Robert Blumen

Robert Blumen

Robert Blumen, a software engineer with a background in financial applications. Blumen, who lives in San Francisco, has a physics degree from Stanford University and writes frequently for mises.org, LewRockwell.com, and other sites. He has spoken at economic and finance conferences on Austrian economics, and he is the editor of the podcast Software Engineering Radio.

Articles by Robert Blumen

AI Lacks the Entrepreneurial Intelligence to Plan an Economy

Can computers plan a socialist economy? The idea is not new; it first appeared in the debate over economic calculation, which began in 1920 with Ludwig von Mises’s first article on the topic and continued until 1949. This was a time when computers had recently emerged. Computers were not widespread, but their possibilities were evident. Oskar Lange considered the market economy to be a “crude and soon to be obsolete computing machine.” More recently, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) may have tilted the balance of power toward computers.
It was accepted by all sides that, in a complex economy, there is a near infinity of possibilities for both what to produce and what production methods to use. It was also accepted that the aim of production is to produce more of the goods

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Economic Calculation and the Great Reset

A grand plan is advanced by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Its name, “The Great Reset,” conveys the scope of this undertaking. Among its many audacious goals, it will “offer insights to help inform all those determining the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons.”

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Are Robots and AI Really Going to Displace All Workers? Probably Not

Among the components of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset are a drastically reduced population and the replacement of human labor with robots and artificial intelligence (AI). The question immediately comes to mind: can robots and AI really make all the stuff for the elites after they have gotten rid of the people?

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Inequality is Overstated—and Overrated

Whining and complaining about inequality is a growth industry. Thomas Piketty’s book (or perhaps a large virtue-signaling paperweight), about how the rich are getting richer, achieved bestseller status and is now a movie. Understanding the flaws in the wealth inequality argument is increasingly important, because the communist wing of the Democratic Party is now openly advocating a wealth tax.

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