyed value, and there is now lost opportunity.
Public works don't require someone to break a window, the oppertunity cost is assumed, and we don't know what the money would have otherwise went to, nor if supporting that unknown industry would be more benificial than the public work done and the benifit the workers there got. It's a "what if" analogy, not effective for judging justification. Public works often benifit everyone.
Eliminating tariffs leads to lower incomes which weakens the consumer, how does that help the economy?
@rockon6191 Initial research that evolved into the internet began in 1962 under government funding. Delphi was the first national commercial online service to offer Internet access to its subscribers. It opened up an email connection in July 1992 and full Internet service in November 1992. What company would have lost money for 30 years in the hopes of someday turning a profit.
@Esus4 They wouldn't. They'd have waited for the technology to actually be there, assisting its natural development where practical and then invested, probably bringing about a full product just as quickly without 30 years of losing money first. But in fairness, this is extremely hypothetical.
@Esus4 They wouldn't. They'd have waited for the technology to actually be there, assisting its natural development where practical and then invested, probably bringing about a full product just as quickly without 30 years of losing money first. But in fairness, this is extremely hypothetical, and not a topic I've done a lot of research on.
@Proph3tTroyer But this information is still important, because right now we're being told that "broken windows" can bring good and that we're to ignore it. In the future we need to be better educated to know that a broken window is indeed a waste.
If this theory applies as you state, then please explain how the internet (a public works project) has created billions of dollars in wealth. Are you saying that if gov't hadn't spent tax money to create and maintain the internet, and if the tax money had stayed in private hands, then we would have made more money than we have with the internet? What about public highways, libraries, police, schools, etc.? Please show me where your conclusion actually works. Much respect.
While I agree with the original analogy used in the video, I think it is a false comparison to compare it to public policy. As a matter of fact, even the CBO acknowledges that some taxes (i.e. stimulus) are more efficient than tax cuts of the same proportion. Doing a simple google search will lead you to the correct study. Also, war-time spending does in fact stimulate SOME economies. Namely, those of the industries receiving the DOD contracts.
The co-modification of human lives and health. This is as backwards a philosophy as I can imagine. Good luck to you when your health suddenly becomes a financial liability to someone or some other company.
I was entertained by the explanation and solution of the broken window fallacy. I was not amused when, after about 2:31 the author of this video carried out a blatant hijack of the principle for his own libertarian motives. Absolutely stupid: yes the money spent on public works is a substitute for the potential consumption by the taxpayers, but the video NEVER explains why these public works are worth any less. Which would you rather have - a new fridge or a working police force?
@bweazel If you have gold I'll give you a Fed Reserve Note for it. Money is a reason-selected market commodity later used for trading. Objectivity is using your mind to know reality. You complain about mysticism. Value is facts relative to man's life as judged by a mind. Subjectivity is emotion, imagination and Keynesian quackery. Gold was used as decoration B4 money. Thats not faith. Fiat money is faith thus legal tender laws force the use of paper and ink. Reason causes production.
@TeaParty1776 Sorry, bro. Faith in a commodity as a means of efficient trade is the exact same as faith in fiat money. And really, a fiat gold standard is no different than a fiat dollar standard. The beast of fractional reserve banking exists in both, which is where our true problem lies. Under a fractional reserve system (moreover, under a centralized banking system) there is no such thing as "sound money".
Paper represents promises, which are not worthless, regardless of how you feel.
@bweazel Gold is objective, not fiat, money because man's mind has judged its use as money. Fiat paper is counterfeit enforced by legal tender laws contradicting each person's mind. Mind is the key to man's life. Govt should protect mind w/individual rights.
Fractional reserve is banks stealing deposits and loaning them, as if the same money could buy two different things. Deposits are warehousing money, to be used only by depositor. FR uses fiat private and fiat govt money to inflate money.
@TeaParty1776 Gold under a fractional reserve system is no more objective than promises under that same system. No, fractional reserve lending on any reserve is legalized counterfeiting. It matters not what type of reserve you use.
Your last paragraph shows you have no idea how modern banking functions. Your wishes really have nothing to do with what is going on in reality.
You do realize the Great Depression happened under a gold standard, right?
@bweazel Gold limits FR, thus FR advocates oppose gold for unlimited FR. Gold by itself does not end FR. Thus Fed counterfeited throughout 1920s, causing malinvestment in (I'm shocked, shocked!) stocks, housing, etc. People fled to gold, causing higher cost to FDR's interventionism. So FDR stole gold and partly ended its backing of paper money, aiding the other interventions which caused Gr. Depress. "Gold & Economic Freedom" by pre-whore Alan Greenspan in Ayn Rand's _Capitalism_.
@TeaParty1776 "Gold is objective... because man's mind has judged its use as money" Ummm, I do believe that is the definition of subjective. Gold is worthless without peoples faith in it as money, which people currently have none. Gold has almost no industrial use, it does not pay a dividend, it's only value comes from selling it at a higher price. It is a purely speculative, vanity (in good times)/fear (in bad times) driven commodity.
@bweazel Your acceptance of pseudo-objective mysticism, faith, as the source of economic value destroys economics. Mind, with free will and logic, focused onto concrete reality, produces farms, the knowledge of farming, and all other objective economic values. Mind judges that gold is valuable as decoration. Mind observes that gold is more readily traded than other commodities because its rare, durable, easily and uniformly dividable. See M. Buechner's _Objective Economics_.
@razoorsharp Inflation has a more destructive effect than reducing the value of money. It lowers interest rates, encouraging and misleading business to make unsustainable investments which boom and bust,creating depressions, like this one.
@steveisgood Note the fascist liberal evasion of the difference between spending one's own money on one's own needs and forcibly spending someone else's money. This evasion is justified by that moral depravity called sacrifice, the morality of Nazism and Marxism and religion. We need a selfish morality to defend individual rights, including property rights.
@Ovularity "stimulative fiscal policy" is scientific quackery. The only economic "stimulus" is the private production of material wealth. If a private thief or Obama steals your money and "invests" it, it decreases production in one part of the economy only to increase it in another part. There is no productive gain. And govt has no ouija board or tea leaves to mystically know where to invest. Only a market of independently thinking, self-interested producers can guide sustainable investment.
Why would the private sector not create jobs? Creating jobs is bring profit to everyone and since everyone want profit then they would do it... You could as well say: what if people stop eating and they would all die? do we need government to set a law telling everyone to eat?
@G00FY318 And there is always, in capitalism, a better machine or business method. There is no shortage of potential jobs. Even now, there is a shortage of skilled workers. Fracking oil jobs pay $100K in North Dakota and attract college students. Socialism is a monkey wrench in between supply and demand.
What fascinates me is people like TeaParty1776 who need to deny simple economic truths such as the one in the video in order to maintain their fallacious belief in unfettered capitalism. Those of us who believe in capitalism within a legal framework to limit the excesses must be branded as statists, Utopians, fascists. If you aren't a believer in tiny powerless government you are fan of dictatorship. They are ideologues, unable to move past an imaginary version of 1776 America.
@rugbyguy59 "Unfettered capitalism" is a redundancy. There is no such fact as fettered capitalism, any more than there are round squares. You mean mixed economy, ie, Pragmatism, with capitalism, socialism and fascism jumbled together in an unstable mixture that must change to a consistent capitalism or statism. Thus the theoretical and practical importance of principled, systematic reasoning, ie, ideology. Pragmatists want to get away with contradictions. But reality is consistent.
@TeaParty1776 "I hope ... we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country" ---
Thomas Jefferson, 12 November 1816
Unfettered capitalism leads to Corporatism, the economic system of Fascism. If capitalism can only be capitalism if there are no regulations or government to enforce them, then capitalism never existed nor will it ever. It's an imaginary utopia.
@rugbyguy59 In the 1930s you commie scum claimed Jefferson was a commie. You commie scum are doing it again with out of context scholarship. Jefferson is important for individual rights even tho he was inconsistent. And arguments from authority are fallacies. Fascism is national socialism, the result of anti-capitalist ideas. Fascism enslaves business to sacrifice to society. See Rand's _Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal_.
@TeaParty1776 Wow, down comes the veneer of calm intellectualism and in comes the vile insults. Commie scum? All because someone doesn't agree with you. If you knew your history you'd know Hitler was supported by capitalists and that capitalists thrive in states like Nazi Germany or today's China.
Jefferson was inconsistent if we regard slave keeping, but absolutely right on when it comes to understanding the danger to genuine freedom of uncontrolled capital.
@rugbyguy59 Communism is social & economic equality, both ideological and the logically implicit ideology in your selection of concretes. Or in the liberal demand for income equality. Pragmatic, concrete, anti-ideological communism is communism, is logically hidden, ideological communism. Eg, liberal demand for income equality.
Hitler was supported by some businessmen but not by capitalists (advocates of individual rights). Mind or force controls capital.
@TeaParty While I do believe there must be levels of social & economic equality or we end up in a plutocracy, only the dogmatic would equate that to communism. Communism and Liberalism are very different even if there are some extremely broad similarities. There are huge gulfs in method of attaining those goals and what they mean
Capitalists are not advocates for individual rights. They are advocates for their own rights. This has led many to advocate stripping the rights of others
@rugbyguy59 (Modern) liberalism and communism share the political ideal of equality but to different degrees. Liberalism is communism with its nose under the tent.
Capitalism is the social system of individual rights regardless of any individual's compromise. Individual rights apply to all individuals, whatever contradictions anyone may hold. Im discussing ideas and you are discussing people.
@TeaParty1776 If we could discuss "ideas" (ideologies) without discussing people then communism and capitalism are equally hopeful. Both end up with a "withered state" and individual freedom.
