Throw away your economics theories

[Red Tung]

Traditional economics are the emperor's clothes. Bare naked lies...

Throw it all away!

They're all lies, lies, lies!

ALL OF IT!!! :angry:


And now for the alternative: :)
Resource Based Theory of Economics (http://dieoff.org/)

[freedumb]

It is a testament to the ruling-class' influence on the education system that orthodox Economics continues to enjoy the status it does.

The idea that the people who run the economy are only interested in 'the most efficient allocation of resources' is ludicrous. A result of the complete ignorance of social/class factors involved in economic policy and decision making.

Stupid, too, is the idea that humans exist only to consume goods and services, that our satisfaction is related to how many material 'wants' are satisfied.

All in all, Economics has served the ruling class very well. It has managed to dehumanise the very real effects that neo-liberal policies have on humans around the world. Sort of a convenient cover to protect the Western intelligensia from guilt about economic imperialism.

[pusher robot]

Petroleum geologists have known for 50 years that global oil production would "peak" and begin its inevitable decline within a decade of the year 2000. Moreover, no renewable energy systems have the potential to generate more than a fraction of the power now being generated by fossil fuels.

In short, the transition to declining energy availability signals a transition in civilization as we know it.

Given that this first paragraph is unequivocally and obviously wrong (apparently nuclear power doesn't exist in his world???) it's hard to take any of the rest of it seriously.

[Connolly]

Given that this first paragraph is unequivocally and obviously wrong (apparently nuclear power doesn't exist in his world???) it's hard to take any of the rest of it seriously.

There will be some amount of resources needed to transform transportation, agriculture and domestic heating systems into nuclear generated energy. I think its laughable that capitalism could pull off something like that.

[pusher robot]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 01, 2007 08:26 pm

Given that this first paragraph is unequivocally and obviously wrong (apparently nuclear power doesn't exist in his world???) it's hard to take any of the rest of it seriously.

There will be some amount of resources needed to transform transportation, agriculture and domestic heating systems into nuclear generated energy. I think its laughable that capitalism could pull off something like that.
Why? Nuclear power provides electricity, and electricity can already power cars, tractors, and electric heaters.

[red team]

Originally posted by pusher robot+July 02, 2007 05:57 am--> (pusher robot @ July 02, 2007 05:57 am)
The [email protected] 01, 2007 08:26 pm

Given that this first paragraph is unequivocally and obviously wrong (apparently nuclear power doesn't exist in his world???) it's hard to take any of the rest of it seriously.

There will be some amount of resources needed to transform transportation, agriculture and domestic heating systems into nuclear generated energy. I think its laughable that capitalism could pull off something like that.
Why? Nuclear power provides electricity, and electricity can already power cars, tractors, and electric heaters. [/b]
The problem isn't about other sources of energy. The problem is that given Capitalism is a short-term reactive system where money is the primary indicator of wealth (which it isn't), with what motivation other than the further accumulation of money would the financial elites of this system be motivated to plan ahead for a self-sustaining system?

The answer is that there is no such motivation. The menu choices is constrained by what can return the greatest "value" in terms of purchases from the majority of people whom the elites have a duo perspective on. That is as both a burden on profits because money must be spent on wages and as a cash cow (or suckers) for whatever they can get away with in selling to them for the lowest amount of money paid out to produce.

Such real physical units of wealth like energy available to sustain a large healthy population and healthy environment never goes into the economist's calculations. A dumbed-down working population which consumes addictive poisons purposely or inadvertantly from the polluted environment while chasing after any passing fad which is mass-marketed on a whim as the newest "great thing" that is better than the previous "great thing" is the Capitalist biggest wet dream as this would be the perfect set of people for returning value for them. That and the occasional war (ahem, police action or counter-terror operation) to liberate resources from "terrorist" regimes would be Capitalist utopia.

You see, there is no such thing as planning ahead for such high priority goals as a healthy, knowledgeable population if an investment in such intangible, lofty ideals isn't going to pay off with a surplus of money gained at the end of the process even if the obvious conclusion at the end of the process would be a used up world who's only way of further survival would mean to burn the existing infrastructure for fuel. The only priority for investors is short-term profit as realised by the fictional construct of interest. That is the further you hold on to an investment that doesn't return a surplus in money the more you are penalized for it by the people loaning it to you. So there you have it. The cheapest and fastest to produce to return the most in "value" is what counts. Value that is non-monetary in nature like a happy population or a sustainable future or actual physical efficiency doesn't count as value. The death of the electric car and the mass-marketing of huge gas guzzling suburban tanks better known as SUVs is a testament to that sad fact.

[pusher robot]

Value that is non-monetary in nature like a happy population or a sustainable future or actual physical efficiency doesn't count as value.

