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Jaxyon posted:I appreciate the thought in a lot of that post despite disagreeing with you on a bunch of stuff. That's definitely correct: what I'm saying there is more of an impression based on what I have read, and more importantly discussions with people who have read marxist thought and argue it. I'm trying to be clear that the question I'm answering is, basically, why don't I give marxist thought a lot of creedence. And the answer isn't that I read it all and dissected it. I definitely did not do that, or even a meaningful portion of it. Instead, I'm basically answering why I have not thought it worth actually doing that deep dive. I'm not in college anymore (and haven't been for a while) - I don't really have time to read tomes of theory I don't think is likely to be particularly meaningful. I don't want to claim this is an opinion that people should place great weight on and I'm trying to be honest about that. The doctrinaire aspect of why I find it unlikely to be an enlightening theory is absolutely mostly reaction to the people who argue it rather than from pulling up a few papers on modern marxist thought and reading them. Like to compare - I find psychology interesting. I know that Freud is a significant thinker in psychology and that a large number of well-credentialed, intelligent people are Freudian psychologists/psychiatrists (I know some!). But when the starting point is "and that's why you want to gently caress your mother and murder your father, and this is a key foundation of understanding the human psyche" I'm just like...ok, I'm gonna read something else with my time. Apparently there is enough in there to keep medical schools training new Freudians - or at least, the output of the model is useful enough, even if the inputs are insane. But at the end of the day what I know about it is enough to reach the conclusion I don't really need to know more. One of these days, perhaps one of my Freudian friends mentions something that is interesting enough my mind gets changed on it - but what I know of it, and from talking to them, is enough to make me spend the time I do spend reading on psychology on something I think is more likely to be informative. evilweasel fucked around with this message at 21:17 on May 3, 2021 |
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May 3, 2021 21:14
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Econ 101 classes are simplified stuff to teach concepts. The assumptions are given to you to make the math easy and, most importantly, not involve calculus, not because they are believed to accurately describe the real world. It’s like complaining physics doesn’t believe in friction.
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May 4, 2021 02:26
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Harold Fjord posted:A non-compete clause kind of looks like regulation, from certain angles. But I'm still digesting this. As a practical matter you're correct - enforcement of contracts is a kind of regulation. But descriptively, enforcement of contracts is traditionally not considered "regulation" (at least civilly - i.e. suing to enforce a contract and/or collect damages. I don't recall if criminal enforcement of contracts is classically considered enforcement or regulation) while specifically refusing to enforce certain kinds of contracts is. It somewhat derives from the default that all contracts are enforceable unless there's a reason they're not, rather than needing an enabling law to make certain kinds of contracts. So because the default is you can contract, a non-compete contract being enforced is not considered "regulation" but a doctrine/law that non-compete contracts will not be enforced is considered "regulation". But that is relevant only to communication - making sure you understand what people are saying and they understand what you are saying. There are people who ascribe moral weight or some sort of more significant weight to the distinction and there is no need to accept that even if you accept the general distinction drawn for the purposes of clearly communicating. And if you really want to avoid using that terminology because you think it biases the discussion in favor of that classical "right of contract" thinking, that's perfectly reasonable as well - but you'll just need to make clear that you're doing so because otherwise the discussion will be over semantics and not the actual underlying concepts.
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May 4, 2021 14:38
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icantfindaname posted:I mean, basically every single one of the most miraculous expansions of production in history, in WW2 US, UK and USSR, in postwar France and East Asia, all made heavy use of central planning and state direction. Meanwhile basically every case of neoliberalization after the 1980s has not just been a disaster from a social perspective but from the very GDP growth perspective you claim is better served by Hayekian market liberalism. Most (all?) of Latin America’s growth performance was clearly better before neoliberalism and marketization than after. It’s just not empirically true that liberal market economies are more productive than planning, probably actually the opposite. you appear to be confusing expansions of production of war material with expansions of production, generally. the point of a planned, wartime economy is to hard convert the production of stuff from "what the populace demands" to "the poo poo we need for the war" not to increase the efficiency of the economy overall. it is to roll into a car factory and say "hi, you're making tanks now" not because that is more efficient at expanding the goods and services the economy produces, but because the government needs tanks, a lot of them, as soon as possible. you can, theoretically, argue that this demonstrates the superiority of a planned economy in reacting decisively to very significant shifts in societal demand. but at the end of the day the wwII analogies are not super useful because the US/UK used hybrid planning/market approaches and the people making the tanks certainly did not become owners of the means of production for the tanks - what was converted over to varying, disputable degrees was the planning function rather than ownership of capital. you are, of course, also ignoring the industrial revolution era which is...problematic...when you claim to be discussing "basically every single one of the most miraculous expansions of production in history"
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May 4, 2021 16:22
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all that said: icantfindaname, it is plain that you are getting tripped up by efficiency. efficiency is not the be-all and end-all of an economy, it is perfectly fine for various societal reasons to prioritize other issues over the efficiency of an economy. for example, in wartime, you may prefer a slightly less efficient economy that produces a lot of tanks! you may be far more willing to tolerate the inefficient allocation of human capital that a draft entails! or, you may feel that efficiency and fairness should be balanced - that an efficient economy that leaves the poor behind and simply accrues more benefits to the rich is inferior to a slightly less efficient economy that distributes benefits more fairly. it is generally pretty uncontroversial that a market system is generally more efficient than central direction. there are areas where it is well understood by all but libertarians that the market does not produce efficient outcomes and must be regulated (e.g. pollution). there are areas where it is well understood to all but libertarians that the market system breaks down and no longer has efficiency benefits compared to central allocation - wartime being the paradigmatic example with the least dispute, but by no means only one. the idea that the unregulated market solution is the best one is widely rejected by all but libertarians. that said, the implicit comparison you're making isn't a centrally planned economy - it's a very well regulated market economy, with significant government intervention. i am unware of any serious debate over if centrally planned economies are more efficient than regulated free market economies, merely dispute over if the societal benefits of such an economy are worth giving up that efficiency.
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May 4, 2021 16:35
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