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The researcher is not expressing ideology, but rather making a point about the issues of using productivity to assess public good. His point is that by buying

by mrow84 7y ago

The researcher is not expressing ideology, but rather making a point about the issues of using productivity to assess public good. His point is that by buying your tenth car you will contribute to productivity, but the use value of your tenth car is much lower than having those same ten cars (and thus the same productivity) spread across ten people. It is even more obvious in the extreme case: if a population of N people produced N cars, the total public good of every person having one would (I hope you would agree) be higher than the total public good of one person having all of them for their own use. However, in both cases the productivity is the same. Thus, whilst productivity is a useful measure, it does not account for everything we might be interested in when considering the effectiveness of our economies.

hogFeast 7y ago
This is one of the most ideological interviews I have ever read with an economist. Economists are unusually unaware of ideology, this is extraordinary: conducts limited research with limited applications (i.e. how people behave in lab conditions under unequal endowments), makes sweeping conclusions about tangentially related areas, makes sweeping conclusions about unrelated areas (most of the questions are unrelated to his research), and most of what he says just appears to totally random ideological musings about who adds value in society (this isn't even a question that economics can answer). You see this from economists who fail out of physics close to 100% of the time. They don't really understand anything about the private sector, they understand even less about the economy (they just want to do things that they enjoy rather than produce things for others), and they often have these very strong feelings about capitalism...without really having any evidence for these views (or any awareness of the trade-offs...again, this is the kind of thing you don't learn in physics/math class).
- mrow84 7y ago
  You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but unfortunately this process is how our understanding of the world has increased so rapidly over the past several hundred years - laboriously proposing new models, often from intuitions we have derived from observations, and then trying to test those models by obtaining experimental evidence. If things bear out then we put more effort in, and conduct more thorough research. There are many instances of poor practice within that framework, but the process _as a whole_ has worked pretty well so far, and what is discussed here is pretty standard. As for the Nautilus post itself, it is just an interview with someone who works in the field, not a rigorous scientific document, and they are free (surely?) to express their views about whatever they and the interviewer wish to discuss. To your later points - I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you, but I would suggest that the person in question does have _some_ understanding of the economy (at least), inasmuch as they have contributed to a formalised understanding of the dynamics of the economy as we (humanity) currently understand them. I'm not entirely sure what else you want - perfect predictions or go home? Frankly it just sounds like you disagreed with what they said, but, as I already mentioned, you are as entitled to your opinion (as they are to theirs).
  - _jal 7y ago
    > I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you It means the object of scorn does not share certain assumptions about the underlying purpose of economics. To be roughly as unfairly sweeping as the gp, you get that a lot from Chicago school types.
- youdontknowtho 7y ago
  I personally think that economics is propaganda. Economists may think they are above ideology, but...
  - mrow84 7y ago
    The study of economics is conducted by a large number of people (many thousands), with (apparently, at least) diverse views. I am interested in your answers to these questions: 1. Do you believe that all economists are engaged in distributing propaganda, or just some? 2. To what end is the propaganda distributed (or maybe on whose behalf)? 3. Are other academic fields similarly concerned with distributing propaganda?
    - youdontknowtho 7y ago
      So, I'm not saying that all academia is a front for aliens. I'm saying that the narrative produced from the status quo in economics has been, for almost all of my life, very conducive to the interests of the powerful. Do other fields have people doing that? Of course. The petroleum industry has been able to pay for people to push their agenda. That's a thing that happens. There are some historical, political, and material reasons for the state of economics and academia in general. Lots of academia is literally just job training for corporations, so don't front like it's above the fray. Even genuine, and valuable, research gets prioritized over less research that isn't as valuable in the private sector. So, again, I'm not the one saying that academia has a problem. Lot's of academics have said these things. Also, from an argumentative