Piketty’s data
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stuartw2112 wrote:One concluding remark before I go off to spend my time more productively, I'll pick up Alan's jibe about my right-wing libertarian ideas, and this has relevance for LB too. If you haven't seriously entertained the idea that maybe Hayek and right-wing pro-market thinkers are right, or that they might not have a point somewhere – I mean seriously entertained the idea, even if only for a day or two – then, seriously, you don't have the remotest idea what you're talking about. Not a clue! TTFN
I'd agree with this. In fact once a certain idea becomes one that we personally cherish we should purposfully look for things that undermine it. To do otherwise is to fall prey of wishful thinking or religous thinking. Confirmation bias is a very real phenomena and one that constantly needs to be countered.
stuartw2112 wrote:LBird: that's not critical thinking, it's blockheadedness. You'll never learn anything new if you don't first empty your cup. Read it as a totally gullible fool, a sycophant, a dupe. Then you'll absorb the ideas that are actually there rather than the ones you first thought of.'Blockheadedness'? That's a bit strong, from someone who suggests their reading method would involve them reading 'The Beezer' and absorbing its ideas at face value.To be serious, though, you've fallen for the myth of 'objectiveness' in science, stuart.One can't 'empty one's cup'. The contents of one's 'cup' determines how one understands what one reads. If you don't know your own 'cup contents', you'll be bamboozled by what your read.And your reaction on this thread to (gosh!) Professor Piketty, suggests you're a bit star-struck.He's a bullshitter. An academic bullshitter. And a pro-capitalist bullshitter.I think your passive cup, having 'absorbed', is now full of bullshit, stuart.Blockheadedness seems much more preferable to shitheadedness.
stuartw2112 wrote:One concluding remark before I go off to spend my time more productively, I'll pick up Alan's jibe about my right-wing libertarian ideas, and this has relevance for LB too. If you haven't seriously entertained the idea that maybe Hayek and right-wing pro-market thinkers are right, or that they might not have a point somewhere – I mean seriously entertained the idea, even if only for a day or two – then, seriously, you don't have the remotest idea what you're talking about. Not a clue! TTFNWow!!!Talk about revealing… Hayek and the market…Wow!!!Now I know why we disagree so strongly…
DJP wrote:stuartw2112 wrote:One concluding remark before I go off to spend my time more productively, I'll pick up Alan's jibe about my right-wing libertarian ideas, and this has relevance for LB too. If you haven't seriously entertained the idea that maybe Hayek and right-wing pro-market thinkers are right, or that they might not have a point somewhere – I mean seriously entertained the idea, even if only for a day or two – then, seriously, you don't have the remotest idea what you're talking about. Not a clue! TTFNI'd agree with this. In fact once a certain idea becomes on that we personally cherish we should purposfully look for things that undermine it. To do otherwise is to fall prey of wishful thinking or religous thinking. Confirmation bias is a very real phenomena and one that constantly needs to be countered.
This sounds like good advice, DJP. I take it you're now off to read Lakatos, Feyerabend, Popper, Kuhn…As for Hayek, I'm well aware of his 'ideas'. I was thirty-five years ago, at the height of Thatcherism.At least my Communism is conscious 'wishful and religious thinking', but your knowledge of the philosophy of science is truly 'blind faith'. Anyway, take your own advice well, comrade.
BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, StuartBe very very productive and start soap-boxing for Piketty's panacea global tax that will ensure capitalism staggers on, albeit less unequal, but still exploitative and alienating….I stand corrected on the branch donation , but tell, me had you decided to resign before or after you proposed your resolution to hand over branch funds?DJP, i did once acquire a copy of My Struggle and read it from cover to cover…does that count as an antidote to confirmation bias? …and shameful confession, holding my head in disgrace…i've never read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged…Nor Volume Two and Three of Capital, i'll wear sack-cloth and ashes and flagellate myself for that omission on the reading list. Has anybody have the Collected Works of Enver Hoxha for DJP to spend his time and energy in reading?I mean, come on , seriously, just how well read do we expect to be ….You don't have the remotest idea about ….religion until you have fully digested the Bhagavad Gita, preferably in the original Sanskrit, while sitting Yoga style with one leg around your neck…I'm with Lbird on this one…Is socialism only for bookphiles and only those whose political journey took them through the right-wing that most of us already knew enough of to avoid treading in…And this is for you, Adam, to show i'm not at all partisan in criticism…to Socialist Punk you say "I wouldn't have thought that he would want to save capitalism from socialism as we understand it if he thought it was a realistic proposition. "Hows that for topsy turvy thinking…the fact is Piketty doesn't consider it a realistic option …unless of course i'm putting words into Piketty's mouth, especially after we just said in this month's Standard said "A book, of course, can only be reviewed on the basis of what it says."…I am sure if from the reviews i read if Piketty supported the concept of common ownership and production for use, my judgement on his book would be very different too…BUT he doesn't and the grist to the mill is more for Stuart's LU and that is why he was spunking in his underpants about the book before he even read page one…as he used to over Chris Knight…Harvey ..then Graeber …and for whatever the next book after this one is…i'm sure a member said once that Stuart's political position shifts with whoever he is reading at the time …..Back to Hayek perhaps, i wouldn't be at all surprised…political consistency was never your strong point, was it, Stuart, but the lack of it you turned into a virtue.I'm done now.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I'm with Lbird on this one…Christ! Someone supporting something I've written! Ta, Alan!
ajj wrote:i'm sure a member said once that Stuart's political position shifts with whoever he is reading at the time…Well, to be fair, this is exactly what Stuart said his method consisted of:
stuartw2112 wrote:You'll never learn anything new if you don't first empty your cup. Read it as a totally gullible fool, a sycophant, a dupe. Then you'll absorb the ideas that are actually there rather than the ones you first thought of.I think that calling it 'The Beezer Method' shows its essential worth. Comic-book philosophy.
ajj wrote:I am sure if from the reviews i read if Piketty supported the concept of common ownership and production for use, my judgement on his book would be very different too…BUT he doesn't …This is the key point, which should be stressed for any comrades intending to read Piketty's book: Piketty is not a revolutionary or a Communist/Socialist or a Marxist.Piketty's book is full of information, some relevant, some not, and much is absent. One's pre-existing ideology will provide the categorisation parameters for which box of those three, that one fills with which 'data' from Piketty.The idea of reading Piketty without one knowing one's own ideology (which will give those parameters which will sort the 'data') is downright ignorant. Unless one likes one's reading to be like reading The Beezer.No, read critically, and read whilst concious of one's own critical parameters, comrades. There's no other way.
Piiketty isn't a Marxist and doesn't claim to be and so doesn't use Marxian categories. In fact he uses those of conventional bourgeois academic economics and of national accounting. I would have thought that it is significant that despite this he reaches the conclusion (given that there's not the slightest likelihood of a global tax on capital ever being adopted) that this century the top 10 percent will get proportionately richer and richer:
Quote:I have also discovered some objectively disturbing trends: without a global tax on capital or some similar policy, there is a substantial risk that the top decile's share of global wealth will continue to grow indefinitely. (p. 519)and towards the pre-WWI level of 90 percent.I can think of criticisms — that he confuses capital and wealth and the accumulation of capital with the accumulation of property titles and that he gets Marx wrong — but not that he has written a book that socialists should reject out of hand because he hasn't adopted Marxian categories.Anyway, L. Bird, read on and see, even if he's not fishing in the same pond as you, if he's not catching some of the same fish.
This question is to those who are reading Piketty's book. Does he at all suggest why the rich seem to be getting a lot richer?I'm referring to the possibility it might have a little to do with the deregulation of the finance industry that happened in America and Britain in the eighties. If I am not mistaken it allowed vast sums of wealth to be stashed away in untouchable investment options and offshore banks. There was a free for all in setting up firms specialising in such investment plans and tax dodges. A few of which have made it into the headlines recently with celebrities being nobbled.He is obviously aware of these schemes, as it's been pointed out here, he has little faith in his suggestion of a global tax ever making it into existence, because of the reason these schemes exist in the first place. Tax avoidance.
