Render unto Caesar

david @1
Re alienability, I think you are correct, ownership is a legal configuration and doesn’t necessarily imply anything (not even excludability – think of rights of way).

I don’t think many libertarians would have a problem with a currency issuer also including some obligations to pay taxes or fees for those who choose to use that currency. The problem is that states generally don’t give you a choice of which currency to use. In fact, it sometimes looks more like the reverse claim is asserted: ‘You will pay taxes, therefore you must use this currency.’

Obviously, self-ownership doesn’t have to include unlimited rights to alienate yourself from your own body, and doesn’t for many libertarians, although Nozick flirted with the idea in some (but not his later) work.

“Nick @4,
so I take it you are quite OK for all contracts in another currency (to those of the local state) being uninforceable. Use Bitcoin at your own risk, eh?”

Sure. Unless the local state wanted more business; then it could charge a fee in return for adjudicating disputes.

I’ll agree with John’s conclusion–“self-ownership” is a form of linguistic confusion. But then again, so is “ownership.” You start looking at “property” too closely, and you can’t come up with any generalizations about the concept. Alienability is only one of the generalizations that doesn’t work out, once you examine it.

True, lawyers have very precise property rules. But these rule only apply to some subset of property: chattels, realty, IP, bank deposits, securities, other intangibles, etc.

“Property” is more of a neurological concept than a logical one. I’m not kidding–dogs are territorial, and feel entitled to individual chattels. It’s not a fit concept for analysis.

I think you’ve missed the point of the parable. If saying “yes” would have discredited Jesus, and he said “yes,” then why wasn’t he discredited?

The answer, of course, is that he never said “yes.” In particular, he never said the coin belonged to Caesar. From a Roman legal point of view, the tax payments belong to Caesar, but from a religious point of view, there is a higher law, that all things belong to God. So he gave a form of words acceptable both to the Romans and to the anti-Romans.

The same goes for your argument about property. Sure, if you think that all property is purely a creation of the state, then you can’t get too upset if the state demands some of it back by the same laws that created it. But if you think that state laws regarding property are (meant to be) just recognising and enforcing a higher law, then of course you can get upset if you think the state isn’t enforcing the higher law properly. Similarly to how freedom of speech is seen by some as a creation of the state and in some ways recognising a higher law. “That can’t be an abrogation of freedom of speech because it doesn’t violate the US First Amendment” is not an argument against people who view freedom of speech as a moral right that would be valid whether or not it was codified in the US constitution.

State-created and enforced property rights, including the associated taxation systems, are social institutions which may or may not contribute to socially just outcomes, but have no moral standing in themselves.

I’m afraid this appears to be not only your conclusion, but also your premise.

“Yes. Jesus showed them a coin with the emperor’s head on the obverse and said “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”. And “when they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.””

A friend pointed out that Jesus used a third way here, rather than the two in which he was thought to be trapped. That coin was a graven image of a pagan god, and was therefore forbidden under Jewish law.

The state both claims the right to tax transactions in it’s currency, AND the right to ban transactions which aren’t in it’s currency.

That’s not true at all of contemporary democratic states. As John correctly pointed out, very few democratic states actually bother to do anything about you if you don’t assert any of the rights they guarantee. Should you start claiming some of these rights (for instance by settling in some space and claiming it’s yours) then things degenerate quickly but as long as you mind your own business, they are usually just fine with it.

Also, John, I completely subscribe to your analysis of self-ownership, property rights etc. etc. but was this just a prompt, or was it meant seriously?

Of the three Jews […], Jesus is to me the most interesting

Really? I have just re-read the Gospels and I can’t believe you are coming to this conclusion. The “universal love” preaching is really vastly overblown: not only is it vanishingly small in size in the actual pronouncements of Jesus, but (more damningly) when it is invoked at all, it is very clearly not universal at all, but rather universal within the very select group of believers whereas the majority will suffer harshly for its incredulity (and that is repeated and repeated and repeated ad nauseam). I really don’t see the intellectual or ethical appeal of the Gospels at all (I don’t deny the plain religious appeal, though).

OK, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is pretty awesome but compared to the role of class in history? Come on.

“Jesus’ point is just as valid if the coin is replaced by paper currency bearing the picture of a president, or rent from a land title issued by a state, or a dividend coupon from a corporation established under state law.”

Isn’t it possible that Jesus’ point, as interpreted by his most important follower, was simply that “the powers that be are ordained of God”? In which case his point is seriously outdated.

According to Paul Burkett and myself, at least, Marx regarded labour-power as a “common-pool resource” (to use Elinor Ostrom’s terminology) and not as the “private property” of the individual worker.

Our relationship to our bodies and thoughts, to our friends and family, and even to the objects we use in our daily life, is fundamentally distinct from the property rights we may, or may not, derive from, and have enforced by, states. That’s true even though the same grammatical structures (genitives and clitics) are used for both. This is most obvious from the fact that most (if not all) actually existing property rights in the world today can be traced back to systems which encompassed some form of slavery.

This assertion hardly seems self-evidently true. Going back to the classical origins of political science, and not in my view successfully overturned in the roughly 2,500 years since that time, the political-administrative state in whatever form (including the governments and laws of modern mass societies) can or must be viewed as an emanation of “friends and family.” The Savior’s distinction would refer to an authentically more fundamental distinction, proposing a human concept prior to and beyond any “Caesar’s” or any particular state’s phenomenal forms, but with implications for them.

Sorry wrong thread.

I don’t see the contradiction.

Taxation is an exchange, one in which the taxpayer receives far more (in goods and services) than he or she gives, and it’s not close. The formal relations of capitalism, the employer/employee dynamic, is theft, because a worker produces far more than he or she is paid (they are cheated out of fair trade and exchange), and the fruits of his or her labor are taken from the worker, who has no say so in the matter. Nozick and others of his ilk would say the worker can go elsewhere. But he or she would again be presented with the same dynamic, so there is no “choice” there.

@21,

I think that is essentially the case. At least if the folks at the Jesus Seminar are correct. And I think they have a lot going for them on that count.

Self-ownership implies one has no duties to others, but most people would not subscribe to this. If someone passes by a drowning man, has he not a duty to throw a rope? If he passes a car accideny, has he not a duty to assist? Not merely in the sense that he’d be a nicer person, but that we would feel he had abdicated his basic respinsibilities towards fellow human beings if he didn’t? If we take the rights of man seriously, one’s rights are everybody else’s duties. If you want to call the fulfillment of these duties slavery, I won’t lose my sleep over it. We do have a personal duty to school every child, cure every sick person and keep the basic structures of industrial civilised society running. Be glad we don’t need to lend our own work personally but can pay someone else with taxes instead.

According to Wikipedia, the tax rate in the Roman Empire ranged from 2-5%. Granted, in a pre-industrial civilization even a few percent could tip you over the edge given the poor productivity, but this suggests that “what was Caesar’s” was very little indeed.

I wonder what co-blogger Chris has to say about this, given the position he takes in “Property in the Moral Life of Human Beings.”

@31 Plume

One car equals 100 doubloons. There. Done. The entire thing is arbitrary anyway, and a fiction, so why not just control the fiction?

If there were no incentives and exchange aside from what the state creates, then that might be the case. As is, there are always incentives and exchange outside of what the state creates, hence the existence of black markets even in the most heavily socialistic countries (Soviet Union, North Korea). You can try and set an official price and even try and enforce it, but the incentives of the people in question can easily make a joke of your efforts (see Venezuela and its attempts to set the prices of goods and exchange rate of its currency).

The benefit of capitalism is that it aligns better than any other economic system with the good incentives and exchanges (especially if you create institutions like property rights and legally protected markets), while still allowing you to do your best to crack down on the bad ones that are simply unacceptable (like human slavery). Socialist efforts to simply set fiat prices and exchange tend to be much less flexible and aligned with what people actually want to do.

It’s really frustrating to constantly hear conservatives go to the Soviet Union well, or the North Korean well, when the subject turns to capitalism and its alternatives. They want so badly for those autocratic, dictatorial systems to be taken for actual socialism, that they completely miss the gargantuan differences. There are few things further apart in this world than socialist theory and the reality that was the Soviet Union, or China now, or NK now, or Cuba now, etc. etc. Why conservatives think that the socialist alternative would necessary have to be just like those state capitalist systems is bizarre . . . . especially when the context and times are so different.

