RoR: Forum

Ed,

A situation is Pareto optimal if it's impossible to make someone better off without making someone else worse off. But this principle has nothing to say about the moral worth of the situation. Someone could still object to it morally, e.g., on the grounds that, even so, there is still an unequal distribution of society's resources. In other words, Pareto optimality is simply a principle describing a certain economic condition; it does not prescribe that condition. To prescribe it, one needs the further principle that Pareto optimality is desirable, i.e., is morally optimal.

Post 41

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 10:57am

Ed:

A concrete example is education, which may be why it is so universally accepted as a tribal good. 30 tribal children enter a room in a tribal building, to take their education. No matter how many of them take as much as they can, their education value is not taken from those who enter and yet don't, and in fact, those that don't take their education yet benefit in some way by the amount that those who do, and do take, by living in a world where their eventual opportunities are not limited by their own inability to take their own education.

Not only a 'Pareto Efficient' process, but one in which the efficiency can exceed 100%. (We can argue that not only is nobody else hurt when someone is educated, but more than that someone benefits.) The more that is taken, the better for all. Education is not a zero sum cost/benefit game. A teacher can educate one or thirty, and the results are equally in the hands of the one or thirty as the teacher.

We selfishly all benefit from living in an educated tribe.

I can get away with the above flighty analysis if I don't consider the impact of taxing the childless elderly to pay for public education, via property taxes. When 30 children are educated by means of property taxes on fixed income elderly, do I get away with my analysis?

Not everyone totally buys the political argument that we all benefit -- including the elderly living on fixed income -- from living in an educated tribe. Or, maybe the principal needs to be re-applied to the methods of funding that education.

But some, caving in to elite paternalistic megalomania, have concluded that we would all benefit from living in a mostly instructed tribe.

There is a not so subtle difference between instruction and education. Instruction is an authoritative subset of education; there is a requirement for instruction in the basics, but once beyond the basics, less so-- unless, our (political) goal is to only instruct, not educate.

You can rule an instructed populace, lead it where you want. It can be well ordered. My naked assertion is that is harder to do to an educated populace. I think some have concluded that the task of a mostly educated independent, rational tribe is too steep a hill to climb, and the RealPolitik alternative of a deliberately instructed tribe is more doable, a less utopic goal. Elites, ruling the instructed masses, who, we don't care which, are largely instructed as to what to think, or, not to think at all. Justified on the belief that this is for the good of all. Mankind as an ordered bee colony...

'Pareto Efficiency' is an excellent example of the blending of moral/political/religious/philospohical axes into an analytical framework. Its political advocates lift their leg with 'everyone would agree that...' Its political opponents yet resist it with a 'not so fast...' because in the arena of What We Want, anything goes.

When some fringe nut like me advocates 'one skin, one driver' as my own moral axiom, am I not engaging in a desire for rule by elites overcome with paternalistic megalomania? Freedom/totalitarianism, aren't they just equivalent vanilla/chocolate preferences in the assertion of 'Why are we -we- here, and what should -we- be doing now as a result of that?

No. They aren't symmetric beliefs on equal moral footing, no more than 'rape/not rape' or 'slavery/freedom' is a polite disagreement between symmetric moral alternatives. It is up to those advocating their aggression to justify it, it is not up to me to justify my non-aggression.

The paradigm of political freedom means, freedom from the arbitrary whim of the tribe. One skin, one driver, not other drivers. An advocacy of 'one skin, one driver' is not an agressive demand on others of anything. Support of 'free association' is not a crossing of any of those skins in any way. So, let those who argue for a crossing of those skins -- an act of agression -- justify their agression against mankind. For its own good, they say?

I'm not convinced by the evidence. I see advances in spite of, not because of, the political collapse of tribal/personal boundaries.

Roark's speech at the end of Fountainhead said it well.

Pareto efficiency is an interesting concept, thank you for bringing it up here.

regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 7/09, 11:04am)

Post 42

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 12:10pm

William/Ed:

Politics is an interesting game. For example, look at the following definition of 'Pareto Efficiency' found in the wild, and compare it with your definition.

