Re: City of Beijing announces Job Guarantee

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

Bruce McFarling wrote:
>
> On Sat, 06 Apr 2002 19:23:27 -0800, John O'Donnell
> <jackodonnell@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >I have not created a macro model nor have I claimed to have
> >done so. What I have done is demonstrate the effect that
> >several macro policy choices have on micro decisions that
> >lead to beneficial macro effects.
>
> The latter requires what the former states is not done.

Really? Therefore one must model the workings of an internal
combustion engine to learn that putting the pedal to the
metal will accelerate the car.

> And the notion that the organisation of the whole can
> be treated as a seperate "part" ignores the way that
> complex systems work.

You really are a slave to your beliefs. Try again to read
the ACTUAL limits of the fallacy of composition. Such as --
"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."

ASSUMING that every characteristic of a whole must be
addressed, even though I have not done this, to recognize
that a particular characteristic of the whole can, given the
proper conditions, be imputed from the characteristics of a
part and, what I have done, one can conclude the whole
equals the sum of its parts even when the particulars of all
the parts are not known.

> Along the lines that JV pointed
> out, the economy itself is a complex system, and in
> a complex system the organisation of the parts cannot
> be treated as a seperate part without missing the
> emergent phenomena of the organised parts themselves.

Like any complex system, the effect of a particular action
on some characteristic(s) can be demonstrated without
demonstrating every effect that action may have on the
whole. To qualitatively analyze the effect of a particular
action on a particular characteristic the preferred method
is to isolate the action and effect from other actions and
effects such as finding a partial derivative of a whole
without knowing the remaining partials. The phrase you
economists most often use [Incorrectly I might add.] is
"ceteris paribus" or its equivalent "all else being equal."
What economists tend to do is assume that even the variables
that both affect and are affected by an action can be held
constant while the purpose is to account for all the effects
of the particular action on the particular characteristic.

> A system which can be treated as you described is
> necessarily a mechanical system (see the books of
> Robert Rosen for more detail on this), and therefore
> a flawed macroeconomic model.

It strikes me as peculiarly obstinate that you go to so much
trouble to create your straw man when it would be so easy to
destroy my arguments entirely if you could simply destroy
the essence of the derived results:

     (1) Creating a macro economic policy that will, ceteris
paribus, change the distribution of total costs of
production to decrease the "variable" portion and increase
the "fixed" portion at the point of maximum profit will
impel producers to lower prices to increase production and
profits.

     (2) Increasing the purchasing power of consumers will
increase demand.

But, of course, that would require you to surrender your
false beliefs when you come to realize that that's all there
is to creating a macro economic public policy that solves
many of the purported problems of such a complex system.

--
			-- jbod

		Tax Privilege, Not People
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