Pragmatarianism -- *The FINAL Thread*

[helmuth_hubener]

I haven't read any of their books in their totality. Heck, I don't think I've read a single economics book in its totality.

Do you think it would be valuable for you to do so? Would taking the time to do that further your goals?

If so, why would you not want to read their books? Can you prove to me that reading their books would not lead to pragmatarianism? If you can't, why do you not want to read them?

I submit that informedness is a good system. If your own preferred system, pragmatarianism, is truly the best one, then informedness should lead to the confirming, proving, and finally implementation of pragmatarianism. As long as enough people become informed, bringing about what one could call a "System of Informedness," so to speak, then Pragmatarianism will inevitably be implemented. Unless you don't have the confidence in Pragmatarianism to think that it really would succeed on the free market of ideas which exists in my proposed system: Informedness.

Implementing Informednessism would just be a preparatory system for Pragmatarianism. Once everyone is informed, they will see Pragmatarianism is the best system and it will win out on the free market of ideas. The only way it wouldn't is if it really were not the best system. And that's not possible... is it?

If Pragmatarianism on training wheels would surely fail then how would Pragmatarianism in full possibly succeed?

 

[Xerographica]

If there were some evidence that people do not want the most bang for their buck...then I'm fairly certain that somebody would have presented it already. And I highly doubt that any such evidence would come from any books written by Smith, Mises or Rothbard.

If you google "pragmatarianism" then it's pretty clear what I'm doing to try and further my goals. What are your goals and what are you doing to try and further them? What is the primary obstacle between you and your goals? How do you explain the disparity between our goals?

According to Google...right now there are about 367,000 results for "anarcho-capitalism" and about 6,010 results for "pragmatarianism". Clearly that's not the best measure of effectiveness...but it is some measure. How can I get the most bang for my buck? For a while I thought you'd be able to give me a hand getting the word out...but you didn't want to start a blog...and you didn't want to sign up and participate on other forums. Not even to promote the things that you believe in. This is your comfort zone.

Once I dated this mormon girl who was always trying to get me out of my comfort zone. Sometimes she succeeded...but it was never quite the most enjoyable experience for me. So I sympathize with your unwillingness to go outside your comfort zone.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

If there were some evidence that being informed were a bad, thing, I'm sure someone would have presented it by now. And I highly doubt that and such evidence would come from someone not informed. Well, I take that back: they themselves may be direct evidence, as object lessons, but they would not be able to present any evidence is what I mean, being too uninformed to do so.

If you google "reading books" then it's pretty clear what the benefits are to doing so. What are your goals and how does being uninformed help you further them? How do you explain the disparity between my goal of being informed, and your determination to remain uninformed?

According to Google, there are 129,864,880 different books in the world. Sadly, no results were found for "historically significant illiterates". Clearly that's not the only indication of the effectiveness of reading, but it kind of gives you an idea.

So I sympathize with your unwillingness to go outside your comfort zone.

We all have our different addictions. You are compulsively addicted to conversing on the internet. I don't share your addiction (I don't think). This is not a bad thing for me. On the contrary, it's a sad thing for you. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot I can do to help you with it, other than point it out, as I just did. You already know you're addicted, but it never hurts to be reminded and someday maybe something will click and you'll be able to break out of it, leave your chair, and go do something productive and thrilling and interesting.

In the meantime, please realize I have raised some very good observations about Pragmatarianism in my first post in this thread, none of which you have challenged, and perhaps none of which you disagree with, or even know enough to know whether you disagree with them (that's one problem with being uninformed). Some of these observations would be quite devastating if fleshed out and followed to their logical conclusions.

Other posters, Anarcho-Capitalist and Sam I am, have raised their own very good points. You haven't actually attempted to address any of these points. I'm not just saying that you haven't addressed them, that would be one thing, but that you haven't even tried. Now perhaps you are not mentally capable of doing so, but I don't think that's it. I think you're just not interested in doing so. I think you don't realize that the posts we have made and the arguments we set forth are any different than the hundreds of other flippant, jotted-off posts you obsessively reply to daily. Or you don't care whether they are. Just so much grist for the mill, just human contact to fend off the loneliness. You have a system, and it's not really about learning and communicating, it's about feeding an addiction.

But by all means feel free to prove me wrong! Just start discussing the actual points we've brought up. If you don't understand one, just ask. For instance: "What are you talking about with the 'capital structure'? Is there a book where I can read about that?", or "What is the diamond/water paradox? Could you refer me to a book or article about that?" And then you go and actually read the book or article. Believe me, this kind of behavior undertaken sincerely -- this change of attitude, that is -- would go super-far in changing everyone's opinion of you. Your little red bar would soon turn green. If you're going to be spending so much time feeding this (what I see as a pointless) addiction, you might as well do so with as much success and enjoyment as possible.

