Qetesh, may I say that while I tend to agree with Mrs. Le Guin as well, I don’t quite follow you all the way in thinking that economics is nothing but glorified voodoo. I mean, I know that there are economists who use their science dishonestly, saying that it proves things which it really doesn’t. But I think there are also economists who readily admit that their discipline is a social science, and therefore fuzzy and open to interpretation.

I dunno, maybe the crappy, politicized economists just tend to get all the attention because they are the ones saying what politicians want to hear.

It is a social science, and like all sciences studying society, it is susceptible to personal interpretation. :-p

“An economic transaction is a solved political problem. Economics has gained the title of queen of the social sciences by choosing solved political problems as its domain.” — Abba Lerner

For the dabblers, it’s because they Believe (as in “Hallelujah, lord, Ah Bulleeve!”). They know little, and so think that economics is, actually, a science. In all its flouncy fancypants variety.

Fully grown economists, now, I really don’t know. Perhaps they know so little real science or maths that they imagine what they’ve done is all there is. I know I’ve met some people who, on hearing that I studied maths to honours level, were befuddled: “But what else is there to learn about it?” Perhaps they thought we studied the multiplication tables, but we studied them really hard.

I think there’ll always be a rift between those who understand that the world, and therefore any part of it (like maths or parenting or the double and a half twist with pike), is infinitely complex, and those who believe in Doctrine, Perfect And Ultimate Truth, and The Existence Of Aliens Who Abduct Yokels For Anal Probe Purposes.

Fractals shocked a lot of mathematicians. The corollaries in qualitative studies still fail to be accepted by most.

atheist, I like Ursula Le Guin a lot, and kind of agree with her. People are unquantifiable, at least so far, and economics is an attempt to force square pegs with infinitely frilly edges (us) into mathematically smooth round holes (abstract theory). Anyone with more than half a brain knows why we can’t do this: it amazes me that politicians and economists don’t.

I remember getting stuck in an AP chemistry class in high school – one of the classes I was definitely not prepared for. I’ll never forget the day the instructor was getting ready to teach us something or other about crystalline structure, and he looks out at all of us and says “You guys have all taken trigonometry, right?”….the sinking feeling in my stomach was immediate: I was in an algebra class at the time, and getting lost even with that because the district in which I had done pre-algebra had far, far less stringent standards than the one I was currently in.

The class was a hoot, though….the teacher was old and forgetful, and constantly doing things like complaining about how he couldn’t find his plutonium anymore when we started doing a unit on radiation. Fun times – in this day and age, Homeland Security would have subjected him to extraordinary rendition or something.

What makes me bring the class up is that I remember struggling to make sense out of the series of laws that govern the states and motion of gasses – Avogadro’s law, Boyle’s law, all the rest of that stuff – and then after thinking it finally was starting to make sense, getting unbelievably pissed off when my teacher casually mentioned that none of these laws actually describe the motion or volume of real gasses in real spaces. They all refer to hypothetical idealized gasses in hypothetical perfect vacuums.

I couldn’t figure out why I had wasted so much time learning things that had nothing at all to do with reality, and it took quite a while for my teacher to get me to understand that learning how hypothetically perfect things behave under idealized conditions helps us to approximate how things behave in far more complex real-world settings. The thing to remember was that we must never mistake the model for reality – remember that perfect vacuums do not exist, and that no gas ever behaves in an idealized fashion – and if we did that, the formulae could still tell us useful things about the way the world works.

This was perhaps difficult for me to fully grasp the first time around because I was fifteen. I have no idea what the excuse is for fully grown economists, or economic dabblers.

That’s because economists ignore real life complications to emphasize the relationship between variables. For x theory to work there are no transaction costs involved, or the assumption that everyone wants to maximize production, etc.

Political economists, on the other hand, emphasize complications to give economic theory a political framework. Smith B. doesn’t fall into this group. To people like Smith B., politics just mucks up pure theory that can prove a point if you allow caveats. Politics in fact, is unnecessary.

True Believers of any stripe suck.

Interesting Qetesh. Your statement reminds me of a similar one from the science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin, who prefers anthropological and mythological views of society to economic ones, which, she feels, “miss the point”.

