I’ve about given up on LW, more than half the people here, judging from surveys, believe in socialism, or the socialism lite of modern liberalism, a belief system on a par with Creationism. Economics may not be as scientific as biology, but it is the most reliable of the social sciences, and economic socialism denies economics exactly as Creationism denies biology.
Economic libertarianism is how things actually work; socialism, of all styles and degrees, is to economics as Creationism is to biology. It is a politcal attempt to make the real world conform to wishful thinking. Political libertarianism is the refusal to condone that attempt to evade reality. Also the recognition that other forms of freedom are also as important in other areas of human relations, even if they are not as easily quantifiable as economics.
Libertarianism in the real world is far from perfect, of course. One failure of libertarianism is to clearly define fundamental versus derived effects and their importances. The “market worshiping” libertarians celebrate any effect caused by a free market whether it is good or not. The problem is that most of what they notice are derivative effects, what the market makes available. The fundamental benefit of free markets, though, is in the freedom granted creators, without which hardly any of the goods would be available in the first place. A key document describing, and celebrating, the “market worship” perversion is Virginia Postrel’s The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. I once, in my pre-Internet days, started an essay in response, “Why Style Lacks Substance, or The Value of Free Markets is in Opportunity it Provides, not in What it Rewards.”
Another libertarian perversion is the “libertinist” position, they can usually be recognized by the outsized emphasis they place on recreational drugs, pornography, and entertainment. Not that these should be controlled, but they are definitely secondary, in the real world, to production and distribution.
“Politics is the mindkiller” is an irrational mantra from those attempting to defend their irrational beliefs. Intelligence far too often simply makes it easier for people to rationalize whatever they want to believe in.
Here in Germany, we’ve been living in a social market economy (probably about what you mean) for decades, and so far it has worked fine. Just to provide a datapoint that the economic landscape has multiple local maxima when ordered in the 2 dimensions economic left/right and social libertarian/authoritative (as The Political Compass does)
Economic libertarianism is how things actually work; socialism, of all styles and degrees, is to economics as Creationism is to biology.
This is manifestly false. There are plenty of examples where socialism and even centralized economy works better than free market, at least for a time (Russia until 1970s, modern China, Germany, etc.), and plenty of examples where free market fails to improve people’s lives (many developing countries). I suspect that your emotional response is a failure to keep your identity small.
Have you lived in Russia until the 1970s? If not, you should ask people who have!
I never said that they were very happy people (though I suspect that on average people were reasonably happy), only that the centralized economy worked, judging by the GDP growth [citation needed]
Your original sentence: “There are plenty of examples where socialism and even centralized economy works better than free market, at least for a time (Russia until 1970s, modern China, Germany, etc.)”.
What free market economy are you comparing with USSR? See also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation
for a starting point. My parents (who were young people under Brezhnev) would be extremely amused by a favorable comparison of Brezhnev’s USSR with any large free market economy.
Brezhnev ousted Khrushev in 1964. What method do you use to determine when someone consolidates power? One way to check for power consolidation for X is this: X stages a bloodless coup and removes the head of state/government and places himself in his place.
If you think pre-Brezhnev’s USSR was doing well, compared to free market economies of the time, you would be sorely mistaken (which was part of the reason Khrushev was removed). The best USSR could do was meaningless industrial output metrics (oh, we made just a whole LOT of pig iron). Of course without an integrated economy such output is meaningless. See also: output targets in China during the Great Leap Forward. USSR was an economic basketcase during the best of times.
Unrelated anecdote: I once got in trouble (e.g. parents in the principal’s office) as a young child for laughing on the day Brezhnev died.
I’ve about given up on LW, more than half the people here, judging from surveys, believe in socialism, or the socialism lite of modern liberalism, a belief system on a par with Creationism. Economics may not be as scientific as biology, but it is the most reliable of the social sciences, and economic socialism denies economics exactly as Creationism denies biology.
Economic libertarianism is how things actually work; socialism, of all styles and degrees, is to economics as Creationism is to biology. It is a politcal attempt to make the real world conform to wishful thinking. Political libertarianism is the refusal to condone that attempt to evade reality. Also the recognition that other forms of freedom are also as important in other areas of human relations, even if they are not as easily quantifiable as economics.
Libertarianism in the real world is far from perfect, of course. One failure of libertarianism is to clearly define fundamental versus derived effects and their importances. The “market worshiping” libertarians celebrate any effect caused by a free market whether it is good or not. The problem is that most of what they notice are derivative effects, what the market makes available. The fundamental benefit of free markets, though, is in the freedom granted creators, without which hardly any of the goods would be available in the first place. A key document describing, and celebrating, the “market worship” perversion is Virginia Postrel’s The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. I once, in my pre-Internet days, started an essay in response, “Why Style Lacks Substance, or The Value of Free Markets is in Opportunity it Provides, not in What it Rewards.”
Another libertarian perversion is the “libertinist” position, they can usually be recognized by the outsized emphasis they place on recreational drugs, pornography, and entertainment. Not that these should be controlled, but they are definitely secondary, in the real world, to production and distribution.
“Politics is the mindkiller” is an irrational mantra from those attempting to defend their irrational beliefs. Intelligence far too often simply makes it easier for people to rationalize whatever they want to believe in.
Politics is the Mindkiller is an irrational mantra… well, let’s test that theory. I’m going to construct an article to test the thesis.
Here in Germany, we’ve been living in a social market economy (probably about what you mean) for decades, and so far it has worked fine. Just to provide a datapoint that the economic landscape has multiple local maxima when ordered in the 2 dimensions economic left/right and social libertarian/authoritative (as The Political Compass does)
This is manifestly false. There are plenty of examples where socialism and even centralized economy works better than free market, at least for a time (Russia until 1970s, modern China, Germany, etc.), and plenty of examples where free market fails to improve people’s lives (many developing countries). I suspect that your emotional response is a failure to keep your identity small.
Have you lived in Russia until the 1970s? If not, you should ask people who have!
I agree that the OP, and grandparent are terrible posts.
I never said that they were very happy people (though I suspect that on average people were reasonably happy), only that the centralized economy worked, judging by the GDP growth [citation needed]
Your original sentence: “There are plenty of examples where socialism and even centralized economy works better than free market, at least for a time (Russia until 1970s, modern China, Germany, etc.)”.
What free market economy are you comparing with USSR? See also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation for a starting point. My parents (who were young people under Brezhnev) would be extremely amused by a favorable comparison of Brezhnev’s USSR with any large free market economy.
I said until 1970s, which is when Brezhnev consolidated his power. Not sure why you keep misreading what I write.
Brezhnev ousted Khrushev in 1964. What method do you use to determine when someone consolidates power? One way to check for power consolidation for X is this: X stages a bloodless coup and removes the head of state/government and places himself in his place.
If you think pre-Brezhnev’s USSR was doing well, compared to free market economies of the time, you would be sorely mistaken (which was part of the reason Khrushev was removed). The best USSR could do was meaningless industrial output metrics (oh, we made just a whole LOT of pig iron). Of course without an integrated economy such output is meaningless. See also: output targets in China during the Great Leap Forward. USSR was an economic basketcase during the best of times.
Unrelated anecdote: I once got in trouble (e.g. parents in the principal’s office) as a young child for laughing on the day Brezhnev died.