The world’s least sentimental economist

I noticed this article:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — During tough economic times with high unemployment, Americans should be jumping at any chance to work, but trucking companies are struggling to hire drivers.

There are as many as 200,000 job openings nationwide for long haul truckers, according to David Heller, director of safety and policy for the Truckload Carriers Association.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also sees the demand for truckers increasing, up from the 1.5 million drivers on the road now. It expects trucking to add 330,100 jobs between 2010 and 2020, an increase of 20%.

But these positions are difficult to fill, and even harder to keep filled.

“Nobody wants to drive a truck,” said Heller.

The pay isn’t bad: Truckers earn a median annual wage of $37,930, which is $4,000 more than the median wage for all jobs, according to the BLS. The top 10% of truck drivers make more than $58,000 per year.

You’ve already jumped to conclusions.  You’ve formed an opinion.  And it’s wrong (unless your first name is Bryan.)

So what do we do about this trucker shortage?  Raise wages?  Why should they do that?  They are monopsonists.  We need to bring in 200,000 Mexican truckers, pronto.  Except there’s just one problem, a bill to do so would not attract a single vote in Congress.  Why not?  Because Congressmen are sentimental.  Conservatives should support it, because it’s a Reaganite pro-growth, pro free-market idea.  Liberals should like the fact that while it might reduce the welfare of American workers a bit, it will be more than compensated by a big boost the the welfare of the much poorer Mexicans.  And after all, we’re all people, aren’t we?

Actually we aren’t.  We are nationalists.  Conservatives recall a golden age in the 1950s when our demographics were dominated by Anglos.  Liberals remember a golden age in the 1950s when American truckers earned high wages, thanks to Jimmy Hoffa.  Both groups are sentimental, and hence both would oppose the idea.

Who would favor it?  I’m pretty sure Bryan Caplan would, who I designate “the world’s least sentimental economist.”  He recently did a wonderful post that is a sort of riff on an equally excellent post by Matt Yglesias (Of course I’d say Matt’s post is excellent, I’ve made similar arguments, just not as cleverly.)

Bryan tries to show that poor people are not victims; it’s their own fault.  And he shows that this follows from the exact same logic used by Yglesias.  Now Matt Yglesias is himself pretty damn unsentimental compared to almost all progressives, but he’s not even in Caplan’s league for ruthless, cold-blooded, logical, unsentimental analysis (except perhaps when right-wing pundits die at a young age.)  So I’m pretty sure he’s not going to sign on to Caplan’s logic.

Now I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think Caplan’s the least sentimental economist.  That’s because Caplan doesn’t take his cold, hard, ruthless logic far enough.  Let’s say that people are poor due to behavioral problems.  Let’s suppose some of them are too impatient, or don’t study hard enough.  Why would that be?  Do they want to fail?  Did they choose to be born in that neighborhood, that family, that body?  Clearly not, they’d probably rather have been born in one of those Tolstoyan families that are all alike.  It’s not their fault; it’s bad luck.  When you start thinking about this in a completely unsentimental way, there are no longer any “just deserts.”  Indeed push this line of thought far enough, and you might end up  . . . God forbid . . .  a utilitarian.

That’s why Bryan is not the least sentimental economist in the world.  I am.  Which means I’m probably a horrible person.


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88 Responses to “The world’s least sentimental economist”

  1. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    26. July 2012 at 04:29

    Everyone, I will not respond to any comments about trucking or poverty. This post is about sentiment. Please stick to the topic.

  2. Gravatar of foosion foosion
    26. July 2012 at 04:45

    What’s your view on licensing restrictions and immigration restrictions on doctors? We have a shortage of doctors and government imposed monopolies are severely restricting supply and raising prices.

    Given that congress will not increase immigration for truckers or doctors, the issue is that trucking companies are not offering high enough wages. In other words, given reality, a shortage of truckers means trucking companies aren’t willing to pay enough.

  3. Gravatar of KnowPD KnowPD
    26. July 2012 at 04:53

    Is your point that utilitarianism is incompatible with just desert or were you being ironic? Respect for the rights and moral agency of others strikes me as fundamental to the existence of rather than a denial of just desert. Progressives argue that strong determinism leads to the outcomes of the poor so in other words lack of free will. This strikes me as a greater denial of just desert than utilitarianism. How can just desert exist without free will?

  4. Gravatar of Lee Kelly Lee Kelly
    26. July 2012 at 04:55

    The fallacy is that poor people are worse off because they are stupid, impulsive, and unconscientious. They just trade-off long-term benefits, such as a big house and social status, for immediate gratification. Why should one side of that trade-off be considered inherently superior to the other? Isn’t that just a prejudice of smart, disciplined, and conscientious people?

    Sure poor people say they’d like to be wealthier, have better jobs, more financial security, etc., but they also are unwilling to give up their bad habits.

    Consider, for example, a position which took pity on wealthy people. After all, such people often deny themselves the immediate thrills and satisfactions of acting impulsively, without the burden of forethought or fear of consequences, for much of their lives. Obviously, what is needed is some public policy to enable these deprived individuals to enjoy more short-term gratification, but at the same time we should protect them from the downside of such behaviour by making sure their wealth and status don’t suffer.

    From a utilitarian perspective, is there any obvious reason why this policy is less acceptable than wealth redistribution?

    This is a fun game.

  5. Gravatar of KnowPD KnowPD
    26. July 2012 at 04:56

    Also, had a good laugh that there was an advertisement for trucking at the top of the page!

  6. Gravatar of foosion foosion
    26. July 2012 at 05:04

    Declining marginal utility is the usual utilitarian reason for redistribution. Throw in evidence that tax rates (at least at anything close to current levels), etc., have relatively little effect on behavior.

  7. Gravatar of Andrew Andrew
    26. July 2012 at 05:12

    Being born to horrible parents isn’t bad luck as I couldn’t have been born to any other parents. That reality makes me less sentimental than even Scott.

  8. Gravatar of dwb dwb
    26. July 2012 at 05:15

    this is another man bites dog story about a nonexistent skills shortage. If you look at the annual Manpower “talent crunch” survey, trucking is in the top ten most of the last 10 years. At any given time time there are lots of trucking jobs open and they are hard to fill because entry-level positions suck and the wages they pay do not make up for how much they suck. When there is enough demand and employers are motivated, wages will go up and they will be less picky about who they hire.

    BTW, it’s not as easy to hire immigrants because of background checks, but Mexicans are now allowed to drive trucks “deep within the US” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/business/us-and-mexico-sign-trucking-agreement.html

    So much for opening the border killing jobs…

  9. Gravatar of Russ Anderson Russ Anderson
    26. July 2012 at 05:18

    Who needs sentiment when you can build a self driving truck
    http://newsroom.scania.com/en-group/2011/06/16/better-traffic-flow-with-self-driving-truck/

    Or would it be the least sentimental alternative in that it drives wages for US workers down as if there were Mexican workers willing to work for $0 while not employing any Mexicans?

  10. Gravatar of J Mann J Mann
    26. July 2012 at 05:38

    When you’re completely unsentimental, there aren’t just deserts, only incentives.

  11. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    26. July 2012 at 06:53

    Scott, careful: just being unsentimental does not make one necessarily right…

    I personally think that poor people “want” to be poor, i.e. that they makes choices which individually make complete sense to them, revealed preference so to speak. It ends up making them poor. Other things being equal they would like not to be poor. But anytime a choice is to be made they choose something that has genuine appeal to them – free time, staying in their home town, family ties, goofing off – and as a side effect makes them poor. But I’d still argue they may “prefer” that to the alternative and that it is a valid, conscious, “adult” choice, not something that has to be corrected through social engineering. I’m specifically including myself here: I am poorer than my peers of background, age and education. Whenever a choice arose trading off better income with freedom, I chose more freedom / flexibility rather than better income. And I chose risk rather than safety. This ended up making me “poorer”. But am I really poor or do I just have a life that is in line with what I wanted? All else equal I’d like to be richer but all else never stays equal.

  12. Gravatar of TravisA TravisA
    26. July 2012 at 07:17

    I think that there’s a pretty good argument for nationalism. I define nationalism as the refusal by the majority of a nation to lower national levels of utility to help others that are not part of the nation, even if overall utility would rise if we counted those aided.

    The reasons is that if we weren’t nationalists, then there’s no incentive to improve national governance/wealth as any increase in utility would be given away to others.

    It’s the same argument against Singer’s prescription for all individuals to give away all wealth/income until they are left with just enough to get by. Such a course of action widely adopted would destroy all incentive to increase one’s own wealth/income above subsistence levels. Thus in the short run, Singer’s prescription seems like it would increase aggregate utility, but in the long run it would destroy it.

    I suppose one could argue that humans should self-program their own natures so that they will work at maximum output regardless of personal incentives, but I don’t think there’s a good track record of that working.

  13. Gravatar of Floccina Floccina
    26. July 2012 at 07:25

    Which means I’m probably a horrible person.

    And that’s why we love you.

  14. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    26. July 2012 at 07:29

    mbk,
    and it could also be said that some progress in innovation or knowledge happens one poor person at a time!

  15. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    26. July 2012 at 07:33

    Becky, I believe that some trade offs are really quite equivalent. e.g., plenty of Western hippies in Thailand. And they’re not all rich, not even compared to the locals. There may be shifts in behavior but not necessarily “progress” as in, increase of total utility to that person.

  16. Gravatar of Morgan Warstler Morgan Warstler
    26. July 2012 at 07:44

    “Now Matt Yglesias is himself pretty damn unsentimental compared to almost all progressives, but he’s not even in Caplan’s league for ruthless, cold-blooded, logical, unsentimental analysis (except perhaps when right-wing pundits die at a young age.)”

    1. I can’t believe I get no shout out on ruthless, cold-blooded, logical, unsentimental analysis.

    2. Margaret Joskow is still rolling around, I only got her back from Twitter and I finally found her picture.

    http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6045/7000467863_2915c56120_m.jpg

    Matt is going to remove his tweet, or Margret is going to start showing up at conferences he attends.

  17. Gravatar of Morgan Warstler Morgan Warstler
    26. July 2012 at 07:45

    We need DRIVERLESS TRUCKS.

  18. Gravatar of Jim Jim
    26. July 2012 at 07:47

    I know I’m not supposed to talk about trucking, but why is trucking a monopsonist and why shouldn’t they raise wages to hire people, assuming it’s still profitable and that immigration laws are not going to change anytime soon?

  19. Gravatar of Negation of Ideology Negation of Ideology
    26. July 2012 at 07:48

    TravisA –

    “I think that there’s a pretty good argument for nationalism.”

    I agree. We only have a say in the laws of our own nation, therefore that’s what we should be most concerned with. We have no authority in other nations, therefore we are not responsible for them. Now, some argue that we should have a world government, but that in essence is making the world a nation. If other states want to be admitted into the Union, then they can apply and we can decide whether to admit them.

    That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about the people in other nations, or that we should treat them unfairly. It’s just that our government should represent the interests of our citizens, and other governments should represent the interests of their citizens. You can call it nationalism, patriotism, sovereignty, independence, or the rule of law.

    How’s that for non-sentimental?

