Buechner’s Objective Economics

[thomtg]

The table of contents that Stephen typed out is helpful. Thanks. I'll add the book to my Christmas list. Meanwhile, one item in the TOC caught my attention: Chapter 2 - Objective Value : Optional Values Are Objective Values.

What is an optional value? Is it conceived as opposed to "required value"? And if so, isn't that contrary to Objectivist ethics? As I understand the volitional nature of ethics, "optional" is a redundant tautology (like "human rights"); and "required" is a self-contradiction.

Now, perhaps I am jumping hastily. OPAR does mention "moral options" (323), but they are described in terms of degree, variety, possibility. But nowhere is there an implication that some values are optional. Something is either valuable, or else it isn't.

[merjet]

What is an optional value? Is it conceived as opposed to "required value"? And if so, isn't that contrary to Objectivist ethics?

I haven't read Buechner's book. But I suspect he uses "optional values" like Tara Smith did in her book Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist. You can look inside it online at Amazon. Smith may also have written about them in Viable Values, but the "look inside" feature for it at Amazon isn't working now and my copy is in storage.

[thomtg]

Thanks for the connection to Tara Smith's book, Merlin.

Smith's conception of "optional value" is not any better. Synonymous with "discretionary value", it is contrasted against "basic, universal value" (ARNE 27) or "fundamental value" (265) or "broader value" (274).

If a thing is a value (to somebody, to be gained for some purpose, etc.), then it is an instance of the concept VALUE. But on Smith's conception (and presumably Buechner's), that thing is an optional value AND not a nonoptional value. In other words, on Smith's view, there is no such concrete ~thing~ as a nonoptional value or "universal value" or "fundamental value" or "broader/est value"; yet at the same time, values are to be contrasted against the nonoptional. (See especially footnote, p. 190.) This is fuzzy division. I am beginning to think this notion of "optional value" fails Rand's Razor.

[Guyau]

Hi Thom,

By the name optional values, Buechner is referring to “values optional on the standard of the survival requirements of a rational being. Optional values are not required to live, but they do objectively support man’s life” (35). They take two forms: (1) “the concrete form in which we choose to gain objective values” and (2) “the relative proportions in which we choose to gain objective values” (35).

Buechner’s example of (1) is one’s choices at the grocery store. An example, my own example, of (2) would be one person’s choice to put money into owning a home (paying a mortgage, say) in contrast to another person’s choice to simply rent an apartment and spend his extra money on publishing a philosophy journal and buying lots of philosophy books.

Optional values are not subjective in the sense of being arbitrary creations of man’s mind. They are objective in Rand’s sense: serving rational-animal life. Whether one buys steak or salmon, one knows that they are nutrition, and one knows that either one will provide needed protein. Whether one makes mortgage payments or merely rents, one knows that they are both housing and that one can choose either to satisfy that need. The guy putting money into philosophy works is satisfying in one way the need of the mind to know more, which has its objective relations with other knowledge and life. Within boundaries various weightings that people give to various kinds of learning can be of objective value, in Buechner’s conception as I understand it.

Yes, Tara Smith also discussed a conception optional values in Viable Values (2000). The Index calls out pages 6, 99, 100–101, 127–28, 146, and 183.

Something’s being a value reflects its position relative to the end of an individual’s life. This distinguishes Rand’s view from that of [ethical] Rationalists, Intuitionists, and intrinsic value advocates who regard value as simply given or found, and from Contractarians and subjectivists, who regard value as an artifice. (6)

[Objective] values reflect facts about survival needs, and these are not a matter of convention or culture. One cannot alter the effects of honesty or justice in achieving life-furthering ends any more than one can substitute arsenic for orange juice without catastrophic results.

. . .

While value is objective, we should also realize that a range of different things can be objectively valuable to different individuals. For a thing to be valuable means that it promotes a person’s life. Many different things may bear this relation to a given individual, in various spheres of his activities and in varying magnitude. Some things will be values for everyone, while others will legitimately vary. (By “legitimately” I mean that their pursuit is consistent with the pursuit of life. Career choice can legitimately vary, for example.)

Moral values are the most fundamental values that apply for all human beings. They so apply because they are necessitated by our common human nature. (99–100).

I think it was a mistake to call such values optional. That suggests on the face of it that they are inconsequential for human life, which is false and not what is meant by the concept optional values. I would call such values variant objective values to contrast them to the invariant ones.

