I was sitting with my new friend Duncan, a blind - ex-hippie with a conservative mindset. We had just finished sampling a special herb and we were discussing the recent cuts that the B.C. government is involved in. Well, Duncan was a little judgmental as he spoke from his Santa Claus beard and opined that there was a very simple way to determine whether we had a good government. He said, �If the people are working and making good money and things are getting done, like schools, roads and hospitals, then you have a good government. If you have unemployment, layoffs, wage cuts and freezes and nothing is getting done, you have a bad government.� Whereupon, I spontaneously found myself saying, �One is trying to build a society and the other is trying to build an economy.�
And that my futurework friends is my analysis of the world. We seem to have two , large distinct groupings of society. Those who see �quality of life�, work and leisure, surplus to fulfill their wants and needs and are willing to share with others through the concept of public good. They are willing to consider others viewpoint and allow themselves to share through there surplus�s through taxation, volunteer work, charity. They hold a core belief that building a society is the most important perspective to hold. The other grouping sees the world through the prism of competition. That the strong and the swift and the smart deserve as much as they are able to make. For them, there is work and entertainment - which is different from leisure. They want security in the form of stored personal wealth. They believe in obligations owed to them while restricting obligations to others so that may have what they call their personal freedom. They demand the right to the highest goals they can achieve - no matter whether they benefit the society or not. These two perspectives are represented as �left and right�, �liberal and conservative� and �self interest and group interest.� In the effect on governance, one wants to build a society and the other wants to build an economy. Both sides have to have an economy and the first is a flexible economy that provides for the citizen in the way that friend Duncan analyzed and the other is an inflexible economy based on the balance sheet which determines profit and loss and has minimal consideration for individuals. This might not be two bad, except every time we change perspective, we change our society and so we find each succeeding party using their viewpoint to buy buildings, set up services, get rid of services, sell buildings - etc. and etc. It is when one viewpoint prevails for a signicant time, such as the Liberals from McKenzie King in 1936 (?) until the 50�s, do you get the efficiencies of following a consistent viewpoint. So, that this is not rocket science, therefore one has to ask, �How can we continually keep doing this?� Well, enter the economists! Yes, I have a victim for my analysis - Mr. Devil Incarnate. For economist�s provide a rational for each of these two large groupings to use. If they didn�t have a rational, then they could not make the changes they make and it is economists - more specifically, economic theories that are used by ruling parties to rationalize their decisions and thereby - make changes. So what does an economist do? It appears to my layman�s view, that it is his job to study the past - or some portion of it and make predictions of the future. It his his viewpoint of what past he studies and what conclusions he draws that allows him to design a system that will give the most beneficial future. This is then passed to the political parties whose job it is to make the laws and structures that will fulfill the prophecy. The economist is the guy who brings the chicken into the Roman Senate, cut�s it open and dumps the guts in the plate and tells the Emperor what the Emperor wants to hear to justify his perspective. So, we have the voting public who express - usually, one of the two dominant perspectives through voting for a political party. The political party uses economist�s to provide the rationale for expressing the wishes of that vote. �But is this the way it has to be?� - is the question my mind asked myself. Well, I know that sentence clarifies that I am delusional, but I do seem to have this little voice that asks me questions and then I talk to myself - that part of me that listens - well, it�s sort of hard to explain, I�m still working on who is talking and who is listening. Anyway, that question led to my ruminations about the Enron Company. I know, I�m leaping around, but stay with me. You see, it appears from what I have heard - is that there was an accounting problem. Someone didn�t count the beans according to the rules. They sort of made up a whole bunch of beans but there was concrete object the beans where representing. And this led to the question, what is the difference between and Accountant and Economist? Well, I had an answer to that. My old friend Dr. Thomas Kelly, used to say that Accountants cannot and do not tell the future. They are trained as historians. There job is to keep all the number records accurate. All their systems are designed to prevent mistakes. They are trained to keep accurate records - according to standardized rules - and arrive at a numeral evaluation of a companies profit or loss. Period - end of story. Well, of course in the real world, we all know Accounts project the past into the future but their accuracy is dubious in many cases - still often a little better than the economists chicken livers. However, what they are supposed to be good at is in telling us what happened. Now, economists, know they know the future - just ask them. They have theories that will prove every theory or no theory. We argue about them constantly, They are in the future business. I wonder how many of them predicted 9-11. Not