Absolutely. And that includes capitalism by the way. In your head I guess it's perfect, but in reality, it leads to abuses fully on par with those of Stalin.
I think this idiom is quite overused. And does not fit well because socialism is not hell. In Denmark a good model of socialism is applied and it works very well. Of course, one could argue that the quality of their education is also above average and this facilitates socialism.
The Mighty Cupcake imagine thinking the Nordic model is socialist, it’s not like they have the most economic freedom, Sweden has no national minimum wage, they do have large government spending yes and technically government is a public utility so there is an argument that more government spending equals more socialism but even then most who are under the Nordic model show much contempt to the overreaching government. Please do more research it’s for your own good so you don’t make a fool out of yourself.
@@condaquan9459 yes, my bad. Still I guess it can be argued that the market system does not self regulate itself and needs government intervention from time to time.
He's talking about the rules of the game. Our social and economic systems are spontaneous orders that no single mind may comprehend well enough to design or organize. The information is simply too complex and dispersed for our finite minds to understand in a meaningful wholesome way. Intellectuals (or rather the "intelligentsia") cling to the notion that the human mind is infinite in its capacity to reorganize these spontaneous orders towards some subjective goal. This is the ultimate hubris, and their solutions are not worth even entertaining until we can agree on certain indisputable rules of the game concerning human mental capacity.
+Max Black Intellectuals dont argue that the human mind is infinite. On the contrary, intellectuals acknowledge that the human mind is sculpted entirely by genetic and environmental forces. It is normal people that believe the human mind is capable of exceeding it environment. Of course this is preposterous, the human mind has no mechanism for determining what is relevant and what is less relevant, only experience can do that. Thats why you can look at human history and see all sorts of stupidity such as having thousands of people building stone pyramids for a few people to lay dead in. So while the human mind is limited due to evolution, we have been assigning more and more decision making to computers because their capacities far exceed our own. Almost all major organisations use some form of Enterprise Resource Planning system because a group of humans can not achieve the same ends. It doesnt matter what school you went to. We know that the use of money leads to inefficient use of resources as determined by environmental sustainability. We now consume at the equivalent rate of 1.6 earths per year. Society is a technical construct that requires efficient and sustainable use of resources to maintain.
Decentralization leads to more freedom. There is a sweet spot where there voluntary collaboration which results in a small amount of centralized power but ideas are still governed in a decentralized manner. Pretty much collaboration is needed for a society but the most collaboration with the least centralization of power is the optimal state for society.
I never stated "human nature" in fact I would argue that this is a universal for all creatures. More freedom means more choices of possible actions, which in a society where there is not a central authority but still enough resources because of some specialization there will be more freedoms than a society with a central authority. Everything in nature is entropy seeking. Beings capable of making decisions, always prefer actions which they believe will allow them to make more decisions in the future.
The essence is whether the collaboration/cooperation voluntary and therefore free, or is it mandatory and therefore a system of servitude and unfree. That is the biggest reason why the socialist(Involuntary Servitude) Left hates corporations and Capitalism(Voluntary Cooperation).
The essence is whether the collaboration/cooperation voluntary and therefore free, or is it mandatory and therefore a system of servitude and unfree. That is the biggest reason why the socialist(Involuntary Servitude) Left hates corporations and Capitalism(Voluntary Cooperation).
whendric so Money is a tool for measuring and transfering value. The alternative is a world where every transaction requires barter and it was our ancient ancestors who discovered that gold and silver coins were easier to make change with than fish, loaves of bread and sheepskins. As for money being a form of force, by the logic you used to make that assessment Air and water are also force "because if you don't have it you die."
whendric so Yes water can provide or be used as force, just as money can. Neither is however intrinsically force. That is a quality of the manner in which it is utilized. The small and primitive social systems which you refer to are not so romantic in reality and while it is possible to get along as stranded survivors on a desert island without money. It is not possible to accrue value in society absent this essential tool. Larger communities are too complex and there is too much incentive for non-productive behavior when there is no measure of value or method of barter. The type of society you speak of is a red herring. It has been done and failed thousands of times. The Pilgrims lived largely as you suggest, sharing everything within the group and it nearly caused them all too starve. Hippie communes were riddled with similar issues. It is a route to poverty and deprivation, not a rediscovery of paradise lost.
@@JosephAvenettiThough what democracy is that, when some few people have gigantic purchasing power when compared to rest? If that would be a presidential election in direct elections for example, the few would be able to vote through their candidate, no matter what the many want. It isn't a democracy, it has its own term: Plutocracy, the power of money, not the power of the people (democracy).
Capitalism is totalitarianism in the workplace and supporters of it will gaslight you into thinking that because you can choose your totalitarian or become one yourself that makes Capitalism a good system. Some of us want better.
