Curt Doolittle

Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

  • What Are The Assumptions Of The Law Of Diminishing Marginal Utility?

    I can’t figure out if this is an honest question or some moron’s bot-work.

    The only assumption in marginal utility is that it is a general rule of arbitrary precision like all general rules must be constructed of arbitrary precision by logical necessity.  

    So as far as I know, no assumptions external to the construction of ALL general theories are present in marginal utility.  It is just that the distribution of particulars under social sciences are wider that n the distribution of particulars in the physical sciences: man learns. Hydrogen does as hydrogen is, and that’s the end of it.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-assumptions-of-the-law-of-diminishing-marginal-utility

  • How Much More Capitalist Is The Us Than Germany?

    • Capitalism: the voluntary organization of consumer production.  (Liberty)
    • Socialism: the involuntary organization of consumer production. (Totalitarianism)
    • Mixed Economy: the voluntary organization of consumer production, and the involuntary redistribution of the rewards earned by organizing consumer production. (A trade-off between liberty and totalitarianism).

    Socialism is impossible, since neither the incentives to produce, nor the means of economic calculation are possible.  The only possible means of organizing production that produces surpluses is to provide both individual incentives and the means of rational calculation for pursuing those incentives.

    This means that the only possible means of organizing production that is adaptive to changes in the world (wants and scarcities) is capitalism.  This is why the entire world has adopted capitalism (the voluntary organization of consumer production). 

    However, the entire world has also adopted mixed economy consumer capitalism: that is, the authoritarian regulation and taking of the rewards from the voluntary organization of production, for the purpose of redistribution (By licit or illicit means, for licit or illicit purposes.)

    So the entire world practices capitalism and none of the world practices socialism. Instead, the whole world practices mixed economy capitalism by taking the maximum amount that they can extract from the organizers of production without disrupting the organization of production. 

    Now, the difference between the USA and Germany is such:
    1) germans are less diverse (more homogeneous) and homogeneous societies (see scandinavia) are comfortable with redistribution (sacrifice of my family and children and subsequent generations) for the service of yours. However, diverse polities are not comfortable with sacrificing for their competitors, any more than germans are happy redistributing to Turks, or mediterranean cultures that are lazier and more corrupt.  America by contrast has an old historical problem of diversity of many peoples, and self reliance.   The more diverse a people the less tolerance for redistribution.

    2) America is not comparable to Germany per se, but to Europe in total. There are 50 American states, and no less than 9 or 10 american regional cultures, and just as brussels is  perceived as a dictatorship the american government is perceived as a dictatorship by the central and southern peoples of the american continent, that works for the advantage of the high population centers of immigrants on the coastal areas.

    As such Germany is both more homogenous, smaller, and more likely to redistribute, (over the objections of the south), while America is larger, more diverse, and less willing to redistribute.  The reason is that germans are not competitors for power with one another (mostly) but american regions are at war with one another using the government as a proxy.

    For these reasons Germany is less an advocate of a mixed economy than say California or New York, but more so than say Iowa, Georgia and Alaska.

    Cheers

    https://www.quora.com/How-much-more-capitalist-is-the-US-than-Germany

  • What Is The Appropriate Role And Amount Of Government Regulation Of Businesses?

    (The word ‘appropriate’ is a form of linguistic dishonesty that attempts to create a moral statement where none exists.) 

    Instead, the question is whether a MONOPOLY (in this case, the government), that is insulated from prosecution under the law (bureaucrats), and insulated from market pressures (competition), is superior to a POLYPOLY, in which all members are subject to prosecution under the law (citizens) and subject to market pressures (competition).

    The general theory is that monopolies are necessary to START regulation (government), but that once instituted that competing institutions subject to rule of law are superior to democratic and political influences (politicians, corruption, oligarchies), because each individual everywhere in society, if he holds legal standing under universal standing, is capable of policing the regulators. 

    The problem we have in government is that we cannot police the regulators ,and the implication that voting  is a proxy for lawsuits is empirically false.

    As such, removal of corporate protections and extension of liability to all employees of all organizations, and the granting of universal standing, and the requirement that anyone we would consider needing regulation be insured, allows us to construct competing insurance companies that replace corrupt monopoly bureaucracies in government as means of regulation.

