Posted on 01/04/2006 7:33:35 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
But I did no such thing..... Milton Fiedman did; I merely reposted his illustration of the principle of designer-less complexity.
Speaking of Friedman, he was interviewed by Charlie Rose, and during the course of the hour long interview, CR asked MF is he had changed his mind about anything. MF thought for a moment and replied: "Why, yes! I used to think that there was some good that came from the anti-trust laws, but I have since come to the realization that they do more damage than good."
From the context of that comment during the interview, I got the impression that the anti-trust law was just about the only form of government intervention in the market that Freidman had entertained as being possibly positive, and having realized that he was mistaken, the last remaining edifice of the state interfering in the marketplace was at last swept from Friedman's view of the ideal market.
I've seen published CIA reports from those days (for what they're worth) that the small private plots allowed on collective farms, where the slave workers were free to grow what they wanted and to sell the results at market prices, provided about 30% of the food grown in the USSR. And those private plots occupied about 5% of the land allocated to the collective farms. Shows what ID can do.
"The economy is not intelligently designed. That is the question before us. Use your integrity, dude!"
Let's try one more time. The very freedom that is a prerequisite of a free economy is "intelligently" designed. Adam Smith was no moron! And the very guarantee of voluntary exchange and freedom from coercion is backed by the *government*. In fact, that is one of the primary legitimate functions of government.
And do you suppose that computers are needed for today's global economy? Do you think those computers evolved with no intelligent design? Use your brain, man! Oh, wait ...
Funny how international trade works, then, with no world government.
"Funny how international trade works, then, with no world government."
You *have* heard of the WTO, I presume. No, it is not a government per se, but it certainly has the backing of the governments involved. And the currency used in international trade is obviously backed by the governments involved too. The days of bartering for animal skins with the Indians are over.
"Liberals have hijacked science for long enough. Now it's our turn -- Tom Bethell"
Just out of curiousity, were these sentences preceded by another sentence? Oh, isn't that interesting. And what was that sentence?
So, it appears that you have quoted Bethell out of context, eh? Oh, and that quote was a *draft* that did not appear on the final version of the book, did it. Oh, I see.
Are you aware, sir, that publishers, rather than authors, commonly write titles and subtitles for books?
So what you are doing is quoting Bethell out of context for the draft of a subtitle that he may not have even written himself.
Do you have any idea what that says about your integrity, Sir?
Unregulated, troll-free placemarker.
No, they weren't preceded by anything. You're wrong.
Are you aware, sir, that publishers, rather than authors, commonly write titles and subtitles for books?
No, I'm not aware of that. Did you just make it up?
International trade preceded the WTO by thousands of years. Nor does the WTO do anything except montion tariffs and other restrainst on trade. It doesn't enforce contracts.
And the currency used in international trade is obviously backed by the governments involved too. The days of bartering for animal skins with the Indians are over.
Your argument seems to be that if governments do anything, however minor, to facilitate markets, the markets are government controlled.
So much for RussP's economically ignorant contention that markets require governments.
A further example -- and perhaps the best -- is the Law Merchant (or or Lex Mercatoria for those who want a touch of class). It was a spontaneous, self-organized, and non-governmental mechanism for the conduct of markets.
See above.
Back in the early 70s I read an article by Noam Chomsky ridiculing the idea that human language could be the product of evolution. At the time I had no knowledge of Chomsky's politics. I wrote him off as a sophisticated creationist.
It's interesting to examine the parallels between ID and socialism. On one hand you have people who deny that undirected events can produce use biological features, and on the other hand you have people who deny that an undirected economy can produce wealth.
Or that planets can move without being pushed by angels.
Apparently, you can't stop trying even though the refutations of your nonsense are obvious. The existence of intelligently designed organizations and objects in the modern world economy does not mean that the modern world economy had a designer. If it did, who was said designer, God?
What is the matter with you people that you can't ever even once even in the most obvious instance say, "Whoops! Good point! I probably shouldn't have claimed what I did!?"
"Your argument seems to be that if governments do anything, however minor, to facilitate markets, the markets are government controlled."
No, that's not my point at all. That's just another example of your incorrigible missing of the point.
The point here is not that government "controls" anything. The point is that, simply by using government-backed currency, the trading involves a government-based "intelligent design" that is explicitly ruled out in purely naturalistic evolution.
But I don't expect you to get it because that would require honest, objective thinking.
"I'd just like to make one more point about markets and governments. When I was a teenager, my family lived for a couple of years in Tanzania. This was, at the time, a formally Marxist state with tight economic controls. As a result, there were shortages of almost anything. The result was a flourishing hard currency black market, which the government did little to persecute but nothing to encourage. So, if you wanted to buy soap, you paid dollars (which you weren't supposed to own) to a guy who smuggled the soap into the country; and if he cheated you, going to the police was not an option. So much fro government's role in a market economy."
They used what? Oh, dollars, eh.
Gold and other precious materials were used as a medium of exchange long before there were government backed currencies. In fact, early governments (e.g. the Roman Empire) frequently debased previously reliable mediums of exchange.
But I don't expect you to get it because that would require honest, objective thinking.
No, to 'get it' would require complete ignorance of the history of economics.
So you're claiming the US Government has juridiction in Tanzania?
You don't need a government to have a medium of exchange.
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