Path to Socialism

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Well, then define altruism?

Man sets boundaries. Law is the result. That's

why laws have to be based on something

other than the current emotion. When laws are

passed that restrict something on society that

good people don't need, but are penalized by

the law, that law ends up causing more problems

than they fix.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sigmtnman]

Great thread sigmtnman.

I always thought C.S. Lewis summed it up nicely.

And speaking of Thomas Sowell AR,

Thanks! Those are most excellent quotes.

[RobertNashville]

Well, then define altruism?

Man sets boundaries. Law is the result. That's

why laws have to be based on something

other than the current emotion. When laws are

passed that restrict something on society that

good people don't need, but are penalized by

the law, that law ends up causing more problems

than they fix.

I really can't believe you don't know what altruism means (or selflessness for that matter given that they are synonyms for each other)???

Yes, laws need to be based on more than current (or old) emotion...I wasn't trying to say otherwise. And yes, some laws, even many, are unneeded and only serve to restrict that good acts of good people; other laws are very necessary, even if they impact individual freedom.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

He is a very interesting fellow indeed who put most if not all of his ideas out in the open, for better or worse. I too agree with him on many things, but I treat him like a buffet where I can pick and choose what I want and leave the rest.

Never came across as a big-gov guy to me, but I've also not read his books or seen all of his interviews and lectures, so it's quite possible I've just missed those points. There was one interview where he wanted to do away with 10 of 14 cabinets though, IIRC. He was also in favor of doing away with most if not all regulations and relying on personal liability and tort to self regulate the marketplace and personal behavior.

One thing I don't necessarily agree on was his view on foreign relations using defense. His fear of authoritarian governments spreading was the source of a bit of cognitive dissonance with regards to having a proactive defense against their spread, which would seem to go against his anti coercion views. Although this is still foggy in my mind and as with most things open for debate.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the negative income tax thing, but it seems to be one of the ideas he was kicking around in order to wean folks off of big-gov. I'm not sold on it, but equally unsure of how to do away with welfare without cold turkey shock. Here is a good vid with Buckley about it.

Thanks for posting those vids. I've seen them before and watched them again and my take away is a bit different. Him being an academic, it's my opinion that most of the time he was assuming the operation of most of his ideas in concert with a different overall foundation in place. It's funny about the Bernank. Alan Greenspan was a student, so to speak, of Ayn Rand but he went on to act in direct opposition to many of her philosophies. Friedman's concepts on monetary policy were based on a much smaller government that did not perform bailouts of failed industries. It was my perspective that he also did not agree with the unrestricted expansion of dollars for fear of inflation. What he was saying about the Federal Reserve seems to be true, in that during the depression the Fed did not distribute as many dollars as it should have, which caused banks to not have enough dollars to pay out, leading to the overall lack of trust in the system and the subsequent deflation.

Guess the "big gov" thing comes from some of his ideas on monetary policy, but in a nation with millions of people ya got to have money and I guess it is near unavoidably a big-gov enterprise managing the money supply. An unavoidable skunkworks maybe. In some of the videos he gives credit to keynes as being a brilliant economist. Keynes really did make valid discoveries. It just isn't a technique that can long-term viably work to moderate economies. Kinda like heroin is a fabulous painkiller but just because it is a wonderful drug for certain problems, doesn't mean it is good to take every time you have a headache.

Keynes was strongly against inflation as far as that goes. But it doesn't keep keynsians from "regulating" the economy by decades of intentional "controlled inflation". Bernanke is doing what Friedman said the fed should have done in the great depression, printing lots of money. So far, using modern inflation measurements, inflation hasn't been "real bad" but it is being measured "wrong" nowadays according to some folks. I kinda have a feeling that there are factors Friedman, Keynes, Bernanke, most of those guys are missing about what goes wrong with economies sometimes, but dunno what exactly. They were real puzzled by the 1970-1980 stagflation. Dunno if anyone really knows what caused that exactly, or what exactly fixed it. Maybe somebody knows and I'm too ignorant to know where to look. There are many theories on the matter. Somebody gets sick, you pray, then the patient got better. Did the prayer make him get better or would he have got better anyway?

I suppose the negative income tax is one of those things that would likely be better than the patchwork of social programs, but probably could never get passed. I thought it was a real good idea back in the day when I was working in social programs for a living.

Some of the things Friedman says in the videos you posted, people just naturally see problems then they want to pass laws to fix the problems. In theory even if cancelling all social programs might be "better" it is politically unattainable due to people's desire to fix things with laws? If we could get rid of them, then people would see problems that need fixing and vote in commies to institute new welfare programs. So maybe the best we can do with a bad situation is to have the best-working least onerous social welfare programs, so maybe people won't be so upset they vote in commies to pass new laws and screw it up even worse?

That "pragmatism" is kinda how I look at it-- Food stamps is better than a mass uprising of voters electing commies. But a neg income tax might be better than the mishmash of programs. Wipe out everything from food stamps to social security, replace the whole shebang with neg income tax. Back when I was taking some social policy courses, there was a social policy history textbook called "regulating the poor". The title says it all-- Many programs actually probably accidentally do some good, but the purpose either intentional or accidental is control rather than help the people. Guaranteed minimum income would be least expensive compared to the mishmash of programs, but it would take away all the gov's power to regulate po folks.

