Stiglitz Joins In On Keynesian Spending In Order To Expand The Oppressive State http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/06/12/stiglitz-joins-in-on-keynesian-spending-in-order-to-expand-the-oppressive-state/
Source date (UTC): 2012-06-20 14:13:19 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/215447238376292354
From The Global Secular Humanism Group: “Should ‘Islam’ be considered as a political ideology and a religion at the same time?” The question should be restated in this fashion in order to illustrate Islam’s political content: A) Should Islam be considered a Religion? (Yes/No) YES: Religions consist of Myths and rituals. It does appear that religions require some form of magian reasoning. However, scientism, secular humanism, progressivism, all require ‘faith’ (in methodology, reason, or technology) that is expressly counter to the historical evidence. So, it is quite possible to create a personal philosophy that is the premise for a religion (scientism, secular humanism, progressivism) on faith. Scientism has myths, rituals and institutions. Progressivism has them too. Secular humanism is getting close, but I tend to treat secular humanists as simply anti-christian atheists and progressives as Democratic Secular Humanists. That means Secular Humanism is a minor ideology, and Democratic Secular Humanism as a major ideology. Both of which rely upon faith. But Democratic (Socialist) Secular Humanism, like islam, has both laws (human rights), institutions (academia, the press, the party structure, and it’s developed expressly for use in majority rule under parliamentarianism). So it appears to be both an ideology, a religion and a political system. B) Should Islam be considered a political Ideology? (Yes/No) YES: The purpose of an ideology is to obtain political power through excitation of the masses. Islam was invented to obtain political power. Islam was used as a means of conquest, and succeeded in obtaining political power. Islam is used to obtain, justify and use political power. Political power is the power to enforce the primacy of a set of laws. Islam contains a code of laws with explicit commandment to their primacy. Therefore islam is a political ideology. C) Should Islam be considered a political system? (Yes/No) YES: While a primitive political system only requires the ability to resolve disputes, A political system capable of coordinating investments (taxes and expenditures on infrastructure) requires at a minimum, laws, and an organization that mandates the exclusivity of those laws above all other laws, rules and norms. Islam has both a set of laws (Sharia) and a system of producing judges for those laws (Mullahs) and a system of intergenerational teaching for the purpose of propagating those laws (Religious Schools). In effect islam is a legal system with magian origins (instead of natural rights). That islam does not include other formal institutions (a parliament) is simply a function of it’s antiquity and tribal authoritarianism. Islam conquered a roman state (Byzantium) and assimilated it’s administrative structure. But did not include it on it’s own. In fact, much of islamic administration relied upon slaves and eunuchs because the byzantine administration could not adapt to Arab tribalism. (See Fukuyama’s recent book.) Islam is a religion, a political ideology, and a political system. If one argues that it is not, then one must define the terms religion, political ideology, and political system. And that exercise would lead to either confirmation of that it is a religion, ideology and political system, or one would define those terms using selection bias by sampling normative rather than structural rules.
http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/06/12/stiglitz-joins-in-on-keynesian-spending-in-order-to-expand-the-oppressive-state/
Source date (UTC): 2012-06-20 10:13:00 UTC
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/06/six_theses_on_e.htmlBRYAN CAPLAN FAILS TO JUSTIFY OPEN IMMIGRATION
(*HIGHLY UN-PC PAINFUL TRUTH WARNING*)
1) Do a group of people have the right to exclusion? To deny trade, habitation, and spatial access, to others based upon some property of the others’ group?
Moral norms, traditions, and even differences in language and ability impose a cost on groups. Morals are largely expressions of property rights, and differences in morals are expressions of conflicting property rights. Norms are a form of shareholder property in themselves. So differences in norms impose costs on both sides and in many cases constitute attempts at fraud and theft.
For example, I regularly write about the difference between Bazaar Ethics and Warrior Ethics, and how externalities and implied warranty are a product of high trust warrior ethics and not a property of low trust Bazaar Ethics. And a high trust society is very rare, and very complicated to build. It’s also very productive and innovative. But it requires that sellers exhibit symmetrical transparency, be constrained from imposing external costs and required to provide limited warranty.
While I’m a pretty big fan of Brian’s I just see this post on immigration as yet another attempt to express jewish cultural bias as a truth or moral principle when it’s just a byproduct of the fact that jews are a diasporic people with a small population and the memes, morals and narratives of a diasporic people that are unable to hold land, when land holding is necessary for the establishment of norms and formal institutions, and land holding is necessary in order to enforce the right of exclusion, in order to reduce the costs of cooperation.
So no, immigration poses high costs on host countries and peoples where there is a high trust moral code including a requirement for symmetric honesty, warranty, and a prohibition on external involuntary transfers, a nuclear family, with a homogenous language.
I realize that this is a painful truth. But it is a truth none the less.
2) Secondly, norms are not governed as brian suggests by extreme examples. This is just faulty logic in the extreme. In fact, using extreme conditions as examples of norms is the source of most false criticism of moral statements using moral dilemmas – which turns morality into a victorian parlor game.
I agree with Brian on a lot of things. But on this topic both his argument and it’s justification are nonsense. People have the right of excluding in both personal and political spheres. They must have it. They demonstrate it. And it’s the only way to force people to adopt high-trust norms.