  20. Gravatar of Full Employment Hawk Full Employment Hawk
    26. July 2012 at 08:18

    “So what do we do about this trucker shortage? Raise wages? Why should they do that? They are monopsonists.”

    If the problem is that they will not voluntarily raise wages because they are monopsonists, the solution is to change the labor laws to strenghten the bargaining power of the trucking workers unions so that they can make the trucking companies increase the wages they offer. Arguments that labor unions, if they can impose higher wages, reduce unemployment are derived from the theory of perfect competition, which is not relevant if the companies are monopsonists.

  21. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 08:24

    Free market economists are even less “sentimental” than Sumner.

    For whereas free market economists are not too sentimental to reject a “scorched Earth” peaceful transition to a free market in money production, which will consist of temporary widespread bankruptcies and temporary high unemployment for those who initially benefited by inflation, Sumner on the other hand is so sentimental he wants to cover Americans with a nice, warm, comforting blanket of new cash whenever the going gets rough. If unemployment gets too high for his heart to handle, then he’ll feel obligated to helping people by calling for more of what violence backed institutions do, as if they didn’t cause the problems in the first place.

    ——————–

    Sumner writes:

    Let’s say that people are poor due to behavioral problems. Let’s suppose some of them are too impatient, or don’t study hard enough. Why would that be? Do they want to fail? Did they choose to be born in that neighborhood, that family, that body? Clearly not, they’d probably rather have been born in one of those Tolstoyan families that are all alike. It’s not their fault; it’s bad luck. When you start thinking about this in a completely unsentimental way, there are no longer any “just deserts.” Indeed push this line of thought far enough, and you might end up…God forbid…a utilitarian.

    Ah yes, the Rawlsian veil of ignorance rears its ugly head once again. This time on a central bank apologist blog of all places. How utterly ironic.

    Is it the fault of those who aren’t in control of the money printing press that they are not in control of it? Central banking by nature can only accommodate a small number of people with control powers, which then has many people without the legal authority to abstain from when they do business. Where is the veil of ignorance here? It’s conveniently ignored, isn’t it. You’re not taking logic far enough. You’re stopping at central economic planning, in the name of utilitarianism. There are a number of problems with that view.

    The most glaring is who’s utility are we referring to here? The state’s? Those who support central banking? Their utility comes at the expense of other people’s utility. In free trade, there is no gain in utility for some at the expense of others. Free trade is mutually gainful.

    Or are we talking about a Rawlsian non-human entity the analysis of which economic scarcity is not a fundamental human condition? Anyone have a copy of Rawls’ Theory of Justice? Check the index. Neither “property” nor “scarcity” appear anywhere in the index. Yet there are many entries for “equality”.

    Rawls was seemingly not interested to write about what a human ethic must accomplish, which is to answer the question of what I am permitted to do right now and here, given that I cannot not act as long as I am alive and awake, and the means I must employ in order to do so are always scarce, such that there might arise conflicting goals regarding their use. Instead, Rawls answered a much different question: What rules would be agreed upon as “fair” and “just” by “parties situated behind a veil of ignorance”?

    Obviously, such a question depends on the “original position” of “parties behind a veil of ignorance.” How is this original position defined? Rawls writes:

    “First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor again, does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of his psychology such as aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism. More than this, I assume that the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society. That is, they do not know its economic or political situation, or the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve. The persons in the original position have no information as to which generation they belong. These broader restrictions on knowledge are appropriate in part because questions of social justice arise between generations as well as within them, for example, the question of the appropriate rate of capital saving and of the conservation of natural resources and the environment of nature. There is also, theoretically anyway, the question of a reasonable genetic policy. In these cases too, in order to carry through the idea of the original position, the parties much not know the contingencies that set them in opposition. They must choose principles the consequences of which they are prepared to live with whatever generation they turn out to belong to.”

    “As far as possible, then, the only particular facts which the parties know is that their society is subject to the circumstances of justice and whatever it implies. It is taken for granted, however, that they know the general facts about human society. They understand political affairs and the principles of economic theory; they know the basis of social organization and the laws of human psychology.” – pg 118-119, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (1999).

    So while the economist knows that scarcity ranks among the general facts about social and economic theory, we find that to Rawls, people know about scarcity, yet they are somehow not affected by it. There is no scarcity in Rawls’ original position construction. Yet even the act of deliberating behind a veil of ignorance, as Rawls would have us do, one must use scarce means, at least one’s body and standing room, i.e. labor and land, as well as time. Therefore, before any ethical deliberation can even take place, in order to make it possible, exclusive (i.e. private) property in bodies, and a principle regarding the exclusive (i.e. private) appropriation of standing room, must already be presupposed.

    In contrast to this, Rawls’ moral “parties” are unconstrained by scarcity of any kind. Thus, I am compelled to conclude that Rawls’ “parties” are not even human. They are abstract disembodied ghosts; ephemeral spiritual beings. Such beings, Rawls states, would do the “sensible thing” and:

    “…acknowledge as the first principle of justice one requiring an equal distribution. Indeed, this principle is so obvious that we would expect it to occur to anyone immediately.” – ibid, pg 130.

    Sure, for such ephemeral non-human entities, private property would seem strange. As Rawls revealingly admits:

    “Now the reasons for the veil of ignorance go beyond mere simplicity. We want to define the original position so that we get the desired solution.”

    How’s that for frankness? At least Rawls was honest about his intentions. Rawls’ “moral parties” had no resemblance to human beings but were epistemological ghosts. It’s almost like a modern day version of Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden of infinite abundance.

  22. Gravatar of Full Employment Hawk Full Employment Hawk
    26. July 2012 at 08:24

    O.K. let me deal with sentiment.

    The most serious market imperfection that exists in all market economies is that children cannot choose their own parents, which leads to great inequalities of opportunity. For example, suppose Romney’s sons had been born to drug addicts instead. Would they really be in their current economic and social postitions?

    This market imperfection requires government intervention to correct it by providing assistance to children who are unlucky enough to end up with bad, irresponsible, and/or poor parents.

  23. Gravatar of Full Employment Hawk Full Employment Hawk
    26. July 2012 at 08:30

    “The fallacy is that poor people are worse off because they are stupid, impulsive, and unconscientious.”

    The real fallacy is the belief by conservatives that the reason that people are poor is because they are stupid, impulsive, and unconscientious. Yes, there are people like that, but generalizing from an unrepresentative special case is not logically valid. There are good reasons to believe that the majority of poor people are worse off because they had much poorer opportunities, and that if they had been provided with the same opportunities as people who are well off, they would be just as well off.

  24. Gravatar of Greg Ransom Greg Ransom
    26. July 2012 at 08:37

    You’d be a much better moral philosopher, social philosopher (and economist) if you’d read Hayek’s _The Constitution of Liberty_ and his _Law, Legislation & Liberty_. Hayek addresses merit, culture, incentives, and the tention between crude utilitarianism & the dependence of our social order on inherited rules and principles.

    The issues involved are never as simple minded as you present them.

  25. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 08:42

    Here is an excellent critique of mainstream “Utilitarianism”, by Murray Rothbard:

    “There were two critically important changes in the philosophy and ideology of classical liberalism which both exemplified and contributed to its decay as a vital, progressive, and radical force in the Western world. The first, and most important, occurring in the early to mid-nineteenth century, was the abandonment of the philosophy of natural rights, and its replacement by technocratic utilitarianism. Instead of liberty grounded on the imperative morality of each individual’s right to person and property, that is, instead of liberty being sought primarily on the basis of right and justice, utilitarianism preferred liberty as generally the best way to achieve a vaguely defined general welfare or common good. There were two grave consequences of this shift from natural rights to utilitarianism. First, the purity of the goal, the consistency of the principle, was inevitably shattered. For whereas the natural-rights libertarian seeking morality and justice cleaves militantly to pure principle, the utilitarian only values liberty as an ad hoc expedient. And since expediency can and does shift with the wind, it will become easy for the utilitarian in his cool calculus of cost and benefit to plump for statism in ad hoc case after case, and thus to give principle away. Indeed, this is precisely what happened to the Benthamite utilitarians in England: beginning with ad hoc libertarianism and laissez-faire, they found it ever easier to slide further and further into statism. An example was the drive for an “efficient” and therefore strong civil service and executive power, an efficiency that took precedence, indeed replaced, any concept of justice or right.”

    “Second, and equally important, it is rare indeed ever to find a utilitarian who is also radical, who burns for immediate abolition of evil and coercion. Utilitarians, with their devotion to expediency, almost inevitably oppose any sort of upsetting or radical change. There have been no utilitarian revolutionaries. Hence, utilitarians are never immediate abolitionists. The abolitionist is such because he wishes to eliminate wrong and injustice as rapidly as possible. In choosing this goal, there is no room for cool, ad hoc weighing of cost and benefit. Hence, the classical liberal utilitarians abandoned radicalism and became mere gradualist reformers. But in becoming reformers, they also put themselves inevitably into the position of advisers and efficiency experts to the State. In other words, they inevitably came to abandon libertarian principle as well as a principled libertarian strategy. The utilitarians wound up as apologists for the existing order, for the status quo, and hence were all too open to the charge by socialists and progressive corporatists that they were mere narrow-minded and conservative opponents of any and all change. Thus, starting as radicals and revolutionaries, as the polar opposites of conservatives, the classical liberals wound up as the image of the thing they had fought.”

    “This utilitarian crippling of libertarianism is still with us. Thus, in the early days of economic thought, utilitarianism captured free-market economics with the influence of Bentham and Ricardo, and this influence is today fully as strong as ever. Current free-market economics is all too rife with appeals to gradualism; with scorn for ethics, justice, and consistent principle; and with a willingness to abandon free-market principles at the drop of a cost-benefit hat. Hence, current free-market economics is generally envisioned by intellectuals as merely apologetics for a slightly modified status quo, and all too often such charges are correct.” – For A New Liberty, pg 16-17.

    Mainstream utilitarians value liberty only when it is expedient, which allows room for the government to gradually reduce liberty over time. The mainstream utilitarian drive towards “efficiency” rather than concept of “justice” or “right”, leads to statism.

    Sumner complains of big government, yet it is his own philosophy which is partly responsible, and hence in part responsible for the millions of unemployed and declining living standards. One cannot support a Stalin, and then deny any culpability for his transgressions, because you believe totalitarianism can work if only Stalin made better choices in your opinion. A major reason totalitarianism is a bad idea is because one man’s mistake leads to so much suffering. It is a dogma to keep believing in it on the basis that we just haven’t found the right person. One should recognize that no matter how sure one is about one’s central planning rule that is to be imposed on everyone, against their will, by force if necessary, you risk hurting millions upon millions of people. Be humble, and try your plan out locally with yourself first, and if others think it’s a good idea, they’ll get on board with it. It is arrogant and presumptuous, and incredibly dangerous, to skip the market test and go straight for the central planning carrot.

    Market monetarists need to accept that they are not intelligent enough to know such things as how much money people should create and spend. This kind of a decision can only be made on the basis of individual-level, dispersed knowledge, which of course requires that one accept that private property owners should decide these matters, not pretentious ignoramuses sitting in ivory towers.

