If the "Rational Economic Man" truly existed, the advertising industry would be at least a thousand times smaller.

I am surprised most of the comments missed Greg's bottom line. We want people to have the freest possible lives and to make choices that are in their best interest. But then, of course, there are certain limits to liberty. We don't want people killing others. But once we start to limit liberties, we need to be careful. And here he says - why is it fair for me to limit someone else just because I don't like what they do? What if they did that for a lot more things? Gay marriage was illegal for this reason. Jim Crow existed for this reason. These were awful policies, but the majorities at the time found them quite sensible. Its why its dangerous to impose your own sensibilities onto others as if you have the moral authority.

"In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e., price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity." - Immanuel Kant

problem is that any monetising of your kidneys will be priced into the cost of living. So housing will go up as everyone has the possibility ( or have a relative) who can put down a $20k deposit for a home or college education with a kidney. So everything is priced up. People are priced into poverty. Its not a lack of money..its a pricing mechanism.

Interesting conversation. I think financially focused individuals have trouble getting the right balance between protecting individual values and collective values. It was weird to say u would allow poor people to sell kidneys because it would help both poor people and people needing kidneys, then say it would be okay for people to buy kidneys for frivolous uses. I can understand the fear of the state abusing power, but preventing people from playing video games to read books is comparative to preventing people from using kidneys as ornaments to use them for transplants? One looks like a clear abuse of authority while the other shows a general respect for life. Shouldn’t economists look at the other factors surrounding the two individuals doing the exchange. If ur moral philosophy is based on doing no harm, but an individual can use organs as set pieces, in a world where those organs can determine life or death, I would need a definition for harm. Ethics is a dynamic field. U can say some preferences are bad. And really the immorality of the act comes from the scarcity of kidneys and their life or death value. If that attribute was removed, u could put kidneys all over ur house with no negative effects. Respecting preferences is important but it is based on the effect individual actions have on the broader society. Ethics is somewhat all about externalities, for personal preferences are somewhat easy, tho obtaining positive utility is difficult.

The question is; Should we support a personality/entity that doesn't exist within natural constraints?

Mankiw was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush - let that sink in

11:05 This is one common error people make and even some libertarian guys fails to address, is not the point that 'there is no harm', but the person don't evaluate as there is. One key element in libertarian views is the fact that we almost never have 'sufficient' information to make decisions. Maybe i'm mistaken but there is a single queue for the kidneys and the government pay for the kidneys, and also the surgeries. Iran, maybe? This had 'zeroed' the waiting for kidneys.

@abendrotfernweh2843

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, in Iran selling kidney is legal. But unfortunately it's not a free market. The government sets kidney price every year, which is really low. Iran's economy has been is severe crisis in recent decades and inflation is skyrocketing. So, there is still a very large black market for kidney, in which people sell their kidneys with much higher prices than that of price the government has set. So, kidney shortage here is not as severe as in Europe or US, but unfortunately thanks to government's price control policy and horrible economic situation, people sell their kidneys with much higher prices.

Greg Mankiw really does not really understand the poor. Regardless I feel that Greg is a decent man, his lack of experience affects his capacity. The kidney is not the problem, the issue is that poverty should not exist.

@ajitkirpekar4251

4 жыл бұрын

As Thomas Sowell said - Poverty is the norm. Its escaping poverty that's unusual. And if you study how humans escaped poverty - the results are remarkably consistent with Greg's view.

@gabbar51ngh

3 жыл бұрын

If you think government with a magic policy can end poverty, then you neither understand economics or history. Free market has pulled more people out of poverty than any welfare program throughout History. Wanna know why? Simply because it makes everyone stick or find something they are valuable at for society. Thus by design they don't need welfare. When you try to end poverty with welfare, you are punishing the productive people and making them lose incentive to work. Thus over-all stagnation and poverty remains.

