Whether you’re negotiating with an uneducated thug guarding a border that must be crossed in the middle of nowhere or sitting across the table from the most sophisticated investor in the world, gold is the universal language and has been for eons. FULL ARTICLE by Doug French
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/16079/gold-now-thats-a-track-record/
Gold: Now That’s a Track Record
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{ 64 comments }
I find it interesting that a previous article about the SPR listed one of the many problems, taking oil out of the ground and storing it back in the ground. The same can be said of gold!
Furthermore, gold dealers love the buyers of gold, they make $100 an ounce on every transaction. They take that in currency, not gold. Much like a realtor, very few own real estate, they just handle the transactions for buyers and sellers. And you know what has happen to real estate!
In other words, gold remains a highly marketable commodity.
Heck, having a loaded gun is a internationally understood tool. After modern society has collapsed you’ll plenty of guns and bullets to stop other people shooting you and stealing your gold.
Stocks are not universally a good proposition. Those in energy extraction, raw material and precious metal as well as those associated to food will retain value. How much of it is artificial “value” inflation caused by the supposedly not inflationary QE2 and various other rounds of money injection?
The WSJ feature provides a wonderful timeline.
I didnt see this on the article page. What is the address of the timeline?
Golden Years, found by googling 4600 BC site:wsj.com.
He did it again.
But what proof is there that the property or attribute called “value” inheres in gold? I am confident that once you investigate it thoroughly, you will find that the attributes of gold are completely describable with terms such as atomic mass, density, ductility, electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability, and so on. No “value”, though, as is true of the other Group 11 elements.
Again, gold has no value. None whatsoever.
There is no such thing as “inherent” value. If something is valued it ipso facto possesses value. Get over yourself.
Uh, Inquisitor, I denied that there is any such thing as “inherent” value.
Wrong. LOL. To say that something is valued is to say that there is a mental state in the mind a person. If something is valued, that person may assign a price to what is valued, but the valued object possesses no value. Not even the price becomes an attribute of the valued object. That’s just pricing theory 101.
You are projecting subjective tastes and desires on to material things, just like a subjectivist would.
Value is subjective. There is no such thing as objective value. Name something you value and I guarantee I’ll find someone who doesn’t.
You don’t seem to understand that we agree that “there is no such thing as objective value.” Of course, if the Inquisitor were correct that a thing valued “ipso facto possesses value”, then there would be objective value. But either there is no such thing as objective value or a thing can posses value. Either-or, not both.
For the Inquisitor now to deny objective value would be to flipflop back and forth, talking from both sides of its mouth. It is characteristic of a subjectivist, e.g. that person, to be so muddleheaded and given to doubletalk. In fact, the thought experiment you propose is like one that I’ve used here to correct others who profess belief in objective value. Look around. I mentioned bid-ask spreads, for example.
Next time write “valuation is subjective.” Valuation is what a living being does.
I cannot fathom how stupid a person must be to write such a long-winded post to basically get my simple point entirely wrong. What am I to backtrack on? All right, here’s a more complete statement for you: “If something is valued it ipso facto possesses value for the valuer.”
Of course there is no such thing as value out there in the world as it is a relational attribute of a thing. Whence it therefore follows nothing has inherent value. So why pick on gold?
BTW as a small point of elucidation: my statement was conditional. Therefore, the implication was that gold possesses value if the following relation obtains. Such a condition would not be required if its value were objective as the mind-dependence relation the condition attaches precludes the mind-independence objectivity requires. So even without my qualifier, it should’ve been readily comprehensible what I meant.
Why do you get so many things wrong?
Hmmm. No argument. No evidence cited. Just bald, unsubstantated accusation. So predictable.
To say that something is valued is to say that there is a mental state in the mind of a person. Your mental state about the group eleven elements, for example, does not change the nature of those elements. So, you, too are a subjectivist. You need to let your heart be pierced by that truth.
