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Enjoy posted:I just pointed out Marxism isn't heavily strained with ideological and philosophical thought since right-wingers can easily adapt it to analyse the world too. I don't think you addressed my point. Uhh, what? Do you have a single example of right wingers adapting Marxist economics to support their views? Your other post mentioned how a focus on class conflict has helped feminism and minority studies, but unfortunately, neither of those are economics. Your first post said that liberal simplifications are bad but Marixist simplifications are good. The difference is that the liberal simplifications are hypotheticals, they have an if before them. If P then Q. Marxism doesn't have that if. It says this is how things are, therefore this is how things should be. P, so Q. The problem is that the modern (first) world does not match up with the assumptions that are used by Marxism, like the lack of a homogenous proletariat and the huge mass of skilled, college educated, petite petite bourgeoisie. I'm going to say anyone with any college degree fits in this category. There are sometimes similarities to a classical proletariat, but what you have now is different enough to break Marxism to the extent that it really doesn't have anything useful to say about economics, at least the economics actually described by Marx in the 1860s. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 20:33
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icantfindaname posted:Uhh, what? Do you have a single example of right wingers adapting Marxist economics to support their views? The two I linked to.
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Aug 17, 2012 20:49
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Juffo-Wup posted:I just finished an increasingly uncivil (no, I'm not proud) argument with someone who claims that any estate tax, even if only on sums of money in excess of an arbitrarily high amount, is immoral because it's an unjustified government intrusion in his right to spend his money how he chooses. He said he would continue to hold his current view even if, for example, I was able to show, with irrefutable evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a world with an estate tax leaves literally every person happier and healthier than they would be otherwise. I just don't know how to engage in a fruitful discussion with someone like this... is there no point? Once a discussion reaches gets to this place, should I just give up, shake hands, and walk away? Absolutely not. If you believe in your convictions, consider more novel ways of supporting them. For instance, consider the idea that the lack of an estate tax is inherently anti-competitive and antithetical to the ideas of a the free market. If some guy just sits around after inheriting a bunch of money from his dead predecessors, where is his incentive to compete and create products and generate revenue? The answer is that there isn't any. For the same type of person who, for instance, believes excessive welfare and government dependence breeds laziness, ask them why they don't believe the same of passing on their estate tax free? There is *ALWAYS* an argument you're missing. Sometimes you just need to lose a few arguments to see it. dorkasaurus_rex fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Aug 18, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 20:54
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'Marxism is wrong because we don't work in assembly line factories' is really just the laziest critique. How does someones education defend them from the possibility of outsourcing or when a multinational goes bust or just closes their factory making them unemployed without their say? How does having a (usually mortgaged) house allow someone to acquire the necessary commodities to survive each day? When did profit turn into something other than revenue from sales minus costs of production? When did we substantially change wage labour into this new incompatible form? Why does capitalism still suffer busts about once a decade? Capitalism looks different because we live in the first world and have hundreds of years of capitalist-driven technology to make everything flashier and faster. In other places you'll find conditions right out of the period Marx wrote in and you'll notice that's where much of the production takes place nowadays and that's where the Western bourgeoisie are talking about when they say economic prosperity and work ethic and so on. Nothing has changed, but for us more resources are spent on hiding it.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:14
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icantfindaname posted:Well except for the fact that I said the opposite of that? People use economics as a tool to push right wing policy, but the economics itself is neutral. Coming up with a whole new system of economics with a leftist slant to compete with this perceived right wing slant is not good. You keep stating economics is neutral but you have not addressed any of the value judgements I have suggested it makes. I am not trying to put a 'left wing slant' on anything. In any case, let's defer to a third party - Mankiw's is popular: quote:#5 Trade can make everyone better off There you go: trade is good, more stuff is good, markets are good, unemployment and inflation past a certain point are bad. These are all value judgements. quote:Do you deny that we should at least try to keep economics, as a social science, at least somewhat grounded in, you know, science? I deny that is possible. If we are discussing the distribution of scarce resources to real people then at some point we have to 'judge' that somebody does/doesn't need something, and advocate certain institutions that result in our preferred method of distribution. This is value based. quote:It's not like history where you can say nobody is unbiased because economics actually works with real world, objective numbers and data. Economics would do well to admit it is not separate from the other social sciences, and learn from them. quote:You're saying "well gently caress science, some people can and do use it for bad things". This is the same reasoning behind Austrian economics, that intellectual honesty doesn't get us what we want, so toss it out. Unsubstantiated straw man. quote:So what you're saying is to throw out neoclassical economics entirely, Yes quote:and abandon any pretense of the scientific method or objectivity because everything has to be adapted to fight the right? That 100% of economic thought should be heavily stained with ideological and philosophical thought? Congratulations, like I said, you're no better than an Austrian economist. No. This and the above are two different things. You'd do well to stop comparing me to Austrians. Considering this is the 'debate and discussion' forum, you should not assume your opponents to be ideologues/stupid/ignorant before you've even properly engaged them.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:17
