Harry,
Please think about what sandwichman (whom I now see has a name) has
written. Is it too difficult to become . . . well, just a little more
tentative in what one believes? One well-known philosopher (whose name
escapes this senile brain for the moment) said that too many step-words
become stop-words.
Keith
At 16:01 08/01/2011 -0800, Tom wrote:
Harry,
MY points are inadequate? You don't seem to grasp that the burden of proof
rests with YOU, Harry. I'm glad you concede that desires are not
necessarily for commodities, in which case those desires are external to
any study of political economy. Remember this is POLITICAL economy you're
talking about. Not political in the sense of parties or elections but in
the sense of the Polis, the city or public sphere.
But look, I'm not really interested in arguing these assumptions with you.
My original point was about the difference between the use of assumptions
such as these as analytical tools and their rote recitation as articles of
faith. You seem to be arguing that they must be accepted as articles of
faith rather than as tools of analysis. What I'm saying is that even
though your two assumptions may be useful as analytical assumptions, they
cease to be scientific when they are merely asserted as dogmatic Truth.
You seem not to care that people who are equally insistent as you on the
absolute Truth of the two assertions come to diametrically opposed positions.
Trust me, Harry, characters like John Rae who devoted a lot of energy to
dismissing and even libeling Henry George would have no trouble embracing
your two eternal Truths. So who's your daddy? Henry George or John Rae?
Tom
On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Harry Pollard
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
Sorry about that, Sandwichman, but your points are inadequate.
The Science of Political Economy is the study of the Nature, Production
and Distribution of Wealth.
Dead people dont produce anything so they are not part of the study. I
strongly suspect that they also dont much desire.
You suggest that unlimited desires implies the exchange of commodities.
Yet, there is no such implication. There is no restriction on desires. In
fact, the only desire we can be pretty sure applies to every one is the
desire for survival. That surely comes first or you might become a corpse
which is outside our study.
Of course people commit suicide which is their desire at the time, but
when the succeed they are no longer part of our study.
So, you might desire to be loved, or you might want to go for a walk in
the park. Very desirable things, but if you want to survive not the first
things you think of. It is likely you provide yourself with a hierarchy of
desire, with the most wanted, obtainable with the least exertion, at the top.
I suppose at the top are food, clothing, and shelter.
However, if you have a science that deals with dead people OK. My
science deals with the living.
With regard to least exertion, IRON MAN is a good example. The one who
wins or even completes the harrowing test is the one who best conserves
his exertion.
A friend of mine doing an Iron Man, was confronted by heavy currents and
even after several tries couldnt complete the first leg, whereupon he was
too exhausted to do much else. If he could have minimized his exertion in
the sea, he would have sprung on to his bike and zoomed away. Athletes are
well aware of the need to conserve exertion.
You are in good company. I had a knockdown, drag out, confrontation with
Friedrich von Hayek on this very point.
You should have read Progress and Poverty rather than those other books.
Henry George spent a lot of his book pointing to errors in the existing
Political Economy particularly with errors of definition.. He positively
destroyed the assertions of Malthus. This was done to clear the decks for
his more rigorous Political Economy.
With regard to athletics, the less exertion the better if one wishes to
accomplish something. With regard to a desire for exertion, the exertion
is merely a way to achieve something else.
I notice the ads for losing weight (a desire) do not try to sell more
exertion. In fact, some even offer a plan that requires no exertion! This
is a selling point even as it seems peculiar. But it strikes a chord with
people who seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion.
Do you deliberately exert more when you want something? Or, do you try to
accomplish your desire with the least exertion?
If you want a table and can make a table with two hours exertion, do you
deliberately find ways to spend 4 hours of exertion in making the same
table? I dont think so.
As I said, this second assumption illustrates the path to all progress.
They are a useful beginning to the study of human production and
distribution. I should make the point that distribution doesnt refer to
carrying production around. It refers to who gets production, that is how
production is distributed among those who do the producing.
Harry
******************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
(818) 352-4141
******************************
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 12:46 PM
To: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
Cc: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] A Robot Stole My Job
Harry,
It's not a matter of dismissing your two assumptions but of dissecting
them. "Man's desires are unlimited" sounds superficially plausible. The
burden of proof for an assertion, however, is not on those who would
question it but on those who make the assertion. Nevertheless, it is easy
to find an exception to the first assumption. Man dies; desiring stops.
Desires are indeed limited by the time in which one can do the desiring.
Time is the constraint. Unless time is limitless, desires are limited.
O.K., now I have come up with one exception to your assumption even though
the burden of proof is still incumbent upon YOU to demonstrate the truth
of your assertion. How do I know that man dies? Observation. I suppose you
could say, "how do you know that desires stop when man dies?" Well, I
don't, actually. But, as I said, it's you who have to meet the burden of
proof about your assumptions.
Of course there are other ideological treasures buried in your "unlimited
desires" premise. The primary one is the assumption that the desires man
has are necessarily for commodities exchanged on the market or for things
commodities can substitute for. The desire to be loved can be fulfilled by
the purchase of cosmetics, a new convertible or the right brand of lite
beer... etc. Can you substantiate your tacit assumption of
substitutability? To ask the question is to answer it in the negative.
The past couple of weeks I have been engaged in intensive readings in
"classical political economy". Not Henry George but John McCulloch, Col.