Modern liberalism is an evolution of what is today libertarianism because classic liberalism led to rights for the few, just as Jefferson worried.
Capitalism has no protections for individual rights and without protection rights can be taken by the financially or politically powerful people.
@rugbyguy59 Capitalism is reason, selfishness , and individual rights. Communism is socially approved emotion, sacrifice, and the common good. They are basically different whatever non-basic similarities they have. Capitalism is objectively moral and communism is basically immoral. See Ayn Rand's _Capitalism_ for a moral defense of capitalism.
@TeaParty17 Ideas as defined by the irrational Ayn Rand. I've read Rand's fiction and non-fiction. Well, enough of it. Her conspiracy theory novels and the laboured logic of her essays are far from objective and are influenced more by the emotional trauma of her upbringing. While I agree we should seek objective knowledge, Rand clearly misses the target with her bizarre conception of rational self interest. Her version is pure self interest entirely missing the social nature of man
@TeaParty1776 As for your descriptors. Communist theory is every bit as objectively rational and moral as capitalist theory. By including selfishness as a characteristic you give up morality as a claim, despite Rand's protestations. Self interest is a natural part of humanity but so is altruism. A certain level of self interest and expected sacrifice is perfectly moral and necessary to maintain a free and functioning society. However both can be taken to immoral extremes.
@rugbyguy59 Marxism is one of many modern, subjectivist philosophies and is explicitly based on intuition. Marxism is a demand that individuals be sacrificed to society and 100-200M were sacrificed. Morality is a guide to life and happiness, not a rationalization for sacrifice. Thus morality is selfish. There is no rational justification for sacrifice. Capitalism is the society of rational selfishness, of people using their minds, not faith or emotion, to guide their relations with others.
@TeaParty1776 Capitalism demanded sacrifice too. It began with people being forced to give up collective rights to things such as the commons & gleaning. This took away their ability to live independently of factory and land owners. This forced them into wage slavery and the brutality of the industrial revolution work place. Socialism developed naturally from this. Read Polanyi's The Great Transformation. Capitalism is a subjectivist philosophy just like all the others.
@Tea76 Did Marx say 100-200M (citation?) were to be sacrificed? Thought we were talking ideas not acts of men?
Saying sacrifice is immoral and selfishness is moral is ridiculous. Neither is absolute. Selfishness always leads to demands or attempts to force others to sacrifice for your own benefit. Those deaths occurred because those in power were selfish. Some sacrifice can lead to a better and healthier community which leads to individual happiness. Selfishness won't ever do that
@rugbyguy59 Marx ideologically, comprehensively, opposed the individual. That screams at the reader from every sentence, making it obvious to followers that the individual must be sacrificed to society. _Black Book Of Communism_. I opposed personal attacks. Ideas cause action.
Selfishness requires reason, not emotion. Life by a rational standard, not pleasure, is the purpose of selfishness. This is absolute. See Ayn Rand's _Virtue Of Selfishness_ and _Atlas Shrugged_.
@TeaParty1776 Marxist theory is based on the objective laws of history, is a scientifically based programme for the workingman’s freedom and the all-round development of the individual. Socialism frees individuals by blocking some individuals exploiting the masses
The Black BofC puts the death count at 94 million not 100-200. Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme puts capitalist deaths at 100M
Selfishness says it's ok to hurt others. It is people choosing to do evil
@rugbyguy59 In what fantasy are there objective laws of history and no absolutes? Is that the fantasy in which communist writers are objective and individual freedom is slavery to equality and in which selfishness is hurting others and evil? S. Korea makes cars w/TVs. N. Korea makes nuke blackmail, counterfeit money and murder.
Marxism is an intuition-based subjectivism. I intuit that Marx was wrong. Evidence? We don' need no steekin' evidence! We got politically correct intuitions.
@TeaParty1776 You really don't get it do you. I'm not a communist but I can find communists, and copy them, who claim the exact same objective logic to their ideology as you claim to yours. They claim objective laws of history as you claim selfishness as an absolute moral good. Both are subjective judgements.
The no absolutes bit is me. Yin and yang.
I intuit that Rand was wrong. Evidence? We don' need no steekin' evidence! We got politically correct intuitions.
@rugbyguy59 Marxist "objectivity" applies Kant's pseudo-objective subjectivism in which fantasies are substituted for knowledge of reality because one can be aware of a fantasy as an object in consciousness. Rand's objectivity is reality as known by free will and logic.
Man's life requires knowing the objective requirements of man's life. Since man has no innate ideas and has free will, morality is the guide to those requirements. Morality is the guide to life, ie, morality is selfish.
@Te"Marxist "objectivity" applies Kant's pseudo-objective subjectivism in which fantasies are substituted for knowledge of reality"
I'd agree but the same is true of your "Objectivism." Substitute Rand's pseudo-objective subjectivism but Kant's"
"Man's life requires knowing the objective requirements of man's life"
I agree. But selfishness does not lead to objective requirements. Selfishness requires a subjective mind. Morality is a guide to life. Selfishness isn't it a good guide
@TeaParty1776 Communist theory is equally shared prosperity leading to individual freedom freedom because your needs are met. You aren't being very objective in your assessment of theory vs practice. The holds true regarding both capitalism and communism.
"Youre a generic commie"
Surely you aren't a I'm this and anyone else who disagrees with me is that person? But I guess that would fit with your absolutist views.
@TeaParty1776 S.Korea makes cars w/TVs because it's government protected industry while pushing it to grow and improve until it was ready to compete on the world stage. Without this no S.Korean companies would exist. They couldn't have competed
N.Korea is an example of selfishness in action. It has little to do with Marxism.
Why is it you get to use historical interpretation but if negative capitalist history is used you just say we're talking ideas not people?
@rugbyguy59 Like the govt-protected industries in the prosperous Soviet Union? Whatever statism exists in SK does not cause its prosperity. Its prosperity exists despite the destructiveness of statism. Coincidence is not cause. Mind causes production. Force causes destruction.
NK is all sacrificing to all. Motive is not morality. All life is motivated but only some motives are selfish & further life by a rational standard. Power over others is selfless. Power over reality is selfish.
@TeaParty1776 "Whatever statism exists in SK does not cause its prosperity"
Sorry to inform you but it is a practice that has been vital to every nation that has industrialized: Great Britain, Germany, USA, Japan, S.Korea, China today. It's never happened any other way. That doesn't mean state intervention is a golden bullet. You have to get it right. Find the right balance for the time and place.
Coincidence isn't cause but repeated successes of the same policy isn't coincidence.
@rugbyguy59 Statism has been coincidental, not vital, to prosperity. Production is the product of man's mind. Look around and see the products of the mind. The partly rational culture of Rome was much wealthier than prior cultures and became poor as Christianity ended its intercontinental trade for subsistence farming. Force cannot cause production. The wealthiest economy, the US, is the freest. Force contradicts mind by stopping rational action, thus people reject reason as impractical.
@TeaParty17 "Statism" has been vital not coincidental. Doesn't happen otherwise. The products of the mind still come forth under "statism" because the state protects the individual. Of course when selfishness gets in the way the state like the corporation can be used to enslave the individual.
What a ridiculous history of Rome. Christianity ended the intercontinental trade? Don't be friggin' daft. There are dozens of reasons Rome slowly collapsed that isn't one.
@rugbyguy59 Statism sacrifices the independent judgment needed to produce wealth to the state. Conflicts between the armed state and an unarmed producer end in slavery for the producer. Only caMysticism, esp. Christianitypitalist states protect the individual's right to be selfish. All other states sacrifice individual selfishness to society, God, etc. Capitalism is the politics of the morality of selfishness.
The mystic turn away from the world is the basic cause of Rome's fall.
@TeaParty1776 "Statism sacrifices the independent judgment needed to produce wealth to the state"
It can but doesn't have to. As history clearly shows the entry into a modern economy that produces significant wealth has only occurred under some degree of statism. Claims to some other better alternative are purely theoretical and are contradicted by example.
So where are these armed conflicts between the armed state and unarmed producers? No where in the developed world.
@TeaParty "Capitalism is the politics of the morality of selfishness"
Since selfishness is immoral or at least amoral then I guess that explains why capitalism is as well. Do you believe killing thousands of workers or a surrounding village to make more money is moral?
@TeaParty1776 Selfishness is almost universally decried by humanity. Because this is at the heart of religions some think its just a control method of religion. But in reality it is an expression of humanity incorporated into religion. A rational understanding of how to live the good life attributed to god(s) because that's what people (used to) do. But now science confirms those understandings.
@rugbyguy59 Popularity is good for prostitutes but its not a rational standard for ideas. The attack on selfishness is an expression of bloody ,depraved inhumanity. There is no rational defense of sacrifice. Liberals justify it w/emotion and religionists w/faith in an impossible supernatural. Corrupt science confirms only corrupt philosophy. Selfishness is rational and an absolute need of the good life. Sacrifice is for death-lovers and defenders of mass murder. See Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_
@TeaParty1776 "Liberals justify it w/emotion and religionists w/faith in an impossible supernatural"
And I keep defending it with rational argument, peer reviewed study, and references to standard definitions in well respected dictionaries. You on the other hand leap in by calling me a commie, supporter of mass murder, enslaver of humanity via my Fascist ideal.
Seems like your a little irrational. You cast judgement based on dogma not evidence and then quote the "Holy Rand" LOL
@TeaParty1776 "Corrupt science confirms only corrupt philosophy"
So our "rational" lover of the enlightenment rejects the most important rational product of the age of reason, the scientific method. Or perhaps it's only when the science disagrees with him.
Instead we're offered the dogma of Atlas Shrugged.
