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The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

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Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#191

Post by cassepipe »

BurningFrog wrote: post #107
HSO wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a persistent mythology of western economic history to "cleanwash" the past and "explain" the present inequality (or what was the present until recently) Think about the components of all those innovations from the past and if they would have been possible (to scale) without violent and forcible extraction of resources from around the globe, incl forced labor. Think about when GDP was constructed and how, and…

The west didn't get rich from colonizing the world. It got rich domestically through industrialism. Then the newly rich countries went on to colonize the world, because now they could. If and how much the colonies made them even richer is debatable, but it was probably a net cost on average. This is one of several insights counter to "common sense" that economists have figured out.

On the one hand my common sense wants to say of course, the more you transform a natural resource into something complex and desirable, the more value you create so yes all this wealth is the product of industrialism but on the other hand... all those natural resources had to come from somewhere no ? It would seem to me that colonialism was an essential part in this wealth creation even if the whole enterprise of getting your hands on those resources were in themselves a net cost

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#192

Post by I-M-S »

BurningFrog wrote: post #189
oa335 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If and how much the colonies made them even richer is debatable, but it was probably a net cost on average. This is one of several insights counter to "common sense" that economists have figured out. I haven't heard this before, do you have sources where I could learn more?

That the West got wealthy from the Industrial Revolution is a commonly accepted fact AFAIK. We didn't steal that wealth from Africa, in part because Africa had very little wealth. I don't have a great link laying out this in more detail, but I know Johan Norberg has written and talked a fair amount about this.

Aren't natural resources wealth? Isn't forced work wealth? "Stealing" seems like the best word to describe the situation without obfuscating the matter with grander narratives (the kind that might win you the "Nobel prize" for economy, incidentally).

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#193

Post by I-M-S »

astrange wrote: post #184
andrepd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the year 2025 the zeitgeist is decidedly against any considerations beside crude profit. Like someone pointed out: a park generates less revenue than a café. And a neighbourhood café probably less than a hyperoptimised gigachain. But is an urban park not an important part of quality of life? And is not a neighbourhood café with its crowd of regulars and familiar faces and accessible prices a better thing that yet…

One kind of worker the chains are better for is the people who work at the chain. Large businesses treat their employees better because they're more professional and can eg afford an HR department. Sole proprietorships can be okay, but employee-hiring small businesses are run by tyrants and have fewer protections against worker abuse. After all, they're only small businesses because they aren't good enough to become…

Or maybe they stay small because big business made it impossible for new businesses to grow through consolidation, regulatory capture, and other contemporary business practices that decidedly do NOT make them a better place to work (the HR department isn't there to protect the employees - it's there to protect the company from the employees).

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#194

Post by I-M-S »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #74
mallowdram wrote: post #20

Sustained growth, like "economic science", is an oxymoron. There is no science that correlates the use of arbitrary symbols posed as capital. Risk is risk, a primate bias. Economics is essentially "mathematical politics". We can no more create a science of economics than a science of mythology. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049658/blunt-instrument/ Downvoting only proves the point: economics is like any primate bia…

> Downvoting only proves the point You keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel any better. In real life, it may mean that people feel that, though you state your points as though they are obviously true, you have given no reason for us to actually agree with your dogmatic assertions. That doesn't prove that economics is a primate bias; it proves that you are not doing well at persuading people.

I'd say the dogma is with the other side on this one. It's a bit like walking into a church in the 14th century and trying to persuade people god is a made up concept. No amount of persuasion will be convincing. Economics is similar since its powers derive from social conventions. A central banker doing something to cause your ruin is no different than a bishop getting you burned on the stake. Doesn't man that either economy or god exist, though.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#195

Post by astrange »

I-M-S wrote: post #193
astrange wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One kind of worker the chains are better for is the people who work at the chain. Large businesses treat their employees better because they're more professional and can eg afford an HR department. Sole proprietorships can be okay, but employee-hiring small businesses are run by tyrants and have fewer protections against worker abuse. After all, they're only small businesses because they aren't good enough to become…

Or maybe they stay small because big business made it impossible for new businesses to grow through consolidation, regulatory capture, and other contemporary business practices that decidedly do NOT make them a better place to work (the HR department isn't there to protect the employees - it's there to protect the company from the employees).

Please don't reply with platitudes. If your coworker is sexually harassing you then your coworker is the person the HR department is protecting the company from. Not you. You won't make it in the middle class if you can't navigate basic politics like that.

