Global capitalism has written off the human race

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You need to get in touch with reality my friend. The last economic boom we had was COMPLETELY driven by consumer DEMAND financed via home equity loans.

Your whole horse & sparrow/voodoo economics theory is a fantasy. Even WalMart has been forced to acknowlede the fact that poor domestic sales are due to sh***y, LOW WAGE JOBS!! !! !! !! ! They are making more and more cheap crap in China, but NOBODY IS BUYING ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY.

That's why WalMart is spending $50 billion to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. If you starve the Golden Goose long enough, it stops laying eggs.

Build all the crap you like, without consumers all you'll get is a recession.

No. Without products, people either save or invest their surplus cash. That's why a strong middle class can lead to more production, but not necessarily the other way around.

you're confusing the model for the thing itself. If we measure the economy by how much production is happening, then of course you can say, 'more production is happening, therefore the economy is better.' But if you forget that the thing being measured is indirect (ie, not an actual measure of people's wealth or well-being), you're more likely to confuse correlation with causation. Which you are doing now.

You "won't accept," eh? You sound like Ken Ham talking about what would change his mind.
If you consider a pure market economy to be a pure good, then *of course* anything that is bad for a market economy is bad. You forget, though, that you're arguing with socialists here. We want to look at what is good for the people, not for 'the market.'
The market value of an Irish man's labor during the potato famine wasn't enough for him to even buy enough food to make up for the calories he had lost during a day's work. He would starve to death slower if he didn't work, than if he did. Is that really ok to you?

I'd say there is less risk in increasing wages than in relying on investment. Investments can make losses but increasing wages for the majority is more likely to result in more consumer spending which will feed into the economy and allow companies to be profitable enabling investment.

To say investment is the only way to grow an economy assumes those investments are going to succeed.

Right on the money there LKL, the a free market gets you a free market but not a middle class. That second step takes a balance between marketization and regulation. It is a balance that is never perfect but there it would take a pretty solid economic muppet to claim that the US has it right at the moment.

I don't understand this debate tactic.


Interest rates have been held artificially low, resulting in a temporary boom followed by a substantial crash. Claiming that consumer demand drove this is a failure to identify the root cause. Consumer demand increased as a result of cheaper loans. In a market free of manipulation, this would have driven up interest rates and brought the demand back to normal.

I don't find an economic boom to be a good thing when it's followed by a crash that wipes out the new value. It's a completely unnecessary market fluctuation that increases risk for capital investment.

I don't know who Ken Ham is.

And yes, I'm not accepting the premise that simply raising wages across the board is good for the economy. Would a phrase such as "I believe your premise is false" be more acceptable to you?


I'm working under the assumption that market growth is good and market shrinkage is bad. I'm not placing moral conditions on it.


This is where the socialism question comes more into play. I don't subscribe to social contract, so I don't consider the question of whether or not that is "ok" to me. The market value of labor would increase as laborers died off.

Using the highly irrational human brain, I could find ways to claim he would be better served by the free market. But identifying whether or not it's true requires data collection I'm not particularly interested in doing and the result isn't particularly relevant to my position. My moral position is that my liberty is more important than your well-being, and I expect the same from everyone else.

In response to your gut reaction that I'm a cold-hearted sociopath, I have to explain that I am compartmentalizing concepts, with economics and social morality as independent thoughts. Economics is unscientific enough without adding a moral component.

I just looked up Ken Ham. I now accept that as the insult you meant it to be.

The lucky ones will get to live in Elysium.

ruven

Why do you believe liberty is a higher virtue than someone's well being? Can you explain further?

If one does not have well-being then how does one have liberty?



Why do you believe that compartmentalizing concepts is better than seeing them as an integrated whole? Can you explain further?

I have another question for you. Let's say you're a business who sells widgets. If you have no one to buy your widgets because your prices are to high how would you stay in business? Isn't one of the basic rules of economics is supply and demand meaning where there is a demand there is a supply? Why focus on the supply instead of the demand or am I misunderstanding what you're getting at?

In fact, why couldn't it be cyclic? Why couldn't consumers need products to buy at affordable prices and why wouldn't suppliers and sellers need consumers to buy?

Without a social contract how would liberty be recognized including yours?

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 20 Feb 2014, 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I would like to offer a critique to you if you do not mind. Insulting Adb will not change his mind and please don't be insulted by what I am saying but when you insult him it makes your argument look weak even if it is strong. I know it can become frustrating and I have been frustrated by him and have done the same thing. It is not right to do and he automatically wins the argument you do that.

The thing is he is going by a set of assumptions that lead to his conclusions. Question his assumptions and get him to explain his assumptions to you and why he holds them? Some of his conclusions may be sound and some may not be. If you examine his conclusions and they lead to contradictions then question them.

One of his assumptions that he holds is that liberty in itself is greater than well-being. Wouldn't it be interesting to try to understand why this is so? What are the premises that lead to this?

Because I value non-aggression. To force someone else to worry about my well-being is aggressive behavior.


The ability to control action is not dependent on well-being. They are not related concepts.


Whether social morality defines an action as "right" or "wrong" does not impact the effect of the action on economics. Viewing it as an integrated whole leads to defining economic principles based on that morality, which I consider invalid. The value of pi doesn't change simply because I feel that it's morally wrong to calculate the circumference of a circle with it. Likewise, economic principles, such as the tendency of prices to reach an equilibrium based on supply and demand, are not subject to change based on whether something is "right" or "wrong".


