02
Sep
2015
Steve Landsburg Experiences the Ultimate Male Blogger’s Nightmare
In the comments to this post, both his wife *and* mom showed up to zing him. We all need to be extra nice to Steve this week.
In the comments to this post, both his wife *and* mom showed up to zing him. We all need to be extra nice to Steve this week.
Power drill.
I like it.
“Poking holes in weak arguments like nobody’s business.”
And that’s why I tell my mother not to read blog comments.
(That’s not actually the reason)
The supposed earnings gap between men and women was brought up in the comments, as well as sexism.
But what if women just have a really high comparative advantage in non-business activities?
There is sexism against both men and women in different ways.
Almost like men and women are, you know, somehow different or something.
Channeling boys to one course and girls to another is sexism against boys and girls in the same way.
When the children have grown up, and the girls now prefer to be a nurse to a cowboy because of what they were told as children, would it be a result of sexism that the majority of nurses are girls?
We should raise children in complete isolation so they are in no way influenced by the outside world.
They wouldn’t exist then, I suppose. The placenta is certainly part of the outside world.
Z, Generally, not for about 9 months.
Grane, whilst your response seems to indicate an acknowledgement of a serious problem, it does seem a bit extreme.
Surely it would be much better to raise children in a less sexist fashion than to cut off all contact with others?
This is a serious point. Should the formation of opinions and preferences in children be any part of our consideration?
The girls, now grown to women, freely choose their employment. But should we consider where they get their preferences from? I don’t think there is any room in the Austrian analysis for considering this.
What about their so called moral preferences? We can stop using any moral terminology and just let them develop their moral behavior however it does or doesn’t develop. We’ll do an experiment on Grane’s children to find out.
I don’t remember this verbatim but it should be close enough. From Doug Stanhope;
Civility is a learned behavior, if you don’t believe me put a 2 year old alone in a room for an hour with a kitten, you’ll come back that kitten will turned inside out, the kid will have an eyeball in his mouth, la la la la.
“I don’t think there is any room in the Austrian analysis for considering this.”
I don’t see what Austrian economics has to do with it at all.
I just wanted to acknowledge that the responses have been deep.
By “comparative advantage in non-business activities” I mean that no matter how good women are at business, we would still rather them just sit there and look pretty and enjoy my our cat calls because we derive so much more satisfaction from that then when they make us money..
Stop ruining my sexism with serious analysis, Betas!
😀
“I don’t see what Austrian economics has to do with it at all.”
Precisely. By taking as a starting point the preferences people have, whilst ignoring where those preferences come from, the analyis is missing a large part of behavior. It is an incomplete method.
“By taking as a starting point the preferences people have, whilst ignoring where those preferences come from, the analyis is missing a large part of behavior. It is an incomplete method.”
It’s complete for purposes of economics, which is properly understood from the perspective of the individual.
The fact that people only act to satisfy preferences lets me know that every individual act contains some information about that consumer’s preferences, and therefore my costs of potentially trading with that person.
The less coerced that act is, the more sustainable is the flow of profit I can get from trading with him.
“The less coerced that act is, the more sustainable is the flow of profit I can get from trading with him.”
This is not outside economics, because if people are able to choose any job then total profits will be higher.
The indoctrination of children has the same result as prohibition of certain people taking certain jobs.
“It’s complete for purposes of economics”
Since this factor has an undeniable economic impact, I don’t see how an analysis that ignores it can be complete for the purposes of economics.
“which is properly understood from the perspective of the individual.”
Since analysis based on the individual is incomplete, then this cannot be the case.
Hi Harold,
If people are, somehow, given their preferences and opinions then being raised in complete isolation will result in an adult with no preferences or opinions about the outside world. Upon release, what preferences and opinions are appropriate for one adult to give to another?
I don’t want to pretend that we are not influenced by our surroundings, that is why I don’t think we are given our preferences and opinions.
Preeeeeetty sure Nurse pays better than Cowboy.
On the other hand, being a cowboy is a pretty substantial fringe benefit all by itself. Similarly, given the chance to be a ninja, I’m not sure I’d ask about the starting salary.
Everyone has a chance to be a ninja, you aren’t searching hard enough
🙂
Times like this I’m glad my mother refuses to internets.