tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post6507627493612003506..comments2024-03-28T02:00:36.854-04:00Comments on The Slack Wire: Work, Unemployment and Aggregate DemandJW Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-52847065520693334952019-12-17T17:12:20.404-05:002019-12-17T17:12:20.404-05:00PLEASE READ!!Hello Guys!!! I am Caro I live in Ohi...PLEASE READ!!Hello Guys!!! I am Caro I live in Ohio USA I’m 32 Years old, am so happy I got my blank ATM card from Adriano. My blank ATM card can withdraw $4,000 daily. I got it from Him last week and now I have withdrawn about $10,000 for free. The blank ATM withdraws money from any ATM machines and there is no name on it because it is blank just your PIN will be on it, it is not traceable and now I have money for business, shopping and enough money for me and my family to live on.I am really glad and happy i met Adriano because I met Five persons before him and they could not help me. But am happy now Adriano sent the card through DHL and I got it in two days. Get your own card from him right now, he is giving it out for small fee to help people even if it is illegal but it helps a lot and no one ever gets caught or traced. I’m happy and grateful to Adriano because he changed my story all of a sudden. The card works in all countries that is the good news Adriano's email address is adrianohackers01@gmail.comCaro Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07069629319338780440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-40814189334743249752017-03-21T11:43:36.059-04:002017-03-21T11:43:36.059-04:00> Because in that construct ∆Wealth IS income.
...> Because in that construct ∆Wealth IS income.<br /><br />Or ∆Assets is.Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-36892516400142509912017-03-21T11:40:21.001-04:002017-03-21T11:40:21.001-04:00Hi Josh, just re-reading this conversation again s...Hi Josh, just re-reading this conversation again some more. (So much meat here.) Currently this:<br /><br />>I’m not saying we should focus on the income —> expenditure link because that is the only thing that matters for the determination of expenditure; I’m saying we should focus on it because of the existence of the expenditure —> income link. There’s nothing equivalent for wealth.<br /><br />I think there is, but that it's invisible if we "think inside the FFA matrix" that's the playing field for almost all econ analysis, with its particular stylized definition of "income." Which has no accounting relationship to ∆Assets or Net Worth.<br /><br />What I don't have the energy to do right now: pull correlations (w multiple + and - lag periods) between Cynamon/Fazzari PCE and 1. HH Income 2. HH holding gains (marked to market) 3. Comprehensive Haig-Simons income that includes both.<br /><br />And/or compare ∆ for some/all of those measures.<br /><br />I'm saying that in that larger (and complete) accounting construct, there could be something "equivalent for wealth." Or at least ∆Wealth. Because in that construct ∆Wealth IS income.Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-21519280889283804392014-04-07T18:11:08.951-04:002014-04-07T18:11:08.951-04:00I think the importance of money in our current soc...I think the importance of money in our current social and economic arrangements is much less than it appears.<br /><br />You say, for example, that "no one cares" about routine health care in the UK, because there is no possibility of personal gain from it. But of course that's not true. If it were really the case that "nobody cared," health care would not be delivered at all. In reality, the world is full of doctors -- in the UK and elsewhere -- who make great efforts to provide appropriate care for their patients, without getting any personal benefit from it themselves. Even in the US, I am quite confident that when I take my kid to the pediatrician, the doctor is not considering his personal financial gain when he decides what tests to perform, or whether to recommend any additional care. (If I thought the doctor were making recommendations based on his personal financial interests, I would find another doctor!) When I decide what to teach next semester, or what textbook to use, I assure you that the difference it will make to my income never crosses my mind. I assume no one is paying you to post comments on blogs, yet evidently you put quite a lot of effort and care into it. It's precisely because this kind of disinterested desire to do one's job well -- what Michelet called "the professional conscience" -- is so universal that you can ignore it.<br /><br />In fact, in my opinion, it is the organization of productive activity by money that is a utopian dream, which requires the constant re-transformation of society against its natural tendencies.<br />JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-39010542525767374062014-04-07T02:59:20.055-04:002014-04-07T02:59:20.055-04:00JW Mason, "My goal is for everyone to have a ...JW Mason, "My goal is for everyone to have a 0% share of wealth. :-) (Or more precisely, for "share of wealth" to have the same social significance as "share of Pokemon cards.")"