KInsella and Thin Air

[sjw]

Economics is a value-free science; political philosophy is not. In previous centuries, economics was called "political economy," but as it became a more specialized field of study, and as its principles became better understood, it evolved into that purely descriptive discipline that we call "economics." This was a significant advance.

You can, however, rearrange the traditional philosophical and social science disciplines any way you like. The problem is that no one will take you seriously, and you will, with considerable justification, be dismissed as a quack. It is neither necessary nor desirable to reinvent the wheel in this area.

Your statement that economics "should be purely the realm of people who like charts and numbers and stocks etc." is dumb, truly dumb.

Ghs

As an engineer, there is value in getting things done as efficiently as possible for example. It'd be quite silly to call engineering a "value free science." If economics has any legitimacy at all, it's going to have similar values otherwise it's just pointless.

An ethic of "value free science" is for Hitler's science staff.

I don't care if I'm a "quack", I care if I'm wrong. You can't intimidate me into buying into the mainstream.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Economics is a value-free science; political philosophy is not. In previous centuries, economics was called "political economy," but as it became a more specialized field of study, and as its principles became better understood, it evolved into that purely descriptive discipline that we call "economics." This was a significant advance.

You can, however, rearrange the traditional philosophical and social science disciplines any way you like. The problem is that no one will take you seriously, and you will, with considerable justification, be dismissed as a quack. It is neither necessary nor desirable to reinvent the wheel in this area.

Your statement that economics "should be purely the realm of people who like charts and numbers and stocks etc." is dumb, truly dumb.

Ghs

As an engineer, there is value in getting things done as efficiently as possible for example. It'd be quite silly to call engineering a "value free science." If economics has any legitimacy at all, it's going to have similar values otherwise it's just pointless.

An ethic of "value free science" is for Hitler's science staff.

I don't care if I'm a "quack", I care if I'm wrong. You can't intimidate me into buying into the mainstream.

Shayne

Nor can I intimidate you into educating yourself.

Ghs

[sjw]

I'm glad you pointed out your commentary, it's nice to know that my ideas align so closely with someone like Mises.

good to know you are figuring these things out *after* you wrote your book.

As if it really matters. It would have been nice to add a Mises quote, nothing he says adds anything to my view; on the contrary, like you, I think he needed to be taught something on this point.

And he was right. Anarchy is absurd.

Saying "anarchy is absurd" is a dishonest, disguised way of hiding the fact that you endorse aggression.

One of the chief goals I had in creating my view was to never violate consent. So if I did, then I've utterly failed.

But the burden on you is to identify how my system constitutes aggression. I am an absolutely strict advocate of the right of consent, so if you should you do that then I would promptly abandon my system. I have complete sympathy for your criticism of Objectivists and their warping of the notion of consent.

A government is merely a consensual delegation/transfer of rights to a body charged with certain common functions. Most people even consent to what we have now. The problem is where it violates consent. That's what needs to be fixed. We don't need to obliterate government; we need to reform it such that it is truly consensual.

I don't consent. To suggest it is consensual is just false.

I wouldn't force you into my system. Would you force me to have an ancap system?

Actually that's somewhat misleading, because my system is really a meta-system, it permits a wide variety of competing systems.

Shayne

[sjw]

Nor can I intimidate you into educating yourself.

Ghs

Nor evidently can you provide evidence for your mainstream views that doesn't merely include pointing to them.

But thanks for pointing out that my way of looking at things is not without historic precedent. The mainstream doesn't always do the right thing, particularly in the fields of the humanities.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Nor can I intimidate you into educating yourself.

Ghs

Nor evidently can you provide evidence for your mainstream views that doesn't merely include pointing to them.

But thanks for pointing out that my way of looking at things is not without historic precedent. The mainstream doesn't always do the right thing, particularly in the fields of the humanities.

