Is privatisation of state facilities true capitalism?

Brainpolice:

Your insistance on continueing such conversations in a manner that is entirely blind to the question of legitimacy and justice astounds me.

That is how economics is done. You don't like it, get out.

Brainpolice:

I don't see how I'm a troll for merely disagreeing with your legitimizing of monarchy and your vulgar libertarian tendencies.

You are being a troll because what you claim about me and Hoppe is a fabrication of your imagination.

http://mises.org/story/2217 Ralph Raico

Throughout the Middle Ages, the nobility exploited not only its own peasants, but especially the merchants who passed through their territories. The nobles' castles were nothing but thieves' dens.[39] With the rise of the towns in the eleventh century, one may even speak of "two nations" sharing the soil of France: the plundering feudal elite and the productive commoners of the towns.

To the rapacious nobility there eventually succeeded the equally rapacious kings, whose "thefts with violence, alterations of the coinage, bankruptcies, confiscations, hindrances to industry," are the common stuff of the history of France.[40] "When the lords were the stronger, they viewed as belonging to them everything they could lay hold of. As soon as the kings were on top, they thought and acted in the same way."[41] With the growth of the wealth produced by the commoners, or Third Estate, additional riches became available for expropriation by the parasitic classes. Comte is particularly severe on royal manipulation of money and legal tender laws, and quotes a seventeenth century writer on how "discountings [les escomptes] enriched the men of money and finance at the expense of the public."[42]

That is how economics is done. You don't like it, get out.

This isn't a purely economic question. And Rothbard pointed out the problem of sticking to a purely utiliarian value-free analysis in The Ethics of Liberty. It alone is not enough to make the case for anything and functions as a legitimizing device. I believe you're falling into that trap of using market economics in this way. Trying to legitimize economic conditions or institutions with a methodology that is entirely blind to justice or any question of ethics whatsoever is dangerous and sickening.

You are being a troll because what you claim about me and Hoppe is a fabrication of your imagination.

Putting foreward my honest opinion of what I percieve of closet monarchists such as you and Hoppe is not trolling.

Stranger:

I didn't say Bush should impose a socialist economy. I said that he would now calculate the cost to himself of the acts of government. For example, the price imposed for security would be substantially lowered as that would increase the net value of his presidency. If the market offered lower-cost alternatives to his bureaucracies, King Bush would contract out this work and shut down the bureaucracies, thus realizing large economies that would increase the value of his office even more.

 

So the only improvement I see is that Bush may have more of a motivation to not run enormous deficits, and instead make lots of profits. This does not mean that he will manage the economy better, merely that taxes are likely to rise, while spending will fall. In other words, the proportion of what people pay in taxes, relative to what they get out of them, will decrease. Thieving then, will be on the rise, and the only one to benefit will be Bush himself, not the people of his kingdom.

Secondly, contracting out the work may offer cost-improvements, but in no way solves the inherent calculation problem, since it is still Bush who decides how to allocate these resources.

Fascinating. Now, why don't you demonstrate that the plunder was on par with what occurs in democracies, that in democracies it indeed is still viewed as plunder and that democratic haegemons are less rapacious than their monarchical counterparts. Because otherwise you're not really doing much to counter the thesis - you're just reinforcing it.

Fred, why would taxes rise if that diminishes overall revenue? Higher taxes stunt productivity, and hence potential receipts. Democratic rulers are inclined to tax as much as they can when in power, because they certainly won't get the chance to later.

BP. I do not recall Rothbard railing against value-free analysis insofar as pure economics is concerned - and if I am wrong, I am to that extent going to part ways with him and side with Mises.

-Jon

Jon Irenicus:

 

Fred, why would taxes rise if that diminishes overall revenue? Higher taxes stunt productivity, and hence potential receipts. Democratic rulers are inclined to tax as much as they can when in power, because they certainly won't get the chance to later.

I understand the argument about caretakers exploiting as much as possible. However, I seriously doubt the economic understanding of people like Bush. Nor are his advisers going to do anything except try to manipulate him. It requires some basic understanding of economics to realise that higher taxes may at a certain point in time actually reduce revenues. Moreover, I'm not sure what this point is, and it is entirely possible that there are still more taxable revenues to be stolen.

Also, didn't monarchies historically maintain unprofitable colonies and run into massive debts with unnecessary wars?  If anything, supreme monarchs are likely to be even more militaristic and expansive, and would thus happily incur deficits in order to conquer and control more and more territory and people. Trying to equate a militaristic and expansive monarch (many were, and Bush plays the role quite well) with an entrepreneur seems a tad naive.

Btw, you didn't address my concerns regarding the calculation problem not being resolved by outsourcing contracts to private firms.

P.S. Who is that in your avatar? That doesn't look like Jon from Baldur's gate to me.