William F. Buckley: Well, Mr. Hayek, you wrote a very famous essay on the intellectuals and socialism in which you attempted, I think, quite successfully in which you tried to show why socialism is so nubile for the intellectuals. What is that thesis of yours and do you still defend it? Friedrich Hayek: You know, certainly, yes. It's very interesting story, intellectually. One of the dominant ideas, which governs thinking since the 18th century is the idea that we can make everything to our pleasure, that we can design social institutions in their working. Now, that is basically mistaken. Social institutions have never been designed and do much more than we know. They have grown up by process of selection of the successful. For some people[?] frequently no way it was successful. That applies to the market. The market is a--I was going to say most ingenious, but ingenious without having been designed--instrument which enables us to utilize knowledge which is distributed among hundreds of thousands of people. It's an adaptation to thousands of circumstances which nobody ever can know as a whole, and where the prices formed on the market tell the individual what to do and what not to do in the social interest. Now I know that in order to understand this you have to know economics. A naive person who imagines all the distribution of income is determined by somebody deliberately and actively, it seems that if this is the responsibility of a particular guy it is evidently done very unjustly. The fact is it is not being done unjustly because we achieve all that we do achieve by having come to agree to play a sort of game in which--the game of the market as I like to call it--in which because we are utilizing more information, more facts than anybody knows, the outcome for a particular individual is necessarily unpredictable. Now an outcome which is unpredictable and undesigned by anybody cannot be just, just as little as the outcome of a game of chance can be a just game. But people resent this, and the people who imagine, oh, it should be possible to design all this, to arrange this, expect the government to do this in a manner that the distribution is just. Now that is literally impossible because it would require that all this widely dispersed information about particular facts and particular circumstances and particular gifts can be used and controlled by a central authority.
Like Steve Jobs did for Apple? Standard Oil LOWERED the price of energy needed to light and heat a home. Ford made cars more affordable for everyone and paid his Workman more than average. Rockefeller’s oil saved the whales to boot!
Bad bad things. Like buy up all the houses. Or buy all the news then demand the shops stay open in a pandemic, so they create anti maskers and basically terrify and kill other people because the free market is their Stalin.
A key reason why intellectuals drift toward socialism is that they can more easily conceive of a system or society that is different from our existing system; whereas those who do not engage in much intellectual activity are usually unable to conceive of a system outside of the social prejudices in which they have been immersed in since birth. Another, more subtle point is that capitalism is biased toward extroverted personalities; intellectuals and academics tend to be much more introverted and often shun the cultural aspects of capitalist society. Hayek does make a valid point that intellectuals tend to have a positivist outlook on the world and look to innovative (or "design"-based) models of social organization. But lets not forget that Marx's conception of capitalism and socialism was organic and evolutionary in nature - socialism was not something to be designed but rather an emergent phenomenon, in classical Marxism at least.
SleekMinister To go back to the roots in the context of socialism means analyzing and identifying the structural (systemic) causes of particular issues rather than criticizing values, institutions or policies (or "evil" individuals).
It could, but it wouldn't be a semantically correct statement - socialism isn't a synonym for causation any more than liberalism, utilitarianism, calvinism... They all make excuses for their syllogisms, so to speak, and those who "make it" in this game make quite sure that most of their central idiosyncracies are alligned and backed up with lore; but certainly, it deviates somewhat from most others in that it focuses on the main jugulars, that is true, but in no way is this ghost of an ideology more or less inclined to systemic thought than any other political trife. That's just plain silly. Capital is a word stemming from counting heads of cattle; quite systemic to our way of life, beef is. Whoever, whatever you get in the chocolate box of political life, the bottom line of the winners is "Reform to the new system", even if that is the old system with pig tails and a new blouse. Far as I'm concerned, we've never had the one or the other completely and when the end result is a slight shift in living patterns, mostly due to techonological change, I see the governors mostly as gatekeepers of the landed aristocracy and kissers of the clergical cape, and not social or capitalist first. Anyone with power can assume purest connection to the ancestors and natural law, buy off the worst trouble makers with copper pennies on the dollar and twist history from there on out so that we who come after may deem them favourable. Which is what really counts to the Count, second to keeping power. How you get there and how you stay there, is simply decided on the whims of the moment. After the fog of violence clears, you can recant (recount) your sins and make amends (mend), alternatively celebrate a triumph. Only time will tell how many believed you. Where these mini-episodes of academic quibblery bubbled into historical events, is where ideological roots find fertile ground (but we usually search the six previous generations for the catastrophe that ignited the spark). It's where to look for the archons that figure today on the bulwarks of intellectual achievement and the cross road where you lament the passing of the druids and the bards. You see, apply qui bono to some famous modern philosophers and physicists and your eyebrows soon start disappearing into what's left of the good Gods providence. Or being radical can mean looking into the swirling mists of the dawnless past, like QotSA do. It only refers to gradient, by way of Latin "radius". All roads lead to roam and most things boils down to a G-thing, in the end. Whatever else a well rested semantician could pull out, analysis without criticism is, of course, quite useless.
***** And putting words into other people's mouths is also retarded beyond compare. I never stated that "they are all introverted", but it is fairly common knowledge in the field of psychology that there is a positive correlation between IQ and introversion. What is iffy is the definition of "intellectual", but generally that definition includes above-average intelligence and a preference for abstract or academic pursuits.
