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Economy or Not?
By Michael Albert at Mar 27, 2008 |
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In a recent blog a ZCom sustainer, Charles Dickey, commented on an article of mine - and by extension on parecon as a whole, in a way that I find exemplary of the views of quite a few young people, and a few not so young people, too. I thank him for taking what he read seriously enough to comment. I expect any serious back and forth pursuit of the ideas with him or with others will need to occur in the Forum system, but I thought I would ring up a blog on the topic, too., trying to provoke such a discussion from those who share Dickey's views, and there are plenty who do, or who just find the sentiments I will offer here off base.
Dickey starts by saying, "I just read Michael Albert's essay "What Are We For?" trying to get the broad overview of Parecon, and I have to ask, what are we for, indeed? It's odd. When I read that title I thought it meant what are we for as in what are people for?"
Well, actually, people haven't yet, in large numbers, evidenced allegiance to any particular visions and what I had in mind being for was vision - as in alternative social structures. More, the article was written quite some time ago, in context of the antiglobalization movement, so what it was really about was what are we for given that we are actively opposing corporate globalization. But this is quibbling, so far so good.
Dickey continues: "But it turns out Albert is asking what are we for as in what are we not against?"
Hmmmm, if so, I certainly didn't know it. Proposing the institutions of parecon is not merely saying that I am not against them, or at least I thought that was the case. I thought it was instead saying I think these are worthy, desirable, the stuff of economic classlessness, of economic liberation.
And Dickey adds: 'The assumption seems to be that `we' are a cohesive group of ideologues, and the question being asked is framed as: well, we know what we are all against, but what are the constructive principles of our ideology?' This is about right given that the article was about the `we' in we who are actively opposing corporate globalization, if I remember right. "And boy howdy does Michael Albert have a plateful of constructive principles to dish up." I'm not sure what that means, it sounds potentially appetizing though...
But, Dickey reports, "I have to say I found it boring, dry reading." Fair enough, I guess maybe I overdid the appetizing bit. But, more seriously, as to writing style, it is pretty hard to make a quick overview of alternative international and domestic economic structures too exciting - indeed, it is probably beyond my writing ability. Others will do better, I hope. More, however, I should admit that wouldn't want to convince anyone based on elegance of style or scale of emotion. Ultimately, judgements about alternative institutions have to rest on an assessment of the underlying values of those institutions and the nature of the institutions themselves. It seems to me, therefore, that the critical thing is to spell out the values and structures clearly, though I agree that good prose can't hurt and wish I was better at it.
Says Dickey "I can appreciate what he is trying to do, you know: lay out some broad concepts about how a large, integrated, humane economy might work. But it strikes me as false and contrived, not organic enough." That is fair enough too, as a claim, but it would help if there was a reason given. Dickey continues, "Maybe that's just a problem inherent with theories, and if the concepts are developed further and put into trial and practice, good things can result." Actually, many in fact even most and perhaps all of the concepts have been put into practice, albeit in limited ways, and good things have resulted. But I should also note that I don't think it is inherent in theories that they must sound contrived - and I do not even know what "organic enough" might mean. I hate to be flip but what comes to mind is "grown without fertilizer" and I just don't really see the connection.
But now we get to the more widely relevant substance, I think. Dickey says, "But back to my question: what are people for? Are we workers to be arranged in a system? I think that is what I find offensive about economics, and Parecon doesn't seem to be an exception. Screw economics. People are not for economics. People are for experiencing life, and fuck all the artificial constructs."
I find this kind of sentiment rather incredible and it seems to me, at bottom, intensely defeatist. That people work and will work in any conceivable society, is simply true, not artificial and not socially imposed, but a fact of life and life only. That any society will have an economy - which is to say a part that accomplishes production, consumption, and, in between those two functions, allocation, is also true. People cannot subsist much less thrive without utilizing human capacities to enhance our worldly conditions.
