Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[wufwugy]

https://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com...st-capitalism/

There's no sense in going point by point, but I'll just mention that the author gets a good deal of stuff wrong.

Friedman himself even argues in favor of certain government interventions which are decidedly not capitalist.

Not everybody's perfect.


There is a great divide between what some economists say and what the economics itself says. I do my best to speak from the economics itself and ignore the politically biased statements made by some economists.

[Poopadoop]

Not everybody's perfect.

There is a great divide between what some economists say and what the economics itself says.

This sounds like you're saying most economists are way way off.

I do my best to speak from the economics itself and ignore the politically biased statements made by some economists.

Oh. I thought you were basing your ideas on Friedman's, I didn't realise you'd progressed beyond him into your own realm of understanding. Well done!

[wufwugy]

This sounds like you're saying most economists are way way off.

Economists themselves argue about this stuff. The spectrum of economists ranges from those who are free market advocates in virtually every way (like Bob Murphy), to free market advocates in almost all (but not all) ways (like Scott Sumner), to free market advocates in most ways but not when it comes to their political emotions (like Paul Krugman).

Oh. I thought you were basing your ideas on Friedman's, I didn't realise you'd progressed beyond him into your own realm of understanding. Well done!

I am deeply influenced by him. My influences are mainly Friedman, Sumner, Caplan, and the stuff I read in economics textbooks. A lot of economists think there is a problem among many economists in forgetting what the textbooks teach. I think it is not only that but that most economists too readily set aside what I think is the most important skill economists have: deducing from economic principle. Perhaps an example of this is how much we've heard economists discuss the minimum wage like it's anything other than creationism or flat earth-ism. The econometric approach to minimum wage makes it look like there is something worth looking at, but this is because the econometric approach provides very little evidence from which conclusions can be made. This instills poor habits in economists and misleads the public. What economists should instead do on the minimum wage (most of them do this fwiw, just not all) is point out that the law of demand and not-exactly-a-law of supply are theory as rock solid as theories get, and it is in a very simple deduction from them that an increase in the minimum wage is expected to decrease the demand for labor and/or increase the price of goods/services. Econometricians have a hard time showing this happen but that's because econometrics doesn't have the tools to show it happen in the first place.

[MadMojoMonkey]

What economists should instead do on the minimum wage (most of them do this fwiw, just not all) is point out that the law of demand and not-exactly-a-law of supply are theory as rock solid as theories get, and it is in a very simple deduction from them that an increase in the minimum wage is expected to decrease the demand for labor and/or increase the price of goods/services. Econometricians have a hard time showing this happen but that's because econometrics doesn't have the tools to show it happen in the first place.

It's exactly stuff like this which makes me skeptical about economics.

You say that supply and demand is as rock solid as economic theory gets, but then you say that it can't be shown to even happen in the first place on the example of minimum wage. Minimum wage is not a new issue, has changed many times in the past, and the idea that economists can't show that this plan is antithetical to positive economic growth tells me that they don't have anything from reality to affirm their position.

It sounds like a frat house echo chamber of people who have said things which "seem right" to each other enough that everyone now thinks it's a sign of mental deficiency to not say the thing is right. However, any truly rigorous analysis shows that this level of certainty is unjustified in the light of human complexity.

So the dissonance I find is that on the one hand, you put forth your economic ideas as though they are undisputed laws, when the reality is that that they are guesses at guidelines.

Which is fine, I guess, but I can't take you seriously when you tell people who disagree with you that they are wrong. If you can't demonstrate to another economist who wants to agree with you that the thing you mention is real, then how can you hope to convince people who think your ideas "seem" wrong?

[wufwugy]

It's exactly stuff like this which makes me skeptical about economics.

You say that supply and demand is as rock solid as economic theory gets, but then you say that it can't be shown to even happen in the first place on the example of minimum wage. Minimum wage is not a new issue, has changed many times in the past, and the idea that economists can't show that this plan is antithetical to positive economic growth tells me that they don't have anything from reality to affirm their position.

When economists can keep all other factors the same (ceteris paribus), they can demonstrate the supply and demand theories, and those theories have been demonstrated repeatedly. If they could do that with minimum wage, they would (they try, but ceteris paribus is so evasive on that level).