Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[MadMojoMonkey]

I have always claimed that people value things outside of that which is expressed in monetary terms.

Always? No, not always. I'd say not even often, if we're only talking about what you post on FTR.
You frequently attempt to make your economic points in terms of only money/profit and not of other human values.

Where do you emphasize the outside values in your position on minimum wage?

Like others, I'd gladly shill for the right price.

EITHER
A) Lies. I'm not talking about trivial things you'd say if you were perhaps working as an advertiser. I'm talking about your core beliefs.
OR
B) Fair enough. I assumed you were a man of principle, and not merely a tool of whatever highest bidder. At any rate, I'm talking about people with core principles which they hold as "unwavering."
I caution you to not be so quick to assume that other people are as variable in their morals as this attitude you just professed.

Let me rephrase, then: How much would you suggest the going rate is to pay a mother not to love her child?

Like others, I believe lots of things that I don't consider demonstrated fact.

So... ignoring my question and changing the subject?

I'm not arguing what you believe, I'm questioning how adamantly you assert certain beliefs, in the light of a drastic lack of the normal standard of proof you require for other beliefs you hold. I'm questioning your use of language which is superlatively affirmative of your economic ideas when you know full well that the standard of proof to which you hold them is less than your usual standard.

It would be very foolish to act like there is any reason to think that, when all else is equal, the minimum wage doesn't reduce the demand for labor. This is the case while accounting for the fact that econometricians have not been able to demonstrate causality.

Very foolish? You resort to a personal attack of your opposition's intelligence?
Not a compelling point.

Act? So anyone who is disagreeing with you is acting? I.e. they do not really believe what they're saying, but are just playing devil's advocate? It doesn't suit you to condescend, wuf.

What indication do you have that "all else is equal?" Why even stipulate such nonsense?

This is the case? You just said if I disagree with you, then I'm foolish or pretending or both, and that the existence of minimum wage doesn't change anything except the demand for labor. None of these things is true, and certainly not a demonstration of your point.

The glaring lack of a demonstrative causal relationship should at the very least quell your adamant stance. Your insistence that this is a trivial point looks more like stubbornness than someone seeking to understand a complicated subject.

***
Your assertion that all of your beliefs are on an equal footing as far as how firmly you believe them is actually a little bit funny or at least a bit cute, but I doubt that's what you were going for. (Now I'm the one condescending, but I am mostly messing with you, here).

[wufwugy]

You frequently attempt to make your economic points in terms of only money/profit and not of other human values.

In the post above, I explained how economists think of everything in terms of money (when possible). The policy points I have made favor profit because it is the best known option to account for the most meaningful variables most efficiently, not the perfect and comprehensive option.

Let me rephrase, then: How much would you suggest the going rate is to pay a mother not to love her child?

For most, infinity. It is reasonable to claim that most humans have lines they would not cross for any monetary incentive. I have lines for sure.

I'm not arguing what you believe, I'm questioning how adamantly you assert certain beliefs, in the light of a drastic lack of the normal standard of proof you require for other beliefs you hold. I'm questioning your use of language which is superlatively affirmative of your economic ideas when you know full well that the standard of proof to which you hold them is less than your usual standard.

I do my best, but I'm not perfect. If you see me assert something that you think is wrong, call me on that.

Very foolish? You resort to a personal attack of your opposition's intelligence?

I didn't intend to imply you. I meant me and others who know the theory.

What indication do you have that "all else is equal?"

Ability to hold all else equal is imperative for finding meaningful associations in econometrics.

The glaring lack of a demonstrative causal relationship should at the very least quell your adamant stance. Your insistence that this is a trivial point looks more like stubbornness than someone seeking to understand a complicated subject.

The lack of econometric conclusion on the matter does not change the equation much. This is because of how solid of other empirical conclusions the theory is based on. Consider bouncing a basketball on Mars. Have physicists conducted experimentation enough to conclude that basketballs bounce on Mars? No. If you ask a physicist if it is reasonable to claim that basketballs would bounce on Mars, would he say yes? Yes.

Your assertion that all of your beliefs are on an equal footing as far as how firmly you believe them is actually a little bit funny or at least a bit cute, but I doubt that's what you were going for. (Now I'm the one condescending, but I am mostly messing with you, here).

You'd be doing me a big favor if you called me on the things specifically when I do them.