only can the future not be told, in some cases it cannot even be imagined. So where can we find truth here? Boil the Economist�s in oil. Make sure the Accountants are all reading from the same page and following the same rules. We can get a pretty good idea of what happened, we cannot get an idea of what will happen. Let�s be happy with what we have. Let the past determine the future - not ideology but accuracy. We need to stop being jerked around by these two perspectives for they are making us run very hard for very minimal gain - in my opinion. But if we are not going to follow on the perspectives which constantly keep changing our economics, which is making us work harder and harder for less and less - what is left. Well, all I can see is Accountants, for at least they tell us what happened and if you know what happened, then you can make positive changes. But if you are changing to prevent a predicted event, then your changes can be positive or negative. In (a possible) fact, one might say that another way the two perspectives could be described in action is that one promotes a top down, hierarchal model of decision making and control, while the other would promote a citizen based model based on increasing the satisfaction of individual citizens needs. Now for a small and humbling confession. After burning up all this brain power to provide the definitive answer to the worlds problems, I find myself reading my E Mails and following Arthur�s URL which he posted for a site on the Autistic Economist - which I joined, I was sent 3 papers. Guess what? They are on to the same answers that I arrived at and said much better. The only thing I didn�t see is that they didn�t have my friend Duncan�s summary. So, I will carry on for I still have a few things to say but I will include some quotes from these three papers. Finally there is the issue of the definition of economics. Mainstream economics is the science of scarcity, the study of the optimal allocation of scarce means. All models are variants or extensions of the exchange economy. Producers are arbitrageurs acting in a form of indirect exchange. By contrast, post-Keynesian economics is concerned, as the classical authors were, with production and distribution. The major issue is not how to allocate resources but rather how to get rid of unemployed resources and how to increase production and living standards. Well, first let me say there is no scarcity! If anything, it is the economic theories which have moved us from a market system - the exchange of goods and services - to a capitalistic system which is a accumulation of capital. The very fact that we have an economy devoted to the accumulation of capital eliminates the possibility of a balanced redistribution of resources. It is also the capitalistic system which completely unbalances the concept of work. For as a discussion on this list has tried to emphasize, work and employment are not synonymous. Capitalism creates employment which is only work that is directed to someones accumulation of capital. It has nothing to do with a balanced redistribution of resources - for to make profit - especially big profits requires the creation of scarcity where none may have existed so that demand is forced to pay exorbitant prices so that that capital can see returns. So, as I see it, capitalism is against society for it seeks to use societies needs for personal gain. These four essentials of post-Keynesian economics can be found in Nelson�s depiction of feminist economics. She criticizes the mainstream �rational, autonomous, self-interested agent, successfully making optimizing choices subject to exogenously imposed constraints� (1995: 135). In place of this atomistic agent with hyper rationality, Nelson wishes an agent �socialized into family and community groups�, a �dependent, emotional, connected� human being, in other words the organic economic actor that I described above. This paragraph says in a more convoluted form, exactly the same thing as I have said - and she points out my solution as well which is we need an economy to serve a society, not an economy that exploits the majority for personal gain. The fourth essential doublet, that of exchange versus production, is directly tackled by Nelson (1995: 142-143). She points out that classical economists used to be concerned with production and the distribution of all the necessaries and conveniences of life. This is contrasted to the neoclassical definition of our field, �the processes by which things-- goods, services, financial assets -- are exchanged. For her, the definition of economics should be based on �provisioning� rather than �marketization� or the use of a narrow model of individual choice. The exchange of goods and services is trade. It needs several things. 1. It needs a stable currency based not on gold or gross national product but on some relatively stable ratio that can be determined by each country in the same manner. 2. The world needs a universal accounting system so that all transactions are keep through a standardized model of accounting - including governments. This should be transparent, monitored by oversight agencies. 