Some genius takes:
The whole Global North/South split is a pet peeve of mine as a social scientist working in development policy. It’s a bunch of outdated garbage from the Cold War that was really just a thinly veiled dogwhistle for ‘white/the good Asians’ and ‘not white’. It doesn’t hold up to any rational examination. South Africa was part of the Global North until white rule under Apartheid ended, and now they’re in the Global South. southern nations.
Real educated economist chimes in:
Jason Hickel is an anthropologist (read: not economist) and degrowther. Despite having no background and seemingly almost no understanding of economics as a field, he somehow continues to get ‘economics’ papers published in reputable journals despite their obvious low quality. But to anyone with a cursory understanding of economics, it should be entirely unsurprising that exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa. This is not a novel conclusion and is not ‘appropriation’, but is entirely explained by a concept in economics called comparative advantage.
Another genius owns the article epic style
This paper is a demonstration of why input-output (IO) models are bad for economic research. IO models were used by the soviet central planners to allocate resources. IO models are bad for research for the same reason the are bad for planning. The authors look at “embodied labor” (adjusted for human capital), the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value (btw, this “labor theory of value” goes back to Adam Smith, and was later promulgated by Marx).
Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore) or are otherwise growing quickly (china, Panama, Vietnam)? Why is it that countries with severe barriers to trade with the global north struggle to grow (n Korea, India for second half of 20th century)? That’s very hard to explain if trade with the global north is fundamentally exploitative.
the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value (btw, this “labor theory of value” goes back to Adam Smith, and was later promulgated by Marx).
Challenge: read the first chapter of Capital
Difficulty: impossible
Challenge: read
the first chapter of CapitalDifficulty:
Reading just the first chapter will fry their brian
“He’s not an economist!” Yeah, good. Fucking junk-ass non-science.
Extra rich that they’re whining about him being an anthropologist, when if economics was treated as being a serious academic field and not a hype man for capital, it would be considered a subset of anthropology or sociology.
Holy shit you’re right I can’t believe I never made that connection before. The gulf in the worldviews of anthropologists and economists is probably one of the biggest in academia, crazy how that works
Economics, I’m pretty sure, started out as a “soft” social science. But since it used math (and math can’t be trusted :fry:) it was a very good vehicle for making “objective” arguments for doing inhumane things.
It doesn’t even use math. It pretends to use math then gets pissy and throws out results when reality doesn’t fit into it’s wank-ass prediction curves, like the inflation-unemployment curve which is still taught as a real thing in econ 101, and it isnt until you get into behavioral economics that they start to drop hints that maybe they are wrong on some of their assumptions.
I literally just had a conversation with a PhD in economics where he (while drunk) admitted to me that they have no real idea what is going on in the economy writ large or have any actually consistent principals or practices. Very fun, definitely not worrying stuff.
It’s always pissed me off how economists want us to believe that the childish graphs they scribbled on the back of a napkin are real. They’re literally just straight lines in a void based on vibes. Can you imagine if any other science tried doing that?
🤓 Here is the Phase Diagram for all materials. Yes, all materials. If you heat things up, they evaporate, it’s very intuitive. I am a real scientist and you should use this chart to inform your worldview.
Ummm I heard soviet scientists also had some state of matter called fluid?
That’s been debunked. I hope you’re getting paid for spreading Russian propaganda.
Philosophical statements dressed up in Cartesian graphs in order to make them look math-y.
Another good example is how many Econ 101 classes teach that banks need to draw from holdings in order to issue loans, as if leverage isn’t a thing.
There’s a whole field of economics dedicated to figuring out whether or not we are in a recession at the current moment. They can’t even tell what is going on in the present, yet they claim to be able to determine what the future brings
I no… it absolutely uses “math”… I sat in the classes. But the equations are like me throwing chicken bones to see what tomorrow’s weather is going to be.
throws out results when reality doesn’t fit
They dress that shit up with a fancy latin phrase “ceteris paribus” like its a fuckin mic drop.