Ever thought I don't argue for sacrifice but rather for self interest?
@TeaParty The US has the freest economy. It also has the most crime, more homicide, more violent crime, more infant mortality, poorer mental health, more drug use, higher rates of imprisonment, more obesity, poorer school performance, less trust within communities, more teen mothers, and....LESS SOCIAL MOBILITY.
As states with higher income equality perform better than the USA in all these areas the masses must "selfishly" & "morally" want a state that creates more income equality
@rugbyguy59 Coincidence is not cause. Our rational Enlightenment origin causes our greater freedom. Modern subjectivism/irrationalism/nihilism causes the problems. Progressivism has decreased capitalism since 1890s, 1930s, 1960s, and Bush/Obama, indirectly causing problems. Unprincipled Pragmatists see only direct causes.
Many egalitarian states are also traditional, w/a bit of rationality not in US anti-reason Pragmatism. They move to nihilist chaos. Commie equality causes poverty.
@TeaParty1776 Our ratioanl Enlightenment created two major documents that announced all men are equal and attempted to create a system that allowed people to exercise that equality in order to maintain their freedom. Those original steps were brilliant and moved us forward but flawed as their goals were not met by those original documents. Progressiveism rationally addresses those flaws and seeks to truly attain the original goals of the Enlightenment.
@rugbyguy59 Your claim that America had an egalitarian founding contradicts your denial of being a commie. American equality is political, not social and economic. America was founded as an anti-religion, anti-communist nation. America was founded as an individualist nation, a fact Progressives [commie-lite] often evade. American equality exists as an application of individualism.
@TeaParty1776 Sadly your biases mean you can't read others objectively. I never said the founding of America was based upon social or economic equality. It was political. What I said was some social and economic equality was added later to allow people to maintain and exercise the freedom they were losing due to the selfishness the economically advantaged. Still loads of room for individualism. In fact study shows it's more possible. No need to be limited by the errors of the past.
That I agree with. But so does unfettered capitalism. It was the creation of the welfare state that led to the modern middle class and genuine material prosperity for the masses allowing them to exercise significant freedoms. If that requires some decrease in capitalism then that is necessary. However once everyone understands the new ground rules capitalism prospers just fine and the benefits are spread wider.
@rugbyguy59 Your commie ideal is economic-social equality but, as Pragmatist, you will only approach the ideal. Thus you seek to destroy man, not completely, but enough to keep him sick and whimpering for your fascist ideal of The State to take care of him. See: the 1930s and 1940s.
Unfettered capitalism: continually increased productivity that contradicts the need for your altruist depravity of sacrificing the most productive to the least productive as in the destructive welfare state.
@TeaParty1776 Where did you get the idea that I felt an ideal could be attained? Certainly not from me, but likely due to your dogmatic compulsion to stick to holy scripture. The state should never take care of man but it should assist him in taking care of himself. In places where this occurs people are more socially mobile and happier. Since man has always lived in communities this is not surprising.
@TeaParty1776 Unfettered capitalism destroys environments, wastes resources, creates great poverty, and allows the rich to enslave the poor by controlling the means of production. As you said unfettered capitalism is based on selfishness which is irrational and short sighted. What good it seems to produce is a flare or brightness that burns itself out quickly. However if controlled well it can provide great wealth for a great many without destroying itself and us.
@TeaParty1776 Note: MORE income equality not absolute income equality
"Force cannot cause production"
I generally agree. That's why totalitarian states like the Soviet Union crashed. But some totalitarian states like Nazi Germany had mass support backed up by force and were very productive. (A fact. I'm not agreeing with the method) I prefer democracies where we generally work through the rule of law and broad based consensus. Although selfishness has messed that up of late
@rugbyguy59 You admit some inequality needed for prosperity. More->better.
Nazism benefited from semi-capitalist German past. Nazism consumed that wealth by welfare, regulations, subsidies, war. Coincidence not cause. Democracy is demagogue-led, destructive lynch mob: ancient Greece, Weimer Germany. Consensus destroys individual rights (capitalism). Selfishness is objective, rational, not emotional. Progressivism is ending US Enlightenment selfishness that caused freedom, prosperity.
@TeaParty1776 "You admit some inequality needed for prosperity. More->better"
I do believe that some is needed. However the evidence clearly shows that more is not better. In fact the USA has too much and it costs tens of millions of Americans real freedom
Progressivism is objective, rational, not emotional. Uncontrolled capitalism has brought down the economy repeatedly and allowed a few to take away the rights and prosperity from tens of millions in the USA alone.
@rugbyguy59 Youre a commie liar. Progressive economic intervention has been increasing over the long run for a century+ despite temporary, small decreases.
Our current Depression is the bust from the Fed-fueled unsustainable boom. Govt
counterfeited money and credit and legally shoved it thru banks into the economy.
You commie liars look at banks but not at the source of their counterfeit money and credit. Banks lent that for stocks and houses. Govt pushed housing loans. Boom.
@TP Prog. economic intervention didn't start until the 30s in the USA. As it increased it created relatively low rates of poverty, a golden age for the middle class, plus massive wealth for the rich. Since the 80s deregulation has allowed the rich to rejig the system to suit themselves (selfishly) which hurt everyone else.
In the current depression subprime mortgages hurt but the real culprit is unregulated banks and their debt derivatives. Not allowed in Canada and no bank crisis
@TeaParty1776 "Sacrifice is for death-lovers and defenders of mass murder"
It can be. It can also be for the betterment of our fellow human, as in giving your life to save another. But I'm not really into sacrifice as the key to a philosophy. I'm into enlightened self interest. As well as our individual need for self fulfillment, solid community is in our rational self interest. At times that means we must act together and our actions must be restrained for the sake of community
@rugbyguy59 "Giving your life to save another" is you loving your death. Its selfishness or sacrifice. No middle way despite Pragmatism. Only a rationally selfish, individual rights society is selfish for each individual. Soviet Union destroyed all its people. Society is a tool, nothing more, w/potential for trade, knowledge. If a society sacrifices you, find or create another society or be sacrificed. See Atlas Shrugged and founding American ideals (diluted thru time).
@TeaParty1776 [Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged] Have you read any other philosopher?
Survival is based of the needs of the species not the individual. Empathy is an evolutionary strategy where species that collectively work together have a better shoot at surviving and living longer.
This means that to be completely selfish in your survival demands that you have some selflessness, Likewise to be completely Capitalistic demands some Socialism, This truth destroys the works of Ayn Rand.
@MentalAtheist Youre rationalizing the pseudo-morality of sacrifice. Man's basic survival method, as an individual is his mind. There is no collective mind despite Marx and other modernist haters of independent judgment. Empathy is an emotion ,not the knowledge needed for survival. A farmer needs knowledge. Empathy won't grow crops. Man needs knowledge of the material universe for survival. Selfishness requires knowledge of the objective needs of man's life. Selfishness is not hedonism.
"Empathy is [...] not the knowledge needed for survival"
Yes it is! All emotions are instinctive based with evolutionary benefits. Empathy is a vicarious way of gaining objective knowledge. There is even a word for this in Biology, is called mutualism.
I'm not rationalizing the pseudo-morality of sacrifice, marx, or communism, your rationalizing the mind set of a psychopathy. Yous seem unable to see the world in anything but black and white.
@MentalAtheist Emotions are your experience of your values, not a method of knowing reality. I feel good about the Cobra 427 but that feeling doesnt tell me anything but that I like that car. Values are the product of the reasoning you chose or evade. Evolution caused man's free will. But then free will takes over. Science has been corrupted by subjectivism and mysticism.
@TeaParty1776 "Science has been corrupted by subjectivism and mysticism"
Who are you to say such things? Everything we are was made through objective evolutionary means. This includes brain chemistry & brain chemistry includes emotions!
For you to ignore these obvious facts, & declare parts of science "subjectivism and mysticism", & the fact that you try to reduce your opponents to an "ism" shows that not looking for an honest argument. Your looking to rehearse your prejudices.
@MentalAtheist The Greek discovery of mind, logic and scientific method created science. Everyone has a view of reality as a whole that is used to know parts of reality. Science is not a Pragmatist jumble of facts isolated from each other. Science requires systematic reasoning, not randomly flitting from one fact to another, as subjectivist teachers require.
Emotions are psychosomatic responses to values. We evaluate our knowledge of reality. Choosing X causes a positive emotion about X.
Emotions are chemical evolutionary responses, its not a dogma one has to learn. We know this because we can treat peoples emotions with medication. To say that something in nature is subjective is by definition irrational.
People are programed when born to value pleasure and de-value pain. Babies don't choose to cry when they get hurt. No body made a conscience chose to think suger is sweet and that sweet is positive.
@MentalAtheist "But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments." Ayn Rand
@MentalAtheist "Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but what he will consider good or evil, what will give him joy or pain, what he will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on his standard of value. If he chooses irrational values, he switches his emotional mechanism from the role of his guardian to the role of his destroyer....Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious." Ayn Rand
What she failed to understand is the differences and similarities between instinctive and methodical understanding. Pleasure or pain are instinctive. Love and hate, desire and fear, depends on the interpreting instinctive behavior against environmental pressures, Values are not independent from instincts or from being objective.
@MentalAtheist "Man has no automatic code of survival....no automatic course of action, no automatic set of values. His senses do not tell him automatically what is good for him or evil, what will benefit his life or endanger it, what goals he should pursue and what means will achieve them, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. His own consciousness has to discover the answers to all these questions—but his consciousness will not function automatically." Ayn Rand
>are you giving up and just copying and pasting quotes from Ayn Rand.
