Categories
Economics Essay Political

The “MMT-and-Bailey” Fallacy

Check out my latest at the Mises Wire. It’s about how the Modern Monetary Theory clowns use something like the Motte and Bailey fallacy to gain influence with politicians and feed them really bad ideas. The negative consequences of those ideas are well known to MMTers, but they can omit them and pretend they’re “unintended.”

Here’s a little bonus bit that I wrote about it:

My focus was how MMT’s use of odd definitions, convenient tautologies, and strategic vagueness leads to politicians thinking they be more aggressive parasites without negative consequences.

Court intellectuals remain so by justifying the actions of their state masters. MMT is just another place for would-be court intellectuals to do this. It’s as easy as omitting secondary consequences (“unintended” consequences) from their writing.

The modern capital structure is vast and complex but can quickly and easily be destroyed by an overzealous state. The USSR’s policies turned Ukraine from a breadbasket into a valley of death in just a few years, and it can happen again.

Good economists stand in the way of idiots demanding our seed corn. Bad economists cheer the thugs on. They omit vital caveats and let the state’s greed take its course.

Categories
Economics Essay

The “Order” of Goods: Not Useless?

I read Menger’s Principles of Economics a few months ago, and I’m currently re-reading Mises’s Human Action, and I’ve noticed both of them introduce the concept of the “order” of goods, that is, the number of production steps a good is from consumption.

For example, if the path to making bread is: seed -> wheat -> flour -> bread, then flour is a second-order good, wheat is a third-order good, etc.

Both Menger and Mises introduce this concept, but both dismiss it as effectively meaningless. Their reason, I suppose, is that in complicated production pathways, one good might be fourth-order in one pathway, and fifth-order in another.

But I think they might have missed something–something where understanding the order of goods allows us to make a clear example of the usefulness of a medium of exchange or money.

Categories
Economics Essay Political Video Link

Retreat Into Metaphor: A “New” Fallacy?

(Also available on Bitchute.)

There is a tendency for thinkers to use metaphor and allegory to reframe a problem or issue in a way that clarifies or simplifies it. The problem with metaphor and allegory is that they necessarily change or obscure details. Therefore, the solutions you propose from looking at a metaphor might be way off.

Even worse, the retreat into metaphor can be so deep that no concrete solutions even appear, and you end up with long periods of idle musing.

Categories
Economics Political Video Link

Effective Altruism Isn’t

The idea of “effective altruism” is that you do the most good by making as much money as possible, and then living frugally and using the rest of that money for charity.

Of course, nowadays, with the state having the stranglehold on the economy that it does, it turns out that the easiest way to make a bunch of money is to have a bunch of government connections that will help you win a contract or two. Actual entrepreneurship is hard.

Then, it gets worse! The fact you’ve spent so much time hanging around politicians and bureaucrats warps your sense of charity. Instead of serving the people, you serve the state.

More in the video above, also available on Bitchute.

Categories
Book Review Economics Political Video Link

A Little More on the Road to Wigan Pier…

After reading a few reactions to my review of George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier, it looked like I was a little bit unclear about Orwell’s position on socialism. I’m aware that he never denounced socialism as an ideology. However, the issue that becomes painfully clear when reading Wigan Pier is that he really had no clear idea of what socialism was or what it meant. With that in mind, I thought I’d make a quick video explaining this point a bit more clearly, so I hope this helps.

You can read my review here.