What school of economic thought do your ideas align with?

Xelor said:

I suppose well all have to make choices.

I may vote for Democrats when they seem the right choice, but I won't ever register as a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or any other party. Part of that is due to dissatisfaction with the extant parties, part accrues from my disdain of their approaches to politicking, and their leaders' character, means and ends, and part is because I amd of a mind that parties should be abolished and individuals should run on their own platforms, not some consensus platform structured to appease the lowest common denominator of agreement that can be obtained among a party's key players.

Indeed, the one good thing that has come from the Trump's tenure in office is that he's shown that one really doesn't need a party to obtain material quantities of voter support.

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Yes, that is a good thing. Actually, I was hoping someone like Trump would come along, and I do believe that in larger general terms he has the right side of illegal immigration.

But he's the wrong messenger.

Although I've oft heard, "We don't get to pick our revolutionaries".

He's shown that plurality rather than majority can be effectuated in the U.S.

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I can't say I'm happy with this.

It is indeed the cause of much of the current friction. We have a plurality, even if substantially large, enforcing their will & authority upon a majority that does not agree with them.

Keynesian as applied by Roosevelt.

They somehow managed to leave out anything related to behavioral economics... Weak

I'd add that even though this is a broad questionnaire, it lacks a lot of critical nuance.

Xelor said:

I believe Gary Johnson remarked that most people are Libertarians and don't know it.

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Most libertarians aren't libertarian, and don't know it.

In the same way a neurotic both does and doesn't know the source of his malaise..

I couldn't finish the poll.

Some questions can be reduced to a yes or no. No sane economist wants the gold standard back, for example.

But trade is something you manage. China supported it's solar panel industry massively, and stole our lunch. Creating a new sector is one of the times getting involved makes a lot of sense. It's been that way since the government gave seed money to develop the McCormack Reaper in the 1800s.

There's several books I like, since hardly anyone reads I'm on a suggestion diet. Here's today's snack:

https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Finance-Bankers-Broke-World/dp/0143116800

Visbek said:

They somehow managed to leave out anything related to behavioral economics... Weak

I'd add that even though this is a broad questionnaire, it lacks a lot of critical nuance.

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It did, and though some elevate behavioral economics (BE) to a school of economic thought level, I wouldn't because BE is more a complement to the schools of economic thought. BE is really about one thing: what happens when humans make "stupid" ("imperfect" in economics-speak) economic choices and what impels/compels them to do so. Thus BE is a synthesis of psychology and economics.

Whereas other general models assume people will behave rationally, BE examines why the hell they don't, what forces (messages, really) move them not to act rationally (this is the part BE that political strategists and marketing people use), and what consequences result in the marketplace as a result of irrational economic decision making is the norm rather than the exception.

For example:

• Politics: Let's say a politician cottons mainly to the Austrian School theories. S/he would turn to behavioral economics ideas to discover ways to craft messages that move voters to cotton to Austrian ideas, despite the fact that there isn't any empirical and/or quantitative evidence that Austrian theories do indeed predict the market's behavior whereas, say, there's lots of empirical/quantitative analysis showing market behavior aligning with neoclassical school explanations of market behavior.
• Business: A firm (or industry) has a product that nobody absolutely needs. (Pick any economic luxury good you like.) Marketers will use the ideas of behavioral economics to shift consumer's view of the good such that the demand curve for the good becomes more inelastic, that is, consumers become more likely to insist on having that good (place higher value on it, thus pay more for it) than they otherwise would. The 1980s marketing campaign that elevated Absolut vodka from a "rail" vodka to a "top shelf" one is an example of how behavioral econ's ideas are applied.

Behavioral economics, then, is what makes "mainstream" economic schools' ideas salable. Perhaps people have heard of psychographics? That whole disciple is based on applying gathering vast quantities of information about millions of people, using the ideas of behavioral economics to identify potential "triggers" of irrational behavior and then, crafting messages to "pull" those triggers and motivate action, not in any specific person but in enough people that one's sales goals are achieved. The psychology part of BE tells one what the "triggers" are; the economics of BE tells one what outcomes are reasonable to expect.

Are behavioral economists of a mind to manipulate folks? No. The people who apply their theories are. One must remember that economics is a science, so it aims to develop science theories of how stuff works and what happens. Other disciplines apply the theories to achieve an outcome. Engineering is applied natural science. Business is applied social sciences. Politics is marketing techniques applied to political science, economics, and psychology. It is the folks who use behavioral economics who are trying to "manipulate" people, mostly because if anyone were to think rationally about the stuff being "sold," they wouldn't buy it.

late said:

I couldn't finish the poll.

Some questions can be reduced to a yes or no. No sane economist wants the gold standard back, for example.

But trade is something you manage. China supported it's solar panel industry massively, and stole our lunch. Creating a new sector is one of the times getting involved makes a lot of sense. It's been that way since the government gave seed money to develop the McCormack Reaper in the 1800s.

There's several books I like, since hardly anyone reads I'm on a suggestion diet. Here's today's snack:

https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Finance-Bankers-Broke-World/dp/0143116800

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Red:
That is what it is....

Xelor said:

That is what it is....

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And it isn't what it isn't, not sure what you meant by that.

All this talk about Austria is making me hungry. Love the food there.

Chicago School (100%)
Austrian Minarchist (92%)
Classical (92%)
Austrian Anarcho-Capitalist (83%)
New Keynesian (72%)
Mercantalist (70%)
Neoclassical (63%)
Keynesian (25%)
Neo-Keynesian (25%)
Gandhian (16%)
Communist (0%)

Chicago School (100%)
Austrian Minarchist (99%)
Neoclassical (93%)
Austrian Anarcho-Capitalist (86%)
New Keynesian (86%)
Classical (73%)
Mercantalist (59%)
Keynesian (56%)
Neo-Keynesian (48%)
Gandhian (16%)
Communist (0%)


How do Anarcho Capitalism and New Keynesianism tie?

cpwill said:

Chicago School (100%)
Austrian Minarchist (99%)
Neoclassical (93%)
Austrian Anarcho-Capitalist (86%)
New Keynesian (86%)
Classical (73%)
Mercantalist (59%)
Keynesian (56%)
Neo-Keynesian (48%)
Gandhian (16%)
Communist (0%)


How do Anarcho Capitalism and New Keynesianism tie?

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That isn't the only outcome that surprises me.


This should explain roughly what surprises me:

Keynesian (100%)
Neo-Keynesian (89%)
Neoclassical (89%)

Classical (23%)