Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Harry Pollard wrote: Tom, I'm doing some catching up of past posts I found interesting. You are right. That's why we must build our edifices on true assumptions. Harry Thomas wrote: Edifices built on false assumptions often lead to wrong conclusions which usually negate any possiblity of predictability. [snip] That does not, however, prevent them from defining ongoing and even expanding research programs, since iterative solutions to local problems can give the false appearance of progress toward an *overall* successful resolution, when it really is only getting further sucked into the hopeless endeavor. Wrong-headedness is far more dangerous than just being wrong. Yours in discourse \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Tom, I'm doing some catching up of past posts I found interesting. You are right. That's why we must build our edifices on true assumptions. Harry Thomas wrote: Edifices built on false assumptions often lead to wrong conclusions which usually negate any possiblity of predictability. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Hi Keith: Just catching up on some old postings of yours and trying to make some comments. Your phrase, how economics can be used as a science. and the following phrase predictions made with a high degree of confidence:, are an assumption. Economics has not been able to develop a replicatible economy. There is no duplication of the experiment - therefore, economics remains at the most a theorm - a possibility that the study can eventually made into an experiment that is replicatble and therefore passes the scientific criteria. But not yet. Edifices built on false assumptions often lead to wrong conclusions which usually negate any possiblity of predictability. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde on 2/1/02 1:21 AM, Keith Hudson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longer term ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with a high degree of confidence:
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Mike, At no time have I said what a person's desires are. I don't know - though I did say that I thought that a primary desire would be survival. Seems reasonable doesn't it? Without survival, there are no more desires. I think some people are more skilled than others at deducing from his actions what a person desires, but that is outside the scope of the both assumption. Which is that Man's desires are unlimited. So, your first two paragraphs may be interesting, but they do not affect the first Assumption. And you have in no way shown a need to abandon the first Assumption as an axiom and treat it as a corollary to the second. In fact, the second is a way better to achieve the first. If you satisfy your desires with less exertion, you will be able to satisfy more of them - which is what you want. Your next paragraph indicates you and your neighbor have different desires. Nothing wrong with that. However, I would suggest that each of you, no matter what course you may take will seek to satisfy your desires with the least exertion. You will not blunt your axe so it will be harder to cut the wood. On the contrary, you will probably sharpen it to save yourself exertion. As for your neighbor, he has taken a different turn. He is watching TV. If you want to watch TV rather than split wood, I suppose you will follow a path similar to your neighbors'. Or, perhaps your desire is not o split wood - even though you are doing it. Maybe you want big muscles and this is the easiest path to get them. If it isn't the easiest path and you find one which will get you the muscles with less exertion - you'll take it. The operating word of the second Assumption is seek. You may not yet have found the best way - but you will seek it. If someone says do it this way and it will be completed in 2 days rather than 3 - would you change your method to save a day? Would you change? I would expect you to change to save yourself exertion. But, you may have desires I don't know. A problem arises when we know what we would do and therefore expect others to do they same as us. That doesn't happen. You attacked me at the end of your note. Perhaps you shouldn't have. I fear you still are wounded from when I suggested you don't know what ad hoc meant. Well I was kidding. I should actually have looked around for some umbrage to take. For you took the careful work of a century or two and dismissed it as ad hoc generalizations of the emergent properties of the aggregate. In other words, you dismissed a great deal of thoughtful work as improvised or impromptu. So, I suggested you didn't know the meaning of ad hoc. You didn't like that, and grabbed the umbrage I missed. You also suggested I am scornful, which indicates extreme contempt. Would I spend hours of writing if I was contemptuous of the Future Workers. They are a great lot and I think we all enjoy the thrust and parry of debate and discussion. Brian said 'This is fun. It is! Harry __ Mike wrote: Harry expostulated: Why is desire ambiguous? The word was chosen carefully and it isn't difficult to check out. I like The feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state. Desire is stronger than want, which is often used by economists. I'll repeat. Why is desire ambiguous? Desire is an internal state of mind. It is purely cognitive and private. Your mindfulness of your unsatisfied states is itself a state of the same kind. You have no way to know mine or confirm its existence save by projection, the same kind of projection that we all use when we surmise in others conscious states similar to those we experience ourselves. Our desires are not accessible to external observation, to scientific scrutiny. How shall we treat any statement as an hypothesis subject to proof or disproof or even to scrutiny, if it is about a thing -- a state or phenomenon -- that is not subject to observation? Well, perhaps we may say that we can infer desires from the behavior of those subsequently alleged to have experienced them. In that case we will have to abandon your first Assumption as an axiom and treat it as a corollary to the second. I desire to have a warm house and so does my neighbor. But I'm out splitting wood while he has finished up the wage work needed to pay for his oil and has his feet up, watching television. I'm willingly expending rather more effort to heat my house than he is. How do we get out of this? Only by inferring that it must be the case, our protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, that my desire is different from his, that his is to heat his house plus X while mine is to heat my house plus Y, for there is in fact nothing to prevent me from installing oil or gas heat. But if we use this behavioral methodology to infer desires, the second Assumption can never be evaluated. We have no way to evaluate whether or not a subject is seeking to satisfy a desire with the least effort because we can only infer his desire from efforts
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
At 10:14 PM -0500 2002/02/03, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: I [think I...] can see the point of this. (Dickensin poem) Brad, We both seem to have taken the edge (nasty?) off our responses. A good sign. I try not to play chess and old habits die hard. 'Seeing the point' of Dickinson's poem is different from 'being in the world' as Emily is in the world. It is a kind of continually being 'born again'. I know how loaded that expression is. If we learn from all experience intellectually, emotionally and spiritually then we are newer each moment of our lives. Take care, Brian -- ** * Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator* * Faculty of Education, Queen's University * * Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 * * FAX:(613) 533-6596 Phone (613) 533-6000x74937* * e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]* * Education is not the filling of a pail, * * but the lighting of a fire. * * W.B.Yeats * ** **
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Title: Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics Hi Ray, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your very thoughtful response to my very brief attempt to hint at a few of Wittgentein's insights into language.He truly believed that ethics and aesthetics are one in the same.An attempt to create a 'theory' of ethics/aesthetics indicated to him a profound confusion brought on by the worship of science in the 20th century. Our appreciation of the Good/Beautiful shows itself in how we live our lives and there as many ways to show our appreciation as there are people. I could go on Ray, but my duties need attending. Here is a website which will give you more carefully crafted glimpses: http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue3_3/4-peters.html Take care, Brian
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Brian, Yes, it is fun. You said: 'I've got to prepare for 6 hours of classes tomorrow but I can use a lot of this exchange because we are exploring 'interpretation' of text in The Incredible Lightness of Being.' And I have to make a postscript file of the first Cycle of my high school economics course. That will be compressed into an executable rar file to send by E-Mail to a young lady who will begin teaching 4 classes of senior economics tomorrow and will need the stuff printed on Monday, so she can start the Cycle Tuesday. Thus does reality intrude into our lofty thoughts. But, back to business. You added a reference to disciple in your note. I'll add this to religious, ad hoc and dogma. Incidentally, many of your posts contain bits of Wittgenstein, or comments on Wittgenstein, or glowing appraisals of Wittgenstein. I don't recall any criticism of Wittgenstein. Does this make you a disciple? (Someone who believes and helps to spread the doctrine of another.) If you have a critique of Wittgenstein, I would love to see it. Now, the only time I mentioned George was in a little potted biography I did of myself back in January - where I detailed how I came across him and found him extremely useful, but nevertheless fought him all the way - and lost. The two Assumptions appear in Progress and Poverty some 165 pages apart as odd remarks - about obvious human behavior, but otherwise not particularly significant. You asked me if I had read George Orwell's essays at that time. The answer is probably yes, but I cannot remember them - which probably means that I agreed with them (or thought them too lightweight to bother with). I did find George worth bothering with. I was a free trader. George wrote what is probably the best book ever written on free trade, then showed that the benefits of free trade do not find their way into the hands of marginal workers at the bottom of the heap - except in transitory fashion. He also said things so well. It is certain that Progress and Poverty has been used in many literature classes in University - but very few economics classes. You would find him interesting and a fine writer, even if you disagreed with everything he said. I did enjoy Burke Marilyn Waring merely reiterated the same old stuff. Russell Banks' was OK. Schiller again is saying the same things I enjoyed the piece from Mary Rose O'Reilley's book The Peaceable Classroom but she was describing chaos rather than order. It is dangerous to stand in a classroom with literature in our hands. What do we do with those awful moments in Virginia Woolf when her meaning becomes unmistakable: there is no possibility of human beings understanding each other, no hope at all. Grossman was good. I thought that Wittgenstein's remark about the Oracle was fun, but not particularly wise. Science tests its hypotheses. When the Oracle appears to be wrong, we seek reasons for our failure to understand. When physics appears to be wrong, we test it. If physics says there is gravity and the Oracle says there isn't, one simply tests it by stepping off a cliff. It's not an experiment you can repeat but it probably provides a clear answer. So we come to: We turn not older with years; but newer every day I suppose that the TV commercial I'm not growing older, I'm growing better isn't in the same class. Now, I know I'm a Philistine, but while I like her poem, I am unwilling to place a deep significance on it. But, I also know you may. So be it. I don't have a lot of old left, which may affect my viewpoint. As I read your various excerpts, I experienced deja vu. It seemed to me I had read these things before. That's a problem with being around a long while. As to being a disciple (because I work for one of the many schools all around the world named after Henry George) I must say I think the man was great. But, I brought his remarks about exertion to the front of my economics course and called them Basic Assumptions. He had them both in the text far apart from each other and treated them as self evident truths, not worth spending many words on. I changed his basic concepts, the very essence of his arguments - while keeping the same names (which I might also change). I changed a number of conclusions, because I thought they were inadequate. I'm not much of a disciple. What have you denied in Wittgenstein? Now to the less consequential. You told me that I said: There is an order in the universe. I said: I didn't say there was an order in the universe. Oh yes you did Harry, I pasted it into the very beginning of the thread that prompted this response. Check your sources Harry. You think you actually pasted your own paste. It's often useful to excerpt - but a careful cut and past can change the meaning. I don't think that I ever said There was an order in the universe. I said that two Basic Assumptions precede every science. - and I quoted them. You took one line of the quote and gave it to me, . You also suggested that I claim to discover
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Harry, I pointed out many exceptions which you
ignored. Just say that Man's desire for eternal pain is
infinite. Man's desire for death is infinite.
Liebestod?JohnWaters and his movies?
Sounds pretty kinky to me this aphorism of yours.Those who
believed that Man's desires were infinite and that it was OK went on the largest
sexual binge in historyin the baths of New York and the
world. Should man's desires be infinite?
Their binge ended in a plague.
Or maybe we could say that the desires of a child
seem infinite but are limited by their experience to food clothing
andshelter. And thenthey go passive and want
it with the least effort. The language of a child is
concrete while the language of the adult is abstract. You must prove
which stance you are speaking from in order to make your meaning
clear. But I must say, dealing with the whole list seems like
you are Bruce Lee and the rest of us are the villains. You have a
lot of guts inside your simplicity. But you don't convince me in
spite of your tenacity. The most common state of humanity is
boredom. I have no doubt that some of the systems that you mentioned
worked and I will give you that George made it work, although I have to take
your word for it. But why did it change? No system
works that doesn't cover all of the bases and lasts more than a few years before
it is thrown out.
REH
- Original Message -
From:
Harry Pollard
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2002 11:36
PM
Subject: RE: FWk: Re: Double-stranded
Economics
Arthur,Jolly good, Arthur!They are
axioms - self evident truths. That's why no-one can find an
exception.You don't have to prove a self-evident truth. After all -
it's self-evident.More seriously, it is almost vital to have
self-evident truths as assumptions, then as Russel said, use as few as
possible ("Two are better than sixteen.") At least, I suppose you should with
something incontrovertible (perhaps the same thing).After all, you
intend to build a network of reasonable logic on this base.It had
better be right.I fear the Neos replaced the careful thinking of the
Classicals with an edifice resting on air. As one looks through what is
considered important in a current textbook, one must be struck by
inconsequentiality of it all. We must start thinking of economics as a
real science and I can't see much hope of that unless we look back to before
the rot began.Now this a hard thing to say to a professional
economist, who has learned all kinds of useful skills (even though Ed never
did get to try out his indifference curves). Also, economists seem to be
the best of the crop. Maybe they have to be to draw out the worthwhile from
the complications."Publish or Perish" ensures that a veritable
blizzard of paper sweeps through academia - much of it exposing such important
things as imperfect competition (who said it was perfect?) Joan Robinson made
a career out of this nonsense.But, what about the perpetual poor who
grace our society?And a bit above the polloi are a middle class
desperately trying to keep the perks of the somewhat well-paid professionals -
and they do so by working umpteen hours to say ahead of the
mortgage.And the rich? Henry George suggested that when poverty exists
in a society, riches are not enough. You keep struggling to get more because
over your shoulder you can see the leering face of poverty - a poverty that
may catch you. Economists don't really appear to do a very good job,
do
they?Harry___Arthur
wrote:
HARRY: You mean the two Assumptions are wrong. Well, you are a
scientist. Show it. All you need is one exception. that shouldn't be hard to
find.A religious dogma is something that is proclaimed as true
without proof.So, disprove it. Show everyone on Future Works that
the two Assumptions are not true of human behavior.ACNow that
we have moved to proof, Harry, how about some proof that your two
assumptions, the pillars of your system, are true.Proof please.
arthur
---
Mike,
Your analysis is wrong.
Though everything you say can be applied to the Neo-Classical stuff.
They are the people who decided about 100 years ago to make economics
mathematical, and therefore a science.
The problem with people sciences is you can't put people in test
tubes, so you have to use the tool of imagination (a tool not unknown in
the physical sciences).
"What if?" is the question in the social sciences - also not unknown
in other sciences.
