Peter Hume,

Your triumphal attitude to debate is rather amusing - seems that you're mainly interested in declaring yourself the "winner" point by point (hoorah!).

Children had always worked in traditional societies once they achieved a certain age. However, the paradigm shift to mill and factory work proved so injurious to their developing bodies. Noxious fumes, poor ventilation, poor nutrition and long hours of repetitive manual labour led to the crippling and stunting of these children. "Work" which had been common practice for children couldn't be translated to an industrial setting. Young adults became old and ruined before their time.

That is the reason government education was introduced. Some of the more humanitarian industrialists like Robert Owen perceived of a system where children could be educated while at the same time being prepared for industrial society...so it went, and the system that resulted produced adults fully conditioned to the capitalist paradigm, yet preserved in their physical well-being.

The fact that government education is a one-size-fits-all system is that it's the nature of the beast. It's a beast intially fashioned in response to the dereliction of humanitarian duty and common sense displayed by libertarian industrialists, and adapted over time to serve the needs of capitalism.

Mollydukes,

Thanks for that - will have a squizz.

Poirot

Ad hominem mind-reading, ho hum.

So what’s happened in our long series of exchanges is this. You have talked of capitalism as exploitative, as if it’s so obvious it goes without saying. When I’ve asked you to prove it, your reply has assumed it. When I’ve pointed out that you’ve assumed it, your next reply has simply assumed it again. It’s like you don’t even understand the issue. When I’ve specifically identified the economic issue for you – to show that government interventions have made improvements after all costs of such interventions were taken into account – that government interventions have not increased unemployment, poverty and hardship - you’ve just assumed it all over again!

Thus your intellectual technique is no different from that of the Hare Krishnas. You illogically assume the existence of a superbeing and just keep repeating it.

Baygon
Similarly I accuse you of using methods that do not satisfy the minimum requirements of rationality.

You made your equilibrium argument. I refuted it. You have not defended it.

You made the public goods argument. I referred you to a refutation of it, and can myself totally refute it any time you will join issue. But you have not defended it.

Instead you reply with
- personal argument – I’m supposedly engaging in “mindless point scoring”. This personal insult evades the possibility that your theory is wrong.
- circular argument – in reply to being completely refuted, you just *repeat the assumption* about government that you haven’t been able to rationally justify in the first place, namely that it can provide education better after taking into account the upsides and downsides both ways. So you haven’t got to square one and I’ve destroyed your arguments, remember?
- long-refuted nonsense. Don’t make me laugh about Karl Marx being a “great … economist”. Marx thought of himself first and foremost as an economist. Yet it was the economics departments who were the first to reject his theories … because they’re demonstrably wrong!

In particular, Ludwig von Mises has proved that socialism is not even possible *in theory*, let alone in practice: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf and absolutely demolished all Marx’s theories here: http://mises.org/books/socialism/contents.aspx

Until you
a) have understood the argument from economic calculation, and
b) can refute the argument
you’re just displaying prattling ignorance of what you’re talking about.

The flaw that invalidates the whole of your last post is that in criticizing capitalism you fail to distinguish private, from governmental control of the means of production, thus being guilty of still more basic confusion than even Marx was guilty of.

The money supply and interest rates at all times during the financial crisis were under monopoly government control. According to free market theory, this will result in instability, while according to interventionist theory this will result in economic stability. So you’ve lost the argument - again.

Mollydukes
Firstly, let’s acknowledge you haven’t answered my questions because they completely disprove your argument.

“I'm … looking for an explanation of what I would do in your world when Hayek simply rejects me.”

Some of the thousands and thousands of productive activities that are now illegal? Ever considered freedom as an option?

Ever considered that the government interventions you advocate might have negative consequences that make your life, and millions of others’, *much worse* for no defensible reason?

Then when I disprove your assumptions, instead of acknowledging it, you come back at me with personal disparagement.

“[N]either capitalism or socialism will be the answer … They are just systems of dividing up property and income and neither addresses the 'problem' of human nature.”

I have shown why socialism must necessarily produce worse outcomes, both in ethics and in practice.

