Rudd demonstrates Hayek-ian knowledge problem

In searching for some material on Hayek I turned up this speech by Kevin Rudd on the Hayek's philosophy. One of the core claims of the speech is that Hayek argues that (and this is a claim upon which most of Rudd's argument rests):

"Hayek argues that human beings’ altruism is a hangover from their primitive tribal experience, reinforced by religion, and must be purged if we are to optimise our individual liberty through rational self-centred participation in the market."

Anyone passingly familiar with Hayek's work could tell you that this assertion was a patent mis-representation of Hayek's thought. Rudd is either willfully ignorant or willfully misrepresented of Hayek's thought. Rudd's entire argument collapses like a house of cards if we were to consider, for instance, this quotes from Hayek's book, "The Fatal Conceit":

"…we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts and our emotions, in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders according to different rules. If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed rules of the…small band or troop, or…our families…to the (extended order of cooperation through markets), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were to always apply the (competitive) rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them."
(Hayek, 1988, p 18)

Hayek argues that extended orders of cooperation are impossible to maintain if the rules of small scale interactions (like those within the family) are applied to the macro scale. Not, as Rudd represents Hayek's thought as being, that applying the rules of these small scale interactions is always a mistakes.

It is one of Hayek's most famous quotes so it is difficult to maintain that someone who had actually done any research on Hayek and his thought could possibly be ignorant of it. It is incumbent on Rudd to either maintain intellectual honesty and either not give a speech about a topic about which he quite obviously has no understanding or alternatively be honest about Hayek's philosophy and engage it for what it is rather than the straw-man version Rudd presents.

UPDATE: I just noticed The Economist's Free Exchange blog has a post making almost exactly the same point except that it was written some time ago. Nice to know that I'm in good company.

Bogu bags $80m deal!?!

I guess it just shows how preoccupied with kendo I am at the moment but I saw this article in the sport section and thought, "wow, that's a lot to pay for a bogu bag". Of course, the headline was actually "Bogut bags $80m deal" and about basketball...

Rudd's Breathtaking Ignorance

Not Kevin but Kevin's cousin, Van Thanh Rudd. According to this article Van Thanh recently had his submission to an exhibition rejected for being too provocative. Commenting on his artwork and its meaning Van Thanh reportedly said:

"commenting on the fact that I believe the global economy is a direct hurdle to a lot of the good peace processes to deal with human rights abuses", including in Tibet. He said he did not discount China's obvious atrocities. "But the overwhelming historical thing is going back to American colonialism in Asia and globally."

I really hope this thinking isn't reflective of Kevin's thoughts. I hope Kevin believes something more like this (but I doubt it):

"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another."
Milton Friedman

The "global economy" is a force for good lifting people out of conflict and poverty, not miring them in it!

Unions look after unions

I think this post from Megan McArdle stresses an important point that is often forgotten in discussions about unions and unionization, unions are, first and foremost, out to look after the health of the union rather than the workers. Just like the politicians whose main aim is to implement good policy rather than get re-elected probably won't get re-elected, the unions that don't focus first and foremost on sustaining their own existence will probably cease to exist.

Energy Efficiency - Market Response

There's an interesting article in this week's Economist about energy efficiency. Most of the most egregious causes of poor energy efficiency are government subsidies and regulations.

The article also talks about how many businesses and consumers seem not to bother to adopt energy saving devices unless there is a very high return on their use. They cite the transaction costs of researching, purchasing and installing these energy saving devices as one of the main causes of this failure . This of course presents a profit opportunity. Companies have sprung up that take care of financing and talling energy saving devices. These companies split the energy savings with their clients.

If only the various Australian water boards learnt that lesson and raised the price of water instead of instituting the ridiculous water restrictions that they use to limit demand.

My bank employs Marvin

It seems my bank has decided to employ Marvin to write captchas for them:

Hypnosis? There are cheaper ways!

According to this article, Some businesses in America are apparently starting to use hypnosis on their employees to aid in brainstorming. Under hypnosis "people are less inhibited... and may offer their craziest ideas".
Given that a 6 hour hypnosis brainstorming session costs between $10,000 to $20,000 I don't know why they don't just use more traditional methods. For much less than $10,000 you could get everyone really really drunk. In this state they would be totally uninhibited and perfectly willing to offer their craziest ideas. Of course there may be more of a mess to clean up afterwards.
HT: Management R&D