Believe it or not: Karl Marx is making a comeback

[untermensche]

Self interest is indeed the entirety of human nature.

Nonsense.

Everything humans do is the entirety of human nature.

And that includes the soldier diving on the hand grenade to save his friends. The parent going hungry so their child can eat.

Self-interest is a part of the picture, but it is clearly not the total picture.

And any economic system that doesn't recognize this is flawed.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Self interest is indeed the entirety of human nature.

Nonsense.

Everything humans do is the entirety of human nature.

And that includes the soldier diving on the hand grenade to save his friends. The parent going hungry so their child can eat.

Self-interest is a part of the picture, but it is clearly not the total picture.

And any economic system that doesn't recognize this is flawed.

You didn't get it. The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is acting in his self interest; his self interest is protecting his comrades. Self interest is not necessarily at the expense of others.

 

[ksen]

suicide is the opposite of self-interest...or maybe the height of it depending upon your pov.

 

[NobleSavage]

As to the OP, not so much: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=/m/048cl

 

[Horatio Parker]

suicide is the opposite of self-interest...or maybe the height of it depending upon your pov.

Does a suicide seek a benefit?

 

[dismal]

As to the OP, not so much: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=/m/048cl

The seasonality is rather interesting. I guess it's related to how many people are being exposed to university professors in tweed jackets at any given time.

 

[Harry Bosch]

As to the OP, not so much: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=/m/048cl

The seasonality is rather interesting. I guess it's related to how many people are being exposed to university professors in tweed jackets at any given time.

The professors in tweed jackets also need the chalk boards to show how socialism works, since there are no real world examples to study.

 

[Emily Lake]

Nonsense.

Everything humans do is the entirety of human nature.

And that includes the soldier diving on the hand grenade to save his friends. The parent going hungry so their child can eat.

Self-interest is a part of the picture, but it is clearly not the total picture.

And any economic system that doesn't recognize this is flawed.

You didn't get it. The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is acting in his self interest; his self interest is protecting his comrades. Self interest is not necessarily at the expense of others.

suicide is the opposite of self-interest...or maybe the height of it depending upon your pov.

Self-interest is not self-preservation, and it's not "get mine at all costs". It's acting in the interest of what one values most. Value to humans is NOT solely financial, although in economic models it can be approximated financially when you;re working in aggregate most of the time.

Value to humans is based on many things including time, emotion, sentiment, trade-offs, ease of burden or stress, and of course price. They vary from person to person, and from time to time and situation to situation. I might value my cup of tea in the morning a lot more than you do (especially if you're a coffee drinker). I value it a lot more now that I'm in my 40s than when I was in my 20s and didn't so much need the pick-me-up each day. I value it more on work days when I need to get going in a short period of time than on weekends when I can take my time waking up.

A soldier who throws himself on a grenade might very well be acting in his own self-interest, because he values the sum of the lives that he is saving more than he values his own. It's not suicide, it's self-sacrifice.

Most of the time, people act in their own self-interest - they act in accordance with what they value most. Just because you can't read their minds, and don't know what those values are doesn't mean they don't exist, at least most of the time. Some exceptions exist - they always do. Not everyone is always rational. Even accounting for the schizophrenics and the mentally disabled out there, some people sometimes just react without thinking and get it wrong - we have regrets after all. But often enough to be generalizable to the "model" it holds true.

 

[arkirk]

Nonsense.

Everything humans do is the entirety of human nature.

And that includes the soldier diving on the hand grenade to save his friends. The parent going hungry so their child can eat.

Self-interest is a part of the picture, but it is clearly not the total picture.

And any economic system that doesn't recognize this is flawed.

You didn't get it. The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is acting in his self interest; his self interest is protecting his comrades. Self interest is not necessarily at the expense of others.

Then you are saying it is stupid to act in your self interest? Throwing oneself on a grenade is stupid. So is going near grenades and throwing them at other people. You are in effect supporting the herd instinct and glorifying the stupidity of participation in war.

 

[Emily Lake]

You didn't get it. The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is acting in his self interest; his self interest is protecting his comrades. Self interest is not necessarily at the expense of others.

Then you are saying it is stupid to act in your self interest? Throwing oneself on a grenade is stupid. So is going near grenades and throwing them at other people. You are in effect supporting the herd instinct and glorifying the stupidity of participation in war.

I don't follow you. Can you expand on this?

 

[dismal]

You didn't get it. The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is acting in his self interest; his self interest is protecting his comrades. Self interest is not necessarily at the expense of others.

suicide is the opposite of self-interest...or maybe the height of it depending upon your pov.

