Pericles:
<Sadly, human nature will never allow this to come to pass.>
Dear Pericles,
What would you know about "human nature" when you have never experienced it and have no conception of it?
What we take to be human nature is derived from an empiricist metaphysic that is itself unfamiliar with human nature; indeed the subject/object split is its very obverse. And since in this "objective" intellectual paradigm, findings are ludicrously considered rigorous (in fact taken on faith), human nature is reviled commensurate with its impoverished condition.
Human nature is both essential and product of its social dispensation. Under capitalism the essential self, and its culture, are twisted and deformed by a vicious economic dynamic. Human nature has probably never realised its potential (culturally), but is has probably never been so systematically degraded as it is under capitalism---denied even the saving grace of being able to "imagine" a fulfilling life and self-respect. Such notions are non sequitur, deemed utopian. I see that mind-set as entrenched and "actual", that is "living", cynicism. Which other species are capable of such a cynical life?
Of course such talk is "quite rightly" laughed to scorn in these "enlightened" times.

Pericles,

You mentioned human nature, but exactly what is the nature of that human nature is in some dispute. Some say that we are essentially self-interested, some that we are essentially benevolent.

Personally I am with the school of thought that says that paradox lies at the centre of our being. Springing from what I call the 'third fundamental polarity' between separateness and connectedness, we are both self-interested (motivated to control our surrounds) and benevolent (motivated to commune with our surrounds). Subsequently, interactions between us (including economic) occur in a framework that has both competitive and cooperative aspects.

You seem to be assuming the old 'cult of the individual' version of human nature, (separate, self-interested and competitive), and I think it is this that limits your hope for the possibilities of democratic governance.

Looking at ourselves, we can see that the extremes of aggressive and weak are negative. If we take something good from each of these however, we can be both intensely strong and intensely gentle without compromise. The same is true for governance and freedom. If we take the good from each, we have the potiential to combine them in a way that is trully awesome.

I would say that the first step in bringing about this trully awesome state of affairs is to start believing that it is possible. Who know's what 'we' can do!

Pelican
All government involves a claim to a legal monopoly of the use of force or threats of force. As shown in my ‘desert island factorial’ article, there are countless ways we can take collective action. What attracts people to collective *policy* action is the fact that they don’t have to bother getting other people’s consent. They can just use force or threats to bully people into submission and obedience. Policy means police-y. Ultimately if you don’t submit and obey, a group of men armed with weapons will come around to your place, Taser or handcuff you, and lock you up in a cage. Those arguing for a policy response are always and necessarily arguing for the use of aggression to get what they want. Democracy makes no difference to this fact, and majority opinion does not make the use of violence or threats right.

“Imbalances of power and potential to exploit the vulnerable is as equally undesirable as a totalitarian regime.”
You have not established that voluntary transactions involve imbalances of power, or exploitation; nor that your aggression-based solution would be less imbalanced or exploitative than consent-based solutions.

“Using your logic I could easily ask why you wish to use force or threats to impose your will on others.”
I am not advocating the use of force or threats. That’s the whole point.

GH
Both money and non-money costs are self-evidently less than benefits in the case of voluntary transactions, otherwise people wouldn’t do them. It is only in coerced transactions that the difficulty in knowing them arises, which is why you can’t do it.

1. What transactions would not be caught in the exceptions to free trade that you argue for?
2. Who is “we”?
3. Please define “balance”.

You have not given any reason to think that your interventions will result in any greater fairness in cleaning the poo pit, and since you do not volunteer for it yourself, and cannot prove it’ll be better overall, why should anyone accept you using force to try to rig the result?

Gilbert,

The biggest problem with Philosophic ideals (and OLO) with regards to many topics including this one is more fundamental. Idealism is fine as an aspirational goal.

The failing of a idealism issue in both its nature and creating methodology. Most OLOers see/discuss such topics from a (X-Y) two dimensional perspective.
As stated by others and agreed by me, there is nothing wrong with idealism per se. Unfortunately this tends to interpolate as a visceral competition between the two polarised extremes ( Labor V Liberals aka capitalism V socialism). Clearly what is missing are the Z axis dimensions.