Take any system and implement it under different conditions and you’ll get different results. The bigger the difference in conditions, the bigger the difference in results.

It’s 2014. Attempt real socialism here, in America, and it won’t be on the same planet as 1917 Russia, or any of the years that followed. And, America, unlike Russia in 1917, won’t be subject to an international embargo, widespread sabotage and the stoking of civil war fires by Western powers. Marx said don’t start socialist revolution in a poor, backward nation. Start it in a nation in the mature capitalist phase. He also said don’t do it in isolation. Do it together with many countries, in solidarity. This would prevent an effective backlash.

America has generally been the nation which crushes leftist populist revolts around the world. If it is the initiator of that kind of revolution, it won’t face what weaker nations faced. America won’t have to fear American sabotage, suppression, etc.

@Plume

Why conservatives think that the socialist alternative would necessary have to be just like those state capitalist systems is bizarre . . . . especially when the context and times are so different.

Why do you keep expecting the situation with capitalist economies to be the same everywhere then? Capitalism in 2014 is not capitalism in 1980, is not capitalism in 1960 and not capitalism in 1880.

That said, the Soviet, Warsaw Pact, and North Korean regimes get the attention because they’re the only real case examples of country-size economies that actually did try out some of the precepts of socialism at the time across the entire economy: they did try to erase private property, they did try to liquidate rentiers and eliminate all the aspects of the capitalist system (such as firms), at least at first.

Whereas most of the socialistic experiments we’ve seen in democratic countries all happened in otherwise capitalistic systems. Even the nationalizations in the 1940s and 1950s in western European countries didn’t change that. If you could point to an economy that’s actually doing well under full socialism and democracy (and especially any country that isn’t some tiny 1000-person crowd), be my guest.

Empirically, though, those who experienced both the Soviet Union and its actually-existing liberal-democratic-capitalist alternative in Russia and Central Asia, overwhelmingly prefer the Soviet Union. 10-15 years ago I’ve seen amazing numbers, like 75%. Now it’s more like 60%, but by now a lot them only know post-Soviet life.

“In each case the argument can be met by showing that the relevant condition can be satisfied to a sufficient degree in the absense of the state. This is not to deny that states might be very useful or desirable ways of satisfying these conditions, but it is to deny that they are necessary for this.” – (Betram, 2013)

He then goes on to make such a sufficiency argument in ways that apply to actually existing property rights, which I will not quote at length here. So, I’m not sure that you answer Chris’ argument, I take his argument to be applicable to actually existing property rights.

However, couldn’t Nozick just say that actually existing property rights are bad, in so much as they are derived from and enforced by the state. If you can’t establish the necessity of property rights as always derived from and enforced by the state, you can’t really do anything to Nozick’s argument.

A reductio I think is in order here.
All actually existing rights to life and liberty are derived from and enforced by the state
These states also regularly kill and imprison people
Therefore, all state killing and imprisonment is necessarily justified.

I’m very hopeful that you reject this conclusion and am curious how you do so while preserving the argument regarding taxes and property.

Yeah, sure. Everyone on the left hates freedom and wants to herd the populace into gulags.

You know what, Bellmore? Fuck you. I am in no mood to take lectures on freedom from someone who just yesterday called for the execution of women who have late term abortions. Your definition of “freedom” is something I want nothing to do with. It is so twisted as to beggar belief.

All the way back @31,

1. What do you mean, “fictions”? Is perceived value fictitious because you can’t touch it with your hand?

2. How does the government make these determinations? Isn’t that a bit tyrannical to arbitrarily tell everyone the value of things?

3. I agree that currency as a utility has been badly exploited. Like many commodities (e.g. diamonds), it’s been hoarded to manipulate it’s value. Unlike diamonds, instead of driving up price, hoarding has driven inflation, which devalues the currency of those not capable of storing an excess that they can use to invest to allow their assets to keep pace with growth, while the hoarders simultaneously can invest in excess to grow their portfolio above total growth.

My view is that taxation (in addition to being a “service fee” for guaranteeing the value of the currency) should serve to counteract the benefits of hoarding currency. And as crazy as they may have looked on paper, the historical tax rates in the US from the mid century (top bracket: 70-90%) were apparently a good representation of that advantage, given how the wealth gap has exploded since their abolition.

To boil things down further, one marker of the left/right spectrum is this. The degree to which inequality and social injustice is acceptable, or the amount of it, or the support of it. The degree to which it is unacceptable, the percentage accepted, the fight to rid the world of it.

The further left you go, the less willing you are to put up with inequality or social injustice. The far left being basically egalitarian and anti-capitalist. The center left being basically concerned with the middle class, pro-capitalist, but desirous of mitigating some of its worst effects. The center-left also seeks to help the poor, but without attempting to get rid of class divisions. The far left wants to rid us of those divisions entirely and make social justice and equality the norm, the default.

The right side of the aisle is fine about inequality. In general, it sees this as “natural.” And it’s most concerned that any attempt to reduce inequality would take away their stuff. Mine mine mine!!! is the battle cry of the right — and it’s almost exclusively from the point of view of the haves, not the have nots. The right fears any push to share resources, even a little bit (liberalism), and is positively hysterically in fear of sharing things a lot (the far left).

I’ll put in a ; ) , as I’m joking really

jben 10.03.14 at 2:34 pm

“You know what, Bellmore? Fuck you. I am in no mood to take lectures on freedom from someone who just yesterday called for the execution of women who have late term abortions. Your definition of “freedom” is something I want nothing to do with. It is so twisted as to beggar belief.”

Seconding this. If Brett had enough honesty to like a match, it’d be different, but he doesn’t.

I tend to think of myself as a mostly modern liberal, but perhaps my beliefs on inequality make me a conservative. I just tend to see it as inevitable in groups of people above a few hundred in number. It becomes impossible to govern effectively through direct democracy, so you end up with representatives who have greater relative power versus the people who elect them, and so forth. Even worse is that it doesn’t scale linearly – the bigger your society gets, the more and more specialists and managers of various sorts you need just to manage the complexity.

Wow! Lots of fuzzy thinking here, but let’s start with Mr. Quiggin’s misinterpretation of Jesus’ words during the render-unto-Caesar incident, which is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (Ch. 20), Mark (Ch. 12) and Luke (Ch. 20). The three Evangelists’ reports are similar, differing only in a few minor details. Only Luke explains the design of the “trap” set for Jesus by asking him whether or not is was lawful (according to God’s law) to pay Caesar’s tax. Mark adds to the question, making it even more volatile, “Should we pay or should we not?” The purpose of the question, according to Luke, was “To trap him in his words so as to hand him over to the power and authority of the governor (Pilate).” There was no intent to discredit Jesus if he said yes, because his enemies knew Jesus the man very well and knew he would never endorse Caesar’s tax or tell others to pay it.

Jesus’ brilliant response was so clear as to defy misinterpretation. Only someone who deifies the state would think Jesus’ response meant, “yes, pay Caesar tax.” Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar means give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Period! End of misinterpreting. Jesus said what he meant and meant what he said. His statement is the absolute truth regarding how one is to treat the property of others. Give their property back to them! His statement had nothing to do with the coin, which belonged to whoever produced it from his purse–not Caesar. And his statement clearly didn’t mean pay Caesar’s tax. On the contrary, it was a brilliant call to resist Caesar’s tax. “If you have nothing belonging to Caesar, give him nothing.” His retort also made the point that nothing belongs to Caesar, because everything Caesar possessed was acquired in violation of God’s law by force or violence through plunder, slavery and taxation, and thus was not legally his.

Calling for his enemies to produce the coin was also brilliant, for it caused them to commit blasphemy–in the Temple precincts no less–by producing the coin with its graven image of Tiberius and the caption, “son of the divine Augustus.” Even though his response effectively said exactly what his enemies hoped he would say. they couldn’t use his words to against him before Pilate because Pilate would probably think his words were an endorsement of Caesar’s tax, just as Mr. Quiggin and so many other misinterpreters of Jesus have mistakenly thought.

For all you sociopaths, er, socialists, who think taxes are payment for some benefits earlier provided by the divine state, I hope you pay your taxes to Jesus for all of the benefits you have received as a result of his (not Christianity’s) principles, which he freely bequeathed to you and upon which some of your benevolent ancestor built Western civilization.

