Browsed by
Tag: wealth

A College Degree Does Not Make You a Million Dollars – Article by Andrew Syrios

A College Degree Does Not Make You a Million Dollars – Article by Andrew Syrios

Comments 0 Comment
The New Renaissance Hat
Andrew Syrios
April 13, 2014
******************************

It is becoming substantially less difficult these days to convince people that college is not a sure fire way to the good life. Even Paul Krugman has conceded that “it’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job.” You can say that again: 53 percent of recent graduates are either jobless or underemployed. Unfortunately, myths die hard. Many people still believe as Hillary Clinton once said, “Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly an estimated one million dollars more [than high school graduates].” This may sound convincing, but this figure — based on a Census Bureau report — is about as true as it is relevant.

After all, isn’t it true that the most hard-working and intelligent people tend more to go to college? This is not a nature vs. nurture argument, the factors behind these qualities are unrelated to the discussion at hand. If one grants, however, that the more ambitious and talented go to college in greater proportion than their peers, Mrs. Clinton could have just said “the most hard-working and intelligent earn nearly an estimated one million dollars more than their peers.” I think the presses need not be stopped.

For one thing, the Census Bureau estimate includes super-earners such as CEO’s which skew the average upward. Although some, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, didn’t graduate college, most did. This is why it’s better to use the median (the middle number in the data set) than the mean or average. It’s also why Hillary Clinton and other repeaters of this factoid don’t.

Furthermore, just because most smart people go to college doesn’t mean they should. They may earn more money, but what they keep is more important than what they make. Financial columnist Jack Hough created a very illuminating hypothetical scenario with two people, one who chooses college and one who enters the labor force after high school. Hough then uses the average cost of college as well as U.S. Census Bureau data for the average income of college graduates and non-graduates, adjusted for age. He assumes both save and invest 5 percent of their income each year. By the age of 65, how does the net worth of each look?

  • College Graduate: $400,000
  • High School Graduate: $1,300,000

When one thinks about the common narrative of college vs. no college, it truly becomes absurd. Indeed, who exactly are we comparing? We’re not only comparing Jane-Lawyer to Joe-Carpenter, but we’re also comparing financial analysts with the mentally disabled, medical doctors with welfare dependents, building engineers with drug addicts, architects with pan handlers, marketing directors with immigrants who can barely speak English, and university professors with career criminals (whose earnings, by the way, are rarely reported). Many of these troubled people didn’t graduate high school, but it is shocking how they shuffle kids through the system these days. Some 50 percent of Detroit high school graduates are functionally illiterate and it isn’t that much better for the country on the whole. And something tells me that these particular non-graduates need something other than four years of drinking and studying Lockean (well, more likely Marxian) philosophy.

It certainly could be a good thing to earn a college degree. If one wants to be an accountant, engineer, or doctor, a degree is required. And those jobs have very high incomes. But can one really expect to make a killing with a degree in sociology or Medieval-African-Women’s-Military-Ethnic Studies? Pretty much the only jobs those degrees help one get, in any way other than the “hey, they got a college degree” sort of way, are jobs teaching sociology or Medieval-African-Women’s-Military-Ethnic Studies. And that requires an advanced degree as well (i.e., more money down the tube).

Furthermore, a college degree does not even guarantee a particularly high income. CBS News ran an article on the 20 worst-paying college degrees. The worst was Child and Family Studies with a starting average salary of $29,500 and a mid-career average of $38,400. Art History came in 20th with a starting average of $39,400 and a mid-career average of $57,100. Other degrees in between included elementary education, culinary arts, religious studies, nutrition, and music.

These are decent salaries, but are they worth the monetary and opportunity costs? With the wealth of information on the Internet, many skills can be attained on one’s own. Alternatives to college such as entrepreneurship and apprenticeship programs are often ignored. Indeed, apprentices typically get paid for their work while they are learning. The average yearly wage of a plumber and electrician are $52,950 and $53,030 respectively. That’s better than many college degrees and comes without the debt.