Pareto Efficiency

(1906)

Named after Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Pareto efficiency is defined as the efficiency of a market which is unable to produce more from the same level of inputs without reducing the output of another product.

http://www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/pareto-efficiency.php

The political wrangling evident in the fact that there are two very distinct and in some way polar opposite definitions for the same term of economic 'science' is exactly an example of what I mean, that the field is over-run with politics.

regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 7/09, 12:12pm)

Post 43

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 4:40pm

Fred,

It means the same thing!

Post 44

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 7:06am

William:

I agree with you that it should mean the same thing.

But damn... there is a gap wide enough to drive a truck full of folks to the Gulag between the two definitions.

regards,
Fred

Post 45

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 10:12am

Fred, it IS the same definition. Bill isn't saying it should be the same, they are the same.

"Pareto efficiency is defined as the efficiency of a market which is unable to produce more from the same level of inputs without reducing the output of another product."

It means no more additional overall improvements can be made to the market in such a situation. The market is said to be Pareto inefficient if an improvement can be made without having it mean it is at the expense of another.

So if one business (x) say increased production, and it didn't mean that another competitor (y) had to decrease production, then we are describing a market that is Pareto Inefficient. So in this situation, if (x) increased production we would call that a "Pareto Improvement" since (y) would not see a decrease in production. But let's say we are in a market where if one business increases production, one of its competitors had to decrease production, then that is a Pareto Efficient market. No more overall improvements can be made.

Please note though, it has nothing to do with morally evaluating how much each person has.

Post 46

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 11:14am

John,

How many times have you heard biologists go one about the ethics of humans encroaching on the environment? Would you say biology is therefore a prescriptive science?

No. A "prescriptive science" would be a morality (of the right kind). As I wrote in an article here, there are 4 kinds of morality:

1) morality based on subjective and arbitrary feelings and whims
2) morality based on dogmatic rules arrived at by floating abstraction/rationalization
3) morality based on calculated distributions and redistributions of utility, value, or "good"
4) morality based on science (i.e., on the identity of the acting agent; the causality of the actions/means chosen; and the correct ends aimed at by that type of a moral agent)

So, while biology itself isn't a prescriptive science, various biological facts will be used in determining proper and objective values for various biological organisms. This means that the science of biology isn't totally distinct from the science of morality (though a science of morality is possible without comprehensive and detailed input from the findings of the biological sciences).

An example is the necessity of water for human life. It is a biological fact which is put to use in a scientific morality. A scientific morality of humans would necessarily include a proper way to prepare for a lifetime water supply. If water was scarce, this scientific morality would prescribe that man act productively in order to procure more clean water for himself (self-preservation being a standard of that kind of a morality).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/10, 11:54am)

Post 47

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 11:38am

Bill,

A situation is Pareto optimal if it's impossible to make someone better off without making someone else worse off. But this principle has nothing to say about the moral worth of the situation. Someone could still object to it morally, e.g., on the grounds that, even so, there is still an unequal distribution of society's resources. In other words, Pareto optimality is simply a principle describing a certain economic condition; it does not prescribe that condition. To prescribe it, one needs the further principle that Pareto optimality is desirable, i.e., is morally optimal.

There's ambiguity there (and I knew it would come up). In the first sentence, you talk about the notion of making people better off (or not). Then, in the very next sentence, you say that all of this talk about making people better off (or not) has nothing to do with moral worth. If moral worth isn't about somehow being better off, then what is it about? Is moral worth about being worse off? Is moral worth orthogonal (totally unrelated) to one's being better or worse off?

What does it mean to be "better off"? Don't you -- in order to be able to answer that very fundamental economics question -- have to have a system of morality (an action guide for living)? Don't you have to have a standard of what life is about -- in order to understand whether or not a specific event/action leaves someone better or worse off (than either before, or in relation to an alternative event/action)?

Now, if you -- like the utilitarians -- take the concept of "wealth" (or of "good" or "utility" or "value") as a floating abstraction and treat it as an irreducible primary, then you can answer the Pareto question without resort to a non-utilitarian morality. By speaking in units like "utils' -- you can start to talk about people being better or worse off. But that -- by adopting the questionable utilitarian standard of value -- is your only way to proceed (while claiming to be purely descriptive and "value-free").