Y'all need to call me on my shit. I know I post some shit from time to time (even though I try not to, I'm only human). Generalities don't necessarily help me to improve. Granted, calling me on my shit is liable to be a difficult task since I defend myself with vigor, but if you can somehow get it through my thick skull why I'm wrong, I will admit it. That is an absolute promise. I take great pride in admitting when I'm wrong. It is a quality that I believe if I ever lose I will become a silly and stupid person.

I once was a young earth creationist. I was wrong then, and I am capable of being wrong now.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I didn't intend to imply you. I meant me and others who know the theory.

What does that change? You're still saying that anyone "who knows the theory" and still disagrees with its assured application to minimum wage is foolish or disingenuous.

That's a prime feeding ground for echo-chamber thinking.

Ability to hold all else equal is imperative for finding meaningful associations in econometrics.

So you just assert that you can do it, then?
That's not sound reasoning.

How do you reconcile this idea with the description of economic systems as complex feedback loops?

The lack of econometric conclusion on the matter does not change the equation much. This is because of how solid of other empirical conclusions the theory is based on. Consider bouncing a basketball on Mars. Have physicists conducted experimentation enough to conclude that basketballs bounce on Mars? No. If you ask a physicist if it is reasonable to claim that basketballs would bounce on Mars, would he say yes? Yes.

This is a false equivalence and exactly my point about how you have a different standard for what counts as proof when it comes to various things you believe. Or at least the reasons you believe in gravity are at a far lower bar than a physicist's.
You know what, no they're not.
You've never once in your life ever observed anything which acted in violation of gravity. You'd know something was up in a second if you saw some hoax video which claimed to have anti-gravity because that's contrary to your every experience. You simply can't say the same for your economic ideas. Or if you can... you have yet to do so in a way that I agree with what you purport to have observed.

If 2 honest people can't agree on what they observed, then stipulating one of their observations as fact is premature.

I don't believe for a second that econometric conclusions are anywhere near as thoroughly tested as General Relativity. Can you make predictions which are accurate to 30+ decimal places?

The difference isn't trivial. Show me an economic principle which I can't shoot holes in immediately by just examining various human cultures and economies at various scales w/o ignoring the nuance and complexity of individuals.

Your overstatement of your ideas and lack of seeming understanding of when and how far you're extrapolating does your credibility no favors.

[wufwugy]

You're still saying that anyone "who knows the theory" and still disagrees with its assured application to minimum wage is foolish or disingenuous.

Yep. If the theory on this is wrong, the stock market crashes in five, four, three, two, one...

So you just assert that you can do it, then?

Interesting. I'm not the biggest fan of econometrics. Its tools are IMO weaker than econometricians believe and sometimes misleading to the public.

How do you reconcile this idea with the description of economic systems as complex feedback loops?

I don't understand the question.

This is a false equivalence and exactly my point about how you have a different standard for what counts as proof when it comes to various things you believe. Or at least the reasons you believe in gravity are at a far lower bar than a physicist's.
You know what, no they're not.
You've never once in your life ever observed anything which acted in violation of gravity. You'd know something was up in a second if you saw some hoax video which claimed to have anti-gravity because that's contrary to your every experience. You simply can't say the same for your economic ideas. Or if you can... you have yet to do so in a way that I agree with what you purport to have observed.

If I have observed the law of demand not holding up, then the food industry fails in five, four, three, two, one...

I don't believe for a second that econometric conclusions are anywhere near as thoroughly tested as General Relativity. Can you make predictions which are accurate to 30+ decimal places?

The difference isn't trivial. Show me an economic principle which I can't shoot holes in immediately by just examining various human cultures and economies at various scales w/o ignoring the nuance and complexity of individuals.

Your overstatement of your ideas and lack of seeming understanding of when and how far you're extrapolating does your credibility no favors.

I think there is a misunderstanding on the things I'm saying. I'm not a big fan of econometrics. However my opinion on it is forming as I learn more about it.

I do not know much about how the law of demand and the not-exactly-a-law of supply have been created, but you're free to research it. You'd probably understand that stuff better than me, since its mathy. What I do know is that my "if such n such, then failure in five four three two one..." comments are not meant to be snide. If supply and demand are wrong, the economy would not function the way it does now, big league, bigly. Most economic principles (at least as far as I can tell) are derived from supply and demand. When we do comparative statics by applying minimum wage to the model, we get decreased quantity demanded for labor.* The law of demand and not-exactly-a-law of supply have been verified scientifically so thoroughly that they're called laws (except supply, which has one small caveat in some hypothetical situation that I don't think has been conclusively observed in the real world, but that can exist theoretically).

