Reddit mentions of Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics

Yes,

Think about how far human development has come over the last 100,000 years or even the last 100.

Great book that dives into this idea, I had to read it for Economic Gardening


http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Wealth-Evolution-Complexity-Economics/dp/157851777X

Well, neoclassical is mainstream. It's useful to understand, in part just to get an idea of why people arguing against neoclassical are doing so.

If you're interested in economics, I'd suggest...

• Makiw is easy to read for neoclassical (avoid the "Introduction to.. textbooks).
  
• New Institutional Economics (mainly just Ronald Coase's two most famous articles), because transaction costs are very interesting.
  
• Complexity... the Origin of Wealth is very easy to read.
  
• History of Economic thought (most important). The Origin of Wealth has a decent chapter on it, but a detailed study is very useful. This is a useful website
  
  The distinguising thing about Austrian Economics is its reliance on an axiomatic system (Praxeology), and the rejection of experimentation/hypothesis testing. While I said I don't see a rational reason to distinguish between methods in the other thread - well, let's just say I'm an empiricist at heart.

Looks like you picked up the torch ;) I'll head over to r/StateofTheUnion - but since you took the time to put down a thoughtful perspective, I'll try to return the favor.

The role of government. I find myself thinking in 21st Century terms rather than either 20th Century or 19th Century and in this, I find that Paul's libertarianism (albeit still rough hewn) is much closer than classical Liberalism or the Neo-Liberalism of the Republicans. Perhaps this is why Paul is the only candidate of either Party who seems to connect in some way with the #OWS folks (who are themselves a part of the formation of 21st Century politics). The key principle here is to recognize that bureaucracy in general - be it government or corporate or non-profit is disempowering and corrupting. Consequently, it should be avoided wherever possible and where necessary should be designed to reboot on a periodic basis (a deep reset that can clean out all of the self-reinforcing structures that tend to accumulate). Of utmost import is to avoid situations where corporate and government bureaucracy can connect and co-evolve (e.g. the FCC, the FDA, the DOD, etc.). IMHO, in the 21st century - so long as we can keep the Internet free and open - the edge (the individual) is dramatically empowered. 20th Century top-down hierarchies were largely formed as a result of the discovery of the efficiency of these kinds of bureaucracies during the 30's and, particularly, the War. But this was in a very low bandwidth environment when a real premium was on span of control. Nowadays, bandwidth is wide open and our ability to monitor and police non-mutalistic/maladaptive behavior from the edge is much higher. As a surprisingly illuminating example, consider the music industry vis a vis MP3 and P2P. But for the increasingly intense intervention of government, people at the edge would have completely mopped the floor with these huge media companies. And that's just in the area of music where the human interest is relatively trivial (but the corporate interest - money - is identical to any other corporate interest). Expect individuals to fight harder in more existentially important areas like journalism, health and education; but expect the alternative corporate interests to have roughly the same capabilities and intensity. If corporations were not able to control government, we'd already have broken their control.

We still need some architecture to put it all together of course, but the key is that 20th Century approaches are anachronistic and new more distributed approaches to pretty much everything (education, banking, healthcare, environmental protection) are absolutely necessary.

While Paul is most certainly not the guy to build this 21st Century architecture - he seems the only guy capable of (interested in) getting the obsolete machinery the heck out of the way. Everywhere I look, I see inordinately bloated and delusional (i.e., unresponsive to reality) institutions that are increasingly incapable of either executing on their original raison d'etre or engaging in any form of plausibly adequate reformation. We are in need of a complete enema - from which we can perhaps begin a redesign that is adequate to modern realities.

As for economics and monetary policy - you are right, the gold standard is the wrong answer. If you have an interest in complexity - check out Eric Beinhocker's work. We need to go beyond the 19th Century model of the gold standard, but equally clearly late 20th century fiat currencies are a terrible answer. I'm largely convinced that a mixture of reputation currencies and decentralized digital currencies are likely the right answer. Ron Paul might not be in a position to get this - but again, none of it matters if the Fed is in charge. I'll count on Paul to nix the Fed and then allow people to figure out the solution without getting too much in their way.

Thanks for listening.

Just finished The Origin Of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker.

Really great book if you like things like complexity and economics. Really great read.

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Wealth-Evolution-Complexity-Economics/dp/157851777X

Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics [Hardcover]
Eric D. Beinhocker (Author)
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You should read the Origin of Wealth. The premise is that human cooperation is the foundation for industrial wealth, but selfishness. It's a brilliant book that strikes a great balance between the power of the market and its intrinsic weaknesses.

Start here.