Conceptualizing the Individual | Economics for People with Ha-Joon Chang

[@chazpercival9501]

Gary Stevenson just chilling in the crowd, love it!

[@DaveE99]

I noticed people acting like neoliberalism is a word invented by the left in the comments. It’s not, it’s based on the neoclassical synthesis that is basically a group of economic theory’s that came together as well as philosophy that focuses on the individual. It’s the foundation of the Regan / Uk thatcher years and kept expanding from their based on its assumption. Neoliberalism is this that idea that the market is the core focus to improve society. It’s a limited view of liberalism that only focused on market freedom, at the expense of other freedoms. This is actually the ideology of both the center right and center left. As it’s the dominant ideology in our country given that so many of our ideas in society from economics on down are based on these ideas. If you don’t know what neoliberalism is, look it up, because unless you can see it, you can’t see what a wrong with it.

[@jonathanbailey1597]

Succinct David.

[@TheCommonS3Nse]

I completely agree with you. People will argue for “lower taxes and deregulation” in order to “free up capital” so the rising tide can lift all boats. They have no idea that they’re just feeding into the same neoliberalism we have been trying for the past 40 years, and this is where it got us. I think this is the same situation Rousseau was describing in France. He said something to the effect of “when wealth in the private realm exceeds wealth in the public realm, it inevitably corrupts the public realm”. You had wealthy people influencing the government to increase spending in their industry, which made them even more rich and gave them further sway over government expenditures and it gets into a vicious cycle. If you look at the history of the neoliberal era in America, you see that the politicians who were most focused on “tax cuts and deregulation” also presided over some of the largest increases to federal spending. Their policies have never resulted in their stated goal of “smaller government”. It has instead done the opposite and increased government spending, just directed towards whoever can afford to lobby them.

[@stacktier8257]

A few interesting parameters to further help define this sense of liberalism seems to be detailed by either plutocrat billionaire, venture capitalist, Nick Hanauer in his TED Talk, "The dirty secret of capitalism -- and a new way forward", or fairly well contrasted by liberal vs coordinated market economies in the 2001 social science textbook, "Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage". The main assumptions that current, relevant schools of thought in heterodox economics empirically prove neoliberal/mainstream/orthodox false, according to Nick Hanauer's talk are: 1.) Markets are always efficient, and find an equilibrium, whereas most schools of thought in heterodox economics proves this is not true. 2.) Price is always equal to value, as defended by a few pedagogically useful ideas, marginal productivity theory and subjective theory of value. 3.) The behavioral model homo economicus that describes we're perfectly selfish, rational, and self-maximizing, and one of the causes of prosperity.

[@DaveE99]

@@stacktier8257 yup I’m with you on all that! History of debt: first 5000 years is a good talk with some decent insights on the authors book, blanking on his exact name, he was an economic anthropologist.

[@stacktier8257]

​@@DaveE99 Yes, also, rest in peace David Graeber, he brought a profound perspective with an anthropological lens to the discussion. Another, surprisingly similiar author to Graeber given his background from within the merky "production boundary", is Richard Vague, i.e. one of his books is "A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises"

[@2late4coffee]

God bless u Ha joon Chang

[@TheCommonS3Nse]

Ha-Joon really nailed the main problem with the idea of individualism… we cannot be individuals without living in a society. Who are you? A good worker? A good friend? A good parent? In order for you to know who you are, you must act in the world and be judged by others. If others think you are a good worker, then you are a good worker. If you are working all alone in solitude, then who is there to say whether the work you’re doing is good or not. You can’t judge for yourself because you are biased. You need the judgement of others in order to know if you’re on the right path.

[@alexanderfuchs8742]

literally born out of an other human being and with others having to selflessly work and care for us so that we can survive

[@stephenyang2844]

I applaud Prof. Chang for posting these helpful lectures.

[@ryanmckenna2047]

Major financial restructuring has been needed for long time. The people with the power to change it like things the way they are.

[@celestialteapot309]

This is dangerous knowledge brilliantly explained

[@carpediem44]

This lecture is a deep, well-thought-out critique of the DESTRUCTIVE nature of "FREE MARKET" ECONOMICS, so just ignore idiotic lies on this thread pretending that Ha-Joon Chang supports the chaos and dysfunction of "FREE MARKET."

