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King Zog posted:I am currently discussing with some libertarian guy but I am severly lacking in sources in order to bring a discussion forwards. He's currently saying that the reason why the EU-economy is in bad shape is because of the market regulations imposed by the states affected and by introducing a completely free market system, you will guarantee a safe recovery and a progressive economy. Ask him to define his ideal 'free market system' as proposed. It's likely the response will be 'property and contracts, force, theft, fraud'. Ask him which types of property (intellectual, land ownership, private property, possession, environmental property rights, zoning, public areas etc.) Ask him exactly what constitutes fraud and how severe it needs to be if we are to devote resources to prosecuting it. Ask him if there is any limit to contracts that can be enforced between individuals (e.g a murder-suicide pact, slavery, child labour). Also limited liability laws are a great one. If he doesn't support those then we're looking at a return to the 19th century in terms of development. If he does, then you can apply similar 'risk protection' logic to safety nets, consumer protection, safety testing etc. This may sound belaboured but the whole point is that his premise is glib and incoherent.
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Jun 3, 2012 03:28
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V. Illych L. posted:Libertarians are often reasonably intelligent people with an otherwise pretty sound grasp of market mechanisms and (instinctively at least) a decent understanding of power structures, at least in my experience. They just seem to be living in a sort of state where they can just pretend that inconvenient forces don't exist, and this is strange to me as it doesn't really mesh well with the atheism and hyper-rationality they claim otherwise. Yes, I think that is true. The trick lies in convincing them that the state is not outside capitalism (incidentally, Helsing's above post gets at this point very well).
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Jul 20, 2012 17:11
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Ograbme posted:I know I've seen a good article or two about the positive/negative rights false dichotomy posted in D&D. Anyone remember them? Eh, I have one here that's not exactly seminal: http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/the-neverending-battle-against-the-dichotomies-of-libertarianism/ You can scroll up to page 55 here for Adam Swift's definition: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=koYetXlCc-IC&lpg=PR1&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q=bahamas&f=false
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Jul 24, 2012 12:25
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I've never seen how marxism relies on the LTV. All it relies on is the claim that workers can employ capital for themselves and hence using the law to create profit that goes to individuals/a few individuals is extractive.
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Aug 13, 2012 16:03
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quote: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. Because they clearly play different roles in the economy? Capitalists - the recipients of profit - consume a lot less of their income and invest/save more. Workers consume most of their income. quote:I think people have a right to healthcare, but trying to inject morality and philosophy into economics like this is very unhelpful. Keeping the systems separate allows you to make societal and political decisions much easier. Morality and economics are inseparable - you are making judgments about how we should allocate scarce resources. Neoclassical economics itself is full of value judgements - competition is good, choice is good, markets are desirable. karthun posted:But both capital and money both have diminishing marginal utility. To claim otherwise is not a "socialist simplification" but an outright lie. There is truth here but you have no units for capital or utility so this is not a scientific proposition.
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Aug 17, 2012 06:07
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icantfindaname posted:And the (upper) middle class? What about small business owners / people who have money invested somewhere and also an actual job? People who mortgage their home and work? They don't exist according to this theory. I'm not saying we should focus society on them, but in this dichotomy they don't exist. You're either a fatcat billionaire or a tenement slum wage laborer, with no room in between. This is visibly not how society is composed, and therefore it is a bad theory. Sure, we can split it into more classes. Are you suggesting that because there are many different classes, we should just say 'gently caress it, let's use a single representative agent?' Anyway, capitalists and workers is one of the more important distinctions. This is demonstrated by the past few decades, where median wages have roughly stagnated, whilst profits have risen. This has resulted in a build up of debt. With two (or three, maybe bankers) classes, you'd be able to see this. But with a single representative agent it doesn't show. quote:edit: This is why marxism never caught on in America and to an extent western Europe. It basically tells the fairly sizeable petit bourgeoisie middle class 'get hosed, you don't exist'. True, perhaps, but it was created at a time where they didn't really exist. quote:No it isn't. This is the whole loving point. Neoclassical econ doesn't say free markets are good, it says they're efficient. That's it. Those two concepts are not linked in any way. Many people think those two are the same, but the theory itself says nothing of the sort. 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.
