Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Economics, Political Economy and the History of Economics

The basic issues involved in current debates about economics, policy and politics arose in "political economy," which was the origin of what subsequently became modern economics. The "marginal revolution" inspired by Menger, Jevons and Walras began in the late 19th century and set the stage for the neoclassical economics of the 20th century. Economics was divorced from classical political economy, taking economics away from social theory and in the direction of formalization and econometrics. Political economy was revived by Keynes.

But what was hotly debated initially was no longer discussed in economics as a major focus. Rather, to the degree that economics is oriented to policy, one view or other was simply presumed as an unstated presumption and methodological choice.

A lot can be learned by studying the history of ethics, social and political philosophy, and early economic thought because those who initially considered their integration into political economy generally targeted the basic issues that would be debated and refined subsequently, especially with respect to policy.

Classical economics began in 18th century England with Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and in the late 17th century in France with the Physiocrats, who advocated for laissez-faire, property rights and the importance of capital, even though they emphasized land in the still chiefly agricultural economy of the time. The world was becoming mechanized and industrialized, with agriculture waning in significance relative to industrial production and innovation. Urbanization was the trend and the factory was replacing the field as the predominant workplace.

The fundamental issues of political economy arose out this milieu in the 19th century through the work of, e.g., Bastiat, Proudhon, J. S. Mill, Burke, and Marx. Today, the same views can be found coming into opposition with each other dialectically in Libertarian-Austrianism harkening back to Bastiat, left libertarianism traceable to Proudhon, modern liberalism as an elaboration of Mill, conservatism stemming from Burke, Marxism following Marx, and Marxianism building on and adapting his thought. Neoliberalism as a political view based on laissez-faire stems from the Physiocrats in France and in England from the Manchester Liberals and The Economist, which was founded in 1843 to promote laissez-faire economic liberalism.

These influence would shape subsequent debate over economic policy and social and political institutions. The same issues are in play now that were in play then, only the context has changed. However, similar problems remain and have increased due to increasing complexity.

These influences manifest as different worldviews based on different value systems. Those who initially propounded the different views recognized that political economy is fundamentally normative. Later, economists striving to make economics a science pretended it wasn't simply by presuming the norms as hidden assumptions.

The different worldviews based on these values systems determine the economic infrastructure of society differently, and they result in different social, political and economic outcomes. These differences can be observed in real time by looking at different nations as outcomes of their national policy choices.

The Founding Fathers of the United States were acquainted with the debates in political economy in Europe. They subscribed to the view that property rights are subservient to human rights and civil rights. A written constitution established the social contract through a fundamental law of the land as an overarching rule for lawmaking and application of government power. The U. S. Constitution instituted government intervention with checks and balances on power and established the a temporal constraint on political power by requiring representatives to stand for election periodically. The Constitution was chiefly concerned with establishing the rules for governing. A Bill of Rights was appended guaranteeing basic human and civil rights.

These same issues are being debated hotly today, and ignorance of the history of the debate clouds recognition of what the fundamental issues are. The fundamental issues are based on different views of human nature and human beings in society. The approaches are based on philosophical differences involving ideology, therefore norms, since norms and criteria are the rules that establish the framework of a worldview and the key ideas and institutions of a society.

Debate ends when the fundamentals are arrived at through debate of the issues. Then resolution in a liberal democracy falls to political choice determined by the results of elections. Then the question becomes one of free elections, enfranchisement, voter persuasion, and political influence through privilege, as well as insuring good government free influence and corruption, a society free of political privilege, with an economy that can deliver prosperity to the nation.

63 comments:

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:

The basic issues involved in current debates about economics, policy and politics arose in "political economy," which was the origin of what subsequently became modern economics. The "marginal revolution" inspired by Menger, Jevons and Walras began in the late 19th century and set the stage for the neoclassical economics of the 20th century. Economics was divorced from classical political economy, taking economics away from social theory and in the direction of formalization and econometrics. Political economy was revived by Keynes.

By re-introducing old mercantilist fallacies refuted by, interestingly enough, the classicals.

But what was hotly debated initially was no longer discussed in economics as a major focus. Rather, to the degree that economics is oriented to policy, one view or other was simply presumed as an unstated presumption and methodological choice.

It was unfortunate that the knowledge of the classicals was largely forgotten by the inter-war period, on the basis that with the refutation of the labor theory of the value, a cornerstone of classical theory, the baby was thrown out with the bath water.

By the time of Keynes, the economists were not intellectually equipped to deal with his sophistry, and his political ideology won the day, to the detriment of the US and the world ever since.

Classical economics began in 18th century England with Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and in the late 17th century in France with the Physiocrats, who advocated for laissez-faire, property rights and the importance of capital, even though they emphasized land in the still chiefly agricultural economy of the time. The world was becoming mechanized and industrialized, with agriculture waning in significance relative to industrial production and innovation. Urbanization was the trend and the factory was replacing the field as the predominant workplace.

The best among the economists during this time are: Quesnay, Turgot, Cantillon, and of course the originator of "laissez-faire!" Rene-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson.

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:


Later, economists striving to make economics a science pretended it wasn't simply by presuming the norms as hidden assumptions.

Austrian economics, despite the fact that its adherents are almost all libertarians today, is actually value free. Praxeology does not contain a single normative argument. It is entirely descriptive. There are no implied dependencies on either statism or anarchism, central banking or no central banking, even violence or peace.

The Founding Fathers of the United States were acquainted with the debates in political economy in Europe. They subscribed to the view that property rights are subservient to human rights and civil rights.

Sigh. As Hayek and Rothbard and others have shown:

http://mises.org/daily/2569/

there is no dichotomy between human rights and property rights. Human rights cannot exist without property rights. Human rights only make sense as property rights.

The claim that human rights are superior to property rights is nothing but a call that some people have a right to make property out of others, to live at their expense by violence.

A written constitution established the social contract through a fundamental law of the land as an overarching rule for lawmaking and application of government power. The U. S. Constitution instituted government intervention with checks and balances on power and established the a temporal constraint on political power by requiring representatives to stand for election periodically. The Constitution was chiefly concerned with establishing the rules for governing. A Bill of Rights was appended guaranteeing basic human and civil rights.

Read "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority", by Lysander Spooner, for one of the best takedowns of the alleged "right" of the Constitution ever written.

The fundamental issues are based on different views of human nature and human beings in society. The approaches are based on philosophical differences involving ideology, therefore norms, since norms and criteria are the rules that establish the framework of a worldview and the key ideas and institutions of a society.

Not every approach is ideological.

Debate ends when the fundamentals are arrived at through debate of the issues. Then resolution in a liberal democracy falls to political choice determined by the results of elections.

Which is a weakness, not a strength.

For 49% who might be right, to be overruled by the 51% just because they're outnumbered, is sub-optimal to a world where the minority is not so imposed upon.

Then the question becomes one of free elections, enfranchisement, voter persuasion, and political influence through privilege, as well as insuring good government free influence and corruption, a society free of political privilege, with an economy that can deliver prosperity to the nation.

Look how well that turned out. It takes a healthy imagination to think of something better.

Tom Hickey said...

See, I knew you could give an intelligent response. Of course, I disagree with it but it is a cogent argument. As always, this argument ends in disagreement over fundamentals.

Where you see value-free, I see normative.

Mises saying that praxeology is value-free does not make it so, and it make this mistake by taking individuals as separate from their social relationships through institutions.

This is like looking at economics in terms of single representative rational agent, exchange as barter, and money as thing.


"of course the originator of "laissez-faire!" Rene-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson."

Better check Wikipedia laissez-faire/etymology

Any way, thanks for the list of the economists whom you like, and one you don't like. Again, it comes down to differences in ideology.

JK said...

As one who admittedly knows very little of Austrian economics (but earlier this afternoon began the process of taking the time to learn), something about their original axiom "Human Action is Purposeful Behavior" seems very loaded with assumptions.

