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Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

bostonreview.net

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Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#71

Post by soVeryTired »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #22
86carr wrote: post #4

Neoliberal microeconomics is just a model of markets? No model is perfect. All models are all far simpler than reality and probably perverse in some way. If they weren't they wouldn't be useful as models. Don't blame the model, blame the people that abuse it.

Quoth George Box: "All models are wrong, but some models are useful."

So many people use that quote as a blanket defense of bad modelling.

Some models are useful. Some models are harmful. Do you have the means to tell the difference?

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#72

Post by antidesitter »

fallingfrog wrote: post #61
antidesitter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "right wing" here? Do you just mean "capitalist"?

The term “right wing” comes from revolutionary era France, where in the general assembly the aristocracy sat on the right, and everyone else sat on the left. In the modern world the “aristocracy” would be the capitalist class, so yes, anything that benefits the capitalist class is right wing, in that sense.

Why not just say "capitalist" since "right wing" can mean many other things? Why use the more ambiguous term when the more precise one will do? Is it intentional?

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#73

Post by antidesitter »

orwin wrote: post #69
antidesitter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is severely lacking in numbers that would indicate market-friendly policies have been a "failure". > It is about the 1,5 million homeless children in the USA How has this number changed over time, compared to previous time periods? > It is about the income inequality which has increased since the '70s in the USA How has the actual income of poor people changed in the same time period? > It is about tax a…

> Please explain how the statement "tax avoidance in the USA" proves market-friendly policies have been a "failure". This one i can explain. Whether its ordo-liberalism, social liberalism or any kind of post-1929 liberalism, a market-friendly policy aim to brake cartels, monopolies and remove unfair advantages, and help new companies start even in an already competitive field. You can easily see how tax avoidance, ea…

I don't see how anything you said proves "tax avoidance" is a consequence of market-friendly policies. If anything, it's an indication the tax code should be streamlined and simplified, which itself would also be market-friendly.

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#74

Post by antidesitter »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #68
antidesitter wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the market-driven ideals of 1980s economics... they're kinda fails On what basis? The share of people living in extreme poverty globally has gone down from 43% to less than 10% since 1980. Global literacy rates have climbed from 70% to 86% in the same period. Global child mortality has gone down from 11% to 4% in the same period. Global life expectancy has climbed from 63 to 72 in the same period. It's ironic that…

Poverty and inequality have increased sharply in the US during that period. It's wonderful that the global average is improving, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore problems affecting hundreds of millions of people.

> Poverty [has] increased sharply in the US during that period.

Do you have numbers for that?

> that doesn't mean you can just ignore problems affecting hundreds of millions of people

That's just a straw man.

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#75

Post by antidesitter »

fallingfrog wrote: post #65
antidesitter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to draw an analogy between market-friendly policies and stealing your wallet?

Yes. They scuppered the middle class, pillaged the commons and made a boatload of money doing it. The whole small-government argument was insincere.

> They scuppered the middle class, pillaged the commons

How so? This is just empty rhetoric.

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#76

Post by cannabis_sam »

charliesharding wrote: post #55
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and you are doing it again. "Yet too many economists believe their quantitative tools and theoretical lenses are the only ones that count as “scientific,” ..." Economist want to believe that economics is "scientific", while is clearly not, and you keep hinting that they are "relying on quantitative analysis as prescribed by the scientific method".

Are you saying that the scientific method cannot be applied to economics? :O While qualitative analysis can be considered empirical, it's not something often seen when money is concerned and the stakes are high. Most often you will see papers relying on qualitative methods in the "soft sciences" such as social science. Not to mention "verbal theorizing".. this is the kind of stuff that gets laughed out of real conver…

Economics IS a soft science, that’s the point people are trying to get across.

I would also suggest you look up what you call ”the scientific method”, it’s a misconception that there is one abstract scientific method to apply to all fields of research. The process of science necesserally differ between formal, natural and social science.

I personally like to summarize economics as ”the art of pretending that sociology (social science) is physics (natural science), by abusing math (formal science).”

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#77

Post by PhasmaFelis »

antidesitter wrote: post #74
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty and inequality have increased sharply in the US during that period. It's wonderful that the global average is improving, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore problems affecting hundreds of millions of people.

> Poverty [has] increased sharply in the US during that period. Do you have numbers for that? > that doesn't mean you can just ignore problems affecting hundreds of millions of people That's just a straw man.

US poverty rates have hovered around 11%-15% since the '70s, my bad. https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un... Income inequality has, however, increased substantially (I assume you agree since you edited that part out). It seems clear enough, therefore, that the financial policies of the last 40 years have at best not helped, and have made some things worse.

> That's just a straw man.

That's not a straw man. Here's a straw man: On an article about US economic policy, Beat claimed that '80s US economic policy had failed. You disputed that based on global economic outcomes since then, refuting an argument that no one had actually made.

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#78

Post by antidesitter »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #77
antidesitter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poverty [has] increased sharply in the US during that period. Do you have numbers for that? > that doesn't mean you can just ignore problems affecting hundreds of millions of people That's just a straw man.

US poverty rates have hovered around 11%-15% since the '70s, my bad. https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un... Income inequality has, however, increased substantially (I assume you agree since you edited that part out). It seems clear enough, therefore, that the financial policies of the last 40 years have at best not helped, and have made some things worse. > That's just a straw man. That's not…

> I assume you agree since you edited that part out

I edited it out because I find it, for the most part, irrelevant. I'd rather live in a world where everyone is better off to different extents than one where everyone is equally poor and miserable, as in post-reform vs. pre-reform China. Do you prefer the latter?

> It seems clear enough, therefore, that the financial policies of the last 40 years have at best not helped, and have made some things worse.

Non sequitur.

> That's not a straw man.

Weighing the costs and benefits by analyzing the bigger picture is not "ignoring problems affecting hundreds of millions of people". That's just plain stupid.

> On an article about US economic policy...

Proof that you didn't read the article, because it discusses other countries and international trade.

> Beat claimed that '80s US economic policy had failed

Where did beat say "US" in their comment?

Re: Neoliberalism Is a Simplistic Perversion of Economics

#79

Post by beat »

antidesitter wrote: post #35
beat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social outcome is a political problem, not a scientific one. We should decide what we want society to look like, and use the scientifically/mathematically understood systems of economics to steer us in that direction. I don't think the market-driven ideals of 1980s economics were intended to deliver the results we are seeing today. They would not have predicted the drastic disparities, or the insecurity of working pe…

> the market-driven ideals of 1980s economics... they're kinda fails On what basis? The share of people living in extreme poverty globally has gone down from 43% to less than 10% since 1980. Global literacy rates have climbed from 70% to 86% in the same period. Global child mortality has gone down from 11% to 4% in the same period. Global life expectancy has climbed from 63 to 72 in the same period. It's ironic that…

I both agree and disagree. I agree that the world is getting much better, very rapidly. I disagree that this is a consequence of neoliberal economic policies. Rather, it's a consequence of technological advances that have little to do with economics.

Vaccination isn't a neoliberal triumph.

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