To be less perjorative and more specific, It has very little relationship to more exact scientific statistical assessment (which is what most people mean they think about ‘STEM math’) that is for sure. The math is more like straight fuckin around with formulas mathematics.
They actually do lots of serious economic studies in anthropology, usually focusing on reciprocal or 'gift economies", but there are also several studies on ‘energy economies’ that literally tries to track joul usage through a societal system. Fun stuff, very complicated.
Anthropology is filthy with marxists. Hell, someone went and worked at Bear Stearns or something and actually did anthropology directly at wall street dorks back in the early 00s. Can’t remember what the book is called though. : (
I’ve read that book! It was something about the culture of management bureaucracy, but if I remember correctly it basically said their entire communication structure was fraught with just people lying to each other.
I think the most interesting part, if I remember correctly, would be that people would lie to each other, then convince themselves they had told the truth.
Swimming with the sharks?
Well, no, sharks aren’t really dangerous.
The name of the book I mean. I now of a book that correspond to your description and is called something like “swimming with the sharks” I think.
Ahh, gotcha.
Extra extra rich that that particular commentator doesn’t actually have much of an understanding of bourgeois economics beyond “Econ 101”.
“Didn’t these idiots study Econ 101?” Is a common refrain, yet somehow they never consider the embarrassing fact that they are admitting to having a surface-level understanding of Economics at best. Yeah commies studied econ 101 and then also 102 and so on and so forth
It absolutely would not. The social sciences’ standards might be low, but we still have standards. Those assholes can go form their own branch of the sciences somewhere else.
ok commies i am going to teach u econ 101 and ur gonna stop being commies rdy?
econ 101:
anything that exclusively benefits the rich = good economics
anything that exclusively benefits the poor = bad economics. very, very, very bad economics
the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value
when you definitely understand the labor theory of value
I haven’t read any communist works, but I can definitely criticize them!
This is just the stupid “Communism is when an hour of heart surgery is equivalent in value to an hour of burger flipping” but dressed differently
Okay this is not the nazcom guy, this is some anthropologist.
Economists shouldn’t throw around accusations of “almost no understanding of Economics as a field” around near anthropologists or we’ll pull out all the papers explaining why “Economics as as field” is a religion with at best a tenuous relation to any actually existing economy. You’re on watch Economists don’t fuck with us.
Okay back to whatever y’all we’re doing.
why “Economics as as field” is a religion with at best a tenuous relation to any actually existing economy.
Would you be willing to make an effortpost on this? I always love reading about this sort of thing.
Paul Cockshott has some good vids on this I can link, and there’s also this article by Richard Wolff - Economic Theorists, the high priests of capitalism.
I’m not gonna effortpost about it but look into econophysics. It’s mostly just sticking economic models through physics equations (eg. Treating money as a liquid and making predictions based on hydrodynamics), but it makes more accurate predictions than classical economics.
It’s a very small field, but apparently it’s infested with Marxists.Lmao sounds like something that started as a bit at MIT
That makes far more sense because of the statistical methods used to derive hydrodynamics equations. Liquid behaviors aren’t assumed equations, they are demonstrated through rigorous testing that people then use mathematical models to create ‘best fit’ lines for ease of future use. Not that it perfectly predicts the behavior of the liquid, just that it predicts it well enough for practice. Even just having a standardized viewpoint.on money would be an absolute revolution in modern economic theory, so I am all for it.
Seconded. Or even just pull out one or two of the papers.
For a real shorthand experience of “what the fuck” I suggest looking up how economists use ceteris paribus. It’s a tool that has it’s place in certain disciplines, but I’ll point you towards deep leftist maoist website, investopedia, and their key takeaways
Ceteris paribus is a Latin phrase that generally means “all other things being equal.”