One of those assumptions seems to be the "rational agent" as an entity in and of itself, i.e. as Tom just said: "separate from their social relationships through institutions"

Much to learn, much to learn..

JK said...

Tom,

Do you mind going off on a tangent?

Are the philosophical origins of the Austrian school of thought related to the origins of monotheism and the "self" ?

As a mostly non-religious person, my view of the "self" is that it is entirely derived from the use of language. That is, without language there are no distinctions/seperations. Or, it is only through the use of language that we are able to make distinctions/seperations. Without language, there is only the "one" (for lack of a better word). Further, it is only through language that we are able to separate something from something (else). I came up with this phrase to describe it…

~ Such is the nature of language: fixing a fluid existence into intelligible rigidity ~

Also, is the "one" ..God? :)

To give credit where credit is due.. my above expressed views are very much influenced by Alan Watts.

Matt Franko said...

JK,

have to check but iirc the Genesis account has God dividing the tongue of the human back at the tower of Babel and creating the nations.

Looks (to me) like an operation of God to "separate" and disperse the human, and create some forms of boundaries between groups of humans.

According to the Genesis account, looks like as your insight suggests the nations were created along the lines of demarcation of the languages.

This is another case where I look at it and think it is some sort of a divine operation... it doesnt make (human) sense for us to have all of these languages on earth if you think about it, very inefficient.

rsp,

paul meli said...

@Matt

Entropy leads to another contradiction that makes me wonder…

The normal entropic process is towards decay, or equilibrium. It has never been observed otherwise - no perpetual-motion machines. Processes move in the direction of lower complexity.

We would expect in the case of nature for things to become less complex over time.

Instead, what we have is life appearing to evolve from single-celled organisms to the more complex.

Not advocating any opinion on whether God does or doesn't exist, just seems to me that life is something special in the Universe (kind of obvious, duh).

We have the input from the Sun, but so do other planets. What makes us different?

Remember, I'm a math-based thinker, not a philosopher.

y said...

Life is a "struggle against entropy". It's possible because life doesn't occur within an isolated system, rather it constantly receives new inputs (i.e. energy from the sun for example).

I'd guess there's actually quite a lot of life spread out across the universe.

y said...

Some thoughts on taxation and democracy:

I don't think taxation is theft. I don't think it violates property rights.

Tax is a charge levied by the legislative authority (law-making body) on individuals and organisations within its jurisdiction.

By law taxes owed to the legislative authority have to be paid. If people choose to break the law, the law is enforced, as with all laws.

As a society we live within a common set of laws. The body which creates those laws is called the legislative authority, or legislature.

The legislature determines the law regarding property rights within its jurisdiction, and also determines the law regarding charges owed to the legislature within its jurisdiction.

As always, individuals tend to have different views regarding which laws the legislature should create and uphold. They have different views regarding that which is just and unjust.

For example, Major Freedom believes that it is unjust for the legislature to levy a charge (tax) on individuals and organisations within its jurisdiction. Others, of course, do not share Major Freedom's view.

Given that people hold different views on these subjects, a process is needed by which disagreements can be expressed and resolved.

That's where democracy comes in.

“No taxation without representation”

------------------------

Rothbardians seem to believe that they can do away with the need for democracy altogether through the use of their supposedly "irrefutable" logic. However, many people do not agree with their supposedly "irrefutable" logic, so there's clearly a problem there.

The Rothbardian position is also quite contradictory on this subject. They see democratic rule as illegitimate - but how else are they to get their desired set of laws enacted, if not by participating in the democratic process?

Will they simply seize power?

The Rothbardian "non-agression principle" should stop them from trying this, which means the only option left to them is to participate in the democratic process in some way.

As such, they will have to try to convince enough people that their ideas are correct, and that their desired set of laws should be enacted by the legislature (including a ban on the legislature levying taxes).

Unfortunately however, given that by their own reasoning democratic law-making is inherently illegitimate, any Rothbardian-type laws enacted by the legislature would also, by their own reasoning, necessarily be illegitimate... These Rothbardian-type laws would have been illegitimately “imposed” on society by the democratic majority.

Which puts them in a bit of a pickle.

Tom Hickey said...

JK: "Are the philosophical origins of the Austrian school of thought related to the origins of monotheism and the "self" ?"

Not just the Austrian school. Every human being on earth has a worldview that both personal and cultural. Philosophies are highly articulated worldviews. The history of philosophy as well as other disciplines show that these worldviews revolve around different approaches to the fundamental issues of world, persons, and the transcendental. These issues are "the enduring questions."

Because there are no absolute criteria that are publicly available there are competing answers to these questions which are undecidable. Only the skeptics are right in that they admit this. Most other people make up reasons accounting for why their positions is the only correct one and they try to justify it based on criteria they choose, which not being publicly available, are not universally acceptable.

The criterion of science is sense observation of "empirical evidence." Law or necessity in science comes from formalization of the theory. Since formalization is analytic the theory must be semantically interpreted and tested against experience.

General propositions are statement about everything and everything is not known when it involves the future. So all scientific laws are tentative and the law can overturned through future discoveries. If a single counterinstance to a general proposition involving empirical assertions can be adduced, the general proposition is falsified as a matter of logic.

Wittgenstein showed that most philosophical claims are not assertions at all because of their logical construction. Many philosophical terms are ordinary language terms that are used technically in a specific sense that is not define operationally, so the claim is not actually specific enough to be tested.

This is the logical problem inherent in using terms like "God" and "self." It was not a discovery of Western thought either. Buddha gave many discourses on it in the 5th to 6th century BCE, when the West was just emerging from the mythological age in Greece.

Tom Hickey said...

paul "We have the input from the Sun, but so do other planets. What makes us different?"

Suggest you pick up a copy of Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers's Order out of Chaos, (1984), and The End of Certainty (1997). Hint: it's the flow.

It drives a stake into the heart of ergodicity and determinism, which is the basis of the "natural order" presumed by most scientists since the 18th century, and which forms the basis of neoclassical economics.

y said...

"Hint: it's the flow"

Please tell us more.

JK said...

Tom,

Thanks for the response.

Comparing a school of thought such as Austrian economics and MMT…

MMT being a macro theory doesn't seem to rest on any absolute truths, like the Austrian view does about the individual "agent" that acts purposefully, independent of it's environment …

Does MMT depend on any similar assertions?

Tom Hickey said...

@ y

Beyond my ability to put simply and accurately.

See the press release on the Nobel describing Prigogine's contribution. Here a link to his Nobel lecture.

Tom Hickey said...

JK: "MMT being a macro theory doesn't seem to rest on any absolute truths, like the Austrian view does about the individual "agent" that acts purposefully, independent of it's environment …Does MMT depend on any similar assertions?"

MMT macro is built on operational description and sectoral balances. The weakness in macro using aggregated information lies chiefly in the data.

But every human endeavor has assumptions, stated and hidden, acknowledged and unacknowledged, known and unknown.

MMT begins with the system that is place and uses the universe of discourse that is prevalent in the field, and that involves importing all sorts of presumptions, assumptions, and norms.

Major Freedom is correct about his, and he would like to replace the worldview and its universe of discourse with other presumptions, assumptions and values. I am in agreement with some of that as a libertarian but not with all since he is a right-libertarian and I am a left-libertarian.

But I am also a pragmatist, and the MMT approach is the most practical, effective, and efficient approach with the social, political and economic system that is now in place. Do I think it is the optimal system humanity is capable of devising to meet current challenges? No.

JK said...

Tom,

What do you think is the optimal system to meet current challenges?

Tom Hickey said...

One that takes into consideration recent knowledge and takes a systems approach. Roger Erickson has been writing on this. Its about using knowledge of evolution and adaptability. This approach was introduced into economics by Kenneth Boulding but it has largely languished.

The present political system is 18th century and the economic system hasn't caught up with knowledge developed in the 20th century in the life sciences and other social sciences.

