Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

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carnap
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by carnap »

LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:39 pm If a buisness in a free market starts to lose money, that's the signal that it's spending the wrong way (and that it would be better not to spend money at all). The government is usually worse at spending money than the buisnesses are because they often (or even most often) don't get such a signal. Why do you think socialism fails? I think that's an important question.
The point of the comment is that businesses aren't magical, they make mistakes all the time and at times those mistakes are so large they can send the economy into a recession.

Keynes isn't a socialist so I'm not sure why you're talking about socialism. Arguing that the government should provide some services and deal with market failures is not the same as advocating for socialism. Unregulated free-markets are problematic on many levels and there is no successful economy that has unregulated free-markets, in fact the countries with the most equity, greatest level of happiness, etc are ones that have more regulations than exist in the US (e.g., Sweden, Finland, etc).

LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:39 pm And maybe the right thing to do during the recessions is to decrease spending. Or do you think there is some evidence that the paradox of the thrift is a real thing?
If the government decreased spending during a recession it would make the recession worse. Why would that be the "right thing"? Is it better for more people to be unemployed? For more people to lose their homes? Etc.

There is plenty of evidence of the "paradox of thrift" but it hinges are certain economic conditions. The problem is that during a recession increased saving is essential dead-weight, even if people store the savings at banks (if they save in cash, gold, etc it will even be worse) the increased capital won't be spent because businesses, governments, etc are reducing spending and saving as well.
I'm here to exploit you schmucks into demonstrating the blatant anti-intellectualism in the vegan community and the reality of veganism. But I can do that with any user name.
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by LogicExplorer »

Thanks, Teo123, what you wrote about pseudosciences is interesting. As for your website, listen, it's rare to see a website done all by hand these days. But, frankly, I think your website would be much better had you used WordPress, or at least an existing template. Your website is hard to manage. Every time you add a new page, you need to modify the navigation bars of all the other pages on your website. Also, you are not structuring your code properly. You are not separating the scripts from the content, your CSS and JavaScript are inlined into HTML files (copy-pasted to every page). Furthermore, you are using JavaScript-generated SVGs (the gradient corners) for what could have been much more efficiently done using CSS. Now, if you want to change the colors, you need to rewrite many of your JavaScript and copy-paste that to every page on your website. Also, please, for God's sake, make sure the headers are correctly structured. Chances are, most of that browser-sniffing you do in your JavaScript can be avoided by triggering the standards mode instead of the quirks mode in various browsers. By triggering the quirks mode, you are also slowing down the JavaScript engines (which could be the reason your website loads so slowly despite not being rich in pictures).
I will be using WordPress for my new website, but it's not online yet.

So, Carnap, you didn't answer my question: What do you think is the reason socialism fails again and again? Could it be because the government is way worse at deciding what to spend money on than private buisnesses are? Also, I don't know if you are aware of that, but Scandinavian countries (as well as few other countries in Europe) score more on the Economic Freedom Index than USA does.
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by LogicExplorer »

Carnap, could you please respond? Why do you think socialism fails?
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by LogicExplorer »

Does somebody else here have an opinion about that?
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

You should either quote or @carnap, otherwise he or she will not get an alert about your reply.
carnap
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by carnap »

LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Apr 19, 2018 10:48 pm So, Carnap, you didn't answer my question: What do you think is the reason socialism fails again and again? Could it be because the government is way worse at deciding what to spend money on than private buisnesses are? Also, I don't know if you are aware of that, but Scandinavian countries (as well as few other countries in Europe) score more on the Economic Freedom Index than USA does.
In what sense does socialism fail again and again? Since capitalist nations persistently work against socialism regimes its hard to saw that the failures of socialism regimes are due to inherit problems with socialism or that they just don't compete well in a world where most nations are capitalist. Though it should be pointed out that what will soon be the world's largest economy is based on a socialist model, namely, China.

