Mike: Seems to me that we've got to develop an equation about the economy that actually looks at economics realistically. The last great socially cohesive era in US history was the 1950s. Reagan tried to reanimate that era and had some success at it but everything fell apart with Bush-the-Elder, showing that Reagan's approach, like Obama's, was dependent on a personality. When the exemplar of the time period shuffles off the stage the "play" is over, it cannot sustain itself. The Eisenhower years continued the New Deal in a lot of ways. Heck, in some ways it expanded on the New Deal, like the Interstate highway system, a massive government program. So, if the 50s can be seen as some kind of "model" to aim for, what made it all "tick"? This is to speak of a period of time that began in 1933 and didn't really start to collapse until the Viet Nam debacle -along with an all-out rebellion by the young in opposition to the social values consensus of -ironically- the 1950s. But the rebellion was not a roll-out of the values that came in with Obama; BHO tried to set up a whole new values paradigm based on his love of Islam, homosexuals, and black victimhood as if the Civil Rights movement of the 60s had never happened. The 60s were anything but an era of Islam and homosexuality even if there was some of both. The point is that there wasn't much of either. In terms of importance at the time, on a 1-10 scale, homosexuality would have rated maybe a 2 or 3, Islam barely a "1." To be sure, BHO would have been impossible except for the ground work that Wm Clinton did in the 1990s, but as far as Clinton got was a series of half measures. The "classic" values-set was still intact. Hence as late as 2004, every state that voted on homosexual marriage, think there were 11 states that year, voted against it. Like the 60s, though, a botched war upset all "normal" political calculations. And why was Viet Nam botched, why was Iraq botched? We need to come up with ideas for each of these factors. And I haven't even said anything about the economy yet. Marx said that the economy is the ship, culture is the superstructure. To me that is not quite 100% false. Some truth to it, but "some" is the operative word. Also seems to me that the economy is based on the "ship" that is our shared value system. That is, and this is Max Weber, you need a certain amount of willingness to save, invest, plan for the future, and all of that, BEFORE you can have a viable Capitalist economy. This means, to Weber, the Protestant consensus. Actually, as later generations of thinkers have pointed out, northern Catholicism will do just as well, or Confucianism, or even something about Hinduism or Buddhism. But you need that kind of foundation. If you don't have it, you have extreme difficulty in setting up and maintaining a Capitalist system. Southern Catholicism, as Fukuyama has noted, isn't all that good, hence the major troubles that continue to plague Latin America. And Islam sure won't do it -unless it is undergirded by massive oil wealth. Think of non-oil Muslim nations like Afghanistan or Sudan or Yemen, they are all (or almost all) gosh awful messes. And as for traditionalist sub-Saharan Africa, with a religious system based on something along the lines of Voodoo, what do you get but chaos? What are the preconditions for economic success? The answer cannot be "the economy" because that is a circular argument. What makes Capitalism possible? Its the values, stupid. But, but , but, you are embarrassed by discussions of religion or sexuality or culture? Gee, that's too bad. Better get un-embarrassed quick. Better do the necessary homework, too. But, but, but, that won't make me any money? You see the problem ? And so the whole damned culture is won over by people with a vested interest in overturning the culture because they at least make the effort to understand the culture and are willing to put up with something less that making a lot of money in order to change the culture. And so we are on the verge of no longer being a "Christian nation" and the Christians -who are fixated on making money- are clueless about what has hit them and nowadays cling to islands-of-security theology that protects them -in their local sanctuaries at least- from even more social disaster. What do you think "The Power of Popular Culture" is all about and why the book has that title? Economic determinism is a load of crap. In my humble opinion Billy ----------------------------------------------------- 5/14/2017 10:41:35 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: I think a lot of the general decrease in social cohesiveness could be addressed by giving people more of a stake in the general wellness of the economy. 401ks were supposed to do this, right? Apparently they weren't enough. Weren't we talking about an economy with some stakeholder/ ownership-sharing scheme a few weeks ago? May make people think twice about walking off the job to protest flavor-of-the-month social issues. It would hit their pocketbooks. We could transition to that topic for week 3 and then work in the moral dimension?
