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Aeolius posted:aaaaand nope No. It doesn't matter what the 'socially accepted' definition of aggression is, under a Libertarian analytical framework 'aggression' is defined in a specific way that does not include those things. And based on your standards of usefulness ("you can't PROVE it isn't useful!!!!!!!!") I don't see how libertarian aggression is any less useful a concept than Marxist exploitation. It's a thing, a guy came up with it and wrote a book about it, it's internally consistent, therefore it's deserving of our respect and attention. That's the argument for Marxism ITT
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Nov 12, 2014 02:47
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icantfindaname posted:No. It doesn't matter what the 'socially accepted' definition of aggression is, under a Libertarian analytical framework 'aggression' is defined in a specific way that does not include those things. And based on your standards of usefulness ("you can't PROVE it isn't useful!!!!!!!!") I don't see how libertarian aggression is any less useful a concept than Marxist exploitation. It's a thing, a guy came up with it and wrote a book about it, it's internally consistent, therefore it's deserving of our respect and attention. That's the argument for Marxism ITT Did you read the post he was replying to? Here it is again: asdf32 posted:
Bolded. Shaking my head itt.
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Nov 12, 2014 02:57
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rudatron posted:Do you understand Arrow's theorem? It's a proof that generates a very specific circumstance to show that not all 3 of its conditions can hold at once. But in real world terms, it's not particularly damaging, because those circumstances are unlikely and cannot be exploited (You would have to know ahead of time what everyone is going to vote for), and the assumptions that the theorem uses for what a voting system is are restrictive (IIA in particular). In philosophical terms, it at best shows that sometimes the general will cannot be conclusive - but that's only if you accept that those 3 conditions listed are entirely inseparable from the concept of a 'general will' (And again, IIA has some serious philosophical problems with it: repeated experiments have shown that human behavior about fairness does not conform to IIA). Like I said, it's at best a marginal concern. Why on earth are they unlikely? Actually-existing collective decisions are instead made with institutions that accept and mitigate the damage that Arrovian impossibility inflicts - for example, earlier I emphasized that discarding IIA would give agenda-setters enormous but dubiously representative power. In real life, speakers of parliaments and chairs of boards do have enormous and dubiously representative power. In the absence of such measures, is it possible for collective decisions in real life to remain inconsistent? Yes - the typical go-to example is the French Fourth Republic. Is it difficult to imagine voting decisions which a legislature will inconsistently support? No - a legislature with more than two blocs may readily and repeatedly pass motions of no confidence for every contending bloc. Does an institution that remains locked in crisis for a decade retain legitimacy as a governing body? You tell me! Certainly one can focus on parliamentary processes and public deliberation that suppress these dysfunctions as the legitimate extraction of the general will, given that Arrow demolishes the idea that there is some underlying consistent ordinal ranking to be found. But if so then it must also be acknowledged that the process does not extract underlying consistent ordinal rankings of investment opportunities, the dry topic of which must be tackled by any actually-existing deliberative body that controls the means of production. It is one thing to argue that individual humans discard IIA. Fair enough - but individual humans also drink themselves into the gutter. A governing body charged with the wealth of nations should probably not have preferences that expose it towards repeatedly buying Dutch books, or repeatedly reversing investment decisions due to procedural technicalities rather than a refreshed democratic mandate. By the converse, it should also be accepted that the community being governed by processes that suppress IIA may repeatedly see investment decisions, made in their name, which a majority of the community would prefer to reject.
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Nov 12, 2014 02:58
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Berk Berkly posted:Did you read the post he was replying to? Okay? Does this make what I said untrue?
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Nov 12, 2014 03:06
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icantfindaname posted:Okay? Does this make what I said untrue? Well, it would at least make sense, if only partially, if you were replying to a completely different person. And how can something like: quote:I don't see how libertarian aggression is any less useful a concept than Marxist exploitation. Be parsed as true/false? You are making sort of awkward statements of vague. comparative value on two subjects and then demanding someone else reconstruct them as a formal argument to respond to. If you are saying that if Libertarian conceptions and definitions of aggression can be internally consistent and useful? And that they can be directly compared to Marxist statements of exploitation? Berk Berkly fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 03:14
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Berk Berkly posted:Well, it would at least make sense, if only partially, if you were replying to a completely different person. Okay, Marxism as an analytical framework is at best marginally more useful than anarcho-capitalism Hopefully this is easier to understand
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Nov 12, 2014 03:15
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Aeolius posted:jesus, you're only just noticing that "utility" and "socially necessary labor time" aren't the same thing? how many times have we had to say it, now? over how many years? What do you think these links show? These links show real world attacks against a crappy definition with limited applicability to the real world. These links are the thing you're trying to protect yourself from. Like I said, the difference isn't that libertarianism doesn't have crappy technical definitions with limited real-world applicability, the difference is that when pressed, libertarians don't try to pretend that their definitions were never meant to apply to the real world in the first place. Explain what we're supposed to take from the marxist definition of exploitation, or value. You know those things as well as anyone. Show me, a total idiot in your opinion, why I'm wrong.
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Nov 12, 2014 03:32
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asdf32 posted:These links are the thing you're trying to protect yourself from. You can try trickier attacks like this once you demonstrate that you can restate the arguments you're criticizing. Any sooner and you'll hurt yourself. Case in point: quote:when pressed, libertarians don't try to pretend that their definitions were never meant to apply to the real world in the first place. Now you just look downright silly. You still don't even grok what a materialist analysis is, let alone the content of this one. asdf32 posted:Explain what we're supposed to take from the marxist definition of exploitation, or value. You know those things as well as anyone. Show me, a total idiot in your opinion, why I'm wrong. I don't think you're a total idiot. I think you're a total ideologue. I think you substitute pitbull-like persistence over misunderstood nitpickery for actual honest engagement with the subject matter. This is not because there's anything in your brain preventing you from grasping these concepts, but because to do so would threaten your bullshit worldview, and I say this as someone who by and large shared your bullshit worldview at one time. If you were actually developmentally delayed or whatever, I'd be on some ableist poo poo to call you out on it. No, I just think you're dense to a degree that can only be the mark of ideology. That's all. And anyway, examples have already been given regarding the different sorts of hypotheses that stem from this framework — within the last five pages of this very thread, even. I've also shared several links that explain the value theory in far fewer words than Capital. And I've specifically given you some very detailed explanations in previous threads. I'm not gonna read to you, too; go do it yourself. As with a capitalist, I don't continue to invest where I don't see returns. You've never rewarded my effort with comprehension, so why waste the time on you? Aeolius fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 04:44
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asdf32 posted:Like I said, the difference isn't that libertarianism doesn't have crappy technical definitions with limited real-world applicability, the difference is that when pressed, libertarians don't try to pretend that their definitions were never meant to apply to the real world in the first place. So Marxists pretend that their definitions were never meant to apply to the real world? That Marxism is not a framework to understand the observed, recorded development of society? Am I reading that correctly?
