Topic: Has the 'Bitcoin Experiment' changed your political or economic views at all? - page 5. (Read 13723 times)

So, how do you explain Austrians rejecting the intellectual authority of many 20th century economists? And if it is theology, what specific "holy" book do they rely on, and why do they keep insisting on using things like Supply/Demand/Quantity/Price graphs, or velocity of money calculations? Unless those things are faith-based too.

Yes, Austrian economics does not believe in hypothesis testing. Austrians maintain that Austrian theories are true and that seems sufficient to them. It is explicitly faith-based. Austrians maintain that mathematicians use faith-based axioms too, so that their methodology is akin to mathematicians.

However, Austrian economists also oppose the use of mathematics in economic theory. They also oppose the use of measurement. For an Austrian, all matters are black and white. Therefore measurement is irrelevant. Drawing an analogy between the Austrian school and mathematics is misleading at best. It would be more accurate to claim that Austrians borrowed their methodological perspective from theology.

One of traits that Austrian economics shares with theology is its profound reverence for intellectual authority. Debates frequently refer to old texts, such as Mises' Human Action. Whoever holds views that coincide with those of the masters is judged correct.

Rather than take my word for it though, please look at the holy book itself: http://library.mises.org/books/Ludwig%20von%20Mises/Human%20Action.pdf

Reading this should give you a good idea of what Austrian economics is. You should not moderate your contempt for this stuff. It deserves more than any one person can possibly offer.

Hopefully cunicula won't mind me chipping in. Austrian School separates economic history (empirical analysis of past data) and economic theory (deductive reasoning). This does not qualify as science, and I agree with cunicula in this respect. I view Austrian School more like logic or mathematics.

But I don't view large proportions of mainstream economics (in particular macroeconomics) as a science either, rather as pseudoscience, like astrology or alchemy. It's allegedly empirical, but has a terrible empirical record. But I don't hate it. That would be an emotional reaction and not scientific. Also, occasionally mainstream economists make perfectly reasonable arguments as well. For example, Krugman's 1984 paper "The International Role of the Dollar" is insightful and with a minor modification applicable directly onto Bitcoin.

Could you unpack this statement a little bit? I've heard Krugman argue that the failure of austerity measures in the current recession is an empirical argument for more accommodative monetary policy (c.f. discussion with Spanish central bankers and economists). Are you saying that because Austrian's refuse to view the failure of austerity as a reason to embrace money printing, they reject empiricism? Or are you referring to something else?

I believe Austrians do tend to be more rationalist, but I suspect there are austrian-leaning individuals who are more empiricist as well. I think monetarists just tend to have a shorter time-scale for their empiricism (e.g 0-10 years) than Austrians (10-200 years). Additionally, the foundation of austrian empiricism, currency competition, can only exist where the foundation for monetarist empiricism, central bank money supply manipulation, does not.

Please help me understand your point of view.

-bgc

I have no idea. The original statement was poorly worded. Clearly, Paul Krugman is good and people who disagree with him are bad. Lethn's statement appears to suggest the opposite. Perhaps Lethn could clarify?

what's the accusation? the claim that "the poor having to work more" is "good" or the connection between "inflationary currency" and the "poor having to work more"?

On what do you base this accusation?

Put two apples on a table to your  left, then put two apples to your right (use the globally (and for all we know, universally) accepted definition of "2").  Now join the two sets of apples together.  For the globally accepted definition of "4", ask yourself if there are now 4 apples on the table.  If so, then you have successfully tested, and verified, that 2+2=4, given the accepted definitions of "+" and "=".

If not, then you probably shouldn't eat those apples :-)

This is true of me too.  I got to know Bitcoin a few years after I had understood that voluntaryism is, essentially, correct and ethical.  When I understood Bitcoin and what it meant, I had my "a-ha" moment about Bitcoin; right then and there it became obvious that Bitcoin would play a major role in the popularization of voluntaryism.  I can also recognize, at the same time, that all my Bitcoin interactions confirmed that the central tenets of voluntaryism are correct.

So it's more like voluntaryism informing me that Bitcoin is a good thing, then Bitcoin in turn informing me that voluntaryism is a good thing (in that order).

