"In a truly free market society 'intellectuals' wouldn't exist or at least have no authority as people would just do what they wanted without interference.
Posted by: Gil | Jun 18, 2008 10:58:14 PM"

I suppose the problem with your ever expressing clear intelligent thoughts is that you never seem to have any.

"Obama said, globalization and automation hurt the position of workers…Boudreaux says the claim is false interpreting position to mean absolute position. I say the claim is correctly interpreted as relative position, and that it's true."

Their relative positions have been hurt? Like, the peasants who used to be subsistence farmers who are now working in manufacturing facilities? They're hurting? Or the ones who used to assemble things by hand who are now running sophisticated machinery? They're hurting? Or the people in America who now work in offices at computers instead of in factories? They're hurting?

Wow, there sure is a lot of pain out there. It's good that righteous, morally insightful folks like Senator Obama are there to point it out to us.

Charlie, if that were the case, why are all the clothes in your closet and the consumer electronics in your home made in other countries?

And, by the way, OF COURSE YOU'RE A TOTALITARIAN, CHARLIE! How else do you get more of that 'equality' you're so keen on, huh? People either give away (redistribute) money voluntarily as charity, or they give money (redistribute) in exchange for something you give them (commerce), or… or… what's left, Chuck? How else are you going to take that money away from them (redistribute it) so you can have your 'equality' you're yearning for, huh? People who worry about equality, as I said in my other post, are reverting back to the childlike state, the one in which people obsess over 'equality'; i.e., whether they have as much money as the other guy. How much do you make a year, Chuck? You might make more than I do, and you know, if that's the case, I think a little equalization is in order. Wouldn't everyone agree? After all, Chuck won life's lottery, and I'm haven't done nearly as well as that rich fat cat Charlie. He needs to "give back," and he can start by giving something to me. I think equality is important. And if Charlie has more than I do, then equality is definitely something I'm interested in. After all, my position has been weakened by automation; it's all beyond my control. Dang robots, anyway. C3PO!!!

Martin, you got it completely backwards. Marx's "embodied theory of labor" was exactly as quoted by him, not Smith. Adam Smith used the term "exchange", NOT labor. It's a big difference. The value of the item was different from the value paid. You can't equate "labor" for "price paid" and attribute it to Smith, but it was what the idiot liberal Marx did.

"The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people."

and

"The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities."

Smith, Wealth of Nations

"Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much a source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor which is itself only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power."

Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme

Both in Wikipedia under "Labor theory of value".

Earlier, in Capital, Marx develops a labor theory of value, but he simultaneously discusses "use value" which he distinguishes from a good's value measured in labor inputs. Unlike Smith, Marx doesn't refer to the laborer's own valuation of his contribution but to some abstract "social utility" of the labor, so the Marxist valuation of labor is more like marginalist value, i.e. it's not the value the laborer places on his output but the value that others place on it.

That's at http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s23f99.htm.

Of course, Marx was a contemporary of the marginalists, and Hayek maintains that Marx was aware of them and altered his thinking in light of marginalism after writing Capital. That's in Wikipedia under Marginalism.

Do you sincerely want us to take it that you are under the belief that every comment here was made regarding Obama based solely on the above quote revealing a sweeping ignorance not just one snippet of ignorance.

I suggest you revise your thinking, Gappy, I know I made my comment about Michelle and previous comments about Obama based on an accumulation of his statements, documentations of his beliefs and character in his own words, associations of his that would still exist except for the spotlight of public awareness, and ditto for his wife.

I suggest to you that every commenter here is as aware, or more so, than I am of who the man is and are not falling for the bullshit of the mesmerized media.

Like most politicians, but more so, Obama is at this stage a very one dimensional candidate for president, and his one dimension is being half black.

That sums it up.

There, Gappy, you just got an intelligent analysis and commentary.

I hope that in the future there will be fewer posts, but of greater quality.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5843550.html

is another example of the shit we are being fed and will be fed by the media.

Note Michelle Obama is going to undergo a "softening of image". This in no way should be taken to suggest that she is going to change in any way, still the radical black chick, but the media will now begin to hide that and only give you the "image" you are intended to see and hear.