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Cahal posted:Neoclassical economics pretends to be value free, sure. But it isn't. As you said, it thinks 'efficiency' - more q, less p, is good. There you go: value judgement. FWIW this is called the assumption of local nonsatiation (or something like that), it's explicitly recognized as an assumption in econ classes, and the theory can be adapted quite well to deal with cases where more isn't always better. The math of taking, say, pollution or desire for leisure time or other externalities into account is quite simple. You can argue that it should be done more often, but I don't think it's an inherent value judgment. A better criticism of neoclassical economics IMO is that its abstractions leave no room for society- they treat individuals as atoms who make their decisions in a vacuum, discarding the context completely. This is a huge flaw, and one that can't be fixed by just tweaking your equations. It's also clearly a value judgement. Guy DeBorgore fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 21:22
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Guy DeBorgore posted:FWIW this is called the assumption of local nonsatiation (or something like that), it's explicitly recognized as an assumption in econ classes, and the theory can be adapted quite well to deal with cases where more isn't always better. I don't think this is quite the same thing. Non satiation only really applies to any one good or type of good, whereas neoclassicism is generally talking about more of every type of good, for society rather than individuals. And even when it is recognised as an assumption, it is not recognised as a value judgement. Even before the point of satiation there may be reasons more q less p is bad.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:25
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Guy, I am well aware of externalities and the like - what I am emphasising are value judgements.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:27
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Enjoy posted:Except it obviously has been adapted so you're full of poo poo. Third Worldism, feminism and minority studies have all benefited from class analysis. Even right-wing shills like Christopher Hitchens and Niall Ferguson have said they're heavily influenced by Marxian ideas Is this serious? A militant atheist Irish republican socialist is now a "right wing shill"? Whatever he is, he is not a typical right winger, in either Britain or America. As for Ferguson, it appears he's a TV celebrity historian who thinks the British Empire was great. This does not make him a typical right winger. If "right wing" doesn't mean either pro free market or some form of authoritarian socially, then we're not using anywhere near the same definition. namesake posted:'Marxism is wrong because we don't work in assembly line factories' is really just the laziest critique. You are arguing that neoclassical economics should be thrown out entirely and replaced with Marxism. I guess Marx's economics still sort of work in the third world, but in terms of first world domestic policy, they're pretty much meaningless. Class themed and otherwise Marx inspired analyses of stuff are fine, but using this framework as the basic economic theory is ridiculous. Cahal posted:You keep stating economics is neutral but you have not addressed any of the value judgements I have suggested it makes. I am not trying to put a 'left wing slant' on anything. In any case, let's defer to a third party - Mankiw's is popular: I guess Greg Mankiw now has the final say on all economic orthodoxy? You've quoted from a 101 level textbook / personal blog, all this shows is that Greg Mankiw is a right winger. Cahal posted:I deny that is possible. If we are discussing the distribution of scarce resources to real people then at some point we have to 'judge' that somebody does/doesn't need something, and advocate certain institutions that result in our preferred method of distribution. This is value based. And neoclassical economics doesn't do that. It says if goods are distributed in a free market then the total amount of goods that society in aggregate has in the end will be highest, outside of market failures. That's it. It does not say goods should be distributed in such a manner. Cahal posted:Economics would do well to admit it is not separate from the other social sciences, and learn from them. So I guess you're denying that a scientific study into how and why economic efficiency works will never be useful and we shouldn't bother? Cahal posted:Unsubstantiated straw man. No it's exactly the same thing. Neoclassical economics doesn't make value judgements about where goods should go, Marxism does, just like Austrian economics. Cahal posted:No. This and the above are two different things. Both ideologies have at their core a flat denial of the usefulness of objective/falsifiable theories. Considering how people pile on Austrian libertarians for being intellectually bankrupt, you'd think they'd do the same for this. You seem to be having trouble separating economic theory from the economists themselves. I guess you would also deny that pure sciences can't exist in any form because it's impossible for the scientists themselves to be perfectly unbiased. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 21:36
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quote:You are arguing that neoclassical economics should be thrown out entirely and replaced with Marxism. I guess Marx's economics still sort of work in the third world, but in terms of first world domestic policy, they're pretty much meaningless. Class themed and otherwise Marx inspired analyses of stuff are fine, but using this framework as the basic economic theory is ridiculous. Right so at the heart of it you accept that it can be valid and is valid in some places. Why does education and the expansion of the petit bourgeois from around 1945 to 2007 such as found in the first world somehow undo his analysis? Differing poverty levels is not indicative of this.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:41