As bobitza said in the second post of this thread, the contrary of your question is true in my case.  Because my political and especially economic/financial views have changed radically from the status quo "Blue Pill" perspective in recent years, I have finally been compelled to learn about and get involved with Bitcoin as yet another means of diversifying my wealth holdings outside of "the system".

Hehehehe.

(I'm assuming Richy_T was being sarcastic :-) )

Let's keep this thread on topic.  Let's not allow people who think that mockery amounts to argumentation to derail the thread.

A sound rebuttal there.

LOL. This is how you test your "theory"?

Your exposition reads like astrology.

Science is defined by the principle of positivism. And it is two parts, not just emperical testing.

Positivism states that 1. A theory must be logically self consistent. and 2. A theory is false if it does not match reality so much as once.

"Math" is often seen as the strongest science of all - however it contains no empirical testing.
No one has ever ONCE tested if 2+2 does indeed equal 4 - it is simply a result of undeniable logic and mathematical axioms.


Similarly Austrian theory focuses on setting up axioms and from that deriving theory while mainstream economists try to fit simplistic formula down over adapting intelligent agents - and on top they reject empirical evidence.

The Austrian school IS a science and in fact it would also be wrong to say empirical evidence plays no part: One of the first tenents of the Austrian school is that the markets/humans are adapting agents - A new perfect economic theory would immediately be abused by traders and thus rendered false.
This theory is testable in that indeed markets are adapting to change all the time. No one has ever seen a market NOT reacting to massive inflow/outflow of something important like money, resources or energy. Not once.

Only Neo-Keynesians and fans of Paul Krugman would claim that the poor being able to work less for more would be a bad thing which is basically what you say if you say you support an inflationary currency.

how is "enabling worldwide monetary transfer" not an "economic end"?

No.

Bitcoin isn't a means to achieve a political or economic end. Those who use it as such are cheating the system. Bitcoin is a novel financial system enabling worldwide monetary transfer. Bitcoin kills two birds with one stone: it is both a store of value (a ledger) and a medium through which parties can exchange (a transportation system). Neither of these goals have anything to do with a specific political ideology nor a specific economic school of thought. That is the secular beauty of Bitcoin. And I will not take it for anything less.

Rilli.


I'm aware of some obstinate hard money advocates who refuse to consider anything but gold and silver to be money. I don't really think of them as the vanguard of Austrian thought. Most Austrians I've read find cryptocurrencies legitimate and praiseworthy.

I wasn't questioning whether the economic mainstream is down with abstract/novel forms of money. I was talking about the derision toward Bitcoin I've seen from those pop economists who, like yourself, aren't ignoring it (Mr. Lol Krugman, for instance). It's Bitcoin's eventual supply cap, lack of state sponsorship, and absence of the potential for unilateral devaluation/counterfeiting that seem to have a lot of subscribers to the fashionable politics/economics of the day talking smack about it.

Still curious what potential you see in it, particularly vis-a-vis fiat--as well, I suppose, as your take on the latter's survivability going forward.


Philosophy here. Epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics (specifically political philosophy). The discipline has served me well at analyzing the rigorous microeconomics embraced by the Austrian school (and separating it from the empirical/social science nebula that has coalesced around this core). I wouldn't doubt physics has provided you angles of insight into econ that are both novel and salient. Speaking of interdisciplinary approaches, I'm reminded that I have some Mandelbrot I need to read!


If I had to name the point at which I became firmly and uncompromisingly pro-liberty, it would be reading Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in undergrad. My best friend's an economist and provided my introduction to the rest of the Austrian X-Men pantheon.

For those still mulling over their ideology, Stefan does a pretty good job in this vid of countering some tough questions for libertarians that Jon Stewart apparently publically asked (as well as unscrambling a lot of confused premises--a generally reliable sign someone has a better handle on a topic).

Did bitcoin changed my views? No, I've seen a new opportunities with cryptocurrency, gave hope for higher efficiency of economy... What changed... no what shaped my opinion about this things were educational materials associated with it.
Mainly "Money as dept" and "The american dream" as well as some thought giving discussions here, on bitcointalk.

The number of people you educate is inversely proportional to how dark your ignore button is.