tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38390952853217913592012-02-27T10:20:36.121-08:00"After all their idle sophistry, there is, thank God! no means of adding to the wealth of a nation but by adding to the facilities of living: so that wealth is liberty -- liberty to seek recreation -- liberty to enjoy life -- liberty to improve the mind: it is disposable time, and nothing more."Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comBlogger2911100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-7501254977402294222012-02-26T20:45:00.000-08:002012-02-26T20:45:31.747-08:00

"The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by capitalism." -- Joan Robinson Perhaps. But what if the glare from the wretchedness of unemployment blinds the observer to an historical coercion that although it may not appear quite so spectacularly grim is structurally indispensable to the continuation of the being-and-not-being-exploited? The strident

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-85123530314768650592012-02-17T07:42:00.000-08:002012-02-17T07:42:10.778-08:00

Schemes for improving the condition of the poor by making them more useful to the rich.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-53871467825507031102012-02-11T15:42:00.000-08:002012-02-11T15:42:16.619-08:00

The following statement on plagiarism comes from the Université de Liège: WHY IS PLAGIARISM UNACCEPTABLE? From a legal perspective, any unauthorised reproduction (total or partial) of a work (no matter what kind or in what format) can be subject to legal proceedings, within criminal or civil law (article 80 and onwards of the Act of June 30, 1994, concerning author’s rights and related rights).

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-32992471186850090762012-02-09T15:22:00.000-08:002012-02-10T12:34:20.129-08:00

The Economist is up to its old tricks again, responding to Lucy Kellaway's Financial Times column from last week with a Buttonwood column telling "Why the old should not make way for the young." By some strange coincidence, the Sandwichman just finished a first draft of "The 'Lump of Labor' Hoax: Evidence, Inference and the Blur of Bamboozlement," which probes far beyond the platitudes of The

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-35004165128233742932012-02-02T15:30:00.000-08:002012-02-02T17:48:42.052-08:00

A correspondent thought I was getting too convoluted for him. As I tried to explain, it's the story that's "convoluted" not me. It's not so convoluted if I start at the beginning and tell the whole story but then the objection might be that I'm getting too pedantic... Well, here goes. The story begins in Lancashire in 1779. For several days in October large crowds of workers marched through the

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-79713602248747326302012-02-01T14:22:00.000-08:002012-02-01T14:23:49.300-08:00

Dear Lucy, I am dumbfounded. This morning, reading "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Relationship to Youth Employment," (Jonathan Gruber and David Wise, eds., 2010) I came across the statement, "Those who make the fallacy claim fail to offer specific evidence of the supposed belief in a fixed amount of work." Not only do I agree with that observation -- I said it

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-72424523789419628872012-02-01T08:38:00.000-08:002012-02-01T08:38:34.083-08:00

It's not so much the plagiarism -- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; plagiarism is the most abject form of imitation -- as the glib manner in which Alain Jousten et. al deflect the "burden of proof" from those making the fallacy claim to those allegedly committing it. Just to preclude any question about priority, here is a screenshot of a Wayback Machine capture of my draft from

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-62321445846864656892012-01-31T22:55:00.000-08:002012-01-31T22:55:35.392-08:00

"Walker (2007) expresses a sceptical view of the idea that economists have been able to prove the 'lump-of-labor' to be a fallacy indeed." Ya think?

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-64475912819247993182012-01-31T14:32:00.000-08:002012-01-31T17:03:31.115-08:00

As things currently stand, one side in the debate about old age security will be required to play with one hand tied behind their backs. Any suggestion that postponing the retirement age will exacerbate youth unemployment will be imperiously dismissed as a laughable fallacy. The groundwork has already been laid for this predictable "economic" edict in a myriad of think-tank reports and

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-85464086281426889562012-01-30T13:29:00.000-08:002012-01-30T16:32:32.284-08:00

The page image below is from Dorning Rasbotham's 1780 pamphlet, Thoughts on the Use of Machines in the Cotton Manufacture. How quaint. But this page has more than antiquarian interest. At the top of the page, Rasbotham explicitly makes a claim that could readily be dismissed as a "mercantilist fallacy." At the bottom of the page, he invokes what would subsequently come to be known as the "Luddite

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-10929382954397081012012-01-28T18:13:00.000-08:002012-01-28T18:43:33.347-08:00

Such a machine would seem to be exceedingly valuable to disperse mobs, or for war purposes and even for industrial purposes. In the upper illustration is shown the police car which controls all the movements of a regiment of such automata. For fighting mobs use is made of tear gas which is stored in a tank under, pressure and which alone will quickly disperse a mob if necessary.. The arms are

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-32199520517550833392012-01-27T09:16:00.000-08:002012-01-27T09:46:32.104-08:00

From The Poverty of Philosophy, Karl Marx (1847): In England, strikes have regularly given rise to the invention and application of new machines. Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labour. The self-acting mule, the greatest invention of modern industry, put out of action the spinners who were in revolt. If combinations and

