You've probably noticed I'm a red-blooded free marketer and will make your arguments for you when it comes to current technological advancements and our ability to adapt. The past hundred years have been fantastic for standards of living in areas benefiting from the industrial revolution. But I don't see how our current economic system adapts to such a drastic change of AI machines removing all need for a human labor force and many of the white-collar jobs as well, as predicted by Kurzweil. We also have the issue of who owns all these machines, and thus the workforce. Bill Gates Jr. Jr. will be more powerful than god if our system remains capitalist.

I'm not actually that worried, because I think we will adapt by changing the system. But that will take a lot of political wrangling, and I actually think it will serve to slow down the exponential rate of technological advancement predicted by Kurzweil.

There is ironic entertainment value in me being a profiteer and you keeping the poors from drinking yucky water.

I'm also a feminist whose woman does the cooking and cleaning.

Oh, and yes, white collar jobs have got to go. They don't even remotely resemble producers.

Loads of free fish is different than loads of cheap fish.

very little difference to the fisherman community and nothing is actually free so it's all cheap fish..

Wat? We are talking about people, not entropy. Sunshine is free. People jibber-jabbering is freely offered.

More to the point, rich people love giving their stuff away.

Its a red kipper anyway. Free or very cheap makes no difference. Also, you can't ignore processing costs, jibber-jabber may be freely offered but it comes with a price attached.

Tell that to the poor fisherman who have nothing but an abundance of fish they can only eat.

Those costs are paid by the sun. It doesn't seem to mind.

That has actually occurred. They ate fish and didn't complain much.

It has occurred and they really do mind being poor.

Fair points. I'd like to get your opinion on the "terribly argued and horribly written diatribe" and then we can maybe talk about who wrote this if you're so inclined. Let's start with the "terribly argued" notion and we'll work from there. Can you provide some specifics if possible?
You're entitled to your opinion and I am genuinely interested in what that opinion is (the contents of it) more so than the overview/review that you have provided in this post. I don't particularly see how it's obnoxious. It's a field of study that interests me - and if it doesn't interest you that's fine, but I certainly didn't want to give off that kind of impression.
'Rudely forced'. If you could elaborate on that please, I'd greatly appreciate it. As for my own idea - this is not my own idea, it's an article written by a highly-esteemed writer and philosopher. Regarding it's apparently remote connection to philosophy I'll provide you with a basic overview here:

The term libertarianism originally referred to a philosophical belief in free will but later became associated with anti-state socialism and Enlightenment-influenced political movements critical of institutional authority believed to serve forms of social domination and injustice. While it has generally retained its earlier political usage as a synonym for either social or individualist anarchism through much of the world, in the United States it has since come to describe pro-capitalist economic liberalism more so than radical, anti-capitalist egalitarianism. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, libertarianism is defined as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.

As you may glean from this overview, the very divide between those who want more government and those who want less government is a manifestation of the larger divide between notions of free will and determinism, as well as multiple other ideas in social, political and economic philosophy. Most people tend to belong to either one side or the other, without full awareness of this.

Those who are proponents of bigger government tend to align themselves with the view that populations should be treated more as children - because they are highly irrational - and thus their choices ought to be highly regulated/controlled (via taxation, restrictive policies etc.). On the contrary, those who are proponents of smaller government and increased free-market capitalism tend to align themselves with the view that the smallest minority on earth is the individual, and as such, we can not claim to be defenders of minorities if we impose high controls over people's basic freedoms and behaviour.

Moreover, the contrary argument is that if you treat your citizens like children they are likely to behave like children. In economics there is abundant evidence in defense of this notion; for example, the first signs of a failing economy are typically associated with increases in social security and welfare benefits, as well as 'nanny-state' policies. There is much more to this as well, but before I continue I'd like to get your views to my above questions.

I'll address the other comments sometime next week, it's bed time now.

The amount of ideological hyperbole and the frequency of tenuous, evidenceless assertions about things he seems to take as self-evident makes this closer to a diatribe than an argument meriting premise by premise analysis, and even if it did merit premise by premise analysis, it's still for the politics or economics subforums.

You don't see how it's obnoxious to make a (wall of text) OP in SMP that clearly belongs in politics under the pretense of "something different", and some silliness that SMP is too over-specialized in that they don't take your Ron Paul newsletters seriously?

You stuck it in me, Teddy KGB style, is what I'm saying; I don't read such trash when it's properly identified.

