While economics as a science may be new economics is not. Capitalism is not new either. We've stopped using slave labor but that's about the extent of improvement I've seen in the historical record. The masses of the poor have a higher standard of living but is this because the market demanded it or because too many of them have guns to put up with living in horrible conditions?
Slavery is neither rational nor desirable in any way in a free market economy.
Can you economic whiz kids figure out why?
Oh, and by the way, the vast majority of slaves in the modern world never existed in a market economy but in socialist states, such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Vietnam etc. Nehor, your level of ecudation is abysmal. I thought much more of you until tonight. Do a little homework. Do some reading. Free markets are keeping "masses" of people poor precisely nowhere. Where? America? Australia? New Zealand? Taiwan? Japan? Singapore? Africa is dirt poor, and remains so, because of the ideas and principles of Karl Marx and his disciples,mixed with the corruption, greed, and power lust of African military dictators who keep entire countries in conditions of civil war for generations. Ditto Latin America with its endless dreary march of populist socialism and Caudillo governmental management, all guaranteed to produce and maintain...poverty and poor economic development. Where are there all the "masses of poor" Nehor, in Venezuela or San Diego?
I have now lost patience with this...
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Moniker wrote:I think they have guns in Somalia which is a pure free market economy.
:)
Did you just say there is a "pure market economy" in Somalia?
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
I want to live the way God tells me to. I'm sure the City of Enoch and the Nephite Golden Age were cesspools of subsistence poverty or were they an exception?
The city of Enoch existed thousands of years ago. By any modern standard, it was dirt poor. Ancient Roman Emperors, by the standards of the modern American blue collar class, at entry level wage rates, were living on the edge.
Also laughable is the idea that God needs us to be rich to do his work. I'm collecting wealth because God needs me to have it. I call that materialism disguised by delusions of both grandeur and holiness.
1. Define "rich".
2. No more temples? No more meeting houses or state centers? No more satellite broadcasts? No more vans to take the Scouts to campt? No more camp? Sounds good to me.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Droopy wrote:This sounds like Michael Moore raving in a MSNBC Town Hall meeting. Please, I enjoy discussing economics, don't flush it down yet.
Nehor, the examples you are using above are examples of the use of agency by individuals, and have nothing whatsoever to do with a free market economic order. The same things happen in socialist, fascist, and every other kind of economic system. And, it should be noted that, in really socialist systems, dishonest, greed, and economic cruelty are inherent in the political system itself. In a capitalist society, individuals are free to sin economically. They are also free to be honorable in all their business dealings, as the Temple recommend questions asks.
Why are you against a system that looks exactly like what the Lord planned for us in the Grand Council and provides every opportunity to choose good over evil in economic affairs? Let us go down to see if they will do all things we command them. What do you find wrong in this?
The same things do happen in every economic system. So why are you picking a favorite wrong system? That is not doing all things God commands us. That is what I find wrong with it.
I think the Lord commanded Consecration, not Capitalism. Then again, I hold the scriptures in higher esteem then the latest findings of conservative think tanks so what do I know? Funny that Consecration failed in the early Church because the Saints chose Capitalism (not socialism or fascism or communism) over it. We lost the heavenly order because the Saints insisted on a worldly system and now you're suggesting that the worldly system is what God planned for from the beginning? That modern America has beat the City of Enoch and the utopian period of the Nephites and come up with a superior system? I really don't know what to think now.
Please answer this before you drop out Coggins.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
I want to live the way God tells me to. I'm sure the City of Enoch and the Nephite Golden Age were cesspools of subsistence poverty or were they an exception?
The city of Enoch existed thousands of years ago. By any modern standard, it was dirt poor. Ancient Roman Emperors, by the standards of the modern American blue collar class, at entry level wage rates, were living on the edge.
Yet we are told that surely there could never be a happier people on the Earth then those in the Nephite Golden Age. So you're saying that the economic model that created utopia won't work because we're MODERN? Did God screw up when he tried to introduce it in America?
You're so blinded by the idol of materialism you can't differentiate happiness from wealth. They dwelt in harmony and lived together in love and had Jesus living amongst them. Yet they were poor because they didn't have microwaves and air conditioning. I'd throw those out in a minute if I could reproduce their economic order on my own.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
You're so blinded by the idol of materialism you can't differentiate happiness from wealth. They dwelt in harmony and lived together in love and had Jesus living amongst them. Yet they were poor because they didn't have microwaves and air conditioning. I'd throw those out in a minute if I could reproduce their economic order on my own.
