Questions tagged [philosophy-of-economics]
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70
questions
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1answer
90 views
Philosophical framework for avoiding short-term strategies
In business and politics, often decision-makers make decisions that cause short-term gain, but long-term loss. So economically, this might be an unreasonable (lossy) and thus irrational process.
Is ...
0
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1answer
42 views
Is economics a science according to Popperian and Lakatosian standards? [duplicate]
According to Karl Popper's falsification criterion only a falsifiable theory is said to be a scientific theory. If this is true, is Economics falsifiable and hence considered scientific?
21
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10answers
5k views
Is economics a science?
In class, I made the argument that economics is not science, because it cannot undertake repeatable experiments. Someone rebutted: this would mean that I am ignore an emerging body of work, some by ...
2
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1answer
103 views
Is there any new concept in Marxism that didn't exist in classical economics?
Surplus value is just economic profit. The organic composition of capital is just the investment rate. Capitalist mode of production is just a verbose way of saying capitalism. Exchange value is price....
4
votes
1answer
82 views
Historicism vs Determinism
Can anyone explain the difference between historicism and determinism (e.g. economic determinism)? I've found articles that describe them as different things, while others treat them as synonyms.
If ...
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2answers
210 views
Marxism - primary contradiction of capitalism
After writing a long post, i decided to keep only the summary :
I understand that in the marxist framework a mode of production is constituted by :
the relations of production
the productive forces
...
-1
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1answer
104 views
Is “class culture” an artificial construct or does it have “natural” motivation?
Is "class culture" an artificial construct or does it have "natural" motivation?
A lof of things, at least judging by internet, are associated or measured relative to socio-economic class. However, ...
4
votes
3answers
149 views
Are there objective-criteria for criticizing people's “market behavior”?
Are there objective-criteria for criticizing people's "market behavior"?
That is, is there a set of criteria that one can objectively refer to as measuring, whether the "contribution" of a member is ...
3
votes
4answers
178 views
Multidimensional value money
When I was a kid, I had a feeling that money was not that important, but the majority of people around me kept saying the opposite. So I thought that I just did not understand them. Now that I have ...
3
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2answers
159 views
How can laissez-faire capitalism not turn to corporatocracy?
An idea of corporatocracy (pretty dystopian) exists in some movies and videogames. Typically huge corporations ar epresented as having own armies and those armies can force citizens do their work. We ...
0
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1answer
72 views
Authors on the Business of Philosophy and the Philosopher's ego
In a capitalistic society every human experience is susceptible of becoming a business, eg. the business of beauty, sex, art, justice, health, education, journalism, emotions and psychology, ...
0
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1answer
84 views
Is the notion of a meritocracy inherently unethical and/or paradoxical?
Wikipedia says,
Meritocracy (merit, from Latin mereō, and -cracy, from Ancient Greek κράτος kratos "strength, power") is a political philosophy which holds that certain things, such as economic ...
2
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1answer
101 views
For those who have read-and understood- “Living Currency” by Pierre Klossowski
The essay/book contains the following paragraph:
"The manufactured object, as opposed to (natural) useful goods, though it may still hold some habitual meaning (for instance depending on how metals ...
1
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1answer
60 views
It is posible a Resourced Based Economy? [closed]
When I refer to a resource-based economy, I refer to the proposal of the groups of The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project
https://www.thevenusproject.com/resource-based-economy/
2
votes
4answers
755 views
Scenario in which society is better off by someone breaking a rule?
Suppose there is some rule in some social setting/scenario where society (or a relevant smaller set of people) is/are better off when some people violate it. Specifically, we have that (where '>' ...
1
vote
1answer
234 views
What did Karl Marx mean by “revolutionary combination due to association”?
In "The Communist Manifesto", it is said that:
"The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by the ...
2
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4answers
2k views
What's the purpose of economics / How is economics useful to humans? [closed]
What is the purpose of economics?
By purpose I mean having a purpose in a similar sense that eating and producing food has a purpose for survival. What does economics produce? How does it help ...
1
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6answers
1k views
What is Money, (not money)?
Money plays a major role in our experience and I find that very few people explore the idea of what it is. This question concerns Form.
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally ...
4
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6answers
525 views
Will automation emancipate us from labour?
In the The Human Condition, Arendt writes:
The danger that the modern age's emancipation of labour will not only fail to usher in an age of freedom for all but will result, on the contrary, in ...
3
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1answer
118 views
Where does Adorno find this quote of Marx?
In Negative Dialectics, Adorno quotes Marx as saying:
even if a society has found a natural law of motion - and the present works ultimate goal is to unveil the law of modern society economic ...
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2answers
97 views
Marxism and Capitalism as a Schism
Is it possible to see Marxism and Capitalism as a kind of ideological schism, in the same way, say we have a schism between Protestatism & Catholicism in Christianity, and between Sunni & ...
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3answers
1k views
Does capitalism have an end goal?
Occasionally I find that things such as "incentives" in a capitalist economy are as if they would be directed to a certain outcome or certain outcomes. E.g. that profit incentives matter only in so ...
1
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2answers
357 views
What are Marx's ideas on the fetishization of commodities?
What are Marx's ideas on the fetishization of commodity? Specifically, I am interested in use value and exchange value; how does the commodity own its exchange value?
4
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3answers
152 views
Adam Smith: If humans are self-interested individuals, why should we reinvest our wealth?
According to Adam Smith, humans are self-interested individuals. If this is true, why does he argue that people should reinvest their wealth? How does this benefit a self-interested individual? Does ...
2
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4answers
105 views
What should the value of a private sector company tell us?
This question bridges both philosophy and economics. Please see original question on the economics website, it includes extra comments and discussion. Looking for critique and reading suggestions:
...
