The appropriate punishment for any political position

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Your claim is getting dangerously close to being a full blown conspiracy theory (as in American beer being f*****g close to the water). At this point, I see no other option than to resort to my dirtiest tactic and most powerful argument, an argument that no poster on WP so far has been able to resist...:

Please provide peer-reviewed evidence of your claim.

Let me ask you a question, are you an American?

Asking for the science is just moving dangerously close to behaviorism and scientism.

No, I am not an American.

Oh, and "scientism"...? So far, you have been arguing with Big-Dog TM and Me-Too GGPViper, but if you introduce *that* term into the debate, you might piss off a *serious* badass. As the ruveyn himself has already entered this thread once, you might be in for an epic ass-kicking... Remember, there is always a bigger fish...

Then no wonder you don't understand and think it's all just a giant conspiracy theory and you want to see proof. You have an outside frame of reference of American events and their meaning.

Oh please, bring it on. This message board is not my life and I don't place the degree of importance on it that you apparently do. It's also pretty funny about this argument has been around and around about liberty and it's meaning but you want to see a real ass kicking now. Not very liberty loving of you, is it?

How predictable. I could probably have written that reply myself and spared you the effort.

If you want to claim that two highly intelligent adherents of the mainstream neoclassical school of economics drawing upon the theoretical and empirical works of American economists lack the ability to understand the nature of the US economy, then please at least provide some evidence that we are in fact *wrong*.

Oh, and attacking a person's reasoning based on his/her nationality is a clear demonstration of this particular fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy



I don't think that you understand what you are even saying. By invoking the term "scientism", you are not just attacking TM and GGPViper. You are attacking science itself (and not just economics). This puts you in the same category as some very nasty people like Rick Santorum, Kent Hovind and Jerry Falwell.

And I am all for liberty. But if you want to enter a debate on science, then I will comply... and kick your ass (of course not literally, as that would involve leaving my computer)... In other words, my reply to your attempt at straw manning me is: "No sell".

You're straw manning me as well. Scientism and science are different things. Was I attacking the psychological establishment when I said your stance is close to behaviorism as well? No, you can't win any scare points with the audience by driving a wedge over BF Skinner but you did it with science and Kent Hovind and those creationists.

And clearly my argument about American power hierarchy subverting the free market mechanism is understandable if you actually have a stance about hierarchy but since neither of you don't, or don't want to share one, then this is just going bounce back and forth in miscommunication.

A very salient paragraph from the study of authoritarianism. It pretty much looks like if I studied Barro and the neoclassical guys that I would be sitting on the other side of this petty, overly long argument. Can we agree about that?

You can go on and on all you like. TM has asked you to provide evidence for your claims, and I have asked you to provide evidence for your claims. So far, you have ignored us both... (As a result, I anticipate a moderator locking this thread in the near future)

Why should the entire institution of scientific peer review bow to the will of a random poster on WP?

Oh, and your Altemeyer quote seems to be lacking proof. Two countries is a ridicoulosly low N. Barro had data in the range of 75 - 100+, thus satisfying the central limit theorem.

You completely missed the meaning of the use of the quote. Why is that two people different on the same side of this argument have such difficulty discerning meaning? Why is it that they will not answer the charge that Hong Kong and America have cultures that are pillared on two different philosophies? Why is it they can't come back at my arguments with a line that is fresher than show me the proof? How am I supposed to show proof for musings about possible outcomes in the future? Your question for proof is ridiculous in that regard. These are untested hypothesis that I am talking about.

The entire *purpose* of my reference to Democracy and Growth is to show that political variables such as "culture" and "philosophies" have limited explanatory value when it comes to economic performance. So why are these variables even relevant?

Limited, but did not disappear altogether? That means there is room for cultural and philosophical variables. I bet if I read the entire paper it would probably qualify it's stance on cultural variables alot more than what you're representing since Barro has a meaning while you apparently are just in it to troll.

Please provide proof of this claim.

http://politics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/2790 ... owthWP.pdf

This is another paper that I am reading. Though I know you're not interested.

I have a question: Do you ever research the criticism of neoclassical arguments and Robert Barro or do you take them at face value?

For instance, there are alot of criticisms of Barro's advice concerning his recommendations after the financial crisis.

There have been criticisms of Krugman as well, as a matter a fact he changed the comment rules on his NY times blog after getting his ass repeatedly handed to him by commenters.

P.S The paper you linked seemed to not really support your view of "more market = less democracy" or "more market = more social unrest" unless this was combined with much political turnoil to begin with.

One of the interesting things about your position is that it seems to be a priori based in the statement "more democracy is always better" .

It's really more a prior based in that statement that more income equality and social mobility is better than the staggering levels of inequality that we are seeing played out in the USA due to neoliberal policies. I'm going to go look at the data about Hong Kong about standard of living and income equality and other variables because I'm curious about that problem.

I found this paper. http://www.hkss.org.hk/SPC/2011-12/Awar ... 12-DP4.pdf

Last edited by DancingDanny on 17 Oct 2012, 12:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Better in what way? Also keep in mind, to quote Krugman "Economics is not a morality play"

Better in that the spending that drives this post-industrial, consumer economy would increase and that this would help save jobs during this economic crisis. Austerity in this period would hurt the ability of businesses to sell their products. That's just in the here and now. I also believe that looking forward to the long term that policies to help social mobility may increase productivity due to the bottom and higher levels facing less obstacles in the risk to move into a higher class.