Ray E. Harrell wrote:
>
> To the List.
>
> I've especially enjoyed this little bit of self love going in this
> list. I've not encountered it before on this list and it gives me
> hope for the future even if the options thus far seem to be "Blade
> Runner" or "Road Warrior." At one point I was especially impressed
> with all of the Ivy hanging around but a couple of things popped into
> my mind. Well three anyway.
Ivy is not weeds, even though there's lots of
weeds among (and often enough, strangling...) the Ivy....
>
> 1. When Brad talked about the value of exchange to the GNP having
> little to do with what had really happened. i.e. (Housewives)
> Given the power of economics in the current world and their cowardice
> I particularly like their nose being tweaked occasionally. Not that
> I don't believe there is hope for them, just that they are currently
> on a self destructive power trip and must get beyond that bit of
> adolescence before we will know whether the baby will live or not.
[snip]
We live in an unprecedentedly complex world (due to
increasd technological sophistication * increased population).
If we've not going to have a socio-Darwinean "accounting"
-- the end of the world as we know it and the coming of
a new age that may make the 8th century AD in Europe look
pretty good --, then we need to count and allocate a
lot of highly inter-related stuff. That's obvious, right?
But I think the concludion is less obvious: We *need*
economists and accountants. We need them *desparately*
(and actuaries, too, etc.). What we need like a hole in the
head is the ideology of "homo economicus". We need for
economists et al. to truly serve as *advisors*
(highly scholled: banausoi -- our word "banal" derives from
the Greek word for technician!)) to a
genuinely political process. The economists (et al.) should
provide the "facts", and the citizens decide what to do about
them. Well, what are the "facts": they are *parameters*.
We need the economists (et al.) to tell us how much
wheat we can grow on what land if we apply such and
such machinery and labor power. We need them to tell us
the impact on global food production opportunities if
we pave over certain land for highways or turn it into
suburban housing developments, etc. We need them to tell
us how many hospital beds we need where to provide
X (and 2*X and 1/2* X, etc.) level of medical care to
Y persons with Z delays in treatment for W conditions, etc.
We need these people's skills desparately. We also need
them to cease to be apostles of neo-global capitalism,
and to become responsible critics of "what is".
We need engineers who have absorbed *engineering ethics*.
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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