You said:
MIKE: "It is, I think, even worse to start with ad hoc generalizations
of the
e
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Ray answered my: For that matter where is this dog-eat-dog fantasy world. Enron. Ray You've pinned it down! Harry ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
At 02:38 AM 2/3/2002 -0400, Mike Spencer wrote: Harry quoted me: me It is, I think, even worse to start with ad hoc generalizations of the me emergent properties of the aggregate and then employ them as me hypotheses from which, with the application of scientific reasoning, me we hope to deduce a science of the good society. And opined: hp Maybe you don't know what ad hoc means. C'mon Harry. Lay off the condescension. To this, to the purpose at hand. In this case, to the purpose of creating suitable slogans for an ideology. No condescension, Mike. I was lightly kidding you. However, you did take the work of a century or two and call it ad hoc. Meantime: ad hoc: Often improvised or impromptu I guess the condescension came from your court. hp I am also not sure how emergent properties of the aggregate applies hp to an Assumption about individual action. Your Assumptions are not about individual action. They are about Man in the 19th century sense of generalizing to all of man- or human-kind, as I think you were at pains to explain in an earlier post. Many of the things we may say about Mankind allude to emergent properties of complex interactions between multitudinous individuals, no one of which alone *neccessarily* exhibits the properties to which we allude. When one uses Man one is referring to the species homo - not some of them, or most of them, but every single one of them. But if that is confusing. Let me say it. The two Assumptions apply to every single person. The Classical Analysis seemed to be prejudice-free. Much more important than our differences are our similarities. But, we know that. me Harry has, IIRC, repeated several times his premises: hp I don't know what IIRC ... If I recall correctly. You are quite correct. As I've put it elsewhere, I've trailed my coat in your paths. me I don't see this as any less a religious dogma than All have sinned me and come short of the glory of God. ' hp You mean the two Assumptions are wrong. Well, you are a scientist. hp Show it. All you need is one exception. that shouldn't be hard to find. hp zhp A religious dogma is something that is proclaimed as true without proof. hp hp So, disprove it. Show everyone on Future Works that the two hp Assumptions are not true of human behavior. No, I didn't *mean* they are wrong, although I think they're bogus -- generalities of the same quality as Everybody loves a parade or There's nothing like a good cigar I don't like parades and I don't smoke. Try another. and constructed or chosen for their propaganda value (ad hoc). Propaganda for what? I *meant* that they were offered as zdogma and seemed to me to qualify as such. Not at all. They were offered as scientific assumptions to precede a science. If they are true they jump start our economic thinking. Instead of assuming that people are simply too unpredictable to deal with, they offer an opportunity to think about people as predictable beings. They describe why people work and how people work. And they are self-evident truths. Doesn't that make them useful? Unfortunately we have rather forgotten rigor in our thinking processes. Look at Ray's contribution to this discussion. He's the best yet, yet he offered alternatives to the Basic Assumptions that softened them - made them easier to accept. That's fine but I will argue with him that the two Assumptions don't need to be softened. If you accept them, you are not somehow weakened. Indeed, you are strengthened. (Of course, once past the self-evident truths, the Classicals immediately took us into the seven terms hat effectively cover everything on earth. Yet again the Classicals were rigorous in their thinking and they came up with seven terms that named tightly defined concepts that were mutually exclusive.) Would that modern economists were as rigorous. I remember 30-40 years ago Economics text-book writer George Leland Bach finishing his chapter on profit with for what profit is paid, and to whom, is very difficult to determine. I doubt that modern text-book writers are as candid as Bach. But then, profit isn't an economic term. What the Neo-Classicals seem to do when they have a word hanging around doing nothing, is to attach a meaning to it. It makes modern economics a butt for jokes, saved perhaps only by the quality of the people who get trapped in it. No, I'm not a scientist, although I've studied a bit of science and make some effort to continue in that avocation. No, a religious dogma, at least as I construe the word, is proclaimed authoritatively as subject neither to proof nor disproof. It is the nature of good propaganda technique to construct slogans that repel and evade critique. A subsequent invitation to disprove the slogan is part of the propaganda. Prove to me that there *is* somthing like a good cigar! There is no point to proclaiming with authority (whose authority?) something in a science because the proclamation will be torn to pieces. So, tear it to pieces. hp Then start thinking again
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What we need to understand may only be expressible in a language that we do not know [snip] I am rather more optimistic on the potential of language, although if you mean by a language that we do not know, the results of childrearing and schooling in terms of individuals' language skills, then I would agree. One of the genuine advances of the personal computer is that it removes a great disincentive to getting one's words exactly right: the drudgery of recopying words one does not intend to change. Uniform printed editions removed the disincentive to correcting text that, under manuscript conditions, correcting a manuscript by writing a new one would likely introduce new errors in the copying process. Word processing software eliminates the tedium of recopying everything to change anything in one's text. -- If persons were educated to the expressive possibilities of the English language, instead of dulling their minds on Dickens, perhaps the postmodern conceit that communication is impossible would appeal less to the PhD products of our Prestige Universities who don't really have any idea of what it would be like to have something to say (or even to think). After graduating from Yale in the same class (although, obviously not in the same class!!!) as George W Bush, it was several years later when, in reading Hermann Broch's _The Sleepwalkers_ (not to be confused with Arthur Kroestler's book by the same title!!!), that I saw why words might deserve to exist, and I found my own voice. Oh *This* is what language can be about and what it can do So my expectation that language's gross under market valuation will rise any time soon is not much. Invest your semiotic capital in the postmodernist linguistic bubble. Get a big enough semiotic credit line (AKA PhD w/tenure) that you too can explain to fawning graduate students how communication is impossible (even while you blithely deploy the denotation of your American Express card to pay for (if there is such a thing as paying for...) dinner at a 5-star restaurant (if there is such a thing as dinner...). What a person cannot say, they can, at best, see through a glass darkly -- although they can even see vaguely only because they can at least put *that* into words. So vast is the extent of the Logos, that no matter how far you search, you will not find its limit anywhere. (Heraclitus) The herd of mankind is two-headed, thinking what is is-not, and what is-not is, together. (Parmenides) If you want to read something that trumps Richard Nixon's I am not a crook, read Deconstruction in a Nutshell, where you will find Jacques Derrida explaining that he honors the Immortals of the Western Canon whom he Honors like every other Normal University Professor who defends with his life the academic establishment, so he finds it difficult to understand why people think he says things like that meaning is impossible. It's a shame George W Bush is a Republican, since Derrida could be his speech writer -- a post Derrida would probably enjoy as much as Robert Bork would have enjoyed the intellectual feast of being on the Supreme Court. \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Brian McAndrews wrote: Brad, Have you read Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein? I have not. (So many books, so little time) What does he say about LW's mental breakdown before WWI and how LW related to students when he was a school teacher? I did read a fascinating book about LW's single venture as an architect -- Aspergers' probably; genius probably too. LW spent 2 years finding a foundery to cast the heating radiators for the house I do now recall that the other Asperger's candidate was Bela Bartok. Ref. lost, sorry, so you don't have to give it any credence. Stephen Toulmin gave it rave reviews. He was a student of Wittgenstein and I think I recall you mentioning his 'Cosmopolis' on this list. I have no idea where you came up with the Asperger's syndrome stuff. (I have no idols, if that's the question) I am still trying to improve my audit trail skills, but having been childreared not to notice what's happening to me, often I remember something was interesting after where I found it is gone, and I fail to find it again. But I do think my oral and my written discourse are at least not altogether shameful in their bibliographical underpinnings, andf I promise to redouble my efforts over the redoubling I was already intending anyway Scientists do play their own language games, so do all the disciplines. Isn't that what first year 101 courses are all about? Learning the languages (superstars)of economics, poli sc, psych, physics... I would have had no problem had LW talked about quote-language games-unquote, like Erving Goffman might have done. Goffman was a student of the way the surface semiotic moves and counters in social life covertly deploy all manner of unacknowledged hidden agenda. Did LW deal with the hidden agenda behind the words? He did not explore the hidden curriculum (Lawrence Kohlberg), or did he? *Please* give me the references where Wittgenstein explored both the Freudian unconscious of repression and the poisitive social unconscious of permissions described in Alain Resians' film Mon Oncle d'Ameriqua, and Edward Hall's The Silent Language? We can imagine a language simpler than ours, in which there are words for the various materials on a construction site, and words for telling a person what to do with these materials. Bring brick. All language can be understood as being elaborated on this base (presumably like all mathematics can be constructed from the null set). That is my understanding of LW's philosophy in a nutshell. And it certainly beats looking for sense data or atomic facts! How about, instead, starting off with the Winnicottean notion that the infant's first word expresses the whole world [as the infant understand it...]? Of course, we, like LW's building construction site crew, quickly train the infant to use words denotatively (or rather: we truncdate the infant's world to various materials on a construction site and words for telling the person what to do with them. We call this education, although a real construction worker might call it schlepping. Hammurabi's children made their house of slavery's bricks imprimatured by some mad priest's imagined good. The good is gone, the priest stamps on (George Delury) \brad mccormick Brian At 08:08 PM 2/2/2002 -0500, Brad wrote: Sorry, I didn't see this last point. Wittgenstein seems likely to have had Asperger's(sp?) syndrome [mild autism]. Did he love anybody? Who but an autistic could come up with the conceptualization that the forms of social life are: language games ? Wouldn't a person who was dissociated but also a genius be likely to think about whether a person could be meaning blind? Sounds like autism to me -- but then I am making interpretations beyond the basic rule (ref. Freud), so they are merely speculative. \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: The human strand ( was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Hi Harry, I'll only answer one point. Most of what you wrote in your last message at 15:10 01/02/02 -0800, I wouldn't quarrel mightily with but I have a comment on one point where you wrote: (HP) Don't equate humanity with starlings and fish. They are impelled by instinct -- the perfect biological response to a stimulus (until the environment changes whereupon it could be the worst response). Man short-circuited his instinct when he became able to reason. No Sir! This was current opinion 30 years ago when the environment-only school swept all before it, but it's been much modified since. We may not have the sort of detailed instincts that, say, a spider has when spinning a web, but I think most scientists in various human disciplines would agree that genetic propensities feature strongly. Let me choose just one strong instinct -- rank order, particularly in the male of our species. I don't believe that a single anthropologist has ever come across a society in which there is equal ranking between the male members. Every group of boys naturally adopt rank-ordering, first in play, and then in earnest at puberty and onwards. It's our most troublesome instinct when at work within large organisations and governments. Conspicuous consumption is evidence of this rank-order instinct. No previous economist had ever given this a moment's thought, but Veblen was dead right in pointing this out. (Yet another useful stone was added to the economic edifice.) Keith __ Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say. John D. Barrow _ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
At 09:42 AM 2/3/2002 -0500, Brad wrote: I'll leave whitman aside, since I am poetry blind Thanks for this honesty Brad. It saves both of us a lot of time because; as the Perloff article I sent explores, I see Wittgenstein as a poetic philosopher.. I am an amateur self taught student of philosophy. My background is in child development - Piaget et al. I developed an interest in the history and philosophy of science which led me to make sense of the concept 'paridigm shift' and that took me to Ludwig Fleck and Wittgenstein who both used this language early in the 20th century. Wittgenstein wrote the way he did precisely because of how he understood language (meaning and understanding). Some people hate poetry because of 'hidden meaning' . The Emily Dickinson poem I sent has no hidden meaning, it shows us a profoundly different way of experiencing the world. Some of us might embrace this way of being. And because of this new way of being so many of the old philosophical problems aren't solved; they disappear. That is the ladder metaphor that Wittgenstein uses. This is what Russell came to see but couldn't bring himself to embrace. Take care, Brian
Re: The human strand ( was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
At 03:24 PM 2/3/2002 +, Keith wrote: We may not have the sort of detailed instincts that, say, a spider has when spinning a web, but I think most scientists in various human disciplines would agree that genetic propensities feature strongly. Keith, I find no solace what so ever in the expression 'detailed instincts' It is nothing but a 'black box'. If you add chemical messages, genetics, dna, etc., I still feel none the wiser. I like Whitman watch a spider make its web and am in awe. Teenagers might say 'awesome' ; I tend to be even more moved and say 'awe full'. Stephen Jay Gould and company say there is no need for an ' intelligent designer' in evolutionary theory, I disagree. I see it plainly in the spider's web and in Beethoven's 10th - Ode to Joy. But of course I consult the oracle and you consult the physist. Take care, Brian
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Brian, I didn't say there was an order in the universe. I suggested that scientists are obliged to assume there is. Also, that they must assume that they can find it. What else is there? And what if it is a musical order? What a delightful thought. I bet Ray would like that. But what if it is cacophony? Then we are done. We cannot find an order where there is no order. But your imagery is delightful. But, you bring in Emily Dickenson. (I think you may be confusing the message with the messenger.) If I were Emily Dickenson, I would experience the world as EmilyDickenson. How I experience the world is nothing to do with the subject, but I am ever willing to discuss anything. What mythology of the creation of the universe do I find most attractive? You are asking me what fairy story I like most. Perhaps Alice in Wonderland fits the bill best. I know nothing about the creation of the universe and neither does anyone else. Maybe you want me to tell you which guess I prefer. Is this a game? Perhaps not. Maybe it's an exercise in curiosity, which is fine. People are curious. (Could that be an Assumption of psychology?) I don't agree with Einstein on this point. I recall the past, It happened to me. In expect to be in the future tomorrow. But perhaps he meant we can only live in the now, which is correct. We only have now. Lots of good questions, Brian. But don't direct them at me as if I am claiming responsibility for the order in the universe. Harry _ Brian wrote: Harry wrote: There is an order in the universe. Perhaps, and it may be musical. C. S. Lewis in his Narnia series has Aslan sing the universe into being. Think of the 'order' Emily Dickinson shared with us : We turn not older with years; but newer every day Do you experience living as Emily does Harry? If you did would it change your ways of experiencing the world? Einstein said that the past ,the present, and the future are illusions; albeit stubborn ones. Why did Einstein never accept the 'order' that quantum mechanics suggests? Perhaps he was uneasy leaving things to 'chance'. Which mythology of the creation of the world (universe) do you find most attractive, Harry? Even within the myths of science, the big bang theory (hunch) is only one of several that hold the interest of the 'movers and shakers'. How come many chemo-therapy researchers don;t opt for chemo when they find themselves with cancer? A lack of Faith? Or do they know too much? Ezra Pound said: Poetry is news that stays news. Perhaps Art (music, dance, visual art, poetry, literature,) is the 'language' Arthur Cordell is looking for. Take care, Brian McAndrews ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: The human strand ( was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Brian, A spider web has no awe. A flower has no intrinsic beauty. A redwood is just a tree. Just as a humming bird is just a bird. The awe, the beauty, the hushed tones deep in the redwood forest, the delight watching a feeding humming bird, belong to us. We do have a tendency