Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Why Should Perspectives Matter?

  1. #1

    Why Should Perspectives Matter?

    Recently I ran across this thread...Who Are Your Top 5 Austrian Economists...and noticed that there are way too many economists mentioned in that thread whose work I am not familiar with.

    Currently I'm trying to figure out how to properly address people's failure to understand why perspectives should matter. Your perspective represents your ideas, interests, values, desires, wants, needs, priorities, concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, goals, experiences, preferences, and partial knowledge.

    On this page I've complied a ton of evidence that proves that people do not understand the value of perspectives...Unglamorous but Important Things. And here's my attempt to try and explain the economic value of perspectives...Perspectives Matter - Economics in One Lesson.

    What difference does your perspective have on the economy? Why does it matter that you should have the freedom to choose how you use your limited resources? What's the impact of limiting choices? For example, what if Ron Paul hadn't been allowed to choose to become a politician? People would have "seen" that he was a doctor and said, "oh, it's a good thing that he is a doctor. He is adding value to our society. Therefore, our system works." What wouldn't they have seen? The "unseen" would have been the greater value that Ron Paul would have added to our society by being a politician.

    So...in order to kill a few birds with one stone...can you offer any quotes from any economists that address the idea that perspectives should matter? Here's kind of what I'm looking for...

    If the socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the state should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is, however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it. It is quite evident that organized charity would, in this case, do much more permanent harm than temporary good. - Bastiat, Justice and Fraternity
    We don't want governmental foresight destroying individual foresight. Individual foresight can be thought of as our unique perspectives.

    There is no need to prove that each individual is the only competent judge of this most advantageous use of his lands and of his labor. He alone has the particular knowledge without which the most enlightened man could only argue blindly. He alone has an experience which is all the more reliable since it is limited to a single object. He learns by repeated trials, by his successes, by his losses, and he acquires a feeling for it which is much more ingenious than the theoretical knowledge of the indifferent observer because it is stimulated by want. - Turgot, The Turgot Collection
    Nobody knows your perspective better than you do.

    Thus our policy should surrender itself to the course of nature, and the course of commerce, which is no less necessary and no less irresistible than the course of nature, without seeking to direct this course. For, in order to guide it without disturbing it, and without injuring ourselves, it would be necessary for us to be able to follow all the changes in the needs, the interests, and the industry of mankind. It would be necessary to know these in such detail as would be physically impossible to obtain, and in which even the most skillful, the most active and the most painstaking government will risk always to be wrong in half the cases, as is observed or acknowledged by Abbé Galiani in a work in which he nevertheless vindicates with the greatest zeal the system of prohibitions just on the type of trade where they are most disastrous, to wit, the grain trade. I add that, even if we had for all these particulars the mass of knowledge which is impossible to gather, the result would only be to let things go precisely as they would have gone by themselves, by the simple action of the self-interest of man, enlivened and held in check by a free competition. - Turgot, The Turgot Collection
    The needs, interests and knowledge of mankind all fall under the umbrella of our combined perspectives. Each perspective we integrate...the greater the value of the outcome. Each perspective we suppress...the lower the value of the outcome. In other words...to suppress perspectives is to waste our most valuable resource. To integrate perspectives is to maximize the benefit of our most valuable resource.



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    Here's another relevant passage that I stumbled upon...

    Moreover, what is a resource today may cease to be one tomorrow, while what is a valueless object today may become valuable tomorrow. The resource status of material objects is therefore always problematical and depends to some extent on foresight. An object constitutes wealth only if it is a source of an income stream. The value of the object to the owner, actual or potential, reflects at any moment its expected income-yielding capacity. This, in its turn, will depend on the uses to which the object can be turned. The mere ownership of objects, therefore, does not necessarily confer wealth; it is their successful use which confers it. Not ownership but use of resources is the source of income and wealth. - Lachmann, The Market Economy and the Distribution of Wealth
    You can see that like Bastiat, Lachmann discussed the value of individual "foresight". I talk about this more in my post...What Are Taxes Worth?

  4. #3
    Just look at the economic value of mans ability to perceive the earth in its entirety or to look into the ground for natural resources. Its all about perception and the perspiration to get there.

  5. #4



Similar Threads

  1. Perspectives: What the GOP Fears Most About Ron Paul
    By No1butPaul in forum Ron Paul Forum
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 08-29-2012, 05:10 PM
  2. Perspectives Matter - Economics in One Lesson
    By Xerographica in forum Political Philosophy & Government Policy
    Replies: 22
    Last Post: 03-28-2012, 12:06 AM
  3. women's perspectives needed
    By wistfulthinker in forum Ron Paul Forum
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 03-06-2012, 03:46 PM
  4. perspectives.com
    By Mordan in forum Grassroots Central
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 03-05-2008, 04:47 PM
  5. Perspectives and Focus.
    By micahnelson in forum Grassroots Central
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 01-08-2008, 11:15 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •