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The Forum > Article Comments > The invisible right hand and the invisible left hand > Comments

The invisible right hand and the invisible left hand : Comments

By Gilbert Holmes, published 1/9/2010

The simple logic of Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' has switched on the minds of generations of deep thinkers and economic policy makers.

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Pelican
Do you know what ‘begging the question’ means? That’s what you’re doing.

Just because you want something, doesn’t mean it’s okay to use threats or force to get it. It’s no answer to say you just want “balance” or some greater good, because you haven’t established that there’s anything “balanced” or better about using threats or force in the first place. That’s why you can’t distinguish force you approve of, from force you don’t approve of, other than by repeating that you stand for “balance” which proves nothing. What if the people whose property rights you want to violate don’t think it’s balanced?

You say that you don’t stand for totalitarian government. But the only reason we do not have a totalitarian government is because people have successfully defended the principles of individual liberty and private property. On the other hand, you have not shown any principle on which government interventions in the economy would be limited, other than your own arbitrary opinion that there’s not nearly enough government interference going on.

So you haven’t begun to join issue. You’re just on the sidelines shouting “It is, because it is, because it is. I’m right, because I’m right.” It’s not an answer to say that a particular use of force would be “ridiculous”; you are only raising the question why your own preferred use of force is not ridiculous.

This is the problem with the whole so-called ‘third way’. It’s never about defending liberty or property. It always just a name for more arbitrary expansion of government intervention.

You said that there’s a trend to unfettered free markets, but government has never been bigger, you are completely unable to name any market that is not regulated by government, and the examples you gave are *government regulated arrangements*. So you either don’t understand what you’re talking about, or you’re being dishonest.

Ultimately all socialist argumentation boils down to absurdity or dishonesty.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 12:12:27 PM
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bollocks Sienna
I dont "own" the air I breathe. I "use" the air that I breathe.
Use rights and ownership rights are very different.

"Capitalism, even though claiming formal self-ownership, in fact not only restricts the self-determination of working class people, it also makes them a resource for others. Those who enter the market after others have appropriated all the available property are limited to charity or working for others". Hardly "self ownership" is it? Your ideology has so many flaws and gaping holes it could only be followed by those who refuse to think for themselves.

Read this to find out why your "self ownership" is a spurious load of rubbish designed to justify the current situation of a few having power(to exploit)over the many.
http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionB3
Posted by mikk, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 6:13:56 PM
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Obviously people use air. The question is whether they have a right to.

You have reached the stage of arguing that people do not have a right to breathe and therefore you have lost the argument.

There is no need for me to waste time demonstrating the absurdity of an argument that simultaneously asserts that no-one has a right to property, *and* that property is theft.

But perhaps if you do a bit more circular argument, appeal to absent authority, personal argument, and running inconsistent arguments on other threads, it will satisfy your intellectual standards?

So ultimately, what are we left with?
- Gilbert asserting that government represents "co-operation" while ignoring that it is a zero-sum game based on aggresion, and there is no evidence that government is more representative of people, than people;
- Pelican asserting that there is a bias toward unfettered free markets but being completely able to name one; laughably naming government-controlled markets as her example; and endlessly setting up her own arbitrary opinion as the test of whether her coercion is "balanced"
- Gorofus failing to understand that it is the inequality between parties that causes transactions to take place
- mikk's confused denial of the right to breathe; of the right to engage in social co-operation; his appeal to absent authority for a non-existent system based neither on private nor on governmental ownership; claiming to oppose government while simultaneously cheerleading for it on other threads; and channelling economically illiterate Marxist drivel refuted a thousand times.

The one common value you all share is hostility to other people's peaceable freedoms - oh, and fake moral superiority about your authoritarian tendencies.

Is that honestly the best you can do?

The so-called "balance" you argue for amounts to nothing more than constant cheerleading for ever more governmental interventions overriding private transactions, while *not one* of you has been able to show how government could provide a net benefit in any given action.

It gets to the stage where the only possible explanation for your consistent bias against human freedom is ignorance, or dishonesty.

Which is it?
Posted by Sienna, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 8:55:44 PM
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Since you obviously didnt bother with the link I posted heres a bit I think concisely states the case better than I can. Ill be interested to see how you get out of it. Given your hatred of the state.

"Private property is the state writ small, with the property owner acting as the "sovereign lord" over their property, and so the absolute king of those who use it. As in any monarchy, the worker is the subject of the capitalist, having to follow their orders, laws and decisions while on their property. This, obviously, is the total denial of liberty (and dignity, we may note, as it is degrading to have to follow orders). And so private property (capitalism) necessarily excludes participation, influence, and control by those who use, but do not own, the means of life.

It is, of course, true that private property provides a sphere of decision-making free from outside interference -- but only for the property's owners. But for those who are not property owners the situation if radically different. In a system of exclusively private property does not guarantee them any such sphere of freedom. They have only the freedom to sell their liberty to those who do own private property. If I am evicted from one piece of private property, where can I go? Nowhere, unless another owner agrees to allow me access to their piece of private property. This means that everywhere I can stand is a place where I have no right to stand without permission and, as a consequence, I exist only by the sufferance of the property owning elite.

This means that far from providing a sphere of independence, a society in which all property is private thus renders the property-less completely dependent on those who own property. This ensures that the exploitation of another's labour occurs and that some are subjected to the will of others, in direct contradiction to what the defenders of property promise."
Posted by mikk, Thursday, 9 September 2010 12:29:57 AM
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All that we can do Mikk is study your Thymological status, Ether you have been exposed to some of the worst Education that is typical of ; “ The State” had all the Collectivist propaganda and toxins rammed into you that much it is almost in definition and Ideological Madras’s. “Intended description.”
Such a virile and pathological hatred of such the magnitude of a subject matter that clearly you have not grasped , I do not intend this to be insulting Mikk , just an astute observation of what it is that you have been exposed to.

Try and approach it from a praxialogical perspective with a view to a Theory of History, and Not a Philosophical fictional writings of History.
There is a vast and expansive chasm between falsehoods and truth. Use your individual mind and not someone elses propagandisement of Dogma
Posted by All-, Thursday, 9 September 2010 9:07:21 AM
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mikk
Without any theory of people having a right to use resources, you haven’t got to square one and have lost, in fact never really joined, the argument.

In any event, as the general issue is free versus regulated trade, you are off-topic in asserting the possibility of a society that relies neither on private property nor government. Therefore all you have said is irrelevant to the topic.

In your ideal society of people producing solely for their own use, how will the wealth necessary for modern civilisation be produced. Don't tell me, lemme guess: everyone will hold hands and sing Kumbaya, right?

Until that day comes, you can continue falsely pretending to be an anarchist while consistently leading the cheer-squad for bigger taxes, bigger government, and less individual freedom.
Posted by Sienna, Thursday, 9 September 2010 9:48:40 AM
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