Unlearning economics lives up to his name
There is no poison on earth be it drug, drink,pornographic film or piece of media that can damage the mind quite like the academic does. All the above fill the mind with harmful chemicals if consumed in excess yet those are ephermal. The academic on the other hand corrupts the mind with his whimsical concepts no closer to reality then hobbits or dwalfs. He uncentres your mind to reality to such a degree that the only difference between him and a drug dealer is the degree of permanence that their hallucinogens cause. And to that we turn to Unlearning Economics,an academic economist whose New Deal like world view has inevitably caused significant cognitive dissonance to the minds of the young and impressionable budding economist.
Unlearning Economics’ [whom I’ll just refer to as UE for simplicities sake] video on how “Free stuff is good actually” is a good example of the corruption academics weave into the minds of the western youth. This video is full of shoddy reasoning which only holds up as a piece of correct reasoning because UE has dressed it up in enough jargon and prima facie correct studies to make it appear to be a thoughtful economic theorem.
After a brief introduction UE sets out his arguments for why “free stuff” is good stating that government spending “is guilty of making investments in things like education, childcare and universal healthcare”and “insuring the population against risks to their health and standard of living.”1 . Both of these things whilst good are not as efficient as the private sector at bringing in these beneficial quality of life changes. UE starts his movie length argument with a chart showing the correlation with GDP growth and social spending in an attempt to prove that “free stuff” is not economically destructive2. Like a psychopathic supermodel this chart may seem good on the surface but is incredibly flawed ue to the nature of what goes into GDP. Since GDP includes government spending3 there is no way to know the economic effects of free stuff from GDP alone as a government could simply dump vats of money into an economy and then see GDP skyrocket without any increase in living standards. UE is an academic economist he touts this everywhere he knows this is how GDP functions so he is clearly being deceptive and intellectually dishonest with his audience of budding economists. UE then claims that free stuff does not correlate with other economic measures such as unemployment yet shows no source for such hearsay4. This is the first of a few times where UE will speed through a topic in an attempt to skip over any uncomfortable arguments he may face.
After this UE goes into the first of three examples of free stuff being “good” which is education. He starts this section off with a very dishonest claim that “education allowed workers to leave agriculture and get jobs in manufacturing.”5. I fail to see how basic literacy and numeracy were all that helpful in unskilled factory work as opposed to unskilled agricultural work. The jobs associated with the industrial revolution ,which is the time period in which UE starts off this segment with, was not caused by wider accessibility of education but rather technological progress creating factory work and improving the efficiency of agriculture reducing the demand for that type of labour in society. If UE’s theory were to be believed then there would have been a surge in the wages of farm labourers as more people would have left these professions for the manufacturing sector and thus causing wages to rise due to the shortage of workers. The fact it did not was merely the cause of technology substituting for labour which allowed it to flow to the unskilled manufacturing sector. UE then shows a table showing the “rate of returns” on schooling the sons of victorian Labourers coupling it with a remark that this would have been “a wise investment”6 at the time. This is pure hindsight. There is no reason to believe that taking so much Labour7 out of the fields and other work would have been the right economic decision. Ergo there is no reason to believe that keeping all children in work rather then learning would have been the right policy either. This runs into the economic calculation problem in which UE and his gaggle of central planners must deal with such complex, capricious and large inputs that they cannot possibly advocate for economic planning without massive economic inefficiency such as nationwide and public schooling for all.
If the government wishes to produce education then how much? Should it merely be primary education or should it stretch to secondary education? How much should be dedicated to math? English? Science? And for how long should children be kept in school to provide the most efficient balance of an educated worker and a worker that maximizes his output by putting down the books and picking up the tools at the right time. How many children should occupy a class? 30? 40? If more is needed for education then this will require more in either taxation which would drag down the economy or debt indebting future generations costing resources which could be used elsewhere in the process. This is crucial to the thesis of UE’s argument about education. UE believes that investment in education will yield greater economic returns through a more highly skilled and better educated workforce which generates the capital needed to fund education so there is no loss to the tax payer aka “it pays for itself.”8 However UE can offer no guarentees that greater education will yield greater returns which his argument depends on. If education were to offer uneconomical skills ,as it tends more often then not to do today, then there is no correlation between higher amounts of economic development and larger funding of universal education. What makes the private sector different? In the private sector education must be tethered to the laws of supply and demand. Schools must teach what the economy demands in the most effective way possible or else lose out to schools whom are more able to do so. Public education does not have to abide by these laws as governments with their monopoly of force via taxation can fund losses that a free market would never produce.
