Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
What is the alternative to a crappy job in a small town with few jobs? That's the key bit you keep leaving out.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 02:48:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not keeping it out.  It's still voluntary.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 02:55:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You are not describing the alternative, which is unemployment. You sound like those economists who claim that unemployment results from a rational calculation of utility maximization between crappy job and no job and so it's always the fault of the unemployed person.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 02:58:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]
No one seriously believes that actors in the economy sit down and calculate their maximized utility functions.  That's just a way for economists to convey characteristics of a consumer in a model -- her appetite for risk, her preferences, etc.  It's a way of saying, "Person X like Starbucks better than Maxwell House and, given the choice and price level, she'll consumer y units of each."

The alternative may well be unemployment.  You're, of course, right.  But it's still the choices of situations similar to that -- obviously we would all prefer it to be a choice between two jobs -- that determines any number of other things.  The worker is not forced into the job by some sort of strong-arming.  He's taking the job as the alternative to unemployment.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 03:14:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
so it's not strong-arming if the force being applied is economic, i.e. homelessness, hunger, lack of medical care -- rather than direct threat of GBH as in a baseball bat to the kneecaps?

I tend to suspect this is the thinking of a person who has never been homeless or hungry, or put their kids to bed hungry :-)  choices are exercised in a context.  Wal*Mart and similar large combines have the power to shape and control the context within which people make their choices, narrowing the field and presenting enough large sticks that no carrot is really necessary.  how can such choices be called "free"?  they are no more free than "the lady or the tiger," and the odds are worse.

a strong distinction should be made between choices seeking to find the least of many evils, and choices where the chooser exercises the option to reach for a gest among several goods.  the latter is what I would call a truly "free choice" -- the choice of a gifted child of affluent parents between several excellent colleges, for example, seeking to select the one best suited to a solid education and good career prospects.

the "choice" of the resident of a gutted small town to scrape by on welfare and charity, or to take a crap job from a paternalistic, abusive, cheapskate, tax-dodging employer like Wal*Mart, does not strike me as "free".  nor is the economic history of these towns a textbook example of rational actors maximising utility.  corruption, violence (force and fraud, the nemesis of libertarians), chicanery, undue influence, nepotism, enclosure, loan sharking, price fixing, all have engineered the demise of the peasantry and the yeoman farmer.  to some extent gullible rural populations swallowed carefully prepared poison bait and participated with initial enthusiasm in their own execution, but over the last 150 years many resisted and found resistance futile in the face of concentrated capital.

according to Drew's pseudo-darwinistic model of commerce as expressed here, it seems to be simply natural and right that the clever and unscrupulous should amass wealth and use the gravity field of that dense wealth to amass yet more without any effort, leaving it to their children and grandchildren, snowballing over the decades, until we re-create feudal baronialism in all its glory.  and this is the situation that ideas like participatory democracy, land reform, Jubilee and other Levelling impulses were invented to correct:  the luxury of the few and the misery of the many.

if this were a peaceful and contented state for humans to live in, there would never have been any revolutions :-)  we don't meekly accept feudalism forever.  seems to me what Drew is arguing for is a lack of the kind of preventive regulatory intervention (modest Levelling of the kind that even the wealthy admitted was wise in the time of FDR) that reduces the probability of violent revolution.  I would prefer a degree of tinkering that flattened out the cycle of concentration and dissipation of wealth, rather than an episodic crash-n-burn cycle of violent extrema.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 04:44:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I tend to suspect this is the thinking of a person who has never been homeless or hungry, or put their kids to bed hungry :-)

I never claimed I had ever gone hungry or been homeless, or that I had ever put my children to be without food.  (I don't even have children.)  Instead of actually discussing the topic, you chose circumstantial ad hominem.

Surely you're not equating economic pressures with a thug breaking someone's knees with a baseball bat.  The distinctions you're drawing on choices is not one of freedom vs. a lack of freedom.  Choosing between excellent colleges is a nice choice.  Choosing between welfare and Wal-Mart is not.  Both are free choices.

