The libertarian disconnect!!

Gold's most productive use is decided by the market, and value is subjective. If it's deemed more valuable in industry, it will garner more benefits to sell it than trade it, and a new type of money will emerge (assuming a free market).

 

This is very naive IMHO.

The free market is good for one thing: making sure people's private property, and labor, are ideologically protected. One thing it is not even remotely good at, however, is utilitarian consequentialism, which is what you imply up above.

The free market is about the means, not the ends. Consequentialism says that the ends justify the means. The free market says that private property rights justify the means.

 

There are of course many different scenereos and each of them plays out differently. Ultimately I believe "efficiency" needs to be based upon a cost/benefit relationship. In short free market forces determine whether it might be more efficient to ride a bus with other passengers or drive a car alone.

 

The more people jointly own property, the more efficient, assuming that people can jointly own the property at hand. Free markets don't encourage that. They encourage individual greed.

Efficiency is not the end goal; satisfying preferences is. If a car owner prefers sole ownership over his car to enjoying the benefits (some type of rental payment) of sharing it, that is his choice, based on his subjective perception of the costs and benefits.

As for greed, isn't this something that always persists? Was Stalin not greedy for power? Do you think bureaucrats have no self-interest? What makes government actors different from market actors, besides the fact that many of them are incompetent sociopaths?

The market, instead, turns the greediest people into society's biggest benefactors. The state... They turn the greediest people into parasites >.<

 

The fact is that gold can be traded for groceries because there is so much demand for it in industry. Industry, as a part of the free market, will always balance value and cost.

Gold might be the best material for electrical conductivity for example but because of it's cost industry uses an inferior substitute such as copper or aluminum. The copper and alumimum meet the requirements but are not the ideal conductor.

In other cases gold is the only metal that can be used so the cost becomes irrelevant. An example of this would the the visors on space helmets that have a layer of gold so thin that a person can see through it while at the sametime, because it is layer of metal, it blocks solar rays that would blind an astronaut. Regardless of the cost it is the only metal that can be so thin that we can see through it.

 

The most energy and resource efficient vehicles probably wouldn't be very popular, though. They'd be small, light, and maybe not very durable. If they were durable, they'd have to do something like NASCAR does, and make people have limited mobility inside them. They wouldn't sell.

People don't usually voluntarily want to buy things that are very efficient, or ultimately good for them. They operate on impulse.

 

I've done everything in my power to not include an insult here.. But is this a joke?

Bla bla bla, I know better what people want than they do themselves.

 

Nope. Never said that. I said the simple truth, is what I said.

People do not like efficiency, because they find it to be an inconvenience. The free market is good for manifesting private property rights, but it is not good at efficiency.

 

It is often the case that joint ownership of property is more efficient or desirable or productive. There is nothing about the free market that prevents or discourages joint ownership of property. In fact, because it can be so beneficial it actually happens A LOT in the free market, especially with productive property. I am a co owner with millions other people of countless factories, machines, trucks, buildings etc. And thats just with a single market ETF.

 

Some people think they have been harmed when they've merely been offended. Such people generally prefer authoritarian government because politicians love to come the aid of those who feel offended. It gives them an excuse to wield more power.

 

Yes, but that tends to be a last resort for people. Everyone wants their own personal big huge gas guzzling SUV and 5000 acres of land and their own this, their own that. It's completely unsustainable.

 

If I call your house and cuss you out, is that harming you, or merely offending you? If I give you a slight shove when we walk past each other, is that harming you, or merely offending you?

Where is the line?

 

I wonder if people realize that corporations are the joint ownership of a company by individuals. Saying that joint ownership is uncommon in capitalism is to ignore that all large corporations are owned by thousands of individuals and it is joint ownership that actually capitalizes these enterprises. Were it not for joint ownership they wouldn't typically exist.

 

Actually a verbal attack in many cases is against the law. When we refer to "assault and battery" the "assault" is a verbal attack and the "battery" is a physical attack.

Yes, shoving someone is "battery" and it is against the law.

 

Yes.

Government turns everything it touches to crap. It has a perfect record of failure.

Less government, or preferably NO government, is a viable solution to 98% of human society's problems.

 

Actually I'd say that limiting overpopulation and excessive greed (be it from the government or non-government entities) is a viable solution to a great many of society's problems.

But even that would ignore things like..natural disasters? Among others.

Lastly, governments are really private entities. Albeit, more directly forceful private entities.

 

"Greed" is an emotion and not a societal problem.

Government has a monopoly on violence. They are the only ones that can "legally" infringe on your natural rights.

"Overpopulation" is not an issue.

 

Yea, it looks like my point did not register. Oh well.

 

Governments built all the roads and highways, they must all be crap.

The government eliminated slavery, that has to be a failure.

The government charters corporations, they must all be crappy failures.

 

I agree that monopolies are bad. That's why anti-trust laws need to be abolished immediately.

 

History has proven their theories correct. There is not a single exception.

 

As long as you don't look at any empirical data.

You should include that, it could be important.

 

Yes it is. Greed is the main problem that results in wealth disparity (of the negative kind), due to governments and mafias and any other greedy entity.

Government is a private entity. Albeit, a forceful one. And what you say above is only true if the government at the time has more power than mafias.

If mafias took over, they'd declare what's "legal". Albeit, they'd do it more aggressively, whereas governments tend to rationalize their agendas to the public and weasel their way into power.

Eventually, it will be the main problem and the root of most turmoil, other than natural disasters. It's all due to one principle:

People fight over resources when they are scarce.

It's already going on now, en mass, due to overpopulation in some places!!

It terrifies me how people don't ever recognize overpopulation as ANY problem at all, let alone the HUGE GARGANTUAN problem that it is!!!

 

How so? The robber baron days were largely ended by anti trust laws, according to conventional accounts of history.

 

I believe the only emperical data that is important is the loss of purchasing power of Federal Reserve notes which are worth less than 3% of what they were when introduced. That loss of purchasing power is a reflection of the loss of the value of labor where people exchange their labor for currency controlled by the banks. It is literally the thief of labor and it transfers that labor to the banks and ultimately to the wealthy.

The only condemnation we really need of Keynesianism is the fact that it is based upon theft.