Of course it does, to the extent that people want those things. Something only has value because it serves some purpose to somebody. There is no such thing as an intrinsic value to physical efficiency, for example. And if physical efficiency has less value to somebody than some other thing, like cargo space, towing capacity, or fuel range, then it actually is less valuable.

Perhaps you disagree with the worth of the values expressed by people, but that's not a criticism of capitalism, it's a criticism of people. If people wanted small, lightweight cars that could only go 200 miles in 8 hours, capitalism would provide that. Because there are superior alternatives, they don't, so the resources are directed elsewhere.

[red team]

Of course it does, to the extent that people want those things. Something only has value because it serves some purpose to somebody. There is no such thing as an intrinsic value to physical efficiency, for example. And if physical efficiency has less value to somebody than some other thing, like cargo space, towing capacity, or fuel range, then it actually is less valuable.

Perhaps you disagree with the worth of the values expressed by people, but that's not a criticism of capitalism, it's a criticism of people. If people wanted small, lightweight cars that could only go 200 miles in 8 hours, capitalism would provide that. Because there are superior alternatives, they don't, so the resources are directed elsewhere.

How exactly can you confirm that it works like that with consumer desires correlated exactly to demand when consumers only exist if they are employed wage earners able to pay back a corporations what they made to sell as cheaply and profitably as possible? You can't. Perhaps people really do want to invest in physical efficiency and environmental friendly technology, but how would you know if the menu choices have already been made? Is there a way for the average consumer to affect these menu choices given a public vote? Does one dollar, one vote on already produced consumer products always correlate to what is publicly desired for corporate behavior and production? You know as well as I do that it doesn't work that way.

Now for the real world, it doesn't work that way because consumer demand and culture in general is a function of marketing. Further, investments into company aren't done by the majority of consumers. It is done by the wealthy shareholders of which there is only a tiny minority within the population. Can you confirm your theory that the motivation for increased return in profits for billionaire investors into corporations is less of a priority than the menu selection of cheap disposable goods to be mass-marketed to consumers. It isn't the consumers that are making the profits so it isn't an entirely consumer driven society. Your theory falls to pieces.

Further, there are certain physical laws you can&#39;t break and one of these is the conservation of energy. The net reserves of non-renewable fuel that is supporting our mass-market, disposable society isn&#39;t going to last any longer than the amount of fuel of the non-renewable type that we have. After it&#39;s gone any sort of market-driven value on getting something physical back to support the development an ecological friendly system of distribution isn&#39;t going to happen no matter how many laws are passed or dollars are invested. It will be everybody for themselves. By that time perhaps we can set up a supply and demand curve on the sustainability of burning human corpses for fuel <_<

[pusher robot]

Originally posted by red [email protected] 02, 2007 07:05 pm
How exactly can you confirm that it works like that with consumer desires correlated exactly to demand when consumers only exist if they are employed wage earners able to pay back a corporations what they made to sell as cheaply and profitably as possible? You can&#39;t.

Why not? Argument is an intellectual process, not the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes. Here are my premises:
(1) Consumers have money.
(2) Producers want that money.
(3) Therefore, producers will attempt to produce goods and services that cause consumers to give them money.

Which premise do you dispute and why?


Perhaps people really do want to invest in physical efficiency and environmental friendly technology, but how would you know if the menu choices have already been made?Because the "menu of choices" is for all intents and purposes infinite.


Is there a way for the average consumer to affect these menu choices given a public vote? What does this sentence mean? It doesn&#39;t parse.


Does one dollar, one vote on already produced consumer products always correlate to what is publicly desired for corporate behavior and production?Not always, but almost always.

You know as well as I do that it doesn&#39;t work that way.Obviously I don&#39;t or I wouldn&#39;t be disputing the point.


Now for the real world, it doesn&#39;t work that way because consumer demand and culture in general is a function of marketing.
What a low opinion of people you hold. Apparently in your view, people are so feeble-minded that they are incapable of even deciding for themselves what they do and don&#39;t want. In truth, while good marketing can help a good product succeed, and keep a mediocre product from failing, it can&#39;t sell a product people don&#39;t want. See, e.g., the Edsel for an archetypal example.


Further, investments into company aren&#39;t done by the majority of consumers. It is done by the wealthy shareholders of which there is only a tiny minority within the population.Wrong, at least in the United States, where stock-sharing and 401(k) plans are common even among laborers, and any employee with a pension fund is a defacto shareholder.


Can you confirm your theory that the motivation for increased return in profits for billionaire investors into corporations is less of a priority than the menu selection of cheap disposable goods to be mass-marketed to consumers.The motivation for profit is less of a priority than the availability of goods? Less of a priority to whom? For what purpose?