I occasionally see interesting stuff that looks like benefit from other nations' minimum income laws, but am very ignorant and maybe I misunderstand what I see. Ferinstance there are some open-source european programmers I "know" who might well be practically living on the dole in scandinavian nations, but they are writing some damn fine open source free code that benefits everybody, for the fun of it. So the dole to those guys actually does seem to benefit the world even if they don't have a "real job". Similarly, if a fella doesn't have to worry about rent and food then it is almost ideal situation for the guy to polish up products or inventions and start companies, eventually making taxable money to keep the system going.

Then again for each one of those guys, maybe there are a thousand who would take the free money and watch opra or play video games 24/7.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I really can't believe you don't know what altruism means (or selflessness for that matter given that they are synonyms for each other)???

Yes, laws need to be based on more than current (or old) emotion...I wasn't trying to say otherwise. And yes, some laws, even many, are unneeded and only serve to restrict that good acts of good people; other laws are very necessary, even if they impact individual freedom.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html

Sorry if that doesn't show up as a link.

Robert, There's the definition I accept

as altruism, be it acceptable or not.

I know there are others, but that is

where I am coming from.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RobertNashville]

http://aynrandlexico...n/altruism.html

Sorry if that doesn't show up as a link.

Robert, There's the definition I accept

as altruism, be it acceptable or not.

I know there are others, but that is

where I am coming from.

That sure isn't where I'm coming from...I'm certainly not using the word to espouse a "moral code" or as a way of explaining why we are here; just a good 'ol dictionary definition such as "fbehavior that shows a desire to help other people and a lack of selfishness".

Whatever one may think of "why we are here" as your link ascribes to the word, acting unselfishly is, I believe, something worth striving to do and certainly not something incompatible with individual liberty and actually. It seems to me that it's only with liberty that we have the opportunity to act unselfishly.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I don't have firm opinion about what is desirable amount of altruism or what it means exactly. Some of human nature is programmed from living in a society and some is built-in. Progressives of all stripe, and many religious perhaps have too much faith in the amount that basic human nature is determined by rearing and education. People can be "improved" somewhat but maybe not as much as some people expect.

Human nature is surprisingly mutable though. One of the useful things of the study of cultural anthropology is the vast range of "human nature" depending on what tribe a person was raised in.

There are many flavors of anarchic philosophy. The commie anarchists think that a society can operate without gov and without private property and without coercion, assuming everybody is of the nature that they just naturally "do what's right" to fit in. Complete freedom of action and freedom from want, because each person only takes what he needs, and looks around to find unsatisfied wants, and works to fill those wants for other people in the society. It kinda sorta occasionally works in small groups, but I suspect it routinely fails because it expects human nature to be too mutable. If you could select only the selfless saints and reject the 99 percent of the rest it would likely work.

The "star trek economy" is similar to that idea. You can look it up if interested. The economy supposedly in operation in the Federation of the star trek universe.

Free market capitalism works pretty well to provide lots of "stuff" because it assumes (as others have mentioned) that the greatest good comes from people non-violently engaging in selfish trade and competition. It does seem to yield societies that are relatively wealthy top-to-bottom. The reason often given for the success is that buying/selling from selfish profit motive tends to be most efficient in allocation of resources, compared to various command economies. If a product or service doesn't fulfill a need, nobody buys it and therefore people don't bother wasting time and resources producing the product or service that nobody will buy.

An interesting variant that may have advantages, but doesn't tend toward a society that has a lot of "stuff" is the potlatch cultures of far-north american indian tribes. Status comes not from accumulating lots of stuff. Status comes from making/gathering lots of stuff, then giving it away. And then the recipients of the gifts feel honor-bound to return gifts of equivalent value. One source of conflict is if a rich fella either thru ignorance or arrogance, gives a poor fella "too big" a gift. It is an insult to refuse the gift, and it is an insult to give a gift too expensive for the recipient to try to return in equivalent value. So rich folks can "lord it over" po folks by giving them stuff they can never repay. However, sometimes it make the po folks so insulted and angry that it turns into fights and somebody might end up dead over it.

It is interesting that a society based on giving rather than selling works pretty well. The proof being that if it didn't work pretty well the customs wouldn't have lasted for thousands of years. However, cultures based on giving don't seem to make people on-average as materially wealthy as cultures based on buying/selling.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That sure isn't where I'm coming from...I'm certainly not using the word to espouse a "moral code" or as a way of explaining why we are here; just a good 'ol dictionary definition such as "fbehavior that shows a desire to help other people and a lack of selfishness".

Whatever one may think of "why we are here" as your link ascribes to the word, acting unselfishly is, I believe, something worth striving to do and certainly not something incompatible with individual liberty and actually. It seems to me that it's only with liberty that we have the opportunity to act unselfishly.

And I have the same feelings that you do. I am a charitable person, I think, but I won't do it because of guilt or someone else's

desire for me to do it. I do things for other people when I see that they will benefit and wish to drag themselves up out of the

mire by showing value. If I see someone struggling to improve themselves and not getting anywhere, or getting somewhere

slowly, I usually choose to help someone like that.

My duty is to myself and my family first. If I can't do that, I don't have any business trying to do for others until I succed there,

first.

I agree, liberty is required for one to freely choose to help another. That's where I part with the '"traditional" definitions of altruism.

I was not always this way, and would give the shirt off my back to a stranger, but thankfully I grew out of that.