So, yes, parecon is an economic vision rather than a vision rejecting economics, and it certainly does incorporate "people working." But moving from the fact of people working, as Dickey rhetorically does, into the image of people as nothing but cogs arranged into slots in a system - seems to me to be an incredibly defeatist leap. Many folks look around and see that "work" now and "jobs" now are largely the stuff of cogs and contrivance, with outputs that are nearly always alienated and often incredibly destructive, including subordination and boredom, and so on. And on seeing this so widely, such folks somehow leap from their accurate observation to the suicidal conclusion that these and other debits are intrinsic to work and economics per se. This is often not just illogical - no evidence is ever offered - it is also incredibly sad that young minds should traverse such a path so readily, and often so aggressively.
Dickey wonders why a set of proposed alternatives to the WTO, World Bank, and IMF, that he acknowledges strive for self management, participation, equity, ecological balance, etc., "should be necessary." He explains his query thusly: "I envision an organically patterned world of interdependent communities with enough sense and humanity to understand that cooperative effort and constructive, creative work are good for everyone. This is probably incredibly naive and unrealistic, because the world is full of conniving, greedy assholes. And I appreciate that Parecon wants to alleviate some of that greediness and asshole-ishness by implementing a hierarchal/non-hierarchical global structure. But I don't have any faith in that."
I hope Dickey will read a bit more about parecon and perhaps his reasoned support for it will grow - given that I think it aims at implementing values he in fact holds dear since it is precisely a set of institutions that facilitates - rather than merely paying lip service to and then crushing - people accomplishing economic functions in ways consistent with and indeed promoting "an organically patterned world of interdependent communities with enough sense and humanity to understand that cooperative effort and constructive, creative work are good for everyone."
But even if Dickey doesn't give parecon a more complete look, I hope he and others who might feel similarly, will think some more about what the word "interdependent" implies. I think it implies lasting relationships of responsibility and organization built and preserved among people, communities, workers, and consumers - that it implies, in other words, an economy - and regarding other sides of life other structures, as well, of course. And given that, I hope that he will agree that if we want our economy to be classless, to generate rather than trounce solidarity, to apportion to people proportionate control over their lives and conditions, to deliver diversity and, yes, to also deliver a rich existence - then, of course, we have to think carefully about its component structures. We can't just wish away the complexity of production that is done in one place aiding people that exist in another place far away, millions of times over, where what is produced connects to what people desire, where lots of intermediate inputs and outputs exist as well, and where there are a multitude of decisions affecting a plenitude of people.
But I have to address another aspect of what Dickey wrote above - that the world "is full of conniving, greedy assholes." I hope and will assume that what he means is, if spelled out more fully, that the world is full of people who by virtue of the conditions they find themselves in have virtually no alternative but to behave in ways that he finds greedy and conniving - which, of course, then raises the issue, is the solution to "screw economics," thereby implicitly agreeing with Thatcher that there is no alternative to capitalism (short of a return to discombobulated underdevelopment), or is the solution to conceive and implement an economy that doesn't produce such conditions. What really upsets me when folks put forth views like Dickey's isn't at all not being convinced by parecon - especially when they read a couple of thousand words mostly about something else - but that they are so ready to dispense with industry, scale, etc., having given it so little serious thought. This seems incredibly sad to me.
Dickey says, "What I do have faith in may be impossible. The only sensible possibility to me seems to be an organic one: an anarchy of interdependent individuals and communities that understand that it is in the best interest of us all to freely associate and cooperate." This is fine, rhetorically, but to make it real entails describing how such people, with I think probably much higher degrees of entwinement than Dickey may have in mind, are to in fact interact.
Dickey says "There is no need for global top-down structures," and I quite agree, which is why I think we need to explain entwinement of a self managing sort and how it succeeds both internationally and domestically.