Thom, I read the note on page 190 of ARNE. It makes excellent sense and is expressed very nicely. The distinction between so-called optional values and non-optional ones is durable and fitting. Independence, for example, can take various forms and each will be an instance of independence. That does not mean that independence is ever not concrete.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tibor Machan 1975:

[Moral judgments] are about human beings as such, not as parents, professionals, Negroes, and the like. As the latter one can have traits and carry out actions that are open to moral appraisal, because in each he is, whatever else he is, a human being. Yet the moral judgment pertains to some action in view of the fact that he/she is a human being.

Why is this so? To answer we need to consider the issue of what function morality has, the role it plays in life. . . . (64–65)

Outside of rationality or, more appropriately, in consequence of one’s rationality, egoistic ethics would involve some more specific virtues, a hierarchy of principles usually called a moral code. This code would refer to such general principles of conduct as honesty, integrity, generosity, magnanimity, courage, honor, pride, independence, justice, and so on. (81)

. . .

The standard of moral judgment . . . [is] that choices and acts are good and right when they lead to success in living. . . . What then does it mean for someone to live his life well? . . .

The most straightforward answer to this question is that each person must identify what living well will be within his own situation. (80)

[thomtg]

Thanks, Stephen, for cross-checking the term "optional value" against "moral value" in Tara Smith's other book Viable Values. Beyond just thinking that the first term is misnamed, I now think the pair of concepts "optional value" and "moral value" are both invalid. And renaming the first to "variant value" doesn't help either.

The problem as I see it is that the things anybody pursues are concrete. They all differ in every detail. They all vary in every measurement. For example, you can categorize a dish of snails into escargot or into food. On Smith's view, this something, as food, is a nonoptional value, but as escargot, it is an optional value. Moreover, on this view, food is a moral value because it is universally needed by men, but escargot is something only some people want to eat and so isn't a moral value. "Moral values are the most fundamental values that apply for all human beings. They so apply because they are necessitated by our common human nature. (99–100)."

This is incoherent. On this view, reason supposedly is an invariant moral value that applies to all human beings. This divorces "reason" (and even "food") from its referents. Unless you count the whole Earth as one, there is no single concrete thing that is universally needed by men and is valued by all men. If so, then the only way to make sense of Smith's statement above is to interpret her to say that the concept "reason" is that which is valued by men, and that the concept "reason" per se is the moral value.

By contrast, a concrete is a value to someone whenever he deems it objectively to satisfy his needs and acts to gain it. Even reason follows this principle. And it is not "reason" per se but his unique, particular reasoning faculty, which varies in every detail from mine and from yours. And all these concrete things he values become thereby moral values if they sustain the particular concrete life which is his.

The incoherence in Smith's ARNE p. 190 footnote lies in her taking nonoptional values to be concretely real to be pursued by means of optional values. She is reifying abstractions. That is to say, on her account, you eat snails not because it's a value to you but because it's one of the optional means to acquire "food" which is a nonoptional value to you.

Finally, about the passage requiring this footnote, the analysis, about which movie being argued by a couple to go see in the evening, is not even correct. The application of Rand's principle against compromise is inapplicable here. More appropriately, the principle to use is the one against sacrifice. The movie you finally decide not to see (the one you originally preferred) is of a lesser value in relation to the relationship you have with your lover. Besides, once you don't choose a thing, anything whatever, it is no longer a value. So, for Smith to make it into an "optional value" as a matter for compromise is to turn it into intrinsic valuing.

[9thdoctor]

What I gather is chapter 1, or the introduction, is posted over yonder.

http://www.capitalis...-economics.html

Ever the troublemaker, I commented:

"Economics appeared in England during the Industrial Revolution"

What about the Physiocrats? There were plenty of schools of economic thought prior to Adam Smith (who was Scottish). "Laissez Faire" comes from the French, and for good reason.

[Selene]

The perfect scene combining one of the three (3) most beautiful women in the world, the best national anthem in the world and the ideal theme of freedom!

[9thdoctor]

one of the three (3) most beautiful women in the world

Do the other two (2) have names?

[Selene]

one of the three (3) most beautiful women in the world

Do the other two (2) have names?

Sophia Loren and due to my bias, I have to include a redhead, so Susan Haywood is the third. This is based on the time period of the Casablanca film.

Obviously, it is not a contemporary statement, although Sophia still makes the grade.

