How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden
by Per Bylund
[Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006]
Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago.
My late grandmother used to say something had gone wrong with the world. She was proud to never have asked for help, to have always been able to rely on herself and her husband, proud that they could throughout their lives care for their family. I'm happy that when she passed away at the respectable age of 85, she did so with that dignity still intact. She was never a burden.
My grandmother, born in 1920, was of the last generation to have that special personal pride, of having a firm and deeply rooted morality, of being a sovereign in life no matter what — to be the sole master of one's fate. The people of her generation experienced and endured one or two world wars (though Sweden never took part) and were raised by poor Swedish farmers and industrial workers. They witnessed and were the driving force behind the Swedish "wonder."
Their morality assured they could survive any condition. If they found themselves not being able to live off their wages, they would only work harder and longer. They were the architects and construction workers in building their own lives, even though it often meant hard work and enduring seemingly hopeless situations.
Read more ...
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Game Theory -- Interesting, but of little use
From Mises.org blog:
Game Theory? Oh sure, many people use it all the time
Jeffrey Tucker
And yet no one can seem to point to a single example of its use. (Thanks Digg.com, where many bloggers said Game Theory is descriptive, not prescriptive.)
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Recycling Old Blog Posts
Mise.org article: http://www.mises.org/story/1911
Recycling: What a Waste!
by Jim Fedako
[Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005] [Subscribe at email services and tell others]
This Fall, school kids across the country will again be taught a chief doctrine in the civic religion: recycle, not only because you fear the police but also because you love the planet. They come home well prepared to be the enforcers of the creed against parents who might inadvertently let a foil ball into the glass bin or overlook a plastic wrapper in the aluminum bin.
Oh, I used to believe in recycling, and I still believe in the other two Rs: reducing and reusing. But recycling? It's a waste of time, money, and ever scarce resources. What John Tierney wrote in the New York Times nearly 10 years ago is still true: "Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America."
Reduce and reuse makes sense. With no investment in resources I can place the plastic grocery bag in the bathroom garbage can and save a penny or so for some more pressing need. Reducing and reusing are free market activities that are an absolute profitable investment of time and labor.
Any astute entrepreneur will see the benefit of conserving factors of production. Houses are built today with much, much less wood than homes built just 20 years ago; and they are built sturdier, for the most part anyway. The decision to reduce wood in houses was not prompted by a green's love for trees; it was a reaction to the increasing cost for wood products.
Using less wood makes financial sense and any entrepreneur worth his profit will change his recipe to conserve wood through better design or by substituting less dear materials for wood products.
A recent Mises article, Ethanol and the Calculation Issue, discussed the inability to calculate the true cost of producing Ethanol. No one can calculate the cost of all the factors of production in the direction from the highest order labor and land down to the lowest order. Ethanol at the pump, though the Chicago School, Keynesians, etc., would certainly give the calculation the old college try. Absent government supports, the cost of Ethanol at the pump reveals the true economic cost of producing that fuel.
The same applies to recycling. What is the true cost of all factors involved in the recycling activity? I haven't a clue. Though using Misesian logic I know that the costs of recycling exceed the benefits. This is the simple result of the observation that recycling doesn't return a financial profit.
I used to recycle. It paid. As a child living in the Pittsburgh area, I would clean used glass containers. After collecting a sufficient amount of glass, my father would drive the three or so miles to the local glass factory where the owner gladly exchanged cleaned waste glass for dollars. It this instance I was an entrepreneur investing factors of production in order to turn dirty waste glass into capital. The value of the exchange exceeded my preference for time, elbow grease, and my parents' soap, water, and auto fuel. (Of course all of my exchanges against my parents' resources were high on my preference list, but that's another issue altogether).
What's wrong with recycling? The answer is simple; it doesn't pay. And since it doesn't pay it is an inefficient use of the time, money, and scarce resources. That's right, as Mises would have argued: let prices be your guide. Prices are essential to evaluate actions ex post. If the accounting of a near past event reveals a financial loss, the activity was a waste of both the entrepreneur's and society's scarce resources.
I'm supposed to believe that I need to invest resources into cleaning and sorting all sorts of recyclable materials for no compensation. And this is considered economically efficient? In some local communities--many thousands of which have recycling progreams--residents have to pay extra so that a company will recycle their paper, plastic, and glass. The recycling bins come with a per-month fee.
In other areas, such as my township, the garbage company profits at the mercy of the political class. The trustees in my township specified that in order to win the waste removal contract, the winning company has to provide recycling bins. Further, they have to send a special truck around to empty those neatly packed bins and deliver them to companies that have no pressing need for these unraw materials. The recycling bins are ostensibly free, but in reality their cost is bundled into my monthly waste removal bill.
Since there is no market for recyclable materials, at least no market sufficient to at least return my investment in soap and water, not to mention time and labor, I conclude that there is no pressing need for recycling. If landfills were truly in short supply then the cost of dumping waste would quickly rise. I would then see the financial benefit to reducing my waste volume, and since the recycling bin does not count toward waste volume, the more in the recycling bin, the less in the increasingly expensive garbage cans. Prices drive entrepreneurial calculations and, hence, human action. Recycling is no different.
Come on now, there can't be any benefit to even the neoclassical society if you actually have to pay someone to remove recyclables.
That recycling doesn't pay signifies that resources devoted to recycling activities would be better utilized in other modes of production. Instead of wasting resources on recycling, it would be more prudent to invest that money so that new recipes could be created to better conserve scarce materials in the production process.
Human action guides resources toward the activities that meet the most pressing needs. This movement of resources means that those activities that don't meet pressing needs are relatively expensive. Why? Those activities have to bid for factors of production along with the profitable activities — activities that are meeting the most pressing needs. The profitable activities will drive the cost of those scarce factors upward leading to financial ruin for those activities that don't satisfy the most pressing needs. Forced recycling is such a failed activity.
The concept of lost materials is fraught with errors. Glass headed to the landfills will sit quietly awaiting someone to desire its value. The glass is not going anywhere, and should glass become as dear as gold or even something less dear, you can bet that entrepreneurs would begin mining landfills for all those junked glass bottles, not to mention plastic, aluminum, etc.
The only caveat to this train of thought is what Rothbard wrote about when he discussed psychic profit: the perceived benefit one gets from performing an action, even if that action leads to an economic loss.
Who reaps the real psychic reward from recycling? The statist do-gooder and the obsessed conservationist. Since recycling is now a statist goal, the do-gooders and greens force the cost of recycling on the unsuspecting masses by selling recycling as a pseudo-spiritual activity. In addition to these beneficiaries, there are those who have not considered the full costs of recycling, but their psychic benefit is more ephemeral than real. The other winners are the companies that do the collecting and process the materials, an industry that is sustained by mandates at the local level.
If recycling at a financial loss leads you to greater psychic profit, then recycle, recycle, recycle. Let your personal preferences guide your actions, but don't force your preference schedule on others who have a different preference rank for their own actions. And, do not delude yourself into thinking that you are economizing anything; you are simply increasing your psychic profit at the expense of a more rational investment. But, hey, your actions are your business; just don't force your preferences to be my business.
Oh, and don't tell my children half the recycling story. Remember Hazlitt and turn over the second and third stone before drawing an economic conclusion.
____________
Jim Fedako is a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH. jfedako@aol.com. Comment on the blog.
You can receive the Mises Daily Article in your inbox. Go here to subscribe or unsubscribe.
Recycling: What a Waste!
by Jim Fedako
[Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005] [Subscribe at email services and tell others]
This Fall, school kids across the country will again be taught a chief doctrine in the civic religion: recycle, not only because you fear the police but also because you love the planet. They come home well prepared to be the enforcers of the creed against parents who might inadvertently let a foil ball into the glass bin or overlook a plastic wrapper in the aluminum bin.
Oh, I used to believe in recycling, and I still believe in the other two Rs: reducing and reusing. But recycling? It's a waste of time, money, and ever scarce resources. What John Tierney wrote in the New York Times nearly 10 years ago is still true: "Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America."
Reduce and reuse makes sense. With no investment in resources I can place the plastic grocery bag in the bathroom garbage can and save a penny or so for some more pressing need. Reducing and reusing are free market activities that are an absolute profitable investment of time and labor.
Any astute entrepreneur will see the benefit of conserving factors of production. Houses are built today with much, much less wood than homes built just 20 years ago; and they are built sturdier, for the most part anyway. The decision to reduce wood in houses was not prompted by a green's love for trees; it was a reaction to the increasing cost for wood products.
Using less wood makes financial sense and any entrepreneur worth his profit will change his recipe to conserve wood through better design or by substituting less dear materials for wood products.
A recent Mises article, Ethanol and the Calculation Issue, discussed the inability to calculate the true cost of producing Ethanol. No one can calculate the cost of all the factors of production in the direction from the highest order labor and land down to the lowest order. Ethanol at the pump, though the Chicago School, Keynesians, etc., would certainly give the calculation the old college try. Absent government supports, the cost of Ethanol at the pump reveals the true economic cost of producing that fuel.
The same applies to recycling. What is the true cost of all factors involved in the recycling activity? I haven't a clue. Though using Misesian logic I know that the costs of recycling exceed the benefits. This is the simple result of the observation that recycling doesn't return a financial profit.
I used to recycle. It paid. As a child living in the Pittsburgh area, I would clean used glass containers. After collecting a sufficient amount of glass, my father would drive the three or so miles to the local glass factory where the owner gladly exchanged cleaned waste glass for dollars. It this instance I was an entrepreneur investing factors of production in order to turn dirty waste glass into capital. The value of the exchange exceeded my preference for time, elbow grease, and my parents' soap, water, and auto fuel. (Of course all of my exchanges against my parents' resources were high on my preference list, but that's another issue altogether).
What's wrong with recycling? The answer is simple; it doesn't pay. And since it doesn't pay it is an inefficient use of the time, money, and scarce resources. That's right, as Mises would have argued: let prices be your guide. Prices are essential to evaluate actions ex post. If the accounting of a near past event reveals a financial loss, the activity was a waste of both the entrepreneur's and society's scarce resources.
I'm supposed to believe that I need to invest resources into cleaning and sorting all sorts of recyclable materials for no compensation. And this is considered economically efficient? In some local communities--many thousands of which have recycling progreams--residents have to pay extra so that a company will recycle their paper, plastic, and glass. The recycling bins come with a per-month fee.
In other areas, such as my township, the garbage company profits at the mercy of the political class. The trustees in my township specified that in order to win the waste removal contract, the winning company has to provide recycling bins. Further, they have to send a special truck around to empty those neatly packed bins and deliver them to companies that have no pressing need for these unraw materials. The recycling bins are ostensibly free, but in reality their cost is bundled into my monthly waste removal bill.
Since there is no market for recyclable materials, at least no market sufficient to at least return my investment in soap and water, not to mention time and labor, I conclude that there is no pressing need for recycling. If landfills were truly in short supply then the cost of dumping waste would quickly rise. I would then see the financial benefit to reducing my waste volume, and since the recycling bin does not count toward waste volume, the more in the recycling bin, the less in the increasingly expensive garbage cans. Prices drive entrepreneurial calculations and, hence, human action. Recycling is no different.
Come on now, there can't be any benefit to even the neoclassical society if you actually have to pay someone to remove recyclables.
That recycling doesn't pay signifies that resources devoted to recycling activities would be better utilized in other modes of production. Instead of wasting resources on recycling, it would be more prudent to invest that money so that new recipes could be created to better conserve scarce materials in the production process.
Human action guides resources toward the activities that meet the most pressing needs. This movement of resources means that those activities that don't meet pressing needs are relatively expensive. Why? Those activities have to bid for factors of production along with the profitable activities — activities that are meeting the most pressing needs. The profitable activities will drive the cost of those scarce factors upward leading to financial ruin for those activities that don't satisfy the most pressing needs. Forced recycling is such a failed activity.
The concept of lost materials is fraught with errors. Glass headed to the landfills will sit quietly awaiting someone to desire its value. The glass is not going anywhere, and should glass become as dear as gold or even something less dear, you can bet that entrepreneurs would begin mining landfills for all those junked glass bottles, not to mention plastic, aluminum, etc.
The only caveat to this train of thought is what Rothbard wrote about when he discussed psychic profit: the perceived benefit one gets from performing an action, even if that action leads to an economic loss.
Who reaps the real psychic reward from recycling? The statist do-gooder and the obsessed conservationist. Since recycling is now a statist goal, the do-gooders and greens force the cost of recycling on the unsuspecting masses by selling recycling as a pseudo-spiritual activity. In addition to these beneficiaries, there are those who have not considered the full costs of recycling, but their psychic benefit is more ephemeral than real. The other winners are the companies that do the collecting and process the materials, an industry that is sustained by mandates at the local level.
If recycling at a financial loss leads you to greater psychic profit, then recycle, recycle, recycle. Let your personal preferences guide your actions, but don't force your preference schedule on others who have a different preference rank for their own actions. And, do not delude yourself into thinking that you are economizing anything; you are simply increasing your psychic profit at the expense of a more rational investment. But, hey, your actions are your business; just don't force your preferences to be my business.
Oh, and don't tell my children half the recycling story. Remember Hazlitt and turn over the second and third stone before drawing an economic conclusion.
____________
Jim Fedako is a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH. jfedako@aol.com. Comment on the blog.
You can receive the Mises Daily Article in your inbox. Go here to subscribe or unsubscribe.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Books You Must Read: A Book List
Looking for a reading list (see below)? Here is a great one from David Gordon of Mises.org that addresses the concepts of property rights and liberty.
A Listserve Post Regarding How Schools Should Be Controlled
John,
That's actually a misnomer. Under a free market system of choice, it would be a free country. Absent free choice, it's a country run by whomever controls the political power; whether at the local, state or federal level. An advocate for a free country would have to believe that parents have the ability to make the correct choices based on their personal preferences.
To claim that you want a free country at the same time as you advocate for a mandated system that meets with your specifications is disingenuous to say the least. We have seen an increasing encroachment on our freedoms from those who claim that "it's a free country" while advocating for government to intervene on their part.
There a many people who like to end a discussion with "let's agree to disagree" and then turn around and use whatever energy and influence they have to capture political control. We can agree to disagree and accept that this a free country when you quit attempting to garner support for ideas that will encroach on the freedoms of others.
By way of example: Teachers in my district think that they are in the right when they mandate a reading list that contains nothing but popular trash, not one recognizable classic to be found. These are books that have no merit other than being more profane and disgusting than the worst trash-talking radio show. These teachers believe that they are doing what is best for children and have no qualms telling parents that they know best.
District staff indoctrinated 6th grade students in the ways of perverse sexual behaviors without any parental notification using clips from MTV and other media sources. Why did they not inform parents? The staff members stated that they were certain the children whose parents would have said "No" were the ones most in need of hearing this talk. You see, these staff member knew better than the parents, and it was their job -- their right in essence -- to usurp the family.
Karl Marx and the other socialists/communists saw little need for the family and other institutions, They believed, and believe, that they knew better.
So much for freedoms. And, so much for respect of parental rights and decision-making skills.
Jim Fedako
That's actually a misnomer. Under a free market system of choice, it would be a free country. Absent free choice, it's a country run by whomever controls the political power; whether at the local, state or federal level. An advocate for a free country would have to believe that parents have the ability to make the correct choices based on their personal preferences.
To claim that you want a free country at the same time as you advocate for a mandated system that meets with your specifications is disingenuous to say the least. We have seen an increasing encroachment on our freedoms from those who claim that "it's a free country" while advocating for government to intervene on their part.
There a many people who like to end a discussion with "let's agree to disagree" and then turn around and use whatever energy and influence they have to capture political control. We can agree to disagree and accept that this a free country when you quit attempting to garner support for ideas that will encroach on the freedoms of others.
By way of example: Teachers in my district think that they are in the right when they mandate a reading list that contains nothing but popular trash, not one recognizable classic to be found. These are books that have no merit other than being more profane and disgusting than the worst trash-talking radio show. These teachers believe that they are doing what is best for children and have no qualms telling parents that they know best.
District staff indoctrinated 6th grade students in the ways of perverse sexual behaviors without any parental notification using clips from MTV and other media sources. Why did they not inform parents? The staff members stated that they were certain the children whose parents would have said "No" were the ones most in need of hearing this talk. You see, these staff member knew better than the parents, and it was their job -- their right in essence -- to usurp the family.
Karl Marx and the other socialists/communists saw little need for the family and other institutions, They believed, and believe, that they knew better.
So much for freedoms. And, so much for respect of parental rights and decision-making skills.
