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Bruce Caldwell endorses Axiomatic Economics

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It was actually very brave of Bruce Caldwell to defy all the other Hayek worshipers and come out in support of Axiomatic Theory of Economics. Three cheers for Bruce Caldwell! Now if only the rest of the Hayek worshipers will follow Bruce Caldwell’s example, renounce their cultish religion, and take up real science.

F. A. Hayek and the Economic Calculus
 
"The assumptions made in Axiomatic Theory of Economics about the knowledge that agents are assumed to possess applies only to individuals. The agent is assumed to have a plan and to know his or her own tastes and preferences and constraints, and if these are all known and do not change, the choice made is simply a matter of logic."

Logic doesn't compute with assumptions, this is total nonsense to even call it logical.

Let me assume, assume, assume, oh yes logic!

No not really, nice try though.
 
It was actually very brave of Bruce Caldwell to defy all the other Hayek worshipers and come out in support of Axiomatic Theory of Economics. Three cheers for Bruce Caldwell! Now if only the rest of the Hayek worshipers will follow Bruce Caldwell’s example, renounce their cultish religion, and take up real science.

What are you even talking about? Either you can choose how you use your limited resources...or somebody else chooses for you. There's Hayek...and there's socialism. There's humility...and there's conceit.

For example...how much of your time (a limited resource) should you spend writing a reply to me? Either you answer this question for yourself...or somebody else answers this question for you. How conceited would I have to be to answer this question for you? What are the chances that I would get the answer right?

Right now we have a mixed economy. The private sector is a market economy and the public sector is a command economy. The private sector efficiently allocates resources. Why? Because the supply is determined by the demand (the preferences of consumers). The public sector does NOT efficiently allocate resources. Why? Because the supply is NOT determined by the demand. It's determined by 300 government planners who are conceited enough to believe that they know the true preferences of 300 million consumers.

The solution is simple...allow the actual demand for public goods to determine the supply of public goods.

So is it cultish to understand the harmful consequences of conceit? Absolutely not.
 
Nice straw man attack! :)

How is it a straw man attack? Again, what are you talking about?

Like I said, either you choose how you spend your resources...or somebody else chooses for you. Being able to choose how you spend your resources is freedom...liberty. Not being able to choose for yourself is socialism.

Hayek was one of the biggest advocates for people shopping for themselves. He referred to the alternative as the Fatal Conceit. It requires quite a bit of conceit to take people's choices away from them. You have to believe that you know better than they do.

Hayek was by no means the first to understand this. Bastiat was spot on...

Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.

What do we want with a Socialist then, who, under pretence of organizing for us, comes despotically to break up our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilization back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association, because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it, judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come and impose upon us his plan and his will, and as it were, to concentrate mankind in himself?

Ah, you miserable creatures! You think you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That would be sufficient enough.

Before Bastiat there was Adam Smith...

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

"The man of the system"..."legislators and the organizers"...congresspeople...all suffer from conceit. Smith, Bastiat and Hayek all understood this. They firmly grasped what the consequences are when people's choices are taken away from them.

Now here you are arguing that this is some cultish religion. Again, what are you talking about? Are you capable of actually engaging my arguments? Do you not understand my arguments?

It's really really simple. Either people shop for themselves...or somebody shops for them. Markets work because people can shop for themselves. They spend their resources on the things that match their preferences. The alternative... command economies, planned economies, socialism, communism...is where a few conceited planners shop for millions of individuals. But how can a few government planners possibly know the preferences of millions and millions of unique individuals? They can't. Which is why the supply of goods will not reflect the true demand for goods. Massive amounts of resources are wasted.

Why is it a cultish religion to argue against the waste of massive amounts society's limited resources?
 
ITT, the OP makes a fuss about "Hayek Worshipers", who hardly represent any significant portion of economists or serious students of economics.
 
How is it a straw man attack? Again, what are you talking about?

To know what I'm talking about you have to follow the link and read it.

F. A. Hayek and the Economic Calculus

What makes you cultish is your willingness to criticize people whom you have not read.

Also cultish is the fact that you have read exactly one book and - Presto! - you're an expert.

Bruce Caldwell said:
[The evidence] clearly points towards a conclusion that the book [Fatal Conceit] was a product more of [Bartley's] pen than of Hayek's. ... Bartley may have written the book.

