Peter,

You have *proven* nothing least of all your original assertion. All that you have shown is that the basis of your conclusion is deficit of the human element. And as Pelican and I point out without ALL the components an ABSOLUTE DETERMINATION is meaningless.

What I did say is:
-This omission is common in all philosophic determinations that seek to be absolute.

-that the problem is similar to Quantum physics that in the absence of all knowledge one is confined by probabilities.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't do nothing. It is as we said a moving feast and any system must strive for a balance so that no side is inequitably deprived or advantaged.

-under the current system too rigid hasn't evolved to accommodate ethical components of today.

It is agreed that no system will be perfect but to suggest that all improvements to the system(s) are totally unpredictable and are equivalent to dictatorship is simplistic semantics (extreme interpretations of terminology a no no in philosophy).

Stern
Your response is simply denial and reinterpretation of the concepts being discussed to satisfy you ( political) beliefs.
i.e. GFC was caused by lack of regulation and ethics in the financial sector. The basis of their activities were distortions of the basic principles of capitalism. Again they have come about because the system has developed on the black letter of the law, exploiting flaws (ethical) in the law. Clearly corporations finance can't be trusted to act in ethical (good of the majority of people).

It was reasonably well known in circles that their actions had consequences but like all ponzi scheme operators their focus was their own benefit at all costs.
I repeat the corporate system is inanimate, has no feelings or ethics it is up to us (people) to drive the tool not the other way around

Examinator “Pelican is on the money in that most of the pressures ultimately emanate from the individual not a government. It is the fact that private sector particularly large ones tend to give an asympathetic/amoral outcomes”

GFC, I said previously,

Was the product of bad government Regulation....

not the product of any “individual” bank officer / owner

One of the overreaching benefits of capitalism is to distribute power across everyone, rather than concentrate it in one place (eg the monopoly of “government”)

“Again our systems were created in simpler times but their evolution has not kept pace with ethics etc.”

consider:

The Wall Street Crash - 1929

The South Sea Bubble - 1711

Both of which, I think you might concede, were “simpler times”.

As for "democratic government". Well the idea has been around since the Greeks were masters of the known world and has flourished since the end of the notion of the Divine Right of Kings and transfer of responsibility for the administration of tax revenues from the Crown to Parliament an elected

Say, around the mid to end of the 17th century.

So the guiding principles of democratic government have endured too

And believe me,

Ethics are one thing which should never be changing with the times.

Conclusion:

Capitalism, by its nature, has its ups and downs but has survived because of its benefits to trade and effective ownership of resources

Democratic government did not stop the rise of Lenin or Stalin indeed, the opposite to democratic government (autocracy) and revolutions against autocracy is what brought Lenin and Stalin to power.

But “democratic government” has endured and outlived the horror of all the experiments in “collectivism”

You have no evidence to support any notion that "collectivism", which has been tried and failed before will even work, let alone be better, than capitalism this time.

think on this

“When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty."

and

"Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul"

> You have *proven* nothing least of all your original assertion.

Yes I have. I have proven that the knowledge problem is such that anyone proposing to forcibly override voluntary exchanges is not in a position to know whether the net effect of the intervention will be better or worse, even judged from the interventionist’s own standpoint.

> All that you have shown is that the basis of your conclusion is deficit of the human element.

The deficit of the human element is only a problem so far as it concerns using force or threats to compel involuntary action.

There is no deficit of the human element so far as it concerns voluntary action, because we know axiomatically from the fact that an action is voluntary, that the purpose of the person doing it is as a mean to achieve an end value of increasing his own subjective satisfaction or decreasing his subjective dissatisfaction.

But if this is not true, what would be an example of a voluntary action that was not motivated by the acting person’s purpose of attaining an end that was more satisfactory from his own point of view?

> And as Pelican and I point out without ALL the components an ABSOLUTE DETERMINATION is meaningless.

If not even voluntary action could be ‘absolutely’ determined to be justified, then the justification for aggressive action must be even less. The knowledge problem doesn’t count *in favour of* assuming the knowledge in issue: it counts *against* it.