Taxes are extortion. They depend on force or coercion. Nothing good ever comes of them. They rob the taxpayer and they utterly emasculate the honesty and integrity of those who collect and consume them. I refer to the proceeds as OPM–sounds like opium, is equally addicting, stands for Other People’s Money–forcibly extorted.

Mr. Quiggin,

He’s called Supply Side Jesus. That’s the right’s version of him. The far more likely scenario is that he was a communist before the word was coined. Shared everything. Despised money and wealth. Despised the rich. Went from town to town with nothing more than the robe on his back, repeatedly told his would-be followers that no one could join him unless they gave away all of their earthly possessions, and on more than a few occasions, he denounced even the idea of a family.

Jesus (and the old Jewish patriarchs) repeatedly condemned the rich, and said they could never get into heaven. That they had no chance. But, the religious right conveniently ignores all of that, concentrating instead on bigotry toward gay people and contraception — two things Jesus never, ever mentions. As an atheist, secular humanist, egalitarian socialist, I’m far closer to his vision, philosophically and ethically, than any right-wing “Christian” could ever hope to be. And it’s not close.

He was a DFH in today’s vernacular, the kind of person that Ayn Rand lovers would spit on and mock.

Good argument, perhaps academically. It is mostly history, over time a system has evolved for human to live like human does. Money is important it makes the world go round. There is no exploitation but a race. There is the employer, he tells you that he is providing a living for the workers in doing he has a responsibility to fulfill. He can also tell you that he is a worker too. There are the unemployed, they are looking for work and they will approach the employer for work. According to circumstances They will do anything for an honest living. The worker themselves, either they are satisfied of there situation or they want more. There are three things that freedom allows them to do: Leave and perished, ask for more, which we always want. We get it or we do not and the third thing is to becoming the employer themselves and so it revolves.
Work and working for money is perhaps the most fundamental pillar in the making of human. If one steels, he still has to work for it, though ones income is viewed as illegal. If one has money and makes the money work for him, the difference.’as simple as that.

Plume “But even with that, we still receive more in social good than we pay for. ”

It’s a judgement call, I hope you realize. Not a universal law, applicable to every society from the Roman empire to American.

Ze,

Well, I was talking about America, not ancient Rome. Wasn’t trying to make any claims for earlier societies.

Of course, Europe gives an even better deal than we do. Actually, a much, much better deal. Germany just announced, for instance, no more college tuition charges, and most of the European Union is on that same page. And that’s one great place to spend tax dollars. Rather than our government spending trillions on surveillance, drug wars, wars in general, private contractors for the jail system, etc. . . . we should make public university and trade schools free for everyone.

@60 – Ned, the similarity of the accounts in the three gospels would be quite a strong point of evidence for their veracity, if not for the fact that there’s a very good reason for it.

Brett @69,

The richer you are, the more you take in public goods and services. The system is set up to protect your property first, and if you’re a business owner, you get first dibs on police, fire, EMT, courts, military protection, trade and currency supports, plus R and D. Our government has spent literally trillions of taxpayer dollars bailing out businesses and the capitalist system for well over a century, and has spent ginormous sums of taxpayer dollars promoting, propping up, protecting, defending and expanding businesses (and the capitalist system) all over the world.

Business is the business of the American government, and always has been. Wealthcare is one of its top priorities, at all times, if not the top priority.

Read the seminal and essential The Making of Global Capitalism, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, for the history on that.

Also, really rich people have all kinds of ways to cut their taxes. Romney, for instance, in the one tax return he let us see, paid just 14% on 14 million in “earnings.” It’s logical that he withheld all those other (requested) years because he paid far less or nothing at all.

Oh, and the rich live longer than the rest of us, so they have more time to take advantage of public works, goods and services. Sorry, but virtually every single American pays substantially less than they receive in public works, goods and services, and the rich get the best deal of all.

Plume, in the places where taxation is obviously beneficial to a vast majority of the population, I’m sure it generates little or no controversy, which also makes it unnecessary to spend ink convincing people that taxation is natural and good for them.

I think the point is that government spending is subject to diminishing returns. The first little increment can be fabulously worth while, the next increment obviously beneficial, the next on the whole worth it, then you get into a large plateau where it’s pretty much a wash, producing no more benefit than the cost.

Eventually you get into the downward slope, where the benefit is less than the cost, and then into expenditures where the ‘benefit’ is actually negative, and you’d be better off if the money had been buried instead of spent.

The problem with ‘progressive’ taxation is that it, (By design!) makes expenditures which are a net loss to society politically feasible, by concentrating the costs on a minority of the population. You could levy a billion dollar tax, spend half of it digging and refilling holes, and if you took the billion dollars from a half dozen people, and paid 10,000 people a nice wage for doing the digging, it would be a clear political winner, even though it was an utter and total waste of resources. A lot of government spending is like that: It does produce winners, because somebody gets paid, but the net cost to society is greater than the benefit. We all get poorer for it, but progressive taxation conceals this in the immediate instance.

Of course, whenever somebody points this out, the automatic response is to bring up something in the first or second category, and totally blow off the idea of diminishing returns.

I should add that government spending isn’t the only thing subject to diminishing returns. Virtually everything is. It’s just that most things aren’t deliberately organized to hide this.

“Well, that’s true, if you make a tautology of it. Not really otherwise.”

The rich only exist embedded in the society they are a part of. Money is after all just paper.

@60: Oh thank you, thank you, Ned Netterville for giving me the opportunity to post one of the great atheist rants of all time by James Thomson:

“Try to fancy poor Jesus, for example, coming to life again (actually, not doctrinally), and learning that he was the founder, the teacher, the exemplar, the very God of Christendom; fancy him searching for some trait of his own life and ruling principles in the lives and ruling principles of the millions who call themselves Christians; fancy him in spiritual communion with the Pope, the cardinals, the bishops (though their lackeys would never admit him to the presence of any of these), the most prominent ministers of the various Christian sects. He would find himself an outcast in his nominal kingdom, denounced and reviled as a madman, an idiot, an impostor; the moral and intellectual life of Christendom would be as alien and bewildering to him as its steamboats and railways and telegraphs. Paul and the other early apostles, the ancient heathenisms of Greece and Rome, of the East and the West, old philosophies and older superstitions, national characteristics, physical and other circumstances, the growth of science, the ever-varying conditions of life and modes of thought; everything, in brief, affecting the character of the converts, has affected the religion By the time a doctrine gets embodied in a Church or other institution, its original spirit has nearly vanished. Its progress may be well compared to the course of a great river, rivers being remarkably convenient things for all such analogies. Some remotest mountain – rill or rocky well – spring has the honour of being termed its source; and the name of this tiny trickling is borne triumphant down a thousand broadening leagues to the sea. The rill is soon joined by others, each very like itself. As it flows onward, ever descending (for this is the universal law), it is joined by streamlets and rivers more and more unlike itself, they having flowed through unlike soils and regions; and more than one may be greater than itself, as the Missouri is greater than the Mississippi; and its own original waters are more and more modified by the new and various districts they traverse. As it proceeds, growing deeper and wider, villages and towns arise on its banks, and it receives copious tribute not merely of natural streams, but likewise of sewage and the pestilent refuse abominations of manifold factories and wharves. When it is become a mighty river, crowded with ships and bordered by some wealthy and populous capital, it may be a mere open cloaca maxima; and at any rate it must be as dissimilar in the quality of its waters as in their quantity and surroundings from the pure rill of the mountain solitudes, from the pure brook of the woodland shadows and pastoral peace. The waters actually from the fountain-head are but an insignificant drop in the vast and composite volumes of the thick bronze or yellow flood which finally disembogues through fat flat lowlands, in several devious channels with broad stretches of marsh and lagoon, into the immense purifying laboratory of the untainted salt sea. The remote rill-source is Christ or Mohammed, the mighty river is the Christian or Mohammedan Church; the sea in all cases is the encompassing ocean of death and oblivion, which makes life possible by preserving the earth from putrefaction.”

Yeah, a tautology. If the government does something that benefits the wealthy, you say it does it to benefit them, no matter how many other people benefited, or what reason for doing it was put forth. Essentially you’re making the entire federal budget being for the benefit of the wealthy your starting premise, not your conclusion.

So all the government’s expenditures on the military? Just for the benefit of the wealthy. The highway system? Just for them. Everything just for them, even though most of the use is by somebody else.

It’s not a conclusion, it’s an article of faith.

Brett: “The problem with ‘progressive’ taxation is that it, (By design!) makes expenditures which are a net loss to society politically feasible, by concentrating the costs on a minority of the population. ”

Brett, there’s a huge body of work on this, and your conclusions are wrong. The wealthy have a massive voice in government.

Plume:
“But that’s the point. It is highly beneficial on balance for the vast majority in America, but one of the organizing principles of the conservative movement is to completely dismiss that self-evident fact and foment “controversy” whenever possible. The idea of cutting or eliminating taxes is the life-blood of that movement, despite the obvious benefits of the public sector model.”

Sounds awfully patronizing. People don’t live in a model, they live in the real world. Here’s another controversy for you: a hedge fund manager makes a billion dollars/year and pays (at most) 15% federal income tax. Someone earning 0.01% of that pays a higher portion of their income. You tell them it’s a great deal for them. Are you employed by the hedge fund manages?

@61 Better re-read you Bible.. Pilate wasn’t fooled. He had the chief priests there to interpret what Jesus said, and they interpreted his words for Pilate exactly as I did for you. You can find their accusation against Jesus to Pilate in Luke 23:2-5. “This man has been perverting the nation, telling us not to pay taxes to Caesar…He has been causing riots from Galilee all the way here.” And just so you know Pilate wasn’t fooled, you may have heard and I can confirm he crucified Jesus.

I’m afraid you will now have to dine on roast snark. Yuk, yuk.

@62, Plume, you too need study your Bible before inserting your foot.

@ “Shared everything.”–Plume

“Don’t I have a right to do as I please with what is mine?”–Jesus of Nazareth

Rhetorical question asked by Jesus’ generous Vineyard owner in his parable of the greedy workers who were jealous because he paid the worker who only worked a short time the same as those who worked the whole day. (This would probably piss off a socialist who, like Marx, believed in the thoroughly discredited labor theory of value.)

@ “Despised money and wealth.” Prove it! Not a shred of evidence in the gospels that Jesus despised money. Nor did he object to wealth per se, but to the manner by which wealth was acquired. Learn your history. During the early first century CE, virtually the only way to become wealthy was through the use of imperial force (viz., plunder, slavery and taxation), or, as in the case of the Temple hierarchy who had made terms with the imperial power, by selling religious artifacts of atonement.

@ “Despised the rich.” Prove it! Again, not a shred of evidence that he despised the rich. He certainly didn’t approve of those who did not share their good fortune with others, but there is no evidence in the gospels that he despised anyone. Why, hell’s fire young man, he even brought salvation to the rich, chief tax collector, Zacchaeus. My dear Plume, do you get your knowledge of the gospels from Fox News?

@ “repeatedly told his would-be followers that no one could join him unless they gave away all of their earthly possessions…” No he didn’t. He told one fellow to sell all that he had give it to the poor and then, come follow him. That fellow, in the gospels of Mark and Matthew is described as a “Rich Young Ruler.” As a ruler, his riches would have been acquired by force and violence in violation of Jesus’ Father’s Commandments, and so, of course, Jesus would insist he return his wealth to those from who he had stolen it. Plume, does your copy of the Bible have Micky Mouse on the cover?

My dear Plume, you have the temerity to compare yourself favorably to Jesus, but your dishonesty just in your post #62 refutes that contention. You say, “I’m far closer to his (viz., Jesus’) vision, philosophically and ethically, than any right-wing “Christian” could ever hope to be. And it’s not close. ” As one who has had many contentious debates with those poor folks who call themselves “right-wing Christians,” I can assure you that they beat you in the ethics category hands down. In general, they don’t intentionally misrepresent Jesus’ words and deeds as you have, although they too, like you and Mr. McQuiggin, have failed to understand him for being blinded by cognitive dissonance.

@ 82 And thank you Sandwichman, for that quote of James Thomson, which I had not previously seen. As a disciple of Jesus, I must say I agree with almost every word therein. I often point out to Christians that Jesus by explicit words and dramatic examples (washing feet) warned his Apostles, especially at that Last Supper, that they were to renounce hierarchy. But shortly after Pentecost the Apostles found it beneath themselves to serve food and wash dishes so they appointed others while they tended to the more important task of preaching the word. Thomson’s description of the Christian religion today rings true with me.

Jesus in the New Testament, regarding wealth and the rich :

Sell all and give to the poor to have treasure in heaven (Luke 18:18-23)
It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to have eternal life (Luke 18:24-27)
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).
What is exalted by men (wealth), is an abomination before God (Luke 16:14-15)
Cares of the world, delight in riches and desire for things, choke the word (Mark 4:19, Luke 8:14)
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit His life? (Mark 8:36; Luke 9:25)

17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? 18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. 20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. 21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! 24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Compare: Matthew 19:16-30; Luke 18:18-30

Ned,

If you google the subject, you will find hundreds of similar passages. And I didn’t even try to bring in the Old Testament prophets, who said many of the same things about the rich.

And, yes, I know the bible well, how it was put together, its background, its history. I’ve studied comparative religion and myth since I was nine. That means nearly 50 years.

Try again.

Jerry,

Yes. Jesus contradicts himself frequently in the bible. Yahweh does as well. The bible is filled with contradictions, absurdities, bad prophecies, etc. etc. And the anthology of myths and legends we have now is quite different from the various texts read in the time of Jesus. Endlessly miscopied, mistranslated, poorly edited, redacted, books kicked out, books brought back in, etc. etc. . . . The winning factions got to write the history, and often wrote the losers out. And were sometimes written out themselves in turn.

That said, whenever I engage in arguments of this kind, I try to do so with what’s good for the goose and gander idea. And if they ever assert that Jesus never says X, I can refute this pretty fast by showing it happened numerous times — knowing all the while that there may never have been a Jesus, and that the things attributed to him may have come from a common stock of wisdom sayings instead.

The reason I think it’s important to counter the right’s Supply Side Jesus is because it’s the basis for so much of their political cohesion and the support of their base. If that base really knew the contents of the bible, especially the sayings attributed to Jesus, they’d have a much tougher time worshiping wealth and capitalism, or attacking gay people and abortion, given Jesus’ disdain for the rich and the total absence of the last two topics in any of his speeches.

Etc.

Plume,

Believe me, I understand the necessity of countering Supply-Side Jesus. But I don’t see much point in countering him by picking other quotes out of the Gospels or whatever. As you can see, people like Ned will endlessly contort themselves into a hermeneutics which allows Supply-Side Jesus to exist; arguing on that level is just conceding the frame, so to speak.

Yeshua ben Yoseph was a messianic cult leader who said a great deal of things, some of which we today find congenial and some that we recoil from. Trying to make sense of it, to ascertain what Jesus “really” meant, is a fool’s errand, even if you’re well-intentioned. There’s no way to derive democracy or socialism or capitalism or literally anything else from it. As I said, you can’t even derive Christianity from it in any straightforward way! We had trouble enough deriving political programs from people who actually pretty directly advocated political programs; I don’t see why we’d waste the time going down theological rabbit holes if we don’t need to.

The proper response to someone making Supply-Side Jesus arguments isn’t “here are the things Jesus actually meant,” it’s “good thing Jesus doesn’t make law in the United States.”

Jerry,

Understood. But, notice I didn’t say “Jesus really meant this or that.” I just quoted what he did say, at least according to the books of the New Testament. I generally do that and leave it up to the reader to decide from there. The cumulative weight, however, of so many sayings indicating disdain for the rich should get the reader to shift, if they had previously believed in Supply Side Jesus. There is just too much critical mass against it.

Key for me? Jesus never, never, not once, “blesses” the rich. But he (and the OT prophets) constantly says things to the effect of “blessed are the poor.” IOW, there is deafening silence when it comes to a single positive note about rich people, but a recurrent theme of saying awesome things about the poor. They are elevated, constantly. The rich are blasted, constantly. The contrast is unmistakable.

That said, there are probably a few things that neither side of the aisle would particularly agree with. I don’t side with the Jesus of the New Testament here, for example, if he did say this, or existed, etc. etc.

