Sandwichman <[email protected]> wrote:
> After a hiatus of -- what? -- seven years or so I've resubscribed.
Welcome back, Tom. I have occasionally wondered what became of
you. :-)
There's a -- what's the right word? "Lexical" I guess -- There's a
lexical difficulty with much of your work on the "lump of labor
fallacy" that is typified by your exchange with Ruth Lea. Even once I
got your idea straight, I kept stumbling. What you're talking about
is not the lump of labor fallacy but the "lump-of-labor-fallacy
fallacy".
Well, that's just over the top for readability. Maybe "lump-of-labor-
fallacy libel" (in parallel with the locution "blood libel") might be
bearable.
> An institutional infrastructure has been built up, particularly in
> North America, that makes any simple case for working less somewhat
> obsolete.
The institutional infrastructure has evolved to the point that radical
(or even modest but effective) reform of *anything* is virtually
impossible. Did I say "evolved"? Better "guided evolution" (q.v.).
Any time I get a peep hole into the inner workings of the
"infrastructure" -- the intermediary metabolism that maintains it and
guides its evolution, I have an overwhelming fulmination of conspiracy
theory. A prime example was a peep into the working of the national
building code. Representatives of manufacturers, builders, insurers
and other industries sit on the committee that writes and amends the
code. It was immediately apparent that they were all there,
individually and collectively, to protect their markets and
externalize their liabilities. Protection of home owners and the
public good was a minor side issue.
Regrettably, I've never had a peep hole, at any meaningful level, into
those parts of the infrastructure, the inner workings of of which
eventuate in labor and wage policy.
> There is a way forward, I believe, but it doesn't involve proposing
> "rational policies" and submitting them for evaluation by a highly
> resistant policy framework. That way forward involves a
> thorough-going reform of political economic thought, from the ground
> up....
Can we infer that your book is an entering wedge to that end?
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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