Dickey says, "The past five thousand years of empire-building have driven that point home for me, at least." Well I wonder how that intellectual hammering, occurred. Why does the fact that system x, capitalism, empire, etc., etc., produces horrible results preclude the possibility of a different system, y, in this case, parecon, doing much better? If Dickey made a case, shedding tears and moaning effusively at the horror of his conclusion, that the very act of people joining in large numbers in well defined structures with clear and mutually established responsibilities, inevitably means something utterly horrific - that would be one thing. I still doubt it would be remotely enough to convince anyone beyond a small circle that we ought to literally dispense with organized economic life - but at least it would be an argument. But as far as I can tell neither Dickey nor anyone else with views like this even tries to make such a case. They just assert it. It is sort of like looking and seeing that a whole lot of sexual interactions are fraught with bad dynamics, and in many cases seriously horrible dynamics, and then concluding that having sex inevitably imposes all that, so we must dispense with sex. To me it is really, that absurd, yet many people attach themselves to these "anti-economy" notions, and so I would like to understand why. What am I missing about this type allegiance?
Dickey says, "There can be no arm twisting, no `regulatory institutions' and no `binding Code of Conduct,' because these things undermine self-determination." Well, yes, these things can have horrible effects, and certainly arm twisting is pretty vile in any event. But I think Dickey is saying something more - and others are too - put positively, something like this. Each day when we awake is a new experience for us all. Each day we should be free of responsibilities and expectations and should engage however we wish to engage, freely, starting anew with others, or not, as we decide. If I want to work today, I do. If not, I don't. And so on. Well if that is what folks with Dickey-like views have in mind, it is tantamount, in my view, to saying that people are about as complex, and have about as much potential, as earthworms or gold fish, who do indeed, function, I suspect, sort of like the injunction.
Dickey says, "We get all bunged up around codes of conduct and regulations, no matter how well-intentioned. Parecon, practically instituted, would lead to simply another slew of nation-states governed by some high-minded global institutions that may be altruistic, but no less susceptible to corruption than the IMF itself. What kind of people do you think would get involved with such global regulatory commissions as the snazzy, hip, and progressive International Asset Agency, Global Investment Agency, and World Trade Agency? Even as shiny new (not merely reformed) institutions, the damn things would be populated by elitist ofays whose vision would be completely compromised by the global binoculars, telescopes, and blinders that they would have to constantly wear All the cool grassroots organizations would be tiny little gps points on topographic globes viewed from these centralized command centers. Or am I jumping to conclusions? Would the bankers be out working the fields, too? Which fields, on whose topographic map?" Apparently turning phrases counts, in some contexts, as insight. I think, instead, that it is just turning phrases, emptily, even if not boringly.
Here is the nub of it, and why I get so agitated when I encounter views like those in Dickey's blog coming from what are quite obviously socially concerned young folks, eager to make the world better, committed and often courageous, smart, and also insightful in many respects. The views are either incredibly divorced from reality, or they recognize the reality, and are incredibly callous. How do people not only get sucked into or otherwise arrive at such stances, and then even into aggressively dismissing those who see things differently?
To me, those who say they reject economics per se, or, more coherently, that they reject anything other than local folks daily revisiting and reaffirming or altering their choices, with no long term responsibilities, and with minimalist relations beyond the reach of their eyes and voices, are saying they think a desirable alternative world is one in which about two thirds - who knows, perhaps 90% - of current humanity and its future offspring are dead, and in which the remainder live short and brutish lives without, for example, medicine, distant travel, food or any items produced far away, communication beyond those in ear reach, and on and on...and they take this stance, incredibly, based on the assertion that to have "economics" means, intrinsically, class division, exploitation, etc. Of course the truth is, even if their claim about economics per se were true, no one with a degree of humanity who understood the implications of it would argue for no economics, but would instead opt for retaining economics and ameliorating as much of the pain associated with it as we can, since no economics would be worse than all those ills, by far. But the claim isn't even true. It is not remotely true.
