Economic meltdown!

[Meshugger]

Well, here's Chomsky's take on free market and his support for Adam Smith's ideas.

[Humodour]

That guy is spot on.

 

He is an absolute champion, seriously.

[taks]

I think you misinterpret. I'm not saying government intervention IS the way to go. But what you posted does not, in effect, prove that no intervention entails no problems. You don't like interventionism, but there's nothing to suggest that the complete opposite is more desirable.

i'm not misinterpreting at all. i don't have to prove the alternative. we know that intervention does not work. not at any level. that's why your argument, that i should prove the alternative, is a strawman.

 

chomsky: yet another idealist hoping that some utopian scheme that ultimately results in collectivism will pay off. marx, as well recall, wanted something similar.

 

taks

[Humodour]

I think you misinterpret. I'm not saying government intervention IS the way to go. But what you posted does not, in effect, prove that no intervention entails no problems. You don't like interventionism, but there's nothing to suggest that the complete opposite is more desirable.

i'm not misinterpreting at all. i don't have to prove the alternative. we know that intervention does not work. not at any level. that's why your argument, that i should prove the alternative, is a strawman.

 

You're damn deluded.

 

Honestly, that's on par with Walsingham quoting that guy who said "Banks have never worked and never will."

 

EDIT: And learn what 'strawman' means. Random n00b's argument - if it were actually fallacious, which it isn't - would be a burden of proof error, not a strawman. A strawman is misrepresentation of another's stance. Random n00b did not misrepresent you.

 

chomsky: yet another idealist hoping that some utopian scheme that ultimately results in collectivism will pay off. marx, as well recall, wanted something similar.

 

taks

 

His ideology was strange, yes. But that wasn't what the speech was about. He was examining the nature of 'conservatism' and 'libertarianism' in America compared to the rest of the world.

Edited September 29, 2008 by Krezack

[random n00b]

i'm not misinterpreting at all. i don't have to prove the alternative. we know that intervention does not work. not at any level. that's why your argument, that i should prove the alternative, is a strawman.

That sure is a comfy stance from which to take your shots, eh taks?

 

Regardless, we don't know that intervention does not work on any level, because it hasn't been tried at all possible levels and we lack a complete, irrefutable working model of economics from which to derive such conclusions reliably.

 

You accuse others of being idealists, but you are one yourself, with your unshakable faith in the belief that the market is somehow a closed system that can balance itself without help. All I'm asking for is an explanation, preferably based on logic and evidence, of why you are so convinced that this is so. I'm sure that with your extensive scientific background, this shouldn't be too much to ask?

[taks]

You're damn deluded.

yeah, right.

 

EDIT: And learn what 'strawman' means. Random n00b's argument - if it were actually fallacious, which it isn't - would be a burden of proof error, not a strawman. A strawman is misrepresentation of another's stance. Random n00b did not misrepresent you.

uh, nice try, but no. you need to read up on what a strawman is yourself. a strawman is building up a weaker argument, then attacking it. it is a "strawman" since it is weaker, and easier to defeat, but does not actually address the actual argument it is attempting to defeat. misrepresenting my position is only part of the strawman.

 

when you accuse someone of not understanding, you should be certain that you in fact understand yourself.

 

his argument is a strawman because he chose not to address what i claim, i.e., that government intervention is bad, but to address a weaker position that i should prove unfettered capitalism will work (i've never stated that it can be proven, which is the misrepresentation). that is impossible, not unlike proving a negative which i also stated. it can't be proved because it has never been done. we don't have history on our side with that one, but we do have history on our side for intervention.

 

His ideology was strange, yes. But that wasn't what the speech was about. He was examining the nature of 'conservatism' and 'libertarianism' in America compared to the rest of the world.

immaterial. i was commenting on chomsky.

 

taks

[taks]

i'm not misinterpreting at all. i don't have to prove the alternative. we know that intervention does not work. not at any level. that's why your argument, that i should prove the alternative, is a strawman.

That sure is a comfy stance from which to take your shots, eh taks?

that's the nice thing about auditing what is implemented.