[@TTYounga]

@7:37 for those interested in this check out Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model, there are plenty of lectures by Chomsky on this topic on KZbin

[@rfmckean]

Very accessible introduction to issues confronting modern economic theory. I do not like the stage nature of the presentation but the lectures are very informative.

[@casteretpollux]

Freaky zombie-captive demeanour of audience and lack of opportunity to ask questions? Questions are often the best part of lectures.

[@jodalinkus5538]

Edifying, well explicated inner workings of free market economics and it's enormous benefits for society and political stability.

[@celestialteapot309]

I've obviously missed something

[@maxheadrom3088]

3:16 But what self interest Smith was talking about? AFAIK, the will to be liked, to be respected.

[@DrSanity7777777]

“An old English judge once said: ‘Necessitous men are not free men.’ Liberty requires opportunity to make a living-a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for... For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor-other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

[@unlockwithjsr]

political power doesn't mean economic power. There are many communities for example in the US that have been isolated politically for years but still were able to create wealth for themselves and be prosperous

[@DrSanity7777777]

@@unlockwithjsr Economic power is tied closely to political power. It comes from property (the rights and powers of ownership) and the means to acquire property. In today’s 21st century global economy, the most significant forms of property are in advanced technologies and corporate equity. In the USA today, 10% hold 90% of directly owned corporate shares. When ownership is concentrated, power is concentrated. This is why a few people are very powerful and most people are virtually powerless. "Power (influence and control) always follows property... The only possible way then of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue, is to make the acquisition of land (potential productive capital) easy to every member of society: to make a division of the land into small quantities, So that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates (established productive capital)." - John Adams The wealth-producing power of an individual worker has not increased much over the last 1,000 years. Poor people and most non-property-owning workers can only produce insecure subsistence incomes from their jobs. Some people, however, profit from the work that the technology does by owning shares in the companies that use that technology. These people become rich and powerful because they own the things (capital) that produce most of our wealth. In a democratic and just economy everyone should have an equal opportunity and equal access to the means to own shares in companies that use advanced technology. The U.S. economy, for example, should have programs that lift artificial tax and credit barriers to help every American become an owner of American Industry. Every family could then earn income from jobs and income from capital that every family member would own. "Americans are a nation of industrial share croppers who work for somebody else and no other source of income. If a man owns something that will produce a second income, he'll be a better customer for the things that American industry produces... The [expanded ownership] revolution makes two assumptions about the good society. One is that its most important value is freedom…. Never in history has universal suffrage been built on a sound economic foundation…. Secondly, it is assumed that leisure is essential to a civilized definition of affluence…. [T]he totalitarian work state…has no place for whole men, only ‘human resources’ and servile functionaries... A free society does not owe every man a living. It may, and undoubtedly should, as a matter of charity, make modest provision for those who cannot produce the wealth they reasonably need to consume. But its first economic duty to its citizens is to enable them to be or to become productive. One makes men productive not by granting them wages or a salary, only by enabling them to exercise the power to produce in such manner as to produce goods for which there is an economic demand. In an industrial society, in which the burden of production is progressively passing from labor to capital, all men cannot possess the power to produce the wealth they need to consume unless a constantly growing number and proportion of men have access to the ownership of capital. Such access to the ownership of capital cannot be brought about by taking from some who have too much and giving to others who have too little or none, for this would be an attempt to maintain the integrity of private property in capital by means which would destroy it. But it would seem worth considering whether a system of financing new capital formation can be devised which would simultaneously promote the growth of new capital formation and increase the number of households owning viable capital estates." - Louis Kelso kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4bJZmSDbqlpqdk

[@billthompson7072]

Flys in fly bottles blown by glass bottle rhetoric with properties of refraction when any enlightenment is at the right moment 🤔😊🥰

[@hitashasharma2178]

What would I give to meet him one day and maybe even work with him (fingers crossed) !!!! He is a force to reckon with and he's also so cute.

[@SunShine-sn9ek]

👍👍👍👍👍

[@valueengines2184]

You are the boss

[@davidwilkie9551]

Any one point, a selected sum-of-all-histories probability location in infinite potential possibilities, has a reciprocal connection to eternal existence as a locus that has a recognised convention, "centre of gravity" in relationship to the planet, the Solar System and Universe.., which is the mechanism,..the measure of a wave is the pure-math inverse reciprocal of integrated log-antilog potential frequencies wave-packaging holography. The precise location of a personal self is uncertain in the circumstances of axial-tangential orthogonality that is this Universe of Logarithmic Time Duration Timing. (Figure it out)

[@thefakenewsnetwork8072]

Long live communism and freedom

[@davidwilkie9551]

Defence of the family and tribe/community seems most reasonable and rational. "No man is an Island".., John Donne?

