Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in Who’s the Materialist?

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

livingjp — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Two counter-examples.

Mises, for whom the ultimate justification for capitalism is that it enhances the standard of living for all members of a society, each by their own subjective standards (different people having such different and irreconcilable notions of what counts as "dignity" that it can't be appealed to as a consistent rationale).

Mill, for whom capitalism and political liberalism (whose justification is that it does respect the dignity of the individual) are intimately related, but not identical and differently justified.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Randy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Martin,

Propety is natural, and denying this really doesn't change it. Politics too is natural (marginal propensity to exploit), but politics would not exist if property did not exist. Without property there would be no one to exploit.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Martin Brock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

So basically today's free market capitalist is tomorrow's pariah.

Today's free market capitalist is a chimera, a fairy tale, like angels watching over a sleeping child and the hope of eternal bliss for chanting a few comforting mantras.

Maybe the fairy tale evokes bygone days, or maybe it's pure fairy tale. If we have ever had a very free market in the U.S., it ceased to exist long before I was born. Roberts' recently posted poster is only one evidence of this fact. The rest of the evidence surrounds me 24/7/365, and I'm constantly amazed by people's incredible capacity to deny it.

If I suggest that anything commonly called "property" today, from Obama's lease on the White House or Air Force One to some AIG executive's Manhattan penthouse to a welfare queen's monthly check or the interest on a Treasury note, is not noble beyond reproach, then I'm "exactly" like someone suggesting that a woman defending herself from rape is a rapist herself.

This proprietarian state worship is what passes for "libertarianism" these days. No wonder the fascists won a long time ago.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

SaulOhio — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

What we are talking about here is the mind/body dichotomy. Those who see too much materialism in capitalism don't understand that the source of all those material goods is a very spiritual value: The freedom of the mind. All of those goods were invented by the human spirit, the means to manufacture them was created by man's intellect. Without the material, there would be no spiritual, and without the spirit, the material would have no value.

I am tempted to quote a whole lot of Ayn Rand here.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Randy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Just thinking this morning... that political behavior is also economic behavior. I'm thinking that political behavior can be seen as "the marginal propensity to exploit others". The marginal propensity to exploit others increases as one's ability to exploit others rises, as one's ability to produce anything else of value decreases, and as such behavior is allowed, or even encouraged, in the culture.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Crusader — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Rampant materialism is a pscyhological disorder, but to say that materialism by itself is a disease is wrong. Unless one is planning to live like a hermit, a certain amount of materialism is required. Housing, computer, books, car, clothes, furniture, TV, DVD player. That just scratches the surface of living a basic modern life. That some people go too far - that's nobody's business UNLESS they go bankrupt and start demanding I bail them out.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Randy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Ackermann,

"Nobody has ever benefited from their materialism."

Really? Then why are popes and politicians so concerned about it? I'll tell you why. Because our natural materialism runs counter to their efforts to exploit us.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Crusader — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

I think what Martin's point is that property rights are an ever evolving thing from decade to decade and there is no moral absolute when it comes to that. So basically today's free market capitalist is tomorrow's pariah.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

dg lesvic — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Strcture etc.

You wrote,

"The average man lives in more satisfactory conditions than his ancestors or his fellows in non-capitalistic countries."

It isn't just a matter of living more satisfactorily, but living. Period.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Structure&Conduct — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

"Grumblers may blame Western civilization for its materialism & may assert that it gratified nobody but a small class of rugged exploiters. But their laments cannot wipe out the facts. Millions of mothers have been made happier by the drop in infant mortality. Famines have disappeared & epidemics have been curbed. The average man lives in more satisfactory conditions than his ancestors or his fellows in non-capitalistic countries. & one must not dismiss as merely materialistic a civilization which makes it possible for practically everybody to enjoy a Beethoven symphony performed by an orchestra conducted by an eminent master." - Ludwig Von Mises

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

K Ackermann — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

I the article, and I find the letter to be way out of context with what was being asserted.