And you chose poorly when picking the one book you were going to read before proclaiming yourself an expert. I, Caldwell and every other serious scholar knows that the 89-year-old Hayek, who had not risen from what would be his death bed for four years before publication of The Fatal Conceit, did not write it. The "editor" Bartley is the one who wrote it.

My website page is about The Economic Calculus, which was written in 1961 when Hayek was 62 years old and reflecting on why the work of his youth had failed. Hayek was an economist through the age of forty (pre-war) and a social philosopher after the war until he fell ill at 85. My arguments with Hayek are with the economic theory he developed as a young man, not the social philosophy that he developed as an old man.

Except for the fact that it is a bit simplistic and based on a book written by someone other than Hayek, I do not have any argument with your summary of Hayek's social philosophy.
 
To know what I'm talking about you have to follow the link and read it.

F. A. Hayek and the Economic Calculus

What makes you cultish is your willingness to criticize people whom you have not read.

Also cultish is the fact that you have read exactly one book and - Presto! - you're an expert.

Where did I say exactly how many books I've read? I referred to "fatal conceit" as a concept...not to Hayek's specific book.

And you chose poorly when picking the one book you were going to read before proclaiming yourself an expert. I, Caldwell and every other serious scholar knows that the 89-year-old Hayek, who had not risen from what would be his death bed for four years before publication of The Fatal Conceit, did not write it. The "editor" Bartley is the one who wrote it.

Again, I was talking about the CONCEPT. How would you have known that I was talking about the concept? Because I shared passages by Bastiat and Smith which covered the same exact concept. Did you really fail to grasp that they were addressing the same exact concept?

My website page is about The Economic Calculus, which was written in 1961 when Hayek was 62 years old and reflecting on why the work of his youth had failed. Hayek was an economist through the age of forty (pre-war) and a social philosopher after the war until he fell ill at 85. My arguments with Hayek are with the economic theory he developed as a young man, not the social philosophy that he developed as an old man.

Look, you're not addressing my argument which means that you're not addressing Hayek's argument...which, as I already pointed out, was not fundamentally different from Bastiat's or Smith's argument.

Except for the fact that it is a bit simplistic and based on a book written by someone other than Hayek, I do not have any argument with your summary of Hayek's social philosophy.

You don't have any argument period. All you have is irrelevant nonsense because you're incapable of addressing my actual arguments. You want to argue that I've only read one book by Hayek...and then you want to argue that the book wasn't even written by Hayek. It's the epitome of trifling.

Why don't we try again? I sincerely doubt you're capable of addressing my actual argument...because, if you had been able to do so, then you would already have done so...but I'm just curious what other irrelevant nonsense you'll spout next.

The most fundamental question is...how should we use society's limited resources? It's a given that some uses are more valuable than other uses. Either we allow consumers to indicate which uses are the most valuable...or we allow government planners to decide. The problem with allowing government planners to decide is that they can't possible know how much consumers value any good.

Congresspeople can't reach into your head and pull out exactly how much you value public education. They aren't omniscient. This "minor" detail does not stop them from determining how much public education to supply. As a result, it's a given that there will be a disparity between the actual demand for public education and the supply of public education. This disparity represents a significant waste of society's limited resources.

Yet here you are going after Hayek and his followers. Why? Why aren't you going after Samuelson and his followers? Is it because that you believe that congresspeople are truly omniscient? Do you believe that they are divinely inspired? Do you want to put your life in their hands? If so, then the "cultish" label is far more appropriate for yourself.
 
Look, you're not addressing my argument

That's because it is my thread. You dulling your sword on a straw man is not my concern.

which means that you're not addressing Hayek's argument

Hayek did not appoint you his official spokesman. Even Caldwell, who is known to have read more than one of Hayek's books, does not make this claim.

F. A. Hayek and the Economic Calculus

Could somebody comment on the actual topic of this thread, please?
 
Logic doesn't compute with assumptions, this is total nonsense to even call it logical.

One’s axioms are introduced at the beginning of one’s book and then all of the subsequent theorems are derived from the axioms. For example, Euclid claimed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists a unique line that passes through the point and is parallel to the given line. Lobachevski asserted that there is more than one parallel and Reimann that there are none. Thus, there are three geometries and, similarly, there may be more than one economics. I am, however, the only economist to ever precisely state my axioms and to base an entire theory on exactly those axioms and on nothing else.

