Brexited

[Midsy]

I thought you didn't want to argue these points any more with me, but ok, you are allowed to change your mind. Again.

Here's the view from a guy who has worked at the factory for 24 years.

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1097579713382490112?s=19

No doubt he’s one of the 48% who lost the referendum!

 

[AngryAnt]

Yeah. I would say so. And now he's pissed as he's losing his job, whether due to brexit or otherwise. Not a good day either way.

He makes a fair point about the parliamentary chaos tbf.

 

[Midsy]

Yeah. I would say so. And now he's p!ssed as he's losing his job, whether due to brexit or otherwise. Not a good day either way.

He makes a fair point about the parliamentary chaos tbf.

Wouldn’t disagree with that. I’ve said it before - Brexit isn’t aligned to any party, so it’s splitting the parties big time.

Corbyn is a flog of the highest order and May keeps getting shafted by Remainers on both sides of the House.

Bring on March 29 and let’s get on with it.

 

[tigerdell]

I'd have a stab that another referendum would have a very different result, think the pollies from both sides need to allow this to happen. ..

My own personal polling - ie people i talk to when i come to this happy kingdom of Elizabeth the second (so not many people at all) gives me the hunch that a 2nd referendum would result in a similar split outcome.
Maybe it would be 52 -48 and not 48-52, but by an large most people seem to have a set opinion.
Not many that i have spoken to have admitted to changing their minds.

And so if there was a 2nd referendum and 52% wanted to stay, would it change Brexit? There would still be 48% to leave and significant disharmony and uproar.
Then there would be calls for a 3rd referendum!
Unfortunately a new referendum isnt an answer.

 

[bullus_hit]

My own personal polling - ie people i talk to when i come to this happy kingdom of Elizabeth the second (so not many people at all) gives me the hunch that a 2nd referendum would result in a similar split outcome.
Maybe it would be 52 -48 and not 48-52, but by an large most people seem to have a set opinion.
Not many that i have spoken to have admitted to changing their minds.

And so if there was a 2nd referendum and 52% wanted to stay, would it change Brexit? There would still be 48% to leave and significant disharmony and uproar.
Then there would be calls for a 3rd referendum!
Unfortunately a new referendum isnt an answer.

If the referendum is conducted like the last one then you would be correct, but since the likes of Cambridge Analytica & the hordes of cyber crooks would not be involved there may even be some credible information put to the public (see Mueller investigation). This should now be apparent to most, the disinformation has been exposed & the public are now sensing the damage being wrought. Both parties should be forced to outline their vision with facts & not just pathetic one liners. If, as I suspect, this has more to do with nationalism & immigration then so be it, you reap what you sow.

There certainly will be a protest vote but with first past the post voting it is very hard to dislodge the major parties. The uncertainty is just going to get worse. And, they sure as hell look like they are heading for no deal, unless the EU tries to pull something out of the hat at the last minute, the UK isn't in a position to do much as the EU hold the cards in this game.

What a mess.

DS

A coalition was formed with the DUP in 2010, the major parties won't disappear but they might find themselves having to compromise, particularly if we get more defections.

 

[tigerdell]

The second referendum would probably be less twisted / manipulated, although there will always be spin and hyperbole.
My point is that there doesnt seem to be many people changes their position. Still many strong opinions to leave/remain from the people i have talked to.
I'm actually here this week in Birmingham and north of Manchester.
Many people are fed up with Brexit and want it to be sorted.

So i doubt that the results will be conclusive ... ie not 70 or 80% but roughly 50/50. As per the first referendum.
And unfortunately that leaves (pardon the pun) 20 million unhappy voters.

 

[bullus_hit]

The second referendum would probably be less twisted / manipulated, although there will always be spin and hyperbole.
My point is that there doesnt seem to be many people changes their position. Still many strong opinions to leave/remain from the people i have talked to.
I'm actually here this week in Birmingham and north of Manchester.
Many people are fed up with Brexit and want it to be sorted.

So i doubt that the results will be conclusive ... ie not 70 or 80% but roughly 50/50. As per the first referendum.
And unfortunately that leaves (pardon the pun) 20 million unhappy voters.

All fair comments, I don't have much of a clue apart from some expat mates who seem to overwhelmingly support remaining in the EU. What bothers me most about this situation is the concerted effort by right wing politicians to burn the house down & then profit from the carnage. What all Brits should be mindful of is that the US will not be currying any favours, from Trump's perspective a weak UK is perfect fodder for his zero sum negotiating tactics. Scaremongering about the evils of socialism has obviously hit the mark but there can be no doubt that the NHS will be the first program in the cross-hairs. If that's the price to pay then so be it but I've seen enough of the US model to know this won't end well.