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-85364420568376761472012-01-26T21:50:00.000-08:002012-01-27T09:46:02.238-08:00

from Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, Charles Babbage (1864): During my boyhood my mother took me to several exhibitions of machinery. I well remember one of them in Hanover Square, by a man who called himself Merlin. I was so greatly interested in it, that the Exhibitor remarked the circumstance, and after explaining some of the objects to which the public had access, proposed to my

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-83735325457816372342012-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:002012-01-24T14:12:19.593-08:00

The following excerpt from E. C. Tufnell's Report to the Central Board of the 1833 Royal Commission on the Employment of Children in Factories deals with what Tufnell alleged was the nefarious "trick" -- "neither more nor less than a trick to raise wages" -- behind the Lancashire cotton spinners' support for the Ten Hour Bill. He elaborated on his theory in the anonymously published tract,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-39438873345125658992012-01-24T12:59:00.000-08:002012-01-24T13:11:31.839-08:00

Morning Chronicle, Saturday, 7th December, 1833. RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. We copy from Cobbett's Register of this day the following strange article, which bears the above title. The matter appears to us in a very serious light; but at present we cannot offer any remarks on the subject. The Manchester Paper of this day will probably notice it. Prince's Tavern, Princess-street, Manchester, Monday,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-6882615093879724402012-01-24T12:58:00.000-08:002012-01-24T12:59:26.112-08:00

Backing up a tad from the Swing Riots and Charles Knight's intriguing remedy for a glut in the labour market, "What is the remedy? To go out of the market," Thomas Chalmers in 1820 had already made a very similar proposal of withdrawing from the labour market in times when wages are miserable: In the first place, then, it ought to be kept in mind, that there are particular lines of employment,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-82508678498102337812012-01-24T10:12:00.000-08:002012-01-24T12:59:49.098-08:00

There were three notable incidents of machine breaking in England during the period of industrialization: the 1779 Lancashire riots, the 1811 Luddite uprising and the Captain Swing riots of 1830. Ironically, William Cobbett, who had published his Letter to the Luddites in 1816, was prosecuted in the wake of the Swing Riots for seditious libel for articles he wrote defending the rural labourers.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-21298344235373675792012-01-24T09:06:00.000-08:002012-01-24T09:22:53.511-08:00

I shall now return to the subject of machines, and beg your patient attention, while I discuss the interesting question before stated: that is to say, whether machinery, as it at present exists, does, or does not, "operate to the disadvantage of journeymen and labourers." The notion of our labourers in agriculture is, that thrashing machines, for instance, injure them, because, say they, if it

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-7544954106835828242012-01-23T19:11:00.000-08:002012-01-24T13:05:30.365-08:00

"...as that which supposes that an increased facility of production can under any circumstances be injurious to the labourers." Is that so?

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-54688880227406586582012-01-23T16:48:00.000-08:002012-01-24T14:18:39.850-08:00

J. R. M'Culloch in an Edinburgh Review article from June 1827, "Rise, Progress, Present State and Prospects of the British Cotton Manufacture: On their first introduction, Sir Richard Arkwright's machines were reckoned by the lower classes as even more adverse to their interests than those of Hargraves; and reiterated attacks were made on the factories built for them.* But how extraordinary

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-56737463504594738202012-01-23T13:21:00.000-08:002012-01-24T13:07:23.102-08:00

There appears to be some dispute about the authorship of the 1780 pamphlet, Thoughts on the Use of Machines in the Cotton Manfacture. In The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600-1780, Julia De Lacy Mann (1931) noted that Dorning Rasbotham, "has been credited with the authorship... but this has also been attributed to Thomas Barnes, D.D., of Manchester." Maxine Berg, in The Machinery

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-13048878884805061972012-01-23T13:20:00.000-08:002012-01-24T13:05:04.653-08:00

I am, from the bottom of my heart, a Friend to the Poor. I wish to plead their cause, and to speak in their favour. I feel tenderly for the poor man and his family. And, if my heart does not deceive me, I would do, I would suffer any thing for their welfare. Led by no other principle, but regard to the Poor, I now wish to enter into free and friendly conversation with you, my poor but esteemed

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-28859633604891841092012-01-23T09:50:00.000-08:002012-01-23T16:39:04.163-08:00

The Lancashire rioting broke out just as Josiah Wedgwood, the pottery manufacturer, had arrived to Bolton where his son had become ill at boarding school. He reported the events in his correspondence. October 3rd, 1779 In our way to this place, a little on this side Chowbent, we met several hundred people in the road. I believe there might be about five hundred & upon enquiring of one of them

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-59268185734144317772012-01-22T12:29:00.000-08:002012-01-22T12:36:17.624-08:00

From The Annual Register for 1779 Manchester, Oct. 9: During the course of the week several mobs have assembled in different parts of the neighbourhood, and have done much mischief by destroying the engines for carding and spinning cotton wool (without which, the trade of this country could never be possibly carried on to any great extent). In the neighbourhood of Chorley, the mob destroyed and

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-49715532754684413352012-01-22T09:52:00.000-08:002012-01-22T09:52:48.854-08:00