Source date (UTC): 2012-06-18 08:09:00 UTC
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/business/broken-trust-takes-time-to-mend-economic-view.htmlTYLER COWEN GETS ON BOARD: THE PUBLIC HAS LOST FAITH IN GOVERNMENT
i’ve been harping on this for the past few years, particularly on Krugman’s, Mark Thoma’s and Karl Smith’s blogs (the left). I don’t think it’s going to change any time soon. It’s good to see a prominent economist getting on board.
MY argument has been that the Keynesians are right in that increasing demand will work to stimulate the economy, but that people will not tolerate government spending because of the perceived cost of the expansion of invasive, and often privileged, government.
As such, rather than offer spending solutions (as does Krugman) the answer is to suggest programs in monetary policy, fiscal policy, industrial policy and education policy, so that all sides get what they want without the expansion of the state. Only this method will work. The conservatives (in my view, rightly) will block anything else, and they have the voter support to block spending programs.
As far back as 2006, I suggested that the power grid was the most important structural investment that we could make that would both generate a large number of jobs and provide a reasonable return on the investment. I suggested paying down mortgages directly as the most important vehicle for creating stimulus. I agreed with Karl Smith that we should give an extended tax holiday and borrow at such low rates to pay for it. And among other things, I suggested various forms of industrial policy, particularly technology bonuses for achieving strategic investment objectives. I recommended either privatizing education using a voucher system or eliminating the DofEd and giving principles hire and fire authority and the ability to experiment. These factors would create enough stimulus to move the economy. But more importantly, these kinds of spending do not expand the state, or favor urban voters at the expense of suburban and rural voters.
At the very least the conversation would be productive, commercially and socially engaging.
But the keynesians actually block it by harping on the spending tactic exclusively.
Source date (UTC): 2012-06-17 21:39:00 UTC
Be careful what you say Curt! 😉
Source date (UTC): 2012-06-17 15:17:00 UTC
MAGICAL THINKING? A DIFFERENCE IN PREFERENCES.
QUESTION: “What are the best examples of “magical libertarian thinking about markets?”
ANSWER: “I am not sure that there is anything magical. I think that libertarians prefer to pay one set of consequences, and statists to pay different consequences. A libertarian is perfectly OK with it taking ten years to solve a problem. A statist isn’t. A libertarian would rather have to battle an irresponsible corporation using the market than an irresponsible government that is outside the market. And in the end, that’s really the only difference.
I have been debating these topics for a long time and I am pretty sure that it all boils down to that distinction. The libertarians are right that the state creates monopolies, and that most of the problems we face are the product of government. The left is right in that the market works slowly and that there are consequences to relying upon it exclusively. Some people seek to define the best balance of market and state. Others seek the extremes.”
Source date (UTC): 2012-06-16 15:04:00 UTC
http://tutor2u.net/BANNED FROM TUTOR2U? (Seriously?)
Ok, you know, what I write about is controversial. I defend the conservative and libertarian political and economic programs. (Although I also defend redistribution under certain circumstances.) I explain conservative theory using libertarian reasoning. And I think I’m as good or better at it than anyone else out there. So, to check myself, I just went through all of my comments on Disqus and they’re pretty tame. I changed my debate strategy this winter so that it’s less antagonistic and more explicative. But whatever they banned me for must have been recent.
SO FAR WHO HAS BANNED ME?
1) Mark Thoma’s Left Wing link aggregator The Economist’s View (top leftist site on the web after Krugman) And I deserved it probably, for stooping to their level now and then. I’m only human.
2) Tutor2u’s economic site (no idea what I said there that was controversial). I mean it’s a progressive site.
And that’s it.
Other Notices:
3) TED didn’t ban me but deleted a comment I made on why I didn’t think it’s statistically likely that more women will become CEOs of major companies, or senior managers (IQ distributions favor men at the extremes.)
4) I got a threatening notice from Arnold Kling’s editor because I was posting my responses to him on my web site, maybe a year and a half ago, but not for the content itself. I just explained that I was documenting my comments and they were fine with it.
So, I don’t get banned often. I though Paul Krugman would have done so by now, but I’m tame next to some people there. Or one of the other leftist economists that I argue with now and then. I’m pretty prolific. At the rate I produce you’d think that if I was really awful that I’d get banned all the time.
Here is the post. It’s in response to the question of which exit from the Euro will cause the least harm.
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“I don’t know why it isn’t pretty obvious that the optimum answer is the split north and south, with the north doing the planning, and bearing the cost, of restoring the Mark.
The US mountain, midwest and south have the same problem with the northeast and west. A lot of political conflict that could be solved by markets if they weren’t under the same federal government and currency.
I wouldn’t wish our level of political polarization on europe. It certainly seems like that’s what they’re asking for. And, at least in political theory, we’re pretty certain that big is bad and small is good. We should be thinking about breaking up the states. Europe shouldn’t be trying to federate like we do. It’s a recipe for conflict and paralyzation.”
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Source date (UTC): 2012-06-16 11:19:00 UTC
https://www.quora.com/Political-Movements-How-globally-influential-are-Nazi-and-fascist-factions
https://www.quora.com/In-the-US-is-it-realistic-to-try-to-achieve-labor-progressive-goals-in-businesses-through-more-active-shareholder-participation-rather-than-government-regulation