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/10, 11:46am)

Post 48

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:25pm

John:

a]
"A situation is Pareto optimal if it's impossible to make someone better off without making someone else worse off."

b]
"Pareto efficiency is defined as the efficiency of a market which is unable to produce more from the same level of inputs without reducing the output of another product."

The former refers to individuals ("someone"), while the latter refers to "a market" and levels of "output of another product."

The latter definition could be used to justify all kinds of "tribal resource" nonsense, all the while trampling over actual individuals; hurting not only some individuals, but even, all of them, in the name of some higher tribal goal, to wit, "higher levels of output in the market of a product."

So, I agree that they _should_ mean the same thing, but not everyone agrees; see 'Soviet Union' -- an example that some have argued represented a tribe that labored effectively under a 100% tax rate.

It is a naked assertion that they _do_ mean the same thing, even if we capitalize the _do_. I might even wish it were possible to enforce that naked assertion. I can't blink out of existence tribal events like the former Soviet Union. Fortunately, it blinked itself out of existence.

regards,
Fred

Post 49

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:53pm

Ed:

So, while biology itself isn't a prescriptive science, various biological facts will be used in determining proper and objective values for various biological organisms. This means that the science of biology isn't totally distinct from the science of morality (though a science of morality is possible without comprehensive and detailed input from the findings of the biological sciences).

An example is the necessity of water for human life. It is a biological fact which is put to use in a scientific morality. A scientific morality of humans would necessarily include a proper way to prepare for a lifetime water supply.

Biology absolutely does NOT examine a proper way to prepare for a lifetime water supply. Like any other science, it is purely descriptive. It recognizes water is needed for an organism to survive, it's a conditional statement, if it doesn't have water, the organism dies. The study does not make a moral evaluation of such a scenario. It's purely observational, collecting data in an attempt to explain and categorize natural phenomena. It does not try to come up with ethical standards for how an organism ought to get water. In fact, if an organism were to experience a lack of water, biology merely describes the processes that occur when such a scenario happens. It doesn't place any kind of moral evaluation for such a situation. It merely explains the mechanical processes.
(Edited by John Armaos on 7/10, 12:54pm)

Post 50

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 1:00pm

Fred:

The former refers to individuals ("someone"), while the latter refers to "a market" and levels of "output of another product."

Yes, but a market is merely a description of individuals who allocate resources between each other. There isn't any kind of distinction here, they mean the same thing. They describe the same processes.

The latter definition could be used to justify all kinds of "tribal resource" nonsense, all the while trampling over actual individuals; hurting not only some individuals, but even, all of them, in the name of some higher tribal goal, to wit, "higher levels of output in the market of a product."

Oh I see, because people such as yourself are terribly confused over the terminology used without the proper knowledge of how the actual science works, it "could" be used to justify all kinds of nonsense.

You're right, this kind of bastardization of the science by ignoramus' has certainly NEVER been the case for other sciences (cough cough....creationists) You're right, this is enough to round up all the Economics books and burn them in a big pile.

Post 51

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 6:28pm

Fred,

Your posts always jump around a lot, so it's hard to give a concise reply. I'm going to have to try to rephrase some of your points, so jump in if you think I've misunderstood. I'm just dealing with post 37. Your most significant complaint seems to be that the use of economics in political debate means we've already lost because we're arguing over details of how the government should intervene in the economy, instead of arguing whether they should be allowed to interfere at all. Is that fair?

So let's start by saying it's not true in the most obvious meaning of it. Bring up economics does not mean you want the government to reduce unemployment, increase GDP, or any other such collectivist goal. Economics is a science that tells us what the likely effects of a policy are. It can just as easily be used to argue against government intervention as for it (more so, actually). A book on economics is not a user manual for the government to "operate" the "economy". It is a science book that explains how the various market mechanisms work, how the process can be understood as moving towards an equilibrium position, and how distortions or controls in the market have various side-effects. Understanding how billions of people acting in their own perceived interests in a system of trade does not smuggle in any assumptions that government should somehow control this "economy" as if it were a machine. In fact, as people understand the free market and how it works, they often become more libertarian.

If you believe that discussing economics automatically implies some collectivist ends, you are just wrong and judging the everyone by the beliefs of a few (no matter how visible those few are).