Last Monday, the Sandwichman traveled to Bolton, north of Manchester, and to Farnworth, just outside of Bolton, to get to the bottom of the Ur-story of "Man vs. Machine" ("Some stories reach deeper, into the most primal and profound truths. They mirror, in new and original ways, the Ur-myth, the act of creation itself."). "It was thought a bold thing at the time for Mr. Rasbotham, a magistrate

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-35450119045117357002012-01-21T12:08:00.000-08:002012-01-21T12:08:26.861-08:00

Oh, the jeering and sarcasm! As if jeering and sarcasm were unmistakable tokens of superior knowledge and insight -- as if. Gosh, what if the knee-jerk preemptive resort to ad hominem was instead understood for what it really is? A nullity wrapped in an illusion inside an insecurity: 1. "Think(?)tank advocates shorter working hours as cure for unemployment." 2. "The flaws of slashing working

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-66148058957930826192011-12-27T21:38:00.000-08:002012-01-24T08:03:27.605-08:00

From Hungary and Transylvania: with remarks on their condition, social, political and economical, Volume 1 by John Paget (1839): The system of rent by robot or forced labour,—that is, so many days' labour without any specification of the quantity of work to be performed,—is a direct premium on idleness. A landlord wishes a field of corn to be cut; his steward sends out, by means of his Haiduks,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-8412821512378061442011-12-21T19:47:00.000-08:002011-12-21T19:51:36.546-08:00

From Act I, R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek. Translation by David Wyllie. Helena: But do be careful, sir; this little girl has frightful intentions Domin: Good heavens, Miss Glory, what could that be? Are you thinking of getting married? Helena: No, no, God forbid! Not in my wildest dreams! I've come here with plans to start a revolution among your horrible robots!

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-59160602942068169002011-12-21T18:44:00.000-08:002011-12-21T18:44:40.412-08:00

Ωστόσο, πολλοί οικονομολόγοι θεωρούν ότι αυτή η αντίληψη είναι λανθασμένη: μία παραλλαγή της «λογικής πλάνης του δεδομένου αριθμού θέσεων εργασίας» (lump of labour fallacy), κατά την οποία ο όγκος της εργασίας είναι συγκεκριμένος και οι θέσεις εργασίας μπορούν και πρέπει να κατανεμηθούν σύμφωνα με αυτόν.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-79753141690789240222011-12-17T11:48:00.000-08:002011-12-17T17:22:00.725-08:00

Not since Elizabeth Taylor or Michael Jackson have we seen such a torrent of obituary (& some obitchuary). But for a whiskey-swilling, tobacco-stained scribbler? Who knew Christopher Hitchens was a celebrity of the first rank? Although the Sandwichman never drank with Hitchens, he can say with documented certainty that he drank with someone who has. But who can't? I used to read Hitchens's

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-57512207946070490262011-12-15T14:27:00.000-08:002011-12-15T14:27:46.664-08:00

Nine-tenths of the confusion and obscurity in which the doctrine of price has hitherto been involved has arisen from searching after the unsearchable, from seeking for some invariable rule for inevitable variations, from straining after precision where to be precise is necessarily to be wrong. Supply and demand are commonly spoken of as if they together formed some nicely fitting, well-balanced,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-30210378799515112092011-12-04T13:28:00.000-08:002011-12-04T13:29:24.796-08:00

In an op-ed at the New York Times today, Know What You’re Protesting, Greg Mankiw replied to the November 2 walk-out of his Econ 10 lecture. Mankiw's second reaction, after nostalgia, to the walkout was "sadness at how poorly informed the Harvard protesters seemed to be." The Sandwichman's reaction to Mankiw's reaction is astonishment at how poorly informed the Harvard PROFESSORS seem to be. They

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-88963578125976694602011-12-03T13:49:00.000-08:002011-12-03T14:24:40.515-08:00

from The Song of Steel by Charles Buxton Going Look! We have slain the forests, thou and I-- Soiled the bright streams and murked the very sky; Crushed the glad hills and shocked the quiet stars With roaring factories and clanging cars! Thou builder of machines, who dost not see! That which thou mad'st to drive, is driving thee-- Ravening, tireless, pitiless its strain For thy last ounce of

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-51240793121820315412011-11-24T16:34:00.000-08:002011-11-24T16:34:58.117-08:00

ABOUT TIME: Examining the case for a shorter working week Wednesday, 11 January 2012 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm Public Lecture at the LSE Email cam.ly@neweconomics.org As the economic crisis deepens, this is the moment to consider moving towards much shorter, more flexible paid working hours - sharing out jobs and unpaid time more fairly across the population. nef would like to invite you to an event

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-41592019904279302282011-11-24T12:00:00.000-08:002011-11-24T12:00:43.862-08:00

Headlines that write themselves... FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2011 file photo, from left: Johnny Mullet, Lester Mullet, Daniel Mullet, Levi Miller and Eli Miller wait to make their pleas in Holmes County Municipal Court in Millersburg, Ohio. The five men, along with reputed Amish breakaway sect leader Sam Mullet and Emanuel Shrock, were arrested by the FBI and local sheriff's deputies early

