Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

To backtrack to the original topic:

Mises put forward the argument that (essentially) a non-capitalist system would fail due to a lack of the information provided by the market, most specifically prices. Of course the target of this economic critique was specifically socialism/communism due to it's era. Regardless of what non-capitalist system utilized or named, this problem still remains. Attempts at various levels of a "mixed economy" run into the same problem but only partially. The heavier the ratio towards socialism, the more problems arise.

Re: No difference between the failing of free markets/communism. This economic difference between a free market approach and some other approach is a major distinguishment between itself other theories/ideologies.

There is certainly requisite a certain amount of reasonableness which will be dependent on place, time, and individuals. I think a anarcho-capitalistic society gives the best chance for resolving inevitable contentions of various sorts due to it's overall flexibility. An understanding of economic laws is critical though to reduce the amount of these misunderstandings, most especially protectionism. To understand we are made mutually and universally richer through division of labor and free trade instead of seeing any success other than our own as limiting or "endangering". Protectionism is a mask for pure envy, to the detriment of all involved. The ultimate point of the work of people like Bastiat is that protectionism actually makes the purported benefactor(s) of protectionist policies poorer in the long run than they would be otherwise. It only makes them temporarily, relatively richer.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I think you'll get a kick out of this Dak. It was funded by the New Deal.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2taApjVSogQ&feature=related[/ame]

 

[Dak]

I'll try and watch it when I get a chance. Mises.org has been posting a lot of Bastiat excerpts lately and the style and reach is amazing for his time and place. The hardcover collection is pricey, but I need to get my hands at least on the pocket edition. $15 isn't too bad.

 

[Einherjar86]

I want to keep responding to your posts, but I seriously spent way too much time on that last run. I'll try and post something this weekend; unfortunately, graduate study in English doesn't really allow ample time for arguing about abstract politics. As far as the program is concerned, I need to actually read more about it before my opinions mean anything.

So, it's off to Villette and Chaucer.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I'll try and watch it when I get a chance. Mises.org has been posting a lot of Bastiat excerpts lately and the style and reach is amazing for his time and place. The hardcover collection is pricey, but I need to get my hands at least on the pocket edition. $15 isn't too bad.

The film is interesting because it brings up profound evidence of how government subsidized capitalism and government land policies led to the dust bowl, but then it completely diverts the fact that government subsidized it and goes on to blame it all on capitalism.

I'm actually not too surprised that a man like Bastiat came out of early 19th century France considering the wide ranging political movements and numerous political overthrows that took place in France at that time. None the less, Bastiat is a compelling read.

 

[Einherjar86]

There's a really unique dynamic in philosophy emerging on the Continent during the early to mid 19th century: Bastiat, Proudhon, Marx, and eventually Nietzsche (a bit later).

 

[Dak]

British have invaded 9 out of 10 countries throughout history.

 

[Einherjar86]

That's crazy, but I don't disbelieve it.

However, I'd just point out that several of those countries weren't actually countries when the British invaded. Still doesn't justify their actions though.

 

[Zephyrus]

Also, the definition of invade is worth pondering.

 

[Dak]

I think it was based on loose characterizations of the geographical/cartographic layout of the earth, with "British" basically being whatever the inhabitants happened to be of the main isle at the time, and invade meant pretty much any armed excursion/incursion. That's still not a legacy to be proud of imo.

Obviously "Great Britain" did not invade each country as we recognize them post WWII.

 

[Dak]

Zero Hedge GP: Fourth Turning "Winter is Coming"

Of course we can't know how this is all going to shake out, but this is an interesting read if nothing else.

 

[Einherjar86]

That link keeps directing me to a blank page.

In other news:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/science/possible-breakthrough-in-maths-abc-conjecture.html?_r=0

On Aug. 30, with no fanfare, Shinichi Mochizuki, a mathematician at Kyoto University in Japan, dropped onto the Internet four papers.

The papers, encompassing 500 pages and four years of effort, claim to solve an important problem in number theory known as the abc conjecture. (No, it does not involve the alphabet; it has to do with integers and prime numbers, and the letters represent mathematical variables used in equations.)

 

[Dak]

Link is working now.

 

[Einherjar86]

Nice! Thanks.

Not to hammer the point home, but I came across this quote today that really clarifies 20th-century theory's problem with Hegel:

Had Hegel's philosophy of history embraced this age, Hitler's robot-bombs would have found their place beside the early death of Alexander and similar images, as one of the selected empirical facts by which the state of the world-spirit manifests itself directly in symbols. Like Fascism itself, the robots career without a subject. Like it they combine utmost technical perfection with total blindness. And like it they arouse mortal terror and are wholly futile. 'I have seen the world spirit', not on horseback, but on wings and without a head, and that refutes, at the same stroke, Hegel's philosophy of history.

~Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia

 

[Dak]

To rephrase, to clarify for my certainty of understanding:

The idea that history is a steady progressive march is ridiculous.

 

[Einherjar86]

In short, yes; but there's more to it than that.

Adorno is extremely caustic toward any theory that justifies the annihilation of the Jews in WWII, as Hegel's does by recontextualizing the Holocaust within the transcendental, progressive movement of the world-spirit.

Hegel is very much a product of the Romantic mentality, and a catastrophe of the degree such like that of the Holocaust would have been historically inconceivable to him; the combination of radical nationalism, technological extremism, and ethno-religious bigotry would never have congealed in Hegel's mind, and if he had been alive in the 20th century, he likely would have been a Holocaust denier. That's my opinion, at least.

Adorno's criticism isn't just that history isn't teleological; it's that dialectics always inevitably invite antitheses, and in such a redundant cycle of positives and negatives any notion of "progress" becomes absurd.

 

[Dak]

Jews were a cup in the bucket of the total annihilation wrought by WWII, as well as in cousin totalitarian regimes outside the scope of war-caused deaths. The catastrophe is much bigger, and partially a product of the "Hegelian" mentality.

 

[Einherjar86]

Indeed. The Nazis envisioned themselves as bringing about the "end of history" that Hegel postulated.

Adorno has a vested interest in the Holocaust. He's Jewish.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Thought this was adorable.

 

[Dak]

It's fucking sad is what it is.