Adam

[Philip Coates]

> "Economics appeared in England during the Industrial Revolution" [ND, #31]

Not only is Buechner wrong (radically oversimplifying) in his history, he makes a basic error in his fundamental definitions:

" [1] Economics is the science that identifies the principles governing the origin and growth of wealth...[2] All other economic phenomena can be traced to exchange. Economics deals with the principles governing production [3] only in so far as the producer intends to sell his product. An economy consists of the total means of production and exchange (including people) in a geographical area, [4] integrated by prices...In other words, the function of economics is [5] to explain how an economy works, and thus results in the accumulation of wealth. " [numbering of points added]

QUIZ:

--Does anyone see anything that is wrong with this excerpt from the Intro to Buechner's "Objective Economics", a single mistake common to his -five- points?

--Can you name it in a sentence?

[James Heaps-Nelson]

> "Economics appeared in England during the Industrial Revolution" [ND, #31]

Not only is Buechner wrong (radically oversimplifying) in his history, he makes a basic error in his fundamental definitions:

" [1] Economics is the science that identifies the principles governing the origin and growth of wealth...[2] All other economic phenomena can be traced to exchange. Economics deals with the principles governing production [3] only in so far as the producer intends to sell his product. An economy consists of the total means of production and exchange (including people) in a geographical area, [4] integrated by prices...In other words, the function of economics is [5] to explain how an economy works, and thus results in the accumulation of wealth. " [numbering of points added]

QUIZ:

--Does anyone see anything that is wrong with this excerpt from the Intro to Buechner's "Objective Economics", a single mistake common to his -five- points?

--Can you name it in a sentence?

Buechner omits any mention of consumption or destruction of wealth in his characterization of the subject, thereby cherry-picking the definitions to include only that which he wishes to focus on.

[9thdoctor]

> "Economics appeared in England during the Industrial Revolution" [ND, #31]

Not only is Buechner wrong (radically oversimplifying) in his history, he makes a basic error in his fundamental definitions:

With a couple modifiers the statement I quoted would be fine. Swap out England with Britain (or the UK), and add “modern” to “economics”, something like that. I can’t imagine why he’d make a mistake like this, it’s like saying New Yorker Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind, when everyone (?) knows she was from Georgia and/or the South. Of course some Americans equate England with the UK, a mistake that a single conversation with a Welshman or a Scot (that is, with a true Scot) would cause one not to commit again.

[BaalChatzaf]

The perfect scene combining one of the three (3) most beautiful women in the world, the best national anthem in the world and the ideal theme of freedom!

I love that scene! I still get goose pimples from watching. Rick forgets he is a hardened cynic. Even Babette who was putting out for the Germans remembers she is French and becomes a patriot, once again; and that look on Elsa's face (played by Bergman) - hero worship. They don't make movies like that anymore. Damn!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Philip Coates]

> Buechner omits any mention of consumption or destruction of wealth [JHN, #36]

Yes, if you're going to make wealth central, you certainly have to talk about consumption at least. But there is actually a deeper, more fundamental mistake, one that appears in all -five- of the points I numbered.

You could call it an epistemological problem. (Embarrassing for an Objectivist intellectual and academic.)

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Answer to the "Quiz"

" [1] Economics is the science that identifies the principles governing the origin and growth of wealth...[2] All other economic phenomena can be traced to exchange. Economics deals with the principles governing production [3] only in so far as the producer intends to sell his product. An economy consists of the total means of production and exchange (including people) in a geographical area, [4] integrated by prices...In other words, the function of economics is [5] to explain how an economy works, and thus results in the accumulation of wealth. " [numbering of points added]

--Does anyone see anything wrong with this excerpt from the Intro to Buechner's "Objective Economics", a single mistake common to his -five- points?

--Can you name it in a sentence?

,,,,,,,,,,,

No one other than Jim even attempted to answer the above two questions. Wow! Maybe the word 'epistemological' scared the snark specialists ( ND, J, Adam, and Brant -- the Four "Mouseketeers") away? - Or issues of logic and poor definition are not important or what interests them particularly?

Awww, poor babies.... :-)

ANSWER:

Jim was on the right track when he mentioned "cherry-picking". Here is the single sentence: All five of Nort Buechner's statements and definitions are too narrow, excluding important parts of the science. Look at them one at a time:

<> "[1] Economics is the science that identifies the principles governing the origin and growth of wealth" ---> As Jim points out this is incomplete even regarding wealth. But wealth is too narrow as the object of study. Wealth is one extreme condition of goods and services, an abundance of them. Economics is also about a poverty or scarcity of them -- and its source and consequences. Here is a better - broader and more objective - definition from Wikipedia:

" Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services."