Listening not to me but to the Logos. Heraclitus
So youre born knowing how to build a fire, hunt for food and build a hut? How about automatically knowing how to build a computer or automatically knowing what is justice or scientific method? Your affirmation of instincts may be rewarded in a Progressive school but here you need proof. Or can I instinctively know that you are wrong? #<{
@TeaParty1776 I'm arguing that emotions are instinctive and not man made. Emotions are intuitive to evolutionary survival. Argo emotions have an objective premise. and I firmly supported that with scientific claims about evolution.
What you are arguing for is pure capitalism, Which is entirely subjective and entirely man made. To argue your construct is objective with no scientific claims is laughable.
started out with a good argument then fucked it up. construction is not the broken window fallacy - quite the contrary because then you have a new road from which the entire community benefits from decreased transportation costs and time. if you destroyed a road only to build a new one that was no better then sure it'd apply, but that is not what public works is about. construction is the *opposite* of destruction...
satoau1 1 day ago
@satoau1 Construction is the broken window fallacy, your problem is assuming that the government should manage infrastructure. In a completely free market infrastructure would be privately owned and would be just another good or service financed on the free market.Infrastructure is fundamental to creating businesses so demand would spur the creation of infrastructure privately.
aphorism100 21 hours ago
@aphorism100 construction is not the broken window fallacy, though pork-barreling is. i don't assume that the government should manage infrastructure, i know that not enough people would be willing to pay for roads for it ever to work in the private sector, mostly because people can't imagine how a road on the other side of the country affects them because it's all very indirect.
satoau1 17 hours ago
@satoau1 I like how you to presume to know things with no proof. People want roads, the free market would facilitate it. Interstate high ways could be managed like toll roads
aphorism100 17 hours ago
@aphorism100 what are you talking about? do you not see the products being driven down public roads every day?
satoau1 14 hours ago
@satoau1 Businesses could pay for the roads to their businesses, how else would they get customers? And local housing development roads could be managed by home owners associations
aphorism100 16 hours ago
@aphorism100 businesses can't afford to pay for the roads, these cost millions of dollars to build. if a business big enough built one it could impose fees so restrictive that their competitors would be shut out of the market. public roads allow businesses to start because they don't need the money up front for the road. later the business contributes to the economy and the cost of the road is paid back to the govt.
satoau1 14 hours ago
@aphorism100 say a chip maker in silicon valley needed a road built, you and pretty much everyone else wouldn't pay for it - "they can pay for their own road!" but it costs millions of dollars so the company couldn't afford it. the road wouldn't get built, so the company couldn't produce more chips, PC prices wouldn't go down, and no-one would build another factory in the same area to also use the new road. but if the govt collects tax and builds that road...?
satoau1 17 hours ago
@satoau1 The PC chip maker could pay for the roads to and from their business and adjust costs accordingly. People implicitly pay for roads already in the form of taxes.
aphorism100 16 hours ago
@aphorism100 no really, they couldn't pay for the roads, seriously learn about how much they cost to build. you're right people pay for roads implicitly, we all share the burden because we all benefit either directly or indirectly in quality of life benefits. society has benefited since ancient roman times by the building of public roads and other infrastructure. there's thousands of years of proof and every day is further proof.
satoau1 14 hours ago
@satoau1 They could also pool resources with other businesses that want to exist on the road. Stop taxing people for roads and they can pay a higher premium on products
aphorism100 16 hours ago
Im no expert, but it seems that the austrians usually back up their ideas with reference to facts and reality, while the statist economists always talk about vague theories or just call people names.
Funny also that i have met about a dozen economics students or recent graduates in the last year or 2 and none of them has heard of mises or the austrian school. If mises et al are wrong wouldnt they at least teach why they are wrong? Seems more like the statists have something to hide.
sidvidkid 6 days ago
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@sidvidkid WROTE: "..it seems that the austrians usually back up their ideas with reference to facts and reality, while the statist economists always talk about vague theories or just call people names. Funny also that i have met about a dozen economics students ...in the last year or 2 and none of them has heard of mises or the austrian school. If mises et al are wrong wouldnt they at least teach why they R wrong? Seems more like the statists have something to hide."
Yes. Correct.
4zX289 3 days ago
God, the music is fucking gay..
jeppr124 1 week ago
This analysis leaves out the fact that the wealthy don't purchase consumer products at the same percentage of their wealth as the rest of us.
Instead, the wealthy spend their money on greater means of production. This means that if (as was the case after the bank crash) the rich feel anxious about risk levels, they will simply hold onto their money and wait until the economy recovers. What stimulus spending is meant to do is increase demand so the rich will spend money on new factories etc.
psusac 1 week ago
@psusac no they don't. the wealthy spend their money on luxury goods (often imported) and keep the rest in shares or other savings. think about it, if you were making 100 loaves of bread and just selling them out by the end of the day, would you hire more workers and machines just because u had the money?of course not! you'd only do that if u were selling out early and needed to make more to meet consumer demand.
in short, the rich don't create jobs, customers do.
satoau1 1 day ago
@satoau1 Ooh! Good point!
psusac 1 day ago
This argument makes two assumptions: First: That the citizens would spend their money rather than save it. Second: That they would spend it locally. While these two things are likely true for the middle and lower classes, they are definately not for the wealthiest people and organizations. When a multinational corporation gets a tax break in a specific locality that does NOT mean they will hire or spend more in THAT location. Citizens, on the other hand, almost certainly will.
JoeNietzsche 1 week ago
@JoeNietzsche Savings correspond to future spending. Just because you're not spending it now doesn't mean it will be spent. Savers also allow banks to loan the money.
The second assumption also assumes that trade is perfectly balanced... when it never is.
chaz706 1 week ago
@chaz706 Savings correspond to future spending? That’s a functionally meaningless statement - ok, sure, at some point in the future, some time by someone, some of the savings will very likely be spent. Unfortunately, that's a bit like telling someone they’re going to die - uh, yeah, we know that but it’s irrelevant without details.
JoeNietzsche 1 week ago
Great video!
erikal85 2 weeks ago
RIOTS!!! WE NEED BIG CITY RIOTS!!!
Hazu1337 3 weeks ago 3
I don't get it.
I could easily make a counter argument if i decided what the people in the video would and wouldn't do.
WeGameAlotSir 3 weeks ago
@WeGameAlotSir The point is not the specific industries that are stimulated; the point is that for every good that is purchased in an economy, another is not purchased. In the case of the broken window, not only is another good not purchased, but resources must now be wasted producing a new good that would not have otherwise been necessary. Society is less wealthy by the amount that that good (the window) is worth.
alexmasucci55 2 weeks ago
This video sucks and so do you
KrispyApplez 4 weeks ago
@KrispyApplez Why, because it makes sense?
r3dredwine 3 weeks ago
Who else heard the CTFxC staticy voices noise at 0:22?
StopMotionMeltdown 1 month ago
The broken window fallacy is ridiculous. It implies that each individual would have spent the money in their pocket, when in reality, in times of economic struggle, they are far more likely to sit on the money.
Plus, the idea that you could discredit Keynesian economics (a macroeconomic theory) with such a limited, hypothetical theory like the broken window fallacy (microeconomics, and completely unfounded) is insane. It'd be like trying to cut bread with a salmon....
esimon7188 1 month ago
@esimon7188 u really need to read How an Economy Grows and why it crashes by Peter Schiff, it's written for 10yr old so u'll be fine.it doesnt matter what people do with that money. If they spend it that's fine and if they save it that's even better because that money is used to as capital to finance other economic growth! banks can now loan that savings to a person who wants to start a business who then hires people and creates ACTUAL GROWTH. its time to wake up and stop getting brainwashed.
familyguy350z 1 month ago 4
@familyguy350z Okay, well, let me see if i can explain this better for you. The money in an economy is sort of like the blood in a body. That is to say, not only does it have to be there, it also has to circulate. When people pocket their money, it's not being spent on goods or services. Thus the people that provide those services lose money, and they in turn do not have money to spend on other goods and services and the entire economy shrinks.
esimon7188 1 month ago
@familyguy350z (Cont.) What you've said is predicated on the idea that someone would want to start a business in a poor economic climate. Fine. Maybe so. But they're still entering a market where people are saving their money, not spending it on products. Keynes' theories insist that a government can stimulate an economy by pumping extra capital into it, to unfreeze the market. In 2008, even lifelong fiscal conservatives like Greenspan knew that Keynesian theories were the right way to go.
esimon7188 1 month ago
"When people pocket their money, it's not being spent on goods or services."
"they're still entering a market where people are saving their money, not spending it on products"
And here we see familyguy350z's first fallacy - that if people are not consuming, then they are hoarding their wealth in their mattresses. This is completely false. Their money is invested in other businesses - either directly, or through bank savings accounts. It does not sit 'uncirculated'.
blspro 1 month ago
Continued: "Thus the people that provide those services lose money"
This is the second fallacy. Such individuals do not "lose money". One cannot lose that which one never had.
"the entire economy shrinks."
