What's Wrong With American Business Culture And The Economy?

[frunk]

A discipline with predictive power is a science; a discipline that creates narratives is a humanity.  Economics has predictive power, ergo it is a science.

Of course many disciplines combine the two.  I'm thinking of political science in particular.

It is the fledgling attempts at a science, roughly equivalent to pre-Newtonian Physics, but it doesn't have close to the predictive power of the hard sciences.  Physics, Chemistry, Biology, even Geology all have a lot more decimal places than the "order of magnitude" predictive power of Economics.  I'd call it closer to Political Science than any of the above.

[Syt]

I do not presume that.  I presume that an employee is free to dispose of his time and labor as he sees fit.

In theory, yes. He can become a vagrant without job, too.

Still, employers have more leverage over employees than vice versa.

[Admiral Yi]

I merely don't think that corporations have an evident self-interest as DGuller stated and that there are more relevant stakeholders to a corporation than just the shareholders.

Well sure.  And capital is a stakeholder in employee decisions, and capital and labor are both stakeholders in customer decisions.  Everybody is a stakeholder in everything.

[DGuller]

Your comment indicated that Ford's philosophy "didn't work", when in fact it most clearly did. You based your comment on an incomplete assessment of economic value.

That would've been a really interesting point to expound upon.    Beyond the "Lol, you idiot, you so, so dumb. ", that is.

[fhdz]

A discipline with predictive power is a science; a discipline that creates narratives is a humanity.  Economics has predictive power, ergo it is a science.

Of course many disciplines combine the two.  I'm thinking of political science in particular.

It is the fledgling attempts at a science, roughly equivalent to pre-Newtonian Physics, but it doesn't have close to the predictive power of the hard sciences.  Physics, Chemistry, Biology, even Geology all have a lot more decimal places than the "order of magnitude" predictive power of Economics.  I'd call it closer to Political Science than any of the above.

Especially macroeconomics.

[Admiral Yi]

It is the fledgling attempts at a science, roughly equivalent to pre-Newtonian Physics, but it doesn't have close to the predictive power of the hard sciences.  Physics, Chemistry, Biology, even Geology all have a lot more decimal places than the "order of magnitude" predictive power of Economics.  I'd call it closer to Political Science than any of the above.

Totally agree that it doesn't have the precision of the hard sciences, but i argue that that is a function of the field being studied (human behavior) rather than a limitation of the discipline.  Humans have wills and idiosincracies (sp?) and irrationalities that will never be captured 100% by cause and effect models.

[Zanza]

I merely don't think that corporations have an evident self-interest as DGuller stated and that there are more relevant stakeholders to a corporation than just the shareholders.

Well sure.  And capital is a stakeholder in employee decisions, and capital and labor are both stakeholders in customer decisions.  Everybody is a stakeholder in everything.

Yes. Now we just need to define how we want each group of stakeholders to participate in corporate governance. I don't see it as evident that shareholders should be the only stakeholders participating in that.

[DGuller]

It is the fledgling attempts at a science, roughly equivalent to pre-Newtonian Physics, but it doesn't have close to the predictive power of the hard sciences.  Physics, Chemistry, Biology, even Geology all have a lot more decimal places than the "order of magnitude" predictive power of Economics.  I'd call it closer to Political Science than any of the above.

Totally agree that it doesn't have the precision of the hard sciences, but i argue that that is a function of the field being studied (human behavior) rather than a limitation of the discipline.  Humans have wills and idiosincracies (sp?) and irrationalities that will never be captured 100% by cause and effect models.

It's also a function of the fact that politics are intertwined with this science.  Astronomy was pretty hard to get right as well when it had a political side to it.

[frunk]

Totally agree that it doesn't have the precision of the hard sciences, but i argue that that is a function of the field being studied (human behavior) rather than a limitation of the discipline.  Humans have wills and idiosincracies (sp?) and irrationalities that will never be captured 100% by cause and effect models.

That explains its inaccuracies, it doesn't explain why we should put much trust in it.

[DGuller]

I merely don't think that corporations have an evident self-interest as DGuller stated and that there are more relevant stakeholders to a corporation than just the shareholders.

Well sure.  And capital is a stakeholder in employee decisions, and capital and labor are both stakeholders in customer decisions.  Everybody is a stakeholder in everything.

Yes. Now we just need to define how we want each group of stakeholders to participate in corporate governance. I don't see it as evident that shareholders should be the only stakeholders participating in that.

Help me pin down your position here.  Would your argument still hold if instead of a corporation, you had a really large partnership with no limited liability?  Are employees the steakholders with a vote because they're citizens of a country that grants a limited liability status to the corporation, or is it simply because they're employed by said company?

[Valmy]

Zanza:  labor can join or walk away at will.

Well capital can also join or walk away at will if they do not like the setup.

[Admiral Yi]

Yes. Now we just need to define how we want each group of stakeholders to participate in corporate governance. I don't see it as evident that shareholders should be the only stakeholders participating in that.

If you agree that everyone has a stake in everyone else, and that stakholderdom is what entitles a say in decisions, why is it only corporate decisions that you treat this way?  Why don't stakeholders get a voice in the decisions of employees and customers as well?

[Admiral Yi]

Well capital can also join or walk away at will if they do not like the setup.

Sure.  And who gets to decide if it joins or walks away.

[fhdz]

It is the fledgling attempts at a science, roughly equivalent to pre-Newtonian Physics, but it doesn't have close to the predictive power of the hard sciences.  Physics, Chemistry, Biology, even Geology all have a lot more decimal places than the "order of magnitude" predictive power of Economics.  I'd call it closer to Political Science than any of the above.

Totally agree that it doesn't have the precision of the hard sciences, but i argue that that is a function of the field being studied (human behavior) rather than a limitation of the discipline.  Humans have wills and idiosincracies (sp?) and irrationalities that will never be captured 100% by cause and effect models.

It's also a function of the fact that politics are intertwined with this science.  Astronomy was pretty hard to get right as well when it had a political side to it.

Astronomy doesn't really have the same kind of impact on the lives of human beings as economics does. It also contains no choice, whereas in economics one can choose what is important and make one's decisions accordingly. 

[fhdz]

Totally agree that it doesn't have the precision of the hard sciences, but i argue that that is a function of the field being studied (human behavior) rather than a limitation of the discipline.  Humans have wills and idiosincracies (sp?) and irrationalities that will never be captured 100% by cause and effect models.

That's also precisely why there's a lot more narrative being constructed in economics than true scientific prediction. There's certainly a lot more narrative vs. prediction than a lot of economists and risk professionals would like to admit.