Brad,
Not quite.
You suggested that economics as 'social organization' was about
"governors and governed, bosses and bossed (aka workers),
teachers and tutees, etc. (oh, yes, and also, where and insofar
as they exist, peer interactions, e.g., between corporate board
members, members of congress, etc."
It is true that neo-Classical economists will talk about anything
rather than what used to be important in Classical Political
Economy - but that seems (I am sad to say) merely designed to
plunge it into a kind of 'Fog of Peace'.
None of the things you mention are important to fundamental
economic analysis.
The Classical Science of Political Economy dealt with the most
important and basic part of our existence - the nature,
production and distribution of Wealth. Before we begin to think
great thoughts, have an inflamed appendix removed, or even add
one to the end of our essay - we need food, drink, and shelter to
survive.
The Classical analysis dealt with Factors that are common to all
production, but most importantly it dealt with them from the
point of view of Labor. (I capitalize these basic terms because I
know exactly what I mean by them.)
I fear that in modern analysis Labor is just a Factor of
Production that disappears into a bunch of other factors.
We should remember that production takes place only because of
Wages - the return to Labor.
I should mention that Labor includes the manager and the CEO.
They are engaged in production together with the woman on the
production line. A major triumph of the people who run society
(helped by people like Marx and a legion of neo-Classical
scholars) was to separate the "bosses and bossed" into warring
camps, thereby obscuring the real movers and shakers.
So, modern left-wingers who should know better concentrate on
such non-issues as urban poverty and lack of health care,
inequality between wage-earners and the CEOs, affordable housing,
educational funding, and a dozen more. Bush, and the Republican
Party are usually blamed for these deficiencies, yet all of them
existed long before Bush, or the GOP. In fact they existed a
century ago, and two centuries ago in Europe.
Less so in North America two centuries ago - you'll recall that
de Tocqueville was amazed at the absence of beggars is America.
Yet, he noticed (Memoir on Pauperism) that in the most prosperous
country in Europe - Britain - about one sixth of the population
were given welfare from the Poor Law, an amount that took up 20%
of the English budget. He also noted that in the poorer countries
of Europe such as Portugal, beggars were absent - but not in
Britain where they were everywhere.
His conclusion was that large investment in public welfare had
the unintended consequence of creating a permanent "beggar
class".
But, no "beggar class" in America back then - I wonder why. (I
don't actually wonder - I know why.)
You should not have mentioned your last point about monetizing
everything - including your breath. This is the sort of thing
that the controlled economy is very good at doing. (The free
market would laugh at such nonsense.)
The danger is that should government economists read what you
say, they might decide to try it.
On the other hand, in a sense they already do this with their
GNP, DNP, CPI, and a bunch of other acronyms of interest only to
governments. Such calculations serve no purpose in the real world
outside the Beltway. I recall that the Thatcher government
changed the way of measuring unemployment 17 times. After each
modification, unemployment was less.
I'll end with a de Tocqueville quote which I like.
"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize
they can bribe the people with their own money."
Of course, he wrote that 200 years ago. It would never happen in
the 21st century. Would it?
Harry
*********************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
818 352-4141
*********************************
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 3:57 PM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [Futurework] "Political economy" vs "economics and
politics"
>
>Harry Pollard wrote:
>> I think that Political was used in meaning of social, while
>> Economy was used in its meaning of organization - hence "the
>> science of social organization".
>>
>
>I don't think etymologically "economy" derives from
organization, unless
>one equates household (oikos) with organization, but, be that as
it
>may -- and let the Greek scholars among us elucidate this point
--,
>
>I agree that economics is or should be the study of social
organization:
>governors and governed, bosses and bossed (aka workers),
>teachers and tutees, etc. (oh, yes, and also, where and insofar
as they
>exist, peer interactions, e.g., between corporate board members,
>members of congress, etc.). They are all forms of social
organization which
>constitute aspects of the organization of society, i.e., our
form of life.
>
>And if one has a "thing" about money, I would suggest that
>a monetary value -- I meant: price -- can be assigned to
everything,
>including each
>person's each breath -- which would lead to an "economic space"
>so big [complicated, complex...] that it would probably keep
>even the world's biggest supercomputers busy modelling it.
However,
>the results of these calculations should affect Every person in
>much the same way as, currently, the weather forecast does:
>It does not tell persons what to do, but rather tells them
>things they should take into consideration
>in themselves deciding what to do.
>
>\brad mccormick
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