Economics Questions

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

MaikU — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:56:14 GMT

Austrian Economics are normal economics :D Gee

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

Wheylous — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:48:03 GMT

Sorry to chime in so late, but I wanted to add this:

Can we just let normal economists handle this stuff? I am not sure we need Austrian attention for this. Almost all economists see the need for a price system.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

filc — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:32:27 GMT

Sounds about right to me!

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

CernelJoson — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 23:04:38 GMT

Fringeelements made a video about TVP/Zeitgeist and economic calculation. He concluded that there is nothing to criticize because there is no actual plan. Advocates of these systems simply assert that the problem will be solved without even understanding the nature of economic calculation, nevermind any details about how it will be dealt with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfBYDRgoA58

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

filc — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:42:45 GMT

EIRMOS:
Flic, I'm not familiar w/those terms..

Your certain your not familiar with Modern Monetary Theory? You comments almost sound verbatim MMT.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

justintempler — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:12:34 GMT

EIRMOS,

Your answer is still incoherent. You haven't answered a single thing.

"Socialist planned economies are not what Zeitgeist promotes. Socialism is a conceptualization based on history that does not apply. TZM does not promote Government. Government is likely to become irrelevant when the movement gains critical mass. Critical mass is necessary for society to change. That's the goal, or at least, one of the mains goals of the Zeitgeist Movement."

It seems you don't even have a basic understanding of what socialism is.

Whether a system is Capitalistic or Socialistic is about who controls the means of production.

Means of production - refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production: the factories, mines, machines, and tools used to produce wealth, along with both infra structural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital. (notice that financial capital aka money is not included in the definition, nor is human capital aka labor )

Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled co-operatively, or a political philosophy advocating such a system.

Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit.

Zeitgeist doesn't believe in private property ownership, Zeitgeist does not believe in profits. Zeitgeist is 100% Socialism.

Zeitgeist hates labels because then it means you have to deal with the failures of previous attempts at achieving Socialism, (Communism, Marxism, Leninism, etc etc) I'm sorry you don't like the baggage that comes with your philosophy but that doesn't change the fact that you are Socialists. Deal with it. You need to develop your own philosophy at achieving the end goal without repeating the mistakes of Marx and Lenin.

"Society would solve it's own problems more than it creates them when the MonetaryMarket System and arguably, Government are no longer socially acceptable. Private ownership becomes a non-issue.."

Society doesn't solve anything. Society is a concept, not a thing. Society does not have a mind, society does not think, society does not act. Only individuals have minds, only individuals can think, only individuals can act. Only when you arrange individuals into abstract groups in your mind do they become what you call "society". It takes individuals within your concept of society to start solving problems, society isn't solving problems individuals are. Only when YOU stop using government services and only when YOU reject private property will any of this happen ( but i guess you are waiting for everyone else to do it first?)

"What intrinsic flaws would there be?"

I don't know you haven't shown us anything yet? We have no vision of how you are going to achieve any of your goals.

"How the alternative works is through the Scientific Method for arriving at decisions. Also, critical mass is an important aspect of social change. For the Monetary Market system and Government to be removed, it is necessary.. Problems seem to repeatedly revolve around those two social constructs . I think about HOW all the time. As for gaining critical mass, there are many ways to go about this. We consider how do go about these things a lot, believe you me. Does that help answer your questions at all?"

The Scientific Method does not arrive at decisions. The Scientific Method is a means for testing a theory to arrive at facts. Those facts are what are used by humans to arrive at decisions. Humans are the ones asking the questions and doing the choosing. Science doesn't decide anything.

You keep complaining about government and the monetary market system but you haven't told us a single thing about HOW your alternative works. What system does Zeitgeist propose to use to manage the means of production, how are you going to gain access to resources, how are you going to manage those resources, how are going to distribute these resources.

If you don't have a government, then who builds the factories, who decides what is going to built, who decides what is going to be produced?

You haven't even begun to answer any of my questions. So far all I see is a free for all.

Zeitgeist can't even agree with TVP on how to get "there", (whatever "there" is?) what makes you think "society" will agree with you if you can't even agree among yourselves?

"Here, I searched around, this could help, it's very recent. Part 2 is the Q&A part.. "

No it doesn't help, I watched the LA Town Hall meeting live on Ustream the night it happened, I didn't need to search for it. It doesn't answer anything.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

EIRMOS — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:20:25 GMT

Flic, I'm not familiar w/those terms..

From what I just (and I admit, little) read from the Wiki of Chartalism, no.

The last monetary reform I remember last seeing as reasonable (before the system as a whole becomes no longer tolerated by a critical mass), was to abolish Interest so that at least, poorer countries who owed us money, stood more of chance against poverty.

I probably missed the point flic.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

filc — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:09:16 GMT

Are you a MMT advocate? A Chartalist?