These folks - I don't know about Dickey, I hope not - often, very oddly, pronounce their formulations with a degree of glee, no less, pugnacious about how anyone that dares to try to come up with a way out of the scylla and charybdis of underdevelopment and capitalist (and/or what I call coordinatorist) horror is somehow elitist... no matter that the priority is incorporating self management, solidarity, classlessness, etc. Honestly, it all boggles my mind. What is it in our water, air, or, of course, social structures, that has caused a not insignificant number of caring humans to come to such odd and suicidal conclusions?
Dickey ends his essay: "I'm tired of systems and ideologies. I feel like I'd rather welcome the permanent blackouts of the collapsing capitalist economy, and take my chances with my neighbors as we are forced back to the land. At least then, things will quiet down, and there won't be so much asinine posturing and theorizing, elitism parading as the common good." It would be disingenuous of me to offer anything less than my honest reaction. Yes, things would be quiet, quiet like a coffin.
What causes good people, with good hearts and values, to conclude that thinking long and hard about how to do essential human functions in a self managing way and then working to bring it about is elitist - but in contrast consigning most of humanity to death, disease, and decay based on, a little thought rooted in personal frustration, is liberatory? It is not a rhetorical question. It is how I see this stance. And I really do want to know why some folks arrive at it.
Re: Economy or Not?
By Frchristie, Frederic at Apr 02, 2008 12:24 PM
Consider this: As an adult, after completing my education, I would like to a) be a psychotherapist, b) find some menial job like sandwich construction (a job I enjoyed tremendously for Subway, even despite the obvious corporate limitations, due to its inherent nature of customer - that is, PEOPLE - service), and c) write. This is to satisfy my own desire for a balanced job complex.
Now. I would do many of those things even without being paid, on a volunteer basis. So this anti-work tendency Charles is evincing seems to me to be utterly without merit. To fulfill themselves, people want things. They don\'t simply want food, shelter, clothing, education, clean water, and other things someone might argue are essential, but also luxury items. Charles is implying that we can either satisfy one of two deeply human urges: The urge for free choice in one\'s time and inquiries, or the urge for necessary goods to satisfy us. "Defeatist" isn\'t the right word. It\'s actually the same unfounded, hopeless arguments capitalists make. And making it can only serve to make us embrace inferior alternatives.
"Experiencing life", Charlie, can and does include work. Hard work. My parents enjoy being in their garden. They\'re in their 50s, and there\'s a lot of sweat and hard work involved. Almost nothing people voluntarily and eagerly gravitate to is done without quite a bit of difficulty. Think of some common hobbies people have. Illustration, say in a webcomic form, is a lot of work. Idly playing video games is one thing, but people often try to get better at it and even participate in tournaments, which requires hard work and training. Etc., etc. The problem isn\'t that capitalism makes us do hard work to "experience life", it\'s that a) the difficulty and soul-crushing nature of tasks is inevenly distributed, b) the fount for someone\'s hard work and inspiration is not their own desires but simply the need to eat, which requires serving a corporate automaton.
Now, let\'s say that Charlie is in fact right. Let\'s say that people will want to have a commune where flowers grow and people spend all of their time skipping. Parecon is in fact compatible with that. If people in a parecon express the desire, collectively, to consume a minimum, then only the work that will be needed to provide absolutely basic needs will be done. There is no arrangement of workers from above. There\'s just people deciding democratically and collectively what\'s going to happen.
Charles reminds me of a lot of parecon skeptics and critics: So much of it is reflexive antagonism to any alternative model per se, not to parecon itself whatsoever. So the only thing I can do is recommend to Charles two alternatives. First: Propose something different. If you don\'t like councils arranged bottom-up at different levels to handle different things (a bizarre dislike given anarchism\'s central belief in federation, but whatever), maybe propose a different way councils could be arranged. What Mike is trying to do is sketch out a way that a just, anarchist society might look. Why don\'t you try a different sketch? Don\'t give us something generic and easy to say, give us real things people might do. A real day in the life of someone in your alternative.
