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r/CapitalismVSocialism•
LowReady

What kind of important analysis does socialist theory offer that Austrian does not?

It's quite surprising to me to see so many socialists critical of Austrian econ not on the basis of its axioms (which are essentially all accepted as valid in modern economics), but on the basis of its methods. The only methodological analysis that I'm aware socialists have ever offered is dialectical materialism....

A - If you accept material dialectics as "scientific", can you explain how it follows the scientific process and presents testable, replicable ideas in ways that the Austrians have not?

B - Are you aware that Austrians have been analyzing and writing about the history of economics since at least Bawerk? It seems like socialists might actually believe that Austrian economists have never written about history in spite of the dozens of acclaimed books readily available. Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth is not only full of historical applications but accurately predicted the economic destitution and demise of all socialist commonwealths.

And before you assert that the ECP "doesn't apply to decentralized socialism" (a claim hardly difficult to refute on its own) show us a socialist community able to compete with capitalism.

C - Aside from the Austrian business cycle which I think is terminally flawed, specifically which of the axioms that the Austrians asserted do you think are incorrect?

Inb4: "but Austrian econ presents itself as science"! I don't really think that's a useful criticism but even if it's "true", I agree. AE nor any other economic theory is a hard science with reproducible experiments but this hardly seems like an important criticism from socialists, much less any other economic school.

Posted Dec 6, 2016, 11:09 AM UTC · edited

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ThrewUpThrewAway•

Marxism has great tactics. Sean Gabb (a libertarian) talks about that a lot. Also, in many ways the alt-right can be viewed as right wing ideology combined with left-wing tactics.

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samsonkeaneUtilitarian Anarcho-Capitalist•

right wing ideology combined with left-wing tactics

Which is exactly what the right needs. The visceral reaction of disgust to the alt-right is coming from the experience of seeing conservatives using humor and media that isn't meant for old people. In other words, what the left has always done, since they have always been the "cool kid". The right has always been worse at PR, coming off as boring, in part because the left has always been friends with media and celebrities.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

While I'm not sure what this has to do with my post I like it and totally agree!

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Cynical_OstrichSocial Democrat•

Also, in many ways the alt-right can be viewed as right wing ideology combined with left-wing tactics.

That's basically how fascism works. Why do you think that a lot of liberals and leftists don't see any distinction between 'alt-right' and 'neo-nazi'? In most cases they're one in the same. Only differentiating in rhetoric due to the different time period, situation, and scapegoat.

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TheSpiceMustAirflowAnyone knows how to fly a helicopter?•

Leftists hate the alt-right for the same reason they hate fascism.

Not because it kills people. The left loves to endorse tyrannical murderfests like the USSR or PRC. (and the alt-right hasn't killed yet).

The left hates them because they're (or were) popular and posed a threat.

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TheDeadlySaulLibertarian Socialist•

alt right poses no threat lol

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chewingofthecudVINDICTA MŌRIS MĀIŌRVM DARVINIŌ•

Why do you think that a lot of liberals and leftists don't see any distinction between 'alt-right' and 'neo-nazi'?

Because they fail to understand both and it is rhetorically advantageous if utterly ignorant to conflate the two and this advantage is all that matters?

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Sadist_LibertineClassic Liberal on the streets, Social Liberal in the sheets•

How to make famines

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gonnagetschwiftyLow time preference•

"In the beginning, there was the Bourgeois and the Proletariat.."

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itachinosaigoppehMarket Socialism•

If you're making a joke, that's fine. But really Marxists don't say that. Bourgeoisie and proletariat are relatively recent evolutions.

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gonnagetschwiftyLow time preference•

Yeah it was a joke, but it does seem to be the starting point for many arguments from Socialists.

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chalky109Anarcho-Communist•

What's wrong with that as long as it's not the starting point for their worldview? You can't start every single argument from prehostoric societies.

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unleashedtech•

What do you consider recent ?

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itachinosaigoppehMarket Socialism•

Last 300 years.

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unleashedtech•

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure it also would refer to kings and subjects which would put it past 300 years

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SolidBluesAll your feelings are mine•

It doesn't pretend that axiomatic shit like "people buy things that they want" is at all interesting or predicative of anything.

And before you assert that the ECP "doesn't apply to decentralized socialism" (a claim hardly difficult to refute on its own) show us a socialist community able to compete with capitalism.

The fact that the USSR industrialized faster than any other state in history, and went from being a backwards country to the first country to send someone to space, proves that Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth does a shitty job of disputing centralized socialism itself.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

It doesn't pretend that axiomatic shit like "people buy things that they want" is at all interesting or predicative of anything.

Cool? Was there a purpose for this statement?

The fact that the USSR industrialized faster than any other state in history...

So communism is efficient when it uses slave labor, empirialism, and literally copies the resource allocation patterns of capitalist countries while simultaneously utterly bankrupting itself?

