what's wrong with economics

[ViolentPanda]

A civilized society would allow people the choice. Using force is wrong.

Non-physical coercion.
If they were using force, your head would have been stoved-in by now.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Weirdly, of course, some people do seem to be able to choose whether or not they pay their dues to support the essential services of a civilised society.

Most of us call them 'parasites' and 'tax-dodging scum.'

More than 3 centuries of philosophical musing on the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state, and still there are people who think that they're special enough that they don't need to contribute. In psychology we used to call them sociopaths - anti-social individuals with a lack of emotional affect and/or empathy toward others - now we call them tax-dodging scum parasitic bastards, but the end result is the same: They take, but don't like to give.

 

[tbtommyb]

Well, if your property is under attack then I guess force may be needed. Also, don't pull try the proudhorn "property is theft" card or relative example, its nonsense. I used to be a left winger myself before I changed my views.

1. I never said I was against welfare. I said based on the other posters logic, people on welfare deserve the same punishment as tax avoiders.

People on welfare still pay some tax. Logic like yours is why raising the personal allowance is dangerous.

Also, what are your views on 19th century approaches to poor relief, such as rich people buying orphans via auction?

 

[8ball]

People on welfare still pay some tax. Logic like yours is why raising the personal allowance is dangerous.

Seems a bit of a cunt's trick to attack people who don't earn enough to pay income tax.

 

[8ball]

More than 3 centuries of philosophical musing on the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state, and still there are people who think that they're special enough that they don't need to contribute.

Being fair, 7000m hasn't argued for a personal get-out.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If you can opt out of using the services that tax pays for, then you may have a point. Good luck with that.

Frankly, I'd pay good cash money to see our tax-hating "rugged individualist" friends shit themselves a brick when they cut themselves chopping carrots, and get asked for cash or insurance details upfront before any treatment can begin.
"Sorry sir, but you're registered on our system as having opted out of paying Income Tax and National Insurance, so we either need your insurance details NOW, or you need to pony up £400 (plus VAT and a 10% admin charge), or we can't stitch up your hand".
You could have a taxpayers-only subscription TV show of the gaggles of spluttering idiots going off on one when asked to pay up for various services. We could indoctrinate children by telling them "this is what you become if you're selfish".

 

[ViolentPanda]

Being fair, 7000m hasn't argued for a personal get-out.

No, but his remarks fairly shriek that attitude, do they not?

 

[butchersapron]

For those interested in the historical development from political economy to economics that was briefly mentioned earlier - esp in Marx'x contribution that:

In France and in England the bourgeoisie had conquered political power. Thenceforth, the class struggle, practically as well as theoretically, took on more and more outspoken and threatening forms. It sounded the knell of scientific bourgeois economy. It was thenceforth no longer a question, whether this theorem or that was true, but whether it was useful to capital or harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically dangerous or not. In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic

do have a look at From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the social and the historical in the evolution of economic theory by Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis.

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Then try to refrain from calling me 'anarcho-syndicalist' or whatever bullshit appellation it was you came up with.

He called you an anarcho-capitalist, which is not the same thing as an anarcho-syndicalist (something you'd be VERY unlikely to be). Most of those who claim to be anarchists have a laugh at people who call themselves "anarcho-capitalists", because the appelation is most definitely "bullshit" - it covers much the same ground as right-wing libertarianism does, just uses some selectively-quoted bits of anarchist literature to swank itself up.

 

[8ball]

No, but his remarks fairly shriek that attitude, do they not?

One or two of the posts suggest quite an atomised view of things, and I don't know why rugged individualists are so whiny, but I'd sooner argue over what he has said than what he quite possibly also thinks.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I've already said: balanced budgets. There are times in the economic life of a country when running the government on a deficit is warranted, beneficial even. But it needn't and shouldn't be a permanent state of affairs. It's arguable that the current cycle of trouble began in the Seventies, when international lenders made cheap money easily available to many governments, both in the developed and developing world. Governments overborrowed at that time, because it seemed a relatively inexpensive way to curry favor from voters with lots of expensive programs, projects etc.

The chickens came home to roost, though, during the inflationary times that followed.

You want a solution to revenues that don't cover expenditures? How about increasing revenue - maybe taxing those banks, instead of borrowing so much from them?

Of course, we should bear in mind that the corporate world despises balanced budgets - it means that they haven't sold in as many goods and services to the state as they might have.

 

[ViolentPanda]

1) No U - for someone whose understanding of what capitalism is completely misses out err... capitalism you're quick to throw that around. And it isn't wage slavery, just plain old wage labour.
2) As I said, an historical illiterate. The poor law - and all subsequent unemployment relief - was in part a response to the failure of charitable relief and in part a means of imposing labour discipline.
3) That's because you're a fucking idiot. look at life expectancy in the former Soviet countries before and after the fall of the USSR - I think you'll see a correlation. It's funny how if you define economic 'freedom' in such a way as to automatically exclude the poorest countries (in these property rights will always be unstable - that's how the transition to capitalism works) you get the desired result. I could similarly point to the correlation between comprehensive welfare safetynets, reduced income inequality and mental and physical wellbeing. All it tells us is that if you choose the right proxies to measure you;ll get the results you want.

And lol - an anarcho-capitalist (a contradition in terms if ever there was one) loonsite does not a reliable source make.

Anarcho-capitalism - hard-right libertarianism for people who're too scared to admit that they're right-wing.

 

[8ball]

Anarcho-capitalism - hard-right libertarianism for people who're too scared to admit that they're right-wing.