perspective it always seems like economics starts from something like a thought experiment and then go on to use the results of that "experiment" as a evidence in its own right. Yes, Einstein used thought experiments, but he used known physics as the starting point. I hear economic arguments that start with a premise that isn't a settled thing like "lets assume that we are hunter gatherers on the savanna and you have some beads and I have an arrowhead." It's not based on a measurement that other people have made and agree on. It's not even based on an archaeological dig where the bones of two people were found. I realize that isn't what actually goes into a phd thesis. Its economics used as a force of nature that bothers me. It's inevitable. Maybe I'm just calling economics the pseudo-ish stuff that I get presented as a layman. Maybe every economics school in every university has a healthy group of people who are critical of basic assumptions. I hope so. If you are an economist and I offended you, then please accept my apology. That wasn't my intention, really.
lazyjones 7y ago
> but the use value of your tenth car is much lower than having those same ten cars (and thus the same productivity) spread across ten people. But the point is that any (however small) value for the person who earned it is justified, while whatever value it might have for other people is irrelevant, since it's not theirs. In the same way you could argue that buying a car in the first world is immoral because buying it for someone else in the third world would provide them with higher value. Earned wealth is not public wealth, unless we live in communist utopia where nobody earns or owns anything.
- JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
  Why is it all or nothing? A government can certainly form policies and implement changes that attempt to distribute wealth more equitably. Its kinda 101 stuff. That isn't new, is done all the time to varying degrees, and is many, many times removed from "communist utopia".
- LaserToy 7y ago
  Well, that is a philosophical question. You could’ve used a bus a saved 1000 kids in Africa or you could’ve bought a car and let them die. Same applies for people in another state or even city. We don’t want to pay for someone’s else cancer treatment. We just don’t think about it and most of us just don’t care. I did care more when I was younger, but rose glasses tend to fall when you grow up. I now leaning towards capitalism when I will treat you as bad as the law allows me and extract as much money is possible as it is a fair game. Welcome to corporate America.
  - generalpass 7y ago
    > Well, that is a philosophical question. You could’ve used a bus a saved 1000 kids in Africa or you could’ve bought a car and let them die. Same applies for people in another state or even city. We don’t want to pay for someone’s else cancer treatment. > We just don’t think about it and most of us just don’t care. I did care more when I was younger, but rose glasses tend to fall when you grow up. I now leaning towards capitalism when I will treat you as bad as the law allows me and extract as much money is possible as it is a fair game. > Welcome to corporate America. Why is it that kids in Africa are going to die but not kids in the U.S.? How has such an incredible disparity in wealth come to be? Isn't the incentive structure of private capital ownership a pretty big part in this?
roenxi 7y ago
> His point is that by buying your tenth car you will contribute to productivity, but the use value of your tenth car is much lower than having those same ten cars (and thus the same productivity) spread across ten people. How does he know that? That isn't an obvious thing at all. I know a bloke who owns 5 cars; his family has 5 people in it. They are a very productive family and they get a lot done for the public good as a family with those cars. The quoted example only works because the premise is that the money is going to be wasted and then the conclusion is that the money is being wasted. A weak example. I can guarantee all investment is done by wealthy people; poor people can't invest by virtue of having no money. Practically all investment is done by the middle- and upper- classes. It isn't really possible to make a pithy point about this sort of thing because there needs to be discussion of things like investment outcomes; some subjects can't be simplified. "Public Good" isn't an instant thing, it takes place over time.
- mrow84 7y ago
  I thought it was clear (though obviously not) from the example that it was an idealised case, where "ownership" was referring to exclusive use. Your counter-example does not fit that simplified model - you are effectively describing a case where there is one car per person. The premise is not that "wasting money is wasteful", but rather that unequal distribution of resources is wasteful. It is not the case that all investment is done by wealthy people - large amounts of investment is carried out and directed by governments. Indeed, my understanding is that, if one properly accounts for failed enterprises, there is no significant evidence for greater efficiency in private markets than public ones, both in terms of time-averaged economic growth, and in terms of generating large technological improvements.