 

Regardless, we don't know that intervention does not work on any level, because it hasn't been tried at all possible levels and we lack a complete, irrefutable working model of economics from which to derive such conclusions reliably.

to heck it hasn't. as noted, the 19th century was sort of minimalist, and communist regimes such as the USSR, NK and china are probably the limits at the other end. in the middle is rampant and failing as well.

 

You accuse others of being idealists, but you are one yourself, with your unshakable faith in the belief that the market is somehow a closed system that can balance itself without help. All I'm asking for is an explanation, preferably based on logic and evidence, of why you are so convinced that this is so. I'm sure that with your extensive scientific background, this shouldn't be too much to ask?

i'm not an idealist at all, i simply believe in rights actually existing as inalienable, not something granted by the government. as soon as government intervenes, they take away somebody's rights. if the government can take away one person's rights to favor another, they are no longer rights. capitalism is NOT ideal, nor will it solve all problems. it is merely moral, and results in the best possible solution. there is NO perfect solution, it cannot happen, THAT would be idealist.

 

taks

[Nick_i_am]

It's pretty funny when people argue so bitterly over semantics then use completely generalised terms like 'best'.

[Humodour]

Your capacity for self-delusion is admirable, taks.

 

I'll leave you with the proper definition of strawman, now:

 

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man," one describes a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view, yet is easier to refute, then attributes that position to the opponent. For example, someone might deliberately overstate the opponent's position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

 

Random n00b didn't misrepresent you, nor replace your argument with a weaker one, or whatever. He simply asked, quite reasonably, for you to either back up your nonsense claim that all intervention is bad, or prove your claim that the free market is always right.

 

He was letting you off lightly. You should really be backing up both claims. Instead you give us "it's obviously true, so I don't need to prove anything" rhetoric.

Edited September 29, 2008 by Krezack

[random n00b]

to heck it hasn't. as noted, the 19th century was sort of minimalist, and communist regimes such as the USSR, NK and china are probably the limits at the other end. in the middle is rampant and failing as well.

I'm going to take your "auditing things that are implemented" posture now as well, and ask you if those are all the possibilities that can exist, as opposed to simply a few combinations that achieved different levels of success. That me or you can't think of different possibilites doesn't mean they don't exist or that we should stop trying. Thus, down goes your argument that regulation cannot work. I'm being as unconstructive as you.

 

 

i'm not an idealist at all, i simply believe in rights actually existing as inalienable, not something granted by the government. as soon as government intervenes, they take away somebody's rights. if the government can take away one person's rights to favor another, they are no longer rights. capitalism is NOT ideal, nor will it solve all problems. it is merely moral, and results in the best possible solution. there is NO perfect solution, it cannot happen, THAT would be idealist.

You believe in "inalienable rights" - how is that NOT being an idealist, in a world in which rights are only as good as the prevalent idiosincrasy agrees with them?

 

In the end it's just a clash of ideals, and the different hierarchies of "rights" people come up with. Individual rights vs social rights, the one vs the many, etc. If you steer the conversation into the muddy waters of morality, you must concede that there is no such thing as a superior solution, as it all depends on opinion.

 

And you still haven't explained how unfettered capitalism is "the best" solution, nor why do you believe this is so, which is even more interesting since you admit that it's never been tried.

[taks]

Your capacity for self-delusion is admirable, taks.

 

I'll leave you with the proper definition of strawman, now:

i know exactly what a strawman is, and i have also read the wiki definition. apparently, though you read it, you did not understand it completely.

 

from the definition:

For example, someone might deliberately overstate the opponent's position.

as i said, he assumed that i must have proof that pure unfettered capitalism works. he misrepresented my position by assuming as such and the argument goes "if you don't have proof, then your criticism is flawed." lack of proof that it will work in no way refutes my argument that the contrary is true. this is actually similar to an affirmation of the consequent: since i can't prove that pure capitalism will work, then some form of regulation must work.

 

Random n00b didn't misrepresent you, nor replace your argument with a weaker one, or whatever.

yes, he did, though not necessarily intentionally: "taks must be wrong because he has not proven the alternative," was implied.

