Post your opinions on Economics, what school do you favour and why?

Post your opinions on Economics, what school do you favour and why?

Sheeeeiiiiit

we have already achieved post scarcity meaning that economic schools are pointless. its just that the prevailing capitalist system enforces artificial scarcity

Marxism

because it's always right

Post scarcity would mean things don't cost anything. Things still cost things. We have scarcity.

>we have already achieved post scarcity
Socialists actually believe this kek

apparently you only read the first sentence of my post
>Socialists
I'm a communist

...

when you have no argument

>when your entire mindset is contingent on some pipedream that post scarcity would be finally achieved and utopia would reign if only the government seized everything from greedy capitalists

No arguments needed

it's like you didn't read this thread at all and are just posting stock messages once you saw the word communist
>some pipedream that post scarcity would be finally achieved
I already said earlier that it has already been achieved. you aren't paying attention at all

Ecology. The only "school" of economics that matters.
> for Sup Forumsack retards: I mean ecology the science not ecology the greenpeace-cum-peta tier bullshit

...

Communist are retarded faggots who follow the cult of Marxism.

Except it hasn't, I'd ask you to elaborate but you won't
>GORBORATIONS ARE MAKING US PAY

>what school do you
why be so dogmatic

Can someone explain to me why usury is or isn't evil without using arguments that involve "it's natural" or "freedom"?

>we have already achieved post scarcity

Where is my gold plated 747? There are plenty for everyone, I'm told.

...

Two people voluntarily entering into contracts with each other? Why would that be evil?

This

come on.. voluntary sounds like NAP ideology to me, and are you ok with selling yourself into slavery? i'm guessing no natural rights for you then?

>natural rights

You're adorable.

Selling yourself into slavery would just be taking money with the promise of doing what the person tells you, and potentially with permission for the other party to abuse you. No rights are violated, as it would be voluntary.

>no natural rights
i know what liberals and libertarians make of usury. He just threw the "voluntary" back at me after i specifically mentioned that I would like to know something that doesn't involve all this natural freedom we're supposed to have.

yeah i understand but this is just the (extreme) libertarian perspective that bases everything on the NAP. You don't care about the results, only about the formal setup of contracts. btw both hoppe and rothbard object to slavery because of their concept of rights.

Selling yourself into slavery is perfectly fine. Some people don't value freedom as much as our culture does you know.

You're calling it extreme, and maybe that's accurate, but that doesn't make it incorrect. Maybe I don't like what other people choose to do, but I have no say in what they do with their property.

i was trying to pinpoint where he's at, because usually when people talk about voluntary contracts they mean the NAP. but from this perspective lending money with interest is obviously a 'freedom' we 'should' have (I don't understand natural rights at all). It's a very uninteresting dead end and libertarians tell you nothing about downsides of usury. In fact they'll go out of their way to tell you interest rates are required for capitalism to function at all.

it's only extreme in the sense of political thought, i meant nothing bad by it. The current generation of rothbard libertarians reject slavery and sovereign property.

There is no such thing as a voluntary interaction. Human consciousness and decision making are based on chemical interactions that are totally predictable. Free will is an illusion.

>Maybe I don't like what other people choose to do, but I have no say in what they do with their property.

Yes you do. If I use my property to injure you, you have a say in it. Like if I build a factory that damages the environment you live in, for example.

Voluntary meaning no other person forceably compelling me into decision. And yes, you're right about the second part.

m8 you gotta read more stuff if you think 'voluntary' is a clear enough concept to base law on. it's almost as silly as marx' 'means of production'.

If someone wants to take a loan with interest, why should you be able to stop them?
That being said I would agree that it's fucking retarded to let governments print money to pay off their debts. It kills all resposibility and accountability on their behalf. It also has created the ruling banking elite we have nowadays.
Sadly someone gave milton friedman a nobel prize, so the world of ecoonomists has accepted this retarded idea as gospel.

Anyone who answers without "it depends" knows absolutely nothing about economics and should be ashamed.

Austrian. Only school without pulled out of the ass assumptions.

could you specify what you mean? what is wrong with voluntary systems? what nonvoluntary systems would be better, morally or economically?
XD PEOPLE WITH PRINCIPLES ARE FUCKING STUPOD XDXDXD I

Because there is no such thing as 'should' in the world? I don't care about starting off with freedom and having that be the litmus test of evil. There are many things people can agree to that are fucking evil, and the concepts of coercion and property are not well-defined enough to cover everything. Not to mention that this rothbardian NAP stuff basically tells all of previous human history that their ideas about law were not just retarded, but obviously simplistic and evil.