So please, explain to me why Informednessism would not lead you to Pragmatarianism, the Greatest Economic System Known to Man. If you're worried that the implementation of Informednessism in your life may shake your faith in Pragmatarianism, leading you away from it, then what does that say about Pragmatarianism? If it can't stand the test of any informed intellectual consideration, maybe it's all crack and no nut, eh?

So please take the time to become a Informednessismitarian. It is hard to take you seriously unless you do. It reminds me of this scene in a book (Argh! Again with this "books" thing!) I recently started:

The words came out of Randy's mouth before he had time to think better of it. "The
Information Superhighway is just a stinking metaphor! Give me a break!" he said.

There was a silence as everyone around the table winced in unison. Dinner had now,
officially, crashed and burned. All they could do now was grab their ankles, put their
heads between their knees, and wait for the wreckage to slide to a halt.

"That doesn't tell me very much," Kivistik said. "Everything is a metaphor. The word
'fork' is a metaphor for this object." He held up a fork. "All discourse is built from
metaphors."

"That's no excuse for using bad metaphors," Randy said.

"Bad? Bad? Who decides what is bad?" Kivistik said, doing his killer impression of a
heavy-lidded, mouth-breathing undergraduate. There was scattered tittering from people
who were desperate to break the tension.

Randy could see where it was going. Kivistik had gone for the usual academician's ace
in the hole: everything is relative, it's all just differing perspectives. People had already
begun to resume their little side conversations, thinking that the conflict was over, when
Randy gave them all a start with: "Who decides what's bad? I do. "

Even Dr. G. E. B. Kivistik was flustered. He wasn't sure if Randy was joking. "Excuse
me?"

Randy was in no great hurry to answer the question. He took the opportunity to sit back
comfortably, stretch, and take a sip of his wine. He was feeling good. "It's like this," he
said. "I've read your book. I've seen you on TV. I've heard you tonight. I personally
typed up a list of your credentials when I was preparing press materials for this
conference. So I know that you're not qualified to have an opinion about technical
issues.''

"Oh," Kivistik said in mock confusion, "I didn't realize one had to have qualifications."

"I think it's clear," Randy said, "that if you are ignorant of a particular subject, that your
opinion is completely worthless. If I'm sick, I don't ask a plumber for advice. I go to a
doctor. Likewise, if I have questions about the Internet, I will seek opinions from people
who know about it."

"Funny how all of the technocrats seem to be in favor of the Internet," Kivistik said
cheerily, milking a few more laughs from the crowd.

"You have just made a statement that is demonstrably not true," Randy said, pleasantly
enough. "A number of Internet experts have written well-reasoned books that are sharply
critical of it."

Kivistik was finally getting pissed off. All the levity was gone.

"So," Randy continued, "to get back to where we started, the Information Superhighway
is a bad metaphor for the Internet, because I say it is. There might be a thousand people
on the planet who are as conversant with the Internet as I am. I know most of these
people. None of them takes that metaphor seriously. Q.E.D."

"Oh. I see," Kivistik said, a little hotly. He had seen an opening. "So we should rely on
the technocrats to tell us what to think, and how to think, about this technology."

The expressions of the others seemed to say that this was a telling blow, righteously
struck.

"I'm not sure what a technocrat is," Randy said. "Am I a technocrat? I'm just a guy who
went down to the bookstore and bought a couple of textbooks on TCP/IP, which is the
underlying protocol of the Internet, and read them. And then I signed on to a computer,
which anyone can do nowadays, and I messed around with it for a few years, and now I
know all about it. Does that make me a technocrat?"​

 

[kuckfeynes]

How much effort does it take to read a book? You go through all the trouble of typing paragraph after paragraph, and you've never read an economics book? You obsess over anarcho-capitalism, but you don't think it's important to study the guy that invented the term?

Wealth of Nations
The Law
Human Action
For A New Liberty

If you have any questions after reading those four books, any specifics to challenge, post away. But until then, all you're doing is asking normal people on the internet to paraphrase what has already been articulated much better by more talented thinkers and writers than ourselves. What you have to understand is that we, like Ron Paul, are not re-inventing the wheel. We stand on the shoulders of giants. And if you truly wish to understand and not just argue like a teenager, you must go to the source first.