to graft our thoughts on to the object of them. Harry Brian wrote: Keith wrote: We may not have the sort of detailed instincts that, say, a spider has when spinning a web, but I think most scientists in various human disciplines would agree that genetic propensities feature strongly. Keith, I find no solace what so ever in the expression 'detailed instincts' It is nothing but a 'black box'. If you add chemical messages, genetics, dna, etc., I still feel none the wiser. I like Whitman watch a spider make its web and am in awe. Teenagers might say 'awesome' ; I tend to be even more moved and say 'awe full'. Stephen Jay Gould and company say there is no need for an ' intelligent designer' in evolutionary theory, I disagree. I see it plainly in the spider's web and in Beethoven's 10th - Ode to Joy. But of course I consult the oracle and you consult the physist. Take care, Brian ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: The human strand ( was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Keith, As I said, Ashley Montagu - a probable super-genius in a bunch of sociological fields - says flatly that we have no instincts. I had already been teaching this for about 30 years when I came across his statement, so I was glad we agreed! I defined instinct as the perfect biologic response, which you don't have to accept. I suggested that Man replaced it with reason. The importance of this is that when conditions change, Man - impelled by his reason - can change too. Another creature is unable to change an instinct, so the instinct responsible for saving its life may end up killing it. It's a little known fact, but I have the Tujunga record for the quickest standing backward long jump. I nearly trod on a rattler in the bush halfway up a mountain. It had a partly digested quail in its mouth and was of no danger - but I got the record anyway. Was my jump instinctive (mindless), or mindful? I knew rattlers. I do not like the idea of being bitten, then climbing down a mountain with the venom coursing through my veins. I got away from there fast. Was this instinct, or a reasonable reaction to a particular condition? Had I seen the mouthful of quail immediately, would that have changed my reaction. Of course. I don't believe an instinctive response can be changed. However, rank-ordering which is common I think in most animals, is not a perfect biologic response to a stimulus. It might be part of natural selection. Harry __ Keith wrote: Hi Harry, I'll only answer one point. Most of what you wrote in your last message at 15:10 01/02/02 -0800, I wouldn't quarrel mightily with but I have a comment on one point where you wrote: (HP) Don't equate humanity with starlings and fish. They are impelled by instinct -- the perfect biological response to a stimulus (until the environment changes whereupon it could be the worst response). Man short-circuited his instinct when he became able to reason. No Sir! This was current opinion 30 years ago when the environment-only school swept all before it, but it's been much modified since. We may not have the sort of detailed instincts that, say, a spider has when spinning a web, but I think most scientists in various human disciplines would agree that genetic propensities feature strongly. Let me choose just one strong instinct -- rank order, particularly in the male of our species. I don't believe that a single anthropologist has ever come across a society in which there is equal ranking between the male members. Every group of boys naturally adopt rank-ordering, first in play, and then in earnest at puberty and onwards. It's our most troublesome instinct when at work within large organisations and governments. Conspicuous consumption is evidence of this rank-order instinct. No previous economist had ever given this a moment's thought, but Veblen was dead right in pointing this out. (Yet another useful stone was added to the economic edifice.) Keith ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: The human strand ( was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Sounds like for once I agree with Harry. The stars are just Stofflumpen -- or maybe just Lumpf... (if I have my German right...). I recently read that the thing Hegel said that people found most offensive was that the stars are only a gleaming leprosy on the sky. The thing that is uplifting about the stars is the astronomical theory we have constructed concerning those light spots on the overhead bowl of darkness. I hereby confess to having been taken in in past by the romantic notion that there was something majestic about the objects of astronomical theory, as opposed to the human praxis which elaborates that theory and in which alone those objects have any role in our world. Of course I knew better, but I was being lazy. The worst problem, however is not that We do have a tendency to graft our thoughts on to the object of them. The worst problem is that we forget about our role as the thinkers of the thoughts in our enthrallment with the objects -- and we even come to think we are nothing more than parts of those objects -- and, in consequence, as Gregory Bateson observed: by thinking of ourselves as thinglike, we make ourselves become more thinglike. It is a lot easier for persons to be employees (students, etc.) if the brain is a computer, than if to be a person is to be transcendental subjectivity (a perspective upon Being and its world). I believe that even Wittgenstein said: Though the ether was filled with electromagnetic waves, all was darkness, until man opened his seeing eye. Wittgenstein the poet (until man opened his seeing eye there was not even darkness...) \brad mccormick Harry Pollard wrote: Brian, A spider web has no awe. A flower has no intrinsic beauty. A redwood is just a tree. Just as a humming bird is just a bird. The awe, the beauty, the hushed tones deep in the redwood forest, the delight watching a feeding humming bird, belong to us. We do have a tendency to graft our thoughts on to the object of them. Harry Brian wrote: Keith wrote: We may not have the sort of detailed instincts that, say, a spider has when spinning a web, but I think most scientists in various human disciplines would agree that genetic propensities feature strongly. Keith, I find no solace what so ever in the expression 'detailed instincts' It is nothing but a 'black box'. If you add chemical messages, genetics, dna, etc., I still feel none the wiser. I like Whitman watch a spider make its web and am in awe. Teenagers might say 'awesome' ; I tend to be even more moved and say 'awe full'. Stephen Jay Gould and company say there is no need for an ' intelligent designer' in evolutionary theory, I disagree. I see it plainly in the spider's web and in Beethoven's 10th - Ode to Joy. But of course I consult the oracle and you consult the physist. Take care, Brian ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *** -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Hi Brian et al, At 09:32 AM 2/3/2002 Sunday , you wrote: Brian, I didn't say there was an order in the universe. I suggested that scientists are obliged to assume there is. Also, that they must assume that they can find it. What else is there? And what if it is a musical order? What a delightful thought. I bet Ray would like that. But what if it is cacophony? Then we are done. We cannot find an order where there is no order. [snip] There is more than one kind of order. Even chaotic systems display order. Statistically, certain types of physical events can occur with greater frequency than others. Almost any very complex system appears chaotic at first and may be chaotic at the micro level even when well understood at the macro level. So looking for simple rules for complex beings like humans may be a fools errand. Humans exhibit all kinds of irrational behaviors when viewed from any one viewpoint. So trying to predict human behavior in an economic sense while ignoring humanitarian or sexual drives is almost sure to fare poorly. I fail to see any axioms proclaimed in this discussion that are sufficiently obvious to me to claim such a title. I think we will need to go much deeper into the human mind before we succeed. Scientists themselves have many motivations. Some do it for the wages they earn. Some for the intellectual pleasure. Some to remove themselves from the popular culture. Some are responding to compulsive drives. The same can be said for climbing mountains. Or chatting on email lists for that matter. Dennis Paull Half Moon Bay, California
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
At 09:32 AM 2/3/2002 -0800, Harry wrote: But what if it is cacophony Harry, Isn't this fun? You well know one person's cacophony is another person's Mozart. It is a matter of taste. Wittgenstein spends a lot of time dissolving this confusion. Think of how silly it would be to argue over which coffee tastes best. If we can't agree on our taste preferences then shouldn't the same hold true for sound preferences? Same goes for the rest of the 5 senses. (or is their only five?) What about intuition; is it a sense? I didn't say there was an order in the universe. Oh yes you did Harry, I pasted it into the very beginning of the thread that prompted this response. Check your sources Harry. What else is there? Faith in something else Harry. Why not ask Ray about his beliefs given that he is a priest within his culture. Actually Ray generously shares his beliefs on this list all the time. His poem response to Dan George's beliefs could be read as a credo. If I were Emily Dickenson, I would experience the world as EmilyDickenson. How I experience the world is nothing to do with the subject You can be 'in-formed' by her though; right Harry? You seem to have been deeply 'in-formed by Henry George .You even work at his school. Does that makes you a disciple? What mythology of the creation of the universe do I find most attractive? You are asking me what fairy story I like most. Perhaps Alice in Wonderland fits the bill best. YES I AGREE!! Alice is perfect because as you recall the rich and powerful get to decide what language means and they get to change that meaning when it serves their purposes!! Now that is infinitely better than privilege. Enough for now Harry,. I've got to prepare for 6 hours of classes tomorrow but I can use a lot of this exchange because we are exploring 'interpretation' of text in The Incredible Lightness of Being. Take care, Brian
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
At 11:55 AM 2/3/2002 -0500,Brad wrote: Do philosophical problems of dying, suffering, anomie, making choices, etc. dissolve? Or do they get called something else and live on under some less disturbing rubric? I missed the Emily Dickinsoon poem -- can you resend and I'll see what I make of it? Brad, Dickinson's poem: We turn not older with years, but newer each day. As to your other questions about dying etc.I can only say that Monk, using eye witness accounts shows us how Wittgenstein dealt with his own suffering and dying. Wittgenstein once wrote that instead of: In the beginning was the word he would prefer: In the beginning was the deed. Take care, Brian
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Hello Brad, Brian, I am enjoying your conversation immensely as I always do. I have great respect for your minds. That being said I would like to contribute a little point or to. Wittgenstein believed that ethics and aesthetics can not be spoken or written about; they must be shown. I think this probably came from a time when too much was being said about ethics and aesthetics and too little done, so out of frustration heresorted to dramatic statements much as Kierkegaard insisted that nobody had the courage to have a real war when in fact they had been in a real war for quite some time. Other than that the statement is not true. It is not either/or but both.e.g. Words can never describe a sound but they are necessary to point out things in the sound that those who are experiencing it for the first time, either as performer or audience, would miss. Words, like teaching, are meant to draw attention to and focus upon the comprehension of technique, but they are not a substitute for the orginial symbol unless they are the orginal art work. In the way that Whitman's poem shows us the ineffable. I read the poem andI don't perform it that way. In fact, quiet rightly, you needed the bold mark to point out what your reading was.Even then I still might not have believed that it only showed the ineffablealthough one of the things that it showed could have been that. IfI examine the poem's key wordsI get the absurdity of a scientific human trying to comprehend a universe (the oneWhitman knows in his head) that cannot be comprehended in the modality the scientist has chosen. It is not about ineffibility but the arrogance of the scientist claiming and being acclaimed for describing the "real" Universe with his simple tools. If I may analyse a bit: Poem Keywords for meaning stress, i.e. semantics (nouns + modifiers and process verbs + modifiers = meaning stress) heard learned astronomer,proofs,figures, were ranged columns,shown charts diagrams, add, divide, measure,sitting heardastronomerlectured much applauselecture-room,soon unaccountable became tired sick,rising gliding out wandered off mystical moist night-air timetime,Looked upperfect silencestars. Walt Whitman REH Interpretive stress, i.e. contextual semantics When I heard the learned astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,WhenI sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising... andgliding out... I wandered off by myself, (pause)In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, (pause)Looked up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman (character analysis for above performance interpretation) WW Job: Work is poetry withlittle financial recompense while job is as an opera critic for a Brooklyn Newspaper. WW Emotion: anger/irritation WW Question: why am I being asked to endure this bore who makes a living doing such inadaquate things? WW Main Point: This scientist, this tone deaf baby has no knowledge whatsoever of what he speaks when compared to the possibilities of the real thing. WW Postlude:That scientist thinks he's a star but stars are found only in heaven. For further reading, reference my old teacher Dorothy Uris' book, "To Sing In English" as well as my French coach Pierre Bernac's "The Interpretation of French Song." Dorothy's book speaks for the semantic and syntactical elements of performance diction that she recieved in the old Hollywood Studio Star System. She was a young actress at the feet of the coaches for the system that created great technical actors from people who they "discovered" with a "look" at lunch counters. Maestro Bernac wasjust as tough but without Ms. Uris's niceness. The Performance of poetry is everythingbecause it ishighly specific in its use ofpoetic diction. On the "other hand" itopen's up into the "Universal" in as many ways as its reader'stechnical knowledge, imagination anddesire will pursue. Therecan never be one interpretation unless the poem is overly obvious and not very good poetry. Brian, I accept that your interpretation is both a goodand valid one.One can never draw, however, scientific conclusions from such a thing since science struggles tolower complexity througha generalover-simplified projection to practical ends, poetry struggles to express the whole of the Universe through a blossoming specificity that reaches to the ends of the possibilities of meaning in its interaction with the reader/performer and if there is one, the external audience. The point of art is that all things are expressible at least as metaphor but not quantifiable or maybe that quantifying it is a useless activity in the long run. As the Psycho-linguist Robert Brown points out in "How Shall a
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Harry, My point really wasn't about "gender sensitivity" but rather that, as the Feminist scholars have forced us to recognize (and as various other folks--notably Ray, have already pointed out)--words have meanings in contexts and that if we evoke a word we also evoke the context both in ourselves as the scribe, and in the reader -- and they need not (in fact are unlikely) to be the same. Formal Philosophy ( of the Linguistic Analysis school) made mince meat of the Germans (Hegel,Schopenhouer, etc.etc.) byat the base, pointing out that the attempt to evoke syllogistic or mathematical logic using highly contextualized language, just wasn't on. Hence, I would guess, the flight ofEconomics into evermore rarified(and disembodied) invocations of pure Math and the departure ofEconomics teaching from Economics reality as presented by Ed and Arthur. Its not quite "Words mean what I say that they mean" but rather that "Words means what wehave accepted that they mean" where "we" is understood in "our" multitudes, rather than in "their" pseudo scientific singularity. Mike Gurstein -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Harry PollardSent: February 1, 2002 3:23 PMTo: Michael Gurstein; Keith HudsonCc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)Mike,I said originally:"Man's desires are unlimited.""Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion."(Gender sensitive people can change "Man" to "People".)So, change it to people.No problem.Incidentally, Man and Mankind used to mean people before the feminists decided to try witchcraft (or warlockcraft). Harry__-Michael wrote: Hmmm...Let's take a wee look at the first two of those first premises as posited byKeith...1. Man's desires are unlimited;2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion;Does that also and necessarily include, "scientifically" of course,:1. Woman's desires are unlimited;2. Women seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion;(or do we suddenly find ourselves in some nasty messy confusions of meaning,structured misunderstanding, nuance, "he said/she said... etc.etc. which Ibelieve is partially the point being made by the Post-Autistic Economists.MG ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Mike Spencer wrote: Mike G wrote: Formal Philosophy ( of the Linguistic Analysis school) made mince meat of the Germans (Hegel, Schopenhouer, etc.etc.) by at the base, pointing out that the attempt to evoke syllogistic or mathematical logic using highly contextualized language, just wasn't on. What a lovely summary! [snip] The foregoing reminds me that I should, as Neils Bohr urged, always ask questions or, as most, say how things seem to me... and never in conversation -- as opposed to those times when words are being used as weapons to hurt me... --, that I should eschew using the assertorial form (The cat is on the mat, Formal Philosophy ( of the Linguistic Analysis school) made mince meat of the German, etc.), for I truly believe that every assertion is an obfuscated question and an obfuscated value judgment, and that anyone who does not understand this in their gut as well as in their consciously held ideas, does not have much sense about what language is about (and that's just the beginning of what they are missing...). Question mark. Also, I should never use the You should grammatical construct, which is always an obfuscation -- usually by a person in a position of self-righteous power. You should should always be replaced by: I want. Actually, the You should and the [whatever] is grammatical constructs are if not identical, very similar forms of obfuscation, since every fact is a project of making the world be a certain way. God does indeed seem to me to be in the details Perhaps you too will find some value in these thoughts which I have arrived at after decades of trying to dig out from under the massive semiotic devastation of my childrearing. Or you may wonder: Bradford must indeed have had a bad childrearing for it to have taken him decades to figure out these obvious things -- Thank God that I hafve never encountered such people as he must have encountered in his childrearing! I can't imagine where he could have grown up, at least not anywhere in America or Western Europe -- Yours in discourse [a lot of word generation by anthropoid bipeds is perhaps most illuminatingly and usefully called by other names???] \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Brian, I've been discussing the two Assumptions that precede all human sciences - but particularly the Science of Political Economy. There are two assumptions that precede all Science. That there is an order in the universe. and That the mind of man can find that order. Why two? - Well as Bertrand Russell said Better two assumptions than sixteen. Actually, better two assumptions than three. The more you make the more chance of error - so you keep them few. We don't impose a system on nature. We look for the order in Nature that exists. We simply have to find it. That is, if we make the two primary general assumptions. Which we must. The last sentence of the piece is appropriate. Harry _ Brian wrote: Hi Pete, Along with Whitman, I think this has relevance too: Brian McAndrews The Way We Are (Taken from J. Burke, The Day the Universe Changed. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985). Somebody once observed to the eminent philosopher Wittgenstein how stupid medieval Europeans living before the time of Copernicus must have been that they could have looked at the sky and thought that the sun was circling the earth. Surely a modicum of astronomical good sense would have told them that reverse was true. Wittgenstein is said to have replied: 'I agree. But I wonder what it would have looked like if the sun had been circling the earth? The point is that it would look exactly the same. When we observe nature we see what we want to see, according to what we believe we know about it at the time. Nature is disordered, powerful and chaotic, and through fear of the chaos we impose a system on itwe classify nature into a coherent system which appears to do what we say it does. This view of the universe permeates all aspects of our life. All communities in all places and at all times reveal their own view of reality in what they do. The entire culture reflects the contemporary model of reality. We are what we know. And when the body of knowledge changes, so do we. Each change brings with it new entities and institutions created by new knowledge. These novel systems then either oust or coexist with the structures and attitudes held prior to the change. Our modern view is thus a mixture of present knowledge and past view points which have stood the test of time and, for one reason or another, remain valuable in the new circumstances. (p. 11) ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Mike, Well said. In my courses, Man has become People. Which change changes nothing but a possible acceptability. Forgive me, but you know how I like to trail my coat in front of our friends. Of course, inviting them to step on it. Harry __- Michael wrote: Harry, My point really wasn't about gender sensitivity but rather that, as the Feminist scholars have forced us to recognize (and as various other folks--notably Ray, have already pointed out)--words have meanings in contexts and that if we evoke a word we also evoke the context both in ourselves as the scribe, and in the reader -- and they need not (in fact are unlikely) to be the same. Formal Philosophy ( of the Linguistic Analysis school) made mince meat of the Germans (Hegel, Schopenhouer, etc.etc.) by at the base, pointing out that the attempt to evoke syllogistic or mathematical logic using highly contextualized language, just wasn't on. Hence, I would guess, the flight of Economics into ever more rarified (and disembodied) invocations of pure Math and the departure of Economics teaching from Economics reality as presented by Ed and Arthur. Its not quite Words mean what I say that they mean but rather that Words means what we have accepted that they mean where we is understood in our multitudes, rather than in their pseudo scientific singularity. Mike Gurstein -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: February 1, 2002 3:23 PM To: Michael Gurstein; Keith Hudson Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Mike, I said originally: Man's desires are unlimited. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion. (Gender sensitive people can change Man to People.) So, change it to people. No problem. Incidentally, Man and Mankind used to mean people before the feminists decided to try witchcraft (or warlockcraft). Harry __- Michael wrote: Hmmm... Let's take a wee look at the first two of those first premises as posited by Keith... 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; Does that also and necessarily include, scientifically of course,: 1. Woman's desires are unlimited; 2. Women seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion; (or do we suddenly find ourselves in some nasty messy confusions of meaning, structured misunderstanding, nuance, he said/she said... etc.etc. which I believe is partially the point being made by the Post-Autistic Economists. MG ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Arthur, Anything can be as complicated as you want to make it. However, surely the basic job of the scientist is to make things simple. Economics, in its drift away from science that began perhaps at the beginning of the 20th century, has become so complicated that it is the butt of jokes. After 100 years, economists not only don't know why we've had a boom, they don't even know why it has come to an end. When Clinton mounted the largest tax hike in history - why didn't the economy go belly up? Actually, it continued to prosper. Why? Well, economists have a hundred reasons for everything - often contradictory. The triumph of their art seems to be Greenspan's periodic announcements that he's putting the interest rate down a bit. (When it doesn't work, he does it again, and again.) I suppose that the major concern in this nonsense belongs to the people who will be directly affected by capitalization. Wow! Land prices have gone up. The recession is over. Economics used to be about The Nature, Production, and Distribution, of Wealth -with Distribution meaning how Wealth is distributed among the producers. But you know that. It was about people producing the things that kept them alive. To do this they had to be able to work on land probably with the aid of tools. Quit seriously, nothing has changed. This is still the situation. We have become far more sophisticated in our use of land and tools, but it's still the same. Isn't it? However, we have buried ourselves in monstrous complication. I've practically given up reading economic papers because they are almost unreadable and say very little about nothing of importance. Economics has become an arcane study meant only for its practitioners. It does teach skills which can be useful - as Ed has indicated - but philosophically, and scientifically, it has abdicated from any responsibility. Perhaps we should abandon it and begin again. And we should start with its clientele -- people. How do these completely unpredictable people behave? Why do these completely unpredictable people behave as they do? Is there order among the chaos? But reaching back, we find the Classicals have already done this. You'll notice that not one exception to the Basic Assumptions has been suggested, though there have been several attempts to words in my mouth, and to interpret the Assumptions in ways never intended. Yet, this is just the beginning. On this foundation, we could erect an economic edifice that is not only stable, but useful to analyze the problems we have in our society. But, of course, that would be much too simple. Harry -- Arthur wrote: If only it were all this simple. Arthur, We get our clothes from the tailor - or from Penny's or Marks and Sparks We get our meat from the butcher and our produce from the greengrocer. We get our milk from the milkman. Isn't this more sensible than keeping two cows - one to slaughter - growing 17 different vegetable, running up tee-shirts on the sewing machine, and spending a couple of weeks producing an ill-fitting suit? So, why does this all change at the docks? Free Trade is not a political policy. It is natural for humans to exchange. Protection is a policy that tries to prevent this natural cooperation from happening. How simple this all is. Why make it complicated? Perhaps because that's the way the Neo-Classicals make a living. Harry ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Mike, Your analysis is wrong. Though everything you say can be applied to the Neo-Classical stuff. They are the people who decided about 100 years ago to make economics mathematical, and therefore a science. The problem with people sciences is you can't put people in test tubes, so you have to use the tool of imagination (a tool not unknown in the physical sciences). What if? is the question in the social sciences - also not unknown in other sciences. You said: MIKE: It is, I think, even worse to start with ad hoc generalizations of the emergent properties of the aggregate and then employ them as hypotheses from which, with the application of scientific reasoning, we hope to deduce a science of the good society. Maybe you don't know what ad hoc means. The work of at least a century or two of thought doesn't seem to fit your use of the phrase. On the other hand it allows you to move along quickly, so maybe it's justified. I am also not sure how emergent properties of the aggregate applies to an Assumption about individual action. Also, whatever you do, don't use an hypothesis as an Assumption. Try to get an axiom, a self-evident truth, if possible a Law, to use as an assumption. You continued: MIKE: Harry has, IIRC, repeated several times his premises: I don't know what IIRC means but you should know they are not my premises. I would love them to be mine, but they are not. They are a century or two old and I use them because they seem good to me - and are particularly appropriate to the subject of human behavior - and therefore Political Economy. You went on to quote the two Assumptions: MIKE: ' 1. Man's desires are unlimited. 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion. I don't see this as any less a religious dogma that All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. ' HARRY: You mean the two Assumptions are wrong. Well, you are a scientist. Show it. All you need is one exception. that shouldn't be hard to find. A religious dogma is something that is proclaimed as true without proof. So, disprove it. Show everyone on Future Works that the two Assumptions are not true of human behavior. Then start thinking again about your statement that: Hard science is essentially statistical in nature. How do you know what to measure? Maybe soft science tells you. Do you march into the lab and say Hey! What shall we measure today? You should understand that there are two kinds of knowledge. The knowledge of truths and the knowledge of things. I fear that in the schools they spend much of their time on the knowledge of things. Learn this and repeat it back tomorrow. They should be learning truths. The knowledge of truths is the knowledge THAT things are so. While you must know things, they aren't much use without a knowledge of truths. A truth can be used across the gamut of the subject. A thing isn't transferable to another thing - except perhaps with a truth. The two Assumptions are truths. They say THAT people's desires are unlimited and THAT they will seek to satisfy them with the least exertion. This can probably be used across the gamut of the social sciences - and certainly across the subject of economics. These Assumptions apply to every person and people is what Classical Political Economy is all about. The rest of what you wrote was interesting, but had nothing to do with our subject. Harry -- Mike wrote: Pete Vincent wrote: When mathematics is applied to the problem of the nature of the physical world, it's called physics, and it works pretty well, within its domain. When mathematics and sometimes, by extension, physics, are brought to bear on problems in the real world, where dirt and warm bodies and other inconvenient things get in the way of purely analytic solutions, it's called engineering, and that is where economics rightly belongs. I have a slightly different take on why science, as typified by physics, doesn't work well when we move it to economics (or the other so-called social sciences.) Hard science is essentially statistical in nature. Thermodynamics is well described by statitical mechanics and math that applies to large ensembles of indistinguishable particles of ideal gas. Polymer and Protein chemistry is really about properties of statistical ensembles of possible molecular spatial conformations or charge distributions of a single molecule that appear when large numbers of molecules are put together. As for solid state physics, it depends on quantum physics and in QP, *everything* exists smeared out in a haze of ontic probability. The problem with applying science to society is that we profess to care about the individuals of which it is composed. I don't want to be sacrificed to the equivalent of the heat sink in order that the steam engine economy may have the emergent property of producing usable work. Nor, presumably, does anyone. Our notions of civilized society suggest
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
When I heard the learned astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Looked up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman Brad, I gave this poem to the list as art. Not as evidence of anything. The words I bolded intrigue me. Un -account- able suggests to me the absence of reason. Gliding out suggests to me his spirit leaving the lecture Mystical speaks for itself if you have had that kind of experience Perfect silence reminds me of the last statement in Wittgenstein's Tractatus: What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence Wittgenstein believed that ethics and aesthetics can not be spoken or written about; they must be shown. In the way that Whitman's poem shows us the ineffable. When the Vienna Circle (Carnap and friends) believed that his Tractatus was the perfect book to launch the Logical Positivist movement, Wittgenstein went to a meeting with them and read passages from Rilke's poetry. They did not invite him back. Wittgenstein reminds us that if science was able to answer all of its questions we would still be left with our most fundamental concerns: are we loved and how well are we able to love. Brian McAndrews
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Brad, Have you read Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein? Stephen Toulmin gave it rave reviews. He was a student of Wittgenstein and I think I recall you mentioning his 'Cosmopolis' on this list. I have no idea where you came up with the Asperger's syndrome stuff. Scientists do play their own language games, so do all the disciplines. Isn't that what first year 101 courses are all about? Learning the languages (superstars)of economics, poli sc, psych, physics... Brian At 08:08 PM 2/2/2002 -0500, Brad wrote: Sorry, I didn't see this last point. Wittgenstein seems likely to have had Asperger's(sp?) syndrome [mild autism]. Did he love anybody? Who but an autistic could come up with the conceptualization that the forms of social life are: language games ? Wouldn't a person who was dissociated but also a genius be likely to think about whether a person could be meaning blind? Sounds like autism to me -- but then I am making interpretations beyond the basic rule (ref. Freud), so they are merely speculative. \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) ![%THINK;[SGML+APL]] Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Visit my website == http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
RE: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
What we need to understand may only be expressible in a language that we do not know (Anthony Judge) -Original Message-From: Brian McAndrews [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2002 7:41 PMTo: Brad McCormick, Ed.D.Cc: futurework-scribe.uwaterloo.caSubject: Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded EconomicsWhen I heard the learned astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.Walt WhitmanBrad,I gave this poem to the list as art. Not as evidence of anything. The words I bolded intrigue me. Un -account- able suggests to me the absence of reason. Gliding out suggests to me his spirit leaving the lectureMystical speaks for itself if you have had that kind of experiencePerfect silence reminds me of the last statement in Wittgenstein's Tractatus: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" Wittgenstein believed that ethics and aesthetics can not be spoken or written about; they must be shown. In the way that Whitman's poem shows us the ineffable. When the Vienna Circle (Carnap and friends) believed that his Tractatus was the perfect book to launch the Logical Positivist movement, Wittgenstein went to a meeting with them and read passages from Rilke's poetry. They did not invite him back.Wittgenstein reminds us that if science was able to answer all of its questions we would still be left with our most fundamental concerns: are we loved and how well are we able to love.Brian McAndrews