ETHICALLY MOUNSTROUS

What this economist does not seem to understand is that inorder for a transaction to be "voluntary", you have to have equality amongst the parties involved. If you need to work to earn money to eat, and someone is offering the means to get that money (a job) at preposterously low wages, but you are not in a position to get money any other way, that is not a voluntary transaction.

@grb1969

5 жыл бұрын

Good point. If we acknowledged class differences, maybe we could only buy/sell our kidneys to those within our decile of income/wealth. This would serve to flatten the distribution curve because those in the top 10% would have to socialize a fair percentage of their prosperity if they wanted access to down market organs. Of course, this hyperbolic example would extend to an exponential increase in parricide among the patriarchy, lest their trust funds be compromised. ;)

@piperfree4271

5 жыл бұрын

Arent you free market guys? Thats not how it works in the real world. If I work for a salary that does not pay me enough I am free to choose if I want to work there anymore or leave. If the case is that no other company is willing to pay me more means that the market either undervalues my skills or the person himself overvalues what they should earn. You arent entilted to demand higher salaries like that. Dont get me wrong I have sympathy for poor people and the situation with low wage jobs. But if you think that you solve anything with introducing minium wage or something along those lines. You will soon see that such laws only makes the poor worse off.

@grb1969

5 жыл бұрын

@@piperfree4271 A minimum wage serves those with wealth more so than the impoverished. If society would like to find peace between individuals and nation-states, then a progressive taxation of both income and wealth would result in a top-tier tax bracket of 100%. The ratio of guaranteed minimum income to maximum income could be decided by the public citizenship on an ongoing basis. Bounded rationality is a better option than wealth accumulation through plunder until civilization's collapse. When Adam Smith invoked a desire for free markets, he defined this as markets free from economic rents. Markets were not considered to be a viable mechanism to adjudicate moral values and principles. Markets are incapable of conveying either individual or collective justice due to the fungible nature of money and its perversion of individual sovereign power into monopolistic institutionalized power. Limiting power is a form of bounded rationality, which we choose to ignore at our mutual peril.

@gabbar51ngh

3 жыл бұрын

Wherever people were tried to be made equal there was more suffering and poverty. There's Always going to be inequality. Anyone trying to make people equal by design is ignorant of history and economics. You should make sure people have equal opportunities. Expecting equal outcomes is silly. This is like passing all students in the class with same grades irrespective of how they perform. Also why should a man be burdened with another man's expenses? Also it is voluntary transaction. If he doesn't like it he can look somewhere else. Obviously the man's labour isn't worth higher than the wages he's being offered. If it was. He would have gotten higher wages elsewhere.

I have trouble squaring the circle of why someone voluntarily selling their second kidney and the individual volunteering for military service are two different things from the rational individual self-interest economics perspective. Further, the rational self-interest of the individual cannot explain the D-Day storming of Normandy Beach by American troops. One can be sure there were no economists there storming the beach on that day. Economists have a huge problem here. Suicide by the individual’s second kidney transaction is an insult to the state where storming the machine guns is not? (We will not get into the conceivable inheritance tax problem of that second kidney transaction) Economists of the self-interest ilk have a core academic discipline problem they are not intellectually honest about. Suicide is an insult to the state because the state loses a taxpayer and their economic potential for the employer. There is no other reason for the state, or the economist, to be insulted by suicide. All-the-while, the volunteer infantryman gunned down is a hero because they protect the state and the economy by allowing both to move forward as going concerns. There is nothing more here from the rational individual economic perspective than that. This self-interest babble, on display here in this interview, is plainly vulgar to me as I ponder my year-end charitable contributions. Michael Bain Glorieta, New Mexico

Why should people, anyone, have to choose between donating a kidney and sending their kids to college? Or paying rent for another six months? Kidney farming seems.. unethical

@piperfree4271

5 жыл бұрын

They wouldnt choose between donating a kidney or sending their kids to college. If they are poor and cant afford higher education they might be able to afford it by donating a kidney. So in essence its a question of priorities or the hierarchy of values. Im no medical expert but donating your kidney under minor health consquences could be benefitial in so far that the other person values the possibilities of the future. I dont know man, "voluntary" market decisions in highly incentivised circumstances are very complicated. What are you thoughts on that?