***** Again, it depends on how we define "intellectual". But generally speaking, introversion is by definition a preference for the internal "world of ideas". In any case, I did not state that the majority of intellectuals are inclined to socialism, just that intellectuals can more easily grasp a concept so far removed from present day social conditions such as socialism. While there is certainly a greater number of intellectuals and academics who are socialist than those among the general population (specifically in Western countries), it is true that the majority of them are not socialist (Hayek was addressing the situation of the inter-war period, where intellectuals, engineers and scientists had a strong preference for socialism).
the rooting is based on a sense of justice; if we believe in a society of just outcomes (as most of us do) - this can only be achieved if there is enough controls in place that can create just that.
@@tzvibendaniel2045 I am not as articulate, but I can give you a simple example. We always ask our kids to study for exams. A just expectation is the results will be better if they study more. Think of this in a broader more sociological context & you get the jist.
Intellectuals wants a system that can control a society, capitalism, just lets the individual do things in his own interest. In this aspect, a capitalist society cannot be controlled since there are too many players following their own individual interest, it's unwieldy, volatile, yet free.
+John Isaac Felipe But that doesn't explain how socialism allows people to "control" society anymore than capitalism does. There would be more factions in a socialist economy, not less. In capitalism you have a smaller number of individuals owning many, many businesses. In socialism, ownership is much more divided. There is no master to control everything, it's done via democracy.
+Liberty Prime What a steaming load of codswallop! Even you don't believe what you posted. "Ownership is much more divided"? Tell that to Venezuela, where they are experiencing forced blackouts and toilet paper rationing - and every media outlet reports EXACTLY what the government (not the people) put on air. Honestly, you people are either brain-damaged, or you are just lying to yourselves, with your nose in some fucking PAMPHLET that makes you believe that one day you won't have to actually DO anything. Well, that day is coming - only you'll be in a coffin... or an oven, if you get your wishes.
Gmail User Nobody is talking about state socialism dumbass. Socialism is an anti-statist system. What you're talking about is pseudo-communism as has been practiced by every nation calling itself communist. Apples to oranges.
Socialism is anti-statist? Heehee! Pray tell, just how do you plan on stealing other people's property and forcing people to hire the less qualified without the power of the State? Yea...And "redistribution" is "justice".
It is so wonderful that Hayek lived to see the fall of the Soviet Union. Also I believe The Road to Serfdom has even more weight being written to touch on both the National Socialist & Marxist Socialist systems.
Unfortunately he could not witness the 2008 financial crisis, and the billionaire space race. I’m curious what he would have to say about capitalism in the 21st century, and where we went wrong perhaps
@@razorback0zFairly funny for libertarians cry about government control and them demand that everyone should by using government/central control read the book you and other libertarians find supporting their ideas.
Personally, I don't believe that there is a side that 'intellectuals/smart people' flock to. There are many ways of being smart. There are people like Ben Shapiro who advocates Capitalism and people like Albert Einstein who advocated Socialism. Both are very smart but in different ways.
Sshhh. That’s not allowed to be talked about. Socialism = state control, capitalism = markets. That’s the propaganda the capitalist elite want ordinary people to be conditioned by.
"I can have little patience with those who oppose, for instance, the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts, the conservative only weakens his own position. Frequently the conclusions which rationalist presumption draws from new scientific insights do not at all follow from them. But only by actively taking part in the elaboration of the consequences of new discoveries do we learn whether or not they fit into our world picture and, if so, how. Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would hardly be moral to defend them by refusing to acknowledge facts." Friedrich Hayek, "Why I Am Not a Conservative" (1960)
it is an interesting update that Bitcoin is the monetary alternative that has evolved as a distributed accounting system beyond the reach of government Austrian economists have understood the danger of fiat currencies since the hyperinflation of the 1920's.
The rules are enforced by the market itself. If a football player were to continually play in a manner contradictory to agreed rules, others would choose not play further matches with him; If a business were to act in a manner that others disagreed, they would find another purveyor. Supply, demand, and market competition would provide the climate to self regulate.
funny how Hayek lived off the teat of socialism in action of the real world; academia, worked for governments, Nobel money from socialism, never created a real job in his life... yet he never saw the irony? lolz
Rofl, wouldn't inspiring a whole bunch of countries' economic policy, most especially social democracies, constitute at least helping to create some millions of jobs? You don't need to reply, because the answer is a resounding "yeah, no shit".
heineyo and david, so you both agree that a social democratic system works well, whereas the government taxes to develops the infrastructure and regulations so the for profit sector can flourish. Your taxes go to the university so that professors can create new ideas for the good of the people. Great, we all agree that laissez-faire-economics is a joke and Hayek and the Austrian school are fools.
What difference does it make if Hayek was funded by a socialist government? It doesn't make his work any less valid. That's like attributing DaVinci's talent to his mediocre 15th century education.
Stephen Stinson, are you insinuating that davinci wasn't influenced by his place, times and teachers? We all stand on the shoulders of giants, just as he did, just as Hayek did, just as all societies do. My point is that while individual freedoms and efforts are important to the advancements in any society, so is the common knowledge and public works. Democratic socialism has proven an excellent way to allow for individual freedoms while also allowing for the society to advance on social justice and educational fronts. The Austrians are wrong to insinuate the opposite.
