Any good criticism of Ludwig von Mises that y'all can recommend?

[Hello_Kitty]

I'm currently arguing with a libertarian who insists that von Mises' brand of classic economic liberalism is unassailable.

[BlooInBloo]

1. I only know him on the maths side. Impossibility of a betting system...

as a definition of randomness, and such.

[Narkos]

2. Arguing with a libertarian, I gather?

Here's a GREAT resource to combat all talking points libertarian.
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

[Coffee and Cake]

3. What is the specific topic?

If it is Mises' business cycle theory, then I don't know any good rebuttals. Mises showed that an artificially low rate of interest, maintained by credit expansion will misallocates capital. The Austrians are correct in this regard. The expansion of credit combined with Greenspan's artificially low rates of interest in the mid 90's and 2001 helped fueled the housing bubble by misallocating capital. There are empirics that support this.

If you are criticizing Mises's methodology, then you may have to educate yourself methodological individualism, methodological dualism, and a priorism. If you do some research on these subject, then I am sure that you can find some critiques. I will briefly outline Mises's view concerning each of these topic.

The philosophical literature is replete are numerous examples of methodological individualism, from Mill to Robbins, but Mises's version is based on the fact that only individual act and that the collective has no existence in reality but in the actions of individuals. This means that all economics is microeconomics and that macroeconomics regularities may be of interest to economists, macroeconomic constructs, such as the consumption function are devoid of any real explanatory power.

Methodological dualism, a subset of methodological pluralism, states that the human and social sciences are fundamentally different than the natural sciences. That there are many different ways of obtaining depending on subject at hand. Mises's particular variant came from Human Action, that humans act teleologically--engage in purposeful direct behavior.

Mises's version of a priorism claims that economics should not be subjected to empirical tests. That is, if the presumptions of praxeology are a prior true and if the deduction are done correctly, then the conclusions of the deductions will be true.

Without a specific topic, it is difficult to point you in a direction. Good luck.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Thank you!

I'm not sure I quite understand all that but now I'm curious about this idea of a priorism.

The person I'm arguing with is a libertarian who thinks (most) government is bad.

[Coffee and Cake]

5. The philosophical origins of praxeology are Kantian.

Kant believed that there were certain principles that formed our basis of knowledge--as rules of logic, the idea that every effect has a cause, and that objects exist--that are so fundamental to our understanding, that without them no meaningful experience would be possible. That all knowledge of such principles cannot come from the outside (i.e empirical observation), but must be a synthetic a priori true (i.e. self-evident truths).

For Mises, economic knowledge also had an a synthetic a prior true proposition for necessary meaningful experience and is is that humans beings act and engage in a purposeful manner. To act means: To choose a goal and resort to means in order to attain that goal sought.

One of the earliest and strongest criticism of praxeology was Terrence Hutchinson and his book, "The Significance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory". Hutchinson argued that economics should be molded after the natural science, which clearly differentiates metaphysical speculation from objective empiricism. Not only did Hutchinson attack Mises's praxeology, but also Mill's "moral science" and Keynes's "normative science".

As for (most) government being bad, this is a rather nebulous statement. I prefer to debate on more specific terms such as provision of public goods or environmental regulations. In general, libertarians first see the government as a coercive entity which limits freedom. They also believe strongly in negative rights and the non-aggression principle. I think the main objective of libertarianism is that they solely rely upon negative rights in their explanation of liberty; absence of the obstructions or impediments are negative. Coercion happens when man or government alters nature to force another to act in a way that they would not originally, even if it is to force the individual into making a "lesser of two evils" decision.

The modern liberal believes in various bundles of "subsistence rights"; that all people should be guaranteed basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, education, medical) and that meeting these rights requires a valid form of coercion via government. Where liberals see this as a benevolent act where the means justify the ends, the libertarian views coercion, no matter how good the outcome, as a malevolent act. Another example is anti-discrimination laws. The state, through the wishes of the people, have the right to enact anti-discrimination laws in order to have men and women compete on the same playing field. Liberals see this as rational and that the state is in a prime position to impose on people what they "should" desire rather than what they actually desire. That granting this positive right is reasonable and justifies the taking away someone's right to discriminate.

If you can build upon the necessity of "subsistence" and positive rights in society, then you can strengthen your argument that government is not a necessary evil, but rather a benevolent entity.