    SO it is not the degree of regulation that is the question, but whether regulation should be performed by monopolies or polypolies.  And the answer is that most regulations must be legally imposed by the monopoly we call government, by requiring private insurance, and that the entire population is both responsible for and capable of policing those companies AND their insurers. 

    It should be fairly obvious that POLOPOLY under NOMOCRACY is a superior means of regulation because it eliminates the possibility of corruption endemic to monopolies.  And equally obvious that the market will seek the level of regulation necessary for insurers and producers to defend themselves from activist citizens intent on controlling them by limiting them moral actions.

    It is less obvious that it is government sanction of corruption and government delivery of regulation that is the cause of illicit business activity, precisely because during the early industrial revolution, governments who were envious of collecting new tax revenues granted protections to private businesses and removed the public’s common law ability to regulate such businesses.

    Cheers

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-appropriate-role-and-amount-of-government-regulation-of-businesses

  • What Are The Assumptions Of The Law Of Diminishing Marginal Utility?

    I can’t figure out if this is an honest question or some moron’s bot-work.

    The only assumption in marginal utility is that it is a general rule of arbitrary precision like all general rules must be constructed of arbitrary precision by logical necessity.  

    So as far as I know, no assumptions external to the construction of ALL general theories are present in marginal utility.  It is just that the distribution of particulars under social sciences are wider that n the distribution of particulars in the physical sciences: man learns. Hydrogen does as hydrogen is, and that’s the end of it.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-assumptions-of-the-law-of-diminishing-marginal-utility

  • How Much More Capitalist Is The Us Than Germany?

    • Capitalism: the voluntary organization of consumer production.  (Liberty)
    • Socialism: the involuntary organization of consumer production. (Totalitarianism)
    • Mixed Economy: the voluntary organization of consumer production, and the involuntary redistribution of the rewards earned by organizing consumer production. (A trade-off between liberty and totalitarianism).

    Socialism is impossible, since neither the incentives to produce, nor the means of economic calculation are possible.  The only possible means of organizing production that produces surpluses is to provide both individual incentives and the means of rational calculation for pursuing those incentives.

    This means that the only possible means of organizing production that is adaptive to changes in the world (wants and scarcities) is capitalism.  This is why the entire world has adopted capitalism (the voluntary organization of consumer production). 

    However, the entire world has also adopted mixed economy consumer capitalism: that is, the authoritarian regulation and taking of the rewards from the voluntary organization of production, for the purpose of redistribution (By licit or illicit means, for licit or illicit purposes.)

    So the entire world practices capitalism and none of the world practices socialism. Instead, the whole world practices mixed economy capitalism by taking the maximum amount that they can extract from the organizers of production without disrupting the organization of production. 

    Now, the difference between the USA and Germany is such:
    1) germans are less diverse (more homogeneous) and homogeneous societies (see scandinavia) are comfortable with redistribution (sacrifice of my family and children and subsequent generations) for the service of yours. However, diverse polities are not comfortable with sacrificing for their competitors, any more than germans are happy redistributing to Turks, or mediterranean cultures that are lazier and more corrupt.  America by contrast has an old historical problem of diversity of many peoples, and self reliance.   The more diverse a people the less tolerance for redistribution.

    2) America is not comparable to Germany per se, but to Europe in total. There are 50 American states, and no less than 9 or 10 american regional cultures, and just as brussels is  perceived as a dictatorship the american government is perceived as a dictatorship by the central and southern peoples of the american continent, that works for the advantage of the high population centers of immigrants on the coastal areas.

    As such Germany is both more homogenous, smaller, and more likely to redistribute, (over the objections of the south), while America is larger, more diverse, and less willing to redistribute.  The reason is that germans are not competitors for power with one another (mostly) but american regions are at war with one another using the government as a proxy.

    For these reasons Germany is less an advocate of a mixed economy than say California or New York, but more so than say Iowa, Georgia and Alaska.

    Cheers

    https://www.quora.com/How-much-more-capitalist-is-the-US-than-Germany

  • ON NON-PRODUCERS

    ON NON-PRODUCERS

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-21 20:42:00 UTC

  • THE INDIVIDUAL (PRODUCTION) AND THE FAMILY (REPRODUCTION) The individual actor m

    THE INDIVIDUAL (PRODUCTION) AND THE FAMILY (REPRODUCTION)

    The individual actor may be the unit of calculation in any question of the productive economy. However, the family is the central organization reproduction, and the economy merely serves this purpose.