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Nov 12, 2014 05:05
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Ah yes, unlike other fields of science, Marxism sure is full of jargon! Now let's please turn to page 5 of our perfectly mainstream Mankiw textbooks to consult the definition of "demand"... What the! Great Stalin's Ghost, there's like five different definitions of demand! And none of them match the lay definition?! What a bunch of malarky! Nobody can be expected to know the difference between all these different 'demands'! It's just too darn confusing. I '"demand"' a refund, Mr. Mankiw. Wait, there's more than one person named Mankiw?! What a world, what a world...
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Nov 12, 2014 05:45
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this is probably not going to further a productive discussion, but FWIW Joan Robinson was quite willing to provide neoclassical definitions of Marxist terms, e.g., exploitation defined as wages less than the marginal revenue product, in the context of Kaleckian/post-Keynesian writing Unfortunately, it is unavoidably the case that Marx wrote well before the dawn of modern econ, so this choice of interpretation remains irrepairably contested. Non-analytical Marxists have never accepted the idea of abandoning the process of dialectic itself as insight into the human condition. Conversely analytical Marxists (and the Anglospheric tradition more generally) tend not to have much patience with the non-analytical approach (in English: if one author uses 'exploitation' for concept X, and another author uses 'exploitation' for subtly different concept Y, has something meaningful been drawn between X and Y, or are the authors simply talking past each other? If your reaction is that the former position is patently ridiculous, then you are probably not going to enjoy continental Marxism) I read asdf32 as demanding an analytical Marxist, any analytical Marxist, to stand up and defend the theory on those terms, but I don't think it's accidental that analytical Marxists have tended to embrace methodological individualism to the point where they converge on remarkably neoclassical results. Kalecki, Roemer, Robinson/Sraffa, etc. It does seem genuinely difficult to defend traditionally Marxist keystones on analytic grounds. People toss out the LTV, the TRPF, the internal contradictions of accumulation, false consciousness, MCM, etc. ronya fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 05:46
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Ah yes, unlike other fields of science, Marxism sure is full of jargon! Now let's please turn to page 5 of our perfectly mainstream Mankiw textbooks to consult the definition of "demand"... What the! Great Stalin's Ghost, there's like five different definitions of demand! Yes and they relate to real-world observation and data-driven analysis of history, and are subject to continuous modification if real-world observation indicates they are inadequate. The criticism being leveled here is not that Marxism has jargon, rather it is that that jargon is inapplicable to anything resembling reality. The defenses of Marxism here seem to be all about the internal consistency of Marx, ignoring criticisms of the external applicability of Marxism.
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Nov 12, 2014 06:24
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But the funny thing is, it's exactly the opposite. Marx developed his value theory to a large degree while puzzling over real business accounts Engels had sent him to study. The whole analysis is, as MaterialConceptual pointed out, basically taking the view of a capitalist. It should be no wonder why Marxist value theory winds up being compatible with Post-Keynesianism's heavily empirical price theory and historical-time modeling methods like SFCA. What they share in common (along with most academic management accountants) is a perspective of scientific realism, in contrast to the positivism that's dominated neoclassical econ since basically the outset, which chiefly concerns itself with prediction. That is to say, Friedman's ("F-twist") canonical statement of the positivist method explicitly abjures realism of assumptions, so long as point A and point B of the transformation correlate like they should and thereby function as predictors (until, of course, they don't). That's not to say that you won't find any realism in mainstream economics, and I certainly applaud scholars like Uskali Mäki for encouraging economists to think more seriously about these matters. Still, given the methods and philosophical underpinnings of the schools in question (and categories like "average labor time per unit" vs. "utils"), it's deliciously ironic to suggest this one has no relation to the real world. Aeolius fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 08:04
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The only people who think Econ doesn't have anything to do with real data and the real world are all Marxists on the internet. Hmm Krugman said Econ got too far up its rear end in theory in some cases. Clearly the answer is relying instead 100% on theory. And not just any theory, but theory basically unchanged in a century, with no predictive power, and followed exclusively by cranks. Best Friends fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 08:48
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Best Friends posted:Yes and they relate to real-world observation and data-driven analysis of history, and are subject to continuous modification if real-world observation indicates they are inadequate. The criticism being leveled here is not that Marxism has jargon, rather it is that that jargon is inapplicable to anything resembling reality. The defenses of Marxism here seem to be all about the internal consistency of Marx, ignoring criticisms of the external applicability of Marxism. Perhaps you missed the long list of criticisms of central planning (mostly from non-Marxists!) I posted in here in the spirit of asking "Is Marxism Dead?" Note that I am a Marxist. On that note I wanted to add to my previous comment about Bell's defense of central planning. Let's say that we accept his argument for why the Soviet planned economy stagnated (I don't think it's totally unreasonable given what I've read of the relevant literature). We would then be tied to an economic position that gets most of its validation from actually having been implemented...by Stalin and friends in one of the most reviled periods of human history. At least Cockshott and Cottrell can point to the roots of their argument in the Khrushchev reformist era, which most historians agree was not the worst time ever, but it seems that a defense of Stalin's economic arguments will inevitably have to involve a defense of Stalin to some degree, which really is a non-starter. Even if we were to equivocate by pointing out the horrors carried on the American side in the name of "modernization" it would never get anywhere. So the question is, if Marxism isn't dead, where could it go when facing problems like this? Isn't a huge problem Marxists face just the lack of a salvageable history?
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Nov 12, 2014 08:53
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MaterialConceptual posted:Perhaps you missed the long list of criticisms of central planning (mostly from non-Marxists!) I posted in here in the spirit of asking "Is Marxism Dead?" Note that I am a Marxist. A brave and bracing look at the 20th century. A lively, relevant field indeed! http://www.scriptureoncreation.org/science-question-answer/macro-vs-microevolution/ That link features a creationist incorporating evolution into creationism. Note giant unreadable walls of text to establish the perception of intellect and authority.