  26. Gravatar of Vivian Darkbloom Vivian Darkbloom
    26. July 2012 at 08:53

    ” Why not? Because Congressmen are sentimental.”

    The reason why not is simple. Mexicans don’t vote. Congressmen are not sentimental. Like most of us, they are just selfish.

  27. Gravatar of Greg Ransom Greg Ransom
    26. July 2012 at 08:53

    In order to hold people accountable so that their actions are have a chance of climbing stairs to improvement through response to incentives / penalties in a way that meshes with other planners & actors you need an inherited and evolved system of rules and principles — ie crudely put ‘utilitarian’ ethics doesn’t do much but point additional support to Hume & Burke.

  28. Gravatar of J.V. Dubois J.V. Dubois
    26. July 2012 at 09:05

    This post is really impressive. You are obviously right. Bryan is caught in a paradox that Karl Smith described in this excellent article: http://modeledbehavior.com/2012/02/07/the-deserving-poor/

    The less support we generally provide to the poor, the more likely it is that these poor people are genuine and not frauds exploiting our sympathy. The only reasonable way out of this is to be utilitarian, we just need to be pragmatics and say that our help of genuinely poor is worth some inefficiency. It also concludes, that such person should be delighted to discover a new social technology that improves our ability to filter out frauds so that we may privide more help to genuinely poor.

  29. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    26. July 2012 at 09:05

    Hawk,

    Hayek spends a good deal of attention on the idea of equal opportunity and I find him pretty convincing on that. The problem is that firstly, equal opportunity is a very ideal concept that can always be shown to not be precisely true. You are always born to specific parents with specific backgrounds, professions, your town’s opportunities etc. You’d end up in an infinite regress if you wanted to address all of these micro “inequalities”. Note that none of this involves especially incompetent parents. Just different parents. I don’t live anywhere near Silicon Valley and this hurts my opportunities a lot. Do I need assistance hence? Secondly, any kind of initial opportunity, equal or not, quickly translates into different outcomes for different people. Even if perfect equality of opportunity was ever achieved, the innate differences in ability of people would immediately become the _only_ source of the inevitable variable outcomes in people’s lives. And here we close the circle – what then? Re-equalize regularly? On what grounds? The old DDR (East Germany) actually did exactly that, equalization at every generation. Kids of academics could only learn manual jobs. Kids of farmers were ushered into academia. Do you wish for such a society?

    I for once do not wish for perfect equality and I am perfectly ok with a world where people are different. Basically there is a lot of implied patronizing of the poor in all of this. Having somewhat less money than the other guy needs not be an issue of national concern as long as some minimal needs are covered.

    Empirically there is actually evidence that IQ regresses quickly to the mean over the generations, and that commercial family empires very rarely “survive” for more than a generation. Even public companies seldom make it over more than one or two, witness the component change in the Dow Jones. See Eric Beinhocker’s “The origin of wealth” for all of this.

  30. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 09:07

    Full Unemployment Hawk:

    The most serious market imperfection that exists in all market economies is that children cannot choose their own parents, which leads to great inequalities of opportunity. For example, suppose Romney’s sons had been born to drug addicts instead. Would they really be in their current economic and social postitions?

    Inequality of opportunity is not an evil. If one set of parents work hard to provide for their children, while another set of lazy parents leave their children in squalor, then your ethic would have guns pointed at the hard working parents, and money bags pointed at the lazy parents. This is just introducing an evil, not eradicating an evil. In addition, it will encourage lazy parents and thus encourage children to live in squalor because why work hard and provide for your children when you can just depend on guns pointed at the hard working?

    Moreover, it is not true that a child born of wealthy parents ends up wealthy, and a child born of poor parents end up poor. If this were the case, there would have been no economic progress possible, since the human race STARTED impoverished. The first humans evolved completely naked without a single capital good at their disposal. If being born into a poor family means one ends up just as poor, then humans would have remained living in caves and wearing animal furs.

    We got out of the caves precisely because each individual has the capability of IMPROVING their living conditions. It’s because humans act that this is possible. Entities that constantly strive to improve their lives, will tend to improve their lives. When their lives are improved, so too can other lives be improved through the division of labor and exchanges, including the division of labor and exchanges within immediate families!

    This market imperfection requires government intervention to correct it by providing assistance to children who are unlucky enough to end up with bad, irresponsible, and/or poor parents.

    Government intervention cannot “correct” this, because

    A. The government doesn’t know what millions of diverse children need or desire; and

    B. The government cannot abolish individual and diverse talents, drives, wants, and genetic abilities. And even if they could, the ultimate outcome when this philosophy is taken to its logical conclusion would be revolting to the rational mind. Humans would end up being identical ant-like beings. There is a good reason why we identify novels with such equality “Dystopian”. A relevant novel of the revolting nature of equality when taken to its logical conclusion is Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut. It is no argument against this by saying OK, let’s just not take it to extremes then. For then you would be cutting the ground from under your own argument of the idealism of equality, and you would only be supporting a parasitical system that feeds off inequality.

  31. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    26. July 2012 at 09:14

    Scott, something else comes to mind – Bryan would surely argue that according to twin studies, the environment matters little and IQ reigns supreme. I see a lot of ifs and buts in all of this, I don’t believe in all of this IQ idolizing, yet I don’t believe bad luck in background is all that deterministic either as long as you’re born in the right country. But most importantly I don’t believe that inequality is necessarily un-utilitarian, avoidable, or even desirable. Inequality is the reason of existence for the division of labor.

  32. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 09:22

    J.V. Dubious:

    Bryan is caught in a paradox. Karl Smith…

    …didn’t expose a paradox. Smith writes:

    “Further once you concede that the lazy and stupid are deserving of sympathy then its difficult to construct a set of poor people who are not, since these are among the least sympathetic qualities that could cause someone to be poor.”

    Since when do we have to concede that the lazy and stupid are deserving of sympathy?

    The less support we generally provide to the poor, the more likely it is that these poor people are genuine and not frauds exploiting our sympathy.

    The population of poor before and after won’t necessarily be the same, precisely because those who were exploiting sympathies “miraculously” become able to work.

    You can only ask your question at least in a society without a state forcing people to pay money to the poor, for such systems attract frauds. 46 million Americans on food stamps, and growing every year?

    The only reasonable way out of this is to be utilitarian, we just need to be pragmatics and say that our help of genuinely poor is worth some inefficiency.

    This is neither pragmatism nor utilitarianism, but absolutism. For I might consider it pragmatic and utility deriving to help only those poor people I personally decide to help, or, what’s also pragmatic and utility deriving, to not help any poor people at all.

    It also concludes, that such person should be delighted to discover a new social technology that improves our ability to filter out frauds so that we may privide more help to genuinely poor.

    And if people refuse to help, because they value their own material lives more? Is that when pragmatists and utilitarians being unpragmatic and non-utilitarian violence initiators?

  33. Gravatar of Philo Philo
    26. July 2012 at 09:24

    @Full Employment Hawk:

    “This market imperfection requires government intervention to correct it by providing assistance to children who are unlucky enough to end up with bad, irresponsible, and/or poor parents.” And let’s not stop there in our zeal to promote fairness = equality. How about those born handicapped, especially the mentally handicapped? How about the fetuses who don’t make it to birth, because of abortion or miscarriage? These are all even unluckier than are people born to lousy parents. And then there are those who are born *non-human*–puppies, kittens, etc., not to mention non-mammals. These non-humans are grievously shortchanged. WE MUST RIGHT THE BALANCE! (How? Well, I’m afraid “leveling down” is the only viable option.)

  34. Gravatar of Morgan Warstler Morgan Warstler
    26. July 2012 at 09:27

    Finally! I get a chance to knock down this argument from Scott:

    “Let’s say that people are poor due to behavioral problems. Let’s suppose some of them are too impatient, or don’t study hard enough. Why would that be? Do they want to fail? Did they choose to be born in that neighborhood, that family, that body? Clearly not, they’d probably rather have been born in one of those Tolstoyan families that are all alike. It’s not their fault; it’s bad luck. When you start thinking about this in a completely unsentimental way, there are no longer any “just deserts.” Indeed push this line of thought far enough, and you might end up . . . God forbid . . . a utilitarian.”

    This is 100% wrong.

    Luck of birth DOES NOT EXIST.

    Everyone is born EXACTLY equal.

    Then, you are GIVEN or not given through no part of your own LOTS OF STUFF or nothing at all.

    WHY you are given this stuff, is not luck.

    You are given this stuff because your parents and their parents before them WANTED you to have unfair advantages or all the other kids.

    We NEVER ask ourselves if you are lucky, we NEVER concern ourselves with HOW you got what you got.

    You DO NOT MATTER. You are not part of the equation.

    What does matter is does the system ALLOW parents to give their progeny unfair advantages.

    Giving your progeny unfair advantages is the greatest prize at the skee-ball hall of life.

    It is THE driving force of human ambition.

    Giving those close to you things they did not earn, because you WANT them them to have them is WHY you work 100 hours a week while everyone else works 40.

    This is of course the true utilitarian approach evidenced by the success of America over all other countries.

    Forget the luck of birth.

    Having poodle children is the prize of life.

  35. Gravatar of JL JL
    26. July 2012 at 10:07

    Karl Smith is less sentimental than you, exhibit A:

    http://modeledbehavior.com/2012/02/07/the-deserving-poor/

  36. Gravatar of Cthorm Cthorm
    26. July 2012 at 10:30

    Morgan has the right of this. Sure, the short-term solution is to give work visas to foreign truck drivers, just like we do for strawberry pickers (ok so we don’t fill out the paperwork). But in the end what we want is automated transportation, and we’re much much closer than most people realize.

    And to prove my sentimentalist credentials…

    I don’t care one iota if ‘truck drivers lose their jobs’. No one should have immunity from competition. Even police, firemen & teachers should face competition. If robots and remote technologies can offer the same or better services for less money, so be it. I don’t care about workers. I care about wealth, utility, and the maximization thereof. I’ll take the consumers’ side even if ‘children will suffer’.

    If those views sound familiar, it’s because there is another GMU economist that predicts a similar end game. And you rob him of his title by giving it to Bryan Caplan, who is at best runner up to Robin Hanson for most unsentimental economist.

  37. Gravatar of Bonsoir mon cherie Bonsoir mon cherie
    26. July 2012 at 10:47

    “Least sentimental”?

    Why not “most callous”? Or most full of bovine excrement?

    Luck is the defining characteristics of most people’s lives.

    F.eks; the children of unemployed men whose fathers lost their jobs in the 80s Britain did worse academically and in later life than those who’s father’s had kept their jobs.
    http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2012/wp288.pdf

    [from Chris Dillow}
    In Law, Legislation and Liberty (ch 8), Hayek said that income inequalities between people “will often have no relations to their individual merits”and decried it as a “misfortune” that people defended free market on the erroneous grounds that they rewarded the deserving.

    This cohort of academic, phony economists have failed society as economists, so I guess it’s safer for the world that Cowen, Caplan and Yglasias et al spend most of their energy on their ongoing blog-based circle-jerk.