Jim Fedako
Monday, May 22, 2006
High School Reading List
It doesn't take much effort to find a recommended reading list for high school students. Many learned minds have taken the challenge of creating a list and deciding which books make their list and which do not. There are many great books to choose from, and only four years of high school to read them. Time is the only limiting factor for facilitating maximum learning.
Just like any top 10 or top 100 list, we all can argue over which books deserve to be mentioned, and which books do not. Half the fun of reading such lists is debating which books were left out, and which ones should have been. Again, time forces the list to be limited, with many excellent books always left out.
So what does the Olentangy School District do when confronted with the challenge of creating a reading list from the many great classics? It assigns some of its college prep students to read Mark Hadden's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I found this book on no list of classic must-reads. In fact, this book published in 2003 is as profane as it is vacuous. The question is what teacher in his or her right mind would assign this book to students? And what administrator would back up the teacher's selection of this book?
The beauty of the internet is that anyone with web access can go to Amazon.com and search books for various words. This allows parents and community members to see what students are reading without having to purchase or borrow the book. Want to search the content of The Curious Incident? Just click over to Amazon and enter profane words in the search box. You'll be shocked, as are many parents in this district.
With so little time between 8th grade and freshman year of college, the Olentangy District has chosen a peculiar approach to its mission of facilitating maximum learning for every student.
This all leaves me wondering what the staff and administration consider classics? And what they consider maximum learning? And I'm a board member.
Jim Fedako
Member, Olentangy Board of Education
Just like any top 10 or top 100 list, we all can argue over which books deserve to be mentioned, and which books do not. Half the fun of reading such lists is debating which books were left out, and which ones should have been. Again, time forces the list to be limited, with many excellent books always left out.
So what does the Olentangy School District do when confronted with the challenge of creating a reading list from the many great classics? It assigns some of its college prep students to read Mark Hadden's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I found this book on no list of classic must-reads. In fact, this book published in 2003 is as profane as it is vacuous. The question is what teacher in his or her right mind would assign this book to students? And what administrator would back up the teacher's selection of this book?
The beauty of the internet is that anyone with web access can go to Amazon.com and search books for various words. This allows parents and community members to see what students are reading without having to purchase or borrow the book. Want to search the content of The Curious Incident? Just click over to Amazon and enter profane words in the search box. You'll be shocked, as are many parents in this district.
With so little time between 8th grade and freshman year of college, the Olentangy District has chosen a peculiar approach to its mission of facilitating maximum learning for every student.
This all leaves me wondering what the staff and administration consider classics? And what they consider maximum learning? And I'm a board member.
Jim Fedako
Member, Olentangy Board of Education
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
The Rust Belt v. Taxes
Latest Mises.org blog:http://blog.mises.org/archives/005059.asp
by Jim Fedako
The Rust Belt state of Ohio is hemorrhaging job. On one hand state officials claim that the state's tax rate is not a hindrance to attracting companies to invest in the state, while on the other hand these very same officials cut taxes to entice DaimlerChrysler AG to build a plant near Toledo. The state's tax system cannot be "neutral" when it is obviously too high for additional capital investment. It appears that the state officials realize this since they must provide special tax breaks to stem the flow of jobs out of the state. When will state governments speak the truth and admit that all forms and rates of taxation are a drag on the economy? Probably not until the citizens realize that the dollar lifted from their wallets is not the personal savings of state officials to "invest" as they please.
by Jim Fedako
The Rust Belt state of Ohio is hemorrhaging job. On one hand state officials claim that the state's tax rate is not a hindrance to attracting companies to invest in the state, while on the other hand these very same officials cut taxes to entice DaimlerChrysler AG to build a plant near Toledo. The state's tax system cannot be "neutral" when it is obviously too high for additional capital investment. It appears that the state officials realize this since they must provide special tax breaks to stem the flow of jobs out of the state. When will state governments speak the truth and admit that all forms and rates of taxation are a drag on the economy? Probably not until the citizens realize that the dollar lifted from their wallets is not the personal savings of state officials to "invest" as they please.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Kindergarten Economics
A cute saying is, “Everything I know, I learned in Kindergarten.” That may indeed be the case for some, but learning doesn't always imply useful knowledge. Sometimes the item learned becomes an axiom of errant logic and false conclusions. These conclusions then drive economic policy toward the -isms of socialism, egalitarianism, utilitarianism, environmentalism, etc., the often-prized third way. But in actuality, Ludwig von Mises showed that the direction provide by these conclusions leads down the one-way street to the socialist cul-de-sac.
The classroom poster reads, “There are no wrong ideas here.” Is this apodictically true? If it is not, where does this false statement lead? What conclusions and actions result from a saying so apparently innocuous? You might be surprised.
Future educators are being indoctrinated by college professors adhering to progressive and socialist educational utopian ideals – just as current educators were indoctrinated during their college years. Mises in Human Action noted that Charles Fourier, the French utopian socialist, believed that man could create a world where the seas are made from lemonade. Mises also quotes Trotsky’s belief that the world in the 1920’s was about to witness the birth of the ideal super human as “the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.”
These Utopian ideals are certainly powerful statements, but they are a too outrageous for the typical education major. Keep the utopian ideal, but spin the rhetoric into the less offensive Kindergarten concept that no ideas can be wrong and you've hooked the teachers, parents and school board. And, more importantly, you've inculcated a new generation. Gramsci was right, why fight in the streets when patience and time will bring about socialism through lectures and textbooks as each subsequent generation is taught party-line thoughts and ideas at state-run schools.
There are many in my generation who believe that all ideas are good. Failure is not the product of a bad idea; failure is instead the product of market flaws and the sign that government intervention is required.
In reality most ideas are not worthy of consideration; they're inefficient, wasteful and just plain wrong. In Kindergarten and throughout the public K-12 system that statement is politically incorrect.
A little history is in order. Otto von Bismarck’s dream of state socialism was given birth decades before his rise to power when the calls for compulsory public education were heard soon after Napoleon defeated the Prussian army at Jena. The Prussian system supposedly began producing the best and the brightest, at least that’s what Horace Mann, the father of public education in the US, believed. Later, John Dewey, the father of the current pedagogy, was enthralled by what he saw during a 1928 visit to the Soviet Union. Trotsky’s Utopian man was envisioned by the Progressives as the product of public education.
This has left us with a free and compulsory school system that is convinced that five 7th graders sitting around a table can construct the concepts that required the brightest intellects hundreds of years to conceive. It took the likes of Carl Menger and the passage of a century to overthrow Adam Smith’s Classical School and institute the Marginalist Revolution. The discovery of marginal utility, considered the mark of a genius, is now supposed to be replicated by less-than-eager adolescents within a 40-minute class period. The utopian man has arrived.
“No wrong ideas here.” Every thought uttered by any child or adult has to be given equal standing. Consensus, an ideal adhered to by the education monopoly, is the blending of these ideas into an Hegelian synthesis [1] that becomes truth. Synthesis can then be tested using the latest tools of the econometrician. That this new truth stands outside a priori logic is of no consequence. Without a system built on a priori logic to test ideas, anything can be deemed possible. Polylogism is certainly alive and well.
The empiricist’s test of the statement, “No wrong ideas here,” is a view of two snapshots of a local strip mall taken one year apart. Most of the stores open in year one are gone in year two; bad ideas.
Weren't these ideas entrepreneurial dreams? Certainly, but not all dreams lead to viable concerns. Mises considered the consumer a heartless taskmaster. The statement in the Kindergarten classroom fails the empirical test and thus must be concluded as false.
Not so fast. Wasn't the test the result of a flawed system? Didn't the statistical noise from the market cause a false reading of the results? Aren’t we confounding correlation with causation since the market caused the failures? Such ideas are hard to refute since they spin faster than anyone can apply logic to them.
Unlike the Kindergarten teachers who may truly believe that all ideas – dreams – should be allowed to germinate and bloom, the consumer does not see the dream, only the product. We see Wal Mart but we don't see the thousand other stores that opened in the 1950’s that, while being the dreams of entrepreneurs, did not provide for the most urgent wants of the customers. These businesses failed. Their business model was incorrect and inefficient.
But, wait. Failure means that an idea was wrong. We have been taught that ideas are correct; it is the market that fails. Your snapshots from above shows different store fronts because the free market suffers the inherent flaw that the passing fancies of consumers trump the dreams of the child, now entrepreneur. This conclusion is what we were taught in Kindergarten as impressionable and malleable children. It’s the evils of the market that steal the dreams of the Utopian man.
The market didn't steal the dreams, the dreams still exist. But consumers – you and I – shouldn't have to pay for another man’s dream. The dream must simply remain one man’s dream. Under a system of interventionism, the dreams of the entrepreneur are exchanged for the dreams of the elected official or bureaucrat. The entrepreneur that dreamed of building a store on the premise of “always high prices” is now sitting behind an agency desk commanding the economy. Instead of fully stocked Wal Marts carrying fresh foods from all around the globe, the consumer is stuck with the drab, dirty Soviet-quality stores stocked with Vodka, cookies and little else.
Saying an idea is wrong does not mean that ideas shouldn't be tested. IBM thought Gates was off the mark trying to peddle computers for home use. Other examples abound where ideas considered crazy brought innovation to the market and eased the urgent wants of the consumers.
Unlike a lab where all conditions must be controlled for an experiment to work, the market allows someone with an idea, enthusiasm and some financial backing to test that idea at the local strip mall. Should the concept align with the needs of the consumer, the next Subway-style success will begin opening franchises in strip malls throughout the US.
Better the foot-long turkey on wheat served with a smile than the slice of salami on stale bread coming from the scowling apparachik wearing a faded Babushka. The more productive an idea, the more efficient the economy will run. We all benefit when ideas that are wrong are allowed to be discarded in the waste pile.
I will contend that all truths I know about the market I learned through studying Human Action and Murray Rothbard’s classic, Man, Economy and State. Since these books reconstruct economics around solid a priori logic, they are irrefutable. These books deliver conclusions will challenge all that was learned in Kindergarten and beyond, but those very conclusions must be understood as the guiding lights to a brighter future for all.
Jim Fedako
[1] The common usage is Hegelian while this usage is more along the lines of Fichte's system, the predecessor of Hegel. Though even this fits the common usage of Hegelian.
The classroom poster reads, “There are no wrong ideas here.” Is this apodictically true? If it is not, where does this false statement lead? What conclusions and actions result from a saying so apparently innocuous? You might be surprised.
Future educators are being indoctrinated by college professors adhering to progressive and socialist educational utopian ideals – just as current educators were indoctrinated during their college years. Mises in Human Action noted that Charles Fourier, the French utopian socialist, believed that man could create a world where the seas are made from lemonade. Mises also quotes Trotsky’s belief that the world in the 1920’s was about to witness the birth of the ideal super human as “the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.”
These Utopian ideals are certainly powerful statements, but they are a too outrageous for the typical education major. Keep the utopian ideal, but spin the rhetoric into the less offensive Kindergarten concept that no ideas can be wrong and you've hooked the teachers, parents and school board. And, more importantly, you've inculcated a new generation. Gramsci was right, why fight in the streets when patience and time will bring about socialism through lectures and textbooks as each subsequent generation is taught party-line thoughts and ideas at state-run schools.
There are many in my generation who believe that all ideas are good. Failure is not the product of a bad idea; failure is instead the product of market flaws and the sign that government intervention is required.
In reality most ideas are not worthy of consideration; they're inefficient, wasteful and just plain wrong. In Kindergarten and throughout the public K-12 system that statement is politically incorrect.
A little history is in order. Otto von Bismarck’s dream of state socialism was given birth decades before his rise to power when the calls for compulsory public education were heard soon after Napoleon defeated the Prussian army at Jena. The Prussian system supposedly began producing the best and the brightest, at least that’s what Horace Mann, the father of public education in the US, believed. Later, John Dewey, the father of the current pedagogy, was enthralled by what he saw during a 1928 visit to the Soviet Union. Trotsky’s Utopian man was envisioned by the Progressives as the product of public education.
This has left us with a free and compulsory school system that is convinced that five 7th graders sitting around a table can construct the concepts that required the brightest intellects hundreds of years to conceive. It took the likes of Carl Menger and the passage of a century to overthrow Adam Smith’s Classical School and institute the Marginalist Revolution. The discovery of marginal utility, considered the mark of a genius, is now supposed to be replicated by less-than-eager adolescents within a 40-minute class period. The utopian man has arrived.
“No wrong ideas here.” Every thought uttered by any child or adult has to be given equal standing. Consensus, an ideal adhered to by the education monopoly, is the blending of these ideas into an Hegelian synthesis [1] that becomes truth. Synthesis can then be tested using the latest tools of the econometrician. That this new truth stands outside a priori logic is of no consequence. Without a system built on a priori logic to test ideas, anything can be deemed possible. Polylogism is certainly alive and well.
The empiricist’s test of the statement, “No wrong ideas here,” is a view of two snapshots of a local strip mall taken one year apart. Most of the stores open in year one are gone in year two; bad ideas.
Weren't these ideas entrepreneurial dreams? Certainly, but not all dreams lead to viable concerns. Mises considered the consumer a heartless taskmaster. The statement in the Kindergarten classroom fails the empirical test and thus must be concluded as false.
Not so fast. Wasn't the test the result of a flawed system? Didn't the statistical noise from the market cause a false reading of the results? Aren’t we confounding correlation with causation since the market caused the failures? Such ideas are hard to refute since they spin faster than anyone can apply logic to them.
Unlike the Kindergarten teachers who may truly believe that all ideas – dreams – should be allowed to germinate and bloom, the consumer does not see the dream, only the product. We see Wal Mart but we don't see the thousand other stores that opened in the 1950’s that, while being the dreams of entrepreneurs, did not provide for the most urgent wants of the customers. These businesses failed. Their business model was incorrect and inefficient.
But, wait. Failure means that an idea was wrong. We have been taught that ideas are correct; it is the market that fails. Your snapshots from above shows different store fronts because the free market suffers the inherent flaw that the passing fancies of consumers trump the dreams of the child, now entrepreneur. This conclusion is what we were taught in Kindergarten as impressionable and malleable children. It’s the evils of the market that steal the dreams of the Utopian man.
The market didn't steal the dreams, the dreams still exist. But consumers – you and I – shouldn't have to pay for another man’s dream. The dream must simply remain one man’s dream. Under a system of interventionism, the dreams of the entrepreneur are exchanged for the dreams of the elected official or bureaucrat. The entrepreneur that dreamed of building a store on the premise of “always high prices” is now sitting behind an agency desk commanding the economy. Instead of fully stocked Wal Marts carrying fresh foods from all around the globe, the consumer is stuck with the drab, dirty Soviet-quality stores stocked with Vodka, cookies and little else.
Saying an idea is wrong does not mean that ideas shouldn't be tested. IBM thought Gates was off the mark trying to peddle computers for home use. Other examples abound where ideas considered crazy brought innovation to the market and eased the urgent wants of the consumers.
Unlike a lab where all conditions must be controlled for an experiment to work, the market allows someone with an idea, enthusiasm and some financial backing to test that idea at the local strip mall. Should the concept align with the needs of the consumer, the next Subway-style success will begin opening franchises in strip malls throughout the US.
Better the foot-long turkey on wheat served with a smile than the slice of salami on stale bread coming from the scowling apparachik wearing a faded Babushka. The more productive an idea, the more efficient the economy will run. We all benefit when ideas that are wrong are allowed to be discarded in the waste pile.
I will contend that all truths I know about the market I learned through studying Human Action and Murray Rothbard’s classic, Man, Economy and State. Since these books reconstruct economics around solid a priori logic, they are irrefutable. These books deliver conclusions will challenge all that was learned in Kindergarten and beyond, but those very conclusions must be understood as the guiding lights to a brighter future for all.
Jim Fedako
[1] The common usage is Hegelian while this usage is more along the lines of Fichte's system, the predecessor of Hegel. Though even this fits the common usage of Hegelian.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Gary North Book
"Marx's Religion of Revolution: Regeneration Through Chaos
This 275-page book by Dr. Gary North exposes the true nature of Marxism in the light of biblical truth and past history. Readers learn why the fundamental nature of communism is inevitably prone to violence and chaos." Available at Christian Liberty Press
Great book by Gary North that exposes both historical Marxism and its current flavors.
Jim Fedako
This 275-page book by Dr. Gary North exposes the true nature of Marxism in the light of biblical truth and past history. Readers learn why the fundamental nature of communism is inevitably prone to violence and chaos." Available at Christian Liberty Press
Great book by Gary North that exposes both historical Marxism and its current flavors.