Adam, so does the Encyclopaedia Britannic…in fact we still quote Kropotkin from it, don't we? A book has a purpose…it has a message in it…even one such as a dictionary that consists of nothing but 'information', has its origin in a political purpose and often still has. Let us look at Piketty's politics a bit more before it is lost in the accolades showered on him for his long years of gathering information and then concluding that it's best to tax the rich, not abolish them.YMS gave an example of the climate change scientist who proves it with his studies it is and we should credit him with that …But what if he or she decided that eugenics and enforced population reduction was the solution, that we stop using technology and the data is being used by proponents of such policies..the Deep Green solution…we would be leading every article with that fallacy and leaving his or her scientific legitimacy as a good researcher as a foot-note. Well, Pikitty, a member of the most shameful French "Socialist Party" of Hollande…and what has he concluded from all his worthy research …that capitalism should continue… and unless we deny our own conclusion about capitalism, that means acceptance of millions of unnecessary needless death death and suffering.And if you want to use the fishing metaphor …he trawled for his data, and all the catch that isn't suitable for what LBird says to back Piketty's own ideological position which would mean a very different conclusion to a tax, has been thrown back. And what of his catch…it is being used as bait to lure the bigger fish …people ..on to all their political hooks. And this is all to be put to one side because Piketty produces data…it may be an extreme example…but the SS doctors in Buchenwald produced plenty of medical data that, because of how it was acquired (which isn't an issue here) and for what purpose (which is an issue here) is ethically a no-go.I already said very early…won't make much difference if Piketty is read or not…the people who count will come to their own conclusions (and have done), about capitalism for themselves, from life-experience, and not from books. They mostlly undersood its conclusions long before Piketty was born without the need for his graphs and algebraic formula. But can they change their prevailing negative view about socialism's viability when we recommend a book that says it is not necessary, that the social revolution to change why we produce, and not simply how it is distributed, is not required, that has as its solution the idea that we lobby our governments to change tax law, no matter how unlike they will. These absurdities should be head-lined, not relegated to a brief mention in passing while we concentrate praise on his diligence in interpreting the archives. It is not a caveat but a core criticism to Piketty.
ALB wrote:Anyway, L. Bird, read on and see, even if he's not fishing in the same pond as you, if he's not catching some of the same fish.Of course, I’ll carry on reading Pikettys’ book – at the very least, I’ve bloody paid for it, so I’m going to read it!But, I’m inclined to agree with Alan’s points:
alanjjohnstone wrote:And if you want to use the fishing metaphor …he trawled for his data, and all the catch that isn't suitable for what LBird says to back Piketty's own ideological position which would mean a very different conclusion to a tax, has been thrown back.Every ideology contains parameters of selection: of what to keep, and of what to throw away, from someone else’s ‘raw data’. But this ‘raw data’ has already been pre-selected by the author’s ideological parameters. So, as well as our own ‘selecting and rejecting’, we have to be aware that a ‘selection and rejection’ has already happened, before we get to someone else’s ‘raw data’. Thus, some ‘raw data’ we would have ‘selected’ has already been thrown away, before we even get the chance to decide. We all have an ideological framework (conscious of it or not), and we are compelled to choose our ‘fish’. And the ‘fish’ that are presented to us are already only a subset of all the fish in the ocean.Piketty, as Alan says, has already thrown away (or failed to even ‘observe’ for catching in the first place, as ‘fish’ as a species are defined by the ‘fisher’) many valuable ‘facts’ or ‘raw data’ that we would recognise as important.
ajj wrote:And what of his catch…it is being used as bait to lure the bigger fish …people ..on to all their political hooks. And this is all to be put to one side because Piketty produces data…This point by Alan is a brilliant criticism.Since we recognise that ‘raw data’ is the human product of ignorance, definitions, selection and rejection prior to its status as ‘raw data’ (in fact, it’s already ‘well-cooked data’, data is never ‘raw’ for humans), we have to face the issue of why Piketty ignored, defined, selected and rejected the ‘raw data’ favourable to a Communist stance.And he did. Piketty’s book obscures the case for Communism, rather than builds for it.There might be some ‘facts’ we can extract from his ‘raw data’, but those ‘facts’ will have to be inserted into a different narrative, a different ideological framework, to make sense of them, to give the ‘facts’ meaning. If one employs a reformist ideology, which matches Piketty’s reformist ideology, then the ‘facts’ will make ‘reformist’ sense, and reinforce a ‘reformist’ outlook. One won’t move to a Communist viewpoint from reading Piketty. Perhaps Stuart’s views embody this reformist development.
