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The Real Adam Smith

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Re: The Real Adam Smith

#31

Post by nickik »

YPCrumble wrote: post #15
thanatropism wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> never met a neoliberal "Neoliberal" is typically a term of abuse, but I've seen a movement (from econ professors to /r/neoliberal) to appropriate as a term for centrist radical pragmatism. These self-proclaimed neoliberals are very progressive socially and (claim to, at least) support any policies that have actual firm evidence for it. Of course, this makes them pro-trade and pro-"globalism".

> support any policies that have actual firm evidence for it A Neoliberal candidate lost the last US election because people from states whose middle class has been hollowed out by free markets and deregulation voted against them. I haven't seen them take that as "firm evidence" that economic policies that ignore important indicators of social well-being into account, like the level of inequality. Today's Neoliberal…

Perfect example of how to use 'neoliberal' as a term of abuse with a nice strawman layer on top.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#32

Post by nickik »

sprafa wrote: post #7
thanatropism wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> never met a neoliberal "Neoliberal" is typically a term of abuse, but I've seen a movement (from econ professors to /r/neoliberal) to appropriate as a term for centrist radical pragmatism. These self-proclaimed neoliberals are very progressive socially and (claim to, at least) support any policies that have actual firm evidence for it. Of course, this makes them pro-trade and pro-"globalism".

there's plenty of evidence that globalism has not worked out for substantial parts of the population in most developed countries.

Such an easy statement to make. The false assumption indeed is that if the US had not engaged in these polices people would now be better off.

Saying 'its not perfect' is easy, showing that your alternative path would have been better is hard, and there is little evidence for it. Thus most economist don't believe it.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#33

Post by da_chicken »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #19
YPCrumble wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The poor in America are richer and have higher living standards than the poor of less-globalized places. This is complete nonsense and makes you sound like someone who should take some time volunteering with America's poor. Clearly you have no idea what poverty is like and should earn some perspective. Are you trying to say that hunger in America is any different from hunger in a "less globalized place"? How so? Ho…

Extreme. The poor can refer to the bottom quintile of socioeconomic class. We don't have to jump to the bottom tenth of a percent. In that view, the comment is valid. The bottom earners in America earn more than most people on the planet. And have better infrastructure.

The bottom quintile had a mean household income of just $12,000 in 2016 (https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/09/1...). I'm struggling to understand how such a household could afford to pay rent on $1,000 a month, let alone afford "luxuries" such as doctor visits. And, yes, they would qualify for SNAP assistance, but in my (second hand) experience it's not much and decreases faster than income increases (i.e., and increase in monthly salary of $x/mo results in a loss of food assistance greater than $x/mo).

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#34

Post by YPCrumble »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29
YPCrumble wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google "what percent of Americans face hunger" and get back to me about one tenth of one percent. That is a number you made up in your head just now. Extreme might be saying we should compare America to the poorest nations on earth. If you compare America to its peers the average American earns less, and the country has worse infrastructure.

Ok, done. 15% are 'food insecure' which is a broad range including 'skip a meal sometimes'. 15% worldwide live on less than 1.25 a day. So again, comparing America's poor with the world is like night and day.

I'll take your response as agreeing with me that saying that one tenth of one percent of Americans are hungry was completely and utterly wrong :).

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#35

Post by nickik »

RobertoG wrote: post #13
foamflower wrote: post #5

This article is mostly accurate about Smith (although the man himself was much more favorable to entrepreneurs and innovators than is presented), but fairly inaccurate that “Right-wing” politics is some perversion of Smith. At the end, we get a taste of what he means in that Thatcher privatized various state industries during her run as Prime Minister in the '80s. Otherwise, an entire sub-field of economics (it would…

>"I have never met a Neoliberal" That's because neoliberalism is not an ideology, but a label used to try to understand a historic period. Neoliberalism would be the bastard child of neoclassic economics and liberal ideology and it can be defined by events and people that definitely exist. The intellectual parents would be the economist in the orbit of Milton Friedman and the 'Chicago school' and the political parent…

> That's because neoliberalism is not an ideology, but a label used to try to understand a historic period.

No its not. Its a term that is used by pretty much anybody for whatever they felt like.

> The intellectual parents would be the economist in the orbit of Milton Friedman and the 'Chicago school' and the political parents would be Reagan and Thatcher.

That is just false. Friedman never called himself a neoliberal.

The actual word is derived from Post-WW2 German economists, but that term is not used today.

It was after the Pinochet coup that the political left has started to use the term 'neoliberal' as a politcal slur against anybody who they don't like. The use of the term has exploded since then and has be now become to mean about the same thing as 'evil'.

There is no actual 'neoliberal' philosophy or any neoliberals. Only people who leftists politics accuses of such, that includes everybody from some left supply-siders to crypto-anarchists.

The amount of different polices and ideas that are 'neoliberal' by some definition are so broad that the term is meaningless. This has been shown in research on the use of the term across many fields.