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namesake posted:Right so at the heart of it you accept that it can be valid and is valid in some places. Why does education and the expansion of the petit bourgeois from around 1945 to 2007 such as found in the first world somehow undo his analysis? Differing poverty levels is not indicative of this. I'm not saying it's entirely useless, I'm saying that for the purposes of domestic economics in a first world country, it is a bad choice for a basic economic theory.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:44
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icantfindaname posted:An outspoken atheist who supports socialism, wants to legalize drugs, end the British Monarchy is a right wing shill? Whatever he is, he is not a typical right winger, in either Britain or America. As for Ferguson, it appears he's a TV celebrity historian who thinks the British Empire was great. This does not make him a typical right winger. I didn't say anything about typical right-wingers. A right-winger using Marxism is not going to be typical. As for ol' Hitch, I agree with many of his positions but he was still a right-winger.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:47
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Enjoy posted:I didn't say anything about typical right-wingers. A right-winger using Marxism is not going to be typical. Why? He isn't a "typical" right winger, he doesn't even fit the common definition of right wing. Why would you describe him as right wing? What possible definition of right wing would fit this man? This is the same kind of thinking that leads Austrian economics to denounce neoclassical econ as left wing communist tripe (they actually do). In any case, this doesn't change the fact that economics that at least tries to be objective and scientific has a very useful role to play. You're outright denying that and saying it should abandon the idea of falsifiability and the scientific method altogether. This is religious thinking, and while it might be useful in some cases, it certainly won't do any good if that's all there is to economic though. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 21:51
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icantfindaname posted:I'm not saying it's entirely useless, I'm saying that for the purposes of domestic economics in a first world country, it is a bad choice for a basic economic theory. Yes I understand that but I'm not seeing your reasoning for this except for suggesting that there are fundamental differences in first and third world populations like education which undo his analysis. But you're just stating this; how does first world education disrupt the exploitation of the workplace? People are still hired for set wages by contract and businesses still make (or try to make) profits, extraction of surplus value is still inherent and thus so is alienation and class struggle. How does education alter this?
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Aug 17, 2012 21:54
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icantfindaname posted:Why? He isn't a "typical" right winger, he doesn't even fit the common definition of right wing. Why would you describe him as right wing? What possible definition of right wing would fit this man? This is the same kind of thinking that leads Austrian economics to denounce neoclassical econ as left wing communist tripe (they actually do). He supported capitalism, saying that it had proven to be more revolutionary than socialism, especially globilisation. icantfindaname posted:In any case, this doesn't change the fact that economics that at least tries to be objective and scientific has a very useful role to play. You're outright denying that and saying it should abandon the idea of falsifiability and the scientific method altogether. This is religious thinking, and while it might be useful in some cases, it certainly won't do any good if that's all there is to economic though. Stop misrepresenting my position, I have repeatedly argued that Marxian economics CAN BE objective and scientific, which is why it can be used by right-wingers to support their views. 
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Aug 17, 2012 21:58
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quote:I guess Greg Mankiw now has the final say on all economic orthodoxy? You've quoted from a 101 level textbook / personal blog, all this shows is that Greg Mankiw is a right winger. Yes, I have quoted directly from a frequently cited and well known economist's textbook to show that there are value judgements in economics. What's the problem? Still not engaging the specific one. quote:And neoclassical economics doesn't do that. It says if goods are distributed in a free market then the total amount of goods that society in aggregate has in the end will be highest, outside of market failures. That's it. It does not say goods should be distributed in such a manner. You don't think economists and those who have studied economics generally get the impression markets are a desirable way to distribute many resources? Do I need to dig up more textbook quotes? quote:So I guess you're denying that a scientific study into how and why economic efficiency works will never be useful and we shouldn't bother? No, I'm not. Though how we define 'efficiency,' presuming it is desirable, is in part a normative decision. quote:Both ideologies have at their core a flat denial of the usefulness of objective/falsifiable theories. Considering how people pile on Austrian libertarians for being intellectually bankrupt, you'd think they'd do the same for this. Again, you're simply seeing what you want to see to try and discredit me as an ideologue. I'm all for falsifiability. I don't think economics can be completely free of value judgements, though, and that's fine - at the very least it needs to say 'we should feed and clothe everyone.' quote:You seem to be having trouble separating economic theory from the economists themselves. I guess you would also deny that pure sciences can't exist in any form because it's impossible for the scientists themselves to be perfectly unbiased. Again, no. You are putting so many words in my mouth it's ridiculous. I'm saying neoclassicism itself contains some value judgements. Science doesn't contain value judgements because it's not about people (though of course it can be used to help them, which is what many scientists are interested in). Before you make another reply, realise what I am saying. I am saying neoclassical economics contains implicit value judgements. You have not really responded to the evidence I have given, or to the specific judgements I have suggested it makes. All you've done is assumed I'm an ideologue, tried to make out I'm antiscientific and thrown 'marxist' and 'Austrian' around like they are swear words. Economists really hate seeing their discipline criticised.