You would ban usury for the same reason that it was banned before: that it's evil. Our modern financial system is completely crazy by any historical standards.

>Voluntary meaning no other person forceably compelling me into decision.

Hello sir, I have a monopoly on food in this region after reaching voluntary agreements with my competitors. As such I have set my prices to 100X the previous level. I will not compel you to pay this price, as that would be immoral. However please be aware that if you do not enter into a voluntary exchange with me you may suffer ill effects from your inevitable starvation.

What I mean is that 'voluntary' is not a sufficiently well-defined or insightful enough of a concept to base an ideology and morality on. The same with 'coercion' and 'property'. There will be disagreements, and then there is a need for juries or violence.

Shockingly the hue has the correct answer. Toothpaste and electricity distribution have different economic realities.

Hello sir, you might have noticed that the only way for me to actually obtain my 'monopoly' is by the assent of the king-of-the-realm, the one who guarantees that I actually have property. But seeing as how you're standing here with torches and pitchforks I have graciously decided that I will revert my prices back to the original. Please don't start coercing me.

Right, if someone uses my property in ways that are not voluntary, I have a right to retribution, which can be me personally violating their rights. If I am unable to do this on my own, I could appeal to a group who will do it for me, a private police force. Logically, they would not go on my word alone, so I would go to some respected authority to act as a private judge. This expert would look at the evidence and give his opinion. I can then take his opinion to the private police and they would help me to enforce my rights. This is just one way that I see private justice working, and I'm sure there are many other options.

I know but this is just the libertarian story you can get from hoppe.

Ridiculous. No example of this has ever existed. Any natural (nonstate) monopoly still has to compete to remain relevant. That means affordable pricing. Even when Rockefeller owned >90% of the oil refineries in the US, price continually went down. Without a coercive force keeping out competition, it will exist and it will affect actors within an economy.

econs is a social science, fun but too abstract for practical use in most cases

Marshallian, he a real nigga

I'm not an ancap, and I think the NAP stuff won't work long term. I believe people would start forming societies very quickly in the ancap world, which would bring us back to square one.
On usury, I would say it is almot unavoidable to some degree.
Imagine you have a country with a fixed amount of money, in this country one dubloon buys you 5 potatoes. You take out a loan of 100 dubloons and agree to pay it back in 10 years. 10 years pass. Due to technological advancements, potatoes are now easier to grow, meaning you know pay one dubloon for 6 potatoes. You pay back your loan of 100 dubloons.
You have loaned 500 potatoes, and paid back 600 potatoes.
Banning it "because it's evil" is not really an argument m8.
Looks like I have to grow my own food and undercut him doesn't it :^)

>Any natural (nonstate) monopoly still has to compete to remain relevant.
But this isn't true, since monopolies on violence have historically always been geographical. Who can you compete with except other countries, and what is that but war? That means that if shlomo says he owns X and wants to raise its price, what he's really doing is using the guns of uncle sam to enforce his will. For every construction that you consider voluntary I can make a perspective where it isn't. These days all property is guaranteed by a different sovereign, so all property is secondary property.

>Banning it "because it's evil" is not really an argument m8.
That's funny, because it would seem the only legitimate argument to me. The alternative is any of the rainbow of "Rationalist empirical scientific logical" nonsense that purports to prove something or other. Anyway, i'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say urusy is unavoidable. Do you know we ran economies for along time with it banned? As for your example, the contract you make is only for a specific number of dubloons, not any "current market price". The actual interest on a loan like that would be determined by how much people want to have money now in favor of later, and it would depend on the faith people have in the currency. There is no problem with this, and it seems to me you are confusing market prices with some sort of "actual" prices. You don't loan potatoes and pay back potatoes, it's only the money. And those exchange rates to potatoes differ from time to time, which is why interest rates are subject to market influence. Basically people have to agree on what the MONEY will be worth, not the potatoes. Also what you're describing suggests something like "how can I make a profit if there is uncertainty?", which is actually one of the main reasons I am suspicious of banks: they really do make money off of doing nothing, if you call "calculate interest rates" as nothing. But they don't calculate anything, they fix them because they control all the money. The austrians would say that interests rates can be established in a market, and for that it would use all the knowledge potato traders have.

