We sure need enlightenment in a world of commercial advertising, political spin-doctoring, and economic bafflegab. So here are two quotations from two impressive thinkers, that are worth repeating.
No.1 "The ideas of economists and political philosophers when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back... It is ideas, not vested interest, which are dangerous for good or evil." John Maynard Keynes
Cogs Blog comments/highlights/translations
- Experts (past and present) can be right or wrong.
- Current self-styled "practical" men (and women, Mrs. Thatcher), without knowing they are doing it, mindlessly spout beliefs derived from some past expert or thinker who might or might not have been right. Or I would add, may have been right then but are wrong, now.
- So we need to be alert to ideas,and to call out the propaganda with which the current rulers (Keynes's "vested interests") try to bamboozle us.
- Ideas, however may be either good or evil (Example of an evil one: what we need is one world government. Wrong, because the best and most inclusive and compassionate form of government is democracy, which, I would argue, works best in small human communities, and is next to impossible in large ones. (Think Russia, China, the United States. So, ask, who are the "we" who are pushing that evil idea? And why?
No. 2 "Competing in the world marketplace: the strategic view that countries are in competition with each other in the same way that companies are; the long stagnation of middle-class standards of living is attributed to a failure to compete effectively.
What's wrong with this? Like the claim that globalization changes everything, it seems to economists to combine a conceptual confusion with an apparent lack of knowledge about the data.
At a conceptual level, the most basic point about trade is that it is a process of exchange. Any country is both a seller and a buyer on world markets, and market forces will guarantee that over the long run, sales (exports) and purchases (imports) are roughly equal. And the purpose of international trade, the reason why it is useful, is to import, not to export.That is, what a country gains from trade is the ability to import what it wants. Exports are not an objective in and of themselves. The need to export is a burden that a country must bear because its import suppliers are crass enough to demand payment. So the whole idea that "competitiveness" is crucial, or even that it means anything, is usually rejected by economists."
Paul Krugman: Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense...
Cogs Blog comments/highlights/translations
- Exports are not the essential aim of trade. The only reason exports are useful to trade is to pay for imports.
- Competitiveness, however is part of American DNA. It has been educated into the American consciousness and highlighted in American history. And, though perhaps a bad idea, it has been exported all over the world. Maybe it was a good idea in 1800, but in the world of 2017 we should clearly be thinking more about its opposite: - cooperation.
Well, that's a not-so-little introduction to a recent book I have just read: Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism* Joyce Nelson, It's a dynamite book, to be mined at next posting.
*Feudalism. You might want to re-visit Blog 44.
Hello, 2017. Are you there?
No comments:
Post a Comment