I mean, I'm not unaware that there's other strains. But the representation is slim to none.
1,075 karma · joined January 19, 2012
Either way there's no basis to dismiss people's opinion solely on their primary field of study. One obvious example would be Noam Chomsky. He's deeply knowledgeable outside of his primary field of linguistics.
> very economics research department on the face of Earth has a cohort of "heterodox" economists,
The most common use of heterodox seem to span from status-quo to far-right libertarianism. That's not very imaginative.
> I'm just saying, it does get a bit ridiculous when American socialists start telling me and other people from my country what we're supposed to think and feel.
I'm Swedish, but I assume that wont change anything there. Being from a country doesn't necessarily say anything, you may be from a privileged class of that particular country and thus have that view of that country.
> You might have a point when you talk about economists in think tanks and hedge funds and whatnot, but those guys aren't usually the ones producing most academic material.
There is no other field of study as obviously connected to money and power than the field of economics. This makes it totally reasonable to be skeptical of what comes out of that field.
Are you really gonna try to explain one of the most obvious consequence of capitalist profit incentives by some random reddit post along with another dismissive "you don't know economics"?
I wrote "single established scientist", not some vague "every book" and a wikipedia one-liner article.
> This very sentence puts forward a theoretical conspiracy.
It's not a conspiracy where people get together in some room. It's a straight forward structure of incentives.
That still doesn't mean that it's indecipherable by brilliant people in other field of studies nor that the core parts are particularly hard.
> because of the fundamental upheaval the field of study went through in the early 20th century
Rather it became hegemonic and unimaginative and only caters to the status quo.
> whose people you would deprive of agency and deride as "cheap labor"
Please, that is the cheapest trick in the book and just dishonest. Posh accent "Oh, so you think the poor can't take care of themselves? How arrogant!".
The fact remains that much of the global norths current abundance is only enabled by the cheap labour and resources of the global south.
> Ecologists are right now scrambling to find explanations for a number of emerging phenomena.
This is just false equivalence and pointless to respond to. There's no vast pools of ecologist who's entire salary depends on some derivative to pan out or similar.
You guys need to stop pretending that economics is 1. something really really hard that only the most brilliant economists can understand, 2. something fundamentally objective like physics. It was in large part of history even referred to as political economy for crying out loud.
It is true that the study of economics is primarily concerned with the current system and not particularly imaginative with regards to any sort of alternative. Furthermore the incentives are in no way encouraging to challenge the current way of things, if anything the direct opposite. This state of affairs just can't be ignored when evaluating the objective nature of a certain field of study.
> including that it generates decent outcomes in many cases.
For the wealthy. Most of the world is still used as cheap labour for the privilege of the West.
> Re: economics and crashes - I fail to see how the existence of crashes - which is predicted by many economic theories, be they mainstream or not - invalidates anything.
If a majority of the involved "scientists" are surprised that a crash shows up, it strongly suggests that it's largely based on speculation and external motives rather than objective science.
Well, yes, that capitalism will cause a production craze is even written in the Communist Manifesto. What "effective" means in practice however is another thing - there's nothing effective about planned obsolescence, great for the current measurement of economic growth though.
> The theory is logically sound in the same way the theory of evolution is.
Please refer to a single established scientist that agrees with that cocksure statement.
> believing in conspiracy theories about a capitalist oligarchy coopting the Economics field
There is nothing conspiratorial to question the theories of the current hegemony who have a vested interests to uphold it. The upper classes have come up with theories throughout history to justify their privileges that have no basis in social justice.
> Anti-free-market-ism is the anti-vaxxerism of the intelligentsia.
Well, I mean, yes? That is blatant fundamentalism. "Everyone who doesn't agree with the magic of the free market is as stupid as anti-vaxxers"
This is just racism in a language that's palatable to HN.
Unless of course you look at the generally much more left wing Western-Europe. But that doesn't fit your narrative.
In the sunny day scenario. Why can't you stop cherry-picking?
> And the fees/co-pays are of course not the end of the road. People in Sweden and Finland pay a lot more taxes
It's the end of the road with regards to the topic. point-of-service fees. Taxes are assumed already - you get something obvious in return, you do not need to worry about healthcare for you entire life, even if you've been unemployed for a long time.
> Median after-tax disposable income, according to the OECD, is $14,000-16,000/year more in the US than Finland or Sweden.
Given the US's lack of welfare services this also seem to be a sunny day scenario. Your costs for daycare, education, rents etc are significantly higher and require that kind of disposable income to just save up to. Furthermore, this is only relevant if you think that more disposable income somehow automatically translates to more happiness and quality-of-life, which we know that it doesn't beyond a certain point.
Yes, especially when the primary USP is just to lower labour costs compared to having them as employees.
> That people are incapable of looking at a situation and making a choice for themselves if the situation is good for them or not? They must always be protected by the government "for the greater good", and that government regulation is inherently good and noble?
Yes. People in a shite economic position and without any support from a welfare state are rarely in a position to refuse an exploitative relationship.
And yes again, the government is most likely far more "good and noble" than an employer in day labourer relationship - whose primary motive is not one's well-being but profit.