Jim Fedako
Question
Assume Katrina just hit and you own a delivery truck, and you want to help hurricane victims by trucking the most desperately needed item down to New Orleans. What do you fill your truck with: aspirin, diapers, water, etc? Tough question. How could you discern the correct answer?
One more datum is required: Has government declared so-called price-gouging illegal?
If the answer is, "No," then the solution is to fill your truck with the item that will reap the highest profit. See, the victims know what they need and express that need through their willingness to pay higher-than-normal prices. That is simple economics.
If the answer is, "Yes," then you have no knowledge to solve the delivery problem, and more importantly, you have no way of satisfying the true need of the victims. You may select aspirin when the real need is diapers. Or, you may truck water when aspirin is desired.
Oh, you say that government officials on-site can quickly telegraph the need of the victims and direct you in how to satisfy it. Empirical evaluation shows that this statement is false since FEMA sent needed items to the wrong spots; even wrong states for that matter. And, they directed individuals to deliver items that were not desperately needed.
What about the logical evaluation of the statement. A priori, since the government price-level dictates have created lines for every item, the officials can only attempt to gauge the real need by the size of the line or some other equally invalid method. Maybe an official substitutes his own valuation; since he believes that he would desire aspirin, aspirin is the item in need. Regardless of the method, the government official will be wrong most of the time. When he is right, he is right by pure chance only. A review of the government response to Katrina validates this evaluation.
Funny thing about the unhampered market, it solves the scarcity problem correctly and rapidly. Remember your decision to go for the profit absent price-gouging legislation. Well, you aren't the only profit-seeking individual. Others will also be trucking the most needed item so that scarcity will fall quickly as entrepreneurs bring that item to the victims. The $10 gallon of water will fall rapidly over the next few days as water deliveries throughout the US are redirected to the devastated areas. Profit levels will fall as quickly as the satisfaction of the hurricane victims rises.
Remember the government response to Katrina where no one was satisfied and many went wanting for weeks. Remember this the next time an elected officials tries to "nail the gougers." The officials will solve nothing. Let the entrepreneur and the free market play their role and quickly correct the situation.
In the meantime, read the writings of Ludwig von Mises and the other Austrian Economists at Mises.org in order to understand how the freemarket works for the betterment of man.
Jim Fedako
One more datum is required: Has government declared so-called price-gouging illegal?
If the answer is, "No," then the solution is to fill your truck with the item that will reap the highest profit. See, the victims know what they need and express that need through their willingness to pay higher-than-normal prices. That is simple economics.
If the answer is, "Yes," then you have no knowledge to solve the delivery problem, and more importantly, you have no way of satisfying the true need of the victims. You may select aspirin when the real need is diapers. Or, you may truck water when aspirin is desired.
Oh, you say that government officials on-site can quickly telegraph the need of the victims and direct you in how to satisfy it. Empirical evaluation shows that this statement is false since FEMA sent needed items to the wrong spots; even wrong states for that matter. And, they directed individuals to deliver items that were not desperately needed.
What about the logical evaluation of the statement. A priori, since the government price-level dictates have created lines for every item, the officials can only attempt to gauge the real need by the size of the line or some other equally invalid method. Maybe an official substitutes his own valuation; since he believes that he would desire aspirin, aspirin is the item in need. Regardless of the method, the government official will be wrong most of the time. When he is right, he is right by pure chance only. A review of the government response to Katrina validates this evaluation.
Funny thing about the unhampered market, it solves the scarcity problem correctly and rapidly. Remember your decision to go for the profit absent price-gouging legislation. Well, you aren't the only profit-seeking individual. Others will also be trucking the most needed item so that scarcity will fall quickly as entrepreneurs bring that item to the victims. The $10 gallon of water will fall rapidly over the next few days as water deliveries throughout the US are redirected to the devastated areas. Profit levels will fall as quickly as the satisfaction of the hurricane victims rises.
Remember the government response to Katrina where no one was satisfied and many went wanting for weeks. Remember this the next time an elected officials tries to "nail the gougers." The officials will solve nothing. Let the entrepreneur and the free market play their role and quickly correct the situation.
In the meantime, read the writings of Ludwig von Mises and the other Austrian Economists at Mises.org in order to understand how the freemarket works for the betterment of man.
Jim Fedako
Friday, May 12, 2006
A Fair Wage
Latest Mises.org blog:http://blog.mises.org/archives/005041.asp
by Jim Fedako
You hear it from them all the time; teachers just want a fair wage. Oh, well who doesn't? This line of thought begs two questions: How are wage rates established in a free market? And, are market wage rates fair?
How are wage rates established in a free market? The insights from the Austrian School of Economics show that workers earn their discounted marginal value product. In simple terms, workers earn now the current value of what they add to the production of future goods. That explanation easily fits those who produce consumer goods or factors of production, but what about those in the service sector? How, for example, is the wage rate of barbers established?
In order to understand the service sector we have to consider the alternate cost of employment. The marginal worker, one who can either work in the factory or cut hair, decides which employment to pursue based on relative wages. The cost for working in one field is the wage of the best alternate form of employment in another field. If the cost of working exceeds the benefit, it behooves the worker to seek the alternate field of employment.
If the factory offers better wages, the worker takes the factory job. If cutting hair offers better wages, the worker becomes a barber. If the relative wage rate of barbers begins exceeding the relative wage rate of factory workers, the marginal factory worker switches professions and enters the barber market. By doing this, the wages of barbers would fall as the wages of factory workers rise.
Had the worker stayed in the factory, he would have lost potential earnings. It is the alternate cost of employment, the foregone potential earnings, which guides acting man into the most remunerative employment. And it is this voluntary movement, the change of professions, which tends to guide the labor market toward equilibrium. [1]
This simplistic example shows that service sector employee wages are tied to the discounted marginal value product of labor in general.
Are market wage rates fair? As detailed above, workers earn either their discounted marginal value product or the equivalent wage of their best alternate employment. To say that one wage rate is unfair is to say that the worker earning that rate deserves a premium wage over a similarly productive worker in another sector of the economy. To say that a math teacher is underpaid in a free market is to say that the math teacher deserves to be paid more than the value product of teaching requires.
In a free market, wages cannot be unfair as they are set by the direction of the consumer. When the alternate cost of employment rises above the wage rate, workers shift sectors and set the labor market back toward equilibrium. [2]
In order to gain a wage premium, government interventions must occur. These interventions can take the form of field or general minimum wages, granting unions legal right to control sectors of the economy, government wage supports, or the creation of a government monopoly or quasi-monopoly in a sector of the economy – the school system for example.
In a free market teachers would also earn the equivalent of their discounted wage in the productive sector of the economy. A math teacher would earn the equivalent wage of a similarly productive worker in, say, the software industry – who earns the equivalent wage of a similarly productive worker in the engineering industry, and so on. If the math teacher was underpaid relative to his best alternate employment, this would be a signal there is an excess of math teachers, and that math teachers are being underutilized in their current employment.
The teacher market is not free; it is a quasi-monopoly where the vast majority of employees are unionized under a government-run system. Unlike the Soviet Union, which used the free markets of the world to establish some sort of price level, public schools do not look to private schools for wage guidance. Private schools pay their workers a much lower wage, but as above, they must pay a wage that exceeds the alternate costs of employment. [3]
Are public school teachers overpaid? Since there is no way to discern the true alternate cost of employment for all public school teachers in a free market – because no free market for teachers exists – we must rely on the available market data provided by private schools. This shows that teachers, in general, are absolutely overpaid.
In addition, and more importantly, we know a priori that governments are inefficient and over-pay and over-employ factors of production. Also, government teaching licensure rules create barriers to entry for those wishing to seek out a teaching career thus driving wage rates higher. Then, of course, there are the government-backed unions who rule the roost through strikes and threats of strikes. [4]
Are public teacher salaries unfair? Certainly. They are unfair to the taxpayer who is forced to pay the tax bill that supports the premium wage of public school teachers. In a free labor market a teacher's real salary can only increase with the marginal value product of employees in the next best alternate employment. In the quasi-monopoly that currently exists, teachers have realized salary increases that are not tied to the labor market; the salary increases are simply the result of political pressure.
The next time you hear teachers claim that they need a fair wage, tell them to drop the union banners and open education to the free market; the one market where everyone earns their fair wage.
[1] Of course the opposite holds if the factory worker made relatively more than the barber. Professions would switch and wages would tend toward equilibrium.
[2] Equilibrium is the direction of the movement, not reality. Equilibrium is the infinite endpoint on the continuum that is never reached though the actions of individuals tend to keep the economy moving in that direction. As consumer preferences change, the economy is rocked away from the direction of equilibrium, but the vast numbers of astute entrepreneurs act quickly to satisfy the new preferences and bring the economy back on course – well, in an unhampered market anyway since government likes to damage the rudder in such a manner that even the most astute entrepreneur cannot set a new course.
[3] Certainly there is an additional psychic income earned due to the rewards of teaching, but the psychic income exists in both the private and public school market. In fact, every job has its own form of psychic income that is based purely on the subjective valuation of the employee.
[4] Everyone has a study that shows teachers are either overpaid or underpaid based on salary and benefits per number of hours worked in a given year. Conflicting studies are the product of the current empiricist/positivist paradigm. The only way to read through the data and understand economics and the impact of policies is to use the a priori approach to understanding of the Austrian School.
Jim Fedako, a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH, is a member of the Olentangy Local School District and maintains a blog: Anti-Positivist.
by Jim Fedako
You hear it from them all the time; teachers just want a fair wage. Oh, well who doesn't? This line of thought begs two questions: How are wage rates established in a free market? And, are market wage rates fair?
How are wage rates established in a free market? The insights from the Austrian School of Economics show that workers earn their discounted marginal value product. In simple terms, workers earn now the current value of what they add to the production of future goods. That explanation easily fits those who produce consumer goods or factors of production, but what about those in the service sector? How, for example, is the wage rate of barbers established?
In order to understand the service sector we have to consider the alternate cost of employment. The marginal worker, one who can either work in the factory or cut hair, decides which employment to pursue based on relative wages. The cost for working in one field is the wage of the best alternate form of employment in another field. If the cost of working exceeds the benefit, it behooves the worker to seek the alternate field of employment.
If the factory offers better wages, the worker takes the factory job. If cutting hair offers better wages, the worker becomes a barber. If the relative wage rate of barbers begins exceeding the relative wage rate of factory workers, the marginal factory worker switches professions and enters the barber market. By doing this, the wages of barbers would fall as the wages of factory workers rise.
Had the worker stayed in the factory, he would have lost potential earnings. It is the alternate cost of employment, the foregone potential earnings, which guides acting man into the most remunerative employment. And it is this voluntary movement, the change of professions, which tends to guide the labor market toward equilibrium. [1]
This simplistic example shows that service sector employee wages are tied to the discounted marginal value product of labor in general.
Are market wage rates fair? As detailed above, workers earn either their discounted marginal value product or the equivalent wage of their best alternate employment. To say that one wage rate is unfair is to say that the worker earning that rate deserves a premium wage over a similarly productive worker in another sector of the economy. To say that a math teacher is underpaid in a free market is to say that the math teacher deserves to be paid more than the value product of teaching requires.
In a free market, wages cannot be unfair as they are set by the direction of the consumer. When the alternate cost of employment rises above the wage rate, workers shift sectors and set the labor market back toward equilibrium. [2]
In order to gain a wage premium, government interventions must occur. These interventions can take the form of field or general minimum wages, granting unions legal right to control sectors of the economy, government wage supports, or the creation of a government monopoly or quasi-monopoly in a sector of the economy – the school system for example.
In a free market teachers would also earn the equivalent of their discounted wage in the productive sector of the economy. A math teacher would earn the equivalent wage of a similarly productive worker in, say, the software industry – who earns the equivalent wage of a similarly productive worker in the engineering industry, and so on. If the math teacher was underpaid relative to his best alternate employment, this would be a signal there is an excess of math teachers, and that math teachers are being underutilized in their current employment.
The teacher market is not free; it is a quasi-monopoly where the vast majority of employees are unionized under a government-run system. Unlike the Soviet Union, which used the free markets of the world to establish some sort of price level, public schools do not look to private schools for wage guidance. Private schools pay their workers a much lower wage, but as above, they must pay a wage that exceeds the alternate costs of employment. [3]
Are public school teachers overpaid? Since there is no way to discern the true alternate cost of employment for all public school teachers in a free market – because no free market for teachers exists – we must rely on the available market data provided by private schools. This shows that teachers, in general, are absolutely overpaid.
In addition, and more importantly, we know a priori that governments are inefficient and over-pay and over-employ factors of production. Also, government teaching licensure rules create barriers to entry for those wishing to seek out a teaching career thus driving wage rates higher. Then, of course, there are the government-backed unions who rule the roost through strikes and threats of strikes. [4]
Are public teacher salaries unfair? Certainly. They are unfair to the taxpayer who is forced to pay the tax bill that supports the premium wage of public school teachers. In a free labor market a teacher's real salary can only increase with the marginal value product of employees in the next best alternate employment. In the quasi-monopoly that currently exists, teachers have realized salary increases that are not tied to the labor market; the salary increases are simply the result of political pressure.
The next time you hear teachers claim that they need a fair wage, tell them to drop the union banners and open education to the free market; the one market where everyone earns their fair wage.
[1] Of course the opposite holds if the factory worker made relatively more than the barber. Professions would switch and wages would tend toward equilibrium.
[2] Equilibrium is the direction of the movement, not reality. Equilibrium is the infinite endpoint on the continuum that is never reached though the actions of individuals tend to keep the economy moving in that direction. As consumer preferences change, the economy is rocked away from the direction of equilibrium, but the vast numbers of astute entrepreneurs act quickly to satisfy the new preferences and bring the economy back on course – well, in an unhampered market anyway since government likes to damage the rudder in such a manner that even the most astute entrepreneur cannot set a new course.
[3] Certainly there is an additional psychic income earned due to the rewards of teaching, but the psychic income exists in both the private and public school market. In fact, every job has its own form of psychic income that is based purely on the subjective valuation of the employee.
[4] Everyone has a study that shows teachers are either overpaid or underpaid based on salary and benefits per number of hours worked in a given year. Conflicting studies are the product of the current empiricist/positivist paradigm. The only way to read through the data and understand economics and the impact of policies is to use the a priori approach to understanding of the Austrian School.
Jim Fedako, a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH, is a member of the Olentangy Local School District and maintains a blog: Anti-Positivist.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
The Big Ideas in Education
"Amidst the relentless warnings that America's schools are only graduating two-thirds of eighteen-year-olds, are failing to produce the scientists and engineers we need, and must address stubborn racial achievement gaps, more than 14,000 of the nation's education researchers are gathered in San Francisco for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA)." Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Laura LoGerfo, researcher with a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Michigan.
Here's the research you supported with your tax dollars:
"Fostering a Distributed Community of Practice Among Tribal Environmental Professionals During Professional Development Courses" and "Vygotskian Semiotic Conception and Representational Dialogue in Mathematics Education."
Read more from the recent EducationNews.org article (warning, some of the topics contain offensive language of a sexual nature) ...
Here's the research you supported with your tax dollars:
"Fostering a Distributed Community of Practice Among Tribal Environmental Professionals During Professional Development Courses" and "Vygotskian Semiotic Conception and Representational Dialogue in Mathematics Education."
Read more from the recent EducationNews.org article (warning, some of the topics contain offensive language of a sexual nature) ...
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
The Epistemology of John Dewey - The Father of Progressive Education
What is the epistemological basis for our current education system? What are the driving concepts that form the pedagogy in vogue today?
A couple terms need to be defined: epistemology is the theory of human knowledge; while pedagogy is the art or science of education.
A passage that details the history of education knowledge and science:
"I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy, and intelligently occupied children." Impressions of Soviet Russia, John Dewey
John Dewey's Impressions of Soviet Russia is a quick primer on the ideas that formed the genesis of the Progressive Education Movement. Dewey, who thought that Soviet Russia was a vision of a utopian future, is considered the father of the movement. In addition, fifty years after his death, Dewey is still idolized at education schools such as Columbia University's Teachers College, where he taught future educators and future educators of future educators.
Progressive education is alive and well as noted by the glowing references to Dewey throughout current education literature, including multiple awards given in his name. It's the ideas of Dewey that form the current educational belief system; ideas formed out of the collectivist movement that runs from Bismarck's Prussia through Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Russia and onward.
Note Dewey's praise above for the "intelligently occupied children" of Soviet Russia.
