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Per Bylund

@PerBylund

24 May

Since the days of Aristotle, voluntary has been a prerequisite for the morality of actions. Someone's action cannot be judged morally unless it was voluntarily chosen. But the meaning of voluntary has shifted. Here follow a couple of thoughts on what voluntary means.

The formal definition of voluntary means the action or choice is made of free will. It must be without coercion, i.e. the use or threat of physical violence. Choosing with a gun to one's head is not a voluntary choice.

In everyday language we say there's "no choice" if one option appears much better than the other ones. This is, strictly speaking, incorrect, since there *is* a choice. It only appears obvious due to one's valuation of the alternatives. This applies whether it's voluntary or not.

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Per Bylund

@PerBylund

26 Apr

#Intellectualproperty--patents, copyrights, and other government-granted and -enforced monopoly privileges--gets a lot of knee-jerk support. While people invent plenty of arguments in favor, they are, unfortunately, often based in economic misunderstanding. Let's talk about #IP.

First, arguments in favor tend to rely on a cost-based theory of value. But something is not of value because it was expensive to make, but is expensive to make because it is expected to be of great value: it is the expected value that justifies taking on the (production) cost.

It's a flawed argument to ask "who would take on the great cost" to come up with new inventions if they can't get paid. Nobody has a right to get paid based on their cost or effort. You don't earn a high grade because of your effort, but put in the effort to earn a high grade.

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Per Bylund

@PerBylund

18 Apr

An endless source of miscommunication and misunderstanding is the use of ambiguous terms and, worse, reliance on definitions that aren't clarifying but rather the opposite. One such term is the #State. We all "know" what it is but very few have attempted to define it clearly.

For everyday purposes, we don't need to clarify the term because our intersubjective understanding of it, and how we use it (the context), makes it clear enough. But not so when we debate or try to uncover why we have different opinions about it and, especially, its nature.

The State is an organization but not like any other. It has a distinct nature, characteristics that make it different from firms, HOAs, and sports clubs. It's also not, simply but vaguely, an abstraction of some conception of "us," as many prefer to see it. So, what is the State?

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Per Bylund

@PerBylund

21 Mar

If we truly want to change things for the better and contribute to a better community and society, then we should judge charitable acts based on their outcomes (the good expected or brought about), not the personal sacrifice of carrying out the act (what the doer gives up).

Many would consider a highly paid, and therefore also productive, individual spending a full day laboring in a soup kitchen a greater charity than if they had donated the money they would have earned. This conclusion requires focusing on the sacrifice, not the good brought about.

Say this individual would have earned $1,500 in their day job ($390k/year) had s/he not worked in the soup kitchen. This income is the sacrifice (cost). But the sacrifice says nothing about the good brought about by laboring in the soup kitchen.

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Per Bylund

@PerBylund

14 Mar

Just putting this out there. My book from 2016 on how to properly understand the economy as a market process and the real impact of #regulations. Here's the publisher's page. (1/4) rowman.com/ISBN/978073919…

@mises

The lowest price is available from the @mises Institute bookstore. Paperback for $39.95. Additional discount for members. (2/4) store.mises.org/The-Seen-the-U…

Amazon has it available as hardcover, paperback, and Kindle, for both purchase (new and used) and rent. (3/4) amazon.com/Seen-Unseen-Un…

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Per Bylund

@PerBylund

10 Mar

If we realize the value problem, we also realize the real problem that #entrepreneurs face and must find a solution to. It's not to come up with The Idea, as is often assumed, nor the invention or the technology, but how to make something valuable to other people.

Value is the experience of satisfying a want, which means to find oneself in a better situation than before and compared to what one otherwise expected. This does not need specific inputs, but if it doesn't then there is nothing stopping us from simply satisfying it at whim.

The world's limited resources means we must try to get as valuable experiences as possible, to be as well off as we can, from what means are available to us. There is no end to how content we can imagine becoming, but the means are not enough to get us there. So we must choose.

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