 

[Xerographica]

Adam Smith's argument...and Mises' argument...and Rothbard's argument...were all the same. They argued that people want the most bang for their buck. People want more for less. Everybody wants more for less. Everybody hates it when they get less for more. Nobody likes suffering losses. Given that economics is the study of scarcity...we can intuitively understand why economic prosperity depends on gains...profits...abundance.

You say that I'm uninformed...so share some passages that argue that people are ok with getting less for more. Share some passages that argue that the opportunity cost concept is a myth.

I read your critique and I read Anarcho-Capitalist's critique and nowhere did either of you explain...or attempt to explain...how giving taxpayers 100% control of their money in the public sector would lead to negative economic consequences. In the private sector people want more for less...but in the public sector they are going to want less for more?

In the other room my gf was skyping with her friend in Hawaii. They were studying together for some therapy licensing exam. My ears perked up when I heard them talking about sacrifice. So I stopped what I was doing and asked her what exactly she was studying. She told me that she was reviewing Bowen's Theory. From Wikipedia..

Differentiation of self refers to one's ability to separate one's own intellectual and emotional functioning from that of the family. Bowen spoke of people functioning on a single continuum or scale. Individuals with "low differentiation" are more likely to become fused with predominant family emotions. (A related concept is that of an undifferentiated ego mass, which is a term used to describe a family unit whose members possess low differentiation and therefore are emotionally fused.) Those with "low differentiation" depend on others' approval and acceptance. They either conform themselves to others in order to please them, or they attempt to force others to conform to themselves. They are thus more vulnerable to stress, defined as stressor(s) AND psycho-physiological "stress reactivity," and their's is a greater than average challenge to adjust/adapt to life changes and contrary beliefs

Right? So there's anxiety between two people...and they project their anxiety onto a third person who serves as a scapegoat...

In Part 1 of this post, in an effort to understand more about how black sheep and scapegoats are created, we looked into some of the theory behind “triangles” in families. We explored how Murray Bowen, the founder of family systems theory, thought that families fall into these key triangular patterns of relating to try to reduce tension. That by focusing on a “problem child” or black sheep or scapegoat, other family members can avoid looking too deeply into their own problems, or the tensions in their other relationships. - Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Read the historical origin of scapegoat on Wikipedia and then consider this passage by Mises...

It is impossible, … for the human mind to think of any event as uncaused. The concepts of chance and contingency, if properly analyzed, do not refer ultimately to the course of events in the universe. They refer to human knowledge, prevision, and action. They have a praxeological, not an ontological connotation. - Mises

Then read and reread and reread this passage by Jacques Derrida...

By preferring my work, simply by giving it my time, my attention, by preferring my activity as a citizen or as a professional philosopher, writing and speaking here in a public language, French in my case, I am perhaps fulfilling my duty. But I am sacrificing and betraying at every moment all my other obligations: my obligation to the other others whom I know or don’t know, the billions of my fellows (without mentioning the animals that are even more other others than my fellows), my fellows who are dying of starvation or sickness. I betray my fidelity or my obligations to other citizens, to those who don't speak my language and to whom I neither speak or respond, to each of those who listen or read, and to whom I neither respond nor address myself in the proper manner, that is, in a singular manner (this is for the so-called public space to which I sacrifice my so-called private space), thus also to those I love in private, my own, my family, my son, each of whom is the only son I sacrifice to the other, every one being sacrificed to every one else in this land of Moriah that is our habitat every second of every day. - Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death

In case you missed the reference...Moriah is where Abraham was going to sacrifice Issac. Just in case anybody missed the concept...Derrida's passage was a description of the opportunity cost concept.

It is through the gaze of my extinguished self that I realize the limitations that make scarcity necessary. Through this gaze into my own limitedness - a limit always established by the impending cessation of space and time for me - through this gift of death, I discover in nature the best way to be efficient. Thanks to death I must choose x rather than y. This has become a feature of 'nature' - a demystified 'nature' that bears no possibility of participation in the eternal. This is consistent with capitalism. - D. Stephen Long

So don't think that I'm unaware of what I'm sacrificing by spending my time promoting the idea that taxpayers have the opportunity to consider what their sacrifices are worth in the public sector. Don't think that my gf is unaware of what she is sacrificing by spending her time studying for her licensing exam. We all want to minimize anxiety and maximize benefit. Taxpayers should have the freedom to do so in the public sector as well as in the private sector.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Adam Smith's argument...and Mises' argument...and Rothbard's argument...were all the same.

They really weren't. They really, really weren't.

They argued that people want the most bang for their buck. People want more for less. Everybody wants more for less. Everybody hates it when they get less for more. Nobody likes suffering losses.