ajj wrote:I already said very early…won't make much difference if Piketty is read or not…the people who count will come to their own conclusions (and have done), about capitalism for themselves…I think I agree with Alan here, too. I don’t think I would recommend Piketty’s book (based upon what I’ve read, so far) for those, already Communist, to learn, or for reformists to move towards Communist ideas. I’d only say to comrades, if you’re wondering what all the fuss is about (like me), then read it and form your own conclusions, but otherwise, since none of us can read everything, just read various reviews on the net, and especially the views of comrades here.Again, to quote Alan:
ajj wrote:These absurdities should be head-lined, not relegated to a brief mention in passing while we concentrate praise on his diligence in interpreting the archives. It is not a caveat but a core criticism to Piketty.Hear, hear!If we suggest that workers should taste cod, but then tell workers to look to a fisherman who catches poisonous pufferfish for their consumption, raw and untreated, it is a culinary mistake (and probably a criminal act).To say nothing of a political error.
SocialistPunk wrote:This question is to those who are reading Piketty's book. Does he at all suggest why the rich seem to be getting a lot richer?Perhaps, like Franz von Werra, that’s one of the ‘fish’ that merely ‘got away’ from Piketty’s tackle, methods, taste and choice of pond.
Just to damp us all down with the towel of overworked metaphor: would you criticise a book on the hunting methods of sharks because it doesn't discuss their reproductive methods? Criticising works for topiics not covered is a fruitless method. I'm sure Piketty doesn't discuss Hungarian realist cinema in the 1920's, how can we trust a word he says if he doesn't cover Hungarian realist cinema in the 1920's?
Young Master Smeet wrote:Just to damp us all down with the towel of overworked metaphor: would you criticise a book on the hunting methods of sharks because it doesn't discuss their reproductive methods? Criticising works for topiics not covered is a fruitless method. I'm sure Piketty doesn't discuss Hungarian realist cinema in the 1920's, how can we trust a word he says if he doesn't cover Hungarian realist cinema in the 1920's?But the book's titled 'Hungarian realist cinema in the 1920s'.Surely we're entitled to point out that he's actually written about Japanese Kabuki theatre in the 17th century?I think you underestimate the problems with 'raw data', YMS. It's precisely the gaps, 'the topics not covered', that is at the heart of criticism. Reformists ignore, misidentify, throw away, or even fail to notice, the real issues. 'Real issues' are defined by one's ideology. If you're not a Communist, fine. Ignore the fundamental importance of the gaps in Piketty's book, but you can't criticise Communists for pointing out those gaps.You seem to take the label on the tin as gospel. Some of us are a bit more worldly-wise.What ideology do you employ to understand Piketty's book, YMS?
SocialistPunk wrote:This question is to those who are reading Piketty's book. Does he at all suggest why the rich seem to be getting a lot richer?I'm referring to the possibility it might have a little to do with the deregulation of the finance industry that happened in America and Britain in the eighties. If I am not mistaken it allowed vast sums of wealth to be stashed away in untouchable investment options and offshore banks.Yes he does mention this but sees the basic cause of the rich getting richer over the past 60 or so years as the widening of the gap between r (the rate of return on capital) and g (the rate of increase of income per head) after 1950 (caused by a fall in g rather than a rise in r), resulting in those with property-incomes accumulating proportionately more wealth than those whose income is derived from work. Which shows up as the top 1% and the next 9% getting to own a higher and higher proportion of total wealth.Re tax havens, he makes the point (pages 465-6) that the global balance of payments (that is, of all countries together) is negative; which is theoretically impossible as the deficit of some countries should be balanced by the surplus of others. He accepts the view that
Quote:the most plausible reason for this discrepancy is that large amounts of unreported financial assets are held in tax havens.As you point out, financial deregulation made this easier.Tax havens contribute to the rich getting richer to the extent that they allow some of them to avoid paying income tax so leaving them with more to accumulate but this won't be the main reason why the rich have been getting richer.
It seems the towel of overdone metaphor has become mildewed with the spores of redirected analogies. Piketty wrote a book called 'Sharks' in which he discussed the eating habits of sharks. He left out entirely their reproductive habits. Does that disqualify his description of the eating habits of sharks?I employ a team of ideology elves, who hammer at books all night when I'm not looking so I can awaken fresh as a daisy to some ready made conclusions each morning.
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