A Thai court has ordered the dissolution of the reformist party which won the most seats and votes in last year’s election - but was blocked from forming a government.
The ruling also banned Move Forward’s charismatic, young former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and 10 other senior figures from politics for 10 years.
The verdict from the Constitutional Court was expected, after its ruling in January that Move Forward’s campaign promise to change royal defamation laws was unconstitutional.
Which dictator do you mean? The democracy movement and the June struggle was in 1987, 10 years before the general strike.
Also, neoliberal capitalism is very, very happy with right wing dictators because they love oppressing workers and lowering wages. Just look at Pinochet in Chile.
And again the June struggle was won by popular struggle, not market forces. The idea that the unions supported the dictator is a weird one too. Like, where are you getting that, and is there any evidence they weren’t just yellow unions approved by the dictator?
Even then I don’t know why you brought those things up. You just added a bunch of details and I guess assumed those details - some of which were very wrong - were somehow in support of some point, but you didn’t say what that point is.
And I don’t know why you think I’m talking about industrialisation when I talk about workers improving their lives. That is not at all what I’m talking about. And industrialisation isn’t a capitalist thing, they just happen to coincide in human history. We don’t have alternative Earths to test the idea, so crediting the gains of industrialisation to the market and capitalism is weird. You just put that out there completely unsupported.
That’s another thing neoliberal economists love to do, just blame all the problems of capitalism on unions and regulations, and credit every good thing that happens on the glorious invisible hand.
And since you understand a good amount of economics, perhaps you can tell me what is the scientific basis of supply & demand for instance? I’ve looked for this information and had people try to show me, but they’ve never actually shown it. It’s a fundamental part of economics so I’m told. What is the science behind it? The perfectly straight, perpendicular bisecting lines on an unscaled graph do not suggest any scientific basis to me, they suggest the aesthetics of science devoid of its substance. If you could disabuse me of this notion then perhaps I could move on from my current woeful ignorance on the matter.
And finally, you don’t think there’s any conspiracy around Epstein, fine. I bet it’s easy to maintain that idea when you just ignore all the evidence I gave you.
Which dictator do you mean? The democracy movement and the June struggle was in 1987, 10 years before the general strike.
My SK history is fuzzy, I’ll admit. I knew it was authoritarian up until recently (which is why the North had support), and started developing earlier. I searched the rest. If I misunderstood the exact dates my apologies.
Also, neoliberal capitalism is very, very happy with right wing dictators because they love oppressing workers and lowering wages. Just look at Pinochet in Chile.
Yup, no argument. I’m still team eat the rich.
Like, where are you getting that, and is there any evidence they weren’t just yellow unions approved by the dictator?
I’m sure that’s exactly what they were. No argument.
but you didn’t say what that point is.
The point I was defending there is just that tiger economies work based on trade. The early USSR achieved the same thing by importing a bunch of ready-made US factories, and working from there. The West obviously did it very slowly and painfully over a couple centuries, with no outside competition. Japan sounds like it might have been a mix of the former three. That covers every successful example of development I know of.
And I don’t know why you think I’m talking about industrialisation when I talk about workers improving their lives. That is not at all what I’m talking about.
I have trouble imagining a pre-industrial society that would beat the one we have for standard of living, so I think it’s pretty synonymous with development, which is what this tangent was about.
And industrialisation isn’t a capitalist thing, they just happen to coincide in human history. We don’t have alternative Earths to test the idea, so crediting the gains of industrialisation to the market and capitalism is weird. You just put that out there completely unsupported.
You’re right, there’s no alternative Earth to test. I suspect markets, “capitalist” or not, are the only practical way to do it, but that’s just my guess.
The perfectly straight, perpendicular bisecting lines on an unscaled graph do not suggest any scientific basis to me, they suggest the aesthetics of science devoid of its substance.
Yeah, it’s not supposed to be real, it’s the simplified “no friction in a vacuum” case. The theory still roughly works (and seems to hold empirically) as long as the system is convex. If it’s not, funny, bad things happen and you get Google, and market failure which roughly corresponds to enshittification. We had a whole historical period about breaking up monopolies, but unfortunately we’ve backtracked, especially when computers are involved. Politicians are mostly old and afraid of computers.
Have I linked the yardsale model yet? Hmm, yes, but not to you. Behold, the economics reason for mass inequality. To go back to my recurring theme, it’s dumb. The rich would much rather be called evil geniuses - a lot of them think of themselves that way - but they’re not even.
Okay, so I think we’re largely in agreement except for a little misunderstanding. I’m glad because that means you might be a little more receptive to some of the stuff I might share. I have more links but I’m writing this novella on my phone if you can believe it. I’ll share them later.
My criticism about the professional class being paid by the owning class to justify their wealth was specifically about orthodox economics, like the Chicago School who would literally construct studies to justify whatever you wanted if you paid for it. The yardsale model - that’s a great link by the way, the graph that emerges perfectly mirrors our actual economy - is an example of heterodox economics, which largely stands in opposition to orthodox economics. The opener to that page is very well written. It’ll do a better job than me.
Now, for an example of how completely divorced from reality orthodox economics is, the market convexity concept is perfect. The exceptions you mentioned about veblen and giffen goods aren’t the main problem with convexity. The simple problem of inelastic demand is a much bigger problem. This is all couched in extremely obfuscating language, those articles are impenetrable to anyone who isn’t steeped in economics language.