Self-interest is not self-preservation, and it's not "get mine at all costs". It's acting in the interest of what one values most. Value to humans is NOT solely financial, although in economic models it can be approximated financially when you;re working in aggregate most of the time.

Value to humans is based on many things including time, emotion, sentiment, trade-offs, ease of burden or stress, and of course price. They vary from person to person, and from time to time and situation to situation. I might value my cup of tea in the morning a lot more than you do (especially if you're a coffee drinker). I value it a lot more now that I'm in my 40s than when I was in my 20s and didn't so much need the pick-me-up each day. I value it more on work days when I need to get going in a short period of time than on weekends when I can take my time waking up.

A soldier who throws himself on a grenade might very well be acting in his own self-interest, because he values the sum of the lives that he is saving more than he values his own. It's not suicide, it's self-sacrifice.

Most of the time, people act in their own self-interest - they act in accordance with what they value most. Just because you can't read their minds, and don't know what those values are doesn't mean they don't exist, at least most of the time. Some exceptions exist - they always do. Not everyone is always rational. Even accounting for the schizophrenics and the mentally disabled out there, some people sometimes just react without thinking and get it wrong - we have regrets after all. But often enough to be generalizable to the "model" it holds true.

Very well said.

I would only quibble with the last paragraph. If someone commits a certain act who are we to say they have not acted in accordance with what they value? The fact they committed the act is evidence that they valued that option most, based on the information that they had at the time and other assorted qualifiers. One person's "rational" is not another's.

 

[Emily Lake]

I would only quibble with the last paragraph. If someone commits a certain act who are we to say they have not acted in accordance with what they value? The fact they committed the act is evidence that they valued that option most, based on the information that they had at the time and other assorted qualifiers. One person's "rational" is not another's.

Allow me to present an anecdote to demonstrate what I meant.

A while back I was drinking a cup of tea, using my favored and most treasured tea cup. I only use it once in a while, when I really want to relax and enjoy a good cup with a good book. The cup is very old porcelain, and was my great grandmothers, and is irreplaceable. As I was sitting on my porch enjoying the sun and my book and my cup of tea, I felt something tickle my bare foot. I glanced down and saw a very large spider skitter across my toes. Without thinking I threw my cup at the spider to kill it.

I destroyed an irreplaceable porcelain tea cup that I valued highly, because I reacted without thought and threw it at a threat. Instinct took over - good old fight-or-flight won out over rational thought. And I can guarantee that I value that tea cup more than I value killing that spider - it was outside and no real danger to anyone. If I'd taken even half a second to think about it, I'd have acted differently, rather than reacting.

It's nice to think that people are always rational, but it's not true. Sure, there's always some explanation... but those explanations don't always include rational thought on the part of the actor. Drunk people aren't necessarily rational, and they make some pretty bad decisions all the time. So do drug addicts. There are any number of reasons that a person might act irrationally in ways that aren't rational.

 

[dismal]

I would only quibble with the last paragraph. If someone commits a certain act who are we to say they have not acted in accordance with what they value? The fact they committed the act is evidence that they valued that option most, based on the information that they had at the time and other assorted qualifiers. One person's "rational" is not another's.

Allow me to present an anecdote to demonstrate what I meant.

A while back I was drinking a cup of tea, using my favored and most treasured tea cup. I only use it once in a while, when I really want to relax and enjoy a good cup with a good book. The cup is very old porcelain, and was my great grandmothers, and is irreplaceable. As I was sitting on my porch enjoying the sun and my book and my cup of tea, I felt something tickle my bare foot. I glanced down and saw a very large spider skitter across my toes. Without thinking I threw my cup at the spider to kill it.

I destroyed an irreplaceable porcelain tea cup that I valued highly, because I reacted without thought and threw it at a threat. Instinct took over - good old fight-or-flight won out over rational thought. And I can guarantee that I value that tea cup more than I value killing that spider - it was outside and no real danger to anyone. If I'd taken even half a second to think about it, I'd have acted differently, rather than reacting.

It's nice to think that people are always rational, but it's not true. Sure, there's always some explanation... but those explanations don't always include rational thought on the part of the actor. Drunk people aren't necessarily rational, and they make some pretty bad decisions all the time. So do drug addicts. There are any number of reasons that a person might act irrationally in ways that aren't rational.

The counter argument would be in that moment you optimized your utility.

Obviously with more time and information you might have made a different choice. But in that moment you did not have that time and information.

"Rational" is just a word we use to describe how we think people ought to act. But if you start with the premise that utility is subjective and personal (which I believe you did...) each individual person must define his own preferences.

