/liberty/ - Liberty

>but the former never really fleshes out its arguments satisfactorily

I promised myself I would read until bullshit was used in place of an argument. Well, bullshit was just used in the place of an argument, and I got.. three sentences in? Congrats, most leftists can't make it a whole two sentences without doing that.

>>17009

So you are judging an article , critisizing libertarians for building strawmans out of incomplete understanding of theories, without fully reading it, and deciding what it means?

>So we have two competing narratives here. In one narrative, the individual is merely at the whims of capitalism, while in the other narrative, the individual exercises control over capitalism.

This makes no sense. If anything, the individual exercises control through or within capitalism. But it's not supposed to change the capitalist system, i.e. abolish the free market. If the author is using a different definition of capitalism, then he can go suck it, because his definition is crap.

>Which is more accurate? Ultimately, the question boils down to whether production or consumption is the more purposive activity.

For fucks sake, no! Not unless we still accept this fucking narrative of the poor worker who's working twelve-hours a day six days a week in a dirty factory. Modern workers are not abused like that!

>Inb4 alienation

Fuck alienation. Yeah, fuck this concept. It's a shitty, retarded fucking concept and if concepts could suck dicks, then this one would get in line right behind collectivism and the persistence hunting theory. Alienation describes nothing more than an anticipated transfer of goods. If I write a book and sell it, that's not alienation. If I get paid to write a book and then give it to whoever wants me to sell it, that's alienation, and it's fucking irrelevant.

>>17018

Oh, now I've read this:

>In contrast, during production the individual has both means (productive activity) and an end (the product) in mind when he sets out to act. The productive activity itself cannot be separated from the individual and so the two are inextricably intertwined. Furthermore, productive activity requires and/or results in building up some personal attribute, whether a individual’s capacity to reason, his physical strength and fitness, his perseverance or anything else. Generally these attributes will last beyond the original act of production. The end result is both that the individual achieves some goal he chose, planned and set out to achieve, whatever its exact nature, and that through the process he exercises his individualism by realising certain powers (again chosen by him).

This brings us back to leftists not being able to let go of the fucking narrative of the worker who can't afford hobbies besides work. Consumption is what enables us to have these hobbies. So like I said, consumption is what enables us the self-fulfillment of them, no matter how hard you try to redefine hobbies as productive activity.

>But are any of man’s actions as rational, as explicitly thought through, as deliberate and purposeful, as labour?

This cunt has never called the customer service of any big cable company. Rational? Fuck no! Deliberate? Purposeful? Shit, no! Labour? You gotta be fucking kidding me.

>The heart of libertarianism is the abstract individual, who engages in voluntary actions to attain certain ends, and should be allowed to do this, free from outside interference. But such an abstract philosophy is incomplete and incoherent.

Actually, it isn't. Like I said: If you can infer that individual rights are a thing, then individual rights are totally a thing, and you can't just backtrack, look at the collective now and conclude that while individual rights are a thing, they actually aren't.

>In the mainstream, Marx is often projected as disregarding the individual, but in fact, Marx was always highly concerned with the individual.

Problem is, his idea of the individual is flat-out wrong. He might as well have been writing about ghosts.

>Hence, within his most purposive sphere

Which is work. Not social relationships, not your marriage, not working out, not being an autodidact, not sex, not hiking, not shitposting about how persistence hunting is, like, totally not a retarded theory, it's sitting in a cubicle being completely unable to fix my problem. The only thing the author has proven is that leftists are more concerned with material wealth and their careers then libertarians. The difference between us is that they hate these things, though.

>PS I have used ‘man’ in this post because that is generally what was used by the thinkers I am discussing. I originally tried it with gender-neutral pronouns but it just became confused and more difficult to relate to the original texts.

Apology accepted. Jesus H. Christ…

>>17007

@image

Praxeology is founded on a number of analytic a priori claims.

Libertarian politics and ideology 'does not follow from praxeology. Ideology presupposes moral judgements. Libertarians are libertarians because they make moral judgements about the world. These moral beliefs are unique to individuals so can never be assumed. Examples would be capitalism is desirable (because it maximises human utility) or that aggression is bad (because it's an assault on a person's freedom to choose).

Austrian economics does follow from praxeology. This is because Austrian economics is strictly analytical and follows from the analytic claim that humans act purposefully. Austrian economics is thus never speculative and so cannot be subject to verification or falsification. Analytic claims are refuted on the basis of logic and conceptual analysis, never evidence.

