@@Ellipsis115 Considering Capitalim only took root in the global south/east only because of brutal colonialist and later on imperial subjugation and mass exploitation, that's absolutely on point. But it's absolutely important to reiterate the massive amount of history washing and propaganda that also ensued to esure it's unquestioned status quo position in the blind spot of everyone's uncritical minds.
Yeah not even that, they just engrain a bunch of nationalist/capitalist apologism, they don't teach you *how* they function, they just make you think it's both the only *viable* option, but also that it's the only *moral* one. It isn't anything like an actual education on the topic. They want you to think capitalism is the only plausible option, but the nationalism causes people to not critique their country in a legitimate way, and honestly it's extremely effective at preventing people from dissenting in a serious way. Citizens tend to end up pointing the finger at other countries, even those that also have a capitalist system, and either end up literally blaming those countries for our problems, or they say "at least we aren't *them* I guess".
I have to admit I was wary and even contemptuous of both at first, but having finally explored their recent outputs, there's no denying that Mexie and UE are two of the hardest-hitting political economists on youtube.
@@Tcrror tbh I was butthurt about getting out-Marxismed by an attractive young blonde woman. Also I don't have a great deal of time to vet sources, so I tend to stick to those that have collaborated with the main breadtubers (pretty sure Mexie has collaborated with at least one of them, but again, the butthurt)
The Great Filter is a concept tied to the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox states that, given what we know of physics and astronomy, if it is in any way possible for an intelligent civilization to leave its home planet, travel to another planet, settle there, then repeat this -- even if this process is phenomenally difficult and costly -- then such a civilization *should,* by all rights, have had enough time to spread across the entire Milky Way galaxy and leave detectable traces of it everywhere. And yet, when we turn our eyes to the stars, we find no such traces. The paradox basically boils down to "Where is everyone?" The Great Filter is an attempt to resolve this apparent paradox. It is some unknown factor -- an event, a law of physics, a phenomenon of intelligent life -- that interrupts the above process before life can spread to other planets. There are many possible candidates for the Great Filter. Some of them are celestial hazards; asteroid impacts, gamma ray bursts, nearby supernovae... things which could wipe out all life on a planet. Others are things like the prerequisites necessary for life to arise in the first place: a planet with liquid water, a large moon to stabilize planetary rotation, a magnetic field to prevent the solar wind from blowing away the atmosphere (like Mars), etc. And, as you guys mentioned, the question of whether intelligent life is inherently self-destructive and will always nuke or global warming or something itself out of existence. As I mentioned in another comment, "Capitalism" is my current favorite candidate for the Great Filter. The demand for constant growth of profits at the expense of all else, the relentless competition on ever-increasing scales... it feels to me like something that will rip our civilization apart if we let it continue unchecked.
I believe you’re still on the surface. For a long-term solution, we must admit/address the root cause. Crony Capitalism (US current economic system) is a symptom of a deeper ‘ filter’ That of greed... and ultimately pride. Problem solve at the system level, and you’ll continue to have problems rooted from the ultimate cause... human behavior
Its relatively new (relative to most other proposed solutions to Fermi) the stable phosphorous problem quite compelling. In short, there aren't any stable isotopes of phosphorous formed through solar fusion for any type of star, and whether or not its parent can be formed in supernovas, or whether it is formed through neutronium decay (degenerate matter ejected from a neutron star after a collision or other such catacalysm.) Its been a while since Ive heard it discussed (it briefly became a more popular topic of conversation after LIGOs first detected neutron star collision) but from what I can remember a compelling case was made on the matter (ba-dum-tiss) of the decay pathway alone; the fact that it would shorten the window of time relevant to Fermi's paradox (it could only be formed after the first two generations of suns) and provided an explanation for scarcity on top of that was sort of icing on the cake.
This only works if society is a pre req of intelligence. It seems probable that an eusocial intelligence is possible, or even that more exotic life forms with differing understandings of inheritance can exist. A more generic version-that runaway intelligence requires or incentivizes peer competition, and technology escalates peer competition, is more robust. Capitalism is just the human expression of a generic incentive set. Personally I unconvinced. I favor hypothesis that say that stellar evolution creates more life giving planets over time, and that old stars lack the metals for life. If true our sun, which is part of the population of young high metal stars. This reduces the paradox by simultaneously cutting the time for life to evolve by ~50% and selecting for certain pop groups (if you include a caveat that the catestrophically chaotic core is excluded). At that point finding a metal rich star with planets in the habitat zone old enough to evolve complex life might actually be a one in a galaxy ask. The weakness of my hypothesis is establishing a direct mechanism of action and that our sun is unique within a meaningful, not arbitrary, criterion.
Ha Joon Chang's book is really great as an intro. A good intro for Marxist political economy is Hadas Thier's People's Guide to Capitalism. A bit older but still quite good one is Ernest Mandel's Introduction to Marxist economic theory.
I think Babylon Broken was referring to the fermi paradox when they asked about the great filter. i don't understand the question though. also check drake equation. sci fi staples for short stories!
Yanis Varoufakis also has a good critical introduction to neoclassical economics called Foundations Of Economics. It came out a while back so could be a bit dated but is very good. Ben Fine had a more recent critical introduction to both Micro & Macroeconomics.
What would be a good 'household' analogy of government budgeting? When I argue that the government does NOT budget like a household, I can list all the things people get 'wrong' but I feel like it would be better if I could REPLACE the idea. So something like "gov doesn't budget like your checkbook, it budgets like your parents investment in your development even when they don't know how it will turn out" etc.... (I just made that up, but there's probably a non-monetary analogy that all can relate to)....
Depends on the government in question. In the US's case, I can think of no clean comparison because the US Treasury and Federal Reserve get away with ignoring and breaking rules relating to international trade and fiscal/monetary policy which significantly constrain the options of most other national governments and central banks. The Fed prints trillions of USD in fiat money but avoids hyperinflation; Congress borrows and spends ad infinitum without risking default. If the US government were a household borrower, they'd have terrible credit. But instead they have the _best_ credit, issuing T-bills at small interest rates and T-bonds at _negative_ interest rates, ignoring the zero lower bound entirely. I'm still skeptical of MMT but understand _why_ it got so popular among heterodox thinkers in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and especially after the federal government shut down "nonessential" services in 2012 because Congress couldn't pass a spending bill fast enough. Meanwhile Marxian explanations which factor in class stratification and imperialist violence (which neoclassical econ, fetishizing microfoundations even when they're insufficient in macro models, tends to ignore) add some much-needed context to make sense of these contradictions. The US is a borrower which can force foreign lenders to accept a low or negative interest rate at gunpoint, and which coerces repayment from its domestic working class through taxation the surplus they produce for their bosses and directly through income and sales taxes. US foreign policy tends to brutally punish smaller countries which attempt international trade that doesn't involve the use of USD or go through one of the IMF or World Bank: this is why regime change happened in Iraq, where Hussein attempted to pivot to the Euro; and in Libya, where Gaddafi attempted to form an African trade union (comparable to the EEC/early EU) which might have had more bargaining power as a united economic bloc. All of this is exogenous from the perspective of a neoclassical model. Outside of the PRC and its immediate sphere of influence, neoliberal economic development policy has in practice meant "infant industries 100+ years ago for me, total openness to trade and extreme sectoral specification for thee".
I know framing taxes as 'investments' rather than 'penalties etc.' works well for me and most. I know 'incentives' and 'super-charge the economy' are positive framings, what else?
I don't think an accurate enough analogy can be made using currency because a good counter-narrative should convey that currency relates totally differently to the government than it does to anything else. You'd have to go more abstract. I think an analogy for MMT goes something like "the country's capacity to do productive work is like a basin of changing (usually increasing) size that is filled with the government's deficit; and overflow represents inflation."
Honestly, I would just say that governments do not budget like personal households, but Royal Ones. I think that is both true historically (as most governments emerged out of royal households) and it gets the sense of prestige, warfare, and labor mobilization being another source of power other than pure money value.
Two problems with contemporary mainstream economics. The first you and Unlearning have covered: the barely studied impact of elasticity, especially the fact that it’s not usually linear, whereas most of the thinking in economics assumes it is. The other is even more ignored: the delayed response to signals, and non-immediate feedback loops this can cause. This creates systems which exhibit chaotic behaviors which are rarely if ever studied outside the edges of Economic academia. And these issues are not some last mile problem that only affect real life in some small measure in a few extreme circumstances. They are key to understanding the failures of the economic profession to ever actually make predictions beyond the very shortest of terms. The models are not just imprecise; they are completely wrong.
It sounds like you're saying economics needs more chaos theory, and I'm here for it. Modelling an economy as anything other than a complex system will necessarily result in oversimplification. I gather complexity economics is a thing, but I feel like it should be more of a thing.
This was fantastic to listen to! Thank you. I definitely need that discussion about theories of value, so hopefully the two of you can get together sometime soon again to have it. Love your collaborations.
I thought supply curve were meant to be upward sloping not because of diseconomies of scale but rather because: 1. Higher price for the same production cost means more profit and 2. Less efficient businesses can enter the market and make profits when at lower prices they cannot. I've heard that supply curves don't have to slope upwards but I don't understand why. This is to say I would love to see a vid explaining the flaws in these theories and alternatives ways to think about incentives and profitability.
