[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by snozzle)
Well he used suicide rates to show there were less suicides in more traditional-religious societies. Industralism and Capitalism seems to increase suicide rates even though it makes us richer.

I cannot imagine the ability to measure suicides was very good prior to industrialisation and even during it. And people were still religious during industrialisation.

You're doing my work for me. It's hard to take the classic liberal model of the individual without criticism

It made sense to buy all these properties assuming they would continue to rise. Just like all illusions though, they have to come to an end.

[snozzle]

(Original post by Classical Liberal)
It made sense to buy all these properties assuming they would continue to rise. Just like all illusions though, they have to come to an end.

Well that is the point that is was not rational to assume the prices would continue to rise.

You have a kind of mad crowd behavior which shouldn't happen if we are individual rational actors.

Anyway my point was really about individual utility and how if is effect by social factors. Someone was just saying utility was a purely subjective phenomenon, but it clearly has a social competent and does not just spontaneously arise in the mind of the individual.

[D.R.E]

(Original post by snozzle)
Ok I concede that point. I would still define that person as a individualist from a philosophical POV, just one who would advocate common ownership of the means of production from a pragmatic utilitarian POV.

No collectivist from a philosophical POV would care about individual utility I think though, since to them they deny the importance of the individual...only the abstract entity (class, religious group etc) matters...is 'real'.

Meh. Maybe it is an 'individualist' point of view, doesn't seem to matter very much in practice in my opinion. I think your description of collectivism is slightly inaccurate to be honest. But then, there are several different strands of collectivist thought which base their views on different grounds. The most dominant ones (Communism and Nationalism) would say well, you as an individual benefit more in a society of collective ownership of property than in a system of private ownership. And if you benefit, to them that means by extension, society in general benefits. Nationalists are the ones who usually deny the importance of the individual because they value the existence of their country, culture or race above the welfare of any individual.

Well no it would be a meaningful premise, just the conclusion is uncertain.

Meh.

You never said it was subjective initially, but if it is then it renders the ethic useless as one can never know the effect of one's actions on another persons utility, as that utility only manifests itself as a subjective ordinal value which is axiomatically impossible to predict prior to the action.

Anyway I do doubt the individualistic philosophy your statement implies, as clearly tastes, wants etc are controlled by society to some degree. I think it as Durkheim who was on about 'social facts'. Say for example religion can put a brake on peoples material wants or modify or sublimate them. Similarly in our modern society advertising techniques can manipulate or incite material wants to some extent. So even in economics the individual, I do not believe, is the sovereign master of their own criteria for utility. If it anything it is historicist not subjective.

Sorry, when I said 'ordinal' I assumed I'd already said it was subjective too. I don't think it's impossible to predict the effects of an action, just very difficult to ascertain absolutely, but we can speak about it in a probabilistic sense. You talk like some kind of determinist so let me top you there: just because information goes into your brain via advertising, doesn't mean you are going to buy a product. If someone put a mound of poo in front of you all day and said "this is amazing, you should eat it", I doubt very much you are going to dig in.

Now this is not to say that society in general does not influence your tastes, but then, I don't see why this invalidates my point that values are subjective. More effective than advertising, is peer 'pressure'; people usually like to get products that they have seen their family or friends using, but at the end of the day, sans some form of coercion, it is an individual decision to get a certain thing. Durkheim, and most other socialists, seems to conflate the view that individual liberty should be preserved, with saying everyone should be a libertine; this is completely - forgive my language - stupid, and I'm rather bored of having to explain this to people.

A rejection of collectivism is not a rejection of society or 'social facts', it's just a rejection of crazy economics.

[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by snozzle)
You have a kind of mad crowd behavior which shouldn't happen if we are individual rational actors.

It is certainly possible to have herd behavior and everything doing what makes sense. If everyone is buying. What can you expect to happen to the price? It will rise. If you think the price will rise of something, what should you do? Obviously buy it. And what does that do to the price? It raises the price.

This is the classic example of an inflationary spiral, which is what I think happened to housing from around 1999 to 2008, although it could have been a lot longer.

[snozzle]

(Original post by D.R.E)
Meh. Maybe it is an 'individualist' point of view, doesn't seem to matter very much in practice in my opinion. I think your description of collectivism is slightly inaccurate to be honest. But then, there are several different strands of collectivist thought which base their views on different grounds. The most dominant ones (Communism and Nationalism) would say well, you as an individual benefit more in a society of collective ownership of property than in a system of private ownership. And if you benefit, to them that means by extension, society in general benefits. Nationalists are the ones who usually deny the importance of the individual because they value the existence of their country, culture or race above the welfare of any individual.

Sure that might apply to communism, perhaps it is an exceptional form of social solidarity and the only one compatible with reason? Other forms of solidarity seem to be able to demand a massive toll from the individual at the expense of individual happiness.

