Ed,
But the relative gap between the rich and the poor (in the advanced
countries) is nowhere near the relative gap between the rich and the
poor a century ago. J.P. Morgan was as rich as Warren Buffet, Bill
Gates and several more combined. So was Carnegie, so was Rockefeller.
In modern day terms each of them was probably a trillionaire. Going
back further, Morgan and Co were not as rich in relative terms to the
poor as the great landowners of the Middle Ages. Henry VIII (with 49
palaces) and about a dozen more owned half of England.
It's true that there has been a recent surge in the gap, but come the
double dip the rich are more than likely going to take a relatively
larger bashing, too. The gap has only become really outrageous since
the credit surge of the last 30 years. It's more than likely that the
present gap will be greatly reduced to the long-term historical trend
once the present currency catastrophe finally sorts itself out. All
in all, the main difference today is a perceptual one. We know a
great deal more about the rich than ever before, nor do we have
scruples about being envious these days. Previously it was considered
a sin to be envious in order to keep us in our place. Today, probably
proportionately more money is being left by the rich to foundations
and charities -- hundreds of them in recent decades -- than to
families. Most of the medical innovations of the last 50 years have
been due to research paid for by private foundations, not
government-backed science. Just the Rockefeller Foundation and the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute alone have probably produced as many
new therapies than all US government research spending. Think of the
Gate's and Buffet's present and future contributions to medical
research and future eradication of some diseases such as malaria all
round the world.
Meanwhile we in the advanced countries devote less than 1% of our
GDPs to the Third World.
Keith
At 14:11 21/09/2011, you wrote:
Economics could still be considered a "moral science", given the
prominance of concepts like "growth" in economic analysis. Where it
fails as a moral science is in not having much to say on the
morality of things like the rich getting richer and the poor getting
poorer, leaving that to politicians and other social sciences.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Sandwichman
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Professional Ethics (of economists)
Either that or you're both obsessed with bedbugs... But, hey, to
bring this discussion back to where it started, I just want to
mention that "economics" sprung from "moral sciences": "The
emergence of economics as a separate subject (or Tripos, in
Cambridge terminology) created intense debate over its relationship
with the existing organization of teaching through the 'Moral
Sciences' Tripos. John Neville Keynes, the father of John Maynard
Keynes, faced considerable mental and emotional anxiety in his
attempt to reconcile economic science with ethics and religion."
(Martin Daunton, "Welfare, Taxation and Social Justice")
On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Ray Harrell
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
I should start reading from the top. I come in after teaching a
class until nine and find that Ed commented on bedbugs
first. Either he's an artist or I'm an economist.
REH
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 3:18 PM
To: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected];
RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Professional Ethics (of economists)
Rat farming? How about bedbugs? They're making a comeback.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Spencer" <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]>
To: <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 2:30 PM
Subject: [Futurework] Re: Professional Ethics (of economists)
>
> Last night, I commented on Tom's reference:
>
>>>
<http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2011/09/professional-ethics.html>http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2011/09/professional-ethics.html
>>
>> Over the past 30 years, the economics discipline has been
>> systematically subverted....Many of the most prominent economists
>> in America are now paid to testify in Congress, to serve on boards
>> of directors, testify in antitrust cases and regulatory
>> proceedings, and to give speeches to the companies and industries
>> they study and write about with supposed objectivity. This is not
>> a marginal activity; it is now an industry, run by a half dozen
>> large companies.
>>
>> I didn't know that. Why does that remind me somehow of the privatized
>> prison industry?
>
> Saw this on Slash/dot:
>
> How Bug Bounties Are Like Rat Farming 104
>
> Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 20, @11:00AM
> from the first-we-hypothesize-a-problem dept.
>
> Gunkerty Jeb writes "In a keynote speech at the United Security
> Summit, Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, drew parallels
> between the increasingly popular (and successful) practice of
> software vendors offering bug bounties and a new industry
> springing up in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the population
> has recently found itself beset with a growing rat problem. In
> order to help mitigate their rodent problem, officials in
> Johannesburg began offering a small monetary rewards for each dead
> rat turned in. It was wildly successful, and it didn't take long
> for fresh batch of entrepreneurs to pop up and exploit the
> situation. Of course, I'm talking about rat farming. Evidently,
> business minded individuals have taken to breeding rats, only to
> kill them and turn them in for rewards. Obviously, rat farming is
> somewhat unscrupulous, but security researchers are doing the same
> thing: breeding bugs in the lab, then leading them to the
> slaughter for a nice payday. And it's a good thing."
>
> Which probably isn't a totally new thing [1] but a reminder about how
> that works with prisons, weapon systems and (allegedly) economists.
>
> The way it works out for (software-) bug hunting -- the relevance for
> Slash-dotters -- seems to be free of the malignancy/fraudulence of rat
> farming:
>
>
<http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/how-bug-bounties-are-rat-farming-092011>http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/how-bug-bounties-are-rat-farming-092011
>
> as one commenter there (somewhat intemperately) observes.
>
> So the question is: how do you structure privatization of prisons,
> corporatized for-fee economics consulting or any such activity so that
> it works like bug-hunting and not like rat-farming? Do we need to
> somehow extract or sequester such activities completely from
> capitalist incentives?
>
>
> - Mike
>
>
> [1] The Paris rat-catcher of circa 1689 in Stephenson's _Quicksilver_
> was already (and quite entertainingly) into rat farming.
>
> --
> Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
> /V\
>
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
/( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
>
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Sandwichman
----------
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2012/08/
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