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Aug 17, 2012 17:34
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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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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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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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@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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Aeolius posted: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. That's me btw. Also, good post. icantfindaname, I don't want to jump to conclusions but you seem to be opining on marx whilst not really knowing a lot about him. That's fine - I don't either, as capital is long and I haven't had time to read it yet. But you were similar with our 'discussion' of value judgements: assume your opponents have made obvious and stupid mistakes, don't really engage with them fully. That's not really a great way to advance debate. I mean, seriously, how you look at mine and Helsing's textbook excerpts and say 'well, economics is completely objective and not concerned with what is good/bad for society at all?' Imperialist Dog posted:tl;dr: I lay out some basic facts about the sovereignty issue at hand, ex-coworker talks about Nanjing Massacre, I ask what that has to do with the sovereignty issue, ex-coworker says I wouldn't understand anyway and walks away. "Hey, it's just an opinion, man." I get that a lot from my friends. Things are just an opinion, no matter whether they make sense, are backed up by facts etc. Unlearning fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Aug 19, 2012 |
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Aug 19, 2012 10:30
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Economists like to paint critics as simply math-phobes, but really economists use incredibly hamstrung mathematical techniques that were abandoned by real scentists long ago. ODEs and chaos theory would be far more appropriate for modelling a dynamic system like the economy, and economists have attracted a lot of flak from the physics community for failing to learn and incorporate them.
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Aug 19, 2012 18:14
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Helsing posted:As for neoclassical economics, the problem here isn't simply that it supports bad ideology. Its also supports what Imre Lakatosh would call a degenerative research program. Rather than pushing its own limits and frontiers outwards neoclassical economics is largely devoted to maintaining a set of assumptions about individuals, markets and institutions that are obviously inadequate (in fact you can go back to the late 19th century and find economists like Thorstein Veblen raising criticisms of economics that are still applicable today for having a psychologically and anthropologically absurd approach to institutions and behaviour). This is more correct than even you might think. Most neoclassical theories are built up from individual behaviour. However, when neoclassical economists try to aggregate upwards, they (naturally) run into pesky emergent properties and fallacies of composition. This happens with the aggregation of demand curves (which can have any shape at the market level, unless you restrict it with various assumptions, including one that consumers are identical). The neoclassical economist William Gorman realises this and proceeds to say: quote:The necessary and sufficient condition quoted above is intuitively reasonable. It says, in effect, that an extra unit of purchasing power should be spent in the same way no matter to whom it is given... Parallel straight lines that all pass through (0,0) (no consumption = no utility) are, of course, the same line! These are the kind of mental acrobatics you get from neoclassicists trying desperately to preserve their original models at each step, rather than seek to undermine and apply them in different ways. You'll see similar things in the jump to macroeconomic representative agents and other areas. P.S. Yes, Icantfindaname, I am not a marxist.
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Aug 20, 2012 19:36
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Helsing posted:I've been told that advanced DSGE models get rid of representative agents altogether, but it isn't clear to me what they do instead to make the whole system hang together coherently. Do you have any comments on how DSGE deals with these issues? I mean lets leave aside for a moment that DSGE doesn't seem to have any real predictive value (or does it?), have they at least gotten to a point where they can somewhat realistically model the economy without representative agents or was that claim misleading? Eh, advanced papers sometimes use two agents but they are still 'representative.' Having said that, I don't have a problem with representative agents in and of themselves - what's wrong with saying 'households,' 'workers,' 'capitalists' etc? The problem is that economists refuse to use classes, partly due to ideological reasons (neoclassicism was invented to get away from marx), and partly because - I think - once they go beyond 2 RAs, too many of the vital assumptions fall apart for them to preserve the core. DSGE generally starts with a single representative agent, then after a crisis it doesn't predict, makes an ad hoc modification so that there are a couple of agents, the dynamic between the two being what causes a crisis in an otherwise stable system. This paper and this paper both fit this characterisation.