  38. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    26. July 2012 at 11:26

    I’m glad you came to the conclusion that there’s nothing unsentimental about saying the poor deserve their lot in life out of “just desserts.”

    I always think of the old religious debates about Predestination when on this topic.

    It is more unsentimental to say not that inequality is in itself immoral but just about luck. In a way it’s the sentimentalism of a Bryan Caplan behind the Just Desserts argument. He needs to believe that Justice itself says he belongs where he is and the losers belong where they are. When we admit that luck had something to do with it it offends his sense of superciliousness.

    I don’t say the rich are particulary bad just not particulary good.

    For the record I’m one American who would be happy to drive a truck. However, my bad luck as it were is that with my amount of moving violations It’ll be a long time till I qualify for the license required to drive a truck.

  39. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 11:27

    Morgan:

    Everyone is born EXACTLY equal

    Morgan, with all due respect, this is ri-goddamn-diculous.

    Albert Einstein was not born “exactly equal” to Corky from Life Goes On. His brain was studied and it was revealed that regions involved in speech and language were smaller, while regions involved with numerical and spatial processing were larger. Other studies have shown he had a relatively high number of Glial cells, which protect and support neurons.

    Then there are the obvious physical differences. A person who can’t run very fast and is weak, will not be able to make millions as a professional baseball player. A person who is over 7 feet tall can’t (at this point) make money as a pilot. A person who is lazy and stupid won’t be able to grow a company into a multi-national conglomerate.

    The list goes on and on.

  40. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 11:29

    Bonsoire mon cherie:

    Luck is the defining characteristics of most people’s lives.

    It would have to be luck wouldn’t it? It would be far too painful to accept your inferior relative ability, income, and social status primarily on the basis of your own choices and effort.

  41. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    26. July 2012 at 12:08

    “It would have to be luck wouldn’t it? It would be far too painful to accept your inferior relative ability, income, and social status primarily on the basis of your own choices and effort.”

    You could just as easily say it’s much too painful for those with high social status or wealth to realize they werwe just lucky. They need to believe it’s somehow based on some moral merit. That luck is a major factor they may find too cruel.

    I think it’s those who have to deny luck as a factor who are most sentimental.

  42. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    26. July 2012 at 12:10

    “You are given this stuff because your parents and their parents before them WANTED you to have unfair advantages or all the other kids.”

    Morgan this hardly solves it. Basically you were lucky that your parents wanted you to have an unfair advanatage over other kids.

    Or you’re unlucky that they didn’t care about it. You can’t claim that you are born to rich parents based on your own merit.

  43. Gravatar of Morgan Warstler Morgan Warstler
    26. July 2012 at 12:25

    Sax,

    I’m not arguing your own merit.

    MF,

    I’m not arguing luck of the draw doesn’t exist.

    I’m arguing that even thinking about who is lucky at birth is WRONG.

    Even insisting on a straight up meritocracy is wrong.

    As in, since we are PRIMARILY concerned with not watering down the ultimate prize of human endeavors…. advantages for YOUR genes.

    We shall not have time or place to concern ourselves very much with figuring out how to account for luck of birth.

    We are going to be SO focused on keeping the glorious engine of human drive of “my family over someone elses” alive AS UTILITARIANS that as utilitarians we shall not worry about who was born lucky.

    Nepotism is a far more powerful driver of human economic growth than ANY negative consequence from losing a few competents along the way… if we lose that many at all.

    If there are a vast array of middling to average people, and the exceptional can climb out of virtually any hole…

    this is NOT about the lucky average folks justifying the abolition of that which moves us.

    Now if the truly exceptional couldn’t redeem themselves that would be a different story.

  44. Gravatar of Justin Irving Justin Irving
    26. July 2012 at 12:58

    Scott has clearly never driven in Mexico.

  45. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    26. July 2012 at 13:36

    Scott,
    You may be a horrible person… (I doubt it )… but I like your take. This is coming from ridiculously sentimental person.

  46. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 13:40

    Morgan Warstler:

    I’m not arguing luck of the draw doesn’t exist.

    I’m saying you’re wrong for arguing that everyone is born exactly equal. They’re not.

    I am not saying you’re arguing luck of the draw doesn’t exist.

  47. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 13:45

    Mike Sax:

    Morgan this hardly solves it. Basically you were lucky that your parents wanted you to have an unfair advanatage over other kids.

    This is like saying parents roll a pair of dice on whether or not they want to help their own kids, or someone else’s kids.

    It’s not luck when parents purposefully help one set of children over another. It’s because the one set of children can do what other children cannot. If it’s not being a genetic offspring of the parents, then it’s because their prosperity makes the parents more happy than the prosperity of other children, biological or not.

    It’s not because you’re “unlucky” that I have decided you’re not a very pleasant person and that I only value you in the sense of your claims being fodder for honing my debating skills, and that I would rather give Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple, $100 rather than giving you $100, even if you were lying on the street with an empty cup and sign that said “Will make partisan blog posts for cash”. There is no luck at all here. It’s a product of your choices and actions.

  48. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    26. July 2012 at 13:50

    If the qualities that make people poor could be punished out of them, doesn’t it seem like government would have achieved it at some time in history ?

    After all our history is full of ruthless and cruel leaders.

  49. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    26. July 2012 at 13:56

    Mike Sax:

    “It would have to be luck wouldn’t it? It would be far too painful to accept your inferior relative ability, income, and social status primarily on the basis of your own choices and effort.”

    You could just as easily say it’s much too painful for those with high social status or wealth to realize they werwe just lucky.

    What does the fact that SAYING 2+2=5 is “just as easy” as SAYING 2+2=4 have to do with anything? What, that you can merely say something means there is as much truth to it as saying the opposite?

    I don’t think it’s as equally painful recognize your wealth as being a product of luck, as it is to recognize your wealth as being the product of your own effort. This is because it is EASIER to blame others than oneself. This is why it is more DIFFICULT to blame oneself.

    When do people tend to blame others? Typically, when they experienced a problem of some sort. Well, I don’t see how having lots of wealth is a bigger problem than having little wealth, so I think you’re totally wrong when you (tried to) say that it is as equally painful to “blame” others for you being wealthy, as it is to “blame” others for you being poor.

    I think it’s those who have to deny luck as a factor who are most sentimental.

    I think it’s the exact opposite. Those who view wealth as a product of luck would be more sentimental to those without much of it.

  50. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    26. July 2012 at 14:02

    Mike Sax,
    Why bother ?

  51. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    26. July 2012 at 14:49

    foosion, No barriers to entry.

    KnowPD. There is no free will.

    J Mann. That’s right.

    mbk, Then aren’t they victims because they were born wanting to be poor?

    Travis A, I have no “incentive” to help 310,000,000 Americans, as they’d get 99.999999% of the gains. I do this blog to help people, not to get rich.

    Jim, If more people want to work for your company every time you raise wages, then by definition you are a monopsonist.

    mbk, I agree that utilitarianism allows for lots of inequality, as the disincentive effects of taxes is quite important.

    JL, Yes, I forgot about Karl’s post.

    Justin, Au contraire, in the 1970s I drove 3500 miles through all parts of Mexico, in a beat up old Pontiac Ventura that I bought for $800.

    Bill, Thanks.

    Everyone, If I missed an important question, ask me again.

  52. Gravatar of Morgan Warstler Morgan Warstler
    26. July 2012 at 15:21

    MF,

    we’re saying the same thing.

    altho I should be so cavalier with my language.

    where you say it isn’t “luck” that one set of parents choose to take care of their kids over others.

    I’m saying therefore luck does not exist… as is we should not even discuss the topic. Luck? What’s that??? No time to discuss that.

    How many words do Nigerians have for snow?

    We should not allow the concept of birth luck to enter our political discourse, because there is a higher primary battle.

  53. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    26. July 2012 at 15:21

    “What does the fact that SAYING 2+2=5 is “just as easy” as SAYING 2+2=4 have to do with anything? What, that you can merely say something means there is as much truth to it as saying the opposite? ”

    Major you just made another Majorily stupid analogy. It’s not a question of fact, it’s an interpretation. If someone is rich you can say they deserved it based on their superiorty or they were just lucky.

    If you claim luck has no part in who’s rich or isn’t then you’re the one saying 2+2=5.

    “I don’t think it’s as equally painful recognize your wealth as being a product of luck, as it is to recognize your wealth as being the product of your own effort. This is because it is EASIER to blame others than oneself. This is why it is more DIFFICULT to blame oneself.”

    The problem is you have this illusion that anything bad that happens to anyone is their own fault. Which is patent nonsense. Did the people who were shot in Colorado do anything with which to reproach themselves? Obviosuly not.

    This is why I think you are very sentimental down to your toes in fact.

    You imagine that we live in some absolutely moral universe at least when it comes to economics. Everyone is rich through merit or poor through merit.

    So if one person wins the lottery and the other doesn’t this makes the first person somehow more meritorious?

    “When do people tend to blame others? Typically, when they experienced a problem of some sort. Well, I don’t see how having lots of wealth is a bigger problem than having little wealth, so I think you’re totally wrong when you (tried to) say that it is as equally painful to “blame” others for you being wealthy, as it is to “blame” others for you being poor.”

    Good for you, but that wasn’t my argument. No one would “blame” anyone for being wealthy as it is fortunate to be wealthy. I said that some who are wealty and have high social standing and see others with low levels want to think that the reason they are fortunate and the other isn’t is because they got where they were through their own merit, or worthiness. To realize that you were just lucky may take away from their happiness. What does it is the idea that they aren’t any better than someone else because they are richer.

    Again if you deny luck has anything to do with wealth you are the one claiming 2+2=5.

    In economics you’re almost a crude Hegelian that thinks that success if proof of truth or something.

  54. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    26. July 2012 at 15:35

    “It’s not because you’re “unlucky” that I have decided you’re not a very pleasant person and that I only value you in the sense of your claims being fodder for honing my debating skills, and that I would rather give Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple, $100 rather than giving you $100, even if you were lying on the street with an empty cup and sign that said “Will make partisan blog posts for cash”. There is no luck at all here. It’s a product of your choices and actions.”

    Bad luck only applies to something unfortunate. As I put no value in your opinion whatever you think or say you think of me is not unfortunate, merely irrelevant.

    I’m still waiting for you to put your money where you’re big mouth is and get in on shorting the “Treasury bubble.”

    I’ll take the other side of that trade with you any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

    I know before you tried to claim that you don’t believe I know how to play the market.

    That’s an example of why your opinion is worth no more than the bad bet that Bill Gross and Jim Rogers made shorting the very same imaginary “Treasury bubble.”

    You logically have no idea whether I can play the market or not. You’re childishly insisting you know I can’t just shows you talk out your other end without yourself knowing what you’re talking about.

    And if you knew anything about it you’d want to get in with me-if I don’t know it all the better for you. Duh.

    Incidentally I’ve already made more money out of my partisan blog than anyone would ever dream of paying you or even bothering to read your obssessive compulsive baloney all day.

  55. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    26. July 2012 at 15:39

    By the way Major you calling anyone unpleasant is the ultimate example of calling the kettle black.

