Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • WHAT DOES KALEIDIC MEAN? (worth repeating) (See wikipedia) –“As a propertarian

    WHAT DOES KALEIDIC MEAN?

    (worth repeating) (See wikipedia)

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

    Great 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 Austrian economics treat human resources (alliances) as a resource, when, as dynamism increases, people are the most expensive, least predictive, and most influential resource you can possess.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-03 03:15:00 UTC

  • AN EXAMPLE OF CONFUSING POSITIVISM AND EMPIRICISM —“Empirical science requires

    AN EXAMPLE OF CONFUSING POSITIVISM AND EMPIRICISM

    —“Empirical science requires controlled experiments. In economics no such experiments are possible. Even in physics the study of a lone particle does not give us enough information to predict its movement in a many-particle environment, which is basically indeterminate.”– Shivank

    Intelligent response, thanks. But common errors.

    You are confusing Empiricism with Positivism (which is a common fallacy of libertine argument). Empiricism requires observation (sense experience); and measurement is an operational means of ensuring our observations are not as erroneous, biased, or deceptive as they would be without measurements (operationalism). Just as we can observe red shift in physics, we can observe economic phenomenon by means of the measurements (recorded monetary transactions). Furthermore, (a)while controlled experiments are helpful in the ascertainment of first principles (reductions), we know the first principles of human cooperation: we can sympathize with intent. We cannot likewise intuit the operations of the physical world – although we seem to be able to model it at various levels of precision. And (b) property rights and rule of law are experiments in economics, and so are fiscal, monetary and trade policy. And we can, and do, experiment and observe them and the emergent (complex and unpredictable) effects non-neutral, pre-equilibration effects of those policies. Also, (c) I agree that local phenomenon are kaliedic, and that economic phenomenon equilibrate (are largely neutral). But that does not mean that the effects of actions do not produce consequences that influence the organization and rates of equilibration of the ‘particles’ (people). And finally (d) we can construct theoretical models from economic laws. We cannot construct axiomatic models from economic axioms. This is because in any axiomatic (prescriptive) system all information is present, while in all theoretical (descriptive) systems, information is always incomplete.

    And so it is either erroneous or disingenuous to state that real world (incomplete) models, are identical to imaginary (complete) models. Even geometry failed Mises’ test: length was not what we thought it was at very great or very small scale. So while complete, prescriptive, axiomatic systems, and incomplete, descriptive, theoretical systems, are are similar – analogous – they are not identical. Deduction is possible in an axiomatic system, but such deduction is not possible in a system of laws with an equal level of precision. This is because in an axiomatic system, the principle of arbitrary precision remains constant, while in a theoretic system, the principle of arbitrary precision does not remain constant – local variation due to dynamic interaction in real time, as you suggest, produces kaleidic results, and attempts at measurement influence the the outcome.

    It is not that economic phenomenon cannot be stated as laws. It is that emergent phenomenon cannot be deduced from the axioms in economics for precisely the reasons you suggest that mises is correct. This is why economics is an empirical science just like any other science: because science is a set of moral constraint upon us, independent of the subject matter, in an attempt to eliminate error, bias, and deception. And Mises’ himself makes fairly significant errors in conflating the prescriptive, logical, axiomatic and deterministic, with the descriptive, theoretical, empirical and kaleidic.

    Mises was ostracized from economics for reasons. They were good reasons. He embraced pseudoscience.

    Ergo, my argument stands.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    L’viv Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 23:07:00 UTC

  • INSIGHT FROM MORGAN WARSTLER Morgan Warstler —“The bit that I’m thankful to Ho

    INSIGHT FROM MORGAN WARSTLER

    Morgan Warstler

    —“The bit that I’m thankful to Hoppe for… is that his effort on Argumentative Ethics (which I disagree with), knocked loose and helped crystallize an idea that I have long held from debate: That rhetoric is violence. That those who engage in rhetoric, are engaging in legal violence to make a claim on property (including the time of other men). This immediately justifies violence to maintain property.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 11:51:00 UTC

  • PHILOSOPHY, MORALITY, SCIENCE, and LAW If philosophy, morality, science, and law

    PHILOSOPHY, MORALITY, SCIENCE, and LAW

    If philosophy, morality, science, and law are not identical propositions then something is very wrong. Because philosophy morality science and law can be constructed as identical propositions. Because truthful, due-diligent, warrantable, speech is consistent regardless of the discipline in which we utter it.

    Propertarianism.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 08:48:00 UTC

  • “Wrong. It takes volunteers. But if there are no volunteers, it takes a capitali

    “Wrong. It takes volunteers. But if there are no volunteers, it takes a capitalist to incentivize the people to change the bulb. At which point the bulb gets changed and the worker earns money for doing it.” — Greg Bowman

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 07:17:00 UTC

  • So are we down to Murphy and Friedman on the left libertarian side, and the Heri

    So are we down to Murphy and Friedman on the left libertarian side, and the Heritage people on the right libertarian side? (And me out here in the cold on the radical side?)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 05:25:00 UTC

  • PHILOSOPHY, MORALITY, SCIENCE, and LAW If philosophy, morality, science, and law

    PHILOSOPHY, MORALITY, SCIENCE, and LAW

    If philosophy, morality, science, and law are not identical propositions then something is very wrong.

