Friday, April 12, 2013

Prosperity: More is better than less


It's not complicated:





Perhaps skip the macroeconomics, this elementary school student may be telling you all you really need to know.


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

More is better till its not aka the Marginal theory of value. It is quite informative...Not!

Matt Franko said...

septeus,

Can you expand on this (to me) econo-bibble-babble?

I cant see how more prosperity for our nation can ever be "not" better...

rsp,

Ignacio said...

What is prosperity anyway. This is a subjective concept from what it seems.

Economists keep relating prosperity with nominal GDP growth and I call bullshit.

So I'm gonna take it further: before talking about more or less, we should talk what is meant by 'prosperity'.

Matt Franko said...

Ignacio,

Right, good point I forgot that there are probably psychos out there that would look at our current outcomes as "too prosperous"...

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

Prosperity as growth or living standard? The right says growth regardless of distribution, the left says that prosperity implies distribution of productivity increase.

Anonymous said...

Matt, what I'm trying to say is that a totally subjectivist viewpoint of value from which the marginal theory arises can't say that more prosperity is better because prosperity is defined as a increase in wealth but wealth cannot be measured as it subjectively determined.

The whole the subjectivist school's ideas of value reduce to zero information content statement (X is better than y except when y is better than x).

The logical thing to do say that value and wealth are interactive not apriori subjective or apriori objective.

More prosperity is better but what we determine that prosperity consist of depends on the changing context.

A rational person would relate prosperity to the rate at which a population can create and exploit new resources above the the rate depletion of the old stocks.

In order to do this a population must increase it's adoptive rate for new physical knowledge. Knowledge not preference is thus the basis of economic value.

MMT has value as economics not because it fits our preference of economic systems but because it is true knowledge. Truth must always be forced upon those who ignorant preferences would doom them to live forever in darkness.

Truthfulness is aggression against ignorance. It cannot be libertarian but only liberating.

Unknown said...

There is nothing subjective whether you live in a house and eat proper food or live in a ditch and eat garbage. Or work 12h/day or 3h/day.

Matt Franko said...

Kaj,

Right those are pretty objective characteristics you have identified there...

One person is being subsidized and the other not...

Not complicated (for us)...

rsp,

Roger Erickson said...

Per Darwin & Wallace, "prosperity" = ability to sail through multiple situations unfazed.

Best asset = coordination skills. That's a dynamic, not a static asset.

Teamwork. Nothing else beats it. "Human capital" doesn't adequately define it.