The specific handwave I’m referring to is Amartya Sen’s.
“In the case of the free rider hypothesis, these ‘rational fools’ act based on such a narrow conception of self-interest that they don’t take into account the obviously damaging long-term consequences of their behavior, both to the firm and ultimately to themselves. Normal, reasonable people—who are different to rational economic man—are usually happy to put efforts into a collective endeavor that will deliver benefits for them in the long run, even if that means foregoing some short-term gains.”
This sounds like it would predict that people reliably cooperate on prisoner’s dilemmas, and pick stag in stag hunts. In reality, of course, that’s not a thing! Cooperation exists, but tends to require coordination mechanisms. Worse, it sounds like it’s advocating an incoherent decision theory. While there are certainly times where it’s wise to make a choice that isn’t the best in the most narrow, myopic possible sense (Newcomb’s problem is the obvious example, or superrationality dynamics), that’s very different than putting efforts into collective endeavor in the hopes of collective success.
The evidence you cite is interesting, though Lao Mein’s evidence suggests it isn’t a slam dunk. But Sen is committing a fallacy here, and the same fallacy as was often used in support of socialist regimes. As such, it’s a valid answer to tailcalled’s question.
I cite four different studies that show that the theory doesn’t match the observations, Lao Mein doesn’t cite anything. This is the most extreme version of being a selective skeptic.
He cites the observation that socialized firms have not taken over the economy. That’s clearly true and clearly relevant. Your response was that you’d already explained why socialized firms might not take over even if they were productive. What were those reasons again? Reviewing your post, it looks like it might be the difficulty of gaining investment and brain drain from the most productive workers leaving, but both of those reasons would be strong arguments against socialization. Rose Wrist’s ideas for gaining investment anyway are interesting, but until socialized firms actually do raise enough funding to compete, saying that they theoretically maybe can sounds remarkably hollow.
The point of evidence is to see things that are more likely under one hypothesis than another. In the world where socialized firms are better, I do not expect to see them failing to take over. In the world where they are not, I do expect that it’s possible to generate arbitrarily long lists of pro-socialism citations.
The strength of a case depends on the strength of the evidence, not on the number of citations!
I cited controlled experiments, you counter with an observation that I have already responded to in both the post and the comments:
I explained this in this section:
One issue that arises with starting a socialist firms is acquiring initial investing.[27] This is probably because co-ops want to maximize income (wages), not profits. They pursue the interests of their members rather than investors and may sometimes opt to increase wages instead of profits. Capitalist firms on the other hand are explicitly investor owned so investor interests will take priority.
A socialist firm can be more productive and not dominate the economy if it’s hard to start a socialist firm.
The strength of a case depends on the strength of the evidence, not on the number of citations!
The specific handwave I’m referring to is Amartya Sen’s.
“In the case of the free rider hypothesis, these ‘rational fools’ act based on such a narrow conception of self-interest that they don’t take into account the obviously damaging long-term consequences of their behavior, both to the firm and ultimately to themselves. Normal, reasonable people—who are different to rational economic man—are usually happy to put efforts into a collective endeavor that will deliver benefits for them in the long run, even if that means foregoing some short-term gains.”
This sounds like it would predict that people reliably cooperate on prisoner’s dilemmas, and pick stag in stag hunts. In reality, of course, that’s not a thing! Cooperation exists, but tends to require coordination mechanisms. Worse, it sounds like it’s advocating an incoherent decision theory. While there are certainly times where it’s wise to make a choice that isn’t the best in the most narrow, myopic possible sense (Newcomb’s problem is the obvious example, or superrationality dynamics), that’s very different than putting efforts into collective endeavor in the hopes of collective success.
The evidence you cite is interesting, though Lao Mein’s evidence suggests it isn’t a slam dunk. But Sen is committing a fallacy here, and the same fallacy as was often used in support of socialist regimes. As such, it’s a valid answer to tailcalled’s question.
I cite four different studies that show that the theory doesn’t match the observations, Lao Mein doesn’t cite anything. This is the most extreme version of being a selective skeptic.
He cites the observation that socialized firms have not taken over the economy. That’s clearly true and clearly relevant. Your response was that you’d already explained why socialized firms might not take over even if they were productive. What were those reasons again? Reviewing your post, it looks like it might be the difficulty of gaining investment and brain drain from the most productive workers leaving, but both of those reasons would be strong arguments against socialization. Rose Wrist’s ideas for gaining investment anyway are interesting, but until socialized firms actually do raise enough funding to compete, saying that they theoretically maybe can sounds remarkably hollow.
The point of evidence is to see things that are more likely under one hypothesis than another. In the world where socialized firms are better, I do not expect to see them failing to take over. In the world where they are not, I do expect that it’s possible to generate arbitrarily long lists of pro-socialism citations.
The strength of a case depends on the strength of the evidence, not on the number of citations!
I cited controlled experiments, you counter with an observation that I have already responded to in both the post and the comments:
You are not engaging with the evidence I cited.