I mean, I could live in a mansion for three months if I lived in destitution with ruined credit afterwards... Pretty sure nobody would claim I was a productive financial genius because I lived in a mansion for three months. I guess this is the kind of economic analysis we can expect from socialists, lol.

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david_zyour politics are boring as fuck•

So communism is efficient when it uses slave labor, empirialism, and literally copies the resource allocation patterns of capitalist countries while simultaneously utterly bankrupting itself?

And while entire swaths of the nation's (and its protectorates) citizens are starved to death, whether deliberately (i.e., Ukraine) or just as an ordinary result of state-socialism.

Efficient. Yep.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

Much production, such economics

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SolidBluesAll your feelings are mine•

Cool? Was there a purpose for this statement?

Austrianism is fucking nonsense. That was the purpose. It passes off truisms as enlightened discussion.

So communism is efficient when it uses slave labor, empirialism, and literally copies the resource allocation patterns of capitalist countries while simultaneously utterly bankrupting itself?

All I'm getting out of this is that you think the USSR was capitalist insofar as they had "positive" things happening. The best part is how you imply that rich countries -> capitalist, poor countries -> socialist.

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MattcwuLibertarian Socialist•

Does the historical record disagree? Pre-1970, hasn't it been the case that rich countries were usually capitalist and poor countries were usually socialist?

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SolidBluesAll your feelings are mine•

Is Haiti socialist? Ethiopia? Sudan? etc. etc.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

Austrianism is fucking nonsense.

You're pretty fucking dumb then because you can't even describe it correctly!

All I'm getting out of this is that you think the USSR was capitalist...

All I'm getting out of this is that you're a functionally illiterate religious zealot.

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nichnickLibertarian Socialist•

functionally illiterate religious zealot.

E-epson, is that you?

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aduketsavarHuemer is right about everything•

ECP was never about USSR, Mises explicitly states this. Because "USSR was an island among capitalist world" so they could look at market prices around the world (which they did) and could avoid ECP. Knowledge problem of Hayek and ECP of Mises are different things. One is about knowledge and centralizion, the other is about prices and calculability.

About USSR industrialization, it was a catch-up and costed millions of lives. It could be done without all the human sacrifices. And I think this is a very important issue. Even if we accept that without collectivization Russia couldn't have industrialized, the cost was too high. How many people did Stalin and his policies kill? I mean even the death of a single person is awful, but the misery Stalin created is beyond human comprehension.

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SolidBluesAll your feelings are mine•

The "socialism" Mises was talking about was part and parcel everything the USSR was. None of the rest of your stuff has anything to do with what I was talking about. The fact that it happened disproves the economic calculation "problem." The cost to human lives is OG anti-capitalism that Fourier, Proudhon, Marx, and other socialists had been talking about from the beginning.

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aduketsavarHuemer is right about everything•

I've translated Mises, read most of his works and I think I know what Mises refers to when he talks about ECP. Can you show me the passage where he says "USSR will collapse because of lack of a price system"?

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SolidBluesAll your feelings are mine•

I'm talking specifically about Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth where he says that rational production is impossible without prices. Perhaps he meant that in some starry, metaphysical, idealistic way akin to morality and metaphysics, so forgive me for bringing him down to earth and assuming that when he says economy is impossible without exchange of the means of production, that that means that the USSR wouldn't have been able to become the second largest economy in the world.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

One could probably write their entire thesis for psychiatry on the cognitive dissonance demonstrated in this short statement.

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BastiatFanAnarcho-Capitalist•

The fact that the USSR industrialized faster than any other state in history, and went from being a backwards country to the first country to send someone to space, proves that Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth does a shitty job of disputing centralized socialism itself

I didn't know that having slaves build pyramids was indicative of economic efficiency.

Good to know.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

Shouldn't really come as a surprise that socialists think stealing from one group to enrich another is "efficient"

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X7spyWqcRYSocial Democrat | Basic Income | Eugene Debs was a cool guy•

Agreed, not a fan of this argument.

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3goistVoluntaryist•

You were asked what analytical tools socialists have and you answered by saying the USSR was great. Whether or not a system is good or bad has nothing to do with whether or not the people who advocate for it have good analytical tools. Capitalism doesn't need to be understood to work. You may perhaps argue that planned socialism working at all shows that there were some analytical tools used by socialists (since the planning requires some rationality), but what tools do YOU have?

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classicaleconClassical Liberal•

The fact that the USSR industrialized faster than any other state in history, and went from being a backwards country to the first country to send someone to space, proves that Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth does a shitty job of disputing centralized socialism itself.

This doesn't prove the calculation argument is shitty, it just proves you don't understand the argument. The USSR increased output of some things, to be sure. And the ECP doesn't deny a centrally planned economy could do this. It just denies a centrally planned economy can increase wealth from the perspective of what consumers want, and it's entirely correct on that account.