This is the third fallacy. The money is still in the economy. It is invested, not in the one service, but in some other business instead. This is 'that which is unseen' - in this case, evaded, by familyguy350z. IOW he claims investment in a business is an economic loss.
blspro 1 month ago
@blspro
Wow man, I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. You can invest all you want into businesses, but it's not going to create demand. You are trying to uphold Say's Law (though I doubt you know what it is) when most economists would agree that it's become irrelevant to modern Macroeconomics. I don't really know where to begin here, other than to tell you that you ought to read a little more on the subject.
esimon7188 2 weeks ago
@esimon7188 The video didn't say anything about discrediting Keynesian macroeconomics; it pointed out how important it is to understand that public works do not "create" jobs or wealth; they divert them from the private sector. As Bastiat and Hazlitt would contend, this is sometimes in the best interest of society. But we must remember that each dollar the government spends is one dollar that is not spent in the private sector (or, as you point out, lent to others by banks).
alexmasucci55 2 weeks ago
@alexmasucci55
The broken window fallacy is often used as a response to Keynesianism. But let's see if we can get to the heart of your confusion. Your idea works, if the economy is working to it's full potential. Keynesian government spending in a healthy economy will "crowd out" private interests. But what if the economy is not working at full potential? What if the private sector isn't building, creating, etc? This is where the government comes in to "fill the gap," temporarily, get circular
esimon7188 2 weeks ago
@esimon7188 If the free economy isn't producing something, then that hypothetical thing SHOULDN'T be built/produced. It's as simple as that, since either it's to expensive for anyone to want it or it's unnecessary.
The reason somthing might be built by the govenment is because it's stolen money which they don't have to be careful with. And when it's all done were supposed to say thanks....
erikal85 2 weeks ago
@erikal85 Okay this is exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to people's fundamental lack of understanding of Keynesian economics. The situation that you describe is that of a perfectly rational, efficient market. When macroeconomists develop models to describe economics, they ignore market inefficiencies, basically to make the math manageable. Keynes was one of the first economists to acknowledge that real economies do not always operate at perfect efficiency (obviously), and thus, the
esimon7188 2 weeks ago
@erikal85 (cont.) models cannot be used to accurately predict how markets will behave. Besides, you're dealing with this on an incredibly micro level. You're dealing with this product by product. Keynes was a macroeconomist, so his theory deals with aggregate demand / supply, unemployment.
esimon7188 2 weeks ago
@esimon7188 Even if the market was some how "ineffecient", although that would imply that the market has some "job" to do, rather than being something that "appears" when people exchange stuff/services (the latter being the correct view according to me), how could the government correct it? It can't.
Also, pretty much everyone of these so called "market failures" are the consequences of goverment intervention.
erikal85 1 week ago
@erikal85 Ok, it's clear that you haven't even read Keynes. I don't exactly have time to explain the entire "General Theory" in 450 character increments. Plus, I'm sure Keynes could explain it better than I could, anyway. Just go read the book. :)
Government intervention? Funny that every serious economic collapse of the 20th century has followed periods of intense deregulation then....hahaha. Whatever.
Have a good valentine's day.
esimon7188 1 week ago
@esimon7188 No, I haven't read Keynes, I did take a Macroeconomics course last semester though. Of course it was mostly Keynes theories we were studying. And all I can say is wow, what a waste of time. You were just left wondering where all the assuptions came from...astounding that he got the nobel memorial price....
Allright, so the more the government interviens the better it will be for the economy? Yeah that can be wittnesed through out the world... the more regulation the bettter... haha
erikal85 1 week ago
@erikal85
The assumptions, my friend, come from observable trends in real data. Not strict adherence to faux models. Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it a waste of time. The more you talk, the more it becomes apparent that you slept through last semester's class. I can't even believe I'm still answering these questions. Maybe, instead of looking for ways to tell us why Keynes was wrong, you should try to understand his theories a little better. And THEN make a decision.
esimon7188 1 week ago
@esimon7188 My "friend", the Keynesian dogma is split into a hundred different schools. Neo-Keynesianism is an umbrella term, because even the fanboys are divided on how the magic of massive goverment work. Nobel memorial prize winner Hayek has a completely different take: easy credit leds to wrong investments which create the fertile grown for a proportionare readjustment (i.e. devastating economic crisis). Subprime mortages? Check. European social debt? Check.
You need to read more.
Wiytithst 1 week ago
@Wiytithst
Nobody's talking about The New Keynesians here. Frankly that whole school is an abomination of Keynes's theories, because it, too, relies on models that did not take into account possible crashes and market inefficiencies. This led to Chicago economists (New Classicals) promoting models for predicting the future, which EVERYONE (including the New Keynsians) bought into, unfortunately. This made companies believe they could accurately price risk. As we all know now, they
esimon7188 1 week ago
@Wiytithst (Cont.) didn't, and couldn't, because their models left out what are known as shocks. A few weeks later and the entire financial system was down the tube. Keynes was, in fact, one of the first, and only economists to say that the future was completely uncertain, and that the models, while good tools for macroeconomics (really all economics) did not reflect the real world. Thus, it was the Classical, Hayekian view that people are rational, and the trust in REH models that
esimon7188 1 week ago
@Wiytithst (cont. Cont.) led to the underpricing (or pricing at all of risk). You can believe in Hayek if you want. Plenty of people do (though they're wrong). And there's a lot that Hayek said that does make sense. But don't act like I haven't read the road to serfdom, when the way you are talking about econ reveals an astonishing lack of depth.
esimon7188 1 week ago
@alexmasucci55
(cont.) flow going again, and then allow the stronger private sector to refill the gap. The idea that "every dollar spent by the government is not being spent in the private sector" is predicated on the idea that a private sector is operating at full potential. Otherwise, this isn't true, rather, the government is spending the money that the private sector ISN'T spending.
esimon7188 2 weeks ago
Broken window indeed. It's like poisoning someone when you have the antidote and expecting thanks for administering the antidote when it wouldn't have been needed if no poison were enforced. Ah, but then how would production of antidotes be encouraged? Things that are needed instead can be produced. Ah, but what if there's no demand for any other product? Then production can project production's finalisation later into time to serve future demand instead thanks to saving reducing costs over time
cannotbebothered100 1 month ago 2
@cannotbebothered100
Well, yes, you could sit around and wait for demand to return. That certainly is one way to do it, though it might take a while.
esimon7188 2 weeks ago
So the public works is not an example of the Broken window fallacy. The public works is a conditional decision, a decision made on the condition that value has already been destroyed. We are weighing the value of repairing damaged infrastructure, with purchasing Goods. The proper analogy would be of the Baker asking himself if he wanted to replace the window, or leave the window broken and buy the suit he wanted in the first place.
Satarack 1 month ago
On the public works analogy, you show the goods that could have been with the consumer spending being lost, but you don't show the lost goods that would have been created by the public works. So really this is a misrepresentation on your part. They would have had their furniture, surfboards, and movie tickets, but they would have also had roads and bridges in disrepair. The public works on the other hand offers to repair those, but that opportunity is lost when the taxes are not raised.
Satarack 1 month ago
I don't think the public works example is analogues to the fallacy the video outlines. First, there is nothing being broken (and thereby destroying value). The reason why the broken window fallacy is a fallacy is because value was destroyed; so what seems to be increased spending is actually funds diverted into replacing the destroyed value, and there is now lost opportunity.
Satarack 1 month ago
Public works don't require someone to break a window, the oppertunity cost is assumed, and we don't know what the money would have otherwise went to, nor if supporting that unknown industry would be more benificial than the public work done and the benifit the workers there got. It's a "what if" analogy, not effective for judging justification. Public works often benifit everyone.
Eliminating tariffs leads to lower incomes which weakens the consumer, how does that help the economy?
smd51584 1 month ago
A short video about how government spending can never stimulate the economy. Ironically you found it on the internet
Esus4 1 month ago
@Esus4 How is that Ironic?
YaHuWaHservant 1 month ago
@Esus4 You just fell into the fallacy yourself. We'd still have the internet without government spending. We'd just also have other things too.
rockon6191 1 month ago
@rockon6191 Initial research that evolved into the internet began in 1962 under government funding. Delphi was the first national commercial online service to offer Internet access to its subscribers. It opened up an email connection in July 1992 and full Internet service in November 1992. What company would have lost money for 30 years in the hopes of someday turning a profit.
Esus4 1 month ago
@Esus4 They wouldn't. They'd have waited for the technology to actually be there, assisting its natural development where practical and then invested, probably bringing about a full product just as quickly without 30 years of losing money first. But in fairness, this is extremely hypothetical.
rockon6191 1 month ago
@Esus4 They wouldn't. They'd have waited for the technology to actually be there, assisting its natural development where practical and then invested, probably bringing about a full product just as quickly without 30 years of losing money first. But in fairness, this is extremely hypothetical, and not a topic I've done a lot of research on.
rockon6191 1 month ago
Might want to credit Henry Hazlitt, I recognize the arguments and last phrase is copied exactly.
adrienspawn2 1 month ago
But there /is/ a broken window already...
Proph3tTroyer 2 months ago
@Proph3tTroyer But this information is still important, because right now we're being told that "broken windows" can bring good and that we're to ignore it. In the future we need to be better educated to know that a broken window is indeed a waste.
9700ghost 2 months ago
@9700ghost Of course. The logic is valid and sound. I'm not debating the philosophy.
What I am pointing out is that we have, well, as the baker, broken windows, in the form of infrastructure, debt, general education, etc
Which need their money to get fixed. We'll have to put off the next suit.
At least, we can help build the economy by fixing it...
Proph3tTroyer 1 month ago
If this theory applies as you state, then please explain how the internet (a public works project) has created billions of dollars in wealth. Are you saying that if gov't hadn't spent tax money to create and maintain the internet, and if the tax money had stayed in private hands, then we would have made more money than we have with the internet? What about public highways, libraries, police, schools, etc.? Please show me where your conclusion actually works. Much respect.
johnnytezca 2 months ago
I like turtles.
ghjbny777 2 months ago
While I agree with the original analogy used in the video, I think it is a false comparison to compare it to public policy. As a matter of fact, even the CBO acknowledges that some taxes (i.e. stimulus) are more efficient than tax cuts of the same proportion. Doing a simple google search will lead you to the correct study. Also, war-time spending does in fact stimulate SOME economies. Namely, those of the industries receiving the DOD contracts.
pnggolfer9 2 months ago
o hey what do you want to spend your money on? I was thinking of a fridge or a surfboard or maybe I'll just go all out and buy a movie ticket
TheDyingPunk 2 months ago
these are the worst accents
iisakura 2 months ago
Wonderful video! Do you have a Bitcoin address so I can send you a donation?
rogerver 2 months ago
Comment removed
MentalAtheist 2 months ago
And when property rights impinge on the personal freedoms of health and free speech?
steveisgood 2 months ago
@steveisgood Health is a good, not a freedom.