I have finally broken myself away from using words like "ought" and "should" when talking to others who may have asked advice

or asked for help. That one took me years because of the way they were used towards me for a long time.

You and I aren't that different. The evil is when one is forced to have an altruistic position.

[sigmtnman]

Guess the "big gov" thing comes from some of his ideas on monetary policy, but in a nation with millions of people ya got to have money and I guess it is near unavoidably a big-gov enterprise managing the money supply. An unavoidable skunkworks maybe. In some of the videos he gives credit to keynes as being a brilliant economist. Keynes really did make valid discoveries. It just isn't a technique that can long-term viably work to moderate economies. Kinda like heroin is a fabulous painkiller but just because it is a wonderful drug for certain problems, doesn't mean it is good to take every time you have a headache.

Keynes was strongly against inflation as far as that goes. But it doesn't keep keynsians from "regulating" the economy by decades of intentional "controlled inflation". Bernanke is doing what Friedman said the fed should have done in the great depression, printing lots of money. So far, using modern inflation measurements, inflation hasn't been "real bad" but it is being measured "wrong" nowadays according to some folks. I kinda have a feeling that there are factors Friedman, Keynes, Bernanke, most of those guys are missing about what goes wrong with economies sometimes, but dunno what exactly. They were real puzzled by the 1970-1980 stagflation. Dunno if anyone really knows what caused that exactly, or what exactly fixed it. Maybe somebody knows and I'm too ignorant to know where to look. There are many theories on the matter. Somebody gets sick, you pray, then the patient got better. Did the prayer make him get better or would he have got better anyway?

I suppose the negative income tax is one of those things that would likely be better than the patchwork of social programs, but probably could never get passed. I thought it was a real good idea back in the day when I was working in social programs for a living.

Some of the things Friedman says in the videos you posted, people just naturally see problems then they want to pass laws to fix the problems. In theory even if cancelling all social programs might be "better" it is politically unattainable due to people's desire to fix things with laws? If we could get rid of them, then people would see problems that need fixing and vote in commies to institute new welfare programs. So maybe the best we can do with a bad situation is to have the best-working least onerous social welfare programs, so maybe people won't be so upset they vote in commies to pass new laws and screw it up even worse?

That "pragmatism" is kinda how I look at it-- Food stamps is better than a mass uprising of voters electing commies. But a neg income tax might be better than the mishmash of programs. Wipe out everything from food stamps to social security, replace the whole shebang with neg income tax. Back when I was taking some social policy courses, there was a social policy history textbook called "regulating the poor". The title says it all-- Many programs actually probably accidentally do some good, but the purpose either intentional or accidental is control rather than help the people. Guaranteed minimum income would be least expensive compared to the mishmash of programs, but it would take away all the gov's power to regulate po folks.

I occasionally see interesting stuff that looks like benefit from other nations' minimum income laws, but am very ignorant and maybe I misunderstand what I see. Ferinstance there are some open-source european programmers I "know" who might well be practically living on the dole in scandinavian nations, but they are writing some damn fine open source free code that benefits everybody, for the fun of it. So the dole to those guys actually does seem to benefit the world even if they don't have a "real job". Similarly, if a fella doesn't have to worry about rent and food then it is almost ideal situation for the guy to polish up products or inventions and start companies, eventually making taxable money to keep the system going.

Then again for each one of those guys, maybe there are a thousand who would take the free money and watch opra or play video games 24/7.

Yes, I am familiar with Keynesian economics but in listening to Milton I gathered that while he thought he was brilliant, he did not completely agree with his ideas and points out that the government has no business doing deficit spending and creating inflation. Perhaps I misunderstand him but at 4:38 in that Gold standard video you posted he starts talking about the Fed having enough gold to back more dollars, but they did not do so. He then goes on to talk about how keynesian economics has caused inflation and how it was a godsend for politicians and condemns it extended use. Here is a video with the rest of what he was saying in the Gold Standard vid.

I've never paid close enough attention to his monetary policy ideas over the last few years, I've been trying to learn more about it and economics, since it relates directly to liberty and conversely, serfdom.

Edited August 17, 2012 by sigmtnman

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I don't have firm opinion about what is desirable amount of altruism or what it means exactly. Some of human nature is programmed from living in a society and some is built-in. Progressives of all stripe, and many religious perhaps have too much faith in the amount that basic human nature is determined by rearing and education. People can be "improved" somewhat but maybe not as much as some people expect.

Human nature is surprisingly mutable though. One of the useful things of the study of cultural anthropology is the vast range of "human nature" depending on what tribe a person was raised in.

There are many flavors of anarchic philosophy. The commie anarchists think that a society can operate without gov and without private property and without coercion, assuming everybody is of the nature that they just naturally "do what's right" to fit in. Complete freedom of action and freedom from want, because each person only takes what he needs, and looks around to find unsatisfied wants, and works to fill those wants for other people in the society. It kinda sorta occasionally works in small groups, but I suspect it routinely fails because it expects human nature to be too mutable. If you could select only the selfless saints and reject the 99 percent of the rest it would likely work.

The "star trek economy" is similar to that idea. You can look it up if interested. The economy supposedly in operation in the Federation of the star trek universe.