One of the chief problem is due to the erroneous idea that a basic characteristic of human nature is self-interest. It is presented as either self-evident or empirical but the way it is defined and functions logically is normative. Its a norm that empirical research shows is not the case.

And the teaching of sages from time immemorial is that this is an animal tendency to be outgrown as a person matures as as human being unfolding full potential. Ayn Rand rightly recognized that pursuit of self-interest contradicts perennial wisdom.

Self-interest is the principle issue for collective conscious to surmount because of all that flows from it, which is why I frequently say that humanity is still in its adolescence and has miles yet to go in the direction of collective consciousness becoming mature.

The sub-human instincts are appropriate for sub-humans and this instinct reaches down to tropism in the plants, and it is operative in the survival and reproductive urges down to one-celled organisms.

The process of evolution is the expansion of universality and complexity. Humans have developed remarkably over other animals in this regard, and there are notable exceptions of the upside, but humanity has a way to go collectively.

Tom Hickey said...

I should add to that the IMHO the only way to optimize political economy for the 21st century is by looking the global economy as a closed (other than what enters from space, chiefly the sun's energy) social, political and economic system and taking a trans-disciplinary approach to challenges that humanity faces as a species and the earth faces ecologically.

This is all happening on the Internet but it needs more coordination and for people in positions of power and influence to be paying more attention to the cutting edge and pushing out the envelope instead of defending a status quo that is breaking down in the face of increasing complexity and the challenges this engenders.

Septeus7 said...

Quote From Major Slavery:

"Human rights cannot exist without property rights. Human rights only make sense as property rights."

Monarchist and Satanic BS. Property is subject to man not man to property.

"The claim that human rights are superior to property rights is nothing but a call that some people have a right to make property out of others, to live at their expense by violence."

So have property you must first have right human interaction and thus the rightness of the interaction determines the how valid the creation of property. Human morality precedes property just as the creation is ruled by the creator. You are a classic idol worshiper with no morality.

Property is by definition a claim to deny the free action of others from using that which you have declare to be your property and thus a claim to "own" control over the actions of others.

Property requires violence to secure it. There has and will never be a moral principle of non-violence. It cannot exist. Any statement to the contrary is against all empirical information about reality.

Quote: "By re-introducing old mercantilist fallacies refuted by, interestingly enough, the classicals."

The classicals aka old British Imperials refuted nothing. Every state that developed did so under mercantilism. Every British Colony that was subjected to the classical economic policy of the Empire turned into a disaster and eventually revolted to reclaimed their national sovereignty against you monsters.

Quote: "The best among the economists during this time are: Quesnay, Turgot, Cantillon, and of course the originator of "laissez-faire!" Rene-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson.

Rene-Louse de Voyer friends of that insane comedian Voltaire....hahaha figures you would think highly of lackeys of the Bourbons.

All these men where lovers and defenders of monarchy, slavery, and plutocracy. The are pre-modern royalist controlled clowns.

Quote: "Praxeology does not contain a single normative argument. It is entirely descriptive"

Praxeology contains no information only tautological statements and thus by definition is descriptive of nothing. ONly are retarded person could believe deduction by itself contains meaning.

Quote" Lysander Spooner...best takedown"

hahah Spooner the scam artist and Confederate supporter...nice. Nice to see Major Slavery admit he loves what this really all about.

Quote: "Not every approach is ideological."

And that is what every ideological fanatic thinks...

Quote from Major_Slavery: "Which is a weakness, not a strength.

For 49% who might be right, to be overruled by the 51% just because they're outnumbered, is sub-optimal to a world where the minority is not so imposed upon."

Oh no the people can't know what is in their best interest so it's much better to rely on a monarchy, better yet the few owners of property in society to tell the poor schmucks want to do. After all property owners care about there property so treating human being as property that could be owned is the best and freest way to live.

Slavery=Freedom....yay.

F, the whole self rule we have

Hail Plutocracy and Property Rights and people are treated like and holder of mud claim noble titles while the mud treat as people. You are sick sick worshiper of false gods.

y said...

JK:

"MMT being a macro theory doesn't seem to rest on any absolute truths, like the Austrian view does about the individual "agent" that acts purposefully, independent of it's environment"

You say that the Austrian view rests on "absolute truths", but is this actually correct?

Murray Rothbard states in Man, Economy and State:

"All human beings act by virtue of their existence and their nature as human beings. We could not conceive of human beings who do not act purposefully, who have no ends in view that they desire and attempt to attain. Things that did not act, that did not behave purposefully, would no longer be classified as human."

However, the truth of the matter is that from the moment of conception human beings are actually 'acted upon'.

The nutrition and other inputs a foetus receives in the womb, for example, will affect the way that it develops physically and mentally. Once born, the baby and then child is constantly 'acted upon', with these actions having an effect upon its physical and mental development. Then he/she grows up within certain familial and social structures and is taught to think and act in certain ways.

So before 'man' even begins to act 'independently' he has been constantly 'acted upon' and shaped from the moment of conception.

y said...

Septeus7 you're maybe going a bit mental there.

y said...

Tom, you're really talking quasi-buddhist sci-fi futurama there.

JK said...

@ y

"Absolute truths" was proably a poor phrase to use. What I was referring to is the assumptions about "Human Action" …

It is seems they define Human Action as preformed by an independent and rational actor. And I think both the independence part, and the rational part, are questionable.

But it seems, from my limited understanding, by 'rational' they mean purposeful, and vice versa. That's a unique way to define rational, and not how I think of the word.

Really I need to study Austrian economics for a while before I think I can intelligently comment. But those are some of my first impressions when I started thinking about their original axiom "human action is purpose behavior"

As I said above, I'm very unfmailiar with Austrian economics.

y said...

JK:

as for MMT, it's based on an analysis of the history of money from the earliest of times to now. That analysis is more fact-based than the Austrian's tale.

Tom Hickey said...

y: "Tom, you're really talking quasi-buddhist sci-fi futurama there."

Yep.

Matt Franko said...

Tom,

Youre not going to believe this.. not shitting you I just ran into this guy today, havent seen him in a year or two... he told me he just bought a farmette growing vegetables down in SE Virginia as a "back up plan"... I kid you not! Freaky! rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

Yeah, the realization is startring to dawn. The super-rich started building safe haven, escape hatches and security some time ago around the world. It's a industry now. Survivalism has also been a big thing for some time, and it is going more mainstream. Urban gardening has also exploded.

These are going to be much bigger issues sooner rather than later as the realization dawns that civilization as we know it is in jeopardy. Lots of markets will be developed and presently existing one will expand, and lots of money be made, too. big opportunities here.

Matt Franko said...

Meanwhile the 10-yr looks like it may have hit a new intra-day ALL TIME LOW today.... not supposed to be a good omen... rsp,

y said...

I dunno, Tom.

I think possibly that whilst you are dreaming up the new age collective consciousness the rest of humanity will simply be dealing with their day-to-day problems...

The problem as far as I can see with your ideology is that it doesn't leave much space for either popular dissent or personal error.

I think both dissent and error are essential to a well-functioning society, so I'm struggling to see how you utopian vision could ever become a reality for the mass of humanity.

If you want to go off and pursue your vision of perfection then fair enough. I wish you well.

But back here in the material world people need a system which doesn't depend upon attaining someone's personal concept of nirvana!

It's good as a religious/philosophical way of thinking, but bear in mind that other people don't necessarily share your way of thinking or your goals.

All due respect.

y said...

*your, not you

Tom Hickey said...

y, the evolutionary direction of humanity is toward greater universality. That is a matter of historical fact and a principle of evolutionary theory in that great complexity requires being able to deal with greater universality. Human can deal with greater universality than other animals because they developed the complex tools needed for it, i.e., opposing thumbs, larynxes capable of refined articulation, and a complex CNS.

The sages left instructions for dealing with the evolutionary direction of humanity before humans were able to figure it out, and most humans have not gotten the message yet, so collective consciousness remains underdeveloped, with a lot of inherent potential to be unfolded.

y said...

