On Thu, 15 May 2008 19:23:44 -0400, Les Cargill wrote:
> The Trucker wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 May 2008 23:23:30 +0530, John Galt wrote:
> <snip>
>>
>> You are looking at individual wealth as opposed to societal wealth.
>
> One is simply the sum of the other.
That actually seems irrelevant and incorrect and it indicates a
probable failure to communicate.
>> And
>> in a populated society individual wealth is anywhere and everywhere the
>> labor you can save yourself or the freedom you gain by commanding the
>> labor of others.
>
> For sufficiently interesting values of "command".
>
>> Societal wealth, on the other hand, is the freedom from harm,
>> discomfort, and toil and the liberty that is shared among all. There
>> are two ways to achieve this societal wealth in a populated society
>> (there may be more but I do not know of them):
>>
>> 1. Technological advance and capital development 2. The division and
>> specialization of land and labor
>>
>>
> Yup.
>
>> But the measurement of success is not the measurement of these things
>> directly. For the measurement of success we must turn to more direct
>> indicators of societal well being.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life
>>
>>
> It becomes subjective, therefore "spinnable". Try this:
Mean, and median longevity is not subjective or spinnable.
Infant mortality is not. The number of hours employed outside the home is
not. There are quit a few metrics that simply are not in and of themselves
subjective. The subjectiveness is in the weights of the different non
subjective measures.
> 1) Television advertising modulates people's comfort level to
> improve the impact of commercials.
> 2) Therefore, turning off the TV can measurably make people happier
I do not have a TV.
> 3) But creating demand helps keep the real cost of material goods
> relatively low.
That is simply wrong -- the broken window fallacy.
> 4) Therefore, there is a trade space of uncertain warp and weave
> between TV or no TV.
All of that may even be of interest to you. It sure as hell is of no
interest to me at all. But the op****tunity to spend time watching TV
or not _is_ of interest to just about everyone. Its called freedom.
Assuming all other metrics equal we would measure the time spent not
working outside the home and see that as a measure of freedom.
> I tend to turn off the TV, but I might be creating negative
> externalities for other people by doing it. Indeed, I have been
> on here for years talking about consumer fatigue. I think we are
> in it up to our eyeballs.
That is part of why focusing on consumption is a mistake. There are a
great many of us who do not need any more consuming. What we want is to
have MORE FREEDOM, MORE LEISURE, and be healthier. So you can escape
by weighting the different non spinnable metrics. But you really can't
do that either. If you have the freedom to move about then you can select
the economy that scores best on YOUR selected weights. The measurement of
the economy is not the province of Milton or of the Republicans or the
Democrats or the Nazis. It can be individualized. Based on the weights
selected by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Intelligence_Unit
the US economy ranks significantly below Scandinavia.
>> There is and will be much disagreement over the weight assigned to the
>> various measurements of "infant mortality", "longevity", "happiness",
and
>> the like. But these are the things that actually represent the quality
of
>> life; the success or failure of economic policy.
>>
>
> And each of those will mire you in details forever. Improved
> prenatal care actually inflates infant mortality figures - what
> would have been a miscarriage is now an infant death. Yadda
> yadda.
Another seemingly ridiculous diversion.
--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org/extend
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