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-23368173404722009052011-11-22T07:37:00.000-08:002011-11-24T13:15:29.553-08:00

Wikipedia: The shell game (also known as Thimblerig, Three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is a confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud. In confidence trick slang, this swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off.Another variation on the swindle is Three-card Monte. Jay

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-58692877276349545282011-11-21T17:57:00.000-08:002011-11-21T18:17:54.223-08:00

Paul Krugman links to an INET commentary by Robin Wells (his spouse), "We Are Greg Mankiw… or Not?", with the disclaimer that she is speaking for herself. On the issue of "building trust" Wells states, "take a few minutes to discuss each side of the debate. Yet, also make clear that valuable class time won’t be wasted on debating viewpoints that are contradicted by the data." Oh yeah? What

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-58018245879263490822011-11-20T20:46:00.000-08:002011-11-20T20:48:10.732-08:00

Autograph inscription by Sir Isaac Newton on frontispiece of a book: Numero pondere et mensura Deus omnia condidit Hoc symbolum suum honoris et benevolentiae Gratia Dignissimo Doctissimoque huus Albi Possessori posuit [Number, weight and measure, God created all these things. I have placed this, my motto, for the honor and best wishes for the most worthy and learned possessor of this book.]"In

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-45931170699564848912011-11-18T18:08:00.000-08:002011-11-18T18:21:12.665-08:00

In 1936, Sotheby's auctioned off the Portsmouth Papers of Issac Newton. Keynes missed the auction but subsequently set out to acquire the Newton manuscripts from the buyers, concentrating on the papers having to do with alchemy. At his death, Keynes bequeathed his collection to King's College, Cambridge. The Newton-related papers of John Maynard Keynes are now accessible online at The Newton

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-74076960303068872702011-11-18T15:00:00.000-08:002011-11-18T15:03:09.127-08:00

From The Scope and Method of Political Economy by John Neville Keynes: The economic literature of every succeeding year embraces works conceived in the true scientific spirit, and works exhibiting the most vulgar ignorance of economic history and the most flagrant contempt for the conditions of economic investigation. It is much as if astrology were being pursued side by side with astronomy, or

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-45256627030979170112011-11-17T11:40:00.000-08:002011-11-17T11:40:18.041-08:00

Timely: Money and Magic: A Critique of the Modern Economy in the Light of Goethe’s Faust. By Hans Christoph Binswanger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Reviewed by William Darity Jr., History of Political Economy 31:1 1999 (excerpt): Money and Magic is the translation of Binswanger’s text, originally published in German in 1985. For Binswanger, Faust affords a vision of the modern

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-32081971039308634552011-11-17T06:16:00.000-08:002011-11-17T09:02:49.112-08:00

There are 5.8 marriages a year per 1000 population in Greece. With a population of around 11 million, that works out to around 65,000 marriages or 65,000 marriage partners of each sex. If half of the marriageable women (32,500) were transported to Germany each year and replaced with marriageable German women, in a generation or two the Greeks would be transmuted into Germans and the debt crisis

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-19842439766073650192011-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:002011-11-15T21:37:51.518-08:00

McCulloch, J. R. (John Ramsay). Outlines of political economy : being a republication of the article upon that subject contained in the Edinburgh Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica : together with notes explanatory and critical, and a summary of the science / by John M'Vickar. New-York, 1825. The Making Of The Modern World. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. Rasbotham, Dorning. Thoughts on the Use of

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-78288837258268959582011-11-14T16:24:00.000-08:002011-11-14T16:24:00.850-08:00

How about these, reported by J. P. Kay in his pamphlet mentioned above?: The operatives are congregated in rooms and workshops during twelve hours in the day, in an enervating, heated atmosphere, which is frequently loaded with dust or filaments of cotton, or impure from constant respiration, or from other causes. They are engaged in an employment which absorbs their attention, and unremittingly

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-2599262799887574222011-11-13T16:23:00.000-08:002011-11-15T20:42:17.618-08:00

Two weeks ago a hunch about Charles Dickens and Edward Carleton Tufnell led me to the discovery of what I surmised might be the prototype of the idea that has come to be known to economists as "the lump of labor." To my surprise, it was a subtle and articulate defense by a fairly prominent early 19th century political economist of the proposition that "...there is a certain quantity of work to be

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-61092719798488345772011-11-13T15:30:00.000-08:002011-11-13T15:30:45.302-08:00

"Whilst the engine runs the people must work men, women, and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine breakable in the best case, subject to a thousand sources of suffering is chained fast to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and no weariness." -- mistakenly attributed to James Phillips Kay, The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes in the Cotton

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-33179500853142453892011-11-13T00:49:00.000-08:002011-11-13T00:49:00.285-08:00