>This omission is common in all philosophic determinations that seek to be absolute.

What do you mean “absolute”? Is knowledge of Pythagoras’s theorem absolute? Is knowledge of 7 x7 = 49 absolute?

Whether or not ‘absolute’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean), still it is a universally valid proposition to say, from the fact of voluntary exchanges, that all of them involved the acting person’s purpose to use the exchange as means to a more satisfactory end from his subjective point of view – otherwise he wouldn’t do it.

The same cannot be said of using force, so the problem of what you call absolute knowledge affects only involuntary action, not voluntary action.

> that the problem is similar to Quantum physics that in the absence of all knowledge one is confined by probabilities.

It is absurd to model an understanding of human action on quantum physics. You have not shown how a voluntary action could be inconsistent with its doer’s subjective purpose to increase his own satisfaction. Therefore the probability of this statement being true of voluntary action is 100 percent.

> This doesn't mean that we shouldn't do nothing.

No one is arguing that we should do nothing. The question is whether you can justify forcibly overriding voluntary relations. You haven’t done so.

> … any system must strive for a balance so that no side is inequitably deprived or advantaged.

You haven’t established that:
• Other humans’ lives, freedom and property are a ‘system’ belonging to the state
• Voluntary human relations inherently constitute antagonistic ‘sides’
• Violent action incapable of knowing whether it is producing an improvement, in its own terms, is inherently fairer than voluntary action
• People have any moral right to impose involuntary servitude on others
• There would be anything more “balanced” about a coercive monopoly making decisions, than not.

-under the current system too rigid hasn't evolved to accommodate ethical components of today.

You haven’t established that violence is more ethical than non-violence.

> It is agreed that no system will be perfect but to suggest that all improvements to the system(s) are totally unpredictable and are equivalent to dictatorship is simplistic semantics …

You have not established that threatening to lock people in a cage if they don’t obey is an “improvement” to the system.

No-one is arguing that improvements are “totally unpredictable” or “equivalent to dictatorship”.

The shoe is on the other foot. It is you who, starting from your political views, work backward to conclude that political interventions must be justified, even though you are, as you would say, “absolutely” unable to know or show how.

Peter,

Clearly our meaning to keywords differ.
Likewise we are looking at the issue from different starting points and different assumptions.
A key one is the seminal importance of evolution and 'basic instincts' and the many human variations. Paramount amongst those are survival and procreation, both of which are based on competition.

Implicit in my response is the logical assumption that in order to keep those base instincts in reasonable co-existence proportions, essential to the maintenance of society there is a need for authority.

This clearly necessitates ethics. How those ethics are determined by the society and yes there must be sanctions or corrective actions for those who don't comply to the said ethics. Common sense dictates that the line is shades of greys and therefore the "sanctions/corrective actions" need to be likewise on a sliding scale.

It is an acknowledge reasoning that in order for a 'society' to exist the individual must defer some of their rights to the authority of the community.

What you are seeming to trying to engage with is an academic philosophical discussion searching for the absolute (irreducible, fixed, immutable) truth.

IMO a philosophy is meaningless in any practical sense if it doesn't allow for the effectively infinite variations of the human in put.
Given that infinite isn't an absolute singularity but a concept of perpetual change.
i.e. "The God particle" in physics will I believe will decrease indefinitely and will depend on our technology.

In that way our society will(or should) continue to be fine tuned ad infinitum.

You on the other hand are trying to achieve the philosophic god particle (absolute proof) for each aspect.

Many of your stated 'failures' in my "political (sic)" view could be tightened up but sadly I have neither the inclination nor perhaps the wit to sate your criticisms.

Part 1

Peter part2

It should be noted than generally I don't seek to convert or convince anyone to any point merely to raise sufficient doubt to engender greater thought.
I do however balk at people who assume absolutes and then try to proselytise that opinion particularly when the reasoning is myopic and visceral.

Political in my sense referred to your indication of party preference.
In that count I am neutral given I don't respect the party system.

Have a good one and thanks for your perspective , interesting.