<> "[2] All other economic phenomena can be traced to exchange." ---> No they can't. What about a command economy, socialism, in which things are taken away and there is no exchange involved? Mises, Hayek, etc. wrote entire books about the economics of those systems.

<> "Economics deals with the principles governing production [3] only in so far as the producer intends to sell his product. " ---> See the example of socialism I just mentioned, or a commune, or a kibbutz. There is production and redistribution but not necessarily sale. And what do you call the social science which would study what happens to incentives when people produce and have their products seized?

<> "An economy consists of the total means of production and exchange (including people) in a geographical area, [4] integrated by prices." ---> Same mistake of narrowness of concept. He's trying to *define out of existence* all economies which are not essentially or purely market economies. The integrative function of the pricing system is exactly what was missing in the Soviet Union's economy and caused the impossibility of economic calculation Mises wrote about and brought about scarcities, starvation, poverty, and corruption: If that's not all part of economics, I don't know what is.

<> " the function of economics is [5] to explain how an economy works, and thus results in the accumulation of wealth." ---> Not exclusively. Its function is very importantly also to how explain how some economies work poorly to cause the loss of wealth, scarcity, corruption, poverty, starvation.

BOTTOM LINE:

Dr. Buechner is doing something akin to what some people do with art: Saying that Picasso is "not art". That way you don't have to explain what's wrong with it, since it doesn't even fall into your category. (Or saying that Quantum Mechanics is "not physics" as opposed to saying you disagree with its fundamental premises.) If you say that a socialist system is not an economic system or that home economics is not because it doesn't involve a pricing system, then you define them out of the category of things to be studied seriously.

Bad way to start a comprehensive book that you want to have taken seriously!

It's acutely embarrassing for an Objectivist to drop objectivity -- in his initial definitions of the scope of what he is about to study.

[9thdoctor]

No one other than Jim even attempted to answer the above two questions. Wow! Maybe the word 'epistemological' scared the snark specialists ( ND, J, Adam, and Brant -- the Four "Mouseketeers") away? - Or issues of logic and poor definition are not important or what interests them particularly?

Awww, poor babies.... :-)

Maybe no one is interested in playing your games?

[Selene]

Mr. Coates:

Perhaps you did not get the memo.

Perhaps you have not noticed that since your recent Douglas MacArthur impersonation, I have not commented, nor engaged you in any discourse.

I would respectfully request that you recognize that fact.

Yours for a free society,

Adam

[thomtg]

Here is the single sentence: All five of Nort Buechner's statements and definitions are too narrow, excluding important parts of the science. Look at them one at a time:

...

BOTTOM LINE:

Dr. Buechner is doing something akin to what some people do with art: Saying that Picasso is "not art". That way you don't have to explain what's wrong with it, since it doesn't even fall into your category. (Or saying that Quantum Mechanics is "not physics" as opposed to saying you disagree with its fundamental premises.) If you say that a socialist system is not an economic system or that home economics is not because it doesn't involve a pricing system, then you define them out of the category of things to be studied seriously.

I don't see much to fault Buechner's definition of economics. If I must, I would say it is too wordy. Compare it to George Reisman's definition: "economics is the science that studies the production of wealth under a system of division of labor." (CATOE 15b)

A definition in my view should only highlight the positive characteristics of the referents (if it is a positive concept). It should not bring in the abnormal, the fringe, the disputed. It should not zero in on the penguin at the expense of the pigeon in the everyday context. I would prefer understanding the core concept first before venturing to examine the peculiar cases.

In this light, Buechner's introduction for the reader is a good one.

[Philip Coates]

1. > A definition in my view should only highlight the positive characteristics of the referents (if it is a positive concept). It should not bring in the abnormal, the fringe, the disputed.

Thom, there is nothing disputed about the fact that the study of socialism and non-market or non-wealth creating systems is part of economics and therefore a broad enough definition must allow them to be included. Nor are those systems abnormal historically.

2. > I would prefer understanding the core concept first before venturing to examine the peculiar cases.

You're conflating the -order- in which one studies the topics or parts of a science with the -definition- of an entire discipline.

3. > A definition...should not zero in on the penguin at the expense of the pigeon in the everyday context.