But you haven’t begun to establish show how capitalism is worse, and have blamed capitalism for problems caused by government.

“Based on my understanding of psychology it seems to me that there are a number of different types of human nature and an ideology that will work will need to take this into account. What do you think about that?”

Whatever the differences between people, nature still imposes certain unchangeable limitations in common on all people, e.g. time. These non-negotiable limitations include limitations on the possible uses of scarce resources. All the wishful thinking, and all the logical fallacies in the world cannot make these truths go away. They apply to all people in all cultures in all times. They affect us *whether or not people understand or believe them*. Knowledge of such truths is not “ideology” in the Marxian sense.

Thus it’s not a question of “proper ideology” with its implication that we can choose whatever economic reality we want. We can’t. There is a such a thing as reality, and as logic, and these impose limitations on human nature and human production.

The claims of socialism, or government, to provide services as well or better than private ownership are COMPLETELY FALSE.

That’s why
a) I have challenged everyone to answer how government services are going to avoid the problems that private provision avoids, and no-one has been able to answer
b) I have challenged everyone to answer how government services are going to equal the benefits of private provision, and no-one has been able to answer.
c) All the claims against capitalism consistently blame capitalism for problems caused by government
d) ALL the claims in favour of government are logically fallacious many times over. Their technique consists of simply not counting the downsides of the government interventions they advocate.

“But perhaps you don't do thinking about new ideas all that well?”

That’s rich coming from you. Have you had any new ideas as a result of not being able to answer *any* of the questions I’ve asked you?

At least I am genuinely inquiring to find out if and when my ideas are wrong. That’s why I’ve asked the questions I’ve asked. I have *openly and repeatedly* offered for you guys to prove me wrong – none of you has been able to do it.

By contrast, you guys all *actively flee from disproofs*, taking refuge in circularity. I prove you wrong, and you just repeat the same assumptions. I prove them wrong again, and you reply with personal insult and another round of the same assumptions all over again.

Your intellectual technique is one of mere invincible ignorance.

Are *you* open to new ideas? When you grow tired of demonstrable falsehoods, try something true for a change:
http://mises.org/Books/mespm.PDF

Can you disprove it?

“Are you a real libertarian?”
Do I believe freedom is better than unprovoked aggression? Yes!, both morally and practically, and I have proved it – rationally. And all the arguments I have got back are just a welter and thicket of fallacies, overlaid with layer upon layer of personal insult – from the supposedly caring empathetic side.

All
What’s happened here is that you are so entrenched in your beliefs about government being able to assign resources to their most urgent and important uses, that when someone actually challenges you to prove your claims for government and against capitalism, you are completely at a loss. You fall back immediately into personal attack, circular argument, irrelevance, fake piety, straw men, calling socialist interventions “capitalist”, Marxist slogans, and every kind of logical fallacy.

The reason is obvious: since birth you have been so surrounded with people who believe your assumptions about government, that you have absorbed it with mother’s milk. Then came your compulsory indoctrination, which you’ve obviously never critically questioned as concerns this issue. Then it comes as a shock when someone points out there’s no reason or evidence for your beliefs, so you blame the messenger. Your methodology is religious, not rational.

Perhaps one day you will consider the arguments on their merits, and care whether or not what you are advocating is false and abusive.

Peter I totally agree that it is difficult to escape the 'gravitational pull of the dominant consciousness'.

So how did you do it? How did you manage to see that libertarianism is the way when so many of us can't see that? Are you a special type of human being? More intelligent perhaps?

Because I am most definitely not like you. My freedom comes from the security that a goverment can provide. I don't seek to maximise my profit at all and I am sure that accumulating wealth is not the way to maximise human happiness or find enlightenment.

I seek to increase my understanding of human nature and myself, and to establish reciprocal and symetrical relationships with others.

I think I have argued convincingly, that people like me would always come out losers against people like you if there were no restrictions on your greed.

All I can say in conclusion is that you are a silly silly man. You haven't proved anything. ROFL! You do know that means 'roll on floor laughing'? I am dissapointed with the quality of your response though. I did expect a bit more independent thought.