Hi Ray,
Until my mid-40s, when I'd 'worked' for local government, central
government and a couple of multinational corporations, I don't suppose I'd
ever done more than a couple of hours a day. It certainly wasn't expected
of me either -- so long as I appeared to be reasonably busy. Which I was
actually. Doing my own thing -- whatever it happened to be at the time. I
didn't ever do a full days' work until I started my own businesses -- and
then it was 10-12 hours a day for a year or two in each case. As I'd
already done most of the reading I was ever likely to, this new life style
was really quite refreshing.
Since we've had access to cheap energy, modern civilisation has been a bit
of a doddle for most westerners. It's all going to change within a
generation though when all the oil runs out! Calvinism will be back with a
vengeance. But if we get community back again, it won't be a bad price to pay.
Keith
At 03:31 17/12/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Well said,
>
>I generally agree with you about the lack of wholeness in current economic
>studies. As for whether Krugman is an economist or not I tend to look at
>that musically. Von Dittersdorf was a composer but in the ultimate scheme
>of things he was no Mozart who set the standard along with his colleagues.
>Salieri is always mentioned if for no other reason than he was the Milton
>Friedman of composers of his day. So I tend to leave the judgment to
>history. As for the other things I don't make the distinctions in the
>three that you do primarily because I see the processes at work in each of
>the systems with simply a difference in emphasis, indeed I believe them to
>still be with us today. As for the wealthy? How many do you know?
>
>I guess it was all of that reservation Calvinism that I was around but I
>just can't stand waste. Any family that builds seven mansions in seven
>countries, for no other reason than the party seasons, tempts me to think
>that they are useless. In fact, the whole idea of Utility in relation to
>the super wealthy and the society as a whole makes no sense to me. They
>don't grow and the poor don't either for opposite reasons. What is the
>purpose of a society having either?
>
>I'm afraid the meaning of life for me is to be found in growth and mastery.
>Anyone who doesn't do something with their gifts doesn't make sense to me.
>But I came from the side of the tracks that most of these folks would never
>touch and when they had a President that was from a Trailer Park they
>couldn't stand him and spent 70 million dollars to prove him inferior in
>some way or another.
>
>Today, I see misery everywhere. I see people's lives who are effectively
>over as far as their talent and potential goes. And they are young. We
>don't grow wisdom we grow opinions in the young and then they come back to
>me and the other teachers after it is too late and try to revive something
>that was lost to old myths planted not by experience but by books and by
>having been born to the wrong family. Not poor in money but in spirit and
>knowledge. They often speak many languages but don't understand the
>meaning of any of them beyond knowing how to ask where the next meal comes
>from and how to find the toilet.
>
>Anyway, I enjoyed your piece and you are welcome. I was glad to find it
>myself and even happier to post it once I figured out that the server has a
>word limit on the posts.
>
>Cheers
>
>REH
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 2:46 AM
>Subject: Lucky Duckies
>
>
>> Ray,
>>
>> I don't know precisely where you got Paul Krugman's article ("For Richer")
>> from but it's a substantial essay for which, many thanks for posting to
>us.
>>
>> Harry's quite right. Krugman points the finger but makes no attempt to
>> understand, least of all, explain, the phenomenon of inequality. This is
>> why Krugman is an economic journalist only -- albeit an excellent one --
>> but not an economist.
>>
>> Indeed, in my view, most present-day "economists" are not economists at
>> all, but only econometricists. They attempt to describe and measure the
>> economy but not to understand it in any fundamental way. All the
>> "economists" we can think of during, roughly, the last century have been
>> either econometricists or economic journalists of greater or lesser
>> brilliance, and have given insights of greater or lesser relevance. None
>of
>> them actually got to the root of the matter, least of all Keynes who was
>> merely a Bloomsbury, quasi-Fabian elitist.
>>
>> For real economists, we still have to go back to the geniuses of the
>> subject, to those who grappled with economics within the context of the
>> other big issues of the human condition -- of demographics, politics,
>> trade, disease, cultural differences and so on. They were polymaths more
>> than merely economists. We have to skip over many "economists" of the last
>> century who dwelt on, and burnished, one or two facets of the subject and
>> go back to Marx, Ricardo, Malthus, Smith, Say . . . all the way to
>> Aristotle (though there must have been a few before him who have gone
>> unrecorded). Even though some of the true economists of the past may have
>> gone wildly wrongly -- wholly or partially -- it is only these, with both
>a
>> wide and deep view of economics within the whole field of human activity
>> who can be called true economists.
>>
>> Harry calls the pretenders of the last century "neo-classical economists".
>> He also has his own hero, George. However, none of these seem to be
>> interested in the other great human sciences which have also been
>advancing
>> during the course of the last century. Or, if they are aware of them, they
>> haven't made any attempt to enfold their subject within the larger view as
>> the geniuses of the past would have done. None of them has considered
>> evolution, for example. Certainly no current "economist" wants to talk
>> about anthropology, of the relative productivities of the three great
>> economic systems so far (hunter-gathering, agriculture,
>industrialisation),
>> of the genetic motivations within all of us, etc.
>>
>> Just as the subject of economics in its heyday was not called economics,
>> but "political philosophy", so I think that the "economics" of the future
>> will actually emerge via another subject, and another discipline. A more
>> balanced and deeper view of economics might well be supplied by a future
>> anthropologist or a geneticist, for example, or some brand new discipline.
>>
>> You might well say: "But what has this got to do with the inequalities
>that
>> Krugman describes?". I would suggest that a relevant theory of economics
>> would involve more than a passing reference to the similarity of our
>genes.
>> Or, in simple, terms, let's not demonize rich people (even though some of
>> them may not be attractive specimens) because anyone of us would readily
>> accept the opportunity to be very rich.
>>
>> Instead, we need a deep enquiry into the way that inequality has waxed and
>> waned throughout the history and pre-history of man. It's not a new
>> phenomenon at all. I get the impression that inequality rises steeply
>> whenever there's a surge in productivity due to new energy sources or
>> significant innovations, but declines in-between times. This hypothesis
>> needs much more analysis than I can possibly give it here but I could
>> illustrate this briefly in terms of the period Krugman describes by
>> suggesting that the extremes of inequality in America at around the
>1880 --
>> the robber baron era -- was caused by the immense strides in industrial
>> productivity that were brought about by rapid expansion of coal mining and
>> railway transportation. The more recent increase in inequality can be
>> explained, in my mind, by the vast expansion in access to cheap oil, and
>> more recently gas, since the 1950/60s.
>>
>> The intriguing question to ask, of course, is what will happen to
>> equality/inequality when oil and gas start giving out during the next
>20/30
>> years? It think we can't possibly answer that until we know what the next
>> energy technology is going to be. If civilisation is going to continue in
>> some form or other, the new technology will have to be a huge one in order
>> to replace the enormous role of oil and gas at present. I think it's going
>> to depend very much on what sort of investment is going to be required. Is
>> it going to need finance in the main (as needed today in, say, in
>> developing an oil field), or will it be a mixture of finance and a high
>> level of intellectual know-how? If the former, then the new energy
>> technology will throw up yet another surge in inequality, I'm sure; if the
>> latter, then there's a chance that the new prosperity will be more evenly
>> dispersed (so long as the already-rich don't monopolise access to
>knowledge
>> by means of intellectual copyright).
>>
>> Keith
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--
>> ------------
>>
>> Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
>> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>> Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------
Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________________________________________
