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You characterize the people who disagree with you as being both uneducated in economics and closed-minded. Have you considered the possibility that there are t

by badsock 12y ago

You characterize the people who disagree with you as being both uneducated in economics and closed-minded. Have you considered the possibility that there are those of us who are well versed in economic theory, including those favoured by libertarians, and have come to the conclusion that while they're certainly as plausible as any other competing theory, the proof is in the pudding? Many different economic systems have been tried all across the world and throughout history. Given all of your reading, surely you could point to an example of these theories being tried out in a real economy and succeeding?

BugBrother 12y ago
If you know of a non-free market economy that works as well in a complex and dynamic society with many millions of people (e.g. communism seems to be ok up to about a village), we are all ears? As far as I know, there are no successes. Most attempts couldn't have open borders, because everyone would leave. (And yes, there are lots of other factors, like corruption and the natural resource curse.)
- badsock 12y ago
  I agree that those who advocate communism always seem to fall back on what is essentially the "Well it's never been tried out properly" argument, which I don't find convincing at all. It also happens to be the argument I hear most frequently from libertarians. Essentially, claiming that your economic theory will only work once a dramatic, complete, state-wide change as occured is a non-starter. Nations advance by degrees, and if there aren't small moves that can be made towards the goal that provide evidence that the theory is sound, it would be foolish to believe that big moves will fair any better. I would genuinely like to see examples of where libertarianism ideals have been tried on a small to medium scale and been successful. And if there aren't any, same question as to jasonisalive: why is there such confidence among libertarians that it works in the real world?
  - BugBrother 12y ago
    I have no problem with what you write here, but must have missed something? Or are you mixing up comment threads? To me it seems that only you talk about libertarians, while jasonisalive talked about generic economic research. (Wikipedia confirms my belief that libertarians are quite heterogeneous and it is more of a political philosophy/ideology than about economy anyway.)

by badsock 12y ago

BugBrother 12y ago

If you know of a non-free market economy that works as well in a complex and dynamic society with many millions of people (e.g. communism seems to be ok up to about a village), we are all ears? As far as I know, there are no successes. Most attempts couldn't have open borders, because everyone would leave. (And yes, there are lots of other factors, like corruption and the natural resource curse.)

badsock 12y ago
I agree that those who advocate communism always seem to fall back on what is essentially the "Well it's never been tried out properly" argument, which I don't find convincing at all. It also happens to be the argument I hear most frequently from libertarians. Essentially, claiming that your economic theory will only work once a dramatic, complete, state-wide change as occured is a non-starter. Nations advance by degrees, and if there aren't small moves that can be made towards the goal that provide evidence that the theory is sound, it would be foolish to believe that big moves will fair any better. I would genuinely like to see examples of where libertarianism ideals have been tried on a small to medium scale and been successful. And if there aren't any, same question as to jasonisalive: why is there such confidence among libertarians that it works in the real world?
- BugBrother 12y ago
  I have no problem with what you write here, but must have missed something? Or are you mixing up comment threads? To me it seems that only you talk about libertarians, while jasonisalive talked about generic economic research. (Wikipedia confirms my belief that libertarians are quite heterogeneous and it is more of a political philosophy/ideology than about economy anyway.)