The Big Questions.
“I definitely believe that polar belief is erroneous.”
Is this just wrong or does it have a cromulent meaning? Does this sort of quasi-nonsense/nonsense statement have a name?
Also,
How does the amount of money in existence keep expanding when you can presumably only pay for something with existing capital?
While we’re at it,
If you’re intellectually incapable of understanding the full consequences of your beliefs, is belief unethical?
1. Depends what you mean by “this sort”. If you mean something very general by “this sort” then it’s called “a paradox”. If you mean something more specific then it’s a very difficult question that I don’t know the answer to.
2. You can’t only pay for something with existing capital. You can also pay for something with labour. See Marx.
3. No.
Jason
What’s prompted you to ponder these three big questions?
Here’s my, er, answers?
1. Dunno. What does cromulent mean? It’s not in my dictionary.
2. Dunno.
3. I hope not. It would be pretty impractical if it were because it would be impossible, I think, to successfully purge oneself completely of beliefs.
2. This question is slightly misleadingly phrased. You’re really asking one of two questions:
2.1 Why is the amount of money in existence expanding?
Short Answer: Inflation (although this is tied to below)
2.2 Why is the total wealth of society expanding?
Answer:
Wealth is not a zero-sum game. It is fixed in the short-term (depends on your sampling frequency), but in the long run is increasing. Reasons for this include production efficiency, technology, inventions, availability of capital, etc. Inflation creates an economic incentive to invest through the creation of systematic risk (which must be ‘beaten’ to maintain the present value of assets), thus increasing access to capital. Access to capital (combined with political stability) is one of the primary ingredients for economic profit (Capital constraints restrict innovation and investment activities).
The Marxian theory relies on the labour theory of value. In my analysis, this is becoming increasingly less relevant to global society as economic profit is increasingly generated through innovation and technology, with labour components becoming proportionally less over time (although this could be argued in reverse at a higher level, with highly skilled wages driving more and more of the economy, but then your Marxist theories apply to less and less of the population and are hence less relevant overall)
To put a ‘common sense’ spin on it, if clause 2 were true, any superior return on investment (in aggregate) above inflation would be impossible. This is imperically disprovable, as inflation has been around 2-3% lately whilst market returns have been at 7-14% (property –> shares).
Of course, you consider life in general one huge pyramid scheme. Scary when you do. Starts to explain some of the behaviours of the rich
Nothing like imperically disprovable theories… way better than empirically disprovable ones