43 research outputs found

    The "Self-Defeating Morality" of the Lockean Proviso

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    Locke's theory of appropriation includes the “Lockean Proviso,” that one may appropriate ownerless resources only if one leaves enough for others. The Proviso is normative and obviously may be rejected on normative grounds. But it is less obvious that it may have to be rejected for positive reasons. According to Hoppe, private property is a means for minimizing social conflict under conditions of scarcity. But the Lockean Proviso would actually exacerbate social conflict. According to Demsetz, property emerges precisely when scarcity arises and there is not enough left for everyone. Accordingly, the Lockean Proviso may be logically incompatible with the very purposes of the establishment of property. Or the Proviso may constitute what Derek Parfit calls "self-defeating morality." Several adaptations of the Proviso – including Nozick's – are rejected as well, based on the impossibility of interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility and the problem of economic calculation

    The Foreign Policy of a Democratic Socialist Regime: From Intervention to Protection to Warfare

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    Discussions of democratic socialism have focused on whether that system is compatible with domestic civil liberties. Less attention has been paid to its foreign policy implications. Despite the widespread acceptance of the democratic peace hypothesis, democratic socialism would be incompatible with peaceful foreign relations. Economic intervention and economic planning – even democratic – cannot be successful without insulating the domestic economy from foreign competition. This implies economic nationalism and autarky. Moreover, democratic socialism is often justified by the notion that the democratic will of the people should be absolutely sovereign. Such a conception of democracy has no place for constitutional limits on power. Such an unlimited democracy would soon prove illiberal and liable to be captured by a demagogic authoritarian dictator, and this would only exacerbate the deleterious foreign policy consequences of economic nationalism. Democratic socialism is therefore incompatible with the cosmopolitan and humanitarian values of democratic socialists

    Do Economic Models Have to be Realistic?: A Methodological Criticism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality

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    In the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1754) sketches a hypothetical illegitimate social contract to explain the origin of socioeconomic inequality. Rousseau himself notes that his illegitimate social contract is not intended to be historically accurate. But this casts doubt on the methodological validity of his argument. According to Ronald Coase's (1981) criticism of Milton Friedman (1953) statements on the methodology of positive economics, theoretical models, to be valid, must possess a certain degree of realism which Rousseau's does not. This same criticism applies to Carole Pateman's adaptation of Rousseau in her Sexual Contract (1988)

    Price-Controls in Jewish Law

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    Previous scholarship has explored whether the halakhah (Jewish law) of ona'ah (fraud) constitutes a price-control. However, less attention has been paid to the similar law of hayyei nefesh (essential foodstuffs) – also known as hafka'at she'arim (profiteering). Nor has criticism been directed towards arbitrary price-controls imposed by the corporate, democratic Jewish community. This essay argues that while ona'ah is not a price-control, hayyei nefesh / hafka'at she'arim is one. Economic theory demonstrates that like all price-controls, hayyei nefesh / hafka'at she'arim and corporate communal price-controls are both self-defeating because the means conflict with the ends sought. The conflict between religion and science is therefore not limited to cosmology and biology, but may include economics as well

    Hayek and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem: The Difficulty of Democratic Consensus

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    Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny use Public Choice analysis to criticize market socialism, but they dismiss Hayek's Road to Serfdom as irrelevant. Contrariwise Boettke and Leeson argue that Hayek advanced a form of Public Choice analysis, including an adumbration of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. This essay elaborates that claim and elucidates the specific implications which the Arrow theorem has for democratic socialism. Democratic socialism is impossible, in the sense that it cannot successfully accomplish the goals of its advocates, because the Arrow theorem implies that democratic political institutions are fundamentally incompatible with socialist economics. Similar problems apply to deliberative democracy

    George Orwell and the Incoherence of Democratic Socialism

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    George Orwell's famous fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen-Eighty Four were intended to advocate democratic socialism by portraying undemocratic forms of socialism as totalitarian. For Orwell, democracy was a political institution which would limit the abuse of power. But there are several problems with democratic socialism which ensure its failure. In Orwell's novel A Clergyman's Daughter, Orwell's views of economics and politics are inconsistent and conflicting in a way that ensures democratic socialism will not succeed on Orwell's terms. Democratic socialism in general is criticized according to F. A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom and John Jewkes's The New Ordeal by Planning, whose arguments differ crucially from those against market socialism by Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny. An economic analysis of the political institutions of democratic socialism shows that democratic socialism must necessarily fail for political (not economic) reasons even if nobody in authority has ill-intentions or abuses their power

    The Foreign Policy of a Democratic Socialist Regime: From Intervention to Protection to Warfare

    Get PDF
    Discussions of democratic socialism have focused on whether that system is compatible with domestic civil liberties. Less attention has been paid to its foreign policy implications. Despite the widespread acceptance of the democratic peace hypothesis, democratic socialism would be incompatible with peaceful foreign relations. Economic intervention and economic planning – even democratic – cannot be successful without insulating the domestic economy from foreign competition. This implies economic nationalism and autarky. Moreover, democratic socialism is often justified by the notion that the democratic will of the people should be absolutely sovereign. Such a conception of democracy has no place for constitutional limits on power. Such an unlimited democracy would soon prove illiberal and liable to be captured by a demagogic authoritarian dictator, and this would only exacerbate the deleterious foreign policy consequences of economic nationalism. Democratic socialism is therefore incompatible with the cosmopolitan and humanitarian values of democratic socialists
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