Free market capitalism works pretty well to provide lots of "stuff" because it assumes (as others have mentioned) that the greatest good comes from people non-violently engaging in selfish trade and competition. It does seem to yield societies that are relatively wealthy top-to-bottom. The reason often given for the success is that buying/selling from selfish profit motive tends to be most efficient in allocation of resources, compared to various command economies. If a product or service doesn't fulfill a need, nobody buys it and therefore people don't bother wasting time and resources producing the product or service that nobody will buy.

An interesting variant that may have advantages, but doesn't tend toward a society that has a lot of "stuff" is the potlatch cultures of far-north american indian tribes. Status comes not from accumulating lots of stuff. Status comes from making/gathering lots of stuff, then giving it away. And then the recipients of the gifts feel honor-bound to return gifts of equivalent value. One source of conflict is if a rich fella either thru ignorance or arrogance, gives a poor fella "too big" a gift. It is an insult to refuse the gift, and it is an insult to give a gift too expensive for the recipient to try to return in equivalent value. So rich folks can "lord it over" po folks by giving them stuff they can never repay. However, sometimes it make the po folks so insulted and angry that it turns into fights and somebody might end up dead over it.

It is interesting that a society based on giving rather than selling works pretty well. The proof being that if it didn't work pretty well the customs wouldn't have lasted for thousands of years. However, cultures based on giving don't seem to make people on-average as materially wealthy as cultures based on buying/selling.

Hey Lester,

You always put more stuff in my head that I take time to digest, but I have one question, now. Where in the world has pure free market

capitalism ever been allowed to work by it's own devices without restraints of some kind? I like your explanation of free market capitalism

but that hasn't ever been allowed, except in a book. We are the closest example of it, yet it isn't close to being pure here, with all of the

restraints the government puts on it, and most everyone's displeasure with the Fed( they manipulate the devil out of it every minute of

each day).

[sigmtnman]

...Yes, laws need to be based on more than current (or old) emotion...I wasn't trying to say otherwise. And yes, some laws, even many, are unneeded and only serve to restrict that good acts of good people; other laws are very necessary, even if they impact individual freedom.

Which laws that impact individual freedom are necessary and what would be used as the basis for determining them, keeping in mind that freedom ends where another persons chin/nose begins? (Murder, rape and theft do not fall under individual freedom as they directly impact another person's freedom)

[RobertNashville]

Which laws that impact individual freedom are necessary and what would be used as the basis for determining them, keeping in mind that freedom ends where another persons chin/nose begins? (Murder, rape and theft do not fall under individual freedom as they directly impact another person's freedom)

Most laws impact individual freedom, including murder, rape, and theft. I don't make my decisions about what laws are needed based only on the model any more than I base it on emotion.

Unbridled capitalism; unbridled individual liberty/freedom can become just as onerous as unbridled communism. While we could do without many of our laws the majority of them came from a need to address behavior that was not in the best interests of society.

As has been said, if all men were angles we wouldn't need any laws at all...but men aren't so we do.

[sigmtnman]

Most laws impact individual freedom, including murder, rape, and theft. I don't make my decisions about what laws are needed based only on the model any more than I base it on emotion.

Unbridled capitalism; unbridled individual liberty/freedom can become just as onerous as unbridled communism. While we could do without many of our laws the majority of them came from a need to address behavior that was not in the best interests of society.

As has been said, if all men were angles we wouldn't need any laws at all...but men aren't so we do.

The problem you seem to have with it is how you define personal freedom as opposed to how the libertarian defines personal freedom.

The libertarian believes that your freedom ends where another persons freedom begins. This absolutely precludes freedom from including murdering, rape, theft and anything else that directly affects another persons freedoms.

What the libertarian believes is that you cannot and should not regulate things or behaviors that do not have a direct impact on someone else. Those are the laws that lead to socialism/communism/big government. If your behavior which is not regulated affects another persons property, then you are liable for the outcome, regardless of the actions which led to the outcome.

Your argument is exactly why we are not allowed to carry guns without privilege, licensing, etc. A section of society has decided that guns cause violence and that they should be highly regulated or illegal. This is regardless of the fact that either negligence, intent to harm another person or bad luck was the true reason.

No where have I suggested unbridled anarcho-capitalism and I don't understand why you are hung up on that.

Edited August 17, 2012 by sigmtnman

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The problem with unbridled capitalism/individual liberty and freedom is that it has never been allowed to exist to prove otherwise.

Anything can morph into something else, given the right ingredients. But something that has never really been tried that is based

on freedom might be given the benefit of success or failure based on its own merit. Communism keeps on failing and the damned

fools keep on resurrecting it, saying it hasn't been tried "this way".

Our Constitution is about as good a document as can be, yet it has been bastardized by altruism(Rand's definition) and other

do-gooders with less than honorable intentions, namely communism.

[sigmtnman]

The problem with unbridled capitalism/individual liberty and freedom is that it has never been allowed to exist to prove otherwise.

Anything can morph into something else, given the right ingredients. But something that has never really been tried that is based

on freedom might be given the benefit of success or failure based on its own merit. Communism keeps on failing and the damned

fools keep on resurrecting it, saying it hasn't been tried "this way".

Our Constitution is about as good a document as can be, yet it has been bastardized by altruism(Rand's definition) and other

do-gooders with less than honorable intentions, namely communism.

Do-gooders do not see themselves as such. They see themselves as merely putting required restraints on other peoples activities. Of course, the do-gooder is without sin and is infallible and knows what is best for society. What is really sad is that many times the do-gooder, without knowledge, falls under the control of those who "affect to trade" for the good of society while benefiting from said trade.