by mrow84 7y ago

hogFeast 7y ago

This is one of the most ideological interviews I have ever read with an economist. Economists are unusually unaware of ideology, this is extraordinary: conducts limited research with limited applications (i.e. how people behave in lab conditions under unequal endowments), makes sweeping conclusions about tangentially related areas, makes sweeping conclusions about unrelated areas (most of the questions are unrelated to his research), and most of what he says just appears to totally random ideological musings about who adds value in society (this isn't even a question that economics can answer). You see this from economists who fail out of physics close to 100% of the time. They don't really understand anything about the private sector, they understand even less about the economy (they just want to do things that they enjoy rather than produce things for others), and they often have these very strong feelings about capitalism...without really having any evidence for these views (or any awareness of the trade-offs...again, this is the kind of thing you don't learn in physics/math class).

mrow84 7y ago
You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but unfortunately this process is how our understanding of the world has increased so rapidly over the past several hundred years - laboriously proposing new models, often from intuitions we have derived from observations, and then trying to test those models by obtaining experimental evidence. If things bear out then we put more effort in, and conduct more thorough research. There are many instances of poor practice within that framework, but the process _as a whole_ has worked pretty well so far, and what is discussed here is pretty standard. As for the Nautilus post itself, it is just an interview with someone who works in the field, not a rigorous scientific document, and they are free (surely?) to express their views about whatever they and the interviewer wish to discuss. To your later points - I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you, but I would suggest that the person in question does have _some_ understanding of the economy (at least), inasmuch as they have contributed to a formalised understanding of the dynamics of the economy as we (humanity) currently understand them. I'm not entirely sure what else you want - perfect predictions or go home? Frankly it just sounds like you disagreed with what they said, but, as I already mentioned, you are as entitled to your opinion (as they are to theirs).
- _jal 7y ago
  > I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you It means the object of scorn does not share certain assumptions about the underlying purpose of economics. To be roughly as unfairly sweeping as the gp, you get that a lot from Chicago school types.
youdontknowtho 7y ago
I personally think that economics is propaganda. Economists may think they are above ideology, but...
- mrow84 7y ago
  The study of economics is conducted by a large number of people (many thousands), with (apparently, at least) diverse views. I am interested in your answers to these questions: 1. Do you believe that all economists are engaged in distributing propaganda, or just some? 2. To what end is the propaganda distributed (or maybe on whose behalf)? 3. Are other academic fields similarly concerned with distributing propaganda?
  - youdontknowtho 7y ago
    So, I'm not saying that all academia is a front for aliens. I'm saying that the narrative produced from the status quo in economics has been, for almost all of my life, very conducive to the interests of the powerful. Do other fields have people doing that? Of course. The petroleum industry has been able to pay for people to push their agenda. That's a thing that happens. There are some historical, political, and material reasons for the state of economics and academia in general. Lots of academia is literally just job training for corporations, so don't front like it's above the fray. Even genuine, and valuable, research gets prioritized over less research that isn't as valuable in the private sector. So, again, I'm not the one saying that academia has a problem. Lot's of academics have said these things. Also, from an argumentative perspective it always seems like economics starts from something like a thought experiment and then go on to use the results of that "experiment" as a evidence in its own right. Yes, Einstein used thought experiments, but he used known physics as the starting point. I hear economic arguments that start with a premise that isn't a settled thing like "lets assume that we are hunter gatherers on the savanna and you have some beads and I have an arrowhead." It's not based on a measurement that other people have made and agree on. It's not even based on an archaeological dig where the bones of two people were found. I realize that isn't what actually goes into a phd thesis. Its economics used as a force of nature that bothers me. It's inevitable. Maybe I'm just calling economics the pseudo-ish stuff that I get presented as a layman. Maybe every economics school in every university has a healthy group of people who are critical of basic assumptions. I hope so. If you are an economist and I offended you, then please accept my apology. That wasn't my intention, really.

lazyjones 7y ago

> but the use value of your tenth car is much lower than having those same ten cars (and thus the same productivity) spread across ten people. But the point is that any (however small) value for the person who earned it is justified, while whatever value it might have for other people is irrelevant, since it's not theirs. In the same way you could argue that buying a car in the first world is immoral because buying it for someone else in the third world would provide them with higher value. Earned wealth is not public wealth, unless we live in communist utopia where nobody earns or owns anything.

JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
Why is it all or nothing? A government can certainly form policies and implement changes that attempt to distribute wealth more equitably. Its kinda 101 stuff. That isn't new, is done all the time to varying degrees, and is many, many times removed from "communist utopia".
LaserToy 7y ago
Well, that is a philosophical question. You could’ve used a bus a saved 1000 kids in Africa or you could’ve bought a car and let them die. Same applies for people in another state or even city. We don’t want to pay for someone’s else cancer treatment. We just don’t think about it and most of us just don’t care. I did care more when I was younger, but rose glasses tend to fall when you grow up. I now leaning towards capitalism when I will treat you as bad as the law allows me and extract as much money is possible as it is a fair game. Welcome to corporate America.
- generalpass 7y ago
  > Well, that is a philosophical question. You could’ve used a bus a saved 1000 kids in Africa or you could’ve bought a car and let them die. Same applies for people in another state or even city. We don’t want to pay for someone’s else cancer treatment. > We just don’t think about it and most of us just don’t care. I did care more when I was younger, but rose glasses tend to fall when you grow up. I now leaning towards capitalism when I will treat you as bad as the law allows me and extract as much money is possible as it is a fair game. > Welcome to corporate America. Why is it that kids in Africa are going to die but not kids in the U.S.? How has such an incredible disparity in wealth come to be? Isn't the incentive structure of private capital ownership a pretty big part in this?

roenxi 7y ago

> His point is that by buying your tenth car you will contribute to productivity, but the use value of your tenth car is much lower than having those same ten cars (and thus the same productivity) spread across ten people. How does he know that? That isn't an obvious thing at all. I know a bloke who owns 5 cars; his family has 5 people in it. They are a very productive family and they get a lot done for the public good as a family with those cars. The quoted example only works because the premise is that the money is going to be wasted and then the conclusion is that the money is being wasted. A weak example. I can guarantee all investment is done by wealthy people; poor people can't invest by virtue of having no money. Practically all investment is done by the middle- and upper- classes. It isn't really possible to make a pithy point about this sort of thing because there needs to be discussion of things like investment outcomes; some subjects can't be simplified. "Public Good" isn't an instant thing, it takes place over time.

mrow84 7y ago
I thought it was clear (though obviously not) from the example that it was an idealised case, where "ownership" was referring to exclusive use. Your counter-example does not fit that simplified model - you are effectively describing a case where there is one car per person. The premise is not that "wasting money is wasteful", but rather that unequal distribution of resources is wasteful. It is not the case that all investment is done by wealthy people - large amounts of investment is carried out and directed by governments. Indeed, my understanding is that, if one properly accounts for failed enterprises, there is no significant evidence for greater efficiency in private markets than public ones, both in terms of time-averaged economic growth, and in terms of generating large technological improvements.