Curt Doolittle

Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

  • QUESTION: “CURT: WHY ARE YOU REFUTING MISES, ROTHBARD and HOPPE IF YOU ADVOCATE

    QUESTION: “CURT: WHY ARE YOU REFUTING MISES, ROTHBARD and HOPPE IF YOU ADVOCATE AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS?”

    Because Austrian Economics if stated scientifically, rather than rationally, constrains economics to moral theories and policies, and correctly repositions economics as a moral discipline: the search for institutional improvements to voluntary exchange – in the same way that I have tried to reposition science as a moral discipline: the search to speak the truth; and philosophy as the construction of meaning from the truth that we discover with science – a discipline which expressly lacks meaning (and must). If we seek means of

    (Note: You might want to re-read that paragraph a few times – it’s very important.)

    This is a profound transformation of multi-disciplinary intellectual history into a single, unified theory of peer-cooperation in pursuit of prosperity. And it corrects the errors inserted into the Cosmopolitan (Jewish) branch of Austrian economics by Mises (pseudoscience), and Rothbard (ghetto immorality – the absence of truth-telling), and Hoppe (German Rationalism)

    This transformation of western thought into truth-telling for the purpose of moral cooperation (voluntary exchanges among warriors of universally equal rank), explains why the west innovates and prospers at higher rates than the rest of the world, whenever it is not bound by babylonian-levantine mysticism, barbaric deception, or Asian systemic truth-avoidance: we work constantly to eliminate transaction costs and seize opportunities at lowest cost (early).

    This approach to man’s intellectual struggle correctly positions truth-telling along with trust (transaction costs), property, voluntary exchange, and contract as the necessary institutions of prosperity creation: the high trust society.

    Anglos attempted to combine science and morality – trusting man in the absence of moral authority. But anglos, were an island people without borders to defend, an homogenous in-bred people, and a heavily commercialized people. They had fewer fears. Defectors from moral norms are not a problem for an in-bred island people. There is no group to defect to.

    Germans attempted to combine philosophy and morality – a less radical transformation of religious authoritarian morality. Germans were a landed people with borders under constant question, and who were intermixed with other groups on all sides, and were not as economically diverse as the anglos and as such not as bound to trade. So, “defectors” – those who no longer pay the high cost of the normative commons, were more of a concern.

    Jewish cosmopolitan authors, an un-landed diasporic and separatist people, attempted to preserve internal rule-authoritarianism, separatism, and the parasitic value of separatist dual-ethics. They viewed host civilizations as hostile, generated separatist hostility internally by intention as a means of group cohesion, and often practiced dualist ethics that guaranteed their moral separatism.

    So each of these groups were, as all groups must, attempting to react to the enlightenment using their group evolutionary strategies: island naval and commercial, landed martial and agrarian-commercial, and unlanded, diasporic commercial.

    It is sometimes hard for us to imagine that our use of “Truth” reflects our group’s evolutionary strategy, and that many of our judgements are unconscious. But all groups use truth differently.

    Truth is unknowable and therefore merely contractual in Jewish philosophy – it is a purely pragmatic vision. In German philosophy, truth is dangerous and must be inseparable from duty, which is why all german philosophy conflates truth and duty. In anglo philosophy, truth is divine and its consequences divine – knowing the mind of god. Our duty is truth regardless of consequences, because we believe all consequences are optimum. Neo-puritanism, in the anglo world, which is the dominant postmodern philosophy in government and academy, does not practice anglo truth, but has adopted german and jewish counter-enlightenment philosophy of the sociology of knowledge and truth: truth is what we desire it to be.

    This is systematically destroying our rule of law, which has been, in the past, the source of our empiricism. The source of our science. Not the other way round. Without scientific law, we cannot have a scientific society.

    Law is the most influential property of any society because it determines what one must do, not what one prefers. As such, an unempirical laws, is an incalculable, undecideable, and therefore subjective law.

    The solution is to restore truth telling. To increase the scope of property to include the normative and informational commons. To use law to restore truth-telling.

    All society will adapt rapidly to this change. No authority is necessary. No leadership is necessary. No belief is necessary. No agreement is necessary. No ideology is necessary.

    It is just true, insufficient to know, or not true, and that is enough.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    L’viv Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-06 05:25:00 UTC

  • INCOME INEQUALITY OR FAMILY INEQUALITY? CURT: The degree to which inequality is

    INCOME INEQUALITY OR FAMILY INEQUALITY?