 

[AngryAnt]

So i doubt that the results will be conclusive ... ie not 70 or 80% but roughly 50/50. As per the first referendum.
And unfortunately that leaves (pardon the pun) 20 million unhappy voters.

yeah. Even if Brexit is called off politics is toxic now, and will remain so for the forseeble future.

And all because David Cameron wanted to quell the rump of anti-EU leavers in the Tory party. He's *smile* the Tories, he's probably *smile* the Union, and he's *smile* politics in the UK for a generation. He may have totally *smile* the British economy too, but let's wait and see.

 

[tigerdell]

Interestingly it was some in Labour who cracked first and quit.
It would be seen as a win by hardline tories to both brexit and splinter labour under corbyn.
Post brexit they can shaft May and have a new round of tax cuts

 

[AngryAnt]

Yes. Labour haven't exactly covered themselves in glory for the whole episode either.

 

[Giardiasis]

What a joke, are you seriously arguing there are 2 alternatives: capitalism and socialism? :rofl Lot's of people, not just now but throughout history, would find this very strange.
Just as one example, many societies have had a custodial relationship with the land they live on, not a property relationship. In any case property is coercive, be it private or public.

When it comes to deciding what will be produced and in what quantities and in what manner, for the umpteenth time yes there are 2 alternatives. For all your filibuster and ad hominem, you can only name but one example of the supposed many examples throughout history? Not only that but your example is clearly an example of ownership, otherwise the “custodians” would have no issue with someone else coming in to use the land for something the “custodians” don’t approve of (be they an individual or a collective). They claim the land for whatever use they deem subjectively valuable to themselves.

If you want to define coercion as any form of violence, then it is important to make the distinction between just violence and unjust violence. Trying to chop someone’s leg off for fun is unjust violence and defending yourself from said leg chopper is just violence. It is pointless to just call all property “coercion” and think this means property is wrong. This definition of coercion is actually useful, “the invasive use of physical violence or the threat thereof against someone else's person or (just) property”. From that basis you can start to address the issue of scarcity that private property rights attempt to resolve. Your definition of coercion does nothing to resolve this issue.

Who said anything about public ownership, who said anything at all about ownership? I certainly didn't, you just try and put words in my mouth to justify your own limited imagination.

You did. I referred to public property in reference to syndicalism and you inferred this was in error because syndicalism advocates for no state and “syndicalists would vehemently oppose public ownership”. Hence why I said public property doesn’t presuppose a state.

Property by its very nature must be enforceable, enforcement by its very nature is coercive, it deprives others of the right to use something where ownership is claimed. And where does this ownership claim come from, well Mises states every title comes from either arbitrary appropriation or violent expropriation - not much of a basis for a "natural right" which so called libertarians base their ideas on. The claimed natural right is based on appropriation and expropriation, wonderful stuff this, you claim exclusive use of something by just grabbing it and then claim that your ownership is a natural right. Told you it was lame. Then the libertarians completely ignore the power that property rights give property owners, also ignoring how they need the state or some other coercive apparatus to enforce their property rights. Not very libertarian.

See my previous response to answer your absurd argument. How can anyone defend themselves if they are not allowed to claim ownership of their private property rights to their body? You’re quoting Mises now? Trying to pretend you’ve read some of his writing? If you had, you’d know that Mises never argued from a natural rights perspective and was highly critical of it. Mises was arguing that every property title today can probably be traced back to some form of original appropriation of unowned property and/or some form of expropriation of those original appropriators. Good luck arguing against that. He then said that this doesn’t matter in regards to the functioning of a market economy. “Ownership in the market economy is no longer linked up with the remote origin of private property. Those events in a far-distant past, hidden in the darkness of primitive mankind's history, are no longer of any concern for our day. For in an unhampered market society, the consumers daily decide anew who should own and how much he should own. The consumers allot control of the means of production to those who know how to use them best for the satisfaction of the most urgent wants of the consumers. Only in a legal and formalistic sense can the owners be considered the successors of appropriators and expropriators. In fact, they are mandataries of the consumers, bound by the operation of the market to serve the consumers best. Capitalism is the consummation of the self-determination of the consumers.” Somehow you have meshed this with natural rights and then made the incorrect claim that only a state can protect private property rights, without realising that libertarians worth their salt claim that everything should be privatised, including security and court systems.

What is lame is your understanding of libertarianism. You don’t understand it yet you have the arrogance to proclaim it wrong. You lament property rights yet you in the very act of making an argument are presupposing their existence. By arguing with me, you are recognising my ownership of my body and mind. Without private property rights, the issue of scarcity can not be adequately resolved and arguing against it is contradictory whether the person arguing against it realises it or not.

