Power to the People
My latest at FEE. I quote a socialist with approval! (Really.) Here’s the conclusion:
The advocates of political intervention think that they ensure “consent of the governed” through the institution of democracy. But both history and theory show the naïveté of that belief. Suppose we had retained the medieval guild system, but with the tweak that the numbers of new entrants would be ultimately controlled by politicians who were elected every four years. Would that have solved the problem and given us a free labor market where people can choose their career paths?
In this world, it is impossible to have “total freedom” in the sense of being subject to no one else’s will — your behavior will necessarily affect others, and vice versa. But the institutions of private property and money allow for voluntary exchanges, with price signals communicating the information everyone needs to adjust his or her behavior. The system is not perfect, but it is the only coherent way to retain a meaningful sphere of individual autonomy while receiving feedback from others.
So, what, are you in favour of a (1) stateless Rothbardian US?
On (1), what is to stop rich foreigners buying up vast land in the US, and turning the US into Saudi America? Is the reduction of Christians to mere minority in America a price you’d pay for Rothdardtopia?
Do you think my blind devotion to laissez-faire principles means I’d allow a bookseller to provide books on atheism to paying customers, LK?
A mere evasion of my question. You know well that abolition of national borders and an attempt to create Rothdardtopia in a world of extreme third world poverty, big business that loves mass immigration to reduce wages, and hostile forces and religions hating the West would most probably result in the destruction of Western civilisation.
Gene Callahan realised this. Even Rothbard realised this towards the end of his life and turned against the idea of open borders.
I imagine you too know in your heart it’s true.
Wow, LK and G.W. Bush have more in common than I thought.
Too few people here say nice things about LK and I applaud you for doing so.
I’m a real sweet guy.
George W. Bush was anti-immigration??
“big business that loves mass immigration to reduce wages”
Isn’t that what the European neo-fascist parties are all saying these days ?
You mean populist right-wing parties. To call, say, UKIP fascist is left-wing hysterical B.S.
This is just getting too good to be true, who thought it would be a funny goof to pretend to be LK?
You mean thus UKIP?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ukip-nazi-nigel-farage-proudly-4761109
http://www.greatbritishpolitics.co.uk/europe/131-ukip-get-into-bed-with-neo-nazis.html
https://antifascistnetwork.org/2015/05/05/pin-striped-nazis-and-their-henchmen-the-links-between-ukip-and-the-fascists/
None of these show that UKIP is fascist. You are citing hysterical left wing propaganda to prove… hysterical left-wing propaganda.
Article 1
Farage once had his photo taken with someone who unknowingly to him was linked to the far right. You could find politicians from any political party to him this has happened.
Article 2
actually shows that UKIP shuns the far right and other populist right parties in the EU parliament. It proves my point.
Article 3
Is hysterical nonsense on a far left site. So some far right parties want to vote for UKIP and maybe have more influence in it? For years the party of choice for some of these people was the Tories, but this does not prove the Tories are fascist.
———-
Finally, UKIP does not support authoritarianism, it does not want a fascist dictatorship in the UK. On the contrary, it wants a sovereign Democratic UK free from the EU and is quasi-libertarian on economics. It supports a multiracial UK, but an end to mass immigration and the open door with the EU. It also has a real British libertarian wing who have much in common with people on this blog.
wow.
Do you support Trump as well?
Is the UK Guardian also an organ of hysterical left wing propaganda ?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/12/ukip-far-right-bnp
“Is the UK Guardian also an organ of hysterical left wing propaganda”
Frequently.
Are you kidding? The Guardian are famous for being radical left. Not that they are necessarily wrong, but don’t ever treat them as unbiased.
The classic cultural Marxist tactic has been to shout “Racist! Shut up!” anytime they don’t want to allow discussion. They are hypocrites… they pretend to support diversity but have no tolerance to any ideas other than their own. They pretend to be anti-fascist but are perfectly happy to use the power of the state to crush dissent.
Tel,
Of course you are correct – I was just trying to have some fun winding LK up.
I never copped him for a UKIP type.
OK, I’ll take it on the chin, you wound me up too.
