tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post4904565799932176907..comments2023-04-03T19:10:54.088-04:00Comments on Critiques Of Libertarianism: Parable of the ship: why Austrian Economics fails.Mike Hubenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-13632178587231092462015-02-13T19:32:57.934-05:002015-02-13T19:32:57.934-05:00Dear Mike, Seems you don't get what Austrians ...Dear Mike, Seems you don't get what Austrians say about quantitative analysis. As an example lets says Federal reserves does QE and minimum wage increases and this results in an increase in unemployment . Using only data how can you figure out the individual effects of QE and minimum wage increase ? Can u ever answer that question without micro-analysis ? Real world does not allow you a cetris paribus analysis like you do in physics.Gaurav Sinhahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02704192641464506300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-11896787003080924362012-10-27T21:46:08.151-04:002012-10-27T21:46:08.151-04:00IMS wrote:
"An political solution to economi...IMS wrote:<br /><br />"An political solution to economic policies fails simply because there ARE so many possible causes for a problem. "<br /><br />That's what technocrats do. Did it ever occur to you that deciding what tasks should be performed by markets and what tasks should be performed by governments is a political solution? It cannot be decided well by ideology: it must be decided by experience.<br /><br />"A free market version of the ship analogy...."<br /><br />Did it ever occur to you that crews of ships, including captains, are assembled through markets (excepting conscription)? Did it ever occur to you that owners assemble little government-like centralized hierarchies in their own companies? There's a reason they do that, called the theory of the firm. Very few companies have market-like transactions within.<br /><br />You can suppose all you want about the magic of perfect, imaginary free markets. In the real world, there are market failures that prevent the perfection you desire. If you cannot identify the market failures, then you need to learn some more economics.<br /><br />But my purpose here is to illustrate ways in which the owner failed to THINK correctly. Ways which are STRONGLY analogous to Austrian economic methodology. I recommend that you re-read the post more carefully with this in mind.<br />Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-25172310822976225442012-10-27T08:36:58.445-04:002012-10-27T08:36:58.445-04:00I like the parable of the ship. It actually explai...I like the parable of the ship. It actually explains why modern economics fails, and Austrian economics succeeds. An political solution to economic policies fails simply because there ARE so many possible causes for a problem. <br /><br />A free market version of the ship analogy would have one person responsible for watching the monotoring circuitry, another checking the hull for leaks, another responsible for securing all the hatches, and so on. A free market allows many different people to contribute their minds to solving a complex problem with multiple causes and variables. <br /><br />Modern neoclassical economics is much closer to the top-down approach of the captain, one person identifying a couple causes, addressing those, and thinking he has solved the problem.IceManSaulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02644461969154402395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-23424689888190361552012-10-16T07:43:11.988-04:002012-10-16T07:43:11.988-04:00Speaking of measurement... @Mike, I understand tha...Speaking of measurement... @Mike, I understand that you're a man who's eager to learn about the world. That's the same with me. ;-) <br />Whenever someone is claiming something, it should be possible to find out if it's true or false. You just have to find ONE logical reason in order to falsify what the other one has said. Measuring the reality is a way too, but the problem still remains: HOW do you measure?<br />You see, it's no problem to "measure" e.g. that every victim of a crime did something which at the end made the delinquent commit the crime EXACTLY on that person/victim. <br />But you wouldn't therefore support the theory that in order to shut down crime, nobody shouldn't DO ANYTHING, would you?<br />My point is: If you WANT to hold a certain theory down, you will ALWAYS be able to find certain data to proof that. Just shut out (up?) evrything else and you're fine.<br />What I'm asking you: Are you really satisfied with that?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01090945925833413304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-62634557892277851262012-07-15T13:49:52.414-04:002012-07-15T13:49:52.414-04:00y'all acting like childreny'all acting like childrengodisdeadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14233180169429384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-61817885589810791222012-02-01T20:24:13.730-05:002012-02-01T20:24:13.730-05:00Look at these Austrians sperg out, everything with...Look at these Austrians sperg out, everything with them comes down to definitions and quibling over their meaning, then they go "math can't know things maaan."<br /><br />No such thing as class? Doyyy.<br />Best was the guy up there who tried to assert that philosophy was a reliable way of knowing things. Philosophy deals with unanswerable questions, hence its called philosophy. Did philosophy ever determine if we are free actors or deterministic? How about if a boat reassembled piece by piece on a voyage is the same boat at the end of the journey? No.lambchowderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16994090357215965455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-15125842160079564382011-04-21T10:45:36.015-04:002011-04-21T10:45:36.015-04:00This is the worst definition of marxist ideology o...This is the worst definition of marxist ideology of all.<br /><br />You should study more about sociology and marxism.Daniel Souzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12194678966840040516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-63326964934835623672011-03-24T16:31:06.114-04:002011-03-24T16:31:06.114-04:00You are ideological.