Karl Marx is said to have stood Georg Hegel's idealistic philosophy on its head by proposing – following the lead of Ludwig Feuerbach – that material circumstances shape ideas rather than the other way around. William Rees co-developed the concept of the Ecological Footprint, an estimate of the impact on ecosystems imposed by human activity. Footprint analysis indirectly implicates economic

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-77442121862661694832011-11-10T18:34:00.000-08:002011-11-10T18:34:36.771-08:00

One year ago, November 11, 2010, I uploaded Jobs, Liberty and the Bottom Line [embedded below the fold] to Scribd. Since that date it has received 3,823 "reads" with an average engagement of 6 minutes and 17 seconds for a grand total of 400 hours and 21 minutes of reading. Jobs, Liberty and the Bottom Line (function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-61329371004999377942011-11-09T07:19:00.000-08:002011-11-09T07:19:05.690-08:00

Keynes to J. M. Clark, July 26, 1941: As you will have gathered the other evening, I agree with what you say about the danger of a 'school,' even when it is one's own. There is great danger in quantitative forecasts which are based exclusively on statistics relating to conditions by no means parallel. I have tried to persuade Gilbert and Humphrey and Salant that they should be more cautious. I

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-42869330284800274672011-11-09T06:34:00.000-08:002011-11-09T06:34:37.171-08:00

The four-day week, solution to the crisis? Pierre Larrouturou is one of the most ardent defenders of the 32-hour workweek. Wishful thinking in a financial crisis? A utopia when Manuel Valls and part of the left want to forget the 35 hours? On the contrary! The 32 hours have already been implemented in a few pioneering companies. For the economist, the reduction of working time remains today one

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-31841849728063011602011-11-08T06:51:00.000-08:002011-11-08T07:28:37.079-08:00

At The Utopian (h/t to Chris Bertram): "In 1956, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer sat down to write an updated version of the Communist Manifesto. These are previously unpublished notes from their discussions." 12 March 1956 (as recorded by Gretel Adorno and translated by Rodney Livingstone.) Horkheimer: Thesis: nowadays we have enough by way of productive forces; it is obvious that we

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-32696168052122408082011-11-06T19:46:00.000-08:002011-11-13T15:01:05.506-08:00

...men, women and children yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine - breakable in the best case is chained fast to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and no weariness." -- mistakenly attributed to James Phillip Kay "If algebraical symbols lead to more accurate results, no one can rightly object to their use. In this case they lend an appearance of definiteness to

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-57540987075684228402011-11-04T14:39:00.000-07:002011-11-04T14:55:31.025-07:00

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." -- Walt WhitmanBoth classical political economy and neoclassical economics are self-contradictory. That is not a bad thing per se. What is pernicious is the neurotic impulse to erase or ignore evidence of that contradiction and banish the internal voices of dissent from historical memory. Thomas

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-38603759196658121482011-11-03T21:45:00.000-07:002011-11-10T17:24:42.359-08:00

UPDATE November 10: Sandwichman has found an even more antique instance of the proto=lump-of-labour fallacy claim. Stand by for announcement. In his 1991 article, "'The Canonical Classical Model of Political Economy' in 1808, as Viewed from 1825: Thomas Chalmers on the 'National Resources,'" A. M. C. Waterman speculated that Chalmers's 1808 treatise was a sort of missing link between Malthus's

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-56387249240158017502011-11-03T19:25:00.000-07:002011-11-03T19:25:07.644-07:00

Yesterday, I posted a "Treasure Hunt," which on second thought I am cancelling because I realized I would be unable to correspond with scholars regarding some of the details of the newly discovered and extremely significant "lump-of-labor" quote without giving out clues.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-43680037922262920742011-10-31T14:56:00.000-07:002011-10-31T15:30:02.890-07:00

Next! UPDATE: Elevated from comments:

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-15360955913372466342011-10-31T09:10:00.000-07:002011-10-31T09:10:40.535-07:00

In his NYT column today Paul Krugman backed off the ludicrous claim from his earlier blog post that "As far as aggregate demand in concerned... spending on bombs is as good as spending on public parks." But he continues to push the rationale that arms spending creates jobs and the somehow "liberals" are being hypocritical when they fail to acknowledge this. I realize Krugman is not advocating

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-24998142552736343122011-10-29T15:36:00.000-07:002011-10-29T15:52:22.670-07:00

Paul Krugman, check your sources! In his blog post arguing that, "As far as aggregate demand in concerned... spending on bombs is as good as spending on public parks" Professor Krugman cited "the Kalecki point that admitting that the government can create jobs undermines demands that policies be framed to cater to all-important business confidence." Krugman linked to Rortybomb who linked to

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-66678905340611149242011-10-29T12:22:00.000-07:002011-10-29T12:23:00.126-07:00

Economics, as I say often, is not a morality play. As far as creating aggregate demand is concerned, spending is spending – public spending is as good as but also no better than private spending, spending on bombs is as good as spending on public parks.Economics is not a morality play but spending on bombs is NOT "as good as" spending on parks. This is not a trivial side issue but the core of the

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-60822094621105882932011-10-28T11:34:00.000-07:002011-10-28T11:37:20.426-07:00