And that debt is getting bigger and bigger as college tuition continues to rise. In the last five years, tuition has gone up 24 percent more than inflation. Including books, supplies, transportation and other costs, in-state college students paid an average of $17,860 for one year in 2013 (out-of-state students paid substantially more). And despite all of that, many students don’t even finish. According to US News & World Report,

Studies have shown that nonselective colleges graduate, on average, 35 percent of their students, while the most competitive schools graduate 88 percent. Harvard’s 97 percent four-year graduation rate might not be that surprising … [but then] Texas Southern University’s rate was 12 percent.

12 percent is simply ridiculous, but the 35 percent for nonselective schools is extremely bad as well. Even the 88 percent for competitive schools leaves 12 percent of their students with no degree, but plenty of debt.

Given all of that, it can’t be surprising that the default rates on student loans (which cannot be wiped away in bankruptcy) appear to be much higher than is typically reported. According to The Chronicle,

[O]ne in every five government loans that entered repayment in 1995 has gone into default. The default rate is higher for loans made to students from two-year colleges, and higher still, reaching 40 percent, for those who attended for-profit institutions …

[T]he government’s official “cohort-default rate,” which measures the percentage of borrowers who default in the first two years of repayment and is used to penalize colleges with high rates, downplays the long-term cost of defaults, capturing only a sliver of the loans that eventually lapse …

College is good for some people. If you want to go into a field that has high earning potential (engineering, medicine, accounting, etc.) or you really like a certain subject and want to dedicate your career to it even if it may not be the best financial decision, go for it. But don’t go to college just because as Colin Hanks says in Orange County, “that’s what you do after high school!”

Andrew Syrios is a Kansas City-based real estate investor and partner with Stewardship Properties. He also blogs at Swifteconomics.com. See Andrew Syrios’s article archives.

This article was published on Mises.org and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution United States License, which requires that credit be given to the author.

Charity, Compulsion, and Conditionality – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Charity, Compulsion, and Conditionality – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Comments 0 Comment

Libertarians’ opposition to coercive redistribution of wealth does not mean that they are opposed to charitable giving that improves people’s lives.

In this video, Mr. Stolyarov analyzes why private charities are more effective in benefiting their intended recipients than programs which involve coercive redistribution of wealth. Paradoxically, it is the extreme conditionality of many coercive welfare programs that leads them to be less effective than the voluntary decisions of diverse individuals and organizations.

References

– “The Costs of Public Income Redistribution and Private Charity” – James Rolph Edwards – Journal of Libertarian Studies – Summer 2007
– In Our Hands: A Plan To Replace The Welfare State (2006) – Book by Charles Murray

Cryptocurrencies as a Single Pool of Wealth – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Cryptocurrencies as a Single Pool of Wealth – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Comments 0 Comment

Mr. Stolyarov offers economic thoughts as to the purchasing power of decentralized electronic currencies, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin.

When considering the real purchasing power of the new cryptocurrencies, we should be looking not at Bitcoin in isolation, but at the combined pool of all cryptocurrencies in existence. In a world of many cryptocurrencies and the possibility of the creation of new cryptocurrencies, a single Bitcoin will purchase less than it could have purchased in a world where Bitcoin was the only possible cryptocurrency.

References

– “Cryptocurrencies as a Single Pool of Wealth: Thoughts on the Purchasing Power of Decentralized Electronic Money” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

– Donations to Mr. Stolyarov via The Rational Argumentator:
Bitcoin – 1J2W6fK4oSgd6s1jYr2qv5WL8rtXpGRXfP
Dogecoin – DCgcDZnTAhoPPkTtNGNrWwwxZ9t5etZqUs

– “2013: Year Of The Bitcoin” – Kitco News – Forbes Magazine – December 10, 2013
– “Bitcoin” – Wikipedia
– “Litecoin” – Wikipedia
– “Namecoin” – Wikipedia
– “Peercoin” – Wikipedia
– “Dogecoin” – Wikipedia
– “Tulip mania” – Wikipedia
– “Moore’s Law” – Wikipedia

– The Theory of Money and Credit (1912) – Ludwig von Mises

The Paradox of Public Assistance – Article by David J. Hebert

The Paradox of Public Assistance – Article by David J. Hebert

Comments 0 Comment
The New Renaissance Hat
David J. Hebert
January 26, 2014
******************************

Let’s put ideology aside for a moment. One might not think it’s morally or politically justifiable to take from one person in order to help another. But for now, let’s ask another question: Does it help?