> because after the state of CA passed a law prohibiting independent contracting for a whole host of jobs, many lost 100% of their income, many others lost flexibility in the jobs and other adverse consequences from moving from Independent contracting to employee
A lot of people would lose their job in the insurance industry if universal health care was adopted. But it's still the right thing to do. Furthermore, the only reason why you can use that argument "Ah, it's horrible! They're losing their income!" is because there's no welfare state to help them out in between jobs and/or (re-)education.
> Many people PREFER to be independent as it affords them flexibility and well independence they could not get if they were employee's
Maybe some, sure. Not sure why that's relevant or mutually exclusive to not regress to day labourers.
> it is foolish and ignorant to claim that I have "low empathy with the less fortunate" simply because I prefer less authoritarian government, less regulation and more personal freedom (and responsibility)
A hand-in-hat existence has absolutely nothing to do with freedom, if anything it's its opposite. Freedom for capital, or market freedom etc, does not automatically translate to freedom in its literal sense to the willing or unwilling participants.
The boss is usually the most authoritarian relationship that most people experience from day to day, worsening the less fortunate one are. This would only increase the intensity of that.
It's an assumption because the medallion system is very US-centric. Permits/taxi drivers license, if that's what you mean, isn't much more than a minimum qualification requirement and not a hard limit.
> Do you view this as a negative? because I do not
Yes? Because that's a ~100 year regression in most developed nations and I empathize with the people on the receiving end of that kind of hat-in-hand relationship. To not see this as a negative suggests to me a worryingly low empathy with the less fortunate and perhaps even nostalgia to a strict class-society, because that's the end result of a race-to-the-bottom unfettered capitalism.
Is the classification as an employee, with attached benefits, artificial scarcity in a negative sense? If so, we got quite a few industries that would also love to remove this "artificial scarcity" and allow the use of day labourers.
Yikes. If this is the level that you're at, I really hope that you are trolling.
The point is that you don't have to agree with the definition, you can just recognize that it exists and that it's used. Then you can try to argue against the actual contents of it instead of the naming. So let's call "systemic/institutional racism" something of your choosing and go on about actually challenging the contents of it instead, alright? If not, this is a waste of time.
Is the massive BLM protests just a massive misunderstanding - nostalgia of former injustices rather than current ones?
Come on. You've cherry-picked a single vague line from the preamble of that article because it's so general that it also fits your narrow definition. The rest of the article goes on about the established definition.
You're redefining an entire concept coined to mean what we are talking about. Instead your clutching at straws adamantly sticking to the textboox definitions of the each word. That's just childish and have to place in any adult conversation.
Just in the last week you've redefined the following to fit your unsupported narrative here on HN and called everything else objectively false and refused to even discuss the other definition:
* Institutional/System racism, ignoring ~50 years of history (for the term itself, the practice itself is obviously much earlier).
* Soclal Democracy, ignoring ~200 years of history
* The concept of personal property and it's distinction from private property. Ignoring ~200 years of socialist history.
You do realize that you don't have to agree with the concept to at least discuss it? Something like "Yes, if we use established definition, which I disagree with, there's systemic/institutional racism against black people in America".
Because what definition do you even think people are using when asking you if it exists? "Do you like the color blue?", "No! there's no blue color". That's just childish and will never generate any constructive discussion at all, and is for all purposes just trolling or at least sabotage - answering a question that contains an established concept/definition with an entirely new one that only you know about.
> I think the end of Jim Crow laws was the end of most institutional racism, with some remnants of it existing in the social contract that was quickly dismantled in the 1970s, as society took a severe stance against anti-black discrimination.
This is just staring oneself blind on the letter of law, ignoring everything else. That's not how societies work.
It's pointless to discuss subjects with someone who will just redefine them entirely and then refuse to even recognize anything else - everything else is now false, no matter how established. If this is not trolling it's at least dragging the level of discussion into never ending discussion of definitions and revisionism.
> absurd allegation of systemic racism
So the contents of this article is blatantly false? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
I'm curious to know about what year you think, approximately, that systemic racism against black Americans ceased?
That you find me uncivil doesn't really bother me.
> "The formal structure of institutions, as defined by their formal usually written rules, is the best description of their systemic/institutional properties. Only laws and other formal structures can have a systemic effect, and anything institutional by definition consists solely of them.
One can stretch the definition of systemic/institutional a bit to also include the social contract.
In neither case can one claim there is anything except systemic/institutional racism in favor of black Americans."
As I thought. You have just decided to entirely redefine the accepted definition of systemic/institutional racism so suit your argument. "But it doesn't say anything about race in this formal document!". Ignoring anything - apparently no matter how established and prevalent - that goes against your arguments is the fallacy of cherry-picking.
Your first claim so blatantly false and wrong that it's pretty appropriate to assume that you're trolling. I mean, systemic/institutional racism doesn't exist and/or isn't a problem in the US, what?
> I substantiate this very easily: affirmative action means preferential treatment for job applicants who are black, and affirmative action is very common.
So on the one hand you deny that it exists towards black Americans, but you find affirmative action to be so significant that it however substantiate systemic racism in favour of black Americans?
Am I correct you assume that you've honed in on the word systemic and will only accept that it solely means whatever is explicitly written down? So that systemic/institutional racism does not include implicit bias?