  56. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    26. July 2012 at 19:41

    Scott,
    “mbk, Then aren’t they victims because they were born wanting to be poor?”
    I’m sorry but this strikes me as the ultimate patronizing. In this vision poor people don’t even get the benefit of individual choice anymore, or of the right to want what they want. They’re victims because we say so. Next, they must be made happy against their will. At that point we’re at what some people would describe as the worst abuses of the arrogant elite, cf Thomas Sowell et al. It’s a very common attitude of course, it has justified all sorts of horrors of the 20th Century, and before that, colonialism, and before that, the inquisition and auto-da-fes (remember: all for their own soul’s good!).

    I second Bonsoir mon cherie’s comment above on Hayek – the ultimate justification for a free society is not equality of outcomes or even necessarily greater aggregate wealth although luckily this often goes together. It is that it is the society with the most respect for the right to one’s own choices. The fact that people don’t get the literally same choices in life is immaterial to this. It’s about the natural right to make your own choices, your own mistakes. This was actually a big, big justification, the ultimate justification, of the anticolonial argument by the “new-caught, sullen peoples / Half devil and half child”. Of course the colonists just went on to whine about “The blame of those ye better / The hate of those ye guard”. (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/)

    And within Western society itself: This was the whole point of the “Road to Serfdom”: that utilitarianism would end up putting people in a straightjacket where first they are “given” redistribution goodies and then later forced to “fit in” and obey orders because, after all, they took the money, right, therefore they now have to work for it. Neither the good willed redistribution it starts with nor the forced labor at the end are voluntary. You’ll be roped in for the forced production of the greatest utility.

  57. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    27. July 2012 at 05:07

    mbk,
    It seems to me that the belief in free will has something to do with all this, and Scott has said he does not believe in free will. While I do (with vigor) I’ll be the first to admit it only goes so far…what is free will when we don’t own a car in a place you really need one to get around? So when Scott looks at happiness, perhaps he is assuming that is at least a gauge of some minimum when people don’t have a chance to exercise their would be free will. I had this issue about Einstein too – why didn’t he believe in free will?

  58. Gravatar of Bonsoir mon cherie Bonsoir mon cherie
    27. July 2012 at 05:27

    Major_Freedom

    I’d bet you don’t have the guts to be this awful in your ‘real’ life.

    In terms of my supposed ‘inferiority’, I would also be delighted to wager that my material conditions are significantly better than yours.

    The winner of the first bet would be difficult to establish. The second very easy.

  59. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    27. July 2012 at 07:59

    Becky,

    I think this is just a very dangerous position to take. Whether or not free will exists is probably a question of semantics as much as of principle. But to me the salient fact is that we do experience it as free will, and this experience has “utility”.

    If I had a choice I wouldn’t call it “free will” anyway, I’d call it “individual agency”. The word “freedom” is easily muddled by ideas of power vs. political freedom. Once again Hayek had a discussion of this: It may not be in our power to fly like birds but we still may be politically free to the extent that we are not subjected to the discretion of other people – arbitrary in the sense of foreign determined vs self determined. In that sense no having a car in a place like L.A. may make you a person of low power, but not an unfree person, because you are not subjected the the orders / whims / arbitrary determination by other people. You simply have lower powers of mobility than the average person.

    Of course there are whole schools of thought fighting over all this. But it strike me as absurd when the end result of the will to help people is forcing them against their own experienced will to do something that you – who are not them – have “scientifically” determined to be in their “best interest”. It violates their rights as humans. It is the best illustration of how the worst abuses against humanity have been perpetrated by people who wanted to help (their race / social class / the environment etc) . Mind you I am the kind of person who would not even lock the cat indoors at night for the purpose of keeping it safe against its “will”.

  60. Gravatar of Chris Corn Chris Corn
    27. July 2012 at 09:44

    It seems to me that everyone here knows the sentiment of poor people. Are you all poor? What definition of poor do you use in this exercise? The official goverment poverty line based on income? Lack of assets? How about lack of intellect? (GMU’s Garret Jones) I would like to define the poor as someone who lacks spirit. In this case being poor transcends having assets, a job, a will to work, etc. I say that there are many people who we would define as poor but if you asked them they would say they were not poor. The self-subsistent hunter/farmer who will take the incentive that the government offers you in the form of a welfare, food stamps, disability or social security check will also vote “right wing” because the government spends too much. Here’s a tid bit for a laugh and thought provoking self definition of “poor” AND sentiment.
    http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/03/10/video-alexandra-pelosi-interviews-voters-in-mississippi-president-obama-is-a-half-breed-muslim/

    Now, to follow up, by accepting this groups definition of poor and to use Scotts example, let’s say that congress allows the Mexican imigration of truck drivers to fill these jobs. Will societies’ sentiment about the Mexican truck drivers change. I am sure that the greater percentage of people on both sides of the debating isle would (excluding the kind congreesmen that voted to allow them in, even if it was only to because their friends in the transporation indusrty sufficently argued for the readly avialable skilled labor to keep their costs low in filling their shortage) not agree with importing non-skill or semi-skilled labor of any type when there are jobless and poor people here who should fill these jobs. That sentiment assumes that the poor have the resources and want to fill the truck driving jobs. That sentiment doesn’t realize that the goverment and their crony-capitalist friends have already put in place many hurdels for poor people to enter the truck driving market.(Class A liecence, insurance regulations,drug testing, etc) I know Scott, that the debat is not about truck driving but about sentiment, but the example you use to illustrate the sentiment of the poor is a bad one becuase poor people have no chance of filling those 200,000 jobs just because they are poor. They can’t pay for driving school and can not get 2 years experience overnight to fulfill insurace regulation and in many cases can not pass a drug test. And since I know a little about trucking the people who can take these jobs don’t because you don’t get paid the wages they claim. Payment is per mile not per hour, and the costs of driving the truck is volitale right now. (gas prices)

    To me, this debate about sentiment should be more about the sentiment of the politcal ecomony. About who accepts it as “they way it is” or worse those who would partake in it. Instead of worrying about the sentiment of the poor people, the people here should take a good look at say government subisdies for higher education or for health insurance companies. I would venture to say that your sentiment would be poor in spirit if these subsidies went away. As for the poor, if societies incentives change for them because we fixed the political economy, then the sentiment of/torward the poor would change.

  61. Gravatar of Chris Corn Chris Corn
    27. July 2012 at 09:48

    Forgive my spelling bad typing skills. I guess I have been relying on spell check too much.

  62. Gravatar of Eric G Eric G
    27. July 2012 at 10:52

    Isn’t it obvious the wages are too low?
    Also, wouldn’t the poor have more jobs if demand was higher like during the bubble days? It then is just a matter of available jobs and not how the poor are.

    I find the other article funny since he thinks the poor shouldn’t be seen as the victim because almost all of right wing thought these days seeks to make the super rich out to be victims. Poor billionaire his taxes might go up slightly 🙁

  63. Gravatar of Morgan Warstler Morgan Warstler
    27. July 2012 at 12:59

    “Now, to follow up, by accepting this groups definition of poor and to use Scotts example, let’s say that congress allows the Mexican imigration of truck drivers to fill these jobs. Will societies’ sentiment about the Mexican truck drivers change”

    Manifest Destiny Mexico

    I have been a long advocate of legalizing drugs and offering Mexico open door immigration or a zero foot traffic armed border with hostilities to boot.

    But, to have an open door policy, Mexico must allow Americans to buy and own beach front property with fully equal ownership rights.

    Getting Americans to accept Mexicans is easy, juts turn Mexico in the new Florida.

    When everyone is grateful to have their mom and dad buy a beach condo and use cheap Mexican health care, and take awesome vacations.

    The US has much to gain from turning Mexico into a few new states.

  64. Gravatar of Eric G Eric G
    27. July 2012 at 16:11

    Oh we’re only suppose to talk about sentiment, I see.

    Well, I’m sick of right wingers acting like they’re logicians while claiming left wingers are too emotional. To add to my last post, who the hell cares if the rich and corporations are taxed more to reduce the deficit? Why care about cutting government spending? It doesn’t make any sense to claim you’re purely logical and unsentimental. It’s impossible, haven’t you read any of Adam Smith’s other book?

  65. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    28. July 2012 at 09:54

    mbk, I don’t think they want to be poor, nor do I support big government policies. So I’m afraid you misinterpreted my response. I was just trying to follow through on the logic of your argument.

    Crhris, I can forgive your spelling errors, but not this appalling logic:

    “but the example you use to illustrate the sentiment of the poor is a bad one”

    I certainly did not use trucking to portray anything about the sentiment of the poor. Indeed I offered no opinion at all about the sentiment of the poor.

    Eric, Is that addressed at me? If so, what specific comment of mine? My philosophy (utilitarianism) is pretty similar to Smith’s, wouldn’t you say. Utilitarianism says we should care about others.

  66. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    29. July 2012 at 01:12

    Scott, my argument was tongue in cheek. I believe most people would like to be wealthy, all else kept equal. But in order to become more wealthy, you have to do some things differently and not everyone is prepared to do that, and I consider this as a genuine choice, not mere ignorance.

    This works for differences within country and for different cultural habits between countries. Say, in Indonesia you’ll find people having a decent job (for Indonesia). Then suddenly they’ll quit the job because the mom needs them in the village (often for something trivial). After a month or so they’re back in the city, starting at a lower rung of the ladder. That’s economically destructive. Now people in the US would not do that. They’d have a phone call and let the mom fend for herself. Economically sound, but family ties suffer.

    Personally I find that cultural habits that promote wealth are often socially cold, and ironically, the socially “warmer” countries have cultural habits that are economically destructive (family ties more important than job, more important then the rule of law too, hence nepotism etc). Hence my quip “poor people want to be poor”.

  67. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    29. July 2012 at 04:52

    mbk,
    I have not been able to travel out of the U.S. so your description of cultural differences was quite helpful. For years I have been working on a ‘middle way’ system where people can rely on sets of neighbors (at least 50, ongoing) for reciprocal economic relationships. Among many other things, people would not have to rely so upon family, and no one would need be alone as they get old. Older people want to be independent and when it’s just their kids helping them, it’s really hard for anyone to be independent. People may not have money, but they still have the capacity to construct positive experiences not unlike those who do.

  68. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    29. July 2012 at 09:12

    Mike Sax:

    “What does the fact that SAYING 2+2=5 is “just as easy” as SAYING 2+2=4 have to do with anything? What, that you can merely say something means there is as much truth to it as saying the opposite? “

    Major you just made another Majorily stupid analogy.

    You haven’t shown how I made a prior stupid analogy, so how can you say I made “another” one?

    It’s not a question of fact, it’s an interpretation.

    Your interpretation is flawed.

    If someone is rich you can say they deserved it based on their superiorty or they were just lucky.

    Again, merely being able to SAY something as easily as one would SAY something else, doesn’t mean both are equally plausible or correct.

    If you claim luck has no part in who’s rich or isn’t then you’re the one saying 2+2=5.

    I didn’t say luck has no part. I said luck isn’t the only thing, which is what you said, which is 2+2=5. I think investors in competition weeds out those who are only lucky, and promotes those who are skilled and knowledgeable.