Source: A Non-Mathematical Explanation of the Axioms

Do you call it total nonsense that Euclid assumed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists a unique line that passes through the point and is parallel to the given line?

Do you call it total nonsense that Lobachevski assumed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists many lines that passes through the point and are parallel to the given line?

Do you call it total nonsense that Reimann assumed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists no line that passes through the point and is parallel to the given line?
 
One’s axioms are introduced at the beginning of one’s book and then all of the subsequent theorems are derived from the axioms. For example, Euclid claimed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists a unique line that passes through the point and is parallel to the given line. Lobachevski asserted that there is more than one parallel and Reimann that there are none. Thus, there are three geometries and, similarly, there may be more than one economics. I am, however, the only economist to ever precisely state my axioms and to base an entire theory on exactly those axioms and on nothing else.

Source: A Non-Mathematical Explanation of the Axioms

Do you call it total nonsense that Euclid assumed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists a unique line that passes through the point and is parallel to the given line?

Do you call it total nonsense that Lobachevski assumed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists many lines that passes through the point and are parallel to the given line?

Do you call it total nonsense that Reimann assumed that, given a line and a point not on the line, there exists no line that passes through the point and is parallel to the given line?

Those guys in history were proven accurate by empirical data, and were many many years ago when they couldn't measure the results of their theories.

Your axioms can be scientifically proven inaccurate today.

Comparing yourself to them is hubris and laughable.
 
A.I. Fetisov said:
Naturally, man’s first knowledge of geometry was obtained by the inductive method from a very large number of observations and experiments. However, as the body of geometric knowledge grew, it was discovered that many truths could be obtained from others by means of deduction without resorting to observations or experiments. This idea occurred long ago to the geometers of ancient Greece, who began to develop a system of geometry in which the whole body of geometric truths known to them was deduced from a comparatively small number of fundamental propositions.

David Hilbert said:
I believe: Anything at all that can be the object of scientific thought becomes dependent on the axiomatic method, and thereby indirectly on mathematics, as soon as it is ripe for the formation of a theory.

Economics has been ripe for the formation of a theory for some time. This is what I have done here:

Axiomatic Theory of Economics by Victor Aguilar
 
It was actually very brave of Bruce Caldwell to defy all the other Hayek worshipers and come out in support of Axiomatic Theory of Economics. Three cheers for Bruce Caldwell! Now if only the rest of the Hayek worshipers will follow Bruce Caldwell’s example, renounce their cultish religion, and take up real science.

F. A. Hayek and the Economic Calculus

Endorses hell!

He does not mention it at all. And yes, I read that coprolite fail of a document on your site. If I had turned in something like that with incomplete APA references I would have been lucky to get a passing grade. Are you sure that is not just some rough draft from Bruce Caldwell, Freshman as Bumfrack Community College?

Heck, he does not ever mention you or your manifesto, so how on earth can that be seen as an "endorsement"?
 
If I had turned in something like that with incomplete APA references I would have been lucky to get a passing grade. Are you sure that is not just some rough draft from Bruce Caldwell, Freshman as Bumfrack Community College?

My website page has always linked to Caldwell's PDF file:

http://www.axiomaticeconomics.com/bruce_caldwell.pdf

If you are not familiar with how PHP works, the underlined words are links. When you put your cursor on them, it turns into a little hand pointing its index finger at the link. Left click and you get the PDF file.

Only printed material, like my 1999 book, is listed in the references section; Caldwell's paper has not been published in a print journal, so I just link to the PDF file.
 
My website page has always linked to Caldwell's PDF file:

http://www.axiomaticeconomics.com/bruce_caldwell.pdf

If you are not familiar with how PHP works, the underlined words are links. When you put your cursor on them, it turns into a little hand pointing its index finger at the link. Left click and you get the PDF file.

Only printed material, like my 1999 book, is listed in the references section; Caldwell's paper has not been published in a print journal, so I just link to the PDF file.

Yes, I am familiar. Trust me there, done a great many reports in APA format.

And once again, neither you nor your works are mentioned anywhere in that report, nor in the references.

So he not only does not endorse you, he does not even mention you. As far as he is concerned, you do not exist.

But please, if he mentioned you specifically I must have missed it, even though I read through that 4 or 5 times. So what page and paragraph does he mention you and your works?
 
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