Washington, D.C.: Commerce Secretary John Bryson announced today a downward revision of U.S. GDP by a whopping 21% to reflect new information about the nature of debt. “One person’s debt is another person’s asset," economists explained, "therefore the level of debt doesn’t matter.” It follows from this self-evident law of double-entry bookkeeping that the financial services, insurance and real

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-14846818117109207552011-10-27T13:09:00.000-07:002011-10-27T13:10:27.886-07:00

Part I: Employment Part II: Interest Part III: Green Cheese

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-54882354170291236002011-10-27T09:04:00.000-07:002011-10-27T16:29:42.381-07:00

Steve Keen at Real World Economic Review Blog writes about his frustration with an academic audience who insisted the aggregate level of debt relative to GDP was irrelevant because “one person’s debt is another person’s asset, therefore the level of debt doesn’t matter.” That assumption is not true but to understand why it is not, it is useful first to consider under what circumstance it would

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-35423912512678851672011-10-25T11:49:00.000-07:002011-10-25T11:55:22.210-07:00

Peter Frase reviews the e-book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT, Race Against the Machine. Mark Thoma links to a New York Times review of the e-book. To the Sandwichman, it looks like deja vu all over again. Eternal return of the same old, same old. I'm sure Professors Brynjolfsson and McAfee mean well, but it sounds to me like they are thinking inside the boxes -- and by boxes, I

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-8427479138378457522011-10-24T11:21:00.000-07:002011-10-24T11:21:26.976-07:00

"The most helpful applications of mathematics to economics are those which are short and simple, which employ few symbols; and which aim at throwing a bright light on some small part of the great economic movement rather than at representing its endless complexities. "Thus, then, dynamical solutions, in the physical sense, of economic problems are unattainable." -- Alfred Marshall

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-67101714151660973362011-10-23T17:49:00.000-07:002011-10-23T18:21:39.540-07:00

I've completed a second draft of "The Problem with 'The Problem of Social Cost'" and have posted the whole article (sans bibliography) as a Scribd embed. My earlier post, The Prince and the Pauper serves as a teaser for this new piece, which substantially reworks and rearranges some of the material I previously serialized on Ecological Headstand, starting about a month ago. I'd like to say a few

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-89605627793661569482011-10-23T08:59:00.000-07:002011-10-23T08:59:19.316-07:00

J.M. Keynes, The End of Laissez-faire, 1926: The beauty and simplicity of such a theory are so great that it is easy to forget that it follows not from the actual facts, but from an incomplete hypothesis introduced for the sake of simplicity. Apart from other objections to be mentioned later, the conclusion that individuals acting independently for their own advantage will produce the greatest

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-50217890519816098332011-10-22T22:33:00.000-07:002011-10-22T22:33:48.403-07:00

"Marshall on Method" R.H. Coase, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Apr., 1975), p. 31: What was it that Marshall found objectionable about the use of mathematics, at any rate, when used extensively? He thought we lacked the data to support any but relatively simple constructions. He feared that factors that could not easily be dealt with in mathematical form would be neglected. But

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-47980985625220785932011-10-22T15:20:00.000-07:002011-10-22T15:22:13.749-07:00

The doctrine that the real cost of anything is the forgone utility of other things perversely rules out all human considerations related to the supply side of exchange, by substituting an indirect and strictly irrelevant test for a direct and relevant one. It reminds one of the famous definition of sugar as “the stuff which makes tea nasty when you don’t put any in.” -- J. A. Hobson

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-77591637435687303912011-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:002011-10-22T22:36:49.732-07:00

"paternity is always uncertain, maternity is most certain." "The later stage in the development of the neurotic's estrangement from his parents... might be described as ‘the neurotic's family romance’. It is seldom remembered consciously but can almost always be revealed by psycho-analysis." -- S. Freud"Marshall's proof that laissez faire breaks down in certain conditions theoretically, and not

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-18846899932339812852011-10-20T19:23:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:23:55.210-07:00

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-61130509206051146072011-10-20T10:07:00.000-07:002011-10-20T10:19:28.095-07:00

Jared Bernstein writes, Flat Isn't Always Simple: There’s a theme developing in the tax debate that a flat tax, like Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 or another version that Gov Perry’s now talking about, is simpler than a system of progressively higher, or graduated rates. Not so. Both can be as simple or complicated as you like...Flat is the new stupid. Does it dawn on these conservative tax savants that

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-11386829431167080962011-10-18T19:03:00.000-07:002011-10-18T19:03:56.501-07:00

From Sydney J. Chapman's unpublished autobiography: I remember particularly well two courses by Professor Foxwell, one on Currency and Banking, and one on early English Socialistic writers, several of whom he had rescued from oblivion. Both courses had grown and grown as Foxwell added to his information and new facts had to be incorporated. It is much to be regretted that he did not publish a

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-44468249953198862202011-10-18T13:50:00.000-07:002011-10-18T13:50:57.315-07:00

