Re: City of Beijing announces Job Gaurantee

["John O'Donnell" <jackodonnell@xxxxxxx>]

Bruce McFarling wrote:
>
> On Sat, 06 Apr 2002 11:03:27 -0800, John O'Donnell
> <jackodonnell@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >I ask again - Can you provide some specifics of the pitfalls
> >you see?
>
> [offlist]
>
> > 1.The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
> > 2.Therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C.
> > That this sort of reasoning is fallacious because it cannot
> > be inferred that simply because the parts of a complex whole
> > have (or lack) certain properties that the whole that they
> > are parts of has those properties.

If that were the reasoning I used then I would agree that I
would have comitted an error of the fallacy of composition.
However, no such reasoning has been used in my argument.

Also, gratuitously omitted from this excerpt I provided of
the description of the fallacy from
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html

QUOTE
...
Please note the [emphasis added] phrases below.
...
It is important to note that drawing an inference about the
characteristics of a class based on the characteristics of
its individual members [emphasis added] IS NOT ALWAYS
FALLACIOUS.
...
It must be noted that reasoning from the properties of the
parts to the properties of the whole [emphasis added] IS NOT
ALWAYS FALLACIOUS. If there is justification for the
inference from parts to whole, then the reasoning is not
fallacious. For example, [emphasis added] IF EVERY PART OF
THE HUMAN IS MADE OF MATTER, THEN IT WOULD NOT BE AN ERROR
IN REASONING TO CONCLUDE THAT THE WHOLE HUMAN BODY IS MADE
OF MATTER.
...
END QUOTE

So, I ask once more -- Can you provide some specifics of the
pitfalls you see? Or do you insist on continuing to ignore
the problem?

> This is the fallacy of composition that comes back to bite
> people when they replace a complex system of firms with a
> representative firm analysis.  In the mainstream of economic
> modelling that John's analysis lies within, there are two
> solutions:
>
> (1) Ignore the problem.
> (2) Represent the system of the whole as a general
> equilibrium system, which amounts to replacing the
> problem with one that is more convenient to solve.
>
> This is all in the GT literature (see the Cambridge
> Controversies for heaps of examples, or Keen's
> Debunking Economics) and presented in the literature
> better than I can do, so I'll leave this here.
>
> Virtually,
>
> Bruce McFarling, New Lambton, NSW
> ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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			-- jbod

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