    CURT: The degree to which inequality is attributable to income or family reproduction is the difference between left and right positions on the economy. I suggest, that as usual, the right is more correct than the left. Since if the right position was corrected, the right would tolerate redistribution.

    —“among the wealthiest 20 percent of whites, divorce rates and single parenthood have returned to 1950s levels after a blip upward in the 1970s. But among the poorest 30 percent of whites — and among much larger percentages of Hispanics and blacks — divorce and single parenthood have become a way of life. That is exacerbated by the recent decline in college attendance by young men and the dearth of job opportunities for less educated men. That makes them less marriageable and less prepared to take responsibility for children they may father. Brookings Institution scholar Isabel Sawhill [states that] we are becoming a “bifurcated society,” not just because of income inequality but because of family formation patterns.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-06 05:14:00 UTC

  • Yes, Reforming Austrian Economics Is Necessary

    —“Calling Mises pseudoscientific is the typical positivistic criticism to Austrian Economics. It adds nothing. The young Austrian economists who are pupils of Don Lavoie had been working on Popper, Lakatos, Machlup and Hayek for a long time.”—Gabriel Zanotti, Philosophy Professor at Austral University

    [G]abriel

    1) Calling science positivistic (justificationary) is a typical Rothbardian/Misesian misrepresentation of the scientific method, which is critical not justificationary.

    2) Calling a logic (axiomatic, prescriptive, complete) a science (theoretical, descriptive, incomplete) is simply false. (And adds nothing, other than casting Austrian economics as a source of ridicule). Models can be built out of axioms or laws, but all axiomatic deductions are tautologies, producing proofs of operational possibility, while all laws remain incomplete and therefore non-tautological, producing additional hypotheses, which are candidates for theories and laws. But all theoretical statements remain theoretical. The reason being that all non-tautological premises remain forever theoretical.

    3) The ‘axiom’ of purposeful human action tells us precisely nothing since it may constitute a test, but not an axiom since it tells us nothing of the scope of possible purposeful human action. We can instead say that any economic hypothesis, theory, or law, must be reducible to a sequence of rational human actions, (operations) in order to be existentially possible.

    4) This difference is why we rely upon ratio-empiricism, not rationalism, and not positivism for scientific (truthful) investigation. Logical arguments test internal consistency but not external correspndence, and external correspondence does not tell us about the internal consistency of our arguments, and without operational-intuitionistic testing (operational definitions) we cannot know if what we imagine is existentially possible. And without falsification, assuming we are both internally consistent, externally correspondent, and existentially possible, we have not tested our internal, external, and operational theory for parsimony – leaving open the possibility of error, bias and deception in all three.

    5) The differences between mainstream (orthodox) economics, and Austrian (heterodox) economics, are (a)that manipulation of credit is disinformation (lying) which produces cumulative effects of disinformation (lying), and (b) that as an act of disinformation (fraud), manipulation of credit produces involuntary transfers (immorality), because it lacks fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of externality (moral constraint).

    6) Rationalists tend to be, and by definition, must be, justificationists – they are not critical. Justification in rationalism, is indifferent from positivism in science. They are identical propositions. No matter how much justification we do, we are merely engaging in confirmation bias. Instead, it is irrelevant which method we use to construct a theory. The means of constructing a theory are irrelevant. Justification is irrelevant. Truth candidates (internally consistent, externally correspondent, operationally possible, and ultimately parsimonious, yet incomplete statements) are produced by criticism: whether they survive scrutiny: testing.

    7) One *CAN* however, work through purely rational, non-positivistic processes, however, this is not to to say they are not working empirically (through observation). As far as I know this is impossible. But that does not mean they are not working ratio-empirically. It merely means that they are engaging in tests of internal consistency given current knowledge, and working using operational possibility (existential possibility), but that they are not criticizing their work through tests of external correspondence – although as far as we know, no one makes theories without tests of external correspondence, because that would mean we were not explaining economic phenomenon – which would be somewhat fruitless.
    (continued….) (…continued)

    8) This work remains ratio-empirical, and consistent with all other scientific investigation. However, so does mainstream economics (orthodoxy). And the ONLY DIFFERENCE between mainstream and Austrian economics then, is that the mainstream seeks to lie to us, and Austrians seek to speak the truth. So the difference is not methodological – it is whether we attempt to find improvements to institutions of cooperation that retain the western principle of truth telling, or we engage in lying. Keyenesian economics is dishonest, not usncientific. Austrian economics suggests only that economics must be practiced scientifically, not axiomatically, Economics is indifferent from all other sciences. The question is only whether we seek to tell the truth (Austrian) or to lie (Keynesian).