To say that something is valued is to say that there is a mental state in the mind of a person.
no, its to say there is a relation between a mental state and life. Rocks dont value. Only living organisms value because their life depends on valuing life. This is not subjective.
Usually when people talk about gold’s so-called intrinsic value they are mistakenly referring to its intrinsic utility in several aspects which are objectively quantifiable and its traditional high marketability. Doug French as an Austrian economist would be unlikely to be making the mistake of imputing a supposed objective value into gold.
But what proof is there that the property or attribute called “value” inheres in gold?
The only proof that carries weight — people want it.
From the fact that people want gold we can infer just one thing: It is valued, i.e. people crave it. But craving gold doesn’t change gold any more than a leftist craving a right to health care makes health care a right.
When lots of people crave gold, we should find that the price of gold is higher than it would be without such craving, but the fact of many people craving gold doesn’t change gold any more than the craving of one person changes gold. That is to say, craving doesn’t change the object craved.
You, too, are a goldcrank benighted with subjectivism.
“From the fact that people want gold we can infer just one thing: It is valued, i.e. people crave it. But craving gold doesn’t change gold any more than a leftist craving a right to health care makes health care a right.”
How much money is the leftist willing to put up for this “right”?
“When lots of people crave gold, we should find that the price of gold is higher than it would be without such craving, but the fact of many people craving gold doesn’t change gold any more than the craving of one person changes gold. That is to say, craving doesn’t change the object craved.”
What of it?
“You, too, are a goldcrank benighted with subjectivism.”
Wait… so things -do- possess objective value?
“But what proof is there that the property or attribute called “value” inheres in gold?”
Here is an experiment you can do. It should help you to prove to yourself whether gold is valuable or not. Sell all your property for gold. Send all that gold to me. I will send you a polite thank you note which will contain generous sentiments about you and your ancestry. I will not return the gold. Consider it payment for the educational service I am rendering you. Immediately after you receive my note, ask yourself the question quoted above.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Sione
Your experiement is sophomoric, Sione. Furthermore, I’d need a promise from you to return my gold with interest. The monthly rate would be 150mg per gram loaned. So, if I loaned you 1g, after one month you’d owe me 1150mg. Presumably you’d prefer not to make any such promise, hence its conspicuous omission from your childish retort. Since I’m confident that you can calculate compound interest without my help, I’ll spare you the calculations for a second month.
Now, if you refuse to pay, I’ll send some employees from Detroit over to your house to shake it loose from you, just as I would be entitled to do by our contract. (They, too, like the idea of getting rid of police departments.) Of coure, in addition to interest and principal there will be a collection fee plus an additional amount for travel expenses. You would need to agree to these terms in advance and to deny any right or privilege of a trial in the statists’ courts. That means I don’t have to waste time going to the office of the clerk of court, to waste more time standing in line to file the complaint at law, and so on. This is a benefit to you, too; it keeps lending costs down.
And yes, you will return the gold, valueless though it is.
“Now, if you refuse to pay, I’ll send some employees from Detroit over to your house to shake it loose from you, just as I would be entitled to do by our contract. (They, too, like the idea of getting rid of police departments.)”
For a valueless object? Sounds awfully irrational to me. You would incur all that expense for a good that is, by your own admission, valueless?
“And yes, you will return the gold, valueless though it is.”
Why?
Inquisitor
You’ve got it! If the poor sap considers gold to be valuless, why would he go to all that trouble to try and get it from me? After all he’ll need to pay some employees to fly all the way from Detroit to the South Pacific, land at the big island, get a feed and a sleep at a hotel after their +18 hours flying and lay over time, hire a boat and crew to sail them over from the big island, clamber up the beach, trek along the pathway towards the village, get directions, then head off across the shortcut through the valley, climb the path by the wayterfall and eventually try to figure out which place is my place. That is, of course, assuming they don’t get knocked off and eaten along the way!