It's the ideas of Dewey that are driving the so-called education reforms coming out of universities and being implemented in your local schools.
Jim Fedako
A couple terms need to be defined: epistemology is the theory of human knowledge; while pedagogy is the art or science of education.
A passage that details the history of education knowledge and science:
"I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy, and intelligently occupied children." Impressions of Soviet Russia, John Dewey
John Dewey's Impressions of Soviet Russia is a quick primer on the ideas that formed the genesis of the Progressive Education Movement. Dewey, who thought that Soviet Russia was a vision of a utopian future, is considered the father of the movement. In addition, fifty years after his death, Dewey is still idolized at education schools such as Columbia University's Teachers College, where he taught future educators and future educators of future educators.
Progressive education is alive and well as noted by the glowing references to Dewey throughout current education literature, including multiple awards given in his name. It's the ideas of Dewey that form the current educational belief system; ideas formed out of the collectivist movement that runs from Bismarck's Prussia through Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Russia and onward.
Note Dewey's praise above for the "intelligently occupied children" of Soviet Russia.
It's the ideas of Dewey that are driving the so-called education reforms coming out of universities and being implemented in your local schools.
Jim Fedako
Monday, May 08, 2006
Do not despair, the market is here!
AOL News (AP) reports on a market solution to rising gas prices: buy gas now and store it for later. That's right; create your own strategic oil reserve!
One lucky prospector is tapping the 99 cents a gallon gas that he has stored in his private reserve. What a deal! What a solution!
The market always creates solutions for economic issues. Saving gas is the perfect hedge investment for those looking to offset rising fuel prices.
That said: It's only a matter of time before Government clamps done on this solution. Why? In an interventionist society such as ours, Government cannot allow individuals to act autonomously; Government must always direct the process.
Until the bureaucrats finally catch on, invest in your own personal oil reserve.
Something else to consider: Those who prophesy the imminent end to the world's oil reserves should be investing all their money into storing gas for later years. Though the Henny Penny's of the green guild continue to scream that the sky is falling, they never put their money where there mouth is. Could it be that they do not believe their own gaseous vapors?
Jim Fedako
One lucky prospector is tapping the 99 cents a gallon gas that he has stored in his private reserve. What a deal! What a solution!
The market always creates solutions for economic issues. Saving gas is the perfect hedge investment for those looking to offset rising fuel prices.
That said: It's only a matter of time before Government clamps done on this solution. Why? In an interventionist society such as ours, Government cannot allow individuals to act autonomously; Government must always direct the process.
Until the bureaucrats finally catch on, invest in your own personal oil reserve.
Something else to consider: Those who prophesy the imminent end to the world's oil reserves should be investing all their money into storing gas for later years. Though the Henny Penny's of the green guild continue to scream that the sky is falling, they never put their money where there mouth is. Could it be that they do not believe their own gaseous vapors?
Jim Fedako
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Stories from the Eastern PA Coal Mines
Read stories about my father's life growing up in the coal regions of eastern PA.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Misesian on the School Board
Latest Mises.org article:http://mises.org/story/2126
A Misesian on the School Board
by Jim Fedako
The vanity of pride hides the true reflected man. But every now and again an event will occur that straightens out the distortions and exposes one's real identity. One such event happened to me at a meeting between officials of a local city and the school district I serve as a board member. Before the call to the table, as members of both governments were milling about, the city manager spotted me from across the room and loudly congratulated me on my reference to Hayek in my then-recent letter to the editor. The city manager hastened over to me and excitedly talked about reading Road to Serfdom while in college. He loved the book and appreciated my reference. I, in turn, mentioned similar books from Mises that I had just read.
Then it hit me. There I stood looking at my reflection; a Hayekian and a Misesian talking shop just before we were to be seated at an intergovernment planning meeting. It was as if the meeting existed in another dimension, but there was the table, and here we stood, two hypocrites seeing ourselves as fighters for freedom while living lives of statists. Vanity could hide the truth for only so long, and when the veil is finally lifted, the true image is humbling.
It is moments like these that expose supposed achievements and actions, and allows one to take stock of where they are and where they want to be. These moments bring reality back into focus; they provide clarity to the distorted images.
Read more ...
A Misesian on the School Board
by Jim Fedako
The vanity of pride hides the true reflected man. But every now and again an event will occur that straightens out the distortions and exposes one's real identity. One such event happened to me at a meeting between officials of a local city and the school district I serve as a board member. Before the call to the table, as members of both governments were milling about, the city manager spotted me from across the room and loudly congratulated me on my reference to Hayek in my then-recent letter to the editor. The city manager hastened over to me and excitedly talked about reading Road to Serfdom while in college. He loved the book and appreciated my reference. I, in turn, mentioned similar books from Mises that I had just read.
Then it hit me. There I stood looking at my reflection; a Hayekian and a Misesian talking shop just before we were to be seated at an intergovernment planning meeting. It was as if the meeting existed in another dimension, but there was the table, and here we stood, two hypocrites seeing ourselves as fighters for freedom while living lives of statists. Vanity could hide the truth for only so long, and when the veil is finally lifted, the true image is humbling.
It is moments like these that expose supposed achievements and actions, and allows one to take stock of where they are and where they want to be. These moments bring reality back into focus; they provide clarity to the distorted images.
Read more ...
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Tired of Time and Newsweek, try a Christian weekly news magazine
Read World magazine for a Christian perspective of the news. And since there are no "R" or near "X" rated photos and stories, you don't have to be embarrassed leaving a copy around for kids and guests to review; the magazine contains nothing other than the national and world news centered on the Bible. Refreshing, indeed.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Ohio's TEL Amendment
Isn't it ironic that at a time when government officials are looking to investigate rising gas prices, some of these very same officials claim that they can't live within budgets capped at the rate of inflation?
While gas prices soar, computer software and hardware prices are falling - despite inflationary monetary policies. Both of these price changes are due to market forces. The economist Ludwig von Mises noted that it is the consumer who captains the economy. Petroleum companies can no more sustain high profit margins than computer companies.
In an unhampered economy, one that exists without government interventions, high profits signal new entrepreneurs to enter that specific market. These new entrants increase supply and cause profit margins to fall.
In the hampered economy, such as exists today with regard to petroleum, government regulations hinder entry into markets. The bottom line; government interventions in the oil and gas sector are a major cause in the rise of US gas prices – other causes being the continued demand for gas despite rising price, increasing demand overseas, and the US-lead mess in the Middle East. Conversely, the ease of entry into the computer sector keeps driving computing costs ever lower.
Enough economics, now irony. Ohio government officials at all levels are crying that they cannot live within budgets capped at the rate of inflation. Why? Simple, instead of minimal budgetary increases, Ohio governments have continued to spend at a rate of expenditure growth that far exceeds the rate of inflation. Instead of investigating petroleum companies, governments should be investigating themselves.
The TEL amendment would force Ohio governments of all sizes and shapes to limit their spending increases. That government officials cannot fathom such a loose rein of growth – loose since government should be reduced from its current size and expenditure-level – shows the inefficiency of government at all levels.
Jim Fedako
While gas prices soar, computer software and hardware prices are falling - despite inflationary monetary policies. Both of these price changes are due to market forces. The economist Ludwig von Mises noted that it is the consumer who captains the economy. Petroleum companies can no more sustain high profit margins than computer companies.
In an unhampered economy, one that exists without government interventions, high profits signal new entrepreneurs to enter that specific market. These new entrants increase supply and cause profit margins to fall.
In the hampered economy, such as exists today with regard to petroleum, government regulations hinder entry into markets. The bottom line; government interventions in the oil and gas sector are a major cause in the rise of US gas prices – other causes being the continued demand for gas despite rising price, increasing demand overseas, and the US-lead mess in the Middle East. Conversely, the ease of entry into the computer sector keeps driving computing costs ever lower.
Enough economics, now irony. Ohio government officials at all levels are crying that they cannot live within budgets capped at the rate of inflation. Why? Simple, instead of minimal budgetary increases, Ohio governments have continued to spend at a rate of expenditure growth that far exceeds the rate of inflation. Instead of investigating petroleum companies, governments should be investigating themselves.
The TEL amendment would force Ohio governments of all sizes and shapes to limit their spending increases. That government officials cannot fathom such a loose rein of growth – loose since government should be reduced from its current size and expenditure-level – shows the inefficiency of government at all levels.
Jim Fedako
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Free Christian Books
Go to Gary North's web site www.freebooks.com to read excellent books on the Bible and Christian thought. Not only are the books interesting, challenging and timely, they really are free.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
"Let's agree to disagree."
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-- CS Lewis
I just had a brief encounter with Len Fisher of the Delaware County Tobacco-Free Tomorrow Coalition. We argued private property rights, including the right to smoke. We, of course, disagreed. Fisher ended the discussion with the standard, "Let's agree to disagree." Sound good, except that Fisher plans to continue using the arm, and arms, of government to get his way. And he just might get his way since the Coalition is operated by the Delaware General Health District -- a product of our tax dollars.
CS Lewis missed the real tormenter, the busybody drawing a tax-supported salary; they never sleep and their salaries are paid by the tormented.
What the Fisher's of the world really mean is that we can agree to disagree as long as the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion is on their side.
Don't give up without a fight!
Jim Fedako
-- CS Lewis
I just had a brief encounter with Len Fisher of the Delaware County Tobacco-Free Tomorrow Coalition. We argued private property rights, including the right to smoke. We, of course, disagreed. Fisher ended the discussion with the standard, "Let's agree to disagree." Sound good, except that Fisher plans to continue using the arm, and arms, of government to get his way. And he just might get his way since the Coalition is operated by the Delaware General Health District -- a product of our tax dollars.
CS Lewis missed the real tormenter, the busybody drawing a tax-supported salary; they never sleep and their salaries are paid by the tormented.
What the Fisher's of the world really mean is that we can agree to disagree as long as the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion is on their side.
Don't give up without a fight!
Jim Fedako
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A Wonderful Book on Austrian Economics and Liberty
Speaking of Liberty, Lew Rockwell, is a wonderful book on both the Austrian School of Economics and liberty. Rockwell's book is a great introduction to the topic for beginners and a concise reference for those already versed in the Austrian school. I had already read the masterpieces by Mises and Rothbard, but found this book, available on Mises.org, an informative read. I highly recommend it.
Jim Fedako
Jim Fedako
Public School Students and Computers
Ludwig von Mises, the heart and soul of the Austrian School of Economics, wrote about Trotsky's belief that under the right form of socialism "the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And, beyond this ridge new peaks would rise." (from Human Action, Ludwig von Mises). Mises noted that Charles Fourier (not the famed mathematician of the same last name) dreamed of the day when the oceans would be filled with lemonade.
I bring this up in the context of the belief that with the right application of technology children will spontaneously evolve into a new human type, learning will become a joy, as will teaching and all other forms of labor. Let's keep in mind that learning is work, and as with any form of work, learning requires a certain level of disutility. In other words, it just ain't easy. Never was, never will be.
The technology question is best answered by reading the first six pages of The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom. Seems we have been here before with the PC being the latest siren of the technology promise.
According to Oppenheimer, it was first assumed that motion pictures would release the mind from the mundane efforts of learning and send the classroom into obsolescence. Minds no less than Thomas Edison predicted the new age of learning. Books and research followed but achievement remained lost in the enthusiasm.
Next up was radio and BF Skinner claiming, "students could learn twice as much" from the classroom radio. This failure was followed closely by the introduction of TV and its assumed new learning revolution.
So here we are with some stating that computers will save the day. I suggest that those who believe this spend 10 minutes or so reading the first few pages of Oppenheimer's book. Though he leans toward the Progressive/constructivist approach, he holds out little hope for the success of computers.
Where does this take us? What is the point of these discussions? We can't lose sight of the need for education reform, not just some new technology or pedagogy, but true market-based reform that provides the solutions to the problem of across-the-board low achievement.
If we ride the horse of technology we will find ourselves galloping along with the Progressives and constructivist. Technology will certainly make for strnge riding partners.
What's the solution? Add choice to education, or better yet, close failed government schools and return education back to parents and the free market.
Jim Fedako
I bring this up in the context of the belief that with the right application of technology children will spontaneously evolve into a new human type, learning will become a joy, as will teaching and all other forms of labor. Let's keep in mind that learning is work, and as with any form of work, learning requires a certain level of disutility. In other words, it just ain't easy. Never was, never will be.
The technology question is best answered by reading the first six pages of The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom. Seems we have been here before with the PC being the latest siren of the technology promise.
According to Oppenheimer, it was first assumed that motion pictures would release the mind from the mundane efforts of learning and send the classroom into obsolescence. Minds no less than Thomas Edison predicted the new age of learning. Books and research followed but achievement remained lost in the enthusiasm.
Next up was radio and BF Skinner claiming, "students could learn twice as much" from the classroom radio. This failure was followed closely by the introduction of TV and its assumed new learning revolution.
So here we are with some stating that computers will save the day. I suggest that those who believe this spend 10 minutes or so reading the first few pages of Oppenheimer's book. Though he leans toward the Progressive/constructivist approach, he holds out little hope for the success of computers.
Where does this take us? What is the point of these discussions? We can't lose sight of the need for education reform, not just some new technology or pedagogy, but true market-based reform that provides the solutions to the problem of across-the-board low achievement.
If we ride the horse of technology we will find ourselves galloping along with the Progressives and constructivist. Technology will certainly make for strnge riding partners.
What's the solution? Add choice to education, or better yet, close failed government schools and return education back to parents and the free market.
Jim Fedako
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Wal-Mart, the root of all evil? No, the evil lives and breaths at The Teacher's College
Response to Professor David Berliner's Presidential Invited Speech to the American Educational Research Association in May of 2005 (read some of his remarks below).
Berliner is a professor of education at Arizona State University who obviously believes that the free market is the cause of the current malaise. I contend that the problems are due to all forms of government interventionism.
Berliner, on the other hand, believes that government bureaucrats should act upon the good professor's commands and structure the future according to his goals and plans. See, the Berliner's of this world believe that they know better than the consumer when it comes to establishing and acting upon personal preferences. These statist do-gooders truly believe that they are omniscient and infallible. In addition, they hate success and financial rewards; accept when those two terms are relative to their own activities.
So, if anyone knows Berliner's email address, please forward it so that I may share in his spoils to my heart's content. By the way, I'm stopping at Wal-Mart on the way home, does anyone want me to pick up a gallon of milk or dozen eggs?
Jim Fedako
Berliner is a professor of education at Arizona State University who obviously believes that the free market is the cause of the current malaise. I contend that the problems are due to all forms of government interventionism.
Berliner, on the other hand, believes that government bureaucrats should act upon the good professor's commands and structure the future according to his goals and plans. See, the Berliner's of this world believe that they know better than the consumer when it comes to establishing and acting upon personal preferences. These statist do-gooders truly believe that they are omniscient and infallible. In addition, they hate success and financial rewards; accept when those two terms are relative to their own activities.
So, if anyone knows Berliner's email address, please forward it so that I may share in his spoils to my heart's content. By the way, I'm stopping at Wal-Mart on the way home, does anyone want me to pick up a gallon of milk or dozen eggs?
Jim Fedako
So when we push for higher qualifications for the teachers of the poor, as we should, we also may need to push ourselves and others to stop shopping at companies like Wal-Mart. The logic of this is simple: if we want to primarily hold our teachers responsible for increasing their students? educational attainment, then we need at a minimum to provide those teachers with children who enter their classrooms healthy and ready to learn. Twenty years ago this was one of our national goals, to be reached by the year 2000. But one of the impediments to reaching that goal was Wal-Mart, now the largest employer in the USA. Wal-Mart and companies like them do not provide the great majority of their employees the income, medical insurance or retirement plans needed to promote healthy families or raise healthy children. Wal-Mart and companies like it have a terrible record in its treatment of woman with children, a group who make up a big share of the poor households in this country (Shulman, 2003). Thus Wal-Mart is an impediment to school reform and although it is not usually noted, Wal-Mart is one reason we did not reach our national goal.
There are so many other problems we need to address, as well. When we push for more rigorous standards in our schools we should also push for a raise in the minimum wage, or better yet, for livable wages. If we do not do this then we will ensure that the vast majority of those meeting the increasingly rigorous requirements for high school graduation will be those students fortunate enough to be born into the right families. If we really want a more egalitarian set of educational outcomes requires, our nation needs a more equalitarian wage structure.
For these same reasons when we push for more professional development for teachers and mentoring programs for new teachers, we need also to demand that woman?s wages be set equal to those of men doing comparable work, since it is working woman and their children who make up a large percentage of America?s poor.