    9) And it is equally dishonest and pseudoscientific to state that an axiomatic system id identical to a theoretical system, and equally dishonest to cast mainstream economics as methodologically flawed. Particularly when Austrians have contributed nothing to the study of economics in nearly a century, while in the past twenty years alone, the orthodox community has expanded our knowledge of general rules and insight into our existing economies with regularity.

    10) The Cosmopolitan thinkers, like the german rationalists, are exceptional at this kind of deceptive conflation. A few of us think that it is a natural consequence of talumudic authoritarian dual ethics in the jewish community, and kantian authoritarian conflation of truth and duty in german philosophy. However, Mises and ROthbard and to some lesser degree Hoppe, have all tried to assert fallacies that cast the difference as possible, logical and methodological rather than as moral. Meanwhile the social democrats continue to justify the morality of takings (involuntary transfers) rather than treating every ‘taking’ as a lost opportunity for productive voluntary exchange – and therefore returning us to manorial era constraints upon the behavior of the unproductive classes that contributed to the rise of the west.

    CLOSING

    I hope this helped you understand my position. In my view I am attempting to restore Morality and truth-telling to economics. But that will not be done using fallacious arguments in the rationalist tradition. It will be by demonstrating that moral action using institutions that do not engage in lying, produce superior economic conditions: greater prosperity without the fragility caused by decade after decade of institutional lying.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    L’viv Ukraine

  • Yes, Reforming Austrian Economics Is Necessary

    —“Calling Mises pseudoscientific is the typical positivistic criticism to Austrian Economics. It adds nothing. The young Austrian economists who are pupils of Don Lavoie had been working on Popper, Lakatos, Machlup and Hayek for a long time.”—Gabriel Zanotti, Philosophy Professor at Austral University

    [G]abriel

    1) Calling science positivistic (justificationary) is a typical Rothbardian/Misesian misrepresentation of the scientific method, which is critical not justificationary.

    2) Calling a logic (axiomatic, prescriptive, complete) a science (theoretical, descriptive, incomplete) is simply false. (And adds nothing, other than casting Austrian economics as a source of ridicule). Models can be built out of axioms or laws, but all axiomatic deductions are tautologies, producing proofs of operational possibility, while all laws remain incomplete and therefore non-tautological, producing additional hypotheses, which are candidates for theories and laws. But all theoretical statements remain theoretical. The reason being that all non-tautological premises remain forever theoretical.

    3) The ‘axiom’ of purposeful human action tells us precisely nothing since it may constitute a test, but not an axiom since it tells us nothing of the scope of possible purposeful human action. We can instead say that any economic hypothesis, theory, or law, must be reducible to a sequence of rational human actions, (operations) in order to be existentially possible.

    4) This difference is why we rely upon ratio-empiricism, not rationalism, and not positivism for scientific (truthful) investigation. Logical arguments test internal consistency but not external correspndence, and external correspondence does not tell us about the internal consistency of our arguments, and without operational-intuitionistic testing (operational definitions) we cannot know if what we imagine is existentially possible. And without falsification, assuming we are both internally consistent, externally correspondent, and existentially possible, we have not tested our internal, external, and operational theory for parsimony – leaving open the possibility of error, bias and deception in all three.

    5) The differences between mainstream (orthodox) economics, and Austrian (heterodox) economics, are (a)that manipulation of credit is disinformation (lying) which produces cumulative effects of disinformation (lying), and (b) that as an act of disinformation (fraud), manipulation of credit produces involuntary transfers (immorality), because it lacks fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of externality (moral constraint).

    6) Rationalists tend to be, and by definition, must be, justificationists – they are not critical. Justification in rationalism, is indifferent from positivism in science. They are identical propositions. No matter how much justification we do, we are merely engaging in confirmation bias. Instead, it is irrelevant which method we use to construct a theory. The means of constructing a theory are irrelevant. Justification is irrelevant. Truth candidates (internally consistent, externally correspondent, operationally possible, and ultimately parsimonious, yet incomplete statements) are produced by criticism: whether they survive scrutiny: testing.