Parecon is not a code of conduct, Charlie. It\'s alternative economics. There are no "nation-states" as such: See parpolity. There are no "bankers" as such. There\'s no IMF, no WTO. Parecon is not creating an alternative to the IMF that will ineptly try to control nation-states. It is an alternative way of arranging our work, our daily labor, our consumption and life to match values you\'re discussing. We\'re not sticking to it out of a desire to have some kind of ethics or something, but rather because we think organizations should be constructed that way. Yes, people often tend to become dogmatic about codes of conduct. But surely a) you\'d want people to be dogmatic about SOME codes of conduct, like "Don\'t murder" and b) this is no reason to reject codes of conduct but rather to reject dogmatism. If you see dogmatic parecon, then rail against it. But you haven\'t spoken about parecon up or down, dogmatic or otherwise.
Now let\'s cut to the self-determination claim. Does anyone in a parecon have unlimited right to do whatever they want, damn the consequences? No. If that\'s what anarchism is, I reject it stoutly. That would mean people have the right to create nation-states if they so choose. To enslave, to make war, to create businesses. It is exactly the argument the capitalist makes. No, self-determination means that people have the right to behave within parameters that don\'t harm or impact others negatively. When their actions begin taking on real social impact, then they are rightly up for grabs. So, yes, a parecon has limits on actions: Namely, that you have the right to control your life and decisions about it insofar as you are impacted. If you are the only person impacted, great. If we\'re at a workplace and we\'re deciding whether or not you get to have your kids\' photo on your desk, then yes, you have a right to do so. But if we\'re deciding if you have the right to blare the Eagles at 100 decibels, then no, you don\'t have the right to do so, not without giving others the basic courtesy and asking them.
Sean: I think you\'re confusing two phenomena. What we currently call "economics" is of course pro-"market" obfuscation and convoluted theory mixed in with some good rules of thumb. But what a good society might study with "economics" is rather different. Economics refers to anything we produce, consume or distribute. Giving it central importance seems to be quite obvious. A good society might study better ways to distribute balanced job complexes to more fully accord with people\'s values and interests. Economics departments might spend time trying to fully weigh externalities just to make sure that we\'re pricing things right. If they find something wrong, they might bring this to an appropriate council\'s attention. And so on and so forth. So referring to economics as economics is no more problematic than referring to politics as politics. I agree with Mike that you\'re discussing basically purely academic categories here, but I also disagree with you that the category "economics" is at all simple. There\'s a lot of things in the real world that can be UNDERSTOOD by a BA/BS level. Including some very difficult science. But for good work to be DONE requires doctorates. Now, I think that a parecon would choose to focus less on credentials and more on good work done. Nonetheless, there is some value in someone spending, say, 15 hours of their 30 hour a week BJC (perhaps much more, given how hard a lot of academics work) studying exclusively externalities, inflation, more efficient factory and workplace arrangements, etc. etc.
Dickey seems to be saying that he\'d rather let capitalism murder us all than work, in a way he controls democratically, at job choices that are not onerous and destructive, with remuneration sufficient to keep him alive. Maybe I\'m being unkind, but this sounds like a teenager not wanting to get a job, not serious political advocacy.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Dickey, Charles at Mar 28, 2008 19:53 PM
Michael, I\'ve addressed some of my underlying concerns and objections to economics over in the forum, in your alcove. Please check out the thread "Questioning Economics" for another take on my perspective.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By O\'neil, Sean at Mar 28, 2008 17:39 PM
Michael, I\'m sorry. I guess I didn\'t even pay attention to the fact that there are forums. I\'d prefer to discuss this in a more conversational fashion, so I\'ll head over there. Thanks for the response you\'ve set forth below. I think you have understood the gist of my position. Thanks.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Albert, Michael at Mar 28, 2008 13:50 PM
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Albert, Michael at Mar 28, 2008 09:43 AM
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Re: Economy or Not?
