Ah, but why not Joules? That would be a measure of the amount of energy these neurons have received. Or how about watts, the amount of energy required per second of wanting something? How about hertz, for how often the respective neurons discharge? Perhaps we can measure the physical distance of these neurons in meters; surely these neurons must be different lengths in different people, right?. Or perhaps we can mass them; that’d be more accurate. Density might be in order. And then the question comes down to, How do we go about deciding which of the bazillions of neurons should be held accountable? And what if two people have different preferences but the neurons fire the same way? What then?
Please inform me of the exact measurement of my preference for ballot boxes from the U.S. presidential election of 1844, which the correct units, down to the 100th decimal place. Please also give me the appropriate units that your intense scientific study of this most important issue has declared reasonable. It is a question I have longed to answer; what love do I have for ballot boxes from 1844?
When you are through with that, please carefully construct an equation that will accurately depict my preferences for the aforementioned boxes, money, alcohol, women, and laptops. The equation must have less than 1 in 1000 inaccuracy, and it must maintain this level until may date of death.
Suppose a clothing manufacturer learns of a machine that will make men’s and women’s overcoats for half as much labor as previously. He installs the machines and drops half his labor force. This looks at first glance like a clear loss of employment. But the machine itself required labor to make it; so here, as one offset, are jobs that would not otherwise have existed. The manufacturer, however, would have adopted the machine only if it had either made better suits for half as much labor, or had made the same kind of suits at a smaller cost. If we assume the latter, we cannot assume that the amount of labor to make the machines was as great in terms of payrolls as the amount of labor that the clothing manufacturer hopes to save in the long run by adopting the machine; otherwise there would have been no economy, and he would not have adopted it.
The writing here is a little convoluted, but he seems to be saying that the manufacturer would only adopt the machine if he expected it to benefit him somehow. This is necessarily true, assuming the manufacturer is an actor, because expectation of benefit is ineluctably tied up in the very concept of action. An action is a DOING with a purpose, a telos. And the very concept of benefit is itself teleological; if something is beneficial, it is, by definition, in agreement with a purpose of the benefactor. The question is, “how does the machine benefit the man regarding his business?” What Hazlitt is saying is that there are only two conceivable ways: it either increases product output or it decreases cost input. How else could it conceivably benefit his business?
Everyone acts rationally. They act with purpose towards an end. Even restraint of overt action aka inaction, is done purposefully. Whether that purpose serves their end is something they (generally speaking) can only speculate about since none of us have perfect knowledge. This is a statement about epistemology, or the study of the limitations of knowledge.
What HH is saying, is that if the people in the parable did not have an end, then they would not have taken that action. And praxeology informs us that man acts in order to remove discomfort, that is, to overcome obstacles to his happiness or well being, so they act in their own best interest (as perceived by them).
HH can only make a statement about the action based on his understanding of action. He can’t say that people will always take that action given that specific choice, because each person experiences discomfort in different ways, and so speculates differently on how to improve his lot.
The one benefit from this conversation with you is exposing how poorly praxeology has been explained to laymen by those great authors we hold up as heroes. The best work I have seen for bringing it to the masses to date is lilburne’s comics (bless his soul). You should check them out.
At the start of this thread I got some very valuable information for which I am grateful but there is only so much abuse (combined with much idiocy) that I can take. Arguing with 10 people at the same time is pretty stressful and I’m not sure I am getting anything out of the process any more. So I shall abandon this thread for now.
You want to know why you’re called an idiot? This is why. Abandon the thread. Do some actual reading, get rid of your arrogant scientistic-engineer mentality and do some growing up, rather than assuming you know everything, that economists are idiots, that humans are machines you’ve perfectly figured out (bullshit) and that you can measure preferences in terms of ‘amps’ (wow, illuminating…)
If Sharon has a hole where most people have brain, has she noticed anything else she has difficulty with? She tells us: “Sequences of numbers, telephone numbers, I find hard to remember”. The IQ test results that Sharon, far from being an idiot, has an IQ of 113 making her above average. 80% of the population would have a lower score.
I don’t understand this guy. He comes to a forum where he knows people will argue with what he says and puts his beliefs out there. But he fights to the last drop to defend them every time.
I use this forum to A) Learn new things and B) test my ideas. I have found it very useful in both regards, although the emotional price I have to pay in terms of being abused makes it quite a painful process. Part of the reason I choose this forum as opposed to any other is because I consider myself 80% Austrian in my thinking. I judge this by how much I find myself agreeing with assorted Austrian principles and by how much I agree with Peter Schiff in particular. The other reason is that this forum appears to be very busy, indeed if I post something here I usually get an answer within minutes (even if that answer is just filc calling me a moron!). I did spend some time a while back looking for alternative economics forums, but found that they were actually more about trading/dealing or that they were tiny. If anyone here would like to suggest an alternative forum where there a significant number of postings about fundamental economic principles (as opposed to trading) then I would be most grateful. This may even lead to the added benefit of getting rid of me.
It would not be very interesting for me to put up posts saying I agree with this or that bit of AE. So I guess you don’t get too see the parts I agree with. Suffice it to say that I agreed with 80% or more of everything I read in “economics in one lesson”… and I agree with 90% of everything Peter Schiff ever says.
Discussing “the purchasing power of money” seems pretty fundamental to me.
there is no equation which determines the purchasing power of money. money has purchasing power to the extent that it can be used to buy things. to the extent that people are happy to trade it.
im not sure what question you are trying to answer to your own satisfaction..
is it the question, why does money have any purchasing power at all?
is it the question, why did money have the precise ‘quantity’ of purchasing power as it did last tuesday at 10:05am?
is it some other question?
im not sure whether you have questions concerning units of money i.e. ‘1 unit of currency’, or about the sum of all money ‘all the currency’
No. (that may be a good and interesting question - but its not what I’m asking).
Yes (Although that question may be too ambitious in the first instance so I’d like to perhaps work out what it will be in a super simple model to start with and then gradually add details to the model).
1 unit. (although of course the purchasing power of 1 unit may well be determined by the total amongst other factors).
… I seem to be getting drawn back in to this discussion after announcing that I would stop… what I’m also after now is an alternative forum.