Shayne

Judging your previous post, you don't have a clue what "value-free" means in economics and other disciplines. This is not a matter of "mainstream." It's a matter of knowing what the hell you are talking about. Your statement about "Hitler's science staff" is downright embarrassing.

Ludwig von Mises on the meaning of "value-free," from Human Action, Chapter 39:

It is customary to find fault with modern science because it is wertfrei, it abstains from expressing judgments of value. Living and acting man, we are told, has no use for Wertfreiheit; he needs to know what he should aim at. If science does not answer this question, it is sterile. However, the objection is unfounded. Science does not value, but it provides acting man with all the information he may need with regard to his valuations....

An economist investigates whether a measure a can bring about the result p for the attainment of which it is recommended, and finds that a does not result in p but in g, an effect which even the supporters of the measure a consider undesirable. If this economist states the outcome of his investigation by saying that a is a bad measure, he does not pronounce a judgment of value. He merely says that from the point of view of those aiming at the goal p, the measure a is inappropriate. In this sense the free-trade economists attacked protection. They demonstrated that protection does not, as its champions believe, increase but, on the contrary, decreases the total amount of products, and is therefore bad from the point of view of those who prefer an ampler supply of products to a smaller. It is in this sense that economists criticize policies from the point of view of the ends aimed at. If an economist calls minimum wage rates a bad policy, what he means is that its effects are contrary to the purpose of those who recommend their application.

From the same point of view praxeology and economics look upon the fundamental principle of human existence and social evolution, viz., that cooperation under the social division of labor is a more efficient way of acting than is the autarkic isolation of individuals. Praxeology and economics do not say that men should peacefully cooperate within the frame of societal bonds; they merely say that men must act this way if they want to make their actions more successful than otherwise. Compliance with the moral rules which the establishment, preservation, and intensification of social cooperation require is not seen as a sacrifice to a mythical entity, but as the recourse to the most efficient methods of action, as a price expended for the attainment of more highly valued returns.

Similarly, engineering and other (descriptive) applied sciences cannot tell you that you ought to value x. This is the role of the "normative sciences," such as ethics and political philosophy. (I am using "science" here in the traditional sense to refer to any cognitive discipline.)

Ghs

[sjw]

Judging your previous post, you don't have a clue what "value-free" means in economics and other disciplines.

I'm well aware of what it means, I simply disagree.

Similarly, engineering and other (descriptive) applied sciences cannot tell you that you ought to value x. This is the role of the "normative sciences," such as ethics and political philosophy. (I am using "science" here in the traditional sense to refer to any cognitive discipline.)

Ghs

Some engineers follow your method, some don't. It is often easier to just do what the customer asks, never thinking or asking questions, but the customer gains more value when the engineer evaluates in the context of the customer's overall goals, even to the point of questioning the very goals themselves. I'm well aware of this value-free approach in the engineering realm, that's why I have a position on it.

Frank Lloyd Wright would not have been Frank Lloyd Wright if he'd followed your value-free approach.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Judging your previous post, you don't have a clue what "value-free" means in economics and other disciplines.

I'm well aware of what it means, I simply disagree.

If this is so, then you need to learn how to coordinate what you think what what you write.

Similarly, engineering and other (descriptive) applied sciences cannot tell you that you ought to value x. This is the role of the "normative sciences," such as ethics and political philosophy. (I am using "science" here in the traditional sense to refer to any cognitive discipline.)

Some engineers follow your method, some don't. It is often easier to just do what the customer asks, never thinking or asking questions, but the customer gains more value when the engineer evaluates in the context of the customer's overall goals, even to the point of questioning the very goals themselves. I'm well aware of this value-free approach in the engineering realm, that's why I have a position on it.

Nothing you say here contradicts what Mises said in the passage I quoted, nor does it contradict my extension of his remarks to the applied sciences.

Ghs

[sjw]

If this is so, then you need to learn how to coordinate what you think what what you write.

...

Nothing you say here contradicts what Mises said in the passage I quoted, nor does it contradict my extension of his remarks to the applied sciences.