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Aug 17, 2012 21:59
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namesake posted:Yes I understand that but I'm not seeing your reasoning for this except for suggesting that there are fundamental differences in first and third world populations like education which undo his analysis. But you're just stating this; how does first world education disrupt the exploitation of the workplace? People are still hired for set wages by contract and businesses still make (or try to make) profits, extraction of surplus value is still inherent and thus so is alienation and class struggle. How does education alter this? Because many of the college educated are not wage laborers, they own their own business. By definition this makes them the owners of capital, and therefore part of the bourgeoisie. Home ownership is a smaller version of the same thing. Any kind of consultant or professional is part of the bourgeoisie. Obviously these are not a majority of the population, but they're enough now to significantly disrupt the class breakdown of Marxism. Cahal posted:Yes, I have quoted directly from a frequently cited and well known economist's textbook to show that there are value judgements in economics. What's the problem? Still not engaging the specific one. Do you understand the idea that science is separate from scientists? If I came up with an example of a biologist who didn't believe in evolution, would you say Biology obviously doesn't support it? Why are you insisting that the science of economics doesn't exist independent of the scientists? Do you think the same for physics, or astronomy? Cahal posted:You don't think economists and those who have studied economics generally get the impression markets are a desirable way to distribute many resources? Do I need to dig up more textbook quotes? "The theory of economics believes A" does not follow from "Economists believe A". Cahal posted:No, I'm not. Though how we define 'efficiency,' presuming it is desirable, is in part a normative decision. The standard neoclassical definition of efficiency is the total amount of goods and services produced in the entire economy. This is not a normative definition. It might not be easily or feasibly measured, but it is a number that exists. Cahal posted:Again, you're simply seeing what you want to see to try and discredit me as an ideologue. I'm all for falsifiability. I don't think economics can be completely free of value judgements, though, and that's fine - at the very least it needs to say 'we should feed and clothe everyone.' You haven't provided any reasons that economics is somehow incapable of being positive instead of normative besides some quotes from freshman level economics textbooks. Find me some examples of economic journal articles and I'll consider it. Cahal posted:Again, no. You are putting so many words in my mouth it's ridiculous. I'm saying neoclassicism itself contains some value judgements. Science doesn't contain value judgements because it's not about people (though of course it can be used to help them, which is what many scientists are interested in). You think neoclassicism makes value judgements because some economists make value judgements. Cahal posted:Before you make another reply, realise what I am saying. I am saying neoclassical economics contains implicit value judgements. You have not really responded to the evidence I have given, or to the specific judgements I have suggested it makes. All you've done is assumed I'm an ideologue, tried to make out I'm antiscientific and thrown 'marxist' and 'Austrian' around like they are swear words. You seem to be saying that unlike every other hard and soft science, economics alone is incapable of being unbiased and descriptive rather than perscriptive. Every other one can be, psychology, sociology, biology, physics, chemistry, linguistics, etc, etc, but not economics. Enjoy posted:He supported capitalism, saying that it had proven to be more revolutionary than socialism, especially globilisation. No you've come up with some people who use Marxism to explain their worldviews and called them right wing. From wikipedia on Hitchens, about capitalism and globalization quote:Hitchens became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire." In 2001, he told Rhys Southan of Reason magazine that he could no longer say "I am a socialist." Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. Capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalisation as "innovative and internationalist", but added, "I don't think that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system, are by any means all resolved." He stated that he had a renewed interest in the freedom of the individual from the state, but that he still considered libertarianism "ahistorical" both on the world stage and in the work of creating a stable and functional society, adding that libertarians are "more worried about the over-mighty state than the unaccountable corporation" whereas "the present state of affairs ... combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of the insurance companies."[64] It sounds like he's an idiot, but more importantly this is not particularly pro capitalism. He started out as an anti-capitalist and still has issues with capitalism. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 22:02
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icantfindaname posted:Because many of the college educated are not wage laborers, they own their own business. By definition this makes them the owners of capital, and therefore part of the bourgeoisie. Home ownership is a smaller version of the same thing. Any kind of consultant or professional is part of the bourgeoisie. Obviously these are not a majority of the population, but they're enough now to significantly disrupt the class breakdown of Marxism. Do you have any stats at all to back up this assertion that "many" (how many? Is it a majority) college educated people own their own business?
