Ask any economist and they'll tell you that wars are not only not inevitable, but there is no rational explanation for them at all, if by "rational" you mean "economically rational." There is a serious problem in economics called "the war puzzle" or "the war problem" that tries to figure out why the hell people ever go to war, because it is never economically rational for either side to do so, regardless of outcome.
Just to clarify, I think you mean ask any neo-classical economist. I don't think Institutionalists for instance consider this inexplicable, not being so tied to rational choice models.
Zimbabwe has a relatively modern and (at least until very recently) well regarded military and they still field mounted infantry. They are considered special forces and descend from the Rhodesian Grey's Scouts, who fought very effectively during the Second Chimurenga.
Ump, using Anarchism for Socialism? As I learned them anarchism is the absence of government, unlike libertarians which advocates small and limited government, and socialism is the government owns the means of production. A person could own their own home but not their own business. Actually under Tito's [wikipedia.org] Yugoslavia a person could run their own business but the government owned part of it.
Well, you learned the first one right. However what you describe as Socialism is actually State Socialism. Socialism is defined by public ownership of the means of production, not specifically government ownership. The reason why libertarians need government is to enforce private property rights. Anarchists don't believe in private property, so there is no need for government. In much of 19th century Europe Anarchism was called Libertarian-Socialism. All the anarchist philosophers, Proudhon ("property is theft"), Bakunin, Kropotkin etc., were avowed socialists.
In discussing Yugoslavia you remind me of a real world market socialist scenario. In the 1980s the Chinese government started to liberalize agriculture by allowing farmers to sell a portion of their product in open markets with less regulated pricing. The government still owned all the land. The farmers essentially rented from them for a portion of their product and sold the rest for themselves. I don't keep up with China, so I have no idea where this went in the interim. And my memory is that the markets weren't all that free, but there is no reason they couldn't be. That was an administrative decision on the CCP's part.
A free market is a two way street not one way. If I can't own my own business it's not a free market.
Control is not ownership. According to Tucker, if the state grants you a monopoly on capital (by enforcing property rights), even if you don't contribute to product, the market can't be free. In other words, If you don't farm your land yourself, you shouldn't exercise any rights over it. He opposed rents and interest. Markets were Tucker's thing. He hated capitalism, but often said it was preferable to State Socialism, because it at least allowed for SOME choice.
Let me check that... My copies don't list him but wiki says he published it.
Maybe Lysander Spooner founded it and he took it over. I don't remember. They were practically the same person. Best friends.
I read "Liberty" semi-regularly, and subscribe to "Reason" magazine, and don't recall reading about him before.
Well, he was a big influence on Murray Rothbard. I don't really get why, except that Rothbard was intent on appropriating the term Anarchism from the Socialists. I guess he thought it sounded cooler than Libertarian.
Perhaps I phrased it wrong. I hadn't heard of them before and didn't know if they were important.
The name looks familiar but I don't really recall why. According to your link she supported woman's rights in the late 1700s. That's two people I know of that did back then, Thomas Jefferson also supported equal rights for women and Blacks. In his early drafts of the "Declaration of Independence" he included both as enjoying rights also. However others had to sign it and they opposed this.
Jefferson was a flaming hypocrite. His support for black and women's civil right extended as far as his conversation. He literally kept an underage black sex slave. I don't think holding black women in bondage and repeatedly raping them shows much support for their civil rights. Perhaps you are confusing him with John Adams, whose deeds more closely matched his rhetoric. Adams and his equal partner/wife Abigail actively supported black causes and opposed slavery in deed as well as word. Their son John Quincy was an even more active civil rights advocate.
That said, another influential 18th century feminist was Mme. Olympe de Gouge. If you are interested in such things, read her.
Mary Wollstonecraft was married to the first Anarchist philosopher, William Godwin. Their daughter was Mary Shelley.
I am not a socialist, not even a market socialist, whatever that is. I believe in free trade, private (real) property, and voluntary exchanges. I put real in parentheses because I oppose imaginary Intellectual Property, IP, like patents. They may of been useful at one tyme but now they hinder progress.
Your definition would seriously disappoint market socialists like Sam Bowles or Ben Tucker.
I don't know who either one is, I don't recall ever hearing of either one, so I don't care.
Falcon
I think Market Socialism is pretty self explanatory. It is a system of free markets and public ownership. Because, you know, Socialism and Capitalism are not market models in and of themselves. Sam Bowles is a famous American economist. Benjamin Tucker was America's foremost Individualist Anarchist. He founded and edited the journal Liberty. He was a 19th/20th century market socialist who argued passionately against private property, which he called the land monopoly, and for free markets. Many American Libertarians worship him, presumably because they don't understand his beliefs fully.
But why should you care about anyone you haven't heard of? They couldn't have been important.
No, I use capitalism as a voluntary exchange. A free market is included in that though. I am a member of 2 coops, and I include that as well.