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Aug 22, 2012 18:24
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Zeitgueist posted:He's attempting the standard Libertarian "all taxes are theft" argument, upon which all his points will rest. You need to challenge that immediately. This is still a losing battle because you are giving too much ground with the 'taxes are the price we pay for society.' He can still say it isn't voluntary, coercive blah blah blah. You first need to emphasise that property is enforced by the state, which must be paid for by taxation. So since property and tax are legislated simulatenously, and historically one has rarely existed without the other on any large scale, it's incoherent to say that tax is theft, because theft cannot legally exist without tax. Also, even post-tax, your friend's income is higher than if he were born outside civilisation. He is privileged to be taxed; without public services, he'd have very little, whetehr taxes were 20, 50 or 80%. blakout posted:I'm debating with a friend after I posted a sorta progressive manifesto were talking about the role of government "Greece is failing because their government outspent their income (sounds -- $16 trillion). The most booming economy in the world is Hong Kong which has no national regulations or taxes. That is how to make people prosperous. Not by coddling everyone. Our constitution is clear about the responsibility of government. It is to protect us and provide a structure (roads bridges post office etc) Not to play robin hood and take from the ones who worked their butt off and give to those who dont." Bollocks. HK has a minimum wage, public housing, education and health. The government owns the overwhelming majority of the land. Furthermore, it is a city state, which is really a special case. In many ways it's like the London of China.
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Sep 30, 2012 17:32
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I find the government caused the crisis logic odd, as it seems to centre around claims that the government 'encouraged' homeownership and then this led to all the financial instruments, fraud, oversized banks and whatever. So, if the government 'encouraged' the opening of new nurseries which were subsequently targeted by paedophiles, I guess the government would be to blame?
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Oct 20, 2012 12:25
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esquilax posted:You've missed the common libertarian argument that the anticipation of government bailouts led the banking industry to use riskier practices in the pursuit of profit. And this is where we tell the libertarian that the state is not outside capitalism but the main mechanism through which it operates. If they want to blame expectations of bailouts, they can blame limited liability laws on similar logic. But they refuse to believe that.
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Oct 22, 2012 09:44
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FISHMANPET posted:For all the imperfections of the free market, it's still the best way to allocate resources (and I say this as a far left liberal). You are not far left. For a start, the free market doesn't exist. Markets may exist (though many prices and quantities are set by administrators in large corporations), but a free market certainly doesn't. People only see a 'free market' when they choose to ignore convenient laws and regulations that keep the market together. Examples: immigration, limited liability, consumer protection, anti-child labour/slavery laws. Fishmanpet, take this in the least "haha I'm so much more advanced than you" way, but you remind me of me before I really started engaging with some far left arguments. Up until then you feel obliged to complement markets due to the swathes of right wing propaganda you encounter daily. But ultimately there's a lot more to it than 'worst system except all others that have been tried.' At this point I've come to the conclusion that markets are mostly 'good' at providing things that we don't really need. Unlearning fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Nov 1, 2012 |
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Nov 1, 2012 00:28
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In Fishmanpet's defence, banning and price controls do generally create black markets. However, what I think he's not seeing is that this is due to society still being inside the logic of capitalism ,rather than some sort of inviolable law of humanity.
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Nov 1, 2012 11:22
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rscott posted:Right, but in this specific instance, who gives a gently caress? It's a god drat disaster! It's something that only happens rarely and (theoretically) affects supply for a short period of time. We're not talking about Cuba or the Soviet Union where toliet paper and milk are in short supply for months at a time. Fishmanpet's slavish devotion to the "Free Market, No Matter What" is what has people going "wtf" especially in the context of him saying, "I'm a far left liberal (contradictory in my eyes)" because that isn't a very far left position to take at all. Oh absolutely, in a disaster or war it's a different kettle of fish. Also, arguing black markets will completely neutralize the controls or make the problem worse is a big step from saying they will just appear.
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Nov 1, 2012 14:50
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Aeolius posted:Intro resources: This is also quite funny: http://isthisfeminist.tumblr.com/ before anyone bites my head off, it's obviously light hearted and I'm pretty sure it's written by feminists.
