I've begun to rethink all of these folks and their stories about numbers. The issue of competency and personal mastery is far beyond the simplicity of numbers. Jefferson's quote about government simply speaks to the fact that he and others could not comprehend the resolution of complexity in mastering the art of government. The problem is not to have less of something but to be able to control virtuosically more, thus reducing complexity in numerical values to zero. To have less to work with isn't gaining competency but is the realm of poverty. I've become convinced that the only people who really knew what they were talking about in the 18th and 19th centuries were Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Mahler and the students in the great music studios, etc. Wars have not been fought over the value of artistic virtuosity but they have been fought over the Art of politics. It would be good if someone learned how to DO politics before they try to tell people how much there should be. IMHO.
REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 4:00 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] Political arithmetic The wealth of nations implies some sort of political arithmetic - the calculation either of an immense sum or of some descriptive ratio, a distribution or per capita allotment. Adam Smith referred to "the distribution of the necessities of life." Benjamin Franklin pondered a four-hour working day that had been "computed by some political arithmetician." Thomas Jefferson's friend, the Marquis de Chastellux proposed a formula for ascertaining public happiness, which Jefferson summed up as a cautionary tale: "If we can prevent government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." Would an alternative vision of the good society evince a similar fascination with numbers? I will argue here that it must, if only out of strategic and transitional necessity. The outline of the kind of reckoning required was already implied in Chastellux's and Franklin's speculations and has been a recurrent, if dissident and subterranean, theme in political economy since the earliest days. Even Adam Smith somewhat ambivalently upheld "ease of body and peace of mind" as "what constitutes the real happiness of human life." But how does one measure ease of body and peace of mind? We will get to the question of how presently, but first I would like to explain why it is crucial to calculate it, not merely to exalt it... http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/p/time-on-ledger-social-accounting-f or.html -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