I have no intention of resolving it since it's still a problem regardless. All socialized law and order faces the calculation problem. The main contention is that feudal monarchy as contrasted with democracy tends to be a) characterized by a higher sense of class distinction between exploited-exploitee, which dissipates in democracies and to a lesser extent republics and b) that to the extent that one owns the capitalized value of the kingdom, they will be more discriminating in the policies they adopt. Absolute monarchies to a degree subverted a) as the Monarch sided with the "people" as opposed to the allegedly rapacious nobles (who acted alongside the church as a check on their power in the past), which contributed to blurring the class distinction.

Now, it is true an idiot such as Bush could still wreak much havoc as a monarch, but in the first place even under absolute monarchies, to my recollection, the King had to finance his own endeavours (and in fact this is what contributed heavily to the French monarchy's dissolution), but I'm not sure I see how that's significantly worse (if it even is) than idiot upon idiot compounding bad policy upon bad policy as happens under democracies except in rare circumstances. Feudal monarchs enjoyed nowhere near the power either an absolute monarch or a president enjoy, and that is the thrust of Hoppe's argument. The irony is that even absolute monarchies pale by comparison to modern-day social democracies in the ruin they leave behind them, so why the latter are automatically viewed as progressive is beyond me. There is no inhibition in a democracy to be as reckless as one pleases, or at least very few indeed.

And no, it's just an avatar I happen to like.

-Jon

The fact that Bush may or not may not be an idiot is irrelevant. The same idiot has worse incentives as elected president than he does as monarch so far as the consumer is concerned. He may still make mistakes, anyone human will, but he will not gain from them. Democracy rewards the mistakes. Monarchy punishes them. Hence, monarchy is preferable to democracy.

Fred Furash:

Btw, you didn't address my concerns regarding the calculation problem not being resolved by outsourcing contracts to private firms.

 

The calculation problem is resolved if an outside market can quote prices for the production of a good. If private firms can offer Bush better prices than his own bureaucracies cost him to produce whatever it is he needs to run the government, then he will choose them over his bureaucracies and thus realize economies. The bureaucrats will have to get real jobs and more goods will be produced by the economy.

 

Brainpolice:

Putting foreward my honest opinion of what I percieve of closet monarchists such as you and Hoppe is not trolling.

You can call talk radio if you want to express your opinion. No one is interested in your opinions here.

No wonder that so many people don't get Hoppe's argumentation ethics when they don't even understand what it means to engage in an argument.

 

 

The fact that Bush may or not may not be an idiot is irrelevant. The same idiot has worse incentives as elected president than he does as monarch so far as the consumer is concerned. He may still make mistakes, anyone human will, but he will not gain from them. Democracy rewards the mistakes. Monarchy punishes them. Hence, monarchy is preferable to democracy.

Indeed.

-Jon

 

Stranger:

He may still make mistakes, anyone human will, but he will not gain from them. Democracy rewards the mistakes. Monarchy punishes them. Hence, monarchy is preferable to democracy.

QFT

The critical difference is time preference. Bush's opportunity to profit from graft, corruption, etc., is guaranteed to end in January--so he needs to get while the getting's good. Ideally, he should suck the country 100% dry on exactly the day he leaves office, taking with him the entire nation's wealth. He can't, by a long shot, but he's doing the best he can--just as Clinton did before him, etc.

As a monarch, he would have an incentive to preserve his personal capital by keeping the nation productive in 2009, 2010 and onward, for him to continue preying upon. The strategy that makes sense under term limits is, to a monarch, killing the golden goose.

--Len

That's just an hypothesis. Too bad that historical facts prove it wrong. It is not true that monarchy was superior to democracy.

Juan:

That's just an hypothesis. Too bad that historical facts prove it wrong. It is not true that monarchy was superior to democracy.

Check your facts. Hoppe documents quite a few of them. For example, "democracies" charge tax rates of which a king would be terrified to charge half, knowing that there would be assassins behind every tree just waiting for him.

--Len

 

What "historical facts"? It's incredible how fast you are to reject praxeological insights as "hypothesis" when they don't suit your ideological inclinations. Positivism when we feel like it, and at all other times praxeology, hm? Relative to democracies, monarchies involve far less expropriation, as a theoretical point and as a matter of fact.

-Jon

Jon:

What "historical facts"? It's incredible how fast you are to reject praxeological insights as "hypothesis" when they don't suit your ideological inclinations.

Are you bothering to read this thread at all ? Sorry for thinking that Ralph Raico's knowledge of history is superior to Stranger's and yours. Please take a look at post Wed, Jun 4 2008 4:04 AM - THANKS.

Len:

The critical difference is time preference. Bush's opportunity to profit from graft, corruption, etc., is guaranteed to end in January

But government is composed of tens of milli