If only Milton Friedman could have lived 2 more years.

[Game Theory]

So he could see what an idiot he was.

 

[Pundit]

What about Ludwig Von Mises, that Austrian darling of libertarians and his seminal "Human Action". Some devotees of the so called "Austrian Economics" hail this tome as the capitalist's answer to Karl Marx's "Das Kapital".

I tried to hang at their parties for a minute but they are all old, plus they are all Republicans, so parties with no black people (not that Im racist but having every crazy libertarian nerd chick ask you about the history of Haiti just because you are black is no fun)

 

[Nkamangi]

Pundit, ur second paragraph has made my evening!!!!

 

[Game Theory]

What about Ludwig Von Mises, that Austrian darling of libertarians and his seminal "Human Action". Some devotees of the so called "Austrian Economics" hail this tome as the capitalist's answer to Karl Marx's "Das Kapital".

I tried to hang at their parties for a minute but they are all old, plus they are all Republicans, so parties with no black people (not that Im racist but having every crazy libertarian nerd chick ask you about the history of Haiti just because you are black is no fun)

P ,

was having this conversation with a friend who happens to have read Kleins book as well. I just don't think republicans and their free marketers friends have hijacked the economic debate, I believe they've just looted all the wealth to themselves and now play a mix of "Monopoly" and "Risk" to which we related very little. Hijacking implies a ransom, you pay it and everything goes back to "normal", whatever it is. I cannot think of something we might do to have a gold standard economy that protects small businesses and consumers ever again. We, consumers, very seldom have any notion to how our habits can affect wealth transfer. We know very little how the economy works, and the way education goes, we will know even less in the future.


The economic paradigm is very interesting, for it works with the notion that everyone will behave focusing in ever-growing profit. This was later mathematically explained by John Nash and the Game Theory. Funny thing is that many researchers found out that this behaviour does not apply to most of the population: one piece of research by RAND Corporation classified the vast majority of its subjects - its own staff - as "unfit" individuals because they made "altruistic choices" in a game theory experiment. Later, Professor Nash himself pointed out that he was in a psychotic state, very paranoid, when he implied that everyone is awfully greedy and selfish, and that the maths should be revised based in behavioural experiments. Other work showed that mostly economists and psychopaths make selfish choices.

Questioning if this phenomenon was caused by the education in a course of Economics (transforming otherwise altruistic youngsters into greedy monsters), a group in Canada found out that actually "greedy" people chose to go into economics: more than three quarters of 1st years (before the beginning of classes) made "greedy" choices in their experiment.

That says a lot. The greedy ones have the reigns. Shall we test all the economists and pick the rare altruistic guys to be our ministers?