I assume you know what inelasticity is, it’s something for which demand doesn’t change with price, for instance things like shelter or food. So, to demystify the language, another term for “inelastic demand” is “need”. Basically, if you read between the lines even slightly, the founding, econ 101, highschool level principle of orthodox economics has been forced to admit that it doesn’t work for anything anybody actually needs. And then they go on insisting that this principle should govern our entire society. Got to keep that yardsale going.
Market convexity is an amalgamation of post-hoc justifications for why supply & demand is so hard to find in the real world. When I mentioned the perfectly straight, bisecting, perpendicular lines graph, you admitted that was just an illustration, and I agree, it is a doodle. I know it’s now in vogue to use slightly curved lines, but that’s just because economists are aware of how ridiculous the first illustration was and they put in just the slightest amount of extra effort to hide it.
When I’m asking for the science, let me ask you this: what data constructs the graph? Where did it originate? This is the question I’ve never had answered. Just literally the graph appearing in real world data, just one time.
See, when actual sciences want to “illustrate” a concept, sometimes they idealise, but they almost always have real data and real graphs to show. Their idealised lines pass through data points with error bars. Scientists work hard for their data, and they always, always show it off. Stress-strain curves, electron microscope images, star life-cycle data, red-shifting, animal population surveys, and on and on. Real data is complex and interesting and beautiful and scientists will show you their cool slide and say “you can see such-and-such feature here and this indicates…”, it’s great.
I have looked for the supply & demand version of this and can find nothing but hand-waving excuses.
Also, the convexity article talks about the Nobel Prize in Economics, which is wrongly named. It is the Nobel Memorial Prize. It was named after Nobel, because it’s not a Nobel prize, because the Nobel prize committee rejected the economics category because it isn’t a real science. Some Swiss bank then financed the wish.com version Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
I suspect this isn’t so hard for you to accept since you’ve already come so far in your understanding of heterodox economics. You still seem to have some respect for the orthodox schools, which is strange when you understand so much of where they have led us.
As for the Epstein thing, I don’t have any reason to believe that anything has changed. We know Epstein was part of the trafficking of minors, and absent any evidence about the state of that practice, the idea that removing two people from the network actually fundamentally altered anything seems hopelessly naive. I think the burden of proof lies on anyone who wants to claim the practice has been abolished.
My criticism about the professional class being paid by the owning class to justify their wealth was specifically about orthodox economics, like the Chicago School who would literally construct studies to justify whatever you wanted if you paid for it. The yardsale model - that’s a great link by the way, the graph that emerges perfectly mirrors our actual economy - is an example of heterodox economics, which largely stands in opposition to orthodox economics. The opener to that page is very well written. It’ll do a better job than me.
Heterodox economics includes crazy stuff like the modern Austrian school, too, so it’s not like it’s one thing. I believe and hope the mainstream will come around to the yardsale model eventually.
Yes, this is a great explainer. I’ve linked it far more than anything else on any subject. People need to know.
I assume you know what inelasticity is, it’s something for which demand doesn’t change with price, for instance things like shelter or food. So, to demystify the language, another term for “inelastic demand” is “need”. Basically, if you read between the lines even slightly, the founding, econ 101, highschool level principle of orthodox economics has been forced to admit that it doesn’t work for anything anybody actually needs. And then they go on insisting that this principle should govern our entire society. Got to keep that yardsale going.
There’s degrees of need, though. You need food, but, like, prison rations are technically medically sufficient, and people often waste food when they aren’t worried about starving. Most things that are bought and sold in the West are definitively beyond the bare minimum for survival. The only thing I can think of that actually has a measured price elasticity of zero is higher education.
However, because we have massive inequality, effective demand doesn’t reflect actual demand very well. That’s the source of evil here if you ask me.
Market convexity is an amalgamation of post-hoc justifications for why supply & demand is so hard to find in the real world
What do you mean by that, exactly? I’ve seen supply and demand play out plenty just in my personal life. Houses are in massive shortage here, and as a result they’re getting really expensive. On the other hand, it’s cheap to get scrap metal, despite there having been times when a big chunk of steel costed more than a house. When a crop fails it gets expensive and I buy less tomatoes or whatever. Conversely, I visit the clearance section all the time and buy stuff nobody wanted for cheap.
Relatedly, part of why I buy orthodox economics is that every time I have to budget out a project or fundraiser or something, I pretty much see it in action. There’s no free lunch; if there’s a productive human activity of some kind in demand, somebody else is doing it full time for a pretty normal salary. Already, in the current economic framework.
See, when actual sciences want to “illustrate” a concept, sometimes they idealise, but they almost always have real data and real graphs to show. Their idealised lines pass through data points with error bars. Scientists work hard for their data, and they always, always show it off. Stress-strain curves, electron microscope images, star life-cycle data, red-shifting, animal population surveys, and on and on. Real data is complex and interesting and beautiful and scientists will show you their cool slide and say “you can see such-and-such feature here and this indicates…”, it’s great.
Econometrics, it’s called econometrics.
You’re not going to get quite the quality of data that you can with a cylinder of C-103 in a press, because humans are complicated, but what I’ve seen looks clearer than what you’d get in, say, medicine.
When I’m asking for the science, let me ask you this: what data constructs the graph? Where did it originate? This is the question I’ve never had answered. Just literally the graph appearing in real world data, just one time.
Well, it’s cost acceptable per unit on one axis (for each party), and the total units on the market on the other. It’s hard to collect data far away from the middle because in practice, because in practice amount of goods on the market doesn’t stray too far from equilibrium in the first place. If you just want the measured slopes at the middle, here you go, you can go to the citations for support.