Luke 14:26New International Version (NIV)

26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

I kinda like my familia.

What Jesus really, really meant…

Ned @94, Glad you liked it.

The sense I take from Thomson’s river analogy (“rivers being remarkably convenient things for all such analogies”) is that the waters from the pure mountain spring become irretrievably mixed with the flotsam, jetsam and festering effluvia of its tributaries. At that point, we may want to imagine the “true” Jesus (or Marx or Keynes) but it is futile to try to ascertain a given interpretation.

Even if we could document particular attributes, there remains the difficulty of their arrangement. Another image from Thomson illustrates the latter dilemma, with regard to Thomas Macaulay’s assessment of Jonathan Swift:

All the materials are here, as you see for yourselves, gentlemen, each duly numbered and authenticated ; and we expect to behold a likeness, though a glaring and composite one. But at the last moment he puts them in the kaleidoscope (or kakeidoscope) of his idiosyncrasy, gives some rapid twirls and flourishes, and no mortal can guess what strange shape they shall have taken when finally settled for exhibition.

Z @16

Mark Twain does the job, I think:

The first time the Deity came down to earth, he brought life and death; when he came the second time, he brought hell.

Which is to say, that as the meek and gentle Savior he was a thousand billion times crueler than ever he was in the Old Testament — oh, incomparably more atrocious than ever he was when he was at the very worst in those old days!

Ned @107 “Perhaps, but it is very easy to refute a manifestly wrong interpretation.”

Fair enough. But not so easy to persuade others of the success of the refutation… A widely held misinterpretation is very hard to displace.

@ 99 Jerry Vinokurov, if you will be patient, the website should be active within a month or two. I made the site inactive back in 2012, prior to which it published a book-length essay on the subject. If you would like to read it, you can find it by visiting the website, Archives.org, and use the site’s”Wayback Machine” to find my website as it appeared between 2003 and 2012. When it is back on line, the same essay altered and improved will be available for downloading, free of charge. Originally titled, JESUS OF NAZARETH, ILLEGAL TAX PROTESTER, its new name will be simply JESUS ON TAXES.

Ned @111 “socialist economists have been diligently trying ever since to refute Mises’ analysis without success.”

Not sure about socialist economists but it seems to me that T. W. Hutchison did a credible performance refuting Mises’s “analysis” in 1938 in an appendix to his The Significance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory. The basic idea is that Mises “analysis” is tautological. It is “true” by definition, if you accept Mises’s apriori assumptions, but it has no empirical standing.

@105 Chip, you said, “As for the examples quoted by Ned, there are plenty of places to disagree, but just to take one- the parable of the vineyard owner was NOT that he was free to dispense his capital as he saw fit.”

Chip, what if I said, “As for the examples quoted by Chip there are plenty of places to disagree….etc.” I think you would be as dumbfounded as I am by your comment. I doubt very much that you can find “plenty” of examples to disagree, and the one single example you cite is surely one where your own interpretation is open to disagreement. But the point is, there really aren’t “plenty” of examples you’ve posited for me to disagree with, and there are not “plenty” of examples where you can disagree with me, since I didn’t provide “plenty” of examples to be disagreed with. However, if you have found plenty of things I’ve said with which you disagree, name ’em. Don’t be afraid. I won’t bite.

Regarding your interpretation of the parable of the greedy workers, when paired with Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan, my understanding that in this instance as well as the render unto Caesar’s incident, Jesus words in the mouth of the vineyard owner meant exactly what he said. “Am I not allowed to do as I please with what is mine?” Jesus’ Good Samaritan parable about the poor stranger the Samaritan found beaten, robbed and left to die along the road to Jericho extends the Vineyard-owner parable by showing why the owner of wealth has a right to do with it as he pleases. The Good Samaritan tended to the man’s wounds with provisions from HIS OWN kit. He placed the man on HIS OWN donkey. He took him to an inn where he paid for the man’s room and board with HIS OWN money. When it looked like the man’s recovery would require more funds than he had on hand, he told the innkeeper to continue the man’s care until his return with more of HIS OWN MONEY when he would pay whatever the added expense was. Note that he didn’t look to the state to care for the stranger, and if he had had his own wealth taxed away he wouldn’t have been able to do be so good to the stranger. And as Jesus concluded, “God and do likewise.”

I am inclined to think that definitions of Poe’s Law may need to be updated with links to comments by that nattering nabob of Randtivity, McNutterville.

Addendum: Or if you prefer, see @ 117.

Mattski,

This is true. The dirty little secret for propertarians is that their preferred economic forms require a great deal of government force — and cooperation between governments with force.

They couldn’t be the economic predators they wish to be if “everyone” were free to be economic predators. Yes, perhaps they’re of the “civilized” kind because they tend to wear suits and all — civilized by their own definitions, of course. But those less worried about appearances would happily take their shit and prevent their transactions and blow up the whole shabang. It is government that prevents this on their behalf — on the behalf of the minarchists and the folks purportedly against “the state,” ironically.

It’s also true that the capitalist system itself, being as complex and expansive as it is, by nature requires more government and more inter-governmental action/intervention/power than previous economic forms. When economic forms were tied to land, localities, small producers and limited trade, there was far, far less need for expansive governments to support and defend them . . . and past systems like Feudalism rarely if ever were bailed out by “the state” and never, not once, by a coordinated effort of many states together. OTOH, with capitalism, bail outs are frequent, massive and involve recipients (and donors) far and wide.

The irony of ironies? If those propertarians and minarchists really wanted “smaller government,” they would do their best to replace the existing economic system with something a good deal less complex or dynamic, and certainly less portable (globally).

Ned,

Sorry, but you’re wrong, and an obvious nutcase. Von Mises was a supporter of fascism, and later became one of the first John Birchers. It’s not a “calumny” to say that. It’s the truth. He was a disgusting human being with disgusting ideas.

And, sorry, but there has never been a socialist country in the modern world. And I’m tired of having to explain this to every brain-dead wingnut who comes along. Of course, I shouldn’t bother to add the adjective “brain-dead” in front of wingnut, since the latter implies the former. I’m also sick and tired of them bringing up the Soviet system every time someone on the left advocates for real socialism, as if we support — we don’t — those non-socialist (state capitalist) systems. As if we wanted a repeat of them — we don’t. Far, far from it.

Noam Chomsky, in a very concise manner, shreds even the idea that the Soviet Union was ever even remotely “socialist.” Watch and learn something:

Chomsky on the misuse of the word, Socialism

Though I will say, nobody will every create a genuinely socialist state, for the same reason nobody is going to create a genuine perpetual motion machine.

Socialism is impossible.

That’s why it crashes so hard everytime somebody tries it.

Brett, if something has never been tried, then it makes zero sense to keep condemning that something that has never been tried. Call it something else. It’s not socialism. I support socialism, not the systems which have been tried to date, including the capitalist system.

It also makes zero sense to condemn people for supposedly defending something which they don’t defend. You might want to focus your attention on people who defend actually existing systems of violence and coercion, like capitalism.

Think, lasagna:

Lasagna has several ingredients, with the three in the main being cheese, pasta and tomato sauce.

The main ingredients of socialism are:

1. Actual democracy, including the economy and the workplace
2. The people — not political parties or dictators — own the means of production.

Okay. So. You invite your friends over for dinner and promise them vegetarian lasagna. They like vegetarian lasagna. But you end up serving them Sirloin steak, Basmati rice and King crab legs. No pasta, cheese or tomatoes in sight. You don’t even have any of that in your house.

Your guests start to complain. They don’t like the dinner. So, is it fair or accurate for them to criticize your “vegetarian lasagna,” or your Sirloin steak, Basmati rice or crab legs? Would it be fair or accurate for them to say that if you serve “vegetarian lasagna” in the future it is doomed to fail, given the absolute failure of the “vegetarian lasagna” this time?

@121 MPAVictoria quoting me: “I quit paying the income tax in 1971.”
You don’t say?

Oh, but I did and I do. Try it you’ll like it. While states have many other ways of extorting your money (viz., excise taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc., etc. ad infinitum) to support their wars and other forms of violence, the income tax is the biggie for Uncle Sam. Withdrawing at least some of one’s support of Sam’s detestable wars and violence is a wonderfully liberating feeling. It won’t make you rich and you may have to spend some time in Sammy’s gulag, but you will have your integrity intact. You won’t be one like that dishonest socialist Plume, who says he deplores the U.S. government with his words but supports it with the fruits of his labor. In other words, puts his money where his mouth isn’t.