Murray Newton Rothbard (/ˈmʌri ˈrɑːθbɑrd/; March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American heterodox economist of the Austrian School,[1][2] a revisionist historian,[3][4] and a political theorist[5](pp11, 286, 380) whose writings and personal influence played a seminal role in the development of modern libertarianism.[6] Rothbard was the founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism, a staunch advocate of historical revisionism, and a central figure in the twentieth-century American libertarian movement. He wrote over twenty books on anarchist theory, revisionist history, economics, and other subjects.[7] Rothbard asserted that all services provided by the "monopoly system of the corporate state" could be provided more efficiently by the private sector and wrote that the state is "the organization of robbery systematized and writ large."[8][9][10][11][12][13] He called fractional reserve banking a form of fraud and opposed central banking.[14] He categorically opposed all military, political, and economic interventionism in the affairs of other nations.[15](pp4–5, 129)[16] According to the libertarian Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "There would be no anarcho-capitalist movement to speak of without Rothbard."[17]

A heterodox economist,[18][19] Rothbard refused to publish in academic journals.[20] According to economist Jeff Herbener, who calls Rothbard his friend and "intellectual mentor", Rothbard received "only ostracism" from mainstream academia.[21] Rothbard rejected mainstream economic methodologies and instead embraced the praxeology of his most important intellectual precursor, Ludwig von Mises. To promote his economic and political ideas, Rothbard joined Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. and Burton Blumert in 1982 to establish the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama.

"Philosopher", I mean, gtfo.

What now??? Why are you fawning over political libertarianism if it correlates with metaphysical libertarianism when you are not a metaphysical libertarian?

That's all well and good, this belongs in politics.

Fair enough. Rothbard applies a libertarian philosophy to issues of contemporary social concern - such as politics and economics. Just because his field of interest concerns the governance of societies does not exclude his views from being philosophical, nor does it exclude philosophical discussion concerning libertarianism. After all, he is advocating, by definition, one particular philosophy (amongst others), applied to social concern.

To this end, my aim for this thread is not to bombard people with this philosophy and argue for them to adopt it but to simply learn more about it from people who view the world primarily via a lens of evidence-based methodologies (research method). To those who don't know much about it, the article serves as a preliminary introduction into the more extremist versions of this philosophy, which I was hoping are likely to generate more debate.
Whether it's obnoxious or not I think in large depends on my intent for starting this discussion. My intent is not to insult or preach to those who are over-specialized in any way. You're free to disagree and I encourage it. In particular, I want to share a particular philosophy, applied to social concern, and hopefully understand more about it, and its criticisms from those who (are likely to) strongly align themselves with evidence-based methodologies.

If you have little to say regarding the philosophy itself, for it may not meet your standards when compared to scientifically formulated hypotheses then that's fine, but please don't think that talk about economics or politics is mutually exclusive to philosophy. The philosophy is the crux and the driver of the entire view presented by Rothbard, and it is the philosophy I am interested in, equally to his conclusions concerning the size of government (amount of societal governance).
I think it's unfair to refer to something as 'trash' just because it may; (a) stem from a different world-view to your own or; (b) not meet your standards of scientifically formulated hypotheses and propositions. Is philosophical discussion about ethics also trash to you when it's not formulated in a scientific manner?
Great, and I can also find thousands of descriptions of him that refer to him as a philosopher instead. This line of argumentation will get us nowhere quickly.
I haven't entirely decided what I am yet, for some weeks I lean to one side and other weeks I lean to the other. This is the very reason I want to discuss this, to bring myself greater clarity and understanding.

If you are going to bring up libertarianism, you'd be better off using Nozick and/or (if you want to go old school) Adam Smith than Rothbard.

All make me desire to go full G.K. Chesterton on them (best Christian apologist ever), but Rothbard takes the cake for describing humans and how they ought be in such a way that resembles humans nearly not at all. I think, at best, he might get the number of legs correct on one of his better days.

Since smrk2 doesn't pull out the important bits when he quotes wikipedia, I recommend that you concentrate on whether you want empiricism or praxeology as the basis for your thoughts on the subject. Or, if you are in the mood for an amusing take on the current status of libertarian/Austrian Economic thought, I recommend this: http://www.bloombergview.com/article...nd-brain-worms

Things are a bit different now.

I'd be greatly surprised if you haven't noticed the improvements.

Thanks for this, I read into it, as well as the comments and follow-up links and it doesn't appear to be well-received (at all) by the public and the people on that website (and the websites linked to it). Especially by those who know anything about macro-economics. Just have a quick browse of the comments. At best, it's a political piece with a clear agenda. Amusing nonetheless.

P.S. This website linked to it is plagued by so much misinformation that its difficult to control my gag reflex while reading it: http://recoveringaustrians.wordpress...ian-economics/

Austrian schools of economics are the world-leaders in economics by quality of publications in social science journals and it's highly amusing that they don't (at all) address the evidence provided by these journals in the above-linked website. Very interesting how they (somehow) link satanism to libertarian views as well.

