[PEN-L:274] re: Brian Easton's essay on responsibility

[Ellen Dannin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

On Thu, 31 Aug 1995, Blair Sandler wrote:
> Ellen Dannin:
> 
> In this era of Republican emphasis on "personal responsibility,"
> it would be great to read something that conceived a different
> kind or aspect of personal responsiblity. Your brief post
> intrigued me and I'd love to hear a bit more, even a few sentences
> or paragraphs if you have time and energy, about what the essay
> says.
> 
> Blair Sandler
> 
The Easton article citation (using legal citation) is: Brian Easton, The 
Personal Responsibility of an Economist in Towards a Just Economy: 
Employment, Economics, and Social Justice in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 
1990s (Raymond Pelly, ed. 1991).

I will forward all the messages I have received on the article to Easton 
to see if he could make it available.  Again, I do think that it would 
make a good addition for a collection of essays -- should one be in 
contemplation -- in North America.

Easton begins by describing his visit to a concentration camp on his 
birthday and gives the basic statistics: how many killed, how many tonnes 
of ashes, etc. and then notes that he problem which faced the commanders 
of concentration camps was akin to that economists study: how to get so 
much output for so much input.  He then explores the idea of personal 
responsibility in several contexts and comes up with two standards for 
judging it.  Easton then applies it to an example from economics: 
unemployment and how it is traditionally treated by economists. As he 
reaches his conclusion he suggests ways economists can use their skills 
so they can exercise them in a responsible way.

This bare bones outline leaves out much that is most interesting about 
the essay, but it should give an idea of what it contains.

ellen dannin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]