Now you can expect to hear her quoted as saying, "I love honkies, some of my best friends are honkies." You'll feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Ignorance is bliss, eh, Charlie? I wonder what processes were involved that spurred on the automation; because it couldn't have been the competition, the specialization, and the need for improved communications that were unlocked and realized by the power of globalization.

Wasn't Marx's middle name "Charlie"?

Seems likely

Wasn't it Marx that said a thing's value is equal to the amount of labor that goes into it.

That was Adam Smith. He essentially said that you'll value a thing in proportion to your effort in acquiring it. Easy come, easy go. This isn't really so different from marginalism.

Marx also had a "labor theory of value", but he defined both "labor" and "value" differently, so the two aren't really comparable.

Increasing productivity typically lowers price in real terms. If it doesn't, I wonder how competitive markets are. In this sense, Marx wasn't so far from the mark.

"I think it goes to show, we all know he doesn't mean all workers, but rather just low human capital or as one poster said "blue-collar" workers.
Posted by: Charlie | Jun 18, 2008 3:07:52 PM"

That was a good post of ambiguities explaining ambiguities, but your finale draws this response from me:

Objection – no facts in evidence that Obama knows what he is talking about at any time, so any comment on the quote in debate must be from the basis of speculation, both yours and others.

If you can find and provide proof that Obama has a clue about economics, or how free markets (hell, any markets) work I'd love to see it, or listen to it.

Thank you very much.

Obama said, "globalization and automation hurt the position of workers"

Boudreaux says the claim is false interpreting position to mean absolute position. I say the claim is correctly interpreted as relative position, and that it's true. I said taking an ambiguity and interpreting it in such a way that it's false undermines credibility. I take that part back a bit, because thinking back, I think Don just read it that way and probably has trouble reading it any other way. And if you follow the examples Don gave it follows perfectly that automation and globalization hurts the relative position of workers (though I'm not sure what the Gini's of Eastern Europe look like).

All I was pointing out that if you interpret the statement correctly it's true. And then, I even pointed out that just because it's true, it doesn't mean you have to be anti-automation. You can argue that equality should have little weight. Do you see how that is a valid argument? Whereas just misinterpreting someone is an invalid argument?

Lots of strawmen were thrown around here. I think one person said I wanted to grab totalitarian power and hated Steve Jobs. Bravo, sir. And many others just responded with, "we shouldn't care about inequality." That's a fine argument, but it doesn't respond to mine.

Also, just an aside, a lot of people hoped on the Globalization part of it. I know Globalization is a buzz word and a libertarian rally call, but that really shows your economic ignorance. Almost all of the gains in standard of living have come from automation (especially read more generally as technological change). Globalization is just a tinsy part of what makes us different from Brazilian tribes men. I'm surprised more people didn't recognize that.

Cheers,
Charlie

PS- I can think of two responses to my argument. 1. Obama did mean absolute position. 2. Globalization and automation doesn't hurt worker's relative position.

It's interesting no one went down the path of what is a worker. I think it goes to show, we all know he doesn't mean all workers, but rather just low human capital or as one poster said "blue-collar" workers.

I tell you, Gil, it would be really nice if you could just pick one side of the fence and just stay on it.

Are you saying that caged birds develop new feather colors because of the cage?

Indeed. Zero-sum societies really can't afford immigration.

Semischolastic,

That's a very nice quote and you happened to cherry pick a portion of a speech in which Obama does what politicians do best: Talk a lot and say absolutely nothing. The devil's in the details. HOW is he going to embrace the future? WHAT does he mean by "progress"? Etc. When you see quotes that are specific – like the ones you claim were cherry picked – the picture changes.

This reminds me of Bush constantly yapping about smaller, less intrusive government while never meeting a government spending bill or a bill that constrains freedom he didn't like.

I think our best bet is to split the kids up. One party gets the legislative branch and the other gets the executive. Seems to yield the best result.

Norway has just over 4.5 million people and (if you can believe Wikipedia) is the world's third largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia and Russia.

And, just try to immigrate there. The Norwegians are too smart to let the rest of us in.

"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."

"Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."

I like both of those lines from the article you recommended. But I would disagree with the broken window approach to economics. This would mean that we would NEED others to do poorly when in reality that's not the case…

There's no such thing as a piece of a pie we are all fighting for. Rather we hope that the quality of life increases for all (though it will never happen at an equal pace), since the net effect would have a positive impact on our own life…