Forums of the Libertarian Left

Hi everybody, my name is Izzy. I am an Economics and Political Science major at the University of New Mexico. I am a market anarchist. For the most part, I consider my economic views to be Misesian and I do consider Mises as my favorite economist. My favorite book of all time is Walden by Henry Thoreau. Even though I do not agree with much of left libertarian philosophy, I am sympathetic to it and am interested in the subject

Why do you like Misesian economic views so much? What's so attractive about it?

Well shit, hey. Welcome aboard. Mostly because of me being over at Mises (sorry guys) we've had an influx of ancaps and misesesesesesianses. So we're kind of tired. Still, I think we're pretty tolerant. All I can say is the search function is your friend. We've had a lot of discussions about ancap lately, so if you have questions about our take on it you can probably find the answers already posted.

@Tremblay

I like his attention towards, risk, entrepreneurship, capital theory, and monetary policy which most modern economists simply ignore when explaining certain economic situations. on a philosophical scope, I like him because of his utilitarian approach.

@Birthday Pony

well, shit, hey to you too :p. I am not as mean (at least I dont think) as some of the others from Mises forums. Like I said, I am sympathetic to Left Libertarianism and I actually do not agree with some things (economic and philosophic reasons) that a vast majority at Mises forums would.

Alice Raizel is child molester.

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:I like his attention towards, risk, entrepreneurship, capital theory, and monetary policy which most modern economists simply ignore when explaining certain economic situations. on a philosophical scope, I like him because of his utilitarian approach.

I'm curious as to whether your worldview extends outside of economics. If so, what else influences you? If not, why not?

Trevor Reznik wrote:Care to elaborate a bit about Mises here?

I have attended several lectures by Nicholai Voss. Have you read anything written by him? Namely the one about entreprenuership. I ask because the books are expensive.

I do not know much about Nicolai Foss (I assume you meant Foss not Voss) but entrepreneurship is best explained by an economist named Ludwig Lachmann (his books are free online), in my opinion...

I really do not know what you want me to elaborate about Mises because you quote me saying 'his utilitarian approach' and then you started to ask about entrepreneurship so i am a bit confused on what you are asking.

Birthday Pony wrote:I'm curious as to whether your worldview extends outside of economics. If so, what else influences you? If not, why not?

Well I consider myself an economist before I consider anything else, and I like to view the majority of things from an economics point of view. The reason being is that as a market anarchist, I believe it is best to explain market causation. I simply want to see a society that embraces competition through market means because I believe that competition is the best way to cure the distribution of wealth problem many are facing, for “It is not competition, but monopoly, that deprives labor of its product."- B.Tucker

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:Well I consider myself an economist before I consider anything else, and I like to view the majority of things from an economics point of view.

It's fine if you want to bring specialised knowledge to a discussion or a particular methodology, but to allow it to dominate your politics and approach to particular issues usually means you miss the point by a mile. This is why a lot of people have issues with the Mises crowd, and other groups. It's not because they're mean. They can be dicks, sure. But when it comes to a lot of discussions, we're not even on the same page. They won't step outside of their own preconceptions and bias.

Anything that isn't an economics issue will usually become an economics issue or it is dealt with as if it were an economics issue.

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:

Birthday Pony wrote:I'm curious as to whether your worldview extends outside of economics. If so, what else influences you? If not, why not?

Well I consider myself an economist before I consider anything else, and I like to view the majority of things from an economics point of view. The reason being is that as a market anarchist, I believe it is best to explain market causation. I simply want to see a society that embraces competition through market means because I believe that competition is the best way to cure the distribution of wealth problem many are facing, for “It is not competition, but monopoly, that deprives labor of its product."- B.Tucker

Well a concept I've been trying to explain to the folks at Mises is that once you start "doing" Austrian Econ you give up any assertion that it can be "value free." You start doing Austrian Econ in the event of X, and you're dealing with real world situations where you'll make real world value judgements. That the consensus amongst Austrian Economists tends to be-- or tends to put undue emphasis on the positions--that the poor are a pretty vile bunch, that those with the most money and power are self-made, and that the civil rights act is an example of government overstepping its boundaries are hardly what I think is a result of logical deduction and more a result of the social milieu in which Austrianism is popular.

Of course, Austrianism could be used to support a number of things. It could be asserted in situations that yield results that are radically different from most of the others. But at that point, Austrianism stops being a "theory" and starts being a language. Math could be used to support socialism or capitalism, but no one adheres to the "Math Theory of Politics."

Anyway, be sure to get a good picture of Tucker. As much as I thing he was kind of silly, I don't think he was an economic reductionist.

Birthday Pony wrote:Anyway, be sure to get a good picture of Tucker. As much as I thing he was kind of silly, I don't think he was an economic reductionist.

I dont claim him to be.