A hell of a lot of expense to go to in order to retrieve something of no value.
Sione
Liberal
You appear have great trouble reading and comprehending.
My invitation did not include that I pay interest to you. I did not offer you that arrangement. Still, your approach necessarily presupposes that both you and I consider gold to be valuable. Hence you’ve yielded the point. Gold is valuable.
If, on the other hand, you still do consider that gold is valuless, then send it to me exactly as you were invited to. I guarantee that I’ll not gave any of it back, but I will write you some nice things.
Sione
“It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”
In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.””
Ayn Rand
“The intrinsic theory holds that the good resides in some sort of reality, independent of man’s consciousness; the subjectivist theory holds that the good resides in man’s consciousness, independent of reality.
The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or “concept-stealing”; it does not permit the separation of “value” from “purpose,” of the good from beneficiaries, and of man’s actions from reason.”
Ayn Rand
A Liberal in Lakeview@ “But what proof is there that the property or attribute called “value” inheres in gold? I am confident that once you investigate it thoroughly, you will find that the attributes of gold are completely describable with terms such as atomic mass, density, ductility, electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability, and so on. No “value”, though, as is true of the other Group 11 elements.”
Pray tell, what is the “value” that “is true of the other Group 11 elements,” but not true of gold, and from what, or where, or when is it derived?
Among the important reasons why the price of gold as measured in dollars and in other fiat currencies has been increasing steadily for the past decade is that more and more people are realizing that gold is much better money than the currencies that governments of the world declare to be legal tender. Why better? Gold’s subjective value doesn’t erode like the fiats’ subjective value consistently does. And the thing about subjective value is that you can always buy or sell for it, whereas alternatives to subjective values are essentially worthless when it comes time to buy or sell.
>Gold’s subjective value
If its value is subjective, then why not water or sand or tobacco or cows as money? Because gold is rare, portable, divisible, objective characteristics. Try dividing a cow or slipping one into your wallet. Subjective means consciousness without reality.
Stephen,
These are not absolute characteristics. They only are fulfilled better by gold than by other commodities. The advantages are contextual: they depend on the requirements of the people who want to deal with money. I would not would not use the term “objective” to describe that, but of course, objectivists have their own terminology.
Objectivism has a new concept, not a new term. Conventionally, intrinsic and objective are not distinguished. But some things are real, eg, rocks. Some are subjective, eg, My feeling about rocks. And some are objective, ie, (conceptually) contextual, eg, that rock has a real positive relation to my life if I use it as a club to kill a food animal. Values (not wishes) are objective. Gold has no value intrinsic to it. My emotion about gold does not cause it to be practical as money. But gold, in the context of man’s need for money, is practical, as you note above. See Rand’s “What is Capitalism” (in her _Capitalism_) for more on the economic importance of these three theories of value.
Stephen,
I would just like to point out that you have not managed to successfully explain to me what “life” objectively is or how to evaluate whether an action has a positive or negative effect on it. The closest that I got from an objectivist was when Bala said (paraphrased) that life means that you should leave some beneficial effect on people after your death. On a personal level, I might very well agree on that, but that is hardly something that can be impartially evaluated. Apart from that, you won’t actually know what effect your actions have on others after your death until you are dead, which kind of defeats the purpose.
But you use “value” in a different meaning than economists. Economists use it to refer to the relative preferences of people. That depends on individual desires and therefore is by definition not objective. Of course, it also depends on the “objective” parameters of the world, but that’s not enough. It’s like saying that a specific economic theory is “objective” because it uses math. It’s a non-sequitur.
I suspect that we probably agree on a lot of things, just your terminology is weird and confusing.
Your questions are on the philosophy of economics. See Ayn Rand’s _Capitalism_. Philosophy is always the context of the special sciences. The special sciences do not stand by themselves but are based on the common human experience of man in the universe. A philosophical error will be applied and multiplied as a scientific error.