A lot of people see the existence of “poverty amid plenty,” wherein a few people have acquired a lot of wealth while the overwhelming majority struggles to make ends meet. The standard call is to provide some means of transferring those resources from the haves to the have-nots, either through a progressive tax policy or via some direct transfer program.

The problem with these policies is obviously not in their stated goals. Who could argue against the desire to help people? Nor is it, entirely, the coercive nature of redistribution. The real problem comes in the ability of welfare advocates to actually reduce poverty in an effective and long-lasting manner.

World Coyne

In his latest book, Doing Bad by Doing Good, Chris Coyne discusses problems with delivering effective humanitarian aid to other countries. Coyne identifies two potential problems: the planner’s problem and the incentive problem.

Briefly, the planner’s problem refers to the impossibility of people outside of a society actually to possess the information required to assist in fostering continued economic development. The incentive problem refers to the idea that the planners may face perverse incentives to go ahead and do something that the planner’s problem suggests is impossible to start with.

These points are all well and good, and should be well received at least by readers of this publication. But I think we can go further to urge that the problems Coyne identifies apply equally to issues related to domestic intervention.

Disconnect

The people who advocate most strongly for poverty relief programs are not, in fact, people who are poor. Rather, they are people who are typically either politicians seeking reelection or wealthy people who have some overwhelming desire to do something (usually they want to get other people to give them money to do something). They are not poor, but rather they simply do not like seeing poor people suffer and feel some desire to help. However, because they are not poor themselves, they have absolutely no idea what it is that poor people actually want.

Do they want shelter, clothing, and food? Yes. Do they want education, hygiene, and employment? Of course. But in what order, how much, and of what type? In a world of scarcity, the answers to these questions are of crucial importance if we are to find ways to help the most people as quickly and effectively as possible. And yet, the answers to these questions are wholly unknowable to outside observers.

Similarly, and perhaps more importantly, the incentive problem that the planners face also applies to domestic intervention. Politicians are people who, just like us, are primarily concerned with helping themselves. Given their position, what is in their interest might sometimes in be the interest of the “general public” (providing genuine public goods, the rule of law, etc.) but as James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock rightfully point out in their groundbreaking book, The Calculus of Consent, this is not guaranteed to be true at all times and in all cases. In fact, it may be the case that as a direct result of political involvement, incentives may direct their behavior in ways that enrich concentrated interests and impoverish poor people even more.

The War on Poverty

One answer is that the disparity might be much, much worse without government intervention—that is, the rich would be even richer and the poor would be even poorer. But another possibility is that the war on poverty directly contributes to a burgeoning underclass. How can we adjudicate between these positions?

On the surface, giving people aid seems like a straightforward proposition. We observe people suffering and then send resources to them to alleviate that suffering. On the other hand, as Buchanan pointed out in 1975, we run into problems in which the aid designed to alleviate poverty actually perpetuates it, creating dependency. This dependency, in turn, means that an increasing number of people derive the majority of their income from aid.

Paid to Be Poor

That some of the poor get most of their income from the government is not to argue that welfare recipients are lazy or don’t wish to work. Rather it suggests that the incentives they face may make them reluctant to accept employment opportunities at offered wages. We can think through this proposition logically: Suppose I offer you $240 per week in financial aid while you are between jobs. You would be receiving that money for zero hours of work per week. Being an honest person, you go out and look for work, eventually finding a job that pays you $8 per hour, or $320 per week working full time. Should you take that job?

On the one hand, you would receive more money by taking that job than you would by accepting the aid. However, economics teaches us the value in thinking at the margin. Doing so reveals that you would only receive an additional $120 per week in exchange for your 40 hours of work. In other words, taking into account your opportunity cost, you would really only be earning $3 per hour! While I certainly cannot speak for everyone, I feel reasonably confident in saying that few people in this country value their time at only $3 per hour. Realizing this, it is no puzzle why people receiving aid tend to stay unemployed for so long. The Cato Institute recently published a study offering evidence of the work versus welfare trade-off, which can be found here.