It legitimately didn't take me long into UE's first housing video to think they were some right-wing person trying to badmouth leftists, especially since I didn't know enough about economics to know if they were talking out of their arse or not. I made the same mistake as those right-wing people who thought they were great.
Also, reading Shaikh can be intimidating, yes. But so rewarding. I find there's no shame in engaging with some chapters and not reading front to back, especially in a continuous fashion. I've not yet finished for lack of time, but the most I've learned in my entire undergraduate degree were the couple of months at the end where I tried to pick apart some of the basic ideas from the earlier chapters in that book for a term paper. The fact Shaikh presents different views so succinctly allowed me to contextualise, interrogate and evaluate what I had learned from all my previous years of economics education. I feel I have a better grasp on theory and some empirics to really go forward as a critical economist. Underrated dude.
Really happy to have stumbled upon UE and mexie. Capitalistic ideology is something I believe to be inherently harmful to society and putting it into context juxtaposed to the economy and the pseudoscience of Econ 101 is super helpful is debating and conversing with that ideology. Keep up the great work and I will definitely be around 😊
All the books recommended in this video and these comments seem quite good (well except the one doofus recommending Thomas Sowell lol) but I really hope people also read Marx's Capital, it's about 150 years old sure but for the basic concepts of how capitalism works and how it really doesn't it still definitely holds up! The 3 volumes of Capital and the Grundrisse which is like a Capital Volume 0 almost, very good important books. And if you find those texts a bit too dense people like David Harvey and Michael Heinrich have very good books that summarize those very well and they also have lectures going over the concepts and how they still apply to modern capitalism which can easily be found here on RUclips.
Any thoughts on 'empirics'? - given that if all the obseravable matter in the universe, about 10^53Kg, was fitted into an object that was the actual size of the observable universe, about 10^27metres, that you would actually create a black hole as given by the Schwarzchild black hole equation r = 2GM/c^2, i.e. 10^27 = 2*6.673*10^-11*10^53/(3*10^8)^2.
TLDR; I think it's maybe wrong to just view Marx as an 'empiricist' - and so by extension it is wrong for a Marxist to just judge everything on 'empirics'. As it misses the dialectical influence of Hegel (which Marx turned on it's head rather than rejecting) which concerns relations a pure empiricist would perhaps miss or overlook. (long winded response... which you'll probably say is wrong without telling me why I expect..) ha ha ha! - it was basically a simple question about 'the measurement problem' in relation to 'empiricism' - i.e. the 'empirics' that was discussed in this video (that we should judge things, such as the soundness of economic philosophy, based on observation). But there appears a limit to the empirical approach - I gave an extreme (the most extreme) example in the other comment I left you. A down to earth example would be 'hidden' relations between sets of data (recorded based on observation). From what I know, you had basically Descartes bias towards cognition (thoughts) about reality vs Hume who was an empiricist (sense driven). Kant stepped in as a pragmatist between the opposing positions of Descartes and Hume. Then Hegel introduced 'spirit' - basically empathic relations between people - meaning Hegel adopted a more 'coherence theory of truth' over a 'correspondence theory of truth' as part of his dialectical approach. Marx, from what I understand, took Hegel's approach and turned it on it's head - which I understand in the simplest terms he did by shifting the focus of the source of 'empathy' (for example between a boss and employee - i.e. how much a boss is willing to pay an employee) away from 'spirit' as coming from some divine source to a more down to earth source as coming from the relations in the economy such as driven by competition in the market for example (which could theoretically be solved by the use of a planned economy).... and so btw being a 'materialist' (and a Marxist) doesn't mean being a psychopath with no empathy. yep.
@@chriswalker7632 what the fuck are you talking about bud? I just recommended people read Marx's Capital and the Grundrisse because they're good analyses of capitalism back when Marx wrote them and now and I didn't feel any of the books recommended in the video were Marxist enough for my tastes. What does ANYTHING you've said remotely have to do with that?!
@@chriswalker7632 Apart from I guess you tried to explain the philosophy of Marxism. But, like, I wasn't remotely denying any of the stuff you were saying??
@@kefsound What an insufferable SJW comment. Oh please, why make such a big deal about it? Not everything is sexualizing. That view is what pushes people off the left.
19:50 He has a point if your intent is to broaden one's audience, especially in educational material. But such jargon is fine by me in this channel Mexie :) I suppose his feedback might be optimal in general I suppose, clever man with great tact.
14:25 Minor contradiction, Econ 101 DOES address needs vs. wants, but it does so in an overly broad manner and lumps them into "elastic" and "inelastic". It's still not a particularly GOOD way to do so, but it is still there and worth noting.
Is it not silly to attack econ 101 units when really it is simply an initial stepping stone for students to grasp the theory in its simple form. The units that follow always introduce the appropriate criticisms and nuances later...
I think the issue is that, as with almost any field of study, these simplistic "lies to children" are adopted as being indicative of the field of study, rather than, as you say, building blocks to understanding the subsequent criticisms of those building blocks. The general populace could do with unlearning the 101 take on all sorts of things, Economics is one, Psychology is another.
The creature used to get the coconuts from the trees are not chimps but macaques and probably some other monkey species as well. If you have an esential issue with that it would be intresting to know your opinion on stuff like trained K9's as well. Because I do think it is posible to have the monkeys work in a way more similar to say a drug sniffing dog. The monkeys are usualy one monkey and an owner and they will drive from farm to farm on a scooter to help out as farm aids. The monkeys are usualy on a leash and they few times i saw them working they where positivly reinforced. But obviously they work is quite harsh and the Isolation can't be good for the animals. I can hardly blame to local populations for doing it though, the monkeys work much faster then humans and it beats having children and young adults doing the work. (Disclaimer I have only seen this practice in middle Thailand so my observations are highly anacdotal)
Recently just finished the video you both worked on. I thought it was great - me being a relative newbie to economics - and I thought it was pitched at a pretty good level for me personally. Funny about the example regarding manufacturing costs (that in mainstream economics the assumption is that it costs more per unit to make each unit the more of them you make) that you decided to leave out of the video. I've recently gotten into Marx, so I can understand why rhetorically a mainstream economist might spin such a lie, because it is basically a cornerstone of Marx's observations of the mode of production - so someone lying about it helps prevent anyone from joining the dots together. But I can't believe anyone would genuinely approach manufacturing businesses with such a falsehood (unless they were a bank and could basically ask them to bend over when ever the wanted I guess...?). A) Firstly, as someone with an engineering degree, I would've felt my engineering education was actually relevant to a leftist discussion if you did put the manufacturing example in the video (some of us engineers are more cute and fluffy than the stereotype would suggest - please don't be afriad of us [looks up with big glassy doe eyes and quivering lips...]) - but it's ok, I don't have an ego. And B) I remember economist Steve Keen talking about this as well when he was railing against mainstream economics... It's pretty simple though, anyone who has studied engineering could tell you that you basically have two costs: the number of components and the number of operations required to put those components together. If you have less of each then the cost of making something will be less... ...Why in the real world it actually costs less per unit to make each unit the more of them you make is really simple. If you are only making a few units, it makes more sense to use off the shelf components - this typically means using more components and more operations required to fit them all together to make the finished product (for example cutting bits off here and there etc). However, if you intend to mass produce (making many) units, then it makes more sense to produce bespoke components - for example rather than making something that requires 20 components that all need to be cut to size and fitted together, it may make more sense to just cast the whole thing from molten metal, i.e. just have one component. For just one component, casting it from molten metal is expensive. But once you have the casting equipment, you don't need to make another one, as you can use it over and over again. It is an expensive up front cost that when used to make many thousands or millions of components eventually starts to pay for itself. As it works out cheaper than making products from many components with many operations. When it is cheaper to just cast one component out of molten metal in one operation. People may see flashy adverts of cars on TV about how all advanced they are. But the cars themselves are not as advanced as the manufacturing equipment used to make them. Cars (and other products) are basically getting simpler as time goes on as people figure out ways to make them using less components and with less manufacturing operations in ever more standardised ways.
How many times does the expression "You Know" appear in this video - 100 ? 200? More since it appears at least once every minute and sometimes more? No! We don't know what you are talking about because you have not put it in any context and repeating it does not explain anything about your undersatnding of the subject matter. A result of poor thinking and inability to understand the complexity of what they are talking about.
It’s not just Econ101, though. Most Econ students never hear of anything but neo-classical dogma until at least grad school, and even then, they barely study anything else. A little behavioural Econ here and there, but the core tenets of neo-classical dogma are never really challenged.
The academic economist from the UK has just another deluded idea that economics has fixed rules that cannot be violated. Sound economics is not like that yet despite his statement of the government being able to run deficits it fails to dawn on him that this is his own new fixed rule belief. The fist reality is governments can run big deficits but those deficits rely on the private sector not being able to do the same simply for the reason that law applies to everyone except the government that require everyone except government to come to balance and if they don't they are sent into bankruptcy. If the same law applied to government it would be sent to bankruptcy for years it ran into debt which is net cost to the private sector and politicians who failed to account for it would be sent to jail for running a Ponzi scheme. The second reality is that the private sector pays for government via taxes collected for no other reason than a legal requirement. Not the other way around. That should be obvious to anyone who has a reasonable amount of honesty and intelligence and an unbiased view but heseems to be lacking in at least one of these attributes. .
