A summary of trickle down economic theory:

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Not to forget that "driving" requires a car and preferably a road. At least the latter is part of the capital stock.

Labor created value in all of them.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Labor created value in all of them.

You are kinda forgetting about the capital involved. Without capital, we'd be sitting around a fire in the woods with no idea what the hell a computer was.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Labor created value in all of them.

You are kinda forgetting about the capital involved. Without capital, we'd be sitting around a fire in the woods with no idea what the hell a computer was.

Should I add this to the list? Capital created itself?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Labor without capital = no progress.

You can't just have one without the other to progress. Capital is JUST as important as labor.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Labor created value in all of them.

Labour and the holy spirit, I presume.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Since free will is reality, thanks for affirming the achievability of equal opportunity.

Free Will is not a scientifically respectable concept. The usual attempts to prove free will entail "I did X but I could have done Y" Unfortunately, that is not a testable hypothesis. Free Will also conflicts with the scientific understanding of human beings as material creatures, subject to the same causal laws as the rest of the material universe. Of course, people imagine they have free will, but it is an illusion.

That's what's wrong with the political right. They believe in metaphysical fairies.

Your first commie fallacy is that we "equalize" for anything. That's just an excuse for a tribunal of party members sitting on their fat privileged asses taking out their limp-dicked frustrations on the intelligentsia and the bourgoisie. Next century, please.

We equalize all the time (like handicaps in horse races) - it's not a specifically communist value. EOO equalizes for certain factors and it isn't a communist value.

Next question.

PS. It's hard for me to take your "next century" comment seriously, when you are the one using a ridiculous religious dogma to back up your position.

Equality of opportunity means a removal of artificial barriers, such as race or gender discrimination, systematic lack of access to education, etc. We don't equalize, we remove artificial barriers, and let people work and educate themselves towards the outcomes on their own.

I'm sorry you are wrong about this one. Those are examples of EOO, not EOO itself. EOO is typically defined as handicapping a contest for some desired good to negate the effect of barriers over which people have no control. It's a principle of fairness, not a principle of efficiency. That's what the literature says - I should know, I've read enough of it.

The limiting case of EOO is simply a coin toss (when all barriers are handicapped, the result should be that each person has an equal chance of securing the good). But just as people's race or systematic lack of education is not their fault, neither is their genetic endowment.

Bull****, it's a matter of personal choice....

So you are telling me that it is, in theory, impossible for a scientific investigation to come up with a neurophysiological explanation of why man A is lazier than man B? Or to come up with a neurophysiological explanation of why a person chose X rather than Y?

That's largely why you are what you are and I am what I am. There is no other compelling explanation.

That's why we don't equalize. We simply remove artificial barriers, and let people work towards the outcomes they desire.

Removing artifical barriers is equalizing. For example, a typical EOO situation is this. Students from poorer educational systems are admitted with lower grades than those from better educational systems because it is assumed that the systems have some effects on grade performance which make grades a poor indicator of natural talent (sometimes this is called Affirmative Action - it doesn't matter the principle is the same).

Or we remove a discriminatory practice by not allowing firms to discriminate against women in hiring (even though women who take time off to have children are a pain in the ass). In that case what we do is tell firms that they aren't allowed to take the efficiency loss from childbearing into account - and if you do that a similarly able man and woman are thus equally suited for the job.

It is equalizing - in the sense that it handicaps some disfavoured set of barriers so as to (in theory) give two people who are equal in all other respects but those specified by the barriers an equal chance of securing some good.

If the policy results in an equal chance for people who otherwise would be unequals then its an equalizing policy. QED

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious

It's the same as the value of just wanting the water.

Good, so we've established that the lazy are equally wealthy by virtue of their dreams, so we can move on.

Productivity and efficiency are factors too, as well as quantity.

Nice punt, but you've still painted yourself in a corner. In the scenario given, required labor is identical, the extraction process is identical, and the quantity of ore is identical. The only difference is the yield of useful raw material from the ore.

There are only three possible answers:

The values are identical, based on your stated and nonsensical view that raw materials have no value except the labor put into them.