    7) One *CAN* however, work through purely rational, non-positivistic processes, however, this is not to to say they are not working empirically (through observation). As far as I know this is impossible. But that does not mean they are not working ratio-empirically. It merely means that they are engaging in tests of internal consistency given current knowledge, and working using operational possibility (existential possibility), but that they are not criticizing their work through tests of external correspondence – although as far as we know, no one makes theories without tests of external correspondence, because that would mean we were not explaining economic phenomenon – which would be somewhat fruitless.
    (continued….) (…continued)

    8) This work remains ratio-empirical, and consistent with all other scientific investigation. However, so does mainstream economics (orthodoxy). And the ONLY DIFFERENCE between mainstream and Austrian economics then, is that the mainstream seeks to lie to us, and Austrians seek to speak the truth. So the difference is not methodological – it is whether we attempt to find improvements to institutions of cooperation that retain the western principle of truth telling, or we engage in lying. Keyenesian economics is dishonest, not usncientific. Austrian economics suggests only that economics must be practiced scientifically, not axiomatically, Economics is indifferent from all other sciences. The question is only whether we seek to tell the truth (Austrian) or to lie (Keynesian).

    9) And it is equally dishonest and pseudoscientific to state that an axiomatic system id identical to a theoretical system, and equally dishonest to cast mainstream economics as methodologically flawed. Particularly when Austrians have contributed nothing to the study of economics in nearly a century, while in the past twenty years alone, the orthodox community has expanded our knowledge of general rules and insight into our existing economies with regularity.

    10) The Cosmopolitan thinkers, like the german rationalists, are exceptional at this kind of deceptive conflation. A few of us think that it is a natural consequence of talumudic authoritarian dual ethics in the jewish community, and kantian authoritarian conflation of truth and duty in german philosophy. However, Mises and ROthbard and to some lesser degree Hoppe, have all tried to assert fallacies that cast the difference as possible, logical and methodological rather than as moral. Meanwhile the social democrats continue to justify the morality of takings (involuntary transfers) rather than treating every ‘taking’ as a lost opportunity for productive voluntary exchange – and therefore returning us to manorial era constraints upon the behavior of the unproductive classes that contributed to the rise of the west.

    CLOSING

    I hope this helped you understand my position. In my view I am attempting to restore Morality and truth-telling to economics. But that will not be done using fallacious arguments in the rationalist tradition. It will be by demonstrating that moral action using institutions that do not engage in lying, produce superior economic conditions: greater prosperity without the fragility caused by decade after decade of institutional lying.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    L’viv Ukraine

  • YES, REFORMING AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS IS NECESSARY —“Calling Mises pseudoscientifi

    YES, REFORMING AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS IS NECESSARY

    —“Calling Mises pseudoscientific is the typical positivistic criticism to Austrian Economics. It adds nothing. The young Austrian economists who are pupils of Don Lavoie had been working on Popper, Lakatos, Machlup and Hayek for a long time.”—Gabriel Zanotti, Philosophy Professor at Austral University

    Gabriel

    1) Calling science positivistic (justificationary) is a typical Rothbardian/Misesian misrepresentation of the scientific method, which is critical not justificationary.

    2) Calling a logic (axiomatic, prescriptive, complete) a science (theoretical, descriptive, incomplete) is simply false. (And adds nothing, other than casting Austrian economics as a source of ridicule). Models can be built out of axioms or laws, but all axiomatic deductions are tautologies, producing proofs of operational possibility, while all laws remain incomplete and therefore non-tautological, producing additional hypotheses, which are candidates for theories and laws. But all theoretical statements remain theoretical. The reason being that all non-tautological premises remain forever theoretical.

    3) The ‘axiom’ of purposeful human action tells us precisely nothing since it may constitute a test, but not an axiom since it tells us nothing of the scope of possible purposeful human action. We can instead say that any economic hypothesis, theory, or law, must be reducible to a sequence of rational human actions, (operations) in order to be existentially possible.