<br /><br />I'm fascinated but not quite grasping this idea. It seems the opposite to the view I'm coming to this with which makes it all the more interesting for me. Are you meaning that you would like the economic and political influence of wealth to be somehow eliminated? How is that to be brought about from our current, "money talks" and "wealth is power" set up? If the organizational influence of wealth is removed, what should replace it? I mean we now get food, computers, transport, utilities etc provided in a manner governed by the profit motive -doesn't that depend on wealth having an economic influence? Are you wanting technocratic, political mechanisms? My worry about political/technocratic control is that it strangely but inevitably leads to only elite concerns being considered and the average Joe being trodden on. My impression is that command economies give us Concord whilst inclusive capitalism gives us the Boeing 747. People have a natural tendency to want to work on the best of the best; they only attend to the mundane everyday stuff, that we all need, if money makes it seem interesting. In the UK, our NHS health care system is an example - doctors want to do the cutting edge procedures that are only done at top centers in the world- no one cares about basic logistic screw ups that mean that mundane procedures are not provided in a timely fashion to save lives.<br />That is why I do think wealth governing what is done is the way to go -BUT that wealth needs to be with everyone so that what gets done reflects what everyone wants.<br />Sorry if I just misunderstood your point. stonehttp://directeconomicdemocracy.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-24572070455590130882014-04-05T17:19:44.430-04:002014-04-05T17:19:44.430-04:00A noble utopian vision.
But landing between the ...A noble utopian vision. <br /><br />But landing between the cyclical and the eternal...<br /><br />If we want to get to 0%, do we start by shifting that line up to 60%, or down to 40?Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-38734019417595716852014-04-05T15:38:23.400-04:002014-04-05T15:38:23.400-04:00Wouldn't it be a better thing if the bottom 50...<i>Wouldn't it be a better thing if the bottom 50% had 10% of wealth instead of 0%?</i><br /><br />My goal is for everyone to have a 0% share of wealth. :-)<br /><br />(Or more precisely, for "share of wealth" to have the same social significance as "share of Pokemon cards.")JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-42532317825389155792014-04-05T13:38:26.962-04:002014-04-05T13:38:26.962-04:00Yeah I tweeted and reditted that link. Piketty mak...Yeah I tweeted and reditted that link. Piketty makes the same point about the bottom 50%.<br /><br />"So no, there is no meaningful “labor share of wealth.” And that’s a good thing! A big part of social and political progress over the past century has been a great expansion of the claims on the social product that take forms other than wealth."<br /><br />That only makes sense if that 50% line is constant. "Look! No change but the poor have much higher claims on producting/income." But that's certainly not a given. <br /><br />cf. my "be prepared to scoll" graph of wealth distribution.<br /><br />Wouldn't it be a better thing if the bottom 50% had 10% of wealth instead of 0%?Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-8156995770259962702014-04-05T12:54:20.984-04:002014-04-05T12:54:20.984-04:00I think our cross-purposes might be rooted in cycl...I think our cross-purposes might be rooted in cyclical vs. sectoral. I'm thinking mainly about the latter. But they're really interwoven. <br /><br />This Calculated Risk graph kind of epitomizes that for me:<br /><br />http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4EKkbrdkld8/UxnL3ktIz6I/AAAAAAAAeNE/XcVURyQpXNk/s1600/EmployRecFeb2014.jpg<br /><br />'81, '91, 2001, 2008<br /><br />The dynamics of business cycles seem to have taken on a different character since the 70s, and that change seems to be accelerating. It's perhaps only coincidence that this coincides with the rapid concentration of wealth and income over the same period, but the basic arithmetic of declining marginal propensity to spend (out of wealth, or out of income [and much income comes from wealth]) does provide at least the basis of a theoretical explanation.<br /><br />So thinking inside the business cycle (and the Keynesian models of that, all of which are missing a wealth term in the consumption function) might be blind to this larger secular trend, where business cycles themselves are changing.<br /><br />This of course might all go back to Fed reaction functions. Market monetarists like to claim that the Fed always acts last. That's the only reasonably cogent argument I've heard against the "underconsumption" secular-stagnation theory (underconsumption relative to either income or wealth or some function of the two). I would counter by saying that nobody ever acts last.<br /><br />This is slightly incoherent, a lot of conceptual leaps happening, but I'm thinking you'll get my gist...<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />SteveSteve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-9654900420511136652014-04-04T17:23:21.296-04:002014-04-04T17:23:21.296-04:00But what about labor share of wealth? There's ...