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Guest Post: The Cargo Cult Economy
Submitted by Gregory Cummings via The Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada,
Last week, I heard about a particularly tragic example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, which Frederic Bastiat, the great 19th-century economist, called “the greatest and most common fallacy in reasoning.”
After the outbreak of World War II, many isolated islands located in the Pacific Ocean became staging grounds for Japanese and Allied forces. This development unfolded before the primitive indigenous peoples, including those on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. According to Wikipedia:
The vast amounts of military equipment and supplies that both sides air-dropped (or airlifted to airstrips) to troops on these islands meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen outsiders before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts.
Sadly, this arrangement came to an abrupt end with the end of the war, when the Allied forces abandoned these temporary airbases. Once again, the islanders no longer had access to the myriad of consumer goods provided by visitors from distant advanced economies.
As a result, on Tanna island and elsewhere, local inhabitants formed so-called “cargo cults” in order to restore their lost prosperity:
In an effort to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors, and airmen use. Cult behaviours usually involved mimicking the day to day activities and dress styles of US soldiers, such as performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles. The islanders carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.
In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of aeroplanes out of straw and cut new military-style landing strips out of the jungle, hoping to attract more aeroplanes.
The indigenous peoples of Tanna island observed that material goods arrived after the presence of landing strips and aeroplanes. This led them to falsely conclude that material goods arrived because of the presence of landing strips and aeroplanes. They failed to consider other causal factors, such as the war, and based their conclusion solely on the order of events. This is the essence of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.
This error in reasoning persists today, particularly in the realm of economics as it relates to the role of government. For example, relative to a hundred years ago, it is obvious that our standard of living has drastically improved. P.J. O’Rourke illustrated this brilliantly by observing, “When you think of the good old days, think one word: dentistry.” Quite simply, we owe this increased prosperity to staggering improvements in marginal productivity and the division of labour brought about by capital accumulation and savings in a society based on voluntary exchange and a price system resulting from the ownership of justly-acquired private property. There is no other path to prosperity.
In spite of this knowledge, there remain numerous court intellectuals and their acolytes who serve as apologists for government, falsely insisting that since we are more prosperous after such and such regulation or such and such measure of taxation (other factors not being equal), we are more prosperous because of such and such regulation or such and such measure of taxation. Therefore, they conclude, more and more economic intervention is needed to cure our accumulating economic woes. And so it is, that the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy reasserts itself.
But insofar as our well-being is concerned, government intervention in the economy is no more effective than the straw aeroplanes and wooden headphones of some bewildered “cargo cult.” In truth, it probably does more harm.
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Government Intervention?
http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/eric-scheiner/cancer-patient-and-obama...
What government intervention?
The Illusions of Reality
And for all you people suffering from AIDS, good news. A government directed cure is imminent.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/12/obama-launches-effort-aimed-a...
just for the record, when prosperity follows on the heels of taxes and regulations, that does not meant that it *wasn't* caused by taxes and regulations
not to mention how prosperity followed on the heels of global war
and metal confiscation
and debt issuance
so how about at least considering the possibility that more taxes and regulation and global war and asset confiscation and debt issuance will, in fact, bring about great prosperity
hugs,
PK
ps. I may have left out genocide and forced sterilization and television as other contributors to prosperity.
pps mostly though, it was the creation of more debt. lots and lots more debt.
ppps and also global war. plus taxes and regulations.
Prosperity for who?
Bernays wrote the book on instilling consumerism, and it has been a plague on mankind ever since.
Prosperity for who?
KoolAid drinkers.
Forward (over the cliff)!
Native Pacific Islander: Why do white men have so much cargo?
Beleaguered answer: Because we have wives.
You're confusing cargo and baggage!
Remember, you didnt create that prosperity
Right, as I told my son today, if we had the same government mentality in the early 20th century as we do today we would have to start our cars by whipping it thrice with a buggy whip.
You have confused Ford with governent motors.