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Aug 17, 2012 22:05
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icantfindaname posted:Because many of the college educated are not wage laborers, they own their own business. By definition this makes them the owners of capital, and therefore part of the bourgeoisie. Home ownership is a smaller version of the same thing. Any kind of consultant or professional is part of the bourgeoisie. Obviously these are not a majority of the population, but they're enough now to significantly disrupt the class breakdown of Marxism. No it makes them petit bourgeoisie since they get their hands dirty alongside their workers
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Aug 17, 2012 22:09
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@icantfindaname Economists take saying their science is value free as you calling them right wing ideologues. Whilst I'd say the discipline is somewhat conservative (given that it takes capitalism as a given), this doesn't have to be the case. Think about 'market failure.' Failure is a value-laden term. What is it failing to do? To provide the right p and q! And we want the 'right' amount of p and q - value judgement.
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Aug 17, 2012 22:11
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Cahal posted:Think about 'market failure.' Failure is a value-laden term. What is it failing to do? To provide the right p and q! And we want the 'right' amount of p and q - value judgement. On the other hand "systemic risk" (not to be confused with systematic risk) is a euphemism for "this economic system contains inherent contradictions which are now crashing the whole thing down", all so they don't have to talk about that Marx guy.
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Aug 17, 2012 22:14
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Orange Devil posted:On the other hand "systemic risk" (not to be confused with systematic risk) is a euphemism for "this economic system contains inherent contradictions which are now crashing the whole thing down", all so they don't have to talk about that Marx guy. Neoclassicism and the subjective utility conception of value was, in part, born as a reaction to marx and his LTV. Economists also go out of their way to avoid using class, when it would actually be a great way to make representative agents relevant.
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Aug 17, 2012 22:27
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rscott posted:Do you have any stats at all to back up this assertion that "many" (how many? Is it a majority) college educated people own their own business? A quick googling results in 27 million small businesses, so probably less than 10%. The point is that a large class of people have invested significant amounts of money, either in homes, businesses, the stock market, etc, and so are extracting surplus value from rents and interest. I'm sure you would agree that there has been a concentrated push since the 1970s for people to become their own micro capitalists, with mortgages and investments. Cahal posted:@icantfindaname No term is value laden until you give it a definition. If you don't know what 'failing' means, then how could it possibly have a connotation? And I'll ask you again, why is economics, out of all the other sciences that seem to do it fine, incapable of making unbiased, falsifiable predictions? icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 22:27
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icantfindaname posted:No term is value laden until you give it a definition. If you don't know what 'failing' means, then how could it possibly have a connotation? ?? Failing in neoclassicism clearly means not allocating resources efficiently. We then go on to see how these 'failures' can be 'solved,' which we want to happen because we want the system to be more efficient! I don't see how you can object to the idea that there are values in here. I also noticed you used the term 'free market,' as do many textbooks. You don't think the adjective has value connotations?
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Aug 17, 2012 22:32
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Cahal posted:?? You're taking an external definition of good and linking it to an internal definition in economics. All failure means in economics is not ending up with the largest possible amount of goods and services. Good and bad are external concepts. The word 'failure' has no moral connotation at all on its own. It could describe a failure to get enough to eat, or a failure of an attempted murder. Language is entirely subjective. I'll pick apart your post for you. quote:Failing in neoclassicism clearly means not allocating resources efficiently. Yep, this is true. quote:We then go on to see how these 'failures' can be 'solved,' which we want to happen because we want the system to be more efficient! The bolded part does not follow. This is like basic high school mathematical logic. Do you really just not get that it does not follow that 'efficient' automatically means 'good'? What if I'm an extremely efficient serial killer? Economic theory is not the same as what economists individually believe. This isn't that hard. Like I said earlier, if a famous biologist came out one day and said they believe in creationism not evolution, would you think that Biology itself posited that?
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Aug 17, 2012 22:54
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Here is a textbook I own:quote:First we show how a perfect market economy could under certain conditions lead to 'social efficiency.' ... [we then] show how markets in practice fail to meet social goals. These failures provide the major arguments in favour of government intervention in a market economy. Anyone can see from this that what I'm saying about neoclassicism, value judgements and how economics is taught is true.
