General

Re: The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

Ancap66 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 03:56:17 GMT

Excellent point. I'd like to offer more analysis to your analysis, but really I agree with everything you said. Moreover, I don't think a single tree in any "national park" deserves to remain standing, as long as a single person is in dire financial straits. If people still want to "experience nature", then obviously the market will supply that if they are willing to pay the price.

I'm considering whether analogies are really all that helpful, or whether they (sometimes purposefully) obfuscate the actual point being made.

Re: The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

The Texas Trigger — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:51:16 GMT

I had, for a long time, often questioned whether or not an ecosystem is a good analogy for an economy (their prefix suggests it might), however I do not think it is.

Now, to clarify, while I would say that Wheylous' points are certainly valid, I do not think that they, in and of themselves, necessarily refute the analogy. This is mainly because metaphors and analogies are usually supposed to simplify an issue in order to extrapolate the primary moral, lesson, or assumption from what the analogy is trying to explain. This is to make the point of an issue easier to understand for the person you propose the metaphor or analogy to.

For instance, I could make the analogy that "a pet dog is like a really non-judgmental, super trusting, super loyal person. Lock him and your wife up in a trunk for two hours, and when you come back, see which one is happy to see you." To which Wheylous could reply, "except a dog does not have logic, reason, or a memory long enough to remember that you put him there" (I don't know if they do or not), but you see, the point is that dogs are extremely loyal compared to people. Their relative reason is not the issue; their loyalty is.

So, Whelous, while your points are true, they do not, in and of themselves, debunk the analogy as valid.

As a side note, supposedly there have been apes who have stored up food in order to spend time to carve hammers out of rocks to use as weapons and tools to open nuts and fruits; at least I was told this in a thread I started about animals and action that you (Wheylous) commented on a few months ago. I don’t have sources or know if it is true.

Now, back to the analogy. Let's say that you go ahead and propose this analogy to a non-Libertarian. You say to this person, "the economy is as delicate as an ecosystem. Any intervention into that ecosystem, like, say...removing the predators (wolves, foxes, etc.) will have disastrous consequences for the ecosystem. Without the wolves, there will be nothing to keep the elk from overpopulating, thus driving out the sheep and deer, which trample the riverbanks, which...causes X, which Causes Y, which causes the whole system to malfunction, killing many animals, resulting in earlier than natural extinction (at least in the area). Well, the market is no different. For instance, if you artificially pump money into the economy, it results in inflation, which results in...(Austrian Business Cycle Theory). Therefore, you see that intervention into the free-market is bad just like intervention into an ecosystem is bad."

Having set up this scene, this brings me to what I imagine many will reply with:

"But don't Libertarians treat the ecosystem as a resource to be tapped into for private profit by individuals in the free-market?" What the person is trying to imply with this question is that, in their opinion, you must admit one of three things.

Either you are:

(1) an evil hypocrite,

(2) a short-sighted fool, or

(3) Intellectually dishonest

Here is why they will think one of these three things:

(1*) If you believe your own analogy (and the assertions made by that analogy) to be valid, then you are an evil hypocrite because:

(a) You have acknowledged that intervention into an ecosystem is damaging to that ecosystem, yet

(b) as a Libertarian, you believe that it is ok for the market to intervene into the ecosystem because ecosystems are someone’s property, which is simply a resource that the owning individual has a right to tap into for private gain. However,

Conversely, if you do not believe your own analogy (and the assertions made by that analogy) to be valid, then you are:

(2*) at best, a shortsighted fool who used an analogy that didn’t conform to his own ideological convictions, and only after presenting the analogy did you realize that you believe two things:

(a) It’s ok to intervene into an ecosystem, but

(b) It’s not ok to intervene into an economy…oops

And this analogy only half conforms to these two beliefs.

(3*) or, at worst, you are intellectually dishonest for attempting to use an analogy you do not believe to be valid in the first place. You are a scoundrel for attempting to persuade this person using cheap appeals to his/her dearly cherished personal pathos.

So, where does this leave us? I don’t know with any great deal of certainty.

You could say “Well, private individuals will take better care of the environment than the state will. Just look at that one case of the state-park employees removing the predators.” But still, as Libertarians we do favor intervention into the environment for the mining of resources, the study of animals, the hunting and raising of animals for cattle and livestock, and a multitude of other reasons. In fact, our very ability to improve our lot in life hinges upon our ability to exact scarce resources from the environment and make them our own. This may not necessarily mean that we are causing the extinction of species by screwing up ecosystems, but we are, in no uncertain terms, intervening into the environment, which includes intervening in all kinds of ecosystems in all sorts of ways.