    4) This difference is why we rely upon ratio-empiricism, not rationalism, and not positivism for scientific (truthful) investigation. Logical arguments test internal consistency but not external correspndence, and external correspondence does not tell us about the internal consistency of our arguments, and without operational-intuitionistic testing (operational definitions) we cannot know if what we imagine is existentially possible. And without falsification, assuming we are both internally consistent, externally correspondent, and existentially possible, we have not tested our internal, external, and operational theory for parsimony – leaving open the possibility of error, bias and deception in all three.

    5) The differences between mainstream (orthodox) economics, and Austrian (heterodox) economics, are (a)that manipulation of credit is disinformation (lying) which produces cumulative effects of disinformation (lying), and (b) that as an act of disinformation (fraud), manipulation of credit produces involuntary transfers (immorality), because it lacks fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of externality (moral constraint).

    6) Rationalists tend to be, and by definition, must be, justificationists – they are not critical. Justification in rationalism, is indifferent from positivism in science. They are identical propositions. No matter how much justification we do, we are merely engaging in confirmation bias. Instead, it is irrelevant which method we use to construct a theory. The means of constructing a theory are irrelevant. Justification is irrelevant. Truth candidates (internally consistent, externally correspondent, operationally possible, and ultimately parsimonious, yet incomplete statements) are produced by criticism: whether they survive scrutiny: testing.

    7) One *CAN* however, work through purely rational, non-positivistic processes, however, this is not to to say they are not working empirically (through observation). As far as I know this is impossible. But that does not mean they are not working ratio-empirically. It merely means that they are engaging in tests of internal consistency given current knowledge, and working using operational possibility (existential possibility), but that they are not criticizing their work through tests of external correspondence – although as far as we know, no one makes theories without tests of external correspondence, because that would mean we were not explaining economic phenomenon – which would be somewhat fruitless.

    (continued….) (…continued)

    8) This work remains ratio-empirical, and consistent with all other scientific investigation. However, so does mainstream economics (orthodoxy). And the ONLY DIFFERENCE between mainstream and Austrian economics then, is that the mainstream seeks to lie to us, and Austrians seek to speak the truth. So the difference is not methodological – it is whether we attempt to find improvements to institutions of cooperation that retain the western principle of truth telling, or we engage in lying. Keyenesian economics is dishonest, not usncientific. Austrian economics suggests only that economics must be practiced scientifically, not axiomatically, Economics is indifferent from all other sciences. The question is only whether we seek to tell the truth (Austrian) or to lie (Keynesian).

    9) And it is equally dishonest and pseudoscientific to state that an axiomatic system id identical to a theoretical system, and equally dishonest to cast mainstream economics as methodologically flawed. Particularly when Austrians have contributed nothing to the study of economics in nearly a century, while in the past twenty years alone, the orthodox community has expanded our knowledge of general rules and insight into our existing economies with regularity.

    10) The Cosmopolitan thinkers, like the german rationalists, are exceptional at this kind of deceptive conflation. A few of us think that it is a natural consequence of talumudic authoritarian dual ethics in the jewish community, and kantian authoritarian conflation of truth and duty in german philosophy. However, Mises and ROthbard and to some lesser degree Hoppe, have all tried to assert fallacies that cast the difference as possible, logical and methodological rather than as moral. Meanwhile the social democrats continue to justify the morality of takings (involuntary transfers) rather than treating every ‘taking’ as a lost opportunity for productive voluntary exchange – and therefore returning us to manorial era constraints upon the behavior of the unproductive classes that contributed to the rise of the west.

    CLOSING

    I hope this helped you understand my position. In my view I am attempting to restore Morality and truth telling to economics. But that will not be done using fallacious arguments in the rationalist tradition. It will be by demonstrating that moral action using institutions that do not engage in lying, produce superior economic conditions: greater prosperity without the fragility caused by decade after decade of institutional lying.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    L’viv Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-05 01:07:00 UTC

  • What Does “Kaleidic” Mean? (In Economics)

    –“As a propertarian I’m assuming you follow the Lachmann rather than Shackle tradition in your appreciation of kaleidics.”— Chris Shaeffer