These people seriously try to delude themselves that they aren't right-wing?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Except that the science the hardcore mathematical economists are trying to emulate is physics - which is capable of a degree of precision and rigour, and genuinely lawlike theories, which no social science can ever pretend to.

And which no social science should pretend to. Unfortunately for many of the social sciences in the UK under the neoliberal regimes, there's a call for, and funding for, short-termist research that supports government objectives. The epistemology that suits this best is positivism, where the notion of being a science is richest and deepest. While, to my knowledge, criminology is probably the most severely-abused social science under the above terms, with whole depts "captured" in a kind of funding headlock, the problem is rife, and critical social scientists are a minority.

 

[ViolentPanda]

These people seriously try to delude themselves that they aren't right-wing?

From interaction with some on here, and on other boards (FreakRepuglic among them), yes, some of them honestly try to delude themselves that they aren't right-wing, because anarcho!

 

[ViolentPanda]

why do they always say this?

Don't worry. What it usually means, political spectrum-wise, is "I used to disagree with Attila the Hun and Vlad Tepes on some finer points of policy".

 

[8ball]

From interaction with some on here, and on other boards (FreakRepuglic among them), yes, some of them honestly try to delude themselves that they aren't right-wing, because anarcho!

That's up there with those people who try to argue the Nazis were left-wing cos, you know National Socialism...

 

[goldenecitrone]

That's up there with those people who try to argue the Nazis were left-wing cos, you know National Socialism...

pbman. What a guy.

 

[isvicthere?]

If only someone had a picture of some "individualistic" nerds outside the premiere of a film like - oh, I don't know - Atlas Shrugged, now might be the time to post it.

Or something.....

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I understand your point here, but if something is immoral I should simply accept it? If a law or custom isn't sound isn't it right for people to challenge it?

You can try to change it if you wish, but you should suck it up when you lose. I get the feeling you're a young person. As you get older you realize how interdependent we all are. Most people spend the bulk of their lives figuring out how to cooperate with people they don't like very much, not compete.

Again, these services are forced. Roads, bridges etc could easily be provided without public money. A private company could provide them for example.

Also, if I don't contribute I'm a thief? Aren't people on welfare thieves by that logic considering they consume and don't produce? So should they be jailed like tax dodgers then?

By existing within the bounds of the country you are using the services. You benefit when others benefit. Someone else using a road to transport goods and make the economy move, serves you. Having a health service that prevents communicable disease, serves you. Having police and military to protect society, protects you.

As far as welfare recipients go, I think you've bought some right-wing mantra that dismisses the contributions of the lower classes. At least in the US, many welfare recipients work. They just don't make a living wage. This wage subsidy in the form of "welfare" benefits their employers more than it does them. Its corporate welfare. As a society, we could easily solve the sub-survival wage issue by raising the minimum wage, at much less cost to the government.

Also, welfare recipients do pay taxes. They pay social security taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, gas taxes, property taxes (in the form of rent). The lowest income people pay a higher percentage of their income in tax than the highest income people do, as billionaire Warren Buffett is often points out.

Contrary to the stereotype you're presenting most people want to contribute. I think you'll also find that most welfare recipients have contributed to the commons at some point in their lives or will in the future. Welfare is temporary and time limited (at least in the US). There's been a limit on how long you can stay on it since the Clinton administration.

They aren't the "useless eaters" you want to make them out to be.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I used to be a left winger myself before I changed my views.

I bet you're a "small business owner" too.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Because they're congenital liars.

Sometimes they're paid shills. They get paid by the post to cruise various boards.

 

[Dillinger4]

If only someone had a picture of some "individualistic" nerds outside the premiere of a film like - oh, I don't know - Atlas Shrugged, now might be the time to post it.

Or something.....

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

pbman. What a guy.

Molon labe.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

If only someone had a picture of some "individualistic" nerds outside the premiere of a film like - oh, I don't know - Atlas Shrugged, now might be the time to post it.

Or something.....

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/atlas-shrugged-the-movie.269195/#post-9991542

 

[isvicthere?]

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/atlas-shrugged-the-movie.269195/#post-9991542

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Frankly, I'd pay good cash money to see our tax-hating "rugged individualist" friends shit themselves a brick when they cut themselves chopping carrots, and get asked for cash or insurance details upfront before any treatment can begin.

"Sorry sir, but you're registered on our system as having opted out of paying Income Tax and National Insurance, so we either need your insurance details NOW, or you need to pony up £400 (plus VAT and a 10% admin charge), or we can't stitch up your hand".

You could have a taxpayers-only subscription TV show of the gaggles of spluttering idiots going off on one when asked to pay up for various services. We could indoctrinate children by telling them "this is what you become if you're selfish".

Last year I ended up in the ER with a handful of blood and a BP within stroke range. I still had to give them all my financial information before they'd treat me. That's just standard procedure here.

In the US lack of health insurance can be terminal.

 

[isvicthere?]

Last year I ended up in the ER with a handful of blood and a BP within stroke range. I still had to give them all my financial information before they'd treat me. That's just standard procedure here.

In the US lack of health insurance can be terminal.

Time to dust this one off, I fancy.....

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...an-to-give-them-health-insurance-200908141981

 

[Idris2002]

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/atlas-shrugged-the-movie.269195/#post-9991542

Didn't someone on here post that Hayek-Scrotum has lost a lot of weight recently?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Didn't someone on here post that Hayek-Scrotum has lost a lot of weight recently?

Just did a quick google and this is all I could find:

he is the director of campaigns for the 'Bow Group' which 'is chiefly engaged in the policy making process of the UK Conservative Party, which it seeks to contribute to, influence, and hold to scrutiny of the wider conservative movement.' http://www.bowgroup.org