[ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency

[Kevin H]

On 1/31/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2009/2/1 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
>
> > This seems to me a too traditional and theoretical way to iterate such
> > an old debate.
> >
> > The very preliminary issues, IMHO, are:
> > - is it useful to allow some people to acquire, or maintain, fortunes
> > which vastly exceed what might still have an impact on their
> > lifestyle?
> > - is it useful to allow some people to dispose of large fortunes which
> > they did not "acquire" in any socially, or even Darwinistically,
> > meaningful sense?
>
> You could argue that yes, it's useful, since without the lure of such
> fortunes certain types of investment with potentially useful
> consequences would not be made. But while utilitarianism may save
> capitalism, it won't save libertarianism. For the libertarians would
> argue that even if a socialist program could be shown to further the
> common good, it would still be wrong.


Good catch.  This is something that a lot of people miss.  One of the main
characteristics of libertarianism is it's deontological character.  It is
more concerned about the *process* by which wealth is created, and only that
process can produce *true* wealth.  Taxation is theft, even if through
taxation *more* wealth would be created.

So all of this discussion concerning economics is rather besides the point.
It's not about which system produces the more wealth or even happiness, but
about which produces the most "freedom" or "equality".  These emphatic words
sound good until you realize that each ideology uses them quite differently,
to the point where you wonder if the terms themselves are but a rhetorical
ploy.  I used to think this, but apparently it's not the case.  Ideologues
are just wholly unable to read each other's language.

That's as good of a definition of the ideologue as any: the monolingual in
evaluation.

*Kevin*
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