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This is a very simplistic view of capitalism and ignores larger issues. One ignored issue is inflation itself. Although it had a profound impact in the middle
by dataker 11y ago
This is a very simplistic view of capitalism and ignores larger issues.
One ignored issue is inflation itself. Although it had a profound impact in the middle class, it has nothing to do with 'evil business owners' trying to make more money.
Then, unions shouldn't bargain with monopolistic corporations. Why? Because monopolistic corporations shouldn't exist 99% of the time. That's the root of the problem, not the lack of analogous monopolistic labor unions.
- pjc50 11y agoWhile it's convenient to reduce inflation to a single number so that you can summarise an economy with MV=PQ, it's not the full picture. Over the medium to long term, price levels between different sorts of goods drift widely, as do the relative returns of capital and labour. For example, monetary injection via QE has little effect on retail prices, oil prices (which have been falling), or wages, but tends to inflate financial and real estate asset prices.
- dataker 11y agoReference to contrast arguments http://www.worldculturepictorial.com/images/content_3/college-education-us-inflation.jpg http://www.worldculturepictorial.com/images/content_3/colleg... http://i.huffpost.com/gen/926781/thumbs/s-COLLEGE-TEXTBOOKS-PRICES-480x360.jpg?6 http://i.huffpost.com/gen/926781/thumbs/s-COLLEGE-TEXTBOOKS-...
- clownio 11y agoYou realize the person who you accuse of having a "very simplistic view of capitalism" (the author) has been studying economics for most of his life and won a Nobel Prize for it? Currently a professor of economics at MIT? Etc...
- dataker 11y agoAd hominem. One could argue the same about Paul Krugman.
- gjm11 11y agoI don't think I've heard "ad hominem" used to describe positive assessments like this before. In any case, this isn't one. No one is saying "Solow must be right; he's an outstandingly eminent economist"; but it's perfectly reasonable to say "It's monstrously implausible that Solow simply doesn't understand capitalism; he's an outstandingly eminent economist". And yes, one could and should argue the same about Paul Krugman. Of course it's possible that someone like Solow or Krugman is terribly wrong, but barring traumatic brain injury or something it's absurd to suggest that either is wrong on account of not understanding basic economics. ... Of course it's possible that Solow or Krugman understands something very well but then chooses to present an oversimplified version (for honourable reasons, like not intimidating their readers; or dishonourable ones, like wanting to hide something that works against their arguments). If that is what you were suggesting -- not "Solow's understanding of capitalism is simplistic" but "Solow probably has a sophisticated understanding of capitalism but is presenting a simplistic version, and a better one would invalidate what he says" -- then indeed pointing out that all the evidence suggests he's an extremely skilled economist isn't to the point. But what's wrong with it still isn't that it's "ad hominem".
- stillsut 11y ago> is terribly wrong, but barring traumatic brain injury or something it's absurd to suggest that either is wrong on account of not understanding basic economics There are plenty of eminent CS prof's that couldn't push a HellloWorld to Heroku, or competently perform entry level software development tasks. Like the SE vs CS divide, "job creators" disagree with academic economists on the axioms of "basic economics".
- clownio 11y agoOne COULD argue that Paul Krugman has a simplistic view of economics. They, of course, would sound as dumb as you do here, but they could do that, yes.