*Previously I said "demand" instead of "quantity demanded." The comparative statics with ceteris paribus shows decrease in quantity demanded (movement along the curve), not a decrease in demand (shift of the curve itself). It's not uncommon to get the two mixed up, but the nitpick is important technically. Most writing from non-economists about economics uses "demand" for both even though it's wrong. I've done it more than once for sure.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Yep. If the theory on this is wrong, the stock market crashes in five, four, three, two, one...

That's not the question. You're saying that not only is this theory true within its tested domain, but therefore true beyond its tested domain, and if you don't agree, then you're a fool, a liar or both.

Its still just bro-talk and echo chamber logic.

It's equivalent to me saying, "This is physics on my side of the event horizon, so it must be the physics on the other side of the event horizon." It may be true. It may not. Until and unless it can be tested it's just speculation.

I don't understand the question.

How can any postulate in economics have "all else being equal" when economic systems are well described as complex feedback loops?
I.e. any change to a large/developed/complex economic system can have repercussions throughout the system.

How can part of your assertion be that there will be no repercussions to the system aside from this one thing?

If I have observed the law of demand not holding up, then the food industry fails in five, four, three, two, one...

These flip answers just shred your credibility, btw.

You can't make specific predictions with this law, so you wouldn't know if you did or did not observe it. You can always apply the law after the fact and say it was there, even when you learn new information which changes your perception of the demands at play which led to the same historical outcome. When a theory describes a thing and its opposite without nuance, then it may be a fun game to play, but it might as well be astrology.

You keep dodging the topic of minimum wage and how you can possibly apply this method of assigning a metric to human emotions, or make any specific prediction about the results of anything related to minimum wage.

I think there is a misunderstanding on the things I'm saying. I'm not a big fan of econometrics. However my opinion on it is forming as I learn more about it.

I do not know much about how the law of demand and the not-exactly-a-law of supply have been created, but you're free to research it. You'd probably understand that stuff better than me, since its mathy. What I do know is that my "if such n such, then failure in five four three two one..." comments are not meant to be snide. If supply and demand are wrong, the economy would not function the way it does now, big league, bigly. Most economic principles (at least as far as I can tell) are derived from supply and demand. When we do comparative statics by applying minimum wage to the model, we get decreased quantity demanded for labor.* The law of demand and not-exactly-a-law of supply have been verified scientifically so thoroughly that they're called laws (except supply, which has one small caveat in some hypothetical situation that I don't think has been conclusively observed in the real world, but that can exist theoretically).

*Previously I said "demand" instead of "quantity demanded." The comparative statics with ceteris paribus shows decrease in quantity demanded (movement along the curve). However I think it is correct to say that the eventual effect is a decrease in demand (shift of the curve itself).

OK, so if you admit you don't understand it, then stop saying barely understood words as though you have real understanding about these True Facts.

If (IF) supply and demand are wrong (on that scale), then the big bigly economy is still what it is, just poorly described, you doof.

I'm saying this thing you hold so highly, as these ideas of supply and demand are fine and work in retrospect on large scales. I'm also saying that those large scales are not the only scales and other things go on in the smallest scales, like households, which are in a very real way affecting the largest scales.

Is it remotely appropriate to assign notions of supply and demand to a family raising a newborn baby? They aren't motivated by economic factors and their values are nowhere treating each other as capitalist resources... well, maybe in the stressful moments, a bit... but that's not their true feelings or best responses. It's not about getting their economic return when they teach the child to read. Your law of supply and demand does not describe these interactions, which are clearly an exchange of value between humans.

Furthermore, if I may bring it back on to minimum wage. Vis a vis the human emotional need to help other people in altruistic ways, is minimum wage a way that society decides to bargain on behalf of those who lack the means, capability or know-how to bargain for themselves? Is it a means whereby society decides that we hold ourselves to a standard where just because someone isn't begging for enough money to live in our society, but are working within the system to try to do so, that doesn't mean that they deserve to starve or die of a curable illness?

Does supply and demand describe this, too?

[wufwugy]

That's not the question. You're saying that not only is this theory true within its tested domain, but therefore true beyond its tested domain, and if you don't agree, then you're a fool, a liar or both.