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Nov 12, 2014 09:04
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Aeolius posted:But the funny thing is, it's exactly the opposite. Marx developed his value theory to a large degree while puzzling over real business accounts Engels had sent him to study. The whole analysis is, as MaterialConceptual pointed out, basically taking the view of a capitalist. It should be no wonder why Marxist value theory winds up being compatible with Post-Keynesianism's heavily empirical price theory and historical-time modeling methods like SFCA. I'm not sure about that. Take mark-up pricing, which post-Keynesians make a big deal out of - contemporary New Keynesian models regularly feature markups too, emerging from monopolistic competition models. The main difference is methodological - it is undisputed that actually-existing firms do frequently practice markup pricing, so the question is whether one invokes this as a structurally constant assumption (i.e., arguing that firms will generally mark up by whatever empirically-calibrated constant and reasoning from there) or whether one invokes this on a microfounded basis, as a heuristic that might abruptly collapse under policy changes; it is a lesson learnt from the collapse of the Phillips curve. The main difference is not on the realism of assumptions but (1) on the nature of counterfactuals, and (2) what one should do when the mathematical machinery for microfounding an observed stylized fact isn't mature yet It should be acknowledged that (1) post-Keynesian claims to "realism" do not actually involve realistic assumptions, especially given their own emphasis on the sensitivity of their models to the precise nature of their assumptions, which should imply that there's little improvement in shifting from being grossly unrealistic to being only a little less grossly unrealistic, and (2) likewise orthodox claims to "microfoundation" involve remarkably little microeconomics and the level of rigorous abstraction is actually very low. The main value of microfoundation is merely slightly less arbitrariness in the stylized assumptions, paid for with a thick layer of conceptual abstraction. e: we've touched on these issues many times in other threads already, so let me emphasize the main point, which is that this approach to Marx is not especially attentive to Marx. It's a very Kaldorian way to avoid non-productive interpretation disputes: take a text, mine the text for some calibratable stylized facts, and then construct your own rigorous model that may or may not produce dynamics that vaguely resemble the dynamics alluded to in the text. This is how neo-Keynesianism, post-Keynesianism, and New Keynesianism are all Keynesian, with or without any particular deference to the General Theory. Likewise this Marxism has little Marx in it. It is widely acknowledged that post-Keynesians have a number of Marxist models but nobody blinks if their model doesn't have the LTV or the TRPF or the MCM cycle. Attacking the LTV (or etc) no relevance to any particular p-K model, which conversely feels no duty to sally forth in defense of the LTV (or etc). This is the value in the approach. If your reaction is to immediately resurrect interpretation disputes then there's no bloody point. e#2: I omitted this initially because one would think it's too obvious, but Marxism as you have defined it (in its analytical, post-Keynesian flavour) is not especially realistic. Defining two classes of representative households rather than one is certainly applaudable but it does not earn an award for adherence to reality, I am afraid. ronya fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 09:40
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Jacobeus posted:So I can already see that this could lead to an argument over semantics, hopefully we won't have to go there. Presumably, you are referring to economic theories which, while not arguing for the replacement of capitalism, argue for more regulation and government investment and borrow Marxist ideas in order to support these arguments. I'm not really sure that I would call these theories "Marxism", though. Marxism has always been about class struggle and the inevitability of an alternative that eventually ends class struggle. While Marxism is very generalized and there are various schools they pretty much all share that same fundamental idea. No, I'm not arguing that these theories are Marxist because they aren't. What I'm saying is that regardless of the viability of Communism or Socialism, Marxism provides a particular point of view and method of analysing society based on materialism and dialectism. Hence why you can find Marxist History, Marxist Geography, etc. Marx gave us a toolset for analysing the world and you can still apply that even when your conclusion isn't that it is good to go Communist. JeffersonClay posted:Marxism is actually really bad at differentiating between different types of capitalism because all the definitions assume certain inherent features of capitalism, like that trade cannot create value, or that agents of the state cannot create value. Thus, from a Marxist perspective, there can't be important differences between a capitalist country practicing free trade and one practicing autarky, or between a minimalist state and a state with a massive social welfare scheme, as long as the means of production remain privately owned. Well you're confused about what Marxism assumes. There is no reason an agent of the state can't produce value. Value is essentially just the socially necessary labour time embodied in a commodity and a guy in a factory is putting labour time into creating a car or a shoe or a toy regardless of whether the factory is owned privately or by the state. I think you're getting confused with productive vs unproductive labour which Aeolius already explained you are misunderstanding this after your previous post in the thread, which you promptly ignored. This also doesn't mean that Marxism doesn't recognise all the other differences which happen which aren't to do with the classification of socially necessary labour time, which is really what you are getting at when you talk about trade and the like. asdf32 posted:It started our conversation: Literally from the very first sentence of what you quoted you are just arguing semantics of whether the Marxist definition is equivalent to the layman definition, which no-one cares about and is irrelevant. Best Friends posted:Yes and they relate to real-world observation and data-driven analysis of history, and are subject to continuous modification if real-world observation indicates they are inadequate. The criticism being leveled here is not that Marxism has jargon, rather it is that that jargon is inapplicable to anything resembling reality. The defenses of Marxism here seem to be all about the internal consistency of Marx, ignoring criticisms of the external applicability of Marxism. No, I really really wish that was what is happening because that could be an interesting and relevant discussion, but asdf32 is literally refusing to allow use the marxist definition of exploitation because words are only allowed one meaning and exploitation already has an accepted meaning. He literally posted "So the real world (layman's) definition has no bearing on the Marxist definition so it follows that the Marxist definition has no bearing on the real world then right?" as part of his giant useless semantic arguement because he considers it impossible for words to have multiple different but still situationally relevant meanings.