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Aug 17, 2012 23:00
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Cahal posted:Here is a textbook I own: 'Social efficiency' and 'social goals' may be either good or bad depending on who you talk to. There are no values inherent in either the phrases themselves, or in the definitions ascribed to them by that textbook. People give them values. Economics does not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_economics Here you go. There is a wikipedia article for this thing that you keep claiming doesn't exist (and I also guarantee it's in that Mankiw textbook you're quoting, not that you bothered to read that bit). Explain? icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 23:04
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icantfindaname posted:'Social efficiency' and 'social goals' may be either good or bad depending on who you talk to. There are no values inherent in either the phrases themselves, or in the definitions ascribed to them by that textbook. People give them values. Economics does not. It implies that these things are desirable when it says market failures are a major reason for government intervention. Really at this point I think you're just refusing to see something that's obviously there. quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_economics Ah, there's a wikipedia entry. The debate must be closed, then.
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Aug 17, 2012 23:06
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Cahal posted:It implies that these things are desirable when it says market failures are a major reason for government intervention. Why couldn't the author support market failures and be opposed to social goals? It is entirely conceivable that a person who wants monopolies to run the economy is writing this passage to describe a situation where things that in his opinion are bad happen. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 23:08
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Can anyone post empirical evidence (preferably a scholarly article) that demonstrates that the marginal utility theory of value determines the price of commodities for ordinary consumers who are not involved in the process of capital accumulation? For that matter, can anyone post empirical evidence that demonstrates that marginal utility/marginal cost determines prices in any setting? It seems to me that marginal utility makes a lot more sense in the context of running a business, or any other enterprise where capital accumulation is involved (given that marginal utility is derived from production and consumption functions used in microeconomic theory). A businessman can at least attempt to quantify the marginal utility of a worker in terms of the extra profit he can create for the firm. However, attempting to quantify the value of a hammer for a consumer in terms of dollar amounts seems unscientific at best. Also, icantfindaname, can you please stick to posting about neoclassical economics and stop posting gross misrepresentations of Marx's economic theories? Your fixation on the sharp divide between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and your assertions that Marx's theories are "religious" and not based on "science" indicate that you probably haven't read much of Marx's academic writings and are probably basing your criticisms on the communist manifesto and/or common misconceptions about Marx. Thanks! Small Talk fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Aug 19, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 23:09
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icantfindaname posted:Why couldn't the author support market failures and be opposed to social goals? It is entirely conceivable that a person who wants monopolies to run the economy is writing this passage to describe a situation where things that in his opinion are bad happen. Wow you are really grasping at straws here. I just think you're too entrenched in your initial position (happens with debates) and are now determined to be condescending to me and paint me as ideological/stupid. Whatever - anyone with an open mind can see there are clear ethical goals in that textbook excerpt. Small Talk posted:Can anyone post empirical evidence (preferably a scholarly article) that demonstrates that the marginal utility theory of value determines the price of commodities for ordinary consumers who are not involved in the process of capital accumulation? Good luck with that, utility has no units and cannot be measured empirically.
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Aug 17, 2012 23:12
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quote:Any kind of consultant or professional is part of the bourgeoisie Negative. And there's always been a minority of petite/petty bourgeoisie in industrial societies that will either clash with or join in social organization.
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Aug 17, 2012 23:14
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Cahal posted:Wow you are really grasping at straws here. I just think you're too entrenched in your initial position (happens with debates) and are now determined to be condescending to me and paint me as ideological/stupid. Whatever - anyone with an open mind can see there are clear ethical goals in that textbook excerpt. In physics, motion is only measured relative to other objects in a particular frame of reference. For instance, you could say a car is driving down a road, with the road immobile, or you could say that the earth is spinning under the car and the car is immobile. Depending on the frame of reference. Your criticism of utility is that it's measured only in relation to other objects. Please come out and say that motion cannot be measured empirically, or that there is a universal frame of reference in physics, because it will plainly show that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Besides that, I'm going to stop this debate now, because you really don't have any idea how science works.
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Aug 17, 2012 23:18
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icantfindaname posted:Your criticism of utility is that it's measured only in relation to other objects. What are the units for utility? How can you equate the measured utility from, say, eating a banana and getting married? quote:Besides that, I'm going to stop this debate now, because you really don't have any idea how science works. Urgh. For somebody debating in a 'D & D helps D & D debate and discuss' thread, you've provided a fantastic example of what not to do. Again: try to refrain from assuming your opponents are stupid, or trying to make them look so.