There's a deeper possible meaning to the idea that discussing economics is already conceding too much. Economics is brought up in political debates to determine the likely outcome of a government policy. In this sense, it might be thought that resorting to economics has already given up the moral war by opening the door to government controls, and then just trying to limit the use to those policies that are deemed "useful". It would suggest that there's nothing wrong with government use of force per se, but specific uses might be bad.

This is clearly a more complicated version and there's something to it. That's why Objectivists often believe we should focus on the moral argument, and not the economic. But even this isn't cut and dry.

The question is how do we view the principle that people (and government) should not initiate force. It is wrong because the action itself is immoral, or is it ultimately contingent on the consequences. For most Objectivists, this distinction doesn't matter much, because the harm that's caused by allowing an initiation of force is so overwhelming that no benefit could justify it. But if there were a way to limit the use of initiations of force, and there were times where everyone benefited, would that open the door?

This is where current ideas about economics comes in. There are people who suggest that under certain economic circumstances, what's seems to be best for any particular individual is actually destructive to everyone including that individual. For example, it is suggested that when a recession starts, people need to spend or things will only get worse, but individuals can't see it, so save because they are afraid and they just make things worse. This would be a case where the use of force would be considered a benefit to everyone, including the individuals who are forced.

Forget that the economics here is all wrong. If you want to abandon economics, you don't get to complain when the statists make this kind of argument. All you can do is claim that it is still morally wrong for the government to act in this case. But you'd be conceding that it would be a huge benefit to everyone, and arguing from some view of morality that would appear to be impractical and dogmatic.

Now there are those who are Statist through and through, so don't really need this kind of argument. But there are a lot of people out there who are interest in the results, and are willing to judge whether a policy should exist or not based on those results They might not associate this with morality, but this is a moral system they are practicing. It is a moral perspective that is interested in results, and not judging actions as good or evil unconnected to the result.

So discarding economics in this sense is a bad policy choice in that it allows the more collectivist economists a monopoly on predicting the consequences of the policies, and we know those aren't going to be fair or objective predictions. And when they suggest that their policies will lead to these great outcomes, you'll have to be on the sideline saying "Well...I just think it's immoral", as if there was a dichotomy between the moral and the practical.

Economics is a science, and as any science, provides us information about causal relationships that can help us understand the results of particular kinds of actions. It can be used as a tool to shed light on the actual effects of these collectivist policies, and appeal to all of those people who think policy should be practical instead of merely ideological. There's no reason for us to ever to argue that the moral is not the practical.

Post 52

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 9:37pm

I wrote, "A situation is Pareto optimal if it's impossible to make someone better off without making someone else worse off. But this principle has nothing to say about the moral worth of the situation. Someone could still object to it morally, e.g., on the grounds that, even so, there is still an unequal distribution of society's resources. In other words, Pareto optimality is simply a principle describing a certain economic condition; it does not prescribe that condition. To prescribe it, one needs the further principle that Pareto optimality is desirable, i.e., is morally optimal."

Ed replied,

There's ambiguity there (and I knew it would come up). In the first sentence, you talk about the notion of making people better off (or not). Then, in the very next sentence, you say that all of this talk about making people better off (or not) has nothing to do with moral worth. If moral worth isn't about somehow being better off, then what is it about? Is moral worth about being worse off? Is moral worth orthogonal (totally unrelated) to one's being better or worse off?

What does it mean to be "better off"? Don't you -- in order to be able to answer that very fundamental economics question -- have to have a system of morality (an action guide for living)? Don't you have to have a standard of what life is about -- in order to understand whether or not a specific event/action leaves someone better or worse off (than either before, or in relation to an alternative event/action)?

You have to understand what makes a person better off in order to understand if a particular policy accomplishes that goal, but that doesn't mean that you have to approve of his being made better off. An altruist can understand that a particular action is in a person's self-interest -- i.e., makes him better off -- and still be morally opposed to it on the grounds that it neglects the needs of others. An egalitarian can understand that a particular policy improves the average standard of living and still be morally opposed to it if it increases economic inequality. Even an Objectivist can understand that a particular policy is Pareto optimal and still be morally opposed to it if it violates individual rights. It's one thing to understand the effects of a given policy; it's quite another to approve of it morally.