Ned,

All you’re doing by not paying taxes is forcing others to pay more. In an indirect way, you’re ripping off your fellow citizens. And, if I understand your own preferences, given your bizarre love for Von Mises, you are in favor of the capitalist system. That system requires ginormous amounts of public funds to keep it afloat. Always has. Always will. It, in fact, requires the most of any economic system to date. No previous system has ever required as much state apparatus (which means taxes) to keep it going.

And if we actually implemented your beloved laissez faire, the American government and governments around the world would be so busy bailing out the system, they’d quickly run out of money . . . and because of the likely absence of any social safety net (the usual preference for laissez fairers), we’d likely have revolution and worldwide collapse.

Propertarians have already gotten us part of the way there, especially from the neoliberal ascension on. But if people like you ever get your way in full, the system will collapse; we will have revolutions all across the globe; and then heaven only knows what will replace it all. My guess is fascism, tragically. So it will be a devastating, deadly tragedy followed by another.

Apparently, that’s what you and your ilk want.

Plume, go away. I’ve dismissed you until you make a serious effort to become honesty.

Mattski, ad hominem is running away. Eventually it will wear you out.

To all those who have responded to me, I sincerely thank you, whatever our differences, for I’ve enjoyed the repartee (excluding Plume’s distortion of Mises’ words). Perhaps we shall meet again. If you want to lure me out of my den, try as McQuiggin did, to argue that Jesus of Nazareth supported Caesar’s tax and told his listeners to pay it when he said “give Caesar what belongs to him.” I’ve got my google alert set to discover any propagators of such distortions of the truth, and I will generally seek them out to correct their misunderstanding. God bless you all, even Plume. Tata.

Ned,

It’s a “distortion” to quote someone in full and let him hang himself? All one has to do to show the idiocy of the Austrian school and people like Von Mises is quote them in full. Straight from the horse’s mouth, and all of that.

Let the light shine in. That’s all that’s needed.

Another addendum:

Plume, go away.

Ned, for a fella who claims to love freedom, that’s an unfortunate thing to say. It being a free internet and all.

Plume,

:^)

The last 40 posts in this thread have provided me with more entertainment than I thought possible.

Ned, I don’t think you’re crazy; I just think you’re wrong. As you might expect, I don’t care much for your tax-protestor Jesus or your von Mises. I guess I do have to commend you for your consistency in, apparently, not ever making enough to pay taxes. Personally I find that tradeoff a bad deal, but hey, you do you.

I personally prefer to construe “crank” is its own category in order to avoid imputing mental illness to people who might just be misguided or stupid.

Mattski, Ad hominem as an afterthought is nonetheless ad hominem. Nevertheless, I forgive you and will address your substantive remarks.

“There isn’t any such thing as a free market. Without a police force, without a criminal justice system, there isn’t free commerce, but rather free piracy.”

It is true that there has never been a free market, just as there may never have been “pure” socialism. Even Mises disavowed anarchy and would have the state limited to protecting the free market from those who would use force instead of fitting themselves into a regimen of freedom. I think on this one point Mises was plainly wrong. I do so relying on the wisdom of Jesus. Mises’ mistake was in believing, contrary to Jesus, that a bad tree (viz., the state through its INITIATION of force and violence0), can produce good fruit (viz., securing the free market). Relying on both logic and much historical evidence, I see the pirate and bandit as much less formidable enemies of freedom, people and the free market than the state. Are you familiar with R.J. Rummel’s statistical compilation of what he calls “democide?” (Rummel defines democide this way:, “Genocide: among other things, the killing of people by a government because of their indelible group membership [race, ethnicity, religion, language] .Politicide: the murder of any person or people by a government because of their politics or for political purposes. Mass Murder: the indiscriminate killing of any person or people by a government. Democide: The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.”–see, http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.CHAP2.HTM)?

Rummel’s statistic show that governments through their overwhelming force have slaughtered their own citizens and others in numbers that exponentially exceed all the murders by individuals and organized gangs, who lack the power to tax and amass the revenues necessary to purchase or produce the most destructive weapons and draft or enlist large numbers of agents willing to do the state’s dirty work. I hope you will read Rummel’s book, DEATH BY GOVERNMENT, if you harbor any fiction that governments generally serve to secure the rights of citizens or democracy. Mythical “unicorn” governments perhaps, but not real ones.

@ 139 Mattski: ” I also pointed out the foolishness of your claim that socialism relies on violence. Because–need I say it?–any social order that must contend with human misbehavior is going to rely on violence, either as a first resort (fascism?) or a last resort (democracy?).”

I should have said that socialism relies on the INITIATION of violence, even in its purest, theoretical form. Although I am a pacifist who has personally renounced the use of force even in self defense, it is only the initiation of force that I abhor, and I should have made that clear. Laissez faire, on the other hand, theoretically need not initiate force for its effectuation. It is the way most people conduct themselves in the absence of force and violence. As Mises has brilliantly described its admittedly theoretical workings, the free market depends on persuasion and cooperation between and among participants and produces social harmony, whereas the initiation of force and violence surely generates social chaos and perpetuates violence eternally, or at least until someone “turns the other cheek.”

Mattski, do you really believe democracy only resorts to violence as a last resort? (I duly note your insertion of a question mark telling me you are dubious.) No doubt you have read the history of the United States as it pertains to the slaughter of entire Indian tribes (genocide) during the “winning the West (and the East, too?” Have you studied America’s war on the inhabitants of the Philippines? This page at Wikipedia refutes the fable that this democratic nation has resorted to violence only as a last resort . More often than not, the purpose of the United States government initiating military operations has been hegemony and dominance rather than defense of its people.

Now you may have the last word, for I’ll try hard not to respond.

Actual chronic paranoid schizophrenia and the paranoid style of politics do have a lot in common, so much so that the mental disease probably is the misfunctioning of the latter, much as the depressive disorders are a misfunctioning of the grief reaction. That of course begs the question of what function the paranoid style of politics has, how such a thing is not simply counter-survival. Perhaps it actually served a purpose back when we were divided into small tribes all in a state of constant war with one another, to keep people on their toes against all those strangers who actually were all plotting against them.

One difference between the two is that actual paranoid schizophrenics have a pretty strong tendency to private, exclusive delusions. The TV, or the neighbor’s dog, speaks to them alone, and certainly not to a mass movement. Their delusional systems are too subtle and abstruse for anyone else to understand and agree with them. Such agreement is viewed with suspicion, and the fact that other people are on the same wavelength tends to discredit that wavelength as a source of true insight.

I only get worried that I’m dealing with an actual sick person in these exchanges, when their thinking and its expression is so disorganized that it wobbles out of the usual ruts of the standard paranoid content that’s current at the moment. Ned strikes me as quite healthy in that respect.

A desire for a “free market” is a desire for tyranny of the few over the many. It’s just Orwellian nonsense code for the desire of the rich to have completely free rein to be as predatory as they can be. They already have this to a degree far too damaging for workers, consumers and the planet. If it ever moved to the point of truly free rein, the result would be catastrophic to the point of no possible recovery. The “free market” would sink itself and it would never get back up. The partially free market has already done that (sunk itself) dozens of times, only to be bailed out by governments all over the world, especially America’s.

Also. On whose behalf do government’s commit violence? Who do they initiate force against and for whom? They generally initiate violence against threats to their backers, their donors, their puppet masters and the system that makes them rich and powerful.

One of the major problems with the right is that they stop at government in their critiques. They see government as the be all and end all of possible “tyranny.” They don’t try to lift the curtain, the veil, to see who’s pulling government’s strings. Either through ignorance or fear, they refuse to take the next logical step. Find out why the government does what it does, and for whom.

The left typically critiques the puppet masters and the puppets. Both. Both/and. The right is too busy slobbering all over capitalists to see who’s really behind the curtain. Their paychecks depend upon them doing so.

Sorry. Should be “in its purest, theoretical form,”

@114 Sandwich man. This is a comment I missed that is certainly deserving of a reply.