[@thatnickid100]

cliff notes, ayn rand is the worst

[@Mishkola]

hah. Rand may be a recognizable name, but she isn't even a good advocate for the ideals she's been used to rationalize.

[@unlockwithjsr]

Why so? Any logical argument for that?

[@thatnickid100]

@@unlockwithjsr i mean its just a youtube comment, you can probably go google negative commentaries on her to find a broader view on why her ideas are trash, but basing an ideology almost entirely off being a selfish dick, when we are a communal species isn't that hard to figure out why its garbage.

[@stavroskarageorgis4804]

Akra*t*ia, Professor. The opposite of enkratia.

[@viralxtweets]

You defined the individual very casually, western philosophy is so rich about who the individual is.

[@chicagofineart9546]

yes, true, western philosophy has been doing that for 3,000 years and it still can't agree. 🤔

[@lugebeatzz8747]

Really?

[@masoud_a_m]

As usual neo-classical is the popular target! The reason they have such seemingly absurd models of individuals is that modeling economy is so damn hard and that's the best we have been able to come up with so far. A real economist wouldn't turn the lecture into an ideological talk but rather try to give a more evenhanded account of possible alternatives too. I could similarly give a hundred reasons cars are terrible things, but does it mean we have a viable alternative now. The fact is we know very little about macro. We are only trying.

[@vibhuvikramaditya4576]

exactly the point, as a graduate student in economics, struggling with general equilibrium proofs, they are absurd because the system is so complex and hard, but still we have been able to reach atleast something, people like debrue and arrow have contributed a lot, and they were not ideologically bent individuals but in pursuit of truth, this lecture doesn't make logical arguments but points out certain things which are left out, Your comment was much needed

[@danielhalm5792]

I agree aside from the fact that in most of the lectures I’ve seen, Ha-joon does provide alternate theses.

[@dariuschong4574]

@@vibhuvikramaditya4576 I'm curious. Do you learn about complex adaptive systems, dynamical systems, approximation theory or entropy? Basically the mathematics of complex systems. I often realise that economist come up with models that are too simplistic and reflects nothing about real life. And, correct me if I'm wrong, they don't seem to learn much/at all about the mathematics that I've just mentioned which seems to me mathematics that are more suited for describing systems with complex and random behaviour. Also, how much do you focus on the historical, sociological, psychological, political and philosophical side of economics? I mean... we're learning about human behaviour after all and how they maximise their satisfaction given a certain set of constraints. In technical terms, how economic agents maximise utility given scarcity exists. We're not learning about atoms and molecules so surely mathematics alone is not enough to study economics right?

[@vibhuvikramaditya4576]

@@dariuschong4574 absolutely not, Mathematics is a language like every other language, it has its benefits of abstractions of thoughts which english or any other lingual languages are not capable of, I understand what you want to communicate and I am glad you mentioned the various complexities of economic life, where the pure economic base is nested inside the superstructure of ideology, politics, sociological and historiographical essence, I am looking to answer the same question you pose, Thanks a lot for articulating it in such a precise manner, my thinking has changed a lot from 10 months ago when I commented the earlier statements yet the spirit of my statements still remain the same, economics should be studied as a valueless science even though as human beings our belief structures give us the orienting pole of action in life, without which one cannot act in this world

[@HecVD]

"I don't agree ergo is ideological"

[@dallasweaver4061]

