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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (2625)	10/12/2006 11:48:00 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

"Can you go through your understanding of what I was trying to say, from the beginning, as if I was a third party who was trying to understand your opinions of my thoughts without being able to read any of the previous messages?" I will try. In general I took your original critique of Phelps which I found intriguing and tried to get a topic out of that comment that would be worthy of debate. You: 1) You presented some links regarding the background and ideas of Edmond S. Phelps who has been awarded the Nobel Prize for economics. 2) In particular you seemed to object to his characterization of Hayek and Rand with regard to their views on freedom. ”want to conclude by arguing that generating more dynamism through the injection of more capitalism does serve economic justice. We all feel good to see people freed to pursue their dreams. Yet Hayek and Ayn Rand went too far in taking such freedom to be an absolute, the consequences be damned. In judging whether a nation's economic system is acceptable, its consequences for the prospects of the realization of people's dreams matter, too. Since the economy is a system in which people interact, the endeavors of some may damage the prospects of others. So a persuasive justification of well-functioning capitalism must be grounded on its all its consequences, not just those called freedoms. Me: Viewing the concept of freedom to be not very well defined, and usually taken in context with some very entangling other concepts, offered my own POV on freedom; one that would qualify as giving freedom a ‘separate status’. ”Freedom from coersion by authority, as I described it earlier; and I will now add, to act according to one's conscience with regards to the well being of self and other. I would not consider it according to my view of 'freedom,' if we are talking about economic scams or exploitation: like in a pyramid scheme for example. That use of the term seems to be tainted with traps that ensnare others through deceit. Thus the 'special status' I was thinking of being a separation to a more pure principle, apart from those types elements.” I asked for clarification on the ‘too far’ concern. Did you mean that Phelps just didn’t interpret Hayek and Rand correctly or that he is wrong about how far freedom should be allowed to express itself? You argued that he did not represent Hayek accurately and you argued the merits of more freedom with consideration of consequences. I liked the term you used (separate status) so I pushed for that but you revised your view to be ‘elevated priority’. So, I thought the distinction worthy of discussion, especially considering the authors you site who use freedom as a basis for developing economic models. It seems to me that you do have a good understanding of the principle of freedom and how the concept is foundational to economic system models. You argued with me that a pure definition of Freedom was not applicable to circumstance. I suggested that in the circumstance of building a model (like an economic model) we should be able to offer a clean model (one that incorporates the purity of the principles upon which it is founded). You responded that you aren't a model builder. I asked you if I had misunderstood your interest in the topic of economic systems.