What's the economic model for the utopia?

Tom Hickey said...

"What's the economic model for the utopia?"

Love. Do people keep accounts in their family or among close friends.

Actually Davic Graeber pointe this out in Debt: 5000 years of credit, where he shows how the more developed idea of exchange and credit-debt relationship grew initially out of this and a great deal of the informal economy, estimated at 10T a year, is still based on it.

Marx also pointed out from his anthropological studies that with enclosure and property rights, entitlement and title came into being, as the impersonal relationships in the marketplace replaced interpersonal social relationships in community that had dominated earlier.

This is only a mystery to people that study modern economics, which ignores it.

Utopia is not some fictional place or will only exist in some far off future. Some people actually live this now by choice. There are loads of intentional communities around the world and networking is now going viral through the Internet. There are books, sites and blogs devoted to it.

Matt Franko said...

Paul,

"Not advocating any opinion on whether God does or doesn't exist, just seems to me that life is something special in the Universe (kind of obvious, duh).

We have the input from the Sun, but so do other planets. What makes us different?

Remember, I'm a math-based thinker, not a philosopher."

I dont really know or have a direct answer to this one... perhaps some leads:

This is from John 1:1

"1 In the beginning was the word, and the word was toward God, and God was the word.
2 This was in the beginning toward God.
3 All came into being through it, and apart from it not even one thing came into being which has come into being.
4 In it was life, and the life was the light of men."

The Greek word for word here is 'logos'. Some kind of code is involved. Indicates that life comes "through" it, ie dynamic system of some sort.

Paul later relates: "6 I plant, Apollos irrigates, but God makes it grow up" 1 Cor 3:6

So life forms appear to "self assemble" but the scripture indicates that this is based on some sort of code that is already I guess in the seed. The seed contains the "logos" or "word" which we may look at as "instructions" on how to progress thru the process (which looks like includes death).

So I guess you would have to see on other planets, the raw materials were there AND the "logos" or "word" or God ("God was the word") was there, then perhaps there could be "life" on other planets I suppose.

But for sure it looks like a dynamic system. I would encourage the IDers to not think in terms of a static system design ie "God designed 'the frog' per se", it looks like at least God "published" the "instructions" for a frog to be born, mature and eventually die which looks more like a dynamic system...

rsp,

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:

See, I knew you could give an intelligent response.

Well your blog post was surprisingly rather intellectually sound, so I had no desire to go into correction mode which I typically do here.

Of course, I disagree with it but it is a cogent argument. As always, this argument ends in disagreement over fundamentals.

Where you see value-free, I see normative.

Where is their any normative implications in the human action axiom? In praxeology?

Saying that all actions incur costs, and all action is directed towards ends, and that ends can achieve gains or losses, there is no normative argument here at all.

What are you talking about?

Mises saying that praxeology is value-free does not make it so

Who ever said it was so merely because Mises said so? Mises gave arguments for it. He didn't just claim it.

and it make this mistake by taking individuals as separate from their social relationships through institutions.

The descriptive concept of individual action is not "separated" from social relationships or institutions! You are completely misunderstanding praxeology. Praxeology does not preclude or exclude social interaction. Mises devoted HUGE portions of his work to social cooperation.

This is like looking at economics in terms of single representative rational agent, exchange as barter, and money as thing.

Again, Mises' conception of "rationality" is DIFFERENT from what you are thinking. Rationality to Mises was purely goal seeking behavior.

"of course the originator of "laissez-faire!" Rene-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson."

Better check Wikipedia laissez-faire/etymology

Wikipedia holds Marquis d'Argenson as the first person to write or say "Laissez-faire!" specifically. That's what I go by.

d'Argenson gave an anecdote 70 years after a M. Le Gendre supposedly said "Laissez-nous faire."

It's not exactly "Laissez-faire!"

Any way, thanks for the list of the economists whom you like, and one you don't like. Again, it comes down to differences in ideology.

I disagree. I think it comes down to your misunderstanding. You're disagreeing with a straw man.

Mises refuted Marx's polylogism, and showed that the logical categories of action are true for everybody.

You have the belief that the individual's thoughts are somehow determined by either class, or institutions, or productive relations, and so on. But the logical categories of thought and of action are universal.

Unforgiven said...

Matt -

General Omnigenetic Directive?

Major_Freedom said...

1/3

Septeus7:

"Human rights cannot exist without property rights. Human rights only make sense as property rights."

Monarchist and Satanic BS.

Ad hominem fallacy.

Property is subject to man not man to property.

False dichotomy fallacy.

I didn't say man is subject to property. Yes, property is subject to man, but man can't have human rights unless he has property rights. To say that property rights are human rights, is not to put property rights above human rights. The error you are making is that there is somehow a dichotomy between human rights and property rights, when they are two sides of the same coin.

There is no human right that is also not a property right, and human rights become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not the standard.

If you have no property rights, you have no human rights.

"The claim that human rights are superior to property rights is nothing but a call that some people have a right to make property out of others, to live at their expense by violence."

So have property you must first have right human interaction and thus the rightness of the interaction determines the how valid the creation of property.

This sentence isn't even grammatically correct.

Voluntary interaction presupposes property rights.

Human morality precedes property just as the creation is ruled by the creator.

Humans create property by acting. They own themselves and their production.

You are a classic idol worshiper with no morality.

Ad hominem fallacy.

Private property rights is a morality.

Property is by definition a claim to deny the free action of others from using that which you have declare to be your property and thus a claim to "own" control over the actions of others.

Yes, you are indeed declaring property over your body and the portion of external reality you need to live, which of course "denies" that same portion of external reality from everyone else, including starving children. You bastard! How dare you live in a world of scarcity and lack of infinite resources!

Major_Freedom said...

2/3

Septeus7:


Property requires violence to secure it.

Only if there are initiators of violence seeking to violate it. For those of us who voluntarily respect each other property rights, there is no violence. Yeah, crazy concept isn't it? Living with each other in peace and respecting each other's property rights. That never happens, does it?

If someone threatens to rob you and kill you, just let him do it, because you can't put your property rights above his human rights!

There has and will never be a moral principle of non-violence. It cannot exist. Any statement to the contrary is against all empirical information about reality.

Nobody is claiming pacifism.

You are equivocating the term violence. There is a difference between defensive violence and offensive violence. I am not saying people don't initiate violence.

"By re-introducing old mercantilist fallacies refuted by, interestingly enough, the classicals."

The classicals aka old British Imperials refuted nothing.

Yes they did. They refuted the older mercantilists.

Every state that developed did so under mercantilism.

Every state developed DESPITE mercantilism.

Every British Colony that was subjected to the classical economic policy of the Empire turned into a disaster and eventually revolted to reclaimed their national sovereignty against you monsters.

Every colony that had property rights and economic freedom, prospered. When you communist monsters tried to abolish private property in the colonies, the result was famine and death:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527788/posts

"The best among the economists during this time are: Quesnay, Turgot, Cantillon, and of course the originator of "laissez-faire!" Rene-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson."

Rene-Louse de Voyer friends of that insane comedian Voltaire....hahaha figures you would think highly of lackeys of the Bourbons.

Spoiling the well fallacy.

You might as well say Bill Clinton was a dictatorial madman because he visited Kim Jong Il and had dinner with him.

All these men where lovers and defenders of monarchy, slavery, and plutocracy. The are pre-modern royalist controlled clowns.

Ad hominem fallacy.

Major_Freedom said...

3/3

Septeus7:


"Praxeology does not contain a single normative argument. It is entirely descriptive"

Praxeology contains no information only tautological statements and thus by definition is descriptive of nothing.

False. Action is synthetically a priori true.

The Pythagorean theorem is "tautological" in the sense that the theorem is already implied in the concept of a right triangle, but nobody would claim the theorem is immediately apparent to one who learns a right triangle for the first time. Nobody would claim it doesn't expand our knowledge.

The human action axiom might be obvious now, but it took many years of abortive attempts to clarify it. You're standing on the shoulders of giants and pissing on their faces.