Ghs

Mises says science should not tell man what to value. I think Frank Lloyd Wright's approach totally contradicts Mises. He certainly told people what to value. As an engineer, I certainly prescribe what I think the customer should value given his context. It is impossible to do quality engineering without a meeting of the minds regarding the underlying values.

Does circuit design tell man what to value? Of course not. But human values underly it, as the deeper cause of circuit design is precisely the wide array of human values which it serves. No good engineer invents a useless technology, nor one that is inherently destructive to rational human values (sometimes good technologies get perverted, but that's beside the point).

Shayne

[sjw]

"Praxeology and economics do not say that men should peacefully cooperate within the frame of societal bonds; they merely say that men must act this way if they want to make their actions more successful than otherwise."

Why not say that men shouldn't violate each other's rights? What's the point of not saying such a thing? To me it looks like an utterly arbitrary constraint, and no unnecessary constraint is a good thing for a theory.

Shayne

[sjw]

I dunno. What's up with those libertarians who want to show how freedom will lead to economic prosperity and more peaceful international relationships? What's up with those libertarians who want to show that a rights-based society, one based on voluntary cooperation, will produce more wealth than a statist economy ever could? What's up with those libertarians who want to explain how mixed economies will lead to what Mises called "planned chaos" and lead to even more intervention? What's up with those libertarians who want to show how good intentions are irrelevant to economic planning and how detrimental unintended consequences will rule the day? What's up with those libertarians who want to explain the harmful effects of the Fed, fiat money, and many other statist measures? What's up with those libertarians who want to explain why the current economic crisis was caused by government intervention, not by a free market?

In short, what's up with those libertarian economists who want to show how and why freedom works?

Nutty economic libertarians. All people need to do is read philosophical treatises about rights. They are not interested in whether respecting rights will lead to desirable outcomes.

Ghs

Is Bastiat's "The Law" economics or political philosophy? I presume economists would want to claim it as their own. Or maybe not, because his arguments were certainly not "value free." Values are what made his concise work so powerful. So maybe economists would want to call it political philosophy?

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

If this is so, then you need to learn how to coordinate what you think what what you write.

...

Nothing you say here contradicts what Mises said in the passage I quoted, nor does it contradict my extension of his remarks to the applied sciences.

Ghs

Mises says science should not tell man what to value. I think Frank Lloyd Wright's approach totally contradicts Mises. He certainly told people what to value. As an engineer, I certainly prescribe what I think the customer should value given his context. It is impossible to do quality engineering without a meeting of the minds regarding the underlying values.

Nothing in the nature of value-free science forbids the practitioner of an applied science from offering advice and counsel to his customers. In doing so, however, he may go beyond the boundaries of his discipline and venture into the fields of ethics, aesthetics, etc.

Mises does not say that an economist should be nothing more than an economist; the economist might also be a philosopher who applies moral reasoning to his economic conclusions. We are dealing here with the abstract boundaries of cognitive disciplines, not with concrete individuals who specialize in a given field but who also have opinions in other fields.

Does circuit design tell man what to value? Of course not. But human values underly it, as the deeper cause of circuit design is precisely the wide array of human values which it serves. No good engineer invents a useless technology, nor one that is inherently destructive to rational human values (sometimes good technologies get perverted, but that's beside the point).

All purposeful human action is motivated by value judgments; indeed. this is a major element of Misesian praxeology. But the fact that an engineer wants to make something useful does not make his value judgment a part of the applied science known as engineering. And an engineer who designs something that is inherently destructive -- say, a virus that would eradicate the human race -- is still doing engineering.

It is vital to distinguish between a cognitive discipline and the reasons why a person accepts or uses the standards of that discipline. Mathematics, for example, can give you truth, but it cannot tell a person why he should value truth in the first place.