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Nov 12, 2014 10:35
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Best Friends posted:http://www.scriptureoncreation.org/science-question-answer/macro-vs-microevolution/ poo poo, he'sr ight we lose, x 10000000000finity in our faces :enormous bong rip" MaterialConceptual posted:We would then be tied to an economic position that gets most of its validation from actually having been implemented...by Stalin and friends in one of the most reviled periods of human history. At least Cockshott and Cottrell can point to the roots of their argument in the Khrushchev reformist era, which most historians agree was not the worst time ever, but it seems that a defense of Stalin's economic arguments will inevitably have to involve a defense of Stalin to some degree, which really is a non-starter. Even if we were to equivocate by pointing out the horrors carried on the American side in the name of "modernization" it would never get anywhere. I dunno if it's unsalvageable per se. It's not a subject that many are willing to discard their priors on, certainly. But a lot of highly detailed scholarship has come from the opening of the Soviet archives (from non-left historians, even), casting new light on most issues. E.g., Davies, Wheatcroft, and Tauger have made tight cases that the famine of the early 30's was not at all some deliberate Holodomor — a charge that even anti-communists like Ellman admit still lacks a smoking gun and, as Tottle shows, actually originated as Nazi propaganda. J Arch Getty (yet another lib) et al. have been demystifying the purges and penal system. "Everybody's favorite Grover" Furr has been publishing exculpatory critical historiographies taking apart standbys like Khrushchev's secret speech, etc. Biographies — such as Kotkin's mammoth trilogy, part I of which just came out last week — are showcasing ever more nuance and historical contingency than the bog standard "Hitlerian sociopath" account. It's actually possible to mount a non-batshit defense of Stalin, these days, though I imagine few still would. However, any such undertaking that then tries to excuse executions, any sort of forced labor arrangement, etc., would promptly and justifiably lose its credibility. That said, I don't see a defense of Stalin as at all necessary; the question is one of economic policy, irrespective of the take on incarceration or the death penalty, for instance. Would a new round of New Deal policies call for another internment of Japanese Americans? ronya posted:I'm not sure about that. Take mark-up pricing, which post-Keynesians make a big deal out of - contemporary New Keynesian models regularly feature markups too, emerging from monopolistic competition models. Ah, good, sup ronya. Maybe you can clarify some things. 1) Any reason they tend to base those markups on marginal cost instead of the empirically indicated full-cost accounting? 2) What other forms of competition are modeled? 3) Why the continued reliance on equilibrium and logical time, rather than a fully path dependent, historical concept of time? As a fan of Robinson, I assume you'd be particularly keyed into that problem. These all qualify as distinct questions of realism of assumptions, no? But realism is not just some position you arrive at by having one or two more realistic assumptions than the other guy; the entire orientation is fundamentally different. It's why realists tend to be, e.g., suspicious of the reliance on microfoundations, which curtail our ability to grasp emergent phenomena, the variously relational aspects of reality, etc. A realist position argues, among other things, that the generative mechanisms of reality (including social reality) are fundamentally knowable, while a positivist sees little use for such question. The point is not that these assumptions are less realistic, but rather that they aren't even necessarily working towards grasping the real mechanisms in question, since the point is just to plug in policy A and observe effect A on an instrumentalist basis. ronya posted:e: we've touched on these issues many times in other threads already, so let me emphasize the main point, which is that this approach to Marx is not especially attentive to Marx. By "this," you mean the whole bit you've been discussing about the analytical set? Because, sure, why not. You'd have to be really stodgy and kind of dull to object to working off a different set of stylized facts, etc. What is far less dull is expecting that people will then be accountable to the results these generate, especially in comparison to other interpretations. And I don't believe I've resurrected an interpretation dispute...? I have no problem with those, either, but there's a time and a place for them. ronya posted:e#2: I omitted this initially because one would think it's too obvious, but Marxism as you have defined it (in its analytical, post-Keynesian flavour) is not especially realistic. Defining two classes of representative households rather than one is certainly applaudable but it does not earn an award for adherence to reality, I am afraid. (I thought I wouldn't fall into the "analytical" camp, since I reject equilibrium theory? But no matter.) Case in point to the above note on realism. If you create each class with a view toward embodying one of the processes identifiable within the circulation of capital — such as the fundamental opposition of the circuits of capital vs. simple commodity exchange — then this is very much a materialist realist innovation. Your implication, taken to its extreme, is that a class for every profession (or even every household, depending) would be more in tune with realism. Not so, if the system's mechanisms go without a concrete abstraction. (A summary of the point can be found here.) Aeolius fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 11:30
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Aeolius posted:I dunno if it's unsalvageable per se. It's not a subject that many are willing to discard their priors on, certainly. But a lot of highly detailed scholarship has come from the opening of the Soviet archives (from non-left historians, even), casting new light on most issues. E.g., Davies, Wheatcroft, and Tauger have made tight cases that the famine of the early 30's was not at all some deliberate Holodomor — a charge that even anti-communists like Ellman admit still lacks a smoking gun and, as Tottle shows, actually originated as Nazi propaganda. J Arch Getty (yet another lib) et al. have been demystifying the purges and penal system. "Everybody's favorite Grover" Furr has been publishing exculpatory critical historiographies taking apart standbys like Khrushchev's secret speech, etc. Biographies — such as Kotkin's mammoth trilogy, part I of which just came out last week — are showcasing ever more nuance and historical contingency than the bog standard "Hitlerian sociopath" account. It's actually possible to mount a non-batshit defense of Stalin, these days, though I imagine few still would. However, any such undertaking that then tries to excuse executions, any sort of forced labor arrangement, etc., would promptly and justifiably lose its credibility. Well I think the issue is that Stalin is the most prominent figure in Bell's historical account, and he refers explicitly to Stalin's writings in order to argue his point. It is true that we could rely on more general historical sources to argue Bell's basic point about planning (As he does when he points out the holes in Berliner's argument), and it's also true that the main point he is making does not inherently rely on an economy being in the same sort of state as the Stalin-era USSR, but it's not like we'll be able to avoid critics just throwing back "And you know who supported that? STALIN!" I agree that our historical perspective on the USSR is likely to shift considerably in the near future because of new research, but I'm not sure it will move that far beyond Nove's position that what Stalin did was basically to periodically starve the peasantry in order to pay for industrializing the country (With the added intention of weakening a class he did not trust and wanted to see converted into a class of workers). This of course was a feature of modernization theory inspired development programs as well, and some like Nils Gilman in Mandarins of the Future have tried to think a little bit more expansively about this era in light of the failures of neoliberalism, so maybe it is just a matter of recalling that the historical consensus shifts often and might do so again.
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Nov 12, 2014 13:07
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Aeolius posted:You can try trickier attacks like this once you demonstrate that you can restate the arguments you're criticizing. Any sooner and you'll hurt yourself. Case in point: So the general question of "how do marx's definitions relate to the real world" is where you want to make your stand? It's the question where giving the answer has insufficient "returns"? How can we not consider it telling if the marxism debate drives to a halt here. What's completely alien to me at a general and personal level is that you have a theory and knowledge that you claim is so relevant for understanding the world around us, but are unable or unwilling to defend some if its base assumptions in general terms. (And never mind the position from which your lobbing "ideologue" stones) My field is electrical engineering and it has no shortage of definitions with impenetrable walls of mathematics surrounding them. But not only do I like explaining these things in real world examples, I consider the ability to do so a fundamental test of my understanding of the subject. The section labeled "Example" in Differential equations was originally added by me precisely because of the subject's importance and my interest in making its relevance clear (heavily edited since, and in retrospect, a bucket leaking water would have been better than the ball). Maybe it's my "pitbull" nature, but given how invested you are in the subject, I would never let the discussion stop here. And in all seriousness, I'd still rather get an answer from you than spend 10 more posts not getting it from team overhead smash.