UE next makes a deceitful point comparing Latin American countries and Eastern European countries. He states that both “have roughly similar average incomes”9 however due to higher spending on education they “outperform Latin America on test scores.”10 . UE carefully shifts the conversation from economic prosperity to test scores which is completely unrelated to the point he had just been making. It is not about the test scores but the worth of the skills and knowledge that are being tested.Why does he do so? Likely because anyone can clearly see that increased education spending has not yielded the gains UE claims will be made by doing so so he has to flee from his bailey to his motte by changing gears so suddenly even though he stalls in the process. Despite already debunking his own claim accidentally, UE then proceeds to talk about America, the richest nation in the world, despite “Low funding”11.
After this UE, like many proponents of public schooling, switches his argument from one of economic efficiency to an argument of vague societal benefit. A common tactic which can be observed in any UE video is when he at a drop of a hat gish gallops a multitude of points one after the other which he never develops. In this case education can “improve health, reduce criminality and generally facilitate a modern society.”12. This is completely ridiculous. In my and UE’s country of England crime is rising13 despite our government pumping schools with £131 billion in spending which accounts for over 10% of our government’s bloated budget14. UE then continues in his bailey by speaking of positive externalities. UE claims that education in a free market is likely to be “underprovided because of the invisibility of this broad social return”15 to which he makes no argument as to how the government can provide this invisible and unknowable benefit any better and that “historically it just hasn’t been profitable to provide a basic minimum of education.”. But then if it is not profitable to provide education then that clearly shows it is not valued by the market as it is not widely traded for or traded for with resources and therefore not demanded. However this claim could be hearsay. UE shows no chart, statistic or quote to back up this claim of his. It is clear to me that UE is either lazy or dishonest with his research a claim he has projected onto Thomas Sowell since he created this video.16 Additionally he cites the book “making social spending work” by Peter Lindert exhaustively despite haranguing Sowell to “use another fucking source.”17
After this UE moves on to his second example of “free stuff” which is healthcare. After another example of UE using GDP to prove Rwandan economic success18 which he sights no data or statistics for and to which I have already disproved. UE also states that a disease ravaging the population of Rwanda was bad for the economy which I do not dispute however I contest that government are the best way of reducing the spread of this disease. Spending on healthcare falls down to the aforementioned issue of central planning and the Economic Calculation Problem where planners cannot know the quantity and direction of economic inputs needed for such a widespread economy as well as governments handling of the Corona Virus in which economies were destroyed in a bout of mass hysteria. Would we all be dead of disease without the government stepping in to command and direct us? Of course not! Since we all wish to live we would do what we could voluntarily to protect and reduce the spread of disease amongst ourselves. UE also states that Universal healthcare is needed in poor countries because there are a lot of “Low hanging fruit” to which he likely means diseases such as Polio. UE claims that vaccines and regular health checkups all cost “relatively little”19 yet presupposes that these cheap preventative measures would not be provided for in a free market. UE then takes this assumption and rides with it for some time. At least with education he was willing to provide a weak but present explanation yet here he has made a large assumption which he has not bothered to justify. UE also briefly touches on Medicaid20 and yet Medicaid lead to spiralling costs after the government artificially increased demand via pumping millions into the healthcare industry whilst keeping the supply of healthcare low with strangling regulations. UE cites a paper by Hendren and Sprung-Keyser which looked at an expansion of Medicaid between 1979-92 across various states in America.21 However, this was a period of considerable liberalisation in the United States as well as tax reductions which, due to the theory of the Laffer curve,which may have resulted in higher earning power in the USA. This could be the cause of the increased earnings in America yet this explanation isn’t even entertained. This alternative explanation is backed up by some mothers leaving the workforce22 due to this change which may have caused demand for Labour to shift therefore causing Labour to become more valued. Additionally, this paper is flawed in that it only compares Medicaid America in one period to the other and does not compare what the earning power of Americans would look like without medicaid as well as running into the same Economic Calculation problem that UE’s arguments buckle against.