(Original post by D.R.E)
Sorry, when I said 'ordinal' I assumed I'd already said it was subjective too. I don't think it's impossible to predict the effects of an action, just very difficult to ascertain absolutely, but we can speak about it in a probabilistic sense. You talk like some kind of determinist so let me top you there: just because information goes into your brain via advertising, doesn't mean you are going to buy a product. If someone put a mound of poo in front of you all day and said "this is amazing, you should eat it", I doubt very much you are going to dig in.

Yes I take your probabilistic point.

FYI some perverted people like eating ****.

(Original post by D.R.E)
Now this is not to say that society in general does not influence your tastes, but then, I don't see why this invalidates my point that values are subjective. More effective than advertising, is peer 'pressure'; people usually like to get products that they have seen their family or friends using, but at the end of the day, sans some form of coercion, it is an individual decision to get a certain thing. Durkheim, and most other socialists, seems to conflate the view that individual liberty should be preserved, with saying everyone should be a libertine; this is completely - forgive my language - stupid, and I'm rather bored of having to explain this to people.

A rejection of collectivism is not a rejection of society or 'social facts', it's just a rejection of crazy economics.

Hmm that is a kind of a superficial truism.

If you acknowledge the existence of 'social facts' it is not though, since they do things like moderate, sublimate, or incite material wants. The individual (the ego) might be thinking it is making the choices but it is not necessarily doing so autonomously.

It is a mistake to think that coercion is the only form a power that society or 'social facts' can deploy.

These 'social facts' such as the 'collective conscience' of religion are not aggregates of individuals but have a kind of immanent life of their own is what Durkheim is on about.

I reject your libertine point as a strawman argument, but I am a bit suspicious of Durkheims political motivations etc. I am not really sure if I trust social science to arrive at 'correct' political and economic policies, but I have not formalised this position in my mind yet except that they are men/women and necessarily biased.

I do think the classic libertarian model of human nature is probably bunk though, but as you imply it does not follow we should all become socialist Serfs because of that.

[anarchism101]

(Original post by khaiser turian)
Any form of socialism, be it moderate or far left relies on a large centralised state

This will be news to anarchists, as well as Autonomist and anti-Leninist Marxists.

I'd argue that a 'large' centralised state is in fact anti-socialist.

To talk about states as 'large' or 'small' is utterly missing the point.

[khaiser turian]

(Original post by anarchism101)
This will be news to anarchists, as well as Autonomist and anti-Leninist Marxists.

I'd argue that a 'large' centralised state is in fact anti-socialist.

To talk about states as 'large' or 'small' is utterly missing the point.

Do you have any examples of where a socialist government has lessened the size of the state rather than increased it?, because typically large states are needed to keep the populace running as the 'clockwork' machine socialists aim for.

[anarchism101]

(Original post by khaiser turian)
Do you have any examples of where a socialist government has lessened the size of the state rather than increased it?, because typically large states are needed to keep the populace running as the 'clockwork' machine socialists aim for.

Define 'socialist government' and 'size of the state'. Is a 'socialist government' in your view merely one of a party that has 'Socialist' in the name? Or a government that has some socialists in it?

Genuine socialism is something built by people, not enacted by government decree.

[snozzle]

(Original post by khaiser turian)
Do you have any examples of where a socialist government has lessened the size of the state rather than increased it?, because typically large states are needed to keep the populace running as the 'clockwork' machine socialists aim for.

That is being generous, why not ask where anarcho-socialism has ever worked?

The closest we have every come to it is probably the feudal system, but the caste nature of feudal society precludes it from being socialist in theory, plus feudalism lacks industrialism.

[khaiser turian]

(Original post by anarchism101)
Define 'socialist government' and 'size of the state'. Is a 'socialist government' in your view merely one of a party that has 'Socialist' in the name? Or a government that has some socialists in it?

Genuine socialism is something built by people, not enacted by government decree.

Socialist Government - Any ruling party or person that is ideaologically linked to socialism whether it be moderate or far left

Size of state - Whether the state is one massive mass of bureaucracy or a small state with limited intervention in areas like the economy

[anarchism101]

(Original post by khaiser turian)
Socialist Government - Any ruling party or person that is ideaologically linked to socialism whether it be moderate or far left

That leaves the same question as I asked before - how do you determine whether they are or not?

And even the existence of a 'socialist government' would not make said government's acts socialist ones.

Size of state - Whether the state is one massive mass of bureaucracy or a small state with limited intervention in areas like the economy

And this is the fallacy - the simple existence of the state radically alters society and social relations. It's already intervened in practically everything even in the 'limited government' situation that the right love to propound. And if that's the case (obviously I'd much rather it wasn't and the state didn't exist at all), we may as well prefer types of state intervention that minimize the damage.

[snozzle]

So does Utilitarianism imply that people are rational actors who seek to maximise their utility?

[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by snozzle)
So does Utilitarianism imply that people are rational actors who seek to maximise their utility?

