Thank you, Ray, you've got me thinking. The world has changed hugely since
Keynes wrote his General Theory which dealt with the business cycle.
Individual countries - wealthy ones like England and the USA - could still cope
with the cycle and manage it because they were still relatively isolated from
each other. They traded of course, but each country had a pretty firm grip on
its own economy. If it had wanted to, it could impose Keynesian-type remedies
that would at least have worked partially.
Things are very different now. We live in a world without strong economic
boundaries. Unemployment in countries like the US and members of the EU is not
due to a temporary fall in demand for domestically produced goods, it's more
likely to occur because production has shifted elsewhere - to China for example
or to Southeast Asia. The jobs have been sent abroad. There have been other
changes in the domestic economy as well. Financial services have risen while
the production of goods and services has fallen. The production of essentials
like food no longer depends on millions of farmers making a living. It depends
largely on large corporate food producers.
Given all of that, one could expect the kind of shift in thinking and
vocabulary that Dave Brooks describes, a shift away from communal thinking to
an individualistic and demoralized view of the world. I don't like it, but I
think that's where we are.
Ed
________________________________
From: Ray Harrell <[email protected]>
To: 'Ed Weick' <[email protected]>; "'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,
EDUCATION'" <[email protected]>; 'dissenters'
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 1:04:43 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] hack or spend?
Actually Ed. I think you should look at this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/opinion/brooks-what-our-words-tell-us.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
It's all about your image of a future.
REH
From:[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 5:11 PM
To: dissenters; Futurework
Subject: [Futurework] hack or spend?
Just in case you're not tired of Keynes, Krugman etc. versus the austeritories
as yet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-austerity-and-keynes-can-coexist/2013/05/20/f32f846a-c17a-11e2-8bd8-2788030e6b44_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
Ed
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
