Economic activity is not economic productivity. Spending money doesn't make us richer. Producing does.
Encouraging people to work more would help the economy; encouraging to people to spend more would only help to the extent that it stimulates people to produce stuff for sale.
Actually, you are both wrong. Production and consumption by themselves do not yield productivity. Both producers and consumers play equal roles in economic productivity. Without active consumption, producers would be completely unproductive, regardless of efficiency. Productivity comes when people are able to increase their economic leverage through efficiencies, but also able to complete transactions in the market. For instance, despite all of the hate of partial-reserve fiat banking systems by pseudo-economists, they are extremely efficient at getting the most productive value out of the money supply. This is also why the Internet creates economic value, because it's able to more efficiently pair producers and consumers.
I'm down with what you suggest. The problem with the economy now though is that we have excess capacity. I'm down with going around and blow up factories to solve this (only kidding fbi) but I think it would be easier if we could stimulate demand.
>This is also why the Internet creates economic value, because it's able to more efficiently pair producers and consumers.
I would say that is one reason why but I whole heartily agree.
Sure it does. If I buy good A for $X, I must value having good A a least _slightly_ more than having $X in my pocket. Similarly, the seller values $X in his pocket more than having good A in his inventory.
Hence, we have completed a transaction where the wealth of both parties has increased. This is the essence of why capitalism works.
Trade makes us richer if it's motivated by both parties coming out ahead in their judgment. Spending for the sake of spending, or for the sake of "stimulating the economy", doesn't help anything.
People who say "In this economy we need more money being spent" are not capitalists advocating efficient trade, they're Keynesians or something.
If someone thought he would benefit from a purchase, he would do it without encouragement. So what meaning can the encouragement to spend have...?
Conceivably it could mean (but this guy did not mean) that there's lower hanging fruit to be found by looking for more trades that should happen but aren't than by producing more. But it's far from obvious how/why that would be true "in this economy". In economic slowdowns, you need to make more stuff, not divvy up the too-little stuff more perfectly. It's when the economy is booming and production is very high that there might more plausibly be a neglect of the efficiency of trading.
>not capitalists advocating efficient trade, they're Keynesians or something.
Keynesians are capitalists and I've never heard of them being opposed to efficient trade.
One thing that inspires people to spend money is feeling that they won't be laid off. People do not have that feeling right now. Should we just wait for that to happen? Producing while people aren't buying leads to inventory gluts which leads to deflation.
Fascinating definitions but this has more than a whiff of crack pottery. Few things encourage economic activity (and productivity) like a rich person coming with an open wallet.
How are people to work more when there's not money to pay them?
You are ignorant of libertarian economic views. You are also ignorant that they are common place here, and held by Paul Graham. It's rude to intrude on a community and call status quo views "crack pottery" just because you've never learned anything about them.
It is your view that people can't produce things of value unless there's enough money being spent that is truly bizarre. New markets can be created. Value drives circulation of money, not vice versa. Money is just pieces of paper or numbers in a computer for the purpose of conveniently facilitating trade.
Ultimately I'm going to produce value in order to use it myself, for fun, or in some way get something useful for it (i.e., I don't want pieces of paper -- those are just temporary -- I want someone to make something useful for me like an iPhone. The more useful products there are, the more I will want to work hard, and the more money I will spend).
Libertarians are here, sure. However, I'd love to see how many people would really march in lockstep with doctrinaire libertarianism.
I'm not ignorant of libertarian views. Nor, am I unused to tantrums such as your own. I'll leave the vocabulary boot camps to you and Richard Stallman. I have that freedom.
Economic activity is not economic productivity. Spending money doesn't make us richer. Producing does.
Encouraging people to work more would help the economy; encouraging to people to spend more would only help to the extent that it stimulates people to produce stuff for sale.