@GenghisVern

5 жыл бұрын

@@piperfree4271 I'm fine with market providing the goods and services of our society. I'm not suggesting "socialism" in any way. I AM, however, suggesting that there are more important issues to be promoted-- such as universal health insurance for all citizens, free education, and a full pension-- none of which is "socialism". I realize there is a need for organ donors. But farming poor people is unethical and, in my view, immoral. You shouldn't take advantage of people like that. It's wrong.

@piperfree4271

5 жыл бұрын

@@GenghisVern Yeah well in general I dont believe in the concept of the rational mind in economics. I mean why would there still be war... viewed ecomically almost all wars are irrational (costs over benefits.) That said im very suspicious of universal health care. I live in switzerland and worked in the health insurance business. We have a mandstory nationalised health care system that has rising costs of about 3-4% on average per year. Im very concererned with financing such a huge government construct that will most likely have growing costs in the long term. I more hopful in high risk insurance. Meaning that you have to pay your cough syrup for your cold with your own money but if something medically significant happens like cancer etc. there is insurance. How would you go about establishing your health care visions? And what do you think of my assessment?

@GenghisVern

5 жыл бұрын

@@piperfree4271 You can believe in the tooth fairy for all I care. Your suspicions toward universal health INSURANCE just means you haven't looked into it far enough. Math and facts are real. Tooth fairy is not. btw sorry, I didn't directly respond to your comment. UHI is not "socialized medicine", its public finance, private sector delivery. Democracy and capitalism are two sides of the same fiat coin.

@piperfree4271

5 жыл бұрын

@@GenghisVern i think you are underestimating possible risks envolving the implemenation of huge government programs. Dont be naive. You could very well make a system worse if you dont think hard about the possible downsides. Please provide me with the data you mentioned that would adress my concerns. The statistics i looked into made me even more pestimistic about affordable health care.

the market for real kidneys will quickly become irrelevant as kidneys grown in the lab will be soon available and therefore make real ones worthless (as the cost is higher to transplant). even if that weren't the case, the way to avoid coercion is the just UBI (universal basic income) from the just LVT (Georgist Land Value Tax) after core services are funded. we already let corrupt bankers create money from thin air via fractional reserve banking. this should be a universal but limited right aka UBI and would prevent poverty and such coercion.

@grb1969

5 жыл бұрын

UBI is a Catch 22. Both liberals and neoliberals alike love the idea of a subsidy to price inflation mechanisms to further drive asset-bubbles into cyclical collapse. Force feeding further corruption into the FIRE sectors will accelerate the collapse of sovereign state monetary systems, leading to a dislocation of hegemonic power from civil to corporate reign. I'm pro-UBI, if human rights were sacrosanct and money wasn't fungible (I.e. morally unaccountable). Unit then, a regulatory requirement that UBI be exempt from economic rent/debt markets. This would mean that UBI could only be used investment in ownership assets (home, health care trust fund, social security trust fund, or other single-payer programs). This would fund public sector markets for insurance, banking, and real estate disintermediation of rent-seeking perverted incentives gone bad during the epoch of Neoliberal psychopathy. This economist is quite myopic, which may explain the market fundamentalism. In general, cognitive bias towards utopian market ideologies (of any kind) are driven by a fear over the inability to reconcile an acquiescence for free markets in exchange for protection from violence towards property rights. Now, the violence of property rights against human sovereignty and autonomy is subsidized as to big (a lie) to fail. Do you still believe that the oligarchy is sane?

It appears Mr Mankiw's favorite word is i

Imma open a kidney farm

Give cash(drugs) to a drug addict isn’t the answer .

@2rooms19

Жыл бұрын

Housing first, then job guarantee.

