AynRand Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 I found this video while browsing through YouTube, and I thought I would make a critique over it. The video was made by a self proclaimed libertarian socialist, and depicts him making a series of straw man arguments against anarcho capitalism. I was to tired of hearing straw man's to finish critiquing the entire video, but this is as far as I got. I was hoping others might have better critiques over it. To start off I noticed many ad hominem attacks for example at these time intervals: 32, 1:22, 1:32, 1:46, 1:57, 3:29, and so on. It would seem if your arguments are so great then you wouldn’t have to resort to name calling. At: 42 the narrator claims that the current economic statism that exists so prevalently in the world is the same thing as anarcho capitalism which is obviously false. At 1:31 the narrator claims that pursuing profit in a free market is a bad thing, but then backs that up with nothing more than just saying “that’s bad”. I would argue that the pursuit of profit in accordance with the non-aggression principle is a noble pursuit because it will encourage trade which is praxeologically a net positive sum game. At 2:12 the narrator makes an extreme scenario where a man is on a desert island, and the capitalist exploits him with a million dollar bottle of water. My response to that would just to say that is a false example clearly in the real world competition would exist companies would compete to provide the highest quality product for the lowest cost, and a true monopoly that he used in his scenario could not exist because companies would be incentivized to compete. At 4:15 the narrator has misunderstood what the professor was saying. The professor was actually saying that the business’s that promote the greatest trade, and the most profit are doing a great service to society by promoting trade which is good for the reason’s I explained before. At 4:23 the narrator claims that offshore tax havens are a negative thing yet he advocates taxation by the use of violence in several videos of his. At 5:55 the narrator claims that free market capitalism is the exact same thing as corporatism, and doesn’t back that up with anything. Once again that is blatantly false. The rest of the video the narrator just misunderstands what the professor was saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shirgall Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Yeah, while I enjoy a good fisking-style video the critic makes so many non-arguments in the first few seconds I had to stop watching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yagami Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Yea I have a hard time watching these same old arguments over and over again. It's funny how the video shows pictures of what I assume is communist china and calls that capitalism. I only got to the 57 second mark. It's just boring listening to something you have heard a million times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts