mmm....shiney! said:
Big A.D. said:
Put simply, they use a capitalist economic order because it largely serves their social values well and, where it doesn't, they don't mind intervening and using other methods that produce the outcomes they want.
Like what specifically?
The outcomes? Universal health care, a high standard of public education, child care, welfare for the old and unemployed including cash, food, shelter...electricity...
Big A.D. said:
Having well defined social values is going to be more important than faith in any given economic theory, even if that school of economic thought sort of gets around to addressing the social values...in a round-about sort of way, providing you ignore a few things and don't pay much attention to some others.
Social values arise out of economic activity. Without economic activity, our social values would be limited to little more than grunts and stick throwing, with maybe the only distinguishing features being the size of the sticks determined by their intended purpose and the grunts associated with the throws. The only economic theory worth learning (Austrian) is just an explanation of how those values arise out of economic activity. It follows therefore that economic activity cannot be planned or enhanced by economic theory in an attempt to make the outcomes of economic activity any more valuable than what they would naturally be if individuals were just left to meet their needs and desires voluntarily, without the coercive efforts of others. Any economic theory that attempts to explain anything beyond that just keeps economists, central bankers and politicians in a job.
So in that respect it's kind of like religion: don't question anything, don't try to mess with
God's plan The Market and if you have any problems in your life there will inevitably be a passage from the Book of Mises that will explain why it's your own fault.
I'd have more respect for Austrian economic theory if it relied a more on empirical evidence and a little less on deductive reasoning. If someone is prepared to expand the Austrian economic school of thought into the Austrian economic school of real life, it might be more interesting. As it stands - and you can take this all the way back to praxeology - you may as well just say "meh, stuff happens", which is a perfectly valid response if the only interest is in observation, but not at all helpful if the world is under threat of being taken over by robots and everything that entails for humanity.
Big A.D. said:
Speaking as an employer, the employer's interests aren't the most important factor in maintaining a well-functioning society.
You've misunderstood. You said that being unemployed or being employed in a shit job at a low wage wasn't a binary choice. It is to the employer who has to weigh up the cost of labour v the increased productivity when deciding to hire extra staff or not. The higher the wages, the more value an employee has to create. Sometimes it's just not worth the expense to employ someone.
You implied that it was better for people to be earning money and "working toward greater financial independence" than relying on government welfare.
If circumstances dictate that robots will be doing so many of the jobs people do now then I don't agree that it will be
possible to work for the purpose of greater financial independence. If there's no
requirement for labour in order to improve living standards, we'll have to start considering what life will be like when the majority of people working are doing it because they like it and the majority of people who aren't working are being looked after by some kind of social welfare system.
I'm not convinced that the Austrian view that "it'll be fine, things will just balance out back to an equilibrium" is necessarily going to happen in that scenario. Or, more specifically, does the "things balancing out" part involve mass starvation and violence like it has at other stages in recent history where things have gone wrong.
For any given individual's entirely subjective value of "wrong".