Life is self-generated and self-maintained action. Life, unlike matter, faces the fundamental alternative of existence and non-existence. Life can cease. Life requires action toward the value of life. Economics is one application of that fact. See Rand’s _Virtue of Selfishness_ for a rational view of man’s life. See Richard Salsman’s _Economics and Self-Interest_.
Stephen,
I read Capitalism a long time ago and remember considering it inadequate.
Unless you subscribe to Bala’s theory of immortality, life not only can cease but always does. So unless you define this differently, the argument is meaningless.
What does this mean? How do you evaluate whether an action is towards “value of life” or not? And why do you use the term “requires” in this context?
Stephen, it seems to me that reality comes when the subjective values for a quantity of gold by two people, buyer and seller, come together and an exchange takes place at a specific price denominated in whatever money is agreed (usually predetermined by tradition or an exchange-facility’s rules). The objective characteristics you mention are all valued subjectively by the parties to the exchange, but it is on the basis of their subjective values, not gold’s objective characteristics, that exchanges occur. Gold’s value as money is determined by people’s subjective evaluations of the objective characteristics you mention, plus innumerable other considerations, and, relative to readily inflatable currencies and not-so-inflatable cows, has been both rising and spreading to more and more people.
You evade my points as if I said nothing. My argument remains. There are three, not two, theories of value.
If people subjectively valued clouds as money, that would not cause clouds to have the intrinsic characteristics objectively needed for money. It would be difficult to put a cloud in a bank account or to be assured that it would be there even in the near future. And how would one make change? Would cloud seeders be counterfeiters? What of fog? Smoke? Lightning? Images and emotions are subjective, ie, not cognitively related to reality. Money, as a product of man’s mind, is objective. Prior to man recognizing that gold can be used as money, it was merely decorative. Gold’s intrinsic properties didnt change. Man’s conceptual knowledge of it changed. And the subjective feeling of hatred of gold by some religionists does not cause it to lose the properties which make it objectively valuable as money.
>reality comes when the subjective values for a quantity of gold by two people
No, reality is real. Reality is not created by consciousness. Reality is prior to and independent of consciousness. Consciousness is the consciousness of a real reality. Reality doesnt come, it doesnt go and it doesnt dance. It simply is.
greg @ “Furthermore, gold dealers love the buyers of gold, they make $100 an ounce on every transaction. They take that in currency, not gold. Much like a realtor, very few own real estate, they just handle the transactions for buyers and sellers. And you know what has happen to real estate!”
greg, I see you’re still dissing gold. Time to stop trying to talk its price down, join the throng enjoying the ride, buy a few ounces for yourself, and live happily ever after. Bernanke may hate you, but what the hell. Greenspan seems to be coming around to his old gold-bug self so maybe he’ll love ya.
I noticed that the question of intrinsic value always comes up when defending gold. The best answer which i can come up with is that something has a subjective value to market participants based upon how well it accomplishes a given task. The task that gold performs, in addition to its industrial and decorative uses, is that of acting as money. I do not at all mean this to be interpreted as a circular argument. I mean, rather, that if you started with a list of key characteristics that money would have (scarcity, divisibility, homogeneity, transportability, durability, recognizability and storability) and tried to find something on this planet that had those very characteristics, similar to looking for the perfect candidate for a job, you would more than likely wind up back at gold and perhaps, less likely, but possibly, platinum. Each of these attributes are necessary for money to fulfill its role. I suspect this is why, after much trial and error, gold was used as money by various civilizations independent of their knowledge of each other across time. It is also why all other forms of money have always failed. As an aside, platinum historically did not have recognizability on its side, though, in other ways (e.g., scarcity) and with the help of technology (aiding recognizability) it may someday prove to be better money than even gold, or at least an alternative. I do not see its varied industrial uses as well as likely undiscovered uses as an impediment, but rather an enhancement. In fact, if I recall, under the regression theorem of money, money begins first as a commodity and then eventually takes on a monetary role. Makes sense to me. I welcome any counter points.