<i>But what about labor share of wealth? There's very little empirics on that, because (as Piketty makes very clear) there's just not much data available. But that measurement difficulty doesn't mean it doesn't matter. It might matter a whole lot, have a rather profound effect.</i><br /><br />Have you seen this? http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf<br /><br /> Saez and Zucman give the following distribution for US wealth (defined as net worth):<br />bottom 50%: 0<br />50-90%: 25% (almost entirely pensions and housing)<br />90-99%: 35%<br />99-99.9%: 20%<br />top 0.1%: 20%<br /><br />So no, there is no meaningful “labor share of wealth.” And that’s a good thing! A big part of social and political progress over the past century has been a great expansion of the claims on the social product that take forms other than wealth. <a <br /><br />Fun fact: Did you know that the net worth of the median Greek household is almost double the net worth of the median German household? <br />(www.ecb.europa.eu/home/pdf/research/HFCS_Statistical_Tables_Wave1.pdf)JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-12560335055085215972014-04-04T17:15:43.015-04:002014-04-04T17:15:43.015-04:00Hoping you read comments on old posts…
Of course....<i> Hoping you read comments on old posts…</i><br /><br />Of course. The conversations with people like you are the best part of doing this. <br /><br /><i> "In terms of understanding macroeconomic dynamics, we are interested in how tightly current expenditure is coupled to current income."<br /><br />Why aren't we interested in how tightly current expenditure is coupled to current wealth (and distribution/concentration of wealth)?</i><br /><br /><i> If incomes were all the same, but wealth was much more or less concentrated, you don't think that would have any bearing on the behavior of the economy?</i><br /><br />We’re talking at cross purposes here a bit. I said “in terms of understanding macroeconomic dynamics” for a reason. The goal here is not just to describe consumption behavior. The goal is to understand how output can depend on expenditure, and how capitalist economies can have periods of high and low activity without any change in the conditions of production or other “fundamentals”. For these questions, it’s the positive feedback loop between income and expenditure that matters. Of course lots of other things influence expenditure besides current income, but they don’t produce endogenous instability or multiple equilibria the way the income-expenditure link does, because they don’t themselves depend on current expenditure. I’m not saying we should focus on the income —> expenditure link because that is the only thing that matters for the determination of expenditure; I’m saying we should focus on it because of the existence of the expenditure —> income link. There’s nothing equivalent for wealth. (Except in the case of asset bubbles, where, yes, something similar applies. But that’s not what we’re talking about.)<br /><br /><i>If a person has x income and no wealth, spending will be the same as if they have x income and high wealth? Doesn't a consumption function for heterogenous agents have to take that into account?</i><br /><br />In principle yes. Again, for present purposes it doesn’t matter. The important question is the relative importance of current income and everything else, including wealth. The stronger the effect of income, the greater the effect a change in desired expenditure will have on output, and the easier it is for there to be both high and low income equilibria. So yes, sure, wealth affects consumption, but as far as business cycle dynamics are concerned, that’s just one of the various factors that stabilizes expenditure in the face of changes in income.<br /><br />But now I have to take back the concession I just made. First of all, I’m not convinced that “wealth” is that important for consumption. I don’t think the lifetime-utility-maximizing, intertemporally-optimizing household of the models exists. It seems to me that households can generally be divided into wealth-accumulating households whose consumption is set at some conventional level dictate by their social position, and liquidity-constrained households whose current consumption is limited by their access to funds. In neither case is there a direct link from wealth to consumption. Of course asset ownership may figure into which social position is guiding the consumption of accumulating households, and may help relieve liquidity constraints for the constrained households, but either way that’s an indirect effect, not a direct link from “wealth” to consumption. <br /><br />Furthermore, I don’t think “wealth” is even that useful a concept. (That’s why I put it in quote.) That word, it seems to me, is mixing together two distinct concepts: net worth and asset ownership. At the very top of the distribution, the 0.01%, I don’t think there are significant household liabilities so the two definitions of wealth will be equivalent, but otherwise you need to be explicit which one you mean. Economists usually think of wealth as net worth, but lower down the distribution net worth is not really meaningful, since apart from owner-occupied housing the vast majority of claims by and against working class households don’t appear on balance sheets. JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-36020265693310155742014-04-02T12:45:38.783-04:002014-04-02T12:45:38.783-04:00Hey Josh:
