Thomas Sowell - Government As Decision Maker

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Thomas Sowell - Government As Decision Maker

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LibertyPen

Күн бұрын

From Knowledge and Decisions, Professor Sowell looks at the incentives of political surrogates. www.LibertyPen.com

Пікірлер: 23

@CurtHowland 9 жыл бұрын

The people who need to learn this, won't.

@zalida100 9 жыл бұрын

But Thomas Sowell surely understands what he just wrote/said, but (as far as i know) he is still a statist and therefore seems to condone or accept as a cost, all the coruption and violence that statism entails. Therefore, learning, or understanding this kind of thing is certainly no guarantee of the subsequent emergence of "more reasonable behaviour" by the masses. (By our kinda NAP standards etc etc). This statist nastiness that goes on and has gone on for thousands of years, can continue, not because of an intellectual problem, or inadequacy, of the masses. It's more likely to be a psychological problem.

@CurtHowland 9 жыл бұрын

zalida100 I think you'll find Sowell is far more anarchist than statist. I don't know how he identifies himself. If it writings are any indication, he's a Rothbardian anarchist. Indeed, the mind-work of relying on violence to achieve one's ends is nearly impossible to weed out. Almost. :)

@LucisFerre1 9 жыл бұрын

zalida100 In no way, shape or form is Sowell a statist.

@SnarkJacobs 9 жыл бұрын

Was just thinking along the very same lines. But if the people won't come to the knowledge - and unfortunately this is another rule rather than exception to - the knowledge must be brought to the people. After that I wish you all the best, I'm out.

@mzk1489 9 жыл бұрын

Curt Howland I can't imagine he is further out than libertarian.

@joemahony4198 2 жыл бұрын

As Edmund Burke stated: Those who trade freedom for security end with neither. I can only agreed we are limiting freedom for other objectives. The current COVID=19 situation is a case in point.

@Ben..... 9 жыл бұрын

Very fascinating discussion

@mzk1489 9 жыл бұрын

What convinced Sowell that socialism was wrong was having to make a living. I think that ought to be a requirement for anyone to be taken seriously in economics and politics, whether they are socialists or libertarians or anarchists. If you haven't supported yourself, preferably outside academia, it is hard to take your opinion seriously in these matters. And preferably one should have raised children (I haven't unfortunately).

@fzqlcs 9 жыл бұрын

More specifically, Sowell gave up Marxism when he went to work for the Department of Labor. As a PhD, he wanted to study whether or not minimum wage laws helped or hindered the poor. He was told the agency had no interest in this as more than half of the department's activity revolved around the minimum wage law and infractions of similar labor restrictions. Once he found out the incentives of the agency were in self-perpetuation rather than in public service, his regard for the theories of Marx were evaporated by reality.

@LucisFerre1 9 жыл бұрын

*"The incremental tradeoff of freedom for other things is accepted by everyone except pure anarchists".* I completely disagree. One can excercise one's individual rights to their fullest without infringing one iota on anyone else's rights. "Freedoms" are not limited by the existence of government, it's limited by the very definitoin and concept of rights. That is, I have full rights to swing my fist, but that stops at the tip of your nose. The reason this is the case is not that you'll be arrested, but because there can be no such thing as the right to violate the rights of others, as that would be a self-undermining contradiction. There is no conflict between the concept of anarchy and the concept of individual rights. After all, govenment does not (can not) grant inalienable rights, it recognizes rights. Not the government, nor gods, nor any other authoritative body can grant rights, because that which is arbitrarily offered can be just as arbitrarily retracted, which violates both the definitions of inalienable, and the definitoin of rights.

@theredscourge 9 жыл бұрын

Plus, in a stateless society there's nothing stopping vigilante justice, and that's more frightening a thought than police brutality, so most people are going to try pretty hard to not piss anyone off. You never know what someone's packing when there's no law against walking down the street with grenades in your pants. An armed society is a police society. A society armed to the teeth is gonna be polite as fuck.

@kylemedeiros6907 9 жыл бұрын

I believe principles are more important than impulses. You can't please everyone so don't make it your responsibility. What is anything in life with out freedom? Why are ppl so quick to give the freedom of others away

@joemahony4198 2 жыл бұрын

Because it is the freedom of others. Also the property of others for the goods and services I want. If a am unwilling or unable to pay for what I want why should you be required to pay for it.

@mzk1489 9 жыл бұрын

I've seen this; a ranking of countries by freedom, where freedom was defined as its opposite. (The US was pretty far down as a result). Also note that he considers a lynch mob (a feature of anarchy) as causing less freedom than the courts of government.

@joemahony4198 2 жыл бұрын

I was under the impression that Dr Sowell considered a lynch mob democracy in action, the antithesis of freedom.

@roguedrones 9 жыл бұрын

Thomas Sowell: making intellectual poo jokes with a straight face.

@joemahony4198 2 жыл бұрын

Sowell took Rawls to his illogical extrem to show the flaw in his argument. The easiest thing to give away is the freedom and property of someone else.