Not only that, but as believers in private property rights, we also believe that, should a man come to own a large piece of property containing an entire ecosystem, he has the full right to intervene into that system, and he also has the right, however unlikely it may be, to totally ruin that ecosystem intentionally, so long as he is not aggressing against anyone else (any human being).

So, I do think that it would be intellectually dishonest for us to make this analogy. While intervention into an ecosystem does not necessarily mean that we are ruining it or damaging it, this fact is precisely why this analogy might not be a good one; because to make it, we must equivocate intervention into an ecosystem with intervention into an economy as harmful. There is no good state intervention into an economy, however, there are certainly good and reasonable interventions into an ecosystem.

I suppose, however, that one might be able to validly assert that there is good intervention into a free-market; namely the intervention of voluntary individuals acting in that economy. This is where terms and their definitions become important. If my making a voluntary transaction in the free-market is intervention in that market, then it could be said that there is such a thing as beneficial intervention in the free-market, rendering the analogy of the ecosystem valid as well. However, I have never heard the term ‘intervention’ used in this way, and I think ‘intervention’, in the economic sense of the word, implies a coercively forceful and uninvited thrusting of oneself into the economy in order to influence economic events to deviate from what would have occurred absent this forceful thrusting (think Bastiat’s seen and unseen).

Anyway, I hope that my points were clear. It was a bit difficult to format this answer but I tried to make it as straight forward as possible. I would love to hear what you guys think about my analysis. I think it is an interesting question, and one I have thought about a lot over the years.

Re: The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

Bert — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:48:33 GMT

Speaking of apes, I watched something on monkey's, and how a younger child couldn't crack nuts, he watched his elders use rocks to crack them open while he was using wood. It eventually clicked, and he upgraded to a rock.

Re: The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

Wheylous — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:37:44 GMT

I never touched on time preferences. I said "investment of anything besides their time" exactly because I was thinking of animals saving for the winter. What I meant was that I haven't heard of animals storing resources and then trading them with each other for various services, say, or using saved resources so that they can produce higher-order capital. In fact, I think that if I saw animals doing that I might actually consider conferring rights upon them. If I see an animal store food so that it can dedicate two weeks to a project that prevents it from doing its normal hunting (say, creating some sort of net for catching fish), I think I would gladly give it rights. For example, an ape which stores food so that it can spend three days making a fishing net or a trap for fish. And then if I see this ape trade this fishing net for something else it wants I would strongly consider respecting their property rights.

Re: The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

Bert — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:20:14 GMT

investment of anything besides their time.

I think that animals have more complex time preferences than we think they do. I watched a documentary on Alaskan wilderness and the time preferences of the differents animals need for food, and certain animals accumulation/saving of food for winter. They all vary, and at the sime time are going to contrast (or clash) with one another, especially with animals who's relation in the food chain is more direct than indirect to one another - but it works.

Re: The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

Wheylous — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:10:21 GMT

There are similar dynamics at work, but we need to remember that human action is purposeful behavior that centers on much more complex resource allocation problems, entrepreneurship, and decision-making than animals ever make. Consider the fact, for example, that most animals do not have capital. Furthermore, I have never heard of an animal ever doing any investment of anything besides their time.

The economy as an ecosystem (and other analogies)

Ancap66 — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 05:37:43 GMT

I read this under the Libertarian Party's proposal for the environment:

Even our national parks are not immune from abuse. Yellowstone's Park Service once encouraged employees to trap predators (e.g., wolves, fox, etc.) so that the hoofed mammals favored by visitors would flourish. Not surprisingly, the ecological balance was upset. The larger elk drove out the deer and sheep, trampled the riverbanks, and destroyed beaver habitat. Without the beavers, the water fowl, mink, otter, and trout were threatened. Without the trout or the shrubs and berries that once lined the riverbanks, grizzlies began to endanger park visitors in their search for food. As a result, park officials had to remove the bears and have started bringing back the wolves.

http://www.lp.org/issues/environment

This excerpt is reminiscent of how a relatively small government intervention (with the best of intentions) can have widespread repercussions for the market as a whole. What do you think of using the ecosystem as an analogy for an economy? The video Spontaneous Order does this briefly, but mainly focuses on the benefits of competition between cells in the human body. These naturalistic analogies seem to show the delicacy of the market, relative to the bludgeoning hand of the state. However, I'm not sure it is good enough to illustrate demand and supply.

For that, many (modern) liberals understand that the devastating consequences of drug prohibition are the result of interfering with demand and supply. It would be great if LearnLiberty did a video that applied the liberal understanding of drug prohibition to every other part of the economy.