Monday, October 28, 2013

Coolidge and Hayek on conservatism


The Calvin Coolindge test to determine whether one is conservative (like Cal) or liberal.

Balkinization
An Ideological Test
Gerard N. Magliocca

Hayek's take on it by Corey Robin

Balkinization
From Coolidge to Hayek
Frank Pasquale


There's a simpler test. Does one think, feel and behave in accordance with the principle, Some are better than others and deserve privilege, or the principle that all are created equal and deserve to be treated as equals. 

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Does one think, feel and behave in accordance with the principle, Some are better than others and deserve privilege, or the principle that all are created equal and deserve to be treated as equals. Tom Hickey

Progressives fail this test themselves since they deem some as creditworthy and some as not simply because the former is likely to be able to repay stolen purchasing power plus interest to the banks that stole it while the latter is not.

So Progressive physicians: Heal thy selves first!

Matt Franko said...

F,

so let me get this straight: no one is born with purchasing power except those who can inherit it.

So we establish a credit system where someone without purchasing power can get a loan for a home to live in and a car to drive to work in as long as that person can point to income some of which that person intends to use to pay the loan back....

And what you advocate for is an elimination of this credit system then in favor of what? Servitude? Slavery? How can a person without purchasing power then achieve purchasing power without a credit system in place?

Or are you saying the ones born into wealth are better than the ones not?

Or if not, what purchasing power are humans born with? where do they get it? Slavery? Servitude?

or are you advocating for a Basic Income Guaranty to all? This would be everyone's purchasing power?

Unknown said...

or are you advocating for a Basic Income Guaranty to all? This would be everyone's purchasing power? Franko

A BIG sounds good. Sure beats a JG since that would pay a person to waste his time - very demoralizing.

As for other purchasing power, purely private credit creation* is ethical and so is common stock issuance.

What isn't ethical is government backing for any private purchasing power creation.

Also, theft requires restitution so a universal bailout with new fiat is called for. Against that, Franko?

*So-called "free banking" except it was rarely totally private because of explicit and implicit government privileges such as the lack of a convenient Postal Savings Service for the risk-free storage of and transactions with fiat and government recognition/coinage of PMs as money.

Ryan Harris said...

Our shared history along with media (i'm not just talking about Fox!) and universities that teach stylized facts that illustrate concepts, create simplified models upon which people create world views and political views and economic views on those simplistic ideas encourage speculation about the extremes. Even on this blog, you can't really have a discussion of the merits of Ayn Rand or a libertarian concept without some bully coming around whipping the discussion into what is 'appropriate' to not be moronic. I struggle with whether it is formative context or lack of negative capability. I'm not defending Hayek or Coolidge but surely we have some ability to view Hayek's position and see some billionaire like Buffett or Musk or someone and see where Hayek is coming from, admit at least a partial truth, while at the same time being able to know the limits and be able to imagine a world where you can have billionaires and abundant opportunity, widespread prosperity for the masses, a social safety net and upward mobility. I constantly read this stuff where you can either destroy the rich or hold down the poor as if it were one or the other. Can you really not have both, within limit? It is like every discussion we undertake needs to be prefaced with 'when we find the limit as it approaches zero (or infinity)' but we fail to take into account 99% of reality (that isn't as interesting) but is far more important.

Matt Franko said...

Well Ryan perhaps to your point if we let some of these people run the healthcare system, I don't think we would be seeing this implementation fiasco we are currently seeing with the so-called 'Obamacare'...

They may be 'the acquirers', but the stuff they 'acquire' they want to look and function well and they usually see that it does.

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

Ryan, of course it's a partial truth if that is the way the system is designed. A highly competitive socio-economic system will produce predictable results based on institutional arrangement and class-based power structure. Then the people at the top congratulate themselves on rising to the apex of a "meritocracy" based on their personal qualifications and efforts.

That is stylizing the facts, and it runs through Libertarian, neoclassical, neoliberal, and Objectivist thought. History, anthropology, sociology, life science, and psychology show otherwise, as does heterodox economics.

Tom Hickey said...

Well Ryan perhaps to your point if we let some of these people run the healthcare system, I don't think we would be seeing this implementation fiasco we are currently seeing with the so-called 'Obamacare'...

They may be 'the acquirers', but the stuff they 'acquire' they want to look and function well and they usually see that it does.


The problem is that it is against current law regarding government contracts in such cases. Bush got around it through emergency powers in Iraq, and look how that turned out. Blew billions into crony's pockets, and the output was screwed up royally. That is what the law is designed to prevent.

The trouble is that Federal law is too tight, requires too much division and not enough central control in order to prevent cronyism and corruption. Good idea, but not good implementation.