I can't resist adding to this conversation a poem I wrote when
I was an economics graduate student, taking a remarkably
content-free macroeconomics course from Larry Kotlikoff.
Here it is:
____________________________________________________________
The State of Macroeconomics
Neva R. Goodwin 1985
Pharoah took a wager: he would prove
the null hypothesis: that in the Dead Sea
there are carp.
(O foolish Pharoah, if there are no carp
how will you know?
And who will dare to tell you so?)
The fishermen are issued nets, and lines, and hooks,
and boats;
they're told to seek the isle of bliss,
called Equilibrium,
where all the waters round about (we're told)
are gold with scaley fish that swim
through waters that remain unmoved --
where All Else Equal is.
They leave the shores,
poor fishermen, to curse their luck
on ghostly ships upon a thirsty sea
where nothing bumps the line or weights the net
but stones and bones.
Will he concede?
Oh no, the nets must be remade,
the fleet improved,
the sailors and the fishermen upgraded. (Schools
for fishermen and sailors thrive.)
Yet there are doubters -- those who say
that
"Other things are never equal,"
and that
"Equilibrium
is where you're never at."
(If the conditions can't be met,
then what avails another net?)
The monarch heads them not.
No carp are caught.
"The nets must all be redesigned."
The few who dare face ridicule suggest
alternatives might be explored
but no one hears. (Why should they hear,
when fisherfolk are paid, not for their catch,
but for the art of casting out their nets?)
But wait, who comes upon the scene
and drapes a scanty net about his naked skin?
It is the Emperor Who Had No Clothes! And he is not alone;
with fife and drum they come,
a full parade of Naked Emperors
drawn here from every land
to sift for fool's gold in the Pharoah's fabled sand.
(And you, so many of my friends,
who, if you are not marching, stand
and raise polite applause -- What do you see?
What do you think?
What do you say?)
Here's the wise man, searching for his key.
"Why search you here?" I ask. The answer:
"Here, the light's the best that I've ever found
in any land."
Who else makes up the pageant of this place?
The Blind Men, with their strange, synthetic Elephant,
his tail a rope, his ears two palm-leaf fans...
Ptolomy, inscribing still more circles --
you can see him sitting by the Dead Sea, drawing circles
in the sand...
And is this not a happy, long-lived band?
Reality stays in the sea,
and metaphor's their vast, Cartesian land.
O truth! O wish! O sad deceit!
O Pharoah with your futile fishing fleet!
Take comfort: you are in
good company.
But as for me, I'm off to fish
a different sea.
____________________________________________________________
Neva Goodwin, Co-director
Global Development And Enviroment Institute
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
web address: http://www.tufts.edu/gdae
street address:
G-DAE, Cabot Center
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