Why on earth would we want to do that?

Bzzzt, sorry. Someone proved mathematically a couple of years ago that Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ doesn’t work under current conditions. Even Smith himself admitted there were problems with applying the theory to the real world.

The problem is that the invisible hand depends on two constraints:

1) That capital can’t cross borders; and
2) That people can.

Clearly the situation in the real world is the exact opposite of this, and that’s why every attempt to apply the principles ‘strictly’ has resulted in a complete dog’s breakfast. Look at the responses to the East Asian meltdown in 97: the countries that followed the doctrine almost imploded, while those that took interventionist measures suffered less.

There’s also the issue that the notion of free markets making everything optimal depends on rational actors having complete knowledge. Here, again, the real world diverges sharply from the theory, implying that there will never be a situation where the invisible hand could be said to apply, at least not until humans evolve a great deal.

Finally, I’m always a little amused, and a little annoyed, when economists hold forth about their subject. Economics is a pretendy science: economists have picked the low-hanging fruit and somehow convinced the world that they know what they’re doing. As a mathematician, I get rather cranky about this. Economics, which in careful hands may be almost (not quite, but almost) a science, is bandied about as though it’s a combination of obvious empirical fact and God’s law. It’s not. Some economics is about as scientific as aromatherapy.

You said it, not me.

“I don’t have the rest of the week to figure out …”

Well you were the one originally quibbling over terms. I’m still trying to figure out how all this cherry-picking amounts to a refutation to the charge that Bush is a socialist. I mean it’s been fun, but…

Quite obviously I’m not going to convert you (or any of the other regulars here) into Austrian school libertarians. Thanks for he spirited dialog without most of the usual Internet decorations of pointless ad hominem and twisted straw-men.

Yeah, and it really shows with me.

Government regulation is, of necessity, a one-size-fits-all solution and cannot be implemented effectively or economically.

It isn’t usually effective or economic but most supporters of government programs (at least some programs) support welfare because they know that government is good at distributing inequality.

Keep trying, we’ll eventually get through all the isms.

I don’t have the rest of the week to figure out how you decided socialism is fascism and communism is socialism. Someone already quoted Mussolini. Here’s Britt’s meta-analysis of seven fascist regimes if you care to read it and:

However, in order to address the questions here, we need to look beyond the “symptoms” of fascism and examine what fascism, as a system of governing, really is. In essence, fascism is authoritarianism. [T]here is a lot of overlap between fascism and Stalinism. The only difference is that one is a form of authoritarianism from the left and the other from the right. At root, fascism is an extreme reaction against liberalism. It is any system that attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life from a conservative position, usually a government in collaboration with business and corporate interests and (especially in “clerical fascism” like that of Franco) in league with a religious ideology. Its power is generally derived through direct control of the military and industry, both of which support its ruling elite. But one of the main reasons fascism is so difficult to identify is that it has no guiding principles—except a will to power. And a right-wing bent.

Every time planned economic solutions are tried, they fail miserably.

Define planned economic solutions before we continue. It’s so generic a term it can mean a dozen things.
I actually meant logistically difficult to nationalize rather than tactically. Remember, running a large industry like oil under a planned economy requires a substantial amount of government infrastructure and bureaucracy. Large corporations, of necessity, usually have large bureaucracies in place. The question of ease is answered in how much effort it takes to transform the latter into the former.

You’re not making sense. Transform corporate bureaucracies into infrastructure, logistics? Transform corporate bureaucracies into government bureaucracies?

The difficulty of logistically nationalizing an industry is relative and depends on the government’s preexisting size and capabilities if it wants to avoid nationalizing the industry through brute force. The feds would avoid the fuss with a logistical nationalization but this also depends on how funds are used, what federal bureaucracies take up the most resources, etc. Right now, that’s the Pentagon.

As far as directly answering whether oil should be nationalized, that depends from my perspective. If voters really want to temporarily lower the price of gasoline they must nationalize the oil industry so extracted and processed sweet crude doesn’t enter the global market. Selling extracting and letting it enter the market isn’t going to make a dent. I don’t think either option is worth it. The estimated barrels in Alaska and some offshore drilling aren’t going to make a difference. The bottleneck is in the refining process. If they were aware of all this they wouldn’t entertain the idea.

