I'm just wondering whether people write their own theories, and what you do once you've written them (assuming non-academic setting)?
1. Yes
2. Nothing.
I write to organize my own thoughts and improve my own self awareness. I am a man motivated by seeking to understand truth. In other words I do it for my own self satisfaction not for economic or social gains found in activities like publishing or teaching.
I wonder if you'd want to share with me? I've written my own stuff, and I've wanted to discuss with other people serious enough to write down their own ideas.
If you have an economic theory of some kind, you should make a thread and it will be refuted or discussed. I think that is what the forums are for :D
Ok, here's one I wrote
http://goo.gl/eSZZx
Cool. I was just thinking about this subject when I was taking my morning shower today. I think you have some unsupported/able assertions such as: "an inheritance of $40,000 to two children isn’t as beneficial as $30,000 to one." Even though I think I agree with the direction you're thinking, I don't it's convincing if you just assert it that way.
Since we're on the topic, let me expand on it a bit.
1) The State as cuckold par excellence. The cuckold is a bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds - they are parasitic on the host bird species which inadvertently raise cuckold offspring. The term cuckoldry in humans refers to the surreptitious impregnation of a woman who is receiving material wealth from another man (usually her husband).
In redistributing wealth (primarily to itself), the State is the cuckold par excellence. The genetic lines of net tax recipients are promoted at the expense of the genetic lines of net tax victims. This expresses itself in two ways. First, within each generation, the reproductive success of the parasites as a group is greater than it otherwise would have been. Taken individually, this increased reproductive success can take the form of illegitimate children, multiple families and so on. Second, between generations, the genetic lines of the parasites are better preserved. The queen of England can easily trace her genetic line back over 1,000 years. I suspect (but don't know of any studies on this) that most men alive 1,000 years ago did not pass on their genes to the present day.
2) Polygamy as the "private property" solution to cuckoldry; monogamy is reproductive communism. It is simply human nature that more wealth and power translates to more sex. This fact is sexually asymmetric - it matters primarily for men since a wealthy man can attain many times more reproductive success than a poor man (who may achieve no reproductive success at all) but a wealthy woman will only be marginally more reproductive than a poor woman.
Monogamy is a social norm which can be translated in chauvinistic terms to: "One woman per man, esp. as it relates to reproduction." Monogamy is what I call "sexual communism" or "reproductive communism." Like economic communism, there has never really ever been a monogamous society. Human nature is inherently polygynous.
But sexual envy sells well - even better than economic envy. You can own as many cars and houses as you like but the idea of a man having children with multiple women - particularly if he is doing it in parallel - is considered disgusting behavior; it is one of the few sexual arrangements which is still prohibited in basically the entirety of all supposedly "enlightened" nations like the US/UK/Europe/etc. De facto polygamy (divorce/remarriage) is severely punished by divorce law through economic means (onerous levels of child support/alimony/etc.) and only the truly wealthy can afford to manage the economic impact of a divorce without coming to financial ruin.
Open polygamy permits wealthy men to reproduce with multiple women while avoiding the nonsense of mistresses, secret second families, and so on. For example, the Ospedali in Renaissance Italy functioned as child rearing centers for the illegitimate offspring of the rich and powerful. The magnificence of the Ospedali should give you an idea of just how much resources went into these children whose existence was essentially secret.
3) Male primogeniture/family loyalty as the primary defining feature of the wealthy and powerful. What makes the "Elites" elite? I think there is one feature that they all hold in common that "the masses" generally do not have: family loyalty. Along with family loyalty, male primogeniture (eldest male inherits the entire Estate from his father) is another defining feature of the Elites. In fact, I believe you can predict the relative strength and longevity of royal/noble families based on the type of inheritance they practice. Those that practice some other form of proportional inheritance or permit females to inherit the Estate do not last as long as those who practice strict male primogeniture.
I believe we can explain this praxeologically. In the first place, women naturally have higher time-preference than men. This means that a family which only permits male heirs will have a more "long-range" view than a family which permits and has female heirs. Second, a family which keeps the entire Estate in the hands of a single-decision maker (the oldest male) will make more rational choices regarding the preservation and expansion of its wealth because most the costs and benefits accrue to a single line of heirs. Such arrangements create a form of "family socialism" where the patriarch is essentially responsible for the care of the entire extended family.
Amazingly, you will find that the law is quite hostile to male primogeniture. Only those with enough wealth to evade the laws on estate taxes and enforce their family inheritance policies outside of the national courts can even practice this form of inheritance. The rest of us are stuck with whatever the revenue bureaus and the courts impose on us.
Clayton -
Hi Clayton thanks for the reply. In regards to family lines, you're right if you try to trace at the individual level there are indeed externalities, like estate taxes or genetic relation. However, in the big pictures, I don't think it really matters. For example, let's say I have a society where there is no intergenerational transfer of wealth, then regardless of the tranference of wealth to the future, there is none. While if there is lineage, even is some is being drained, as long as in the end there is a positive increase per capita, then I would say the economy as a whole is growing. I'm glad you put so much thought on the reproduction aspect, because the underyling reason to a positive lineage would be the parental instinct. Therefore, I've always felt the strength of the parental instinct and economic growth tighly interwoven.
I use to write my own economic theories but then I found out about the Austrian School. I was disappointed that a group of people beat me to the same idea (economics should be done by deductive reasoning) and estatic that a group of people had the same ideas.