Here's a quote from your...You are ideological.<br /><br />Here's a quote from your Non-libertarian FAQ:<br /><br />"Beyond this perceived class interest, libertarian dislike of "initiation of force" isn't much different than anyone else's. It may be humanitarian, defensive, etc."<br /><br />You believe that there is such thing as a class, and that class can have an 'interest'. <br /><br />That makes you a closeted Marxist.Marcohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886381959085783905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-90310350011762218342011-02-17T04:45:42.058-05:002011-02-17T04:45:42.058-05:00http://critiquesofcollectivism.blogspot.com/2011/0...http://critiquesofcollectivism.blogspot.com/2011/02/mike-huben-goes-philosophical.htmlJoanna Liberationhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03683439858840562847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-73507489673286568632010-11-30T05:41:21.306-05:002010-11-30T05:41:21.306-05:00Shorter Haris: You're a doodyhead!
Shorter Li...Shorter Haris: You're a doodyhead!<br /><br />Shorter Liv: Define: define!<br /><br />Look, if you two knuckleheads want to make a real contribution, quote something I've said and explain what is wrong with it. Vague "you're wrong, you know nothing" claims unaccompanied by an example are worthless.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-44581507320425024112010-11-30T05:29:32.559-05:002010-11-30T05:29:32.559-05:00Obviously YOU don't know the difference betwee...Obviously YOU don't know the difference between the two: "philosophy" comes from Greek and it means "love for wisdom"... you search to learn more and more about the world (which necessarily means you cannot have your OWN philosophy... knowledge is independent of the human being who absorbs it). And "ideology" comes from "ideas" (which would be the only single possible thing you could have... and you don't.)<br /><br />With that said, in order for whichever debate to flow, you need to define terms... so we know we're "speaking the same language". If you don't care about definitions (and yes, defining soul is actually EXTREMELY important as well for example in some religions), than it's clear enough you do this blog to convince YOURSELF of a fake reality... the reality "of your own" (using the words you've used).<br /><br />And yes, I have nothing to say against that. But just to let you know: this is NOT the libertarian point of view.Livhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01094694573975237832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-20224301363573685432010-11-30T03:31:36.896-05:002010-11-30T03:31:36.896-05:00It is funny how you criticise Liv for misunderstan...It is funny how you criticise Liv for misunderstanding your argument when you have patently no idea what Austrian economics is about. The large number of comments criticising your misuse of terms, your blatent misrepresentation of ideas and your inability to follow Austrian arguments should be an indication that maybe you should do some reading. Also while you do that, take a page from the Austrians book that says science should be "wertfrei" maybe then your writing will stop being so emotionally wrought and obviously biassed.Harishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12281935557231788193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-84795693979306803942010-11-29T16:22:50.526-05:002010-11-29T16:22:50.526-05:00Liv, that's one of the more incoherent comment...Liv, that's one of the more incoherent comments I've seen lately.<br /><br />You patently did not understand my criticism of the idea of action.<br /><br />I don't need to define "act" any more than I need to define "soul": they have no explanatory value in my way of thinking. Thinking with the Austrian idea of "act" is as stupid as thinking with "soul": both are silly fictions that have nothing to do with the real world.<br /><br />I'm not "defending" an alternative view: not even my own. I am pointing out that various libertarian views (including Austrianism) are clearly wrong. It is fallacious to presume view A is wrong because view B is right: both could be right. It is also fallacious to claim that because view A is wrong, view B must be right: view C could be right.<br /><br />I have my own philosophy: evidently you are unaware of the difference between ideology and philosophy.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-56517749250168127852010-11-29T08:18:41.364-05:002010-11-29T08:18:41.364-05:00hahahahahahah your explanation why "action&qu...hahahahahahah your explanation why "action" is not necessarily a HUMAN act but it can be extended to ROBOTS ("so commonly used nowadays") is hilarious!!! <br /><br />But keeping respect to your arguments (if we can call them this way since I haven't understood yet what you want to the defend other than criticizing the Austrian School), I would like to understand what YOU call "act" - because obviously you are NOT quoting Austrian definition of it, although you say you are; you're ignoring the very tiny "detail" Austrians insist on, and that is, even if your not conscious whilst making decisions, your acts are NECESSARILY DELIBERATE. I'd like to see a robot saying "I do this work because I WANT IT".<br /><br />Plus, I'd like to say that I'm really sorry for you: creating this blog in order to criticize an ideology but WITHOUT PROPOSING ANYTHING NEW (you said explicitly you have no ideology yourself) must be really said..........!Livhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01094694573975237832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-23111754836422664992010-11-28T11:26:26.044-05:002010-11-28T11:26:26.044-05:00Mr. Huben,