It's worth remembering that Nozick softened after Anarchy State and Utopia both in his explanations and meditations.

There's an interesting take on Adam Smiths economics as ethical theory here

Fish aren't cheap anymore.

To be honest i'm not really sure what we're talking about. Everything being very cheap will be brilliant but the transition is likely to be painful. In my view its already happening and the best way to handle the transition coincides with the best thing to do even if it isn't.

OP,

Are you a utilitarian and it's just like your opinion man that less government is better or are you claiming some objective first principles type reason for you your beliefs?

I'm not entirely sure how the two options you've provided are mutually exclusive. Granting that they are for the sake of argument, I'm more interested in evidence-based reasoning and 'first principles' philosophy that aligns best with the evidence collected over the last 30 years of research inquiry into macro-economics.

As for my beliefs, I don't like to have a fixed position on issues as broad as this because its very difficult to see the truth amongst so much difference in opinion. I do have biases however, if that's what you're asking.

OK, I'm not that interested in discussing 30 years of "evidence" subjectively interpreted. Im sure you'll find someone who is though. Carry on .

Economic/political philosophy should be in this forum and hopefully be discussed in and of itself rather than cater to desires/predilections/unconscious instincts, as in the politics/economics forum.

Speaking rationally to economics is very difficult especially if one lives in the USA which has the tilling of the soil intrinsic to its very being.

Wat?!?

zzz... if this is a philosophy, then surely Marxism is a philosophy, and Keynesianism is a philosophy, and Occupy Wall Street is a philosophy, you want to discuss that **** too now?

If you're looking for evidence-based methodologies, how are you a fan of these guys!? From wiki, "Rothbard rejected the application of the scientific method to economics, and dismissed econometrics, empirical and statistical analysis, and other tools of mainstream social science as useless for the study of economics.[47] He instead embraced praxeology, the strictly a priori methodology of Ludwig von Mises. Praxeology conceives of economic laws as akin to geometric or mathematical axioms: fixed, unchanging, objective, and discernible through logical reasoning, without the use of any evidence." It's as if you didn't read through your own OP.

That's precious.

It's mutually exclusive in this forum. If you want to allow people to make OPs about political and economic "philosophy" here, then you're going to get an infestation of politards, we'd prefer that not happen.

I thought I edited that out, I admit that was a tad too harsh on Mr. Rothbard. My negative reaction to the article stems from the fact that I have no interest in ideology, left or right; too much overhead converting ideology into a legible argument, and then to find there's seldom any compelling argument.

I can find thousands of descriptions of Ayn Rand as a philosopher. Or Jesus Christ, if you prefer.

Stop, when have you ever advocated/indicated that you're undecided about metaphysical libertarianism? My impression was that you are and have been for a while in the no free will camp.

Both of these claims are wildly untrue. I would go so far as to say that the entire top 1% in math or science would fail miserably in 75% of career fields. This may be very well due to overspecialization, which is precisely what is required to get into the top 1% of math or science.

As examples, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the facebook guy, are most certainly NOT in the top 1% of math or science. (If that's a bad example, feel free to flame, but I think it's true that in the public's eye, they are in the top 1%.)

As to the OP, the days of Bell Labs is far far gone. The profit motive (without immediate profit) can no longer persist for basic research. Therefore, government must underwrite most of this basic research. There really isn't much to discuss.

I'm not a fan of these guys per se. Although I agree with smaller government, the article I've posted represents an extreme version of this view: to help generate debate. As mentioned, the article also stems from the praxeology camp and is thus more aligned with something akin to philosophy than science - hence my contention that this belongs in the philosophy category.
Politards? are the people here somehow above those who are interested in human affairs, such as governance?

You make it sound like some elitist club that won't engage in anything that strays slightly beyond their adopted methodology.
That's a fair reason and far better than the one you provided in the previous paragraph.
Lots of psychological constructs that I believe hold true such as: self-efficacy, internal locus of control, need for achievement and value congruence rely on the assumption of free-will. It's hard to talk about such things to people whose adopted methodologies largely preclude them from engaging in debate about psychology.

This is a very good point and worthy of highlighting. I completely agree, and I think that more non-profit social engineers ought to offer funding. Unfortunately, this isn't going to happen until non-profits successfully address other more basic issues such as hunger for example. Alternatively, there ought to be greater awareness in the public sphere with regard to the benefits of research. The gap between science and public affairs really needs to be bridged, and the sooner the better.