By O\'neil, Sean at Mar 28, 2008 08:24 AM
I should be clear that I\'m not criticizing what Michael has described as participatory economics. I agree that systems of human interaction and exchange should more closely mirror what Michael seems to want, than what they now are in America. I support Michael\'s theories on human interaction and exchange, and I\'ve linked to his ParEcon page, Zmag and Zcomm on my blog. So I don\'t want to give the impression that I\'m trying to take down Michael or his essay.
My quarrel really is with "economics" as its own separate field. The more time spent allowing "economics" to occupy a separate and special place in academics, or in theoretical thought, the more we have to work toward what Michael has described as ParEcon.
I can see SOME merit in using the term "participatory economics" for the purpose of getting the attention of those people who currently believe in "economics" as a separate thing and perhaps are questioning the value of the capitalist, materialist system in America. When you work to get people to come around to your way of thinking, or at least to entertain your perspective, you have to first grab their attention in a way that is meaningful TO THEM.
I guess I"m talking about in an ideal world, and I think if we are going to struggle toward improving American society, we should talk about things that are societal or anthropological, and not split hairs. One of the problems of modern American post-secondary thought and education is this endless hair-splitting, which IMO is a result of ill-equpped schools and candidates trying to justify their master\'s or doctoral theses. Instead of having some insight, they pretend at having novel theories. A prime example is George Lakoff taking credit for and receiving credit for the notion of "framing" in political discussion. That\'s the biggest pile of horse-shit in Academia. "Framing" is nothing more than how you look at your argument, it is rhetoric, and rhetoric has been discussed and taught for centuries. Lakoff found nothing new, Lakoff saw nothing new, Lakoff deserves no credit whatever. But in modern American Academia, he is lauded as a genius. BAH!
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Re: Economy or Not?
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 28, 2008 07:03 AM
By Terence Hegarty at Mar 27, 2008 10:35,
I agree. It is as if there is this absolutist concept in what an economy is and can be. An economy is often times alleged to be what exists and opposition to what exists must mean that an alternative is "no economy"; primitivism.
A baseball bat can be used for a fun game or it can be used to mug an old lady and beat her over the head so you can make off with her purse.
All things have the ability to be used in many ways, but the underlying value of something is the purpose or function in which it is designed for use and how its applicated.
I think that is what makes PARECON so important. By recreating economic, political and social systems around basic values we wont create a Utopia, but we might escape the current Dystopia.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Smart, Paul at Mar 28, 2008 00:39 AM
In quick response to para 20 of the blog (although I\'ve not the time this AM to elaborate or respond further and I realize the obviousness/vagueness of this. Also, I am referring to human tendencies that apply to all of us and am not inferring anyone is clinically ill):
It seems to me that our capacity for complex conceptual thought, or rational thought if you like, is somewhat of a double edged sword. I have worked for a number of years in the psychiatric/mental health field, and for most of that time I\'ve been especially interested in the processes that lead to what has come to be known as \'institutionalization\'. Your description of the views as being either \'incredibly divorced from reality\' or \'recogniz[ing] the reality..[but]..incredibly callous\', rings a bell in a way. Perhaps a point worthy of note is that it made no difference what the previous intellectual functioning of the individual was, prior to their being subject to some form of compulsory restriction. The people I have seen that would be described as seriously institutionalized, clearly conformed radically in all fundamental respects to the overwhelmingly powerful institutional structures within which they found themselves. Accordingly, in many ways they lived extremely restricted lives. However, it is simply not possible to stifle human nature, which is, of course, largely mental. In such situations of profound powerlessness, it is not just inevitable, but essential that the person lives largely in their mind. Thought feels like action. Being divorced from reality can be a great comfort, or perhaps more accurately, the only felt option. As long as the fundamental institutional structures go unchallenged, all sorts of eccentric and quite rebellious behaviours are tolerated and even encouraged.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Hegarty, Terence at Mar 27, 2008 23:18 PM
You\'re right, Sean, I don\'t think it\'s that big a deal either. "Economic" elements turn up in sociology, in geography, in urban studies, etc. I think all I\'m saying is that there\'s nothing wrong in focusing on anexus of community issues and problems involving things like division of labor, work, sharing responsibility, supply of community necessities, comparative value of different kinds of work, etc. and creating a sort of umbrella subject to talk about and hopefully solve soime problems. You don\'t have to call it economics. I don\'t think Michael Albert is setting up degree programs in parecon. . . I think we\'re starting to talk past each other.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By O\'neil, Sean at Mar 27, 2008 16:02 PM
Terence, I appreciate your response, but you only said that you think it should be studied. What I want to know is why, why is it different? You say it\'s sufficiently complex. I say it\'s not. I say it\'s very simple and doesn\'t warrant BA/BS level study, much less MA/MS or PhD. I want to hear reasons why it should be so studied. Not opinions, but reasons -- reasons more than "it\'s sufficiently complex." There are a great many subjects within biology that are more complex than the whole field of economics, yet they are studied within biology. There are a great many subjects within chemistry that are more complex than the whole field of economics, yet they are studied within chemistry. Likewise mathematics. Likewise physics.
