Ed Weick wrote:
Trouble with economists is that they come in various shapes and sizes.
Though they are all exposed to the same things at university, they
interpret and use them in different ways. I'm sure that Friedman,
Galbraith and Keynes all knew about the competitive model, etc., but
what policy advice they gave went well beyond that and differed greatly.
Reagan was a supply sider with an enormous faith in the stimulative
effects of cutting taxes for the entrepreneurial class, who would use
the freed-up money to grow the economy. It might work in a more or
less isolated economy with plenty of investment opportunities, but the
US and the times were not like that. All one can say is that bright
ideas and reality rarely coincide.
Ed
As an economist, all I can say is "Jus doin muh job, Suh, jus doin
muh job."
As a non-economist, I'd like to suggest two things economists can do and
the context they
can do them in:
(1) They can try to discover what their social surround, e.g., the
global economy,
is doing in terms of human labor, including both its deployment , its
waste, etc., and
project: If "you" (i.e., their social surround, e.g., the global economy)
keep doing what I have discovered you are doing, here's what's likely to
be your future....
(2) Discover other possible ways to deploy the resources of their social
surround,
and project: If you did this [or that or this third thing or...]
instead, here's
what's likely to be your future....
Now, those alternative projections need to include such things as
regulation, "the Scandanavian model", humanistic marxism, etc., not
just the fantasies the people currently in political and corporate power
want to have elaborated and implemented.
Economists need, I would propose, to ferret out what the politicians
and CxOs don't want anyone to see in what they are doing -- including
not seeing it themselves, and then to project possibly appealing
possibilities for
human social life that persons can't imagine.
I think that would be useful work, which would use all the knowledge
persons can acquire in a graduate education, and challenge highly
intelligent persons' minds and spirits....
\brad mccormick
In "Reaganomics", was the B-movie actor telling the economists what
their
job is, or perhaps was it the other way around?
(note that the present policies are just the continuation of
Reaganomics)
Chris
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--
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]
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