The other, correct and obvious answer is that the value is different, due to the fact that one mine will yield more raw material than the other, with all other factors equal, therefore, the amount of raw material itself has value separate from the labor required to extract it (i.e. market value, which is how in the real world that exists a bit to the right of the Marxist-Leninist Worker's Paradise, we decide when and whether to develop a particular asset - whether the market value is greater than the cost to bring the asset to market, by an adequate margin)

The third answer is the Soviet central planning fallacy, that the value of otherwise identical labor depends on the asset produced, such that a unit of a specific type of labor never has a fixed value, or one that can be determined in advance of delivering the end product to market, unless the price of the end product is fixed in an artificial market.

The real value of X amount of labor is nothing more nor less than the cost of replacing that labor with identical labor in the same location. That's why ditch-diggers make less than CEO's, and the absolute value of ditch-digger output is less than the absolute value of CEO output, assuming equivalent levels of performance.

[Arrian]

Wow, still going, huh?

Agathon,

If there is no free will, no one has to take any responsibility for their actions. How convenient for a communist ideology.

No thank you. I choose my path, even if I often choose poorly.

Kid,

If you sit around and think that you can't succeed because you don't think have any opportunities, you have yourself a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a defeatist mindset. You beat yourself before the world even gets a crack at you.

So I'm not saying that everyone has equal economic opportunity in our current system, and I think we need to continue to work on that. But what you're proposing, IMO, will hurt more than it helps.

Wealth redistribution doesn't get at the root of the problem. It's not all about money. It's about growing up in a safe, healthy environment, and having a good upbringing. Having money may improve your chances of getting that, but by NO MEANS guarantees it. I grew up in a rich town, but many of the kids had ****ed-up home lives anyway. I consider my luck of being born to my parents to be worth more than my college degree ($120,000).

-Arrian

[Agathon]

Equality of Opportunity means just this ? providing the same opportunities to those who are equals in some favoured respect.

An opportunity is a chance to secure some favoured good. Hence equal opportunity is an equal chance for those who are equal in some favoured respect to secure a certain good.

For example, a man and a woman of equal ability apply for the same job. Ceterus paribus it is in the interest of the employer to choose the man because women are more likely to want time off work to have children, etc. etc. If we allow this then women (even those who choose not to have children) will be discriminated against in employment. This is unfair ? being born a woman is something that no one can help. So as it stands women do not have an equal opportunity with men in the workplace. An equal opportunity policy attempts to rectify this unfairness by preventing employers from discriminating on the basis of sex. The policy theoretically equalizes the chances of employment between those of equal ability to do the job.

It all sounds nice as long as we restrict ourselves to equalizing opportunities with respect to things that people have no control over (like having a disability). Of course in some jobs having a disability will preclude employment, but this doesn?t make a difference if we are talking about a global (as opposed to specific) policy of EOO as a principle of justice.

For example, if we agree that EOO is a principle of justice then a just society should provide EOO between its members. That is ? all those of equal ability should have an equal chance to succeed and nobody should be prevented from succeeding because of problems which aren?t their own fault (like being born a woman, or being born poor) as far as is practically feasible. The central notion of EOO is one of responsibility: you are responsible for your success or failure, but the state will enact laws so that you get a fair chance to succeed (your chances are based on your own merit, which you are assumed to be responsible for).

The problem is that demarcating what we are responsible for is a notoriously thorny issue. If I?m born poor and my parents don?t feed me properly, my mental development will be affected. However, this isn?t my fault, so why should it be counted against me in the competition to succeed. It simply isn?t fair to penalize me for things that aren?t my own fault. Then again, my genetic endowment has immense bearing on my success relative to other people. If my parents are smartass university professors then science and common sense tells me that I am likely to be smart. But I am not responsible for my smartness or other talents I have why should those not be handicapped as well? And if I believe that human beings are entirely physical creatures with no free will then the question of responsibility just falls out the window and we end up with a dice game.

But this is ridiculous since society would end up being destroyed if we followed EOO to its logical conclusion. So the best thing to do is dump it entirely. But this will be hard to do since some groups benefit from an EOO scheme that equalizes other things apart from merit and industriousness. These are the signature virtues of the middle class, so it isn?t a surprise that they should be all for it ? especially middle class women.

[Japher]

I hear ya Agathon, equal opportunity is a good thing to have to prevent discrimination based on gender, age, race, creed, nation, etc, etc, etc.....

