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[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Hayek and his Austrian School are not the last word on economics. I wonder what he'd say about the fact that Scandanavian countries have the highest standards of living in the world as well as the highest level of happiness of their citizens while scoring higher on the Freedom Index than the US does.

Indeed, the most cited criticism of the Austrian School is that it "lacks scientific rigor and rejects scientific methods and the use of empirical data in modelling economic behavior." In other words, real world economic data and performance don't support Hayek's theories. Citing Hayek as the determinate voice on economics is akin to holding Ayn Rand as the determinate voice on political science (which, given your take on most things, makes sense).

Yes, and those criticisms come from Kenseyan leftists who, like you, reject the argument that personal freedom and economic freedom go hand in hand, or like you, don't even understand the assumptions that underlie those criticisms.

Originally Posted by finnbow

Your argument is that North Korea and Denmark have effectively the same economic and social models (or that Denmark's will ultimately evolve into North Korea's). Indeed, the contrast between the two illustrates my very point. Soci@lism is an authoritarian doctrine and Social Democracy is not.

Your point is irrelevant. The fact that North Korea has arrived at this point in history with the centralized socializt economy that they have today has no bearing on Denmark's (or any other country's) speed or trajectory of economic change.

Some things are axiomatic which make your argument meaningless in the long haul. Governments, if left unchecked, will always gather increasing power for themselves. This is not even remotely arguable. A related axiom is that as government power increases, individual liberty decreases. A third applicable axiom in this instance is "shit happens".

It's not a fait acompli that that Denmark will end up today in the same economic spot as North Korea. The groundwork has been laid via the gov'ts hand in the free marketplace. To the extent which the government constrains itself in depending on involvement in the marketplace is the determining factor in if, when, or how soon Demark moves further toward a command/control sociializt economy.

Or we can mix in "shit happens". Sweeden and Denmark are relatively close in trajectory and level of gov't involvement in the economy. If the unlikely happens, and Russia gets pissed over Sweeden's entry into NATO and successfully invades without opposition, Sweeden would slide much faster towards the socializm when Putin installs his crony gov't.

Originally Posted by finnbow

So, the key difference between the far left in the Democratic Party and the far right of the Republican Party (actually the majority nowadays) is the Democratic fringe is still democratic whereas a significant portion of the Republican Party embraces authoritarianism.

Thanks for proving my point. No, the main difference is that the Democrat party has, over time, gotten much more comfortable with surrendering individual freedom and economic control to the gov't, and any attempt to slow their role by their political opposition causes Dems to spew out misapplied labels like "fascist" or "authoritarian". This is damn funny because they fail to recognize how their efforts will speed them toward that same authoritarianism.