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Brian, We must clear up the meaning and use of Assumptions. (I'm making then official with a capital - but they are rarely expressed, I would think, by scientists. This because they have already accepted them - because they must. Let's assume the opposite. There is chaos in the universe. Then all science stops, for nothing they do is likely to be repeatable. A science will last for a moment - unless it lasts for ever. A scientist may become a baby, unable to speak and write. Earth will burn up tomorrow or the deserts will be replaced by jungle. If there is an earth tomorrow. We cannot assume chaos, so we are forced to assume order, or (as an old Polish Kriegspiel player friend used to say looking at his position) Nothing is any good any more. If we try to see an order (system?) in nature that's the way sciences are born. Scientists try to bring together apparently disparate characteristics and look for their similarities. But we do nothing without the unspoken assumption There is an order in the universe. And the second, of course, that we can do something about it. I haven't read Wittgenstein's Ladder yet, but will do so. Harry ___ Brian wrote: Harry, I disagree, I believe we do impose a system on nature and any first year course in cultural anthropology will show you that. Mythology also shows us that. The 'order' that you claim we discoverwhich already exists in nature is based on certain notions of what counts as evidence and proof. The logical positivists that I mentioned in a recent posting to FW believed that the logic underlying mathematics is the rock solid foundation of empirical science. Bertrand Russell admitted that Wittgenstein had shown this to be false in his Tractatus.. The logic of western science is not universal; it is part of a belief system . It requires faith on the part of its followers. Ray Monk documents this very well in his biographies of Wittgenstein and Russell. He uses Russell's own letters to say this. Amazon.com has excerpts from Monks work on Russell that includes these pages. Harry you should read the last writings of Wittgenstein: On Certainty. He wrote these ideas as he awaited his death from colon cancer. My very favourite passage was written 3 days before he died: (On Certainty, 609-12): Supposing we met people who did not regard [the propositions of physics] as a telling reason [for action]. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it?---If we call this wrong aren't we using our language-game as a base from which to *combat* theirs?.. And are we right to combat it? Of course there are all sorts of slogans which will be used to support our proceedings. Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic. .. I said I would combat the other man,---but wouldn't I give him *reasons*? Certainly; but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes *persuasion*. (Think what happens when missionaries convert natives.) Brian McAndrews At 10:07 AM 2/2/2002 -0800, you wrote: Brian, I've been discussing the two Assumptions that precede all human sciences - but particularly the Science of Political Economy. There are two assumptions that precede all Science. That there is an order in the universe. and That the mind of man can find that order. Why two? - Well as Bertrand Russell said Better two assumptions than sixteen. Actually, better two assumptions than three. The more you make the more chance of error - so you keep them few. We don't impose a system on nature. We look for the order in Nature that exists. We simply have to find it. That is, if we make the two primary general assumptions. Which we must. The last sentence of the piece is appropriate. Harry _ Brian wrote: Hi Pete, Along with Whitman, I think this has relevance too: Brian McAndrews The Way We Are (Taken from J. Burke, The Day the Universe Changed. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985). Somebody once observed to the eminent philosopher Wittgenstein how stupid medieval Europeans living before the time of Copernicus must have been that they could have looked at the sky and thought that the sun was circling the earth. Surely a modicum of astronomical good sense would have told them that reverse was true. Wittgenstein is said to have replied: 'I agree. But I wonder what it would have looked like if the sun had been circling the earth? The point is that it would look exactly the same. When we observe nature we see what we want to see, according to what we believe we know about it at the time. Nature is disordered, powerful and chaotic, and through fear of the chaos we impose a system on itwe classify nature into a coherent system which appears to do what we say it does. This view of the universe
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
- Original Message - From: Harry Pollard To: pete ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 2:00 PM Subject: Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics For that matter where is this "dog-eat-dog fantasy world". Enron. Ray
FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Harry quoted me: me It is, I think, even worse to start with ad hoc generalizations of the me emergent properties of the aggregate and then employ them as me hypotheses from which, with the application of scientific reasoning, me we hope to deduce a science of the good society. And opined: hp Maybe you don't know what ad hoc means. C'mon Harry. Lay off the condescension. To this, to the purpose at hand. In this case, to the purpose of creating suitable slogans for an ideology. hp I am also not sure how emergent properties of the aggregate applies hp to an Assumption about individual action. Your Assumptions are not about individual action. They are about Man in the 19th century sense of generalizing to all of man- or human-kind, as I think you were at pains to explain in an earlier post. Many of the things we may say about Mankind allude to emergent properties of complex interactions between multitudinous individuals, no one of which alone *neccessarily* exhibits the properties to which we allude. me Harry has, IIRC, repeated several times his premises: hp I don't know what IIRC ... If I recall correctly. me I don't see this as any less a religious dogma than All have sinned me and come short of the glory of God. ' hp You mean the two Assumptions are wrong. Well, you are a scientist. hp Show it. All you need is one exception. that shouldn't be hard to find. hp zhp A religious dogma is something that is proclaimed as true without proof. hp hp So, disprove it. Show everyone on Future Works that the two hp Assumptions are not true of human behavior. No, I didn't *mean* they are wrong, although I think they're bogus -- generalities of the same quality as Everybody loves a parade or There's nothing like a good cigar and constructed or chosen for their propaganda value (ad hoc). I *meant* that they were offered as zdogma and seemed to me to qualify as such. No, I'm not a scientist, although I've studied a bit of science and make some effort to continue in that avocation. No, a religious dogma, at least as I construe the word, is proclaimed authoritatively as subject neither to proof nor disproof. It is the nature of good propaganda technique to construct slogans that repel and evade critique. A subsequent invitation to disprove the slogan is part of the propaganda. Prove to me that there *is* somthing like a good cigar! hp Then start thinking again about your statement that: Hard science hp is essentially statistical in nature. Um, well, I've been thinking about it for close to 40 years, off an on. I regret that my insights haven't been more brilliant. hp You should understand that there are two kinds of knowledge. The hp knowledge of truths and the knowledge of things. I don't think there are *any* absolute truths except tautologies and the mathematical truths derived from explicit axioms which are themselves essentially tautological. Of the non-absolute truths, I'm inclined to think there are far more than two varieties, the very notion of a non-absolute truth being as ambiguous as it is. But lets move on... hp The two Assumptions are truths. Now that sounds pretty much like an authoritative proclamation, subject neither to proof nor disproof. If they are truths, was it not ingenuous of you to have invited me to disprove them? In his recent book, _On Equilibrium_, John Ralston Saul refers to: ...the fear we all carry within us. It is there. If we give in to it, we begin seeking not specific forces, but an all-encompassing truth. An so we choose a single quality as our godhead, and then gather all the rest of our existence beneath its umbrella. This is ideology. (p. 13) hp These Assumptions apply to every person... Another authoritative proclamation, the partial truth of which depends on the ambiguity of desire and the domain within which unlimited is to apply. Ray made that pretty clear in his post on Friday, q.v. hp The rest of what you wrote was interesting, but had nothing to do with hp our subject. I hope that at least a few FW readers found it interesting. And I guess it may have had too little to do with our subject. But I'm reasonably sure that it had far too little to do with *your* subject, too little to do with the propagation of the faith. - Mike --- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longer term ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with a high degree of confidence: At 12:48 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote: (HP) You are right to separate the two strands. However, my separation would be different. The science you speak of I think is mostly mathematics. Mathematics is a great tool, but is never better than its premises. And they are often highly suspect. These scientists have drawn around themselves a self consistent world which is not part of the real world. (As is said, Arthur, to an economist, reality is a special case!) This is why they are completely unable to predict. I will attempt to prove that the composition of world trade will be largely predictable over the long term (that is, subject to temporary wayward swings of, what Greenspan calls irrational exuberance) . - My five basic premisses are as follows -- the first two contributed by you (with which I obviously agree). I think these premisses are reasonable but I'm not going to attempt to justify these here: 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; 3. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage holds; 4. As world-wide competitiveness increases, all national currencies (or a single world currency in due course) will increasingly represent the economic (that is, energy) efficiency of operations of supply of goods and services in any country, region, city, whatever; 5. As world-wide competitiveness increases, then the pattern of spending of all customers on staple goods and services will become increasingly similar. Proof: Let the world consists of two countries only -- X and Y. Let X and Y have similar standards of living and similar patterns of consumer spending at a given instant. Let each country produce goods and services A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. Let the efficiency of production of country X is in the order: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H; and that the efficiency of production of country Y is E,F,G,H,A,B,C,D. Then, clearly, the standard of living of both countries can be maximised when country X makes and exports A,B,C,D only to country Y, and country Y makes and exports E,F,G,H only to country X. This can now be generalised to all goods and services and to all countries, regions, cities and, indeed individual producers and consumers. Therefore: Given enough computing power, then the overall pattern of world trade can be predicted. -- Now the above can't account for new discoveries and innovative goods and services. But, given that important new ones come along now and again, then, as soon as they become incorporated in one statistically valid region (that is, one with enough consumers to give a sensible sample), then a reformulation of future world trade can be arrived at. -- This has some important consequences: 1. Maximising world trade is desirable for all; 2. However, the shunting of production or service operations around the world (say, on the basis of the cost of labour only) by individual corporations with a narrow range of products is not desirable, nor stable, over the long term. This is the valid core of the argument of the anti-globalisation protesters and if they were to confine themselves to this point only then I would agree wholeheartedly with them. 3. Ideally, each country, region, city, of individual (any entity with aspirations) should not copy the staple operations of others but should maximise those operations which are unique to it/he/she (or to which it/he/she is especially benefited by location, climate, etc.). Very good examples of the dangers of not doing this are those of the 'copycat countries' of Asia which tried to replicate the production of consumer goods of other more established countries. They may succeed very well for a while with temporary increases in efficiency, particularly if they have a large domestic market, but unless they can show clear efficiency advantages over the longer term then they're in trouble as regards exports. Today, for example, Japan is not able to invest profitably at the present time because its present production mix is too similar to America's and doesn't seem to be developing anything which gives it a clear comparative advantage. The lesson is that all entities should specialise in what they are already particularly good at, or in the unique benefits which their region possesses. (As the pattern of consumer spending becomes increasingly similar, or aspired to, in all countries, this explains why tourism is becoming increasingly important to all countries, developed and undeveloped -- and speciality holidays even more so.) This isn't to say that they shouldn't
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Hmmm... Let's take a wee look at the first two of those first premises as posited by Keith... 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; Does that also and necessarily include, scientifically of course,: 1. Woman's desires are unlimited; 2. Women seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion; (or do we suddenly find ourselves in some nasty messy confusions of meaning, structured misunderstanding, nuance, he said/she said... etc.etc. which I believe is partially the point being made by the Post-Autistic Economists. MG -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: February 1, 2002 4:21 AM To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longer term ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with a high degree of confidence: I will attempt to prove that the composition of world trade will be largely predictable over the long term (that is, subject to temporary wayward swings of, what Greenspan calls irrational exuberance) . - My five basic premisses are as follows -- the first two contributed by you (with which I obviously agree). I think these premisses are reasonable but I'm not going to attempt to justify these here: 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; 3. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage holds; 4. As world-wide competitiveness increases, all national currencies (or a single world currency in due course) will increasingly represent the economic (that is, energy) efficiency of operations of supply of goods and services in any country, region, city, whatever; 5. As world-wide competitiveness increases, then the pattern of spending of all customers on staple goods and services will become increasingly similar. Proof: Let the world consists of two countries only -- X and Y. Let X and Y have similar standards of living and similar patterns of consumer spending at a given instant. Let each country produce goods and services A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. Let the efficiency of production of country X is in the order: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H; and that the efficiency of production of country Y is E,F,G,H,A,B,C,D. Then, clearly, the standard of living of both countries can be maximised when country X makes and exports A,B,C,D only to country Y, and country Y makes and exports E,F,G,H only to country X. This can now be generalised to all goods and services and to all countries, regions, cities and, indeed individual producers and consumers. Therefore: Given enough computing power, then the overall pattern of world trade can be predicted. -- Now the above can't account for new discoveries and innovative goods and services. But, given that important new ones come along now and again, then, as soon as they become incorporated in one statistically valid region (that is, one with enough consumers to give a sensible sample), then a reformulation of future world trade can be arrived at. -- This has some important consequences: 1. Maximising world trade is desirable for all; 2. However, the shunting of production or service operations around the world (say, on the basis of the cost of labour only) by individual corporations with a narrow range of products is not desirable, nor stable, over the long term. This is the valid core of the argument of the anti-globalisation protesters and if they were to confine themselves to this point only then I would agree wholeheartedly with them. 3. Ideally, each country, region, city, of individual (any entity with aspirations) should not copy the staple operations of others but should maximise those operations which are unique to it/he/she (or to which it/he/she is especially benefited by location, climate, etc.). Very good examples of the dangers of not doing this are those of the 'copycat countries' of Asia which tried to replicate the production of consumer goods of other more established countries. They may succeed very well for a while with temporary increases in efficiency, particularly if they have a large domestic market, but unless they can show clear efficiency advantages over the longer term then they're in trouble as regards exports. Today, for example, Japan is not able to invest profitably at the present time because its present production mix is too similar to America's and doesn't seem to be developing anything which gives it a clear comparative advantage. The lesson is that all entities should specialise in what they are already particularly good