Finally getting back to this. (Thanks!)...Hey Josh:<br /><br />Finally getting back to this. (Thanks!) Hoping you read comments on old posts...<br /><br />re: a wealth term in consumption functions<br /><br />"In terms of understanding macroeconomic dynamics, we are interested in how tightly current expenditure is coupled to current income."<br /><br />Why aren't we interested in how tightly current expenditure is coupled to current wealth (and distribution/concentration of wealth)?<br /><br />> I don't see any special role for wealth in this respect.<br /><br />I'm kind of astounded. If incomes were all the same, but wealth was much more or less concentrated, you don't think that would have any bearing on the behavior of the economy? Given how much I admire your thinking, I really hesitate to suggest that you're thinking inside a paradigm/mental model in which only income affects consumption. (The inevitable conclusion inside there being that only income affects consumption.) But...<br /><br />If a person has x income and no wealth, spending will be the same as if they have x income and high wealth? Doesn't a consumption function for heterogenous agents have to take that into account?<br /><br />> Capitalism works fine with a low labor share.<br /><br />I think you're saying "with a low labor share *of income*." There's empirical support for that. See Lane Kenworthy's recent in the NYT:<br /><br />http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/economix/2014/03/25/qa-a-sociologist-on-inequality/?smid=tw-share<br /><br />But what about labor share of wealth? There's very little empirics on that, because (as Piketty makes very clear) there's just not much data available. But that measurement difficulty doesn't mean it doesn't matter. It might matter a whole lot, have a rather profound effect.<br /><br />You may remember my feeble attempt to look at this question:<br /><br />http://www.asymptosis.com/wealth-equality-and-prosperity.html<br /><br />> What will cause the demise of capitalism?<br /><br />Thanks for that answer. I've read it multiple times and will again.<br /><br />Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-83721933334206117792014-03-11T14:14:00.014-04:002014-03-11T14:14:00.014-04:00Thanks for the comments, Steve, and sorry for the ...Thanks for the comments, Steve, and sorry for the slow response.<br /><br /><i>And as the total value of financial assets (the stock of money, M) increases and decreases. Problem being, of course, that pessimism decreases both M, and in a mutually interdependent effect, willingness to spend from that M (V).</i><br /><br />As we've discussed at length at Nick's place, I do not think there is any economically meaningful quantitates in modern economies that corresponds to M. The correct way to state it is that units with the capacity for balance sheet adjustment will shift toward more liquid balance-sheet positions. Increasing the share of relatively money-like assets on the asset side is one form among others that this shift can take.<br /><br />(At the moment I think that these kinds of balance sheet adjustments are most important for financial institutions, followed by large corporations that can treat their capital structure as a choice variable. I think it is not so important for rich households, which don't have significant liabilities and whose asset positions -- I think -- are fairly stable. But this is a secondary point and I could easily be convinced otherwise on it.)<br /><br /><i>A consumption function that does not include term for wealth (with an interdependent relationship to income) is fatally flawed. (I haven't been able to find any good work on such an interdependent function. Do you know of any?</i><br /><br />There was stuff on this looking at the tech bubble in the 1990s, I recall. Personally I'm afraid I don't find it a very interesting question. In terms of understanding macroeconomic dynamics, we are interested in how tightly current expenditure is coupled to current income. Of course units' financial position is one of the things that will affect this, but I don't see any special role for wealth in this respect. Certainly nobody is choosing consumption to optimize utility under a budget constraint or anything silly like that.<br /><br /><i>Unemployment rises when money expenditure falls.</i><br /><br />No, sorry, that won't do. Of course it is true, but trivially, since the labor share is very stable in the short run. The question is which way causality runs. The Keynesian position is that the expenditure chosen **at a given income** changes first, and only after that does realized income and output change. Price effects are stabilizing -- you don't buy that bagel, I'll get it for half price at closing time. Income effects are destabilizing -- if neither of us buys a bagel, the bagel-shop owner won't buy stuff from us tomorrow. So instability requires a relatively strong coupling of expenditure to income. <br /><br /><i> low labor share (of income and especially wealth) is a "structural" problem -- arguably the central structural problem that our highly-productive and highly-unequal society faces.