# Are all economic ideologies aside from free-market/Randian theory obsolete? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 24, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625 "2013-04-24T22:57:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/141 "2013-04-29T14:33:25Z")
To me, the only property that is theft is what the government has claimed. Used to be that if land wasn’t owned by anyone, a poor person with some can do spirit could claim it. Nowadays, whatever land isn’t owned by people or corporations is owned by the state. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/142 "2013-04-29T14:37:57Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > First of all, I was unaware that Japan was small. I thought that it was among the ten most populous countries in the world. > > More importantly, your attempts to cram each nation’s economic system into a single negative phrase are misleading or outright incorrect. The [Index of Economic Freedom](http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking) gives us a precise, measurable way of looking at a nation’s economic freedom. Hong Kong, Singapore, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Japan are all ranked near the top in economic freedom. (Israel is a wee bit further down at #51.) That why’s they’re so prosperous despite the fact that none are awash in natural resources and land, or at least that’s my theory. If you have a better theory for why Singapore and Hong Kong are so much more prosperous than the rest of Southeast Asia, and why nations such as Chile and Israel are so much more prosperous than their neighbors, I’d love to hear it. That index comes from the Heritage Foundation, a “think tank” with stupid ideas, that takes plenty of money from big corporations. The Heritage Foundation is a key proponent of the post-1980 neoliberalism that has brought much of the world to a state of crisis. The CIA deliberately sabotaged Chile’s economy under Allende. A certain amount of prosperity came to some sectors of Chile’s population in later years, while the copper mines remained nationalized. _Oh no, communism!_ Singapore’s government got the vast majority out of the slums and into high-quality public housing, figuring that the people would be better-off that way. Singapore, Israel, Japan, and the Euro countries you mention all have policies (universal health care!) that would make the Heritage stuffed-suits blow a gasket. Do you realize what was done to Southeast Asia by France, the US, and their local satraps in the decades after WWII? Vietnam modified its Marxist-Leninist policies into something akin to market-socialism after the mid-1980s, and poverty has declined sharply. Of course, this could have happened much sooner if the country had not been bombed, burned, and poisoned from the air for years. You refer to the US in 1900. Do you realize that this was the Gilded Age of massive inequality, against which people of my great-grandparents’ generation had to organize and fight for decent wages and working conditions? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/143 "2013-04-29T15:00:19Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > To me, the only property that is theft is what the government has claimed. Used to be that if land wasn’t owned by anyone, a poor person with some can do spirit could claim it. Nowadays, whatever land isn’t owned by people or corporations is owned by the state. Used to be? Used to be when? In America, used to be was only in the time when whites could legally steal land from Indians. As soon as the federal government started stealing land in bulk, it became federal property. This started pre-Constitution with the Northwest Territories, which were gridded and sold off the settlers. Who had the legal right to push previous “claimers” off their land. The purchase of territories continued across the country, and so did the gridding and selling process. So “nowadays” is “the entire history of the United States of America.” ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/144 "2013-05-02T00:20:33Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Libertarianism is not anarchism. It’s just the recognition that man can either govern himself, or he can’t. If he can, then he only needs government do the things that can only be done collectively. If he can’t, then government is not fit to govern him, since government is made up of men, at least until the Second Coming or an alien invasion. > > I assume the first precept, that man is fit to govern himself and that’s why we live in a free country. And getting freer, despite government and various busybodies fighting constantly to make us less free for our own good. :rolleyes: I called you a moralist, not an anarchist. But OK. I think I understand what you’re saying, but I also think it creates a simplistic moral frame that can then be used to justify lawlessness. The missing dimension is in part that men \*don’t \*govern themselves, but the world still needs governing. In any case, I’ve actually studied macroeconomics, and I think that’s something that is run better when aspects of it are managed collectively. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/145 "2013-05-02T00:26:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > But all libertarians are united in the belief that laws must be justified as the uses of force that they are, and that the burden of proof is on those who want to make new laws. Whereas non-libertarians don’t really get much further than “I think this law is good, let’s pass it.” Heh. Gotcha. Well, yes, I grew up in the Bible Belt, and I know that some people are authoritarian for reasons of conformism and power-lust. But don’t tar all regulation as that. Turning it around: I tend to see libertarians as people who see a given law as coercion without understanding the consequentialist reasons for that coercion; thus making the libertarian relatively adolescent in his thinking. **Der Trihs** tends to see libertarians as those who don’t care about the consequences; or are actively out to get away with something, damn the externalities. This is probably true some of the time, and the idealistic libertarians can play into the crooks’ hands. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/146 "2013-05-02T00:34:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Like whether to get a large soda or a small soda? Properly in the domain of individual liberty, under normal circumstances. > [@](#): > > Whether to buy a gun or not buy a gun? In the domain of individual liberty in the present circumstance in most of the USA. But the government has the right to commission studies–yes, paid for with tax dollars–that give us useful social data; and if those data in fact say that gun ownership is dangerous to the gun owner and his neighbors, the government has a sovereign right to try to discourage gun ownership. And if guns are banned, that right goes away. You may still feel you have to break the law, and it is possible to break the law; doesn’t mean it isn’t a useful law. > [@](#): > > Whether to get a payday loan or not get a payday loan? There is a place for using state power as a check on private coercion and economic abuse of the poor. Payday loans are very expensive to people with little liquidity, and I would happily regulate them into unprofitability–as I would ban adjustable rate mortgages, various “bucket shop” derivatives, and other such swindles. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/147 "2013-05-02T01:02:31Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > More importantly, your attempts to cram each nation’s economic system into a single negative phrase are misleading or outright incorrect. Nope. Denmark really has one of the most generous welfare states in the world. And I didn’t say that was a negative thing, you did. My point was that welfare-state Denmark and the Netherlands, protectionist Japan, authoritarian Singapore, and racist armed camp (OK, _that_ sounds negative) Israel all have traits that would make them unacceptable to libertarians in my country–all espouse policies libertarians denounce! And yet you–and other libertarians in my country–still hold them up as examples of why we should follow “libertarian” ideas–implicitly\* their\* ideas. Put an American libertarian in charge of the Netherlands, and he would drown, and drown everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/148 "2013-05-02T02:14:57Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Turning it around: I tend to see libertarians as people who see a given law as coercion without understanding the consequentialist reasons for that coercion; thus making the libertarian relatively adolescent in his thinking. > > **Der Trihs** tends to see libertarians as those who don’t care about the consequences; or are actively out to get away with something, damn the externalities. This is probably true some of the time, and the idealistic libertarians can play into the crooks’ hands. I’ve said in the past that I tend to divide libertarians into two main camps; Pollyannas who are naive or unrealistic enough to really believe all the promises, and would-be predators who realize just how nasty such a society would actually be and like the idea. Would-be predators who are usually just as naive in their own way as the Pollyannas, given that they are so convinced that they’ll be the predators and not the victims. They like the idea of a society composed of lords and serfs, because they are utterly convinced that they’ll be one of the lords. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/149 "2013-05-04T01:53:32Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Would-be predators who are usually just as naive in their own way as the Pollyannas, given that they are so convinced that they’ll be the predators and not the victims. They like the idea of a society composed of lords and serfs, because they are utterly convinced that they’ll be one of the lords. Hackshaw: The wheel has turned. Yog-Sothoth knows the Gate. That is the promise of the Necromnomicon. Open the Gate, let the Old Ones back in and they will make you a god. Lovecraft: Ooohhh, you get to be a god. What does Harry get? Harry: Tell him. Hackshaw: For services rendered, Mr. Borden gets to be Ruler of the World. Lovecraft: What kind of world? Hackshaw: A world of the unburied dead, and a sky dark with ashes. A blasted, maimed planet. But he’ll be the most important person in it. Harry: How do you like them apples partner, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/150 "2013-05-04T02:58:26Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Hackshaw: The wheel has turned. Yog-Sothoth knows the Gate. That is the promise of the Necromnomicon. Open the Gate, let the Old Ones back in and they will make you a god. > Lovecraft: Ooohhh, you get to be a god. What does Harry get? > Harry: Tell him. > Hackshaw: For services rendered, Mr. Borden gets to be Ruler of the World. > Lovecraft: What kind of world? > Hackshaw: A world of the unburied dead, and a sky dark with ashes. A blasted, maimed planet. But he’ll be the most important person in it. > Harry: How do you like them apples partner, huh? \ Ah, _Cast a Deadly Spell!