    (Note For Readers: Kaleidic, as used by Shackle, refers to the way groups and individuals in an economy rearrange, much like a kaleidoscope image, into new patterns – constantly, in response to changes, demand, innovations and shocks.  However, the term also implies that this process is unpredictable: uncertain. But this is just the first of three metaphors.  The second is flocking-and-schooling: an analogy to how fish and birds move in response to external stimuli. Humans flock and school toward opportunities and then groups break off if better opportunities present themselves, and the whole group splits in multiple directions when circumstances radically change.  The third metaphor, and the most concrete, by Arnold Kling, is “Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade”, or “PSST”, which reminds us of the stickiness of relationships in the economy, the high cost of organizing them, and the high cost of changing them.   I try to use all three of these metaphors depending upon whether I am talking about uncertainty (kaleidic),  costs (PSST), or psychology (flocking and schooling).   However, the term Kaleidic was used by Lachmann to refer to the fact that the economy does not ever fully equilibrate and eliminate all possibility of profit. But it does tend to move toward efficiency that minimizes profit.)

    [G]reat question.

    I use the term ‘Kaleidic’ primarily in the broader sense as “indeterministic”, and less frequently in the narrower sense “never reaching equilibrium” or “never reaching neutrality” in which profits are no longer possible. And in practice I follow Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Arnold Kling more closely than either Shackle or Lachmann in the cause for indeterminism: that shocks are more influential than regularities (Taleb), and that rather than Lachman’s argument, flocking and schooling (in my terms) or more precisely, “Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade” due to changing opportunities rather than ‘mechanical rearranging’, and that informational asymmetry, opportunity costs, transaction costs, are less meaningful. In other words, I see opportunities as more frequent and influential than frictions. This is because the costs of increasing efficiency are often higher than the cost of seizing new opportunities in a dynamic economy. As such, companies ‘sort’ by which tactic they are able to pursue.

    Cost cutting hurts your allies (employees). Which hurts you. And amateur Austrian economists treat human relationships (alliances) as a funglible resource, when, as dynamism increases, people are the most expensive, least predictive, and most influential resource you can possess.


  • What Does “Kaleidic” Mean? (In Economics)

    –“As a propertarian I’m assuming you follow the Lachmann rather than Shackle tradition in your appreciation of kaleidics.”— Chris Shaeffer


    (Note For Readers: Kaleidic, as used by Shackle, refers to the way groups and individuals in an economy rearrange, much like a kaleidoscope image, into new patterns – constantly, in response to changes, demand, innovations and shocks.  However, the term also implies that this process is unpredictable: uncertain. But this is just the first of three metaphors.  The second is flocking-and-schooling: an analogy to how fish and birds move in response to external stimuli. Humans flock and school toward opportunities and then groups break off if better opportunities present themselves, and the whole group splits in multiple directions when circumstances radically change.  The third metaphor, and the most concrete, by Arnold Kling, is “Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade”, or “PSST”, which reminds us of the stickiness of relationships in the economy, the high cost of organizing them, and the high cost of changing them.   I try to use all three of these metaphors depending upon whether I am talking about uncertainty (kaleidic),  costs (PSST), or psychology (flocking and schooling).   However, the term Kaleidic was used by Lachmann to refer to the fact that the economy does not ever fully equilibrate and eliminate all possibility of profit. But it does tend to move toward efficiency that minimizes profit.)

    [G]reat question.

    I use the term ‘Kaleidic’ primarily in the broader sense as “indeterministic”, and less frequently in the narrower sense “never reaching equilibrium” or “never reaching neutrality” in which profits are no longer possible. And in practice I follow Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Arnold Kling more closely than either Shackle or Lachmann in the cause for indeterminism: that shocks are more influential than regularities (Taleb), and that rather than Lachman’s argument, flocking and schooling (in my terms) or more precisely, “Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade” due to changing opportunities rather than ‘mechanical rearranging’, and that informational asymmetry, opportunity costs, transaction costs, are less meaningful. In other words, I see opportunities as more frequent and influential than frictions. This is because the costs of increasing efficiency are often higher than the cost of seizing new opportunities in a dynamic economy. As such, companies ‘sort’ by which tactic they are able to pursue.

    Cost cutting hurts your allies (employees). Which hurts you. And amateur Austrian economists treat human relationships (alliances) as a funglible resource, when, as dynamism increases, people are the most expensive, least predictive, and most influential resource you can possess.


  • A Definition of Economics?

