It really is strange what kind of a person it takes to be elected. But all leadership is coercion, of some kind or another. Continuity and selection of politicians is supposed to be ensured by the party system (not by elections), something your reference quote doesn't even bother to mention.
Economics is not a science, when it is based on value judgments. That should prevent anyone from making any conclusions from not verifiable claims, but people just can't help themselves. Everything an economist concludes has a certain percentage chance of being right. You chain conclusions together and the probability of something being right multiplicatively decreases. You don't trust politicians, you should trust economists even less.
We are governed by systems and we really know very little about how to create and maintain a working system. Neither idealism nor moral outrage is of help here. Hoppe criticizes the Strawman of "comptetition is important" but politics really is about COMPETING IDEAS, rather than competing people. People represent ideas, interests, agendas ideally it should be expected that they will select their allegiance by going with the most promising prospects. When politics becomes about personalities, rather than parties, interests or agendas, then it turns into low blows and mud slinging, even dictatorships and cults of personality
It's here where Hoppe is partially right, personnel issues will always be difficult and pulbic elections don't really help. It's political parties and their inner struggle which determines who is put up as a candidate for public elections.
Some day Minnesotastan is going to get fed up with me quoting Hans Hoppe, but thus far he's been very patient.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lewrockwell.com/2004/11/hans-hermann-hoppe/how-the-worst-rise-to-the-top/
It really is strange what kind of a person it takes to be elected. But all leadership is coercion, of some kind or another. Continuity and selection of politicians is supposed to be ensured by the party system (not by elections), something your reference quote doesn't even bother to mention.
DeleteEconomics is not a science, when it is based on value judgments. That should prevent anyone from making any conclusions from not verifiable claims, but people just can't help themselves. Everything an economist concludes has a certain percentage chance of being right. You chain conclusions together and the probability of something being right multiplicatively decreases.
You don't trust politicians, you should trust economists even less.
We are governed by systems and we really know very little about how to create and maintain a working system. Neither idealism nor moral outrage is of help here. Hoppe criticizes the Strawman of "comptetition is important" but politics really is about COMPETING IDEAS, rather than competing people. People represent ideas, interests, agendas ideally it should be expected that they will select their allegiance by going with the most promising prospects. When politics becomes about personalities, rather than parties, interests or agendas, then it turns into low blows and mud slinging, even dictatorships and cults of personality
It's here where Hoppe is partially right, personnel issues will always be difficult and pulbic elections don't really help. It's political parties and their inner struggle which determines who is put up as a candidate for public elections.