IDO 3: income and employer

[Mttbnchtt]

#201

I wonder whether we want to add income and related terms like money into the ontology to describe the process development of capacity to increase income, which is related to IDO 3.

For the process to increase employment: should we add employer?

[Mttbnchtt]

For completeness, I recall here that @pbuttigieg in #201 mentions that, for IDO 3, we also need economic sector and agricultural sector.

[Mttbnchtt]

Use human employer.
Create income under asset.

[Mttbnchtt]

Let's wait for @pbuttigieg's explanation on where to put economic sector and agricultural sector.

[Mttbnchtt]

I added:

1. socio-economic system
   ... agricultural socio-economic system (synonim: agricultural sector)
2. economic system (synonim: economic sector)

In a sense, economic factor are social factors (economy is a social science). In another and narrower sense, social factors (like one's social status) are not economic factors (a noble can be poor and have, nevertheless, high social status). I composed the classes above taking "social factor" to have a narrow meaning.

[marieALaporte]

@Mttbnchtt according to Pier's comment, 'economic sector' should be a synonym of 'socio-economic system'. 'economic system' can thus be removed

[pbuttigieg]

In a sense, economic factor are social factors economy is a social science. In another narrow sense, social factors (like one's social status) are not not economic factors (a noble can be poor and have, nevertheless, high social status). I composed the classes above taking "social factor" to have a narrow meaning.

Careful with things like "factors" - this is a linguistic convenience that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Try to find out what is actually being referred to. I also can't parse this "economic factor are social factors economy is a social science".

I wouldn't have something as loose as "factor" in an ontology like SDGIO.

[pbuttigieg]

@marieALaporte

@Mttbnchtt according to Pier's comment, 'economic sector' should be a synonym of 'socio-economic system'. 'economic system' can thus be removed

I'm not sure if it's useful to separate them. This was just my intuition.

What definitions have you and @Mttbnchtt found here?

Wikipedia's article on this references some useful frameworks like the Primary-Quintary sectors, as well as Publc/Private/Voluntary sectors as subclasses of economic sector.

Sources like Investopedia define economic sectors as:

A sector is an area of the economy in which businesses share the same or a related product or service. It can also be thought of as an industry or market that shares common operating characteristics. Dividing an economy into different sectors allows for more in-depth analysis of the economy as a whole.

This suggests that an economic sector is a subclass of a socio-economic system, in which the interactions (exchanges, competition, etc) of components / agents is determined by a constrained set of goods and services.

[Mttbnchtt]

I wouldn't have something as loose as "factor" in an ontology like SDGIO.

I agree. I did not use "factor" in SDGIO. It was just a way to write concisely in the issue. This is the definition: "A system which consists of 1) agents producing and exchanging goods and 2) the environments, groups of agents, organizations, goods, services, products, tools, markets, and regulations involved in such activities."

[Mttbnchtt]

This suggests that an economic sector is a subclass of a socio-economic system, in which the interactions (exchanges, competition, etc) of components / agents is determined by a constrained set of goods and services.

I think Investopedia describes a different sense of "economic sector". In the CGIAR context, economic sector is everything in a society that has to do with economic activities (loosely speaking). In this sense, we speak of the economy of Greece as being based on slavery while their culture celebrated freedom. In the Investopedia sense, an economic sector is a part (loosely speaking) of the economic activities of a society. In this sense, we speak, for example, of the financial sector. In this sense, "economic sector" is roughly synonymous with "market" in the sense used in the following sentence: "He liked that business idea, but it turned out that there was no market for it".

Taking social factors (loosely speaking) in a narrow sense, I decided not to put economic system under socio-economic system (because an economic system does not or may not involve social factors in the narrow sense). I thought to take social factors in the narrow sense, otherwise "socio-economic system" is a pleonastic expression (being the economic factors already referenced by the "socio" part of the label).

[pbuttigieg]

I agree. I did not use "factor" in SDGIO. It was just a way to write concisely in the issue.

Okay, but I don't think it helped the issue either.

This is the definition: "A system which consists of 1) agents producing and exchanging goods and 2) the environments, groups of agents, organizations, goods, services, products, tools, markets, and regulations involved in such activities."

Definition of what? Add services along with goods. The second part is not very useful - it has redundancy and also isn't an exhaustive list. Generally avoid listing parts unless you can be exhaustive.

On sectors: As we've seen, many of the CGIAR definitions are not thought through as well as they should be. By the definition you have up there, everything is then an economic sector - nothing in society is outside of it. Go with the more established theory on sectors. It's likely they mean economic system, not sector.

There is no economic system that doesn't involve social elements.

You can have economic system and social system as siblings if you think this helps. Socio-economic systems can then be described by the union thereof. But you'll need much better defs.

A market is a part (a sub-system) of a sector - one sector can have multiple markets.

[Mttbnchtt]

First comment: I give a few comments on a few specific points, since what @pbuttigieg seems to have ramification on other issues I had in mind. However, in the end, I want to take a pragmatic approach for the social/economic system issue. I will revise the definition. I will create the classes as siblings or hierarchically related depending on the instructions that I receive. If deeper conversations about those items are needed, I may insert something reasonable but possibly temporary in SDGIO and open a new issue to solv the problem possibly after the Oct 4 deadline.