Scandinavian Countries are closer to a socialist state than the US, they have noticeably higher taxes and more social services than the US. For example Government spending makes up around 50~55% of the economy of Sweden where as its 30% in the US. So isn't it ironic that economic freedoms would be higher in Sweden? Perhaps its due to greater equality in health care and education?
I'm here to exploit you schmucks into demonstrating the blatant anti-intellectualism in the vegan community and the reality of veganism. But I can do that with any user name.
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by LogicExplorer »

Well, @carnap, I've never actually heard that side of the story, that political position. I've never talked to somebody who claims to actually believe socialism works.

So, what exactly do you think is the cause of the Venezuela's failure? What about Bulgaria or Porto Rico?

What do you think "economic freedom" means? Economic freedom mostly means rule of law (that rulers don't decide what's justice, but that there are some abstract entities, "laws", that do that), property rights (that government can't randomly decide to take away your property to use it for whatever they think is good for the society, which it almost never actually is) and lack of corruption (basically, that there aren't administrative barriers to the investment, caused by the politicians forming the bureaucracy in a way that would serve them and not the people). Lack of those things, that is, when the government can use your property without your consent, is called socialism, right?

What do you think is going on in China? The companies such as Huawei and ZTE aren't owned by the state, as they would be in "socialism". Since Deng Xiaoping, China appears to have been socialist only in a name.
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by carnap »

LogicExplorer wrote: Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:59 pm So, what exactly do you think is the cause of the Venezuela's failure? What about Bulgaria or Porto Rico?
Porto Rico is part of the United States and is not a socialist nation. Venezuela's failure is due to an authoritarian regime and western states (most obviously the United States) working against it.
LogicExplorer wrote: Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:59 pm Lack of those things, that is, when the government can use your property without your consent, is called socialism, right?
No, that isn't what is called socialism. Socialism is not a political philosophy where nobody has property rights rather its a system of government where some or all of the means of production is government or community owned. There are a variety of different types of socialist systems, what you seem to have in mind is some straw-man.
LogicExplorer wrote: Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:59 pm What do you think is going on in China? The companies such as Huawei and ZTE aren't owned by the state, as they would be in "socialism". Since Deng Xiaoping, China appears to have been socialist only in a name.
Socialism doesn't require that every operation be governed by the state or community. China is a socialist state where some regions (or segments of the economy) are allowed to operate in a qausi free market. But the economy is overall a planned economy and the state is a socialist state.
I'm here to exploit you schmucks into demonstrating the blatant anti-intellectualism in the vegan community and the reality of veganism. But I can do that with any user name.
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by carnap »

Also perhaps the driving force behind socialist theories of government are that private property is problematic when that property is used to collect economic rents. Contrary to what people think, private property isn't "free market". Property rights have to be created legally and enforced by the government. In the US some of the most economically valuable property rights are those related to patents for medications, medical equipment, technology, film rights, etc. Part of the reason our medical system is almost twice as expensive as other nations that businesses are collecting huge rents on their patents. These are patents that are protected by the government.
I'm here to exploit you schmucks into demonstrating the blatant anti-intellectualism in the vegan community and the reality of veganism. But I can do that with any user name.
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Re: Is the Austrian School of Economics Pseudoscience?

Post by LogicExplorer »

OK, now, @carnap, what do you think "socialism" means? As far as I know, that's an idea that, simply put, there should be a government stealing money from the rich and giving it to the poor, and preventing people from privately owning anything that could make them significantly richer than others, so that the means of production are owned by the government. Socialism is authoritarian by definition.
Socialism can be contrasted with communism, and that's the idea that, basically, private ownership is detrimental to the society and itself can only be achieved by force. Therefore, there should be no CEOs and the workers should decide everything about the means of production. And, communists usually believe there should be no money, because it can supposedly also be made only by force (the state).
I think we can all agree that communism is a failed ideology because, well, if the workers own the means of production and aren't getting paid for what they do, they will simply steal the tools or not work at all.
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