At the end of the day, RC may be a manifestation of Aristotle's organic state, and the flow of money is like the circulatory system of the body. Important, yes, but just a process that helps keep the organs going. On May 13, 2017, at 8:41 PM, Chris Hahn <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > wrote: Great posting Billy. I am the product of a “liberal education”, at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. This school produces the base for an inordinate of physicians and Ph.D. chemists, yet all are required to take philosophy, religion, languages, psychology, sociology, etc. Without the broad spectrum of thought, a laser-focused person and society could make major mistakes. I greatly value your philosophical nature. It makes us all richer. Chris From: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 12:18 PM To: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) ; [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) ; [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Cc: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Subject: [ RC ] Statement emerging from Industrial Policy Discussion 5/12/17 Chris: Your role as moderator was invaluable; much appreciated. Really good job of it. You made the podcast "value added" in ways impossible without you. The title, "Industrial Policy," did throw me off somewhat. There is a joke that I like to tell, taken from a sitcom some years ago. It was a family get-together and everyone was talking about jobs or job prospects. One of the family -a daughter- said that she was majoring in philosophy at so-and-so university. To which the uncle replied: "You're in luck, they're opening a new philosophy factory in Green Bay next year." I feel kinda like that, ie, how does philosophy fit into the category of economics? It is valuable, even necessary in some contexts, but how do you calculate its economic worth? After all, philosophy is about evaluating assumptions -and assumptions can be costly if they are wrong. This also has to do with my view that today's across-the-board focus on STEM education is terribly flawed. There needs to be balance. For example, take our differing views of high tech. I do get the point that some innovations are very important or, at a minimum, can become important down the road. But there seems to be a set of built-in assumptions that operate among tech types. To summarize, "hey, we don't need to worry about values or history or religion of culture or any of that, because we already know all we need to about these areas. We can take for granted the whole collection of social issues as set in concrete. Well, we just saw how that played out in politics last November. Nothing was etched in stone and the worst candidate for prez in US history won the election. Which doesn't mean that Hillary was much better; maybe she was overall but in some areas she was even worse. The point is that if you ignore the culture you do so only at great cost. To put it in such terms, maybe profit maximization gives you a society dominated by criminals, by perverts who corrupt you kids, and hedonist entertainers who poison religion, news, government, and politics. What do you say then? "Yayy, we just sold $ 50 billion worth of new iPhones or new XBoxes"? So, I take the view that values / history / religion / culture are all permanently "unsettled" and fluid and in need of constant monitoring and evaluation. For me that has to be the priority. But this also reflects my skill set. Different skill set and maybe I'd have different priorities, too. Yet I still think I would argue for balance in education, and not put STEM on a pedestal that is so high off the ground that it looks like Mt. Everest and everything else looks like a flood plain. I think that Mt Kilimanjaro is important and Pike's Peak and Denali and the Matterhorn, not just Everest. Billy 5/12/2017 10:38:07 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: This is the beginning of a Radical Centrist statement relating to economic/industrial policy to ensure America's long-term prosperity (some possible edits are parenthetical): All markets require governance to ensure that the rules and prices that guide economic behavior better (best) reflect (authentic product and service) costs and the (America's) underlying values. Moral markets require actors to act morally. The edited version would read like this: All markets require governance to ensure that the rules and prices that guide economic behavior best reflect authentic product and service costs and America's underlying values. Moral markets require actors to act morally. ... more to come after building thoughts in a step-by-step manner. That's it for now. The discussion was interesting and enjoyable! Chris -----Original Message----- From: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Hahn Sent: Friday, May 5, 2017 11:48 AM To: 'Dr. Ernie Prabhakar' <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) >; [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Subject: Industrial Policy Discussion on 5/12 at 9 AM Pacific Radical Centrist Weekly Forum Topic/Question for May 12: What industrial policy should President Trump pursue to ensure America's long-term economic prosperity? Goal: to develop a brief mutually-agreeable statement that summarizes our answer to the topic/question. Method: A. Opening statements from each participant in the forum B. Moderated brainstorming directed to identify areas of agreement and to explore underlying interests in areas of disagreement C. Write down mutually-agreeable ideas and develop them into a statement D. Debrief the session E. Develop a topic for the following week. Chris -----Original Message----- From: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dr. Ernie Prabhakar Sent: Friday, May 5, 2017 11:04 AM To: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Subject: Constructive conversation # Structure 1. Moderator 2. At least three perspectives 3. Open-ended question 4. Ground rules 5. Focus on interests rather than positions # Tribate Format 1. Moderator statement 2. Participant share A and Q 3. Discussions 4. Consensus building 5. Reflect 6. 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To view this discussion on the web visit _https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mediating-trump/005b01d2c5c7%24cd120640%24673612c0%24%402chahn.com_ (https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mediating-trump/005b01d2c5c7$cd120640$673612c0$@ 2chahn.com) . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mediating Trump" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) . To post to this group, send email to [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) . To view this discussion on the web visit _https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mediating-trump/00f101d2cb46%2482bc1840%24883448c0%24%402chahn.com_ (https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mediating-trump/00f101d2cb46$82bc1840$883448c0$@ 2chahn.com) . 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