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Somewhat correct with the following assumptions: That countries produce according to their resource endowment (the wine and cloth argument from Ricardo vis a vis Portugal and England) But in the networked knowledge age we find that resource endowment is also intelligence and knowhow and economies can develop in ways that wouldn't have been guessed, given their natural resource endowment. Consider Singapore or South Korea. The latter doing very well in ranges of technoology intensive products. Or India with its software industry. And what would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play to your resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Also resource rich countries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and cultural considerations, viz., Argentina. The outline below offered by Keith is appropriate for a relatively fixed pattern of natural resource endowment. Somewhat as the early British writers saw things and appropriate too for their view of England vis a vis the rest of the trading world. arthur -Original Message- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:21 AM To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Subject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longer term ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with a high degree of confidence: At 12:48 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote: (HP) You are right to separate the two strands. However, my separation would be different. The science you speak of I think is mostly mathematics. Mathematics is a great tool, but is never better than its premises. And they are often highly suspect. These scientists have drawn around themselves a self consistent world which is not part of the real world. (As is said, Arthur, to an economist, reality is a special case!) This is why they are completely unable to predict. I will attempt to prove that the composition of world trade will be largely predictable over the long term (that is, subject to temporary wayward swings of, what Greenspan calls irrational exuberance) . - My five basic premisses are as follows -- the first two contributed by you (with which I obviously agree). I think these premisses are reasonable but I'm not going to attempt to justify these here: 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; 3. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage holds; 4. As world-wide competitiveness increases, all national currencies (or a single world currency in due course) will increasingly represent the economic (that is, energy) efficiency of operations of supply of goods and services in any country, region, city, whatever; 5. As world-wide competitiveness increases, then the pattern of spending of all customers on staple goods and services will become increasingly similar. Proof: Let the world consists of two countries only -- X and Y. Let X and Y have similar standards of living and similar patterns of consumer spending at a given instant. Let each country produce goods and services A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. Let the efficiency of production of country X is in the order: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H; and that the efficiency of production of country Y is E,F,G,H,A,B,C,D. Then, clearly, the standard of living of both countries can be maximised when country X makes and exports A,B,C,D only to country Y, and country Y makes and exports E,F,G,H only to country X. This can now be generalised to all goods and services and to all countries, regions, cities and, indeed individual producers and consumers. Therefore: Given enough computing power, then the overall pattern of world trade can be predicted. -- Now the above can't account for new discoveries and innovative goods and services. But, given that important new ones come along now and again, then, as soon as they become incorporated in one statistically valid region (that is, one with enough consumers to give a sensible sample), then a reformulation of future world trade can be arrived at. -- This has some important consequences: 1. Maximising world trade is desirable for all; 2. However, the shunting of production or service operations around the world (say, on the basis of the cost of labour only) by individual corporations with a narrow range of products is not desirable, nor stable, over the long term. This is the valid core of the argument of the anti-globalisation protesters and if they were to confine themselves to this point only then I would agree wholeheartedly with them. 3. Ideally, each country, region, city, of individual (any entity with aspirations
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
One more problem with Keith's outline. It is a static analysis assuming things remain the same. And in the world of Ricardo we could make that assumption. Things are dynamic, and when we mix in knowledge, knowhow, internal commercial and cultural ways of doing business---well the static analysis is misleading. arthur -Original Message- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:21 AM To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Subject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longer term ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with a high degree of confidence: At 12:48 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote: (HP) You are right to separate the two strands. However, my separation would be different. The science you speak of I think is mostly mathematics. Mathematics is a great tool, but is never better than its premises. And they are often highly suspect. These scientists have drawn around themselves a self consistent world which is not part of the real world. (As is said, Arthur, to an economist, reality is a special case!) This is why they are completely unable to predict. I will attempt to prove that the composition of world trade will be largely predictable over the long term (that is, subject to temporary wayward swings of, what Greenspan calls irrational exuberance) . - My five basic premisses are as follows -- the first two contributed by you (with which I obviously agree). I think these premisses are reasonable but I'm not going to attempt to justify these here: 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; 3. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage holds; 4. As world-wide competitiveness increases, all national currencies (or a single world currency in due course) will increasingly represent the economic (that is, energy) efficiency of operations of supply of goods and services in any country, region, city, whatever; 5. As world-wide competitiveness increases, then the pattern of spending of all customers on staple goods and services will become increasingly similar. Proof: Let the world consists of two countries only -- X and Y. Let X and Y have similar standards of living and similar patterns of consumer spending at a given instant. Let each country produce goods and services A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. Let the efficiency of production of country X is in the order: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H; and that the efficiency of production of country Y is E,F,G,H,A,B,C,D. Then, clearly, the standard of living of both countries can be maximised when country X makes and exports A,B,C,D only to country Y, and country Y makes and exports E,F,G,H only to country X. This can now be generalised to all goods and services and to all countries, regions, cities and, indeed individual producers and consumers. Therefore: Given enough computing power, then the overall pattern of world trade can be predicted. -- Now the above can't account for new discoveries and innovative goods and services. But, given that important new ones come along now and again, then, as soon as they become incorporated in one statistically valid region (that is, one with enough consumers to give a sensible sample), then a reformulation of future world trade can be arrived at. -- This has some important consequences: 1. Maximising world trade is desirable for all; 2. However, the shunting of production or service operations around the world (say, on the basis of the cost of labour only) by individual corporations with a narrow range of products is not desirable, nor stable, over the long term. This is the valid core of the argument of the anti-globalisation protesters and if they were to confine themselves to this point only then I would agree wholeheartedly with them. 3. Ideally, each country, region, city, of individual (any entity with aspirations) should not copy the staple operations of others but should maximise those operations which are unique to it/he/she (or to which it/he/she is especially benefited by location, climate, etc.). Very good examples of the dangers of not doing this are those of the 'copycat countries' of Asia which tried to replicate the production of consumer goods of other more established countries. They may succeed very well for a while with temporary increases in efficiency, particularly if they have a large domestic market, but unless they can show clear efficiency advantages over the longer term then they're in trouble as regards exports. Today, for example, Japan is not able to invest profitably at the present time because its present
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Hi Arthur, At 08:40 01/02/02 -0500, you wrote: (AC) Somewhat correct with the following assumptions: That countries produce according to their resource endowment (the wine and cloth argument from Ricardo vis a vis Portugal and England) Yes. This would have a direct relationship with high efficiency, or low opportunity costs or at purchasing parity as economists are wont to say. (AC) But in the networked knowledge age we find that resource endowment is also intelligence and knowhow and economies can develop in ways that wouldn't have been guessed, given their natural resource endowment. Consider Singapore or South Korea. The latter doing very well in ranges of technoology intensive products. Or India with its software industry. Yes, indeed. A very good point. 'Clustering' (or the 'Silicon Valley' effect). I thought of mentioning this in my original message but decided not to for reasons of brevity. (Purely as an aside, it's going to be interesting whether China is going to be as good at software development as India has been in Bangalore. I was reading some weeks ago in the FT that several delegations of Chinese politicians and academics have been to visit some of the large software firms in India [and aparently being welcomed!] -- obviously seeing whether they could transplant these sorts of operations in China. Also, I've read that Microsoft is setting up a research outfit in China.) (AC) And what would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play to your resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Well, if they're going to do what they've done so far (say, since 1850 or thereabouts when they had a well-developed, though small, steel industry) then I doubt whether they'd improve on the standard of living of the west, no matter how well they lifted themselves up by their bootstraps. But I imagine that they aspire to improving on our standards. So I'd guess that they'd want to take PC and software production (for example) as far as they could take it (which they are doing, of course) in case they prove themselves superior to, say, Silicon Valley or Singapore. Besides any number of innovative sideshoots could possibly spring up from the PC which we can hardly guess at at the moment, and they wouldn't want to be left behind if there are significant developments here. Also, China isn't terribly well-endowed with oil or coal resources. Altogether, I think we can expect startling developments in China. It has had a respect for scholarship going back 2,500 years to Confucius and an amazing capacity for innovation. Since Mao's Cultural Revolution has died a death China's universities have become transformed. I think we can see it scooping up Nobel prizes and innovating in a way that other Asian countries have not been able to do so far. (AC) Also resource rich countries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and cultural considerations, viz., Argentina. Yes, the lack of an entrepreneurial culture is the thing that's held Argentina back ever since it entered the developed world economy with a whoosh on the back of meat and grain products. From 1850 to 1914 it became the fourth largest economy in the world, but once the meat trade took a bashing because of WWI its economy has declined ever since because it had nothing else to take up the slack. When one thinks of the length of time it took for all the necessary cultural and conceptual strands to come together before the Industrial Revolution took off in England (a couple of centuries at least) then implanting modern economic development in many countries is a great deal more difficult than envisaged until very recent years. Large World Bank projects can't succeed unless there's a cultural preparedness. This is the mistake that the WB and IMF has made hitherto. (I suppose it means that, more than anything else, education must be accelerated in many countries, before other scehems have a chance of success.) (AC) The outline below offered by Keith is appropriate for a relatively fixed pattern of natural resource endowment. Somewhat as the early British writers saw things and appropriate too for their view of England vis a vis the rest of the trading world. This is a fascinating point because it's possible that what we presently consider to be the natural resource endowment may change considerably in the next decade or two. Solar technology could transform the prospects of many barren countries. Keith -Original Message- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:21 AM To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Subject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Hi Arthur, At 08:40 01/02/02 -0500, you wrote: (AC) Somewhat correct with the following assumptions: That countries produce according to their resource endowment (the wine and cloth argument from Ricardo vis a vis Portugal and England) Yes. This would have a direct relationship with high efficiency, or low opportunity costs or at purchasing parity as economists are wont to say. (AC) But in the networked knowledge age we find that resource endowment is also intelligence and knowhow and economies can develop in ways that wouldn't have been guessed, given their natural resource endowment. Consider Singapore or South Korea. The latter doing very well in ranges of technoology intensive products. Or India with its software industry. Yes, indeed. A very good point. 'Clustering' (or the 'Silicon Valley' effect). I thought of mentioning this in my original message but decided not to for reasons of brevity. (Purely as an aside, it's going to be interesting whether China is going to be as good at software development as India has been in Bangalore. I was reading some weeks ago in the FT that several delegations of Chinese politicians and academics have been to visit some of the large software firms in India [and aparently being welcomed!] -- obviously seeing whether they could transplant these sorts of operations in China. Also, I've read that Microsoft is setting up a research outfit in China.) (AC) And what would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play to your resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Well, if they're going to do what they've done so far (say, since 1850 or thereabouts when they had a well-developed, though small, steel industry) then I doubt whether they'd improve on the standard of living of the west, no matter how well they lifted themselves up by their bootstraps. But I imagine that they aspire to improving on our standards. So I'd guess that they'd want to take PC and software production (for example) as far as they could take it (which they are doing, of course) in case they prove themselves superior to, say, Silicon Valley or Singapore. Besides any number of innovative sideshoots could possibly spring up from the PC which we can hardly guess at at the moment, and they wouldn't want to be left behind if there are significant developments here. Also, China isn't terribly well-endowed with oil or coal resources. Altogether, I think we can expect startling developments in China. It has had a respect for scholarship going back 2,500 years to Confucius and an amazing capacity for innovation. Since Mao's Cultural Revolution has died a death China's universities have become transformed. I think we can see it scooping up Nobel prizes and innovating in a way that other Asian countries have not been able to do so far. (AC) Also resource rich countries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and cultural considerations, viz., Argentina. Yes, the lack of an entrepreneurial culture is the thing that's held Argentina back ever since it entered the developed world economy with a whoosh on the back of meat and grain products. From 1850 to 1914 it became the fourth largest economy in the world, but once the meat trade took a bashing because of WWI its economy has declined ever since because it had nothing else to take up the slack. When one thinks of the length of time it took for all the necessary cultural and conceptual strands to come together before the Industrial Revolution took off in England (a couple of centuries at least) then implanting modern economic development in many countries is a great deal more difficult than envisaged until very recent years. Large World Bank projects can't succeed unless there's a cultural preparedness. This is the mistake that the WB and IMF has made hitherto. (I suppose it means that, more than anything else, education must be accelerated in many countries, before other scehems have a chance of success.) (AC) The outline below offered by Keith is appropriate for a relatively fixed pattern of natural resource endowment. Somewhat as the early British writers saw things and appropriate too for their view of England vis a vis the rest of the trading world. This is a fascinating point because it's possible that what we presently consider to be the natural resource endowment may change considerably in the next decade or two. Solar technology could transform the prospects of many barren countries. Keith -Original Message- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:21 AM To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Subject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
At 5:38 PM -0800 2002/01/31, pete wrote: Some decades ago, I took a course in celestial mechanics, which used the beautifully elegant Newtonian formulations to develop a framework for computing the positions and movements of bodies under gravity, Pete, Your ideas reminded me of this: When I heard the learned astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Looked up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman -- ** * Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator* * Faculty of Education, Queen's University * * Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 * * FAX:(613) 533-6596 Phone (613) 533-6000x74937* * e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]* * Education is not the filling of a pail, * * but the lighting of a fire. * * W.B.Yeats * ** **
Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 8:40 AM Subject: RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Arthur said: (snip) And what would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play to your resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Also resource rich countries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and cultural considerations, viz., Argentina. (snip) ECONOMIC TRACKING OR POOR INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTIVITY: This kind of tracking is typical of 19th century thought. It has a parallel in the last forty years educational tracking where children are tested and tracked according to their "intellectual" IQ. The only problem is that children, who don't accept the model and continue on their own, often do well in the very areas that they were moved away from by the scientists. Unfortunately, it is not always legal or humanitarian. The assumption is that they will be happiest getting the most for the least. That failure has created a crisis in educational testing in the U.S. with colleges rejecting the use ofstandardized tests in favor of their more practical academic tests created for theeducational and cultural approach of their institution (yesterday's NYTimes). Generalized Intellectual IQ , as well as most psycho-therapeutic processes function on the assumption that human systems are OK and that the individual is the problem. Thatindividuals musteitherbe "broken" and remade to fit the Ideal System(the New Birth assumption) orthe Humanist argument thatindividual systems are also OK and that the problem is in finding the right fit between the two, hence IQand otherSTANDARDIZED tests will accomplish that goal. The only problem is that both assumes a static system when in fact the one constantamong humans is thata static reality is a rigid dogmatic one. Instead of a learning/developing systemboth the individual and the group system "calcifies" and becomes rigid.It seems to me that this goes against nature and that growth and change are the only real given.That it is the growingor what the Aztecs called "Ollin" or educational movement, that is the rule of game. The problem is in the learning systems of the culture and their Poor Intellectual Productivity. For example: HOW STRENGTH BECOMES WEAKNESS AND EXAMPLE: On a physical level, we can compare it to the use of the spine in animals. If a person does not have enough rigidity in their spine we call them "spineless." We are uncomfortable with a human who moves like a snake and yet the thalidomide children who suffered the lack of limbs learned to climb stairs with their spines. There is even a wonderful singer who shows such a powerful use of the voice and breath that we are amazed. He is a thalidomide baby and his spine is powerful in that way. That power makes his spinal nerves available to him in ways that voice teachers are amazed by. We teachers haveall kinds of physical exercises to develop the same openness, flexibility and strength in normal people but rarely achieve it due to the uncomfortableness of the normal person with their spine. Our work is, unfortunately not pedagogical but therapeutic or as we say "the unteaching of improper habits taught by cultural and linguistic ideals taughtafter the child learned to walk." Why did the child do it? Because the people they loved and admired did it and they were the best success stories they knew. Such conditioning begins immediately as the child imprints on the parent's bad habits as soon as they can stand. Normal parents who would see their children truly exercising their spines would think them an aberration orcall such movements "writhing" and equate them with pain. "Honey, are you OK? How do you feel? Are you sick? You seem uncomfortable..." etc, etc. When German Jew Elsa Gindler and the Australian F.M. Alexander began to do research in these areas in the early 20th century, they were (and in many places still are) considered on the fringe of science. Today both the dance and million dollar athletes have changed that with a resultant great leap forward in the medical practice of physical therapy. But Hitler considered Gindler not only to be repugnant as a Jew but her theories about physical potential were not "upright" enough for his image of soldiers marching in the act of physical bonding. Gindler escaped Germany and the rest of us benefited mightily at his foolishness.In that tradition the actual words for the spinegrew out of a need for the spine to act,NOT like a digital rope, but like a rigid bar that would withstand the physical blows of an enemy. In the burst of entertainment interest sports such rules created copious injuries in professional athletes and yet were associated with "truth, dignity and upright character" while a natural sp
Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Pete wrote: HARRY (replying to Keith): However, the Classical Political Economists didn't hide behind mathematical jargon. They looked at people and particularly at persons. And they hypothesized the rules that would apply to all the different drives, instincts, genetic propensities. And as you know they came up with the two Basic Assumptions of human nature that described the behavior of everyone - every single person. You must know them by heart, now. Man's desires are unlimited. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion. Which will make their computations as useless as any others which are not based in systems engineering principles of what is actually happening feeding back into the model to improve the accuracy of its parameters. You see, as any sociological study of economists will tell you, and has been discussed here before (where were you?) economists more than any other group of people sorted by any measure, regard people as venal, greedy, contemptible, robots, Homo economicus I can't help what economists say, Pete. Now explain why the two Basic Assumptions relate in any way to venal, greedy, contemptible, robots. You continued: I think Ray suggested for these imaginary creatures, who defy all human virtues in order to act according to the arbitrary dictates of the economists' dog-eat-dog fantasy world. What imaginary creatures are you referring to? For that matter where is this dog-eat-dog fantasy world. I don't recall it anywhere in what I said. But perhaps you are more perceptive than I. Or, more imaginative. Real people, by contrast, sometimes actually treasure concepts like fairness, compassion, and non-material goals. Where is this denied? I don't understand you. And each culture possesses such individuals in different numbers, and values them to differing degrees. Only a robust engineering structure can hope to keep up with the vagueries of human nature well enough to make a functioning economic model which takes this sort of variable into account. Sounds like the typical failure of a command economy, no matter how robust its engineering structure. I think you should make a model (if the real thing isn't good enough for you) based on some premise. What is your premise? Or do you have one? Of course that's what neo-classical economists do all the time - make models. There again, you'll recall that the single complicated human being is not analyzed in Classical Political Economy. Rather we look at his connection with the economic world, which is the way he exerts. The manifest indication of the person (no matter how complex) is found in the way he exerts. What other evidence have you? Once we have people somewhat pinned down, we have to look at the equally complicated world - so complicated that it is impossible to think about, which doesn't stop people trying. You won't get people somewhat pinned down with any a priori assumptions. To unpin them, perhaps you had better come up with a couple of exceptions to the Assumptions. Otherwise, regard them as pinned. You build your engineering structure to be able to turn on a dime, and reflect the nature of people as you find them. If the top-down (theory-first) economists had it right, economics wouldn't be as lame as it is. I wish you wouldn't keep mixing in the neo-Classicals, the criticism of whom I could probably do better than you (I've perhaps had more practice). I would think that the two Assumptions are not top-down theory. Rather, they are bottom up fact - perhaps, as you say, reflecting the nature of people as you find them. That will continue to be the case, as I've said often before, until economics is absorbed under systems engineering, at which point the improvement in effectiveness will develop so fast it'll make your head spin. Also, perhaps, economics should become a science before being swallowed by systems engineering. However, I fear you are suggesting exactly what you deplored - that is regarding people as robots, susceptible to systems engineering. Of course that's what many, or most, modern economists practice anyway - system engineering. Harry ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Mike, I said originally: Man's desires are unlimited. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion. (Gender sensitive people can change Man to People.) So, change it to people. No problem. Incidentally, Man and Mankind used to mean people before the feminists decided to try witchcraft (or warlockcraft). Harry __- Michael wrote: Hmmm... Let's take a wee look at the first two of those first premises as posited by Keith... 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; Does that also and necessarily include, scientifically of course,: 1. Woman's desires are unlimited; 2. Women seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion; (or do we suddenly find ourselves in some nasty messy confusions of meaning, structured misunderstanding, nuance, he said/she said... etc.etc. which I believe is partially the point being made by the Post-Autistic Economists. MG ** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ***
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Arthur, We get our clothes from the tailor - or from Penny's or Marks and Sparks We get our meat from the butcher and our produce from the greengrocer. We get our milk from the milkman. Isn't this more sensible than keeping two cows - one to slaughter - growing 17 different vegetable, running up tee-shirts on the sewing machine, and spending a couple of weeks producing an ill-fitting suit? So, why does this all change at the docks? Free Trade is not a political policy. It is natural for humans to exchange. Protection is a policy that tries to prevent this natural cooperation from happening. How simple this all is. Why make it complicated? Perhaps because that's the way the Neo-Classicals make a living. Harry _ Arthur wrote: Somewhat correct with the following assumptions: That countries produce according to their resource endowment (the wine and cloth argument from Ricardo vis a vis Portugal and England) But in the networked knowledge age we find that resource endowment is also intelligence and knowhow and economies can develop in ways that wouldn't have been guessed, given their natural resource endowment. Consider Singapore or South Korea. The latter doing very well in ranges of technoology intensive products. Or India with its software industry. And what would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play to your resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Also resource rich countries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and cultural considerations, viz., Argentina. The outline below offered by Keith is appropriate for a relatively fixed pattern of natural resource endowment. Somewhat as the early British writers saw things and appropriate too for their view of England vis a vis the rest of the trading world. arthur -Original Message- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:21 AM To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Subject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics) Hi Harry and Arthur, For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latest mail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This will never make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree -- human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longer term ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with a high degree of confidence: At 12:48 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote: (HP) You are right to separate the two strands. However, my separation would be different. The science you speak of I think is mostly mathematics. Mathematics is a great tool, but is never better than its premises. And they are often highly suspect. These scientists have drawn around themselves a self consistent world which is not part of the real world. (As is said, Arthur, to an economist, reality is a special case!) This is why they are completely unable to predict. I will attempt to prove that the composition of world trade will be largely predictable over the long term (that is, subject to temporary wayward swings of, what Greenspan calls irrational exuberance) . - My five basic premisses are as follows -- the first two contributed by you (with which I obviously agree). I think these premisses are reasonable but I'm not going to attempt to justify these here: 1. Man's desires are unlimited; 2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion; 3. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage holds; 4. As world-wide competitiveness increases, all national currencies (or a single world currency in due course) will increasingly represent the economic (that is, energy) efficiency of operations of supply of goods and services in any country, region, city, whatever; 5. As world-wide competitiveness increases, then the pattern of spending of all customers on staple goods and services will become increasingly similar. Proof: Let the world consists of two countries only -- X and Y. Let X and Y have similar standards of living and similar patterns of consumer spending at a given instant. Let each country produce goods and services A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. Let the efficiency of production of country X is in the order: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H; and that the efficiency of production of country Y is E,F,G,H,A,B,C,D. Then, clearly, the standard of living of both countries can be maximised when country X makes and exports A,B,C,D only to country Y, and country Y makes and exports E,F,G,H only to country X. This can now be generalised to all goods and services and to all countries, regions, cities and, indeed individual producers and consumers. Therefore: Given enough computing power, then the overall pattern of world trade can be predicted. -- Now the above can't account for new discoveries and innovative goods and services. But, given that important new ones come along now and again, then, as soon as they become incorporated in one
Re: The human strand ( was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Keith, I've clipped the first part, as we seem somewhat in agreement. (HP) There again, you'll recall that the single complicated human being is not analyzed in Classical Political Economy. Rather we look at his connection with the economic world, which is the way he exerts. The manifest indication of the person (no matter how complex) is found in the way he exerts. What other evidence have you? clip Although Classical Economics isn't based on the individual, Actually, the science is based completely on the individual. What I said was that we don't try to analyze the single complicated human which is now done apparently not too well by psychologists and suchlike. Rather, we look at what we can see. We can see what a person does. As an economic scientist, or as a lay person, I can see how someone behaves. There's an old saying that isn't so much perceptive as obvious. Don't listen to what he says. Watch what he does. So, Classical Political Economy is based on what we can see of the person - how he exerts. Whether he loves, or hates, is intellectual or dumb, is able or a klutz, is industrious or lazy - the only real life observation we can make is of his exertion. And, by extension, what he produces with his exertion. So, that is what Classical Political Economy is based on. In fact, that is what the somewhat remarkable edifice erected by Neo-Classical economists should be based on. But they have forgotten their roots, which is why we get lots of jokes about economists. the crowd often acts as an individual -- like a flock of starlings or shoal of fish -- responding immediately and unthinkingly to certain stimuli (visual and auditory in these cases). Don't equate humanity with starlings and fish. They are impelled by instinct - the perfect biological response to a stimulus (until the environment changes whereupon it could be the worst response). Man short-circuited his instinct when he became able to reason. Ashley Montagu (Man is the only 150 pound non-linear servo mechanism that can be wholly reproduced by unskilled labor.) says we have no instincts. Maybe, but in any event, an animal will run from a fire. We might run - or we might approach the fire to put it out. Actually, Man reasons pretty well. We have evidence. So, if a reasoning individual finds everyone running in a particular direction, it might be sensible to run with them, before GodZilla comes around the corner chasing them. It happened in England with the property boom and crash in 1989/90 (house prices suddenly collapsed by about 25% within weeks) This illustrates the importance of basic defined concepts. Probably house prices never collapse, though the price of a house will fall with the age. In both adult and high school and adult classes, I pose two questions. You lease a new car for 5 years and like it, so you decide to lease it again. It's now a used car. Will the price of the second lease likely be higher or lower than the first lease? No doubt. It's now an old car and won't get the money a new car would get. You lease a new house for 5 years and like it, so you decide to lease it again. It's now a used house. Will the price of the second lease likely be higher or lower than the first lease? Again, no doubt. The second lease would be higher. Yet, the paint is a bit drab - no longer sparkling, a tile is missing from the roof. The drainage is likely to clog up. The kitchen ceiling is greasy from cooking. Yet, students know that the price of the second lease will be higher. Classical Political Economy knows why housing prices are going up - even though the cost of building houses in coming down. It knows why with lower house prices,unaffordable housing is increasing. But, this doesn't require great intellect to understand it. (If it did, I would be out of the running.) But, I do have a great advantage. I know my basic political economy with its two Assumptions and its seven basic defined concepts (terms). So, I know the human individual's motivation and I can deal with everything in Political Economy through its basic seven terms. Of course that's not the end of it - just the beginning. But, perhaps the beginning is the best place to start. and world-wide in two bouts of euphoria in the stock market, one on top of the other between 1990 and 2000. In both cases it was the very rare individual who was not swept along. Even though we call these irrational behaviours I'm quite sure that the human sciences will go a long way to understand these in due course. Seems to me they are quite rational behaviors given what people know and don't know. Not to mention your constant plaint - the use of a value measuring tool that changes more often than the things it measures. Have you misunderstood me here? Not at all, I was referring to money (the value measuring tool) which is likely to change at the drop of a hat (or before it drops!) - rather like a flexible yardstick. On this we agree. snip You speculate on the increase of our knowledge
Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