    Because philosophy morality science and law can be constructed as identical propositions.

    Because truthful, due-diligent, warrantable, speech is consistent regardless of the discipline in which we utter it.

    Propertarianism.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 05:22:00 UTC

  • STRANGE CRITICISM FROM BRUCE KOERBER (from elsewhere) –Still not a peep about:

    STRANGE CRITICISM FROM BRUCE KOERBER

    (from elsewhere)

    –Still not a peep about: “Even though it is perfectly true and perfectly logical that humans are subjective beings there are some who cannot fathom a scientific subjective methodology.”– Bruce Koerber

    The question is not whether we can practice a subjective methodology. Nor is it honest to use psychologism as a criticism when the question is whether such a method is a logical possibility or is empirically demonstrable. (It is dishonest actually – and psychological criticism is immoral because it is dishonest.) Instead, the question is whether subjectivity yields results – empirically it doesn’t, empirically it hasn’t, and logically it can’t. This is because of a tragically simple reason: subjective testing is not axiomatic in that it is complete (the distinguishing property of an axiom). But it is instead, that economic laws, constitute “laws” (in the spectrum of intuition, hypothesis, theory and law) meaning that it they are general rules of limited precision, widely accepted, that we cannot find false.

    We can certainly TEST economic statements. But we cannot deduce economic phenomenon, nor can we observe economic phenomenon, particularly emergent economic phenomenon, without empirical methods. We can test data all day long. We do.

    The logical possibility does not exist. We cannot and do not imagine (deduce) economic phenomenon, because economic phenomenon are emergent and inter-temporally equilibrating without every reaching equilibrium. Man is also fraught with an increasing number of cognitive biases. In other words, those phenomenon are too complicated to observe and predict. This is why there are so many outstanding problems in economic theory – it’s terribly complicated.

    So the unique property of economics is that we can test first principles (human subjectivity),rather than resort to purely correlative tests. In this sense we can know if economic theories can be true, in a way that we cannot know if theories in other science can be true. And even if we know that they CAN be true, we do not know if they are ‘true’ in the metaphysical sense, of being the most parsimonious theory possible.

    We can for example, construct a mathematica proof given any set of axioms. this mathematical proof demonstrates that any mathematical expression is can be constructed using mathematical operations. We can also demonstrate a proof in economics if any economic statement can be constructed from sympathetically testable existentially possible, human operations. But mathematical models cannot demonstrate innovation due to self awareness, and intentionally bend or break axioms in order to satisfy self interest – but humans can, and do – that is what even Keyensian economics combined with trade, fiscal and monetary policy attempt to do – and successfully do.

    It is therefore immoral and unscientific (an abuse of science) to claim that economic theories that are not operationally tested are true and moral. Whether we use empirical methods to observe and test our observations of economic phenomenon is merely a necessity of observation, and a necessity of compensating for our cognitive biases that forever jaundice our reason.

    There is no exit from the above box. Sorry.

    (Plenty of ‘peeps’ in there.)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 05:05:00 UTC

  • Correcting biases, fallacies and deceptions seems insurmountable, unless you wor

    Correcting biases, fallacies and deceptions seems insurmountable, unless you work at it for long enough. The problem is, that it’s just not worth most people’s time.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 04:51:00 UTC

  • ANOTHER EXAMPLE —“I wonder if Curt Doolittle would share with us which economi

    ANOTHER EXAMPLE

    —“I wonder if Curt Doolittle would share with us which economic discipline ie Keynesianism or Friedman’s Chicagoan School that is more scientific than Austrian economics.”—Brian White

    Brian,

    I can define ‘Scientific’ very precisely. I am not sure that I can define Austrian Economics so precisely – other than stating it as the two German and Cosmopolitan (Misesian/Rothbardian) branches. The germans did not make any pseudoscientific claims that I am aware of. However, Mises and Rothbard make expressly pseudoscientific arguments – not the least of which is conflating axiomatic (complete) systems for constructing proofs, with theoretical (incomplete) systems for constructing models. The definition of pseudoscientific is a claim that does not follow the scientific method. The scientific method however, is not in fact a method, but a set of moral constraints on warrantable (truthful) speech. Mises claims an axiomatic system is a science rather than a logic. This is simply false. (albeit his era was plagued with philosophical confusion as philosophy desperately attempted to attain the respectability of science. Today it is group with theology both in book stores and in academic budgets..)

    —“Okay Curt I was more interested to know if there were other economic sciences that you concluded were more scientific”—Brian White

    Brian,

    Logical fallacy.

    Something is not more scientific than something else. The point of demarcation in science is whether the scientific method is used or not. As such practicing science is a binary proposition, not an analog proposition. So “more scientific” is not possible. Either someone follows the scientific method or one does not. The definition of ‘science’ is whether one practices the scientific method.

    Economic science is practiced scientifically. Misesianism is the non-scientific branch of Austrian economics. All working economists today who call themselves Austrians (that I know of) practice empirical, scientific, economics. In other words, they are not Misesians.

    Instead,working Austrians require praxeological testing (operational falsification) of economic theories rather than macro correlations alone. This is tantamount to placing two additional requirements on the scientific method: (a) that economic theories must be operationally falsifiable, and (b) that economic theories of policy must be stated such that they expose the degree of moral or immoral consequences.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-02 04:50:00 UTC