Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere?

[Dinner]

No, I'm implying most threads such as this are created by commies who can't back up their economic claims.

[Kidlicious]

I back up my claims plenty. Most of them are common sense. What I'm done with is arguing with unreasonable people.

[Odin]

To me, value = Labor + Education

[Kidlicious]

Odin

[Odin]

Originally posted by Oerdin
No, I'm implying most threads such as this are created by commies who can't back up their economic claims.

It seems to me that most of economics is mostly pro-capitalist assumptions + mathematics

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I back up my claims plenty. Most of them are common sense. What I'm done with is arguing with unreasonable people.

You do, however, seem to have serious problems with answering simple questions.

[Kidlicious]

No one has to answer questions that lead them nowhere. Two reasonable people should be able to agree what value is within a given context. It doesn't matter what their ideology is. If they're reasonable there shouldn't be a problem.

[Drogue]

Re: Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere?

Originally posted by Kidicious
So according to capitalists value is equal to price in a free market. So then if the cost of something goes up, and the price goes up then value has been created? Just the opposite is true. Value is created by decreasing costs.

Substitute "competative" for "free" and you have far more of a point. And surely in a competativbe market, price is equal to the value the marginal consumer has for that good. Since raising or lowering price changes who buys or does not buy, clearly value is a relative thing, and everyone does not have the same value for an item.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Odin
It seems to me that most of economics is mostly pro-capitalist assumptions + mathematics

Not quite. Economics can be done from any set of assumptions, and many people practice economics from far more socialist assumptions. The economics is the the application of those assumptions and that mathematical method or model to data to produce predictions. Most economists justify their assumptions using data from the real world, which I personally don't consider pro-capitalist or pro-communist? If in forensic policing it was found that 99% of criminals were white, in a multi-racial area, and thus used that as an assumption, were they supporting either side in a racism debate? No, they were just taking a statistic and using it as an assumption. Thus if an economist finds that 99% of the time, a fall in tax causes a boom in consumer spending, then they will use that assumption as part of their model. It's not supporting the pro-capitalist position, or any other, it's just taking a fact and using it without thinking of political considerations. The results of that model are then used to advise governments on policy.

With the absense of tests that have only one variable, as is possibly in much natural science, economics has to rely on reams of data and statistics to build plausible assumptions. Those assumptions are not pro-capitalist, pro-socialist or anything else, they're just whatever the bulk of the data seems to support. As Popper said when talking about science, the process of science is to take a theory, test it until it is proven false, and then come up with a new theory that fits all the data. This is the exact process economic assumptions are adapted, with the exception that because of it being a human science, and people being as unpredictable and complicated as they are, you can't isolate a variable, and thus you get some anomolous results. Thus the model that fits *the most* data is used.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kidicious
No one has to answer questions that lead them nowhere. Two reasonable people should be able to agree what value is within a given context. It doesn't matter what their ideology is. If they're reasonable there shouldn't be a problem.

I'm perfectly willing, for the sake of the discussion, accept your definition of "value". What I'm asking is, what use is this concept of "value"?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

I'm perfectly willing, for the sake of the discussion, accept your definition of "value". What I'm asking is, what use is this concept of "value"?

To get more of it. Value is good. I believe I said that, and then you started telling me that you don't accept my idea of value. It's not my idea. Give the credit to Adam Smith maybe, or probably someone who came before him. There is only one 'value' that is appropriate to the context of our discussion.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Re: Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere?

Originally posted by Drogue

Substitute "competative" for "free" and you have far more of a point. And surely in a competativbe market, price is equal to the value the marginal consumer has for that good. Since raising or lowering price changes who buys or does not buy, clearly value is a relative thing, and everyone does not have the same value for an item.

You have a degree in econ, right? So you know what consumer surplus is, right? So tell us, what does a consumer get a surplus of?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Drogue
Most economists justify their assumptions using data from the real world

Data that they pick and choose.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Data that they pick and choose.

Yes since in the realm of economics there is simply too much "data" out there to assess ALL of it at the same time. But I'm sure you wanted the choosing of data sets to analyze to seem much more sinister.

Some economists have hard wired agenda's, whether they be capitalist, communist or something else. But I'm betting that most economists are merely trying to understand better the data they see and any bias is unintentional.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


To get more of it. Value is good.

Then join us on the capitalist side. Capitalism creates more value, more often than any other system.