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"Trade and exploiting comparative advantages yields greater utility" is about as hard a law as any.
by cperciva 10y ago
"Trade and exploiting comparative advantages yields greater utility" is about as hard a law as any.
- daptaq 10y agoNot if you ask marxist-economists...
- cperciva 10y agoAnd if you ask biblical literalists, they'll tell you that there was no big bang but the world was instead created in six days. There are always some people with counterfactual beliefs.
- VodkaHaze 10y agoYes, and we should ask Lysenkoists about effective growing of crops. Marx contributed massively to sociology. He contributed nothing of note to economics that's really relevant to this day (not that his effort was not commendable). Sticking to orthodox marxist economics in 2016 is more dogma than science.
- thesagan 10y agoMarx's contributions to sociology are definitely relevant today, even if they're not in vogue. Even if they're wrong. This is human behavior we're talking about, and people have memories that they act upon.
- icantdrive55 10y agoMarx was an Economist. I forget the exact amount of pages he wrote on sociology, history, or philosophy; I believe it was ten pages of this thoughts. And that's what people remember. He wrote 10,000 pages of economic theory. I can't say they are wrong, or right--I haven't read his complete work. I doubt Russia bothered to read, and implement his theories to the tee. I don't think we can honestly evaluate wether he might be wrong, or right. (I wonder if his plan might work if they could ever take nepotism, and corruption out of the equation. It seems like nepotism, and corruption taint every economic theory?)
- youdontknowtho 10y agoThat wasn't the point. The point is that the "laws" of economics are the same rigorous laws of physics. Markets aren't forces of nature. That's propaganda.
- cwyers 10y agoCiting economic theory that has been discredited as evidence that economics is not a science makes about as much sense as citing Ptolemy's Geocentric model as evidence that astronomy isn't a science.
- youdontknowtho 10y agoAgain. No one need to prove that economics isn't the same kind of science as physics. so that guy made a bad analogy. don't care.
- thesagan 10y agoIf the law stands in isolation. But there are more questions that arise. To whom? For how long? In which way? Etc. etc. The side effects must be investigated because that's largely where we are in the public discourse right now. We're in a big adjustment period. We're learning about consequences; good and bad. Reminds me of Keyne's famous long-run quote.
- Avshalom 10y agoBeing a happy Subaru owner I'm rather glad Japan ignored comparative advantage.
- pdonis 10y ago> I'm rather glad Japan ignored comparative advantage. They did? How so?
- lomnakkus 10y agoCaveat: The interests must align[1]. (See: Principal Agent Problem.) [1] Which they, in actual fact, very seldom do.