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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (2543)	4/28/1999 12:35:00 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 13062

Richard, although there are other places one could find them, try 1700 to start. You might pick up the threads of significant arguments (plus some stuff worth skipping) there...

To: Neocon who wrote (2543)	4/28/1999 9:41:00 AM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13062

I disagree with your view that we not all philosophers. What you call meanderings are usually quite important to the people who employ them. I don't think philosophy is such a rigorous exercise. If it were, then there would be more conformity within its ranks. Economics actually has considerable conformity within its ranks. All economists agree about the basic underpinnings of economics and how various systems operate. Where they tend to diverge is on topics that employ political viewpoints (and their various underpinnings). At that point, the economics usually becomes secondary to the cohesive development of their "argument". If economists were honest (and many are not - after all, we use statistics), they'd own up to the fact that a "Liberal" view is correct (Liberal in the traditional ECONOMIC sense - not the current definition of Liberal as supporting a welfare state) in terms of implementation. Why? Because it is simple, explains a considerable amount of behavior and it scales up very nicely (though nobody is really sure how). Instead, in order to support their philosophical/political views, they have adopted Keynes' economics as the "better" format on a grand scale. Keynes was useful, and had some good point to make. But Schumpeter was wiser and far more visionary. Von Mises and Schumpeter wrote, a long time ago, descriptions of the economy as we see it today. Is it different now? Nope, just that they saw through the "veil", and now that veil has parted considerably so that more people can look in. It isn't always a pretty picture. Today, we see Schumpeter's perennial rain of creative destruction happening on a daily basis as the Internet transforms the US and eventually the world. Not everyone is comfortable with the fact that change is good and moves us forward. More people would prefer stasis and stagnation - it's more predictable. Oddly, these people are often "Conservatives" who don't recognize that the things they think the gov't can make "better" will only stagnate the whole process. More often these people are "Liberals" who are just lazy and don't realize that creativity and progress require greater freedoms. They'd prefer things stay as they are and try to "even out the playing field". That, of course, is impossible, even in a static environment. Why? Well, that's where a Libertarian view comes in handy. We are individuals. In a static environment, some individuals will naturally want to take more for themselves. That means less for all. In a progressive environment, they can do that, because the pie is getting bigger. You can continue to scale that up. Anyway, we are all philosophers, and I don't buy into the concept that it is a rigorous science at all. My buddy who builds rockets used to call it a "soft science". Of course, he considered Economics a soft science until he took it. But, then again, he took Philosophy with me......