Very interesting posting, Keith. I'll think about it, and may or may not reply off-list. But let me briefly introduce another thought that comes from a limited amount of reading I've done in things like chaos theory and cosmology. I tried to introduce the thought in my response to Robert a day or so ago, but the point may have been missed.
It goes something like this. Economists, like all scientists, try to understand reality by attempting to stabilize it as definitions, rigorous formulations and indices. They wind up drawing supply and demand curves, indifference curves, and keeping track of the interest rate, the employment rate, etc. But these are static cocepts, highly dependent on the assumption that certain conditions will hold. Even when they are treated dynamically, the conditions under which variables move from one state to another are necessarily tightly restricted. I'm not saying this isn't useful, but it involves the contradiction that to be useful, it must leave a huge, infinitely huge, chunk of reality out. And what is left out may be far more important than what is included. This isn't a new idea. But I think we've come to appreciate it more since September 11th. We continue to draw supply and demand curves and to measure consumer confidence, but we are now beginning to understand more fully that phenomena that lie outside the traditional sphere of economics may have a greater influence, and perhaps far greater, than things that have been included in it. I suspect that climate change will also provide lessons in this regard. What chaos and cosmology suggests is that there is no static, nor even a dynamic as we conventionally think of it. Everything is in a state of flow, without beginning or end. Little influences can, unpredictably, build up to big influences and change the whole direction of things. To try to think of economics this way would probably drive us nuts. But to think of economics the way we do also strikes me as being a little nuts. Perhaps Lottie knows the answer. Regards, Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382