    Individualism then is merely a means of allocating incentives to the parties able to act most dynamically with the least friction in the voluntary organization of production.

    However, that is **MERELY** a question of economics, not of the reproduction that individuals in the productive economy SERVE.

    As such, the family is and always will be the central unit of calculation in any SOCIETY even if in commercial and legal matters, the individual is the central unit of calculation.

    Those groups that de-emphasize family and tribe in favor of the individual will be outbreak, out competed by those that retain the family and tribe as the central unit of society.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-16 13:32:00 UTC

  • FROM ELSEWHERE: CLASSIFYING ONE’S SELF AS ‘AUSTRIAN’: INVESTIGATION VERSUS EXPLA

    FROM ELSEWHERE: CLASSIFYING ONE’S SELF AS ‘AUSTRIAN’: INVESTIGATION VERSUS EXPLANATION.

    I think most people who self identify as austrian outside of their employment:

    (a) mean that they use the austrian model of incentives and partial knowledge to understand the world we live in.

    (b) are merely using “I am” for the purpose of brevity, rather than the fully articulated: “I practice austrian economic models when I think of social questions.”

    The thing is, we can test statement (b), and have tested it, and it turns out that people can actually make use of that model, and that their use of that model is highly predictive, and highly explanatory.

    So given that the misesian austrian program (versus the christian austrian program) evolved as a legal-rational one, rather than an empirical one, I am not sure that the average person who uses the Austrian model is not practicing Austrian thought. I disagree that he is practicing empirical investigation, but I agree that he is practicing rational explanation.

    So given that to ‘be’ something is a verbalism (obscurantism using the verb to-be), and that Austrian thought falls into both empirical study, and rational explanation, I think that the debate as to whether one self identifies as Austrian or not, is simply a verbal criticism in itself.

    The empirical economist investigates phenomenon, and the rational modeler explains phenomenon by deduction from incentives. And both classify themselves as Austrian but fail to distinguish between the two schools of Austrian methods.

    Unfortunately Mises (and all the fruitcake-fringe at the Mises institute) conflate the empirical attempt at defining general rules, and the deductive application of general rules (modeling) for the purpose of explanation.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 20:46:00 UTC

  • MISES, HAYEK, ROTHBARD, AND THE AUSTRIAN PROGRAM (from elsewhere) Gabriel Zanott

    http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/06/21/mises-praxeology-as-the-failure-to-develop-economic-operationalism-yes/UNDERSTANDING MISES, HAYEK, ROTHBARD, AND THE AUSTRIAN PROGRAM

    (from elsewhere)

    Gabriel Zanotti is correct that (1) the hard core of the Austrian scientific research programme: is the study of dispersed knowledge. But Austrians also retain the remaining thesis of the Austrian program (2) that the business cycle (whether government intervention amplifies and extends booms and busts.) And (3) the Austrian program is perhaps best understood as an effort to develop a legal philosophy of economics rather than rational or empirical. Failure to understand this distinction is probably why the movement failed.

    The following might be life altering for those of you who are deeply engaged in philosophy?

    A) Mises’ program can best be understood as a failed effort to develop Economic Operationalism. He intuited it, but was not skilled enough to solve it, as did Bridgman and Brouwer in science and mathematics. (See my post at: http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/06/21/mises-praxeology-as-the-failure-to-develop-economic-operationalism-yes/ )

    B) Hayek succeeds in grasping that a legal philosophy is what is needed for the formation of a free society such that we produce the optimum economic outcomes – unfortunately he fails (as does Popper, Mises, and Rothbard, and even Hoppe) to solve the underlying cause, which is that property and morality are identical expressions given the structure of the family in relation to the structure of production. Hoppe correctly determines that property is the unit of commensurability and compatibility in all human cooperation (social systems) but his generation lacked the science to demonstrate that all human moral intuitions (instincts and norms) can be expressed as property rights, or to map them to the various family structures. (See my post here: http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/09/28/the-evolution-of-cooperation/ for condensed list, although I discuss this topic daily.)