Normally I would take one glance at that and think, “Golly! He’s yanking my crank” but you know with Americans there’s a temptation to start wondering, “Maybe this guy really is so insular, he just doesn’t know.”
Not saying that about you in particular… I just find it difficult to judge sometimes!
It is revealing that Transformer equates trying to be accurate about UKIP with supporting UKIP. I often have the feeling that he, and many here, see truth as just a cloth to be cut to suit. Nice to see it confirmed.
“I often have the feeling that he, and many here, see truth as just a cloth to be cut to suit. Nice to see it confirmed.”
Apparently neither Craw nor LK can handle trolling.
Apparently neither Craw nor LK can handle trolling.
Austrian trolls are Poes.
Craw,
You should read more closely what went down here.
I commented that LK’s expressed views on immigration were similar to “European neo-fascist parties” (no mention on UKIP).
And LK immediately leapt to the defense of the UKIP which (he says ) just “wants a sovereign Democratic UK free from the EU”.
If LK will clarify his views on the UKIP and its policies then I will review my statement that he is a UKIP supporter, and withdraw it if appropriate.
I did not say it *just* wants a sovereign Democratic UK free from the EU”. It wants other things too, including more free market economic policies, that no doubt you would support.
And, no, I would not vote for them.
OK, fair enough – I was wrong to imply that you were a UKIP supporter then.
BTW: You incorrectly categorize me as a supporter of 100% reserve banking below – which I definitely am not!
So I was spot on then, right?
There’s a Freudian slip. lol
LK is the second Post-Keynsian to express sympathy for far-right views I have come across this week. The other is Ralph Musgrove who it turns out supports the BNP.
Hey, any movement that gets Confederate good ol’ boys to swallow the entire Whig economic platform like mother’s milk has to be pretty exciting to them.
Most Keynesians are what I like to call “Smurfs with Constipation.”
Progressive blue on the outside, brown shirt on the inside.
Musgrave is not a Post Keynesian. He is a 100% reserve banker who thinks fractional reserve banking is the greatest evil ever. He has more in common with you on economics.
What is “far-right” exactly?
I always thought that national socialists were socialists (based on their own say so) and that you can’t get more far right than being a monarchist (where monarchy is both the ultimate expression of individual power and centralized power).
OK, fair enough – I was wrong to imply that you were a UKIP supporter then.
BTW: You incorrectly categorize me as a supporter of 100% reserve banking below – which I definitely am not!
The article wasn’t really about open borders. It merely serves to demonstrate that IF you have a group of people who respect each other’s property rights THEN the group will be able to successfully coordinate its economy.
That still remains incomplete in as much as how you find such a large number of good willed people all in the same place. I might add that this group of people also requires some common agreement as to WHAT exactly their property rights are (because many different configurations are possible). Starting with the abstract idea of property is only a start, all the details are missing.
Now you want to talk about the third world… I think it’s fair to point out that if you look at third world poverty today and then compare with history; 1000 years ago, Europeans would have considered that just normal daily life. Actually a large number of people in Africa today have mobile phones giving them access to the world in a way that would have been treated as witchcraft in Medieval Europe. But my point is that all nations on Earth started off as poor… some of them found a way out of that, others are getting there a bit slower. The natural state that humans were born into is zero infrastructure, every nut and berry must be found, every piece of meat you have to hunt yourself. All of the wealth in the world was built by someone.
There’s nothing stopping groups like Boko Haram from deciding to adopt the proven successful culture that made Western nations wealthy… but they don’t want to do that. Mind you, since Western nations are also choosing to abandon what has made them successful in the past we are probably a great threat to our own prosperity. Hopefully there’s room for some learning. The world changes, ask an evolutionary biologist… whatever answer we come to is the right answer, by definition.
A lot of ignorant comments in this post LK, but I guess that is nothing new.
“big business that loves mass immigration to reduce wages”
Reduced nominal wages is not synonymous with reduced REAL wages. With more labor, there is more productivity, and with more productivity, cost prices and output prices are lower than they otherwise would be. The fall in nominal wage rates is more than outweighed by lower prices.