Discussions of this nature are “nice” and there is no doubt that just about every nation around the world has “social” minded programs that play a very key role within society, i.e., Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, means-tested programs (welfare), and government financed student loans. Hopefully, we can agree, that regardless of the efforts, the need for more social programs seems to only grow and once in-place, almost never removed. Seemingly, we never see a diminishment in the need, only the furtherance of it. I would suggest that other than a very limited number, the great majority agree that the intent of these social programs and others, is very noble and to a varying degree, necessary. One might even argue these programs are forced charity with the intent to assist their fellow human beings, but that force is asserted out of care and concern for others; which, for the most part, the citizenry and taxpayers have accepted, but not without a caveat. For example, Social Security was and is sold as an attempt to help “granny” in her old age; the “disabled”; and children of deceased wage earners. Who would dare argue that we, as a society, should not do our best to assist our fellow citizens when faced with these circumstances? I would imagine very few would see a concerted “evil” in this endeavor. In fact, to suggest changes or modifications to how we assess the amount of contributions and eligibility for benefits under Social Security, apparently correlates into a desire to see “granny”, “handyman”, and “junior” starve and/or die; equating to some cruel distorted form of eugenics. But, as we know, Social Security is not just about people that find themselves in these dire circumstances. This is where the supposed and strictly “noble” idea takes a nosedive. There are a great number of individuals that contribute to Social Security with the understanding, to near certainty, no matter the economic condition in which they find themselves in their twilight years, they will receive benefits under Social Security (and Medicare for that matter). So regardless of how much wealth one has accumulated while also “contributing” to Social Security, they will want and demand there benefits from Social Security or their “piece of the pie.” Now, many will argue in favor of that, as that is what we were promised under Social Security. This is where the policies put in place in the past, at some point come back to bite and bite hard. If we can agree that Social Security was not designed to be the cherry on top of the sundae, but rather, to put something in the bowl; shouldn’t we then agree that the “promises” of Social Security as the program currently exist, need to be modified? Shouldn’t the amount of wealth or money accumulated be a consideration in whether someone is eligible to receive benefits from Social Security (and Medicare)? Basically, shouldn’t there be a “need” versus “want” demonstrated? If that were the case, how much less would actually be required out of this program? If less benefit is required, wouldn’t that mean less “contributions” are required? If less contributions are required, might that not put more money back into employees/employers hands to utilize as they see fit? Ehhh, what am I thinking? Once the government and their “intellectual” buddies have promised something “wonderful” and “noble”, it is for the rest of us to deliver; no matter the circumstances.
By Hayek's logic, why did we even need the constitution or any laws for that sake? Nations, states or governments should all be abolished. Why not just let people to fight it out on everything like animals? That would be a truly natural "market".
And as anthropologists have discovered over the last several decades (see: David Graeber), barter never sprang into existence naturally or automatically, barter only takes place when people are already used to currency, but for some reason cannot use currency (dissolution of government, extreme inflation, etc.). For most of the history of the human species, we lived in a gift economy, which had no trade as such.
As a psychologist who have studied the brain quite extensively I'd say that intellectuals are usually left-brained individuals. The left brain is prone to assuming control over its external conditions by trying to make predictions (usually by using known patterns and templates that are somewhat known to produce the desirable result in similar situations). Unfortunately, these predictions are of little or no use at all in highly dynamic and chaotic environments (an economy is certainly such a domain). To cope with that, the left brain creates a set of arbitrary assumptions. It's main concern is to establish dominance over the right (silent) hemisphere no matter the cost. Socialism is the system that allows this left-brained tendency to materialise. It is the ultimate labyrinth for creating appropriate excuses for intervention. It matters not if all policies fail. A new excuse is up and ready to serve the cause. After all, what intellectuals really like is to think (sometimes to a degree that it becomes an addiction). P.S. there is great evidence of hemispheric lateralization of function in humans. It is shown in the studies of Roger Sperry (Nobel prize) of split-brain patients and his associate Michael Gazzaniga. Another great source is the book of psychiatrist Iain Mcgilchrist titled : "The master and his emissary". In it he explains how the left brain evolved from a mere problem solving tool to an oppressive intellectual entity (my term).
+belthoff444 you might find interesting a clip here on RU-vid of a speech from a Harvard based scientist named Jill Bolte Taylor. She suffered a stroke that incapacitated her left hemisphere. The title I think is "my stroke of insight". It's very relevant to the above and worth seeing.
capitalists embrace state intervention as well. that's hardly the separating point between the two systems. seems like you're defining socialism as wanting the state to intervene in the economy, which is universal to all systems, dating all the way back to tribal humans. your definition needs refinement.
first, we have to implement the austrian economics into mainstream. then we can decide again: democracy with real communism or real capitalism. now, without the austrian economics, both communism and capitalism are only one and the same.