No.

What you are describing is neo-classical economics

[snozzle]

(Original post by Classical Liberal)
No.

What you are describing is neo-classical economics

Sure that is the basis for classical political economy etc..Adam Smith blah blah, that you can make a 'science' of economics etc because people rationally seek to maximise their own utility, ergo people can be predicted, universal laws of economic behavior discovered.

It seems implicit in utilitarianism though and it is no coincidence Adam Smith was a utilitarianism?

Why else place an ethical imperative on maximising utility unless it is what individuals would do in a 'natural state'?

[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by snozzle)
Sure that is the basis for classical political economy etc..Adam Smith blah blah, that you can make a 'science' of economics etc because people rationally seek to maximise their own utility, ergo people can be predicted, universal laws of economic behavior discovered.

It seems implicit in utilitarianism though and it is no coincidence Adam Smith was a utilitarianism?

Why else place an ethical imperative on maximising utility unless it is what individuals would do in a 'natural state'?

Being a utilitarian is an end. The end being to maximize utility.

How you actually go about maximizing utility is a matter of economics. And it turns out Adam Smith thought the free market would achieve utilitarian goals. Other people like Marx thought that markets would not maximize utility and would cause suffering for many people.

[snozzle]

(Original post by Classical Liberal)
Being a utilitarian is an end. The end being to maximize utility.

Yeah but why? Why not minimise utility?

[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by snozzle)
Yeah but why? Why not minimise utility?

Ask Bentham....

[snozzle]

(Original post by Classical Liberal)
Ask Bentham....

I think that the idea is that in a natural (uncoerced) state, the individual is supposed to rationally maximize his utility.

So the ethic is aligned with mans nature/will and seeks to minimise any harm or evil to mans natural inclinations.

[D.R.E]

(Original post by snozzle)
Sure that might apply to communism, perhaps it is an exceptional form of social solidarity and the only one compatible with reason? Other forms of solidarity seem to be able to demand a massive toll from the individual at the expense of individual happiness.

Maybe, maybe. I don't really spend my time thinking about collectivist economic systems cos they all seem a bit insane to me.

Yes I take your probabilistic point.

FYI some perverted people like eating ****.

Precisely. I know value is subjective but... some things I doubt I will ever be able to comprehend.

Hmm that is a kind of a superficial truism.

If you acknowledge the existence of 'social facts' it is not though, since they do things like moderate, sublimate, or incite material wants. The individual (the ego) might be thinking it is making the choices but it is not necessarily doing so autonomously.

It is a mistake to think that coercion is the only form a power that society or 'social facts' can deploy.

These 'social facts' such as the 'collective conscience' of religion are not aggregates of individuals but have a kind of immanent life of their own is what Durkheim is on about.

I reject your libertine point as a strawman argument, but I am a bit suspicious of Durkheims political motivations etc. I am not really sure if I trust social science to arrive at 'correct' political and economic policies, but I have not formalised this position in my mind yet except that they are men/women and necessarily biased.

I do think the classic libertarian model of human nature is probably bunk though, but as you imply it does not follow we should all become socialist Serfs because of that.

There are several points in this passage that I'd like to address separately:

1. I don't see anything superficial about it, and I acknowledge the existence of social forces ('facts' in your language) which regulate individual behaviour. In fact one of the best economists of the last century, Friedrich Hayek, says that these forces arrive through the interaction of individuals in society, not by design. A simple economic example is the price system, no one really knows what the best things to produce are, but through the price system investors know what society needs the most of, and what things the state of certain markets. Saying that I believe in individual freedom does not mean I think people are free to make choices as and when they like; at the end of the day, man is a social animal, but society just functions better when there isn't someone stifling the natural activities of people: which is interacting with each other through trade and other things.

2. As I stated above, coercion is not the only form of influence your purported 'social facts' have, but that does not logically lead to collectivism or preclude liberalism - which is what Durkheim was trying to show. As for religion, there is a reason why all these ethical 'systems' that are designed by people seem to always lead to oppression, because they try to interfere with human action for a designed form of morality. Designing a logically consistent moral system is impossible.

3. As for social sciences and politics. I sort of agree. Economics provides us with a set of tools of studying society in an analytic way, that's all really. Politics is an incredibly poor way of resolving social problems, and it never does, so as the sooner we stop believing government can do any good, the better.

4. Are you a determinist?

[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by snozzle)
I think that the idea is that in a natural (uncoerced) state, the individual is supposed to rationally maximize his utility.

So the ethic is aligned with mans nature/will and seeks to minimise any harm or evil to mans natural inclinations.

What if maximising your own utility harms others?

For example you drive a car that consumes a lot of fuel. That fuel causes pollution. That spoils the air for other people.

The individual may have maximised their utility. However he has also imposed a cost on other people in the form of spoiled air quality.

If you are utilitarian you may well be happy to stop the polluter from polluting in this case.