ONly are retarded person could believe deduction by itself contains meaning.

You just deduced there. Does that mean you are a....

"Lysander Spooner...best takedown"

hahah Spooner the scam artist and Confederate supporter...nice. Nice to see Major Slavery admit he loves what this really all about.

Ad hominem fallacy.

"Not every approach is ideological."

And that is what every ideological fanatic thinks...

Ad hominem fallacy.

"For 49% who might be right, to be overruled by the 51% just because they're outnumbered, is sub-optimal to a world where the minority is not so imposed upon."

Oh no the people can't know what is in their best interest so it's much better to rely on a monarchy, better yet the few owners of property in society to tell the poor schmucks want to do.

False dichotomy fallacy.

After all property owners care about there property so treating human being as property that could be owned is the best and freest way to live.

False dichotomy fallacy.

Slavery=Freedom....yay.

Straw man fallacy.

F, the whole self rule we have

51% imposing its will on 49% is not self-rule. It is majority rule.

Hail Plutocracy and Property Rights and people are treated like and holder of mud claim noble titles while the mud treat as people.

Straw man fallacy.

You are sick sick worshiper of false gods.

Ad hominem and straw man fallacies.

Tom Hickey said...

MF: "Where is their any normative implications in the human action axiom? In praxeology? Saying that all actions incur costs, and all action is directed towards ends, and that ends can achieve gains or losses, there is no normative argument here at all. What are you talking about?"

I was speaking to Mises first sentence, first paragraph, where he says, "Human action is purposeful behavior," and then closes the paragraph with, "Such paraphrases may clarify the definition given and prevent possible misinterpretations. But the definition itself is adequate and does not need complement or commentary."

It's pretty clear that Mises takes, "Human action is purposeful behavior," as foundation for his work. The question is the logical nature of this statement. Is it a general description that can be falsified, that is, a hypothesis. Or is it stipulated as an axiom? hence a purely deductive rule. Or is it offered as a definition? IN which case is it an operational definition? Or does it have other logical implications.

I take it to be a norm of the system that he proceeds to develop, which is Aristotelian. Purposefulness is basic to Aristotle and modern science rejects teleological explanations. So while Mises avoids the problem of Aristotle's acceptance of intellectual intuition, which the modern world rejects, it does it the the way that Kant did, by making teleology and causality logical categories. Scientists now see that both philosophical and also not borne out by research findings on brain functioning. Cognitive scientists call it 18th century thinking.

But I am not completely sure of how Mises would analyze is statement that human action is purposeful, so it is difficult to say without guessing what he actually thought he was doing here.

My take is that he is using it as foundational norm for the philosophy that he sets forth at the outset of the book. I call it "philosophy" because I am a philosopher and I recognize philosophy when I see it. As I said, it is not original and I know exactly where it comes from in Aristotle and Kant.

It is a framework that outlines the structure of a worldview. This is one worldview among many others. One is free to choose to see the world that say, but it not the only way and no way has shown itself to be logically compelling.

As I have said, I like all these thinkers because I am a philosopher and am trained to appreciate sophisticated thought. A student of the history of philosophy has to learn to see the world in terms of the different frameworks, which is fun when one is studying several major thinkers simultaneously in one semester. One learns to switch back forth among them, like look at a Gestalt that can be viewed as either a duck or rabbit, for example.

All of these ways of seeing-as result in different consequences in thought and action based on the norms that structure the framework and define the boundaries of the various conceptual frames.

The way I view it in Mises methodological approach, "Human action is purposeful," functions as fundamental rule in creating the foundation on which his subsequent thought is built. In that sense it serves more as norm than as a description even though it may appears to be a description. As rule, it is normative in that it functions as a fundamental criterion of the system in relation to other propositions.

What I am saying is not controversial in contemporary analytic philosophy. This is how philosophers approach the subject now.

Tom Hickey said...

MF: "But the logical categories of thought and of action are universal."

This statement is what exactly? A stipulation? Or a hypothesis? If you say it is self-evident, I say "philosophy."

This is "old thinking." Analytic philosophers and cognitive scientists don't think like this anymore. They are looking for logical precision and if an assertion is made, the formulation of an hypothesis.

Now you may reject this approach, but it is what rigorous people are doing these days, after a lot of water has passed under the bridge arguing for millennia indecisively about fundamental principles. The trend now is toward more skepticism and greater rigor. See the post I put up today by mathbabe.

Matt Franko said...

Major,

How do you feel about "free" trade across national borders? Should this be allowed?

Do you value "freedom" for the mercantilists above the authority of govt to secure/operate/protect it's borders?

Trade is a big issue these days as far as it's economic impact...

rsp,

y said...

"There are loads of intentional communities around the world and networking is now going viral through the Internet"

Yes but they all exist within the wider capitalist society. So they get stuff like cars and the internet.

Tom Hickey said...

There is a very large Mennonite contingent a few miles from here, made up of different denominations, the most conservative of which do not use any modern energy, vehicles, equipment, or appliances, and they dress very simply. They live extremely strictly in the way that they read the bible.

There are a number of Amish and Mennonite communities around the country and world. They do interact with the surrounding capitalist society by selling their stuff. I surmise that most of what they make is given away in charity, they run missions, and used to buy more land for growing families.

My wife grew up in a moderately strict Apostolic Christian family that living pretty minimally by the standards of society, but they did use cars and farms equipment and had electricity. Work all week, kids too after school, and church all Sunday.

y said...

If we were all Mennonites there would be no internet and no cars.

y said...

What I mean is they would never have been developed.

Major_Freedom said...

1/3

Tom Hickey:

"Where is their any normative implications in the human action axiom? In praxeology? Saying that all actions incur costs, and all action is directed towards ends, and that ends can achieve gains or losses, there is no normative argument here at all. What are you talking about?"

I was speaking to Mises first sentence, first paragraph, where he says, "Human action is purposeful behavior," and then closes the paragraph with, "Such paraphrases may clarify the definition given and prevent possible misinterpretations. But the definition itself is adequate and does not need complement or commentary."

Where is there any normative implications in "Human action is purposeful behavior"?

It's pretty clear that Mises takes, "Human action is purposeful behavior," as foundation for his work. The question is the logical nature of this statement. Is it a general description that can be falsified, that is, a hypothesis. Or is it stipulated as an axiom? hence a purely deductive rule. Or is it offered as a definition? IN which case is it an operational definition? Or does it have other logical implications.

You're asking what is the logical status of this axiom. Well, I can tell you. It is a synthetic a priori true statement. It is a statement that says something true about the world, but it is not logically dependent on observations.

It is an axiom because even if we suppose it is refutable, or falsifiable, for argument's sake, then if we're honest we must admit that refuting and falsifying would have to logically be categorized as actions themselves. What this means is that we can make the a priori argument that because any possible refutation or falsification attempt of the human action axiom that can ever be made, will themselves have to be categorized as actions, then we can know that the truth of the action axiom is irrefutable and cannot be falsified.

Again, where is the normative implication here? Where is there any claim of what anyone OUGHT to do in their actions? Praxeology is the science of "doing things." It is not an ethic of what we ought to do and what we ought not do.

I take it to be a norm of the system that he proceeds to develop, which is Aristotelian.

HOW is it normative? "Taking it as normative" isn't justified unless it is actually normative. Where is it actually normative?

Purposefulness is basic to Aristotle and modern science rejects teleological explanations.

Fallacy of ad populum. Whether or not "modern science" accepts one methodology and set of convictions and rejects other methodologies and sets of convictions, is not sufficient for disproving or falsifying what has been rejected.

You cannot possibly claim that you're right because your view is more popular than mine in 2012. I do not accept what borders on intellectual bullying.

At any rate, what you mean by "modern science" is of course positivism. Positivism is rejected by Austrians (specifically Miseseans) in the sphere of human action, because positivism presupposes that constantly operating causes can somehow apply to human action. As Mises and Hoppe have shown, there are no constancies in human action. Humans can learn.