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Nov 12, 2014 13:21
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MaterialConceptual posted:Perhaps you missed the long list of criticisms of central planning (mostly from non-Marxists!) I posted in here in the spirit of asking "Is Marxism Dead?" Note that I am a Marxist. That is the thing if you want to start talking about Soviet history you are going to have to far deeper than the atrocities committed by Stalin and grasp at what the challenges were to the Soviet Union and how central planning and nationalization was used to counteract them. Also, you don't have to defend Stalin to open up some of the economics of what was happening under him. I think a key mistake is also directly comparing American and Soviet economics of the period, btw. quote:Well I think the issue is that Stalin is the most prominent figure in Bell's historical account, and he refers explicitly to Stalin's writings in order to argue his point. It is true that we could rely on more general historical sources to argue Bell's basic point about planning (As he does when he points out the holes in Berliner's argument), and it's also true that the main point he is making does not inherently rely on an economy being in the same sort of state as the Stalin-era USSR, but it's not like we'll be able to avoid critics just throwing back "And you know who supported that? STALIN!" I agree that our historical perspective on the USSR is likely to shift considerably in the near future because of new research, but I'm not sure it will move that far beyond Nove's position that what Stalin did was basically to periodically starve the peasantry in order to pay for industrializing the country (With the added intention of weakening a class he did not trust and wanted to see converted into a class of workers). This of course was a feature of modernization theory inspired development programs as well, and some like Nils Gilman in Mandarins of the Future have tried to think a little bit more expansively about this era in light of the failures of neoliberalism, so maybe it is just a matter of recalling that the historical consensus shifts often and might do so again. I think it is actually a shame that the 1920s is so little talked about when discussion of Soviet economics or Stalin himself come up, because most of what happened was a response to particular issues the Soviet Union was facing under that period. Usually the discussion goes from the early 1930s to the 1950s. Anyway, I think there is less discussion about historical examples because a lot of that history as you say is being uncovered at the moment and if anything there isn't a strong consensus. Personally, I would love a more direct discussion about Soviet Union that was less about name dropping Stalin and Beria and more about some of the issues of the NEP. Also fear of being labelled a "Stalinist" might have something to do with it.
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Nov 12, 2014 13:22
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rudatron posted:This is nothing but magical thinking. You are just assuming a planned economy cannot work, and expect this assumption to not be disputed. You must justify it. No I don't think that's what I was doing. The sentence which went like "That doesn't mean apriori a planned economy doesn't work" might have tipped you off  I will be more detailed below Vermain posted:Couldn't heuristic modeling get you pretty close to finding "optimal" firm performance, which incoming results could then be compared against? That is: given factors of X, an output of Y should be expected (within a certain margin of error). If the output is lower than expectations, it can be investigated as to why, and improved; and if the output is higher than expectations (due to a particular innovation or technique), it can be investigated and its improvements can be used in other, similar industries. In any case, frequent auditing and observation will be needed, combined with above-mentioned systems to attempt to reduce collusion (such as frequent auditor rotations/randomized selection). You are still thinking of this as an engineering problem. Allocation can not be solved this way. Once again: The issue here is not logistic coordination of production technologies. We are extremely good as this (look at operations research and logistics literature, or idealized allocation equilibrium models in economics, for example). The issue is that for a working system all incentives must fit together in a way that no individual, group, coalition etc. can break the desired outcome. It is often beneficial here to assume each of these entities are boundedly rational, as this in a restricted sense includes the cases where people act more altruistic. It's valid to say that this inclusion is not really true, but you will see the complexity even with consistent actions below. What happens is that people, groups, coalitions develop power in these systems by withholding (the correct) information. That is really remarkable, as in the classical organizational sense you would define power as something like what someone owns as property rights, or the competences he has to delegate etc. All of these are important, but even the threat to passively gently caress with your system can be important. If you design your system, you will notice that you will essentially have to pay actors (in some sense) not to do that. The more centralized and encompassing you develop this, the harder this becomes. And just as a sidenote: These payments can either be implicit, in which case we have to have good information about preferences, or sometimes they will come in monetary terms - which means that we then implicitly assume a utility effect associated to money (or another fitting exhange of value) - so that we can actually TAKE and GIVE. If we don't, the issue will become even more complex than what I describe below! Btw, this also happens in a market - and it's a reason markets might fail spectacularly in some situations and work well in others. It's not even a good idea to take "promotion of competition" as something which might fix aspects of planned economy in socialism. It's not so easy. If you are interested in this, the fields of Game Theory, Mechanism Design and Market Design offer some first results. Recently - and here is where your heuristic idea fits in - there's an interesting synthesis of computer science and economics called "Algorithmic Mechanism Design", which adds practical considerations (such as computability of solutions) but also heuristical techniques to the "mathematical/axiomatic/precise" approach of economics. So once again, not the issue of engineering feedback loops are the things which will break your system, at least not today. You will just not be able to accurately get all the "soft" measurements and behaviours which you implicitly assume in your production and allocation model. But let me try to be more specific: If you think about the production of luxury foods by an entrepreneur who applies for investment money to a committee, you can immediately imagine many questions to its efficiency. There's the obvious issue that the committee is an entitity with questionable incentives. What we want the committee to do is to decide for the good of the population who might want to consume the goods. To assure that, however, we realize two issues: -> First, there is no prior reason to assume that these distinct entities have the same objectives. Let me remind you that even in the highest of societies virtually no institution has been truly without cronyism and corruption. But beyond that, the committee is part of an institutional framework. That means its objectives interact with all other objectives in the economy. Even when we do not assume corruption, for example, the alignment of incentives is still more subtle. We want them to take the welfare of the population into account. But what does that even mean? In what timeframe? In what egalitarian sense? That's not an easy question! In fact the ideal committee is simply some sort of democratic conglomeration of all affected citizens. This throws us in the area of social choice problems of centralization. The advantage of the market is exactly that there is no such committee and that the market process is one way to cut the middleman and get perfect alignment of incentives. Once again this incentive issue is in truth many, many layered issues which all must be examined. And worse - the efficiency of the mechanism will depend on the setting, the institutions, the goods and sadly even the preferences of the people involved. And that is even if people act very mechanically. -> Secondly, the committee has an information problem - and by "a" I mean many. One the one hand it has an advantage over any decentralized process because it knows which projects are allocated where and for example how this fits with. But this is only on the surface, because this knowledge brings its own issues. If I want to coordinate two competing entrepreneurs who want to produce the same luxury good - given its properties I might only want one producer - I now face a new coordination problem where I will have to pay the potential producers to reveal their ideas, skills, ambitions - information. This will be costly - just as if they compete in a decentralized manner. Interwoven with this is the opposite side. The committee has to know what the citizens want. In East-Germany this was a very large issue and they never managed to really come close to the mark. One of the reasons for this is exactly now a public good provision problem (because of centralization). These provision problems have no ideal solution, that is someone is going to lose. People who want luxury goods will overstate, others will understate. It's a mess. We can build mechanisms to make the people actually reveal their preferences, but as it turns out, these mechanisms are very