Im glad that now that critique on the...Mr. Huben, <br /><br />Im glad that now that critique on the concept of action is not that it excludes so many things, but that it includes what it says it excludes, as well as too many more things. Perhaps there is something <br /><br />Meanwhile, you should keep waiting for an empirical proof of the concept of opportunity cost.ryuaustrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06114289960919838960noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-46666658573027441992010-11-28T09:59:41.220-05:002010-11-28T09:59:41.220-05:00Mr Huben,
the fact that Austrians make prediction...Mr Huben,<br /><br />the fact that Austrians make predictions does not mean it is the purpose of the science they have developed to make predictions. It is with positivism that the idea that the role of economics is to predict originated. And notice how in one of the most fundamental essays for the formation of positivist ideology and mathematisation of economics The Methodology of Positive Economics Milton Friedman explicitly states an envy for the natural sciences in footnote 2 to justify his use of mathematics. It is nothing besides envy for the natural sciences that has led to mathematisation of economics. However, if the mathematisation was productive the cause for the inclusion of mathematics in economics would be immaterial. It is not useful though, it has merely led to an endless production of papers that do not help explain human behaviour and are rarely cited in any subsequent papers. The Economic Science as a result of this mathematisation has become a set of disjointed disciplines that together do not form a coherent science. How is it possibly that a science can emerge that shows no coherent link between how individuals and firms behave (microeconomics) and how society as a whole behaves (macroeconomics)? The reason is that none of these disciplines can account for choice and uncertainty. How can a mathematical model include choice and uncertainty and resolve problems of class probability? The difference between social sciences and natural sciences and the reason why Austrian economics makes no claims to being able to predict as a science on its own is because economics deals with CLASS probability whereas natural sciences deal with CASE probability. How can you use the same method for sciences dealing with totally different things?Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01202342523123815210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-51318703104194946022010-11-28T09:45:09.442-05:002010-11-28T09:45:09.442-05:00That is really funny backpedalling, Anita. Throw ...That is really funny backpedalling, Anita. Throw a whole bunch of standard Austrian excuses, no matter what sort of incoherence they have together. A boom will always be followed by a bust, but Business Cycles are not inevitable, central banking is at fault, we don't claim to make predictions but "Austrian economists are constantly predicting recessions during booms".<br /><br />Oh, and the indignant plea against ad hominem. I'm not saying your arguments are wrong because you are stupid. I'm saying you are obviously stupid because your arguments are so egregiously wrong. You can't even get the informal fallacies right. Perhaps you mean that I am insulting: tough. If you think you deserve respect, earn it.<br /><br />And if you want to know my ideology, sorry: I don't have one. My beliefs are not ideological. If you don't know the difference between the terms, educate yourself. However, I do have some pages describing myself. Do the minimal work to find them. Don't expect a handout.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-32420659554177327012010-11-28T09:26:07.356-05:002010-11-28T09:26:07.356-05:00You criticise me for logical fallacies yet to reso...You criticise me for logical fallacies yet to resort to the oldest one of them all Ad Hominem. I see no reason to attack you personally yet you have done so repeatedly. I am sure you are more than capable of attacking the theories I believe in without attacking the person that I am. The point is Business Cycles are not inevitable. Booms and busts are not inevitable they become inevitable due to the system of central banking. Predicting that it is this system that causes the inevitability of booms and busts is not as self evident as predicting time. Also even if Austrians had failed to predict the current crisis which like I said before they never claim to be able to make preditions they are the school of thought that has been best able to explain it and THAT is the aim of the Austrian school. You cannot accuse someone of failing to achieve something they did not aim to achieve. I criticise non Austrians on their ability to predict because they believe that they can. <br /><br />Also, what ideology do you stand for? Anti-libertarianism is not exactly an ideology. What are you actually for? I would be very interested to hear what your genuine beliefs are and not just what you stand against.Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01202342523123815210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-44081748764993781152010-11-28T09:18:10.865-05:002010-11-28T09:18:10.865-05:00Anita: "the reason why Austrian economists ar...Anita: "the reason why Austrian economists are constantly predicting recessions during booms is because according to Austrian business cycle theory a boom will always be followed by a bust".<br /><br />Golly, and nobody else has ever known this! Let me make a prediction: at some time soon the hands of the clock will be at the same position. Golly, I must be a seer: it's come true! This sort of prediction is called cold reading, and it's a basic tool of psychics and other frauds such as Austrians.<br /><br />What makes a prediction interesting is when it is precise or distinctive enough to avoid inevitability. Fools like you are suckers for that sort of trick. Learn something about how cycles such as cyclic population buildups are scientifically characterized before you naively believe Austrian rubbish about cycles.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-19850786143205402612010-11-28T09:17:37.554-05:002010-11-28T09:17:37.554-05:00Austrians do not say that you should not use graph...Austrians do not say that you should not use graphs to illustrate a point!!!!! They say you should not use maths in order to reject a theory that is a priori valid. <br /><br />Also these quotes are hardly comic. If mainstream economics is so good at predicting it should be able to do so before the situation is irreversible. Can show me how mathematical modelling has helped us PREVENT a crisis by prediting it early enough? No because it never has. Predicting that the housing bubble will burst two weeks before it does is hardly an achievement. Also Thornton and the rest of the Austrians have NEVER made a claim to being able to predict. The fact that they do so successfully often is interesting especially because they make no claim to being able to make such predictions. Other economists make claims to being able to predict and the only reason why not all these predictions fall flat on their faces is because the only way to confirm them is ex post therefore you can never fully reject them. Mainstream economists have famously abused mahematics to predict a whole manner of crazy things notice the extremely famous Card and Krueger paper that found that minimum wages increase EMPLOYMENT!<br /><br />Also, I would appreciate it if you did not resort to Ad Hominem in your responses it makes them much more credible. I was also wondering if you had any comments to show why a Prisoner's dilemma would lead to the same response every time as suggested in my previous post given the complexity of interhuman relations and interractions and our ability to perceive of events and consequences that go further than our immediate gratification.Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01202342523123815210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-55219962718717961392010-11-28T09:06:39.792-05:002010-11-28T09:06:39.792-05:00The Bernanke article was from 2005. Reasonable pe...The Bernanke article was from 2005. Reasonable people disagreed at that time. Later, still before the bust, they did not, or did not publicly because it could cause a panic.<br /><br />The list of Krugman citations is comic. Most are from 2001, long before the bubble really grew. One from 2005: "That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble." That's about as clear a position of Krugman's as you could ask for.<br /><br />As for Austrians predicting the bubble, it's obvious that they did not do it with Austrian methodology. Take a look at the first example on that list, <a href="http://mises.org/daily/1533" rel="nofollow">Housing: Too Good to be True</a> by Mark Thornton. He provides graphs of how investments and housing starts change over time: where is that described in Austrian methodology? And he gets some things embarassingly wrong: "Housing bubbles typically do not pop like a balloon; they don't even crash like stock markets."<br /><br />Perhaps you should follow some of those links before you believe the lies. That's why arguing with libertarians and Austrian believers is so tedious: you have to fact-check everything because almost every argument is laden with a tangled mess of bad logic, bad facts, bad history, and outright lies.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-50450223796931531102010-11-28T09:03:44.813-05:002010-11-28T09:03:44.813-05:00Also the reason why Austrian economists are consta...Also the reason why Austrian economists are constantly predicting recessions during booms is because according to Austrian business cycle theory a boom will always be followed by a bust. Care to name a single boom that was not followed by a bust? You cannot it is impossible, every boom in history has been followed by a bust which is why it is called a cycle!Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01202342523123815210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-38058997523868321912010-11-28T08:39:04.688-05:002010-11-28T08:39:04.688-05:00Diego: Rothbard was a direct student of Mises, as ...Diego: Rothbard was a direct student of Mises, as you probably know. He and Mises use the term "act" as a fallacy of the shifting middle term. At some times they intend their specific revised meaning, and other times not. That sort of deliberate ambiguity is a common PR tactic to confuse the debate.<br /><br />But thank you: I've improved my page by adding this:<br /><br />When criticized for such redefinitions, a common defense is to provide caveats that allow indefinitely extended (and thus inconclusive) argument. Here is an example from Mises' <i>Human Action</i>: "The fact that an action is in the regular course of affairs performed spontaneously, as it were, does not mean that it is not due to a conscious volition and to a deliberate choice. Indulgence in a routine which possibly could be changed is action." These caveats remove all the logical strength of the original definition, and make any particular case a matter of authority about whether or not the term applies.<br /><br />This sort of redefinition and caveat system is also very common in Objectivism and other crank fields. It's really a form of epicycles: complex, ad hoc and unjustifiable corrections to theories to allow the rhetorical defense of their differences from knowledge of the real world.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-58879015531831157512010-11-28T08:14:25.387-05:002010-11-28T08:14:25.387-05:00Anita, you can talk about misrepresentation when y...Anita, you can talk about misrepresentation when you stop it yourself. I have not brought up positivism here, nor Krugman, nor Bernanke nor "single cause".<br /><br />Really, if you'd like to criticize something I wrote, then you should learn to cite the passage you are criticizing.<br /><br />In my example there are both animate and inanimate factors: unless you think the crew are automatons. Mathematics is still entirely reasonable for dealing with the Austrian "animate" behaviors: there are several fields, with Game Theory most popularly known. And indeed, the mathematical economics behind the gambling industry is a perfect counter-example to claims that "animate" actors rule out mathematics.<br /><br />And if you want to whip out claims of what Krugman and Bernanke said, cite a credible source. <br /><br />Credible sources have pointed out a variety of people who predicted the bursting of the housing bubble and consequent economic turmoil. None of the academics who predicted recession were Austrian. However Austrians have been routinely predicting recession or worse every year for decades, and when recessions come along they tend to be for different reasons than the Austrians cited. Take a look at the Mises blog for 2007 for example.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381613.post-88519751021085241122010-11-28T07:46:15.120-05:002010-11-28T07:46:15.120-05:00Mr Huben, I remind you that it is you who makes th...Mr Huben, I remind you that it is you who makes the comparison with the English language, "This dog-whistle term from Austrian Economics differs from standard English usage by..."<br /><br />As I tried to explain above before you insulted me, most of those examples are included. See Mises in Human Action for instance: "Most of a man’s daily behavior is simple routine. He performs certain acts without paying special attention to them. He does many things because he was trained in his childhood to do them, because other people behave in the same way, and because it is customary in his environment. He acquires habits, he develops automatic reactions. But he indulges in these habits only because he welcomes their effects. As soon as he discovers that the pursuit of the habitual way may hinder the attainment of ends considered as more desirable, he changes his attitude. A man brought up in an area in which the water is clean acquires the habit of heedlessly drinking, washing, and bathing. When he moves to a place in which the water is polluted by morbific germs, he will devote the most careful attention to procedures about which he never bothered before. He will watch himself permanently in order not to hurt himself by indulging unthinkingly in his traditional routine and his automatic reactions. The fact that an action is in the regular course of affairs performed spontaneously, as it were, does not mean that it is not due to a conscious volition and to a deliberate choice. Indulgence in a routine which possibly could be changed is action."<br /><br />Now, perhaps Mises and I are idiots, as you enjoy saying, and austrian economics sucks as a method to study economic phenomena, but you should correct your definitions. Most of those things you say the definition of action excludes are included.ryuaustrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06114289960919838960noreply@blogger.com