Similarly, an economist can show how a free market will maximize productivity and wealth -- and he may even be motivated by the desire to bring these results about -- but it is not part of his role, qua economist, to justify the values of productivity and wealth. His economic reasoning can be accepted and used by egalitarians who oppose these values as surely as it can be used by libertarians who defend them. The soundness of his economic reasoning stands, regardless of the purposes to which it is put.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Is Bastiat's "The Law" economics or political philosophy? I presume economists would want to claim it as their own. Or maybe not, because his arguments were certainly not "value free." Values are what made his concise work so powerful. So maybe economists would want to call it political philosophy?

The Law is a mixture of economics, sociology, ethics, and political philosophy. It is, in short, an interdisciplinary work. The same is true of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which also contains a good deal of history. Most of great works on liberty, such as Human Action and Hayek's Law, Legislation, and Liberty, have been interdisciplinary.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

"Praxeology and economics do not say that men should peacefully cooperate within the frame of societal bonds; they merely say that men must act this way if they want to make their actions more successful than otherwise."

Why not say that men shouldn't violate each other's rights? What's the point of not saying such a thing? To me it looks like an utterly arbitrary constraint, and no unnecessary constraint is a good thing for a theory.

Do you really not understand the point Mises is making? Do you know what "praxeology" is, for example? I am asking this question in the hope that you will clarify your thoughts before I give them an "unsympathetic" interpretation by suggesting that they are muddled beyond comprehension.

Ghs

[sjw]

Similarly, an economist can show how a free market will maximize productivity and wealth -- and he may even be motivated by the desire to bring these results about -- but it is not part of his role, qua economist, to justify the values of productivity and wealth. His economic reasoning can be accepted and used by egalitarians who oppose these values as surely as it can be used by libertarians who defend them. The soundness of his economic reasoning stands, regardless of the purposes to which it is put.

Ghs

A political philosopher can show how the principles of non-interference will maximize productivity and wealth, and what's more, he can show why that is what human beings should value. I just don't see why we need economists for this. And so far you've given no examples of something that would fall out from abstract economic theory that would not fall out from political theory. So I'd think that economics should be considered as akin to circuit design. Not something everyone needs to know about, only the guys building the circuits.

Shayne

[sjw]

The Law is a mixture of economics, sociology, ethics, and political philosophy. It is, in short, an interdisciplinary work. The same is true of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which also contains a good deal of history. Most of great works on liberty, such as Human Action and Hayek's Law, Legislation, and Liberty, have been interdisciplinary.

Ghs

It's "interdisciplinary" given an arbitrary division of disciplines. Any discipline can be chopped and divided arbitrarily such that you can call a single discipline "interdisciplinary." IOW you're presuming the premise you are trying to argue for. But OK, now I know how you categorize it.

I'd call The Law pure political theory. Anything that concerns the essentials of how society should organize I would consider political philosophy, and I would consider economics as a handmaiden to political philosophy. Economics is uppity.

Shayne

[sjw]

Do you really not understand the point Mises is making? Do you know what "praxeology" is, for example? I am asking this question in the hope that you will clarify your thoughts before I give them an "unsympathetic" interpretation by suggesting that they are muddled beyond comprehension.

Ghs

Part of the problem here is that what you're calling "economics" is broader than what I would call it. My main thought is that economics (properly divested of the political philosophy it has wrongfully claimed) should mind its place in the world of ideas. Circuit theory doesn't pretend to inform us about political philosophy and economics shouldn't either. I understand praxeology and Mises' project (my understanding is that he's "mathematicalizing" human action), I just don't see how it matters to political philosophy. I don't see how it matters to a day trader operating in an ideal economy either, but I am not taking the position that it doesn't. I wonder how a knowledge of praxeology would have changed Hank Rearden or Howard Roark's approach to their businesses.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Similarly, an economist can show how a free market will maximize productivity and wealth -- and he may even be motivated by the desire to bring these results about -- but it is not part of his role, qua economist, to justify the values of productivity and wealth. His economic reasoning can be accepted and used by egalitarians who oppose these values as surely as it can be used by libertarians who defend them. The soundness of his economic reasoning stands, regardless of the purposes to which it is put.