This limited of linear thinking necessitated in many the need to over state the fit of their emotionally dominated opinion and filling the unknown with belief rather than facts.

This sadly is evident in this topic.

All the arguments thus far advocating either extreme are in fact based on faux logic in that they rely entirely on unsubstantiatable faith and belief. This in turn leads to the inevitable conflict.

The alternative that I favour is to respect the facts and the implication as they ARE discussable short comings and unknowns and avoid either extreme ( or absolutes).

Pedantry can only exist sensibly when facing extremes or absolutes.

Examinator

You have not shown where true logic ends and faux logic begins in the argument on free trade. Is true logic, is Pythagoras’s theorem, is 7 x 7= 49, based on “unsubstantiatable faith and belief?”

> "The alternative that I favour is to respect the facts and the implication as they >ARE discussable short comings and unknowns and avoid either extreme ( or >absolutes)."

This assumes that the facts are not in issue. But sometimes the question is, what are the facts? Do trade restrictions reduce total net productivity and mutual shares, or not? Does increasing the money supply cause inflation, or not? Do rain dances increase fertility, or not?

Facts don't interpret themselves. That requires theory. Theory is to come up with an explanation of cause and effect based on logically necessary relations. Otherwise we couldn’t communicate about anything, because nothing would logically follow, everything would just refer back to more contingent variables.

At some stage the rubber has to hit the road, and we must have recourse to logically necessary relations. For example if a boiler explodes we cannot explain this by saying the pressure got too high, because it doesn’t explain why it was too high. Ultimately we have to sheet home the explanation in Boyle’s law.

All explanations of fact must ultimately refer back to some logically necessary relation in pure theory, otherwise they wouldn’t explain anything. For example, if we say there is a shortage of land, we are appealing to the universal knowledge that you can’t indefinitely increase the *physical* productivity of a piece of land just by adding more capital or labour.

Merely looking at ‘facts’ doesn't tell us which ones to ‘respect’ as cause, and which as effect. Government inflates the currency, and then we get a recession. But did we get a recession *despite* monetary policy, or *because of* it? Do living standards rise *because of* trade restrictions, or *despite* them? Merely looking at facts doesn’t tell us.

You have assumed that, just because there are opposed explanations, therefore they are extremes, and therefore the truth lies somewhere in between

But if there are four parties to an argument about achieving higher productivity: one advocating free trade, one advocating full socialism, one advocating witchcraft, and one advocating rain dances, it doesn’t mean the truth is somewhere in the middle and we should “avoid extremes”. That is completely invalid.

Ricardo has shown not the faux, but the true logic of free trade: it increases total net productivity and the shares of everyone who participates in it, on the conditions assumed. It is dishonest to assert that this depends on “emotionally dominated opinion and filling the unknown with belief rather than facts”, or “faux logic in that they rely entirely on unsubstantiatable faith and belief”. What faux logic? You haven’t refuted him.

No-one has ever shown how *restricting* trade increases total net productivity and the shares of everyone who participates in it, on the assumed conditions. They start from emotionally-dominated opinion – like “aint’ it awful that some hypothetical people have to clean a hypothetical poo pit?” – and work backwards from there to assert that government regulation is necessary and desirable.

Therefore there is no reason why such interventionism should be taken as one of the parameters within which explanation must restrict itself, because its proponents have not logically distinguished it from rain dancing and other irrational beliefs in the first place. How does restricting production cause greater wealth? It’s nonsense.

In arguing for a ‘balance’, none of the government apologists has been able to show that government *can* contribute a balance as they define it, nor that such interventions would consist of anything but arbitrarily and immorally making everyone poorer. The protectionist arguments represents a flight from reason.

One the one hand you accuse theory that you are unable to refute of ‘faux logic’.

On the other you have nothing to put in its place but appeal to your arbitrary opinion, based explicitly on nothing but the plethora of contingent variables, and a jumble of different models from the physical and statistical sciences that have no application to the issue in hand.