Logic, smogic.

    By Flavius on Thu, 02/03/2011 - 8:03am |

    John Quiggen today in Brad deLong's blog

    I ’ll turn now to the last part of Fukuyama’s thesis that the “end of history” entails the triumph of liberal capitalism. Here, I think, Fukuyama is engaged in a bait and switch that is almost universal among American commentators. On the one hand, the triumph of capitalism is proved by the fact that capitalism, in forms ranging from Hong Kong-style free markets to Scandinavian social democracy is universal). On the other hand, since the US is assumed to be the archetype of capitalism, this proof is taken to show that US-style liberal capitalism must prevail. This is a spurious argument by definition.

    .............................................................................................................

    Not exactly bait and switch. More precisely it's the logical fallacy of the undistributed middle.

    All democracies are  capitalistic. China is capitalistic. So China is a democracy.

    Which makes as  much sense as: All elms are trees, Oaks are trees, So oaks are elms.

    Comments

    All conservatives love America. You are not a conservative, so you don't love America.

    Heh,heh, we especially like the fallacy where the minor premise is not in the field of the major one, Heh, heh!

    --GWB


    by The Decider on Thu, 02/03/2011 - 1:19pm

    I just thought The major and the minor was a Ginger Rogers film.

     

    And premises was what Officer Krupke   called  a house..


    by Flavius on Thu, 02/03/2011 - 1:46pm

    I currently carry a rather large undistributed middle.


    by Richard Day on Thu, 02/03/2011 - 4:40pm

    :)


    by miguelitoh2o on Sun, 02/06/2011 - 1:11pm

    In defense of Fulkuyama's End Of History , he doesn't represent 'liberal capitalism' as a guarantor of democratic polity. His argument is more like this:

    Capitalism has a corrosive effect upon societies that do not work on the basis of equal rights. Only in a democracy where equal rights are actively exercised can the class structure, a necessary component of Capital, be overcome by free individuals.

    The logic is similar to Marx's vision of contradictions leading to a classless society except for the part where the bourgeois form of life is what being classless looks like.


    by moat on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 10:43pm

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