Re: [at-l] Taking you to the Austrian School (was: Jokes)

> Thomas McGinnis wrote:
>
> > Well, with Trailmixup's response, and noticing "Mises.org"
> > and "Austrian School" (I'm a fan of Ludwig von Mises), I
> > figured I'd take a peek. What I found was a polemic of
> > Austrian School economics with an injection of unadulterated
> > editorial/personal preference. The writer writes an analysis
> > assailing gender/wage differences, and does a credible job
> > (assuming no abuse of statistics) until he gets to the following:
>
> > "It should also not surprise anyone that employers take these
> > (workers' family) responsibilities into account when deciding
> > to hire someone. An employer rarely hires anyone for a day. The
> > employer begins a relationship with that worker, often putting
> > substantial resources into training his [sic] new recruit. He
> > [sic] may be less likely to hire a woman to fill a crucial
> > position that may require substantial training expenditures,
> > recognizing that the woman may quit whenever she has children.
> > This is even more true now that the government has saddled firms
> > with mandated family leave regulations...Employers and employees
> > are merely recognizing this fact of nature: women and men are not
> > equal in the sense of being identical. They are different and
> > have different comparative advantages when it comes to work
> > outside the home."
>
> > Now, the Ludwig von Mises that I knew fled Nazi persecution
> > in 1940, teaching the evils of big government at NYU through
> > 1969. He would not cotton very well to the unadulterated
> > prejudice evidenced in the paragraph above. This is not to
> > argue the sense or nonsense of the history-based *opinion*
> > voiced above, but only to observe that, *going forward*, any
> > exposure to employer/employee difficulties are properly handled
> > by a CONTRACT [which routinely handles such things], and NOT
> > by prejudice ("pre" - "judging" ¯ judging BEFORE facts). For
> > example, an employer might address the fact that ANY employee
> > (regardless of gender)  might quit before returns from training
> > are gained by the firm, by requiring repayment of (properly
> > accounted for) training dollars, or by withholding employer-
> > subsidized training benefits for some reasonable period which
> > assures the firm of reward for the expense. Done all the time,
> > no big government, no heavy command/control regulations, just
> > a contract, with a simple regulation which recognizes that ANY
> > market works better when non-market frictions (like gender
> > biases) which have NOTHING to do with job performance, are
> > kept to a minimum.
>
> > Prejudice, whether from historical, aggregate gender/career
> > differences, sexual orientation differences, color of skin,
> > and I would argue, throughhiker employment/lifestyle choices,
> > have no *proper* role in an employer's assessment of a potential
> > employee, because such biases have no role in predicting how
> > *this* employee will perform for the firm *going forward*. The
> > fallacy comes, as Saunterer noted, in applying the historical
> > (thus, statistical) performance of a group, to predict the future
> > (thus, forecasted) performance of an individual. Look over the
> > past century: should American blacks, Indians, immigrants of
> > recent vintage, or women, be "saved" from the trouble of
> > mainstream schooling because, well, they just haven't done
> > well in the past, they're poor, they don't speak English good
> > [sic], or because their Momma never held a job? So we're ALL
> > to be locked into the paths of our statistical forebears,
> > according to whatever categories we fell into at the time and
> > place of our birth? So we DON'T have a right to make our OWN
> > way in the world? A market hamstrung by accidents of history?
>
> > How do you feel, as a once or future throughhiker, about
> > having to account for the time needed for a walk in the woods
> > from Georgia to Maine? Does it make you less of a potential
> > employee, or more? Does it have ANYTHING to do with the potential
> > job before you? If a car drove by a road crossing, and an
> > occupant yelled "Lazy Bum!", would you be there to hear it?
> > [oops]
>
> > Oddly enough, abusing history into the future was what split
> > the Austrian School off from the German/Historical School in
> > the first part of the twentieth century. Ludwig would have no
> > taste for this prejudice crap. No economy should be fettered
> > by history; that is NOT a free market, and government
> > regulation here *lessens* the market failure.
>
> Good post. I've no real objections with it except to comment
> that regardless of whether it hamstrings the market, if someone
> wants his business to be, for example, all minority operated,
> or all women operated, or even all Avery-certified thruhiker
> operated, I say that's their right -- economy be damned.
>
> Protecting property rights, including those of business owners,
> trumps minimizing non-market frictions as a proper role of
> government.
>
> > (Libertarian means never having to say you're sorry for your
> > government.)
>
> http://www.attackcartoons.com/libman2.gif
> http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/cgi/purity.cgi
>
> - MF (who scored 122 for libertarian purity)
>
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