That's an amazing way to think about it: candidness, naiveness and immaturity. These people function primarily by the defect (emotion) not by what's achieved (knowledge).
whats wrong with being "greedy" if it doesnt hurt anyone? there is a fine distinction between screwing people over and being greedy. every person, including yourself, is greedy to some extent, and that's fine, but being greedy itself does not hurt people.
Far from brilliant enough. He amoungst many other right wing economists are responsible for keeping socialism alive by accepting utilitarism as a subject of discussion. Socialism can't be refuted by econonic arguments. Legalized coersion and theft isn't a bad model for society because it doesn't produce enough wealth, but because coercion against honest man is not a sustainable standard. In this sense Hayek was a "good" socialist better than any other. What Hayek should have done, only if he was intelligent enough, to point out that we can not have owenership over ground without this ground to be kept under up-bringing. What he failed to do is to focus on what the so called right wing did wrong so that poor people had no other escape route other than hoping for a saviour, which became their god, The Socialist State. It is because it was allowed to call ground one's own without using it for anything the poor man was unable to be self-sustained. Without the means even to grow food, he had no other alternative than hoping for a savior and it came by build one error upon another. That's when the state become a legalized mafia with one goal: to steal exactly so much, not more, so that the society didn't answer with weapons by the masses. The American state steals by coercion, force whatever you want to call it, more than half of the inhabitant's buying power. It is so sad that economists in general is so stupid they don't understand they have no say in a philosophic discussion about whether or not we should rest our society on theft or not. What gives the most wealth is totally irrelevant in such a discussion and economists fail to stay away from utilitarism which would support even nazism if it produced wealth enough. It is only sad that Hayek didn't uderstand that one should never allow a discussion about the general standard concerning economy before a general standard against coercion was first established. Funny enough, then we won't need any discussion about general standard of economy. When it is established that not even The State is allowed to steal, everything worth a standard is a given.
u·til·i·tar·i·an·ismyo͞oˌtiləˈterēəˌnizəm/nounnoun: utilitarianismthe doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.
Certainly intellectuals or anybody who rejects myths and superstitions are candidates for a state that rejects greed, covetousness, selfishness, bigotry. fascism, and tyranny.
Why yes, all hail the Glorious Market, deliverer of salvation. The holy trinity of Market, Money and The Invisible Hand is ensuring the well-being of mankind by giving to the rich and stealing from the poor. Praise be unto the middle class, its greatest prophets and the ruling class, its shepherds.
If someone will please explain to me why America is the most unhappy, and the most frightened and the most violent country in the developed world, then I would be grateful. I live here now, and I've lived elsewhere. And if this country was a person, it would be in a mental hospital.There is no social cohesion, no trust, no mutual respect, no national community, no tenderness and no sense of united purpose.
Essentially, if you try to control human behavior means controlling the human itself, if you want a Socialized system, you need as limited freedom as possible
+PR3DSTAA I don't mean to speak for tony, but I would posit it is the result of socialist type policies corroding capitalist America. I would even posit we are no longer capitalist. I believe it is quit ironic how liberal socialist minded policies are eroding social liberties and freedoms and the liberal minded politicians and supporters blame the results on capitalism. It is actually quite ingenious by the liberals.
Socialism in America has been poorly managed and so has capitalism. Anyone who is against socialism must justify low wages that make things like food stamps necessary. The fools commenting against socialism are indeed useful idiots paving the way for a communist revolution by not supporting higher wages. Not one of you impresses me with having the slightest idea of how capitalism works or what in fact socialism actually is. Socialism is a necessary evil, because places like Walmart refuse to support capitalism and instead rely on the government to provide food stamps to their employees who should be making enough to support themselves without turning to socialism. That's right, if you support low wages, you support communism. Most of you are too stupid to know that though, that's why I felt it necessary to rub your faces in your own excrement, so you don't shit in the house you stupid morons. Think before you post, you filthy communists.
+imaginativelads, do you know where the term "useful idiots" comes from? Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin used the term "polyezniy idiot" (or useful idiot) to describe Western intellectuals (liberals) who blindly supported Communist leaders. Lenin also said the goal of socialism is communism. There's nothing wrong with capitalism, socialism or even communism--except that humanity, as a whole, is not at the same level of altruism. That is why things are poorly managed. The government, which is elected to represent us, is manned by weak human beings, subject to their own greed and personal failings. And let's face it. There are a lot of sociopaths in politics--on all sides. They're attracted to powerful positions. The higher the position, the more sociopaths are attracted to it. There's nothing wrong with being successful and making money. And wealthy people aren't all evil, just as poor people aren't all good just because they're poor. But we're not going to have a "perfect" society, no matter which type of society is most popular at the moment, until we have more "perfect" human beings. It's not even low wages that are the problem. It's the Federal Reserve and the devaluation of the dollar. Even if you gain that $15 an hour wage working for McDonald's, it won't mean much in a few years: www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/02/06/the-federal-reserves-explicit-goal-devalue-the-dollar-33/#7820bdae7865 From 1820 to 1920 there wasn't inflation, except for a short period in the 1800's. So about three generations of Americans could earn the same amount of money and live as well as their parents or grandparents. In 1915, a loaf of bread averaged about 7 cents. My grandparents, as newlyweds, would go out for a hamburger and fries and it cost them 25 cents. Their first home cost less than most used cars do now. I can remember one couple the same age as my grandparents telling me they bought their first 3 bedroom home, brand new, for $13,000. The free market isn't the problem. The problem is it hasn't been "free" for decades due to government interference. Schemes like quantitative easing devalue the dollar, and that's where the real problem lies. It's not Wall Street. It's the government interfering and gaming the system. The government is the reason the cost of our health care has gone up, the cost of education has increased, and on and on. For instance, I tried to tell people that Obamacare was not going to lower costs. I knew that because I worked in the health care field and I know that government-run programs like Medicare and Medicaid do not cover cost of services. So those lost funds have to be cost-shifted to other clients, which makes the cost of health care go up. The more people utilize those programs, the more the providers have to shift those costs. It's simple, but most people don't understand how the government programs game the system. There is no utopian society possible under any of these kinds of political ideals. It has nothing to do with the ideologies, themselves. It has to do with the human heart. Politicians always play to their base, and their rhetoric divides us. It's easier for them to control us that way. We have to stop letting them do this to us. We have to share the idea that we all need to be informed. And that means listening to both sides of a debate, and not silencing one side or another, which you see happening right now. And it means we have to be realistic and act like grownups, as well.