I would lower my price in order to increase demand. If this price is below my cost, I'll have to either find a way to reduce my cost (through capital investment) or I'll have to leave the business of selling widgets.


You aren't understanding. Capital investment isn't an increase in supply, though it may lead to it. It's an increase in production capability and efficiency. This reduces cost, enhancing the ability to compete through lowering prices. When I lower prices, people who could not afford my products or services before are now able to do so. This is an increase in demand. If the demand does not increase, then I will apply my newly acquired resources to another form of production. Entrepreneurship is attempting to predict market demand.


A transaction requires two parties who agree on a price. Whether it's "affordable" isn't relevant outside of the buyer's agreement to the price. Consumers and producers are both necessary for an economic transaction.


Liberty is the natural condition of being able to control my actions. It doesn't require recognition. Interfering with someone else's liberty is aggressive behavior, and social contract is a direct violation of liberty since it is the requirement for a person to act in accordance with a set of rules not agreed upon.

Okay, I will go with this. Let's take this to its conclusion. Your definition of liberty is the ability to control one's action. Let's look at the Typhoid Mary case. How would the people around her control their action so as to prevent themselves from catching Typhoid especially if the Typhoid has a high risk of leading to someone's death? What if they were ignorant of the fact that she had this disease and she did not disclose? How can the people control their action if they're dead? What if your liberty interferes with other people's liberty? When does your liberty end and mine begin?



Well why can't it be that by just staying in a society you agree to the social contract? By being in the USA, you agree with the set rules. It is implied consent. The only exception is if the society was like the Soviet Union and wouldn't let you leave. I will ask again what if your liberty contradicts mine? You're looking at it as though these things were separate and distinct instead of an integrated whole. By looking at it the way you look at it which is in an absolute way you introduce contradictions and conflicts. This is why a libertarian society as you envision it will not work. You do have liberty but you do not have absolute and strict liberty.

My liberty ends when it interferes with your liberty. I'm not clear what you are looking for in response to that example. How is central planning better than the alternative in dealing with that case? Diseases and natural disasters aren't aggression.


Morality doesn't outweigh economics. This is like saying that opinion overrides fact, or suggesting that religion overrides math.

I compartmentalize them because they don't interrelate, as much as people like to try to make them relate.


Government creates big business by creating barriers to entry for small business. This is what you see in our system now. In our case, however, our government was formed through violence rather than economics. I don't consider competing for power through economics to be worse than competing for power through violence.


Because it's not an integrated whole. Trying to integrate some sort of social morality into economics destroys any ability to be scientific.


What if it is? I don't understand what you're asking.


If you don't agree to a price, then no transaction takes place. If the seller wants to increase transaction volume, the seller will need to reduce price. The status of buyer assumes that the person has the ability to make the purchase at the negotiated price. If the person that desires to purchase from the seller is unable to afford the purchase, that person is not a buyer.


No it isn't. If I don't consent, I am forced to either take action (leave) or face violence (arrest and imprisonment).


You misunderstand what I "envision". I thought I made it clear in a previous discussion we had. I don't care about a libertarian society. All I care about is my personal liberty. The pragmatic in me understands that humans are meddlesome. Money and power are how you obtain liberty in the real world.

If Typhoid Mary puts her self in a position in which she can infect people, she knows she has this disease and she knows she can infect people then it is aggression. It isn't disease itself that is aggression it is what someone does with the disease that can possibly make it aggression. At the time she committed no crime but she had to be isolated to an island and her liberty had to be taken away to protect other people's lives and liberties. If one is killed by a disease knowingly caused by someone else then how do they have liberty? Was their liberty and life taken away as well?



Well, my friend, you definitely do not have a heart made of gold. I hope you never achieve political power in which your decisions can affect millions. You would only see what is expedient and what is cost effective. There is more to life than what is expedient and what is cost effective.

Answer my question, please.


Polluting someone's water supply is an act of aggression.


Sure I can. Disagreeing on values doesn't make it so I can't consider something.


My liberty has nothing to do with your life. There is nothing that I can do that's non-aggressive that hurts you. What I do may not help you, but it certainly doesn't hurt you. I don't agree with the duty of care philosophy.


The ruling class. We live in an aristocracy, cleverly concealed as a republic. All human organizations are aristocracies. We just find creative ways of concealing it.


This isn't relevant to our discussion.


Science doesn't require ethics or morality. Since they remove objectivity, ethics and morality are unscientific. Do you not understand what scientific means?


I don't agree with this idea that society implies some force, or that being among a group of people subjects you to rules without your consent.

I'm an adult and I take responsibility for my actions. I don't need some social organization to parent me. And it disappoints me that other people have been indoctrinated to believe that they are children.


I don't think anyone should achieve political power in which their decisions can affect millions. But they do. And as a result, I have to live with their stupid rules instead of my stupid rules. Personally, I'd rather we each be able to live by our own stupid rules, but you would much rather force me to live by your stupid rules. So why shouldn't I try to force you to live by my stupid rules? Why should I respect your life or your liberty? Why shouldn't I crush you with every ounce of power I obtain?

If you want me to have any respect for your life or liberty, you're going to have to respect my life and my liberty. You are the aggressor here, no matter how you attempt to justify it. You support violence in order to get what you want. You're willing to take from me by force in order to support someone else. Do you think this makes you more compassionate?

O, look! The sky is falling!

What shall we do?

Whatever shall we do?