4 ms·

I think his conclusion is more subtle than that. It's not that getting out of the way of the economy means it will all work out—far from it. Rather, continuing

I think his conclusion is more subtle than that. It's not that getting out of the way of the economy means it will all work out—far from it. Rather, continuing to buy into the magical thinking of the current priest-kings (i.e. state-directed action) opens the doors to much nastier alt-priests (e.g. totalitarianism). The specific process? Further buying into our current priest-kings puts pressure on them to make their magic work. Magical thinking eventually fails, inevitably. Then the historical process of succession of priests kicks in because "we need the eggs" (to use the article's phrasing), and the more we need the eggs, the more nasty the alt-priests we'll turn to in search of eggs.

throwaway729 10y ago
> ... more subtle Subtlety != non-magical. Confusing subtlety and depth with rigorous thinking -- or even worse, scientific thinking -- is a common confusion people fall into when engaging with economic theory. Both professionally and as a side interest, both on the left and on the right. Existence of a large literature base, a big set of jargon, logically rigorous arguments, and mathematical models and theorems does not preclude fundamentally magical thinking. If you disagree, go read some Christian Apologetics. Portions of the field are more rigorous and have far more subtlety than most economics. But sorry, it's still fundamentally rooted in (literally) magical thinking. > priest-kings... alt-priests So we've replaced magical thinking with jargon-y name calling. Progress...?
- acidbaseextract 10y ago
  Yeah I totally agree. I tried to read some of the guy's other articles as the ideas are really interesting, but man are they buried in jargon.
brbrodude 10y ago
some would argue the current priests are the economists and the king is capital, and that this is a kind of totalitarianism. I'm not affirming it is so, but I cant help but think truth is not a flat as some try to make it
Bartweiss 10y ago
I'm reminded of Chinese dynasties. Eseentially very dynasty that wasn't toppled by someone else first (e.g. Mongols) finally crumbled when it failed to deal with a famine. Mass unrest combines with the collapse of 'divine right', and everything switches to war and chaos. If magic thinking is unavoidable, then the best hope going is to relegate it to a category that can collapse and be rebuilt without destroying stability. The last thing you want is to tie your government to a condition that's guaranteed to fail eventually.

throwaway729 10y ago

> ... more subtle Subtlety != non-magical. Confusing subtlety and depth with rigorous thinking -- or even worse, scientific thinking -- is a common confusion people fall into when engaging with economic theory. Both professionally and as a side interest, both on the left and on the right. Existence of a large literature base, a big set of jargon, logically rigorous arguments, and mathematical models and theorems does not preclude fundamentally magical thinking. If you disagree, go read some Christian Apologetics. Portions of the field are more rigorous and have far more subtlety than most economics. But sorry, it's still fundamentally rooted in (literally) magical thinking. > priest-kings... alt-priests So we've replaced magical thinking with jargon-y name calling. Progress...?

acidbaseextract 10y ago
Yeah I totally agree. I tried to read some of the guy's other articles as the ideas are really interesting, but man are they buried in jargon.

brbrodude 10y ago

some would argue the current priests are the economists and the king is capital, and that this is a kind of totalitarianism. I'm not affirming it is so, but I cant help but think truth is not a flat as some try to make it

Bartweiss 10y ago

I'm reminded of Chinese dynasties. Eseentially very dynasty that wasn't toppled by someone else first (e.g. Mongols) finally crumbled when it failed to deal with a famine. Mass unrest combines with the collapse of 'divine right', and everything switches to war and chaos. If magic thinking is unavoidable, then the best hope going is to relegate it to a category that can collapse and be rebuilt without destroying stability. The last thing you want is to tie your government to a condition that's guaranteed to fail eventually.