tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post5729284060975366780..comments2024-03-18T06:41:03.841-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: The Modern BastiatEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-58805904835978635492012-06-12T06:48:53.805-04:002012-06-12T06:48:53.805-04:00"I've been following Don for years now - ..."I've been following Don for years now - he's not a particularly good interpreter of Krugman."<br /><br />Whether that is true or not is unimportant if you are interested in what DB has to say or has to say about PK.<br /><br />Full disclosure: I haven't been following PK or DB for years now. Or CF for that matter.<a href="http://www.sacekimioncesivesonrasi.net/" rel="nofollow">saç ekimi öncesi ve sonrasi</a>Op Dr Ali Mezdeğihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14976292285471666168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-22087105841221820672011-11-10T00:43:34.534-05:002011-11-10T00:43:34.534-05:00Also you might want to consider just submitting th...Also you might want to consider just submitting the information that Daniel's design has been wrong in the last. I don't see why he would object! Why withhold it in the first place?英文SEOhttp://www.weijianseo.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-27233623173697216732011-11-09T10:32:04.827-05:002011-11-09T10:32:04.827-05:00DK-
"I think it's best to say that interp...DK-<br />"I think it's best to say that interpretation is valuable but never perfect. To that I would add - some interpretation is more valuable than others."<br /><br />I agree completely with both thoughts. It seems to me that this particular format of idea exchange biases toward interpreting statements with as little give as possible, simply so that one can argue.Charles Ricenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-69943788180392343532011-11-08T21:59:24.701-05:002011-11-08T21:59:24.701-05:00Silas,
Fair enough. As I said I have no dog in th...Silas,<br /><br />Fair enough. As I said I have no dog in that fight and I certainly don't doubt your own belief that you are correct. I was merely pointing out that Jonathan's post in this thread didn't say what you said it did. Perhaps he's said it elsewhere?<br /><br />Also you might want to consider just posting the evidence that Daniel's interpretation has been incorrect in the past. I don't see why he would object! Why withhold it in the first place?<br /><br />Mark,<br /><br />"(a) The money spent on fixing a broken window would have been spent otherwise.<br /><br />(b) The broken window was not replaced by a better window.<br /><br />(c) The broken window was not used as an opportunity by the shopkeeper to, say, revamp his store."<br /><br />Mark, Are you trying to say Daniel argues that wealth was created from breaking the window? <br /><br />re: "<i>Let me know where you live, and when you'd like to have all your windows broken. I love smashing things.</i>"<br /><br />Thats something you might want to get checked out, Mark. :)Warrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02228934208444865712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-42347018254615977202011-11-08T20:54:51.687-05:002011-11-08T20:54:51.687-05:00(a) The money spent on fixing a broken window woul...(a) The money spent on fixing a broken window would have been spent otherwise.<br /><br />(b) The broken window was not replaced by a better window.<br /><br />(c) The broken window was not used as an opportunity by the shopkeeper to, say, revamp his store.<br /><br />Let me know where you live, and when you'd like to have all your windows broken. I love smashing things.<br /><br />;-)Mark Bahnerhttp://markbahner.typepad.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-30561724792206029122011-11-08T20:43:56.152-05:002011-11-08T20:43:56.152-05:00Since we're on the subject of Don Boudreaux ma...Since we're on the subject of Don Boudreaux may I present every DB letter to the editor ever:<br /><br />http://i.imgur.com/7WYPi.png<br /><br />Invisible Backhand<br />http://www.reddit.com/r/CafeHayek/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-10313988101030056242011-11-08T19:59:20.036-05:002011-11-08T19:59:20.036-05:00So, PK is a right-winger? Good to know. (JK)
;)...So, PK is a right-winger? Good to know. (JK)<br /><br />;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-18372286206403339072011-11-08T15:48:42.947-05:002011-11-08T15:48:42.947-05:00@Warren: Well, I'm pretty sure I interpret it ...@Warren: Well, I'm pretty sure I interpret it better than someone who's posted two contradictory interpretations!Silas Bartahttp://silasx.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-20529263882213701332011-11-08T15:11:53.875-05:002011-11-08T15:11:53.875-05:00Gary,
"Anyway, very rarely do exercises like...Gary,<br /><br />"<i>Anyway, very rarely do exercises like this do anything more than butcher history (and that makes a lot of assumptions about history obviously).</i>"<br /><br />I agree.<br /><br />Silas,<br /><br />I'm certainly no expert on the broken window fallacy or any of Bastiat's writings, but given that you wrote "<i>I agree with Jonathan_M.F._Catalan: you don't understand the fallacy yourself.</i>" I'm already skeptical as to why I'd trust <b>your</b> interpretation of it!Warrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02228934208444865712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-52102818490018581982011-11-08T14:22:04.268-05:002011-11-08T14:22:04.268-05:00Both PK and DB have said some excessively stupid t...Both PK and DB have said some excessively stupid things in my limited experience with their blogs (the one that always comes to mind with PK is his comments on the shooting in Arizona); I too say excessively stupid things from time to time, but I have to live with that and it normally provides me some benefit in the long run (I get corrected and I learn something). <br /><br />I'm not young enough anymore to be concerned with changing someone's mind; plus I don't really think it works that way anyway, and I'm congenitally anti-evangelical.