I'm not sure how my views are "pseudo-darwinistic" (whatever that is).  Don't you mean socially-darwinistic?  (I'm not that, either, as plenty of my comments will demonstrate.)  And where did you get this idea -- that I support the wealthy amassing more and more wealth at the expense of the many?  That's one hell of a straw man.  You point on my views of regulatory intervention is flawed, to put it charitably.  My point was that the kind of regulation that is often discussed would be useless, at best, and counterproductive, at worst.

In any event, perhaps you could read my comments properly and discuss the topic, instead of trying to discredit me (by attacking me) with logical fallacies.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 06:06:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Surely you're not equating economic pressures with a thug breaking someone's knees with a baseball bat.  The distinctions you're drawing on choices is not one of freedom vs. a lack of freedom.

Not equating with, but certainly comparing with.  No two threats can be precisely equated.  A baseball bat is less imminently terrifying a threat than a gun to the head.  A fist in the face is somewhat less terrifying than a baseball bat.  Being threatened with a beating is not so bad as being threatened with the imminent execution of your entire extended family.  Watching your children go to bed hungry is somewhat less awful than watching your children beaten or raped.  Going hungry is less awful than being napalmed.  in any case where a more awful threat can be imagined, should we claim that the lesser threat doesn't constitute real coercion?

But unless there is a viable alternative to surrendering control of your life to the wealthy, i.e. being wage labour on any terms the wealthy care to set, then wage labour is not a "free" choice.  Going without basics like food, clothing, housing is not a viable or "equal" choice;  it is a threat, dating back to the enclosure of land and the control over peasants by hereditary landowning classes.  There are two reasons why the peasant must not hunt in the lord's woods;  one is that the lord wants to preserve the game for his own sporting purposes, but the other, more important one is that the peasant must remain dependent on the lord's largesse and favour for survival, to keep him properly subservient and obedient.  For the peasant to be able to feed himself and family by independent effort, without any noble's grace and favour, undermines the system of force and fraud that enforces unfree choices.

I don't consider it ad hominem to mention the obvious... that privilege -- yours, mine, anyone's -- can lead us to minimise in our minds the fear and coercion experienced by people who do not have our resources or armour against arbitrary power.  There is nothing inherently wrong with never having gone hungry -- would that no one ever did!  But as with age, disability, racism or any other burden, the fears and the behaviour-modifying potential of unemployment and poverty are harder to assess if one has never experienced them.  It is easy to tell other people how "free" their choices are when they are choices that I myself have never had to make, nor am likely to.

Or, to reverse the sense of what I just said, a dogmatic insistence on "choice" in unfree situations enables us to go on minimising and denying the degree of coercion and unfreedom experienced by those who actually have to live in those situations.  I can't remember whether it was Sartre or Camus who said that even on the way to the gallows we have the freedom to decide how we will approach the gibbet;  but that should not, imho, make us dismiss the experience of being hanged as a minor inconvenience.

Why would we draw an arbitrary line and say that one form of coercion (muscle or arms) creates bona fide unfreedom in the coerced, whereas another form of coercion using money (backed by muscle and arms in the end anyway) is not really coercion at all, and leaves its victims in a state of freedom?  I don't see any great distinction between money and muscle, when it comes to the workings of force and fraud in the real world.  In fact muscle could conceivably be seen as a more legitimate form of power than money -- since most of the greatest concentrations of money are unearned and inherited, the result of other people's effort, whereas to be a muscleman you at least have to exercise :-)

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Wed Jan 25th, 2006 at 07:48:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In any case where a more awful threat can be imagined, should we claim that the lesser threat doesn't constitute real coercion?

That's just absurd.  You can try to compare economic pressure vs. threats of physical attack as much as you'd like, but the threat of being attacked is not comparable to choosing between a shitty job and welfare.  Should we prosecute Wal-Mart for refusing to pay a higher wage when employees have few, if any, other job choices?  I don't think so.  But if Wal-Mart executives hired thugs to force you to agree to take a position at the store, the executives would, without question, be prosecuted.  It's not a reasonable comparison.

The situation is, in no way, like that of the hereditary landowners and peasants, either.  You, unfortunately, seem to be looking at Wal-Mart as a Marxian fantasy of the poor being somehow enslaved by the wealthy because of capitalism -- as though the entire system were simply based on a game for the "elites," in which the rest of society goes nowhere.  This is simply foolish.