I should, I think, stress that he [Chapman] was always a rather shy and reticent man. He was obsessed with the idea that someone might write a "Life" or "Study" of him or his period or his friends or connections, and he made it a point of principle to destroy ruthlessly all correspondence as soon as he and my mother had read it.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-52626709254972369952011-10-17T11:57:00.000-07:002011-10-17T18:54:06.964-07:00

"It's a complaint U.S. pundits made regularly about the Occupy Wall Street protests -- that they lack a clear message or demand." -- Campbell Clark, Globe & Mail Gosh, these "pundits" are so clever! They can swallow just about any kind of precious metal and regurgitate the same old boilerplate crap. Pundits are the Kim Kardashians of the technocratic crackpot meritocracy. Just as Kardashian is a

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-49014007446095521152011-10-16T14:58:00.000-07:002011-10-16T16:38:34.044-07:00

Em Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, C G F To be stuck in Cincinnati C G11 C With the processed blues again. Result Summary Origin Service Area: LAMBETH - LONDON - UK Destination Service Area: RICHMOND, BC - VANCOUVER - CANADA Sunday, October 16, 2011 Location Time Pieces 11 Processed at CINCINNATI HUB - USA CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA 17:05 Saturday,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-42083294336454662622011-10-16T13:23:00.001-07:002011-10-16T13:23:46.123-07:00

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-20056806968570179192011-10-16T13:02:00.000-07:002011-10-17T07:58:15.572-07:00

Here is a photo of the Sandwichman, all dressed up in his frock coat and sandwich board, on his way down to the Occupy Vancouver October 15 event. (Sande Waters photo) The puppet hanging on the board is Paul Samuelson, iconic mathturbater and textbook author, whose Economics taught a generation of economists to bark like trained seals, "Lump-of-labor fallacy! Lump of labor fallacy!" The mouth

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-25219983308839098542011-10-16T12:03:00.000-07:002011-10-16T12:06:45.607-07:00

"'Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,' said one top hedge fund manager." (Top hedge fund managers are a ragtag group who consume copious amounts of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and other people's money.)

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-82601283451574714032011-10-12T22:06:00.000-07:002011-10-12T22:06:59.649-07:00

Kudos to Antony Mason at the Intergenerational Foundation for talking sense about the lump-of-labor fallacy and its irrelevance when jobs are actually disappearing.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-79807596387112267182011-10-10T13:57:00.000-07:002011-10-10T14:25:49.024-07:00

My photocopy of Sydney J. Chapman's unpublished autobiography from the archives at the London School of Economics is in the mail (courier). Meanwhile, I don't want to go too far out on a limb speculating about whether he recognized the significance of his contribution. Apparently, posterity hasn't yet grasped it, either.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-84394780195642968482011-10-10T08:29:00.000-07:002011-10-10T08:29:34.880-07:00

No one at Adbuster's Magazine expected their spoof ad calling for the occupation of New York's financial district would be taken seriously, let alone spawn a nation-wide movement. Trickster rules!

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-3156776498964993662011-10-10T06:45:00.000-07:002011-10-10T06:45:15.442-07:00

Why is it, then, that Sir Laming holds such very odd opinions? It is like asking me why he wears a top hat. He is a Conservative. The reasons are wrapped in the mists of history. But, roughly, I think I know them. He half understands an ancient theory, the premises of which he has forgotten. This theory assumes that all the productive resources -- savings, labour and the gifts of nature --

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-44472571764150958652011-10-09T16:39:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:32:03.058-07:00

More from J.M. Clark's "Some Social Aspects: An Application of Overhead Cost to Social Accounting": It has often been recognized that the special training of a professional man is a form of investment and that the reward necessary to compensate it is a kind of overhead cost. Accordingly, he frequently follows the principle of charging what the traffic will bear, distributing his overhead in much

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-79430655724649391612011-10-09T14:18:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:32:42.071-07:00

The following is the summary John Maurice Clark presented in his 1923 paper, presented to the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the American Economic Association. The argument itself falls into seven theses, which may be condensed as follows: I. While increased output in general may or may not bring economy, "off-peak" business nearly always does; its "differential cost" is extremely low, and

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-9044887810688857322011-10-09T14:08:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:32:52.848-07:00

The term "labor market" reminds Sandwichman of the apocryphal remark attributed to Gandhi when asked what he thought of Western Civilization: "it would be a good idea." I'm not so sure a labor market would be such a good idea, but I am convinced that what actually exists is not a market in any analytically coherent sense of the term. Jamie Galbraith expressed similar reservations in "Dangerous

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-72997797152716251322011-10-07T15:57:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:33:34.962-07:00

Francis M. Bator, "The Anatomy of Market Failure" (1958): "I think it more natural and useful to broaden rather than restrict, to let 'externality' denote any situation where some Paretian costs and benefits remain external to decentralized cost-revenue calculations in terms of prices." In a footnote, he continues, "Recall that it is the existence of such 'externality,' of residue, at the

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-19209834915522865372011-10-06T18:39:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:33:21.175-07:00

In a 1927 speech to the London Liberal Candidates Association, Keynes told an anecdote about "a friend" who had recently visited a lunatic asylum. "How is it," the friend asked a warder, "that it is safe for you to run the concern with such a small staff?" "Oh," came the reply, "lunatics never combine." Actually, the apocryphal story and its punchline can be traced back at least to the 1880s.