People die in car wrecks, seatbelts should be mandatory. People die on motorcycles, helmets should be mandatory. Kids die falling off bicycles, bicycle helmets should be mandatory. People die from gunshots, guns should be banned. Someone gets a bad plumber, all plumbers should be licensed. People get sick and die because they can't afford healthcare, govt should provide universal healthcare. People are homeless because they can't afford a house, the government should provide housing. Workers don't like their pay, they form a union and strike for more money instead of acquiring different skills and changing to a job that pays more or starting a business providing the well paying jobs they wish to have. etc, etc, etc.

On down the slippery slope till we are bubble wrapped social/communist/collectivism.

Edited August 17, 2012 by sigmtnman

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yes, I am familiar with Keynesian economics but in listening to Milton I gathered that while he thought he was brilliant, he did not completely agree with his ideas and points out that the government has no business doing deficit spending and creating inflation. Perhaps I misunderstand him but at 4:38 in that Gold standard video you posted he starts talking about the Fed having enough gold to back more dollars, but they did not do so. He then goes on to talk about how keynesian economics has caused inflation and how it was a godsend for politicians and condemns it extended use. Here is a video with the rest of what he was saying in the Gold Standard vid.

Thanks sigmtnman. I didn't imply that Friedman approved of policies using Keynes principles, just that Friedman rightly credits Keynes with significant discoveries. Dunno econ or anything else, but it is a modern "conservative meme" that Keynes was full-of-crap front to back. Keynes' discoveries were groundbreaking even if they are not appropriate control knobs with which to long-term-regulate the economy. Good science can be applied to unwise engineering that has too many unintended consequences for safe use. Maybe if Adam Smith was the Newton of economics, then maybe Keynes would be a Gauss, Faraday or Maxwell of economics. Just because somebody might do something unwise using Maxwell's equations, doesn't mean that Maxwell was full of crap. Because some ag company might release franken-corn that makes people sick, doesn't imply that Watson and Crick got it all wrong about the configuration of DNA. Some rather unwise policies have been instituted invoking the name of Adam Smith, as far as that goes.

Along the same lines, people with significant discoveries don't discover "the last word final truth" they just get a closer approximation to the truth.

Dunno econ, but another thing that bugs me is the modern "conservative meme" that [keynsian stimulus = bad] but [tax cuts = good], when tax cuts are just another form of keynsian stimulus. Especially when tax cuts are paired with deficit spending. The mantra that keynsian stumulus doesn't work but tax cuts always work. There are cases where keynsian stimulus (including the tax cut variant) worked, and there are cases where neither one worked worth a damn. From the end of WWII until the early 1970's, economists had got cocky thinking they had figured out how to regulate the economy with only a few simple knobs. Interest rate the most important of the knobs. Then the knobs quit working during stagflation, but we muddled thru and afterwards economists got cocky again. We are in the midst of another "loss of control accident" that started in the late 1990's where the controls quit working, or at least they quit giving the expected results.

My bias is that the system is so chaotic that it is uncontrollable and anything we do to modulate the system just sends impulses into the system which result in a more chaotic system in the future. We change a law today and then everything falls apart 10 years from now as an inintended consequence. If the economy is a complex resonant infinite impulse system, like a bell. Every time we adjust interest rates or pass new financial law it is slapping the bell with a hammer. Elect D's and they slap the bell with a sledge hammer, and then elect R's and they slap the bell another spot with a sledge hammer, building up stored energy and potential chaos with every whack.

OTOH somebody has to regulate the money supply in some fashion, so we can't just completely let go of the stick and let the plane do what it will. There is the other issue that if we don't somewhat control it, then others will grab the stick and steer the plane for their own benefit. Bad actors with sufficient money can manipulate the ups and downs of the economy for their own profit.

[sigmtnman]

I don't have firm opinion about what is desirable amount of altruism or what it means exactly. Some of human nature is programmed from living in a society and some is built-in. Progressives of all stripe, and many religious perhaps have too much faith in the amount that basic human nature is determined by rearing and education. People can be "improved" somewhat but maybe not as much as some people expect.

Human nature is surprisingly mutable though. One of the useful things of the study of cultural anthropology is the vast range of "human nature" depending on what tribe a person was raised in.

There are many flavors of anarchic philosophy. The commie anarchists think that a society can operate without gov and without private property and without coercion, assuming everybody is of the nature that they just naturally "do what's right" to fit in. Complete freedom of action and freedom from want, because each person only takes what he needs, and looks around to find unsatisfied wants, and works to fill those wants for other people in the society. It kinda sorta occasionally works in small groups, but I suspect it routinely fails because it expects human nature to be too mutable. If you could select only the selfless saints and reject the 99 percent of the rest it would likely work.

The "star trek economy" is similar to that idea. You can look it up if interested. The economy supposedly in operation in the Federation of the star trek universe.

Free market capitalism works pretty well to provide lots of "stuff" because it assumes (as others have mentioned) that the greatest good comes from people non-violently engaging in selfish trade and competition. It does seem to yield societies that are relatively wealthy top-to-bottom. The reason often given for the success is that buying/selling from selfish profit motive tends to be most efficient in allocation of resources, compared to various command economies. If a product or service doesn't fulfill a need, nobody buys it and therefore people don't bother wasting time and resources producing the product or service that nobody will buy.