Post 53

Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 6:36am

Joseph:

Even as I agree with you on how economics as a field _should_ be approached, I don't see much evidence that is how economics as a field _is_ approached. My personal and incomplete sampling of the fields has been biased by the heavy-handed, political apparatchik over-run examples I was exposed to at Princeton and M.I.T., and my concerns are that the critters crawling over the machinery of state are unduly sampled from places just like those. The abuse of economics primarily as politics isn't even hidden at these places, it is touted.

There is far too much inbreeding, far too much single point of failure influence of thought. I wish more folks thought as you did regarding what economics should be.

I am convinced this nation was deliberately attacked--can't imagine what circumstances could possibly have prevented it-- and it was deliberately attacked at a handful of choke points, gateways to staffing the machinery of our state. There is sand in the gears, and it was thrown there deliberately. That sand has since spread far and wide.

Understanding how billions of people acting in their own perceived interests in a system of trade does not smuggle in any assumptions that government should somehow control this "economy" as if it were a machine.

Please: "It's the economy, stupid!" When I asked a local GOP lightweight why the GOP was caving in to that light breeze, and entering into exactly the debate of how the 'government should somehow control this "economy" as if it were a machine', I was told that the breeze was just too stiff to intellectually fight, and the GOP just had to 'roll with it for now.' I swear, that's what this glad handing idiot told me. The folks who believe as you do(and as I do)are and have been fringe in politics for decades (Hell, I voted for Clark over Reagan.) That is not a lament, that is not a complaint. It is an inevitable statement of fact. Libertarians and their variants are not(and should not be) out to marshal mankind like a giant colony of instructed bees, but those that think otherwise are, and have been, and have largely dominated the field of economics and economic debate in this nation precisely because it is abusable for their purpose.

There is the rub, the unavoidable fact. It is their purpose to abuse economics for politics, to marshal mankind for its own good. That is not the purpose of libertarians and their variants. There is a built in bias which makes the field of economics what it is. It is being attacked for abuse singularly from one direction. Economics isn't a political battlefield, it is a one sided political rout. The 'rules' and motivations of one side of the political spectrum are not the 'rules' and motivations of the other side. There is an inevitability to the outcome, the field today is largely what it is because of those uneven boundary conditions.

The saving grace is not the political acumen of libertarians. The saving grace is that totalitarianism doesn't work, and to the degree it is ever tried and fails, the great middle just living its life in freedom takes notice and rebels.

You've asserted the word 'understanding.' I see only evidence of 'pondering.' I have never seen any evidence of understanding how billions of people act as billions of people, or even that

a] 'billions of people' act as an entity 'billions of people.'

b] That quintiles of people act as quintiles, no matter how many there are. If you can name me one thing, either practical or theoretical, either primarily or secondarily, that any of us actually do or think as a member of a quintile, then let me know. Quintiles are entirely theoretical and non-existing entities, fabricated in the spreadsheets of the US Census Department at great cost and human effort. And yet, undeniably, state economists and politicians guide policy -- that is, direct real state guns at real human beings -- based on 'quintile' statistics.

It's as if, once a year, we were all called to the train station, and asked to get on one of five freight trains, according to whatever-- income that passed through our hands that year, deferred spending, whatever. And then, we were counted. And then, we left the trains, and went about our business.

Except for one thing: we don't even get on the trains. We don't even do that as a member of a quintile. We largely don't even know what quintile we are in from year to year. And, over the course of our economic life, we move from train to train with no notice or guidance of the passing from train to train.

And yet... modern political economic science is filled with the abuse of quintile based arguments -- yet another collectivist bias running loose in our state.

Economic quintile 'science' is not science. There is no such thing as a human 'quintile.' Quintiles do not think, do not act as a whole, are not economic actors in our economies. I could be wrong, of course. WHat I am saying is, I've never seen any evidence, or even, been able to hypothesize any scenario where a 'quintile' was an actual actor in our economies. Maybe someone will come up with a counter example.