In economics, it acts as a shorthand indication of the effect one economic variable has on another, provided all other variables remain the same.
Many economists rely on ceteris paribus to describe relative tendencies in markets and to build and test economic models.
The difficulty with ceteris paribus is the challenge of holding all other variables constant in an effort to isolate what is driving change.+
In reality, one can never assume “all other things being equal.”
Takes 'em all of 5 bullet points to get to “this has a tenous relationship to reality at best” and basically admit that all the models aren’t actually based in reality. At which point at best you have invented a philosophical school, realistically, it’s a religion
read any Graeber book, there’s sure to be a tangent about it in there
yeah i’m reading Debt and he spends a good bit of time doing this
same with anthropological theory of value lol
I work in policy and we were all told that we had to learn classical economics even if we don’t agree with it so that we can converse with the people who do, but then they never seem to find the time to discuss the alternatives.
Okay this is not the nazcom guy, this is some anthropologist.
JASON Hickel, holy shit my brain was automatically filling in “Jackson Hinkle” until I read your comment.
I swear every economics person or bussiness grad person always just say ummm the problem is xyz and not capitalism ackshually. Its booming also.
s korea, Japan, Singapore
massive infusions of western capital in a desperate struggle against communism
china, Panama, Vietnam
socialism, dunno probably because they finally control the canal, socialism
n korea, India for second half of 20th century
sanctions and siege warfare by the west, and dunno
India had literal billions of dollars of production, goods, labor, services, etc, etc, etc, drained from it by British rule up until their independence. Its no shock that they’ve had struggles for the past ~70 years.
China emerged from its civil war at pretty much the same time and did massively better. While the British did commit atrocities and suppress industrialisation for a long time, India has been independent of British influence for long enough that other factors constitute most of the reason why it’s in its current state.
Also, S. Korea, Taiwan and Singapore were “allowed” to have very non-neoliberal industrial policies that pragmatically speaking was much closer to how China grew their industrial capacity than anything resembling free market neoliberal “comparative advantage”.
If the global South is exploited then how come these colonial outposts famous for nightmarish working conditions have high GDPs?
If “the global north” was a real way of analysing geopolitics, then how come South Africa stopped being part of it when it was no longer ruled by white people?Real big brain takes over here. Pack it up people, Reddit sent their best and they busted us
In many African countries, corrupt border guards will demand bribes to allow the movement of goods, which can make trade unprofitable; thus, many farmers, who would otherwise specialize in food for export, decide instead produce food for personal consumption (subsistence farming), which reduces the value of their labor.
Can’t really read that and keep a straight face.
Full blown Degrasse Tyson syndrome .
Oh shit its the trade bribes not destabilizing outside forces, endless debt, stagnation of development. Case closed. 😎
That is just like 50 people going “New Zealand is in the global north, BWAAHH?!?”
That’s why “imperialist core” is a better term.
Obligatory
The whole Global North/South split is a pet peeve of mine as a social scientist working in development policy. It’s a bunch of outdated garbage from the Cold War that was really just a thinly veiled dogwhistle for ‘white/the good Asians’ and ‘not white’. It doesn’t hold up to any rational examination. South Africa was part of the Global North until white rule under Apartheid ended, and now they’re in the Global South. southern nations.
Translation:
“I’m going to call you racist and uneducated for pointing out how my empire categorizes your brown nation as the ‘Global South’ and pretend this isn’t the ideological justification we use for exploiting your resources.”
Jason Hickel is an anthropologist (read: not economist) and degrowther. Despite having no background and seemingly almost no understanding of economics as a field, he somehow continues to get ‘economics’ papers published in reputable journals despite their obvious low quality. But to anyone with a cursory understanding of economics, it should be entirely unsurprising that exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa. This is not a novel conclusion and is not ‘appropriation’, but is entirely explained by a concept in economics called comparative advantage.
Translation:
“Me no like Jason Hickel, he no worship muh economy. We make politically correct word for exploitation!!!”
