Democracy

[an8150]

Stavros, your comment about how people are derided by those out of power (in this case libertarians) is spot on: the people know exactly what is in their best interests, as described by de Tocqueville, or ?Tytler, or whomsoever you say said the quote above. As I said previously, what is characterised as the selflessness of the social democratic model is in fact large numbers of people voting to line their own pockets at the expense of others.

[an8150]

PS, Stavros, I've got no idea what your final paragraph about the Bilderbergs etc. has to do with libertarians or Randians. We pejoratively call transnationalist progressives "tranzis", as you may be aware, but most of us don't say there's anything about conspiratorial about their behaviour, they're pretty open about their agenda for those with eyes to see, and one need only listen to their denunciation of their opponents to have that confirmed.

[an8150]

trish, you haven't understood the gravamen of my observations or of the questions arising from them.

[an8150]

hipifred, "Sure I have. But that's a corporate power play & has nothing to do with your lame quote. Just like everybody else, they were doing ok until the bank panic stopped up revenue streams. Now the same semi-anonymous money changers who created the artificial panic, & hold vast amounts of bonds, are demanding full payments they know can't be made because of their shenanigans. Austerity programs are just a ploy to lower wages, & have never been a benefit to anyone except debt holders who end up taking real property in lieu of shuffled numbers. Talk about coercion... "

You need to have a word to Stavros about conspiracies. You also need to learn to write coherently, deploying sentences that mean something.

Back in the real world, the PIIGS governments like, but mostly to a greater extent than, other countries in the West, have been spending money they don't have. They've been behaving like drunken sailors for years, and now they've run out of money. That's not some artificial situation, it's reality catching up with them. And the EU is busy installing bureaucratic regimes in the capital cities of these countries with the power to override the the decision-making of their democratically elected governments. Loose fiscal policy is leading to dictatorship. And given the recent history of most of these countries, the odds are high that they, or some of them, will collapse into old style military dictatorship.

[an8150]

Odelay, could somebody else have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, had Michelangelo never existed? Would somebody else have composed the Brandenburg Concertos, ditto Bach?

Rand's point in Atlas Shrugged is that if productive, initiative-taking genii of society go on strike, and all we're left with is the mediocre, then we will all suffer as a result.

The former can get by just fine without the latter, but vice-versa? Maybe we'll find out one day...

[trish]

Gravamen? There is no seriousness to your complaints whatsoever. You claim that

...coercive state action (there is of course no other kind of state action)...

Really? All State actions, absolutely all, are coercive? Sending assistance to the storm swept east coast is coercive? The decision not to fund the superconducting supercollider was coercive? The decision to launch and land Curiosity on Mars was coercive? The decision to make Pell Grants available to university students is coercive? Oh we could debate various senses of word “coerce.” A broad interpretation would hold that every person who acts to claim and protect their private property is being coercive, threatening to use physical force to keep what they claim is theirs and theirs alone. We’ve all seen children who behave that way. A narrower and more commonly held interpretation would hold that there are indeed State actions which are not coercive.

When I spoke about Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s proof of the instability of free markets and the need for a regulator you posted ->

You want to control and direct me for my own good? That is kind. And who is to control and direct you in that endeavour? And who they?

Do I want to control you? No. It’s absurd of you to say so. I don’t even know you. I don’t care if you drop dead while composing your next post. I don’t want to control you at all. Not for your own good and most of all, I don’t want to be bothered with the task of controlling you. I wasn’t even talking about me or you, I was speaking about free market economies. I asserted that unregulated free market economies deteriorate into markets controlled by one, two, three, a handful of powerful players.

If you exercised some self control and rebutted honest points of view instead of straw men, we might see your gravamen.

[Stavros]

PS, Stavros, I've got no idea what your final paragraph about the Bilderbergs etc. has to do with libertarians or Randians. We pejoratively call transnationalist progressives "tranzis", as you may be aware, but most of us don't say there's anything about conspiratorial about their behaviour, they're pretty open about their agenda for those with eyes to see, and one need only listen to their denunciation of their opponents to have that confirmed.

You may not be aware of it, but we have a resident libertarian/anarcho-capitalist who rails against the secretive networks of power exercised by the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, and all the usual suspects joined to the hip of the Beast. Her work is here, enjoy!
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=63803

[Odelay]

Odelay, could somebody else have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, had Michelangelo never existed? Would somebody else have composed the Brandenburg Concertos, ditto Bach?

Rand's point in Atlas Shrugged is that if productive, initiative-taking genii of society go on strike, and all we're left with is the mediocre, then we will all suffer as a result.

The former can get by just fine without the latter, but vice-versa? Maybe we'll find out one day...

Ahh but we won't be left with the mediocre. The market makes sure of that. Unfilled demand is the same as the vacuum that the universe abhors, it will be filled. And demand can be for quality as well as quantity. Your point about Michaelangelo is silly because it's an unprovable counterfactual. My guess is that Michaelangelo was a pretty good marketer. There very well might have been an equal talent who wasn't quite as business savvy. Suffice it to say, he won the contract. Had he not existed, another would have won the contract and his name would be praised today.

I rather enjoy the comedy of all the JD Salinger fans who mourn the fact that he went into hiding, withdrawing his talent from the world. The literary world did not suffer as Vonnegut, Updike, Bellow, Oates, Vidal and many others rose up to take his place. And that goes for any withdrawn genius from Bobby Fischer to Greta Garbo. The market rules, not any one or group of individuals.

[Odelay]

As for coercion, I'm guessing that living as a peasant in the feudalistic middle ages felt pretty coercive, or just below the mercantile class during the Renaissance, or as a debtor in merry olde england of the 1800's. I'm a liberal, so I don't usually buy into the whole American exceptionalism rah rah bullshit. But I will say I'm grateful to live in America today, even under this awful oppressive Obama regime.

[trish]

Michaelangelo (da Vinci and all the other Renaissance artists) had a whole factory of apprentices and assistants. Art historians often cannot tell the hand of the master from the apprentice. But surely if Papa John withdraws his exquisite pie making talent from the market, we will all suffer a sad gastronomic loss.