> > The playground rules would be the Washington Consensus [1].

The idea that the 'Washington Consensus' derive from the same basic ideas as the classical liberal ideas (such as Friedman) are also wrong. Classical liberals have been among the people who have very much opposed things like IMF and World Bank.

You make your live very easy by just throwing everything you don't like into some big evil 'neoliberal' bucket without an detailed understanding of the different people, schools of thought, historical events and so on that influenced and/or shaped any one or all of the things you don't like. This is not all part of some grand 'neoliberal' conspiracy.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#36

Post by golergka »

croon wrote: post #26
pravinva wrote: post #22

The writer tries to pretend that there is something drastically opposite from knowing that the state captured by business is different from the danger of mere statism. Well, the answer that preserves liberty is to reduce the chances of the state being captured. This begins by having a limited govt. If the madam of the bordello is out of business, there is no need for customers to line up

If no one governs your rights/freedoms, you don't have any. There is no difference between an unchecked corporation and a corrupt state. The answer doesn't lie at either end, but in a balance.

There is a difference between a state and a corporation: one of those is a monopoly by definition.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#37

Post by JoeAltmaier »

YPCrumble wrote: post #34
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, done. 15% are 'food insecure' which is a broad range including 'skip a meal sometimes'. 15% worldwide live on less than 1.25 a day. So again, comparing America's poor with the world is like night and day.

I'll take your response as agreeing with me that saying that one tenth of one percent of Americans are hungry was completely and utterly wrong :).

If only that had been said. It was the trifecta "hungry, homeless and diseased" that was referenced.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#38

Post by jbooth »

pravinva wrote: post #22

The writer tries to pretend that there is something drastically opposite from knowing that the state captured by business is different from the danger of mere statism. Well, the answer that preserves liberty is to reduce the chances of the state being captured. This begins by having a limited govt. If the madam of the bordello is out of business, there is no need for customers to line up

"This begins by having a limited gov't"

No, that's oversimplistic and silly.

I'm all for having leaner operations as far as that goes, but let's say there's a new law restricting people from bribing elected officials, complete with a funded enforcement arm.. is that 'less' or 'more' government? 'less' or 'more' liberty?

You will never, ever, ever have a government that's too small to be worth bribing.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#39

Post by nickik »

YPCrumble wrote: post #9
foamflower wrote: post #5

This article is mostly accurate about Smith (although the man himself was much more favorable to entrepreneurs and innovators than is presented), but fairly inaccurate that “Right-wing” politics is some perversion of Smith. At the end, we get a taste of what he means in that Thatcher privatized various state industries during her run as Prime Minister in the '80s. Otherwise, an entire sub-field of economics (it would…

The article gives a good description of a major facet of Neoliberalism: "[a] movement that seeks (as Thatcher hoped) to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state". If you have heard someone whining about the nefarious "Big Government" and the need for deregulation, then you've met a Neoliberal. The point of the article is summarized by the author in a paragraph: """ The message that Smith conveys cuts across party and id…

> then you've met a Neoliberal.

By your definition. But the term has been used for a whole lot more in many different context and that makes it so useless.

> The dogma of today's right-wing "mercantile" politicians is a perversion of Adam Smith. These politicians state that the invisible hand requires complete government deregulation in order to function. They ignore Smith's point that the invisible hand requires both free markets and government regulation of monopoly to function.

No. That's not what they ignore. These "mercantile" politicians never had the slightest interest in Adam Smiths ideas or in limiting power of the state and or business in the first place.

The point of Smith and his fellows (like Hume) at the time was that business would try to capture the state and that was one reason they tried to limited the power of the state and strengthen individual freedoms. Sure they might have been in favor of some regulation but what we have now is so far beyond the wildest dreams of Smith that it is hard to argue that, this is what he meant.

The problem is that the state is forever growing and that no democratic procedures can prevent business (and voters) from competing to capture these rents, rather then the rents from the state.

I would recommend 'Public Choice' economics because they think threw these different intensives very systematically.

Re: The Real Adam Smith

#40

Post by yedava »

RobertoG wrote: post #24
yedava wrote: post #10

I like to view this another way - too much concentration of power is a bad thing and we should strive for decentralizing it. So if merchants, in collusion with the state hold too much power, then the state needs to be cut down. Conversely if private players accumulate too much power, that too needs to be cut down, increasing the role of state if necessary. There is no universal approach that will always be true. Depe…

All that is very nice in theory, but who is doing the "cut down"? By definition it has to be some entity more powerful that the entity that is cut down. And who should control that entity but the majority of the society? So, we finish with the (very imperfect) solution of a democratic government. We should recognize that it's going to be a lot of interest trying to corrupt it and we (the people) have to keep watching…

I agree it has to be a democracy. The right points to harms of government overreach to argue for less government. The left points to exploding inequality and argues for more government in order to tackle it. A good faith assumption could be that both are trying to decentralize power and maybe putting it that way will make it easier to reach across the ideological divide.
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