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30 sats \ 9 replies \ @Undisciplined 6 Aug \ parent \ on: Jeff Bezos’s Yacht: Driver of Economic Activity econ
This whole discussion started because you didn't like the idea of dividing laborers into two classes.
Generally speaking, it's quite common to have heterogeneous goods in models.
No, I think there are a lot more than just two classes! I also understand that there are models containing heterogeneous goods, hopefully a lot of different goods! People coming n two classes is too simplistic, IMO.
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Everyone knows there are more than two types. The point of using simplifications, which Austrians do too, is to parse out where certain results come from: i.e. there only need to be two types of worker for some observed phenomenon to occur.
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Could it be oversimplification due to the constraints of mathematical modeling? Because everybody does know that there are more than two types of workers, soon to be supplemented by non-carbon based workers.
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Yes, it could be an oversimplification. The way to assess that is to see if the result still holds with an arbitrary number of worker types. That takes more work and different sets of assumptions. Again, these results are hints at what might be going on.
When Austrians say "ceteris paribus" it's not because they think other things really do stay fixed. It's to simplify the analysis and focus on a particular aspect.
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When Austrians say "ceteris paribus" it's not because they think other things really do stay fixed. It's to simplify the analysis and focus on a particular aspect.
Yes, that certainly does simplify the situation completely! Perhaps they have been burned enough by that single simplification to not use it at every turn in their reasoning. The whole idea behind the human action idea is that everything changes at almost every change in situations. Never are two situations the same.
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That's true, but also completely intractable for analysis purposes.