</i><br /><br />I disagree. Capitalism works fine with a low labor share. It's a problem for most of us human beings, yes, but it's not a problem for the system.<br /><br /><i>What will cause the demise of capitalism?</i><br /><br />The creeping socialization of production, under the pressure of capitalism itself. The individual entrepreneur gives way to the professionally managed corporation. The lone genius gives way to the research university. Physical capital you can pick up and sell gives way to "human capital," brands, and similar claims on surplus that are inextricably tied up with social relations. The Rothschilds and Morgans give way to central banks. The objective criteria of profit and loss in the market for goods gives way to the subjective judgement of the providers of finance in the credit markets. And the judgment of the credit markets come increasingly under the administration of the central bank. And one day, we look out the window and say, "hey, it's socialism." <br />JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-47392078412828685412014-03-04T11:53:28.285-05:002014-03-04T11:53:28.285-05:00And (somewhat obvious corrolary): if low labor sha...And (somewhat obvious corrolary): if low labor share is a structural problem, we can fix that problem by simply increasing labor share through redistribution. Labor share <i>is</i> labor power. Cue Evan Soltas.Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-56431437590216043572014-03-04T11:42:39.359-05:002014-03-04T11:42:39.359-05:00So good, as usual. And as usual, I agree with you ...So good, as usual. And as usual, I agree with you almost 100%. (I know the obverse is often not true...) Would just tweak some details. Here, an unorganized handful:<br /><br />"In the short run, employment will rise and fall as the rich feel a smaller or a greater need for the insurance-value of financial wealth."<br /><br />And as the total value of financial assets (the stock of money, M) increases and decreases. Problem being, of course, that pessimism decreases both M, and in a mutually interdependent effect, willingness to spend from that M (V). <br /><br />A consumption function that does not include term for wealth (with an interdependent relationship to income) is fatally flawed. (I haven't been able to find any good work on such an interdependent function. Do you know of any?)<br /><br />"Unemployment rises when planned money expenditure falls for a given expected money income."<br /><br />Per my previous on the consumption function, I would say, rather: <br /><br />Unemployment rises when money expenditure falls. It falls for two reasons: 1. there is less money, and 2. there is less willingness to spend what money there is. Each is affected by income.<br /><br />"unemployment is an aggregate expenditure phenomenon"<br /><br />Exactly right. Which leads (skipping a couple of steps) to another conclusion: low labor share (of income and especially wealth) <i>is</i> a "structural" problem -- arguably the central structural problem that our highly-productive and highly-unequal society faces.<br /><br />"economics education assiduously cultivates the mixing-up of the money game with the substrate upon which it is played. "<br /><br />So true. Epitomized by the oxymoronic usage, "financial capital."<br /><br />So you left us hanging. What <i>will</i> cause the demise of capitalism? Or is SRW right in a post I'm too lazy to dig up, that FDR proved Marx wrong on this point -- showed how the flexibility of the capitalist (and democratic) system was/is far greater than Marx thought. In my words, in short, it could give rise to downward redistribution to countervail the wealth/income concentration that is inevitable without it.<br /><br />Steve Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11895481216028771016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-3426684468411698812014-02-27T16:49:37.609-05:002014-02-27T16:49:37.609-05:00I appreciate your view, expressed in further thoug...I appreciate your view, expressed in further thought 2, that it is not useful to speak in terms of productive and unproductive labor. If one were to randomly sample one hour of paid effort across the economy and grade those hours for economic "productivity" or "necessity" do we really expect to find the high grade hours strongly clustered in certain areas or professions? (I mean, my profession of course, but not otherwise.) Now take a sample of unpaid effort -- more or less productive?<br /><br />On the other hand, I can't believe the extreme case, that every persons' effort is equally likely to be productive. The list that Marx mentions includes some vocations that must rate lower than e.g. a machinist, teacher, or pilot, on average.