2
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2answers
257 views
The Fetishism To Commodities “In History” — When did it really happen?
I restarted reading the non-main stream economics' groups, that is to say, as you may well easily guess Marxian stream.
Since the age of 20, when I read their works, the focal point has not changed ...
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6answers
1k views
What are some good books on the philosophy of economics?
I'm a college student of physics, and I'm looking to expand my horizon in the field of philosophy of economics, so, what books would you recommend for newbies like me?
I was thinking in history of ...
2
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3answers
194 views
The circulation of goods
In the body there is the circulation of blood, it goes in one direction only.
Now consider the circulation of goods in a barter economy; goods move by exchange. Hence we can identify always two ...
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3answers
469 views
What is Capital?
One hears a great deal about Capitalisms and anti-capitalisms; but what do these terms actually mean? Have these terms been so used and abused that they now mean very little? Can I just think of ...
4
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4answers
884 views
Philosophical critiques of neoclassical economics?
Background Information
In his article on Neoclassical economics in The Library of Economics and Liberty, E.Weintraub articulates the following:
Neoclassical economics rests on three assumptions, ...
7
votes
2answers
699 views
Is it immoral to pay taxes if your government conducts immoral activities?
Assume your government participates in immoral wars that are unjust according to your personal beliefs and religious doctrine (for example Christian just war theory), is giving support to the ...
4
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2answers
308 views
Was the Communist Manifesto actually representative of Marx's ideology?
The Communist Manifesto (TCM, from here on) has become the most well-known work by Karl Marx - even more so than Kapital. However, I'm wondering if it is it correct to call the points laid out by the ...
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1answer
75 views
Fungible Money Question
Suppose that there are two people, A and B. Each has a physical dollar bill. Each donates the dollar bill to an organization. The organization buys something for a dollar.
First suppose that the ...
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2answers
253 views
Is the gender divide a class divide?
Simone Weil wrote in Gravity & Grace:
Up to now, history has only shown us societies divided up into classes, except for altogether primitive societies in which no differentiation has yet ...
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1answer
1k views
Philosophy of Chankya/Kautilya [closed]
I have heard and also read a little that in 500 B.C. an Indian genius Chankya, caused the fall of Magdha empire, and made a street guy The king named Chandragupta. He was an exceptional strategist and ...
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8answers
2k views
Is it immoral to buy / own / sell stock in an evil company?
Scenario.
I have decided that I should not buy widgets from Company X because I do not want to support various immoral things Company X does to produce said widgets.
Claim. It is nonetheless morally ...
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3answers
226 views
Why does the concept of the division of labour put forth by Adam Smith continue to be analytically significant?
Is it because the modernity is defined through the extent of division of labour?
Also, how tightly has this concept integrated with our current society and how is it affecting it? What measures can be ...
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3answers
138 views
The culture industry and division of labour
The division of labour is the specialisation of cooperating
individuals who perform specific tasks and roles.
It is thought of as perhaps supremely alienating by Marxists, though I never found out ...
0
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1answer
144 views
Do we have an obligation to respect our teachers? [closed]
Many philosophers teach us to respect those who are teaching us. For example, one of the five classics of the Confucian canon [The Classic of Rites - Liji] claims in "Record of Education" that:
...
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5answers
4k views
Who owns the means of production?
Labour is Marxs term for those who do not own the means of production and thus rely on their own labour - ie they are wage earners.
What is his term for those who do own the means of production? Its ...
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5answers
2k views
What is an example of human labour being the exclusive source of surplus value
Marx's labour theory seems to define surplus value as being produced exclusively from human labour. One discussion of this concept stated:
Machinery, and tools of production do not create surplus ...
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3answers
4k views
How does Marxist Economics account for taxation?
In Marxs theory of Capital, he suggests that the origin of profit (in a factory) is surplus labour.
(A factory may as well be a company, a record label or a health-care unit).
The government by ...
4
votes
1answer
59 views
The future of my philosophical understanding and methods for getting there
I am trying to go through a semi-rigorous self-teaching regimen, and I was wondering if I could get some criticism on my approach.
I'm interested in philosophy of economics, social philosophy, and ...
5
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2answers
217 views
Mass surveillance and the concealed subject of power
In Spivaks essay, can the Subaltern speak, she states that:
[the] contemporary invocations of the libidinal economy and desire as the determining interest, combined with practical politics of the ...
3
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3answers
183 views
Economics, State and Violence
I think it was the continental sociologist Weber who defined a State as that organ of a nation that has a monopoly of violence.
Economics, at least what minute fraction I know, appears to ignore ...
5
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1answer
111 views
The mass surveillance of price and the invisible hand?
In Hayeks Road to Serfdom, he distinguishes between central planning & decentralised planning. And states that decentralised planning makes the most sense, since the available information is too ...
10
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8answers
1k views
Why are Objectivists against Socialism?
From what I understand, Objectivism advocates rational selfishness - to put yourself before the masses, unless you don't want to - essentially to do what you want instead of blind altruism.
In the ...
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2answers
100 views
Does Risk Aversion cause Diminishing Marginal Utility, or vice versa?
Let A be the set of possible states of the world, or possible preferences a person could have. Let G(A) be the set of "gambles" or "lotteries", i.e. the set of probability distributions over A. Then ...
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1answer
528 views
Was Ayn Rand affected by Italian Futurism?
Italian Futurism was an art movement in early 20th century Italy which celebrated youth, violence & technology:
Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially political ...
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6answers
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Whats the difference between fixed and constant capital?
Rosa Luxembourg in The Accumulation of Capital describes & investigates the constant and fixed capital of Marx & Smith respectively.
With Marx, she says Constant capital is the value ...