Further, there are certain physical laws you can&#39;t break and one of these is the conservation of energy. So, you acknowledge that scarcity exists and is a fundamental reality of the universe?


The net reserves of non-renewable fuel that is supporting our mass-market, disposable society isn&#39;t going to last any longer than the amount of fuel of the non-renewable type that we have.
You are saying: the reserves of the fuel won&#39;t last longer than the amount of fuel we have. That&#39;s a tautology. Well, the sun will also eventually explode. So what?

After it&#39;s gone any sort of market-driven value on getting something physical back to support the development an ecological friendly system of distribution isn&#39;t going to happen no matter how many laws are passed or dollars are invested. It will be everybody for themselves. By that time perhaps we can set up a supply and demand curve on the sustainability of burning human corpses for fuel <_<Well, that won&#39;t happen for tens of thousands, probably millions of years, even assuming technology advances no further than it already has and fusion power is never made practical. So we&#39;ll have to wait a while to find out.

[red team]

Why not? Argument is an intellectual process, not the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes. Here are my premises:
(1) Consumers have money.
(2) Producers want that money.
(3) Therefore, producers will attempt to produce goods and services that cause consumers to give them money.

Which premise do you dispute and why?

(1) Consumers have money.

How do they get it other than after the fact that somebody decides to exploit them for their labour?

(2) Producers want that money.

How do they get it until after the fact that they decide what they are going to make to sell?

(3) Therefore, producers will attempt to produce goods and services that cause consumers to give them money.

You got it backwards. Demand is reactive after the fact that supplies have already been made, therefore "demand" is simply for items that the financial masters have allowed to be made in the first place. The consumer is not in control.

And competition from various financial masters do not change this fact of the money circulation process one bit. You may state that one financial master experiences a temporary financial loss from the unfortunate production of supplies that the consumer-worker find less appealing than some other alternatives supplied by some other masters, but how does this change the fact that "demand" is made after the fact that the decision is made to produce by those who have the political capital (money) to rent labour and set prices for their products?

Again, the consumer is not in control because fairy tale of supply and demand is a diguised lie from those who own political capital to arbitrarily make the decision to produce and rent whatever the going price for coerced labour is on the "free market".



Perhaps people really do want to invest in physical efficiency and environmental friendly technology, but how would you know if the menu choices have already been made?
Because the "menu of choices" is for all intents and purposes infinite.

Irrelevant because that&#39;s not the question.

How are decisions made to plan, design and make products that do not exist yet? Payment from what is paid out as necessary wages in order to supply everything a person is required to live on is not an accurate picture of demand since I cannot voluntarily choose not to work for one master or another unless I voluntarily want to die. I have to agree to make whatever the boss decides to make and only after the fact do I get to decide to purchase whatever is made by one boss or another. To say that decision to purchase after the fact of production is "demand" is really a mis-discription of what really is happening.




Is there a way for the average consumer to affect these menu choices given a public vote?
What does this sentence mean? It doesn&#39;t parse.

That&#39;s because your mind is too limited to differentiate between past tense and present tense and how decision made after the fact from the inequality of political power that money gives you is nothing other than choosing between different masters to serve and not active voluntary decision making by that of the consumer.

Yes, we all know that you&#39;re too dense-headed to grasp it.


What a low opinion of people you hold. Apparently in your view, people are so feeble-minded that they are incapable of even deciding for themselves what they do and don&#39;t want. In truth, while good marketing can help a good product succeed, and keep a mediocre product from failing, it can&#39;t sell a product people don&#39;t want. See, e.g., the Edsel for an archetypal example.

So how do you account for different cultures and different menus of items on fast food restaurants in different countries? People in general are sheeple and are shaped by the culture they are immersed in and social pressures to conform to whatever is generally expected of them by their peers.


Wrong, at least in the United States, where stock-sharing and 401(k) plans are common even among laborers, and any employee with a pension fund is a defacto shareholder.

Really? What happens to my money if I don&#39;t put it in the bank?


The motivation for profit is less of a priority than the availability of goods? Less of a priority to whom? For what purpose?

Easy. I take your money from the bank because I have collateral on getting the loan because I have ownership I claimed on huge amounts of property that I used money I "borrowed" from other people to purchase said property. A self-justifying tautology for disguising the fact of monopoly political control over consumer-workers and means of productions. But, in the end if you dig deep enough the financial aristocracy has it&#39;s past root in swindle, conquest and slavery. That&#39;s how money can make more money.

Again, who really makes the decision in this system where money is politics in it&#39;s truest form?


So, you acknowledge that scarcity exists and is a fundamental reality of the universe?