Thanks you guys for being so candid on some of these things. It can be somewhat intimidating saying these things in public out loud, depending on what context you live in. I'm somewhat disappointed with UE's answer to the adjunct asking for help near the end of the talk. There's a lot more you can do than simply teach derisively what you know is wrong. I agree that as an individual, a complete overhaul is not realistic as you lack the support and time to figure all that out. There's plenty of stuff out there though for educators who would like to provide some counterweight in this or that manner. There's been several alternative texts, with CORE being mentioned in the video, there's 'anti-textbooks' (e.g. Hill and Myatt) and critical companions (Fine and Dimakou, and Fine) that start from the stuff you're supposed to be teaching and show you how you can expand upon these in a non-orthodox manner. I would try to update the content with elements of your expertise in a piecemeal fashion. It's like UE said, different perspectives often serve different questions. If your expertise is at environmental and ecological economics, then search the content you are supposed to be teaching for elements where easy additions to a standard model could be made (eg. micro -> marginal cost marginal social cost). The big advice I would have liked to hear is that as a teacher you can always provide context. For certain models and assumptions it pays to simply state what body of theory or worldview they come from or providing that connection, even if the text you are mandated leaves that out. Designating this or that model as a early new-Keynesian model, or as a 'typical' 80's style rational expectations model, and simply pointing out other ways of thinking exist, at least delineates that the ideas you're passing on are not ultimate and final. I would be open as a teacher about the state of economics education and the (deliberate) inertia still present. As one teacher it is impossible to fight that alone and especially older students will appreciate your honesty. Also don't be afraid to reach out to broader networks; Rethinking Economics for example is a great meeting place for all kinds of support
I don't know if it's a difference in lighting or an actual change but for some reason in this video I'm seeing Mexie as a brunette instead of blonde, and it keeps distracting me from the economics
I've watched his first three lectures on youtube and am completely blown away by the depth of his understanding. But if I'm being honest with myself, I'm a beginner with economics. His book is definitely on my reading list, but do you have a recommendation(s) for good foundational prerequisite knowledge before trying to tackle something as advanced as his book?
@@Alex-fu3mi Anwar' work is quite advanced. One reviewer of his book said that it would be quite challenging for people well versed in only neoclassical economics or even only Marxist economics. He does cover a lot of different theories and debates across traditions. So a good understanding of basic neoclassical micro & macro will help. You can go for any standard text for them and can also supplement this with some critical texts like Economics : An Anti Textbook or Microeconomics - Ben Fine & Macroeconomics - Ben Fine For Marxist economics a good modern introduction is Hadas Thier's A People's Guide to Capitalism and a bit older one called Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory by Ernest Mandel But even this might prove very inadequate.You could also try some books on history of economic thought which gives a broad comparative history of economics field. There is a book by Lefteris Tsoulfidis and one by Ben Fine which would give good context
@@arjunravichandran7578 thanks for the response, I definitely want to read his work down the line but it sounds like I’ve got a whole lot to learn before I can really appreciate it. From your response (and some reviews I read elsewhere), it sounds like I should have a solid understanding of Classical (including Marxist), Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian economic theory if I really want to understand Shaikh’s book. And probably some economic history / comparative economics for good measure too. Does that sound right? I’ve got a whole reading list of just econ books I’m working through now. And I plan on getting to Capital itself sometime this year.
it's supposed to be one answer to the Fermi Paradox, (if there are an abundance of habitable planets, where are all the aliens?) but yeah I agree it does have a Malthusian tone to it.
The Great Filter is the idea that the reason we haven't found aliens yet is because something happens once intelligence arises that causes it to extinguish itself. Perhaps they all nuke themselves or all climate change themselves or all nuke and then climate change themselves.
I'd recommend Arthur Isaac's channel. His is a futurology focused channel and he's done several videos on The Fermi Paradox. He has talked about several proposed Great Filters.
@@TemplarOnHigh As I understand it, it's not limited to something after intelligence arises. It could be one of any number of hurdles between "inanimate matter" and "intelligent star-faring civilization." I've seen some people say that the discovery of primitive life anywhere else in our solar system would be an indication that the Great Filter is somewhere after that level of development. The more possible Great Filters that we can rule out which would occur early on -- ones which we have already passed -- the greater the chance becomes that it lies ahead of us. "Capitalism" is my current favorite candidate for the Great Filter, incidentally.
@@devinfaux6987 I follow you. I think the key question lies in capitalism's core. If intelligent enough to build technology: can the competitive nature that gives a species the ability to dominate a planet and reach into space be subdued and overcome by cooperation? Humans are at this unusual intersection in the primates between competitive and cooperative behavior.
I don't think it's new hair. I think it's just the Mexie Mk 1 has been brought back while Mexie Mk 2 has been put in for routine repairs. Either one is still great though.
It's always so sad to see just how little people understand anarchism whenever it's discussed lol It's not a rigid, dogmatic, ideological program so much as an ethic and philosophy that can be compatible with a lot and tends to be far more pragmatic, realistic, practical, and well evidenced than most people seem to understand. I routinely hear 2 major objections too, A. "No Theory", and B. "How will you defend it", which both speak to the level of misunderstanding or ignorance on the topic cause they don't realize that most Marxist theory is also anarchist theory (at least analytically), discounts the people's ability to defend themselves and their gaines without a centralized state structure, and fails to consider how so far all socialist tendencies have failed to defend their projects or put a meaningful dent in capitalism. It also fails to understand that someone that calls themselves an anarchist often has a range of things that they'd view as a step in the right direction. But, particularly online, this is lost to people on all sides from what I've seen. It also fails to truly go to the root of these issues. Rather we're talking about capitalism, class society, imperialism, the state, feudalism, slavery, money, bigotry, boss/worker relations, patriarchy, non-human animal consumption, wealth inequality, etc, we're talking about power and different ways it may manifest. Just dealing with one particular way it manifests is like treating the symptoms of a disease while ignoring the disease itself. Power is the disease, the specifics are the symptoms. Ya miss the forest for the trees when ya only look at the symptoms and don't go deeper. I've even seen some people go so far as to say that power itself isn't the issue but who holds it though I've never seen a single shred of evidence that would lend itself to unequal distributions of power and lopsided social relations ever being anything but coercive and harmful, especially when institutionalized and outside the confines of liberatory/revisionary works cause as Engles himself missed and Malatesta nailed: anarchists understand that coercion of the rulers and owners of the world will almost certainly be mandatory to achieve freedom but it should be loathed and used only when necessary because in the end we desire peace above all else as it's central to freedom in both the positive and negative sense of the word. If people would actually talk more instead of being so overly confident in their ideas and willingness to speak on others we'd get a lot further than we do with misunderstandings and assumptions 🤦🏽♂️
Capitalism also isn't the most efficient system. Overproduction and pointless waste is commonplace. Billions of dollars of food and consumer goods, perfectly usable are destroyed every year to drive up prices.
Your thinking is just totally wrong and defies rational logic. It is easy to see you are wrong by illustrating the short sightedness of your statement. If what your logic is right then even more food and goods would have been destroyed to push up prices further and further until there were virtually no goods left and the prices would be astronomically higher. That has not happened because the real world does not operate by your short sighted logic.
there is a theoretical point where bitcoin stops and equalizes or whatever i don't know too much about it but if it's not stopping already it's already fuck
Go check out Yanis Varoufakis. Dude gets it. I'm just starting into his stuff myself but he has some ideas about, you know, getting from point A --> B or point capitalism to point socialism that are fairly unique as far as I know and hold some real promise, I think.
Basing important economic decisions on an econ 101 understanding of economics would be like building a plane based on a physics 101 understanding of physics.
Physics 101 teaches you correct if simplified and basic things. Econ 101 is propaganda and lies. Modern day capitalist "economics" is a religion, NOT a science.
Talking about supply raising costs, this is exactly what energy companies claim when they’re regulated in California. Every time it’s reviewed they request to raise the price and the “regulators” rubber stamp it. It’s not possible to push back as citizens when they’re a conglomerate operating in California, Texas, and Mexico.
And not free market. Energy is ridiculously regulated. Maybe if commiefornia hadn't closed nuke plants and quit trying to rely on fake green energy the prices would be way lower.
It is just a plain dopey assumption as the first respondent on this video does to criticize the fact the demand and supply curve may be upwards because it is based on demand and supply at singular time which is what he has completely ignored. It shows he doesn't understand the very basics of the demand and supply curve.
Productivity improvements may not necessarily mean layoffs, I mean the co-op owners don’t have an interest in laying anyone off since, well, they have power in it equal to everyone else. The only reason people are laid off in a more capitalist structured economy usually is because one person wants more money, and this isn’t to say this will never happen in a co-op, however it’s much harder to do as it has to be put through democratic consensus. However this in itself can lead to some problems, for example in Yugoslavia if I remember correctly a critique of their economy was that it had extremely high unemployment because no one was losing their jobs in a co-op economy so those coming into the market looking for a job would have to migrate somewhere else.