So, what sane tribe, on the lookout for abuse of science, would permit 'quintile' based arguments to run unfettered through it state institutions, if that tribe was governed primarily by reasoned use of economic science(as you describe?)

There is no evidence that the state economic world 'that is' is anything like the economic 'should be' worldview you describe.

The question I am raising is 'why?' We are not inherently idiots. Why would free people so tolerate termites running loose in the foundation of freedom? My reasoning goes like this. Most of us just want to live our lives in freedom. We aren't endlessly staying up nights at the dorm, wondering how to marshal the rest of the tribe to carry out our whims. We live, we work, we play, we love our lives and the living of them. But while we are enjoying our freedom, we are subject to the fringe radical minority in the world who are overcome with paternalistic megalomania, the desire to marshall all of mankind for its own good. Decades go by, and we aren't paying close attention to the deliberate attacks on our sleepy universities, and eventually, they are selling the most unadulterated slop you can imagine, near and far, and still we dream about sending our kids to the Ivy League, as if this was still 1880. And yet, it is not still 1880, and the absurdity is, these days, it is necessary to pony up over $200,000 for a non-stop four year indoctrination on the absolute evils of Capitalism.

Plenty of voices have noticed. Plenty of voices have argued otherwise. And plenty of voices have been totally ineffective in convincing. What is swaying the great middle in the political struggle between freedom and totalitarianism/collectivism is not the arguments of the advocates for freedom -- they are the same arguments that have been made for decades. What is swaying the great middle is largely the failure of the totalitarians to 'run the economy.'

We on the fringe might hope that the reason is largely other then that, but that is largely the political reality. And, there are no doubt many who are simply arguing 'get out of our way.' But the left has done a much better political job of nailing that door closed, indeed, of painting the very reasons for our present economic doldrums as too much 'getting out of our way.' That hole needs to be dug out of before making the argument for freedom. That hole was dug frantically, in the wake of a massive constructivist failure to 'run the economy,' to spraypaint the blame on capitalism itself.

The political reality is, the default benefactors of this failure of the Democrats to 'run the economy' will be the shallow, hollow GOP. Maybe it is true, as you assert, that the political battlefield has not been thoroughly prepared via the political abuse of economics with the expectation that it is the function of the state to 'run the economy', but I can't help but think that is at least part of the current backlash against Obamanomics, and will also be the gauge used to measure the efficacy of the next at bat GOP, who will again attempt to 'run the economy.'

When the totalitarians lose...they win, for as long as we give a respect to the science of 'running the economy' as a science of 'running the economy.' I know you don't, and I know I don't, but, I know it is. That respect must be fought, it must be painted as the political abuse it is.

Meanwhile, where is freedom? It seems, to me, ever on the fringe and getting more fringe every day.

regards,
Fred

Post 54

Sunday, July 11, 2010 - 3:17pm

Bill,

You have to understand what makes a person better off in order to understand if a particular policy accomplishes that goal, but that doesn't mean that you have to approve of his being made better off. An altruist can understand that a particular action is in a person's self-interest -- i.e., makes him better off -- and still be morally opposed to it on the grounds that it neglects the needs of others.

Yep. And I would call that: utilitarianism -- which involves 2 things: 1) measuring and 2) evaluating the spread of utility which stems from actions.

As I said before, looking at economics as a science will cause overlap with the moral theory of utilitarianism. Now, it seems to me that if you want to continue to argue that the scientific view of economics is value-free -- then you have got to be prepared to do one of 2 things:

1) throw-out utilitarianism as a viable school of morality
2) acknowledge that you will be 'using' concepts from the moral theory of utilitarianism (i.e., 'transferable utility') and explain how you will be able to 'steal' those concepts without engaging in fallacy (by undercutting the reasoning chains which gave rise to them in the first place)

Ed

Post 55

Monday, July 12, 2010 - 5:32am

John:

Yes, but a market is merely a description of individuals who allocate resources between each other. There isn't any kind of distinction here, they mean the same thing. They describe the same processes.

'Merely,' professor? The hell you say. Sure it is. Sure they do. How has the science managed to enforce the naked assertion of your merely?

Soviet Union, United States.

There wasn't any kind of meaningful distinction there. They were economic examples of Vanilla and Chocolate. Enough distinction to drive a truck full of individuals to the Gulag through. I guess that is too subtle a point...

