Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Who said it?

"Showing that one institutional arrangement leads to suboptimal performance is not equivalent, however, to showing that another institutional arrangement will perform better."

7 comments:

  1. I know who said it, but I should also point out that one should also head their own words. Does one support and give credence to a system of focused attention and control of what is that that surrounds them, or does one relinquish themselves to the emergent order and that in which they cannot ever hope to control? Certainly, as a social democrat, you would support the former; I, as a firm believer in the more vast dispersement of information and abilities, would choose the latter. In the finality of economic contemplation, I would state that not a single individual or even a chorus of like-minded individuals can necessarily act for the whole-- to do so can only end in disastrous and single-minded chaos. Such is the case when billions of people interact/cooperate with one another in order to improve the state of humanity itself.

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    1. "Heed their own words", not "head their own words"

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  2. I used to think you kept things pretty straight, Joseph, but lately I've gotten the sense that you have very little idea of where I'm coming from.

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    1. That's funny, because I have often gotten the same sense about you. Time and personal thoughts/feelings have a strange sense in this respect. I would hope that at some point there will be a more balanced aspect to things, but one never knows. I certainly don't have any animosity toward you personally on an intellectual level with regard to economic concerns, but it is most assuredly the case that we do have great departures in belief when it comes to political matters, most specifically that of foreign policy, as well as the preferred structure of society itself.

      I think that I do know where you are coming from, only that our concepts of a just and free society are fantastically different.

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    2. Oh, I just thought that I would mention that I am getting my own blog up and running. I hope that I can use this tool to more fully elaborate upon exactly where I stand with regard to economics and political philosophy (mostly political philosophy). I am not much of a writer, so we'll have to see how it goes.

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  3. In other words, problems of capitalism are not justification for post-capitalist utopia.

    And problems of government are not justification for any anarchist worker's paradise.

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    1. Yes, the world is rife with problems, every one of which we are all trying to solve. The sad part about it is that even after we are all gone, these problems will persist and new contemplators will attempt to wrestle with them into infinitude. I've often asked myself, "why do I care". The only answer that I have come up with is, "just cause".

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