Major_Freedom said...

2/3

Tom Hickey:

So while Mises avoids the problem of Aristotle's acceptance of intellectual intuition, which the modern world rejects, it does it the the way that Kant did, by making teleology and causality logical categories. Scientists now see that both philosophical and also not borne out by research findings on brain functioning. Cognitive scientists call it 18th century thinking.

You mean "which positivists reject." Saying "modern" over and over does not constitute a justification for its correctness. Modern just means current. Current thinking can be, and history has shown it has been, wrong.

Now, cognitive scientists (and your referencing them to me) presuppose teleology in their research. For what does "not borne out" mean here? Supposedly, it means teleology has been (allegedly) falsified. You are telling me that cognitive scientists have "shown" something (allegedly) true. Well, how am I supposed to take their research as proving something, without presupposing that they intended to prove it?

Why should I not take what they say as mere noise, or random meaningless symbols scratched on paper? If you're right, if teleology is wrong, then you should have no problems with me considering their behavior as the automatic reflex of external stimuli, the stimuli of which could possibly have a different set of affects in the future, I cannot know for sure. After all, all empirical propositions are merely hypothetical and falsifiable.

My conviction is that one cannot possibly understand what cognitive scientists are doing, unless we realize that what they are doing is intended to show us something they learned, specifically, that what they are doing is intended to prove an idea or set of ideas true or false, or at least to falsify null hypotheses. Well, I hope you are honest to admit that you are telling me that their research is intended to falsify something. That I understand their behavior as teleological, i.e. goal oriented, and not mere noise or symbols on paper.

But I am not completely sure of how Mises would analyze is statement that human action is purposeful, so it is difficult to say without guessing what he actually thought he was doing here.

What do you mean how he would "analyze" that statement? Analyze is a human action. You are presupposing human action when you tell me that "analyzing" is a valid concept, that it is even taking place. Guessing is also an action. Saying is an action.

It is not difficult to know what Mises was doing. I grant it CAN be difficult to know, but that difficulty is solvable. What Mises is doing can be learned through Mises' writings. Mises asked "What is the logical status of economic propositions?" He actually wasn't trying to change the economic zeitgeist during his time. He wasn't trying to convince other economists to change their ways to his ways. He just analyzed what they were doing.

My take is that he is using it as foundational norm for the philosophy that he sets forth at the outset of the book.

You keep claiming norms, but you have not shown any norms. He was making an argument of what is, not what people ought to do.

Major_Freedom said...

3/3

Tom Hickey:

I call it "philosophy" because I am a philosopher and I recognize philosophy when I see it.

I am a philosopher as well. I recognize that Mises showed economics to be a subset of praxeology, or the science of human action.

All thinking, economic or otherwise, starts with epistemology, and philosophy in general. Similar to how Descartes argued for thinking as existence of Descartes, Mises argued for thinking as an action. Mises' philosophy is not actually Aristotelean, it is neoKantian. Rothbard's philosophy on the other hand was Aristotelean, and held human action to be "radically empirical". Whether or not we ground action in either a Kantian or Aristotelean foundation, the human action axiom, if taken as Kantian, is logically irrefutable, and if taken as Aristotelean, has not been falsified by any scientist.

As I said, it is not original and I know exactly where it comes from in Aristotle and Kant.

There is a difference between influence and copying. Mises' economics are indeed influenced, but it is original, because neither Aristotle nor Kant got as far as Mises did. Mises solved the problem associated with Kant: that we have to accept idealism if Kant is right. Kant only hinted at action, but never made it explicit. Mises brought action to the foreground. In so doing, he bridged the gap between mind and the external world.

It is a framework that outlines the structure of a worldview. This is one worldview among many others.

Yes, praxeology is one view among many. There are all sorts of views. But they can't all be right, not when views within the sum of views contradict each other.

One is free to choose to see the world that say, but it not the only way and no way has shown itself to be logically compelling.

On the contrary, the logic is indeed compelling. It is so compelling that it is logically irrefutable. Refuting anything is an action. You have not shown any logically compelling reason why I should adopt positivist methodology in the social sciences. All you have said is that positivism is "modern" over and over, as if I am supposed to accept something because it is named a specific thing.

As I have said, I like all these thinkers because I am a philosopher and am trained to appreciate sophisticated thought. A student of the history of philosophy has to learn to see the world in terms of the different frameworks, which is fun when one is studying several major thinkers simultaneously in one semester. One learns to switch back forth among them, like look at a Gestalt that can be viewed as either a duck or rabbit, for example.

So I guess I should wait for you bouncing around different views until you finally realize all views are either internally consistent, or internally inconsistent, and that it is precisely praxeology that is the ultimate foundation for knowing whether or not they are internally consistent or inconsistent?

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:


All of these ways of seeing-as result in different consequences in thought and action based on the norms that structure the framework and define the boundaries of the various conceptual frames.

Bases, norms, frameworks, boundaries, conceptual frames...boy you sure use a lot of verbiage to manifest your conviction of necessary logical categories of thought.

Can USING (i.e. acting in accordance with) these "bases, norms, frameworks, boundaries, and conceptual frames" have any consequences other than new thoughts and new actions? Can these endeavors not incur costs of some sort? Can these endeavors bring about something other than a gain or loss (psychic and/or material)? If you say no, then congrats, you just validated praxeology as a necessary science.

The way I view it in Mises methodological approach, "Human action is purposeful," functions as fundamental rule in creating the foundation on which his subsequent thought is built.

One cannot NOT act when building a foundation of any thought! It isn't a recommendation. It isn't a pleading. It isn't an ethical claim. It isn't a "rule" which in principle can be undone and replaced with another "rule". Everything you build, every mental basis, framework, boundary and conceptual frame you believe you are utilizing apart from praxeology, are ALL actions. They can only be understood as goal seeking. For what else are you doing other than goal seeking? Even the answer to that question would have to be categorized as a goal you have in answering me, rather than your words being random meaningless symbols.

In that sense it serves more as norm than as a description even though it may appears to be a description. As rule, it is normative in that it functions as a fundamental criterion of the system in relation to other propositions.

In what sense? You just presupposed action in your explanation! It isn't merely a "rule" which can be abolished at will. It is not a choice as long as you are selecting and then using "frameworks"! All of this is goal oriented.

You cannot possibly tell me that your learning more about the world, your using various "frameworks", your explanation of what you believe Mises showed, are not actions, not goal oriented.

What I am saying is not controversial in contemporary analytic philosophy. This is how philosophers approach the subject now.

This borders on ad populum again.

Tom Hickey said...

Y: "What I mean is they would never have been developed."

Not in their present form. It all began with enclosure of the commons millennia ago. Economics is fundamentally about distribution of scarce resources. Look at history and figure out how that went down.

Virtually all intellectualization is rationalization after the fact that justifies the status quo or a change in the status quo, and by "status quo" I mean power structure.

Feudalism is justified based on "the mandate of heaven" and the "divine right of kings." Capitalism is based on the "natural order" of things. The first is a rationalization of rule by the warriors and the second is justification of rule by the acquisitors. The intelligentsia are the cronies of whoever is in power and provide the rationalizations. The workers are never in power. This began as soon as humans were innovative enough to generate an economic surplus that one social group could control and live off without working. Since then there's been a king of the mountain tussle over who gets to control the surplus.

Was this the only way to do it? The best way? Are there alternatives to this?

Major_Freedom said...

1/2

Tom Hickey:

MF: "But the logical categories of thought and of action are universal."

This statement is what exactly? A stipulation? Or a hypothesis? If you say it is self-evident, I say "philosophy."

An argument, validated by an objective common ground.

Asking me that question presupposes its validity, because by asking that question, you are presupposing the same logical categories of thought in my mind, as exists in your mind. It's why you're asking me, rather than a tree.

This is "old thinking." Analytic philosophers and cognitive scientists don't think like this anymore.

