Comment by rortian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rortian | Hacker News Reader

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>This PG essay is a good refutation of the notion that (progressive or, at least, non-regressive) taxes are a "win" for the poor in a zero sum game:

This is a straw man. I cannot think of anyone (and I'd love to see you find a progressive or anyone) that would say that economics is a zero sum game.

A lot of this community did form around pg's essays. However, it's a little sickening to think that anyone would take them as gospel. Since the early days of reddit and hn these things have been vigorously debated. pg is at his best when talking about start ups and I think the way he conveys how founders should think is good stuff. However, please do not expect, or treat his writing, like he will win a nobel prize in economics.

However, please do not expect, or treat his writing, like he will win a nobel prize in economics.

Well, here's a somewhat relevant quote from someone who did win a Nobel Prize in economics:

"Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another." ~Milton Friedman

Sounds familiar, no? And while you might not be able to find someone who says that economics is a zero sum game, you can't throw a rock in any direction without hitting someone who is pushing an agenda or ideology that acts as if it is.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/feb/15/who-was...

>Milton Friedman played three roles in the intellectual life of the twentieth century. There was Friedman the economist’s economist, who wrote technical, more or less apolitical analyses of consumer behavior and inflation. There was Friedman the policy entrepreneur, who spent decades campaigning on behalf of the policy known as monetarism—finally seeing the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England adopt his doctrine at the end of the 1970s, only to abandon it as unworkable a few years later. Finally, there was Friedman the ideologue, the great popularizer of free-market doctrine.

I'd have to suggest that this statement came from the 3rd Friedman. There is sort of an irony here. Friedman saw monetary policy as a zero sum game. I think that was a fallacy.

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