To the uninitiated, the quote might be interpreted as capitalism can never fall under empirical scrutiny which is obviously false.

>>17028

Doesn't it pretty much take Discrete Math/Number Theory, and apply logic gates to economics/politics?

Been forever since I studied it.

>>17049

Praxeology is the use of formal logic to deduce axiomatic truths about human action.

For instance; the Action Axiom at the heart of praxeology holds that mankind acts (given that "action" is more or less defined as deliberate behavior). This axiom is said to be self-attesting, because any argument which attempts to refute it must necessarily be done by action, and must acknowledge that mankind acts. It is necessitated by logic itself and cannot be rejected by any consistent argument.

From the Action Axiom, Austrian Economics derives a tremendous wealth of other insights; subjective valuation, supply and demand, price mechanisms, surpluses and shortages, business cycle theory, and so on.

Some philosophers have even used the praxeological methodology to derive insights in other fields as well. Hans Herman Hoppe is particularly well-known for this.

It is interesting to note, also, that Game Theory was developed in part by Oskar Morgenstern, an Austrian Economist.

Austrian economics is the cancer within libertarianism. It's trash.

>>17086

muh divide and conquer

>>17092

Don't be /pol/. Austrian economics is absolute nonsense and not necessary to favor freedom/liberty/autonomy as the main factor in your politics.

>>17131

What part is nonsense?

Why is it nonsense? Explain your reasoning.

>>17131

>Austrian economics is […] not necessary to favor freedom/liberty/autonomy as the main factor in your politics.

I agree with that one. I haven't learned a lot about praxeology yet, but what I do know is that it seems to be working. Ron Pauls predictions appear a lot more accurate than those of mainstream economists.

>>17131

>>17149

Yeah, I don't know of any Austrian Economist saying that the discipline is necessary to embrace whatever. It just gives a case for the practical utility of liberty in markets. Loads of people embrace liberty on moral or sentimental grounds.

Personally, I don't see a need to consider the moral and practical arguments separately. Logically true propositions cannot oppose one another, so a consistent ethics cannot oppose a consistent pragmatism.

>>17086

>>17131

What's wrong with the Austrian school? I thought it was a sponsor™ of liberty

>>17136

Where to start? Austrian economics denies things like the multiplier effect, even though it can easily be observed without involving the government in anyway. You could describe it in terms of purely private injections. Money doesn't disappear when it's spent, but generates activity as its past around. The economy can be "sped up" at the risk of inflation, or "slowed down" at the risk of deflation.

Keynsians are famous for using this to push fiscal stimulus, but the monetarists who are considered on the libertarian side, such as Milton Friedman, also recognize the effect, since they propose using monetary stimulus to get out of recessions.

>>17165

>Where to start? Mainstream economists deny things like price floors creating an excess of supply when the price floor is on labor, meaning a minimum wage, and the excess of supply is unemployment, even though this can be easily observed by raising the minimum wage to $100/hr

>>17163

It's pseudoscience.

>>17176

It doesn't try to be a science in the strict sense.

>>17165

So you're rejecting an a priori argument based on your a posteriori interpretation of observational data? That's not how logic works.

>>17176

Except it's not. Austrian Econ doesn't make any claim to being an empirical science, so the standard of falsification simply doesn't make any sense. Falsification is for empiricism, and Austrian Economics is decidedly non-empirical, just like the rest of mathematics.

>>17176

Austrian economics has never claimed to be a hard science

>>17180

>>17181

See: OPs image

>>17183

It claims to be a science, just not a hard science.

>>17189

It's not science, it's meaningless bullshit

Protip: if it's unfalsifiable it's not scientific

>>17193

>Maths is meaningless bullshit

k

>>17194

Maths is not claiming to describe reality.

>>17180

>So you're rejecting an a priori argument based on your a posteriori interpretation of observational data?

Here's an a priori argument: Pies always defy gravity and float off into space after you cook them.

A posteriori, you discover empirically that this is not true….

HOWEVER, THAT'S WRONG BECAUSE A PRIORI > A POSTERIORI BECAUSE… BECAUSE… UM… ?

>>17171

They don't deny this, they just either argue that it's worth it because of other advantages or they argue it's not for actual reasons.

Reminder: Milton Friedman was considered mainstream enough to win a Noble Prize for Economics, and he proposed replacing the minimum wage with a negative income tax scheme. So, you can even be a libertarian monetarist under what is considered mainstream economics.