    QUESTION: CURT: WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘ECONOMICS’?” (good piece)

    —“Hi Curt…I can relate to your comments. Perhaps you mentioned it and I missed it, but what in your definition of “Economics”. Is it sociological? A physical science? Something else?”—Lee Roesner

    [L]ee, Great question. Thanks. I think, that the scope of the term Economics is an interesting question, because we can discuss the etymological, normative, technical, and ‘necessary’ properties of the discipline. And by ‘necessary’, those properties that distinguish the discipline from other fields of inquiry. If we look at the etymology, the term evolved from running the household, then the nation, then an abstract discipline that studies the behavior mankind’s production, distribution and trade, chiefly by studying demonstrated preferences recorded as monetary transactions. If we look at how it is practiced, I think that today it is practiced as a social science, and that accusations of ‘economic imperialism’ in social science are probably justified: that economics has evolved into the dominant social science, and that experimental psychology and cognitive science, together have evolved as the dominant individual science. This appears to be the current state of affairs, where experimental psychology and cognitive science focus on our biases and limits, while economics focuses on the effect of those behaviors in the aggregate. And I think that the people in both disciplines expect to meet in the middle with a theory of mankind. (The problem is, that this merely justifies intervention – how to fool people.) Now, I tend to look at disciplines by necessary properties, and I view economics as the study of institutional (both formal and informal) means by which we facilitate human cooperation in pursuit of prosperity. This is traditionally called political economy. So the problem is that if we study it as how we can manipulate man’s biases, I think that is immoral on objective grounds, because it violates the principle of voluntary exchange (imposition of costs). Whereas if we study it as political economy, then we retain the moral constraint that all exchanges must be voluntary. We don’t try to fool people, we try to create transparency – to reduce friction, not to fool them that risk is lower than it appears. This is why I try to stay on message with the statement “Every forced involuntary transfer is a lost opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange.” Because I prefer that economics be constructed and performed as an analysis of moral and voluntary cooperation in the western tradition, rather than an immoral and involuntary analysis in the eastern tradition. And also, because I agree with the Austrian theory of the business cycle: that all attempts to cushion the rate of reorganization of the economy, merely exacerbate the problem by funding the existing (exhausted) order. So, I define economics as the study of morality: the study of the means of human cooperation in pursuit of the production of informal and formal institutions that assist us in cooperating. And as such I see law – the capture of normative constraints on involuntary transfer – as a subset of economics. And in practice I see the purpose of economics as little more than the justification of common, polycentric, organically evolved, law. And I see economics as dependent upon experimental psychology, and cognitive science for the study of man’s actions. This is because these disciplines have proven extremely fruitful in exposing the numerous and extensive limitations to human reason. I think this framing of the disciplines and the scope of the terms, is difficult to argue with – honestly that is. Thanks for the great question. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute L’viv, Ukraine.

  • A Definition of Economics?

    QUESTION: CURT: WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘ECONOMICS’?” (good piece)

    —“Hi Curt…I can relate to your comments. Perhaps you mentioned it and I missed it, but what in your definition of “Economics”. Is it sociological? A physical science? Something else?”—Lee Roesner

    [L]ee, Great question. Thanks. I think, that the scope of the term Economics is an interesting question, because we can discuss the etymological, normative, technical, and ‘necessary’ properties of the discipline. And by ‘necessary’, those properties that distinguish the discipline from other fields of inquiry. If we look at the etymology, the term evolved from running the household, then the nation, then an abstract discipline that studies the behavior mankind’s production, distribution and trade, chiefly by studying demonstrated preferences recorded as monetary transactions. If we look at how it is practiced, I think that today it is practiced as a social science, and that accusations of ‘economic imperialism’ in social science are probably justified: that economics has evolved into the dominant social science, and that experimental psychology and cognitive science, together have evolved as the dominant individual science. This appears to be the current state of affairs, where experimental psychology and cognitive science focus on our biases and limits, while economics focuses on the effect of those behaviors in the aggregate. And I think that the people in both disciplines expect to meet in the middle with a theory of mankind. (The problem is, that this merely justifies intervention – how to fool people.) Now, I tend to look at disciplines by necessary properties, and I view economics as the study of institutional (both formal and informal) means by which we facilitate human cooperation in pursuit of prosperity. This is traditionally called political economy. So the problem is that if we study it as how we can manipulate man’s biases, I think that is immoral on objective grounds, because it violates the principle of voluntary exchange (imposition of costs). Whereas if we study it as political economy, then we retain the moral constraint that all exchanges must be voluntary. We don’t try to fool people, we try to create transparency – to reduce friction, not to fool them that risk is lower than it appears. This is why I try to stay on message with the statement “Every forced involuntary transfer is a lost opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange.” Because I prefer that economics be constructed and performed as an analysis of moral and voluntary cooperation in the western tradition, rather than an immoral and involuntary analysis in the eastern tradition. And also, because I agree with the Austrian theory of the business cycle: that all attempts to cushion the rate of reorganization of the economy, merely exacerbate the problem by funding the existing (exhausted) order. So, I define economics as the study of morality: the study of the means of human cooperation in pursuit of the production of informal and formal institutions that assist us in cooperating. And as such I see law – the capture of normative constraints on involuntary transfer – as a subset of economics. And in practice I see the purpose of economics as little more than the justification of common, polycentric, organically evolved, law. And I see economics as dependent upon experimental psychology, and cognitive science for the study of man’s actions. This is because these disciplines have proven extremely fruitful in exposing the numerous and extensive limitations to human reason. I think this framing of the disciplines and the scope of the terms, is difficult to argue with – honestly that is. Thanks for the great question. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute L’viv, Ukraine.