    “I don’t think it’s as equally painful recognize your wealth as being a product of luck, as it is to recognize your wealth as being the product of your own effort. This is because it is EASIER to blame others than oneself. This is why it is more DIFFICULT to blame oneself.”

    The problem is you have this illusion that anything bad that happens to anyone is their own fault.

    I didn’t make that claim.

    You imagine that we live in some absolutely moral universe at least when it comes to economics.

    On the contrary, praxeological laws are not ethics. They are descriptions.

    Everyone is rich through merit or poor through merit.

    No, that’s also a straw man. I accept the existence of violent people who become wealthy through exploiting others, and of peaceful people who become lucky.

    So if one person wins the lottery and the other doesn’t this makes the first person somehow more meritorious?

    Investments are not like winning the lottery. For you yourself keep harping on those who are shorting bonds as making “bad choices”. Well, in lotteries there are no “bad choices” a priori, for that would imply something other than luck is present.

    Just more contradictions from you.

    “When do people tend to blame others? Typically, when they experienced a problem of some sort. Well, I don’t see how having lots of wealth is a bigger problem than having little wealth, so I think you’re totally wrong when you (tried to) say that it is as equally painful to “blame” others for you being wealthy, as it is to “blame” others for you being poor.”

    Good for you, but that wasn’t my argument.

    I didn’t say it was. That was MY argument. I was responding to your claim that being wealthy makes it “just as hard” to blame luck, as being poor can be blamed on bad choices.

    No one would “blame” anyone for being wealthy as it is fortunate to be wealthy.

    Now you’re changing the context as you go. I didn’t say nobody would blame people themselves for being wealthy, I was referring to the same thing you were referring to, which is the CAUSE for why they are wealthy. That’s what is being “blamed” here.

    You say it’s nothing but luck, I disagree.

    I said that some who are wealty and have high social standing and see others with low levels want to think that the reason they are fortunate and the other isn’t is because they got where they were through their own merit, or worthiness.

    Oh, so you’re just upset with being viewed as “low class” by wealthy people? You’re believing they see you as inferior and you’re saying their personal beliefs have anything to do with the question of merit or luck, when it comes to HOW they acquired that wealth?

    So you’re just saying you don’t like it when rich people look down on you?

    To realize that you were just lucky may take away from their happiness.

    To realize that you are poor because of your relative inferior inability may take away from your happiness.

    What does it is the idea that they aren’t any better than someone else because they are richer.

    That makes no sense.

    Your grammar is HORRIBLE.

    Again if you deny luck has anything to do with wealth you are the one claiming 2+2=5.

    Again, if you deny that skill and knowledge has anything to do with it, then you’re claiming 2+2=5.

    In economics you’re almost a crude Hegelian that thinks that success if proof of truth or something.

    Haha, you don’t even know Hegel. You’re just name dropping.

    “It’s not because you’re “unlucky” that I have decided you’re not a very pleasant person and that I only value you in the sense of your claims being fodder for honing my debating skills, and that I would rather give Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple, $100 rather than giving you $100, even if you were lying on the street with an empty cup and sign that said “Will make partisan blog posts for cash”. There is no luck at all here. It’s a product of your choices and actions.”

    Bad luck only applies to something unfortunate.

    You were the one who decided that being poorer is unfortunate. Well, you’re poorer because I didn’t give you money, as I think you are unpleasant. As such, your “bad luck” is not because you rolled the wrong dice, but because of your choices in what you said and what you did, as it pertains to my valuation of your actions. I choose not to give you money because I value my money more than I value your garbage.

    I’m still waiting for you to put your money where you’re big mouth is and get in on shorting the “Treasury bubble.”

    Well, that’s your problem. While you’re waiting for others, people like me make those choices.

    I’ll take the other side of that trade with you any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

    That’s why you’re poor.

    I know before you tried to claim that you don’t believe I know how to play the market.

    You don’t. You made that clear when you implied that you going long requires me to go short.

    That’s an example of why your opinion is worth no more than the bad bet

    Why? It’s accurate. You don’t know the market or investments to save your life.

    You logically have no idea whether I can play the market or not.

    You’re right, it’s not a logical statement. It’s a posteriori, based on your statements, which show me the lack of knowledge you have. Either than or you’re just pretending to play ignorant.

    You’re childishly insisting you know I can’t

    How is it “childish” to point out you don’t understand the investments you’re speaking around and about?

    just shows you talk out your other end without yourself knowing what you’re talking about.

    Oh burn.

    And if you knew anything about it you’d want to get in with me-if I don’t know it all the better for you. Duh.

    You don’t need me to get in with you if you’re right. See, this is what I am talking about. You don’t need to find a person to go short if you want to go long. Clearing houses do that for you. You go long, and they’ll find a short to offset you.

    Incidentally I’ve already made more money out of my partisan blog than anyone would ever dream of paying you or even bothering to read your obssessive compulsive baloney all day.

    Haha, I don’t think so. And again you are the kettle calling the pot black. You ramble obsessively compulsively on this blog and (as others have shown on this blog) your own blog.

    By the way Major you calling anyone unpleasant is the ultimate example of calling the kettle black.

    So you admit you are unpleasant then.

  69. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    29. July 2012 at 09:14

    Bonsoire mon Cherie:

    I’d bet you don’t have the guts to be this awful in your ‘real’ life.

    What do you mean “this awful”? Be specific please.

    In terms of my supposed ‘inferiority’, I would also be delighted to wager that my material conditions are significantly better than yours.

    Mine’s bigger.

  70. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    29. July 2012 at 09:15

    Bill Ellis:

    Mike Sax, Why bother?

    Because I am the one who won’t change his mind, right? Haha.

  71. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    29. July 2012 at 09:54

    Mike Sax:

    And by the way, if you weren’t busy being a drama queen in every debate, and you instead sticked to the topic at hand, then you would understand that my bringing up your unpleasantness was to show you that the reason I am not giving you my money has nothing to do with “luck”, as if I am rolling dice or spinning a wheel and it never lands on “Give Mike Sax my money”. It’s because of your specific choices, your specific actions, and my valuations of them.

    If you find me unpleasant, it is independent from my finding you unpleasant. Your evaluation of my actions does not preclude me from evaluating your actions. I am not wealthier than I am because you decided not to send me any of your money, and you are not wealthier than you are because I decides not to send you any of my money. There is no “luck” in this respect.

    The conjecture that wealthy people can only be wealthy because of luck, is false. Those who believe it is luck are simply denying the human valuation component of action. Humans choose more highly valued goals over less valued goals. You are as wealthy as you are because of the sum total of all the valuations of you from other people who (have had the unfortunate circumstance to) interact with you in some way to make available courses of action that result in your gaining money. But I do not value your choices and actions highly enough to give you any of my money. That’s why you have what you have, instead of more.

    This is not to say that wealth is always a product of valuations of one’s behavior, because one can win the lottery. What I am saying is that wealth is not solely a function of luck, which is what you are fallaciously claiming is the case.

  72. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    29. July 2012 at 12:02

    “And by the way, if you weren’t busy being a drama queen in every debate, and you instead sticked to the topic at hand, then you would understand that my bringing up your unpleasantness was to show you that the reason I am not giving you my money has nothing to do with “luck”, as if I am rolling dice or spinning a wheel and it never lands on “Give Mike Sax my money”. It’s because of your specific choices, your specific actions, and my valuations of them”

    Major Unfreedom there you go again like the Chickenhawk that you are trying ti call my manhood out over the Interenet. And you say I dno’t stick to the topic at hand.

    You say you’re not a Republican but I don’t believe you. You see what Romney is doing now? Threatening to use the bomb in Iran. He hasn’t even won anything yet and there he is itching to start us off in more foreign entanglements.

    This topic by the way is that you have the guts of a burgular calling me a drama nothing over the Internet. Why don’t you stick to the topic at hand? Nor is it only me you try this with.

    As to the idea “that my bringing up your unpleasantness was to show you that the reason I am not giving you my money has nothing to do with “luck”, as if I am rolling dice or spinning a wheel and it never lands on “Give Mike Sax my money”. It’s because of your specific choices, your specific actions, and my valuations of them”

    Whatever “specific choices” I supposedly made to cause you not to want to give me money I really am not worried about. Do you think that my objective is to “please Major Unfreedom so that he won’t find me unpleasant anymore?”

    Now as you’re so concerned about “staying on topic” as if we;re all constrained by some format in your head, listen as I answer this topic yet again. obviously when I did it before it went over your thick head.

    I have plenty of people who visit my webstie Diary of a Repubiican hater. So my “choices” such as they were work for them. They do say “let me give Mike Sax my money” as I’ve already collected some checks.

    So whatever problem you have with me is your problem not mine. I find you very unpleasant but I’m not the only one by far. On the other hand, I have enough people who like my act that I really don’t have to worry about you. Whatever those choices are that you think I made, I guess I made the right onese and will continue making them.

    You say my low opinon of you is independent from your low opinion of me. Guess which opinion I care about and which one really doesn’t matter to me?

    Get over the idea that yor opinion means anything as far as I’m concerned other than a fascinating curiosity about how bad mental illness can get when it’s not treated properly.

    when do you want to bet me on the Treasury Bubble Major Dumb Dumb?

  73. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    29. July 2012 at 12:06

    Major Unfreedom:

    “What I am saying is that wealth is not solely a function of luck, which is what you are fallaciously claiming is the case.”

    I’m not claiming that. I never said it’s always a function of luck just that it can be. It’s one aspect. My point was that not everyone is rich or not rich based on just deserts. However you seem to be confirming that now.

    I never said it’s all luck.

  74. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    29. July 2012 at 18:33

    mbk, I’m not so sure that the way certain cultures are is the way that the people in those cultures want the culture to be. They are born into it, and had little choice. It’s easier to act like a Swede in Sweden than Indonesia.

  75. Gravatar of mbk mbk
    29. July 2012 at 23:20

    Scott,

    “They are born into it, and had little choice.”

    No doubt there is some truth to that – there is a lot of path dependency in the history of a country (and of a person too).

    “It’s easier to act like a Swede in Sweden than Indonesia.”

    And conversely if you act Indonesian whilst in the US, Matt Yglesias and Bryan Caplan, and probably spearheaded all by Charles Murray, will wag the finger on how it’s all your own fault if you didn’t get rich. No one will even consider the hypothesis that maybe, just maybe you chose your life’s trade-offs by yourself.

    Becky,

    yes some social warmth would be nice. But as Scott noted above, a lot is really ingrained in the culture and you’re on a set rail so to speak. Personally I find Scandinavian culture socially very cold for instance. I suspect that this is both a cause and a result of the extensive state provided “social” (really: monetary) assistance. It’s a cause because with colder family ties you need external help. It’s a result because good external help makes it even easier to let social ties slide and just rely on “social assistance” (really: money from government).

  76. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    30. July 2012 at 00:14

    Mike No Sax:

    “And by the way, if you weren’t busy being a drama queen in every debate, and you instead sticked to the topic at hand, then you would understand that my bringing up your unpleasantness was to show you that the reason I am not giving you my money has nothing to do with “luck”, as if I am rolling dice or spinning a wheel and it never lands on “Give Mike Sax my money”. It’s because of your specific choices, your specific actions, and my valuations of them”

    Major Unfreedom there you go again like the Chickenhawk that you are trying ti call my manhood out over the Interenet. And you say I dno’t stick to the topic at hand.