An interesting variant that may have advantages, but doesn't tend toward a society that has a lot of "stuff" is the potlatch cultures of far-north american indian tribes. Status comes not from accumulating lots of stuff. Status comes from making/gathering lots of stuff, then giving it away. And then the recipients of the gifts feel honor-bound to return gifts of equivalent value. One source of conflict is if a rich fella either thru ignorance or arrogance, gives a poor fella "too big" a gift. It is an insult to refuse the gift, and it is an insult to give a gift too expensive for the recipient to try to return in equivalent value. So rich folks can "lord it over" po folks by giving them stuff they can never repay. However, sometimes it make the po folks so insulted and angry that it turns into fights and somebody might end up dead over it.

It is interesting that a society based on giving rather than selling works pretty well. The proof being that if it didn't work pretty well the customs wouldn't have lasted for thousands of years. However, cultures based on giving don't seem to make people on-average as materially wealthy as cultures based on buying/selling.

The tribe most people are raised in today is the Federal School tribe with a topping of the TV reality. In many cases parent are forced to work to provide food, electricity and shelter due to inflation, while many choose to work to have nice things instead of taking the time to raise and educate their kids.

The potlatch cultures sound like pay it forward sort gone wrong. You would think that actions could be of as much value as "stuff" given as gifts. Don't know anything about them though other than what you just described.

I'd say the giving thing was different in a time when most things given were more than likely made by the giver. In our age of disposable consumerism the giving seems to be just taken for granted do due the lack of time necessary to pick up trinkets from wal mart created on the backs of cheap labor.

I always found this bit from Monty Python humorous:

[sigmtnman]

Thanks sigmtnman. I didn't imply that Friedman approved of policies using Keynes principles, just that Friedman rightly credits Keynes with significant discoveries. Dunno econ or anything else, but it is a modern "conservative meme" that Keynes was full-of-crap front to back. Keynes' discoveries were groundbreaking even if they are not appropriate control knobs with which to long-term-regulate the economy. Good science can be applied to unwise engineering that has too many unintended consequences for safe use. Maybe if Adam Smith was the Newton of economics, then maybe Keynes would be a Gauss, Faraday or Maxwell of economics. Just because somebody might do something unwise using Maxwell's equations, doesn't mean that Maxwell was full of crap. Because some ag company might release franken-corn that makes people sick, doesn't imply that Watson and Crick got it all wrong about the configuration of DNA. Some rather unwise policies have been instituted invoking the name of Adam Smith, as far as that goes.

Along the same lines, people with significant discoveries don't discover "the last word final truth" they just get a closer approximation to the truth.

Dunno econ, but another thing that bugs me is the modern "conservative meme" that [keynsian stimulus = bad] but [tax cuts = good], when tax cuts are just another form of keynsian stimulus. Especially when tax cuts are paired with deficit spending. The mantra that keynsian stumulus doesn't work but tax cuts always work. There are cases where keynsian stimulus (including the tax cut variant) worked, and there are cases where neither one worked worth a damn. From the end of WWII until the early 1970's, economists had got cocky thinking they had figured out how to regulate the economy with only a few simple knobs. Interest rate the most important of the knobs. Then the knobs quit working during stagflation, but we muddled thru and afterwards economists got cocky again. We are in the midst of another "loss of control accident" that started in the late 1990's where the controls quit working, or at least they quit giving the expected results.

My bias is that the system is so chaotic that it is uncontrollable and anything we do to modulate the system just sends impulses into the system which result in a more chaotic system in the future. We change a law today and then everything falls apart 10 years from now as an inintended consequence. If the economy is a complex resonant infinite impulse system, like a bell. Every time we adjust interest rates or pass new financial law it is slapping the bell with a hammer. Elect D's and they slap the bell with a sledge hammer, and then elect R's and they slap the bell another spot with a sledge hammer, building up stored energy and potential chaos with every whack.

OTOH somebody has to regulate the money supply in some fashion, so we can't just completely let go of the stick and let the plane do what it will. There is the other issue that if we don't somewhat control it, then others will grab the stick and steer the plane for their own benefit. Bad actors with sufficient money can manipulate the ups and downs of the economy for their own profit.

Thanks for taking the time to explain what you meant and I agree with you.

Tax cuts for stimulation make no sense to me since without decreasing the size of government, as you point out. Tax cuts because we should not have so big of a government meddling does. Deficit spending causes the inflation which then becomes a hidden tax as we are both aware. I'd posit that the way keyne's theories were implemented hid the problem much like a shell game. Obviously autonomous spending is what drives an economy, but to think that it can just be brought from the aether goes against common sense and the laws of nature. Unnatural dollars appearing out of thin air chasing resources, regardless of the source, equals inflation. The government gave nothing of actual value to get the dollars to pay for projects which then goes into pockets of people. The government backed loan programs unnaturally provides money to high risk persons without the risk or concern of not being payed back. That in effect is a creation of money out of thin air to chase finite resources. This is my understanding of why money must be backed by some sort of commodity that requires actual labor in order to produce it and thusly giving it inherent value.

I'll add more later...

Edited August 17, 2012 by sigmtnman

[RobertNashville]

...The definition of altruism implies that things are done with selflessness. Try to name one instance where there is not a benefit to be had by the person who believes they are acting altruistically....