"Man's desires are unlimited." Human desires are limited by many things. Imagination, experience, love, hate, empathy, morality, poverty, boredom, blindness, deafness, taste, or a lack of any of the above. I'm sure that I could think more seriously about it if I wanted to. Since most of these authorities were based in their own experience, imagination, love, hate, poverty, boredom, talent, perceptions and history, I have no doubt that a different body, mind, heart, spirit and history would come up with different aphorisms relating to desire. Especially if the object of your desire is procreative. I will say instead that"one's desires are limited to their knowledge of themselves." Is avirgin teenager desiring sex or does their inexperiencemean that they desire something else? Just because they use the word does not mean that what they "say", is a true desire. However, I will give you that they believe it to be unlimited. Now if you mean that "Man" or "Human" as a generality, rather than an individual, then you must say that Man or Hu-man's desires are limited by their being. For example they wouldn't desire the soundscape inhabited by dogs or the visual world of a bee since we don't know either. To desire something you don't know is too amorphous.To desire what you cannot know is a useless proposition. You can only desire what you know, what your symbols describe and what your perceptions percieve. The ability to image-ine a desire is based upon such a thing. Harry, its just too romantic for me. Like adolescent melancholia. "Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion." Whywould a human seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion? I would suggest that such a thing might be a good definition of what you do not desire but are being forced to do for some reason. I can think of many experiences where sacrifice is more important than a laziness of exertion. Running for example, unless you are a CEO who is doing it for your heart and desire to finish to do what you really want. People who do things from a sense of pleasure do not seek to stop but to continue. Do you want to satisfy your lover with the least possible exertion? Sounds pretty boring to me. aphorisms are just sound bites. If you wish to find the balance that is necessary to complete a work of art or whatever then that is not a matter of exertion but of disgression and sensitivity. Exertion is a perfect term for a 19th century philosopher who has made his way across America too fast and unhappily. Doing it right, no less and no more is a matter of art. Most people do not ascribe to that at all but simply to do the task until they are tired and stop. We could say that the person who is concerned with just the right amount is a classicist while the person who wishes to go on forever is a romantic. What I would call your statement is inaccurate and hyper-rational but not logical. I could enjoy this much too long for what is good for me or what I need to do. Ray
Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
Free Trade is not a political policy. It is natural for humans to exchange. True but that is a very simple thing. What do you think about capital or speculation? Protection is a policy that tries to prevent this natural cooperation from happening. No, protection is just one of the strategies of trade. It is, like all conflict, a contraction meant to hold back nature until a more opportune time to negotiate takes place. It is no more unnatural than sticks piling up in a stream. In fact if you chart the flow of trade I suspect that you will find the same wave patterns as in other liquids with the corresponding contraction and resolution that we find in dissonance and consonance in music. How simple this all is. Why make it complicated? Perhaps because that's the way the Neo-Classicals make a living. What this means is that I am not convinced that you know of what you speak. It is one thing to declare a lack of complexity which would imply that you are competant at what you speak, it is another to actually prove it in practical action. Could you share your experience in the private world with some of these principles? What are your successes and failures? Also you could be a lot clearer on your definitions of such things as the kind of market you consider "free." It all seems like an exercise in "one up manship" rather than a pursuit of values. Cheers, Ray
RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)
If only it were all this simple. -Original Message-From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 3:34 PMTo: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)Arthur,We get our clothes from the tailor - or from Penny's or Marks and SparksWe get our meat from the butcher and our produce from the greengrocer.We get our milk from the milkman.Isn't this more sensible than keeping two cows - one to slaughter - growing 17 different vegetable, running up tee-shirts on the sewing machine, and spending a couple of weeks producing an ill-fitting suit?So, why does this all change at the docks?Free Trade is not a political policy. It is natural for humans to exchange.Protection is a policy that tries to prevent this natural cooperation from happening.How simple this all is. Why make it complicated? Perhaps because that's the way the Neo-Classicals make a living. Harry_Arthur wrote: Somewhat correct with the following assumptions:That countries produce according to their resource endowment (the wine andcloth argument from Ricardo vis a vis Portugal and England)But in the networked knowledge age we find that resource endowment is alsointelligence and knowhow and economies can develop in ways that wouldn'thave been guessed, given their natural resource endowment. ConsiderSingapore or South Korea. The latter doing very well in ranges oftechnoology intensive products. Or India with its software industry. Andwhat would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play toyour resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Also resource richcountries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and culturalconsiderations, viz., Argentina.The outline below offered by Keith is appropriate for a relatively fixedpattern of natural resource endowment. Somewhat as the early Britishwriters saw things and appropriate too for their view of England vis a visthe rest of the trading world.arthur-Original Message-From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:21 AMTo: Harry PollardCc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Cordell, Arthur: ECOMSubject: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)Hi Harry and Arthur,For the time being, let me take just one strand from your (HP's) latestmail and attempt to show how economics can be used as a science. This willnever make the whole story at all times as we (HP and KH) both agree --human nature is also involved -- but the overall structure over the longerterm ought to be scientifically analysable *and* predictions made with ahigh degree of confidence:At 12:48 31/01/02 -0800, you wrote:(HP)You are right to separate the two strands.However, my separation would be different.The "science" you speak of I think is mostly mathematics. Mathematics is agreat tool, but is never better than its premises. And they are oftenhighly suspect.These scientists have drawn around themselves a self consistent world whichis not part of the real world. (As is said, Arthur, to an economist,reality is a special case!)This is why they are completely unable to predict.I will attempt to prove that the composition of world trade will be largelypredictable over the long term (that is, subject to temporary waywardswings of, what Greenspan calls "irrational exuberance") .-My five basic premisses are as follows -- the first two contributed by you(with which I obviously agree). I think these premisses are reasonable butI'm not going to attempt to justify these here:1. Man's desires are unlimited;2. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion;3. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage holds;4. As world-wide competitiveness increases, all national currencies (or asingle world currency in due course) will increasingly represent theeconomic (that is, energy) efficiency of operations of supply of goods andservices in any country, region, city, whatever;5. As world-wide competitiveness increases, then the pattern of spending ofall customers on staple goods and services will become increasingly similar.Proof:Let the world consists of two countries only -- X and Y.Let X and Y have similar standards of living and similar patterns ofconsumer spending at a given instant.Let each country produce goods and services A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H.Let the efficiency of production of country X is in the order:A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H; and that the efficiency of production of country Y isE,F,G,H,A,B,C,D.Then, clearly, the standard of living of both countries can be maximised
Erratum FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
Sorry to follow up to my own post. I made a typo that makes a sentence confusing: For: I don't see this as any less a religious dogma that All have sinned... read I don't see this as any less a religious dogma than All have sinned... - Mike --- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
On Thu, 31 Jan, Harry Pollard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are right to separate the two strands. However, my separation would be different. The science you speak of I think is mostly mathematics. Mathematics is a great tool, but is never better than its premises. And they are often highly suspect. These scientists have drawn around themselves a self consistent world which is not part of the real world. (As is said, Arthur, to an economist, reality is a special case!) When mathematics is applied to the problem of the nature of the physical world, it's called physics, and it works pretty well, within its domain. When mathematics and sometimes, by extension, physics, are brought to bear on problems in the real world, where dirt and warm bodies and other inconvenient things get in the way of purely analytic solutions, it's called engineering, and that is where economics rightly belongs. Some decades ago, I took a course in celestial mechanics, which used the beautifully elegant Newtonian formulations to develop a framework for computing the positions and movements of bodies under gravity, accounting for all the perterbations caused by the other gravitating bodies in the neighbourhood. This magnificent triumf of mathematical physics had taken about two hundred years to perfect, and incorporated levels and levels of corrections and adjustments to allow the prediction of orbital positions of objects at some considerable accuracy some centuries into the future. When the prof had finished presenting this aspect of the course, he said, more or less, well, that's truly wonderful, but now for the actual truth:. What good was this edifice? Was it used in the computation of ephemeres? Well, no, the computing engines could produce more accurate results more rapidly by using a Ptolemaic model of the solar system, with simple circular orbits, and simply heaping on more and more tiny epicycles to account for the perterbations to arbitrary accuracy. Well then how about for the computation of the paths of spacecraft, surely that would need this sort of computation? Nope. It is much simpler and more dependable to simply use the very first order approximation, and accurate position sensing telemetry to feed back to the computing system which could then correct the motion to the required accuracy just as easily, and in fact more easily because the computations were simpler. So in truth, the work honed to a high polish by 19th century mathematical astronomers turns out to have about as much utility as a steam powered abacus. [KH] *Economics also has to try and make sense of the oft-irrational side of human nature that erupts from time to time. And, like the other human sciences, economics can't be said to have made much headway so far. The latter is much more complex. What do we make of it? The first thing is to disabuse ourselves of the notion that there is such a thing as human nature per se. Our human nature is really an accumulation of all sorts of different drives, instincts, genetic propensities, call them what you will.* This is a real mess isn't it, Keith? A veritable anthill of humanity from which come the premises of mathematical economics leading inevitably to inadequate conclusions. However, the Classical Political Economists didn't hide behind mathematical jargon. They looked at people and particularly at persons. And they hypothesized the rules that would apply to all the different drives, instincts, genetic propensities. And as you know they came up with the two Basic Assumptions of human nature that described the behavior of everyone - every single person. You must know them by heart, now. Man's desires are unlimited. Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion. Which will make their computations as useless as any others which are not based in systems engineering principles of what is actually happening feeding back into the model to improve the accuracy of its parameters. You see, as any sociological study of economists will tell you, and has been discussed here before (where were you?) economists more than any other group of people sorted by any measure, regard people as venal, greedy, contemptible, robots, Homo economicus I think Ray suggested for these imaginary creatures, who defy all human virtues in order to act according to the arbitrary dictates of the economists' dog-eat-dog fantasy world. Real people, by contrast, sometimes actually treasure concepts like fairness, compassion, and non-material goals. And each culture possesses such individuals in different numbers, and values them to differing degrees. Only a robust engineering structure can hope to keep up with the vagueries of human nature well enough to make a functioning economic model which takes this sort of variable into account. There again, you'll recall that the single complicated human being is not analyzed in Classical Political Economy. Rather we look at his connection with the economic
Re: Re: Double-stranded Economics
- Original Message - From: pete [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 8:38 PM Subject: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics You won't get people "somewhat pinned down" with any a priori assumptions. You build your engineering structure to be able to turn on a dime, and reflect the nature of people as you find them. If the top-down (theory-first) economists had it right, economics wouldn't be as lame as it is. That will continue to be the case, as I've said often before, until economics is absorbed under systems engineering, at which point the improvement in effectiveness will develop so fast it'll make your head spin. (underline and italics REH) Pete, I agree. For me there is, however, an issue that bothers me greatly about these extrinsic models . It doesn't work for there to be only extrinsically or intrinsically motivated people in any system. The Extrinsicare oftenpathological or at the least sociopathological. I guess you could say the same about obsessive innermotivation as well. Too much of either side doesn't make for much of a value system.When any system builds the values around one or the other as THE most important or theONLY valid reason for action then it seemsIMHO doomed to failure. I suspect that nature has built into everycivil system not only the differing talents necesssary for a society but the different types of motivation necessary as well. They are in a constant renewal process remaking old realities in new ways. There are old, mixed and new systems constantly being used and evolve. There are problems with each and so each form a balance when a society "works". The problem witholder systems is that they become predictible andas the predictibility rises, the"information level" falls. That is the issue in art as well. Traditional art carries the past forward into the present providing an identity to the culture that it belongs to. That is good but its predictability is numbing for the creative and reassuring for the mediocre. It should, like fine old wine, be used with restraint.Commercial art in its banality re-enforces the language ofcontemporary dialogue and should build the ability of the culture toencounter, enjoy and use contemporary creative art in their everyday lives. But it all too often becomes simple commerce andis useful only as a toy or entertainment. I am including the literary arts in this as well aswhat people normally mean when they say Art.There is a huge problem today with contemporary art. Comparing today's writing to Joyce or Melville, we find much less creativity and playfulness with the formalor systematic aspects. Poetry is at an all time low and the literal is raised to the level of "real" with everything else being "unreal", useless or in the economic language, "low in utility." But if "utility" means pleasure and pleasure is related to Play-sure then the pleasure available today to people is the stock market, cable news and reality TV. Play-sure is being related to advertising and even dramatic shows are being cut back in favor of what we in the business call "Industrials" or puff pieces for products.Such people would never be able to understand Ulysses or Melville's "Confidence Man." They simply wouldn't have the patience nor understand the pleasure. When everyday activities on cable televisionare raised to the level of myth and that is thetotality of our understandingof symbol and myth then "Information" is very low and the society is bound to have a high level of complexity in their everyday lives. Contemporary art should not be predictible and should keep a high level of Attention, i.e. "information" in its examination and expression. But often it is just too difficult for the average person, in fact they can't even imagine its play-sures. Everydayis banal when compared to the great flights of human imagination relating to the systems of the present generation.The past is banal only because it is old andrecognizeable. But today is banal because we are incompetant. The study of great systems seems beyond the average person these days. So we take refuge in the obviousness of the past. I don't mean to say that Veblen, Wright or Beethovenare not eternal. In one sense they are, as the mind enjoys the resonance of the overtone series available in Leonore's great aria from Fidelio or enjoys Veblen'sfantastic search while Wright is inspiring even when his houses fall down. But this is the comfort of the familiar, not the stretching of the mind trying to restate and re-evaluate the past in the language of the present age. What is hard for me about old economists is their obvious mistakes. It makes it difficult for me to read, given their historical limitations. Their obvious cultural prejudices that are so wro