The question is about capitalism, not about materialism, two completely different subjects.
I am not materialistic, and you can bet that I don't go around prating to others about how non-materialistic I am. If people cannot see that in my natural generosity and concern for them, then there is little I could do further. Grand moral denunciations of wealth and profit as inherently evil are exercises for people blinded by the verdant green idol of envy, and not for Latter Day Saints who have far more urgent social issues and challenges to contend with then that I drive a Chevy S-10 and the guy down the street drives a Jaguar. Good for him. He probably worked very hard for it and helped create wealth and opportunity for others in the process, perhaps even for me, though given the sheer vast complexity of a free market economy, there is no way I could ever know of his invisible beneficence.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
No response on how consecration fits into your capitalism fulfills everything from the Great Council in heaven idea?
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Thanks Moniker, great link. You just devastated Coggins. From reading Coggins's grand 22 paragraph treatise on economic theory, it would seem he has a -- so long as we're charitable and strike his command approach to morality and trade as "service" -- solid grasp on economic theory up through Adam Smith, which doesn't get him very far. But he does have a pretty decent understanding of the "nation of shopkeepers" approach to solving the world's problems and that's a start. Indirectly, he's stumbled on the problem of externalities, but he obviously doesn't really think about it much as from his list of prejudices he clearly doesn't see why the government needs to be involved in environmentalism, for instance. A big part of his anti-left campaign revolves around his failure to appreciate all the many ways a heated free market economy can choke itself on externalities. Another big problem for Coggins is public goods. Clearly, there are benefits the government can provide better than the private sector. Markets will fail to provide good roads and national defense, for instance. Because this type of thing never gets mentioned by Coggins, you'd never see that where the line is drawn isn't always clear, and it's not just a liberal plot to take away everyone's freedom when government gets involved. Is health care a public or private good? That's a tough question, there are elements of it that fall in both categories. It's not an obvious decision who should provide it, to what degree, and how, as is say, baking bread or national defense. But Coggins is so enamored by the shopkeeper model that it's just obvious to him the market always finds a way for everything, and if it works for an economy of three people exchanging peaches, apples, and pears, it will work for 300,000,000 seeking healthcare. And what about assymetric information? The closest thing "conservative" economists can find to an efficient market is the stock market, and very few would believe even that is strongly efficient. Healthcare might be the example way on the other end of the spectrum. There are gross failures in privatized healthcare because of assymetric information, where risk-pooling/insurance comes into play. Are these problems worse than the problems that arise with public models? Well, I don't know. I don't have the answer. But, it's not a trivial question either way and certainly, Coggins's appeals to free-agency and the first chapters of Adam Smith's book aren't good enough for him to win this argument. I could go on to monopolies, something else Coggins never mentions, but in the end, the real issue is that Coggins has a fairly good grasp of the most rudimentary principles of economics that would be covered in the first two weeks of an introductory college course, but then that's the extent of his theoretical toolbag. He seems to have broadly read on contemporary history, politics, and philosophy, but it all comes out as a jumbled mess that's hard to judge merit many times on the basis alone that what he's saying is nearly incomprehensible. And where it is comprehensible, many times there are obvious, basic flaws. His use of "leftist" and "liberal" interchangeably is very problematic for instance, when his scope is historical and international. His polarization leads to deeper problems and contradictions for instance, when he tries to make "postmodern" leftist liberals and very modernist, leftist conservatives the same thing. And then there are the case studies. Don't cite credible sources that should carry weight for both sides of the conversation, but throw out every right-wing survivalist blog and fundamentalist e-zine on the web to make the points. And in these cases again, it's not clear in his own expression of the contents that he really understood them in the first place.
My recommendations for Coggins would be:
- he should seriously reduce his reading list and get a grasp on the basics of his subject interests
- he should start with core material, and then read right-wing blogs as supplements, not the other way around.
- my favorite line from Gladiator, "A people should know when they are conquered". That's a tough one to fix. Some people know when to tread carefully with the opposition and others just let it all hang out without any reservation.
The best way for him to have a hope at rectifying these three fundamental problems would be to get a solid college education. That will focus him on learning the basics very well, from solid sources. It will also force him to face his strengths and limitations, as he will be graded on a curve. It won't be like here where everyone who wants to feel victorious has very little standing in the way of just doing so.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
Droopy wrote:Ancient Roman Emperors, by the standards of the modern American blue collar class, at entry level wage rates, were living on the edge.
Living on the edge of what?
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”