39 ms·

I think this is a bad assumption. My feeling is that the biggest shortfall from many people working shorter hours primarily cultural, followed by the economic c

by dv_dt 10y ago

I think this is a bad assumption. My feeling is that the biggest shortfall from many people working shorter hours primarily cultural, followed by the economic capture of generated productivity away from labor and toward capital owners - which in a way is also cultural in the bucket of accepted business philosophy trends.

eru 10y ago
It's actually towards land owners.
- pyrale 10y ago
  One would argue that land owners are a subset of capital owners :)
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    One might then be wrong, if we are a bit more strict about separating land, labor and capital as the three elements of production... I think this a chronic strawman tactic ( present company cheerfully exempted ) - misclassify land as capital, then complain about capitalism.
    - bigmanwalter 10y ago
      I can permanently exchange capital for land, therefore land is capital. If slavery were legal, then labor would be capital too.
      - eru 10y ago
        You can exchange labour for land or capital as well: go work for money, then buy a house.. Your second point is sort-of true. That's why when Britain freed the slaves they bought them free.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        Land and capital are not interchangeable as factors of production. Next: let's please not confuse accounting and economics :)
        bigmanwalter 10y ago
        Of course they are. I can exchange half my land for capital and now I have both.
        eru 10y ago
        You are talking past each other. And your argument is weird: using the market you can exchange all kinds of things for each other. What's the difference between exchanging land for capital vs labour for capital in that argument?
    - pyrale 10y ago
      So you only complain about capitalism when it's applied to an asset class you don't personally own ?
      - eru 10y ago
        Sorry, I don't understand? Making a clear distinction between capital (which we can produce more of) and land (which is fixed in supply for as long as we stay on earth) is just good economics. See also Henry George's Progress and Poverty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty), the book that essentially kicked off the Progressive Era in 19th century America.
        pyrale 10y ago
        It is a legitimate distinction at macro level, because the dynamics for these two asset classes are different. Otherwise, not necessarily.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        No; so far as I know all of economics ( eru covered Henry George ) considers land, capital and labor as three independent elements of production. "Independent" in the sense of orthogonal, as if they were x,y and z planes in a coordinate system. One of the things that's interesting about this - if you can substitute capital for it, it's not really land. "Land" also means something abstract, in a manner similar to the ellipsoid used in GPS calculations in aviation. Its a "where", less a "what". But then again, we tend to conflate rents and profits, which creates a lot of confusion.
        pyrale 10y ago
        Could it be that these people you think of as conflating capital and "land" simply don't accept the definition you take for granted ? In Marx's definition, for instance, capital is defined by currency, and by the liquidity of one's assets. Therefore, considering land as capital would make sense. Microeconomics analysis is another realm where separating land and capital does not necessarily make sense : because of the liquidity effect described above, it may be useless to distinguish land and capital when you have no macro concern. My point here is that the definition of capital, and the classification of land related to capital is intimately related to the analysis you're making, and, therefore, to the position you're defending. As a consequence, what you understand as a person building a strawman is related not to that person building that strawman, but to that person's analysis being in conflict with semantics you take for granted. And ironically, when you try to establish a distinction that makes no sense in that person's logical framework, they may think that you're trying to drown the matter. In fact, they may even be right, in the context of the analysis of social capital, because you're in fact struggling to establish your capital as more legitimate than theirs. This kind of problematic is why it is so important for the one of us which build products for our clients, to take the time to understand their domain, their vocabulary and the context limits to this vocabulary.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
FTA: "One is to create genuine economic value; the other is to generate a protective carapace of bullshit to protect their continued employment." So they're actually working shorter hours; they're just exercising presentist tactics to keep that job. < insert endless " I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?" with Dan Hedaya sequence from the intro to "Joe vs the Volcano" here. > There is some literature which shows that returns to capital are just as weak as returns to labor. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/capital-share-declining-mark-ups-rising.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/cap...
- dv_dt 10y ago
  And there is much better documented data (from Picketty's database) that shows that return from capital is as high as the gilded age. I don't think you can really blame employees for presentism, I think it's generally more difficult to make part-time work arrangements in the white collar world, whereas at the lower end of wages, where it benefits capital owners, blue-collar workers are forced to be part-time...
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    No, I did not intend to blame employees - it's baked into the system. I'd argue that it only benefits capital owners in the sense of having a convenient thing ( that's hopefully nearly irrelevant ) to measure. Edit: I think Piketty glosses over what's actually capital and what is not. It's not the complement of labor - production is the mixing of land, labor and capital. That's three things.
  - eru 10y ago
    It's the returns to land, not capital in general. See eg http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/inequality http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/inequali... and others you can find when looking for "Picketty land".