expensive (in the sense of efficiency). Here is one classic case where the centralized nature of a committee incures great informational costs. In the end the committee will either act dictatorial, or it will become almost a market maker, that is it will demand people to chose their budgets and consumptions and reveal their preferences. This is essentially the same as a regulated market, only that everyone will incur welfare losses because of the inflexibility. But once again, there may be counteracting efficiency gains because of no redundant production. It's just that this itself is costly (see above) so it's indeterminate if we gain or lose. Given that the redundant costs in a market for luxury foods typically aren't so great and that a market system usually also integrates the committees informational advantage (by investors and the informational advantage of having markets), it is NOT a bad a priori to assume a committee will be LESS efficient. Let me reiterate: That businesses close in a market system has a very different character than in the committee situation. It has different reasons, and different gains and losses. There are even more issues in this situation - I have only really looked at two issues for the actor "committee", but I think I illustrated my point. There are pros, there are cons. If we take idealized situations, decentralized solutions usually seem to be the best bet. That is why people would expect you to make a good case as to why this centralized approach should be necessary. If people take from this "Hnnngh they just hate planned economies becuase of ideology hnnngh" well then I can't help you. But in no way will this way or "debating" gain any traction in academic circles which look at these problems. Edit: As always please excuse my many English mistakes Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 14:31
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The fun thing about any Marxism thread is that you get liberal, progressive individuals charging due rightward. Why exactly they would temporarily assume that American CEOs are not overpaid or implicitly assume that GINI is meaningless if Marxism is so fundamentally insane is beyond understanding, but it's funny.
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Nov 12, 2014 15:21
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Aeolius posted:Ah, good, sup ronya. Maybe you can clarify some things. 1) Any reason they tend to base those markups on marginal cost instead of the empirically indicated full-cost accounting? Many models with dynamic firm entry and exist use the full costs to determine which companies will stay in the market, what is the productivity etc. This is as mainstream as you can get in economics. It's a way to model the fact that firms do NOT act like Price=Marginal Costs - but the paper will not try to actually exactly model price setting behaviour. One way of seeing this is that the outcome is usually that there's a markup on costs, which interacts with the demand "elasticity" to determine monopoly profits. But that just provides the framework, such as in Kruggles' papers on international trade 1979 which we all love so much  ...Aeolius posted:2) What other forms of competition are modeled? For example currently I am looking at some regulatory questions of cross border networks of companies of different market structures (monopolies, fringes and oligopolies in my case). This leads to multistage, dynamic models of interaction of markets with different concepts, such as game and equilibrium determined by the assumption of who gets to act when based on which information. It's just that at the "interesting" and "shiny" macro models, market structure isn't really the research question. Aeolius posted:3) Why the continued reliance on equilibrium and logical time, rather than a fully path dependent, historical concept of time? As a fan of Robinson, I assume you'd be particularly keyed into that problem. When it comes to equilibrium, it's a multifaceted issue. First, it's a matter of methodology. It works, and gives results in practice. This is often a critique, but in work it is just simply an important aspect. There are many things which may be interesting, but just do not work well. Second, it's scientific rigour. An equilibrium concept implies a "why". There are many concepts other than Nash, but in all there is an answer as to "why" this should be the solution of the issue and not something else. Third, it makes the argument of the model consistent. Often, non equilibrium models have to imply other assumptions or be very "ceteris paribus" to have determinate results. I mean equilibriums can be things like orbits in dynamical systems. I don't think everybody claiming to do non-equilibrium economics is actually doing this. Often - implicit additions, at other times implicit equilibria - such as solutions to dynamical systems - these are equilibrium concepts! Of course there's chaos theory. But it kind of includes all of the above, just focuses on different objects. And then again the question becomes: why? Saying "the economy is not in equilibrium" is already loaded with so many implicit assumptions on what an economy is, it borders on unscientific. Like, what you are critiquing is a certain type of macro models. The appropriateness of equilibrium concepts in other models may have completely different arguments than in a DGSE. The right way to do it is to say "I have this problem here, and I don't think an equilibrium model could explain this or it would be appropriate. With my non-equilibrium approach, here's what I get differently". And that's interesting. An equilibrium concept is a way to organize your model and openly lay down your assumption in front of everyone. If you are using something different, you have to do the same thing. And then we can argue about what is more appropriate. Logical time. I believe that a more realistic take here is important in some questions, but economics is currently still essentially building stories to explain possible mechanism in reality, in a internally consistent and hopefully validateable manner. We do not build 'realistic' models yet. As such, while there is room for historical influence as a factor and mechanism, economics is focused often on exactly the things which may happen despite of it. Aeolius posted:These all qualify as distinct questions of realism of assumptions, no? But realism is not just some position you arrive at by having one or two more realistic assumptions than the other guy; the entire orientation is fundamentally different. It's why realists tend to be, e.g., suspicious of the reliance on microfoundations, which curtail our ability to grasp emergent phenomena, the variously relational aspects of reality, etc. A realist position argues, among other things, that the generative mechanisms of reality (including social reality) are fundamentally knowable, while a positivist sees little use for such question. The point is not that these assumptions are less realistic, but rather that they aren't even necessarily working towards grasping the real mechanisms in question, since the point is just to plug in policy A and observe effect A on an instrumentalist basis. Microfounded models generate phenomena such as mark-up pricing by very general assumptions on topological features of the problem. Let me remind you that the original research program for general equilibrium and its assumptions is to look at how general and minimal assumptions we would need to have an equilibrium. So for any situation within this very general framework (depending on setup 4-10 axioms on preferences [these can be more demanding than SEU of course] and an equilibrium concept), you can argue very rigorously that you can exclude influences from WITHIN this framework to explain the phenomenon your models shows as a "new thing". In social sciences, this is already a lot. Yes, you incur the assumptions but you do so consciously, while still having a workable system that produces results such as markups. But you are right that many things are not explained in this framework and the connection to actual reality is not necessarily better than in other models. But it does give a strong normative or mechanism aspect. However if you assume mark up pricing, you are just acting from a different axiomatic system, so to speak. You are either doing implicit behaviour assumptions - as many heterodox economists do - which I think is not a good strategy - or you are building a very positivistic centered model - "the thing exists, hence its in the model". But then, of course, policy evaluation is problematic. So you microfound yourself just beyond where you expect the policy change to impact the result. If your policy changes preferences, well poo poo, then you have to go deeeeeeper. I think it depends mostly on the question you ask. It might be frustrating, but economics today is exactly not the one true philosophy of the one true model. Yeah, the New-Keynesian paradigm is leading - but only really in certain macro questions. And that's even a mixture of what you are proposing. Not everything in NK DSGE model is really founded, it's just that they are Very good at predicting in situations where their foundations are not challenged, such as before and after the financial crisis. The paper btw shows such a situation where the "that's just the way it is" component of a DSGE lead to sup-par performance as opposed to an DSGE with a more complex setup. However when the fundamentals (in this case financial market volatily) is not challenged, that original DSGE is still king. And it's even kinda structural, wwosies! Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 15:26
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Boner Slam posted:[...] Thanks and appreciations to you and everyone else who responded. These threads are always extremely helpful for expanding my knowledge and providing new areas of investigation.