That doesn't leave much room for Market Socialism. Your definition would seriously disappoint market socialists like Sam Bowles or Ben Tucker. Neither of them would be very happy about being called a capitalist.
OK, that explains why you define Capitalism as Free-Market Capitalism only. You are into Mises/Austrian "economics." Mainstream economics does not define Capitalism that way.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments is classic. Smith was a great empirical philosopher. Of course, if you like Mises you should hate Smith, as Mises despised empiricism, especially in economics. How anybody can read Mises past the point where he calls economics an "a priori science" is beyond me. The very phrase is oxymoronic. And the idea is just plain moronic.
I read Smith, as well Ricardo, Malthus and all the British Classical school when I was a political economy major in college. Smith did not define capitalism, He described a form of it that was in the early stages of development. The word "capitalism" does not even appear in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of
the Wealth of Nations.
You did people a disservice by linking to Amazon instead of to the Project Gutenberg editions of the book. I mean, it was published in 1776. Pretty sure it is in the public Domain everywhere now. This is a great book. Maybe not so well written or funny as Marx/Engels or Veblen, but fascinating and important. More people should read it.
First of all, that isn't the definition of feudalism. Feudalism is a system where a monarchy grants rights to use of the (agrarian) means of production in exchange for military service. The crown retains ownership. The East-India model is not feudal, it is mercantile. The government granted rights to exploit specific markets, but the company owned the means of production. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production regardless of how markets are structured or regulated. Popularly, people often use capitalism to mean free market capitalism, but that is only one type. Ownership and markets are separate phenomena. You can have government owned companies (socialist) competing in free markets and privately owned ones (capitalist) in government sanctioned monopolies and oligopolies (like cable companies).
That is a tough argument to make considering we keep coming up with new excuses to use tactical nukes. Even for purposes for which they are poorly suited.
OTOH, playing music for horses IS asinine. The horses' problem is not that they don't have enough audio stimulation, it is that they are locked in 12' x 10' boxes all day long. This is not a situation for which evolution has equipped them. It is terrible for their brains, feet and digestive systems. Stabled horses are uniformly unhealthy compared to pastured horses, and prone to debilitating and dangerous psychological problems like aerophagia. Horses have very delicate digestive and hoof systems that rely on constant movement for proper function. Confining them in stalls is convenient for humans, but severely impedes this function. Horses can't vomit, and minor digestive distress can easily kill them.
The one thing I really dislike about living on the east coast vs. Wyoming is the fundamentally abusive nature of the horse care system here. There are plenty of abusive owners out west, but the basic standard of care is far better. I actually bought a second home in the country just so my horses could have enough land to live a healthy life. Also to shut my wife up. My vet loves me for it. Every time he comes for vaccinations he remarks on how much healthier and happier and healthier my horses are than his other clients.
Unless your Mayor is Rudy Guilliani. He will take your sealed record and expose it on TV, claiming the cops had a right to murder you after you refused to sell them drugs, because when you were a kid you once got is a fight over $.25. Then he will say you are "no choirboy," even though you in fact were a choirboy.
Dick never saw the film. In fact he died before it wrapped. He loved the dailies Scott showed him because he felt they captured the feel of the novel very well and he was supportive. He also said he thought Sean Young was perfectly cast. I'd be surprised if he would have been happy with the finished product. It just wasn't his style to accept other people's interpretations of his work. He was very critical of Ursula Le Guin on that point. She OTOH was incredibly supportive of him, calling him "our own home grown Borges." Dick also had a big fight with the studio because they wanted him to write a novelization of the film.
The difference is that in the Econoline you were sitting in the cab. They were mid-engine vans. You could do it outside in a snowstorm and never know the difference. A friend of mine was doing his bottom end bearings in the rain once when a VW van enthusiast we knew happened by. Needless to say, the guy was seriously rethinking his choice of vehicle by the time he left.
Or, one could buy 10 or more easy-to-DIY-fix old VW beetles with enough spare parts and earth-frendliness to last a lifetime.
People who call Bugs easy to fix have never owned a Dodge Dart. Or better yet a 61-67 Ford van. You could do a bottom end rebuild from inside the vehicle on those. But my best balance of fuel economy and ease of maintenance was the Datsun b210/210. I used to get over 40MPG highway in my late model five speed 210. The 1978 EPA rating was 50MPG highway. It was a better car than the Bug in almost every way. No gas fired heater though.
Slashdot Mirror
Ask any economist and they'll tell you that wars are not only not inevitable, but there is no rational explanation for them at all, if by "rational" you mean "economically rational." There is a serious problem in economics called "the war puzzle" or "the war problem" that tries to figure out why the hell people ever go to war, because it is never economically rational for either side to do so, regardless of outcome.