>something has a subjective value to market participants based upon how well it accomplishes a given task.
independently of its affect on the lives of market participants?
>I noticed that the question of intrinsic value always comes up when defending gold.
There are no intrinsic values. Values are objective, the product of man’s mind identifying the relation between his life and the intrinsic properties of something else. Eg, meat has certain intrinsic properties. Man’s mind relates these properties to his life and discovers nutrition and the pleasure of eating. He may subjectively feel good or bad about this depending on whether he is gourmet or a vegan.
Stephen and Liberal in Lakewood. I confess a woeful ignorance of objectivism, for which I apologize and which I hope to eventually remedy to some degree. Stephen, I also hope to be able (I need to live long enough) to take your suggestion regarding Rand’s CAPITALISM. And I certainly didn’t mean to evade your points.
A Google search for “define: value” produces the following as the initial return:
a numerical quantity measured or assigned or computed; “the value assigned was 16 milliseconds”
This comes to Google from: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn, and it is how I use it here, the numerical quantity being a good’s price in a market economy.
Stephen, as I understand it, in the study of economics one of the the great achievement of the subjective theory of value when it originated back in the nineteen century was to refute Marx’s and other economists’ labor theory of value, and furthermore it finally resolved a conundrum whose solution had long evaded economists’ adequate explanation: why are diamonds, a mere frippery to man’s existence, so dear (costly, high priced, etc.), whereas water, indispensable to life, is often available in any quantity free of charge? (The place of reference being Europe, not the Sahara.) So as conceived at the time in economics, value meant the price of an object in a market economy, as determined subjectively by the two parties to the exchange of any good, not regardless of the good’s objective characteristics, but with due consideration thereof. And so it seems to me that the price of a good is its economic value (or price), which has been subjectively determined by mutual agreement of buyer and seller, and that price can certainly be described as real or factual.
Stephen, what you said, which I unintentionally evaded, was this: “If its value is subjective, then why not water or sand or tobacco or cows as money? Because gold is rare, portable, divisible, objective characteristics. Try dividing a cow or slipping one into your wallet. Subjective means consciousness without reality.” I address your points below.
Why not the objects you mention as money? Because people subjectively value gold (assign a price to it in their consciousness and turn that consciousness into the reality of price when they trade) as money, whereas evidently they do not find the objective characteristics of cows very amenable to use as money. Subjective may mean consciousness without reality, but it produces the reality of market prices when men consciously engage in real exchanges on the basis of their subjective evaluation of the object and its objective qualities, and with regard to other personal, subjective considerations.
>Ned Netterville
Youre going back and forth between objective and subjective. And claiming that the subjective includes reality. And not distinguishing intrinsic from objective or subjective from objective. Values are what one acts to get or keep in the context of the alternatives of life and death because life requires valuing action. Inanimate things cannot value because they are not alive and thus face no fundamental alternative. The intrinsic properties of gold are objective values because its economic use furthers man’s life as judged by his mind regardless of his subjectivity.
Science requires philosophy to focus on reality and to rationally organize knowledge.
I don’t give a shit about gold other than the fact that people give me other things for it.
Hey Andy, you better stop it (getting something for your gold). A guy named NotHaus was just convicted of some felonies for doing that.
>Stephen, “Values are what one acts to get or keep in the context of the alternatives of life and death because life requires valuing action.”
I do not think the rules of engagement (nor logic) allow you to choose a definition that makes your argument work, I gave you a definition of value that I believe is generally employed in economics, which I would express this way: In economics value means price, or more explicitly, the price at which a market exchange of a good takes place determines that good’s economic value at the time. What is wrong with this analysis? Are you saying that reported market prices are not reality? Or that price and value should not be used interchangeably?