Politics and Perquisites

Now that we understand why domestic aid programs may lead to the perpetuation of poverty among the poor, we’re ready to discuss how they may lead to the enrichment of the already wealthy. When politicians decide to try to do something about an issue, one of the first things that they do is convene special hearings about the issue. Here, they call upon the testimonies of experts to try to figure out (1) what can be done and then (2) how best to do it.

The problem here is that the very people who are best equipped to detail how to solve the problem will typically explain that they themselves (or the people that they represent) are in fact the best to solve the problem and should be awarded the contract to solve the problem. We see this in government all the time. Take, for example, the company that was placed in charge of rebuilding Iraq after the US invasion in 2006: Halliburton, which was formerly run by then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Is it any wonder why this company was awarded these contracts? Kwame Kilpatrick, when he was mayor of Detroit, would routinely award offices and several perks to his friends and family members. Don’t forget about the legendary William Tweed, better known as “Boss Tweed.” The point here is not that all politicians are corrupt, but that knowing a politician who is in a position to award perks puts you in good stead to be the recipient of largesse. And, of course, if that’s true, you have very good reasons to create incentives for the politician to steer favors in your direction. It is the nature of politics.

What to Do

Evidencing the failure of domestic aid to help combat poverty, Abigail Hall has an excellent article, forthcoming in the Journal of Private Enterprise, detailing the failure of the Appalachian Regional Commission. This line of research might lead one to the sobering conclusion that there is little that can be done to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth, however.

We can take away a couple of things from this type of work:

1) The limits of what can be directly achieved through political means of alleviating poverty; and

2) The idea that the expansion of opportunity ultimately drives economic growth and helps the poor.

Rather than focusing on giving poor people the resources to live well, we should instead focus on removing the barriers that prevent people from discovering ways to be productive. Doing so would not only provide them with the tools to lift themselves out of poverty, but would also provide the basis of dignity.

David Hebert is a Ph.D. student in economics at George Mason University. His research interests include public finance and property rights.

This article was originally published by The Foundation for Economic Education.
The Rational Argumentator Now Accepts Dogecoin Donations

The Rational Argumentator Now Accepts Dogecoin Donations

Comments 0 Comment
The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
January 20, 2014
******************************

I am pleased to announce that, in addition to accepting Bitcoin donations, The Rational Argumentator now also accepts donations in Dogecoin, the world’s first meme-based cryptocurrency. This broadening of donation options is motivated by the desire to encourage the further evolution of decentralized media of exchange, and also by the fact that Dogecoin is presently easier to mine than Bitcoin, thereby facilitating easier entry into the cryptocurrency arena for those who wish to mine rather than purchase cryptocurrencies. Besides, as I pointed out in my recent and fast-spreading article, “Cryptocurrencies as a Single Pool of Wealth”, the purchasing power of Bitcoin and all other similar cryptocurrencies is closely connected, as long as there is free exchange among the cryptocurrencies.

You can donate using the code on the sidebar widget. Here are the donation codes for both Bitcoin and Dogecoin, for your convenience.

Bitcoin: 1J2W6fK4oSgd6s1jYr2qv5WL8rtXpGRXfP

Dogecoin: DCgcDZnTAhoPPkTtNGNrWwwxZ9t5etZqUs

Much cryptocurrency of either kind will be appreciated.

Dogecoin_logo

Cryptocurrencies as a Single Pool of Wealth: Thoughts on the Purchasing Power of Decentralized Electronic Money – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Cryptocurrencies as a Single Pool of Wealth: Thoughts on the Purchasing Power of Decentralized Electronic Money – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Comments 0 Comment
The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
January 12, 2014
******************************

The recent meteoric rise in the dollar price of Bitcoin – from around $12 at the beginning of 2013 to several peaks above $1000 at the end – has brought widespread attention to the prospects for and future of cryptocurrencies. I have no material stake in Bitcoin (although I do accept donations), and this article will not attempt to predict whether the current price of Bitcoin signifies mostly lasting value or a bubble akin to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s. Instead of speculation about any particular price level, I hope here to establish a principle pertaining to the purchasing power of cryptocurrencies in general, since Bitcoin is no longer the only one.