Just to clarify, I think you mean ask any neo-classical economist. I don't think Institutionalists for instance consider this inexplicable, not being so tied to rational choice models.
Zimbabwe has a relatively modern and (at least until very recently) well regarded military and they still field mounted infantry. They are considered special forces and descend from the Rhodesian Grey's Scouts, who fought very effectively during the Second Chimurenga.
Ump, using Anarchism for Socialism? As I learned them anarchism is the absence of government, unlike libertarians which advocates small and limited government, and socialism is the government owns the means of production. A person could own their own home but not their own business. Actually under Tito's [wikipedia.org] Yugoslavia a person could run their own business but the government owned part of it.
Well, you learned the first one right. However what you describe as Socialism is actually State Socialism. Socialism is defined by public ownership of the means of production, not specifically government ownership. The reason why libertarians need government is to enforce private property rights. Anarchists don't believe in private property, so there is no need for government. In much of 19th century Europe Anarchism was called Libertarian-Socialism. All the anarchist philosophers, Proudhon ("property is theft"), Bakunin, Kropotkin etc., were avowed socialists.
In discussing Yugoslavia you remind me of a real world market socialist scenario. In the 1980s the Chinese government started to liberalize agriculture by allowing farmers to sell a portion of their product in open markets with less regulated pricing. The government still owned all the land. The farmers essentially rented from them for a portion of their product and sold the rest for themselves. I don't keep up with China, so I have no idea where this went in the interim. And my memory is that the markets weren't all that free, but there is no reason they couldn't be. That was an administrative decision on the CCP's part.
As for Jefferson, that is quite a justification.
A free market is a two way street not one way. If I can't own my own business it's not a free market.
Control is not ownership. According to Tucker, if the state grants you a monopoly on capital (by enforcing property rights), even if you don't contribute to product, the market can't be free. In other words, If you don't farm your land yourself, you shouldn't exercise any rights over it. He opposed rents and interest. Markets were Tucker's thing. He hated capitalism, but often said it was preferable to State Socialism, because it at least allowed for SOME choice.
Let me check that... My copies don't list him but wiki says he published it.
Maybe Lysander Spooner founded it and he took it over. I don't remember. They were practically the same person. Best friends.
I read "Liberty" semi-regularly, and subscribe to "Reason" magazine, and don't recall reading about him before.
Well, he was a big influence on Murray Rothbard. I don't really get why, except that Rothbard was intent on appropriating the term Anarchism from the Socialists. I guess he thought it sounded cooler than Libertarian.
Perhaps I phrased it wrong. I hadn't heard of them before and didn't know if they were important.
The name looks familiar but I don't really recall why. According to your link she supported woman's rights in the late 1700s. That's two people I know of that did back then, Thomas Jefferson also supported equal rights for women and Blacks. In his early drafts of the "Declaration of Independence" he included both as enjoying rights also. However others had to sign it and they opposed this.
Jefferson was a flaming hypocrite. His support for black and women's civil right extended as far as his conversation. He literally kept an underage black sex slave. I don't think holding black women in bondage and repeatedly raping them shows much support for their civil rights. Perhaps you are confusing him with John Adams, whose deeds more closely matched his rhetoric. Adams and his equal partner/wife Abigail actively supported black causes and opposed slavery in deed as well as word. Their son John Quincy was an even more active civil rights advocate.
That said, another influential 18th century feminist was Mme. Olympe de Gouge. If you are interested in such things, read her.
Mary Wollstonecraft was married to the first Anarchist philosopher, William Godwin. Their daughter was Mary Shelley.
I am not a socialist, not even a market socialist, whatever that is. I believe in free trade, private (real) property, and voluntary exchanges. I put real in parentheses because I oppose imaginary Intellectual Property, IP, like patents. They may of been useful at one tyme but now they hinder progress.
Your definition would seriously disappoint market socialists like Sam Bowles or Ben Tucker.
I don't know who either one is, I don't recall ever hearing of either one, so I don't care.
Falcon
I think Market Socialism is pretty self explanatory. It is a system of free markets and public ownership. Because, you know, Socialism and Capitalism are not market models in and of themselves. Sam Bowles is a famous American economist. Benjamin Tucker was America's foremost Individualist Anarchist. He founded and edited the journal Liberty. He was a 19th/20th century market socialist who argued passionately against private property, which he called the land monopoly, and for free markets. Many American Libertarians worship him, presumably because they don't understand his beliefs fully.
But why should you care about anyone you haven't heard of? They couldn't have been important.
Oh also, anyone who reads Paine should also read Mary Wollstonecraft.
No, I use capitalism as a voluntary exchange. A free market is included in that though. I am a member of 2 coops, and I include that as well.
That doesn't leave much room for Market Socialism. Your definition would seriously disappoint market socialists like Sam Bowles or Ben Tucker. Neither of them would be very happy about being called a capitalist.