Ghs

A political philosopher can show how the principles of non-interference will maximize productivity and wealth, and what's more, he can show why that is what human beings should value. I just don't see why we need economists for this. And so far you've given no examples of something that would fall out from abstract economic theory that would not fall out from political theory. So I'd think that economics should be considered as akin to circuit design. Not something everyone needs to know about, only the guys building the circuits.

This discussion has gotten very frustrating for me. I don't know how to respond, for example, to the question of why we "need" economists without going into some details about a particular economic issue. I have therefore posted a piece on a new thread, "Economic Calculation Under Socialism." Read that piece and then explain to me why we don't "need" economists and how political theory -- or, more specifically, a theory of rights -- can solve every significant problem.

Ghs

[sjw]

Similarly, an economist can show how a free market will maximize productivity and wealth -- and he may even be motivated by the desire to bring these results about -- but it is not part of his role, qua economist, to justify the values of productivity and wealth. His economic reasoning can be accepted and used by egalitarians who oppose these values as surely as it can be used by libertarians who defend them. The soundness of his economic reasoning stands, regardless of the purposes to which it is put.

Ghs

A political philosopher can show how the principles of non-interference will maximize productivity and wealth, and what's more, he can show why that is what human beings should value. I just don't see why we need economists for this. And so far you've given no examples of something that would fall out from abstract economic theory that would not fall out from political theory. So I'd think that economics should be considered as akin to circuit design. Not something everyone needs to know about, only the guys building the circuits.

This discussion has gotten very frustrating for me. I don't know how to respond, for example, to the question of why we "need" economists without going into some details about a particular economic issue. I have therefore posted a piece on a new thread, "Economic Calculation Under Socialism." Read that piece and then explain to me why we don't "need" economists and how political theory -- or, more specifically, a theory of rights -- can solve every significant problem.

Ghs

I don't need any of that to know that I should respect your rights and that you should respect mine, nor to know what rights are. So I suppose your point is that some people do need it. It would be interesting to see you try to pin down the precise difference between the type of individual for which the economic arguments are of indispensable value in swaying them toward liberty and the type for which they are of no value whatsoever. Evidently, the ranks of ancaps are generally filled with the former, whereas the ranks of Objectivists are generally filled with the latter.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Economics is a value-free science; political philosophy is not. In previous centuries, economics was called "political economy," but as it became a more specialized field of study, and as its principles became better understood, it evolved into that purely descriptive discipline that we call "economics." This was a significant advance.

Economics is about nothing but values and it is not a science. Hence Mises "subjective theory of value." Subjectivity and science don't mix.

Shayne is happy with his one-truck pony respecting rights' justification, but liberal arts was necessary for the invention and propagation of rights' doctrine and I suspect necessary to re-establish same.

--Brant

[Xray]

The libertarian is never JUST a libertarian; liberty (property, rights, whatever) is not our "only" value. It is not even our "top" value, whatever that means.

Do you have a "top" (= supreme) value then? If yes, which is it?

It is just that we oppose aggression--we believe aggression is unjust. Period.

Now it it would interest me what exactly you do (in that anarcho-capitalist utopia of yours) to make sure not to become the victim of aggression. Since you seem to reject the idea of a state as an institution watching over order, what do you do? Keep a loaded gun ready all the time?

[George H. Smith]

This discussion has gotten very frustrating for me. I don't know how to respond, for example, to the question of why we "need" economists without going into some details about a particular economic issue. I have therefore posted a piece on a new thread, "Economic Calculation Under Socialism." Read that piece and then explain to me why we don't "need" economists and how political theory -- or, more specifically, a theory of rights -- can solve every significant problem.

