Thursday, February 10, 2011

Ron Paul Versus the Kochtopus.

Monetary Policy Hearing Today, or: Ron Paul Versus the Kochtopus.

From Rortybomb, a brief glimpse into the Rothbardian faction's (paleolibertarians such as Rothbard, Mises, Rockwell, Paul) view of the Kock brothers' faction.

13 comments:

Joanna Liberation said...

Yeah, Rothbard rocks.

Mike Huben said...

No, Rothbard was an ideological fool whose lengthy and erudite publications are leading examples of invalid historical and pseudoscientific thinking.

However, he was quite good at ridiculing others.

Elzair said...

I hate to say it, but the Misean wing are even crazier and more dangerous than the Kochtypus.

Joanna Liberation said...

Haha, you're so cute, you're like "they are craaazy", "yeah, so craazy, but you know, the other ones are even craaaazier", "yeah, crazy, crazy", collectivist birds incessant chirping ;) BTW, as for "the Misean wing" critiques on Mike's site, I've just finished: http://critiquesofcollectivism.blogspot.com/2011/02/summary-of-mike-hubens-critiques-of.html

Lord Keynes said...

"BTW, as for "the Misean wing" critiques on Mike's site, I've just finished: http://critiquesofcollectivism.blogspot.com/2011/02/summary-of-mike-hubens-critiques-of.html"

And your conclusion here:

"There is no better place where one can evidently see how ineffectual all the "critiques" of Austrian School are."

There is NO unified Austrian school - the major but different ideologies classed under the "Austrian school" are in fact mutually conflicting and cannot all be right.

Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism is logically incompatible with Misesian praxeological classical liberalism (with its minimal state and utilitarian).

Therefore one must be wrong.

The idea that they are both true would be like saying that the sky is both blue and not blue at the same time - a violation of the
law of non-contradiction.

Therefore the idea that "all the 'critiques' of Austrian School" are "ineffectual" is also a violation of the law of non-contradiction.

As for Rothbard, his anarcho-capitalism strikes me as one of most insane systems ever imagined:

http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/12/different-types-of-austrian-economics.html

While Soviet communism was also an insane horror story as well, at least they kept their nuclear weapons under state control: under the Rothbardian system, the ownership, use and production of nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons would be "privatised".

That would be a recipe for the end of human civilization fairly quickly.

Joanna Liberation said...

LK, it's like when creationists claim evolution theory has many "question marks". Creationists also claim there are many "different" ideologies classed under evolution theory that are "in fact" mutually conflicting. Obviously, they have no actual rebuttals for neither. Instead, they purposefully exaggerate nuances to look like fundamental differences. Should we justify libertarianism on utilitarian or natural law grounds? You make it sound like a fundamental difference but it's only natural the truth can be achieved via alternative methods of reasoning. Just focus on common denominator for the time being. Minarchism is such.

You think you've solved nuclear weapons proliferation problem by keeping it under state control. As a minarchist, I actually agree with you. But I've got bad news for us statists. In the future, first with 3d printing and then nanotechnology, every single person will have the capability to build a nuclear weapon at their own house. Sooner or later. So we better come up with something more sophisticated than statism and fast. The sooner we get to minarchism, the faster we will be able to start analyzing non-statist solutions.

Lord Keynes said...

Should we justify libertarianism on utilitarian or natural law grounds?

Bingo.

You can support one, but not both - these are two moral theories that conflict and exclude one another.

There is actually a significant diffence between Rothbard's mad world of anarcho-capitalism and Mises' minimal state.

There were obviously times when reality penetrated Mises' mind and he accepted the case for government and government intervention.

And as I have shown before:

http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/10/was-mises-socialist-why-mises-refutes.html

his allowance for rational government intervention by utilitarianism is actually a major concession whereby he undermines and refutes himself on many other issues.

Joanna Liberation said...

these are two moral theories that conflict and exclude one another.

Right, as if liberals never tried to justify distributive justice on both natural law (every unemployed/worker has a right to blah blah blah) and utilitarian grounds.

Mike Huben said...

Well, anybody who thinks Joanna is rational here needs to look up the tu quoque fallacy.

Whatever the problems with liberalism, the problems with Austrianism remain. And yes, they are crazy.

Joanna Liberation said...

Can you really be rational when you argue with irrational? Mike goes philosophical again.

Lord Keynes said...

Right, as if liberals never tried to justify distributive justice on both natural law (every unemployed/worker has a right to blah blah blah) and utilitarian grounds.

Correct - not all liberal ideologies can be right either - just like the various conflciting ideologies within Austrian school.

Thus your original statment:

"There is no better place where one can evidently see how ineffectual all the "critiques" of Austrian School are" remains nonsense.

By the way, I have never thought natural law/rights were a convincing moral theory, and have never defended anything by using them.

Kevin said...

This is actually the website where Libertarians of all stripes get their asses handed back to them on a silver platter time & time again! I'm happy to have it bookmarked!

Dameocrat said...

There is a wikileaks/anonymous supporters blog called ampedstutus. If you read its about page you can see they are clearly progressive. http://ampedstatus.org/network/about/

However I think these hackers are kind naive young anarchist kids because in the last couple of weeks their board has been overwhelmed by Ron Paul supporters, tea baggers and supporters of the gold standard, who can not possible share any of the objectives of this group, but for getting rid of the bank controlled fed and break up of the banks. I would hate to see this wikileaks/anonymous movement get highjacked by the von misians, and teabaggers. http://ampedstatus.org/network/members/noalternative/