When we push for advanced placement courses, or college preparatory curricula for all our nation?s students, we must simultaneously demand universal medical coverage for all our children. Only then will all our children have the health that allows them to attend school regularly and learn effectively, instead of missing opportunities to learn due to a lack of medical treatment.
When we push for all day kindergarten, or quality early childhood care, or de-tracked schools we need also to argue for affordable housing throughout our communities, so neighborhoods have the possibility of exerting more positive influences on children and people can move from lead and mercury polluted areas to those that are less toxic, and thus less likely to cause birth defects. This goal requires educators, parents and other concerned citizens to be in the forefront of the environmental fight. To fight for clean air and water, and for less untested chemicals in all our food products, is a fight to have more healthy children for our schools to educate. The psychological and financial costs on families and the broader society because of students needing special education can be markedly reduced by our demands for a healthier environment.
In my estimation we will get better public schools by requiring of each other participation in building a more economically equitable society. This is of equal or greater value to our nation?s future well-being then a fight over whether phonics is scientifically based, whether standards are rigorous enough, or whether teachers have enough content knowledge.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Kristof Saves Us from the Evil Corn Syrup
Thank goodness for Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times for showing the evils caused by the market serving corn sweeteners to the doltish public in his column: Hazardous to Your Health. And here I thought it was the consumer satisfying a sweet tooth when the real problem is food producers forcing the stuff down our throats. Thank goodness for Kristof's vigilance. I just hope that he is around the next time I use my own free will and try something like crossing the street. "Good night, pleasant dreams, and don't forget to inhale your vaporized soma," whispered the good Nanny Nicholas ...
Sunday, April 09, 2006
The Whitewaters of History
In response to Thomas Bender's No Borders: Beyond the Nation-State
A river's water seeks the path of least resistance as it flows along its sandy bed. In a raging river, there are streams of water that appear to flow in the same direction though their courses are ever-so-slightly divergent. To the passive observer safe on the banks, the divergent paths create the river's beauty; the rapids, whitewater, pools and eddies. To those running the rapids in collapsible rafts, the courses of water lead to either an exhilarating ride down the river or headlong collision with rocks and boulders.
Bender's flow of history is a certainly one path through time. A cursory review of his thesis, read safely on the banks, provides an interesting view of the passage of time and ideas. But be careful, Bender is not simply providing the thrills of history, he is heading the reader toward the wreckage smashed against the rocks of totalitarian ideals.
Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of Economics pointed out that societies such as the US and England obtained their good fortune not by chance or happenstance, but because they recognized and implemented certain ideas and ideals that other societies either did not understand or would not adopt. Some excellent Mises books on this subject are: Human Action, Liberalism in the Classical Tradition, and Omnipotent Government.
The US and England achieved greatness because they were grounded in the ideals of liberty and property. That other societies did not organize themselves based on these ideals is their own failures. That the two nations at hand so organized themselves is a subject that needs to be taught again and again.
We fail our posterity when we forget those ideals and instead teach a course that we are not significantly different from the societies that took the path that lead to the rocks and boulders.
Jim Fedako
A river's water seeks the path of least resistance as it flows along its sandy bed. In a raging river, there are streams of water that appear to flow in the same direction though their courses are ever-so-slightly divergent. To the passive observer safe on the banks, the divergent paths create the river's beauty; the rapids, whitewater, pools and eddies. To those running the rapids in collapsible rafts, the courses of water lead to either an exhilarating ride down the river or headlong collision with rocks and boulders.
Bender's flow of history is a certainly one path through time. A cursory review of his thesis, read safely on the banks, provides an interesting view of the passage of time and ideas. But be careful, Bender is not simply providing the thrills of history, he is heading the reader toward the wreckage smashed against the rocks of totalitarian ideals.
Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of Economics pointed out that societies such as the US and England obtained their good fortune not by chance or happenstance, but because they recognized and implemented certain ideas and ideals that other societies either did not understand or would not adopt. Some excellent Mises books on this subject are: Human Action, Liberalism in the Classical Tradition, and Omnipotent Government.
The US and England achieved greatness because they were grounded in the ideals of liberty and property. That other societies did not organize themselves based on these ideals is their own failures. That the two nations at hand so organized themselves is a subject that needs to be taught again and again.
We fail our posterity when we forget those ideals and instead teach a course that we are not significantly different from the societies that took the path that lead to the rocks and boulders.
Jim Fedako
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Quality is a Market Notion
Latest Mises.org article:http://mises.org/story/2090
Quality is a Market Notion
by Jim Fedako
[Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006]
For generations, products have advertised themselves as "new and improved." We are too quick to dismiss this phrase as a promotional boilerplate. The market really does generate unrelenting improvements in our living standards. Meanwhile, the public sector is forever promising to improve its services and products but every attempt creates only conflict and eventual stalemate.
For example: the proposed solution to the ills of public education is for government to raise the quality of teachers by increasing salaries and certification requirements. The belief is that a better workforce will lead to better educational outcomes and an improved economy.
Of course the adjective better has no agreed upon definition. Every pressure group and political faction has its own definition of better. Mostly these disparate definitions contradict each other. Regardless, the call for better continues to grow louder each election cycle.
Read more.
Quality is a Market Notion
by Jim Fedako
[Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006]
For generations, products have advertised themselves as "new and improved." We are too quick to dismiss this phrase as a promotional boilerplate. The market really does generate unrelenting improvements in our living standards. Meanwhile, the public sector is forever promising to improve its services and products but every attempt creates only conflict and eventual stalemate.
For example: the proposed solution to the ills of public education is for government to raise the quality of teachers by increasing salaries and certification requirements. The belief is that a better workforce will lead to better educational outcomes and an improved economy.
Of course the adjective better has no agreed upon definition. Every pressure group and political faction has its own definition of better. Mostly these disparate definitions contradict each other. Regardless, the call for better continues to grow louder each election cycle.
Read more.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Charter Schools
Some letters the papers just don't publish:
Dear Letters Editor:
I am responding to the March 24 Dispatch front page article, "Charter patron realizing big profit." Someone needs to gently remind Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, that his salary is paid through tax dollars. In fact, he represents a union that benefits exclusively from tax dollars. Tom should also be reminded that a growing number of public school teachers make more than some fulltime professors at Ohio's colleges and universities. In addition, public school teachers make more from tax dollars than their private school peers make from tuition dollars. Seems like Mooney and gang are earning a nice tax-generated profit.
Jim Fedako
Dear Letters Editor:
I am responding to the March 24 Dispatch front page article, "Charter patron realizing big profit." Someone needs to gently remind Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, that his salary is paid through tax dollars. In fact, he represents a union that benefits exclusively from tax dollars. Tom should also be reminded that a growing number of public school teachers make more than some fulltime professors at Ohio's colleges and universities. In addition, public school teachers make more from tax dollars than their private school peers make from tuition dollars. Seems like Mooney and gang are earning a nice tax-generated profit.
Jim Fedako
Friday, March 31, 2006
"It's Not Their Money to Give"
http://www.dispatch.com/extra/extra.php?story=dispatch/2005/12/22/20051222-A1-02.html
Dear Letters Editor:
The December 23 front page article entitled "No room for good cheer in FEMA trailers" proves that government cannot provide charity, nor should it be in the business of providing hand-outs or assistance.
When private citizens aid those in need there are no complaints about petty matters such as a too-small water heater, an oven that can't cook a 13-pound turkey, limited space, etc.
Had the gift of the trailer been a private exchange between giver and hurricane victim, the recipient would have been appreciative of the sacrifice shown by the giver. But when the government provides the assistance there is the belief that the assistance is some form of a right; a right that always falls short of its perceived ideal. A quick glance of the accompanying photo shows a cozy trailer with satellite TV. It certainly appears that life in the trailer beats the alternative; no roof and exposure to the elements.
The problem is that government cannot provide anything, all it can do is use compulsion to force an exchange to occur. The trailer is not a gift from FEMA, neither is it a gift from the President or Congress. The trailer is simply a forced exchange between taxpayer and now-whining hurricane victim, with no one happy and no one showing appreciation.
Had FEMA not been involved, private citizens would have provided for the needs of the hurricane victims. The result: Those housed in trailers would be appreciative and taxpayers wouldn't be left holding the bag as government officials take credit for what they call a gift of their own. To paraphrase Davey Crockett, "It's not their money to give."
Jim Fedako
Dear Letters Editor:
The December 23 front page article entitled "No room for good cheer in FEMA trailers" proves that government cannot provide charity, nor should it be in the business of providing hand-outs or assistance.
When private citizens aid those in need there are no complaints about petty matters such as a too-small water heater, an oven that can't cook a 13-pound turkey, limited space, etc.
Had the gift of the trailer been a private exchange between giver and hurricane victim, the recipient would have been appreciative of the sacrifice shown by the giver. But when the government provides the assistance there is the belief that the assistance is some form of a right; a right that always falls short of its perceived ideal. A quick glance of the accompanying photo shows a cozy trailer with satellite TV. It certainly appears that life in the trailer beats the alternative; no roof and exposure to the elements.
The problem is that government cannot provide anything, all it can do is use compulsion to force an exchange to occur. The trailer is not a gift from FEMA, neither is it a gift from the President or Congress. The trailer is simply a forced exchange between taxpayer and now-whining hurricane victim, with no one happy and no one showing appreciation.
Had FEMA not been involved, private citizens would have provided for the needs of the hurricane victims. The result: Those housed in trailers would be appreciative and taxpayers wouldn't be left holding the bag as government officials take credit for what they call a gift of their own. To paraphrase Davey Crockett, "It's not their money to give."
Jim Fedako
Thursday, March 30, 2006
It's All Over Now ... Follow the Money
It's all over now ... at least according to this dismal Time Magazine cover story. Or is it? If indeed those who raise fears of the latest global calamity really believed their tall tales, wouldn't they all be selling their homes and vacation sites in Florida and elsewhere? Follow the money. The Austrian School of Economics is centered on human action. Acting man demonstrates his true preferences, and hence his belief system, when he acts -- when he chooses one action over another. If indeed Florida is to be drowned by the seas and become a future Atlantis, wouldn't scientists, environmentalists, and the rest of the Chicken Little statist do-gooders be selling their Florida properties and moving north and inland? That there is not such a mass migration reveals the true beliefs of the doomsayers. Their actions reveal that they don’t believe their own drivel, should you?
Jim Fedako
Sunday, Mar. 26, 2006 Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping PointThe climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it By JEFFREY KLUGER No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. Read more ... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1176980,00.html
Jim Fedako
Sunday, Mar. 26, 2006 Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping PointThe climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it By JEFFREY KLUGER No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. Read more ... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1176980,00.html
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Wal-Mart
Dear Letters Editor:
In her February 22 letter, Shelby Stocks repeats the standard error regarding Wal-Mart and the Market; the belief that Wal-Mart dictates what items are produced and where they are produced, and at what price they are sold. This error is one of the first steps down the road toward increasing government interventions. F.A. Hayek, Nobel Laureate in Economics, recognized this phenomenon in his classic Road to Serfdom.
The reality is this: Absent government compulsion, neither Wal-Mart, nor any other business for that matter, can coerce the consumer into purchasing items that are not desired. All successful businesses such as Wal-Mart provide the goods and services at a price and quality that the consumer wants. It's the consumer that captains the market. Wal-Mart will find itself out-of-business as soon as it stop satisfying the wants of it's customers.
In addition, Wal-Mart cannot coerce anyone to work at it's stores. People work there because it beats the next alternative.
Stocks' real issue is not with Wal-Mart; her issue is with those of us who shop at Wal-Mart. She simply wants to stop us from shopping there. Her choices are this: use her rhetorical skills to convince us to shop elsewhere, or, use government to achieve her goal. Fox obviously opts for the government approach.
Stocks and Robyn Blumner have every right to open a store that meets their definition of "patriotic," though they never sufficiently define their use of that term. Despite implying that they are more patriotic than shoppers at Wal-Mart, Stocks and Blumner have no qualms with using the coercive force of government to close any business that doesn't meet the Stocks/Blumner definition of patriotic. Sounds more Soviet than Yankee Doodle.
I suggest that Stocks open her "patriotic" store in Delaware and allow the consumer to choose where to shop. If Stocks is successful in identifying the unmet desires of the consumer, she will find herself the operator of a prosperous business and next target of other anti-market forces.
Or, maybe I am wrong. Maybe, just maybe, Stocks simply does not want commercial development in her area. If that's the case, state it. Just don't claim to be a do-gooder and attack the free market because of your own situation.
Jim Fedako
In her February 22 letter, Shelby Stocks repeats the standard error regarding Wal-Mart and the Market; the belief that Wal-Mart dictates what items are produced and where they are produced, and at what price they are sold. This error is one of the first steps down the road toward increasing government interventions. F.A. Hayek, Nobel Laureate in Economics, recognized this phenomenon in his classic Road to Serfdom.
The reality is this: Absent government compulsion, neither Wal-Mart, nor any other business for that matter, can coerce the consumer into purchasing items that are not desired. All successful businesses such as Wal-Mart provide the goods and services at a price and quality that the consumer wants. It's the consumer that captains the market. Wal-Mart will find itself out-of-business as soon as it stop satisfying the wants of it's customers.
In addition, Wal-Mart cannot coerce anyone to work at it's stores. People work there because it beats the next alternative.
Stocks' real issue is not with Wal-Mart; her issue is with those of us who shop at Wal-Mart. She simply wants to stop us from shopping there. Her choices are this: use her rhetorical skills to convince us to shop elsewhere, or, use government to achieve her goal. Fox obviously opts for the government approach.
Stocks and Robyn Blumner have every right to open a store that meets their definition of "patriotic," though they never sufficiently define their use of that term. Despite implying that they are more patriotic than shoppers at Wal-Mart, Stocks and Blumner have no qualms with using the coercive force of government to close any business that doesn't meet the Stocks/Blumner definition of patriotic. Sounds more Soviet than Yankee Doodle.
I suggest that Stocks open her "patriotic" store in Delaware and allow the consumer to choose where to shop. If Stocks is successful in identifying the unmet desires of the consumer, she will find herself the operator of a prosperous business and next target of other anti-market forces.
Or, maybe I am wrong. Maybe, just maybe, Stocks simply does not want commercial development in her area. If that's the case, state it. Just don't claim to be a do-gooder and attack the free market because of your own situation.
Jim Fedako
Wal-Mart Again!
Dear Letters Editor:
In Thursday's Gazette, Dave Beckly's letter shows that he lacks an understanding of both economics and causal relationships.
What Beckly does not understand, or is unwilling to admit, is that Wal-Mart does not apply any form of coercion or compulsion in order to entice consumers to shop at it's stores. Consumers shop at Wal-Mart simply because those stores provide the mix of price and quality that is currently demanded by a large number of consumers. That's right, Wal-Mart is just doing its job by satisfying the consumer. And for doing such a great job of satisfying the consumer, Wal-Mart is the latest recipient of anti-market rants and rages from those who claim to be looking out for the interests others.
Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of Economics was correct when he wrote that the consumer captains the economy, and the consumer is a heartless taskmaster. Should another company bring a better mix of price and quality to the market, consumers will cross the street to the better bargain and Wal-Mart will soon end up in the waste heap of failed businesses.
The Beckly's of the world don't like the fact that Wal-Mart is successful, they are at war with the free market. Though they may claim otherwise, they are statists: adherents to a less dogmatic form of socialism. But the Beckly's never direct their rage at the source of their unease; his family, friends and neighbors, those who like to save as much as they can at the end of the check-out lane.
Family, friends and neighbors of Beckly watch out, he wants to raise your cost of goods and services and thereby reduce your other expenditures. He would like to see government use it's power of control to limit your access to goods and services at a price that Beckly deems unfair. Sounds pretty socialistic to me.
Rant and rage all you like but please leave me to shop where I choose, and I choose to shop at stores where my mix of price and quality is the best. Today it's Wal-Mart. Tomorrow, who knows.
Jim Fedako
In Thursday's Gazette, Dave Beckly's letter shows that he lacks an understanding of both economics and causal relationships.
What Beckly does not understand, or is unwilling to admit, is that Wal-Mart does not apply any form of coercion or compulsion in order to entice consumers to shop at it's stores. Consumers shop at Wal-Mart simply because those stores provide the mix of price and quality that is currently demanded by a large number of consumers. That's right, Wal-Mart is just doing its job by satisfying the consumer. And for doing such a great job of satisfying the consumer, Wal-Mart is the latest recipient of anti-market rants and rages from those who claim to be looking out for the interests others.
Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of Economics was correct when he wrote that the consumer captains the economy, and the consumer is a heartless taskmaster. Should another company bring a better mix of price and quality to the market, consumers will cross the street to the better bargain and Wal-Mart will soon end up in the waste heap of failed businesses.
The Beckly's of the world don't like the fact that Wal-Mart is successful, they are at war with the free market. Though they may claim otherwise, they are statists: adherents to a less dogmatic form of socialism. But the Beckly's never direct their rage at the source of their unease; his family, friends and neighbors, those who like to save as much as they can at the end of the check-out lane.
Family, friends and neighbors of Beckly watch out, he wants to raise your cost of goods and services and thereby reduce your other expenditures. He would like to see government use it's power of control to limit your access to goods and services at a price that Beckly deems unfair. Sounds pretty socialistic to me.
Rant and rage all you like but please leave me to shop where I choose, and I choose to shop at stores where my mix of price and quality is the best. Today it's Wal-Mart. Tomorrow, who knows.
Jim Fedako
Intelligent Design
Dear Letters Editor:
Any conclusion about the Evolution v. Intelligent Design Debate requires an understanding of the differences between science and history.
Science uses a methodological approach to study the phenomena of the physical and natural world in order to generate a body of knowledge. This knowledge is then used to predict future states as well as to test new hypotheses through empirical studies, observations and data gathering. Science constantly tests its own assumptions as new hypotheses and technologies challenge past ideas. Science is in a constant state of flux and can never explain all phenomena. Scientific paradigms, or belief systems, change as unexplainable anomalies call the prevailing set of ideas and assumption into question.
Big "E" evolution is not a science; it is simply one version of history. Why is Evolution not a science? Simple, it provides no predictive knowledge about nature. Evolution cannot be tested through empirical studies and is not a verifiable explanation of the current state of the physical and natural world. Nor is it a means to predict any future state of the physical and natural world.
Evolution is one version of history. As a Christian, I have my own version of history. Fear not, my version of history will allow me to operate an Automated External Defibrillator device hanging on an airport wall should someone have a heart attack. In addition, I will not release a weight over your toe expecting the weight to simply float away. My history does not handicap my ability to study the phenomena of the physical and natural world. We can disagree on history but agree on the present. So, why the effort to push big "E" history as a science? And, why the effort to use coercion and compulsion to indoctrinate the next generation? Science is not at stake here, so what is?
Jim Fedako
Any conclusion about the Evolution v. Intelligent Design Debate requires an understanding of the differences between science and history.
Science uses a methodological approach to study the phenomena of the physical and natural world in order to generate a body of knowledge. This knowledge is then used to predict future states as well as to test new hypotheses through empirical studies, observations and data gathering. Science constantly tests its own assumptions as new hypotheses and technologies challenge past ideas. Science is in a constant state of flux and can never explain all phenomena. Scientific paradigms, or belief systems, change as unexplainable anomalies call the prevailing set of ideas and assumption into question.
Big "E" evolution is not a science; it is simply one version of history. Why is Evolution not a science? Simple, it provides no predictive knowledge about nature. Evolution cannot be tested through empirical studies and is not a verifiable explanation of the current state of the physical and natural world. Nor is it a means to predict any future state of the physical and natural world.
Evolution is one version of history. As a Christian, I have my own version of history. Fear not, my version of history will allow me to operate an Automated External Defibrillator device hanging on an airport wall should someone have a heart attack. In addition, I will not release a weight over your toe expecting the weight to simply float away. My history does not handicap my ability to study the phenomena of the physical and natural world. We can disagree on history but agree on the present. So, why the effort to push big "E" history as a science? And, why the effort to use coercion and compulsion to indoctrinate the next generation? Science is not at stake here, so what is?
Jim Fedako
What's Wrong with Questions in Science?
Dear Letters Editor,
In her editorial, "Did State Board of Education rule properly on evolution?"(Dispatch, February 27, 2006), State Board of Education member Martha Wise inadvertently reaffirmed the controversy over evolution in the state's science standards. Wise begins by stating that she is a creationist -- one who believes in a world created and ordered by God. She then defends evolution as a science that must be taught in schools because "Ohio's prosperity depends on a well-educated workforce that understands science..."
How can Wise claim to be both a believer in creationism and evolution? Logically one cannot rationally hold propositions A and not-A simultaneously true. Obviously the creationism/evolution debate rages within the mind of Wise. If she can wrestles with this, why does she not want Ohio students to wrestle also?
While understanding science is important for future generations, judges can't determine scientific truth. Scientific truth is found when science tests its own assumptions as new hypotheses and technologies call the prevailing set of ideas and assumption into question.
If the current scientific paradigm is believed false by educated folks such as Wise, the paradigm must be questioned and debated, and, if appropriate, a new paradigm -- one closer to the truth -- established. According to Thomas Kuhn, influential historian of science and philosopher, that's how real science works.
Jim Fedako
In her editorial, "Did State Board of Education rule properly on evolution?"(Dispatch, February 27, 2006), State Board of Education member Martha Wise inadvertently reaffirmed the controversy over evolution in the state's science standards. Wise begins by stating that she is a creationist -- one who believes in a world created and ordered by God. She then defends evolution as a science that must be taught in schools because "Ohio's prosperity depends on a well-educated workforce that understands science..."
How can Wise claim to be both a believer in creationism and evolution? Logically one cannot rationally hold propositions A and not-A simultaneously true. Obviously the creationism/evolution debate rages within the mind of Wise. If she can wrestles with this, why does she not want Ohio students to wrestle also?
While understanding science is important for future generations, judges can't determine scientific truth. Scientific truth is found when science tests its own assumptions as new hypotheses and technologies call the prevailing set of ideas and assumption into question.
If the current scientific paradigm is believed false by educated folks such as Wise, the paradigm must be questioned and debated, and, if appropriate, a new paradigm -- one closer to the truth -- established. According to Thomas Kuhn, influential historian of science and philosopher, that's how real science works.
Jim Fedako
A Collectivist
Letters Editor:
In Sunday's Dispatch, William L. Bainbridge shows his true colors in "Home-schooling data need a closer look." Bainbridge is a collectivist; one who believes that we must all march in one step, and, more importantly, we all must march in step to the beat of his personal ideals. He is also a statist; one who believes that the state must assume responsibilities that should remain personal matters.
In all financial matters, accountability flows from the spender to the provider. Public schools are accountable to their taxpayers while privates schools are accountable to the parents who pay tuition. Families who chose to home school have made a personal family decision through which they consume no one else's dollar. These families are accountable only to themselves.
But, wait. The Bainbridges of the world believe that they can run your life better than you. They suffer from a belief in their own infallibility. You see, only the parent can make a poor decision, the Bainbridges are above the realm of mundane errors; they are omniscient. A quick history review of the twentieth century reveals the horrid results of this personality type.
When Bainbridge and others of his ilk appeal to "society," they really mean the system of coercion and compulsion that would force us all to the rice paddies for a stint of re-education, with Bainbridge chanting the party slogans hour after long hour.
The question you have to ask yourself is this, "Do you want Bainbridge sticking his nose in your personal decisions?" Based on his comments in this and prior articles, I'm certain that he is ready to guide your life. What happened to the American ideal of rugged individualism? Well, the ideal is slowly be eroded by the collectivist, statist push to overthrow individual liberty. Watch out.
Jim Fedako
In Sunday's Dispatch, William L. Bainbridge shows his true colors in "Home-schooling data need a closer look." Bainbridge is a collectivist; one who believes that we must all march in one step, and, more importantly, we all must march in step to the beat of his personal ideals. He is also a statist; one who believes that the state must assume responsibilities that should remain personal matters.
In all financial matters, accountability flows from the spender to the provider. Public schools are accountable to their taxpayers while privates schools are accountable to the parents who pay tuition. Families who chose to home school have made a personal family decision through which they consume no one else's dollar. These families are accountable only to themselves.
But, wait. The Bainbridges of the world believe that they can run your life better than you. They suffer from a belief in their own infallibility. You see, only the parent can make a poor decision, the Bainbridges are above the realm of mundane errors; they are omniscient. A quick history review of the twentieth century reveals the horrid results of this personality type.
When Bainbridge and others of his ilk appeal to "society," they really mean the system of coercion and compulsion that would force us all to the rice paddies for a stint of re-education, with Bainbridge chanting the party slogans hour after long hour.
The question you have to ask yourself is this, "Do you want Bainbridge sticking his nose in your personal decisions?" Based on his comments in this and prior articles, I'm certain that he is ready to guide your life. What happened to the American ideal of rugged individualism? Well, the ideal is slowly be eroded by the collectivist, statist push to overthrow individual liberty. Watch out.
Jim Fedako
Equity and Adequacy for Whom?
Dear Letters Editor:
In his January 21, 2006 letter to the editor (Education overhaul is needed in Ohio), William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, contends that the legislature has failed to correct the state's system of funding public education. He is both wrong and right on this account.
Wrong because studies show, and actual numbers prove, that recent budgets have sent an influx of state funds to lower-wealth school districts. An example: Trimble Local in Athens County, the state's poorest school district, has greater per-pupil revenue and expenditures than wealthy districts such as mine, Olentangy Local in Delaware County. In addition, billions of state funds have built quality buildings in poor districts state-wide.
Phillis is correct when you realize that he is simply fighting for more money. Funding will not cure the ills of a sluggish education system. Adding an additional 10%, 20%, even 50% will not result in achievement gains. How do I know? Because the greater increases have not resulted in improvements over the last 40 years.
Look at my district: We pay counselors and librarians up to $96,000 for a 203 day work year. In addition, these employees get great health care coverage, 15 sick days, 4 personal days and a generous retirement. Providing our district with additional funds will only serve to increase salaries, it will not ensure a better outcome. An additional 10% will result in those same employees making almost $106,000, and nothing else. These salaries are much, much higher than corresponding salaries in the private sector.
I'm using these two job classifications as examples only. All district employees make salaries that are much higher than private sector -- private school -- equivalents.
Under the Phillis education funding ideal, more state funds always leads to the need for more state funds. Once any increase is given away in salaries and benefits, residents will be asked to cough up more. After agreeing to take on additional local property tax mills to support such increases, the education system will cry that the state is not living up to its end of the bargain.
In his world, Phillis is correct that the legislature is not funding his ideal system, nor should it.
As long as the average school employee receives a yearly salary/benefits increase of 6% or so -- far outpacing the private sector -- money will always be in short supply.
Jim Fedako
In his January 21, 2006 letter to the editor (Education overhaul is needed in Ohio), William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, contends that the legislature has failed to correct the state's system of funding public education. He is both wrong and right on this account.
Wrong because studies show, and actual numbers prove, that recent budgets have sent an influx of state funds to lower-wealth school districts. An example: Trimble Local in Athens County, the state's poorest school district, has greater per-pupil revenue and expenditures than wealthy districts such as mine, Olentangy Local in Delaware County. In addition, billions of state funds have built quality buildings in poor districts state-wide.
Phillis is correct when you realize that he is simply fighting for more money. Funding will not cure the ills of a sluggish education system. Adding an additional 10%, 20%, even 50% will not result in achievement gains. How do I know? Because the greater increases have not resulted in improvements over the last 40 years.
Look at my district: We pay counselors and librarians up to $96,000 for a 203 day work year. In addition, these employees get great health care coverage, 15 sick days, 4 personal days and a generous retirement. Providing our district with additional funds will only serve to increase salaries, it will not ensure a better outcome. An additional 10% will result in those same employees making almost $106,000, and nothing else. These salaries are much, much higher than corresponding salaries in the private sector.
I'm using these two job classifications as examples only. All district employees make salaries that are much higher than private sector -- private school -- equivalents.
Under the Phillis education funding ideal, more state funds always leads to the need for more state funds. Once any increase is given away in salaries and benefits, residents will be asked to cough up more. After agreeing to take on additional local property tax mills to support such increases, the education system will cry that the state is not living up to its end of the bargain.
In his world, Phillis is correct that the legislature is not funding his ideal system, nor should it.
As long as the average school employee receives a yearly salary/benefits increase of 6% or so -- far outpacing the private sector -- money will always be in short supply.
Jim Fedako
Wal-Mart and the Statist
Letters Editor:
Before his death in 1993, Henry Hazlitt, influential financial writer for Newsweek, always challenged his readers to think beyond the obvious and discover the unseen consequences of an economic policy.
The author of the letter "Wal-Mart employees can't afford coverage" simply recognizes the obvious. He claims to be defending the average worker as he looks for the state to impose additional costs on successful enterprises such as Wal-Mart.
This certainly sounds like the right road to take, but he has not looked for the less obvious impacts of his proposed state intervention -- increased prices and unemployment. Raise Wal-Mart's cost of doing business and you will be forcing additional workers to the unemployment lines. On top of that, those of us who remain employed will soon experience increased taxes to support the newly-displaced workers, and, we will have to pay more at the check-out line.
Of course those who fight Wal-Mart have a solution to these second and third consequences, more state interventions in the market. As China and other countries are seeing the free market as their solutions, why are we looking toward the failures of socialism to fix our ills?
Jim Fedako
Before his death in 1993, Henry Hazlitt, influential financial writer for Newsweek, always challenged his readers to think beyond the obvious and discover the unseen consequences of an economic policy.
The author of the letter "Wal-Mart employees can't afford coverage" simply recognizes the obvious. He claims to be defending the average worker as he looks for the state to impose additional costs on successful enterprises such as Wal-Mart.
This certainly sounds like the right road to take, but he has not looked for the less obvious impacts of his proposed state intervention -- increased prices and unemployment. Raise Wal-Mart's cost of doing business and you will be forcing additional workers to the unemployment lines. On top of that, those of us who remain employed will soon experience increased taxes to support the newly-displaced workers, and, we will have to pay more at the check-out line.
Of course those who fight Wal-Mart have a solution to these second and third consequences, more state interventions in the market. As China and other countries are seeing the free market as their solutions, why are we looking toward the failures of socialism to fix our ills?
Jim Fedako
Play the Correlation Game
Play the Correlation Game
By: Jim Fedako
Ludwig von Mises: As a method of economic analysis econometrics is a childish play with figures that does not contribute anything to the elucidation of the problems of economic reality.[1]
Think that you might be capable of a crime? Worried that you're the next face to appear on the local most-wanted list? Wonder no more. Just take a gander at your high school senior photo and make an honest assessment of your appearance. If you were cute or handsome, no prison yard for you. If you were ugly, better call an attorney and bondsman right away ‘cause the slammer is less than eight years away.
Confused? Well, I'm only reciting the latest research – or that which is called research – from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The abstract from Ugly Criminals, NBER Working Paper No. 12019, Issued in February 2006, includes the suggestive finding that, “the level of beauty in high school has an effect on criminal propensity 7-8 years later.” There you have it. Enough said. Crime is the result of looks, plain and simple. It gets worse; the labor market “provides an incentive” for ugly people to live lives of criminal activity. What an evil world we live in?
Compare this with what Mises.org has to offer: The Epistemological Problems of Economics; and, The Ultimate Foundation of Economics Science. Talk about a dismal science. Come on now, who really needs an Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought? I mean, what’s the point? As my Dad likes to say, “What does it have to do with the price of tea in China?” Or, more importantly, what does all that have to do with one’s propensity to commit a crime?
Why read Mises, Rothbard, and others, when you can understand the world simply by downloading a couple of sets of specious federal data from the web, importing them into any statistical software package – go ahead and use MS Excel if you like -- and correlating these unrelated data points? If two thoughts cross your mind, correlate them. You can even call yourself a researcher and maybe convince the NBER to publish your findings. If your findings are provocative, or even if your title is provocative, you may find yourself sitting with national talking-heads on a cable news channel, not to mention having your name, photo and findings on the front page of the New York Times. In a moment, you are a star. Set the countdown clock at fifteen minutes and enjoy.
Of course there will always be that fear which occasionally enters your conscious mind; what if someone actually reads my study? The study’s title is certainly catchy but the underlying statistical findings are spurious at best. The abstract will suggest a lot about the research, but it’s really easy to suggest; learning and understanding are different matters since they take actual effort and knowledge. It appears that the more provocative the title, or suggestive the findings, the less initial review given to the actual study. (No correlative proof here, just an observation.) Later, after your clock has expired, another researcher will review your findings and publish his refutation and begin his fifteen minutes in the limelight.
