Talk:Economics/Archive 3

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See: Archive 2

Nitpicks

Rewrite improves it significantly, one nitpick: there is not enough focus on the thing economics is actually about - the formation, administration and optimization of *markets*, e.g. commodity markets. Mostly a matter of language, but all these players and studies are clustered around things, and those things are markets.

Another minor nitpick is that the Fundamentals section used to nicely bridge between the idea that economics is about the human ability to choose and trade, whereas the exactly same allocation of resources in other animals is guided mostly by instinct and is studied in biology and ecology. In the old wording, that bridged neatly to the hunter-gatherer society stuff. In the new one, it's a bit harder to tell how anyone could believe that hunter-gatherer society can be irrelevant if animal behavior and ecology are relevant... where is the bridge? This whole matter may need a rewrite to make the extreme views clear - I presume Margulis' flat statement that economics is ecology for humans is one such extreme. Is there another extreme saying that economics is the pinnacle of human activity coming directly from god, contrary in all ways to our animal nature, or whatever? Seems to me I've seen quotes like that...

Dated April 8, 2002 by User:24.150.61.63

MLP-Volt removed scarcity

Replaced scarcity, not because it isn't in the textbooks, but because "choices under scarcity" is just a verbose defintition of "trade". I vote for clarity.

"capitalism" doesn't belong on front page, i agree. Dated April 8, 2002 by User:142.150.129.50

I think it does. The vast majority of the world's population is now living under a regime of neoclassical economic assumptions applied via various institutions under a political economy of capitalism. If you read those articles, and commodity markets and instructional capital, but especially factors of production you will see a subtext of assumptions that basically explain, to popular satisfaction, why capitalism is popular. We need to think more about the m:three billionth user here.
This is very very important, as 10000 indymedia authors will get here soon, and if we don't have solid material on these issues, they'll just tear up every article with polemic and create chaos. You might also wish to review anti-globalization movement and green economists to see the basic conflicts in poli sci that are driving this. of course, if you find any of that wildly out of line with your own thinking, by all means cite and correct, but please try to avoid the wholesale cut-outs that more ignorant people here are engaged in... personally I NEVER remove a line of any article written by anyone else, but work with it and try to work its point of view in citing where it comes from.
The most credible players on a values-neutral and state-neutral economics are in the UK, of course. Oliver Harding at the London Health Observatory which is engaged in measuring well-being in the UK for the Blair government's U.K. Social Exclusion Unit, seems to have drawn the hardest lines around social capital rather than letting it fuzz out like Paul Adler (the global guru on this) has. Also, Nigel Nicholson of the London Business School wrote an article called "how hardwired is human behavior" - highly recommended, hits on the "fundamentals" problems hard. I don't know how the London School of Economics has characterized the issues in moral purchasing or intellectual capital but it's obviously key to understanding how they see this "brand versus flag versus label" thing that confuses so many in America (where e.g. Coca-cola is all three at once ;-))
you will notice, from all those question marks, that no one here seems to know much about the real world. On the other hand, put double square brackets around the name of any character in any Ayn Rand novel and you'll find an abundance. There is a serious m:Systemic Bias of Wikipedia as it stands. - 24

Dated April 8, 2002 by User:24.150.61.63

-speculation: in twenty years, economics will be incorporated as a branch of general systems theory. (doesn't belong on front page either) Dated April 8, 2002 by User:142.150.129.50

it's a common speculation especially among Gaians and terrist and Terran types. However, the objections are serious: we don't actually understand ecology enough to make it a branch of general systems theory, nor necessarily should we, as general systems assumes a "God's eye view" of events that is increasingly suspect thanks to body philosophers. Second, economics, ecology and systems/physics theory (especially anti-reductionists) just doesn't deal with ethics well enough - most economic choice is ethical, see moral purchasing. Also, read the early Amartya Sen, especially "economics and ethics" and most importantly "is internal consistency of choice bizarre?" where he asks key body philosophy of action/body questions in context of economics. Sen is a heavyweight. He will do something quite new in the next 20 years. Let's not contradict it here:
Thus, my speculation is that economics, ecology, ethics, and physics will all combine into a new thing to *REPLACE* general systems theory. First there is that thing called "bionomics" which works for what biological stuff we can see, and then a more rigorous thing that works as a foundation ontology. But that does not belong on the front page either. All we're doing here is documenting the field as it is, trying to be even between classical, neoclassical, Marxist and green approaches. I'd say the UN backing for the idea of "natural capital" and the heavy influence of the greens makes them a first-class school (of green economists) even though they lack a clear political economy of their own (which your theory here would have to be).

Dated April 8, 2002 by User:24.150.61.63

MLP-Volt Dated April 8, 2002 by User:142.150.129.50

welcome, and as you seem intelligent, I'd like your speculation on this - we have a problem brewing in commodity money over how to treat the gold standard. I suspect we just can't use the terms "commodity money", "fiat money" or "credit money" which are approximations disputed in the various theories, and should refer to the backing and clearing process directly, i.e. credit clearing, commodity clearing, and fiat clearing, describing how settlement occurs. That would assume that all three types of assurance could be involved in "backing", and that what really mattered for purposes of money was not "backing versus clearing versus tokens" but the clearing process as it relates to trust at the point of trade. If you agree, you might wish to rewrite commodity money and fiat money this way, looking at the diffs in the history and at the talk to see what disputes have been arising there and in military fiat. It won't take you long to see what the problem is - a bunch of folks who seem to believe history started with 1776 (Smith, USA) and no experience of the post-classical schools are citing off old textbooks with non-neutral definitions. This is fine in micro-economics, there's no difference in how the theories treat factors of production or means of production ultimately, but for macro, it's obviously a complete disaster, and I'm too busy with other stuff to fix the damage they seem to be doing.
So, you're welcome to wade in. To see the issue clearly, read this gold standard = fiat in disguise which is an anti-fiat rant: "as long as you price your gold in fiat dollars and not in silver, or you price your silver in fiat dollars and not in gold, you are a part of the problem." As you know, the vast majority of the cranks believe this, and they're about to get here in the dozens at least. So we have to pre-answer this type of question, and avoid ideological bias of claiming that money is "all credit" or "all commodity" or "all fiat" - thus the clearing or backing terminology is essential. -24

ALL of the above could use more citation and qualification, as it is very hard to write a totally neutral text that doesn't take sides on issues of state or values. And whose terms the classical, neoclassical, Marxist and green gurus would at least all recognize and not hack up. Which must be our objective, if we wish wiki to have the most citable and most trusted text on the subject anywhere in the world.

And if that's not what we want, why the hell are we here?

--- Anyway if you truly don't give a shit, thanks for your input so far.  ;-) - 24

Dated April 8, 2002 by User:24.150.61.63