Although Bitcoin, developed in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Namakoto, has the distinction and advantage of having been the first cryptocurrency to gain widespread adoption, others, such as Litecoin (2011), Namecoin (2011), Peercoin (2012), and even Dogecoin (2013) – the first cryptocurrency based on an Internet meme – have followed suit. Many of these cryptocurrencies’ fundamental elements are similar. Litecoin’s algorithm is nearly identical to Bitcoin (with the major difference being the fourfold increase in the rate of block processing and transaction confirmation), and the Dogecoin algorithm is the same as that of Litecoin. The premise behind each cryptocurrency is a built-in deflation; the rate of production slows with time, and only 21 million Bitcoins could ever be “mined” electronically. The limit for the total pool of Litecoins is 84 million, whereas the total Dogecoins in circulation will approach an asymptote of 100 billion.

Bitcoin-coins Namecoin_Coin Dogecoin_logoLitecoin_Logo

The deflationary mechanism of each cryptocurrency is admirable; it is an attempt to preserve real purchasing power. With fiat paper money printed by an out-of-control central bank, an increase in the number and denomination of papers (or their electronic equivalents) circulating in the economy will not increase material prosperity or the abundance of real goods; it will only raise the prices of goods in terms of fiat-money quantities. Ludwig von Mises, in his 1912 Theory of Money and Credit, outlined the redistributive effects  of inflation; those who get the new money first (typically politically connected cronies and the institutions they control) will gain in real purchasing power, while those to whom the new money spreads last will lose. Cryptocurrencies are independent of any central issuer (although different organizations administer the technical protocols of each cryptocurrency) and so are not vulnerable to such redistributive inflationary pressures induced by political considerations. This is the principal advantage of cryptocurrencies over any fiat currency issued by a governmental or quasi-governmental central bank. Moreover, the real expenditure of resources (computer hardware and electricity) for mining cryptocurrencies provides a built-in scarcity that further restricts the possibility of inflation.

Yet there is another element to consider. Virtually any major cryptocurrency can be exchanged freely for any other (with some inevitable but minor transaction costs and spreads) as well as for national fiat currencies (with higher transaction costs in both time and money). For instance, on January 12, 2014, one Bitcoin could trade for approximately $850, while one Litecoin could trade for approximately $25, implying an exchange rate of 34 Litecoins per Bitcoin. Due to the similarity in the technical specifications of each cryptocurrency (similar algorithms, similar built-in scarcity, ability to be mined by the same computer hardware, and similar decentralized, distributed generation), any cryptocurrency could theoretically serve an identical function to any other. (The one caveat to this principle is that any future cryptocurrency algorithm that offers increased security from theft could crowd out the others if enough market participants come to recognize it as offering more reliable protection against hackers and fraudsters than the current Bitcoin algorithm and Bitcoin-oriented services do.)  Moreover, any individual or organization with sufficient resources and determination could initiate a new cryptocurrency, much as Billy Markus initiated Dogecoin in part with the intent to provide an amusing reaction to the Bitcoin price crash in early December 2013.

This free entry into the cryptocurrency-creation market, combined with the essential similarity of all cryptocurrencies to date and the ability to readily exchange any one for any other, suggests that we should not be considering the purchasing power of Bitcoin in isolation. Rather, we should view all cryptocurrencies combined as a single pool of wealth. The total purchasing power of this pool of cryptocurrencies in general would depend on a multitude of real factors, including the demand among the general public for an alternative to governmental fiat currencies and the ease with which cryptocurrencies facilitate otherwise cumbersome or infeasible financial transactions. In other words, the properties of cryptocurrencies as stores of value and media of exchange would ultimately determine how much they could purchase, and the activities of arbitrageurs among the cryptocurrencies would tend to produce exchange rates that mirror the relative volumes of each cryptocurrency in existence. For instance, if we make the simplifying assumption that the functional properties of Bitcoin and Litecoin are identical for the practical purposes of users, then the exchange rate between Bitcoins and Litecoins should asymptotically approach 1 Bitcoin to 4 Litecoins, since this will be the ultimate ratio of the number of units of these cryptocurrencies. Of course, at any given time, the true ratio will vary, because each cryptocurrency was initiated at a different time, each has a different amount of computer hardware devoted to mining it, and none has come close to approaching its asymptotic volume.