by dv_dt 10y ago

eru 10y ago

It's actually towards land owners.

pyrale 10y ago
One would argue that land owners are a subset of capital owners :)
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  One might then be wrong, if we are a bit more strict about separating land, labor and capital as the three elements of production... I think this a chronic strawman tactic ( present company cheerfully exempted ) - misclassify land as capital, then complain about capitalism.
  - bigmanwalter 10y ago
    I can permanently exchange capital for land, therefore land is capital. If slavery were legal, then labor would be capital too.
    - eru 10y ago
      You can exchange labour for land or capital as well: go work for money, then buy a house.. Your second point is sort-of true. That's why when Britain freed the slaves they bought them free.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      Land and capital are not interchangeable as factors of production. Next: let's please not confuse accounting and economics :)
      - bigmanwalter 10y ago
        Of course they are. I can exchange half my land for capital and now I have both.
        eru 10y ago
        You are talking past each other. And your argument is weird: using the market you can exchange all kinds of things for each other. What's the difference between exchanging land for capital vs labour for capital in that argument?
  - pyrale 10y ago
    So you only complain about capitalism when it's applied to an asset class you don't personally own ?
    - eru 10y ago
      Sorry, I don't understand? Making a clear distinction between capital (which we can produce more of) and land (which is fixed in supply for as long as we stay on earth) is just good economics. See also Henry George's Progress and Poverty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty), the book that essentially kicked off the Progressive Era in 19th century America.
      - pyrale 10y ago
        It is a legitimate distinction at macro level, because the dynamics for these two asset classes are different. Otherwise, not necessarily.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      No; so far as I know all of economics ( eru covered Henry George ) considers land, capital and labor as three independent elements of production. "Independent" in the sense of orthogonal, as if they were x,y and z planes in a coordinate system. One of the things that's interesting about this - if you can substitute capital for it, it's not really land. "Land" also means something abstract, in a manner similar to the ellipsoid used in GPS calculations in aviation. Its a "where", less a "what". But then again, we tend to conflate rents and profits, which creates a lot of confusion.
      - pyrale 10y ago
        Could it be that these people you think of as conflating capital and "land" simply don't accept the definition you take for granted ? In Marx's definition, for instance, capital is defined by currency, and by the liquidity of one's assets. Therefore, considering land as capital would make sense. Microeconomics analysis is another realm where separating land and capital does not necessarily make sense : because of the liquidity effect described above, it may be useless to distinguish land and capital when you have no macro concern. My point here is that the definition of capital, and the classification of land related to capital is intimately related to the analysis you're making, and, therefore, to the position you're defending. As a consequence, what you understand as a person building a strawman is related not to that person building that strawman, but to that person's analysis being in conflict with semantics you take for granted. And ironically, when you try to establish a distinction that makes no sense in that person's logical framework, they may think that you're trying to drown the matter. In fact, they may even be right, in the context of the analysis of social capital, because you're in fact struggling to establish your capital as more legitimate than theirs. This kind of problematic is why it is so important for the one of us which build products for our clients, to take the time to understand their domain, their vocabulary and the context limits to this vocabulary.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

FTA: "One is to create genuine economic value; the other is to generate a protective carapace of bullshit to protect their continued employment." So they're actually working shorter hours; they're just exercising presentist tactics to keep that job. < insert endless " I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?" with Dan Hedaya sequence from the intro to "Joe vs the Volcano" here. > There is some literature which shows that returns to capital are just as weak as returns to labor. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/capital-share-declining-mark-ups-rising.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/cap...

dv_dt 10y ago
And there is much better documented data (from Picketty's database) that shows that return from capital is as high as the gilded age. I don't think you can really blame employees for presentism, I think it's generally more difficult to make part-time work arrangements in the white collar world, whereas at the lower end of wages, where it benefits capital owners, blue-collar workers are forced to be part-time...
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  No, I did not intend to blame employees - it's baked into the system. I'd argue that it only benefits capital owners in the sense of having a convenient thing ( that's hopefully nearly irrelevant ) to measure. Edit: I think Piketty glosses over what's actually capital and what is not. It's not the complement of labor - production is the mixing of land, labor and capital. That's three things.
- eru 10y ago
  It's the returns to land, not capital in general. See eg http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/inequality http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/inequali... and others you can find when looking for "Picketty land".