It's equivalent to me saying, "This is physics on my side of the event horizon, so it must be the physics on the other side of the event horizon." It may be true. It may not. Until and unless it can be tested it's just speculation.

The basketball bouncing on Mars is a fitting analogy. Physicists have great reason to believe that what they know about science is different past the event horizon, but they do not have reason to believe that what they know about gravity on Mars is different than current theory (at least not by more than very tiny differences).

How can any postulate in economics have "all else being equal" when economic systems are well described as complex feedback loops?

It's essential to determining causality. Physicists deal with the same thing. When experimenting, all else must be unchanged even though the physical world is complex. If this isn't the case, confounding variables arise.

I.e. any change to a large/developed/complex economic system can have repercussions throughout the system.

This is a reason why econometric tools are pretty bad at finding effects of minimum wages in the real world.

How can part of your assertion be that there will be no repercussions to the system aside from this one thing?

I don't assert that. In the real world we could see quantity demanded of labor increase after a minimum wage is instituted even while increasing the price of labor decreases the quantity demanded of labor, but it would be because of other variables that changed with the minimum wage.

These flip answers just shred your credibility, btw.

I'll admit the style probably is not persuasive (I was drinking some whiskey), but the statements are correct.

You can't make specific predictions with this law, so you wouldn't know if you did or did not observe it.

We can and have. The law is empirical.

You keep dodging the topic of minimum wage and how you can possibly apply this method of assigning a metric to human emotions, or make any specific prediction about the results of anything related to minimum wage.

I'm answering the question, just apparently not well.

OK, so if you admit you don't understand it, then stop saying barely understood words as though you have real understanding about these True Facts.

My understanding of how scientists came to determine the law has no bearing on whether or not I am allowed to explain what it means.

If (IF) supply and demand are wrong (on that scale), then the big bigly economy is still what it is, just poorly described, you doof.

The laws are probably wrong in very small ways. If they're wrong enough that price of labor increases, when all else is held constant, would increase the quantity demanded of labor, then things would look very different than they currently do. Nonsensically different and there would be no economy. It would be as nonsensical as if physicists were wrong enough about gravity that mass actually repels.

Is it remotely appropriate to assign notions of supply and demand to a family raising a newborn baby?

Yes they apply to everything that involves a decision. As the cost of doing something regarding your baby increases, the desired amount that you want to do that things decreases, on average and all else kept equal.

They aren't motivated by economic factors and their values are nowhere treating each other as capitalist resources... well, maybe in the stressful moments, a bit... but that's not their true feelings or best responses. It's not about getting their economic return when they teach the child to read. Your law of supply and demand does not describe these interactions, which are clearly an exchange of value between humans.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Topic...economics.html

Furthermore, if I may bring it back on to minimum wage. Vis a vis the human emotional need to help other people in altruistic ways, is minimum wage a way that society decides to bargain on behalf of those who lack the means, capability or know-how to bargain for themselves? Is it a means whereby society decides that we hold ourselves to a standard where just because someone isn't begging for enough money to live in our society, but are working within the system to try to do so, that doesn't mean that they deserve to starve or die of a curable illness?

It certainly is society bargaining on the behalf of others. Bargaining badly.

[Poopadoop]

The problems I see with economics as a discipline are threefold (and bear in mind I'm no expert, so take this with a grain of salt):

First, it seems to have at its core the idea that humans are rational creatures who optimize their choices when it comes to money, and thus will behave in predictable ways. In contrast, there's ample evidence that people are irrational in many situations. It's a very shaky foundation.

Second, it's trying to explain a chaotic system. The number of variables and their interactions are so complicated as to be nearly impossible to model, especially when no-one understands the nature of the variables or their interactions in detail.

Third, the sum of the first two problems is that you end up with a discipline where opposing models can have equal theoretical merit, and can be argued for equally convincingly. That makes it interesting and frustrating at the same time, and the overall impression is that neither side really understands things as well as they claim to.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The basketball bouncing on Mars is a fitting analogy. Physicists have great reason to believe that what they know about science is different past the event horizon, but they do not have reason to believe that what they know about gravity on Mars is different than current theory (at least not by more than very tiny differences).

No. Physicists have no reason whatsoever to think physics is different on the other side of an event horizon. We have no evidence or data on those locations. Every other place we have gathered data, though, physics is the same. So there's an established pattern of same-ness in physics which is independent of location. So, according to your reasoning w.r.t. minimum wage, we have reason to believe physics should be the same. We can guess, but we can't - in good faith - assert those guesses as physical laws.