Birthday Pony wrote:That the consensus amongst Austrian Economists tends to be-- or tends to put undue emphasis on the positions--that the poor are a pretty vile bunch, that those with the most money and power are self-made, and that the civil rights act is an example of government overstepping its boundaries are hardly what I think is a result of logical deduction and more a result of the social milieu in which Austrianism is popular.

I dont know if I agree with this. This is more of a political theory claim than economics one. Austrian Econ is value free in the sense that it just explains causation in the market place.

RoyceChristian wrote:Anything that isn't an economics issue will usually become an economics issue or it is dealt with as if it were an economics issue.

do you have any specific examples on this?

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:I dont know if I agree with this. This is more of a political theory claim than economics one. Austrian Econ is value free in the sense that it just explains causation in the market place.

It's supposed to be a philosophical claim. Austrian Econ is a language that is only self-referential. Once it starts interacting with the real world that value-free claim disappears. It explains things in tautological terms, which is good for logical consistency, and bad for telling us anything other than Austrian Econ is logically consistent.

I see your point, but people at Mises forums recognize this. Of course, once economics establishes a law, say minimum wage increases unemployment, one then has to take the position in whether or not unemployment is worth sacrificing for a minimum wage, that is to say that the benefits of a minimum wage outweigh the unemployment brought about by the minimum wage, which is the value judgement, but the law itself, that minimum wage increases unemployment, is value free for that is what happens when minimum wage is applied in the marketplace.

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:I see your point, but people at Mises forums recognize this. Of course, once economics establishes a law, say minimum wage increases unemployment, one then has to take the position in whether or not unemployment is worth sacrificing for a minimum wage, that is to say that the benefits of a minimum wage outweigh the unemployment brought about by the minimum wage, which is the value judgement, but the law itself, that minimum wage increases unemployment, is value free for that is what happens when minimum wage is applied in the marketplace.

It's not even that clear.

The minimum wage arguments are already tied into a system of pre-existing power structures. That workers are wage slaves is a given in the situation. Moreover, the popular account is that minimum wage laws are simply price floors, which pretty much reduces the people behind the wages to commodities. For a theory that supposedly draws a little on Kant, at least as far as the understanding of choice goes, it seems odd that they violate one of Kant's ideas: "don't treat people like commodities." But the point is that wage slavery is already taken as a given when it need not even exist in the first place. Austrian Economics as a value-free system has nothing to offer on wages. It has nothing to offer on anything. Once you start bringing it into the real-world you're bound to either accept or reject some social factors, and the popular take on Austrian Econ takes many hierarchical structures for granted and then hides behind the claim that it's "value-free."

Basically the argument already takes into account the capitalist system of property and wage slavery and then continues to make an apparently "value-free" judgement on it. Its just about as value-free as Marx's claim that his class theory is science. It's easy to hide your motivations behind science, just like the scientists that claimed homosexuals had a mental disorder or that outspoken women had hysteria.

This is my problem with theory in general. Any system that claims to be value-free is only as much until its actually applied, which makes mathematically and logically derived systems pretty useless as far as day-to-day life goes. I tend to prefer theory that at least acknowledges this contradiction and tries to work through it from the level of what actually happens versus how it can be logically constructed.

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:

RoyceChristian wrote:Anything that isn't an economics issue will usually become an economics issue or it is dealt with as if it were an economics issue.

do you have any specific examples on this?

Dig around and you can find plenty of examples. Joe just so happened to post a link to a thread he was participating in. Here the discussion has turned to sweatshops and child labour. Self-identifying AnCaps are claiming that sweatshops and child labour are a good thing, purely on the economic benefit it gives. There is a complete failure to even comprehend how it may impact those brown-skinned poor people. As long as the Developed World is getting their mac laptops and ipads, Steve Jobs is a saint and Apple is Jesus Christ lifting their economy out of the mud. And if anyone in those sweatshops, or anyone speaking on behalf of those sweatshop employees, has the audacity to question the status quo, they are ungrateful and ignorant and must be taught their place.

The issue is treated as if it were solely one of economics and the conclusions drawn go no further beyond it, illustrated in the comments:

Rothbard'sDisciple wrote:"I like child labour, for it teaches good work ethic and is conducive to employment. Only a statist would be anti-child labour. As Rothbard said: [insert excerpt from Rothbard canon to support argument]"

and

anarchocapitalist wrote:"did you know that a German company "buckled under pressure from activists", and laid off 50,000 child garment workers in Bangladesh. Oxfam did a study on those 50,000 workers, and found that thousands of them later turned to prostitution, crime, or starved to death. There are many other examples of closed sweatshop workers turning to prostitution. and also just plain dying."

...

"so we should abandon the children to international prostitution rings joe?"

For anyone who looks beyond the bare economics of this, the absurd dichotomy is horrifying. As Joe points out:

Joe wrote:Some choice hey?If all you can offer a child in the third world is a choice between child prostitution and a sweat shop,they should thank their lucky little stars for the sweatshop.

Which was all in response to this article.