 What implication does this insight have for the purchasing power of Bitcoin? In a world of many cryptocurrencies and the possibility of the creation of new cryptocurrencies, a single Bitcoin will purchase less than it could have purchased in a world where Bitcoin was the only possible cryptocurrency.  The degree of this effect depends on how many cryptocurrencies are in existence. This, in turn, depends on how many new cryptocurrency models or creative tweaks to existing cryptocurrency models are originated – since it is reasonable to posit that users will have little motive to switch from a more established cryptocurrency to a completely identical but less established cryptocurrency, all other things being equal. If new cryptocurrencies are originated with greater rapidity than the increase in the real purchasing power of cryptocurrencies in total, inflation may become a problem in the cryptocurrency world. The real bulwark against cryptocurrency inflation, then, is not the theoretical upper limit on any particular cryptocurrency’s volume, but rather the practical limitations on the amount of hardware that can be devoted to mining all cryptocurrencies combined. Will the scarcity of mining effort, in spite of future exponential advances in computer processing power in accordance with Moore’s Law, sufficiently restrain the inflationary pressures arising from human creativity in the cryptocurrency arena? Only time will tell.

Pioneers on Time’s Trail – Article by Eric Schulke

Pioneers on Time’s Trail – Article by Eric Schulke

Comments 0 Comment
The New Renaissance Hat
Eric Schulke
January 5, 2014
******************************

The universe, the cities, the souls, times come and past, the big picture of it all, its fortune and fate, happenstance and chance coiling through the airwaves, weaving in and out throughout the corridors and shores and floors… We call it existence, and it’s big, really big.

History’s timeline is like a long path, and we here represent the spot on that trail that time is currently manifested as. The stars in the background are the only imprint remaining that spans history’s trail of mementos, like Dachau death marches and Choctaw trails. Even relics continue the slide as they slowly fade, mountains of their days, now chiseled away by time’s currents.

It’s all wild, legendary, mythical, incredible, and ours – each one of ours. There are worlds of complex mechanisms inside atoms, inside cells, inside creatures, inside ecosystems, on planets, in galaxies, and on and on, leaving us wondering if it really could be like an endless fractal in both directions, and desperate for a chance to know. The long, arduous labors of our prokaryotic precursors are now beginning to bud curious new transhuman fruit. Each one of us materializes on the timeline of humanity, like rickety roller coasters set up on temporary take-down stages for traveling theater, just hoping to stay on the tracks. We have conquered a planet under these circumstances. Like Alexander the Great crossing countries atop Bucephalus, we ride through the universe atop the planet Earth, trying to keep our grip on the reins while we hop from stage to stage.

Not even a percent of a percent of this territory is mapped. What does that mean for all that is outside of the speck of light we are in so far? Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of lives and scenarios are interacting and going down around us every day. You might see an ant fighting with a mutant form of a June bug and be able to contemplate their struggle, but miss the fact that this mutation will soon change the landscape of the area in profound ways. You might just dirt-bike right over the top of them without ever even contemplating that, all the while thinking about the prospects of a ranch-style house in this area and the philosophy of a progressive struggle in a capitalist climate. All this occurs while unknowns surround us. Maybe an unfathomable machine is being created on a planet whose distance we can’t conceive, illuminating answers we never dreamt possible. Maybe an amazingly complex civilization is at its height. Perhaps there are other dimensions with wonders that would blow our minds while they’re blowing our minds.

The poorest among the industrialized citizens today still have their “junky” cars, and stereos, lighters, cell phones, watches (scratch that, clocks are on cell phones now), 3 TVs with “only” 8 basic channels, “old” computers and “slow” internet connections, FDA-tested food, state-of-the-art health technology with emergency transport, malls and restaurants just down the street, the freedom to fly anywhere in the world after a few weeks’ saving, and so many other things. These are our poorest people. They are richer than the richest kings and queens of old. In the same kind of way that the poorest among us today have many times more than the richest kings and queens of centuries ago, so will the poorest of us in a post-definite lifespan world be richer than the richest Forbes List billionaire among us today.