I was making the argument that interest exists in more than one form. If the loan giver has nothing to gain by giving a loan, I'm sure you would have to agree he would not give a loan.
Yes, people have to agree what the money will be worth, so tell me how do you measure how much money is worth? By looking at what you can buy with it, i.e. potatoes.
Uncertainity can not be avoided, I agree. I also agree that modern banks are out of control, and that printing money (which is what banks fixing interest rates basically boils down to), kills any responsibility and accountability on the side of the debtor (the state) and by extension guarantees a return of investment for the creditor (banks). Which is something I describe as retarded, and you would describe as evil.

>If the loan giver has nothing to gain by giving a loan, I'm sure you would have to agree he would not give a loan.
He would have something to gain, but he would share in the risk as well. The problem with modern interest on loans is that it is guaranteed money, supposedly calculated 'fairly' by somehow feeding the entire economy to a computer. Without usury the lender shares in the risks, and there was a lot less of it to go around. We have ridiculous machinery these days to handle loans that should never have been given out in the first place, but since big (national) banks are lenders of last resort (because they can print money and are backed by guns) they are now also the lender of first resort.
>how do you measure how much money is worth?
You can't do this. This is modern GDP nonsense where it's somehow possible to compare 2014 iphones with 2015 ones and see how the 'value' of money changed. Money is both a currency and a medium of savings, and the only way to say what money is 'really' worth is by looking at supposedly free-market interests rates across time. Lending money for 1 year, 10 years, etc, which is already partially possible by looking at US treasury bonds for example. The problem is the bank can buy up everything in the country at any moment, by printing an infinite amount of money. Btw they also don't fix interest rates by printing money only, they also directly fix interests rates by controlling all the banks. That's even worse if you think about it.

>something I describe as retarded, and you would describe as evil.
I don't want to nitpick this point cause it's unrelated to economics but don't you think this is a little petty? I'm fine with you calling something stupid or retarded but in practice it ALWAYS becomes "that is objectively retarded", just like the people defending the NAP as something God should have given moses. If I disagree with you if something is evil, we'll have a talk. If you tell me i'm objective wrong...?

Yes, he definitely SHOULD share the risks, I agree 100%. I agree that "forced interest", which we have now, is evil (if you really want to call it that), however, that is different from "voluntary interest".
However if someone wants top be stupid and take a stupid loan with interest, I don't really care. Idiots find all sorts of ways of parting with their money, it's really none of my business.
I dislike using a word like evil in this context because it has such a strong emotional connotation attached to it. "Usury is evil" without any further expansion is appeal to emotion.
Also the "they" is the governments and banks working in tandem, I would say the banks are sitting at the longer side of the lever though.

however however however

(I'll await your second comment but i'd like to point out that using the emotionally loaded word 'evil' was my intention for that reason. It's true that emotion colors rational thought, but you know? there was a distinct lack of sensing evil in the politics of the 20th, maybe since the 18th. I'm also not down with the postmodern "everything is relative" nonsense or the democratic faith that what the majority wants is 'good').

actually nvm i just realized you were making fun of your own post. Anyway the important part is probably
>if someone wants top be stupid and take a stupid loan with interest, I don't really care. Idiots find all sorts of ways of parting with their money, it's really none of my business.
We can probably leverage this to "if someone wants to be stupid while not hurting anyone else" since natural rights are a bit iffy. This would make for a remarkably libertarian set of laws though, and there would be disagreement everywhere over whether someone is a danger to themselves and what actually constitutes this (secondary) harm. This 'forced' interest we have now is literally forced with guns, the same way taxes are. Bankruptcy is probably necessary as a concept to prevent society from immediately breaking down from loan shark overkill.

Anyway I think my main problem with this perspective is the same problem I have with the voluntary/NAP argument. In my world view, every country is at least geographically dominated by some sovereign, some force with guns. Maybe that force has given itself a constitution or parliament or king or religion or whatever, but it's ultimately responsible for everything. In that way, when you tell me that something is 'voluntary', all I'm hearing is 'allowed'. What if a country that allows usury, bans non-usurious banks (guns), has a bunch of 'voluntary' loans going on? Does it make sense to call them voluntary? Communists don't even want property so all of them participating in the job market are hypocrites, or something, even though it's still voluntary. The financial system of a country is decided by the powers that run the place, and I feel awkward talking about anything 'voluntary' in that respect. It smacks of seeing the modern form of capitalism as a timeless ideal of freedom.

