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62 sats \ 21 replies \ @SimpleStacker 19h \ on: Are Pro-Natalists the Real Malthusians? econ
Austrians' use of the term human action is somewhat mistifying to me. When did anyone, pronatalist or otherwise, deny that the decision to have children is the result of deliberate action?
IMO the only point of disagreement is the extent to which the lack of childbearing is due to financial constraints vs a lack of demand for children
I think the issue is that Malthusians use strict deterministic relationships between resource availability and reproduction rates.
We might say that those are toy models to be tested empirically, but alarmists treat them as fully causal, which does deny agency to the people in question.
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The Malthusians also ignore the role of the state and the economy in the decisions, especially time preferences and inflation (which can only be initiated by the state). The use of mathematical or computer models seems to be less than useful in any area where human agency ignored. Human agency and action are, IMHO, are the determining factors in many decisions where there are not guns pointed at heads.
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Models can be plenty useful. They just shouldn’t be confused with The Truth.
Since people are involved, any observed relationships are subject to change.
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Since people are involved, any observed relationships are subject to change.
This is always true and why mathematical and statistical models do not seem to work in the realm of human actions and interactions. Too many people are wrapped up in the model of physics to understand that humans are not random acting particles,
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I guess that’s where we differ. I’d say models often work fine, until they don’t.
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Perhaps the models only work within specified limits and any time other factors or going outside the limits of the model happens, they fail. I guess you could say that within the limits models work fine. That is my problem with models. There seems to be less problems with deductive or inductive reasoning, IMHO.
Austrians' use of the term human action is somewhat mistifying to me.
Austrians use the term human action to denote that everything starts from a choice that a human makes before taking any kind of action. It is not a collective choice and to be honest, it is also not a coerced decision.
When did anyone, pronatalist or otherwise, deny that the decision to have children is the result of deliberate action?
They didn’t ever say that the decision was not the result of deliberate action, they were saying that feeding more resources into the picture would change people’s choices.
IMO the only point of disagreement is the extent to which the lack of childbearing is due to financial constraints vs a lack of demand for children
I think the article was pointing out that the natalists of all varieties were making mistakes in how to remedy the situation. This article says that lowering time preference would be a better method than pouring extra resources into families.
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