Now Germany is an export oriented country so a lower exchange rate makes their exports more competitive, if they don't export (priced out by a higher value currency) then they have no funds to purchase imports. It is worth it for Germany and, in any case, since they are in a currency union with low cost countries that can produce a lot of their imports and sell them in the same currency there is barely a disadvantage. Are you seriously (in practice not theory) claiming Germany doesn't benefit from being in the Euro which is valued lower than a Deutschmark would be?

When Germany went to the Euro all that happened was that it imported the inflation from the currencies of the other countries within the monetary union. These countries printed Euro’s, bought German goods with them and the German’s then saw prices rise due to the increase in the money supply. Sure, it helps the exporters for a short time, but eventually the money filters through the economy and prices rise in response. Germans through their exposure to the European central bank are then forced to finance the debt of the spendthrift southern European countries. If Germany remained on the Deutschmark, capital would have flocked to Germany and foreign goods would have become much cheaper for Germans. If the southern European countries tried to buy goods with inflated currency, they would have been forced to devalue their currencies in relation to the Deutschmark in response. With the Euro they don’t have to do that.

The effect of Germans exporting more than they import is that Germans invest more of their capital overseas than non-German people invest their capital in Germany. Whether the balance of payments results in trade surpluses or deficits does not tell you whether it is a good or bad situation. What matters is what how effective the money is allocated. Germans buying Greek government debt that was financed with money created out of thin air that was used to purchase German goods is an example of a bad situation. This is a direct result of the Euro, ergo it is most definitely not a good deal for Germany. They would be far better off going back on the Deutschmark. The only reason why they went to the Euro was because the French elite demanded it in return for allowing West and East Germany to re-unify. The French elite demanded it because they were frustrated by the strength of the Deutschmark which restricted their ability to use inflation to finance their welfare/warfare boondoggles.

You know Gia, you are the only one here telling everyone what society they should live in. You are so prescriptive, you tell everyone they should live in a market society and it has to be a pure free market or it is somehow wrong. Gotta follow the true correct line according to Gia. Brexit is apparently more free market so therefore you must agree with Brexit, otherwise you contradict the correct line according to Gia. Just substitute Mises for Marx and follow the correct line.

I’m the only one here doing that am I? You and the socialist crew are just live and let live types? Again, with the false equivalence. A Marxist with power will respond to someone that disagrees with them by putting a bullet in their head (if they had the resources to produce them). A Misean with power would try through argument to convince others of the correct course of action and will try to demonstrate this through living by example. If people want to live in a socialist society then by all means go ahead and do so. I live in a society where people like you can vote to steal from me every 4 years or so. Hence, I argue pretty hard against this obviously. I would like the choice to secede from people that wish to do so, however our political structure does not allow for this. Brexit was a vote to secede which is why I support it, but it sucks that the people that wanted to stay couldn’t. I think it much more conducive to peace if procedures for secession where developed in modern nation states (like in Lichtenstein) as it would allow for people to just say no if they want to, instead of being stuck with something they can’t stand.

 

[DavidSSS]

What a diatribe.

So, how do your wonderful privatised security and court systems enforce property rights without coercion?

Private property doesn't solve scarcity, it creates and exacerbates scarcity.

Mises is typical of those who choose to ignore the power inherent in property. An unhampered market decides who should own and how much they should own? But those who enter the market with more property have more power to decide who owns what. It isn't as if we all enter the market as equals, some have appropriated and expropriated more property in the past and have more market power. Libertarians always ignore unequal power relations.

Mises also posits the rather strange notion that economics inhabits some special universe and should not be compared to reality:

What assigns economics its peculiar and unique position in the orbit both of pure knowledge and of the practical utilization of knowledge is the fact that its particular theorems are not open to any verification or falsification on the ground of experience.

What he is effectively saying is that: if economic theory and observed reality are contradictory, reality is wrong.

I reckon a lot, possibly even the majority, of socialists are live and let live types, maybe I'll ask a few.

DS

 

[Baloo]

Gia, any chance of keeping your theoretical solution for every situation confined to one thread? Every political thread ends up becoming a spam fest in theoretical libertarian economics.

 

[Giardiasis]

So, how do your wonderful privatised security and court systems enforce property rights without coercion?

A question I've been asked a few times here. I'm not interested in explaining it again. I've provided links to further reading as it is not a one paragraph answer.

Private property doesn't solve scarcity, it creates and exacerbates scarcity.