Ghs

I don't need any of that to know that I should respect your rights and that you should respect mine, nor to know what rights are. So I suppose your point is that some people do need it. It would be interesting to see you try to pin down the precise difference between the type of individual for which the economic arguments are of indispensable value in swaying them toward liberty and the type for which they are of no value whatsoever. Evidently, the ranks of ancaps are generally filled with the former, whereas the ranks of Objectivists are generally filled with the latter.

I give up. You are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you like. And you are free to call the subjects I addressed in my economic calculation piece "political philosophy" or "chemistry" or "checkers" or "knitting" or anything else you like. Just spin everything out of your own head and pay no attention to what great minds have said on the subject of freedom. You already know everything you "need" to know, after all.

What we really "need" are well-informed libertarians who can defend freedom from a number of different perspectives. (You needn't worry that you will ever fall into this category.) Moral and political philosophy are fundamental to an adequate defense of a free society, but they are not sufficient. Mises exerted more influence with one book, Socialism, than you ever could in 100 lifetimes. But Mises didn't agree with you about rights, so he doesn't count, of course.

Lastly, your musings about minarchists and anarchists are as worthless as everything else you have said on this topic. But you don't "need" to know any of this.

Ghs

[sjw]

Shayne is happy with his one-truck pony respecting rights' justification, but liberal arts was necessary for the invention and propagation of rights' doctrine and I suspect necessary to re-establish same.

--Brant

Utter nonsense. Kindly stop trying to speak for me. You only seem to grasp about half of what I say. Actually I think you are schizophrenic.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Economics is a value-free science; political philosophy is not. In previous centuries, economics was called "political economy," but as it became a more specialized field of study, and as its principles became better understood, it evolved into that purely descriptive discipline that we call "economics." This was a significant advance.

Economics is about nothing but values and it is not a science. Hence Mises "subjective theory of value." Subjectivity and science don't mix.

Economics deals with subjective values descriptively, not prescriptively. It takes subjective values as a given and then describes , in general terms, the economic phenomena they will produce.

I noted that I was using the word "science" in the older, traditional sense, i.e., as a label for any systematic cognitive discipline. Or do you deny that economics can produce reliable knowledge?

Ghs

[sjw]

I give up. You are free to remain as willfully ignorant as you like. And you are free to call the subjects I addressed in my economic calculation piece "political philosophy" or "chemistry" or "checkers" or "knitting" or anything else you like. Just spin everything out of your own head and pay no attention to what great minds have said on the subject of freedom. You already know everything you "need" to know, after all.

What we really "need" are well-informed libertarians who can defend freedom from a number of different perspectives. (You needn't worry that you will ever fall into this category.) Moral and political philosophy are fundamental to an adequate defense of a free society, but they are not sufficient. Mises exerted more influence with one book, Socialism, than you ever could in 100 lifetimes. But Mises didn't agree with you about rights, so he doesn't count, of course.

Lastly, your musings about minarchists and anarchists are as worthless as everything else you have said on this topic. But you don't "need" to know any of this.

Ghs

The only valuable defenders of liberty are those who blend in to *your* crowd, who pander to every perspective even when they disagree? What a self-serving and hypocritical remark. A simple question reduces you to a series of insults. That just lends credibility to my view.

It is a simple fact that some people do not need Human Action in order to grasp everything important about individual rights. This particular work is utterly and completely without value for these people (note that I don't include Mises' political theorizing -- those are quite valuable, just as Bastiat is, e.g. "Liberalism"). This causes you great grief, so much grief that you can't be bothered to try to answer the honest question: why? Why do some people not need praxeology and some do? Perhaps you know the answer and you don't find it flattering to those who need it. That at least is the impression you leave.

I use "economic" arguments, but only in order to cause anger at injustice. The only point is to underscore the damage caused by violating rights. Since some of the damage is economic, then "economic" arguments are relevant. But praxeology? What on earth is it good for in this realm? Or rather, why do some people find it useful to convince them that they should keep their hands to themselves, and others would keep their hands to themselves with or without praxeology?

Shayne

[Selene]

I still think Shayne and Ms. Xray are secretly married.