I believe truly unselfish acts happen all the time; everywhere around us - not that we or other people notice most of them because such things are often done anonymously or at least, out of the public eye. However, there is one that is well documented; the man in the water http://byutv.org/see...the-Water’.aspx

The Washington Post later described Arnold and the events of that evening:

“He was about 50 years old, one of half a dozen survivors clinging to twisted wreckage bobbing in the icy Potomac when the first helicopter arrived. To the copter's two-man Park Police crew he seemed the most alert. Life vests were dropped, then a flotation ball. The man passed them to the others. On two occasions, the crew recalled last night, he handed away a life line from the hovering machine that could have dragged him to safety. The helicopter crew - who rescued five people, the only persons who survived from the jetliner - lifted a woman to the riverbank, then dragged three more persons across the ice to safety. Then the life line saved a woman who was trying to swim away from the sinking wreckage, and the helicopter pilot, Donald W. Usher, returned to the scene, but the man was gone.â€

Arnold’s heroism hit a nerve in 1982. In the days following the crash, his name quickly spread across the country. The news media praised him in all the major newspapers and publications. President Reagan even mentioned Arnold in his State of the Union address later in January. It seemed like people then needed to hear about Arnold and his actions. They needed to know that heroes were real.

I believe people like Arnold are everywhere. Quiet, unassuming people that have big, generous hearts. Arnold died to save the lives of five people he didn’t know. His story is not unlike that of the three young men who waded into freezing waters of the Sweetwater River to rescue members of the Martin Handcart Company.

Nobody even knew who Arnold was until his body was recovered days later. But I doubt that would have upset him. Real heroes don’t need recognition or praise, and Arnold was a real hero.

Now, I guess if someone wants to think that this man's selfless act was in some way motivated by selfishness then I guess that can be what people want to think but I will never agree with them.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends John 15:13 NIV

How much more so when it's done for a stranger?

Edited August 17, 2012 by RobertNashville

[RobertNashville]

The problem you seem to have with it is how you define personal freedom as opposed to how the libertarian defines personal freedom.

It isn’t a problem for me – I just see it differently.

The libertarian believes that your freedom ends where another persons freedom begins. This absolutely precludes freedom from including murdering, rape, theft and anything else that directly affects another persons freedoms.

What the libertarian believes is that you cannot and should not regulate things or behaviors that do not have a direct impact on someone else. Those are the laws that lead to socialism/communism/big government. If your behavior which is not regulated affects another persons property, then you are liable for the outcome, regardless of the actions which led to the outcome.

I believe I have a pretty good understanding of what libertarianism is and believes; that’s why I’m not a libertarian. I’m a conservative. As a conservative, there are certainly issues and areas where I agree with the libertarian view but I’m still not a libertarian.

Your argument is exactly why we are not allowed to carry guns without privilege, licensing, etc. A section of society has decided that guns cause violence and that they should be highly regulated or illegal. This is regardless of the fact that either negligence, intent to harm another person or bad luck was the true reason.

We have bad/unneeded/overly restrictive the laws because the wrong people were in office...because we have too many damn politicians and few (if any) statesmen in positions of power. I said early on (or at least prior in the thread) that there are many laws that should never have been made law and there are others that may be appropriate but are poorly constructed (or have, subsequent to enactment, have been bastardized). I count all the laws regulating firearms to be laws that should have never been passed. However, I do not see that as applying to all laws or to all laws except those that do not “regulate things or behaviors that do not have a direct impact on someone elseâ€.

No where have I suggested unbridled anarcho-capitalism and I don't understand why you are hung up on that.

I’m not hung up on it - maybe I'm just explaining my view poorly.

I believe that libertarians and anarchists hold pretty similar views except that while true anarchy (no laws at all) can and likely will lead to violence, libertarians tend to be much more peaceful and envision a world where there is prosperity and virtually no government interference at all (i.e. total personal liberty). That may be a worthy goal but I believe history has shown it to be an unobtainable one.

Edited August 17, 2012 by RobertNashville

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I believe truly unselfish acts happen all the time; everywhere around us - not that we or other people notice most of them because such things are often done anonymously or at least, out of the public eye. However, there is one that is well documented; the man in the water http://byutv.org/see...the-Water’.aspx

Now, I guess if someone wants to think that this man's selfless act was in some way motivated by selfishness then I guess that can be what people want to think but I will never agree with them.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends John 15:13 NIV

How much more so when it's done for a stranger?

You mention an heroic act. That man did an

extraordinary thing that day. I remember seeing

it unfold. I would like to think you and I would do

the same thing. I don't know his motivation, but

I would like to think he saw an opportunity to

help others he thought would otherwise not make

it and help others survive. I don't consider it to

be altruism. He did what anyone should do in that

case and he realized he could and did. Pure

selflessness in a dire situation to aid others is

a voluntary act and is the best of man, but

doesn't fit my understanding of altruism.

I never would consider how selfishness would

enter into a situation like this.

Something called virtue was involved in his

actions, Robert.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited August 17, 2012 by 6.8 AR

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Keynes ideas were groundbreaking, but they were useful only to stretch out death to an economy

rather than to provide any value to it. One can have great ideas that have no useful purpose, other

than to destroy. That's about all Keynes ideas were worth.

Otherwise, why did Stalin consider him one of his useful idiots? Stalin just gained another tool to put

in his communist tool box. Been working ever since.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Keynes ideas were groundbreaking, but they were useful only to stretch out death to an economy

rather than to provide any value to it. One can have great ideas that have no useful purpose, other

than to destroy. That's about all Keynes ideas were worth.