But even so, even apart from this, the mere fact that “big business” may happen to like something, does not automatically mean that it is bad for everyone else. Clearly the immigrants who choose to immigrate, are better off, or else they would not immigrate. Clearly the consumers who benefit from more productivity are better off.
Economic competition is not a zero sum game.
Now what you say about immigration leading to a destruction of western society, does have merit, but only if the immigration is not met with private property protections, which Western Democratic states FAIL to do, because they leaders themselves are not welcoming the immigrants into their own properties, but rather on “public” properties where the tragedy of the commons applies, and where you have rapes and assaults happening on a frequent basis in Europe. But that is the failure of democracy, not immigration per se. If Europe were completely privately owned, the the owners of the land where the raped occur can separately decide to throw the criminals out.
You can thank crony capitalists like George Soros and the socialists in charge who want to force the hapless of people of Europe to integrate with the rapists and other criminals.
Oh if only you had Hoppe’s property ethics where such cretins can be cast out of Europe. But no, you must wallow in your own filth. Hope it was worth it. Not only did you shoot yourself in the foot, but you are putting millions of innocent people at risk, who have no legal recourse to themselves avoid these criminals on “public” streets and parks. Tragedy of the commons is not just about deforestation you know.
Oh, yes, Hoppe’s brave new world of freedom:
“As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of continued nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society. In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one’s own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They—the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism—will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.” (Hoppe 2007: 218).
Hedonists and gays to be “physically removed from society”? Where to?
Also:
In distinct contrast, a society in which the right to exclusion is fully restored to owners of private property would be profoundly unegalitarian, intolerant, and discriminatory. There would be little or no ‘tolerance’ and ‘open-mindedness’ so dear to left-libertarians. Instead, one would be on the right path toward restoring the freedom of association and exclusion implied in the institution of private property, if only towns and villages could and would do what they did as a matter of course until well into the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. There would be signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and, once in town, requirements for entering specific pieces of property (for example, no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no homosexuals, drug users, Jews, Moslems, Germans, or Zulus), and those who did not meet these entrance requirements would be kicked out as trespassers.” (Hoppe 2007: 211).
Got a problem with Jews, Major_Freedom?
“Oh, yes, Hoppe’s brave new world of freedom…”
Precisely. When individuals have the choices to kick out rapists, murderers and religious fanatics out of their properties on the basis of individual property rights, then by extension individuals would have the right to kick anyone off their properties for any reason, including reasons you and I might find morally objectionable.
Real liberty, of all individuals, not just you, LK, often makes you feel repulsed and what others do with their liberty. But whatever they do, such as preventing “Jews” from entering their properties, is not aggression.
So I will reiterate, Democratic is failing in Europe. It has resulted in what you right now are challenging anarchists to solve. Well, we have a solution, and you come back with “people will be allowed to prevent people from entering their homes and businesses on the basis of skin color or ethnicity.”
Apparently you believe people being forced to integrate regardless of race or ethnicity, is more important than stopping rapists and murderers from roaming the streets preying on the innocent.
If only you could appeal to Hoppe’s private property ethics. Then YOU can let anyone onto your land that you want, Jew or Muslim or whatever, AND you will be able to choose to not let rapists in as well.
“Got a problem with Jews, Major_Freedom?”
I am a Jew, LK.
So are my intellectual idols Rothbard and Mises.
Thanks for asking though! I mean, private property rights literally equals anti-Semitism. Literally.
“Oh, yes, Hoppe’s brave new world of freedom: …”
I think when Hoppe grants the premise of the legitimacy of town borders, he’s unwittingly conceding the foundation of Communism.
So, on that particular aspect of his view I think he’s wrong.
(If a town can be collectively owned, then why not a country or a planet?)
But his point about individuals having the right to physically remove people from private property is legitimate.
Hoppe wasn’t talking about town borders as distinguished from individual private property borders.
What he meant was a collection of individual private property owners whose lands are connected, who just to happen to share similar preferences for certain people.
That may appear to be some abstract collectivist notion of property, but it’s not.
