So… we have: a sidebar by Alfred Marshall relating to a particular problem he was discussing, applied as a blanket statement about all economists; a lauding of the “very recent” concept of total factor productivity, which can be traced back to Knut Wicksell; a link to an article from sometime in the 1970s correctly arguing that the Phillips Curve is rubbish; and another link to an article about labour productivity in the US auto industry that somehow fails to mention the unions even once.

What in God’s name are we supposed to make of all of this?  I’m starting to get the feeling that this guy is just running some elaborate and very nerdy prank.

“In the long run the earnings of each agent (of production) are, as a rule, sufficient only to recompense the sum total of the efforts and sacrifices required to produce them . . . with a partial exception in the case of land . . . especially much land in old countries, if we could trace its record back to their earliest origins. But the attempt would raise controversial questions in history and ethics as well as in economics; and the aims of our present inquiry are prospective rather than retrospective.” [Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, p. 832]

The  insistence of economics to put such a high value on capital intensive, rather than labour intensive processes is an outgrowth of peverse corporate accounting measures. At the cost of dire social outcomes of those deemed “unskilled”. Whats worse such counterproductive valuation techniques are applied inappropriately in the Third World.

One of these is to define “efficiency” as output per worker. Only very recently, with the birth of the concept of total factor productivity, and the new emphasis on energy-efficiency, are most economists beginning to escapethis perverse concept with its built-in bias against use of labor.

Substituting capital and land for labor raises “efficiency,” so conceived, only by wasting capital and land, and is only efficient in unrealistic models in which land and capital are underpriced or ignored. High labor-efficiency then means low land-efficiency and low capital-efficiency, either directly or at one remove in the form of low energy-efficiency, low waterefficiency,low feed-grain efficiency, etc.”
http://www.masongaffney.org/publications/I1Full_Employment_Limited_Land_&_Capital.CV.pdf

 
In any event, manufacturing engineering was reduced to the exclusive pursuit of labor savings perceived to be attainable only through faster machines. Never mind that faster machines build inventory faster, as well.
http://www.superfactory.com/articles/featured/2006/0605-waddell-blind-opportunities.html
 
 

What does that have to do with economists lying about or not being competent to conduct proper analysis of trade-offs? 

“I was being generous and assuming you werent calling economists stupid. Though given your reaction, I guess you might be.”

Kimble, no I think “economics” hamstrung itself when it transitioned from political-economy to just economics. And its hobbled into merely engaging in commentary and analysis which is constrained in the straightjacked of assumptions with their basis in the prevailing social realities. An economist can’t step out of their narrow academic silo into the territory of “political science” without being heckled for opining on an area that they’re not qualified to. Though ironically a political scientist (Elinor Ostrom) won a Nobel Prize in Economics.

“Please point out where I accused anyone of intellectual dishonesty.”

“Tradeoffs don’t necessarily have to be as painful as you economists would like us to think.”

I was being generous and assuming you werent calling economists stupid. Though given your reaction, I guess you might be.

So which is it? Are economists dishonest for claiming painful trade-offs exist, or are they stupid for thinking that all trade-offs have to be painful?

No Kimble. I just don’t care what you, think. You’ve demonstrated consistently since I began posting that you’re going to rigidly cling to your own preconceptions and insist on projecting your prejuidices about the values you think I hold as someone you call a “hippie”. Why should I care what you think? 

Please point out where I accused anyone of intellectual dishonesty. Personally I think the well-intentioned charity of wealthy Westerners does more harm than good in mot foreign countries. History is replete with scathes of examples.