Yet!


By impossing a mandate that says

a) Don't acknowledge differences in people, and hire based on merit
b) If merit is equal hire the woman, but this is not acknowledgin differences it is just avoiding a law suit

Is absolutly rediculous, and gets you no where.

You MUST acknowledge differences, you must be made aware of potential canidates future plans, you must address the interviewees as two different people, or else you will never be able to decide, without prejudice, on which is the better canidate.

Let point out flaws in your example:

1)

it is in the interest of the employer to choose the man because women are more likely to want time off work to have children

That is so prejudice for you to assume that! Yet, that is the case. How wrong of a company to expect their employees to work! Ever hear of praternity leave? What if it was to equally qualified men (twins), but one says they want the job because they would like a career in the company, and the other says he is just earning up enough money so that he can backpack through Europe next summer? Same thing! There is nothing wrong with an employer asking if they were planning on having kids anytime soon... Heck, it is a drastic life change that could make someone even quit the job, not just take time off... It is a serious aspect of the field!

2)

If we allow this then women (even those who choose not to have children) will be discriminated against in employment.

and be unfair to hire her because she is woman, total double standard.

3)

So as it stands women do not have an equal opportunity with men in the workplace. An equal opportunity policy attempts to rectify this unfairness by preventing employers from discriminating on the basis of sex. The policy theoretically equalizes the chances of employment between those of equal ability to do the job.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Women do have equal opportunity in getting hired, the policy does not rectify the playing feild, instead it skews it in favor of the woman, and they do not have equal ability to do the job since the job requires you to be there to actually do it!

Women should make it readily known that they want the job first, and that they have not cinsidered on having a familly anytime soon... If they come in and say I want the job, but I am going to need to take 3 months of in 2 months to have a child, she should be laughed out just as any man who request 3 months off right after being hired.

Employer are encouraged to hire in fear of violating the policy, thus never really addressing eligability and thus pulling reveresed prejudism out of the government bin.

The ability to a job is based on your wants and desires in life, you skills to do, and you ability to show up on time and perform said work... If not, than you would be an ineffiecent member of the team...

It's all about efficiency, it's buisness not personal... I work with a lot of women. Many young wanting children, many older with kids. None of it gets in their way of doing their job. When one of them gets pregnant they are expected to handle their work so that nothing will need to be done for that time they will be gone, they handle it fine...

That is all...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Agathon
Free Will is not a scientifically respectable concept. The usual attempts to prove free will entail "I did X but I could have done Y" Unfortunately, that is not a testable hypothesis.

I must say, you're a lot more fun than most lefties.

Of course, no behavioral "science" is a scientifically respectable concept. Ask any physicist what he or she thinks of sociology, psychology, philosophy, or any of that other pseudo-scientific babble. Read Feynmann for one example, he's hilarious.

Free Will also conflicts with the scientific understanding of human beings as material creatures, subject to the same causal laws as the rest of the material universe. Of course, people imagine they have free will, but it is an illusion.

Human beings are "material" in certain specific applications, say, predicting what will happen when one is launched at 500 meters per second at a solid wall. The behavior of human beings, or any other intelligent animal (and even a lot of low-intelligence animals) can not be modeled with a high degree of accuracy, and certainly not on the basis of material properties. The more advanced the intelligence level of the creature, the less accurately behavior can be modeled, especially once you get past the most rudimentary contrived stimulus-response tests. (Yes, most humans who are severely dehydrated will pick drinking a glass of water over reading a book. Beyond that...)

If you can show any model of human beings consistently and non-trivially (let's exclude sweating, defecation and autonymous functions) being controlled by causal laws, whether based in classic mechanics, quantum mechanics, field theories, or any other concept of causation on material objects, please do so.

That's what's wrong with the political right. They believe in metaphysical fairies.

Actually, that's the problem with the left, but since they've rejected God, they have to disguise their deterministic, fatalistic metaphysical beliefs behind a veneer of pseudoscientific "laws" and pseudophilosphical babble.

We equalize all the time (like handicaps in horse races) - it's not a specifically communist value. EOO equalizes for certain factors and it isn't a communist value.

Next question.