For example, say the planners want to increase steel production. They direct a lot of people and resources into doing so, and, as a result, steel production rises dramatically. But this ignores the opportunity costs of raising steel production, i.e. all the goods are services foregone by the production of steel. Without money prices, the planners have no way of knowing whether or not the value associated with increasing steel production is or isn't greater the the costs of doing so. And without the ability to do that, you're going to waste resources, regardless of whether or not you increase output of some given product.

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Jacques_HebertAnarchist•

Without money prices, the planners have no way of knowing whether or not the value associated with increasing steel production is or isn't greater the the costs of doing so.

Forgive me if this sounds stupid (I'm generally trying to understand all this), but isn't whether or not the costs are greater subjective?

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classicaleconClassical Liberal•

Yeah, benefits and costs are both ultimately subjective. The (real) opportunity cost of buying X isn't the money spent, but whatever I would have used the money to purchase had I not bought X, such as Y. But the value of Y is subjective, so the real costs of acquiring X are subjective as well.

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Jacques_HebertAnarchist•

But then how is the missed opportunity a problem if its cost is subjective anyway?

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chalky109Anarcho-Communist•

It's not just Austrian economics, it's any theory of economics, including Marx. There isn't a single theory of economics that is actually applicable in the real world. This is much due to the delusion of "rational" agents and a level of abstraction that fails completely in accounting for different contexts.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

For example?

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chalky109Anarcho-Communist•

An example of what exactly? A context every economic theory fails to explain? Pretty much any context since they all seek to simplify human relationships. All economic models are based on the premiss of agents acting in "rational" self interest, with no previous ties to other agents that may affect prices and other conditions. If I sell something to my brother, I'm going to give him a better price (or maybe even give that something away for free) than I would my neighbor, and I would give my neighbor a better price than I would a stranger. If, on the other hand, I have come into contact with the stranger through a friend, that might affect the price. There are always individual factors that are generally ignored for the comfort of being able to come to a conclusion, but in the end it's basically a form of bad metaphysics - trying to say something about what we can't reasonably say anything about.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

None of this is ignored, lol

You have no fucking clue what you're talking about

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chalky109Anarcho-Communist•

Give me a single example of any economic theory being useful to society in any way.

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MakeThePieBiggerAutarchist•

But these factor you're describing is not ignored in Austrian theory. You are getting greater spiritual or utility profit, not specifically financial one. Helping your brother brings you joy or at least sense of fulfilled obligation, which cover for the lower price you offer him. Same is true for brand loyalty or ethical shopping - you choose a worse deal in the financial sense to get higher satisfaction from this purchase.

For your product you can get 100$, which translates to some utility down the line, when you trade it for consumer goods or you can get 80$ and 20$ or more worth of utility now. One way or another your spiritual profit is the same or higher, otherwise you wouldn't engage in this trade.

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chalky109Anarcho-Communist•

Helping your brother brings you joy or at least sense of fulfilled obligation, which cover for the lower price you offer him. Same is true for brand loyalty or ethical shopping - you choose a worse deal in the financial sense to get higher satisfaction from this purchase.

These are three different types of factors though. "Ethical shopping" and brand loyalty are kind of the same. There are some differences, but they are small, and I'm not going to get any further into them. However, I might for example give my brother a better price out of a sense of duty. I might not even like him, and it might bug me that I feel like I have a duty of giving him a better price than I would someone else. My relationship to my brother is not a reciprocal one, and very few people have those kinds of relationships with family. I don't expect to get an equivalent of what I give.

Also, if I am to count emotional factors as being part of the transaction, I might have to account for my parents telling me to slash the price because it's "the right thing to do", my sister telling me that my brother is an asshole who should pay well above market price, my friends telling me that I should treat it as I would a transaction with any generic person and so on. My final decision might affect all of these relationships, so now we're not talking about a business transaction between two people, but rather a state of affairs that seems very political, where everyone involved has something invested. The web of conditions is far too complex to make a general theory of economics from.

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[deleted]•

Behavioural economics ios challenging most of the assumptions of austrian economics, and that's based in cold hard neuroscience. Marxism, as shitty of a PRESCRIPTIVE tool as it is, is a pretty good DESCRIPTIVE tool for describing complex social interactions between groups

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

Let's hear some examples, by all means

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[deleted]•

Examples of what

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

These assumptions being changed as well as all the useful observations from Marxists

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nichnickLibertarian Socialist•

I can read it without getting cancer.

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

Lol you can't read

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chair0147The means of production belongs to me.•

In glorious socialist society, the people will have to work by their own free will or else they would be punished by the state.

Laws will be passed demanding that the people will be forced to voluntarily work as a means to achieve a free society.

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PrinceLyovMyshkinAnarchist•

If a science says it has axioms it is not a science. And if it isn't a science what is it and how is it supposed to be useful?

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LowReadyOPNeeds 15 Labor Vouchers for tendies•

Did you read anything I wrote and do you think mathematics is useless?

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