Brad wrote: >Harry Pollard wrote: > > > > Keith, > > > > Of course we can predict how humans will behave. > >I am not going to "beat a dead horse" -- or, more precisely: >an animal which has never yet had a chance properly to >be born (yes, I know, everybody says that about their >pet ideas, including, e.g., fundamentalist freemarketeers...).
No horse to beat, Brad, simply a recognition of human behavior. If you cannot see a self evident truth, that is your problem - not the problem of the self evident truth. Only question is - is it a self-evident truth? The assumptions are useful beginnings to studying human behavior, I suggest. The alternative, I fear, is nothing with which to begin such a study. Ones feet are firmly planted in mid-air . But, don't accept my thinking. Look at all the so-called social sciences. There seems little that could properly be called a worthwhile body of work. There are some extraordinarily gifted people who do good things, but the good things often seem to be in spite of the 'science' rather than because of it. In economics, not only do the legion of economists not really know why we have had a boom - they also don't know why it came to an end. Bush removed some taxes to stimulate the economy - (there's some honest to goodness Keynesianism). Yet no-one seems to know why the boom continued even though Clinton hit us with the largest peacetime increase in taxes, at least that's what the Republicans said. The assumptions have been around for at least a couple of centuries, so they are hardly 'pet ideas'. I'm not sure who 'fundamentalist freemarketeers' are. I suppose that they must be people who believe that we should be free to exchange goods, services, and ideas, without hindrance. Seems pretty good to me. Harry ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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