Sadly, the electorate, ever taking the short view, would be disappointed when government-run oil took gas prices to $5 per gallon in a very short time.

Señor, you are loco. If there’s one thing politicians want above all else, it is being reelected.

And finally, if you are talking about American liberal economic policies, you are talking about a further diluted European social liberalism with economic policies based on Keynesian theory.

You haven’t gotten the memo. Keynesian is out, neo-liberalism is in.

In other words, you are commenting on them based on indirect knowledge. I would urge you to read them. You would be surprised how much you would probably find agreeable. Even if you don’t, it is always good to know what your opponent is thinking. I have very definitely read “Das Kapital� and “The Communist Manifesto.�

If direct knowledge means arriving to some conclusions you’ve expressed here I’d rather avoid it. I haven’t read the Manifesto either and don’t plan to. I prefer reading articles and essays written by “mediocre� economists and social commentators less sure of themselves, and less full of themselves.

Well you did say that to avoid socialism, we must dismantle industrialization.

You’re the one equating the welfare state to socialism. Why can’t you admit this?

Not in this country. As I noted above, American liberal social economics are based on European social liberalism with large doses of Keynes thrown in.

Yeah, really, in this country too, though we were latecomers.

Well yes. The people will always vote themselves wealth, right?

The people will vote rationally and demand something in exchange for greater economic risk.

But you’re talking about the turn of the previous century, not modern economic policies. Most of those are simply knee-jerk reactions offered by Keynes to address economic problems the government itself created in the first place.

Created by not being able to assist the population during an economic recession?

But the demand for socialism is one founded on an irrational belief in some mythological universal doctrine of fairness. Once that is established, demagogues do the rest.

I think you have it backwards. People don’t vote for the welfare state because they think markets should be fair. They vote for the welfare state because they know markets aren’t fair.

Bingo. Or as Karl Marx said, “Democracy is the road to socialism.�

I hear Singapore is nice.

I expect it will eventually come to that, much as it was required to do away with King George’s tyranny.

I’ll see you on the other side. Picking up a rifle is the ultimate expression of responsibility. Being a robust individual I’m sure you can appreciate my sentiment.

Seriously – he’s an assclown. Here’s a good place to start digging around if you’re honestly curious as to what sort of flaming idiot he is, but in all honestly, he’s really not worth the time.

And always remember, people who take Hayek too seriously are people who think the government is oppressing you by making your doctor have a medical license to practice his or her profession. Another clear case of really just not worth the time.

“Fascism should properly be called corporatism because it is the marriage of corporation power with state power”
- Benito Mussolini

“…the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else … Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathisers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.”
- George Orwell

“Yes, and fuck with it too. Lest you forget, I’m a liberal. That means I don’t pass out when I hear cussin.”

Vulgarity is the last refuge of a weak vocabulary.

“I was thinking the one that I think gave Coase and the biggest headache, pollution. He believed negative externalities are “factors of productionâ€? and should be “thought of as rightsâ€? the government shouldn’t regulate and even if it did, it was unnecessary.”

Libertarian economic solutions to pollution have existed for years. Taxes on pollution, tax breaks for low or non-polluters, and so on. One of the essential tenets of libertarian economics is that entities react more quickly and favorably to incentives than to punishment. Government regulation is, of necessity, a one-size-fits-all solution and cannot be implemented effectively or economically.

“Seriously, this sounds like Communism now.”

Um no, communism is government redistribution of wealth coupled with control of production. That’s why communist and socialist states can be somewhat indistinguishable. Keep trying, we’ll eventually get through all the isms.

“Yes, exonerated by whom?”

Reality. Every time even quasi-libertarian economic solutions are tried, they work better than anticipated. Every time planned economic solutions are tried, they fail miserably.

“Nationalizing any industry isn’t particularly hard considering the state has a monopoly on violence. Economic policies, even laissez-faire policies, can’t protect industries from the state. That’s why you limit the state, although economic expansion normally has the opposite effect.”