This is what the FSA will act like when the free shit spickott gets turned off...LMAO
What you don't want to recognize Max2055 is that you are part of the FSA as well, we all are, some are precieved as more vunerable, and, like you, we all like to abuse the vunerable, still when the spigot closes you may not enjoy it as much as you anticipate!
Mostly CHEAP energy. The U.S. was THE major oil producer. U.S. oil ran the Allies' war machine and, later, the machines of reconstruction. Oil production in the U.S. peaked in the 1970's.
Build it and they will come!
Knuk- Do you think he knows something we don't?
Like, he's got a case and he's worried?
uhhhmmmmm let me think about it for a sec....
obomba want to cure aids? if it goes all well like obombacare we are all fucked.
I used to believe that correlation implied causation, then I took a course on it and now I don't have that belief anymore. I think the course helped, but I'm not really sure...
That Sir is just plain good word play!
Will Wall Street bankers still look to the sky when Helicopter Ben stops dropping money?
Mother Yellen is a whore...free money will continue; thank-you very much.
Loose slots !
Free Beer !
Zero Interest, Infinite Credit, Nothing Down !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEscCxdAAQs
The Whore of Babylon , or the final and 9th Gate (Circle).
kind of a bs analogy(the islanders thought/think the troops were sent by gods) but the past is prologue argument is a grand argument.
the current situation is the mistaken belief that if a variable in a model destabilizes the model then all that needs to done is an adjustment to the variable in question to restore stability without regard to reality. in other words, reality becomes the offending variable so reality must become unreal for the model to work which obviously destroys the model in the end in order to restore reality.
Sorta off topic - Remember Clutch Cargo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFnLirXjjto
How can you say this is off topic? Spinner and Paddlefoot too!
Synchro-Vox at its finest. BTW, congrats on your 1 year anniversary.
I remember their creepy lips.
OOGA-OOGA Clutch!
Cargo Cult
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVZ9bPRTiIA (1:42)
Watch a couple of episodes of Trashopolis and let me know how government rules and regulations haven't improved quality of life.
says the kid raised on disposable diapers, non returnable bottles, plastic shopping bags and McDonalds Big Mac containers.
I had no idea that Krugman was from Tanna, Vanuatu.
"Build it and they will come".
- Ed Koch, Former Mayor of New York
Commenting on public housing
Similar logic eh?
I would love to see what the primitive cargo cultists would do with Bitcoin.
Oh, wait, we don't even have to guess:
Yap Bitcoins
At least they put holes in them to make them easier to carry.
I have Mrs Free standing out on the driveway waving two flashlights waiting for her Amazon order to arrive!
[edit] Does this make us cargo cultists?
No, but it will get the neighbors talking.
So, when the 99.9999% of WS that are corrupt psychopaths see the actions of the one moral soul working there, we should expect them to start emulating him/her?
There is no free market, never was, never will be.
There is only fear of punishment and lust for greed. Build your systems accordingly
This Cargo Cult perfectly explains all those lines in the desert in S. America; clearly they were trying to entice the Alien visitors back but to no avail.
Our entire world history is based upon a grand cargo cult
-Erich von Daniken
I talk often here of cargo-cults, but I think this 'plant' of an article is 100% fucking bullshit as always,
A 'cargo cult' has existed for 1,000's of years, for +10K year's man has had 'boats', and for 2,000+ years the Egyptians could sail into the wind, meaning they could go anywhere on earth, the Europeans always sailed downwind until the 1500's.
As long as there were ship's storms have washed these ships ashore, where the natives whether african's or polynesians came to believe that the shit that washed ashore came from god.
In time they developed religions around getting shit to wash ashore, including 'human sacrafice',
That the USA is a cargo-cult fuck yes, over 60% of the US public wait for the GUBMINT to deposit Bernanke-Bucks every month into their account.
'human sacrafice' fuck yes, over 100 million folks have been murdered to force the world to trade their food/oil for those bernanke bucks.
Obama gonna giv me a free painted-rock radio!
Gimme dat free obhama phone be yous or I busts yo head wit my painted obhama rock, yo muthafuckah