A general question on where you stand re: Hayek

[vaquerocaptain of 100]

The only thing of Hayek's I have read is Road to Serfdom which I thought to be the most powerful, devastating indictment of central planning that I have ever read.

[Legioncaptain of 1,000]

Is God a central planner?

[InfoWarrior82captain of 1,000]

Is God a central planner?

Apples and oranges until New Jerusalem.

[vaquerocaptain of 100]

Is God a central planner?

Inasmuch as His Prophets in this dispensation have uniformly condemned socialism and His economic system is designed to assure that "notwithstanding the tribulation which shall descend upon you" -- tribulation in which central planners have certainly had their hands -- "the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world" -- including the central planners, we may safely conclude that He is not. (D&C 78:14.)

[jonesdecaptain of 1,000]

Is God a central planner?

Apples and oranges until New Jerusalem.

Even in the New Jerusalem I doubt there would be anything like the central planning (especially central economic planning) that we currently have. In a consecrated order there is a form of central planning when it comes to assigning stewardships and distributing surpluses, both involving property handed over voluntarily and specifically for that purpose.

The main part of the economy, how people work together and cooperate and collaborate, will almost certainly not be centrally planned, but based on what people want and are willing to work for, trade for, etc.

[Legioncaptain of 1,000]

Well it was food for thought....Hayek's stand on God is certainly telling as well as those whom he worked for.

[Droopycaptain of 50]

I'm just wondering how many Austrians we have here. I'm pretty much True Austrian with a few outside leanings. The reason I ask is the board seems to be pseudo-Austrian and highly inconsistent in it's interpretation of Hayek's writings, yet almost worship's Hayek as an inspired, Constitution supporting genius.

I'm rambling now, but anyway, do you support Hayek or something else?

I'm a student of Hayek's writings and ideas. This board could, with all frankness, be considered a pseudo-conservative forum. It leans toward conservatism and libertarianism, depending upon the issue under discussion, but the form this takes is, to say the least, highly idiosyncratic.

As with the extreme, conspiratorial populist Right generally, it is frequently not at all clear where the Left ends and the purist libertarian Right begins - or ends.

[Droopycaptain of 50]

I'm not sure what you mean by mercantilism, but corporatism and fascism both require a state to create and enforce an environment where they can exist.

The current model of healthcare in the USA, for example, is fascist (privately owned with profits going to private hands, publicly protected monopoly, publicly controlled, now turning into forced usage and support of the industry) in contrast with the socialist healthcare model used in Europe, Canada, and various other parts of the world.

It can never be repeated and pointed out enough that fascism, contrary to the mythology of the Popular Front of the 1930s which settled into the consciousness of the American intellectual, literary, academic, and media classes, and from them became the "received wisdom" of the average American citizen, is, like German National Socialism, a phenomenon of the Left, a "heresy" of the Left, as Richard Pipes once famously put it, that shares a number of assumptions and perceptions regarding humanity and its proper organization and purpose, with the other totalitarian ideologies that are its fractious siblings.

[Droopycaptain of 50]

The current model of healthcare in the USA, for example, is fascist (privately owned with profits going to private hands, publicly protected monopoly, publicly controlled, now turning into forced usage and support of the industry) in contrast with the socialist healthcare model used in Europe, Canada, and various other parts of the world.

Fascism was originally conceived by Benito Mussolini as a school or sect of socialism - a denomination, if you will. It is a collectivist ideology and system of governance, just as is socialism/communism, but it operates, or actually governs its "bundle of sticks" in a somewhat different manner.

Fascism prefers (like democratic socialism, or "social democracy") the de facto nationalization and socialization of economic processes thorough government regulation and dictatorial control of the allocation, use, and distribution of resources. Socialism prefers outright expropriation - direct nationalization - over regulatory dominance of business and industry, but the effects are very much the same. Obamacare is a fascist-like system, true, but notice that, while private industry still ostensibly functions as a provider of services, both the funding of that provision and the maintenance of the nation's medical infrastructure is socialized across the entire economy by making the state - the taxpayer - the "single payer" for all services rendered and removing market forces and disciplines from the health care industry.

Fascism socializes through regulation, bureaucratic control, and deep restrictions and controls on the form a business or industry can assume (and what it can and cannot do). Socialism simply confiscates the means of production, takes control of the financial markets and major industries, and becomes them.

[Droopycaptain of 50]

I'm not sure what you mean by mercantilism, but corporatism and fascism both require a state to create and enforce an environment where they can exist.

Factually incorrect, unless you want to slur definitions into highly parsed nonsense that becomes unusable inside rational discourse.

Fascism is a authoritarian/statist and indeed, totalitarian model of government and economics. It is unthinkable as an ideology without a deeply etatist state apparatus to enforce its policies and goals.

Correct. State operated healthcare would be head and heels better than the current model, and something arguably supportable by the first couple Prophets.