You’re sounding a lot like a libertarian here. I actually meant logistically difficult to nationalize rather than tactically. Remember, running a large industry like oil under a planned economy requires a substantial amount of government infrastructure and bureaucracy. Large corporations, of necessity, usually have large bureaucracies in place. The question of ease is answered in how much effort it takes to transform the latter into the former.

On the tactical side, since we live in a nominally democratic state, ease also covers what the electorate will bear. With regard to oil, the hue and cry following nationalization would be strongly tempered by $3 per gallon gas prices. Sadly, the electorate, ever taking the short view, would be disappointed when government-run oil took gas prices to $5 per gallon in a very short time.

“So far as I am able to tell, there is no demarcation between liberal and socialist economic policies to you.”

I have no idea what that means since I haven’t addressed liberal economic policies. I guess that would depend what you mean by liberal. In the classical sense, liberal economic policies are known here as libertarian. However, if you are talking about European-style social liberalism, that is simply a watered-down form of socialism. And finally, if you are talking about American liberal economic policies, you are talking about a further diluted European social liberalism with economic policies based on Keynesian theory. This would be why generalities and absolutes would not apply to my arguments since the specific context is everything.

“I’ve read articles like ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society.’ Never heard of Mises until now, and my impression of Hayek’s Road is what I’ve gathered from so-called conservatives touting the book. You can try explaining how Hayek was right overall, but I don’t know if it would be worth the effort to you. I know we’re not going to agree on capitalist-America-turned-socialist.”

In other words, you are commenting on them based on indirect knowledge. I would urge you to read them. You would be surprised how much you would probably find agreeable. Even if you don’t, it is always good to know what your opponent is thinking. I have very definitely read “Das Kapital” and “The Communist Manifesto.”

“Here’s the problem, Steve B. That’s not what I’m saying. That’s what you’re saying.”

Well you did say that to avoid socialism, we must dismantle industrialization. I guess I assumed that meant you require a non-industrialized society. That led me to assume you meant a pastoral one. Did you perhaps mean nomadic? That would be even stranger.

“Present-day liberal economic policies originated in England during the 19th century to avoid socialism.”

Not in this country. As I noted above, American liberal social economics are based on European social liberalism with large doses of Keynes thrown in.

“Dismantling the classic conservative avoidance of free trade and other protectionist policies resulted in electoral pressure to provide society with economic insurance, some sort of safety net for people who will lose out from market-generated inequalities.”

Well yes. The people will always vote themselves wealth, right? But you’re talking about the turn of the previous century, not modern economic policies. Most of those are simply knee-jerk reactions offered by Keynes to address economic problems the government itself created in the first place. Markets will always have winners and losers. Hopefully it is a zero-sum game, and on some macro scale, it always is. But the demand for socialism is one founded on an irrational belief in some mythological universal doctrine of fairness. Once that is established, demagogues do the rest.

“If safety nets are socialist by definition, then democracy fosters socialism.”

Bingo. Or as Karl Marx said, “Democracy is the road to socialism.”

“If you want to avoid ‘Marx’s plague’ I suggest overthrowing the government.”

I expect it will eventually come to that, much as it was required to do away with King George’s tyranny.

Now, I grant that he may have some reason for saying that Reagan really was a libertarian, or libertarian lite or whatever, that I do not understand. However, he refuses to talk about this reason, opting instead for vague statements about how “it’s just more complicated than that”, and pointless digs at Atheism in general. A pretty pointless discussion altogether.

And, hey, not only are true rational actors rarer than hens teeth in Somalia and Afghanistan, I’d really like to see a private person (not a corporation) who is a rational economic actor in the USA! Because I have to tell you, I don’t see it.

Steve B. is establishing a strange place for himself in which everyone who is not slurping from Hayek’s toilet is a socialist, including almost all Republicans. This gives him a pedestal or ditch from which he can safely babble at all comers, because there’s no way in hell anything he talks about is going to be enacted in a sane country so his beliefs need never be tested.

I suppose there are free markets chock-full of would-be rational agents in Somalia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and so on, but thus far optimal conditions have not yet been created or we’d be flying to Liberia to vacation.

True conservatives, not those actual real conservatives. Comes under True Scotsmen.