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo, please refute the Block Corollary:

http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2 ... c-ravings/

And this Blockian corollary of NAP:

http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2 ... -possible/

I know it can be intimidating to confront a block of text from a bunch of different posts. We don't mean to gang up on you or anything, so don't feel unwelcome.

Yeah, you've mentioned Thoreau and Tucker, so right off the bat that's a good sign.

Not that that guarantees that I won't be paying you a visit later in this thread...

Yeah x2. Don't mean to be hostile. Welcome!

IsaacIzzyMarmolejo wrote:Hi everybody, my name is Izzy.

hi, thanks for stopping by.

RoyceChristian wrote:Self-identifying AnCaps are claiming that sweatshops and child labour are a good thing, purely on the economic benefit it gives. There is a complete failure to even comprehend how it may impact those brown-skinned poor people. As long as the Developed World is getting their mac laptops and ipads, Steve Jobs is a saint and Apple is Jesus Christ lifting their economy out of the mud. And if anyone in those sweatshops, or anyone speaking on behalf of those sweatshop employees, has the audacity to question the status quo, they are ungrateful and ignorant and must be taught their place.

The issue is treated as if it were solely one of economics and the conclusions drawn go no further beyond it, illustrated in the comments:

but that is a good example of using austrianism to, on the the hand, make a value free/in a vacuum thing.

so there are two choices: should poor 3rd world peeps work in sweatshops or should there not be sweatshops and they won't have jobs? well i think it is correct to say they are better off having jobs. & as a teenage libertarian i thought that was THE answer to the question & in fact i later had liberal professors give us readings where liberal professors professed the same thing. but there is something obviously wrong and its that the wrong question is being asked. we shouldn't ask, "should poor people be allowed to work in sweatshops?" but "why are there super poor people?". (hint its not because of a lack of entrepreneurs)

so on the other hand austrianists themselves will often (its prob human nature, right?) make value judgments RE: said poor people. their hate pump has been primed by economics. & this can create a negative feedback loop w/the economics or a non-feedback loop maybe because thats just the end of it. go work in sweatshops. if you have a virtuous tie preference your ancestors might become well off.

so thats a round about way of saying i don't completely agree w/royce. i think you could for sure come to views via austrian economics like left-libertarianism or even more lefty stuff. (however i don't think it makes sense to say people are doing economics w/o anthropology or other disciplines. economics is not like math. it is not separate from the other social sciences. but, maybe you mean they are doing it AS IF that were true)

@ctmummey

Of course people are better off with a job,but they don't need to be treated in such a way.Its pure exploitation by huge companies and corporations, and those fucking retarded "an"-caps defend it on the basis of "like it or lump,be grateful you fucking peasants."

There are super poor people to exploit because of third world ruling elites keep it that way.The poor bastards are getting fuck both ways,then the big companies move on to the next country offering tax breaks (or no tax at all) and cheaper labour than they have now then they drop everyone and move on.

I don't think boycotting all these companies is the right move because you will be taking food out of the workers mouths,but its total bullshit to believe working in sweatshops get these people out of poverty,they may earn slightly more working in one but the gains made there are soon taken up in the consumerist society.

Was that opposed to be a response to my post???

ctmummey wrote:but that is a good example of using austrianism to, on the the hand, make a value free/in a vacuum thing.

It is. I am making a very similar point, even a complimentary point, to BP. That commitment to being "value free" is part of why I have issues with the Austrian methodology, their approach to issues and their own personal education. As I said, most of them are economists or have taught themselves economics as necessary to express their politics. As such they come to issues thinking like economists. So when a issue requires them to draw on principles that aren't necessarily expressed in, or a part of economic knowledge, they struggle to make the next step. Then the hate-pump kicks in.

Although sweatshop labour was just an easy example (and probably a poor one but meant I didn't have time to go to searching for a thread/article), the observation that developing world governments have kept their people poor to act as a cheap source of labour for first world companies and that people and/or children working in this situation are getting a pretty bad deal is not a controversial one. Someone whose entire politics is expressed in the language and methodology of economics comes to the discussion from that perspective and can only say "child labour gives people jobs and an income". There isn't anything in their field of knowledge to say otherwise and alternative approaches ignored or frowned upon.

I guess it's partly a movement in my own politics away from this idea that we can solve all the world's problems if we act like economists, of one branch or another. Personally, my position is that any solution to problems like sweatshop labour should start from the premise of a "politics of the poor" and then develop solutions as needed. (and this does not mean going up to some sweatshop workers and asking them a few superficial questions about their jobs). I don't think that specialised knowledge is a problem per se, it has it's uses, and it may very well be that Austrian economics will help find solutions that do not reduce to a question of child prostitution v. sweatshop labour.

in fact i later had liberal professors give us readings where liberal professors professed the same thing.

Isn't that the reason why we're Anarchists? liberal professors aren't always so liberal all the time.

ctmummey wrote:Was that opposed to be a response to my post???

It was going to be, then morphed into a rant.