“All the evidence I've seen shows they can…”

Experience cannot beat logic. You’re assuming government can rationally economise, or do things better, or provide net benefits in the first place, which is what is in issue, so it’s assuming what is in issue, so it’s circular.

Think of it this way. What if you are wrong?

Let’s suppose, just for the sake of argument, that government cannot rationally economise or provide net benefits. Now it’s already common ground that they can’t do it, as concerns full socialism. The question is whether the same reason they can’t do it in full socialism, applies equally to partial socialism. That’s what you have to prove. I don’t have to prove they can’t, because I could only be called on to do that if we assume they can = circularity. Okay? Fair enough?

When challenged, a supporter of government, in its defence, points to a capital good or service provided by government. But that doesn’t prove it’s a net benefit, or that society would not have been better off under a voluntary disposition of the same resources. Illogical.

Just imagine we’re talking about an irrational belief system.

“How do you know that throwing virgins into the volcano increases crop fertility?”
“All the evidence I’ve seen shows it does.”
“What evidence?”
“Increased crop fertility after we throw in the virgins.”
“How do you know that’s because of, rather than despite, throwing in the virgins?”
“It doesn’t automatically do it; but there are good reasons why it can.”
“Like what?”
“The high priests can increase crop fertility cheaper.”
“How so?”
“They don’t have to bother obtaining the consent of the people who own the resources they use. They can just take them by threatening to lock them up.”
“But how do you know it provides a net benefit to society? What account have you taken of the coercive nature of the transaction in figuring whether the value sacrificed were worth it?”
“Why shouldn’t we take advantage of that?”
“Look. You agree that throwing *everyone* into the volcano would not provide a net social benefit?”
“Yes.”

(cont.)

“Then how do you know that throwing in *anyone* does?
“Are you really incapable of providing any rational criteria yourself?”
“But I’m asking you: can you provide any rational criterion to determine that it does?”
“I'm starting to suspect that you're trying to win the argument by default by acting stupid in order to convince me that it's not worth continuing!”
“Well that’s assuming that it does increase crop fertility. But how do you know?”
“Are you really ignorant of something so basic as why the net benefit to society would be better?”
“Well the question is whether the net benefit to society would be better. So … prove it?”
“The high priests who chuck them in are committed to this socially beneficial work even though they could earn more money working elsewhere. You won’t find that in a free market oh no sirree.”
“No doubt you’re right. But what I want to know is, how do you know its provides a net benefit to society, in terms of the values that are forcibly sacrificed?”
“We get increased crop fertility for ‘free’. ”
“How do you know farmers couldn’t have got the same or more crop fertility increases, more economically, if you hadn’t used the resources you did?”
“Because. They can and do sometimes overcharge.”
“Relative to what?”
“I don't really know. Relative to what the high priests say.”
“How do you know the high priests aren’t overcharging?”
“They might.”
“So how do you know it’s better? How do you know the whole scheme isn’t just a force-based redistribution of property from the productive class to a parasitic priviligentsia, that has no basis in rationality, let alone ethics?”
“I've already addressed most of your points."

That’s what you’re doing, and that’s all you’re doing.

I’m asking what rational criterion you are using to distinguish the realm in which government does have this alleged economic superiority, and every single response of yours just keeps going endlessly assuming that it must be able to do it. When challenged, you deny you’re doing it, and then you just keep on doing it.

I respectfully suggest that, if you try falsifying instead of trying to confirm your proposition, you will probably find it:
a) easier, and
b) more logical
c) more parsimonious, and
d) has a lot more explaining power.

If government can rationally economise, or provide net benefits, then it doesn’t’ explain why *no-one* can *ever* come up with *any* rational criterion to demonstrate it; as we have just seen, not just from you, but from byork and David as well.

But if government cannot do it, that explains
a) why you disagree with full socialism,
b) why all attempts to demonstrate it are demonstrably illogical.

(PS They can’t do it: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf)

In their total confusion, all socialists are doing is supporting the abuse of power, and the stronger exploiting the weaker: the opposite of what they think they’re supporting. Then when they see the unfairness and impovershment their policies produce, they call for more government intervention, because they just can't get over this belief that they have been brainwashed into, that government is some kind of cuddly wuddly big teat that expresses nourishing love.