 

[Horatio Parker]

You didn't get it. The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is acting in his self interest; his self interest is protecting his comrades. Self interest is not necessarily at the expense of others.

Then you are saying it is stupid to act in your self interest? Throwing oneself on a grenade is stupid. So is going near grenades and throwing them at other people. You are in effect supporting the herd instinct and glorifying the stupidity of participation in war.

I'm saying people act in their own interest whether stupid or not. Some find it in their interest to be altruistic and others don't. You'll never throw yourself on a grenade; fine. Others obviously have a different view. All I'm pointing out is that there is no universal principle here other than pursuing the good.

It seems to me that defenders of capitalism use the idea of self interest to justify exploitation. That somehow capitalism is a mostly benevolent expression of our darker side, and that's ok. I'm saying that it's everyone's task to define the good for themselves. Greed is common but it's no more intrinsic to human nature than altruism. What implications that has for economic systems I don't know, but enshrining immorality seems questionable to me. It sounds to me like an admission that it's not a fair system.

 

[arkirk]

Then you are saying it is stupid to act in your self interest? Throwing oneself on a grenade is stupid. So is going near grenades and throwing them at other people. You are in effect supporting the herd instinct and glorifying the stupidity of participation in war.

I'm saying people act in their own interest whether stupid or not. Some find it in their interest to be altruistic and others don't. You'll never throw yourself on a grenade; fine. Others obviously have a different view. All I'm pointing out is that there is no universal principle here other than pursuing the good.

It seems to me that defenders of capitalism use the idea of self interest to justify exploitation. That somehow capitalism is a mostly benevolent expression of our darker side, and that's ok. I'm saying that it's everyone's task to define the good for themselves. Greed is common but it's no more intrinsic to human nature than altruism. What implications that has for economic systems I don't know, but enshrining immorality seems questionable to me. It sounds to me like an admission that it's not a fair system.

We are living under an unfair political system. I regard fairness as the type of self interest worth pursuing. We need to honor and promote fairness whenever we can and not be discouraged by provocative statements and actions of others.

 

[Bomb#20]

"Self-interest" is not the entirety of human nature.

Imagine if we tried to build an economy around the better aspects of human nature rather than the basest one.

Imagine? If? We don't need to imagine it. We've seen what happens when anti-capitalists try to build an economy around aspects of human nature they like better than self-interest.

Self-interest may be a base aspect, but it's hardly the basest one. For instance, one aspect that's baser is "If the theory does not match the facts they must be discarded.". 19th-century Marxists may perhaps be forgiven -- to believe in that theory when it had never been tried was mind-blowingly stupid, but it wasn't evil. Modern Marxists have no excuse.

 

[arkirk]

"Self-interest" is not the entirety of human nature.

Imagine if we tried to build an economy around the better aspects of human nature rather than the basest one.

Imagine? If? We don't need to imagine it. We've seen what happens when anti-capitalists try to build an economy around aspects of human nature they like better than self-interest.

Self-interest may be a base aspect, but it's hardly the basest one. For instance, one aspect that's baser is "If the theory does not match the facts they must be discarded.". 19th-century Marxists may perhaps be forgiven -- to believe in that theory when it had never been tried was mind-blowingly stupid, but it wasn't evil. Modern Marxists have no excuse.

So, Bomb, here we go again. Just what "facts" are you referring to? Socialism is the future whether you like it or not. What we are looking at today is a dying system of Capitalistic empires. Modern Marxists do not have to make excuses.

 

[lpetrich]

The counter argument would be in that moment you optimized your utility.

That's the sort of thing that makes some people think that economics is a pseudoscience. Something that can explain anything really explains nothing.

 

[dismal]

The counter argument would be in that moment you optimized your utility.

That's the sort of thing that makes some people think that economics is a pseudoscience. Something that can explain anything really explains nothing.

On the plus side, it's better to be able to explain things than have theories that are inconsistent with reality as it can be observed.

Theories of value that do not assume value is personal and subjective have the disadvantage of being observably wrong.

 

[arkirk]

That's the sort of thing that makes some people think that economics is a pseudoscience. Something that can explain anything really explains nothing.

On the plus side, it's better to be able to explain things than have theories that are inconsistent with reality as it can be observed.

Theories of value that do not assume value is personal and subjective have the disadvantage of being observably wrong.

So you think theories that deal with interpersonal relations have no place in your considerations? And you have observed this? Come on, Dismal! You are isolating the individual inside his own brain, when he needs to breathe and eat and shit and keep from getting killed by others who value his nonexistence. It just looks like a string of words to me, full of sound and fury signifying.......