[tama]

7. Libertarians

Right wing libertarians are not anti-state nor anti-governement. They support strong central governement and state structure with strong "security apparatus" (military, police, etc.) to protect their ideology of "private ownership", which is "inalianable GOD GIVEN right". Looney bunch.

Left libertarians aka anarchists, different story...

[Coffee and Cake]

8. You are incorrect

I don't know where you get your information from, but libertarians do not support a strong, central government that is distant to the people and relatively immune from popular constraint. They view government as an institutionalized force that is a necessary evil, but has legitimate functions. They can currently be seen as anti-government since they believe that the Leviathan is getting too big and overstepping its proper functions, which is to protect life, liberty, and property. Some libertarians will extend government's functions to even environmental regulations since it takes on the qualities of a public good and business activity does create negative externalities which need to be taken account for.

You have a sophomoric understanding of private property. Private property begins with self-ownership. You may think that self ownership is a "loony idea" that some people hold onto in the name of "god", but self-ownership is a priori true. In other words, it is self-evident that people own themselves. If you don't own yourself, then someone else does and that is called slavery. Reason and logic have dictated slavery to be an invalid form of ownership. So, if you believe that you own yourself, then ownership of your faculties is a natural extension. Applying your faculties to nature is called labor.

For example, if you go into the woods and chop down a tree and make a boat out of it, then that boats is the product of your labor and rightfully yours. Right and left libertarians both agree that people own the fruits of their labor (i.e the boat), but they disagree on who owns the tree. The distinction comes from their view of ownership of natural resources. (It has nothing to do with being an anarchist or supporting a strong, central government).

Left-libertarians believe in various degrees of joint ownership of natural resources and some from of consent is need before one appropriates resources. The most radical left believe in a strict egalitarian ownership of natural resources. Right libertarians, of the radical sort, believe in first come, first serve. That once you mix your labor with natural resources, they are yours, even if it creates a monopoly. I think many people have a problem with this stance since resources are not a product of man's labor so it would be unfair to claim all the resources and reap all the benefits with no compensation.

You can still be a libertarian without being a radical right or radical left. One could be a Lockean libertarian who subscribes to the Lockean proviso; that individuals have a right to acquire private property from nature, but that “enough and as good” be left for others. This can take into account intergenerational concerns.

[tama]

9. I have some experience

of discussions with right-wing libertarians, and must confess, anarchists are much more fun, much less defensive and much less full of themselves - they often engage in self-irony, which I gather is impossible to someone speaking about self-ownership and taking himself very seriously - as object of ownership relation. :)

As for state, you say what I said - a "necessary" evil, but evil anyhow - what I cannot understand is why any evil would be necessary, if not for the necessity of the evil of ownership.

So, if self is owned, who is the owner? Self? Self as a subject owning itself as an object and and and... I'm starting to smell some tautology here and a concept-structures that Occam's razor could do wonders to...

Where is the concept of "owning" and "ownership" needed in self-being and being itself? Isn't that just something utterly superfluous brought about by the subject-object division? And where and why is that structure (of codependent opposition) needed, as being itself does not really need it to be itself? Your suggestion for a a (sorry for the stuttering, but you started it! ;)) priori is thus blown away.

Reading further, perhaps your quasi-philosophical attempt to question meaning and being self (gnothi seauton, know thyself) merely tried to ask (and answer) who owns work/labor, and the fruits thereoff? The usual answers in the common framing are: 1) capitalistic paymasters say that capitalistic paymasters own them 2) socialist wageslaves whine that socialist wageslaves should own their work. Please pretty please mr paymaster and sugar on top.

Ants have no such problems. Ants know that their toil is owned by the hive. And there are also hives that like to colonize other hives and take their ants into their slavery. What about primitive tribes? Hard to say, because primitive tribes might have as many views on the issue as there are tribes. A football team, when they play spendidly, likes to play as a hive, as a one body. Outside of play, the members of the hive tend often to stress their more "individualistic" aspects, like mass consumerism.

Yes, I'm blathering. But perhaps there is a point here, somewhere, to be found, in this blather. What ever it may be, to whichever individual, hive of fusion of something between...

[tama]

6. Mises

says to large extent same as Marx about the boom and crash -cycles and their causes, with the exception that Marx predicts an inevitable crash deep and total enough to end capitalism (followed by socialism or barbary). The big difference being ethical, Mises thinks crash is good and beautifull "necessity", where as Marx was horrified by the human and other suffering caused by capitalism.