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Aug 17, 2012 23:36
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icantfindaname posted:
This is such a pathetic way to retreat out of a discussion in which you've generally shown yourself to be clueless. As to the wider argument here: you can pick any neoclassical textbook that you want and it will have a similar. Here is liberal Paul Krugman's textbook presenting the principles of economics. They include: quote:■ “How much?” is a decision at the margin. Usually the question is not “whether,” but And here's Krugman advancing a totally unscientific and anthropologically ridiculous story about how humanity's inherent tendency to truck and barter leads to divisions of labour within society: quote:Principle of Interaction #1: There Are Gains from Trade By way of support he then goes on to quote Adam Smith. This is presented as fact, but its in fact a totally ridiculous hypothetical that doesn't fit well with the disciplines that actually study the origin of things like the division of labour. Nor is this some entirely innocent little rhetorical flourish. This is an important introduction to how neoclassicism views both the individual and social institutions (which are just the contractual relations that rational individuals create to accomplish this more efficiently, as Krugman is implicitly saying). Open any neoclassical textbook and flip to the chapter on "Money" and you'll get a similarly ridiculous and ideological fairy tale about how people switched to using money because it was more convenient than carnying around cows and sheep to barter with. Neoclassical marginalist economics were developed in the 1870s and 1880s at a time when capitalists were explicitly concerned about the theoretical challenge of Marxism to classical economics. Marginalism was explicitly understood at the time to be an argumentative counter thrust to Marxian arguments about labour and value. Follow the history of the "science" since then and you'll find that at every juncture the interests of powerful businessmen have shaped the direct and research agenda of the discipline. Paul Samuelson's mathematical proof for Ricardo's free trade theorems appeared at the time of the Berlin blockade. Rational choice, systems analysis and game theory are all derived from research done at the RAND corporation, and early on during their inception were again explicitly understood to be ideological counter points to Marx which would undermine economic theories with more collectivist implications. Neoclassical economics is very obviously a system of thought that represents certain implicit (and sometimes explicit) value judgements, and anyone familiar with its intellectual history has to acknowledge that it has proceeded based along whatever paths are most convenient for big business. You can argue that with enough 'paradigm maintenance' (i.e. introducing externalities, market failures, etc.) you model real world phenomena. The overwhleming question becomes why you would waste your time rebuilding the walls of a house with thoroughly rotten foundations? There's nothing about neoclassical economics that really justifies saving it as a theory. No doubt many of the same thinkers who informed neoclassicism might be reconsulted when building an alternative, but in terms of actually preserving the core of what currently constitutes neoclassical econ? What exactly is there that is worth saving?
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Aug 18, 2012 01:10
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I know this has already gotten some play, but:icantfindaname posted:This is pretty much bullshit. First off, why is there a sharp division between workers and capitalists? Neoclassical economics describes a worker selling labor, a corporation selling machines and a guy selling bananas at a roadside stand in the same terms. Why should they be any different? This is an ideological distinction, not a legitimate one. The distinction between a capitalist and a worker is not found in the scale of the enterprise per se, and "a corporation selling machines" need not imply the capitalist mode of production — e.g., cooperatives are also forms of corporation. The distinction is most easily explained through the monetary circuits Marx gives early on in Capital vol. I: the circuit of labor (or "simple commodity exchange") is C-M-C; the circuit of capital is M-C-M'. What this means is that under conditions of simple commodity exchange, one starts with a commodity (in many cases, one's own labor-power), trades it for money, then uses that money to buy other commodities one needs. On the other hand, under the capitalist mode of production, a capitalist starts off with money, uses it to purchase the means of production (including the labor-power of others), and then seeks a return greater than his initial money input, here represented by M'. Those are the terms of it. It's not ideological at all; it's a question of process. The existence of M-C-M' is one of the fundamental reasons Say's Law doesn't hold. And yes, with the many reforms of the early 20th century, the lines between capital and labor blurred considerably; now there are people working positions in which they are paid a wage for their labor time, yet their benefits may include a 401(k). I don't think it's unreasonable to maintain the analytical focus on these two well-defined class functions, though, even if a given person may now operate within both circuits at once. As an audio guy, for me it calls to mind a waveform. By altering the overtones of a pitch, we can make it sound like a flute, a clarinet, a viola, a saxophone, etc. However, no matter how our brain registers that timbre, we can still demonstrate via a Fourier transform that in each case it just reduces to different arrangements of simple sine waves. icantfindaname posted:Second, with the healthcare example, people who "can't afford" it still buy it, just very little of it. You pay for one operation instead of the six or whatever you need. Just because they may physically require it to survive or be happy doesn't matter. People who can't afford healthcare who don't buy it have maximized their utility. If they stopped buying food to get healthcare they would be dead, aka worse off. That doesn't make that price illegitimate. That's not what economic theories are for, that's what philosophy and morality are for. This is why "utility maximization" appears to me as tautological (where here utility is basically defined as "that which is being maximized") and not particularly informative. There is no condition under which utility maximization cannot be invoked. A theory that can explain anything is a theory with no real explanatory power. Anyway, all of this