Why are two mainstream economist on here? I am confused...

@NewEconomicThinking

5 жыл бұрын

It is part of a larger series at whatmoneycantbuy.org

Some texts, courses and opinions of these academics are interesting... I think however, that the thing they excel in the most is talking, talking, talking... Long hours. lol

Most markets are controlled by 1 or 2 firms. Those firms, in effect, dictate what everyone can do. The end result is no different from a central planner or a government.

@ajitkirpekar4251

4 жыл бұрын

There's no evidence for this claim. Would you mind pointing out which two firms they are and how they are forcing me to behave in the ways they want?

@cantuse357

4 жыл бұрын

@@ajitkirpekar4251 They are probably off by one; and I suspect this is a reference to the economic 'rule of three'; that in most stable, mature markets in a capitalist economy, the market is dominated by usually three competitors. And that through lobbying, regulatory capture, and other means; they eventually acquire power equivalent to that of a central planner or government; only one that serves the interests of these companies.

@ajitkirpekar4251

4 жыл бұрын

@@cantuse357 There's nothing in the economic theory that says stable capitalism revolves around three firms that I'm aware of. But again I put the burden on whoever makes this claim to tell me which industries have only one or two firms in which they are earning monopolistic rents? To your second point, I agree there are monopolies that use the regulatory capture and lobbying efforts to cartelize the market. Those are some of the most heavily government involved industries like healthcare, education, and finance. And yet the pundits and most journalists think we need more government for those industries.

The problem with a public market in kidneys is that people would start buying them like they do currencies and stocks and whatnot, spiking the price of kidneys. American economists are so fucking disconnected from reality that is painful to watch.

@gabbar51ngh

3 жыл бұрын

It would decrease the price rather than increase.

Let the fucking child sell their kidney

artine opo sam

????

This guy is always talking about selling kidneys 😴😴😴 ... a kidney market is irrational because it's subject to all kinds of abuses ... it could create incentives for individuals to not just prey on the poor but the poor over seas of which would be desperate to sell them ... and since a market would exist kidney prices could become out of the reach for those that need them corrupting the purpose of having the market if the intent of the market was to help the most people

Homo Economicus does not exist, Greg.

Sometimes I think Americans are crazy, in the name of the free market Professor Mankiw would accept a kidney market... I think it's a level that goes beyond ethics. That is why I prefer the European model of government, where people's freedom exists, but there is also rationality and ethics and definitely less crazy people. I love his book of Introduction to Economics by the way

@ajitkirpekar4251

4 жыл бұрын

It helps to consider Greg's starting point. You start with total liberty because that gives people the most freedom. Then you start to layer in limits to that freedom. But the point I think he is making is, once you start to make reasons to limit liberty, it quickly becomes a slippery slope. What if I had my sensibilities that I don't like seeing skimpy clad women walking the streets or everyone should be going to Church? What if evidence shows that belonging to a religion has positive life outcomes(evidence does suggest that) - should we be enacting such policies to force people to do it? I think his point is - be very careful how far you want to push your own sensibilities onto a group of others in the name of humanity.

@gabbar51ngh

3 жыл бұрын

Lol European model of governance is to live off USA. Once USA stops protecting Europe then see those welfare policies going away. US should just let EU run NATO with no funding or assistance. It would sink almost immediately.

What tops this whole discussion is the fact that there is no scientific evidence that humans have or could have anything resembling "free will". That means that we are *all* , rich or poor, smart or not so smart, this or that, constantly at the mercy of circumstances. In a fundamentally scientific sense, rich/privileged are just fortunate the same way poor/unprivileged are unfortunate. Knowing this, its *supremely logical* to take proper basic care of everyone, using all available resources (UBI?). *Mr Mankiw's truncated "rationality" and "science" is a joke and a pile of stinky ideological dung.*

Mankiw exposed the authoritarian element of Sandel’s views 😂

This guy’s textbooks are so bad