The great Marxian lie. Superabundance for all if not for private property. All I need to do here is point to the historical evidence of what happens in countries that largely protect private property rights (e.g. Western countries) and those that do not (Venezuela, North Korea, Soviet Union, Cuba, etc). China only started to develop economically once it started to adopt freer economic policy. How can any reasonable person say what you said with a straight face? You do not need to have read extensively on economics to get it. Have you no understanding of history?

Mises is typical of those who choose to ignore the power inherent in property. An unhampered market decides who should own and how much they should own? But those who enter the market with more property have more power to decide who owns what. It isn't as if we all enter the market as equals, some have appropriated and expropriated more property in the past and have more market power. Libertarians always ignore unequal power relations.

Libertarians don't ignore that, but the point is that in the end it doesn't matter how much you own and the power that gives you, if you don't continue to satisfy the consumers you will lose your wealth and power.

Mises also posits the rather strange notion that economics inhabits some special universe and should not be compared to reality:What he is effectively saying is that: if economic theory and observed reality are contradictory, reality is wrong.

The argument is epistomological. There are no constants from which to derive universal laws like in the physical sciences. Human action is dynamic and can respond differently to the same stimuli, unlike how a rock will react to being thrown or heated. What he is saying is that observations neither prove nor disprove economic theory, just like in mathematics. Performing an experiment and taking observations to determine the validity of the claim that 1+10 = 11 is nonsensical. Only introspective logical analysis can be used to disprove an economic claim.

I reckon a lot, possibly even the majority, of socialists are live and let live types, maybe I'll ask a few.

Now that is funny. A group of people that advocate for big government solutions that require compliance at the point of a gun are live and let live types? Under Capitalism anyone is free to set up and live in a socialist community, the reverse is very much not the case.

 

[Giardiasis]

Gia, any chance of keeping your theoretical solution for every situation confined to one thread? Every political thread ends up becoming a spam fest in theoretical libertarian economics.

That depends on the chances that every political thread doesn't decend into a spam fest for theoretical socialism without it. I think you'll find I largely address claims made on these threads directly.

 

[Giardiasis]

Good news for the UK:

https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-government-to-slash-up-to-90-of-trade-tariffs-if-uk-leaves-eu-with-no-deal-11656093

 

[MD Jazz]

A question I've been asked a few times here. I'm not interested in explaining it again. I've provided links to further reading as it is not a one paragraph answer.
The great Marxian lie. Superabundance for all if not for private property. All I need to do here is point to the historical evidence of what happens in countries that largely protect private property rights (e.g. Western countries) and those that do not (Venezuela, North Korea, Soviet Union, Cuba, etc). China only started to develop economically once it started to adopt freer economic policy. How can any reasonable person say what you said with a straight face? You do not need to have read extensively on economics to get it. Have you no understanding of history?
Libertarians don't ignore that, but the point is that in the end it doesn't matter how much you own and the power that gives you, if you don't continue to satisfy the consumers you will lose your wealth and power.
The argument is epistomological. There are no constants from which to derive universal laws like in the physical sciences. Human action is dynamic and can respond differently to the same stimuli, unlike how a rock will react to being thrown or heated. What he is saying is that observations neither prove nor disprove economic theory, just like in mathematics. Performing an experiment and taking observations to determine the validity of the claim that 1+10 = 11 is nonsensical. Only introspective logical analysis can be used to disprove an economic claim.
Now that is funny. A group of people that advocate for big government solutions that require compliance at the point of a gun are live and let live types? Under Capitalism anyone is free to set up and live in a socialist community, the reverse is very much not the case.

Nice one.

 

[DavidSSS]

So Gia, observations don't prove or disprove economic theories (despite the fact that economic theories are supposed to explain economies which exist in the real world) yet somehow observations definitively prove that libertarians are correct because Marxists are wrong.

Like I give a s*** that you criticise oppressive Marxist inspired regimes. That lot just substituted one lot of oppressors for another. They get rid of the economic overlords created by capitalism and substitute it with political overlords. Great solution? I think not.

Now you really are funny criticising socialists for enforcing their regime with guns - how are your lovely privatised security and justice organisations going to enforce their ill gotten property? With nice language, convincing theoretical pontifications?

Libertarians might claim to limit coercion but they just can't let it go because they believe in private property which requires enforcement through coercion. You just reduce everything to economic relations when we all know that life is about much more than economic relations and being part of a community, part of a society is much more than some contractual relationship.

DS

 

[Giardiasis]

So Gia, observations don't prove or disprove economic theories (despite the fact that economic theories are supposed to explain economies which exist in the real world) yet somehow observations definitively prove that libertarians are correct because Marxists are wrong.

