[ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 02/02/2009 19.09, Stefano Vaj ha scritto:
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:50 PM, painlord2k at libero.it
> <painlord2k at libero.it>  wrote:
>> I don't like the idea of "money as debt", I prefer the idea of "money as a
>> commodity", in particular "money as gold".
>
> Sure. Nobody is implying that you believe yourself to be living in the
> best possible world, or that the system in place is by any means
> aligned with your ideas... :-)
>
>> And, in fact, leftist statism and rightist statism all argue about "helping
>> the poor", "the workers" and others groups. They only change how these
>> groups are identified.
>
> It is however undeniable that a rightist statism exists that argue in
> favour of "helping the rich" (under some other rhetorical definition,
> of course), including when the latter find themselves in such a
> position not because they are the winners of some "no-barrels hold"
> social competition, but because they are *shielded* therefrom.

For example, the Bush administration helped the bankers.
The Obama administration helped the bankers and the automakers.
And the buyers of McMansion that did "the step longer than their leg" as 
we say in Italy.
Or, to give example of Italy, they will help the poor Alitalia workers 
and the Fiat workers (with their managements and theirs shareholders).
And usually no one help the little businessman or the workers in a 
little business.

This is not a rightist or leftist policy, this is the policy of all 
parties, because they are all full of statists in a way or another.

> What I am trying to say here is that there are at least a few
> occurrences where in fact criticisms of dubious accumulation of wealth
> and privileges are justifiable also from a libertarian point of view,
> and defences thereof are not.

On this we agree for sure.
We know many instances where people become rich and powerful because 
they have friends in the right positions and are able to use the state 
coffins to buy their ways to the power.

> The fact, for instance, that social mobility is currently *decreasing*
> in contemporary societies in comparison with other, theoretically less
> "market-oriented", eras, should give us food for thought.

This is, really, the measure that someone is keeping power that don't 
deserve.
In any really marked oriented, free society, the social mobility would 
be stable or increasing.
When the son of doctors become doctors and the son of politicos become 
politicos (etc.) this is because their parents are able to pass their 
profession of them shielding them from the competition.

IMHO, the race quotas that many University (usually the humanities) in 
the USA try to impose are useful to keep the current, mainly white 
leftists, leadership in place.
They reduce the better candidate of other races (East asian and white) 
and let in less fit candidates (usually blacks and latinos).

Mirco