 

He simply asked, quite reasonably, for you to either back up your nonsense claim that all intervention is bad, or prove your claim that the free market is always right.

again, that's not my claim. again, that's the misrepresentation that you just don't understand. my claim is that the free market is the only way to go simply because no other means of regulating the free market have worked, and it is easy to prove this true.

 

He was letting you off lighting. You should really be backing up both claims. Instead you give us "it's obviously true, so I don't need to prove anything" rhetoric.

you mean lightly, and i just proved that you don't even understand why your own argument is false.

 

taks

[random n00b]

yes, he did, though not necessarily intentionally: "taks must be wrong because he has not proven the alternative," was implied.

Um, no. That's why I said you're misinterpreting. I'm not saying you're wrong. All I'm saying is that you haven't satisfactorily supported the alternative you propose. The whole strawman thing is based on a mistaken assumption on your part.

 

Let me be perfectly clear: I only want you to put your own ideas under the same kind of rigorous scrutiny you subject the ideas of others to.

[taks]

I think it's best if I just quote Sarkozy directly since it's clear you didn't read the article:

 

"The idea of the all-powerful market which must not be constrained by any rules, by any political intervention, was mad. The idea that markets were always right was mad." ~ Sarkozy

i read it.

 

how is this contrary to what i said? i could care less what sarkozy thinks. he's merely putting forth an opinion, an opinion i think is not only incorrect, but based on flawed assumptions that the current failures are due to capitalism itself.

 

He's not calling for the end of capitalism by any means. He has quite good clarity about what needs to replace the current system:

 

"The financial crisis is not the crisis of capitalism. It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the spirit of capitalism ... The present crisis must incite us to refound capitalism on the basis of ethics and work."

did i say he was? there you go misrepresenting my position, again. really, have you read and understood the definition of strawman, you know, the one you quoted?

 

again, the misrepresentation is this: "prove your claim that the free market is always right." i never made that claim, only that the free market is the only way that can work. it has its own problems, which i have noted repeatedly. it is only the most right possible. we cannot get to any of the utopian ways, not ever, and should give up trying.

 

taks

[Humodour]

my claim is that the free market is the only way to go simply because no other means of regulating the free market have worked, and it is easy to prove this true.

 

Oh, it's easy to prove? Good, good.

 

Could you please do so?

 

He was letting you off lighting. You should really be backing up both claims. Instead you give us "it's obviously true, so I don't need to prove anything" rhetoric.

you mean lightly, and i just proved that you don't even understand why your own argument is false.

 

taks

 

Really? My browser must be playing up. Where is this proof?

Edited September 29, 2008 by Krezack

[taks]

Um, no. That's why I said you're misinterpreting. I'm not saying you're wrong. All I'm saying is that you haven't satisfactorily supported the alternative you propose.

gimme a break noob. you said:

 

"you still have to provide convincing arguments that a fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system and is preferable to the alternatives."

no, i don't. i only have to prove that regulation doesn't work. that's been done to death. you misrepresent me when you assume i think that a "fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system." i never said that at all.

 

The whole strawman thing is based on a mistaken assumption on your part.

what assumption? you said that explicitly.

 

Let me be perfectly clear: I only want you to put your own ideas under the same kind of rigorous scrutiny you subject the ideas of others to.

my ideas are comments about what is not working, and i have.

 

taks

[taks]

Really? My browser must be playing up. Where is this proof?

uh, your words: "or prove your claim that the free market is always right."

 

i never said this, therefore you and noob misrepresented me. strawman.

 

wow, you're easy.

 

taks

[taks]

i should have put a Q.E.D. after that. ahem.

 

taks

[Humodour]

taks, I think we all got over the fact that you don't understand the term 'strawman'.

 

We moved on. It's fairly trivial. We just want you to give us this 'proof' that regulation doesn't work. You keep talking about it, after all.

[taks]

taks, I think we all got over the fact that you don't understand the term 'strawman'.

what part of your misrepresentation don't you understand? i never claimed what you said i claimed.