UE isn’t done with healthcare yet though since he then moves onto discussing healthcare as a social insurance. UE complains that healthcare in the US contains “Substantial premiums”23 yet as I have already mentioned this is due to policies that he supports. UE then states that healthcare is built on doctor-patient trust which is indeed true however UE then claims that the profit motive can distort this view. He gives the example that “Doctors could use a treatment because they’ve been paid to promote it...or could cut corners to save money.”24 This is completely untrue. How long does UE believe patients would trust a doctor who provides sub-par treatment or undergoes corruption in a free market? Additionally, this implies to the viewer that universal healthcare would prevent corruption even though the government is nothing but a hotbed of corruption. UE then goes on to talk about adverse selection.25 This argument states that low risk individuals are likely to refrain from purchasing health insurance as they do not believe they will need it which causes the price of insurance to be increased for everyone else causing more people to cancel their health insurance which causes another price rise and so on due to the high risk customers not having enough low risk customers to cover their claims. But this argument assumes that individuals would not look to cover themselves against unforseen hazards.UE himself states that “health risks are difficult to predict.”26. Why then would the consumerbase not take out health insurance to cover this uncertainty in their lives? Insurance is something purchased for the future rather then the present after all? This argument of UE’s rests on another shaky assumption that health insurance is only bought by people who are at high risk of serious health yet humans are naturally inclined to look to reduce even the smallest of risks to ensure certainty which is why such biases as the zero-risk bias exist27 .Why would low risk people not cover themselves against an unpredictable accident or health emergence? After this UE briefly touches on healthcare in the UK which is socialized28 . Key word briefly because he knows that any more time spent talking about our horrible health service would shoot his argument in the foot.
UE switches to discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI) . He responds to an Economics Explained video which claims that UBI will result in inflation29 which Economics Explained is right though not because of “demand pull inflation” but rather because governments are likely to print more money to fund the program resulting in the loss of money’s value. UE completely dances around this criticism only mentioning stimulus during the pandemic and skipping past the central economic point of a large increase in the money supply which may be used to fund UBI. UE then moves onto the criticism that people will not work stating that “people work to get a sense of purpose and meaning as well as to contribute to society and not be lazy layabouts.”30 While this may be true the removal of the need to work for money still removes a powerful incentive to pursue employment which would still drain the labour pool massively. Might I remind people about the anti work movement and NEETs who do not work currently due to handouts from the government. I would also like to add here that all these incentives are available without UBI so all UBI seems to do is strip away a powerful economic incentive. UE claims that UBI will enable people to pursue “higher callings”31 which will supposedly “benefit them and the economy” but how can he guarantee these will be beneficial to the economy. UE sardonically says that people will play mario kart but this is a real threat. How can UE know these people will pursue “beneficial” projects? He cannot and these projects could still be pursued without UBI through scholarships or apprenticeships if they were so economically beneficial. UE then states that there will still be an economic incentive to work as you still gain a wage. But how is UBI to be paid for? If it is via taxes then all that is happening is that the people are being paid with their own money minus the bureaucrats salary they have been coerced into paying for. So the money they receive “on top of this” will just be taxxed.
UE cites a paper32 which supposedly shows no correlation between UBI and participation in the workforce amongst 16 trial programs. However many of these programs did end in a reduction in hours worked:
T he only programs which lead to an increase in participation were Uganda and Nicaragua both ofwhich are exceedingly poor and there may have been an economic downturn or largescale inflation which may have meant that people may have had to work more. The 93% figure which UE uses is dishonest as this figure can only be used if “the criterion for support is set at less than a 5 % decrease in either average hours worked per week or the rate of labor participation. “ 33 . Both UE and the publishers of this study have been intellectually dishonest with their research moving the goal posts and cherry picking significantly to justify their illogical economic policies. UE then cites another paper34 which used 38 studies of 18 trial programs which UE states showed overall increases in hours worked however this paper also reeks of cherrypicking as the paper itself states that “We found a total of 50 empirical cases, of which 18 were selected, and 38 studies with contrasted empirical evidence on this relationship.”35 . UE then talks about the charity give directly which gives randomly to eligible families.36 UE attempts to correlate this to UBI however admits that this is a one off payment37 and only amounts to 15% of overall village income38. If these people only receive a one off payment then they will still have to work in order to sustain themselves in the future. This is different to UBI which provides a certain cash payment indefinitely so it is once again intellectually dishonest of UE to use these two. It is a false equivalency! It should also be mentioned that this is all done by a charity rather then the government that UE is advocating for yet instead of dropping social programs which could then justify tax reductions and thus give people more money to give to charities like give directly UE instead wishes for policies that would cause higher taxes and thus decrease the funds of the ventures which UE is praising here.
