What's wrong with the Austrian school?

[WhipperSnapper]

The theory that laissez-faire capitalism would make 95% poor is bullshit. People would be richer under laissez faire capitalism.

The capital would ultimately end up concentrating itself in the hands of a few people just as it more or less has under our current economic system. Large corporations are just more efficient at producing goods and services than individuals and the barriers to entry into a great many markets require a large amount of capital.

Also, assuming that the world has nations that are not truly capitalist and thus billions of poor people, under laissez-faire businesses would be free to hire whoever they wanted and anyone who could obtain a job or permission to set foot on another person's private property would be free to immigrate, resulting in unrestrained global labor arbitrage and overpopulation, putting downward pressure on the non-rich's standard of living and purchasing power.

Under Laissez-faire capitalism, everyone has the ability to make money, and when you say it would work in a world of infinite resources, you defeat your own argument because there isn't an infinite amount of money either.

Under laissez-faire not everyone has the ability to "make money" because the amount of resources is finite. Thus, you would not just be able to find a piece of unused open land and put a farm or a mill on it. Rather, being able to realize one's ability to make money would depend on being able to get hired by someone (either as an employee or as a salesman of one's own service).

I really don't see what your comment about money's not being infinite addresses my point at all. Money is relative to either the amount printed (which is potentially infinite) or the amount of gold and other precious metals in existence. If gold were the currency its value would end up increasing as the amount of real-world wealth increased so that you would need less-and-less gold to purchase something.

Your example about roads being privatized doesn't make sense either. The owner of the road would lose money if he didn't let everyone on it.

Money and the desire to earn money isn't everything.

You are making a huge assumption--that everyone would be rational--there wouldn't be irrational religious or racial discrimination under your system. However you could also take the benefits of rationality and say that under real socialism a society would prosper because everyone would be rational.

Note that even Objectivists can disagree about various points such as the merit of an artwork or some abstract epistemological or ethical or even political tenet and end up shunning one another and calling each other immoral over relatively petty differences. Under laissez-faire you would be free not to do business with anyone who offended you; you wouldn't have to sell your services to them nor allow them to set foot on your property, which could mean preventing someone from leaving their property if you own the road in front of the house or have simply encircled them.

We don't live in a rational Objectivist society. Do you really think that people would not discriminate against one another on the basis of race, religion, and ethnicity? Give me a break! Legalize it and you will see all-Christian businesses and residential neighborhoods tomorrow. Do you support legalized abortion? You're fired! Are you Jewish? Get out of this restaurant, it's for god-fearing Christians only. Are you black? GTFO, this is a whites only restaurant. The result would probably be a religious/racial/ethnic balkanization.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

My only addendum would be one of anger and revolution. When you piss off the people, they get angry and do bad things. When you piss off the American population (armed, free access to instructions on making weapons of mass destruction, etc), they WILL eventually rise up, execute everyone they perceive as having slighted them, and start over. The end result of laissez-faire capitalism is the death of the wealthy. Guaranteed.

I dunno. I used to think that that would be the case but I have had to rethink that. Look at South America and Mexico. Why haven't the people revolted yet?

Americans don't need to have an armed revolt; we have the ballot box but I haven't seen anything akin to a political revolution yet. They just keep on electing the same party--the Democrats and the Republicans--into office. I know, I know, things haven't gotten that bad yet.

My fear is that we will slowly transform into a third world country and become acclimated to it just like in other third world nations. Young people who are graduating from school today will only know about what things used to be like in the Fifties and Sixties from history textbooks and their grandparents. Our nation also has an increasing amount of immigrants who are already used to widespread poverty. My concern is that the populace won't know anything better and won't take offense to 5% of the population having all the wealth while they slave away for it.

Do Americans still have any of the spirit that drove the French, American, and Russian revolutions within them? I don't know, but I don't think so. At this point we have all been so indoctrinated with free market dogma that if the populace were to revolt, it would be mindless and perhaps ethnic/racial/religion-based and not class-based.

 

[PrinceofWands]

I dunno. I used to think that that would be the case but I have had to rethink that. Look at South America and Mexico. Why haven't the people revolted yet?

Americans don't need to have an armed revolt; we have the ballot box but I haven't seen anything akin to a political revolution yet. They just keep on electing the same party--the Democrats and the Republicans--into office. I know, I know, things haven't gotten that bad yet.

My fear is that we will slowly transform into a third world country and become acclimated to it just like in other third world nations. Young people who are graduating from school today will only know about what things used to be like in the Fifties and Sixties from history textbooks and their grandparents. Our nation also has an increasing amount of immigrants who are already used to widespread poverty. My concern is that the populace won't know anything better and won't take offense to 5% of the population having all the wealth while they slave away for it.

Do Americans still have any of the spirit that drove the French, American, and Russian revolutions within them? I don't know, but I don't think so. At this point we have all been so indoctrinated with free market dogma that if the populace were to revolt, it would be mindless and perhaps ethnic/racial/religion-based and not class-based.

The hidden truth of revolutions is that they're not popular. I don't mean people don't like them, I mean they're begun by only a few. If those few are powerful enough (with resources or charisma) they can spread a fire and get more to the cause. If those few are ruthlessly dealt with by the government then THAT becomes the impetus for the more who will follow.

Regardless of how they come about, revolutions only carry 20-50% support, and generally less than 10% participate directly.

 

[bamacre]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/priceless-how-the-federal_n_278805.html

 

[Narmer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/priceless-how-the-federal_n_278805.html

Thanks.