<br /><br />So now, please forgive my naive question about compensation. Should people be paid based on how productive they are (with a bonus for respecting both the laws of the country and the value of other people's property), or should people be paid for how much economic activity they generate? I hate the argument that the incremental value of a persons labor is accurately priced by market forces. So I tend to worry at it, like a broken tooth. However, I can't see how we could accurately assess the productivity of someone's effort. This leads back to the idea that maybe we are all contributing an indistinguishable amount, and that seems wrong too. I don't think that I would get to keep my job for long if all jobs paid an equal compensation, so I will always argue against that idea!<br /><br />It is common to talk about the idea that nobody would collect the garbage without getting paid, but we don't actually pay them much. We also frequently talk about how much we pay hedge fund managers, but not so much about how hard it is to find someone to do it. If I had to work for no pay, I would totally pick hedge fund manager over garbage collector -- its 7 degrees outside!<br /><br />How do you think pay (and the distribution of the social product more broadly) should be affected, ideally, by the decline and dispersal of the fraction of necessary work?<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07526182934557192620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-35892640563325178962014-02-27T08:56:34.596-05:002014-02-27T08:56:34.596-05:00I'm of two minds about this. You're right,...I'm of two minds about this. You're right, as far as labor goes the distinction seems pretty clearcut. And we could even formalize it by saying that work is (usually) costly to the person doing the work, while refraining from vandalism is costless (again usually -- some people really love to break things). So there is a fundamental economic reason to make the distinction.<br /><br />On the other hand, when it comes to other "factors" the distinction is not so clearcut. Let's say you're at work and suddenly all the lights go out. Someone shows up at the door and says, give me $100 and I'll reconnect your power, otherwise, get used to candles. If that person happens to be holding a piece of paper marked "utility bill," we consider the $100 a payment for a factor of production. If they are just holding a pair of shears, we don't. But from the point of view of the physical production process, the two cases are identical. <br /><br />Also, do you remember that review of that stupid Michael Douglas movie Falling Down you wrote years ago? You made the point then that urban life is only possible because all of us have scripts that allow us to interact with strangers without fighting, stealing, breaking things. Those scripts -- and the work that goes into disseminating and upholding them -- is an essential condition of production, insofar as the division of labor requires large numbers of strangers to interact.<br /><br />But you are right, this is all separate form the main point.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-40324958634149002532014-02-27T08:47:59.132-05:002014-02-27T08:47:59.132-05:00http://xkcd.com/810/http://xkcd.com/810/JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-92115928646038861122014-02-27T08:18:14.997-05:002014-02-27T08:18:14.997-05:00Even bots today realise that demand side economics...Even bots today realise that demand side economics is the way to go!Random Lurkerhttp://gemito2073english.blogspot.it/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-82710304893650644732014-02-27T00:12:00.001-05:002014-02-27T00:12:00.001-05:00Insufficient demand can prevent the economy from f...Insufficient demand can prevent the economy from fully utilizing its resources and cause involuntary unemployment. Best dependable maid service Asbury Parkhttp://www.housecleaning-maidservice-nj.com/asbury_park_maid_service.phpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-71432373145893251772014-02-25T15:50:56.980-05:002014-02-25T15:50:56.980-05:00I was in Brooklyn when I was typing.I was in Brooklyn when I was typing.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-87747977645797522392014-02-25T13:58:58.287-05:002014-02-25T13:58:58.287-05:00Ravenswood? Don't you mean Braidwood?Ravenswood? Don't you mean Braidwood?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07526182934557192620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-74995133138657312512014-02-24T21:09:45.458-05:002014-02-24T21:09:45.458-05:00"All of these steps are necessary to the prod..."All of these steps are necessary to the production of a blog post. Some of them we recognize as 'labor' entitled to wages, like whoever is watching the dials at Ravenswood. Some we definitely don't, like the all-important not-stealing and not-smashing steps."<br /><br />It's not important to your overall point, but I think that treating non-actions -- not stealing and not smashing the laptop -- as interchangeable with positive actions is problematic. I suppose that there are certain precedents for this -- payments of hush money or "protection" to blackmailers and racketeers, AAA transfers to farmers for not growing crops -- but these are cases notably lacking widespread approval. <br /><br />WillAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com