I want to acknowledge that what you and Liberal in Lakeview have said here has made me discard the notion I’ve had that gold has “intrinsic” value, when in fact, as you point out, it is gold’s objective qualities that make it useful as money. But I don’t think intrinsic has had any affect on my understanding of subjective value. It does seems to me that understanding why a good commands a particular price is an important objective of economic science, and further, that the best explanation is to say that the good’s price or value is determined subjectively by the market participants who agree to an exchange at a particular price. Am I wrong to equate value to price?
Definitions are objective, not subjective, mystical or social. Definitions are based on observed similarities and differences in a logical context. See Rand’s Intro. to _Objectivist Epistemology_. Science uses scientific method, the basic principles of which are studied by philosophy. Eg, what are reason, logic, concepts and generalization? Lacking rational answers or lacking even the questions leaves science in a state of chaos.
In_Human Action_, Mises discusses the value-price relation but Ive forgotten his view. I believe that he may have said that the values of individuals are expressed as prices in a market.
Gold has certain properties which, when _related to man’s survival need to produce and trade_, provide the objective value of gold. That survival need is a fact of reality, not a subjective preference. You may subjectively prefer soap as money but it will not provide the efficiency for trading of gold. Emotions are irrelevant. Only values based on reason enter into economics. The production and trade of material wealth is a product of man’s mind. Emotions dont produce cars or a field of wheat.
Prices are not real but an objective _method_ of knowing reality in the context of man’s limited resources and unlimited wants. You can study a chicken all you please but nothing about it will tell you that Farmer Smith wants ten chickens for his cow. Your evaluation of a chicken will not change that. Tomorrow you may value chickens more or less but his price remains 10 chickens/cow.
Stephen, you said: “Definitions are objective, not subjective, mystical or social. Definitions are based on observed similarities and differences in a logical context.” Stephen, definitions, like values, are subjective. You have chosen one definition of value and I have chosen another. Which one is the objective definition?
You also said, “Science uses scientific method, the basic principles of which are studied by philosophy. Eg, what are reason, logic, concepts and generalization? Lacking rational answers or lacking even the questions leaves science in a state of chaos.” Which scientific method do you mean? And, as Mises points out in HA, “Ultimate decisions, the valuations and the choosing of ends, are beyond the scope of any science.” (p.10)
Mises also pointed out that “Value judgments are necessarily always subjective, whether they are passed by one man only or by many men, by a blockhead, a professor, or a statesman. Any price determined on a market is the necessary outgrowth of the interplay of the forces operating, that is, demand and supply. Whatever the market situation which generated this price may be, with regard to it the price is always adequate, genuine, and real.”–Human Action http://mises.org/Books/humanaction.pdf, pp 295-6
Stephan, you say, “Gold has certain properties which, when _related to man’s survival need to produce and trade_, provide the objective value of gold.” But, your objective value of gold will not result in a trade unless another person subjectively values what you call the objective value of gold at the same price as you do, and you conclude a trade. Like the farmer you mentioned who wont trade unless he gets 10 chickens for his cow, you will be left with your gold and your objective value of it, and he with his cow. And both of your objective values of gold and cows will go for naught ’cause you can’t buy or sell objective values. Even if another person objectively values gold exactly as you do, you may not be able to agree on a price due to emotional differences. (All professional traders know that emotions play a part in market prices.) At least the farmer can drink the cow’s milk (Guernsey Gold?) rather than eat chicken, but you’re in big trouble ’cause man can’t live by gold alone.
You say, “Only values based on reason enter into economics. The production and trade of material wealth is a product of man’s mind. Emotions dont produce cars or a field of wheat.” Steven, this is utopian nonsense. Emotions, which are a product of man’s mind, produce all sorts of things that reason and science are unable to contrive. Get real. As Mises said, “The ultimate source of the determination of prices is the value judgment of consumers.” And I would add that consumers can be rational or irrational and put those values based on reason to flight.
