In Defense of Anagorism

political economy in the non-market, non-state sector

Quotebag #92

Written by

Lorraine Lee

in

“If you accept that market economies have no tendency to full employment equilibrium, then it follows logically that large-scale automation is most likely to cause serious structural unemployment and a chronic aggregate demand shortfall.”—Lord Keynes

“From my point of view, there is simply no way to posit any sort of god (a creature by definition more powerful than mere mortals, if only in the way comic book superheroes are more powerful, by possessing a hypertrophied attribute which allows this god a greater chance of winning feats of strength, or contests of wit) who interacts with humans and doesn’t come out of the relationship having harmed the human person.”—Jack Crow

“One could make the case that the right to not have a boss is actually the hardest won of modern freedoms: should it really trouble us if more people in a rich society end up exercising it?”—Ross Douthat, h/t Jack Saturday

“This corporatism talking point is yet another attempt to rebrand capitalism so that it doesn’t seem so evil, antidemocratic and corrupt. It’s capitalism.”—Matt Meister (on Facebook)

“A proper forecasting mechanism would weigh each individual’s opinion by the precision of his or her knowledge. A market tends on the contrary to weigh each individual’s opinion by his or her wealth.”—Brad DeLong

“Competition is an ideology.”—Jack Crow

Comments

One response to “Quotebag #92”

  1. Lindsay Avatar
    Lindsay

    At first I looked at that Douthat quote, and was like, “Did Ross Douthat really just manage not to be an asshole?” but then I thought I remembered reading a column of his about The End of Work where he was, indeed, still an asshole. So I followed the link, reread the article, and found that it was the one I thought it was.

    He goes on to answer his own question: yes, it should trouble us, because PEOPLE NEED STRUCTURE OMG SEX OMG DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION WHARRRGARRBBBBL!

    I was also made angry by his statement that the decline of employment is being made possible by material progress, because it puts an overly rosy picture of unemployment in people’s minds. It makes it look too much like a free choice, rather than an inability to find a job, or a job that wouldn’t make you incredibly miserable for too little money. It makes it look like there are no hungry people, no homeless people, no people who are dying for lack of health insurance. No, in Ross Douthat’s world the worst thing that can happen to you is an acute case of ennui.

    Ross Douthat is an asshole. (I just wanted to repeat that in the vain hope that Google will auto-complete a search for “Ross Douthat” to “Did you mean Ross Douthat is an asshole?”, LOL).

    Reply

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