UE’s evidence in richer countries is also very weak. He focuses on Canada39 though the only cherrypicked studies he’s able to find here are one which looks at the amount the government saved in implementing UBI40, which means they were able to waste less money in one policy compared to another, and another study which only has anecdotal evidence41 to back it up. He also speaks briefly about Alaska yet cannot even be bothered to find any source on his claims despite claiming that studies show this has a positive result.42 To his credit UE does state that UBI evidence is flawed though still attempts to use this information to prove his point.43 UE then tries to make the argument that UBI subsidizes child rearing as he claims that we do not reward it, it is fair and that it should improve the quality of said work44. Yet having children is in itself the reward and why ought society pay for a conscious decision made by the parent. Furthermore there is no explanation given as to how UBI would improve the quality of child caring and rearing. This is just another example of UE utilizing gish galloping to make his arguments seem far more logical then they really are.UE’s last attempt to prove UBI are food stamps in the USA. He makes the claim that despite food stamps “reduc[ing] parent’s earnings”45 and despite the loss of tax revenue the child will have higher earnings in their later life. This is just post hoc ergo propter hoc on UE’s part. There are multiple factors which may have contributed to the child’s development yet he never explores any of these options.
After this UE presents what is essentially his conclusion. After briefly summing up the indirect conclusions UE has drawn so far he puts forward a theory he calls the “lump in the carpet problem”. UE claims that if social programs are cut then people will cost the government more in other areas though since I advocate for all government spending to be cut out it is not a point I will dwell much on. UE then in a very disjointed fashion46 talks about the police which while a strange topic to bundle into this video is one I personally agree on if for likely different reasons then him. UE then tries to advocate for investment into the arts. 47 Here UE’s argument is that Aardman stemmed from university education. Is public investment needed to produce culture and art? Of course not culture has been produced since the dawn of man it is an archetype of us as a species. UE’s argument here presupposes that Nick Park would have no drive to produce art and animation without big government spending which is completely inaccurate. In addition, he cannot even argue that Mickey Mouse degrees are the only way of providing artistic skills. How many self taught artists are out there with nothing but a graphics tablet and a dream? After some more discussion around Milton Friedman who UE seems to think is the pinnacle of free market thought and UE simultaniously claiming that he is not advocating for 100% central planning but also saying his system will lead to socialism48 the video ends.
Throughout the course of this essay I have proven just how dishonest UE is however as stated at the start of this article he is not alone in his endeavors. There is an entire class of intellectuals like UE who spout dogma and lies at the speed of a jet engine UE just happens to know his way around an editing software. These lumps in the universities are what has caused socialism and communism to go in a matter of decades from a denounced relic of the 20th century back to a supposed virtuous goal which will bring freedom,abundance and equality to all men. These are the people who have infected our youth with ridiculous ideas such as gender being a social construct, white people are ontologically privileged and that feminism and Palestine should both be supported at the same time. The next time you speak to an academic like Unlearning Economics do your mind a favour by nodding to their gabble and claiming you cannot stop as you have a train to catch. It will reward you greatly.
1Free stuff is good actually, Unlearning Economics 2:02
2Ibid 4:39
3https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp
4Free stuff is good actually, Unlearning Economics 6:58
5Ibid 9:46
6Ibid 10:19
7The use of child Labour is not an unethical or immoral concept. It is only ever applied based on the objector’s whims. There is no principle for when a child ought to start working or finish schooling it is all subjective in the eye of the beholder.
8Free stuff is good, actually Unlearning Economics, 13:15
9Ibid 14:59
10Ibid 15:08
11Ibid 15:19
12Ibid 16:17
13https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwr89rv9qno
14https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1144441/Web_accessible_Budget_2023.pdf- Page 121
15Free stuff is good, actually Unlearning Economics 17:56
18Free stuff is good, actually Unlearning Economics 28:14
19Ibid 29:27
20Ibid 31:21
21Hendren and Sprung-Keyser Page 17
22Ibid
23Free stuff is good, actually Unlearning Economics 36:31
24Ibid 38:54
25Ibid 41:20
26Ibid 39:39
27https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias
28Free stuff is good, actually Unlearning Economics 48:00
29Ibid 52:57
30Ibid 54:36
31Ibid 54:53
32https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329102801_Would_a_Basic_Income_Guarantee_Reduce_the_Motivation_to_Work_An_Analysis_of_Labor_Responses_in_16_Trial_Programs
33Ibid
34https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9459
35Ibid
36Free stuff is good, actually Unlearning Economics 57:14
37Ibid 58:13
38Ibid 58:05
39Ibid 1:00:39
40Ibid 1:01:00
41Ibid 1:01:35
42Ibid 1:03:49
43Ibid 1:04:02
44Ibid 1:06:30
45Ibid 1:07:01
46Ibid 1:12:58
47Ibid 1:14:25
48Ibid 1:18:27
Wonderful article, I wish more people took the time to debunk this guy. Do you plan to make anymore articles on him?
Man, I’ve been waiting for someone to write an essay about this clown forever. Good job. He literally is the antithesis of everything that’s wrong with modern economics.