XOmniverse 1 month ago
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@XOmniverse "Health is a good, not a freedom."
The co-modification of human lives and health. This is as backwards a philosophy as I can imagine. Good luck to you when your health suddenly becomes a financial liability to someone or some other company.
steveisgood 1 month ago
I was entertained by the explanation and solution of the broken window fallacy. I was not amused when, after about 2:31 the author of this video carried out a blatant hijack of the principle for his own libertarian motives. Absolutely stupid: yes the money spent on public works is a substitute for the potential consumption by the taxpayers, but the video NEVER explains why these public works are worth any less. Which would you rather have - a new fridge or a working police force?
samcg5 2 months ago
@bweazel If you have gold I'll give you a Fed Reserve Note for it. Money is a reason-selected market commodity later used for trading. Objectivity is using your mind to know reality. You complain about mysticism. Value is facts relative to man's life as judged by a mind. Subjectivity is emotion, imagination and Keynesian quackery. Gold was used as decoration B4 money. Thats not faith. Fiat money is faith thus legal tender laws force the use of paper and ink. Reason causes production.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Sorry, bro. Faith in a commodity as a means of efficient trade is the exact same as faith in fiat money. And really, a fiat gold standard is no different than a fiat dollar standard. The beast of fractional reserve banking exists in both, which is where our true problem lies. Under a fractional reserve system (moreover, under a centralized banking system) there is no such thing as "sound money".
Paper represents promises, which are not worthless, regardless of how you feel.
bweazel 2 months ago
@bweazel Gold is objective, not fiat, money because man's mind has judged its use as money. Fiat paper is counterfeit enforced by legal tender laws contradicting each person's mind. Mind is the key to man's life. Govt should protect mind w/individual rights.
Fractional reserve is banks stealing deposits and loaning them, as if the same money could buy two different things. Deposits are warehousing money, to be used only by depositor. FR uses fiat private and fiat govt money to inflate money.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Gold under a fractional reserve system is no more objective than promises under that same system. No, fractional reserve lending on any reserve is legalized counterfeiting. It matters not what type of reserve you use.
Your last paragraph shows you have no idea how modern banking functions. Your wishes really have nothing to do with what is going on in reality.
You do realize the Great Depression happened under a gold standard, right?
bweazel 2 months ago
@bweazel Gold limits FR, thus FR advocates oppose gold for unlimited FR. Gold by itself does not end FR. Thus Fed counterfeited throughout 1920s, causing malinvestment in (I'm shocked, shocked!) stocks, housing, etc. People fled to gold, causing higher cost to FDR's interventionism. So FDR stole gold and partly ended its backing of paper money, aiding the other interventions which caused Gr. Depress. "Gold & Economic Freedom" by pre-whore Alan Greenspan in Ayn Rand's _Capitalism_.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Economics is a social science. You knew that right?
bweazel 2 months ago
@bweazel Youre not saying anything.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Gold is objective... because man's mind has judged its use as money" Ummm, I do believe that is the definition of subjective. Gold is worthless without peoples faith in it as money, which people currently have none. Gold has almost no industrial use, it does not pay a dividend, it's only value comes from selling it at a higher price. It is a purely speculative, vanity (in good times)/fear (in bad times) driven commodity.
bweazel 2 months ago
@bweazel Your acceptance of pseudo-objective mysticism, faith, as the source of economic value destroys economics. Mind, with free will and logic, focused onto concrete reality, produces farms, the knowledge of farming, and all other objective economic values. Mind judges that gold is valuable as decoration. Mind observes that gold is more readily traded than other commodities because its rare, durable, easily and uniformly dividable. See M. Buechner's _Objective Economics_.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Don't misunderstand, brother. I'm on your side. The problem though is that you aren't on your side ;)
bweazel 2 months ago
@steverock85 Money is market money, voluntarily accepted. Counterfeit is govt "money," accepted only because of legal tender laws.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776
I don't even remeber what I said to this video and I have lost all intrest in markets. I am for capital as long it is a fair game.
steverock85 2 months ago
@razoorsharp Inflation has a more destructive effect than reducing the value of money. It lowers interest rates, encouraging and misleading business to make unsustainable investments which boom and bust,creating depressions, like this one.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@steveisgood Note the fascist liberal evasion of the difference between spending one's own money on one's own needs and forcibly spending someone else's money. This evasion is justified by that moral depravity called sacrifice, the morality of Nazism and Marxism and religion. We need a selfish morality to defend individual rights, including property rights.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@Ovularity "stimulative fiscal policy" is scientific quackery. The only economic "stimulus" is the private production of material wealth. If a private thief or Obama steals your money and "invests" it, it decreases production in one part of the economy only to increase it in another part. There is no productive gain. And govt has no ouija board or tea leaves to mystically know where to invest. Only a market of independently thinking, self-interested producers can guide sustainable investment.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
Why would the private sector not create jobs? Creating jobs is bring profit to everyone and since everyone want profit then they would do it... You could as well say: what if people stop eating and they would all die? do we need government to set a law telling everyone to eat?
G00FY318 2 months ago
@G00FY318 And there is always, in capitalism, a better machine or business method. There is no shortage of potential jobs. Even now, there is a shortage of skilled workers. Fracking oil jobs pay $100K in North Dakota and attract college students. Socialism is a monkey wrench in between supply and demand.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
What fascinates me is people like TeaParty1776 who need to deny simple economic truths such as the one in the video in order to maintain their fallacious belief in unfettered capitalism. Those of us who believe in capitalism within a legal framework to limit the excesses must be branded as statists, Utopians, fascists. If you aren't a believer in tiny powerless government you are fan of dictatorship. They are ideologues, unable to move past an imaginary version of 1776 America.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 "Unfettered capitalism" is a redundancy. There is no such fact as fettered capitalism, any more than there are round squares. You mean mixed economy, ie, Pragmatism, with capitalism, socialism and fascism jumbled together in an unstable mixture that must change to a consistent capitalism or statism. Thus the theoretical and practical importance of principled, systematic reasoning, ie, ideology. Pragmatists want to get away with contradictions. But reality is consistent.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "I hope ... we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country" ---
Thomas Jefferson, 12 November 1816
Unfettered capitalism leads to Corporatism, the economic system of Fascism. If capitalism can only be capitalism if there are no regulations or government to enforce them, then capitalism never existed nor will it ever. It's an imaginary utopia.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 In the 1930s you commie scum claimed Jefferson was a commie. You commie scum are doing it again with out of context scholarship. Jefferson is important for individual rights even tho he was inconsistent. And arguments from authority are fallacies. Fascism is national socialism, the result of anti-capitalist ideas. Fascism enslaves business to sacrifice to society. See Rand's _Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal_.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Wow, down comes the veneer of calm intellectualism and in comes the vile insults. Commie scum? All because someone doesn't agree with you. If you knew your history you'd know Hitler was supported by capitalists and that capitalists thrive in states like Nazi Germany or today's China.
Jefferson was inconsistent if we regard slave keeping, but absolutely right on when it comes to understanding the danger to genuine freedom of uncontrolled capital.
Ayn Rand's a fool.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Communism is social & economic equality, both ideological and the logically implicit ideology in your selection of concretes. Or in the liberal demand for income equality. Pragmatic, concrete, anti-ideological communism is communism, is logically hidden, ideological communism. Eg, liberal demand for income equality.
Hitler was supported by some businessmen but not by capitalists (advocates of individual rights). Mind or force controls capital.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty While I do believe there must be levels of social & economic equality or we end up in a plutocracy, only the dogmatic would equate that to communism. Communism and Liberalism are very different even if there are some extremely broad similarities. There are huge gulfs in method of attaining those goals and what they mean
Capitalists are not advocates for individual rights. They are advocates for their own rights. This has led many to advocate stripping the rights of others
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 (Modern) liberalism and communism share the political ideal of equality but to different degrees. Liberalism is communism with its nose under the tent.
Capitalism is the social system of individual rights regardless of any individual's compromise. Individual rights apply to all individuals, whatever contradictions anyone may hold. Im discussing ideas and you are discussing people.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 If we could discuss "ideas" (ideologies) without discussing people then communism and capitalism are equally hopeful. Both end up with a "withered state" and individual freedom.
Modern liberalism is an evolution of what is today libertarianism because classic liberalism led to rights for the few, just as Jefferson worried.
