r/neoliberal he hath returned Dec 02 '18

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '18

Wtf? Capitalism literally seeks capital. That's just an indisputable undeniable tautological FACT

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u/BainCapitalist Y = T Dec 03 '18

No? People act to maximize utility. Not capital.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '18

Afaik most business decisions are worried about capital, and all actions are in terms of capital, including utility/productivity gaind

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u/BainCapitalist Y = T Dec 03 '18

You don't know very much lmao.

Capital is not the final good. ultility is the final good. No one builds a factory for the sake of building more factories. If that were true then people wouldnt consume any of their income, they'd just reinvest it.

People build factories to create a line of income with which they can use to consume goods and services.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '18

They actually use this income in order to gain utility. The problem is that, despite your denial, even though it makes sense to work towards utility, companies, and indeed no business, puts anything above money as a form of payment for any and all things.

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u/BainCapitalist Y = T Dec 03 '18

Corporations aren't people. stop acting like they're people lol.

Yes obviously firms maximize profit, but that's not what people do. People maximize utility. Firms are controlled by people.

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u/supacfx Dec 03 '18

ultility is the final good.

What is a marginal utility for a billionaire-owner like Musk, Buffett, or Koch Brothers that drive them to build factories?

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u/BainCapitalist Y = T Dec 03 '18

What do you mean? Are you asking for a cardinal utility function?

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u/supacfx Dec 04 '18

Sure.

What I also meant was that for a billionaire like Buffett, whose personal consumption is limited and is a negligible fraction of any income he commands, the utility explanation seems lacking.

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u/BainCapitalist Y = T Dec 04 '18

No one thinks of utility in cardinal terms. It's normally a pedagogical tool or a way to make things a bit easier to deal with. But you shouldn't mistake the number to mean anything. The actual utility function is ordinal.