Also, I'm not advocating that we continue using a gift economy, I was merely pointing out that outside of the infinitesimally small period of recent history, humans didn't have any concept of individual property rights.
i agree with him that social institutions haven't ever been designed and that they do more than we believe they do, (and also probably less too; they don't do some of what we believe they do and they do do some of what we don't believe they do.) but i agree with him more than he does, i think: the market is a human contrivance for discovering prices. it isn't sacrosanct, and it's not that old of an invention. the market #is# a game, the one much of the world happens to be playing at the moment, but it'll have a successor, a new game, and most likely one with a set of properties more fitting for that time.
So it's the specious 'survival of the best' argument, extracted from Darwinism. "The selection of the successful", he says. What can that mean? Who "selects"? Evidently no one. What, then, is "successful"? It just means what succeeds, which in reality means what persists. So markets persist, social practices persist. But that doesn't give them value in living human terms. It doesn't make them just. The fact is, we try to improve on social practice for humane reasons (which our intellect enables us to do), while the market sets practical limits to how far we can move. It's a question of balance. The market isn't "good", it's just there.
Also, Hayek speaks of capitalism as if it were just markets. It isn't. It's a legal framework that allows private property and in particular privately owned productive capital. It also allows the renting of human labour time.
If you simply left people alone, Football would not spring up out of nowhere. Football requires rules and instruction. The free market would spring up naturally through barter.
People don't seem to understand the fine distinction between excessively wanting to better yourself and directly causing harm to other people. Me wanting to save up and buy a sweet car does not cause other people to become hungry, sick, or depressed. You are making arbitrary connections due to rare, indirect relationships. There is no direct causation in buying nice things with other people's welfare.
MUFASAxSHAKA He was a lot more than an economist. This is a discourse on Socialism, which (correct me if I'm wrong) is a political movement, just like Warmism.
There is no expertise required. Warmism is a politically generated non-science based on computer modelling, which is not, and never will be, part of the scientific method. I didn;t say Socialism is the cause of global warming. I'm saying Warmism IS the New Socialism.
MUFASAxSHAKA "Socialism is, at it's core, an economic theory to better make use of resource scarcity. It can be turned into a political debates itself, but at that point, we're getting away from the mathematical basis in which it was developed and argued for." Where in socialism is the math part?
MUFASAxSHAKA So you respond with there was a somewhat flawed. So because he stuck numbers in you call it math? In order to be math doesn't their have to be equations and calculations not just random numbers?
It's a nice thesis, but I don't buy it. If we're all playing a game with a certain degree of chance, called the market, it goes without saying that the chance is not distributed evenly among players. Like playing Monopoly when one player starts off with all the railroads, utilities, Boardwalk, Park Place, and a special Chance card whereby he gets to sit pretty on Free Parking for as many turns as he chooses. This is certainly how I like to play Monopoly, and also why I never play with socialists.
CrackThoseClaws 1.market is every human who take part in exchange 2.you take part in exchange C:3.you are part of the market 4.you adapts to other peoples needs 3 & 4 => market adapts to peoples needs
Alex Kozliayev lol rly? How much power do I actually have? Mind you, I don't wanna be a dictator and impose my will on everyone. I would just like us to have an equal saying in the market. I don't have the same with mr Soros.
It couldn’t be used or controlled by a central authority until NOW...enter SOCIAL MEDIA. The ability to know all these previously unknown variables...Heaven help us!
Governments are needed to create the environment that allows millions of people to act in a way that you can call it a marketplace. Even before capitalism, during mercantilism governments took action not just to allow but to actively promote markets, like in the case of the Chinese empire. To begin with, you cannot have markets without property rights enforced, and governments do the enforcing. Really, property rights are the biggest government regulation in all of history.