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Nov 12, 2014 17:40
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Aeolius posted:If it's any consolation, you're wrong on every point. "Parasite," you may notice, doesn't appear in the passage you quote, for one thing. As I'd hoped you'd have gotten from the linked material, "productive" is defined in a way historically and materially specific to the capitalist mode of production. It's not "does it meet the needs of society (by doing something useful)"; it's "does it meet the needs of capital (by producing surplus value and thus profit)." Parasite is a word that Marx uses repeatedly to describe people who do not produce surplus value, but rather live upon the surplus value created by others. Can you show where he makes a distinction between classes of people who do not produce surplus value? quote:Many jobs that are "unproductive" in relation to capital are actually necessary for the daily operation of society, such as politicians, teachers, firefighters, police, armed forces, etc. This is not some intrinsically bad thing, but the mark of a society advanced enough to have the surplus to make such roles available. Nor are these roles "parasitic" in any normative, pejorative sense to any point of view save that of capital itself. These institutions are highly valuable for capitalists, though! Every one of these positions can improve profitability! quote:Do you deny that there are people who push for the privatization of the above roles, to change them into for-profit enterprises? Well, why do you suppose that might be? Because they want to transform some of the broad social benefits of the institution into private profits. This implies they recognize that the value of these institutions is higher than their cost, otherwise they would agitate to abolish them rather than privatize them. quote:To wit: if you want to do away with the POV that says producing use-value without surplus value is unproductive, agitate for socialism. The POV that use-value without surplus value is unproductive does not exist. Neoclassical economics has recognized the existence of market failure and positive externalities for more than a hundred years. team overhead smash posted:This also doesn't mean that Marxism doesn't recognise all the other differences which happen which aren't to do with the classification of socially necessary labour time, which is really what you are getting at when you talk about trade and the like. What does Marxism have to say about free trade, then? What tools does it give us to analyze it other than "it cannot produce surplus value", "it is parasitic to profits", and "it will accelerate class struggle and revolution"? Statement 1 is apparently meaningless outside of a tangled web of Marxist theory, statement 2 is provably false, and statement 3 is nondisprovable.
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Nov 12, 2014 19:15
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JeffersonClay posted:What does Marxism have to say about free trade, then? What tools does it give us to analyze it other than "it cannot produce surplus value", "it is parasitic to profits", and "it will accelerate class struggle and revolution"? Statement 1 is apparently meaningless outside of a tangled web of Marxist theory, statement 2 is provably false, and statement 3 is nondisprovable. Well it can say quite a lot, so is there anything in particular about Free Trade you want to get the Marxist analysis of because it is quite an expansive topic. I mean just to choose an example by picking a random Marxist book off my shelf and looking up free trade in the index, I'm right now reading a passage in David Harvey's The Enigma of Capital which talks about how the process of dropping of the gold standard in the late 60's/early 70's to be replaced by the dollar had by the 80's caused a situation where the USA had to go even further full throttle towards free trade so that finance capital could allocate capital to where profit rates were highest, causing much damage to labour and previous centres of industry. This is part of a larger point being made about the reliance on Capitalists to have profitable avenues of reinvestment so they can continue to accumulate and how this has worked in a globalised free-market world.
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Nov 12, 2014 20:21
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team overhead smash posted:Well it can say quite a lot, so is there anything in particular about Free Trade you want to get the Marxist analysis of because it is quite an expansive topic. So that seems pretty much equivalent to #3, "it accelerated class struggle", unfortunately, as mentioned, that's unfalsifiable In other words no, Marxism has nothing interesting to say, and certainly no interesting predictions to make about free trade icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Nov 12, 2014 20:27
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icantfindaname posted:So that seems pretty much equivalent to #3, "it accelerated class struggle", unfortunately, as mentioned, that's unfalsifiable Hey, given that the average American and average small businessman believes in some form of the labor theory of value, how do you explain your theory's utter failure to resonate in daily life?