Stephen: “Prices are not real but an objective _method_ of knowing reality in the context of man’s limited resources and unlimited wants.” Your objective method of knowing reality wont consummate a purchase or sale at any price unless my subjective evaluation meets your objective evaluation and we decide, emotionally or cold calculatingly, to make a trade. And the farmer will keep his cow instead of accepting 9 chickens, but he wont be eating fricasee.
Ste[hen, in my analysis, this exchange of views between us is essentially an exercise in semantics rather than economics. How gold is valued, subjectively (I know, I know, you say there is no such thing as subjective value, but bear with me) by me or objectively by you has little or no bearing on the question whether gold makes better money than paper dollars backed only by the full faith and credit of the United States and its ability to print unlimited quantities thereof. I’d like to debate that issue with you, but I suspect we may agree.
>definitions, like values, are subjective.
You confess that you are not talking about reality but merely are expressing your emotions. There is nothing further to say.
Stephen, You are gracious in defeat. Thanks for your effort.
Within your subjectivity, Im defeated. But not from a rational perspective. I dont recognize any differences between liberal and libertarian subjectivists. Both want freedom from reality and mind.
Stephen
Your particular and highly subjective version of Randism is what defeated you. You lost the debate because you were wrong. That’s objective reality.
Sione
You provide no evidence for your claims. Further, your appeal to objectivity contradicts the mainstream, subjectivist defense of Austrian economics. Note: Menger was an Aristotelian, not a subjectivist. There is no such philosophy as Randism. Rand called her philosophy Objectivism,
Stephen
The evidence for my claim is read right here on this thread. Go read.
My use of the term “objective” does not contradict Austrian economics. Your statement demonstrates that you do not understand Austrian economics.
Ayn Rand did not appreciate acolytes calling themselves Objectivists. She, therefore, restricted the lable to herself and a few of her closer friends (some of whom she famously excommunicated, so in the end they were not Objectivists either). The term “student of Objectivism” was coined to describe those who exhibited a serious desire and effort to learn and understand Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Ayn Rand was concerned that only those persons who were serious scholars of her philosophic system applied that lable to themselves. As you are likely well aware, she’d have excluded you from applying to yourself the appelations “Objectivist” or “student of Objectivism”.
A Randism is a careless employment of statements and ideas of Ayn Rand in the absence of a fundamental understanding their meaning and intent. A Randist is someone who engages in that activity. I directed the term accurately.
Sione
>Sione
>The evidence for my claim is read right here on this thread. Go read.
Where, exactly? Your claims are arbitrary, w/o even invalid evidence.
>My use of the term “objective” does not contradict Austrian economics. Your statement demonstrates that you do not understand Austrian economics.
I’m arguing against some Austrians understanding of objectivity. You provide no evidence of my alleged failure to understand Aus. econ.
Mises, especially, held that economic categories were subjective forms of thinking and provided no knowledge of reality.
Stephen, And your recognition or denial thereof amounts to what?
Btw, this should be the last words of the debate and trading of insults since two comments earlier you said you had nothing further to say, and I’ve been kind of hoping you objectively meant what you said for a change.
Consciousness is consciousness of reality, not subjectivity. Subjectivity (a part of consciousness) is emotions and imagination, w/no cognitive contact w/reality. If economic categories are subjective, then economics is not science but mere wishes. Economic categories are reality (the intrinsic) as known by mind, ie ,objective. Subjectivists validly rejected intrinsic/intuitive categories but they threw out the baby w/the bathwater by denying that categories provide knowledge of reality. Austrians made scientific progress by bringing in consciousness but they erred in reducing consciousness to subjectivity, as if consciousness is not consciousness of reality, as if knowledge is merely knowledge of one’s subjectivity projected onto an unknowable or chaotic reality.