  • QUESTION: CURT: WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘ECONOMICS’?” (from elsewhere) (good

    QUESTION: CURT: WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘ECONOMICS’?”

    (from elsewhere) (good piece)

    —“Hi Curt…I can relate to your comments. Perhaps you mentioned it and I missed it, but what in your definition of “Economics”. Is it sociological? A physical science? Something else?”—Lee Roesner

    Lee,

    Great question. Thanks.

    I think, that the scope of the term Economics is an interesting question, because we can discuss the etymological, normative, technical, and ‘necessary’ properties of the discipline. And by ‘necessary’, those properties that distinguish the discipline from other fields of inquiry.

    If we look at the etymology, the term evolved from running the household, then the nation, then an abstract discipline that studies the behavior mankind’s production, distribution and trade, chiefly by studying demonstrated preferences recorded as monetary transactions.

    If we look at how it is practiced, I think that today it is practiced as a social science, and that accusations of ‘economic imperialism’ in social science are probably justified: that economics has evolved into the dominant social science, and that experimental psychology and cognitive science, together have evolved as the dominant individual science. This appears to be the current state of affairs, where experimental psychology and cognitive science focus on our biases and limits, while economics focuses on the effect of those behaviors in the aggregate. And I think that the people in both disciplines expect to meet in the middle with a theory of mankind. (The problem is, that this merely justifies intervention – how to fool people.)

    Now, I tend to look at disciplines by necessary properties, and I view economics as the study of institutional (both formal and informal) means by which we facilitate human cooperation in pursuit of prosperity. This is traditionally called political economy.

    So the problem is that if we study it as how we can manipulate man’s biases, I think that is immoral on objective grounds, because it violates the principle of voluntary exchange (imposition of costs). Whereas if we study it as political economy, then we retain the moral constraint that all exchanges must be voluntary. We don’t try to fool people, we try to create transparency – to reduce friction, not to fool them that risk is lower than it appears.

    This is why I try to stay on message with the statement “Every forced involuntary transfer is a lost opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange.” Because I prefer that economics be constructed and performed as an analysis of moral and voluntary cooperation in the western tradition, rather than an immoral and involuntary analysis in the eastern tradition. And also, because I agree with the Austrian theory of the business cycle: that all attempts to cushion the rate of reorganization of the economy, merely exacerbate the problem by funding the existing (exhausted) order.

    So, I define economics as the study of morality: the study of the means of human cooperation in pursuit of the production of informal and formal institutions that assist us in cooperating. And as such I see law – the capture of normative constraints on involuntary transfer – as a subset of economics. And in practice I see the purpose of economics as little more than the justification of common, polycentric, organically evolved, law.

    And I see economics as dependent upon experimental psychology, and cognitive science for the study of man’s actions. This is because these disciplines have proven extremely fruitful in exposing the numerous and extensive limitations to human reason.

    I think this framing of the disciplines and the scope of the terms, is difficult to argue with – honestly that is.

    Thanks for the great question.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    L’viv, Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-04 06:23:00 UTC