1.greed(noun)-the intense and selfish desire for something. 2. selfish-lacking consideration for others Example: If I'm craving an orange all day, I am, by definition being greedy since I have an intense and selfish desire to eat the orange, and I am not taking into consideration anyone else in this hunger for an orange. The words selfish and greedy have been perverted to mean doing something to pursuit my own personal interests WHILE screwing others over.
It's interesting to see all the anti-socialist comments. If Hayek is talking about pure socialism (essentially communism) then I understand people's misgivings. No economic model - capitalism/socialism/hybrid is without flaws and abuse, but moderate socialism has worked pretty well in the United States. For example: free compulsory education is socialism and it has virtually eliminated illiteracy, making our workforce more valuable.
His real argument here is about the way both systems use different types of information, and how intellectuals tend towards thinking that all information can be classified and communicated scientifically when in reality the majority of information that is important in showing economic preferences is more effectively transmitted through a price system. It's not perfect by any means but it uses more information for resource allocation than a socialist system ever could and so should end up with a more effective distribution of resources. Intellectuals downplay the importance of individual wants and needs because it is less useful in their day to day scientific studies. Not all information though has a meaningful objective or cost effective means of measurement. As flawed and distorted as our current price system can be it doesn't have nearly the track record of famine, violence, and corruption that socialism has been responsible for in its push for the "greater good" over the last 200 years. This all though isn't to say that government isn't necessary but more to caution against government power as a viable first solution to economic problems as it is often the case that the government created the problem in the first place by legislating against the interests of the public not due to malice or hunger for power but because of the aggregation and misinterpretation of information about peoples individual wants and needs.
George Donaho With about 18 million people a year dying of famine and malnutrition under the "efficient distribution of resources of the markets' price system"; mostly in food exporting countries ironically, I'm not completely sure bringing up socialism's "track record of famine and death" really makes for a fully convincing argument in that case...
Fonk Vènço But it does. Socialism's track record is vastly worse. Look, no system creates perfection. But you have to compare like to like. The FACT that Socialism in all its colors has killed hundreds of millions of people, whereas Free Market Systems are responsible for the greatest increases in human prosperity in all history measures the worth of these systems. Further, by *Principle* is the most telling and defining. You rage against others taking from you for their own purpose, yet, you champion the same feature *as long as you are not the victim*. Your principles are twisted.
BlackFlag2012a Err, I wasn't championing anything, just thrashing a silly but all too often repeated argument, so that the debate could hopefully move to more interesting proposals. Socialism didn't "kill hundreds of thousands of people", in fact, if you apply to capitalism the standards you use to ridiculously stretch the number of death then you'll have to say "capitalism" killed hundreds of millions. But I suspect you're another victim of the American education system, so I wont take it personally if this flies over your head...
Fonk Vènço Of course I do, but do you? A long time ago, I happened to meet a famous freedom fighter. I asked him: "There are symbols for all sorts of things, symbols for peace, for love, for the State, etc., but what is the symbol for freedom that isn't corrupted to be a symbol of a State?" He answered simply. "Any thing that is the opposite of surrender".
People are just comical little brats, all pretending like the situation is just so complicated and only a few really get it... "It" being why it's necessary to have pockets of society trapped in poverty and how the impoverished are to blame. It's like being the king at the top of a slide at recess.
I read Hayek’s book and it is too confusing, he advocated for a free government but then claims there also needs to be a powerful agency that can protect the entities in the economy. But won’t that itself disrupt the free market? Some examples that come to my mind are Chile under Pinochet, Korea under Jeon Du Hwan.
I think he tries to discuss where we draw the line (i.e, when should the government intervene). For him, the government should not intervene and their role should be limited to uphelding the market, ensuring that it's free from any unnatural competition. For example, government bailing out banks. For him, the government should be just for uphelding the rule of law, enforcing agreements or contract, and a stable standard which the free market can move.
@@kimdamiil1855 hmm I think I understand this somewhat but it’s hard to see how to exactly “draw this line”.I mean, most European countries and America has strict antitrust laws but we now see the rise of monopolies again. Maybe one day we can achieve that but I can’t imagine how it will be achieved
Capitalism and horrible neoliberalism are two different things. Capitalism, democracy, and socialism can live together. Fuck neoliberalism: it has caused so much pain and troubles in the world throughout the last decades.
I'm fairly certain I would be able to catch his drift, but I couldn't understand, at all, what the hell he was saying, in the literal sense, so I can't know what the hell he means either. Can't believe every commenter could understand him with that burr.