“Not sure about socialist economists but it seems to me that T. W. Hutchison did a credible performance refuting Mises’s “analysis” in 1938 in an appendix to his The Significance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory. The basic idea is that Mises “analysis” is tautological. It is “true” by definition, if you accept Mises’s apriori assumptions, but it has no empirical standing.”

The epistemology of economics is a bit arcane for a blog like this. Mises in his books, HUMAN ACTION and ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND THE AUSTRIAN METHOD (https://mises.org/books/esam.pdf) defends the a priori method as the only proper economic methodology as against empiricism, as does Hans Hermann Hoppe in ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND THE AUSTRIAN METHOD (https://mises.org/books/esam.pdf) There must be hundreds of papers on the Mises.org website discussing this controversy. Essentially and to try to simplify, the empirical method is useless for a social science such as economics wherein the subject matter is human action. The reason is you cannot subject human behavior to empirical (experimental) testing and analysis because people aren’t suited to laboratory experiments and do not fit very well into test tubes. Empirical methods may work for physics, biology and astronomy, but are quite useless for economics, geometry and logic . Even where brutal dictators exercise unrestrained control of a population, their social experiments with people fail to render any useful economic information. Mao’s Great Leap Forward was screwed up by obstinate humanoids refusing to cooperate by not climbing into his test tubes as directed. Instead, they rebelled by dying.. (“Not all deaths during the Great Leap were from starvation. Frank Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were beaten or tortured to death and 1 to 3 million committed suicide.[104] He provides some illustrative examples. In Xinyang, where over a million died in 1960, 6-7 percent (around 67,000) of these were beaten to death by the militias. In Daoxian county, 10 percent of those who died had been “buried alive, clubbed to death or otherwise killed by party members and their militia.” In Shimen county, around 13,500 died in 1960, of these 12 per cent were “beaten or driven to their deaths.”–see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward Stalin ran into the same problem

As for Mises “analysis” being tautological, you’d be surprised at how much you can and have learned form tautologies. Criticism’s like Hutchison’s refutation of Mises’ analysis of Socialism is just one of those by economists with a socialist bent who tried but failed to refute Mises analysis. Mises economics and praxeological methodology remains at the pinnacle of economic thought, and Austrian Economics has been enjoying an unprecedented surge in popularity, recognition and confirmation of its methods, Picketty’s silly book of unreliable statistics to the contrary notwithstanding. (Although he certainly is the darling of socialists and misguided economists who remain enthralled by not enlightened by empirical economics. For a relatively concise dissertation on this subject, I would suggest an article by Danny Sanchez: http://mises.org/daily/5158/Mises-on-Mind-and-Method

The vile and unscrupulous attacks upon Mises by socialists of the likes of Plume are considered absolutely prerequisite to imposing socialism anywhere, because Mises arguments in his book SOCIALISM remain the most lopgical and pragmatic reason for rejecting socialism. For a period of time socialists steered away from confronting Mises head on because his withering analysis left no openings in his intellectual armor, but with the late resurgence of Austrian Economics it has become incumbent upon socialist to attack Ludwig von Mises by any vile means possible. Thus you see such distortions of the truth as perpetrated by Plume.

Awesome.

Ned,

Look at all the things we have in common. Like you, I heat my home & workshop with wood. Although I have reached the age and–dare I say it?–level of financial capacity where I am able to pay someone else to cut, split & deliver. Phew! Like you, I have few illusions about the use of military force in US history. Why, I even think Dwight Eisenhower was prophetic to warn us about the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex. And he was a Republican! Indeed, wasn’t it Martin Luther King who described our country in 1967 as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world”? I rather agree with MLK, and unfortunately it seems still true almost 50 years later.

OK. So, you say socialism relies on the initiation of violence. As far as I can tell you provided no evidence for this claim. That’s one thing. Next, it seems to me that any argument you might offer in support of this claim could similarly be applied to any sort of social organization you could imagine. That includes democracy and it includes ‘free markets.’ As I said previously, markets cannot function without enforcement of rules. Do you dispute this claim?

From my perspective you are putting your faith in a “theory” of free markets. That is very different than actually existing markets. My friend Plume puts his faith in a theory of Socialism. I have a problem with that. But I think you have the same problem.

Would you mind if I butchered Winston Churchill? Democracy is the worst system imaginable, except for all the others.

But the answer to the failings of democracy in the real world is not to retreat into some comforting fairy tale of free market or socialist utopia. The answer is to make democracy work better by getting involved in the process. In that connection I’d add: thank Bog for the internet.

Peace to you, brother.

Ned,

I’m guessing, from both the tone of your comments and the content, you’re having fun here, playing a character, and you don’t mean half of what you say. Perhaps much less than that. The high dudgeon act is pretty much a dead giveaway for that. And the “tata.”

That said, if you’re actually serious, which I doubt, let me clue you in on something. Socialists and Marxists, especially, never feared (or fear) Von Mises. They mostly didn’t pay any attention to him, and still don’t. Why? Because he was a crank, a quack, and the Austrian school was long a laughing stock among serious leftist economists. In short, he’s seen as a joke, and so is that school. It’s only been with the rise of American propertarians that the Austrian school has been given a second wind, not that any credible scholars of history and economics think it merits any attention. Ron Paul gave it a lift, and others like him, pulling it out of the dung heap of history, because it gives selfishness and predatory economics faux-intellectual cover. And because Koch brothers billions — among other billionaire cranks and quacks — given it financial support. Just as they do for another arch crank and quack, Ayn Rand.

I could safely ignore people like Von Mises, his supporters and the institute named after him (funded by the Kochs) if not for the growing power of right-libertarianism in America. There is nothing of any value to be gleaned from Von Mises or the Austrian school. It’s pure bunk and easily refuted. The only reason to pay attention is because people with actual power in society believe in its pseudo-intellectual teachings . . . again, because it gives cover for rapacious and predatory capitalism.

I hope I’m right that you’re just having people on with your rants here. If you honestly believe what you’re saying, or truly support cranks like Von Mises, I pity you.

How you get to the absence of the state is key. The left wants to get there via true democracy, equality of rights, human rights, civil rights and equal access to the fruits of society — in harmony with the planet. And it wants to get there with social justice for all. It wants the absence of the state to be the fruit of egalitarian commitments.

Right-anarchists, OTOH, want to get there because they don’t want anyone or anything to stand in the way of the few controlling the many, amassing the greatest amount of wealth and power possible. They don’t like democracy, or equality, and see inequality as somehow “natural.” So their dream of the absence of the state is in the service of the steepest kind of hierarchy the world has ever seen, and will be the final nail in the coffin for this planet.

Two visions of the absence of the state. The left’s vision means equality, social justice, democracy internalized to the point where we can do without the state apparatus. The right’s vision means the apotheosis of Social Darwinism, the rule of the strongest, richest, most powerful. No democracy. No equality. Warlords, monopolies, cartels. As in, slavery and tyranny of the few over the many. And the right’s vision would bring on environmental armageddon as well.

Both visions are unlikely to ever happen. Highly unlikely. But one, the left’s, is actually worth striving for. The other, the right’s, is worth preventing at all costs.

Halloween seems to start just a little bit earlier every year.

Probably My Last Addendum:

Ned, I wonder how you would feel about the state if you lived in Sweden, for example. Not every advanced nation is as dependent as the US on military spending. And many nations do a much better job of caring for their people than we do.

**godoggo is exhibit A for mischievous rascals…

Seriously. It’s just logic.

For the first time, an egalitarian, democratic, cooperative system would be in place. What is the logical adaptation under those circumstances? Not because people are necessarily filled with goodness and light and want to sing kumbaya around the campfire all day long. But because most people aren’t sociopaths and don’t want to conquer the world. A small percentage does. But most people don’t.

Most people want to get along to get along, at least. And they adapt. Sheesh, slaves adapted as best they could to slavery, for goddess sake. They did their best to survive. And for thousands of years, we’ve had these systems of top down dominance and oppression by the few over the many. What is the likely, logical outcome if we evolve enough to end that? What is the likely, logical, rational outcome if we finally set up a system based on egalitarian principles, real democracy, real social justice?

A communal, cooperative system logically encourages cooperation and attempted harmonies, at least. A true system of shared power, shared resources, shared responsibilities logically results in a lot of sharing and cooperation.