Nonsense. The distinction was precisely a sloppy blurring of what an individual is and what a market is. A market is not an individual) and what a product is(a product is not an individual).

Free association is not forced association, and a form of sloppy forced association is the assertion that the only actors in our economies are groups of individuals, plural, who allocate their group resources amoung groups, acting as groups.

Wow. Did the collectivists ever get into our heads. (They started early, long before you and I were born.) We can think and speak only using their terms. We can see the world only through the filter they've permitted us.

The abuse of economics as politics is part of that conditioning.

No. Society is not God, and the state is not its proper church, and that religious view is not a proper mandrill through which every single economic utterence must be forced, consciously or not, deliberately or only in kneejerk response to our lifelong unquestioned inculcation. Remove the stink of that religion from economics, and economics might be a science again.

regards,
Fred

Post 56

Monday, July 12, 2010 - 3:54pm

Fred, I'm starting to think your style of rambling is not just a literary style, but how you think about things.

The problem with your approach is that it's so riddled with nonsense, I don't think you can possibly convince anyone. For instance:

You've asserted the word 'understanding.' I see only evidence of 'pondering.' I have never seen any evidence of understanding how billions of people act as billions of people

There is substantial understanding, not simply pondering. If you're exaggerating for effect, the effect is to make you look ignorant. How can you convince anyone by saying completely absurd and false statements? It only takes a person a fraction of a second to realize that they have ample evidence of understanding. Someone might think "raising minimum wage causes unemployment". Or maybe "creating huge tariffs protect local industry from competition at the expense of the consumers". I could go on for days or weeks, but it only takes one data point to conclude you don't know what you're talking about.

There are legitimate complaints about mainstream economics. There are legitimate complaints about how they seem to be able to prove anything they want. You can complain about the methodology. You can complain about the inconsistencies. But if you're going to make specific criticisms, you have to do more than throw endless words at it.

Where I think you go entirely wrong is trying to define economics by the worst schools of thought or political abuses. You may think that you can convince people to discard the whole field by doing that, but there are two problems. First, you're throwing away real knowledge and science with the rest of it. And second, to the extent that people recognize that there is real knowledge and science in there (usually micro theory), you are arguing that it is inseparably tied to the bad ideas (usually macro theory).

You're not saying that their approach to the field is flawed. You're saying that the field is flawed. But it's not, and all you're doing is reinforcing the idea that if you accept any of the science as true, you have to accept all of the Keynsian conclusions as well as they are the legitimate embodiment of that whole field.

Post 57

Monday, July 12, 2010 - 7:35pm

Fred for some reason I expected a higher caliber of reasoning from you. But it seems you are only interested in ranting. I don't really see much of a point in trying to reason this out with you, because it seems you are more interested in twisting anything and everything economics has to offer into some kind of thinly veiled Marxist ideology. What a shame.

There is an important fallacy to consider Fred, I hope you'll take the time to introspect and think about whether it applies to your argumentation; equivocation. A "market" is not a term that promotes a collectivist ethic, no more so than a "nation" or a "corporation" or a "trust" or a "bank" or a "partnership" or a "marriage" or a "family" does either. It is possible to describe a collection of individuals and the nature of their relationship. Why, you can also describe that relationship as voluntary! Imagine that! No really, I assure you can use terms that refer to multiple individuals and still believe in individual freedom.

A market requires more than one person, obviously, since it doesn't make sense to take about trading with yourself. At minimum, to use the term market to make any sense at all requires we are talking about at least two people engaging in trade. What exactly is "collectivist" about that? Take for example what Libertarians and Objectivists mean when they talk about the "free market". Do you suppose maybe it means a process of trade free from coercion?

Post 58

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 11:02am

Joe:

OK. You believe that anyone on earth actually understands -- as opposed to 'ponders' -- how 'billions of people' act as the entity 'billions of people.' I, on the other hand, question the factual existence of 'billions of people' ever acting as the entity 'billions of people.' I believe that there are 'billions of people' in the world. I don't believe -- because I've never seen evidence of, or even, hypothesized such a factual event as 'billions of people' acting as the entity 'billions of people.' Is there some mystical spiritual interconnection required for that? Some kind of human zeitgeist? Cosmic Karma? A magic sixth sense spirit of some kind, an unseen yet all seeing guiding hand, even it it is expressed as an invisible hand?