So, here we go with the comments. Thanks for going over the uninspiring piece of text that follows.

Definition of what?

Of economic system.

Add services along with goods.

Ok with me, but then I should not import "market" from ENVO. If services are not goods (as I also wondered in #205), then ENVO is wrong for the reason explained in the first comment of issue #205 (note that the part of the first comment in that issue that do not refer to services are mostly out-of-date, since @marieALaporte has given further useful directions). In that case, I should ask ENVO to change the definition of market. Should I do that?

The second part is not very useful.

Ok. However, we need something that says that not only agents consistute an economic system. I will think about a better way to do that.

Generally avoid listing parts unless you can be exhaustive.

Ok. Are lists in definitions acceptable if introduced by "for example" as ENVO's deforestation? Anyway, your comment may provide another reason for not importing "market" from ENVO or for asking ENVO to revise the definition: they provide a seemingly non-exhaustive list.

It's likely they mean economic system, not sector.

Yes, the definition is for economic system. There is a use of sector that, as you suggested above (or on Skype), is synonimous with "system". We can say "economic sector" to mean sector of the economy. But we can use the same string to mean sector that has to do with economic activities (roughly speaking). The same hold for "cultural sector" (as divided into movie activities, book activities, etc. or as that part of society having to do with cultural activites, like the Greek culture) and other similar labels. So, for me, it was ok to follow that previous suggestion of yours and have "economic sector" as a synonim of "economic system". Are you now saying that, on reflection, it is better to do otherwise and speak only of "economic system"?

There is no economic system that doesn't involve social elements.

True, but there is also no economic system that does not involve biological elements (like the humans involved in the system). Should we then speak of bio-socio-economic systems? The answer seems to be no, because, for the purpose of study or illustration, we separate conceptually what exist in the same item (for example anthropology studies humans but it is not cellular-anthropology although there is no human without cells). Moreover, it seems that if we accept your line of thought, then we go against the use of "economic" and "social" (in the narrow sense) established in the relevant scientific community. For example, according to your line of thought, socioeconomics should include the whole of economics (or "socioeconomics" is a misleading label), but, for economists, economics properly includes socioeconomics. Social scientists also distinguish between social items and economic items (e.g. here) and one could concentrate on items of one type only, so only on a social system or only on an economic system, which seems then to be acceptable entities.

You can have economic system and social system as siblings if you think this helps. Socio-economic systems can then be described by the union thereof.

I can do that. The reason I did not do that before is that, to me, the label "socio-economic system" suggests that the system is the intersection of social systems and economic systems, rather than the union (like socioeconomis is the study of social and economic elements as related one to the other, not the study of social or economic elements). Any direction?

But you'll need much better defs.

Yes.

A market is a part (a sub-system) of a sector - one sector can have multiple markets.

ENVO takes market to be a geographic feature. This could become a part of a sector (or system). However, are you suggesting to make market a sub-system, i.e. a child of system? I can do that or I can speak to ENVO about that, but I am not sure I understand the comment.

[pbuttigieg]

Ok with me, but then I should not import "market" from ENVO. If services are not goods (as I also wondered in #205), then ENVO is wrong for the reason explained in the first comment of issue #205 (note that the part of the first comment in that issue that do not refer to services are mostly out-of-date, since @marieALaporte has given further useful directions). In that case, I should ask ENVO to change the definition of market. Should I do that?

ENVO:market is referring to a physical gathering of stalls etc. That's a different entity from the "market" used here. We'll need a new class for that, probably in SDGIO itself.'

Ok. However, we need something that says that not only agents consistute an economic system. I will think about a better way to do that.

Yes, it's tricky, but try to find a more general way of capturing that.

Ok. Are lists in definitions acceptable if introduced by "for example" as ENVO's deforestation?

Yes, that's better as it shows that the list is not meant to be exhaustive, just illustrative.

So, for me, it was ok to follow that previous suggestion of yours and have "economic sector" as a synonim of "economic system". Are you now saying that, on reflection, it is better to do otherwise and speak only of "economic system"?

Yes and no: I think the sector is more granular than the system. An economic sector would be a kind of economic system where interactions are concentrated over a defined set of goods and services. However, there's the very high-level parsing of "economic system" (capitalist, socialist, syndicalist, etc).

Let's try sectors (ag, econ, socio, etc) as subclasses of system for now They would be siblings of classes like "economic system" which would have subclasses like "capitalist economic system".

We'll refine when we have more material on this theme.

[Mttbnchtt]

I inserted "socio-economic system" and "economic system". I have not inserted sectors yet. I want to check with Marie-Angélique whether and how to insert those terms. They are rather complicated to define and position and maybe they are not really useful now.

[Mttbnchtt]

For now, we just add socio-economic system, agricultural socio-economic system, and economic system. We add economic sector and agricultural sector as synonims of some of the items mentioned before.