And you just play follow the leader? Goodness. Where is your independent thinking? All this mentioning of ad populum doesn't do your arguments any good.

They are looking for logical precision and if an assertion is made, the formulation of an hypothesis.

And what, not question them? Just give them what THEY want, regardless if I know their philosophy is wrong? How can that lead to anything but groupthink and relativism?

Sorry, but I am much too independent a thinker than that. I have moved beyond playing follow the leader.

At any rate, that statement you just made:

How am I to understand that "new" position of formulating falsifiable hypotheses? If you're logically consistent, then that statement itself, if it were valid, must also be a hypothesis. For if it isn't, then it is an a priori true statement, and it would be self-contradictory.

But if it is a hypothetical statement then, which in principle can be wrong, then you would have to grant me at least the possibility that I am right. If you deny me this possibility, then you are saying my arguments are impossible to be true, and that would make your position vis a vis mine an a priori one, which you already said is not valid knowledge.

Major_Freedom said...

2/2

Tom Hickey:


Now you may reject this approach, but it is what rigorous people are doing these days, after a lot of water has passed under the bridge arguing for millennia indecisively about fundamental principles. The trend now is toward more skepticism and greater rigor. See the post I put up today by mathbabe.

I don't play follow the leader. If these "rigorous" people want followers, then I don't want them as leaders. I am my own leader.

You seem to desire leaders to follow. You seem to be of a mindset that real thinkers, true thinkers, should just adopt whatever the popular philosophy happens to be. Well if everyone did that, then progress would end. See, you need philosophers like me who are courageous enough to buck the trends, to trail blaze, to move the masses of philosophers who desire to be followers only.

I as my own leader reject their dogmatic positivist approach because it contradicts itself when applied to knowledge and action. The characteristic feature in our age of philosophy, which historians will (hopefully) look back on and ask "what were they thinking?", is the prevalence of philosophic contradictions. Despite your description of modern day analytic philosophers as wanting to be logically precise, the positivists among them are anything but logically precise when they claim one way and only one way is allowed in the social sciences, namely, the same method as the physicists and chemists.

I reject the notion that there is only one way to all knowledge. I don't care if the masses of follower-minded philosophers insist on a monistic epistemology. They are adhering to contradictory beliefs in the field of knowledge and action.

Since a person would contradict themselves if they asserted that the only valid means of acquiring knowledge of the real world is through formulating falsifiable hypotheses, for that very assertion itself is not a formulated falsifiable hypothesis, I reject positivism as contradictory, and hence I re-establish Rationalism.

If this does not suit you, if you find these types of conversation ending arguments as "too limiting", as an "affront" to your sensibilities, as "not popular", then I can only say that you will never find truth, because the truth is not open-ended. There is no "escape" from reality. I do not know much about the universe, in fact I would say that in relation to all that can be known, I am a primitive-minded ape with only the barest glimmer of knowledge of anything. But...and this is the mother of all buts, the little that I do think is true, within that totality of thinking, at the very bottom of it all, there is a single, incredibly modest, apodictic certainty of one thing: That I am absolutely, without a doubt, no ifs ands or buts, certainly, truthfully, definitely, with zero skepticism...an actor.

If my declaring knowledge of a single objective truth, with the rest being subject to error, idiocy, mistake, doubt, and improvement, if this makes you recoil in any way, if this makes you consider me a "dogmatist", then I should think that you are not interested in learning the truth, but rather you only want to live a life searching for it and forcefully preventing yourself from ever finding it precisely because you refuse to accept that objective apodictic knowledge is possible (which of course is itself an objective apodictic claim to knowledge, namely, that your mind has the objective characteristic of being incapable of knowing objective truth about yourself).

Tom Hickey said...

Sorry, MF, but you didn't get what I said, and it seem that you don't know enough about the state of philosophy, logic, philosophy of science for me to respond to all this without walking you through a lot of stuff. I don't have time or the inclination to break it out for you, in part because I don't think you are receptive anyway, since you are already convinced that you are right. So let's just agree to disagree at this point. Maybe I'll break it out some other time when I am less occupied because it is interesting and important. I am not suggesting that you are not intelligent, although I do think that you are rigid. I am just saying that this is technical stuff that I don't want to do at the moment, since I am jammed.

But this is about as simple as I make it right now, so try to look at this way. Mises builds a foundation of thought and action and then infers that certain things "must" happen the way he later infers from this foundation. However, history and anthropology seriously question these conclusions, e.g., about money and exchange. The answer is that history and anthropology "must" be wrong based on his deductions from his axioms.

All rigorous thinkers in the room, like philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, systems people, and scientists, roll their eyes, and they think "Aristotle." They recognize that the methodological approach Mises takes is on all fours with the Church theologians and Inquisitors that condemned Bruno to be executed and the now infamous Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo (June 22, 1633). The Pope just recently got around to lifting that after almost a half century.

Why do you think that so many people are in opposition to this way of thinking, especially as found in Rothbard and exhibited his Rockwellian acolytes. This is the "mortal sin" of science.

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey @ July 12, 2012 11:30 AM:

That is erroneous historical materialism from Marx.

There was no "initial commons", after which "productive relations" turned into division of labor, capitalism, and ex post rationalization of rulers of capital and ruled of capital.

The initial life of humans was private property. One tribe protected their scarce resource turf from other, potentially invading tribes. Economic scarcity for man appeared as soon as acting man appeared.

Capitalism is not an evolution of feudalism's master-slave structure. Capitalism is what has always existed to some degree, namely, to whatever degree people were able to protect their scarce resources that served as means of production, from violent appropriation. Early human tribes did it, and modern man does it.

Whether these "capitalists" were part owners along with other "investors", or individual owners, the same structure of "production relations", that results from acting, has always existed, to some degree. This degree was a function of the scope of humans refraining from acting on their impulses and urges, and respecting the fact that humans need scarce resource exclusivity in order to live, because humans learned they could gain from trade in the division of labor, than they could by perpetual slavery and conquest. Man rose above the lower animals because as Aristotle put it, man is a rational animal.

Marx arrogated himself to infallibly being able to predict the course of human history, and blithely asserted that the final cause of historical evolution was the establishment of a socialist utopia, which he declared would take place "with the inexorability of a law of nature." And as with Hegel, Marx held that every subsequent stage of history is better than the last, and so there allegedly cannot be any doubt that socialism, which is held as the final and ultimate stage of mankind’s evolution, will be perfect from any point of view.

It is, as a result, pointless to discuss the complexities and details of how socialism will work. Marx claimed to know that history, in its due course, will arrange everything for us. History does not require any counsel from mortal humans.

Marx's esoteric beliefs were crushed by economists. Marx's response? That human reason isn't fitted to find truth. The logical structure of the human mind is allegedly different for various social classes of people, and that there is no such thing as a universally valid logic. What the human mind produces can never be anything other than "ideology", which to Marx meant a set of ideas camouflaging the selfish interests of the thinker’s own social class. Therefore, the "bourgeois" mind of the economists was conceived as incapable of producing anything other than an apology for capitalism.

Thus, the discoveries of the "bourgeois" science of economics, which is allegedly the result of "bourgeois" logic, are of no applicability to the proletarians. But Marx was not consistent enough treat proletariat logic as merely class logic also. No, he held that "The ideas of proletarian logic are not party ideas, but emanations of logic pure and simple."

Should it really be any wonder then that Marx's philosophy is inherently anti-social and cannot result in anything other than perpetual conflict?

Major_Freedom said...

1/2

Tom Hickey:

Sorry, MF, but you didn't get what I said, and it seem that you don't know enough about the state of philosophy, logic, philosophy of science for me to respond to all this without walking you through a lot of stuff.

Why are you apologizing? Your posts show that you don't understand enough philosophy, logic, and the philosophy of science. I am actually holding your hand. But if you can only learn by imagining yourself to be the person walking me through things, then I'll abide and play make believe with you in this respect.