    There you go again being a drama queen. I was making an argument that wealth is not necessarily a product of luck, by explaining to you why I am not giving you any money, and as a result, why you are not wealthier than you are.

    You say you’re not a Republican but I don’t believe you.

    I don’t care. I know me more than you know me. I am not a Republican. Case closed.

    If you continue to call me a Republican, then I will start calling you an anarcho-capitalist, and then say “I don’t believe you” whenever you challenge me.

    You see what Romney is doing now?

    You see what Democrats are doing now?

    Threatening to use the bomb in Iran.

    I am against bombing anyone who isn’t a threat to my person or property, and I am against stealing from people to finance such bombs.

    He hasn’t even won anything yet and there he is itching to start us off in more foreign entanglements.

    You should focus your anti-war rhetoric (which I don’t believe) on Obama, because he is doing what you are ostensibly against.

    I do not have to answer for Romney.

    This topic by the way is that you have the guts of a burgular calling me a drama nothing over the Internet.

    Drama queen, not drama “nothing”. You are a drama queen.

    Why don’t you stick to the topic at hand?

    You’re just echoing my arguments back at me. I say you’re not sticking to the topic, so you say the same thing back. Yet you keep trying to turn every topic into a he said she said drama queen game. You’re not sticking to the topic.

    Nor is it only me you try this with.

    You’re not the only person who wanders off topic when debating me.

    As to the idea “that my bringing up your unpleasantness was to show you that the reason I am not giving you my money has nothing to do with “luck”, as if I am rolling dice or spinning a wheel and it never lands on “Give Mike Sax my money”. It’s because of your specific choices, your specific actions, and my valuations of them”

    Whatever “specific choices” I supposedly made to cause you not to want to give me money I really am not worried about.

    I don’t care. I am explaining to you why you are not wealthier than you are now. My valuation of your choices, and other people’s valuations of your choices, has resulted in you being no more wealthier than you are now. It was not because of luck that I did not give you my money. It is because of my valuations of your actions. I do not value them enough to give you any money.

    You need to grasp the point of my argument. You think this is drama queen fluff, when I am making a targeted argument with the goal of proving that wealth is not necessarily a product of luck.

    Do you think that my objective is to “please Major Unfreedom so that he won’t find me unpleasant anymore?”

    I don’t care.

    Now as you’re so concerned about “staying on topic” as if we;re all constrained by some format in your head, listen as I answer this topic yet again. obviously when I did it before it went over your thick head.

    You have not said a single thing that has ever gone over my head. The only difficulty you introduce is the eye pain from having to wade through constant spelling and grammatical errors, where you can’t even write words and sentences properly the first time you write them.

    I have plenty of people who visit my webstie Diary of a Repubiican hater.

    I am not directing this at you necessarily, but I will say that there is always a market for idiocy. The free market does not preclude idiots from taking part in it.

    So my “choices” such as they were work for them. They do say “let me give Mike Sax my money” as I’ve already collected some checks.

    Good for them. Isn’t voluntary exchange benevolent? I am not directing this at you necessarily, but it allows even buffoonish meandering partisan hacks to make mutual monetary and goods/services gains with each other.

    So whatever problem you have with me is your problem not mine.

    If you value more wealth over less wealth at the margin at any given time, then it’s actually your problem.

    I find you extremely unpleasant, and I am not the only one thinks this. That’s OK, we all can’t be popular with everybody, especially on a method of communication that has people of such diversity like the internet.

    You say my low opinon of you is independent from your low opinion of me. Guess which opinion I care about and which one really doesn’t matter to me?

    I don’t care?

    Get over the idea that yor opinion means anything as far as I’m concerned other than a fascinating curiosity about how bad mental illness can get when it’s not treated properly.

    Internet diagnosis FTW. I guess they’re just handing out psychiatry diplomas at the same place they handed you whatever it is you were handed.

    when do you want to bet me on the Treasury Bubble Major Dumb Dumb?

    I said I suspect there being a bond bubble Mike No Sax. And I already said I am invested in a portfolio that closely mimics a short bond portfolio payoff. I don’t need you to do what I am already doing.

    “What I am saying is that wealth is not solely a function of luck, which is what you are fallaciously claiming is the case.”

    I’m not claiming that. I never said it’s always a function of luck just that it can be.

    Where did you say it “can be”? You have only ever attributed wealth to luck. You even used the word “luck” without restrictions.

    That’s good that you’re learning.

    My point was that not everyone is rich or not rich based on just deserts.

    When was that point made again? Oh that’s right, not until I gave you a harsh lesson which you seem to need in order to grasp simple economic concepts.

  77. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 02:05

    “If you value more wealth over less wealth at the margin at any given time, then it’s actually your problem”

    Major this is more proof that you aren’t human but are more space alien. You don’t seem to sleep at all.

    If lots of people do read my blog but you don’t why would changing it to suit you necessarily make mre richer? No market pleases everyone. You seem an outlier in enough things that I can write you off and not lose any money.

    If I tried to turn it into something you approve of I’d probably lose all my other readers.

    You say nothing goes over you head-though the record says differenly.

    However, you seem to not get it that because you don’t want to visit my site-though you have done before, and Bob Roddis has clearly spent a lot of time there-doesn’t mean I’m losing money.

    No one can get everyone. I don’t need you. You’re trying to explain to me why you don’t do it doesn’t matter. Maybe the exact “choices” you say I made that keeps you away are the same ones that makes thousands of other people visit. So maybe my “choices” such that they are-my use of quotes shows I find the use of this word awkard in this context-are actually making me on a net basis richer than I am.

  78. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 02:10

    Just to make the point so painfully clear that maybe even you won’t miss it-the reason I used the phrase “going over your head” above is because you keep saying my choices have made me poorer than I would be as if you personallly are the whole market.

    To the contrary on a net basis my choices may have made me richer than I would have been. You really don’t know if I’m getting optimum visitors with my current approach or not.

    Ie, I have no problem in writing you off as I got plenty that read me. This is why I love the market-contrary to what you may think. The market is a kind of democracy as well where people vote with their feet.

  79. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 02:13

    And Major I never said all success is about luck. Never said it. I said that luck’s a factor. Go ahead and find the quote if it exists. It doesn’t

    My point has always been luck is a factor in success or wealth. I cetainly never claimed that no one earns their wealth. I never thought it and never said it. If you are claiming otherwise than you are distorting my views.

    If you continue to claim this without proof you are operating in bad faith.

  80. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 02:22

    Major one other observation. Your neurotic need to always have the last word is striking. Why do you think it is?

    I’ve never met anyone like you on the Internet at least. I mean, look at the comments and dialouge of anyone else whether here at Money Illusion or on other sites where peple make comments.

    Do you see anyone else always having to get the last word?

    I understand that you have that need so often I’ll just let you have it not because-as you probably infer-that you’ve made such a devestating argument that I have no answer, but because of opportunity costs.

    The time I’m wasting with you could be better spent reading something else and actually learning something which I value.

    This is why I often make jokes about the idea that you surely have a lot of ex girlfriends but can’t keeep one. After all, I imagine that if you act in your every day social relationships as you act online you would drive anyone-especailly a woman nuts pretty quickly.

    Why? Because women don’t like guys who always insist on being right and getting the last word. Guys who will do anything to be right, who have to argue about everything.

    I myself am rare in that for the heck of it I will actualy go back and forth with you for awhile, In that I’m an outlier myself. Most people will write you off after at most 3 back of forths for the most part.

    So you are an outlier and I mean it sincerely, a curiosity. You defintely at least seem to have not an chemical imabalance-which I suspect-then at least your chemical “balance” such that it is is of a very different kind than the median person.

  81. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 02:25

    the above should read “if not a chemical” inbalance

  82. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 02:31

    “Do you think that my objective is to “please Major Unfreedom so that he won’t find me unpleasant anymore?”

    “I don’t care.”

    Logically you do care. Otherwise why make the point. What are you trying to achieve with it? You obviously are assuming that my goal is to “lease Major Unfreedom”

    Otherwise you wouldn’t keep saying this at all

  83. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    30. July 2012 at 10:52

    Mike Sax:

    “If you value more wealth over less wealth at the margin at any given time, then it’s actually your problem”

    Major this is more proof that you aren’t human but are more space alien. You don’t seem to sleep at all.

    You are very neurotic.

    If lots of people do read my blog but you don’t why would changing it to suit you necessarily make mre richer?

    I am not talking about your blog necessarily. I could have given you money for purposes other than your partisan hack blog. But because of those choices, I do not.

    No market pleases everyone.

    That’s what I told you.

    You seem an outlier in enough things that I can write you off and not lose any money.

    But you are losing money. You are losing what you could have gotten had you been a more pleasant person. If you value being unpleasant more than you value money, then that’s your choice.

    If I tried to turn it into something you approve of I’d probably lose all my other readers.

    I don’t think you’re even capable of that, so what you’re talking about is utopian.

    There are far more readers of blogs that are more in line with my philosophy, than your blog, so you can’t say you’d lose money. You’d probably make more money.

    You say nothing goes over you head-though the record says differenly.

    I said nothing YOU say goes over my head. Please learn how to read. It’s as bad as your spelling and grammar.

    However, you seem to not get it that because you don’t want to visit my site-though you have done before, and Bob Roddis has clearly spent a lot of time there-doesn’t mean I’m losing money.

    I have not once clicked on your blog. I said many times to you that I don’t visit political partisan hack blogs.

    No one can get everyone. I don’t need you.

    You want my actions. You want them because you keep sending me posts. I want your actions, because it is good for me and for everyone else to see how to correct errors being made by people who don’t understand economics, and who are not logically rigorous thinkers.

    You’re trying to explain to me why you don’t do it doesn’t matter.

    I didn’t say “it doesn’t matter.”

    Maybe the exact “choices” you say I made that keeps you away are the same ones that makes thousands of other people visit.

    As I said before, and this is not directed at you necessarily, but there is always a market for idiocy. Bad blogs are visited by those who adhere to bad ideas. The free market does not preclude idiots from taking part in it.

    So maybe my “choices” such that they are-my use of quotes shows I find the use of this word awkard in this context-are actually making me on a net basis richer than I am.

    I don’t see how using the word “choice” is awkward, unless you want to view yourselves as part causally determined, which is incoherent for human actors.

    Just to make the point so painfully clear that maybe even you won’t miss it-the reason I used the phrase “going over your head” above is because you keep saying my choices have made me poorer than I would be as if you personallly are the whole market.

    False. Nothing I said implies or explicitly states that I am the whole market. I am making an argument about the margin. You are poorer than you otherwise would have been, because of the choices and actions you have made up to this point. If your choices and actions were different in such a way that is attracts more interest from more people, then you would have been wealthier.

    Your blog is not the top blog on the internet. You could make more money by altering your choices and actions to be more in line with what others would find MORE valuable than the value they currently ascribe to the writings on your blog.