_ I haven’t seen that in years. Loved it. And rather appropriate, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/151 "2013-05-04T03:57:20Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve said in the past that I tend to divide libertarians into two main camps; Pollyannas who are naive or unrealistic enough to really believe all the promises, and would-be predators who realize just how nasty such a society would actually be and like the idea. Would-be predators who are usually just as naive in their own way as the Pollyannas, given that they are so convinced that they’ll be the predators and not the victims. They like the idea of a society composed of lords and serfs, because they are utterly convinced that they’ll be one of the lords. Does the distinction between minarchist and anarchist libertarians affect your division? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/152 "2013-05-04T04:13:26Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Does the distinction between minarchist and anarchist libertarians affect your division? In practice they are pretty much the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/153 "2013-05-04T12:12:48Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > When does one become the other? If I own a vehicle and use it to make deliveries on contract, and use my profits to buy another and another, and pay others to drive them and make deliveries…is there a point at which my possessions, the vehicles, have become property, and are thus theft from someone? That is not at all hard to answer. It is at the point when you hire other people to work for you, driving your cars, so that you are able to extract profit from their labor, because you own means of production over and above what you can productively use yourself. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/154 "2013-05-04T21:00:47Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > That is not at all hard to answer. It is at the point when you hire other people to work for you, driving your cars, so that you are able to extract profit from their labor, because you own means of production over and above what you can productively use yourself. You consider that theft? You know he said “hire” right? Not enslave. The employees also get to profit off their labour, which they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. How is that theft? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/155 "2013-05-04T21:42:51Z")
Without the ability to control the means of production by people other than yourself, there is no progress and no civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/156 "2013-05-04T22:39:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > In practice they are pretty much the same thing. Really? A limited government isn’t necessarily a weak one. By the standards of much of the world, the U.S. government is and has been limited in powers, but it’s quite strong: its authority is unchallenged, it faces no threats to its processes or existence. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/157 "2013-05-04T22:41:12Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > That is not at all hard to answer. It is at the point when you hire other people to work for you, driving your cars, so that you are able to extract profit from their labor, because you own means of production over and above what you can productively use yourself. Ok, then…so what is the guy with a successful one-car delivery service supposed to do? Does he have to find people willing to invest as equal partners, rather than hiring people on as employees? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/158 "2013-05-05T00:19:52Z")
I think the OP’s question has been answered at this point. Should we start a thread on whether property is theft? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/159 "2013-05-05T01:01:27Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Really? A limited government isn’t necessarily a weak one. A government as limited as what minarchists want is a crippled government, incapable of doing anything useful. Anarchistic libertarianism and minarchism both end up in some form of neo-feudalism/warlordism, with the wealthy “lords” ruling over the “serfs”; the only real difference in real terms between them is that in the latter case the minarchists have government aid in suppressing any revolt by the serfs. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625/160 "2013-05-06T14:31:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > A government as limited as what minarchists want is a crippled government, incapable of doing anything useful. Anarchistic libertarianism and minarchism both end up in some form of neo-feudalism/warlordism, with the wealthy “lords” ruling over the “serfs”; the only real difference in real terms between them is that in the latter case the minarchists have government aid in suppressing any revolt by the serfs. Ok, thanks for answering my question. Might be worth a new thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-economic-ideologies-aside-from-free-market-randian-theory-obsolete/656625.md?page=9)