Like I give a s*** that you criticise oppressive Marxist inspired regimes. That lot just substituted one lot of oppressors for another. They get rid of the economic overlords created by capitalism and substitute it with political overlords. Great solution? I think not.

Now you really are funny criticising socialists for enforcing their regime with guns - how are your lovely privatised security and justice organisations going to enforce their ill gotten property? With nice language, convincing theoretical pontifications?

Libertarians might claim to limit coercion but they just can't let it go because they believe in private property which requires enforcement through coercion. You just reduce everything to economic relations when we all know that life is about much more than economic relations and being part of a community, part of a society is much more than some contractual relationship.

DS

Sorry, I wasn't very clear there and I get why you see a contradiction. The historical evidence of the failure of socialism doesn't prove or disprove any economic laws. Economic laws can be used to predict what will happen in real life examples of social organisation to a certain extent, however they can't be used to predict things like timings of events. A good example would be that economic law predicted the collapse of the Soviet economy. While it was ultimately what came to pass, the regime managed to survive for about 70 years because the planners were able to use the prices established in foreign countries. Appealing to historical evidence isn't the strongest part of my argument, however as it takes hours of reading to understand the epistomological foundations of economics and the fundamentals of praxeology and as you are someone that appears to put more stock in historical evidence than I do, I would have thought that the historical evidence would be compelling to you?

I don't criticise socialists for using violence per se, I'm not a pacifist. Violence can be justified in the defence of private property. I criticise socialists because they use violence to prevent peaceful exchanges between people. They are the antithesis of live and let live, they try to bind others to value what they subjectively value. This can go from something that appears benign such as forcing people to wear bike helmets to something extreme such as forcing people to work in slave labour camps for the crime of being captured in battle and surviving.

Again with the false equivalence. There is the world of difference between how libertarians justify violence and how socialists justify violence. Your attempt to equate the two is ridiculous. I don't reduce everything to economic relations, economics is just the most discussed aspect of human action. People act for a whole range of reasons and often chose to act in a way that provides them less monetary benefits such as donating to charities or starting a family. The whole basis of libertarian thought is around enhancing social cooperation by advancing solutions to the problems that lead to conflict.

 

[DavidSSS]

Gia, your problem is that you are very similar to the socialists.

They use violence to enforce their particular version of the way society should run as do you. Violence to defend private property, violence to defend state monopoly on property.

You claim "economic laws", they claim the laws of dialectical materialism. Neither are laws, both are hypotheses.

You claim that free market economics, and privatising everything will lead to a free society with the idea that basing this on economic relations will somehow enhance social cooperation. Whenever anyone points to the inherent power imbalance that occurs in a market system where private property not only allows, but encourages, accumulation (leading to greater imbalances in economic power), you reply that the system is not sufficiently free market. In other words true libertarianism has never been properly tried. The socialists often call what was the Soviet Union "state capitalism" and claim that true socialism has never really been tried.

You follow praxeology, they follow Marxism (they get an upper case for their hypothesis as it is named after a person, sorry, law of grammar).

The whole private property as some sort of natural law argument, stemming from a quite strange notion that we somehow own ourselves, falls on the fundamental contradiction that to own ourselves we would need to simultaneously be both subject and object, which is why Kant rejected this notion as contradictory - people are subjects of ownership, people own things in a society which recognises property, unless we divide a person into a dual being, one part being the consciousness and the other the physical body then self-ownership makes no sense. We do not inhabit our bodies, we are our bodies and this is not separate from our consciousness.

Meanwhile Marxists take Hegelian notions of progress and dialectics and come up with a progression of societal forms from primitive socialism to communism and the end of history, or is it pre-history, can't quite remember.

To gain true social cooperation you need to take away the incentives to gain at the expense of others. Neither a private property system nor a system of socialised property will achieve this. Only the abolition of property takes away the incentive to gain at the expense of others.

In addition, libertarianism posits the notion that one should be free to do what one likes as long as it does no harm to another. But this just shifts the definition to the realm of harm, who decides what constitutes harm? If I divert the water on my land such that you get none, is that me using my property rights or is it me causing you harm? Who decides? If I hire a justice system in a free market of privatised justice systems which decides in my favour and you do likewise but your justice system decides in your favour, are we not creating conflict? The problem is that libertarianism doesn't deliver because it perpetuates unequal power relations which are the cause of conflict in the first place.

I think we should get away from the heavy philosophy and back to Brexit. I still think that (in the current world system which I and many others would call capitalism but does not fit the pure capitalism that libertarians favour) the UK are F***ed and would have been better off staying in the EU.

DS