RE: Economics versus Politics and Pundits
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
I had considered giving you my predictions regarding the 2024 election, but it's not really pertinent. What is pertinent, however, is that you don't need to be an economist to notice that people are most prosperous when the government keeps its abnormally large nose out of the economy. Unfortunately, after the US government has kept an uninterrupted stranglehold on the economy for the past hundred years, I don't think anyone currently involved in politics has ever considered building a wall of separation between market and state.
Speaking of which, do you think that we need to abandon the word "capitalism," as Lewis Barton suggests, or try to reclaim the term as LiquidZulu suggests? I'm still on the fence in that regard.
"Capitalism" has been used to describe everything from literal fascism to laissez-faire, resulting in lazy conflation of the two disparate ideas by midwits. The term has no real use, regardless of definitions and context being made clear by people involved in serious discussions. After all, since every economic system involves capital, idiots will insist anything is capitalism. And when we have many apparently serious people insisting the dollar has value because government demands it in taxes, we have no hope of any real monetary analysis either.
Cool. I'm curious as to how many libertarians feel the same way as you and Barton. I'm also curious regarding the popularity of the words "agorism" and "voluntaryism." Personally, I lean more towards calling myself a "fourth positionist," but I haven't yet made it far enough into The Fourth Political Theory to make such a commitment.
I like "agorism" because it opens a conversation about the agora and free markets in contrast to planned or manipulated economies. "Voluntaryism" is an awkwardly long word people tend to think just means "volunteering," but it does convey the idea of voluntary exchange and voluntary association as a fundamental principle. Of course, "anarchist" just means violence and disorder to most, and the media reinforces this stereotype at every opportunity in their capacity as apologists for the State. "Autarchism" and "panarchy" also have potential.
I like "agorism" too. I also like to call myself an "anarcho-nationalist," because it really fucks with people's heads (unless they are from eastern Europe, of course).
Best case scenario, it starts a conversation about the fact that the "nation" (страна) and "State" (государство) are two completely different things.
I'd still like to hear your predictions.
I'd still give 2024 to Trump at this point, but a lot can happen in a year. I'll explain my reasoning, but I'll start with the Dems.
Assuming that RFK Jr is even allowed to live long enough to run, he'll easily split the Democrat vote; maybe he'll even pull off something that hasn't happened since 1912. Just like 1912, however, I don't see him winning in 2024. He's not going to get nearly enough exposure, a lot of Dem voters will just stay home because they don't know anyone worth voting for (just like 2016), he's not going to pull in very many Republican voters, and NO libertarian is ever going to vote for him. The DNC wanted Harris in 2020, but she couldn't win a primary even in her home state, so they went with Biden simply because of name recognition. Harris is still going to run in 2024, but Gavin Newsom has a better chance of winning. I'd love to see the DNC try to run Harris and then scream "muh soggy knees" when she comes in third place in the general election, and who knows, they might just be that stupid.
On the Republican side, Trump is still in the lead, and the establishment's relentless attempts to take him out have all failed. Short of assassinating him (which is going to be considerably harder to pull off than with RFK), I doubt they'll actually manage to get rid of Trump. Personally, I think Ramaswamy is the better option, and according to RNC polling, he's displaced DeSantis as the runner-up, despite having no prior political experience. According to aggregate polling, any of those three would be preferable to Biden, who insists that he's going to run again, even though no-one, not even Bill Maher, wants him to.