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

EIRMOS — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:04:00 GMT

JustinTemplar,

Those who agree with this criticism argue it is a refutation of non-market socialism and that it shows that a socialist planned economy could never work.

if government owned or controlled the means of production, then no rational prices could be obtained for capital goods as they were merely internal transfers of goods in a socialist system and not "objects of exchange," unlike final goods. Therefore, they were unpriced and hence the system would be necessarily inefficient since the central planners would not know how to allocate the available resources efficiently

<--(ECP wiki)

Socialist planned economies are not what Zeitgeist promotes. Socialism is a conceptualization based on history that does not apply. TZM does not promote Government. Government is likely to become irrelevant when the movement gains critical mass. Critical mass is necessary for society to change. That's the goal, or at least, one of the mains goals of the Zeitgeist Movement.

How would you solve the problem of ordering your society so that it functions without private ownership and without money?

Society would solve it's own problems more than it creates them when the MonetaryMarket System and arguably, Government are no longer socially acceptable. Private ownership becomes a non-issue..

If your alternative to capitalism has as many or more flaws compared to capitalism, then even with all its flaws capitalism is still the winner.

What intrinsic flaws would there be?

You actually have to propose something better. And don't waste your time arguing for the end result, tell us HOW your alternative works.

How the alternative works is through the Scientific Method for arriving at decisions. Also, critical mass is an important aspect of social change. For the Monetary Market system and Government to be removed, it is necessary.. Problems seem to repeatedly revolve around those two social constructs . I think about HOW all the time. As for gaining critical mass, there are many ways to go about this. We consider how do go about these things a lot, believe you me. Does that help anwer your questions at all?

Here, I searched around, this could help, it's very recent. Part 2 is the Q&A part..

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

bbnet — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 23:33:42 GMT

EIRMOS wrote :

Capitalism is not self centered, it is flat and thrives on cooperation.

Could you show me more what you mean?

Capitalism allows us to benefit ourselves by benefiting others. This ussually requires cooperation from countless different market actors many of which remain unrecognized. From a simple pencil to a complicated automobile, the process from production to consumption involves numerous cooperative exchanges between the market actors. The actor at the start of the process, e.g. miner, is as neccessary as the one in the middle, e.g. assembler, as is the one at the end, e.g. consumer. It's a chain based on hand holding, not fist fights.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

filc — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:57:11 GMT

EIRMOS:
It doesn't seem evil or anything, but it just seems a bit out of balance to me.

I don't understand. Balance of what? Show me a person performing a supposed selfless act and I'll show you someone acting in his own self-interest.

All acts are selfish. All.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

justintempler — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:54:15 GMT

EIRMOS,

Your posts are all over the place almost to point of being incoherent. Forget capitalism for a second and actually deal with the topic of this thread.

Solve the Economic Calculation Problem.

How would you solve the problem of ordering your society so that it functions without private ownership and without money?

If your alternative to capitalism has as many or more flaws compared to capitalism, then even with all its flaws capitalism is still the winner.

You actually have to propose something better. And don't waste your time arguing for the end result, tell us HOW your alternative works.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

EIRMOS — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:41:14 GMT

Capitalism is not self centered, it is flat and thrives on cooperation.

Could you show me more what you mean?

From my quote earlier on Capitalism, "The essential nature of capitalism is social harmony through the pursuit of self-interest.. Under capitalism, the individual's pursuit of his own economic self-interest simultaneously benefits the economic self-interests of all others"

It doesn't seem evil or anything, but it just seems a bit out of balance to me.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

filc — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:39:48 GMT

Eirmos:
Polarizing reason from empiricism, it is the Monetary Market System that polarizes opinions.

The type of monetary or economic system is irrelevant to the fact that individuals hold different subjective opinions. There is no objective criteria or standard for what is a success or failure.

Eirmos:
And opinions aren't necessarily scientific facts.

That is precisely the point. It's not scientific at all.

Eirmos:
If it is, then it's not really a scientific observation of economics (but opinion).

Correct and any attempt to assign an instance where there was a "Success" or a "Failure" as classified by your own set of critieria is nothing more then an elaborate opinion. It's not science at all. Any one can set the criteria and variables to look for.

So when you try to analyze what is a success or a failure your not being scientific. Your just expressing an opinion.

Eirmos:
Empiricism is an important aspect concerning the nature of Scientific Method.

That it is. It's application however is different in nature than it is with social sciences. As stated above, we cannot test where there exists no constants.

Eirmos:
The trend for flipping a fair coin is 0.5 probability squared for each consecutive coin flip.. The odds are always 0.5 heads 0.5 tails for each coin flip.. It doesn't matter if you got 100 heads in a row.. On the 101st coin flip the odds are still 0.5 for getting another heads. However, probability becomes increasingly less for deviation from the 1:1 trend, so actually odds exponentially decrease when the 1:1 ratio is deviated from, but there are outliers..

Over time, the trend completely evens out to 1:1. That is reality.. But yes, just saying well 80% of ten coins were tails so that must be a universal trend, is false.