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-38038261206580547012011-11-08T13:58:42.266-05:002011-11-08T13:58:42.266-05:00re: "Whether that is true or not is unimporta...re: <i>"Whether that is true or not is unimportant if you are interested in what DB has to say or has to say about PK."</i><br /><br />Clearly. I still follow DB because I have an interest in what he thinks about PK (and Keynesianism generally), because I think he spreads a lot of confusion on the matter and I find it worth addressing it because he has such a wide readership. "If I can change one mind..." yadda yadda yadda.<br /><br />What I said is true. But since I don't go to Don for good interpretations of Krugman, as you say it doesn't matter much.<br /><br />Some people <i>do</i> go to Don for good interpretations of Krugman, and that is the major concern here (for me at least - if you don't find it to be a concern of course that's your own business).Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-77895754666366475752011-11-08T13:50:12.514-05:002011-11-08T13:50:12.514-05:00"I've been following Don for years now - ..."I've been following Don for years now - he's not a particularly good interpreter of Krugman."<br /><br />Whether that is true or not is unimportant if you are interested in what DB has to say or has to say about PK.<br /><br />Full disclosure: I haven't been following PK or DB for years now. Or CF for that matter.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-26879123273004279722011-11-08T13:46:10.347-05:002011-11-08T13:46:10.347-05:00Charles Rice,
Well said.Charles Rice,<br /><br />Well said.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-6736708931275082642011-11-08T13:43:46.993-05:002011-11-08T13:43:46.993-05:00Charles Rice -
I think you go a little too far - i...Charles Rice -<br />I think you go a little too far - interpretation can be extremely valuable. If we were to take the reasonable parts of your argument as literally as you seem to want to, then it doesn't even help to read "what they write" because comprehension can't possibly come along with my reading. I think it's best to say that interpretation is valuable but never perfect.<br /><br />To that I would add - some interpretation is more valuable than others. I've been following Don for years now - he's not a particularly good interpreter of Krugman. It has nothing to do with the fact that they disagree with each other. Bob Murphy disagrees with him and he's an example of someone who does quite well interpreting Krugman (Bob's downside is that he has a penchant for trying to find contradictions everywhere in Krugman - usually contingent on some vague phrasing or on some fairly reasonable assumption that's just left unstated... any post of Bob's that's not billed as a "Krugman Kontradiction" is usually quite a thoughtful piece).<br /><br />Look, I don't go to Krugman for a good critique of any Austrian. He's a <i>bad</i> critical interpreter of Austrians. That's not the same as saying that we can't get value from interpreters of Austrian economics (or from interpreters of Krugman).Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-13958452643297479712011-11-08T13:20:44.654-05:002011-11-08T13:20:44.654-05:00"Don Boudreaux, who is one of the last people..."Don Boudreaux, who is one of the last people you should ever read if you want to understand anything that Krugman says"<br /><br />If I want to understand PK, I simply read PK. If I want to understand DB, I read DB. If I want to know what DB thinks about PK, I read DB. <br /><br />DB, or me, or you, or PK, have no special powers to truly understand what anyone really means beyond what they write.<br /><br />PK frequently makes comments like "he was pretending to be stupid" (referring to Greg Mankiw), or "he reveals more than he intended" (referring to Russ Roberts), or "he probably does not believe this himself" (don't remember to whom he was referring). PK, despite his formidable intellect, cannot possibly know things about a person other than what that person wrote.<br /><br />My point here is, if you want to read a counter point to PK, by all means read DB. If you want to stand in a echo chamber, never leave the PK blog or its comments, or cafehayek.<br /><br />If you want to test your current personal bias set read both DB and PK, and read what they think about each other.Charles Ricenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-86760177014411256962011-11-08T12:54:00.102-05:002011-11-08T12:54:00.102-05:00But I guess that way of looking at history is &quo...But I guess that way of looking at history is "trolling."Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-88132650988353825572011-11-08T12:51:05.333-05:002011-11-08T12:51:05.333-05:00Daniel,
Oh no, the dreaded pelicans in folklore! ...Daniel,<br /><br />Oh no, the dreaded pelicans in folklore! http://pacificcresttrail.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/fisheries/<br /><br />I'm fairly certain that one could cherry pick parallels between Bastiat and lots of folks in the commentariat, etc. these days; I would most likely find them all equally unconvincing (that includes the effort to compare Ron Paul to Bastiat - of which there are many possible paralells and which people often do). I'd rather deal with the real Bastiat as much as that is possible, it is (to me at least) a much interesting question than trying to marry him up with some figure of current prominence.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-36422549734077747052011-11-08T12:39:35.644-05:002011-11-08T12:39:35.644-05:00Karl Smith has a lot of great detail on Krugman/Ba...Karl Smith has a lot of great detail on Krugman/Bastiat parallels here: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_modern_bast.html#167762<br /><br /><br />If commenters find that boring they should probably just continue to blog about the significance of pelicans in folklore and leave others who find it interesting to their own devices.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-90206408852017992902011-11-08T12:36:07.021-05:002011-11-08T12:36:07.021-05:00Daniel,
