From a CNN online poll
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/18129/no-confidence/
No Confidence
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I would answer “No”. Since I never had that confidence, I cannot lose it.
Absolutely!
Agreed – all these opinion polls are dependent on how the questions is phrased.
Like – “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
“Should we raise taxes on the rich to reduce the budget deficit.”
The question in question here is better phrased as.
“Are you still under the delusion that politicians and central planners can fix the economic problems that they have created?”
That’s also a complex question, for you assume people are deluded about that issue. A truly better question is “Can world leaders solve economic problems?”, but then…that doesn’t sound like a question you can conduct a poll over.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/16_Statistics_Which_Prove_That_The_American_People_Are_Absolutely_Seething_With_Anger_/15228/0/38/38/Y/M.html
What’s the tipping point?
14% of people are living under stones
Is the Pope considered a world leader?
“The economy doesn’t function with market self-regulation but needs an ethical reason to work for mankind,” he told reporters traveling aboard the papal plane. “Man must be at the center of the economy, and the economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good.”
http://news.yahoo.com/pope-demands-greater-ethics-economic-policy-100643829.html
I feel sorry for Gerard Casey, Jeffrey Tucker, and others. It’s must be tough being a libertarian and a Catholic.
The Pope is a moron. Screw him and his religious “authority”
Have you ever read anything written by Pope? Or are you his judge just based on what you read about him in mainstream media?
Voluntary trade is the best way to increase the “common good” whatever that may be. The problem is the implication that profit maximization is opposed to the common good rather than being for the benefit of it.
I’m reading “The Machinery of Freedom” by David Friedman right now, and it makes a very good case for absolutely free markets that even the layperson could understand. I’ll probably be recommending it as a good ancap starter book for people who are already libertarians, but haven’t made the leap to full anarchy yet.
For statists, I lead them to Economics in One Lesson, Bastiat, and What has Government Done to Our Money, and after getting my foot in the door spring the hardcore anti-state Rothbard works on them, heh heh heh.
One should always keep in mind the meaning of words. Common understanding of “maximization of profit” is “maximization of financial profit”.
It is a great mistake to judge somebody’s opinions based on two sentences. You have to look at the whole context.
Let me quote from John Paul II.’s encyclical Centisimus Annus:
“42. Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?
The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.”
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html
I advise you to read the whole encyclical. It is a difficult text, but worth reading. Those of you who think that Popes are opposed to the free market economy will be surprised.
“According to the common good” does not mean, “redistributed at the point of a gun according to the wishes of politicians and bureaucrats.”
Libertarianism is not in conflict with ethics. It is the only ethical system of economics and politics that exists.
You’re right… the common good could have another interpretation. Captain Anarchy gives the excellent observation of the common good that comes from voluntary trade.
Then again, if the Pope wasn’t referring to redistribution at gunpoint by politicians and bureaucrats then what could have he been referring to…the Grand Inquisitor and the Witchfinder General?
Seriously though, when one uses the term ‘common good” it implies taking from the haves to give to the have-not’s.
Last, libertarianism is a minimal ethical system: free will within the parameters of property rights and nonaggression. It is at odds with all other ethical systems such as those derived from the “common good”.
I could better answer if I had specificity, clear cut definition, of what was meant by “world leaders” and “economic problems.”
We live in a world where words mean nothing.
“We live in a world where words mean nothing.”.
Don’t worry Franklin – Obama is going to give a speech in September. This should confirm your suspicion.
OH YEAH, OBAMA’S GOING TO GIVE A SPEECH IN SEPTEMBER. WRITTEN BY WHOM, CASS SUNSTEIN OR SOROS?
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