If you have an issue with payroll I hope you don't avoid getting it fixed either, because that's HR.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#196

Post by I-M-S »

andrepd wrote: post #87
em500 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add the obligatory Dilbert take: https://verisoeconomica.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/the-2022-no ... Sure, it's paid by the Swedish central bank instead of the Nobel foundation, and it wasn't established by Alfred Nobel himself. Nobody cares. Value of such awards depends entirely on peer recognition, not on who pays or what exact labels they carry. Selection for economics is done by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sci…

Well, the thing is Economics is a very unique discipline. It's not quite a science but also not merely philosophy. Its object of study is affected by the study itself . It's very strange. That's why mutually exclusive economic theories have won the Nobel prize!

So like awarding a Nobel prize for religious studies then?

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#197

Post by I-M-S »

331c8c71 wrote: post #136
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, there is consensus in economics. It's a field which is mostly interested in models and anyone can agree that a model is consistant and implies surprising things even if they think the hypotheses it makes don't faithfully represent reality. It's endlessly fascinating to me how some people will happily disparage economics while having very little idea of what it's actually about.

Modelling isn't the higher intellectual pursuit it's made out to be. Imo designing theoretical models post-hoc to "support" a desired conclusion is not unheard of in econ/finance.

Precisely. To quote the famous economic dictum: it works in practice, but does it work in theory?

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#198

Post by I-M-S »

astrange wrote: post #195
I-M-S wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they stay small because big business made it impossible for new businesses to grow through consolidation, regulatory capture, and other contemporary business practices that decidedly do NOT make them a better place to work (the HR department isn't there to protect the employees - it's there to protect the company from the employees).

Please don't reply with platitudes. If your coworker is sexually harassing you then your coworker is the person the HR department is protecting the company from. Not you. You won't make it in the middle class if you can't navigate basic politics like that. If you have an issue with payroll I hope you don't avoid getting it fixed either, because that's HR.

I think you might be mixing up how things are supposed to work with how they work in practice. I've seen HR from the inside - while I accept that my experience was just one data point, it made me personally actively avoid workplaces that have an HR department. YMMV, of course.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#199

Post by blargey »

I-M-S wrote: post #192
BurningFrog wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the West got wealthy from the Industrial Revolution is a commonly accepted fact AFAIK. We didn't steal that wealth from Africa, in part because Africa had very little wealth. I don't have a great link laying out this in more detail, but I know Johan Norberg has written and talked a fair amount about this.

Aren't natural resources wealth? Isn't forced work wealth? "Stealing" seems like the best word to describe the situation without obfuscating the matter with grander narratives (the kind that might win you the "Nobel prize" for economy, incidentally).

You could also see it as a double condemnation of colonialism - not just immoral, but an economically useless endeavor.

Looking to the future, I'd prefer colonialism not be considered a lucrative strategy (though the thesis doesn't deny that colonialism was profitable for specific interest groups - just that those groups were a small part of the newly industrializing economies, and that the nation-level balance sheet gained little from their pillaging, compared to the costs of empire-maintenance).

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#200

Post by mallowdram »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #182
mallowfram wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is arbitrary post settlement. Show me a currency from 700AD still traded on a regulated market. In that sense, wealth is a decadent category the West will be destroyed by, look at the current state of oligarchy, particularly tech. There's little if any ecological parity in these displays of wealth and extraction status. My ideology is the replacement of symbols with measurement. I have no relationship with pol…

> Wealth is arbitrary post settlement. Show me a currency from 700AD still traded on a regulated market. In that sense, wealth is a decadent category the West will be destroyed by, look at the current state of oligarchy, particularly tech. There's little if any ecological parity in these displays of wealth and extraction status. Is this meant to be post-modern? Whatever you feel about wealth, wealthier citizens overa…

We're already verging on decentralized, and we've been horizontalizing since 1995. If you're not aware of these trends leaving behind models, discarding politics, recognizing the narrative seclusions of economic policy, then you have your head in some 20th C think-tank or consultancy immobility syndrome.

These things are dinosaurs. States are looming as extinct, religion, history, myth, storytelling are ancient tools. I'd start looking around outside of the C suite.

Think what's already under development that disintegrates out stodgy ideas of "wealth", currencyless societies, tokens, analog measurement replacing binary, syntax instead of grammar.

Ye olde Friedman-Galbraith (and any edgy sounding theorist) promoting currency, quant, interest, game-theory about economies are witch doctors that have already been unmasked by scientists. I've linked one above a few entries up.

Think for yourself, don't toe the line into senescence. Don't replay your father's tired ideas about wealth.

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