This paper is a demonstration of why input-output (IO) models are bad for economic research. IO models were used by the soviet central planners to allocate resources. IO models are bad for research for the same reason the are bad for planning. The authors look at “embodied labor” (adjusted for human capital), the idea being that any two things produced by an hour of (human capital adjusted) labor must have the same value (btw, this “labor theory of value” goes back to Adam Smith, and was later promulgated by Marx).
Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore) or are otherwise growing quickly (china, Panama, Vietnam)? Why is it that countries with severe barriers to trade with the global north struggle to grow (n Korea, India for second half of 20th century)? That’s very hard to explain if trade with the global north is fundamentally exploitative.
Translation:
“REEEEEE MUH GOMMUNISM IO SOVIET BAD!!!111!!! Why did these western military and trading outposts run by neoliberal dictators we pumped tons of money into… get rich!!! Why is socialism good??? Why is it that sanctions and genocide make countries poor!!! THAT IS VERY HARD TO EXPLAIN!!!111!!!”
Top minds.
Also they’re wrong about South Africa, it was a sub-imperialist nation during apartheid and continues to be sub-imperialist in many ways now.
Nooooooo you can’t mention the imperialist countries that’s commie hogwash nooooooo
Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore)
A state of america, an actual fucking empire, a city-state on a vital geographic chokepoint. Not exactly the best standards of comparison. And was Japan ever “poor” in modern history? Was Singapore really? I’m only sure that S Korea was poor (and poorer than the america-bombed DPRK for quite a period of time too)
China, Vietnam
So are they finally admitting that socialism is good
Japan was a late industrialized country so if we consider the 20th century onwards then yeah they had a late start.
But to be sure whether you consider Japan a success or not is entirely irrelevant because I’m sure they’ll are blissfully ignoring everything that happened since fucking 1980 or something. Japan was supposed to like China is today and it seems only god knows what sort of mysterious events stopped them surely nobody knows why their economy just “did that”.
The Japanese miracle was definitely not intended and in the end should not be allowed to continue, but these idiots wont catch the irony there.
I’m only sure that S Korea was poor (and poorer than the america-bombed DPRK for quite a period of time too)
Made me think of this: https://redd.it/1bq3jde
it should be entirely unsurprising that exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa. This is not a novel conclusion and is not ‘appropriation’, but is entirely explained by a concept in economics called comparative advantage
so… not really arguing against Unequal Exchange as a concept, just against the name that makes you uncomfortable
Akshually sweatie that’s not imperialism it’s called international finance so I’m glad I debunked that for you you’re welcome
No you don’t get it Bangladesh just has a comparative advantage in sweatshops with collapsing roof it has nothing to do with international equality.
comparative advantage
hahahahaha so this is what taking psychic damage feels like
Oh yeah, here’s a word that describes a thing, methinks mentioning that is real scientific rigor
IO models are bad for research for the same reason the are bad for planning.
Just wait until this guy figures out how factories actually do resource allocation
Resource allocation
Ummm that’s an definition from economics and of course a factory in the free market uses that unlike unscientific commies.
exports from developing nations to developed are more labor intensive than vice-versa
Fucker! Did you even READ our text books? Did you skip the section talking about perverse incentives and moral hazards?
Other facts that the authors’ framework will struggle to explain: why is it that the poor countries that most integrated with global trade networks became rich (s korea, Japan, Singapore) or are otherwise growing quickly (china, Panama, Vietnam)?
The country didn’t get rich you fucks, SOME people in that country got rich you absolute bellends.
“You don’t go to poor countries to make money.”
We don’t make it…
WE TAKE IT! 
Ummmmmm those who people who haven’t got rich yet did not participate in the market hard.
Side point but Hickel’s book “the divide”, is probably the best introduction on unequal exchange and modern imperialism. There’s so many other great books, but they can be a bit harder to read.
