• jon

    Posted 1311 days ago

  • I found Roemer's analysis of the different behavioral ethos between captalism and socialism as pretty interesting. I had heard of Nash equilibrium before thorugh computer science classes, but not applied to economics and how it is a fundamental concept in capitalism. Roemer challenges us to jump out of the narrow confines that capitalism has taught us to understand the world, and provide an alternative to this ethos of "going it alone."

    His focus on decentralization and markets is what makes this a good piece. He acknowleges that the planned socialist economies have largely failed in the 19th and 20th century, and that to be democratic socialists in the modern world, we have to understand that markets are probably an essential part of human nature (and they are very, very efficient).

    Efficiency is a huge focus of this article; he expalins that it is through efficiency that many capitalists argue against taxation and redistribution of wealth. Through his analysis, we see that it is true that these taxes are innefficient given the economic and political system we live in. But that doesn't mean it's bad overall. In fact, a socialist economy could be more effecient than the current one under the right factors. He notes that while pursuing our goals, we cannot throw out effeciency too much for moral factors, because an inefficient economy could cause more damage than unequal, albeit efficient economy.

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    Replies


    David replied 997 days ago

    So true! I thought this essay was fantastic. Markets are too intuitive to not be a natural property of the human world.