@@hybridxg2204 no one lost their jobs because coops were backed by the state. There was no independent cooperative Bank system, Credit was from the state and unemployement was not evenly distributed. Yugoslavia was a federal state so it had hard time to even out unemployement. Some places saw %4-5 u employenment and some saw %25 Coops do fire workers although not like in the us now that 'at-will' laws can put you in a desperate situation for no reason at all. Also, nobody likes lazy people in the workplace. So, eventually, if you do not do your work, you will be fired or get a warning because you don't put much while getting profit off of the coop.
Your statement is not what you think because by world standard if you are earning over US $ 30,000 per year you are already in the top few percent in the world. So you are condemning yourself to being forced into a lower income group by your own statement.
Assuming firms costs slope upwards seems to inherently assume that the firm has enough market power to affect it's own supply costs. IIRC supply and demand models were always presented stating that the models do not work at all if firms have market power.
Yep, the basic supply and demand model assumes all firms have exactly 0 market power. The upward slope comes from assuming decreasing returns to scale.
Exactly. In econ 101 they'll walk you through models where the firm doesn't have market power, and generally new entrants are free. With these huge assumptions they make the case for perfect competition. Most econ educations (at least in the states in my experience) hold out on explaining the effects of firms with market power until higher level courses which very few people take if they aren't getting a degree in economics. A firm's ability to limit competition through predatory pricing, and affect demand through targeted advertising, marketing, etc. is one of the greatest cases for the strict regulation of social democrats, or eliminating the profit motive like democratic socialists call for.
@@aksldfoityawiejfsdnfakldjfxcoi perfect competition is impossible tho. I am not saying "there is no free market" i am saying that perfect competition resembles, not free markets, but central planning. Literally, if firms do not put prices and instead they get their prices from the market then who put the price? There should be a leading player who will force every other firms to obey it's efficiency levels. As anwar shaikh put it: "competition is not a balle, it is a war"
@@pygmalion8952 you could make the case that perfect competition resembles central planning (commodity production with no differentiation, no barriers for new entrants, receives no profit). The big thing is that regardless of whether you take the SD or DS route to tackling the issues that arise from market power, the first step is properly educating people about the effects of market power on economic models of production and competition.
To get even more basic, let's not forget that money, and therefore the economy based on it, is fundamentally just some shit we made up. We pulled all of the "rules" out of our collective ass, and can change or eliminate them at leisure. It's incredibly frustrating how little any of us remember this.
"Marxist jargon can be quite... hum... I'm trying not to say alienating." I'll tell you who's alienated; the proletariat whose labor is owned by the Bourgeoisie, but once the former gains class consciousness we...
Sorry about over simplified example here, genuinely curious. If a business replaced all labour with automation (assuming we're in the world where it is as cost effective) then who creates value for business then?
If machines can produce themselves, nobody. Marx talked about it. Labor being 'the watchmen' of the production process etc. And I think this is a good goal. Automation can lessen the burden we have now and free up people more and more if it is used effectively
Around 40:00 this is why I think Georgism wirh said leftist editions like mutual aid, syndicates, co ops, councils/direct democracy etc is a good transition strategy. I always thought it was stupid Milton freedom, libcon nonsense but when unlearning explained it and why he favors it in a QnA it REALLY clicked after mexies radical creativity and post cap strategies vid. My only fear is that is it would just be an Orwellian nightmare where it turns into something else completely and loses its original purpose, which seemed to happen back wirh the new dealers
Any hard refutations of the following topics: 1) The Socialist Calculation Problem (Mises) 2) The labor theory of value (and the theory of surplus value) as opposed to the marginal revolution and its refutations (Böhm-Bawerk) 3) The knowledge problem (Hyek) if this discussion doesn't address these subjects its basically just incantations of an old and outdated religion..
Economic Calculation in a Natural Law / RBE, Peter Joseph, The Zeitgeist Movement, Berlin ruclips.net/video/K9FDIne7M9o/видео.html Peter Joseph & Friends | "The Viable System" | Toronto, ON, May 27th 2018 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ] ruclips.net/video/AFZjZa5ZAyY/видео.html Jacque Fresco - Introduction to Sociocyberneering - Larry King (1974) ruclips.net/video/lBIdk-fgCeQ/видео.html Jacque Fresco - Economics vs. Sociocyberneering (1978) ruclips.net/video/AFrvN5yVeyU/видео.html Systems Theory Basics ruclips.net/video/j2I7jTzFkiM/видео.html Cliodynamics explains history scientifically: an interview with Peter Turchin ruclips.net/video/oturMcT45Ww/видео.html Ages of discord - Peter Turchin ruclips.net/video/sLS8C1K9s7w/видео.html Exploring Degrowth with Theory and Examples ruclips.net/video/eUFYrrvv4EY/видео.html The Zero Marginal Cost Society | Jeremy Rifkin | Talks at Google ruclips.net/video/5-iDUcETjvo/видео.html PostCapitalism | Paul Mason | Talks at Google ruclips.net/video/cQyr9l22fLE/видео.html What's the difference between "decentralized" and "distributed"? ruclips.net/video/dm0-eY_9neg/видео.html Sustainability IS a steady state economy - RUclips ruclips.net/video/bVk4ATItPZk/видео.html Steady State Economics, the Trophic Theory of Money, and GDP as an Indicator of Environ. Impact ruclips.net/video/AyUKjcEp1Jc/видео.html David Harvey Lecture 2: Value and Anti-Value ruclips.net/video/_Exuvac8Fcc/видео.html The Five Great Economic Transitions - Peter Joseph ruclips.net/video/vLHy7cSdg1U/видео.html TZM London TownHall with Peter Joseph, November 15th 2013 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ] ruclips.net/video/yZYS0vKBZac/видео.html The Zeitgeist Movement Defined www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/education “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Buckminster Fuller
this is suuuch an ironic channel. the people in these circles have such terrible understandings of the most basic of economic principles. its so painful to watch and to see how many people dont realize how theyre being duped here.
Well, thanks to you and those piercing insights we're closer to achieving a more substantial understanding. I hope this vacuous jerk-off gesture of yours was worth it for you.
@@fede2 yes, the anonymous economics "academic" who is unwilling to attach his name to his fundamentally absurd ideas is better than no insights at all. this channel is dangerous because it gives people a false sense of understanding. God help us.
@@fede2 the lesson is to stop listening to this channel. no lesson is better than a wrong lesson. youre better off wandering aimlessly without a map than following a wrong map. youre welcome.
Actually the best youtube channel to learn about post keynisian economics and economics in general is french and is called heu?reka, it teaches economics in general and it also compares different theories, if any of you speak french you should definitely check it out.
"Marxist jargon is.. I try not to say alienating" LOLOLOL :-D
"Comrade, have your read _Das Kapital_ yet?"
@@Lambda_Ovine unfortunately, it's exactly the same as saying "patriot, have you read econ 101?"
In school, we aren't taught economics. We are taught capitalism.
@@ES-sb3ei White-washed fairy tale of capitalism?
Just sounds like capitalism capitalism to me...
@@Ellipsis115 Considering Capitalim only took root in the global south/east only because of brutal colonialist and later on imperial subjugation and mass exploitation, that's absolutely on point. But it's absolutely important to reiterate the massive amount of history washing and propaganda that also ensued to esure it's unquestioned status quo position in the blind spot of everyone's uncritical minds.
Well said.
"taught" isn't the right term. Proselytized is better.
Yeah not even that, they just engrain a bunch of nationalist/capitalist apologism, they don't teach you *how* they function, they just make you think it's both the only *viable* option, but also that it's the only *moral* one. It isn't anything like an actual education on the topic. They want you to think capitalism is the only plausible option, but the nationalism causes people to not critique their country in a legitimate way, and honestly it's extremely effective at preventing people from dissenting in a serious way. Citizens tend to end up pointing the finger at other countries, even those that also have a capitalist system, and either end up literally blaming those countries for our problems, or they say "at least we aren't *them* I guess".
I have to admit I was wary and even contemptuous of both at first, but having finally explored their recent outputs, there's no denying that Mexie and UE are two of the hardest-hitting political economists on youtube.
Why would you be wary and contemptuous of Mexie? Just curious.
@@Tcrror tbh I was butthurt about getting out-Marxismed by an attractive young blonde woman. Also I don't have a great deal of time to vet sources, so I tend to stick to those that have collaborated with the main breadtubers (pretty sure Mexie has collaborated with at least one of them, but again, the butthurt)
@@andrewwhite8638 Ohhhh, I see! I thought it was something much worse, but okay. You pass. :P
@@Tcrror woot! Alright, now where's my "I survived another round of leftist purity testing" t-shirt? haha
@@Tcrror I mean that's not great lol
The Great Filter is a concept tied to the Fermi Paradox.
The Fermi Paradox states that, given what we know of physics and astronomy, if it is in any way possible for an intelligent civilization to leave its home planet, travel to another planet, settle there, then repeat this -- even if this process is phenomenally difficult and costly -- then such a civilization *should,* by all rights, have had enough time to spread across the entire Milky Way galaxy and leave detectable traces of it everywhere. And yet, when we turn our eyes to the stars, we find no such traces.
The paradox basically boils down to "Where is everyone?"