3. We should make decisions of allocations towards a more balanced distribution - realizing that balance may take a 100 years for the world to achieve. There should be two things that control this balance. The first is a floor on poverty and this can be accomplished by a Basic Income and the second, a ceiling on wealth - we cannot live in a system in which the rich keep getting richer and the poor - poorer. Finally, Nelson (1995: 141) points out the objectivity of the researcher, which is the hallmark of positive economics as conceived by mainstream colleagues, is an illusion. This was also pointed out by post-Keynesian Joan Robinson, who argued that, since ideology and economics were intimately tied up, economics was little different from a branch of theology. Robinson loathed those who claimed objectivity in the social sciences, saying that they either deceived themselves or tried to deceive others. For Robinson (1964: 27), �the objectivity of science arises, not because the individual is impartial, but because individuals are continually testing each other�s theories�. Well, this sums it up for me. Economics is closer to ideology than accounting. Accounting can be honest - economist�s can never be honest for they create unbalanced imaginary systems. SUGGESTED CITATION: Marc Lavoie (2002) �The Tight Links Between Post-Keynesian and Feminist Economics �, post-autistic economics review : issue no. 11, January, article 2. http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/review/issue11.htm One of the greatest ambiguities in the desperate and generally fruitless search for new "conventions" that would make such activities amenable to the application of the industrial concepts of growth and productivity can be illustrated by considering the case of health services. In such activities, is the product whose growth we are seeking to measure, and whose definition subsequently determines the measurement of productivity gains and standard of living, synonymous with the flows of actions, of medical and surgical treatments and of patients treated? Or should we look beyond these flows and recognize that what counts (the real "product) is the improvement in the health of the individuals and population concerned? If the flows approach is adopted, successful preventive policies, for example, will lead to reductions in the measurement of growth and standards of living! However, if priority is given in evaluations to improvements of state, those same preventive policies could be judged to be positive contributions to the individual and collective quality of life. This would constitute a shift away from (economic) growth towards (social and human) development. Thomas: In Canada, at the moment, we are having major discussions about Health Care and it�s affordability. On the one hand we have the citizens, in great majority, saying, � We want a free, comprehensive, well run, effective health care system and we are willing to pay for it.� On the other hand we have governments following ideologies of economics who are wallowing in conflicts such as giving tax breaks and then saying they do not have any money to do the job. ARGHH - we the citizens are fucking sick of this stupid argument. Give us our Medicare. Make us healthy instead of poor and sick and the system will work. As the above paragraph points out so eloquently, the governments and business are running the ball to the wrong goal posts. They have forgotten the purpose of health care is to provide �citizens� rather than balance books and make profit for business. This example of the health care sector and its output indicators is in no sense specific. Similar dilemmas can be found in most activities based on the production and exchange of knowledge (education, research, consultancy of all kinds), in "relational" neighborhood services (help for the elderly, child care, etc.), social work, insurance, etc., that is in the vast majority of activities that have seen the strongest growth in employment over the past 25 years. Notions such as the growth in processing flows and productivity gains are of much less relevance in assessing progress in these sectors, which play a major role in developed economies. The increase in wealth, in value created or value added or in productive efficiency certainly seems to require mechanisms for assessing the effects or impacts of those activities on the proper functioning or development of the realities they operate on, whether they be individuals, organisations or technical or social systems. Does the wealth or value produced by a service that helps to maintain technical, economic or social systems, or even human beings, increase with the number of "trouble-shooting" interventions or repairs (which is the solution usually adopted by growth indicators) or, conversely, with the ability of that service to reduce the number and gravity of the dysfunctions? Is the wealth generating capacity of an educational system measured by the number of hours teaching delivered or the number of training sessions organised, or should we adopt different conventions for assessing the contribution of the education system to the development of its users' knowledge, personalities and socialisation? Thomas: Ah, the joys of reading academics. Talk about sloppy, run on to infinity sentences. Still, hidden within the lousy prose there are some good ideas. SUGGESTED CITATION: Jean Gadrey (2002) �Is The Concept of Economics Growth Autistic�, post-autistic economics review : issue no. 11, January, article 3. http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/review/issue11.htm So, to try and sum this up. To me, as a citizen - not a capitalist, the societal building model of governance is more desirable than the dog eat dog model of capitalism which is the natural system of the second perspective. Let us do things right. It�s not the greatest good for the greatest number - we have to go beyond that. It�s the greatest good for all of us. There is a way to develop a societal system and still have a place for business to produce goods and services for profit. We just have to find it - or discover it by using accounting instead of economics. Now, I think I�ll go visit friend Duncan and sample the most profitable agricultural product in our society and look at the art work of his deranged friend who is trying to create dimensional art through the use of colored melted wax on glass in which the picture can be turned to any of it�s four direction to produce four images within one image. Respectfully, Thomas 1
