Does it serve man? (I am not disagreeing, just questioning...) I am going to suggest (for arguments sake) that the economy describes a set of (system of)relationships and behaviors of man. Those relationships and behaviors would exist regardless of how we chose to describe them. That indicates a 'natural system' to my way of thinking. From a broad perspective, such systems evolve in the interest of the survival of the species and therefor serve man. However, there is a distinction between serving man at that level and serving man at the level of mans will.(using 'man' as mankind here). I presume that your are speaking of it as serving mans will.(?)
Perhaps the problem I have is with the way we talk about the economy. We talk about it as if it is a complex machine that we can manipulate as we see fit and as such predict the outcome. That is plainly not true as has repeatedly and painfully proven. I guess I would like to hear it talked about and considered more as a natural system which is better learned about through observation. In other words, something we live in instead of a machine that we drive or operate. I think we could learn a lot more about ourselves if we were to view it that way. I also think that we would likely make less drastic mistakes regarding this system if we were to approach it this way. We need a way to balance between our holistic 'expert' view and the view of the system as more holonic. In other words, I don't trust experts.... :-) By the way, the source of these wandering rants has been my endeavor to consume and digest the contents of the FCIC report which I downloaded and have been snacking/gnawing on for a couple of months now... I recommend it by the way. It is not nearly as dry as I would have thought, and reasonably informative, though I doubt it could be described as comprehensive. It has been and continues to be a source of thought provocation for me. Once again, thanks for the opportunity...