“… who just to happen to share similar preferences for certain people.”
I disagree.
In LK’s quote, Hoppe says:
“There would be signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and, once in town, requirements for entering specific pieces of property …”
But if the entrance requirements for the town merely obtained from the property rights of the owners of contiguous pieces of land, then town entrance requirements would be superfluous.
Hoppe has in mind his own version of collective rights.
“There would be signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and, once in town, requirements for entering specific pieces of property …”.
This is within a framework of private home owner’s associations.
Hoppe was not talking about any non-property owner of any ” specific” pieces of property making the decision to ban people from entering the specific property owner’s lands.
The “town” is fully private, where the owners have agreed to specific stipulations in the purchase of the land.
“… an attempt to create Rothdardtopia in a world of extreme third world poverty …”
Third Worlds are Third Worlds because of too much government. Poor people who all of a sudden are free to homestead “national parks”, or are free to trade with business park owners that are willing to repurpose commercial buildings for residential purposes, will get more rich, not less.
“… big business that loves mass immigration to reduce wages …”
Your assumption is that workers in a given area are owed a certain level of wages.
But since the value for the higher-order goods of any given structure of production is derived from consumer preferences for the final goods at the lowest order of production; And since a producer does business to enjoy his life more; Your assumption is absurd.
Workers are the least useful to the consumer, and should therefore be seen as the burden they really are. If the burden of hiring an employee is less than what would be required to bear without hiring one, then it makes sense to hire.
So you would be fine with multinational corporations bringing in 200 million from the Third world into America?
You would be fine if the majority voted for politicians who did just that?
If not what can you do about it legally?
That depends on what you mean by “multinational corporation”.
But generally speaking, yes.
If I could briefly modify your question for clarity, I’d say that I’d be fine with just a single company bringing in 200 million from the Third world because it’s that person’s money – he has a right to hire whomever he wants.
I’m not entitled to a job.
Now, where is this guy spending all of his money that he’s making off of cheap, Third world labor?
He’s spending it, somewhere: He’s either eating out, or having food delivered, and he probably goes out for a good time, and heck, he’s even probably building a ton of playthings on his property.
So, even with the 200 million Third worlders working at his corporation, there’s plenty of business to do.
And then there’s everything the Third worlder’s are buying for themselves.
At any rate, the whole point is that nobody has a right to another’s wealth.
Your proposals are cronyism, you do realize this, no?
Thanks, guest, your desire to commit national suicide is a good rejoiner to Major_Looney
Thanks, LK.
My desire to commit national suicide is precisely what once made America great:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
– Declaration of Independence
LK, you are committing the fallacy of hypostatization.
Suicide is what individual human beings do, not nations. Nations are nothing but territorial borders created by conquest and war, as opposed to homesteading and free trade.
There is nothing special about borders created on the basis of wars and aggression that we need to keep them intact today.
National borders are violations of just borders set by homesteading.
If my neighbor lets a racist into his home, I have no right to point a gun at them to prevent them from entering.
You want to point guns at people to control borders you do not even own or have a say in. Your desires are illegitimate.
LK, you are evading the question.
You would be fine if the majority voted for politicians who did just that?
If not whydo you continue to want democracy regardless? Why would YOU be willing to risk national “suicide”?
Wait, you are not really pro-democracy are you LK? That if the majority voted for politicians who brought in millions of migrants, that you would rather….want a Chancellor? A strong Chancellor? One that will not allow the problem to continue?
Maybe you should change your name to EP, for Emperor Palpatine.
If you are thinking of the specific example of refugees entering Europe I doubt too many multinational corporations are benefiting from that… although perhaps in the early days some of them thought they would benefit.
The key quote was Max Frisch: “We asked for workers. We got people instead.”
People are producers, and consumers, and preferences all in one package. You cannot just choose the bit that you want and not bother with the remainder.
If you are thinking more about Trump’s grumbling on illegal workers in America I would guess some benefit and others don’t. Very difficult to weight one man’s gain against another man’s loss in an economic theory. First you would have to measure it, then you would need to find a common scale that all people relate to. You could use money as a common scale, but not everything is about money and anyway government tampers with the value.