The present system is without argument, the best in the world, and would be much better than it is had not the state thrust its meddling, bumbling fingers into the healthcare industry in the middle 1960s with the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and the drive to make employers the primary third party providers of healthcare.

State operated healthcare, as a matter of history and empirical fact, has been a abject failure every where it has been attempted, save for those nations which have retained a substantial market element in those systems. The British and Canadian systems, the most severely socialized in the Western world, have also seen the most severe deterioration in the quality and availability of care - all easily predictable in a socialized system of any kind.

The Cuban healthcare system available to the average Cuban citizen is indiactive of what will occur when that socialization process is taken to its inevitable conclusion.

Joseph Smith was quite clear that socialism was a false doctrine ("I do not believe the doctrine") and that the United Order was in no sense related to "having all things common" in the secular understanding of that concept.

[Droopycaptain of 50]

Hayek was Keynesian,

CFR

as was Joseph Smith's Pres. Platform,

CFR.

Note: Keynesianism has been utterly discredited since its very inception, both as a matter of theory and of repeated hard and miserable economic history. No crackpot economic theory other than Marxism itself has been as consistently destructive while being consistently popular among the etatists who dream of themselves as the masters of order and stability.

What they've always managed to produce, of course, are recessions, depressions, and boom and bust cycles which they then blame on "capitalism," a wonderfully effective vote buying and power concentrating evasion of the intellectual core of the matter.

You may want to look at this, which cuts nicely through the brazen nonsense the author of this piece is attempting to purvey here:

http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2011/ ... us-keynes/

http://cafehayek.com/2011/12/f-a-hayek-economist.html

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalr ... omics.html

http://capitalism.columbia.edu/files/cc ... -11-17.pdf

One might also want to read The Fatal Conceit.

Hayek theorized about macroeconomics a bit, but that was not at the core of his most significant work. It is also important to remember is that Hayek was trying to place macroeconomics on a microeconomic footing, and disagreed sharply with Keyns as to just how macroeconomic phenomena should be understood. To make sense of it, one might say. Hayek was not a Keynesian, but an unalterable opponent of the manipulation of money and credit of precisely the kind envisioned by Keynesian theory.

But you're talking about Neo-Keynesian nonsense and have much to learn before I can begin instructing you in the Specifically American, Non-Brittish way of things. Have fun in the learning adventure! I know I did, but can't say as much for other learning journeys.

This kind of condescending, patronizing smugness is a bright red flag that there is a leftist in the room, complete with snuff bottle and powdered wig, looking to "instruct" the Benighted in the mysteries.

You have been warned.

[Tribunalcaptain of 1,000]

Droopy,

You Can't Stop Me is no longer with us. He has been STOPPED!!!

[jonesdecaptain of 1,000]

Droopy,

You Can't Stop Me is no longer with us. He has been STOPPED!!!

Now there's some situational irony.

Chances are he/she/it will show up again with another username, if that hasn't happened already.

[Droopycaptain of 50]

Droopy,

You Can't Stop Me is no longer with us. He has been STOPPED!!!

As I don't know what you're talking about here, I can't comment.

[Juliettecaptain of 1,000]

Droopy,

You Can't Stop Me is no longer with us. He has been STOPPED!!!

As I don't know what you're talking about here, I can't comment.

What happened to " You Can't Stop Me"?

[Legioncaptain of 1,000]

Droopy,

You Can't Stop Me is no longer with us. He has been STOPPED!!!

As I don't know what you're talking about here, I can't comment.

What happened to " You Can't Stop Me"?

Apparently got stopped (banned)....

[Juliettecaptain of 1,000]

I'm not sure what you mean by mercantilism, but corporatism and fascism both require a state to create and enforce an environment where they can exist.

The current model of healthcare in the USA, for example, is fascist (privately owned with profits going to private hands, publicly protected monopoly, publicly controlled, now turning into forced usage and support of the industry) in contrast with the socialist healthcare model used in Europe, Canada, and various other parts of the world.

It can never be repeated and pointed out enough that fascism, contrary to the mythology of the Popular Front of the 1930s which settled into the consciousness of the American intellectual, literary, academic, and media classes, and from them became the "received wisdom" of the average American citizen, is, like German National Socialism, a phenomenon of the Left, a "heresy" of the Left, as Richard Pipes once famously put it, that shares a number of assumptions and perceptions regarding humanity and its proper organization and purpose, with the other totalitarian ideologies that are its fractious siblings.

Droopy, you are very intelligent!

[BrianM]

Droopy,
You Can't Stop Me is no longer with us. He has been STOPPED!!!

As I don't know what you're talking about here, I can't comment.

What happened to " You Can't Stop Me"?

He/She/it got stopped.

[Juliettecaptain of 1,000]

I've been out of town. Must have missed it! Looks like somebody COULD stop him/her!