From: Ray Cromwell <rcromw1@gl.umbc.edu>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 94 17:52:54 PDT
To: jamiel@sybase.com (Jamie Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Government vs. Markets
In-Reply-To: <aab9d9bc00021004a343@[130.214.233.14]>
Message-ID: <199410070052.UAA02092@umbc9.umbc.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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> At 6:23 PM 10/5/94, Ray Cromwell wrote:
>  [...]
> >[...]        Typical of socialists, they are unfamilar with economics
> >and resort to semantic games. A monopoly is defined by (1) one seller,
>  [...]
> >   I thought it was 49 cents an hour, however, no one ever accused
> >a socialist knowing the facts. [...]
>  [...]

> Typical statements of folks who get thier politics from Heinlein novels
> and thier understanding of personal interaction from economics 101.
[I do not get my politics from Heinlein novels, I got my politics from
classical economists. My knowledge of personal interaction comes from
years of interacting with net.kooks]

   Perhaps it was a hasty generalization, but a typical tactic
of leftists I have observed, from experience debating in
political newsgroups and in their own literature, is that they 
like to redefine things so it suits their own purpose. When you're
debating economics and politics, you do not get to make
"monopoly", "coercion", "profit", "wage", etc mean anything you
want.  Another tendency is that they tend to be ignorant of
economics so that they do not understand concepts like
opportunity cost, comparitive advantage, rational expectations, 
and therefore discussing economics gets you know where because
all the tools of analysis are removed. How can you analyze
the statement "everyone will share everything, everything will be free"
from an economic viewpoint? It is a religious statement with no
content.

> The point being that there is no place for ideological attacks like
> this in a 'rational' forum trying to discuss 'real life'. Wait, this
> discussion *is* to be considered valid intellectual discourse, right?

  What if the original poster had said "5 cents an hour + daily
whippings delivered by a wall street capitalist?" The point is, his
figures were overblown. That is one of Chomsky's main criticisms
of western media, such as their numbers on the number of deaths
in cambodia. If you use propaganda language, expect to be flamed on it.
NOW pulled the same when they clamed 150,000 women die every year
from anorexia and SuperBowl Sunday has the highest rate of spousal
abuse during the year. Both were completely made up figures.