Do you really think that anyone would write a 500-page book making that point and only that point?

They made a lot of points, the vast majority of which you probably are not aware of and thus do not yet understand.

You say that I'm uninformed...so share some passages that argue that people are ok with getting less for more. Share some passages that argue that the opportunity cost concept is a myth.

You have decided only one particular thing can prove you wrong. You are taking an extremely small and hilariously limited teaspoon of economics concepts, very rudimentarily understood, (so rudimentarily understood that they're really just catchphrases for you) and building from that a defense of your tax-earmarking proposal. What you've done is read what rhetoric an-caps and other libertarians use on the internet, and find what you feel is a loophole of sorts, a contradiction perhaps, in any case a weakness. You have holed up in that weak spot and built a theory there. You feel like you are safe there, that you have found an impregnable spot from which to conduct your campaigns of loneliness alleviation. What is the weakness?

1. Choice is good. This is the (only) lesson of economics.
2. Thus, all the benefits of the free market can be duplicated in the public sector if the public sector will just emulate the private sector by giving people choice.

That's it. Those two bullet points form your entire argument, and to say they are the entire extent of your economics knowledge would not be too far off.

The thing is, "choice good, non-choice bad" is not the only lesson of economics. Thus, demonstrating that "actually, choice bad, non-choice good" is not the only way to economically address your proposal. It's just not. You think it is, but it's not. There are any number of complex and non-obvious consequences tax earmarking would cause. Hundreds of pages or analysis could be written on it. Thousands. Were these pages to be written, you would not today, at your current level of education, really understand them. Would you agree?

What you have done is manipulate a ridiculously small set of information, which by itself gives an airtight case for a ridiculous conclusion you've invented. A parallel case would be if this were all I knew about aerodynamics:

1. Airplanes fly because the wing is curved, which makes the air on the top of the wing move faster than the air on the bottom of the wing.
2. Thus, I can build a much superior, awesomer airplane by making one with the tops of its wings really, really curved. Super-curved!

The only way you can prove me wrong is to disprove statement 1. Just disprove it! Can't? Then obviously I am right! You just can't handle how right I am!!! Why not admit I am right and start a blog extolling my rightness?

So anyway, here are some "passages" to acquaint yourself with which will make you realize tax earmarking is not the answer:

http://mises.org/document/1082
http://mises.org/document/3250

I read your critique and I read Anarcho-Capitalist's critique and nowhere did either of you explain...or attempt to explain...how giving taxpayers 100% control of their money in the public sector would lead to negative economic consequences.

We really did. We really did make that attempt. Can you explain what the diamond-water paradox is, and why it is relevant to -- and would cause problems for -- your tax earmarking proposal? See, most of our points either you did not understand or are pretending to not understand. At the moment I'm leaning towards thinking you sincerely do not understand, given that you have apparently never read a solid economics textbook.

In the other room my gf was skyping with her friend in Hawaii......

And so you share with us a psychological problem some people have, of their happiness being wrapped up in other people's happiness. You don't explain why you're sharing this with us, what relevance you think it has; you forgot that part. But then you get into "sacrifice" and opportunity cost, wrapping it all up with a conclusion, which of course we already knew would be the conclusion, because it is your only conclusion, the only one that you know, the only one that you think you ever need:

Taxpayers should have the freedom to do so in the public sector as well as in the private sector.

I can only shake my head and sigh.

 

[Xerographica]

Diamond water paradox...so what? People aren't going to purchase water with their taxes? They aren't going to purchase diamonds with their taxes? How about actually making an argument rather than simply referring to the millions and millions of arguments that CAN be made.

And don't refer me to books that you've "read" and say that they refute pragmatarianism. That's not even an argument. If you've actually read the books yourself then I'm sure it will be easy for you to simply share the specific passages that you're referring to. Unless you have't read the books yourself...which is what I'm guessing based on your actions.

 

[Xerographica]

Diamond water paradox...so what? People aren't going to purchase water with their taxes? They aren't going to purchase diamonds with their taxes? How about actually making an argument rather than simply referring to the millions and millions of arguments that CAN be made.

And don't refer me to books that you've "read" and say that they refute pragmatarianism. That's not even an argument. If you've actually read the books yourself then I'm sure it will be easy for you to simply share the specific passages that you're referring to. Unless you haven't read the books yourself...which is what I'm guessing based on your actions.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Diamond water paradox...so what?

Exactly. So what? You really don't know.