There are rarely, if ever, "equal" choices.  The choice is still a free one, and it is this sort of choice that helps to determine the wage level.

The wealthy only have the power to "set the terms" because of the surplus of labor, just as unions have, in the past, had the power to threaten companies like GM and Ford with walkouts.  Is this not, also, coercion?  When demand for labor contracts, as it does when the plants move out of town, the wage falls and fewer people are hired.  What you're seeing is what any basic model will predict.  It's not a matter of advocating social Darwinism, which I do not.  (Accuse me of it all you like.  I feel no obligation to defend myself against false accusations.)  At the international level, the addition of over two billion people to the labor market -- and that's only in China and India -- represents a massive expansion in labor supply and a new, lower market wage in some sectors, like manufacturing.  So, to answer a separate comment down the thread, it is not necessary to connect economic thought with ideology.  There is some (admittedly far-from-perfect) science to the subject.

You have engaged in circumstantial ad hominem.  You're essentially saying, "Drew doesn't understand what is happening to the lives of working Americans, because he's a member of the elite!"  Well, I've got news for you: I'm willing to bet that you earn at least two or three times more than I have ever earned.  I've worked for several years in retail, doing heavy lifting and stocking, and often for twelve and (on a few occasions) twenty-four hours at a time.

And at wages lower than those offered at Wal-Mart, with no benefits.  Now I don't claim to have endured a difficult life thus far.  In fact, I won't hesitate to admit that I've had it pretty easy.  But don't attempt to cast aside my claims based solely on what you think my background includes, because you don't know my background.

That's how people debate when they have nothing constructive to say in response to an opponent's point: They abandon serious thought and engage in plays to emotion, hoping their opponents will be too gutless to fire back with opinions that are likely to be unpopular.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 05:12:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
When demand for labor contracts, as it does when the plants move out of town, the wage falls and fewer people are hired.

and these events "just happen," like the weather, without any will or planning or policy decisions made by the elite for their own benefit?  the plants, like browsing brontosaurs, just happen to wander out of town on their own, without the ownership and managerial class making any decisions which benefit their own narrow interests and injure the interests of less wealthy people?

does the relative 30-year fall in the US of average income for the average working person, compared to the enormous rise in the average income for planning and ownership elites, signify absolutely no will, planning, or intention on the part of said elites to rig the economic game in their own favour?

the greatest ideological triumph of what we currently call "economics" is the pretence that a system  designed by and run for the benefit of a small elite is somehow a natural formation, like a crystal or an electromagnetic field, and as morally neutral.  to my ear this is as hollow and self-evidently propagandistic as the earlier rationale that the feudal order was ordained by God in heaven and reflected accurately the divine order, or that it's silly to pass laws against rape because "it's human nature, boys will be boys".  things are how they are (say the winners) because that is just how things are.

a surplus of labour is created by conscious decision making, just as wars are fought by conscious decision making.  those decisions are made by elites who do not fight and die in the wars, or risk any personal loss by reckless economic mismanagement.  the big lie of the dogma (not, imho, the "science") of economics is to render this conscious human decision-making, the exercise of elite power and planning invisible, to pretend that these carefully engineered systems "just happen" and must be accepted as we would accept gravity or the laws of thermo.  it's a brilliant ideological hat trick -- as beautiful in its way as the Divine Right of Kings and more clever, because instead of teaching us to worship the ass who sits in the throne it teaches us to ignore the man behind the curtain.

I suggest Debunking Economics by Keen, which confirms my long-held suspicion that the math behind current economic dogma is shoddy as Ptolemaic planetary mechanics.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 05:37:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Again, the Marxian babbling about some grand conspiracy of the "elite".  Of course the closing of plants does not occur randomly, as in the way the weather changes.  Wal-Mart closes and opens stores to make, and increase, profit.  Its job is to maximize the value for shareholders, which requires it to maximize benefits to consumers.  What else is it supposed to do?  Keep the store open and lose money when the demand is not there?  You seem to believe -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that Wal-Mart has some sort of obligation to these towns.  It's obligated to follow the law, or face punishment.  That's it.  This is why I said companies should be viewed as machines.  Charities do charity work.  Companies do business.