The Great Filter is an attempt to resolve this apparent paradox. It is some unknown factor -- an event, a law of physics, a phenomenon of intelligent life -- that interrupts the above process before life can spread to other planets.
There are many possible candidates for the Great Filter. Some of them are celestial hazards; asteroid impacts, gamma ray bursts, nearby supernovae... things which could wipe out all life on a planet. Others are things like the prerequisites necessary for life to arise in the first place: a planet with liquid water, a large moon to stabilize planetary rotation, a magnetic field to prevent the solar wind from blowing away the atmosphere (like Mars), etc. And, as you guys mentioned, the question of whether intelligent life is inherently self-destructive and will always nuke or global warming or something itself out of existence.
As I mentioned in another comment, "Capitalism" is my current favorite candidate for the Great Filter. The demand for constant growth of profits at the expense of all else, the relentless competition on ever-increasing scales... it feels to me like something that will rip our civilization apart if we let it continue unchecked.
I believe you’re still on the surface. For a long-term solution, we must admit/address the root cause. Crony Capitalism (US current economic system) is a symptom of a deeper ‘ filter’
That of greed... and ultimately pride.
Problem solve at the system level, and you’ll continue to have problems rooted from the ultimate cause... human behavior
Its relatively new (relative to most other proposed solutions to Fermi) the stable phosphorous problem quite compelling. In short, there aren't any stable isotopes of phosphorous formed through solar fusion for any type of star, and whether or not its parent can be formed in supernovas, or whether it is formed through neutronium decay (degenerate matter ejected from a neutron star after a collision or other such catacalysm.) Its been a while since Ive heard it discussed (it briefly became a more popular topic of conversation after LIGOs first detected neutron star collision) but from what I can remember a compelling case was made on the matter (ba-dum-tiss) of the decay pathway alone; the fact that it would shorten the window of time relevant to Fermi's paradox (it could only be formed after the first two generations of suns) and provided an explanation for scarcity on top of that was sort of icing on the cake.
This only works if society is a pre req of intelligence. It seems probable that an eusocial intelligence is possible, or even that more exotic life forms with differing understandings of inheritance can exist.
A more generic version-that runaway intelligence requires or incentivizes peer competition, and technology escalates peer competition, is more robust. Capitalism is just the human expression of a generic incentive set.
Personally I unconvinced. I favor hypothesis that say that stellar evolution creates more life giving planets over time, and that old stars lack the metals for life. If true our sun, which is part of the population of young high metal stars. This reduces the paradox by simultaneously cutting the time for life to evolve by ~50% and selecting for certain pop groups (if you include a caveat that the catestrophically chaotic core is excluded). At that point finding a metal rich star with planets in the habitat zone old enough to evolve complex life might actually be a one in a galaxy ask.
The weakness of my hypothesis is establishing a direct mechanism of action and that our sun is unique within a meaningful, not arbitrary, criterion.
The Econ 101 was an eye opener. Great content for people curious about economics. Would love a podcast of these shows!
I like these collaborations and just subbed Unlearning.
Ha Joon Chang's book is really great as an intro.
A good intro for Marxist political economy is Hadas Thier's People's Guide to Capitalism. A bit older but still quite good one is Ernest Mandel's Introduction to Marxist economic theory.
Love the hair and the collaboration
about 15m into the unlearning econ vid for the background & god damnit mexie i'm gonna have to watch it twice why you learn hard stuff
More like "unlearning easy stuff" 😆
I think Babylon Broken was referring to the fermi paradox when they asked about the great filter. i don't understand the question though. also check drake equation. sci fi staples for short stories!
I took UE's rec for Economics: The User's Guide and I'm really enjoying it so far. Definitely worth checking out!
Yanis Varoufakis also has a good critical introduction to neoclassical economics called Foundations Of Economics. It came out a while back so could be a bit dated but is very good. Ben Fine had a more recent critical introduction to both Micro & Macroeconomics.
Exactly what I was looking for when a dudebro enraged me with his tirades about how Marxists never had eCON 101.
Well, they haven’t, they almost always dumb
What would be a good 'household' analogy of government budgeting? When I argue that the government does NOT budget like a household, I can list all the things people get 'wrong' but I feel like it would be better if I could REPLACE the idea. So something like "gov doesn't budget like your checkbook, it budgets like your parents investment in your development even when they don't know how it will turn out" etc.... (I just made that up, but there's probably a non-monetary analogy that all can relate to)....
Depends on the government in question. In the US's case, I can think of no clean comparison because the US Treasury and Federal Reserve get away with ignoring and breaking rules relating to international trade and fiscal/monetary policy which significantly constrain the options of most other national governments and central banks. The Fed prints trillions of USD in fiat money but avoids hyperinflation; Congress borrows and spends ad infinitum without risking default. If the US government were a household borrower, they'd have terrible credit. But instead they have the _best_ credit, issuing T-bills at small interest rates and T-bonds at _negative_ interest rates, ignoring the zero lower bound entirely.
I'm still skeptical of MMT but understand _why_ it got so popular among heterodox thinkers in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and especially after the federal government shut down "nonessential" services in 2012 because Congress couldn't pass a spending bill fast enough. Meanwhile Marxian explanations which factor in class stratification and imperialist violence (which neoclassical econ, fetishizing microfoundations even when they're insufficient in macro models, tends to ignore) add some much-needed context to make sense of these contradictions.
The US is a borrower which can force foreign lenders to accept a low or negative interest rate at gunpoint, and which coerces repayment from its domestic working class through taxation the surplus they produce for their bosses and directly through income and sales taxes. US foreign policy tends to brutally punish smaller countries which attempt international trade that doesn't involve the use of USD or go through one of the IMF or World Bank: this is why regime change happened in Iraq, where Hussein attempted to pivot to the Euro; and in Libya, where Gaddafi attempted to form an African trade union (comparable to the EEC/early EU) which might have had more bargaining power as a united economic bloc. All of this is exogenous from the perspective of a neoclassical model. Outside of the PRC and its immediate sphere of influence, neoliberal economic development policy has in practice meant "infant industries 100+ years ago for me, total openness to trade and extreme sectoral specification for thee".
@@discountchocolate4577 Awesome comment! Thanks
I know framing taxes as 'investments' rather than 'penalties etc.' works well for me and most. I know 'incentives' and 'super-charge the economy' are positive framings, what else?
I don't think an accurate enough analogy can be made using currency because a good counter-narrative should convey that currency relates totally differently to the government than it does to anything else. You'd have to go more abstract. I think an analogy for MMT goes something like "the country's capacity to do productive work is like a basin of changing (usually increasing) size that is filled with the government's deficit; and overflow represents inflation."
Honestly, I would just say that governments do not budget like personal households, but Royal Ones.
I think that is both true historically (as most governments emerged out of royal households) and it gets the sense of prestige, warfare, and labor mobilization being another source of power other than pure money value.
Great collaboration with Unlearning and interesting video. Keep doing what your doing girl
thanks Cyrus!
GREAT AS USUAL, also DOPE BANGS!
We definitely needed an economic voice. Check out the 5-4 podcast. They would be an equally great collab focusing on the law. Katy & Cody had them on.
Didn’t know about this one, thanks for the share!
Two problems with contemporary mainstream economics. The first you and Unlearning have covered: the barely studied impact of elasticity, especially the fact that it’s not usually linear, whereas most of the thinking in economics assumes it is. The other is even more ignored: the delayed response to signals, and non-immediate feedback loops this can cause. This creates systems which exhibit chaotic behaviors which are rarely if ever studied outside the edges of Economic academia. And these issues are not some last mile problem that only affect real life in some small measure in a few extreme circumstances. They are key to understanding the failures of the economic profession to ever actually make predictions beyond the very shortest of terms. The models are not just imprecise; they are completely wrong.
It sounds like you're saying economics needs more chaos theory, and I'm here for it. Modelling an economy as anything other than a complex system will necessarily result in oversimplification. I gather complexity economics is a thing, but I feel like it should be more of a thing.
Yes! Bring back bangs!
This was fantastic to listen to! Thank you. I definitely need that discussion about theories of value, so hopefully the two of you can get together sometime soon again to have it. Love your collaborations.
Reading List:
Marc Linder's Anti-Samuelson
I thought supply curve were meant to be upward sloping not because of diseconomies of scale but rather because:
1. Higher price for the same production cost means more profit and
2. Less efficient businesses can enter the market and make profits when at lower prices they cannot.
I've heard that supply curves don't have to slope upwards but I don't understand why.
This is to say I would love to see a vid explaining the flaws in these theories and alternatives ways to think about incentives and profitability.
@@cyberpunkalphamale thanks mate, I appreciate it.
Comment for the algorithm before I've watched the vid, will do so when I have a moment :)
It legitimately didn't take me long into UE's first housing video to think they were some right-wing person trying to badmouth leftists, especially since I didn't know enough about economics to know if they were talking out of their arse or not. I made the same mistake as those right-wing people who thought they were great.