Capitalism has no protections for individual rights and without protection rights can be taken by the financially or politically powerful people.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Capitalism is reason, selfishness , and individual rights. Communism is socially approved emotion, sacrifice, and the common good. They are basically different whatever non-basic similarities they have. Capitalism is objectively moral and communism is basically immoral. See Ayn Rand's _Capitalism_ for a moral defense of capitalism.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty17 Ideas as defined by the irrational Ayn Rand. I've read Rand's fiction and non-fiction. Well, enough of it. Her conspiracy theory novels and the laboured logic of her essays are far from objective and are influenced more by the emotional trauma of her upbringing. While I agree we should seek objective knowledge, Rand clearly misses the target with her bizarre conception of rational self interest. Her version is pure self interest entirely missing the social nature of man
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 As for your descriptors. Communist theory is every bit as objectively rational and moral as capitalist theory. By including selfishness as a characteristic you give up morality as a claim, despite Rand's protestations. Self interest is a natural part of humanity but so is altruism. A certain level of self interest and expected sacrifice is perfectly moral and necessary to maintain a free and functioning society. However both can be taken to immoral extremes.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Marxism is one of many modern, subjectivist philosophies and is explicitly based on intuition. Marxism is a demand that individuals be sacrificed to society and 100-200M were sacrificed. Morality is a guide to life and happiness, not a rationalization for sacrifice. Thus morality is selfish. There is no rational justification for sacrifice. Capitalism is the society of rational selfishness, of people using their minds, not faith or emotion, to guide their relations with others.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Capitalism demanded sacrifice too. It began with people being forced to give up collective rights to things such as the commons & gleaning. This took away their ability to live independently of factory and land owners. This forced them into wage slavery and the brutality of the industrial revolution work place. Socialism developed naturally from this. Read Polanyi's The Great Transformation. Capitalism is a subjectivist philosophy just like all the others.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@Tea76 Did Marx say 100-200M (citation?) were to be sacrificed? Thought we were talking ideas not acts of men?
Saying sacrifice is immoral and selfishness is moral is ridiculous. Neither is absolute. Selfishness always leads to demands or attempts to force others to sacrifice for your own benefit. Those deaths occurred because those in power were selfish. Some sacrifice can lead to a better and healthier community which leads to individual happiness. Selfishness won't ever do that
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Marx ideologically, comprehensively, opposed the individual. That screams at the reader from every sentence, making it obvious to followers that the individual must be sacrificed to society. _Black Book Of Communism_. I opposed personal attacks. Ideas cause action.
Selfishness requires reason, not emotion. Life by a rational standard, not pleasure, is the purpose of selfishness. This is absolute. See Ayn Rand's _Virtue Of Selfishness_ and _Atlas Shrugged_.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Marxist theory is based on the objective laws of history, is a scientifically based programme for the workingman’s freedom and the all-round development of the individual. Socialism frees individuals by blocking some individuals exploiting the masses
The Black BofC puts the death count at 94 million not 100-200. Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme puts capitalist deaths at 100M
Selfishness says it's ok to hurt others. It is people choosing to do evil
There are no absolutes
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 In what fantasy are there objective laws of history and no absolutes? Is that the fantasy in which communist writers are objective and individual freedom is slavery to equality and in which selfishness is hurting others and evil? S. Korea makes cars w/TVs. N. Korea makes nuke blackmail, counterfeit money and murder.
Marxism is an intuition-based subjectivism. I intuit that Marx was wrong. Evidence? We don' need no steekin' evidence! We got politically correct intuitions.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 You really don't get it do you. I'm not a communist but I can find communists, and copy them, who claim the exact same objective logic to their ideology as you claim to yours. They claim objective laws of history as you claim selfishness as an absolute moral good. Both are subjective judgements.
The no absolutes bit is me. Yin and yang.
I intuit that Rand was wrong. Evidence? We don' need no steekin' evidence! We got politically correct intuitions.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Marxist "objectivity" applies Kant's pseudo-objective subjectivism in which fantasies are substituted for knowledge of reality because one can be aware of a fantasy as an object in consciousness. Rand's objectivity is reality as known by free will and logic.
Man's life requires knowing the objective requirements of man's life. Since man has no innate ideas and has free will, morality is the guide to those requirements. Morality is the guide to life, ie, morality is selfish.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
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@Te"Marxist "objectivity" applies Kant's pseudo-objective subjectivism in which fantasies are substituted for knowledge of reality"
I'd agree but the same is true of your "Objectivism." Substitute Rand's pseudo-objective subjectivism but Kant's"
"Man's life requires knowing the objective requirements of man's life"
I agree. But selfishness does not lead to objective requirements. Selfishness requires a subjective mind. Morality is a guide to life. Selfishness isn't it a good guide
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Communism is more than Marxism. Its economic-social equality, equally shared poverty and self-contempt. Youre a generic commie.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
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@TeaParty1776 Communist theory is equally shared prosperity leading to individual freedom freedom because your needs are met. You aren't being very objective in your assessment of theory vs practice. The holds true regarding both capitalism and communism.
"Youre a generic commie"
Surely you aren't a I'm this and anyone else who disagrees with me is that person? But I guess that would fit with your absolutist views.
Perhaps youre a generic fascist.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 S.Korea makes cars w/TVs because it's government protected industry while pushing it to grow and improve until it was ready to compete on the world stage. Without this no S.Korean companies would exist. They couldn't have competed
N.Korea is an example of selfishness in action. It has little to do with Marxism.
Why is it you get to use historical interpretation but if negative capitalist history is used you just say we're talking ideas not people?
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Like the govt-protected industries in the prosperous Soviet Union? Whatever statism exists in SK does not cause its prosperity. Its prosperity exists despite the destructiveness of statism. Coincidence is not cause. Mind causes production. Force causes destruction.
NK is all sacrificing to all. Motive is not morality. All life is motivated but only some motives are selfish & further life by a rational standard. Power over others is selfless. Power over reality is selfish.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Whatever statism exists in SK does not cause its prosperity"
Sorry to inform you but it is a practice that has been vital to every nation that has industrialized: Great Britain, Germany, USA, Japan, S.Korea, China today. It's never happened any other way. That doesn't mean state intervention is a golden bullet. You have to get it right. Find the right balance for the time and place.
Coincidence isn't cause but repeated successes of the same policy isn't coincidence.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Statism has been coincidental, not vital, to prosperity. Production is the product of man's mind. Look around and see the products of the mind. The partly rational culture of Rome was much wealthier than prior cultures and became poor as Christianity ended its intercontinental trade for subsistence farming. Force cannot cause production. The wealthiest economy, the US, is the freest. Force contradicts mind by stopping rational action, thus people reject reason as impractical.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty17 "Statism" has been vital not coincidental. Doesn't happen otherwise. The products of the mind still come forth under "statism" because the state protects the individual. Of course when selfishness gets in the way the state like the corporation can be used to enslave the individual.
What a ridiculous history of Rome. Christianity ended the intercontinental trade? Don't be friggin' daft. There are dozens of reasons Rome slowly collapsed that isn't one.
ps. I'm an atheist
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Statism sacrifices the independent judgment needed to produce wealth to the state. Conflicts between the armed state and an unarmed producer end in slavery for the producer. Only caMysticism, esp. Christianitypitalist states protect the individual's right to be selfish. All other states sacrifice individual selfishness to society, God, etc. Capitalism is the politics of the morality of selfishness.
The mystic turn away from the world is the basic cause of Rome's fall.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Statism sacrifices the independent judgment needed to produce wealth to the state"
It can but doesn't have to. As history clearly shows the entry into a modern economy that produces significant wealth has only occurred under some degree of statism. Claims to some other better alternative are purely theoretical and are contradicted by example.
So where are these armed conflicts between the armed state and unarmed producers? No where in the developed world.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty "Capitalism is the politics of the morality of selfishness"
Since selfishness is immoral or at least amoral then I guess that explains why capitalism is as well. Do you believe killing thousands of workers or a surrounding village to make more money is moral?
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Selfishness is almost universally decried by humanity. Because this is at the heart of religions some think its just a control method of religion. But in reality it is an expression of humanity incorporated into religion. A rational understanding of how to live the good life attributed to god(s) because that's what people (used to) do. But now science confirms those understandings.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Popularity is good for prostitutes but its not a rational standard for ideas. The attack on selfishness is an expression of bloody ,depraved inhumanity. There is no rational defense of sacrifice. Liberals justify it w/emotion and religionists w/faith in an impossible supernatural. Corrupt science confirms only corrupt philosophy. Selfishness is rational and an absolute need of the good life. Sacrifice is for death-lovers and defenders of mass murder. See Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Liberals justify it w/emotion and religionists w/faith in an impossible supernatural"
And I keep defending it with rational argument, peer reviewed study, and references to standard definitions in well respected dictionaries. You on the other hand leap in by calling me a commie, supporter of mass murder, enslaver of humanity via my Fascist ideal.
Seems like your a little irrational. You cast judgement based on dogma not evidence and then quote the "Holy Rand" LOL
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Corrupt science confirms only corrupt philosophy"
So our "rational" lover of the enlightenment rejects the most important rational product of the age of reason, the scientific method. Or perhaps it's only when the science disagrees with him.
Instead we're offered the dogma of Atlas Shrugged.
Ever thought I don't argue for sacrifice but rather for self interest?
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty The US has the freest economy. It also has the most crime, more homicide, more violent crime, more infant mortality, poorer mental health, more drug use, higher rates of imprisonment, more obesity, poorer school performance, less trust within communities, more teen mothers, and....LESS SOCIAL MOBILITY.
As states with higher income equality perform better than the USA in all these areas the masses must "selfishly" & "morally" want a state that creates more income equality
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Coincidence is not cause. Our rational Enlightenment origin causes our greater freedom. Modern subjectivism/irrationalism/nihilism causes the problems. Progressivism has decreased capitalism since 1890s, 1930s, 1960s, and Bush/Obama, indirectly causing problems. Unprincipled Pragmatists see only direct causes.
