But most people have called capitalism the system of voluntary exchange and include within it, the ideas of voluntary communism or worker’s capitalism (syndicalism) etc. and indeed, people even are willing to include exchange under barter as capitalism even though there is no economic calculation. So it doesn’t seem that money or private property (in the strict sense) is necessary for something to be called capitalism.
But is it not the case that voluntary communism and such isn’t capitalist?
that’s one for people who know more than me.
looking at the situation by analysing events through the lens of private property ownership, voluntary communism does not feature interpersonal exchange of property, since before and after one communist hands over some item and receives some other item from another communist, both items are owned by ‘society’.
having individuals barter (direct exchange) is neither destructive of capitalism nor excluded from it, nor is it necessary for it. It is merely compatible with it. It is difficult to imagine private property societies without barter, with lots of people respecting each other by not interfering but being autarkic and not benefitting from division of labour etc.
On the other hand, private property is necessary for capitalism. Money is an important feature of capitalism in practice since economic calculation follows as a consequence of its introduction. Capitalism without money, is like a party without awesome music… its ok, but how much fun can you have.
The most rarified conception of capitalism simply boils down to private property, but since so much interesting and amazing stuff happens when money is in the picture, much investigation into capitalism must find a place for money in the analysis. One could say that money is required for capitalism to flower and give its full fruits.
For all intents and purposes when people advocate capitalism, they are really advocating fully fledged capitalism with all the trimmings. i.e. with money. Why not push the best case…
If demand decreases then this implies that consumers will not purchase at the previous price, this does not imply that they will not buy previous number of goods at the newly desired, lower, price.
Even if the price is lowered sufficiently for the same quantity to be purchased, the good in question is less urgently desired than before, as is directly implied by the drop in demand. That is fundamentally different from the case of monopoly prices. With monopoly-of-supply prices, the restriction of supply is not undertaken because money is less urgently demanded; it is undertaken because taking some of the monopolist’s stock off the market will result in higher proceeds.
For instance, if the buyers of A, are now paying price X from price Y then they will quite likely buy whatever amount of A they want so long as the price is reduced to X.
What do you mean “whatever amount they want”? Assuming any given demand curve, they will buy a CERTAIN amount of A at price X.
For the firms their supply will only decrease if price X is so low that producing the old amount of A results in a net loss?
Drops in price do not precipitate shifts of supply curves, they simply involve movement ALONG supply curves.
As far as I can tell the only instance that the above is true is if we assume a state of perfect competition.
Which part of “the above”?
“Labor is not “needed to integrate the pricing system”. The pricing system is integrated because labor is a factor of production which is required in every production process.”
“Market phenomena are mutually interdependent when they share non-specific factors. Labor is a highly non-specific factor which pervades the entire market. Therefore, labor makes all market phenomena mutually interdependent.”
Could you expand upon these statements? Or at very least clarify what exactly is meant in this process of “integration”?
“Integration” here refers to the connexity of prices. A change in the price of a good results in either upward or downward pressure on the prices of its factors of production, and vice versa. Labor is a factor of production for ALL goods. Therefore the prices of all goods are connected.
Does this imply then that in any society where the money supply increases that there will always be a misallocation of resources brought about by inflation if indeed those who bring in the increase in gold play the same effect as those who are given the newly printed bills?
Mises thought commodity money expansion could bring about malinvestment, which is why he put the trade cycle portion of Human Action in the economics section, and not in the “intervention” section (although he was somewhat torn on the matter). Rothbard disagreed.
So why would this be the case that they are never restored to previous levels? Is it because of the fact that those who first recieve the new money will have increased their material wealth so that their demands are necessarily changed?
In part, yes. Those people are richer, others who receive the money later are poorer. All these people who are materially affected differently are both producers and consumers in different sectors of the market. This means supply and demand are altered in a myriad different ways, which disarranges the constellation of prices, changing forever the shape of the market. There is no reason to believe that every shift in fortune in every spot of the market will be met by an equal and opposite counter-shift after malinvestments are liquidated and consumption is moderated.
But in the case of demand deposits wouldn’t what I have said above be the case?
Yes, I believe so.
“So capitalism and subjective valuations are not the same? I thought that the latter lead to the former. Please describe the differences between the two though, since I myself can’t find it in HA.”
First of all, “A causes B” is different from “A=B”. Secondly, what do you mean by “capitalism leading to subjective valuation”? Capitalism does not lead people to value things. All humans, by virtue of being actors, value things, with or without capitalism.
But most people have called capitalism the system of voluntary exchange and include within it, the ideas of voluntary communism or worker’s capitalism (syndicalism) etc. and indeed, people even are willing to include exchange under barter as capitalism even though there is no economic calculation. So it doesn’t seem that money or private property (in the strict sense) is necessary for something to be called capitalism.
Capitalism, according to both Mises and Marx, involves both money and private property. I don’t know who these “most people” you are referring to are.
I’ve been rather busy, so sorry for the tardiness…
Anyways, what I meant by “leads to” is something like “comprehended under” that is capitalism is comprehended under the category of subjective valuation. So to some intuitive extent capitalism seems to imply subjective value. I guess what I should say is that since we all have value subjectivity then, capitalism is implied as the consequent by modus ponens.
From the foregoing, I suppose that A causes B is at some level, the same as A=B.
