If Every Country Is in Debt… Who's the Money Owed To?

YouTube

> Via John Gruber, here is a striking series of photographs of workers in toy factories in China...
https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2007/10/03/invisible-hands/

> The photographs are the result of visits to 5 factories in mainland China, where 75% of the world's toys are manufactured.
https://imgur.com/a/chinese-factory-workers-toys-they-make-wrIds#Jjg6K

#InvisibleHands #見えざる手
#KieranHealy #JohnGruber #FactoriesInChina #TheInvisibleHand in photos #InvisibleHandPhotos

Invisible Hands

Via John Gruber, here is a striking series of photographs of workers in toy factories in China. I wish I had seen them yesterday, because this morning I did a midterm review in my social theory course and, in quick succession, students asked me about Smith’s idea of the invisible hand and about Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism. Smith argued that the specialization encouraged by a market system not only liberated people from material want but also freed them from having to spend all their time being “butcher, baker and brewer” for themselves. The two effects were intimately related. He used the example of a day-laborer’s wool coat, cataloguing some of the hundreds of people who directly or indirectly contributed to its manufacture and sale. “The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production …” One implication of Smith’s view is that we won’t much enhance our personal freedom by trying for material self-sufficiency, or by learning how to do everything for ourselves. Rather, the sort of freedom we want is something that flows from becoming deeply enmeshed in and dependent upon an ever larger and more specialized system of production and exchange of commodities for money. Without it, we would spend all of our time trying to feed and clothe ourselves, with indifferent results. The market frees you from a vast amount of tedious work by allowing you to buy the results of the much more specialized labor of others and granting you huge opportunity benefits in the process—the benefits that flow from not having to do all the other things necessary for survival.

kieranhealy.org

> The economy, of course, is efficient but efficient only in providing misery.
--- Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel with E.K. Hunt

> ... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible foot to promote...[misery]... By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes social misery more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
--- with apologies to Adam Smith

https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/zbooks/www/books/3/3.htm#3.2.1

#EKHunt #MichaelAlbert #RobinHahnel #AdamSmith #EconomicsOfMisery #TheInvisibleHand #TheInvisibleFoot

Chapter 3 - externalities and Public Goods

criticism of the traditional treatment of externalities and public goods and the exciting literature on

I missed Don Callis #AEWFullGear #TheInvisibleHand
The Weekspot podcast: Yes, this podcast also features Mass Effect chat

Listen to the latest episode of The PC Gaming Weekspot podcast to hear us chat about Mass Effect Legendary Edition and Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne Remaster.

Capitalism Is A Misanthropic, Dystopian Religion

Listen to this article: Capitalism is a misanthropic, dystopian religion. By “capitalism” I mean this or any other possible system wherein mass-scale human behavior is driven by the pur…

Caitlin Johnstone
Leaked document shows Trump officials planning to force Americans to spend $311m-$1.8b/year to keep unprofitable coal and nuclear energy plants from shutting https://boingboing.net/2018/06/02/defense-production-act.html #theinvisiblehand #cronycapitalism #hydrocarbonism #toobigtofail #trumpism #climate #Post #coal
Leaked document shows Trump officials planning to force Americans to spend $311m-$11.8b/year to keep unprofitable coal and nuclear energy plants from shutting

Leaked document shows Trump officials planning to force Americans to spend $311m-$11.8b/year to keep unprofitable coal and nuclear energy plants from shutting

Boing Boing
Lawsuit reveals the deadly, out-of-control free-for-all inside Red State America's for-profit prisons

Lawsuit reveals the deadly, out-of-control free-for-all inside Red State America's for-profit prisons

Boing Boing
Local UK governments say identifying buildings with Grenfell cladding would be a gift to arsonists and terrorists https://boingboing.net/2018/03/18/combustible-britain.html #theinvisiblehand #grenfell #tories #ukpoli #arson #Post #gwot #uk
Local UK governments say identifying buildings with Grenfell cladding would be a gift to arsonists and terrorists

Local UK governments say identifying buildings with Grenfell cladding would be a gift to arsonists and terrorists

Boing Boing