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-53234569469212103242011-10-06T16:07:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:33:47.086-07:00

Addendum to the Keynes and the Lancashire Cotton Industry. I need to integrate into the earlier section on Keynes the paragraph below, which so graphically illustrates why decline has to be looked at differently than development and which contains the compelling image of the "slow and dragging cure". The method of building up a growing industry by individuals adding spindle to spindle and mill

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-9336150722710378882011-10-05T17:03:00.000-07:002011-10-09T21:34:08.787-07:00

Economica (2011) 78, 133–158 Work-sharing During the Great Depression: Did the‘President’s Reemployment Agreement’ Promote Reemployment? By JASON E. TAYLOR Abstract: The President’s Reemployment Agreement (PRA) of 1933 directed firms to reduce workweeks during the Great Depression so existing jobs could be spread into additional employment opportunities. Similar ‘worksharing’ policies have

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-4177361906919274012011-10-05T10:13:00.000-07:002011-10-05T10:13:56.229-07:00

Funny thing. One would think that not posting new content to a blog was the surest way to lose audience. My traffic statistics are telling me, though, that my continuing series on the problem with the problem of social cost is strangling Ecological Headstand. Deirdre McCloskey once told an anecdote that might explain why: The only appearance of economic historians in literature are the hero in

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-20208462669498128022011-10-05T00:05:00.001-07:002011-10-05T00:21:25.593-07:00

"We don’t tell them what we want because they already know what we want: We want their system to die. Why make demands of the thing you want to destroy? Negotiating only grants legitimacy and continuity."

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-87500872481511210842011-10-04T19:04:00.000-07:002011-10-06T18:41:21.417-07:00

Although Ronald Coase paid no heed to Part III of Pigou's Economics of Welfare in "The Problem of Social Cost," it's not as though it simply disappeared. Donald Stabile (1993, 1995, 1996) has documented Pigou's influence on John Maurice Clark's analysis of the social overhead cost of labor in Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs and K. William Kapp's analysis in The Social Cost of Private

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Sydney Chapman's history of the Lancashire cotton industry was one of two "promising steps towards the establishment of a Marshallian school of industrial economics" (Raffaelli 2004). The other was a theoretical study by David H. Macgregor of the growth and combination of firms into giant industrial units. Chapter Six of Chapman's book, on factory legislation, contains the following passage: The

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-37980296549885727062011-10-04T11:32:00.001-07:002011-10-04T11:32:31.434-07:00

Question: what's the "Cainsian multiplier"?

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-92063667946769556512011-10-03T14:06:00.000-07:002011-10-03T14:06:26.634-07:00

Joe Stiglitz at Project Syndicate: The prescription for what ails the global economy follows directly from the diagnosis: strong government expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves. That might be a good prescription for the crisis of

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-13155258540552904732011-10-03T13:19:00.000-07:002011-10-03T13:19:04.270-07:00

The subject headings have become unwieldy for the continuing series on the problem with Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost," so I've deleted the series title and part number from them. For now, each entry will be linked to the next entry in the series, starting with The Problem with "The Problem of Social Cost." When the series is finished, all the posts will be collated into a single SCRIBD

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-48002262605752649782011-10-02T19:48:00.000-07:002011-10-04T12:10:25.502-07:00

Originally, I had intended to move on from Sidgwick's analysis of the negative and positive aspects of combination to Chapman's theory of the hours of labor. The later theory turns the old prejudice that union regulations are organized shirking on its head to reveal a compelling case of common pool resource management. I was going to anchor my discussion with reference to Chapman's historical

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-59766477555806223792011-10-01T15:20:00.000-07:002011-10-04T12:11:05.276-07:00

As Steven G. Medema suggested in The Hesitant Hand: Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas, there is more continuity than contradiction between Adam Smith's notion of a "system of natural liberty" wherein self-interest unintentionally promotes the public good, Cecil Pigou's neoclassical analysis of market failure as constituting a prima facie case for government intervention and

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-75543861880798402842011-09-28T05:44:00.000-07:002011-10-04T12:11:56.144-07:00

Although he provided only a perfunctory citation to S. J. Chapman, Pigou's analysis of the hours of labor followed closely five main points of the theory Chapman presented in 1909 in his presidential address to the Economics and Statistics section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and subsequently published in the Economic Journal as "Hours of Labour." In his article,

Sandwichmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-63473591095397195032011-09-27T05:39:00.000-07:002011-10-03T13:00:31.037-07:00

Coase argued that the traditional approach to the problem of social cost "tended to obscure the nature of the choice to be made." He cited the question posed by that approach as "one in which A inflicts harm on B and what has to be decided is: how should we restrain A?" Coase objected that the problem was a reciprocal one and the real question was "should A be allowed to harm B or should B be

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