A definition doesn't "zero in" on the most typical or most interesting unit in a classification; it describes what does or does not fall within the category, leaving aside what is positive or negative, typical or atypical, pleasant or repugnant. It is a *purely scientific* first step. { You don't like what falls under the definition? Tough titties. :-) }

I'm not quite sure what your belief is about including penguins and pigeons in the same taxonomy. Since they are birds, a definition of birds -must- include them as well as pigeons, no matter how "peculiar" or "abnormal" they might be. If they were mammals, then the definition of birds would have to exclude them.

Simple as that.

[Brant Gaede]

No one other than Jim even attempted to answer the above two questions. Wow! Maybe the word 'epistemological' scared the snark specialists ( ND, J, Adam, and Brant -- the Four "Mouseketeers") away? - Or issues of logic and poor definition are not important or what interests them particularly?

Awww, poor babies.... :-)

Maybe no one is interested in playing your games?

Phil, you're on my "ignore" list, that's all.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Worthwhile criticisms of Northrup Buechner’s Objective Economics (a, b) are put forward by Richard Salsman (a, b) in a hostile review in The Objective Standard, Spring 2012. Last summer at OCON 2011, Prof. Buechner was present, and his book was being sold (like hotcakes) independently of the ARI Bookstore, though in the same room.* Mr. Salsman will be an instructor at OCON 2012.*

“The Law of Supply and Demand” – Northrup Buechner (2012)

~~ I ~ II ~ III ~ IV ~ V ~ VI ~ VII ~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ninth, regarding #48:

Buechner's book cites Peikoff's two books. The review by Salsman closes with praise for Chapter 11 of OPAR as "the best account of how Ayn Rand's philosophy undergirds and further integrates economics including the objectivity of production, of prices, of profits, and . . . the law of supply and demand" (p.88).

Buechner and Salsman writing in this area represent themselves as consistent with and rightly informed by pertinent writings of Rand and secondarily by pertinent writings of Peikoff. Salsman’s review makes the criticisms of Buechner’s book that you would expect from most any free market economist today. To these he adds criticisms of Buechner’s embrace and application of Rand’s ideas in the book. Salsman makes small (zero) of the book’s positive original contributions, then recommends the chapter in OPAR.

The genuine value of the review, as of the book, lies in its details on economics and Rand’s value theory and her understanding of capitalism.

[merjet]

Here is part of Salman's review.

[9thdoctor]

Here is part of Salman's review.

Ouch. Good thing for Salsman that the book isn't based on any Peikoff lectures!

[Mark]

To go off on a tangent, 3 February 1996 Frank Forman reminisced on alt.philosophy.objectivism about his graduate student days in the 1960s at the University of Virginia, where he studied economics. Fellow economics students were Northup Buechner and John Ridpath. He makes out Buechner to be some kind of nut. There’s a copy here: http://www.nizkor.or.../my-early-years

He rambles but the main part is where Ridpath ran for the presidency of the university’s John Randolph Society against Forman’s friend Tom Ireland:

"During the election, Buechner got up and said, roughly, ‘Ireland knows Whitaker [another graduate student], who is a Nazi. Whitaker says he would shoot [u.S.] President Johnson if doing so would further his Nazi aims. Now Ireland said he would stop Whitaker from shooting Johnson, if able to do so. But I don’t believe Ireland would in fact stop Whitaker. Therefore, vote for Ridpath.’ ... As you might imagine, Ireland won the election. ... Meanwhile one of [the] Objectivists told the [u.S.] Secret Service of an assassination plot against Johnson. They duly came to investigate at the economics department ..."

And that almost derailed Forman’s career. He ends:

"[That’s] some history you’re unlikely to get from any other source. I doubt either Ridpath or Buechner even remember me today, and it is highly unlikely that they tried to get [Dean] Yeager to keep me from entering graduate school. ...

"I open up this thread to a discussion of the morality, and fundamental decency, of any ‘Objectivist’ who would call up the Secret Service in a case like this.

"Or is it that, when it comes to Objectivism, the end justifies the means?"

Who were these Objectivists? Forman mentions only Ridpath and Buechner. Does he think one of them sicced the U.S. Secret Service on Whitaker and Ireland, which adversely affected himself though that wasn’t their intention? I emailed him at his current address, not hard to find by searching (he’s now retired after 26 or so years of parasitism at the U.S. Department of Education: linkedin.com/in/frankforman), but he didn’t respond.