All he did say is that the individual isn't a perfect decision-maker, which is obvious. He didn't say what is better than the individual in making decisions for the individual. Yes, short-term self-interest is not the same as long-term enlightened self-interest, so what. However, economic decisions need to be made as we are interacting in a complex interrelated economy and are not purely self-sufficient individuals. Designing an economic system utilizing a supply/demand market mechanism allows the creation of a workable economy without requiring a "godhead" wise person to make all decisions. The supply/demand markets create feedback control loops where an increase in demand creates an increase in supply by increasing the profitability of supplying the desired product at the expense of less desirable products. the self-interest of the supplier is to increase the supply. This just automates your ability to get bread or food without requiring a super wise decision-maker, much like that thermostat on your wall that sets the room temperature at what you want, without you having to understand how it works. Having individuals as decision-makers doesn't change with large organizations or governments where some individuals are making decisions. If the organization making the decisions is a monopoly, it can make the decisions in the self-interest of the decision-makers as individuals and/or to benefit the members of the institution, with or without inputs from the individuals being impacted by those decisions. Having government institutions make decisions are just allowing a monopoly with individuals in the decision-making positions to tell you what kind of bread you want and they may not like sourdough french bread. It is not in their self-interest to consider your individual choice when giving everyone brown bread is a simpler decision. He is clearly not smart enough to handle the complexity of the economy, so I trust individuals to set their own thermostats with markets that aren't perfect, but better than all alternatives. This is the type of obvious complaint you get from Marxists who think that central planners can be perfect decision-makers. If they give you their solution to the decision problem you may give back examples of such decision-making systems resulting in a hundred million people starving to death from planning decision-making errors. He didn't mention that a feedback control system can have instabilities when the supply expansion is limited by regulators who have no self-interest in keeping the response efficient and timely. For example, housing shortages and price instabilities result from delays in permissions to build new housing.

[@awalkwithtilly6512]

Is it not the case that like most questions economic ones are nuanced? Would it not be reasonable, indeed sensible to have some degree of government intervention, that isn't to say complete control or command rather a degree of balance between the interest of the individual and the group. Where that line is drawn is being best determined by democratic action, again a far from perfect process but the best of the available alternatives. Just as an unimpeded command economy has resulted in atrocity, why would individualistic determinism result in anything other than a form of feudalism with a high degree of possibility of similar outcomes?

[@dallasweaver4061]

@@awalkwithtilly6512 It is not reasonable to allow some outside rent seeking government individual claiming to "represent the group" to have decision making power. Without any skin in the game, his decision making being in a monopoly positions is unconstrained by considerations of markets and what people want.

[@awalkwithtilly6512]

@@dallasweaver4061 well it could be effectively argued that a degree of democratic accountability would legitimise a degree of regulation and implementation of legal framework. Perhaps you are of the opinion that an unregulated market would offer any form of consumer or environmental protection or that a monopolistic service or commodity supplier would decide to offer its work force more than it needed to which with zero regulatory control would very likely become little more than subsistence... There's literally no such thing as a free market other than in a text book all business will become monopolistic overtime without a regulatory framework. The result effectively is a form of feudalism as bad for the average individual in that society as a communist dictatorship, in actuality the same in all but name. All but a tiny group at the very pinnacle effectively serfs and their masters.

[@dallasweaver4061]

@@awalkwithtilly6512 Note that in competitive supply/demand markets where the response time of the supply function is faster than the variation rate of the demand function, the market effectively feedbacks the choices and desires of the customers to the producers. Note that all old industrial and governmental institutions can't adapt to change. Just look at how all the government agencies responded to COVID-19 and show their evolution into incompetence. Compare the response of Amazon to a huge demand increase to the CDC's slow and incompetent response. Actual observation is that old monopoly private sector institutions use government regulatory institutions to maintain their monopoly (hearing aids, eye glasses, hair braiding, etc.) to the detriment of the citizens. Do you honestly believe a $3,000 FDA approved hearing aid could compete with Apple and its i-pod modified for only allowing sound from the plane made by the two speakers being amplified on software specified frequencies and canceling other noise from all other directions. However, In a society that allows technological change to occur we have the possibility of monopoly companies failing with the best example being IBM that owned the world of my youth. It failed with the PC revolution to a bunch of garage shop kids. The private market sector has a failure mechanism called bankruptcy and the government monopolies don't, so their decision making becomes frozen with no ability to change. Remember in a competitive market, if I have a 10% advantage over my competitors, I win in the long run and so does the society. However to achieve that society 10% improvement we have to have at least 10% of the competitors fail. This process of institutional death is critical to why market based decision making systems can succeed in evolving and socialist (democratic or authoritarian) can't evolve and become frozen and failures like our government institutions. Note that death is also a critical part of natural evolution. Without death, evolution won't work. Death of a government bureaucracy is near impossible, but these living dead zombies can kill viable young competitors with paperwork.