The value of gold is not some mystically known property of gold but gold relative to man’s life (as known by mind). Eg, the divisibility of gold is an intrinsic property of gold. The value of divisibility is divisibility relative to ,among other things, man’s economic need for many different trades, each w/its own price. Thus cows, which have been used as money ,are less valuable as money than gold. Try dividing up a cow for change! And how many cows can you put in your wallet? And which banks will accept cow deposits? On the other hand, Bernanke might find it more difficult to inflate cows than money and credit.
Stephen, you are now engaging in nothing more than an exercise is semantics, adopting your own (or Rand’s) arbitrary definitions. There is nothing mystical about one’s subjective evaluation of gold. It is as human as consciousness of reality. It is consciousness of reality. And, the subjective valuation of the market participants are the only things necessary to bring about market prices; indeed the only thing that can do so. Objectivity cannot determine prices because it cannot achieve a realistic and satisfactory evaluation that will lead two people to conclude a market transaction. You objectivity, so personal to you, apparently blinds you to reality, which is very unscientific. Your insistence on being “right” only makes you right if you can wear down your opponent(s) through persistence rather than objectivity, which you may now have achieved with me..
You continue to reduce objectivity to the intrinsic and consciousness to subjectivity. Again, there are three, not two, theories of value: intrinsic. objective, and subjective. Intrinsicism is correctly rejected by subjectivists but at the price of splitting values from reality. Values are objective, a fact of reality relative to man’s life. Gold is valuable, not because of some mystically known property independent of man’s life, nor because one subjectively wishes it be valuable, but because its properties are observationally-rationally known to benefit man’s life. One may wish that cow dung is valuable as money but it is observationally-rationally not so. Mises is important here for his discovery of the historical appearance of money as people discovered that some commodities were also valuable as methods of trade. And that some methods of trade, eg, gold, were more practical than others, wine, copper, tobacco, etc. As
people converged on gold as the best method of trade, those who owned less practical methods of trade surely and subjectively wished it was not so. “They shall not crucify us on a cross of gold!” said the Progressive Bryan in an attempt to enforce his subjective wishes upon the market. But silver, as good as it is for trade, is less objectively good than gold as is obvious from its much lower price. The agreement of subjectivists to use only silver will not stop the market from discovering gold as more practical, presumably because its rarer. Subjectivists may create a commune (as long as welfare and food stamps continue) but only objectivity, ie, man’s mind focused onto reality, can create a sustainable market. Or do you think that rationality and capitalism are merely coincidental in history? Or that America’s historically dominant respect for practical reason is merely coincidental with its status as historically wealthiest economy? Or that liberal subjectivism is merely coincidental with attacks on markets and severe debt problems in New York, Washington, Greece, Ireland, etc?
>wear down your opponent(s) through persistence
the persistence of logic
Ned
Well, he’s throwing around randisms so much that he doesn’t actually realise what the point of the conversation is. He’s missed it completely.
Ayn Rand hated such people with a passion. She excoriated them.
Sione
Are you a university professor? There’s a bloviating quality to your comments as if focusing for you is distasteful, politically incorrect, and so…Aristotelian.
Stephen
Your wittering is replete with distorted segments of phrases lifted from Ayn Rand’s work. The trouble is that you fail to understand and integrate her ideas. You merely parrot some of her terminology and forms of language. This approach is something she despised.
In corresponding with others you are noted for evasion. You evade the fundamental points they raise for you to address. Instead you recite half-memorised randist incantation, praying that they’ll keep your errors, lack of analysis, lack of thought and utter failure to integrate ideas, as well as your intellectual weaknesses and insecurities, at bay. They won’t. They can’t.
In the end, your evasions immediately followed by your incantations (those of an unreasoning automaton) reveal you to be an intellectual dillettante. Ayn Rand would not have approved of you!
Sione
Your floating abstractions are split from concretes, not a problem for rationalist subjectivists. I recommend shifting your interest from psychological and sociological bloviations to ideas, eg, gold and value.
Stephen
Fantastic! This last post of yours is exactly what I was referring to. It’s a whole turd-pile of randism!
Sione
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