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> Completely illogical... Agreed. Your argument is logical but vacuous[1]. Mine is logical, and what's more, proceeds from assumptions that aren't oblivious t

> Completely illogical... Agreed. Your argument is logical but vacuous[1]. Mine is logical, and what's more, proceeds from assumptions that aren't oblivious to empirical observation. > You claiming a system which strictly enforces property rights always leads to a system which disregards property rights is absurd. My claim is that political power is dynamically allocated, not statically allocated. In free markets, money buys power. Power is then abused to rig the rules of the game. So even if you start in an ideal free market state, you'll quickly converge to cronyism. in this sense, opposition to "crony-capitalism" and advocacy for "free market capitalism" is an inconsistent position. Again, not as a matter of your definitions and logical derivations. But as a matter of observed reality!!! If you definitions and derivations contradict reality, the problem is not with reality but with your model of reality. > Are you arguing that in order to keep people from wielding governmental power against others, we need to strengthen government? Really? No. Where do you find me advocating for "strengthen[ing] government" in this thread? In fact, I think my critique of the World Bank is most commonly read as a critique of how strong (certain) governments have become. But actually I don't have any strong ideological advocacy, and even the World Bank/IMF have benefits and drawbacks that aren't so easy to categorically praise or condemn in broad strokes (see: various other threads). I'm not the one claiming a theory of utopia. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of make such a claim by carving out increasingly arbitrary and anti-empirical definitional distinctions. > What you're arguing is... What I'm arguing is that definitions and logical derivations exist in service to describing reality. You have these two things -- reality and the tools we use to model reality -- the wrong way around. Again, stop arguing about definitions and logical derivations stemming from those definitions. Answer the claim that free markets beget cronyism as a matter of empirically observable fact. Anything else is vacuous. [1] in the sense of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth

djschnei 9y ago
hmmm... > No. Where do you find me advocating for "strengthen[ing] government" in this thread? Everytime you say "free markets beget cronyism" you're implying a less free-market would beget less cronyism. That claim strongly suggests a less free-market is preferable; the only way to regulate interpersonal cooperation is through growing government. > Power is then abused to rig the rules of the game. Then why is it vacuous to argue for limiting said power? You are correct, people will always work in their own self interest. If there is some super powerful tool for them to increase their fortune/profit/power of course they will use it. That's entirely the point. Saying free-markets become less free overtime and eventually foster cronyism isn't an argument against free-markets; it's an illustration of their importance. Healthy eating and its advocates aren't less important because unhealthy people exist.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > Everytime you say "free markets beget cronyism" you're implying a less free-market would beget less cronyism No, I'm not. I'm claiming that free markets sans cronyism aren't a steady state (or even exist), so distinguishing between "free market capitalism" and "crony capitalism" is anti-empirical. > the only way to regulate interpersonal cooperation is through growing government Ideology, marketing, religion, and non-state violence, for example, are all also powerful mechanisms. Also, limiting government might actually INCREASE the power of government... and what's worse, someone else's government! This is particularly relevant in the case of the World Bank. > Then why is it vacuous to argue for limiting said power? See above. The choice might be between US gov't/corporate power and local governance. Limiting the power of local governments in the face of extremely powerful foreign governments and corporations doesn't actually reduce the power of government writ large. > Saying free-markets become less free overtime and eventually foster cronyism No, and if you re-read the thread, you'll notice that I'm not even making an argument against free markets. I'm making an argument against your distinction between "free market capitalism" and "crony capitalism". Again, the central claim from my original reply was: >>>>> The World Bank may not embody "your" capitalism. But by any reasonable definition that avoids this sort of No-True-Scotsman distinction, the World Bank is aggressively capitalist. I think you're now violently agreeing -- or at least you've stopped making any sort of coherent argument that crony capitalism is "not capitalism" in anything but a sort of vacuous sense. As for the rest of your post, I don't get it. You're still just playing with definitions! Free markets aren't a cure-all for corruption, and your approach to corruption seems to be using definitions to bury your head in the sand. Seems dangerous. If you're opposed to the World Bank, then you're opposed to an artifact of free market capitalism. It's that simple.
  - djschnei 9y ago
    No, I'm not agreeing. The distinction between cronyism and free-market capitalism is important. You're claiming it isn't - I'm claiming it is. Simply: Property rights = Free-market =/= Cronyism It's like if I commented on an article about sodium and water exploding saying "water is generally pretty great, don't mix it with sodium though" then you respond with "don't be pedantic, water explodes." Semantics are extremely important, especially in this arena. Never would have thought I'd get into an argument today with someone arguing against distinguishing between free-markets and cronyism... wow. Acknowledging the presence of a force is not "playing with definitions"... unbelievable...

djschnei 9y ago

hmmm... > No. Where do you find me advocating for "strengthen[ing] government" in this thread? Everytime you say "free markets beget cronyism" you're implying a less free-market would beget less cronyism. That claim strongly suggests a less free-market is preferable; the only way to regulate interpersonal cooperation is through growing government. > Power is then abused to rig the rules of the game. Then why is it vacuous to argue for limiting said power? You are correct, people will always work in their own self interest. If there is some super powerful tool for them to increase their fortune/profit/power of course they will use it. That's entirely the point. Saying free-markets become less free overtime and eventually foster cronyism isn't an argument against free-markets; it's an illustration of their importance. Healthy eating and its advocates aren't less important because unhealthy people exist.

throwawayjava 9y ago
> Everytime you say "free markets beget cronyism" you're implying a less free-market would beget less cronyism No, I'm not. I'm claiming that free markets sans cronyism aren't a steady state (or even exist), so distinguishing between "free market capitalism" and "crony capitalism" is anti-empirical. > the only way to regulate interpersonal cooperation is through growing government Ideology, marketing, religion, and non-state violence, for example, are all also powerful mechanisms. Also, limiting government might actually INCREASE the power of government... and what's worse, someone else's government! This is particularly relevant in the case of the World Bank. > Then why is it vacuous to argue for limiting said power? See above. The choice might be between US gov't/corporate power and local governance. Limiting the power of local governments in the face of extremely powerful foreign governments and corporations doesn't actually reduce the power of government writ large. > Saying free-markets become less free overtime and eventually foster cronyism No, and if you re-read the thread, you'll notice that I'm not even making an argument against free markets. I'm making an argument against your distinction between "free market capitalism" and "crony capitalism". Again, the central claim from my original reply was: >>>>> The World Bank may not embody "your" capitalism. But by any reasonable definition that avoids this sort of No-True-Scotsman distinction, the World Bank is aggressively capitalist. I think you're now violently agreeing -- or at least you've stopped making any sort of coherent argument that crony capitalism is "not capitalism" in anything but a sort of vacuous sense. As for the rest of your post, I don't get it. You're still just playing with definitions! Free markets aren't a cure-all for corruption, and your approach to corruption seems to be using definitions to bury your head in the sand. Seems dangerous. If you're opposed to the World Bank, then you're opposed to an artifact of free market capitalism. It's that simple.
- djschnei 9y ago
  No, I'm not agreeing. The distinction between cronyism and free-market capitalism is important. You're claiming it isn't - I'm claiming it is. Simply: Property rights = Free-market =/= Cronyism It's like if I commented on an article about sodium and water exploding saying "water is generally pretty great, don't mix it with sodium though" then you respond with "don't be pedantic, water explodes." Semantics are extremely important, especially in this arena. Never would have thought I'd get into an argument today with someone arguing against distinguishing between free-markets and cronyism... wow. Acknowledging the presence of a force is not "playing with definitions"... unbelievable...