Awesome! Subbing to unlearning Econ as well
Also, reading Shaikh can be intimidating, yes. But so rewarding. I find there's no shame in engaging with some chapters and not reading front to back, especially in a continuous fashion. I've not yet finished for lack of time, but the most I've learned in my entire undergraduate degree were the couple of months at the end where I tried to pick apart some of the basic ideas from the earlier chapters in that book for a term paper. The fact Shaikh presents different views so succinctly allowed me to contextualise, interrogate and evaluate what I had learned from all my previous years of economics education. I feel I have a better grasp on theory and some empirics to really go forward as a critical economist. Underrated dude.
Really happy to have stumbled upon UE and mexie. Capitalistic ideology is something I believe to be inherently harmful to society and putting it into context juxtaposed to the economy and the pseudoscience of Econ 101 is super helpful is debating and conversing with that ideology. Keep up the great work and I will definitely be around 😊
All the books recommended in this video and these comments seem quite good (well except the one doofus recommending Thomas Sowell lol) but I really hope people also read Marx's Capital, it's about 150 years old sure but for the basic concepts of how capitalism works and how it really doesn't it still definitely holds up!
The 3 volumes of Capital and the Grundrisse which is like a Capital Volume 0 almost, very good important books.
And if you find those texts a bit too dense people like David Harvey and Michael Heinrich have very good books that summarize those very well and they also have lectures going over the concepts and how they still apply to modern capitalism which can easily be found here on RUclips.
Any thoughts on 'empirics'? - given that if all the obseravable matter in the universe, about 10^53Kg, was fitted into an object that was the actual size of the observable universe, about 10^27metres, that you would actually create a black hole as given by the Schwarzchild black hole equation r = 2GM/c^2, i.e. 10^27 = 2*6.673*10^-11*10^53/(3*10^8)^2.
@@chriswalker7632 fkn what?
TLDR; I think it's maybe wrong to just view Marx as an 'empiricist' - and so by extension it is wrong for a Marxist to just judge everything on 'empirics'. As it misses the dialectical influence of Hegel (which Marx turned on it's head rather than rejecting) which concerns relations a pure empiricist would perhaps miss or overlook.
(long winded response... which you'll probably say is wrong without telling me why I expect..) ha ha ha! - it was basically a simple question about 'the measurement problem' in relation to 'empiricism' - i.e. the 'empirics' that was discussed in this video (that we should judge things, such as the soundness of economic philosophy, based on observation). But there appears a limit to the empirical approach - I gave an extreme (the most extreme) example in the other comment I left you. A down to earth example would be 'hidden' relations between sets of data (recorded based on observation).
From what I know, you had basically Descartes bias towards cognition (thoughts) about reality vs Hume who was an empiricist (sense driven). Kant stepped in as a pragmatist between the opposing positions of Descartes and Hume. Then Hegel introduced 'spirit' - basically empathic relations between people - meaning Hegel adopted a more 'coherence theory of truth' over a 'correspondence theory of truth' as part of his dialectical approach. Marx, from what I understand, took Hegel's approach and turned it on it's head - which I understand in the simplest terms he did by shifting the focus of the source of 'empathy' (for example between a boss and employee - i.e. how much a boss is willing to pay an employee) away from 'spirit' as coming from some divine source to a more down to earth source as coming from the relations in the economy such as driven by competition in the market for example (which could theoretically be solved by the use of a planned economy).... and so btw being a 'materialist' (and a Marxist) doesn't mean being a psychopath with no empathy.
yep.
@@chriswalker7632 what the fuck are you talking about bud? I just recommended people read Marx's Capital and the Grundrisse because they're good analyses of capitalism back when Marx wrote them and now and I didn't feel any of the books recommended in the video were Marxist enough for my tastes.
What does ANYTHING you've said remotely have to do with that?!
@@chriswalker7632 Apart from I guess you tried to explain the philosophy of Marxism. But, like, I wasn't remotely denying any of the stuff you were saying??
Omg great bangs
Objectification much? WTF what a stupid comment
@@kefsound What an insufferable SJW comment.
Oh please, why make such a big deal about it? Not everything is sexualizing. That view is what pushes people off the left.
Woah new hair just dropped
19:50 He has a point if your intent is to broaden one's audience, especially in educational material. But such jargon is fine by me in this channel Mexie :) I suppose his feedback might be optimal in general I suppose, clever man with great tact.
This girl is eye candy
Love the bangs and dark hair!
14:25
Minor contradiction, Econ 101 DOES address needs vs. wants, but it does so in an overly broad manner and lumps them into "elastic" and "inelastic". It's still not a particularly GOOD way to do so, but it is still there and worth noting.
Is it not silly to attack econ 101 units when really it is simply an initial stepping stone for students to grasp the theory in its simple form. The units that follow always introduce the appropriate criticisms and nuances later...
I think the issue is that, as with almost any field of study, these simplistic "lies to children" are adopted as being indicative of the field of study, rather than, as you say, building blocks to understanding the subsequent criticisms of those building blocks. The general populace could do with unlearning the 101 take on all sorts of things, Economics is one, Psychology is another.
The creature used to get the coconuts from the trees are not chimps but macaques and probably some other monkey species as well. If you have an esential issue with that it would be intresting to know your opinion on stuff like trained K9's as well. Because I do think it is posible to have the monkeys work in a way more similar to say a drug sniffing dog. The monkeys are usualy one monkey and an owner and they will drive from farm to farm on a scooter to help out as farm aids. The monkeys are usualy on a leash and they few times i saw them working they where positivly reinforced. But obviously they work is quite harsh and the Isolation can't be good for the animals. I can hardly blame to local populations for doing it though, the monkeys work much faster then humans and it beats having children and young adults doing the work. (Disclaimer I have only seen this practice in middle Thailand so my observations are highly anacdotal)
Doesn't Thailand also have money pickpockets? I'd much rather they pick coconuts.
Recently just finished the video you both worked on. I thought it was great - me being a relative newbie to economics - and I thought it was pitched at a pretty good level for me personally. Funny about the example regarding manufacturing costs (that in mainstream economics the assumption is that it costs more per unit to make each unit the more of them you make) that you decided to leave out of the video. I've recently gotten into Marx, so I can understand why rhetorically a mainstream economist might spin such a lie, because it is basically a cornerstone of Marx's observations of the mode of production - so someone lying about it helps prevent anyone from joining the dots together. But I can't believe anyone would genuinely approach manufacturing businesses with such a falsehood (unless they were a bank and could basically ask them to bend over when ever the wanted I guess...?).
A) Firstly, as someone with an engineering degree, I would've felt my engineering education was actually relevant to a leftist discussion if you did put the manufacturing example in the video (some of us engineers are more cute and fluffy than the stereotype would suggest - please don't be afriad of us [looks up with big glassy doe eyes and quivering lips...]) - but it's ok, I don't have an ego.
And B) I remember economist Steve Keen talking about this as well when he was railing against mainstream economics... It's pretty simple though, anyone who has studied engineering could tell you that you basically have two costs: the number of components and the number of operations required to put those components together. If you have less of each then the cost of making something will be less...
...Why in the real world it actually costs less per unit to make each unit the more of them you make is really simple. If you are only making a few units, it makes more sense to use off the shelf components - this typically means using more components and more operations required to fit them all together to make the finished product (for example cutting bits off here and there etc). However, if you intend to mass produce (making many) units, then it makes more sense to produce bespoke components - for example rather than making something that requires 20 components that all need to be cut to size and fitted together, it may make more sense to just cast the whole thing from molten metal, i.e. just have one component. For just one component, casting it from molten metal is expensive. But once you have the casting equipment, you don't need to make another one, as you can use it over and over again. It is an expensive up front cost that when used to make many thousands or millions of components eventually starts to pay for itself. As it works out cheaper than making products from many components with many operations. When it is cheaper to just cast one component out of molten metal in one operation.
People may see flashy adverts of cars on TV about how all advanced they are. But the cars themselves are not as advanced as the manufacturing equipment used to make them. Cars (and other products) are basically getting simpler as time goes on as people figure out ways to make them using less components and with less manufacturing operations in ever more standardised ways.
How many times does the expression "You Know" appear in this video - 100 ? 200? More since it appears at least once every minute and sometimes more?
No! We don't know what you are talking about because you have not put it in any context and repeating it does not explain anything about your undersatnding of the subject matter. A result of poor thinking and inability to understand the complexity of what they are talking about.
It’s not just Econ101, though. Most Econ students never hear of anything but neo-classical dogma until at least grad school, and even then, they barely study anything else. A little behavioural Econ here and there, but the core tenets of neo-classical dogma are never really challenged.
What is the 1000 page book they are talking about at 28:00? Is there an audiobook version?
I was already a subscriber to both of you and was happy to see a collab. Great stuff!
Potop "great filter Guy" so misunderstood and neglected, I really liked the question, but I'm a huge Futurism and sci-fi nerd.
The academic economist from the UK has just another deluded idea that economics has fixed rules that cannot be violated.
Sound economics is not like that yet despite his statement of the government being able to run deficits it fails to dawn on him that this is his own new fixed rule belief.
The fist reality is governments can run big deficits but those deficits rely on the private sector not being able to do the same simply for the reason that law applies to everyone except the government that require everyone except government to come to balance and if they don't they are sent into bankruptcy. If the same law applied to government it would be sent to bankruptcy for years it ran into debt which is net cost to the private sector and politicians who failed to account for it would be sent to jail for running a Ponzi scheme.