What makes economics so special that it is different from sociology or anthropology, and not just a subset of sociology or anthropology?
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Hegarty, Terence at Mar 27, 2008 12:52 PM
Yes, I do feel that economics is part of social organization. Somebody once suggested using the term "political economy" as a substitute for what we have come to call "economics"; I like that because it gets past the notion that "economics" is some mysterious natural force and is in fact something that grows out of our human interdependence. I think that helps. But it\'s still complicated enough (with principles of fairness, etc.) to be a "discipline" that can be studied and put to use in some systematic way.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By Dickey, Charles at Mar 27, 2008 12:40 PM
Hi Michael. Thanks for responding to my blog post. The couple comments that you have received already speak a bit to my personal frustrations with \'economics\' as a field and should explain somewhat my reactionary frustrations to your theory. I admit that I know very little of your theory, not even enough to be a critic. I\'m more like a spoiled clown throwing tomatoes, jeering; just a punk. ; ) As your generation made clear in the \'60s, however, such reaction is often necessary, as it keeps conversation, even argument, flowing in constructive manners. Partly I think my irritability has to do with how the movements and gains of the civil rights/hippy/black power/feminism era were stifled by, co-opted, and then subsumed in the status culture during the \'70s, \'80s, and \'90s. And then of course we have the brave new century of complete and total war with anyone who doesn\'t toe the line. It\'s a frustrating scene to navigate, and it\'s hard to put faith in institutions and theories--even radical ones!
I certainly appreciate what you and others are doing, even if I may use strong language to make a point. I am hopeful in some ways, and I will be posting another blog soon that speaks to the generational gap that you\'ve alluded to. I believe that we can do this respectfully and constructively. I am really happy that my post got such a considered response from you. Thanks for that.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By O\'neil, Sean at Mar 27, 2008 12:28 PM
A point I failed to make in my comment below is this.
I criticize "economics" as having no validity because it is basically human psychology regarding money, extrapolated to interpersonal relationships on the small (micro) and larger, group (macro) scales.
Money is nothing but a placeholder. Money is used to straddle the gap that arises when two people cannot directly barter for things they would like to exchange.
For example, let\'s say I\'m a farmer named Fred. I raise chickens and cows, the chickens are for eggs and the cows are for milk.
Down the road from me is the dentist. He does what dentists do, he fixes people\'s teeth.
I have a toothache and I go to visit Dave the dentist. He says the tooth is dying and is infected, and must be pulled. He tells me it will be costly because he must use anaesthesia and he must use tools. He was unable to make the anaesthetic and the tools himself. So he had to barter for them.
He proposes that I pay him in chickens. But he doesn\'t want the eggs. He wants the chickens themselves. He enjoys eating chicken, his wife likes to cook chicken in various ways.