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Nov 12, 2014 20:59
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quote:
Note the word "traditional" inserted in front of "exploitation" to differentiate "traditional exploitation" from "marx's exploitation". I.E. the two definitions for that word in play here (oh and don't forget my third definition too! - hats). Anyway, maybe you should just go ahead and start by outlining how you think marxist exploitation is useful in the real world? Here is what I understand so far - exploitation is profit and profit is exploitation. team overhead smash posted:Well it can say quite a lot, so is there anything in particular about Free Trade you want to get the Marxist analysis of because it is quite an expansive topic. Trade is profitable and businesses seek profit? Aside from the book it came out of, what's the specifically marxist insight here. asdf32 fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Nov 13, 2014 |
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Nov 13, 2014 01:17
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Effectronica posted:Hey, given that the average American and average small businessman believes in some form of the labor theory of value, how do you explain your theory's utter failure to resonate in daily life? Lol you really, truly, deep down believe that that everyone agrees with you despite the almost comical failure of Marxist parties to get any support in the West
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Nov 13, 2014 02:01
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icantfindaname posted:Lol you really, truly, deep down believe that that everyone agrees with you despite the almost comical failure of Marxist parties to get any support in the West Answer the question. The average person in the USA believes that people are paid based on their work, believes that it's possible to be overpaid or underpaid, and all kinds of things that are directly contrary to purely-subjective value. Why doesn't your theory manage to appeal to anyone besides the ruling class? How can you call yourself a liberal and then argue that CEOs are paid only a tenth of what they're really worth? By the way, the labor theory of value isn't exclusive to Marxism, you know.
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Nov 13, 2014 02:05
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Effectronica posted:Answer the question. The average person in the USA believes that people are paid based on their work, believes that it's possible to be overpaid or underpaid, and all kinds of things that are directly contrary to purely-subjective value. Why doesn't your theory manage to appeal to anyone besides the ruling class? How can you call yourself a liberal and then argue that CEOs are paid only a tenth of what they're really worth? So if the American population believes a thing that must make that thing true.? I don't think you've really thought this argument through, and I can guarantee you most Americans don't think small time capitalists are parasites who perform no socially useful labor And then, of course, the entire academic establishent, which disagrees with you almost uniformly except for a handful of heterodox activists, are all part of 'the ruling class' and they're wrong and don't count because, well, you said so?
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Nov 13, 2014 02:15
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icantfindaname posted:So if the American population believes a thing that must make that thing true.? I don't think you've really thought this argument through, and I can guarantee you most Americans don't think small time capitalists are parasites who perform no socially useful labor You're not reading what I'm saying. First of all, I'm saying that your truth fails to convince people, without the words you're putting into my mouth because you're a smug lil' blob of lard. Second of all, I'm asking why, outside the economics departments of universities (I sincerely doubt biologists or English professors give a gently caress), only people who directly benefit from purely subjective value support it, and why the truth fails to convince more people. I know that the answer will be another example of you demonstrating that you hate liberalism far, far more than anybody writing about how the purges were justified, and an example of blatant hypocrisy in the bargain, but let's see just what form it takes.
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Nov 13, 2014 02:20
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Effectronica posted:You're not reading what I'm saying. First of all, I'm saying that your truth fails to convince people, without the words you're putting into my mouth because you're a smug lil' blob of lard. Second of all, I'm asking why, outside the economics departments of universities (I sincerely doubt biologists or English professors give a gently caress), only people who directly benefit from purely subjective value support it, and why the truth fails to convince more people. I know that the answer will be another example of you demonstrating that you hate liberalism far, far more than anybody writing about how the purges were justified, and an example of blatant hypocrisy in the bargain, but let's see just what form it takes. Ahahahahha "no economists don't count because I said so". You said "everyone believes in labor theory value except the rich capitalists" and when I point out the entire academic establishment disagrees with you you just pick up the goal posts and run. Address this. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Nov 13, 2014 |
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Nov 13, 2014 02:28
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And yet in the middle of all this very interesting economic theory (no joke) and moral denunciations of the capitalistic classes, I've yet to see how precisely Marxism is going to to be relevant in the 21st century. And no Ardennes, I'm not belittling our chat. Seeing as there are a lot of new, interesting posters in the thread, I'm just raising the question again. Even if a Marxist economy would be possible and equitable enough to gather public support (nevermind being able to compete with capitalist economies in the global market), what hope does Marxism have now?
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Nov 13, 2014 02:29
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icantfindaname posted:Ahahahahha "no economists don't count because I said so". You said "everyone believes in labor theory value except the rich capitalists and when I point out the entire academic establishment disagrees with you you just pick up the goal posts and run. OK, you're going to need extraordinary evidence to support the extraordinary claim that the entire academic establishment has an opinion on this, which agrees with you. At a minimum, this would incorporate fine arts, natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, agricultural sciences, business, and humanities, along with medicine, veterinary medicine, and dental medicine. Of course, you ignored everything else I was saying because deep within your lizard brain, you know that you can't defend your views without repudiating the liberalism you tenuously cling to. Friendly Tumour posted:And yet in the middle of all this very interesting economic theory (no joke) and moral denunciations of the capitalistic classes, I've yet to see how precisely Marxism is going to to be relevant in the 21st century. I mean, it's the only real option if you're opposed to capitalism and not really racist, and capitalism isn't doing too good for its image right now. So it will be relevant by default unless capitalism destroys all opposition or something better comes along.
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Nov 13, 2014 02:34
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First, argument from popularity is a logical fallacy. Appeal to authority is not. We might care what most economists think about economics, but what most people think in general isn't very useful. Second, the examples you offer are not inconsistent with a utility framework. People sell their labor because the wage is worth more to the individual than the alternative (more leisure time and less money). These same people might believe that they are overpaid-- being paid more than they estimate an employer gains in benefit from their labor, or just generally being paid more than the average wage for that work. Or they might feel that their employer gains far more value from their labor than they are being paid, or that they are being paid below the market price for their labor, and thus consider themselves underpaid. The framework assumes that people disagree about the value of things and that when they engage in voluntary exchange their preferences are revealed. They value the item they traded away less than the item they received in return. None of this is incompatible with nuance like: Employers often have more power than employees and will try to contract labor at the lowest price possible. (Solution: Workplace protections, unions, minimum wages, redistributive taxes) Market failures like monopoly, monopsony, and externalities can interact with voluntary exchange to produce inefficient outcomes. (Solution: Anti-trust law, regulations, taxes, state investment) Government can be co-opted by employers to game the system in their favor. (Solution: Good government) While a choice between work at a low wage and starvation is still a choice, calling it voluntary isn't accurate. (Solution: Minimum wage, welfare, guaranteed minimum income)
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Nov 13, 2014 02:42
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Effectronica posted:OK, you're going to need extraordinary evidence to support the extraordinary claim that the entire academic establishment has an opinion on this, which agrees with you. At a minimum, this would incorporate fine arts, natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, agricultural sciences, business, and humanities, along with medicine, veterinary medicine, and dental medicine. Of course, you ignored everything else I was saying because deep within your lizard brain, you know that you can't defend your views without repudiating the liberalism you tenuously cling to ahahahahahahahahahahahahahha
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Nov 13, 2014 02:45
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