“On (1), what is to stop rich foreigners buying up vast land in the US, and turning the US into Saudi America?”
The would be sellers, and ultimately the consumers of the output of such lands. Rich people will not just buy land to fill with vagrants. They will buy it for the purposes of production. Thank requires productive people to use the land.
The only portion of the US that would be “Saudi America” would be those particular lands. Everywhere else would be owned by rich people who have the right to keep everyone in “Saudi America” from entering the rest of the country.
Why didn’t democracy stop Europe from being turned into Eurabia?
Democracy fails LK. Admit it. I wanted about this precise issue YEARS ago. There is nothing to stop the majority from becoming religious fanatics who hate Western civilization and voting for Sharia law to be imposed on everyone.
But at the time you scoffed at it, believing that you had to defend democracy from all attacks an thus pretend in your own mind that such a thing is so unlikely so as to be nothing but the fear mongering rhetoric of libertarians.
Look at how you’re dealing with what is happening in Europe. Here you have Western civilization at risk of collapse, and you STILL dump on the non-existant world of anarcho-capitalism is what we need to worry about. Look outside your window LK, and do something about it. Stop advocating for democracy because it cannot protect you from exactly what is happening in Europe.
Now you know why libertarians hate democracy. It is not because we have a general hate for humanity, but because we have a love for individual freedom.
On the contrary, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism would dismantle national borders and bring about exactly what you’re talking about. You are just too stupid to see it. You already conceded it above by endorsing Hoppe’s reactionary ultra-conseravtive version of libertarianism which also demands that ” individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism—will have to be physically removed from society”.
Democracy in Europe right now is actually showing how an effective end to pro-big business mass immigration can be brought about democratically. Eastern Europe has shown the way. The rise of populist right parties in Europe will make mainstream parties react.
In private property ethics there are no national borders.
It would not be a dismantling of national borders, but a dismantling of systematic violation of private border rights, which will allow the creation of borders based on individual, not mob, rule.
“Democracy in Europe right now is actually showing how an effective end to pro-big business mass immigration can be brought about democratically”
Let the backtracking begin!
Private property rights does not obligated you to behave like a “ultra right extremist”.
You can be a ultra left wing extremist and use your property rights to allow and disallow anyone you want.
Private property rights is not equivalent to being racist. It just allows you to be racist in peace. To your own detriment.
“But the institutions of private property and money…”
I note with approval your surrender. Much blood has been spilt on this blog over precisely this question: is private property and institution established and maintained by social convention? You concede it is. Bravo.
That hurdle surmounted you can now address LK’s question: cannot some erosions of the social order and convention undercut those very institutions, and can we not defend them?
I’m not sure he’s conceding as much as you seem to think. I’m not an expert on immigration, but I seem to remember Caplan pointing out that people come here mostly because of the culture and institutions here, not because they like the ones they left.
If it weren’t for the weather and preconceived notions, I doubt many people would see life in Akron OH that much differently than McAllen TX. Sure, one has more quinceaneras than the other, but I’m not sure that has a dramatic effect on institutions.
People here have *denied* that property is a social convention, socially enforced. By calling it an institution Murphy is conceding that it is. That’s really the whole game for a Rothbardian.
I don’t want to speak for anyone else. On a practical level, yes, there are social rules that make up a set of property rights that may or may not change and are enforced socially.
That doesn’t preclude a deontological right to self ownership and rights that follow logically from it.
And “socially enforced” need not mean “state enforced.”
Invasion is not the same as respect for property rights, regardless of “convention”, which is really mob rule, which is the “whole game” for you statists.
No need for military metaphors, when there’s enough real blood letting underway.
This blog has spilled no blood at all, it remains pristine. We talk it out as a substitute for fighting, not as an equivalent to fighting. That in itself is a small miracle, which should be celebrated.
Bob, I put forward the suggestion that very few people would starve to death under such a situation.