    D) Rothbard an best be seen as an attempt to give us a religio-moral code, and an formal-institution-free society, rather than a legal system of formal institutions, and a legal philosophy. Rothbard writes as a cosmopolitan ideologist using the same arguments as marxists, socialists and neo-conservatives: to express Jewish ethics in christian legal terms. And, yes, Rothbard writes simply and accessibly. He excites our moral sentiments. But just as Hayek’s legal framework will produce beneficial ends, Rather than the high trust polity of the northern europeans advocated by Hayek using the formal institution of law, Rothbarian ethics using the informal institution of belief (moral religion) would produce the low trust levantine polity of the middle east. So while few self identified libertarians will like or appreciate it, Rothbard is probably as damaging to the liberty movement as Hayek was beneficial. As far as I know I have put Rothbard to bed permanently. (See: http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/06/20/rendering-rothbardian-fallacies-intellectually-embarrassing-and-argumentatively-impossible/ )

    Roula Robinson above, is largely correct: only western-into-europeans of the north sea region invented liberty as we know it (universalist liberty), by evolving it. And only the English managed to implement it as a formal system of legal institutions. And only Americans wrote it down in a constitution (Rather poorly it turns out). But that does not mean that once a formal institution is understood (universal individual property rights, rule of law, organic evolution of that law), it cannot be spread and adopted. However, the point I think Emmanuel Todd has demonstrated most convincingly, is that family structure and structure of production, determine moral intutions (as well as our genetics). So diversity turns out to be a ‘bad’, if diversity means a diversity in family structure. (See http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/08/26/how-do-family-structures-vary/ , or any of these: http://www.propertarianism.com/?s=family&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 )

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 20:24:00 UTC

  • FOR THE POST-LABOR ERA Thoughts. 1) We use the word ‘abstractions’ and ‘calculat

    http://www.careeroverdrive.com/blog/the-accelerating-assault-to-digitize-automate-mechanize-robotize-you-out-of-a-job-podcast-textHOPE FOR THE POST-LABOR ERA

    Thoughts.

    1) We use the word ‘abstractions’ and ‘calculations’ but a better term is ‘ model ‘. (A subject I’m currently working on). Most people learn by imitation (observation and repetition). And some by imagining actions. Some by abstractions of actions. Some by models of universes. Some by inventing models of universes. And the problem is that the ability to construct models of any type requires a right shift in intelligence distribution of a standard deviation.

    2) I think I have a ‘socio-economic’ solution to this problem, because while it is true that fewer people will engage in the production of market goods and services, the same nearly universal set of people will still be required to engage in the production of the market itself: the voluntary organization of production and consumption. And furthermore, that we can increasingly pay people to produce commons. And it is commons that will bring about the star trek cities and landscape we imagine in the future – not consumption.

    3) I could imagine requiring all physical structures for example, be built from hand-materials – that require labor. I could equally imagine regulating machines out of human-possible jobs.

    4) I could imagine MMT and heavy redistribution, where ‘working’ was a preference for above-standard-redistribution amounts, and therefore status, and luxury goods. Work was a vehicle for status rather than existence. And furthermore that child-bearing decreased your redistributed income.

    5) One thing I often think about is how an oligarchy of producers (like the greeks were) and a vast non-producing proletariat might follow their existing incentives. Meaning, why wouldn’t society return to feudalism of the productive, rather than a feudalism of the people who construct property rights necessary for production (warrior land-holders)? Because those are the incentives that I see.

    These are the models that I work with. So there is a bit of hope here that a socio-political solution will not only be possible but a beneficial adaptation. The fundamental problem is in preserving the incentives to conduct a voluntary organization of production (capitalism). However, under capitalism we falsely assume that the work necessary to create a voluntary organization of production (property rights) by every individual in society is not in itself an act of production that exposes individuals to high costs (it is).

    So individuals engage in production of the commons we call the market, even if they do not engage in production of particulars (goods and services). If you do not advocate for an involuntary structure of production (socialism), and you engage in production of the commons (property rights and therefore the market) and you pay for your shareholdership by doings so, then it is hard to see that it is not a violation of your rights to compensate you for your production of the commons (the market) by producing, respecting and policing property rights.

    This further preserves liberty because it allows for the institutional illegalization of socialism (the involuntary organization of production, in which individuals do not act to produce the commons of the voluntary organization of production.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 04:26:00 UTC