Posted on 09/30/2005 6:45:41 PM PDT by JohnRoss
When was the last time you saw a Libertarian in church?
Acts 4:32
Jimmy Carter and Amy were discussing this at breakfast....
This goes right over your head. Survival of the fittest, aye.
Yes. Next question.
To expound: The only alternative to classical liberalism is regulation and coercion. This can be accomplished by: 1) limiting the price a merchant may charge for goods and services, 2) confiscating those goods the merchant may choose to withhold from the market, 3) confiscate the means to produce the goods, 4) force the producers of goods and services to produce such goods or perform such services.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Survival of the best parrot?
And the proof is simple: the free market needs no coercion; it will create itself spontaneously from the interactions of free individuals. A false market based on the "just price" requires coercion or the threat of coercion behind every transaction.
The merchant has no business offering an opinion about theology. And the theologian has no business offering an opinion about merchandising.
First of all, the term "neo-conservative" is thrown around very freely by people who have no idea what it means. The idea that there is a link between the Austrian school of economics and libertarian capitalism on the one hand and "neo-conservatism" on the other is historically absurd. The term neo-conservative was coined in the 1970s to refer to a group of people who had originally been on the left (and sympathetic to socialism and activist government) but moved right on a number of (mostly foreign policy and social) issues. The leading figures in this group were Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. After their move toward the right, they retained their belief in a positive and active role for government. One of the things that distinguished them from other American conservatives, in fact, was that they were NOT advocates of completely untrammeled free markets. That is why one of the well-known neo-conservative books back then was called "Two Cheers for Capitalism" --- note, only two, not three, cheers. The Milton Friedman conservatives and the neo-Conservatives were (on economic issues) on the opposite ends of the American conservative spectrum. Actually, on economic and social issues the neo-cons were closer to traditional Catholic social teaching than were other American conservatives.
The fact of the matter is that the word "neo-Conservative" has come to be a mere taunt word. The only meaning it still retains (as used by some people) is a veiled anti-semitism.
Many of the original neo-cons were Jewish, though there were also Catholics and Protestants among them. It is probably not an accident that the person who wrote this article refers to von Mises' Jewishness. It is well known that the fever swamps of SSPX-type "Traditionalism", especially in France, are a breeding ground of disgusting anti-Semitism. There was tendency in some conservative Catholic circles in the past to blame everything on "Jews and Freemasons". It lives on in some Traditionalist circles.
When was the last time you saw a Libertarian in church?
Last Sunday.
The model of an economy which both neoclassical and Austrian economics present, and the economic policies which Austrian economists usually champion, are not the obvious conclusions of economic reasoning as they would have us believe. For economic activity always takes place within a legal, social and technological framework, and the structure of that framework to a great degree conditions and determines the shape which economic activity takes in any particular society. There was no economic reason, for example, why the guilds of the Middle Ages, which controlled the urban economies of Europe and severely limited competition among craftsmen, need have come to an end, and the economy which resulted from the demise of the guilds was largely the creation of a changed intellectual climate, not the result of so-called economic laws. Nor are limited liability corporations, which currently dominate our economy and which were created only in the nineteenth century due to emerging state general incorporation laws, the inevitable products of economic forces, but rather were brought into being by the free acts of legislatures. Market forces always work within a certain framework, and economic outcomes depend more on how these frameworks are structured than on the market forces alone. Thus within broad limits human beings have the ability to structure the way in which they conduct economic activity, and the notion that there is only one way which is sanctioned by so-called economic laws is false. Human beings create their legal and social institutions and can alter them. There is no reason why these institutions cannot be designed or reformed in such a way so as to facilitate the application of Catholic social teaching. (A concrete instance of how market forces always work within an institutional framework is the story of the Nova Scotia fishermen from the 1930s. "Their catch of fish and lobsters was handled by local dealers who in many cases kept the fishermen in a state of peonage. While Maine fishermen were getting about fifteen cents a pound for lobsters, the Nova Scotian fishermen were receiving as little as two cents a pound. All other prices were scaled down in the same ratio. For everything they bought, however, from their scanty food purchases to nets and lines, they paid top prices, with the result that they were invariably bowed down with a load of debts. Appalling poverty, illiteracy, poor health and the worst possible housing conditions existed throughout this section." In order to better their condition, priests from St. Francis College helped the fishermen organize cooperatives. By means of marketing cooperatives they were able to bypass the local middlemen and deal directly with wholesalers in large cities. In their first shipment of lobsters to Boston they received fifteen cents per pound net. The distribution of income before the establishment of the cooperatives was not the result of the operation of economic laws, but rather of the legal and social institutions within which these economic forces operated. These institutions were changed and a new set of institutions was created within which market forces could operate. This is an illustration of the freedom men have to change the framework and thus change the way economic forces operate to bring about a more just distribution of income. See Bertram B. Fowler, The Co-operative Challenge (Boston : Little, Brown, 1947) pp. 128-29.)
I dispute that either socialism or capitalism provides an ethical form of economics. Socialism seeks to crush the will, making everyone equally miserable.
Wheras capitalism in my opinion elevates money and profit to the level of godhood, replacing Christ as the Lord of the universe. The rise of capitalism has had a greater effect upon the erosion of faith in the West than the communists could have ever hoped for.
The biggest problem I see in Evanglicalism is its Calvinist-influenced screw the poor attitude. Calvin said wealth was the sign of predestination, and I think you can see that attitude perpetuated through Adam Smith's theories because Smith was a product of Calvinist Scotland.
In the Middle Ages, the Church cared for the poor on the lands of the monasteries, thus providing a social support for the poor peasants.
What do we worship as a society today? Riches, having the latest toy and consuming the most goods and services.
The jury still is out on whether supply creates demand or whether demand creates the supply. A small amount of good marketing and you are in business.
Libertarian Capitalism is anti-Christian in my opinion because it worships the marketplace as a God and reduces Christianity to the level of being just another good or service.
Exactly. And that's why it works.
Utter rubbish. The free exchange of ideas is key in any discussion of free individuals.
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