But coercive rule is its own justification. People do it because there’s a personal advantage for the rulers and because they can get away with it. They may tend to embellish that with some comforting justifications after the fact but ultimately power is a thing unto itself.
It would be nice if all elites earned their position, and now and then it even happens, but I doubt that just wishing hard will do it. Sure, it’s great to write articles explaining how such a system could work and why property rights are useful in a social context. That’s probably a place to start, because socialists could benefit from thinking about that. Problem remains there will still be temptation, and still be envy in the world, and people always look for an easy way to get ahead.
You think people like Clinton and Trump don’t understand how the free market works? They have both been in the business of buying and selling favours, Trump was right out there and open about it that he donated to the Clintons and schmoozed with them because he wanted some powerful political backing.
They have a great deal of respect for property rights… mostly their own.
Not sure how this turned into an immigration debate, but my thoughts on that divisive topic are here and here.
Bob, these days everything devolves into an immigration debate. Didn’t you know?
Courtesy of our good friend LK, naturally.
White blood cells coelescing to cancer?
HT to Robert Wenzel:
Top Trump Economic Adviser Says Fed Shouldn’t Hike Rates
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2016/05/top-trump-economic-adviser-says-fed.html
“As Murray Rothbard wrote: …”
“… The fundamental insight of the “Austrian,” or Misesian, theory of the business cycle is that monetary inflation via loans to business causes over-investment in capital goods, especially in such areas as construction, long-term investments, machine tools, and industrial commodities. On the other hand, there is a relative underinvestment in consumer goods industries. And since stock prices and real estate prices are titles to capital goods, there tends as well to be an excessive boom. It is not necessary for consumer prices to go up, and therefore to register as price inflation. …”
“… So, the fact that prices have remained stable recently does not mean that we will not reap the whirlwind of recession and crash.”
The Austrian claim that inflation has gone into stock prices, and that’s why we haven’t seen price inflation in consumer goods, is not a cop-out.
You, LK.
No, you’re an idiot, guest. Post Keynesianism also opposes speculative asset bubbles and their destabilising effects. You’re a loud mouth buffoon who knows virtually nothing of your opponents’ views.
Edited for civility
“No, you’re an Austrian , guest. Post Keynesianism also opposes speculative asset bubbles and their destabilising effects. You’re an Austrian who knows virtually nothing of your opponents’ views.”
When Craw is editing you for civility, you know you’ve gone off the deep end.
😉
Actually, Ken B. (a.k.a. “Craw”) is still being insulting. Their acts are tired.
Edited for candor
“Edited for ‘civility’
“”Hey guys, watch me equate ‘Austrian’ with ‘idiot’.””
😀
“… who knows virtually nothing of your opponents’ views.”
That part is more true than not, I admit.
But since I was referring to criticisms, on your part, of the Austrian claim that inflation has manifested in stock prices, there’s not much to know about my opponents’ views, in this particular case, SINCE,
Post-Keynesian opposition to speculative bubbles, notwithstanding,
Austrians. Are. Not. Copping. Out.
That was the point. A response to your criticism of OUR views.
“Post Keynesianism also opposes speculative asset bubbles…”
Post Keynesians oppose what they cannot even define?
Neat.
All stock purchases are speculations. One speculates about the future price.
If you “oppose” stock speculation, then you oppose capitalism.
lol… I said “Post Keynesianism also opposes speculative asset bubbles“, not stock speculation per se.
More bloody idiocy from Major_Crackpot, but then we already expected that, given you think the word “immediately” can mean anything you want it to mean and you think that:
“All predictions of what humans will do in the future are ass pulls”
——————-
Tell us, can you predict business people will pursue profits tomorrow? Or is it just as likely they wouldn’t? lol
“… given you think the word “immediately” can mean anything you want it to mean …”
For newcomers, we’ve already dealt with that.
LK has some reading comprehension problems.
“Tell us, can you predict business people will pursue profits tomorrow? Or is it just as likely they wouldn’t?”
LK, is the point of any deliberate act by a human to achieve something he sees as better than if he doesn’t act?
Or is it just as likely that a human will act because he doesn’t desire, in the moment of acting, the result he believes will obtain from his action?
