Gary Johnson Wenzel interview paying dividends: Gary Johnson is reading Economics In One Lesson

I'd like to see him read Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty next so that he gets over his cost/benefit analysis approach to freedom.

Edit: I see he was presented with For A New Liberty by Rothbard as well. I haven't read that one, but maybe it will have the same effect.
 
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rp08orbust said:
I'd like to see him read Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty next so that he gets over his cost/benefit analysis approach to freedom.

Edit: I see he was presented with For A New Liberty by Rothbard as well. I haven't read that one, but maybe it will have the same effect.
Click to expand...
Please tell more. Why don't you like cost/benefit analysis?
 
Bastiat's The Law said:
Please tell more. Why don't you like cost/benefit analysis?
Click to expand...

There are a lot of issues, mainly the inherent subjectivity of most costs and benefits, the inherent inability to properly project the calculations needed to perfectly evaluate costs and benefits for both direct and indirect parts, and the fact that utility can very easily come into direct conflict with moral or legal rights.

On a mostly related note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster
 
My brother told me about an interview he did where he said "Ron Paul is now in the rear view mirror" or something along those lines. Gary Johnson can go fuck himself.
 
Mises_to_Paul said:
...the inherent subjectivity of most costs...
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LOL. LOL. ROFLMAO.

"THE INHERENT SUBJECTIVITY OF MOST COSTS" . . . you can't MAKE that kinda irony up, you gotta RUN RIGHT INTO IT.

What is the hackneyed phrase around here? Oh yeah, HATERS GONNA HATE. Knock yerself out, "Mises_to_Paul". LOL, again.
 
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Mises_to_Paul said:
What exactly are you laughing at?

It's not a particularly controversial stance that value (and therefore costs) is subjective.
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COST SUBJECTIVITY . . . run it by a CEO and run it by Rachel Maddow, see who's onboard.

In case you missed the edits:

cheapseats said:
LOL. LOL. ROFLMAO.

"THE INHERENT SUBJECTIVITY OF MOST COSTS" . . . you can't MAKE that kinda irony up, you gotta RUN RIGHT INTO IT.

What is the hackneyed phrase around here? Oh yeah, HATERS GONNA HATE. Knock yerself out, "Mises_to_Paul". LOL, again.
Click to expand...
 
cheapseats said:
COST SUBJECTIVITY . . . run it by a CEO and run it by Rachel Maddow, see who's onboard.

In case you missed the edits:
Click to expand...

I see it. People can easily assign different "weights" to various cost components at various times, leading to differing final values about the overall cost of a particular action. Cost and benefits being subjective is a fairly critical feature of AE.

I am more specifically referring to C/B analysis applied to political action and society, which is infinitely more complex than traditional business CB analyses, which focus on much more narrowly defined questions with fewer variables, and (usually) a very clear criterion for success (bottom line).

That is to say nothing of the moral or ethical issues in play, which are the most important aspects anyway.

EDIT: To give an (extreme) hypothetical to illustrate the principle, please explain A) which of these costs are ideal on the sum, and B) explain how a person cannot arrive at any other conclusion, thus proving it's objectivity. Assume everything else is equal.

A. A policy that decreases wealth by 6 percent on average, kills 1,000 people, and jails 1,000 people
B. A policy that decreases wealth by 37 percent on average, kills 0 people, and jails 0 people
C. A policy that decreases wealth by 0 percent on average, kills 1,000 people, and jails 4,000 people

Here is a paper that touches on some of these issues:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/4_1/4_1_6.pdf
 
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rp08orbust said:
I'd like to see him read Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty next so that he gets over his cost/benefit analysis approach to freedom.

Edit: I see he was presented with For A New Liberty by Rothbard as well. I haven't read that one, but maybe it will have the same effect.
Click to expand...

While Rothbard might make for decent reading, the man is essentially insane. This guy's solution to immigration is to eliminate public property and have each individual land owners have his own immigration policy. The same guy who believes that parents should be able to sell their children, and thinks that women who want to vote are lesbians.
 
Just want to mention, this is why we need to hold the feet of "our own" to the fire.

Hope Gary takes the two books to heart and applies it to his political outlook.
 
He needs to read Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty". Probably the most important book in libertarian philosophy.
 
DerailingDaTrain said:
My brother told me about an interview he did where he said "Ron Paul is now in the rear view mirror" or something along those lines. Gary Johnson can go fuck himself.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it's true as far as the election goes. Ron could tell the republican party to go fuck themselves and run third party, which would go a lot better than this 1988 run considering there are millions of people who support him now. We'd all vote for him were he to do so, obviously. Do any Ron Paul supporters actually have loyalty to the republican party? But he won't do it because of Rand or whatever, which i.m.o. is stupid. Rand's his own man, why does Ron have to stay loyal to the assholes in the GOP that are his and our enemies? So there's no sense in being mad at Gary Johnson at this stage of the game. During the primary he was gracious and told people to vote for Ron and not worry about the LP's primary. But now the primary's over.
 
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