Some countries only got a minimum wage recently or still don't have one, and rely on union negotiations instead. The idea that mainstream economics doesn't recognize problems with the minimum wage is bunk. Economies are just allowed to disagree with each other so long as they supply reason AND evidence, and the debate on how much unemployment a particular rise in the minimum wage will cause is ongoing.

Read a book.

>even though this can be easily observed by raising the minimum wage to $100/hr

This is a strawman argument.

>>17183

I just said it's not supposed to be empirical. Do you not understand the difference between rationalism and empiricism? Between a priori and a posteriori? 'Cause those distinctions are pretty damn important.

>>17203

Except that it totally does. If you have two physical objects and you acquire one more physical object, mathematics tells you that you now have three physical objects, by the definition of what those numbers mean.

In the same way, Austrian Econ gives you certain analytically true ceteris paribus statements about what exchange.

>>17206

Austrian Economics is a particular field of Praxeology,

Which is a particular field of Logic

Which is a particular field of Mathematics.

Mathematics contains Logic

Logic contains Praxeology

Praxeology contains Austrian Economics

Therefore Mathematics contains Austrian Economics.

>>17210

>Here's an a priori argument: Pies always defy gravity and float off into space after you cook them.

That's not an argument; it's an assertion. One that hasn't been supported in any way. Thus, I can dismiss it simply because you haven't given any reason to believe it.

Furthermore, it doesn't express its claim in terms of the definition of the words it addresses, so it isn't an a priori claim. You've simply asserted that an observable event occurs. That puts it in the realm of a posteriori claims.

An a priori claim would be: "there are no square circles." I know that because of the definitions of what "squares" and "circles" are. I don't have to make a single observation, much less scan the entire universe, to prove that the claim is true. The claim is beyond the requirements of falsification. Anyone claiming to have observed a square circle is simply wrong, no matter how convincing their "peer-reviewed" study looks.

You may benefit tremendously from learning about the difference between these things. I would recommend a studying it more deeply than scanning a Wikipedia article.

Each of your respective misgivings about Austrian Economics stem from a profound misunderstanding of the nature and structure of logic. This is information that unfortunately isn't taught in schools unless you sign up for obscure classes, so I can't fault any of you too much for being uninformed. I've studied Mathematics, Logic, Philosophy, and Science, particularly with relation to each other, in university; I can't reasonably expect you to have the same understanding (and please don't take that as condescension; I'm simply admitting to being a nerd). I can only suggest respectfully that you have much to gain from doing some research on the topic rather than asserting a vociferous opinion while remaining in this state of ignorance.

>>17220

>if you take two half apples (from different apples) and take them together, you won't get a single apple.

Now we're working with different words with different definitions, which will require different maths. You can't use the same notation to describe fundamentally different relationships.

>it's merely a tool to construct models that attempt to describe it.

Just like every single other language, and all endeavors using them. Mathematics is essentially little more than the application of consistent language to describe relationships.

>our model might be wrong.

If the model is consistent, it cannot be "wrong". At worst, it is not properly constructed to describe that particular relationship. That's why I mentioned that Austrian Econ provides ceteris paribus laws; your real world scenario will never fully conform to a ceteris paribus condition, but the examination of that condition provides you invaluable insight into the causal factors involved the the real-world scenario.

Austrian Econ just provides you with insight into what causal factors must be present, but it is utterly incapable of describing the relative magnitude of these factors, because it cannot address quantitative values. That's where Econometrics comes in. Nobody is claiming that Austrian Econ fully describes reality in perfect detail; only that those insights which it can provide are analytically true, and must be taken into consideration prior to interpreting our observational evidence. Among other things, it is a tool for mitigating empirical bias.

>>17222

Anon, it would probably be easier to send them a link to the first few chapters in a Discrete Math book that deals with logic to get the points across.

>>17240

I don't have any good links. I'd be delighted to see yours, if you have them.

>>17241

I have my Discrete textbook somewhere out in my car from when I took it in Uni. I'll see if I can find it and give a decent source tomorrow night.

In the mean time, chapters 1-4 of this book: http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/~bagchi/courses/discrete-book/fullbook.pdf

Or chapters 1-3 of this book: http://www2.fiit.stuba.sk/~kvasnicka/Mathematics%20for%20Informatics/Rosen_Discrete_Mathematics_and_Its_Applications_7th_Edition.pdf

Should do the trick (I think).

In the second link, Chapter 1 might even be enough to get the basic premises across, but that second link takes forever and a day to load.

Rest In Peices OP