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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Propiganda, Sevener, Sykora, and MMT
Message-ID: <7800334@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Jun-85 00:05:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800334
Posted: Sat Jun  1 00:05:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Jun-85 00:38:47 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Jun  1 00:05:00 1985


>/**** inmet:net.politics / whuxl!orb / 10:42 am  May 28, 1985 ****/
>I repeat the phrase "blind adherence to the free enterprise myth" because
>that's what is repeated by Michael Sykora and many others on the net.
>When Mr. Sykora suggests that it is some sort of crime for *anyone* to pay
>taxes then I find this a ludicrous assumption even on the part of many
>Libertarians who in general support the myth that somehow leaving the
>government totally out of the economy will resort in the laissez faire 
>utopia.  

I and other libertarians believe rather strongly that "Utopia is not
an option."  For you to use the term in this context is certainly
straw-man-ism, considering how many times it's been pointed out that
Utopia is not what libertarians are trying for.

>When others suggest that public education should be scrapped
>despite strong evidence that it has been a key factor in the growth of our
>economy in the past I also find this flying in the face of reality.

I must have missed the "strong evidence".  Of course, a heroin addict
might make a similar argument with regards to the benefits of his last
fix -- it helped him to get through the day, no?  "Evidence" that public
education is a net benefit would surely have to be based on a comparison
between public education's effects, and the effects of NOT having public
education, including the formation of private alternatives, the benefits
of lower taxation, and so forth I'm not familiar with any such evidence,
but if Mr. Sevener would care to deliver some references (or a
retraction, please).....

>When Mr. Sykora admits that he has never heard of the "cobweb effect" by
>which a free market can develop wild oscillations (all following the
>theoretical formulations of neoclassical "free market" economics)
>then I wonder about his understanding of the "free market" that he touts
>as the answer to all economic problems in general.

*I* have heard of the "cobweb effect".  I believe it is a hypothetical
economic effect, thoroughly demolished in this forum by Daniel Mck., as
depending upon (as I recall) farmers not realizing their greater 
economic interests.....  Of course, nobody need know much about mistaken
theory to be said to have a good grasp of correct theory.  I never did
get the full benefit of phlogistron (heat fluid) theory in college physics,
but that didn't means I didn't learn CORRECT (or at least, more
recent) physics.  Sykora may or may not know his way around free
market economics, but even Daniel Mck. probably hasn't heard of ALL of
the invalid ideas advanced to attack it.