 

it is you that don't even understand your own argument. or are you saying that you didn't misrepresent me and the quotes i posted, from both you and noob, were really not what the seemed?

 

delusional, yes, you are.

 

We moved on. It's fairly trivial. We just want you to give us this 'proof' that regulation doesn't work. You keep talking about it, after all.

uh, the discussion about the current failure of the US' regulated market... every single socialisst country that has failed, or is failing? how many examples of proof do you need?

 

taks

[random n00b]

gimme a break noob. you said:

 

"you still have to provide convincing arguments that a fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system and is preferable to the alternatives."

no, i don't. i only have to prove that regulation doesn't work. that's been done to death. you misrepresent me when you assume i think that a "fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system." i never said that at all.

Fair enough, then. I've misrepresented you there. You haven't said that an unregulated market will achieve balance on its own. But you say that we should leave it alone all the same. So, the implications are that the market will somehow balance itself or that you don't care whether or not it achieves equilibrium. Am I missing something?

 

 

what assumption? you said that explicitly.

No, I didn't say you are wrong. I say you are purposefully avoiding criticism of your own ideas. You are doing it even now by diverting the attention towards how you are misrepresented and approaching the discussion from both a moralistic perspective, and the "auditorial" posture, both of which allow you to lay out your arguments without actually backing them up.

 

 

my ideas are comments about what is not working, and i have.

Nice try, but no:

my claim is that the free market is the only way to go(1) simply because no other means of regulating the free market have worked(2), and it is easy to prove this true.

(1) is a logical leap which doesn't necessarily follow from its premises, non sequitur. You are making the claim that a change to a model you believe is superior is warranted in light of the success (or lack thereof) of the tried alternatives. This is not just "commenting about what doesn't work". It's advocating a different approach, for which you lack any form of support other than "the alternative doesn't work", which is fallacious in itself because:

 

(2) Isn't strictly true either, as we haven't yet witnessed the complete collapse of all the alternatives to a truly free market.

 

edit: I suck at phrasal verbs

Edited September 29, 2008 by random n00b

[taks]

i tell you what krezack, go back and show me where i ever said either "the free market is always right" (your words) or "a fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system" (noob's words) and i'll concede i made a mistake.

 

i do think that it is the best system out there, simply because it is the only moral system in which neither buyer nor seller has rights that trump the other's. morality requires that no one person's rights are given consideration over another's.

 

taks

[Humodour]

We moved on. It's fairly trivial. We just want you to give us this 'proof' that regulation doesn't work. You keep talking about it, after all.

uh, the discussion about the current failure of the US' regulated market... every single socialisst country that has failed, or is failing? how many examples of proof do you need?

 

taks

 

You claim all levels of government regulation are failures, right? Then citing a few examples of failed government regulation is clearly in no way sufficient proof. That would be like me citing the failure of one democracy as evidence all democracies are failures.

 

Furthermore, socialist states and communist states do not constitute all levels of government regulation, therefore it is not intellectually honest to claim "all levels of government regulation are failures" based on a small subset. I can, in fact, clearly cite you counter-examples of where regulation works to varying degrees: basically every Western country (even America when you free market boneheads lay off).

 

The Reserve Bank of Australia, for example, specifically cites its sound regulatory framework as the reason why Australia weathered well the 1997 Asian crash, the 2000 recession, and the 2008 Wall Street crash. In fact, Australia's economic growth has been, on average, some of the highest in the OECD over the past 10 years. It is currently still more than double that of America. A similar situation applies to Brazil.

 

Where's the failure there?

Edited September 29, 2008 by Krezack

[taks]

Fair enough, then. I've misrepresented you there. You haven't said that an unregulated market will achieve balance on its own.

thank you, and yes, this is exactly why i said it was a strawman. i wasn't saying that you disagreed with my assertions, just that there was an assumption in what you stated that i never claimed.