Handicapping is only done in some types of horseracing, where the specific goal is to equalize certain factors that contribute to the range of outcomes (i.e. carried weight), in order to emphasize other factors which are not intended to be equalized (jockey skill, tactics and familiarity with his mount). Equalization is only partial and strictly limited by design, so that the betting dynamics are a little more varied. And again, only in certain types of horserace.

Yes, next question, but pick a better example next time.

PS. It's hard for me to take your "next century" comment seriously, when you are the one using a ridiculous religious dogma to back up your position.

Actually, your denial of free will because there "just has to be" some deterministic basis for complex system behavior is based on antiquated religious dogma. You just can't admit that due to your atheism, so you have to cloak your closet Calvinism in some disguise of so-called objective laws. Of course, you can produce as much evidence for your brand of determinism as Calvin and Luther and others could for theirs.

I'm sorry you are wrong about this one. Those are examples of EOO, not EOO itself. EOO is typically defined as handicapping a contest for some desired good to negate the effect of barriers over which people have no control. It's a principle of fairness, not a principle of efficiency. That's what the literature says - I should know, I've read enough of it.

Then we're simply talking about different applications of the same general concept. In terms of policy and economics, I'm interested in how things can be applied in the real world, not in their theoretical foundation.

The limiting case of EOO is simply a coin toss (when all barriers are handicapped, the result should be that each person has an equal chance of securing the good). But just as people's race or systematic lack of education is not their fault, neither is their genetic endowment.

The limiting case in a theoretical exercise is irrelevant to practical application. We're not talking about lobotomizing everyone to equalize them down to a Forrest Gump IQ, or hobbling those who are physically in shape so that couch potatoes can keep up with them, or making ambitious people do everything with 120 lb packs on their back so they accomplish as little as lazy people.

So you are telling me that it is, in theory, impossible for a scientific investigation to come up with a neurophysiological explanation of why man A is lazier than man B?

The question, as you've phrased it, is irrelevant. There is no evidence for a "laziness gene." None. Period. In a situation with zero supporting evidence, there is no reason to assume something is real, and should be treated as such, simply because in theory some evidence might be discovered in the future, despite the fact that there's no evidence now, and what evidence as does exist points primarily to a different conclusion. (i.e. learned behavior, environment, non-genetic psychological issues)

That's an example of the left's "religious" dogma in action.

Or to come up with a neurophysiological explanation of why a person chose X rather than Y?

Such studies as have been done (NMR and PET imaging of the brain during specific thought processes) suggest that the issue is for more complex and less susceptible to deterministic analyses than previously thought. Nobody in the business wants to suggest it openly (it's bad for grant funding), but the problem of modeling human brain function may be intractible. What has been observed is that for each person, the brain activity that is evident during a given thought process is radically different from person to person, and equally radically different with the same person doing the same activity on different occasions.

That's largely why you are what you are and I am what I am. There is no other compelling explanation.

I was once a hippie leftist commie. I grew out of it, when I realized it was fundamentally a crock. There's your compelling explanation.

Removing artifical barriers is equalizing. For example, a typical EOO situation is this. Students from poorer educational systems are admitted with lower grades than those from better educational systems because it is assumed that the systems have some effects on grade performance which make grades a poor indicator of natural talent (sometimes this is called Affirmative Action - it doesn't matter the principle is the same).

Or we remove a discriminatory practice by not allowing firms to discriminate against women in hiring (even though women who take time off to have children are a pain in the ass). In that case what we do is tell firms that they aren't allowed to take the efficiency loss from childbearing into account - and if you do that a similarly able man and woman are thus equally suited for the job.

It is equalizing - in the sense that it handicaps some disfavoured set of barriers so as to (in theory) give two people who are equal in all other respects but those specified by the barriers an equal chance of securing some good.

If the policy results in an equal chance for people who otherwise would be unequals then its an equalizing policy. QED

Equalizing, as to the specific factor being remedied, not equalizing in all factors. Removal of artificial barriers (i.e. adjusting for ****ty educational systems as a poor indicator of natural talent and ability), etc., does not extend to giving subidies across the board to those with no talent or no interest in developing their abilities, which is the aim of Kidicious' wealth redistribution system.

