Re: [Pen-l] Bubble Psychology [was: thinking the unthinkable

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Max Sawicky wrote:
>> > Methinks optimism bias is not unique to capitalism...

me:
>> this is another example of the logical slip I complained about
>> yesterday. I said that capitalism encourages over-confidence and you
>> respond with an over-interpretation, i.e., assuming that I said that
>> capitalism was the _only_ source of over-confidence.
>>
>> obviously, other types of society besides capitalism involved
>> situations where over-confidence is needed as a psychological survival
>> mechanism. But it's capitalism which tends to make those situations
>> the rule. (Luckily capitalism hasn't realized that tendency
>> completely; as noted, there are pre-existing institutions of other
>> sorts.)

Max Sawicky wrote:
> It would be odd, if logically possible, for over-confidence to be separately caused in distinct ways by different forms of society and/or economic systems.<

I didn't say anything about "distinct ways." Instead, I suggested
there might be a unique way (creating individualistic situations which
encourage over-confidence), that non-capitalist systems might create
such situations, but that _more than other modes of production_
capitalism puts us in such situations.

>... My intuition is that over-confidence is ubiquitous in both the public and  private sectors because it is a rational sort of 'irrationality.'<

What is a >rational sort of 'irrationality.'< besides being prima
facie an oxymoron?

I guess I was using this oxymoron: I suggested that what may seem to
be "irrational" from an orthodox economic perspective
(over-confidence) might easily be "rational" from a more realistic
perspective (a psychological survival mechanism).
-- 
Jim Devine /  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange
days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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