The "elites" do not have the power to "rig" the economy.  Who rigged the economy to the extent that you were able to buy a computer with high speed internet access?  Who rigged the economy to give you the choice of a Dell, an Apple, a Compaq, a Sony, or an HP?  Who rigged the economy to give you choice of Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, or one of the other brands of cars?  Who rigged the economy to give you the choice of untold numbers of brands of beer?  Who rigged the economy to give you lower prices at Wal-Mart, instead of the overpriced, equally-worthless garbage at Sears?  Did the "elite" at Yahoo! "rig" the economy to give you Google?

No.  You have choices and lower prices because of competition and innovation among "elites" and "non-elites".  You appear to be so wrapped up in 19th-Century fairy tales about the Evil Capitalist SystemTM that you've become completely ignorant of what is really going on, and incapable of thinking seriously about it, as adults are supposed to.  The system works the way it works because of the need of the firm to please consumers and investors -- not out of some desire to rape the working class.

Keen claims economic theory is not verified.  Really?  The Volcker Contraction that began in 1979 spoke fairly clearly in favor of the Keynesian and Monetarist explanations of what would happen when the money supply fell.  When WWII began, and massive public spending programs took off as the US began its war economy, what happened?  The US reached full employment and, when the war ended, the US and Europe went into a period of incredibly strong growth.  It worked roughly as Keynes said it would.  Unfortunately, FDR was not able to spend on that level until war preparations began on a massive scale.

Worst of all, Keen judges economics against perfection, a horrible academic sin and a near-sure sign of intellectual dishonesty, and that's only in the first few pages.  This is the same ridiculous style of argument engaged in by communists: "Haha, see?  The market doesn't, like, work perfectly, man, so we, like, need a revolution or something."  And, yet, to continue with my half-joking, hypothetical communist quote, they completely ignore life in countries where capitalism is not the economic system.

Or, as the Wizard put it, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

He comments on the Russian transition, yet he ignores the fact that there were two major sides to the debate over how the transition should take place.  Some, like Joseph Stiglitz, advocated gradual change.  Others, including a few of my old professors and the IMF, advocated rapid change, or "shock therapy".  No one was sure of the correct answer -- hence the use of the term, theory.  But, to fools like Keen, it's all about the Shock Therapists, for they must be the true representatives of economic thought.  Forget about Russia's default.  That had nothing to do with it, right?

And never mind the silly detail of those in favor of rapid transition being a group of people for whom the best economists have never held respect.  No, no!  Steve Keen, Detective Dipshit, is off to the races, seeking to set a record for the number of straw men set up in one book!  Someone had better get the good folks at Guinness World Records on the phone.

Please.

Note, by the way, that every name Keen mentions, from Stiglitz to Samuelson, with some sense of respect is the name of a follower of Keynes.  And, here, we see why the foundation for Keen's book is crumbling, already.  He is separating them, because he wants to concentrate on Classicalists and Neoclassicalists.  Implicitly, he then assures the reader that the theories of the Classicalists are the "true" economic theories, completely ignoring the fact that Keynesianism remaining the dominant school of thought.  (Macroeconomics was originally named Keynesian economics, and Keynes is known in history books as the Father of Macroeconomics.)  It allows him to make generalizations about the field, using theories that do not actually represent the field, in general.  He can then claim that economists (say) believe all markets are perfectly competitive, because that's how the Classicalists' models are built.  The problem with this approach is that modern (or "New") Keynesian models are built on the assumption of imperfect competition, and even monopoly, in some cases.

It doesn't sound like a book that is worth $27.

If you want to read serious thought on the subject, read Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace and A Tract on Monetary Reform.  Also, Krugman's Peddling Prosperity and The Return of Depression Economics are good choices.  If you like those, read the counterpoints in Milton Friedman's Capitalism & Freedom.  Stop reading books that simply pander to your settled prejudices.  That's a game for cowards who are afraid of what they may find in writings that offer a different view.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Thu Jan 26th, 2006 at 10:52:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series