OK, so how would your Post Keynesians be able to reliably tell the difference between a speculative asset bubble (i.e. a bubble caused by the actions of speculators) and some other sort of asset bubble (e.g. caused by money printing, or perhaps genuine shocks like a global oil shortage) ?
How would you reliably decide which speculators are just doing legitimate (presumably desirable) stock speculation and which speculators are pumping up those bubbles you oppose?
That logic makes no sense LK. To oppose “speculative” stock prices is to oppose speculation in stocks.
Since all stock purchases are “speculative”, to say you oppose speculative asset bubbles is to say you oppose stock speculation.
Why else include the word ” speculative” if there is nothing wrong with speculation?
You cannot even define a speculative run up in stock prices versus a non-speculative ru up in stocks prices. ALL changes in stock prices are speculative.
You’re just being sloppy with your words because you don’t really understand what speculation even means.
“To oppose “speculative” stock prices is to oppose speculation in stocks.
B.S.
I’ve already seen Austrians on this blog say that they oppose asset bubbles.
According to Major_Lunatic logic, they must necessarily then oppose speculation per se. That is jut laughable rubbish. It does not apply to Austrians, nor does it apply to Keynesians.
You are stupid as ever
“I’ve already seen Austrians on this blog say that they oppose asset bubbles.”
BS. What they mean is not the prices or the behaviors of the investors, which is what you “oppose”, but the cause of them, which is the central banking system.
Austrians do not argue against asset booms fully backed by prior savings.
You are still evading the question. You are still failing to define ” speculative asset bubble” without recourse to tautology.
Or, to put it another way,
If there is nothing wrong with speculation in stocks, then there is nothing wrong with the “speculative” aspect of asset bubbles. But if there is nothing wrong with the speculative aspect of asset bubbles, and given we know all pricing of assets is speculative, then there is logically nothing wrong with speculative asset bubbles.
Tel echoed what I mentioned above.: You cannot even define a speculative asset bubble as distinguished from an asset bubble.
I didn’t say that, I asked him how he proposed to make that distinction.
A lot of people seriously believe they can correctly identify various types of bubble… with arguable success.
I think it’s fair to listen to his proposals.
OK fair enough Tel.
Still, I’ve been around long enough to know LK has only ever defined them by falling back on tautologies. I don’t expect that to change any time soon.
Asset bubbles are generally easy to spot. They occur when
(1) the prices of assets in secondary asset markets rise appreciably and keep rising and are being driven higher by a frenzy of asset speculators usually financed by private debt, e.g., Australian bubble 1880s-1890s, US stock market bubble 1920s, housing bubbles in many countries 1990s-2000s
(2) in real estate and housing, these bubbles are easy to spot, because housing prices tend to have a degree of long run stability which can be seen in graphs:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/IMG0031_46434765.PNG
It is not difficult to see from empirical evidence when prices are depart from supply and demand fundamentals.
“has only ever defined them by falling back on tautologie”
Says the idiot whose whole style of debate is to redefine words and scream he’s won the argument by tautology. lol.
MT, you’re not playing the game unless you give him the opportunity to wrap the rope around his own neck.
“the prices of assets in secondary asset markets rise appreciably and keep rising and are being driven higher by a frenzy of asset speculators.”
See? Tautology.
Speculative bubbles are when speculators speculate.
LK is a multibillionaire because he can “easily spot” the highs, whereas full-time fund managers are spending all day posting drivel on the internet.
…and on the other hand, when speculators speculate about asset prices, that is not a speculative asset bubble.
So a speculative asset bubble is when speculators speculate, whereas an asset bubble is when speculators speculate.
The difference is easy to spot. The difference occurs when speculators who speculate, cease speculating as speculators, and instead start speculating as speculators.
“It is not difficult to see from empirical evidence when prices are depart from supply and demand fundamentals.”
Wouldn’t the empirical data also fit a theory that says that private speculation of bubble proportions were made with newly created fraudulent credit such that banks were willing to make loans that were more risky than would occur absent the money printing?
