Complex Systems
You know, given the fact that you've never taken an econ 101 class, I really care less and less for your diatribes about the field.
It's true that I've never taken Econ 101. The again, I've never taken Political Science 101, Philosophy 101, Religious Studies 101, American History 101, or Any Arbitrarily Selected Hard Science 101, nevertheless I'm equally immodest in expressing an opinion on any of those. I leave it to all and sundry as to how well I've done in discussing those departments.
So let's make it perfectly clear that you bothering to point that little point out is well, an ad hominem. And even taking Econ 101 is pointless if it causes one to say in a thread (for instance) that the minimum wage should not be raised because it would increase unemployment. All I would have to do then is point out that the actual empirical data reveals no statistically significant effect. Taking Econ 101 is also more pointless if your name is Greg Mankiw, who seems to be to the Romney campaign what Ben Bova was to
The Starlost - i.e. to be the guy who was there simply so the producers could say "We have a science advisor".
As to my "diatribe" I find it strange indeed that you would ascribe such a label considering that I neither expressed anything in any tone that could reasonably construed as hystrionic, nor was what I said addressed against you.
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Anyone who talks about the "calculation problem,"* admits that
individual firms face the same issue that governments face in failing to make proper allocation decisions....So, you mentioned how this is trivially true to both central authorities and firms- no one will disagree.
It's not only trivially true for central authorities and firms, it's true period - from the smallest biological cell to the economic system as a whole. I spoke of stronger and weaker versions of the argument. A strong version might begin "Economies must optimise" and conclude that the market actually "solves" the calculation problem. Both the initial premise and the conclusion are false
ex hypothesi.
What's objectional about it is basically its employment in a false dilemma (Free Market or Central Planning, no other alternatives). And the subsequent bogus
modus ponens argument (Free Market or Central Planning. Not Central Planning. Therefore, Free Market) when any system necessarily fails by the same standard. Then again to the extent that the "free market" "works" I don't put much credence to the Austrian economists to give us the correct explanation as to why.
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However, as we've seen that the prevalence for firms to fail and be replaced far exceeds the ability of firms. At the time of the US's creation, first past the post was pretty much one of the most representative firms of government to come across for a nation- today it seems (to me at least) relatively outdated and
unrepresentative. However, I doubt it'll change anytime soon. Firms have far more incentives to respond to market activities than governments do, and that is what tends to make them on many issues relatively more efficient.
Yes, efficient at surplus-value extraction, as the Soviet leadership eventually realised. A great pity however that a fanatical pursuit of efficiency at the micro level doesn't necessarily lead to macro-level efficiency. If only the capitalists would have the intellgence to at least set up an alert system to warn them of the shrinking consumer demand resulting from their own firings. But they'll never learn will they?
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Input-output models suck, and linear programming as a whole has largely been shed by the profession as a result. You can find input output models freely available on most government's websites. I think the BEA publishes one for the US
here is a 400 industry one for the US, and
here is an inter-provincal one for Canada. But the idea of using any of these for actually valid macroeconomic predictions is laughable. Yes, let us assume supply is perfectly elastic.
Well, I personally prefer not to assume supply curves at all, since I have an allegy to domain assumptions.
I'm not talking about using them for modelling as such, but merely to calculate underlying labour-values. Interestingly enough, Stafford Beer objected to the i/o approach as being insufficiently dynamic. The input-output tables I'm talking about are a bit different, they're the unaggregated tables of every good in the entire economy and they would really be input-output tables. The tables you're more familiar with should more rightly be called "sale-purchase" tables.
N3bu
Although for arguments sake, I would like to see a direct-democracy distribution of resources on a large scale for the good of the group by the collective will of the group.
Well, that would be communism for real wouldn't it. Well, except for the "good of the group" bullshit.
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At the very least it would provide good insights into nature of human societal co-operation with regards to resources and the extent to which individualism can and will exist given a lack of coercive entities.
I don't know anyone who would want to set such a thing up simply for the social science spin-off. And what's a "coercive entity"? I assume you mean "specialized coercive bodies". In primitive hunter-gatherers, there is no such thing, and the coercive function is exercised by the whole, on behalf of the whole. As long as part =/= whole (which is really the whole issue), most likely we're always going to need some measure of coercion to bind people to essential social commitments.
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Price is a voluntarily evolved system out of barter. It not forced because most of society accepts it's presence due to the fact that it's existed for a few thousand years.
"Price" (i.e. the value-relation) neither evolved out of barter (which never really existed as a system in the first place), nor evolved voluntarily (which implies the process was in some sense conscious). And it
is forced, in the same way that you must use the same language as your fellow citizens, on pain of unintelligibilty.