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Nov 6, 2012 11:10
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I had a discussion with my family about general politics etc. recently. Since I study economics, they asked me what I would do (UK). I replied that I would expand government spending and do various lefty things like try to tame or nationalise the utilities, reverse the benefit cuts etc. They countered with a series of memes about how public sector workers were really lazy and that was why the utilities were privatised in the first place. I responded that the private sector didn't invest nearly as much as the Tories hoped they would and there hasn't been that much of an improvement, even though it's actually costing the public more through both subsidies and fees. However my grandfather used to be a civil engineer and seemed to know a lot more about it than me so I was forced to acknowledge I didn't have answers to every question. When we were talking about benefit claimants they pedaled the usual lines about them not wanting to work etc. I tried to present them with the statistic that benefit fraud is only estimated 0.5% but they refused to believe that was accurate given personal experience, and that 'fraud' may not include everyone who is in some way 'sponging.' I then tried to go down the route of explaining that even if people weren't looking for work, it's because there are not now and have historically not been enough jobs for everyone, so over time people become discouraged and apathetic, even though it's more of a systemic problem than their fault. They sort of got this but seemed unconvinced. Eventually I managed to get them on my side with the line that, whilst benefit 'scroungers' may be a problem, it's an order of magnitude away from the issues caused by the people at the top. While I feel I won a couple of the battles, the whole thing was ended by the tired "if you aren't liberal when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're not conservative by the time you're 40, you have no brain," and how I'd understand once I paid taxes etc. At that point the whole issue is too far gone to try and get your ideas across. Worth noting at this point that my family are generally left leaning. tl;dr: what is an easy and accessible way to counter all the prevalent ideas about benefit scroungers, public sector workers and unions?
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Dec 3, 2012 15:06
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SSJ2 Goku Wilders posted:Consider this answer incomplete and only half-serious, but if your goal is to persuade family and friends, I would suggest simply becoming a better rhetorician. There is no point at which your growing grasp of facts and knowledge of statistics will become so exceedingly convincing that they will stand on their own merit as a persuasive means. Not with 'normal' people, not in most cases outside of academia, etc. It is almost laughable for instance to imagine yourself returning to the next discussion with a stack of research papers to prove your point, etc. Yeah I completely get that. The 0.5% statistic was considered nothing when compared with their availability bias, but of course to mention that to them would have seemed patronising, smug and above all unpersuasive. The only way I really got them on my side was by redirecting their anger at another sector of society (the top). Whilst this is surely closer to the truth, it is still the media-esque approach of identifying an arbitrary sector of society and hating the, which I disapprove of. But perhaps that's the best you can hope for with day to day discussions.
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Dec 3, 2012 15:58
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Kekekela posted:Cool,thanks! I actually found some stuff on the Pragmatic Capitalism blog that helped me get my head around it as well. Is that site generally well regarded around here? MMT is general is good on the banking system but bad on macroeconomics. For more on endogenous money, see Steve Keen.
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Dec 5, 2012 10:35
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Aeolius posted:"Bad" is I think a bit strong, since it's not really an explicit macro discipline in the first place so much as a description of monetary mechanics. Some MMT-aligned economists might oversimplify some things (because lol economists), and one can often find Ramanan taking them to task for underestimating the importance of balance of payment issues, but I don't know if the problem is much more than that. It varies by person, too; I find Wray, for instance, to be less careful than Fullwiler. Even still, most of their macro policy prescriptions derive from Post Keynesian roots, anyway. Yeah I was just being glib. I also regard MMT as a branch of post-Keynesian economics. I generally find their 'horizontalist' views on banking and monetary policy to be informative, but their 'verticalist' views on the government's use of taxation and spending just don't seem to make any sense to me. For example, they claim tax will be used to 'take inflation out of the economy,' but it seems to me most or all taxes actually increase prices/wages. The idea that the government can control the money supply with taxes and spending also seems to contradict their idea that the money supply is generally determined by the banking system. Furthermore, they do underrate BoP problems - Matias Vernengo has also taken them to task on this.