I serious doubt Dionne runs around calling capitalism a system rooted in materialist values. Perhaps, since he was referring to capitalism in reference to THE POPE, he may have taken the liberty to speak from the Pope's viewpoint; the Pope is spiritual, after all.

Also, to conflate, so tightly, the notions of capitalism and materialism is really doing a disservice to capitalism.

Materialism - the need to possess things for the need to possess things - is what causes people to trample a store clerk to death because of a sale.

Materialism is a sickness; capitalism isn't. That's just a judgement call on my part. Nobody has ever benefited from their materialism.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

asdfqwerty — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

"No self-described "progressive" speaks this way, but he might dispute your assertion that a particular proprietor has "earned" a particular entitlement to consume or otherwise to govern resources."

Evidently, based on the tax rates and regulatory burden in the most (so-called) progressive countries, the (so-called) progressive people who are running the joint have an extremely elastic and expansive opinion of how much property is unearned and how much wealth deserves to be governed by the socialist collective (meaning by themselves).

The obvious greed and self-interest displayed by so-called progressives can easily be seen by looking at the pay rates, benefits, pension plans and job security for the so-called progressive professions (i.e. government jobs as bureaucrats and nannies). The taxpayers are not exactly supporting a bunch of hairshirt-wearing Mother Teresas. Compared to the average person's wealth, the public sector is the land of out-of-control, uncompetitive and rampant greed. The overpaid and underworked nannies would like to compare themselves to the tycoons on Wall Street but it's the good old working stiffs with low pay, no benefits, no pension and no job security working in the "greedy" private sector who are their slaves.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Martin Brock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Property is not theft. Politics is theft.

Politics begets property, and denying this reality doesn't change it. "Property" means what the politicians say it means. If you don't believe that, you've never been sued, taxed or even robbed.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Justin P — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

The Washington Post is not longer a Newspaper, it's a propaganda organization.

"The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions."

These "salons" where basically an off-the-record access to the Post’s journalists and government officials for lobbyists.

http://www.washingtonpost.c...

The Washington Post needs to fail. Ethical lapses and sheer propaganda are news organization, is it any wonder why they are losing money hand over fist.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Daniil — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Today we had another indictment of "materialism", now from Prince Charles

http://www.independent.co.u...

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Randy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Property is not theft. Politics is theft.

Government doesn't have to be theft, because protection of property could be organized around an ethic of property rather than an ethic of politics, nonetheless, all governments are organized politically. Why? Because its easier. Why would anyone earn who can steal and get away with? Hell, they even feel good about it. Its a culture of theft and there is honor among the thieves.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Martin Brock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

"I want to take what you earn" is regarded as selfless and progressive.

No, that's a straw man. No self-described "progressive" speaks this way, but he might dispute your assertion that a particular proprietor has "earned" a particular entitlement to consume or otherwise to govern resources. In fact, by law in the U.S., some forms of income are "unearned" definitively.

So the issue is not whether "taking what you've earned" is selfless or "progressive". The issue is whether we ought by law to say that you've "earned" what you say you've earned and forcibly to impose rights that you claim respecting the "earnings".

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

dg lesvic — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

August,

You wrote,

"Capitalists (Classic Liberals) focus on freedom and any material goods that develop out of a free society are secondary."

And that's why they don't win many elections.

Martin,

I'm sorry, I'm just getting too old for that sort of thing.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Martin Brock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Language, like all living things, changes. Whatever capitalism meant in the past, today it means just what Prof Boudreaux said it meant, economic freedom.

Actually, the word means many different things to many different people. You only say it means "just what Prof. Boudreaux said", because you personally accept his usage, but words don't simply mean what you mean by them. They mean what a host of people mean by them, because they're instruments of communication.

You’re confusing the definition of property with the principle of property rights.

No. There is no absolute "principle of property rights" handed down on stone tablets by God to Moses or John Locke or anyone else. If you want very carefully to specify a principle, we could discuss your specific principle, but you haven't done that.

Though the definition may vary, the principle remains the same, the right to one’s own, however defined.

But you could drive a herd of elephants through the loopholes in this "definition". What exactly is "one's own", and what exactly does the "right" to it entail?

