With respect to AcademicAnonymous: it is unusual to read a justification of socialist measures which starts with an assumption completely the opposite of Marx, et. al’s: that, under laissez-faire, the rich are helpless and preyed upon by the poor. Such arguments actually may be helpful in shooting the young right into the hands of Ayn Rand!

No, but if you only consider a snap shot in time then you miss what is happening now. European nations were laisse affaire (relatively speaking) for many decades before WWI. Since then the governments have become more socialist as time progress. Now European countries have extremely low birth rates, enimic economic growth, and not much hope for improving.

So yes, I would say Europe is on its way down.

Then why haven’t socialist economies worked? Why are all people in socialist economies the poorest on the planet? If socialism is insurance for the poor against the rich, I’d be shopping for another agent if I were the poor.

There are certain people who think they know better than any other person how he should live his life. Various intellectuals and academics have been cursed with this conceit. They have an incredible hatred for those who would develop alternative values and behaviours. They have no use for those who exercise freedom by not complying with their pronouncements and ideas. It’s a short step from the frustrated conceit to the application (or support of the application) of force.

Many (most?) intellectuals and academics believe that force and coercion are justified to ensure people behave as they prescribe. They generously support systems and schemes that do just that. An important reason is that such support generates for them authority, security, recognition, status, income and reputation (too bad about what it does to the rest of us).

It’s all about self-interest.

Sione

PS One is reminded of an old article written by the late Ayn Rand where she describes the partnership between witch-doctors and the “Atilla” (violent chieftain or war-lord). She was on to something there.

*I submit that the primary cause of belief is that it makes sense to people.* Now one can ask how it can be that such nonsense makes sense to an intelligent being. However, that is not because of the facts or the logic of the issue, but rather its vision. Marxism, socialism, and interventionism, provide the pretense of establishing justice by (governmental) force. The answer to be given is not essentially a matter of economics and history, but rather providing a superior vision. If we have not been competitive on this level, the fault is not theirs but ours. We need to show that justice cannot be achieved by force, but only by free choice, and convey the sense of decency that comes from being guided by purer aspirations.

To me, that is the cry of the leftist liberal. “It’s not fair that they have more money!”

“It’s not fair that they pay people low wages!”

I think that’s what I’m a conservative.. from an early age my parents told me “Life’s not fair!”

I too have read most of the posts. They fall into a couple of categories, those who see the past as a cess pool of filth and misery that only Statism has cured, and those who see the market as always failing e.g. pollution.

Now I guess I am a believer that Statism in the U.S. PRECEDES the Gilded Age and its workings at destroying individualism goes back further than the accepted Progressive Age. Much of what these folks blame on the free market has more to do with the already ramping up of Statism. The Progressive Age was merely the first of many steps that X amount of State has failed, that must mean we need more. Unconstitutional actions that shaped and distorted individual action goes back all the way to (at least) the Louisiana Purchase.

As for pollution, Eastern Command economies belched out their own share of pollution. And, its not as if State run Commissions such as the sewer utility in Milwaukee don’t have their own share, running a spigot into Lake Michigan when the need arises. So government control in no way assures a lack of pollution. They merely sell licenses to the well connected as to who can pollute and who can’t and, as with all things Command, it is about Pull (to use an Objectivist term).

For those who were spouting on about Free Health Care, I assume they have not seen the $46 Trillion accrual basis debt we have, comprised mostly of the “few” social welfare plans we have in place now. They always fail to grasp the cost, and the cost can only be controlled in a few ways, ration care, force behavioral changes, or ship people off to the afterlife. And if care is not rationed, then some other facet of the economy will have to suffer.

I was especially amused by those who champion just how smashing the other industrial countries are faring under collectivist health. Many are changing the definitions, or will have to in the future, as they face crises greater than what the U.S. faces. They point to the Ponzi Scheme that is still somewhat thriving and ignore the time bomb just a few years off. “Get back to me in twenty years” is what I respond to such mentalities.

I read some of your posts, you’re doing Yeomen’s duty.

It’s amazing to me to read some of the things written there, by others. And, it also seems that ‘they’ aren’t interested in doing Any thinking on their own, rather, are only interested in what “accepted” experts have pontificated upon the matter.

Sadly, those coins they see as golden, much like the US Mint’s recent attempt at a “dollar”, will be seen as base.

He dismisses Roderick Long and Rothbard with a derisive laugh, and then proclaims _competition_ to be wasteful and injurious, a “market failure”. All I know is that FDR used the same argument to justify cartells, but I’m struggling with answering this since I’ve seen no logically rigerous counter, only contrast on principles and general terms.

I post under my own name if anyone wants to take a look.

I agree that it would be useful to look at the experience of countries besides the US. If you know of any such studies, please let me now.

Regarding the GI Bill, a better analogy isn’t a cash bonus but a voucher or coupon that can only be spent on particular goods and services. If your Christmas bonus consisted of coupons that can only be spent at Macy’s, then yes, I’d call that a subsidy of Macy’s by your employer. Of course, I agree that the education subsidy is offered to potential recruits as a form of compensation.

“To reduce every political choice to the “free” or “marxist” option is such an oversemplification that it really does no good to the public. The not-so-simple truth is that the real world is complicated, and choices are never simple. etc”

This is a futile attempt to dodge logic. Socialism, in a word. FACT is individuals can be EITHER subjected to coercion OR free. There’s no third possibility. Tertium non datur

Next, the ‘public’ is just a word – meaningless. It doesn’t exist. It’s not real. If you bother to look around you’ll see individuals – not the ‘public’.

The world is of course complex. So what ? It does NOT follow from that premise that government is useful or moral. It is not. (Btw, it’s “oversimplification”, not “oversemplification”.)

So, in only two sentences the revealed religion of socialism has managed three fallacies…And we are suposed to believe in collectivism’s intelectual superiority ?

Also, people are not deterministic machines so your “models of the world” are nonsense. To apply physics to human action is so…wrong.

That is theft and I will not stand for it!

The article seems to jump around and was a little vague on a few points that could be better explained or clarified. Initially the article says or insinuates when talking about faculty that they are socialist because they are democrats. I think a better, and possibly more accurate, picture could be drawn by looking at academics in other countries, countries with actual socialist parties or where the parties do not have the same incentives as they do here to move towards the middle. From the median voter model we know that in a two party system both parties drift towards the middle resulting in very little differences between the two. So, it could be just as likely that their “left-liberal” voting comes from certain issues like separation of church and state, gay marriage, etc. This would seem especially true in California which is a notoriously open minded state. So it doesn’t seem strange that economists vote democratic, perhaps they view them as the best of two bad choices.

Second, calling the GI bill a subsidy for the education sector is like calling Christmas bonuses a subsidy for department stores. The GI bill is a compensating differential to attract people to a low-paying (~$1200/month) dangerous job.

Intellectuals are not immune to brainwashing.

The brainwashing by the newsmedia on guns has a powerful effect against individual independence and self determination…government will keep us safe (not ourselves) only government (police) can protect us from harm. How many “intellectuals” want to arm themselves for personal protection ?

Only the 2nd amendment can bridge the American conscience of the concept of individual freedom versus government control (socialism). When Americans finally accept their responsibility to protect themselves then they can begin to acknowledge the scourge of government. To do this they need to learn what the newsmedia has done to their brains on guns.

And “intellectuals” are products of public education and decades of socialism. What do you expect. At some private schools free speech is now banned. Why is it libertarians are radical ?

A libertarian education is priceless; more valuable than attending Univ of Chicago.