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
<[email protected] <mailto:[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 don't produce anything so they are not part of the
study. I strongly suspect that they also don't 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 couldn't 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 don't 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 doesn't
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: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Sandwichman
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 12:46 PM
To: [email protected] <mailto:[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
<[email protected]
<mailto:[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:
"Man's 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 don't 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).
Don't 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; [email protected]
<mailto:[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
"Older Workers and the PHONY Lump of Labor Fallacy
<http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2010/12/older-workers-and-phony-lump-of-labor.html>"
at Ecological Headstand.
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 11:54 PM, Keith Hudson
<[email protected]
<mailto:[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
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Sandwichman
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