 

But you say that we should leave it alone all the same. So, the implications are that the market will somehow balance itself or that you don't care whether or not it achieves equilibrium. Am I missing something?

yes, i think it will. no, i cannot prove that. just because i cannot prove that, however, does not mean my criticisms of the regulated are incorrect. those criticisms stand on their own evidence, which we have in abundance. every ideal system, for that matter, cannot exist as long as humans have free will.

 

No, I didn't say you are wrong. I say you are purposefully avoiding criticism of your own ideas.

i wasn't trying to imply you called me wrong, just that you expected me to prove something to back a claim i didn't make. the implied argument (whether you intended it or not) was that i have to prove an alternative in order for my criticisms to be true. that's just plain false.

 

You are doing it even now by diverting the attention towards how you are misrepresented and approaching the discussion from both a moralistic perspective, and the "auditorial" posture, both of which allow you to lay down your arguments without actually backing them up.

no, krezack explicitly stated that i did not understand the strawman argument since there was no misrepresentation. you just conceded that you did indeed misrepresent me, and he made the same claim, so obviously my understanding of the strawman was not only correct, but proved.

 

my ideas are comments about what is not working, and i have.

Nice try, but no:

my claim is that the free market is the only way to go(1) simply because no other means of regulating the free market have worked(2), and it is easy to prove this true.

um, yes. i stated opinion that the free market is the only way to go because no means of regulating has been shown to work. in other words, my comment is that regulation does not work (my analysis), and my solution is no regulation (opinion). i do agree that there are some that are necessary, such as fraud, which i have pointed out, but that's another story. i cannot prove that no regulation will be completely self-balancing, and in fact, i'm quite certain it won't work perfectly, as no system can (otherwise we'd be back to the idealism thing). the burden of proof is on those that advocate regulation, which has repeatedly proven to not work. the more regulation that there is, the less efficient, and less prosperous, the system is.

 

(1) is a logical leap which doesn't necessarily follow from its premises, non sequitur. You are making the claim that a change to a model you believe is superior is warranted in light of the success (or lack thereof) of the tried alternatives. This is not just "commenting about what doesn't work". It's advocating a different approach, for which you lack any form of support other than "the alternative doesn't work", which is fallacious in itself because:

 

(2) Isn't strictly true either, as we haven't yet witnessed the complete collapse of all the alternatives to a truly free market.

almost, but not quite. the alternatives do not collapse to a free market. most seem to (theoretically) collapse to anarchy, which has its own problems. the free market requires work, but not regulation. there needs to be some sort of enforcement behind free trade. for example, it is not free trade if the other guy refuses to pay, so there needs to be some guarantee that the trade will be conducted properly.

 

taks

[Humodour]

I give up. This is like talking to a ****ing brickwall.

[Brdavs]

i stated opinion that the free market is the only way to go because no means of regulating has been shown to work.

 

Well actually, at this very moment, tis the laissez-faire capitalism that`s failing. And not the banks of say China wich has ironically been shrugging off western advice for the past 20 years... Funny how an equally utopian ideology succeded the fall of communism, only in the other extreme heh.

 

I think the issue here is the inability to see anything but the extreme poles heh. "partial regulation" must be the word I`m looking for. Saying regulation does not work cos USSR failed is a mockery to intelligence tbh. Plenty of examples today of regulation to varied degrees. Plenty more examples of them than examples of completley free markets tbh. And its not them failing.

 

i do think that it is the best system out there, simply because it is the only moral system in which neither buyer nor seller has rights that trump the other's. morality requires that no one person's rights are given consideration over another's.

 

taks

 

Morality surely also requires that rights of a person are not ignored simply cos of his economic disadvantage, doesnt it? Morality is a very slippery slope that has precious little to do with issues at hand.

Basically by evocing morality you degrade the argument on the level of lets say advocating the other extreme (communism). It both boils down to this: laissez-faire capitalism apparently failed in practice. Both dinamite on paper but they somehow hit a snag with practical implementation. Period. What more is there to say, honestly? Regulation of practically no regulation is stil regulation ergo deregulation is still the way to go argument? Thats just sad.

 

 

 

Edit: Anyhow, this just got funny:

Bailout rejected, markets plummit.

Edited September 29, 2008 by Brdavs