Or, equivalent dressed up in economic terms, lipstick on the same old religious nonsense?

You don't need to go 'on and on' with examples; a single one would do.

In what significant way do 'billions of people' act as the entity 'billions of people?' ...and how? I saw not a single example in your response. I'm not looking for trivial examples, like 'we all breathe in and out', or 'we all eat food' or 'we all drink water', etc. Well no shit. Those are trivial banalities, not economic insights. In what way do 'billions of people' act as the entity 'billions of people' in 'the' or any economy?

We all took economics in high school; I don't need to be reminded of those qualitative banalities. An original thought would suffice, a credible and believable expression of what is, in your own words. I may well be ranting, but it is not me who is asserting the existence of the entity 'billions of people' acting as the entity 'billions of people.' So, maybe one of the self-appointed guardians of non-ranting reason could enlighten me; just one example will do. The banality "raising minimum wage causes unemployment" was not such an example, even if I agree with the assertion. "Billions of people" do not "raise minimum wage". Some individuals do. "Billions of people" do not, as an entity, receive a pink slip. Some individuals do.

You've asserted that it is trivial to come up with examples of 'understanding of how 'billions of people' act as the entity 'billions of people.' And, you've done so in such a manner as to suggest I am the idiot for asking the question you've so far been unable to answer, in fact, that I'm the idiot for not swallowing the myth, apparently unquestioned, that economic geniuses 'understand' such ponderings.

Well, OK. I can live with that. Quite well, as a matter of fact. But, I'm not going to help you pretend that you've provided evidence of anyone 'understanding' how "billions of people" act as the entity "billions of people."

Maybe 'billions' is too high a hurdle. How about 'quintiles?' I've been asking that question for decades.

Sadly, after all those years of asking, I'm not going to wait with baited breath for anyone here or anywhere else to come up with an example of how any of us economically act primarily or even secondarily as "members of a quintile."

Because there are no examples. I'm confident of that, and invite the opportunity to be proven wrong-- in fact, beg for same -- because I would truly learn something in that event. (Which would be, the lengths that some would go to to bend over backwards to assert the existence of something that does not exist.)

If it's immensely important to you to prove me wrong for some odd reason, then please, prove me wrong. No hard feelings. I've been begging for an answer to that one for twenty years.

Meanwhile, I've long been on to the next question; if there is no such economic entity as a quintile, then why is so much of the activity at US Census organized under the task of coming up with quintile statistics in order to guide economic policy, and aim real state guns at real human beings as a consequence of those quintile statistics?

I've long telegraphed this one, many times, but I have to ask the economics worshippers around here this quantitative economic policy question: is an 8.9:1 upper/lower quintile ratio of income "too high?" Or, are such even quantitative policy questions purely political questions?

Or, will I receive another knowing lecture that even qualitiative informative questions like 'too much or too litte' of something is beyond the scope of this science, which will once again reassure me that I am asking the right question: if this 'science' cannot inform us, even of qualitative economic decisions regarding decidedly economic factors, like 'quintile income ratios' , then what is the actual purpose for the 'scientists' calculating quintile income ratio numbers?

I yet suspect, the same motivation that guided voodoo priests, now freshly dancing in front of the tribe with their Cargo Cult science -looking nonsense masking their pure political whims.

Politics, as in, "getting what I want from others using everything short of violence."

Which unfortunately includes lying and bamboozling and the abuse of economics.

Look, there is plenty of economic thought that I agree with, that I think is credible and well thought out and disciplined and reasoned(which I said before.) I am not dismissing all of economic science" as it should be." I am not advocating that mankind stay out of the fun house and wing it, although in truth I have yet to find any other businessmen who daily access the field of economics to be guided by its banalities, or refer back to Samuelson to daily guide their economic actions, and in fact, when I specifically ask that question, they laugh, as I'd expect.

I am suggesting there is strong reason to watch your wallet when you enter the fun house.

regards,
Fred

Post 59

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 12:13pm