Also, aren’t “supply and demand fundamentals” a *theory* about supply and demand?
I mean, you’re not just looking at the trend of empirical data and then calling that fundamental, are you?
Cuz the definition of “fundamentals” would change with the empirical data – defeating the purpose of using the word “fundamental”.
““the prices of assets in secondary asset markets rise appreciably and keep rising and are being driven higher by a frenzy of asset speculators.””
That is not a tautology because it is not offered as an analytic a priori proposition. It is a empirical proposition, with reference to empirical phenomena, just as to say that the boiling of water is evaporation by heat transformation of a liquid to a gaseous form.
Lol!
You can “offer” a tautology as an empirical proposition all you want, just as you can “offer” the proposition that “All bachelors are unmarried men” as an empirical proposition.
Doesn’t make it so.
You defined a speculative asset bubble in terms of speculation. You “offered” a tautology.
By the way, ALL asset prices are established by speculation. Speculation is what every investor does when purchasing a stock or asset. They speculate about what the future demand will be, hoping to profit.
When you buy a mutual fun for retirement, you are speculating that the price will appreciate over time before you sell.
Try again.
“By the way, ALL asset prices are established by speculation. Speculation is what every investor does when purchasing a stock or asset. They speculate about what the future demand will be, hoping to profit.”
All prices at the grocery store are also partially the result of consumers speculating on their own future demand for those, or alternative, goods.
(The other part being the seller’s speculation about future costs and demand.)
“As if any more evidence were needed that the Fed has succeeded, either through ignorance or design, in igniting new asset bubbles throughout the economy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City just released a survey of bankers that confirms a continuing rise in U.S. farmland prices. The following chart shows the stratospheric year-over-year rise in non-irrigated cropland prices for 3Q 2012.”
https://mises.org/library/addicted-asset-bubbles
“The same Fed that didn’t see the 90’s stock bubble now does not see another asset bubble, according to an article on CNN”
https://mises.org/blog/fed-doesnt-see-another-asset-bubble
“Years of QE and ZIRP have recreated an asset bubble in our economy with tremendous implications, and as the specific asset class may continue to change the same underlying problem of malinvestment and misallocation of resources will persist if central bankers do not change course.”
https://mises.org/library/fracking-%E2%80%94-new-bubble-new-year
So now, according to Major_Looney, nobody, not even Austrians, can legitimately speak of asset bubbles or describe them, because it would just a tautology and completely invalid.
You’ve succeeded yet again in proving how your unhinged opinions have nearly zero relationship with actual Austrian economics.
LK, you still have not defined a “speculative asset bubble” without recourse to tautologies.
Can Austrians define a “speculative asset bubble” without recourse to tautologies, Major_Moondance?
LK, you still have not defined a “speculative asset bubble” without recourse to tautology.
To answer your question, which I do not have to evade because it is not a tautology from the Austrian perspective, a “speculative asset bubble” is first and foremost a redundant statement, since all assets are purchased via speculation. The phrase is jus asset bubble.
Second, and more importantly, Austrians define an asset bubble by the difference between a free market boom and an artificial, government induced boom. We call an “asset bubble” as malinvestment in assets brought about by distortions to economic calculation caused by government intervention in money.
The “bubble” is called a bubble because of the deviation away from what otherwise would have prevailed in a laissez faire market.
What you “oppose” is merely the act of investors in bidding particular prices they think are optimal, instead of what you are your statist ilk arbitrarily declare is optimal despite the fact that you lack the information necessary to make such a declaration precisely because such information is only manifested in a laissez faire market.
You oppose the free market, and you want the government to print money and distort economic calculation, which misleads investors and prevents them from knowing true market savings and preferences, and then you oppose the very consequences of your opposition to the free market, which are asset bubbles, and then you laughably arrogate yourself as then being informed enough to declare the government can know and should know the “right” run up in asset prices, like a communist believed himself to be able to do under Stalin or Mao.
Your definition is a tautology. You define a speculative asset bubble as speculative pricing, which is ALL asset pricing.
You are still evading the question. I didn’t evade your question. My theory is superior to yours.