Really? A Science You Say?

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." So said John Maynard Keynes the intellectual progenitor of what has become known as Macroeconomics. The stream of thought emanating from him is of a particular flavour we know as Keynesian Economics,

Notice how Keynes encapsulates his comment in not only the medium of belief but also underlines this with the qualifier “astounding”. I've heard of hoping against hope but this spiritual assertion is even too far fetched for even the naivest of Pollyannas. And the present day distribution of the world's stocks and flows of wealths attest to the incredulity of such an inane belief in the magnanimity of human nature in efforts to thwart its own greed and lust for gain in self-service. Keynes is, of course, sarcastically stating that it just ain't so. Capitalism has never in any of its theoretical or applied iterations offered the greatest good for anyone other than the self serving few. Today the same trend prevails.

John Kenneth Galbraith in his article Economics As A System Of Belief suggested, “ A recurring and not unsubstantiated charge against economics ... has been its employment, not as a science, but as supporting faith.”

Galbraith continues stating, “ In this latter role it is held to serve not the understanding of economic phenomena but the exclusion of lines of thought that are hostile or unsettling to the discipline or, a related matter, to an influential economic or political community.”

In addition Galbraith quotes from Karl Marx`s The Poverty of Philosophy in which Marx maintains “Economists' are 'the scientific representatives of the Bourgeois (or Capital owning) class.” (Bracketed comments added. rpw+¨)

So much for the ethical underpinnings of human magnanimity but maybe an even worst human attribute is found in human intellect that is called on to manage the stocks and flows of wealths of societies. We call this human endeavour economics with several modifiers to differentiate the numerous belief systems applied in the many guises this entity takes on from time to time in the many places it finds a resting place in the world of humans trying to make a living.

Ronald Coase, Nobel Laureate in Economics comments, “Existing economics is a theoretical system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world.. It has no subject matter. That's the problem. “

Okay. So there are, around the world, so many schools, colleges, universities, think tanks, and government departments in addition to the private companies advising the business community and that particular nicke, the stock markets which have propogated themselves in ubiquitous fashion around the globe providing livelihoods for what John Kenneth Galbraith mentioned as an extremely useful form of employment for economists: being an economist.

The efficacy of this cloud of minds focusing on the seemingly universal concern for managing the stock and flow of concrete and abstract wealth in the world has been brought into question by a number of the discipline's own practitioners.

Okay. So you've got a little or medium sized or even big economy and you find that it acts like a wandering mutt that, from time to time, has gotten off its chain that was attached to the cloths line. It's done it before and when in the past you've finally caught up with the wayward canine, you find it's been into all manner of non likables. Growth rates shaky, interest rates out of hand and unpredictable , inflation rates confusing governmental programing and planning; these all surround your wayward mutt in clouds of unpalatable olfactory malfeasances.

You're at your wits ends and your economy is approaching the same precipice. You've consulted all those laureated academics and although they assure you and indeed convince you that they know what they are doing even though their criticism of one another undermines any such reasurances, and still the mutt of an economy is off the leash and into all manner of brambles and mud with unruly metrics for the main concerns related to growth and employment levels.

The mutt has its leash handed over to these self proclaimed mutt trainers and for a while they seem to keep it on its leash but sooner or latter it escapes the tether and all pandemonium breaks loose along with the mutt.

Okay. So you want to know what to do about managing the economy under your wings and metaphorically tame the wayward mutt that is so dear to your heart and mind. To begin with, clear your mind of all that logically consistent and mathematically sophisticated jibber jabber that is taught in the halls of academia. It is at best nonsense and at worst it is the foundation for an enormous scam foisted on the economies of the world. It does not have a proactive function. It tends to be reactive to any hint of threat to the extant controlled theoretical abstractions touted as the best insighs available for advising the leadership in an economy in any economy.

The economies are such, fortunately, that they can deal with numerous artificially induced shocks predicated on the nonsense espoused by well meaning self serving practitioners of “the dismal science”, a phrase coined by a fellow clergyperson, Rev Robert Malthus, as he referenced the tendency of the masses of the population being caught in dismal conditions of life because prosperity brings about population increase and this in turn generates unsatisfiable demands on the already limited resources available to satisfy these demands.

Economies can and do come back and heal themselves to a point that they continue to haltingly function despite or without the meddling of the well intentioned self proclaimed sages. The economies, though, have limits at which point valid economic policies are necessary to avoid catastrophic results.

In one key area of all present day economies there can be found a point at which knowledge meets the unknown and that area is as common as money and is in point of fact the entire mystery of this modern day economic tool.

There has yet to be made a universally accepted definition of the staple for economies nor has it been determined how much of it should be conjured out of thin air by those holding the legal or the political mandate to do so.

Charles Goodhar, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee and Emeritus Professor of economics at the London School of Economics admitted that "We don't have a good theory any longer about what it is that actually determines the money stock" His talk entitled "The Future of Central Banking" was given at at the Institute for New Economic Thinking's "Changing of the Guard?" conference in Hong Kong, Aprill 7, 2013. https://ineteconomics.org/future-central-banking.

Markets today do not depend on the interchange between demand and supply but on income levels that either allow for or prohibit an exchange at a given price as predetermined by sellers such as Walmart which has negotiated with the supplier and then acts as intermediary between those who supplier and those who demand and pay for the good or service provided. In some instances it is only the space on its shelves that is being sold to suppliers such as Coke or Pepsi but even here there is a set price determined not by the interplay of supply and demand but by the head offices seeing what they can get away with.

Go for a drive on any highway in the area where you live in whatever country you live in. Do you see any negotiaing at all over the price of gasoline also known as petroleum. No. Your task is usually trying to determine how much the price has jumped about along your route.

The suspicion flourishes in my mind that they are all in kahoots to give hope as prices are temporarily lowered. We are challenged to suspend disbelief in the levels of hikes. All the while one is acutely aware that these economic blood sucking leeches are destroying the environments both physically and financially. They are like the priests that Jesus described who refuse to go into the Temple to experience spiritual cleansing and keep everyone else out as well. Thus all are deprived of the solution to physical and financial environmental disaster. Their vanities are soothed through this self delusion of self defined piety even as their human reputations are brought into the lowest of disrepute in order to maintain their fleeting fortunes and power.

Finally a word to those who enslave themselves to avarice from Adam Smith's other book The Theory of Moral Sentiments .

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”

see also: https://structuraleconomics.yolasite.com/the-keynesian-integration.php

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