mises.org — It's clear, writes Peter Klein, that academics benefit from living in a highly interventionist society. It should be no wonder, then, that academics tend to support those interventions. Economists, in particular, play active roles as government advisers, creating and sustaining the oppressive welfare state that now surrounds us.
Nov 15, 2006 View in Crawl 4
mushimonsterNov 16, 2006
No reason to be so hostile ... I am a conservative however I do not hate socialists. I just disagree with the whole concept of SOCIAL programs and the redistributing wealth. Just because I believe that the government should avoid getting involved in most everything doesnt make me right all of the time. I think you actually need both views. For example I mean I think that Europe pays too much for their healthcare system and we will find a better system because we are not only socialist minded. Even American socialists (at least the ones I talk too) believe we need to keep a low tax base.
scorchedearthNov 17, 2006
@ xevecA People's History of the United StatesKerosene is also a part of the oil industry which has always been intimately connected with the automobile industry.
klipschfanNov 17, 2006
I didn't read all 300+ comments, but it occurs to me that the liberal lean in academia may suggest that liberal thought is required to achieve the highest levels of education. Education requires one to seek out and perhaps write rebuttals to the arguments of those who disagree with you. The one who challenges assumptions and defends ones position vigorously with logic and reasoning tends to be the most convincing. Conservatives must conform to the mold or risk no longer being called conservative.
joybranNov 17, 2006
@ hobophobeI was responding to your first post and had not read your second post. Given that the entire discussion on this article had been about socialism as an economic system, it did not occur to me that you were making a major distinction between your definition of socialism and the generally understood definition of socialism as "government altruism," which is, of course, a contradiction in terms.Now that I read your second and third posts, I'm still not clear about the point you are arguing."My claim is succinct: adopting a child and providing welfare-style resources to those who cannot afford them at market value are not distinct."This seems to mean that the voluntary action of adopting a child is the same as the the involuntary action of providing welfare via government redistribution, although I don't understand the relevance of "at market value.""Generally Socialist states fail when confronted with the philosophical concept..."I don't understand how "being confronted with the philosophical concept [of socialism]" could cause a socialist state to fail. I certainly wouldn't take that sentence to mean "the state stealing a person's money to give it to another person is not socialism, philosophically."The argument for socialism, as I've always heard it, is that it is morally right to take money from some people and give it to others if the others need it, because the "greater good" will be served. The whole point of socialism, philosophically, seems to be that the "greater good of society," whatever that means, morally outweighs any presumed rights of individuals.As an example of the misunderstanding about socialism versus libertarianism:"If I understand the libertarian view of such a thing as marriage, they would allow for it. The difference between their view and the socialist or democrat view is that they do not allow for such a thing _under law_. Instead, they leave marriage and similar arrangements to contractual agreements between the parties."Libertarians would not "allow for" marriage. We simply recognize the fact that marriage is a contractual agreement between parties, sometimes (but not necessarily) with religious significance to those parties. What we would not "allow for" is licensure and regulation of private contractual agreements by the government. Marriage is "under law" in the sense that all contractual agreements can be adjudicated under law in the event of conflict between the parties.It is obvious to me that we need to define our terms more clearly to have a meaningful discussion.
jdog2050Nov 17, 2006
...what? Greece was a democracy? Bulls**t. Did women, slaves, or non-land owners vote?
starmanjonesNov 17, 2006
>I feel bad for curt to try and debunk all of this stuff. It must be really time-consuming.i do too. the ideas hes preaching are so easily rebutted and no amout intellectual excuse making can shore them up.
curthowlandNov 17, 2006
"Who would've have thought that one of the most fun to quote (there are SO MANY classic lines) movies would be too obscure for the average digger "Anyone who realizes the average digger is younger than the movie."It is nailed to the perch!"
dracostimpyNov 17, 2006
How did people ever find health care before big government came along? Oh, that's right, it was paid for by the actual patient or someone who cares about that patient's well-being. And often the sum was modest given that doctors didn't have to pay a million bucks a year for malpractice insurance, since back then doctors were respected for their efforts even if they failed. Now, if you die, you sue. Such is the mindset in an entitlement economy like ours, and that has not only jacked up our prices immensely, but it's ushered in a new generation of doctors who are beholden to the insurers to such extent that it threatens their ability to treat their patients and renders them apathetic... not a mentality I prefer in a person who is removing my spleen. It's a lose-lose situation... ever worsening care and ever higher prices. I haven't been to a doctor since I had food poisoning about 10 years ago, and I resent that I've paid several thousand dollars since then to help a bunch of people whom I know or care nothing about. I'd prefer that I be rewarded for my health by having a sizeable medical savings account with all that money to fall back on should I ever need it. Also, if a member of my family or a close friend were in need of assistance, I'd be all too happy to help see them well and I would GIVE them money from my savings to get medical assistance. When our spending on health care is measured in trillions, do you fear that if that money is held by the individuals instead of paid into a government-run (and milked) system that the trillions would suddenly vanish and we'd all be left to patch our own wounds? Have you that little faith in the individual? Does not each of us have the right to choose for ourselves whether we are responsible enough to provide for ourselves without having Big Brother tend to us?
andrew1193Nov 19, 2006
"That's the USA's own fault They choose not to invest in it. Only local areas do.."So apparently the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on highways by the U.S. federal government doesn't register with you or something?
andrew1193Nov 19, 2006
@UtopianComplex:"Try having the level of regulation in the Wild West and at the same time have the population density of modern cities and you are going to end up with protection rackets and chaos."You would have for-profit defense agencies. You would not have chaos."To draw no line and say all governmental intervention is bad period is dooming society to chaos and destruction. Taxes and government intervention is the only way cities as large and as based on trust as we have today could have grown to exist, and if you strip away those things now we will fall back into a Romeo and Juliet time where cities are warzones between large gangs where everyone has to pay to protection rackets."Cities in the U.S. grew fine without modern government intervention. Civil society does not depend on the State for its existence.
grazieNov 29, 2006
@andrew1193You quoted me correctly, but you obviously didn't read it first. I said in a TRULY capitalist society. Name one for me and then we'll look at the data.Thanks.
Closed AccountNov 29, 2006
And, they are overwhelmingly the majority of instructors at institutes of learning because, those who can not do, teach.
chatty82Dec 7, 2006
The experiment of socialism with "shelter and soup kitchen" arrangements was tried in Germany in the 30s, after the Great Depression in the United States. The Mayor of Chicago gave out free turkeys in Chicago at that time and the hopefuls lined up in the snow to get the turkeys to cook at home. The government (of Russia) found out that there were people staying in the shelters and eating at the soup kitchens in Germany that had Swiss bank accounts and were millionaires. People "getting something for nothing" without needing it was the idea. Hermann Hesse's novel "Steppenwolf" about a guy staying in a rooming house in Germany that had an alter ego of a wolf convinced the Germans that everyone that stayed in rooming houses was slightly bizarre. They herded them into collective residences, which were a failure since the Germans given the communal meals were not able to control the fat content or calories of their own diet and were forced to eat the inedible, with cheeze from dubious sources. Plato wrote about the degeneration of democracy in the Republic. Somebody ought to write a book about the transition of socialism to the even more undesirable system of complete communism, where the socialist benefits are taxed by an all-consuming state.
mcla007Aug 7, 2008
True, a lot (most) of property was taken by force. But it doesn't necessarily follow that all property is theft.