Last example: we have laws for asset leveraging. It's voluntary from top to bottom but wrecks countries because banks rule all. Voluntary?

ahahahahahahaha

holy fuck commies are retards

austrian

economist here.
there are no more serious "schools" of thought save for a few universities that lean heterodox (GMU, UMass Amherst, New School). 98% of economists are "mainstream", and for good reason. economics is not politics and does not strive to show that one ideology is superior. it is about understanding what we observe in the world, find inefficiencies, and correct them.

you'll see that most professional economists are moderate democrats, with the old guard being Reagan Republicans at best. the free market is not a panacea, and the govt can pick up where the market fails to deliver.

>when you drank the koolaid at university and need to view your economics as Rational or else risk not being able to operate in your job anymore.

We have a system were countries are allowed to print money to pay off their debts. This is the main problem, the money I get paid as a wage will lose it's value over time, forcing me to participate in all this nonsense. The system of interest we have would not be able to work if we stopped the practice of increasing the total amount of money.
And you're quite right, this system is forced upon us by the powers that be, the international banking system, ruling elite, etc., so we are not participating in it voluntarily, it is forced.
What I'm saying is that people should have a choice to take bad loans, they shouldn't be forced to.
Modern economics is about obfuscating the truth. Most economists are sadly so far down the keynesian rabbit hole, they can't even tell how irrational it all is anymore.

I agree with everything in that post and don't know what to add. My initial question was mostly about usury in a more timeless sense, not really how it relates to our current situation. My impression is that the austrian school never really addressed the concerns older civilizations had over its practice, and take it as a requirement for capitalism that fits well with their notions of freedom. One of the problems I can imagine them overlooking is the political axis (as they often do), where the financial system actually has to be implemented by a sovereign. Libertarians are notoriously vague about how such a thing could happen, because they don't really believe in some entity establishing sovereign control of a patch of land to build a country. But anyway, it might be that according to their theories interest on loans is something we are "free" to do, but the existence of such a system might be entirely involuntary because of the sovereign ruling. For example, I don't think it's hard to argue that in a patchwork of sovereign states, some countries are "free" to print their own money. In fact every sovereign is free to build their own currency system, and for them to compete. Libertarians are sometimes even very in favor of competing currencies. Anyway the freedom argument is a good one and personally I have to admit I still don't understand why we used to think usury was evil. Theoretically a contract for future money could involve interest, it could involve anything. Therefor I figured I should look for the reason in the moral domain, where it harms either the individual or society. That is, it reliable harms them. But it could also be the case that it is only harmful in some monetary systems, such as ones using a metal standard. Maybe if every bank went around providing loans with interest and some failed the economy would evaporate because everyone would be in debt? But now the US gov buys up all the bad debt so isn't that kind of what happened? Etc..

>the keynesian rabbit hole
not to mention that you can't work in the modern economy without using its tricks! maturity-mismatching everywhere.

I think the cause of these policies, is that it massively benefits the banks, who in turn can very easily influence politicans and thus influence public policy. Politicans get power by being voted, and if you can influence who the people vote for (this is what media and academia does), you can control politicians. If you have a lot of money, you can control the media, because you can own it.
So the more money you have, the more total control over the population you are able to exert. And priniting money benefits the banks, ensuring they have disproportiante wealth and thus power. Of course they are going to push this system as hard as they can, because they are of course the primary beneficiaries.
If we had a monarch or some other central singular leader, this would not be a problem, becasue he wouldn't have to rely on the approval of the massses (and by extension the media and banks and so on) to legitimize his power.
He could tell the banks to go fuck themselves and stop the prinitng presses.
Sadly we have the opposite.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Iran has an independent bank and is viewed as the most danerous country in the world by the US establishment.

such an adorable face, hope urbit's doing well. cheers

dank je wel, insgelijks

I know is off Thread but where's this clip from sempai

Material.

youtube ?v=O-QpfLV8dQw

Scarcity will always exist, even if it's fake items like video game loot crates or attention from popular people. Any talk of post scarcity is absurd.

Elaborate please.

I think ecologists have "realized" their theories apply to "abiotic" systems as well, so everything. Since man is a creature, why wouldn't his antics fall under ecological study? etc