Robert Murphy's flawed critique of Carson's 'Studies in Mutualist Political Economy' is a good illustration of the metastasized inability of economists, even heterodox economists, to parse philosophy and philosophy of science concerns as backed into any substantive debate.
cf. Murphy's statement that the purpose of scientific inquiry is to arrive at principles of increasing generality. cf. Murphy's statement that: “Human actors are forward looking . . . past expenditures . . are irrelevant to the present determination of the relative merits of two
“different commodities. Even if all memory of previous expenditures were suddenly lost, market prices would still form.” the first statement is dubious philosophy of science presented as wisdom (Paul Krugman style.) the second confuses possible pricing with actualized pricing.
i.e. past information and past expenditures are relevant to present-day and near-future pricing dynamics. the cost principle precisely captures this important fact! whereas pure marginalism takes a frozen snapshot of supply and demand, deriving utility with missing information.
cf. his statement that: “In what sense is there greater disutility in producing wine that is intended for sale in twenty years, versus wine that is intended for sale in ten years? If someone breaks in and steals such a bottle, does the producer 'lose' more if he had intended to
“sell that bottle in twenty years (versus ten)? Of course not.” the real answer is: “Of course yes!” the psychological cost/labour theory can accommodate elements of human nature that marginalists abstract away. Carson is not 'confusing' the lower utility of a future product with
the higher disutility of present labour. the theoretical distinction is adequately recognized. it's just that, among actually-existing human-beings, those are not entirely separable phenomena! indeed, this reflects a general advantage of the labour theory:
it helps identify why labour is unique as a factor of production. labour is a sentient being that you have to persuade to get out of bed in the morning and work for a specific end. perhaps the marginalist view of labour is true of a future economy with increasing automatization
and the gradual disappearance of sentient beings from labour tasks, but it is certainly not true of the actually-existing economy.
this is, unfortunately, a metastasized problem with all critiques of Carson's first three books.
Carson is good at working with several layers of abstraction at once: delving into economic theory, history, and sociology, running an analysis that has multiple moving parts. thus, his case against the 'transportation monopoly' gets reduced to a simplistic argument that
direct subsidies to railroad companies are responsible for their success. which is not even 1/10th of the case against the transportation monopoly. there is even a published academic paper that critiques Carson based on this abortive misreading.
it is unfortunate that economic theory attracts people with rigid cognitive structures and bad heuristical intuitions: a complete inability to engage in lateral thinking. no wonder, then, that economic journals are filled with weathermen:
doing near-meaningless number crunching on how a tax policy might achieve some microcosmic outcome.
Robert Murphy's flawed critique of Carson's 'Studies in Mutualist Political Economy' is a good illustration of the metastasized inability of economists, even heterodox economists, to parse philosophy and philosophy of science concerns as backed into any substantive debate.cf. Murphy's statement that the purpose of scientific inquiry is to arrive at principles of increasing generality. cf. Murphy's statement that: “Human actors are forward looking . . . past expenditures . . are irrelevant to the present determination of the relative merits of two“different commodities. Even if all memory of previous expenditures were suddenly lost, market prices would still form.” the first statement is dubious philosophy of science presented as wisdom (Paul Krugman style.) the second confuses possible pricing with actualized pricing.i.e. past information and past expenditures are relevant to present-day and near-future pricing dynamics. the cost principle precisely captures this important fact! whereas pure marginalism takes a frozen snapshot of supply and demand, deriving utility with missing information.cf. his statement that: “In what sense is there greater disutility in producing wine that is intended for sale in twenty years, versus wine that is intended for sale in ten years? If someone breaks in and steals such a bottle, does the producer 'lose' more if he had intended to“sell that bottle in twenty years (versus ten)? Of course not.” the real answer is: “Of course yes!” the psychological cost/labour theory can accommodate elements of human nature that marginalists abstract away. Carson is not 'confusing' the lower utility of a future product withthe higher disutility of present labour. the theoretical distinction is adequately recognized. it's just that, among actually-existing human-beings, those are not entirely separable phenomena! indeed, this reflects a general advantage of the labour theory:it helps identify why labour is unique as a factor of production. labour is a sentient being that you have to persuade to get out of bed in the morning and work for a specific end. perhaps the marginalist view of labour is true of a future economy with increasing automatizationand the gradual disappearance of sentient beings from labour tasks, but it is certainly not true of the actually-existing economy.
this is, unfortunately, a metastasized problem with all critiques of Carson's first three books.Carson is good at working with several layers of abstraction at once: delving into economic theory, history, and sociology, running an analysis that has multiple moving parts. thus, his case against the 'transportation monopoly' gets reduced to a simplistic argument thatdirect subsidies to railroad companies are responsible for their success. which is not even 1/10th of the case against the transportation monopoly. there is even a published academic paper that critiques Carson based on this abortive misreading.it is unfortunate that economic theory attracts people with rigid cognitive structures and bad heuristical intuitions: a complete inability to engage in lateral thinking. no wonder, then, that economic journals are filled with weathermen:doing near-meaningless number crunching on how a tax policy might achieve some microcosmic outcome.
Robert Murphy's flawed critique of Carson's 'Studies in Mutualist Political Economy' is a good illustration of the metastasized inability of economists, even heterodox economists, to parse philosophy and philosophy of science concerns as backed into any substantive debate. ... cf. Murphy's statement that the purpose of scientific inquiry is to arrive at principles of increasing generality. cf. Murphy's statement that: “Human actors are forward looking . . . past expenditures . . are irrelevant to the present determination of the relative merits of two ... “different commodities. Even if all memory of previous expenditures were suddenly lost, market prices would still form.” the first statement is dubious philosophy of science presented as wisdom (Paul Krugman style.) the second confuses possible pricing with actualized pricing. ... i.e. past information and past expenditures are relevant to present-day and near-future pricing dynamics. the cost principle precisely captures this important fact! whereas pure marginalism takes a frozen snapshot of supply and demand, deriving utility with missing information. ... cf. his statement that: “In what sense is there greater disutility in producing wine that is intended for sale in twenty years, versus wine that is intended for sale in ten years? If someone breaks in and steals such a bottle, does the producer 'lose' more if he had intended to ... “sell that bottle in twenty years (versus ten)? Of course not.” the real answer is: “Of course yes!” the psychological cost/labour theory can accommodate elements of human nature that marginalists abstract away. Carson is not 'confusing' the lower utility of a future product with ... the higher disutility of present labour. the theoretical distinction is adequately recognized. it's just that, among actually-existing human-beings, those are not entirely separable phenomena! indeed, this reflects a general advantage of the labour theory: ... it helps identify why labour is unique as a factor of production. labour is a sentient being that you have to persuade to get out of bed in the morning and work for a specific end. perhaps the marginalist view of labour is true of a future economy with increasing automatization ... and the gradual disappearance of sentient beings from labour tasks, but it is certainly not true of the actually-existing economy.
this is, unfortunately, a metastasized problem with all critiques of Carson's first three books. ... Carson is good at working with several layers of abstraction at once: delving into economic theory, history, and sociology, running an analysis that has multiple moving parts. thus, his case against the 'transportation monopoly' gets reduced to a simplistic argument that ... direct subsidies to railroad companies are responsible for their success. which is not even 1/10th of the case against the transportation monopoly. there is even a published academic paper that critiques Carson based on this abortive misreading. ... it is unfortunate that economic theory attracts people with rigid cognitive structures and bad heuristical intuitions: a complete inability to engage in lateral thinking. no wonder, then, that economic journals are filled with weathermen: ... doing near-meaningless number crunching on how a tax policy might achieve some microcosmic outcome.
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