[@awalkwithtilly6512]

@@dallasweaver4061 you are aware that all the references you have given have occurred in a highly regulated market with that regulation being created and inforced by governmental agencies. Amazon your first example operate under a raft of regulation to stop them from exploiting their customers their work force and the communities they operate within if you don't think they would if not regulated look around the world to where regulation is either not present or not enforced look at the countless examples of multinational corporations exploiting third world low regulation countries that don't have well developed governmental institutions to stop this exploitation. A market will only work efficiently and to the ultimate benefit of customer and worker with sufficient government enforced regulation to ensure that it doesn't allow the exploitation of its users.

[@casteretpollux]

Useful encapsulation of some of the fallacies of individualism but spoiled by a very irrational and over rosy view of employee status in the 21st century. Zero hour contracts, no toilet breaks' Uberism, no union rights, impoverishment of workers in advanced countries to the direct benefit of a tiny few oligarchs , have escaped the speaker's attention?

[@hopesouthstar4304]

🥘🍴😂

[@vibhuvikramaditya4576]

As usual neo-classical is the popular target! The reason they have such seemingly absurd models of individuals is that modeling economy is so damn hard and that's the best we have been able to come up with so far. A real economist wouldn't turn the lecture into an ideological talk but rather try to give a more evenhanded account of possible alternatives too. I could similarly give a hundred reasons cars are terrible things, but does it mean we have a viable alternative now. The fact is we know very little about macro. We are only trying. exactly the point, as a graduate student in economics, struggling with general equilibrium proofs, they are absurd because the system is so complex and hard, but still we have been able to reach at least something, people like debrue and arrow have contributed a lot, and they were not ideologically bent individuals but in pursuit of truth, this lecture doesn't make logical arguments but points out certain things which are left out in today's economic modeling, A day will surely come when we solve that too

[@joelin5887]

But why should we be fixated or have an obsessive impulse of trying to estimate a complex social world through maths, econometrics, and to twist economics into natural science?? You don’t have to be the mental slave of Friedman’s anchoring. Leave economics or rather political economy as a form of qualitative pursuit of reality.

[@JustinFisher777]

​@@joelin5887 well said

[@patricksullivan4329]

I think it is hilarious that this is billed as, 'Economics for People,' when his message is that people can't be trusted to make their own decisions about what economic choices are to be made. It doesn't seem to enter his brain that ALL choices will be made by people. It's just a question of which people get to decide. The 20th century was something of a laboratory experiment of individual choice versus collective choice. After millions of people were murdered by their own governments in places like Kim's North Korea, Mao's China and Stalin's Russia in the name of collective choice (aka, socialism) they had to throw in the towel and concede that countries with more commitment to individualism were happier places to live. Yet, now we have this very ignorant man, Ha-Joon Chang, arguing the collectivists were right!

[@patricksullivan4329]

@Frank Lee Dontcare Democracy, like all human decision making, has its strengths and its weaknesses. Would you recommend democratic choice within families (where three children could outvote two parents)? In those rare situations where collective choice has advantages that outweigh its disadvantages, I'd be for it. But, the evidence is that there are few areas where democracy works well. The reason is that democracy uses very little effective knowledge to come to choosing from alternatives available. This is something that politicians know very well, and exploit to their advantage.

[@patricksullivan4329]

@Frank Lee Dontcare Specifically, what historical examples have I misrepresented? Imperfect knowledge is a characteristic of all human decision making (would you like to present an example to the contrary?), so your statement is nonsense. One huge disadvantage to collective decision making is the lack of effective feedback to the decision maker. Ever know a politician who kept his promises? In private, market based decisions, consumers have effective mechanisms when they are disappointed in the results of their decisions; they stop buying from those who disappoint and change their decisions if there is a competitor. As ti your statement: "An intentional asymmetry of knowledge is perpetuated in this society and used as an excuse to exclude the majority from decision making that impacts powerful minorities." Congratulations. You've just stumbled into exactly a reason to avoid collective (political) decision making. Politicians are masters of confusing the majority of voters in order to serve powerful minorities. This isn't exactly a secret. Nobel Prizes in economics have been awarded to people like James Buchanan for their contributions to this discipline. It's called Public Choice Theory.

[@patricksullivan4329]

@Frank Lee Dontcare Oh, what do you call the recent election? I did not misrepresent anything. I QUOTED you exactly. Maybe you should think about what you say, before you post.

[@ApplesOranges123]

Oops, George Soros. Unsubscribe.