I've posted a draft of part one of this essay at: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/satanic.htm How Iatrogenic Economics Killed the Standard of Living "Any prescribed set of ends is grist for the economist's unpretentious deductive mill, and often he can be expected to reveal that the prescribed ends are incomplete and inconsistent. The social welfare function is a concept as broad and empty as language itself -- and as necessary." -- Paul Samuelson 'And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic Mills?' -- William Blake Introduction When Alfred Marshall coined the phrase, "standard of living" in 1891, he did so to distinguish between "a mere increase of artificial wants, among which perhaps the grosser wants may predominate" and "an increase of intelligence, and energy and self-respect; leading to more care and judgment in expenditure". Marshall saw a "great diminution" in the hours of labour as a necessary condition of an increase in the standard of living, concluding that, "a general reduction of the hours of labour is likely to cause a little net material loss and much moral good . . . " Eighteen years later, S. J. Chapman added "The ideal working day of the future cannot be eight hours, for it must essentially be a progressive ideal." Remarkably, these observations from turn of the century "bourgeois economists" converged with Karl Marx's claim that "the limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvement and emancipation must prove abortive." Neo-classical economic set aside such visions of social progress by insisting that a reduction in the hours of labour could only come about as a result of an increase of artificial wants and of the output to fill those wants. That is a lie -- a baseless, circular lie. The prescription of economic growth that follows inevitably from that lie is iatrogenic . That is, the treatment induces injury. More of the same medicine is prescribed for the injury and the patient gets sicker and sicker. continued at http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/satanic.htm regards, Tom Walker http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