It is simply a deluded belief that the force-based destruction of capital makes society better off.

Experience may not beat logic, but it can certainly highlight logical errors, and your arguments are full of them. The idea that governments are totally incapable of economising is so logically preposterous that I really didn't think I needed to explain why they can.

And because my arguments that assumed they can did not claim to be proving they can, they were not circular.

But if you want logical proof, perhaps you could tell me what, if anything, is wrong with this simple argument:

Work is done by people.
Many people working in the public sector have previously done similar jobs in the private sector.
So how, logically, can the public sector not do what the private sector does?
Do you think people magically lose their skills when they become public sector employees?

You seem to be quite skilled at taking answers out of context, but not so skilled at considering their significance in context. For instance my question “Are you really ignorant of something so basic as why the net benefit to society would be better if the savings were passed on?” concerned something that is a fundamental tenet of the economics of the Right as well as the Left.

ARE you really ignorant of the answer?
'Tis quite simple: when the benefit is passed on to customers, it enables them to do more than they previously did. It's one of the main drivers of economic growth.

"I’m asking what rational criterion you are using to distinguish the realm in which government does have this alleged economic superiority,"
Finally a sensible question!

Unfortunately there's no one answer – not everything can be reduced to a formula. For some things the way to decide is to open it up to private competition. For others, economic modelling is the best way we can determine it. Yet others require value judgements, so are best determined democratically.

By "force based destruction of capital" I assume you mean taxation. By removing it from circulation, it allows more money to be put into circulation in a way that benefits all, not just the already rich.

“… your arguments are full of [logical errors].”

Maybe so, but you haven’t identified any.

“The idea that governments are totally incapable of economising is so logically preposterous that I really didn't think I needed to explain why they can.”

Well you do, because that's what's in issue. I admit they can provide benefits. It’s just that there’s no way of knowing whether it’s a net benefit, and lots of reason for thinking it’s not.

You still haven’t given any non-circular reason why they can rationally economise.

“And because my arguments that assumed they can did not claim to be proving they can, they were not circular.”

Well then perhaps you can prove what you’re maintaining now?

“But if you want logical proof … what, if anything, is wrong with this simple argument:
Work is done by people…
public sector employees?”

Work per se – digging holes and filling them in again – does not satisfy human wants. To rationally economise, we must use means in a way that doesn't sacrifice the satisfaction of values higher in people's value scales. That’s what you can’t prove.

The public sector can’t do what the private sector does because it can’t identify how to combine the factors of production using profit and loss based on private ownership.

You are assuming that, out of all the zillions of production possibilities, the solutions of what and how to produce are just given; but you’re assuming the capitalist competition process to discover it.

“When the benefit is passed on to customers, it enables them to do more than they previously did.”

Yes. The question is whether those same resources would not be more productively or beneficially employed if the capitalists had invested them towards the satisfaction of other wants? You’re assuming that central planners know how to run an economy; and that profit = waste.

“Unfortunately there's no one answer”

Therefore we have no way of knowing that full socialism might not be a wonderful success – we just have to keep on trying it?

“taxation”…. “benefits all”

So why not make it 100%?

Aidan et al.,

I'm not sure what planet you're on, but it ain't Earth. How much experience of socialism do you want ? From the Paris Commune onwards, the 1905 Revolution, 1917 [1 and 2], Hungary, Berlin, Bavaria, the Canton Commune, etc., etc., etc., right through the Pol Pot and Mengistu years, all up there must be hundreds and hundreds of years of bitter experience to draw on, in dozens of countries, a multitude of lessons to be learnt.

But you write as if it were 1869 or so, before any actual attempt at socialism had been tried, with it all in front of us, just needing a bit of fine-tuning. It's 2014, Rip van Winkle :) It's been tried. It's been tried. It's been tried. It failed every time.[Christ, talk about Edison's light-bulb experiments] Why did it fail every time ? Not for some nice esoteric dilemma over theory, but in hard, mucky practice. It failed. It's a dead parrot.

So let's move on. What next ?

Joe