It’s not rocket science.

Plume,

Something you evidently don’t see is the similarity between some of your utterances and (how convenient!) Sandwichman’s synopsis of Mises, as it relates to Ned.

Plume: “It’s just logic.”
Mises: No need for empirical testing.

You also repeat certain phrases like, “it’s not rocket science,” quite a bit. If it is all so simple then why do you also say that, “we’ve never had true democracy and actual power sharing. Ever.”

This doesn’t give you pause? It gives me pause.

Mattski,

I’m all for testing the theories. Go for it. See if the ingredients for socialism have ever been present in the modern world in one place at one time. Think about my lasagna analogy. Test the theory that it’s never happened. Search for an example. I think you’ll be searching for a long, long time.

Test the theory that a system based on cooperative, democratic, communal and egalitarian structures would lead to more cooperation and harmony, etc. Test that against the one with a top down, autocratic, hierarchical structure. Which one really leads to more violence and coercion?

I’m all open to testing of any of my statements. The more the merrier.

Test the theory that a system based on cooperative, democratic, communal and egalitarian structures would lead to more cooperation and harmony, etc. Test that against the one with a top down, autocratic, hierarchical structure. Which one really leads to more violence and coercion?

You and Ned are mirror images.

Ned says–plausibly–that markets encourage people to cooperate and behave responsibly, AND they disperse power because they have a fairly robust ability to function on their own. (This doesn’t contradict the ‘no such thing as a free market’ critique which I previously offered, and which Ned conceded.)

Your claims also have a certain plausibility, because most of us have had the experience of successfully cooperating with others without the desire to ‘get an edge’ on the folks we’re working with. But BOTH of you are relying on best case scenarios to get your vision to work.

You’re all for testing theories? I can think of a pretty robust test of yours & Ned’s theories. It’s called “history.” You both fail this test–you by your own admission–with flying colors.

One last remark. You’re fond of this phrase, the people own the means of production. I’ll never convince you, but this idea is utterly incoherent. Absolutely and utterly. Anyone who pays attention to how things get done, in reality not in fantasy, knows that too many masters will doom almost any undertaking. Try sailing a ship that way… you will die.

“Anyone who pays attention to how things get done, in reality not in fantasy, knows that too many masters will doom almost any undertaking. Try sailing a ship that way… you will die.”

Pirate ships were democracies. They often functioned rather well (until the Royal Navy got them).

The Athenian army elected its generals by democratic vote. They beat the Persians. Some people even have speculated that Greek democracy resulted from its military practices. On the other hand, a leader, once elected, was deferred to.

Luke, Pirate ships were democracies. They often functioned rather well (until the Royal Navy got them).

Give us a cite, wouldja? In a critical situation it is rather helpful to have an authority who can shut off debate in an instant. If a ship captain comes under suspicion of incompetence by his crew the crew can oust him. But they will elect someone to take his place.

Which goes to Harold’s point, which is kind of THE point. The one thing we can profitably do on a mass participatory level is elect leaders. But we can’t direct a battle the same way and expect not to get slaughtered. We would get slaughtered.

McNutterville @156:

The epistemology of economics is a bit arcane for a blog like this.

You must be new here.

Ibid. @163:

If the people under socialism are going to own the productive resources, you and I and everyone with half a brain knows that a violent state will be necessary to acquire and own those resources…

In school, I learned about how we in these United States came to own the productive resources. Have we been socialists all this time without admitting it?

@184
Not every sphere of life is an armed camp that demands military discipline (yet). The Athenians elected generals and other people who needed specific technical expertise, who would then be deferred to on campaign, while other offices were filled by lot. Laws were voted on by citizens in the assembly. So, ‘democracy’ can mean a lot of things even within a single polity.

Regarding pirates, captains were often elected and could be deposed. That doesn’t mean having a meeting in the middle of battle, obviously. I can’t for the life of me recall the title of my source, and it’s driving me insane, but it’s a commonplace in histories of piracy around the 18th C., IIRC.

Plume,

Why should we elect leaders? Why not just have them chosen by lottery?

Because I wouldn’t want lawmakers chosen by lottery. Because in choosing we can look for desirable characteristics. Because people aren’t all equal in sagacity, in social skill, in experience. Etc.

Sports analogies? How does a team captain get chosen? It’s a combination of skill as a player and the ability to inspire confidence among teammates. Do you think many sports teams choose their leaders by lot?

How does the captain of a passenger jet or ship get chosen? Not by lots. Jury members get chosen by lot.

I should add that your defence of ‘merit’ raises the problem of defining value. How does one define ‘sagacity’? Do we apoint an expert panel of sagaciticians? Surely, the public, not being sagacious, cannot be allowed to decide what constitutes sagacity? Perhaps if we train an elite cadre of sagaciticians, they can make such decisions? But there will need to be a curriculum — so, we must find the most sagacious persons, and let them create it. Only, how will we know who is sagacious enought to define sagacity?

Each of these absurdities is a throne made for a tyrant (or a clique of tyrants), who must step in sooner or later. The definition of merit is… The authority to define merit.

This is not just a reductio ad absurdum — the purpose of Plato’s pursuit of virtue is to attack the (peaceful, stable and functional, by the standards of its time) democracy in which he lives. What, actually, constitutes ‘expertise’ in lawmaking? Well, for Plato, it means being an educated, eloquent aristocrat. In fact, Athens functioned quite well by allowing all of its citizens to be lawmakers, and law arbiters, with opinions from experts on technical matters. We, on the other hand, have been so well conditioned to accept authority that thinking for ourselves is unthinkable.

Also, at the workplace level. Operations. A CEO. It is incredibly rare that day to day operations of your average businesses involve advanced, esoteric, extremely elevated levels of knowledge. Decisions by CEOs rarely, rarely require that. So workplaces could do just fine being fully democratized, with leadership councils rotating in and out. Occupations within that structure that do require sophisticated specialization? That wouldn’t change. In the capitalist system there is a difference between the decisions of “managers” and the skills of surgeons and their equivalents. That wouldn’t change in the alternative.

Common sense would guide where lotteries would come in to play and where esoteric, advanced knowledge and skill would apply — where it would be absurd to choose X, Y or Z based on lotteries.

Stevenjohnson,

Here’s an interesting article that ties back to a past CT discussion (Red Plenty):

http://louisproyect.org/2012/06/27/crooked-timbers-neo-austrians/

Luke,

I’m in agreement with most everything you’re saying there. I’m certainly no fan of Plato! On the contrary, as I said above, I regard I.F. Stone’s, The Trial of Socrates, as a bible of sorts. For that book does more than anyone ever has to knock Socrates off his pedestal.

The point of an election is you, me and everyone else gets to decide what sagacity is.

mattski,

But, again, in our system, we don’t get to choose who runs. We have to select from a very limited pool that others create, primarily for their benefit. It’s very similar to the idea of “choice” in a store. It’s an illusion.

Remember the scene in “The Hurt Locker,” where the main character comes back from Iraq and goes food shopping?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo

I immediately thought he must be thinking, “I risked my life for this?”

The illusion of choice. It’s what’s for breakfast.

But, again, our leaders aren’t chosen for those special traits. It’s rather obvious that very few of them have them.

I think you’re plainly wrong. I’m not even coming close to endorsing our government as a whole, which I clearly don’t. Our government is in a sorry state of affairs, imo. Nevertheless, a lot of talented people with good motivation do in fact get elected to national office in the USA.

Sure, it helps to come from money. FDR & JFK would probably never have been president had they come from modest backgrounds. But both were, imo, extraordinary presidents. (In recent years I’ve become convinced that JFK was murdered precisely because of his best instincts. For anyone interested, see here, here, here. ) I think Jimmy Carter was a very good president, same for Bill Clinton. Both Clinton and Obama were/are victims of bad circumstance, i.e. the rise of partisan dysfunction. Al Gore would have been a good president had he not been tripped up by our beltway/media elite who were–no surprise–acting on behalf of the plutocracy whether they were aware of it or not.

Part of what I think you gloss over is that nothing is a panacea for the human condition. Democracy is a pretty good idea, compared to the alternatives, but the fact is very bad leaders also get elected. There are no guarantees in this world.

Somehow, I’m in the mood to watch The Parallax View again.