I\'d love to barter directly in the way he proposes, but if I give him chickens then I will lose some of my future eggs in the bargain, and I need those eggs to barter for other services in my local township, services like repair of my farm implements. So I can\'t part with the chickens.
Into our conversation comes Bill who has been sitting at home idle over the past few months. Bill used to be a farmer like me, but he cut off his hand in an accident. He can\'t farm any more. He\'s been trying to figure out how he will make his own way in the community now that he no longer can farm. Bill has the idea to create this thing he calls "money." Money will serve as a substitute for the chickens I cannot afford to give. Bill says that he will be a "banker" and he will handle transactions that require something other than direct barter to exchange goods or services.
And so begins the use of money.
At bottom what we have is exchanges of labor (services) or fruits of labor (goods) and ideally there is a direct barter but as stated above, there will arise situations in which the direct barter is not feasible for one or both parties in the exchange.
Do we really need a complicated, quasi-academic field of study to explain this notion of "money" and how people work to exchange goods or services?
Doesn\'t the focus on "money" lead to the creation of "moneylending" and the further creation of "interest," which then gives rise to "financial services"?
Maybe I\'m missing something. If I am, I\'d appreciate an explanation of what I\'m missing.
I understand that the word "economics" is derived from the greek word Oikonomos, which basically means "household." The fact that it\'s an ancient word doesn\'t mean it automatically needs to be used to justify a scheme of moneylending and financial transactions in which no real goods or services are exchanged.
The world of finances is a world of predators. I don\'t think Bill the Banker\'s only course was to create "money" or create a "bank." Just becasue Bill had the idea doesn\'t mean the idea is the only one worth considering, and surely it wasn\'t the only one worth following.
But maybe you\'re saying that our system already is too dependent on money and that\'s why we need "economics" in the academic sense.
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Re: Economy or Not?
By O\'neil, Sean at Mar 27, 2008 11:59 AM
Your defense is well-reasoned for the most part. But it doesn\'t address what the summary suggests -- it doesn\'t explain why "economics" is even necessary.
I take issue with the idea that "young people" equate "economics" with "capitalism."
I would agree that in the USA, "economists" largely are fake-academics who pretend at holding keys to magic kingdoms (the world of "economics") that are beyond the reach of those who aren\'t equipped with a PhD in "economics." And I would agree that these "economists" tend to be apologists for capitalism, and that they exist largely to create quasi-academic (read: convoluted, jargon-laden, puffery-filled) excuses for capitalism and the hallowed, sanctified entity known as "the free market."
But here\'s what I want to know: Why must we have "economics" as a field of study, as a legitimated topic of inquiry and discussion, when it is nothing more than human psychology related to money?
Why isn\'t "economics" simply discarded as a separate entity?
Why isn\'t it possible to simply talk about human societies, and to let what currently falls under "economics" be simply part of the discussion of social organization?
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By Hegarty, Terence at Mar 27, 2008 10:35 AM
Michael, I think the problem you\'re exposing here is this: Growing up in the US you learn the word "economics" as a synonym for "capitalism." The old standard US college textbook (in use for decades, but I think now gone or revised out of existence) was Paul Samuelson\'s; it was titled simply Economics, but it was strictly about capitalism, with a chapter on "alternatives" to capitalism, all of the latter bad. (I\'m exaggerating a bit here, but I suspect you\'re familiar enough with Samuelson etc. to know what I mean.) Unless a high school kid has an exceptional (and radical) social studies teacher, he or she is going to grow up associating the word "economics" with stock exchanges, interest rates, "public offerings," corporate hierarchies, profitability, return on investment, etc. History or Philosophy or English majors may be exposed to a wider spectrum of social possibilities, but most students, unless driven by curiosity to extracurricular material, will not learn easily to discard that early lesson. For many of those who are left-leaning by temperament (such as your interlocutor), "economics" will remain a dirty word until they begin to understand what it means. You\'ve certainly started the learning process, and I\'m glad these people are engaging with you.
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