Think of the ancient history: the richest of the kings and queens with the golden thrones, crowns, everything jewel-encrusted, exotic animals, limitless concubines, slaves, best fish tank, singing canaries, speedy buggies, salted turnips, and best open-hole bathroom that money could buy. What is that money worth to them now? Time is money, and if you don’t have any, then you’re dead broke.

Some of these ancients remain with us as mummies today. Now there’s an interesting collision of worlds. Those who could still be here, who want to be here, gave it their best shot, and are still here, now in rags begging for us to come up with a solution to bring them back to life. It was a nice try. Their notions lived on in the DNA of their progeny, working it out, better and better, building the tools and emerging today among us as cryonics, a surer form of mummification. We don’t have the cures or the salves for the mummies, but you still have a shot. You are them; you are the same people, the same blood; you are the ancients, but the future can still be theirs/yours. 1,000 BC, 2,100 AD – it’s all ancient history to the people of 45,000 AD.

We know what is going on in parts of this place we are in, but what about everywhere else? What about how it all interacts? What it all means as a whole? Do we think we can guess what is going on everywhere? We can hardly ever even guess who the culprit is in a typical television murder mystery. Can we even guess what is going on in all the buildings of one single town? Some of those points of light in the nighttime sky are entire galaxies unto themselves. Some of them are entire universes. That space between might not end.

This paper could be expanded to fill libraries with volumes on the limitless and profound, mind-blowing, unencapsulatable nature of it. No, libraries are filled with volumes on exactly that, and even those haven’t begun to scratch the surface of what it means to exist.

So here we are, pioneers on time’s trail, the precursors, surviving caravans retooling for a star trek. What does the big picture of existence have in store for us on the trail ahead?

Eric Schulke was a director at LongeCity during 2009-2013. He has also been an activist with the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension and other causes for over 13 years.

The Extraordinary Business of Life – Article by Sanford Ikeda

The Extraordinary Business of Life – Article by Sanford Ikeda

Comments 0 Comment
The New Renaissance Hat
Sanford Ikeda
May 25, 2013
******************************

I heard it again from this year’s commencement speaker: the common mistake of thinking economics is just about business and making money. I know I’m not the only economics teacher who every year has to disabuse his students (and many of his own colleagues from other disciplines) of that same error.

Economics is not business administration or accounting. Economics is a science that studies how people interact when the means at their disposal are scarce in relation to their ends. That includes business, of course, but a whole lot more as well.

Where Does That Notion Come From?

Well, for starters, perhaps from one of the greatest economists in history, Alfred Marshall. He opens his highly influential textbook, first published in 1890, with this statement:

“Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing.” (Emphasis added)

This definition more or less prevailed until 1932, when another British economist, Lionel Robbins, defined economic science as being concerned with an aspect of all human action insofar as it involves making choices, not with a part of individual action. Economics, in other words, is the science of choice. Its starting point is not the “material requisites of wellbeing” but a person’s subjective valuation of her circumstances. Ludwig von Mises got it, which is why he called his magnum opus, simply, Human Action.

Similarly, Libertarianism Isn’t Pro-Business

An equally common mistake is to think that supporters of the free market are “pro-business” and favor so-called crony capitalism. But a consistent free-market supporter is neither pro-business nor anti-business, pro-labor nor anti-labor. A free market to us is what happens when you safeguard private property, free association, and consistent governance and then just leave people alone.

Part of the misunderstanding here might stem from the term “free market” itself. Since people tend to associate markets with buying and selling, jobs, and making (and losing) money, it’s perhaps understandable that they would think that advocates of the free market must be concerned mainly about business-related stuff: profits and losses, efficiency, and creating and marketing new products.

Indeed, I’ve met quite a few who claim to favor “free-market capitalism” merely because they believe in making as much money as possible in their lifetimes. It’s not surprising that many of these folks do tend to be pro-business and supporters of crony capitalism. I want to ask them not to be on my side.