assumes that "how an individual might choose among bundles of commodities" is even the best foundation for economic analysis. I don't know that it is. I'm growing to rather doubt it, in fact. icantfindaname posted:No, corporations don't get more profit the more inputs they buy. They may or may not depending on what their production function is. That's one possibility, but it doesn't continue indefinitely. At some point the market will become saturated and they won't be able to sell the poo poo they're buying. No, rich people do not continue to buy regardless of price. If yachts became 100$ trillion apiece nobody would buy them anymore. Are you seriously taking his generalization about a growing mass of profit leading to business expansion during the boom phase to mean this? icantfindaname posted:This whole article is garbage. Its entire criticism of neoclassical economics is "Well some people can't afford healthcare/food/happiness at the market price, therefore the market price is WRONG!!!!" I don't see anything wrong with making explicit the circularity contained in the following notion: economic calculation under conditions of diminishing marginal utility rely on a system of prices supposedly determined by calculation based on diminishing marginal utility. It's like the Revenge of Endogeneity, over here. icantfindaname posted:Are "capitalists" and "workers" like two entirely different species or something? The people who run a corporation don't do it because they're robots that literally measure their life's worth in cash money profit, they're people who do it sometimes to get money, sometimes to get luxuries/stuff, sometimes for status, whatever. This does not presuppose robotic humans; they're all just plain old humans. They're not different species. They ARE different classes, though: their social position leads to distinct behaviors vis-a-vis the production and distribution of society's output. These relations are immaterial but objective, much like in David Harvey's examples of the relation between a king and his subjects, or a teacher and his pupils; education is not mediated by a particle, etc. If it helps, consider the class distinction in terms of aggregate social forms; the capitalist acts as the agency of a social organism (the corporation) that lives or dies based on numbers. No corporation sets out with losses as a quarterly goal; the point is, you want to either hold steady or grow, preferably the latter. And just as the social relation compels labor, it compels capitalists, too, by way of competition and the like. It's like a big ouija board. icantfindaname posted:Corporate Profit is not an objective thing, just like personal satisfaction is not an objective thing. I dunno, profit seems pretty objective to me; at the end of the day, a firm's profit is a hard number unchanged by one's particular opinion of it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you? But yes, the LTV is an objective system of value. Subjective systems usually try to use utility as the starting point from which they move outward to explain social phenomena. In this case, this one is based on time, class relations and the structure of production. I notice that while many parts of that article got your ire up, you did not make note of the part of the post that really contained the meat of what I was getting at, what with the way supply and demand will affect prices under a labor theory: quote:Because of its obsession with equilibrium the supply curve also assumes equal productivity throughout an industry. But as we’ve seen capitalists are constantly competing to lower the socially necessary labor time. This means that they are constantly investing in new equipment to increase efficiency. Investments in long-term fixed capital like factories create all sorts of inequality between different firms in terms of the level of productivity. So rather than one level of productivity throughout an industry we have several. Any reaction to that? Even without invoking a Marxian perspective, there are plenty of extant critiques of the neoclassical supply/demand framework. Steve Keen's recent Debunking Economics, for example, covers a number of them, some of which originated from within the neoclassical school itself. The blog Unlearning Economics is currently going through the book and discussing the major themes and findings in a series of posts. Maybe that will be of interest to you.
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Aug 19, 2012 03:35
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My main criticism at this point is the seeming eschewal of the idea of objectivity by Marxist economics. Something really doesn't sit right with me with a theory that says "Well, it's impossible to be unbiased, so let's not even bother". Marxism can be a useful analysis, but I maintain that it's not an end all theory that makes everything else obsolete. Neoclassical economics can actually take a particular market, examine it, and produce a (rough, usually) number for say the elasticity of demand, or do regression analysis for businesses and banks. Obviously this isn't the end all of economics, but saying it's useless and should be thrown out because it usually promotes a bad ideology seems dangerous to me.
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Aug 19, 2012 03:48
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icantfindaname posted:My main criticism at this point is the seeming eschewal of the idea of objectivity by Marxist economics. Examples?
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Aug 19, 2012 04:33
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Y'know, Capital is positively boring at times. I honestly find the criticism of it as some firebrand, ideological, etc. work to be really weird. And considering how much of the people who level that charge seem to characterise it so ridiculously, I seriously begin to doubt anyone who pulls that poo poo has actually read it. Why should we take any of your criticism seriously and bother engaging with it, icantfindaname, when you've so consistently demonstrated you have a shallow and confused understanding of Marx?
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Aug 19, 2012 05:09
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Enjoy posted:Examples? It's been mentioned multiple times here that economics should stop pretending to be unbiased, like history does (or so I hear?). Thinking of it, I guess that's not really the same thing as a lack of objectivity, but this attitude seems to carry with it a lack of emphasis on mathematical models and data. I'm saying that stuff is very important.
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Aug 19, 2012 05:11
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