[Japher]

Removal of artificial barriers (i.e. adjusting for ****ty educational systems as a poor indicator of natural talent and ability), etc., does not extend to giving subidies across the board to those with no talent or no interest in developing their abilities, which is the aim of Kidicious' wealth redistribution system.

excellent point

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Arrian

Agathon,

If there is no free will, no one has to take any responsibility for their actions. How convenient for a communist ideology.

If there is no free will, then that's a fact we have to deal with independently of any ideology.

No thank you. I choose my path, even if I often choose poorly.

No one is saying that you don't. All that people like me are saying is that your choice is the result of a physical process which is subject to the laws of nature.

In fact if Freud is right on one point, many of your choices are guided by desires that you aren't aware that you have.

If there is no free will it does not mean that people don?t have to take responsibility for their actions at all. It just changes what we think responsibility is. Here?s a plausible story about how the notion of responsibility arose.

A group of primitive human beings lives in a community. Periodically, some of them do really bad things. Now it is up to the community to sanction them for doing these bad things and they do so. But what?s the point of the sanction. Well, it is roughly to deter the same thing happening again.

But the various ?criminals? in this community fall into various classes. There are the people who are naturally bad, whose brain chemistry predisposes them to violence. There are those who are naturally selfish and do bad things for personal gain. And there are those who are acting under what we would call some form of duress. There are also the people who aren?t predisposed to violence, they just cause bad things to happen out of accidental ignorance. And there are people who suffer from various sorts of what we would call mental illness, which prevents them from acting rationally.

What would happen if we treated all these people the same way and killed them all? Well it would be terribly inefficient since the people who do things out of ignorance can easily be prevented from doing it again if people just tell them what to do. If we killed them, their labour would be lost to the community. Similarly with the people who do things under duress ? they aren?t likely to be a menace to the community if the duress is removed. The others you can?t really do anything about.

This community needs some way to distinguish between the really bad people and the people who aren?t naturally bad. They do this by making a distinction between the causes of the bad behaviour. The ignorant and those under duress aren?t caused to do anything bad by roughly what count as ?internal? causes, but by external causes (e.g. ?Tom didn?t tell me what this ?gun? did.?) For the rest the cause is internal. So the community invents the term ?responsibility? to distinguish between the two kinds of causes. This leads to an efficiency gain for the whole community since they are no longer ?whacking? people whom they could easily restore to good citizenship.

But this isn?t enough. Almost everyone in the community is prone to selfish behaviour and thus can understand what motivates these sorts of criminals and themselves be deterred by the sanctions. But some people aren?t deterrable and seem to act in an unfathomable and unpredictable manner. These are the ?insane? people. The community needs to stop these people doing bad things but punishment (or the threat of it) isn?t going to work. They need to distinguish these people from the ordinary crooks. Once again the concept of responsibility needs to be sharpened. This is because the desires of the crook and the lunatic are both ?internal? causes, yet there is an efficiency penalty for treating them the same way. For want of a better term, the crook is understandable (his reasons are reasons that everyone can understand and that the community has an interest in moderating ? greed, lust, etc.) but no one can fathom the reasons of the lunatic. The term ?responsibility? comes to be used of the former and not the latter since the former can understand what punishment is for and can be deterred by it.

Again, the sole purpose of the invention of responsibility is pragmatic. It allows the community to recognize efficiency gains by sorting out dissimilar cases of wrongdoing. When we hold someone responsible for an action all we are really saying is that their action is caused by a rationally understandable desire without external frustrating circumstances. Of course these notions get codified in religious doctrine and there the trouble starts.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Japher
I hear ya Agathon, equal opportunity is a good thing to have to prevent discrimination based on gender, age, race, creed, nation, etc, etc, etc.....

You MUST acknowledge differences, you must be made aware of potential canidates future plans, you must address the interviewees as two different people, or else you will never be able to decide, without prejudice, on which is the better canidate.

Um, I'm arguing that the attempt to sort out differences with respect to EOO as a principle of fairness fails because it becomes too extreme.

[Japher]

But this is ridiculous since society would end up being destroyed if we followed EOO to its logical conclusion. So the best thing to do is dump it entirely. But this will be hard to do since some groups benefit from an EOO scheme that equalizes other things apart from merit and industriousness. These are the signature virtues of the middle class, so it isn?t a surprise that they should be all for it ? especially middle class women.

I guess I didn't hear ya... sorry, and thanks for pointing that out