Connotations aside, the free market encompasses far more than the stuff of business or a money-making scheme. Yes, it does include the essentials of private property, free association, and stable governance. But a dynamic market process that generates widespread material prosperity and promotes the pursuit of happiness would not be possible if it were based solely on the relentless pursuit of one’s narrow self-interest. Markets would not have gotten as far as they have today (with per-capita GDP up more than fiftyfold since 1700) if people didn’t also follow norms of honesty and fair play, trust and reciprocity. Such norms are without question partly the result of self-interest; few would trade with us if we weren’t honest and fair. But, as Adam Smith taught us, these norms also arise in large measure from a sense of sympathy, of fellow-feeling and fairness, that comes from our ability to see others as we see ourselves, and vice versa. This is why in most contexts I usually prefer the term “free society” to “free market.”

Bourgeois Virtue

But I think one good reason the association between business on the one hand and economics and classical liberalism on the other has been so persistent is that business and the free society arose together. That is, the liberal idea—that certain fundamental individual rights exist prior to and apart from the State—sparked one of the most momentous social changes in history: the commercial revolution and the emergence of the modern urban middle class. 

The triumph of liberty, of personal freedom, unleashed the creative potential of people, who found expression in art, religion, literature, but most of all—or at least most visibly—in the Marshallian “ordinary business of life.” The changes that have taken place in the past 500 years—scientific revolutions, religious reformations, political upheavals, artistic rebirths—were driven by the same human propensities as the commercial revolution and fueled by the wealth it produced. Indeed, the social and political changes of the past century—for women, workers, and minorities—would not have been possible without the entrepreneurial pressures of competition and innovation that forced radical changes in conventional thinking and socially conservative attitudes.

Tradition’s Worst Enemy

In short, business is the most dynamic social institution known to mankind. The critical and competitive attitudes that enable business to flourish erode custom and break old ties even as they foster new ones. The products of business tend to offend people whose sensibilities were refined by generations of tradition. The free market is tradition’s worst enemy.

Business has become part of the default mode of modern society. We take it for granted. We don’t realize what a radical, subversive force it is, to the point where it sounds strange to say so. But try to imagine a world without businesses and commerce. A world like the Dark Ages of, say ninth century Western Europe: static, grindingly poor, strictly hierarchical, socially intolerant, and, apart from the occasional battle or beheading, boring like you wouldn’t believe.

So, while it’s still a mistake to think economics and classical liberalism are somehow about studying and promoting business, maybe at a deeper level it’s not such a bad one to make after all. Business is subversive.

Sanford Ikeda is an associate professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism.
***
This article was originally published by The Foundation for Economic Education.
The Best Self-Help is Free – Treatise by G. Stolyarov II – Second Edition

The Best Self-Help is Free – Treatise by G. Stolyarov II – Second Edition

Comments 0 Comment

The Rational Argumentator is pleased to announce the publication of the Second Edition of The Best Self-Help is Free by G. Stolyarov II. This 85-page treatise has been enhanced with additional chapters and is available for free download in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB formats.

Cover Art by Wendy Stolyarov

The Best Self-Help is Free – G. Stolyarov II – Second Edition

Cover Design by Wendy Stolyarov

Public-Domain Cover Art by Albert Bierstadt (1865): Looking Down Yosemite Valley

The Best Self-Help is Free is not your conventional self-help book. Instead of leaving you poorer for purchasing it, this book can only benefit you at no monetary cost to you and with no strings attached.  G. Stolyarov II – author, actuary, philosopher, and rational individualist – presents common-sense, reason-based approaches to improving quality of life, enhancing productivity, and clearly perceiving fundamental realities in the face of widespread obfuscations, fallacies, and illusions. Unlike many self-help books, this one will not attempt to diminish you, break you down, or build you back up in the author’s image. Rather, it is written as a set of respectful deliberations on self-improvement from one fundamentally decent, intelligent person to another, based on the author’s own experiences and discoveries of approaches that truly work to achieve results.

This is the Second Edition of The Best Self-Help is Free, made available (of course) for free. The majority of this 85-page treatise was originally written in 2008. The Second Edition includes five new chapters, written in 2009 and 2012.

The Second Edition of The Best Self-Help is Free is available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB formats.

 

Download the PDF version.

Download the MOBI version.

Download the EPUB version.

 

 

The Rational Argumentator welcomes your reviews of The Best Self-Help is Free. You can submit them to TRA by sending them to gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com. You are also encouraged to spread the word by reprinting the information on this page or your own comments concerning the book on other media outlets.