Economics and a blind faith in the status-quo.

     Economics is a powerful tool for developing the science of society, and so its both frustrating and confusing to me why so many are content to form it to the status-quo. Cowen's comments carry the familiar attitude of a modern economist. Its as if they only half-listen to any argument of how we can improve society because of an underlying belief that virtue is unsustainable. Anything that doesn't limit itself to a purely market-based framework is thought to be undermined as fantastical idealism. The argument seems to go that any viable improvement would have already been incentivized by market forces, and so its not worth wasting time thinking about what could've been. The only tolerable policies are those that are explicitly tied to market research, but even those are dubious due to the impossibility of perfectly predicting the market. 

    Part of me gets it. It can be frustrating to constantly see a world motivated by ungrounded ideals, and the purely economic framework provides some reprieve and certainty. Maybe companies have always been greedy and inflation has other causes. Maybe tariffs only begin to make economic sense in the context of growing domestic manufacturing while sabotaging capacity abroad such that we can secure a system of prolonged global imperialism with extortion of global resources and cheap labor once we then insist on "free trade"––not just that America is awesome and can do it all here. 

    But it is still a little shocking that it is uncontroversial to treat our current economic relationships as ideal. As much as it is a fools errand to an individual to bet on themselves to beat the market, one would have to be oblivious to believe that the market will not continue to improve upon itself. Unlike the random-walk of evolution, we have the capacity to conceptualize ourselves along this process and consider what biases we may have held thus far. We know that human nature dictates that those in greater hierarchal systems based on productive capacity will develop feelings of personal superiority, and so isn't it conceivable that this would irrationally support a system of unjustified exploitation beyond the requirements of efficient systems? Why is it such a non-starter to say that there is a large societal benefit for employers to try to incorporate more of the voice of their employees? There are far more examples of great leaders who were effective because they listened to and responded to the beliefs of their team than leaders who charge ahead and force everyone else to follow. Zach was a good discussion leader because he tried to balanced hearing the voices of the group while establishing an understandable sense of direction. As Anderson emphasize, the point is not to advocate for one system of improvement or another, but to point out that what we are doing right now is clearly wrong––and could be better. There is a problematic lack of respect for workers in the U.S.

    I find the mainstream economist attitude especially frustrating because it even fails on its own grounds: it fails to optimize efficiency by idolizing the market outcomes we have now. The argument above doesn't even begin to mention the contradiction Anderson calls out of the arbitrary idolization of the unequal endowments that led to the system of distribution we have now. 

    Further still, mainstream economists fall into double jeopardy in their assumption that market forces are carried out to completion. While employers may theoretically be barred from committing workplace abuse due to market pressures, we don't live in an end-state system. If two people played connect-4 against each other a gazillion times, they would eventually limit themselves to the same sets of moves as it is a solved game. But that end-state dynamic is not what we refer to when we talk about playing connect-4. We are frequently in the long process of arriving at end-state systems, though we rarely ever arrive at those end-states. In the same way, an economist like Cowen could try to argue that the lack of employee republican freedom is unproblematic as it never makes sense for an employer to be abusive. In addition to Anderson's numerous other critiques of that justification, it is delusional to imagine our economic system would ever be stable enough for optimal market effects to have such a powerful limiting role. Economists use the same justification for why firms, and even governments, must also justify themselves in terms of competitive advantage. Again, I am sympathetic with this view point and believe market forces are often undervalued, but the idea that a system like codetermination in Germany is doomed to fail without efficiency justifications is either moronic or malicious. And once more to emphasize Anderson's claim that is hardly controversial, even if the German system does fail, it does not rebuke her main point that we should put more energy into thinking undogmatically about the relationship between employees and the work place. If economics is a rope that could be used to climb to better places, I don't know why we always use it to tie ourselves to where we are. 

Best,

Aidan :)