Torrens and a chorus of acolytes whose stock in trade was trumpeting the
scientific truths of "political economy". On any given question, the Truth
(with a capital "T") seems to have at least two definitive forms, which
are the opposite of each other. For example, on the question of
unemployment, the Irish nationalist, Daniel O'Connell, speaking in the
House of Commons on the 13th of February 1838, asserted that LOWER WAGES
was the cure for unemployment (and consequently for low wages!). This was
a scientific Truth demonstrated by the laws of political economy. Yet
Henry Martyn, whose Considerations upon the East India Trade preceded Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations by three quarters of a century and in some
respects surpassed it, says that competition will ensure that labor costs
can be abated (by trade, mechanization etc.) without abating labor's wages.
"Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion." Perhaps. But
what about man's desires FOR exertion. Does IRON MAN also seek to satisfy
his desires with least exertion? Is that why he cycles, swims and runs
hard to get back to where he started from? The sense of the sentence
breaks down if we can observe a desire that is also an exertion. For that
matter, do not all desires exhibit some degree of exertion? Wouldn't the
best "least exertion" solution then be to have fewer desires? Is not the
desire to be free of desire still a desire?
These are not trivial objections to your two assumptions, Harry. Don't
dismiss them. They are very useful. You said to deny the assumptions all
one needed to do is come up with one exception. I've done that. But that's
more exertion than I should have done because 1. the burden of proof was
on you, not me and 2. because I am confident that my demonstration will
not satisfy my desire to persuade you that your assumptions are inherently
flawed.
Tom
On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Harry Pollard
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
Sandwichman,
I marked this then was overcome with computer problems and the holiday
season. Please excuse the delay.
Just one point concerning your dismissal of aphorisms.
Classical Political Economy begins with two assumptions as do all
sciences begin with assumptions. Bertrand Russell sagely suggested that
two assumptions are better than sixteen. I suppose the more assumptions
you have, the greater risk of error.
The two major assumptions of all sciences may be;
There is an order in the universe.
The mind of Man can discover that order.
The two assumptions of Political Economy are:
Mans desires are unlimited.
Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion.
Arthur asked where these assumptions came from. I replied observation.
The first tells us why Man acts, the second describes why we advance.
To deny the assumptions, all one need do is come up with exceptions one
exception.
Interestingly, the first suggests there can be no such thing as
unemployment. Yet, most of contemporary economic discussion seems to
assume that unemployment is inevitable and we must find work for people.
Yet, the second suggests that we dont want work (we want the results).
Therefore, the present policies to find work for people are peculiar, to
say the least. It also explains why so much of the welfare state is shot
through and through with essentially criminal activity. (One of the
Republican points in the new Congress is that $100 billion in criminal
extravagance could be recovered from Medicare alone.)
Anyway, those two assumptions begin the study of Political Economy (which
has little to do with politics, by the way).
Dont dismiss them. They are very useful.
Harry
******************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
(818) 352-4141
******************************
From: Sandwichman [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2010 9:36 AM
To: Keith Hudson; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Cc: Arthur Cordell;
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] A Robot Stole My Job
Economics can provide useful tools for thinking about issues but those
tools can also be misused and transformed into ready-made answers that
enable us to avoid thinking about issues. One of the tell-tale danger
signs that this is happening is when an analytical perspective gets
reduced to an aphorism and the aphorism becomes an article of faith.
"People's desires are insatiable." "Automation creates more jobs than it
destroys." "The amount of work is not fixed."
People's desires are indeed "insatiable" but not necessarily for things
produced and traded in the market. To a certain extent, material goods can
be substituted for spiritual desires. For example, war can be substituted
for piety. But those substitutions are often pathological. There is indeed
a limit to how much we can poison ourselves. Death.
Automation creates more jobs... perhaps. but to paraphrase H.L. Mencken
"which jobs? and in what order?" It is instructive to trace the origins of
the aphorisms. The "creates more jobs than it destroys" cliche appears to
originate in the 1930s. The first sighting I can locate states, "science
creates many times more jobs than it destroys." It's in the proceedings of
the annual convention of the Association of Life Insurance Presidents. The
full statement reads, "The mere fact that all European countries now
support four times the population that they had, or could in any way have
supported in 1800, is proof enough that in the long run science creates
many times more jobs than it destroys.." Uhmmm. Raise your hands all those
who believe that quadrupling the population is still a good ides. See what
I mean? Context counts.
The amount of work is not fixed? Is that a theoretical truth or an
empirical one? U.S employment in September 2010 was 200,000 less than it
was in December 1999. Does that mean the fact is a fallacy? Bill McBride
at Calculated Risk says its a "lump of labor fallacy" to think that older
people remaining in the workforce past retirement take jobs that might
otherwise employ young, unemployed people. What's the history of the
fallacy claim? I have commented in an open letter to Bill McBride in
"<http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2010/12/older-workers-and-phony-lump-of-labor.html>Older
Workers and the PHONY Lump of Labor Fallacy" at Ecological Headstand.
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 11:54 PM, Keith Hudson
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
But we're already fast entering a different situation. The cost of energy
(as a proportion of personal expenditure) is now rising remorselessly,
there have been no uniquely new consumer goods for the past 30 years or
so, and automation is now biting into mass employment (and thus also
forcing down average real wages for the past 30 years). We (in the West)
are now becoming as securely locked into our present urbanized way of life
with all its limitations as all well-developed agricultural cultures were
locked into theirs in Eurasia and Central America.
--
Sandwichman
--
Sandwichman
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Sandwichman
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
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