    To the contrary on a net basis my choices may have made me richer than I would have been.

    You’re ignoring the flip side. Your choices have also made you poorer than you could have been had your choices been different in a superior way. You could have made worse choices, and you could have made better choices. The choices you made got what you received. Your choices according to my valuation have lead you to making less money to the extent that I send you less money. I am not asking you to change your behavior on your blog, nor am I saying that if you make different choices that they must take place on your blog. It is possible that you on THIS blog could have made money from me, if you were more pleasant on THIS blog.

    You really don’t know if I’m getting optimum visitors with my current approach or not.

    Correct, because I don’t know what your value scale is nor do I know what it will be, based on any constancies borne out of your past actions. It is why I cannot centrally plan you to make your outcomes superior as compared to if you made your own choices without my coercion. What I do know is that I choose to not pay you money because of your choices and actions, not because I spun a wheel or rolled a pair of dice or threw darts at a dartboard, in which case my paying you would be a product of luck.

    I am only making this argument to show you that wealth is not necessarily a product of luck. I am not interested in how you emotionally react to such a fact.

    Ie, I have no problem in writing you off as I got plenty that read me. This is why I love the market-contrary to what you may think. The market is a kind of democracy as well where people vote with their feet.

    You don’t love the market. You only love the market for yourself when it suits you. You don’t want those in the minority to make their own governance choices. You want them to be ruled by force of the majority.

    Contrary to your claims, you love money and you say you love the market when you earn money. You’re very similar to most conservatives in this respect.

    And Major I never said all success is about luck. Never said it. I said that luck’s a factor. Go ahead and find the quote if it exists. It doesn’t.

    I never said you did say it is always all about luck.

    My point has always been luck is a factor in success or wealth.

    Luck is not always a factor. It is often a factor.

    I cetainly never claimed that no one earns their wealth. I never thought it and never said it. If you are claiming otherwise than you are distorting my views.

    If you continue to claim this without proof you are operating in bad faith.

    Wouldn’t I have to claim it the first time before I can “continue” to claim it?

    Major one other observation. Your neurotic need to always have the last word is striking. Why do you think it is?

    I don’t know, I’m just reading someone who keeps posting after I post, then I chuckle when he accuses me of wanting the last word.

    Just more of your hypocrisy.

    I’ve never met anyone like you on the Internet at least.

    I’ll take that as a compliment.

    I mean, look at the comments and dialouge of anyone else whether here at Money Illusion or on other sites where peple make comments.

    I know, it’s no comparison isn’t it?

    Do you see anyone else always having to get the last word?

    Oh yes, very much. Every single person who brings up the issue of getting the last word to me, after continued back and forth, are people who are mad that they can’t get the last word, and thus who are perhaps used to getting the last word in other debates. I’d say about 20% of the people I debate like to get the last word. For me, I don’t want the last word. I want continued back and forth until one person becomes convinced that they are wrong, myself or the other person.

    My continued posting is not me trying to get the last word, it is me just adding another brick in the construction of the road.

    I understand that you have that need so often I’ll just let you have it not because-as you probably infer-that you’ve made such a devestating argument that I have no answer, but because of opportunity costs.

    Gotcha. Devastating argument that you have no answer for.

    The time I’m wasting with you could be better spent reading something else and actually learning something which I value.

    I don’t believe you. For you would have done that if that were true.

    This is why I often make jokes about the idea that you surely have a lot of ex girlfriends but can’t keeep one.

    I don’t prefer to keep one. I prefer to have many over time.

    After all, I imagine that if you act in your every day social relationships as you act online you would drive anyone-especailly a woman nuts pretty quickly.

    Good thing I am more complex than the one dimensional person you think you’re dealing with.

    Why? Because women don’t like guys who always insist on being right and getting the last word. Guys who will do anything to be right, who have to argue about everything.

    I always let my girlfriends have the last word. I always let them think they’re right. That’s precisely why I am a magnet for girls (and guys too).

    I myself am rare in that for the heck of it I will actualy go back and forth with you for awhile, In that I’m an outlier myself. Most people will write you off after at most 3 back of forths for the most part.

    I like it how you are complimenting yourself through me. Oh well, whatever floats your boat.

    So you are an outlier and I mean it sincerely, a curiosity. You defintely at least seem to have not an chemical imabalance-which I suspect-then at least your chemical “balance” such that it is is of a very different kind than the median person.

    They call us true philosophers.

    “Do you think that my objective is to “please Major Unfreedom so that he won’t find me unpleasant anymore?”

    “I don’t care.”

    Logically you do care. Otherwise why make the point.

    I didn’t make the point. You did. You asked me if I thought your objective was to please me. I don’t care about such thoughts of yours. They don’t concern me. I do not have to “logically care.”

    What are you trying to achieve with it?

    Wait, since when did you believe my behavior had to be one of trying to achieve things? You said you are against a priori propositioning, and yet, you a priori presume that my behavior is goal seeking. Isn’t that amusing.

    This is why I seem to be condescending to you, Mike. It’s because I read someone saying one thing, then I see them say other things that performatively contradict what they said prior.

    How else should I approach someone like you? With admiration? With curiosity? You are a chore. I use you for the benefit of honing my debating skills and for educating others, which is a passion of mine.

    You obviously are assuming that my goal is to “lease Major Unfreedom”

    You are obviously wrong.

    Otherwise you wouldn’t keep saying this at all

    Another false dichotomy. Yay.

  84. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 11:56

    “Contrary to your claims, you love money and you say you love the market when you earn money. You’re very similar to most conservatives in this respect.”

    Major I never claimed I don’t love money. And though you keep repeating it I never said that all success is luck. I just said it’s a factor. When I first said this you protested, though now you seem to be admitting that luck is part of the equation. That’s all I ever said.

    You continue to lie about that. If you have me claiming that all there is to success if luck go ahead and quote me. Otherwise stop lying about it.

  85. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 12:21

    “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

    I guess you have to take whatever compliments you can get. I know you don’t get many. Ironically you’re doing what you accused me of-you’re complimenting yourself through me.

    I don’t find talking to you a chore. If you find me so, that’s your problem. I find you more a laugh and a half. I don’t let anyone upset me, least of all a pompous windbag like yourself.

    I find you a very amusing circus geek. If you find it a chore, so much the worse for you.

    Nor am I the only one as Saturos recently showed.

    It’s all god Major. Don’t ever think any of the ignorant things you say bothers me. If you manage to let the women in your life have the last word that means you’re able to shut down the Internet Major Unfreedom and be a more pleasant Social Everyday Life Major Unfreedom

    With all the empty claims that I was lying about Hoppe you admit he prefers monarchy to democracy. Yet you have in the past claimed that you see opposition to slavery as absolute. You even said that nonproperty owners can’t be slaves. Yet in monarchy-and feudalism-there was much slavery.

    I don’t thnk anarcho-capitalism at least in the Hoppe-Major Unfreedom incantation is anything but old wine in new bottles. It just means a society where only those with money have rights, those who don’t are out of luck.

  86. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    30. July 2012 at 13:41

    Mike Sax:

    Yay, more drama queen rambling.

    “Contrary to your claims, you love money and you say you love the market when you earn money. You’re very similar to most conservatives in this respect.”

    Major I never claimed I don’t love money.

    Mike I never claimed you didn’t not love money.

    And though you keep repeating it I never said that all success is luck.

    Once again, I have not once said you said success is all luck.

    You continue to lie about that.

    I cannot lie about what I have not even said, so I cannot “continue” to lie about it.

    If you have me claiming that all there is to success if luck go ahead and quote me. Otherwise stop lying about it.

    How can I be lying about what I am not saying?

    “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

    I guess you have to take whatever compliments you can get.

    Actually, I take whatever compliments I receive.

    I know you don’t get many.

    Those who perform very well tend not to get many explicit compliments.

    Ironically you’re doing what you accused me of-you’re complimenting yourself through me.

    Except it was what you said TO me.

    I don’t find talking to you a chore.

    I don’t care.

    If you find me so, that’s your problem.

    It’s not a problem I can’t easily handle.

    I find you more a laugh and a half.

    Yes, the same way a drunk person laughs at intelligent things people say.

    I don’t let anyone upset me, least of all a pompous windbag like yourself.

    I don’t believe you, because your being upset is written all over your statements. You protest too much, as Shakespeare once wrote.

    I find you a very amusing circus geek.

    Whatever dulls the pain for you.

    If you find it a chore, so much the worse for you.

    It’s not a problem I can’t easily handle.

    Nor am I the only one as Saturos recently showed.

    You keep saying that like I care about ad populum the way you do. I don’t think like that.

    It’s all god Major.

    ….amen?

    Don’t ever think any of the ignorant things you say bothers me.

    I can think anything I want, and I think what I say really bothers you at a deep level. If it didn’t, then there would be no reason at all why you would even think of bringing this up.

    If you manage to let the women in your life have the last word that means you’re able to shut down the Internet Major Unfreedom and be a more pleasant Social Everyday Life Major Unfreedom

    I do neither. On blogs, I act as Major Freedom. Away from blogs, I act as away from Major Freedom.

    I am very sociable and pleasant…to those who are themselves sociable and pleasant. You are neither sociable nor pleasant. You are anti-social and unpleasant.

    With all the empty claims that I was lying about Hoppe you admit he prefers monarchy to democracy.

    It’s nothing to “admit”. It’s obvious. With your empty claims and lying about Hoppe, you still have shown he prefers feudalism. The passage you cite is nowhere near stating a preference for feudalism.

    Yet you have in the past claimed that you see opposition to slavery as absolute.

    No, I have not claimed that. I said that the justification of slavery is absolutely illogical and self-contradictory.

    You even said that nonproperty owners can’t be slaves.

    No, I have not claimed that either. I said that respect for individual property rights makes slavery an impossibility.

    Yet in monarchy-and feudalism-there was much slavery.

    There is slavery in democracy, you just don’t want to accept it because you are not able to think at a high enough conscious level. Democracy is the mastery of the majority and slavery of the minority. You believe majority rule is “freedom” the same way slave owners believed they had the “freedom” to own slaves.

    I don’t thnk anarcho-capitalism at least in the Hoppe-Major Unfreedom incantation is anything but old wine in new bottles.

    That’s because you don’t understand it.

    It just means a society where only those with money have rights, those who don’t are out of luck.

    False. Private law society does not imply only those with money have rights. it implies every individual has rights.

    In democracy, only those in the majority have rights. The minority is out of luck.

  87. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    30. July 2012 at 15:15

    “I can think anything I want, and I think what I say really bothers you at a deep level. If it didn’t, then there would be no reason at all why you would even think of bringing this up.”

    Nope. At a deep level you want to believe it does. That I see through your pompous, empty rhetoric is a possiblity you can’t stand. Nothing you could every say would bother me. Of course you’ll declare victory at that. Aha!

    But it is what it is. Major if that’s your goal you’re wholly ineffectual. I find you tremendous comic relief. You should buy a clown’s nose when you say this stuff.

  88. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    30. July 2012 at 17:11

    mbk, Yglesias and Caplan certainly don’t agree on poverty–it’s odd to see them lumped together.

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