OK, that explains why you define Capitalism as Free-Market Capitalism only. You are into Mises/Austrian "economics." Mainstream economics does not define Capitalism that way.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments is classic. Smith was a great empirical philosopher. Of course, if you like Mises you should hate Smith, as Mises despised empiricism, especially in economics. How anybody can read Mises past the point where he calls economics an "a priori science" is beyond me. The very phrase is oxymoronic. And the idea is just plain moronic.
I read Smith, as well Ricardo, Malthus and all the British Classical school when I was a political economy major in college. Smith did not define capitalism, He described a form of it that was in the early stages of development. The word "capitalism" does not even appear in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
You did people a disservice by linking to Amazon instead of to the Project Gutenberg editions of the book. I mean, it was published in 1776. Pretty sure it is in the public Domain everywhere now. This is a great book. Maybe not so well written or funny as Marx/Engels or Veblen, but fascinating and important. More people should read it.
Maybe you wouldn't miss it if you studied economics in college rather than relying on answers.com.
First of all, that isn't the definition of feudalism. Feudalism is a system where a monarchy grants rights to use of the (agrarian) means of production in exchange for military service. The crown retains ownership. The East-India model is not feudal, it is mercantile. The government granted rights to exploit specific markets, but the company owned the means of production. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production regardless of how markets are structured or regulated. Popularly, people often use capitalism to mean free market capitalism, but that is only one type. Ownership and markets are separate phenomena. You can have government owned companies (socialist) competing in free markets and privately owned ones (capitalist) in government sanctioned monopolies and oligopolies (like cable companies).
That is a tough argument to make considering we keep coming up with new excuses to use tactical nukes. Even for purposes for which they are poorly suited.
You know, a state-protected oligopoly is hardly "hyper-capitalism".
Of course it is. Capitalism is an ownership model, not a market model.
Really?
Actually, there were significant public health effects.
OTOH, playing music for horses IS asinine. The horses' problem is not that they don't have enough audio stimulation, it is that they are locked in 12' x 10' boxes all day long. This is not a situation for which evolution has equipped them. It is terrible for their brains, feet and digestive systems. Stabled horses are uniformly unhealthy compared to pastured horses, and prone to debilitating and dangerous psychological problems like aerophagia. Horses have very delicate digestive and hoof systems that rely on constant movement for proper function. Confining them in stalls is convenient for humans, but severely impedes this function. Horses can't vomit, and minor digestive distress can easily kill them.
The one thing I really dislike about living on the east coast vs. Wyoming is the fundamentally abusive nature of the horse care system here. There are plenty of abusive owners out west, but the basic standard of care is far better. I actually bought a second home in the country just so my horses could have enough land to live a healthy life. Also to shut my wife up. My vet loves me for it. Every time he comes for vaccinations he remarks on how much healthier and happier and healthier my horses are than his other clients.
I thnk you mean strap a Wave Motion engine onto the Battleship Yamato.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Unless your Mayor is Rudy Guilliani. He will take your sealed record and expose it on TV, claiming the cops had a right to murder you after you refused to sell them drugs, because when you were a kid you once got is a fight over $.25. Then he will say you are "no choirboy," even though you in fact were a choirboy.
According another article I read, the state is expunging the records of all of these kids. IMO they should be compensated as well.
Dick never saw the film. In fact he died before it wrapped. He loved the dailies Scott showed him because he felt they captured the feel of the novel very well and he was supportive. He also said he thought Sean Young was perfectly cast. I'd be surprised if he would have been happy with the finished product. It just wasn't his style to accept other people's interpretations of his work. He was very critical of Ursula Le Guin on that point. She OTOH was incredibly supportive of him, calling him "our own home grown Borges." Dick also had a big fight with the studio because they wanted him to write a novelization of the film.
Yes, diesel electrics are the way to go, so long as you have a good snorkeling system. Nukes are a waste of money.
When I was a kid blowing up the moon was just a beautiful dream. Now it is science fact!
The difference is that in the Econoline you were sitting in the cab. They were mid-engine vans. You could do it outside in a snowstorm and never know the difference. A friend of mine was doing his bottom end bearings in the rain once when a VW van enthusiast we knew happened by. Needless to say, the guy was seriously rethinking his choice of vehicle by the time he left.
Or, one could buy 10 or more easy-to-DIY-fix old VW beetles with enough spare parts and earth-frendliness to last a lifetime.
People who call Bugs easy to fix have never owned a Dodge Dart. Or better yet a 61-67 Ford van. You could do a bottom end rebuild from inside the vehicle on those. But my best balance of fuel economy and ease of maintenance was the Datsun b210/210. I used to get over 40MPG highway in my late model five speed 210. The 1978 EPA rating was 50MPG highway. It was a better car than the Bug in almost every way. No gas fired heater though.
Winnifred hates you. Also shellfish.