The second reality is that the private sector pays for government via taxes collected for no other reason than a legal requirement. Not the other way around.
That should be obvious to anyone who has a reasonable amount of honesty and intelligence and an unbiased view but heseems to be lacking in at least one of these attributes. .
Just checking in with an update: NFT has now crashed.
Thanks you guys for being so candid on some of these things. It can be somewhat intimidating saying these things in public out loud, depending on what context you live in.
I'm somewhat disappointed with UE's answer to the adjunct asking for help near the end of the talk. There's a lot more you can do than simply teach derisively what you know is wrong. I agree that as an individual, a complete overhaul is not realistic as you lack the support and time to figure all that out. There's plenty of stuff out there though for educators who would like to provide some counterweight in this or that manner. There's been several alternative texts, with CORE being mentioned in the video, there's 'anti-textbooks' (e.g. Hill and Myatt) and critical companions (Fine and Dimakou, and Fine) that start from the stuff you're supposed to be teaching and show you how you can expand upon these in a non-orthodox manner.
I would try to update the content with elements of your expertise in a piecemeal fashion. It's like UE said, different perspectives often serve different questions. If your expertise is at environmental and ecological economics, then search the content you are supposed to be teaching for elements where easy additions to a standard model could be made (eg. micro -> marginal cost marginal social cost).
The big advice I would have liked to hear is that as a teacher you can always provide context. For certain models and assumptions it pays to simply state what body of theory or worldview they come from or providing that connection, even if the text you are mandated leaves that out. Designating this or that model as a early new-Keynesian model, or as a 'typical' 80's style rational expectations model, and simply pointing out other ways of thinking exist, at least delineates that the ideas you're passing on are not ultimate and final. I would be open as a teacher about the state of economics education and the (deliberate) inertia still present. As one teacher it is impossible to fight that alone and especially older students will appreciate your honesty.
Also don't be afraid to reach out to broader networks; Rethinking Economics for example is a great meeting place for all kinds of support
To understand the stock market and it's wider impact I am a really big fan of "Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street" by Karen Ho.
Comment for Comrade Algorithm and for those bangs!
social democracy seems cool but I don't think they'll ever do anything to address imperialism so it's not good enough sadly
I thumbed up when mexie asked to talk about theories of value
I don't know if it's a difference in lighting or an actual change but for some reason in this video I'm seeing Mexie as a brunette instead of blonde, and it keeps distracting me from the economics
Easy, scroll down and use your ears and not your eyes. You do not need to watch someone talk as you listen and learn.
Also look up Anwar Shaikh. He has lecture series on RUclips.
I've watched his first three lectures on youtube and am completely blown away by the depth of his understanding. But if I'm being honest with myself, I'm a beginner with economics.
His book is definitely on my reading list, but do you have a recommendation(s) for good foundational prerequisite knowledge before trying to tackle something as advanced as his book?
@@Alex-fu3mi Anwar' work is quite advanced. One reviewer of his book said that it would be quite challenging for people well versed in only neoclassical economics or even only Marxist economics. He does cover a lot of different theories and debates across traditions.
So a good understanding of basic neoclassical micro & macro will help.
You can go for any standard text for them and can also supplement this with some critical texts like Economics : An Anti Textbook or Microeconomics - Ben Fine &
Macroeconomics - Ben Fine
For Marxist economics a good modern introduction is Hadas Thier's A People's Guide to Capitalism and a bit older one called Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory by Ernest Mandel
But even this might prove very inadequate.You could also try some books on history of economic thought which gives a broad comparative history of economics field.
There is a book by Lefteris Tsoulfidis and one by Ben Fine which would give good context
@@arjunravichandran7578 thanks for the response, I definitely want to read his work down the line but it sounds like I’ve got a whole lot to learn before I can really appreciate it.
From your response (and some reviews I read elsewhere), it sounds like I should have a solid understanding of Classical (including Marxist), Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian economic theory if I really want to understand Shaikh’s book. And probably some economic history / comparative economics for good measure too. Does that sound right?
I’ve got a whole reading list of just econ books I’m working through now. And I plan on getting to Capital itself sometime this year.
@@Alex-fu3mi ditto. I'm also going through my econ reading.
Loving the content and the bangs
Great content Mexie. UE is such an essential channel
He's handsome.
The Great Filter sounds like the Malthusian Trap but ... in space
it's supposed to be one answer to the Fermi Paradox, (if there are an abundance of habitable planets, where are all the aliens?) but yeah I agree it does have a Malthusian tone to it.
The Great Filter is the idea that the reason we haven't found aliens yet is because something happens once intelligence arises that causes it to extinguish itself. Perhaps they all nuke themselves or all climate change themselves or all nuke and then climate change themselves.
I'd recommend Arthur Isaac's channel. His is a futurology focused channel and he's done several videos on The Fermi Paradox. He has talked about several proposed Great Filters.
@@TemplarOnHigh As I understand it, it's not limited to something after intelligence arises. It could be one of any number of hurdles between "inanimate matter" and "intelligent star-faring civilization."
I've seen some people say that the discovery of primitive life anywhere else in our solar system would be an indication that the Great Filter is somewhere after that level of development. The more possible Great Filters that we can rule out which would occur early on -- ones which we have already passed -- the greater the chance becomes that it lies ahead of us.
"Capitalism" is my current favorite candidate for the Great Filter, incidentally.
@@devinfaux6987 I follow you. I think the key question lies in capitalism's core. If intelligent enough to build technology: can the competitive nature that gives a species the ability to dominate a planet and reach into space be subdued and overcome by cooperation? Humans are at this unusual intersection in the primates between competitive and cooperative behavior.
dope bangs
Nice!
Hey, the new hair style looks great on you!
I don't think it's new hair. I think it's just the Mexie Mk 1 has been brought back while Mexie Mk 2 has been put in for routine repairs. Either one is still great though.
It's always so sad to see just how little people understand anarchism whenever it's discussed lol
It's not a rigid, dogmatic, ideological program so much as an ethic and philosophy that can be compatible with a lot and tends to be far more pragmatic, realistic, practical, and well evidenced than most people seem to understand.
I routinely hear 2 major objections too, A. "No Theory", and B. "How will you defend it", which both speak to the level of misunderstanding or ignorance on the topic cause they don't realize that most Marxist theory is also anarchist theory (at least analytically), discounts the people's ability to defend themselves and their gaines without a centralized state structure, and fails to consider how so far all socialist tendencies have failed to defend their projects or put a meaningful dent in capitalism. It also fails to understand that someone that calls themselves an anarchist often has a range of things that they'd view as a step in the right direction. But, particularly online, this is lost to people on all sides from what I've seen.
It also fails to truly go to the root of these issues. Rather we're talking about capitalism, class society, imperialism, the state, feudalism, slavery, money, bigotry, boss/worker relations, patriarchy, non-human animal consumption, wealth inequality, etc, we're talking about power and different ways it may manifest. Just dealing with one particular way it manifests is like treating the symptoms of a disease while ignoring the disease itself. Power is the disease, the specifics are the symptoms. Ya miss the forest for the trees when ya only look at the symptoms and don't go deeper. I've even seen some people go so far as to say that power itself isn't the issue but who holds it though I've never seen a single shred of evidence that would lend itself to unequal distributions of power and lopsided social relations ever being anything but coercive and harmful, especially when institutionalized and outside the confines of liberatory/revisionary works cause as Engles himself missed and Malatesta nailed: anarchists understand that coercion of the rulers and owners of the world will almost certainly be mandatory to achieve freedom but it should be loathed and used only when necessary because in the end we desire peace above all else as it's central to freedom in both the positive and negative sense of the word.
If people would actually talk more instead of being so overly confident in their ideas and willingness to speak on others we'd get a lot further than we do with misunderstandings and assumptions 🤦🏽♂️
Capitalism also isn't the most efficient system. Overproduction and pointless waste is commonplace. Billions of dollars of food and consumer goods, perfectly usable are destroyed every year to drive up prices.
Your thinking is just totally wrong and defies rational logic. It is easy to see you are wrong by illustrating the short sightedness of your statement.
If what your logic is right then even more food and goods would have been destroyed to push up prices further and further until there were virtually no goods left and the prices would be astronomically higher. That has not happened because the real world does not operate by your short sighted logic.
there is a theoretical point where bitcoin stops and equalizes or whatever i don't know too much about it but if it's not stopping already it's already fuck
Go check out Yanis Varoufakis. Dude gets it. I'm just starting into his stuff myself but he has some ideas about, you know, getting from point A --> B or point capitalism to point socialism that are fairly unique as far as I know and hold some real promise, I think.
Remember that Seinfeld episode where Ellane dates a Communist?
I have been trying to figure out if bitcoin is a simulacrum of digital scarcity, a virtual tulip or a combination of both.
👍👍
First law of economics:
Currency will always have to be created because currency in always inevitably destroyed.
Zeroth Law: Money is fictional, and so the rules of any money-based system are inherently arbitrary.
I had to go back and take Econ 101 at like age 26 after I had a masters .... it sucked ingot a C
Aren’t most MMTers Post-Keynesian?
Basing important economic decisions on an econ 101 understanding of economics would be like building a plane based on a physics 101 understanding of physics.