Now if you want, you can get more sophisticated by first creating a model and then testing the model against your shallow pool of data. Of course models are best in the end since they add complexity and allow you to include intricate equations in your research paper; form over substance. Just for kicks, link the models and equations together in lines of esoteric jargon that is muddled at best. Muddled writing implies intellect, right? Not so says Rothbard. Muddled writing is usually the sign of muddled thinking. Muddled begets muddled.
Positivism, empiricism, et al, are predicated on the belief that only testable knowledge is valid. They like to claim that aprioristic knowledge is simply a game of semantics and word play; it’s all just tautologies. Really? Mises built his economics on a solid foundation; humans use means to obtain ends; they act. From this he created the science of economics that truly explains the processes of the market, whether free, hampered or socialistic.
From this foundation, Mises can state as a truth such concepts as inflation is the increasing on the supply of fiat money. Inflation is not a push/pull between consumers and suppliers. It’s not some monster that arises when you don't want it only to be settled down by the latest reading from Oracle of the Fed. Inflation is the printing of money or the loosening of credit. Simple. Doesn't matter what the latest researcher has shown using the latest statistical equations and programs. Inflation is what it is.
Reading Mises and Rothbard are sufficient to disprove an NBER study espousing how “investing” in some social program will reap societal benefits in future years. Whereas General Electric sends me my dividends on a regular basis, in all the years that politicians and governmental bureaucrats have invested my confiscated earnings on social programs, I have not received one dividend check. Not one penny. This despite the advertised billions and trillions of dividends due to me by now. Where’s my return on investment from the all pork used to fund NBER research? I don’t need a ten percent return, just three or four percent will suffice. Heck, I’ll even settle for one percent. Check’s in the mail I suppose.
See, as long as we are led to believe that the world can only be understood through empirical and statistical studies, we will never be able to question the true causes of our current malaise. Studies can only suggest. The truth can never be found in statistics, the noise level always drowns out any knowledge that could possibly be garnered.
So, why the continued funding for these studies? Ask yourself, “If ugly people are forced into lives of criminal activity due to the conditions of the current labor market, who or what could correct that market flaw?” If you were a good student in public schools, raise your hand and be prepared to respond, “My dear Uncle Sam is your man.” There you have it, the implicit and sometimes explicit solution to all the social ills noted by NBER research is always interventionism. Government needs to regulate the labor market and correct “the possibility that beauty may have an impact on human capital formation.” One or two more interventions and we can all cross the river to the Land of Cockaigne. At least that’s the picture they paint on the minds of children throughout the nation’s public school system. It’s even tough for adults – myself included -- to keep fighting the party slogans we heard for twelve years over the scratchy PA.
Read Mises, Rothbard, and others who sought liberty and prosperity for all of us. Spend some time digesting the insights found in The Epistemological Problems of Economics, The Ultimate Foundation of Economics Science, not to mention Human Action and Man, Economy, and State. And, disregard the drivel that is portrayed as science but is nothing less than a game of MS Excel.
By the way, the study that I am truly awaiting is the one that correlates PT Barnum’s fool with those willing to forego $5 in order to read the latest drivel from NBER. That’s a study I'll purchase. No, wait. Wouldn't that make me the fool and PT correct once more?
1. The full quote from, Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, 1978. "Deluded by the idea that the sciences of human action must ape the technique of the natural sciences, hosts of authors are intent upon a quantification of economics. They think that economics ought to imitate chemistry, which progressed from a qualitative to a quantitative state.[1] Their motto is the positivistic maxim: Science is measurement. Supported by rich funds, they are busy reprinting and rearranging statistical data provided by governments, by trade associations, and by corporations and other enterprises. They try to compute the arithmetical relations among various of these data and thus to determine what they call, by analogy with the natural sciences, correlations and functions. They fail to realize that in the field of human action statistics is always history and that the alleged "correlations" and "functions" do not describe anything else than what happened at a definite instant of time in a definite geographical area as the outcome of the actions of a definite number of people.[2] As a method of economic analysis econometrics is a childish play with figures that does not contribute anything to the elucidation of the problems of economic reality."
By: Jim Fedako
Ludwig von Mises: As a method of economic analysis econometrics is a childish play with figures that does not contribute anything to the elucidation of the problems of economic reality.[1]
Think that you might be capable of a crime? Worried that you're the next face to appear on the local most-wanted list? Wonder no more. Just take a gander at your high school senior photo and make an honest assessment of your appearance. If you were cute or handsome, no prison yard for you. If you were ugly, better call an attorney and bondsman right away ‘cause the slammer is less than eight years away.
Confused? Well, I'm only reciting the latest research – or that which is called research – from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The abstract from Ugly Criminals, NBER Working Paper No. 12019, Issued in February 2006, includes the suggestive finding that, “the level of beauty in high school has an effect on criminal propensity 7-8 years later.” There you have it. Enough said. Crime is the result of looks, plain and simple. It gets worse; the labor market “provides an incentive” for ugly people to live lives of criminal activity. What an evil world we live in?
Compare this with what Mises.org has to offer: The Epistemological Problems of Economics; and, The Ultimate Foundation of Economics Science. Talk about a dismal science. Come on now, who really needs an Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought? I mean, what’s the point? As my Dad likes to say, “What does it have to do with the price of tea in China?” Or, more importantly, what does all that have to do with one’s propensity to commit a crime?
Why read Mises, Rothbard, and others, when you can understand the world simply by downloading a couple of sets of specious federal data from the web, importing them into any statistical software package – go ahead and use MS Excel if you like -- and correlating these unrelated data points? If two thoughts cross your mind, correlate them. You can even call yourself a researcher and maybe convince the NBER to publish your findings. If your findings are provocative, or even if your title is provocative, you may find yourself sitting with national talking-heads on a cable news channel, not to mention having your name, photo and findings on the front page of the New York Times. In a moment, you are a star. Set the countdown clock at fifteen minutes and enjoy.
Of course there will always be that fear which occasionally enters your conscious mind; what if someone actually reads my study? The study’s title is certainly catchy but the underlying statistical findings are spurious at best. The abstract will suggest a lot about the research, but it’s really easy to suggest; learning and understanding are different matters since they take actual effort and knowledge. It appears that the more provocative the title, or suggestive the findings, the less initial review given to the actual study. (No correlative proof here, just an observation.) Later, after your clock has expired, another researcher will review your findings and publish his refutation and begin his fifteen minutes in the limelight.
Now if you want, you can get more sophisticated by first creating a model and then testing the model against your shallow pool of data. Of course models are best in the end since they add complexity and allow you to include intricate equations in your research paper; form over substance. Just for kicks, link the models and equations together in lines of esoteric jargon that is muddled at best. Muddled writing implies intellect, right? Not so says Rothbard. Muddled writing is usually the sign of muddled thinking. Muddled begets muddled.
Positivism, empiricism, et al, are predicated on the belief that only testable knowledge is valid. They like to claim that aprioristic knowledge is simply a game of semantics and word play; it’s all just tautologies. Really? Mises built his economics on a solid foundation; humans use means to obtain ends; they act. From this he created the science of economics that truly explains the processes of the market, whether free, hampered or socialistic.
From this foundation, Mises can state as a truth such concepts as inflation is the increasing on the supply of fiat money. Inflation is not a push/pull between consumers and suppliers. It’s not some monster that arises when you don't want it only to be settled down by the latest reading from Oracle of the Fed. Inflation is the printing of money or the loosening of credit. Simple. Doesn't matter what the latest researcher has shown using the latest statistical equations and programs. Inflation is what it is.
Reading Mises and Rothbard are sufficient to disprove an NBER study espousing how “investing” in some social program will reap societal benefits in future years. Whereas General Electric sends me my dividends on a regular basis, in all the years that politicians and governmental bureaucrats have invested my confiscated earnings on social programs, I have not received one dividend check. Not one penny. This despite the advertised billions and trillions of dividends due to me by now. Where’s my return on investment from the all pork used to fund NBER research? I don’t need a ten percent return, just three or four percent will suffice. Heck, I’ll even settle for one percent. Check’s in the mail I suppose.
See, as long as we are led to believe that the world can only be understood through empirical and statistical studies, we will never be able to question the true causes of our current malaise. Studies can only suggest. The truth can never be found in statistics, the noise level always drowns out any knowledge that could possibly be garnered.
So, why the continued funding for these studies? Ask yourself, “If ugly people are forced into lives of criminal activity due to the conditions of the current labor market, who or what could correct that market flaw?” If you were a good student in public schools, raise your hand and be prepared to respond, “My dear Uncle Sam is your man.” There you have it, the implicit and sometimes explicit solution to all the social ills noted by NBER research is always interventionism. Government needs to regulate the labor market and correct “the possibility that beauty may have an impact on human capital formation.” One or two more interventions and we can all cross the river to the Land of Cockaigne. At least that’s the picture they paint on the minds of children throughout the nation’s public school system. It’s even tough for adults – myself included -- to keep fighting the party slogans we heard for twelve years over the scratchy PA.
Read Mises, Rothbard, and others who sought liberty and prosperity for all of us. Spend some time digesting the insights found in The Epistemological Problems of Economics, The Ultimate Foundation of Economics Science, not to mention Human Action and Man, Economy, and State. And, disregard the drivel that is portrayed as science but is nothing less than a game of MS Excel.
By the way, the study that I am truly awaiting is the one that correlates PT Barnum’s fool with those willing to forego $5 in order to read the latest drivel from NBER. That’s a study I'll purchase. No, wait. Wouldn't that make me the fool and PT correct once more?
1. The full quote from, Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, 1978. "Deluded by the idea that the sciences of human action must ape the technique of the natural sciences, hosts of authors are intent upon a quantification of economics. They think that economics ought to imitate chemistry, which progressed from a qualitative to a quantitative state.[1] Their motto is the positivistic maxim: Science is measurement. Supported by rich funds, they are busy reprinting and rearranging statistical data provided by governments, by trade associations, and by corporations and other enterprises. They try to compute the arithmetical relations among various of these data and thus to determine what they call, by analogy with the natural sciences, correlations and functions. They fail to realize that in the field of human action statistics is always history and that the alleged "correlations" and "functions" do not describe anything else than what happened at a definite instant of time in a definite geographical area as the outcome of the actions of a definite number of people.[2] As a method of economic analysis econometrics is a childish play with figures that does not contribute anything to the elucidation of the problems of economic reality."
Free Riders: Austrians v. Public Choice
Mises.org article:http://www.mises.org/story/1869 Free Riders: Austrian v. Public Choice
by Jim Fedako [Posted on Wednesday, July 13, 2005] [Subscribe at email services and tell others]
The latest exploits of Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour de France provide a solid backdrop for discussions contrasting the economic ideas of the Austrian School and the adherents of Public Choice.
Public Choice is predicated on the belief that individual preferences can be known and quantified. From this simplistic view of Thymology, the Public Choice school deduces supposed economic laws regarding government interventions in the market. Government is required because acting man cannot negotiate agreements effectively with other self-seeking acting men.
The Austrian School starts from an aprioristic axiom that humans act by using means to obtain ends. Their ends are individualistic and self-centered. The Austrians do not claim to know unrevealed individual preferences nor do they deduce the need for government interventionism in the market. Acting man is able to create working arrangements with other acting men that benefit all involved.
OK. Good and well. But what about the Tour? How can a bicycle race be applied in discussions of economic theory? Simple. Cycling is an excellent reflection of the market. 198 professionals begin each year's Tour with certain unrevealed goals. Sure, some end goals are widely known. For Lance, a seventh win. For Jan Ulrich, a chance to redeem himself. But what about the 196 other riders?
As in all sports, and all human activities for that matter, there are those few who sit at the pinnacle. The rest are simply one of the bunch. Sure they dream of winning the Tour, but more than likely they are concentrating on the wearing the best-in-the-mountains jersey, the best-in-the-sprints-jersey, winning a stage, or just securing a professional contract for next year.
Public Choice assumes that every racer has the same goals and will react like any other racer in all situations. The Austrians will have none of that. It is impossible to look at a rider and know for certain what he wants to achieve during any given day of the Tour. Certainly you may guess what his team has set for him but what really lies in his heart is unseen and unknown, at least until human action reveals his preferences.
In bicycle races, individual riders will typically "attack" the main field of riders in order to gain time over those other riders and a better chance of success. Better to be 1 of 4 in a small “breakaway” group at the finish line than 1 of 198 in the large field.
In order to gain time, riders must work together by taking turns leading and blocking the wind so that the following riders can rest awaiting their turn at the front. So there you have it, 4 riders with widely divergent preferences working together for a common goal. The four have established a de facto contract that is to everyone’s benefit, even though none knows the other's true motives.
One may assume that they all are looking to win the stage. Possible. But it's also likely that one just wants some time in front of the cameras, another wants to pad time on rivals, a third is there just to assist his team’s goals, and the fourth wants the win so bad he can taste it.
But how do the four create this ad hoc contract? A quick glance, a nod, a wink, or a few words exchanged is all that is required for the four riders at hand to build a successful coalition. Public Choice will have none of this reality. They say that negotiation cannot be frictionless and that only through government interventions can people agree to work together.
What about the "free rider?" In Public Choice theory, the "free rider" always gums up the works. The "free rider" causes coalitions to collapse and contracts not to be formed. Think there are no "free riders' in the Tour.
Think again. Everyone wants to ride in a breakaway group for free. Who wouldn't? Conservation of energy is important when you are racing over 2,000 miles in three weeks. But pressures internal to the coalition typically force the "free rider" to perform. In reality no one really knows if the all racers in the breakaway are giving their fullest effort because no one really knows other's internalized desires and abilities.
There are always “free riders” or “free loaders” in all human activities. That becomes just another datum assumed when choosing amongst alternative choices. Every racer in the Tour understands this quite clearly. Accept it and move on.
Externalities? Come on: every action creates supposed externalities. Should Lance be taxed to offset help he received during the Tour from other riders who were actively pursuing their own selfish interest? Who would create and administer the Pigovian tax structure that would offset all of Lance’s gains and loses? Can even the Cray Supercomputer solve these equations and derive a payout before the 2006 Tour begins?
OK. Individual preferences unrevealed, externalities, “free riders” everywhere, and ad hoc contracts being agreed upon without legal signatures. But what about society? What is best for the collective group of 198 riders? Can this spontaneous order (or disorder, depending on your viewpoint) be best for all? Is this even close to Pareto optimality? It all depends. If you agree that each rider has unrevealed goals, throw that neoclassical equilibrium out the window. The impossible task becomes the creation of an aggregate demand curve.
So, assume that you can create this curve. What would you have? A Tour that functioned much like the Soviet economy. As stated above, all riders want to be “free loaders”, er “riders,” in that they don’t really want to suffer over a hundred miles of mountain roads if their needs were truly going to be met otherwise. Why sweat and pound the asphalt when you can lazily ride and occasionally stop to view the sights?
A couple of problems will arise. First, all riders cannot be designated the Tour champ – the Tour is not a Kindergarten class – so all needs cannot be met. In order to correct for this, the results would have to be created in a manner that approximated the regressed preferences of the aggregate field. Lance would probably remain champ and the other riders would be slotted into their likely finishing positions – all based on creating the efficient solution.
This lead to the second problem, this manner of racing would be slow and boring. Who would watch the riders literally tour France at a leisurely pace? Other than a spouse or two, probably just a few mothers, fathers and girlfriends. The Tour would be no more and 198 riders would be out of a job, all to satisfy some odd belief in equilibrium and utility. This is not a very satisfactory solution.
As you enjoy the Tour on TV remember that riders from many countries, speaking a host of different languages, are able to negotiate productive contracts that are mutually beneficial to both riders and viewers.
----------
Jim Fedako is a former professional cyclist. JFedako@aol.com. Comment on the blog.
by Jim Fedako [Posted on Wednesday, July 13, 2005] [Subscribe at email services and tell others]
The latest exploits of Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour de France provide a solid backdrop for discussions contrasting the economic ideas of the Austrian School and the adherents of Public Choice.
Public Choice is predicated on the belief that individual preferences can be known and quantified. From this simplistic view of Thymology, the Public Choice school deduces supposed economic laws regarding government interventions in the market. Government is required because acting man cannot negotiate agreements effectively with other self-seeking acting men.
The Austrian School starts from an aprioristic axiom that humans act by using means to obtain ends. Their ends are individualistic and self-centered. The Austrians do not claim to know unrevealed individual preferences nor do they deduce the need for government interventionism in the market. Acting man is able to create working arrangements with other acting men that benefit all involved.
OK. Good and well. But what about the Tour? How can a bicycle race be applied in discussions of economic theory? Simple. Cycling is an excellent reflection of the market. 198 professionals begin each year's Tour with certain unrevealed goals. Sure, some end goals are widely known. For Lance, a seventh win. For Jan Ulrich, a chance to redeem himself. But what about the 196 other riders?
