- Girardi, Mamunuru, Halliday, and Bowles investigate, does studying economics make you selfish? In contrast to earlier research, they conclude no.
- Angus Deaton, in his book Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality apparently says, "A reader might be forgiven for thinking we are scoundrels concerned only with our own financial gain."
- Apparently, the Rochdale Principles were set out in 1844 in Rochdale, England, as principles for running cooperatives.
- Intentional communities are another example of a non-capitalist institution. I have stumbled upon a web site for the Foundation for Intentional Communities.
- 'Keynesian Spaceman', in comments, informs me I was once brought up in a dispute on a discord server associated with some Austrian economists.
- Some arguments about the CCC have emerged on subreddits over the years.
- Shattering 'Market Theory', an old post on Daily Kos, reporting a discussion on a private email list of one of my numeric examples. (I have mentioned this before.)
Posts
11 years ago
3 comments:
«Angus Deaton [...] An Immigrant Economist»
His personal story is interesting: he immigrated from England, where the most important social concept is the distinction between "masters" and "servants", and from a "servant" family (that perhaps later became "trustie").
He is unlike many people in England born in "servant" families who rather than being opposed to the "masters-servants" divide only want to become "masters" themselves, or at least "trusties", to enjoy the benefits of being in a position to take advantage of the "servants" too.
«Explores the Land of Inequality»
Brad DeLong (despite being a bit too "aligned" as an Economist sometimes makes useful points) remarked once that reaganism/neoliberalism were the result of popular discontent with too much equality, and indeed reaganist/neoliberal governments have delivered more inequality and won many middle class votes from that.
«apparently says, "A reader might be forgiven for thinking we are scoundrels concerned only with our own financial gain."»
A similar remark was made by de Tocqueville in "Democracy in America" in 1834...
More recently famous "historian" Newt Gingrich realistically observed:
https://aspace-uwg.galileo.usg.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/124552
«For most Americans the speed limit is a benchmark of opportunity. This is not a light insight. If you have a society where almost every middle class person routinely fudges the law, that’s telling us something. We have laws that matter – murder, rape, and we have laws that don’t matter. The first thing that every good American says each morning is “What’s the angle?” “How can I get around it?” “What does my lawyer think?” “There must be a loophole!” [...] America is the most incentive-driven society on the planet.»
«Intentional communities are another example of a non-capitalist institution.»
I know what you mean, but states or townships or even retirement homes are also "intentional communities".
Also that is arguably a common misuse of the word "capitalism" which is for political economists a mode of production, where workers do not own individually the means of production, but you know that :-). In most cases where people write "capitalism" they mean "private capitalism", where the means of production are privately (whether by individuals, groups, financial institutions, ...) owned. This is important because "socialism" and "communist" are also "capitalism", that is "social [state] capitalism", and "community capitalism", where the means of production are owned by "society" through the state, and become communally owned later when the state "withers away".
That matters because socialists and communists don't want to eliminate capitalism, as the capitalist mode of production has produced great results and there is not yet clear which better mode of production could replace it, but to change the ownership of the means of production. Similar to the difference between "business" and "business owner": socialists and communists are great supporters of businesses, not so much of business owners taking a cut.
Outside political economy "capitalism" is usually used to mean a *political* system in which the class of private owners of means of production have paramount political power.
«reaganist/neoliberal governments have delivered more inequality and won many middle class votes from that.»
The main vehicle by far for increasing inequality to win middle class votes has been in the USA, the UK, Australia, etc. to double housing costs every 7-10 years in middle class areas.
Real estate inflation has had much bigger economic and political effects than deflation of labour costs. Some tradmarxists keep talking about the exploitation of workers by employers, but that has long been I think rather smaller than rentier exploitation by property owners, who exploit workers both directly via residential property costs and indirectly via commercial property costs; I guess that if one sums them then many workers pay well more than 50% of their after tax income to property owners, at least in some areas.
I am getting so I pass up opportunities to put books on to-read list. Angus Deaton's work sounds interesting, but I probably will not read it.
I see that retirement homes have lots of the characteristics of intentional communities. College collective living arrangements too.
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