Flip 4 coins: it is 1:16 that you get all heads, 1:16 that you get all tails, 4:16 you get 3tails1head, 4:16 3heads 1tail, 6:16 you get 2tails 2heads

Try doing 16 flips, see how many times the result is all heads out of 16.

http://www.random.org/coins/

I made a reference to the coin metaphore for a reason. There are scientists who argue that we must prove the ratio of heads to tails by perpetually running tests. I am a scientist asking us to use logic that will deliver us to the same conclusion while saving an enourmous amount of time. My reasoning will also help you interprit your test results better then the extreme empiricist.

Eirmos:
I will keep this in mind, if you'd like to go into more detail about that, be my guest, sounds interesting. . B/c that seems to fly in the face of many things.

This is called praxeology. It is the most fundamental, most basic, tenant of Austrian Economics. To an Austrian the very idea of Capitalism is defined from it.

Eirmos:
The whole not knowing market success from failure.. Capitalism is supposed to benefit the individual and also everyone else, even non-Capitalists . So to an extent, if one sees a failure where another sees success, then I suppose causality kicks in eventually and benefits the ones who had a negative perception of the incident, more or less?

It all depends on what the ends sought are. I am no mind reader so I cannot say.

Re: Economic Calculation Problem Debunked!??

EIRMOS — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:05:15 GMT

The problem here is that your subjectively elected criteria of what is market success and what is market failure differs from other people. On the market there is not necessarily successes and failures. The market just is, it's not a matter of right and wrong or success and fail. A product may die out or its growth may stifle. Depending on the parties involved and the goals of various individuals those situations could be both failures and successes. For some people it may be a success, for others it may be a failure.

--"Subjectively elected criteria" is a hallmark of the Monetary Market System (creates economic bias where such bias is counterproductive), whether that has anything to do w/Free Market or Capitalism or not, it is the case. Remove subjectively elected criteria and there is still decision making. The idea is for decisions to be arrived at by the Scientific Method.

Polarizing reason from empiricism, it is the Monetary Market System that polarizes opinions. . And opinions aren't necessarily scientific facts. Success and failure concerning the economics of a market cannot be the result of opinion. . If it is, then it's not really a scientific observation of economics (but opinion). . Empiricism is an important aspect concerning the nature of Scientific Method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis

The most severe weakness and abuse of meta-analysis often occurs when the person or persons doing the meta-analysis have an economic, social,or political agenda such as the passage or defeat of legislation. Those persons with these types of agenda have a high likelihood to abuse meta-analysis due to personal bias. For example, researchers favorable to the author's agenda are likely to have their studies "cherry picked" while those not favorable will be ignored or labeled as "not credible". In addition, the favored authors may themselves be biased or paid to produce results that support their overall political, social, or economic goals in ways such as selecting small favorable data sets and not incorporating larger unfavorable data sets.

If a meta-analysis is conducted by an individual or organization with a bias or predetermined desired outcome, it should be treated as highly suspect or having a high likelihood of being "junk science". From an integrity perspective, researchers with a bias should avoid meta-analysis and use a less abuse-prone (or independent) form of research.

The trend for flipping a fair coin is 0.5 probability squared for each consecutive coin flip.. The odds are always 0.5 heads 0.5 tails for each coin flip.. It doesn't matter if you got 100 heads in a row.. On the 101st coin flip the odds are still 0.5 for getting another heads. However, probability becomes increasingly less for deviation from the 1:1 trend, so actually odds exponentially decrease when the 1:1 ratio is deviated from, but there are outliers..

Over time, the trend completely evens out to 1:1. That is reality.. But yes, just saying well 80% of ten coins were tails so that must be a universal trend, is false.

Flip 4 coins: it is 1:16 that you get all heads, 1:16 that you get all tails, 4:16 you get 3tails1head, 4:16 3heads 1tail, 6:16 you get 2tails 2heads . Try doing 16 flips, see how many times the result is all heads out of 16.

http://www.random.org/coins/

When we are discussing the subjective opinions of individuals it becomes an impossibility to create a standard criteria of what is success or fail. Zealous attempts to follow the road of statistician will always be met in vain as long reason is ignored. We can only proceed down the road of extreme arrogance when we try to pretend to know what is a success or a failure. For some individuals the closure of a factory could be a success, for others a failure.

Now this does not mean I think we should abandon testing. The continued and unhealthy existing trend to polarize apriorism from a posteriori comes at a detriment to all forms of science, economics included. Testing is not done in place of reason, and vise versa. The two are used juntos.

I say this because you exhibit a desire to data mine where data mining would be counter-productive, meaningless and incoherent.

I will keep this in mind, if you'd like to go into more detail about that, be my guest, sounds interesting. . B/c that seems to fly in the face of many things.. The whole not knowing market success from failure.. Capitalism is supposed to benefit the individual and also everyone else, even non-Capitalists . So to an extent, if one sees a failure where another sees success, then I suppose causality kicks in eventually and benefits the ones who had a negative perception of the incident, more or less?