Otherwise, why did Stalin consider him one of his useful idiots? Stalin just gained another tool to put

in his communist tool box. Been working ever since.

Concepts in keynes work implied ways to regulate the economy, just like concepts in maxwell's equation imply ways to build a radio or concepts in einsteins work imply ways to build an atom bomb. But even if a radio or atom bomb would be the most evil invention in history, the evil-ness of the inventions wouldn't have any effect on the validity of maxwell's equations or special relativity.

Keynes contriubitons to macro economics improved understanding how the system works. We study many things that we are not likely to successfully control any time soon.

He made suggestions how to use the concepts to modulate the economy which may not be sound, but the modeling how certain things work is "basically sound" regardless whether you think it wise to twist knobs trying to control the economy. Subsequent workers expanded the ideas.

The macro economics of keynes mathematically describes how money sloshes thru the system. I can't google good diagrams but many years ago in textbooks there were fabulous diagrams illustrating the operation of the economy in terms of plumbing, reservoirs and pumps. Another neat thing I can't find at the moment, a web page I found a few months ago-- A hydraulic analog computer built by an engineer in the mid-20th century. IIRC the engineer got interested in economics in his middle age and went back to school to study economics and built his machine. That was before digital computers. His analog computer was designed to model the economy via colored fluid sloshing thru a complex system of valves and pumps. You could "model" a change of interest rate or change of import tax or a change in aggregate demand by adjusting the relevant valves, then let the system run awhile and measure the results.

Here are some links. The first link describes the "activist" position of keynsians wanting to be engineers to regulate the economy--

http://en.wikipedia....esian_economics

And these pages reference more the "nuts and bolts" concepts which have at least some validity regardless whether one thinks it wise (or even possible) to regulate the economy--

http://en.wikipedia....lier_(economics)

http://en.wikipedia....plex_multiplier

http://en.wikipedia..../Macroeconomics

http://en.wikipedia....conomic_thought

[Guest 6.8 AR]

It's that activism that kills the economy,

isn't it? Not all things discovered mean

much sometimes.

When you start creating something

from nothing, you still have pretty

much, nothing. His economics ideas

appear to have proven that after all

the application of his ideas.

Ideas and theories are all well and

good. It's the aftermath that you and

I are stuck with that hurts.

They say(somebody, not me) that

communism is great. Why is it always

a failure?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hey Lester,

You always put more stuff in my head that I take time to digest, but I have one question, now. Where in the world has pure free market

capitalism ever been allowed to work by it's own devices without restraints of some kind? I like your explanation of free market capitalism

but that hasn't ever been allowed, except in a book. We are the closest example of it, yet it isn't close to being pure here, with all of the

restraints the government puts on it, and most everyone's displeasure with the Fed( they manipulate the devil out of it every minute of

each day).

Hi 6.8

I don't know if there has ever been a total free market economy. Maybe there has been sometime or t'other. Just going purely on theory, ASSUMING that Adam Smith's invisible hand allocates resources more efficiently than central planning, then one might expect a 60 percent free market would be more efficient than a 40 percent free market? Dunno if that is testable, or if it ever has been tested. Economists get criticized as being always wrong, but the good ones are pretty good mathematicians and there are lots of em constantly writing papers for decades, so maybe somebody has tested it somehow.

I'm not imaginative enough to know what a 'workable' completely free market would look like. Do you have a picture in mind you could describe? Some "radical" libertarians envision most commecial law replaced with civil courts. A completely free market wouldn't have the gov mucking in its workings at all, right? If the gov can put somebody in jail for cheating on a biz deal, then it would be interfering in the market? So maybe if Billy Gates screws little old me on a biz deal that is pocket change on his end and everything I own on my end, and it goes to a civil court with loser-pays principle. Dollars to donuts Billy wins. Basically Billy can take whatever he wants in a "totally free market"? Or maybe I'm imagining how it would work all wrong.

Maybe I'm imagining it all wrong, but I suspect a "totally free market"-- The end game would be a small number of people and large corps that own about everything. Most people would be peons of one of the big corps, and the remaining small biz would be stuff too small for the big boys to even want-- Self-employed fruit stand operators and lawn service companies. Even if the giant corporations would have become incredibly inefficient, run by the idiot great-grandsons of the founders, they are competing against other giant corporations equally rotten-inefficient to the core, so it would be a stalemate of idiot great-grandsons competing against each other and mis-managing the world. There would be intermarriage among the corporate royalty families much like old political marriages among ancient royalty, to somewhat limit competition among the few remaining creaking giants and preserve the economic stalemate and shared stranglehold.

If some ordinary folk got to thinking maybe they are getting screwed, the media companies owned by the big boys would hire Hannity and O'Reilly to tell us that anybody who doesn't like getting screwed by idiot great-grandsons is an unpatriotic commie who opposes freedom, the flag, mom, and apple pie. The gov would become just about synonymous with big corps and mega-billionaires.

So maybe that is an overly-pessimistic view of how a totally free market would turn out. Maybe the result would be entirely different.

Tech developments might make such dystopia impossible. Ferinstance if we had revolutionary cheap energy supplies, and developments in CAD/CAM/CNC end up with each person capable of making about anything he wants in his own basement or garage, big corporations might not have much leverage to grab everything into big monopolies?