From: nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:21:38 GMT


From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)

>Sure, what works is "correct", and what doesn't work is "incorrect". But,
>mathematics, like much of life is experimental.

  No kidding.  This is why I've advocated for libertarians, communists,
  etc that they set up small experiments first as proof of concept
  before they start telling us how 240-million-person nations ought 
  to organize themselves.



>>   Good example.  The American Revolution JUST HAPPENED to turn out well.
>>   But we only know this in hindsight.  And we also know (in hindsight)
>>   that the vast majority of violent revolutions in human history are
>>   either put down, or succeed militarily only to result in chaos or
>>   the imposition of a new set of tyrants.   Someone may have been 
>>   emotionally swayed by the romantic arguments of "Jefferson, Adams,
>>   and Paine", but it's quite easy to poke holes in, or note the
>>   vagueness in, their arguments intellectually.   
>
>And those who followed the other side? Were the tories intellectually
>honest?  After all, the arguments in favor of following laws proclaimed
>by a nutty english king cannot have been models of rational thought.

  Who said they were?                                 


>Smugness is no substitute for rational thought. Let's apply the same
>standards to the argument for leaving things as they are. What's your sample
>space for concluding that the current US economic system will work well for
>the next, say, 50 years? Remember, extrapolation from previous history
>should be justified by showing that such new developments as the end of the
>cold war and the decline of US manufacturing can be discounted.

  I'm not saying it can.  All I'm saying is that the most successful
  societal model, both in economic-prosperity terms, and in terms of 
  abstract things like individual liberty and stability, is the modern,
  mixed-market democracy.  This model has proven successful in a wide
  variety of cultural and historical contexts.   So purely on the
  basis of logical empiricism I am predicting that this will remain the 
  dominant and most successful model in the years to come.   Those
  who advocate alternatives, such as libertarianism or democratic
  socialism bear the burden of proof for their approaches.

  It doesn't follow that the *US implementation* of it will be the best.
  Maybe the Japanese, German, or French ones will prove better for the
  conditions of, say, the year 2025.   What I'm saying is thay I'm 
  putting my money on something like a free-market economic engine with
  serious government involvement in regulation, infrastructure, edu-
  cation, etc (as we have now) as opposed to some of the radical ideas
  which get bounced around here on the net.


>Let's face it, your position boils down to "I'm alright, jack". And what
>appears to you as "caution" may appear as recklessness to a planetary
>climatologist or a schoolteacher in the south bronx.

  People are often driven by desperation to extremes.  Their thinking is 
  that "things are so bad now they can't possibly get worse".  But 
  anyone who has studied history or done any world travel (I've done
  both extensively) surely know just how much worse things can get.
  The *vast* majority of US citizens are living like *kings and queens*
  by historical or world standards.   

  It is certainly unclear that planet-wide climatological issues would
  be better addressed by communist or libertarian models.  Again, the 
  most prosperous economies in the world, are also the ones with the
  best-enforced environmental laws.   There's no inherent contradiction
  between environmentalism and our model.  The South Bronx schoolteacher
  is in a genuinely desperate situation.  But it is unclear WHAT sort
  of government or economic scheme might address that situation given
  that many of the problems he faces are due to individual CHOICES that
  people in his community make (drugs, crime, pregnancy, etc).  If we
  are going to choose an alternative based on problems like that, what
  kind should we choose?   Saudi Arabia and Japan both have remarkably
  low rates of crime and drug abuse.  So if I were chooing a system
  based on problems like crime and drug abuse I would sooner pick
  one of those than some of the untried extremist ideas proposed
  on sci.econ.


>As Tom Jefferson pointed out, people are more likely to stick with the evils
>they know than to embrace radical change, but  that don't necessarily make
>them right.

  But it often does. 


---peter
Newsgroups: sci.econ