Physics 101 teaches you correct if simplified and basic things. Econ 101 is propaganda and lies. Modern day capitalist "economics" is a religion, NOT a science.
i sensed a weird tele-flirting at the end when she discovered he was vegan
Unrelated, your bangs are so cute!!
Sub to him he the best
Talking about supply raising costs, this is exactly what energy companies claim when they’re regulated in California. Every time it’s reviewed they request to raise the price and the “regulators” rubber stamp it. It’s not possible to push back as citizens when they’re a conglomerate operating in California, Texas, and Mexico.
And not free market. Energy is ridiculously regulated. Maybe if commiefornia hadn't closed nuke plants and quit trying to rely on fake green energy the prices would be way lower.
"collabd?" WTF?
Your very lovely
It is just a plain dopey assumption as the first respondent on this video does to criticize the fact the demand and supply curve may be upwards because it is based on demand and supply at singular time which is what he has completely ignored. It shows he doesn't understand the very basics of the demand and supply curve.
hey its my course
Great video
Nice collab!
Algo
If an entire economy is run cooperatively, how does it redistribute labour following productivity improvements, if co-ops generally don't do layoffs?
Productivity improvements may not necessarily mean layoffs, I mean the co-op owners don’t have an interest in laying anyone off since, well, they have power in it equal to everyone else. The only reason people are laid off in a more capitalist structured economy usually is because one person wants more money, and this isn’t to say this will never happen in a co-op, however it’s much harder to do as it has to be put through democratic consensus. However this in itself can lead to some problems, for example in Yugoslavia if I remember correctly a critique of their economy was that it had extremely high unemployment because no one was losing their jobs in a co-op economy so those coming into the market looking for a job would have to migrate somewhere else.
@@hybridxg2204 no one lost their jobs because coops were backed by the state. There was no independent cooperative Bank system, Credit was from the state and unemployement was not evenly distributed. Yugoslavia was a federal state so it had hard time to even out unemployement. Some places saw %4-5 u employenment and some saw %25
Coops do fire workers although not like in the us now that 'at-will' laws can put you in a desperate situation for no reason at all.
Also, nobody likes lazy people in the workplace. So, eventually, if you do not do your work, you will be fired or get a warning because you don't put much while getting profit off of the coop.
Easy, fewer working hours for everyone. More time for family and community.
Shorter work day, the way tech improvements were always supposed to work!
8:44
Econ101 is not about economics, it's all about how to favor the rich, protect the rich and make the rich richer.
Your statement is not what you think because by world standard if you are earning over US $ 30,000 per year you are already in the top few percent in the world. So you are condemning yourself to being forced into a lower income group by your own statement.
Assuming firms costs slope upwards seems to inherently assume that the firm has enough market power to affect it's own supply costs. IIRC supply and demand models were always presented stating that the models do not work at all if firms have market power.
Yep, the basic supply and demand model assumes all firms have exactly 0 market power. The upward slope comes from assuming decreasing returns to scale.
Exactly. In econ 101 they'll walk you through models where the firm doesn't have market power, and generally new entrants are free. With these huge assumptions they make the case for perfect competition.
Most econ educations (at least in the states in my experience) hold out on explaining the effects of firms with market power until higher level courses which very few people take if they aren't getting a degree in economics.
A firm's ability to limit competition through predatory pricing, and affect demand through targeted advertising, marketing, etc. is one of the greatest cases for the strict regulation of social democrats, or eliminating the profit motive like democratic socialists call for.
@@aksldfoityawiejfsdnfakldjfxcoi perfect competition is impossible tho. I am not saying "there is no free market" i am saying that perfect competition resembles, not free markets, but central planning. Literally, if firms do not put prices and instead they get their prices from the market then who put the price? There should be a leading player who will force every other firms to obey it's efficiency levels. As anwar shaikh put it: "competition is not a balle, it is a war"
@@pygmalion8952 you could make the case that perfect competition resembles central planning (commodity production with no differentiation, no barriers for new entrants, receives no profit). The big thing is that regardless of whether you take the SD or DS route to tackling the issues that arise from market power, the first step is properly educating people about the effects of market power on economic models of production and competition.
To get even more basic, let's not forget that money, and therefore the economy based on it, is fundamentally just some shit we made up. We pulled all of the "rules" out of our collective ass, and can change or eliminate them at leisure. It's incredibly frustrating how little any of us remember this.
"Marxist jargon can be quite... hum... I'm trying not to say alienating." I'll tell you who's alienated; the proletariat whose labor is owned by the Bourgeoisie, but once the former gains class consciousness we...
Sorry about over simplified example here, genuinely curious. If a business replaced all labour with automation (assuming we're in the world where it is as cost effective) then who creates value for business then?
If machines can produce themselves, nobody. Marx talked about it. Labor being 'the watchmen' of the production process etc.
And I think this is a good goal. Automation can lessen the burden we have now and free up people more and more if it is used effectively
@@pygmalion8952 that'd exponentially widen the wealth gap though since most people will be on welfare because they were replaced by robots
Around 40:00 this is why I think Georgism wirh said leftist editions like mutual aid, syndicates, co ops, councils/direct democracy etc is a good transition strategy. I always thought it was stupid Milton freedom, libcon nonsense but when unlearning explained it and why he favors it in a QnA it REALLY clicked after mexies radical creativity and post cap strategies vid. My only fear is that is it would just be an Orwellian nightmare where it turns into something else completely and loses its original purpose, which seemed to happen back wirh the new dealers
Any hard refutations of the following topics:
1) The Socialist Calculation Problem (Mises)
2) The labor theory of value (and the theory of surplus value) as opposed to the marginal revolution and its refutations (Böhm-Bawerk)
3) The knowledge problem (Hyek)
if this discussion doesn't address these subjects its basically just incantations of an old and outdated religion..
Criticizing others for being cult-like while putting any stock whatsoever in Mises or Hayek is throwing a grenade from a glass house.
Economic Calculation in a Natural Law / RBE, Peter Joseph, The Zeitgeist Movement, Berlin
ruclips.net/video/K9FDIne7M9o/видео.html
Peter Joseph & Friends | "The Viable System" | Toronto, ON, May 27th 2018 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ]
ruclips.net/video/AFZjZa5ZAyY/видео.html
Jacque Fresco - Introduction to Sociocyberneering - Larry King (1974)
ruclips.net/video/lBIdk-fgCeQ/видео.html
Jacque Fresco - Economics vs. Sociocyberneering (1978)
ruclips.net/video/AFrvN5yVeyU/видео.html
Systems Theory Basics
ruclips.net/video/j2I7jTzFkiM/видео.html
Cliodynamics explains history scientifically: an interview with Peter Turchin
ruclips.net/video/oturMcT45Ww/видео.html
Ages of discord - Peter Turchin
ruclips.net/video/sLS8C1K9s7w/видео.html
Exploring Degrowth with Theory and Examples
ruclips.net/video/eUFYrrvv4EY/видео.html
The Zero Marginal Cost Society | Jeremy Rifkin | Talks at Google
ruclips.net/video/5-iDUcETjvo/видео.html
PostCapitalism | Paul Mason | Talks at Google
ruclips.net/video/cQyr9l22fLE/видео.html
What's the difference between "decentralized" and "distributed"?
ruclips.net/video/dm0-eY_9neg/видео.html
Sustainability IS a steady state economy - RUclips
ruclips.net/video/bVk4ATItPZk/видео.html
Steady State Economics, the Trophic Theory of Money, and GDP as an Indicator of Environ. Impact
ruclips.net/video/AyUKjcEp1Jc/видео.html
David Harvey Lecture 2: Value and Anti-Value
ruclips.net/video/_Exuvac8Fcc/видео.html
The Five Great Economic Transitions - Peter Joseph
ruclips.net/video/vLHy7cSdg1U/видео.html
TZM London TownHall with Peter Joseph, November 15th 2013 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ]
ruclips.net/video/yZYS0vKBZac/видео.html
The Zeitgeist Movement Defined
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/education
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller
@@Nerdsammich If it helps y’all are both dumb
I’m only 10 minutes in but I’m pretty sure he is confusing Total Cost with Marginal Cost.
no he's not, marginal costs would also fall with scale (within reason)
this is suuuch an ironic channel. the people in these circles have such terrible understandings of the most basic of economic principles. its so painful to watch and to see how many people dont realize how theyre being duped here.
Well, thanks to you and those piercing insights we're closer to achieving a more substantial understanding. I hope this vacuous jerk-off gesture of yours was worth it for you.
@@fede2 yes, the anonymous economics "academic" who is unwilling to attach his name to his fundamentally absurd ideas is better than no insights at all. this channel is dangerous because it gives people a false sense of understanding. God help us.
@@RUclipsComments Lol. Am I going to be charged for this econ lesson? I'm learning so much from you.
@@fede2 the lesson is to stop listening to this channel. no lesson is better than a wrong lesson. youre better off wandering aimlessly without a map than following a wrong map. youre welcome.
If you would like some correct people to follow please try russel roberts, nassim taleb or thomas sowell.
Actually the best youtube channel to learn about post keynisian economics and economics in general is french and is called heu?reka, it teaches economics in general and it also compares different theories, if any of you speak french you should definitely check it out.