Wow how is this comment section so ignorant? Everyone seems to equate socialism with a state that controls important institutions and/or sectors of the economy. This is *not* socialism. In a socialist society, there is *democratic* control of institutions and/or the means of production which does not mean a small class of intellectuals plans everything, but 'the people' decide. It also doesn't mean the state is in control, though that could be the case if the state is sufficiently democratic. But the most striking misconception is that free market capitalism is a better alternative because the market is so efficient. Apart from the fact that this is based on the idea that people are rational economic actors (which they definitely aren't), it is known that this is not true. As an example: All competitive sectors of the US economy are state-subsidised. Agriculture (farming subsidies), the high-tech industry (through the Pentagon and all the public research that has been done), the financial sector (through bailouts and quantitative easing) and even the fossil fuel industry ($10.000.000 of subsidy a minute!). Thus the US economy is largely planned, though the details are left to private corporations, but it is not under popular control. This comes down to a system of public risks (the tax payer pays for subsidies and bailouts) and private profits (corporations don't share their profits with the general public). A true socialist will try to transfer control of the means of production to everyone, so that a system of public risks and public profits arises. While I don't know if this is the best system (private risks, private profits might be just as good) it's certainly better than the state-subsidised capitalism that everyone seems to think is free-market capitalism. I for one don't particularly enjoy bailing out banks that took irresponsible risks with the economy, hurting everyone while enriching themselves.
But we didn't all agree to play this "unjust" game. We are forced to play this unpredictable and unjust game if we are born into certain societies. And if you are someone who is more selfish than altruistic and you benefit from the unjust game, you have no real desire to change it, and you are likely to reinforce its inherent injustice as long as you continue to benefit from it. If you are someone who is more selfish than altruistic and you don't benefit from it, you will likely want to change the game, not because you care whether it is just or unjust, but because you are not benefiting from it. And if you are someone who is more altruistic than selfish, and who benefits from it, you will probably want to change it because although you yourself benefit, it causes you discomfort that you see others who are not benefiting from it. And if you are someone more altruistic than selfish and you do not benefit from it, likely you will be the most passionate of all to not just change the game, but to stop participating in the game at any level whatsoever.
the market game is not just nor unjust. It could go either way and change back and forth given some time and conditions. It doesn't matter if we agree with it or not. Or if we are selfish or altruistic.
You are free to leave for some socialist utopia. But once you get there you better be satisfied, since they are not known to let people leave so easily.
He repeats these lines in almost every interview posted on RU-vid. With the same look, the same glances away, and in almost the same tone. Not one "informed interviewer" dared to ask him to detail to reality any of his flatulence.
He argues against the entire project of trying to think about our world. Against the entire concept of philosophical investigation. I don't see how a thinking person can possibly put their support to this.
The problem is that socialism isn't as good as capitalism. For example, compare West Germany and East Germany. Or look at India which was socialist from 1950 up until the early 90s when they decided to stop economic planning. When India did that, their economy started growing fast.
For 99% of human history there was no formal large scale economic hegemony governing the world. I don't think we are currently capable of understanding the complexity needed to satisfy human and natural systems. One fails humanity, the other fails the environment and the commons. The entire notion of economics makes one uneasy if you frankly and openly examine the facts of what we are doing to the planetary systems, especially our fresh water and overall exposure to toxicity and environmental destruction. It happens slowly so we naturally are obfuscated from the reality of it all. More forests are cleared for agricultural land until there is no forested land left standing except that which is too wet or otherwise profitable, 40% of species on Earth having disappeared this century already. Slowly we push through the natural world exploiting the natural systems for constant and improving yields on a finite planet incapable of sustaining the blistering pace of our demands upon it. This elementary but immensely prominent paradox should be the genesis for understanding the economy and what we should change moving forward. Otherwise, no matter how sound the economic theory may or may not be, there simply will not be functioning markets when the natural planetary systems are incapable of sustaining the human carrying capacity. We demand too much energy, too much earth and air for our heat and pollutants, and have shown little inclination to just acknowledge that fact. I love Capitalism, but to yearn for some socialist aspects is just natural, tribal, human. We need each other and our human relationships are of utmost importance to most people and we want our friends, family, and community/tribe to succeed. Now more than ever we need people to accept a new cultural baseline that adheres to certain sustainable and regenerative imperatives; that restrain capitalisms massive environmental and human negative externalities and quantifies them; we need to say that if you work hard you will not have to live in poverty, go bankrupt for getting sick, or live in neo-feudal conditions that allow corporations to abuse there power to subdue fair compensation workers and competition from smaller rivals. We can be capitalists and still have better cultural norms that resist the excess's of capitalism dark side and actively invests in the regeneration of natural systems as a function of the economic rules we set. There is no need to be so blanketed and non-nuanced. New rules will allow new industry and the revival of an entire countries infrastructure.
Even if society emerges organically it is very easy to manipulate outcomes if you have the power to do so. Advertising and propaganda are such examples. But what if you used such manipulation to encourage the whole system and the people in it to become a lot more caring, tolerant and altruistic? It would never be a utopia since the means would continue to be as underhanded as the capitalists. But you would have a much more pleasant set of values by which most people were striving to live.
looking back at freud.. in todays terms we could not conceive of an iphone today which tomorrow in 2001 space odessy we should have a thinking computer... i hear the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe .. can we put a date on this...and say we can work out a system when we build a complete working artifical brain as a entry in allowing us to engineer the social superorgamism?
Great insights. I prefer Ludwig von Mises for his uncompromising attitude toward free-enterprise, but Hayek is good too. But here, I don't think he answered Buckley's question (Why is socialism seen as 'nubile' and seductive to the intellectuals?). I'll cut him some slack though, since he's gotta be, like, 90 yrs old or something.