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Dec 5, 2012 17:30
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Here are some ramblings based on a first impression: That is a really interesting paper. I'm all for bringing power, institutions and production to the forefront of economic theory. Embarrassingly, I haven't really thought about the absence of a 'theory of the state' in economics, though now I see it, it's glaringly obvious. Like the firm, the state is generally just a black box that inputs (taxes) go into and outputs (regulations, services) come out of. That's, of course, except for public choice theory, otherwise known as 'why pesky democracy gets in the way of efficiency.' I wasn't aware of this school (as if heterodox economics needs yet another school, it's like the Life of Brian). I'm not sure why they named themselves something new. They remind of the well established institutional school, which emphasises using different theories and approaches depending on the area of study. Superficially, it also irritates me when self-declared re-inventors of economics (or anything) overuse buzzwords like 'dynamic' 'complex' and 'rich.' But maybe that's just me. IMO the first step for any 'state-heavy' school like that is exploding the phony state-market dichotomy and establishing the existence of power relations. This protects them from stupid, but rhetorically effective, accusations of being evil statists etc.
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Dec 10, 2012 02:44
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V. Illych L. posted:
I even disagree with this. The logistics of private property and contract law, as well as things like limited liability, immigration and administration of justice mean that 'free market' is a completely meaningless term. There are always economic regulations involved in trade and heading toward some imaginary ideal doesn't tell us much, if anything, about where we are now.
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Jan 28, 2013 13:09
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:In my own discussions, I'm getting attacked with Econ 101. In simple economic models, creating a price floor will create a artificial surplus. Theoretically, the demand-supply argument for labour rests on a 'marginal product' of labour - that is, the extra stuff produced by adding on unit of labour (whether that's a worker, another hour or whatever). For this it is assumed that inputs are homogeneous and perfectly divisible - basically, like clay. You can add a little bit more capital to labour, or vice versa, and see what the marginal product is. Obviously in the real world this isn't true. If you have 10 taxis and employ 10 taxi drivers, employing one more taxi driver isn't going to do anything. You need a taxi too. Or, to put it another way: labour or capital alone have no marginal product. Only together do they have marginal product, and how this is distributed between them is determined politically. See here for an elaboration, or read Moshe Adler's Economics for the Rest of Us. Alternatively, just cite the fact that empirical evidence has been mixed at best, certainly failing to support the econ101 story conclusively. See Card & Krueger, here.
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Feb 14, 2013 12:06
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What is he advocating? Anarchy? Because if it's anything short of that then he's talking about certain institutions, laws like property and so forth that are needed for 'free market' transactions to take place, and these involve political decisions that affect how things go down. I try not to link to myself too much, but I wrote about this here, maybe it will help.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:13
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PEOPLE don't exist!!! It was all just ATOMS interacting! etc.
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Aug 23, 2013 12:07
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This may seem like a weird question - mostly because libertarians are not a particularly formidable foe in general - but what is a good, simple rebuttal to the glibertarian idea that "no, [bad thing] couldn't happen because competition would make sure that firm went bankrupt etc."? "The world isn't perfectly competitive" doesn't work because then they go off on one about artificial government regulations. "But look, [bad thing] actually happens!" along with evidence seems to spark a similar response. Essentially I'm just looking for a quick rebuttal to save time.
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Dec 10, 2013 20:27
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Yeah, I suppose to best response to glib generalisations is not more glib generalisations but "well, which specific circumstances are you talking about?" then it's easy to go from there. Thanks.
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Dec 11, 2013 10:23
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ejstheman posted:It's always hard to know how far back in the chain to go when you're arguing with someone who's wrong on multiple levels. I prefer to stick to the shallowest level to keep things simple: argue with them based on their own logic. For example, if a libertarian is saying anti-discrimination laws are unnatural interferences into the market system, I'd point out that the government already "interfered" through slavery, police abuse etc so the question of force is moot over getting bogged down in discussions of what is voluntary or what constitutes imitating force.
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Dec 17, 2013 19:02
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