It's essential to determining causality. Physicists deal with the same thing. When experimenting, all else must be unchanged even though the physical world is complex. If this isn't the case, confounding variables arise.

In physics, we have the luxury of "perfect" control groups in our experiments. When we say, "all else is unchanged" we mean, "look right there where we have the identical setup as here, but over there we do NOT do the thing we do over here. Observe the difference? It does that every time, in a rigorously predictable way." Sometimes that rigorous predictability involves probability distributions, and that's a bit odd to say it was a rigorous prediction, but it truly is. When we define the probability distribution we expect, then show it resolve after many repeated, identical experiments, that's a rigorous prediction.

You cannot do that in economics, and therefore your propensity to compare economic laws to physical laws is, again, false equivalence. The nature of physical law is not the same as the nature of economic law.

... and what bothers me is that it doesn't bother you that you see an equivalence between these very different things.

This is a reason why econometric tools are pretty bad at finding effects of minimum wages in the real world.

If you think they're bad, then why do you cite them as a reason to believe what you believe about minimum wage?

I don't assert that. In the real world we could see quantity demanded of labor increase after a minimum wage is instituted even while increasing the price of labor decreases the quantity demanded of labor, but it would be because of other variables that changed with the minimum wage.

You just said, "if what I said will happen doesn't happen, I'm still right about what I said, but the thing I stipulated wouldn't change - which is the foundation of my argument - wasn't controlled." Which is fine, but you cannot possibly expect to control that OR expect it to hold on its own without an active control. These together strip any meaning from your arguement.

I'll admit the style probably is not persuasive (I was drinking some whiskey), but the statements are correct.

I thought something was up.


... and no, they're not, as I have illustrated.

That's like me saying, "If QM is wrong then atoms don't exist." It's nonsense. The atoms in the periodic table exist regardless of any ideas in humans' heads. Just as economies will exist even if it is shown that the current understanding is garbage.

We can and have. The law is empirical.

No, you can't. No, you haven't. Show me your metric for human emotions and I'll show you a sheet of culturally biased assertions that only apply in microcosms.

That's not what "specific prediction" means.

That's not what "law" means in physics, but maybe what law means in a legal sense.

The economic rules are soft, the predictions vague. Calling them laws is a bastardized use of the word, even in the legal sense.

My understanding of how scientists came to determine the law has no bearing on whether or not I am allowed to explain what it means.

WTF? Pull your head into this space, man. I'd never, ever, in a bazillionplex years assert what you're allowed to do.
JKDS can do that. He enjoys thinking about morals and civil codes.

I'm not telling you you shouldn't say the things. I'm saying that claiming to someone else's expertise without your own observations and research to back it up is the opposite of science.

The laws are probably wrong in very small ways. If they're wrong enough that price of labor increases, when all else is held constant, would increase the quantity demanded of labor, then things would look very different than they currently do. Nonsensically different and there would be no economy. It would be as nonsensical as if physicists were wrong enough about gravity that mass actually repels.

This paragraph is designed to convince me to agree with you, but not compel me to agree with you.

The goal of science is to not let any arguments like this sway what you understand.

The fact that you put these ideas out in the same thought as your reference to physics seems to indicate that you conflate the soft guides in your field which are glorified by calling them "laws" with other ideas which are called "laws." The specificity of predictions that can be achieved in other scientific fields is far and away more precise than any of the soft sciences.

Conflating the weight of various scientific laws as identical is the real nonsense, here.

Yes they apply to everything that involves a decision. As the cost of doing something regarding your baby increases, the desired amount that you want to do that things decreases, on average and all else kept equal.

I can't wait until you have kids.

The point is... there are exceptions to what you just said, but you said it as thought its unequivocal, and that's why your credibility is pretty low on economics. I'm meeting more economists at work and the conversations are very different. They are ready to identify the complications with the rigid assertions you use.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Topic...economics.html

That page contradicts itself a dozen times, but is more of a history of defining economics. Is your point to show me that even the definition of economics is not a rigidly true statement?

'Cause that's what I took away from that link.

It certainly is society bargaining on the behalf of others. Bargaining badly.

More echo-chamber talk.

You have yet to convince me that you have an informed position on this topic.
I still do not agree with your assertion that having a minimum wage has a negative affect on productivity.


***
whew... there went an hour of my time...

I can't keep this up.