I gave you a specific example of something labeled "property" in the U.S. only a few generations ago, human chattel, and you've simply ignored the example. So may men own other men or not? If not, is this example unique? When we've deconstructed this single misappropriation, have we reached proprietarian nirvana?

Likening the defender of his property to thieves is exactly the same as likening the woman defending her body to rapists.

No, it's not exactly the same, because a woman's property in her own body is specific while "property" more generally is not specific. When you say "property", I have no way of knowing what you mean by the term, specifically, until you tell me.

Furthermore, a woman's body is inseparable from her, while other "properties" are separable from the property holder. In fact, much "property" involves governance of resources far removed from the property holder, so defending this "property" is not exactly the same as a woman defending her body from rape.

Equating rape exactly with any violation of any propriety is obviously a lot of simple nonsense. You want to rationalize one forcible imposition, so you equate it with others more generally accepted. You should go into politics.

In some respects, historically, a woman's body was her husband's property, and her refusal to have sex with him, even if forcibly imposed, was a violation of his property. This was true even after chattel slavery was nominally forbidden in the U.S.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

LowcountryJoe — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

>>No, it's not simply about the material benefits. It's about the freedom to choose what one consumes in exchange for his produce.<<

And if there's a surplus, who own it [according to you, that is?]? In fact, according to you, who own it after it (whatever 'it' is) is produced but before it is consumed?

My simpleton brain cannot comprehend what you try to get at each and every time the concept of property is discussed on this blog. Is there a way you can write you opinion on this with more clarity? You know, in laymean's terms.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

jk — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

I've actually asked some smart liberals about that paradox, their only response is that only bad people ask that question. The usual...

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

August Ecklund — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Socialists are the true materialists, because they believe that material goods determine everything and they judge every system by the distribution of those goods. Any non-material benefits that might develop from a society with equal distribution of goods are secondary. In contrast, Capitalists (Classic Liberals) focus on freedom and any material goods that develop out of a free society are secondary.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

Dano — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

"I want to keep what I earn" is regarded as greedy and unenlightened.

"I want to take what you earn" is regarded as selfless and progressive.

Don, I have noticed that too. Plus, of course they think you have earned too much. Sometime ago I heard a minister expound on Mich 6:8. His example of "walking humbly with the Lord" was that there should be a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage. He couldn't answered my question on how it is humble to tell someone they make too much money. The response becomes "but it is more fair." Fairness, however, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (One of the few things I remember from my introduction to sociology text.)

That minister, and others, tend to forget(in addition to the difference between income and wealth) that most of the people on the The Forbes 400 got there by creating businesses which created jobs and wealth for many others.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

bobguzzardi — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Quadrageimo Anno 40 Years after Rerum Novarum, written in 1870 near the beginning of factory and industrial revolution was heavily influenced by Marxist Jesuit Nell Bruening.

Patrick Burke, Th.D, of the Wynnewood Institute, www.wynnewood.org,is writing a book on the differences between Rerum Novarum which was more influenced by Classical Liberalism and Quadagesimo Anno which was influenced by Marxism. See wikepedia.

Inadvertently, it seems, the Popes and the Catholic Church were promoting Marxism until Pope Paul who came from Poland and knew about the real thing rather than fantasy Group Think of Intellectual Elites who Know It All.

Re: Who’s the Materialist?

bobguzzardi — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:00:00 -0000

Martin Brock makes a very good point. "Capitalism" may not be best term. "Free Market" or "Free Market Classical Liberalism" are others that more clearly communicate the ideas most of posters support.

I think Martin Brock is historically correct that Free Markets flourished under authoritarian, hereditary regimes in Europe. Austria Hungary. England, at the time of the American Revolution, was a mercantilist monarchy as Adam Smith pointed out that evolved, in America, to Free Market until about WWI when Statism started to move to ascendancy in elite, intelellectual thought and progressed from Wilson to Obama.

My point is that I do not see Mrtin Brock as disagreeing in substance, in this post, and he makes some useful points in terminology that make us more effective in communicating the value of Free Markets for Free People.