I'm not going to take the time to teach you. I already took a lot of time teaching you all the stuff in my Opening Post. But I'm not sure my teaching was effective. I'm rather convinced I was not effective. So I'm not going to continue to do ineffective things. Clearly my teaching method is junk. Or your learning method is. Or you're not trying to learn at all. Regardless of the cause, it all amounts to the same thing, failure, and the only cause I have control over is my teaching, and since I have no good ideas about how to improve my method, I think we just give up.

Your "Pragmatarianism" has been quite conclusively refuted, and that is apparently where we will have to leave it. You have offered no rejoinder.

All the best of luck on your other forums!

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Actual Xero (copied)

helmuth_hubener, your "final word" is missing one very important word... "congress". This thread, on the other hand, has (prior to this post) 19 instances of the word "congress". How do you explain this disparity?

In case I wasn't very clear the first gazillion times that I've explained this...

1. Tax choice is where people can choose which government organizations (GOs) they give their taxes to
2. Congress is in charge of determining the tax rate
3. Congress is a government organization (GO)
4. Therefore, in a tax choice system, taxpayers will be able to choose how much of their hard earned tax dollars they give to congress.

You (the taxpayer): Ah man, these public options really suck! I'm the complete opposite of a kid in a candy store!! I'm a depressed taxpayer in a public market!!! I'm a despondent adult in a crap store!!!!!!
Congress: Will you give us more of your hard-earned tax dollars if we raise or lower the tax rate?
You: Lower!!!!!!! For sure! Drop the tax rate to 1% and I'll give you all of my tax dollars!
Congress: How many other people are in the same boat as you?
You: To be completely honest... I really don't know. If I'm the only person in this boat, and you lower the tax rate to 1%, then more people will boycott you and your revenue will plummet.
Congress: We really don't want our revenue to plummet, we want our revenue to skyrocket!
You: Then decrease the tax rate marginally. If your revenue increases then you'll know that you're going in the right direction. Keep marginally, and gradually, decreasing the tax rate until your revenue starts to decrease.
Congress: That sounds like a really good plan!
You: I know! I'm a genius!


If taxpayers largely perceive a relative scarcity (shortage) of public goods... then they will perceive the necessity of a higher tax rate. So congress would increase its revenue by increasing the tax rate. If, on the other hand, taxpayers largely perceive a surplus of public goods... then they will perceive the necessity of a lower tax rate. So congress would increase its revenue by decreasing the tax rate.





In this video, the kid doesn't give his money to the pastry vendor. Why didn't he? Because evidently the kid perceived that there were more valuable things to spend his money on. From his unique perspective, with his unique set of preferences, in his unique situation/circumstances/environment...

relative scarcity of other goods (X) > relative scarcity of pastries (Y)

X > Y

If taxpayers, in a pragmatarian system, perceive that the...

relative scarcity of private goods (X) > relative scarcity of public goods (Y)

X > Y

... then they'll allocate their hard-earned tax dollars accordingly. They'll give more tax dollars to congress if, and only if, congress lowers the tax rate.

This is how and why markets work. Consumers use their cash to guide producers in the most valuable directions. Consumers are the compass. Right now this compass is not in the public sector...




You might be right that pragmatarianism is a crappy idea. But your critique to end all all critiques doesn't even address the mindnumbingly simple process that will determine the tax rate a pragmatarian system.

Speaking of bad ideas... here's the worst idea ever.

Personally, I think that consumers will be more honest in the public sector. More honesty means a more accurate compass. And a more accurate compass means more value will be created in the public sector. When the public sector creates more and more value... the tax rate will increase accordingly. Until we end up at a 100% tax rate.

Is my prediction wrong? I wouldn't be surprised! So please come up with a better prediction. Predict, using the stupid simple process that I outlined in this post, what the tax rate will end up being. Will it go up? If so, how high and why? Will it go down? If so, how low and why?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

In case I wasn't very clear the first gazillion times that I've explained this...

Yes, this is in fact the case. You were not clear. You still have not been clear. You have never explained in any coherent fashion just what you are proposing and just how it would work. Never.

If you could do that, if you would even try, I think that would be a productive exercise. To most people, it might have occurred to them to do this *before* devoting their life to posting about a pet idea, especially one with no chance of coming to fruition. But, your mileage clearly varies. In any case, do this. Explain exactly how a pragmatarian system would work. It will help you to flesh out and clarify your thinking. It will force you to pin down in concrete terms precisely what it is you are proposing.

Until you do that, I will have no idea what you are saying, you will have no idea what you're saying, no one will have any idea what you're saying. And yet, you'll keep saying it.