As in all sports, and all human activities for that matter, there are those few who sit at the pinnacle. The rest are simply one of the bunch. Sure they dream of winning the Tour, but more than likely they are concentrating on the wearing the best-in-the-mountains jersey, the best-in-the-sprints-jersey, winning a stage, or just securing a professional contract for next year.
Public Choice assumes that every racer has the same goals and will react like any other racer in all situations. The Austrians will have none of that. It is impossible to look at a rider and know for certain what he wants to achieve during any given day of the Tour. Certainly you may guess what his team has set for him but what really lies in his heart is unseen and unknown, at least until human action reveals his preferences.
In bicycle races, individual riders will typically "attack" the main field of riders in order to gain time over those other riders and a better chance of success. Better to be 1 of 4 in a small “breakaway” group at the finish line than 1 of 198 in the large field.
In order to gain time, riders must work together by taking turns leading and blocking the wind so that the following riders can rest awaiting their turn at the front. So there you have it, 4 riders with widely divergent preferences working together for a common goal. The four have established a de facto contract that is to everyone’s benefit, even though none knows the other's true motives.
One may assume that they all are looking to win the stage. Possible. But it's also likely that one just wants some time in front of the cameras, another wants to pad time on rivals, a third is there just to assist his team’s goals, and the fourth wants the win so bad he can taste it.
But how do the four create this ad hoc contract? A quick glance, a nod, a wink, or a few words exchanged is all that is required for the four riders at hand to build a successful coalition. Public Choice will have none of this reality. They say that negotiation cannot be frictionless and that only through government interventions can people agree to work together.
What about the "free rider?" In Public Choice theory, the "free rider" always gums up the works. The "free rider" causes coalitions to collapse and contracts not to be formed. Think there are no "free riders' in the Tour.
Think again. Everyone wants to ride in a breakaway group for free. Who wouldn't? Conservation of energy is important when you are racing over 2,000 miles in three weeks. But pressures internal to the coalition typically force the "free rider" to perform. In reality no one really knows if the all racers in the breakaway are giving their fullest effort because no one really knows other's internalized desires and abilities.
There are always “free riders” or “free loaders” in all human activities. That becomes just another datum assumed when choosing amongst alternative choices. Every racer in the Tour understands this quite clearly. Accept it and move on.
Externalities? Come on: every action creates supposed externalities. Should Lance be taxed to offset help he received during the Tour from other riders who were actively pursuing their own selfish interest? Who would create and administer the Pigovian tax structure that would offset all of Lance’s gains and loses? Can even the Cray Supercomputer solve these equations and derive a payout before the 2006 Tour begins?
OK. Individual preferences unrevealed, externalities, “free riders” everywhere, and ad hoc contracts being agreed upon without legal signatures. But what about society? What is best for the collective group of 198 riders? Can this spontaneous order (or disorder, depending on your viewpoint) be best for all? Is this even close to Pareto optimality? It all depends. If you agree that each rider has unrevealed goals, throw that neoclassical equilibrium out the window. The impossible task becomes the creation of an aggregate demand curve.
So, assume that you can create this curve. What would you have? A Tour that functioned much like the Soviet economy. As stated above, all riders want to be “free loaders”, er “riders,” in that they don’t really want to suffer over a hundred miles of mountain roads if their needs were truly going to be met otherwise. Why sweat and pound the asphalt when you can lazily ride and occasionally stop to view the sights?
A couple of problems will arise. First, all riders cannot be designated the Tour champ – the Tour is not a Kindergarten class – so all needs cannot be met. In order to correct for this, the results would have to be created in a manner that approximated the regressed preferences of the aggregate field. Lance would probably remain champ and the other riders would be slotted into their likely finishing positions – all based on creating the efficient solution.
This lead to the second problem, this manner of racing would be slow and boring. Who would watch the riders literally tour France at a leisurely pace? Other than a spouse or two, probably just a few mothers, fathers and girlfriends. The Tour would be no more and 198 riders would be out of a job, all to satisfy some odd belief in equilibrium and utility. This is not a very satisfactory solution.
As you enjoy the Tour on TV remember that riders from many countries, speaking a host of different languages, are able to negotiate productive contracts that are mutually beneficial to both riders and viewers.
----------
Jim Fedako is a former professional cyclist. JFedako@aol.com. Comment on the blog.
Recycling: What a Waste!
Mise.org article: http://www.mises.org/story/1911
Recycling: What a Waste!
by Jim Fedako
[Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005] [Subscribe at email services and tell others]
This Fall, school kids across the country will again be taught a chief doctrine in the civic religion: recycle, not only because you fear the police but also because you love the planet. They come home well prepared to be the enforcers of the creed against parents who might inadvertently let a foil ball into the glass bin or overlook a plastic wrapper in the aluminum bin.
Oh, I used to believe in recycling, and I still believe in the other two Rs: reducing and reusing. But recycling? It's a waste of time, money, and ever scarce resources. What John Tierney wrote in the New York Times nearly 10 years ago is still true: "Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America."
Reduce and reuse makes sense. With no investment in resources I can place the plastic grocery bag in the bathroom garbage can and save a penny or so for some more pressing need. Reducing and reusing are free market activities that are an absolute profitable investment of time and labor.
Any astute entrepreneur will see the benefit of conserving factors of production. Houses are built today with much, much less wood than homes built just 20 years ago; and they are built sturdier, for the most part anyway. The decision to reduce wood in houses was not prompted by a green's love for trees; it was a reaction to the increasing cost for wood products.
Using less wood makes financial sense and any entrepreneur worth his profit will change his recipe to conserve wood through better design or by substituting less dear materials for wood products.
A recent Mises article, Ethanol and the Calculation Issue, discussed the inability to calculate the true cost of producing Ethanol. No one can calculate the cost of all the factors of production in the direction from the highest order labor and land down to the lowest order. Ethanol at the pump, though the Chicago School, Keynesians, etc., would certainly give the calculation the old college try. Absent government supports, the cost of Ethanol at the pump reveals the true economic cost of producing that fuel.
The same applies to recycling. What is the true cost of all factors involved in the recycling activity? I haven't a clue. Though using Misesian logic I know that the costs of recycling exceed the benefits. This is the simple result of the observation that recycling doesn't return a financial profit.
I used to recycle. It paid. As a child living in the Pittsburgh area, I would clean used glass containers. After collecting a sufficient amount of glass, my father would drive the three or so miles to the local glass factory where the owner gladly exchanged cleaned waste glass for dollars. It this instance I was an entrepreneur investing factors of production in order to turn dirty waste glass into capital. The value of the exchange exceeded my preference for time, elbow grease, and my parents' soap, water, and auto fuel. (Of course all of my exchanges against my parents' resources were high on my preference list, but that's another issue altogether).
What's wrong with recycling? The answer is simple; it doesn't pay. And since it doesn't pay it is an inefficient use of the time, money, and scarce resources. That's right, as Mises would have argued: let prices be your guide. Prices are essential to evaluate actions ex post. If the accounting of a near past event reveals a financial loss, the activity was a waste of both the entrepreneur's and society's scarce resources.
I'm supposed to believe that I need to invest resources into cleaning and sorting all sorts of recyclable materials for no compensation. And this is considered economically efficient? In some local communities--many thousands of which have recycling progreams--residents have to pay extra so that a company will recycle their paper, plastic, and glass. The recycling bins come with a per-month fee.
In other areas, such as my township, the garbage company profits at the mercy of the political class. The trustees in my township specified that in order to win the waste removal contract, the winning company has to provide recycling bins. Further, they have to send a special truck around to empty those neatly packed bins and deliver them to companies that have no pressing need for these unraw materials. The recycling bins are ostensibly free, but in reality their cost is bundled into my monthly waste removal bill.
Since there is no market for recyclable materials, at least no market sufficient to at least return my investment in soap and water, not to mention time and labor, I conclude that there is no pressing need for recycling. If landfills were truly in short supply then the cost of dumping waste would quickly rise. I would then see the financial benefit to reducing my waste volume, and since the recycling bin does not count toward waste volume, the more in the recycling bin, the less in the increasingly expensive garbage cans. Prices drive entrepreneurial calculations and, hence, human action. Recycling is no different.
Come on now, there can't be any benefit to even the neoclassical society if you actually have to pay someone to remove recyclables.
That recycling doesn't pay signifies that resources devoted to recycling activities would be better utilized in other modes of production. Instead of wasting resources on recycling, it would be more prudent to invest that money so that new recipes could be created to better conserve scarce materials in the production process.
Human action guides resources toward the activities that meet the most pressing needs. This movement of resources means that those activities that don't meet pressing needs are relatively expensive. Why? Those activities have to bid for factors of production along with the profitable activities — activities that are meeting the most pressing needs. The profitable activities will drive the cost of those scarce factors upward leading to financial ruin for those activities that don't satisfy the most pressing needs. Forced recycling is such a failed activity.
The concept of lost materials is fraught with errors. Glass headed to the landfills will sit quietly awaiting someone to desire its value. The glass is not going anywhere, and should glass become as dear as gold or even something less dear, you can bet that entrepreneurs would begin mining landfills for all those junked glass bottles, not to mention plastic, aluminum, etc.
The only caveat to this train of thought is what Rothbard wrote about when he discussed psychic profit: the perceived benefit one gets from performing an action, even if that action leads to an economic loss.
Who reaps the real psychic reward from recycling? The statist do-gooder and the obsessed conservationist. Since recycling is now a statist goal, the do-gooders and greens force the cost of recycling on the unsuspecting masses by selling recycling as a pseudo-spiritual activity. In addition to these beneficiaries, there are those who have not considered the full costs of recycling, but their psychic benefit is more ephemeral than real. The other winners are the companies that do the collecting and process the materials, an industry that is sustained by mandates at the local level.
If recycling at a financial loss leads you to greater psychic profit, then recycle, recycle, recycle. Let your personal preferences guide your actions, but don't force your preference schedule on others who have a different preference rank for their own actions. And, do not delude yourself into thinking that you are economizing anything; you are simply increasing your psychic profit at the expense of a more rational investment. But, hey, your actions are your business; just don't force your preferences to be my business.
Oh, and don't tell my children half the recycling story. Remember Hazlitt and turn over the second and third stone before drawing an economic conclusion.
____________
Jim Fedako is a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH. jfedako@aol.com. Comment on the blog.
You can receive the Mises Daily Article in your inbox. Go here to subscribe or unsubscribe.
Recycling: What a Waste!
by Jim Fedako
[Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005] [Subscribe at email services and tell others]
This Fall, school kids across the country will again be taught a chief doctrine in the civic religion: recycle, not only because you fear the police but also because you love the planet. They come home well prepared to be the enforcers of the creed against parents who might inadvertently let a foil ball into the glass bin or overlook a plastic wrapper in the aluminum bin.
Oh, I used to believe in recycling, and I still believe in the other two Rs: reducing and reusing. But recycling? It's a waste of time, money, and ever scarce resources. What John Tierney wrote in the New York Times nearly 10 years ago is still true: "Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America."
Reduce and reuse makes sense. With no investment in resources I can place the plastic grocery bag in the bathroom garbage can and save a penny or so for some more pressing need. Reducing and reusing are free market activities that are an absolute profitable investment of time and labor.
Any astute entrepreneur will see the benefit of conserving factors of production. Houses are built today with much, much less wood than homes built just 20 years ago; and they are built sturdier, for the most part anyway. The decision to reduce wood in houses was not prompted by a green's love for trees; it was a reaction to the increasing cost for wood products.
Using less wood makes financial sense and any entrepreneur worth his profit will change his recipe to conserve wood through better design or by substituting less dear materials for wood products.
A recent Mises article, Ethanol and the Calculation Issue, discussed the inability to calculate the true cost of producing Ethanol. No one can calculate the cost of all the factors of production in the direction from the highest order labor and land down to the lowest order. Ethanol at the pump, though the Chicago School, Keynesians, etc., would certainly give the calculation the old college try. Absent government supports, the cost of Ethanol at the pump reveals the true economic cost of producing that fuel.
The same applies to recycling. What is the true cost of all factors involved in the recycling activity? I haven't a clue. Though using Misesian logic I know that the costs of recycling exceed the benefits. This is the simple result of the observation that recycling doesn't return a financial profit.
I used to recycle. It paid. As a child living in the Pittsburgh area, I would clean used glass containers. After collecting a sufficient amount of glass, my father would drive the three or so miles to the local glass factory where the owner gladly exchanged cleaned waste glass for dollars. It this instance I was an entrepreneur investing factors of production in order to turn dirty waste glass into capital. The value of the exchange exceeded my preference for time, elbow grease, and my parents' soap, water, and auto fuel. (Of course all of my exchanges against my parents' resources were high on my preference list, but that's another issue altogether).
What's wrong with recycling? The answer is simple; it doesn't pay. And since it doesn't pay it is an inefficient use of the time, money, and scarce resources. That's right, as Mises would have argued: let prices be your guide. Prices are essential to evaluate actions ex post. If the accounting of a near past event reveals a financial loss, the activity was a waste of both the entrepreneur's and society's scarce resources.
I'm supposed to believe that I need to invest resources into cleaning and sorting all sorts of recyclable materials for no compensation. And this is considered economically efficient? In some local communities--many thousands of which have recycling progreams--residents have to pay extra so that a company will recycle their paper, plastic, and glass. The recycling bins come with a per-month fee.
In other areas, such as my township, the garbage company profits at the mercy of the political class. The trustees in my township specified that in order to win the waste removal contract, the winning company has to provide recycling bins. Further, they have to send a special truck around to empty those neatly packed bins and deliver them to companies that have no pressing need for these unraw materials. The recycling bins are ostensibly free, but in reality their cost is bundled into my monthly waste removal bill.
Since there is no market for recyclable materials, at least no market sufficient to at least return my investment in soap and water, not to mention time and labor, I conclude that there is no pressing need for recycling. If landfills were truly in short supply then the cost of dumping waste would quickly rise. I would then see the financial benefit to reducing my waste volume, and since the recycling bin does not count toward waste volume, the more in the recycling bin, the less in the increasingly expensive garbage cans. Prices drive entrepreneurial calculations and, hence, human action. Recycling is no different.
Come on now, there can't be any benefit to even the neoclassical society if you actually have to pay someone to remove recyclables.
That recycling doesn't pay signifies that resources devoted to recycling activities would be better utilized in other modes of production. Instead of wasting resources on recycling, it would be more prudent to invest that money so that new recipes could be created to better conserve scarce materials in the production process.
Human action guides resources toward the activities that meet the most pressing needs. This movement of resources means that those activities that don't meet pressing needs are relatively expensive. Why? Those activities have to bid for factors of production along with the profitable activities — activities that are meeting the most pressing needs. The profitable activities will drive the cost of those scarce factors upward leading to financial ruin for those activities that don't satisfy the most pressing needs. Forced recycling is such a failed activity.
The concept of lost materials is fraught with errors. Glass headed to the landfills will sit quietly awaiting someone to desire its value. The glass is not going anywhere, and should glass become as dear as gold or even something less dear, you can bet that entrepreneurs would begin mining landfills for all those junked glass bottles, not to mention plastic, aluminum, etc.
The only caveat to this train of thought is what Rothbard wrote about when he discussed psychic profit: the perceived benefit one gets from performing an action, even if that action leads to an economic loss.
Who reaps the real psychic reward from recycling? The statist do-gooder and the obsessed conservationist. Since recycling is now a statist goal, the do-gooders and greens force the cost of recycling on the unsuspecting masses by selling recycling as a pseudo-spiritual activity. In addition to these beneficiaries, there are those who have not considered the full costs of recycling, but their psychic benefit is more ephemeral than real. The other winners are the companies that do the collecting and process the materials, an industry that is sustained by mandates at the local level.
If recycling at a financial loss leads you to greater psychic profit, then recycle, recycle, recycle. Let your personal preferences guide your actions, but don't force your preference schedule on others who have a different preference rank for their own actions. And, do not delude yourself into thinking that you are economizing anything; you are simply increasing your psychic profit at the expense of a more rational investment. But, hey, your actions are your business; just don't force your preferences to be my business.
Oh, and don't tell my children half the recycling story. Remember Hazlitt and turn over the second and third stone before drawing an economic conclusion.
____________
Jim Fedako is a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH. jfedako@aol.com. Comment on the blog.
You can receive the Mises Daily Article in your inbox. Go here to subscribe or unsubscribe.
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