Many egalitarian states are also traditional, w/a bit of rationality not in US anti-reason Pragmatism. They move to nihilist chaos. Commie equality causes poverty.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Our ratioanl Enlightenment created two major documents that announced all men are equal and attempted to create a system that allowed people to exercise that equality in order to maintain their freedom. Those original steps were brilliant and moved us forward but flawed as their goals were not met by those original documents. Progressiveism rationally addresses those flaws and seeks to truly attain the original goals of the Enlightenment.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Your claim that America had an egalitarian founding contradicts your denial of being a commie. American equality is political, not social and economic. America was founded as an anti-religion, anti-communist nation. America was founded as an individualist nation, a fact Progressives [commie-lite] often evade. American equality exists as an application of individualism.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Sadly your biases mean you can't read others objectively. I never said the founding of America was based upon social or economic equality. It was political. What I said was some social and economic equality was added later to allow people to maintain and exercise the freedom they were losing due to the selfishness the economically advantaged. Still loads of room for individualism. In fact study shows it's more possible. No need to be limited by the errors of the past.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Commie equality causes poverty"
That I agree with. But so does unfettered capitalism. It was the creation of the welfare state that led to the modern middle class and genuine material prosperity for the masses allowing them to exercise significant freedoms. If that requires some decrease in capitalism then that is necessary. However once everyone understands the new ground rules capitalism prospers just fine and the benefits are spread wider.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Your commie ideal is economic-social equality but, as Pragmatist, you will only approach the ideal. Thus you seek to destroy man, not completely, but enough to keep him sick and whimpering for your fascist ideal of The State to take care of him. See: the 1930s and 1940s.
Unfettered capitalism: continually increased productivity that contradicts the need for your altruist depravity of sacrificing the most productive to the least productive as in the destructive welfare state.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Where did you get the idea that I felt an ideal could be attained? Certainly not from me, but likely due to your dogmatic compulsion to stick to holy scripture. The state should never take care of man but it should assist him in taking care of himself. In places where this occurs people are more socially mobile and happier. Since man has always lived in communities this is not surprising.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Unfettered capitalism destroys environments, wastes resources, creates great poverty, and allows the rich to enslave the poor by controlling the means of production. As you said unfettered capitalism is based on selfishness which is irrational and short sighted. What good it seems to produce is a flare or brightness that burns itself out quickly. However if controlled well it can provide great wealth for a great many without destroying itself and us.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Note: MORE income equality not absolute income equality
"Force cannot cause production"
I generally agree. That's why totalitarian states like the Soviet Union crashed. But some totalitarian states like Nazi Germany had mass support backed up by force and were very productive. (A fact. I'm not agreeing with the method) I prefer democracies where we generally work through the rule of law and broad based consensus. Although selfishness has messed that up of late
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 You admit some inequality needed for prosperity. More->better.
Nazism benefited from semi-capitalist German past. Nazism consumed that wealth by welfare, regulations, subsidies, war. Coincidence not cause. Democracy is demagogue-led, destructive lynch mob: ancient Greece, Weimer Germany. Consensus destroys individual rights (capitalism). Selfishness is objective, rational, not emotional. Progressivism is ending US Enlightenment selfishness that caused freedom, prosperity.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "You admit some inequality needed for prosperity. More->better"
I do believe that some is needed. However the evidence clearly shows that more is not better. In fact the USA has too much and it costs tens of millions of Americans real freedom
Progressivism is objective, rational, not emotional. Uncontrolled capitalism has brought down the economy repeatedly and allowed a few to take away the rights and prosperity from tens of millions in the USA alone.
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 Youre a commie liar. Progressive economic intervention has been increasing over the long run for a century+ despite temporary, small decreases.
Our current Depression is the bust from the Fed-fueled unsustainable boom. Govt
counterfeited money and credit and legally shoved it thru banks into the economy.
You commie liars look at banks but not at the source of their counterfeit money and credit. Banks lent that for stocks and houses. Govt pushed housing loans. Boom.
Reality. Bust.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TP Prog. economic intervention didn't start until the 30s in the USA. As it increased it created relatively low rates of poverty, a golden age for the middle class, plus massive wealth for the rich. Since the 80s deregulation has allowed the rich to rejig the system to suit themselves (selfishly) which hurt everyone else.
In the current depression subprime mortgages hurt but the real culprit is unregulated banks and their debt derivatives. Not allowed in Canada and no bank crisis
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Sacrifice is for death-lovers and defenders of mass murder"
It can be. It can also be for the betterment of our fellow human, as in giving your life to save another. But I'm not really into sacrifice as the key to a philosophy. I'm into enlightened self interest. As well as our individual need for self fulfillment, solid community is in our rational self interest. At times that means we must act together and our actions must be restrained for the sake of community
rugbyguy59 2 months ago
@rugbyguy59 "Giving your life to save another" is you loving your death. Its selfishness or sacrifice. No middle way despite Pragmatism. Only a rationally selfish, individual rights society is selfish for each individual. Soviet Union destroyed all its people. Society is a tool, nothing more, w/potential for trade, knowledge. If a society sacrifices you, find or create another society or be sacrificed. See Atlas Shrugged and founding American ideals (diluted thru time).
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 [Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged] Have you read any other philosopher?
Survival is based of the needs of the species not the individual. Empathy is an evolutionary strategy where species that collectively work together have a better shoot at surviving and living longer.
This means that to be completely selfish in your survival demands that you have some selflessness, Likewise to be completely Capitalistic demands some Socialism, This truth destroys the works of Ayn Rand.
MentalAtheist 2 months ago
@MentalAtheist Youre rationalizing the pseudo-morality of sacrifice. Man's basic survival method, as an individual is his mind. There is no collective mind despite Marx and other modernist haters of independent judgment. Empathy is an emotion ,not the knowledge needed for survival. A farmer needs knowledge. Empathy won't grow crops. Man needs knowledge of the material universe for survival. Selfishness requires knowledge of the objective needs of man's life. Selfishness is not hedonism.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776
"Empathy is [...] not the knowledge needed for survival"
Yes it is! All emotions are instinctive based with evolutionary benefits. Empathy is a vicarious way of gaining objective knowledge. There is even a word for this in Biology, is called mutualism.
I'm not rationalizing the pseudo-morality of sacrifice, marx, or communism, your rationalizing the mind set of a psychopathy. Yous seem unable to see the world in anything but black and white.
MentalAtheist 2 months ago
@MentalAtheist Emotions are your experience of your values, not a method of knowing reality. I feel good about the Cobra 427 but that feeling doesnt tell me anything but that I like that car. Values are the product of the reasoning you chose or evade. Evolution caused man's free will. But then free will takes over. Science has been corrupted by subjectivism and mysticism.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 "Science has been corrupted by subjectivism and mysticism"
Who are you to say such things? Everything we are was made through objective evolutionary means. This includes brain chemistry & brain chemistry includes emotions!
For you to ignore these obvious facts, & declare parts of science "subjectivism and mysticism", & the fact that you try to reduce your opponents to an "ism" shows that not looking for an honest argument. Your looking to rehearse your prejudices.
MentalAtheist 2 months ago
@MentalAtheist The Greek discovery of mind, logic and scientific method created science. Everyone has a view of reality as a whole that is used to know parts of reality. Science is not a Pragmatist jumble of facts isolated from each other. Science requires systematic reasoning, not randomly flitting from one fact to another, as subjectivist teachers require.
Emotions are psychosomatic responses to values. We evaluate our knowledge of reality. Choosing X causes a positive emotion about X.
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
Comment removed
MentalAtheist 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776
Emotions are chemical evolutionary responses, its not a dogma one has to learn. We know this because we can treat peoples emotions with medication. To say that something in nature is subjective is by definition irrational.
People are programed when born to value pleasure and de-value pain. Babies don't choose to cry when they get hurt. No body made a conscience chose to think suger is sweet and that sweet is positive.
MentalAtheist 2 months ago
@MentalAtheist "But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments." Ayn Rand
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@MentalAtheist "Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but what he will consider good or evil, what will give him joy or pain, what he will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on his standard of value. If he chooses irrational values, he switches his emotional mechanism from the role of his guardian to the role of his destroyer....Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious." Ayn Rand
TeaParty1776 2 months ago
@TeaParty1776 Ayn Rands failer is now your own.
What she failed to understand is the differences and similarities between instinctive and methodical understanding. Pleasure or pain are instinctive. Love and hate, desire and fear, depends on the interpreting instinctive behavior against environmental pressures, Values are not independent from instincts or from being objective.
MentalAtheist 1 month ago
@MentalAtheist "Man has no automatic code of survival....no automatic course of action, no automatic set of values. His senses do not tell him automatically what is good for him or evil, what will benefit his life or endanger it, what goals he should pursue and what means will achieve them, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. His own consciousness has to discover the answers to all these questions—but his consciousness will not function automatically." Ayn Rand
TeaParty1776 1 month ago
@TeaParty1776 Did you even read what I wrote you?
Or are you giving up and just copying and pasting quotes from Ayn Rand.
Instincts are an "automatic code of survival" and if you read what I wrote you, you would KNOW THAT.
MentalAtheist 1 month ago
@MentalAtheist
>are you giving up and just copying and pasting quotes from Ayn Rand.
Listening not to me but to the Logos. Heraclitus
So youre born knowing how to build a fire, hunt for food and build a hut? How about automatically knowing how to build a computer or automatically knowing what is justice or scientific method? Your affirmation of instincts may be rewarded in a Progressive school but here you need proof. Or can I instinctively know that you are wrong? #<{
TeaParty1776 1 month ago
@TeaParty1776 I'm arguing that emotions are instinctive and not man made. Emotions are intuitive to evolutionary survival. Argo emotions have an objective premise. and I firmly supported that with scientific claims about evolution.
What you are arguing for is pure capitalism, Which is entirely subjective and entirely man made. To argue your construct is objective with no scientific claims is laughable.
You