Suppose that A=B, doesn’t this mean that Every A is Every B? Or what comes to the same, that all A such that if A is A, then every b?
That is, it is possible for every identity to be logically the same as a conditional statement? And if a conditional statement sometimes means causality, perhaps there are times when cause equals identity? I’m not sure, the only way to check I think is to use a truth table but even then, there’s the middle term “conditional statement” which is undistributed. Yet, still there seems to be some intuitive truth to the statement that sometimes equality is the same as causality -perhaps after the manner of formal cause? Sort of, what a thing is causes it to be…
You are the aristotle expert out of us two, though so I anticipate your agreement or disagreement with my analysis.
By “most people” I always thought about 90% of the people on these forums didn’t nececssarily include money and private property under capitalism because they allowed communes to exist under their systems of anarcho-capitalism. I guess what you’re trying to tell me is that private property and such is a necessary condition for anarchy but it doesn’t exclude any other system too though it is necessary.
How much logic have you studied?
I see two possibillities:
You are familiar with some of the concepts in a vague way, but have not nailed things down, causing you to be totally confused about these matters.
Like some of my pals did in high school, you have no clue and are trying to BS your way out of it.
In either case, time to hit the books. Get the easiest shortest one that has all the concepts you mentioned in its index. You don’t need the rocket science level to clear things up.
Ouuuch!
Am I really that bad at logic? Maybe I need more practice but I at least understand the main concepts (inference rules and such).
To be sure I studied some introductory logic in college, and read an intro to first-order logic (at least they seemed helpful).
Or maybe I’m just dumber than I thought (HA!)
OK seriously though, I’ve looked over what I wrote and I don’t think that I made a mistake but obviously I must’ve so on what specifically did you think I made a mistake?
Please answer since this whole incident is rather embarrassing, and I’d rather not waste my own time thinking that I know something when I don’t.
Thanks
I think I may see what you might be driving at.
are you trying to say that when we are thinking of capitalism we must think that values are subjective to have a proper understanding ?
and also that agents in a natural order, due to their values being subjective , will participate in a capitalist system.?
It’s just a question using words in the way they are commonly used.
“A=B” means A and B are two name for the same thing. Example: Barack Obama = current prez of USA.
“A leads to B” means that even though they are NOT the same thing at all, having A in the world will, sooner or later bring about the existence of B. Example: money printing leads to higher prices.
“A is comprehended under B” means A is one kind of B. Example: The movie Dracula is comprehended under horror films.
“A implies B” means you cannot have A and not have B. Example: the existence of a Thurston Howell the Third implies the existence of Thurston Howell the Second.
Capitalism and subjective value are not related in any of the above ways.
Perhaps you have some idea that you have not yet found the words for.
Well maybe I’m just mealy-mouthed and have a far too liberal use of words but I’m pretty sure that capitalism can be construed as a being under(or comprehended) subjective value (as in, I value money and property and the freedom to use them). This I infer from a mises’s use of terms -capitalism must be understood to mean, in HA’s context, the valuing of the freedom to use property since the language of praxeology and by extension economics, is about subjective states of acting man.
As for the principle that A=B, I believe that it applies to both things and names. That’s why I will clarify what I meant earlier by saying that A=B is the same as A–>B (or A leads to B). If two things are the same then the existence of one most excellently “leads to” the existence of the other.
If kicking a ball leads to it falling down a hill, as far as I’m concerned this principle of “leading to” is just a lesser instance of the principle of “equality” between 1+2 and 2+1.
Anyways though, about logic, maybe I should PM you or should I ask you about the logical principles you know right here; because if I do the latter I might derail the thread into a talk about logic? But if you know something I don’t, I hope you don’t mind me asking about it. Either way though I don’t see how we are in disagreement, you seem to be talking semantics but I still seem to be talking logic…
As I said before, your use of a word should coincide with the common use. Here is how Wiki defines Capitalism. Note that it does not coincide with your definition. In particular, it has nothing to say about valuing anything.
Also, although your use of “subjective valuation” does coincide with general common use, in the little world of AE people have a different use for it. This may be causing some of the confusion as well.
As far as A=B being the same as A->B, nopers. Because A=B implies that A->B, but not vice versa. In fact, claiming such a thing shows you really have to go back to page one of your logic books. Same with your whole paragraph about kicking the ball. It is mistaken from start to finish.
All the logical principles I know will be found in any beginner’s book that has truth tables and the “->” symbol to mean implication. We are talking about the first chapters of such a book.
As for semantics and logic, logic is only possible after we are all on the same page about the meanings of the words we are using.
What’s the book that you use though because my book already has all the truth tables and connectives, etc.
That’s really good. You have the right book then. All you need to do is reread it.
When you have reached the point in your studies where it becomes obvious that A=B is not the same as A->B, then we can continue the discussion if you wish.
fakename, if you want to represent equality in logic some otherway than using the = sign then you can use the bi-confitional ↔ (the arrow points both ways)
(A → B and B->A) is A<->B
yeah, I know about the biconditional and equality but maybe I’m just talking philosophy here but there is something in my heart which makes me suspect that equality is a higher and nobler form of imputation and perhaps logically it can be said.
So if biconditionality is a way to represent equality in logic, then by conjunction simplification, one can say that one of the conditionals (A–>B) is implied. Therefore equality implies the conditional.
Therefore equality implies the conditional.
precisely, this is not controversial, it implies two conditionals! this is necessary …