I don't have time or the inclination to break it out for you, in part because I don't think you are receptive anyway, since you are already convinced that you are right. So let's just agree to disagree at this point. Maybe I'll break it out some other time when I am less occupied because it is interesting and important. I am not suggesting that you are not intelligent, although I do think that you are rigid. I am just saying that this is technical stuff that I don't want to do at the moment, since I am jammed.

All this time spent typing antagonistic comments shows you had enough time to do what you claim to be able to do.

But this is about as simple as I make it right now, so try to look at this way. Mises builds a foundation of thought and action and then infers that certain things "must" happen the way he later infers from this foundation.

This is called logical deduction. Your point?

However, history and anthropology seriously question these conclusions, e.g., about money and exchange. The answer is that history and anthropology "must" be wrong based on his deductions from his axioms.

History and anthropology certainly don't need to be wrong in order for Mises to be right. The only axiom there is, is human action. There is no "axioms" with an "s."

Major_Freedom said...

2/2

Tom Hickey:


Nothing in human history can contradict human action. Every interpretation you make of history will be attributing goal seeking behavior to the humans you're studying.

Are you referring to David Graeber's book that allegedly refuted the regression theorem of money? You know, it would help your guy's case if you actually read the book. I have. Nowhere did Graeber disprove the barter theory of money. All of his empirical observations are 100% consistent with it. The reason why it is being trumpeted by socialists and communists and left wingers in general, is because he found evidence that money "as a unit of account" was, in some cases, originated by Kings and statesmen. What they fail to grasp is that the commodity being used as a unit of account was already valued for its own sake prior. This was not empirically refuted! It wasn't a case where the King just ad hoc declared a theretofore unheard of and unproduced commodity as a unit of account, and then everyone in said society adopted it as an obeyed order.

All rigorous thinkers in the room, like philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, systems people, and scientists, roll their eyes, and they think "Aristotle."

This is what intellectual followers are worried about. Intellectual fountainheads WELCOME eye rolling from dunderheads.

They recognize that the methodological approach Mises takes is on all fours with the Church theologians and Inquisitors that condemned Bruno to be executed and the now infamous Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo (June 22, 1633). The Pope just recently got around to lifting that after almost a half century.

Ad hominem fallacy.

Why do you think that so many people are in opposition to this way of thinking, especially as found in Rothbard and exhibited his Rockwellian acolytes.

The same reason 95% of the world's population believe in a God: The majority of people can be, and history has shown they almost always are, wrong.

This is the "mortal sin" of science.

Well, when you approach science as a religion like that, where you consider yourself a church goer, the "mainstream" as the priests, then of course you'll never be able to know if you're wrong. Your standard is irrational. Majority vote is not a proper standard of knowledge acquisition.

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You still have not shown how human action has normative implications, by the way.

Tom Hickey said...

There was no "initial commons", after which "productive relations" turned into division of labor, capitalism, and ex post rationalization of rulers of capital and ruled of capital. The initial life of humans was private property. One tribe protected their scarce resource turf from other, potentially invading tribes. Economic scarcity for man appeared as soon as acting man appeared.

That's not "private property" unless you want to say that territorial animals own private property.

Private property means intra-group division either de facto or de jure, but usually de jure in the modern sense of holding title — not inter-group territorialism, although that evolutionary trait may have played a role in the development of human social territorialism and subsequently private property as a human construct. But that is an untested hypothesis until shown empirically.

Tom Hickey said...

Major Freedom et al, if you guys want to be wolves howling in the forest instead of joining the debate going on in the contemporary universe of discourse, that's your choice. But don't expect anyone to pay attention to you.

Major_Freedom said...

1/2

Tom Hickey:

"There was no "initial commons", after which "productive relations" turned into division of labor, capitalism, and ex post rationalization of rulers of capital and ruled of capital. The initial life of humans was private property. One tribe protected their scarce resource turf from other, potentially invading tribes. Economic scarcity for man appeared as soon as acting man appeared."

That's not "private property" unless you want to say that territorial animals own private property.

I am talking about human private property. I do not need to say anything about any lower animals. There can be only humans in the world and no other life but vegetation, and the same principles will be present.

Private property means intra-group division either de facto or de jure, but usually de jure in the modern sense of holding title — not inter-group territorialism

You're equivocating the term "intra-group".

If the group is the human race, then yes, there was private property! Private property as a human concept means you cannot arbitrarily divorce humans into groups, and then claim "There is commons within THESE groups!", because then I could say the same thing in capitalism, where corporations are owned by multiple investors, and each investor "shares" in the profits.

If you say this is capitalist because it "shuts out other people", namely the workers, then I will just turn it right back at you and say the same thing was true TRIBE to TRIBE, where tribe A "shared" in the profits of their property, and tribe B was excluded.

The group is a function of individual action, it is not a driver of it.

Your problem is that you are arbitrarily asserting that single individuals who own private property is when private property comes into existence, and you're denying that two or more people exercising exclusive, but "shared" control over a property, are somehow not private property owners, because now you can fuzzy logic your way into saying "there is no intra-group division in this two man community!"

Major_Freedom said...

2/2

Tom Hickey:


In other words, you're just denying private property exists for two or more shared property owners, and you're only asserting that private property exists when a single individual exercises exclusive property rights.

In other words still, you are simply antagonistic towards individual ownership. As a philosophical collectivist, your beliefs are not surprising to me. It's just ad hoc denying to the individual what you grant to groups of individuals of two or more.

although that evolutionary trait may have played a role in the development of human social territorialism and subsequently private property as a human construct. But that is an untested hypothesis until shown empirically.

It is not a human choice. It is presupposed in the very concept of acting. All action utilizes scarce means, and when scarce means are utilized by individual actors, it logically implies exclusivity. There is partial exclusivity within the private property boundaries, i.e. "My family are currently picking apples from this tree, your family can pick apples in an hour", and without the private property boundaries, i.e. "This territory belongs to our tribe's families. Your tribe's families are not allowed."

You cannot escape private property. Even if there is a shared commune, it is private property vis a vis those NOT in the shared commune.

There is nothing different in terms of exclusion, to those excluded, whether the property is owned by an individual, or two or more individuals.

No individual can survive, and no tribe can survive, or least of all, no peace can be had, if there were no exclusive property rights. Without property rights, conflict is perpetual, if not within "tribes", then from tribe to tribe.

In fact, the very act of one tribe violently/coercively appropriating another tribe's property, would itself be acts of exercising property rights. It would be acts of "This is not yours, it is mine" person to person. If tribes were not so violent, then they would ipso facto be displaying respect for private property rights.

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:

Major Freedom et al, if you guys want to be wolves howling in the forest instead of joining the debate going on in the contemporary universe of discourse, that's your choice.

We are joining the debates. You are mistaking disagreement for non-engagement.

But don't expect anyone to pay attention to you.

That's what an intellectual follower would say.

And you keep telling me that I have to worry about being accepted by the majority of philosophers, where I have to change my views. How can you be such an intellectual con man? How can you have such low integrity, that you would rather be in agreement with others, than being right?

You're not a very good philosopher. Good philosophers are willing to buck trends and blaze their own trails, not play follow the leader and fear eye rolling as if it's the end of the world.

Is it because you can't get a job working FOR them if you don't follow them? Then start your own philosophical school.

Why are you so weak minded? I would hate myself if I thought like you did. I would feel like a sell out.

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You still have not shown how praxeology has normative implications.

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:

It is quite astonishing that you commit the fallacy of authority and of ad populum over and over again, and not even grasp that you're even doing it.

When I make arguments to you, your hand waving referencing to unnamed other philosophers, the constant barrage of "Nobody will believe you!" follow the leader sillyness, only shows me that you are not interested in ideas as you ostensibly present yourself to be

You're interested in appearances. In being accepted by masters. In agreeing with the majority.

Your logic is really quite weak, I have to say. It's no wonder you have to make up for it by responding to my arguments with references to popularity, as if there is no other way for you to compete.