Just curious, how much of Bastiat have yo...Daniel,<br /><br />Just curious, how much of Bastiat have you ever actually read?Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-80547152545864855742011-11-08T12:33:28.117-05:002011-11-08T12:33:28.117-05:00Daniel Kuehn,
I didn't say he was looking for...Daniel Kuehn,<br /><br />I didn't say he was looking for a Bastiat doppelganger. I'm saying that it is a pointless and silly question which leads nowhere (this is the third time I've made this point in one way or another in this dialogue). So I adopt a different approach entirely to the issue that Henderson does not in anyway intimate, nor do I suggest he does. Now that we've settled that hopefully...<br /><br />As for the trolling bit, ahh, whatever.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-65814899730307538412011-11-08T12:21:00.402-05:002011-11-08T12:21:00.402-05:00It's not strange at all to be interested in Ba...It's not strange at all to be interested in Bastiat for who he was.<br /><br />What is strange is to think that Henderson was looking for a Bastiat doppelganger.<br /><br />Granted, if it didn't give you a chance to troll I doubt you'd have interpreted him that way.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-7198619454713626292011-11-08T12:17:22.058-05:002011-11-08T12:17:22.058-05:00Daniel,
Yes, I'm interested in Bastiat for wh...Daniel,<br /><br />Yes, I'm interested in Bastiat for who he was; that probably is a "strange" way to look at it.<br /><br />It isn't an issue of interpretation; I'm not interested in the way the question was framed to start with. It is the sort of question in fact where you are going to get a bunch of predictable answers in a very predictable way. Boring. <br /><br />Keynes doesn't fit that biography at all; for example, Keynes came from a well to do family which was prominent in the UK before he became prominent. Bastiat doesn't come from anything like that background; he was an orphan; he dropped out of school in order to work in the family business in his teens; he did have the good fortune to inherit from his grandfather in his twenties enough money to make him financially secure; etc. Bastiat never went to anything like Cambridge, he was a provincial most of his life (until 1844), and he came upon his vast erudition in a self-taught manner and through his conversations with a local group of mostly men who he held regular meetings with. They did both write works that made them prominent in a splashy way initially, but they have vastly different biographies.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-8856056043950498082011-11-08T11:58:45.197-05:002011-11-08T11:58:45.197-05:00Gary wins the prize for strangest response of the ...Gary wins the prize for strangest response of the whole discussion.<br /><br />You seem to be interested in reproducing Bastiat's entire biography. As you point out, no one will fit that bill. But who is talking about anything like that?<br /><br />Most people I think interpreted Henderson to mean <i>"who is the modern person who is outspoken and excels at educating the public about good economic thinking using the written word, and promotes a better society in opposition to a political status quo"</i>. The obvious answer to that today is "Paul Krugman". In recent decades we could add Friedman too.<br /><br />Other seem to have interpreted Henderson as asking <i>"Who is today's eloquent popularizer of libertarianism"</i>.<br /><br />Nobody except you seems to have read him as reproducing Bastiat's entire biography.<br /><br /><i>However</i>, Keynes fits that biography closer than most.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-79510792941665238702011-11-08T11:28:18.652-05:002011-11-08T11:28:18.652-05:00I've found that most fans of Bastiat's oft...<i>I've found that most fans of Bastiat's often misunderstand and regularly misapply the broken window fallacy - I've gone over that point a lot here.</i><br /><br />Yes, Daniel_Kuehn, and if I recall correctly, the last time you lectured us rubes about "broken windows only applies during crowding out", you ended up having to redo your own analysis and retract several statements you made about such supposed "misapplications". Do I need to get the links?<br /><br />Eventually, I remember you agreeing that society is not better off, as judged from the standpoint before a natural disaster, when one hits, but that it's better to rebuild, given a disaster. Which, of course, no one disputed all along.<br /><br />I agree with Jonathan_M.F._Catalan: you don't understand the fallacy yourself.Silas Bartahttp://silasx.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-54433390186687172662011-11-08T10:24:35.521-05:002011-11-08T10:24:35.521-05:00Prateek Sanjay,
I don't think of Bastiat as b...Prateek Sanjay,<br /><br />I don't think of Bastiat as being an economist; he was an auto-didact who soaked himself in a broad range of intellectual pursuits. That's partly why he is constantly dropping allusions to a broad range of literary, etc. works - from Virgil to More to Terence to Racine (obviously he is also dropping allusions to various "economists" who preceded him as well). Bastiat always shows a massive range of learning in his works; he was self-educated in a very liberal manner at it shows in his writing.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.com