Only so far that no alternatives can be found for naturally discovered elements of inherent scarcity. But, in that case how do you justify anyone in particular having ownership to the exclusion of anybody else? In the end it is just plunder through conquest and stealing through swindle, but you&#39;re just not willing to admit to that.

Further, in terms of energy that is the only thing animating any production in the world from the food workers eat to fuel powered machines. Renewable sources from naturally occuring phenomenon is never going to harnessed unless we have the foresight to used the limited non-renewable sources to make means of harnessing them. The current trajectory of market-driven political power (money) trading is simply going to lead to a collapse. Energy isn&#39;t political. Once it&#39;s gone, no amount of pleading, coercing or bribing is going to get it back from dissipated low-level heat.


You are saying: the reserves of the fuel won&#39;t last longer than the amount of fuel we have. That&#39;s a tautology. Well, the sun will also eventually explode. So what?

That&#39;s not a tautology because I&#39;m not making a statement of truth implying truth.

I&#39;m simply making it obvious that non-renewable energy supplying mass-marketed trinkets instead of going into research for harnessing renewable energy sources is going to lead to eventual collapse of people using each other for food and energy. In other words, Capitalism being the short-sighted political trading system that it is inevitably leads to cannibalism.

Your last sentence doesn&#39;t even make sense. Everybody is going to die, but so what? Do you think you can live beyond you&#39;re grave? Actually you do because you&#39;re religious. The money system, mass-market is simply another secular religion that you have. The only thing that last beyond the grave and is independent of genetics, people or society is ideas, but the lethal ideas of a political trading system based on coercion and negotiation, but not on physical concepts like thermodynamics is going to lead to the end of all ideas from the collapse of human civilization and with it the accumulated store of knowledge in people&#39;s heads.

Why? because everybody would be too busy killing each other or hiding in their bomb shelters.

[pusher robot]

Yes, we all know that you&#39;re too dense-headed to grasp it.

This conversation is over.

Edit:
Against my better judgment, I&#39;ll respond to your substantive points.


(1) Consumers have money.

How do they get it other than after the fact that somebody decides to exploit them for their labour?
What does it matter? They have it. Dispute the premise or not&#33;

(2) Producers want that money.

How do they get it until after the fact that they decide what they are going to make to sell?

What does it matter? They want it. Dispute the premise or not&#33;


You got it backwards. Demand is reactive after the fact that supplies have already been made, therefore "demand" is simply for items that the financial masters have allowed to be made in the first place. The consumer is not in control.If that were true, then market research would not be necessary. If that were true, producers could never fail&#33;

how does this change the fact that "demand" is made after the fact that the decision is made to produce by those who have the political capital (money) to rent labour and set prices for their products?
I dispute this "fact." It&#39;s nothing more than an ungrounded assertion.

Payment from what is paid out as necessary wages in order to supply everything a person is required to live on is not an accurate picture of demand since I cannot voluntarily choose not to work for one master or another unless I voluntarily want to die.
This doesn&#39;t follow. Why would how you obtained the resources affect your wants? Why would &#036;100 earned in a factory cause you to demand different goods and services than &#036;100 found in the gutter?

So how do you account for different cultures and different menus of items on fast food restaurants in different countries? People in general are sheeple and are shaped by the culture they are immersed in and social pressures to conform to whatever is generally expected of them by their peers.

I never denied that culture exists, I simply maintain that free people are perfectly capable of deciding whether those cultural norms are to their liking or not.

Really? What happens to my money if I don&#39;t put it in the bank?
Um, it steadily loses value in proportion to the rate of inflation? What does this have to do with stock ownership?

Only so far that no alternatives can be found for naturally discovered elements of inherent scarcity.That would be every element, unless you know of some elements of infinite, readily available quantity.

But, in that case how do you justify anyone in particular having ownership to the exclusion of anybody else? In the end it is just plunder through conquest and stealing through swindle, but you&#39;re just not willing to admit to that.Well, you&#39;re wrong. I deny it. I can justify private ownership on grounds of practicality, efficiency, or justice.

I&#39;m simply making it obvious that non-renewable energy supplying mass-marketed trinkets instead of going into research for harnessing renewable energy sources is going to lead to eventual collapse of people using each other for food and energy. In other words, Capitalism being the short-sighted political trading system that it is inevitably leads to cannibalism.
No, it won&#39;t. My "sun exploding" comment was to make it clear that the eventuality you are talking about is so far in the future as to be pointless to speculate on. With existing technology, we can reliably provide our energy needs for thousands, probably millions of years at costs only somewhat higher than today, probably far lower with eventual refinement. No collapse from energy scarcity is imminent, and to imply otherwise is simple fearmongering.